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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
Introducing: Aptec - an Ingram Micro Company Dr. Ali Baghdadi, founder and CEO of Aptec, today formerly announced that Ingram Micro, one of the largest technology distributors across the globe has successfully acquired Dubai- based prominent value added distributor, Aptec Holdings. At a press conference at GITEX Technology Week today, Dr. Baghdadi confirmed the acquisition saying the new entity will be listed under the name; , Aptec – an Ingram Micro Company. Through this acquisition, the large technology distributor has taken its first steps into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region and will leverage Aptec’s strength in the value added services space in addition to its extensive channel relationships to further expand its footprint across the region. “We are excited to make this announcement. This is our testament to the region, to bring leading solutions that are relevant to the needs of enterprises across the region. As always we will continue to work closely with both our vendor and channel partners to effectively extend leading
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Dr. Ali Baghdadi, founder and CEO of Aptec solutions and services across the 73 countries we will now serve as , Aptec – an Ingram Micro Company, including the Middle East, Africa, Levant and the Mediterranean,” said Dr. Baghdadi. Following the last announcement, Dr. Baghdadi confirmed that he will lead the acquired operations reporting to Shailendra Gupta,
Senior Executive VP and President, Ingram Micro Asia-Pacific. “The acquisition of Aptec fits well with our strategic objectives to continue to build our higher margin specialty businesses while broadening our geographic reach to capitalise on higher growth 4 CONTINUED ON PAGE 3
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Introducing: Aptec... markets,” said Alain Monié, president and CEO of Ingram Micro Inc. “The Middle East and Africa are robust and growing markets with total IT spending projected to reach $80 billion by 2015. Aptec has been highly effective in growing their business and enhancing profitability in these emerging markets and we believe this combination will further accelerate these ongoing objectives. Aptec has a long-tenured, accomplished leadership team and we look forward to joining forces with them.” The press conference by key executive members of, Aptec – an Ingram Micro Company such as Bahaa Salah, MD, Aptec – an Ingram Micro Company in addition to infusions from Ingram Micro’s various operations across the world such as Philip Cheok, who has been appointed CFO of the entity, Aptec – an Ingram Micro Company.
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ADSIC wows GITEX
Abu Dhabi is drawing strong approval from the global information and communications technology (ICT) community for its ongoing initiatives to transform itself to a genuinely digital society. Catching the global spotlight is a special Stand at the venue’s Sheikh Saeed Halls near the Government pavilion where the Abu Dhabi Systems and Information Centre (ADSIC), the government body responsible for local ICT development, is showcasing Abu Dhabi’s cutting-edge, ICT-enabled
public services. Among the highprofile officials who graced the stand yesterday at the opening day of GITEX 2012 were H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the UAE’s Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, and H.H. Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai. Both prominent figures commended ADSIC for its outstanding work in enabling the modernization of government services via information technology.
“It is an honor to both receive such a high level of admiration from the world’s best ICT practitioners, experts and decision makers and feel the genuine respect towards Abu Dhabi’s ICT maturity given by no less than some of this country’s great leaders. The ADSIC team will definitely draw on the overwhelming positive results of its participation in GITEX 2012 to continue taking Abu Dhabi’s ICT growth to the next level,” said H.E. Rashed Lahej Al Mansoori, Director General, Abu Dhabi Systems & Information Centre. ADSIC is holding a series of presentations at GITEX 2012 explaining the core e-services it offers to government and private entities. The Centre is particularly focusing on the Abudhabi.ae e-Government Portal; the 24/7 Abu Dhabi Government Contact Centre (800 555); the jobs. abudhabi.ae online job search platform; and the Abu Dhabi Spatial Data Infrastructure (ADSDI) geospatial data sharing initiative.
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Advansoft unveils new line of innovative apps for smartphones
Web technology solution provider, Advansoft, has announced the launch of 7 innovative smartphones Apps and applications at GITEX. The new products cover a wide range of sectors including
transportation, banking, education, shopping and fashion & beauty. The Book a Cab application will permit customers to enjoy a hassle-free taxi booking experience; CityBus is an official
map of bus routes and arriving time at each station; Traffic Flow will enable users to make smarter driving decisions through its accurate real time traffic information and suggestions; MobiBank offers a wide range of information and services to make mobile banking convenient for customers; MeUniversity will facilitate students’ interaction with the administration and provide campus news, activities and updated maps; My Style is an online store providing the latest fashion apparels and the status of their availability to be comfortably purchased from the mobile; Beauty Consultant is a helpful application for women to get assistance in acquiring cosmetics through a live
SAP makes GITEX debut
Sam Alkharrat, Managing Director, SAP SAP announced itself at GITEX for the first time ever this week, claiming it was “high time” it started demonstrating its commitment to the MENA region. The company said it was it a dream come true to finally be exhibiting at the event, but it hadn’t had enough regional presence in the past to be able to attend. “We should have been here years ago, this really is a dream
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come true, GITEX is unquestionably the biggest technology event in the region,” said Sam Alkharrat, Managing Director, SAP. “We can finally show our customers what we’re about here, in person. We’re surrounded by our partners too, which is excellent.” SAP has approached the event to discuss, among other things, the trending topics, such as big data
and mobility. Alkharrat said that data growth will never end, and that the key for businesses is to accept it and use it positively. Using the SAP invented HANA in-memory tool, businesses can consolidate their unsecured and untapped data immediately to gain analytics, information and understanding of energy use. SAP is currently working with a number of large companies using HANA, including the McLaren race team. “HANA is revolutionary, it gives business leaders and decision makers information and data that they would never have otherwise.” “Data growth, in regards to user generated content, will just continue to grow. It won’t stop. With this, we need to accept it and see how we can take advantage of the data available.” Sam Alkharrat also claimed that SAP would be making a very exciting announcement for Middle East customers early next month at its event in Madrid.
consultancy on skin type, makeup tutorials and articles to be purchased. Including a considerable portfolio of clients, Advansoft has been developing applications for the past years and is maintaining ongoing efforts to consolidate its position as a leading digital and applications developer in the Middle East. Advansoft is the official developer of the Apple iOS system that provides services of developing applications for iPhones, iPads, Android mobile phones, BlackBerry and Windows. Advansoft also offers E-commerce solutions, Internet Solutions, Content Management Systems, Design and Interactive Media.
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“ We are taking part in GITEX as it is the only technology tradeshow in the region specifically designed to encourage interaction among vendors and prospective customers.”
Anish Kanaran, regional director for Epicor in the Middle East.
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Not preparing for BYOD will lead to “anarchy”: Alcatel-Lucent Organisations that allow their staff to bring their own device but don’t prepare their IT environments adequately are opening themselves up for “anarchy.” This according to Jan Zuurbier, VP, Global Sales and Marketing, Alcatel Lucent. “If they are not prepared, hacking is the logical conclusion of that. But also, if you don’t plan for this, customer service will go down because you will not be reaching their expectations,” Zuurbier said. Alcatel Lucent is exhibiting this week at GITEX under the main theme of BYOD (bring your own device). It also gives the BYOD acronym a new meaning by calling it build your own destiny.
“The reason is because we see BYOD as a symptom, rather than a trend in itself. It is a different way of consuming IT and IT services. The overriding trend we see is cloud, whilst BYOD is just one of the symptoms of people moving to a different way of consuming IT and IT services. As a vendor that is very interesting to us because this also changes the requirements from the networks,” Zuurbier said. “The first is that the network needs to understand the user. Then it needs to understand the application that we use and the context. We now have a networking solution that understands the user, application and context. Based upon that we can set priorities
and add value for the CIO,” he added. In terms of benefits, it is the users that get them rather than the CIOs, but still very important to CIOs nonetheless, according to Zuurbier. “It is just a headache for CIOs because for a lot of them it is actually pushing them into the area of always saying no because they are afraid for the safety, security and viability of the network. For a number of CIOs, it also drives up the capacity in the network to a number that nobody expected,” he said. Alcatel Lucent research into the number of devices that people want to bring to work found that on average that number is three, of which two are not supplied by the company.
Kaspersky notes leap in cyber security demand Kaspersky Lab has observed a 21% growth in demand for cyber security this year compared to 2011. Tarek Kuzbari, Managing Director ME, Kaspersky Lab, revealed the figure for its B2B customers taken from the first three quarters of 2012 and compared to the same period in 2011. “This region is very challenging with lots of cyber wars going on between different countries and lots of new malwares we’ve seen,” Kuzbari said. He also alluded to market share
figures of Kaspersky’s business in the Middle East, which now only falls slightly behind market leader Symantec. “If you look at our UAE market share that was published by IDC, right now Kaspersky has a market share of 17.5% in both B2B and B2C products. We are in second place by just 0.1% to Symantec, so we are really looking forward to continuing that growth and to become the market leader,” Kuzbari said.
Tarek Kuzbari, Managing Director ME, Kaspersky Lab “I remember when we started our operation here in 2008 our main message was that we really wanted
“So users expect an environment where this can work,” Zuurbier said. “If you go one step further, in the example of healthcare, education and hospitality, for those people they want to be able to operate whenever they like with the device of their choice. If you want to differentiate yourself as a hospital, university or hotel, you better have a BYOD plan, otherwise you will suffer.” He added that most of the CIOs in the Middle East that Alcatel speaks to realise and recognise the important of BYOD. “They want to know what they need to do to their IT environment to enable this trend. If those guys just wait, they’re going to receive a wave of people that bring devices and they don’t know how to manage it. You need to think one or two steps ahead.” Alcatel Lucent is exhibiting at stand ZB-10 in Zabeel Hall.
to be the market leader in this region and we’re on the right track so far. We’re really strengthening our performance in order to reach a bigger range of customers in different verticals and to grow even more in the region,” he added. Kaspersky is exhibiting in Hall 1 this week present its latest consumer security and antivirus products. “The main feature we have introduced is about safe money to provide the protection for users when they are making online payments. It has some really unique features and is keeping us one step ahead in the market,” Kuzbari said.
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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Collaborating for success
When you are a multinational conglomerate corporation, implementing the latest technologies is not an option – it’s a given. For General Electric, which is listed as the third largest company in the world by the Forbes Global 2000, it is absolutely pivotal to its success. Nobody believes that more than its CIO for the MEA region, Fady Sleiman. And with 300,000 employees worldwide – 4,500 in the 27 countries that Sleiman oversees in GE MENA and Turkey alone – collaboration is naturally at the top of the IT priorities. “GE is very big on collaboration at the moment,” Sleiman says. “It’s a big theme – connecting our employers, customers and suppliers. We’ve been trying to get this out for a few years here, but unfortunately due to the cloudy space of voice over IP, it wasn’t achievable at that time.” With this in mind, last year GE approached its service operator du voicing its eagerness to implement telepresence (TP) in its MEA headquarters in Dubai. “We wanted a system that was an expensive piece of kit but brought huge amounts of benefits with regards to collaboration. We’re talking about a tool that our senior Printed with GIT cartridges
executives could use so they don’t have to travel for a day or two day meeting,” Sleiman says. GE’s driving objective in the project was to keep its leadership local. As a multinational organisation headquartered in the USA and with other important offices in Europe and Asia, GE wanted to significantly reduce the travel (and subsequent costs) that its senior executives from this region required to keep connected with its key global offices. “To enable us, we looked at what collaboration technologies are. We worked with du finding out how we could overcome any issues from the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA). We stuck in a point-to-point MPLS connection and connected that back to our UK data centre,” Sleiman says. He adds that what made building the solution more complicated was GE’s way of operating with a global infrastructure services (GIS) group that takes control of all infrastructure in any region, meaning there were several teams to collaborate with. “Whenever we want a new circuit or anything like that, these guys come in and implement the projects with the local project managers. We worked with Verizon, du and the GIS
group in order to give us that pointto-point connection,” he says. However, the teams pulled together and managed to achieve the implementation in nine weeks, which Sleiman saw as a fantastic achievement for a project of that size. “It was a great accomplishment,” he says. “The first meeting held was between the CEO and the global operations CEO, so it was a very high profile meeting.” The tool itself is a Cisco 3012 – a large unit made up of three 62” screens that provide a realistic faceto-face experience. With GE already boasting between 500 and 600 of these units globally, the Dubai headquarters can now interact with any of these TP units around the world. “This type of technology is so sophisticated that they don’t even have to press a button. They walk into a room and as soon as the meeting is scheduled to start it will just prop up on a screen and get going,” Sleiman says. GE has now started to deploy six additional units throughout the region to further enhance collaboration. “From an IT prospective we’re trying to take it within this region to another level,” he adds.
When it came to choosing the vendor and solution provider, it was a relatively simple decision for GE. “We chose Cisco because that’s our preferred supplier of telepresence solutions globally. It was a pretty robust process because we have to have a preferred supplier first and we have to vet them. The problem is we find that none of our global service providers can carry both voice and data. Verizon, which is one of GE’s global partners, can only do data, so we had to go local. At the time, du was the only provider operating from this office, so that’s why we chose them,” Sleiman says. “But it turned out to be a good experience. We saw the things we need to see from vendors in pulling out the stops to deliver and execute. In terms of customer experience, we don’t want jitter on the line and we don’t get that much. Then of course it always comes down to costs – we had to think how this large and expensive investment would give value back to the organisation and stakeholders. If we’re spending big, there needs to be a big return on investment,” he adds. As GE’s first TP unit in the MEA region, it was new to both GE’s regional team and du, but the implementation, which went live in April 2011, was seen as a “global success” for the company. “We tend to deliver TP units in anywhere between 12 and 20 weeks, so for us nine weeks was a fantastic result. I’m talking globally, not just locally. It was a really good result. There were a few teething snags at the beginning but they were more due to the configuration of the system. Besides that it was delivered very well,” Sleiman says. “We got our local end-user support team to provide the training to the admins. We also knew there would be a certain group that would use the TP unit more than others so we provided them more training to use the system,” he adds.
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