Waters Rankings 2014: Best Cloud Infrastructure Provider — BT

Other firms have attempted to gain a foothold in this ultra-competitive and often fickle market, but without anywhere near the same level of success—NYSE Technologies’ community cloud project and Nasdaq OMX’s FinQloud are just two examples of a number of cloud projects that have fallen by the wayside. Many of those failures attempted to shoehorn the cloud concept into pre-set parameters, but BT opted for the opposite approach, instead allowing the natural power and flexibility of the cloud model and its applicability to the industry to guide its development.

That approach has certainly paid dividends. The BT Radianz Cloud now serves 15,000 customers across the world, running the gamut of all players, from brokers and buy-side firms through to ECNs, exchanges, alternative venues, and service providers. Indeed, take a sample from any gathering of conference attendees and it will be nearly impossible not to find someone whose firm doesn’t use the BT Radianz Cloud in one form or another.

What BT has done with Radianz, and what other cloud providers have been slow to do, is reinforce the idea of cloud computing as a liberalizing force when it comes to geography, a factor that the firm has capitalized on, given its unique position in the global telecommunications and infrastructure landscape. Indeed, talk to any BT executive about Radianz’s benefits, and the first thing you’re likely to hear is the power that the firm’s seemingly limitless reach provides it, allowing it to offer access to and support in centers before its clients know they need to be there. Added to that is the firm’s 100 percent uptime guarantee, and it’s easy to see why Radianz is not only a seductive proposition, but judging by its success in the various Waters awards programs of the past few years, a definitive one as well.