Announcement comes amid strong growth period in Qatar's ICT sector, with the country expected to lead IT services spending in the GCC until 2018
Doha, Qatar -- Global research company Gartner has identified Microsoft's cloud computing platform Azure as a market leader in its Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), for the third year in a row, with the company placed favorably based on both completeness of vision and ability to execute.
IaaS allows companies to hand over complex IT infrastructures to firms that are proven specialists in technology management and security, while reducing the costs of rich-featured application software packages.
Gartner's Magic Quadrant analysis series has long been regarded as a decision-makers' touchstone for determining the quality of both strategy and delivery for market players. Microsoft's Azure cloud platform enables the creation of virtual networks, servers and machines, and supports multitenant storage, object storage and a robust content delivery network for both Microsoft`s and other vendor solutions. In addition, the Azure Marketplace offers third-party partners the ability to use the power and flexibility of the cloud to sell their own software and services. Azure also provides advanced services such as machine learning and Internet of things.
"Microsoft Azure is an open, flexible and scalable platform that serves as a strong enabler for enterprise growth and productivity," said Yazbeck. "We are very proud that Azure has been named as Gartner's IaaS Magic Quadrant leader for the third year in a row. The cloud is rapidly becoming the key tool for business and public sector innovation in Qatar, and we are delivering the very best of technologies for our customers, to allow them to innovate and achieve more."
Gartner's announcement comes at a time when the Gulf region is taking strident steps towards cloud infrastructure adoption. In a report by Research and Markets, analysts forecast that Qatar's IT market will see a compound annual growth of 12.37 percent over 2014-2019. Furthermore, according to IDC, the country is expected to lead IT Services spending in the region through 2018, fueled by large-scale, infrastructure-driven, and government-led projects in the transportation, healthcare, and education sectors.
The report singled out Microsoft's "rapid rollout" of these new features and many others, signaling that the company's brand and history, both with its customers and with its delivery of enterprise-class solutions and services, had all combined to allow the company to "rapidly attain the status of strategic cloud IaaS provider".
Gartner's analysts also cited Microsoft's "deep investments" in engineering and "innovative roadmap" as crucial factors in the company's current IaaS market standing. The report further recommends Microsoft Azure for General business applications and development environments that use Microsoft technologies; migration of virtualized workloads for Microsoft-centric organizations; cloud-native applications (including Internet of Things applications); and batch computing.
-Ends-
About Microsoft Gulf
Microsoft (Nasdaq "MSFT" @microsoft) is the leading platform and productivity company for the mobile-first, cloud-first world, and its mission is to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more. . Microsoft Gulf opened its Dubai-based headquarters in 1991. Microsoft Gulf today oversees Microsoft activities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and Yemen. Microsoft Corporation's address on the World Wide Web is: www.microsoft.com Microsoft Middle East's Web site is www.microsoft.com/middleeast
For more information (Press only):
Nour Abdelnasser
Senior Account Executive
M +974 7021 8260
O +974 4466 9437
F +974 4466 9438
© Press Release 2016
