9 Startups That Will Change The Way You Think About Cloud

Today cloud computing has become ubiquitous. According to the IDC, 58% of organizations are "embracing" the cloud, which means using it for more than just one or two workloads, and companies expect to increase their cloud spending by an average of 44% over the next 2 years.

Three major players -- Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform -- currently own the bulk of the market. And usage appears to be growing dramatically. In its most recent quarterly report, AWS reported revenues of $2.6 billion (a 64% year-over-year increase), while Microsoft said its commercial cloud business is on track to bring in $10 billion for the year.

Despite the dominance of the cloud giants, quite a few startups are carving out niches by offering technology that makes cloud computing faster, easier, or more secure (or all of the above). In this piece, we focused on startups with unusual or interesting approaches. Hot trends for this group include hybrid clouds, container technology, cloud security, mobility and open source technologies. Quite a few have already won significant industry awards, while others are only just now emerging from stealth mode. All are noteworthy for their unique approaches that could help usher in the next generation of cloud computing.

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