Insights:
Cloud Computing

Drivers that stimulate cloud services are converging with growing opportunities for users and providers. With these advances, the Cloud business has transitioned from exploratory to mainstream.

Procuring services in the cloud—which means to access applications or infrastructure remotely via the internet, delivered by a third party and consumed on an "as needed" basis—has advantages that benefit consumers, small and medium businesses, and large enterprises alike.

Cloud services place the burden of developing, delivering and maintaining the technology stack on the shoulders of specialists, and allow the users to focus on being just that: users of technology. We are no longer burdened with the need to keep pace with the rapidly changing world of technology.



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Research: telecomasia.net October 20, 2011 article "The CSG biz model has become 'cloudy'" Go here now »

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Cloud applications and infrastructure continues to increase in number, and providers, both traditional IT/communication players and new entrants, continue to grow. The earliest cloud applications supported information-intensive functions and relatively stand-alone workflows that translated well across industries—things like sales force automation, travel reservations and support, and payroll processing. As the industry matures, and issues, either perceived or real, with security and availability are resolved, cloud solutions will move deeper into the business process stack, and consumers and businesses alike will have more choice when outsourcing their computing needs.

Cloud suppliers monetize their offers in numerous ways—charging on a subscription basis, on transactions processed, on bandwidth required or delivered, on meeting Service Level Agreements (SLAs), on processing power, storage requirements, or even floor space—and derive cost benefits through economies of scale. The optimal cloud solution provides a shared resource to multiple customers, maximizing utilization and minimizing capital expenditure and operational investment.

CSPs have several advantages as cloud providers and seek to add these elements to existing network-based offers. Long-standing experts in scalability and availability, CSPs' brands are widely associated with technology by their established customer base. They now must find the right partners for their cloud offers and extend their BSS to flexibly monetize their solutions—to charge, bill and settle for cloud services. Newer cloud players, on the other hand, have in-house specialized skills and can move with agility, and are moving aggressively to capture market share. A competitive storm is brewing, but in the near term, there are ample opportunities for those who seek to pursue a cloud strategy.