Public cloud computing in India is forecasted to grow 36 percent in 2013

Cloud computing in India to grow at 36 pc

Express News Service

Chennai:

Public cloud computing in India is forecasted to grow 36 percent in 2013 to total $443 million, up from $326 million in 2012, according to Confederation of Indian Industry Report – ‘The SMAC Code – Embracing New Technologies for Future Business’.

The report, which was released by Industries Minister P Thangamani, at the 12th edition of Connect, a two-day premier ICT event, organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in partnership with state government with the theme: "Towards Scaling New Frontiers in ICT’, states that the Indian IT-BPO vendors can develop their Social media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud computing (SMAC) strategies and cross the $ 225 billion mark by 2020.

The report states SMAC enables enterprises leverage the cloud for storing huge volumes of multi-structured customer data, generated over mobile devices and social media and analyze these data sets for business advantage.

Industry estimates suggest that the world ICT spending will reach the $5 trillion mark by 2020 driven by the combination of social media, mobility, analytics, and cloud. In 2012, SMAC approximately contributed about 20 per cent of the total ICT spending and they are collectively, growing at about 18 per cent year-on-year, that is, around six times the rate of the rest of the IT industry. At this rate it is expected that these technologies will become 80 per cent of the total spending by 2020.

The report observed that social media would help IT-BPO firms capitalize on the growth generated by the increasing usage of social media by consumers and businesses; Mobility, would offer two pronged growth path of enterprise mobility and consumer mobility; Analytics would drive businesses through the way of big data, business intelligence and analysis of multi-structure high volume datasets, while Cloud computing is expected to provide the solutions for IT-BPO companies that would help them offer more cost optimzed solutions to their clients.

The report said that there are over 4.5 billion mobile subscribers and over 2.5 billion internet users, and the world has already entered the post-digital era. There are over 1 billion social media subscribers globally, who are already disrupting traditional models of marketing and selling.

The mobile Internet users in the country are expected to grow from 4.1 million users in 2009 to 164.8 million in 2015 at a CAGR of 85 per cent. With mobility, the industry is shifting from the personal computer or laptop to mobile devices. There are nearly 900 million mobile phone subscribers in India, where the spread of affordable 3G and 4G networks are driving the growth of mobile apps. Every year, companies and individuals generate billions of gigabytes of data.

The CII Report said that technology vendors will need to change the way they are structured to deal with SMAC. “They need to be nimble, and think on their feet. Rather than being bureaucratic organizations, technology vendors will need to create an entrepreneurial culture, along with next-generation delivery and pricing models that will work in realizing the maximum potential from SMAC,” it observed.

The IT-BPO industry expanded from a mere $ 8 billion in 2000 to an estimated $ 108 billion in 2013, contributing significantly to India’s economic progress over the last decade. The industry took advantage of the vast pool of highly skilled resources available at low cost, and rode on the wave of application development and BPM services to spread its wings.