MANAMA, 17 May 2005 — Last Tuesday the Bahrain e-Government Solution Center was inaugurated by Sheikh Ahmed Ateyatalla Al-Khalifa, president of Bahrain’s Central Informatics Organization (CIO), Tom Francese, VP, EMEA of IBM Software Group, and Abdulla Ishaq, GM of Bahrain Business Machines (BBM). The event was also attended by a number of senior officials from the Bahraini government and the Bahraini business community.
CIO, IBM and Gulf Business Machines (GBM), of which BBM is a part, have worked closely together over the last two years to build an end to end e-government infrastructure for Bahrain on a platform based on open standards. Bahrain is the first government in the Middle East to join a growing number of governments around the world who are adopting open standards for their e-government initiatives in order to benefit from reduced costs and increased flexibility.
“Standards based technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for modernization throughout society in our country and we believe that this is the best way to move forwards with e-government projects not only in Bahrain, but in the whole Middle East region as well,” said Sheikh Ahmed. “We have a unique experience in that we’ve built our e-government infrastructure on open standards and I am proud to say that it has been a successful project. The establishment of the center today will allow us to share our experiences with other government organizations and enable them to access the latest open standards solutions they can use for their own e-government initiatives.”
The Bahrain e-Government Solution Center is linked to a network of IBM e-government centers worldwide, including locations in the United States, Germany and Russia. The center has access to the latest technologies and skills and is able to provide countries in the Middle East with the expertise to deliver value to their citizens as these nations start to roll out e-government services. The center is staffed by professionals from CIO and GBM who have benefited from extensive training at the IBM e-government centers in the United States and Germany. The center plans to host customer and business partner events, round table discussions and solution demonstrations.
“We are proud to be making yet another significant announcement with the CIO,” Francese said. “The new e-government solution center will provide strategic resources and practical advice and experience to teams working across the public sector in the Middle East. It will establish a strong link with European and other governments and offer access to best practices and experience from around the world. This is a great opportunity to build a critical mass of resources for e-government in the region.”
The Bahrain e-Government Solution Center will feature a number of open standard solutions that enable the successful roll-out of e-government projects and services, including e-government cross agency collaboration, portal solutions, solutions for business controls and reporting, as well as integrated workflow.
Bahrain’s Central Informatics Organization (CIO) — the former Central Statistics Organization (CSO) — runs central government computer systems and infrastructure and is the body responsible for regulating IT within the Bahrain Government. Sheikh Ahmed stated that due to the CIO’s role, the organization has become intimately familiar with all the issues relating to e-government.
“Our team from the CIO attends GCC summits two or three times a year during which we discuss e-government, IT, smart cards and other technology issues. We definitely know what’s the need and what’s there in the GCC nations,” Sheikh Ahmed explained. “It is for this reason that we believe that this new e-Government Solution Center will help the region. Most of the governments globally have initiatives on e-government. This is true for us in the region, too. The idea of having this center is for the governments of the region to see something on a tangible basis.”
He continued, “What tended to happen in the past is that millions and millions of dollars got wasted or not put in the right place because everything was built from scratch. Everyone was reinventing the wheel and this is not the right thing. For the governments in the Middle East that are just now moving toward e-government and want to develop new services, I can guarantee that already somewhere in the world a similar initiative or application has already been created. We now have access to IBM’s lab and their solutions worldwide. This enables us to take the requirements and instead of surfing the Net, surf the available e-government solutions for what suits us. We can bring the application here and see how it works.”
While Sheikh Ahmed was enthusiastic about the new e-Government Solution Center, this did not mean that he expressed unequivocal support for all that IBM has on offer for e-government.
“We have been working closely with IBM, with Microsoft, with Oracle and others,” he remarked. “We believe in having variety. We want to ensure that all of them are here and there is competition between them, which is healthy and good for the market. If you can think layer wise, the mainframe layer has traditionally been IBM. The other layers have been a mix. We want to ensure that everyone has a fair share in the market. What we have done here is pushed IBM to reinvest back in this market. Since 1946 when IBM came to Bahrain it has been a one-way pipe. Now our young people have a chance to have the knowledge and expertise and as a government, we have access to the best consultancy worldwide.”
At the press conference there was definitely a spirit of optimism and camaraderie in the air.
“Gulf Business Machines has worked closely with the CIO to build this center to support the timely and effective development of e-government strategies and initiatives. We believe the Bahrain e-Government Solution Center will become an important step for the integration of the region’s strong efforts and a resource that will benefit all governments in the Middle East,” said Abdulla Ishaq, GM of Bahrain Business Machines.
Yes, IBM is hoping governments from across the Middle East will come calling at the new e-Government Solution Center. With that in mind however, one must wonder if the center doesn’t have a secondary purpose — perhaps as a challenge to Microsoft’s regional e-government initiatives?
“Some might perceive it that way. We are fairly aggressive, especially when it comes to dealing with Microsoft, especially around Linux,” Francese said. “We are in so many businesses today though where we work alongside Microsoft and I have to be sensitive to that. You can’t ignore Microsoft. They are a major part of everything that happens. But clearly, we are out setting the rate and pace around an open environment. Several years ago we invested a billion dollars plus in Linux, making sure that everything that runs within IBM runs on Linux. That means every brand, every piece of hardware, everything is dedicated to this. I am not so sure that (Microsoft) has the same philosophy as we have. You could say it’s in their face. I would say professionally that we are out to serve the customer in an aggressive fashion here. Linux is one way that we are going to do that.”
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