Jordan Times
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Jordan’s IT growth
surpasses global average
By Grace Peacock
AMMAN — Jordan’s information technology (IT)
growth has surpassed the global average, but business management and adaptation
to new trends needs to move faster to keep up with the rapid IT development.
This was the message delivered yesterday by Minister of Information and
Communications Technology Omar Kurdi at the IDC Middle East and Africa IT
Infrastructure Roadshow.
Over 100 IT professionals from a variety of local industries attended the
conference to discuss the latest trends and deployment of infrastructure
technologies.
In his opening address, Kurdi highlighted Jordan’s recent advances in IT but
said, “as proud as we are, much more should be done. We need to bridge the IT
divide... work is progressing, albeit not as fast as we’d like it to.”
Internet penetration in the country currently stands at 7.5 per cent, out of
which 3 per cent are paying subscribers.
Themed ‘Keep it Simple, Make it Smart,’ the roadshow featured keynote addresses
from IDC analysts and presentations from partner companies 3COM, AMD, eHosting
Datafort and WAMAD International on what IT solutions they can offer businesses
in Jordan.
“No one wants to invest in technology that will become a cost burden in the
future and no one wants a technology or cost advantage to pass to their
competitors,” said Jyoti Lalchandani, VP and regional managing director, IDC
MEA.
“IT professionals know they need to make the best possible decisions today to
ensure that their organisation effectively leverages IT at the lowest possible
cost well into the future,” he said.
Philip van Heerden, research manager with IDC, told participants that the world
of IT is “flattening out.” He explained that CEOs and CIOs are becoming more
aligned in their roles and IT agendas, IT businesses are converging and business
services are starting to provide IT services.
Van Heerden also encouraged businesses to explore virtualisation — the concept
of presenting IT resources in ways that users and applications can easily get
value out of them, rather than presenting them in a way dictated by their
implementation, geographic location, or physical packaging.
“With regards to IT infrastructure — in the past more was considered better. But
now, using existing resources in a more concrete and efficient way is far
smarter,” he said.
The benefits of virtualisation, according to Van Heerden, are increased data
centre support, cost reductions and flexibility in the IT environment. On the
other hand, the barriers to virtualisation include institutional resistance,
lack of in-house expertise, vendor support and availability of necessary tools.
This was the first of six stops for the IDC conference in the region. The
roadshow will go to Cairo, Kuwait City, Riyadh, Muscat and Dubai.
IDC is a global provider of market intelligence, advisory services and events
for the information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology
markets.