ALKHOBAR, 16 April — Next week GITEX opens in Riyadh. I am becoming less and less enthused by this exhibition and I still haven’t decided if I will be attending it. GITEX is trying to bill itself as the biggest and best IT show for Saudi Arabia but just by reading the adverts for the exhibition one notices a serious flaw. Women will hardly be accommodated at the venue. The only timings for women are on two mornings of the event. When I mentioned this to one of the exhibitors he said, “Oh, they are going to host women during the dead periods.”
Now I am not sure how “dead” those days will be, but it’s a fact that evenings not mornings are the most desirable times for all attendees at a trade show. At COMDEX in Jeddah, businesswomen were permitted to come to the exhibition at all times upon presentation of a valid business card. Sadly this will not be allowed at GITEX.
I spoke with Edward Rabat, a representative for Riyadh Exhibitions Company — the GITEX Riyadh organizers. He told me that Riyadh Exhibitions had nothing to do with deciding the timings for women. “The situation in Riyadh for exhibitions is different than anywhere else,” he said. “And in Riyadh there are no exceptions for anyone.” Rabat claimed that the exhibitors had known that 50 percent of the Saudi population would be generally excluded from the exhibition.
To check that point, I picked an exhibitor at random, Apple Handspring, and rang up their event organizer, Dany Khair in Dubai, to ask him if he’d known that women would only be allowed to attend on two mornings at GITEX. He was surprised. I spoke with some other exhibitors. None had heard of the restriction, although some said that it probably was to be expected. Eventually, I did find someone outside of Riyadh Exhibitions who knew of the restriction. That representative of a large national reseller stated that the lack of accommodation for families had been one of the reasons for the group deciding not to do GITEX and instead sponsoring their own event at Al-Faisaliah Hotel in September 2002.
For some time it has been discussed that information technology must be utilized as a great enabler of women in our society. Consequently, I must question how the severe restriction on female participation at a major IT trade event can be helpful in this regard? Women can go to any shopping mall in the Kingdom, day or night, and purchase IT equipment and software — but this won’t be allowed at GITEX. At the minimum, evening hours should have been provided for families during the exhibition. Yes, standing by our cultural values is important but finding ways to enhance business and educational opportunities for women is surely also important, if our nation is to thrive.
And now, let’s move along to another contentious subject in the Kingdom, Internet service. A couple of weeks ago I sat down with Yaqoob Yousif Al-Awadhi, business development manager at Batelco Jeraisy Limited (BJL), also known by the brand name Atheer Internet Services. BJL was created by combining the forces of two of the region’s biggest players in their respective fields; Bahrain Telecommunications Company (BATELCO) and the Jeraisy Group. BATELCO is a long established telecommunication company in the Middle East, as well as an Internet service provider since 1995. The Jeraisy Group is a leading provider in the Kingdom for office furnishings, equipment and materials, as well as telecom and IT equipment and solutions.
Atheer was awarded one of the original licenses to provide Internet service in the Saudi Arabia. It has become well known that with the pricing structure of the Saudi Internet, it would be practically impossible for ISPs to make money on dial-up only. Consequently, Atheer, like many other ISPs, has begun to offer e-services to enhance its profitability.
Al-Awadhi and I got into problems right at the beginning of the interview when he claimed that Atheer was the ISP with the greatest number of customers. He wouldn’t give me a number of customers for comparison sake. In addition I do have a copy of a letter sent to Nesma Internet, which reads:
“Greetings! STC is pleased to acknowledge that Nesma Internet, NESMA ISP is presently the largest ISP in Saudi Arabia, based on dial up subscribers and DSL subscribers. STC would like to congratulate Nesma ISP for their vision and commitment to the development and expansion of e-commerce and Internet in Saudi Arabia as demonstrated by purchasing a full 155 Mbps STM1 fiber optical connection to the STC ATM backbone network. The speed of this 155 Mbps STM1 fiber optical connection will enable Nesma ISP to continue its market dominance. STC would like to express our gratitude to Nesma ISP for the large order of the STM1 circuit and look forward to many more orders in the future. Sincerely, Arthur B. Pennington, Key Accounts & Internet Department, Internet Sales and Project Coordination Manager.”
So the exact position of Atheer in the market is open to some doubt, but even Yacoub Snobar, manager, Nesma Internet, agreed that they are a serious player. The situation among the Saudi ISPs is extremely messy, with new rumors of mergers and buyouts cropping up weekly.
“We are interested in a long term investment,” said Al-Awadhi. “Unlike many other Saudi ISPs we have been dedicated to fulfilling our business plan. Some other ISPs have only been able to compete because they have not paid pending invoices for their connectivity. This is not the case with Atheer. In addition, because BATELCO is a partner in the venture, there are minimum standards we must maintain. Our port ratio is 1-8. We always have bandwidth above our current utilization to prevent congestion. The international port ratio standard is 1-9 or 1-10. At some Saudi ISPs it’s as high as 1-19. In addition, our operating platform has no single point of failure. It is fully redundant and scalable, and we are ISO 9001 certified. Atheer was the first ISP to deploy full-fledged CRM for customer support. All our agents are well-trained, customer friendly and fully bilingual.”
That is not to say that Atheer is finding it easy to compete in the current environment. Al-Awadhi considers the local situation to be extremely unfair.
“Competition here in the Kingdom is not fair because STC has decided to be part of the game,” explained Al-Awadhi. “STC’s Saudi Net gets the infrastructure free. Saudi Net customers are given priority in areas like leased lines. All the other ISPs are left waiting forever for the same services. Even worse, because there is no strict control on the installation of V-SAT systems our investment is not protected. Nothing is free in the Saudi Internet market. Atheer does not discount and this has earned us some critics, but many more happy customers. Honestly, the more an ISP discounts, the more they are compromising in some area of their operations and that will hurt their users down the line.”
Because Atheer is certain that it will never make money on connectivity, the ISP is pouring its funds and creativity into the area of applications.
“The greatest portion of the Saudi population is in the age of 12-35 years and this is the pool from where Atheer draws its Internet subscribers,” commented Al-Awadhi. “So we are working creatively to come up with value-added services to address the specific requirements of this young population. For example, we were the first to introduce pre-paid Internet cards and SMS to Nokia phones in the Saudi market.”
Al-Awadi pointed out that the future of e-commerce and e-business lies in the hands of the region’s youth. For this reason WISE — Web Integrated Services for Education — has been developed as a joint venture between Batelco Jeraisy Limited, Jeraisy Computer & Communication Services and Arabian Network Information Services — in collaboration with King Faisal University.
WISE is a comprehensive, totally integrated, and cost-effective Internet-based solution specifically designed for the benefit of educational institutions in the Middle East. By allowing educational institutions to build their websites as well as provide Intranet access, WISE serves as a single-point of communication for students, faculty and the administration. It combines campus communication, academic resources, administrative services, campus news, distance learning, and all other web applications, into a single, secure system. WISE is so versatile that the students and teachers can communicate with each other online from anywhere in the world.
Atheer is also trying to capture more of the corporate and government market in electronic services. They are working with the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) to develop the authority’s portal. In the future, investors interested in doing business in the Kingdom will be able to complete all forms online and submit them electronically.
They also have been involved in a very successful cooperation in TAWAF, which is a comprehensive service licensed by the Ministry of Haj and Endowments. Atheer’s TAWAF has created a center for Electronic Umrah Services. This center performs all aspects related to reservations and sales operations, in addition to providing all the certified Umrah offices and agents with all the required information to facilitate the Umrah procedures. TAWAF presents complete information for the Umrah performers in an attempt to allow pilgrims to complete the rituals in ease and peace of mind.
“We believe that we have been the most creative of the Saudi ISPs,” said Al-Awadhi. “That we have been widely copied, is as they say, the highest form of flattery, and to be expected. But Atheer’s innovations are only beginning. Internet users in the Kingdom are ready to accept a wide variety of electronic products and services and we plan to roll them out faster and more focused than others. We wish our competitors well in the race ahead. Good, fair competition makes for a healthy, dynamic market.”
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