Amazon exec buoyant on Thailand’s cloud
Amazon Web Services, the world’s largest cloud service provider under Amazon, is optimistic about cloud services in Thailand’s enterprise market.
Positive factors include speed to market, strong security and low investment costs, according to Nick Walton, head of Asean at Amazon Web Services (AWS).
“Over the next six months, there will be more big enterprises in Thailand moving to use public cloud services more apart from previously its dominant in startup,” he said.
Speaking recently at AWS Summit Bangkok 2017 to more than 1,000 delegates, Mr Walton said he anticipated success for his local office here after one year of operation, noting that some traditional firms like Dohome, a hardware store, has already moved to the world of cloud technology, and has been able to transform its business with a highly automated supply chain.
In the meantime, banking, telecoms, entertainment and the media are among the sectors innovating most in terms of new services, putting them in a strong position to go to market faster with less total cost of ownership, as well as the ability to scale for overseas business expansion.
Banks are under pressure from new fintech startups and from regulators to be more open to using cloud services.
“A lot of innovation and digital transformation will be more driven due to the recognition of cloud services,” Mr Walton said.
The pressure of rising costs has caused telecom operators to find new revenue sources and with cloud technology, they can save up to 60% on traditional IT costs within five years.
The media and entertainment industries need to manage a huge amount of content and distribute it via multiple channels to reach customer. They need to make their business effectively competitive with over-the-top players.
Advanced security systems also encourage those enterprises to use their core applications in the cloud.
Mr Walton said cloud services also encourage software developers and businesses to faster adopt emerging technologies like the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence. And with improved voice and image recognition technology, next-generation applications for customers can be produced with simpler means.
“We also see high growth potential in Southeast Asia for Amazon’s cloud-based call centre system, data warehouse as a service (DWaaS) and analytic tools which very much help save costs for call centre business and big data analytic storage; these all serve the needs of digital transformation,” he said.
With Amazon’s DWaaS, business can start from US$0.25 (8.50 baht) an hour and scale up to petabytes of data for $1,000 per terabyte per year, which is less than one-tenth of the traditional solution cost.
“We continue to invest in Thailand and the Asean region, which have a high growth potential,” Mr Walton said, noting that Thailand is one of 20 countries in the region where the company has local offices.
AWS does not have a plan to set up a local data centre in Thailand because the company already provides good service directly connected from a data centre in Singapore with a direct international link through True IDC, United Information Highway, Megaport and Colt.
In Thailand, there is a strong AWS user group joined by some 3,000 people.