Australian IT industry booming

Australians are well educated, innovative and computer literate. Australia boasts more computers per thousand people than any country, other than the U.S. As a result, a large number of information technology firms have grown up in Australia, many of them highly inventive and most of them with an export orientation, including Asia.

The Australian domestic information technology (IT) and telecommunications market has been growing at close to 10 percent annually for the last few years. It is forecast to reach US$35 billion by 2000.

While the domestic market is healthy, an export orientation is a necessity. Australian IT firms tend to "think export" from the start and to seek export markets at an early stage. As a result, many Australian IT houses, even companies which are currently quite small, export more than half (and sometimes up to 95 percent) of the value of their production.

This focus on exports means that Australian IT is to be found operating in a wide variety of applications worldwide.

One small software house, for example, has a major share of the world market in keypads at electronic funds transfer point-of-sale terminals. The same firm supplies high-security "smartcards" to a major Scandinavian bank.

A data encryption firm helps Australia's own finance houses to secure their international transactions and Australian software is also running in the Deutsche Bank.

In the transport area, an Australian company has introduced its electronic automatic fare collection systems to speed train and bus travel in several of the world's great cities, including Hong Kong, Toronto and Manchester, with many other overseas contracts expected.

Australian software helps tackle distribution and resource allocation problems in Europe's major airports, including Heathrow (UK), Schipol (The Netherlands) and Brussels (Belgium).

Another company is the regional leader in air navigation systems and such Australian systems are in place at airports in most Asia-Pacific countries.

In the resources field, the world's largest supplier of mining industry software is an Australian company, while image- processing software helps mining companies to explore for minerals around the world. Another Australian software program achieves major savings in the operation of open-cut mines.

In manufacturing, one company has revolutionized the plastic injection and molding process with its own advanced software. Today it is used worldwide.

The Australian government actively promotes the IT industry both in Australia and overseas and is widely regarded by the industry as a partner and an ally.

There is a 150 percent tax concession for companies investing in research and development, competitive government grants for research and concessional loans to support small firms. These and other initiatives are administered by the Industry Research and Development Board and all are especially relevant to IT companies, with their high research loads.

Australia's universities, many of them with a strong emphasis on science and technology, focus with increasing success on applied IT research which can be taken up by the private sector.

Among successes springing from university research are "queued packet and synchronous exchange" technology (now a world standard for data transfer); remarkable new technology for searching very large text databases; and special purpose optical fibers for data transmission.

The IT industry cooperates closely with the government-backed Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). CSIRO is a vital research and development resource for industry, with a budget of some $500 million and 5,600 professional and technical staff.

Working with large and small companies, tertiary institutions and other government agencies, CSIRO actively seeks out collaborative ventures which are aimed at the marketplace. It has helped develop an impressive range of hardware and software in the IT field.

Over the past three years, other strong linkages have been built between academic institutions, government research groups and industry through a cooperative research center program that covers a wide range of disciplines.

Australians are unusually quick to take up new technology and to adapt it for their own use. Major international companies recognize the technological sophistication of the Australian consumer, and for that reason several of them use Australia as a test bed for new designs. The want their products reviewed by a critical, educated and well-informed audience open to new ideas and comfortable with high technology.

The growing cultural diversity of the workforce is a big advantage for Australian IT companies trading in the Asia-Pacific region. The compatibility of Australian time zones with Asian time zones is another advantage.

Overseas partner companies, suppliers and clients see Australia as a stable, well-educated society, full of imaginative people working in the IT field, handling traffic in both directions between the fast developing economies of the Asia- Pacific and the mature markets of the West.

Australia's information technology industry is well placed to serve the needs of the growing Asia-Pacific economies.