CommunicAsia is ready to do business
Singapore - June 15, 2009
 As exhibitors prepare their stands for the opening
of CommunicAsia2009 trade show, the buzz at Asia's largest
infocomm technologies event in Singapore appears unaffected
by the drop of 16 percent in number of participants and
exhibition floor space.
First staged in 1979, CommunicAsia is the region’s longest
established ICT event with a profile that mirrors the
transformation of telecoms and information technology — from
their initial development under separate tracks to the era
of digital convergence.
Some 1,928 exhibiting companies from 58 countries are
converging this year at the exhibition and conference which
is occupying 58,000 square metres of display space. It is a
four-day umbrella event bringing telecom, network, equipment
and services players with Enterprise IT exhibitors as well
as leading broadcast industry products and services.
CommunicAsia is also being held alongside the region’s computer
graphics event known as CG Overdrive - the fourth in its
series — which is a reflection of the tremendous interest
and growth of computer animation and gaming sectors.
ICT ministers' forum coincides with trade event
The fact that two government-related conferences are also timed
to coincide with the event testifies to the reputation and
drawing power of CommunicAsia. One event is the inaugural
iGov Global Exchange which will showcase success stories
about e-government solutions and applications as well as
facilitating information exchange among senior officials
from developing and developed countries, and industry
experts on e-government services.
At the same time, the fifth Ministerial Forum on ICT, ImbX will
be held involving ICT ministers and industry experts to
discuss key ICT trends, policies and regulations. The theme
this year is “ICT: Transforming Government, Businesses and
Society”.
Major announcements and green products
Industry leaders use the event to made key announcements and
one highlight this year is by Intelsat whose press statement
touched on its programme to refresh its satellite fleet
serving the Asia Pacific. It will be launching a series of
11 satellites till 2012, a statement said.
Green products are also being introduced such as a solar
powered GSM base station by VNL from India which it claims
requires no maintenance and it can be set up by
non-engineers making it suitable use in remote areas. Also
pitching the green theme is TelcoBridges which said in a
press release that its development platforms and network
monitoring solutions use 80 percent less power than
competitive solutions.
Showcasing products and services spanning the entire spectrum
of telecom, broadcast and IT domains, other exhibitors
include Yahoo which will introduce new mobile services for
consumers to customer Internet content to Australia’s Card
Access Services that offers remote payment service for
businesses operating in areas where cellular or fixed line
communication is not available.
Reflecting the trend, telcos along with technology companies,
are moving from being just infrastructure connectivity
providers to being business enablers, thereby creating new
market opportunities.
Asia has become the telecom center of gravity propelled in part
by current expenditures of China and India. XMG, a global
ICT research and advisory firm, predicted earlier this year
that the Asia Pacific market will grow by 6.3 percent, the
lowest since the Asian financial crisis in the 1990s.
However, the region will outperform the global average of
2.4 percent growth estimated for 2009.
As for South East Asia, a report by International Data
Corporation indicated that the telecom services market of
Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand is
expected to reach US$35.7 billion for 2009, ten percent
higher than the 2008 figure.
by Ek Heng, Asia-Pacific Correspondent
for Telecommunications Online
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