By Anne Widjaja
Analyst firm IDC has predicted that despite market volatility being at an all-time high, companies should expect growth in information communication technologies (ICT) within the region in the coming year, in its 2012 Australian ICT Predictions report.
Matthew Oostveen, research director for IDC Australia, believes that while Australia has survived well through turbulent economic conditions, economic uncertainty will change the way companies invest in ICT next year.
“As we head into what looks to be a turbulent 2012, the only certainty is uncertainty. While this region is becoming increasingly resilient to the economic woes of other regions, companies are likely to hedge their bets when investing. As consumers and workforces are becoming smarter and more demanding companies will need to match their efforts with intelligent spending to avoid getting their fingers burnt in case another world-wide crisis hits,” said Oostveen.
IDC forecasts ICT spending in the APEJ region to reach US$653 billion in 2012, a rise of 10.4 per cent growth over 2011 figures. However, it appears that growth will gradually slow in the future. The growth predicted for 2012 is already below that of 2011, and it is predicted that rates will continue to drop over the next four to five years, but will still remain above 9 per cent by 2015.
Among the top 10 key ICT predictions from IDC for 2012, expected to have the biggest commercial impact on the Australian ICT market, were:
1. Data variety will become a manageable entity ushering in a new set of decision platforms for organisations.
Big Data, BA and BI will converge to become knowledge and decision making strategies. IDC expects a newer wave of platforms to emerge combining both ends of the decision management model and bridging the gaps between the strategic, operational, and tactical decision management.
2. 2012 is the year mobility will come of age.
The mobile enterprise will eventually accelerate the pace of work-flow digitization and increase the need for device management solutions in the workspace. As these strategies mature, CIOs will look for ways to effectively produce utilisation metrics for their mobile strategies.
3. The mobile enterprise will create the hottest security threats in 2012.
The number of mobile devices and the nature of their usage will come under scrutiny as data loss and leakage incidents rise rapidly. As a result, securing and managing mobile devices within the enterprise will become a core focus for IT departments. Mobile security will be prevalent in 2012, particularly pushing out antimalware to mobile devices to prevent different types of malicious attacks.
4. 2012 will be the year enterprises automate their environments en masse.
During 2010-2014, IT employment, now at 35 million, will grow by a factor of 1.3 worldwide. This is a constraint in an industry that will grow by a factor of 1.1 by spending, but by more than a factor of 2 by devices managed, 5 by information created, and 8 by networked interactions between customers. IDC views this as a long-term structural constraint that will create an incentive for IT organisations to invest in automation to keep up with the increasing scale and complexity of operational IT environments.
5. The carbon tax will place energy use at the core of ICT decision-making in 2012 for manufacturing, utilities and transport organisations.
6. Opportunities in the mining sector for “high performance computing (HPC) in the cloud” will accelerate in 2012.
This is because a fundamental requirement of the activities involved in exploration and discovery within the mining, and oil and gas sectors is the collection of data to inform investment decisions.
7. Services contracts must demonstrate business value KPIs in 2012.
Operating in a mature economy, Australian enterprises understand the dynamics of leveraging the full benefits of outsourcing. In 2012, these relationships, will increasingly mandate business value outcomes be included as KPIs in commercial contracts.
8. Everything communication moves to the cloud.
2012 will be the year communications (e.g., IM, presence, collaboration, and conferencing, etc) move to a cloud delivery model. Services will be increasingly provisioned and deployed from the network through automated tools and priced by the seat to deliver a pay as you go (PAYG) commercial model.
9. A desire for simpler, flatter network architecture and bandwidth scalability, flexibility will drive carrier-grade WAN Ethernet Services in 2012.
Ethernet services will not substitute MPLS, but will become part of the broader WAN strategy discussion. IDC forecast that Metro Ethernet services will grow by 13 per cent in 2012 to reach in excess of $1.1 billion.
10. Network separation in Australia will force operators to take on an entirely new identity unseen anywhere else in the world.
IDC predicts two specific outcomes in 2012. Firstly, the agreement with NBN will accelerate the roll-out of next generation mobile broadband services, specifically LTE. Secondly, carriers will redouble their efforts on promoting IT services in areas such as cloud computing, security, and collaboration, with additional capabilities around professional services.
