Cloud computing can help Jordan accelerate its economy and trigger growth in different sectors, according to a key IT expert. “Resorting to cloud computing can enable the public sector to streamline its spending on IT and thus focus on innovation and providing premium services in different sectors,” Chuck Hollis, vice president for the Global Marketing Chief Technology Office at EMC (a leading provider of storage hardware solutions that promote data recovery and improve cloud computing), said in an interview with The Jordan Times on Monday. His remarks came on the sidelines of the four-day 11th annual EMC World Conference held under the theme “Cloud Meets Big Data”, which brought about some 10,000 IT leaders and experts from 103 states from across the world. In a survey by Gartner earlier this year, cloud computing was ranked number two, as top technology priority, immediately after virtualisation. In 2009, cloud computing ranked 16th, according to Gartner (which “delivers technology research to global technology business leaders to make informed decisions on key initiatives”). “The IT sector is as vital and fundamental for economic growth as other sectors. Creating an information-based economy and a centralised data centre can help the government accelerate economic growth, as cloud computing is cost-effective, flexible and saves money spent on maintenance of equipment,” added Hollis. In Jordan, the use of cloud computing, which is Internet-based computing whereby shared resources are provided on demand, is still weak even though the potential, according to Jordanian experts, is huge. Hollis agreed. “There is an interesting and huge opportunity for growth in Jordan and the Middle East. The future is for cloud computing and Jordan and other countries in the region can benefit from the latest technologies and solutions which have been used and tested over the years,” he added. “Cloud computing is the infrastructure needed for accelerating economic growth in all sectors,” said Hollis. Highlighting the importance of cloud computing, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of EMC Corporation Joe Tucci said about 73 per cent of IT budgets of companies and entities across the world are allocated for maintenance, which he labelled as “huge”. Tucci said the volume of data is growing “rapidly” across the world, adding that cloud computing is the “most efficient” way to reduce costs and deal with this growing volume of data. In a recent interview with The Jordan Times, National Information Technology Centre (NITC) General Manager Nabeel Fayoumi said the government is focusing on the decentralisation of computing and IT-related issues. Fayoumi, who noted that many countries across the world started to create major data centres to serve their organisations, said the NITC plans to create a data centre this year to serve all public entities.