For what it’s worth, the U.S. came out on top in a recent ranking of the 64 “most positive environments for IT firms in the world” by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), scoring a 77.4 on a 100-point scale.  

Asia was well-represented by Japan and South Korea, which finished second with 72.7 points and third with 67.2 points, respectively. Iran brought up the rear with just 15.7 points. 

The EIU based its findings on six key indexes:  

1. A stable, competitive business environment.

2. An advanced IT and communications infrastructure.

3. A forward-thinking IT training and education environment.

4. Protection of intellectual property rights.

5. Strong support for innovation and R&D.

6. A supportive government.

The U.S. placed in the top five in all six of the categories. “Uniquely among countries, [the U.S .] IT environment combines scale and quality in the key areas that promote competitiveness, including education, infrastructure and encouragement of innovation, as well as solid legal protection,” the EIU concluded.   

The news wasn’t all bad for the countries that finished in the lower half of the rankings. The report predicted that:

“ … a number of emerging economies will compete more effectively with China [ranked 49] and India [ranked 46] on the availability of relatively low-cost IT skills. These will probably include Malaysia, Brazil and Vietnam, as well as east European countries such as Russia, Hungary and Poland.” 

Who knows, maybe your next major IT purchase or offshore agreement will be with a vendor from the former Eastern Block. How do you say “advanced routing protocol” in Hungarian, anyway?