Expert: India becoming major cloud computing market

Friday, December 16, 2011 6:07:49 PM

Government organizations and businesses have adopted cloud computing and experienced its advantages at a rapid pace, and now other countries are beginning to incorporate the cloud into IT budgets.

According a GigaOM report, Google India managing director Rajan Anandan recently said India will soon be a cloud-first IT market, beginning a significant trend considering the country of 1.2 billion people is the world's second most populated nation.

The report said India will contain 120 million internet users by the end of 2011, while that figure is projected to reach 300 to 400 million by 2015. As the nation's enterprises subsequently generate large amounts of data and more employees need access to business applications and servers, many IT departments will see cloud computing as an effective and cost-saving solution.

Anandan expects the cloud market in India to increase from $400 million in 2011, to $4.5 billion in 2015, the report said.

While the cloud may eventually become a more widespread service, not all IT mangers in India are ready to adopt the technology. According to a recent survey by a global internet security provider, 70 percent of Indian IT staffs are not yet prepared to adopt cloud computing, but nearly 20 percent are very prepared to transition IT functions to the cloud environment.