Like most who make their living in the technology industry, I regularly read blogs and one of my favorites is Internet Evolution written by Jeff Kaplan. Jeff’s site offers “news, analysis and opinion about the future of the Internet,” and I find that I align with Jeff’s views of the tech world more often than not.
One column he recently posted, “Telcos Invade the Internet” really hit home. In it, Jeff talks about the incredible disruption that has occurred within the telecommunications industry during the last 30 years, as technical innovation became the catalyst ”for traffic patterns shifting from voice to data, and wireline to wireless.”
Jeff goes on to identify Cloud Computing as the next technology threatening to disrupt the telecom industry as companies like Google and Amazon change the way data services are delivered and priced. Jeff cites Verizon’s recently announced alliance with VMWare as an example supporting his position. It’s a great example, and Verizon’s actions send a strong message that the telcos are seizing the opportunity afforded by the Cloud.
Here’s another example of telco cloud leadership that might have flown under Jeff’s and other’s radar.
Qwest, the nation’s 3rd largest telco (once merged with CenturyLink), recently took a bold step into the Cloud with its launch of Real-Time Application Recovery (R-TAR) Hosted in a Qwest CyberCenter, R-TAR nicely aligns with Qwest’s CTO Pieter Poll’s vision. Poll states, “The key is to embrace challenges from the end-user perspective and focus on a customer value proposition, rather than underlying technology. Start with a goal of creating the best possible user experiences in order to make sure your cloud decisions put the customer first.”
Like, Jeff, I believe the telcos are here to stay and their presence in the Cloud will become even stronger in the months and years ahead. I also believe that the approach that Qwest is taking – focusing on the application and not only the technology – is the approach that is needed to drive wide-spread adoption of cloud services.
ABOUT ME
Joshua Geist is Founder and CEO of Geminare Incorporated, a leading provider of turnkey business continuity, server replication and data protection solutions and innovator of the Cloud “Recovery as a Service” model. A solution junkie at heart, Joshua lives, breathes and dreams of all things DR Cloud-related and loves nothing better than to hear a story about how another customer experienced first-hand the tremendous value inherent in the technology that Geminare created.
Joshua lives in Toronto, with his lovely wife Liane and three beautiful daughters, Samantha, Chloe and Alexa – with a combined age of 8! Suffice to say that between introducing the world to Geminare’s RaaS and raising a family, Josh is a very busy guy but always seems to be reachable at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or followed on Twitter @CloudRecovery.
