Verizon: CloudSwitch Buy Boosts Cloud Services Portfolio

Verizon's acquisition of cloud software player CloudSwitch cloud services

"It certainly sets us apart," said Chris Gesell, chief innovation and strategy officer for Verizon's Terremark business. "Verizon is in the best position … to guide our clients through the private, public and hybrid cloud."

Gesell said the addition of CloudSwitch, which makes software that enables companies to move workloads and applications between cloud and on-premise infrastructure without the need to tweak the application or manage it differently, "puts [Verizon] in the camp where we're a software originator and leader in the market."

Verizon's push to the cloud comes as traditional telecoms, carriers and service providers are bulking up their cloud portfolios and looking to capitalize on the explosive growth of the cloud computing market. But Gesell said the acquisition of CloudSwitch, coupled with Verizon's $1.4 billion acquisition of cloud infrastructure provider Terremark earlier this year, extends Verizon's lead over the carrier competition and puts it in the same category as major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Rackspace.

Gesell added that Verizon intends to maintain CloudSwitch's multi-cloud capabilities and not make it proprietary to Terremark clouds.

"We believe it's going to be a multi-cloud environment for our cloud customers," Gesell said, noting that Verizon is still hashing out its go-to-market for CloudSwitch, but that it will likely be sold as both stand-alone software and bundled with Terremark cloud services.

That go-to-market will also tie in the channel, Gesell said.

CloudSwitch co-founder and vice president of products Ellen Rubin said CloudSwitch, which has sold its software commercially for roughly a year, has drawn a lot of interest from systems integrators and consultants, and CloudSwitch will continue building out its channel strategy under Verizon and Terremark.

Rubin said the combination of Verizon and CloudSwitch creates a single-stop cloud shop where users can buy cloud, network and a host of other services and the acquisition pushes the cloud market forward.

"There's a need in the market for a complete enterprise solution," Rubin said.