THE REVIVAL of Hong Kong's information technology industry is expected to continue as companies adopt new technology to drive further growth, although the pace of spending may be slower than it was last year.
Although predictions vary, overall IT spending in the local market is expected to see year-on-year growth of 4 to 5 per cent.
Finance, government and the telecommunications sector are the major driving forces.
Organisations in these areas generally have deeper pockets and, with the economy rebounding, they realise that the time is right for the first major cycle of upgrades since 1999 to 2000.
As all IT systems have certain limitations, upgrades are generally needed every three to five years. After the work and investment that resulted from concerns about the Y2K bug, the next cycle should have started around 2003.
However, the economic downturn and the outbreak of Sars put projects on hold and it is only in the past year that corporations have started to look at enhancing their systems' capabilities.
Many areas have to be addressed, according to Fred Sheu, director of enterprise marketing and alliances for the customer solutions group at Hewlett-Packard HK.