The overlying theme at this year’s PTC conference - the rise of cloud services - is leading to a not-so-distant future where carriers can only remain relevant if they get into the data center and content delivery business.

 

That was the opening shot from Pacnet chief Bill Barney during the morning keynotes at PTC on Monday. Riffing off the conference theme of disruption, Barney pointed out that the stocks of telecoms companies, CDN providers and data center operators have been declining the past few years, while companies like Google and Facebook have quadrupled their market cap in the same time period.

 

The good news, he said, is that carriers can still turn the rise of cloud to their advantage. “These companies are using our networks, so how do we monetize that?”

 

Barney said the biggest industry sectors will be social networks, mobile, search and telecom carriers – but only if the latter can transform themselves to be integrated into that value chain.

 

“The data center guys, the CDN guys and the telecom guys will all be in the same business in ten years,” he predicted. “We have to change the way we operate if we want to be key players in all this, and we can work together to make sure that happens.”

 

Barney had support from fellow keynote speakers such as EdgeCast chairman and CEO Alex Kazerani, who said there was a major opportunity from the VAS side to target over-the-top companies. “We can create premium products and services for Internet players, particularly where they’re going into countries where they don’t have much presence yet.”