CLOUDS OVER ASIA
a part of people ’ s everyday lives . Van Driel cites Japan and the US as being some of the most advanced countries . “ Then you have second tier [ regions ] like Singapore , Hong Kong , Korea , bits of China , Taiwan and India . If you compare them to Europe , I don ’ t think there is that much difference between advanced countries like Japan versus the US and Europe . If you look at second tiers it ’ s more like Eastern Europe , which is more like the level of maturity of these markets in their adoption of more advanced technologies .
“ If you pitch a solution to Indonesia and you do the same in Hong Kong , you ’ ll get different responses ,” he continues . “ Also , people like to wait until more advanced countries have deployed or successfully adopted it . The problem is that most of it is cloud-based . You need to have a very reliable fast broadband internet connection . If you don ’ t have that then it will be a lot more difficult .
“ In terms of security , the less developed countries tend to have less data in the cloud and they prefer to have it on the premises ,” he adds . “ More advanced countries like Japan understand that it ’ s a better alternative to have data in the cloud instead .”
Over the course of van Driel ’ s career , the industry has changed massively . At Salesforce 10 years ago , the concept of the cloud was unknown . “ I was one of the pioneers at Salesforce ,” he says , “ so I had to explain what the cloud was . Now , most companies know what it is and what the benefits are . There ’ s a big shift going on compared to 2007 . Ten years later it ’ s a completely different world . “ Now , most of the time the clients have more knowledge about the
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