CAIRO: Business and technology experts from around the region met in Cairo Monday to discuss the challenges facing the IT industry following the global economic crisis. IDC s IT Managers Forum and Expo 2009, titled "Making IT Matter: Finding Opportunities and Defining Value, focused on ways technology can be used to enable and transform business models and processes. "The global economic crisis has pushed trillions of dollars back into various countries. The Middle East is not immune and we are waiting to see the impact of various stimulus packages on the revival of the ICT market, said Margaret Adam, research manager of IT services for IDS Middle East, Turkey and Africa. The Egyptian ICT industry underwent contractions of 5.8 percent in 2008 and is predicted to experience a further dip of 4.4 percent in 2009 as a result of the recent volatility of international markets. Overall, the Middle Eastern market suffered a contraction of 2.6 percent last year. Such a marked shrinking of the sector has been attributed to the relative immaturity of the Middle Eastern market, which is strongly hardware dependent, rendering it much more vulnerable to shifts in the global economy. However, top experts in the field are cautiously optimistic when forecasting in terms of recovery: "We are expecting the market to pick up moderately in 2010, and to a greater degree in 2011 and 2012, said Adam. The focus of the conference quickly shifted from damage-assessment to a discussion of the technological trends, obstacles and exigencies that will increasingly characterize the Middle East s ICT market as it develops over the next 10 years. Speakers at the conference outlined the emergence of certain technologies as the ICT sector develops in the Middle East. The adoption of cloud computing, virtualization, tiered storage, de-duplication, more sophisticated archiving systems, and Web 2.0 were all forecasted. The growing pressure in the ICT sector to continue to innovate and improve ICT technology in accordance with growing demands and expectations from consumers, was strongly highlighted. "ICT is at the core of so many industries now, such as oil and gas, healthcare and education, in a way it was not 30 years ago. People working in these areas increasingly demand a better performance from their technologies. A reliable service; the ability to seek instant information and an impermeable security system are all expected to be delivered, said Bruce Withington, executive director of Dubai-based FVC. Withington warned that as the stakes are increasingly high as the ICT sector becomes more fundamental to the operation of so many industries: "The cost of failure is huge. If its IT system goes down, a company simply cannot work, he said. Ahmed Mostafa, Middle East territory sales manager for EMC, also stressed the increasing weight of importance attached to ICT for the region. "There has been a huge growth in infrastructure in the area. A 60 percent annual data growth is expected. Efficient IT is crucial. he said. As business tentacles of the ICT machine expand in the Middle East, there is a strong need for companies to polish-up their methods for interacting with their customers. "People working in ICT need to learn to think like a business, learn what a balance sheet is and not just talk in terms of return on investment, said Withington. Another challenge outlined was that of the chronic shortage of adequately trained staff in the field. Greg Day, principal security analyst for Europe, Middel East and Africa at McFee, reported that this is having especially serious repercussions for the security industry in particular. "Let us take fire wall management as an example. Managing fire walls in the security sector is extremely labor-intensive. The systems of your average larger business suffer 1,000 attacks on their fire walls per day. The nature of these attacks evolve with security. Acquiring and funding the staff to counter security threats has proved hugely problematic in the past. The only solution is to innovate and invest to make the security sector more efficient. Up-to-date, impermeable security systems are in particular demand from companies operating in the Middle East, a region which, in the past, overseas businesses have been hesitant to invest in, because of political instability and continuous terrorist threats. "In the Middle East, there is a high demand for security-guaranteeing technologies now, given the region s instability. It is quickly emerging as a crucial aspect of the industry over here, Adam of IDS told Daily News Egypt in an interview. "We expect strong growth in this area. It also emerged that the Middle East s ICT industry will be held more accountable in the future for energy consumption levels. "Companies who don t know the amount of electricity they are using up will not be able to carry on like this for much longer. Executive companies want to be able to say that they are doing their bit for the environment, said Withington. The second half of the one-day forum was more technical, with discussions on virtualization and consolidation; environmentally-responsible storage, and software that minimizes integration barriers and increases visibility.
