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60 Mins Show dates: 14-18 October 2012, Dubai World Trade Centre

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| AT GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK | Exhibition hours: 11am -7pm

Huawei unveils cloud data centre solution Huawei Enterprise this morning unveiled its cloud data centre solution, which it said provided Middle East businesses with robust and highly secure networks, IT infrastructure and facilities that support applications in the cloud.

The company said the release, which it referred to as a complete ‘one-stop-shop’ solution, reflects its commitment to modernising traditional data centres that can be empowered by safe, intelligent network switches and high capacity storage systems.

It added that the new generation of data centres will meet the high growth requirements of Middle East organisations and help them cope easily with the changing landscape brought by cloud computing.

Huawei’s CloudEngine series protects customers’ investments and potentially expands the life of enterprise networks from five to 10 years. The switch also supports a large number of 100GE, 40GE, 10GE and GE interfaces, as well as virtualisation, storage and network convergence.

Huawei said university campuses, banks, government

PICTURE OF THE HOUR

Dong Wu, VP, Huawei Enterprise Middle East organisations, railway companies and other large businesses that experience high levels of network traffic are able to enjoy a more seamless connectivity with faster access to data.

The series forms an integral part of Huawei’s data centre network strategy.

Huawei’s high-end security firewall solutions (USG9580) enable secure data centres without compromising network performance and data processing speeds. Both Huawei’s SecoSpace security solutions and the 4 CONTINUED ON PAGE 3

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4 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 USG9580 high-end data centre firewalls give users the security and flexibility they need to operate in the cloud computing era.

They offer a significantly faster data transfer rate thanks to the one terabyte throughput capacity of its security gateway; the highest rate offered by the industry. The firewalls are application-aware and can identify over 1200 applications, assessing the risk of incoming and outgoing traffic, and adjusting and prioritising network traffic accordingly to maintain network QoS (quality of service).

Users can transfer data in and out of the cloud environment with higher performance but with the most stringent levels of security in place, even when all data centre applications are running. The USG9580 defends against hundreds of Gigabytes of Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack traffic, the most common form of cyber attacks on organisations today.

Dong Wu, vice president,

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Huawei Enterprise Middle East, commented: “The increase in IT automation and the rapid deployment of both mobile Internet and cloud computing industries in the Middle East mean it’s time to review and improve the traditional data centre construction model. The outdated way of doing things includes lengthy deployment time, over-capacity building, project complexity and high build costs,” said Dong Wu, VP, Huawei Enterprise ME. “Our new modular Cloud data centre solutions are simple, scalable, smart and delivers cost and energy savings. This launch represents a complete one-stopshop for organisations looking for an IT infrastructure that is scalable, easy-to use and able to interoperate with their existing IT investments in their cloud computing infrastructure,” he added.

Huawei’s primary display stand is located in the Gulf Comms area, Za’abeel Hall, Stand-E13.

Security biggest mobility concern, says Barracuda Barracuda Networks claims that the advent of mobility has caused cyber criminals to become far more sophisticated, prompting more advanced security solutions which can be difficult to keep up with.

The company claims that BYOD and mobility is a love/hate relationship with users, giving them the opportunity to use their own device and escape office desktops but posing them with more and more security issues.

Also, it presents an issue for businesses who need to make a “trade-off for security” with their employees.

“Businesses want to allow their staff to be able to use their own devices and have their data on the move but who then is responsible for the security of that data? It’s a difficult process,” said Sherif Abdel Gawad, Sales Director and General Manager, ME. “It’s fine when you have your

own devices and you have your own data but when you bring that into your company, the barriers become a little bit vague. Some people aren’t happy to let the company have any control once they’re using their personal equipment.”

Gawad claims that traditional security risks are dying out and being replaced by web based attacks. The advent of new technology and its availability will continue to be a battle between solution providers and cyber criminals.

“Nobody is 100% secure, companies need to be aware of the upcoming problems, but I believe that security solutions are advanced enough to be able to deal with these threats.

Technology will constantly evolve and we will constantly strive to stay on top of that,” he concluded.

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BSolutions to demo cloud services expertise BSolutions, the first cloud computing aggregation platform in the Middle East, allows service providers and distributors to accumulate in-demand cloud services from different providers through their own private-branded marketplaces.

A Microsoft Gold partner, BSolutions will deliver a presentation on ‘Cloud Automation as a Service’ (CAaaS) to facilitate IT distributors and service providers in marketing cloud services on October 15 at Microsoft Stand B7-10, Hall 7. A sole provider of cloud aggregation platform in the Middle East, BSolutions supports partners in integrating cost-effective and innovative technology to meet increasing customer demands.

Mina Nagy, Product Manager at BSolutions said: “BSolutions provides expertise on integrated

Mina Nagy, Product Manager at BSolutions

cloud-computing services. We are a global ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS) provider that manages the whole distribution process. Our participation at GITEX Technology Week is a gateway to collaborate

with industry players to reinforce this constantly evolving industry.”

He added: “SMEs spending on the cloud market is estimated to be around USD200 million in the GCC this year and is expected to increase up to USD507 million in 2015.

BSolutions is developing a ‘cloud service broker,’ a new business model that will enhance offerings of telecommunications and IT service providers to cater to the increasing demand of customers.”

BSolutions platform is the first regional enterprise cloud brokerage operating globally. With its economical and innovative method of developing applications in a single marketplace, it enhances operational efficiency in businesses hence increasing revenues. The company partnered with local and international financial institutions to create diversified payment options.

Hybrid cloud is the only strategy: VMware

VMware has said that a hybrid cloud strategy is the best solution for businesses which are hesitant about moving into the cloud.

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Speaking at GITEX, Rainer John, Manager, Partner Organisation, MENA, VMware, said that everybody has a strategy for cloud

computing and the adoption rate in the Middle East is healthy, an opinion that has caused some debate over the past 12 months.

“The hybrid solution is the best of both worlds for businesses.

Companies that want to move into the cloud but perhaps only temporarily, now have the option of keeping their data inside a private data centre,” he said.

The hybrid cloud system gives users the option of purchasing public cloud space but allows them to continue managing their information from inside their own data centre. John claims that 85% of applications and work-loads will be run out of private data centres over the next decade.

my gitex

“GITEX is the largest IT event in this region, and as such is a great platform for CommVault to meet and cement relationships with current customers and partners as well as explore opportunities with new ones. The company continues to invest heavily in this region and the exhibition synergizes with our own growth plans”.

Colin Summers, Regional Director at CommVault

“It is very important to have your data centre in good shape for this reason. How can I get the most out of new technologies such as clouds but also manage my own data, this is the question businesses are asking.”

“What we announced in VMworld this year was the vCloudSuite, a one-stop package that you would give everything a business needs in order to create and manage its own hybrid cloud.

This is the future of application management.”

The hybrid solution gives businesses the option of being able to keep track of their own security and sensitive data, delivering a more secure approach to cloud computing.

John claims that the Middle East is well educated in this area now and that by next year the majority of enterprises will be making the journey into the cloud.

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Digital Forensic Investigations of Any Kind Incident Response & Remediation Training and Services Geoff Brooks Regional Sales Manager - Middle East, India & Africa PO BOX 211364, Dubai UAE Mobile No : +971 506 527659 gbrooks@accessdata.com www.accessdata.com

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Saudi biggest source of spam in GCC: Kaspersky Kaspersky Lab has announced its spam report for the GCC in the third quarter of 2011 at GITEX. The results show that Saudi Arabia is a local leader as a source of spam, where the United Arab Emirates was ranked number 2 as a source of spam across the GCC countries.

It’s known that spam emails are distributed worldwide. Spam traffic differs from country to country

depending on regional specifics.

At the same time, there are some common themes and trends that feature in spam regardless of where it is sent or received in the world.

All the GCC countries combined account for only 1.29% of all global spam. The main reason that there are such low volumes of spam originating in the region is due to the relatively low number of users.

The country with biggest population in the region, Saudi Arabia, is a local leader when it comes to sources of spam (0.96%) just like in the same period last year. Even though Saudi Arabia is the most populated county in the Middle East region, its population can’t be compared with that of countries like China or India. That’s one of the reasons why the amount of spam even from this country is so low. The second reason is that users are careful about protecting their computers.

Most popular organisations’ category that was targeted by phishers in Q3 2012 is Social networking websites. More than 20% of all phishing attacks worldwide

ManageEngine launches Desktop Central with mobile management

ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, today at GITEX Technology Week 2012 announced the launch of its latest release of Desktop Central, its server and desktop management

software, that it supports mobile application management. In addition to the expansion of its mobile device management capabilities, Desktop Central has also been enhanced with integrated chat and support for

Apple iOS 6, Microsoft Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

Employee mobility has become one of the key areas that enterprises focus on to maximize their productivity. In turn, use of mobile apps - both in-house and commercial - within the enterprise is soaring, making mobile application management a critical capability in IT departments.

Likewise, the enduring popularity of the operating systems for Apple devices as well as Microsoft Windows devices and servers is making it imperative for IT organizations to support iOS 6 and Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012.

“The worldwide smartphone and

targeted Facebook. In GCC region the share of Facebook attacks is slightly less – about 16%. One third of all phishing attacks detected in GCC targeted banks and other financial organizations whereas worldwide this share is about 20%. Phishing attacks on search engines took third place in GCC in Q3 2012.

mobile market is expected to grow exponentially in the years to come,” says Mathivanan Venkatachalam, director of product management at ManageEngine. “As more and more companies go mobile, we are committed to meeting the increasing demands placed on today’s enterprises by continuously improving our mobile device management feature set. Mobile application management is simply the latest example of that commitment.”

Desktop Central 8 is available immediately. Prices start at $10 per computer annually for the Professional Edition. The MDM add-on module support is available on all the editions, and prices start at $15 per device annually. The Free Edition of Desktop Central manages up to 25 computers and two mobile devices. A free, fully functional trial version is available at http://ow.ly/7R4ke.

Publisher Dominic De Sousa, COO Nadeem Hood, Managing Director Richard Judd, Commercial Director Rajashree R Kumar, Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan Editors Pallavi Sharma, Ben Rossi Sub-editor Joe Lipscombe Circulation Manager Rajeesh M, Production Manager James Tharian, Design Director Ruth Sheehy, Senior Designers Analou Balbero, Froilan Cosgafa IV, Glenn Roxas, Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy Magma Web Developers Erik Briones, Jefferson De Joya Photographer and Social Media Co-ordinator Jay Colina

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Poised for growth You’ve been talking about “the new Epicor.” What does that mean?

‘Heritage’ Epicor was a global company, very strong in manufacturing and services, growth-oriented, entrepreneurial, with great technology.

Activant was primarily a US company, with a hyper-vertical go-to-market focus, and very process and metricoriented in how [it] delivered things, and probably more profit-oriented than top-line growth oriented.

We had a lot of complementary aspects, with very little overlap in markets. We didn’t have the issues of integration you see with many [mergers], which is, ‘I’ve got two of everything and now I’ve got to pick, and one side’s going to win.’

Internally, we are setting the bar a lot higher. We’re putting in processes to measure everything we do. We’re adopting agile and scrum [application development methodologies and practices].

We are adding about 600 to 800 customers per year worldwide. And we’re hiring as fast as we can. That includes sales and marketing but the heaviest hiring is being done in professional services and development. We’ve added over 600 and are on track to adding 1,000 by the end of our fiscal year. That [partly makes up for] attrition, but net, we’ll have added people this year.

How quickly do you want to grow the company, and how do you plan to get there?

Qureshi: Over the past 12 months, we’ve had about US$860 million in revenue, and we’ve got 20,000 customers. We have a goal to roughly double in about five years.

Now, I’ll also give a caveat. I’m not hung up on doubling. The point is, it’s a vector. Some of it will be done through organic growth and the other part through acquisitions.

We want to be a global leader in the midmarket in each segment we serve: manufacturing, retail, distribution and services. Within those there are key verticals. We expect SaaS [software as service] to become a big part of what we do. The [SaaS] revenue right now is Printed with GIT cartridges

very small. Product-wise, we’re already there.

A private equity firm bought Epicor and Activant and merged the companies. What benefits have you gained by going private?

The time horizons are longer. Don’t get me wrong, we’re still focused on hitting quarterly numbers and annual numbers.

But there isn’t the intense, “I’m going to worry about every penny per share.”

There is an intense focus on, how can I make this company a better asset, so five years from now or whenever there is an exit, the value of the firm is higher so we provide a better return. My job is to make this company more valuable as an asset than it is today.

Private-equity firms often look to extract cash from their portfolios.

Given this, how can customers be assured that you can deliver a long-term road map without making compromises?

I think history is the best assurance.

When I ran Activant, it was owned by two private-equity firms. Neither of them extracted cash during the period they held us.

Can you talk about your longerterm SaaS strategy?

The area where we push SaaS explicitly is on the low end [with Epicor Express].

We’ve just done that in the Americas and we’re launching it in EMEA and APAC in the next few months. We have just under 200 customers on that today.

The plan is always to go upmarket.

It’s always been our plan to offer the Epicor platform, whether standard or enterprise edition, in a SaaS format.

Epicor Express is a way of testing our readiness from a hosting center perspective, being able to support the product, pricing and packaging. It’s all about seeing how it works.

If today, a customer wants [other Epicor editions] today in a SaaS deployment, we’ll make that available for them. But we’re not pushing it today.

CNME: Epicor has embraced Microsoft’s development

technology stack and is also planning to extensively use its Azure cloud service, yet you also compete with the company’s Dynamics ERP products.

Recognise that when you’re talking to large companies, don’t think of them as monolithic. With Microsoft, there’s the infrastructure side of the house and there’s the application side of the house.

Our relationship is very close and based on mutual credibility. They value our input, because we do use their stack in a deep way. That’s true as far as road maps and specific features.

Some Epicor products are based on infrastructure software from Progress. Is the goal for Epicor over time to get to one technology stack?

We have a very good relationship with Progress. Literally thousands of customers across the company use either the Progress database or the tools and I expect that’s going to continue for a long time. While we’re going to continue to be a good partner and developer with Progress I think it’s fair to say we’re going to be strengthening the stack [relationship] with Microsoft as well.

What are your plans for enabling customers to run Epicor software on other public cloud services besides Azure?

Over time, I think people will be able to pick which infrastructure they want to go with in terms of the cloud. We want to make sure we get it right. We’ll start with Express, make it available more broadly, and make [a SaaS] option available more broadly for other editions. Then we’ll look to Azure for solving a lot of sort of high-volume deployments. Then after that, if we need to go to other infrastructure platforms, we’ll go there. Right now the focus is, let’s get it right on Azure.

Let’s talk about a perennial topic that remains relevant for most ERP customers: annual software maintenance payments.

What’s your view of third-party maintenance for ERP, which some companies provide at lower cost?

Pervez Qureshi, CEO, Epicor

There are people that do that. Sometimes they can be at a disadvantage, because they don’t have access to source code.

They tend to be more cottage. They may have specific expertise, and if they do so, that’s fine too.

How are you giving customers value for their maintenance dollars?

When you sell ERP systems, let’s just be very clear. They are complex systems and they’re not simple to implement. Salespeople that say it’s all seamless, it’s all easy, and all this other stuff, it just isn’t. It’s very, very difficult.

We’re not selling toothpaste or a gallon of milk.

People don’t want to change ERP systems. It touches every part of your company. So when you do change you do it because you have a compelling business reason.

When you install it, it is complex.

You will be calling us from time to time on all sorts of things. We are your partner. That’s the value you get from maintenance. Some of it is just help.

Half the calls we get are things where people can look it up, but sometimes it’s easier to call than figure it out. Other times it’s a bug in the system. Third, we’re continuously adding capabilities.

When somebody buys a system, they’ll have it for 10 years, 15 years before they switch it. It’s a long-term relationship.

Maintenance services costs can add up but it’s a relatively small price to pay, given the complexity of the software, the workflow, the tools, and knowing they’re going to be continually enhanced.

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