Announcing the WIC: Microsoft Cloud Accelerator – Cohort 2.0 Class

The start of our latest Cloud Accelerator program began with a buzz of excitement. After receiving, reviewing, and selecting the participants for the 2.0 Cohort, the eager entrepreneurs, advisors, and speakers assembled in Bellevue, WA to begin at the WIC: Microsoft Cloud Accelerator Kickoff Meeting on June 3, 2019.

The WIC: Microsoft Cloud Accelerator Program is an immersive 6-month program to assist women-led companies to co-build, co-market, and co-sell with Cloud hyper-scalers and their distribution channels. Twelve companies led by female entrepreneurs at the prime stance to uplevel their businesses were chosen to participate.

The Kickoff Meeting agenda was packed with specially curated talks by subject-matter experts and thought leaders to aide the group at the starting line of acceleration. The docket, led by Women in Cloud co-founders Chaitra Vedullapalli, Karen Fassio, and Carrie Francey featured input from Microsoft game-changer – Gretchen O’Hara (Microsoft), action-focused advocate – Gillian Muessig (Outlines Ventures Group), energetic visual goal-setter – Patti Dobrowolski (Up Your Creative Genius), and results-driven OKR-guru – Brea Starmer (Tribal Team), among others.

The 2.0 Cohort of the WIC: Microsoft Cloud Accelerator Program (WIC:MCAP) is proud to announce the new class:

Throughout the journey of the 6 month program, the participating entrepreneurs, armed with:

  • Proven Methodologies, Resources and Tools
  • Access to Microsoft GTM Investments
  • Learning earn from industry experts, our selected panel of coaches and advisors

This enthusiastic cohort is beginning their journey on the heels of an incredible announcement. Read more about the Global Expansion of the WIC Cloud Accelerator Program here:

Stay tuned to Women in Cloud for more information on the Global Expansion.

Women in Cloud is a community-led initiative supporting female technology entrepreneurs via private-public partnerships with innovative companies and leaders in tech.

For more information on the WIC: Microsoft Cloud Accelerator program, contact raisa@womenincloud.com

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Join us for a Jam at the Women in Cloud Summit 2019!

At this year’s Women in Cloud Summit, Amazon Web Services (AWS) will provide environments and scenarios where you can learn new skills and practice current ones against scenarios in Security, All-In, and Data Analytics.

  • Security challenges:  Identify what causes the blues and learn what would you do differently
  • All-In challenges: Learn how would you migrate the services onto AWS or setup a CI/CD pipeline
  • Data Analytics challenges: Determine how you would use the latest tools and services to identify the right data to solve the problem

Bring your laptop and take part in our jam to find out!

Challenge your skill set while learning some new techniques with Amazon Web Services! Participate to earn AWS Jam Swag and prizes!

 

The AWS community will be on-hand to help you complete a series of simulations and to build native cloud solutions. This is the opportunity to leverage a wide range of AWS services and partner tools to help you on your cloud journey or to simply learn more about AWS.

As the challenges develop, you will take the initial infrastructure, and challenge by challenge, improve it into a resilient and secure deployment. We will have a number of experienced AWS experts at the Summit to discuss ideas, provide guidance and in general help your team get through any roadblocks that pop up. This event is also a virtual event so once you get started you can still attend the other sessions and events that are taking place at the Women In Cloud Summit!

New to AWS? Or already on your cloud journey? Come and join us!

Our activities are structured to accommodate AWS users of all levels. We have AWS experts, plus guided exercises, that will ramp up your knowledge. Don’t forget to bring your own laptop to participate in the Jam!

Put your skills and creativity to the test by producing innovative solutions!

Learn more at this year’s Women in Cloud Summit!

Secure your spot today at https://wicsummit.eventbrite.com

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Top 10 Cloud Computing Vendors

Enterprises, both big and small, are moving to the cloud for several technological and business advantages that it offers. Businesses are looking to move servers, storage, databases, software and more to the cloud to deliver computing services. According to a report, the value of the enterprise-cloud business is estimated to be a $20 trillion opportunity by 2025, and organizations are ready for industrial-strength deployments. It means a huge opportunity is up for the grabs. Capitalizing on this demand, several cloud computing vendors are offering cloud computing services which are easy to subscribe and come with a flexible pay-as-you-go billing options.

Here is a list of top 10 cloud computing vendors in 2018 who are changing the game with their excellent cloud computing platforms and services.

[2]

1.     Microsoft

Microsoft’s top goals is to ensure high customer success rate by deploying technical expertise throughout the early cloud adoption cycle. Microsoft Corporate VP Gavriella Schuster highlights that over the next 5 years the company will create a $20-trillion cloud opportunity by framing new ways to engage with partners and customers and gain potential partners[3]. In 2018, Microsoft’s cloud business will reach more customers with tailored-fit solutions involving AI and IoT.

2.     Amazon

Amazon’s AWS has become a fast-growing cloud business beating IBM’s  $17 billion by revenue[4]. It is important to note that Amazon’s Web Services is undeniably successful, and AWS holds a major share of the company’s profits. Amazon ensures that customers can run their applications without worrying on server maintenance. AWS operates on thin e-commerce margins, and their operational model focuses on high-growth business.

3.     IBM

Under the excellent leadership of Ginni Rometty, IBM has transformed itself into a cloud giant with the state-of-the-art cloud and AI technology. The organization is boosting the 2018 Cloud growth with 1,900 Cloud patents and ultra-fast AI-optimized chip technology[5]. IBM Cloud helps clients apply data and AI to build smart enterprises. With cloud revenue now sharing 21% of IBM’s total revenue of $79.1 billion, the modern technology and market focus have enabled the company to excel in cloud, security and analytics[6].

4.     Salesforce

Customer obsession and customer success is Salesforce’s principle in the Enterprise Cloud business. The company’s CEO Marc Benioff has set a bold vision for the organization centered on digital transformation and customer commitment. The vastness of data about businesses and its customers provide Salesforce the key to extend its strategic relationships in the cloud industry.

5.     SAP

SAP’s cloud management has set customer success as the most important priority within the organization. The company ensures that the customer gets the requested product, and the cloud system would benefit even the customer’s customers.

6.     Oracle

Customer choice is at the forefront for Oracle when it comes to Enterprise Cloud business, and the company offers a wide range of software deployment—on-premises, cloud, and hybrid. Oracle Cloud Machine provides the flexibility for the regulated industries in terms of deployment time and maintenance[7]. Even Amazon runs on the Oracle Database, rather than its own RedShift database, which is a perfect example to why even the competitors run their business on Oracle.

7.     Google

Google has a lot of firepower, but not just clear enough to play in the Enterprise Cloud business level. As per the Q4 2017 earnings report, Google has gone behind by $15B in terms of cloud revenue. Now that Google Cloud Platform has set plans for 2018, it will be most interesting to see how it competes with the other Cloud Computing vendors.

8.     ServiceNow

The cloud computing company has shown incredible performance in terms of revenue over Q2 2017 – an increase of 40.2% to $478.5 million[8]. John Donahoe, CEO of ServiceNow, believes that focusing on the full customer lifecycle, right from post-sale till renewal holds the key to business value. The organization has started to actively leverage the wide and rapidly expanding network of partners.

9.     Workday

Workday has grown at a fast pace—subscription-revenue growth of more than 40% over the last 4 quarters, and is now all set to top $2 billion in cloud revenue[9]. The company offers HCM and Financials cloud services where it remains unexceptionally focused on growth, expansion, and customer success. The enterprise is also eagerly waiting to launch Workday Prism Analytics and Workday Cloud Platform which would set the stage to expand in the cloud market and become a more strategic supplier to businesses.

10. VMware

VMware, a leader in private cloud, has become a smart dealmaker with public-cloud giants like Microsoft, Amazon, IBM and Google. These partnerships have helped VMware to streamline and accelerate its customer’s journey to the cloud. The enterprise has always ensured that customers can easily operate a seamless and customized hybrid cloud.

As we can see, there is a good competition among the top players in the cloud computing space and what distinguishes them from each other is the way they focus on addressing varying customer needs.

The cloud computing vendors have realized that customer success is the key to excellence in enterprise cloud. Operating on the latest cloud technologies to revolutionize the data center and streamline the digital workspace has become necessary to achieve customer satisfaction. Focusing on the complete customer lifecycle is the success mantra for these cloud computing vendors, right from sales to subscription renewal.

 

[1] http://business.financialpost.com/technology/cio/a-1-trillon-opportunity-why-the-computing-cloud-business-will-keep-growing-and-growing

[2] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/microsoft-sap-oracle-make-new-major-pledges-customer-success-evans/

[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/01/22/microsoft-unleashes-new-cloud-growth-via-go-to-market-program-including-customers-as-partners/#6d5cbe1215c4

[4] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/01/26/amazon-to-become-1-in-cloud-computing-revenue-by-beating-ibms-17-billion/#4466795a6b3e

[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/01/16/ibm-fueling-2018-cloud-growth-with-1900-cloud-patents-plus-blazingly-fast-ai-optimized-chip/#38a8d75c84ac

[6] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2018/01/19/ibm-joins-microsoft-amazon-atop-cloud-world-booming-cloud-business-ends-long-revenue-decline/#48f9bb5349c4

[7] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2017/12/18/the-top-10-reasons-why-oracle-and-its-cloud-business-are-in-great-shape/#2eaab0f3664d

[8] https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobevans1/2017/08/15/inside-servicenows-surge-how-its-become-the-most-innovative-saas-vendor-on-the-planet/#35566fa95b72

[9]

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/can-workday-take-sap-oracle-its-clients-seem-think-so-bob-evans/

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Top 8 Book Recommendations By Women In Cloud Network – August Edition 2018

The list below includes book recommendations from the Women In Cloud Network. These recommendations were provided by Sandeep Krishnamurthy, Mary Alice Colvin, Jacquie Touma and Chaitra Vedullapalli.

  1. “Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins” – Gary Kasparov,
  2. “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow“- Yuval Noah Harari
  3.  “Tesla: Inventor of the Electric Age” by W. Bernard Carlson
  4. “Better Together” by Jonathan Sposato
  5. “The Leader Phrase Book” by Patrick Alain
  6. How To Build A Million Dollar Business With #Microsoft Cloud
  7.  “Applied Artificial Intelligence: A Handbook For Business Leaders” – Mariya Yao
  8. “The Power of a Positive No: How to Say No and Still Get to Yes” – William Ury

Let us know your recommendations that we can include in the September edition.  Enjoy the read!

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Bitlume @ Microsoft Build, Game Changer Event

Bitlume an emerging leader for the premier live and on-demand secure streaming for all types of event. We are in an exuberant phase of identifying the right market that can scale our innovation in live stream distribution, monetization and viewer engagement.


To get off the ground we subscribed for the bare metal server from IBM SoftLayer, whipped up the box with CentOS and developed our base app on MEAN Stack. As we continue to build for the market, we are constantly evaluating our cloud architecture, how it integrates with external apps and to build for scale. We are currently evaluating whether to migrate to an affordable cloud offering that enables product build at scale without burning our pocket. We had a great opportunity, as part of the Women in Cloud Accelerator to attend the Microsoft Build Conference.

It was a spectacular and game-changing event for us, especially with our decision to migrate to Azure PaaS from IBM Cloud.




There were some advanced takeaways that we didn’t understand before: Cortana integrates with Alexa to facilitate seamless cross-platform meeting setup; a serverless state is to become midstream in app development in the near future, looks promising. Many interactive booths were intriguing and made the experience interactive and fun. I caught up with some expo presenters to understand their offering and how their service integrates with Microsoft offerings. Such discussions offered valuable information on the opportunity to plug and play with Microsoft cloud solutions.

Overall the vibe in the conference offered an open forum conversation between both the participant and the organizer. At the end of the conference, we were able to conclude our evaluation and have decided to port our product to the Azure PaaS offering which offers enough flexibility in open source application integration.

The entire Women in Cloud team also surprised us with an exclusive opportunity for Accelerator participants to attend the Microsoft Startup Build Welcome Reception with Satya Nadella, held after hours at Miller’s Guild in Seattle.

It was a pleasure to meet with Satya Nadella for a handshake and make a 10-second pitch about my startup Bitlume. He was receptive and spent about 10 minutes listening in to Entrepreneurs patiently.

The access that Women in Cloud have provided to companies like mine in the Accelerator is invaluable and their on-going support is amazing. Here’s to growing in the Azure Cloud!

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