Rackspace, one of the pioneers of cloud computing, has launched a new cloud consultancy service aimed at delivering professional consulting services to its clients. With this launch, Rackspace has officially started moving away from its cloud platform business.

According to an official statement released by the company, Rackspace has said that it’s new division is called Global Solutions and Services (GSS), and this division will specialize in providing customers with the knowledge and expertise to move their operations to public and private clouds.

This Texas-based company believes that consultancy is an integral part of the future because many companies are looking to move their data and operations from datacenters to the cloud, so they need the right suggestions to make appropriate decisions. According to Rachel Cassidy, the Vice-President of GSS, these services are not only targeted towards its existing customer base of small and medium businesses (SMB), but is also aimed to meet the needs of large enterprises.

It has announced that these services will be offered regardless of the cloud platform a client chooses. In a blog post, it claims that it has earned the highest level of partner certification from AWS and Azure. In addition, it has also entered into a strategic partnership with Google Cloud to become the first Managed Services Partner of Google Cloud Platform. With all these in place, Rackspace is all set to enter the world of cloud computing.

This move represents a radical change for the company considering that it’s been in operations for the last two decades and has specialized in providing technological and cloud-based services to the SMB and mid-market companies.

Rackspace’s addition of GSS was on the cards for some time. When Jeff Cotten took over as the new President, he promised to add more professional services to support public clouds, and this is probably the first big step in this regard.

This news comes on the heels of a decision to cut the workforce in U.S by six percent. Also, smaller reductions are being planned in its other global offices, subject to the local laws and regulations in this regard. The company had earlier announced that much of these cuts will come from administration and management sections, and this is being done to make the company more competitive in the global market.

The emergence of this service doesn’t means that the existing offerings of Rackspace including its management of OpenStack will be stopped. This GSS is simply a new addition to its existing line of businesses. Though cloud consulting is a lucrative business, it’s also very crowded. Many established companies are already gaining a fair market share here, so Rackspace may have quite some catching up work to do.

It is worthy to remember that Rackspace was acquired by Apollo Global Management for a whopping $4.3 billion. Considering the size of this deal, the management would not want to tamper much with its existing customers. At the same time, it’ll be interesting to see how GSS plays out for the company.

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