Mobily, IBM in SR 1 billion strategic alliance

Etihad Etisalat (Mobily), one of the Kingdom’s mobile operators, has entered into a partnership with IBM to bring the latest innovation in the ICT industry to the Kingdom.
“ Mobily and IBM have entered into a SR 1 billion strategic alliance agreement to deliver innovative services for the business sector and build first information security data center in the region,” Khalid Al-Kaf, Mobily’s managing director and CEO, told a press conference in Riyadh yesterday.
Under the agreement, Al-Kaf said a Security Operations Center (SOC) will be set up in Riyadh in 2013 to provide security solutions to the business sector.
The agreement, Al-Kaf said, would provide Mobily with a faster, targeted access to new technologies and expertise in order to build a strong infrastructure to keep pace with the company's business growth.
The broad portfolio of modern IT solutions will allow Mobily to provide innovative services to its business sector clients and help deliver enhanced services to Mobily subscribers.
The briefing was hosted by Al-Kaf, and IBM’s Senior Vice President of Sales and Distribution Bruno di Leo and General Manager for Middle East and Africa Takreem El Tohamy, and Mobily’s Chief Business Officer Marwan Al-Ahmadi.
Mobily and IBM earlier announced a 5-year agreement worth approximately $ 280 million to provide comprehensive IT solutions for the Saudi Arabian company.
Al-Kaf said the new agreement with IBM would provide Mobily with new innovative services to all business segments, offering solutions to all data services and information technology in a more efficient and effective innovative way. He also added that Mobily and IBM will work together to invest in building a first of a kind data center offering a range of services including information security, business continuity and cloud computing.
“As part of the overall relationship, Mobily and IBM will collaborate on future innovation with the help of IBM research to develop solutions for the Saudi market,” added Al-Kaf.
“Mobile computing is driving an increasing demand for IT services in the telecommunications industry," said di Leo. "With this relationship, IBM provides Mobily with the robust IT infrastructure and near term innovation to provide their customers with the best technology it has to offer."
Making a presentation, Al-Ahmadi explained that the SOC will carry out a managed security systems to the Mobily business clients. “Managed security systems are a portfolio of services through which Mobily and IBM will be able to provide security to companies “networks” and “information systems.” He said that the benefits of managed security services include 24/7 “monitoring and management” of all kinds of security threats, which removes the burden from these companies technical departments. “The services will be offered through a public SOC that will be jointly built with IBM, and hosted in Mobily’s Tier IV certified Data Center, with the exact world-class standards that IBM deployed,” he noted. He pointed out that it will also avail a bouquet of disaster recovery and business continuity services.
He said services will also be offered to companies which are in need of private computing platforms, which avails on demand computing resources, scalable systems that support rapid growth, self-serviced environments, and measurable in terms of performance and utilization.
In 2006, the GSM World Association described Mobily as the fastest growing mobile operator in the Middle East and North Africa. It was the first operator to launch TD-LTE with the widest coverage in 33 cities (population coverage rate of 85 percent). Mobily has also the largest active mobile broadband base in MENA (8.7 million active subscribers). In 2011, Bayanat data center received the highest rating
from the Institute (UPTIME) World.
IBM has been in the Middle East since the 1940s. The first computer was installed in the region at Saudi Aramco over 50 years ago. Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Middle East are important focus areas for IBM as it continues its expansion strategy in growth markets. It has a broad range of technology and business solutions for the industry, including security, analytics, and cloud computing. IBM delivers world-class infrastructure and managed services in over 170 countries.