The past few years, there’s been a strong buzz on “Cloud Computing”. You find many local businesses now offering “Cloud” services and applications. In America, virtually every technological product out there has the “cloud” element in it. Even Adobe Creative Suite is now available on the cloud. Imagine, Photoshop and Illustrator now on the cloud!
In Malaysia, there seems to be a strong belief that cloud computing is still at its infancy and slowly being adopted by businesses. Are Malaysians truly talking about cloud computing? A quick analysis using Google Web Trends actually sheds some light on the entire “cloud computing” trend in Malaysia. I did some quick research on various trends and some of the results were actually quite insightful.
Overall Cloud Computing Trend
It appears that the “cloud computing” trend in Malaysia is starting to decline. Less and less Malaysians are actually talking about cloud computing. Surprised? Like a bell graph, it appeared to peak between 2011-2012.
If you were to actually do a comparison with the cloud computing trend worldwide, the pattern is pretty much the same as shown below:
Does this mean that the cloud computing business is slowly declining?
The answer is No.
Whilst the term “cloud computing” may seem to be declining, businesses have recently begun to aggressively look at various technologies related to cloud computing. A peak in 2011/12 could have meant that this was a learning period for many who were trying to understand the concept of cloud technology. This is evident from key phrases trending during that period such as “What is Cloud?” & “Cloud Computing Basics”.
These days, conversations seem to focus on “Cloud Computing Companies”, “IAAS” & “Openstack” just to name a few. So what are people looking for these days?
Moving To The Cloud
The conversation has now shifted from cloud computing in general to cloud computing applications. Take a look at trends for Cloud CRM & Cloud ERP. There seems to be a strong upward trend.
This is in line with what many analysts have been saying. People and businesses are now ready to move to the cloud. An article from The Star on the Business Software Alliance report states:
In a statement, BSA said findings from its 2013 Global Cloud Computing Scoreboard study showed that Malaysia, while ranked 13th out of 24 economies worldwide, has crossed the divide between mature and developing economies and was cloud-ready.
There also seems to be a steady flow of conversation surrounding some Software-As-A-Service (SAAS) Vendors which clearly show that more and more businesses are evaluating cloud. From the statistics below, you can also see how both Netsuite and Salesforce are key SAAS players in the market now. Google Apps is also on the rise with its superior cloud collaboration e-mail suite.
Cloud Computing Hot Spots in Malaysia
Here is a look at some of the hot spots in Malaysia where cloud computing seems to be picking up relatively well such as Johor, Selangor, Kuala Lumpur and surprisingly, Perak.
Big Data On The Rise
Apart from cloud applications, few trends which seem to be growing steadily are Social Media, Digital Marketing & Big Data. You can see a steep increase in Big Data which is fast becoming a hot trend and something to look out for. With more and more data being collected from various sources, it is becoming evidently harder to analyze the data or make sense of it.
Big data is more than simply a matter of size; it is an opportunity to find insights in new and emerging types of data and content, to make your business more agile, and to answer questions that were previously considered beyond your reach. – Source: IBM Big Data
I foresee that this is going to be a big trend and business moving forward. Just take social media data. There is so much data out there. Being able to analyze this data will open doors to new insights and help us understand trend better.
Google has already taken the lead with its Big Data offering on the cloud, BigQuery.
Google BigQuery lets businesses and developers gain real-time business insights from massive amounts of data without any up-front hardware or software investments. Accessible via a simple UI or REST interface, Google BigQuery lets you take advantage of Google’s massive computing power, store as much data as needed, and pay only for what you use. Your data is protected with multiple layers of security, replicated across multiple data centers, and can be easily exported – Source: Google
As a conclusion, Malaysia is now definitely at the “mature” stage of cloud computing. Businesses are starting to move to the cloud. We should see a growth in local cloud solution providers and most businesses should have at least one aspect of their business in the cloud over the next year.
As for Big Data Analytic on the cloud, I foresee more and more large enterprises taking advantage of the technology to start mashing up diverse business data to discover previously unknown correlations. We’ll see how this goes.
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About the Author
This article is written by V.Kugantharan, the founder of Joy With Music, where he teaches adults and kids the joys of playing the piano. He also runs a web design agency, 504 Studios. A father of a very “opinionated” five-year-old, he divides his time between his passions — collection toys, blogging, reading, music, and design. You can read his blog here.
