Huawei Enterprise, a global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider, sees a vast opportunity for technology growth in the Middle East region, says one of the company’s senior executive. Speaking to The Gulf Today on Monday, vice president, Huawei Enterprise-Middle East, Dong Wu disclosed that the company is witnessing rapid regional growth in demand for ICT solutions that have the potential to transform businesses from top to bottom, such as cloud computing, and aims to grow its channel partner ecosystem to meet this regional demand. “While consolidating its leading position within the telecom market, Huawei is growing rapidly in the enterprise market; specifically in the government, oil and gas, banking and finance, transportation, power and utilities sectors,” said Wu, while speaking at the sideline of its first regional Partner Summit held in Dubai for its channel partners. He went on to explain that Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. Wu is optimistic that in the next decade and beyond, there will can explosive growth in mobile broadband. By 2020, he says there will be almost 50 billion connected devices across the earth. Huawei operates in 12 markets stretching from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Jordan and Lebanon, with its largest market in the region being Saudi Arabia. Across the Middle East the company has a workforce of around 3500 people with 65 per cent of them recruited locally. Wu explains how IT can leverage cloud computing and advances in mobile communications to become leaner, faster and more agile, improving not only employee productivity but also the operation of the entire organisation. He said that Cloud computing gives enterprises the freedom and flexibility to harness IT for growth. Huawei, he adds demonstrates on how cloud computing and unified communication, along with collaboration solutions can be better integrated into businesses throughout the region and demonstrate their true ROI potential. “The cloud model means business users can access systems anytime and anywhere, with greater security and improved reliability. This also includes voice, video and multimedia.Cloud computing architectures might not be simple, but it sets businesses up for the challenges of the next decade,” says Wu. Cloud computing and collaboration solutions should no longer be viewed as the sole domain of IT professionals as they have a direct impact on business processes and the interaction between staff and customers, he said.