2006 marks LINKdotNET as driving force behind e-government implementation in the region

Hanan Abdel Meguid, Chief Executive Officer of LINK Development, the software solutions development arm of LINKdotNET and a rising software export powerhouse, said: 'It is clear that regional governments have bought into the benefits of e-government and the ones that haven't yet are fast becoming the minority left behind. We have seen this year governments scrambling to make their services more accessible and to offer better and more responsive service levels, all the while enabling the integration among various departments and ministries at the back end.'

The company cites the numerous e-government projects undertaken around the region this year alone, particularly with the governments of Egypt, Bahrain, KSA and UAE.

'LINKdotNET's key strength lies in its extensive experience and solid track record in the Government sector,' commented Charbel Fakhoury, General Manager of Microsoft Gulf. 'In addition, being one of our key Gold certified partners in the region, with a solid knowledge and early adoption of Microsoft technologies, makes LINKdotNET one of the ideal partners when it comes to the implementation of Microsoft based e-government solutions across the region.'

LINKdotNET's e-government offering spans the entire range of e-government enablement. Within government departments, LINKdotNET offers intranet-based collaboration, messaging and workflow solutions to increase the efficiency and productivity of government employees. In addition, the company provides governments with efficient helpdesk management solutions to internally manage Customers and employees requests with strong tracking capabilities. For online services, LINKdotNET has extensive experience delivering E-services to Government entities aiming at rendering their various services online.

LINKdotNET is also the only company in the region to have delivered a fully integrated gateway solution on a government wide scale. The company's 'E Government Gateway' enables governments to provide services online from various departments and ministries in an integrated manner, regardless of their back-end applications and technologies used. This presents the citizen with a single point of access that allows for faster and easier dealings with all government entities.

Coinciding with the announcement of its e-government triumphs is the company's launch of a new e-government solution that will enable more government entities in the region to offer their services online. Aptly named 'LINK eGov Services Accelerator,' the solution, which capitalizes on the new Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, caters to smaller government entities, which want to embrace e-government but do not wish to invest in a comprehensive, complex solution. It enables these governments to provide basic services via the web with minimal initial investment and faster time to market as a first step implementation that is both scalable and cost-efficient.

'Online services have become a must for government agencies that want to cut costs, reduce red-tape and improve efficiencies,' adds Hanan. 'New, cost-effective solutions will allow most government departments, even those with smaller budgets, to serve citizens and businesses better online.'

Among its latest e-government work in the UAE is a project undertaken with Dubai Municipality to develop the Used Cars portal (www.usedcars.ae) that enables all showrooms at the Used Cars Complex to manage virtual showrooms, offering postings for cars on sale, while allowing visitors to conduct searches for cars of interest and create virtual agents. This portal has proved to be a great success for the Complex and the Municipality, with several thousand registered users within months of the portal's launch. Another UAE-based solution which was delivered to the Dubai Education Council, involved the creation of a portal (www.dec.gov.ae) that enables ongoing communication with students, teachers and parents to enhance the education sector in Dubai.

In Egypt, LINKdotNET delivered to Telecom Egypt a Government-to-Employee (G2E) Arabic intranet portal for 54,000 employees and a Microsoft-based CRM helpdesk implementation. The company also delivered an IT helpdesk solution and a website for the Egyptian Ministry of Education for the network of schools around the country.

However, the achievement which the company believes is a real showcase of the breadth of its capabilities is the ongoing progress on the implementation of the most comprehensive and integrated e-government initiative in the Arab World. The Egyptian 'Bawaba' was officially launched in Egypt by Bill Gates in 2004, while more online services are being added to the portal regularly. LINKdotNET has designed, developed and implemented the bilingual Portal and the underlying Gateway, enabling the integration and orchestration of processes among various ministries and their online provision to citizens & businesses. No other Internet solution provider in the region has undertaken a project of this scale, and LINKdotNET won the 'Best Integration Solution of the Year' Award in Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa from Microsoft Corporation for the work it has already completed on this project.

When fully implemented, the e-government initiative, which will shift most of the government's 700 services online, is expected to save up to 900,000 working hours a year, time that is currently wasted in red-tape and paper-based systems.