The kingdom of Bahrain is one of the leading countries in the development of information technology and implementation of IT in all its sectors. An article published in the online IT magazine called “PSTM” on 25th May 2004, reported by Mr. Edmund Tan stated that: “The government of Bahrain’s central information organization (GIO) is to build its national e-government infrastructure on the open standard Linux platform. “Standards based technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for modernizations throughout society in our country.
The pioneering vision of the government of Bahrain is dedicated to ensuring that the kingdom is at the forefront of developing technology and in driving services for our citizens with flexibility and accessibility to government services,” said Sheikh Ahmed Ateyatalla AlKhalifa, Undersecretary of the CIO. Such development and encouragement by the government in the IT field, boosts the enthusiasm if all people who are interested in the IT sector and want to achieve something special by creating their own software.
The gulf business machines, one of the pioneers in the development of software and hardware technologies had posted an article on its website on 16th may 2004 regarding Bahrain’s keenness in the development of web-based applications to unify the government’s information infrastructure. “GBM has been working with the CIO to drive the delivery of web-enabled applications that unify the government’s information infrastructure and provide powerful services to citizens using secure hardware, network, internet and software platforms.
The project integrates Bahrain’s back-end systems, such as National Database, Immigration and central Population Registration (CPR) systems, Decision Support systems and Customer Relationship Management (CRM) will support the introduction of a national smart card system that will give citizens access to information, services and government facilities. ” U. A. E is another Gulf country which has made tremendous progress in the field f Information technology. According to an article published on the website “PSTM” on 24th may 2005 stated that: “the e-government services allows Dubai Municipality to bridge a perceived gap by allowing users to request services anytime and anywhere, thus resulting in significant cost and time savings, estimated at over 30 per cent reduction compared to the traditional means of obtaining services. Said Hussein Nasser Lootah, Chairman of Dubai Municipality (DM) e-Government Steering Committee. It has been a proven fact that online services are the key to the 21st century in terms of marketing and delivering the goods. The e-government system implemented by the government of Bahrain & U. A. E shows that there is lot of scope and value for online services. As such online website, where customers can buy online through a simple payment process will be widely acceptable.
