In Virgin Media means business in UK public sector we commented that Virgin Media Business had ambitions to be a ‘broker’ of cloud services, and that it would need to do this in conjunction with partners in order to keep its focus primarily on its network knitting.
Well today the FT reports that the company is doing just that. It is launching its first cloud-based services to business customers by offering infrastructure-as-a-service through a virtual private data centre (VPDC), which is says can be set up and rolled out to customers within two hours. The technology will be provided by Savvis, the US web hosting and services provider (see Savvis bought by US telco). Virgin Media believes its customers will primarily use the service to test and develop e-commerce applications.
While it is not unusual for telcos to partner with IT services players or vice versa to bid for contracts, the ‘cloud’ is making these type of strategic partnering arrangements more common. With a strong desire to grow in the UK public sector market it looks like a smart move to have wed a large global player which already has a foothold in the UK government ‘cloud’ market. If you remember, Savvis was selected by the MoJ as its IaaS provider in March this year (see Accenture, Steria and Savvis share MoJ deal).