Last year, cloud computing pundits predicted that 2012 would be the year when the clouds would open. They were right as cloud computing enthusiasts all over are embracing the open ecosystem; however, denying one vendor the right to serve as the de facto API is only the tip of the iceberg of this computing climate change. In his Day Two Keynote at Cloud Expo New York, Rackspace Chief Technology Officer John Engates discussed the open ecosystem and how, ultimately, winning cloud technologies will be based on the ecosystem they represent.
John Engates is CTO of Rackspace. He joined the company in August 2000, just a year after it was founded, as VP of Operations, managing the datacenter operations and customer-service teams. Two years later, when Rackspace decided to add new services for larger enterprise customers, he created and helped develop the Intensive Hosting business unit.