Cloud concepts can sometimes seem as baffling, and as nebulous as their namesakes. However, in the recent Telco 2.0 Executive Brainstorms, (Americas in October 2010 and EMEA November 2010), stimulus presentations by IBM, Oracle, FT-Orange Group, Deutsche Telekom, Intel, Salesforce.com, Cisco, BT-Ribbit, and delegate discussions really brought the Cloud Services opportunities to life.
While it was generally agreed that the precise definitions delineating the many possible varieties of the service are not always useful, it does matter how operators can make money from the services, and there was at least consensus on this.
IBM identified an $88.5Bn opportunity in the Cloud over the next 5 years, the majority of which is applicable to telcos, although the share that will end up in the telco industry might be as much as 70% or as little as 30%, depending on how operators go about it (video here).
According to Cisco, there is a $44Bn telco opportunity in Cloud Services by 2014, supported by the evidence of 30%+ enterprise IT cost savings and productivity gains that resulted from Cisco’s own comprehensive internal adoption of cloud services (video here). We see this estimate as reasonably consistent with IBM’s.
Oracle also brought the range of opportunities to life with seven contrasting real-life case studies (video here).
Ribbit, AT&T, and Salesforce.com also supported the viability of Cloud Cervices, arguing that concerns over trust and privacy are gradually being allayed. Intel argued that Network as a Service (NaaS) is emerging as a cloud opportunity alongside Enterprise and Public Clouds, and that by combining NaaS with the telco influence over devices and device computing power, telcos can be a major player in a new ‘Pervasive Computing’ environment. EMEA delegates also viewed Network-as-a-Service as the most attractive opportunity.
Fig 1 - Delegates Favoured 'Network-as-a-Service' of the Cloud Opportunities
Source: Telco 2.0 Delegate Vote, 11th Brainstorm, EMEA , Nov 2010.
