China Telecom Star-Cloud Plan Begins in Four Cities
C114, 12/22/10
China Telecom (NYSE: CHA; 0728.HK) has announced cloud computing trials in four cities as part of its cloud computing strategy codenamed "Star-Cloud." The cities include Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu.
China Telecom's Guangzhou Research Institute and Beijing Research Institute have co-compiled "Recommendations for Developing China Telecom's Cloud Computing," which lays out the operator's development targets and positions regarding three layers of cloud computing: Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).
Regarding IaaS, China Telecom will upgrade its IDC business and leverage its core resources, user base, funds, and brands to provide IaaS services. For PaaS, China Telecom will cautiously begin to utilize PaaS high-volume data processing capabilities to optimize internal applications. For SaaS, China Telecom will use its PaaS platform to attract and support third-party SaaS applications.
China Telecom believes IaaS and SaaS technologies have become relatively mature, pointing to overseas commercial examples, but that significant market potential remains untapped. In contrast, China Telecom believes PaaS remains immature, with products such as Google's App Engine and Microsoft Azure still in trials, and will continue to monitor and assess ongoing developments.
According to a China Telecom employee involved in the four-city trials, China Telecom has completed proof-of-concept testing with industry partners such as Intel, and China Telecom has a comparative advantage in terms of IaaS, such as its IDC resources, which it plans to leverage to break into the market.
Keywords: China Telecom Guangzhou Research Institute software strategy telecom cloud computing Internet data center 0728.HK CHA Software as a Service
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