These days, citizens are actively seeking engagement on social networks with companies, brands, and products and they are also looking to engage with government representatives in a similar way.

Many governments across Asia Pacific, however, are delaying online interaction with their citizens until protective policies for security guidelines are defined, according to the IDC Government Insights report.

Across IDC Government Insights' key predictions for the government sector across Asia Pacific, three key themes stand out:

  1. IT security is expected to be commoditized in 2012 and any discussion with government entities about ICT solutions needs to have an elaborate security component. Ironically, both vendors and government representatives are unlikely to be fully prepared or equipped to have that conversation.
  2. Cloud infrastructure and platform decisions will also get well on the way among maturer countries. Developing nations, on the other hand, will look to cloud solutions to scale up their ICT offerings quickly.
  3. Finally, Asia Pacific has seen its fair share of natural disasters recently. Consequently, IDC Government Insights expects smart city initiatives to benefit from renewed government focus to limit the impact of disasters and manage their after-effects.

IDC Government Insights intends to assist government policy, program, and IT leaders, as well as the suppliers who serve them, in making more effective technology decisions by providing accurate, timely, and insightful fact-based research and consulting services. They therefore published recently their Asia Pacific Government Insights 2012 Top 10 Predictions:

  1. Information security will be a critical component in government purchases;
  2. Proactive interaction by governments with citizens through popular social media will change from novelty to necessity;
  3. Government spending and investments will not be significantly affected by the economic struggles in the US and Europe;
  4. Mature governments will significantly invest in Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) to prepare for the cloud era;
  5. Governments will closely monitor the cloud best practices among public sectors worldwide to define their own cloud deployment road map in their respective countries;
  6. Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) will see strong mixed adoption between the public and private sector;
  7. Government apps will morph from one-way information-centric delivery mechanisms to two-way inseparable services and interaction tools for citizens;
  8. National broadband initiatives will evolve the education sector and tablets will revolutionize how education is conducted;
  9. Bring Your Own Device trends will radically change the traditional function of IT and device management in governments;
  10. New funds will be allocated by governments to prepare city infrastructures for natural disasters and the influx of people from urban areas.

"While keeping all senses tuned to maintain awareness of security risks until regulations and policies are finalized is good, online citizen interaction will prove critical to meet the increasing demand by citizens to address their needs and concerns 24/7. Ignoring their calls for interaction may not be wise in a long-run", says Frank Levering, Research Manager, IDC Government Insights Asia/Pacific.

Following the release of the global top ten predictions, IDC's geographic, technology and industry teams will be releasing their own specific predictions in the coming months. For more information, visit www.idc.asia/microsites/predictions/2012.

By MediaBUZZ