It seems like every mid-to-large business is doing something in the cloud. If these companies don’t offer a cloud service, they have migrated to the cloud, or are talking about doing so. That is, except for the telcos, who some believe are overlooking the cloud.

In a great blog post by Olafur Ingthorsson, he highlights the current state of telcos in the cloud. On the surface, it seems that telcos are having a difficult time in positioning, but in reality it might be a bit different. Most of them are paying keen attention to the evolving cloud ecosystem and the viability of different offerings.

I believe that a telco offering cloud computing services should do more than just rename the existing LEC hosted services. They must enable individuals and businesses to adopt mobility and enhance productivity. This is the only way to provide superior value.

From a decision maker perspective, the real value of telco resides in faster and cheaper mobility enablement to drive operational efficiencies. Instead of buying the repackaged hosting pitch, I want to know from my telco provider:

• How can they help me to accelerate enterprise or critical business applications enablement on mobile devices

• How mobile OS based tablets can help me reduce my software, hardware and device management costs?

• Can they help me reduce the number of devices my workforce uses (desk phones, cell phones, pagers, GPS, laptop, etc.) to run the business, hence driving operational efficiencies? 

The key here is how a telco can help customers or businesses become more efficient and cost effective, by using their strengths and expertise. If telcos can offer unique mobile business applications along with promised 4G speeds (WiMax /LTE) than they are relevant in the cloud context as a mobility enabler helping business or consumers to maximize the benefit of cloud.

Cloud computing and mobility adoption by a sizable customer base will require a high bandwidth network. With promised 4G speeds small businesses don’t have to spend a significant amount of money to get the higher bandwidth or so called “guaranteed bandwidth” services. Customers must be able to leverage powerful 4G devices and tablets to conduct their business, any-time any-where, using the cloud.

As cloud computing evolves to handle critical functions of mid-large size businesses, the need for high speed, secure and reliable cloud federation would become obvious. This will drive demand for value added, highly secure and reliable services which only telcos are experienced and proven to deliver.