2010 was the year of Cloud Computing – a phenomenon that
Indian enterprises welcomed and endorsed quicker than many
expected. This was a clear sign of a major evolution in
India’s IT landscape that, coupled with Virtualization,
clearly reflected CIOs’ intentions to get the most out of
each buck spent on IT infrastructure and deliver on the mandate for
reduced energy consumption.
Cloud Computing & Virtualization will continue to trigger
growth in the New Year, while the market will witness consolidation
as the economy begins to reap the benefits to these technologies.
It will be interesting to observe how adoption and proliferation of
3G falls in place. Long Term Evolution or LTE, which is a 3GPP 4G
technology will follow in its predecessor’s footsteps, and
with telecom bigwigs’ backing, it might just get quicker
attention. We have observed a clear trend among Facility
Managers focusing on optimizing OPEX and Total Cost of Ownership
(TCO), as opposed to an earlier focus on CAPEX. Consequently,
Green Data Centers have a bright future ahead in India.
Marketers will increase focus on the internet as an alternate
medium to push their goods and gain more eyeballs. It will offer
customers a secure & cheaper medium to compare offerings and
make an informed decision. The trend would be limited to certain
product-lines and to metros. On the same lines, Social Marketing
will also gain prominence. Vendors are expected to also adopt
retail as an effective medium for marketing IT products, with an
objective to get more footfalls and allow customers to
‘
feel & buy.’
I expect the global economy consolidate in 2011, and begin its trek
northwards. The worst is definitely behind us. Risk-averse credit
institutions would be seen loosening their purse strings to offer
credit to SME/SMBs that are expected to be the growth drivers,
especially in emerging markets. ICT would again gain prominence as
a tool for economic productivity, and the speed of execution would
be the key. An expected GFI of around 8-9 percent and the rise of
SME/SMBs will create a cascade effect to reinforce growth in
2011.
Certain sectors such as Infrastructure, Government, and BFSI, that
are key to our business and to the economy, recorded double digit
growth. Overall the market was upbeat throughout the year but slow
to pick-up momentum. At present, all eyes are on the Infrastructure
space. India needs much faster Infrastructure growth than it is
currently witnessing. Our biggest challenge will lie in the
proliferation of robust infrastructure, arguably the single most
important element for equal distribution of economic progress.