"Dell's acquisition of Wyse is an acquisition that I thought was important as it creates a great connection from the desktop to potentially much larger virtualization/cloud play," stated Wayne Ariola, Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Development at Parasoft, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan.

Cloud Computing Journal: Agree or disagree? - "While the IT savings aspect is compelling, the strongest benefit of cloud computing is how it enhances business agility."

Wayne Ariola: I agree.

Cloud Computing Journal: Which of the recent big acquisitions within the Cloud and/or Big Data space have most grabbed your attention as a sign of things to come?

Ariola: Dell's acquisition of Wyse as this creates a great connection from the desktop to potentially much larger virtualization/cloud play.

Cloud Computing Journal: In its recent "Sizing the Cloud" report Forrester Research said it expects the global cloud computing market to reach $241BN in 2020 compared to $40.7BN in 2010 - is that kind of rapid growth trajectory being reflected in your own company or in your view is the Forrester number a tad over-optimistic?

Ariola: Forrester took a broad swath in their definition - it's high by 20%

Cloud Computing Journal: Which do you think is the most important cloud computing standard still to tackle?

Ariola: I believe TOSCA maturity is important.

Cloud Computing Journal: Big Data has existed since the early days of computing; why, then, do you think there is such an industry buzz around it right now?

Ariola: When you lived in one home for 40 years and now you have to move there is a lot of stuff you need to throw away.

Cloud Computing Journal: Do you think Big Data will only ever be used for analytical purposes, or do you envisage that it will actually enable new products?

Ariola: Yes.