We asked our speaker Ricky Kapur, Managing Director of Google Enterprise: How does Google work with telcos in the Cloud?

Ricky will be speaking on day 1 of the conference (13 November 2012) at 14.50 in the Telco Stream. Read the full interview below:
 
• What is the role of telecom operators in the Cloud Computing ecosystem?

What we’re seeing is telcos playing multiple roles in the value chain of Cloud Computing. I would like to underline the three core roles:

a) They are providing infrastructure for the public cloud. Indeed, telcos across APAC provide clusters of infrastructure and rent out that capacity to various enterprises customers, from SMES to larger organisations.
b) They are starting to provide various software solutions leveraging that infrastructure offer. As such they are now increasing providing value add services to their client base
c) They are investing a lot in bandwidth that allows to allow the Cloud economics to maximise their potential.  In this direction, we work very closely with the telecom providers to make sure that we realise the true potential of Cloud Computing. 

• How does Google work with telcos in the Cloud?

We work with telcos in multiple levels, in fact we’re partnering across many different areas. Bandwidth is indeed a core part of this collaboration, and we’re working continuously with service providers across the region in this direction.

Let’s start with Google Enterprise where we work with telcos in a variety of ways.  As part of our extensive partnerships, we provide a number of our Value services for their customers, for eg Messaging & Collaboration Solutions and Google Apps. We also offer a number of other services  like Googlemaps and location based services too, that are very popular in the service provider community. 

The last but not least bit of this symbiotic relationship is that fact that several telcos use our Demo operations efficiency service. As such, they are themselves consuming our products to optimise internal efficiency and drive revenue.

• In APAC what are the biggest challenges Cloud Computing is faced with in the immediate future?

Most customers understand that the change the Cloud can offer them in terms of cost management and agility is unbelievable. However, there are still two major constrains.

The main challenge is around perceptions of security and data protection/privacy. We put a lot of effort to get the customers to understand that this is an area we have worked on extensively.  We design our Cloud applications and architecture to operate in a level of security that is comprehensive and in fact much better than anything that could be achieved internally in a business.

The second challenge is really bandwidth, particularly relevant for emerging markets, like for eg Indonesia. In a number of APAC countries bandwidth is expensive and is still relatively slow and investments need to be made to drive this bandwidth. In this regard, we’re working closely with our business partners and telcos to drive bandwidth growth and support the advent of Cloud Computing.

• What are the future plans of Google in the Cloud arena?

We’ve been extremely successful as a company in the broader Cloud solutions domain. We have a number of tools and solutions available, from Google Apps to our maps and geospatial products and are expanding our already comprehensive portfolio further.

Google from the platform perspective has very successful in providing a PaaS for companies around the world to work on. Our ComputeEngine offer now provides Infrastructure As a Service, that is proving very popular too.

Another innovation is Google Big Query, an analytics tool for Big Data analysis in Big Speeds that is also in demand.

Overall the momentum is extremely strong, our platform is going from strength to strength and you can see the direction the company is heading towards with its Cloud offer!