SingTel takes Optus on board

Can Optus turn SingTel into a pan-Asian success?

According to Ovum, both companies can leverage on each other's strengths, with SingTel being able to take advantage of Optus’s knowledge and experience in cloud computing. 

In a media release, Optus Business has announced a series of initiatives for its enterprise and government customers that are well aligned with SingTel. This marks a change in the company’s direction following the recent restructuring of the group across pan-Asian lines, whereby Optus Business now is part of SingTel Group ICT, and could pave the way for more regional offerings.

The features that Optus Business has added to its enterprise cloud services include a new storage solution and more pricing and access options. It has also rebranded its portfolio as Optus PowerON, the same brand used by SingTel, and is including cloud consulting services from NCS, SingTel’s IT services company.

Ovum weighs in:

These might sound like small changes, but they clearly illustrate SingTel’s intention to roll out a uniform regional cloud offer.

SingTel has a leader position in cloud computing in Singapore.The challenge has always been to build on its momentum in the domestic market and turn it into pan-Asian success, and taking Optus on board will certainly help SingTel to build a regional proposition. 

SingTel can use Optus’s valuable knowledge and experience in cloud computing and deeper relationships with vendors such as VMware to help build its own proposition in the Australian market. Joining forces can also contribute to Optus’s cost-efficiency program. Working together across the group is a more efficient way to roll out new services, but investments, especially in delivery capacity, will still be necessary to match competitors’ offerings. 

Enterprises in the Asia-Pacific region are asking for combined technology solutions that can take advantage of fixed wireless networks and innovations in applications management, and they also need end-to-end SLAs for these.The trick for SingTel and Optus will be to combine telemetry solutions and wireless broadband transmission with data collection and hosting and fixed international backhaul, and to provide end-user network monitoring across all of these services.