Int. J. Business and Globalisation, Vol. 16, No. 2, 2016 129 Copyright © 2016 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. An exploratory study on the adoption of private cloud in the UAE banking and government sectors Abdulmalik Abubakar Abdullahi* and Fehmida Hussain School of Science and Technology, Middlesex University Dubai, P.O Box 500697, Dubai-UAE Email: aa2400@live.mdx.ac.uk Email: f.hussain@mdx.ac *Corresponding author Abstract: A recent development in computing technology is, cloud computing. Globally, surveys such as Forrester (Bélissent, 2011) and Gartner (Smith et al., 2009) have indicated that CIOs are increasingly becoming interested in cloud computing due to the many benefits it brings to organisations, especially the cost savings. In the United Arabs Emirates (UAE), reports show that billions of Dirham have been allocated by organisations in the UAE for provision of IT services (cloud computing included), however, only a few studies were found which cover the adoption of cloud computing, specifically in the Government sector (Scott, 2012; Elbadawi, 2011). This research, therefore, aims to fill this gap of lack of such research in the UAE, covering a sample of banks and government organisations. This research comes at a time when UAE ranks as the top country within the GCC region, as cited in the UN survey on e-government (U.N., 2012). Keywords: cloud computing; private cloud; e-government. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Abdullahi, A.A. and Hussain, F. (2016) ‘An exploratory study on the adoption of private cloud in the UAE banking and government sectors’, Int. J. Business and Globalisation, Vol. 16, No. 2, pp.129–148. Biographical notes: Abdulmalik Abubakar Abdullahi completed his BSc in Information Technology and Masters in Computer Network Management from Middlesex University Dubai and has relocated back to his home country Nigeria where he works as Scientific Officer 1 under the CERRT.ng unit at National Information Technology Development Agency (Nigeria's IT regulatory authority). Fehmida Hussain is currently the Head of the Computer Engineering and Informatics Department at Middlesex University Dubai. She has extensive work experience in the IT industry and has been in the academia for the last 12 years. She completed her undergraduate majoring in Computer Science from the University of Houston, USA and DPhil degree from the University of Sussex, UK. This paper is a revised and expanded version of a paper entitled ‘Another fact or a fad: adopting cloud computing in the UAE – a study of government entities and banks’ presented at the Second International Emerging Research Paradigms in Business and Social Science (ERPBSS), Dubai, UAE, 26–28 November 2013.