Global technologists are under immense pressure to step up and start operating at the highest level of their professions as they are grappling with surging demand and mounting pressures to accelerate digital transformation strategies in response to Covid-19, said an industry expert.

With no chance to prepare, Gregg Ostrowski, Regional CTO at AppDynamics, part of Cisco, said that IT departments are facing a brand new set of priorities and challenges, and technologists are suddenly under immense pressure to deliver the infrastructure, applications and security required to maintain world-class digital experiences, both internally and externally.

He said that enterprises are forced to shift overnight to an almost completely digital world and deliver high performing digital experiences to customers and employees at a time when the survival of the business is resting on their shoulders.

Large sections of the workforce have suddenly found themselves working at home, without the connectivity, devices and software to be effective, and often lacking the skills and knowledge to resolve simple issues and it has fallen on the IT departments to tackle this problem.

Digital services and applications are essential in keeping workforces productive at home, Ostrowski said, and therefore it is vitally important that IT departments can handle huge surges in demand which means that having the right tools is a must to monitor and manage the technology stack, from the user experience at the application layer, right through to the network.

Moreover, he said that they have to do this in real-time, through a period of massive change and often whilst working remotely and, at the same time, they [IT professionals] are told to do jobs that they haven’t done it in the past.

According to a survey conducted by AppDynamics, 81% of technologists globally (same for UAE) state that Covid-19 has created the biggest technology pressures for their organisations they have ever experienced.

In November 2018, AppDynamics released a global study reporting that Agents of Transformation, those elite technologists driving successful digital transformation, made up only 9% of the world’s technologists. The number was alarmingly small, but there was hope - 97% of global technologists had the ambition and desire to innovate, drive change and digitally transform their organisations. 

“The Agents of Transformation programme was to understand the challenges what the technologists had and try to understand their personalities or aspirations and where they want to see their careers going,” Ostrowski said.

Scale and urgency of task at hand

Agents of Transformation possess all the personal skills and attributes needed to drive innovation, and they operate within organisations that have the right culture, leadership and tools in place to enable successful digital and business transformation.  

Due to the pandemic, Ostrowski said that the need for greater numbers of technologists to step up as Agents of Transformation has not changed.

Moreover, he said that what was once seen as a ten-year personal journey for technologists to climb to the summit of their profession has now become an immediate “necessity”.  

“What has dramatically changed is the urgency. Organisations need technologists to fulfil their potential, drive innovation and perform at the very highest level, not in the future, but today. This is how businesses, and our wider communities, can respond most effectively and quickly to the current crisis - and how we can rebuild our economies and return to growth in the months ahead,” he said.

The research finds that technologists are experiencing pressures from all sides, accelerating digital transformation projects, mobilising huge sections of the workforce to operate from home, while at the same time needing to manage their network and maintain security throughout the technology stack.  

Everything has changed, Ostrowski said and added that structures and processes have been turned upside down and priorities have radically shifted, with individual roles and responsibilities having to adapt to meet them.

“Organisations urgently have to adapt their go-to-market strategies and create and launch new digital services and applications in the current environment,” he said.

With such pressure to deliver projects at this incredible pace, he said that there is no time for lengthy planning cycles and comprehensive proof of concept testing.  

“Compromises have to be struck and many technologists are concerned that future-proofing is taking a back seat.”

Unsurprisingly, given the scale and urgency of the task at hand, he said that technologists are encountering many challenges as they navigate these unchartered waters.

Unprecedented challenges

“These range from handling dramatic increases in website traffic and demand for applications to expanding capabilities for self-service and digital sales, and maintaining Mean Time to Resolution (MTTR) levels whilst operating as a remote IT department,” Ostrowski said.

Today, the application is the business, and more than ever, he said that technologists must find ways to ensure they have access to the tools and accurate data they need to make informed, strategic decisions in real-time, and connect application and digital performance to key business outcomes.

“Organisations need to recognise that only with the right actionable insights can technologists succeed in delivering the highest levels of performance across all digital services, and enhancing digital experiences for customers during the pandemic and beyond,” he said.  

Moreover, he said that business and IT leaders need to identify and support those elite technologists that have the skills, vision and determination to deliver digital transformation and innovation in these most testing of circumstances.

“It is these Agents of Transformation that are uniquely capable of tackling the unprecedented challenges presented by the pandemic,” he said.

The impact of Covid-19 will be long-lasting, far beyond the easing of restrictions on how people work, travel and interact, he said and added that things will not simply go ‘back to normal’.  

“Organisations must do all they can to provide their technologists with the tools, leadership and support they need to accelerate their journey to become an Agent of Transformation and deliver the positive business outcomes required at this time,” he added.

Key UAE findings

• 61% of IT professionals globally (72% in UAE) feel under more pressure at work than ever before.
• 64% globally (66% in UAE) are now being asked to perform tasks and activities they have never done before.
• 66% of technologists globally (67% in UAE) confirm that the pandemic has exposed weaknesses in their digital strategies, creating an urgent need to push through initiatives that were once part of multi-year digital transformation programs.
• 71% globally (78% in UAE) says digital transformation projects in their organisation have been implemented within weeks rather than the months or years it would have taken before the pandemic.
• 95% globally (99% in UAE) of organisations changed their technology priorities during the pandemic.
• 87% of technologists (88% in UAE) see this time as an opportunity to show their value to the business.
• 81% of technologists (81% in UAE) state that Covid-19 has created the biggest technology pressure for their organisation they have ever experienced.
• 83% of respondents (89% in UAE) state that Agents of Transformation are critical for businesses to recover quickly from the pandemic.

• Technology becomes most targeted industry by cybercriminals in 2019
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McAfee has uncovered an exponential increase in threats targeting cloud services correlated with the increase in cloud usage, between January and April 2020.

External attacks on cloud accounts grew 630% from January to April and have seen a significant increase in cyber-attacks targeting cloud tools like Zoom, WebEx and Teams as organisations largely work-from-home initiatives.

Cisco WebEx, Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Slack saw an increase of up to 600% in usage, led by the education sector, during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Overall, enterprise adoption of cloud services spiked by 50%, including industries such as manufacturing and financial services that typically rely on legacy on-premises applications, networking and security more than others.

 “While we are seeing a tremendous amount of courage and global goodwill to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic, we also are unfortunately seeing an increase in bad actors looking to exploit the sudden uptick in cloud adoption created by an increase in working from home,” Rajiv Gupta, Senior Vice-President for Cloud Security at McAfee, said.

New security delivery models needed

Gupta said the risk of threat actors targeting the cloud far outweighs the risk brought on by changes in employee behaviour. 

Mitigating this risk requires cloud-native security solutions that can detect and prevent external attacks and data loss from the cloud and from the use of unmanaged devices, he said and added that cloud-native security has to be deployed and managed remotely and can’t add any friction to employees whose work from home is essential to the health of their organisation.

Moreover, he said the attack trends emphasise the need for new security delivery models in the distributed work-from-home environment of today and likely the future.  

With cloud-native threats increasing in step with cloud adoption, he said that all industries need to evaluate their security posture to protect against account takeover and data exfiltration. 

“Companies need to safeguard against threat actors attempting to exploit weaknesses in their cloud deployments,” he said.

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Apple’s iPhone 11 has taken over the mantle from iPhone XR model in the first quarter of this year and the competition for the world’s most popular smartphone is between its devices itself.

Apple shipped 13.6m XR devices in the first quarter of last year but iPhone 11 shipments reached 19.5m units, according to research firm Omdia.

“For more than five years, even amid shifting conditions in the wireless market and the global economy, one thing has remained consistent in the smartphone business: Apple has taken either the first or second rank in Omdia’s global model shipment ranking,” said Jusy Hong, director of smartphone research at Omdia.

“Apple’s success is the result of its strategy to offer relatively few models. This has allowed the company to focus its efforts on a small number of products that appeal to a broad selection of consumers and sell in extremely high volumes.”

The iPhone 11 was priced $50 less than its predecessor - iPhone XR – at launch while managing to strike the right balance of pricing and features on the iPhone 11, ensuring the smartphone’s appeal.

However, despite the lower price, the iPhone 11 features a dual-camera setup that represents a major upgrade compared to the single-lens configuration for the iPhone. This enhancement has been extremely appealing to consumers, driving the increase in sales.

For the second most popular smartphone, Samsung's Galaxy A51 shipped 6.8m units in the first quarter of this year compared to Samsung’s J4 Plus’s 6.4m units during the same period last year.

Xiaomi gains ground

However, the most striking performance in the first quarter was delivered by Chinese OEM Xiaomi. Xiaomi’s Redmi Note 8 and Redmi Note 8 Pro smartphones reached the third and fourth positions with shipments of 6.6m and 6.1munits respectively.

This is the first time that Xiaomi models ranked third and fourth in shipments in the first quarter.

All of Apple's four models made it into the top 10.

The iPhone 11, iPhone XR, iPhone 11 Pro Max, and iPhone 11 Pro ranked first, fifth, sixth and eighth, respectively.

This represents a major improvement in company performance since the first quarter of last year when the iPhone XS and XS Max did not rank among the top-10 models. The iPhone XR was the only new model to appear in the top-10 at the time. This year, however, all three newly released models made the Top 10.

Samsung also placed four models in the top 10. However, Samsung’s Galaxy S20+ 5G was the only smartphone from the company’s flagship line to make the grade. The other Samsung models among the top-10 were mid-range and low-end devices.

“Samsung's flagship Galaxy S series, which was released at the beginning of the year, has faced pressure on its shipments,” Hong said.

“Samsung’s move to increase the number of models in the Galaxy series diluted the shipment volumes for its individual smartphones. Moreover, the increased price tags of the new phones pushed the cost of Samsung’s flagship models beyond the realm of mass consumer appeal.”

Samsung leads in 5G race

In the 5G-enabled smartphone segment, Samsung was much better than its competitors.

The company’s Galaxy S20+ 5G took the crown among 5G smartphones shipped worldwide in the first quarter.

Huawei's Mate 30 5G and Mate 30 Pro 5G occupied the second and third positions. Most of Huawei's 5G models were shipped to the Chinese domestic market, and shipments increased sharply with the expansion of China’s 5G market. Samsung is launching and selling 5G smartphones in most regions where 5G services and networks are available, i.e., the US, Europe and some parts of Asia.

However, with the Covid-19 pandemic, this smartphone market is expected to contract this year. A slowing in the pace of the 5G expansion is inevitable in many countries.

One exception is China, where the smartphone market has been recovering rapidly since March. With aggressive promotions of 5G smartphones by Chinese OEMs, Omdia expects the 5G smartphone rankings to soon be dominated by Chinese OEMs.

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Shipments of QLED TVs, led by strong marketing push from Samsung, are expected to grow by 41.8% to reach 8.27m units compared to 5.83m units last year amid Covid-19, an industry expert said.

In the shrinking TV market, brands are vying for business growth by demonstrating their technical superiority and this may be achieved through either improving specifications or differentiating their products.

At the same time, OLED TV shipments are expected to increase by a mere 7.8% year on year to total 3.38m units, which is a 26.1% decrease from the original number forecasted at the start of 2020.

Iris Hu, Research Manager at WitsView division of TrendForce, said that global TV shipments are expected to undergo a 5.8% decrease and reach 205.21m units in 2020 compared to 217.80m units last year, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic.

She said that there has been a surge in the demand for TVs that are 43 inches and under, which are suitable for work from home usages.

Moreover, she said the longer time spent at home means the public now also spends more time watching TV and due to that, demand for a better viewing experience unexpectedly resulted in a wave of replacement demand for 65-inch TVs by the end of April this year.

“Owing to its technical and cost advantages, Samsung was able to not only occupy more than 90% share of the QLED TV market last year but also drive up the overall QLED TV shipment to 5.83m units, a 230% increase year on year,” she said.

Demand for ultra-high-end TVs bleak

According to TrendForce, Huawei is making a major push with QLED product development as its entry point into the high-end TV market.

Huawei made its foray into the TV market last year by releasing a pair of Honor Vision-branded smart TVs with consumer-friendly prices.

Hu said that Huawei is expected to compete with Vizio for the number two spot in terms of QLED TV shipment this year.

Although many TV brands, including Sharp, Huawei, Xiaomi and Vizio are releasing OLED TV sets this year, TrendForce does not have an entirely optimistic outlook on the future demand for ultra-high-end TVs.

Aside from the pandemic-induced slowdown in OLED demand, Hu said the more flexible pricing of QLED products will also represent a substantial threat to the sales of OLED TVs this year since the latter has historically maintained a high retail price.

On the other hand, she said that both market leader LG Electronics and Sony have revised down their shipment targets for OLED TVs this year.

“The mid-January onset of the pandemic in China compelled LG Display employees, who performed technical roles at its Gen 8.5 OLED fab in Guangzhou to begin mass production in the first quarter, to return to Korea due to certain technical constraints and this, in turn, is going to delay LGD’s mass production of OLED panels,” Hu said.

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Technology was the most attacked industry by cybercriminals in 2019 accounting for 25% of all attacks, compared to 17% last year.

The sector was previously the second most attacked industry in 2017 and 2018 but 2019 has seen significant increases in application-specific and DoS/DDoS attacks, along with weaponisation of IoT attacks contributed to technology becoming the most attacked industry, according to NTT’s Global Threat Intelligence Report.

Matthew Gyde, President and CEO of the Security Division at NTT Ltd, said the technology sector experienced a 70% increase in overall attack volume.

“Weaponisation of IoT attacks also contributed to the rise and, while no single botnet dominated activity, we saw significant volumes of both Mirai and IoTroop activity,” he said.

Botnets such as Mirai, IoTroop and Echobot have advanced in automation, improving propagation capabilities while Mirai and IoTroop are also known for spreading through IoT attacks, then propagating through scanning and subsequent infection from identified hosts.

The report said that nearly 55% of all attacks were made by application-specific attacks (33%) and web-application attacks (22%).

Of all attacks targeting technology, he said that over 15% of the targeted vulnerabilities allowing remote code execution (RCE).

The government was in the second position, driven largely by geopolitical activity accounting for 16% of threat activity, and finance was third with 15% of all activity. Business and professional services (12%) and education (9%) completed the top five.

Gyde said that attacks on government organisations nearly doubled, including big jumps in both reconnaissance activity and application-specific attacks, driven by threat actors taking advantage of the increase in online local and regional services delivered to citizens.

Unfortunately, he said that those same internet-enabled applications have provided additional opportunities to attackers.

Moreover, he said that attack volumes increased across every industry from 2018 to 2019.

“Along with application attacks, regional and local governments have experienced significant impacts from denial of service and ransomware attacks. These attacks can be difficult to hide from customers, and smaller government offices often do not have the resources available to deal with significant outages. The automation and commoditisation of these attacks appeared to have a direct effect on government organisations,” he said.

The report showed that the technology industry had the highest rate of detected ransomware. NTT researchers found 9% of all threat detections were ransomware; no other industry showed detections for this malware category above 4%.

WannaCry ransomware was the most commonly detected variant, accounting for 88% of all ransomware detections while 23% of detected malware belonged to the RAT malware family.

The presence of these RATs suggests threat actors are seeking to gain access to organizations in the technology industry to maintain persistence and exfiltrate sensitive information over prolonged periods, just as they have done historically, the report showed.

Bad guys automate their attacks

While targeted industries varied by country, the most commonly attacked industries in EMEA, according to the report were finance, business and professional services, technology, manufacturing, and retail.

Despite efforts by organisations to layer up their cyber defences, Gyde said that attackers are continuing to innovate faster than ever before and automate their attacks by leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Referencing the current Covid-19 pandemic, the report highlights the challenges that businesses face as cybercriminals look to gain from the global crisis and the importance of secure-by-design and cyber-resilience.

For organisations that are relying more on their web presence during Covid-19, such as customer portals, retail sites, and supported web applications, they risk exposing themselves through systems and applications that cybercriminals are already targeting heavily.

Gyde said that the current global crisis has shown us that cybercriminals will always take advantage of any situation and organisations must be ready for anything.

“We are already seeing an increased number of ransomware attacks on healthcare organisations and we expect this to get worse before it gets better. Now more than ever, it’s critical to pay attention to the security that enables your business; making sure you are cyber-resilient and maximizing the effectiveness of secure-by-design initiatives,” he said.

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UAE, which dethroned South Korea to take the top spot in the global mobile broadband speed test in March, has fallen to fourth place in April.

According to Ookla’s Global Speed Test stats, South Korea is ranked first, followed by Qatar and China.

In the UAE, the average download speed was 78.56Mbps in April compared to 83.52Mbps in March and 86.35Mbps in February.

The average upload speed in the UAE was 20.39Mbps compared to 21.79Mbps in March and 23.71Mbps in February.

The global speed test compares internet speed data from around the world every month. Data for the index comes from the hundreds of millions of tests taken by real people using speed test every month.

The global average download speed stood at 30.89Mbps in April compared to 30.47Mbps in March while the upload speed stood at 10.50mbps in April compared to 10.73Mbps in March.

In South Korea, the average download speed was 88.01Mbps compared to 81.39Mbps in March while it was 84.81Mbps in Qatar in April compared to 78.38Mbps in March.

When compared to other Gulf Cooperation Countries, Saudi Arabia rose two places to 10th with a download speed of 55.71Mbps compared to 54.13Mbps in March while Kuwait rose eight places with 39.65Mbps compared to 35.34Mbps in March, Bahrain fell two places to rank 41st with 36.71Mbps compared to 36.49Mbps in March, Oman fell seven places to rank 45th with 35.43Mbps compared to 36.51Mpbs in March.

Fixed broadband benefits from Covid-19

In the fixed broadband space, all the countries have increased their speeds to absorb the strain on the fibre optic network due to work-from-home initiatives due to Covid-19 pandemic.

UAE rose two places to 24th with an average download speed of 106Mbps in April compared to 100.95Mbps in March and 95.80Mbps in February while the average upload speed was 57.61Mpbs in April compared to 51.17Mbps in March and 46.66Mbps in February.

The Telecommunication Regulatory Authority of the UAE has increased the average fixed broadband speeds to 100Mbps across UAE to ensure a seamless continuation of distance learning and remote working.

According to telecom operator du, its fixed customers are benefitting from an average of 130Mbps – 30% above the average speed in the UAE.

Saleem Al Blooshi, Chief Technology Officer at EITC, the parent company of du, said that du has managed to double the capacity of its fixed network to meet the demand during the Covid-19 period.

An industry expert said that both the telecom operators in the UAE – Etisalat and du – had increased their bandwidth and improved their network to absorb the strain on the fibre optic network due to work-from-home strategy.

The global average download speed slowed stood at 74.74Mbps in April while the upload speed stood at 39.62Mbps.

The top three countries for fixed broadband speed are Singapore, Hong Kong and Thailand.

In Singapore, the average download speed was 198.46Mbps in April compared to 197.26Mbps in March while in Hong Kong, it was 176.70Mbps in April compared to 168.99Mbps in March.

When compared to other Gulf Cooperation Countries, Qatar jumped four places higher to rank 26th with a download speed of 102.69Mbps in April compared to 94.94Mpbs in March, Kuwait jumped eight places to 40th with a download speed of 75.97Mbps compared to 62.51Mbps in March, Saudi Arabia rose one place higher to 48th with a download speed of 62.66Mpbs compared to 61.03Mbps in March, Oman rose five places higher to 84th with a download speed of 31.11Mbps compared to 28.41Mbps in March, Bahrain rose four places higher to 89th with a download speed of 26.95Mbps compared to 27Mbps in March.

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Higher connectivity and connected workers will be the name of the game after Covid-19 for UAE’s largest oil and gas producer - Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).

Speaking to TechRadar Pro Middle East, Abdul Nasser Al Mughairbi, Senior Vice-President for digital at Adnoc, said that the pandemic has helped us to speed up the digital transformation and taught us how ”we can work remotely, monitor remotely, and the realisation of how important the data is and how important it is to be connected.”

“We are a resilient organisation but it [Covid-19] taught us things that we need to improve and speed up interconnectivity with the sites. It will be a different world when we come out of Covid-19.”

After Covid-19, he said that it will lead us to a more centralised approach in terms of operating its plants, where experts can sit in the centre and see everybody in the organisation and can meet everybody virtually on a daily basis rather than going to the sites.

“Covid-19 has not impacted us heavily as we went into remote working from homes while our Panorama Digital Command Centre and 5G cellular technology have helped us to interconnect to receive data as we were working in the office but our production has not been impacted,” he said.

Panorama is a key part of Adnoc’s ongoing strategic investments in digitisation and artificial  intelligence (AI) to enable it to drive greater efficiency, optimise performance, and respond to complex market dynamics with agility and speed, as it continues to deliver on its 2030 smart growth strategy.

 “We are doing remote assistance and have already tested it. When you start up a few facilities or coming back from a turnaround, we need experts’ advice on startups and we usually use to fly them into the site and they used to spend a few days at the sites. Now, we don’t need to as we use video conferencing tools to link plant operators with the technicians directly and have discussions in real-time,” he said.

Panorama consists of software and hardware from multiple vendors and in-house capabilities and Al Mughairbi said that “no vendor in the world has the solution for everything.”

Al Mughairbi is responsible for managing Adnoc’s digital transformation and driving the adoption of new digital technologies across Adnoc’s value chain, including its 14 subsidiaries and joint venture companies.

He said that Adnoc started its digital journey about two-and-a-half years ago.

“We have built a strong foundation for automation and brought all the data into a single location with the Panorama for real-time monitoring of all our assets,” he said.

Predictive maintenance platforms help cut costs

Adnoc’s subsidiaries were working independently with different shareholders and different mandates but by deploying Panorama, Al Mughairbi said that they have speeded up a lot of processes and linked all the production data and technical data to a single version to generate operational insights and recommendations using smart analytical models, AI and big data.

Even though Panorama was used initially for production data, he said that they now have one of the largest predictive maintenance platforms for equipment such as processors and pumps.

“The reliability and integrity of the equipment and pipeline are critical to our operation.  By using predictive maintenance platforms, it allowed us to cut operating costs, allowed us to use the equipment longer and avoid catastrophic failures. Panorama has generated over $1 billion (AED 3.67b) in business value since its inception,” he said.

In reality, he said that Adnoc knows the potential time of the failures of the equipment and can plan and change it accordingly without impacting production.

“We have been using sensors or IoT from the 1960s and data was flowing into our control room. We will not use technology for the sake of technology unless we have a customer and a user for it to generate value,” he said.

Moreover, he said that oil and gas sectors were always at the forefront of technology and technology was the cornerstone that made the possibility to extract oil and gas and process it.

 “We believe in being forward-thinking in our digital investments and are committed to lead the way with our digital transformation efforts to drive further value.  We continue to responsibly advance projects for the next phase of our digital journey, including expanding our AI solutions, rolling out new blockchain applications, and enhancing our digital modelling capabilities,” he said.

“When we buy software or a system we end up using only 50% of that while the other 50% is not utilised. One of our first areas of focus is to fully utilise the operational technology which we have installed. Best practices in one area will be moved to other areas of operations in an organisation,” he said.

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While over three-quarters of chief financial officers in the Middle East see that work flexibility will make their organisations better in the long run, only a third (and just a quarter in the UAE), are planning to make remote working a permanent option.

According to the third Middle East edition of the biweekly COVID-19 CFO Pulse Survey by PwC, 54% of regional CFOs remain focused on accelerating automation and new ways of working as a priority.

In terms of innovation, digital transformation is set to accelerate as 47% of the respondents said that technology investments they are making will make their company better and 39% are looking to use automation to improve the speed and accuracy of decision making with regards to their supply chain strategy.

Just 6% of finance executives reported that they are considering deferring or cancelling investments into digital transformation – down from 19% during the previous survey two weeks ago – while no CFOs indicated that they were considering cutting investments into cybersecurity. 

CFOs are also protecting investments in both digital transformation and cybersecurity to both secure remote working and to support the transformation to the ‘new normal’.

Stephen Anderson, Middle East Markets and Strategy Leader, said that it’s reassuring to see that almost a half of the executives surveyed in the region are very confident in their company’s ability to build skills for the future – those in the UAE are even more confident at 64%, far above the global average of 48%. “This aligns with the increased likelihood of companies adopting workplace automation, new ways of working and preparing employees for a digital tomorrow,” he said.

According to research firm International Data Corporation (IDC), the contribution of "digital coworkers" will increase by 35% as more tasks are automated and augmented by technology.

IDC also predicts that, by 2024, enterprises with intelligent and collaborative work environments will see 30% lower staff turnover, 30% higher productivity, and 30% higher revenue per employee than their peers.

Connectivity is common denominator

"Connectivity is the common denominator in how people, things, and processes interact today. As digital interactions increase during this current period, it is becoming clear that connectivity is not yet seamless, or pervasive. For consumers and organsations alike, the increased reliance on being digitally engaged requires ubiquitous, reliable, and robust connectivity," Jyoti Lalchandani, Group Vice-President and Regional Managing Director for the Middle East, said.

Ranjit Rajan, Associate Vice-President and Head of Research at IDC, said that digital transformation has become a “key priority” for leading organisations around the world. Digitally transformed organisations are exerting a greater impact on the global economy today than ever before. We estimated that digitally transformed organisations contribution to the global GDP was about 17% in 2018 and expect this percentage to grow to about 52% in 2023,” he said.

These digitally transformed organisations, he said are able to leverage technology to redesign customer experiences, to build new digitally augmented products and services and create new digital business models to create new revenue streams.

The PwC survey showed that 76% of regional CFOs confirmed that their companies are planning on implementing workplace safety measures such as wearing masks and testing, especially in the UAE with 85% of CFOs confirming that but only 64% of CFOs in the UAE will be promoting physical distancing at work sites.

Over the last four weeks, Middle East CFOs have gradually pushed out their recovery expectations as 66% of CFOs, up from 44%, now expect the recovery timeline to return to business as usual to take three months or more.

“Naturally, this will impact revenue and profits, with 70% now expecting to see a decrease of 10% or more. Interestingly, we see further pessimism in the region with nearly one in five Middle East CFOs expecting to see a decrease in revenue or profits of over 50%,” Anderson said.

Reducing real estate footprint

While the reopening of economies will be welcomed by organisations, there is no doubt that Covid-19 will leave behind some economic scarring.

PwC expects that 33% of Middle East CFOs are more likely to reduce their real estate footprint through the partial opening of offices or retail locations, 10% higher than the global average.

Moreover, over half of the Middle East CFOs looking to cut investment are targeting their workforce (51%) – broadly in line with the global average of 49%.

The region is also one of the most likely globally to see changes in staffing (43% Middle East vs. 37% globally) or layoffs (40% of Middle East vs. 29% globally).

“Regardless of the challenging circumstances and the severity of the global situation we find ourselves in today, it is comforting to see that community spirit remains strong - we’ve found that 38% of CFOs in the Middle East have increased their company’s community-focused efforts and three-quarters of all CFOs in the region are providing some level of social support to those in need in response to Covid-19,” Anderson said.

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2020 was projected to be the year of fifth-generation cellular technology (5G) but not anymore.

Growth stagnation at a macro level and lockdowns due to Covid-19 pandemic in the Middle East are bound to have a causal effect on the demand and supply side, industry experts said.

Karim Yaici, Senior Analyst at Analysys Mason, told TechRadar Pro Middle East that consumer demand for 5G services was expected to be small in 2020 even before the Covid-19 outbreak but now the outlook is gloomier.

“We expect that the massive disruption to the supply chain will have an impact on the capex of operators looking to launch 5G in the Middle East this year. On the other hand, the large groups that have already commercialised 5G are likely to remain largely on track with their 5G rollout plans, albeit network deployments will take longer than normal,” he said.

Krishna Chinta, Program Manager for Telecommunications and IoT at International Data Corporation (IDC), said that the pandemic situation has posed new challenges for the telecom operators as the mobile and fixed traffic consumption patterns have altered in unprecedented ways and this will certainly influence telecom operators to bring about certain changes to their operations as well as their cost structures as long as the impact lasts for.

Moreover, he said that this could result in reprioritising their original 5G investment plans or rescheduling their 5G rollout roadmap.

In the short-term, he said that telecom operators, unequivocally, see the need to roll out 5G networks to tap into technology features such as network slicing and dynamic network capacity allocation offered by 5G to deal with a situation that the world is currently faced with.

Almost all the major telecom groups in the Middle East region have active 5G investment roadmaps; he said and added that 5G is a long-term investment priority for telecom operators as they are hoping to launch new use cases and business models.

May face supply chain issues

“As operators are making a significant amount of investments in 5G, long term return on investment will definitely continue to drive their strategic decisions. At the same time, they can't overlook the short-term market developments as they are required to take the necessary tactical measures,” Chinta said.

While it is too early to judge the impact of the pandemic on operators' capex propensity, he said that operators may be considering capex reprioritisation plans to deal with more immediate operational needs.

Additionally, despite strong interest, he said that operators will most likely face supply chain issues if the impact of pandemic lasts longer.

In the UAE, Expo 2020 was expected to reveal technological advancements and business use cases in 5G but it is postponed to next year due to the pandemic.

While a mega-event such as Dubai Expo has been postponed, it may not necessarily alter the 5G rollout plans given its long-term importance to the telecom operators, Chinta said.

Furthermore, he said the event alone cannot be an influencing factor when it comes to the operators' 5G investment plans.

“Both the telecom operators in UAE are among the early adopters of 5G technology in the region and they are determined to tap into the true business potential of the 5G technology. Although, there could be a shift in the operators' short-term capex priorities, in view of the current macroeconomic situation, but both the operators will continue to promise strong support to their long-term 5G investment plans,” he said.

Yaici said that operators should be realistic about the revenue potential of 5G, at least in the short term and added that operators should continue to improve the performance of their 4G networks while introducing exclusive content bundles to drive data usage and showcase 5Gs’ capabilities.

Moreover, he said that telecoms operators should start now forming partnerships to prepare for the new types of consumer 5G services, such as cloud gaming and VR, and explore new pricing models.

Close cooperation needed

According to market intelligence firm Omdia, the Middle East and Africa will see a 3.9% decline in mobile service revenues to $84b, representing a downgrade of 8.4% from its previous forecast.

Major factors for the decline include the impact of low oil prices on Gulf economies and the fragility of economies and health care systems in parts of Africa.

Worldwide, mobile communications services market revenue will fall by 4.1% year on year to $749.7b this year compared to $781.5b, down from the prior forecast of $800.3b.

 “Operators will also need to work closely with businesses and regulators to identify and explore more-radical commercial use cases that could benefit from 5G in the longer term such as industrial IoT,” Yaici said.

If the pandemic situation improves relatively quickly in the Middle East region, Yaici said that then there is no need for the operators to significantly scale back on capex.

In the unlikely event that this crisis lasts much longer, he said then the financial priorities of the operators will tilt towards addressing critical short-term needs and delaying longer-term investment plans to ensure financial stability.

 “Business telecoms will be hit harder than consumers because of the decrease in economic activity. Many firms will face serious financial difficulties and they will cut back on their spending on telecommunication services. These conditions will dampen the demand for the new 5G B2B services and will likely delay their commercialisation by a few months to a year,” he said.

Chinta said that the business community is embracing a variety of technologies such as cloud, AI, and RPA to digitise some of their enterprise workloads or as part of their digital transformation projects as some of these technologies require faster and more resilient connectivity.

New 5G standards to be released only in 2021

“A few IoT and IIoT use cases will also need massive machine type communication capabilities offered by 5G technology to mature and scale up rapidly. Although this scenario creates a perfect business case for 5G technology, a few enterprises are going ahead with the existing communication technologies such as 4.5G, 4.5G Pro, and fibre without necessarily waiting for 5G technology to fully evolve,” Chinta said.

Moreover, he said that the emergence of truly innovative enterprise 5G use cases will not take place until the availability of release 16 and 17 standards, which will bring about major improvements to the current 5G technology.

As release 17 standards are expected to be released only in 2021, he said the true innovation in 5G enabled enterprise use cases can't be expected before 2021.

It is undeniable that the telecoms industry played an important role during the pandemic in providing communications, video and cloud services despite the 20% to 70% increase in data traffic during daytime reported by telecoms operators worldwide.

“I think in most parts of the Gulf region, the fixed networks coped well in terms of capacity due to the broad access to fibre connectivity and the recent boost in download speeds. However, the end-user experience might have been affected because of the pressure on the home Wi-Fi network as more people connect in each household. I think there is an opportunity for operators to propose software and hardware solutions to address indoor Wi-Fi coverage issues,” Yaici said.

Niche near-term opportunities

Yaici said that operators, especially in this region, tend to focus on publicising some of the more radical 5G use cases but there are some niche near-term opportunities where the demand is more concrete and where the connectivity characteristics are the same in a 5G world as in the 4G world.

“Many niche use cases are not very interesting and receive less attention but they would benefit from the added bandwidth provided by 5G, such as connected CCTV. The longer-term opportunities for 5G, such as autonomous cars and industrial applications, will require wide geographical coverage, high-level of network resilience and domain expertise for the operators to successfully commercialise these solutions,” he said.

In countries where 5G deployments have already taken place, Chinta said the technology is demonstrating a strong ability to support mission-critical applications in the midst of Covid-19 situation.

“The technology is proving to be successful in crisis management and in areas such as telehealth, public safety, as well as to support home broadband users to enable remote working and remote learning. Thus, the 5G use cases that tried and tested in the current situation will find long-lasting relevance through unlocking the value offered by the technology itself,” he said.

Yaici said that 5G, by itself, will not be sufficient to address the underlying obstacles that have hindered the take-up of business services offered by operators so far, such as lack of awareness, the limited understanding of the potential of technology, and the immaturity of the ecosystem.

“There is a fair bit of work to be done to educate businesses about 5G and to experiment and test the radical use cases before they become ready for commercialisation,” he said.

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Dubai-based healthcare start-up Okadoc said that telemedicine is here to stay even after the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It was gaining traction even before the pandemic but due to Covid-19, the adoption has accelerated for instant appointments as we are living in unprecedented times and there’s a greater sense of urgency for patients and doctors to be connected,” Fodhil Benturquia, Founder and CEO of Okadoc, told TechRadar Pro Middle East.

At a time where most providers are experiencing a tremendous shortfall in patients’ visits, he said that Okadoc utilises technology to connect patients with doctors quickly on a 24/7 basis, helping transform the existing healthcare model in the region by connecting patients, doctors and healthcare providers seamlessly, removing any barriers.

Moreover, he said that the platform has allowed providers to continue the spectrum of care and keep businesses running and reduce the waiting time.

With remote working and remote learning, he said that people have got used to video conferencing, so telemedicine will be there for immediate needs and rather than going to an emergency, the patient can now talk to a doctor instantly.

“When you are sick, driving can be a risk apart from the traffic and the hassle of finding parking and wasting time. When you are diabetic, you may need to visit a doctor once or twice every week and it is a burden.

“Due to Covid-19, most of the clinics and hospitals were not ready for a telemedicine service and was trying to use other video communications tools to solve the problem. In the future, I think that the government may ask every provider to have a telehealth service as a regulatory need and as a backup if another pandemic arises in the future,” he said.

Telemedicine is a complementary product and he said that about 80% of the consultation with the same doctor can be replaced by the app.

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TRA approved apps

Okadoc is one of the telehealth providers and facilitators besides NextGen Healthcare, VSee, Doxy.me, GetBee and Mind Mina Telemedicine to be approved by the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) for use in the UAE.

Claiming to be the largest telehealth provider in the UAE, Benturquia said that they have accelerated the launch of the virtual video meeting with the doctor due to the growing demand.

The start-up, which started as a doctor booking facility at Dubai Healthcare City, was supposed to launch the service in the third quarter of this year.

Benturquia said that they have 204 doctors in 43 specialties from 38 healthcare providers live and more than 200 doctors are expected to join soon. They have already done more than hundreds of consultations.

 “Patients can book an appointment with their own doctor or a doctor of their choice within minutes. Users can have a video consultation and chat electronically, transfer and receive documents such as prescriptions or medical records and pay for their consultations based on their insurance coverage,” he said.

Humeira Badsha, a rheumatologist consultant at Dr. Humeira Badsha Medical Centre, said that it has been a stressful time for our patients, especially with chronic diseases, last month but Okadoc has stepped in quite fast to provide the platform.  

“We wanted a platform that is encrypted to maintain the confidentiality of our patients. We have managed to see more than 50 patients on telehealth last month and really surprised to see how satisfied the patients are.

“I am seeing patients from their homes with their families and in different settings in a casual mode. Dubai is a medical tourism hub and we do see a lot of patients, who can’t get to see us now due to the lockdown, from Baku and the GCC region,” she said.

Big focus on security and privacy

Using end-to-end encryption with the cloud data hosted on Alibaba Cloud and Microsoft Azure in the UAE, Benturquia said that regarding scalability, encryption and security, the platform is compliant with the UAE and international regulations which mean that doctors working from home can have instant and safe access to the platform at a time where they are not able to be present in hospitals or clinics.

Okadoc is the only regional solution that is directly integrated into a provider’s hospital information system; he said and added that the platform is end-to-end encrypted.

Even if the data is hacked, he said that it cannot be decrypted and the audio and video is not recorded.

Benturquia said that they plan to add prescription reminders on the app for the patients and looking to launch a telemedicine app for the doctors this year.

Right now, the mobile app is only for patients and desktop websites for doctors and hospitals.

Every home device or a wireless connection is a potential entry for hackers and phishers as work-from-home policy creates a very opportunistic situation for the bad guys.

Social distancing and the lockdown due to coronavirus have made online life more important than ever but the domino-effect has led to security vulnerabilities for people, processes and technologies.  

Bad guys are aware that people working from home do not have the same security as they would have in their corporate environment.

“We have seen a lot of companies adopt work-from-home strategy due to the pandemic and a big jump in using this model. Many wanted to have a gradual move for the past many years as part of the digital transformation journey, but Covid-19 has accelerated the work-from-home strategy rapidly,” Dr. Moataz Binali, Vice-President at Trend Micro Middle East and North Africa, told TechRadar Pro Middle East.

So, he said that non-believers and sceptic who have been shying away from are being pushed into it.

“The move to work-from-home strategy and the cloud also brings in a lot of different trends. Companies are trying to adopt digital transformation on the cloud and others are adopting a remote working model while others are adopting a different shift in different models,” he said.

Binali said that a person who is using a corporate laptop has some sort of endpoint security protection but a lot of employees are not using their corporate laptops and by using their personal laptops, they don’t have the endpoint security software.

The pandemic has led to the creation of more than several hundreds of new Covid-19 web domains.

“We have seen a lot of different types of attacks because of a lack of endpoint software and next-gen network firewall protection at homes. Hackers are using Corona as the main campaign in trying to phish different users and try to ambush them to reveal personal information or about the company.

“We have seen malicious attacks come from different sites that disguise themselves as official Corona-related sites. These sites try newer ways to infect digital assets of an organisation,” he said.

In the first quarter of this year alone, Trend Micro globally found over 907,000 spam messages and 48,000 hits to malicious URLs – both related to Covid-19. To combat these kinds of attacks using the security provider has various multi-layered security offerings, from the cloud to the endpoint.

In the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, 3,067 emails, URL and file threats related to the Covid-19 have been recorded in the first three months of the year.

Moreover, the GCC recorded 1,737 email spam attacks, the third-highest in Asia; 1,114 malware threats detected, the third-highest in Asia; and 216 URL attacks, the seventh-highest in Asia.

The UAE led the region with 1,541 Covid-19 attacks, including 775 malware threats, 621 email spam attacks and 145 URL attacks detected. 

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recorded 344 attacks, including 268 email spam attacks, 59 malware threats detected, and 17 URL attacks.

In threats related to Covid-19, Binali said that URL attacks increased 260 times and email spam attacks increased 220 times from February 2020-March 2020. The United States leads in all Covid-19 attacks.

 “We have also seen an increase in ransomware attacks due to Corona and it is a global concern and it is used left, right and centre. Hackers disguise themselves as World Health Organisation, famous hospitals and clinical centres to lure information by making them download certain payloads,” Binali said.

IT teams find it difficult to protect digital assets

Even though hacking is a global issue, Binali said that they have seen the US and Europe impacted the most but “we have seen attacks on the Middle East also but not to the same degree as in the West. In the Middle East, it is less because people gravitate more towards information from the Ministry of Health rather than WHO or other sources.”

Most of the attacks due to Covid in the region are in the UAE, followed by Saudi Arabia; he said and added that due to the rapid upsurge in remote working, it has become difficult for IT teams to protect digital assets and processes.

“For an organisation to deal with all the challenges, cybersecurity talent, tools and manual processes and to make security improvements ultimately relies on the shoulders of the IT cell. A multi-layered approach is the need of the hour for remote working - an endpoint security solution for the laptop, a next-gen firewall for the network, e-mail protection software for e-mails and cloud protection software for cloud computing,” he said.

As the access into the corporate network is coming from outside, he said that companies need to strengthen their internal security and diversify the multi-layer around it as well.

He added that Trend Micro has a packaged solution catered for all these issues under one umbrella.

Moreover, he said that there is also a website from Trend Micro - https://global.sitesafety.trendmicro.com/ - that users can use to check the reputation of a website and if there is any malware.

“Having a good anti-virus software can detect and block a malicious site and we use a reputation engine for that. We put all the smart global protection networks we acquire from different websites into our reputation engine so that the anti-virus software can detect whether it is malicious or not before the user clicks,” he said.

Binali claims that it can block 100% but if a new website is created, it cannot detect and it will take time before it comes to our notice or before victims fall prey.

He said that Trend Micro does not rely on one method to block attacks as we have sandboxing, machine learning and signature-based analysis, and all of these are included in the XGen, the engine for blocking malware and protecting users.

“It has got a multi-layered approach to block and not to cause harm to the users. We are unique in that way as we have the multi-layered approach into a single-engine,” he said.

Even though VPNs is the most secured way to work remotely, he said that it is not a must to work remotely.

“In VPN, all the communication is encrypted. So, when working from outside the corporate network, it is a must to have a VPN and an additional layer of protection, the same way corporate firewalls do in the office. Always trust a VPN from a well-known vendor that provides these services,” he said.

Key malicious Covid-19 sites

• acccorona[.]com
• alphacoronavirusvaccine[.]com
• anticoronaproducts[.]com
• beatingcorona[.]com
• beatingcoronavirus[.]com
• bestcorona[.]com
• betacoronavirusvaccine[.]com
• buycoronavirusfacemasks[.]com
• byebyecoronavirus[.]com
• cdc-coronavirus[.]com
• combatcorona[.]com
• contra-coronavirus[.]com
• corona-armored[.]com
• corona-crisis[.]com
• corona-emergency[.]com
• corona-explained[.]com
• corona-iran[.]com
• corona-ratgeber[.]com
• coronadatabase[.]com
• coronadeathpool[.]com
• coronadetect[.]com
• coronadetection[.]com

• Future of cybersecurity will depend on risk and trust factors
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• Rise in zero-day exploitations in 2019 in Middle East compared to three years ago

Coronavirus has ushered in a new world with digitalisation and new technologies fuelling the changes.

This can be seen by the soaring demand for video-calling platforms such as Google Hangouts, Skype, FaceTime and Zoom amongst others, as more people than ever work remotely due to lockdowns.

Coronavirus is also going to further disrupt the wider banking sector and the traditional banks will fall even further behind in market share and customer experience due to the pandemic, Nigel Green, founder and chief executive of deVere Group, an independent financial advisory organisation, said.

He said that the usage of financial apps is up by 72% since mid-March and it will act as another catalyst for people to seek fintech alternatives to access, manage, use, save and invest their money across the world.

 “The pandemic has accelerated those trends that were already shaping business. These include greater inclusion of tech into our everyday lives. It has also underscored by the increasing use of fintech apps which allow users immediate, on-the-go, 24/7 access to, use, and management of their money,” he said.

Banks and other traditional financial services providers were, in most cases, spectacularly caught off guard by the 2008-2009 financial crash.
As they found their way into a new world with a new regulatory landscape and new customer expectations, Green said that business and tech developments were way down their to-do list. They were in “survival mode”.

“This is when agile, tech-driven challenger banks and fintech firms swooped in to fill the void left between what traditional financial services companies, especially the traditional banks, were offering and what customers were expecting, especially in terms of customer experience.”

The fintech firms, which offer mobile banking, savings and investment apps, and peer-to-peer lending, amongst other services, he said now have a decade of development, experience and expertise over many traditional banks.

“It is likely that ‘bricks and mortar’ banks will fall even further behind in market share and customer experience as more people are now embracing fintech due to Covid-19-triggered social distancing, isolation and lockdowns,” he said.

Moreover, he said that the apps are growing in popularity due to their convenience, increased security, and as people become ever-more tech-savvy.

• InCountry cashes in on growing demand for data residency services in Mideast
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• Awini reshapes on-demand goods pickup and delivery service in Saudi Arabia

The business-to-business tech marketplace - The Ambassador - is offering a helping hand to businesses as they cope with the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak in the UAE by offering discounts and perks on frequently used services.

Sherif Zaki, founder and CEO of The Ambassador, told TechRadar Middle East that they are an employee experience application and offer companies the “MyBenefits” platform to help their workforce save money by offering reduced gift vouchers in food delivery, fuel, cleaning, laundry, etc.

“It is an opportunity for companies to take care of its people and help them save money as things are getting tighter and people have less money. Any little savings opportunity really helps its staff,” he said.

He said the mission has always been to ‘make work better’ whether by helping save companies money or creating opportunities for them to reward their teams with more.

Moreover, he said the zero-cost solution is designed to help small businesses secure potential new business for continued operations during this challenging period.

“As a startup ourselves, we empathise with the challenges solopreneurs, startups and small businesses are facing during this unsettling time. We believe every little bit counts, and more so in times like these and encourage all companies to take advantage of the always free access,” he said.

The platform has 50 partners on board such as  CareemNow, JustMop, Washmen, Fruitful Day, Cafu, Kibsons and Shampoch, to name a few.

 “With everyone avoiding public spaces and many employees working from home, it is likely that many will avail the on-demand services. We are all coping with financial uncertainty and it is important that we can combine our strengths to look out for each other,” Zaki said.

• InCountry cashes in on growing demand for data residency services in Mideast
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• Awini reshapes on-demand goods pickup and delivery service in Saudi Arabia

Securing new businesses

The platform offers several ties, including paid subscription and free.

Zaki said a company can sign up and create their domain and once the page is uploaded, the company’s workforce can register with their company’s e-mail address and start availing the benefits.

Partners on the platform get royalty, exposure and get increased business; he said and added that every brand has to refresh their offers every month.

In the premium enterprise version, Zaki said that the platform gives 25% of the registration cost back as vouchers to the company.

The platform is also offering solopreneurs, startups and small businesses free advertising to promote their services to help the local small businesses sector secure potential new business for continued operations during this challenging period.

Zaki said that they have 1,000 companies on board with 10,000 individual people and he aims to have between 3,000 and 5,000 companies from the UAE by end of this year.

“Our focus is in the UAE but has a small presence in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. We are looking to add more partners throughout the Middle East and North Africa region. In the UAE, we expect to add between 70 and 100 exclusive offers in different sectors,” he said.

To cash in on the growing demand to address data sovereignty issues in the Middle East, San Francisco-based tech startup – InCountry – has opened its Middle East headquarters at Abu Dhabi’s Hub71.

Samer Kamal, Vice-President of Product at InCountry, told TechRadar Middle East that data protection and data privacy have been hot topics globally for enterprises as well as consumers.

The introduction of GDPR in 2018 has had a significant impact on personal data protection and the demand for privacy expertise exploded after that.

The rise of data breaches has forced many cloud providers to have data centres in each country to comply with data residency laws. 

More than 80 countries have now adopted comprehensive data protection laws.

 “Enterprises are expanding and going to more than one country and we help them comply with data residency regulations, especially in emerging countries. We have a data residency-as-a-service platform that securely stores and processes data in the country of origin,” he said.

Moreover, he said that enterprises don’t need to move the complete stack or rebuild the entire stack when moving to another country.

“Once it is set up in one country, it works around the world,” he said.

InCountry is backed by Caffeinated Capital, Felicis Ventures, Arbor Ventures, Ridge Ventures, Bloomberg Beta, Charles River Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Parade Ventures, Mubadala Ventures and MState.

The startup has a presence in more than 70 countries and Kamal said that they plan to have a presence in about 100 countries by the end of the year.

Understanding local requirements

The advantage of InCountry, Kamal said is that they not only provide technical solutions but also have people on the ground in legal and in the regulatory framework in all these countries to understand exactly what the local requirements are.

“Many local companies do not know what the local data residency laws are and we clearly know what is going to come. So, enterprises can focus on global expansion without hiring compliance staff or rebuilding their entire solutions in multiple countries,” he said.

InCountry works with hyperscale cloud providers such as IBM, AWS, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure in the Gulf countries and with Saudi Telecom Company (STC) in Saudi Arabia.

In countries which do not have hyperscale providers, Kamal said that they work co-location service providers.

“We will be announcing a partnership with a local vendor that has partnerships with governments and healthcare ministry in Abu Dhabi and where we will allow customers to work with them. If a customer prefers to work with some other cloud providers, it is not an issue for us and we can work any cloud providers,” he said.

Salesforce operates in only six data centres around the world but in partnership with InCountry, Kamal said that they now have a presence in 70 countries.

Strategic growth area

InCountry’s customers are in the highly regulated industries such as public sector, government entities, healthcare, banking and finance. 

“We see the Middle East as a very strategic area right now. We are barely one-year-old but we are seeing tremendous growth,” Kamal said.

When asked who is to be blamed if a breach happens, he said that it is a “shared responsibility”.

“We let our customers know where our responsibility lies and where the cloud provider’s responsibility also come in and, at the same time, the customer is also responsible for a lot of things,” he said.

He added that InCountry supports regulations such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Service Organisation Control 2 (SOC 2) and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI).

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New Zealand-based tech startup Ao Air is looking for investors to set up a manufacturing plant in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries (GCC) for an alternative to traditional N95 surgical face mask.

Masks are out of supply in the market globally due to coronavirus pandemic and N95 mask, which usually costs less than $1, are sold in the grey market for more than $7.

Ao Air’s Atmos face mask is a tech-driven and patented technology to protect from air pollution, airborne pathogens and illnesses.

“We are in the process of having discussions in the Middle East for a manufacturing plant, especially in the GCC, and use it as a launch market. Alternatively, we are also having discussions with China and the US. We are looking for a capital partner to set up a plant in the GCC,” Dan Bowden, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Ao Air, told TechRadar Middle East.

The battery-operated device is manufactured in South Korea but due to Covid-19, the manufacturing process has slowed down drastically and Ao Air has to change its plans.

Moreover, he said that they are receiving significant interest from regional healthcare providers and consumers for the mask.

“We had around 20 distributor enquiries from the Middle East, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, for the mask. We cannot keep up with the demand from investor and personal enquiries due to Covid-19,” he said.

“Several of the Gulf countries have emerged as global leaders in medical technology innovation in response to the coronavirus crisis. As Covid-19 cases and deaths rise globally, a surge in demand for medical masks is highlighting the need for innovation in respiratory technology,” he said.

Patented nanofiltration process

Even though the company claims that its face mask offers 25 times better protection than N95 masks, Bowden does not claim protection over Covid-19.

With the World Health Organisation (WHO) encouraging the use of masks by the public to counter coronavirus spread, governments have mandated protective masks be worn in public and the company is trying to cash in on the growing demand for masks.

“We have tested against N95 mask and when tested against 0.3 microns, our device is 25 times better than N95,” he said.

The company claims that its respiratory technology is validated by New Zealand’s Auckland University of Technology to provide users with up to 50 times better protection than others in the market.

“Traditional mask needs a filter to clean the outside air to breath and a tight seal around the mouth and the nose. The problem is that the filter is easy to do but a tight seal around the mouth and nose is very difficult. If you have facial hair, you will not get a tight seal with N95 and the bad air goes inside.

“What our personal device is doing is that it does not need a seal. It has a nanofibre that cleans the air using our patented nanofiltration process and the fan pushes the air in front of the face so that users don’t need a tight seal around the mouth and the nose,” he said.

When the product was launched in January this year, it was targeted at consumers but now things have changed due to the pandemic.

Bowden said that they are in the process of getting approvals from governments around the world to make it a certified product.

“In future, it will be a certified product against N95 but it is not yet certified for healthcare segment,” he said.

Awaits FDA's approval

The company got 1,500 online preorders since January and is completely sold out.

“We have got enquiries for 500,000 units globally,” Bowden said. It weighs 270 grams and is priced at $350.

He said the battery on the device works for five hours with a single charge and the corresponding app shows the air quality around you, lets users know when they need to change the filter and gives a few insights into the respiratory system

“We are looking to evolve the product and doing the final investigation to give it anti-viral protection.

Three months ago, FDA approvals usually take a year and now we are talking about months for getting approvals and we are also fast-tracking our business.  We are looking to get approvals from FDA within the next six months,” he said.

Bowden sees the US to be the biggest market for them followed by the Middle East, due to its hot, humid and dusty environment.

Even when Covid-19 is over, he still expects to see a huge demand for masks as social distancing is expected to continue.

• It is testing time for telcos to check how much stress their networks can take
• Will Coronavirus reset our digital lifestyle if not contained in short term?
• Challenges and opportunities posed by Covid-19 on enterprises and remote work