IT leadership is moving to Asia from U.S.

IT leadership of the world IT industry is handing over to Asia from U.S. Among world 100 IT companies selected by Business Week on 26, 37 were Asian enterprises, beating North America of 35 companies for the first time. Business Week reported that 11 years ago when it selected first 100 IT companies, U.S. firms accounted more than 75% but plummeted to 30% now. But not every Asian nation smiled. The epicenter of rise was Taiwan, not Korea, Japan and China. Among Korean firms, LG Electronics, LG Display, Samsung Electronics and NHN were selected. ◇Taiwan ranked second after U.S.= Among 100 companies, Amazon and Apple ranked first and second, keeping U.S. pride. There was no single American company among top 10, except for Western Digital, a rapidly growing hard disk company. When analyze 100 companies by each nation, the emergence of Taiwan stands out. The nation has been dominantly outsourcing Motorola and HP products and reinforcing its brands from IT subcontractor to IT powerhouse. Asustek Computer ranked 9 and HTC (High Tech Computer) came in 10, which are the most aggressive Taiwan companies. Asustek is working hard to make presence into Japanese market with innovative notebook PC brand, ‘Eee PC’. Microsoft, the U.S. SW dinosaur, slipped from 9 last year to 23 this year, Cisco dropped from 20 to 39 and Verizon, the telecommunication dinosaur, failed to be ranked. Globalization, outsourcing craze and emergence of new markets have changed IT leadership. ◇Why did they pay attention to LG and NHN?= LG Electronics(20) and LG Display (26) were ahead of Samsung Electronics(34). Business Week evaluated various indexes including revenue and stock price rate. It commented that LG Electronics is no longer second company in Korea. The stock price of LG soared over 50% for the past year and sales of mobile phone rose about 54%, breaking Motorola’s dominance. NHN was selected for the first time by Business Week. The reason why Google couldn’t conquer Korean market has been the power of portal ‘Naver’ led by NHN. NHN is now getting into China and Japanese market. ◇Collapse of India and Silent Europe= Despite jump of Asian firm, most Indian companies were left out. Business cited India as loser. Weak U.S. dollar and economic slowdown in U.S have caused India’s SW companies, which dominated SW outsourcing, to be in trouble. TCS (Tata Consultancy Services), ranked 23 last year, was not chosen. It is true for Europe. Except for Nokia (8) and SAP (63), most selected firms were telecommunication companies. Spanish firm, Telefonica is typical company for local demand and not innovative firm.