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Back in 2009, the India public cloud computing market was estimated at US$66.7 million. In a recent IDC study, the market is projected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40% over the next five years to 2014. The study was titled "IDC's India Cloud Computing Market: Current State and Future Roadmap Study 2010, October 2010."

"In recent quarters, in the backdrop of the global economic slowdown, the phenomenon of cloud computing has gained wide interest amongst business leaders and CIOs," said Kamal Vohra, lead analyst, software and services research, IDC India.

"The most attractive feature of this new technology deployment is the prospect of converting large, upfront capital investments in IT infrastructure into smaller, manageable 'pay-per-use' annuity payments. This feature has sparked a high degree of interest and debate amongst technology vendors, users and channel partners alike," Kamal said.

"All major vendors, service providers and niche players are currently in a race to launch or position their offerings to meet customer needs in the emerging cloud computing ecosystem," he added.

According to IDC India, the key "flavors" of cloud computing, which include Software-as-a-Service, Platform-as-a-Service and Infrastructure-as-a-Service, are: on-demand self service, elasticity, pay-as-you-use, multi-tenant model and ubiquitous network access.

Figure 1: Key drivers and benefits of public cloud computing

According to Indranil Dutta, lead analyst, user research, IDC India, "As the market matures and more industry vertical specific and business function specific applications become available, we expect more and more Indian enterprises to see the benefit of adopting cloud computing solutions."

The IDC India study suggested that cloud computing in India is at a nascent stage. The lack of awareness and understanding has impacted the overall adoption of cloud computing in India. The study predicted that cloud computing adoption in Indian large and mid-size enterprises will rise to 6.8% by 2012.

 

Indranil explained, "A significant segment of the market is aware of the concept, but do not really understand what it actually means or how it can benefit them. This lack of proper awareness and understanding of the concept has limited its appeal and market acceptance in the country. But as the market matures and enterprises begin to understand the real benefits of cloud computing, more adoption of cloud computing solutions can be expected."

The study also reveals the evolving role of channel partners in the cloud ecosystem. According to Kamal, "Channels should move away from just 'clipping a ticket' as is the practice when they resell a product or service. Channel partners who just view cloud services as another SKU to resell will struggle,"

"The serious contenders, especially from amongst the system integrator fraternity will have to recognize that the cloud provides an opportunity to bring more to the table," he added.

Findings of the IDC India study above were based on interviews 700 medium and large enterprises. Respondents included 'users' (enterprises with deployments of public and private cloud computing solutions), 'intenders' (enterprises that plan to deploy cloud computing solutions within 24 months) and 'non-intenders' (enterprises that currently do not have any plan to deploy cloud computing solutions).