Amazon CTO: Customers inspire me

This same passion has led the Dutch national to take two years off after high school to travel around the world. He then returned home to fulfill two years of compulsory military service in the navy, before becoming a radiologist and radiotherapist at the Netherlands Cancer Institute. However, when patients "kept dying on him", Vogels made a career change to one that "did not involve people", embarking on an IT journey at age 28. He eventually received a computer science PhD from Vrije University in Netherlands.

Somewhat ironically, after joining Amazon.com in 2004 and helping to form Amazon Web Services, the CTO found himself coming full circle in having to interact with customers and solicit their feedback as top priorities for his team.

Vogels, who was in Singapore recently to speak at the Infocomm Authority of Singapore-organized (IDA) Infocomm Innovation Forum, chatted about what technologies excite him and his responsibilities as a CTO in an interview with ZDNet Asia.  

Q: What about cloud computing fascinates you?
Vogels: Cloud computing is not necessarily about technology itself. Cloud computing, along with service-oriented architecture and the Internet, is acting as an enabler for businesses to improve its processes and streamline operations.

Users of cloud computing should experience not only the elimination of capital expenditure (CAPEX), but a reduction of their operational expenditure (OPEX), too. Furthermore, companies will become more agile in areas such as time-to-market. As IT departments embrace cloud computing, they will stop being "blockers", which is an accusation thrown at them over time, to becoming less rigid and "enablers".

These companies running on cloud will also see a new style of app development where software that used to take about one to two years in development and launched with all the bells and whistles, are now being designed with speed in mind. Refresh cycles will become shorter and features added to the original app will be decided mostly by customers instead of IT vendors dictating terms that were the norm previously.

What do you see cloud computing evolving into in the next three years?
I think CIOs will now ask themselves what areas of the company they can bring into cloud and what should be long-term projects. It's no longer a matter of if, but when companies will utilize cloud computing, and many enterprises are in the midst of executing their cloud strategies.

For immediate rewards, CIOs should consider moving their Internet-facing products and projects that need scale into the cloud as soon as possible as these will reap almost instant benefits. Longer-term considerations will be to see how the IT department can integrate cloud computing into the team's tool box.

Fundamentally, cloud computing will sharpen the difference between old-style IT and new-world IT. In the old way of doing things, there are long-term software licenses, complex software design, and features that take a longer time to be introduced to market.

New-world IT, on the other hand, is very dynamic and moves quickly into market. Software created in this environment is tested every day with shorter update cycles, which gives it flexibility. Additionally, the software has to be platform-agnostic as customers will not want to be tied down to one single vendor.

IT vendors that do not recognize or want to embrace this new style of working will suffer ultimately.

To accommodate such changes in the software world, how should developers evolve to keep up with the times?
I believe they should work from the customer backward. This means the application's features should be dictated by the customer, and engineers will no longer have any control over the eventual product.

So, instead of starting the development process by writing codes, software companies should focus on drafting a press release that will state the purpose and use model of the product. This should be followed by an FAQ document that contains what potential customers might ask about the software. Finally, a user manual for the customer should be written.

This bottom-up approach will help ensure that the final product is made with customers in mind.

If you are asked to develop an app today, what would you bring to market?
The building tools for today's app developers include services such as location, rich media integration, social media and collaboration, and virtual goods and payments. Put these features together and the wealth of apps delivered will be unbelievable.

Another factor I'd consider is the replacement culture we have today, which is contributing to the shortening lifecycle of our electronic devices. For developers wanting to make sure their app can run across multiple devices, the core components of an app and its development must be done in the cloud.

An example of this is Flipboard, an iPad app which aggregates a user's Facebook and Twitter feeds to create a social magazine. About 95 percent of this app is run from the cloud as the software needs the scale and compute power to trawl the Web for all the social media feeds that users subscribe to.

You are quite the nomad, moving from Netherlands to Portugal, and now settling in the U.S. How has the exposure to disparate cultures shaped the way you think and lead?
As Amazon's CTO, things change. That's a given, and my moving around has prepared me for this. Additionally, there's something new to look forward to each day as Amazon.com's operations involve almost every component of technology available today.

However, customers are ultimately the most important element. The company's vision of wanting to be the world's most customer-centric company is not just a slogan, but an attitude of life. For example, our virtual private cloud (VPC) product was introduced after many customers requested for it and we recognized that they needed a transition phase to move from their private enterprise IT networks to a public cloud environment.

Personally, I don't break down the number of hours I spend with my customers. That said, I determine the time I spend with them and ensure that each session is maximized.

Besides being the CTO of a major Internet company, you're also a father to two grown-up daughters--Laura and Kim--who are actresses. Do you wish they had followed your footsteps into IT instead?
No. I think that being an engineer is so much easier than what they are doing today. Actresses face so much rejection, and my daughters have chosen a tough job. I'm very proud of their choices.

In fact, my wife Annet and I forced them to take a year off after high school to travel, meet new people and get real-life experiences so they can have a broader perspective on things. My daughters were the reluctant ones as they were afraid they might fall behind their peers.

I believe in following your passion, and this is something I tried to inculcate in them from young. After all, it's something I've done in my own life.