Microsoft Jordan and Umniah have announced signing an agreement, under which Umniah will provide its business customers with business productivity hosting solutions for increased efficiency in productivity and management.

The Jordanian telecommunications service provider will make use of state-of-the-art Microsoft technology that reduces operational expenses by maximising the utilisation of the IT infrastructure, a statement said.

Umniah will be one of the early providers of hosted cloud services solutions in the region and the first in Jordan based on Microsoft’s leading applications, a statement from the company said.

Ihab Hinnawi, CEO of Umniah, said: “Cloud computing solutions have become imperative to the smooth running of business operations and cost reduction. As such, we are committed to providing this particular solution to our subscribers in order to not only help businesses work more efficiently, but also to contribute towards achieving our goal of advancing the Jordanian telecom sector and further cementing the Kingdom’s position as an ICT hub within the Mena region.”

Husni Khuffash, country manager, Microsoft Jordan, said: “Cloud computing is changing the way software is consumed and delivered, offering tremendous potential for efficiency, cost savings and innovation. Microsoft has been leading the way in cloud computing for a number of years now, developing services that enable big and small companies to have a variety of options on how they access and manage enterprise-class software, and providing customers with increased mobility and flexibility to meet their evolving business needs.”

“The benefits that Umniah’s customers will gain from this solution include significantly reducing their IT costs in addition to supporting a far more mobile workplace with access to vital applications and data being available through a comprehensive range of devices, anywhere, at any time,” Khuffash added.

With the first-of-its kind hosted cloud services agreement, Umniah will offer its customers Hosted Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Virtual Private Service (VPS) based on Microsoft Exchange and Hyper-V technologies, the statement said.

This will allow customers to cut costs by eliminating upfront investment, maintenance and support charges as the services they access will be hosted on a carrier grade Data Center that guarantees a high level of availability to customer services. Customers will also have the flexibility to perform basic email administration without referring back to Umniah via a self-care web portal.

The new business services available will include desktop and mobile e-mail, calendaring and contacts, instant-messaging, audio and video conferencing and shared workspaces, it said. – TradeArabia News Service