The notion of disruption is both positive and negative for businesses navigating the digital revolution. The connotation depends largely on an organization’s strategy and ability to remain competitive against businesses born into transformation.

A pioneer in computing, Intel Corp. has pivoted through a number of transformative periods through strategic shifts and collaborations. The company’s current driving force is a partnership with Amazon Web Services Inc. that is working to help customers navigate their own paths in the cloud landscape.

“What we really want to do is use our technology to differentiate Amazon. We want their services better because of our technologies, so wherever they want to align in terms of strategic investment in growth markets, we want to make sure the silicon can enable it,” said Raejeanne Skillern (pictured), vice president of the data center group and general manager of the cloud service provider business at Intel.

Through the Intel’s longstanding relationship with Amazon, it has contributed toward AWS’ growth through co-development and the optimization of its platform.

Skillern spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), co-host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, and guest host Justin Warren (@jpwarren), chief analyst at PivotNine Pty Ltd., during the AWS re:Invent event in Las Vegas, Nevada. They discussed Intel’s partnership with Amazon and what the company’s journey through the advancements in tech over the years has taught them about thriving in an ever-changing market. (* Disclosure below.)

Iterate fast, fail quickly, and move on

Over the years, Intel has repositioned itself from a chip product company to a service-based enterprise offering data and cloud solutions. The pivot has paid off, with the company’s cloud business up 24 percent year-over-year, according to its most recent Q3 2017 earnings, Skillern pointed out.

The company’s growth isn’t only attributed to its new offerings, but Intel’s commitment to helping customers make use of it. “We do direct engineering work to get better systems in architecture, [and] we have a host of libraries we’re creating for ease of use. For us when we talk about being a data company, we can’t do it from just being a chip. We have to be a solutions partner,” Skillern said.

While the transition has opened opportunities for customers and partners at Intel, it’s created challenges for the company too. “As part of this transition from being a client company to being a cloud and data center IoT company, everything we have to do is faster. … We have to move at cloud speed, not classic Intel speed,” Skillern said.

The company’s partnership with Amazon has become a driving motivator in its pursuit of greater speed and efficiency. Skillern attribute’s the company’s rate of innovation in part with helping Intel to reach new heights. “Intel is a very data-driven company both in our decision making, as well as in our company growth. … Iterate fast, fail quickly and move on. You don’t need perfect. This is one of our learnings,” she said.

Amazon’s recent deployment of its C5 instances powered by the Intel Xeon Scalable processors illustrates the result of a cohesive partnership that is poised for solid customer support and growth, according to Skillern. “We’re seeing for HPC workloads anywhere from two to four and a half times the performance moving from C4 to C5. This is an instance that can handle the most demanding workloads from high-performance compute to artificial intelligence,” Skillern said.

Looking ahead, Skillern is confident the Intel and Amazon partnership will continue to lead innovation in the cloud space. “It’s amazing how quickly they can move and innovate and how rapidly those innovations move out to the market,” she concluded.

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent. (* Disclosure: Intel sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Intel nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE