Clouds engulf Middle East hardware market

ALKESH SHARMA / Emirates Business

Increasing attention on converged systems and cloud solutions has started taking a toll on the Middle East’s hardware market. As more enterprises and businesses in the region move towards cloud computing, hardware market registered a flat growth in 2015, according to a recently released data.
In a new research report released by International Data Corporation (IDC), it is revealed that the Middle East and Africa (MEA) enterprise hardware market, which comprised of servers and external storage,
remained flat in 2015 when compared to the annual revenues generated in 2014.
“This phenomenon was well-anticipated by us since a very long time. As more number of companies are moving towards innovative concepts like cloud computing and smart storage applications, dependence on system hardware will certainly undergo a sharp slump. The same market cycle is expected to prevail, unless we get some astonishing demand
of hardware, in the subsequent months,” Farwaz Khan, senior analyst at Market Watch, Dubai, told Emirates Business.
Referencing its latest Quarterly Server and Disk Storage Systems Tracker, IDC said that enterprise hardware revenue in MEA totalled $2.31 billion in 2015 and it described that the year was transitionary in nature with organisations gradually moving towards convergence and datacenter optimisation.
SwapnaSubramani, research manager for enterprise infrastructure at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, said, “The region’s enterprise hardware landscape has transformed significantly in recent times, with organisation’s across MEA now increasingly focussing on converged systems and cloud solutions. Given the challenging economic and political conditions now characterising much of the region, convergence and optimisation are becoming the key.”
According to the estimates, the MEA external storage market declined 3 percent year on year in 2015, whereas converged systems market, including hyper-converged appliances, escalated by nearly 6 percent year on year during the same year. Research analysts are
expecting converged systems
market to grow further by 12 percent in 2016.
However, this region is all set to witness an unprecedented growth in the new technologies market. Given the high penetration of internet in countries like UAE and Saudi Arabia, enterprises are adopting latest offerings of converged systems, while enhancing the infrastructure of cloud computing.
Subramani added, ”Region’s storage dynamics are swiftly moving in two different directions. First is the movement into low-cost, scalable storage, while second is the growth of internal storage, which includes the value of storage enclosed within application servers containing three or more mass storage devices. The availability of alternative modes of storage such as flash, internal storage, converged systems, and cloud storage are the key driving factors for the ongoing shift we are seeing within the MEA storage market.”
IDC is expecting the high-end storage market to witness considerable uptake in the region during 2016, primarily bolstered by projects within the government, telecommunications, and oil and gas sectors.