SINGAPORE: India's rising profile as a qualitative player in the information technology (IT) domain was hailed at a two-day "HP Asia Pacific Enterprise Media Summit" that began here on Wednesday. A parallel call for ``a shift from IT to business technology (BT)'' punctuated the proceedings.

Hewlett-Packard Managing Director for Asia Pacific and Japan Tom Iannotti, said India, China, Hong Kong, and South Pacific ``led'' the way to propel the company's ``strong performance'' in the technology-solutions sector.

Revenue growth

China, India, and Malaysia accounted for the company's ``strongest revenue growth'' in this region, Mr. Iannotti said, emphasising the need for ``aligning technology to business outcomes.'' That would enable firms in any economic sector to stay competitive.

Forrester Research Inc. senior vice-president Christopher Mines said India topped the major IT powers in the Asia Pacific region on at least two counts. ``India shows the strongest IT-budget growth and Japan the weakest."

Japanese firms were now projected to spend 23 per cent of their cumulative budgets on IT in 2007, a slump from the 27-per cent level of actual expenditure on IT in 2006.

Dramatic rise

In contrast, Indian firms were poised to spend 61 per cent of their budgets on IT in 2007, a dramatic rise from a mere 6 per cent in 2006. The comparative data for North America showed a possible rise from 13 per cent in 2006 to 47 per cent this year.

India's IT organisations, too, were forging ahead in ``finding budget for new initiatives.''

The projection was that Indian IT firms would spend 41 per cent of their cumulative budgets on new initiatives in 2007, compared to 15 per cent in Japan and 33 per cent in North America.

Projecting ``a shift from IT to BT'' as the virtual new mantra for reinventing the IT industry, Mr. Mines said "business outcomes" in all economic spheres "depend on how well technology capabilities are exploited."

In a video message, HP Technology Solutions Group (TSG) executive vice-president Ann Livermore commended the company's "Neoview business intelligence solutions package" that was launched last month.

HP's TSG senior vice-president for Asia Pacific and Japan Som Mittal said India had, in recent years, registered "a leap-frog" in the IT sector.

From the initial identity of the IT domain as a mere electronic data processing endeavour, India had now attained the status as a seller of solutions and innovations. It was in this situation HP had established a niche role in India.

29,000 employed

The company, while not being focussed on numbers for its profile, employed about 29,000 professionals in India, Mr. Mittal pointed out.

HP vice-president for Business Critical Systems Herbert Zwenger and server marketing manager Dev Kumar said the company was now engaged in building and ``showcasing the next-generation data centre," whose main feature would be automation for "24/7 operations."

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