Governments in the Middle East and North Africa will spend US $12.2 billion on IT products and services in 2014, an increase of 1.3 percent over 2013 revenue of US $12 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. This forecast includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data center, devices and telecom services. Government comprises local and regional government and national and international government.
Telecom services, which include fixed and mobile telecom services, will be the largest overall spending category throughout the forecast period within the government sector. It is expected to be US $5.4 billion in 2014 – led by growth in mobile network services. The software segment includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), supply chain management (SCM), customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise application software, infrastructure software and vertical specific software. Software spending will grow 9 percent in 2014 to reach US $1.2 billion. In 2014, software spending will be led by growth in the ERP, SCM, CRM and enterprise application software which includes office suites and content, communications and collaboration amongst others.
“Saudi Arabia, the largest Gulf Cooperation Council’s (GCC) member, is investing on various digital government initiatives. UAE has ambitious plans to build multiple smart cities and provide several government services ‘online’ to its citizens,” said Anurag Gupta, research director at Gartner. “We expect further investments in building connected communities, putting citizens on a self-service channel, and providing various data analytics initiatives.”
Source : WAM News Agency for United Arab Emirates
