For followers of Amazon Web Services Inc., it was probably a good thing the public-cloud provider kept a running tally of the many announcements it made during its annual re:Invent conference in Las Vegas this past week.

The company conveniently posted every single news release from the past three days of keynotes and product launches. The current count stands at 77.

“The AWS product strategy remains what it has been, and that is simply ‘yes,’” said Corey Quinn, guest host of theCUBE, at the end of the third day of re:Invent. “There is remarkably little that seems beyond something that AWS would take an interest in. At this point, very little surprises me.”

Quinn spoke with theCUBE co-hosts John Furrier and Stu Miniman, and they discussed how major cloud players are influencing enterprise decisions and the impact of AWS releases on the tech industry.

Building for software

At the core, gatherings such as re:Invent are about how the hyperscalers, major cloud-services providers such as AWS, Microsoft Corp. and Google LLC, view the current state of the computing world and what enterprises should be doing in response.

“The new enterprise needs to look like what the hyperscalers have been doing,” Miniman said. “You build for software. It doesn’t matter what piece goes down. The application needs to stay up and running.”

Against that backdrop, the flurry of new releases from AWS this week were not only positioned to help enterprises navigate the transformation journey, they were also intended to position the public-cloud market leader more favorably against growing competition.

“The big story here from this re:Invent is that Amazon recognizes that big enterprises need to transform their way to be successful,” Furrier said. “And Amazon’s got competition, and they see it. They won’t admit it, but Microsoft, through their sales machinery, is taking down spend.”

With all of the buzz surrounding the AWS announcements this week, it was also easy to lose sight of a key element in the cloud equation. As enterprises transform, the choice of technology has an impact on the people who must make it all happen.

“Do you go Azure or AWS?” Quinn asked. “That’s going to depend on where you are. It’s a misstep to view the migration process solely as one of technology. It’s people.”

Here’s the complete video discussion, part of of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of AWS re:Invent:

Photo: AWS