Microsoft Gulf in collaboration with Dubai Internet City (DIC) recently held the Microsoft Open Door event in Dubai. Held under the patronage of Dubai eGovernment, the two day event brought together dignitaries like HE Ahmed Bin Humaidan, director general, Dubai eGovernment and Malek Al Malek, MD, Dubai Internet City (DIC) and Dubai Outsource Zone (DOZ) together with executives from Microsoft, the company’s enterprise customers and partner community.
The UAE edition of Microsoft Open Door coincided with the company’s 20th anniversary in the GCC region.
“We are very proud to be celebrating Microsoft’s 20th anniversary in the region. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dubai eGovernment, DIC, our customers and partners for their on-going support. The region and its prowess in adopting the latest technology solutions for social and economic development driven by the government’s strategy to digitise key public sector bodies incentivises organisations like ourselves to continually innovate and deliver solutions that offer robust growth capabilities. This is the reason why, Microsoft invested $9 billion in R&D last year, an unmatched spend by any IT company,” said Samer Abu-Ltaif, regional GM at Microsoft Gulf.
During the course of the event, the company and its partners gave special focus to cloud-based solutions such as Microsoft Office 365, System Center 2012, Windows Azure and Windows 8.
Microsoft Gulf also took discussed at length its vision for job creation and economic growth for the region, for which, the company said it has announced the Microsoft Virtual Academcy (MVA), a fully cloud based learning experience with over 5000 IT professionals registered in the region. The company also honoured three MVA graduates at Microsoft Open Door.
Microsoft Gulf now has over 600 employees representing 47 nationalities and works with more than 1500 partners in the region.
The Partner Expo that was held alongside Open Door showcased the latest solutions that the company has developed in collaboration with different partners including IBM with whom Microsoft is working towards solutions geared at creating what they call ‘smarter planet’ and HP with whom Microsoft has jointly invested $250 million to create pre-architected appliances for increased efficiency.
The Middle East leg of Microsoft Open Door began on February the 7th, 2012 in Qatar followed by Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain. The company concluded this series of events in Dubai, UAE to mark its 20th anniversary in the region.
