Telefonica to Compete with Amazon for Cloud Computing Infrastructure

"Instant Servers" is a cloud-based infrastructure as a service offering that Telefonica hopes will allow it to offer a big branded alternative to other services such as Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud that offer virtual server services.

That a big global telco thinks cloud computing is a business opportunity is not new. But the move might also illustrate one other aspect of competing with Amazon. A big company, with a "trusted" brand might be helpful, and sometimes essential, for any would-be competitor to firms such as Amazon. 

Some familiar with customer opinion surveys might counter that people do not "like" their telco suppliers so well. That is true. But the issue is "trust," not "likability." The point is that potential customers might trust a telco to engineer and operate a reliable, available service, even if those suppliers are not particularly well liked. 

Instant Servers promises 99.996 percent availability with a service guarantee that pays customers when those service level agreements are violated. 

Telefonica  also says its clouds can quadruple in capacity instantly, and without rebooting.