Dr Kaizad Heerjee, Assistant Chief Executive, Online Development, IDA Singapore - Address ASP Alliance Committee Press Conference
Dr Kaizad Heerjee, Assistant Chief Executive, Online Development, IDA Singapore - Address
ASP Alliance Committee Press Conference
Singapore, 29 August 2000
Ladies and Gentlemen. Good Afternoon.
1. I am glad to be here at the ASP Alliance Committee (AAC) press conference organised by the AAC Executive Committee and Singapore Information Technology Federation (SITF).
2. The ASP market is a new and exciting market. According to IDC preliminary estimates, the total global ASP market was worth US$296 million in 1999, and the Asia enterprise ASP market size is projected to be US$ 1.17 billion by year 2004. In addition, InQuiro International conducted a survey in June 2000, estimating the Asia Pacific ASP market size by 2003 to be US$ 2.5 billion. According to InQuiro's survey, Singapore is amongst the leaders in the ASP market, together with Korea, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia.
Driving Force of the ASP
3. Gartner also notes that the user adoption of ASPs is not limited to small businesses. Even Fortune 500 companies are rapidly using ASPs to augment their E-Business operations. Hence, the ASP industry is potentially a huge undiscovered market, which can lead to a tremendous increase in the adoption of E-Commerce.
4. In the Singapore's context, it is our belief that ASP has a significant role to play in the E-Commerce infrastructure as well. Local enterprises have indicated three top concerns in getting involved in E-Commerce. These are (1) high startup costs and on-going maintenance costs, (2) lack of expertise within company, and (3) unknown additional costs beyond initial investment.
5. One solution that can address such concerns is to outsource or to "rent an application". Outsourcing business applications helps enterprises to deploy e-business more efficiently in a shorter application implementation time, reduce the burden on internal IT resources and solve the need for technological expertise to manage the applications. In the long run, it enables a more predictable cost model over time.
6. ASPs act as a single point of contact for aggregating a myriad of technology and service vendors. Having established infrastructures and best practice methodologies, ASPs decrease the 'time-to-benefit' for e-businesses, who want to shorten their 'time-to-market', hence jumpstarting e-businesses in a cost-effective and fast manner. In fact, Gartner Group's analysts says that a company that uses the ASP model can enjoy 30% to 70% annual savings depending on the complexity of each application.
Formation of the ASP industry in Singapore
7. Today, the AAC is formed to primarily develop and promote the ASP industry in Singapore and in the region. It is an excellent initiative supporting the 'Dotcoming the Private Sector', one of the key thrusts of Infocomm 21 Strategic Plan announced on 1st August by IDA.
8. In the announcement, IDA outlined the vision to position Singapore as a trusted global hub in the net economy. The AAC plays a vital role as it will help to set up the E-Commerce infrastructure in Singapore, educate and create awareness of ASP in the local enterprises, bring competitive ASP services to the market, create new business opportunities for the infocomm industry, and work with the government to form policies relevant to the ASP space.
9. The ASP industry can also provide great export potential for Singapore as an economy. The AAC can act as a conduit for local ASP players to penetrate the regional markets, and allow overseas companies to gain entry into the Singapore market. This will help to place Singapore onto the global ASP network and position it as an ASP hub in the region.
10. Hence, at this juncture, I would like to congratulate SITF and the various industry players for taking the step forward to set up the AAC, and for offering the Project ASP to help local enterprises jumpstart their e-businesses. We encourage all players in the ASP ecosystem, including application, services, telecommunications, storage, systems and network vendors, to work with AAC to make the ASP industry growth a reality. Thank you.
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