First, Netflix started its journey with a traditional enterprise environment and a traditional data-center infrastructure. It found that the infrastructure was too fragile for its needs (i.e., things stopped working all the time), and the traditional operations model didn't respond fast enough to the needs of the business. Netflix changed its approach because it recognized that the future of its business required a different way of doing things.

Second, companies are starting to look more and more like Netflix in terms of offering online services as a core part of their business. Think of GM and its OnStar service. If you've taken a Virgin America flight and seen the future of in-cabin entertainment, do you think it's not collecting and analyzing that data to tune its offerings to individual customers? What Netflix is doing, company after company is doing as well. So, for at least a portion of their applications, most companies are starting to resemble Netflix. And one thing is for sure -- managing the new type of applications with the practices and processes associated with existing applications is a recipe for disaster.

As to why Netflix decided to get out of the data center business? Short answer, there are two reasons.