Google, Tata Comm to serve SMEs

MUMBAI: Tata Communications and Google India have joined hands to offer a portfolio of web-based, collaborative business connectivity tools and applications for the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India.

This web based offering include email, instant massaging, calendar functionality, video and office presentation tools for the SMEs.

The offerings are powered by Google Apps and will be offered at competitive price using pay per use model along with technical support.

Tata Communication will directly market the new offering and will also provide support and service to the customers. This new offering is purely a cloud based initiative using the Google’s web capabilities such platform, hosting and knowledge while Tata Communications’ will use its managed services platform, data centers and IT infrastructure.

From a business perspective, there are over 13 million SMEs in India and Tata Communication is targeting about 4 million SMEs, which are considered as the potential customers for the company.

“The launch of this service marks the coming together of two global entities to change the way enterprises communicate and collaborate both within their own organizations as well as with their partner and customer ecosystems,” said David Wirt, Tata Communcations’ senior vice president and global head of Managed Services.

He added that the relationship leverages company’s market presence and expertise in India with Google’s innovative enterprise offerings. The tie up focuses to provide a unique and easily accessible business application for organizations in the local India market.

Dave Girouard, Google’s president for Enterprise said, “We are delighted to be working with Tata Communications and look forward to years of close collaboration and ongoing innovation. Our interests in serving Indian businesses are complementary.”

Further Dave added, “We are confident that this offering will help reduce their IT cost and complexity. Not only will organizations avoid the traditional challenges of managing on-premise technologies, but they can give their workers anytime, anywhere access to the communication tools and information they need to get their jobs done.”

The service will streamline business setup and minimize maintenance without the need for additional hardware or software. It will be accessed via the Tata Communications portal over a web browser or smart phone and will provide secure, real time collaboration among workgroups of all sizes.