New online presence for Saudi Arabian Airlines
As part of a major restructuring, Saudi Arabian Airlines is aiming to enhance its services across the whole of its business to help increase sales and improve overall customer experiences. Upgrading its Web presence was a key part of that strategy and has resulted in the creation of a new global website at www.saudiairlines.com.
Previously the website had been a basic domain, allowing customers to access flight information. As the functionality of the Web continues to expand, Saudi Arabian Airlines wanted to re-address its website focus. The goal was to produce a one-stop shop, offering visitors an all-encompassing travel experience including flight information, ticket booking, car hire, hotel information and destination weather reports.
Vignette Portal and Vignette Content Management (VCM) solutions were selected by Saudi Arabian Airlines to deliver a user-centric “travel community portal.” The new Saudi Arabian Airlines website has now gone live and is able to integrate booking online via e-ticketing/electronic payments, web check-in and baggage tracking with multi-language functionality, enabling customers to select their country setting and choose their preferred language.
IOB partners with Prometric
Prometric Dubai has been selected as exclusive provider of all regulatory testing by the Institute of Banking (IOB) in Saudi Arabia. The partnership marks Prometric Dubai's first win in the Middle East and North Africa financial services sector. IOB will build and run its own test center, as well as manage all candidate online registrations entirely on its own. In addition to the IOB's new testing facility, which will be operational this month, the computerized exams will be available to candidates at nine Prometric centers located in every major city throughout the Kingdom. Candidates will also benefit from various functions available as part of Prometric's computer-based interface, including the ability to switch in real-time between English and Arabic language content.
ADAOX signs with Jamal Al-Jassim
ADAOX Middle East, the regional business development centre of ESET NOD32 Antivirus, has signed Al-Jassim Electronics Est. as its second distributor for Saudi Arabia. As per the agreement, the new distributor will promote ESET NOD32 and ESET Smart Security to the SMB and retail sector through its network of 30 PCNet showrooms across Saudi Arabia.
ESET NOD32 is the fastest growing anti-virus solution in the world, leading the industry in terms of proactive detection and outperforming its competitors. It has a very small footprint needing minimal resource utilization, taking up limited space on the user's computer and allowing for faster performance. It also manages upgrades on its own — and the user just has to set the appropriate controls and forget it. ESET NOD32 recently won its 50th VB100 award from Virus Bulletin, a widely-respected independent comparative testing group. ESET is the first security vendor to reach the 50-award milestone.
HP Middle East recognizes partner performance
HP Middle East has announced the winners of the HP Channel Award 2008. The award event held in Dubai was attended by over 400 partners from across the region. A number of senior executives from HP were on hand for the festivities including Todd Bradley, Executive Vice President, HP PSG Worldwide; Eric Cador, Senior Vice President, HP PSG EMEA; Susanne Heis, VP, HP IPG MEMA; and Jos Brenkel, VP, HP PSG MEMA. Bernhard Isemann, Solution Partner Organization (SPO) Manager, HP Middle East hosted the evening.
HP recently introduced two models for its Preferred Partner Program: Preferred Partner and Gold Preferred Partner. Preferred Partners are typically resellers that sell based on volume, usually addressing volume needs but nonetheless strategic market segments. The Gold Preferred Partners are focused on solutions and operations with a requirement for high skill investments.
Saudi winners of the HP Middle East Channel Awards 2008 were: Best Distributor KSA — Advanced Integrated Media (AIM); Best Value Partner — Nahil Computers; Best Volume Partner KSA — Raid Raidan Trading; Best Retailer KSA — Jarir Bookstore; Best Outlet KSA — Extra; Best Territory Coverage — Redington.
