GlobalOutlook, a Hyderabad-based hosted Microsoft Exchange and business communication services provider, is evaluating opportunities to offer Microsoft Lync 2010, a single interface that unites voice communications, instant messaging, audio-video and web conferencing into a richer, more contextual offering, to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in India.
“An unfortunate trend in the SME world, more prevalent in India and China, is to look at easier ways of adopting technologies...by using pirated software. This is where IT giants like Microsoft are looking at making their technologies friendly to SMEs by converting them to cloud-based products,” Raghu Kumar, chief executive of GlobalOutlook, told Business Standard.
With nearly 100 SME clients, comprising 10,000 users, GlobalOutlook expects all existing users to convert to Lync 2010 once it is launched in the next couple of months.
“Unlike large enterprises, which have an army of technology deployments, SMEs typically want a single-window offering that has an impact on their costs. What GlobalOutlook offers yields a saving of nearly 41 per cent,” Kumar said, adding that the core focus of the company was on the growing SME world.
According to a study by the consulting firm Zinnov, titled ‘Indian SMB ICT Adoption Insights’, there are around 50 million SMEs in India, of which 10 million are technology-ready. The study says that while the overall domestic IT spending is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 per cent to reach $36 billion by 2015, SMEs at the same time will grow at a CAGR of 15 per cent, contributing $15 billion by 2015.
GlobalOutlook, which has licenced Microsoft’s Exchange, which provides email, calendar and contacts on PCs, phones and web browsers, and BlackBerry Enterprise Server from Research in Motion (RIM), has also carved out a new hybrid solution for the SME market.
“The new solution enables SMEs to start moving a small portion of its staff to Exchange, using the same domain name, without any interruptions, even as the remaining employees use their existing Linux-based solutions or any low-end solutions. The challenge for SMEs is to cut their capex and the hybrid solution addresses just that,” Kumar said.