Indian mkt for business email and collaboration platform at an interesting juncture: Ascentius

BANGALORE, INDIA: Hosted Email and Cloud based email market are breaking out and taking roots while on the other end, the incumbent On-Premise Email platform market continues to experience potential revenue growth and are emerging as the lynchpin for businesses to benefit from Collaboration & Unified Communication, finds new study The Evolving Market for Email & Collaboration Platform in India by Ascentius

Ascentius estimates the total revenue across on-premise, hosted and cloud based email and collaboration platform is expected to grow to $ 111 million by 2015.

The survey predicts that composition of the email and collaboration platform by revenues is expected to experience tectonic shifts. On-Premise license revenue will decline from 81pc of the market to 73pc in this period.

Ascentius has taken 2012 as the base year for the study. It takes a broad look at the way Indian businesses are leveraging email and collaboration to pursue higher productivity.

It also covers trends in the adoption of email and collaboration platform - be it on-premise, hosted or on cloud. The study takes into account nearly 100 businesses of all sizes including channel partners. Responses from the study were collected from different industries namely, manufacturing, IT & ITeS, professional services, to name a few.

"The Indian market for business email and collaboration platform is poised at an interesting juncture. While at one end, new paradigm such as hosted email and cloud based email market are breaking out and taking roots, on the other end, the on-premise email platform market continues to experience potential revenue growth and are emerging as the cornerstone for businesses to benefit from collaboration & unified communication," stated Alok Shende, Principal Analyst & Founder Director, Ascentius. "Our study suggests mutual coexistence between on-premise and cloud based email & collaboration platforms in the future."

"The reasons why businesses of all sizes are choosing Microsoft Exchange over Google Apps are enterprise-class security, reliability, anywhere access, data privacy and a familiar user experience," said Tarun Malik, Director - Product Marketing & Strategy, Microsoft. "Microsoft, with the Exchange Server part of the Office 365 suite, is clearly the leader in the market of on-premise and public cloud email platforms, leaving Google Apps far behind, which is further validated by the study conducted by Ascentius."

"Microsoft is best suited to take full advantage of this market scenario as it provides the necessary flexibility for the customers to move to cloud at their own pace with the choice of public cloud, on-premise and hybrid environments," added Tarun Malik.

Microsoft's integrated suite across cloud and on-premise approach for security, archival, instant messaging and unified communication has led to a sustained advantage in the market place, according to a study by Ascentius. The finding of the study ‘Evolving Market for Email & Collaboration Platform in India', shows Microsoft's Exchange Server platform owns 78 per cent market share making it the largest on-premise email solution provider. Office 365 is the leader in the public cloud email and collaboration services market with a 70 per cent market share.

Other key findings of the study are:

On-premise email & collaboration platform

o The major drivers for adoption of on-premise email and collaboration platform in the order of priority are:

any-device and anywhere access

increased adoption of users for advanced collaborative tools

security, storage, discovery, archival and retention

reduction in the total cost of ownership

availability of third-party applications written for platforms

o The market size of on-premise solutions is estimated to grow at 9% CAGR over the next 3 years

Hosted email & collaboration platforms

o The market for hosted email & collaboration is expected to grow to $ 8.85 million by 2015 with a CAGR of 21pc

o The key market restraint that is holding back the growth of hosted services relates to the quality of service issues

o The SME segment is the biggest adopter of hosted services, wherein they account for 55% of the total market revenues

Public cloud email & collaboration services

o Public cloud email services are expected to grow at a 27% CAGR over the next 3 years to $20.5 million

o The study suggests that the public cloud email market is likely to grow at the cost of hosted email services market and not the on-premise email platform market in particular