Asia Cloud Forum update

The Asia Cloud Forum, an online media portal, has been created to represent the interests of enterprise users, governments, telcos, vendors, policy makers and others with a stake in the development of cloud computing in Asia.

Singapore harnesses analytics biz-R&D synergies

Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd (ETPL), the technology transfer arm of Singapore R&D organisation A*STAR, is driving a consistent pipeline of technologies for commercialisation as well as building clusters of industries, including business analytics, aimed at strengthening Singapore’s research and business ecosystem.

The company has identified the clusters based on market potential; patent strength in technologies that support the cluster; and the speed at which each cluster is likely to mature, deliver results and reach leadership position.

“About 50% of South-East Asia’s data centres are located in Singapore and we will continue to attract more,” said Dr Ng See Kiong (pictured above, left), director of the Business Analytics Translational Centre (BATC). “Can Singapore be the Switzerland of data banking? To do that, we need to create an ecosystem. That means creating services based on data, such as analytics.”

BATC was spun off from A*STAR, set up by Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry as the R&D engine for the industry. The centre’s two main goals are to ensure that its R&D technologies are deployed in the real world and to create a talent pool to work on the technologies.

“The whole idea with BATC is about translating technologies into innovative solutions,” said Christopher Yu, vice president of ETPL’s Planning, Innovation, Network and Enterprise Division.

Read full article by Khoo Boo Leong at www.asiacloudforum.com/content/singapore-harnesses-analytics-biz-rd-synergies

IDC: 2013 last call for CIO transformation

“2013 will be the last call for CIO transformation,” said Sandra Ng, vice president of IDC Asia Pacific’s Practice Group at the recent Asia-Pacific ICT 2013 Top 10 Predictions Forum. “The key performance indicators (KPIs) for IT departments and CIOs are beginning to change. The CEO is beginning to give business-oriented KPIs to the head of IT or the CIO. Once the new KPI is established, new behaviours will be shaped.”

Ng also highlighted nine industry sectors that will undergo or begin their transformation journey in 2013. They include retail and consumer packaging, where businesses in Asia-Pacific excluding Japan will spend US$17.1 billion next year on hardware, software and services; healthcare and wellness ($8.8 billion); energy and resources ($8.2 billion); online and virtual goods ($24.5 billion); education ($15.4 billion); telecom ($46.4 billion); supply chain and manufacturing ($24.6 billion); hospitality and tourism ($4.3 billion); and financial services and insurance ($46.5 billion).

Examples of transformation that Ng cited include retailers’ focus on delivering new customer experiences and transforming physical retail outlets to differentiate themselves; and Malaysian budget airline Air Asia’s provision of tablets as part of its in-flight entertainment system.

Read full article by Khoo Boo Leong at www.asiacloudforum.com/content/idc-2013-last-call-cio-transformation

Cloud predictions 2013: APAC cloud adoption takes off

According to The Asian State of the Cloud 2012 survey conducted by Asia Cloud Forum in August and November last year, enterprise hybrid cloud (38.3%) and private cloud (35%) shared similar rates of adoption in Asia. Public cloud adoption (16.7%) trailed far behind. And a sizeable 10% of the respondents said cloud computing was simply “not suitable for use at their organisations”.

The primary reason behind their possible engagement in cloud computing, according to the survey results, was to enhance flexibility and scalability of IT resources (63.3%). The next major reasons were to control IT costs (46.7%), to optimise local/global IT infrastructure through virtualisation (43.3%), to modernise business process (41.7%) and to reduce capital expenditure (41.7%). Interestingly, just 16.7% of the respondents said cloud computing was part of their corporate strategy.

According to Mark Smith, managing director, Savvis Asia, “There has been a lot of request for proposals from blue chip companies about cloud services lately in Hong Kong.”

There has been strong cloud uptake across selected workloads like e-commerce and development/test environments. “This year, many IT decision makers consider cloud for their core business applications. In 2013, I anticipate this trend will continue to grow significantly and extend to mission-critical apps,” added Smith.

Read full article by Carol Ko at www.asiacloudforum.com/content/cloud-predictions-2013-i-apac-cloud-adoption-takes

7 million cloud-related jobs worldwide in 2015

Demand for ‘cloud-ready’ IT workers will grow by 26% annually through 2015, with as many as 7 million cloud-related jobs available worldwide, according to an IDC white paper - Climate Change: Cloud’s Impact on IT Organizations and Staffing’ - sponsored by Microsoft Corp.

However, IT hiring managers report that the biggest reason they failed to fill 1.7 million open cloud-related positions in 2012 is because job seekers lack the training, certification and experience needed to work in a cloud-enabled world, according to IDC, which interviewed more than 600 hiring managers worldwide for this study.

Globally, almost two-thirds of enterprises are planning, implementing or using cloud computing, and more than 50% of businesses agree that cloud computing is a high priority. However, more than three-quarters of businesses have apprehension about the security, access or data control of cloud computing.

Asia-Pacific will adopt private IT cloud services more aggressively than Europe, Middle East or North America. Cloud-related IT jobs will grow at 32% per year to more than 2.3 million in Asia-Pacific by the end of 2015.

Read full article at www.asiacloudforum.com/content/7-million-cloud-related-jobs-worldwide-2015