Editor's note

Invest in your people

IBM founder Thomas Watson Senior once said: "I think there is a world market for about five computers."

Boy was he wrong. More than 46 million PCs were shipped globally in the first quarter this year, according to research firm IDC.

It has been two decades since Big Blue launched the world's first PC in 1981, a passive machine that did little more than word processing. It ran on the MS-DOS operating system and sported a monochrome screen, 14-inch floppy disk drive and 64 kilobytes of memory. Today, all PCs come with color monitors, and they come in different form factors: light-weight laptops, multi-purpose tablet PCs, and palm-sized personal digital assistants (PDAs).

Technology has become the center of our daily activities and completely changed the workplace. This year, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) in Asia-Pacific are forecasted to spend US$29.7 billion on IT, says IDC. But while we marvel at technology advancement and the business efficiency improvements they bring, one thing that hasn't changed--and doesn't change so easily--is human behavior, said Dr Michael Loh, a HR transformation manager at IBM Singapore, whom I interviewed some time ago.

The qualified clinical psychologist told me: "As long as human beings are still the ones doing the work, the same age-old issues will still be there," he said. No matter the improvements in computing systems and design, "the need for the human factor remains as essential as ever, for nothing can really replace technology nor replicate human interaction, not even the most intelligent of 'bots' or the most interactive of sites".

This month's issue focuses on the "people" factor, the importance of ensuring that staff are adequately trained and continuously reskilled, so as to ensure higher returns on any technology investment. Get tips on how you can nurture a learning-friendly corporate culture and how technology can boost your firm's brand and image.

We also spotlight courses designed for financial controllers and HR managers with a secondary IT role. These workshops help non-tech executives get up to speed on two hot topics: outsourcing and security.

In other stories, CNETAsia's Cordelia Lee finds out why Penang-based NTR has upgraded to SAP Business One software, while AMI-Partners' Laurie McCabe explains why it pays to sign up for a software maintenance contract.

If you've got a story to tell or a view on the stories published here, write to us. We'd love to hear from you!