Techaisle Analyst Insights

A recent Techaisle survey of 1,862 SMBs in China found the market for Onsite/Remote Managed Services has been growing rapidly and is near the $3B mark in the mid-market space; expected to reach $2.847 billion in 2012.

Other important points include that the 250-499 employee segment represented the largest share among company sizes, with 47.5% of the total. This is followed by the 100-249 group with ~30% and finally the 500-999 category with ~23%.

On the Services side, PC Services are the largest segment with $800 or 28% of the total, followed by Other Managed Services $509M or 18%, and Server at $485 or 17%, Seven of the top 10 service segments top $100M, providing a good  set of opportunity segments.

Having lived in Korea and  Hong Kong from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s and watching the Seven Tiger markets rise from bit players to important gears in the global IT supply chain, this doesn't really come as a surprise - however the rapidity and thorough break away toward private property and commercial economy  that China has managed, exceeds even the early predictions and forecasts.

In this WSJ article, the Congress is investigating the meteoric rise of Huawei, China’s major telecommunications equipment provider and accusing it of using technology theft and government handouts as the path to its’ incredible growth. The article insinuates that IBM is a major cause of this situation because they have shared advanced technology and management best practice approaches as a shortcut, and summing it up with:

“U.S. government concerns culminated this week in a report by the House intelligence committee that labeled the company a security threat and warned U.S. telecom companies against doing business with it.”

Huawei counters that they have spent over $400M with US consulting firms like IBM, Accenture, BCG, PWC and others since 1997, and at one point after signing a strategic agreement, they had 200 IBM consultants onsite to optimize core systems and train management in the most efficient approach expand internationally. If there is real evidence of technology theft (none in the article), that would be basis for retaliation, but it did not seem like IBM and others were complaining during the bonanza: Gerstner’s IBM made the transition from antiquated mainframe manufacturer, about to be broken up, into the world’s largest professional services provider on the back of international deals like this, and probably got a couple of large US government contracts in the process. McDonalds, Wal-Mart, Oracle and Boeing have done pretty well also, and American consumers have been blessed with an abundance of all the “stuff” they can buy for the absolute lowest price (not cost). According to the venerable Adam Smith:

“Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.”
-Adam Smith, The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV Chapter VIII, v. ii, p. 660, para. 49.

This is a technology blog and we try to steer clear of politics, but sometimes you have to scratch your head when you read articles like this. We have written on the effects of optimization on society, including the leading role of IBM with its’ Smarter Cities initiative to build global intelligent and optimized networks.

The telecom services and equipment segment is a cornerstone of a country’s infrastructure and economic development, which is why virtually every country controlled it through government monopolies and trade barriers until global trade pressure forced them to open it – through direct pressure or infrastructure loan programs that directed spending. There was certainly value to opening the markets, as it is impossible to function in the global economy without a robust telecommunications infrastructure; the point is that there is a balance between internal development of capabilities and purchase of imported materials. We discussed this last week in our post comparing the evolution of the Internet in China and Korea. The article also hinted that trade friction was caused by onerous conditions that went into the negotiations between GM, GE and Google: “Companies such as General Electric Co. and General Motors Co. have had to contribute valuable assets and technology to participate in markets such as aviation and automobiles that China considers critical to its economy. Google Inc. lost market share after moving its Web- search and other services to Hong Kong to avoid complying with China's censorship policies.”

Some might find it difficult to find sympathy for those three - didn’t GM get a public bailout to prevent it from disappearing? And doesn’t Google own the market in virtually every country in the world except China? And how many times does GE fail to negotiate profitable terms in international infrastructure projects? By making them such a large trading partner and buyer of our national debt, we have become inextricably linked to China economically. Decisions have long term consequences.  They are flexing their muscles and  it is not the first time, nor will it be the last, especially as their economy continues to slow.

Again, from the Father of Capitalist thought:
“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.”
-Adam Smith, The Wealth Of Nations, Book I, Chapter II, pp. 26-7, para 12.

In other words, China is going to do what is good for China and America is going to do what is good for America. Don’t be surprised when the pupil tries to snatch the pebble from the master’s hand.

 

“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm,
but to add color to my sunset sky.”
- Rabindranath Tagore

The Global SMB Cloud Computing market will reach $23.5B this year and double to $47B by 2016, according to our latest forecast which is being updated using several thousands of survey responses and results of and segmentation and predictive analytics studies conducted in the first three quarters of 2012.

Rapid market growth in the Cloud Computing arena, especially for SMBs, is not a surprise to those watching the market, but our latest forecast shows that several segments will offer more than $1B in opportunity, as shown in the attached chart. Among those that will cross the $1B threshold are Other SaaS, ERP/SCM and Storage, the latter growing at ~30% CAGR. Keep in mind that the five types of arrows show relative growth relationships; the actual rates are very healthy and range from 10% to over 30%.

Other important points in the forecast include:

Approximately 60% of the volume growth is expected to come from North American SMBs, or $14B of the incremental volume of the global $23B, while Western Europe is expected to add $3.7B growing at a rate of 11%, and Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) continues to develop rapidly – in the 20% range - on the back of China’s expansion and Korea’s continued economic strength in IT and global production, and is expected to add almost as much total volume as Western Europe, or about $3.4B vs. the $3.7B mentioned above.

Eastern Europe is expected to develop into a ~$1B market over the forecast period as is Latin America, both growing rapidly from a relatively small base. And as has historically been the case, Africa and the Middle East continue to lag with a very small share of both volume and growth.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.”
- Napoleon Bonapart

With all the movement around VDI, as analysts we tend to think in abstract terms about what is means to the market at large and our clients. With my daughter home from college this week I got a firsthand look at what the next generation is doing with technology and how real it actually is.

The scenario went like this:

With a week before finals in Organic Chemistry and a major paper due after Thanksgiving break, my daughter needed some freeware called ChemSketch, but it does not run native on her MacBook. Nonplussed, she downloaded an Oracle VirtualBox client, Windows XP, and the ChemSketch, created a new system disk and shared folder and was working on her chemistry paper, drawing molecules and all the other things that I don’t pretend to understand.  While I was proud to see how quickly she overcame the problem, what really struck me was that thirty years ago I was in front of a blinking CRT using a timeshare network learning FORTRAN with a prompt – the C: prompt that my daughter used triggered the memory and caused a major episode of deja vu. It is really amazing to see how both the context and content change over time.

We at Techaisle want to wish all of our friends a Happy Thanksgiving and  beginning of the Holiday Season!

According to our latest forecast, which takes into account the first three quarters of 2012 research, the SMB Managed Services market will grow from $27B to $44B between 2012 and 2016, compounding at over 12%.  Remote management monitoring services will cross US$15B during the same time period. Key points of the update include:



The most attractive segments are shown in the chart and sorted based on opportunity (2016 value>$1B), and growth (arrows are relative), so the largest and fastest growing segments are shown. Rank based on revenue opportunity is listed in the left hand column.

13 of the 19 sub-segments are expected to reach over 1B$ in opportunity by 2016, with over half growing at double-digit rates,

The Remote Services segments are generally growing faster than onsite, with notable exceptions in India where the labor market and domestic bandwidth contribute to a viable onsite market, and China, where second and third tier markets are expected to adopt remote services more slowly than the combined remote/onsite increase.

While at 12%, the market is not growing quite as fast as in Cloud Computing, the robust increases will be a very good opportunity for SPs and MSPs in the market. The difference in fulfillment and delivery between cloud computing and managed services is thinning rapidly. Channel partners and managed services providers are quickly cross-migrating their skill sets to serve both technology areas. The path being chosen by Channels to move from one offering to the next is strongly dependent upon their current offering.  Those that are in the mobility space are moving to cloud, while those in the cloud are moving to managed services. The point being that understanding the channel dynamics and current offerings can provide  clues in the direction they will move. Similarly, within managed services, the channels are moving from one offering to another; vendors wanting to partner with Channels must identify the ideal cluster of services to take advantage of Channels outreach and capabilities.

Techaisle offers forecasts for all the above sub-segments by Region, Country, SMB company size and Channel flow share, customized to your needs. Please contact us if you would like more information on how this information can be combined with your internal market model to offer a clearer view of  opportunity and resource allocation to best increase market share share during 2013 and beyond.

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