Innovation Centre established to build a Government for the future in Oman

The Innovation Centre will support the development of applications and software services for the specific requirements of each organization. This initiative will enhance government services, as well as facilitate IT talent development in Oman. The Microsoft Innovation Center will be powered by 27,000 desktops and will be developed over a period of three years.

The program was launched by hiring 10 Omani engineers through local partners to be trained on Microsoft software and to ultimately work as Premier and MCS consultants. They will focus on basic projects targeting solutions for various Government of Oman entities.

The overall strategy is to optimize infrastructure architecture and design. Microsoft's team is engaged in evaluating need for deploying all the latest Microsoft products, including Windows Server 2003 Active Directory, Exchange Server, and Windows Vista. Also, Microsoft will work with the Government of Oman for innovative workflow solutions, under the umbrella of the connected government framework offering.

The local team plans to visit different ministries, assess their needs, and set appropriate priorities. Once projects are identified, they will be funded from the funding allocation set aside by the Government of Oman's IT leadership for MCS projects.

"Our goal is to deploy best-in-class solutions, beginning with infrastructure and collaboration capabilities. Essentially making sure the top tier of 30-40% of all government ministries enjoy the large scale technologies that are available to them. Next we will move to roll out these capabilities to remainder of the smaller scale government entities," said Fawzi Al-Harrassy, Account Manager, Microsoft Oman said.

The first focus will be the Ministry of Finance and Commerce, where Microsoft needs to evaluate the internal flow of technologies that connect with multiple organizations that link to the Ministry of Finance. Next is to empower the Ministry of Defense with the latest messaging infrastructure.

"In the long term, the fact that nationals are trained to manage the very complex solutions is critical to national security, healthcare, and education. This project is seen as a successful partnership so far and those involved think this is a model to be adopted anywhere: a multinational vendor delivering value at home via the Innovation Center model," said Dr. Salim Sultan Al Ruzaiqi, Chief Executive Officer of Oman's Information Technology Authority (ITA).