Ducont's solution among world's best at GSM Association Awards

Ivan Fernandes, CEO, Ducont.

DUBAI: January 12, 2003

Ducont FZ-LLC, leading UAE-based Internet and wireless solutions provider has become the first GCC Company to be recognized as a finalist in the 'Best Corporate Wireless Application or Service' category at the 8th GSM Association Awards dubbed 'Oscars of the Mobile Industry'. The final winner will be declared on February 18, 2003 at the award ceremony in Cannes, France. With this Ducont stands high among the mobile industry leaders such as Sonera, O2, Far Eastone Telecommunications and Telestra who were the finalists last year.

In July 2002, Ducont won the 'Best Collaborative Solution of the Year 2002' award from Microsoft, the world's leading software company. At a ceremony held at the Las Vegas convention centre, Ducont was honoured for its unique E-Police System developed for Dubai Police. The company's solution beat a field of several larger companies to emerge as the best Microsoft-based collaborative solution from the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa region for the year 2002.

Ducont was selected because of its innovative use of Microsoft's latest technologies that offer clear benefits to customers. "It was an honour for us to receive so many amazing business applications of our products," said Rosa Garcia, General Manager of Partner Sales and Marketing Group at Microsoft, "but Ducont clearly stood out among the many high-quality entries we received."

"This award is in recognition of Ducont's strengths and capabilities in developing and deploying world class wireless solutions that have enabled customers like Dubai Police collaborate easily with their field officers as well as with the general public through handheld devices such as PDAs and mobile phones." said Ivan Fernandes, brain behind the success, Managing Director and CEO of Ducont.  Mr. Ivan Fernandes, hailing from Ashok Nagar Parish Mangalore,  is a great supporter of Konkani Community in Dubai as well as back home.

Dr. Omar Bin Sulaiman, Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Internet City congratulated Ducont, saying: "Ducont's tremendous success in developing unique wireless applications is a source of inspiration for software developers in the region. Dubai Internet City offers a supportive environment and easy access to resources that can nurture enterprising technology start-ups like Ducont. The close proximity of other leading ICT companies in the community offers abundant opportunities to establish the productive partnerships that are so critical to success in today's technology market."

The Award caps two years of extremely successful and productive application development work by Ducont, during which it has produced extremely innovative wireless solutions for a range of companies including banks, government organizations, stock exchanges, telcos and airlines. In October 2000, Ducont was the finalist at the e-biz challenge conducted by Dubai Internet City for innovative business ideas and plans.

The E-Police Solution, which received the Microsoft recognition, is a unique software application that 'm-enables' police personnel in the field. The E-Police solution supports the investigation work of police officers on the move by giving them secure remote access to their data in their data centres. It allows them to use their mobile devices to log in incidents and crimes, which then can be flashed to the respective officers on duty. The officer can then arrive on the scene, investigate the incident and update his observations directly from his PDA using a Field Reporting System.

Launched in early 2000, Ducont is the brainchild of Ivan Fernandes, formerly Regional Director of Logica Financial Products. Fernandes had joined Logica when the UK-based company acquired Quaestor, a retail-banking package that Fernandes conceived and helped develop at his Bangalore-based company 'Synectics'. Later, his entrepreneurial spirit caught up with him and he left Logica to form Ducont with his long-time friend, local businessman Ahmed Al Rafi. Ducont's launch provided the impetus for the Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) to catch on in the UAE. The new company introduced a range of WAP, SMS and GPRS services targeted at the Middle East market.

Two years down the line, Ducont has developed exciting solutions for e-banking, portfolio and stock broking, e-government, mobile wallet and micro-payments, fleet management, mobile sales force automation, electronic bill presentment and payments, Internet content management services and m-commerce security.

Looking ahead, Ducont plans to expand its presence in the region by establishing subsidiaries in major markets. It also has a development centre in India to take care of the extensive development work required for its Wireless and Internet based solutions.

Courtesy: Valerian Peris

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