IT Industry: Optimization of Software Industrial Structure, Breakthrough of High-performance Computing Group

From 2002 to 2007, the global computer industry has entered into a relatively slow period, however, China's computer industry maintains a high growth rate under the big background of the constant adjustment of global computer industrial pattern, the improvement of China's computer industrial investment and industrial environment and also the promotion of the "Golden" series of projects. China becomes the most eye-catching area of the global computer market. No matter the developing speed of market size or industry, China plays a very important role in the global market. It can be said that the past five years are the years in which China's IT industry developed at a high speed, achieved independent innovation and breakthrough in many industries.

As the core of the information industry, from 2002 to 2007, software has maintained a rapid growing trend. In recent years, the average growth rate of sales revenue in software industry has exceeded 40%. In 2006, the revenue of software industry reached 480 billion Yuan and it gained 6.06 billion US dollars in software export industry, so software industry is becoming a new growth pole of information industry and the national economy. Meanwhile, the structure of software industry is adjusting and optimizing gradually, the growth rate of software service and system integration is surpassing that of software products. According to statistics, in 2006, the annual revenue of software service and system integration reached 238.3 billion dollars, accounting for 49.6% of the whole revenue of software and information services.

During the period of the Tenth Five-Year Development Plan, the related national departments have integrated 3 billion Yuan to give special support to software independent innovation. The Ministry of Information has given more support to software enterprises through Electronic Development Fund and organized the research and development work for those big important projects affecting the overall situation, such as operation system, database, middleware, and others. This has promoted the capital investment of all levels of governments and corporations.
In particular, since the entry doorsill of operation system is high, the Ministry of Information has made use of the means such as Electronic Information Industrial Development Fund, the annual important bidding projects such as the optimization, upgrading and industrialization of Linux operation system, supporting the open-source operating system and related supporting software. Under the support of national guiding fund, the research and development of operating system, database, middleware, Chinese office software and etc, have achieved breakthrough in progression.

The gap in high-performance computing between China and the rest of the world has been narrowed.

China has developed to be one of the biggest manufacturing countries of computer products in the world. The sales revenue of Chinese computers occupies about 1/3 of the national electronic information industry, and it has kept the first position of the industry in a continuous three years. At the end of the Tenth Five-Year Development Plan, the sales revenue of computer enterprises has broken through 1,000 billion Yuan for the first time by reaching 1.0452 trillion Yuan. The export growth rate of computer products has maintained a much higher speed than that of the national foreign trade with an average annual growth rate of 43%.

The output of our monitors and notebook computers ranks first in the world, exceeding 50% of the total output of the world. Products such as printers, CD_ROM drives, hard disk drive heads and substrate products stay in ahead in the world. The relevant data shows that in 2007, the market capacity of PC in China closes to 30 million units, and it will keep the growth rate of about 25% in the coming 3-5 years, in which the growth rate of laptop will exceed more than 2 times compared with that of desktop computer. The overall competitiveness of computer industry has improved significantly, the breakthroughs in the markets on different levels all show that Chinese PC makers have much more influence on technology and market.

In the past five years, the most important change of Chinese PC industry that has affected the industrial pattern of global PC is in December 2004, when Lenovo announced to purchase IBM's PC division with 1.25 billion dollars, and in the subsequent years, Lenovo successfully integrated IBM PC, which brought over 13 billion dollars to the new Lenovo business revenues. Lenovo has become the third-largest PC maker of the world, this has accelerated the internationalization process of Chinese computer industry.

In these five years, the industrial development of Chinese computer system, especially the high-performance computer has been unprecedented developed. The driving force of high-performance computer's development is not just the technology, more importantly, the demand pull. The development of Chinese high-performance computer has got the great support from the government, the informatization of government and industry has provided huge space of application. China's medium and long-term scientific and technological development program and the 11th Five-Year Development Guidelines regard the research and application of the high-performance computers as a major project. We have the reason to believe that after the past years' development and foreshadowing, the high-performance computer industry in China will enter a period of even faster development in the next few years.