Nokia is opening three new cloud collaboration hubs in an effort to drive more companies to migrate to the cloud. The Finnish tech giant recently opened a Cloud Collaboration Hub in Singapore, with new hubs planned for Irving, Texas and Reading, UK in February 2018.
The Nokia Cloud Collaboration Hubs include a multi-vendor lab and co-located experts on hand to assist operators with visualizing, developing, and executing their cloud strategies. The hubs exist as part of an international network to provide support for businesses and innovators as they transition to the cloud.
As part of this program, Nokia is opening cloud delivery centers, including a new one planned in India to complement one already operating in Hungary.
“We are excited to announce the first of our network of Cloud Collaboration Hubs,” said Deepak Harie, head of Systems Integration at Nokia, “This represents the next phase of our cloud professional services offering. The Cloud Collaboration Hub model helps make services tangible, and accelerates operators’ move towards becoming digital service providers.”
Nokia positions these hubs as execution centers, offering tooling and automation in addition to DevOps-based cloud development and delivery. The Nokia Cloud Collaboration Hubs are an evolution of its Global Cloud Design Center, an operation originally opened in Fleet, UK in 2016.
A Growing Practice Among Tech Providers
Amazon Web Services recently announced a new Innovation Center headed for Taipei, one of several centers the cloud provider has opened throughout the Asia-Pacific region.
Cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft, Cisco, Nokia, and others open centers like these in order to draw new businesses and other organizations to the cloud, and consequently to their services. These centers, often backed or created in collaboration with local governments, universities, and business organizations, provide a service that assists clients with migrating to the cloud.
Additionally, these centers often assist with local educational institutions and accelerators to drive innovation in the region. Each center caters its services and facilities to suit the needs of the region and to better promote and educate local business leaders and/or innovators about their respective products and services.
Cisco, for example, takes a similar approach with its innovation centers focusing on digital transformation and the Internet of Things.
Microsoft partners with local governments, universities, and industry organizations on dozens of innovation centers worldwide. These centers, like those operated by other brands, are open to students, developers, IT professionals, entrepreneurs, startups, and others.
Whether they’re called innovation centers, innovation hubs, or collaboration hubs, these facilities provide a service to the region in which they are based.
With these new collaboration hubs, Nokia says it hopes to help local startups and entrepreneurs discover the cloud-based technologies and services that they need to become tomorrow’s digital service providers.