Cloud Computing Beyond the Obvious: An Approach for Innovation - Challenges of Information Management Beyond the Cloud - page 14

Cloud Computing Beyond the Obvious:
An Approach for Innovation

Christian Verstraete

Chief Technologist, Cloud Strategy Team at Hewlett-Packard Company,
Hermeslaan 1A B-1831 Diegem, Belgium
[e-mail]

Abstract. In an ever more digital world, cloud computing has emerged as a new
way of doing things for IT. But is it just that or is it a fundamental
transformation of the role of IT in business? Isn't IT slowly becoming the way
business is done? In this talk, I will discuss how the combination of cloud
computing, mobility, social media and big data is fundamentally transforming
our lives and our way of doing business. Beyond just doing IT differently, it
opens up new opportunities for business people and opens up brand new
avenues of innovation. Using real examples, I will illustrate the tremendous
opportunities technology provides today and in the near future.

Keywords: Cloud computing, innovation, social media, the Internet of Things,
big data.

1 Introduction

I am really glad to be in Limerick. 1 What I want to talk to you about is how cloud
computing can really help us and how it will really change the way we are doing
things, how life is going to be different and what we are actually going to do.

2 Cloud Computing

Let me describe how cloud computing gives us immense opportunities to really be
able to do new things and to do existing things differently. Let me give you a simple
example. What would you think about walking on the streets in whatever town around
the globe and suddenly having an ambulance coming near you, with a guy in a white
coat coming down saying “Dear Mr. XYZ could you please come and join us in the
ambulance because we spotted that in a quarter of an hour you are going to have a
heart attack and we want to avoid that.” What do you think? You are going to say,
1

Note: This is a moderately edited transcript of a keynote address given at the 4 th International
Symposium on Information Management in a Changing World (IMCW), Limerick, Republic
of Ireland on September 4, 2013; it clarifies a few additional points, but retains the character
of a talk rather than a formal paper.