"These changes will require specific knowledge of domestic markets for companies to successfully compete within these major markets,' said Au.

IDC believes there will be three major areas of focus in 2007 in relation to the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) market in the region:

Innovative and useful services. With the wireless internet experience becoming a reality for businesses and consumers, this will provide added impetus for companies to roll out mobility services to help us work and play.

Standardization to simplify and reduce costs. Asian enterprises will simplify and adopt a service orientation in IT architectures by standardizing on components. System Integration vendors will look at reducing risk for project delivery by standardizing their service offerings.

Smarter approaches to markets. Software vendors in APEJ are responding to the need for competitive offerings, particularly for Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMB), as larger firms lag with practical and straightforward SMB offerings; Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) vendors are seeking to build longer term relationships with Asian firms, which have been slow to take advantage of the BPO phenomenon.