Networking solutions provider Cisco has announced that it will invest over $1 billion to expand its cloud business globally over the next two years to capitalise on the increasing demand for such services.
The company planned to deliver the ‘Cisco Cloud Service’ with and through partners, including Indian IT major Wipro, Australian telecom service provider Telstra, and tech distributor Ingram Micro Inc.
Second phase
“We are already leaders in private cloud. Now, we are moving to the second phase of our cloud strategy that is to become number one in hybrid cloud. We intend to build the world’s largest global Intercloud — a network of cloud — together with a set of partners,” Cisco Senior Vice President, Worldwide Cloud Sales and Go to Market, Nick Earle, told reporters here.
“We have over 65,000 partners across the globe, and we will engage with them and offer open, high value networks that are secure,” he added.
Besides building Cisco data centres, the $1 billion would be made for engineering work and sales and go to market strategies, Mr. Earle said.
Today’s announcement by the U.S.-based company networking solutions provider would help it cash in on the trend wherein more and more enterprises were looking to migrate to cloud computing, which reduced cost by eliminating the need of buying and maintaining infrastructure on their own.
Cisco believes emerging markets, including India, present good business opportunity for the service as “there is no legacy infrastructure” and companies, especially the small and medium ones, want to move to the cloud to optimise costs and improve efficiency.
On the role of Wipro, Mr. Earle said the Bangalore-based firm would act as a ‘builder’ to offer cloud services and reduce the cost of ownership for customers in the country.
Mr. Earle added that the addressable cloud market for Cisco and its partners would grow from $22 billion to $88 billion between 2013 and 2017.
Using Cisco’s cloud, partners would be able to offer services such as email, conferencing and security. Cisco will also expand its cloud services portfolio, which includes SaaS offerings like WebEx and Cisco Cloud Web Security.
Asked about the revenue potential, Mr. Earle said it was early days to comment, but there were significant opportunities in sectors such as government, financial services and the small and medium businesses.
(This Correspondent is in Las Vegas at the invitation of the company)
