What issues lies ahead in the Internet and e-Business world?
What issues lies ahead in the Internet and e-Business world?
By Zatni Arbi
SINGAPORE (JP): When someone from the Framingham-based IT
research company International Data Corporation (IDC) speaks,
heads in the IT industry turn. Therefore, it was no surprise that
there were many top executives of Indonesian IT companies at
IDC's Asia Pacific IT Forum 2000 in Suntec City, Singapore, early
last week.
There were several interesting points made by the speakers in
the forum that are worth sharing, ranging from e-Services and
Chapter 2.0 of e-Business to liberalization and competitiveness.
To start with, IDC's senior vice president and chief research
officer, John Gantz, listed ten issues he thought would drive IT
in the next few years.
First, now that the Y2K fever is over (and a growing number of
people are asking whether it was worth its US$300 billion price
tag), IT departments will be spending their budget on enterprise
and web applications.
The second issue is the exponential growth of Internet
outfits, as opposed to the so-called "brick and mortars, or BAM"
companies, which will prompt the latter to start integrating the
Internet into their businesses.
The third issue that will affect everybody in the IT industry
is a people shortage. In 1999, noted Gantz, demand exceeded
supply by 100 percent, and the problem will not subside soon.
The fourth issue is the fact that IT continues to gain
importance in business strategy, and new titles for IT directors
with the same Web responsibilities will be coined.
The fifth issue is the proliferation of Internet appliances
and embedded intelligence that allows Internet users to make
online purchases from anywhere, anytime.
The sixth issue, according to Gantz, is the rising number of
Internet users. IDC predicts that by 2003 the number of Internet
users in the Asia Pacific region will be close to 140 million,
with Japan accounting for 43 percent of those online.
The seventh issue is the growth of e-commerce itself. IDC
predicts that by 2003, total e-commerce value in the Asia Pacific
region will reach $282 billion, with business to business
transactions remaining dominant. E-commerce also involves selling
directly to customers, so Gantz believes the disintermediation
trend would continue.
The ninth issue is, of course, the emergence of new
technologies. Internet2, for example, will not only offer faster
speeds but also more simplicity. Sending multiple copies of the
same e-mail message, for example, will be replaced by
multicasting.
Finally, he also believes that Microsoft still has the power
to direct the IT industry in the future, and therefore we must
keep an eye on where the software giant has been investing its
cash -- namely in broadband technologies, infrastructure content
and new platforms for multimedia information.
e-Service
Speakers at the forum also agreed that the next few years
would see a shift from offering and selling products over the
Internet, which is successfully exemplified by online companies
like Amazon.com and e-Bay, to delivering services over the Net.
"An e-Service is any asset that you make available via the Net
to drive new revenue streams and create new efficiencies," said
Ann Livermore, HP's president of enterprise and commercial
business.
In what they collectively called Chapter 2 of e-Business, the
speakers, which included top executives from companies like Acer,
Andersen Consulting, Computer Associates, Hewlett-Packard,
Hitachi Data Systems, Lotus Development, Samsung and others,
agreed that the focus would shift from issues of security, access
speed and ease of navigation to issues such as service
orientation, integration, interactivity, localization and
personalization.
Asian competitiveness
During a break in the forum, several executives from Computer
Associates (CA) held a roundtable discussion. CA is one of those
companies that relies heavily on teleconferencing for their
worldwide operations. Therefore, it was no surprise that CA's
senior vice president, Kenneth Farber, who was supposed to speak
at the forum but was unable to come, also participated in the
discussion from the company's headquarters in Islandia, New York.
The topic: Can Asia compete?
Several ingredients for competitiveness were brought up during
the discussion, including joint ventures with global companies
that can provide technologies and expertise. As Farber remarked,
"CA has spent a considerable amount of time creating joint
ventures throughout Asia, including setting up ASP (applications
service provider) infrastructure."
Of course, joint ventures should also lead to the transfer of
technology and knowledge before they really can help Asians
improve their competitiveness.
One result of CA's own joint ventures in China is an antivirus
software that is specially made for the local market. Called
Kill, this antivirus program utilizes the same engine as CA's
more widely known antivirus utility, Inoculate-IT.
CA's marketing director for Asia, Peter Kuo, explained, "Kill
is tailor-made for users of the Mandarin language, rather than
English, and it provides better protection against the viruses
that are circulating in China." Localization of products, as
mentioned earlier, will be one of the trends in the future.
What other things do Asians need to be more competitive? CA's
senior vice president for advanced technology, Patrick Donohoe,
said a clear business strategy is a must. He added that it was
also important to make Internet experiences trouble-free.
"Businesses have to use zero-training applications," he said,
"Once customers are captured, there should be no need to retrain
them." Another issue that was highlighted was the need to find a
niche business, as everybody is now jumping on the e-business
bandwagon.
The event was held just a couple of days after the Singaporean
government announced their move to expedite complete
liberalization of their telecommunications industry, and this was
a hot topic among those at the forum. Thus, not surprisingly, it
was echoed again and again during the discussion how important
liberalization is for competitiveness.
That point, fortunately, seems to be well accepted here. The
government is beginning to understand the urgency of
liberalization in order to speed up progress in this sector.
There have even been talks about liberalizing our own
telecommunications business earlier than the current deadlines.