The economic recession and financial crisis that has gripped the region is having a profound impact on IT spending. IDC estimates that total APEJ IT spending is expected to grow by a meager 0.6% in 2009. Enterprises are now constantly under pressure to extract greater savings and better utilization of their existing IT infrastructure. Additional IT investments are heavily scrutinized with CIOs only sanctioning projects which deliver near-term return of investment that can either improve IT productivity or business processes at a dramatically lower cost. Overall, there has also been a shift in sentiments from a capex to an opex model, and obtaining an optimal balance will be one of the key performance indicators (KPIs) for many CIOs. Faced with one of the toughest economic conditions for almost a generation, IDC believes that technologies like datacenter virtualization that can meet some of these near-term goals will be more resilient in this economic slowdown and will continue to receive a lot of traction amongst CIOs.

Private clouds have generated considerable buzz in the Asia/Pacific region. The question is whether a private cloud will indeed help Asian enterprises save money and gain business efficiency. This IDC Executive Insights highlights the results of a recent survey which examines the level of cloud computing adoption in ASEAN and highlights the benefits that early adopters have gained. This paper also offers a checklist for CIOs who are considering or planning to implement a private cloud in the next 12 months.