Google Cloud gathers telco momentum with new partnerships

Google Cloud has announced two new partnerships with Telecom Italia, T-Systems and AT&T in an effort to build momentum in the burgeoning enterprise connectivity world.

Starting with Telecom Italia (TIM), Google will help the telco build public, private and hybrid cloud services as enterprise customers become more important in the new era of connectivity. As with every telco, the enterprise segment is one being heavily targeted by TIM, with plans to exceed €1 billion in annual revenues with more attention being paid to cloud and edge services.

“This strategic partnership with Google places TIM among the Italian key players in Cloud and Edge computing, two markets that will become more and more central with the deployment of 5G technology and Artificial Intelligence,” said TIM CEO, Luigi Gubitosi. “By choosing to join forces with a recognised global technological and innovation leader we confirm our commitment to promote and accompany Italy’s digital progress.”

As part of the agreement, Google Cloud will partner with TIM to open new cloud regions in Italy, with the telco suggesting it has developed training programmes involving 6,000 people in the commercial, pre-sales and technical areas. With a larger data centre footprint across the region, new services will be developed focusing on low latency and high-performance cloud-based workloads and data.

Over in Germany, the tie-up between Google and T-Systems will focus on digital transformation and managed services, with T-Systems providing consulting services, migration support and managed services to enterprise customers leveraging Google Cloud capabilities.

“Our joint goal is to support organizations in their digitization and to improve business processes with the cloud,” said Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of T-Systems. “This partnership is a core element of our strategy, generating value-add for our clients with managed cloud services.”

As part of the partnership, T-Systems will create a Google Cloud competence centre which will focus on creating customised cloud solutions and services for its customers. Services will focus on large-scale workload migrations to the cloud, SAP application modernization, development of new AI and ML solutions, as well as solutions for data warehouse and data analytics in the cloud.

Finally, the partnership between Google and AT&T will aim to develop 5G edge solutions in industries like retail, manufacturing and transportation.

“Combining AT&T’s network edge, including 5G, with Google Cloud’s edge compute technologies can unlock the cloud’s true potential,” said Mo Katibeh, CMO of AT&T Business. “This work is bringing us closer to a reality where cloud and edge technologies give businesses the tools to create a whole new world of experiences for their customers.”

Partnerships between local telecoms companies and the internet giants are starting to become more common and Google has been leveraging local expertise and presence. In India, Google has struck a deal with Airtel to offer its productivity suite. This deal was announced a few months after a similar tie up between telco Reliance Jio and Microsoft Azure.

Elsewhere, Google has partnerships with CenturyLink for areas such as cloud enablement, migration services, SAP and big data, NTT Data in Japan, BICS in Belgium and China Mobile, just to name a few.

As the lines between telecoms and ICT continue to blur, these partnerships will become much more common and deeply entrenched. However, there does seem to be a slight shift in mentality, with the telcos bringing network assets to the party and leveraging the cloud power of Silicon Valley. Telcos are highly unlikely to be able to compete with the likes of Google Cloud and AWS when it comes to software and services, so why bother?

There is clearly a lot for both parties to gain from these partnerships, though telcos are leaning more towards working with the cloud giants as opposed to competing with them directly. Perhaps a much more sensible approach.