Malaysia never been a country that behind in IT industry and ICT infrastructure and has been developed a lot in bringing the nation up a level in computing world by catching up with other countries. Ever since Tun Dr. Mahathir brought in the Vision 2020 and MSC (Multimedia Super Corridor) the country has witnessed the growing of ICT opportunities to the societies and produces numerous of IT skills persons and experts in various fields; Windows Servers, CISCO specialization, software development, PC hardware expertise, IT analyst and many more. We are far ahead and ready for the next level of new era; Cloud Computing. This piece of technology previously was never a choice for small and medium-sized businesses due to its high prices and cost which above their budgets.
With more and more ranges and services cloud computing providers, they now can have the chances to hook up to the certain offers that meets their business needs and requirements. One of the giant cloud-based service company, Microsoft has been pushing their very own success products; Windows Azure and Office 365. They came to Malaysia in May 2010 to launch their Microsoft Online Services that provide access to the giant’s software full range of cloud computing capabilities and services, and now Microsoft have lower price to offer for certain plan and packages per user per month subscriptions basis.
In August – September 2010 cloud services projected 33% increment compared to non-cloud adoption from other organization. This portion divides into three parts; 6% for Private Cloud while Public Cloud covers 13% and the balance goes to Hybrid Cloud; which most of the increased numbers for this area falls on Server Computing and Storage field. This report was taken from Frost & Sullivan’s “State of Cloud Computing in Malaysia: Enterprises Heading for the Clouds” presentation on 4th and 5th slide. In another report by Roger Strukhoff with title “VMware Survey: Malaysia Moving Steadily Toward Cloud” mentioned Malaysia have steadily moving in a correct pathway to cloud computing industry with 64% have deployed or actively planning cloud initiatives which out of 158 local companies. This figure comes along with insurance companies with 67% cloud initiatives while for education sector with 69% positive response. In the same report of Frost & Sullivan, they have mentioned that IaaS was expected to be the fasted growing segment and yet this has driven the revenue in the Cloud Computing market up to US$29 Million in the year 2010 with 91% out of whole market in Malaysia.
For the companies that taken their steps into the cloud computing adoption, it has changed the way of managing workload efficiently and maximizes the revenue in long run. This can be focused on the CFO side of concerns in terms of increasing the revenue (as mentioned before), reducing cost and bringing overall operational efficiency to the organization. By adopting cloud computing, the organization can now less worries in allocating big sum of money in expanding the IT facilities, system upgrades factor, managing the old hardware inventory and lessens the efforts of implementing in-house software installation and maintenance in terms of time consumption. This can be benefited with the cloud-based by maximizing the time in focusing more in expanding the company’s target to the forefront in competing with their rivals.
For CIO side, they can put more of their time and efforts in innovation and strategies by demonstrating the positive impact of cloud that is having on the role of technology; which they enabled in focusing more on strategy and business services rather than solely on technology area. In a quotation of Victor Cheng – CA Technologies vice president for sales Asia South; “We already know that cloud computing is ‘revolutionary’ in terms of what it can do for business, but it is also breeding a new type of technology leader, one that clearly understands what adopting cloud computing can do for the organization, and one who believes that the cloud can empower them to become a more complete technology leader of tomorrow,” he said. Furthermore, “Also, 100 percent of cloud adopters say IT is fundamental or very strategically important to the organisation compared to just 50 percent of those who have not adopted the cloud,” he said. “This indicates that organisations where the CIO has adopted cloud computing view their CIO as much more than a technology leader – a leader with broader skills and knowledge to contribute to the business.”
We seen all these reports, figures and charts showing Malaysia is heading to the right directions f cloud computing adoption but are we there yet, fully? For this we can look into Cloud Maturity / Readiness Index which have surveyed more than 6,000 organizations from eight countries Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Malaysia scored quite well in the Index Ranking with 68 compared to its neighbor countries; Thailand (51), Indonesia (50), Philippines (45), Vietnam (48) but lost to Singapore with their scores at 82. Overall Malaysia has shows it as star performer in terms of highly committed to economic development through technological commitment. We can see with its ICT spending that reach up to US$22 billion, which represents almost 12% of its overall economy – compare this to 7.3% in the US, and Malaysia’s annual ICT spend represents 23.4% of its economy, according to the survey from Roger Strukhoff.
Yet that is another proof that Malaysia is ready for the full growth of cloud computing but it seems not there yet. Malaysia still backed in the factor of International Connectivity; in the saying modest network of bandwidth availability which in place of 60th of world ranking compared to China, Japan, Hong Kong and even Singapore. In the report of Asia Cloud’s Cloud Readiness Index in September 2011, Broadband Quality (scored 4.7) factor that placed a slightly front of countries like Vietnam (4.5), Indonesia and Philippines (both at 4.6), same high as India but behind of Thailand (5.0) and China (4.9); while the rest scored way higher than the listed here. In the sense of Data Protection Policy, Malaysia made their way up from the countries such as China, Thailand, Vietnam, Philippines but same scores as Singapore, India and Indonesia that makes the rank in moderate level. Overall performance is good and well done but it still facing the main challenge in becoming a desired hub for Cloud Computing that fall on the factor of networking, international connectivity, costs and broadband quality.
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References
Roger Strukhoff, (December 5, 2011). VMware Survey: Malaysia Moving Steadily Toward Cloud. Retrieved from http://cloudcomputing.sys-con.com/node/2086697
Avanti Kumar, (February 24, 2012). Cloud frees more innovation time for Malaysian CIOs.
Retrieved from http://cio-asia.com/tech/cloud-computing/cloud-frees-more-innovation-time-for-malaysian-cios/?page=2
Cloud Computing Enables Malaysian CIOs to spend more time on Strategy and Innovation. (n.d.) Retrieved from http://www.ca.com/sg/news/Press-Releases/na/2012/Cloud-Computing-Enables-Malaysian-CIOs-to-spend-more-time-on-Strategy-and-Innovation.aspx
Anonymous, (January 20, 2010). Microsoft Partners with SME Corp to Transform Malaysian SMEs. Retrieved from http://asiafuturesmag.com/Article/ItemId/136/microsoft-partners-with-sme-corp-to-transform-malaysian-smes.aspx#
Frost & Sullivan, (July 2011). State of Cloud Computing in Malaysia: Enterprises Heading for the Clouds. Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/FrostandSullivan/malaysia-heading-for-the-clouds
Jason Simpkins, (September 23, 2010). The Bright Future for Cloud Computing is Becoming Much Clearer. Retrieved from http://moneymorning.com/2010/09/23/cloud-computing/
The Star, (07 Feb 2011). Cloud computing adoption rising. Retrieved from http://www.mdv.com.my/v2/archives/news-post/cloud-computing-adoption-rising
Ronald Byrne, Jo Timbuong, (May 25, 2010). Mukhriz: Malaysian businesses must capitalise on cloud computing. Retrieved from http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/5/25/nation/20100525144114&sec=nation
Cloud Computing Readiness Index 2011-The Countries. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.asiacloud.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=161
Edwin Yapp, (n.d.). Heading for the Clouds. Retrieved from http://www.pwc.com/my/en/assets/press/110501-heading-for-the-clouds.pdf
Asia Cloud, (September 2011) Cloud Readniss Index. Retrieved from http://asiacloud.org/docs/Cloud_Readiness_White_Paper_v6-0.pdf
english teacher
Mar 26. 2012
your grammar really sucks! please stop writing, i feel dumber just by reading your badly written article. please take up english lessons and improve your grammar.