Silicon Graphics moves to Dubai Media City

Gilbert Soufan has assumed the role of Country Manager for the Middle East and Africa. Philippe Guardia has been appointed Country Manager for Saudi Arabia.

"The SGI Super Computers that are installed in this region are rated among the most powerful supercomputers in the world," said Soufan. "SGI has been very successful in delivering high performance computers to the technical community in the region. The majority of Oil companies, TV stations and Visual Simulation integrators rely almost exclusively on our technology to solve their toughest problems. ADNOC, Qatar Petroleum and Kuwait Oil Company to name a few, have more then 700 processors crunching seismic and reservoir data 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And we are not talking about cheap clusters of PCs."

Soufan joined SGI in 1998 as Business Development Manager covering the MENA region. He has over 16 years experience in the IT industry.

As Country Manager for Saudi Arabia, Guardia will be based in the SGI-MENA regional offices in Dubai. "The Saudi Arabia territory is particularly exciting for SGI," explained Guardia. "We have been mainly focusing on the Oil & Gas industry with Saudi Aramco in the last three years. We are now trying to leverage from this experience to penetrate other industry segments such as media, sciences and education, and health care where SGI has a strong compelling value proposition to offer to customers".

Guardia, who joined SGI Middle-East & North-Africa in July 1999, has worked in the IT Industry since 1983 and brings to this position a strong industry background, including senior management positions in Sales and Marketing with Xerox and Hewlett-Packard.