Addressing the Directions 2002 conference in Sydney this morning Chris Fell, managing director of IDC in Australia and New Zealand called upon the IT industry to keep the -tale of doom" that was 2001 in perspective.
-Despite the slump the IT industry is still worth a trillion US dollars world wide, and continues to display incredible growth in certain sectors and regions," Fell said. -Like any other industry it has been through peaks and troughs of growth, and we are now definitely climbing back out of the recession."
While Fell acknowledged that the events of September 11 forced a reassessment of the expected length and depth of the recession, world-wide IDC figures now point to a two-year recovery period before a return to double figure growth.
-However this does not necessarily reflect subregional trends," Fell said talking up the prospects in the Asia Pacific region. -We shouldn't be mislead by the woes of the US market, there are plenty of opportunities in Australia and across the region."
Fell set the tone for the conference by characterising the present phase of growth as capturing the long-term exploitation of the Internet paradigm.
-We have experienced fairly typical boom and bust cycle in which the initial phase of speculation, investment in new technology, experimentation and commercialisation comes to a rather abrupt end," Fell explained. -We are now seeing the long term exploitation of the that technology."
This new phase, according to Fell will be characterised by a series of so called megatrends including investment in the areas of business integration, mobility and wireless, new computing architectures based around miniturisation, and a renewed focus on security.
-We are beginning to see the cautious optimism expressed six months ago solidify," Fell said. -The vast majority of the business leaders we speak to are positive about the future, and especially positive about the future of their own business. We should being to see this converted into an increase in the IT spend - now is the time to invest."
