[/url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/31/BUFTRRMI3.DTL]Future technology growth will be driven by emerging markets[/url] rather than Europe, North America or Japan, and consumers in these emerging markets will probably use handheld devices rather than the desktops or laptops that have been our gateways to cyberspace.
That's a view gaining credence in Silicon Valley, where giant tech companies like Sun Microsystems, Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard and Intel are in a constant struggle to find new markets to fuel the wild growth expectations on Wall Street.
Look no further than Sun Microsystems' Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Schwartz, who preached this view to a small gathering at the company's Menlo Park headquarters Wednesday.
"If you believe our business is following consumers, you have to be concerned about where the consumers are," said Schwartz, who thinks the future market for high-tech sales is spelled BRIC, short for Brazil, Russia, India and China, or BRICA when Africa is thrown in.
The gathering Sun organized this week illustrates how U.S. technology firms are being forced to make every aspect of their operations, from manufacturing to sales to hiring, into a global operation, with a particular emphasis on the fast-growing but still comparatively poor developing world.
Gartner market research director Sandy Shen recently noted that with 85 percent of the world's population living in emerging markets, their purchasing power is on an inexorable rise.
