Abu Dhabi is the capital of the UAE, and much of its demand for software comes from two directions: the international financial centre ADGM on Al Maryah and Al Reem Islands, and the large group of government-related entities. Both buy carefully. They expect an app to work in Arabic as well as English, and they expect the vendor to explain in writing how it is built, operated and handed back.
Arabic is an architecture decision
A bilingual app is more than translated strings. Right-to-left layout mirrors the navigation, icons with a direction have to flip, numbers and dates follow the user's choice, and every piece of content needs both language versions in the database. Search has to cope with Arabic text. Planned from the first screen, it is part of the normal build rather than a second project. Products for citizens and residents usually need it; internal tools for an English-speaking finance team may not, and the scope says which case applies.
ADGM keeps its own data protection regime
Abu Dhabi Global Market is an international financial centre with its own legal jurisdiction. Its Data Protection Regulations 2021 are supervised by the ADGM Office of Data Protection, which maintains the register of data controllers, publishes the jurisdictions it treats as adequate and receives breach notifications. Financial firms licensed there are also supervised by the FSRA. The delivery includes a documented data inventory and retention rules, with access logging where required by the agreed risk assessment. These records can be maintained separately from the app. How federal law relates to this is covered on the UAE overview.
Supplying government-related entities
Procurement teams in these organisations ask the same questions a bank does: who owns the code, where the data is hosted, who has administrative access and what happens at the end of the contract. The answers are part of the delivery. Source code sits in your repository from the start, cloud and store accounts are opened in your organisation's name, and the handover documentation is prepared for your customer's procurement review as the work progresses. If a customer has sent you a security questionnaire as a supplier, the vendor security review prepares the answers.
Your team supplies and approves the Arabic and English content and signs off the business workflows; I implement the bilingual interface and integrations agreed with your IT team. We agree acceptance checks and a handover of code, accounts and operating instructions to the team responsible for running the app.
Inherited apps
A common situation is an app that a previous vendor built and nobody inside can maintain. It works, users depend on it, and every change is a risk. Taking it over starts with access and an honest reading of the code. The steps are described under taking over an existing app.
Engagements that fit Abu Dhabi buyers
- A bilingual First Version (MVP) for a new service, from $27,800 in two to four weeks
- A market-ready app for citizens, residents or clients, from $83,300
- An Architecture Review of vendor-built systems, $10,500 to $13,900
- A single app or a review for an organisation that already has its own IT