‘Cloud Computing: Ready for Prime-time’

IDC Asia/ Pacific is proud to present “Asia/Pacific Cloud Computing Conference 2010” for the second consecutive year!. Customers have faced a barrage of marketing information over the last 12 months but still need to remain informed about this fast moving market. This hot topic event will be held across 8 major cities, focusing on the key theme – Cloud Computing Moves into the Mainstream in Asia Pacific.

Within just a few years, cloud computing has reshaped the IT marketplace and the way that organizations acquire and use IT products and services, disrupting their strategies and forcing them to reevaluate all of their alternatives to the status quo. Now the use of cloud computing is accepted as mainstream, this disruption is creating new opportunities for suppliers and catalyzing major changes in traditional IT offerings.

Over the next five years, IDC forecasts that Asia Pacific spending on IT cloud services to grow fourfold, reaching $4.6 billion by 2014. More importantly, spending on cloud computing will accelerate throughout the forecast period, with a CAGR of 40% forecast across the region from 2010 - 2014. However, not all markets will be suitable for the traditional centralized cloud delivery model; IDC sees that new uses of cloud technology will be introduced to include those markets which can not yet take advantage of cloud computing.

The global financial crisis contributed to this acceleration of interest in cloud computing as the cloud model promises a much cheaper way for businesses to acquire and use IT – in an economic downturn, the appeal of any cost advantage will be very attractive. This advantage is especially important for small and medium businesses, a sector that has been a key target in regional recovery plans. And with economic indicators pointing to a widespread, but still slow, return to growth in the second half of 2010, the potential for cloud computing to minimize the spending of still-scarce capital will be examined very closely as CIOs begin to prioritize postponed and new projects.

To add to an evolving market, IDC expects the period 2010 to 2012 to witness even more vendor consolidation as M & A activity continues. As larger vendors seek more control over the entire cloud stack, a major shift in power in the market will occur. As this shift of power from customer to service provider happens, vendors and users will need to adjust their strategies.

Despite proliferating examples of successful cloud deployments, many people continue to speculate that the growing interest in cloud computing is a just a short term phenomenon - the latest hype destined to join other fads in the tech market trash bin.

IDC believes that the rapid emergence of cloud services, and the cloud computing model underpinning those services, are ushering in a fundamentally new era of growth and competition in the IT market.

A unifying theme for 2010 will be the emergence of "enterprise-grade" cloud services — services that support the more demanding security, availability, and manageability requirements of traditional IT in the cloud services world.

The implication for IT users and suppliers is very clear: in the next three years, as IT cloud services enter a period of mainstream use, this is the critical time to develop strong cloud strategies, and play a leadership role in taking advantage of the potential of cloud computing.

During this conference, IDC will further dispel the current hype around cloud computing and put forward our analysis of cloud computing development directions, market trends that will affect buying decisions and guidance as to how and when Asia Pacific businesses can safely use cloud technologies and services to enhance their IT and business performance.

The IDC Cloud Computing Conference is designed for senior IT and line of business executives evaluating and