Government and telecom operators' infrastructure improvements are driving the UAE cloud market; with software-as-a-service (SaaS), and business-process-as-a-service (BPaaS) set to experience the fastest growth in the next three years, a report said.

The UAE cloud market is still in early stages of adoption with the implementation of private Infrastructure-as-a-service (laas) viewed by many as a critical first step towards broader cloud adoption, added the report titled "UAE Cloud Computing Market—Macro Outlook and Opportunity Assessment" from growth partnership company Frost & Sullivan.

The report evaluates macroeconomic and socio-political developments, and analyses existing and upcoming government policies and their impact on the sector's growth. Key end-user industry drivers, business challenges, market size, competitive scenarios, and a short-term investment outlook are also provided.

"Hybrid cloud is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 30.5 per cent, mainly due to enterprises looking to leverage blended cloud models to meet changing customer requirements," said digital transformation consultant Gowtham Bandi. "Organisations are exploring the viability of capitalising on public cloud services offered by international giants such as Google, Amazon, Rackspace and Salesforce as well."

According to the report, strategic imperatives for cloud service providers' growth in the UAE cloud sector include:

•    Expanding product portfolios;
•    Developing new business models to create revenue opportunities through the cloud;
•    Identifying partnerships and initiating dialogues;
•    Developing and implementing multi-pronged marketing campaigns; and
•    Embracing web services, customer relationship management software, and data management-based solutions.

"The biggest challenges to cloud adoption are data privacy concerns, compliance, regulatory issues and infrastructure integration problems," noted Bandi.

"Hence, standalone security services companies like Qualys are partnering with cloud service providers to boost customer value and supply innovative security packages." – TradeArabia News Service