A year into his position as IBM's general manager for the Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan, Samer Shaar is on a roll.

Not only is the company associated with two of the biggest e-Government ventures in the Gulf, those of the UAE and Bahrain, but it is making impressive strides with its Linux game plan snapping up a few top notch enterprise accounts in the region.

With the outlook for the Middle East's IT sector rated as very encouraging, Shaar takes some time out to give his feedback on the year to date for IBM, and what could be in store for the next 12 to 18 months, when a slew of major contracts is expected to be awarded.

Gulf News: IBM landed a couple of major Linux-related deals during the last twoquarters. How would you rate your performance in spreading the word on Linux? Is the gap between making a pitch and signing the deal narrowing?

Samer Shaar: IBM sees open source software as being of enormous value to our customers, which is why we have thrown our full support behind Linux and open standards in our hardware, software, support and services offerings.

The benefits of Linux such as workload consolidation, reduced costs and adaptable infrastructures can no longer be ignored. We have seen tremendous growth in the last few years across industries ranging from oil and gas, telcos, and Internet Service Providers (ISP) to educational institutions.

We feel that this growth will continue to accelerate as more and more organisations start seeing the benefits.

With Linux offering substantial out of the box cost savings, there is a noticeable interest in the technology within the education sector, where institutions are starting to deploy the open source software for their internal infrastructures as well as using it for educational purposes. Governments have also shown great interest in it as a platform for their e-government initiatives.

IBM extended its commitment to Linux in the Middle East region by establishing the Cairo-based development team that successfully adapted the core operating system components that are necessary to make Linux capable of handling Arabic properly, set standards and put it into the hands of the open source community.

We have also been very active in the education sector by working closely with governments, private schools and universities on training and development initiatives such as the Linux Labs at Jordan University and HCT in the UAE and, more recently, in Oman. We have seen this investment pay off not only in monetary terms but in the level of awareness and interest that is growing in the region.

Organisations are starting to see that they now have a choice and the word is spreading fast.

IBM is the project consultant for the UAE e-Government project. Do youhave an indication when you might be calling in tenders for the first phaseof the project?

The UAE Federal e-Government Steering Committee has signed and agreed to the e-Government strategy covering 18 ministries and 17 federal authorities.

A detailed transition plan outlining the various phases of the implementation project and the proposed timing for these projects has also been approved by the Steering Committee.
The actual timing of specific tenders depends on the implementation and realisation of the transition plan.

What is your present status with the Bahrain e-Government project?

Since the announcement last October, IBM and Gulf Business Machines (GBM) have been working closely with the Bahrain Central Informatics Organisation (CIO) Government to build its advanced national e-government infrastructure based on the open standard Linux platform using IBM software, hardware and services.

The Linux platform has enabled the government to invest in a solid, stable and flexible national infrastructure which preserves security, gives the government true vendor independence and therefore supports an ongoing ability for the Bahraini CIO to deploy the best solutions to meet the core needs of its systems.

The Bahrain e-government strategy is made up of five key projects — a national database project, a security strategy implementation project, a hardware and software upgrade project and a Government Data Network project as well as an Applications Transformation Project.

Alongside these, a national Smart Card and Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) project will result in a single card for citizens and expatriates which will give access to government services and support an 'e-purse' payment mechanism.

Your thoughts on the IT marketplace in 2004 — are you seeing an uptake inthe number of new projects coming to tender? Any particular industry you would like to mention as being in the forefront in this?

The Middle East is one of the fast growing emerging markets in the world, and has a number of dynamics that make it interesting, particularly the remarkably rapid development in many Gulf countries and the enthusiastic uptake of e-government and e-business. The ongoing benefits of this accelerated growth will extend to 2004 and further.

IBM has positive expectations for the market and we will be moving full steam ahead with our investments in skills development, marketing and training activities.

Your expectations as regards topline growth at IBM's regional operations this year. What sort of growth did you have last year?

Last year was a great success for IBM and its business partners with several ground-breaking deals such as the Bahrain e-government Linux implementation.

The 'Eternal Egypt' project was another massive investment from IBM that involved providing new technologies and expertise from IBM's research and services teams in the US and Egypt to capture the Egyptian heritage online and share it with the rest of the world.

We signed on several customers from the retail, banking and healthcare sectors and we launched community development initiatives such as Kidsmart in Jordan, a global IBM programme that aims to provide learning facilities for students in disadvantaged areas. We also launched a workforce development initiative in Saudi Arabia that provides career development training in computer and business skills for young Saudis.

We are excited about this year, especially with the recent launch of our renowned global PartnerWorld channel enablement programme in the Middle East.

We are investing in the channel and we are positive that this will have a significant impact on our presence in the market as we continue to expand and grow the skills set of our channel partners.