Dubai to be first for Windows 7 sale

Dubai:  When looking to boost excitement about a technology exhibition, there are fewer big opportunities than the release of the latest Windows operating system.

That wasn't lost on the Gitex team at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) or on its CEO, Helal Saeed Al Marri, who said the company actually talked to Microsoft about rescheduling the week-long technology show to coincide with the global launch of Windows 7 on October 22. When that didn't work, the team at Microsoft's office in Dubai were to score a major coup: convincing the head office in Redmond, Washington to make Gitex the only place in the world where consumers will be able to buy the successor to Vista before its official release date. Microsoft will also be sending corporate vice-president Steven Guggenheim to Gitex to preview the new system.

"For us, it's amazing to have a preview [of Windows 7]," he said. "A lot of people are excited about it."

But the Windows 7 preview is just one example of the importance people and companies are putting on Gitex this year. Even people who haven't had much contact with the DWTC previously have been coming to talk to Al Marri about this year's show.

"Hotel managers have come to see me this year, a lot," he said. "They've never come to see me in the last four years I've been chasing them to get rooms. They've come to see what I'm doing, and what they can do to help and everything."

A lot of the new managers are people who were brought in to manage during the global turndown, Al Marri said. The managers aren't putting pressure on the show to help fill hotels, but they're are offering support.

Receptive

IT companies in general have been receptive to the show this year too, he said, with many of them hoping to network.

But companies are also coming with much more specific ideas of what they want to accomplish.

"One of the things this crisis has done is the increase the specifications of marketing teams. They're really looking at numbers now," he said. "They are really coming much clearer objectives. When you look at those objectives, it's much easier to meet their expectations."

Al Marri said the DWTC has done a lot more work in helping them be more successful at the show and working with the companies on how they are spending their money.

The collegial attitude is a big switch from a few years ago, when complaints about floor space, the price of exhibiting and even some schadenfreude about which big name companies weren't attending were common.

Al Marri said much of the criticism then prompted the show to try and reinvent itself, which he says has helped during the recent global economic crisis. "I question whether we would have made the investment early on and if we would be in the position we are today."

One such reinvention is the focus on the consumer electronics portion of the show. While gadgets may not seem ideally placed at an IT show, Al Marri said that many visitors end up looking at both,

"A lot of the people — take the hospitality industry — when they come to the show they're looking at B2B solutions, but they're also looking at the consumer electronics."

He said the DWTC has even toyed with the idea "many, many times" of splitting of the consumer electronics portion of Gitex into a separate show, and while he's not ruling it out in the future, he said the thing that is stopping them is the cross over of visitors.

One thing that Al Marri said he has learned to take less seriously is the noise that often occurs when news comes out that a particular vendor will not be at the show.

Depending on the current pressures in the companies, such as changes in management, companies often don't exhibit, especially if they're not launching any products. He admits though that when several big names back out at once, it can be stressful.

"My experience, with five years at the show, is that even when Microsoft was out, they were back the next year," he said.