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CommunicAsia is ready to do business
Buzz not affected by 16 percent smaller exhibition
by Ek Heng, Asia-Pacific Correspondent
As exhibitors prepare their stands for the opening of CommunicAsia2009 trade show, the buzz at Asia's largest infocomm technologies event in Singapore appears unaffected by the drop of 16 percent in number of participants and exhibition floor space.
First staged in 1979, CommunicAsia is the region’s longest established ICT event with a profile that mirrors the transformation of telecoms and information technology — from their initial development under separate tracks to the era of digital convergence.
Some 1,928 exhibiting companies from 58 countries are converging this year at the exhibition and conference which is occupying 58,000 square metres of display space. It is a four-day umbrella event bringing telecom, network, equipment and services players with Enterprise IT exhibitors as well as leading broadcast industry products and services.
CommunicAsia is also being held alongside the region’s computer graphics event known as CG Overdrive - the fourth in its series — which is a reflection of the tremendous interest and growth of computer animation and gaming sectors.
ICT ministers' forum coincides with trade event
The fact that two government-related conferences are also timed to coincide with the event testifies to the reputation and drawing power of CommunicAsia. One event is the inaugural iGov Global Exchange which will showcase success stories about e-government solutions and applications as well as facilitating information exchange among senior officials from developing and developed countries, and industry experts on e-government services.
At the same time, the fifth Ministerial Forum on ICT, ImbX will be held involving ICT ministers and industry experts to discuss key ICT trends, policies and regulations. The theme this year is “ICT: Transforming Government, Businesses and Society”.
Major announcements and green products
Industry leaders use the event to made key announcements and one highlight this year is by Intelsat whose press statement touched on its programme to refresh its satellite fleet serving the Asia Pacific. It will be launching a series of 11 satellites till 2012, a statement said.
Green products are also being introduced such as a solar powered GSM base station by VNL from India which it claims requires no maintenance and it can be set up by non-engineers making it suitable use in remote areas. Also pitching the green theme is TelcoBridges which said in a press release that its development platforms and network monitoring solutions use 80 percent less power than competitive solutions.
Showcasing products and services spanning the entire spectrum of telecom, broadcast and IT domains, other exhibitors include Yahoo which will introduce new mobile services for consumers to customer Internet content to Australia’s Card Access Services that offers remote payment service for businesses operating in areas where cellular or fixed line communication is not available.
Reflecting the trend, telcos along with technology companies, are moving from being just infrastructure connectivity providers to being business enablers, thereby creating new market opportunities.
Asia has become the telecom center of gravity propelled in part by current expenditures of China and India. XMG, a global ICT research and advisory firm, predicted earlier this year that the Asia Pacific market will grow by 6.3 percent, the lowest since the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s. However, the region will outperform the global average of 2.4 percent growth estimated for 2009.
As for South East Asia, a report by International Data Corporation indicated that the telecom services market of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand is expected to reach US$35.7 billion for 2009, ten percent higher than the 2008 figure.
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