A Telecom Insider Report by Pyramid Research studies the growth prospects for SaaS, IaaS and PaaS in the major markets of the Middle East. This includes the countries where adoption is the highest: Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Turkey and Israel. The Insider Report first defines cloud services and provides the technological and business context for cloud computing in enterprise environments. It then analyzes each of the seven factors that are shaping the cloud services markets in the Middle East as well as the state of cloud service readiness in the region's six main markets. Three case studies examine the cloud ecosystems as well as the prospects for cloud services in Egypt, Turkey and the UAE, with particular attention paid to the role of governments. In conclusion, the Insider provides a set of key findings, a number of recommendations for operators, governments and other cloud service providers, and an overview of the major players and services in the market.
Key Findings
- Cloud adoption in the Middle East will be affected by spending in both the public and private sectors, including by e-government initiatives to improve data management and smart city initiatives in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. In many of the region's markets, government IT expenditures account for the largest share of overall IT revenue.
- Enterprises have a number of concerns about hosted and cloud solutions. Through surveys and interviews, we have found that a key concern in the Middle East relates to the perceived loss of control over the data storage location. The majority of enterprises therefore prefer to adopt private cloud set-ups as opposed to public cloud arrangements.
- Within the cloud ecosystem, telcos have an opportunity to become a platform for the provision of IaaS and SaaS offerings, while cloud service providers need to support governments with cloud computing awareness initiatives and support the marketplace of local ISVs to develop applications relevant to the local market.