The Australian telco has partnered with vendors Cisco, VMware and Accenture to build the integrated cloud platform and will use cloud technology partner Microsoft to deliver the services.
Telstra said that the reason for this heavy investment was to support the growing demand for cloud services from organisations across Australia.
“We are experiencing strong sales in our cloud voice and video services, which are exceeding 80% per year and we now manage more than 100,000 IP telephony services delivered from the cloud,” said David Thodey, CEO at Telstra.
The money will be put towards new services including building new data centres and updating existing ones, expanding enterprise applications and enhancing the capabilities of Telstra’s T-Suite software.
Thodey added: “There is no one solution that fits all with cloud computing. Telstra is investing to develop and deliver cloud computing solutions that can meet the individual needs of Australian businesses and governments.”
Corporate customers which use Telstra’s cloud services include wine producers Australian Vintage Limited, the Salvation Army Employment Plus, Oz Minerals, leisure and entertainment company Tabcorp and Tristar Medical Group.
"[Telstra] will have fierce competitors such as IBM, Microsoft, Google, and HP," said Paul Budde, MD of BuddeComm. "However, Telstra has the network capacity and is now building up the software around it to challenge these perhaps more experienced IT companies."
"They are well and truly establishing themselves as a leader in the market, which I believe a is a very clever move," added Budde.
