The Middle East, Africa, and Turkey IT markets in 2012 will show signs of growth on back of operating models including cloud, virtualisation, mobility and analytics, according to International Data Corporation.
The research firm says the focus of the region’s organisations will be on optimising their IT investments and augmenting growth of business in the backdrop of a slightly unstable political and economic environment.
IDC sees the post-Arab Spring period and the global economic uncertainty stemming from the eurozone crisis to shape IT spending in 2012.
It forecasts IT spending in the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey to surpass $65bn in 2012, an increase of almost 12% compared to the same period last year if the situation remains stable, failing which it could fall below 10%.
The largest markets in this area of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and South Africa will all see a year-on-year growth of IT spend between 7% and 12% in 2012. Qatar’s forecast for the same period is around 14%.
IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey vice president and managing director Jyoti Lalchandani said adoption is still slow in the Gulf countries, where system and application availability is a big concern and often overrides the cost benefits offered by virtualisation.
"Having said that, greenfield IT projects now invariably have virtualization as a cornerstone and foundation for future expansion and possible cloud deployment; we expect Saudi Arabia and the UAE to continue to be at the forefront of adoption," Lalchandani added.
