Futurex organizers say that South Africa (SA) will welcome the Middle East’s largest ICT infrastructure, when Dubai Internet City (DIC) attends the exhibition.
They add that, built inside a free trade zone, DIC has been specifically designed to support the business development, and to enhance the competitive advantage of ICT companies targeting certain emerging markets. These are in regions extending from the Middle East to the Indian subcontinent, and from Africa to the CIS countries — regions covering 1.6 billion people with a GDP of US$1.1 trillion.
According to the organizers, DIC, by providing foreign companies with a strategic base, infrastructure and knowledge economy ecosystem, benefits from Dubai’s liberal economic policies and regulations. They add that it is thus able to offer these companies 100 percent tax-free ownership, 100 per cent repatriation of capital and profits, no currency restrictions, easy registration and licensing, stringent cyber regulations, and protection of intellectual property.
The world-class business environment aims to provide intelligent buildings with a high quality communications infrastructure, built on an IP Telephony system that is claimed to be the largest commercial implementation in the world. In addition, it is said to provide the DIC community with a one-stop-shop for business and technology services, including: telephony, hosting services, local area networking, wide area networking and Internet services. DIC’s scalable state-of-the-art technology platform aims to allow companies to provide cost-effective business process outsourcing (BPO) services, such as call center operations.
According to DIC, a dynamic international community has already established itself in the ICT hub, representing a formidable gathering of over 5,500 knowledge workers, comprising software development, business services, Web-based & e-commerce, consultancy, education & training, sales & marketing and back office operations. It notes that Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM Corp., Dell Inc., Siemens AG, Cisco Systems Inc. and other manufacturers have all set up shop there, as have a number of regional players, and a host of exciting start-ups.
Organizers say that new phases of expansion are now creating space for an even larger community, and, through its participation in Futurex 2004, DIC is hoping to add some SA expertise to the mix.