Domestic Production: Software Development and
Hardware Manufacturing

Software Development:      

  Compared to many other countries, the Software and Information Technology Service industry in Jordan is at the very early stages of development.” Jordan currently has 80 to 100 value adding IT companies and 400 to 500 Software and Hardware resellers.  The main areas of software development in Jordan are [12]: (mainly used in banks, hospitals, hotels, insurance companies, universities, communications and government)

The main concentration is directed towards the Gulf market with some outsourced work being done for the US and the rest of the global market.  Jordan also has a number of US company representatives including IBM, Microsoft, Dell, Compaq, HP, US Robotics, and Apple.[12] In an informal interview with Karim Kawar, the current Jordanian ambassador to the US, he mentioned that the software development industry in Jordan is still not developed mainly due to the fact that more IT firms buy pre-packaged software like Oracle for their businesses due to lower cost.  In fact, some businesses are willing to change business practices (for example data types and data structure) in order to accommodate the pre-packaged software.

Hardware Manufacturing

        Main market for hardware manufacturing in Jordan is PC assembly.  Currently, the "the market size of PC's is estimated at 282,000 PD's for the households out of which 50% are assembled computers.  An additional market of 140,000 PC's exists but over the next five years. [20]  According to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology "Availability of personal computers (PCs) may be the single greatest impediment to more widespread access in Jordan. The cost of the average PC remains beyond the means of the average Jordanian with a per capita income of just over US$1,500." [20]  Currently, it is very expensive for the average Jordanian to acquire a PC and this greatly effects the advance of any kind of IT sector in Jordan.  A local computer assembly market will greatly bring down the cost of PC's because of no custom taxes and cheaper labor.  There is also great demand for PC's in the government because of the new initiatives of adding PC's in schools and E-Government.  The demand for PC's in the government over the next 5 years is illustrated in the following table  [20]:

Project Number of PC's
Education 111,000
E-Government 15,000
Miscellaneous 15,000
Total 140,000

This high demand for PC's should prompt a growth in the computer assembly market.  Start up companies should take advantage of foreign direct investment and venture capitals (discussed in the IT Financing section) in order to finance their projects.  The current estimate to start a computer assembly company is $30,000. [20]