Wire: New Austrade report showcases Australia as IT world leaders

Sydney, Australia (Inquisitr Wire): Austrade has released a new report Sustainable IT, Australia’s Industry Capability & Value Proposition ahead of Australasia’s leading business technology event, CeBIT Australia (24-26 May 2010).

The Austrade report, prepared by Frost & Sullivan, provides key insights into Australia’s ICT industry and highlights areas for business growth.

According to last year’s ABS statistics there are approximately 400,000 Australians employed in ICT occupations and the report suggests that this availability of skilled personnel underlies Australia’s expertise as a hub for ICT and sustainable IT.
It cites companies such as Mincom, iCare, Computershare and the SMARTS group as vendors that are delivering specialised expertise for vertical markets including financial services, transport and logistics, medicine and healthcare, telecommunications and government.
The report’s author, Frost & Sullivan’s Australian Head of ICT Andrew Milroy, suggests there are many examples of world recognised brands taking advantage of what Australia has to offer in ICT.

“Global names such as Avaya, Canon and IBM have built (R&D) facilities in Australia and Google Maps and Warner Bros have used their bases in Australia to develop profitable international digital content for business and entertainment sectors,” Mr Milroy said.

“There is also Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco Systems and CSC that run advanced technical assistance centres for operations around the world from Australia. Logica CMG, Reuters and Infosys have made Australia central to their global risk reduction strategies,” he said.

The report outlined the cost benefits associated with adopting sustainable IT products and services and said with almost 70 per cent of Australia’s GDP generated through knowledge-based activities (ABS, 2009), it is no surprise that technology is a key concern for many organisations when they consider their power costs and emissions profile.

Financial services organisations, governments and telecommunications carriers in particular are looking first to their ICT infrastructure for major savings, the findings showed.
Janelle Casey, Austrade’s Global Leader – ICT, Health & Biotech, said the report found Australian companies to be among the world leaders in innovative IT systems.
“It is not surprising that our expertise is in international demand when Australia has a diverse economy with many sophisticated users of technology solutions and there are many Australian companies with global coverage that demand complex IT solutions,” Ms Casey said.

The report also identified the growing trend of Australians’ use of online applications in their everyday interactions.

“The Sustainable IT, Australia’s Industry Capability & Value Proposition report pinpointed the mass adoption of on-line applications and services and how this has increased the demand for data transported over the Internet,” Mr Milroy said.

“Examples of consumer applications that are creating much greater IT demands include streaming video, music downloads, IPTV, interactive gaming and social networking,” he said.

Austrade is once again supporting CeBIT Australia in 2010, Australasia’s largest and fastest-growing ICT tradeshow and conference.

This year’s event is set to follow last year’s success with over 753 exhibitors, 37,000 business visitors and 29 different technology sectors.

“Austrade’s presence at CeBIT will play an important part to help Australian businesses identify and develop export and investment opportunities overseas, network with international customers and provide advice on export financing,” Ms Casey said.

Australia’s ICT market is worth approximately A$100 billion (ABS, 2009), and is the fifth largest in the Asia Pacific region and the 14th largest in the world.

Austrade is also involved in the CeBIT 2010 conference program such as the National Broadband Network (NBN) conference on Monday 24 May 2010 and the eGovernment forum conference on Tuesday 25 May.

CeBIT event details: Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre, Darling Harbour, Sydney, NSW, Australia. Dates: 24 – 26 May 2010. Visit www.cebit.com.au for more information.