Most computer hardware comes from Taiwan although most factories are located in mainland China.  Taiwan people who we visited in early January said that business recovery has been strong. The recovery could be led by Asia and picked up by other regions such as New Zealand over the year.  This information is in line with our official statistics that we have gone past the bottom and are on the way up and that we will take a year to get back to the pre-recession level. 

In the IT world, 2 phenomena have been outstanding.  They are about industry consolidation and cloud computing respectively. The US Fortune magazine has reported that IBM, HP, Cisco, Oracle and Dell have been spending big monies to acquire companies in different segments in order to complete their own product portfolios covering hardware, software and services.  This will lead to a situation similar to our 2 major supermarket chains in New Zealand.  The rest will operate corner diaries or convenient shops only.  What shall small players like us do?  PC is a platform waiting for solutions to solve and we cannot wait and have to find solutions.  This is the direction we are heading in 2010.