DUBAI, 12 October 2004 — GITEX 2004 was the biggest, baddest IT trade show Dubai has ever hosted. Some viewed it as a platform for announcements. Others used the event for networking. Business development, deal making, partner search and party time were all goals for many of the exhibitors and visitors to GITEX. The biggest beneficiary? Dubai, of course. With hotels full, restaurants packed and cash registers ringing across the town, Dubai’s merchants showed that little in the way of technology was required to empty the pockets of IT professionals from around the region and beyond.
GITEX is more a marathon than a trade show and this year participants were exhausted as they crossed Thursday’s finish line. The organizers, Dubai World Trade Center (DWTC) claimed that 114,000 visitors attended the five-day show, 63,000 of those from abroad.
“Business deals and partnerships remained the resounding themes during the course of the event,” said Helal Saeed Khalfan Al-Marri, director general, DWTC. “Although the visitor experience was improved through better sectorization and registration, we will continue to work closely with Dubai Transport and Dubai Municipality to reduce difficulties in traveling to and from the venue in the future years.”
Samer Shaar, general manager, IBM Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan, was in full agreement with Al-Marri concerning the relevance and success of the trade show. “We believe that GITEX plays an important role in gathering vendors, channel partners, end-user organizations and individuals together to share ideas. It gives us the opportunity to liaise with the industry and allows visitors to find out more about the latest technologies that will shape the future of this region. This year’s show was certainly no exception,” he said.
At GITEX, IBM unveiled details of a largescale migration project with eHosting DataFort, a hosting facility based at Dubai Internet City, as well as a multimillion-dollar deal with Ettihad Etisalat through its business partner in Saudi Arabia, Saudi Business Machines (SBM).
Big money may have taken a lot of immediate attention at the show, but if there was one overwhelming theme at this year’s event it was that small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) will be the focus of much effort on the part of IT vendors for the foreseeable future. An HP manager pointed out that SMBs form the single largest sector in the Middle East, much larger than any single vertical such as finance or petroleum. Acer Computer says regional IT spending by SMBs is currently $218 million annually and analysts predict that this figure will rise substantially as more people establish their own businesses and existing companies expand their operations.
Most hardware vendors are offering special packages and equipment for SMBs and some are even pushing technology check-ups targeting small business owners. While it’s nice to see vendors finally waking up and choosing to serve this long neglected sector, SMBs should be cautious when making any technology moves. SMBs need to be aware that vendors are particularly interested in selling to them because historically few SMBs have staff devoted to technology. Consequently it is perceived that SMBs will be more willing to accept advice from vendor “experts.” SMBs probably will not qualify for volume discounts or extended warranties, either. Chances are that SMB deals will have higher margins. Even more importantly, as local partners and distributors have recently been cut out of many enterprise deals in the region, the need to sell to the SMB sector is becoming critical.
There is nothing wrong with all this interest in serving SMBs. We all know that at least in Saudi Arabia this sector has been under utilizing available IT solutions that could bring great benefits. Implementing technologies that would get SMBs out of the pencil and paper era could be uplifting to the entire Saudi economy. It is essential though that SMBs get second opinions on all major technology purchases. There is no one better equipped to advise on all the flaws of one vendor’s technology than the “expert” employed by another vendor.
At this GITEX it was gratifying to see the number of deals and announcements that in some way involve the Saudi market. While the UAE was still the focus of major attention, the Kingdom got a nice share of the limelight, too.
Intel held a press conference to discuss its collaboration with Saudi Internet service provider Awalnet and Active Mania, a developer of digital home and Interactive TV solutions, to facilitate setting up the region’s first arrangement to supply a digital home ibundle for consumers. Based on the arrangement, Awalnet’s DSL subscribers in Saudi Arabia will be offered Active Mania’s ACTISUITE solution featuring a host of new services; namely multimedia on demand, audio on demand, video on demand, single and multiplayer gaming, video conferencing, online TV shopping, news and weather services. The bundle will initially be offered in Riyadh and will soon move on to reach other cities throughout the Kingdom.
Intel is part of the arrangement because the partners are advocating that Saudi consumers use an entertainment PC as the platform for the solution. An entertainment PC is a PC based on the Intel Pentium 4 processor with Hyper-Threading Technology and the Intel 915 Express Chipset, packaged in a slim form that can fit in a living room entertainment rack.
To be honest, the announcement left a lot to be desired. Nobody knew the total cost consumers would pay monthly for the service. Neither could everyone agree on exactly what technologies would have to be employed to make the service workable for an entire family. But it’s definitely a push for broadband implementation and it’s nice to see a Saudi ISP thinking about value added services.
There was plenty of other news at GITEX focused on Saudi Arabia. House of Development (HOD), a Saudi Arabian systems developer, showed off its new Electronic Authentication System. Muhamed Alawi Geoffrey, CEO of HOD and creator of the system, said the solution is currently being rolled out across all offices of the Saudi Council of Chambers of Commerce & Industry.
Juniper Networks was crowing about being chosen to supply a range of security solutions to Saudi Telecom. Juniper Networks’ integrated firewall and virtual private network and secure socket layer VPN solutions will secure the internal networks supporting Saudi Telecom’s business.
CompTIA, the Computing Technology Industry Association, wanted us all to know that there is now an Arabic language version of the CompTIA A+ exam for computer service and support technicians and that use of this exam has been launched in Riyadh with the support of the General Organization for Technical Education and Vocational Training (GOTEVOT).
Frankly, there were so many GITEX announcements concerning Saudi Arabia that we could have devoted pages and pages to them today and since that isn’t possible we’ll have to showcase them over the next few weeks.
We have saved a little space today to tell all the Arab News readers about one national pavilion dear to our hearts. Every morning the news headlines are always filled with the horrible atrocities happening in Palestine. So it was wondrous to see a team of Palestinian IT professionals on their GITEX stand behaving as if nothing was more important in life than the next business deal. According to Samir Huleileh, chairman of the board of the Palestinian Trade Center (PalTrade.org), the group is determined to preserve the momentum built during the past two years and capitalize on the time and effort invested in creating a professional Palestinian presence in the Gulf ICT market.
At GITEX the Palestinians were excited to present the first Palestine ICT incubator — PICTI and a number of selected Palestinian ICT companies. The products of those companies are specialized in the fields of education, financial and management solutions. The team members of PICTI were emphatic in wanting people to understand that young entrepreneurs in Palestine are still working to build businesses and that despite the terrible difficulties under which they must function, developers are creating excellent IT solutions for companies of all sizes. Their message was clear, “We don’t want your charity. We do want your business.”
Underneath the blaring loudspeakers, the flashing plasma displays and the mysterious men in yellow, the energy at GITEX last week was really all about one thing — business. In the Middle East if you can get people to put politics aside and focus on business you’re witnessing a miracle. See you next year at GITEX 2005 (Sept. 25-29).
