India SMBs to spend a billion on networking

BANGALORE, INDIA: As per an AMI study, Indian small and medium businesses (SMBs) are on track to spend $1.04 billion on networking products and services this year, up by 11 percent from 2008. Medium businesses (MBs) will be generating a major portion of this spending accounting for nearly 59 percent of the total SMB networking expenditure.

The growth in networking spending among small businesses (SBs) will be spearheaded by wireless networking.

The estimated growth level is down amid this current economic slowdown, but is still much better than other parts of the world. The number of LAN-based businesses for the SMB sector in India will have a marginal growth of 12 percent in 2009.

The study also pointed out that new technologies will impact the vendors and the channels that offer networking equipment.

“2009 will be a challenging year for the channels, especially the networking channels. Advancements in WAN optimization, hosted unified communications, network access control and wireless 802.11n protocol will help the channels attract the attention of the SMB sector,” said Sumeeta Misra, Research Associate, AMI-Partners.

The market for WAN optimization is expanding, as businesses deploy more robust infrastructures. WAN optimization will help SMBs grow rapidly even during this downturn as it helps improve the network performance without the need to purchase additional, expensive hardware.

WAN optimization also helps accelerate applications accessed by network users and improve the speed of massive data transfers.

“By deploying such technologies, SMBs are looking at cutting costs, making data protection faster and cheaper, realizing better ROI, thereby reforming the business and preparing it for the future,” said Misra. The number of WAN-based businesses for India SMBs will show a significant growth of almost 20 percent in 2009.

The shift in the SMB sector towards an Internet-enabled business model has given rise to the adoption of network access control. By having a security doorway at the entrance of a network, allows the administrator to have a comprehensive control over endpoints, with a variety of access methods such as LAN, wireless access methods, remote access and over the WAN.

“More and more businesses are turning to the Internet for running their operations. This has resulted in an increased focus on network security,” added Misra.

This year will also see the start of broad-based adoption of the 802.11n protocol to deploy new wireless applications. The protocol momentum would help organizations better manage and secure access points.

Small and medium business in India can invest in technologies that can help them reduce cost and improve their overall performance and getting them to be more competitive. VoIP over Wi-Fi will attract the interest of SMB sector.

The most promising technology will be the next generation of Wi-Fi: 802.11n. Verticals like logistics, manufacturing and retail can immediately leverage advanced 802.11n wireless connectivity to provide high performance and reliable wireless control and tracking solutions and will be the early adopters, found the study.

The network is becoming more intelligent due to emergence of new technologies like virtualization, embedded software on open platforms and software-as-a-service (SAAS) model. SMBs will show an increased focus on services and applications delivered over a robust network infrastructure.