How should businesses rethink infrastructure when applications, data, and users are increasingly spread across thousands of locations?

In this episode of Tech Talks Daily, I sit down with Mark Cree, President and Chief Operating Officer at Scale Computing, to talk about why the future of enterprise infrastructure is moving closer to where data is actually created.

This conversation was recorded following the 66th edition of The IT Press Tour, where some of the most interesting conversations in enterprise infrastructure centered on what happens when businesses move away from oversized, monolithic stacks and start focusing on practical, distributed solutions. From retail stores and airports to remote industrial sites, the edge is becoming a critical part of modern IT strategy.

Mark shares how Scale Computing has spent years building an edge-first platform designed to run critical workloads reliably across everything from a single location to tens of thousands of distributed sites.

Mark also reflects on his own journey through the technology industry, which includes founding companies acquired by Cisco and NetApp, working as a venture capitalist, and leading major storage initiatives at AWS. That experience gives him a unique perspective on how enterprise infrastructure has evolved, particularly as organizations reconsider the balance between centralized cloud environments and local processing closer to users and devices.

During our conversation, we explore why edge computing is becoming increasingly important for AI workloads, especially when large volumes of data are generated outside traditional data centers. Mark explains how processing information locally can reduce costs, improve performance, and enable entirely new use cases, from monitoring customer behavior in retail environments to running intelligent systems in remote locations.

We also talk about the ongoing reassessment happening across enterprise IT teams following major industry shifts, including changes in the virtualization market and growing concerns around vendor lock-in. Mark explains how Scale Computing is positioning itself as a flexible alternative by combining virtualization, containerization, networking, and security into a platform designed specifically for distributed environments.

Looking ahead, Mark shares his perspective on where enterprise infrastructure is heading over the next five years. As smaller AI models become more capable and organizations seek greater control over their data and systems, the role of edge platforms may become even more important.

Instead of relying solely on massive centralized environments, companies may find new value in distributing intelligence closer to the places where real-world activity happens.

So as organizations rethink how they deploy applications, manage data, and control infrastructure, is the next big shift in enterprise IT happening right at the edge? And how prepared is your organization for that change?