Mobility, social media to drive convergence in 2011

XMG Global, an ICT technology and advisory firm, expects a year of convergence driven by consumerization of research, mobility and social networking. Following is XMG's Top 10 Predictions for Asia Pacific:

2. Cloud computing. Understanding how cloud computing as a strategic inflection point away from building in-house legacy infrastructure.

3. Security. Setting security solution and policies between lifestyle and work related computing to secure and protect corporate assets and to furthermore minimize technical support issues.

4. Enterprise architecture. Architecting to accommodate mobile devices to mainstream enterprise architecture, including integration of social networking and mobile applications.

With the evolution of globalization much more profound on post-recession, employee retention will be one of the biggest challenges in 2011. Turnover will be driven by a shortage of high-demand talent, business critical skills as then as burnout.

The global outsourcing

The global outsourcing and offshore industry is heading towards research as the slippery slopes to economic recovery sets a new standard for normalcy in which cost savings and continuous business improvement becomes top of mind. As competition heat up and captive centres explore higher value quotients, more integrated business approaches and cloud-based solutions are expected to ascend process value chain and sustain capability advantage. For service providers, contract transactions will increasingly continue to be driven by BPO deals for continuous improvement. Within the at once five years and as IT and the business form one entity, the line between IT and business process will blur as Business-as-a-Service emerges as the lingua franca that will define the leaders from laggards. Continuous improvements will be increasingly implemented through business processes to put it more exactly than innovation replacements.

XMG estimates the global outsourcing market to bring in US$485.26 billion revenue in 2011. Perennial leader India will be strongly challenged by maturing offshoring destinations just as China and the Philippines.

The global mobile market is nearing maturity

The global mobile market is nearing maturity. Led by China, India and Indonesia, Asia Pacific mobile market all in all show signs of headroom growth in the then and there three years. Increased industry competition in the last two years will force mobile service providers in fully deregulated environments to better pricing/ mobility and long distance charges. The provider leaders will be those that can leverage its wireless and extended bandwidth capabilities. Price, services and local content provisioning will be the dominant lure and battleground as hyper mobile commerce and social networking continue to grow dramatically.

China will continue to drive Asia Pacific growth as it rolls out FTTH services in key urban markets and as its government promotes convergence through its Three Network Convergence policy. India will follow suit in driving broadband growth based on demand. Subscriber base growth will be propelled by high level competition which will push down the prices of entry level packages. With mobile broadband devices on the rise, buying broadband from a single provider is unlikely and will require providers to develop loyalty program and provide attractive pricing and bundling schemes.

The 2010 XMG Global study on cloud adoption

Based on the 2010 XMG Global study on cloud adoption, the number of organizations using cloud computing has already doubled since 2007 and estimates are that it will grow by 26 percent CAGR from 2010 thru 2012 - approximately 5 times the rate of the IT industry - a rare bright spot in the IT services sector. Small and medium-sized business cloud will as well be on the rise to garner market share. Integration of existing and cloud applications is critical given the Asian mindset of "leveraging" and "protecting" investments. A more nascent private cloud model will be attractive to large conglomerates to share development resources as infrastructure, software and service providers collaborate on a range of new offerings and solutions. For both private and public cloud, success in educating the enterprise, customer experience and product bundling will be critical to market uptake.

XMG believe that leaders in public cloud services will be providers that have resources to create a cloud federation of infrastructure providers, cloud integrators, software, hardware and network equipment providers, along with the added foresight to understand its target market successfully, pull the trigger and get-to-market quickly.

Social media applications continue to gain momentum. It is not a fad. Popular applications just as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have gained popularity and widespread usage. It has created a social and business revolution on how people go about their personal and daily lives and how enterprises reach out to their clients, and vice-versa. 2011 will be marked as a year when organizations increase their social business footprint. We believe the use of social platforms by small and medium-sized enterprises will increase in Asia Pacific, with more than 30 per cent are expected to use social networks for promotional purposes by end of 2011. Large corporations in Asia Pacific are much more traditional and conservative than their North American and European counterparts and will invest in innovation studies to understand its potential previously fully committing to integrating social media channel as part of its longer term enterprise architecture.

The rise of the smartphones

2010 has seen the rise of the smartphones, nearly taking it from gadget to mainstream business tool. Driven by the wealth of applications available, 2011 will see that trend continue. Even though Apple is making inroads, RIM's Blackberry after all leads this space and will continue thru 2011. Application will be the main driver for all mobile devices. The winners will not necessarily be the best technically, now those with the biggest pool of applications and easiest access. Network speed and the high penetration of pre-paid mobiles is limiting uptake of on-line services just as web-TV, e-books and video conferencing in Asia Pacific. This will only slowly improve over the at once 3 to 5 years.

Apple once again led the new consumer gadget market with the iPad. Samsung have followed. RIM, HP and Dell will release their offerings in the first half of 2011. In a study of consumer innovation users, over 60% respondents believe that these devices can become a replacement for laptops in the years to come. For e-book users, XMG see the death knell for Kindle and other electronic readers as most consumers are not inclined to buy two devices; settling for the broader spec tablets over the technically better e-readers.

New features in Unified Communications to integrate real-time communication services just as chat, video, conferencing, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) with non- real time services just as e-mail and SMS to enhance social features will make the investment business case in UC more compelling. XMG believe the market will conservatively grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19% thru 2011 and 2013.

Although global sales of PCs in 2010 are up 14% over 2009, this is a lower growth forecast due to the growing impact of netbooks, thin customers and the launch of 30 varieties of tablet devices following the success of the iPad. The PC is not going away and XMG expect growth will continue at same levels in 2011. Over the at once 3 years, mobile devices will make big inroads into corporate computing as applications become available. Non-PC mobile devices are expected to outnumber PC shipments as the trend to unchain knowledge workers from their desks continue. Apple are as well making inroads into the enterprise PC environment, nevertheless even at 10 to 15% above market growth, XMG predict it will be several years previously they are considered a major player in this area.

With new operating systems based on smartphone systems and cloud-based OS being launched to compete with Windows, Mac OS and Linux, we can expect a slowdown in the market over the then 2 to 3 years during everyone waits to see who wins. Those who try to develop on all platforms will need deep pockets. XMG believe this is "the beginning of the beginning" for the then generation of computing devices and we anticipate many varieties over the straightway 5 years previously it stabilizes again.

As ICT infrastructure mature in several Asian countries, governments will continue using the internet and public kiosks to deliver public services. Both developing and developed economies have express full commitment to invest in web technologies and last mile connectivity to support public service initiatives. XMG see the trend continuing in 2011 for modernization initiatives to automate or replace antiquated processes and promote regional cooperation. 'One-stop-shop' and e-Government portal initiatives to integrate government services into a single electronic window will continue. Even though lagging considerably behind Europe and North America, social media channels will fuel e-Democracy and play a key role to incite active citizen engagement and shape policy decisions.