IBM Middle East to discuss best practice, future of collaboration at Sug-Mena

The conference will provide common ground for senior IT executives from across the Middle East to interact with other SAP users and discuss the challenges of managing the changing role of IT.

This is the first year that Sug-Mena jointly incorporates the SAP Tech Tour 2009 event and the SAP Active Global Support Day into the conference bringing more value to the event which will take place from 9th - 11th March 2009 at the Crowne Plaza Convention Center, Manama, Bahrain.

"Our participation in Sug-Mena 2009 is a key indicator of the importance of SAP as a strategic partner and comes in line with Bahrain's strategic move to place more emphasis on the ICT Industry," said Takreem El Tohamy, general manager, IBM Middle East and North Africa. "We continue to be an enabler of business working to bring a new level of intelligence to the way the world works, it is grass roots events like these where we as an organization get to interact with SAP users on the frontline that enable us to gain valuable industry insight, work smarter and increase our value to the market."

Nigel Milton, SAP Alliance Executive, IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa is scheduled to speak on the first day of the conference 9th March 2009 at 14:00pm. The title of his presentation is 'IBM & SAP: Welcome to the Future' and he will focus on IBM strategic business alliance and on IBM's portfolio of offerings to SAP Customers.

Also, Ahmed Samy, SAP Service Line Leader, IBM Middle East and North Africa will co-deliver a presentation with KAPCI on the third day of the conference 11th March 2009 at 9:30am. The title of their presentation is 'KAPCI & IBM; A Real Success Story' where they will focus on IBM's customer success which covers IBM Software and Hardware solutions and IBM's SAP implementation.

The SAP and IBM alliance reflects more than 35 years of leadership based on continuous collaboration, innovation and service for smarter outcomes. The result is a 'best of both worlds' resource that offers businesses:
- A direct route to the world's largest consulting services organization, as well as to a recognized leader and innovation partner for SAP projects.
- A combined set of business and infrastructure solutions for every size enterprise - large, small and mid-sized alike - that brings together leading offerings from SAP and IBM.
- A robust, well-aligned infrastructure encompassing servers and storage products, the world's premier database platform, and an all-inclusive portfolio of middleware and software.
- An extensive, cross-industry services portfolio, including SAP- and IBM-based services, plus industry-specific, certified solutions designed to accelerate the return on your application investment.
- Leading global implementation and outsourcing capabilities - hosting, business process transformation and management, application management, plus assistance in making the move to service-oriented architecture (SOA) and enterprise SOA.
- A modular, relationship-based business framework designed to deliver the highest levels of connectivity, control, integration, collaboration and innovation at every point in your value chain.

IBM is exhibiting during Sug Mena Conference, and will be showcasing its software, hardware and services for SAP solutions.

Sug-Mena conferences strive to provide rich and diverse content, with the aim of capturing the interests of SAP users, and incorporating suggestions and recommendations from attending members. This makes the event a great educational opportunity for SAP customers and industry vendors alike to attend demos, specific presentations, and interact with SAP experts on a one-to-one basis.