Funded by the Ministry of Transport, Communication and Information Technology, DataMount Company, and International Emerging Technology Company (ETCO) have signed a cooperation agreement with the Chinese Alibaba Group on cloud computing services.
The signing of the agreement, which was held at COMEX 2021, stipulates that the Data Mount and ETCO will manage, operate and market Alibaba center and services for cloud computing in the region, which will enhance the Sultanate’s position as a regional gateway for cloud computing services and technologies.

The agreement will also stipulate that the three parties provide data processing and cloud hosting services and train national cadres to use Alibaba’s cloud programs.

The aim is to enhance the cloud computing market in the Sultanate and in the region in general.

Under the agreement; Alibaba will invest about $10 million during the first stages of providing central devices and modern technologies, while DataMount will invest nearly $4 million in preparing the infrastructure for the information center; The project is expected to provide the technology sector in the Sultanate with a number of job opportunities (direct and indirect);

Datamount has started training and employing a number of graduates, and it is expected that the number of employees during the first phase will reach 12 employees to work on managing and marketing the project.

Alibaba’s cloud is the leading international provider and the third-largest infrastructure provider in the Asia Pacific region, according to Gartner; Through this partnership, the company aims to provide secure and reliable cloud services and technologies to enterprises in the Sultanate of Oman as a whole and the region in general.

Google’s Monday outage lasted just 45 minutes, barely enough time for online chitchat about a Chinese cyberattack to circulate. But for some people the planet might as well have been hit by a solar flare

Email systems used by millions were inaccessible, Google Docs was sealed off and even YouTube’s exabytes of video narcissism simply disappeared. Housebound workers brewed coffee as they pondered life after the public cloud – a return to ox-driven plows and slate-based records, perhaps.

The economic cost of this 45-minute outage is likely to matter. A temporary Internet shutdown reportedly costs the British economy about $141 million a day. This was not so bad, and yet an Internet without Google is a shuttered office block for those reliant on its suite of digital services. Extrapolate this globally – millions temporarily barred from entering the workplace – and the damage becomes clear.

Thankfully, Google’s engineers had the systems back up while the coffee was still warm. But imagine if the outage had lasted several hours, or a day? That alone should make companies stop and think before they park their IT systems in the public cloud. And yet there is little sign of caution. Wary executives are pilloried as dim-witted Luddites. Organizations laud tie-ups with public cloud providers as if they are no-risk deals.

Telecom firms are buying in. Giffgaff, a UK mobile virtual network operator owned by Spain’s Telefónica, yesterday became an AWS tenant in worrisome news for the IT employees who currently manage Giffgaff’s systems. Germany’s Deutsche Telekom announced a similar relationship with Microsoft Azure last week. Both those deals came after Nokia, a Finnish maker of telecom equipment, picked Google as its public cloud partner in November.

Evangelists preach about efficiency. Running IT systems from the public cloud is much cheaper than maintaining on-premises or private cloud equipment and staff. Three, the smallest of the UK’s four mobile network operators, last year said it would cut IT expenses by a third, and jobs by 15%, thanks to its own arrangements with Microsoft Azure. Squeezed service providers see a way to juice profits.

Hyperscale oligopoly

In principle, there is nothing wrong with the public cloud. Complaining about any use of it would be ludicrous when the Internet underpins so much economic activity. The problem is that so few companies qualify as public cloud providers. Ignore the Chinese, and the only genuine “hyperscale” firms are AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure. Their collective muscle makes it virtually impossible for anyone else to compete. And that means companies are dependent on just three US giants for some of their most critical systems.

After the cloud’s big three – AWS, Azure and Google Cloud – all of the attention usually shifts to Chinese vendors. Canalys’ fresh reports are stating that cloud providers from the far East grew by 65 percent in the third quarter of the year, raking in approximately $5 billion in revenue for the period.

The market analysts are saying the companies spent $750 million more, compared to the second quarter of the year, bringing the total increase in spending, year-on-year, up to $2 billion.

Canalys describes the results as a “surge”, attributing it to the return of various projects that were postponed during the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown. Most of the growth apparently came from the hospitality and transportation sectors that were hit particularly bad by the lockdown.

The company concluded that China now has a “renewed focus on digital transformation” as it looks to rapidly recover from the effects of the coronavirus. As a result, there is rising demand for cloud infrastructure.

Chinese businesses are looking to use cloud for both remote learning and remote working, but also for gaming, streaming and e-commerce, Canalys chief analyst Matthew Ball said.

“This, combined with the digitalization of processes and operations within enterprises and government organizations, will maintain demand,” he added. The three biggest cloud providers in China are Alibaba (40 percent market share), Huawei (16 percent) and Tencent (15 percent).

Despite impressive growth, Chinese cloud providers are still a long way from being any threat to the world’s biggest players. For example, Microsoft’s Azure brought in more ($6.9bn) than all China’s clouds combined ($5bn).

The cloud computing market in China is going from strength to strength but still has plenty of growing to do according to the latest research. Market analyst firm Canalys reports that the sector grew by 65% in the third quarter of this year, taking in $5 billion in revenue.

Despite the impressive growth, China’s cloud industry takes in less revenue collectively than Microsoft Azure alone, which banked $6.9 billion during the quarter. Currently, China’s cloud expenditure represents 13.7% of the global total, less than would be expected for a market of its size.

Nevertheless, 2020 has been a good year for the Chinese cloud market, with digital acceleration partly driven by the coronavirus pandemic. In response to the crisis, many domestic businesses have had to adopt cloud-based digital tools to keep employees connected and productive.

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Chasing top spot
Canalys estimates that cloud spend in China has grown by $2 billion year-on-year in 2020. Some of the biggest domestic players, the likes of Alibaba Cloud, Huawei Cloud, Tencent Cloud, and Baidu AI Cloud have shown performed strongly, expanding the customer bases in a range of industries.

Demand for cloud-based services reached new heights in China, as organizations reprioritized IT spending and accelerated digital transformation projects,” said Canalys Chief Analyst Matthew Ball. “Remote learning and working, as well as gaming, streaming, e-commerce and other online services continued to drive consumption of cloud infrastructure resources. This, combined with the digitalization of processes and operations within enterprises and government organizations, will maintain demand. Organizations have overcome challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic by using digital services developed by cloud service providers.”

Although the cloud market in China may still trail the US, the economic expansion taking place in the country, and the focus on digital transformation in the country, will surely result in continued industry growth.

VMware Inc, a US-based cloud and virtualization software provider, sees “tremendous” growth opportunity in China and hence is looking to increase its contributions to the country’s digitalization campaign, according to its top official.

“China is ahead of the rest of the world in terms of application innovations in many sectors, including financial, retailing and e-commerce,” said Sanjay Poonen, chief operating officer of VMware, in an interview with China Daily.

Poonen said in China, companies have an increasing need for “modernizing apps” in order to enhance customer value, manage risk and grow their businesses.

“China has vigorously promoted the construction of digital infrastructure, including the 5G network, since the beginning of this year. This provides a broader development space for the digital transformation of enterprises,” he said.

“To support this transformation, VMware will leverage our leading technologies of multi-cloud, modern applications, virtual cloud networks, digital workspace and intrinsic security to help companies build, run, manage, connect and protect their digital applications.”

Poonen said VMware’s modern app business is going to have a strong influence on its customers and partners in China. Through modern apps, VMware enables companies to build, run and manage their own applications across any cloud computing platform. Its team guides companies along the way.

For instance, Chow Sang Sang, a leading Chinese jewelry retailer, has been integrating IT with its business through VMware’s IT infrastructure and application modernization.

In the past, Chow Sang Sang’s e-store used to crash on occasions like Singles Day (Nov 11 online shopping festival) due to excess traffic, leading to a gradual loss of customers.

“Our e-commerce system is the lifeblood of our online business,” said William Poon, chief information officer of Chow Sang Sang. “Downtime or outages are never an option for us. Thanks to the VMware solution, our e-shop and all online channels can now run seamlessly and consistently with 24/7 availability, stable performance, and automated scalability.”

Although some regions are recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the world as a whole has changed forever, and the remote office might be a future trend, Poonen said.

“We feel we should facilitate people to work from anywhere,” he said. “That is where VMware can help as we are the leader in end-user computing and digital workspaces.”

Amid current trade uncertainties, VMware’s partnerships in China will be critical to offsetting the negative impact, Poonen said.

“We are deeply invested in key open source technologies and in applying a number of those to 5G and digital transformation. We have a strategy to be an active partner here (in China) as we have a good and growing business.”