IP-Converge sets stage for cloud-based services in Phl

MANILA, Philippines - A “cloud” is gathering over the country’s business horizon, carrying a host of on-demand services, platforms, software and infrastructure that will empower enterprises and individuals through cost efficient technology.

IP-Converge, the country’s first and only publicly-listed Internet data center and cloud services provider, is helping set the stage for a cloud-based Philippines, ensuring that local enterprises, especially small and medium enterprises (SMEs), can and will take advantage of this next biggest thing in IT.

Through its cloudvocacy campaign dubbed “Think Out Cloud” recently launched in Makati City, IP-Converge seeks to widen awareness on cloud computing among local enterprises. According to IP-Converge president Rene Huergas, “by Thinking Out Cloud and acknowledging the many benefits of cloud computing, CEOs will realize how their businesses can achieve higher productivity and significant savings.”

Present during IP-Converge’s press briefing were executives from one of its partners in cloud computing, Microsoft Philippines. “Our partnership with Microsoft enables us to offer enterprises top of the line cloud-based business solutions right from our own Internet data center,” Huergas said. “With Microsoft solutions running on our infrastructure, users get the best ‘hybrid’ cloud offering they can find locally.”

 “Through premier cloud technologies empowering Filipino companies, we, together with IP-Converge, are transforming local businesses, allowing them to take advantage of flexible solutions that cater to their business requirements at cost-effective investments,” Microsoft Philippines managing director John Bessey, for his part, noted.

IP-Converge’s partnerships with global leaders in the cloud computing space allows the company to provide Philippine business with avenues for global excellence through cloud computing and its other services.

Think Out Cloud also heralds the company’s efforts to make more accessible, especially to SMEs, its value-driven solutions and services by offering them on the cloud. 

 “We believe that cloud computing will be standard model for business operations in the future,” Huergas said.

Market research firm IDC forecasts a 27-percent growth in public IT cloud services by the year 2014. “This is why we want it to be accessible to the most number of Filipinos and local enterprises,” Huergas added.

Known for their “boutique approach,” IP-Converge also offers products in pay-as-you-use scheme, making their services affordable especially for SMEs because they only need to pay for the services that they need.

 “It has always been IP-Converge’s vision to empower Philippine businesses, both big and small, and make them leaders in their own industries,” he said.

IP-Converge said it is one of the IT companies today that are in the best position to offer cloud services in the country, being currently peered with major domestic and international Internet exchanges in Asia Pacific.

The company is also set to open its second state-of-the-art, full-service data center facility at The Fort in the last quarter of 2011.

 “Philippines stands to gain from the cloud migration. It will create a business landscape where companies will take to tapping capex-free business solutions that enable them to be more flexible, cost efficient and globally competitive,” Huergas added.