India ICT spending booms

ICT spending in India is expected to reach $71.9 billion in 2011, an increase of 10.3% compared to $65.23 billion in 2010, according to Gartner, reports CBR Online.

Gartner head of research in India Partha Iyengar says the IT services space in India will be driven by new projects in areas of business applications (CRM, ERP, BI), virtualisation and data centre consolidation and green IT.

"Government and defence segments will create sizeable opportunities in large systems integration projects for application services and managed services around IT infrastructure will open up doors to application services," Iyengar says.

Nicta has signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Nomura Research Institute (NRI) to study the use of ICT in urban, industrial and social infrastructure, states ITWire.

Nicta CEO, Dr Phil Robertson, says: "As the National Broadband Network rolls out in Australia, a unique window of opportunity is opening for the creation of intelligent ICT applications to address problems in transport systems, urban infrastructure and environmental management."

Nicta says the proposed research would focus on intelligent transport systems, smart power grids, water supply management and agriculture across selected cities and regions in Southeast Asia.

Fujitsu, together with Bankwest, have opened Australia's most advanced, environmentally sustainable data centre in Perth, says PR Wire.

The new multi-million dollar Fujitsu Perth Data Centre will service the booming West Australian market and allow Fujitsu to target growing cloud solution opportunities in Asia.

Andy Weir, chief information officer of Bankwest says: “This data centre will enable Bankwest to continue to develop and refine new and innovative ways of banking that will benefit our million-plus customers across Australia. It also allows us to progress consolidating and migrating our critical systems into the new facility over the next 12 to 18 months."