By Sol E. Solomon
Wednesday, February 13 2008 07:32 PM
URL: http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/business/0,39044229,62037766,00.htm

Emerging markets will maintain double-digit IT investment growth despite recessionary concerns, according to Access Markets International (AMI) Partners' report on this year's top IT trends for small and medium businesses (SMBs) worldwide.

The consulting firm specializing in infocomm technology and business services market intelligence, said given the strong growth rates expected of regional economies in 2008, bullish demand for IT products and services will continue in emerging markets.

"In fact, in countries such as China and India, IT spending will continue to rise rapidly as companies increasingly look to IT to spur effectiveness in their operations and compete more aggressively," AMI-Partners said in a press release Wednesday.

IT investments in emerging markets are forecast to grow at an annual rate of 12 percent, outpacing the expected investment growth in mature markets of about 6 percent.

Demand in newly industrialized markets such as Singapore and South Korea, is also expected to rise by 9 percent.

According to AMI, technology investments are increasingly tied to top-of-mind business objectives and strategies. This trend signals the rise of a less price-sensitive and more sophisticated business consumer.

In fact, AMI said, the total cost of operations of technology procurement already has heavier impact than price among SMBs globally.

"It should be noted though that Asia-Pacific SMBs tend to remain somewhat more price conscious than their Western counterparts, though similar trends in developing consumer sophistication can be noted in these regions as well," said AMI.

Growing fondness for social networking
Increasingly, SMBs are turning to social networking sites to connect with other businesses and as a resource for real-time business intelligence, contact and lead generations, and as a medium to improve customer relationships.

"Vendors are also anticipated to leverage this trend by developing additional applications for greater interactivity, and as a means to gather enhanced intelligence on select content while targeting audiences," AMI said.

As software vendors, particularly in the realm of software as a service (SaaS), and business process outsourcing (BPO) vendors focus more on delivering integrated applications, business process and managed services to SMBs, the distinction between software products and BPO will increasingly blur, the consultancy said.

"This trend promises to give SMBs more complete solutions--and the best of both worlds. In contrast to a traditional BPO approach, customers retain solution visibility and control. At the same time, customers benefit from an ongoing, services-centric relationship with vendors," said AMI.

As businesses globally look to boost both their public image and profit margins, cost-based expense management will become the pre-eminent business response, the firm said.

"This plays well for the cost-reducing implications of several 'green' technologies hitting the market, and highlights a larger market trend for increased energy efficiency in addition to added functionality."

The appeal of virtualization as a green technology lies in its ability to dramatically improve SMBs' computing resource utilization and performance, reduce infrastructure costs, consolidate physical space, provide an easier and more flexible application deployment mechanism, speed server and application provisioning times, and enhance reliability and uptime by providing organizations with inherent business continuity and disaster recovery functionality.

New virtualization products from companies such as VMware, Microsoft and Citrix, will let businesses of all sizes take advantage of server and desktop virtualization, said AMI.