First of its breakthrough tech partnership, IBM set up its wholly
foreign owned operations in Kuwait. IBM is the US IT tech giant in the field of
multinational technology and consulting firm. It is said that the changes made to Kuwait’s foreign investment
policies are blooming significant and positive results.
IBM has also announced to make further ado into the
technology services by tying up with local Kuwaiti IT industry and introduce
the Cloud Computing services in the country. IBM has set up its office in
Kuwait City. It focuses on providing the customers with a sales and customer
service hub, research analysis, professional services and other managed
services. Apart from boosting the country’s ICT industry, IBM has planned its
strategy solely on IT technology, rather than just depending upon country’s oil
growth. Kuwait is focussing on other sectors instead of solely depending upon
its oil revenue. A non-oil growth of 5.5% is predicted by the National Bank of
Kuwait (NBK) for the year 2015-16 from 3.5% in 2014.
With the welcoming response of IBM in the Kuwaiti
tech market, IBM sees its future in making their presence and services across
the Middle Eastern market in the coming years. IBM also has in its line of
operation to develop its services in cloud computing, social media, mobile
services and security enhancing services.
Furthermore, United Business Group (UBG), leading
IT infrastructure and management company had partnered with IBM Cloud to introduce
a managed business service provider. The agreement between the two states that
UBG and IBM will be offering its Kuwaiti clients with flexible hybrid cloud
platform which will be using a system modelled after the OpenStack programme.
In addition to this, subscription based cloud services will be given to clients
by IBM cloud.
At present, many of the countries have adopted the
cloud technology and have benefitted from its uses. In Kuwait, as stated by the
Kuwait Financial Centre, 80% (approximately) of the Kuwait’s ICT expenditure is
in telecommunications and setting up of computer hardware and software, which
stores millions of data. So, by migrating towards the cloud services will
reduce the dependency on hardware, thereby reducing the cost to the maximum
extent.
It is to be noted that Kuwait ICT’s revenues are
estimated to reach $28bn between the years 2012 and 2015, which is the third
largest earnings by a GCC country. There has been seen an impacting growth
margin and opportunities knocking Kuwait ICT firms by delving into a cloud
based business.