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TCS bets big on 'iON' cloud for SMBs

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DQC Bureau
New Update

With cloud computing

evolving as a feasible option for several enterprises to simply run

their complex business processes, off-late, it is becoming

increasingly evident that the entire ecosystem of enterprises and the

players within it are steadily gearing up for cloud adoption.

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Holding on to similar

convictions, a part of the Tata group and India's largest IT

services, consulting and business solutions firm, Tata Consultancy

Services (TCS), has recently organized a grand event for the launch

of business solutions on the cloud under the brand name 'iON'.

Targeting the Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs), href="http://dqchannels.ciol.com/content/reselleralert/111021801.asp">Tata's

'iON'

is the first-of-its-kind fully integrated information technology

cloud-based solution with a combination of hardware, networking, and

office and business software on a pay-per-use model.

“TCS is all set to

become a more popular brand with small and medium-size businesses in

meeting the growing demands in SMB segment,” said the confident

Venguswamy Ramaswamy, Global Head-Small and Medium Business, TCS.

The need for IT with small

and medium businesses is growing. SMB is a segment that is

characteristically different from large enterprises. Explaining about

targeting the SMB segment, Ramaswamy said, “Till date, IT industry

has judged this market as attractive for niche solutions in hardware

and software. Yet, the business need of the SMBs demand holistic

partnership. As there are too many options available with very little

in-house knowledge, the plight of SMBs is far from being met, which

calls for a different service model. We have built a unique business

model that makes IT available in an integrated fashion on the cloud.”

He added that the journey for coming up with an integrated cloud

solution for the SMB segment started around two and a half years ago.

Initiating the effort for building the 'iON' cloud solution for

small and medium enterprises, the company conducted an elaborate

study of the Indian SMB market to understand their IT demands to

address the market. Having done a clear study on the SMB segment, it

was observed that the Indian SMBs were under the deep clutch of capex

mode, which further was posed as a severe bottleneck for them to

migrate easily to cloud computing, and thus, TCS started architecting

a cloud-based solution named 'iON' for Indian SMBs. It was the

brainchild of N Chandrasekaran, CEO and MD, Tata Consultancy

Services.

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According to TCS, 'iON'

provides on-demand business solutions using the very latest in

scalable cloud computing technology. It has been developed to deliver

IT in the third generation service model to SMBs. Using a pay-per-use

business model, iON helps SMBs leverage world-class technology

solution as a key business differentiator. It removes the need for

SMBs to invest in IT assets or retain scarce IT talent. iON uses

cloud computing technology with a pay-per-use business model and

addresses the entire spectrum of SMB's technological needs ranging

from business solutions like HR, finance, inventory and domain-based

ERP as well as e-mail, document management and website services. The

cloud-based solution is pre-configured with hardware; network and

software bundled together and backed by business, technical and

consulting services.

TCS has been placing a lot

of emphasis on enabling small and medium-scale businesses to use IT

as a service in their business plans. The company is targeting the

Indian SMB market first with the offering called 'IT-as-a-service',

and expects a revenue of $1 billion from the segment in the next five

years with its affordable cloud computing model. According to

research firm, Zinnov Management Consulting, the total Indian market

for cloud is projected to be worth $260 million by 2011. It also

stated that the IT growth in India is the fastest in the world and

that Indian SMBs are looking for business improvement in the face of

challenges like lack of management bandwidth and tight budgets.

According to Ramaswamy, for these companies, cloud computing is

certainly a viable option since the Indian SMBs are set to spend more

than $16 billion on computer technology.

Explaining about the price

reasonability of the solution for the SMBs seeking to cut down their

budgets on capital expenditure, Ramaswamy cited an example of the

cloud solution for the education vertical, which is being priced at

Rs 70 per student a month. Using this 'IT-as-a-service' cloud

solution, Monica Doshi, COO, KarROX Technologies said, “Considering

the complexity of our business, the TCS team has been very supportive

in implementing our requirements. We have introduced 'campus

management system', which acts like a digital campus, where in a

center it could track the availability of lab and faculty online and

also place orders for courseware on diminishing inventory. This

information can be centrally monitored in the head-office on a daily

basis.”

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Also, several channel

partners across the country are very optimistic in their outlook for

the SMB segment; seeing increasing demand for cloud computing

solutions from enterprise customers.

Shailesh Mallya,

AVP-Marketing and Communication, Mumbai-based Lauren Information

Technologies said, "For the TCS SMB cloud service, we signed up

this deal three months ago and until today, our customers in the cloud

computing space is increasing day by day. We see this business

growing at an aggressive rate in the years to come. We are

predominantly seeing traction for cloud-based solutions from the

upper mid-market to large enterprise customers and not SMBs as of

now. We recently tied up with two clients to have cloud setup. Our

client base is gradually increasing with the brand name of TCS."

Not only Lauren

Information Technologies, but also Secunderabad-based Cache

Peripherals, recently entered this business with a deal with TCS and

is confident that they will see some cloud computing deals this year.

Director Gumidelli Sailesh confidently said, “I certainly feel that

SMBs are ready to migrate on cloud computing since it makes perfect

commercial sense. The significant driver of cloud computing in the

SMB segment is because of the lower costs for running the technology,

innovation and lower risks involved. With cloud, no upfront capital

expenditure is needed, as there would not be any requirement to hire

huge administration staff as problems like upgradation, software

patching and others would be taken care by the cloud service

provider. The adoption costs are also lower as per the pay-per-use

model by TCS. In my view, for most new businesses which will be set

up in the future, cloud is the most viable option to adopt.”

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“It is one year since we

have deployed this solution for the admission, HR, procurement and

assessment processes. We intend to deploy these solution across 115

locations. Initially, we intend to deploy pilot projects and then we

will deploy at all locations,” said Ryan Pinto, CEO, Ryan

International School. Ajay Pahwa, CEO, Kaya Skin

Clinic also said in concurrence, “We have seen a lot benefits like

high bandwidth at low costs. This helps us to translate better when

it concerns customer needs. The best part is we are able to

incorporate the solution on the basis of pay as you use. It helps us

to maintain and track the history of our customers and also in our

day to day business.”

Also, Ajay Sawant, MD of

Mumbai-based Orient Technologies, has signed up a deal with TCS for

the adoption of cloud computing technology two months ago and is now

expecting to touch the revenue of $1 million by the end of this year

with this tie-up. But, Sawant is also of the view that there is still

a long way to go for small and medium sized enterprise to

successfully implement the cloud technology. He added, "The

penetration of cloud computing in Indian SMB is not huge at the

moment and there very few deployments have actually happened. The

public cloud will gain more momentum among the SMEs. This is our

first year on cloud computing deal with TCS and we hope to generate a

revenue of over 10 percent on our total business on cloud by the end

of this year.”

Prof (Dr) B V Somasekhar,

Vice Chancellor, Suresh Gyan Vihar University said, “The gross

enrollment ratio is expected to jump to 30 percent in 2020 from its

current figures of 12.6 percent. In order to match this gross

enrollment ratio that is expected to increase economic progress IT

deployment becomes a necessity. In the future, the education field is

going to witness an amalgamation of various eduction bodies like

AICTEE among others. The government is going to invite foreign

universities to set base in India which will pose a challenge for

Indian universities who will then have to put their best foot forward

to match steps with their global counterparts.”

However, speaking about

the initiative of bringing in cloud service for SMBs, Ratan Tata

explained that through this, TCS will empower the SMEs, which

contributes to over 45 percent in the country's GDP. He further

assured, "We will modify the entire system and there will be

powerful technological changes.” TCS assured its SME audience that

it will provide all help to its customer's; starting from the level

of hardware, software and even network solutions and services for the

customers' connectivity with cloud platform.

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