When looking to boost excitement about a technology exhibition, there are fewer big opportunities than the release of the latest Windows operating system.

That wasn't lost on the Gitex team at the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC) or on its CEO, Helal Saeed Al Marri, who said the company actually talked to Microsoft about rescheduling the week-long technology show to coincide with the global launch of Windows 7 on October 22. When that didn't work, the team at Microsoft's office in Dubai were to score a major coup: convincing the head office in Redmond, Washington to make Gitex the only place in the world where consumers will be able to buy the successor to Vista before its official release date. Microsoft will also be sending corporate vice-president Steven Guggenheim to Gitex to preview the new system.

"For us, it's amazing to have a preview [of Windows 7]," he said. "A lot of people are excited about it."

But the Windows 7 preview is just one example of the importance people and companies are putting on Gitex this year. Even people who haven't had much contact with the DWTC previously have been coming to talk to Al Marri about this year's show.

"Hotel managers have come to see me this year, a lot," he said. "They've never come to see me in the last four years I've been chasing them to get rooms. They've come to see what I'm doing, and what they can do to help and everything."

A lot of the new managers are people who were brought in to manage during the global turndown, Al Marri said. The managers aren't putting pressure on the show to help fill hotels, but they're are offering support.

Source : Gulfnews