华为渴望成为全球云巨擘

China’s Huawei has announced ambitions to become a top five global cloud computing company after linking up with Microsoft.

中国的华为(Huawei)在与微软(Microsoft)联手后宣布了立志成为全球前五大云计算公司的雄心。

The move pits the employee-owned company against global giants Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM as well as Microsoft itself. In China, it will be up against Alibaba and Tencent.

此举使这家由员工拥有的公司与全球巨头亚马逊云服务(AWS)、谷歌(Google)、IBM以及微软本身直接竞争。在中国，它将与阿里巴巴(Alibaba)和腾讯(Tencent)展开较量。

Huawei is using a series of partnerships, which it likened to airline alliances, to attract customers in parts of the world where it would struggle to win big contracts.

华为正利用一系列合作伙伴关系——该公司将其比作航空公司联盟——在世界某些地区吸引客户，而华为本身在这类地区本来难以争取到大合同。

That includes Europe, where it is less well known, and the US where its perceived links to the Chinese government have stymied its efforts to sell network equipment.

这包括欧洲和美国，在欧洲华为的知名度较低，而在美国，华为被视为与中国政府有联系，这种印象阻碍了该公司在美销售网络设备的努力。

In its partnership with Microsoft, the US technology group will release apps on Huawei Cloud.

在华为与微软的合作中，身为美国科技集团的微软将在华为云(Huawei Cloud)上发布应用。

“It’s sure that if we are going to develop this business in the US we will co-operate with partners,” said Guo Ping, rotating chief executive and chairman of Huawei. “We will provide the technology and we will not touch applications and user data.”

“如果我们要在美国开展这项业务，我们肯定将与合作伙伴合作，”华为轮值CEO兼副董事长郭平表示。“我们将提供技术，同时我们不会碰应用程序和用户数据。”

Matthew Ball, principal analyst at Canalys, said the target was “certainly ambitious” given the clout of AWS, Microsoft and Google as well as Alibaba and Tencent in China.

市场研究机构Canalys首席分析师马修•波尔(Matthew Ball)表示，鉴于AWS、微软和谷歌还有中国的阿里巴巴和腾讯的实力，华为的目标“肯定是雄心勃勃的”。

These participants, he said, had the advantage of big digital businesses — be it shopping or search — driving their cloud business.

他表示，这些参与者都有一个优势，即庞大的数字业务(无论是购物还是搜索)驱动着他们的云计算业务。

“There’s a lot to catch up with, but I think there’s an opportunity for them to do so,” he said, in part by relying on their telecoms customers.

“有很多地方需要追赶，但我认为他们有机会做到这一点，”他表示。他估计，华为将在一定程度上依靠其电信客户。

Undeterred by the competition, Mr Gao is counting on the rapidly growing market to create opportunities.

郭平不惧竞争，他指望快速增长的市场创造机会。

Gartner, the data consultancy, forecasts the global public cloud market will grow 18 per cent this year to $246.8bn, with infrastructure as a service racking up the biggest increase at 36.8 per cent to $34.6bn. Infrastructure as a service is the backbone of Huawei’s business.

数据咨询公司高德纳(Gartner)预测，全球公有云服务市场今年将增长18%，至2468亿美元，其中“基础设施即服务”(IaaS)这一块将出现最大增幅，增长36.8%，至346亿美元。基础设施即服务堪称华为的主干业务。

The group announced its cloud strategy in 2015, saying that its public cloud would not touch clients’ applications or data. Huawei previously lined up cloud partnerships with European telecoms groups, including Deutsche Telekom.

该集团于2015年宣布其云计算战略，称其公有云不会碰客户的应用程序或数据。华为以前曾与德国电信(Deutsche Telekom)等欧洲电信集团在云领域建立合作关系。

Huawei’s ambitions expose it to a sector that is losing money in China as companies rush to sign up customers.

华为的雄心使其涉足了一个在中国亏损的行业，这种亏损是因为企业急于抢客户。

Alibaba, the dominant domestic player, has continuously slashed prices — much as AWS did when it began — and while it narrowed losses in the latest quarter it still lost $4 for every $100 in sales at the level of adjusted earnings before interest, tax and amortisation.

在中国占主导地位的阿里巴巴不断降价——就像AWS在开始时一样——而尽管其在最近一个季度收窄了亏损，按息税摊销前调整后盈利计算，该公司云业务仍然是每销售100美元就要亏损4美元。

“With cloud, what is important is the scale of the business and I believe we will have a good future,” said Mr Gao, adding that when it came to profitability, “I’m also patient”.

“对于云计算，重要的是业务规模，我相信我们将有一个美好的未来，”郭平表示。他补充说，在盈利能力上，“我也很耐心”。

Huawei is already suffering from wafer-thin margins in its smartphone business, where it has spent heavily on marketing to win share from Apple and Samsung in the Chinese market, a strategy that has proved successful in terms of sales.

在智能手机业务上，华为已经承受着利润率微薄之痛;该公司在智能手机的营销上大举支出，力求在中国市场从苹果(Apple)和三星(Samsung)那里夺取市场份额。至少就销售而言，这一战略被证明是成功的。

An increasing number of companies are piling into data storage in China, propelled in part by the cyber security law that came into effect on June 1 and which requires data on Chinese citizens and other sensitive information to be stored onshore.

目前，越来越多的企业扎堆挤入中国的数据存储业务，这在一定程度上是受到6月1日生效的网络安全法的推动，该法要求把有关中国公民的数据和其他敏感信息存储在境内。

This has led to a flurry of activity building storage capacity as it simultaneously rattled multinationals and others worried about the security of data held in China.

这带来了一波建设存储能力的活动，与此同时，跨国公司和其他一些人担心在中国存储的数据的安全性。

Huawei is seeking to allay any concerns on its own servers by touting its security and stressing it will not seek to monetise any data on its platforms.

华为正寻求通过宣传自己的安全保障措施来缓解外界对其服务器的担忧，并强调该公司不会寻求将其平台上的任何数据变现。

However, Mr Gao noted the move into a new area would not be without challenges.

不过，郭平指出，进入新的领域不会是没有挑战的。

“The cloud business is an operational business,” he said. “It’s different from selling equipment and services [Huawei’s historical businesses]. It may challenge our processes and enterprise culture.”

“云计算业务是一种运营型业务，”他表示。“它与销售设备和服务(华为的传统业务)不同。它可能会挑战我们的流程和企业文化。”

But, he added: “If Huawei didn’t enter into the cloud business our revenues may decrease. So this is a business we must enter into.”

但他补充说：“如果华为当初没有进入云业务，我们的营收可能会下降。所以这是我们必须进入的业务领域。”