Cloud Wars
Cisco recently announced they will invest over a billion dollars in its cloud product called “InterCloud” to compete with Amazon, Google and others in the cloud marketplace. The company said it plans to
deliver the InterCloud service with and through partners including Australian telecom service provider Telstra, tech distributor Ingram Micro Inc., and Indian IT company Wipro Ltd.
Cisco is said to be building its InterCloud product on the OpenStack software suite, an open-source, cloud-computing standard. There is already a vibrant ecosystem built around OpenStack and this should give Cisco a great head start into the cloud business. It will be interesting to watch how well Cisco incorporates their products into the OpenStack architecture for interoperability purposes.
What does this mean for boutique cloud providers like Bend Cloud? Since Bend Cloud is also a Cisco Hardware Reseller we are in perfect position to utilize whatever infrastructure Cisco brings to market. I also expect to see some very competitive pricing in the market as Cisco’s initiative begins to take hold. All of this is good news for the consumers of cloud services as they will have yet another option available at their disposal and they should continue to see cloud prices dropping in the future.