Information technology spending in the UAE is expected to grow to $7.3 billion (AED 26.81 billion) this year compared to $7.2 billion, according to a report by research firm IDC.
The report noted that with telecoms services, the total spend is going to be $15.7 billion this year compared to $15.5 billion last year.
“The emergence and increasing traction of so-called ‘innovation accelerators’ such as the Internet of Things (IoT), robotics, cognitive systems, virtual reality, next-gen security, and 3D printing will both disrupt and boost this spending on the third platform [mobility, cloud, big data analytics and social business],” said Jyoti Lalchandani, group vice-president and managing director responsible for the for the Middle East, Turkey and Afric, IDC.
Lalchandani said that digital transformation initiatives will top the chief information officer’s agenda as emerging technologies are increasingly leveraged in an effort to drive desired business outcomes. He said that what’s really driving the spending is in the cloud (software as well as infrastructure side), security and Big Data analytics.
“Companies, in a bid to improve operational efficiencies and reduce costs, are moving to cloud while security is getting lot of traction but they still have a lot to do. We are seeing a lot of pressure from business users to use analytics to compete more effectively and launch new products,” he said.
The spending for public cloud in the UAE is expected to reach $114 million compared to $89 million last year.
“Spending is expected to be even more as public cloud providers set up data centres in the region. The public cloud spending is going to increase in double digits in the next few years. It is not only seen by big companies but also small- and medium-sized businesses.
Overall spending growth in IT this year is coming from software (5 per cent) and IT services (7 per cent) while infrastructure spending is expected to decline by 4 per cent year-on-year.
Moreover, he said that organisations have put off infrastructure spending as they are leveraging cloud. By 2018, at least half of global IT spending will be cloud based, reaching 60 per cent of all IT infrastructure and 60-70 per cent of all software services, and technology spending by 2020.
Lalchandani highlighted five trends — cloud, Big Data analytics, innovation accelerators, security and Smart City initiatives — that are expected to shape the region’s investment landscape.
