On the Hoof: Dubai Is at the Forefront of Municipal and State Government Moves in the Region to Offer Citizens the Ability to Interact with Officials Online and on Their Portable Handsets; at the Same Time Businesses Are Starting to Offer Connectivity to Their Customers and Employees from Any Location

Beginning of article

"Dubai has a take-a-chance mentality. It's a risk-taker as opposed to risk averse," says Hisham Malak, channel and marketing manager of software integration company Sybase. "It's always at the forefront of development in the (Mena) region." Hence its lead in customer-focused electronic operations which allow citizens to access and use the country's systems from their own computers, instead of having to queue to pay bills and fines, make visa applications, pay municipality fees, register companies, apply for health cards, deal with the police and the law, book flights or even make their Zakat (alms) payment.

By November 2006, 2m transactions had been carried out online and the municipality had reached its target of offering 90% of all services online a year ahead of schedule. The city is now going a step further and giving the public the facility to liaise with the government via their portable handsets.

In comparison with the West, the Gulf has taken some time to invest in technology that allows users seamless access to systems from any common or garden PC with an Internet link. But with the sudden rise in interest in the Internet, many technology users in the Mena region are surging ahead with their own implementations.

According to the World Bank, e-government is the use by government agencies of information and communications technology in order to provide better delivery of government services to citizens, improved interactions with business and industry and citizen empowerment through access to information or more efficient government management. The benefits can be less corruption, increased transparency, greater convenience, revenue growth, and/or cost reductions

And it's not just in government: the trend is related to e-commerce or enterprise mobility, which allows companies to do business with each other and their customers more efficiently through technology links. An obvious example is Internet banking, which has been around in the US since the mid-1990s but was introduced in the Gulf three to four years ago.

As Malak says, the Dubai municipal government, which launched its services in 2001 with 25 government …