Information Technology spending in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is expected to exceed AED 33 billion in 2008, representing a 15% growth in comparison to 2007, according to a report by research firm IDC. The rising IT spending in the region has been mainly driven by the burgeoning hardware market, which comprised 62.1% of the entire industry, bumping off the services sector at 24.3% and the packaged software market at 13.6%, the report was quoted as saying by the UAE news agency "WAM". With aims to leverage the booming regional hardware market, NETGEAR, a worldwide provider of technologically advanced and branded networking products, has announced plans to highlight its range of best-of-breed networking and storage products, through its expanding regional operations in the GCC. The IDC report also revealed that the six GCC countries - Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman - will account for nearly 23% of the total IT spending of the entire Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, which is expected to exceed AED 146.8 billion in 2008, making them key markets for NETGEAR's regional expansion plans. --MORE
