RAKBANK has announced the launch of its latest creative value-added platform, www.RAKBANKdeals.ae, which will provide the Bank’s Credit and Prepaid Card customers with exclusive weekly deals offering discounts of 50% and more.

The first of its kind in the banking industry, the website also provides one access point to all of the Bank’s deals for Credit, Debit and Prepaid Cardholders. This includes RAKfeast, a dining discount programme, Lifestyle Privileges, a programme for diverse benefits and privileges from more than 80 outlets, the Prepaid Card promotion, buy 1 get 1 free, as well as RAKBANKdirect.ae and smartshop.ae discounted deals.

“The launch of this website is just another way of appreciating our loyal customers and making their banking experience an even simpler one,” says Graham Honeybill, Chief Executive Officer of RAKBANK. “By a click of a button, they visit a one stop shop for an array of exclusive deals from dining, entertainment to fashion and fun.”

All deals on www.RAKBANKdeals.ae provide customers with necessary information to help them reach a decision. They get to know the merchant, where to redeem the offer, deal expiry date and any other conditions listed by the merchant to avail of the offer.

The new website allows RAKBANK customers to post the deal on their facebook and twitter accounts hence alerting their friends and followers to the exciting offer. Interested Bank customers can simply click on the “Buy Now” button and pay using any of the bank’s Credit or Prepaid Card. They then receive the deal coupon via e-mail which they can print and present at the merchant outlet.

As for non-customers, the website provides a link to apply for RAKBANK Cards and get access to a world of privileges. The Bank gives its customers a choice of six Credit Cards, all of which are free for life, come with a Cashback feature of up to 5%, and entitle their holders to multiple dining and hospitality discounts in addition to a chance to win a million Dirhams every 6 months on select Cards. RAKBANK also offers its customers two Prepaid Cards, RAKBANK Bling and RAKBANK Loaded, which offer various promotions from over 50 merchant outlets in the UAE.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - October 30, 2011- Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced the availability of significant enhancements to its JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform, JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform and JBoss Enterprise Business Rules Management System (BRMS) product lines. Together, updates to the Enterprise Service Bus (ESB), data and business rules platforms enable a more intelligent, integrated enterprise by connecting applications and complex event processing (CEP) services across the enterprise.

“Five years ago, most executives didn’t see why they needed to shift to an event-driven style of business operations. Today, cycle times are much faster, customers are much more expressive about their dissatisfaction, and management cannot afford to be a step behind,” according to Maureen Fleming, vice president of IDC Business Process Management and Middleware Research. “Building event-driven systems with an ESB, event processing, and business rules enables a business to gain advantage by predicting, deciding and acting at the tip of a problem or opportunity.”

“In response to competitive pressure, organizations are updating their IT infrastructure to become more agile, and leverage active decision making,” explained Craig Muzilla, vice president and general manager, Middleware Business at Red Hat. “With the next versions of these platforms, we’re offering tools for businesses to automate rules-based decisions, business process execution and complex event processing, helping to improve the speed and quality of their business operations.”

Real-time responses for real business decisions
JBoss Enterprise BRMS 5.2 empowers customers to streamline and improve operations with automated, real-time rules-based decisions. Active decision-making that is “situationally aware” takes into account conditions that influence how rules execute, in order to improve the quality and speed of the response. When integrated with JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.2, JBoss Enterprise BRMS 5.2 presents business rules, integrated via an ESB, to a wide range of applications, services and business processes.

New features in JBoss Enterprise BRMS 5.2 include:

•Complex Event Processing (CEP) – enables the detection and correlation of events within a business rules application. The integration of event processing and business rules allows the creation of sophisticated rules-based solutions which incorporate awareness of relevant business events, allowing decision-making to be more truly “active”.
•Enhanced Business User Interface – the new, web-based Decision Table further enhances development access to business analysts, expanding the array of tools that are available to build rules-driven applications. The tools can be used collaboratively and fit the needs of varying levels of technical ability.
•Enhanced Rules Logic – this technical preview supports the use of “goal-seeking” logic within rules applications through support for backward chaining. By defining desired end results, the rules engine can identify the facts and conditions that can deliver those results.
“JBoss Enterprise BRMS and the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform are key elements in the technology strategy at OSDE,” noted Gustavo Aguirre, CIO at OSDE, an Argentinian health insurance network. “The combination of rules and complex event processing in the latest release of JBoss Enterprise BRMS enable us to add active decision making to our business users and quickly address any changes in our business environment. Together, with the JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform, we’re driving improved IT responsiveness and business value.”

Improved applications and services integration across the extended enterprise
JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.2 features an ESB that optimizes business execution and responsiveness in a cost-effective, open platform. With new web and cloud service orchestration capabilities, IT can more fully utilize these services to organize and execute business processes. This new release of JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform now supports Red Hat Enterprise MRG-Messaging, a high-speed AMQP-based message system, to improve integration of applications and services across the extended enterprise.

New features in JBoss Enterprise SOA 5.2 include:

•Business Process Execution Language (BPEL) support – support for this standard for orchestrating processes across web and cloud services automates workflows, improving business productivity and IT responsiveness.
•MRG-Messaging integration – new support for Red Hat’s Enterprise MRG-Messaging, built on the open Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) messaging standard, enhances both ESB and data services interoperability with non-Java platforms, and mobile devices.
New features in JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.2 include:

•Additional data source support – Teradata, Ingres, Mondrian, JSON sources expand the range of data sources to encompass demand for data virtualization in the enterprise.
•Tooling to generate Representational State Transfer (REST)-based data services – tooling features take advantage of the widely used REST software architecture in order to deliver data services.
•Additional artifact support in metadata repository – Web Services Description and XML Schema Document files now enable enterprises to manage and govern data services in these popular formats to deliver additional flexibility.
New JBoss Enterprise BRMS Training
Red Hat Training has created the JBoss Enterprise BRMS Implementation (JB433) course to offer developers the required skills to effectively develop and administer BRMS in an enterprise environment. This course provides comprehensive job- and project-based training and explores how to author, test, debug and control business rules using the JBoss Enterprise BRMS 5.2 technology. Delivery of JBoss Enterprise BRMS Implementation (JB433) includes corporate team on-sites and classroom based training.

Availability
JBoss Enterprise BRMS 5.2 is scheduled to be available by the end of October, on a global basis, while JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform 5.2 and JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform 5.2 is scheduled to be available by November 2011 on a global basis. The new JBoss Enterprise BRMS training course is available today.

For more information about the updates to JBoss Enterprise BRMS, JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and JBoss Enterprise Data Services Platform, visit here. For more information about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com. For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.

New branches reflect leading company’s move to create stronger market presence in the UAE

October 26, 2011

Al Ansari Exchange, the UAE’s largest exchange house network that provides worldwide remittance and foreign exchange services, has affirmed its commitment to provide their growing customer base with easier access to its offered services with the opening of new branches across the UAE for the last quarter of 2011. The opening of the new facilities reflect the company’s strategic expansion initiatives and move towards providing its customers with strategic and essential financial services through convenient and easy-to-access methods.

The new branches are expected to provide high quality remittance and foreign exchange services combined with unique product and services offerings for UAE residents, nationals and tourists visiting the country. The presence of strategically located branches also helps local businesses by providing a secure and convenient way of disbursing salaries. The new branches include the Mega Store-Mussafah; Al Raha Gardens; ADNEC and Electra Street in Abu Dhabi; Union Cooperative-Al Barsha and Souq Extra-Al Quoz in Dubai and Sharjah Cooperative, Al Khan Sharjah, Kalba, Khorfakkan, Marco Emirates-Industrial Area No. 6, Carrefour Market Al Khan in Sharjah, and Union Cooperative- Al Naimiya, Ajman.

“We are currently embarking on an expansion initiative that widens our reach and further improve accessibility to our services. To date, we have opened numerous new branches across strategic locations in the UAE and are set to open more branches in the weeks to come. These new branches not only reflect our strategic move to mark a stronger presence in the UAE but also demonstrate our commitment to being the customer’s first choice when it comes to money exchange and remittance services.” said Rashed Ali Al Ansari, General Manager, Al Ansari Exchange.

UAE, Dubai :

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) participated in GITEX 2011, with two exhibition stands. The main stand showcased the new customer oriented e-service initiatives undertaken by DEWA while the second booth was located on the e-government stand.

Speaking on GITEX 2011, HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer Managing Director & CEO, DEWA said: “At DEWA we are working to regularly develop our services according to the latest international standards to fulfill our customer needs. This is in-line with our strategy and the strategy of Dubai government to achieve ongoing development in the field of customer service. Through our presence this year in GITEX we were able to meet and talk to our customers on the latest e-services available and provide help, advice and direction on the best services to meet their needs.”

HE Al Tayer added: “We are committed to achieving environmental sustainability as well as communicating this to our society. By increasing the number of e-services users, this will not only enable the customers to save their own time and money, but will also help save the environment by way of reducing the carbon dioxide emission into the air as well as decrease the number of people traveling to our customer service centres by vehicle.”

On the last day of GITEX, Engineer Marwan Bin Haider, Vice President - Head of IT Division at DEWA, distributed the prizes to the winning customers who paid their bills electronically during the period between July 2011 till 12 October 2011. The prizes included two Galaxy Tabs, three iPads and three Blackberry Playbooks. DEWA also announced on the first day of GITEX in the presence of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai the grand raffle prize of a Lexus ‘green’ car, as encouragement for customers to register to use e-services. Customers qualified to enter the draw will have to pay their full DEWA bills for the months of October, November and December through mPay or the DEWA website.

Furthermore, DEWA also showcased a number of smartphones and devices on its stand in addition to Etisalat e-payment machine, and the e-services through the DEWA website.

Bringing the week to a close, DEWA also announced its latest partnerships by signing an MOU with Etisalat that aims to activate and increase the use of alternative payment channels such as electronic payment machines (Kiosks), IVR service and (IPTV) e-Life service, NFC service. DEWA also signed an MOU with Samsung electronics, to announce the partnership of DEWA bill payment services through a special application that has been developed to be used on Samsung Smart TV. The application provides the customers with the ability to inquire and pay bills, browse DEWA news and events, and to identify more than 200 payment locations by using (Google Maps).

It is worth mentioning that DEWA is reinforcing its cooperation with different ministries, companies, Governmental bodies to offer the best customer service standards and to expand services to reach all segments of society.

Oman Air’s Business Class customers can now enjoy exclusive complimentary access to No1 Traveller’s brand-new ‘flagship’ lounge at London Heathrow’s Terminal Three. Gold and Silver members of Oman Air’s Sindbad frequent fliers programme will also have full access to the lounge’s superb amenities.

The national carrier of the Sultanate of Oman’s partnership with No1 Traveller will ensure that customers can make the most of the lounge’s outstanding hospitality, including a complimentary bistro-style menu, fully-tended bar, snug (quiet room), games rooms, showers, cinema, family room and a library which features complimentary Skype facilities.

Oman Air’s Chief Commercial Officer, Abdulrazaq Alraisi, announced the new services, saying:

“Oman Air is renowned for its highest standards of hospitality and comfort in the air and we are delighted that our Business Class customers and Gold and Silver Sindbad members will now receive those same standards of service in the new No1 Traveller lounge at Heathrow’s Terminal Three.

“Oman Air is the first airline to offer its customers access to the No1 Traveller lounge. Business Class passengers on our daily, non-stop and direct London to Muscat flights already enjoy our door-to-door limousine service, online check-in, fast baggage drop and fast-track security clearance and they can now relax in stylish and elegant surroundings while their aircraft is prepared for boarding.”

Paul Starrs, General Manager, Oman Air, Worldwide Sales  said:

“The No1 Traveller lounge is set to play a key part in delivering a seamless passenger experience for Oman Air’s Business Class passengers and Gold and Silver Sindbad members, and it is an ideal complement to Oman Air’s recently-unveiled lounges at Muscat International Airport. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership with No1 Traveller and to continuing to deliver exceptional hospitality and value for all our customers.”

The No1 Traveller lounge at Heathrow Terminal Three was opened on 11th August and can be accessed upon payment of a fee by any passenger departing from, or transiting through, the terminal. However, Oman Air’s Business Class customers will be able to access the lounge free of charge, with payment only being required for spa services – such as manicure, pedicure, massage, facials, hairdressing and wet shaves - and short-stay, pod-style bedrooms.

Oman Air’s First Class passengers will continue using the exclusive well-appointed Emirates Lounge.

Phil Cameron, founder and CEO of No1 Traveller, concluded:

“We are extremely pleased to be offering Oman Air’s Business Class customers the warmest of welcomes to our new No1 Traveller ‘super-lounge’ at Heathrow. Oman Air is our first airline customer and we have worked hard to create a unique, calming environment in which passengers can relax and await their flights. From the bustle of our bar, through to the tranquillity of our snug and spa, there really is something for everyone.”

Stephan Berner

Help AG, the IT security specialists, has signed a reseller agreement with Riverbed Technology, the IT performance company. As a reseller in the Riverbed® Partner Network (RPN), Help AG will be able to resell the entire Riverbed product portfolio and plans to focus heavily on delivering the Riverbed Cascade® network performance management (NPM) solution to enterprise customers. With Riverbed Cascade, Help AG has a new offering to help enterprises better understand their network traffic that also compliments its core consultancy services of security tests and systems health checks.

Riverbed Cascade provides customers with enterprise-wide application performance analysis, discovery and dependency mapping as well as proactive alerts on network and application performance bottlenecks. Cascade collects network traffic data and provides an application-level view of all network resources and locations, giving network administrators the business context they need to monitor critical IT services and provide executive-level reporting. With Cascade, enterprises are able to easily troubleshoot performance issues, dramatically reducing downtime for business-critical applications.

The agreement concentrates on the UAE and Qatar markets. The reseller partnership with Help AG is part of the Riverbed channel strategy to collaborate with partners in each of its country markets that can implement NPM and other performance solutions that help enterprise customers exceed IT goals.

Help AG was founded in Germany and deals mainly on IT security services and solutions. It entered the Middle East market in 2005 and has since become one of the most respected IT security specialists in the region. The independent, non-vendor-specific company currently employs approximately 28 consultants, and selects only best-of-breed products to complement their security offerings.

More than 13,000 organizations worldwide, across a wide range of markets, depend on Riverbed to understand, optimize and consolidate their IT infrastructure. Riverbed delivers hardware, software and virtualized solutions that overcome performance issues caused by distance, distributed computing, and ever increasing amounts of data. Virtualization, consolidation and cloud computing promise huge cost savings and improved efficiencies, but as users move farther from their data, slow applications and file transfers can stall these strategic initiatives. Riverbed delivers to the remote office and mobile workers the same “local area network (LAN)-like” performance, no matter where the private data center or public cloud may be. Riverbed continues building on its success in the WAN optimization, application-aware NPM and data protection markets with new and innovative solutions for accelerating cloud storage and access to applications and data deployed in public, private and hybrid clouds.

Leading rubber manufacturer promotes need for more strategic and sustainable designs across country’s rapidly developing construction industry

June 19, 2011

Muzammil Shaikhani

Rubber World Industries (RWI), the leading manufacturer of closed-cell rubber insulation ‘Gulf-O-Flex’ in the Gulf and South East Asia, and part of the international business conglomerate, the Shaikhani Group of Companies, has keyed in strong market acceptance from its steadily growing customer base in Qatar’s rapidly developing construction industry. The company has revealed that its customers in Qatar have lauded RWI’s diverse range of rubber insulated and adhesives solutions, further acknowledging the world-class quality, durability and reliability of the brand. The positive response complements RWI’s move to penetrate Qatar’s rapidly developing construction industry. The company has also made the call for the country’s construction segment to come up with more strategic and sustainable designs.

According to company officials, its recent participation at ‘Project Qatar 2011′, the leading construction show for Qatar and the GCC held at the Doha Exhibition Centre in Qatar, allowed the company to meet its new and existing customers, discuss key market trends and develop new project opportunities. The company has launched a series of key initiatives aimed at promoting its integrated suite of rubber insulated and adhesive solutions across various contractors, consultants and other construction based professionals in the country and has also expressed its confidence in playing a major role in the country’s construction boom.

Commenting on their association with RWI, P.K. Shareef, Procurement Officer, Almuftah Group, said, “Our company has had very good experience with Rubber World Industries and the excellent products it offers. Their customer service is truly commendable and highly appreciated. Rubber World is also always aiming to please its customers with the roll out of new product and customer based services. They have recently introduced the online ordering form and this has benefited us a lot.”

RWI’s move to consolidate its presence in Qatar’s booming construction sector follows a recent report from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) naming Qatar as the world’s fastest developing economy with forecasts of a 20 per cent growth in GDP for 2011. The development is further bolstered by the announcement of Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, ushering in an influx of key projects. RWI has expressed eagerness in participating in these major projects, which include a USD 13 billion new international airport by 2013, USD 20 billion towards road and highway projects and a bridge between Qatar and Bahrain, touted as the world’s longest bridge over the sea.

Mr. Noyal, General Manager, SALCO, also shared their company’s strong preference towards using RWI’s diverse range of products, stating: “We are looking ahead for a long lasting business relationship with Rubber World Industries. Utilizing the company’s wide range of world class rubber insulated materials gives us the security of using a strong and reliable building material.”

RWI has recently made the move of diversifying its trading items as a means to help create a stronger and improved line of construction essentials, which is primarily targeted at the Middle East region’s flourishing construction and development industry. The company has also rolled out a wider product range aimed at meeting the growing demand for elastomeric rubber insulated products, which are considered to be an essential building material in today’s batch of construction and development projects for its durability and competitive pricing. Among these new products, RWI has created key focus towards the HVAC industry as HVAC products are always in high demand due to the region’s warm climate.

“Our successful participation at ‘Project Qatar 2011’ was marked with the strengthening of ties with our customers and meeting new contacts in Qatar’s construction segment. We are truly overwhelmed with the positive feedback and strong response that we have received from our customers here. The confidence placed in us encourages us to remain steadfast in our commitment to provide world-class high quality rubber insulated and adhesive solutions to the market, particularly across Qatar’s growing number of construction projects,” concluded Muzammil Shaikhani, Managing Director, RWI.

• Local partners to be certified on SAG solutions

• Initiative to lower implementation & support rates without compromising quality

• Selective recruitment strategy to ensure focused & business-driven partner channel

• Partners to be differentiated according to specialized services & solutions

Marco Gerazounis

April 19, 2011 - Software AG (SAG), a global leader in business infrastructure software, has launched a new Partnership Programme that will appoint selected partners to countries where the company has no direct presence in order to enhance the local experience of its customers.

The initiative will help significantly lower implementation and support rates for SAG’s regional clients without compromising quality. SAG will selectively appoint business-driven partners that are certified on SAG solutions and will be differentiated according to their specialized services and solutions.

Channel recruits will have access to a wide range of SAG benefits and resources complementing their goals and plans at every phase of the business cycle. This is in line with SAG’s 2011 mission of establishing, empowering and enabling a focused industry-specialized partner channel.

“By strategically empowering new partners with the necessary training and resources we will be able to significantly extend our service and support to our customers in the Middle East who do not benefit from our direct presence. Our partnership program will enable us to build a highly-skilled partner base while enhancing the efficiencies of organizations that patronize our offerings. It will also pave the way for the establishment of additional SAG operations across the region,” said Marco Gerazounis, Senior Vice President, Software AG Middle East.

Software AG delivers end-to-end business process management solutions that are easy to use and reduce total cost of ownership. It serves 10,000 enterprise and public institution customers across 70 countries that are achieving business results faster via the company’s comprehensive software and services covering process strategy, design, integration and control; Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) -based integration and data management; process-driven Systems Applications Products implementation; and strategic process consulting and services.

In the course of its more than 40 years of innovation-driven existence SAG has invented Adabas, the first high-performance transactional database; ARIS, the first business process analysis platform; and webMethods, the first B2B server and Service Oriented Architecture-based integration platform.

New offering allows for faster website integration and puts thousands of products and solutions within easy reach of customers and sales representatives

April 14, 2011

Tripp Lite, a world-leading manufacturer of power protection equipment, has announced the launch of its new Online Product Selectors for use on partner websites. The new selectors are useful sales tools that help website visitors narrow their search by filtering important features and detailed specifications for Tripp Lite product lines - proving to be an ideal resource to help customers quickly and easily find the perfect solution for their application.

“The release of these new Product Selectors are being offered for free and can be used by our partner’s websites to help customers and sales representatives get easier access to Tripp Lite products and solutions,“ said Vipin Sharma, Vice President, EMEA and India Sales, Tripp Lite. “These new Online Product Selectors provide enormous time-saving value to end users. Moments after defining search criteria, the user is presented with the right products for the job and those products supporting documentation.”

The Product Selectors will allow easy browsing of various Tripp Lite products like UPS Systems, UPS Batteries, PDUs, KVMs, Cables, Power Inverters, Racks and Surge Suppressors. The tool can be downloaded for free at Tripp Lite’s website (www.tripplite.com) and can easily be integrated into existing partner websites automatically allowing access to the wide array of products and solutions being offered by Tripp Lite. Web visitors will now have an easier way to do online purchases; having the key ability to filter their search according to the product specifics they need and to compare information on the model matches presented.

“While the Product Selectors were originally developed for Tripp Lite’s website, we are happy to expand their usage to our partners’ websites,” said Christy Prosapio, Tripp Lite International Marketing Manager. “Our commitment to our reseller partners is unwavering and we are always looking for new ways to support them better.”

STME logo

STME, a leading information infrastructure solution integrator in the Middle East held an event for customers to highlight the changes since its acquisition in late 2009 and showcase its ‘One Smart Solution’ concept.
 
STME’s ‘One Smart Solution’ model enables customers to benefit from the top technologies of various manufacturers and expertise from the company’s installed base of 10 countries, all integrated into a single tailored solution.  

The company also underscored the growing importance of storage and IT infrastructure and management solutions as companies broaden their volume of digital information and how Kuwait Organizations can benefit from their comprehensive portfolio of advanced enterprise IT solutions and services. Hitachi Data Systems participated in the event and highlighted some of their innovative solutions and the benefits customers can gain from deploying them.

Salah Abu Shaar the company CEO stated “ It was my pleasure to visit Kuwait and to meet some of the key IT personalities. I am excited at the promising growth of the economy and the IT sector in Kuwait in the coming year and look forward to STME’s participation in offering the customers the right solutions and services ”

Founded in 1982, STME is the first IT company in the Middle East to receive ISO 9001:2000 certification for its world-class portfolio of Consultancy and Managed Services. STME has 14 regional offices located in 11 countries. Its offerings include Backup, Archiving and IT Compliance, Computing Platforms, Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity, Enterprise Content Management, Industry Solutions, Information Infrastructure, Solid State Disks, Storage Resources Management, Surveillance, and Virtualization.