60 MinsShow dates: 9-13 October 2011, Dubai World Trade Centre | AT GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK | Exhibition hours: 10am - 5pm

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CONSULTANCY OF THE YEAR Shortlisted:• PA Consultancy• Ernst and Young• Booz and Co.• Deloitte Consulting• help AGThe winner in this category was chosen for a focus on ICT consulting within enterprises. While other companies might have divisions related to ICT, this particular one has developed this division to make a name for itself. This firm has also helped its customers transform the organisation’s ICT functioning across departments, ensuring best practices are implemented and maintained.Winner: Deloitte Consulting

SECURITY SOLUTIONS PROVIDER OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• SonicWALL• Juniper• Symantec• Kaspersky• Blue Coat Systems• Fortinet• McAfee• RSAThe judges noted that among these contenders McAfee remains one of the more impressive ones, and remains a leading global security provider that is constantly improving its services and offerings for the region as anywhere else.

ICT Achievers 2011The ICT Achievement Awards 2011, the region’s premier ICT awards event, which honoured the best in people, projects and products from the Middle East, took place yesterday at a gala evening’s function.

The evening, which brought together more than 400 delegates forming the who’s-who of the ICT sector in the region, took place at The Monarch Hotel in Dubai.

The ICT Achievement Awards, brought to you by Computer News ME (CNME), the premier ‘technology in business’ magazine of the Middle East, recognised the achievers and trend-setters of the IT industry of the region, who have used budgets effectively and providers who have made good every enterprise investment.

These accomplishments covered everything from projects focused on speed to market, maintenance backlog challenges faced and overcome, business-facing prioritisation of increased budgets, smart analysis of new technological opportunities, adoption of global best practices and standards, investment in skills and end-user support, as well as other intelligent use of resources by end-users, solution providers and service providers in the changing financial landscape of the last 12 months.

The Awards were handed out for 21 categories. Here we present you the grand winners. Follow the stories in more depth in the next issues of CNME!

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However, the winner in this category won its accolade by aggressively surpassing its competitors in consistently offering great security solutions for businesses, including having security hosted in the cloud, thereby helping customers bring down costs while protecting their data.Winner: Blue Coat Systems

STORAGE SOLUTIONS PROVIDER OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Dell• HP• EMC• Oracle• ISITThis proved to be a tough choice for the judges. The final decision came down to two players. EMC is an international player with well-established Middle East roots, storage offerings covering every need from the entry level to high end, and increasing focus on cloud and virtualisation technologies, gained a lot of points. However, it was beaten to the trophy by a vendor that impressed the judges with its increased support for storage hardware and other infrastructure by creating centres in the UAE and other countries. It has also designed storage for cloud and

virtualisation out of the box, which are simple to configure and administer on a day-to-day basis.Winner: Dell

MANAGED SERVICES PROVIDER OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• eHDF• BT• Injazat Data Systems• ISITOne of the strongly contested categories among the vendor awards, the choice again came down to two very strong contenders. eHDF has displayed great technical know-how and have invested consistently to improve the offerings that

it has. It also plays host to a lot of major companies that have chosen it as their provider. The winner, though, beat eHDF to the trophy by the implementation of a data centre that helps them provide not only great services, but serves as an example to imitate for service providers and enterprises across the region. The vendor has also expanded on its line of services to its customers and play host to a large number of business and government entities.Winner: Injazat Data Systems

SYSTEMS INTEGRATOR OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• EMW• help AG• ITQAN• Mahindra Satyam• Infor• Telematics• Intertec SystemsThe judges would like to offer a special mention to help AG, who has done numerous projects over the last year and strivs not only to get new customers but to keep old ones happy. The company that will take the trophy home though remained the dominant one among its competition by demonstrating that they can support customers expectations

consistently, while growing as a company in the region. By working steadily they have won some remarkable contracts over the last year, and continue to meet customer expectations more often than not. Winner: Mahindra SatyamVENDOR OF THE YEAR – HARDWAREShortlisted candidates:• Oracle• Dell• HP• Brocade• Toshiba• Cisco Systems• Avaya• Alcatel Lucent Enterprise• EMC• KYOCERA MITA Middle EastThe judges have leaned toward this

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vendor because of the sheer breadth of its achievements in the recent past - the significant growth in its operations in the region, the introduction of several new products all the way from enterprise to the consumer level, and the service of existing customers. The company has actively embraced the trend of virtualisation and cloud technologies in designing and the running of hardware they have on offer. Along with displaying a defined growth strategy, this vendor has also been actively involved in helping customers achieve more from their investments, and in some cases even helping them turn capex into opex with hardware investments.Winner: Cisco Systems

VENDOR OF THE YEAR – SOFTWAREShortlisted candidates:• Commvault• HP• SonicWALL• VMWare• Oracle• SAP• Alcatel Lucent Enterprise (Genesys)• EMCThe winner of this category remains the undisputed market leader in the area of software solutions that it deals with. It has been the leading, revolutionary light in virtualisation and cloud computing,

and continues to be the global leader of choice for server virtualisation. It is indisputably the pioneer in its field and continues to be the unquestioned leader.Winner: VMWare

INDUSTRY ACHIEVEMENTAt the beginning of this awards season, the editors of CPI’s Technology publications got together to create a special Industry Achievement category, which would give them the opportunity to honour the outstanding achievement

of a vendor or a partner in the Middle East’s ICT industry.

For this year’s Industry Achievement award the editors came together to pick one company that has stood out among the rest in terms of customer partnerships, channel engagement, technology expertise and investments in the region. Their final choice was a firm that had shown consistent growth across the Middle East, without hampering the quality of its service, or its initiative to continue to be a single point of contact for its customers and channel partners.

The company has also worked to improve awareness of technologies like unified communications and video conferencing and continues to highlight the benefits that enterprises can derive from these technologies when they are used in the right way.VAD of the Year – FVC

BFSI DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank• Abu Dhabi Finance• Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank• Dubai Bank• Qatar First Investment Bank• National Bank of Abu Dhabi• Kuwait Finance House• Arab National Bank, KSA• Medmark• JRG• Riyadh Bank• Societe Generale• KPMGNBAD, which has implemented a new data centre and introduced new technologies to reduce costs and improve flexibility, came very close to winning the trophy. Nevertheless, the judges felt that the trophy could be given only to the bank that had taken a major risk in embracing cloud technologies,

not just for email but also ERP and other core banking applications. It has also been actively pursuing or already achieved certifications in COBIT, ITIL, ISO etc and it is very clear that, in this bank, IT has been leading transformation within the business.Winner: Qatar First Investment Bank, with its ground-breaking private cloud deployment

TELECOMMUNICATIONS DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• TRA, UAE• du• Saudi Telecom Company (STC)• Mobily• Lebanon Online• Communications and Information Technology Commission, KSA• Etisalat MisrThis telecom major is already an existing force in its country. It has recently implemented cloud technologies to improve customer service and responsiveness. It has achieved several added advantages by way of this implementation including lower costs, higher flexibility and quicker time to market for new products and services. The judges felt that this has to be especially encouraged and

appreciated, since as a telecom provider, all companies should embrace the cloud in order to provide better service to their customers and to walk the talk.Winner: Saudi Telecom Company (STC)

GOVERNMENT DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority• Department for Economic Development• Dubai Municipality• General Organisation for Youth and Sports, Bahrain• Saudi Ministry of Labour• Bahrain eGovernment Authority• Dubai Electricity and Water Authority• du• Dubai Courts• Health Authority, Abu Dhabi• Dubai World Trade Centre• Dubai Civil Defence• Ministry of Foreign Affairs, UAE• Ministry of Higher Education, Egypt• Sheikh Khalifa Medical City• Masdar• Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority• Roads and Transport Authority, UAE• Department of Finance, Abu DhabiThis was not an easy choice for the judges. The Dubai Courts has implemented numerous e-portals to facilitate and simplify the process of law and the Abu Dhabi Ports Company, which had embraced green IT to drive down cost and decided to go 100% virtual but not letting services be affected by this goal, caught the judges attention and deserve a special mention. The winner however beat the other contenders by displaying exemplary work and insight in working on a collaboration project that involved multiple parties and providing e-services to a wide section of the public and businesses. The judges

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Publisher Dominic De Sousa, COO Nadeem Hood, Managing Director Richard Judd, Sales Director Rajashree R Kumar, Editorial Director Dave Reeder Senior Editors Sathya Mira Ashok, Jeevan Thankappan, Arun Shankar Circulation Manager Rajeesh M, Production Manager James Tharian, Art Director Kamil Roxas, Designers Analou Balbero, Froilan Cosgafa IV, Glenn Roxas, Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy Magma

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were especially impressed by the detail that the organisation invested in the planning phase, using elements like mind mapping, along with standardised best practices, to achieve its objectives and to get the most from its e-services implementation.Winner: General Organisation for Youth and Sports, Bahrain

HEALTHCARE DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Abu Dhabi Health Services• Hospital of Bahrain• Al Mashfa Hospital, Jeddah• Sheikh Khalifa Medical City• King Fahd Military Medical Complex• Health Authority, Abu Dhabi• Jordan Health Initiative, Jordanian governmentOut of the finalists, three particular deployments caught the interest of the judges. There was the high-tech video conferencing system implemented by the Jordan Health Initiative, which allows doctors and nurses from all over the country to be in contact with one another and allows remote diagnosis of patients. There was also the fully integrated asset and resource management system deployed by Al Mashfa Hospital in Jeddah, with active and passive RFID, CCTV, wireless locking and touch-screen technologies. But the winner was set apart by the revolutionary nature of the change it brought about for the organisation by way of its deployment.

By implementing an organisation wide Picture Archive and Communications Sytem (PACS), that touched not only one hospital but multiple healthcare institutions within its fold, this particular organisation has enabled faster and more efficient diagnosis. By enabling better and timely delivery of information to doctors, it has improved quality of the treatment given to patients. Apart from this major deployment, the organisation continues to use IT to improve other aspects of healthcare provision while driving cost down continuously.Winner: King Fahd Military Medical Complex

ENERGY DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• ADNOC• Al Maha Petroleum• Gulf Drilling International• Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company)• Kuwait Oil Company• National Trigeneration CHP Company, KSAThis organisation came to the fore of the judging process having put in place numerous projects over the last year to move towards greener technology investments, while also generally improving other elements of IT in

the organisation. All of this has been achieved without any major capital investment as well.Winner: Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company

EDUCATION DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Abu Dhabi Education Council• Kuwait Ministry of Education• Ministry of Higher Education, Egypt• Supreme Education Council, Qatar• King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals• Sultan Qaboos University• American University of Sharjah• UAE University• University of Sharjah• UAE University in Al AinAbu Dhabi Education Council had two projects of note – a logistics one and the other of having a unified network. The ground-breaking network project is an ambitious attempt to connect all the schools together and manage them in a more centralised fashion. By doing this ADEC will help with the UAE goals to be a research led economy and improve the educational level of students. It was beaten to the trophy though by another organisation that is transforming the nature of the education system in its

country. It has been involved in major projects to improve the quality and ease of access to educational resources to all in its country. It has implemented cloud technologies and embraced mobile computing to transform education for an entire country, using technology at the core to gain goals that are difficult to achieve.Winner: Supreme Education Council, Qatar

CONSTRUCTION AND REAL ESTATE DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Dubai Cables• Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority• Tamdeen• Sorouh Real Estate• Depa• Consolidated Contractors GroupThe winning organisation has implemented a new portal for the company, choosing an open source and .Net architecture. The main advantage of this was that the cost of implementation was dramatically lowered, when compared to the proprietary solution from a major vendor that the company was considering initially. It also completed the entire implementation in record time.Winner: Sorouh Real Estate

RETAIL DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Al Batha Group• Landmark Group• Malia Group• Oasis Investment Company• DHL Express, UAE• The One• Tamdeen Shopping Centres• Bahman Enterprises GroupThe Landmark Group became a prominent contestant by way of having implemented numerous IT projects in

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the last year or so to improve efficiency of back office tasks. It has also opened a new data centre and connected remote offices on its network. But by way of implementing a virtualisation project that improved its operations by many time, getting an ISO certification and saving costs, all in one go, the winner of this trophy was DHL Express UAE. Winner: DHL Express UAE

HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM DEPLOYMENT OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Westin• Emirates Group• Emirates Flight Catering• Meydan• Jumeirah Group• Qatar Navigation• InterContinental Hotels Group• National Corporation for Tourism and Hotels• Gulf Air, BahrainThere were several projects that caught the interest of the judges, key among them being a couple by the Emirates Group, especially ones linked to providing and maintaining service levels for customers. However, this particular organisation has embraced private cloud technologies to deliver services to internal and external customers. By doing this it has become one of the leading hospitality groups to take on this technology, and use it in a skilled manner for its benefit, thereby proving itself a

pioneer and leader in its field.Winner: Jumeirah Group

EDITOR’S CHOICE OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Roads and Transport Authority, UAE• Mobily• Masdar• Kuwait Oil Company• Saudi Ministry of Labour• eHDFThis particular organisation has been working on a major infrastructure project that has resulted in superior delivery of services, while also providing for outstanding company growth of more than 40% over the last few years. of more than 40% over the last few years. As part of this project, the organisation has worked to upgrade its infrastructure, invest in new solutions and mobilise its IT team constantly to achiever higher goals over the last couple of years. It has also expanded on its service line for its customer base and has used IT consistently to help establish itself as a number one player in its field, in its country.Winner: Mobily

IT TEAM OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Al Batha Group• Dubal• Economic Zones World• General Organisation for Youth and Sports, Bahrain• American Express Middle East, Bahrain• DHL Express• Orbit Satellite Network• Aluminium Bahrain• Mobily• Supreme Education Council, QatarCan one team’s effort with projects be really compared to another in an unbiased fashion? And if so, would it be possible to rate one co-ordinate effort

above another? These wer some of the questions that the judges struggled with and tried to answer as they went through the nominations. The final winners of this prestigious category was chosen not only because they demonstrated team effort and the spirit of working together, but they did so in a crisis situation demanding extraordinary measures. This particular situation tested the capabilities of the network and resources of the organisation across its multiple offices, within the company and outside. In a time of political duress, when even vendors fleed the country leaving a huge service lack, the combined strength, commitment, teamwork and technical skills of the IT team came to the fore. While always operating under the company policy that the number one priority would be the personal safety of staff and families, the team was able to maintain critical systems and availability of all call centre activities, while keeping the firm’s disaster recovery site on hot standby. Besides all of the above, they have also completed the largest ever technology-based project for their organisation, by replacing the core management system with another single platform option.Winner: American Express Middle East, Bahrain

FUTURE CIO OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Khalid AbdulRahman Al Awadhi, head of the infrastructure section within IT at Dubai Municipality• Alok Srivastav, acting head of ICT and manager of IT applications at MasdarIn the current economic climate with limited budget and very limited resources, maintaining a highly motivated team and facilitate them to deliver as per expectation is a challenging task.The winner proved his mettle by using very efficient management, interpersonal skills and far sighted vision to achieve the creation of an environment where each individual is self-motivated and strives to exceed expectation. He also managed to create a culture where each team or unit is expected to implement new processes and technologies to increase customer satisfaction and reduce cost after detail technical and commercial evaluation. And his strategy has worked for his organisation, where over the past 18

months the IT team has managed to reduce operational budget by 28% and achieved an availability KPI of 99.9% till July 2011.Winner: Khalid AbdulRahman Al Awadhi, head of the infrastructure section within IT at Dubai Municipality

CIO OF THE YEARShortlisted candidates:• Ghazi Nabeeh Qarout, Al Hilal Bank• Ahmad AlMulla, Dubal• Imad Taha, Belhasa International Group• Sreedhar K Reddy, Sorouh Real Estate• Abdulsalam Bastaki, Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority• Esam Hadi, Aluminium Bahrain• Abdulla Al Bastaki, Roads and Transport Authority (RTA)• Amal Al Kuwari, Supreme Education Council, Qatar• David Horton, Mashreq Bank• Saji Oommen, Al Batha Group• Ali Sajwani, Emirates NBD• Medhat Amer, MobilyThe winner of this Award is a man that his team refers to as a leader, motivator and innovator. The kery to a winning department apart from the people skills is the will to win, which comes from high motivation and strong bond between team members. This particular CIO has been able to demonstrate and impart such characteristics within the various teams in the department. He has implemented various strategies and visionary projects, built unique IT governance models, implemented industry standard frameworks, several cost saving initiatives and various societal contributions. Not only has he led his team to glory after glory, winning awards and accolades over the last few years, but he has also worked to involve them in community initiatives where they are giving back to the society that they all work within. Winner: Abdulla Al Bastaki, RTA