New Zealand Telecom is to ramp up its activities in the burgeoning market for cloud services following a $96.5 million ($82.5 million) takeover of infrastructure and data center specialist Revera.

The New Zealand telecoms incumbent said it would fund the acquisition through cash and existing borrowing facilities and expects the deal to close in May.

It will continue to run Revera (Auckland, New Zealand) as a standalone business, providing customers of Gen-i –New Zealand Telecom’s ICT services division – with access to additional cloud capabilities and data center capacity.

Chinese equipment maker Huawei expects its revenues to grow at a compound annual rate of 10% over the next five years, despite the current slowdown in the equipment market and its difficulties in the US.

Huawei (Shenzhen, China) provided the forecast after reporting that net profit for 2012 was 32% higher than for 2011, at RMB15.4 billion ($2.48 billion), with revenues up 9%, to RMB220.2 billion.

“In 2012, Huawei met business performance expectations through improved operational efficiency,” said Guo Ping, Huawei’s rotating and acting chief executive.

London:

Now in its 6th year, the prestigious Datacentre Awards provide exceptional marketing differentiation for both winners and runners up and recognized as the premier International industry accolade. 

M2M specialist Numerex has announced that its customer base has surpassed the 2 million mark, with surging growth providing evidence of the current momentum in the M2M industry.

The company, which provides M2M services and technology for enterprise and government customers worldwide, says that it took several years to reach the 1 million mark but only two years to double its customer base from that level.

Swedish operator Ericsson has signed an agreement with German software company SAP for the joint marketing and sale of cloud-based M2M services to enterprises around the world.

The partnership will combine Ericsson’s M2M platform expertise with enterprise services from SAP (Walldorf, Germany) and is designed to overcome some of the barriers to the adoption of M2M technology.

Rostelecom hopes mobile broadband will offset declines in its core fixed-line calls business as it seeks a greater share of Russia's increasingly competitive telecoms market, CEO Alexander Provotorov told Reuters.

The state-controlled former long-distance call monopoly was beefed up in 2011 through a merger with several regional operators to challenge private players in more lucrative market segments such as mobile, broadband and pay TV.

Canadian operator Rogers Communications has unveiled plans to power more than a million M2M connections by the end of this year and promised to launch a cloud-based data analytics offering over the same timeframe.

Florida:

The Cloud Communications Alliance (CCA), the only industry peer association specifically dedicated to the advancement of cloud communications technologies, announced today that it will host its first quarterly meeting of 2013 in February, providing current and interested members with a unique opportunity to meet and network with their peers. The meeting will supply industry leaders with a forum to discuss key issues impacting the current state and future of telecommunications in the cloud -- and the chance to help shape that future.

Cogeco Cable Inc, the main unit of media and telecom company Cogeco Inc, will buy Peer 1 Network Enterprises Inc for about C$526 million ($532 million) to expand its cloud computing and data hosting business.

Cogeco Cable (Montreal, Canada), which provides cable-TV, high-speed internet and telephone services, has been looking to increase its presence in the fast-growing data-center business due to tough competition in signing up new television customers in Canada.