Telstra has announced a £500m+ (AU$800m) investment in cloud computing over the next five years to support what it says is a growing demand from Australian organisations for cloud services.

The telco is rumoured to have invested AU$200m in the cloud to date and this latest announcement will kick-off the construction of a new data centre, the modernisation of existing facilities, increased automation of utility computing services and the expansion of the telco’s range of enterprise applications, among other things. Construction of a new data centre in Melbourne is already underway.

CEO David Thodey said that sales of the company’s T-Suite software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering had grown threefold in the past year, while use of Telstra’s cloud infrastructure had increased by 50 per cent. Making the announcement, Thodey said that the company was “also experiencing strong sales in our cloud voice and video services, which are exceeding 80 per cent per year and we now manage more than 100,000 IP telephony services delivered from the cloud.”

Telstra is partnering with vendors Cisco, VMware, Microsoft and Accenture to build the next phase of its integrated cloud platform and services. According to the company, cloud is part of Telstra’s strategy to grow its network application and services business. The telco says that, over the past year, it has spoken to more than 160 Australian organisations about their cloud computing needs, “with many of these beginning to move into the cloud.” Among those using Telstra’s cloud services are Tristar Medical Group, Oz Minerals and The Salvation Army Employment Plus.

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