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IDC Anticipates Strong Security Appliance Growth for MEA Region

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Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, Governor, CBN
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As threats continue to emerge across the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region, we can expect to see healthy growth in the region’s security appliance market over the coming years, according to the newly launched Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) Quarterly Security Appliance Forecast Tracker from International Data Corporation (IDC), the premier global provider of market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.

IDC expects that the MEA security appliances market will expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.6 per cent over the next four years to total approximately $350 million in customer revenues.

Faysal Ayoubi, a systems and infrastructure solutions research analyst at IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, said “companies throughout the region will continue to invest in IT security over the coming years. This will be driven by the growing complexity and frequency of cyber threats in the region and the requirement to install security systems for regulatory compliance reasons.”

Unified threat management (UTM) and firewalls/VPN will lead the demand curve, accounting for a combined share of about 80% of the total security appliance market by 2016.

“CIOs seek a complete security solution to handle the threats they are exposed to, and this solution may be a combination of hardware, software, and cloud services,” said Ayoubi.

He noted that “today, multifunction security hardware solutions are preferred to single-function solutions in the MEA region, so we expect to see continuous growth for these combination technologies.”

The UAE and Saudi Arabia are the leading markets for security appliances in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), while finance, telecommunications, and government are the region’s biggest-spending verticals on IT.

Nigeria, South Africa and Kenya are increasingly becoming strong markets in sub-Saharan Africa. “The MEA region is poised to see an enormous level of investment pumped into the expansion of security infrastructure after numerous high-profile cyber breaches made the news headlines in recent months,” says Ayoubi.

“Further growth in subsequent years will be primarily driven by the fast-growing Internet adoption rate and increasing demand for IT-enabled business solutions in emerging markets. Moreover, initiatives undertaken by governments at the country level will be a vital driver of the region’s IT spending growth.”

IDC’s EMEA Quarterly Security Appliance Forecast Tracker provides market size data for security appliance technologies in an easy-to-use Excel Pivot Table format. The geographic coverage of the Tracker includes three major regions (Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe, and the Middle East and Africa) and 42 countries. The security appliance market is further segmented by function, sub-function, price band, family, model, server class, and operating system.


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E-Business

UK Orders Apple to Create Backdoor for Encrypted iCloud Data

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United Kingdom has issued a “technical capability notice” to Apple, mandating that the company create a backdoor to access users’ encrypted iCloud data.

UK Orders Apple to Create Backdoor for Encrypted iCloud Data

This directive, issued under the Investigatory Powers Act of 2016, requires Apple to provide British security officials with the means to retrieve all content uploaded to iCloud by any user worldwide.

Apple’s Advanced Data Protection (ADP) feature, introduced in 2022, offers end-to-end encryption for iCloud data, ensuring that only users can access their information.

The UK’s demand challenges this security measure, potentially compelling Apple to either comply by creating the backdoor or withdraw the ADP feature from the UK market.

Compliance could set a precedent, leading other governments to request similar access, thereby raising global privacy concerns.

The UK Home Office has declined to confirm or deny the existence of such notices, stating, “We do not comment on operational matters, including, for example, confirming or denying the existence of any such notices.”

This development underscores the ongoing tension between governmental surveillance efforts and technology companies’ commitments to user privacy.

 


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Oracle Adds AI Pricing Features to Financial Software

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Oracle on Thursday added another set of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to NetSuite, one of its corporate finance software offerings, including some that might make it faster for consumers to get a price quote on purchases like custom bicycles.

Oracle has taken a different tack with AI than rivals such as Microsoft. Rather than racing toward general purpose virtual assistants, Oracle has decided to add targeted features that speed common-but-tedious tasks like entering a brief write-up of how a sales meeting went into a corporate records system.

Another such task that is common in the business world is giving a customer a price quote on a complicated purchase that might have a lot of options, when a sales professional would need to sift through materials to come up with a price.

NetSuite on Thursday announced a feature to compile such a quote via conversation with a chatbot asking what the customer wants, which can either be used by sales professionals behind the scenes to speed up their work, or directly by consumers in the case of e-commerce businesses.

“When you buy something like a bicycle, you have to configure it – figure out what parts you want and which parts work together. We all do it when we buy our cars on the web these days,” Evan Goldberg, executive vice president of Oracle NetSuite, said.

“If you can configure (products) for customers more easily, you can do more deals in a day, or each deal costs less.”

To power those features, Oracle has decided to skip the costly race to develop huge AI models and instead works with partners such as Canadian startup Cohere.

Goldberg said that Oracle’s recent agreement to build massive data centers with ChatGPT creator OpenAI could lead to working with it as well, though the two firms have made no formal announcements.

“I think you could safely say that there’s a possibility that OpenAI will be part of this,” Goldberg told Reuters. “We are eager to work with OpenAI.”

 


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IBM Exits Nigeria and Ghana, Transfers Operations to MIBB

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IBM, the American multinational technology giant, has reportedly announced plans to exit Nigeria, Ghana, and other key African markets, transferring its regional operations to MIBB, a subsidiary of the Midis Group.

IBM Exits Nigeria and Ghana, Transfers Operations to MIBB

The move, which according to TechCabal was revealed in a statement by the company, effective April 1 2025, is part of a new operating model IBM is adopting across select African countries.

Under this arrangement, MIBB will take over IBM’s local operations, customer support, and relationships while marketing and selling IBM products and services across 36 African nations.

“MIBB will market and sell IBM products and services in 36 African countries, thereby giving MIBB’s sales network direct access to IBM products, services, and support, further boosting innovation and growth in the region,” IBM stated.

IBM has been a key player in Africa’s tech industry for decades, providing critical infrastructure for banking, telecom, oil and gas, and government services.

However, its planned exit follows a trend of multinational corporations leaving Nigeria.

In December 2024, Swiss cement giant Holcim announced its departure from Nigeria, selling its 83% stake in Lafarge to a Chinese firm.

Similarly, South African grocery retailer Pick n Pay disclosed plans in October 2024 to exit Nigeria by selling its 51% stake in a joint venture.

IBM has yet to respond to media inquiries regarding the specifics of its transition strategy and reasons for the exit.


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