John Ryan

A few months ago I read the book, "IT and the East" by James M. Popkin and Partha Iyenga. For full disclosure, I worked as a contracted consultant with Mr. Popkin on a separate project a few years ago. If you can ignore our history, please see this as an objective view of what the book had to say. Here are some of the more enlightening points of the book without going into the deeper analysis which the authors cover.

1) More and more, traditional Western high-tech firms are outsourcing not only the assembly of their products in China but also the innovation that drives those products
2) If you are in business, you need a China strategy
3) The quality of information, research, and advice on how to make key decisions related to China are uneven
4) The Chinese approach to business is to form a relationship and then make a transaction, the Western form is just the opposite
5) The per capita income in China is around $1,500 while in the U.S., it's over $40,000
6) China has positioned itself as the factory of the world - the concern is to be the low cost producer is not sustainable as it will stagnate the country's stand of living

7) There are an estimated 10,000 small IT services companies in China
8) Thirteen thousand science and engineering doctorates were awarded in China in 2003 compared to about 8,000 in the U.S.
9) Research centers in China have grown from less than 50 to over 600 from 1997-2004 with many of these centers funded by global companies such as Intel, IBM and Microsoft
10) A big challenge for China is to move up the value chain away from low cost manufacturing and to add intellectual property that is protected by their laws

According to the authors, China passed an important milestone with the 2008 Olympics in Beijing which keeps the country on track for acceptance and growth.

There is much more to the book on not only China, but India. You can buy the book at Amazon and if you like to think about the near future of IT and its buyers, I encourage you to do so.