Kuwait: Zain Kuwait, the leading digital service provider in the country, and ZainTech, the one-stop digital and ICT solutions powerhouse of Zain Group, announce a joint collaboration initiative with Microsoft to introduce a national cloud offering for public and private sectors in the country.
All three entities have impressive cloud offerings regionally, and this latest alliance will see the development of a cloud environment combining Microsoft's extensive portfolio, Zain's private cloud infrastructure, and ZainTech’s expertise, enabling data and applications to be shared between them. The solution will give businesses in Kuwait greater deployment options and the ability to easily scale computing resources while still maintaining interoperability with their on-premises systems. The cloud offering is being introduced as a solution for Kuwaiti clients, as full adoption of the hyperscale cloud is not currently possible due to data residency and sovereignty regulations.
With a clear data classification strategy in place, the national cloud offering in Kuwait can help organizations modernize their data centers by bringing cloud techniques, such as software-defined data centers, self-service, and elasticity based on virtualization, into their data centers. Using a single centralized perspective, the national cloud offering can enable organizations to efficiently manage compliance with proliferating standards and infrastructure that is expanding across on-premises, public cloud, and multi-cloud implementations.
The collaboration is also set to encourage entities in Kuwait to integrate innovative techniques and technology into their applications, including Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, and security at speed without complex hardware procurement and configuration hassles. The national cloud offering is capable of supporting companies across industries in handling emergency needs or cyclical demands without overprovisioning large amounts of hardware, allowing for a flexible utilization of resources.
Commenting on this collaboration, Hamad Al Marzouq, Zain Kuwait Chief Enterprise Business Officer said, "Cloud offerings are driving efficiencies that have never been experienced before, and the Kuwait government has been quick to realize its benefits and has been investing in cloud infrastructure accordingly. Our alliance with Microsoft and ZainTech is geared towards supporting and accelerating these developments further and comes from a shared vision of the benefits the flexibility of cloud offerings has on driving digitization in our country.”
Dr. Ammar Alhusaini, Deputy Director General at the Central Agency for Information Technology highlighted the importance of this launch in accelerating the country’s cloud adoption and digital transformation journey, a main pillar of the new Kuwait vision (Kuwait 2035). He said, "Such investments and initiatives are key to enabling organizations across sectors in Kuwait to drive efficiencies, optimize operations, deliver better services, and accelerate the pace of innovation.”
"Kuwait’s forward-looking leadership has laid the foundation of the country to become a digitally advanced society through the early adoption of technology, and through our partnership with Zain and ZainTech we will deliver on our commitment to enabling businesses across Kuwait to leverage the power of the cloud to accelerate their digital transformation in line with Kuwait Vision 2035,” said Alaeddine Karim, Country Manager of Microsoft Kuwait. "Microsoft trusted cloud services will deliver unprecedented opportunities for organizations of all sizes and across all industries to innovate, better serve their customers and achieve their business goals – ultimately supporting continued economic growth in Kuwait.”
Andrew Hanna, CEO of ZainTech, commented, "Kuwait has been an early adopter of enterprise cloud solutions, which has helped successfully drive the economy forward for many years. The cloud market remains nascent and rapidly developing, with strong competition from both local and international cloud providers. Our collaboration with Zain and Microsoft offers a combination of the best technical products and solutions, client relationships, subject matter experts, and experience that has never before been available in Kuwait, and we believe it is the right collaboration necessary to supercharge the cloud ambitions of organizations in Kuwait.”
ZainTech supports private and public organizations in regulated and non-regulated industries in leveraging the power of the cloud to deliver transformational IT outcomes. It provides high-quality capabilities to customers, as well as outcome-driven engagements with flexible pricing that helps optimize and reduce businesses’ total cost of ownership.