In the latest survey conducted by Akamai Technologies, Inc., a global leader in cloud services, an overwhelming 96% of channel partners in Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) confirmed the importance of cloud technology in their 2023 IT strategies. Furthermore, close to half (48%) of these respondents anticipate allocating between 21% to 40% of their IT budgets for cloud-related expenses.
The survey, featuring responses from 386 participants across the Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ) region, also revealed that 95% of partners in this region recognize cloud computing as a critical component of their 2023 strategy. However, the willingness to invest in the cloud varies, with 27% planning to allocate less than 20% of their IT budget, while 33% intend to dedicate more than 40% to cloud technology.
“In our conversations with partners, we see that organisations are walking the fine line between investing in the cloud as well as being frugal in light of the macroeconomic headwinds. We believe the solution lies in working with a developer-friendly cloud and compute ecosystem that can offer them both flexibility and cost-effectiveness while avoiding bill shock,” explained Tatsuya Suzuki, Regional VP, APJ Carrier and Channel, Akamai.
Akamai intends to provide expanded product roadmaps across cloud, security, and delivery in the coming year. Suzuki emphasized, “We will offer expanded product roadmaps in the new year, across the areas of cloud, security, and delivery to achieve the overarching goal of making life better for billions of people, billions of times a day.”
The country-specific data highlighted variances in cloud spending intentions, despite a common agreement on its importance. The highest willingness to spend over 60% of the IT budget on the cloud was noted in Vietnam (31%), Indonesia (27%), and India (23%). On the other end of the spectrum, Thailand (50%), Japan (49%), and Taiwan (40%) displayed the highest resistance, planning to spend less than 20% of their IT budget on the cloud.
“While most organisations acknowledge the importance of cloud, many are apprehensive about investing their IT budgets in this technology, given concerns of costs and how this will affect other overarching IT priorities. These sentiments are clear from the latest insights we have gathered from our partners, and this is why Akamai is investing heavily in scaling our cloud computing capabilities,” explained Suzuki.
“We believe that organisations need more options for their cloud needs, particularly those that are easy to use and developer friendly with transparent, attractive pricing, and we are able to provide for these needs with Akamai Connected Cloud,” he continued.
Akamai’s Connected Cloud, announced earlier this year, is a distributed edge and cloud platform for computing, security, and content delivery. It aims to set up four new cloud computing sites across APJ by the end of 2023 and roll out distributed sites in over 50 cities globally.
“In the coming months, we are likely to see an increase in the number and sophistication of cyber-attacks and larger scale data breaches, causing more disruption. There is also a risk of complacency from breach fatigue. Many organisations will focus on improving the security of their supply chain as part of ensuring positive business outcomes,” explained Mark Trumble, APAC Head of Portfolio – Cyber Security, Fujitsu Australia, and New Zealand.”
Akamai is prepared to tackle these security challenges with its security solutions, including Edge DNS. “Akamai is supporting our customers and partners with our security solutions, including Edge DNS, a global, highly scalable domain name system (DNS) service offering security, resilience from Distributed denial of service attack (DDoS) events, and high DNS responsiveness. As a result, we are able to observe trillions of DNS requests daily and have clear visibility on the latest developments in the threat landscape,” explained Dean Houari, Director of Security Technology and Strategy, APJ, Akamai.
