Cloud adoption rate reaches peak in Pakistan’s trade & industry

KARACHI: Demand of information and technology solutions is rapidly growing within trade and industry in Pakistan and the adoption rate related to cloud services is great, said a tech firm executive.

Country Sales Director, Pakistan and Afghanistan Waqas Hashmi at Oracle said almost all the sectors in Pakistan, including banks and financial service providers, healthcare industry and public sector are using Oracle services.

“IT requirements that are met over a period of six months in a common situation, can now be managed within three to six weeks through a cloud service,” Hashmi told The News in an interview. 

“We started cloud service in Pakistan three years ago and we’ve been seeing a great rate of its adoption since then.” Oracle is catering to more than 300,000 clients worldwide, while the number of its customers is above 1,100 in Pakistan.

Oracle’s cloud services are used by more than 70 million users through 19 data centres across the world. In Pakistan, it is associated with more than 55 partners, who are equipped with Oracle instruments and engaged in deployments of Oracle services.

Oracle’s executive said IT deployments and software exports of Pakistan are increasing. Local usage is gaining traction as youth is taking high interest towards tech services. “Total 60 percent of 200 million populations in the country are below 30 years and they use technology more than anybody else,” he added. 

Hashmi said usage of cloud storage is seasonal. Its usage reaches at peak in June at the time of book closure. Backup and usage are two different services. Users can pay as low as one dollar a month for a service.

Oracle uses encrypted systems for backup cloud service, which is considered highly secure. “Our cloud complies with all the general security standards. Even Oracle cannot access it, as data is encrypted,” Hashmi said.

California-based multinational computer technology corporation introduced its services in the world four decades back, while in Pakistan it entered two decades ago. It’s mostly known for its state-of-the-art database services. 

The company offers IT solutions for the new and established entrepreneurs through its cloud services, initiated a decade ago. 

The IT giant is providing solutions in business applications, database and hardware services. Around 50 services are offered globally on three deployment modules. Customers can use any or all these services. 

For those customers, who are reluctant to use cloud services, Oracle introduced oracle cloud machine, which provides services at the user-end. All cloud services are deployed behind the firewall, which means they are secured.