Telcos Will Be Big in Cloud Computing

AT&T, BT, Orange Business Services and Verizon Business (News - Alert) have "can now compete with established players from the IT industry" in the cloud computing arena, say researchers at Ovum. 

Some observers have speculated that the telcos might not fare so well in some parts of the cloud computing ecosystem, particularly in parts of the ecosystem requiring more application expertise. That might well be true, but there seems little reason to believe telcos cannot be major players in those parts of the business that are more centrally related to managed hosting. 

Consumer voice services always have been managed services, and their roles as Internet access providers likewise already has required telcos to become managed service providers in that area as well.