COMDEX SINGAPORE

Introduction :-

Comdex Singapore is Southeast Asia’s 1st information technology market place. You’ll see thousands of computer and communication products, meet hundreds of leading industry exhibitors from around the world who want to develop and expand their IT channel business and OEM sources, join thousands of resellers from other Asians countries looking for new distributors opportunities, discover what you should be selling to take advantage of Asian markets and interacts with international trade experts to learn about opportunities throughout the region. Singapore had been ranked second in the world in terms of exploiting IT for business competitiveness and IT literacy. It has been termed, as Asia’s largest and most important IT trade show.

The Conference

The Conference presents an unparalleled opportunity to learn all about the exciting new technologies and applications help to run your business and that are reshaping the worlds of information technology.

The Exhibits
The COMDEX Singapore exhibits today’s hottest technologies. You’ll see products and services for the

Internet, Communications, Network Computing, Multimedia, Compute Telephony, Office Systems, Mobile and Wireless Computing, UNIX, Security products and much more.

According to the National Computer Board (NCB) of Singapore, which has been conducting annual IT industry surveys since the year 1983, the growth rate for 1997 is projected to be 30 percent. A supply side survey with questionnaires was mailed to I suppliers seeking information of sales and projections. According to this in 1995 Singapore registered growth of 34.3 percent. Exports dominated the IT growth growing faster than the domestic market (50.8 percent VS 21.3 percent). According to the international Data Corporation surveys, the total IT spend in Singapore for the Calendar year 1996 estimated to be at $2500 million and set to grow at the rate of 14.1 percent till the year 2001.

Futuristic Approach
Comdex/Asia Singapore Aims to be IT MEGA - HUB. The plan was to have a number of Hubs dedicated to niche areas where Singapore can excel. They would include an information and communication Hub, an IT innovation Hub and an electronic commerce Hub.

In its strategic intent to develop Singapore into IT innovation Hub, new opportunities like Cluster Development Fund and Innovation Development Scheme have been introduced by NCB. Co-funding the costs of innovation with the industry ad users is now on. IT cluster development fund of $200 million has been set up to facilitate development and deployment of flag ship projects in key economic sectors in Singapore.

Technology Showcase
Focused areas on the Exhibit floor, dedicated to your specific last two years technology interests.
Showcases and Pavilions include :-

Comdex Internet, featuring the Internet Experience.

Comdex Multimedia Technologies, Applications and

Broadband Technologies.

Comdex Network Computing :-

Some new products mainly in the areas of managing technology and document management. The document management pavilion had workflow GroupWare, OCR, Micrographics and Optical storage. What also became apparent was increasing shift of traditional banking towards the Internet. The same applied to the financial services sector as well. Banking and Financial services pavilion hottest products and services in online banking, database replications, retail banking and booth front/back office systems. Security products were also on display to help customer build firewalls. Over 20 new applications running on Broadband multimedia network Singapore ONE was showcased. This included news on demand, online shopping, distance learning, virtual libraries, government services, interactive insurance planning services with virtual agent and even an online music retail system.

IT Growth
The 1996 World Competitiveness Report has placed Singapore second in the world in exploiting IT for business competitiveness. Singapore has achieved this for second time. Singapore’s ranked 12^th in terms of access to computers, with 207 computers for every 1000 Singaporeans.

CONCLUSION :-

Comdex Singapore at one time was the gateway for companies wanting to access the Asian Companies aspiring to reach out to a wider audience. However, as things have turned out as market has expanded, each Asian Market has displayed its own uniqueness. For instance, the way business is one in other Far Eastern nations. This has meant that each country now, more or less has an entry point well laid out for international marketers, and events like Comdex now happen in other nations of Asia as all, thus taking away the uniqueness of Singapore.

The other reason is that with the permeation of the Internet, more and more launches are done though the Net. Manufacturers do not have to wait for shows like Comdex to launch their products. Lucent Technologies and Microsoft are two such instances. They launched their Gigabit end-to-end networking solutions and Internet explorer 4.0 respectively via the Internet.

The challenge Singapore faces is in interpreting the trends in the IT industry. And use them to reshape it strategies for competitive advantage. Going by the initiative
and gust to the government, the making of the world’s first intelligent island extending the reach of IT in every sphere life has all the making of becoming a reality.

CONCLUSION

With the country’s Liberalization and Globalization policies, the environment in particular has been vibrant with new found energy and vigour. It seems apparent the individuals and organizations from abroad are showing greater interest in the IT happenings in this country. The foreign participation in both exhibitions and conferences has greatly increased and no longer implies essentially NRI participation only. Also exhibits are of contemporary technology and techniques. Internet also appears as the great levels at first sight.
In this context there are some "key-forces" that had been identified :-

Technology now happily pursued by countries in Asia is not indigenous technology.

The successful exploitation of western technology by Asian countries is by and large to feed markets of the west.

The absence of an indigenous market for IT products & services generated by a country.

The market is no longer technology-led, instead the technology is becoming increasingly market-led.

These "key-forces" are only partially addressed by the exhibitions and conferences. The Indian software initiative has mainly concerned itself with the immediate foreign market. Long Term issues such as the development of an indigenous market are not on its agenda. The other issue is that with the shift of technology to market-led growth-which is lacking in developing countries-no technology gets developed specifically aimed at developmental needs. Only if the exhibitions and conferences could focus on these aspects could people get sensitized to the link between IT and development. If we are to derive true benefits from the power of Information technology in the country on a long-term sustainable basis, then it will have to be a people-led market-driven thrust. Hopefully, exhibitions and conferences may awaken people to this reality.

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