Carriers, Vendors Form ACCA

HONG KONG -- Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems, EMC Corporation, Microsoft, NetApp, Nokia Siemens Networks, PLDT/Smart, Rackspace, REACH, Telenor, and Verizon, today announced they have formed Asia Cloud Computing Association (Asia Cloud), an open collaboration forum based in the Asia Pacific region.

The non-profit, vendor-neutral organization will address regional issues and challenges to adoption of cloud computing in Asia including privacy and security concerns, compliance and regulatory mandates, licensing models, service levels, and other market risks.

The research firm IDC estimates that the market for cloud computing in Asia outside Japan will grow to around US$1.3 billion this year and will continue to expand at a rate of approximately 40 percent a year until 2014 (Source: IDC, 2010), whereas in Japan, currently the second largest IT market globally, the cloud computing market is expected to grow to US$29.2 billion in 2015 (Source: Japan’s Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry 2010). However, security concerns, data storage regulations, low penetration of bandwidth in some countries, and government policies oriented to traditional computing models are inhibiting market growth.

Asia Cloud Computing Association (Asia Cloud)