Cloud services market to surpass $326 million in 2012: Gartner

The cloud services market in India is projected to grow 32.4 percent in 2012 to total $326.2 million (about Rs. 1,665 crore), according to IT research and advisory firm Gartner.

Software as a service (SaaS) is the largest segment and is forecast to grow to $115.6 million in 2012, while infrastructure as a service (IaaS) is estimated to grow from $35.2 million in 2011 to $42.7 million in 2012, it said.

Cloud computing enables companies to use software, applications and various services on pay-per-use basis, without the need to set up and own IT infrastructure.

Business process services also known as business process as a service, or BPaaS, is the next-largest segment primarily because of the inclusion of cloud advertising as a sub-segment, it said.

BPaaS is forecast to grow to $112.1 million in 2012, up from $90.3 million in 2011, it said, adding cloud compute services will become the largest single segment within the public cloud services market in India growing to $140.8 million, and accounting for about 14 percent of total public cloud services spending in the next four years.

Worldwide public cloud services revenue is on pace to total  $111 billion this year, it added.