DUBAI, 4 October 2005 — Many in the IT industry can remember the years when it was impossible to find a Saudi exhibitor at Gitex. Oh, there were always plenty of Saudi visitors to Dubai’s Gitex, but Saudi exhibitors were rare. This year it was indeed a pleasure to see Saudis both as IT consumers and IT producers at the show. It was also impressive to witness young Saudis presenting in either English or Arabic — as the case required — to an international audience at the exhibition. Even under tough questioning these Saudi corporate representatives held their own and it is certain that business was won by their professional, intelligent demeanor.
Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) and Saudi Telecom (STC) were both at Gitex. STC had the more impressive stand, a replay of last year’s effort. But the smart business always places substance over beauty, and so it was at Gitex. Mobily had a very modest stand and everyone’s first reaction to it was a horrified “Why?”
Humoud Al-Ghobaini, the officer in charge for Mobily’s Corporate Communications, was representing the company at Gitex. He explained that their operation at the show was simply about customer care and that sales of any sort were not the goal. At the Gitex Mobily “kiosk,” a Mobily representative was able to recharge accounts, activate roaming, pay bills or begin investigations into any type of service problems. The Mobily kiosk at Gitex was linked with the telecom’s central system in Riyadh.
“At the last moment, when Mobily realized that thousands of their customers would be in Dubai for the exhibition, the company decided to come to Gitex to provide customer service there as an added value,” Al-Ghobaini said. “The space for Mobily was small at Gitex but our service was big.” Especially when that service was compared to the customer care offering of the other Saudi operator during the show.
Microsoft Arabia was another Saudi organization that at Gitex was highlighting its achievements in areas other than market share. Microsoft Arabia announced that this year, in cooperation with the Ministry of Education, it has completed the training of over 6,000 male and female Saudi teachers in computer skills in line with its efforts to contribute to supporting and developing education in Saudi Arabia. This is part of a four-year training program which the company is executing in close liaison with the ministry and includes training 30,000 male and female teachers. Microsoft also revealed that it completed, as part of the same program, qualifying 150 information technology supervisors to acquire Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE) certifications.
Microsoft Arabia General Manager Dr. Khalid Al-Dhaher explained that Microsoft is currently implementing many projects under the “Partners in Learning” initiative, aiming at fully utilizing information technology in education. Among these are pilot projects for the Microsoft Learning Gateway, which was finished in 25 schools in Madinah. Microsoft also provided the Education Ministry with localized digital curriculum for school grades from 4 to 12, which can be fully integrated with Microsoft Class Server. These were delivered to the ministry together with learning units, virtual laboratories and other learning media. They are now being updated to match the new curriculum. “We also supported the ministry’s initiative to collect all of its data and information for use through the unified Data Center,” Dr. Al-Dhaher said.
Dr. Munir Al-Humaid, general director of the Computer and Information Center at the Ministry of Education and head of the Joint Understanding Committee comprising the ministry and Microsoft, commended the company’s commitment to their joint agreement and the completion of what has been agreed by both parties so far in areas of training, technical consulting, free licensing, e-learning, providing digital curriculum as per international standards and honoring distinguished teachers.
“Officials at the ministry look forward to more contributions from the private sector that will boost education and improve teaching and learning,” Al-Humaid commented.
Another Saudi firm that made quite a splash at Gitex was Al-Elm Information Security. Five partners were on the stand with this local Saudi IT security firm and their Gitex offerings were well received. The stand was quite busy due to frequent partner presentations and the presence of Saudis serving Arabic coffee while dressed in thobes and traditional overcoats, “daglah,” was a nice draw.
One of the Al-Elm partners was the High Tech City project in Riyadh. Representatives from the Public Pension Agency were at Gitex discussing the importance of this new project which is expected to break ground in 2006. Fahad M. Al-Shebel, IT director for the Public Pension Agency, stated that Governor Muhammed A. Al-Kharashi has been an initiator and enthusiastic supporter of the project. Now, in coordination with the Arriyadh Development Authority and the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) detailed plans for the project are moving forward.
While a key part of the project is an IT incubator that can accommodate 50 Saudi entrepreneurs, the High Tech City will also be home to numerous international firms. Discussing possible moves by international vendors to the city was one of the reasons that the Public Pension Agency was at Gitex.
New Saudi ventures had to compete for attention with well-established Saudi companies and Advanced Electronics Company (AEC) had a prime show location and very active staff trying to make the most of the opportunity.
“We are here at Gitex to display software solutions that address industrial and commercial customers,” said Khalid Abdul Aziz Al-Turki, AEC’s PR manager. “All our applications are created by our own Research and Development Department. It is important to emphasize that most of the staff in our R&D are Saudis.”
AEC is already manufacturing state-of-the-art electronics in Riyadh and the development of software and total solutions are simply the next logical steps in the process of increasing its corporate presence in the international IT market.
“The show has been good for us. We’ve had many inquiries which we’ll be following up and we hope that this will result in some industrial wins for us,” said Al-Turki. “We have a team of six on the stand, plus executives at the show to deal with serious customer inquiries. Additionally, we have a second team visiting other stands at Gitex to gather information as a part of AEC’s market and technology research efforts.”
A few years back, hearing a Saudi company talk about being a dedicated producer of technology rather than a prime consumer was only a dream. Nowadays many in the Kingdom have high hopes for the future. Gitex proved that these hopes have substance.
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