Trends Driving Demand For Web Applications

Akamai Technologies, Inc. in partnership with IDC has unveiled the findings of the IDC Asia-Pacific Web Application Survey 2010 titled, “Prepare to Scale Your Web Infrastructure to Meet Imminent Growth in Cloud and Mobility.” This survey is focused on trends driving demand for Web applications, and reveals that businesses have become dependent on the Internet for their daily operations. The survey also outlines the challenges IT departments face as they strive to improve application performance and the end-user experience.

According to the survey results, Web applications delivered over the cloud will surge by 40% over the next 12 months and drive IT managers to further improve the performance of their Web infrastructures. 26% of the 423 organisations polled have experienced productivity issues due to poor access to Web applications.

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David Kenny, President, Akamai said, “Organisations in the Asia Pacific region are increasingly turning to the Web to support their employees, customers and entire ecosystem of partners and suppliers. Indian businesses are rapidly migrating more applications to the Web, and we can expect dramatic growth in Web application adoption over the coming year. With this expected surge in Web-based application traffic, Indian organisations will need to leverage cloud-based solutions for ensuring the performance and scale of this mission-critical content.”

Organisations were queried about their business expansion plans as well as the utilisation of Internet and cloud-based computing for business functions. Initial findings show incredible growth in the Asia-Pacific region – about 32% of the organisations polled across Asia-Pacific plan to set up branch offices over the next 12 months, with India leading with aggressive business expansion plans. Such expansion will change the nature and complexion of the workforce. With increased mobility and business agility, companies are able to expand their operations quickly and cost-effectively.

According to Adrian Dominic Ho, Principal for IDC’s Asia-Pacific Practice Group covering Communications and Service research, and author of the IDC white paper, growth in extended enterprises will also contribute to the rise of the borderless world, resulting in a surge in Web application adoption. One of the most challenging tasks IT managers will face is ensuring they deliver acceptable levels of Web application performance, and thus a superior user experience.

With more than 50% of organisations currently conducting online transactions, the big growth areas over the next 12 months will be mobile access and streaming video. For mobile access, organisations in Singapore, Hong Kong, and Malaysia are leading the region, with up to 86% of those in Malaysia expected to have mobile access to Web applications over the next 12 months. In view of this, 20% of organisations across the region plan to give employees mobile access and support bandwidth-heavy streaming video applications over the same period.

One of the key reasons organisations invest heavily in Web applications is to empower their employees and build an extended enterprise. Increased mobility means organisations have to think about providing employees easy access to corporate applications, regardless of their location. Greater workforce mobility, growing adoption of mobile technology for business use; and recent improvements in centralised visibility, management, and control of mobile costs, have rendered mobility an inexpensive and important strategic asset for many organisations.

One of the key factors driving the growth in enterprise mobility is the proliferation of smart devices, which give employees ubiquitous access to business applications. In the region, IDC expects smart phone penetration to reach 100% by 2015 in the mature markets, while emerging markets will require a further two to three years.

Cloud services have been one of the most-discussed technologies over the last 12 to 24 months. The number of applications that will be delivered via the cloud is expected to increase by 40% over the next 12 months, albeit from a low base. ANZ and Singapore are leading with having corporate applications delivered over the cloud today. India is expected to experience a doubling in cloud adoption, with the proportion of applications being delivered over the cloud expected to surge by 100% over the next 12 months.

Top Issues Faced by Organisations

Across India, security concerns continue to dominate with more than 15% of respondents citing this as their top concern, as more data-sensitive applications are made available online. More importantly, security teams often find it challenging to keep up with the increase in security vulnerability, as more applications are added onto the Web. Other top concerns across the region were poor performance of Web applications, an inability to access rich media applications, delays in rolling out rich content applications, and the inability to efficiently share files.

Future Outlook

According to IDC, the application delivery market will experience another year of innovation and market expansion. To meet the challenges and take advantage of the opportunities, organisations must be prepared with a strategy and commitment to deliver higher levels of application performance to the expanding branch offices and growing pool of mobile or remote workers.

With the era of the pervasive cloud upon us, organisations also need to acknowledge that further adoption of cloud services, mobility, video, and social media will place greater pressure on Web infrastructures. However, there is no better time than now to have a concrete, strategic plan and road map for Web application delivery.