August 12, 2019

Shopping for modern enterprise technology has never offered more choices, customer-centric capabilities, and openness—and more competition among world-class vendors. After a few early-stage years in which almost all cloud vendors were focused on convincing enterprise buyers that those buyers *desperately needed* what those cloud vendors just happened to have, the tech industry is growing up rapidly and is reorienting itself around what business customers want and need. This might sound obvious or trite, but I believe it’s one of the primary reasons that the enterprise-cloud sector has become one of the greatest growth markets the world has ever seen.

And this surge toward customer-centered capabilities is only intensifying. Google Cloud’s rapid and widespread improvements under CEO Thomas Kurian offer a standout example. The recent decision by Oracle—the ultimate go-it-alone individualist—to enter into a broad cloud “interconnect” agreement with Microsoft is another. IBM’s disclosure of its plans to use Red Hat to drive new value for customers is another. And Microsoft’s pursuit and execution of broad and deep agreements with SAP, Oracle, and ServiceNow is yet another. So if you think the cloud market has been innovative until now, just wait—because as good as it is now, the best is yet to come.