Experton positions Colt as cloud leader

Security, control and compliance concerns have always been cited as obstacles to cloud computing. Every year since 2010 has been labelled “the year of cloud” but some commentators have risked their necks and labelled 2013 as the tipping point for cloud going mainstream.

This is what makes a recent report on the cloud marketplace in Germany - Europe’s biggest economy and the world’s fifth largest - so interesting. Indeed this study highlights what’s becoming a top cloud computing headache for CIOs: making sense of an increasingly crowded, complex cloud vendor landscape.

Research and analyst firm Experton’s Cloud Vendor Benchmark 2013 (in German) paints a detailed picture of the B2B cloud technology and services market in Germany.

Experton confirms that 2013 will be a significant year when five percent of all German B2B IT spending will be on cloud services. While this might sound modest, the German cloud market is worth 4.61 billion euros today and will be 6.95 billion euros by 2014. It is already four times the size of the mainframe computing market.

The driving force for cloud in Germany is more than just cost saving, says Experton. Automation of business processes and models is spreading fast and innovations in mobile, ecommerce and social depend on the cloud. The significance of cloud computing is highlighted by how Germany’s global software giant SAP intends to be the largest company in the cloud this year.

Some big figures and trends but for me the real crux of the report comes in how Experton describes CIOs trying to master the complexity of vendor offerings as a “herculean” task of “multi-dimensional decision making.”

In analysing the cloud offerings of 133 vendors in Germany (up from 109 in 2012 and from a longer list of more than 380 possible vendors), Experton provides clear, independent guidance on vendors’ portfolio attractiveness and competitive strengths.

Experton’s analysis confirms Colt as a leader in Managed Cloud, Managed Private Cloud and Cloud Services for the Midmarket.

Colt’s leadership position has strengthened since we were evaluated in last year’s benchmark. Our differentiation lies in how network services are combined with data centres to provide a powerful platform for managed cloud services. Colt has invested in dedicated cloud infrastructure and services for the German market as part of how we deliver the largest enterprise class cloud footprint in Europe.

Our joined up approach resolves Experton’s “herculean” challenge because a clear choice of proven end-to-end cloud and network services dispels the headache – and hefty hidden costs - of working with separate providers. Private clouds hosted and managed within Germany are a further reassurance for CIOs subject to national laws over data privacy and control.

The German market is passing an important threshold. Our experience with clients is that the argument is less about whether they should put enterprise data in the cloud but what kinds of data and applications. Proof of concept projects on virtualisation using our cloud services are plentiful and leading to Colt hosting major applications in finance, professional services and media for example.

While there are plenty of national variations between cloud markets in individual European countries, the need for vendors to offer stronger, easier to evaluate and robust cloud offerings is universal and is becoming more important as enterprises look to navigate through current market hype to actual cloud deployments and, most important, real business benefits.