Telstra teams with Accenture to offer cloud computing

Stuart Corner
Thursday, 21 October 2010 15:43

IT Industry - Strategy

Telstra Enterprise and Government has formed a partnership with Accenture to offer cloud computing services and facilities to enterprise and government clients.

Clients' applications will be hosted in a virtualised environment in Telstra data centres and delivered over Telstra's IP network infrastructure. Accenture will provide the expertise to transition clients' existing applications into the cloud and to provide ongoing support for those applications, and to implement new applications in the cloud rather than in customers' own data centres. The agreement apples in both Australia and New Zealand.

Telstra and Accenture signed their alliance agreement in April and say they have already helped a number of customers to improve productivity through cloud computing. Two of these - Fulton Hogan and Stella Travel - have been named.

According to the head of Telstra Enterprise and Government, Nerida Caesar, the initiative has been well received by consumers. "We have engaged in sessions with 150 customers in groups of about 12 at a time coming in where we have articulated this proposition to them and listened to their issues and concerns," she said.

Steve Willis, managing director, Accenture Australia communications and high tech, said: "We have six joint customers and 30 or 40 we are actively talking to, varying from fairly small implementations to the whole suite of applications."

He said that Telstra and Accenture brought very complementary resources to the partnership and the combination of the two had a number of key advantages over competing offerings.

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