Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Saif Al Sharqi inaugurates First Digital Business Channel conference for Middle East and Africa

Sheikh Mohammed is spearheading the Fujeirah Government Electronic department to adopt the latest technology to make all the various services offered by the government departments of the Emirate easily accessible by both its citizens and residents.

Distree Events, the organisers of DISTREE, Digital Consumer Channel and Digital Business Channel conferences, confirmed that it had received record 150 registrations from key decision makers from leading enterprise business solution providers and VARs in MEA. The conference also had over 500 pre-registered one-on-one meetings before the start of the conference and they expected this total to exceed 750 with on-site meetings.

"We are overwhelmed with the level of response especially from the channel," said Farouk Hemraj, CEO for Distree Events.

"This is the first ever channel event in this region that is 100% dedicated for the B2B Channel in MEA. Our formula for these channel events is focused and hence very successful."

Sponsored by AMD and HP as platinum sponsors and supported by Toshiba, APC and Brother, DBC-MEA will run from 28th November to 1st December 2005. The event aims to bring together international IT and digital vendors with representatives from IT solution providers and enterprise business channel from around this region. The event is also supported by leading regional IT media, and 3Com who provided the wireless infrastructure for the event.
DBC MEA is the second event for this region organised by Distree Events. Distree had organised a successful event for the retail channel in May 2005 at Le Meridien.

"Distree's decision to organize a second major technology-focused event at the hotel in less than a year is a huge endorsement for us. By blending unparalleled levels of service with state-of-the-art features and sophisticated contemporary style, our facilities deliver the quintessential meeting experience and are specially designed to cater to the growing demand for international standard conferencing facilities in the UAE," said Patrick Antaki, general manager, Le Meridien Al Aqah.

The first DBC MEA is also supported by over 30 top vendors including HP, AMD, Toshiba, APC, Brother, Acer, SUN, 3Com, Sony Storage, Avocent, MGE, and Sonicwall among others.

DBC-MEA follows the special DISTREE formula — a high-level, full service event in the comfort of a world-class venue. Before the event, resellers and vendors are both given a special user name and password that they use to pre-book one-on-one appointments and boardroom meetings. It is a full service event, providing a well balanced combination of boardroom meetings presented by vendors, prescheduled one-on-one meetings, high-level content from industry experts and networking opportunities.

"We expect around 300 persons from both vendors and VARs to attend this event," continued Hemraj. According to Distree, the VARs attending the event represent about 3 billion $ of annual turnover. 86% of these VARs sell to large corporate accounts, 82% to mid-sized enterprises and 72% to small businesses.