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NEWS
IBM OPENS SOC IN SAUDI ARABIA
IBM Security has announced the official opening of its first Security Operations Center in Saudi Arabia and the region to provide managed security services to private and government sector customers. Through the center, IBM will offer clients in Saudi
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Arabia the option of managing their security operations around-the-clock, via IBM staff and local infrastructure.
Located in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia,
Franz Hero, SAP
SAP and Microsoft have announced an expanded partnership to enable customers to design and operate intelligent digital supply chain and
Industry 4.0 solutions in the cloud and at the edge. The partnership, which includes a collaborative approach to standards, consortia, and open source, will shape the future of supply chain and manufacturing. As a result of this partnership, organisations will be able to use a comprehensive set of SAP Digital Supply Chain solutions on Microsoft Azure, including SAP solutions for digital manufacturing, SAP Intelligent Asset Management solutions, SAP Integrated Business Planning, and SAP Logistics Business Network. ”SAP is excited to bring our proven and innovative solutions to Microsoft Azure for our manufacturing and digital the key areas of focus for the new studied $6.53 million per breach on
Security Operations Center are average, which is higher than the global supporting clients in responding to average of $3.86 million per breach. cybersecurity incidents and helping IBM Managed Security Services them proactively manage emerging manages more than 150 billion security threats through real-time analysis and events on average daily. It brings early warning notification of security together the power and integration of events. The center also provides local proprietary and third-party machine data residency designed to support learning and AI to help customers reduce clients’ preferences and regulatory incident fatigue, perform triage quickly requirements. and manage what matters most to
IBM Security analysts and experts clients. With many organizations today will help clients with expedited incident navigating complex environments, IBM’s investigations and remediation plans. managed security services are built
According to a recent IBM study for scale and efficiency to help protect examining the financial impact of data hybrid cloud environments. breaches on organisations in Saudi “The launch of IBM’s Security
Arabia, incidents cost companies Operations Center in Saudi Arabia is a critical investment in helping our clients not only respond to the everincreasing cybersecurity incidents but provide them with local data residency designed to support their preferences and industry requirements,” said Hossam Seif El-Din, General Manager, IBM Middle East and Pakistan. “We are seeing a lot of new threat actors looking to take advantage of the confusion and uncertainty surrounding COVID-19. Therefore, we are also looking to use the new SOC to drive education and awareness to help clients defend themselves from potential threats.”
Amidst the COVID-19 health crisis, the rapid shift to a remote workforce alongside a corresponding increase in attacks by cybercriminals capitalising on uncertainty have combined to create unparalleled cybersecurity challenges for organisations across the globe. According to IBM Security X-Force, there was a 40% increase in security incidents in 1Q 2020 globally compared to the same quarter in 2019. In the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region, one of the first regions to be hit hard by the virus, incident response
SAP AND MICROSOFT TO RUN SUPPLY CHAIN AND INDUSTRY 4.0 IN THE CLOUD
rose 125% in the same timeframe. supply chain customers,” said Franz Hero, SAP Senior Vice President for Digital Supply Chain Solutions. “This partnership gives our customers the ability to subscribe to our digital supply chain and manufacturing solutions in the cloud and enhances our offerings for Industry 4.0. Building on this, SAP solutions will soon be available at the edge in factories, plants, and automated warehouses in close proximity to sensors, machines, and control systems.”
SAP has announced new tools, updates, and services for making developers’ lives easier, regardless of skill level or job focus. These new offerings include low-code/no-code tools, a free tier model for SAP Cloud Platform, exclusive free learning opportunities and further updates to SAP Business Technology Platform.
LENOVO DATA CENTER GROUP DELIVERS NEW DATA MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
Lenovo Data Center Group (DCG) has recently announced new end-to-end data management solutions allowing customers of all sizes to harness data more securely and efficiently, from edge to core to cloud, with a single set of tools and capabilities for a smarter way forward.
The new Lenovo ThinkSystem
DM5100F brings high-performance, low-latency all-NVMe storage at an affordable price point, enabling customers of all sizes to enhance analytics and AI deployments, while accelerating applications’ access to data. The Lenovo DM Series storage systems now include new S3 Object support, to create a next generation unified data management platform.
This platform allows customers to manage and analyse all data types (block, file and object) within a single storage platform, accelerating the processing of data analytics while reducing infrastructure costs. These enhancements create expanded data protection capabilities, with transparent failover and management of object storage natively. Additionally, with Lenovo DM Series storage, customers can add cold-data tiering from hard drives to the cloud, or replicate data to the cloud. This enables an economical multi-cloud strategy for storage, reducing the overall cost of data management.
“Data-driven decision-making is a key tool that can help enterprises fuel progress and advance their overall operations,” said Dr Chris Cooper,
Director and General Manager,
Lenovo Data Centre Group MEA.
“By leveraging Lenovo’s unified hybrid cloud data management system, customers can gain insights,
Dr Chris Cooper, Lenovo Data Centre Group MEA
crucial information and AI-backed predictions to enhance their services and maintain their growth on an upward trajectory.”
To help mitigate data management costs, Lenovo delivers an enhanced Lenovo ThinkSystem Intelligent Monitoring 2.0 software solution, a cloud-based management platform that uses AI to simplify and automate the care and optimisation of Lenovo’s ThinkSystem storage environment. Customers can monitor and manage storage capacity and performance for multiple locations from a single cloud-based interface, predict issues before they happen, and receive prescriptive guidance.
To further accelerate the performance of customers’ applications, Lenovo has announced the new Lenovo DB720S Fibre Channel Switch. This switch provides 32Gbps and 64Gbps storage networking, delivering higher speed and 50 percent lower latency than previous generations. The DB720S delivers autonomous SAN infrastructure with self-learning, self-optimising, and self-healing capabilities, leading to reduced downtime and simplified storage network management.
The firm’s data management portfolio, including the DM Series storage solutions, are available through Lenovo TruScale Infrastructure Services. Additionally, Lenovo and SAP recently announced a new OPEX private-cloud service, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud, Customer Edition also available through Lenovo TruScale.
MILESTONE LAUNCHES NEW EDITION OF MARKETPLACE
Milestone has launched its new edition of Milestone Marketplace, which helps buyers not only find the complementary hardware and software functionality but also explore solution services when building best-of-breed video management solutions
The vendor says Milestone
Marketplace is empowering businesses to explore the unmatched possibilities of video solutions, relevant to companies looking for a new video solution and for INFOR HELPS MANUFACTURERS IN THE MIDDLE EAST PREPARE FOR INDUSTRY 4.0 With the Middle East’s manufacturing sector roiled by demographic shifts, changing customer profiles, and the proliferation of digital devices and apps, Infor will shine a light on how manufacturers in the region can embrace digital transformation and prosper amid the 4th Industrial Revolution.
Speaking at Industry 4.0 Middle East Virtual Confex on December 15, Andrew Kinder, Infor’s SVP for international strategy & sales support, discussed the many opportunities open to Middle East manufacturers who are able to devise, implement, and execute the right digital transformation strategies.
To modernise the industrial sector, many countries in the Middle East are pursuing sector-specific development plans as part existing users of Milestone XProtect looking to enhance the solution’s functionality. In addition to verified hardware and software, the new release of Milestone Marketplace also holds solution services with a total of more than 500 options to choose from. The global digital platform includes powerful technologies, like artificial intelligence, augmented reality, video analytics, GIS and GPS along with combined solutions tailormade to meet several business challenges. The partners behind this are all part of the Milestone Community, ready to help businesses use video solutions to solve new challenges.
Milestone Marketplace allows buyers access to a vast catalog of Milestone Systems XProtect-compatible software, hardware and solution services, as well as recommendations and guidance on how to solve specific challenges. Moreover, buyers can filter through a of their national transformation initiatives. The disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and the fact that Khaled Al Shami, Infor 75% of the Middle East population is either Millennials or Gen Z, is accelerating the pace of change, according to a recent report from IDC.
While 76% of manufacturers in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa region are already engaged in, or soon to start, a formal digital transformation program, it is important that they avoid common pitfalls and follow the correct steps when planning and implementing their DX plans to achieve the optimal results, according to IDC.
Infor is already working with major companies including manufacturers on their digital transformation plans in the Middle East. For example, Saudi Bugshan Barmaja, a major diversified business group in Saudi Arabia, is digitally transforming its businesses in its home network of trusted Milestone integration partners to find the best fit for their business across the globe. Customer cases, documentation, implementation guides and demos are just some of the elements made available by the partners using Milestone Marketplace to allow customers to explore solutions available to them.
“Since we first introduced Milestone Marketplace in 2019, we’ve been working to extend the experience for both customers and partners when searching for and creating XProtect-compatible solutions. With this version, we’ve onboarded integrators as a new partner type, improved the search functionality, and added use categories to name but a few, all with the aim to offer a futureproof platform open to integrating with innovation from around the world,” said Chief Sales & Marketing Officer Kenneth
Hune Petersen, Milestone Systems. market and overseas with a new suite of Infor solutions. The company, which has 30 businesses spread across 10 countries and is involved in diverse sectors including fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), automotive, healthcare, education, and real estate, is deploying a suite based around Infor LN to provide a single integrated digital platform. Saudi Bugshan aims to digitally transform and automate key business functions including human capital management, customer relationship management, finance, procurement, warehouse, and supply chain management.
Khaled Al Shami, Infor’s director of solution consulting for the Middle East & Africa, said, “Manufacturers of all types in the Middle East can reap huge benefits from the 4th Industrial Revolution if they embrace change and digitally transform with the right strategy and the best digital solutions. Attendees at Industry 4.0 Middle East will have the opportunity to learn more about strategies to succeed in these fastchanging times, and how Infor solutions can automate, digitise, and future-proof their processes and operations.”
Saudi Aramco Development Company, a subsidiary of Aramco, has announced that it has teamed up with Google Cloud to offer highperformance, low-latency cloud services to enterprise customers in Saudi Arabia.
The Kingdom is being added to the global network of Google Cloud Platform regions, as part of a strategic alliance agreement signed between the Company and Google Cloud this month. Google Cloud will establish and operate a new cloud region in Saudi Arabia, while a new company will be formed following all required regulatory clearances to supply cloud solutions and services to enterprise customers, with an emphasis on businesses inside Saudi Arabia.
This new cloud region will allow organisations nationwide to grow and scale their offerings, while delivering digital products and services faster and more reliably. The collaboration taps OEG LLC, an industrial learning platform software and content provider that enables companies to build, maintain and evolve learning resources specific to their industry and operations, has announced a significant new strategic learning partnership with AVEVA, a global player in engineering and industrial software.
The partnership will integrate OEG’s 3D advanced, remote learning content into the AVEVA Unified Learning offering to optimise and ensure remote operator safety and efficiency, which has become particularly important for industrial organisations during the current global pandemic.
AVEVA Unified Learning delivers engaging off-the-shelf and customer training programs for industrial operators, bringing together the latest technologies with sound instructional design to deliver competency-based experiential learning, into rapidly expanding cloud services demand in Saudi Arabia, which is forecasted to reach a market opportunity up to $10 billion by 2030. Increased dependence on online services during the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the shift toward digital solutions. The rollout of Google Cloud services and infrastructure in Saudi Arabia will deliver robust, reliable and agile solutions to meet growing demand for IT and cloud services.
Aramco Senior Vice President of Technical Services, Ahmad Al Sa’adi, said, “We live in a world driven by data, and it is essential that companies not only have secure infrastructure to protect enterprise data, but also the tools that empowering operators to perform better in less time. The OEG content will be used in conjunction with AVEVA’s Learning Management System and high-fidelity Operator Training Simulators to provide a library of on-demand, cloud-based, experiential courses for industrial customers to enhance the training of process operators.
“The OEG Knowledge Library will enhance AVEVA Unified Learning with rich, purpose-built content for basic process operator training, as well as reduce learning time and improve knowledge retention to enable our customers to build and sustain workforce competence,” said Ravi Gopinath, Chief Cloud Officer and Chief Product Officer, AVEVA.
Today’s workforce is increasingly preferring to learn in an on-demand, self-paced manner versus a traditional classroom environment. This trend, enable them to make the best use of it. Bringing Google Cloud to Saudi Arabia will deliver significant benefits, both now and in the future, and we are grateful to the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology for supporting this initiative. The future of Saudi Arabia’s business transformation and growth depends on its ability to successfully leverage cloud services.”
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said, “We are committed to helping businesses modernise and accelerate their digital transformations with Google Cloud. With this agreement, Google Cloud’s innovative technology and solutions will be available to global customers and enterprises in Saudi Arabia to enable them to better serve end consumers.”
Google Cloud offers its customers multiple solutions, including artificial intelligence, smart analytics, data management, security, infrastructure and application modernisation. It delivers these services globally while matching 100 percent of the energy used to power its
AVEVA PARTNERS WITH OEG FOR 3D CLOUD-BASED VIRTUAL TRAINING
operations with renewable energy.
Ravi Gopinath, AVEVA
fueled by the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, is driving a shift in the training strategies of process manufacturing companies as more and more opt for a virtual environment.
Ted Davis, President and CEO of OEG, added, “We are thrilled to partner with AVEVA to become part of the AVEVA Unified learning solution. This partnership will accelerate our fundamental mission, to bring life-like, immersive content to enhance learner engagement, enjoyment, retention and facilitate greater efficacy in adult learning to the process industries.”
LULU JOINS HANDS WITH EMPAY FOR CONTACTLESS PAYMENT
Regional hypermarket and supermarket chain Lulu Group has become the first major retailers to sign up on Empay, the world’s first contactless lifestyle payment ecosystem with instant credit. Empay, designed and developed within the UAE’s Smart Government program framework, is a payment application for secure and cashless transactions.
The agreement was signed at Department of Economic Development, Dubai between
Ali Ibrahim, Chairman, Empay and Salim
MA, Director of Lulu Group in the presence of H.E. Sami Al Qamzi, Director General of
Department of Economic Development;
James K Varghese, Director of Lulu Group
International, Muna Al Qassab, CEO Empay and Gigi George Koshy, Deputy CEO and
CPO of Empay.
Lulu Customers can now use the payment platform for safe and contactless Amazon has announced the launch of Amazon Payment Services, a payment processing service in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region with a mission to empower businesses with simple, affordable, and trusted online payment experiences. The newly launched Amazon Payment Services provides secure online payment services that are easyto-use, leveraging Amazon scalable and reliable technologies.
Established in 2013 as one of the first Fintech companies in the region, PAYFORT has gained a deep understanding of businesses’ needs across the region. In 2017, Amazon acquired PAYFORT as part of the Souq Group acquisition. Since then, the focus has been on integrating PAYFORT and Amazon offerings to provide businesses with a convenient and trusted service. Tap and Go payments while shopping at all of Lulu’s 250 plus stores worldwide. Apart from Tap and Go, users can also make various in-app payments like government payments, online food ordering, education payments, utility bill payments and so much more. In addition to this, Empay will provide instant credit facility to people who are in need of funds for making various payments without having to visit banks and complete long formalities and paperwork.
The partnership will set the course for the new age shopping and payment. Empay will also have exciting offers and deals for Lulu shoppers in the days
With the launch of Amazon Payment Services, businesses that use the service will continue to have access to a range of payment services that enables them to accept online payments using both global and local payment methods, offer installments to the customers to make purchases affordable for their customers, and monitor payment performance round the clock. As of today, PAYFORT is Amazon Payment Services.
Omar Soudodi, Managing Director, Amazon Payment Services, said, “This launch marks another key milestone in Amazon’s promise to build the future of digital payments in the region, empowering businesses to provide user-friendly payment experience for their end-users. We listened to businesses across a broad range of industries to continue improving our offering. Amazon Payment Services is a natural next step in our journey, focusing on four fundamental pillars of trust, convenience, selection and pricing, underpinned by a bestin-class experience focused on reliability, to come. The UAE residents can freely download the super app from Google Play store or iOS App store, register in just two minutes and avail a Master Card powered Digital card within the app.
Ali Ibrahim, Deputy Director General of Dubai Economy and Chairman of Empay, said, “It’s our honour to announce a compatible partnership of Empay with the biggest retail chain in the region – Lulu Group. Our multi-faceted, cashless and secure payment system to build a convenient and safe platform for reaching a larger diaspora of audience. We now bring Lulu to your fingertips”.
Muna Al Qassab, Chief Executive Officer at Empay, said, “Empay prides in signing a great opportunity with the most prestigious retail chain in our region – Lulu, such that we are able to cater to a larger audience that enjoy buying groceries, purchasing products and much more with just a tap of the button. Lulu shopping is now simple, smart, fast
and secure”. scale and operational excellence.”
The new service processes transactions for thousands of businesses across multiple industries, ranging from aviation to travel and tourism, retail, insurance, real estate, government, and more. With such a diverse customer base, it has built strong expertise that supports businesses at every scale, from small and medium enterprises (SMEs) looking to establish their online presence to large-scale enterprises requiring a dependable payment service to handle high volumes of transactions safely.
Amazon Payment Services also has a wide range of partners, including leading banks such as RAKBANK, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), Mashreq, The Saudi British Bank (SABB), Al Rajhi Bank, Riyad Bank and National Commercial Bank (NCB). Partners also include local card schemes such as MADA, and Meeza, and international card schemes such as Visa, and MasterCard.
New businesses using Amazon Payment Services, will be able to easily accept online payments by choosing from selection of services that fit their customer needs and access rich content to help them with their digital transformation.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE HELPS AFRICAN FARMERS FIGHT LOCUSTS
Afree tool that will help farmers and pastoralists across Africa to predict and control locust behaviour has been launched. Kuzi—the Swahili name for the wattled starling, a bird renowned for eating locusts—is an AI-powered tool that generates a real-time heatmap of locusts across Africa, shows all potential migration routes, and gives a real-time locust breeding index.
Using satellite data, soil sensor data, ground meteorological observation, and machine learning, Kuzi can predict the breeding, occurrence and migration routes of desert locusts across the horn of African stc Group said that it intends to establish a premier digital hub for the MENA region, in cooperation with regional and international partners. This is expected to create an ecosystem of advanced technology services that will establish Saudi Arabia as a leading business hub in the region, and meet the expected future growth in services and investments in the ICT sector. This will be achieved by taking advantage of the Kingdom’s strategic location at the intersection of three continents’, and promoting investment in international connectivity services and data centers to leverage the Group’s various assets, services, and advanced technologies. A number of next generation multi-terabit cables are currently in the planning stages to meet the very high cloud and content demands predicted in the future, and the first of those to come to the region will land with stc.
Existing assets, which stc will bring to this initiative, include its extensive international and Eastern African countries, and uses deep learning to identify the formation of locust swarms. Kuzi then sends farmers and pastoralists free SMS alerts 2-3 months in advance of when locusts are highly likely to attack farms and livestock in their areas.
Without preventative measures, a swarm of 80 million locusts can consume food equivalent to that eaten by 35,000 people a day, devastating food stocks for vulnerable communities. Putting in place early detection and control measures, which are critical in desert locust management, will offer farmers and pastoralists a vital tool in the fight against world hunger and food insecurity.
Alerts are currently available for Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Uganda, in submarine cable network, which already offers the highest connectivity to the world for the region. This is achieved through stc’s investment in a state of the art optical mesh, which ensures continuous service availability in the event of any cable outages by offering low latency to Europe from the Red Sea, and from the Gulf, and by leveraging the terrestrial cross border network. stc’s optical terrestrial network connects to all neighbouring countries, allowing it to offer faster connectivity to customers in many countries than they can achieve through the submarine cables.
The Group’s future investments are expected to strengthen Saudi Arabia’s position as the natural home for the region’s digital services. The Kingdom has an enviable combination of infrastructure assets today, making it the first among G20 countries in terms of digital competitiveness during the past 30 years, according to a report by the European Center for Digital Competitiveness, which is based on the report of the World the regional languages of Kiswahili, Somali and Amharic, spoken by over 200 million people across Eastern Africa.
“The first international anti-locust conference was held in Rome in 1931 and yet Africa continues to experience locust invasions almost 100 years later, with the worst locust invasion in 70 years occurring in 2020, threatening food supplies for millions of people across Eastern Africa. There has to be a better way to do this, one that has the local communities being central in the fight against locusts,” said John Oroko, CEO of Kuzi’s creator, Selina Wamucii.
“A new wave of locust upsurge now threatens millions across Eastern and Southern Africa, exacerbating food insecurity for already vulnerable communities, amidst the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. We have a responsibility to develop and deploy locally bred solutions that address these challenges faced by our vulnerable rural
communities,” added Oroko. Economic Forum, in line with Vision 2030 which is the country’s roadmap to becoming a hub connecting the three continents for multiple sectors. This world class digital ecosystem could achieve this goal and turn this vision into reality. stc Group is a primary investor partner of the 2Africa submarine cable project, which will deliver very high-capacity interconnectivity between the three continents. The Group will land this submarine cable in the Red Sea, and will extend it into the Gulf, linking multiple countries. It will also will facilitate multiterabit connection to the North West region of Saudi Arabia, in support of the Kingdom’s ambitious plans for Neom project, and onwards to Jordan.
