Cloud: Seven Clear Business Models

Timothy Chou

While most CS/engineering students are learning the basic technologies which underly cloud computing, few understand the fundamental economics. This talk will first focus on seven business models which underly most of the business and consumer technology industry. These fundamental economic differences and the accompanying technology form the basis of this next generation of cloud computing services. The second part of the talk discusses a five layer cloud computing stack with many case studies and concludes with some challenges for the JHU students.

Speaker Biography

Timothy Chou has been a leader in bringing enterprise applications to the cloud since 1999, when he became the President of Oracle On Demand. Timothy has over twenty years of experience in the technology business. Since leaving Oracle in 2005 he returned to Stanford University and started the first class on software as a service and cloud computing. Subsequently in 2009 he started the first class on cloud computing at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. For ten years Dr. Chou has been a visible pioneer in evangelizing this major shift in the software business. He has appeared in various publications including Forbes, Business Week, The Economist, and New York Times as well as on CNBC and NPR. In the past year he has been in demand as a public speaker on the subject of cloud computing. He has given keynote addresses both to global CxO audiences as well as to sales organizations of some of the largest technology companies. He recently completed the 2nd edition of the book Cloud: Seven Clear Business Models. The book is also being translated into Chinese and will be available in the Fall of 2011. Not content to merely teach he has invested time and treasure in several new cloud computing companies. These companies range from a next generation application cloud service to an innovative approach to creating a new channel for cloud computing, to an iPad application to power enterprise sales. Timothy holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from North Carolina State University and a Masters and Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from the University of Illinois. He served as a member of the board of directors of Embarcadero Technologies (NASDAQ:EMBT) from 2000 until the purchase of the company in 2007. In 2007 he joined the board of directors at Blackbaud (NASDAQ: BLKB). He first drove a Mercedes-Benz in 1988 from Munich to Lisbon and several years ago acquired a mint condition 2002 CLK 320, which he considers one of the best looking cars Mercedes ever built.