Info2cell.com Establishes Rawafed

Info2cell.com, a mobile application services provider in the Middle East, has established a sister company called Rawafed in Saudi Arabia. This is in line with its market expansion strategy in the region. Info2cell.com has a 51 percent stake in Rawafed, while the remaining 49 percent is held by an individual Saudi investor. The move should help Info2cell.com to strengthen its presence in the high potential Saudi market.

“The formation of the new company is extremely significant to our broader plan in the Saudi Arabian market, which is witnessing substantial growth in the mobile and telecommunication sectors. Our majority stake in Rawafed will ideally position us to capitalize on the market opportunities in Saudi Arabia, as we plan to extend our subscriber base in the country from 250,000 to 750,000 in the next few years,” said Bashar Dahabra, founder and CEO of Info2cell.com. “Moreover, this move will enable us to introduce more innovative services in the Saudi market, which is seeing a steady increase in demand for mobile application services, especially from the younger segment of the population.”

Market statistics reveal that the number of mobile phone users in Saudi Arabia is set to rise to 22 million in 2009 from 10 million in 2002. The large population, fast growing economy and relatively low mobile penetration rates, make this a market with tremendous potential.

Linux Going for More Market Share

Opennet Middle East & Africa, a Master Distributor and Certified Training Center for Red Hat Linux products has appointed Hani Mohammed Amin Hijazi as its territory manager in Saudi Arabia. Hijazi’s appointment comes at an important time for Opennet as it expands its operations in the Kingdom. His key responsibilities will be to enhance the existing channel and expand the Red Hat market locally.

“We are pleased to welcome Hani on board. He has considerable experience in the Kingdom and especially in Riyadh,” said David Allinson, GM, Opennet MEA. “This is the first step of our expansion plans in Saudi Araba. We have been doing business in the Kingdom from our base in Jeddah but believe that our operations will be more effective from Riyadh.”

Hani brings over eight years experience in Saudi Arabia to his new job. He was previously with Jeraisy, MDS, Microsoft and NATCOM. He is perhaps best known for his tenure as Citrix Business Development Manager at Mindware.

Modest Return on GCC Education Investment

Education is a strategic priority for leaders in the GCC countries, with significant investments being made to reform the educational system as the region moves ahead with its transition into a knowledge-based economy. However, a recent World Bank report revealed that despite the region’s heavy investment in education, the returns were modest. The GCC countries have spent an average of five percent of their GDPs on education, spearheaded by the UAE federal government, which allocated about 25 percent of its federal budget for education.

The report found that initially GCC countries have focused on establishing mass education systems, building schools, recruiting teachers, training instructors and upgrading their curriculum. Expenditure on information and communications technology (ICT) in education has also been recently increased, which has made it the fastest growing of all categories of educational spending.

Progress has been realized with the deployment of ICT in several areas of education systems. ICT has been introduced in the management of education systems to improve the quality of administrative activities and processes, including human resource management, student registration, monitoring of student enrollment and achievement and planning. ICT has also been introduced as a new academic subject, and has been integrated with the school curricula to support traditional classroom instruction through the use of software or resources on the Internet. That said, UNESCO warns that the region is likely to face a challenge in recruiting the number of qualified teachers needed to meet the demand by 2015. The challenge is more pertinent for countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

“The introduction of ICT in education must go hand-in-hand with a change of culture within the body of our educational establishments beginning with our educators,” commented Jamil Ezzo, DG, ICDL GCC Foundation. “To combat the current and foreseen challenges of our fast-changing world, upgrading the skills of our teachers must take priority in our region. Teachers must also be equipped with the necessary training and support to effectively acquire computer skills and adapt them to the teaching and learning processes as well as their administrative duties.”

The World Bank report noted that the MENA region spends more on average in terms of public expenditure per student at all levels of education compared to other regions. And yet, despite the aggressive spending on education, the report found that the GCC’s education system has yet to achieve its full capacity to produce graduates with the skills and expertise necessary to compete with other regions.

“To expedite the transition to a knowledge-based society, the adaptation of best practices and integration of more practical training programs in academic subjects that are based on well-established international qualifications, assessment systems and quality assurance mechanisms, including certification and accreditation, has become a crucial component to match the ever-changing and complex demands of the job market. Although we are impressed with the region’s progress in the implementation of a computer-literacy standard for employees of education ministries, we are keen to work with education ministries across the GCC to incorporate the ICDL standard into the curriculum,” said Ezzo.

ICDL is a vendor-neutral, non-commercial certification designed to equip candidates with basic ICT skills and boost their confidence to use a computer. It is an initiative funded by the European Union Commission to promote digital literacy in the workplace, in education and in society based on a unified standard. There are over 1,800 schools, universities, governments and private centers that are currently approved across the GCC to provide ICT training and testing based on the ICDL international standard.

Nesma Internet Enhances Network

Nesma Internet has deployed Foundry ServerIron switches to meet its current and future expansion plans. Nesma Internet, a division of Nesma Advanced Technology, is the largest privately owned Internet service provider (ISP) in Saudi Arabia.

“Several options were evaluated technically and financially from different vendors and we selected Foundry Networks for its technological superiority in performance and stability as well as its very competitive price,” said Mohammad Bazaraa, Nesma’s Technical Manager.

Nesma Internet is the only ISP in KSA that offers more than just Internet access. It currently offers a broad range of value-added services including online multi-player Internet games, PC-based game servers and Arabic translation tools. Nesma has been providing its existing value-added services via a reliable and fully redundant platform equipped with the most up-to-date hardware and software comparable to that used by prominent international ISPs.

New Appointees to GSMA Board

The chief executive of Zain, Dr. Saad Al-Barrak, has joined the board of the GSM Association. The GSMA is the global trade association representing more than 700 GSM mobile phone operators across 218 countries and territories of the world. In addition, more than 200 manufacturers and suppliers support the Association’s initiatives as key partners. The Association’s members serve more than 2.5 billion customers — 82 percent of the world’s mobile phone users.

Other new members of the GSMA’s 27-strong board include executives of MTS of Russia, SK Telecom of Korea, Telstra of Australia and Telecom Italia. The GSMA’s board now comprises the following operators: Hutchison Mobile, AT&T, Bharti Airtel, China Mobile, China Unicom, KTF, Mobilkom, MTN, MTC, NTT DoCoMo, Orange, Orascom, Singapore Telecom, SK Telecom, Smart, Softbank, T-Mobile, Telefonica, Telenor, Telstra, TIM, Turkcell, VimpelCom, Vodafone, and Zain.