Disruptive Analytics: Charting Your Strategy for Next-Generation Business Analytics

© Thomas W. Dinsmore 2016

Thomas W. Dinsmore, Disruptive Analytics, 10.1007/978-1-4842-1311-7_7

7. Analytics in the Cloud

The Disruptive Power of Elastic Computing

Thomas W. Dinsmore¹ 

(1)Newton, Massachusetts, USA

Several years ago, SAS, one of the leading commercial business analytics software vendors, held an annual sales meeting for financial services account executives. Jim Goodnight, founder and CEO, spoke to the assembled sellers and led a Q&A session.

“What is our strategy for cloud computing?” asked one of the sales reps.

“There’s only one thing you need to know about cloud computing,” drawled Goodnight. “It’s all BS.” He compared cloud computing to mainframe service bureaus in the 1970s, which typically offered metered pricing based on usage. ...