ORLANDO, Fla. -- Management World Americas -- The TM Forum says its new Cloud Services Program will include an Enterprise Cloud Buyers Council (ECBC) intended to help telecom service providers understand the cloud computing needs of large multinational corporations.

The Cloud Services Program creates a system that includes business and technology standards, cloud technology suppliers, cloud service providers, and enterprise buyers.

But the centerpiece of the effort, says TM Forum chairman and CEO Keith Willetts, is the ECBC, whose earliest members include the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and Deutsche Bank. Joining the TM Forum’s Cloud Services Program to date are Alcatel-Lucent (NYSE: ALU), Amdocs Ltd. (NYSE: DOX), AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T), BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA),CA Technologies (Nasdaq: CA), Cisco Systems Inc. (Nasdaq: CSCO), EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC), HP Inc. (NYSE: HPQ), IBM Corp. (NYSE: IBM), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), Nokia Networks , Telecom Italia (TIM) , and Telstra Corp. Ltd. (ASX: TLS; NZK: TLS).

By involving end-users early on in the product development cycle, TM Forum will let enterprise IT leaders influence how services are developed, says Eric Pulier, executive director of the ECBC. The organization will have specific work projects and will work to understand what enterprises need in the cloud computing arena.

In the opening session of Management World Americas, TM Forum members identified cloud computing as a topic of prime interest, along with managing the customer experience, for driving business efficiency and managing new services. Mobile cloud-based services are also the technology chosen by attendees as having the biggest effect in transforming mobile business in the future.

— Carol Wilson, Chief Editor, Events, Light Reading