Philippines - Information technology forecasts for 2012

MANILA, Philippines — Mobile Internet was the hottest thing in 2011. What’s to look forward to this year? We ask those at the helm.

The era of big data, James Velasquez, Country Manager, IBM Philippines

The IT industry and the broader economy are being transformed by the rising tide of global integration, by a new computing model and by new client needs for integration and innovation. Organizations are transforming their business and creating smarter systems in order to compete effectively, locally and globally. Advancing these systems to be more instrumented, intelligent and interconnected requires a profound shift in management and governance toward far more collaborative approaches.

Let me share some of the key trends IBM is looking at for 2012:

Smarter computing. Over the last three years, IBM recognized that there was a pattern to the way that most successful companies were approaching their IT infrastructure. These companies were thinking about computing in new ways—and using it to create formidable opportunities for growth and innovation…despite facing such challenges as tremendous demands for service, inflexible infrastructures, flat budgets and incomplete, unreliable data. To be sure, the winners in this new frontier, the era of big data, will be the businesses that tap into and leverage this information to make better choices, find innovative solutions and respond to trends better and faster than their competitors. But they can only succeed if the overall architectures of their computing systems are smart enough to keep up.

Through a new approach we call Smarter Computing, enterprises can tackle constraints they are facing from this explosion of data, inflexible infrastructure, escalating IT costs, and security and reliability concerns. It is realized through an integrated IT system that is designed for big data through advanced analytics to harness real-time data for deeper insights, necessary for forward-thinking companies and especially in the government sector, as agencies cannot make quick, smart decisions, without the most relevant, accurate information. They must therefore collect, store, manage and secure all available data, in all forms to build a holistic, integrated vision across institutions and sectors. By analyzing and harnessing information from all aspects of society, governments can better collaborate internally and with public and private partners to improve existing services and pioneer new initiatives that improve our lives.

Smarter Computing is also realized through being tuned to the task by helping to automate and integrate advanced business process management through matching workloads to optimized systems, which can all be managed with cloud technologies. This means organizations and governments must be able to support specific workloads with an enhanced computing framework, but must also be flexible enough to respond to changing needs, to capitalize on emerging opportunities from these changes. This will result in double capacity for IT services, flat IT costs and the ability to implement new breakthrough services. Smarter computing is so fundamental and core, that it is not optional—it is not a journey that you start or a project that you finish—it is actually becoming the way we do things, through leveraging the most relevant technology in analytics, cloud computing and workloads.

Social business. The world is becoming more social. Just as e-business changed business forever, now, 10 years later we find ourselves at another junction: the coming of age for Social Business—as social computing, policies, governance and cultures are integrated into enterprise design. The explosion of mobile devices and new Cloud delivery models has paved a unique way for industries to take step further in transforming the era of Social Business.

Today, everyone is a broadcaster, publisher and a critic—there is nowhere to hide, and transparency is the new price of entry. Once viewed as a tool for students and teens to connect with one another, businesses are now looking for ways to adopt similar concepts to better connect their employees, partners and clients and to transform globally. The ways employees interact, relationships form, decisions are made, work is accomplished and the ways goods are purchased are fundamentally changing. Consumers now wield unprecedented power over how brands are perceived.

IBM sees social business and the move to enable the mobile workforce as a key driver of business transformation, helping all aspects of an organization from marketing, human resources, sales and customer support and development, leverage the power of social concepts in their business processes. Becoming a social business can help an organization deepen customer relationships, generate new ideas faster, and enable a more effective workforce.

Organizations that embrace the power of social technologies will unleash the productivity and innovation throughout the entire value chain—from employees to partners to suppliers to customers. But an effective social business can’t exist without a strong set of analytics resources and know-how behind the scenes.

Business analytics and optimization. Enterprises need a way to manage and mine the deluge of potentially valuable information, and the key is advanced data analytics. Business analytics software is being incorporated in almost every business process within organizations. Sophisticated analysis of social media or social analytics could be used by manufacturers in planning future products, by retailers in choosing which products to stock, and by marketers in planning advertising campaigns.

It could also help a city or government better serve its constituents. Complex societal, economic, political and environmental pressures are placing intense demands on public sector organizations to make smarter decisions, deliver results and demonstrate accountability. The ability to analyze social conversation in real-time can help officials see how constituents are responding to policy decisions or how outreach could be varied across different channels to get the word out about specific events. Social media analysis could also serve as an early warning system for governments around special events and unexpected occurrences.

For example, public safety officials could use this technology as part of a rapid response system for flooding, earthquakes and other natural disasters; or to identify areas of public services delivery that need improvement. An example of analytics put to good use is Watson. This breakthrough in analytic innovation represents a breakthrough in terms of volume of information stored, and the ability to access it quickly. Watson is just the beginning of how computers will be designed to learn as well as handle specific workloads. Watson sets the stage for IBM to further its thought leadership on the future of computing.

Cloud computing. With so many of us accessing clouds in our daily lives, it should be no surprise that CEOs, C-suite, corporate decision-makers and even government agencies are beginning to demand the same level of flexibility, efficiency, connectivity, and ease in their corporate data centers.

Cloud computing is quickly emerging as the IT delivery model that can significantly do this: reduce IT costs and complexities while improving workload optimization and service delivery. At the same time, it can increase business performance by creating new business models, enabling speed and innovation, allowing re-engineering business processes and supporting new levels of collaboration. Cloud computing is massively scalable, provides a superior user experience, and is characterized by new, Internet-driven economics.

Security and resilience. According to some estimates, 2011 became the year of billion-dollar disasters. Natural disasters have become a top risk concern for most organizations. There are also business-driven risks that include audits, new product rollouts, financial risk, fraud and even failure to comply with government standards. All of these can be minimized if organizations anticipate threats and plan accordingly. Security is the posture taken to protect people, assets, data and technology across an entire organization, while resilience is the ability to rapidly adapt and respond to business disruptions and to maintain continuous business operations.

The exponential growth of mobile, Julian Persaud, Managing Director, Google Southeast Asia

For years, people predicted that next year would be the year of the mobile Internet. In 2012, we can finally say that last year was the year of the mobile, and now we have to look at the consequences. Asia is the world’s largest mobile market (with Africa now becoming a strong number two); more smartphones are shipped there than to any other region; it boasts some of the world’s best networks for mobile Internet. These are my picks for global and regional trends that are most likely to have a big impact on the Philippines in 2012:

The year that Asia’s silent Internet boom proves its resilience. The world faces a lot of economic uncertainty. But the absolute size of the Internet will continue to grow in Asia, by any measure. Data plans will continue to be cheaper relative to income. Millions of people will arrive on the Internet for the first time and will continue to drive economic activity across Asia. No one will notice, because they tend to see the Internet’s economic value as lying in high-tech companies, when in fact any company or person with an Internet connection is driving its value. A series of economic reports have confirmed the Internet as the fastest-growing sector of the economies of Japan, Korea, Indonesia and Australia. That pace was steady throughout the worst of the economic crisis in 2008.

The year you start thinking of the mobile Internet as the “real” Internet. In 2011, the mobile phone matched the desktop as an Internet experience—the tighter the integration with the Internet, the smarter the phone got. More than 550,000 Android devices are activated globally every day. We saw that shift in Google Maps, which now receives more mobile queries than desktop queries. And we see it in terms of apps. From its start in 2008 until March 2010, users had downloaded 3 billion apps from Android Market. In the seven months since then, 7 billion apps have been downloaded. 2012 will be the year when the desktop seems more like a

side window onto Asia’s mobile Web. One factor driving that: parts and expertise are driving down prices to the point where smartphones will be within the price range of millions more people than they were in 2011. We don’t see any decrease in the exponential growth of mobile search.

The year you fall in love with a device you never owned before. The smartphone is about to be joined by a host of other devices that will change the way the mainstream looks at the Internet, whether it’s tablets, or netbooks that have nothing on them but a browser. Notebooks that run directly on top of the Internet will be not just fast, nimble and cheap but finally get people to think of the Web as everything they want to do with a computer, not just pages to visit. Already in 2011, the tablet was becoming a big hitter in every single market. If you think it’s still just for the elite or young then consider this: In 2011, Toyota did a major ad campaign aimed at iPads in Indonesia that led to 4,000 people downloading a promotional app, showing that the tablet’s a widespread device. 2012 is the year when tablets go from widespread to mainstream, everywhere: At least one company has announced plans to release a tablet that costs less than $100 in the coming year. Given that 60 percent of the world’s population lives in Asia—and price is a major obstacle in technological adoption—sub-$100 tablets are a revolutionary innovation that will put more computers in the hands of more people.

The year you bring your own devices to work. Consumers are usually a step ahead of their workplace when it comes to innovative technologies and devices. This has led to the common sight of employees bringing their personal tablets and smartphones to work. There were a few barriers that made IT managers wary of letting people use their personal devices: for one thing, they didn’t have the controls necessary to manage these devices to preserve the company’s security in the event they were stolen. But those controls are in place. Australian companies Suncorp and Qantas experimented with serving corporate information to mobile devices. In 2012, technology solutions will evolve so IT managers have more choice, control and visibility into mobile productivity within their organizations. Besides decreased operational costs, employee satisfaction and productivity will probably also rise. After all, people have all their e-mails, songs, videos—whether work related or not—on one device.

Cybersecurity rides the mobile wave, Luichi Robles, Senior Country Manager, Symantec Philippines

One of the key cybersecurity trends that organizations should note moving into 2012 is the continual increase of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs), a type of targeted attack that uses a wide variety of techniques. 2011 saw the foundation for the next of such attack being laid into the coming years. APTs target industrial control-related organizations and could attack organizations or partner organizations that do business with their primary targets.

In addition, another significant trend that businesses in the Philippines need to pay attention to is that the high increase of smart mobile devices will also increase the risks surrounding them, particularly mobile malware and data loss. The key concerns in this area that will impact businesses in the Philippines is that employees could access sensitive corporate information with these devices without being detected. Employee with malicious intent could easily steal highly confidential intellectual property.

Cloud computing will be a key trend in 2012 which is expected to drive changes in organizations. According to the 2011 State of Cloud Survey, organizations in Philippines are excited about cloud, with 76 to 87 percent at least discussing all forms of cloud. However, there are significant gaps between what organizations in the Philippines were expecting to achieve and what they actually achieved in cloud deployment. For example, 82 percent expected cloud to improve their IT agility, yet only 51 percent found that it actually did. These gaps are indicative of the immaturity of the market.

As organizations in the Philippines look into cloud technologies in 2012, they will need to consider how they use IT and existing resources—servers, storage and people. Cloud computing is more about the people and processes. Organizations must change how they purchase IT, how they consume IT, and how they organize IT to provide cloud service.

In 2012, disaster recovery plan in organizations is also expected to be tested even more by natural disasters. Symantec expects to continue seeing the unpredictable environmental changes test organizations’ disaster recovery plans in the year ahead. Companies will need to be disaster proof and start looking at business services more holistically and automate recovery process to recover faster and reduce their reliance on personnel. The question is have they learned their lesson from this year or do they have to experience it for themselves in 2012 to take action?

Increasing enterprise mobility and integration, Jerry Rapes, President and CEO, Exist

Companies are integrating mobility and/or building mobile versions of their enterprise systems due to the rising popularity of mobile devices as the preferred means to communicate. Applications that provide real-time info and that enable on-the-go transactions have found favor with consumers around the world.

Exist has invested heavily in helping its customers in the telecoms and healthcare markets to develop solutions on these emerging mobile platforms, as they seek competitive advantage.

Last year, Exist expanded its service portfolio to offer Android development on top of its iOS, Ruby on Rails, and Java engineering capabilities. The demand for mobile applications, as well as web applications that converge with mobile devices, present a lot of growth opportunities for Exist.

In 2012, there will be more integration of enterprise systems, growth in mobile platforms; and cloud will play a very important role in making these trends happen.

Exist is making aggressive efforts to expand in the telco, healthcare, and IT markets in the coming year. Further solidifying R&D, Exist formalized the Office of the CTO with Mike Lim at the helm. Exist is on its way to creating a solution that combines new generation mobile and cloud technologies to bring business intelligence and efficient computing to the enterprise. Exist also partnered with Morphlabs, a leader in converged Dynamic Infrastructure solutions for the enterprise, to resell mCloud Data Center Unit (DCU).

IT outsourcing will also intensify this year as more and more enterprises rely on their technology partners to help them reduce costs and deliver results faster.

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