'On Demand Business' highlighted at Future IT event by Gulf Business Machines - IBM

According to Abdulla Ishaq, General Manager of Bahrain Business Machines, GBM's operation in the Kingdom, the need for businesses to innovate, differentiate and capture new value while at the same time improve productivity and maximise the use of their resources has fuelled IBM's creation of the 'On Demand Business' era, and the presentations at the event were discussed in this context.

"An organisation is said to be an On Demand Business when its business processes are integrated not only internally, but also with its key partners, suppliers and customers so that it can respond with speed to any customer demand, market opportunity or external threat," said Mr Ishaq. "Achieving this intelligent infrastructure requires the innovative use of various IT hardware, software and service components. The subjects of the two presentations - 'The Future of IT: Linux', and 'Security and Automation' - contained key elements relevant to IBM / GBM's overall On Demand Business strategy and these were highlighted at the event.

Roger Bou Aoun, Security Consultant, Integrated Technology Services, GBM, delivered a presentation within the On Demand Business context, the topics of which were 'Security' and 'Automation'.

'Security' is defined as a condition of a system that results from the establishment and maintenance of measures to protect that system. It is characterised by a set of interdependent goals relating to the areas of enterprise, infrastructure and application security as well as business continuity, and includes ensuring confidentiality, integrity, availability, accountability and assurance as these areas relate to security.

"Mr Bou Aoun's IT security and automation presentation included an overview of the security industry, security breaches and how to overcome them. IT security is a challenge facing all companies in all types of industries in the Gulf region and is no different from those in the rest of the world. IBM / GBM are helping companies to ensure security issues are addressed at the beginning of any IT undertaking by helping companies implement sustainable corporate security policies," added Mr Ishaq.

"Mr Bou Aoun also highlighted Cisco and IBM's symbiotic security relationship, which by bringing together respective networking and security and identity management leadership credentials - ensures solutions that clearly enhance imperviousness to would-be hackers."

Bashar Kilani, Software Group Area Manager, IBM, explained in his 'Step into the future with Linux' presentation how and why this renowned open source operating system is taking the region - and world - by storm and how its applications are set to permeate every aspect of our lives.

GBM was also a 'gold' sponsor of the event, and along with IBM it exhibited a range of IBM hardware and software solutions and services. Visitors to the exhibition were able to find out first hand how IBM / GBM are helping to ensure that regional businesses and governments can implement solutions for On Demand Business.