I am leaving tomorrow morning for Muscat, Oman. Will spend around 36 hours there. This is going to be much better than my previous trip to Qatar when I left in the morning and returned by night. At least I’ll get some time to rest, and perhaps look at the place a little closer.

Post from: Umar in Dubai

One night in Oman

The newest shopping mall in Dubai, The Dubai Mall (why can’t they come up with some creative names for their malls?), opened its doors to the public on November 4.

This mall is supposed to be the biggest mall of the world with over 1200 shops waiting for the visitors to spend some serious money. It also has a giant fish aquarium, an ice-skating rink, and 22-screen cinema, and plenty of other entertainment and dining options. In short, Dubai Mall is aiming to be your one stop destination for everything.

OK, enough marketing crap (not that I work for Dubai Mall). So I happen to visit the newly opened mall on November 5, a day after its opening. What I found out was that the mall is indeed huge. It will take a full day to see it all, and I don’t think it is humanly possible to see the entire mall in a single visit. Moreover, only a handful of shops were open. It will take a few months for the mall to be fully operational with all the shops and entrainment areas open. After that it will be the ultimate destination for anyone visiting Dubai.

One thing that was open was the giant aquarium, and this reason alone is enough to go to the mall. Seriously, its amazing. Words can’t describe how great it was to see all the fish right in front of you. And there were sharks in the aquarium!

To see all the pictures I took of the mall, click here.

I also have a video of the aquarium with close-up view of the sharks. Coming soon on my blog.

Post from: Umar in Dubai

Dubai Mall Opens

With the election of Barack Obama as the new president of United States, I believe a new era of international affairs has started.

I personally like him as a politician and am a great fan of his public speaking skills (at least one thing will be greatly different in the new president). If I were a US citizen I probably would have voted for him as well. This is indeed a historical moment for USA and the world. The election of an African American as the president is a big deal, if you look at the history of United States.

History is full of stories of how African Americans were denied basic human rights in the USA not too long ago. If you want to know more about it you should read the book Roots: The Saga of an American Family, or watch the mini-series based on the book. America has come a long way since its early days to the point where an African American man is the president of the country where people of his race were untouchables.

It also proves that people of America have finally developed the sense and maturity to look beyond the color of the skin of a person and see what is in the heart and soul of him.

To be honest, as much as I wanted Obama to win, I did not expect it. I was skeptical about people of America electing a Black man as their president. I was afraid that deep inside the heart of white Americans there is hatred for Blacks, and they will never accept a black man as their ruler.

I am so relieved to have been proven wrong.

I hope Obama will do whatever it takes to fix the damage caused by his predecessors. If he is able to do that he will not only be remembered as the first black president, but also as one of the greatest president of the Unites States of America.

Post from: Umar in Dubai

Barack Obama - The new era starts

One of the hot topics these days is world economical and financial crisis. The entire universe is holding its breath and watching the stocks go up and down and currencies fluctuate.

As a side effect of this, Dubai is under limelight (as if it never was), and everyone is speculating about the future of Dubai.

It is no secret is Dubai is being effected by the financial crisis, and the effects will continue to arise, but my prediction is that this region will not be as severely effected as other worst hit regions like Europe and America.

The reason is simple. Gulf region is the fastest growing region in the world in terms of economics and business opportunities. And because of oil resources, the demand of which will not go down for years to come, the government can continue to fund the projects and organizations to avoid collapse.

The only concern is about the real estate market, which has been booming for a couple of years. The problem is that there are no buyers in the market at the moment and investors are avoiding risk. So the prices there were going up constantly have been steady for a couple of months, but they are not going down.

A correction in the market was long overdue. So this might be the time for it. Dubai will see a correction in the real estate market over next few months, and prices might come down by a few points, but as soon as they become affordable again, there will be a surge of buyers.

There is a huge target market that is being ignored at the moment. That market is the people who live and work in Dubai, but are living in rental properties only because they cannot afford to buy one. Once the property value comes down to the level where Dubai residents can afford it, they will start buying and this will result in stabilization of prices.

However, there are dozens of residential projects that will be ready in 2009 and 2010, resulting in huge supply of property, and perhaps not enough buyers (or investors), which again is a good news for residents as such property will be available to them at affordable rates.

So this is really a roller coaster ride. There will be ups and downs over the next few years. Plenty of people will make and lose money in the process. But overall I see a very bright future for this region, simply because of the financial backing the government has in the form of oil, which they can use to support themselves for a long time.

Post from: Umar in Dubai

Dubai and Global Financial Crisis

Drivers beware! RTA Dubai has launched new traffic radars on Dubai highways.

The new radars as the one shown in picture above include a high speed camera, which captures the picture of a vehicle cruising at speed over the limit. These new radars are different from the old ones as the camera doesn’t flash when the picture is taken so the driver will never know if he has been detected while speeding. He will only find out when the violation will show up in his record.

What’s worse is that the cameras are placed every couple of kilometers on Emirates road. So it’s impossible to speed now. You can’t just drive fast and slow down when approaching the radar because you will come across one every minute (if you are cruising over 120 KM/H).

I have already started noticing the effect of this. The traffic on Emirates road is much saner now.

Finally something is working to keep Emaratis drive like human beings.

Post from: Umar in Dubai

New traffic radars in Dubai

I am on way to Qatar again for another day trip.

While I love business traveling but these day trips are not a lot of fun. It’s 6:15 AM right now and after spending the day in Qatar I shall be back in Dubai by 10 at night.

If this was a longer trip with a couple of nights stay, things would have been different. But as they say, there are no if’s and but’s in job. You gotta do what you gotta do.

So, Qatar, here I come!

Post from: Umar in Dubai

Another day in Qatar

After spending 5 long days at GITEX, I am finally able to blog about it now. It sure was tiring. And as expected, it was overall a slow event and left me wondering why it was a 5-day event when three days would have been more than enough.

This year, GITEX was divided into two main sections, the IT section, where “real” IT companies got a chance to exhibit their products, and consumer electronics section, where the likes of Samsung and Panasonic exhibited their big-ass TVs and miniature gadgets. You can very well guess which section was deserted and which was crowded most of the time.

I was in the “boring” section. Like I said in the previous post about GITEX, most companies participate in the GITEX because it has become a status symbol in the region. All good organizations participate in GITEX so if you want your company to be considered among such organizations then you must participate as well. The actual number of leads and opportunities generated through GITEX are not enough to cover the cost of participating. Of course, this may vary for different companies but I found this true for my company and many other companies where I have contacts.

There was also a sub-event called GITEX Shopper. This was like a shopping festival for consumer electronics. The general public was of course attracted to this. I didn’t get a chance to visit it but I heard you could get some real deals on digital cameras and laptop computers.

So the only good thing about GITEX this year was that they had separated the consumer electronics section which made clear what percentage of visitors were genuinely interested in IT.

Post from: Umar in Dubai

GITEX 2008 - Afterthoughts

It’s that time of the year again in Dubai.

During GITEX, it’s hard to find a room available in a Dubai hotel. That’s how much crowd the event attracts. It’s happening again in Dubai from October 19 to October 23.

Fortunately or unfortunately, this is the first time I will be attending GITEX. When I was in Karachi I tried to attend it every year for last three years but missed it every single time for some stupid reason. This year I will be there for all 5 days as my company is one of the exhibitors. Let’s see how it goes since visiting an exhibition is one thing and participating in it is a totally different experience. Plus I will also be doing my normal office work from there all week long. So it’s going to be fun.

In the early days, GITEX was a real technology trade show in which genuine IT companies used to participate, and it was visited by people genuinely interested in IT. These days it has merely become a fun fair overshadowed by consumer electronic companies and visitors only interested in freebies.

So companies (at least IT companies) participate in GITEX only for the sake of presence but the return of investment is minimum. I personally know a few companies who don’t participate in GITEX anymore because they think it’s a total waste of time.

Nevertheless, I will be there at GITEX and will cover the event on twitter. Feel free to follow me. And of course, you are most welcome to come and meet me at my stand. How to find me is left as an exercise for the reader.

Post from: Umar in Dubai

GITEX 2008

Here is another round of questions and answers. Feel free to ask me any question related to Dubai. The questions should be interesting and well defined. I will answer all the selected question in a few days.

Post from: Umar in Dubai

Dubai Questions - Round 2

Somewhere in Hague there is a Bad Hotel. Now that’s an interesting name for a hotel, if you think about it.

If the receptionist is not polite, you already knew, it’s Bad Hotel.

If the room service sucks, it was expected, because it’s Bad Hotel.

If the house keeping is not up to the standards, well, you can’t really complain, cuz it’s Bad Hotel.

If the food tastes funny, you still have to eat, you are in Bad Hotel.

If none of that is true, then they really exceeded all the expectations, because it’s Bad Hotel

Post from: Umar in Dubai

Bad Hotel