The Kingdom has recently been ranked as one of the top four most networked economies in the MENA region, the recently held Gitex KSA 2009 revealed. Saudi Arabia improved by eight notches to 40th place in the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) this year, joining the UAE (27th), Qatar (29th) and Bahrain (37th) as the ICT leaders in the MENA region, while moving well ahead of its highly touted Asian neighbors China (46th) and India (54th). Of the nine pillars of the NRI, Saudi ranked highest in “Business Readiness” wherein the country placed 28th from a list of 134 countries covered by the Global Information Technology Report. “Business Usage” was another pillar of strength with Saudi at 39th place on the NRI. The government has likewise been actively involved in the ICT transformation as Saudi took the 36th spot in “Government Readiness,” which covered areas such as government prioritization of ICT, government procurement of advanced technology products and importance of ICT to government vision. eHosting DataFort, a leading provider of IT outsourcing and advisory services, and a member of TECOM Investments and Dubai Holding, said that the Kingdom's aggressive efforts to accelerate its ICT development has subsequently increased demand for IT outsourcing services, including managed hosting services, designing and building data centers, IT security consultancy, disaster recovery services and media services such as Content Distribution via streamline - which are some of the primary domains of eHosting DataFort. Against this backdrop, eHosting DataFort announced plans to launch a massive expansion drive in Saudi Arabia, taking advantage of exciting new business and IT market opportunities. eHosting DataFort explored strategic partnership opportunities with large Saudi and Gulf-based companies, with plans to expand its operations in the telecom, government, semi government, IT services and manufacturing sectors. eHosting DataFort pointed out that the Kingdom has achieved impressive results in the NRI of the recently released Global Information Technology Report 2008-2009, which highlighted the country's “progress made across the board” in consolidating its national competitiveness through widespread adoption of information and communications technology (ICT). Mazen Abdelghany, director of Commercial Operations, eHosting DataFort, said: “We intend to build on the Saudi Government's great enthusiasm to promote the ICT development of the country. Government readiness and usage of ICT tools are among the key strengths of the Kingdom. Moreover, we are particularly thrilled to see exciting developments in the business sector as the National Readiness Index has also highly ranked Saudi in terms of business readiness and usage of ICT. These significant developments will surely amount to excellent business opportunities for eHosting DataFort's comprehensive IT solutions.” As part of increased marketing initiatives in the Saudi market, eHosting had a successful participation at the Gitex Saudi Arabia 2009. Giex Saudi Arabia opened new avenues for growth after eHosting DataFort received a highly encouraging response from potential clients and business partners in the Kingdom. The country is considered as a high growth market, as many of eHDF services are locally unavailable, such as managed hosting services, security consulting, data centre design and building, disaster recovery services, and media services such as content distribution via streaming. The Global Information Technology Report and the NRI, initiated by the World Economic Forum and INSEAD, highlight the strong correlation between ICT readiness and economic growth. The report also showcases success stories of countries in using ICT to enhance competitiveness and boost their development initiatives. In addition, Saudi's steady ICT advancement has likewise been independently confirmed by Madar Research's 2007 Arab ICT Use Index, which gauged the vigour of ICT adoption in 18 Arab countries. Madar Research ranked Saudi fourth on its ICT Use Index, up from fifth place in the previous year. eHosting DataFort is the regional leader in providing a comprehensive range of IT outsourcing and advisory services with a portfolio of more than 575 global clients in various industry segments. The company has established a wide network of technology and channel partners based in the GCC, MENA, Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. eHosting DataFort operates through highly reliable and scalable infrastructures based on international standards and best practices including ITIL, ISO 27001, ISO 20000 and ISO 9001.
