Everyone wants to move to the cloud, but surprisingly few know exactly why. They’ve heard things about pay-as-you-go, efficiency, the ability to spin up and spin down applications — but is it right for them? All of it or some of it? To answer those questions, Mike Schutz, GM of cloud platform marketing at Microsoft, has embarked on what he calls a “25-city cloud road show.”

Schutz explained to Stu Miniman and Jeff Frick, cohosts of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team, “Because cloud is such a big conversation, a big term, you’ve got to break it down into chunks to help people understand it.”

Schutz said that even old companies who have typically not been tech-enabled can learn to use cloud to do better business. He mentioned a company that operates elevators and escalators using machine learning and IoT in the cloud to prevent problems before they materialize.

Microsoft enters the brave new cloud world

Schutz agreed with the hosts that Microsoft was not a company that comes to mind what people think of open source. He said that Microsoft always wanted to do more for its customers, and now open source is helping the company do that. By offering the full gamut of cloud products from infrastructure, to platform, to software, to SaaS, it’s all about “helping customers in this hybrid cloud world say ‘and’ not ‘or.'”

He remarked that the company is enjoying its foray into cloud and the chance to keep up with younger companies. “Coming down here to the Valley wasn’t always fun for someone from Microsoft,” Schutz joked.

Watch the full interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of OCP U.S. Summit 2016.

Photo by SiliconANGLE