Al Ghanim: The new policy will be effective July 2010; consumers will receive messages from their service providers requesting their consent to receive SMS marketing messages

In line with its strategy to further develop and enhance the performance of the telecommunications sector in the UAE, the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has issued a regulatory policy concerning spam in electronic communications, focusing on spam SMS for marketing purposes. The new policy will be applied on both service providers; Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) and Emirates Integrated Telecommunications (du).

Empa to distribute ESET’s antivirus solutions across Saudi Arabia; to strengthen ESET’s market share and sales in the Kingdom

ADAOX Middle East, the regional business development center of ESET NOD32 Antivirus, today announced that they have signed a partnership agreement with Empa, a leading IT distribution company in the MENA region, to distribute ESET’s award-winning antivirus solutions in Saudi Arabia. Empa will promote ESET NOD32 and ESET Smart Security to the corporate, SME and retail segments across the Kingdom.

Speaking on their new partnership, Mr. Naeem Hamami, Country Manager, Empa KSA said, “We are pleased to add ESET to our strong portfolio of best-of-breed products. We pride ourselves on offering only the best products to our customers. ESET has gained a reputation of being a superior product in the security software segment in the Middle East region. Since we were in the process of establishing our value division and at the same time ESET was looking to expand their business further in Saudi Arabia, there was perfect synergy between both our companies. Empa has an extensive portfolio of products in the components, PC, notebooks, networking, storage and power supply segments. The only missing part was a security solution, where ESET will be our first vendor to start with.”

ITU leads effort for reconstruction of Haiti's telecommunications and ICT infrastructure Secretary General calls for broadband access for all inhabitants

An international effort led by ITU is underway to speed up reconstruction of Haiti's crucial telecommunications and ICT infrastructure destroyed in the earthquake of 12 January this year.

A high-level Round Table on the topic concluded yesterday in Needham's Point, Barbados, with strong commitment to work with ITU. Participants pledged support, both financial and in kind, to a Trust Fund for Haiti to be set up within ITU.

Announcement of latest partner program coincides with unveiling of new networking, security and storage solutions

NETGEAR, a worldwide provider of technologically advanced, branded networking and storage products has launched the initial phase of a new channel initiative in KSA. The announcement of the latest partner program coincided with the unveiling of the company’s new networking, security and storage solutions, which include the ‘ReadyNAS 4200’, a network storage system with 10Gb Ethernet and iSCSI support for small and medium businesses (SMBs), Quad WAN Gigabit SSL VPN Firewall, unmanaged switches, L2 Gigabit POE Switches, and new wireless controller supporting up to 150-APs.

The UAE Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) today confirmed that both the telecom operators in the country, Emirates Telecommunications Corporation (Etisalat) and Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (du), are technically ready to open their fixed-line networks for competition.

Both operators will be able to currently provide all fixed-line services, telephone and internet services, and in the near future television services, everywhere in the UAE. This comes in line with the strategies followed by the TRA towards enabling competition in the telecom market.
 
H.E. Mohamad Al Ghanim, Director General of the TRA said: “The step from ‘Etisalat’ and ‘du’ to provide each other with access to their fixed telecommunications infrastructure will allow customers to select service provider in every household and business across the entire nation. The parties have now concluded the negotiations on complex technical and operational details of the network sharing arrangements and are currently in the process of undertaking comprehensive testing of the networks and systems interfaces. Users of fixed telecommunications services across the UAE will be able to access services from both operators once these are commercially launched in the coming months.”

Netsize adds SMS messaging as a standard channel to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, enhancing the leading CRM solution with quick SMS messages, SMS marketing campaigns and SMS workflows; plug-in architecture enables easy install in any Dynamics CRM 4.0 system.

Netsize, the leading mobile commerce and communications enabler, today announced version 2 of Netsize mPlug-in for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Adding SMS as a standard communications channel in Microsoft Dynamics CRM, Netsize mPlug-in enables users of Dynamics CRM to leverage the mobile channel to increase business process efficiency and customer satisfaction.

“Companies are recognizing that mobile messaging enables them to increase business agility and serve customers better,” says Stanislas Chesnais, Chief Executive Officer, Netsize. “With Customer Relationship Management at the center of many business processes, being able to use the mobile channel like any other channel is a must-have.”

Netsize mPlug-in for Dynamics CRM features include quick SMS messaging, SMS campaigns, SMS workflows and dashboard statistics. All features are fully integrated in the Microsoft Dynamics CRM user interface.