Cosmos Software

Cosmos Software was an award-winning^{[citation needed]} Internet and Multimedia consulting firm in Dubai founded by Rabah Shihab and Auday Hussein in early 1997. In 1999 Mr. Mohammad Al-Sowaidi, the chairman of Abu Dhabi Cultural foundation and Mr. Abdulla Madani joined the company as an investor and manager partner, respectively. Cosmos had two divisions, an enterprise and Internet solutions division and a multimedia division. Cosmos had offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Dubai Media City. At its peak, Cosmos employed more than 30 creative and technical professionals who worked on pioneering projects in the region. Among Cosmos' key achievements are the creation of:

• The first virtual multimedia museum in the region for Dubai Municipality.^{[citation needed]}
• The first promotional touchscreen multimedia kiosk network for British American Tobacco which was installed at three airports including Dubai Airport.
• The earliest in-mall plasma and touchscreen-based multimedia advertisement network in the region for Al-Ghurrair Center.
• The most popular interactive TV games for Dubai and Abu Dhabi TV.
• The first educational multimedia game for Emirates Airlines' sales team.
• The earliest and most successful online community and gaming portal for Dubai Shopping Festival and Dubai Summer Surprises.

Some of Cosmos' other customers are: Etisalat, Diwan Amiri of Qatar, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank, Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Qatar, Medunet in Saudi Arabia, Fidelity Investment, WildWadi Water Park, Dubai World Cup, Sheikh Zayed Foundation, UAE Women Union, Sultan Bin AbdulAziz^{[disambiguation needed ]} Al-Saud Foundation, Abu Dhabi Airport and Human Appeal International.

Cosmos Software has also formed key partnerships with global technology companies in the region including IBM, Sun, BEA, Red Hat, Informix (Ascential), BMC and Micromuse, some of these partnerships resulted in customizing their global products to fit the regional market. Cosmos also formed a partnership with Dorling Kindersley to localize several of its educational products into Arabic.

Cosmos had vibrant and multicultural team members from Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. However the majority of the team were Arabs, mostly from Iraq. Building such a team to work in these high-tech fields was challenging considering the lack of proper educational institutions specializing in these areas. The story of Cosmos was inspiring to many Arabs in that region and Cosmos was the choice for internships for students from local educational institutions such as HCT and Zayed University. Cosmos Software was also chosen by Dubai Government as its strategic technology partner for the Dubai Idea Oasis initiative and was chosen as one of the only two Arab companies among top 100 global technology firms operating in the region.

External links

• www.cosmos-software.com website on Internet Archive - The internet/enterprise division
• www.cosmosmedia.com website on Internet Archive - the multimedia division
• Cosmos releases eNewsFlow, a Ground-breaking workflow software solution for the newspaper industry based on Ascential Media360
• Emirates Internet & Multimedia launches new value-packed bi-lingual portal, AlBahhar.com
• Red Hat appoints Cosmos Software
• Cosmos Software to Offer Micromuse's Netcool Suite; Leading Middle East-Based eBusiness Technology Provider Adds Service Assurance Solution
• Cosmos Software sponsors e-Government conference in Abu Dhabi
• Cosmos Software sponsors the second International Summit on Internet & Multimedia in Abu Dhabi
• BMC Software launches business service management strategy through Cosmos Software