Dark clouds? UAE tackles issues hindering adoption.

The UAE's cloud market industry is taking bold steps in addressing the issues that hinder cloud adoption among businesses, despite being host to the most competitive cloud market in the Mena region. The UAE is making a conscious effort towards positioning itself as the 'regional data and cloud hub' with the public cloud and cloud services markets projected to reach $410 million and $290 million, respectively, by 2020.

Tge UAE's massive bet on disruptive technologies - smart cities, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things and blockchain, most of which should be preceded by the provisioning of reliable cloud platforms - promises a hockey-stick increase in the size of the cloud market in the country. The UAE can maintain and even enhance its standing by introducing a world-class data protection law that would inject more transparency into what can and cannot be done when it comes to the cloud.

Recently, the Middle East and North Africa Cloud Alliance (MENACA) - a home-grown, vendor-agnostic industry association focused on monitoring, identifying and resolving issues around cloud adoption in the Mena region - strived to give the industry a unique voice and to provide a wide range of stakeholders with unbiased...