Intel projects growth of expenditure in IT in Brazil
Valor Econômico 09/02/10
A year ago, while visiting Brazil, Frank Johnson, sales officer of Intel's business products for the Americas, differ from the general pessimism that dominated the sector of information technology (IT). At the time, few people bet on the recovery of investments in a short term. The command of Intel, however, said that they noticed signs of a return and bet on it. As a result, the world's largest chip manufacturer grew 17.5% in earnings in the third quarter of 2009, when the world seemed to collapse for many companies of the sector, and since then has been showing quarterly growth of over 10%.Now, when many uncertainties persist in the international horizon, Johnson maintains a positive view. "The companies continue to invest in upgrading its infrastructure and prepare for continued growth of the business", says the executive to Valor. Brazil is in the spotlight in this process. According to a survey carried out by Intel, with 39 Brazilian companies, the expectation is that the budgets grow 3% in the next 12 months. It may not seem too much, but it is three times more than the percentage verified among companies of North America, the ones that spend more money on IT across the world.
According to Johnson, a great part of the investments in Brazil occurs on two fronts. The first is the adoption of the new Microsoft operating system, Windows 7, released in October of last year. Because of the amount of new features in comparison with the predecessors systems, many companies have preferred to buy new computers to run the process, which has been pushing Intel's results, responsible for 80% of the chips that equip computers in Brazil.
And within the departments, the purchase of new servers to supply the data centers of the companies has been increasingly intense. It is estimated that sales will grow between 25% and 30% a year, says Johnson. This is the result of the efforts that companies are making to get more from their IT resources and prepare for the cloud computing - a model in which the information is not accessed directly from the computers of the staff, but from the internet.
According to Johnson, the goal of Intel is to invest heavily to accelerate the growth of cloud computing in the country. "We are expanding our technical teams to help customers and partners to build these structures", says the executive. Besides the support in the technological part, Intel is increasing the financial resources available to encourage companies to use its products in testing and concept assessments that lead to the creation of new offers and services.