In Verizon's fourth quarter earnings call, Francis Shammo, the communication giant's executive vice president and chief financial officer, said Verizon's cloud investments, which included the $1.4 billion acquisition of cloud provider Terremark and Verizon's subsequent purchase of cloud application player CloudSwitch, are prepping Verizon for massive future growth.
Verizon has said that in 2011 it investment more than $2 billion in cloud services. Verizon is leading the telecom charge to the cloud, which has also seen other major carriers and service providers plunk down mountainous sums of cash to built out a cloud ecosystem.
"In 2011, we also made some smart investments for the future growth and improved profitability. While very disciplined in our approach to capital spending, we continue to invest in networks and new technologies, which will be the platform for accelerated growth," Shammo said during the earnings call, according to a transcript from Seeking Alpha. "On the strategic front, we made some moves that will significantly improve our competitive position. These include the acquisitions of Terremark and CloudSwitch in the cloud computing space, several agreements to purchase additional spectrum, joint efforts around innovation with a number of partners including the cable companies and, of course, our continued leadership in the rapid development of the 4G LTE ecosystem."
Further fueling Verizon into 2012, Shammo said, is its recently formed Global Enterprise solutions organization which will integrate offerings across various lines of business, including wireless, Strategic Services, FiOS, the cloud and more.