Cloud computing has been around for around two decades and its many features have placed this technology among the best tools for bringing innovation to businesses around the world. As note According to Dell, companies that invest in big data, cloud, mobility and security experience revenue growth up to 53% faster than their competitors. The statistics highlight the importance of having free access to cloud technologies at the national level by drawing the line between countries that have them and others that ultimately lag behind, making us turn our eyes to the interesting development happening in the Greek sector.
On Friday, Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s cloud computing division, officially opened its first Greek office. Located in Halandri, a northern suburb of Athens, the office will support the growing number of startups, businesses and public sector agencies transitioning to the AWS cloud. “We saw increased customer adoption of AWS in the country and decided to open an office in Athens to better support new customers looking to use AWS to innovate, reduce their IT costs and grow their organization across the country. cloud. » said Przemek Szuder, AWS General Manager for Central and Eastern Europe. Is the country poised to host the region’s most influential data hub?
The long-term partnership program
After launching its Edge sites in four new countries: Sofia, Athens, Budapest and Bucharest for the first time in January 2020, AWS has further expanded its collaboration with the Greek government by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to use the cloud computing. technologies and foster innovation in the country. In 2020, Greek businesses were given the opportunity to use Amazon CloudFront, the company’s rapid content delivery network (CDN) service, Lambda@Edge, a service used for web applications to enable faster coding close to the users of their application. Greek customers also benefited from Amazon’s Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection service, AWS Shield, and AWS Web Application Firewall.
An integrated service network
With the growing number of services, the new office will now offer direct customer support to a list of companies including Telecommunications Group Wind Hellas, PAOK FC, one of Greece’s best-known football clubs, Greek Taxi and mobile carpooling app Beat, and Spitogatos.gr, Greece’s leading real estate website. Companies in the technology sector include DeepSea Technologies, which specializes in vessel performance through AI platform optimization. As company officials pointed out, the now proposed service network is expected to improve the secure delivery of content to customers in Greece by more than 50%.
Things in retrospect
Greece, along with Romania, is among the most active countries in the Balkans in terms of government initiatives focused on innovation. Earlier this month he became clear that the country is taking steps to create its first innovation hub – a multi-purpose complex that will host research centers and startups. In October 2020, Microsoft and the Greek government announcement ambitious plans to accelerate the digitalization of the public sector and businesses in Greece while providing digital technology training (online and physical courses) to 100,000 residents by 2025, an initiative whose total economic benefit is estimated at approximately $1 billion. The country’s private sector activity is another factor that influences Greece’s position on the entrepreneurial map. In May 2020, the Greek startup ecosystem saw the largest acquisition in the deep tech sector when design and graphics company Think Silicon was acquired by US company Applied Materials for €20 million. Later in September, Netdata, a Greek startup that developed a solution for monitoring the performance and health of systems and applications, has completed a new round of financing totaling $14.2 million, led by Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the oldest venture capital firms in Silicon Valley, demonstrating its international reach. the interest that the country arouses. In 2021, Greek microelectronics startup Adveos was acquired by the Chinese Beken Corp. for $7.5 million.