In recent years, the three major public clouds and China cloud service providers have been actively expanding into the Southeast Asian market. Meanwhile, local cloud service providers in Taiwan have been relatively scarce on the international stage. However, during the severe period of the pandemic, eASPNet took the lead in laying the groundwork in Thailand to expand into the Southeast Asian market. eASPNet’s Thai subsidiary, operating under the cloud brand GWS CLOUD, entered Bangkok. CEO Nini Wu pointed out that during the global pandemic, they assisted their Thai partner, SUPERNAP Thailand, in establishing a public cloud service platform through remote collaboration, thereby understanding the strong demand for cloud services in the ASEAN market. With the easing of the pandemic, they are actively expanding ASEAN cloud business and have recently secured a cloud cooperation project with the Thai government’s Geospatial Information and Space Technology Development Agency (GISTDA), further consolidating their position in the local government’s cloud market.
The Thai government is actively promoting digital transformation, giving strong support to the adoption of cloud infrastructure, and aiming to establish the country as a regional cloud center. This year’s Cloud First policy is quite friendly to cloud and technology companies, attracting many international cloud providers to enter Thailand. In recent years, Chinese companies have even offered substantial subsidies, intensifying market competition. However, faced with adjustments to VMware’s software licensing system, the All-in-ONE platform cloud service (hereinafter referred to as GWS CLOUD-O) launched by GWS CLOUD has been favored by many local SI vendors, financial institutions, and enterprises in Thailand.
The GWS CLOUD-O platform provides support for existing VMware customers and offers new customers a chance to reconsider their cloud deployment strategies. Recently, they introduced the “GWStack-O” and “GWS CLOUD-O” promotional schemes. The former targets all-in-one machines, while the latter offers flexible software licensing subscription services to enterprises and partners who have already purchased hardware. Both schemes help customers reduce entry barriers. GWS CLOUD-O’s unique solution has attracted the attention of local SI vendors in Thailand, who hope to have alternatives to VMware for their partners. GWS CLOUD-O’s Node-based subscription service billing method allows customers to have more flexibility in hardware and software combinations, saving over 50% of the costs. Coupled with SI’s software licensing tied to hardware sales, they can move towards higher-level hardware products and have more options to directly access public clouds, providing flexible backup and redundancy. In addition, with eASPNet’s international-level data center operation and construction experience, they provide more customized options for the sales model.
Nini Wu emphasized that GWS CLOUD is currently the only Taiwanese native cloud service provider in the Thai market, and establishing a foothold in the Thai market is not easy. Collaboration with Thai government agencies also enhances GWS CLOUD-O’s visibility in government agencies and medium to large enterprises. In addition, eASPNet recently set up a cloud service platform in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and plans to enter Indonesia in the second half of the year, committed to promoting GWS CLOUD cloud services to international markets.
