Cloud hyperscalers react as Edge erupts

When first there shook the decentralization tsunami of client-server computing, the mainframers responded successfully – well, IBM anyway. Some hemming and hawing, of course. But the IBM PC was a pivotal instrument of client-server’s move away from the domination of centralized mainframe-based computing. 

But a tsunami finally hits a wall. After that, the tsunami energy reflects-back to the open ocean. When that happened, IBM was busy promoting Watson AI. Big Blue had a heap of trouble when the elastic wave of centralization surged backwards – taking the name “cloud computing”.  

The company cannot claim to an adequate response to cloud – it bought SoftLayer; it bought Cloudant; it bought RedHat. It still doesn’t have a cloud. It’s lunging cloud stumbles are regularly chronicled by Charles Fitzgerald, who I had the good pleasure to speak with for a recent story I did for Venture Beat. Fitzgerald, a Seattle-area angel investor and former platform strategist at Microsoft and VMware and proprietor of the Platformonomics blog, holds to a notion that reported CAPEX spending is a capable discerner of a cloud company’s true chops. I second the notion – that and number of cloud regions.

I had reason to call on Fitzgerald for the VB article “Edge Computing Will See New Workloads”. The question was: How are the big cloud providers – often called ‘hyperscalers’ – responding to the emerging paradigm known as Edge computing?

This could be an “IBM moment” for big cloud companies, if Edge methods gnaw away at cloud’s recently gained hegemony. These companies know the importance of the Edge, and are responding, Fitzgerald assured me. They take different tacks of course, underlying their different products is a common drive to push their own cloud architecture out to the edge, he said.

In my opinion, the hyperscalers will need to keep their eyes on the Edge, and respond with paranoid energy, if they are not to fall into the ranks of low-growth heavyweights where IBM now finds itself.

The Edge is percolating. IDC estimates worldwide spending on edge computing will grow to $176 billion in 2022. That’s up by 14.8% over 2021. The firm said 69% of organizations plan to increase Edge investments in the next two years. As I researched the VB article, IDC’s Jennifer Cooke, research director for analyst group’s Edge strategies, told me the Edge paradigm will play out differently than client-server did in the past, if only because the workloads involved are so much more expansive. 

The client back then was likely a PC on a desktop – albeit, sometimes hanging off a server at a post office in the Australian Outback. As Lou Reed said: “Those were different times.”

Do me a favor and check out “Edge Computing Will See New Workloads” – then, let me know what you think!