Ingram Micro Cloud Summit brings the ‘cloud’ to sunny Miami Beach

The forecast for sunny Miami Beach will be a bit “cloudier” than normal, as thousands of the most influential cloud technology professionals will descend on the sun-soaked Miami Beach Convention Center on May 12-14 for Cloud Summit 2020. 

In its 11th year, Cloud Summit gathers industry professionals, including the top global resellers, service providers and vendors, to learn from industry luminaries; test out the latest in SaaS (Software as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), XaaS (Everything as a Service), and the Internet of Things; as well as gain valuable cloud expertise and support to help their companies deliver solutions their customers need.

The event is produced by Ingram Micro Cloud, a leading global cloud ecosystem and digital commerce platform. 

Under the theme “Achieve More,” conference-goers will experience three exciting days of presentations, hands-on workshops, and intimate round-table discussions designed to give them more of everything they’ll need to achieve success in the cloud and beyond.

Examples of topic areas covered include: 

• Access new opportunities to advance your business through go-to-market automation.
• Grow your SaaS, IaaS and XaaS portfolios to accelerate your recurring revenue streams.
• Build your own ecosystem and expand your global reach in a cloud-connected economy.
• Fast-track your path to profitability by navigating the Cloud Awesomeness Roadmap.

Although the organizers are keeping tight-lipped about this year’s presenters, past keynote speakers have included former SAP CEO Bill McDermott and Gavriella Schuster, Corporate Vice President at Microsoft. 

And from Ingram Micro Cloud’s team, selected speakers include: 

• Nimesh Davé, Executive Vice President, Global Cloud
• Tim FitzGerald, Vice President, Cloud Channel Sales, North America
• Tarik Faouzi, Vice President, CloudBlue

Cloud Summit to Feature Finale of $1M Comet Competition

For founders growing up in the tech blog era, there may be nothing sweeter than hoisting a shiny trophy at one of the bigger startup competitions like TechCrunch Disrupt’s Startup Battlefield or Web Summit’s PITCH.

But southern California-based Ingram Micro Cloud is trying to sweeten the pot even more for founders.

Cloud Summit will feature the finals of the company’s global “Comet Competition” that will award a whopping $1,000,000 cash prize to the winner. 

The competition, which started in August 2019 with regional heats in 15 different countries, features exclusively B2B software innovators “whose products have clear applications for the technology channel,” according to a previous release about the contest. 

Last year’s winner, Arun Buduri, co-founder and President of Pixm, an on-device phishing prevention tool, said winning Comet was “nuclear fuel” for his business.

By the time the competition has ended in May, Ingram Micro Cloud said it will have bestowed over “$5,000,000 in award money and funding to 60 independent software vendors (ISVs)” across five continents.

With most startup pitch competition prize money in the $50,000 to $300,000 range, Ingram Micro Cloud certainly is flexing its muscle in the conference arena.

In 2018, Ingram Micro Cloud spun off CloudBlue, an industry leading cloud commerce and XaaS platform that manages over 27 million enterprise cloud subscriptions globally.

Disclosure: This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company.