China Entering New IT Phase
Newsbytes, Monday, December 08, 1997 at 18:55
HONG KONG, CHINA, 1997 DEC 8 (NB) -- By IT Daily. As China's economy
continues to open and expand, companies are coming under pressures
to upgrade their information technology to cope with increased
demand. That was the message delivered by John McAdam, president and
CEO of Sequent Computer Systems [NASDAQ:SQNT] during a three-day
visit to Beijing.
According to McAdam, intense competition, mushrooming data volumes
and an increasingly sophisticated and demanding customer base are
forcing PRC firms to reexamine the structure of their data centers
to meet the needs of today and tomorrow.
"China is determined to join the World Trade Organization (WTO).
However, in order to qualify for membership, the country must open
its markets," he said. "This opening up will bring increased volume
to the business that China already enjoys with global trading
partners. But it will also greatly increase competitive pressure as
local firms are forced to compete with foreign organizations already
equipped with the latest IT.
"Chinese companies will need to implement forward-looking
IT infrastructures, which means adopting a new approach to the
traditional data center." McAdam noted that many Chinese enterprises
- especially those in the banking and telecommunications sectors -
are ready to implement open, flexible, next generation data centers.
In the West, one of the top issues facing CIOs and other top IT
executives, is aligning information systems with corporate goals.
They must also institute cross-functional information systems while
reducing data center operating costs and meeting regulatory
deadlines. These same organizational and business trends are also
driving Chinese organizations to change the way they manage their
data centers.
"Many organizations in China are being restructured, evolving to
compete in an increasingly market driven economy. In order to
successfully make the transition, they need more comprehensive IT
resources," said McAdam. "As China's economy opens up, businesses
need the tools to help align themselves with this new market
paradigm. In the West, enterprise data volumes increase by a factor
of four every three years. On top of this, new classes of users -
business partners and end customers - are driving data center
services to unprecedented transaction processing loads."
McAdam believes that, if anything, China is ahead of that curve,
with data volumes growing at an even faster rate than in the West -
perhaps doubling every year. "This is partly due to the tremendous
economic growth which China is experiencing," he said. "Another
factor is the increased familiarity of Chinese users with automated
services and OLTP applications like bank ATMs (automated teller
machines). These are no longer regarded as extra conveniences, but
have become expected.
"Organizations are also far more reliant on information technology.
As the country's economy grows, it is pulling IT usage along with
it. The bottom line is that existing enterprise IT solutions have
reached, or will shortly reach, their limits. While China has made
tremendous progress in recent years, new technologies and
architectures have also added greatly to the complexity of data
center environments. The result is that many of China's beleaguered
IT managers are now actively looking for a way to manage this
complexity more effectively.
"Consolidation is the answer," said McAdam. "Customers need to
consolidate their IT services and create the forward-looking IT
infrastructures which are essential to deal with higher volumes of
business and increasing competition."
Reported by Newsbytes News Network newsbytes.com
(19971209) |
