One aspect of the Government's "creative industry" push to uplift Thailand's economy is the digital content industry, in an attempt to make the country stand out in the Asia market.

Thailand's ICT Master Plan 2009-2013 has a key objective to put in place actions that will result in significant growth of the nation's digital content industry. The Master Plan aims for the industry to be worth 165 billion baht by 2013.

This year, the market expects to reach 22.8 billion baht, of which 11.4 billion baht will come from animation and the remainder from games.

Experts are predicting digital distribution will revolutionise the game industry by opening hitherto unavailable opportunities for developers.

But at the same time, gaining a foothold in rising economic superpower China will require co-production models.

These industry figures were speaking at the Thailand Digital Content International Seminar 2010, which featured The Road to Global Market collaboration initiative, co-hosted by the International Institute for Trade and Development and Sipa.

Although economic conditions remain blue, Thailand's overall ICT market is expected to grow by 7.2 percent thus year.

The overall ICT market this year is forecast at 595 billion baht, of which communications take the largest proportion, followed by computer hardware, computer software and computer services, according to an ICT market joint-survey by the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec), Software Industry Promotion Agency (Sipa) and eight private sector associations.

Turning an unstable situation into an opportunity has led a top Finnish surveillance software company to select Thailand as a base to build a research centre and pave the way for Thai software developers to reach a global market.

Jukka Riivari, Chief Executive Officer of Mirasys, one of the leading providers of high-resolution IP video and audio surveillance solutions, said the company selected Thailand as the first country outside its headquarters to establish a research and development centre to develop vertical applications that run with its surveillance solution.

วิธิตา แอนิเมชัน เล็งงบไทยเข็มแข็งจากแนวคิด "ครีเอทีฟ อิโคโนมี" หวังดันตลาดแอนิเมชันไทย ต่อยอดธุรกิจรับทำโฆษณา 2 มิติ 3 มิติ และคอมพิวเตอร์กราฟิกแบบครบวงจร เชื่อถ้ามีการลงทุนอย่างต่อเนื่องปีนี้ตลาดรวมแอนิเมชันโตไม่ต่ำกว่า 20%
      

วีเทคจับมือดีคอม กรุ๊ป เอชพี ธนาคารไทยเครดิตเพื่อรายย่อย อินเตอร์ลิงค์ และ ม.ธรรมศาสตร์ เปิด “Animation Class Room” แก้ปัญหาเด็กติดเกมหันมาเป็นผู้พัฒนา สร้างแรงงานต้นน้ำด้านแอนิเมชัน และผลักดันไทยให้แข่งต่างชาติได้ ด้วย 4 แพกเกจ ตั้งเป้า 400 โรงเรียนทั่วประเทศ เน้นระดับไฮเอนด์
      

Oracle has renewed its focus on selling applications to the mid-sized sector that needs to upgrade to professional software from the current ad-hoc mess of Excel spreadsheets and custom-built programs.

Wisit Phaisalsiriwat, Country Manager for Applications, explained Oracle Accelerators are the embodiment of knowledge and best practices learned through many years of deploying applications, such as ERP (enterprise resource planning), CRM (customer relationship management), HR (human resources) or HCM (human capital management) for its enterprise customers.

Economic recovery and storage demands will drive the hard disk drive industry (HDD) with worldwide shipments forecast to reach 650 to 670 million units this year, according to Ban Seng Teh, Vice President and Managing Director for Asia Pacific and Japan Seagate Technology, the world leader with a 31 percent market share.

New software development technology plus pressure of competition has led a local pioneer to form a strategic alliance to capture more opportunities and strengthen core business to compete with global IT services and prepare for service liberalisation in Asean.

The company, together with Soft Square (1999), Business Application Consulting and A-Host have formed a strategic alliance sharing human resources in order to strengthen their core business and enhance their comparative advantage to compete with foreign IT services, according to Mfec president Siriwat Vongjarukorn.

Natasak, Oracle's regional managing director for the Asean region, said he will leave the company by the end of May.

He has 23 years' experience in the IT industry and has been with Oracle Thailand since 1997. He will now take a break to "recharge my batteries" before pursuing further projects.

"IT industry change is very dynamic and I believe companies are very interested in building new business in Thailand," said Natasak.