GreenPages CEO Dupler: Hybrid Cloud Computing Race Is Paying Big Dividends

The pace of hybrid cloud computing adoption is accelerating in a "game-on, change or die" scenario that is paying big dividends for the national solution provider, GreenPages Technology Solutions CEO Ron Dupler said Monday.

GreenPages’ own cloud computing management as a service platform is set to double through the first quarter of next year as more companies adopt hybrid cloud computing strategies, said Dupler in keynote presentation before 80 customers and 118 top IT executives at the 18th annual GreenPages cloud summit. What’s more, GreenPages is set to end 2014 with a robust 12 percent increase in annual sales to $130 million, Dupler said.

"The [hybrid cloud] game is truly on," Dupler said under the backdrop of the summit theme Game On: Visions & Strategies For Cloud Era IT Organizations. "Customers are looking at us to really execute in the cloud now. There is no more debate. Customers are acknowledging cloud and they are operationalizing cloud strategies. We are seeing tremendous traction with our CMaaS [Cloud Management as a Service platform] with an accelerating pipeline."

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Given the game-on mentality in cloud, Dupler said he expects continued strong growth for the solution provider in 2015.

"We expect to see hyper growth in everything related to cloud revenue streams and continued pressure on customer-owned technology," he said.

That's a far cry from the mood among customers five years ago at the GreenPages Summit when as many as 50 percent of customers characterized cloud as technology they didn’t need to worry about. In fact, one GreenPages customer at that time even sent an email to Dupler slamming the solution provider for evangelizing cloud solutions.

Five years later the mood is very different. One sign of the new game-on mentality: a spot poll by Dupler at this year’s summit that showed the vast majority of GreenPages customers in attendance are actively working on both private and public cloud hybrid projects. Another spot poll, meanwhile, showed that the vast majority of customers are driving ’proactive’ strategies versus reactive, event-driven or evolutionary approaches to cloud.

Dupler said the rapid adoption of hybrid cloud computing has resulted in a number of new opportunities for Kittery, Maine-headquartered GreenPages including a number of customers asking the solution provider to act as a fully-fledged virtual CIO to help drive the hybrid cloud transformation.

"Those customers are looking for us to guide their overall infrastructure transformation because their staffs are very oriented toward the old paradigm," he said. "They want us to take a leadership role on this."

What's more, even large enterprise clients are asking GreenPages, No. 151 on the CRN SP500, to step up and drive strategic plans aimed at making their organizations more competitive in a hybrid cloud world, Dupler said.

More and more customers over the past year have formed cloud advisory committees and workgroups aimed at accelerating the cloud transformation, Dupler said.

Dupler called on the IT executives at the summit to seize the moment and embrace a hybrid cloud strategy that provides their end user customers with the speed, empowerment and flexibility to drive big competitive advantages for their businesses. Those core values, which were in opposition to internal IT policies of the last several years, are no longer ’in conflict’ as CIOs and IT staffs seize the day on hybrid cloud computing strategies, Dupler said.

"We all got caught in an end run with end users going around us," said Dupler, rallying the IT executives at the summit.

"Corporate IT has a duty and imperative to change the game," he said. "You don’t have to be the guys that say ’No.’ You can be the guys that say yes and provide the mandate to bring IT back in house."

PUBLISHED AUG. 4, 2014