Hewlett-Packard has been good in spotting technology trends ahead of time. It is now competing aggressively to grab the largest share of the lucrative cloud computing market in India
Cloud computing has rained down on the technology industry for long enough that it is no longer considered an emerging platform. Cloud computing is hot these days; there?s no denying it. And when a large enterprise such as the $127.2 billion American technology behemoth, Hewlett-Packard (HP) talks about it, a definite amount of buzz is bound to be created. Quickly adapting to changes in the marketplace, the Palo Alto, California-based company has now set the stage for the next era of computing with a new initiative called HP Converged Cloud. Cloud computing already commands a $60 billion global market, and is growing at a rapid pace.
It might be somewhat early in the contest, but Hewlett-Packard India has been good in spotting technology trends ahead of time. And it is the company?s ability to detect market changes and then translate that insight into execution that differentiates it from other technology companies. Several companies are aggressively competing to grab the largest share of the lucrative cloud computing market in India. The Indian market for cloud computing is expected to reach $20 billion by 2020, according to a recent study by Nasscom and Deloitte.
?Cloud computing will be as disruptive to the technology landscape as the impact of client and server technology or the internet,? says Neelam Dhawan, managing director, Hewlett-Packard India. ?Cloud computing market is around $2 billion in India. Personally I see it growing at 30-35% every year, which is nearly two times the IT industry?s growth rate,? she adds. More than 2/3rd of the global cloud services companies already have a direct presence in India for their services for Indian enterprises. Analysts reckon that the next five years would witness more companies focusing on Indian market and service portfolio extension of the existing companies in the Indian market. Many large cloud infrastructure companies have laid out service offerings across the stack of private cloud computing for the Indian market.
In recent months, Hewlett-Packard India has beaten many of its competitors to win cloud computing deals in a variety of industries. ?In the last 18 months, we have grabbed new business opportunities in the Indian market. At present, we have more than 70 customers in India, who are either using our cloud infrastructure or end-to-end cloud solutions,? says Santanu Ghose, country head, Converge Infrastructure Solutions, Hewlett-Packard India.
Many of the key verticals including IT-ITeS, banking, financial services and insurance, telecom, manufacturing and government already spend a significant percentage of their IT investments into cloud related areas. ?Other verticals such as energy, healthcare, retail and education among others also present a sizable opportunity in the Indian market,? says Ghose.
Analysts inform that globally as well as in India, a significant portion of Hewlett-Packard?s annual revenue comes from large companies, which tend to move slowly to new technology. Hewlett-Packard wants to be using those big-company relationships in its Converged Cloud proposition, which emphasises things like operational flexibility, management control and security rather than cutting-edge technology.
The company?s main selling points, says Ghose, would be ?choice, confidence and consistency.? He adds: ?HP Converged Cloud enables enterprises to incorporate a blend of public, private and managed cloud services with their existing IT to create a seamless hybrid environment that rapidly adapts to their changing requirements.?
A quick snapshot of the Converged cloud portfolio offerings: HP Cloud Services will deliver its initial offering, HP Public infrastructure as a service, as a public beta starting May 10 next month. The offering provides on-demand compute instances or virtual machines, scalable online storage capacity and accelerated delivery of cached content to consumers. As a result, developers are able to deploy services withing minutes and pay only for the resources they use.
Hewlett-Packard?s Cloud Maps extend the company?s integrated, open solution by providing prepackaged application templates that create customised catalogue of application services ready for push-button deployment. Together with HP CloudSystem, HP Cloud Maps can reduce the time to create new cloud services for enterprise applications from months to minutes.
For clients who do not wish to manage their own clouds, HP is offering its new Enterprise Cloud Services that provide offerings for private clouds, continuity services and unified communications. By outsourcing cloud management to a trusted IT provider, clients can leverage on-demand usage and pricing models to redirect cost savings to other strategic projects.
But isn?t it true that many chief information officers still shy away from cloud computing, tackling other priorities instead? A Hewlett-Packard commissioned India research throws light on some interesting insights. According to the study, currently only 30% of enterprise delivery models are cloud-based. By 2020, senior business and technology executives expect public and private cloud delivery models to increase by nearly 30%. Top drivers of cloud adoption are rapid application development (35%), reduced cost of operations (35%) and enhanced agility to respond to market changes (30%).
Business and IT executives recognise that cloud implementations will be critical to driving successful outcomes and innovation. Nearly one in two CIOs and chief financial officers are currently setting cloud strategies for their companies. Enterprises are also prioritising cloud investments, with 63% of enterprises expected to invest $100,000 to $1 million annually on cloud computing between now and 2020.
To be fair, moving to the cloud might be easier than you think.
