Epsilon spreads its wings into the enterprise market

As a wholesale provider, Epsilon spent years building up its software-defined networking (SDN) core, web portal and on-demand connectivity services, but now it's taking those capabilities into the enterprise space.

In order to push the enterprise needle forward, Epsilon announced earlier this month that it had hired former Interoute senior vice president and managing director Lee Myall as its chief commercial officer. Prior to Interoute, which was acquired by GTT last year, Myall held executive positions at at WAM!NET, which was acquired by Savvis.

In addition to its carrier customer base, Epsilon is offering enterprise WAN services and data center interconnect solutions for businesses. Epsilon launched its Infiny by Epsilon on-demand connectivity platform and portal two years ago as the centerpiece of its on-demand connectivity services that are located on its SDN fabric. 

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Singapore-based Epsilon has over 200 points of presence (POPs) globally. Epsilon's customers can gain on-demand access to more than 600 service providers, cloud providers and internet exchanges from a single solution.

"There's been a lot of investment and activity to have this network upgraded to be able to be consumed by enterprises, or people that are higher up the stack," Myall said. "This is about investing in our future."

While Epsilon brings its SDN core, Infiny web portal and global on-demand connectivity to the table for enterprises, it also offers a fresh approach, according to Myall.

"What Epsilon doesn't have to worry about is a big legacy enterprise WAN business because we don't have one, which means that we can go out there and run WANs on the revenue and the economies of scale that suits the market today and the market going forward," he said. "We have nothing to protect in the WAN space, that's the big difference. So that means we can act like a disruptive startup."

Using its global presence and orchestration, Epsilon can work with its cloud providers, which include Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Oracle and Alibaba, to move enterprises' data centers into the cloud.

"So you (an enterprise) can gradually divest yourself of your DC and ultimately work with your existing WAN, which we can do," Myall said.  "We can work with their existing infrastructure without boxes on the end; that is no problem to us at all, or they could use our WAN. Whatever we get is new business for us so we can act very proactively on that basis and serve customers on that basis. It's a great new business for us, rather than protecting something in legacy mode."

Epsilon has an SD-WAN service that it launched with Cato Networks, but Myall said Epsilon is considering an additional SD-WAN service that may run over its network instead of Cato's.

"We'll have news on a product releases later on in the year," Myall said.

In the enterprise sector, Myall sees GTT as one of Epsilon's primary competitors, as well as global providers such as Orange and Colt Technology Services.

"I think we're probably going to increasingly butt heads with the likes of other SD-WAN providers as well," he said.

In order to be a disrupter in the enterprise sector, and to enable companies' digital transformations, Myall said Epsilon works to understand each customer's company culture. Being a somewhat smaller player in the enterprise field, Myall said that Epsilon could be more responsive to customers' needs.

"You have people that are actually nice, mid-sized businesses that are also global," Myall said. "I do feel like we're a nice cultural fit for them. We have the global reach and expertise to help mid-sized businesses. I've learned over the years that cultural fit is a massive, massive thing."