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German telecoms giant Deutsche Telekom (DT) has released a bullish statement of intent detailing its plans to more than double its cloud revenue in Europe by 2018.
The company, which specifically called out Google and Amazon as its primary competition, also announced an extension to its partnership with Huawei, originally announced in March, for IT infrastructure and private cloud solutions.
DT’s annual revenue from business customers currently stands at €1 billion (£721.8m). The company explained its strategy in being ‘on the road’ to becoming the cloud leader in Europe, and ensuring its business units ‘step up’ cloud activities across the organisation.
Dr. Ferri Abolhassan, head of the IT division at T-Systems, said: “At Deutsche Telekom, we want to grow by more than 20% each year in the field of cloud platforms, and to become the leading provider for businesses in Europe.”
The telco claims revenue from highly secure private cloud solutions increased by ‘double-figure percentage points’ at T-Systems, while the market for services from the public cloud ‘promises further growth’.
Yet the collaborative effect of partnerships also appeals. Haibo Zhang, president of the Huawei-Deutsche Telekom key account department, said: “After we agreed on our cooperation regarding IT infrastructure and private cloud services during CeBIT we are now taking the next step and combining our know how and cutting edge technology in the public cloud area to ensure that companies of all sizes are provided with the cloud of their choice.”
The idea of the telco making gains in cloud services is not a new one, and it was the overarching theme when Richard Warley, the new EMEA managing director of CenturyLink, spoke to CloudTech earlier in June. He explained why the telco ‘should win’ in cloud infrastructure services: “The cloud doesn’t work without the network. It takes a lot of innovative expertise to imagine the cloud and then to code it, but over a period of time it will become commoditised to an extent, and the people who can run infrastructure efficiently and cost effectively should be the telcos.”
Evidently, Deutsche Telekom has got the same idea.