Technology users in infrastructure has changed from just IT employees, and the way technology companies sell their products has shifted because of this.

To discuss these changes, Jerry Chen, partner at Greylock Partners, sat down with George Gilbert, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, during Structure 2015.

Users of technology have exploded

Chen has seen a bunch of different waves within the industry — the data wave, the cloud wave, and what he calls the “DDI — developer defined infrastructure” wave. He saw a shift of developers who are making more IT choices. Developers and data scientists are really reframing what IT is. Now, when companies go to market, they have to think: What does IT want, and what does a developer or end user want?

“The population of users for technology has just exploded,” Chen said.

Selling to varied tech users

Chen also sees that because of the much more varied users, there’s been a shift from perpetual license to subscription. The question becomes, how can you cost-effectively land new customers?

“It’s a combination of using new techniques like open source, app stores for the consumerization of IT, like Apple app store and the Google Play store, through the web,” said Chen.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Structure 2015.

Photo by SiliconANGLE