Trial SME customer Sindicatum Carbon Capital was offered a 99.99% financially-backed SLA; both StarHub and Microsoft have guaranteed enterprise-class SLAs for SME customers.
StarHub’s partnership with Microsoft in Singapore is not exclusive, said Jessica Tan, managing director of Microsoft Singapore, in the first hint that Microsoft may in future engage other partners to market its cloud productivity suite.
Ovum senior analyst Claudio Castelli feels StarHub will face significant challenges in its bid to gain a more prominent foothold in the enterprise cloud space. “Singtel’s early entry into the cloud market is starting to pay off. It already has a significant number of customers, most of which are local Singaporean enterprises and SMEs.” said Castelli.
“As the former incumbent in a geographically small but very concentrated business environment, SingTel has big competitive advantages here. It has a strong relationship with the majority of small businesses which extends beyond billing.”