Orange confirms VCE business alliance

OBS plots move to the cloud through alliance with Virtual Computing Environment coalition

Orange Business Services has teamed up with VMware, Cisco and EMC to deliver cloud services

Orange Business Services (OBS), the mobile communications giant's B2B arm, has joined forces with the members of the Virtual Computing Environment (VCE) coalition to deliver cloud services.

OBS confirmed its alliance with VMware, Cisco and EMC earlier this week, which will operate under the Flexible 4 Business banner.

Flexible 4 Business aims to provide enterprise customers with cloud-based services, including data backup and unified communications, delivered using the VCE’s Vblock packages. The technology will also allow customers to deploy private clouds.

Vivek Badrinath, chief executive of OBS, said the alliance will make it easier for enterprises to move into the cloud.

"Today's business alliance will make cloud computing a reachable reality for global enterprises, providing for our customers' security requirements and mitigating the complexity of technical migration,” he said. “With the industry's top cloud players we will ease the migration for our enterprise customers."

Peter Hall, principal analyst at Ovum, said OBS’ experience in offering managed datacentre services should stand the firm in good stead.

“The Flexible 4 Business alliance brings together leading players in cloud computing so enterprises can have the confidence that solutions, including private cloud, are delivered and managed on a global scale to the highest standards," he said.