As the first month of 2017 quickly moves to a close, the technological forecast for the rest of the year is being set at a number of events around the world, with the progress made in bringing cloud, IoT and other cutting-edge utilities to consumers leaving surprises in store for how those tools will be put to use.

And as the Virtualization Technology Users Group Winter Warmer 2017 in Foxborough, MA, came to a close, Sam Kahane (@Sam_Kahane) of SiliconANGLE Media and Stu Miniman (@stu), senior analyst at Wikibon and host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile live streaming studio, discussed the different sides of the event and what it means for the companies and customers involved.

“As customers are getting ready for things like virtualization and adoption, cloud, containers, developers, everything that’s going on there, they’re learning all these new technologies and understanding how they work,” said Miniman.

And in addition to those tech specialties, customers are also getting a sense of important new tech that’s not yet entirely understood in terms of applications and implications, such as IoT and machine learning, and where it will fit into future developments.

The star tech sector for this event, however, was most likely storage, with its advances in diversification and utilization, Miniman stated. “Lots of changes in the storage industry, some of it really changing,” he said. “It’s not about storing data; it’s about leveraging data; it’s about weaving it into clouds and new applications.”

SaaS and trust

With “Death of the old storage, long live storage,” as Miniman phrased it, something of a summation for storage at the event, cloud was still putting down its roots in the minds of attendees.

“Many of the customers at an event like this are still trying to figure out how cloud fits for them,” Miniman said.

And in contrast to the uncertainty surrounding cloud, SaaS was in strong standing with the attendees interviewed.

“Talk to most customers, they’re all doing SaaS,” Miniman stated. “Everything from sales force, work-day, service; [with] how many SaaS applications that they’re using … I don’t think there’s any company that says, ‘Oh wait, I don’t trust software as a service.’ It would be like people now saying, ‘I don’t trust the internet.’”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of VTUG Winter Warmer 2017.

Photo by SiliconANGLE