Tech Outlook 2006

The growth of IT spending in the Asia-Pacific region is expected to outstrip worldwide figures next year, while China will have the largest English-speaking population by 2008, predicts research firm Gartner.

Gartner projected that total global enterprise IT spending will reach US$1,768 billion in 2006, growing at compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.5 percent from 2004 to 2009. In comparison, enterprise IT spending, which includes hardware, software, telecommunications and IT services, in the Asia-Pacific region will reach almost US$210 billion in 2006 at a CAGR of 7.5 percent over the same period.

Hopefully, our company can stand to gain from the bright technology outlook for 2006. The competition is cut-throat, and margins are getting thinner with the faster commoditization of technology products. Product life cycle is now measured in months.

It is a basic fact of life, for almost all industries in a free market, all products will be eventually reduced to a commodity over time. For information technology, it simply happens much more quickly. And it is never easy to patent technology, which is a common way to protect revenue stream and maximize profits.

A patent is an exclusive right to exploit (make, use, sell or import) an invention over a limited period of time (20 years from filling). The patenting of intellectual property involves substantial amount of costs, time and effort (averaging 2-3 years). In additional, patents are terroritorial, that is, effective only within the country where the application is made.

Patenting of technology is a double-edged sword, with different schools of thought on its effect on innovation, competition and technology diffusion. Open standards, on the other hand, allows for the wide adoption of new technologies in the marketplace. The potential for conflict between patents and standards arises when the implementation of the standard necessitates the use of technology protected by one or more patents. This has been one of reasons that is impeding the widespread adoption of open-source software such as Linux.

However, things are looking up for the coming year 2006.

Open Network Invention (OIN), a company founded in Nov 10, 2005 by IBM, Novell, Philips, Red Hat, and Sony, that plans to acquire patents and offer them royalty free to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux operating system or certain Linux-related applications.

Patents owned by Open Invention Network will then be available on a royalty-free basis to any company, institution or individual that agrees not to assert its patents against the Linux operating system or certain Linux-related applications.

Open Invention Network believes that creating a new system to manage and ensure access to key patents for the Linux operating system will have a significant economic impact. According to International Data Corporation, the worldwide Linux business is expected to grow 25.9 percent annually, doubling from $20 billion in 2005 to more than $40 billion in 2008.

Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a non-profit corporation, founded in 2000 and has investment backing from Computer Associates, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Ltd., HP, IBM, Intel, NEC and others. The mission is "to be the recognized center-of-gravity for the Linux industry; a central body dedicated to accelerating the use of Linux for enterprise computing."

The Patent Commons Project was launched on Nov 15, 2005 by OSDL, an online patent common reference library aggregating and documenting information about patent-related pledges and other legal solutions directed at the open-source software community.