Oracle says seeking tie-ups in Sultanate [Times of Oman]

(Times of Oman Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Muscat/Dubai: Oracle, the US-based hardware and software giant, is exploring tie-ups with the Ministry of Education in Oman as part of its various education and skills-development programmes in the Middle East.

"Our discussions with the Government of Oman are continuing, and we expect a positive outcome," Alfonso Di Ianni, Oracle's senior vice-president for Eastern Central Europe, Middle East, and Africa (ECEMEA), told Times of Oman recently, on the sidelines of the Oracle CloudWorld launch in Dubai.

Oracle CloudWorld is a series of international roadshows, which made its debut in Dubai a fortnight ago and will subsequently travel to nine other cities. While referring to Oracle's initiative in developing local expertise in the Middle-Eastern countries where it operates, Alfonso pointed out that the corporation is offering internships to talented Omanis in the field of software engineering, in collaboration with universities in the Sultanate.

Besides Oman, the Oracle Academy is also focusing on nurturing the software engineers of tomorrow in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, and other parts of the region, he added.

The company, Alfonso elaborated, is also pursuing regional skills-development partnerships with private organisations. He noted that there is significant interest from the government as well as private organisations in the region to invest in cloud computing.

On the other hand, Hewlett-Packard (HP), a leading technology and solutions provider, said in 2010 that it had started the HP university-graduate programme in Oman to train IT professionals so that Oman could respond to the IT needs of the global economy. "We want more Omanis to join our workforce," Santiago Cortes, managing director and VP of Enterprise Business for HP Middle East, Mediterranean, and Africa, had told this newspaper during his Muscat visit.

In Dubai, Mark Hurd, president of Oracle Corporation, emphasised that the company is helping the youth in the Middle East to secure jobs. "We are investing in people, training them, and hiring technical people in the region now," Hurd told foreign media after unveiling the Oracle CloudWorld. It should be noted that Oracle has recently moved into its new location in Dubai Internet City.

"The number one issue that we have in the region is finding great people," the Oracle president said, while disclosing that 40 per cent of the interns in the region would be directly hired.

Hurd, who unveiled the Oracle CloudWorld in Dubai, informed a large gathering of IT specialists and stakeholders that the company aims to be the leader in cloud computing in the Middle East and that Oracle was investing heavily in both cloud technologies and the resources to deploy them in the region.

He also used the CloudWorld event to formally launch SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) globally. "We are going to lead in the cloud in this region," he remarked, mentioning that the company was the first to initiate the drive to promote cloud services in the Middle East.

(c) 2012 Muscat Press and Publishing House SAOC Provided by Syndigate.info an Albawaba.com company

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