CLOUD AS INFRASTRUCTURE: THEORISING THE LINKS BETWEEN ‘BIG’ TECH AND ‘SMALL’ TECH

Resumen

Cloud providers, by creating and owning massive computing assets, produce new internet infrastructure. Large-scale data centres that aggregate hardware resources are an important element shaping the expansion of platform economies. The impact of this configuration of hardware on the dynamics of software development is still unclear. There is growing scholarship on data centres, however the aggregation of a highly scalable hardware system has a profound impact on industry dynamics. Cloud computing lowers the upfront cost of using and owning computing systems. The wide-ranging impact of platforms is explained at least in part by cloud infrastructure: the scalable provisioning of computing resources via the internet. I identify virtualized hardware, modularity, resource sharing, and externalisation as generative of a new internet-based infrastructure. I show these coalesce to form a new industry dynamic, with hardware centralisation on the one hand and decentralisation of cloud users and complement developers on the other. Scholarship in this area is beginning to examine the relations between dominant technology corporations and their networks of users and third-party companies. I contribute to this by examining changing organizational and market dynamics introduced by cloud computing. The findings and analysis are derived from two related studies of changing industrial practices. I focus on the anatomy of the infrastructure and how it activates a new set of relations between start-ups, developers, entrepreneurs, and investors. What is the techno-organisational structure of cloud computing? In answering this, the presentation will offer a view into cloud ecosystems from an industry level and organisational level.