The term "Web 2.0" has been around for a while and may already appear dated as companies are now looking beyond the immediate term for their future strategies. Whatever you choose to call new web-based approaches and services, most companies are still at odds with how to tackle this new digital marketplace. In fact, most companies have yet to figure out how to monetize web-based offerings.

In order to provide insight into how consumers use the new web and how advertising and chargeable value-added services can sustain new business models, IDC has launched its Asia/Pacific Digital Marketplace and New Media research covering this dynamic space. This program delivers research on significant activities in the online marketplace, including end-user surveys in the main areas of consumer usage of new web-based services and applications. It also includes an extensive database covering Digital Marketplace and New Media usage and spending in 13 Asian markets (excluding Japan).

Check out our product details and research coverage on Asia/Pacific Digital Marketplace and New Media

The 'Green IT' phenomenon continues to attract a great deal of attention in the Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) region. Most of the action has been seen coming from the ICT vendor community, with a number of vendors launching products, solutions and campaigns in the Green IT space. End users are also starting to act, but the key focus has been on infrastructure optimization in a bid to reduce costs associated with energy consumption. As a result of this, IDC has seen significant investments being made in data center virtualization, consolidation, blades and to a certain extent, thin clients, as end users start to 'discover' the previously hidden energy costs associated with the running of their IT infrastructure. For most of these projects, the 'Green' component (in terms of benefiting the environment) has been more of a bonus as opposed to the underlying driver. Environmental sustainability (i.e. reducing the carbon footprint of IT to help mitigate climate changes) is a lot lower on the list of priorities.

Despite this, results from the IDC's ongoing Asia/Pacific Green Poll – end-user surveys assessing the buying behavior of IT executives with respect to Green IT in the Asia/Pacific region – highlight that across the board, end users are expecting vendors to take more responsibility in terms of bringing 'Green' products and services to market, as well as improving their own internal 'Green' operations and practices in the future. The key takeaway for vendors is the need to ensure that they are making a strong business case for Green IT in the context of reducing cost in the short term. Further down the line, as governments become more active in terms of regulating this area, IDC expects the broader notions of corporate social responsibility and sustainability to become increasingly important and drive both growth and financial benefits in this market.

To purchase the IDC Asia/Pacific Green Poll results, or to engage with our Green IT research expert analyst, please contact your friendly IDC Account Manager.

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Cloud computing is reshaping the IT marketplace, creating new opportunities for suppliers and catalyzing changes in traditional IT offerings. Over the next five years, IDC expects spending on IT cloud services to grow almost threefold, reaching $42 billion by 2012 and accounting for 9% of revenues in five key market segments. More importantly, spending on cloud computing will accelerate throughout the forecast period, capturing 25% of IT spending growth in 2012 and nearly a third of growth the following year. IDC expects the cloud adoption trend to be amplified by the current financial crisis. The cloud model offers a much cheaper way for businesses to acquire and use IT – in an economic downturn, the appeal of that cost advantage will be greatly magnified. This advantage is especially important for small and medium businesses, a sector that will be the key target in any plan for recovery.

Our survey results suggest we’re entering a period of accelerating IT cloud services adoption, with the portion of organizations exhibiting significant adoption moving from 15-25% today to 25-45% in three years. It's not a big leap to consider that IT cloud services are either at, or getting very close to, the "crossing the chasm" stage.

If this is so, the implication for IT suppliers is very clear: the next three years, as IT cloud services expand from Early Adopters to the Early Majority, is the critical time to develop strong cloud offerings, and play a leadership role in bringing your customers, your own organization and your partner ecosystem "across the chasm". As Moore famously points out, suppliers who fail to seriously contend for a leadership role will be left with decidedly minority share as their reward.

IDC is planning a series of events and surveys on cloud computing in the region in 2009. For more information about this, please contact your friendly IDC Account Manager.

Enterprises spend vast amounts of advertising budgets on connecting with the "me" factor in their customer base – especially as new generations of savvy and more cash-rich Asian customers want products and services customized to their needs. For this to happen, enterprises need to create avenues for a free flow of information between the enterprise and the customer. Web 2.0 tools are evolving as powerful avenues for this freewheeling communication between customers, self-appointed critics and the enterprise.

The cost of business by selling a product to a new customer is many-fold higher than selling to an existing customer, so keeping the churn down should thus be a key focus area in 2009. IDC expects some of these companies to explore new methods of liaising with their customers going forward, especially focusing on the web and on other IP-based platforms – something IDC sees as "Next-generation Customer Care" approaches. The term "Next-generation" also hints at what companies today need to focus on as future customers: the next generation of consumers – i.e. generation-Y and younger.

ETAS will conduct research throughout 2009, providing insight into the needs and wants of future generations as well as new technologies and approaches that can help companies take their customer care programs to the next level.

For more information about this, please contact your friendly IDC Account Manager.

As the significance of controlling the costs of information search within organization has increased, the Enterprise Search market has grown in strategic importance. Furthermore, good search options are extremely important if a company is to get the full benefit of a comprehensive business information management system. Enterprise Search, at least in theory, allows companies to both cut costs and maximize productivity thus helping both the bottom and the top line of the balance sheets. Aligned to this is the above-mentioned growth of cloud computing which also accelerates the importance of Enterprise Search.

IDC predicts that the increasing strategic importance of search will drive further consolidation among enterprise search vendors in 2009, opening the way for big Internet search players to enter the market traditionally dominated by software vendors and systems integrators. The attraction for Asian developed search algorithms and non-English based search engines will result in Asian companies and developers being targeted by global Enterprise Search vendors as they try to maintain growth in 2009. ETAS will therefore be studying the Enterprise Search market in more detail in 2009.

For more information about this, please contact your friendly IDC Account Manager.