Ismail Ibrahim, General Manager for CEMEA at SUSE, highlights strong MEA growth driven by a modernised, skills-focused channel strategy that deepens partner expertise, accelerates adoption of hybrid cloud and Kubernetes, and expands regional impact across emerging markets.
How would you assess SUSE’s business performance in the Middle East over the past year, and what key growth drivers are shaping your regional strategy?
Over the past year, SUSE has recorded strong and sustainable growth across the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and the UAE standing out as the most dynamic markets. The region’s technology landscape continues to evolve at a remarkable speed, driven by national digital transformation agendas, sovereign cloud initiatives, and the rapid adoption of AI-enabled platforms.
The broader Middle East and Africa cloud computing market is projected to grow from about USD 104.2 billion in 2025 to roughly USD 179.5 billion by 2032, reflecting increasing demand for hybrid, multi-cloud, and data-driven architectures. Organisations across the region are modernising core infrastructure, strengthening cybersecurity postures and building resilient platforms capable of supporting AI, analytics and mission-critical workloads.
These shifts are directly shaping SUSE’s regional strategy, which is anchored in delivering secure, scalable, and open-source foundations that give customers the control, sovereignty, and operational continuity they need as workloads move from experimentation to production. The appetite for open, interoperable, and enterprise-grade platforms continues to grow, and SUSE’s portfolio is well aligned with the region’s ambition to build future-ready digital economies.
What are the core pillars of SUSE’s channel program in the Middle East, particularly in terms of partner enablement, specialization, and profitability?
SUSE’s channel programme in the Middle East is built on three core pillars: enablement, specialisation and shared commercial success. The company has invested heavily in structured technical training and certification pathways across SUSE Linux Enterprise, Rancher and hybrid cloud technologies to ensure partners can build deep, in-region capabilities. This focus on enablement is essential in a market where customers expect partners to deliver not only technology but also strategic guidance, regulatory alignment and long-term operational support.
Specialisation is another critical pillar, particularly in sectors such as government, financial services, energy and telecom, where regulatory expectations, data sovereignty requirements and infrastructure modernisation initiatives are accelerating. SUSE equips partners with the expertise needed to deliver high-value solutions in these environments, ensuring they can address complex customer needs with confidence.
Profitability remains central to the programme, with recurring subscription models and margin structures designed to support long-term engagement and predictable revenue streams. In a region characterised by growing IT budgets and ambitious digital agendas, partners who understand local market dynamics and can align technology to strategic outcomes are essential to SUSE’s continued success.
How is SUSE evolving its channel strategy to address the growing demand for hybrid cloud, Kubernetes, and edge solutions across the region?
The Middle East is moving rapidly beyond early cloud adoption and into a phase defined by hybrid architectures, Kubernetes-enabled environments and distributed edge deployments. SUSE’s channel strategy is evolving in parallel, with a strong emphasis on deepening technical specialisation and expanding partner capabilities across the full lifecycle of Kubernetes management and secure hybrid operations. As organisations scale cloud-native workloads and integrate AI-driven applications, the need for consistent, secure and automated management across environments becomes increasingly important.
SUSE is investing in partner readiness to ensure they can support customers across this journey, from initial design and deployment to ongoing optimisation and governance. Edge computing is another major area of focus, particularly as industries such as energy, manufacturing, logistics and smart cities accelerate their adoption of distributed digital infrastructure.
The acquisition of Losant strengthens SUSE’s industrial edge and IoT orchestration capabilities, enabling partners to deliver real-world outcomes across environments ranging from traditional data centres to remote operational sites. This holistic approach ensures that organisations can modernise comprehensively rather than in isolated pockets, with partners positioned to deliver end-to-end value across cloud, edge, and on-premises environments.
Which Middle East markets are currently delivering the strongest growth for SUSE, and where do you see the greatest untapped potential?
Saudi Arabia and the UAE continue to deliver the strongest growth for SUSE, driven by large-scale digital economy investments, sovereign cloud initiatives and the expansion of national data infrastructure. The Middle East data centre colocation market was valued at around USD 2.6 billion in 2024 and is projected to exceed USD 7.7 billion by 2030, fuelled by smart city programmes, cloud adoption and AI driven transformation. These developments create significant demand for secure, scalable, and open-source platforms that can support mission-critical workloads.
Beyond the Gulf’s largest markets, countries such as Qatar, Oman and Kuwait are accelerating enterprise modernisation and investing in cloud-native capabilities, creating strong opportunities for SUSE and its partners. North Africa also represents meaningful untapped potential, particularly as the banking, public services, and telecom sectors adopt hybrid cloud and container-based architectures to improve service delivery and operational resilience. Across these emerging markets, enterprises are prioritising infrastructure modernisation and secure hybrid platforms, and SUSE sees substantial opportunity for partners to lead with best-practice deployment and governance models.
How is SUSE investing in skills development, local partnerships, and ecosystem expansion to strengthen its regional footprint?
Skills localisation is a foundational element of SUSE’s regional strategy, as sustainable digital transformation depends on the availability of skilled talent capable of managing modern, cloud-native and open-source environments. SUSE is investing in region-specific training programmes, certification tracks and hands-on workshops designed to elevate expertise across Linux, Kubernetes and hybrid cloud management. These initiatives align closely with national priorities in markets such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, where workforce development and localisation are central to long-term economic strategies.
Beyond skills development, SUSE is expanding its partnerships with system integrators, cloud service providers and independent software vendors to ensure customers have access to robust, locally anchored support ecosystems. This multi-tier collaboration strengthens delivery capability, accelerates adoption and ensures that organisations can translate infrastructure investments into measurable business value.
By building a strong ecosystem of partners and skilled professionals, SUSE is reinforcing its regional presence and enabling customers to adopt open-source technologies with confidence.
Africa presents significant digital transformation opportunities. What is SUSE’s strategy for expanding across African markets, and which countries are priorities?
Africa’s digital transformation is accelerating, driven by expanding cloud adoption, the rise of fintech ecosystems and ongoing public sector modernisation. SUSE’s strategy focuses on markets where enterprise digitalisation is progressing rapidly and where open-source technologies can deliver meaningful impact. South Africa, Kenya and Egypt are among the priority markets due to their strong ICT sectors, growing digital economies and increasing demand for secure, scalable and cost-efficient infrastructure. Egypt’s ICT sector alone is projected to grow from around USD 23.6 billion in 2025 to over USD 53.1 billion by 2030, reflecting the scale of opportunity across the continent.
SUSE’s expansion strategy is partner-led and locally grounded, emphasising capability building, regulatory alignment and ecosystem collaboration. Open-source solutions offer African organisations the flexibility and cost efficiency needed to innovate while maintaining governance, sovereignty and operational resilience. By working closely with local partners and investing in skills development, SUSE aims to support the continent’s digital evolution in a sustainable and scalable manner.
How do you see the Middle East and Africa contributing to SUSE’s global growth ambitions?
The Middle East and Africa are becoming increasingly strategic to SUSE’s global growth ambitions. The region’s IT market is expanding rapidly, with cloud spending, cybersecurity investment and AI adoption accelerating in response to national digital economy priorities. The Middle East and Africa AI, cybersecurity and analytics market is expected to reach approximately USD 30.9 billion in 2026, highlighting the convergence of security, data and intelligence initiatives.
Organisations across the region are prioritising hybrid and sovereign cloud environments to retain control of data, optimise performance and meet regulatory requirements. As digital agendas mature and production deployments scale, the region is poised to play a significant role in SUSE’s contribution to global open-source transformation. With strong demand for secure, scalable and interoperable platforms, the Middle East and Africa will continue to be central to SUSE’s mission of enabling organisations worldwide to innovate with confidence and build resilient digital foundations for the future.
