Cloud Wars Live with Bob Evans

Bob Evans

Cloud Wars analyzes the major cloud vendors from the perspective of business customers. In Cloud Wars Live, Bob Evans talks with both sides about these profoundly transformative technologies, and with monthly All-Star guests from across the business community about the trends impacting how the world lives, works, plays, and dreams. Visit https://cloudwars.com for more.

  1. 9h ago

    AI’s Shift to Forward Deployment Engineering Signals a New Enterprise Skillset

    In today’s Cloud Wars AI Minute, I break down the rapid rise of forward deployment engineering and why getting AI into production is becoming the next competitive advantage. Highlights 00:10 — Today, the topic is going to be why we're seeing AI move to forward deployment engineering type of scenarios, and this industry trend has actually increased in just year-over-year growth of forward deployment engineering job postings in just the first half of 2026, increasing by 1,000%. 01:29 — You actually have to get to deployment, and the big problem there is that between 88 to 95% of all AI pilots that are being built today are actually never actually getting to production. So we have a whole lot of interest in the market and a lot of stuff that's being really cool and is being done, but we're not actually seeing it get to production. Hence the need for FDE, or forward deployment engineers. 02:04 — Two, you actually have embedded engineers to go help a client to be able to get up and get going. And just to give you guys a typical situation here, now we're starting to see a lot of the pay for these type of roles. They're getting very, very valuable in this market space. 03:04 — So this is a major, major shift in what we're seeing, and it's also why even in DCI and our training offering, I'm looking at building out how to be able to move toward an FDE-type approach engagement, specifically for partners, because you're gonna really have to think about how you move to AI being able to get about 99% code coverage in order to be able to play in this space and be able to have fixed-fee, high-quality implementations that actually drive into production implementations. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

  2. 10h ago

    ServiceNow Focuses on Control Tower + Security: McDermott Wants to Help CEOs Sleep at Night

    In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I explain why ServiceNow’s fast-growing security business is becoming central to Bill McDermott’s AI strategy. Highlights 00:01 — I wanted to chat a little bit about ServiceNow's Q2 performance, but mostly what CEO Bill McDermott disclosed on the Q2 earnings call. Very strong performance across the board. They beat on all their numbers, doing very nicely. And what McDermott did, what he used the Q2 earnings call for in his opening remarks, was to lay out what I think is a significant new direction. 01:15 — Now, on top of that, we see a lot of anxiety from businesses now about — while they see the huge potential of AI, they also see that it raises security to levels that it hasn't been at before. So McDermott is sort of pairing those things up: the fully integrated Control Tower plus security plus governance. 02:14 — He said, “We're going to be able to handle all that simply and easily for customers.” He said that whichever chip wins, whichever lab wins, whichever price-per-token regime wins, he said, ServiceNow is going to be able to handle that. You're not — any of the customers aren't going to be, you know, going down a dead end or a dead-end alley if they choose to work with ServiceNow. 03:23 — He said CEOs have been losing sleep over this idea of risk at scale, and we're going to help those CEOs sleep well at night. So it's a big promise. It's a big adaptation for ServiceNow, but I think it's one that's consistent with some of the steps that McDermott has been making in the past, and it's very timely now to bring these two forces together. 03:59 — Now, one of the things that has made McDermott so successful over his seven years at ServiceNow, and before that at SAP, is his ability to use these earnings calls as almost like a come-to-Jesus discussion of where we as a company are, where the external market is with customers, and how aligned we are not just with where customers are now, but where they're heading. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

  3. 1d ago

    Manish Sood: SAP and Reltio Can Turn Data Into AI Advantage

    In this special episode of Cloud Wars Live, Bob Evans speaks with Manish Sood, founder and CEO of Reltio, about the rapidly changing relationship among enterprise data, AI, and business strategy following SAP’s acquisition of Reltio. Sood explains why trusted, interoperable data is becoming increasingly important as enterprises embrace agentic AI and autonomous business processes. He also discusses why AI models themselves may increasingly become commoditized, how organizations can bridge legacy and next-generation technology, and the ideas behind his new book, Agentic Intelligence: Strategy at the Speed of Data. Data Powers Agentic AI Data Becomes the Differentiator: Sood argues that enterprises should stop viewing data simply as another asset and instead recognize it as an interoperable asset that becomes more valuable as it is put to work across the organization. This distinction becomes particularly important as AI capabilities spread. If businesses eventually gain access to broadly comparable AI models, competitive differentiation will increasingly come from proprietary enterprise knowledge: decades of customer information, operational history, relationships, and business context. AI Creates Unavoidable Urgency: Enterprise transformation once proceeded at what Sood describes as a relatively organic pace. AI has fundamentally changed that dynamic by creating an enormous pull on organizations to move more quickly. Executives might still feel uncertainty about AI, but another fear has become even stronger: getting left behind. That competitive pressure is creating urgency around experimentation, investment, and execution. Sood sees this as potentially healthy because it forces organizations to reconsider technology and processes that previously seemed difficult to change. Strategy Still Beats Shiny Objects: AI's extraordinary pace doesn't eliminate the fundamentals of good business strategy. Sood notes that every major technology cycle produces a new "shiny object" that organizations race to adopt, sometimes before determining the architecture, strategy, and business value required to make it useful. AI shouldn't become another example. Enterprises absolutely need to embrace the technology, but Sood argues that they cannot sacrifice disciplined thinking about what they are trying to accomplish. That idea sits at the center of Agentic Intelligence. The Big Quote: "Our thesis has always been that data is not just an asset. Data is the interoperable asset that needs to be used.” More from Manish Sood and Reltio: Follow Manish on LinkedIn and learn more about Reltio and SAP at the following links: Reltio: Agentic AI Readiness Research, SAP Business Data Cloud, and Reltio: Building a Foundation for Agentic AI Visit Cloud Wars for more.

  4. 1d ago

    Oracle Wins $7 Billion Pentagon Contract in Major Government Deal

    In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I explore Oracle’s major $7 billion Pentagon contract and what it means for the company’s government and enterprise ambitions. Highlights 00:03 —The Pentagon has awarded Oracle a major 10-year contract worth up to $7 billion, sending the company's shares around 3% higher in extended trading. On the news, investors are clearly happy to see another major government win here for Oracle. 00:22 — The agreement will see Oracle's software deployed across on-prem data centers used by the U.S. military, intelligence agencies, and Coast Guard. But the contract covers far more than just software licenses. It also includes long-term maintenance, technical support, and consulting services, which will ultimately provide Oracle with a steady stream of recurring revenue over the next decade. 00:50 — This deal is also pretty significant in the wider Cloud Wars and shows how Oracle's ongoing investment in its OCI platform is helping it win these really high-profile enterprise and government contracts. 01:05 — And also for customers, really its enterprise customers, this contract is a really important endorsement of Oracle's technology and its ability to support some of the world's most challenging and sensitive IT environments, and crucially, at a massive scale. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

  5. 2d ago

    Microsoft, Oracle, Google, AWS: $2.3 Trillion Backlog + RPO

    In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I analyze the extraordinary RPO growth at Microsoft, Oracle, Google Cloud, and AWS and what it signals about AI demand. Highlights 00:03 — We've got another example here where, in the greatest growth market the world has ever known, we are working with some big numbers that put the law of big numbers to the test here. So, if you look at the four hyperscalers, and I go in order of the size of their backlog or RPO, you've got Microsoft, Oracle, Google Cloud, and AWS. 00:29 — So this is fully committed business. It's fully contracted and not yet recognized as revenue. So this is what's coming down the road, to look into the pipeline, in the future, these companies have — this isn't some guesstimate of what they hope they'll get. This is signed, contracted business. So this is one of the factors, probably the key factor, behind why you see these CapEx numbers approaching or exceeding $200 billion. 01:09 — Now that has led to a couple of these companies entering into the debt markets to try to fund this data center expansion and all that enormous CapEx outlay that they've got to go through. In turn, a couple of these companies for a quarter or two had negative cash flows, and that's got some people on Wall Street unable to comprehend it. The world's coming to an end. What are we going to do? 01:46 — I think the perspective is being switched here, right? Traditionally, the idea is bad. You don't want to have negative cash flow. Okay, that's pretty basic. I think we got that. The difference is there have never been a market with a size, a total addressable market , anything like this, growing at the rate this is. Look at these latest numbers for the four hyperscalers. 02:23 — Oracle, off a much smaller revenue base, has this huge future business coming in: $638 billion in RPO, growing at 363%. Google Cloud had a huge jump this past Q2, $514 billion in backlog, up 390%, and a resurgent AWS posted its biggest backlog number ever, $496 billion, and I believe that growth rate of 154% for its backlog is much higher than any they've reported over the last five or six quarters. 04:07 — So I think it's significant, but I also think it's being vastly overblown. I just want to say one more time: $2.3 trillion. Now, that's not like a TAM figure. Somebody's saying, "Oh, we think the market for new scooters is going to be $2.3 trillion." These are four companies, just four , not the whole tech industry, and these are their signed, contracted, committed figures for what they've got in their backlog or RPO. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

  6. 3d ago

    Winning the Future: Google Cloud Beats AWS, Ties Microsoft Cl.

    In today's Cloud Wars Minute, I compare Google Cloud, Microsoft, and AWS to reveal which hyperscaler is winning the most new business. Highlights 00:15 — While all of them had terrific quarters, I'd have to rate it this way: Google Cloud was far and away the best. AWS had a terrific quarter, especially for the way it had been performing before that. Microsoft, at its phenomenal size, had a very good quarter. It's just not growing as quickly, not winning as much new types of business in that way, as the other two. 01:44 — So we had Microsoft go from $54.5 billion to $59.3 billion. So it added $4.8 billion in new revenue in Q2. For Google Cloud, $20 billion to $24.8 billion; it also added $4.8 billion. AWS, $37.6 billion to $42.2 billion. It added $4.6 billion. 02:32 — Yet Google Cloud gained as much new revenue last quarter as Microsoft did, and Google Cloud gained more new revenue than AWS did. So we find that the mix of products and services, the fit to what businesses need right now, Google Cloud is matching what Microsoft's doing, matching or exceeding what AWS is doing. So the size differential is becoming less significant now. 03:27 — What we see with this analysis of the numbers is that Microsoft is not continuing to extend that size differential. The others are chopping into that, and particularly for Google Cloud, at this size and with its growth rate, we see that happening. So, you know, how is this possible? And I think it all comes down to this notion of, you know, the customers have a terrific set of choices here. 05:02 — But in terms of — you look right here, right now — the new business that Google Cloud is winning, they are matching or beating their competitors here, and I think we're going to see that continue with the momentum that Google Cloud has. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

  7. 6d ago

    Microsoft Hits 40 Million AI Agents: What It Means for Enterprise AI

    In today's Cloud Wars AI Minute, I explain how Microsoft's AI agent momentum could transform business applications at scale. Highlights 00:00 — So we're now hearing, according to Microsoft, that it has 40 million agents deployed now in the Microsoft ecosystem. Now compare that to the 30 million seats that it actually has sold for the M365 Copilot, and that really starts to show us that AI agent creation and things of this nature are starting to take off when we're starting to see more than one-to-one ratios here. 00:33 — So this is a really big situation for Microsoft. It's actually a really good signal that custom agents and agents that are being built are starting to get more value off the backside. Now we can't necessarily completely get to this level because what you'll see is a lot of these agents are probably really simple right now. 00:54 — But with some of the new applications coming out and the focus that Microsoft also came out and announced — that they are looking at going through and producing a Super App Copilot — and this was something that Satya Nadella just talked about in the news just last week. 01:13 — So when we think about this and we start thinking about how is it that Microsoft's going to start combining all of its different Copilot assets or its AI agent assets, it really opens up a door where we might start seeing a much bigger multiplier effect happening on the number of agents created. 01:32 — Due to the fact that they're going to make it not so confusing to be able to determine where to get started and be able to help you get this all down. So this is really exciting news, and it's really a good thing for why you should start looking and understanding these agents because they're really starting to take off as business applications themselves. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

  8. 6d ago

    Microsoft and Tech Leaders Push Back on Restrictions for Open-Weight AI Models

    In today’s Cloud Wars Minute, I break down Microsoft’s push to protect open-weight AI models and why the debate over openness could shape the future of the AI ecosystem. Highlights 00:09 — Microsoft is among more than 20 tech companies, including NVIDIA, Meta, and Palantir, that have issued an open letter urging U.S. lawmakers to slow down in placing restrictions on open-weight AI models. These are models that users can modify and run on their own infrastructure. 00:38 — The backlash from the companies comes in light of discussions within the U.S. government about potentially restricting access to Chinese open-weight AI models in the U.S. The administration's floated the idea of potential restrictions or sanctions involving Chinese open-weight models around concerns about copying other AI models, intellectual property theft, and national security. 01:06 — The tech companies that signed the letter argue that open-weight models strengthen competition, and with technology benefits broadly shared instead of being concentrated into a few hands, and that, in fact, relying entirely on closed models is not inherently safe because they can be breached, misused, or fail in ways that outsiders can't detect. 01:30 — They say that keeping AI advancements in a small circle of companies just compounds that risk. Sharing the letter on his personal X account, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, "Open-weight models are essential to a healthy AI ecosystem. Together with others across our industry, we are outlining a path for open-weight models to strengthen American competitiveness and expand economic opportunity while protecting national security." 02:14 — This is yet another example of how the democratization of AI is being promoted by tech companies. In my opinion, the idea of collaboration and openness has made it much easier for the public to trust AI. Not only does this strengthen the position of the companies themselves, but it also means that more people will benefit safely and securely from the potential of AI technologies. Visit Cloud Wars for more.

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4.7
out of 5
17 Ratings

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Cloud Wars analyzes the major cloud vendors from the perspective of business customers. In Cloud Wars Live, Bob Evans talks with both sides about these profoundly transformative technologies, and with monthly All-Star guests from across the business community about the trends impacting how the world lives, works, plays, and dreams. Visit https://cloudwars.com for more.

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