6 most considerable subjects of Gitex 2008

1. Egypt IT Industry Boost up

Some times ago one of my firends point that Egypt will expand its IT market and in Gitex 2008 you could see strong attempt of Egyptian IT Companies with diffrent solutions from software solutions to telecommunication solutions.

2. Unified Communication

It’s not much time past that unified communication borned. It seems it’s a favorite subject of middle east countries. Round table video conferencing, Microsoft Unified Communication, VoIP solutions and related hardwares still goes strong in the region.

3. Software As Service

With the comming of next generation of providing services to customers and according to concepts like Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 there are companies now moving from selling software to providing software as service. ERP applications are most softwares as service.

4. Microsoft Dynamics

Absence of Microsoft did not cuase absence of MS Solutions in the region where partners had the responsibility of introducing new solutions like Microsoft Dynamics. It seems Microsoft is moving to government body of mid east countries by Dynamics series and this is a way companies like Oracle have more experience.

5. Mobile Computing

By investigation of companies in telecommunication field and need of mobile computing for anywhere access to corporate information, there’s a huge market in this field. Mobile TV and Mobile Gaming had growth in mobile entertainement.

6. ITIL

Nowadays ITIL best practices are essential to IT departments of organizations. After releasing ITIL v3.0 you can see more companies providing ITIL services from training to compatible softwares to manage IT firms.

I think these 6 subject are most considerable things for IT industry in mid east region. These are personal thoughts and not any official publication or report.

acn Top 50 companies of Middle east

And finally acn an IT management magazine for mid east published top 50 companies of mid east. Top 10 are as follow

1. HP

2. CISCO

3. Oracle

4. MTC

5. IBM

6. Microsoft

7. EMC

8. Etisalat

9. Intel

10. SAP

to see the rest click here.

Comming up on Gitex 2008

Gitex 2008 will begin from tomorrow 19 October and will continue till 23. As like as every year Microsoft presents products but it seems this year focus is on Dynamics series.

Big news of this year is first attend of Google in Gitex after openning Google office in UAE early this year. ”We are very excited to be participating at our first GITEX conference this year,” said Husni Khuffash, Country Business Development Manager, UAE, Google. “Our participation showcases our efforts to continue engaging with our business partners and customers in the Middle East.”

I will be in Dubai from 20 to 23 to visit Gitex. I wish I could know Sharepoint companies in Middle East region. If there’s any sharepoint guy want to meet drop me a line.

Announcing New Daylight Saving Time Update for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

A good news for sharepoint users in following countries:

• Iraq
• Argentina
• Chile
• Iran
• Morocco
• Pakistan
• Venezuela

The update solves yearly DTS time change.

The post orginally published in Sharepoint Team Blog. Update is available for x86 and x64.

Go for Silverlight 2.0

And here it is. Microsoft released Silverlight 2.0. Microsoft is going to work with soyatec to bring silverlight development to Eclipse which means availability of silverlight development rools for Mac and even Linux.

Get Silverlight 2.0 RC0 here.

Sharepoint Exteranet Resource Center

Of course efficient externate access for Sharepoint is complex job. Extranet Resource Center for SharePoint Products and Technologies provides valuable guides and toolkit for planning and implementing Moss 2007 and wss 3.0 exteranet access. 

Covered topics are:

• Designing Farm Topology
• Plan Authentication and Security
• Plan Alternate Access Mappings
• Plan Required bandwidth
• …

SharePoint Pod Show

I was surfing sharepoint blogs and found Sharepoint Pod show hosted by  Rob Foster, Nick Swan and Brett Lonsdale. Podcast subjects are interesting specially on Taxonomy and governance.