Indian IT market to regain 'normal' growth

The IT market in India is expected to grow at about 15.5 percent in 2010, returning to a "new normal rate" after last year's turbulent economic environment, according to a new report.
In a report titled "India IT Market Predictions 2010" released Monday, Manish Bahl, research manager at Springboard Research, said the growth would be spurred by organizations initiating new large-scale projects over the course of the year. These initiatives will require significant IT infrastructure-related investments, he noted.
Springboard Research estimates show that India's domestic IT market recorded an 11-percent year-on-year growth in 2009, down from the 14.1 percent it projected in February 2009.
Going forward, there is great interest in cost-cutting measures as CIOs in India focus on allocating around 75 percent of their budgets to "keep the lights on", added Bahl. The report pointed to a noticeable shift in enterprise IT spending from focusing on new investments to streamlining costs and improving internal efficiencies.
Reaching out beyond large enterprises to small and midsize businesses (SMBs) will be "key to success" for vendors of remote infrastructure management, desktop management and other managed services, Bahl noted. However, he added that vendors can expect to cater to "very cautious and increasingly skeptical set of IT buyers and prospects".
The report indicated that data center transformations, IT manageability advancements, software-as-a-service (SaaS) and virtualization investments are also helping companies drive "economies of scale" by reducing operational expenditures, both from the business and IT perspective, while increasing productivity.
The report also listed the top 10 trends that will share the IT market in India this year:
1. Business enhancement with existing vendors and geographic expansion will drive strong focus from India's IT channel community.
2. Analytics and the advent of "intelligent solutions" will drive new business value.
3. Rural India IT solutions will make steady headway via public- and private-sector investments.
4. Business leaders will drive the proliferation of SaaS applications.
5. A wave of innovative new payment technologies emerge.
6. Desktop virtualization to gain more acceptance in the enterprise.
7. Government projects will fuel smart card technologies.
8. Mobile social networking goes mainstream.
9. Convergence of computing platforms accelerates.
10. Online developer platforms and communities are the new ecosystem battleground and epicenter of application innovation.