IDC稱明年中國科技市場增速空前
In the year-end predictions game, most technology forecasts tend to be either blue sky or boring, flights of imagination or a firm grasp of the obvious.
在年終預測時，許多針對科技產業的預言要麼是不切實際，要麼枯燥乏味；要麼異想天開，要麼顯而易見。For the last several years, IDC has published prediction reports that generally avoid the pitfalls of the genre, and offer a useful framework for thinking about the trajectory of trends in technology. The technology research firm’s predictions for 2015, published on Tuesday, come in a 17-page report that is rich in numbers and analysis.
在過去幾年裏，IDC發佈的報告大體上避免了這種文體的常見問題，可以爲理解科技產業的趨勢和走向提供有益的框架。這家科技研究公司本週二推出了它對2015年的預測，17頁的報告中數據和分析都很詳實。
Beyond the detail, a couple of larger themes stand out. First is China. Most of the reporting and commentary recently on the Chinese economy has been about its slowing growth and challenges.
跳出細節之外，報告中揭示了兩個較爲宏大的主題。首先是中國。最近關於中國經濟的報道和評論，關注的問題都是增長放緩及面前的挑戰。
“In information technology, it’s just the opposite,” Frank Gens, IDC’s chief analyst, said in an interview. “China has a roaring domestic market in technology.”
“但在信息技術領域，恰恰相反，”IDC首席分析師弗蘭克·金斯(Frank Gens)在接受採訪時說。“中國的科技產業有一個飛速發展的國內市場。”In 2015, IDC estimates that nearly 500 million smartphones will be sold in China, three times the number sold in the United States and about one third of global sales. Roughly 85 percent of the smartphones sold in China will be made by its domestic producers like Lenovo, Xiaomi, Huawei, ZTE and Coolpad.
IDC估計，截至2015年，中國的智能手機總銷量將達到5億臺，是美國銷量的三倍，約佔全球總銷量的三分之一。中國市場出售的智能手機，大約85%會是由中國國內廠商生產的，如聯想、小米、華爲、中興和酷派。The rising prowess of China’s homegrown smartphone makers will make it tougher on outsiders, as Samsung’s slowing growth and profits recently reflect.
中國國產智能手機品牌的實力越來越強，外國品牌的處境會更加困難，三星(Samsung)最近緩慢的增長和盈利表現就顯示了這一點。More than 680 million people in China will be online next year, or 2.5 times the number in the United States. And the China numbers are poised to grow further, helped by its national initiative, the Broadband China Project, intended to give 95 percent of the country’s urban population access to high-speed broadband networks.
明年中國的互聯網用戶將會達到6.8億人，即美國的2.5倍。而且在全國性戰略“寬帶中國”的推動下，中國的互聯網用戶人數肯定還會繼續增長。這一戰略打算爲中國95%的城鄉人口提供高速寬帶網絡連接。In all, China’s spending on information and communications technology will be more than $465 billion in 2015, a growth rate of 11 percent. The expansion of the China tech market will account for 43 percent of tech-sector growth worldwide.
總體而言，中國2015年在信息和通訊技術方面做出的投資將會超過4650億美元（約合2.86萬億元人民幣），較上年增長11%。全球科技產業的增長，將有43%來自中國市場。Another theme in the IDC report is the quickening pace of the move from older technologies to new ones. Overall spending on technology and telecommunications, IDC estimates, will rise by a modest 3.8 percent in 2015. Yet the top-line numbers mask the trends beneath. IDC predicts there will be growth of 13 percent in what the research firm calls “3rd platform” technologies (cloud, mobile, social and big data). By contrast, older technologies will face a no-growth “near recession,” according to IDC, and “will shift fully into recession” by the second half of next year.
IDC報告中的另一個主題是老技術向新技術過渡的步伐會加快。IDC估計，科技和電信方面的總體支出在2015年會有3.8%的適度增長。然而總體的數字無法反映深層次的趨勢。IDC預測，在該公司所說的“第三平臺”技術（雲端、移動、社交媒體和大數據）中，支出增長會達到13%。IDC稱，與之相對比，老技術將會面臨零增長，“接近衰退”，到明年下半年“將會完全轉向衰退”。IDC’s 3rd platform is similar to what Gartner, another big research firm, has called a “nexus of forces” sweeping through the industry. (Gartner’s ingredients are virtually the same as IDC’s with slightly different labels — social interaction, mobility, cloud and information.) The 1st platform, in IDC’s taxonomy, was the mainframe era, running from the 1960s into the 1980s. The 2nd platform included personal computers and the Internet, and began in the 1980s and ran through the middle of the first decade of this century.
IDC所說的“第三平臺”與另一家大型研究機構高德納(Gartner)的一種說法頗爲相似，即正在席捲整個產業一種“力量聯結”(nexus of forces)。高德納這個概念的組成部分與IDC的幾乎完全相同，只是運用的名詞略有差異——社交互動、移動性、雲端和信息。按照IDC的分類，第一平臺是指貫穿上世紀60年代至80年代的大型機時代。第二平臺包括個人電腦和互聯網，從上世紀80年代一直延續到大約2005年。Cloud-computing data centers are the engine rooms of the other 3rd platform technologies of mobile, social and big data. Building these cloud power plants is increasingly a costly, high-stakes endeavor. In 2015, IDC predicts, there will be a winnowing.
雲計算的數據中心是移動、社交、大數據等其他第三平臺技術的引擎室。而建造這種雲計算的動力源泉，成本卻越來越高，風險也越來越大。IDC預測，2015年這個領域會發生洗牌。The leading players will keep spending and growing, and IDC identifies the leaders as Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM. “But we’ll see a lot of dropouts, as companies pull back from cloud infrastructure and focus on what they’re good at,” Mr. Gens said.
這個領域的領頭羊會繼續投資和增長，而IDC指出，領導者包括亞馬遜(Amazon)、谷歌(Google)、微軟(Microsoft)和IBM。金斯表示，“但我們會看到很多企業退出這一領域，許多公司會放棄雲計算基礎設施的業務，專注於它們擅長的業務。”Candidates to drop out of delivering computing resources as a cloud service, he said, include Hewlett-Packard and the telecommunications companies. Salesforce, a leader in cloud-based business software, may want to do a deal with one of the big builders of cloud data centers, Mr. Gens suggested. That way, he added, Salesforce could concentrate its resources on software — as the German software maker SAP did recently in a deal with IBM.
一些公司可能不再會利用自身的計算資源對外提供雲計算服務，他說，可能這樣做的公司包括惠普(Hewlett-Packard)及電信企業。金斯表示，雲端商務軟件領域的領導者Salesforce，或許會打算與一家建設雲計算數據中心的大型企業合作。他補充道，這樣做Salesforce就可以將自身的資源專注於軟件——就像德國軟件廠商SAP與IBM的合作一樣。But while some retreat, China will likely produce a major cloud rival or two, IDC predicts. Alibaba, China’s dominant online merchant, Baidu, the Chinese search engine, or Tencent, China’s big social network, might well move beyond building data centers for their own use to supplying cloud computing as a service — the path taken by both Amazon and Google.
儘管一些企業會退卻，但是IDC預計，中國可能會催生一兩家大型的雲計算競爭對手。中國處於主導地位的電子商務企業阿里巴巴、中國搜索引擎百度，或者中國最大的社交網絡騰訊，可能會在建設數據中心供自身使用的基礎上邁出一步，對外提供雲計算服務。亞馬遜和谷歌都採取過類似的策略。“Driven by their massive domestic market,” IDC predicts, “one or more of these Big Three cloud-based giants will challenge Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google” and others over the next three to four years.
“在巨大的國內市場推動下，”IDC預計，未來三四年裏，“這三家基於雲計算的巨頭中，會有至少一家對亞馬遜、微軟、IBM、谷歌及其他企業發起挑戰。”
