According to industry experts, the Middle East’s enterprise storage market has grown from $10 million in 1982 to $100 million today. STME, the region’s leading storage provider celebrated its 20th anniversary by announcing annual growth of 40 percent during the previous four quarters. "A number of critical factors have precipitated STME’s regional success over the last 20 years. Ultimately, data has become the most valuable asset of every organization in the Middle East, especially with the advent of e-mail capabilities and the Internet," noted Peter Aubrey, STME’s chairman and one of the company’s founders. "In addition, the growth of new customer-centric services, which have been most evident in the region’s banking and telecoms sectors, have meant that companies need to maintain and utilize records of every customer transaction. Finally, the cost of storage technology has decreased dramatically in the last two decades, in some cases up to 35-40 percent annually, making even the most sophisticated storage strategies achievable for regional businesses," Aubrey added. STME has expanded its market coverage from one office in Saudi Arabia to more than 13 locations across the Middle East, with recent expansion into Jordan and Pakistan. STME counts as its customers the Middle East’s most recognizable brands, including Saudi Aramco and the Saudi Telecommunications Corporation in Saudi Arabia. In two decades, STME has grown from a staff of two engineers in Saudi Arabia to a work force of more than 100 trained and certified storage professionals. The company has reported revenues of $28 million in 2001 and anticipates growth of at least 20 percent despite the current global IT slowdown. Hussein B. Al-Okby, IT director, General Organization of Social Insurance (GOSI), congratulated STME on its 20th anniversary. "Our long-term partnership with STME has delivered considerable business benefits to GOSI for two decades, including the safeguarding of our most critical information, and the ability to know and serve our customers better based on that important data."