12 July 2006 - Welcome Speech By Ms Tham Ai Chyn, Assistant Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore At the IDA Distinguished Infocomm Speaker Series - "The Code Ahead: The Future of Software" By Marc Benioff, Chairman & CEO, Salesforce.com, Pan Pacific Ballroom.
Welcome Speech By Ms Tham Ai Chyn, Assistant Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore At the IDA Distinguished Infocomm Speaker Series - "The Code Ahead: The Future of Software" By Marc Benioff, Chairman & CEO, Salesforce.com on 12 July 2006, Pan Pacific Ballroom.
Distinguished Guests,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A very good afternoon.
According to analyst firm IDC, worldwide spending on software-as-a-service (SaaS) will balloon over the next few years, registering a compound annual growth rate of 21 percent to top US$10.7 billion in 2009. It is widely acknowledged that Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services. They pioneered the Business WebTM concept of delivering enterprise applications over the internet. And this has brought about a sea change to the way customers pay for their software - from the licence model to the delivery of software over the Internet for a monthly fee. In fact, the Salesforce suite of on-demand applications has enabled customers to manage and share all of their sales, support, marketing and partner information on-demand.
Many of you here today will agree with me that the SaaS software delivery model is shaking up the software industry. Much of this is a result of the vision and drive of the man behind Salesforce.com - Mr Marc Benioff.
Marc Benioff founded salesforce.com in 1999 with the vision to create on-demand applications that would replace traditional enterprise software technology. Under his direction, Salesforce.com has grown from a ground-breaking idea into a publicly traded company, with 444,000 subscribers across 22,700 customers globally.
Salesforce.com owes much of its reputation as a constant innovator and forward-looking company to Marc. Marc is widely recognized by the industry as a visionary. He has been advancing Salesforce.com's belief that on-demand applications can democratise software by delivering immediate benefits to companies of all sizes at reduced costs and risk, even before the Internet became a buzzword.
Marc will be sharing later his insights on how software has evolved and where its future lies. Drawing on many examples, Marc will outline a blue-print that will illustrate how the future of the software industry is not tied to a set of heterogeneous software, but to a set of heterogeneous services delivered over the Internet - services that are scalable, reliable, customizable and can be easily integrated.
As the infocomm industry developer, and especially with the launch of the Intelligent Nation 2015, or iN2015 masterplan, last month, IDA looks forward to more collaboration with our infocomm industry here to bring about a vibrant market environment for Singapore. The collaboration can go beyond our shores in exploring new business opportunities around the region.
Hence, I am extremely delighted that Salesforce.com has set up their Asia Pacific HQ in Singapore since last year. In fact, their office is just a stone's throw from the IDA office - we're in Tower 3, and they, Tower 2. I think this bodes well for even closer collaboration!
To all the IT professionals present here today, I hope you will be inspired by Marc, and seize the opportunities ahead. To all the students who are already pursuing Infocomm courses, I hope you will be re-assured that you have made the right choice. It is a dynamic and exciting profession, where you have a chance to make a real difference - to society and even the world.
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