F5: Now is the time for digital transformation

On February 1, 2018, the annual core media communication meeting of F5, a leading application delivery company, was held in Beijing. At the meeting, Mr. Zhang Yiqiang, General Manager of F5 China, Mr. Wu Jingtao, Chief Technology Officer of F5 Greater China, and Mr. Wang Xuejun, Marketing Director of F5 China, respectively shared with the media guests the growth of F5 in the past year and the outlook for the development trend of the application service industry in 2018 based on their respective areas of expertise.

Deep cultivation and steady growth

When reviewing F5's performance in China in 2017, Mr. Zhang Yiqiang said: "In 2017, F5 China has maintained continuous and steady business growth. This outstanding performance is mainly due to F5's intensive work in solutions, industry markets and partners. In the field of solutions, F5 has been sensitive to multiple business opportunities in cloud, IOT and automated operation and maintenance since the end of 2016, and has laid out the research and development of solutions in advance, which enables us to meet user needs in the first time. In terms of industry, F5 continues to dig deep into the financial and telecommunications fields where it was strong in the past, and has made breakthroughs in city commercial banks and telecommunications-level cloud applications. In terms of partners, F5 has made great progress, especially through cooperation with leading domestic companies such as Huawei and Telecom Cloud, enabling F5 to bring more customized and flexible application service solutions to domestic users."

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Digital transformation in progress

Since the beginning of 2017, F5 has proposed the concept that global enterprises are now undergoing digital transformation. This conclusion was further recognized by users and partners at the "Application Delivery Summit" in May 2017. Mr. Zhang Yiqiang pointed out: "In F5's view, digital transformation is that many companies are committed to reorganizing and even recreating their architecture and business models through IT technology and new digital technologies, so as to better provide more valuable services to end users. This transformation is the result of the interaction between technological evolution and user needs. For example, when the first generation of iPhone came out eleven years ago, it was probably difficult for us to imagine that the way users interact with applications today would change so much. In the '2018 Application Delivery Status Report' released by F5 this year, more than 3,600 IT practitioners in the Asia-Pacific region participated in the survey. Among them, 55% of the respondents said that due to digital transformation, they are considering re-arranging IT architecture and delivery processes; 49% of IT practitioners are migrating some of their company's applications to a cross-cloud environment to cope with this transformation. In my country, with the promulgation of the national policy development guidance in the fields of Internet of Things, big data and artificial intelligence, it is bound to play a greater role in promoting the digital transformation of enterprises. In these areas, F5 is already ready in terms of application services."

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Based on the local, the original intention remains unchanged

At the event, Mr. Wu Jingtao, Chief Technology Officer of F5 Greater China, shared some of the plans for 2018 with the guests. Mr. Wu Jingtao said: "In the context of digital transformation, application services must be the first to be challenged due to direct interaction with end users. F5 has conducted in-depth analysis with its partners on the trend of technological development and made preparations from both macro and micro perspectives. In the macro perspective, facing major industries such as the Internet of Things, big data, and cloud computing, F5 has developed corresponding solutions from multiple perspectives such as access management, application optimization, and application security management. In micro-fields such as intelligent orchestration and DevOps, F5 has already had a complete set of solutions for container environments, microservices, etc. In order to better serve domestic users, unlike other American companies that have returned due to tax cuts, F5 will increase its investment in human and material resources in China in the three aspects of 'local production, local R&D, and local services'. This will enable F5 to work more closely with Chinese partners to provide users with application service solutions that are more in line with usage characteristics.

At the beginning of the meeting, Mr. Zhang Yiqiang emphasized: "F5 is a technology company, but it is more than a technology company. Unlike previous years, this year's media meeting was held at the Hongdandan Cultural Exchange Center, aiming to experience the dark life of the visually impaired for one hour, so that we can feel their strength and at the same time, give a little love from each of us. F5 China has been carrying out such charity activities for nearly 10 years, because we believe that charity is not a big thing done by one person, but a small thing done by many people. We hope to pass this concept to more like-minded friends, so that more people can contribute to charity to the best of their ability."