According to Nathan Midler, research manager of Internet and Government at the International Data Corporation (IDC) Asia Pacific, government IT spending in the Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12.1 per cent between 2002 and 2007. Highlighting the significance of government sector spending, Midler noted that it is the third largest sector in the region after consumer IT and telecommunications. It is also the third fastest growing after insurance and process manufacturing but, as Midler points out, these sectors are about one-sixth the size of government.
According to IDC, security solutions made up 10.6 per cent of total government IT spending for the region in 2003. Security is an important issue for all governments across regions, whether in mature or developing markets, said Midler. In a recent briefing on Government IT Opportunities, he said governments will be looking to security solutions to prevent network breaches and internal abuse. There will be a strong demand for antivirus and firewall solutions, as well as a much stronger pickup in smart cards compared with the private sector.
Outlining the Singapore government's IT procurement plans at a recent Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) briefing on business opportunities for IT in the public sector, Tang-Kwong Yuk Wah, director of the Government Contracts and Commercialisation Office, IDA, outlined government plans to develop a secure and resilient infocomm infrastructure to support critical government functions. In the pipeline is a central system to be used by government agencies to perform on-demand security scanning and assessment of their infocomm systems.
Security also figured prominently in government requirements for other infrastructure projects, for example, a central security control and administration solution for the Singapore Government Network which interconnects government and business partners and for the Government Electronic Mail System. The total IT development budget for the Singapore public sector is $1.3 billion, which will be spread from 2003 to 2006.
Kevin Scott, director of Government Practice at Hewlett-Packard (HP) EMEA, said governments will have to balance security for control and the need to provide access to information and services. "Security will determine how you control access and how extensively you can deploy a service," he said.
According to Scott, security is an issue that has to be considered at the level of the egovernment framework.
HP's eGovernment Framework calls for a single architecture for all egovernment services including a single authentication model, a single authorisation model and a single security model.
Quelle: Computerworld Singapore, 25.02.2004
