Cloud technology reveals revenue opportunities for IT firms

Nigerian Information Technology firms, in a view to drastically reduce capital expenditure in the year 2013, are giving consideration to cloud technology innovation and potentials to drive their market.

Cloud computing is a general term for anything that involves delivering hosted services over the Internet.

These services are broadly divided into three categories; Infrastructure as a service, Platform as a service and Software as a service.

From the analysed research, firm Gartner believes the Cloud Computing scheduling and usage by corporations even at the global level could hit $150 billion in the year 2013.For the Nigerian market Industry watchers, the Nation has a market potential of about $ 1 billion.

Monu Ogbe, Executive Director at an IT Firm Kitskoo which offers cloud computing services said “From a financial point in view saving up to 80 percent in Capital expense and 20 percent in running costs, represents a compelling business case and a significant opportunity for service providers to provide all the services that firms produce at a managed service basis”.

Also the Country Manager for NetApp Mr Rex Mafiana asserted that “Currently local clouds are led by telecoms firms hosting services locally. Starting in 2013 banks are likely to come online and build and merge operating infrastructure”.

The Cloud has both Public and Private space services and provision, and from the Government circle, Rivers State in 2012 with support of MTN and Globacom, developed the RivCloud computing service. Also the NNPC in July 2012, built a closed cloud system, which will help it save about $5 million annually by centralizing its operations