Montreal Ð NeXT has appointed The Open Solutions Corporation (TOPS) as the exclusive NEXTSTEP distributor for all Arabic countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
TOPS and its associated companies will localize NEXTSTEP for Arabic and act as a full-service value-added dealer. "We want to create in the Middle East the object-oriented system house. Education, consultancy, and seminars based on NEXTSTEP are all part of the picture," said Waleed Ghafari, TOPS' president.
Localization will begin next year in Canada. A TOPS associate, Computer Data Networks of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was scheduled to kick off distribution of the English product at the Gulf Information Technology Exhibition on October 30 in Dubai. The show brings together government representatives, oil-industry executives, and technology brokers from around the world.
The large companies in the Middle East are in industries where NeXT has already had proven success, according to Ghafari. Target industries for TOPS include oil, banking, finance, and health care.
TOPS is an experienced systems integrator operating in five countries with more than 100 employees. They are dedicated to UNIX-based solutions, with special expertise in Oracle-based SQL solutions. UNIX is very big in the Middle East and new installations are especially committed to the client-server model, Ghafari explained.
He added that TOPS' pricing for NEXTSTEP will be similar to European pricing. In the past, NeXT's prices outside the North American market have been 10Ð 20 percent higher.