CEO Reflections: Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC)

Species have evolved and adapted to their environments in order to survive and grow, and technology adaptation in todays world is quite similar. Software moving to cloud is already a well established trend. Now, with mobile device maturity inexorably pushing the boundaries between personal and business use, acronyms like BYOD (bring your own device) or BYOT (bring your own technology) are on the verge of becoming mainstream, in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they make their way into the English dictionary soon.

Adding to the list above is a new term – BYOC (bring your own cloud). We’ve seen the well defined boundaries between private cloud and public cloud getting blurry and here at Egnyte we’re specifically championing the hybrid cloud, which provides one solution that can cater to both personal as well as group needs (in the business context). For a service that is designed for businesses, having flexibility in choice of data storage, device heterogeneity, access within and outside the firewall, all while maintaining IT’s grip on the who/what/when – are core to its being. The choice of “the cloud” is therefore fundamental and important to a larger strategy.Having a personal local cloud that you can carry around on your laptop or mobile device (if IT permits), an office local cloud that lives on a NAS device that lives on premise or job sites, and an enterprise local cloud that can transform any existing storage infrastructure that you may already have, are important pieces of a cloud strategy and are various manifestations of BYOC. Add to the BYOC set – the Egnyte public cloud. Now you have multiple options and the flexibility of where to store and access your files.The cloud should adapt to your needs, and the not the other way round.