“What business are you in?” is one issue Console Connect by PCCW Global CEO Marc Halbfinger discussed during his PTC’23 Center Stage session: The Zero Touch, High Transaction Telco, and Beyond, talking about Console Connect, the firm he quips actually acquired PCCW Global.

Though “network as a service” was among the key themes he addressed, Halbfinger emphasized the potential for network effects as enterprises, application providers, data centers, and connectivity providers are able to dial up, on demand, connectivity to cloud-based resources globally.

Some might view the automated platform as “infrastructure as a service.” It is that, allowing users to self-provision capacity and connections in granular fashion on a global basis.

But it is the on demand global cloud ecosystem which really represents the underlying value, Halbfinger said. Rather than simple connections between places, the platform enables enterprises to connect with each other, without intermediaries, to applications, software, sensor network providers, and multiple cloud services providers.

All of which makes Console Connect hard to categorize. Is it an automated ordering system for network resources? Yes. Is it a form of “network as a service?” Again, yes.

Is it a form of “zero touch” automated ordering, provisioning, and settlements? True. Is Console Connect a platform? Yes, but a platform with a network.

Is the fabric a way for enterprises, app providers, and computing as a service suppliers to make connections? Certainly. Is Console Connect a sales or distribution channel for its users? Yes.

And yet the words and concepts fail us.

Think about the original vision of the Internet: any-to-any information exchange globally by computers and their users. Think about the cloud: computing services and apps accessed globally over the Internet.

Think about the promise of cloud computing: on demand, self-service, resource pooling, elastic scaling, pay per use, ubiquity, resilience, and security.

Console Connect enables cloud computing for enterprises and people that now live in the cloud.