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Follow UsWhile the IT industry is struggling to keep its head above water during these
tough recessionary times, the one segment within the sector that is really
showing signs of rapid growth is Bio-IT. According to a recent IDC report on
bio-IT infrastructure, the segment shows promise of a 24% compound annual growth
rate (CAGR) and is expected to touch $38 billion by 2006. And a major factor
driving this growth, suggests IDC, is the growing acceptance of new biology
methods and informatics-based drug design in the sector.
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Debra Goldfarb, IDC group vice-president for worldwide systems and life
sciences research, also suggests that this market would drive incremental
revenue into IT, particularly in areas like high-performance computers and
servers, storage, data and knowledge management for at least the next 10 years.
Database technology and tools, visualization, application software as well as
the associated services segment is also expected to benefit from the growth in
the bio-IT industry.
According to the IDC study, by 2006, storage will represent the largest
single element of bio-IT spending, accounting for $11.8 billion. Driving this
demand for storage systems is the exponential growth in data and complex data
elements emerging in the post-genomics era. Servers will represent the second
largest element of IT spending across all sectors. This growth will occur as
increasingly complex computational workloads emerge, and the industry moves
beyond genomics into proteomics, systems biology, and docking applications.
Increased demand for gigabit or higher switched LAN infrastructure–as well
as demand for data and application integration, process reengineering,
architectural design and deployment, and consulting services–will result in
robust growth in the networking and services sectors. The IDC report predicts
35% and 33% growth in the networking and services sectors, respectively. The
report also suggest that pharmaceutical, biotechnology and basic research will
be the top target markets for IT suppliers, based on infrastructure spending.
With these sectors experiencing the most significant build-out of
infrastructure, the research agencies foresee all major hardware, software, and
services OEMs targeting the bio-science market.
Is ERM still hot?
The ability of enterprise resource management (ERM) solutions to help
automate and optimize business processes related to cross-enterprise resources
in meeting business objectives is the primary driver behind ERM spending in the
Asia-Pacific region–approximately 7% of the US $66.8 billion IT market in
2001. However, a recent IDC report suggests that despite the outlook for ERM
solutions growth in the region being bright, it will be limited compared to
other newer solutions in the marketplace.
This, according to Robin Giang, IT Solutions’ research manager for IDC
Asia-Pacific is because ERM already has a relatively high penetration rate in
the region, especially among large multinationals, and organizations in the
manufacturing and financial sectors. However, she also suggests that as it’s
an evolving solution, more and more businesses are accepting ERM as part of
their overall e-business strategy. "The fact that ERM vendors are now
targeting their solutions at smaller local organizations in the region helps to
sustain ERM growth."
The vertical industries that will drive the ERM adoption trend in the
Asia-Pacific region include manufacturing, financial services and
communications. "As Asia is a major manufacturing hub, ERM solutions have
primarily been exploited by organizations in the manufacturing sector to
efficiently allocate and control resources within production plants and
facilities. Overall, both MNCs and SMEs alike have searched for ways to leverage
ERM solutions to maximize their accounting, personnel administration,
manufacturing and logistic systems in recent years," the report states.
SHUBHENDU PARTH in New Delhi