EMC: The time to act on cloud is now

Vendor using Las Vegas summit to admonish partners that have not yet started journey into the cloud

Storage giant EMC used its partner event in Las Vegas to throw its weight behind the cloud, urging the channel and end users to follow suit.

During the event's introductory keynote, the firm's chief marketing officer, Jeremy Burton, said EMC had been extolling the virtues of cloud computing since its last partner summit, and those that had not yet embraced the concept need to start now.

"You should have started the journey and, if you have not, you are late," said Burton. "Why are you not there yet?"

The cloud baton was then taken up by EMC chief executive Joe Tucci (pictured), who described cloud computing as the "biggest, most disruptive wave" to hit the IT industry. And partners need to be in a position to take advantage.

"This is a tremendous opportunity for everyone – for EMC and for VMware," he added.

He also claimed that cloud can be used to cure three of the most common problems blighting IT organisations today.

"I consistently hear three themes and pain points that IT organisations have," he said. "Budget dilemmas is one; they are being deluged in data, and from a board level down there is a tremendous awareness of the importance of security; and there is a lot of fear of being attacked.

"What addresses these three pain points? We believe the cloud – IT-as-a-service," he added.