Deutsche Telekom Takes On Amazon, Google, With Huawei Cloud Deal

One of Europe’s largest mobile network providers has revealed plans to take on the likes of Google and Amazon with a major expansion of its cloud computing business.

German network Deutsche Telekom has announced an expansion to its work with Chinese giant Huawei, with T-Systems, its IT arm, will now be offering services such as infrastructure, platforms and applications that can are accessible via the public Internet via the public cloud.

Storage will play a big part in the new partnership, as large enterprises served by T-Systems will now see Huawei provide hardware and solutions, and T-Systems will provide network management and network.

Competitive

The news was announced today at Huawei’s Innovation Day event in Europe, and is part of Deutsche Telekom’s aim to become the largest telecoms company in Europe and more than double its €1 billion (£723m) revenues from business cloud customers by 2018.

There was no definite definition on prices, but Deutsche Telekom said it will offer ‘very attractive’ pricing on the level with the likes of Google and Amazon.

The first customers will be going live in October, with a public launch happening at CeBIT 2016.

“At Deutsche Telekom, we want to grow by more than 20 percent each year in the field of cloud platforms, and to become the leading provider for businesses in Europe,” said Dr. Ferri Abolhassan, director of the IT Division at T-Systems.

“We are securing the best balance of price, service and quality for our customers when migrating their IT to the cloud.”

The two firms first signed an agreement at the CeBIT event earlier this year, looking at establishing container-based private cloud solutions, but today’s announcement marks a significant step in T-Systems stepping up its work, the company said.

The partnership adds typical German efficiency to the affordability and simplicity provided by Huawei’s existing cloud solutions, Abolhassan said, noting that the two companies had worked together in some way for around 10 years.

“After we agreed on our cooperation regarding IT infrastructure and Private Cloud services during CeBIT we are now taking the next step and combining our know-how and cutting-edge technology in the Public Cloud area to ensure that companies of all sizes are provided with the Cloud of their choice,” said Haibo Zhang, president of Huawei Deutsche Telekom key account department.

Take our cloud quiz here!