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| TECOM Investments and Dubai SME Sign MoU |
24 January 2012
Dubai Internet City Bldg 4
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TECOM Investments, a member of Dubai Holding, and Dubai SME, an agency of the Department of Economic Development in Dubai, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to encourage entrepreneurship among UAE nationals and further the sector’s contribution to the country’s economy.
Formerly known as Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for SME Development (MBRE), Dubai SME was launched in 2002 to cultivate the spirit of entrepreneurialism among UAE nationals and provide key resources to facilitate the development of their businesses.
The collaboration between TECOM Investments and Dubai SME will encourage UAE nationals who are members of Dubai SME to register and set up offices within TECOM free zones. The companies will receive opportunities to gain insight and increase industry knowledge as part of the TECOM ecosystem that offers a combination of high-end infrastructure, peer-networking with major global players and an enabling business environment to ensure future growth.
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| DIC Announces Expansion Plans of Yebab.com |
Feb 1, 2012
Thuraya Hall, DIC Bldg 3 |
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Dubai Internet City and Yebab.com announced expansion plans of the wedding portal in the UAE and the region at a press conference held recently. Officials from Dubai Internet City, Yebab.com and Kharabeesh, partner in the Emirati cartoon with Yebab.com, attended the event.
Yebab.com was one of the participants at DemoCamp Dubai, an initiative spearheaded by DIC as part of its continuing support to emerging entrepreneurs.Yebab raised its first round of investment from this event and since then has grown from 30 online retailers on the website in 2008 to more than 1,400. Revenue has nearly doubled while traffic has increased tenfold in 2011 compared to the previous year.
The site, which provides brides with comprehensive wedding planning services, from gown selection to photography, catering, and venue booking, has cornered a lucrative market by focusing on Emirati weddings.
As part of its expansion plans in 2012, the internet firm aims to extend its services to Saudi Arabia and Egypt in addition to unveiling the first Emirati cartoon ‘Ya Mae’arees’ that portrays the experience of a young Emirati bride in a modern environment. A joint venture with Kharabeesh, the animation can be currently viewed on YouTube. In addition to these innovations, Yebab.com will also incorporate new design and features to complement its user-friendly interface.
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IDC Middle East CIO Summit Focuses on Business Savvy CIO |
20-21 Feb, 2012
Le Meridien, Fujairah |
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The Middle East CIO Summit is a widely recognized ICT-focused event where CIOs, CTOs, businesses, and IT executives acquire distilled and compact insights into IT strategies, emerging technologies, and best practices that have direct implications for their business.
Valuable, high-level executive insights were shared in tightly regulated sessions where fresh new ideas, both disruptive and exciting, were shared so as to help IT and business professionals implement winning changes to their existing IT strategies.
Each year, the IDC event illuminates many leading minds in attendance with cutting-edge industry best practices and engages vendors as they outline their new product blueprints and demonstrate practical solutions. Running under the theme ‘Driving an Agenda for Business Success', the hugely popular Summit returned to the region for the fifth consecutive year and brought together the region's top 100 CIOs and presented first-hand visions and experiences of pioneering thought leaders from the world's premier ICT organizations.
The Summit focused on what strategies the business-savvy CIO needed to consider and how could he/she demonstrate greater value to the business user and thereby increase the profile of IT in the boardroom.
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| Exploring best practices in Digital strategies |
21 February 2012
Westin Hotel Dubai Marina, Dubai. |
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Part of Econsultancy's international series and now in its second year, Digital Cream Dubai is the region's only roundtable forum for senior client-side digital marketers to discuss and explore the latest best practices in digital strategy, business models, investment, ROI and supplier selection. Attendees discussed future online strategies, benchmarked with peers and listened to inspirational talks by keynote speakers.
Senior client side digital marketers learned about gaining more budget and CFO commitment for digital marketing, better selection and short-listing of partners and suppliers and maximising ROI from online channels in the long term.
Digital Cream has been devised by the analysts and editors at Econsultancy in consultation with the senior digital buyers across the the world and runs in London, Dubai, New York, Chicago and Singapore.
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| Gartner CIO Leadership Forum gathers senior IT executives |
27 - 28 February 2012
Raffles, Dubai. |
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Senior experts and executives from the technology industry gathered at the Gartner CIO Leadership Forum, offering an interactive, workshop-centric experience to exchange ideas and receive actionable guidance. This executive-only program focused on helping to turn insights into actionable results.
Designed to explore critical business, technology and leadership strategies, this exclusive event was created with direct input from more than 1,000 top CIOs. With attendance limited to a select group of CIOs from major corporations and public sector enterprises, the emphasis was on small-group discussion and debate, private consultations with analysts, and special keynotes. In a workshop environment, CIOs discovered how to translate strategic direction into actionable results, achieve the innovation required for competitive business advantage, and lead an organization's transformation of its IT capabilities. Using peers as well as some of Gartner's more renowned analysts and CIO experts as a sounding board, attendees came away with creative solutions, proven frameworks for managing change and a viable plan of action.
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| Cloud Computing Forum MENA 2012 |
28 - 29 Feb 2012
The Address, Dubai Marina, Dubai. |
 Dubai Internet City was the official ICT partner for the second edition of Cloud Computing Forum MENA, a two-day executive level conference and exhibition. Organised by Keynote World Media, the forum focused on key topics such as cloud security, mobile cloud, building cloud infrastructure, and cloud communications. In addition, the event also held a day-long workshop to discuss cloud computing with global IT vendors. A series of seminars conducted in parallel witnessed experts examining specific issues related to technology adoption.
Public and private cloud adoption has gained momentum across the GCC countries with over 70 per cent of the organisations gauging the benefits of cloud computing and services, according to research firm IDC.
Meanwhile, the global cloud services industry is expected to generate US$177 billion in revenue by 2015, up from US$89.4 billion in 2011, as per studies conducted by research analysts at Gartner |
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| TBreak Developers Conference Hosted with Technology Leaders |
14-15 March 2012
Dubai Knowledge Village |
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Tbreak Developers Conference (TDC) was the first event of its kind in the Middle East to connect students as well as independent developers to platform providers. Organized by Tbreak Media and supported by Dubai Internet City, TDC, wasa free event which gave developers as well as students interested in developing mobile apps, video games or web apps, an opportunity to network and learn from industry leaders such as RIM, Nokia and Qualcomm.
Tbreak Developers Conference was supported by Middlesex University Dubai, University of Wollongong in Dubai, American College of Dubai, and SAE Institute.
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| Datacentre Technologies Academy 2012 |
19 March, 2012
Mina Al Salam, Dubai |
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Datacentre Technologies Academy 2012 organised in association with industry association SNIA Europe highlighted the three main cornerstones of any IT environment: storing and protecting information, how it is moved and how/where it is processed.
The Academy featured a full day of educational and thought provoking presentations, examining everything from data archiving, backup and recovery desktop, server and storage virtualization, to converged datacenter networking and public and private cloud services. Datacentre Technology Academy Program is one of the significant IT events in the field of Datacentre trends and technologies. The program offers a range of technical and business sessions that direct the spotlight on new technologies, new challenges and new opportunities.
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| Broadband MEA 2012 Holds Fourth Edition |
25 – 27 March 2012
The Westin Mina Seyahi Beach Resort and Marina, Dubai. |
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Dubai Internet City partnered with Broadband MEA 2012, the region’s premier internet communications event for top-level executives and industry experts. The fourth edition of the event attracted more than 70 speakers and hosted over 50 operator case studies. Prominent speakers from organisations such as Google, Al Jazeera and Universal Music offered keynote addresses during the event, which was organised by ITM Events.
As a key highlight, the event featured the first edition of the ‘Rural Broadband Summit’, a segment, which addressed address issues affecting the growth of broadband technology in the region such as accessibility to high-speed internet in rural or less developed areas.
The ‘Executive Summit’ held on the first day and themed ‘Convergence: Ensuring Co-Existence and Sustainability’ highlighted how Middle East operators and decision makers ensured co-existence between fixed and mobile markets as well as fibre rollouts and LTE deployments.
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| Managed Services Middle East Conference Highlights New Business Models |
16-17 April 2012
Royal Mirage, Dubai |
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The 5th Annual Managed Services Middle East conference will focus on strategic developments in Managed Services business models and market evolution. It is the World's Largest Managed Services Event in the Middle East and is attended by over 800 participants. The event allows industry players to meet at one place and attend discussions on topics such as ‘Driving success throughout the managed services lifecycle.’
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| COMEX Oman to Bring Regional IT leaders on One Platform |
30 April - 4 May, 2012
Oman International Exhibition Centre (OIEC) |
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Top technology leaders will gather at COMEX Oman to attract top-notch decision makers and buyers by addressing the needs of IT and Telecom professionals who require the most up-to-date knowledge in order to make informed buying decisions. It offers the opportunity to develop business relationships on a one-to-one basis with industry leaders in a congenial atmosphere conducive to such discussions. The event will take place from 30 April-4 May, 2012 at Oman International Exhibition Centre (OIEC).
It is the foremost electronic business event for enterprise decision makers in the region and provides investors a definite outlook of the regional industry with an opportunity to meet their prospective counterparts and business partners. COMEX will especially be enriched with events and special projects of business and Governmental organisations aiming to create the most comprehensive information platform for businessmen intending to expand their businesses with ICT.
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| BCustomer is Key for Long Term Growth |
14-15 May, 2012
Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dubai |
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Business and IT professionals from over 200 organisations are gathering at the Middle East CRM & Customer Intelligence Summit 2012 to be held from 14-15 May 2012 at Crowne Plaza Hotel, Dubai.
The event will get together IT and business leaders, government officials, industry experts and active buyers to share strategies, insights and best practices for successful CRM deployment, customer experience management, social media integration, data integrity and analytics.
The objective of the summit is to facilitate an international platform, bringing together over 200 business and IT professionals from a cross-section of organization and industries featuring keynote presentations, end-user case studies, solution provider sessions and workshops to provide delegates with actionable advice and strategic insight to address their most pressing CRM /CEM / Customer Intelligence issues and create business value from their initiatives.
From small-scale businesses to large-scale enterprises, the nature of customer relationships are continually changing, numerous surveys demonstrate that customers now expect more. They are communicating through new channels and they reveal negative experiences to the world more frequently. The risk is that if the customer feels ignored or the organization is not responsive, they will take their business elsewhere.
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| Telecom Experts Come Together |
23-24 May 2012
Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre |
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Regional telecom operators will come together at the 2012 edition of the Abu Dhabi Telecoms CEO summit. Speakers at the 2012 edition will talk about the future of telecoms in the MENA region, biggest challenges facing them and the role of broadband and satellite communication in the Arab Spring. Abu Dhabi Telecoms CEO Summit is the only event in the region to feature as many leading CEOs from regional telecom operators.
The Abu Dhabi Telecoms CEO Summit, held under the patronage of H.E. Sultan Bin Seed Al Mansoori, UAE Minister of Economy, is the leading telco event in the Middle East and the largest to be held in the UAE Capital, Abu Dhabi.
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| Thinking beyond boundaries |
10-13 June 2012
Grand Millennium, Dubai |
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 Local and international industry experts will be able to gather on one platform to share best practices. Click 6.0 will engage online community through advanced digital marketing techniques to take business beyond the conventional. The presenters at the show are senior representatives from organisations mainly including marketing director, VP communications, CEOs and CMOs. This year the event has new highlights which mainly include discussion on online community management and customer services through social networks, location-based marketing, content creation and strategy, social search, social commerce and e-tail, mobile web and mobile apps, digital signage, video marketing. |
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| Bitdefender Wins Best Protection 2011 in AV-TEST Annual Awards |
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Bitdefender®, the award-winning provider of innovative antivirus solutions, won the AV-TEST award for 2011, reaffirming the company’s industry-wide leadership in protecting users from e-threats.
AV-TEST’s Best Protection 2011 Award for home users follows a series of awards throughout 2011 that have consistently placed Bitdefender ahead of all competitors in quality of protection. The award marks the debut of annual awards by AV-TEST Institute, the Magedeburg, Germany-based security software analysis firm recognized as an authority by Bitdefender and all competitors.
Bitdefender won a total rating of 80.5 points in three categories of tests, ahead of nearest competitor Kaspersky, with 78 points, and third-placed F-Secure, with 77.5. Panda took 71.5 points while Symantec received 71 points. Testing covered protection, removal of threats and usability. Bitdefender led the Protection category with 29.5 points – a full point ahead of Kaspersky, and placed second in removal and usability.
“We have set the bar very high for ourselves with this award and our performance in 2011,” said Viorel Canja, head of Bitdefender Labs. “We are more enthusiastic than ever about beating our own performance in 2012, and setting the bar even higher for the future.”
Alejandro Musgrove, President, Americas of Bitdefender Recognized as one of CRN's 2012 Channel Chiefs
Alejandro Musgrove, president of Bitdefender Americas has been recognized for driving effective channel programs by UBM Channel’s CRN. Mr. Musgrove, a 20 year veteran of technology channel sales, has consistently achieved significant channel sales for Bitdefender throughout the U.S. and South America. This award comes very shortly after the company recently won the 2011 CRN Product of the Year award for Bitdefender Business Solutions Version 3.5, announced this past January.
For the tenth consecutive year, Channel Chiefs were selected by the CRN editorial team based on channel experience, program innovations, channel-driven revenue, and public support for the importance of IT Channel Sales.
“Being recognized with two significant awards in a row is a great honor for us at Bitdefender, as it is recognition of our hard work and a demonstration of our commitment to developing success with our channel partners,” said Alejandro Musgrove, President, Americas, Bitdefender. “With the recent release of our newest solutions for cloud and virtualized environments, we look forward to growing existing and new partnerships with our channel partners.”
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| ODS2 achieves top rating in Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA |
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At a spectacular gala event at the London Towers on November 24 last year ODS2 FZ LLC has finished at rank 28th in the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 EMEA.
The Deloitte Technology Fast 500TM EMEA programme is the region's most objective industry award programme, recognizing technology companies that have achieved the fastest rates of revenue growth in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) during the past five years. For the first time an United Arab Emirates as an Arab country was ranked on Deloitte Fast500 list.
“The Technology Fast 500 is a true barometer for our industry, elevating the companies that not only drive innovation but also sustain revenue growth,” says Said Zahraoui, CEO of ODS2 FZ LLC. “ODS2 has seen massive revenue growth over the last five years, and that trend is set to continue into the future. We are honored to be part of this distinguished list and look forward to future rankings.”
The high position of ODS2 in this list is a direct consequence of the international successes over recent years with clients such as KPN and Sonos. This list demonstrates the leading role of the ODS2 software in its sector in terms of Field Marketing, Field Sales and Partner Relationship Management Software
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