New Esri Office in Middle East Includes International Tech Hub

"As Esri's regional office for the Middle East and Africa, we are responsible for business development and supporting our distributors to help them extend their technical expertise and business skills and capabilities," says manager Sohail El-Abd. "We will also be supporting those larger customers with enterprise license agreements and helping distributors and partners deliver GIS projects."

In addition to its ArcGIS Technology Hub, the office is developing an Executive Briefing Center that will be used to stage technology workshops and discuss Esri's latest software and its potential use with senior managers. The center will also be available to Esri's distributors and partners to hold meetings and seminars.

Although new, the office is currently working with a number of established clients, including the Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre, United Arab Emirates (UAE) Bayanat, Abu Dhabi Police, the Bahrain Central Informatics Organization, the Qatar Centre for Geographic Information Systems, the Qatar Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the Bahrain Ministry of the Interior, Saudi Aramco, the National Water Company in Saudi Arabia, the Saudi Electricity Company, and the Kuwait Oil Company.

"The Middle East, particularly in the Gulf region, has experienced rapid and continuous growth over the past several years," says Jack Dangermond, Esri president. "While our current implementations have been well supported by the Esri distributor network, I believe that the time is right to establish an Esri technology center in this part of the world to help our users maximize their use of the technology and realize its full potential."