Friday, August 21, 2015
Sunday, August 16, 2015
Online UAE visa service for GCC residents to boost trade
Khalifa Hareb Al-Khaili ARAB NEWS
ABU DHABI: The UAE Ministry of Interior, represented by the Naturalization, Residency and Ports Sector, has launched an online service to allow GCC residents and their escort to get their UAE entry permits (visas) via the various ports across the country, through the “Fawri” portal on the ministry’s website www.moi.gov.ae.
These measures are in line with the Ministerial Decree No.377 of 2014, and in accordance with the required conditions and procedures.
Major General Khalifa Hareb Al-Khaili, assistant undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior for Naturalization, Residency and Ports, indicated that the new service comes in line with the Ministry of Interior’s keenness to keep pace with technology advances in order to expedite passenger movement at the various ports and streamline the visa issuance procedure for passengers before arriving to the country, ultimately save time and effort for travelers.
He said: “The Naturalization, Residency and Ports Sector constantly seeks to elaborate an advanced method to further keep pace with the development and progress witnessed by the UAE in all areas. ”
He also said that additional smart solutions will be rolled out in the future, in order to provide distinguished services that exceed customers’ expectations in record time and in accordance with the highest advanced standards.
Major General Al-Khaili added: “Launching the online visa issuance service for GCC residents and their escort is a paradigm shift inupgrading services’ efficiency, within an integrated strategy toward smart transformation of services and ensure their availability through the Ministry of Interior’s website and smart phones.”
He added: “This approach is in line with the vision of the government aimed at upgrading services provided to the public and empowering the concept of fast, high-quality services.”
For his part, Lt. Col. Matar Kharbash, head of E-services Department at the Naturalization, Residency and Ports Affairs sector, head of the team supporting smart e-transition at the Naturalization, Residency and Ports Sector, stressed the the Interior Ministry’s diligent pursuit to develop smart e-servicesso as to enhance public satisfaction while maintaining a high level of professionalism that exceeds all expectations in various police sectors in the country.
This is in line with the smart government initiative aimed at increasing and boosting awareness of government entities about the benefits of mobile phone services and the need to implement the optimal techniques in the provision of government services to improve performance, based on the creativity and innovation factors and consistent with the need to cater to the requirements of all society segments and achieve their aspirations.
Major General Al-Khaili also pointed out that the visit visa is issued at the various ports in the country, in accordance with Article 42 for GCC expats (not obtaining a prior visa or permission), allows him to enter into the territory of the country if he belongs to any of the following categories:
l Businessmen, investors, partners, and company managers and representatives;
l Accountants, Auditors, doctors, engineers, lawyers and legal advisers;
l Public sector workers other than workers and laborers;
l Family members of the above-mentioned individuals or entities and their escort, namely the helpers, and individuals sponsored by them;
l Foreign family members of GCC nationals, their sponsored helpers and escorts;
l GCC truck drivers transporting goods from any of the GCC countries. They are required to submit a sponsor’s letter of no objection (NOC) from the sponsoring entity in the country of issuance;
l Sponsored of citizens who have residence permits in GCC countries.
ABU DHABI: The UAE Ministry of Interior, represented by the Naturalization, Residency and Ports Sector, has launched an online service to allow GCC residents and their escort to get their UAE entry permits (visas) via the various ports across the country, through the “Fawri” portal on the ministry’s website www.moi.gov.ae.
These measures are in line with the Ministerial Decree No.377 of 2014, and in accordance with the required conditions and procedures.
Major General Khalifa Hareb Al-Khaili, assistant undersecretary of the Ministry of Interior for Naturalization, Residency and Ports, indicated that the new service comes in line with the Ministry of Interior’s keenness to keep pace with technology advances in order to expedite passenger movement at the various ports and streamline the visa issuance procedure for passengers before arriving to the country, ultimately save time and effort for travelers.
He said: “The Naturalization, Residency and Ports Sector constantly seeks to elaborate an advanced method to further keep pace with the development and progress witnessed by the UAE in all areas. ”
He also said that additional smart solutions will be rolled out in the future, in order to provide distinguished services that exceed customers’ expectations in record time and in accordance with the highest advanced standards.
Major General Al-Khaili added: “Launching the online visa issuance service for GCC residents and their escort is a paradigm shift inupgrading services’ efficiency, within an integrated strategy toward smart transformation of services and ensure their availability through the Ministry of Interior’s website and smart phones.”
He added: “This approach is in line with the vision of the government aimed at upgrading services provided to the public and empowering the concept of fast, high-quality services.”
For his part, Lt. Col. Matar Kharbash, head of E-services Department at the Naturalization, Residency and Ports Affairs sector, head of the team supporting smart e-transition at the Naturalization, Residency and Ports Sector, stressed the the Interior Ministry’s diligent pursuit to develop smart e-servicesso as to enhance public satisfaction while maintaining a high level of professionalism that exceeds all expectations in various police sectors in the country.
This is in line with the smart government initiative aimed at increasing and boosting awareness of government entities about the benefits of mobile phone services and the need to implement the optimal techniques in the provision of government services to improve performance, based on the creativity and innovation factors and consistent with the need to cater to the requirements of all society segments and achieve their aspirations.
Major General Al-Khaili also pointed out that the visit visa is issued at the various ports in the country, in accordance with Article 42 for GCC expats (not obtaining a prior visa or permission), allows him to enter into the territory of the country if he belongs to any of the following categories:
l Businessmen, investors, partners, and company managers and representatives;
l Accountants, Auditors, doctors, engineers, lawyers and legal advisers;
l Public sector workers other than workers and laborers;
l Family members of the above-mentioned individuals or entities and their escort, namely the helpers, and individuals sponsored by them;
l Foreign family members of GCC nationals, their sponsored helpers and escorts;
l GCC truck drivers transporting goods from any of the GCC countries. They are required to submit a sponsor’s letter of no objection (NOC) from the sponsoring entity in the country of issuance;
l Sponsored of citizens who have residence permits in GCC countries.
Monday, August 10, 2015
Google just announced a massive overhaul of its business structure
Google's founders just hit a massive reset button on their business.
In a press release sent out Monday afternoon, cofounder and CEO Larry Page renamed and reorganized the company.
Google has been relegated to being a subsidiary of a company called "Alphabet".
Alphabet will be a parent company that oversees the new initiatives Google has been launching as of late.
Larry Page will be the CEO of Alphabet. Sergey Brin, Google's other cofounder, is the president of Alphabet.
Sundar Pichai is now CEO of Google. Pichai has been running Google since October of last year.
In the release, Page praises Pichai, saying, "It is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google. I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations."
While this is a bit confusing, and overwhelming, it makes plenty of sense for Google to refashion itself.
The company has been taking bigger and bigger bets in the past few years that have very little to do with the company's original mission of organizing the world's information.
For instance, in July of 2013, Google announced plans to launch a company focused on curing death. That company, Calico, was going to operate as a standalone entity. Calico will be a subsidiary of Alphabet, just like Google.
In the release, Page lays out the priorities for Alphabet:
Getting more ambitious things done.
Taking the long-term view.
Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
Improving the transparency and oversight of what we’re doing.
Making Google even better through greater focus.
And hopefully... as a result of all this, improving the lives of as many people as we can.
While not mentioned in the release as potential standalones, we would think companies like Nest, Android, and YouTube could also be their own subsidiaries of Alphabet.
From an organizational perspective, it makes sense for Page to oversee a half dozen independently running businesses and offer his guidance and direction where possible.
Page was no longer interested in the nitty-gritty of running a business like Google. He wasn't going to be in meetings talking about increasing the cost per click. He wasn't going to get geeked over iterative changes to Gmail. He wants to see big fat honking changes happen in the world. This, apparently, was the best way to do that in his opinion.
Here's the release:
Google Announces Plans for New Operating Structure
August 10, 2015
G is for Google.
As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make “smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses.” From the start, we’ve always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have.
We did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time. Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. And we haven’t stopped there. We are still trying to do things other people think are crazy but we are super excited about.
We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes. But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.
Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President.
What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related.
Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence. In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed. We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. We'll also make sure we have a great CEO for each business, and we’ll determine their compensation. In addition, with this new structure we plan to implement segment reporting for our Q4 results, where Google financials will be provided separately than those for the rest of Alphabet businesses as a whole.
This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google. A key part of this is Sundar Pichai. Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now, and I’ve been tremendously enjoying our work together. He has really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our internet businesses. Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And it is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google. I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations. I have been spending quite a bit of time with Sundar, helping him and the company in any way I can, and I will of course continue to do that. Google itself is also making all sorts of new products, and I know Sundar will always be focused on innovation—continuing to stretch boundaries. I know he deeply cares that we can continue to make big strides on our core mission to organize the world's information. Recent launches like Google Photos and Google Now using machine learning are amazing progress. Google also has some services that are run with their own identity, like YouTube. Susan is doing a great job as CEO, running a strong brand and driving incredible growth.
Sergey and I are seriously in the business of starting new things. Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort. We are also stoked about growing our investment arms, Ventures and Capital, as part of this new structure.
Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Our two classes of shares will continue to trade on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG.
For Sergey and me this is a very exciting new chapter in the life of Google—the birth of Alphabet. We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity's most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha‑bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for! I should add that we are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products—the whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands.
We are excited about...
Getting more ambitious things done.
Taking the long-term view.
Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
Improving the transparency and oversight of what we’re doing.
Making Google even better through greater focus.
And hopefully... as a result of all this, improving the lives of as many people as we can.
What could be better? No wonder we are excited to get to work with everyone in the Alphabet family. Don’t worry, we’re still getting used to the name too!
Larry Page
CEO, Alphabet
 |
| Larry Page |
Google has been relegated to being a subsidiary of a company called "Alphabet".
Alphabet will be a parent company that oversees the new initiatives Google has been launching as of late.
Larry Page will be the CEO of Alphabet. Sergey Brin, Google's other cofounder, is the president of Alphabet.
Sundar Pichai is now CEO of Google. Pichai has been running Google since October of last year.
In the release, Page praises Pichai, saying, "It is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google. I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations."
While this is a bit confusing, and overwhelming, it makes plenty of sense for Google to refashion itself.
The company has been taking bigger and bigger bets in the past few years that have very little to do with the company's original mission of organizing the world's information.
For instance, in July of 2013, Google announced plans to launch a company focused on curing death. That company, Calico, was going to operate as a standalone entity. Calico will be a subsidiary of Alphabet, just like Google.
In the release, Page lays out the priorities for Alphabet:
Getting more ambitious things done.
Taking the long-term view.
Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
Improving the transparency and oversight of what we’re doing.
Making Google even better through greater focus.
And hopefully... as a result of all this, improving the lives of as many people as we can.
While not mentioned in the release as potential standalones, we would think companies like Nest, Android, and YouTube could also be their own subsidiaries of Alphabet.
From an organizational perspective, it makes sense for Page to oversee a half dozen independently running businesses and offer his guidance and direction where possible.
Page was no longer interested in the nitty-gritty of running a business like Google. He wasn't going to be in meetings talking about increasing the cost per click. He wasn't going to get geeked over iterative changes to Gmail. He wants to see big fat honking changes happen in the world. This, apparently, was the best way to do that in his opinion.
Here's the release:
Google Announces Plans for New Operating Structure
August 10, 2015
G is for Google.
As Sergey and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago, “Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” As part of that, we also said that you could expect us to make “smaller bets in areas that might seem very speculative or even strange when compared to our current businesses.” From the start, we’ve always strived to do more, and to do important and meaningful things with the resources we have.
We did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time. Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android. And we haven’t stopped there. We are still trying to do things other people think are crazy but we are super excited about.
We’ve long believed that over time companies tend to get comfortable doing the same thing, just making incremental changes. But in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant.
Our company is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President.
What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main internet products contained in Alphabet instead. What do we mean by far afield? Good examples are our health efforts: Life Sciences (that works on the glucose-sensing contact lens), and Calico (focused on longevity). Fundamentally, we believe this allows us more management scale, as we can run things independently that aren’t very related.
Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence. In general, our model is to have a strong CEO who runs each business, with Sergey and me in service to them as needed. We will rigorously handle capital allocation and work to make sure each business is executing well. We'll also make sure we have a great CEO for each business, and we’ll determine their compensation. In addition, with this new structure we plan to implement segment reporting for our Q4 results, where Google financials will be provided separately than those for the rest of Alphabet businesses as a whole.
This new structure will allow us to keep tremendous focus on the extraordinary opportunities we have inside of Google. A key part of this is Sundar Pichai. Sundar has been saying the things I would have said (and sometimes better!) for quite some time now, and I’ve been tremendously enjoying our work together. He has really stepped up since October of last year, when he took on product and engineering responsibility for our internet businesses. Sergey and I have been super excited about his progress and dedication to the company. And it is clear to us and our board that it is time for Sundar to be CEO of Google. I feel very fortunate to have someone as talented as he is to run the slightly slimmed down Google and this frees up time for me to continue to scale our aspirations. I have been spending quite a bit of time with Sundar, helping him and the company in any way I can, and I will of course continue to do that. Google itself is also making all sorts of new products, and I know Sundar will always be focused on innovation—continuing to stretch boundaries. I know he deeply cares that we can continue to make big strides on our core mission to organize the world's information. Recent launches like Google Photos and Google Now using machine learning are amazing progress. Google also has some services that are run with their own identity, like YouTube. Susan is doing a great job as CEO, running a strong brand and driving incredible growth.
Sergey and I are seriously in the business of starting new things. Alphabet will also include our X lab, which incubates new efforts like Wing, our drone delivery effort. We are also stoked about growing our investment arms, Ventures and Capital, as part of this new structure.
Alphabet Inc. will replace Google Inc. as the publicly-traded entity and all shares of Google will automatically convert into the same number of shares of Alphabet, with all of the same rights. Google will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Our two classes of shares will continue to trade on Nasdaq as GOOGL and GOOG.
For Sergey and me this is a very exciting new chapter in the life of Google—the birth of Alphabet. We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity's most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search! We also like that it means alpha‑bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for! I should add that we are not intending for this to be a big consumer brand with related products—the whole point is that Alphabet companies should have independence and develop their own brands.
We are excited about...
Getting more ambitious things done.
Taking the long-term view.
Empowering great entrepreneurs and companies to flourish.
Investing at the scale of the opportunities and resources we see.
Improving the transparency and oversight of what we’re doing.
Making Google even better through greater focus.
And hopefully... as a result of all this, improving the lives of as many people as we can.
What could be better? No wonder we are excited to get to work with everyone in the Alphabet family. Don’t worry, we’re still getting used to the name too!
Larry Page
CEO, Alphabet
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