If money's available, Comcast could be next buyer into cloud computing

If Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) has any money left over after buying NBCUniversal, it could emulate number two MSO Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC-WI) and buy into the cloud-based services business, suggests analyst Jeffrey Kaplan in a post on Seeking Alpha.

Time Warner is buying Web hosting service provider NaviSite for $230 million because, according to Chairman-CEO Glenn Britt, "our commercial services business is a key growth driver for the company." Other cable operators, and particularly Comcast, should follow suit because they need to jack up their commercial offerings, Kaplan wrote. Right now cable's commercial play is little more than a jacked-up home Internet service and that needs to change, he wrote.

"As consumers and corporations become fixated on Web-based services, the opportunity to bridge the gap between these two markets has never been greater. The Time Warner Cable acquisition of NaviSite is the latest response to this trend. I'm betting that Comcast will make a similar move soon unless the NBC Universal acquisition proves to be too much of a distraction."

For more:
- Seeking Alpha has this blog post

Related articles:
Corning moves into wireless space as Time Warner Cable buys into the cloud
Time Warner Cable acquires NaviSite to take charge of cloud service opportunity