Colt's acquisition of KVH, announced earlier today, seems a no-brainer on a few fronts.

First, UK-based Colt Group SA and KVH Co., which is headquartered in Japan and known mostly for its data center presence in Asia-Pacific, are owned by the same firm -- Fidelity Investments -- so it's not a financial stretch for Colt on any level. (See Asia's Telcos Still Figuring Out Their Cloud Moves.)

In fact, Caroline Chappell, Heavy Reading's principal analyst on cloud and NFV, thinks it's about damn time this happened.

"What took them so long?" she questions. "They are owned by the same company and I have been saying for years they should get together."

Given Colt's strong growth in managed cloud services, Chappell notes, having a strong data center presence in a growing market like Asia-Pacific is another positive.

KVH also brings a lot of OpenStack expertise to Colt, at a time when that open standard for cloud services is becoming more significant to telecom operators.

Want to learn more about the latest news on data center strategies in the data center section here at Light Reading.

And that brings us to another aspect of this story: Cloud services in Asia are booming. An IDC study released this summer shows only 2% of Asian enterprises aren't using cloud services at all, and almost 60% are using two or more cloud services. (See Eurobites: Colt to Buy Asia-Pac Stablemate.)

Digital media in general is booming in Asia-Pacific in general and China specifically, which has led companies such as CenturyLink Inc. (NYSE: CTL) and Pacnet to build data centers in that market. More tightly connecting Colt's networks to data centers in that region opens up a wide range of growth possibilities for the larger Colt operation. (See Pacnet Adds Key Chinese Data Center and CenturyLink Goes Behind the Great Firewall.

I suspect other data center operators are expanding in this region as well, although not all are talking about their strategies. And not all of them had the no-brainer option that Colt has now exercised.

— Carol Wilson, Editor-at-Large, Light Reading