Cloud Computing May Have A Silver Lining For Telcos

The emergence of cloud computing technologies is likely to have a significant impact on the application services and managed services markets, including efforts by telecom service providers to expand their portfolios to include application-based hosted offerings, according to the latest report from Light Reading Insider, a paid research service of TechWeb’s Light Reading.

Cloud Computing: The Fog Begins to Lift explores and analyses the most significant aspects of the cloud computing sector. It presents a map of the emerging market structure, showing the relationship between critical enabling technologies and cloud services. It reviews the needs of various types of users of cloud computing services, highlighting the drivers for and barriers to adoption of such services. It also draws conclusions about how the market will develop, and what the opportunities are for those in the telecommunications sector.

“The cloud computing space is still relatively immature, and even those in the industry acknowledge that perceptions of the term vary,” says Danny Dicks, research analyst for Light Reading Insider and author of the report. “In the early stages of market development, a broad definition is creating an increasingly differentiated space where specific technical and market issues arise and are addressed by technology vendors, and where a variety of service ideas are tried out and are combined or absorbed into other services.”

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Cloud computing market drivers, which include possible cost reductions and speed and flexibility for bringing resources online, are strong despite any potential barriers, Dicks notes. “Cloud computing has the potential to change the accepted ways of doing business,” he says. “Some in the cloud space believe things are changing and that cultural barriers to IT outsourcing are not insurmountable.”

Other key findings of Cloud Computing: The Fog Begins to Lift include:

- Cloud computing was one of 2008’s most newsworthy topics, but a clear understanding of its scope is only emerging now

- Technology enablers and service providers occupy distinct positions in cloud computing, though the space is expected to continue evolving in 2009

- Infrastructure- and platform-as-a-service are part of a trend in IT outsourcing with profound implications for the way applications are built, and developers are only starting to appreciate the impacts

- Telecom operators, particularly those with IT service ambitions and hosting operations, are well placed to help overcome barriers to adoption of some cloud services by business