A CHALLENGING YEAR AHEAD

 

Nafis Jasmani, regional sales manager for Asean of Axis Communication, said the restoration of IT infrastructure in all areas will play an important role for businesses. However, evolution of the IT market is a continuous process. The firm expects business growth for network video in the country to continue with IT infrastructure recovery plans in place.

“In 2011, our growth in Thailand has been promising as we have both commercial and government sectors in our business focus. The two factors are important for our future growth in Thailand,” said Jasmani.

 

He added that the flood crisis had increased the importance of leveraging security surveillance where it is installed, to help monitor the situation and provide critical information to relevant authorities to manage the situation more effectively.

 

However, the overall economy and spending power of the government and the commercial sector will support IT infrastructure. Any political unrest will create uncertainties and affect business.   

The firm expects many organisations to adopt the latest technology in Thailand and utilise more IT infrastructure in their daily business operations. Meanwhile, the High Speed Broad Band (HSBB) will be important in opening up communication links for network video to be made available and accessible conveniently on the Internet Information Highway. 

 

Tatchapol Poshyanonoda, managing director of Cisco (Thailand), said that the ICT market in Thailand will continue to grow at 5-10 per cent in 2012. The top-three ICT-related business trends are mobility, new ICT services and new consumption model. For mobility, it consists of Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) and Business Continuity. 

 

Meanwhile, the new ICT services are converged technology for voice, data, video, and social media. Lastly, the new consumption model comes with cloud/virtualisation, managed services, revenue-sharing model, pay-per-use/per transaction.

 

The positive factors, which will drive ICT growth in 2012, are a stable political situation and rapid adoption of tablet devices, which ramps up Internet usage. The firm aims to bridge the country’s digital divide in 2012 through “Whole Offer”, providing customers with relevant values and solutions, Tatchapol said.

 

Meanwhile, Dell Corporation’s managing director for (Thailand) and general manager for Indochina, Anothai Wettayakorn, said that the firm will observe a few key trends continuing and emerging in 2012 and that will impact how organisations operate. Gartner predicts that IT spending in the Asia-Pacific is expected to grow 8 per cent, exceeding US$367 billion (Bt11 billion) in 2012. 

 

Research firms are now releasing their study results and predictions for 2012, and woven through this list are opportunities that involve mobility. Essentially, mobility will be driving technology spending both on the front-end and back-end. According to IDC, trends such as big data will have a big impact on organisations in Asia next year. Traditional data management systems would not be able to handle the sheer volume of data as we begin dealing with a number of new information sources from a highly mobile workforce. On its own, the size, complex formats and speed of delivery exceeds the capabilities of these systems that will put chief information officers in gear to re-evaluate their business processes and how they can store their data more efficiently. 

He also said that cloud will continue to be the mainstay of Asian CIOs’ agenda as customers are looking for ways to more effectively manage their IT systems and optimise business environments. The Asia-Pacific region sees a wide disparity in terms of business adoption of cloud services. The year 2012 will also see a rise in organisations exploring public cloud services. While still in its early stages, Gartner predicts that public cloud services will grow five times faster than overall IT enterprise spending in the next 4 years.

 

He said Dell has been rolling out a comprehensive array of cloud solutions for businesses of all sizes, to help them migrate to the cloud, as well as test-bed cloud deployments. It is investing $1billion to deliver solutions, services and cloud-based delivery options, including the opening of Dell Solution Centres around the world. The centre offers architectural design workshops, which explore solutions to suit the customers’ requirements and business needs, and Proof of Concept testing to make sure the solution will work in the customers’ environment.

 

He added that the uncertain economic outlook for 2012 will definitely see CIOs act on the side of caution on how they spend their money and what they spend it on. At the same time, this presents an opportunity for Dell in delivering on its promise of end-to-end solutions. The firm also sees technology playing a greater role in the healthcare industry next year. Healthcare providers will look to organise all their data while coping with a more mobile workforce, with more patient records digitised for easy and remote access.

 

“In 2012, Dell will continue its transformation from a hardware-centric company to an end-to-end solutions provider. Our DNA is listening to our customers, and our product and services rolled out in 2012 will still be a reflection of that. Green technology and server virtualisation will be big priority for Dell as we move into 2012,” said Anothai. 

 

He said Dell will be rolling out its Ultrabook in 2012 to deliver on the demand for mobility and easy access to content, be it for work or play.