Capturing the cloud computing opportunity

Managed services play a crucial role in service providers’ businesses because they can leverage their economies of scale to deliver reliable, high-performance and profitable services to their customers. Cloud computing makes similar promises and by delivering applications over the network its providers hope to make major inroads into the massive desktop software market. So can network service providers take a leading role in this new managed services market or does the over-the-top cloud computing providers’ network-agnostic approach mean they will be left out of the loop?Service providers are actually in an ideal position to benefit from cloud computing’s evolution of managed services. The concept is simple enough: by inserting themselves in the cloud computing value chain from application to consumer, the service provider can improve the experience of user-to-application transactions that far exceed cloud applications hosted on the open internet. This network-based approach to assuring services can attract a share of the adjacent market of software revenue associated with the use of the applications, which is a market currently untapped by the network provider. To do this, however, they have to ensure the essence of the cloud – the service provider infrastructure – provides embedded and perceived value to the services delivered through it.

http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/Article/2308793/Sectors/25205/Capturing-the-cloud-computing-opportunity.html

Managed services are facing a new kid on the block with the emergence of cloud computing, says Nigel Stephenson, and network service providers are well placed to benefit. Co-sponsored feature: Juniper Networks.