There is a buzz everywhere about the news of Google paying $12.5 billion for Motorala Mobility and lots of conjecture about the reasoning and what the strategy play is by Google. Whilst some say it is about ensuring the future of Android, others say that Google is sending a message to Apple, that other big phone manufacturer, that this game is far from over.

But for Nokia it certainly looks as though this news is bad for them and I thought it could be interesting to take the perspective of how things look for Nokia in China. For this may well give some insights into how well Nokia will survive in the changing battleground of the mobile device market. The question now is what does Nokia’s future look like in a Googlerola world?

My intention was to title this article about cloud computing in China as “State of the Art: China cloud computing”. However, after researching where cloud computing is in China there was much evidence that indicated that a real functioning Chinese cloud is a long way away and there exists a lot of confusion and uncertainty in the market here. In hindsight the title ‘Mist’ is a more intuitive description for what is happening.

Does China need cloud anyway?
China is currently spending a lot of money on cloud initiatives, however this is largely pushed forwarded by the Chinese government. This administration is always a big fan of doing big infrastructure plans, now cloud computing is a big enough subject for them. IBM, Google, Amazon are investing big in China, in particular, IBM who have really got the hang of how to work well with the Chinese government. IBM has already built several government-funded clouds for different industries such as logistics, healthcare, energy and the telco industry. There are lots of rumors however with the low utilisation rates of these cloud initiatives, people are critical that these clouds end up being merely political achievements.

Within the Asia Pacific region Australian businesses rate highly in terms of the perceived maturity of their informationalization. Australian ICT decision makers are often seeking Information Technology (IT) or business process outsourcing (BPO) services to reduce their internal operational cost and mitigate operational risks. As a CIO, you may occasionally have a chance to review outsourcing proposals from off-shore service providers based in China, India, the Philippines or even Eastern Europe. In considering these proposals a number of factors will influence your decision including price, location, capabilities, security, skills, services levels etc

Of all these factors often the cost becomes the major focus and ‘the bottom line’ given the very simple and often standardised nature of the BPO services being sought.

Ever since China embarked on the journey to bolster its services industry, the focus has been on providing ITO/BPO services to the international sourcing market. Over the past decade, Chinese outsourcers have been moving themselves to the upper echelons of the food chain; from labour-intensive data entry service-providers to business application and even game design. iPhone application, being the latest way to reach out to mobile and tech-savvy users, is now a strategy on lots of organisational wish lists (including us!). The current development price gap between western countries and China will result in more and more iPhone applications be outsourced to the East.

Believe or it or not China is already the second largest export destination for Australia. It is not only natural resources that are shipped to the other side of the ocean and an ever increasing variety of commodities and services are exported to the broader Chinese market with every passing day. So when you next walk along the main street of Beijing, be prepared to see those familiar logos from great Australian brands such as Telstra, Rio Tinto, and even the University of Sydney.

Months earlier, I was told by my boss to check out that a Chinese local company is rolling out this Android-based tablet PC that looks alike the iPad. When I got to see this product on Taobao (the ecommerce site beats eBay in China), it was already all over the places. Since Android is so open and free, at least 10 duplicates based on same core firmware were already sold on the virtual store. I got it for $150 Australian dollars, about a quarter of an iPad. However, it turned out to be not as quarterly good as an iPad in terms of touch screen sensitiveness, screen brightness, and performance.