The IT services market plays a vital role in supporting the UAE’s fast-growing economy, according to Ibrahim Mohamed Lari, chief executive officer, Injazat Data Systems.

However, he said, the objectives of IT services and businesses need to be synchronised as outsourcing has turned information technology into a business enabler rather than a management overhead.
He was speaking at Abu Dhabi IT Services Forum, organised recently by Injazat Data Systems, one of the Middle East’s leading Information Techno-logy Outsourcing and Business Process Outsour-cing (ITO and BPO) companies.
Abu Dhabi-based Injazat is a joint venture between Mubadala Deve-lopment Company and Electronic Data Systems (EDS).
The forum was organised to highlight the growing importance of the UAE IT services market and to overview the latest IT managed services trends and was attended by leaders of the IT services market, CIOs, IT managers, key decision-makers from public and private organisations and executives of major IT services companies to discuss a broad spectrum of topics ranging from IT outsourcing and data centres to storage management, connected networks, applications centralisation and latest technology innovations.
The IT services market in the UAE expanded 34.1 per cent year-on-year to reach a value of $413.73 million in 2005, according to a recent report on IT services released by International Data Corporation (IDC).
The report also points that the IT outsourcing category stands out, having achieved year-on year growth of 519.5 per cent largely as a result of one large deal – the IT services outsourcing contract between Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority and Injazat Data Systems.
In a presentation on ‘Data Centre Trends and Future’, Mateen Greenway, Fellow at Electronic Data Systems (EDS) observed, “The data centre of the future will have to support the growing needs of agile enterprises, which is rarely the case today. Agility improvements too will have to be made a measurable part of data centre strategies to ensure that they meet business requirements.”
Dr Philip van Heerden, senior analyst, IDC said, “The IT services market in the UAE grew strongly in 2005 driven by the increased adoption of IT outsourcing services. Competition, coupled with a shortage of skilled staff will eventually result in the inevitable consolidation of the region’s IT service providers in the coming years.”
Lorcan Malone, COO of Injazat Data Systems spoke about how IT outsourcing best practices supported public and private organisations reduce overall costs, increase flexibility and scalability and focus on their core competencies.
Speakers from Cisco Systems, EMC Computer Systems, Citrix and Sun Microsystems presented technology-related IT services topics such as Connected Communities, Applications and Resource Centralisation, Next Generation Informa-tion Infrastructure and IT standards, and the Open Source Community.
In its first year of operation, Injazat Data Systems has signed contracts worth more than Dh700 million ($190.6 million) and has grown into a 300-strong team of professionals – of whom more than 40 per cent are UAE Nationals – providing high quality IT-managed services to a growing number of organisations in the private and public sectors.
Established early last year Injazat Data Systems offers a wide range of outsourcing services with the focus on providing IT outsourcing services to the oil and gas, utilities, financial services, government, transportation, telecom and healthcare sectors.
It aims to become the premier information technology and business process outsourcing services provider in the region. Growth is driven through Mubadala’s knowledge of the Middle East business environment plus the delivery capabilities of EDS – creating a local company with the experience of a global player.
EDS provides a broad portfolio of business and technology solutions to help its clients worldwide improve their business performance.
EDS’ core portfolio comprises Information Tech-nology, applications and business process services, as well as Information Technology transformation services. EDS supports the world’s leading companies and governments in 60 countries.
In the UAE and the Gulf region, Mubadala has invested in and developed a number of leading projects including the first GCC cross-border natural gas project, Dolphin Energy (51 per cent majority stake), Aldar Properties, National Central Cooling Company, Abu Dhabi Ship Building, Imperial College London Diabetes Center in Abu Dhabi, Injazat Data Systems, and the Mukhaizna Oilfield developments in Oman.
Mubadala Develop-ment signed a joint development agreement with Dubai Aluminum Company (Dubal) to develop, construct, own and operate a US$ 6-billion world-class green-field aluminium smelter complex with 1.2-million tonne capacity a year at, the Khalifa Port and Industrial Zone in Abu Dhabi.
The company also prides itself on the creation of numerous strategic alliances and associated projects.
Current alliance partners include Dubai Aluminium Company (DUBAL), Rolls-Royce, and Shell.