You are here: Home » Cloud computing » Fujitsu aims to combine cloud with telecoms

Fujitsu aims to combine cloud with telecoms

Tony Chan | July 27, 2009 | 0 Comments

I wrote an article recently for CommsDay International on Fujitsu’s plans to launch a global cloud initiative. Fujitsu, like other technology vendors, Sun and Microsoft, is also getting into the cloud business with its own data centre facilities and even multi-tier cloud offering.

The move makes sense, since Fujitsu is already a global services company providing IT outsourcing services to its customers. At the same time, the strategy fits quite nicely with the Japanese government’s plan to build a massive cloud infrastructure, called tentatively the Kasumigaseki Cloud, to support all government IT systems in the next five years. Already, NTT and others have announced similar cloud initiatives, no doubt with the hope of getting some part of the Kasumigaseki Cloud project.

In unveiling its cloud strategy, Fujitsu, like Sun and Microsoft, will effectively be competing against other cloud providers, which traditionally would have been its customers as well. Like both Microsoft and Sun, Fujitsu executives note that while the company will offer both public and private cloud services from its facilities, it will also be more than happy to provide hardware and professional services to help customers build their own clouds on premises.

Fujitsu’s strategy is clearly aimed at its traditional enterprise and, no doubt government sector, customers who use to buy its equipment for in-house IT environments. By offering platform as a service on its cloud, or helping enterprises build their own cloud, Fujitsu is bringing the benefits of cloud computing to its customers.

Another interesting point made by the executives is that the company will leverage its historical role as a supplier of optical networking equipment to the telecoms sector to extend its cloud platform. On the one hand, the company plans to use its relationship with telcos to place its cloud platform inside the data centre of telecoms network to extend the geographical footprint of the platform. At the same time, the company says it hopes to leverage its expertise in optical networking to deliver cloud services across borders and geographies.

In this way, Fujitsu represents, arguably, the only company on the market today that have traditional businesses in both the IT and telecoms sectors. Big players in IT, such as IBM, HP, Dell and Oracle/Sun, have only recently shored up alliances in the networking sector – mostly for data centre applications at that – while traditional networking vendors, namely Cisco, have introduced cloud computing platforms wit its Unified Computing System, but these are far from mature platforms.

Be Sociable, Share!