Business

Tuesday January 22, 2008

Business Objects to capitalise on Malaysia’s growing IT market

By EUGENE MAHALINGAM



KUALA LUMPUR: France-based software maker Business Objects (BO), which specialises in software that provides business intelligence (BI), intends to capitalise on the growing information technology (IT) market in Malaysia.

BO South Asia vice-president V.R. Srivatsan, quoting from a recent International Data Corp (IDC) report, said the Malaysian IT industry offered promising growth potential.

“According to the IDC report, BI was the fastest growing IT investment in Malaysia last year at 12.2% compared with the overall IT spending in Malaysia which was at 9%,” he told StarBiz.

Srivatsan also said the IT industry similarly offered promising growth potential for BO.

“Based on the report also, we were the fastest growing BI vendor in Malaysia. We grew at 43.1% in the first half of 2007 against the previous corresponding period.”

“Today, everyone wants to consume information to become intelligent and I don’t see how it (the need) is going to taper off. I expect it to grow,” he added.

According to Srivatsan, BI, an application commonly associated with large organisations, would also benefit small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

“Every company needs BI. I would argue that the smaller the company, the more important BI becomes for them to compete in the marketplace,” he said.

According to him, a significant number of BI-based solutions were currently being utilised locally by organisations from the government, banking, telecommunications and parts of the manufacturing industry.

The group currently has over 100 customers in Malaysia, including Telekom Malaysia Bhd, DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd and Prudential, Srivatsan said.

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