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SOFTWARE GROWTH IN MIDDLE EAST BYPASSES U.S AND EUROPE

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 negativ...

Posted by: Shelia Olander

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