Open standards vital to success of the cloud, says Rackspace CEO

Lanham Napier is in his element sitting in the large upstairs function room at central London cantina The Texas Embassy, as we rattle at 100 miles an hour though all things cloud computing.

Now, this could be because Napier himself hails from the Lone Star state, where Tex-Mex cantinas, filled with the smell of refried beans and hapless IT journalists being thrown off bucking broncos, are a common sight.

But it's more likely to be because, as chief executive of Rackspace for five years and president for 10, he has been preaching the cloud gospel for longer than most.

"Technology is going through a revolution," he barks out above the noise of the bronco.

"We're moving from a world of inputs to a world of outputs, and the cloud is an adrenalin shot in this world. It represents technology going through a tectonic shift."

Despite this shift, the vast majority of computing still goes on inside an organisation's four walls, Napier admits. So what can Rackspace offer to attract those numerous businesses still reticent about committing any part of their IT infrastructure to the cloud?

Well, the first thing is localisation. Another admission by Napier is that, despite the global nature of the internet, what firms want when it comes to customer service, billing and data protection is a provider with datacentres in their own country.

Enter Rackspace's push into the UK and European market this month, with datacentres in the UK.

"As much as we talk about a global marketplace, there is a distinct US market, a China market and a UK market," he said.

"Customers want services delivered in a familiar way. That means datacentres in the local area, responding to customer calls in a familiar accent and billing in their own currency. We have a general purpose technology platform and then tailor it to specific needs."