Indian companies are adopting cloud-computing

A large number of companies are becoming part of cloud computing which in turn saves them the cost of setting up servers and spending on subsequent maintenance. Few big names which recently joined Google cloud are Indian Youth Congress, Indiamart and Punj Lloyd.

Over one lakh cloud users in India indeed present a huge opportunity for IT majors.

“Our Indian user base could easily double and triple going forward. We have only scratched the surface. We think there is a lot of room to grow our use base which currently at one lakh. We see both large and small enterprises adopting cloud in a big way,” said Vinay Goel, head-products at Google India.

When IT users use cloud computing services, they do not need to invest in servers or buy software products. With a simple computer and an internet connection, they can access it as a service.

It must be highlighted that as an orgnaisation grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to manage scalability issues on conventional systems but expanding on the cloud simply makes it cheaper and quicker.

With government spending on technology driving need for IT services, cloud computing is expected to take off in a big way. Research firm IDC expects the cloud computing market in India to grow at a CAGR of 40 per cent by 2014, from an estimated $66 million in 2009. Gartner's rival Zinnov estimates the cloud computing market in India to reach $1.08 billion by 2015, a ten-fold increase from the existing $110 million market.

Analysts says there is currently more hype surrounding cloud computing in India and that large-scale adoption by Indian users is still a few years away.

“Yes, there is a lot of hype, because the developed nations have seen adoption of cloud computing in a big way. But you have to understand that there are challenges in the Indian market like low IT penetration and low broadband speeds. So it will take some time before we see cloud emerge in a big way,” said Sid Deshpande, senior analyst at Gartner.

Microsoft launched their cloud services earlier this week and IBM is eyeing a slice of the market. TCS and Infosys plan to join the market to offer bundled cloud services. The battle for your computer may well be fought on the cloud!