Now that Amazon Web Services Inc. has opened its Middle East Region in Bahrain, how will it impact other technology companies in the region? Will AWS suck up the market share of smaller cloud providers and independent software vendors?

In the U.S., AWS and smaller providers coexist and even benefit each other. It appears that a similar story is unfolding in Bahrain.

AWS’ projects in Bahrain and the country’s Cloud-First policy, in general, are fostering an ecosystem of innovation, according to S. M. Hussaini (pictured, left), chief executive officer of Almoayyed Computers Middle East. It is not just bringing about brand new things like startup incubators and degree programs. Existing companies and government agencies in the region are looking at how the AWS Cloud can change them for the better.

“If it is government, it is about more services that they can offer; if it’s the non-government sector, it’s the new revenue streams that they can generate,” Hussani said. 

Hussaini and Abi Cherian Abraham (pictured, right), general manager of Computer World WLL, spoke with John Furrier (@furrier), host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s mobile livestreaming studio, during the AWS Summit Bahrain event. They discussed the impact of Cloud First and AWS on their companies and customers (see the full interview with transcript here). (* Disclosure below.)

Everybody wins with AWS flywheel

A couple of years ago, many customers in the region were hesitant to adopt cloud. They believed that cloud security could not yet be trusted. The wave of cloud initiatives has largely brought them around, according to Hussaini.

“We are no more talking about the challenges of security, whether it’s going to be secure in cloud or not. We are talking about how the business is going to behave once they make the move,” he stated. 

Service providers realize that they can leverage a hyperscaler cloud like AWS to improve their own offerings.

“We have looked at the elasticity of the platform; we looked at the scalability of the platform; what it brings to our customers; and how do we build innovation, bringing in new technology that helps customers gain insight from their existing data and build onto it,” Abraham concluded. 

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of the AWS Summit Bahrain event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for the AWS Summit Bahrain event. Neither Amazon Web Services Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

 Photo: SiliconANGLE