Security event at Qatar, February 17

Microsoft Qatar did a Security event yesterday at the Four Seasons Hotel, Doha. We started off with an enthusiastic audience of 70+ people.

• We kicked off with a presentation on Microsoft Business Ready Security by good ol’ David Maskell, Security SSP – Microsoft Gulf, followed by technical demos.

• Fadel Lubbos, Senior Consultant from Information & Communication Technology WLL (ICT) did a demo on Forefront Threat Management Gateway (TMG) – pictured below. ICT is Microsoft Gold Certified Security Partner.

• Below are pictures of me doing my demo on Microsoft Unified Access Gateway (UAG) and DirectAccess.

• Fazil Rahim, CEO of Entelyst, did a demo on Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS). Entelyst is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in security solutions.

Pictures from the Q & A session:

Photos: Lea Attieh

MOSS event at Qatar, February 16

Microsoft Qatar did a SharePoint Server event yesterday at the Four Seasons hotel, Doha. We had a full house and the audience was very interactive.

We had ECM partners like Afkar and EBLA demoing some of the exciting features of SharePoint & BI, and we even had two customers (QMedia and Kahramaa) speaking at the event and showcasing solutions based on SharePoint that they have internally deployed within their respective organizations.

Abdul Khan, our IW SSP and Paolo Pulcini, FAST Search solution specialist also spoke at the event.

Here’s the event in pictures:

Windows Server 2008 & SBS 2008 Workshop, Qatar

Photos: Windows 7 Launch in Qatar

I’m posting some photos from the New Efficiency Launch Event at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, Doha, Qatar.

The event setting was very unique – it was an outdoor event with tents on the beach, popcorn, cotton candy, balloons, live barbeque, and even a clown on stilts and a magic show. The presentations were done inside a tent on the beach!

The event was unique and one of a kind, and I really think our marketing team did a creative and awesome job!

Some of our partners also had stands at the venue, with each of them showcasing an exciting solution based on Microsoft technologies.

The event setting	Qatar Launch event
Manoj, Antony and others from Mannai Apps team showcasing Mediaroom	Joseph, Asanka and Fadel from ICT showcasing the Microsoft UC solution
Hani and Ali from QDS demonstrating Multi touch	Hardware vendor Al Masa
Johny & Jean from Mannai showcasing Hyper-V	xbox area
Antony with a clown at the event	Me
Tamer, Said and David	Eqbal and me
Vinod and Rifaz at the xbox area	me, Rifaz and Vinod

Press coverage: [ Gulf Times | Arabic newspapers ]

Mudawanat: Blogging workshop in Qatar

ictQATAR, the Supreme Council of Information & Communication Technology in Qatar, conducted a workshop on blogging today at the Sharq Village Hotel, Doha.

Regional and International experts on blogging shared their views and experience on blogging. The event was attended by local and expatriate bloggers and blogger-aspirants.

The morning session featured keynote speaker Jeremiah Owyang and Ahmad Hamzawi, Head of Engineering for Google Middle East & North Africa. Regional bloggers also shared their experiences and tips for new bloggers.

The afternoon session was split into two separate workshops – one for new bloggers and the other for experienced bloggers. The event gathered good attendance, and the workshops were very interactive.

The speakers were great. I also got a chance to discuss with Ahmad why I think Google Adsense sucks, based on my previous experience – and suggested that Google should be more transparent on how they determine that an Adsense account poses a risk to their business. Of course, I wasn’t expecting a satisfactory answer and didn’t get one either

One of the many things I liked about Ahmad is that, despite being the Head of Engineering for Google, he runs Windows XP and Microsoft Office 2007 on his laptop, and not Google’s Chrome OS and Google Apps.

The Blogger platform was outshined by WordPress when members of the audience questioned about it and Jeremiah himself explaining why he moved his blog from Blogger to WordPress.

Moving on, I learnt a few important things in today’s workshop.

• I realized that I was late in understanding the potential of Twitter.
• I learnt that Disqus could do a better job with comment forms on my blog. Implemented it right away.
• I need to explore more of Delicious & Technorati
• I need to read more blogs, and comment on them – need to ‘network’ more with people rather than doing ‘broadcasts’
• I got insight on the challenges that Arab bloggers face.

Almost everyone who attended got a free copy of the book “Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom” by Matthew Fraser & Soumitra Dutta.

Overall, it was an awesome event and I’m sure everyone benefited from it. If you were one of those who attended the event, please drop a comment!

Windows 7 session for partners

Microsoft Qatar conducted sales and technical training for partners at the W Hotel in West Bay, Doha on 8th and 9th November 2009.

Windows 7 Launch

Windows 7 was launched worldwide yesterday. I had explained new features of Windows 7 in previous posts.

Microsoft Qatar is the platinum sponsor of this year’s Made in USA exhibition in Doha, Qatar (Oct 21-23 2009). We had a booth at the exhibition where we showcased Windows 7, Windows Phone, xbox 360 and some Microsoft Hardware.

Microsoft @GITEX 2009

Join us at this year’s GITEX 2009 from October 18-22 at Hall 7, Stand B7-1, (Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre) for an exclusive preview of our latest technologies. This year’s Microsoft stand hosts 21 partner and Microsoft pods demonstrating latest products and solutions.

Day 1| Monday October 19th 2009| 10:00am – 11:30am   
SMB panel debates: Understanding risk and combating threats by David Maskell, Security Solution Specialist, Microsoft Gulf   

Day 2| Tuesday October 20th 2009| 12:00pm – 1:30pm   
Business meets IT: Knowing your customers and keeping them by Ahmad Salama, CRM Solution Specialist, Microsoft Gulf   

Day 3| Wednesday October 21st 2009| 10:00am – 11:30am   
SMB Panel debates: Integrating consumer technologies at work by Stuart Simms, Mobile Communication BG Lead, Microsoft MEA   

Day 4| Thursday October 22nd 2009| 12:00pm – 1:30pm  
Business meets IT: Government 2.0: IT in the public sector by Ahmad Salama, CRM Solution Specialist, Microsoft Gulf   

Day 5| Thursday October 22nd 2009| 1:00pm – 1:45pm   
Developer Day: Microsoft Technologies by Anton Delsink, Developer Tools Evangelist, Microsoft Gulf

Vendor Theaters

Visit Microsoft @ the Vendor theaters on Wednesday and Thursday October 21 & 22 respectively; located at the Consumer Electronics Hall at the Trade Center, running a series of sessions around Windows 7, Windows Phone, Windows Live and XBOX.

Tech-Ed 2010 in Dubai!

The next Tech-Ed Middle East is being held at the Dubai World Trade Centre from March 1-3, 2010.

Tech-Ed is Microsoft’s premier technical education and networking conference where you can connect one-on-one with Microsoft insiders and IT peers, get your toughest questions answered and hear expert advice – right from the source!

For updated information, join the tech-ed mailing list, or visit www.teched.ae. Don’t forget to mark your calendars.

IT Evolution 08 @Abu Dhabi

The IT Evolution 08 event was held today at the Corniche Sheraton, Abu Dhabi. There were several informative sessions on Microsoft Virtualization technologies in the IT Pro track such as Hyper-V and Application Virtualization with SoftGrid/MDOP. The developer track included presentations on SQL Server 2008, Visual Studio .NET 2008 and Silverlight.

Partner presence included HP, Dell and Citrix. Yusuf Bismilla, Anton Delsink, Shahid Gaglani, and Amr El Garhy of Microsoft presented various topics.

Attendees were also given a chance to have their picture taken with the gaming character Master Chief from the Halo 3 game from Microsoft Game Studios.

 
Me with Master Chief of Halo 3 (left)