BANGALORE, INDIA: Some say it will rain. Some say it will pour. When it comes to prognosticating the future of cloud technology in Indian skies, it's not easy to come to a common ground. Outlooks and expectations show up in mixed shades, but nonetheless, pointing that it may rain 'adoption' sooner or later in India too.

To start with, Cloud computing is a style of computing where scalable and elastic IT-enabled capabilities are provided "as a service" to external customers using Internet technologies.

If we reckon some international comparisons here, the worldwide cloud services revenue is on pace to surpass $56.3 billion in 2009, a 21.3 per cent increase from 2008 revenue of $46.4 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is expected to reach $150.1 billion in 2013.

Cloud is black

But not all Indian enterprises, seem as gung ho about it. Sectors like BFSI or insurance related enterprises would be a laggard in adoption to cloud-based technologies. The technology is still a far fetched phenomenon for Indian enterprises, mainly because of reasons of data control.

As V Subramanian, CISO, IDBI Bank puts it, since any data in a bank is related to sensitive information about customers, it would be preferred to hold it in one's territory rather than relegating it to a third party. "Of course, computing resources can be put and explored for cloud optimization but even then if customer data is involved in the transfer, it would raise eyebrows and concerns."

Business processes delivered as cloud services are the largest segment of the overall cloud services market, accounting for 83 per cent of the overall market in 2008. The segment, consisting of cloud-based advertising, e-commerce, human resources and payments processing, is forecast to grow 19.8 percent in 2009 to $46.6 billion, up from $38.9 billion in 2008, as per a Gartner estimate.

However India so far has been slow-paced and hesitant about embracing the change.

For Nivio, a startup provider of virtualization solutions that claims to have under its belt the world's first online Windows Desktop, the journey has been more fast-paced in regions like Jordon, Saudi Arabia or Palestine, where thanks to one-window decision making, the business, specially on Government enterprises, has been better and faster in comparison to India.

Interestingly, the very model of cloud computing, started in the enterprise space, says Sachin Duggal, CEO Nivio, that is more avid on now transporting the same effect in the consumer space. "Still it's an early bus to take for many in India and has a far way to go, even in the consumer space. Short-term vision is a factor to be addressed. Cloud computing's true nature is that of shared-utility service. Large scale enterprises have still a long road to cover when you compare to middle-sized organizations."