So the chase for Jomaa has ended with the man joining Juniper. The networking vendor has made a shrewd choice, especially in the light of the current climate where a number of multinationals have sought to appoint Saudi general managers for what I’ve been told are political reasons. Is the Saudi IT landscape moving in the right direction when it comes to leadership? Or is today's current political landscape influencing decision makers in Europe and the US as they look to develop their Kingdom-wide operations?

I love releases on financials from local operations of multinationals. Either they don't quote figures, only "double digit" growth percentages, or they put out ridiculously high figures. As recession looms large over the US market won't a dose of truth do the Middle East channel some good or are we doomed to remain ignorant as to the true potential of the Middle East technology industry?

It’s funny working in the Saudi market. One day you think you have it pegged, you understand the players and their actions; the next day you’re back at square one working out why things happen (or happened) as they do. Over the past week a number of local channel players opened my eyes as to the shifting sands of the Arabian peninsula.

It's not my favourite topic of conversation, but public relations firms and public relations strategies (if they can be even called that) are still a pain point in the channel ecosystem.

With the new year around the corner is 2008 the year that multinationals get their act together and start communicating their value to the channel and the wider public? Or will we still see a dearth of local announcements from Saudi based companies, and PR that is still below standard?

The announcement by industry giant SAP that they’d be entering the Middle East direct made headlines not only locally but around the world. Long deemed to be outside of the MENA region due to its partnership with SAP Arabia, the ERP heavyweight was long rumoured to be looking to come direct into the Middle East market after a fractious relationship with the latter.

The Cisco partner summit was a real meeting of muscle for the Saudi channel last week. Surrounded by the biggest names in the business, Cisco’s channel team put the case forward for developing the business locally. As a veteran (for this region) channel journalist, it was much more interesting to sit down with channel partners such as SBM, Al Jeraisy, and Tuwaiq to ask how they saw their relationship with Cisco today and going forward.