RIYADH, 28 March 2006 — The Microsoft Gulf Developers Conference (GDC) 2006 was held last week at the Four Seasons Hotel. The event was opened by Communications and Information Technology Minister Muhammad Jameel Mulla and a keynote on the theme “A New World of Opportunities to Drive Business Success” was also delivered in the opening session by Microsoft Arabia General Manager Dr. Khaled Al-Daher.
The goal of GDC 2006 was to provide a comprehensive technical overview as well as more insight on the latest, both recently released and upcoming, Microsoft development and platform technologies. During GDC 2006 there were many sessions to demonstrate the latest advanced features in Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005, BizTalk Server 2006 and Windows Vista and show how all these technologies could be used to build reliable, secure, high performance applications to connect people, information, processes and systems.
“At GDC 2006 we had a total of about 700 attendees out of which about 100 were women,” said Microsoft Arabia Marketing Manager Mostafa Younes. “Although the total number of attendees was less than last year, the quality of the IT professionals who came to GDC 2006 was very high and we were pleased. Unfortunately, due to the timing of GDC this year we missed the student crowd, as they were unable to attend due to classes and examinations. Next year we will choose the perfect timing so that students will be included as well.”
Younes continued, “We had more than 15 international experts speaking at GDC. They were drawn from both Microsoft and Microsoft’s partners. We believe that GCC developers have now been fully briefed on all the latest Microsoft technologies and this will enable them to utilize these technologies ideally in order to compete at an international standard.”
GDC has in reality become a weeklong event, as Microsoft hosts both a pre-conference day and a post-conference briefing.
“On March 18, the pre-conference day, there were special presentations on SQL Server 2005,” explained Younes. “The good thing about this was it was actually a tour by the product team. We had people from the product team that had developed SQL Server 2005 coming to Saudi Arabia. We are proud that Saudi Arabia was one of only seven countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa which were chosen for this opportunity. We had around 350 attendees on the pre-conference day and the last hour of that event was dedicated to a Q&A session. The attendees really grilled the speakers and the speakers were very enthusiastic about the amount of knowledge demonstrated by the audience. Many of the questions were very challenging.”
After the main GDC 2006 conference, on March 22, Microsoft Arabia ran three workshops in parallel about Business Intelligence, .Net Security and Visual Studio 2005 Team System. These workshops were dedicated for Microsoft’s partners and high-end customers, not only to learn the technology but also to try the technology hands on. Microsoft Arabia believes that market education is the best way to help the developers’ community and potential customers understand the value of Microsoft products and technologies.
“GDC is taken quite seriously by Microsoft,” said Younes. “It is a huge investment — now over a million riyals. We have received written feedback from all the attendees and will be analyzing their comments to improve next year’s event.”
A million riyals is big money, but the investment in market education appears to be paying off.
“We are proud to announce that two major customers in Saudi Arabia are choosing to test Microsoft’s latest products,” Younes revealed. “Saudi Aramco is taking part in our Windows Vista Early Adoption Program. They are currently having the product installed in their labs, trying it and making themselves ready for the launch of the product. Moreover, SABIC is engaged with Microsoft for Office 2007, again in an early adoption program where they get ready, look at the product and get early hands on training with the product.”
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