Google Apps is expanding its reach in India, thanks to a partnership with Tata Communications. The deal will provide access of Google Apps through Tata’s services, aimed towards business seeking more integrated web-based tools. Given India’s fast-growing market for SaaS, it’s a great area for Google to target its cloud-computing initiatives.

Beyond India, Tata Communications will eventually distribute Google Apps through its global network, possibly extending to Asia, Africa and the Middle East. Not too shabby, as Google looks to further infiltrate the Asian markets and garner the right partners to do so.

Cloud-computing is restructuring the global economy’s business behaviors on a growing scale, providing opportunities for businesses in regions such as India to more readily participate in this far-reaching market. A major driving force behind a business choosing cloud computing is the low cost structure for initializing, using and retaining business processes around these tools. For Google, it offers another stake in its growing cloud-computing claim.

Google is in a decent position for offering a good portfolio of business apps and tools, even as it centers its distribution strategies around its cloud access points. Chrome, being one such access point, is gearing up for an App Store full of add-ons to tie in its many tools to your web experience. Finding a way to lock in business users means playing up the cloud appeal, especially as more global users begin to use their mobile devices to access the web.

David Girouard, president of Google’s Enterprise unit, said in an interview with Raghu Krishnan,

“I think cloud computing is growing across markets. It is not disproportionate to one market, either US or Western Europe…Having said that,…in many ways, in the lesser developed economies, the legacy systems are not as entrenched. People are hopping or jumping to new ways of technology… Many countries are skipping client server[s] and moving to cloud computing.”

The compounding legacy system Girouard speaks of is Microsoft. The Google competitor has been aggressive with its own cloud computing, approaching issues at every major implementation, as they often threaten the very nature of their own distribution partners’ businesses. For Microsoft, cloud computing requires a much larger shift and careful navigation of business relations, though those partnerships will end up being key to Microsoft’s ability to beat Google at its own game.

Microsoft rolled out new Azure tools designed for businesses looking to get more involved with cloud computing. Creating business-oriented services through its existing platforms is a complicated dance for Microsoft, though its taking a multifaceted approach to this as well. Turning to social sites like Facebook, Microsoft is building out its own centralized cloud tool for distributing apps like Word as well.