IBM's New Platform Assists Telecos in Offering Cloud Services

To help telecommunications companies capitalize on the emerging market opportunity for cloud services, which is expected to increase to $89 billion by 2015, IBM launched a new cloud services platform. With this cloud service platform, which is a comprehensive set of hardware, software and services, communications service providers can quickly and cost-effectively deliver a variety of new cloud computing services on their own.

According to IBM (News - Alert), the new Cloud Service Provider Platform includes the most advanced, carrier-grade technology with all the essential security and service management capabilities to ensure reliability essential to their own customers. In essence, it allows communications service providers to rapidly transform their business to deliver new services over their existing networks and drive new sources of revenue, asserted IBM.

Plus, IBM said, telecos can use it to deliver "as-a-service" offerings such as collaboration applications, customer relationship management services, data storage, back up and recovery, and industry-specific applications.

Built on IBM Service Delivery Manager platform for cloud computing, which includes Tivoli Netcool network and service assurance portfolio, IBM believes that the new platform is tailored to help communication companies deliver new cloud services quickly and cost effectively with minimal business risk.

In fact, according to IBM, multiple pilots worldwide are already underway on the IBM Cloud Service Provider Platform with clients such as Orange (News - Alert), Shanghai Telecom and SK Telecom.  

In a company press release, Scott Stainken, IBM Global Telecommunications Industry’s general manager, commented, "IBM is using its cloud expertise to help the world's service providers capture new market opportunities and expand the value of their networks in new ways."  Stainken continued, “IBM is the only one to offer proven, carrier-grade reliability and the only one of its kind that can deliver scalable and secure cloud computing over heterogeneous networks. Today's news goes beyond just providing the infrastructure, we're also bringing together partners and expertise to help providers grow cloud services into a profitable new business."

Orange, a major global telecommunications company, is using the IBM Cloud Service Provider Platform in a pilot project to create new infrastructure-as-a-service offerings for their customers. Orange is using this as a step to expand its services faster and beyond those of its competitors.

Likewise, Shanghai Telecom is piloting IBM's new platform to extend computing and telecommunications into the enterprise market in order to capture the growing business opportunity in China.

To help service providers access IBM partner ecosystem, the companies that adopt IBM Cloud Service Provider Platform will receive full support and benefits, said IBM.