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Chinese vendor partners with Amazon Web Services to build business Internet platform.
AsiaInfo this week announced the launch of its cloud-based BSS product and revealed that it is looking for an adventurous European telecoms operator to become its first customer.
"We have a number of prospective customers," for Veris Cloud Core, which is an entirely cloud-based version of the vendor’s existing Veris BSS software suite, AsiaInfo VP of product marketing Andy Tiller told Total Telecom ahead of the announcement.
"We’re looking for the early adopters," Tiller said, for example, tier-two mobile mobile operators in Europe. "We think an early adopter will sign this year," he predicted.
The European version of Cloud Core – which is pre-configured to comply with European regulations and runs on Amazon’s European servers – will be commercially available from the second quarter of this year. One or more Asian versions of the product will follow at a later date.
The offering forms part of a broader partnership with Amazon Web Services that AsiaInfo also announced on Thursday.
The vendor plans to build what it terms a business Internet platform based on AWS that will enable telecoms operators and enterprise customers to roll out new products and services faster.
AsiaInfo believes that working with Amazon will give it greater credibility when it comes to encouraging telcos to step out of their comfort zones and make the move into the cloud.
"We’ll have to convince them that is safe to do so," Tiller admitted. But he noted that Amazon has more experts in data security than the telcos have in-house, referring to recent compromises suffered by operators, such as last year’s cyberattack on U.K.-based TalkTalk.
"You can get a lot of confidence from the credibility of Amazon," Tiller said.
The wider Amazon deal is something of a long-term bet for AsiaInfo, which is seeking to get ahead of the game as businesses and applications increasingly converge and collaborate.
Practical applications could see a cooking video incorporate the ability for the viewer to make an online shopping order from within the clip, linking to his or her supermarket loyalty card, for example.
To achieve something like that, "you’ve got to join a lot of things up," Tiller said. "You need a platform in the cloud where they can all collaborate."
AsiaInfo is working on prototype versions of such features with India’s Reliance and other companies in China, Tiller said, but commercial availability is likely to be some way off.
He was also keen to stress that the feature he shared is just one of many possible outcomes. "It could be many other examples," he said.
