Journey to the cloud not a straight line from A to B

Cogeco Peer 1 has launched a 'journey to the cloud' campaign to try to reduce the fear and confusion that is impacting customers looking to move to a hosted environment.

The co-location and managed services specialist has kicked off the campaign to ensure that its is arming resellers with the right information to guide customers through a process which is becoming even more complex with moves to multi-cloud environments.

Tom Adams, director of product marketing at Cogeco Peer 1, said that one of the main myths was the idea that it was a case of, 'starting at A and going to B and you are in the cloud'.

"We acknowledge that cloud is a vital catalyst for business transformation and driving growth but the journey is not as simple as going from A to B," he added.

He said that customers needed to be made aware that it was complex for a number of reasons, including the choices of platforms, decisions over where the data resided and just which apps went off-prem in a hybrid scheme.

After those choices had been made there were also issues around the migration itself with partners having a key role to play in making sure that customers, who often lacked the expertise and skills themselves, were able to move data across to the cloud.

"It is the right approach to acknowledge that complexity and that there is a way through this and a way for partners to help people," said Adams.

"The challenge for the channel is to become those trusted advisors to customers because then they can help them map out the right objectives," he added that the campaign was already generating leads that it was feeding back to partners.

Meanwhile, in a separate development Cogeco Peer 1 revealed plans to become a standalone business after Digital Colony agreed with Cogeco Communications to acquire the business.

“As we enter our next phase of growth as a standalone company, we will continue to focus on meeting the needs of customers while looking for new ways to innovate and deliver the digital infrastructure solutions they need," said Susan Bowen, CEO of Cogeco Peer 1.

"We are excited to work with Digital Colony, whose deep knowledge and experience, strong balance sheet and successful track record in the sector will be invaluable as we scale and enter a new era of digital communication," she added.