Be it software companies such as NIIT Technologies and SAP India or hardware players such as Dell India, info-tech majors are focusing on small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to offer cloud computing services.
Though the market is still nascent, companies have started providing cloud service to SMEs, and some have dedicated business units (BUs) for it.
“NIIT Tech has cloud as a separate BU to cater to SMEs through the cloud computing delivery model. We are currently targeting the BFSI and manufacturing segments of the SME segment,” Mr Arvind Mehrotra, President, Asia-Pacific, NIIT Technologies, said.
He said this is in line with the company’s strategy of focusing on specific industry segments through the Software as a Service (SaaS) offering.
Cloud has been a focus area for more than two years. “It will become a significant contributor to our revenue-share. Cloud computing is part of non-linear revenue-share which currently stands at 25 per cent,” Mr Mehrotra said.
According to the company’s estimation on cost saving, customers can save up to 40 per cent over a three-year period, he said. Similarly, SAP India is also one of the largest providers of cloud and offers integrated suites called Business ByDesign and Business One OnDemand solutions for the small and emerging businesses.
“Cloud is the next big wave in technology and one of the key pillars of growth for SAP India in 2012. We would redefine the cloud market beyond SaaS and platform-as-a-service (PaaS) by adding new areas,” Mr Neeraj Athalye, Head, Cloud Business, SAP India, said.
New areas
He said new areas would include collaboration services engaging both people-centric applications and business network solutions; information services for business intelligence in the cloud and data services; and mobile services for mobile device management in the cloud. SAP India has over 3,580 customers in the SME segment that include a chunk of customers adopting SAP cloud solutions, he added.
According to a recent study by independent research firm Zinnov, the cloud computing market in India currently is estimated at around $400 million. It is expected to reach $4.5 billion by 2015.
The total Indian SME market is expected to be $30 billion and around one-third of it is growth customers, Mr Sameer Garde, President and Managing Director, Dell India, said. “Our focus is aggressive virtualisation, helping customers with private cloud deployments and customers who are going to public cloud by integrating their applications to data bases,” he said.