BY ONG BOON KIAT

TECHNOLOGIES and gadgets that let employees work and be productive on the move are expected to be hot this year, receiving the most mentions in a BizIT poll of over 40 technology bosses in Singapore.

Vendors here also listed escalating security threats, cloud computing, eco-friendly IT and Singapore's Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network (Next Gen NBN) as other key enterprise tech trends for Singapore in 2010.

The smart phone craze will spill over from the consumer to the enterprise segment, said Bryan Tan, vice-president of sales for Asia, Epicor. 'Mobility will be huge in 2010 for both enterprises and consumers, and mobile workers will demand greater capabilities such as working on the go or updating inventory. Mobile services deploying enterprise applications will be an expected norm.'

Ng See Sing, general manager of NCS Portal City, said the rise of Internet-based services for the mobile platform will be a key trend this year and an important focus for the NCS business unit, which builds and hosts online e-services for organisations.

Y W Nam, president and chief executive of LG Electronics Asia, expects more 'serious' features and wireless applications for mobile devices to arrive this year, catering to businesses and improving collaboration among the mobile workers.

An important push factor for enterprise mobility will be the maturing of next-generation high speed mobile broadband technologies, such as Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax) and Long Term Evolution (LTE). They will 'catalyse the mobility of media' by delivering new levels of rich media experience to users, said Phey Teck Moh, corporate vice president, Motorola Enterprise Mobility Solutions, Asia Pacific.

He expects more chief information officers (CIOs) here to place mobility on their list of critical agendas this year. But Mr Phey warned that increased mobility could also invite more threats of hacking and other network intrusion to businesses and their workers, and warned firms to step up their network protection. His sentiment was echoed by a number of other vendors.

'As business and consumer level requirements increase with more data being carried in notebooks and transferred electronically, security will continue to be important,' said Howie Lau, general manager and executive director of Lenovo Asean.

Eric Hoh, vice-president of Symantec Asia South, warned that as social networking applications become more popular in the corporate environment, they could open a door to new threats around data protection. 'More and more, businesses are leveraging social networking tools to communicate with partners, customers and employees. This changes the way information is shared and brings about the business challenge of managing, securing and archiving that interaction.'

With many social networks the targets of malicious attacks, employees may unwittingly introduce threats into the business unless proper security steps are taken, he said.

Besides mobility and security, many vendors also list cloud computing, eco-friendly tech and the Next Gen NBN as trends to watch in 2010. Mobile payment, Windows 7-related IT initiatives and business analytics also received mentions.

Edward Lim, general manager of Acronis Asia, expects cloud computing - which denotes offerings that let businesses and users run applications and keep their data on private corporate networks or the public Web - to build on last year's positive momentum even though many still consider this technology to be immature.

'Security and bandwidth are two of the big issues that (could) stop companies adopting this technology,' Mr Lim said.

On the eco-friendly or green IT front, Hansjoerg Wagner, Polycom's managing director for the Asia-Pacific region, said: 'The issue of green IT had somewhat slipped off the radar early in 2009 but now, with the Copenhagen summit and other initiatives such as carbon emission charters, it will again become relevant and necessary in 2010.'

An upcoming technology milestone and boon to businesses here is the Next Gen NBN, which is set to reach 60 per cent coverage of all residential premises and commercial buildings by year-end.

Over the next 12 months, expect all eyes to be on the types of services that will be launched by retail service providers via Singapore's first fibre-based broadband digital highway, said Lawrence Goh, technology consulting lead of Accenture Asean.

This article was first published in The Business Times.