Views from Telco Cloud World Forum

Colt recently attended and chaired a couple of sessions (see our slides below) at Telco Cloud World Forum in London on 28-30 April. The event focuses on the development of Cloud-based services from the perspective of telcos and solution providers and this year attracted over 100 telecom operators from 56+ countries.

While it’s clear most network operators are already offering some kind of cloud services, the type, strategy and maturity still varies greatly and many are in the early stages of developing their offering… hence many of the event sponsors are orchestration providers and marketplace platforms.

One of these sponsors, Canonical, the company behind the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu, was promoting the open-source cloud infrastructure platform OpenStack which they support. During a conversation I had with them, they were surprised to learn Colt is already using a similar open-source platform: CloudStack. Their take was that most network operators don’t have a clear cloud strategy yet, let alone a defined stack manager, and praised the advanced stage at which Colt is in this respect.

One of the presentations that stood out for me was from a Dutch operator, who presented the “Online workplace” solution. Marketing names aside, this is a VDI solution practically the same as what Colt offers and uses internally today - a “Windows desktop in the cloud” under a consumption-based model so that customers only pay for the storage and cpu that they use, and which they can access from any connected device.

The presentation included a video which highlighted the many benefits of the service. I was, however, surprised to see that the video showed a traditional desktop being pushed to a mobile device. Windows was designed for large screens, a mouse and keyboard, while the main success of mobile platforms like the iPhone is their simplicity and usability with a finger. I understand it is technically possible to use Windows on an iPhone but, in my opinion just because it’s possible doesn’t mean that users will love it.

VDI has many benefits such as simplified management, security and lower TCO, but isn’t without its own challenges. That’s why we are currently exploring “what happens after VDI”. We call this prototype the Enterprise Workspace Evolution, an umbrella name for all the technologies that could support the shift from device-driven IT to a user and information management focus.

The prototype is looking not only at how to improve the user experience of current VDI services, but also at how to enable new scenarios where users need to work offline or from mobile devices, i.e. through workspace managers that are context-aware and provide secure access to information and corporate applications depending on the platform being used.

I’m pleased to say that industry experts we met at Telco Cloud World Forum and at other events are showing great interest in the journey we’re painting.

How do you think the enterprise desktop user experience will look in the future? Feel free to contact me directly or via the blog to find out more about Colt’s view.