Cisco to invest $1 bn on cloud business
25 Mar 2014
Networking giant Cisco will invest $1 billion (about Rs 6,200 crore) over the next two years as it expands its cloud business and builds a ''network of clouds'' with partners to challenge rivals like IBM and Amazon.
Cisco was aiming to build the world's largest global ''Intercloud'' or a network of clouds in a bid to capitalise on the growing trend among companies for services rather than buying and maintaining own IT infrastructure, the report said.
A number of partners would be involved in the service delivery including India's third-largest software firm Wipro, Australian telecom firm Telstra and tech distributor Ingram Micro.
The cloud would allow partners to offer services like email, conferencing and security.
''We will invest $1 billion in engineering work, setting up Cisco data centres and sales and go to market work. We have over 65,000 partners across the globe and we will engage with them and offer open, high value networks that are secure,'' Cisco senior vice president Worldwide Cloud Sales and Go to Market, Nick Earle, told reporters in Las Vegas yesterday.
He added that the addressable cloud market for Cisco and 'our' partners was expected in grow from $22 billion to $88 billion between 2013-2017.
''The Cisco global Intercloud is being architected for the Internet of Everything, with a distributed network and security architecture designed for high-value application workloads, real-time analytics, 'near infinite' scalability and full compliance with local data sovereignty laws,'' the company said in a release.
According to Cisco, the ''first-of-its-kind open Intercloud,'' which would feature application programming interfaces for rapid application development, would deliver a new enterprise-class portfolio of cloud IT services for businesses, service providers and resellers, www. pymnts.com reported
Others players that are planning delivering Cisco Cloud Services or had endorsed Cisco's global Intercloud initiative, include leading Australian service provider Telstra; Canadian business communications provider Allstream; European cloud company Canopy, an Atos company; cloud services aggregator, provider and wholesale technology distributor Ingram Micro Inc.; global IT and managed services provider Logicalis Group; global provider of enterprise software platforms for business intelligence, mobile intelligence, and network applications MicroStrategy, Inc.; enterprise data center IT solutions provider OnX Managed Services; information availability services provider SunGard Availability Services, according to pymnts.com.