AMMAN - Hewlett-Packard (HP) will soon announce Jordan as its regional office to serve the Levant area, according to Eyad Shihabi, managing director, HP Middle East.
The company will name a director general for the new office in a month, he told reporters earlier this week during a regional conference on cyber security.
"Jordan is a country full of talented human resources and we want to utilise that and implement our projects in the region," Shihabi said.
He added that HP is working with the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology on plans for training and job creation for IT graduates.
"Currently, we cooperate with the Jordan University of Science and Technology and have plans to expand our cooperation with more universities to benefit a larger number of students, equip them with skills needed in the market and help them find jobs," Shihabi told The Jordan Times.
In 2010, HP initiated a programme under which Jordanian university graduates of different specialties can apply to receive IT training.
Under the programme, recent graduates receive specialised training at HP headquarters in Amman for a two-year period during which they are given "competitive" salaries.
In January 2010, HP announced the launch of a regional competency centre in Jordan to service the wider Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa region. The centre is located in King Hussein Park in Amman.
During the interview, Shihabi said public and private sector entities should place heavy emphasis on cloud computing as it provides better security in light of growing cyber attacks and threats.
"Cloud technology is the one everyone is following. With the rise in the use of social networking and since more devices are connected to the Internet, cloud computing is the solution," he said.
New research conducted on behalf of HP indicates that the volume and complexity of security threats continues to escalate, Shihabi added.
More than 50 per cent of senior business and technology executives surveyed around the world believe that security breaches within their organisations have increased during the last year, he noted.
Nearly 30 per cent of respondents said they experienced a security breach by unauthorised internal access, while 20 per cent said they had experienced an external breach, according to Shihabi.
© Jordan Times 2011
