THE estimated growth of Saudi Arabia's IT sector will be worth SR4.6 billion by 2014, said Ziad Mortaja, Managing Director HP Saudi Arabia. He was speaking at a press conference after the two-day HP Instant-On Enterprise Conference in Riyadh, Sunday. A large number of CIOs, IT analysts, newspaper editors and representatives from IT companies attended the conference. Xavier Poisson Gouyou, Sales Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa, who flew in from France to attend the HP Instant-On Enterprise Conference, was also present. Mortaja said that according to research conducted on behalf of HP Saudi Arabia, three quarters of business leaders say that their technology department is a fundamental enabler of their business' success while 84 percent of business leaders believed innovation is critical to the success with which their business meets new technological demand emerging in the world's information and communication technology (ICT) sector.He explained that Saudi Arabia, driven by increased public sector investments, a revival in consumer sentiments and dynamics within the country's enterprises, is expected to lead and accelerate the recovery of the region's ICT sector in 2011. “The HP Instant-On Enterprise Conference is the biggest HP event ever held in Saudi Arabia, which is a testament of the company's commitment to the Kingdom as an essential part of the country's growing ICT sectcor,” said Mortaja. HP has launched Application Lifecycle Management (ALM 11), the first unified system that automates critical activities and focuses on addressing the core problem of recovery of wastage in software production. The system not only accelerates but also offers reliable and secure delivery of software applications and services. Companies in Saudi Arabia are embarking on application modernization initiatives and HP is excited to bring ALM 11 to the Saudi market, as the product is also launched simultaneously elsewhere in the world, Mortaja said. Gouyou remarked that the new trend in Saudi Arabia is that of cloud computing. “Saudi business, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in 2011, have already started showing interest in cloud computing. With the start of 2012, many SMEs and entities in the public sector will start implementing it,” he said. He added that Saudi Arabia will be the first country in the region to implement cloud computing. “We have already started to work with telecommunication companies and some enterprises. Cloud computing is defined as a journey, and the businesses have to implement this technology on a systematic step-by-step basis.” He said the HP's strategy is to build 80 percent of business activity by incorporating cloud computing technology. “With the technology in place, clients can shape, design and organize the company's needs in a systematic manner,” he explained. A huge new trend for virtualization is emerging in the Saudi market with lots of investments coming to this field. Some companies have even started working on the automation of their businesses, which is the next step after virtualization, Gouyou said. The benefits of cloud computing, for enterprises such as banks and oil and gas companies for instance, are that the technology helps dramatically reduce the operation cost, time to administer servers and storage data because of full automation. The good thing about savings because of the implementation of cloud computing technology is that the companies can align with the market demand and invest their savings in new ventures, Gouyou said. Businesses can even subscribe to a cloud provider – such as telecommunication companies – for an application in cloud mode “and the client can pay the fee as it utilizes the services, which is the beauty of this new technology,” said Gouyou. He added that HP conducted a survey in 2009 of its clients in Saudi Arabia and found that 15 percent of them decided to stay with the existing technology. But about 49 percent in the following year took a decision to implement cloud computing.
