The industry reflects, looks ahead

Nick Lambert, president of Asia-Pacific, Cable & Wireless

	Nick Lambert, Cable & Wireless
	The best-laid plans of corporations suffer from delays and failure due to the inability of their service provider to act as business partners. It's time CIOs and IT managers put their foot down--and demand change.

Q. Gartner issued a report warning IT heads to prepare a recession budget. What is your view?
Lambert: I feel that, in Asia at least, we may not yet be preparing for a recession budget. Despite some global wobbles, there is still significant latent demand, tremendous desire to consume and sufficient resources to support this desire, all of which leads to significant optimism for growth.

All of this means that companies will continue to invest to expand. IT is an essential enabler for growth. So, all things remaining the same, we expect to continue seeing growth in the Asian IT and telecommunications business.

Name three hot technologies to watch in 2008.
Rather than talk about "hot technologies", I would prefer to talk about three technologies that I believe will finally deliver on the promise they have been showing over the last few years.

The first one would be MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching)--an internet traffic routing technology which gives network operators a lot of flexibility to divert and route traffic around link failures, congestion, and bottlenecks. For instance, the resilience that the Cable & Wireless (C&W) network showed during the disruption caused by the Taiwan earthquake some time ago was a case in point for the business benefits this technology delivers. Our next-gen Carrier MPLS network is key to enabling us to provide a more consistent service.

Moving ahead in 2008

 

 

1.	Socializing goes big in 2008
2.	The urge to merge in 2008
3.	New chips on the block
4.	Web threats dominate security landscape
5.	Battle for the mobile platform space in 2008
6.	The industry reflects, looks ahead

Looking back on 2007

 

 

1.	Looking back at 2007 with envy
2.	Predictions that went right and wrong
3.	2007's movers and shakers

Unified communications technologies are finally beginning to get relevant to businesses by enabling them to become more "aware". Unified communications is making it possible for colleagues to stay in touch more easily, providing content delivery tools that make training and sharing more effective; collaboration tools that allow employees across the world to share, learn and communicate as well as hosting and collocation solutions that streamline data storage and analysis, making businesses, as a whole, more intuitive to their marketplace.

Another key area of business technology that I believe will find its place under the sun is application performance. With more and more customers looking for business technology benefits from deploying leading edge IT solutions, performance of applications is key to delivering the ROI benefits that customers seek.

Interestingly, all three technologies have been enabled by one underlying customer demand, to move towards next-generation networks.

Work-life balance...
... Finally looks like it is finding a home in Asia. New technology and systems combined with improved communications networks are making options such as remote working, virtual team meetings and online collaboration among colleagues very real.

This is happening at a time when managers are adopting increasingly global mindsets and work ethics, leading to greater focus on a balanced approach to work. For example, working from home is now gaining in acceptability around Asia.

The biggest challenge facing IT departments is...
... The appalling service levels offered by IT service providers--across the board. We believe that the best-laid plans of corporations suffer from delays and failure due to the inability of their service provider to act as business partners. It's time CIOs and IT managers put their foot down--and demand change. Customers deserve better and, at C&W, we're changing to ensure they get the service experience they desire.

C&W is rewriting the rules of the industry. Our promise of "a new way everywhere" is a promise to deliver the best service levels to our customers, a promise to provide our colleagues the opportunity to make C&W a great place to work and a promise to provide the best returns to our stakeholders--and we intend to stick to.

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