\u201cWhile cost has traditionally been a foundational benefit of the cloud, we believe that other factors can play a more important part in defining the cloud of tomorrow,\u201d said Todd Gleason, Vice President of Technology at FireHost, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo conference chairs Larry Carvalho and Vanessa Alvarez. \u201cWe believe that the generalist cloud provider \u2013 those low-cost commodity clouds that created price competition and insecure clouds \u2013 are going to either be gobbled up or beaten up as the industry evolves from this generalist mentality to focus on specialist clouds that have a particular focus.\u201d
\nCloud Computing Journal: How are cloud standards playing a role in expanding adoption among users? Are standards helping new business models for service providers?
\nTodd Gleason: Standardization is important, but we\u2019re concerned because security desperately needs to be part of this effort. It is not addressed enough, if at all. Much of the open standards work in cloud and other IT technologies traditionally is not security-conscious, making adoption riskier than many want to admit or truly understand. So, while standards are a good thing, we believe security should be baked in at their inception. We advocate for innovation, but it\u2019s important that the innovative spirit is not blind to the need to protect vendors and customers.<\/p>\n