Cloud to create market access for SMEs: Mittal

BANGALORE, INDIA: Cloud is driving consumerisation of IT and it will create market access for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the IT sector, said Som Mittal, president, National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom).

He was interacting with media on the sidelines of the Infrastructure Management Summit 2011, organised by the Nasscom, here on Wednesday.

Mittal further said that cloud is reshaping the Indian IT market and is generating new opportunities for IT players. “Cloud computing is reshaping the Indian IT market by generating new opportunities for IT providers and driving changes in traditional IT offerings. There are ample opportunities for cloud in every industry,” he said.

“With the increased preference for cloud adoption in the coming years, industries will have to invest in building competency internally to take advantage of cloud computing technologies,” Mittal said. .

According to the Nasscom chief, policies need to be created and designed to help enterprises establish and execute a comprehensive security strategy that addresses threats and potential liabilities resulting from cloud computing.

“India is a fast growing economy and the cloud adoption among various sectors is growing pretty fast. It offers a lot of opportunities to the SME sector. Innovation is the key to make this technology more popular and acceptable. India will definitely have a leadership position in the cloud market in times to come,” he stated.

Mittal is of the view that Indian SMEs and enterprises have started realising the significance of migrating their data into cloud. “A few years ago, smartphones and apps were uncommon in India, but now the scenario has changed. Now, India is one of the greatest markets for smartphones and tablets. Likewise, cloud technologies will definitely be proliferated in a short span of time.”

“E-commerce and mobile payments are getting widely accepted in India. This creates opportunities for Indian enterprises to migrate into the cloud technology,” he added.

When asked about the future of cloud computing, he said that consumers and SMEs will drive the technology.

The Nasscom chief further said that the looming economic recession will not impact Indian economy, “The government is taking all necessary measures to make sure that India is not affected. We know that it was the collapse of major US banks which lead to the economic slowdown in 2008. The case is different this time. So it won't have much impact on Indian economy,” he concluded.