The Sun booth had a number of JavaStations and demo kiosks showing various Java products. We had a corner of our booth dedicated to the half a dozen talks done each day. During the four-day event I gave two to three talks a day on Java Computing, a general Java language talk, and an Intranet talk. Java Computing has great application in the Middle East in general and the United Arab Emirates in particular. With a very large local expatriate population, IT expertise is expensive and limited.
Experts have to be brought in from outside and are only available for a few years.
Because the Java Computing model lowers the bar on administrative overhead, and levels the playing field for application development and distribution, it can have immediate cost paybacks. At the same time, the Dubai government has announced a plan to further establish the Emirates as the regional hub for the IT and computer industry by attracting international computer and high tech companies to invest in the Free Zone Trade and Technology Park which is being established within the Dubai International Airport Complex. The show was inaugurated, as is not unusual in the United Arab Emirates, by one of the rulers, in this case by Sheikh Hamdan bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance and Industry. All the major world computer companies had large booths and there was a hall dedicated to Oracle Open World partner kiosks. There was another hall sponsoring companies from the European Union and the Middle East.