2007 will see the rapid rise of regional internet users creating, defining and shaping their own technology, a senior member of software giant Intel has revealed to Arabian Business.
The next 12 months will also see a sharp increase in connectivity and more affordable devices in the region, industry experts have predicted.
“One of the major new phenomena in this region is that consumers are increasingly defining how technology and its content looks like,” said Abdul Rahman Jarrar, Intel regional manager for government affairs for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Youtube has become the world’s most popular website in 18 months and he added that this trend would soon catch on in the Middle East, with a “severe lack of Arab content currently on the internet”.
“Many youngsters are now very technologically educated, and feel comfortable using these devices, so it’s easy for them to create such content.
“The e-Koran that has been developed last year is a good example for this trend,” he added.
The region is also witnessing massive IT infrastructure developments with Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Riyadh are in the process of installing the latest IT connectivity technology.
“The Gulf is a great playground to set up the latest technology. “Projects like Bawadi (Dubai’s latest US$27bn
mega-hotels real estate project) offer great opportunities to install latest IT infrastructure,” he said.
There are still some remote areas however that are being left behind, Jarrar underlined. He said that a large number of schools in the Gulf and the wider Middle East were not technologically updated enough.
“They still use very traditional tools for schooling, mainly in government schools,” Jarrar said. Last year saw the introduction of several portable broadband devices for the home such as WIMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access).
Jarrar said this “had become the industry standard” and would be commercialised to the end-users in 2007, and would complete existing infrastructure.
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