Cloud brokers are key to our growth: IBM

MUMBAI, INDIA: For IBM, the global technology and innovation firm, cloud brokers play a vital role in its expansion plans to new geographies and customers.

According to Micheal McCarthy, IBM's vice president, Global Technology Services, there is a growing demand for its cloud services which offers tremendous opportunities to the company.

“However, it would not be possible to reach out to the customers spread across geographies without cloud partners. They are important channels for our company,” McCarthy told CIOL.

“IBM has a big cloud ecosystem which is also called 'cloud brokers' in other parts of the world and it includes telcos, independent software vendors (ISVs), local partners and resellers. Such cloud partners or brokers source IBM's technology and infrastructure on the back-end and front-end to offer cloud services under white label,” he continued.

According to McCarthy, even though its partners use IBM technology as a delivery engine for cloud services, they don't want to invest or own any infrastructure. But they are still able to provide cloud services, he said.

Interestingly, IBM's cloud brokers are mostly telecommunication providers which offer infrastructure and platform as a service (IaaS and PaaS). “For telecom providers, its a natural extension of their business. On the top of IBM's platform, they can create or build a new layer to offer and reach out to customers and thus increase revenues,” he said.

Moreover, ISVs largely use cloud technology for software developments and henceforth they offer software as a service (SaaS) or software on-demand over the cloud to their customers.

In McCarthy's view, cloud is relatively a new concept and currently the ratio between IBM and its cloud partners is around 80:20. However, he strongly feels that going forward, the ratio will increase to 60:40.

“In coming years, about 60-70 per cent of customers will be from cloud partners as they are very strategic and important to IBM,” he concluded.