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IBM sees Indian small business IT-spend at $10 Bn
By siliconindia
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Thursday, 10 July 2008, 02:43 IST
Mumbai: Realizing the potential of India's fast-growing small and medium business segment, IT major IBM is charged to launch an array of cost-effective solutions for its Indian SMB customers.
According to Nipun Mehrotra, the company expects the SMB segment to ramp up over 20 percent year-on-year. "Now, SMBs are no longer just investing in basic IT infrastructure but is looking at partners to manage their ever-complex IT needs while they grow," Mehrotra told PTI.
"The total IT spend of Indian SMBs is expected to touch $10 billion this year, of which $1.1 billion is expected to be spent on IT services alone," said Mehrotra said.
IBM, which has huge expansion plans in Indian SMB market, has an SMB customer-base of above 1,700 customers. In July 2006, the IT major had announced 'packaged services' for Indian SMBs aiming at those clients looking for 'easy to choose, easy to implement solutions.'
IBM presently offers various SMB-focused solutions and services such as Scalable Modular Data Center (SMDC), Network Operations Center-Inside, Integrated Infrastructure Management services and Site Assessment services. SMDCs are smaller version of data centers designed for SMBs and carry most of the features of large-scale enterprise level data centers.
Last year, IBM deployed SMDCs for 15 clients, allowing the enterprises to have small-sized data centers ranging between 300-3000 square feet, said Mehrotra.
Early this year, the company's Worldwide Evangelist for Security, Pierre Noel, had told PTI in an interview that the IT giant was planning to increase its investments in its India-focused security business this year. The investment would be done out of IBM's $1.5 billion global security budget and will fund the IT-majors ongoing projects to develop new security products in the country.
