Cloud & Virtualization 

Anyone giving you a list of top technologies and trends for the next 12 months, cloud computing has to be in the list. In an evolutionary process, organizations are moving to the cloud. While the cloud is being talked about in plenty, in reality its adoption among SMBs will be a gradual process. This is a blessing in disguise because the SMBs have time to accept cloud services and use what makes sense. There is no urgent need to go 100 percent cloud right now.

Som Satsangi, Vice President, HP ESSN, HP India

Rahul Swarup, MD & CEO, Go IP Global Services Pvt. Ltd

Suresh Reddy, Director & GM, GCC, Dell India

Naresh Wadhwa, President and Country Manager Cisco India & SAARC

Oh Tee Lee, Regional Director, South APAC Region, Axis Communications

Paras Shah, CEO, Neoteric Infomatique Ltd

Anil Bajpai, Senior VP & Head - Research & Innovation, iGATE Patni

R.Ramanan, MD and CEO, CMC Ltd

Praveen Sahai, Director Sales, India & SAARC, Strategic Marketing Director - APJ, Iomega

Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Regional Director-India & SAARC, Check Point Software Technologies

Sunil Lalvani, Director - Enterprise Sales for India, RIM

Rajeev Karwal, Founder & CEO, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions

Rajesh Goenka, VP - Sales and Marketing, Rashi Peripherals Pvt. Ltd.

Sanjeev Sehgal, Managing Director, Sparsh

Rajiv Bhalla, AVP & Country Head - Sales & Marketing, NEC India

Debraj Dam, VP Strategic Business & Partner Alliance, Smartlink Network Systems Ltd.

Tushar Sighat, CEO - India & SAARC, D-Link

L.K.Gupta, CMO, LG India

Asoke K. Laha, President & MD, Interra IT

Eric Kuo, General Manager, MSI India

Anand Shrivastav, Chairman and MD, BEAM

Kalaiselvan P. ,  Head - Cloud Engineering & Enterprise Architecture, Mindteck

Som Satsangi, Vice President, HP ESSN, HP India explains, "Cloud technologies will continue to offer enterprises and government infinite opportunities to interact with their customers/citizens and ultimately, derive mutual value from these relationships."  Clouds and virtualization are no more just market buzz. They are reality now. "I agree that there is a lot of buzz around some of these technologies, especially those associated with Cloud, but we firmly believe that these are trends that are here to stay," says Rahul Swarup MD & CEO, Go IP Global Services Pvt. Ltd. 

It can be safely said that SMEs are prime candidates for cloud. As the fear of slowdown looms large, an additional significant server investment is not on their agenda. Consequently they are very open to the idea of those solutions that can be financed with monthly payments. "So Cloud Computing is ideally suited for the SMB/SME and ME segment of Indian customers where it is a fully managed, pay per use model, where one can consume as per the demand. So irrespective of global economy dynamics, if the services hit the sweet spot in the market, there will be usage and adaptation," opines Rahul. 

Suresh Reddy, Director & GM, GCC, Dell India, is of the view, "Cloud computing model will be of great help to companies who do not have mature IT teams and skilled manpower."

Commoditization of virtualization is now an established fact. It has become a natural way of doing business. Today it is less about the process and more about the business enablement of what virtualization allows the clients to do that they couldn’t do before. Virtualization of servers results in immediate benefits such as cost savings in power and maintenance. As a corollary, enterprises are well positioned to embrace the flexibility, real-time provisioning, application availability, and elasticity that the cloud can deliver.

According to Naresh Wadhwa, President and Country Manager, Cisco India & SAARC, "Virtualization will play a big role in the near future as IT organizations morph into more and more of a services management framework." He adds, "Virtualization and cloud services will deliver content whenever they provide a lower cost of ownership."

Cloud computing is at a tipping point and we see it as a big opportunity for growing businesses to keep up with their growth without having to invest in and manage their infrastructure. IDC predicts cloud computing will capture 25% of IT spending by the year 2012, For the Indian market conditions, this is the right time to offer such services to ease infrastructure management leveraging the cloud. Factors that can trigger this model include companies looking for optimizing resources and reducing capital expenditure. Secondly, this model will be great help to companies who do not have mature IT teams and skilled manpower. 

Suresh of Dell says, 'Given the ocus on driving cost efficiencies, productivity and business growth, we will continue to see technologies such as virtualization lead the way."

Oh Tee Lee, Regional Director, South Asia Pacific Region, Axis Communications, says, "Cloud computing would be another key trend in 2012. We have encountered increased market interest and confidence globally throughout the security and surveillance industry trend for video hosting and monitoring services. The physical security industry is also seeing the benefits and potential from Security-as-a-service (SaaS) besides Software-as-a-service model which limit capital expenditures required by the end user and allows security departments to focus on their core competencies."

Managed Services 

Enterprises are putting stock in managed services as a cost-effective means of dealing with their IT concerns. According to a research by Forrester, total addressable managed services opportunity in India will be worth $8.27 billion by 2013, growing at a CAGR of 19%. 

India presents huge growth opportunities for MPS as large businesses continue to use paper and traditional means of storage and there is an increased need for automation within enterprises. Notwithstanding the divergence of opinions on the managed services market in India, one thing is quite certain. The future of managed services looks bright. It is being well received in India. Indian market presents a huge opportunity for managed services.

The advantages of managed services can be enormous. Managed services model is cost-effective because it offers enterprises a way to make the most of their capital by fulfilling their IT needs on a pay-per-use basis.

Paras Shah, CEO, Neoteric Infomatique Ltd, shares, "Managed Services, Video Conferencing, Unified Communication will be thrust areas, also there is big expected growth in the Surveillance vertical, which we intend to cater."

Going by the recent trends, it seems that managed services are no longer the preserve of large organisations as SMEs are looking to this model to lower costs.

As a matter of fact, those who don't have the manpower, equipment or experience to build out their IT offerings are prime customers for the services of an MSP. 

An increasing number of small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in India are getting to grips with managed services model thanks to its ability to cut costs and reduce the need for capital equipment - both hardware and software. The reason for growing adoption among the SMEs is not far to seek. The managed services model with its contract-guaranteed levels of performance has the potential of offering a much more permanent solution to the cost-sensitive SME market.

Almost all sectors will witness a growing demand for managed services. The key industry verticals that are adopting Managed Services include Banking, Insurance, Pharmaceuticals, Broadband, Rentals, BPO, Education, Hospitality, Manufacturing and Logistics Industries, etc.

Anil Bajpai, Senior Vice President & Head - Research & Innovation, iGATE Patni, holds a slightly different view, he says, "Although global customers have been discussing cloud computing and the probability of adopting a cloud strategy, we have seen very little adoption in the last year. The year mainly focused on creating consensus among CIOs and CTOs to analyse the impact cloud computing can have on businesses." He however, adds "Beginning 2012, we are expecting low cost cloud based projects to pick up, especially those which do not necessitate heavy investments. For instance, cloud computing can play a role in applications that need to be developed from scratch and eventually tested as such an activity does not demand locked infrastructure. However, we are yet to see traction with legacy applications that need to be moved to a cloud environment."

R. Ramanan, MD and CEO, CMC Ltd, says that Public and Private Clouds, Mobile Computing, Open Source Technologies, Analytics and User Experience HTML5, CSS3 Mobile, JavaScript Frameworks,  Mobile ready UI are the technologies and trends which will be at the top of the mind. 

Storage 

Demand for storage capacity continues to grow at a compound annual growth rate of over 43% from 2008-2013. Data explosion is happening at an exponential rate across verticals and across market segments in India. The explosion of information created by business is making storage a strategic investment priority for companies of all sizes. The need for storage space is ever-increasing, as people want to store everything from data, music, movies, to their personal information like credit card, housing loan, bank statements safely.

Praveen Sahai, Director of Sales, India & SAARC and Strategic Marketing Director - APJ, Iomega. Says, "We believe that Network Attached Storage (NAS) technology has become an emerging answer to the storage problems of the Home and SOHO segment." However, lack of education remains the biggest hurdle in the growth of NAS among SMBs. Many organizations still depend on hard disks for storage and do not venture into NAS products as they perceive them to be expensive. With NAS, SMBs can not only relieve their computers and servers from huge workloads coming from just read/write operations, it can also give them a secure way to manage their data without much complexity. Also, buying new PC/ servers is much more expensive than buying entry level network storage. According to estimates, the market for NAS has grown at least 3-4 times in terms of volumes in the past year itself. With increased awareness about the cost benefits among other things, the NAS market in India is waiting to explode. Seeing the huge potential in the segment, Iomega's objective is to bring the advantages and capabilities of network storage solutions with enterprise-level applications to small and mid-sized businesses in professional services and manufacturing as well as distributed enterprises in retail, banking and other vertical industries.

The storage market opportunity, particularly in the SMB and SOHO space, is strong. Every business, big-or small, is continually expanding that calls for huge data backup and storage. The storage infrastructure seems to be getting inadequate every 6-12 months for all segments of the market. SOHO buyers have been the largest purchasers of higher capacity drives (because of lower cost per GB) and this market will continue to grow as a result of the digital explosion. India will be one of the fastest growing mid-tier information storage and management markets.  Increasing tele density and growing reach of broadband is driving the information growth that creates a huge demand for storage. People are downloading movies, music and other multimedia content is fuelling this demand for personal storage. Iomega sees a huge potential for this market through its innovative products that will satisfy the demand for secure and reliable storage solutions.  

Security 

Security is usually viewed as an overhead function. Hence, it's always about how to do more with less and still protect the data. Since enforcement of regulators is increasing, the SMEs have to start paying attention. The need for security is growing faster than the number of people being educated.

Bhaskar Bakthavatsalu, Regional Director - India and SAARC, Check Point Software Technologies, predicts, "In 2012, botnets will become one of the most significant network security threats facing organizations. Compromising anywhere from a few thousand to well over a million systems, botnets are used by cybercriminals to take over computers and execute illegal and damaging activities - such as stealing data, gaining access to unauthorized network resources, initiating Denial of Service (DoS) attacks or distributing spam. In the past, it was assumed that most of the popular botnets were running on Windows machines, this is no longer true today - Linux and Mac systems are not immune."  

Throughout 2011 we have seen cyber threats become more sophisticated, persistent and unpredictable. "In 2012 we will see more Asia Pacific organisations focusing on securing their entire technology infrastructure by addressing all aspects of security - people, processes, technology and content," says Som Satsangi of HP.  

Today, the technology trend is that of IP video surveillance, which is likely to continue to drive the future of the surveillance industry. With specialized video surveillance devices, intelligent video will continue to emerge as a tool for gathering business intelligence. Going forward, our main focus will be building 'intelligence on the edge' in all our solutions. Currently efforts are underway to launch cameras that have the capability to intelligently processes images and sending only relevant information to the security control room or security personnel. 

IP video 'surveillance as a service' is another trend which is slowly gaining momentum. In the coming years, we are likely to experience demand for this concept which is similar to the SaaS (software as a Service) model. People will be able to avail surveillance solutions from a company specializing in the same for their homes and businesses, just the way they make use of telephone, electricity and other utilities. 

With the addition of video analytics software to the surveillance solutions, enterprises are adopting these solutions to get a new perspective in to their business. With growing number of industry verticals and changing business trends the adoption of surveillance cameras is increasing.

Sanjeev Sehgal, Managing Director, Sparsh says, "Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) has emerged as the most viable solution for security surveillance in the Indian electronic security market and will see upward trend according to many researches."

Channel partner community 

Relationship between vendors and channel partners is likely to reach another level. Vendors are raising the bar in terms of their expectations for partners. Same is true of the channel partners. 

Having more certifications and training as well as higher levels of commitment are being expected of partners. Partners, on the other hand, expect greater commitment in the form of more market development funds, training, and joint marketing and sales efforts. 

Tablet PCs

Virtually unknown two years ago, tablet PCs are gaining immense popularity among the consumers. However, business applications and channel opportunities are still lagging in the race. 

Until a couple of years ago, tablets were on the agenda of very few. They were finding their use mainly in a handful of business applications like package delivery, warehouses and hospitals. But in a span of two years then scene has undergone a sea change. With the advent of iPad, the landscape has changed drastically and tablets like the iPad are now much sought-after commodity. 

According to Sunil Lalvani, Director of Enterprise sales for India at Research In Motion, "Tablet and smartphone sales are going to out run PC and laptop sales. That itself tells a story. Yes, there will be security and integration challenges. But it's time for IT to roll up its sleeves and say "hello" to the mobile revolution."  

Today, tablets are the hottest PC form factor around, and just about every hardware manufacturer has thrown its virtual hat into the tablet arena. This has propelled research firms like IDC and Forrester Research Inc. to revise their tablet revenue forecasts upward. There seems to be no end to the growth in sight.

Consumer tablets differ from their industrial counterparts in that they are normally not full-fledged computers with a PC-style operating system. Instead, they use a simplified operating system such as Apple's iOS, Google's Android, or Palm's webOS. Besides Web browsing, consumers use their tablets for multimedia applications such as listening to music, watching videos, updating social media, reading e-books, and playing games.

According to Rajeev Karwal, Founder & CEO, Milagrow Business and Knowledge Solutions, by 2015 60 percent of the Tablets will have Android.  Given Apple's domination of the market, vendors will have to sweat it out to gain significant market share. A fair share of tablet sales will continue to be direct from supplier to service provider and then to the end user.

Finally...

Rajesh Goenka, Vice-President - Sales and Marketing, Rashi Peripherals Pvt. Ltd., striked the right chord when he says, "Tablet PC, Solid State Devices, All in One Desktop and Cloud computing are the key technologies/product category which will drive business in 2012. Focus will be on improving work efficiency, power saving and ease of us will be the key."

Eric Kuo, General Manager, MSI is of the opinion, "Though the global slowdown will not impact the India market directly. But as per MSI internal analysts, the overall market in India might not show a steep upward trend. We are expecting an average growth in 2012."

The PC, Broadband and Mobile penetration showing a positive double digit growth, it is still difficult to predict the overall IT market growth as India is not immune to the global sentiments. There is definitely lack of direction and crisis of confidence. "Though the corporate purchases on IT have been postponed to the extent of 6 months or so, the Education and Government sectors are on the rise as far as the IT spends are concerned. Confidence boosting measures from the government will definitely see a change in the sentiments of the market," says Paras Shah of Neoteric.  

Rajiv Bhalla, AVP & Country Head - Sales & Marketing, NEC India, says, "We will continue to focus on high growth verticals like education, hospitality, healthcare & government with a special emphasis on civil ID, criminal ID and public safety. These are the segments that are showing double digit growth and will be the key engines for growth."

"The IT industry has witnessed tremendous growth since its birth in India. Due to its groundbreaking technological innovations India has today brought itself to the forefront of IT industry. With hospitals, education institutes, automobile industry and many other industries accepting technological innovations as complex as cloud computing, the growth of IT in India is bound to take place. As most of the hospitals, education institute and other industries strive to give best facilities to its customers, and are welcoming about upcoming technologies IT in India has a very flourishing future," says Debraj Dam, VP Strategic Business & Partner Alliance, Smartlink Network Systems Ltd. 

Anand Shrivastav, Chairman and MD, BEAM, "Mobile Commerce services are gaining the ground in India, gone are the times when the ATM and the credit cards made the wallets lighter, now the M-commerce services are replacing the wallets as well."

Tushar Sighat, CEO - India & SAARC, D-Link, says, "There has certainly been an upward swing in the demand & consumption of technology products in recent times. Talking specifically about Networking, I would say most organizations these days are making huge investments in developing an efficient & secure networking infrastructure. Infact the Wireless networking market in India is growing on 2 fronts – The Consumer/Home User and the Enterprise user. It is the increased security, reliability & flexibility feature offered by Wireless networking products that has led to increased demand of wireless products in Enterprise segment."

Asoke K. Laha, President & MD, InterraIT,  says, "Indian market and ICT demand is definitely on a remarkable rise what with the increasing population, awareness and hunger for connectivity and knowledge. Slowdown in western markets would rather be an opportunity for revisiting domestic space with greater vigour."

"We are actively looking to build our capabilities in Cloud, Enterprise Mobility and Analytics based solutions for the upcoming year, and we are investing in technologies like Cloud and Mobility by having already set up Centre of Excellences focusing on building solutions that could potentially transform our customer business, " says Kalaiselvan P. Head - Cloud Engineering and Enterprise Architecture.

L.K.Gupta, CMO, LG India, shares his optimism when he says, "India is second fastest growing economy in Asia and there is huge potential with one of the largest consumer base. Consumers are looking for products with the latest technology. For LG Electronics India is a strategic market and we are very optimistic that we will see a healthy growth in business in 2012 with a focus on product leadership."

S. Mohini Ratna
mohini@varindia.com 

Deepak Singh
edit@varindia.com