"You've had 2,250 per cent of people coming online since the year 2000, " Dell said addressing a round-table discussion in Riyadh on Monday. He added that the world was witnessing the most exciting and promising period for technology ever known, called  "Connected Era. "

"There are more than one billion people online today. There are 500,000 people coming online every single day for the first time in their lives. By 2011, another billion are expected to join, " he said.

He assured that Dell Inc. was committed to developing the Kingdom's IT sector and that the company's sales in Saudi Arabia, in particular, and the Middle East, in general, were growing faster than any other region in the world.

"I think one of the very interesting things we see here in the Kingdom and the Middle East is that our business is now moving at 70 per cent in unit terms, which looks to us to be roughly three times the rate of the industry, " he said.

Dell said one of the purposes of his visit to the Kingdom was to assess the situation and see how the company could improve in the area of corporate social responsibility activities in Saudi Arabia.

"We met with King Saud University where there are many opportunities of collaboration and development of the IT sector and schools. We also met with the ministry of education. Dell Inc. is very involved in — how to fully take advantage of IT in the public education system, " he said.

"You'll see from Dell Inc. later on this year low-cost entry goods for computers that make it very easy for big ministry of education projects, " he added.

He said Dell Inc. generated revenues worth $61 billion last year. It is strongly interested in developing IT infrastructure in the Kingdom's mega economic cities.

"Certainly we are interested in the infrastructure, mega data centres and large green data centres of the economic cities, " said Dell.

He said that during his meeting with senior officials from the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), the two sides discussed how Dell Inc. could work with SAGIA to develop the cities' industrial base.

"There were also discussions on how Saudi Arabia could be a hub for the region for large data centres and about power intensive industries that Dell Inc. uses in its supply chains.   They are great opportunities which we will follow up and explore, " he said.

Meanwhile, according to a study by Madar Research, online advertisement spending in the Arab region is expected to grow in the next 5 years that would bring the total online ad value to about $142.08 million by end of 2011.

Online advertisement spending among the GCC-Levant countries remains below 1 per cent of the total globally, although Internet as a veritable marketing medium is building up in several sectors of the region.

The growth rate averaged of more than 50 per cent took place over the past six years. However, by end of 2006, online ad spending in GCC-Levant raised 54.6 per cent from the previous year that cost $18.71 million. Marketers saw this development as a promising sign that will push online ad spending to break the 1 percent share in the overall advertising market in the upcoming years.