Mercator and Microsoft strengthen relations at Gitex 2009

Mercator is one of only two Middle East and African companies to take part in the Windows 7 Early Adopter Programme and one of 40 companies worldwide. Back in February 2009, Mercator chose to take part in the programme to compliment its own vision of being leader in innovation and latest technology adoption.

Charbel Fakhoury, Regional General Manager, Microsoft Gulf, said:

"Windows 7 promises to provide secure, more consistent and highly compatible user experience based on its application of latest advancements in different technological areas, being ready for the latest hardware while also running smoothly on existing hardware investments."

Following a due diligence exercise in understanding the scope of work and legalities, the technical initiative began in May. What followed was five months of hard work in testing the multitude of applications that make up the Emirates Group in a lab environment. This included anything from ensuring antivirus software worked with the latest updates to Emirates Group corporate applications.

Patrick Naef, Head of Mercator said, "With the assistance of Microsoft we found the migration process to be largely smooth and the issues faced in application compatibility were all manageable. Microsoft has provided excellent dedicated support throughout the project lifecycle, which was supported by weekly meetings, regular communications, some consultancy and endorsement from the Emirates Group senior management team."

Mercator's commitment to proceed with the project, and adopt Microsoft's latest flagship operating system for the Emirates Group, is built on the existing strategic partnership between both companies. In January 2008 Mercator and Microsoft jointly set up an innovation lab in Dubai to develop new products and services for the travel industry using Microsoft's cutting-edge technologies.

At Gitex, Mercator also exhibited on the Microsoft Partner Pavilion to demonstrate applications developed by Mercator using Microsoft Dynamics as a platform and explain how Mercator can provide application development and hosting platforms for Microsoft Dynamics, Exchange and Unified Communications.

Mercator recently launched a new service called Mercator Business Technologies which essentially means a single local vendor who can design, source, procure and project manage the deployment of an entire IT infrastructure. This includes infrastructure design services, IT consultancy , IT system auditing and governance, sourcing of hardware, software and infrastructure, project management, software development services, procurement and implementation service, data centre hosting, call centre services, 24x7 on site or remote support.