S1E11: A 30,000-Foot View of Edge with Gavin Whitechurch

Episode Summary:

Today’s episode features an interview between Matt Trifiro and Gavin Whitechurch, Co-Founder of Edge Computing World and COO & Co-Founder of Topio Networks.

Gavin is a technology analyst, media executive & entrepreneur who started Topio Networks and the Edge Computing World Conference to serve as industry catalysts, helping to nurture the industry and accelerate the markets for Edge Computing, IoT, mobility, and more.

In this interview, Gavin uses his overarching perspective on the Edge landscape to give insights about where the industry is headed and how the market for Edge solutions is evolving.

Key Quotes:

"I see this increasing maturity in the market and increasing understanding of what edge computing offers. Particularly in the last year, there's much greater awareness in the technology market of why edge computing is important and what uniquely it offers to developers and to technology companies." -Gavin

"I think we’re going to see much more of a distributed compute model–the market will move to a more distributed compute architecture, and it'll get more and more distributed over the next two decades. I would say it's probably actually going to take two decades for that whole thing to play out. I think where we are now is like the early stages of mobile." -Gavin

"IoT is much further up its maturity curve. It was one of those things that perhaps suffered from its own hype…but we're now getting to the large-scale deployments. We've run surveys that show that 2021 will probably be a massive year of adoption for widespread IoT." -Gavin

"I think there is a huge appetite for what edge computing can do…I think we have a more realistic view of things as a technology industry now, and I think that some of the things that are happening around us are actually going to ensure that there is an earlier deployment of those systems." -Gavin

"We’ve spoken to a lot of companies that have said that automation is being accelerated. There's a reprioritization in boardrooms and a realization that…Covid is in many ways accelerating digital transformation and automation." -Gavin

"I think this pandemic may significantly accelerate the deployment of edge computing because of that shift in capital expense, spending by the companies who will benefit from that automation" -Matt

"I can't think of an industry that's this big that has had so much cohesion and acceleration around open source code. There’s this collective mechanism that didn't exist when the cloud was first being formed. There has been so much clear agreement and cohesion on the core supporting technologies that need to be developed and adopted in order for us all to have a platform." -Matt
‍

Links:

CLICK HERE to Register for the Edge Computing World Conference, October 12-15th, 2020. Fully virtual. Use the promo code OVERTHEEDGE for 30% off the Edge Executive Conference

Connect with Matt on LinkedIn

Follow Gavin on Twitter