Ameed Taylor

By Vinnie Mirchandani

In my day job I help CIOs develop strategies dealing with industry behemoths like IBM and Oracle. My clients tend to be big and yet you can still see the “wind tunnel” effect on them from dealing with large vendors. So, when I meet someone like Ameed Taylor, who is not in a large firm, and can still deftly balance relationships with IBM, Oracle, SAP and other large vendors, I have a glowing admiration. Must be his training as a pilot which allows him to handle the turbulence.

He is widely traveled – every time I have met him he has a story to tell from a technology transaction in China or England. And he is widely connected – over 500 LinkedIn connections as proof. Shows an insatiable interest in new technologies and people in technology.

So, little surprise he has shown he can deftly navigate on-demand cross-currents in the industry. He was one of the founding employees of the Valley based Qwest Cyber Solutions (QCS), a pioneering joint venture between Qwest Communications and KPMG to develop Application Service Provider (ASP) solutions. Now as President at Applation he provides clients On Demand Solutions that help them integrate their applications & data with customers, vendors and partners.

So over a decade, thousands of trips and handshakes later, he has seen every type of cloud computing, whatever the flavor du jour might be. If there is a cloud best practice or mistake out there he has either seen it, heard about it or written about it. Or more likely, all of the above.

Vinnie Mirchandani is the founder of Deal Architect, a former technology industry analyst (with Gartner), outsourcing executive (with PwC, now part of IBM) and entrepreneur (founder of sourcing advisory firm, Jetstream Group).