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AMI Forecasts Growth in Indian SMB SaaS Spending

By Carolyn J Dawson
TMCnet Contributor

AMI-Partners, a specialist in IT, Internet, telecommunications and business services strategy, venture capital, and actionable market intelligence focusing on global small and medium business (SMB) enterprises, has recently published its report on “2010-2011 India SMB State of the Cloud Market Overview.”

The key findings of the research state that small and medium business (SMB) spending on Software-as-a-Service (SaaS (News - Alert)) in India is expected to rise by a significant 43 percent in 2011, and more than 10 percent of Internet-owning India SMBs have shown interest in adopting cloud computing in the next year. The report also covers comprehensive SMB adoption of Cloud-based applications, managed services, and supporting infrastructure, including platforms and devices.

The report includes SMB market perspectives including: Cloud mindset and economic influence; Cloud enabling platforms; infrastructure and devices; SaaS; unified communications (UC) and remotely managed IT services (RMITS); current and planned adoption and deployment of cloud solutions; and Cloud usage behaviour, decision making and purchase channels.

Implementation of cloud-based solutions has reduced the organization's need and dependability on skilled IT personnel, says the company.

The key to adoption of cloud computing and other Internet-based technology rests on infrastructure, availability of affordable and quality broadband services within India SMBs. Some of the key boosters and enablers of cloud adoption include virtualization, choosing the right cloud partner, mobility, telecommuting, notebooks and smart phones. Major ecosystem players such as Telco, ISPs, ISVs, SIs, aggregators, Web developers, content providers, and others have already been developing their capabilities and technical infrastructure in order to be able to provide better and robust cloud computing services to end-users.

In a release, the Senior Research Analyst at AMI-India, Kalyan Banga, said, “Among India Internet SMBs, almost half have a mobile workforce and over one fifth provide telecommuting options to their employees. The need for anytime, anywhere data access is a key driver of cloud computing in India. Mobility, telecommuting, notebooks, smart phones all are playing an important role in cloud adoption.”

He added that it is becoming increasingly evident that the entire ecosystem and the players within it are steadily gearing up for cloud adoption. Cloud computing is appealing as it requires less of a financial burden through zero CAPEX and minimal OPEX (News - Alert).

The development of an appropriate ecosystem is another crucial factor that is boosting Cloud Computing deployment. Other than creating awareness, the partner community has a vital role in acting as the connecting link between cloud vendors and end-users. The success of cloud computing will depend on the last mile connectivity.

Because India SMBs are geographically dispersed, heterogeneous in nature and challenging to tap, the role of the Channel Partner (News - Alert) is particularly vital in the India SMB space.