Asian telcos ramp up cloud offerings

Asian operators are stepping up their investment in the cloud, with a flurry of announcements over the past week.

 

The latest to join the party is Verizon Business, which has opened a new Hong Kong data center to expand its cloud services.

 

It says its Computing as a Service (CaaS) portfolio, delivered over the company's global IP network, is SAP-certified and backed up by multiple levels of security.

 

Japan’s NTT Communications is reported to be planning a cloud tie-up with Microsoft, with sources claiming the parties would launch a service that combined Microsoft's Azure platform with NTT's cloud portfolio.

 

The operator last week announced plans to spend HK$3 billion ($386m) on a 30,000 square meter data center in Hong Kong – its biggest outside Japan – to open in 2013.

 

Indian telco Tata Communications has launched pay-as-you use cloud services for Indian businesses.

 

The services are InstaCompute, which provides on-demand computing and storage resources to businesses, and InstaOffice, a suite of internet collaboration and office tools powered by Google Apps.