Asia Pacific Cloud Computing a US$ 934.1 Million Business in 2012

Cloud computing is certainly a big thing in the enterprise market today, with businesses becoming familiar with the benefits of putting their data, applications and business processes in the cloud. In the Asia Pacific region alone, revenues from Software-as-a-Service offerings will reach US$ 934.1 million in 2012.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) refers to offerings that run purely on remote servers, with users accessing data and applications from Internet-connected devices. And with the prevalence of smartphones and tablet computers in the workplace, professionals are still productive even when on the go.

An added benefit is that enterprises no longer have to spend big money on capital expenditure, such as server infrastructure to support software. Instead,businesses are increasingly switching from on-premises setups (in which servers are bought and installed on owned or shared server space). Rather, companies just rent on a per-use or per-user basis, and IT is no longer capital-intensive, but rather a regular, running expense.

Gartner estimates that revenue from the SaaS market will reach US$ 14.5 billion worldwide, including the U.S., which is the biggest market for enterprise cloud computing services. This is a 17.9% increase over the 2011 figures of US$ 12.3 billion.

Cloud computing services in the Asia Pacific region alone will make up about 6% of this market, with US$ 934.1 million in revenues from SaaS related activities in 2012. This estimate comes at a growth of 21.8% from last year’s US$ 730.1 million.

This figure excludes Gartner’s estimate for Japan, which is at US$ 495.2 million. Together with Japan, the APAC region will make up US$ 1.429 billion or almost 10% of the worldwide SaaS market.

Gartner has forecast revenues for this market to reach US$ 22.1 billion by 2015.

Gartner says the Asia Pacific region estimates are fragmented, with a wide variance between mature markets and emerging ones. According to Gartner, the mature markets in this region include Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. Meanwhile, countries like  China, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are only starting to appreciate the benefits of cloud computing.

In the Asia Pacific, popular cloud applications for enterprises — in order of popularity –are accounting, enterprise resource planning (ERP), office suites, email, and customer-relations management (CRM) apps.

Gartner research director Sharon Mertz highlights the growth and evolution of SaaS, even with varied adoption rates in different regions. “Increasing familiarity with the SaaS model, continued oversight on IT budgets, the growth of platform as a service developer communities and interest in cloud computing are now driving adoption forward,” she said.

Further, Mertz commented on the differences in issues and concerns in the different regions. In APAC, longer-than-expected deployment of cloud computing initiatives is the biggest concern. Localization requirements are likewise a key issue. However, this is being addressed by an increasing effort to localize SaaS services to cater to the different needs of clients. “Vendors are more aggressively pursuing SaaS buyers outside traditional markets by offering local-language availability, forming alliances and constructing data centres to accommodate local requirements.”

Via MIS Asia

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