Special 2009 Trends Edition
Longhaus predicts the major ICT trends to impact Australian and near shore markets.

Welcome to the first edition of Longview for 2009. As we said in our last edition for 2008 we have moved our usual December Trends edition to the New Year and this year already holds the expectation of being remarkable for a whole host of reasons. In our much anticipated annual trends edition we have identified 16 key trends from across the all segments of the Longhaus research model covering Industry Economics, Management Practices, Service Providers, Business Software and Technology Infrastructure. The 2009 trends include insights into the ICT recruitment market, open source, green technology, replacement and upgrade strategies, application development, cloud computing, web-hosting, telecommunication SaaS integrators, maintenance services, project management tools, social computing, business rules management, consumer process automation, unified communication and zero cost infrastructure.

A noticeable absence in our Industry Economics review is trends on how the global economic crisis will impact the region. Rather than an oversight Longhaus instead dedicated months of analysis culminating in the release of the Longhaus Australian Tech Index^TM. And it probably couldn’t have come at a better time as the industry grapples to understand the tectonic shifts that continue to hit our region from all points of the compass. We encourage you to view the dynamic index on the home page. The full 8-page Tech Index report is immediately available to our AAA clients through their subscription, but can also be purchased online. Here is a brief snapshot:

In Q4 2008, the Longhaus Australian Tech Index hit an air pocket, falling 8.2 points to 146.1. This loss was driven predominantly by the weakening in Australian vendor market value and employment capacity. Overall, three of the seven lag indicators fell significantly while another four strengthened only slightly. The Longhaus CIO Confidence Poll shows that sentiment has also fallen with a 25% drop in those CIOs who consider the Australian tech sector will see positive growth in Q1 2009.

This negative outlook for the coming quarter has translated to 26% of Australian CIOs reserving, on average, 12.5% of their original budget in a sure sign of concern about the coming months. This quarter’s poll also showed that most firms expect the level of contractors to be cut as business investment in new ICT projects stall. Based on these trends Longhaus project a further drop of between 4.7 to 9.5 points in the primary index, driving it down to the 136 – 141 range close to levels last seen in 2006.

It will be a tight start to the year for many but nevertheless opportunities and project commitments still abound for both the supply and demand side of the ICT industry. Welcome back to 2009 and we look forward to seeing you in the market or next month in Longview. Read more...