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More and more international software firms are targeting the Middle East, as corporate and government investments in Information Technology (IT) expand throughout the region. Experts in both international and local markets say that both networking and Internet software solutions are currently growing at twice the speed of those in North America and Europe. It is projected that IT spending in the Gulf region, which includes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and Bahrain, will reach US$3.8 billion this year, in comparison to last year’s $3.2 billion. The majority will be spent on hardware and networking products. About 3 percent will be used to purchase e-business software. The International Data Corporation (IDC) anticipates this figure to climb a further 21 percent by the end of 2002, bringing IT expenditures in the Middle East to $4.6 billion. These figures contradict previous estimations from abroad, which expected the U.S. market’s recent slowdown to have a negative impact on the Middle East. But several Middle East governments have responded to the foreign market decrease by consciously making efforts to assist local IT industries with reduced import taxes and customs duties on IT-related products. This has allowed the companies to stay in business and lower the local costs of IT products. There are excellent opportunities for the software industry in the Middle East at the moment, according to Jean-Christophe Knoertzer, Regional Manager, IBM Software, Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan. IBM has increased the number of staff working with IBM software in the Middle East from a team of 2 to 28 specialists in the past 18 months and expects this number will exceed 100 by the end of next year. “We have brought in people covering all areas of our business, including specialists in web infrastructure development, data, systems management and security and e-learning,” says Knoertzer. “We have seen substantial growth across all of these areas in the last year with major project wins such as Juffali.com, Petrocommerce.com, Bazaar1.com and Standard Chartered Bank. We expect to see increased opportunities across all areas in the months ahead.” IBM is currently the largest IT company in the Middle Eastern region, employing more than 1,500 people, together with its business partners. The company has been in the Middle East since 1947, installing the first computer in the region in Saudi Arabia that year. IBM works directly through its exclusive business partners in the region, Gulf Business Machines and Saudi Business Machines, as well as United Business Machines, Quantech and Attar Brothers in the Levant region. IBM offers complete range of IT solutions from hardware and software to services, providing a full range of solutions in the Middle East. According to Khaled Hassan, Marketing Communications Manager, IBM Middle East, the company’s clients range from small businesses to large corporations and government entities, enjoying great success in this region with clients such as Petrocommerce, Bazaar1.com, the Ministry of Information of Kuwait and the government of Bahrain, as well as a variety of banks, IT and telecommunications companies in the area.
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