Welcome from Chief Executive Officer

Welcome to Horizons!

Looking back over the past few years, it is clear that one of the very exciting growth areas in which GBM has been involved in the region is that of the move towards an Information Society – commonly called the eGovernment movement.
The aim of e-Government is to create an environment in which the public, business and government interact with one another in more simple, efficient and effective ways - to everyone’s benefit.

Gulf Business Machines has been extensively involved in such citizen-centric projects for Governments throughout the region for several years now, and just a few of the most recent are covered in this issue of Horizons.
       We worked with Bahrain’s Central Informatics Organisation (CIO) to set up the region’s first and only IBM eGovernment Solution Centre. In fact, the Centre is one of only three in the world, designed to facilitate the GCC states to establish and roll out projects to help citizens, businesses and governments.
       We are also closely involved in the region with various Smart Card projects. These credit-card-sized intelligent cards will store a huge amount of essential information for each resident to facilitate with immigration, health, school, travel, finance and a host of other related tasks. These projects will facilitate life in an unprecedented way in this region.
       In Qatar we have joined with the Government in their drive to establish e-government infrastructure and develop a cross-ministry integrated online e-services government portal. We

have successfully developed 13 online e-services with multiple government agencies under the eGovernment leadership. Our joint efforts have been recognised recently by two major international awards.
       We also supported and participated in multiple events to demonstrate GBM thought leadership and share experiences. Recently we sponsored Qatar eGovernment Symposium, and outlined GBM’s ideas on how Qatar can become a model for citizen-centric services and first class eGovernance.
       In Kuwait we are providing a solution for the Public Institute for Social Security (PIFFS) to again enable them to better serve the needs of citizens, businesses and residents. PIFFS is a leader in the region in providing pensions for citizens, and you can read about their initiatives in this issue also.
       We have also been active in Oman, and with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) we are setting up a user-friendly system for businesses to manage online their interactions with government entities. The One-Stop-Shop launched by MoCI will simplify and stimulate business in the Sultanate.
       GBM is unique as we can provide a focused yet diverse range of infrastructure, business solutions and services for governments throughout the region to facilitate their Information Society objectives. Although increasing attention is being given to requirements for new services to be available via the Internet, this need has to be balanced with the requirement to achieve a good return on investment, seamless integration and timely implementation. The strengths of GBM in delivering all three is being recognised throughout the region.
       Also in this issue is the innovative anti-money laundering solution we implemented for Al Ahli Bank of Kuwait – making them among the first banks in the region and the first in Kuwait to implement such a solution to facilitate Basel II compliancy.
       We have also partnered with a new organisation in Bahrain, Lightspeed, which is launching its own innovative business solutions for customers. You can read about how they have launched their iVault Premium Datacentre solution using technology provided by GBM.
       We are proud to say that we have in the past few months won several awards, among which is recognition from the readers of the prestigious Network Middle East magazine ranking us as their preferred Systems Integrator. We have also been acknowledged by Cisco Systems for our IP superiority, and by IBM for our excellent Intel servers results.

I hope this edition of Horizons proves to be a pleasant and interesting read!