'I travel to Macau for business at least once a week,' said Ming Wong, manager for commercial sales, Cisco. Wong said he sees a lot of businesspeople commuting via jetfoil, and predicted he would spend even more time in the MSAR once his firm's Macau office opens in Q4 2006'the new office will house sales and tech staff, but will also be used for seminars and workshops, according to Wong, who added that Cisco would 'leverage its Hong Kong resources heavily to service Macau.'

'The planned opening of our Macau office for this autumn demonstrates our commitment to delivering leading IT infrastructure to the city,' said Fredy Cheung, Cisco's managing director for South China. 'With a liberal business environment and a clearly defined development strategy, Macau provides tremendous growth potential for world-class information technologies to support its burgeoning economy and that of neighboring Guangdong region.'

Wong said one of his firm's traditional strengths is supplying verticals like financials and telcos, and described the gaming sector as a 'new vertical.' He said that converged IP networks would help spawn new uses of technology within this market. 'Casinos are looking at pioneering new uses of IP convergence,' said Wong. 'For example, video surveillance: there will be thousands of video cameras used in a casino with just 300-400 tables.'

Wong said that his firm's Networking Academy Program has partnered with six Macau educational institutions, and 'the number of graduates from the Cisco Networking Academies in Macau has increased by 30 percent year-on-year from 2004 from 2005.'

'IBM has actually been in Macau since 1985,' said Wing Ho, manager, Global Midmarket Business, IBM China/Hong Kong. 'Our focus in Macau is on helping Macau's organizations innovate to grow.' IBM opened its Macau office last year.