7 Cloud Service Startups To Watch
From databases to mobile management, cloud service startups want to tackle classic enterprise problems. Check out these interesting options -- including a service to keep an eye on shadow IT.
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The cloud computing startup race shows no real sign of slowing. It seems that few weeks go by without news of a world-changing cloud or cloud service startup, and yet the world seems to roll along as before. In some cases, vendors are still trying to "cloudwash" older products and services by slapping a cloud or Something-as-a-Service label on them.
With all the news and noise, how do you know which cloud service startups are worth watching? You can start with these 7 companies.
It's important to note that "startup" can have a different meaning in the cloud world than it does in the land of bricks and mortar. Some of the companies listed here have been in existence for three or more years but have only begun to make their presence known in a big way in the last 18 months or so. Some have been around but have made a major shift that has increased their presence in the industry, and some are genuinely quite recently launched companies. Just as there are differences in the length of time the companies have been in existence, there are a wide variety of different services represented on our list.
Making a list like this is becoming a greater challenge -- not because the technologies and products aren't good, but because so many companies now include cloud architecture or service-oriented technology as a key piece of their offering. It's likely that lists of cloud computing companies will soon go the way of lists including companies that use networks in their products. It's hard to justify making a separate list when everyone's doing it. We're not quite there, however.
In looking at the companies that stood out, we found one that focuses on databases, two that concentrate on making it easier for customers to pay you, one that provides a bridge to mobile devices, one that is bringing education to new areas, and two that help you manage all the clouds that make up the modern enterprise. It's a diverse group of companies and services, but each one seems a likely candidate to be a much bigger presence in the cloud in coming years.
Still, it's likely we missed something in looking around the cloudy landscape. Which companies are you looking at? Which services do you think we should pay more attention to? Let us know -- we look forward to hearing about your candidates in the comments, below.
Everyone wants your money. Stripe wants to help them get it. That sounds like a great ransomware description, but Stripe has actually staked out a corner of the payment processing market, a corner it hopes will be quite busy and large. Stripe in some ways competes with Square and other mobile payment providers, but it wins its place on this list through its emphasis on easy integration with websites and apps. It's that integration, along with application hooks up and down the entire payment stack, that make Stripe much more than just another Square wannabe -- and a cloud startup to watch.
(Image source: Stripe)
Your customers have mobile phones. That's true pretty much anywhere in the world, whatever your business may be. Reaching them all via phone makes it easier for them to be your customers, but the process can be complicated and expensive. That's why Nexmo is on our list: This cloud-based technology startup takes does what cloud services are supposed to do: It abstracts the customers and their numbers from your contact list and makes sending SMS or voice messages very simple. A straightforward interface, single point of payment for message delivery to all cell providers, and global reach make Nexmo a cloud startup to keep your eye on.
(Image source: Nexmo, Inc.)
Square makes it easy to take credit card payments from a customer standing in front of you; Stripe makes it easy to take those payments from a customer at your website. But what if you want to offer your own credit terms to customers? Our next cloud startup to watch, Affirm, wants to make credit in the cloud as easy as credit cards in the cloud have become.
In addition to convenience, Affirm offers consumers the security of an online transaction system that doesn't involve moving credit card numbers around the Internet. APIs for merchants (along with a clearing and payment process that mimics that of credit cards) and a "see how easy we are" pitch to consumers makes Affirm the kind of cloud company that seems perfectly suited to take advantage of the economic and social trends changing retail.
(Image source: Affirm, Inc.)
Cloud computing is all about abstraction -- divorcing a service, for example, from the platform on which it runs. There are plenty of cloud providers ready to serve up database managers for your company to use. Orchestrate wants to do more than that, though: It wants you to stop worrying about what kind of database you're using.
Orchestrate uses a single API for everything you might want to do to a database it runs for you. The NoSQL databases on the back end is hosted and cared for by Orchestrate; all you do is create keys and enter data. The API is, for anyone who's done database work, very simple. The pricing for all this is even simpler -- it's based on how many API calls are made in a month; storage and bandwidth are free. The world keeps making data, and that makes Orchestrate a cloud startup to watch.
(Image source: Orchestrate, Inc.)
MOOCs are old news. Online degrees are going mainstream. Why, then, does a cloud education provider make our list? One reason is its recognition that classmates can be as important as the lecturer when it comes to learning (as opposed to teaching). Another is that it uses this recognition to push learning opportunities into developing nations where the life-prospect delta between the educated and uneducated can be enormous.
The emphasis on developing areas can be seen in the client platforms Classle supports: It's an Android and Windows ecosystem, leaving Apple users dependent on browsers for entry to classes. Still, with a mission of providing learning opportunities to the world, Classle is our education cloud startup to watch.
(Image source: Classle)
When the furor over BYOD began to subside, many IT executives realized that they had just as significant an issue with BYOA (Bring Your Own Apps). Employees were using everything from Dropbox to personal password managers to do their jobs, and in the process were making hash of enterprise security and management practices. Bitium is a cloud service provider that seeks to do for applications what MDM has done for devices: Centralize management and allow the enterprise to impose order on BYO-chaos.
Bitium provides a way to bring hundreds of different apps under a single management console for IT and a single enterprise login for users. Helping IT and BYOx come together wins Bitium a spot on our list.
(Image source: Bitium, Inc.)
According to some estimates, the average enterprise employs more than 150 different cloud services -- whether IT knows about them or not. How do you know which cloud services your employees are using, and how do you know which of those services should keep you up at night? Skyhigh Networks earns a place on our list by providing answers to those two questions, and several more.
Skyhigh has shadow IT in its crosshairs, searching out all the unauthorized cloud applications that employees bring with them. Once it finds them, Skyhigh will analyze the services and deliver an opinion on whether they're "enterprise-ready" in terms of security, stability, and management. Skyhigh has also started a program it calls Cloudtrust, in which cloud service providers submit themselves to analysis in return for a possible Cloudtrust Seal of enterprise acceptability. Taken together, the two halves of Skyhigh's model might just provide a decent night's sleep for IT executives concerned with the cloud.
(Image source: Skyhigh, Inc.)
According to some estimates, the average enterprise employs more than 150 different cloud services -- whether IT knows about them or not. How do you know which cloud services your employees are using, and how do you know which of those services should keep you up at night? Skyhigh Networks earns a place on our list by providing answers to those two questions, and several more.
Skyhigh has shadow IT in its crosshairs, searching out all the unauthorized cloud applications that employees bring with them. Once it finds them, Skyhigh will analyze the services and deliver an opinion on whether they're "enterprise-ready" in terms of security, stability, and management. Skyhigh has also started a program it calls Cloudtrust, in which cloud service providers submit themselves to analysis in return for a possible Cloudtrust Seal of enterprise acceptability. Taken together, the two halves of Skyhigh's model might just provide a decent night's sleep for IT executives concerned with the cloud.
(Image source: Skyhigh, Inc.)
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