Work-anywhere software available

Work-anywhere software available

The ongoing political turmoil will drive demand for virtualisation desktop software that enables users to work from anywhere if they cannot go to their offices, says a software and service company.

"The virtualisation desktop software enable users to use any device to access their corporate data and applications without having to install programs," said Chawapol Jariyawiroj, the country manager of VMware Thailand.

The company is the Thai unit of the California-based VMware Inc, a maker of virtualisation and cloud infrastructure.

The technology allows users to move their workplaces immediately when they cannot access to the prime location due to natural disasters or political unrest.

As part of their business continuity plans, most companies have backup sites with server virtualisation data centres.

But many of them like to include desktop virtualisation in their plans to prevent business disruption.

IDC, a global research firm, said VMware has the largest market share in desktop virtualisation in Asean this year.

"Demand of virtualisation server software will continue to rise. The suite can help data centres to reduce costs because they don't have to invest in new physical servers," he said.

The IDC Server Economies Index shows virtualisation server software will help to reduce cost associated with hardware, power and data centres by 31 billion baht in Thailand from 2013-20.

Currently, virtualisation servers at a data centre in Thailand make up less than 20% of all servers in a company.

This means there is plenty of room to grow, as the rate is 80% in some countries.

Early adopters in Thailand have already used virtualisation servers for about half their computers, but this group will expand to mission-critical applications such as virtualisation, virtualisation desktops, networks and storage.

Mr Chawapol said businesses are facing intense competition that forces them to implement the virtualisation data centres for cloud computing fully.

They can then allocate information technology (IT) resources within hours instead of days in response to business needs.

The industry is moving towards software-defined data-centre architecture to automate centres and support cloud-based service and a mobile workforce.

VMware will also expand upcountry, where there are more than 3,000 medium-sized companies.

Mr Chawapol said next year, IT vendors will have to deal with tough competition due to corporate budget constraints.

He is confident Thailand's enterprise IT spending will continue to grow at a double-digit rate in 2014 thanks to cloud and virtualisation technologies, which will reduce their costs and help them expand at a faster pace.

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