Smartworld, an Etisalat and Dubai South joint venture company, has signed an agreement with Keross, a leading international provider of IT solutions, to provide the latters bouquet of cloud-based solutions across the UAE.

The agreement brings to the UAE market a high value-added offering, enabling companies across the region to avail of infrastructure and business processes as a single pervasive service backed by two trusted names, as well as reduce costs, improve performance and gain unified view of operational performance.

Abdulqader Obaid Ali, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Smartworld, said: The agreement demonstrates Smartworlds commitment to providing secure, convenient and the highest quality services to our customers and, at the same time, expands our existing portfolio. Keross is among the highly trusted global names in IT industry. With this partnership we can now offer a solution that provides our customers full visibility, transparency and efficiency across any operation from a unified portal.

Smartworld customers also stand to benefit in terms of reduced costs, improved performance and get a unified view of operational performance, added Abdulqader.

Keross offers a suite of integrated software solutions for powerful process automation to enhance business performance. The companys innovative Ikon platform, which is at the core of all its solutions, provides deep insight and powerful management capabilities for end-to-end IT infrastructure, Business Process Management, Analytics, Corporate Governance and Risk Management, enabling users to access and control a wide range of functions from any Internet-enabled location worldwide.

Farouk Said, CEO, Keross: Smartworld has a proven excellence in delivering business solutions in the UAE. We are proud to associate with Smartworld, which has strong market experience, a highly skilled and performance-oriented team, which will further enhance our presence across the region. In-line with the UAEs strong leadership vision of being a global leader in innovative technology and smart solutions, the new venture between Smartwold and Keross is offering a revolutionary technology and a cost effective solution that all market segments can benefit, from a managerial, operational and technical perspective.

A latest forecast by Gartner, Inc projects Middle East (ME) IT spending to reach $214.7 billion in 2015 a 5.2 percent increase from 2014.

The forecast has identified business intelligence and analytics, infrastructure and data center, and cloud as the Top 3 CIO technology priorities in the Middle East region, implying enormous opportunities.

Smartworld has been actively focusing on strategic expansion by tapping in to new opportunities. The IT-services provider has also been diversifying its portfolio by forging liaisons with trusted global names.

Smartworld is committed to bring the best in IT solutions to the UAE market and will continue seeking opportunities to diversify its offerings, said Abdulqader.