Microsoft 5-nation GCC road show ends on a high note

The Microsoft Technet & MSDN Road Show 2006 showcased the latest innovations, tools and solutions to emerge from the Microsoft stable, including the highly anticipated new Windows products including the Vista operating system and Office 2007 program suite.

Vimal Sethi, Manager of the Developer and Platform Group, Microsoft Gulf, said the road show had been a tremendous success for the company's direct engagement efforts.

"The road show is our opportunity to demonstrate hands-on how Microsoft technologies can improve monitoring and management of processes and maintain system performance and security," he said. "These innovations are aimed at enhancing and easing the lives of our primary clients in IT infrastructure management, and the road show affords a singular opportunity to interact with them personally - which means we can satisfy their needs that much faster."

The road show comes at a time of rapid growth in IT and e-activity across the region, he added. "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," Sethi said.

Apart from demonstrations of the new Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Visual Studio team systems, visitors to the road show received updates on Microsoft's server roadmap and the latest developments in trustworthy computing. The road show also included focused sessions on Windows Server 2003 R2, Virtual Server 2005 R2 and Microsoft Operations Manager 2005, and secure messaging.