Jordan Times
Monday, April 19, 2004
Microsoft, Estarta
Solutions to produce software for e-government projects
AMMAN (JT) — His Majesty King Abdullah attended the signing ceremony in San
Francisco of an agreement between Microsoft and the leading Jordanian IT company
Estarta Solutions, under which the two will set up a “Microsoft Centre for
Public Sector Programmes,” the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported on Sunday.
The centre will produce copyrighted advanced solutions and design software to be
marketed to countries working on e-government projects.
Minister of Information and Communications Technology Fawwaz Zu'bi signed the
agreement with Maggie Wilderotter, senior vice president of World Wide Public
Sector at Microsoft, as a gesture of the government's support for the centre.
Wilderotter told Petra that cooperation between her company and Jordan is
“healthy,” adding that Microsoft's investments in the Kingdom are not limited to
its share in Estarta. The IT giant is also a partner in Jordan Education
Initiative (JEI), which was launched at the WEF extraordinary meeting at the
Dead Sea in 2003. Microsoft is also involved in the Kingdom's e-government
project and finances the training of 20 students from Jordanian universities in
public agencies.
Wilderotter said her organisation would cooperate with Estarta in marketing the
produced software in the Arab world.
Estarta Solutions is an international and regional IT solutions company with
delivery headquarters in Jordan, and sales headquarters in Dubai as well as
offices in Boston, Doha, Dubai, Riyadh and Jeddah. After a successful merger
between ONEWORLD and Zeine Technological Applications, Estarta Solutions emerged
as a key player with a focus on delivering solutions to three market sectors:
e-government, telecommunications and banking.
Partially owned by Microsoft, Estarta Solutions is also a provider of
comprehensive IT solutions in its market sectors.
King Abdullah is accompanied on his current visit to the US by representatives
of six leading IT companies. These companies seek to develop their partnership
with major IT companies in the US with the aim of expanding investment in the
sector to reach $1 billion a year.
During the weekend, King Abdullah attended the signing of a memorandum of
understanding (MoU) between the Ministry of Information and Communications
Technology and the American information technology giant Cisco Systems.
Under the MoU, the ministry and Cisco will work on finding mutual opportunities
for future cooperation.
“We are focusing on Jordan because Jordanians are creative people who want to
develop their education system”, a Cisco executive said. The US company is also
a partner in JEI.