Telkom predicts significant consolidation in the cloud computing service provider market in future.
"There will likely still be a few niche cloud service providers, too small to be noticed for acquisition, and focused on the SME market. The rest will abandon their own offers and rather white-label larger cloud service providers' solutions," says Vaughn Naidoo, head of product portfolio, architecture and innovation at Telkom Business.
"We expect a lot more cloud service providers to expand their footprints across the continent, as network capability becomes more reliable and cost-effective elsewhere in Africa. We anticipate that vanilla infrastructure as a service will dwindle, and that there will be increased interest in and use of community and vertical cloud solutions, to the benefit of the customer as well as presenting greater stickiness to the provider, as opposed to infrastructure-as-a-service."
Cloud computing, says Naidoo, remains an important growth driver for Telkom. "Cloud, however, still means different things to different people. We have observed in our customer base across different segments, and even within verticals, that different customers have different drivers with regards to IT and cloud services."
The larger enterprises want to access the benefits of cloud through customised solutions, says Naidoo. "Smaller-sized businesses tend to be more open to commodity cloud, but don't necessarily have an understanding of the impact on their business operations. So, more often than not, hybrid cloud services and positioning of Telkom as a type of cloud service broker is at the core of our growth strategy.
"In terms of cloud services and where the market has matured, what has not changed since the launch of our offerings, and still central today in our delivery of cloud services, is reliable, high-speed, low-latency network connectivity. A cloud service cannot be thought of only in terms of the data centre capability, but must include the connectivity, branch and endpoint infrastructures - really an end-to-end perspective," adds Naidoo.
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