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Tech-savvy workers expected to fuel growth

Growth in the information and communications technology sector in the Asia-Pacific region excluding Japan will be fueled largely by a surge of technology-savvy employees next year, according to a report released yesterday.

"These `e-empowered' employees, who are well-versed in the use of technology, are increasingly able to harness technology to be more productive and responsive. Workspace boundaries are diminishing as staff are no longer tied to an office location," Eva Au, Asia-Pacific managing director with International Data Corp (IDC), said in the report.

Successful companies will be those rising to the challenge of capitalizing on the technological opportunities presented by the technology-savvy employees, Au said in the research firm's annual outlook prediction report for next year.

IDC predicts that regional spending in the information and communications technology, propelled by the high-tech workforce, will grow by 9 percent to exceed US$110 billion, with China and India accounting for 64 percent of the region's incremental market value.

"The economic outlook for 2006 is healthy, despite continued global political, health and environmental uncertainties. Combined with the relentless pursuit of enterprises and employees to be more competitive, these bode well for the information and communications technology industry in the region," she said.

The wireless-content industry, Internet telephony, digitally converged gadgets and open source innovation are major trends that are expected to thrive in the regional information and communications technology sector next year.

The wireless-content industry, which includes games, music, ring tones, video and TV, will be fueled by the proliferation of content and feature-rich applications being offered by service providers.

The industry will also be boosted by cost-saving services bundled with broadband access, the report said.

In addition, the consumer market for voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) telephony will continue to show healthy growth next year. Non-traditional operators who have moved into this space include eBay Inc, Yahoo Inc, Microsoft Corp and Google Inc, it said.

More businesses are expected to adopt VoIP technology as service operators look into applying experience gained from private users to office applications.

They will strive to make inexpensive, integrated voice, data and video-conferencing solutions available at work, according to IDC.

Meanwhile, increased convergence of mobile devices will offer consumers an overwhelming choice next year as users become more technology-savvy.

IDC predicted that 15 million converged devices will be shipped next year across the region, reflecting a growth of 24 percent over shipments this year.

The research firm added that building more open source innovation communities will be a big focus for the industry next year.

Generating revenues through traditional methods such as selling individual copies of software packages and patent royalty payments has become more challenging with the growing availability of open source software, it added.

"Vendors are giving away their software for free and charging for installation. By making the software available as open source, customers are more likely to purchase related products or services," the IDC said.
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