NEW IBM CLOUD TECHNOLOGY PUTS ANALYTICS INTO THE HANDS OF MORE DECISION MAKERS ACROSS THE ORGANIZATION

-- New discovery and analytical capabilities help employees visualize, understand and act on insights to improve business outcomes --

ORLANDO -- 20 May 2014: IBM (NYSE: IBM) is introducing new cloud-based software that puts analytics into the hands of more business users and decision makers across the organization.

The new IBM analytics software brings together task personalized lists, dashboards, analysis, and reporting in the cloud, making it easier for employees to interact with data and understand it to do their work, collaborate with others, and make better business decisions – anywhere and anytime.

A sales manager, for example, can now use a PC, Smartphone or tablet to manage sales compensation-related activities while collaborating with peers, resulting in faster and more accurate payments to sales reps.

Gartner predicts that analytics will reach 50 percent of company employees by 2014. By 2020, that figure will be 75 percent*.This represents a tremendous opportunity for ROI and organic growth for organizations. A 10% increase in data accessibility, for instance, translates into an additional $65.7 million in net income for a typical Fortune 1000 company**.

Organizations today are challenged to capture and make sense of data in real time, while enabling better, faster decisions and actions by more users. Today's news helps take analytics out of the IT department and making it accessible to frontline staff through visualization tools and dashboards.

At Vision 2014, IBM’s global conference for finance, risk management, and sales compensation professionals in Orlando, Florida, IBM is previewing new analytic discovery software on cloud that lets everyday business users visually interact with and apply advanced analytics to big data without needing the specialized skills of a data scientist. As a result, line of business professionals in sales, marketing, finance and other areas can get and easily interpret predictive insights from data in minutes.

“Analytics can improve almost any business process -- what products to make, what risks to take, which customers to target and how to make them stay. But to maximize impact, analytics also needs to be available to all the people making decisions, wherever they are, “said Alistair Rennie, General Manager, Business Analytics, IBM. “By offering these new solutions in the cloud, IBM is helping organizations drive stronger employee engagement and gain real-time insight into how their business is performing.”

New Software Speeds Analytic Decision-Making in the Cloud

IBM Concert is now offering new cloud-based analytics software available on IBM Cloud Marketplace that can manage the increasing volume and complexity of processes and tasks, support an increasingly mobile workforce, and emphasize social collaboration as an integral part of decision making. By accessing this technology in the cloud, business users can now easily view, understand and interact with specific performance insights to more easily determine what actions to take and when. Remote employees can also contribute and update data immediately via mobile devices, improving accuracy and providing real time planning and forecasting.

For example, a sales manager looks at the Concert dashboard and sees that sales for one product line are running behind plan for the current quarter. The manager immediately recommends an additional sales incentive for the quarter, attaches a few comments, and asks for senior management approval as part of an established process. The CFO, who is out of the office, can use a Smartphone to access the expense alert, read all the comments, and review in-context metrics to approve the request.

IBM Previews Advanced Analytic Solutions
Project Catalyst Insight is a new analytic discovery solution that makes analytics more automated, approachable and accessible to business users. Catalyst Insight automatically builds predictive models and presents those results as interactive visuals with plain language descriptions. Using Catalyst Insight, a marketing manager could use advanced analytics to better understand the drivers of marketing campaign effectiveness without having to wait for a data scientist to prepare the information, develop predictive models and interpret the results.

IBM also announced plans to make its OpenPages enterprise governance risk and compliance family available as a managed service on IBM Softlayer. OpenPages allows businesses to develop a comprehensive compliance and risk management strategy across a variety of domains including operational risk, financial controls management, IT risk, compliance and internal audits. Using OpenPages on Cloud, for example, a compliance manager will be able to quickly identify and analyze the potential effects of a large-scale, serious incident and make recommendations for corrective action to management. This new deployment option will provide a flexible, reliable, enterprise-grade system that can grow as OpenPages expands across the enterprise.

Project Catalyst Insight and OpenPages on Cloud will join 100-plus IBM software-as-a-service offerings for line of business supported by SoftLayer. SoftLayer is fast becoming the foundation of IBM's cloud portfolio, adding more than 1,000 new clients since IBM acquired the company last year.

IBM Big Data & Analytics
IBM has established the world’s deepest portfolio of Big Data and Analytics technology that spans research and development, solutions and software. IBM has invested $24 billion to build its capabilities in Big Data and Analytics, through R&D and more than 30 acquisitions. IBM has also built a strong ecosystem of partners and VCs in Big Data. Today, more than 10,000 analytics consultants, 6,000 industry solution business partners, and 4,000 IBM mathematicians and are helping clients use big data to transform their organizations.

For more information about IBM Big Data & Analytics, visit http://ibm.co/bigdataanalytics.

Citrix Synergy in Los Angeles New Innovations to Equip People with Mobile Workspaces

May 20, 2014, Tuesday - Citrix Synergy, held in Los Angeles, California this year, concluded on a successful note.

The annual flagship industry conference by Citrix, held from 6 – 8 May at the Anaheim Convention Center, unveiled new mobility technologies and strategies that will provide support for people to work better from anywhere with mobile workspace solutions. The latest solutions also promise IT teams comprehensive control and management capabilities across the entire enterprise’s IT infrastructure.

The IT industry is witnessing a rapid explosion of new and heterogeneous devices and app platforms, coupled with the rising trend of consumerization, BYOD and an increasingly digitally-savvy generation who prefer to work whenever, wherever and however they choose.

Brad Peterson, Steve Daheb, and Catherine Courage at the Synergy 2014 Keynote.

Citrix Synergy focused on the four key aspects of solutions that businesses need in order to equip their people with mobile workspaces to enhance productivity and achieve strategic differentiation in today’s dynamic and mobile world.

Virtualization: Synergy discussed state-of-the-art mobility solutions for enabling IT to transform any Windows app or a complete desktop into a secured, on-demand cloud service. Major focus areas included how to optimize user experience on any device with new approaches to desktop and app virtualization, Windows app migration, virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), remote desktop session (RDS) and client virtualization, including administration, service delivery, security and mobility.

Mobility: Synergy provided in-depth coverage of the latest mobility trends and how innovations and technologies are able to empower people to work from anywhere, all while providing IT with full configuration, security and management control of apps, data and devices. Key topics included mobile app and device management, app stores, mobile security, social and real-time collaboration, mobile data access and workshifting.

Citrix CEO Mark Templeton at the Synergy 2014 Keynote.

Networking: Synergy covered the latest developments in network virtualization, load balancing, software-defined networking, disaster and site recovery, app security and multi-tenancy in private and public clouds. Key topics included how businesses can be ensured of the best mobility, performance and availability by accelerating and securing enterprise applications across LANs, WANs, the internet and cloud.

Cloud: Synergy explored an extensive range of topics from automation, orchestration, and networking, to access and management for compute and application services.

Key focus was on automated, elastic, “anything-as-a-service” clouds that enable businesses to ensure the best security, performance and reliability, be it running off an on premise enterprise datacenter, or in an external cloud.

This month’s news update from Citrix highlights new and innovative ways for customers to advance and mobilize their businesses and employees by delivering desktops, apps, data and services to any user, on any device, over any network or cloud, via a single solution and in a secure fashion.

Citrix Workspace Suite
Citrix Workspace Suite is a new, single, flexible solution that unites virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to improve employee productivity, simplify IT and fully secure enterprise content. The full suite of solutions supports multiple corporate or personal devices per user and provides instant secure access to all apps, desktops, data and services over any network, while simplifying how organizations manage their end user computing environment. Various technologies, such as application and desktop virtualization, mobile application and device management, native mobile productivity apps, enterprise file sync and share, WAN optimization and access gateway enable comprehensive management of application, desktop and mobile infrastructures. According to Gartner, the mobile workspace market is expected to grow 15 times in the next three years as organizations embrace business mobility.  With the spurt of new devices and app platforms, combined with the rapid growth in consumerization, mobility and BYOD initiatives, organizations are driven to find a way to manage and secure the diversity of today’s IT environments. With Citrix Workspace Suite, businesses can enable their people with comprehensive, secure and personalized mobile workspaces, and empower them with an unprecedented level of freedom, flexibility and choice in the way they work.

Citrix XenMobile enterprise mobility management and mobile productivity apps
The new release of Citrix XenMobile enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution is accompanied with new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps -- WorxNotes, WorxEdit and WorxDesktop. The EMM solution offers significant enhancements in user experience, platform security and support, as well as management integrations that improve scalability and speed time to value for business. The new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps are key business apps with intelligent integrations that seamlessly work together, resulting in a simple and intuitive user experience. Today, mobility is a top priority for organizations from healthcare providers to government institutions. Organizations recognize the need to securely deliver mobile workspaces that provide all the business tools and information their employees need, whether they are in the office, or on the move, in order to stay agile and drive business growth.

New ShareFile Connectors
The new ShareFile StorageZone Connectors help businesses by establishing direct and secure mobile access to data in its original location behind the corporate firewall. In addition, the new ShareFile Personal Cloud Connectors allow users to access their Box, Dropbox, Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive accounts from ShareFile itself, providing enterprises with the flexibility to determine how and where users store files. In a nutshell, the new and enhanced Citrix ShareFile delivers the broadest storage access for users and gives users the ability to access and edit files from multiple data sources on their mobile devices with a single access point. At the same time, businesses have more control over their data encryption keys. This results in increased productivity and security.

Citrix NetScaler MobileStream
The now available NetScaler MobileStream technology delivers the most advanced cloud and mobile networking capabilities, significantly improving mobile network and application performance, along with network visibility, while tightening security for both the enterprise and the end user.  IT teams have started to embrace a mobile-first agenda, with the explosion of mobile devices in business and the exponential growth of consumerization. The technology improves mobile performance by virtually eliminating the impact of sporadic connectivity caused by legacy communication technologies and website designs, and transparently leverages wireless and cellular connectivity with intelligent dual network mode technology. This results in mobile apps loading and running five times faster, enabling employees to maximize productivity as well as enhance user experience.

Citrix Advances Innovation in Business Mobility
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix unveiled advancements toward its vision of providing ways for people to work better from anywhere with mobile workspace solutions. At this week’s conference, attendees will learn about how new offerings based on Citrix virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies can further enable secure delivery of apps, desktops, data and services to any user, on any device, over any network or cloud.

Citrix Announces Workspace Services, Cloud-based Platform for DaaS, Virtual App Delivery and Mobility
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced Citrix Workspace Services™, the first platform for designing, building and delivering mobile workspaces. The cloud-based platform allows both partners and customers to rapidly build and offer desktops-as-a-service (DaaS), virtual application delivery and mobility services from any cloud. Citrix leads the DaaS market today serving over 350,000 subscribers, growing 50 percent annually, through over 1,500 service providers who offer hosted desktops and applications. Building on this momentum, Citrix is introducing new capabilities for its partners and customers. Citrix Workspace Services is a cloud-based platform that enables partners, enterprises and independent software vendors (ISVs) to quickly and simply design and deliver mobile workspaces that allow people to work better and increase business productivity, agility and efficiency. Workspace Services builds upon a full range of Citrix technologies including the open architecture of Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop® virtual app and desktop delivery, the market-leading user experience of Citrix HDX™ technologies, the most robust mobility solution with Citrix XenMobile®, a comprehensive data fabric with Citrix ShareFile® and a global customer care service with Citrix GoToAssist®.

Citrix ShareFile Secures Files for Today’s Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced new Citrix ShareFile® features that deliver the broadest storage access for users and the most choice for IT. The new features give users the ability to access and edit files from multiple data sources on their mobile devices and businesses more control over their data encryption keys, resulting in increased productivity and security. These capabilities are available in the company’s secure file sync and sharing solution ShareFile, Citrix XenMobile® and the new Citrix Workspace Suite.

Citrix and Cisco Join Forces to Power Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Cisco and Citrix announced they are bringing their industry-leading technologies together in a tested and validated enterprise mobility infrastructure solution. The Cisco® Mobile Workspace Solution with Citrix – including the new Citrix Workspace Suite™ also announced today at Synergy – simplifies how organizations provide highly secure and optimized access to apps, data, communications and services on any device from networked locations.

Quest and Citrix Collaborate to Deliver DaaS for Business
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced that Quest, one of the first and largest desktop-as-a-service (DaaS) providers, has aligned with Citrix to offer services using Citrix market-leading DaaS technologies, including Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop® virtual app and desktop delivery, to provide workspaces-as-a-service for businesses. Citrix technology provides a complete mobile workspace solution that securely delivers apps, desktops, files and services to any user, on any device, over any network. Quest brings a deep understanding of managed and cloud services to its customers, providing customizable services to the healthcare, financial services, higher education, government, and manufacturing industries. Quest services are built on the Cisco Desktop® as a Service solution, which includes Citrix technology and brings scalability, performance advantages and simplified management to the Quest platform.

Citrix Unveils Latest XenMobile Release and Technology Preview of New Mobile Productivity Apps
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced a new release of its Citrix XenMobile® enterprise mobility management (EMM) solution and a technology preview of new WorxNotes™, WorxEdit™ and WorxDesktop™ workflow-driven mobile productivity apps. The new XenMobile release includes significant enhancements in user experience, platform security and support, as well as management integrations that improve scalability and speed time to value for business. The new workflow-driven mobile productivity apps from Citrix are key business apps with intelligent integrations that seamlessly work together, resulting in a simple and intuitive user experience. For example, people can join a meeting directly from their calendar, take notes and distribute them to all participants with just a few simple taps. As a result, mobile employees can be more productive on their tablets and phones, while IT retains control.

Citrix Introduces Industry’s Most Comprehensive Mobile Workspace Solution
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced the new Citrix Workspace Suite, which unites its market-leading virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to make it even easier for people to work anywhere. Providing instant, secure access to all apps, desktops, data and services from any device over any network, Citrix Workspace Suite enables businesses to empower people to choose when, where and how work gets done, giving them a new level of freedom, flexibility and choice.

Citrix XenApp and XenDesktop Extend Lead in Mobile Workspaces
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix is providing an early view of upcoming releases of Citrix XenApp® and Citrix XenDesktop®, the company’s industry-leading solutions for delivering Windows in the mobile-cloud era. New versions of XenApp and XenDesktop were released in March 2014, and Citrix is continuing a brisk pace of innovation in its flagship products to drive even higher levels of security and user experience for mobility and cloud on the unified platform for virtual Windows apps and desktops. At the conference, Citrix will provide an early view of refinements that enhance security capabilities, provide high-performance HTML5 browser-based access from any device, enable fast log-ons, simplify roaming apps across multiple devices and support for the latest USB 3.0 peripherals, as well as many more real-world, customer-driven features. In addition, Citrix is releasing a private technology preview of tools that will facilitate migration to the latest releases for existing customers. XenApp and XenDesktop are cornerstones of the new Citrix Workspace Suite, which unites its market-leading virtualization, mobility, networking and cloud services technologies to make it even easier for people to work anywhere.

Citrix Unveils NetScaler MobileStream Technology
At Citrix Synergy™, Citrix announced the availability of NetScaler® MobileStream™ technology, which significantly improves mobile network and application performance along with network visibility, while tightening security for both the enterprise and the end user. With the explosion of mobile devices in business and the relentless growth of consumerization, IT has started to explicitly embrace a mobile-first agenda. In fact, according to industry analysts, 77 percent of enterprises state that providing mobility support for employees inside and outside the office is a strategic network priority. NetScaler MobileStream improves data security and mobility support, delivering the most advanced cloud and mobile networking capabilities in the industry. Coupled with the broader Mobile Workspace Suite, only Citrix offers the purpose-built mobile networking functionality that creates a complete end-to-end solution for truly empowering mobile workstyles.

Autodesk Wins 2014 Citrix Innovation Award
At Citrix Synergy™, Autodesk was announced as the winner of the company’s 9th annual Innovation award, designed to recognize visionary customers who are using Citrix solutions for delivering mobile workspaces to drive business innovation and IT simplicity. Autodesk used Citrix solutions to harness virtualization technology and create a new cloud-based development environment that has resulted in a faster, lower-cost, and higher quality process.  Autodesk engineers now have access to on-demand development resources via self-service; and without the need for physical hardware, engineers are able to work from anywhere. In addition, as Autodesk accelerates the development of next-generation, cloud-based tools for design, engineering, and entertainment; engineers can work on multiple projects in parallel and easily collaborate between different locations.

Citrix Podio Gives Users More Power to Design and Customize Their Workflows with the New ‘Creator’ Release
Citrix announced significant enhancements to Podio, the popular productivity and work management tool in its mobile workspace portfolio. The platform’s redesigned look and feel empowers any user to dramatically reimagine the way they organize their everyday work. Improvements include a faster user interface, intuitive new drag-and-drop design and more powerful ways to automate and link tasks within Podio.

Trend Micro Codinsanity Calls Upon Programming Talents to Solve Big Data Challenges

Adrenaline-pumping Asia Pacific student hackathon now to include software professionals

Kuala Lumpur, 14 May 2014 – Global leader in cloud security, Trend Micro Incorporated (TYO: 4704; TSE:4704), continues to fuel creativity and cultivate young programming talents through its annual programming contest, the Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014 Asia Pacific Programming Contest.  For the first time in 15 years, the contest is now open to both working professionals and students across twelve markets in Asia-Pacific including Malaysia.

Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014 Asia Pacific Programming Contest builds on top of last year’s contest and challenges talent to creatively solve algorithmic challenges in big data. Today’s mobile, social, and collaborative lifestyles have transformed the way people use technology at home, at work, and everywhere in between. With the rise of big data, the challenge to secure devices, personal information, and business data has become even more complex.

Whether it is optimizing existing algorithms or formulating new algorithms, Trend Micro Codinsanity  2014 Asia Pacific Programming Contest provides the ideal test bed for contestants to think big, push boundaries and explore alternative solutions to better link data sets, refine recommendation engines or add intelligence to existing processes. The contest provides a platform to showcase innovative applications with market potential and positive social impact.

“Today, we are living in the cloud era and a data-driven world, which is reshaping the way enterprises, government agencies and individuals operate. As a company, we are approaching security with a data-centric framework. Our annual programming contest brings together like-minded individuals with the same passion to solve real-world problems in big data which will form the basis of innovation, productivity and competition,” said Goh Chee Hoh, Managing Director for Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, Trend Micro Inc. “By working with students and working professionals, we gain unique perspectives and new ideas that can help us approach and tackle challenges differently. We are excited about the outcomes of this year’s contest and we welcome students and software programming talents to take part in the contest.”

To help contestants prepare for Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014 Asia Pacific Programming Contest, the company is offering optional coaching services to participating teams from the time of registration to the finals. All coaches are Trend Micro experts based out China, Japan, Taiwan and the Philippines.

The winning team of Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014 Asia Pacific Programming Contest will not only receive a cash prize of USD 20,000, but will also undergo an exclusive two-month student internship program with the company. The first runner-up, second runner-up and finalist teams will receive USD 10,000, USD 6,000 and USD 2,000 respectively.

Sharing his views on the annual programming contest, Goh added: “At Trend Micro, we are committed to fostering and grooming the next generation of software programming talents. These young talents are the linchpins of our industry and will help drive innovation, continue Trend Micro’s legacy as the threat defense and cloud security expert, and achieve our vision of making the world a safe enough place to exchange digital information.”

The format of this year’s contest comprises two stages, beginning with an online test and ending with an onsite final held in Taiwan. The programming languages for the contest are C/C++ and Java. Participating teams will be scored against three key criteria – accuracy, performance and speed – for the online test and the ten highest-scoring teams will embark on an all-expense paid trip to Taiwan where they will pit against one another in the finals. The judging criteria for the onsite final include creativity, completeness of solution, technicality and presentation.

Registration for Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014 Asia Pacific Programming Contest is now open for undergraduates and young professionals in China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam. For more information about the contest, visit http://contest.trendmicro.com/2014/

Trend Micro Codinsanity 程式竞赛开跑 
挑战大数据资料解决能力

欢迎学生及各路软件高手前来挑战紧张刺激的亚太区程式设计马拉松赛

吉隆坡，2014年5月14日讯 –全球云端安全领导厂商Trend Micro（TYO: 4704；TSE:4704，对推动软件设计创意工作不遗余力，并将透过其一年一度举行的Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014年亚太区程式竞赛，栽培年轻的软件编程人才。这是该公司15年来，首度将赛事规模扩大至亚太区12个国家，包括马来西亚，今年更开放予在职专业人士及学生参加！

Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014年亚太区程式竞赛，将以去年的竞赛作为基础，挑战参赛者解决巨量资料问题的创意。有鉴于现今的移动装置、社交媒体及结合此两者的生活方式，已彻底改变了人们在居家、工作及生活场所中对于科技的应用方式。再加上巨量资料的兴起，如何确保移动装置、个人资料及商业数据的安全性，已经成为越来越复杂的挑战。

不论是针对现有的演算法加以强化，或是开发新的演算法，Trend Micro Codinsanity  2014年亚太区程式竞赛提供了理想的试验平台，让参赛者大胆地想像、挑战极限，以及探索新的解决方案以提升资料关联性，优化推荐引擎或是智能化现有的流程。这项竞赛也提供一个平台，用于展现具市场潜力和有利于社会的创新应用程式。

“今日，我们正生活在一个云端应用及资料驱动的时代，企业、政府机构的运作与人们的生活方式都已转型。身为全球云端资讯安全领导企业，我们一直以安全的资讯中心为架构。我们每年举办程式竞赛，让各国兴趣相投，技术高超的人才齐聚一堂，一同解决真实世界的巨量资料问题，这也将是科技与软件产业未来创新力、生产力和竞争力的基石，” Trend Micro公司的马来西亚、新加坡及印尼的董事经理吳志豪如此表示。“透过与学生及在职专业人士的合作，我们获得了独特的视角和新的想法，帮助我们接触及应对不同的挑战。我们对今年的竞赛结果充满期待，欢迎学生及软件程式设计人才参加这项竞赛。”

为了帮助参赛者作好参加Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014年亚太区程式竞赛的准备，从报名参加竞赛到决赛阶段，该公司将从为参赛队伍提供选择性的导师服务。所有导师是由中国、日本、台湾及菲律宾的Trend Micro专家担任。

Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014年亚太区程式竞赛的优胜队伍不仅可赢得2万美元的奖金，也将获得提供两个月学生实习计划的独特机会。亚军、季军及进入决赛的队伍也将分別获得1万美元、6千美元和2千美元的奖金。

在分享他对这项年度程式竞赛的看法时，吳志豪 补充说：“在Trend Micro，我们鼓励并栽培更多新一代的软件程式设计人才。这些年轻才俊是我们这个行业的支柱，它将有助推动创造力，延续Trend Micro作为威胁防御和云端资讯安全专家的遗产，以及实现我们致力打造数字信息交换环境安全的愿景。”

今年的比赛形式分成两个阶段，第一阶段将采线上竞赛，第二阶段则是在台湾举办的现场总决赛。竞赛的程式设计语言是 C/C++ 及 Java。线上竞赛将依三项主要条件来评分：正确性、效能及解题速度，分数最高的前10名队伍将获得全程支付费用，前往台湾参加总决赛。总决赛的评判标准包括：创意、解决方案完整性、技术能力及简报表现。

Trend Micro Codinsanity 2014 年亚太区程式竞赛即日起开始接受报名，凡是中国、香港、印度、印尼、日本、马来西亚、菲律宾、新加坡、南朝鲜、台湾、泰国及越南的大专院校学生及年轻专业人士，皆欢迎报名参加。有关比赛详情，请浏览 http://contest.trendmicro.com/2014/。

Microsoft delivers data platform for the era of ambient intelligence

• Big data survey by IDC and Microsoft shows that organizations have the potential to unlock US$278 billion worth of data dividend in Asia Pacific
• Businesses with a comprehensive approach to data stand to realize 60% increase in return on data assets; deliver mission-critical performance

KUALA LUMPUR — May 8, 2014 — In concurrence with the ongoing ‘Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur’ program happening this week, Microsoft Malaysia (“Microsoft”) held a customer event at the Sheraton Imperial Kuala Lumpur Hotel to announce the launch of new data platform solutions which includes SQL Server 2014, Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service (ISS) which enables Internet of Things; and Analytics Platform System (APS), a low cost Big-Data-in-a-Box appliance. These new data platform solutions enable Microsoft to deliver the most comprehensive data platform to organizations looking to harness greater business value from their information today. Conjunction

Microsoft also shared the results of new IDC research that shows companies that take a comprehensive approach to data stand to realize an additional 60 percent return on their data assets — an Asia Pacific opportunity of US$278 billion.

Carlos Lacerda, Managing Director, Microsoft Malaysia.

Nations, businesses and communities are living in a mobile-first and cloud-first world surrounded by technology that are increasingly connected. In this new world of ubiquitous computing, data is the fuel for intelligent systems and services to improve how we work, live and play. Microsoft envisions a world where we are surrounded by intelligent computing, ushering in an era of ambient intelligence.

Carlos Lacerda, Managing Director of Microsoft Malaysia, stressed the importance of a data culture — one that encourages curiosity, action and experimentation — for everyone and every organization. “The era of ambient intelligence has begun, and we are delivering a platform that allows companies of any size to create a data culture and ensure insights reach every individual in every organization,” Lacerda said.

Built for the era of ambient intelligence, Microsoft’s comprehensive data platform includes new Internet of Things capabilities and provides customers with the building blocks they need to connect their data, refine and analyze it, and deliver insights to people who can take action.

(L-R): Isaac Jacob, Vice President, Enterprise Practice Group, Fusionex; Arun Ulagaratchagan, General Manager, Cloud & Enterprise, Microsoft Asia Pacific.

Most Comprehensive Data Platform for the Data Future

Today, Microsoft expanded its data platform with new products and services, including the following:

• Launch of SQL Server 2014. The latest version of the world’s most widely deployed database delivers real-time performance with built-in in-memory technology and public cloud scale and disaster recovery with Microsoft Azure.
• Limited public preview of the Microsoft Azure Intelligent Systems Service (ISS). This new Azure service helps customers embrace the Internet of Things and securely connect to, manage and capture machine-generated data from sensors and devices, regardless of operating system.
• General availability of the Analytics Platform System (APS). APS combines the best of Microsoft’s SQL Server database and Hadoop technology in one low-cost offering that delivers “big data in a box.”

These new solutions build on 12 months of innovation — including Power BI for Office 365, a cloud-based, self-service business intelligence solution with groundbreaking natural language capability; Azure HDInsight for elastic Hadoop in the cloud; PolyBase to bring structured and unstructured data together in a data warehouse appliance; and Power Query for Excel, which makes it easier for people to discover data — to deliver the most comprehensive data platform with real-time performance built into everything.

IDC and Microsoft Survey on Data Dividend in Asia Pacific
Data is currency for business today. A new research commissioned by Microsoft and conducted by IDC estimates that organizations could realize a “data dividend” of roughly US$1.6 trillion in additional revenue, lower costs and improved productivity over the next four years by putting in place a holistic approach to data that spans datasets, analytics and more. In Asia Pacific, the potential data dividend is US$278 billion over the next four years. The research was conducted among more than 2,000 mid-sized and large organizations in 20 countries worldwide. More information on the methodology can be found at the Microsoft Cloud & Enterprise News Bytes Blog.

According to the survey, the key opportunity areas for organizations in unlocking its data dividend are:

• US$29 billion in customer-facing data scenarios, such as using data to improve customer acquisition, retention, support and pricing optimization. 
• US$88 billion in operations data scenarios, such as using data in process or operations optimization; plant, facilities, equipment maintenance or utilization; demand or supply chain management, logistics and more. 
• US$42 billion in innovation data scenarios, such as leveraging data in product or service improvement or innovation; research and development innovation. 
• US$120 billion in productivity data scenarios, such as using data in human capital, IT optimization, regulatory compliance and more.

“Customers who take a comprehensive approach to their data projects realize a higher data dividend than customers who take a point-by-point approach,” said Dan Vesset, program vice president, Business Analytics and Big Data, at IDC. “This new research shows that by combining diverse data sets, new analytics and insights to more people — at the right time — businesses worldwide can tap into a more than trillion-dollar opportunity over the next four years.”

Malaysian Businesses Bet on Microsoft to Realize Their Data Dividend
Companies today – including in Malaysia – are facing an increasing diversity of data within their own businesses, driven by business applications; unstructured social data; the Internet of Things; and much more. However, many businesses are keeping their data in silos and often in the hands of a small number of people across organizations, who analyze these data sources using older, complex or limited analytics tools.

Speaking at a media briefing session at the event, Arun Ulagaratchagan, General Manager, Cloud and Enterprise Division, Microsoft Asia Pacific, said, “Microsoft’s goal is to help businesses to unlock insights on their data and make them ubiquitous and real-time, by putting big data to work. Our aim is to help customers increase the return on the data currency by connecting data across their company, connecting it to the world’s data, enriching it through analysis and delivering insights to as many people as possible – as quickly as possible.”

Also present at the media session was Microsoft’s partner and IT specialist in software products and solutions delivery – Fusionex – who concurred with Microsoft’s vision of world that is increasingly data-driven. “With the right data analytics tools, our customers across verticals in Malaysia have seen tremendous improvements in their business decision-making since migrating from competing products to Microsoft’s SQL Server; many have stayed on with the product through its many iterations,“ said Isaac Jacob, Vice President, Enterprise Practice Group, Fusionex. “Customers stay with Microsoft not only because it offers the best technology roadmap, but also because Microsoft is always listening to customer feedback and responds rapidly to improve the product and customer experience. Our customers are putting Microsoft’s platform to work, driving real business results and increasing their data dividend,” Jacob added.

“For over 20 years in Malaysia, Microsoft has been helping enterprises get the most out of their IT investments, contribute to business bottom lines, improve efficiencies and maximize resources. With the world’s most widely deployed database, connected to the cloud through Azure, delivering insights to billions through Office and understanding the world through a new ‘Internet of Things’ service, we have the most complete hybrid data platform that spans the cloud and on-premises, giving customers choice in how they deploy. When you put it all together, no other vendor is delivering all that value to customers,” Lacerda concluded.

FICO Debuts Solution Stack to Accelerate Big Data Analytics Adoption and Innovation

Groundbreaking data visualization, decision management and analytics bridge the gap between Big Data, analysis and decision execution

Singapore – May 7, 2014 – FICO (NYSE: FICO), a leading predictive analytics and decision management software company, today announced the general availability of the FICO® Solution Stack, a collection of software products that includes the FICO® Decision Management Platform and three new analytic and decision studios. The FICO Solution Stack is available in the cloud and as on-premises software. With 30 patents at its core, the FICO Solution Stack brings together Big Data, predictive analytics and decision execution into an easy-to-use development environment. It enables organizations to create innovative analytic applications rapidly; dramatically increase developer and business user productivity with support for a broad range of analytic and decision tools; and execute decisions in real time.

“The FICO Solution Stack is a critical part of our strategy to help businesses simplify the development, the deployment and the management of Big Data analytics powered applications and solutions,” said Stuart Wells, chief technology officer and executive vice president of product development at FICO. “Organizations of any size can now use the FICO Solution Stack to extract value from Big Data, make better decisions, solve previously unsolvable problems and engage with their customers in more meaningful and successful ways. We are in the midst of an analytic revolution that is changing the world, and now every business can compete using FICO analytic technology.”

“Cloud-based platforms hold the potential to make analytics accessible to a wider set of users by reducing many of the bottlenecks associated with acquiring, deploying and maintaining complex software,” said Brian McDonough, research manager for Business Analytics Solutions at IDC. “As cloud-based analytic adoption continues to grow, more organizations will be able to improve their analytics capabilities and guide their business processes towards optimal outcomes.”

The FICO Solution Stack’s new analytic and decision studios provide tools for building, extending, deploying and scaling applications and solutions. FICO® Decision Studio enables users to build and customize analytic and decision components and services, powered by analytics from any source including broad support for PMML. FICO® Application Studio enables users to rapidly develop, orchestrate, and publish analyticspowered applications. FICO® Visual Insights Studio gives users powerful tools for visualizing, analyzing and reporting data trends. The studios run on and leverage the FICO Decision Management Platform, a full-featured, open standards-based platform that delivers comprehensive decision management with lifecycle management, simple integration and interoperability.

The FICO® Solution Stack was designed to support data transportability and open modeling best practices.

MDeC Raises the Game for Malaysian Businesses with Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014

Greater push for Big Data Analytics to increase productivity in public and private sector

KUALA LUMPUR, MAY 6, 2014 – The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) launched the “Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014” today, an initiative that aims to help Malaysia’s ICT industry build its capabilities in Big Data Analytics (BDA), and spur endless opportunities for BDA products and services. With the theme of “Harnessing Value from Your Data Variety”, the launch of the seven-day event which took place at the Connexion@Nexus, Bangsar South City, was officiated by Yang Berhormat Datuk Jailani Johari, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia and witnessed by Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, Chief Executive Officer of MDeC.

As the only city in South East Asia to be given the honour in showcasing Big Data Week, Kuala Lumpur is at the centre of one of the most unique global platforms of interconnected community events that focuses on the social, political and technological impacts of data. The Big Data Week also brings together a global community of data scientists, data technologies, data visualisers and data businesseses from six major commercial, financial, social, and technological sectors.

Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Datuk Jailani Johari (R) and MDeC’s CEO, Datuk Badlisham Ghazali (L) during the press conference at the launch of Big Data Week 2014 in Kuala Lumpur.

Speaking at the launch, Yang Berhormat Datuk Jailani Johari, Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia, said “Malaysian business and technology landscape have grown to such an extent that we are now ready to embrace the new developments around BDA for businesses, the government, community organisation and much more. For local businesses, there is a need to embrace technologies such as BDA to raise their game so that they can be more competitive with large multinational companies. From the government perspective, BDA can play a huge role in increasing its efficiency and efficacy. With the implementation of the right big data analytics solutions, the government can gain much needed feedback and precious insights that can tremendously improve our decision making process.”

“Indeed, BDA is no longer a futuristic abstract concept but is something that is already happening today. According to Gartner, a total of 4.4 million IT jobs will be created globally to support BDA by 2015. As BDA will form an integral part of ICT Services, efforts to drive the development of the BDA industry in Malaysia will no doubt complement the Digital Malaysia initiative and be in tandem with the DM 354 roadmap. Thus, MDeC believes that Malaysia is ready to embrace the vast opportunities that Big Data Analytics has to offer as we sow the seeds to grow Malaysia into a developed country driven by the digital economy by 2020.” said Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, CEO, MDeC.

The launch was followed by MDeC’s one-day conference on Big Data themed “Big Data: Endless Possibilities” featuring speakers from Intel, Teradata, Dell, IBM, Amazon, MIMOS, HP Labs, and many more. Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur 2014 is organised with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, and the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU). Big Data Week in Kuala Lumpur will feature 18 related events – the highest number of activities in all 30 participating cities worldwide.

The 3rd edition of Big Data Week also debuted on the 5th of May as the largest crowd-sourced festival of events, meet-ups, workshops and hackathons focused on the social, political, technological and commercial impacts of data. It brings together an anticipated 30,000 data practitioners across more than 200 events.

For further information on the “Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur” or to participate, please visit (www.bigdataweek.com/kualalumpur)

Dell Survey: Midmarket Companies Aggressively Embrace Big Data Projects

• Big data projects are not just for the enterprise: Survey shows midmarket companies see early success as they proactively take on big data to make better data-driven decisions
• 96 percent of organizations surveyed are in flight with an existing project, or plan to start one in the near term
• Budgets for big data projects are expected rise to an average of $6 million over the next two years

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, April 30, 2014 – The subject of a meteoric hype cycle, big data has been considered the domain of enterprise organizations and not necessarily a relevant challenge or opportunity for midmarket companies. A Dell Software survey of big data initiatives in the midmarket, however, reveals just the opposite. Big data initiatives, enabled by new analytics tools and strengthening ties between business and IT leaders, are helping midsize organizations achieve the improved product quality and decision making once reserved for large enterprises.

To find out what drives midmarket adoption of big data projects, Dell Software commissioned Competitive Edge Research Reports to conduct a global survey of midmarket executives. Focused exclusively on midmarket organizations, the survey indicates that big data projects have made a significant shift from their enterprise roots, and have become a critical decision-making factor for midmarket companies across the globe. Survey findings also show midmarket organizations today overwhelmingly believe in the potential of big data projects to help them solve tangible business problems, and they are backing up that belief with action.

Survey Results Paint a Robust Picture of Big Data Initiatives in the Midmarket
The survey’s most significant finding is that 41 percent of respondents have one or more big data projects already in place, with another 55 percent planning to start one the foreseeable future. Further results show that more midmarket firms plan to use big data analysis to grow their businesses, rather than just find ways to cut costs.

Additional findings include:

• 80 percent of survey respondents agree that they need to better analyze their rapidly expanding data collections. Among their top goals: Improve product quality, seize business opportunities and speed decision-making.
• 89 percent of respondents with a big data initiative in progress report significant improvements in company decision making. 
• Encouraged by early success, respondents expect big data budgets to rise from between $2 million and $5 million up to an average of $6 million in the next two years as companies invest more in hardware, software and trainingi.
• The biggest drivers of big data project success are IT/business collaboration, proper skills, and performance management to gauge the effects of big data initiatives.
• The most influential departments in big data projects are IT and sales/marketing.
• The most valuable technologies for midmarket companies running big data initiatives are real-time data processing, predictive analytics and data visualization tools. 

A host of key drivers are pushing midmarket companies to embrace and invest in big data initiatives. Survey respondents’ report that their top three project goals are to provide better quality products and services, take advantage of new business opportunities, and improve the quality and speed of decision-making. Those goals are followed closely by gaining a better understanding of customer needs, having the ability to respond quickly to competitive threats, and improving the effectiveness of their marketing programs.

Early Results Show an Immediate Impact
Although many midmarket companies are just now getting started with big data projects, the early results show those projects have had an immediate and overwhelmingly positive impact on their organization’s productivity and success. According to the survey, organizations with big data projects in flight report far greater levels of satisfaction with productivity and decision making than those still in the planning phase. For example:

• 50 percent of organizations with a big data initiative in flight are satisfied with the quality and speed of their decision making, compared to just 23 percent among those yet to kick off a big data project. 
• 49 percent of organizations with a big data project in progress are satisfied with their ability to improve product quality, compared to just 32 percent of those organizations still in the planning phase.
• 47 percent of organizations in production with a big data initiative are satisfied with their ability to identify and take advantage of new business opportunities, compared to 24 percent of those organizations whose initial big data project is still in developmenti.

Key Success Factors
A well-known but often-ignored best practice for big data projects among enterprise organizations, collaboration between IT and business units is the most often cited prerequisite of midmarket project success documented in the Dell survey, with 41 percent of respondents indicating that strong cooperation between the two groups is needed in order for an initiative to succeed. Other commonly cited success factors include:

• A strong connection between data analytics and performance management in the organization, cited by 37 percent of respondents.
• The availability of required skills – such as those possessed by data scientists – within the organization, cited by 33 percent of respondents.
• The documentation of complete and accurate business requirements, cited by 32 percent of respondentsi.  

Midmarket Show Success, but Room to Grow Remains 
While the early results have been stellar for the majority of organizations, there still is room for growth.  Managing data complexity remains the most significant obstacle midmarket companies face as they look to fully embrace the potential benefits of a data-driven approach. According to the survey, 40 percent of organizations consider the need to manage a wide variety of new data types and structures to be a significant challenge, while 24 percent are similarly challenged by what they perceive to be a lack of easy-to-use, cost-effective data cleansing toolsi.

In addition, most midmarket organizations still have not yet incorporated social media and other big data sources into their analytics mix, meaning a potentially significant source of analytic insight remains largely untapped.

While the cost and complexity of the required technology have kept some areas of opportunity as yet unexplored, technology keeps improving and budgets for big data-related projects are on the rise.  The Dell survey results show there is no reason midmarket organizations can’t benefit from better analysis of their data, and more importantly, they now know it.
“Dell’s survey shows once again why ‘big’ data is relative term. Being an enterprise organization with large, complex data sets is not a prerequisite to benefiting from a data-driven mindset. When organizations of any size focus on improving the quality of their business processes by becoming more analytical and data-driven, the potential benefits are limitless,” said Darin Bartik, executive director, product management, information management, Dell Software.

“The early success midmarket companies are seeing with their big data initiatives will encourage more growth and investment, and additional returns on that investment will be achieved as they dive further into different datasets and embrace ever-improving analytic capabilities. That’s why Dell has assembled a broad set of solutions spanning software, hardware and services to help companies of all sizes leverage data and information to make better, faster and more informed decisions.”

MDeC to host Big Data Week Kuala Lumpur in May 2014

Kuala Lumpur to be the only city in Southeast Asia to showcase Global Event

KUALA LUMPUR, APRIL 25, 2014 – Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) will be organizing the “Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur!” from 2nd-11th May 2014. This initiative aims to help Malaysia’s ICT industry build up its capabilities in Big Data Analytics (BDA), and spur endless opportunities for BDA products and services.

Kuala Lumpur is the only city in Southeast Asia to be given the honour to showcase Big Data Week and MDeC as the main driver of the showcase has lined up a number of partner events for local and regional participants throughout the week. The Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur will kick off with a networking party hosted by VLT to share insights with attendees on how Big Data Analytics is used in a few of the top digital companies in Malaysia. This will be followed by MDeC’s showcase event themed “Big Data: Endless Possibilities” and other exciting activities such as full-day hackathons, mining Facebook to discover yourself, and journalism and Big Data.

“Big Data is not simply a technology proposition, but also how organisations can structure new business models, drive into new markets and target growth more effectively. The sooner businesses realise this, and align their IT and business teams accordingly the faster they will see the benefits and gain a competitive advantage from Big Data. Recognising this, MDeC is once again pleased to host the Big Data Week in Kuala Lumpur for the second time. Themed “Harnessing Value from Your Data Variety”, there’s plenty of knowledge sharing in store.   So, if you're involved with web apps, enterprise apps, data analytics, financial apps or storage at massive scale, or simply want to learn more about Big Data and the opportunities, I encourage to you be a part of the Big Data Week” said Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, CEO, MDeC.

The Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur! is organised with the support of the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, and Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU).

The 3rd edition of Big Data Week will also debut on the 5th of May in over 30 cities worldwide as the largest crowd-sourced festival of events, meet-ups, workshops and hackathons focused on the social, political, technological and commercial impacts of data. It will bring together an anticipated 30,000 data practitioners across more than 200 events.

For further information on the “Big Data Week 2014 @ Kuala Lumpur” or to participate, please visit (www.bigdataweek.com/kualalumpur)

MDeC – IDC Partnership Launches Second Volume of the CIO Survival Guide Series

KUALA LUMPUR, 10 April 2014 – The Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) today announced the second volume of the CIO Survival Guide educational workshop series in partnership with technology market intelligence firm, International Data Corporation (IDC). This continuous effort is aimed at helping Malaysian CIOs to cope with the rapidly changing technological landscape and to better equip them to be more efficient in addressing challenges associated with surviving and thriving in a rapidly changing and competitive marketplace.

Themed "Survival of the Cloud Fittest", the second workshop will examine different stages of cloud development among Malaysian IT organizations and provides solutions to improving the assimilation rate of new services into leading companies. Selected Malaysian CIOs will work with both MDeC and IDC to participate at the workshop which is set to take place on 22 May 2014, Thursday at Mandarin Oriental Kuala Lumpur.

Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, MDeC Chief Executive Officer said “The cloud continues to radically modify technology engagement and uptake among enterprises through a highly accessible and flexible internet-based technology. Malaysian SMEs are also starting to embrace the idea of subscription-based business solutions delivered over the Internet. While cloud adoption in Malaysia is on the upward trend, countries such as Singapore and South Korea are still ahead of us. Thus, it is important for us to step up our efforts. This is the fundamental goal of the second volume of the CIO Survival Guide. MDeC, via MSC Malaysia, and Digital Malaysia, will continue to provide avenues for both enterprises and local SMEs to seek the right type of cloud services that are suited to their needs as we migrate into a digital economy.

According to IDC, the rapid acceptance of the four key technologies (Cloud, Big Data, Mobility and Social Media) that change the delivery, control, management and security of the IT environment is one of the challenges face by most CIOs. The key for enterprises to effectively overcome the challenge is the need to use these new technologies effectively and to adopt a new delivery model that is flexible, scalable and cost effective rapid deployment. Cloud models fulfill the underlying needs of enterprises; however, many CIOs are ill-prepared for the new challenges that come with cloud.

“For Malaysian enterprises, a rapidly expanding range of cloud services are readily available – from those that replace basic infrastructure through to advanced mobile apps. However, IDC has observed a gap between the often extensive potential of the available cloud services and the legacy app-focused capabilities of Malaysian IT groups,” said Chris Morris, Associate Vice President, Services Asia Pacific, Lead Analyst, Cloud Services & Technologies, IDC Australia.

Morris further elaborated, “The gap is apparent as a lack of experience and skills to implement and manage cloud environments effectively. To overcome this capability gap, it is necessary to invest not just in technology, but in people and processes too. With Line-of-Business (LoB) managers now frequently funding 50% of a cloud project, their different expectations must be met; they're indifferent to the technology and only seek improvement in their business results. Cloud services must be managed and optimized for the target business environment to deliver full value.”

The first CIO Survival Guide workshop, "The Information Enabled Enterprise Summit" was held in June last year and participated by 59 senior ICT decision-makers. The summit focused on the improvement of organizations’ ability to be more strategic with IT investments and ensured the IT strategies aligned to business strategies and goals.

Gartner Announces Malaysia’s Business Intelligence Market to Reach US$30.4 million in 2017

Data Discovery and Mobility Create a Revival in Spending in Asia Pacific

Kuala Lumpur, 25 February, 2014 — The market for business intelligence (BI) platforms in Asia Pacific is expected to grow 7.4 percent to reach almost US$1.4 billion in revenue in 2014 and more than $1.6 billion by 2017, as data discovery and mobility create a revival in spending by business users, according to Gartner, Inc.

The author of a new report on the competitive landscape for BI platforms in Asia Pacific, Gartner research director Bhavish Sood, said growing interest in big data solutions will continue to positively impact BI spending across Asia Pacific in 2014 and beyond.

“Information intensive initiatives are popular in organizations in Asia Pacific's accelerating economies, because information is a competitive differentiator,” Mr Sood said. “We expect this to continue as organizations pursue regulatory compliance, performance management and overarching enterprise information management initiatives.”

In Asia Pacific, the top four "megavendors" — SAP, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM — controlled 72.2 percent of the BI platform market in 2012, up from 65 percent in 2011. However, Gartner analysts said that business units increasingly prefer data discovery solutions, such as Tibco Spotfire, QlikTech and Tableau Software, while their counterparts in IT are still more comfortable procuring from megavendors.

“Given the current economic climate of slow growth, CIOs are looking for solutions that need minimum servicing and can deliver fast time to value. These demands are being met by packaged analytical applications, preconfigured BI appliances and intuitive data discovery tools,” Mr Sood said.

Malaysia will continue as the second-largest BI market in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), after Singapore. The need to increase Malaysia's competitiveness against China's and that of other neighboring ASEAN countries and renewed focus on depending less on tourism and the oil industry will help drive BI growth. Malaysia's investment in infrastructure is proving to be a good advantage for attracting foreign investments. Gartner expects the market to reach $30.4 million by 2017. Telcos and financial services are among the most sophisticated adopters of BI.

Singapore is one of the most-developed BI markets within Asia/Pacific, and it will remain the third-largest BI market through 2017. Singapore's BI forecast outlook remains positive, with expected revenue of $95.9 million. With increasing competition from China and lower-wage neighboring countries, such as Malaysia and Vietnam, Singapore has countered by diversifying into new vertical industries, such as biotechnology and high-tech manufacturing. It is also continuously enhancing its well-established industries, such as banking and other service-related industries. In addition, as a well-developed country, Singapore will have a more-stable maintenance revenue stream, which will become more pronounced in the event of another slowing global economy.

China will remain the second-largest BI software market in Asia Pacific through 2017, reaching US$217.3 million. Most often, BI solutions in China are used tactically in departmental deployments — as a reporting tool, rather than as a strategic platform to build up analytic capabilities to support decision making. Chinese organizations' relatively low-level maturity of the demand and supply sides of IT and analytic professionals creates extra challenges for BI technology adoption in China.

According to Gartner research director Daniel Yuen, China will be the next battleground for vendor market share.

“In the past, due to cultural and market issues, many vendors hesitated before planning an entry into China. However, this is changing, and vendors are slowly waking up to the reality that China represents one of the largest custom development markets, and they are executing to grab market share there.
“Interest in big data has also spiked; however, confusion around the terms "analytics," "big data" and "BI" have started to disrupt the Chinese market, and we expect this trend will result in slowing BI spending cycles in 2014,” Mr. Yuen said.

Gartner predicts that the industry landscape will evolve considerably in the next three to five years. Some important trends include:

Big Data Use Cases Are Maturing, but Today It's All About Hadoop
Customers across the region are keen to harness the innovative capabilities of Hadoop. Most big data discussions tend to be mired in the technical capabilities of Hadoop, rather than focusing on the business problem or use case at hand. Because not many vendors in the region can offer both the technology and the business analytics capabilities, implementation issues are bound to arise. Most open governments, such as in Australia, promote the publication of great quantities of data in raw format in an effort to use data in meaningful ways for its citizens. This, along with smart city initiatives being promoted by several governments Hadoop; will be an important part of governments' information management strategy.

Mobility and Data Discovery Approaches Enhance Experience of Business Users
In Asia Pacific, mobile BI is being used as an information distribution channel for "road warriors." The use case is simply the mobilization of existing content — from basic reports to elaborate dashboards — targeted at current BI users. By following a different strategy, CIOs can use mobile BI to reach new constituencies, not necessarily those on the go.  By making it fun and easy to use, BI will appeal to nontraditional users — those mainstream users who don't enjoy staring at a grid all day.

The Asia Pacific Market Is Opening Up for Specialist BI and Analytics Vendors
When it comes to advanced analytics, Asia Pacific organizations are willing to examine products from smaller niche companies that offer packaged analytical applications that solve a particular business pain point. This is possibly due to the scarcity of skill sets in the market and the pressure on IT from business folks to deploy BI. As a result, clients are open to buying packaged analytical applications to address specific pain points and niche problems. One clear distinction is that, unlike platform sellers, these vendors predominantly sell to business buyers.

Low-Cost Alternatives
Apart from megavendors and emerging vendors, several low-cost alternatives are available in the market. These vendors saw an uptick in demand mostly from 2007 through 2012 as the megavendors worked on integrating their products. As a result, lower-cost local vendors, such as Yellowfin, TechnologyOne, Open Soft Technology and MAIA Intelligence, built a loyal user base, and they continue to gain market traction.

Additionally, open-source vendors, such as Jaspersoft, Actuate and Pentaho, are improving their products and continue to have mind share among government buyers and high-tech clients, especially product independent software vendors (ISVs).

New IBM Kenexa Talent Suite Taps Big Data To Energize Today’s Workforce

Cloud-Based Software to Combine Social Business Capabilities, Watson Foundations and Workforce Science to Modernize Human Capital Management

ARMONK, N.Y., January 28, 2014 –IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced the software-as-service (SaaS)-based IBM Kenexa Talent Suite that allows Chief Human Resources Officers (CHROs) and C-Suite executives to gain actionable insights into the deluge of data shared every day by their workforce. As a result, organizations can now streamline, modernize and add precision to hiring practices, increase workforce productivity and connect employees in ways that impact business results.

Organizations around the world today are on a mission to identify and hire top talent. By hiring precisely the right employees and then arming them with powerful social tools, businesses can more effectively manage and develop their workforce and put them into the position to succeed.

With the IBM Kenexa Talent Suite, HR professionals can look at large volumes of employee data – such as work experience, social engagement, skills development and individual interests – to identify the qualities that make top performers successful. Organizations and teams can then use those models to pursue candidates through additional targeted social marketing on social recruiting sites, where job seekers matching the profile are automatically connected with opportunities matching their skills.

Customers can accelerate the onboarding and the integration of new hires through IBM Connections capabilities. This helps employees share information and find the right experts to accelerate learning and increase productivity and engagement, while at the same time providing a way for leaders to more effectively manage their teams. Through analytics and reporting, line of business leaders can better understand emerging employee trends and more effectively manage each individual career path in areas like skill attainment, performance appraisals, compensation, succession planning and more.

“We know people are the lifeblood of an organization, and business success on today’s stage requires not just talent but social capabilities that can energize, empower and nurture each team member so they can reach their full potential,” said Craig Hayman, General Manager, Industry Cloud Solutions, IBM. “By combining social, behavioral science and analytics in the cloud, we give businesses a clear path to empower their most valued asset – employees.”

Interested customers can complement the Suite with Watson Foundations, a comprehensive, integrated set of Big Data and Analytics capabilities that enable clients to find and capitalize on actionable insights. Watson Foundations provides the tools and capabilities to tap into relevant data – regardless of source or type – and apply a full range of analytics to gain fresh insights in real-time, securely across an enterprise.

Using Watson Foundations customers will be able to conduct a deeper level of analysis on key workforce-related data, identify trends within the workforce, predict future trends and proactively take action. Executives can also look at the profiles and work performance of their top employees and determine the appropriate type of rewards needed to keep them engaged.

According to an upcoming IBM C-Suite study that surveyed 342 CHROs representing 18 industries, many businesses are not taking full advantage of the insights delivered by workforce big data and analytics. The study found that just over half of organizations are using workforce analytics, with far fewer applying predictive analytics to optimize decision making and outcomes in areas such as sourcing and recruiting (7 percent), employee engagement and commitment (9 percent) and talent development (10 percent), retention (13 percent).

The CHRO study also found that human resources executives are in the early stages of applying social approaches within the organization. Currently, 66 percent are regularly using social for their recruiting efforts, but only 31 percent are using it for knowledge sharing and 41 percent for learning.

Today leading businesses such as AMC are benefiting from IBM talent management software. AMC, one of the world’s premier entertainment companies, uses recruitment technologies from IBM to gain a deep understanding through data analytics of what it takes to succeed at the organization. AMC then uses that knowledge to attract candidates who are more likely to succeed once they're hired.
“Harnessing the power of data gives us a better picture of what top talent looks like in our industry. IBM’s talent management solutions allow us to use data in new ways so we can make better informed decisions that have a greater impact on our business,” said Heather Jacox, Director, Diversity, Recruitment & Development at AMC.

The IBM Kenexa Talent Suite includes the following:

    · Talent Acquisition: Includes recruitment, skill and behavioral science-based assessments and onboarding. These integrated functions are designed to provide a deep understanding of what the best talent looks like and then how to attract, hire and engage them.
    · Talent Optimization: Includes performance management, succession planning and compensation planning to empower and get the most out of employees.
    · Social Networking:  Increases productivity with expertise identification and knowledge discovery – connecting employees and accelerating the time to productivity.

DIGITAL MALAYSIA 354 ROADMAP WILL DRIVE MALAYSIA’S SHIFT TOWARDS A DIGITAL ECONOMY

KUALA LUMPUR, 27th January, 2014: Malaysia’s efforts to shift into a Digital Economy are being accelerated by the deployment of the Digital Malaysia 354 Roadmap (DM354 Roadmap). The 7th Digital Malaysia Steering Committee Meeting chaired by Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek, Minister of Communication and Multimedia, which concluded recently, focused on the next steps required to ensure the successful implementation of the roadmap.

“The “354” in the Digital Malaysia Roadmap represents the 3 ICT Focus Areas, 5 Sub-sectors and 4 Digital Malaysia communities. The Roadmap received the Prime Minister’s approval at the 25th MSC Malaysia Implementation Council Meeting held in November 2013.  We are committed to realising the DM 354 Roadmap which will drive the growth of Malaysia’s digital economy by addressing key ICT focus areas and developing action plans to stimulate the country’s’ digital landscape”, said Datuk Seri Ahmad Shabery Cheek.

The deployment of DM354 Roadmap is designed to move the levers and stimulate growth in Malaysia’s digital landscape by enabling the environment in 3 ICT focus areas, namely Access, Adoption and Use. This eventually will increase accessibility on internet with relevant adoption on digital content and wider usage of digital technology by government, businesses and communities to improve productivity and enhance quality of life.

The data-driven intervention programme will kick off with the ICT services sector which will see the growth of Big Data Analytics (BDA) adoption industry by industry. This will also pave way for the greater adoption of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in the country which will give institutions the predictive tools they need to improve learning outcomes for students thus, enhancing the quality of graduates. This adoption, with the participation of the government and private sectors, will not only reduce costs and raise productivity but also provide a comprehensive and holistic approach that is needed to grow the Big Data ecosystem in Malaysia.

The Ministry of Communications and Multimedia, with the support of the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit (MAMPU) will see the development of Malaysia’s Big Data framework in 2014, while MAMPU and MDeC will jointly implement four government initiated BDA pilot projects by 2015.  MDeC will roll out the private sector led BDA project to create 20 BDA applications.

Datuk Badlisham Ghazali, CEO of MDeC said, “The nascent Big Data Analytics segment presents diverse opportunities that require immediate attention. Malaysia has already started in its BDA journey and the potential revenue is estimated to be about RM0.72 billion by 2020. To-date, a total of ninety-six (96) MSC Malaysia status companies are actively involved in various aspects of BDA. Our long term aim is to position Malaysia as a BDA hub in South-east Asia”.

On the job front, Big Data is creating big job opportunities for IT professionals including roles such as data scientist, developers, and administrators.  “The DM 354 Roadmap will also allow us to develop our nation’s talents into a strong pool of data scientists. Ultimately, this will result in the creation of Malaysian talents who are highly proficient knowledge workers in various economic sectors and industries, with IT competencies at the core” concluded Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek.

Digital Malaysia’s desired Digital Economy outcomes includes increased wealth (GNI), enhanced productivity and improved standard of living. The existing and planned initiatives and programmes under DM charts the path to achieving DM’s 2020 aspirational goals which includes increasing the Digital Economy’s contribution to GDP from 13% to 17%, raising Malaysia’s ranking in World Economic Forum (WEF) Global IT Report (GITR) from top 28 countries to top 20 countries amongst 138 economies; and raising Malaysia’s ranking from top 16 to top 10 amongst 59 economies in the Competitiveness Scoreboard, all by 2020.

Five Trends that will Shape IT Decisions in 2014

By: KT Ong, general manager, Consumer and Commercial Business, Dell Malaysia

What’s the next big IT trend? I often get asked this question during my regular meetings with business leaders and CIOs. Customers want to know how they can leverage these trends, as well as how they can address any challenges. These trends, including the explosion of data, cloud computing and the multitude of personal devices on the corporate network, are fast changing the way organizations traditionally manage their business. The challenges and opportunities are more apparent than ever before, and look set to drive IT and business decisions in the coming year.

At Dell, we are uniquely positioned to help customers address any challenges and deliver real value to businesses with our end-to-end IT solutions and services. Through four key themes, Transform, Connect, Inform and Protect, we hope to help customers improve their IT agility through transformation in the data center; increase productivity by enabling the next generation workforce to connect securely to the corporate data anywhere, anytime and on any device; gain control of the data deluge and use this information to gain competitive advantage; and protect their organization from external or internal IT security threats. These themes will become even more relevant in 2014 as we encounter further impact from cloud computing, BYOD, social media, big data analytics and security.

1. One Cloud Does Not Fit All
In the past, most organizations jumped on the cloud computing bandwagon, adopting cloud services with no regard towards their company size or nature. However, cloud computing has reached an inflection point, and as Forrester predicts in its Cloud Computing Playbook, enterprises today recognize that they need a comprehensive strategy before partaking in the cloud.

In 2014, organizations will increasingly realize that one cloud does not fit all. There will be more interest on the options available, including the type of cloud – public, private or hybrid, as well as how to ensure the security of data moving in and out of the cloud.  Security will naturally remain a primary concern, especially with employees leveraging free cloud services and social media sites to transfer corporate files.

2. CYOD, the new BYOD
Enterprises across Asia Pacific have been experimenting with the concept of Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), allowing employees to bring their personal computing or mobile devices to work. BYOD, however, comes with its own set of challenges. CIOs continue to fret over the loss of control over devices, and worry about allowing corporate networks to become vulnerable to employees’ personal data, viruses, apps, open ports and cloud services.

An alternative mobility business model that Dell sees businesses exploring in 2014 is Choose Your Own Device (CYOD). CYOD bridges the gap between employee choice and CIOs’ need to manage and secure the organization. It enables organizations to offer their employees a choice of a company-approved device with the appropriate security and standardization. With CYOD, CIOs can easily manage the deployment of multiple device options with the right security configurations.

3. Moving Beyond Transactions to Digital Relationships with Social Media
Today’s connected consumers are individuals, with unique interests. Social media makes it easier for organizations to understand, connect and deliver to their target audience in more relevant and personalized ways. This real-time strategy is gaining popularity, especially since customers often have the best ideas and insights, being the end-users of various products and services.

Dell is a firm believer of learning from customer feedback. Social media has helped us deliver the precise products and services our customers need to be successful. Social media will continue to become more than a tool for companies in 2014 – it will become an extension of any brand and their relationships with their customers.

4. Big Data Analytics Gets Simpler to Deploy
Big data analytics are used by organizations in an effort to better run their operations and understand their businesses, their customers and constituents and the environments in which they operate. Influenced by others who have successfully used big data, organizations are keen to find out how they can leverage insights from big data analytics to benefit their business.

However, converting data to decisions is made difficult when you consider the increase in data volumes, velocities, varieties and volatility. There is also the added consideration from the growth of event and machine-generated data. Unfortunately, not all organizations are ready to make the capital-intensive investments in hardware nor have the in-house skill sets to build and maintain a complex big data analytics infrastructure.

There is thus business opportunity to develop new analytical models and supporting tools to help organizations deal with big data and leverage analytics simply, and this will be more apparent in 2014. Options to leverage big data analytics will increase - from outsourcing data analytics to cloud-based service providers to purchasing simple data analytics start-up kits.

5. Security at the Core of Business Strategy
The major challenges impacting IT today make it crucial for organizations to move away from managing security in silos. Organizations will increasingly embrace a holistic strategy focused on connecting security to the infrastructure, information and applications that are critical to the organization.

In this age of increasing risk, organizations can no longer have security as just a component of its IT strategy. Instead, they have to learn that security is very much the business strategy in 2014. The aim is to protect data wherever it resides – on the network, in the cloud, or on mobile devices.

Asia Pacific Companies Can Increase Revenue by 25% or More by Using Big Data

Organizations That Participated in the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)
Survey Could Increase Their Collective Revenue by US$250 Billion by Using Big Data, According to Projections by Hitachi Data Systems

In Malaysia, around 63% of respondents, or nearly twice the regional average, cites a lack of communication between departments as the major inhibitor to 
effectively using data in their organizations

KUALA LUMPUR — November 29, 2013 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today announced research results revealing that almost half of the firms surveyed in Asia Pacific believe that big data can improve revenue by 25% or more, with HDS projecting a potential US$250 billion revenue increase among the more than 500 companies surveyed. However, more than half of firms have made little or no progress in their big data strategies.

Executives at HDS believe it is essential for business executives to adopt a new approach where they think of “data as a capital asset” and to define a holistic big data strategy that will deliver insights and intelligence. This change in focus will enable organizations to innovate with information and generate incremental income.

“Today, most organizations have a limited data-capital ‘budget’ that prevents them from realizing the full potential of the information they hold,” said Neville Vincent, senior vice president and general manager, Asia Pacific, HDS. “Staff members long for more information and realize its revenue potential, but lack access to it. It is time for C-level executives to ensure cultural alignment throughout their organizations, and to treat data like a capital asset that can bring a significant impact to their business.”

“Our vision is for businesses of all shapes and sizes to use advanced technologies to realize the value of their organization’s data. Members of the IT department need to be  involved in the business planning cycle much earlier and more tightly integrated to the business in order to deliver essential information and insights to the people who can use it to drive business innovation and realize incremental income,” added Vincent.

Slow Adoption but Promising Benefits of Big Data
The survey results were published in an Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Asia Pacific Big Data Survey, sponsored by HDS, titled The Hype and the Hope: The Road to Big Data Adoption in Asia Pacific. The survey was conducted with over 500 business executives in Asia Pacific. Results show that Asia Pacific firms have had limited success so far in implementing big data practices. While a third say they are well advanced, more than half say they have made only limited progress. Some 80% of front-line employees said that they believe improved access to data is critical, with only 19% able to access the data they need.

Despite the lack of progress, respondents believe in the ability of big data to improve their businesses: more than 70% say that it can deliver gains in productivity, profitability, and innovation.

The reasons for slow adoption of big data strategies are diverse. Respondents cite poor internal communication and information sharing as well as a lack of in-house skills and software. Nearly two-fifths say their company’s big data strategy has not been well communicated. In Malaysia, around 63% of respondents, or nearly twice the regional average, cites a lack of communication between departments as the major inhibitor to effectively using data in their organizations. The limited take-up also flies in the face of the wider belief that effective use of data matters; more than three-quarters believe it is critical to success.

Telecommunications (67%), consumer goods (57%) and financial services (52%) industries are leaders in recognizing that big data can greatly improve their understanding of customer needs. However, more than 60% of the firms in the financial services and consumer goods industries haven’t started any big data programs. Healthcare and life science are lagging further behind; 72% of them haven’t started any big data programs.

Approaches to Improve Big Data Adoption
At HDS, we believe that organizations have to address the issues and maximize the value of big data by turning it into business intelligence.

Ensure cultural alignment throughout the organization: C-level executives should realize the significant impact of big data on their revenue and competitiveness, and take ownership for defining a big data strategy. Organizations should adopt policies that help break down silos, improve internal communications, and establish advanced technology platforms that can support information management and analysis.

Early IT Integration: IT departments need to be involved in the business planning cycle earlier and more tightly integrated to the business in order to translate data into intelligence, and increase the return on data capital assets. IT contributions are measurable and have a real impact on increasing revenue outcome.

Understanding the real business needs and delivering intelligence by using the right technologies and technology partners not only enables sophisticated analysis, but also delivers a high level of automation that can offload the burden of daily operations.

“Taking advantage of big data is not an information technology but a sound business practice,” said Vincent. “The future success of organizations will depend on business owners being able to define their own big data strategies and on IT serving up the needed intelligence.”

Partnering with Hitachi, Ltd., HDS applies decades of expertise in vertical industries to give customers real-time information, useful analytics for decisions, and automated and integrated technologies. The company integrates infrastructure, content, and information with vertical industry applications to help customers turn their data into valuable business insights.


Hitachi Data Systems Identifies 5 Key Trends That Will Drive Technology Transformation in Asia Pacific in 2014

Trends from Developments in Mobile Communications to the Expansion of Data Security and the Cloud-broker Model Will Impact How Organizations Deploy and Use IT Next Year

KUALA LUMPUR — November 29, 2013 — Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. (TSE: 6501), today released its HDS 2014 Asia Pacific predictions. Adrian De Luca, chief technology officer, Hitachi Data Systems Asia Pacific, identified the 5 key IT trends emerging in this region in 2014 that will impact the use of technology among organizations.

De Luca predicted that:
1. Big data analytics will go beyond the proof-of-concept phase and into production in established markets.
2. As the cloud-broker model gains traction in Asia Pacific, organizations will transform their IT departments from technology implementers to business innovators.
3. Concerns over data security will reach a tipping point, not only for the mobile data that moves between devices and the cloud, but also for data in content repositories.
4. The Asia Pacific region will witness an explosion of unstructured data from mobile communications.
5. Competition between different countries and regions to become the digital hub of Asia will enter a critical stage in 2014.

“Big data, cloud, and data encryption are some of the hottest global IT trends. As a region, Asia Pacific has its own unique economic and infrastructure conditions. We believe these wider technology trends will combine with local business drivers to shape the IT and storage landscape in this region in 2014,” De Luca said.

1. Big data analytics will go beyond proof of concept:
Enterprises will have to find ways to uncover value from within their existing data stores and deploy scalable infrastructures to extract meaningful outcomes from big data projects.

In the recent Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) Asia Pacific Big Data Survey, sponsored by HDS, over 70% of organizations in the region believe big data adoption will improve their profitability, productivity, and innovation. However, many organizations find that their existing information systems hinder the effective gathering of data for analysis as the information is stored and managed in separate business systems, information silos, formats, and media. The big data challenge comes in two forms: technology and organization. In 2014, companies will try to address both.

2. The cloud-broker model will gain traction: 
Organizations will transform their IT departments from technology implementers to business innovators. Enterprises with high-demand IT infrastructure and application services will start exploring the cloud-broker model, preferring to work with providers who act as vendor-neutral third-party cloud services brokerages.

When it comes time to refresh technology, the focus will be on applications and business outcomes rather than the infrastructure itself. Enterprises will start turning to their system integrators, internal IT organizations, or third-party service providers to play the role of cloud-service broker.

3. Concerns over data security will reach a tipping point: 
Across Asia Pacific, new legislation is being introduced to protect personal data. Organizations will have to re-examine their security policies and look to solutions such as enterprise file sync and share, data encryption, and auditability to address these issues.

Organizations will increase their emphasis on mobile and edge security, and will implement stricter security and data management practices. They will have to use modern technologies to manage and automate these processes; otherwise the cost of compliance could be very high.

4. Unstructured data from mobile communications will see explosive growth:
Telecom operators in Asia Pacific will need to deploy sophisticated data management solutions to address needs for both content delivery and data analysis. Those that do will gain a competitive advantage in the long term.

The rollout of 4G and the affordability of smartphones have tremendous implications for the growth of mobile data in the region. To manage the growing volume of digital content services to consumers, telecom operators will need to develop a scalable, high-performance and reliable IT infrastructure architecture that incorporates flash-based storage and intelligent content delivery networks to meet these high-bandwidth requirements.

5. Competition to become the digital hub of Asia will enter a critical stage:
The data center industry will continue to grow as countries in the region compete to become the digital hub of Asia. Service providers will invest in state-of-the-art facilities and advanced infrastructure to differentiate their services.

Organizations use cloud deployments as an opportunity to transform their legacy IT to new consumption-based IT models. Many will start with the deployment of on-premise private clouds. Other organizations that are more advanced in their cloud journey will begin to move their enterprise applications off premises to cloud service providers, together with on-premise converged platforms.

In addition to De Luca’s predictions for Asia Pacific, Hu Yoshida, chief technology officer of HDS, also revealed his predictions on top 10 global IT trends for 2014. The predictions are published on Hu’s blog.