Report: 40 percent of Middle East organizations adopting the cloud

A recent survey revealed organizations in the Middle East are planning to adopt cloud computing to manage their IT services in a more cost-effective way. 

The survey polled nearly 370 regional CIOs, IT managers and IT executives across the region's 11 countries. Of those responding, 40 percent planned to adopt a managed IT service. The highest percentage of positive responses came from the IT sector, with 35 percent, while the government and public sector had 10 percent, construction 7 percent, oil and gas 8 percent, trading and distribution 6 percent and the banking and financial services sector had 4 percent.

Many respondents pointed to 2010's increase in IT budget as a reason for the greater drive toward cloud computing.

"The survey clearly outlines the emerging trends prevalent in the industry," said Yasser Zeineldin, CEO of the company conducting the survey. "Today's CIOs face various challenges in managing their IT environments due to the need to improve business efficiencies despite the lack of skilled manpower and tight IT budgets. In order to overcome some of these challenges, they are increasingly looking at partnering with service providers in order to capitalize on the skilled resources and standardized processes for the efficient delivery of IT operations."

In the U.S., cloud adoption is also seeing increases. In fact, Osterman Research recently reported that the average investment in cloud computing will grow by 10 percent in 2011.