Cloud computing is growing up fast, so we’ve decided to bring together some of the smartest people we can for our next TechCrunch Roundtable: Whose Cloud Is It Anyway? The event and networking reception will take place on Friday, February 27, between 3:00 and 6:30 PM at Microsoft’s Mountain View Conference Center, which holds 275 people. Tickets are $75 and are on sale now.
The cloud is many things to many people. It is a a data center in the sky, a platform for a new breed of enterprise apps, a way to bring Web-scale computing to businesses small and large.
But are we on the verge of a new set of platform wars that will make the Windows Vs. Mac war look like Tiddlywinks? Or will all the different cloud platforms which are emerging create an interwoven fabric of Web applications that draw from each cloud as is convenient? Mission critical apps are moving to the cloud. In fact, entire industries are being built on cloud computing infrastructure.
Yet as both consumer and enterprise apps move to the cloud, they start to look more and more alike. They also begin to take on social features. What does a social enterprise app look like?
To help us explore these questions we’ll have on hand:
Roundtable Discussion
Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce.com
Vic Gundotra, VP Engineering, Google
Amitabh Srivastava, Corporate VP, Windows Azure
Lew Tucker, CTO, Cloud Computing, Sun Microsystems
Scott Dietzen, SVP Communications Products, Yahoo
Paul Buchheit, Co-founder, FriendFeed; creator of Gmail
Additional speakers to be announced next week, stay tuned
Roundtable Moderators:
Erick Schonfeld, co-editor TechCrunch
Steve Gillmor, editor TechCrunchIT
The format of the event will be similar to the Android Vs. iPhone Roundtable we did last August, but with fewer speakers. The Roundtable will be preceded by product pitches from three to five companies (products or startups that actually launch at the event will receive extra consideration, but it is not a requirement).
If you have a cloud computing startup or enterprise Web app ready to launch on February 27th and would like to give a demo, send a brief pitch to steve [at] techcrunch [dot] com.
After the product pitches and the roundtable, there will be a reception where we will have additional demo tables and sponsor packages for a select number of enterprising sponsors. Those interested in sponsoring the event should contact our CEO Heather Harde by emailing heather [at] techcrunch [dot] com.