HispanicBusiness

Adopting cloud computing technology can help increase IT exports and enable startups to grow at a rapid pace and penetrate regional and international markets, according to a Microsoft developer evangelist.

"New emerging companies and entrepreneurs can benefit tremendously from cloud computing. They can reach out to a wide audience, not only in Jordan but across the world," Muhammad Arrabi, developer platform evangelist at Microsoft Jordan PSC, said on Monday.

"Marketing IT products through the cloud is efficient and cost-effective and that is what start-ups need to grow and gain clients," he told The Jordan Times during a conference on cloud computing held by the ICT Association of Jordan -- int@j.

Experts at the conference said cloud computing usage is still below the desired level in Jordan.

"Adoption of cloud computing is still very low. This is not only the case in Jordan, but in the entire region," Cisco Jordan General Manager Ashraf Arafeh told The Jordan Times during the conference.

Abed Shamlawi, CEO of int@j, agreed.

"The level of awareness on the advantages of this technology is still limited. Everyone in the IT sector is talking about cloud computing but not many are aware of its practical applications and how good it is for all businesses," he said in an interview on the sidelines of the conference.

"Many companies do not understand the benefits of cloud computing and how it can help reduce costs, and make work more efficient and concentrated on innovation. Today's conference seeks to raise awareness on this technology and we will continue our efforts to raise awareness on this issue," he said.

"We want to see more companies using this technology, which is considered a main factor in growth for IT companies in today's world," Shamlawi said at the conference.

Attended by over 150 technical managers, CEOs and experts from various IT and telecom companies, as well as representative of international companies such as EMC, Oracle and Cisco, the conference featured several presentations on the benefits of cloud computing, which is the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage and process data, rather than a local server or personal computer.