Rising Popularity of Cloud Computing in Asian Markets

Cloud computing has taken the whole world by storm and it is being said that this market will achieve even greater growth in the years to come. Susan Eustis from Research and Markets says that cloud computing has changed software forever and it is now offered to users as a service from the 'clouds.' Similar to any other field, this market will also be driven by innovation and, it seems, technology giants like IBM, Google, Amazon and Microsoft have already recognized this. All these vendors are leveraging cloud computing to support innovation and deliver unique services to their clients. Reliability is also a huge point for success and the vendors with the most reliable systems will rule the cloud market in the future. The phenomenon of the "cloud" will bring more changes in the software business in the future and one of the major reasons for this is that programs run on the cloud platform in a more cost efficient manner than with distributed server platforms.

IDC defines cloud computing as the use of a third-party service to perform computing needs on a publicly-accessible IP basis. Cloud computing allows users to access their applications from anywhere by means of any connected device. Whatever information users want is available over the network and this helps in the reduction of IT labor costs and improves the quality of services. This market was at $36 billion in 2008 and has been forecasted by Research and Markets to hit $160.2 billion by 2015. People have begun to rely on these services that provide ease of information access and another research firm, ABI Research, forecasts that this dependency will only increase with time. Currently, there are a number of cloud computing applications in the market and one of them is mobile cloud computing, an application that touches the life of a broad range of mobile subscribers.

Analysts think that in the coming years more subscribers will be attracted to location-enabled services such as navigation and this will be addressed by mobile cloud applications. You may be surprised by some of the innovative applications available in the market these days. Schlage, a lock manufacturer is offering a keyless lock system for your home. Named LiNK, this system will allow any subscriber to remotely control the door lock, security cameras and heating/cooling system by using PCs or mobile devices. ABI also says that the cloud market will soon be populated by a number of business productivity applications. Solutions can be expected in the field of collaborative document sharing, scheduling and sales force management.

Cloud computing is quite popular in the Asia Pacific region, and many vendors like OpenAir have announced major wins in the region. Companies like AIPEX, Waugh Infrastructure Management, Fronde, and Matsco Solutions have shown keen interest in the technology and have adopted solutions from OpenAir to improve their services and business processes. At the same time, some companies have made their base in Asia to serve customers in the region. In 2008, IBM unveiled its first Chinese cloud computing center at the Wuxi Tai Hu New Town Science and Education Industrial Park in Wuxi. IBM established this center with the aim to assist new Chinese software companies to leverage a virtual computing environment to enhance their development activities. Working as a shared facility, IBM's China Cloud Computing Center provides each software company in the park with its own virtualized computing resource. Thanks to this initiative, the companies no longer have to own and manage their own hardware and software and instead use the allocated resource for designing, developing and testing their software products.

IBM has also set up a cloud computing center at the Tokyo University of Technology. This initiative will help the students learn the design, construction and administration of cloud computing services. Other companies are also showing interest in Japan. Earlier this year, Appirio, a company specializing in the acceleration of the adoption of on-demand in the enterprise, announced its first international expansion into Japan. The company will work with salesforce.com for the implementation of Force.com at Japan Post Network Co., Ltd. This deployment is touted as the largest Force.com cloud computing platform implementation in the world.

In May this year, virtualization and automation services provider Parallels launched its industry-uniting cloud services networking event in Asia. In a statement to the press, the company said it serves around 1,000 customers in the region and already has signed 200 strategic partners for further expansion. Serguei Beloussov, CEO of Parallels is looking towards tapping the lucrative opportunity offered by cloud computing in Asia and wants to explore potential revenue streams for cloud services providers in the region.

Beloussov seems to be right on track if you look at IDC's research on cloud computing in Asia. This study says that over half of the Asia-Pacific's senior IT executives surveyed are using or are considering using cloud computing to cut costs and improve business efficiencies. The research firm surveyed 696 IT executives and CIOs across the Asia-Pacific excluding Japan to gain insight about their views related to cloud computing. Around 11 percent of the respondents said they were using cloud-based solutions and approximately 41 percent said they were evaluating or piloting cloud computing solutions. But not everyone is very clear about this concept and many people still have doubts about its usefulness. As many as 47 percent of the respondents said that they found cloud computing still an immature concept. Around 22 percent agreed it was good, but were not sure it will be accepted by their companies. Some also felt that not enough services were available in the market.

Cloud computing is becoming popular in Malaysia also. MIMOS, a premier applied research center in frontier technologies aimed at growing globally competitive indigenous industries, recently collaborated with HP Malaysia. Both organizations are synergizing their efforts for Open Cirrus, the global multi-data center, open source test bed created by HP, Intel and Yahoo! MIMOS will act as a test-bed site to help the advancement of cloud computing research and education. The Malaysian organization said to the press that they aim to create a national cloud computing platform to deploy services throughout Malaysia. T.F. Chong, Managing Director, HP Malaysia believes both MIMOS and HP will create dynamic cloud services that will enrich the everyday lives of the general public in Malaysia. It is also hoped that this alliance will place Malaysia on the cloud computing research community world map. Research initiatives are also been taken by the Korean government with the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) initiating a three-year cloud R&D project, according to Korean insight. Described as "Next-generation digital cable broadcasting service technology development in a cloud computing environment," the project involves the development and building of "Cloud storage," a subset of "Cloud computing." Korea hopes this project will help the cable TV operators in the nation manage huge amounts of data more efficiently for digital broadcasting contents. Once completed in 2011, this project is also expected to save costs as cloud storage will help them avoid expensive overlapping investments in independent infrastructure.

Singapore is also doing its share of hard work to popularize cloud computing in the nation. Andrew Khaw, Senior Director of Industry Development at the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore, recently expressed his thoughts on the issue at an IT event. He noted how cloud computing offers an opportunity to Singapore to secure a place as a renowned IT shared-services hub, and spoke about a plan to develop the cloud computing eco-system. The IDA is focused on establishing sound infrastructure, setting up innovation centers to pilot cloud-based business models in specific verticals and sectors and building a workforce capability on cloud computing.

The next three years are very crucial for cloud computing as more people open up to this concept. IDC emphasizes that it is imperative for IT vendors to develop innovative and strong cloud solutions to take a lead in the market. They must also ensure that their new offerings are aligned with their traditional offerings, partner ecosystem, as well as customer and market requirements. These efforts will ensure them a substantial piece of the pie in the lucrative Asian cloud computing market.