Asian Cloud Surge Continues

Saugatuck clients will be interested in this Perspective which re-examines the high rate of growth in Cloud IT within the Asia/Pacific region. This growth provides important indications as to how Cloud will develop elsewhere, as well as providing opportunities for international vendors to escape the doldrums of sluggish economies in the West. Here, we follow up on our projections from earlier research and look at emerging opportunities.

Key drivers of Asian Cloud developments include:

Current economic situation, with this region growing while the rest of the world remains stagnant. This promotes greater willingness to invest in new technology such as Cloud. It also means that companies within the region and overseas are actively pursuing investment.
Prevalence of SMBs and of newer enterprises lacking legacy infrastructure. This makes Cloud the logical choice for computing services.
Growth of mobile computing, and growing presences of smartphones and tablets within the region also naturally favor the Cloud. This is matched by increasing availability of broadband services in both wireline and wireless forms.

There are numerous new Cloud services developing within the region, both from international and local vendors. These services are fueled by the growing economies and by availability of credit in many of these countries. There is widespread government support for Cloud, and regional organizations and conferences are developing to ease transitions to Cloud IT usage. One such organization that features a roster of significant players is the Asia Cloud Computing Association, founded in November 2010 and now active across the region.

The types of opportunities to be considered here are not limited to the financial benefits of investing in growing economies; they are also linked to the new ideas that emerge when factors such as a high rate of mobile use, large population, and prevalence of small businesses meet the evolving model of Cloud services delivery. Asia is a diverse region of growing economies that is now coming into its own and moving swiftly into all technology sectors as both a user and a manufacturer. Understanding the opportunities of the future will require a better understanding of Asian trends, and many of these come to focus in pursuit of Cloud IT.

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Brian J. Dooley is a Strategy Consultant and Associate Research Analyst with Saugatuck Technology. Originally from the US, Mr. Dooley now resides in New Zealand – providing global and regional insight and market analysis on a wide range of technologies, including business intelligence, collaboration, cloud computing, agile software development, as well as international telecommunications.

Mr. Dooley is an author, analyst, and journalist with more than 30 years' experience in analyzing and writing about trends in IT. He has written six books, numerous user manuals, hundreds of reports, and more than 1,000 magazine features. Previously, he was a Senior Analyst for Datapro (Gartner), and a Senior Product Information Specialist for Unisys Corp. As an independent analyst, he has worked with many of the top firms in the research and analysis industry, as well as for industry clients around the globe.

Mr. Dooley is a graduate of McGill University, with graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg School in Cybernetics, Information Theory, Statistics and Communications. He initiated and is on the board for the Graduate Diploma of Technical Communication program at Christchurch Institute of Technology, and he was on the editorial advisory board for Faulkner Technical Reports.

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