APAC IT Market Predictions For 2011

As the world continues to recover from the global financial crisis in 2011, the IT industry will undergo fundamental shifts in technology adoption and usage. Driving forces pushing industry change will be mobility, analytics, IT democratisation, IT abstraction and convergence. The critical one, however, would be cloud computing.

Winners and losers will be separated by an ability to quickly identify the shifts underway, to see (and accept) things in different ways and mobilise their organisations or teams to respond as quickly and effectively as possible.

The top 10 trends that will shape enterprise IT in the Asia Pacific region in 2011:

1. Cloud Computing – From Silver Bullet to Just Another Sourcing Option

Throughout 2011, the cloud‐related hype of 2009 and most of 2010 will steadily give way to a more sober, and realistic understanding of the relevance and applicability of cloud computing among CIOs and other senior IT decision‐makers.

Cloud related security concerns will subside slowly throughout 2011 as the approach is more fully understood. Instead, concerns will center around interoperability and integration of systems, data and processes likely to be accessed across multiple internal and external deployment scenarios.

2. Demand for Mobile Reporting Services Transforms “Business Intelligence”

Previously bundled as “Business Intelligence” (BI), reporting and analytics will begin to bifurcate in 2011, largely as a result of an increased demand from end-users for mobile reporting services. With a strong initial focus on role‐based report delivery, lightweight navigation, simple drilldown and basic user-driven interactivity, mobility will begin to move BI out of IT and into the hands (literally) of business decision makers.

Collaborative analytics will also begin to emerge in 2011 but will fail to gain widespread acceptance through 2015. Collaborative analytics describes the process of users engaged in a collaborative and iterative goal seeking approach to problem solving. It is a mesh of reporting, analytics, workflow and collaboration services that aids knowledge workers’ decision productivity.

3. Managed Services Providers Innovate to Drive Added Value

One of the most important milestones in 2011 will be the expansion of managed services beyond basic infrastructure management to include more application‐related services. As more organisations seek to reap the benefits of a better integrated approach to managed services, there will be a clear move towards application outsourcing that combines infrastructure and application management to yield better application performance at a lower cost. As this trend continues to gain strength, the lines between SaaS and managed services will increasingly blur.

Managed services will continue to be influenced by cloud computing throughout 2011.

4. HTML 5 Boosts an Application‐Centric Web Across a Wide Range of Devices

HTML 5, the next major revision of the HTML standard expected to be formally ratified by late 2011, will gain greater attention throughout the year with its ability to support video playback, drag and drop user control, inline document editing, client‐side data storage and more interactive web form capabilities. HTML 5 will enable a further significant leap from being document centric to becoming more application centric and will enable a new wave of mobile applications to be delivered to a wide range of devices.

Regardless, HTML 5 will not completely replace existing rich internet application development environments such as Adobe Flash/AIR and Microsoft Silverlight. These will maintain a strong developer base due to their integrated authoring environments and additional capabilities, such as content protection, in-built (and very robust/efficient) video delivery, and as improved SDKs to these environments become more user-friendly and powerful.

5. IT Distribution Channel Partners Accelerate the Evolution of their Business Models

Distribution channel partners are in a particularly vulnerable position as the IT market moves quickly toward cloud computing. The days of surviving on business models dependent on distributing generalised IT products with razor-thin margins and living day-to-day on cash turns supported by vendor-provided credit are quickly coming to a close.

To make matters worse, the traditional large-scale SI deals that supported channel partners for years are increasingly disappearing or are being won and delivered by vendors directly. In 2011, regional system integrators (SIs), value-added resellers (VARs) and distributors will be forced to better develop specialties by vertical industry and business solution to deliver the customer value required to survive in a cloud-enabled market. Already being pushed by their vendor suppliers to invest in skills around high growth solutions, channel partners will need to elevate their customer intimacy and ability to deliver clear business value.

6. Telcos Embrace the Cloud but Are Forced to Prove Their Customer Orientation

In 2011, Telecommunications companies (telcos) of all sizes, and in many Asian countries, will formally embrace cloud computing as an offering targeted at enterprise IT. However, not all telcos will be as equally committed – or capable– of delivering the full range of cloud services demanded by customers. Infrastructure hosting will be targeted at larger enterprise clients with SaaS offerings targeted at small to‐medium sized business (SMB) customers during 2011. However, cloud “pure-play” vendors will also continue to grow and be attractive, often by partnering with telcos to provide more complete and packaged solutions (e.g., offsite backup and more flexible capacity and performance options).

7. Real‐time CODE Emerges: Content Management Meets Collaboration

Driven by recent trials and experiences by individuals and small workgroups, real-time collaborative document editing (CODE) will begin to gain broader attention in the enterprise market during 2011.
While CODE is unlikely to go “mainstream” in 2011, the benefits of real-time collaborative online document editing are significant. Just as instant messaging reduced email-based collaboration “cycle” times over recent years, document centric processes that require multiple participants to edit and/or approve documents will also benefit significantly.

8. Information Security Becomes a Key Enterprise Priority and Sparks Client Virtualisation

In 2011, governments and large enterprises will invest far more in technologies, services and business processes to protect their most sensitive information assets.

Improved information security will bump up against – and be challenged by – a number of the strongest trends driving the IT industry in 2011:

• Providing Analytics for Mobile Workers
• Pervasive Network Access
• New Social Media

**9. Converged Infrastructure Stacks Challenge General‐Purpose IT
**
For the past 30 years, success and growth in the IT industry has been driven by general purpose hardware and software components integrated together by vendors, business partners and end-users for a user’s particular needs. This model of computing has served the industry exceptionally well and has brought IT to millions of new businesses and consumers over the past several decades. Like preceding industry changes, this industry framework will remain and continue to drive a majority of the market for years to come.

However, integrated stacks of hardware, software and services in devices and appliances will continue to gain prominence and challenge the traditional industry model in 2011– even in the face of the emergence of cloud computing.

10. The Consumerisation of IT Drives Major Changes in Usage Patterns and Expectations

Rapid growth in the usage of mobile devices, (e.g., smart phones, iPads, etc.) combined with an explosion in social computing (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, etc.) has already impacted the way end-users view IT. Over the next 12 months, this ongoing consumerisation of IT will have increasingly dramatic impacts on the ways in which end-users access enterprise applications and data. While employees continue to access sensitive applications and data from secured, corporate networks, they are increasingly using web-based offerings and mobility devices for both work and personal reasons. This represents growing complexity for IT teams that are already wrestling with the need to embrace new technologies– but struggling to maintain management and control over older ones. CIOs will face ever increasing pressure to allow more consumer/personal devices into corporate networks, manage the influx of social computing habits of their employees and handle the increasing mobile security issues they present.