Government should do more to prevent the monopolisation of multicloud, says report

Multicloud needs to be adopted by the public sector to avoid it being monopolised, a new report, written by business consultancy Roland Berger along with think-tank Internet Economy (IEF), suggests.

It’s warned in the report there is a strong chance a small number of dominant players involved in cloud computing could take over the market if the government does not stop this from happening. They believe that not only does the state have the capacity to make this move, but they also believe there is a responsibility for them to do so.

The companies that currently dominate the field are Google, Amazon, and Microsoft.

“Time to act”

“Although the cloud computing market is booming, there is already a real danger that its infrastructure level will soon be monopolised,” says Clark Parsons, managing director of the IEF.

He continued: “Policymakers still have time to act, both as regulators and public sector customers, because the market power of individual providers is not yet as concentrated as in other markets.”

The writers of the report say it is up to the government to make sure there is an unbiased opportunity for everyone to get involved. They say: “The public sector, both as a buyer and as a rule-setter, plays a key role in ensuring fair competition.

“As the primary buyer of cloud services, the state must ensure that public administration is able to build a balanced cloud portfolio within a multi-faceted cloud.”

Hard, but beneficial

Although the report acknowledges that using multicloud in IT services may create a higher complexity, the benefits would include vender lock-in compared to an alternative supplier lock-in.

The report, titled Innovation and Security through Diversity, gave suggestions on how to implement the change through a six-step study which they believe the government needs to use to ensure a fair cloud market.

Researchers also suggest that cloud should be deployed with strategic objectives as well as making service inoperability and portability a contractual obligation.

They further imply that the government should push for European security standards and support self-regulation when it comes to cloud service providers.

Reducing geographical barriers

The report also notes that procedures need to be put in place from a legislative point of view too. This includes taking away geographical barriers that would usually prevent smaller pan-European companies from playing a role.

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