From CTAM Business Services Council: For small-and medium-sized U.S. businesses, moving computing operations out of the server closet and into what is broadly branded as "the cloud" is now a cornerstone IT strategy, offering cost, flexibility and speed advantages. Encompassing varying combinations of communications, infrastructure and software services that rely on remote computing systems connected over broadband networks, the business cloud computing movement has demonstrated tremendous marketplace momentum.
2. Contents
Introduction
3
Cloud Business 2013: Facts and Forecasts
4
What Works: Ideas and Approaches for Market Success
5
Cable in the Cloud: Current Strategies
7
Competitive Watch
10
Cloud Competitor Market Rankings
11
CTAM Cloud Showcase
12
Addendum: Selected Cable Provider Services
13
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
2
3. For small-and medium-sized U.S. businesses, moving
computing operations out of the server closet and into
what is broadly branded as “the cloud” is now a
cornerstone IT strategy, offering cost, lexibility and
speed advantages. Encompassing varying combinations
of communications, infrastructure and software
services that rely on remote computing systems
connected over broadband networks, the business cloud
computing movement has demonstrated tremendous
marketplace momentum. Six million small and mediumsized businesses worldwide entering the cloud
computing market last year alone (Parallels, Feb. 2013).
According to an April 2013 survey of 822 U.S.
businesses by the researcher Neovise, 54% of
businesses have by now adopted some form of cloud
computing. In business, as Forbes writer Reuven Cohen
recently commented, “The cloud has gone mainstream.”
Introduction
Economic evaluations af irm the mainstream status
for business cloud IT services. Estimates from market
research organizations suggest U.S. SMBs could spend
close to $20 billion in 2013 on cloud IT services, with
projections calling for recurring double-digit
compound annual growth rates. Even the more
conservative of the forecasts, those with narrowly
de ined interpretations of “cloud” services, show
impressive upward trajectory.
The reasons by now are well known. With a
pay-as-you-go model that yields savings through
multiple/shared tenancy, cloud computing is attractive
to SMBs that aim to replace seemingly endless capital
investment and replacement cycles with predictable
and manageable operating expenses. Additionally, the
immediate scalability available through use of cloud
resources supports faster deployment of services and
business processes while lessening the time and
attention spent on technology management.
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
Underscoring the large and growing market for
business cloud computing is the broad range of
companies that now compete for IT budgets of SMBs
by promoting some form of “cloud” solution. A Google
search using the terms “U.S. business cloud computing
services” yields millions of results, with providers
ranging from familiar business computing brands such
as Dell and Microsoft to newly launched specialists that
package and resell cloud solutions.
The widespread adoption of business cloud IT services
over the past several years roughly coincides with the
rise of the cable telecommunications industry as a
signi icant and trusted provider of broadband
transport, communications and IT services for business
customers. “Cable operators, as opposed to other
providers, are the ones that have the broadband
connection with businesses,” observed Cisco Systems
Inc. cloud services specialist Victoria Ministri in an
interview. “They have the trusted relationship and the
rep who calls on customers. It’s a natural evolution to
move into the cloud business.”
As this dovetailing has taken place — cable’s
increasing business communications market share
coupled with the rapid adoption of cloud computing —
participants in both camps have begun to introduce
solutions that marry cable’s deepening business
communications imprint with the embrace of cloud IT
services among SMBs. How this pairing is evolving, the
potential opportunities it creates for the cable
industry, and the challenges associated with cable’s
entry into the cloud IT marketplace are the subjects
of this CTAM Business Market Intelligence report.
3
4. Clarifying the market dimensions for business
spending on cloud IT services is an inexact pursuit
because of the absence of commonly accepted
de initions. As CableLabs® Vice President Glenn Russell
noted during a 2013 CTAM panel discussion,
Wikipedia’s de inition of “cloud computing” dismisses
the term as “ambiguous jargon.” At the other end
of the spectrum, Deloitte identi ies cloud computing as
“a collection of Internet-based or private network
services providing users with scalable, abstracted IT
capabilities, including software, development platforms
and virtualized servers and storage.”
Cloud Business 2013: Facts and Forecasts
From a cable industry perspective, one prominent
company, Time Warner Cable Business Class, has
characterized cloud services as encompassing these
characteristics:
On-demand availability
Consumption-based (customers are billed based
on what they use)
Opex-driven (cloud services may remove upfront
capital expenses entirely)
Based on self-service and customer-led automation
Despite differences around de inition, there is broad
agreement among researchers around the trajectory
of U.S. and/or global business investment in cloud IT
resources and services.
North America cloud services revenue, $B
$100B
$92.1
$90B
15%
GR= $73.2
CA
$80B
$70B
$50B
Deloitte sees cloud computing alternatives
replacing about 14.5% of premise-based IT
spending worldwide by 2020, a sharp acceleration
from about 2% in 2013.
Cisco’s Internet Business Services Group projects
even more rapid replacement of premise spending
in the U.S., estimating half of U.S. SMBs will devote
at least one third of their total IT budgets to cloud
and managed services in 2013.
To be sure, cloud IT expenditures make up only a
fraction of the estimated $300 billion-plus spent
annually by U.S. business on information technology
and telecommunications. But it’s the trajectory of cloud
spending that makes the category stand out.
CTAM’s 2012 cloud computing market initiative
coalesced several analysts’ estimates into the tables
below, which depict both the momentum of the North
American business cloud IT marketplace and the
cloud’s share of SMB spending on key IT services.
Proportion of total IT budget spend on SaaS/IaaS
+Mgnd. services, SMBs w/5–20 employees
100%
90%
$82.9
7%
4%
8%
19%
80%
8%
5%
13%
12%
70%
$63.2
$60B
Parallels, a cloud services provider, estimates the
U.S. SMB cloud market at $18.9 billion in 2013 and
forecasts that it will grow at a 19% CAGR through
2015.
Overall market growth
60%
$53.7
23%
$30B
30%
$20B
10%
$0B
25%
31%
20%
$10B
13%
19%
40%
$40B
11%
22%
50%
$45.4
16%
26%
19%
0%
2010
2011
2012
2013
2014
2015
Sources: IDC, OVUM, Information Week, CSMG
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
17%
17%
2011
14%
9%
8%
2012
40%
>50%
41–50%
31–40%
21–30%
11–20%
1–10%
0%
>30% of IT
budget on
SaaS/IaaS
2013
Sources: Cisco IBSG, CSMG
4
5. What Works: Ideas and Approaches
for Market Success
Because cable’s entry into the cloud is in its early stages, it’s difficult to draw firm conclusions
about ideal product mixes, implementation approaches and sales practices. Here are some
themes that are emerging, however, as cable companies pursue a bigger role in the cloud:
There are no “killer apps”…yet: Cloud services that
have exhibited early market momentum for Bright
House Networks include hosted PBX and hosted voice
services, according to Vice President Craig Cowden. On
the data side, it’s a challenge to differentiate from a host
of “me-too” products and services (such as data backup
and hosted exchange) that are widely available from
many providers. One possible breakthrough, Cowden
believes, may come from desktop-as-a-service offerings
that essentially replace the need to purchase, install and
maintain business software machine-by-machine.
Instead, applications are abstracted into the cloud, thus
reducing capital expenses and improving reliability.
“I don’t think that cable companies are necessarily
thought of as the natural provider of desktop as a
service today…but as we grow deeper with managed
services, (clients) really do change their perception of
what a cable company is as a business class services
provider,” Cowden said.
Product needs vary by customer size: For smaller
businesses, observed Time Warner Cable’s Greg King,
cloud services are appealing mostly for their delivery
of quick access to resources and services and the
“immediate grati ication” it produces. Moving
upmarket, security and reliability begin to loom larger
as purchase incentives. And for larger enterprise
customers, the focus tends to shift to “transformative”
ideals that can reshape the role of IT to support more
agile, faster business processes.
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
Verticals are drawn to unique “cloud” product sets:
Educational institutions, for example, may favor
managed wide-area network services over managed
LANs as a way to maximize investment in IT/telecom
services that qualify for subsidies under the FCCdirected E-Rate program for schools and libraries. For
certain health care sector clients, managed content
iltering solutions may be especially appealing to aid in
compliance with privacy requirements of the federal
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act
(HIPPA).
Service sets providers apart: With a large number
of competitors in the (broadly de ined) cloud IT
marketplace, cable companies can stand out by
delivering outstanding service. Time Warner Cable
believes its “white glove” onboarding process for SMB
customers that are moving to hosted exchange services
has helped to create a positive irst experience in
migrating to the cloud. Bright House Networks’
Cowden noted many competitors are distant
companies with little more than email help desk
functionality, in contrast to cable’s local feet-on-thestreet service presence.
5
6. Language matters: Despite the fervor associated with
the term “cloud” at large, not all cable companies are
intentionally branding their hosted services as such. In
the mid-market space, business customers “tend to use
‘cloud’ and ‘managed services’ interchangeably, so the
lines are very blurred,” pointed out Lightpath Senior
Vice President, Marketing and Business Development
Julia McGrath at CTAM’s June 2013 cloud services
panel. Industry business services strategists instead
suggest talking more about functionality and service
advantages rather than labeling offerings as “cloud”
or otherwise. Also, Bright House Networks’ Cowden
cautioned against lapsing into tech jargon: “You can
easily fall in the trap of using common terminology that
is consistent with telecom professionals that we work
with, and many of our customers are not that.”
Network ownership can be a critical differentiator.
Experts see an evolution in which their facilities-based
networks become more tightly integrated with cloud
services over time, creating important competitive
distinctions. Even today, however, cable business
services strategists see advantages springing from their
transport-based relationships with customers, which
can create opportunities for conversations around
newer cloud products. As Time Warner Cable’s King
commented, “There’s a very low barrier of entry to be
an over-the-top provider of software as a service or of
many of the other cloud services. But there's a pretty
high barrier of entry to become a network provider.”
“It’s important to recognize that we have
a history as cloud companies. We don’t
often think of it that way, but our video
services are fundamentally cloud services.
There’s content being delivered over a
network to a thin client that the customer
has, and some of it, such as pay-per-view,
uses consumption-based billing. We are
cloud services companies, and have been
since the beginning.”
viewpoints
Partnerships can be fruitful: For a growing number
of cloud services, other providers including software
developers, network components companies and
others offer proven solutions cable companies may not
care to replicate internally. “In some situations some of
these cloud companies may actually provide (solutions)
we can’t, so we could end up partnering with them,”
said Cablevision’s McGrath.
— Greg King, Time Warner Cable
Product specialists are essential: Although certain
cloud services such as hosted Exchange may lend
themselves to transactional sales models and even
automated ordering, more complex IaaS and hosted
PBX services require product specialists who can work
closely with larger customers to devise more
customized solutions — and to close sales. Although
experts suggest this sort of “sales overlay” approach —
a mix of transactional access plus product specialists
for more complicated implementations — may prevail
for a long time, they believe a critical success factor will
be the ability to collapse certain cloud services into
easy-to-order offerings that deliver sales ef iciencies.
Cloud IT offerings can enhance company brands and
perceptions: In the same way that entry into the
business telecommunications realm has helped to
transform perceptions of cable providers, a deeper
involving in cloud-based IT services can have a
positive impact on the way companies are viewed by
customers. BendBroadband believes its introduction
of colocation and cloud services has done just that. “I
think in the past, we were perceived as a residential
services provider for the most part, even with
DOCSIS® and even phone services in the business
space,” said Vice President Wade Holmes. “Once we
established The Vault, it really changed the perception
of BendBroadband in the community as a true
business services provider.”
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
6
7. Cable in the Cloud: Current Strategies
U.S. cable companies have exhibited varying strategies around cloud services.
Some have deep portfolios of managed and/or hosted business services that
are branded as "cloud" offerings, while others have resisted overt entry into a
fragmented marketplace that seems to invite new competitors by the week.
Illustrating some of the more aggressive approaches are:
Time Warner Cable, which has acquired a well-known
national provider of cloud computing services, NaviSite
Bright House Networks, which has acquired a hosted PBX
voice provider, Telovations, in its anchor Florida markets
BendBroadband, which has built and operates its own
regional data center offering a broad collection of cloud
services for business customers
Comcast, which has acquired two providers in the cloud
IT space, Cimco and New Global Telecom
(A list of selected cable provider cloud services begins
on p. 13.)
The most common approach among cable companies,
however, is to offer a selected range of managed and hosted
services and products that fall under the broad rubric of
“cloud” computing for business.
One reason for the mix of offerings and a diversity
of opinion on cloud services as a business has to do with
differing perspectives about the role of cable companies in
serving business customers historically. Until recently,
most of the inroads cable has made in the SMB and larger
business markets have sprung from a transport role. From
high-speed Internet connectivity for the small office/home
office market to dedicated private line Ethernet for large
government and enterprise customers, cable has mainly
been adopted by businesses as a competitively priced,
extremely capable alternative to incumbent carriers for
data connectivity and transport.
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
In 2011, Oregon cable company
BendBroadband opened
BendBroadband Vault, a Tier III data
center that is a cornerstone of
BendBroadband’s strategy to become a
regional leader in cloud computing for
businesses. Wade Holmes,
BendBroadband’s Vice President of
Technology, believes the alignment
between BendBroadband’s expanded
iber optic network and the data center is
a key differentiator: “Our thinking was
that we’d be extending our physical
footprint to so many businesses that
were minimally served; and by
connecting them, we could make their
of ices an extension of our data center.”
viewpoints
7
8. The “cloud” differs by thrusting cable providers into
the role of product provider and caretaker of essential
computing and IT functions businesses rely on every
day. One example here is providing a sales management
application via the cloud — a service that does not
depend entirely on providing underlying transport and
network. Another example is remote data storage, a
common application of cloud computing in which
businesses entrust their data to a third party that is
responsible for archiving and in some cases restoring
data in the event of a disruption. Here again, although
cable companies may have some differentiating
advantages by virtue of their managed networks and
their trusted relationships with business customers,
the end product is not inextricably tied to the
ownership and operation of a data network. As Time
Warner Cable Vice President of Product Management
and Vertical Markets Satyanarayana Parimi said during
an interview for this report, “The cloud is more about
IT than it is about telecom.”
Understanding how cloud services intermix and play
off the foundational role of cable companies as
owners/operators of high-capacity data networks is
currently an essential question companies are facing. In
the most positive light, the trusted relationships cable
companies have with thousands of businesses are seen
as an entry point or invitation to establish deeper
business relationships and sell products that, as some
put it, “go beyond the demarc,” or
the point where cable networks
hand off traf ic to internal business
devices. A more cautious point of
view is that it is exactly that same
demarcation point where cable
As it considers its cloud strategy, the
companies concede market
cable company Bright House Networks
differentiation and enter a highly
makes distinctions between “managed
competitive market for cloud
services” that tend to be premise-based,
services that is populated with
such as managed Wi-Fi networks and
the likes of Microsoft, Google,
managed local area networks for
salesforce.com and (literally)
business customers, and “hosted
thousands of independent, smaller
services” such as hosted PBX, which
aggregators of services.
exhibit more of a “cloud” lavor. “I look at
viewpoints
cloud as a hosted extension of a managed
services portfolio,” said Bright House Vice
President Craig Cowden at CTAM’s June
2013 panel discussion on cloud services
during The Cable Show 2013.
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
8
9. “We’re not relying on last mile access
from any other providers. We are doing it
ourselves. We’re extending the lexibility,
reliability, the secure environment, to
every single one of our customers. As we
do that, and we gain their trust as a
service provider, it’s a natural
conversation to explore what other
products you can bring to them and
deliver over your iber network.”
viewpoints
— Julia McGrath, Lightpath
A third perspective, one expressed by several cable
business services strategists who shared their thoughts
with CTAM, is that not all “cloud” services can be neatly
placed on either side of the network handoff point.
Instead, there is a continuum of cloud services that have
varying relationships with cable’s familiar world of
networks and transport services. Some have a closer
af inity to cable’s network/transport heritage than
others. They include offerings such as managed network
routing in which the relationship between the cloud IT
service and the underlying network is tightly aligned, or
managed security and intrusion detection services that
involve examination and treatment of traf ic lowing
across a network. More distant in terms of productnetwork kinship are services such as SaaS or
desktop-as-a-service, where it’s possible for customers
to unshackle from a dependence on any particular
network provider in a “bring your own bandwidth” sort
of accommodation.
A thoughtful review of this continuum — from highly
network-dependent cloud services to those that are
more removed from network management — may be
helpful in establishing priorities for entry and for
sustained pro itability in the cloud computing market.
Time Warner Cable’s Parimi suggests that the
determining consideration may revolve around
focusing irst on network-dependent cloud services,
where cable companies, by virtue of their ownership
and operation of managed networks, can differentiate
themselves from “over-the-top” competitors.
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
9
10. Competitive Watch
Although a wide variety of telecom, software and service providers are vying for various slices
of the “cloud” IT market for business, the cable industry encounters particularly intense
pressure from rival telecommunications companies that have ambitions similar to cable’s.
AT&T: Cloud solutions (under the brand name AT&T
Synaptic) include storage, Computing-as-a-Service,
Platform-as-a-Service and a specialty medical imaging
portfolio. Alliance with IBM also offers high-end,
enterprise secure cloud services backed by service
level agreements. Branding language: “Reduce
infrastructure costs by aligning business expense
with business value.”
CenturyLink: Branded “Enterprise Cloud Networking,”
CenturyLink’s family of services includes virtual
private data center, colocation, managed hosting. The
2011 acquisition of data center operator Savvis for
$2.7 billion signaled keen intent to play a large role
in the cloud. Main target for now is large businesses;
CenturyLink does not advertise cloud services
specifically for SMBs.
Frontier Communications: Little or no focus on cloud
IT, but does offer data backup and recovery plus
bandwidth on demand through an owned/operated
Tier 3 data center facility. Branding language:
“Ensure that your business is never interrupted
by equipment bottlenecks, failures or unforeseen
disasters.”
Level3 Communications: Attempts to create
linkage between cloud computing and network
ownership/expertise. Assets offered include public
clouds accessed via core Internet backbone, private
clouds accessed via dedicated MPLS, private line and
wavelength connections, and hybrid clouds connected
through any of the above. Solutions include storage,
disaster recover, SaaS. Branding language: “With
cloud computing, the network becomes part of the
application. Level 3 uses our networking expertise
to bring cloud service providers and cloud service
users together over a network cloud optimized for
your unique needs.”
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
TW Telecom: The largest business Ethernet provider
promotes an ability to create private network
connections into public and private cloud
environments. Branding language: “Our Intelligent
Network provides better scalability, performance
and security than any other provider in the
industry — with no upgrades or changes required
to existing network infrastructure.”
Verizon: A key competitive move was the 2011
acquisition of the cloud computing and hosting
company Terremark for $1.4 billion. Current family of
“cloud” IT products revolves around the 2010 launch
of a Computing-as-a-Service (CaaS) offering targeting
companies with 20 to 1,000 users and allowing for
automated ordering and con iguration of cloud servers
for storage, security, software applications and more.
Branding language: “Helping revolutionize the way
the world shares, collaborates, buys, and sells.”
XO Communications: The national networking provider
describes a range of cloud-based offerings including
on-demand IT infrastructure, security, contact center
and VoIP services. Branding language: “XO cloud
services can help you simplify the delivery and
management of services to your employees,
customers and partners. In addition to making your
business more agile, XO cloud services can help
improve your bottom line so that you can invest
capital back into your business.”
10
11. Facilities-based providers are part of a wider range of cloud
computing companies that includes companies operating large data
centers accessible through independent or unaligned networks.
The top 10 cloud computing companies as ranked by the news
aggregator SearchCloudComputing.com for 2012 were:
Cloud Competitor Market Rankings
1 Amazon Web Services: Targets enterprise IT, employs massive
server infrastructure used by prominent companies including
Net lix Inc.
2 Rackspace: $1.3 billion in 2011 revenue; 80,000-plus servers
in more than 233,000 square feet of data center space.
3 CenturyLink/Savvis: 2011 combination of CenturyLink and
Savvis combined CenturyLink networking/hosting assets with
Savvis’s colocation and managed/hosted cloud services.
4 Salesforce.com: Leader in enterprise-class CRM pioneered
multi-tenant applications and computing.
5 Terremark (Verizon): In 2012, launched a single-tenant cloud
infrastructure to answer demands for heightened security
from larger customers.
6 Joyent: Provides enterprise cloud solutions for big customers
including Dell; now licensing its platform to telcos as a
partnership play.
7 Citrix: Rising pro ile for its open stack IaaS platform that
supports large public cloud implementations.
8 Bluelock: Focuses on small and midsized companies with
blend of cloud hosting and managed IT services.
9 Microsoft: Continues expansion of data centers to support
Of ice 365 cloud-based productivity suite plus public cloud
constellation named Azure.
10 VMWare: Positioning its VCloud automation engine as a sort of
middleman for private cloud providers.
Source for rankings: SearchCloudComputing.com, 2012
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
11
12. Numerous CTAM Business Services Council member companies
provide technology, resources and guidance to cable companies
as they migrate to cloud-based business telecom and IT services.
Members with expertise in cloud business services include:
CTAM Cloud Business Showcase
Business & Operational Support Systems
Netcracker
www.netcracker.com
Collaboration and Content Tools
Adobe
www.adobe.com
Consulting & Strategy
TMNG Global
Sand Cherry Associates
CMG Partners
www.tmng.com
www.sandcherryassociates.com
www.cmgpartners.com
Network Infrastructure
Alcatel Lucent
Arris
Ciena
Cisco Systems
www.alcatel-lucent.com
www.arrisi.com
www.ciena.com
www.cisco.com
Data Acquisition & Analysis
ESRI
Neustar
TNS
www.esri.com
www.neustar.biz
www.tnsglobal.com
Data Centers, Hosting and IT Services
BendBroadband
vaultdatasolutions.com
Hostway
www.hostway.com
NaviSite
www.navisite.com
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
12
13. Addendum: Selected Cable Provider Services
Large U.S. cable companies have deployed a mix of business IT services that fall loosely
under the “cloud” umbrella, with products, branding approaches and go-to-market
strategies varying by provider. The following capsules offer selected examples:
BendBroadband: The independent Oregon cable company
stands out in the cable/cloud marketplace by virtue of its
wholly owned regional data center, BendBroadband
Vault, launched in 2011 and certi ied by the Uptime
Institute as a Tier III facility. In addition to offering
collocated leased data center space, BendBroadband
Vault offers cloud services through partnerships with
VMware and CommVault. They include:
Vault Restore: cloud-based online backup and
disaster recovery services
Virtual Data Center: Server and storage
virtualization
Infrastructure-as-a-Service
Private cloud design
Bright House Networks: Hosted Microsoft Exchange
and remote data backup are two pillars of the business
cloud portfolio. Also of note: A hosted voice service,
branded Gadget, that combines elements of Bright
House Networks’ business phone and broadband
Internet services to enable a full-featured business
communication solution allowing anywhere access to
calls and messages from multiple devices (PCs, mobile
phones and tablets).
Cablevision (Lightpath): Cloud services include
Optimum Lightpath Hosted Voice, a cloud hosted
business voice service offering a variety of call features
(auto attendant, call forward, selective call treatment
and more) plus uni ied messaging, mobility applications
and collaboration/ conferencing features. In addition, a
deep lineup of “Lightpath Managed Services” can be
construed as cloud-based, although Optimum Lightpath
intentionally does not use the term “cloud” in its
product branding. Among these are:
Managed Wi-Fi
Managed backup
Collaboration and conferencing services
Managed video services
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
Charter Business: Cloud services for SMBs are
provided through a partnership with services
enablement specialist Parallels. They include hosted
exchange, data backup and website management,
backed by a self-service portal designed to appeal to
small businesses that may lack internal IT resources.
Comcast Business Services: Prominent cloud services
include:
Business VoiceEdge, a hosted PBX offering that
allows business customers to replace premisebased telephone equipment with a hosted solution
that reduces capital outlays and allows more
lexibility in adding lines and managing service
features.
The Upware™ Marketplace, a collection of cloudbased, third-party business applications targeted
to SMBs and available for purchase via Comcast’s
business portal. Upware applications include data
backup solutions from Carbonite and Mozy;
security products from Norton and Websense,
collaboration tools from Box (online storage),
Microsoft (Web collaboration); Soonr (online ile
sharing) and YouSendIt (document collaboration).
The Upware product set is designed to help small
business owners simplify “what can be a complex
world of choices when evaluating cloud-based
services,” explained Kevin O’Toole, Senior Vice
President and General Manager of New Business
Solutions for Comcast Business Services in a blog post.
Comcast’s cloud-for-business portfolio draws in part on
resources of Colorado-based New Global Telecom, an IP
voice services provider acquired by Comcast in 2010,
and Cimco, a Chicago-based telecommunications and
cloud services provider Comcast acquired in 2011.
13
14. Cox Communications: Cloud offerings include
VoiceManager IP Centrex, an advanced cloud-based
hosted VoIP telephone system, delivering businessgrade voice service over Cox’s private network. The
hosted voice service is positioned as a way to
“eliminate the complexity of traditional PBX or key
systems and unite your entire business with a single
communications platform.”
In some markets Cox allows offers virtual
environments for storage and access to networked
computing resources, including Tier 4 data center
security/backup plus CaaS offerings featuring virtual
portals that enable self-management of operating
systems, leased servers and CPU/memory/storage
requirements. Among bene its highlighted are:
Pay less for hardware handling and housing
Gain improved business continuity with offsite
computing and built-in redundancy
Deploy repetitive computing solutions faster with
fewer issues
In August 2013, Cox announced a strategic partnership
with data center operator ViaWest that adds colocation
and cloud infrastructure services offerings in Cox’s
Las Vegas, Phoenix and Southern California markets.
BUSINESS MARKET INTELLIGENCE FROM CTAM — CABLE AND THE CLOUD
Suddenlink Communications: Services Suddenlink
de ines as “cloud” based account for roughly 10 percent
of total commercial and carrier services revenue,
according to Mary Meduski, Executive Vice President
and Chief Financial Of icer. They also represent a
“mission critical” set of services for SMBs. That
translates to “stickier” relationships that bode well for
customer longevity, she commented during a 2013
Cable Show panel discussion.
Cloud services offered by Suddenlink include managed
Wi-Fi networks and managed VPNs.
Time Warner Cable: Hosted communication and
collaboration solutions for SMBs include Microsoft
Hosted Exchange, SharePoint and Outlook applications,
plus online backup.
Enterprise and larger-business solutions are delivered
via Navisite, the cloud services provider Time Warner
Cable acquired in 2011. Navisite/TWC Business
offerings include:
Application services
Enterprise hosting
Managed cloud services
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