DUBAI, 22 October — Here are the GITEX numbers: Over 600 exhibitors representing 1,500 companies from 37 countries attracted over 60,000 visitors in five days. Many Dubai hotels reported 100 percent occupancy. Arrivals at Dubai International Airport were up 84 percent. Major restaurants and ballrooms were 100 percent reserved. Waiting time for a taxi at GITEX after 5 p.m. was 45 minutes plus. Amount of business done at the show? Your guess is as good as mine.
GITEX this year was great — at least for Dubai. The sums spent in the city during the week of the exhibition were astonishing. Downstream businesses such as restaurants, florists and, of course, Etisalat benefited heavily. Each day began at 7 a.m. and ended somewhere after midnight. The activity at GITEX could best be described as manic. Forward projections coming into the show indicated that many Gulf businesses would be holding the line on IT spending. This meant that there was intense vendor competition for every riyal, dirham and dinar that might be allocated to IT in corporate budgets. The greatest growth in IT spending was anticipated from the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market sector, which has traditionally been difficult to serve. Computer Shopper, the GITEX retail event, which runs concurrently with the trade show, gave a taste of things to come — at least for the hardware vendors. Minuscule margins will probably be the rule, as notebook computers on sale at Shopper dropped below 3,500 dirhams for the first time.
Unlike last year, many IT companies were able to convince their higher management in Europe and the Far East to come to GITEX, at least for a day or two. American vendor representatives were still thin on the ground, but most GITEX attendees I spoke with thought that was all right. These days, local companies prefer to deal with Arabs, Europeans or Asians anyway, especially as consultants. One of the top questions from show attendees to exhibitors was, "Where is your local office?" With businesses conserving their IT resources there is absolutely no interest in striking up a relationship with a vendor who is not perceived as having a strong commitment to the region, supported by a permanent physical presence here.
The most important announcement of GITEX week was the launch of the Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO) by Dubai Crown Prince and UAE Defense Minister Sheikh Mohammed ibn Rashid Al-Maktoum. DSO will be the first purpose-built industrial park in the region for the semi-conductor industry. DSO is to be run under the administration of the Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority. The project is considered to be the first step toward creation of local entrepreneurial companies with high-end technology.
Spread across 6.5 million square meters, DSO will provide developed land for customized buildings complete with infrastructure for power, water, telecom and datacom. The initial focus of DSO will be to create the required "knowledge infrastructure" by establishing the Dubai Silicon Technology Institute and the Dubai Silicon Incubator Center. The cooperation of the German Government has already been assured in the development of the institute. The incubator will be set up under the supervision of IHP, a premier R&D institute in Europe.
Dubai will also be the headquarters of iPIX International, a new joint venture between Internet Pictures Corporation of the United States and Soroof International, a Saudi Arabia-based group of companies focused on core technology/industry investment and technology transfer. At a press conference held during GITEX it was announced that Prince Bander ibn Abdullah ibn Muhammad Al-Saud, president and CEO of Soroof International, will be chairman of iPIX International, and Tim Brookes, previously senior vice president of Internet Pictures Corporation, will be its president and CEO. iPIX International will have offices in Dubai Internet City.
iPIX International will develop and manage the iPIX business in more than 160 countries around the world, outside North America, Japan and China, as the exclusive distributor for iPIX immersive still products, including the iPIX GPS Mapping System. According to Prince Bandar, the formation of iPIX International is a continuing step in Soroof’s aggressive quest for attracting new technologies regionally and beyond. Through a five-year royalty agreement with iPIX, this new global enterprise will develop integrated solutions for markets including real estate, travel and tourism and other markets in which online marketing is critical.
"The whole essence of the Net is that the person using it is in charge," said Tim Brooks. "iPIX gives users total control of the way they view images on the Internet."
And speaking of total control, charity organizations in the region are now looking at methods for managing and documenting their operations to promote greater transparency. In that regard, at GITEX, Ajman-based Human Appeal International (hai.org.ae) announced the completion of the first stage, worth $500,000, in an implementation and integration designed to upgrade the use of IT within the organization. The focus is on four main areas — finance and accounts, funding, projects and administrative affairs. Solutions being used are from ACCPAC, Oracle and e-Charity from Lite Information Technology. The idea behind HAI’s project is to link activities in the charity’s 17 offices around the globe to benefit the 20,000 orphans HAI helps serve. The charity’s new website is anticipated to go live near the end of October.
"The project is our first step toward building a global database to be used by other humanitarian organizations and donors," said Salem Ahmad Abdul Rahman Al-Nouaimy, secretary-general, HAI.
"The project is also expected to generate cost savings of up to 65 percent over the next five years. The savings generated from migrating operations to the Internet will all be allocated to more relief programs."
Hard numbers like those being put out by HAI were in short supply at GITEX, but there was a lot of other information being spread around, much of it certain to have an effect on the market. Al-Elm Information Security (elm.com.sa) posted a bulletin about a SANS Institute Security Training Certification to be offered in Riyadh, Jan. 11-26, 2003. Dell didn’t have a stand at GITEX but through Lexmark they put out news of an alliance for the two companies to develop and produce Dell inkjet and laser printers and cartridges. Acer showcased the region’s first tablet PC — the TravelMate C100. Weighing less that 1.5 kg, the tablet PC features a 180-degree revolving screen and Intel Pentium III mobile processor.
Western Digital with Al-Yousuf Distribution supplied information that they’d sold their one-millionth hard disk drive in the Middle East. LG Electronics jumped into the regional mobile phone fray as it introduced its first Arabic-enabled mobile handset, the folding LG-510W. Batelco continues to lead the way for regional telecoms with the launch of its better than 3-G service, using wi-fi technology with download speeds of 11 Mbps compared to just 2 Mbps for 3-G. Batelco plans to establish radio hotspots in Bahrain to wirelessly connect handheld-computer devices and laptops to the Internet. A trial of the wi-fi technology is about to be rolled out in Bahrain at the airport, a shopping mall and a number of hotel lobbies.
During GITEX, HP held its 2002 Middle East Business Partner Awards. Several Saudi businesses were honored. Jarir Bookstore won as Imaging and Printing Group Retailer. The award for HP Commercial Reseller went to Jeraisy Computer. Mohamed Hamed of Applied Computer Services, KSA, was chosen as HP STAR Employee of the Year. Another organization, the Business Software Alliance (BSA), signed eight regional Arab software houses to join in the fight against the trade and use of illegal software. In the Kingdom the new members in the BSA campaign are Al-Dwalej Technology, ATA Software, Mishal Al-Sodeiri Office for Commercial Services and Saudi Soft. For the coming year, BSA plans to work to bring down the piracy rates of SMEs in the region.
One high-profile GITEX news release, which involved Saudi Arabia, was the purported awarding of an e-government gateway by the Ministry of Interior. This news was false. The project that was awarded had an original bid name of "Public Database Exchange."
There definitely was no agreement on the operating system of choice at GITEX but it was no surprise that Linux continued to grow in strength and support. At their GITEX stand, IBM unveiled technology for running Arabic natively on Linux. The Arabic support in Linux is a result of a massive effort by the project team at IBM’s Technology Development Center in Cairo. The team in Egypt has successfully adapted the core components that are crucial to making Linux capable of handling Arabic text properly.
"Linux offers enormous technical benefits, whilst giving companies the freedom to choose the technologies that will solve their business problems, but won’t limit their options to a single vendor. We expect this new Arabic support to have a massive impact on the adoption of Linux in this region," said Dr. Ahmad Tantawy, IBM technical director, Middle East and North Africa, and manager of the Cairo Technology Center.
Whatever the other trends I noticed this year at GITEX, it is important to point out that the number of Saudi visitors remained high. The IT trade shows held in the Kingdom, including GITEX Riyadh, just can’t compete with the Dubai show.
What did Saudis coming to GITEX think of the exhibition?
I spoke with Yahya Abdulrahman, a senior Saudi IT professional and here’s what he had to say:
"There were higher numbers of visitors and exhibitors at GITEX this year compared to last. There was also a noticeable increase in the participation of IT security companies covering both consultancy and technologies. Although Dell is one of the key players in the computer industry they did not participate directly at GITEX, although IBM and HP were there. This signals a definite divergence on marketing strategy. I also noticed many companies concentrating on the SME market. There were some integrated application packages available such as ACCPAC, Alpha and Great Plains that could serve SMEs successfully and effectively.
"A new brand from Asia, BenQ, which has a focus on entertaining with quality is certainly one to watch. They are coming out with computers and a range of peripherals targeting the youth market with reasonably priced IT equipment that can compete well against others. For the first time we saw the Saudi Computer Society participating at GITEX. However, most of their brochures were in Arabic while many visitors to the show communicate only in English. I believe it is important to see a Saudi pavilion at GITEX next year, featuring the participation of Saudi IT companies.
"While much touted, GITEX Computer Shopper was not what I imagined. The Shopper show had very narrow corridors between the vendors’ stands, which made crowd movement very difficult. They need services for handling, packaging and transportation of goods to the parking area. This is supposed to be a Gulf show but unfortunately a lot of vendors provide limited warranties that do not cover Saudi Arabia. All warranties at Shopper should be valid throughout the GCC."
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