Microsoft takes to the road with improved business solutions

The Microsoft Technet & MSDN Road Show 2006 will visit the UAE, Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, showing IT professionals and developers there the latest innovations, tools and solutions to emerge from the Microsoft stable.

The 2006 Road Show, which will reach more than 1,000 IT professionals and managers across the region, will also showcase some of the most anticipated new Windows products, including the Vista operating system and Office 2007 program suite.

The road show comes at a time of rapid growth in IT and e-activity across the region. As organizations in the Middle East look to deploy more advanced business applications, their IT infrastructures need to be able to handle and more diverse security threats, Microsoft Gulf sources explained.

"One of the key messages that Microsoft hears from its customers is that they want to reduce the complexity of managing their IT infrastructure, to automate routine tasks and to give them more powerful tools to handle complex tasks more efficiently. This road show gives us an opportunity to demonstrate to those IT professionals how Microsoft technologies can improve monitoring and management of processes, and help to maintain the performance and security of their systems,"

said Desmond Nair, Server and Tools Business Group Manager, Microsoft Gulf.

Road show attendees will be able to participate in sessions on operational efficiency, review first-hand the new Windows Vista and the Office 2007 systems, benefit from a special behind-the-scenes look at service-oriented architecture (maybe we want to explain what this means?), and receive updates on Microsoft's server roadmap and latest developments in trustworthy computing.

The road show will also include focus sessions on Windows Server 2003 R2, Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, and secure messaging.

The five-nation tour begins on Monday, September 4, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Muscat, and then moves to Al Bustan Rotana Hotel Dubai on September 6, the Crowne Plaza Hotel Abu Dhabi on September 10, the Crowne Plaze Hotel Manama on September 11 and the Intercontinental Hotel Doha on September 12, before concluding at the Kuwait JW Marriott Hotel on September 19, 2006.