Reseller Middle East

ISSUE 192 // DECEMBER 2012WWW.RESELLERME.COM

PUBLICATIONLICENSED BY IMPZ

ANALYSIS VENDOR FOCUSWindows 8 is finally here. But, is channel excited about this new proposition?

Symantec enlists the support of partners to maintain leadership position.

REVIEWSAxtrom o!ers low priced, high performance tablet.

CASTING A NEW LINEBDL Group seeks business in

the buoyant ICT market

N E T W O R K I N G C H A N N E L N E W V I S T A S O F G R O W T H F O R P A R T N E R S

Your next router will unleash your content.Your next router will love your wireless devices.Your next router will make your home a hotspot.Your next router will use apps.

Your next router is here.

App-ready for a whole new level of control.

This new generation of Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Routers gives the same powerful wireless performances expected from a Linksys router, plus it is app enabled for anytime, anywhere access that makes it easy to run a connected home from any browser or mobile device. With an ever-expanding suite of apps Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Routers bring a whole new level of control to a home network such as setting site permissions, blocking malicious content, home camera monitoring and remote sharing. To learn more, please visit linksys.com

Maximum Performance derived from IEEE Standard 802.11 speci cations (draft speci cations for 802.11ac). Actual performance can vary, including lower wireless network capacity, data throughput rate, range and coverage. Performance depends upon many factors, conditions and variables, including prod-ucts used, interference and other adverse conditions. 802.11ac 1300 Mbps in the 5GHz Band is approximately 3 x faster than 802.11n 450 Mbps in the 2.4GHz Band. An 802.11ac adapter will be needed to achieve 11ac data rates and up to 1300 Mbps wireless speeds may be achieved when connecting to

other 802.11ac 1300 Mbps devices.

© 2012 Cisco. All rights reserved. Cisco, the Cisco logo and Linksys are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its a liates in the United States and certain other countries. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or website are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

COVER FEATURE

CONTENTSISSUE 192 // DECEMBER 2012

HIGHLIGHTS 6 News We help you catch up on all the

major news and announcements in the regional channel community

ANALYSIS

20 Key to success For Dell, its Storage Forum in

Paris was all about revealing five end-to-end updates to its storage portfolio, but behind the products we find that the channel is the real key to its success.

22 Windows 8 touches down in Dubai

In true rock star fashion, Microsoft ended its world tour of Windows 8 with a bang from inside the tallest building on the planet, in the heart of Dubai. Is channel excited about this new proposition from the software giant?

FEATURE 28 New vistas of

growth With enterprises refreshing

network infrastructure to keep up with emerging technologies, it’s time for the channel to scale up and lap up the opportunities in this high-growth market.

VENDOR FOCUS 40 Steady as it goes

Symantec has recently laid out its management and product strategy. The company, which has gone through a leadership change, is planning to enlist the support of its partners to ward off competition and maintain its leadership position.

BDL Group is branching out into the regional ICT market

38

58

CASTING A NEW LINE

HOT PRODUCTS Canon PIXMA iP7240 Linksys

X-Series

59Reseller Middle EastDECEMBER 2012 3

EDITORIAL

New game, new rules

PublisherDominic De Sousa

Group COONadeem Hood

Managing DirectorRichard Judd

[email protected] +971 4 440 9126

EDITORIAL

Group EditorJeevan Thankappan

[email protected] +971 4 4409109

Contributing EditorsBen Rossi

Joe Lipscombe

ADVERTISING

Commercial DirectorRajashree R Kumar


Key Account ManagerMerle Carrasco


Sales ManagerNasir Bazaz


CIRCULATION

Database and Circulation ManagerRajeesh M


PRODUCTION AND DESIGN

Production ManagerJames P Tharian


DesignerAnalou Balbero


DIGITALwww.resellerme.com

DIGITAL SERVICES

Digital Services ManagerTristan Troy P Maagma

Web DevelopersErik Briones

Jefferson de Joya

Photographer and Social Media Co-ordinator

Jay Colina

[email protected]+971 4 440 9100

Published by

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© Copyright 2012 CPIAll rights reserved

While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all

information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

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Talk to us:

Gone are the days when networking was just about connectivity.

With the high cost of downtime, it has become increasingly

important for companies to ensure their networks are available

24/7, performing at their peak when users need it. Now, with

the advent of technologies such as virtualisation and cloud,

enterprise IT decision makers are rethinking the way they

design networks. All over the world, network spending is picking

up as companies refresh their network infrastructure to keep up

with the new technology trends.

According to TheInfoPro’s 2012 Network Technology Study,

core router and switching upgrades are the top project priorities

for network managers, followed by wireless implementations. The

research firm says the top network projects that enterprises plan

to tackle in the next 12 months will include Unified Comms, VoIP,

network expansion, WAN optimisation, mobile device management,

to name a few. What does this mean for the channel? This means

unprecedented opportunities, not just around networking gear but

related services as well. Though all major networking vendors are

trying to push their partners into the services game, unfortunately,

in the Middle East not many have paid enough attention to this

hugely untapped area. Vendors, on their part, have made their

partner programmes flexible and made available enough tools and

resources to help the channel evolve towards successful professional

services delivery. All you need to do is take up the gauntlet, create

di!erentiated technology solutions around networking, and not let

these opportunities go a-begging.

Personally, I think IPv6 and SDN (software-defined networking)

will also gain enough steam in 2013. For the uninitiated, SDN

represents a revolutionary change in network architecture and

promises to make the network more flexible, easy to manage

and programmable. It is expected that the initial focus of SDN

implementation will be data centres because that’s where the

network has been most impacted by the new requirements. I

recommend you ask your suppliers to keep you informed about key

SDN developments and track the new standards closely to get into

the game early.

Jeevan ThankappanGroup Editor

Reseller Middle EastDECEMBER 2012 5

Condo Protego ups the ante

STME has achieved Symantec

specialisation in the area

of data protection with a

focus on Symantec’s backup

and recovery technologies.!

Symantec data protection

specialisation recognises

partners with a proven

expertise in Symantec’s

NetBackup and Backup Exec

product ranges, including

the latest NetBackup 5220

Appliances and ensures

they have the skills and

experience required to deliver

di"erentiated services to

customers.

“By achieving this milestone

specialisation, STME has

demonstrated an investment and

expertise in Symantec backup

technology and an ability to

provide complete protection for

their customers’ information-

driven enterprise. STME is now

in an even better position to

meet the needs of its customers

by delivering high-value

solutions to protect and manage

their information”, said Afchine

Tabrizian, Services and Support

Director at STME.

Symantec specialisations,

which recognise partners

with a proven expertise in a

particular area of business,

provide partners with the skills

and experience required to

deliver di!erentiated service

to their customers." Symantec

partners achieve specialisation

by meeting certain requirements

that deepen their knowledge

and proficiency in a solution

family, and specialised Symantec

partners receive exclusive

benefits as a result of their

investment.

“The data protection

specialisation was designed

to enable partners to

di!erentiate themselves from

the competition, maximise

customer opportunity and

accelerate revenue based

on their expertise in the data

protection market,” said Ramzi

Itani, Channel Manager, Middle

East & French-speaking Africa,

Symantec. “Specialised partners

have invested in Symantec’s

solutions to manage and protect

their customers’ identities as

well as critical information,

and we are committed to our

partners by providing them with

the products and services to

help grow their business.”

STME acquires Symantec data protection specialisation

Condo Protego, a value-added reseller

focused on storage and data protection,

is riding on the crest of the growth wave

in the storage market, and says there

is a sea-change in the way businesses

perceive storage.

“Business leaders in the Middle East

are increasingly determined to move away

from the notion of data storage as a di!use,

overwhelming burden to embrace it as an

integral part of a business strategy driven by

information visibility and accessibility,” says

Andrew Calthorpe, CEO of Condo Protego.

Calthorpe believes that the era of

information being dumped and dispersed

across multiple servers and mainframes is

long gone, and business leaders are rightly

looking for solutions that are faster, more

e#cient and, above all, safer.

He says the regional storage market

is growing rapidly, even when many other

market segments have struggled during

the economic downturn. While the average

storage utilisation levels hover around 30

percent in most enterprises, Calthorpe says

some users have learned to use storage

optimally. “Companies buy big lumps of

storage without being scientific about what

they need it for and smart ones buy based on

project by project basis by working out how

much capacity they need.”

Calthorpe says his company’s unique

value proposition is its consultative approach.

“We work with two major vendors – EMC and

Symantec. We try to understand what the

customer challenge is and then recommend

a solution to address it. We don’t want to sell

anything that we can’t support completely,

because we are involved right from the

design stage to implementation and post-

sales support.”

Condo Protego, which sees huge

opportunities around virtualisation, backup

and recovery, works very closely with

its partners to cash in on this. “We are a

signature partner of EMC, the highest level of

partnership, and are among the only partners

who buy directly from them. We are also a

master specialist partner for Symantec for

the MENA region, and deal with all of their

availability product lines.”

Being a service-enabled partner,

Condo Protego is now eyeing opportunities

outside of the UAE and plans to get itself

more aligned with the product roadmap of

its vendor partners to further explore the

opportunities in the data storage market.

HIGHLIGHTSNews

Andrew Calthorpe, CEO of Condo Protego

Afchine Tabrizian, Services and Support Director at STME


build logistics to supply Plantronics’ products,

including wireless headsets, through its

channels in the GCC, including Saudi Arabia.

Almasa Value Distribution was chosen as

the partner to address the rising enterprise

market demand for Unified Communications

(UC) solutions across the region, including

voice communications and collaboration.

“Vox Spectrum has identified the growth in

demand for Plantronics unified communications

solutions around the region, but needed

a partner with the relevant expertise and

market reach to address these opportunities."

With Almasa’s focus on the UC sector and

knowledge of the needs of the Middle East’s

market, we have found the ideal conduit

for Plantronics to reach our target base of

regional resellers and ultimately, end-users,”

said Manoj Gopinath, Chief Operating O#cer,

Vox Spectrum. “We look forward to working in

close alliance with Almasa, to strengthen the

Plantronics brand recognition through joint

marketing activities and to meet the Middle

East’s increase in UC market needs.”

Vox Spectrum and its subsidiaries have

been operating in the region for more than

Comguard has entered into

a distribution agreement

with Canada based security

vendor, FixMeStick.

FixMeStick is a technology

innovation that is powered

by multiple anti-virus engines

which increases the number of

detectable viruses, and clean

external scanning devices

prevent viruses from hiding

or from interfering with their

removal. Three of the best

anti-virus engines in the world

Kaspersky Lab, Sophos, and GFI

powers FixMeStick for detection

and removal of virus.

FixMeStick is a Linux-based

device that runs before Windows

boots, enabling it to clean the

PC while malware is inactive.

Everything that is required to

remove the virus and malware

from a computer is built into the

USB device. There is no need to

download or to install any new

software, thereby completely

avoiding conflict with any of the

existing software programs in

the system.

Mohammad Mobasseri,

Senior Vice President at

Comguard, said, “FixMeStick

is one of the most progressive

innovations in IT security domain

and yet so simple to use. It is a

bootable USB device running on

Linux and is powered by three

of the world’s leading anti-

virus engines; Kaspersky Labs,

Sophos, and GFI to automatically

remove malicious files.”

He added further, “We are

sure FixMeStick will provide a

great relief to both individuals

and businesses in the region.

While, it will provide an

immense opportunity for all our

channel partners across the

region, who have been looking

for a product like FixMeStick

to expand their market base

and make inroads into new

business territories.”

The product is available

across the Middle East region

including countries like UAE,

Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq,

Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Oman,

among others.

Vox Spectrum teams up with Almasa

Comguard to distribute FixMeStick

Vox Spectrum,an International group

of telecom companies and the master

distributor of Plantronics Headsets in

the region, !has appointed Almasa Value

Distribution as its value added reseller of

Plantronics headsets in the UAE.

Under the agreement, Almasa Value

Distribution will generate demand for and

twenty five years and had been the Plantronics

distributor for nearly twenty."" The company’s

new partnership with Almasa is set to

considerably accelerate its business due to a

wider channel network and prompt distribution

of its solutions." As an existing partner of Avaya,

Almasa serves all the segments of the regional

enterprise market from large enterprises, to the

mid-market which includes call centres, to the

SMB o#ce and mobility markets.

“Plantronics, a global leader in headset

and communication devices, has technology

which is vital to the growth of UC in the Middle

East, and Almasa is delighted to add these

elements to the first-class solutions we provide

to our regional channel community. We

understand that innovative wireless headsets

are becoming more and more popular,

because they assist in enhancing productivity

and simplifying connectivity. So by bundling

Plantronics headsets with our range of Unified

Communication products, Almasa is delivering

competitive advantage to our channel partners

and ultimately, to the wider regional market,”

said Roger El-Tawil, Executive Director of

Almasa Value Distribution.

Roger El-Tawil, Executive Director of Almasa Value Distribution

Mohammad Mobasseri, Senior Vice President at Comguard

HIGHLIGHTSNews

8 Reseller Middle East DECEMBER 2012

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other vendors, we connect to your existing infrastructure to create a video system

that’s simpler and more affordable. To learn more about video and support services

where everything just clicks, visit avaya.com/click.

Connecting your business with video comes easy with Avaya.

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WD, a Western Digital company, has

appointed Nairobi-based Mitsumi

Distribution as its new partner for Africa.

With this tie up, WD further strengthens and

extends its global footprint by specifically

catering to rising demand from Africa’s

growing storage market. Enterprise and

home users alike will have better availability

of the comprehensive range of storage,

networking and entertainment solutions

o"ered by WD. Mitsumi Distribution is WD’s

first Africa-focused partner.

Mitsumi Distribution, one of Africa’s

leading IT distributors, will cover the Central,

East and West African regions for WD’s

component and branded products. WD’s

component products include internal storage

products such as desktop, mobile, SOHO

NAS and enterprise hard drives, while the

company’s branded products comprise

external storage devices, home entertainment

HIGHLIGHTSNews

WD extends distribution in Africa

Symantec targets partners to develop better mobile securitySymantec has enhanced

its partner programme in

the Middle East with a new

specialisation that addresses

both the increasing needs of

companies for relevant and

reliable mobility strategies

and the opportunities for

channel partners to benefit

from this growing trend. By

acknowledging the skills and

experience that qualifying

partners have in the mobility

market, the new specialisation

empowers them to deliver

greater value to customers,

maximise opportunities and

accelerate their profitability with

Symantec’s mobility portfolio,

while further di"erentiating their

businesses in this booming and

competitive market.

The mobility solution

specialization enables Symantec

specialised partners across

the Middle East to help their

customers to gain granular

control over their mobile

deployments and have di!erent

levels of oversight on mobile

devices, according to their

specific policies and needs. The

specialisation comprises the

following Symantec product/

solutions: mobile application

management (MAM), mobile

device management (MDM) and

mobile security

“As technology continues to

evolve and mobility becomes a

key priority for organisations in

the Middle East, partners must

be continually adjusting and

broadening their o!erings in

order to address ever-changing

needs and provide the value their

customers expect, “ said Ramzi

Itani, Regional Channel & Alliance

Manager, Middle East and North

Africa. “Our new mobility solution

specialisation provides partners

with the tools and resources

needed to leverage business

opportunities in mobility,

drive additional revenue and

maximise their returns from their

Symantec investment.”

The new mobility solution

specialisation o!ers benefits

to qualified partners who

have acquired comprehensive

knowledge and expertise in

Symantec’s mobility solutions."

Partners who achieve the

mobility solution specialisation

benefit from additional discounts

(via their distributor) and

enhanced rebates through

opportunity registration, as well

as access to consulting toolkits."

As a specialist, they have access

to specialised training, sales

tools and technical resources."

Specialists also have their

investment in the specialisation

promoted to prospect customers

though the Symantec Partner

Locator, and can di!erentiate

further their status with a

mobility solution specialization

logo." Specialists can also

access Symantec’s beta product

program and can also benefit

from other commercial benefits

(such as teaming plans).

Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director- India, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, WD

Ramzi Itani, Regional Channel & Alliance Manager, MENA at Symantec

solutions, small business storage, and

networking solutions.

“Africa’s storage market, while rapidly

growing, is still underserved. This presents

long-term growth opportunities to WD,”

explained Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales

Director India, Middle East, Africa and Turkey,

WD. “Mitsumi Distribution was appointed to

focus specifically on the Central, East and

West African regions in countries such as

Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Congo,

Algeria, Tanzania and Uganda. We partnered

with Mitsumi owing to its healthy regional

reach and strong in-country presence, as well

as its wide customer base.”

Mitsumi operates in 19 countries in Africa,

but will cover the key markets of Nigeria,

Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Ethopia,

Congo" and Algeria. Mitsumi Distribution

will also provide customer support via its in-

country service centres.


Reseller ME B2B Security 270x207-E.indd 1 10/24/12 6:21 PM

Cloud creates channel opportunities, says Brocade survey

GBM: Security worries hinder cloud adoptionConcerns over data security

is the top factor delaying the

widespread adoption of cloud-

based services, according to a

new survey of IT professionals

conducted by Gulf Business

Machines (GBM), the region’s

leading IT solutions provider.

According to the survey,

which coincides with the

launch of GBM’s Intelligent

Network Solutions (INS) division,

concerns over service reliability

and availability, as well as the

cost of cloud-based solutions

are often cited reasons for the

slow adoption of outsourced

enterprise cloud services.

While two-thirds (62 percent)

of the regional IT professionals

polled stated that data security

was a concern and 40.5 percent

identified cost as a barrier, 43

percent cited service reliability

concerns. In comparison, a lack

of support from non-IT decision

makers was mentioned by less

than a quarter (22 percent) of

the respondents.

“These findings should

come as a serious concern for

the industry since perceptions,

as opposed to facts, appear

to play a significant role in

decisions to defer the adoption

of cloud services in an

enterprise environment,” said

Hani Nofal, Director of Intelligent

Network Solutions (INS) at

GBM. “While it is important

to note that the use of cloud

technologies is part of the IT

function’s evolutionary process,

it is equally important to realise

that change is usually a gradual

process. It is only a matter of

time before the benefits of

using the cloud, such as cost

e!ectiveness and scalability,

outweigh these unfounded

concerns.”

Nofal added: “At GBM INS,

we aim to partner with our

customers to introduce them to

cloud-based services at a pace

that is in line with their comfort

levels. We truly believe that the

region o!ers significant potential

for scaling up the adoption of

cloud solutions and we aim

to use our combination of

experience and access to best-

in-class technologies to support

this trend.”

Significantly, almost a

quarter (24.6 percent) of the

respondents said that their

organisations were planning to

outsource business applications

and services to cloud-based

service providers in the next 12

to 18 months. The study also

revealed that while one-in-10

IT professionals owns five or

more personal devices - such

as smartphones and tablets – a

third of those polled owned up

to three devices. However, only

6.2 percent admitted to owning

one device.

Regan McGrath, Senior VP of Worldwide Sales at Brocade

New research from Brocade surveying

500 channel organisations worldwide

shows that professional services in the

area of cloud computing is expected

to be the main revenue generator for

channel by 2020. If this is to be the

case however, vendors need to play an

important ‘enabling’ role by enhancing

their own capabilities, tailoring their

partner programmes and making it

less complex, increasing flexibility and

developing innovative products and

solutions. At the moment lack of all

these factors is impeding channel in

their efforts to move toward cloud-based

professional services.

For the majority of channel

respondents, professional services

today accounts for 25 percent or less

of revenues. The survey also revealed

growing customer demand for professional

services. The biggest hurdles to this are

complexity and CapEx constraints. Another

interesting statistic is the fact that only 11%

of respondents seek innovative financing

HIGHLIGHTSNews

solutions from their vendors and 19%

for marketing funding – both important

competitive advantages when trying to

build a brand and reputation rather than sell

on price.

Regan McGrath, Senior VP of

Worldwide Sales at Brocade said,

“Revenue focused channel programs like

our Brocade Alliance Partner Network,

combined with di!erentiated technology

solutions that help address customers’

needs for innovative and easy to deploy

networks, flexible financing solutions such

as Brocade Network Subscription, and tools

and resources that help channel develop

their reputation as consultants, will all

become increasingly critical to developing

competitive consultancy businesses that

drive significant revenue returns.”

Regan cautions that the channel

need to be critical and evaluate their

vendors vision, strategy, technology and

enablement programmes to ensure that

they complement the partner’s efforts in

offering professional services.


The Middle Eastern and Northern African

public cloud services market is forecast

to grow 15.3 percent in 2012 to total

$378.5 million, compared to $111 billion

worldwide, according to Gartner. Business

process services (also known as business

process as a service, or BPaaS) is on pace

to be the largest segment, accounting for

about 52 percent of the total Middle East

and Northern Africa market in 2012, while

cloud management and security services

represents the fastest-growing segment

of the public cloud services market and is

expected to grow 41.4 percent in 2012.

"”The cloud services market is clearly

a high-growth sector within the overall

IT marketplace,” said Ed Anderson,

research director at Gartner. “The key

to taking advantage of this growth will

be understanding the nuances of the

Cloud services in MENA market to surpass $378 Mn in 2012: Gartner

Fortinet hosts global partner conferenceFortinet!has recently

hosted!its annual Global

Partner Conference, which

this year took place on

board the Royal Caribbean

Cruise Liner ‘Majesty of

the Seas’, on November

5-8. !This year’s conference

attendance was Fortinet’s

largest, encompassing more

than 1,000 distributors and

silver and gold resellers from

70 countries.

During the event, one

of Fortinet’s highlights was

the introduction and channel

training of its new FortiOS 5.0,

the world’s most advanced

security operating system.

This new release provides

more security, intelligence and

control to help enterprises

be better protected against

today’s advanced threats

and enables more secure

BYOD environments. Bringing

more than 150 new features

for FortiGate, FortiManager,

FortiAnalyzer and FortiClient

products, FortiOS 5.0

provides Fortinet’s partners

with a real competitive

advantage by allowing them

to o!er enterprises of all

sizes solutions that better

defend against new advanced

threats and help manage and

protect networks against the

influx of mobile devices and

applications.

Fortinet also recognised

the outstanding achievements

drawn from the company’s

distributors and resellers

around the world, rewarding

its best partners of the year.

“Fortinet continues to

rapidly gain market share in

the overall network security

market, and our channel is

key to that success,” said

Bashar Bashaireh, Regional

Director of Fortinet Middle

East. “This year’s conference

was the perfect opportunity

to share our latest technology

innovations and business

strategies with our silver

and gold resellers in order

to have them best equipped

to address the increasingly

challenging security

requirements of our end

customers.”

opportunity within service segments and

geographic regions, and then prioritizing

investments in line with the opportunities.”

"BPaaS is the largest segment

primarily because of the inclusion of cloud

advertising as a subsegment. BPaaS is

forecast to grow to $195.1 million in 2012, up

from $191.7 million in 2011. In 2011, human

resources BPaaS services represented

about 19 percent of the total public cloud

services market, making it the biggest

identifiable subsegment in the forecast.

By 2016, cloud advertising will become

the largest segment accounting for about

22 percent of total public cloud services

spending in the Middle East and Northern

Africa region.

"Software as a service (SaaS) is the

next-largest segment and is forecast to

grow to $74.6 million in 2012, while IaaS

is forecast to grow from $35 million in

2011 to $47.5 million in 2012. Growth in

application infrastructure services (also

known as platform as a service, or PaaS)

will also be high, although it is a smaller

market relative to the other segments.

PaaS is strategic and considered to be a

critical growth driver for other segments,

including BPaaS and SaaS. The PaaS

segment in the Middle East and Northern

Africa region is forecast to grow to $15.8

million in 2012. Cloud management and

security services constitute a new forecast

segment comprising cloud security

services, IT operations management

(ITOM) and storage management (including

backup and recovery services). The

cloud management and security services

segment is forecast to grow to $45.5

million in 2012.

HIGHLIGHTSNews

Bashar Bashaireh, Regional Director of Fortinet Middle East


Authorized Value Added Distributor

EMPA Middle East has signed a master

distribution agreement with Supermicro,

a prominent server manufacturer. As

per the agreement, EMPA will now

o"er Supermicro’s full range of server,

workstation, storage, and embedded

products through its extensive reseller

network across the Middle East, North

Africa and Turkey (MENAT).

“Our channel partners have been

instrumental in making Supermicro the fastest

emerging company in servers and storage

space,” said Dr.Gaith Kadir, Regional Sales

Manager, Supermicro MENAT. “Our faith in

EMPA Middle East reflects our commitment

Empa inks pact with Supermicro

Microsoft signs up Westcon ConvergenceMicrosoft has announced a new

strategic global partnership with

the value added distributor Westcon

Convergence. The announcement

coincides with Gartner’s recent Magic

Quadrant for unified communications,

2012 report, in which they evaluated

Microsoft’s current in-market

technologies including Lync 2010

and Exchange 2010, which came

out as strong leaders in nnified

communications.

Microsoft views the strategic

alignment and collaboration with Westcon

Convergence as a key partnership to

enabling and driving Microsoft channel

partners to fully extend Microsoft Lync

Unified Communication solutions to market

with maturity and consolidated support

from the Lync eco-system vendor partners.”

Westcon Convergence’s proven expertise

in delivering excellence in core distribution

services around the region is key to

supporting market expectations of our

customers and partners”.

“Westcon believes that Lync will continue

to play an even more important role in the

business of Unified Communications as the

market continues to grow and evolve,” said

William Hurley, Chief Technology O#cer,

Westcon Group." “Lync exemplifies Westcon’s

belief that the Unified Communications

market is transitioning from a hardware

oriented solution to software and services

oriented solution.”

“We are happy to see that the Gartner

report considers Microsoft a leader in the

unified communications space, as they have

for several years.

“Our customers continue to realise

value by using Microsoft Lync for enterprise

voice, IM/presence and conferencing and

as the Lync partner ecosystem continues

to grow at a rapid pace, we are glad to

announce our strategic partnership with

Westcon Convergence as we’ve always

felt that the company shared our vision for

unified communications,” he added.

to our resellers’ success by providing the

programmes, training and support that

will help them accelerate their business

growth. This collaboration is a milestone for

Supermicro and we are looking forward to

working closely with EMPA.”

Nicholas Argyrides, MD at EMPA Middle

East said, “Our alliance with Supermicro

is a decisive step forward for EMPA as it

matches our strategy of expanding o!erings

into the enterprise space, also covering

SME. We are confident that the combination

of Supermicro’s competitive technologies

along with EMPA’s regional grasp will put

a lot of smiles onto our resellers’ faces.

Ultimately, it all boils down to listening to

our channel partners and executing. This is

really exciting.” Nicholas Argyrides, MD at EMPA Middle East

HIGHLIGHTSNews

Rittal Middle East, a system supplier for

enclosures, power distribution, climate

control, IT infrastructure and software and

services, recently organised and hosted two

end-user focused seminars in Saudi Arabia

and Lebanon during last month.

Rittal Middle East along with its strategic

channel partners in the respsective regions

organised an in-depth exploration of Rittal’s

complete data centre solution, christened

Rimatrix5. The solution consists of server

and networking Racks, UPS systems, power

distribution and cooling, in addition to

monitoring and remote management.

The delegates were addressed by the

representatives of Rittal including Joseph

Najjar, MD, Rittal Middle East, George

Rittal showcases data centre solution

Shifra adds Versatile Security to lineupThe regional security VAD Shifra

Middle East has partnered

with Versatile Security Sweden

to market its smart card

management system vSEC:CMS

in the region. The use of smart

cards has gained increasing

adoption and prominence

throughout the Middle East,

across a wide range of business

and commercial organisations.

According to new research

conducted by Frost and Sullivan,

the value of the smart card

market in the Middle East and

North Africa is expected to reach

$328.5 million by 2014, with the

telecommunications industry

representing more than 64

percent of the market.

With the entry of vSEC:CMS,

Versatile Security and Shifra hope

to provide a smarter and more

cost-e#cient alternative to current

o!erings in the market.

Smart card management

systems are essential to

implementing high security

electronic identity and can

be used to control access

to a company’s facilities and

information systems. “It is

being increasingly adopted in

the region, and the demand

for secure authentication is

expected to increase as security

threats continue to increase

in severity and frequency. We

are delighted to have been

chosen by Versatile Security to

introduce their market-leading

smart card management systems

throughout the Middle East,”

said Ahmad Elkhatib, Managing

Partner, Shifra.

Versatile Security CEO

Joakim Thorén said, its favourable

participation in GITEX 2012

opened doors of opportunities

for the company to penetrate

the Middle East. “Shifra has

enormous experience and

expertise in enterprise security

as well as extensive knowledge

of the region. Together we will

be able to secure customers

of all sizes in Middle East and

can deploy smart card based

security solutions in a tactical

way,” he added.

Gibbler from the Rittal Headquaters in

Germany and regional sales managers who

introduced their products along with the

opportunities that exist.

These IT seminars compliment the

business agenda for Rittal Middle East

noting the significant investments made in

terms of sta#ng, local o#ce setup and sales

enablement programmes for channel partners

in these key markets strengthening their

contribution to the Middle East numbers.

Joseph Najjar, MD at Rittal MEA said :

“The Middle East is one of the fastest growing

region in the Rittal businesses globaly. The

rapid innovation in our products and o!erings

that kept pace with the needs of our IT clients

have been fueling sustained growth in IT

HIGHLIGHTSNews

Joseph Najjar, MD at Rittal MEA

Ali Hyder, CEO, Focus Softnet

sales. Our diversified products o!erings in the

Middle East will contribute to robust growth

for IT business in 2013”.


Brocade!has!announced the appointment

of Thomas Langkjaer as Channel Sales

Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa

(EMEA), and Alain Valluy, who previously

held the channel role, as Regional Director

– Southern Europe.! The appointments

signify the company’s commitment to its

channel and driving business opportunities

across the region, bolstering operations in

Southern Europe to focus on markets such

as France, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

“Southern Europe is of strategic

importance to Brocade in EMEA, so finding

the right leadership is critical to our ongoing

success,” stated Alberto Soto, Vice President

– EMEA, at Brocade." “Alain [Valluy] has done

a terrific job in leading the channel team

over the past two years, and in this new role

[Regional Director – Southern Europe] he

will be instrumental in driving our expansion

in the Southern region to capitalise on the

Brocade appoints new EMEA channel headI am confident that Brocade in EMEA will

continue to flourish.”

Langkjaer will be responsible for

developing Brocade channel strategy,

focusing on accelerating channel

recruitment and sales and ensuring

partners are able to fully leverage""the

unique technology differentiation

delivered by Brocade innovative

networking solutions, and its Alliance

Partner Network (APN) programme."

Langkjaer has more than 18 years’

experience of sales, marketing and

business development in the global

networking market place, most recently

as the Brocade OEM prime for the DACH

(Germany, Austria and Switzerland)

region, and before that he held several

senior sales, marketing and distribution

roles at Hewlett-Packard and Compaq

across EMEA and in the US.

Thomas Langkjaer as Channel Sales Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)

HIGHLIGHTSNews

market opportunities in front of us." Thomas

[Langkjaer] will continue Alain’s work in

building our channel and ensuring our

ongoing commitment to partner growth is

met." With these two seasoned professionals,

For Dell, its Storage Forum in Paris was all about revealing five end-to-end updates to its storage portfolio, but behind the products we find that the channel is the real key to its success.

KEY TO SUCCESS

ANALYSISDell

The channel is a significant aid in

Dell’s operations all around the

world and probably no more than

in the Middle East, where despite

having a large presence out here it utilises

to the full.

The clearest sign of this on show at the

Dell Storage Forum was the latest result of

the tech giant’s long-running partnership

with CommVault.

Dell PowerVault DL2300 is a new

enterprise-class data protection appliance

that combines Dell PowerEdge 12th

generation servers with CommVault Simpana

9 modern data protection software to provide

large enterprises with data backup, recovery,

replication, archiving and deduplication for

both physical and virtual servers.

The new appliance incorporates latest

generation processor and memory capabilities

to optimise deduplication database

configurations for higher backup performance.

Users can also save administrative time with

built-in policy-based automation for managing

backup and archiving.

“For us in the Middle East, we actually

do a lot of work with CommVault,” said Kevin

Pickford, Solutions Director, Dell ME. “We

have a very good working relationship as well

– it’s mutual on both sides.

“We have joint account visits and see

customers together, so it’s a really healthy

relationship. It goes hand in hand. The

relationship with CommVault became quite

strong from an early start. In the Middle East

it goes beyond 2007, but it started in the UK

in the late 90s or early 2000s, so we go back

a long way.

“The channel is the key to our success.

Channel for Dell is a must. We are very channel

friendly in the Middle East – we have to work

through it. For us to actually grow we have to

be working and educating our channel.”

Darren Thompson, GM, Dell Storage

20 Reseller Middle East NOVEMBER 2012

Another significant channel announcement

to come o! the back of Dell’s releases in Paris

was a partnership with networking company

Brocade, which hopes to o!er the new Dell

Compellent Storage Center 6.3 array software.

The software o!ers enhanced scalability

and performance for Dell Compellent arrays,

and along with Compellent SC800 controllers

can increase performance up to 100 percent

over previous versions when running

enterprise workloads, Dell said.

With this release, Dell has become the

first storage provider to announce end-to-end

16GB fibre channel capabilities, which it said

doubles bandwidth and speeding access to

business critical applications and data.

Designed for medium to large enterprises

and cloud computing, Dell Compellent arrays

o!er automated tiering, advanced data

protection and increased ease of use, combined

with a modular design that enables users to

update storage software at no additional cost.

The solution also includes Brocade

M6505 16 Gbps FC embedded SAN

I/O module by Dell, which enables Dell

PowerEdge M1000e Blade Enclosures to

directly connect to the higher bandwidth-

capable Compellent storage arrays.

“Driven by the deployment of cloud and

virtualisation, storage continues to grow at

unprecedented levels and demand for fibre

channel storage technology is increasing,

along with an accelerated adoption of 16 Gbps-

based SAN products,” said Jason Nolet, VP,

Data Center Networking Group, at Brocade.

Whilst Dell Storage GM Darren

Thompson’s keynote speech did not go into

further detail on Dell’s partnerships, he did

highlight their importance.

“The market dynamics are changing and

we’re going to have to mould ourselves to fit

into these dynamics,” he said. “We’re going to

have to partner with new partners and do all

kind of things.”

Furthermore, Dell’s investment in the

Middle East was well demonstrated when

Mohamed Laher, Enterprise Solutions

Director, Emerging Markets, Dell, revealed

plans for a solutions centre in the Middle East.

“We haven’t executed it yet but that’s the

plan,” Laher said. “The solutions centre will

be a hub of the ones in Ireland and the one in

the US, and we’ll pass technologies through

that map into this region.

“So the organisations that are worried

about data going outside the region can use

the hub, which will be in either Dubai or Abu

Dhabi. Once we’ve set this up we’ll use the

facility to have access to the wider solutions

centres and then do stu! locally.” //

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In true rock star fashion, Microsoft ended its world tour of Windows 8 with a bang from inside the tallest building on the planet, in the heart of Dubai. Is channel excited about this new proposition from the software giant?

WINDOWS 8 TOUCHES DOWN IN DUBAI

ANALYSISWindows 8

The Windows crew has been

touring the globe, demonstrating

the latest version of its classic

operating system since mid

October. The Middle East was chosen as the

final stop, fitting for a product based on

reinvention and innovation.

Hundreds piled into the Burj Khalifa to

see Microsoft executives Antoine Leblond

and Ali Faramawry showcase the most radical

version of Windows to date. Though Windows

8 has already been tried and tested all over

the world prior to the event, it didn’t dampen

the enthusiasm of the party at all.

“This isn’t a product launch,” said

Faramawry, Corporate VP at Microsoft Middle

East. “This is a celebration, and we’re thrilled

to be sharing it with you all here this evening.”

Innovation demonstration

Leblond walked the audience through a

number of new features on Windows 8

which, to some, would be completely alien,

considering the drastic redesign since the

highly popular Windows 7. Using a number

of devices, including Window’s own Surface

tablet, Leblond demonstrated how the brand

new, tile style user interface worked. A very

socially influenced user interface which

“Windows 8 builds on what is great about!Windows 7!– it works well side-by-side with existing Windows 7 infrastructure to deliver the experiences people love and the enterprise-grade solutions organisations need.”

22 Reseller Middle East NOVEMBER 2012

presents apps, programmes and settings all

on one screen in the form of individual tiles.

Leblond showed how simple changes

had also been made, in terms of start

up times, closing programmes, saving

documents, sending documents, using the

touch screen, and gaining the most from the

thousands of available apps.

“This is a no compromise product,”

Leblond stated. “It allows you to benefit from

its features through touch screen as easily as

you would through mouse and keyboard.”

One of the main selling points of

Windows 8 is how it’s been influenced by

consumer products but uses these features

to improve its service for businesses. The

Windows 7, more successful, according

to Forrester statistics, is still available on

Windows 8, ensuring that comfortable

users won’t be left totally dumbstruck by

the transformation. However, the features

available on Windows 8 aren’t sacrificed in

order to accommodate Windows 7, you get

the whole package.

“Windows 8 builds on what is great

about"Windows 7"– it works well side-by-side

with existing Windows 7 infrastructure to

deliver the experiences people love and the

enterprise-grade solutions organisations need.

Windows 8 also helps companies improve the

way they do business through immersive apps

developed to better reach employees and

improve customers’ experiences.”

Now available on more than 1,000

certified PCs and tablets on a wide variety

of screen sizes, configurations, and designs,

Windows 8 is supported by thousands of

apps available in the Windows Store.

“The innovation Windows 8 is sparking in

the region is impressive,” said Faramawy.

“Just a few weeks after its global

launch, Windows 8 is already transforming

the lives of consumers, businesses and

economies through a set of amazing new

devices and rich apps. UAE Smart Learning

is a great example of how technology is

helping to make the region more competitive

internationally by equipping students with

access to latest technology.”

A questionable release

However, a day prior to the event in the Middle

East, Forrester released results from a survey

which suggested that Windows 8 had received

the opposite response to that of its predecessor

in 2009, which was actually very positive.

Forrester surveyed enterprises on a

number of factors relating to the launch of

Windows 7 during its release three years ago,

the same questions were asked about Windows

8 this year. The results were very interesting.

Windows 7 received high praise from

industry, and statistics showed that high

numbers of customers were planning to

upgrade to the release, or had thought

about it. In contrast, Windows 8 appeared

to be left in the dark. The majority of

“If anything, this says a lot about how

successful Windows 7 was,” he said.

“Our customers are so happy and

comfortable with that version, that they see

no need to upgrade. Vista may have had

something to do with it, the release prior to

Windows 7. On the one hand, these results

show that people are happy with Windows 7,

on the other hand it shows, maybe, we have

a lot of work to do to show people what is

required for Windows 8.”

Despite the results of the single survey,

Faramawry claims that the release was exactly

what Microsoft needed in order to force its

way back among the technological elite,

regardless to if that’s what it wanted to do.

“We’ve seen a change in demand from

customers. These new applications and

platforms have set a trend and yes, we had to

react. Did we want to change our culture as

a company? What do you think? Sometimes

you have to move out of your comfort zone

and do something new,” he said.

“It’s been a fantastic year for us though,

we’ve done all we planned and it’s been

extremely successful.”

Microsoft, regardless to the Forrester

survey results, has seen a very good initial

uptake of Windows 8. Perhaps not as good as

Microsoft may have liked, however, considering

it’s a completely new area for the company,

it can take some solace from the fact that it’s

being talked about across the technology wire.

Filling the app gap

One key factor may lie in the form of apps.

Microsoft has planted a pretty decent product on

the market with the Surface, however, it currently

o!ers only 10,000 apps. Google Play o!ers

around 675,000 apps and the Apple App Store,

unsurprisingly, o!ers in excess of 700,000.

For all the trials and tribulations

surrounding Microsoft in the wake of its major

transformation, it can’t be too disappointed

with its initial response. People, again, are

talking about Microsoft. //

customers surveyed said they either weren’t

considering upgrading, or were waiting for

the next release and planned on skipping

Windows 8 altogether.

47% of firms said that they hadn’t taken

Windows 8 into consideration, compared to

only 27% who said the same three years ago.

On the other hand, 24% said they expected to

migrate to the new operating system, where

as 49% said the same during the launch of 7.

The results put the new release in the

spotlight for sure. The popularity of Apple’s

iOS and Google’s Android operating systems

may have presented a bigger challenge for

Microsoft than originally expected. The new

Windows 8 interface has been designed by

Microsoft as a route into the handheld device

market, however, previous Windows versions

may have been seen as a more stand out

household brand with less competition.

Faramawry dismissed the idea that the

survey results had anything to do with the quality

of Windows upgrade, paying praise to its former.

Ali Faramawry, Corporate VP at Microsoft Middle East


SAP is a big company, so it goes without saying that it should present itself in a big way. Sapphire Now, its annual European event was hosted in Madrid, where the company revelled in the glory of HANA, its in-memory database analytics tool, and insisted that further innovation and growth is on the horizon.

FORECAST OF INNOVATION

ANALYSISSAP

Despite Madrid being the location

of political protests during the

same week, SAP managed to

successfully gather 11,000

customers, partners, journalists and

analysts into the Spanish capital, and like

many conferences this year, the main theme

was on the innovation and growth of the

mobile and social markets.

Although ending in triumph, SAP’s

conference began on a sad note, as keynote

speaker, Bill McDermott, co-CEO, SAP, had

to address the audience via satellite link,

following a tragic family event which prevented

him from travelling. The commitment to the

event was appreciated however, and the

warm reception helped McDermott to deliver a

positive and personal speech.

“The world used to be business to business,

now it’s business to business to consumer. The

customer demands digital, demands mobile, it’s

critical. In Kenya they skip meals to pay mobile

bills - that says it all,” he said.

McDermott was quick to speak of the

success of SAP’s customers since adopting

mobile business capabilities, as well as newly

designed, socially based application interfaces

and products. The rise of mobile platforms,

virtual desktops, BYOD, and big data has made

dealing with these a necessity. And McDermott

says: “Necessity is the mother of invention –

we needed to transform ourselves.”

“Customers are 40% more likely to buy if

something is marketed on a social platform.

This is already proved, so now we just need

to build upon it.”

Taming big data

Statistics on big data have continued to stun

in the past 12 months, and ways of controlling

it and benefiting from it are a high priority for

businesses everywhere. Two years ago, SAP

developed the first version of HANA, the in-

memory database analytics tool. Now, it’s just

entered its fifth stage of development and SAP

believes that the rest of the industry is starting

to realise the importance of its capabilities.

Even Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison was

critical of the idea at first, as Product Manager,

Ingo Brenckmann said.

“He called us complete lunatics, and

asked where we were getting our drugs from.

So now that companies like Microsoft are

moving into this type of analytic, we’re proud.”

“The fifth version has incorporated text

analysis, this is a brilliant feature because it

now gives people the chance not just to view

data and sort it, but to analyse it in context.

For example, you can now use HANA to not

only see how many people are tweeting about

SAP, but what they’re actually saying, what’s

the response, is it negative or positive? What

are main issues, what are the thoughts and

numbers and what do they represent? The

power of this instantaneous data is crucial to

companies working in this digital era,” he said.

Brenckmann believes that the big data issue

is a snowballing e!ect. He says that the speed

of business and the growth of data is causing

companies to take great measures to consolidate

it, which creates more data. This cycle has

demanded a response from companies like SAP,

which strongly feels that HANA is the answer.

HANA is now a complete software

package that supports applications and runs

servers through it, on top of the analytics and

data control element. It’s truly one of a kind

according to SAP.

With HANA, businesses can implement

entire applications from scratch. It stops them

needing a web server or an application server

– everything is connected through one server.

“We’re trying to provide a complete new

user experience, keeping our customers mobile

and free all the while,” said Brenckmann.

“No other company is providing what we

are at the moment, they’re behind, and are

just starting to realise this isn’t such a dumb

idea after all.”

The simplicity of products hasn’t been

abandoned on any front by SAP. Deploying or

hiring HANA couldn’t be easier. Businesses

can fully benefit from HANA on a month by

month cloud based purchase. Alternatively,

they can acquire HANA and have an engineer

fit the software with each element fully set-up,

attach it to the network and it’s ready to go.

Bill McDermott concluded in his keynote

that HANA is the ultimate collaboration of

mobility, data and tapping the value chain.

“This is true innovation – The Stone age

didn’t end because we ran out of stone, that’s

a fact.”

Bill McDermott, co-CEO, SAP


George DeBono, GM- MEA at Red Hat, spells out how the solutions provider landscape will change in the coming year

CHANNEL CHANGES IN 2013

OPINIONRed Hat

Wayne Gretzsky, one of ice

hockey’s greatest legends and

goal-scorers, was once asked why

he was so successful. Gretzky

gave the advice to “Skate to where the puck

is going to be, not where it has been.” As we

head into a new year filled with challenge and

change, this is great advice for channel

partners: get your business to move to where

the market and your customers are going; not

where they are today.

In this spirit, I see four key items driving

change and challenge for solution providers

in 2013:

New Business models: Solution

providers need to build business models that

are designed to deliver services and solutions

to their customers, not just sell products.

Gone are the days when customers just want

a channel partner to fulfill a product need.

They truly want trusted advisers: someone

who can guide them through the technology

industry changes and help provide them with

competitive di!erentiation in their market or

industry. This will be increasingly important as

we head into the new year and its economic

uncertainty. Similarly, we anticipate continued

consolidation among channel partners as

they team up with other solution providers to

meet these challenges.

Cloud: Closely related to new business

models for solution providers is new business

models for their customers, namely the

adoption of software, infrastructure, and

platform-as-a-service (SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS,

respectively). Many enterprises are looking to

build and deploy services via clouds. Cloud

is no-longer a buzzword; it’s a reality and

solution providers have a huge opportunity to

help their customers migrate to the cloud.

Big data: Real-time analytics and decision

making are making big data a big reality.

The amount of data being produced by

enterprises is staggering and providing ways

to make better decisions using this data

is all about providing your customers with

di!erentiation and competitive advantage.

They are looking to you to show them the

way. Fast growing enterprise organisations

looking to glean the most useful information

from their growing data sets will seek out

solution providers with big data capabilities.

Enterprise mobility / application strategy:

The sophistication of mobile applications is

set to explode in the next few years. Solution

providers and ISVs need to build applications

that best align with their target marketing

and deliver the style of application that is

best suited for the task at hand. We expect

cloud and big data to be two core elements

of these applications and solution providers

need to develop skill sets and practices

around application modernisation tools so

they can help their customers migrate existing

applications to where their markets and

industries are headed.

For many solution providers, 2013

is going to be a year of challenge and

change. Many have already embraced

change, adopted new business models and

are thriving despite the global economic

conditions in which we operate. They

have already created their competitive

di!erentiation and have already moved to

where their customers want to be in the

future. As Gretzsky’s advice implies, move

to where you want to go, and you’ll be well

positioned for success. //

George DeBono, GM- MEA at Red Hat


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With enterprises refreshing network infrastructure to keep up with emerging technologies, it’s time for the channel to scale up and lap up the opportunities in this high-growth market.

NEW VISTAS OF GROWTH

FEATURENetworking Channel

Both enterprises and service

providers are opening up their

wallets for networks, adding

advanced capabilities. According

to IDC, the global networking hardware

market will reach $51.4 billion in 2014, with

lion’s share of revenues coming from

switching, IP telephony and routing.

IDC believes the biggest drivers of

the networking market revolve around

the buildout and adoption of the next

generation of IT in support of the intelligent

economy. The research firm estimates

enterprises have invested around $39.4

billion in both network intelligence and

network bandwidth upgrades to create a

robust foundation to support trends such as

mobility, cloud and video.

A growing networking market has

opened up new vistas of growth for the

channel. And now with cheaper network

hardware and more e#cient networking

software being promised by suppliers,

channel organisations that specialise in

networking are in demand.

The networking behemoth Cisco

believes the big IT trends that are

transforming the market and creating huge

opportunities for its partners are cloud and

data centre virtualisation, mobility and video.

“These trends will drive major upgrades to

enterprise networks in the near future. The

intelligent, secure, and agile network is at the

center of all three, and Cisco is synonymous

with the network. Selling architectures,

professional services, and smart solutions

will help drive di!erentiation and profitability

in capturing these market transitions for

partners,” says Claire Jones, Regional

Manager, Cisco UAE.

Gautham Raj, HP Networking Sales

Director for Middle East, agrees that the

move to cloud will drive investments in the

data centre switching space. “We are also

seeing enterprises roll out wireless in their

organisations like never before. This is

happening as users embrace new computing

devices and wireless becomes the new

access layer.”


Most of the big networking vendors

are beefing up their partner programmes

to help channel partners reach new

customers and roll out some of these

advanced technologies. Cisco, for example,

revamped its partner programme in 2011

to better align its channel partners with the

company’s three major areas of focus and

shift them beyond technology solutions into

architecture-based solutions.

The company’s channel partner

programme introduced new architecture

specialisations for Borderless Networks,

collaboration and data center, which

requires its partners to go through

training and certification in at least one

of the specialisations, depending on their

partner level.

“Cisco’s Channel Partner Program focuses

on a partner’s ability to deliver intelligent

networks and technology architectures built

on integrated products, services, and software

platforms. The programme o!ers training

in the latest Cisco technologies, provides

valuable branding resources, and rewards

partners with incentives. The benefits also

include: co-marketing resources, financing,

incentives and promotions, and service and

support,” says Jones.

HP Networking, on its part, are designing

and running education programmes

which focus on implementations and

troubleshooting. “This is being eagerly

adopted by our partners. We also have

constant knowledge sharing sessions

between our own technical resources and the

key channel resources on a monthly basis to

share best practices,” says Raj.

D’Souza from Comstor says the channel

will also need to skill up on how to address the

needs of the existing networks. Assessment

and monitoring services will be key. It will

enable very relevant discussions around how

to make the network more robust and future

proof. Additionally the channel skill sets need

to be beefed up around having business

conversations – basically how the network

solution will enable better productivity for that

business or add value to it, he adds.

Claire Jones, Regional Manager, Cisco

Gautham Raj, Sales Director, HP Networking

Increased focus on security will also drive

major network upgrades in 2013, according

to Hani Nofal, Director of Intelligent Network

Solution at GBM. “In a recent GBM survey of

more than 900 IT professionals in the GCC,

more than 32 percent of the respondents

stated that they have more than three

personal mobile devices, while more than

36 percent of the regional IT professionals

surveyed said that they have four personal

devices or more. Of those with four personal

devises, 62 percent confirmed that their

organisations allow them to connect those

personal devices to the enterprise wireless or

wired network. So, the challenge is not only

in supporting such an increasing demand, but

also ensuring they maintain the highest levels

of control and security.”

Within the network security domain,

Dell SonicWALL expects to see massive

adoption of next-gen firewall technology.

“IT departments expect threat protection to

be part of the firewalls they purchase. Now

with additional features o!ered by NGF, IT

managers will be able to know immediately

about a problem, prompting them to take

corrective measure. In 2012, we will see

much more of this and it’s a technology that is

ahead of the curve,” says Shahnawaz Sheikh,

Regional Director of the company.

Renton D’Souza, Divisional Director

of Comstor, has a di!erent take: “On an

EMEA level, with the economy expected to

continue to grow sluggishly, we foresee that

enterprises will look to getting more “bang

for the buck” with their existing infrastructure.

This will mean more services revenue for

vendors and more focus by the channel

around annuity based services.”

He adds that in the ME region, there

will be greater e!ort to control costs

around upgrades as well. The need to

assess networks and understand where

vulnerabilities lie will be more prevalent

which will lead to a more focused approach

to network upgrades. Most network upgrades

will be made to fix vulnerabilities, address

end of life product issues and make networks

video ready as well.


The ongoing cloud computing paradigm, and the shit in IT from an on-premise to off-premise model is slated to have a far reaching impact on the networking channel.

Vendors are also making huge

investments to enable the partners to

increase market competitiveness and

revenue opportunities. Cisco has announced

that it will be investing $75 million globally in

fiscal year 2012 in initiatives and programmes

supporting our partners in the form of

marketing resources, incentive programmes

and access to Cisco Technical Engineers

Network to accelerate partner growth. “Our

partner programme focuses on a partner’s

ability to deliver intelligent networks and

technology architectures built on integrated

products, services, and software platforms.

As more customers place a high premium

on working with certified companies and

qualified vendors, Cisco and our partners

know that these customers also want to work

with top-quality individuals. Developing talent

to strengthen our joint competitive advantage

continues to be a main priority,” says Jones.

Raj from HP says customers and partners

alike are now looking for a dual vendor

approach. “It is the skill set and the capabilities

of partners that should di!erentiate them in

front of the client and not a vendor’s support.

In general we have found that the channel

has not yet prepared itself for the wireless

opportunity. The skill sets and the capabilities

to o!er a end to end experience from wireless

site surveys to design to implementation and

support in a wireless era is something that the

channel is struggling with. We see this as an

opportunity for the partners who are willing to

invest in these skills.”

Undoubtedly, the opportunities for network

channel are aplenty but the key questions is,

how does the Middle East network channel

look today and how will it change over the

next two years? “In the past, the networking

channel’s strength was dependent on their

strong relationship with the vendor. They did

not have the choice. Today with significant

marketshare gains that HP has had this

provides them with options. They can

compete in the marketplace based on their

strengths. "With the adoption of open standards

and best of breed solutions, system integration

value add goes up in the marketplace. This

provides opportunities for the channel. With the

inevitable openflow adoption that will happen,

the network switches will be vendor neutral

and will provide "a level playing field for the

channel,” predicts Raj.

Cisco believes services will a big focus in

the next two years. The company has recently

launched a new partner programme specific

to its services business, which is a collapsing

of nearly 50 di!erent global programs into

one, re-designed umbrella programme, and a

way for Cisco partners to capitalise on what

is roughly a $200 billion market opportunity

with the potential to expand individual deals

by as much as 12 times their value. The Cisco

Services Partner Program o!ers performance-

based incentives according to the breadth

and competence of the services partners

provide customers.

“We will also be seeing the Middle East

channel as business advisors as opposed

to technology advisors which will add more

value and better ROI for our customers.

Additionally, as cloud fundamentally

changes the way customers consume

technology, partners must evolve their

business models to succeed and grow.

Partners are evolving their technology

competencies around virtualisation,

automation and management, oftentimes in

collaboration with many of our technology

ecosystem partners. They are also evolving

their financial and service models for selling,

pricing and delivering as a service cloud

o!erings,” says Jones.

Cloud and the channel

The ongoing cloud computing paradigm, and

the shit in IT from an on-premise to o!-premise

model is slated to have a far reaching impact

Shahnawaz Sheik, Regional Sales Manager, Dell SonicWALL



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on the networking channel. “Cloud computing

will involve multiple services and its integration

and customisation. Channels will have to be

trained in new competencies like data centre

management, provisioning, billing, customer

support etc,” says Farook Majeed, CEO of

Precedence Technologies, a networking SI.

He adds that trends such as BYOD

will disrupt the traditional hardware selling

channels as customers are going in to bring

all kinds of devices from all kinds of sources.

However, providing security and upgrading

the network/bandwidth are going to open up

new opportunities for channel.

Cisco estimates that the market for cloud

infrastructure will grow to $112 billion by 2015,

while the market for cloud services will reach

$113.6 billion over the next three years. This

represents opportunities for channel partners

to sell infrastructure for private clouds, to

become cloud providers or to resell cloud

services of cloud service providers.

“As the trend for delivering technology

as a service continues, now more than ever,

partners must evolve their business to support

the demand for new consumption models

such as cloud and managed services." In

order to support our partner’s evolution,

Cisco continues to evolve our channel

partner programme to help partners profitably

monetize the cloud and managed services

opportunity." As cloud fundamentally changes

the way customers consume technology,

partners must evolve their business models to

succeed and grow,” says Jones.

Raj says with cloud, conventional ways

of network provisioning will not serve the

purpose. “Software Defined Networks are

the solution and that is clearly the outcome

of the cloud adoption. We at HP are the

only mainstream networking vendor to

have launched a large portfolio of openflow

enabled switches in our portfolio. The

adoption of openflow enabled switches will

bring down the TCO for clients as they will

not be locked down to any single vendor.”

However, there are growing fears in the

channel about cloud and most aren’t sure

if it’s a threat or opportunity. “I believe that

although all major hardware and software

vendors are talking about cloud computing

and trying to demonstrate their understanding

and readiness to support it. But, those

vendors are yet to prove to their channel

partners that they are serious and committed

to support that shift. The reality is that they

are not there yet. In addition to the evolution

of the channel programs, a major change

should take place in the vendors’ sales

incentive programs in order not to block the

sales teams’ attention to cloud based services

and solutions. I believe that this will be

similar to the journey that we have seen from

product sale to managed services. I would

argue that not all vendors and providers got

that market shift right in terms of their channel

programs and sales incentives,” says Nofal.

Dsouza says we are at the cusp of a new

era – consumerisation of enterprise IT. “The

change in consumption models is already

hitting many vendors. The old Capex model

of buying upfront is now going to change to

a “pay as you use” model. This will be a huge

change for most vendors and channel partners.

With the cloud model, the upfront money to be

made is almost negligible, it happens as the

end user adopts and uses the technology.”

While cloud adoption is ramping up, many

IT departments are still grappling with aging

network equipment while juggling demand for

new network initiatives, such as mobile device

management, fuelled by IT consumerisation

and BYOD trends. Industry surveys reveal

core router and switch upgrades are the

top project priorities for network managers

in the coming year, followed by wireless

implementations. And therein lies a huge

opportunity for the networking channel. //

Renton D’Souza, Divisional Director of Comstor

“Industry surveys reveal core router and switch upgrades are the top project priorities for network managers in the coming year, followed by wireless implementations. And therein lies a huge opportunity for the networking channel.”



© 2012 Dell Products. Dell, the logo, XPS, Latitude and Vostro are registered or unregistered trademarks of Dell!Inc. in!the United States and other countries. Ultrabook, Celeron, Celeron Inside, Core Inside, Intel, Intel Logo, Intel Atom, Intel Atom Inside, Intel Core, Intel Inside, Intel Inside Logo, Intel vPro, Itanium, Itanium Inside, Pentium, Pentium Inside, vPro Inside, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks or trade names may be used in this document to refer to third-party products (such as operating systems and software) included with the products o" ered by Dell and the entities claiming the marks and names of those products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. Dell Corporation Ltd, Dell House, The Boulevard, Cain!Road, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 1LF.

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INFORMED CHANNELThe need to educate the channel on the value of training and certification is more important than ever in today’s market, where adding value and making the most of products and functionality is paramount to growing a sustainable business.

FEATURECertifications

We often hear the names of

companies and distributors

being accredited by various

vendors, or channel partners

that are certified to sell certain product

lines.! But what does this all actually mean?

From one point of view, certain

certifications can be seen as nothing more

than a branding and marketing exercise,

aimed at improving credibility and brand

awareness within the channel, but there

are certain certifications that genuinely

mean something.!


privy to regular updates and new products.

Certification increases competence levels

of the engineer, enabling customers to

have more trust,” says Shahnawaz Sheikh,

Regional Director – MEA & Turkey, Dell

SonicWALL.

Jai Shankar, Marketing Manager, Brother

International Gulf, agrees: “People trust

a certified partner. It means you have the

right people, skills and after-sales support.

Training and development is an integral part

of our partner strategy and certification is

mandatory for partners to move up the tiers

in our channel structure.”

Boby Joseph, CEO of StorIT, offers

another perspective on the value of

certifications for the channel: “The

greatest value in certifications is to

let the partner drive the opportunity

independently and know the technology

better. This will help the customer to

understand the partner value additions as

compared to a normal partner.”

Another vendor who has marked the

channel for education is Kaspersky Lab.

“Enabling our partners to help serve our

customers better by providing them with

training and transferring product and

technological know-how is one of the key

pillars of our success here at Kaspersky

Lab. Our partner programme places a lot of

emphasis on the certification requirements

of partners,” says Aman M. Manzoor,

Channel Manager, Kaspersky Lab Middle

East & Turkey.

The security vendor addresses the

requirements of partner education with

the Kaspersky Knowledge Space, which is

Jai Shankar, Marketing Manager, Brother International Gulf

Aman M. Manzoor, Channel Manager, Kaspersky Lab Middle East & Turkey

People trust a certified partner. It means you have the right people, skills and after-sales support. Training and development is an integral part of our

partner strategy and certification is mandatory for partners to move up the tiers in our channel structure.”

The industry agrees that proper training

and certification is by far one of the best

value-adds, especially in an industry that is

still dominated by a number of box-pushing

resellers, which could ultimately do more

damage to a brand than the little good of

pushing up sales figures."

Especially when considering the new

technologies, certification and training play

a very important role in di!erentiating skills,

aiming to ensure that a reseller or channel

partner does not over-commit themselves

just to close a deal."

With thinning margins and increasing

competition, the channel is under pressure.

This requires the ability to provide a better

level of service and higher level of qualified

sta! than their competitors. Though the

comprehensive partner programmes that

big name vendors are o!ering, quality

training has become available to everyone.

But it is up to the distributors and resellers

to take advantage of these programmes

and ensure that their sta! become certified,

and that they are continually improving their

skill sets.

Particularly with technologies such as

cloud, virtualisation and mobility coming

to the fore, the channel needs to be better

equipped to be able to take advantage

of the need for these new technologies,

and the sustainable revenue that could be

generated."

“Certification usually means that

a partner has a broader and better

understanding of the technology and its

key features. Our certified partners become

part of our regular communication and are


FEATURECertifications

designed to spread and share knowledge

about products and technologies designed

by Kaspersky Lab. It brings together all

current training methods (training centres,

electronic materials, forums) and new ways

of receiving knowledge through the use of

programmes that organise training in real

time for its partners.

“The Kaspersky Knowledge Space is

available at no additional cost, as a part

of our partner extranet to our channel

community. Further, on the sales training

side, we provide free sales training

sessions,” says Manzoor.

Data loss prevention solutions vendor

InfoWatch says value of certifications is

signifant because the company’s certified

partners can independently integrate and

initially support InfoWatch solutions.

“DLP solutions are only e#cient with a

great deal of consulting. We call it a three

step DLP approach including Pre-DLP,

DLP and Post-DLP. The Pre-DLP stage is

a necessary part of the process when all

data existing in the company is classified

and divided into several categories (strictly

confidential, confidential, not confidential,

etc). Only after such classification can the DLP

solution be integrated to function e#ciently,

and without Pre-DLP the system e#ciency is

only 30%. Therefore, InfoWatch’s certification

programme gives our partners all knowledge

and skills necessary to maintain such full

cycle integration,” says Alexander Zarovsky

- International Business Chief at InfoWatch.

Most vendors agree that certification levels

reflect a partner’s technology skills and

breadth. “Partner certifications are similar to

academic degrees. Some specialisations are

prerequisites for becoming certified while

others provide specialized knowledge

of certain technologies. Certification

levels reflect a partner’s technology skills

breadth,” says Saeed Agha, Cisco UAE

Regional Manager.

He adds that specialization levels

definitely reflect a partner’s depth of

expertise, capabilities, and end-to-end

service and support for specific solutions

and technology architectures. “The

higher their level of certification, the more

credentials and resources our partners

need to meet the requirements. Certification

reflects a breadth of skills across certain

technologies and is based on your

organisation’s ability to support customers

within a single country or country grouping.”

Joseph from StorIT says some of the

most sought after technical certifications

in the channel today are around storage,

virtualisation and security. From a

security perspective, there is a growing

interest in certifications on firewalls,

secure remote access with BYOD, and

identity access management.

“From our experience with operating

in a client’s infrastructure, the majority of

channel partners face di!erent technical

complexities, such as setting https, specific

setting of IT security policies, and integration

into client’s existing infrastructure. Therefore,

certification programmes aimed at training

the partners to solve these highly technical

tasks are in real demand,” says Zarovsky.

The bottom line is that training is

imperative to enabling the channel to support

their customers in choosing the right solution.

This is not a tactical approach, but rather a

strategic one, which aims to ensure that long

term relationships are built with the end-user. //

For example, if a partner has taken one of our specialized courses on either wireless or email security we at Dell SonicWALL will recommend

them to a customer looking for solutions in these fields.”

Boby Joseph, CEO of StorIT

Saeed Agha, Cisco UAE Regional Manager

Alexander Zarovsky - International Business Chief at InfoWatch


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The Saudi based BDL Group has raked in revenues exceeding $790 million in 2012, clocking a robust growth rate of 19% year on year.

Now, this prominent distributor is branching out into the regional ICT market and has recently formed a strategic business unit to address the opportunities in this sector. Tamer Ismail, CEO of the company, spoke

to us about the company’s game plan.

CASTING A NEW LINE

Tamer Ismail, CEO, BDL Group

INTERVIEWBDL Group


How do you plan to switch

your focus from IT to the ICT

market? What kind of

opportunities do you see in the

regional ICT market?

BDL will not switch from the IT market to

the ICT market since the company has

two strategic business units. The first unit

is for the IT market and one of its most

important goals is to be the best in the

Middle East market. The other unit is for

the ICT market (communications, mobile

devices and tablets). Its goal is to have

a big role and a strong presence in this

growing market.

The ICT market is growing rapidly

in the region, where business cycles

are quick, offering much better margins

and cash flows. We believe at tablet

offering will have a significant impact

in the commercial, business and

government sectors.

Do you have any plans to expand your

portfolio and enhance your services

capabilities to address this market?

BDL as a company always deals with its

partners with an open mind and carefully

considers the offers available for the

business development and takes the new

partnership decisions by studying them

carefully and in-depth.

How do you plan to enable your channel

partners to tap the opportunities in the

ICT market with less investment from

their part?

BDL opens sales opportunities for its

partners in both IT and ICT fields by

ensuring all the products in our portfolio

are available to them, backed by good

support and logistics. In addition to this,

we support and develop our partners’

businesses continually and we very well

understand the meaning of FMTG (fast

moving technology goods).

Moving stock quickly continues to be the

key to success for regional distributors.

Are you planning to ramp up your

logistics infrastructure?

We have a very strong logistics

infrastructure, which enables us to keep a

tight control on inventory. In fact, logistics

services is one of our key strengths, and

we support this through good planning to

purchases and sales on a weekly, monthly

and quarterly basis.

Vendors today need significant value

add from their distributers, up and down

the channel. What kind of initiatives are

you taking to create end-user awareness

and channel development?

We have adopted a strategy of diversity

which means we add value to the

products, services, various programmes

and offers. This is supported by the

huge customer base we have and we

deal with them daily through sales,

technical support, marketing and after-

sales services.

“We have a very strong logistics infrastructure, which enables us to keep a tight control on inventory. In fact, logistics services is one of our key strengths, and we support this through good planning to purchases and sales on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.”

“The ICT market is growing rapidly in the region, where business cycles are quick, offering much better margins and cash flows.”

Can you give us an insight into the most

current issues and opportunities in

today’s channel?

We think today’s information

technology market is characterised by

two revolutions. First is the mobility,

represented by the rapid proliferation

of tablets and smartphones, which was

first started by Apple and then followed

by Samsung. The second revolution is

fairly more recent and has three main

elements. The first one is Windows 8 and

the second is Intel-powered Ultrabooks.

Thirdly, we are seeing a huge change

in the way these devices are designed.

The typical design of a laptop is now

changing from clamshell type to more

innovative convertible types or what we

call laptop tablets.

Mobile computing has become a

way of life and these hybrid computing

devices have become more robust and

powerful with high-speed processors and

specs, and support even professional

softwares such as AutoCAD. This

represents big growth opportunities for

the distribution channels in the IT market

and we have earmarked this as huge

growth area for us as more and more

consumers desire portability.

Are you looking to cash in on some of

the emerging technologies such as cloud

and virtualization?

All the new technologies and

developments provided by our vendor

partners will be available to our partners

through us. //


Symantec has recently laid out its management and product strategy. The company, which has gone through a leadership change, is planning to enlist the support of its partners to ward off competition and maintain its leadership position. Jason Ellis, VP of Channel- EMEA at Symantec, spokes to us about the role channel plays in the strategy.

STEADY AS IT GOES

“The vision of Symantec’s global channel program is to offer opportunities for predictable, profitable growth for its Middle East partners.”

Will there be any disruptions in

the business due to the sudden

leadership change?

For Symantec, it’s our partners

who bring the products and solutions to life

for our customers. Symantec’s partners are an

extension of our brand and “trusted advisors”

who match innovation, drive and talent

with experience and expertise. Symantec

continues to put significant focus towards the

channel, demonstrating value to our partners’

business with market-leading products,

financial rewards, engagement, ecosystem of

resources, and service-rich opportunities to

help them grow their business.

As a partner-focused company, Symantec

will continue to develop new Specialisations

and Master Specialisations to give partners

the ability to grow alongside the latest IT

needs and trends in the market. In evolving

a partner-led approach, new Master

Specialisations are available to eligible

partners who specialize and maintain an

active consulting practice, and complete

business and technical assessments in each

solution area.

Steve Bennett has a strong record of

corporate leadership, with previous positions

as CEO of Intuit and a 23-year career at

VENDOR FOCUSSymantec

General Electric before that." Steve has been

on Symantec’s board since 2010 and served

as its chairman since 2011 so he already

has strong insight into the company and its

strengths, including our valued relationships

with the channel partner community.

How does Symantec plan to maintain its

market share in the coming years in the face

of increasing competition in the marketplace?!

Symantec has continued to reinforce its

commitment to its partners through the

Symantec Partner Program, which provides

partners a broad array of benefits and

resources to help grow their business

and support customers. Specializations

are the foundation of Symantec’s Partner

Program and the key way in which the

company enables its partners to di!erentiate

themselves from competitors, deliver more

value to customers and take advantage of

new market opportunities thereby helping

them grow their business. Specialisations

are a unique recognition for partners

with a proven expertise in a particular

area of business. Partners are able to

achieve Specialisations by meeting certain

requirements that will extend their knowledge

and proficiency in a solution family, such

as data protection, security or compliance

among others.

Symantec has focused on partner

profitability through the enhanced partner

program that will help partners get the

most from their technical sta!. The vision

of Symantec’s global channel program is to

o!er opportunities for predictable, profitable

growth for its Middle East partners and enable

them to deliver solutions and services that

protect customers’ most critical information.

How do you plan to educate partners

and customers over the coming year

around new technologies such as

mobility and virtualisation?

Recently Symantec enhanced its partner

program in the Middle East with a new

specialisation that addresses both the

increasing need for relevant and reliable

mobility strategies and the opportunities for

channel partners to benefit from this growing

trend. By acknowledging the skills and

experience that qualifying partners have in

the mobility market, the new specialization

empowers them to deliver greater value

to customers, maximise opportunities and

accelerate their profitability with Symantec’s

mobility portfolio, while further di!erentiating

their businesses in this booming and

competitive market.

The Mobility Solution Specialization

enables Symantec specialised partners across

the Middle East to help their customers to gain

granular control over their mobile deployments

and have di!erent levels of oversight on

mobile devices, according to their specific


policies and needs. The Specialisation

comprises the following Symantec product/

solutions: Mobile Application Management

(MAM), Mobile Device Management (MDM)

and Mobile Security.

With its promise of greater e#ciency and

lower cost, virtualisation is a key customer

priority. Symantec o!ers partners a Data

Protection Specialization to recognise partners

that provide complete protection for their

customers’ information. Each of the backup

solutions o!er a single integrated product that

protects virtual and physical environments,

simplifies backup and disaster recovery, and

provides unmatched recovery capabilities.

Do you have any plans to ramp up support

capability in the region, particularly in the

Cloud-based and managed security services

space that requires high skills?

With our partners at the core of our business

across the world, we are dedicated to

ensuring partners have the right skills,

education and training to keep up to date

with changes in technology and IT trends.

Late in 2011 Symantec unveiled its

Managed Service Provider (MSP) strategy,

which was designed to make it easier and more

cost e!ective for partners to deliver Symantec’s

market leading backup and security solutions

as managed services. In addition, Symantec

has adopted a partner-led services approach to

help organizations manage IT risk and maximize

IT performance around Symantec solutions.

This a!ords Symantec customers the broadest

set of o!erings along with competitive pricing

for IT consulting.

Symantec’s Managed Security Services

(MMS) blends industry leading security

technology with the expertise from top security

analysts providing 24/7, around the clock

monitoring of the entire security framework.

Being connected to Symantec’s Global

Intelligence Network means that organizations

benefit from an unparalleled source of Internet

threat data to identify new and evolving threats

with more than 240,000 sensors in over 200

countries monitoring attack activity, and more

than 133 million systems providing malicious

code intelligence. In addition, MSS allows an

organization to outsource their security threat

monitoring to experts in real time, while helping

the organization build and sustain a resilient

incident management program. By outsourcing

security monitoring and management an

organisation can reduce investments in

security operations infrastructure and redeploy

basic security operations sta! to other mission

critical operations.

Do you have any plans to enhance your

partner and channel programme? How do

you plan to drive partner profitability?

Symantec’s vision is to give every one of

our partners the opportunity for predictable,

profitable business growth; o!er relevant

market-leading solutions to protect and

manage their customers’ information; and

provide the education and training tool to

ensure partners are skilled to deliver superior

value to their customers.

Jason Ellis, VP of Channel- EMEA at Symantec


As Specialisations become central to its

program, Symantec’s partners will find even

more opportunities to di!erentiate themselves

and deepen their expertise in Symantec

solutions and services. Symantec will continue

to deliver several new tools and resources

over the next few months to help partners in

the Middle East maximise sales opportunities

and accelerate profitability in the new model.

Do you have plans to expand your partner

ecosystem in the Middle East? Will MSPs

play a key role in your partner strategy?

Symantec has seen particularly strong

expansion of our partner ecosystem in the

Middle East region with good coverage in all

disciplines among several partners, as well

as geographical growth in Qatar and Kuwait

and expansion into the French-speaking

Africa region with Morocco and Tunisia. The

specialisation programme has also enabled

Symantec to provide advanced professional

support to partners who invest in particular

skills, thus significantly raising the value

of the service they deliver to customers.

Specialisation partners also receive support

to drive profitable, predictable growth and

shorter sales cycles.

Through new and expanded integration

with leading remote monitoring and

management (RMM) platforms and new cloud-

based o!erings, Symantec is helping partners

more e!ectively deliver and manage multiple

products and services while minimising added

overhead costs. Symantec’s MSP strategy also

includes the ExSP Licensing Program, a pay-as-

you go subscription licensing model designed

for service providers, and a recently enhanced

SMB Specialization program with benefits for

service provider partners, including partner-

specific technical support o!erings.

Symantec provides partners with

opportunities for enhanced profitability,

business growth, market-leading solutions,

and the technical expertise and tools to help

them deliver superior value.

How do you plan to up-skill your partners to

deliver complex technologies?

Symantec realises that now more than ever

before, customers are taking every detail

into consideration when selecting a solution

provider. Symantec values its partners and

strives to give them every advantage over

the competition. By providing them with

more in-depth knowledge about products

and better access to resources, partners will

be able to prove their value to potential and

existing customers.

Specialisation is the foundation of

Symantec’s partner programme where they

can earn multiple Specialisations in specific

technology focus areas. As technologies

advance and evolve, Symantec will add

new specialisations to meet customer

requirements and help expand opportunities

for its partners. Master Specializations

recognise and promote partners with

advanced consulting, technical, and service

capabilities in a specialised solution area. This

specialisation category is part of Symantec’s

partner-led consulting services model, which

o!ers partners increased scalability to meet

customer requirements, reduces channel

conflicts, and creates opportunities for

greater license sales potential. The Master

Specialisation recognizes deep expertise in

providing consulting services to Symantec

customers and are available for each of the

solution Specialisations.

By achieving specialisation, partners

can demonstrate their expertise and show

customers that they are serious about

helping solve their problems through

insight, experience and innovative solutions.

Symantec provides technical and sales

training to partners so they can add skills and

capabilities to their organisation.

Symantec continuous to enhances its

investment in existing partners to identify

gaps in the marketplace and work with

partners to put focus on developing their skill

set and overall performance.

Can you outline some trends with

opportunities for the channel next year?

How will cloud impact the channel?

Cloud computing is a trend that most of

our partners are exploring and thinking

about how to best leverage for their

customers. Symantec continues to enhance

specialisations related to cloud computing as

another tool to enable partners to become

well-versed in as it becomes increasingly

important to customers.

In addition to cloud computing, there

are a number of other IT trends that will

offer partners the opportunity to become

more strategic with their customers, as

well as provide them with increased

revenue opportunities.

The evolution of cyber attacks is an

ever evolving trend and Symantec predicts

that 2013 will see an increase in targeted

attacks and cyber conflict between nation

states, people and organisations. In addition,

organizations of all sizes must find viable

ways to cope with the information explosion

which is predicted to grow 67 percent over

the next year for enterprises and 178 percent

for SMBs, according to Symantec’s 2012

State of Information Survey. Lastly, the rise

of the mobile workforce as more businesses

adopt “Bring Your Own Device” strategies

poses a number of benefits but also a

number of challenges for IT. It is an exciting

time in IT and our partners can use the

evolving IT trends and landscape as a way to

deliver more value to their customers in the

Middle East. //

“Symantec provides partners with opportunities for enhanced profitability, business growth, market-leading solutions, and the technical expertise and tools to help them deliver superior value.”

VENDOR FOCUSSymantec


AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTORS*

Designed for Life: Yours

PARTNER WATCHAxtrom

Within a short span of time,

tablets have grown from a niche

product to become mainstream

and have already overtaken

global netbook PC sales. Reports indicate

the global tablet market will reach $ 31.86

billion this year, breaking the 100 million

unit shipment barrier.

Tablet prices under $100 with Android

is a big win for mobile consumers looking

for low cost, high performance tablets. This

is where Axtrom fits in, which believes in

the philosophy of o!ering quality products

at a!ordable prices. The company is now

beefing up its channel network to push

Mohamed Samy, Business Development Director, Axtrom

Axtrom, which develops computer components, peripherals and accessories, is looking to cash in on the booming mobility market with its AXPAD range of tablets.

SPREADING WINGS

into new markets and tap the opportunities

around the mobility space. “We see a lot of

room for growth in the tablet market and

it’s only the beginning. Axtrom is being

distributed by Golden Systems Middle East

in the UAE and BDL Group for the rest of the

GCC region. We have also signed up a new

distributor in Egypt,” says Mohamed Samy,

Business Development Director, Axtrom.

Axtrom says it’s uniquely positioned in

the burgeoning tablet market. “We don’t

intend to position in the high end dominated

by Apple and Samsung but somewhere in

between with quality products at reasonable

prices. A lot of investment has gone into

our products to ensure quality and we

don’t intend to play in the lower end of the

spectrum, which is driven by price. We will

never be the cheapest,” says Samy.

Currently, Axtrom has three models in

its tablet portfolio and is going to expand it

to eight to nine models by the end of this

quarter, all sporting the new version Android

Jelly Bean. Also on the cards are models

based on Windows 8 once the platform is

mature from a manufacturing standpoint.

Samy says the company is focused on

branding, rather than just selling maximum

volume at lower prices. “We focus on certain

specs, which you don’t see in the third tier

products. All our products come bundled with

a leather carry case and screen protector,

and we pay special attention to packaging.

In addition, we are registered with all the

regional telecom regulatory authorities

with the intention of making our products

available to carriers as well. We are not

just focused only on the consumer market

because it’s a finished market that can reach

all market segments.”

Axtrom claims authenticity is another

value proposition it is bringing to the table.

“We include authorised software and we get

all the new version and updates. We o!er full

technical support, not just for dealers but users

as well. We have service centres in Qatar,

Kuwait, Oman and we are in the process of

setting up one in Egypt,” says Samy.

Axtrom is also planning to expand

its geographical coverage in the region.

“Though our products are available across

the region, we do realise we can’t tackle

the entire market at once. We have a strong

presence in Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, and

we are tying up with retailers where we don’t

have a presence yet,” says Samy, who plans

to ship around 20000 units every month

starting Q1 of next year. //


Successful trade show participation

continues even after the stands are

put away and it holds very true in

the case of the Dubai-based

Spectrami. The VAD, which made its Gitex

debut this year, plans to capitalise on the

brand visibility it achieved during the show

and put its business on the fast track.

“It couldn’t have been any better for us.

We wanted to let people know about our brand

and send a message to the partner and user

community. It was also an excellent platform for

our vendor partners as it gave them a better

understanding of the market, which in turn, has

resulted in more commitment and resources. The

top management from the partners were here

and now they are seriously looking at this market

and developing product features tailored for the

region,” says Anand Choudha, MD of Spectrami.

A cursory glance at Spectrami’s portfolio

might make you think some of the names

are not too familiar in this part of the world.

Anand Choudha, MD of Spectrami

PARTNER WATCHSpectrami

Armed with best of breed technology solutions, value added distributor Spectrami has carved a niche for itself in a very short span of time.

SPECIALISED IN VALUE

However, Choudha says all these specialised

vendors are globally well known and the

technologies they o!er are very important to

the security landscape. “Security is evolving

and you can no longer protect against

advanced threats with traditional security

tools. That’s why WD thinks our portfolio is

very relevant to this market,” he says.

As a VAD, Spectrami is focused on two

areas; security and storage. “Again, we are

not in the traditional storage space but what

we o!er is what Gartner calls protection

and availability storage. What it basically

means is copy data management, as multiple

copies are being made of production data for

backup, DR, anlystics, etc. It is estimated that

15-120 copies are being made for various

purposes, which accounts for major chunk

of your storage infrastructure. What we are

o!ering is a solution from Actifio that reduces

the storage by 90 percent,” says Choudha.

Spectrami’s security line of business also

boasts of very specialised vendors in the domain.

While Fidelis o!ers cyber security solutions,

Verdasys is a data loss prevention vendor and

LogRhythm specialises in SIEM. Others include

Tenable for vulnerability management and Titus

for data classification solutions.

Choudha says value means di!erent things

to di!erent people and is one of the abused

words in the industry today. “It is interesting

to see how value is being defined. You have

mainline disties who o!er value add in the form

of logistics and credit facilities. Then you have

true VADs who give you technical capabilities

and dedicated product management. But, I call

us as a VEM (vendor extention model), which

basically means that we behave like a vendor or

as an extension of their brand. We interact with

customers, develop proof of concept centres

and even do marketing for the vendor partners.”

Spectrami is currently looking to

expand its partner base but is choosy about

it as well. Choudha says the company is

looking for specialised partners who are

committed and focused. “Six months back

we were pushing channel partners at our

set of and now it’s the other way around.

We want to be selective and what we have

done is segment partners and certify them

for a specified technology. We want to

make sure that our partners are certified,

have the right skills and are ready to invest

in growing this business.”

To upskill its partners, Spectrami

organises training programmes every

month with the help of its vendors, and

has invested in a lab that can be remotely

accessed by the partners. “Some of these

are complex technologies that can’t be

mastered in a day and we even go to the

extent of providing on-job training to our

partners,” says Choudha.

Though 2012 raised serious concerns

about the health of the channel industry,

Choudha says it has been a di!erent case

for Spectrami, as some of the high-profile

security breaches in the region have created

a huge demand for security. “What happened

at Aramco and RasGas has been a blessing in

disguise. In the first half of the year, people

were talking about security, without really

budgeting for it, but this has turned the game

around on its head. Now, companies who

did not have a security-specific budget are

creating one and the mandate today is just

do it. 30000 infected PC being replaced at

Aramco was not a joke.”

Almost a year and half since starting

operations, Spectrami is now gearing up for

the next phase of growth by increasing the

headcount from 11 to 25 by the end of Q1 next

year and new o#ces in Saudi and Morocco.

“We want to continue to be niche and we

don’t want to get into the volume game,”

sums up Choudha. //


www.facebook.com/prologixmewww.prologixme.com [email protected] Call Now for Support 600 525523

Shaikh Zayed Road 55, R.K.M. Proper es Dubai, U.A.E | P.O Box: 71790Tel: 971 4 340 78 40 Fax: 971 4 340 78 41Email: [email protected] WWeb : www.prologixme.com

Maroor Street opposite Abu Dhabi Bus Sta on Maj building, c-‐159, O ce M 02 Abu Dhabi, U.A.E Tel. 971 2 641 88 68 Fax. 971 2 641 88 61Email: [email protected] WWeb : www.prologixme.com

O ce# 1602 | Y Cluster | Swiss Tower Jumeirah Lake Towers (JLT) Dubai, UAE | P.O Box: 71790Tel : +971 4 362 62 18 Fax: +971 4 368 30 39Email: [email protected] WWeb : www.prologixme.com

Opp. Palm Beach Hotel Khalid Bin Walid Road Bur Dubai, U.A.E| P.O Box: 71790Tel: 971 4 326 64 45Fax: 971 4 326 64 46Email: [email protected] WWeb : www.prologixme.com

In the business of rendering world-‐class security solutions since 1998, Prologix is playing a dynamic part in Intersec Exhibition to validate the reasons of its global recognition. Showcasing dynamic products and services, the company invites clients foraging for the best-‐of-‐breed commercial and technology-‐rich security systems. Business operations entails handling host of activities including BOQ design, planning, survey and installation of scrupulous security devices. Come explore the vigilant security systems worth praising.

Access control systems

Surveillance systems

Wireless solu ons

Networking solu ons

So ware solu ons

Firewall solu ons

Prologix L.L.C ( H,O) Prologix L.L.C Abu Dhabi Prologix Comserve JLT Prologix Showroom

Not Just SecurityYour Peace of Mind is Our Business

Not Just SecurityYour Peace of Mind is Our Business

Meet Us @ Intersec 2013(15-‐17 January) Hall#3 Stand# 3-‐125C

Charles Phillips joined Infor as CEO two years ago with a brand new team and a lifetime of experience, which he claimed were critical to breaking the stronghold of its competitors. Now, he is revelling in Infor’s recent success. Having just moved offices into the heart of New York and kick started the next generation of application integration, the Arkansas man is on a roll.

‘WE’RE THE DISRUPTIVE ALTERNATIVE’

INTERVIEWInfor

Charles Phillips, CEO, Infor


How have your first two years

been at Infor?

We’ve had a blast. I brought with

me a tightly linked team which

works well together. Having the guys I

chose personally has been really beneficial.

I’ve worked at Oracle, which is a fantastic

company, and I’ve worked in plenty of other

sectors too. I’ve seen the industry from lots of

di!erent angles so I brought with me a huge

amount of experience.

How do you see Infor’s presence in the

Middle East?

We’re doing very well in the Middle East

right now. We’re seeing a particular success

in healthcare. We already have about a

70% share of all hospitals in the US. The

healthcare system in the Middle East is

going through radical change, more so

than anywhere else. There are world class

hospitals being built, and for us it’s an

amazing opportunity. This hard work was

rewarded when we won the Healthcare

Deployment of the Year at CNME’s ICT

Achievement Awards 2012.

What is your strategy here, do you work

directly on the ground or mainly with

partners?

In any given year, about a third of our

business goes to our partners. However,

we want more feet on the street. One way

to do that is to keep up good relationships

with partners locally. It’s critical - no matter

how many people we hire we can never hire

enough to cover all the opportunity. Partners

have unique relationships with customers

which we can benefit from. We’re always

looking for more partners.

How do you see the market at the moment?

It’s a great time to push in this region. The

partners we’re signing now don’t want to

go through legacy and training on older

product bases such as Oracle or SAP. Our

new products are easy to use and learn and

quick to implement so it’s a good time to be

active in a fast moving region such as the

Middle East. It’s a little easier for us because

we’re relatively new - we didn’t have the old

middleware and didn’t have to carry that with

us so for a new partner they can skip those

generations. Those sorts of details have

helped us here and generally all over.

Can you elaborate on the next-gen

integration technology?

We recently built a next generation

integration platform. We took an internet

based approach to integration. It’s

exponentially simpler than traditional

middleware, which works for our purposes.

The problem with application integrations is

that when you change one thing, 500 other

things break. We’ve solved that with this.

How should the next generation of business

applications be delivered?

The next generation user will demand

beautiful products. They will want to

work on platforms and applications which

are similar to those which they use in

their personal time. Creating socially

inspired working applications will promote

easier tasking, better productivity and

happier employees. We have developed

“The partners are critical for us outside of the US. We have long lasting relationships inside the US but when we step outside, our partners become more and more important to our penetration.”

“The next generation user will demand beautiful products. They will want to work on platforms and applications which are similar to those which they use in their personal time.”

INTERVIEWInfor

our unique social business platform

- reinventing our applications to look

beautiful, integrating social media with

business for the future users.

People are used to consumer products.

We’re making the step of pushing it now

and moving that chapter forward. If you

look at Twitter or Facebook, this is how our

applications will look soon enough. We’re

about three to five years ahead of our

competitors so we will drive this move and

others will have to react. Unfortunately for

them, they have big architectures so they

won’t be able to change anything quickly.

This is the time for disruptive technology and

we want to be the disruptive alternative.


INFOR TEAMS UP WITH VMWARE

Infor has teamed up with VMWare to help

customers of its Infor LN ERP (enterprise

resource planning) software run on

VMWare’s latest virtualisation technology,

opening a door to cloud deployments

and potentially lower infrastructure costs.

The companies have created a

reference architecture that customers and

partners can use to create a virtual appliance

with VMWare products such as vSphere,

Cloud Director and vFabric, according to the

announcement. Customers will be able to

deploy the appliances to either on-premises

or cloud infrastructures, Infor said.

Infor is hoping to work with customers

on the virtual appliances and will likely have

packaged products out within six months.

The VMWare announcement follows a similar

one Infor made with Red Hat in September.

Why fork out $900 for a 50-inch TV, when you can get a 100-inch for the same price?

SIZE DOES MATTER

REVIEWSony

I must admit, I had never before

considered buying a projector.

But when I was sent Sony’s new

home theatre projector – the

VPL-BW120S – everything changed.

Previously, I was of the seemingly

misinformed opinion that the picture quality

on a projector did not live up to the standards

of the high definition plasma TVs we take for

granted today. Or perhaps it was an accurate

opinion, but the new home theatre projectors

on o!er now are doing great at narrowing

that gap.

Yes, the VPL-BW120S is a heavy and

bulky piece of equipment, but far less so than

a television so that’s not significant. It can also

be placed close to a wall or screen without

the need to mount it.

The really smart thing is the short throw

technology. This means that the projector

can be placed 15 feet away from the

intended surface or as close as 5 feet away

and still produce a clear 100-inch image

and brightness.

This review was done by Ben Rossi, Reseller Middle East’s contributing editor

As soon as you turn it on, it’ll light up your

living room and you’ll wonder why you never

invested in one of these before.

Using 3LCD display technology, the

VPL-BW120S reproduces picture with a

brightness output of 2600 lumens (on high

lamp mode) at WXGA (1280 x 800) native

resolution. It also has a high contrast ratio

of 4000:1 for colour reproduction and 12-bit

3D gamma correction, meaning you get an

overall excellent picture quality and don’t find

yourself missing your plasma.

According to Sony, the projector achieves

uniform image colour and brightness that

extends right to the corners of the screen,

and I certainly couldn’t dispute that claim. It

also o!ers energy-e#cient features such as

a power saving mode, standby mode, and

a synchronised lamp and filter replacement

cycle of 6,000 hours.

Furthermore, built-in speakers enable

a one cable (HDMI) connection, and the

projector also comes with a variety of other

input options such as RGB, Composite,

S-Video, RS-232C control input/output and

audio ports.

However, there is one big disclaimer on

the VPL-BW120S. It will ruin your social life.

Let me explain.

On my first day with the VPL-BW120S I

watched my favourite TV show Homeland

and decided it was the best thing since

sliced bread.

On my second day, I was scheduled to

go to the cinema with my friends. Having

re-evaluated the situation I could no longer

see any sense in spending a small fortune

to watch a movie in a cramped seat just for

the benefit of a big screen. That big screen

experience was now in my living room with

my comfy couch and cheap snacks, so I

stayed at home and celebrated the now

redundant relevance of cinemas to my life.

On day three I was again all set to head

out to with my friends, this time to watch my

beloved football team play on the big screen

at a local establishment. Again, I failed to

conceive why I should sip on overpriced

drinks just for the sake of watching my

severely underperforming team fail in their

attempts to kick a football around. Instead,

I wallowed in my self-pity with my new best

friend – the VPL-BW120S.

The conclusion is that with the VPL-BW120S

you can be the envy of your friends and play

host at the same time. But make sure you save

that alone time too because this projector is sure

to be the new love of your life. //


Unifi ed

Web

Email

Endpoint

Mobile

Network

Data

For more information: www.sophos.com/unifi ed

Sophos Middle East | Offi ce 205-EIB 5 | Alpha BuildingPO Box 500469 | Dubai Internet City | Dubai | UAE Email: [email protected] | Tel: +971 4375 4332 | www.sophos.com

Sophos RED Provides complete protection for even the smallest branch and home offi ces.

Complete UTM Security: It extends your Network, Web and Email Security subscriptions on your Sophos UTM to branch offi ces.

Built-in central management: The Sophos UTM controls your Sophos RED so there’s no need to manage individual devices.

Rapid deployment: Sophos RED is the fi rst security gateway that doesn’t require local set up or technical skills at the remote site.

Virtual Ethernet cable: Sophos RED acts like a remote network port connected by a virtual Ethernet cable to your Sophos UTM.

Strong Encryption: All data sent to the central UTM appliance is protected with strong encryption and authentication.

You’re safer in our world

Morepoints

Lesscomplex

Lessmaintenance

Sophos_RED_neemea_217x280.indd 1 27.11.2012 13:39:18

We’re certainly not spoilt for choice when it comes to top of the range tablets these days, but what about the lower end of the spectrum? The Axpad 7i02, from Axtrom, fits comfortably into that category, but what exactly are the requirements?

REVIEWAxpad

To me, the ‘lower end of the

spectrum’ means one thing;

price. If I purchase a product

towards the lower end of the

spectrum, I expect it to be affordable,

simple, and charismatic. The Axpad 7i02

is all of these things.

It’s a simple tablet with no hidden

agenda - a tidy package of features and

apps, and little more than a light tug on

your wallet – it sells at AED399, a tiny

amount for an Android device.

I’ll spell it out for you now however,

if you’re looking for a tablet tablet, then

this isn’t for you. It’s not going to rival your

laptop with its entertainment system, it’s

not going to rival your smartphone with its

camera capabilities, and it’s not going to

provide you with crisp browsing like the

higher end tablets will.

AXTROM AXPAD 7I02


To move past the obvious; this device

isn’t here to compete with Apple, Microsoft

and Samsung, etc. I’ve been playing

around with it for a couple of days and

trying to figure out the meaning of life for

the Axpad. With Christmas approaching,

it struck me that, although marketed as a

lower end tablet device, the Axpad is, in

fact, a high end toy.

I’ve heard countless stories where

business professionals have handed their

handheld devices over to their children

to fiddle with and taken them back in a

state far worse off than when the handover

happened. In my professional opinion, this

is the perfect answer to this issue.

This tablet is extremely sturdy. It’s a

tough cookie, believe me, because I often

take the form of a small child and have

dropped it twice already. However, it’s not

actually built for this, as the first page of

the user manual states; ‘do not drop, bend,

hit, throw or puncture.’

It’s smaller than most tablets, lighter

( just 36g), simpler, and compliments

smaller hands just fittingly. I’m not saying

it’s a kids game, it isn’t. It’s got 3G

capability, document applications, maps,

and other handy features as standard.

It has five swipe home screens with the

capability to customise your interface

easily just by dragging and dropping, it

does its best not to over-complicate any

process – a businessman could easily find

many productive uses for it.

In fact, you’ll find a heap of little

Android touches all over the device, which

isn’t unusual as it runs on the 4.1 Jelly

Bean operating system. The browsing is

fast, seamless, and web pages look pretty

good. The resolution, however, is pretty

poor, though presented as 800x480, I

wasn’t totally convinced. The screen can

be somewhat unresponsive at times, and

perhaps the backwards facing speakers

could have been better positioned.

The verdict Overall, what it claims to do, it does well. It hasn’t arrived to take a run at the iPad or the Surface, it’s a light, small, and delightfully cheap Android device. Great for fast gaming, customising, instant messaging and general play time. The Axpad is the ideal travel partner, whether alone or with several kids in tow.

RATINGS:

HARDWARE 8/10

PERFORMANCE 6/10

VALUE FOR MONEY 7/10The camera – we all know I like a

good camera. Sadly, this doesn’t possess

such a thing. In fact, the chances are that

your smartphone carries a better camera

than the 2mp one situated on the back of

this device. However, those people that

hold up tablets and snap pictures with

two hands can be irritating at the best of

the times, it’s not built for those people. A

sweetener is that it does sport a forward

facing camera, and with Skype already

installed, you can use it to for video

calling. That’s a great feature whatever

your age or purpose.

The winning feature on this device

is that it supports 3D games. The SD

card can run up to 32G maximum, it’s

pretty impressive and the games run very

smoothly on the device as a whole. //

This review was done by Joe Lipscombe, sub-edtior at CP Technology

REVIEWAxpad


Canon Middle East has launched three

new premium PIXMA printers that produce

photo-lab quality prints at home and boast

advanced design features, the PIXMA iP7240,

PIXMA MG5440 and PIXMA MG6340.

Joining Canon’s All-in-One Photo printer

range are the MG5440 and MG6340, two

high-performance PIXMA devices which

feature fast print speeds, the option of cost-

saving high capacity XL inks, and enhanced

connectivity for printing around the home.

CANON INTROS NEW PIXMA PRINTERS

The launch also includes the new PIXMA

iP7240, a document and photo printer

replacing the iP4950, with faster print speeds

and Wi-Fi connectivity. The iP7240 also

supports tablet and smartphone printing.

The latest PIXMA printers have been

designed to be even easier to use. The

MG6340, for example, features a large 8.8cm

colour touch-screen display that combines

with Canon’s Intelligent Touch System, which

is integrated into the surface of the printer, for

easy and intuitive, light-guided touch operation.

The new printers also feature Auto Power

O!, an energy saving function that allows

the PIXMAs to automatically switch o! if

left idle for a set amount of time. For added

convenience, Auto Power On turns the printer

on automatically when a print job is sent to it,

particularly useful when printing wirelessly.

HOT PRODUCTSNew launches

Epson has expanded its SureColor wide-

format printer line-up in the Middle East with

three, 4-colour printers for CAD, GIS and POS

applications. The Epson SureColor SC-T7000,

SC-T5000 and SC-T3000 o"er fast, reliable

printing on coated and non-coated media up

to 44-inch (1,118mm), 36-inch (914mm) and

24-inch (610mm) wide respectively. Epson

also revealed that the 36 inch printer is a new

size that the company was introducing to the

market for the first time.

The SC-T7000, SC-T5000 and SC-

T3000 are ideal for applications where

speed and economy are paramount, such

as printing architectural designs and plans,

maps, presentations, posters and indoor

signage. The printers take just 28 seconds

to produce an A1 print in draft mode on

plain paper, and o!er optimised running

costs with a choice of 700ml, 350ml and

110ml ink cartridge sizes.

The printers use Epson’s new

UltraChrome XD Ink, which has been

specifically developed to produce high-

quality, durable prints with deep blacks,

a wide colour gamut and crisp, dense

lines with a minimum width of 0.02mm.

Epson’s Variable-size Droplet Technology

brings clarity to fine detail while delivering

optimum e#ciency for larger areas of colour.

WD now o"ers its WD Sentinel

DX4000 small o#ce storage server

with a capacity of 16TB, in addition to

existing shipping capacities of 4 TB,

6 TB, 8 TB and 12 TB. WD Sentinel is

a storage server designed specifically

to meet the storage needs of small-

to-medium sized businesses (SMBs).

The WD Sentinel 16TB unit includes

four 4TB hard drives, which o"er

small business owners the capacity,

performance and capabilities they

need to support their business. The

WD Sentinel DX4000 small o#ce

storage server acts as the “on-premise

cloud storage” solution for the SMB.

The WD Sentinel includes

backup & recovery licenses for up

to 25 client computers and features

redundant network, power and USB 3.0

connectivity, a complete DLNA media

server and secure remote web access

to all authorized users.

The DX4000 servers ship with

KeepVault, an optional cloud backup

storage provider, which provides an

integrated o!site backup solution for

SMBs’ most important information,

providing a secure o!site disaster

protection plan at an SMB price point.

WD ROLLS OUT 16TB SMALL OFFICE STORAGE SERVER

EPSON LAUNCHES 4-COLOUR PRINTERS


Kingston Technology has unveiled HyperX

Beast, the latest addition to the HyperX

product line. It matches high performance

with the largest available capacities and

is XMP ready. HyperX Beast is aimed at

gamers, and content creators, who want high-

performing hardware in an innovative design.

HyperX Beast is part of the Predator family,

and features kits up to 2400MHz for faster

processing times in applications requiring

maximum performance, and is available

in capacities from 8GB-64GB. The new

heatspreader colour and design adds diversity

and character to the current HyperX memory

o!erings. It is designed to work with third-

generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors as

well as the latest AMD A-Series processors. For

added benefit, HyperX Beast is Intel XMP ready

so users can easily achieve the best performance

optimisation by simply selecting a speed profile,

hand-tuned by Kingston engineers.

KINGSTON UNLEASHES HYPERX BEAST

NOKIA DEBUTS LUMIA RANGE

Nokia Middle East has launched Nokia

Lumia 920 and the Nokia Lumia 820,

based on Windows Phone 8 in the region.

The Nokia Lumia 920 is the flagship

Windows Phone 8 smartphone, including

Arabic language capabilities and the

latest advances in Nokia PureView

imaging innovation.

Using advanced floating lens

technology, the camera in the Nokia Lumia

920 is able to take in five times more light

than competing smartphones without

using flash, making it possible to

capture clear, bright pictures and

video indoors and at night.

The Nokia Lumia 920

also comes with Nokia City

Lens, the latest addition to

the Nokia location suite. By

pointing the camera at a city

street, City Lens overlays

information about restaurants,

shops, hotels and more on the

surfaces of buildings, for the

most intuitive way to explore

surroundings. Nokia City Lens

is the start of a new augmented

reality experience that also

enhances Nokia Maps, making

it possible to move between maps view

and augmented reality view to help people

check their direction and surroundings.

Along with enhancements to Nokia Drive

and Nokia Transport, the Nokia location

suite of services represents the most

comprehensive, integrated mapping

experience of any smartphone.

The Nokia Lumia 920 comes in yellow,

red, grey, white and black. The Nokia

Lumia 820 comes in red, yellow, grey, cyan,

purple, white and black.

CISCO EXPANDS LINKSYS X-SERIES

Cisco has introduced a new addition

to its X-Series product line, the Linksys

X1000. This 802.11n Wi-Fi router with

built-in ADSL modem can be connected

to an ADSL line or to a cable or fibre

modem and share the broadband

connection wirelessly to all devices in

your home.

The new model is the first to feature

the new X-Series design that matches the

rest of the Linksys Wi-Fi portfolio. The new

design, with a black matte finish, makes it

a stylish addition to any modern home. As

with all products in the Linksys X-Series,

the Linksys X1000 is an ideal solution for

consumers who want an easy way to install

Wi-Fi solution for their home that works

with both Mac and Windows computers.

Linksys X-Series products work with

Cisco Connect Express, a free mobile app

for smart phones and tablets that enables

users to keep control of their home Wi-Fi.

Connect a Smart TV to your Wi-Fi with

a push of a button or enable the guest

network for visitors and immediately

send them the password through a text

message or e-mail – all directly from

your mobile device. The Cisco Connect

Express App is available for free from the

Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

Reseller Middle EastDECEMBER 2012 59NOVEMBER 2012

HOT PRODUCTS

Cyberoam has rolled out the NG Series

appliances for future-ready security in IT

networks. The NG Series enables SOHO/

SMBs networks to become future-ready

as they move towards gigabit network

infrastructure and high Internet speeds,

says the company.

NG Series appliances come pre-

loaded with CyberoamOS – the most

powerful Cyberoam firmware till date.

CYBEROAM UNVEILS UTM FOR SMBS

SOURCEFIRE STRENGTHENS FIREPOWERSourcefire has strengthened and expanded

its FirePOWER appliance family, providing

users with the unmatched ability to protect

against sophisticated malware, advanced

persistent threats (APTs) and targeted

attacks. One of the latest innovations is

the introduction of advanced malware

protection for FirePOWER, which provides

visibility and control of modern threats on

the network – from point of entry, through

propagation, to post-infection remediation.

Sourcefire also introduced additions

to the FirePOWER 7000 Series appliance

lineup, and new 5.1.1 software featuring

file type detection and control, as well

as security intelligence for IP reputation

and blacklisting. With the new models,

Sourcefire’s performance range now

spans from 50 Mbps to 40+ Gbps.

FirePOWER appliances provide industry-

best threat protection with proven

performance leadership, and comprise

Sourcefire Next-Generation Intrusion

Prevention Systems (NGIPS), with and

without application control, and Next-

Generation Firewall (NGFW) models on a

universal platform.

The new firmware tightly integrates with

the hardware for network and crypto

acceleration to deliver high performance.

The CyberoamOS also extracts full

performance from a multi-core platform,

along with offering minimum latency and

improved processing speed with use of

optimized Interrupt rates and FastPath

technology. The NG series appliances also

boars of powerful hardware consisting

of Gigahertz processors for nano second

security processing along with Gigabit

Ethernet ports and high port density. The

unique design and robust components

used in the NG series support high speed

I/O throughputs for better performance as

well as protect against tough environment

conditions, including power surge and

fluctuations.

New launches

60 Reseller Middle East DECEMBER 2012NOVEMBER 2012

Waleed Al-Basheer, Intelligent

Network Solutions Manager at

GBM, has an almost sagely advice

to his peers: “Life o!ers many

opportunities and one should always make

the right use of it.”

Al-Basheer, who is a young achiever,

describes himself as a very straightforward,

level headed person, who has learned to take

challenges head-on and use it as a fuel to push

ahead. “I am adventurous by nature and like to

take up new challenges, which gives me the

zeal and impetus to work towards excellence.

One thing I firmly believe in is that one should

always strive towards individual betterment. I

am never scared of beginning where others

end,” he says in an impassioned tone.

Probably, Al-Basheer’s unique style and

personality stems from his attitude towards

challenges and his innate ability to embrace

change. He says he has been motivated and

inspired by a quote from Martin Luther King

Jr.--“The ultimate measure of a man is not

where he stands in moments of comfort and

convenience, but where he stands at times of

challenge and controversy.”

He adds that in today’s fast growing global

and business world, the possibility of change

sits constantly on our shoulders. “Truly, nothing

is certain and constant except change. I enjoy

adapting to new technological advancements,

which have changed the shape of our lives over

the past couple of decades.”

Waleed Al-Basheer

PEOPLE FOCUS

Driven to succeedAl-Basheer, who has been in the IT

industry for 10 years, is fascinated by the

pace of change and has witnessed the rapid

evolution of IT trends that have a far-reaching

impact on our everyday lives. “Computational

power rises exponentially, not linearly, and so

does the rate of change. Adapting to these

changes has polished and enriched my

experience in IT,” he says.

He adds that the most interesting aspect

of his work is being able to interact with

di!erent kind of people through his role in

the channel and exposure to di!erent market

segments. “However, the most challenging

part of my professional life is ensuring

customer satisfaction. In the competitive

marketplace, customer satisfaction is a key

performance indicator and is seen as a key

di!erentiator against competitors.”

This led to his firm conviction that it is an

imperative for businesses to provide more

than just products and services. “Businesses

are also responsible for helping customers

with technical issues, even small ones,

because they can have an enormous impact

on the customer experience. Understanding

the customer’s needs, enhancing service

delivery and providing quality assurance will

help not only to meet but to surpass customer

expectations,” Al-Basheer says.

Since Joining GBM in 2007, Al-Basheer

says he has become more assertive, even in

situations outside of comfort zone. Working at

GBM has also honed his interpersonal skills,

be it with colleagues or customers. Though

Al-Basheer spends most of his time at work, like

many in the industry, he has been able to strike

a fine balance between work and personal life.

“It has been a conscious decision, and I am

always mindful of drawling lines between them.

Whether I am at work or at home, I do my best

to stay fully invested in that place at that time. If I

am at home with the family, I set aside work and

enjoy them to the fullest,” he says.

By force of habit, Al-Basheer starts his

day with reading emails and organizing

his calendar, and feels hapless without his

mobile, laptop and iPad, even if he is on a

holiday. “Multitasking and fairly balancing

between my personal and work life is key.

The trick is to detach from one or the other,

depending on the situation and the priority.

Al-Basheer, who is passionate about

learning, says he is particularly interested

in learning new disciplines in math, physics

and fringe science. He also likes to watch

documentaries during his spare time.

Married with twins, Al-Basheer is a doting

dad and says he always finds the time to

spend with his children. And his ultimate

dream in life? “I like the academic path. My

lifelong ambition has always been to get a

PhD in a science, such as math or physics. I

am also interested in eventually volunteering

to teach courses at a university, while

completing research and theses,” he says. //

Waleed Al-Basheer, Intelligent Network Solutions Manager at GBM


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