Broadband satellite networks and services provider Hughes Communications India today said it has launched a cloud-based messaging and collaborative service for business customers using Microsoft's Communication Services platform.

The cloud service will be subscription-based and will be built on Microsoft's Communication Services platform, Hughes Communications India said in a statement.

Cloud computing services can be broadly defined as virtual servers available over the Internet.

The service -- dubbed Hughes Productivity Services -- will eliminate the need for users to invest in hardware, software licences, security and related management costs by providing a 'pay-per mailbox' service model.

"The demand for software as a service model among Indian enterprises and SMBs has grown many-fold over the last few years," Hughes Communications India VP, Enterprise Business, Shivaji Chatterjee said.

The Microsoft Hosted Exchange will provide more choice, flexibility and affordability to customers, since they will not have to invest on buying licences, or install and manage software in-house.

"We are delighted to be supporting Hughes in their efforts to democratise enterprise technologies and make Microsoft's popular messaging and collaboration tools accessible to a larger audience," Microsoft India Enterprise Services Division Group Director Vikas Arora said.

The installed base of hosted email mailboxes in the Asia-Pacific region, including both business and consumer accounts, is expected to grow from nearly 1.1 billion mailboxes in 2010 to over 1.5 billion mailboxes by 2014.