• By Joanne Paulson

• Business Editor, The StarPhoenix 

A small Saskatoon Internet Web site company has taken a big step into the Middle Eastern market by signing on a major client in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Amanah Tech Inc. founded just last year, signed a Web-hosting contract with Al Ghurair Private Co. at the Canadian consulate in Dubai on May 11.

Marketing director Janea Bellay said the young company already exports to the Middle East, but landing Al Ghurair is a big coup because of the company’s size.

In UAE, most businesses are owned by groups of companies, and Al Ghurair is one of the three largest groups. It owns about 40 companies, ranging from oil firms to shopping malls, and brings in billions of dollars in sales.

“When we got Al Ghurair, that was a major “in” for us in the market, because with the three group companies that are well-know, if your name is associated with one of those, it gives you a big advantage in the market,” said Bellay in an interview.

"The contract is now in its preliminary stages. Amanah Tech has stared by hosting about half of the Al Ghurair Web sites on its servers," she said.

The next stage will be to take over the other Web sites as previous contracts come up for renewal, and then to offer other services such as Web site design.

Bellay said Amanah Tech offers several advantages to eastern companies. Company owner Nezar Freeny is originally from Sudan and understands the market well; and Amanah staff can offer services in Arabic.

Freeny traveled last October to a major information technology trade show called GITEX, where he met with a representative from Al Ghurair. From there, six months of negotiations proceeded and resulted in the contract.

“The Arabic culture in our company transfers into a niche selling point,” said Bellay.

There are also cost advantages to moving to Amanah Tech for companies dealing with U.S. Web hosting, she added. Many companies in the Middle East use U.S. hosting companies.

“With the dollar being so low, and the technology that’s available here in Canada, we can take that service found in the U.S. and transfer it up into Canada,” said Bellay.

Bellay explained once a company has a domain name (www.yourname.com) for its Web site, it must be hosted on a server to be accessible. This can be done on a dedicated server exclusive to one company, or on a shared server with other companies. 

“We have our own servers,” she said. “We would buy servers from companies like Compaq, Sun Microsystems, Dell, or IBM, for example.”
 

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