CIOs staring straight at a chance of history

BY LINE

Chief Information Officers face some of the greatest challenges and opportunities they have yet to experience, according to a Gartner report, which forecasts that IP telephony, convergence and instant messaging will be some of the key areas of enormous growth.

With enterprise spending on information communications and technology in Asia Pacific expected to grow by 7.6 percent next year to US$208.7bn, John Roberts, the vice president and chief of research for the Asia Pacific at Gartner research, said the stakes could not be higher.

"If they miss this transition, they'll be history. If they hit it right, life will be good.The future is bright and in just five years, the IT industry will have little resemblance to that of today, yielding extraordinary benefits with network security, convergence, IP telephony, software as services and instant messaging all maturing within 36 months.

"Utility computing and wireless LANs will also become more established while we begin to experience the value of RFID tags, grid computing, web conferencing and real-time infrastructure during the next three years."

Gartner predicts that in Australia, enterprise ICT spending will reach AUD$40..6bn and there will be solid growth of 4.0 percent next year with AUD$7.2bn being spent on hardware (a 5.2percent decrease); AUD$1.8bn (12.1 percent increase) on software; AUD$13.9bn (12.9 percent increase) on telecom and AUD$17.7bn (9.4 percent increase) on IT services.

Asia Pacific will be one of the fastest growing regions for telecommunications, with 140 million new subscribers forecast for next year, which is a 14 percent increase.

Roberts added: "The harsh reality is that in order to take advantage of this brave new world, people will have to make some really tough decisions. As we transition to this next wave of technology and all its benefits, things will be more complex and more difficult in the short term, since we must support the 'old stuff' and the 'old way' of doing things, while simultaneously embracing whole new architectures, skills and technologies."

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