New Market Entrants,

entry/exit barriers
geographical factors
incumbents resistance
new entrant strategy
routes to market

Supplier Power
brand reputation
geographical coverage
product/service level quality
relationships with customers
bidding processes/capabilities

Buyer Power, eg:

buyer choice
buyers size/number
change cost/frequency
product/service importance
volumes, JIT scheduling

Competitive Rivalry
number and size of firms
industry size and trends
product/service ranges
differentiation, strategy

Threat of Substitutes
alternatives price/quality
market distribution changes
fashion and trends
legislative effects

Cloud computing tools

Cloud computing market capture
Reactions from the cloud computing market on the survey results .
Availability and performance
Facts and figures
How to establish trust
Learning from adaptors of the cloud

A true cloud offering," says Jeremy Cooper, vice-president (marketing) of salesf

orce.com (vendor for both Bajaj Finance and Sun Life) for Asia-Pacific, "is one
that is subscription-based, which involves no purchase of hardware, software but
only needs an internet connection. It could also be a multi-tenancy model where
a single infrastructure is used by many (like Google or Yahoo)."

Patni, according to Chief Executive Officer Jeya Kumar, plans to have all its in
ternal IT services hosted on the internet with many B2C players by June 2010. Th
e company, says Kumar, spends around Rs 190 crore (Rs 1.9 billion) on its intern
al IT needs annually. These include servers for storage, desktops, networks and
bandwidth.
"We are our own guinea pigs when it comes to cloud computing. Once we are convin
ced that it is secure and fruitful, we will extend these services to our custome
rs too," says Kumar. Not only will Patni be "able to save around 30 per cent by
way of capital expenditure and another 30 per cent on space when the process is
complete", says Kumar, but "when we acquire a new company, we will not need two
data centres even if the headcount doubles. The complete new portfolio from the
acquisition will be hosted on the web."
Wipro [ Get Quote ] too has built a "private cloud" for internal use. The softwa
re giant is now offering that expertise to existing customers to optimise the co
mputing power of their data centres. Wipro is also building what it calls the "e
nterprise cloud" - a capability it plans to offer to clients who have already ou
tsourced or plan to outsource their hosting or infrastructure management activit
ies with the company, according to Girish Paranjpe, Joint CEO of the company.
"Creating a private cloud is something that Wipro can help clients with. Managin
g security within private clouds is what Wipro can do. It is much more efficient
both in terms of costs and kind of provisioning. Earlier, we in Wipro noticed t
hat once we placed an order for a server, it used to take 43 days to install. No
w that we have capacity on demand, we have to just switch on, and it takes just
36 minutes," says Paranjpe.
Many opportunities
Infosys [ Get Quote ] has cloud computing-based solutions for the auto sector. A
nd others such as HCL Technologies [ Get Quote ], Tata Consultancy Services [ Ge
t Quote ] and even Bharti Airtel [ Get Quote ] (with its network PC) aren't far
behind. They will no doubt have stiff competition from global majors. Sensing th
e huge opportunity in India [ Images ], IBM has already set up a cloud computing
centre in Bangalore. Oracle is getting its act together, while Verizon launched
its cloud computing service in India in August 2009.
The opportunities are simply huge. HCL Technologies CEO Vineet Nayar says cloud-
based enterprise services provide an opportunity to create new business models a
nd should not be seen as just another technology. It is a shift in the way IT de
livers business capabilities.
Smaller Indian players are also fast taking the cue. Hexaware Technologies [ Get
Quote ], for instance, has announced a strategic partnership with SOASTA, a lea
der in cloud testing, according to R V Ramanan, president of global delivery. Ak
ash Saraf, CEO of Zenith Infotech [ Get Quote ], also a hardware vendor, concurs
that the move to cloud computing "will certainly make maintenance obsolete."
Zenith recently launched its private cloud computing service called Proud. It is
a single centralised computing system which replaces the need for customers to
buy computing and networking hardware as separate components. Since the customer
can run its entire IT infrastructure - desktops, servers, storage, networking a
nd applications like enterprise resource planning, security and so on - it helps
save on cost and maintenance.
The number of applications and the amount of content in the cloud now available
to both consumers and corporations has grown to a critical mass, according to an
alysts at Booz & Company.
Gartner says worldwide cloud service revenue will surpass $56.3 billion in 2009,
a 21.3 per cent increase in revenue from $46.4 billion in 2008. The market is e
xpected to reach $150.1 billion in 2013. The Indian market, according to Springb
oard Research, will register compounded annual growth of 76 per cent between 200
7 and 2011 and reach $260 million (around Rs 1,300 crore) in by 2011.
Cost saver
"Companies love the cloud as they have only operating costs to pay. The cloud is
a win-win for everyone. As more and more people are using multiple screens, des
ktops, laptops, mobile phones and TV screens to access their data, the cloud is
inevitable. Corporate India can save lots of money by using the cloud," says Vij
ay Mukhi who promotes 'The India Cloud Initiative'.
Ascentius Consulting Principal Analyst Alok Shende: "We anticipate cloud computi
ng to be adopted in segments that currently have low IT penetration and demand s
olutions with low complexity. Small- to medium-sized businesses will be the prim
e candidates.
Large enterprises may have some initial concerns on compliance, data security an
d unproven reliability of cloud computing. However, there will be pockets such a
s back-up storage and hosted email service where large enterprises will be more
open to employ the cloud."
When a company needs more capacity during its peak season, it simply pays for it
on demand. When business slows down and the company needs less capacity, its bi
ll goes down because it uses fewer resources. In financial terms, this allows a
company to move much of its infrastructure costs from being a capital expenditur
e to an operating expenditure.
Research firm Saltmarch Intelligence says data confidentiality and auditability
topped the list of primary obstacles for the use of cloud computing technologies
in their organisations, according to a survey of over 1,100 Indian Business Tec
hnology professionals.
"Security incidents in the cloud have made clear that this new promising technol
ogy comes with complexity and security and privacy challenges. Cyber attacks are
executed with precision and patience and security technology seems to fall behi
nd the threat curve," says Indu Britto, group publisher & senior vice-president,
Saltmarch Media.
Vendors say they have the resources to make their data centres more secure than
anybody ever could and resilience is better because data is distributed and back
ed up in geographically dispersed locations. Cooper of salesforce.com says: "Tha
t cloud computing compromises security is a myth. We have 1,800 customers who mo
stly comprise financial institutions and banks."
Analysts also say that few firms have worked out "which data should go where fro
m a business point of view. This failing means moving everything to the cloud wo
uld not provide any real benefits as the fundamentals have not been sorted out.
It would merely "create a new set of network dependencies because the data is no
 longer in the same data centre".
There are other hurdles too. Dearth of sufficient bandwidth, lack of robust netw
orks, virtualisation and security issues could delay adoption of the technology.
More than 30 per cent of large businesses have some enterprise applications in
the cloud, but two-thirds do not have a security strategy for cloud computing, a
survey conducted by IDC found.
Image: Visitors watch a presentation about cloud computing at the IBM booth at t
he CeBIT computer fair in Hanover.
Photographs: Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters
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Cloud computing is helping corporations create new, cost-effective business mode

ls. It has opened a world of opportunities for Indian IT companies