Computing company Dell has set its sights on Africa and expects to see IT spend increase significantly this year as companies boost their IT budgets.
Kobus de Beer, enterprise brand manager at Dell Southern Africa, explains that while Dell did not see high profits coming in as predicted during the 2010 Soccer World Cup, he believes IT spending will recover this year as companies undergo hardware refresh cycles.
The key focus is particularly in SA, Morocco and Nigeria “where we are seeing major opportunities in the enterprise space. Worldwide, everyone is looking at Africa as the next China,” says de Beer.
The local Dell office currently manages sales in the whole of Africa except Egypt. At the end of last year, Dell opened its Nigerian offices.
New opportunities
According to Statistics SA, IT spending in SA will rebound strongly this year to hit $14.4 billion. Local IT spending is forecast to come in at more than double the expected GDP growth as companies start spending on infrastructure after IT refresh cycle delays caused by the global recession.
De Beer agrees with analysts, saying: “This year will see organisations start spending after having delayed IT purchases for the last two to three years due to tight budgets. Windows 7 as well as tablet PCs will be an opportunistic driver of IT spend.
“Apple will continue to be a front runner in the tablet race, but 2011 will see a lot of contenders coming into the PC tablet market.”
From a lot of the Dell acquisitions secured in the last six months, de Beer says this year the tech giant will focus on strengthening its service offerings.
“Acquisitions Dell made in the last 12 months are starting to come to the forefront. Dell used to have a boxed offer, but in the last few years, we've transitioned into a solutions company.
“It's about really understanding what our customers' demands are and being able to address those problems.”
De Beer adds: “With the new services being created by acquisitions, we're helping our customers to spend more money on innovation and new projects and less keeping the lights on. Analysts claim that IT departments spend 80% of their IT budget on operations and 20% on innovation.”
He predicts more investment will be made in cloud computing and virtualisation.
“Cloud computing in SA is still at an infant stage, despite the fact that we've been using the cloud for years in the form of services such as Gmail, yet it hasn't been called the cloud. The cloud is not just for the enterprise, it is beginning to touch everyone.”
IT spend rises
Worldwide IT spending is forecast to total $3.6 trillion in 2011, a 5.1% increase from 2010, according to the latest outlook by Gartner. In 2010, worldwide IT spending totalled $3.4 trillion, up 5.4% from 2009 levels.
Gartner has raised its outlook for 2011 global IT spending from its previous forecast of 3.5% growth.
The computing hardware segment is forecast to grow 7.5% in 2011, but Gartner analysts said vendors face possible challenges, particularly in the area of PC growth, given likely weak economic growth through the first half of 2011.
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