Bahrain upgrades ICT levels

Stemming from its mission to achieve fully integrated and effective eGovernance in the Kingdom, the eGovernment Authority of Bahrain (eGA) rolled out a new initiative that will upgrade and standardise the level of ICT in all government entities, reports AMEinfo.

The initiative, named the Enterprise Architecture Project (EAP), is considered to be the first of its kind in the region and will make governmental procedures quicker and more streamlined.

The new project was unveiled to an audience of senior government IT heads by eGA CEO Mohammed Al Qaed at an introductory seminar at the Movenpick Hotel. In his speech, Al Qaed called the EAP as one of the eGovernment's most important strategic projects.

Mega, the company that provides enterprise architecture (EA) and business process analysis (BPA) solutions, has been named by Forrester Research as a leader in its January 2009 report, according to MarketWatch.

The Forrester Wave: Business Process Analysis, Enterprise Architecture (EA) Tools, and IT Planning, Q1 2009, states Mega is one of only five companies that "lead the EA Tools category".

"Mega is a leader in all categories with a very homogeneous product. Thanks to the Mega advisor, Mega has one of the most impressive set of predefined and customisable real-time dashboards, which makes its solution one of the leading offerings in analysis and simulation," noted the report.

IBM Global Services and its WebSphere software division should be expecting a boost now that IBM and Ricoh have a new deal to share sales networks, according to ITJungle.

The arrangement more closely ties IBM's service-oriented architecture efforts with Ricoh's document solutions line-up.

Two years ago, IBM and Ricoh created a joint printing business so IBM could focus on its core server, storage, software, and services businesses.