According to a recent report by Gartner, digitalisation and cost optimisation are the key priorities for IT organisations in the GCC region.
In the research entitled Hype Cycle for IT in GCC 2015, the industry analyst provided a snapshot of the predominant technologies that will enable these key initiatives in the region. Furthermore, Gartner sees three trends that can assist IT organisations in the GCC achieve success in this space, namely:
- Smart initiatives driving innovation and new technology adoption
- Mobility as the primary mode for services and application delivery
- Data centre modernisation, with an emphasis on cloud deployments
Biswajeet Mahapatra, Research Director, Gartner, said, “GCC CIOs, IT leaders and technology professionals should consider these technologies when developing IT strategies and technology roadmaps. The Hype Cycle is intended as a starting point. Actual selection and deployment of any of these technologies should be augmented with input from other technology and industry Hype Cycles, relevant research and communication with analysts who have in-depth knowledge of the products and vendors to identify which is ideally suited for your environment.”
The report also emphasised on the focus that many governments in this are putting to smart government. For example, there are smart city initiatives in UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This focus on smart initiatives is resulting in smart city framework, and smart transportation reaching the Peak of Inflated Expectations.
“The immediate impact of smart cities is expected to be in governance, transportation, R&D, retail, security, energy and utilities,” Mahapatra said. “Smart energy initiatives include connecting distributed solar panels to the power grid, installing smart meters and implementing smart applications, which help monitor energy consumption, and promoting usage of electric vehicles by having electric recharging points at regular intervals across the cities.”
Further to the report, with mobility becoming a primary mode of services and application delivery, a number of technologies are positioned in the 2015 Hype Cycle, such as BYOD in the Slope of Enlightenment, and mobile device management and mobile device protection moving into the Plateau of Productivity.
Enterprise mobility management (EMM) suites are not yet a mature technology. The products are relatively new, yet they provide very broad functionality, and must do so across multiple, constantly changing OS platforms. Gartner has found that organisations are starting to use mobile devices for an increasing number of use cases, platforms and applications, which is leading them to use a broader set of EMM features.
In the past couple years, the GCC market has seen the construction of many new data centres. Although cloud adoption has proved to be an enigma for many in this region, it has still shown positive growth, especially private cloud and software as a service (SaaS). Cloud security assessments is in the Peak of Inflated Expectations, while private cloud computing is in the Trough of Disillusionment.
“Many organisations are hitting refresh cycles and rethinking data centre strategies to ensure they can scale up and out to support the growth and performance associated with business intelligence (BI) and the Internet of Things (IoT),” Mahapatra said.
The Hype Cycle for IT in GCC has an even mix of technologies that are at different stages. This is a healthy sign, as this means IT is not overloading itself with too many newer technologies and is not overburdened with legacy and older technologies.
“As the adoption of IT has been late in the GCC region, the tendency has been to leapfrog many technologies and to quickly adopt newer technologies,” said Mahapatra. “Only those technologies have been chosen that currently have the highest demand in the region, and that also provide the right solutions to the various business and government initiatives in the GCC.”
