Social media applications continue to gain momentum. It is not a fad. Popular applications such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have gained popularity and widespread usage. It has created a social and business revolution on how people go about their personal and daily lives and how enterprises reach out to their customers, and vice-versa. 2011 will be marked as a year when organizations increase their social business footprint. We believe the use of social platforms by small and medium-sized enterprises will increase in Asia Pacific, with more than 30 per cent are expected to use social networks for promotional purposes by end of 2011. Large corporations in Asia Pacific are much more traditional and conservative than their North American and European counterparts and will invest in research studies to understand its potential before fully committing to integrating social media channel as part of its longer term enterprise architecture.
7. Consumerization and social features of IT will continue to dominate market uptake as user-centricity of gadgets and mobile devices reach new levels
2010 has seen the rise of the smartphones, almost taking it from gadget to mainstream business tool. Driven by the wealth of applications available, 2011 will see that trend continue. Although Apple is making inroads, RIM's Blackberry still leads this space and will continue thru 2011. Application will be the main driver for all mobile devices. The winners will not necessarily be the best technically, but those with the biggest pool of applications and easiest access. Network speed and the high penetration of pre-paid mobiles is limiting uptake of on-line services such as web-TV, e-books and video conferencing in Asia Pacific. This will only slowly improve over the next 3 to 5 years.
Apple once again led the new consumer gadget market with the iPad. Samsung have followed. RIM, HP and Dell will release their offerings in the first half of 2011. In a study of consumer technology users, over 60% respondents believe that these devices can become a replacement for laptops in the years to come. For e-book users, XMG see the death knell for Kindle and other electronic readers as most consumers are not inclined to buy two devices; settling for the broader spec tablets over the technically better e-readers.
New features in Unified Communications to integrate real-time communication services such as chat, video, conferencing, VoIP with non- real time services such as e-mail and SMS to enhance social features will make the investment business case in UC more compelling. XMG believe the market will conservatively grow at a compound annual growth rate of 19% thru 2011 and 2013.