India Based Cloud Computing Companies to Watch in 2011/12

After approximately two years of publishing a static list of India Based Cloud Computing Service Providers, readers have been requesting an updated list, and I felt the cloud ecosystem in India has experienced enough changes to justify revamping my earlier one. Following is the new, improved list.

Editorial Note:

• Errors and Omissions excepted (E&OE). Contact via twitter @SinghBasant or through Techno-Pulse contact page
• A few cloud companies featured in the earlier list have been removed due to lack of information or activity during the past two years.
• Despite having been covered by Forbes India (print edition), the official websites of both ABS, Bangalore (abs.in) and Nu Street Technologies, Chennai (nustreet.com) don’t contain enough useful information about their services for me to include them on the list. So, I’ve not included them.
• Similarly, Hyderbad based Trillion IT Solutions had a good response during CloudCamp India tour 2011, but I am unable to find sufficient information about their Cloud Services on their official website (yet to launch it seems).
• There are also a few companies which many of us associate with India due to their significant presence here (including having multiple development centers, etc) and also, perhaps more importantly, the presence of a significant number of Indians in leadership positions (including founder and CEO). A few examples include Zoho, Kaavo, Navatar, Impetus, CSS Corp. These companies are not included on the list because, despite all appearances, they are headquartered in the USA.

List of India Based Cloud Computing Companies – Techno-Pulse Top 12

Order – Alphabetical

 

Company	Service	Location	Remarks
AppPoint	AppsOnAzure - PaaS	Bangalore	Cloud based application infrastructure using Microsoft Azure as the platform. I am yet to explore the details.
Clogeny	Cloud Enabler	Pune	Cloud related services such as: Migration Deployment Planning Consulting
CtrlS	CtrlS Cloud - IaaS	Hyderabad	On-Demand Private Cloud. 99.995% uptime Tier 4 datacenter
EazeWork	EazeHR - SaaS EazePayroll - SaaS EazeSales - SaaS	Noida	Cloud SaaS for SMEs/SMBs.
NetMagic Solutions	Cloud 2.0 CloudNet CloudServe PrivateCloud	Mumbai	A front runner in the Indian IaaS space.
OrangeScape	OrangeScape Studio - PaaS	Chennai	USP - Visual PaaS. OrangeScape CEO Interview OrangeScape Launches into US Market with Persistent Systems Partnership 2011 TiE50 Software/Cloud Computing Winners
Ozonetel Systems	KooKoo – PaaS CTS - SaaS	Hyderabad	In India it has definitely a first-mover advantage in cloud telephony services (CTS)
PK4 Software	Impel CRM - SaaS	Bangalore	USP – a non-western CRM for India. PK4 CEO Interview
Ramco	Ramco OnDemand - SaaS	Chennai	An early mover in SaaS. An ERP on the cloud.
Remindo	Remindo - SaaS	Mumbai	Your company branded official social media tool in cloud (Still in Beta, free – up to 20 users)
Synage	DeskAway - SaaS	Mumbai	Cloud based project management. Synage Founder & CEO Speaks The SaaS Edge  by Sahil Parikh
Tata Communications	InstaCompute - IaaS InstaOffice - SaaS	Mumbai	Data Centers located at Hyderabad, Singapore InstaOffice is powered by GoogleApps
TCS	iON - ITaaS	Mumbai	Covers the entire spectrum of business processes for SMBs. Domains: Manufacturing Welness Retail Education
Wolf Frameworks	Wolf PaaS	Bangalore	Cloud PaaS with 99.97% SLA. Director Wolf Frameworks Speaks

Related Article

Top 10 Cloud Computing Service Providers of 2009

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Wolf Cloud PaaS - Cent Based Pricing Model

When the pricing of a service comes down from dollar to cent, you can safely conclude that the competition is heating up. A leading Cloud PaaS provider from India - WOLF Frameworks is in the news for their Cent Based Pricing Model. Wannabe entrepreneurs and smart developers have one more affordable option -  to quickly build and monetize SaaS or to make a move from On-Premise to the Cloud/SaaS.

Founded in 2006, WOLF Frameworks has introduced a path breaking platform which allows business users to design & deliver all sorts of business applications over the internet without writing a single line of technical code. Offered over the web, this framework fundamentally revolutionizes the way companies can access Business software's OnDemand, manage change, lower cost, unlock their intellectual potential by rapidly transforming ideas as deployed applications & in turn increase Software as a Service (SaaS) adoption worldwide.

Wolf PaaS Salient Features

• Prebuilt SaaS Architecture that handles multi-tenancy, scalability, provisioning, etc.
• Out-of-the-box Code-Free Design Framework that enables rapid delivery of applications.

Recently Wolf has Introduced a Cent Based Pricing Model

• Cent based pricing model – Not $ 20/ per user.
• Pay-as-you-GROW Pricing model where customer is relieved of the constant increase in his operational costs and can now focus more on growing his business.
• WOLF Pricing Highlights:
• Standard Business Plan of USD $ 50/-per month gets you 50 users instead of 5 (as per older plan)
• Per user cost is less than 0.80 cents (INR 35/-)
• Online Payments, no more wire transfer and bank checks
• Make your own Pricing for unlimited users with Organization Business Plan

In my opinion, the pricing sounds good with a not so significant rider – Data Storage Limit of 15MB – for USD $ 50/-per month plan – should be increased. Anyways, I hope as the Cloud/SaaS adoption grows – economies of scale will further bring down the prices.

For details check Wolf Pricing

Related Articles

• India Based Cloud Computing Service Providers
• OrangeScape Launches into US Market with Persistent Systems Partnership
• Cloud Computing Platform Introduction – PaaS
• Develop SaaS on OrangeScape PaaS to Run on any Cloud Infrastructure

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OrangeScape Launches into US Market with Persistent Systems Partnership

Last year I had identified OrangeScape in the Techno-Pulse List of India’s leading Cloud Service Providers. For the starters, Chennai based OrangeScape is  a rare breed of technology platform company founded in 2003 with a vision of simplifying business application development.

OrangeScape provides a Visual Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to build domain rich solutions, in the easiest and the fastest manner and can be deployed on any cloud. It’s in the Gartner’s Global Top 10 list of PaaS competitive Landscape and also has been featured in all the PaaS reports of Forrester.

OrangeScape became the first Indian company to be backed By The One Million by One Million (1M/1M) - Persistent Systems Partnership.

1M/1M - Founded in 2010 by Sramana Mitra, the One Million by One Million (1M/1M) initiative is an educational and business development program that aims to help a million entrepreneurs globally to reach $1 million in revenue and beyond, build $1 trillion in sustainable global GDP, and create 10 million jobs.

Persistent Systems – A global brand, established in 1990,  (BSE & NSE: PERSISTENT) is recognized as an award-winning technology company specializing in software product development services.

What does this Mean for a Smart Developer?

One more proven platform. More Opportunities. More number of apps with less efforts. Why? Because the partnership of this kind obviously means – everything’s going right with OrangeScape PaaS – a validation from industry’s who’s who.

As a developer, I still remember my classic ASP days at the beginning of my career. At least a 100 lines of code to display a simple set of data in tabular format! Another 100 lines to achieve sorting & paging. Indeed a nightmare for beginners! Dot Net came as a savior and was a gentle breeze for those migrating from classic ASP. Dot Net though made the coding simple, yet has a lot of challenges for the developers as the customer’s expectation grew with it. I guess open source technologies (viz. JSP) still lacks the drag & drop features and the developer has to code almost everything.

The Bottom-line: With the existing development platforms/models, a smart developer (or a small team) can never think of developing an application alone – for various reasons:

• A lot of mundane/repetitive work.
• Software licenses – too expensive for most of us.
• Even for a simple app the investment in Time & Effort required is practically too high to reach an early break-even point (if you sell your app).

With the evolution of next-gen Cloud based PaaS viz. OrangeScape – the developer needs to worry only about - the domain knowledge  and the application workflow. With a little effort a developer (or a small team) can unleash the hidden entrepreneur in her/him to quickly build and market a SaaS on OrangeScape’s fast, collaborative, modeling driven, visual platform (PaaS)

Millions of small businesses (SMEs/SMBs) around the world are waiting for affordable apps… broadband & smart-phones are no longer luxury and about to reach the tipping point even in developing countries. Think about it.

What does this Mean for a Wannabe Entrepreneur?

There’s a new trend – Cloud/SaaS – the signals are too strong to ignore. Catch it before the opportunity zooms past you…

What does this Mean for an Entrepreneur?

You might need to find out more about 1M/M and leverage its strength to reach out to the new markets.

Essence of the Press Release (on February 18)

• OrangeScape enters the US Market.
• Competition heating-up in North American PaaS landscape.  
• Persistent Systems will be selling and providing implementation services for OrangeScape.
• Persistent Systems will take OrangeScape to their existing customers
• Persistent Systems will target two markets 
  • Enterprises - to position a App Platform in the Cloud
  • ISVs - PaaS to build SaaS
• Sramana Mitra will help OrangeScape in such strategic moves in the days to come.

What do They Think About the Partnership?

This deal with Persistent Systems will bring OrangeScape a cost-effective go-to-market solution through their global sales team and offshore backed enterprise implementation support through technology experts in Persistent’s Cloud Practice.

---Suresh Sambandam - Founder & CEO OrangeScape

We at Persistent are very excited to work with 1M/1M in helping entrepreneurs succeed by bringing new technologies to market, … We have been proactively investing in Cloud Computing, and believe that OrangeScape’s Platform as a Service (PaaS) product will nicely supplement our portfolio of cloud technologies to provide large enterprises an app platform in the Cloud and use PaaS for ISVs migrating to SaaS. OrangeScape, when sold through right channels, can have a significant impact in the market.

---Dr. Anand Deshpande - Chairman and Managing Director, Persistent Systems

The 1M/1M philosophy is to focus our entrepreneurs on customer acquisition and revenue without burning through a huge amount of cash in building expensive channels, … Our partnership with Persistent Systems is focused on taking promising small companies to market, efficiently. OrangeScape is one of the most promising Indian product companies we have seen so far, and we see an exciting opportunity for them to enhance the capabilities of Google’s App Engine in long tail enterprise apps. Over time, we foresee OrangeScape becoming a leader in the A-PaaS (Application PaaS) space and also a cornerstone of the Google enterprise solution portfolio.

---Sramana Mitra, founder of 1M/1M

For the press release & other details check - OrangeScape First Indian Company Backed By The 1M/1M - Persistent Systems Partnership

 

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What can IRCTC Learn from redBus Cloud Implementation?

Every day n number of individuals, sitting somewhere in the world or standing in serpentine queues, battle to reserve berth in the world’s 4th largest railway network - ferrying 20+ million passengers daily.

What happens at IRCTC website - one of the largest B2C websites in India?

Peak Hours at IRCTC During Tatkal Booking follows

[Image Sequence – From Left to Right || Clip Art Credit - Microsoft Office Online]

Everyday the above sequence is repeated with clockwork precision… Why? Director Consulting - BroadVision (Asia-Pac Region) - the company which looks after IRCTC website - informs: “…The bookings & enquiry requests are 6-7 times higher during the peak hours than the rest of the day. So while the existing infrastructure is well equipped to handle the daylong traffic, it is the peak hour traffic that clogs servers…” What is IRCTC’s current peak hour traffic? As per this Medianama report, IRCTC had a total (successful + failed) of 10.8 million transactions in the month of August 2010. A little Arithmetic & it can be derived that it is approximately 7 transactions/second. Now consider the following multiplication factor: 7x i.e. the peak hour traffic Total number of transactions during peak hours = 7 * 7 49 transactions/second Though it’s NOT fair to compare IRCTC with Google yet for a  stats conscious reader, transaction per second numbers are as follows: Please Note: IRCTC has a locking algorithm i.e. one seat can’t be allotted to two individuals while Google can share the same information to multiple users. IRCTC  [peak hour] Google                       49                   34,000 What will happen after 5 years?

2015 Statistics projects the number of Internet users increase to almost 5 fold. [Source: McKinsey Quarterly – Sept 2010] Nandan Nilekani - Chairman of UIDAI; in an interview published in TOI  on Dec 26; 2010 informs: “… Number of Bank a/c holders in India is 20%. … A large number of Indians don’t have acknowledged existence (No identity) … UIDAI is targeting 600 million Aadhaar numbers in next 4 yrs … every Indian should have this number by 2020…” Fast economic growth & ongoing implementation of UID (Aadhaar) project may lead to explosive growth in number of Bank Accounts, Credit/Debit card in rural India. Mr Nilekani informs, considering the pace of enrolments for Aadhaar, there is a very real possibility that the number of bank accounts issued in the next four years will exceed the number of accounts banks have issued since India's independence. Also add the following direct/indirect contributors to IRCTC traffic: Web savvy - Facebook generation - now in school - will grow up to become active netizens. Consequence – IRCTC 2015 normal hour traffic > 2010 peak hour traffic

Is Indian Railway & IRCTC prepared for the day when the Internet is accessible to even 50% of the following?

Image Credit

Interestingly, the 5 fold increase in number of Internet Users is just 28% of the population. Currently, US, UK, Japan & a few other countries boasts 75%+ Internet penetration.

Solution?

Optional Info: Until the number of trains/seats increases dynamically based on demand, there’s no guarantee that you would get a seat. With automated systems in place Indian Railways can initiate some extensive study on the IRCTC traffic pattern. Though the physical infrastructure on the ground (staff, track, signal etc) may prove a bottle neck yet I think trains/seats vis-a-vis number of passengers can be optimized.

Here I am trying to figure out how to provide a better user experience.

Barring Agent Login during peak hours?

Recently IRCTC has resorted to this myopic solution to reduce the server load during peak hours. Though it has made the difference, yet I think this is an un-democratic, un-justified & a temporary solution.

redBus, a small start up – and the largest online bus ticket booking service, has shown vision in resolving the issue wisely.  They moved to a cloud based infrastructure provided by world’s leading IaaS provider Amazon. An excerpt from the case study at Amazon website:

“…The biggest problem was that the infrastructure could not effectively handle processing fluctuations, which had a negative impact on productivity. Additionally, the procurement of servers or upgrading the server configuration was an extremely time-consuming endeavor. Over time, redBus realized that a better solution was imperative—a solution that offered scalability to handle the company’s processing fluctuations. redBus looked to Amazon Web Services (AWS) for a solution…”

Check the following Pre-Cloud & Post-Cloud Stats of redBus.

[Stats source: Forbes India. December 17, 2010 – Print Edition]

What’s the best & most Cost Effective Solution for IRCTC?

Public Cloud (IaaS). May be Yes as the data handled by IRCTC can not be categorized as confidential or sensitive.

What may prevent Indian Railways (IRCTC) to opt for public cloud?

Data in cloud can travel across national boundaries may raise a few security concerns. This free travelling of data may not be in sync with the existing law of the land.

Why can’t Indian Railways have its own Community Cloud? Considering its size & number of services it can offer – it may prove to be a wise decision & viable solution.

What do you think?

Cloud Articles at Techno-Pulse

• In Absence of Dedicated Privacy Law & Data Protection Law - Is India Ready for Cloud Computing?
• Is Multi-Tenancy an Essential Attribute of Cloud Computing Service?
• 5 Essential Attributes of a Cloud Service
• India Based Cloud Computing Service Providers

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In Absence of Dedicated Privacy Law & Data Protection Law - Is India Ready for Cloud Computing?

“…The real problem is that India does not have any dedicated Privacy Law, Data Protection Law and Legal Enablement of M-Governance in India informs Praveen Dalal, a Supreme Court Lawyer and leading Techno Legal expert of India. With the proposed use of Cloud Computing, Software as a Service (SaaS) and M-Governance by Indian Government, more “Privacy Violations”, “Cyber Security” and many more “Regulatory Issues” would arise in future. These “Initiatives” cannot succeed in India in the absence of adequate and strong Laws in this regard…”

--- CJNEWS - India Is Not Ready For M-Governance And Cloud Computing

Though Privacy is our fundamental right yet I wonder how many times it is violated frequently on a daily basis; be it three-four unsolicited telemarketing calls or scores of SMSes & spams. Even the finance minister of India is not spared – a telemarketer offered him home loan while he was attending a high profile meeting with leader of opposition. It seems Do Not Call Registry & Do Call Registry have failed to curb the nuisance. (Come January 1; 2011 & you can at least identify (not prevent) the telemarketer’s call as they will be starting with the prefix 70)

The recent controversy of phone tapping of a top industrialist & the subsequent leakage of tapped conversation in public domain raises a serious privacy concern. Currently, though it’s a honeymoon period for the cloud customers & providers as almost everything is going fine with a little or no hiccups at all. But with the ongoing state of affair, a business owner in India may have to think twice before migrating to the cloud

Trust is intact till it’s broken…

• What if someone sold your trade secret, customer list or business plan to your rival?
• Is there a law in India to protect your privacy & data in the cloud?

Cloud by its basic architecture is decentralized & location independent (cross border data transfer). India along with US, EU & other tech-leading nations must come up with some mutually agreed basic framework of legislations to safeguard privacy & data protection across national boundaries but without impeding innovation. A dedicated privacy & data protection law  in place will considerably reduce the fear & friction & in turn might go a long way in creating a favorable cloud ecosystem.

Optional Info: Though not full-proof yet European Union & US customers/vendors enjoy a fair degree of privacy & data protection. The New York Times shared the following on an upcoming bill - balancing between national security & protecting privacy:

“The bill, which the Obama administration plans to submit to lawmakers next year, raises fresh questions about how to balance security needs with protecting privacy and fostering innovation. And because security services around the world face the same problem, it could set an example that is copied globally.”

In absence of dedicated Privacy Law & Data Protection Law - Is India Ready for Cloud Computing? What’s the opinion of leading cloud experts? Check…

Disclaimer: I am NOT associated with any of the companies mentioned here.

[Opinions published in the order they were received]

Suresh Sambandam - Founder & CEO of OrangeScape, a pioneer Platform as a Service(PaaS). The only Indian company listed in research reports of Gartner and Forrester on PaaS. OrangeScape's patent pending rule engine based PaaS platform enables entrepreneurs to build scalable SaaS based business applications easily. I believe 'Law' should always play a catch up role with evolution for new industries, new businesses etc. It is too early days and things are changing rapidly. The law makers wouldn't even know what should be the constituents of the law. I am worried about Law makers creating more confusion than regulation. I feel the economy will regulate itself in many ways - just like the SAS70 certification other things will evolve from the industry to protect the industry. I feel this is much more practical and sustainable. Ultimately Customers will abandon providers who are not adhering to standards.

Narasimhan (Kishore) Mandyam - CEO of PK4, a company that delivers a SaaS Impel CRM for India. Started as a developer at Infosys in 1986, Kishore has built and run companies in software services and in products in India and the US. Prior to PK4 he has lead many successful ventures viz. Ampersand, Aprisa & zeroCode. In 2006, he co-founded PK4 with the objective of changing the way traditional software is built and sold. Impel CRM is the first large software system from that effort. Kishore is an Electrical Engineer from UVCE, Bangalore. If businesses had to depend solely on laws to make decisions, there’d be no innovation whatsoever. In fact, India is a terrific market for Cloud Computing, since this is one of the few countries on Earth there access to and the growth of network infrastructure has far outstripped access to basic infrastructure like electricity and water. People and companies can access sophisticated services without having to worry about electricity back-up and air conditioning for their servers, since the infrastructure is all “out there somewhere”. Further, without an “installed base” of in-premise computing, Indian managers have less to worry about in terms of legacy. The legal issues will get resolved over time, but businesses will have come on board Cloud Computing long before that.

Sunny Ghosh - Director Wolf Frameworks, a browser based On Demand Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for rapidly designing and delivering database driven multi-tenant Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications. Sunny is responsible for developing & evangelizing the business model embedded inside the WOLF Platform. A COBOL, RPG, CL programmer by origin, with strong career foundation with Motorola, Sunny started his career in the Telecom domain & holds an honors degree in Mathematics with specialization in Competitive Product Strategies, Intellectual Capital & Software Business Management from NSRCEL, IIM-Bangalore. A voracious reader, core committee member of the prestigious CII - Knowledge Management Community of India, he has published series of papers on how Digital edge empowers large Diasporas & communities, “Mobilizing knowledge management towards digital rights” in assistance from World Bank & UNPAN and dreams of a world filled with choice, service, freedom and optimism. With the internet becoming an integral part of personal and corporate life, Indians have long been accustomed to the usage of Cloud services such as email and have warmed up to the idea of internet banking, online conferencing & related services. The increasing adoption of web-based services that add significant value and save time, money and effort, indicates a trend which is fast becoming the norm. When considering Cloud services, most organizations acknowledge that security, customer privacy, data backups and risk mitigation are a part of a Cloud vendor’s core competency and service offering. Moreover, the need for a secure web-based service and the gap needed to fill it leads to the realization that building a security arrangement similar to that of a Cloud vendor would be prohibitive in terms of cost as well as implementation skills. Importantly, the growing adoption of Cloud services by global clients and their resulting benefits is a clear indicator of the competitive difference and savings that come from adopting these services.

Jamal Mazhar is Founder and CEO of Kaavo. He possesses 15+ years of experience in technology, engineering and consulting with a range of Fortune 500 companies including GE and ING. He has BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin and MBA from NYU Stern School of Business. Kaavo Inc.  provides solutions for managing distributed applications in the clouds.  Kaavo’s core product, IMOD, takes an application centric approach for managing infrastructure and makes it easier for businesses to run secure and scalable services and applications in the clouds. Privacy and related issues will be resolved with the increase in cloud computing adoption not before it. The adoption will happen first in use cases where privacy is not a concern. Ready or not there is already a wide spread use of social networking sites in India and people are actively sharing and putting personal information on these sites in the Cloud. Every time there is a big technological shift, it creates social, economic, and managerial friction and it takes time for all these forces to sort out. Carlota Perez has done an excellent evaluation of the forces that are in play during any major technological shift in her book (Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital); I highly recommend reading it to get a better understanding of the social and economic aspect of new technologies.

What’s your opinion? As a business owner will you wait for the law to refine & arrive with dedicated privacy & data protection regulations? Or do you trust the self regulation & standard followed by your cloud service provider?

Cloud Computing Articles & Interviews at Techno-Pulse

• Is MultiTenancy an Essential Attribute of Cloud Computing
• Kaavo: Application Centric Management & Security for Cloud Computing
• India Based Cloud Computing Service Providers
• Cloud Based Project Management – DeskAway SaaS
• Develop SaaS on OrangeScape PaaS to Run on any Cloud Infrastructure
• Cloud based on-Demand SaaS CRM for India: Impel
• Develop Cloud based SaaS Applicatios on Wolf Platform

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HP + Bharti intend to Offer Cloud Services to SMBs

If the deal goes through, it’ll be a good news for the thousands of SMBs / SMEs in India, who are still waiting for their 1st affordable Cloud Application. At a later stage, a few more players may pitch in to make it a more meaningful deal. It may also prompt a few other partnerships by other cloud vendors for affordable solutions for SMBs/SMEs. I bet there’s a billion dollar opportunity & there’s indeed a gap to be filled when it comes to IT implementation in SMBs. In contrast to the sky rocketting prices of traditional model of software development, Subscription based Pay-Per-Use model of cloud apps (SaaS) is the main attraction when it comes to implementing applications for SMBs. If you are not so convinced about the existing opportunities, read here Cloud Computing: A Catalyst for IT adoption in SMEs/SMBs

As HP is a leader in IT infrastructure equipments, it can take care of the IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) layer of the Cloud i.e. Data Center. The Indian telecom giant Bharti (It offers Telecom Services with Airtel brand name) will offer its optical fibre network and bandwidth to cloud data centers. Read press report here HP, Bharti in talks to offer cloud services for SMBs.

What we Expect from this Joint Cloud Initiative?

• As both the player’s core strength doesn’t lie in the other two cloud stack i.e. PaaS and SaaS; it’ll be interesting to see which cloud platform (PaaS) support they are offering. There are various choices, but in my view the best option, which covers most of the development tools and programming languages is Microsoft’s Windows Azure Platform. It offers multiple development tools & languages to choose from; viz. .NET (C#, VB.Net, C++), Ruby, PHP, Python and Java. By default it supports Visaul Studio IDE, apart from that it also has plug-ins for Eclipse. Moreover, if you can have the development platform in-premise you can port your cloud app to your in-premise environment and vice-versa. Unlike in the past, it ‘seems’ Microsoft intends to make Windows Azure an Open Platform.  
• Also, from a developers perspective, the offerings should be cheap or free till the service gets a significant number of users/customers. Pricing wise something like Google App Engine! In the long run, with a proper strategy these data centers may empower a developer or a group of developers to create their own cloud application at a ridiculously low price and offer them as a service. Power to innovate! for Cheap & Best service.
• There are other PaaS as well which I am not so familiar with to offer my suggestions: Check here for Emerging PaaS.

What do you expect?

Cloud Articles at Techno-Pulse

• Top 10 Cloud Computing Service Providers of 2009
• Best & Free Cloud Computing Applications
• India Based Cloud Computing Service Providers
• Develop SaaS on OrangeScape PaaS to Run on any Cloud Infrastructure
• Cloud Computing Service: A Basic Introduction – 1
• Cloud Computing: A Basic Introduction – 2
• Cloud Computing Platform Introduction – PaaS
• SaaS Introduction with Example – Cloud Service

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Sync.in Review - Real-time Collaboration in Cloud

Summary

Sync.in ?	Web based word processor for collaboration in real-time
A product of	Cynapse, Mumbai, India
Useful for	Brainstorming, meeting notes, project planning, training
User Interface	Slick & intuitive
Base Technology	Etherpad
USP	Fast & responsive
Limitation	Drawing tools, subscript, superscript, image
Conclusion	Recommended

Detailed Review

Sync.in is a real-time collaboration tool. Users can simultaneously edit and all changes are seen live by users connected to the note/document. It synchronizes everyone’s edit & merges them all in real-time. Multiple people can simultaneously edit the same document, any changes reflect on everyone’s screen instantly.

I tested Sync.in (Public) with a team of 4 members (collaborators), simultaneously & randomly writing on the pad. There’s a Paid version as well - Sync.in (Pro).

The most impressive feature was its real-time synchronization capability. I was curious to know the time lag in syncronization i.e. the difference in time of typing the letter & appearing of that letter at the other end. To calculate this we accessed the same note (document) from two systems placed besides each other (so that we can view both the monitor screen). Interestingly, we could see each & every letter typed by other collaborators/members at our screen as if it was being typed from the keyboard attached to the local system. Practically, there was no perceivable lag at all.

We did a similar test with Google Docs - document, in the same environment. But its synchronization ability proved to be slower compared to Sync.in. In Google docs document, chunks of words appeared suddenly after a significant lag of say 12 seconds.

Noteworthy features

• Interface is quite intuitive. No learning curve.
• Chat window - collaborators can communicate while they're editing.
• The color coded (8 colors) text background indicates the contributions done by different users. Users can change their colors or completely turn this functionality off.
• Color highlight trail for each author: quickly know who contributed what.
• Infinite undo history..all changes are saved to the server and can be undone any time…
• One click, easy sharing - invite collaborators easily by sharing the note link over e-Mail, Facebook, twitter, Linkedin & other social networks.
• Travel back in Time using Time Slider.
• Mark & find important versions in a click
• Chat history is saved foreve, along with the note.
• Export your note as html, plaintext, bookmark file.

Limitations

• Export to Plain Text NOT maintaining formatting…of no practical use.
• No drawing tool
• No subscript, superscript support
• No formulae support (e.g. sharing equations etc)
• No image support…
• Font styles not supported.
• Very limited formatting tools.
• Connection with server lost frequently

Conclusion

Recommended.

Also note that, Sync.in Public notes can be accessed by anyone. For a private & secured note, companies can opt for Sync.in Pro which has enhanced security features for Private Notes viz.  Password, SSL (https) etc.

Optional Info

A few other similar services powered by ether-pad technology.

• http://meetingwords.com
• http://piratepad.net
• http://openetherpad.org
• http://ietherpad.com

Find out more at http://etherpad.org/etherpadsites.html

Cloud Computing Articles at Techno-Pulse

• Top 10 Cloud Computing Service Providers of 2009
• Best & Free Cloud Computing Applications
• India Based Cloud Computing Service Providers
• Cloud Based Project Management – DeskAway SaaS
• Develop SaaS on OrangeScape PaaS to Run on any Cloud Infrastructure
• Cloud Computing Service: A Basic Introduction – 1
• Cloud Computing: A Basic Introduction – 2
• Cloud Computing Platform Introduction - PaaS
• Cloud based on-Demand SaaS CRM for India: Impel
• Infrastructure as a Service – IaaS: Cloud Computing
• Develop Cloud based SaaS Applicatios on Wolf Platform
• SaaS Introduction with Example – Cloud Service
  

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