The global cloud computing market is striding ahead on the strength of aggressive Asian and North American operators — who are investing billions of dollars to have an international footprint.
In this cloud rush, Europe is being seriously sidelined due to a cautious investment strategy, according to new research coming from Informa’s Telecom Cloud Monitor. It has been found that Europe accounts for 7% of the investment on cloud computing in 2011, and, out of a total of $13.5 billion, North America and Asia accounted for $12 billion. Camille Mendler, Principal Analyst at Informa Telecoms & Media has stated
that European operators are “being outgunned in cloud infrastructure,” although
they are focusing on stimulating local demand. The slow growth is being
attributed to European security and privacy laws, together with the economic
slowdown in the region. A common legal framework for cloud computing is being
planned by the European Commission this year.
The Informa study has highlighted the basic differences among the 127 cloud providers across the world. The Europeans are interested in local services, while the operators in North America are focusing on client acquisition at home and overseas. The Asians are into a mixed strategy of investment in infrastructure and launch of national and
international services. In Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, there is
more focus on domestic infrastructure development and services. The top five
among telecom cloud investors in 2011 were AT&T, Centurylink, NTT, Telstra,
Verizon and Windstream, while in Europe, Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Portugal
Telecom and Telefonica were the leading operators.
One cloud service was launched every other day across the world in 2011 — totaling 170 new services, while 127 telecom operators were involved in cloud services compared to just 80 in 2010. This analysis and report was taken from Informa’s Cloud Monitor, which is an analytical tool that monitors and tracks cloud-based activities of approximately 120 operators across the world.
Informa is a global group headquartered in Switzerland that provides business enterprises and individuals with information and highly specialized skills and services.
