Asian IT softens global cash crisis
Industry's strong performance here leads the way for an international economic rebound
- Published: 30/12/2009 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: Database
Springboard Research said in its annual predictions paper that 2009 has proved Asia to be a key stabilising force for the global IT industry and expects 2010 to be a year which sees Asia lead the global rebound with 8.8 percent growth.
The report, authored by Dane Anderson, CEO & EVP of Springboard Research and Michael Barnes, Vice President of Software Research, said that the worst is now over and the sick patient has pulled through. This time last year, the world teetered on the precipice of the greatest recession since the war, but fuelled by growth in China, India and other markets, Asia has not seen the carnage that the West has experienced.
At the end of 2008, Springboard forecast IT spending in Asia, excluding Japan, to grow 7.1 percent. In fact, it grew 6.4 percent, a fairly accurate prediction in light of an industry that was swept up in fear and panic.
In the new global economy, Asia and emerging markets are stronger and more independent and markets today retract and expand much faster than any time in history.
For the second year running, the IT buzzword of the year is cloud computing. At the end of 2008, cloud was already the industry's hottest buzzword but there was confusion in what it meant. Today many vendors are focused on the private cloud with technologies and understanding now much more mature.
Social networking was the IT trend of the year in many forms, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and various country-specific networks. Moreover, it has become a tool for corporations, with Dell, American Express and Telstra leading the wave in using social networking to communicate with customers. Politicians of all sides have also turned to social networking for connecting with their constituents. Managing this channel will remain a key challenge in 2010.
Springboard gave its 2009 company of the year award to Singtel, which has far outgrown its tiny domestic market and now boasts operations in eight countries with 250 million subscribers and a particularly strong focus providing SaaS and cloud computing.
The acquisition of the year was Oracle/Sun. No other acquisition in 2009 shook the industry more. The marriage between these two firms creates the potential for significant market disruption for existing software and hardware vendors and solidifies Oracle as one of the industry's most formidable and influential IT solution providers.
IT buyers have returned to a more normal state of investment but going forward they remain cautious and increasingly sceptical of vendor guidance.
Predictions for 2010
1.Analytics and the evolution towards intelligent solutions emerges as a key driver for business value.
2.The convergence of computing platforms accelerates, with the traditional distinctions of hardware, software and networking starting to disappear since 2009, such as the Cisco-EMC-VMWare coalition or the Sun-Oracle, HP-3Com mergers.
3.Cloud computing momentum increases dramatically.
4.Virtualisation plays an increasingly important role on the desktop.
5.Mobile devices and applications prove crucial for bridging the digital divide in emerging markets.
6.Collaboration (such as web conferencing) continues to shine as organisations leverage initiatives put in place during the economic crisis.
7.A wave of new payment technologies emerge with Nokia investing in Obopay and Square mobile payment by the creator of Twitter, Jack Dorsey.
8.Online developer platforms and communities become the new ecosystem and epicentre of application innovation.
9.Social networking becomes as accessible and commercialised as the Internet itself.
10.IT abstraction forces forces CIOs to change or fall by the wayside. One example is how business bypasses IT for SaaS solutions 33% of the time in Asia-Pacific.
Relate Search: Dane Anderson, CEO & EVP, Twitter, Facebook, American Express and Telstra
About the author
- Writer: Don Sambandaraksa
- Position: Database Reporter
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