Microsoft continues to back Turkey's digital transform

By Muhammed Ali Gurtas

ANKARA

Microsoft will continue to contribute to Turkey's digital transformation by providing its technology and ecosystem to support domestic software producers, the director of public sector and investments at Microsoft Turkey said Tuesday.

Speaking at a press meeting for local startups, Erdem Erkul said: "We want to ignite Turkey's information-driven economy and to promote the perception of 'Made in E-Turkey' abroad."

"Our goal is to support more domestic software companies, especially providing solutions to critical sectors such as the public, health, finance, production and retail," he said.

Erkul stated that cloud technology, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of things (IoT), autonomous cars and advanced robotic technologies will gain importance in the coming years.

"AI is one of the most popular concepts in today's world and the leading countries in this field will become much stronger especially in the 2025-2030 period," he said.

He noted that the private sector will be the essential driving factor of those countries' success.

"From 2005 to 2015, around 13 percent of the world gross domestic product stemmed from digital economy," he said.

"By 2025 that figure is expected to reach 24 percent.

"Next year, the global AI market volume will hit $12.5 billion, as 40 percent of digital projects is expected to be AI based," Erkul added.

'Create software giants from Anatolia'

Director of Commercial Partners at Microsoft Turkey Tarik Tuzunsu said that the share of software products in the information technologies market is increasing gradually.

"We want to support the companies born and grown in Turkey as the country has lots to do," Tuzunsu said.

"To stimulate Turkey’s software ecosystem, we are supporting more than 2,000 local initiatives," he said.

Tuzunsu noted that the domestic software market in Turkey reached $315.8 million with an annual growth rate of 4.7 percent last year.

"We expect the market to climb over $400 million in 2022 and we want to create software giants from Anatolia," he said.

Due to global competition in every sector, he said that selling products only in your home country is not enough.

"Now, commercial enterprises are paying attention to the cost sensitivity.

"With cloud technology, companies do not need anything other than the Internet, as there is a transition from fixed costs to variable costs," Tuzunsu said.

Defining cloud technology as revolutionary, he said: "Cloud is the only way newly established software companies can sell their products in another country."

"Turkey's economy is one of the world's most important economies, and software products will play a much larger role in country's exports," he added.