Local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are turning to applications hosted on the Internet to cut escalating capital costs.
During yesterday's ITWeb Hosted Applications for SMEs event, sponsored by MWeb Business and Microsoft, IT experts claimed the South African business landscape is changing and requires a new approach to tackle technological problems.
Arthur Goldstuck, MD of World Wide Worx, explained during the event that the proliferation of high-speed connectivity is fuelling the demand for SMEs to turn to cloud-based services and applications. “Cloud computing has been made possible by the growth in bandwidth. Many of the services that SMEs are currently using are accessed via the cloud such as Gmail.”
According to Goldstuck, the South African Internet user base grew by 15% last year, from 4.6 million to 5.3 million, breaking through the 10% mark in Internet penetration. By the end of this year, this figure is expected to hit the six million mark.
He indicated that new international undersea cables bringing in high-speed Internet access to both the West and East Coast of Africa have led to an exponential increase in potential bandwidth. By 2012, Goldstuck predicted SA will reach 12Tbps of bandwidth.
“We've seen an acceleration of 15% growth of the Internet. In the next five years, we are going to see continued growth at the rate we saw last year. And by 2015, we will reach the 10 million mark,” Goldstuck noted.
While ADSL growth is still strong, World Wide Worx found it's showing signs of slowing down. However, wireless broadband is seeing dramatic growth. Goldstuck said this is largely due to the fact that businesses view wireless as a backup to ADSL, and that the number of mobile workers is increasing. “Some 94% of enterprises have issued 3G cards to their staff, while a third of SMEs have equipped their staff with 3G cards.”
Goldstuck said it generally takes five years for an individual or SME to become a fully-fledged experienced Internet user dealing with advanced Internet services such as transacting online. He added that broadband doesn't necessarily speed up the experience curve, but is based on the time the user spends online.
Social networking Web sites such as Facebook have driven the growth of new Internet users using cloud applications. As Internet connectivity costs come down, an increased number of SMEs are expected to climb onto the cloud computing bandwagon. Goldstuck added: “Cloud computing enhances communication. Cloud computing is the future of data usage and integrity. It is a business strategy no-brainer for the future.”
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