Monday July 13, 2009
HP, Mimos seeding cloud computing research
KUALA LUMPUR: Cloud computing is on the rise and Malaysia needs to do its own research and development to stay competitive in the field, according to Hewlett-Packard (HP) Malaysia.
In the wake of software now being accessed over the Internet rather than residing on a user’s PC, HP has inked an agreement with Mimos Bhd, the local applied-research centre for frontier technologies.
The joint venture is for the setting up of the Malaysian chapter of the Open Cirrus cloud-computing research and open-source test bed.
“We believe this collaboration with Mimos will go a long way toward creating locally inspired dynamic cloud services in the future,” said T.F. Chong, managing director of HP Malaysia, at a recent press conference to announce the deal.
President and CEO of Mimos, Datuk Abdul Wahab Abdullah, said the venture is comparable to the creation of the MSC Malaysia initiative and the establishment of the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry.
“Cloud computing is the next logical step in ICT (information and communications technology),” he said.
“With a headstart in our involvement in its research, we will be on par with other countries in cloud computing and Malaysia will be able to reap the benefits as an early adopter.”
The signing of the agreement was officiated by Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Dr Maximus Ongkili.
The Open Cirrus initiative will be very much in line with the coming 10th Malaysia Plan to further boost ICT knowledge among Malaysians and increase the nation’s competitiveness, Ongkili said.
Open Cirrus is a cloud-computing R&D initiative started in July 2008 by hardware giant HP, Internet search leader Yahoo! Inc and chipmaker Intel Corp, with centres in six countries including Singapore, Germany, Russia and South Korea.
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