World-leading Canadian cloud services companies are divided on whether they should directly team up with Chinese partners to tap into its market, but a lot of them like Toronto-based Platform Computing Corp remain strong backers of Taiwanese high-tech players taking on the world market, Philippe Rheault, director of the trade and investment division at the Canadian Trade Office said in Taipei yesterday.
“The Taiwan-Canadian partnership is well-positioned in terms of cloud products and services vis-a-vis the Chinese partnership,” Rheault said by telephone, lauding Taiwan as a world leader in the information and communication technology (ICT) industry.
He added: “There is a clear synergy” between Taiwan’s hardware strength and that of Canada, which boasts the world’s highest adoption rate of 67 percent, in upstream science and software solutions in cloud computing technology.
On the other side of the fence, however, is Enomaly Inc, a global leader in cloud infrastructure a la service (IaaS), which has a two-pronged strategy in Taiwan and China.
If the 20-person startup also from Toronto, viewed as a much-coveted partner in the Chinese high-tech sector, triumphs by itself in China, Taiwan’s chances of benefiting from cloud business opportunities could be squeezed.
Enomaly met with leading local computer manufacturers such as Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Asustek Computer Inc (華碩) and Wistron Corp (緯創) to discuss potential collaboration, the trade office said.
Rheault doubted that Taiwan would suffer any setbacks as the lack of protection for intellectual property rights and privacy information in China remain major concerns for global cloud companies including Canadian ones, he said.
Both Enomaly and Platform Computing conservatively estimate they will sell cloud infrastructure solutions worth around NT$15 million and NT$12 million respectively in Taiwan over the next 12 months, the trade office’s internal surveys show.
With cloud services, consumers around the world have already exhibited needs that cannot be provided by current technology and infrastructure, the director said.
Cloud services allow users to go beyond physical infrastructure and manage or share their data through third-party systems or applications.
Taiwan needs to transform itself from a pure hardware provider into a more service-oriented provider to take advantage of cloud businesses, the director added.
Nelson Chang (張安平), vice chairman of Chia Hsin Cement Corp (嘉新水泥) and the biggest shareholder in cloud application provider Wyse Technology Inc, agreed.
In addition to enhancing the nation’s cloud application and software capabilities, Taiwan needs to find a niche as a Chinese-language content provider, which will ultimately decide whether the country remains competitive, Chang told a forum on Tuesday.
Though some cloud technology remains under-developed, European telecommunication technology giants such as Sony Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent and Nokia Siemens have wasted no time in preparing for the burgeoning market, which could be “highly lucrative,” said Mike Wang (王建亞), chair of the telecommunications, media and media committee of the European Chamber of Commerce in Taipei. Wang is also general manager of Nokia Siemens Network Taiwan.
Estimates from Gartner Inc, released last March, showed that revenues from the global cloud market will grow to US$150.1 billion in 2013 from US$46.4 billion in 2008.
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