Amazon's Pop-up Lofts Are Going To Be The Next Big Thing In Town These lofts will be the new open workplaces where you can hang out but also get expert advise on AWS cloud computing system.
By Ritu Kochar
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Amazon has moved past being just an online retail company. Since, Amazon has moved into the clouding business and has fixed its foot firmly with its Amazon Web Services.
Utilizing the first mover advantage it got, Amazon's cloud computing game is so up above the rest that it has extended its services for other businesses to use it. AWS Cloud is helping startups and SMEs to run their applications up and running faster while providing the same level of security that organizations like Pfizer, Intuit, and the US Navy rely on.
Popular in countries like UK, USA and Berlin, Amazon is gradually gaining popularity in India too with already 75,000 thousand consumers under its umbrella. To make sure this number only increases, the technology company announced the launch of its cloud computing platform in the Asia-Pacific (Mumbai) Region. The Mumbai region is the sixth in Asia Pacific for AWS, and with this announcement, AWS now provides 35 availability zones across 13 technology infrastructure regions globally.
With a data centre underway, Amazon is ready to bring its Pop-up Loft to India as well, says media report. Yes, they are lofts, and soon the first of the many to come, will pop out in India.
What are Pop-out Lofts?
These lofts are essentially a hub for budding entrepreneurs looking for open working place. It's a place where new founder can get free in person guidance from expert AWS Solution Architects, Engineers, Product Managers, Support, and thought leaders, but also a place where startups are invited to stop by and hang out.
The service is absolutely free. You need only make an appointment or come knowing availability and they claim they'll have "snacks, drinks, and a bike rack to park your pedals'. Isn't that sweet!
The AWS Pop-up Lofts have been popped out in cities like London, New York, Berlin and San Francisco. They are both permanent and temporary like the ones in London and Tel Aviv.
The latest addition to this is the startup hub of our country, Bengaluru where Amazon plans to set up one of its 'pop-up lofts' as it looks to accelerate growth in India, a top company executive said according to reports.
Andy Jassy, who was appointed CEO of infrastructure-as-a-service business in April said 89 of the top 100 startups in India were already on AWS. He added, "We are looking closely at Bengaluru to set up a loft. Obviously because of the startups, it is one of the places we are looking at very hard."
Plans to work on the Digital India initiative is also being looked into given the immense amount of help these lofts can provide to new entrepreneurs or even the old ones who need help with technology.
What Indian Startups can gain?
Now that the awesomeness of these lofts is established, we need to come back to how these will prove to be extremely significant in making cloud computing technology more popular in India. Leading among the cloud computing platforms, Amazon Web Services has set the base of this technology in the world. Setting it up in India, where it's still nascent, by the very best themselves is exactly what India needs right now.
Jassy said addressing the problem and Amazon's solution for it, "In our conversations with our customers, it was clear that they wanted a region in the country either for reasons of lower latency or for data sovereignty. We think having a region in the country will significantly accelerate our growth."
These Pop-up Lofts have a bunch of services you would have paid a lot of money to get done. One of them is Ask an Architect under which you can walk in anytime in the loft and bring in your questions about AWS architecture, cost optimization, services and features, and anything else AWS-related. If you need Technical Support, AWS Solutions Architects, Product Managers, and Evangelists will be here deliver technical presentations covering some of the highest-rated and best-attended sessions from recent AWS events. Topics include Introduction to AWS, Big Data, Compute & Networking, Architecture, Mobile & Gaming, Databases, Operations, Security, and more.
Apart from these services they also have AWS Technical Bootcamps lined up. As they have been happening internationally, these bootcamps allow twenty participants to include hands-on lab exercises using a live environment with the AWS console. Usually these cost $600, but at the AWS Loft they're free. You can also access their offer labs for beginners through advanced users on topics that range from creating Amazon EC2 instances to launching and managing a web application with CloudFormation.
What's the catch for Amazon?
Amazon started out as online retailer but if you look at their cloud computing, they are ahead of Microsoft, IBM, and Google and so on. Jeff Bezos has said that his goal is to make Amazon the world's most customer centric company not the most customer centric online retailer.
As we mentioned above, 89 of the top 100 startups in India are already on AWS. With these lofts and data centre that will give people the ease to access technology and as cloud computing gets adopted in India, more and more businesses will look to the best in business. Amazon will increase it consumer base, which is already reaching heights. The infrastructure-as-a-service division of Amazon.com was started 10 years ago. It is now on track to being a $10 billion annual business this year and has an operating margin of over 24%. As they get more users in India this margin will increase ensuring good days for Amazon.
