September 2014

DE LL POSITION E D AGAI N I N GARTN E R M Q FOR UTM

/12

PA G E S 5 6 VOLUME 02 | ISSUE 02 SEPTEMBER 2014 WWW.ENTERPRISECHANNELSMEA.COM

SUNIL PAUL

CO-FOUNDER & COO

RAJU RAMESH

CO-FOUNDER & CEO

RISE OF THE FINESSE

May be a toddler in the peer group but today Finesse is one of the most trusted and committed SIs in the Middle East, Asia and Africa region. /26

False Cover MEA.indd 1

11/09/14 11:01 am

Advts.indd 1

11/09/14 9:44 pm

ESET PARTN E RS WITH CYB E ROAM

/20

PA G E S 5 6 VOLUME 02 | ISSUE 02 SEPTEMBER 2014 WWW.ENTERPRISECHANNELSMEA.COM

ENTERPRISE COMMUNICATION

VIDEO WAY INDIAECM092014

Whichever way you look at it, the sheer scope of video technology and its current application potential is breathtaking /34

DE LL: “TR EAT FROM 30 YEARS OF EXPE R I E NCE” /32

Cover MEA.indd 3

12/09/14 10:32 am

04-HID.indd 1

12-09-2014 14:04:05

EDITORIAL

Course Correction…

S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M

The biggest show for ICT in the Middle East and Africa region Gitex 2014 is just a month away. The vendors and the partners have already started doing the countdown reason being they will have their complete target audience in front of them - talking to them physically for the span of five days.

It is good for both the communities - vendors and the customers to have their face value with each other before they start anything but on the other side it has a slightly different connotation that the market is not so responsive to the communication of the vendors or the partners that they do during rest of the years. It means either the vendors do not put enough efforts to communicate their value or they do undervalue some of the communications mediums available or they are confused. But whatever might be the reason, it does not look healthy.

The nature of entire MEA market is not about experimenting with new solutions rather it is about replication of successes. The enterprises in region want to make blistering progress, which do not allow the scope of experimentation and evaluation, which is time consuming. They really want to see the successful implementation in the region. So there is a clear paucity of communications around the successful implementations in the region. So the vendors should be mindful about this.

Second nature of the region is that it runs on face value. Since the partners are closer to the customers they should be the ultimate judge of the situation and hence they should be given the charge of deciding what to do in this region. There should not be any second thought on this. Some of the vendors do have the practice of directly touch in this region.

Although it is good from the stand point of winning customers’ trust but the actual masons are the partners and the VADs. Even today the vendors control the decision making process in the region as to what and where to invest. They should not treat this region like other regions in the world. They should not be rhetorical at all but understand the market and go as per the need from the feedback of the partners on a time bound manner.

As a responsive media, Enterprise Channels MEA is always there to extend its hands to support the vendors to reach out to their target enterprise customers. For this Gitex 2014 also, we have our own agenda and programme to tap maximum number of visitors and pursue them about taking decision on right solutions' buying. I am hopeful the industry will respond to our efforts. ë

PRINTED BY AL GHURAIR PRINTING & PUBLISHING LLC.

MEA PUBLISHER: SANJIB MOHAPATRA

MASAFI COMPOUND, SATWA, P.O.BOX: 5613, DUBAI, UAE

SUBSCRIPTIONS INFO@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM

COO: TUSHAR SAH00 EDITOR: SANJAY MOHAPATRA sanjay@accentinfomedia.com M: +971 555 119 432 ASSISTANT EDITOR: KARMA NEGI karma@enterprisechannels.com SUB EDITOR: SOUMYA SMITA PRAJNA soumya@accentinfomedia.com REPORTER: MANALI MISRA manali@accentinfomedia.com VISUALIZER: MANAS RANJAN LEAD VISUALIZER: DPR CHOUDHARY DESIGNER: AJAY ARYA

SALES AND ADVERTISING RONAK SAMANTARAY ronak@accentinfomedia.com M: + 971 555 120 490 MARKETING ASSOCIATE VASSILIOS MAFILAS DIVERSIFIED MEDIA CORPORATION vassilios@accentinfomedia.com SOCIAL MARKETING & DIGITAL COMMUNICATION YASOBANT MISHRA yasobant@accentinfomedia.com PRODUCTION & CIRCULATION RICHA SAMANTARAY + 971 529 943 982

I N FO M E DIA PUBLISHED BY ACCENT INFOMEDIA MEA FZ-LLC PO BOX : 500653, DUBAI, UAE 223, BUILDING 9, DUBAI MEDIA CITY, DUBAI, UAE PHONE : +971 (0) 4368 8523 A PUBLICATION LICENSED BY INTERNATIONAL MEDIA PRODUCTION ZONE, DUBAI, UAE @COPYRIGHT 2013 ACCENT INFOMEDIA. ALL 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.

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Edit.indd 5

05

12/09/14 10:45 pm

CONTENTS VOLUME 02 ISSUE 02 SEPTEMBER 2014 W W W. E N T E R P R I S E C H A N N E L S M E A . C O M

2014

COVER STORY

ENTERPRISE COMMUNICATION: VIDEO WAY

Whichever way you look at it, the sheer scope of video technology and its current application potential is breathtaking. /34 INFRASTRUCTURE /32

Treat from 30 Years of Experience

SHAMS HASAN ENTERPRISE MARKETING MANAGER, MIDDLE EAST, DELL

SERVICES /41

Catalyst of MPS Regime MATHIAS MILITZER GENERAL MANAGER, LEXMARK MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

INNOVATIONS /53

NEW XEROX VERSANT 2100 PRESS

With the Xerox Versant 2100 Press, printers can competitively position themselves to win more new jobs and retain repeatable business with numerous workflow options.

FEATURE Power Solution: Gaining Stability /28 After witnessing ups and down for various reasons, UPS market in Middle East & Africa is back on track.

Rise of the Finesse /26

When some people look at market recession as a disaster the wise people look at it as an opportunity. The birth of Finesse is probably out of the wedlock of wisdom and opportunity of investment and onboarding right manpower.

SECURITY CORNER /46

Redefining Security Services FIROSH UMMER EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, GRC SERVICES, PALADION

EDITORIAL::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 05 CHANNEL STREET:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 08 MY VIEWS :::::::::::::::::::: 24, 30, 42, 43, 45, 47 ENTERPRISE SECURITY :::::::::::::::::: 44, 48 GUEST TALK : ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 52

06

Contents.indd 6

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

12/09/14 10:33 am

Advts.indd 3

11/09/14 9:46 pm

CHANNEL

STREET FINESSE GENERATES HIGH REVENUES AS BANKING IN MIDDLE EAST GOES AUTOMATIC

Finesse reports doubling of revenues and growth in business, attributing credits to its Banking Process Automation services. The company provides process automation as a capability service alongwith software application delivery depending on requirements of customers. Banks are additionally given the flexibility to choose to contract only the maker part of transactions or both the maker and checker parts.

Though Finesse is mostly offering these services to banks in the Middle East region, the company is also open to provide some of these services on an offshore basis for cost arbitrage.

RED HAT LAUNCHES ARM PARTNER EARLY ACCESS PROGRAM Red Hat has launched the Red Hat ARM Partner Early Access Program to enhance partner collaboration and facilitate partner-initiated system designs based on the 64-bit capable ARMv8-A architecture that include Red Hat software. The program will be aimed at silicon vendors, independent hardware vendors (IHVs), original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and original design manufacturers (ODMs), and launches with participation and support from several ARM ecosystem leaders.

08

channel street.indd 8

PIERRE-PAUL ALLARD, SVP WORLDWIDE SALES AND PRESIDENT GLOBAL FIELD OPERATIONS, AVAYA

Avaya-HP Agreement to Deliver Business Collaboration Solutions as a Service Avaya and HP Enterprise Services (ES) entered a multi-year agreement to offer cloud-based unified communications and contact center technology, and management solutions for enterprises.

Together, the companies will sell a combined portfolio of Unified Communications-as-a-Service, Contact Center-as-a-Service, and infrastructure modernization services. Combining HP’s expertise in services delivery with Avaya’s strong unified communications and contact center portfolio will create one of the most advanced solutions in the industry, including mobile applications, software, and networking for unified communications and customer experience management. These as-aService solutions will be delivered with the same standard of care that puts Avaya services above industry benchmarks with the added benefit of HP’s industry leading cloud capabilities.

The Avaya-HP agreement addresses growing global demand for comprehensive, secure, reliable business collaboration solutions, delivered as a service. HP ES will resell the as-a-Service offerings and in parallel, Avaya has the benefit of increased scale enabled by HP’s highly flexible deployment models to quickly reach more customers and help simplify and transform business communications. Avaya will also apply its market leading communication and collaboration products to help HP improve the efficiency and performance of its contact center operations. As part of the agreement, the HP ES Business Process Services organization will assume service delivery of a significant portion of Avaya Private Cloud Services (APCS), including a limited transfer of APCS employees and contractors to HP ES. This marks another major step in Avaya’s transformation to a software and services company.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 11:00 am

We’re all geared up!

Visit Us @ GITEX 2014 Hall 2, Stand # D2-1

R

Deliver On

Advts.indd 4

11/09/14 9:46 pm

CHANNEL STREET

Ooredoo Crosses 1 Million Customers in Myanmar Ooredoo has already broken through the one million customer milestone in its newest market of Myanmar, less than three weeks after going live with its services.

H.E. Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, Chairman, Ooredoo Group, revealed the significant achievement in a special ceremony in the capital Nay Pyi Taw, where he thanked the people of Myanmar for their warm welcome, and stressed on the company’s commitment to serving the country.

Since the launch of Ooredoo in Myanmar, the company has seen unprecedented demand for its mobile phone and internet services, with people queuing overnight to purchase a low-cost Ooredoo SIM. The team is striving to deliver up to customers’ expectations, offering crystal clear voice services and fast Internet.

Demonstrating the potential for growth and strong appetite for data services in Myanmar, many customers are using mobile and accessing the internet for the first time.

Ooredoo has invested and installed the world’s first next-generation purely UMTS900 network throughout Myanmar, which will provide fast internet and is primed to enable a smooth transition to a 4G LTE network in the future.

H.E. U Myat Hein, Union Minister of Communications and Information Technology, said: “Over the past few years, the Union Government and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology have worked hard to lay the foundations for the creation of a competitive telecommunications landscape that truly serves our people and we are closer than ever to achieving this.”

“This is truly a historic moment for our country, people, and the telecom sector in Myanmar.

My most heartfelt congratulations to the whole Ooredoo and Ooredoo Myanmar Limited team on your successful launch of Ooredoo service in Myanmar! And I am also glad to see you have kept your launch commitment,” he added.

DU ANNOUNCES DIVIDEND OF AED 0.12 PER SHARE AT OGM Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (“du”) held its Ordinary General Meeting (OGM) at which the Shareholders approved the proposed interim dividend. Strong performance in revenue during the first six months of 2014 led to the Board proposing an interim dividend of 0.12 fils per share, an amount that was approved by Shareholders during the OGM meeting.

Shareholders who are registered in the company sharebook on Thursday 4th September 2014 will be entitled to receive the interim dividend. du’s robust fundamentals were presented for Q2 2014 demonstrating to an uptick in Fixed revenue of 30% as well as a 10% rise in Mobile revenue, fuelled by an increase in Post Paid customers. As such, for the first time revenues exceeded AED 3 billion in Q2 2014, a 13.7% increase on the second quarter of 2013.

ALLIED TELESIS TO CONDUCT REGIONAL ROADSHOWS Allied Telesis has teamed up with its authoriseddistributor, Specialist Computer Distribution (SCD) to conduct a series of roadshows for its channel partners, starting August 19th, 2014.

The countries that are covered for the roadshow are Qatar, Oman, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Pakistan Since it started its operation in the Middle East four years ago, Allied Telesis has emerged as one of the fastest growing networking companies in the region. State of the art Japanese technology allows the company to offer products with technical superiority, flexibility, and cost effectiveness. The company has outgrown its competition on several counts, and today it is one of the most preferred names in the business. “Over the years we have witnessed remarkable growth and today demand from large enterprises, big organisations, and government is growing at a great pace. This has led us to be the leaders in certain segment such as IP video surveillanceacross the region.

To manage this growth effectively, we have been rapidly expanding our reach and these roadshows intend to further enhance our channel base,” said Sabbahuddin Khan, Regional Manager at Allied Telesis Middle East.

Imtiaz Ghani, General Manager at Specialist Computer Distribution, said, “With Allied Telesis we share the same philosophy to enable and empower a channel that enhances the confidence and capabilities of our partners.”

NETWRIX PARTNERS WITH BULWARK Netwrix Corporation has expandedits presence in the Middle East by partnering with Bulwark Technologies LLC. Headquartered in Dubai, Bulwark Technologies will now deliver complete visibility into all IT infrastructures by presenting Netwrix Auditor to the UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.

10

channel street.indd 10

Bulwark Technologies’ extensive network of more than 250 partners and system integrators will provide on-hands support for partners and customers in the region. Their group of trained personnel will be able to help with any queries, demonstrations, or installations of Netwrix solutions. Resellers and system integrators are encouraged

JOSE THOMAS, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF BULWARK TECHNOLOGIES

to get in touch with Bulwark specialists for training programs and live demonstrations.

Jose Thomas, Managing Director of Bulwark Technologies, said, “The solutions provided by Netwrix are efficient, easy-touse, and have an attractive price point—all of which are beneficial to our end customers.”

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 11:00 am

Lexmark connects people, processes and information.

Lexmark connects unstructured information - paper and digital- with the people and processes that need it.

Simple as that. Processes run more smoothly.

People work more effectively.

Customers remain more satisfied.

Choose from a variety of customizable solutions for your business needs.

Contact your local distributor, or email

sales@lexmark-me.com

14EMEA3141

www.lexmark-me.com Š 2014 Lexmark International, Inc. All rights reserved. Lexmark, and the Lexmark logo, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Lexmark International, Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. Other names may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Advts.indd 5

11/09/14 9:48 pm

CHANNEL STREET

IN PUBLIC

“The IoT is a conspicuous inflection point for IT security and the CISO will be on the front lines of its emerging and complex governance.”

EARL PERKINS, RESEARCH VICE PRESIDENT, GARTNER

6

SECONDS

SILVER PEAK UNITY WAN FABRIC FOR NEW ENTERPRISE NETWORK

Dell Positioned Again in Gartner MQ for UTM

Silver Peak has unveiled Unity, a wide area

Dell has been positioned in the Leaders quadrant of the 2014 Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management by Gartner. This is the second consecutive time Dell has been named as the Leaders Quadrant for network security for small and medium businesses. Prior to Dell’s acquisition in 2012, SonicWALL had been placed in the leader quadrant for the Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management since 2009.

The Gartner report notes that vendors in the Leaders quadrant “are at the forefront of making

traffic on the Unity fabric, IT gains an ability it’s

and selling UTM products that are built for midsize-business requirements. The requirements necessary for leadership include a wide range of models to cover midsize-business use cases, support for multiple features, and a management and reporting capability that’s designed for ease of use. Vendors in this quadrant lead the market in offering new safeguarding features, and in enabling customers to deploy them inexpensively without significantly affecting the end-user experience or increasing staffing burdens.

network (WAN) fabric that unifies the enterprise network with the public cloud. Unlike traditional WAN optimization solutions, Unity correlates information about cloud services and Internet “weather”to intelligently route traffic over a secure, optimal path. By keeping SaaS and IaaS never had: the ability to monitor and control connectivity to the cloud while ensuring consistent SaaS performance.

BENQ EXPANDS ITS EDUCATION PROJECTOR LINE BenQ has launched two new additions to its education projector line – the MX852UST and MW853UST. BenQ’s Smart Interactive Classroom concept, the MX852UST and MW853UST are equipped with the seamless integration of ultra short-throw technology and

PRINTER MARKET DECLINES IN TURKEY DUE TO PRESIDENTIAL PRESSURES

PointWrite compatibility for dual-screen- and

The Middle East hardcopy peripherals (HCP) market overcame a conspicuous downturn in Turkey to post strong year-on-year growth in Q2 2014, according to figures released by International Data Corporation (IDC). The research and advisory firm’s latest Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals Tracker shows that the overall Middle East market expanded 9.4% in volume and almost 7% in value during the second quarter of the year. The Turkish market’s decline was primarily brought about by firms postponing their purchases as they waited for the outcome of the presidential elections held in the country earlier this month. However, most of the region’s other key markets posted significant double-digit growth, resulting in the strong performance recorded for the overall region. Robust domestic infrastructure investments in the key markets of Saudi Arabia and the UAE had a particularly positive impact on demand for hardcopy devices.

“The color laser market continues to register the region’s most impressive volume and value growth rates, but we are also seeing strong shipment growth across most speed segments of the mono laser market,” says Ashwin Venkatchari, senior program manager for imaging, printing, and document solutions at IDC Middle East, Turkey, and Africa.

learning experience.

multi-touch-enabled interactivity to immerse teachers and students in a truly collaborative

TELEFÓNICA AND BROCADE TEAM UP Telefónica and Brocade have partnered to establish new benchmarks for the deployment and performance of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) solutions. The consistent results from testing have provided clear evidence that will fundamentally alter the performance range service providers can expect from virtualized, software-based networking infrastructure.

INTERACTIVE INTELLIGENCE UPGRADES CALLSCRIPTER APPLICATION Interactive Intelligence is now offering its contact center and dialer software with the new

XEROX EMIRATES’ PARTNERS WITH ALPHA PRINTNG PRESS The ability to offer superior image quality with faster turnarounds and reduced costs is key to success in today’s highly competitive digital print market. That’s why an increasing number of printers are turning to Xerox Emirates’ market leading hi-tech digital printing solutions Companies such as Alpha Printing Press are investing in Xerox print technology because they understand it serves as the underlying platform that caters to different business requirements such as managing the workflow – these range from reducing work/delivery time and providing a range of solutions for customers to manage their work. So, in January 2014, Alpha Printing Press FZ LLC in IMPZ invested in Xerox Color J75 Press as a digital start-up to provide customers with increased print quality and consistency and faster turnaround on their short run jobs.

12

channel street.indd 12

CallScripter application. The upgraded application, developed by U.K.-based scripting software solutions provider CallScripter (a division of IPPlus PLC), enables contact centers to quickly and easily build customized agent applications for inbound and outbound customer interactions. It offers everything from simple scripting to unified agent desktops with complex multi-connected back-office database integration. CallScripter is browser-based, provides multi-lingual and multichannel support, and can be deployed in the cloud or on-premises.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 11:00 am

Advts.indd 6

11/09/14 9:49 pm

CHANNEL STREET

Veeam Announces Inaugural Global Conference Veeam Software has announced VeeamON: The World’s Premier Data Center Availability Event, which will be held on October 6 – 8 at the Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas. Veeam will host three days of activities, including general sessions, executive keynotes and deep-dives into the Veeam product line, as well as a customer showcase and an interactive expo lounge.

Platinum sponsors Cisco, HP Storage, Microsoft, NetApp and VMware will join more than 20 other Silver and Gold sponsors, including CDW, Ingram Micro Inc. and Arrow Electronics, Inc. “VeeamON is the premier data center availability event, bringing together for the first time thought leaders, industry experts, and IT professionals from all over the world to immerse themselves in the latest in modern data center availability

technology,” said Ratmir Timashev, President & CEO of Veeam.

“The new era of the modern data center brings new challenges, but with the much anticipated launch of the new Veeam Availability Suite v8 later this year, we can do what legacy data protection and backup systems never could: Veeam provides Availability for the Modern Data Center to enable the Always-On Business. For the first time, IT can achieve recovery time and point objectives (RTPO) of less than 15 minutes for all applications and data. At VeeamON, we will be able to connect directly with customers, partners and industry leaders to explore the new era of modern data center challenges and how we’ll all work together to solve them.”

INAUGURAL GARTNER SECURITY AND RISK MANAGEMENT SUMMIT IN MIDDLE EAST The inaugural Gartner Security and Risk Management Summit in the Middle East will bring the Gartner analyst and security and risk management community together to deliver the latest research, insights and forward-thinking perspectives found nowhere else. The event will be held on September 15-16, 2014 at Raffles Dubai.

The event features new research, trend updates, best practices, long-range scenarios , analystmoderated user roundtables, user case studies and workshops and solution provider sessions and industry forums focused on Cybersecurity and the Internet of Things, Mobile Security Threats and Trends in 2014, Social Media Risk Management and Compliance Technologies.

The latest security and risk management tools will be demonstrated by companies that will be exhibiting at the conference.

Keynotes: l Guest Keynote : Mishal Kanoo, Deputy Chairman of The Kanoo Group l Guest Case Study Speakers : Ayman AL-Issa, Digital Oil Fields Cyber Security Advisor ADAM (Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company) and Dr Saleh Ibrahim Baker Almotairi, Head of Security Audit - National Information Centre, Ministry of Interiors

CISCO IDENTIFIES WEAK LINKS IN MIDDLE EAST THREAT LANDSCAPE Cisco has released its 2014 Midyear Security Report, which examines the “weak links” in organizations that contribute to the Middle East’s increasingly dynamic threat landscape.

In the Middle East, geopolitical events are creating new trends in the cyber realm, expanding the risk landscape for businesses, governments, and other organizations and individuals.

Due to recent drought, floods, and unrest affecting supplies and infrastructure across the wider Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Russia (EMEAR) region, the top five most at-risk industry verticals for mobile malware encounters during the first half of 2014 were agriculture and mining, transportation and shipping, food and beverage, government, and media and publishing. In EMEAR, food and beverage saw the highest number of web malware encounters. As a result, weak links – outdated software, bad code, abandoned digital properties, or user errors – contribute to the adversary’s ability to exploit vulnerabilities, with methods such as DNS queries, exploit kits, amplification attacks, point-of-sale (POS) system compromise, malvertising, ransomware, and infiltration of encryption protocols, social engineering and “life event” spam. It also shows that focusing on only high-profile vulnerabilities rather than on high-impact, common and stealthy threats put these organizations at greater risk.

VMWARE ANNOUNCES VMWARE VCLOUD AIR NETWORK VMware has launched the VMware vCloud Air Network to provide greater choice and flexibility to businesses looking to capitalize on the advantages of hybrid cloud.

The company also announced the rebranding of VMware vCloud Hybrid Service to VMware vCloud Air. The name change underscores VMware’s commitment to deliver

14

channel street.indd 14

value added as-a-service solutions (e.g. Infrastructure as a Service, Desktop as a Service, Disaster Recover as a Service, etc.) to customers on its hybrid cloud platform.

Future as a service offerings from VMware will carry the “Air” brand suffix to align with this strategy.

In the VMware vCloud Air Network, customers can use a new

partner badging system to identify and select from VMware vCloud Air or VMware vCloud Air Network service providers. Service providers designated as “IaaS Powered” have clouds based on VMware vSphere as their foundational technology.

Partners that are “Hybrid Cloud Powered” have validated their service using VMware vCloud

Director to enable bi-directional workflow between the customer environment and the partner cloud.

“Horizon DaaS Powered” partners have validated clouds to support desktop as a service deployments.

VMware will also offer future badge validations to promote additional partner cloud services based future VCloud Air services.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 11:00 am

Advts.indd 11

12/09/14 12:00 am

CHANNEL STREET

F5 Generates Revenue of $440.3 million in Q3 For the third quarter of fiscal 2014, F5 has reported revenue of $440.3 million, up 5 percent from $420.0 million in the prior quarter and 19 percent from $370.3 million in the third quarter of fiscal 2013.

GAAP net income was $79.5 million ($1.05 per diluted share), compared to $69.6 million ($0.91 per diluted share) in the prior quarter and $68.2 million ($0.86 per diluted

share) in the third quarter a year ago.

Excluding the impact of stock-based compensation and amortization of purchased intangible assets, non-GAAP net income was $104.6 million ($1.39 per diluted share), compared to $96.9 million ($1.27 per diluted share) in the prior quarter and $88.4 million ($1.12 per diluted share) in the third quarter of last year.

“As we move toward the close of our fiscal year, ending September 30, we believe all of the company-specific drivers that propelled our business through the first three quarters will continue to generate solid sequential and year-over-year growth in the current quarter,” John McAdam, F5 president and chief executive officer said.

WEB CLIPS CYBEROAM ADDS OVER 60 NEW FEATURES TO NETWORK SECURITY OS CyberoamOS network security operating system, which forms the basis for all of Cyberoam’s integrated security solutions – Cyberoam NextGeneration Firewalls and UTM appliances, has witnessed a major update. The new CyberoamOS 10.6.1 is a mega-release covering 60+ features and enhancements focusing on security, simplicity of use, enhanced network visibility, Cyberoam dynamic DNS service, API support for managed security and integration with 3rd party systems and business continuity.

INFOR APPOINTS CHANNEL EXECUTIVE FOR HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY Giuseppe Catania has been appointed as Channel

ZENITH BUSINESS SOLUTIONS IN KUWAIT IS EPICOR’S LATEST VAR

Executive for Healthcare for the Middle East at

Epicor, a global leader in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organizations, has added Zenith Business Solutions, a leading provider of information, communication and technology (ICT) services and solutions in Kuwait, as the latest value-added reseller (VAR) to its Inspired Partner Network in the Middle East. Zenith Business Solutions will represent Epicor in the Kuwaiti market to sell and implement its Epicor enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution as well as provide after-sales support to its customers. Together, Epicor and Zenith Business Solutions will target the manufacturing industries as well as the oil and gas sector along with certain retail verticals. Syed Abbas Ali, director for Zenith Business Solution, said, “Joining the Epicor Inspired Partner Network allows us to become a game-changer in the ICT arena by offering an end-to-end solution that adds value to the customers’ business.”

UAE and Saudi Arabia. His appointment is the

Infor. Giuseppe will be responsible for the growth of Infor’s sales in the healthcare industry across latest stage of Infor’s execution on a plan to invest significantly to grow Infor’s sales in the region, including Infor’s continued investment to expand and support the Infor Partner Network (IPN).

Based in Infor’s Dubai office in Media City, Giuseppe will be responsible for developing sales (both direct and through partners) throughout the region in the growing healthcare industry.

NEW SANDISK ULTRA FIT USB 3.0 FLASH DRIVE

MOVEMENTS Xerox has appointed JOHN KENNEDY as CMO and a vice president of the corporation.

Cyberoam has appointed MUKIL MADANAN as its Enterprise Account Manager for Middle East.

Software AG has appointed MIKE SAXTON as their new Senior Vice President for its Middle-East and Turkey regions.

ABDUL REHAM TARIQ has been named regional channel manager, MENA, Brocade. Hesham El Komy has assumed the post of regional marketing manager, MEMA, Brocade.

16

channel street.indd 16

The SanDisk Ultra Fit USB 3.0 will offer an

NUMBER GAME

0.8 percent

growth in EMEA server shipments in the second quarter of 2014 grew for the first time in 11 quarters.

updated, modern design, as well as impressive increased performance to move media quickly between devices. It’s an ideal companion for notebooks, tablets, TVs, gaming consoles, car audio systems, and more. All capacities provide feature SanDisk SecureAccess software to keep private files safe with password protection and 128-bit encryption, and include a year’s subscription to RescuePRO software.

OXYGEN AND ARUBA COME TOGETHER FOR SMB EXPANSION Oxygen and Aruba Networks are expanding the existing offering of tier-one wireless networking solutions to the channel for both the small-tomedium enterprise and the small-to-medium business markets in the Middle East Region.

Oxygen will focus on training SMB-focused VARs and helping them provide an comprehensive enterprise-grade security, resiliency and unlimited scalability to the customers they serve.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 11:00 am

GEC OPEN GLOBAL ENTERPRISE CONNECT

2014

COME! BE A PART OF IT VENUE:TROON GOLF COURSE-THE ADDRESS MONTGOMERIE DUBAI DATE: SATURDAY,11 OCTOBER 2014 OPENING TEE-OFF: NOON TOURNAMENT FORMAT: TEXAS SCRAMBLE

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

HOSTED BY ORGANISER

FOR DETAILS VISIT WWW.GECOPEN.COM Teaser Ad for GEC Open.indd 1

11/09/14 10:30 pm

CHANNEL STREET

Avaya Leads in Unified Communications for the Sixth Consecutive Year

TE CONNECTIVITY TO ACQUIRE THE DELIXING AND SIBAS

Once again, for 2014, Avaya is and hybrid, and broad solution in the Leaders Quadrant in the appeal. Avaya continues to focus on Gartner Magic Quadrant for these characteristics as fundamental Unified Communications and to its innovative solutions. At the collaboration space, sixth time heart of all Avaya unified comin a row. munications innovations is the Midsize and enterprise UC extension of a simple, powerful user market are now in the early experience that makes any channel mainstream adoption phase with MOHAMMED AREFF, available from any device.Avaya has MANAGING DIRECTOR, GCC, best practices for deployment been at the forefront of the mobile LEVANT, IRAQ AND PAKISTAN, and end user adoption maturing. AVAYA enterprise for over a decade, among However, most enterprises are the first to enable seamless, BYOD still operating with non-unified communications experiences for end users that has expanded to solutions possibly due to the high stakes decision include web and video conferencing from virtumakers face relative to the cost, visibility and ally any device. In addition, demand for Avaya impacts of enterprise technology decisions.

Collaborative Cloud is soaring as Cloud Service Gartner believes that five UC characteristics Providers and end customers seek to move into will have an important effect on the success of a OpEx environments with Avaya Aura® unified UC product and the satisfaction of users: User communications capabilities. experience (UX); mobility; interoperability; cloud

TE Connectivity has signed a definitive agreement to acquire the business of Xiamen Delixing Electric Equipment Co., Ltd. (“Delixing”) and Xiamen SIBAS Connectors Co., Ltd. (“Sibas”).

“The acquisition of Delixing/Sibas positions TE to capitalize on revenue growth opportunities by increasing our market presence in China and by strengthening our position in harsh environment connectivity solutions,” said Thomas Schmidt, senior vice president and general manager, TE Industrial Equipment business unit.

“Combining the capabilities and geographical reach of both TE and Delixing/Sibas will enable the company to offer its customers some of the most comprehensive products, technology and services within the industry.”

TE has had a long-term commitment to China, demonstrated by its strong foundation and continued strategic investments in the region over the last 20 years. TE’s revenue in China is $2.2 billion (FY 2013) and the company has 1,900 engineers, over 15 manufacturing sites, four R&D centers and 18 sales offices – now joined by the Delixing/ Sibas team (approximately 200 employees) and technology. This investment is part of TE’s long-term commitment to maintain its strong presence and local connectivity solutions in China.

FORTINET SECURES CAMPUS NETWORK OF UNIVERSITY IN LEBANON The Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, a private catholic higher education institution in Lebanon, has chosen Fortinet’s technology to secure and optimize its infrastructure and applications used by its students, instructors and employees. The institution implemented Fortinet’s FortiGate NextGeneration Firewall (NGFW), FortiAuthenticator user identity management, and FortiAnalyzer for network security logging, analysis and reporting. Fortinet’s appliances were chosen for their highlevel of performance, broad range of security features and ease of deployment and management.

With the proliferation of the university’s students and faculty staff use of personal mobile devices (BYOD), such as tablets, smartphones and laptops via the university’s wireless network, it became crucial to implement a solid security strategy.In May 2014, the institution decided to replace its existing Cisco, Tipping Point and Blue Coat security solutions with a single provider in order to standardize its network security and simplify the management of its security appliances. The institution conducted an analysis of IT security solutions and Fortinet was chosen.

EMT DISTRIBUTION PARTNERS WITH IPSWITCH emt Distribution has been appointed as the authorised distributor for award winning WhatsUp Gold suite of network, application and server monitoring software from Ipswitch in the Middle East region. The distributor will be responsible for working with resellers across Middle East to train and help them build their Ipswitch

18

channel street.indd 18

business.

Alessandro Porro, Vice President of International Sales at Ipswitch said, “We are aggressively looking at expanding our presence in Middle East, and emt with their deep understand-

ALESSANDRO PORRO, VP OF INTERNATIONAL SALES, IPSWITCH

ing of the market, wide channel base, technical capabilities will go a long way to promote our award winning solutions in the region.”

Channel partners from UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar,

Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan can avail the Ipswitch award winning solutions from emt Distribution.

Channel partners from UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iraq, Lebanon, and Jordan can avail the Ipswitch award winning solutions from emt Distribution.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

12/09/14 10:46 pm

GEC AWARDS GLOBAL ENTERPRISE CONNECT

2014

WATCH THE TITANS VENUE : THE ADDRESS MONTGOMERIE DUBAI DATE: SATURDAY,11 OCTOBER 2014 TIME : 7.00 PM EVENT: GALA DINNER & NETWORKING

IN ASSOCIATION WITH

HOSTED BY ORGANISER

FOR DETAILS VISIT WWW.GECOPEN.COM Teaser Ad for GEC Open.indd 2

11/09/14 10:31 pm

CHANNEL STREET

ESET Partners with Cyberoam ESET and Cyberoam agreement need for on-the-go collaborawill now allow the integration tion. At the same time, granting of ESET’s Secure Authenticaremote access to company tion - a mobile solution relying on networks has opened up new two-factor, one time passwords vulnerabilities for businesses in (2FA OTP) for remote access - into the region. This reflects a broader Cyberoam Technologies’ Unified global trend identified by Threat Management and Next Verizon. According to Verizon’s Generation Firewall appliances. data breach report 2013, 90% of This additional layer of protection PRADEESH VS, GENERAL US-based companies suffered a MANAGER AT ESET MIDDLE will be key to protecting Middle hacking or data breach in 2013, EAST East businesses against data and 76% of these intrusions took breaches which are most often caused by poorly advantage of weak passwords. Clearly, while the benefits of remote working are evident, there is implemented password management policies. great need for a smart solution to the password Remote working and mobility are significant problem,” said Pradeesh VS, GM, ESET, Middle East. trends in the Middle East owing to the increasing

ORACLE ACQUIRES TOA TECHNOLOGIES Oracle has signed an agreement to acquire TOA Technologies (TOA), a leading provider of cloud-based field service solutions that manage and optimize the last mile of customer service for enterprises by coordinating activities between dispatchers, mobile employees and their customers.

TOA’s Field Service SaaS enables modern enterprises to continuously monitor real-time field service requests coming in from contact centers, to schedule the right field service representative to dispatch, and to use sophisticated business analytics to monitor and view current inventories, accurately predict service windows, and optimize field service operations.

EMIRATES ISLAMIC ENCOURAGES DIGITAL BANKING PLATFORMS Emirates Islamic, one of the leading Islamic financial institutions in the UAE, has launched a two-month campaign aimed at encouraging customers to increasingly use the bank’s digital banking platforms. The campaign seeks to reward customers with the highest number of transactions on Digital Banking channels including Online Banking & Mobile Apps.

The campaign which is in accordance with the Dubai Smart City initiative launched recently

by HH Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, also echoes the bank’s on-going strategy to boost use of online and mobile banking channels.

YUSUF BIN AHMED KANOO GROUP TO IMPLEMENT EPICOR ERP 10 Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo Group, one of the largest independent family-owned businesses in the Gulf region, has selected the next generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, Epicor ERP version 10. Epicor ERP 10 is an end-to-end business software solution that delivers choice, flexibility and agility, to reduce cost, streamline processes and improve response time.

Epicor will deploy its financial and supply chain management modules across three key locations, including Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo Group’s Head Office in Bahrain and branch offices in UAE and Saudi Arabia. Epicor ERP will integrate all business processes within various departments of Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo Group and all its subsidiaries.

With the system in place, Epicor ERP will allow the group to make better and quicker business decisions by accessing real-time information.

Maurice Ghattas, Group CEO for Yusuf Bin Ahmed Kanoo Group, said, “After a thorough evaluation of all the vendors available in the market, we chose the award-winning solution from Epicor because of its rich global functionality built on agile next generation visionary technology, device and platform independence, as well as its low total cost of ownership and high return on investment. In addition, Epicor ERP has successfully been integrated in many other large multi-billion dollar corporations in the Middle East, proving the efficiency of the solution.”

INVINCEA SIGNS STARLINK AS DISTRIBUTOR StarLink signs new distribution partnership with Invincea. StarLink will spearhead sales, professional services and support for Invincea products and solutions through its channel partners across the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

“Invincea is honored to partner with StarLink to expand coverage into an important geographic region

20

channel street.indd 20

to guard against the ever-increasing complexity of malware threats.

Global commerce, intellectual property value, and business continuity is severely impacted by threat factors seeking to profit by exploiting the single largest attack vector in organizations of all sizes – the user.

"By partnering with StarLink as our trusted Value Added Distributor

in the regions they cover, we are excited about the joint opportunities we provide for protection against advanced cyber attacks.” said Paul J. Bihunak, Vice President, Business Development and Global Alliances, Invincea. “As a continuation of our commitment to assist in securing enterprises against next-generation malware, StarLink takes great pride

in becoming the distributor for Invincea in the META region. Invincea is at the forefront of combating cyber threats, and as the newest part of StarLink’s Advanced Threat Protection solution, will ensure precise implementation of integrated and multi-vector protection,” said Avinash Advani, VP - Business Strategy at StarLink.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 11:01 am

100+ Enterprise Clients | 185+ Professional Team | Global Offices | Strong Domain Expertise

Transcend Challenges with Vision

Cloud | Mobile | Social Media BFSI | Education | Energy | Healthcare | Hospitality Business Intelligence & Analytics | Enterprise Content Management | Governance, Risk & Compliance

Visit us @ GITEX

Booth No. : SRH- 21 | Sheikh Rashid Hall, DWTC | 12 - 16 October 2014 | Dubai

info@finessedirect.com | www.finessedirect.com | facebook.com/finessedirect

Advts.indd 10

11/09/14 10:20 pm

CHANNEL STREET

Gulf Air Resurgence Continues with IT Overhaul F5 Networks has enabled Gulf Air to optimize the availability, reliability and security of around 100 critical business applications, enabling employees to better connect, collaborate and innovate both within and outside the organization.

The partnership with F5 will entail Gulf Air to consolidate existing systems and pave the way for future growth by deploying F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) to simplify, automate, and customize application delivery. It will also deploy F5’s BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM), a flexible, high-performance access and security solution that provides unified global access to applications and the network.

F5’s solutions will further scale to handle Gulf Air’s future growth trajectory, enabling the airline to tap into the benefits of emerg-

ing technologies such as Software Defined Networking (SDN).

“Gulf Air is all about continuous improvement that not only meets today’s challenges head on, and with minimal waste, but also anticipates the future. F5 gives us the freedom to evolve at pace and ensures that our service delivery is the best it can possibly be,” said Maher Salman Al Musallam, Acting CEO, Gulf Air. Technology is at the forefront of Gulf Air’s recent resurgence, which has been driven by a number of major cost-saving initiatives delivering 28% cost-savings year-on-year and a 14% passenger yield increase between 2012 and 2013.

MEA PC MARKET FINALLY REVIVES The Middle East and Africa PC market brought seven successive quarters of year-on-year declines to a halt in Q2 2014, posting long-awaited annual growth of 2.2% to total 4.5 million units. Compiled by global advisory and consutling services firm International Data Corporation (IDC), the figures show growth in both the desktop and portable product categories, with the former growing 2.9% year on year to reach 1.8 million units and the latter expanding 1.7% over the same period to total 2.7 million units.

The biggest growth in PC shipments was witnessed in the ‘Rest of Middle East’ sub-region, which comprises Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Palestine, and Afghanistan, despite no vendors making any official PC shipments into these countries. “The high volumes of devices seen entering this sub-region came as parallel imports through second- and third-tier resellers,” says Fouad Rafiq Charakla, research manager for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions at IDC Middle East, Turkey, and Africa. “However, parts of this sub-region have recently witnessed increased levels of instability, particularly in Iraq, and demand is now forecast to slow down slightly as a result, although we don’t expect these developments to prevent overall growth for 2014.” “Other countries to experience growth in the region during Q2 2014,” he continues.

GUINEANET SELECTS ALTAI FOR WIFI NETWORK IN EQUATORIAL GUINEA Guineanet’s deployment commenced in June 2012 and has been expanding since, extending covering in Malabo, the country’s capital, and Bata, the largest city in Equatorial Guinea. The Guineanet network offers customers WiFi hotspots for multi-device connectivity.

Having deployed the Altai A8-Ein, Guineanet will benefit from the product’s integration with existing WiMAX platforms, enabling the company to use the WiMAX to backhaul WiFi network.

This will enable Guineanet to continue to serve WiMAX customers while introducing WiFi customers at its own pace.

“Altai’s solutions have perfectly suited our business model and our expansion plans,” commented Tim Edwards, CEO and co-owner of Guineanet. “We chose Altai for their impressive product performance, exceptional customer service, competitive pricing and the availability of a dual-band product. We have been extremely satisfied with their products and attentive service and look forward to continuing our network expansion.”

Dr. Bill Wong, CEO of Altai Technologies, added, “Guineanet is another in a series of commercial wins awarded this year in the Africa region. Africa is a rapidly expanding WiFi market segment and a key target for Altai. Our WiFi technology delivers broadband services to many people who haven’t had access to broadband previously.”

TP-LINK STRENGTHENS CHANNEL BASE IN NORTH AFRICA TP-LINK has revealed new channel strategies aimed at developing the company’s channel business in North Africa. According to the company, the move to strengthen its channel business development efforts in the region come in the wake of increased infrastructure spending which has spurred the IT networking solutions segment with TP-LINK witnessing rapid growth

22

channel street.indd 22

of its business.

The company, which boasts a range of products in the Middle East including Wireless, ADSL, Switches, IP Cameras, Powerline Adapters, Print Servers, Media Converters and Network Adapters, the North Africa region is rapidly developing as most governments lead with infrastructure and e-government initiatives

Will Liu, General Manager, Africa at TP-LINK Middle East, said North Africa is one of the fastest growing networking markets in the MENA region. Liu added that with the Internet development happening in this region, the networking segment has witnessed tremendous growth and will continue to grow. “We have confidence that this will become one of the most important opportunities

in the foreseeable future,” Liu said.

Liu said the company believes now is the right time to cement its footprint on the ground by engaging distributors, resellers and retailers in the various countries in that region. “We are aiming to gain rapid acceptance and success of our product offerings in partnership with the entire channel ecosystem that works with us,” he said.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 11:01 am

TECHNOLOGY MEDIA PARTNER Logo 1 - white

Logo 2 - black

Advts.indd 6

18/08/14 11:20 pm

MY VIEWS

presence there. However, the main challenge here I believe is to convince customers that you need it for your own benefit. If you look at all the incidents happened in the past few years in the region be it in the banks or in Oil & Gas, they were mainly because the organizations were lacking in a very unique solution to protect the area in which they had been hacked. After those incidents have happened, many have started investing in that area. The level of understanding has increased compared to last year but it is still the main challenge.

MOHAMMAD MOBASSERI

CEO AT EMT DISTRIBUTION

“Bringing New Technologies to the Region”

Any plans for expanding beyond security?

Yes, we are trying to sign up with some network monitoring vendors as well. So, we are going in to that area. Our recent partnership is with Ipswitch.

What services do you offer?

As a distributor we are not offering any services to the end-user. For partners we have free services like we help them with POCs, implementation, post-sales services. These are the services we are giving through resellers to customers or to our partners only. What we are going to do, may be in Q3, is to offer it as a professional services to our partners so that they can sell it to the customers. None of the other distributors are doing this. They are either the box mover or doing value-added distribution. We are trying to do that because I think the market understands services more and more now. We have started working on it. We are talking to some third party customers as well who can help us deliver such services.

Since emt is present in other parts of the world, what challenges and opportunities do you find specific to Middle East and Africa?

I believe the market is not mature enough. This is the problem. In other parts of the world, they know what they want. They understand the technologies needed. They are not looking for an attack to happen to the neighbour and then go for the solution. In APAC and Europe, we have big competition because vendors also have

How do you choose your vendors?

One is we look at the market demand. Second, we look at what we are missing. We need to have complete solution to offer to our resellers.

Third thing is that solutions which we are choosing should be among top three worldwide. Also, whichever vendor we sign they should see Middle East as a potential because if they don’t see it as a potential then without vendor support and investment, we cannot do everything. ë

EMT DISTRIBUTION IS WORKING IN THE DIRECTION TO IDENTIFY NEW TECHNOLOGIES THAT ARE AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE AND THEN BRING THEM TO THIS REGION. MANALI MISRA OF ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA SPOKE TO MOHAMMAD MOBASSERI, CEO AT EMT DISTRIBUTION TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE COMPANY’S PLANS.

There is a lot of potential for security solutions in MEA, how is emt leveraging the same?

First of all, we are trying to identify which new technologies are available worldwide. This is very important because there are still a lot of solutions and technologies which have been introduced worldwide but are not being used here. May be, this was some part of the problem that some organizations have been attacked by hackers, viruses or malwares. As soon as we identify those solutions, we would introduce to the Middle East. The market potential is huge. emt is focused only on security including security for virtualization and cloud computing. We have 20% solutions for virtualization and private cloud computing solutions as well but it is 80% security. I think we are benefitting a lot from this market.

24

Q&A-emt.indd 24

Elaborate on your partner program.

We have a program called emt magnitude. This is designed for all level of partnerships starting from regular, silver, gold, to platinum. We have a consultant partnership as well for individuals willing to work with us. We have some regular benefits for all these partners. However, when Partner Advantage Program is added to that then they will have incentives or promotions. Sales and technical people will also get benefit from it and as of now we have different promotions running on regular basis but it is not as per the Advantage Program. It is as per our quarter plan.

The number of registered partners in Middle East and Africa is 700.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 10:41 pm

RE-IMAGINING OUR FUTURE 1 2 - 1 6

O c T O b E R

Download the

GITEX App

2 0 1 4

Official Country Partner:

DUbAI WORlD TRADE cENTRE

SMART

bIG DATA

clOUD

MObIlE

GET YOUR VISITOR PASS NOW: WWW.GITEX.cOM/VISPASS SAVE UP TO AED 40 AND GET FAST-TRAck AccESS TO GITEX 2014

See smart technologies of the future – now

Harness advanced analytics to make big Data pay

Nigeria

be converted with the power of the new cloud

Prepare for new real-time mobile opportunities

Single Day

Online discounted: AED 85 Onsite: AED 105

Multiple Day

Online discounted: AED 190 Onsite: AED 230

cONTAcT US: For more information, send us an email: gitex@dwtc.com or simply visit www.gitex.com GitexTechnologyWeek

@gitextechweek

GITEX TECHNOLOGY GROUP

GitexTechWeek

blog.gitex.com

Gulfcomms Endorsed By

Big Data Diamond Sponsor

Student Lab In Association With

Digital Strategies Forum Strategic Sponsor

Advts.indd 7

Industry Briefings Government – Strategic Sponsor

ICT Intelligence & Advisory Partner

Big Data – Platinum Sponsor

GitexTechWeek

Official Smart Car Partner

Cloud Confex Diamond Sponsor

Cloud Confex – Platinum Sponsor

Cloud Confex Platinum Sponsor

Arabic News Partner

Analytics Partner

Official Regional News Broadcaster

11/09/14 9:52 pm

SUCCESS STORY

FINESSE

Rise of the Finesse

When some people look at market recession as a disaster the wise people look at it as an opportunity. The birth of Finesse is probably out of the wedlock of wisdom and opportunity of investment and onboarding right manpower. n B Y: S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A < S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M . C O M >

I

FINESSE GROWTH STORY

t was late 2009 when the recession was starting to bottom out and the idea of a TURNOVER REVENUE IN AED MILLION Software or Applications Systems Integrator took shape with two veterans of the IT Industry in the region. “Most SI companies in the region came from the Hardware or Infrastructure space and dabbled in Applications for additional revenue”, said Raju Ramesh, 30.00 CEO at Finesse. “The result was that competency building was not a factor for most of them and if 20.74 it was, it was isolated in pockets”.

“As the idea was tooking shape it was quite evident 4.55 10.16 that there were two extremes in terms of market 1.3 presence. There were the big Indian SIs joined by a couple of multinationals with large global 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 talent pools at the top and then there was the (10 Mths) (Expected) bottom consisting of local players with little or no competency. There simply was no middle ground”, says Sunil Paul, COO at Finesse. “The challenge for local players always was the cost of competency building in a market which in their view did not present adequate demand to make Established Launched On-demand 2010 185+ operations this worthwhile. Our decision was to take support centre based 2014 employess the middle ground. Global Application players and growing out of Bangalore, India tend to view this market on a secondary basis.

Won Red Herring Global top 100 For most of them it does not pull more than ten 2011 Won Integrator ITC Champion percent of their revenue. So we felt we were in Achieved Started Awards- “Software solutions with a reasonable chance. Once the decision was fiscal significant integrator of the year 2014” stability made we started operations in the second quarter projects of 2010”.

“Competency building is always a chicken and egg story”, says Ramesh. “Do you build and wait 2012 2013 for business to happen or take it the other way 25+ Key 90+ Rapid around? We were a bit innovative in cracking customers employess growth 145+ Global Won Red this one. We worked out a way with individual employess Footprints Herring talent teams to engage them on a need basis with including India, Asia Top Acquired Enovations some commitments that were manageable till we Canada & 100 were able to scale and acquire talent ourselves. It Singapore

26

Finesse.indd 26

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 9:40 pm

SUCCESS STORY

PROFILE KEY EXECUTIVES Raju Ramesh – Co-Founder & CEO Sunil Paul – Co-Founder & COO HEAD COUNT 185

SUNIL PAUL

RAJU RAMESH

CO-FOUNDER & COO

CO-FOUNDER & CEO, FINESSE

“Our competency management was such that we found it reasonably easier to increase wallet share once we had made a customer acquisition.”

“In my view pure technology skill can always be contracted.

It is the combined skill of Business and Technology that is valuable.”

was difficult to source but it had to be done and here we are. Once you cross a pool size of fifty to seventy people the problem lends itself to better manageability. There was also the great decision we made to stay technology agnostic. We decided to stay business centric in terms of knowledge acquisition. In my view pure technology skill can always be contracted. It is the combined skill of Business and Technology that is valuable”.

“By the end of 2011 we were about sixty people in terms of talent pool”, says Sunil. “It was then possible to look at other dimensions and extending ourselves accordingly. Quite often the opportunity presents itself to move in a lateral direction and the lessons that we learnt early on in the business are reapplied. We have made it into an art form now. Our competency management was such that we found it reasonably easier to increase wallet share once we had made a customer acquisition. The customer was able to see value in the ability we brought to the table and once that happens things tend to get a little easier in terms of business development. At the end of 2012 we had around fifteen enterprise customers where we had multiple engagements going on at any point in time”.

“There is a reason that large application SIs always like to measure themselves on headcount rather than just revenue numbers”, says Ramesh.

“The headcount number will always give an indication of how well dispersed the talent pool is in terms of competency. Even within a single technology play you will need at least six to seven different skill sets and combining them always does not work. You are lucky if you can combine at least three skill sets. Any application SI that you talk to will have a tested methodology to deliver. However this counts for nothing if the people who are part of the knowledge teams don’t measure up. Therefore we always give detailed attention to how the teams size up and its relevance to how we can create a basket for the customer. A delivery methodology is a given.

Every vendor has one today”.

FINALLY… With a plan to create millionaire leaders’ group within the company, Finesse is all set to create high standards of workmanship, HR and retention practice, which is a cherry on the cake for the company’s existing reputation and market value. ë

GEO PRESENCE UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, India, Canada, Singapore KEY CAPABILITIES Software System Integration | Key Expertise in the areas of BI ( Business Intelligence ), ECM ( Enterprise Content Management ), GRC ( Governance, Risk & Compliance ) Focus Domains Include BFSI, Education & Healthcare Delivery Stream Include Cloud, Mobile & Social Media.

MAJOR PROJECTS Enterprise BI at Network International, ECM Implementation at ASRY, Workflow automation at NBF, Document Management upgrade at First Gulf Bank, Back office operations outsourcing at Mashreq Bank, 24/7 Insurance Process Management at Daman Insurance, 24/7 Operations Management at DU – Asset Management Centre and many others.

CONTACT DETAILS Sunil Paul, COO, Mobile 050-4274042, Email: sunil@finesseme.com WEBSITE www.finessedirect.com SOCIAL PRESENCE www.facebook.com/finessedirect

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Finesse.indd 27

27

11/09/14 9:41 pm

FEATURE

POWER SOLUTION

Gaining Stability

After witnessing ups and down for various reasons, UPS market in Middle East & Africa is back on track. n WORDS: MANALI MISRA <MANALI@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM> n PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

A

ccording to a 2012 report by the global information company IHS, UPS demand is projected to grow by around 5% annually during the next two years, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates primarily driving growth in the near term.

Meanwhile, Oman and Qatar will generate higher percentage long-term growth, following sizeable investments in infrastructure and megaprojects.

“Between 2009 and 2012, UPS sales declined across the Middle East and Africa countries due to regional instability and the global economic situation, particularly in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia the instability was a primary influencer.

The market grew stronger in 2012 and 2013.

Today, there is sizeable investment and uptake of Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) products across the Middle East and Africa,” comments Thierry Chamayou, ITB Vice President - Middle East, Africa, Central & Eastern Europe, Schneider Electric.

The IHS report also forecasts that the uptake of UPS solutions in Africa will grow by 2015, with Sub-Saharan regions such as Nigeria,

28

feature.indd 28

Angola and South Africa seeing great demand.

This is a direct impact of the emerging data centre, construction, utilities & infrastructure development, and a general increasing demand for smart solutions.

“The market size is around $400 million for both single and three-phase electric power. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Morocco continue to be strong markets in the MEA region,” says Stéphane Levillain, Data Center Business Development Director – Eaton EMEA.

is expected to rise further as more and more organisations demand greater computing capacity and increased IT centralisation.

Middle Eastern countries are demanding smart energy solutions for their smart cities and Africa has begun to heavily invest in infrastructure. In fact, a PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Report states that Sub-Saharan infrastructure spending will exceed US$ 180 billion by 2025. “This will also increase electricity usage. In the near future, these nations will require energy-optimising and cost effective methods to digitally connect their THE CHANGING MARKET: various industries. As key government organizaOn one hand, the demand for uninterruptible tions and businesses develop, the demand for UPS power supply in IT infrastructures is growing and will continue to grow,” comments Chamayou. on the other there hand is global pressure for redLevillain says, “The cloud business and “pay ucing the carbon footprint. In MEA, data consump- per use” with more proportional IT gears will tion has become one of the largest in the world. definitely change the consumption curve of the Datacenter Dynamics estimated that worldwide datacentre. We might see some curves with some data centre energy consumption grew by 19 per differences on a daily timeline rather than annual cent in 2012 compared to the previous year, with ones. In addition, auto adaptive powerchain with average power per rack at 4.0 kilowatt (kW).

UPS’ are able to adapt themselves in real time to Gartner also reported last year that energy-related the load give you the possibility to reach the sweet costs accounted for almost 12 per cent of data spot whatever the load without comprising the storage companies’ overall expenditure and this resiliency.”

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 11:00 am

FEATURE

TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCEMENTS: A key development in the UPS market is the increasing efficiency of the on-line UPS model, which offers double conversion and the best protection from power disturbances. “This high availability design, in which the inverter continuously provides regulated clean power to the equipment, means the UPS protects equipment that is not resilient to break in voltage or variations in frequency, this done 24/7/365,” says Chamayou.

Organizations are embracing cloud computing and virtualization for data storage, security and strong communication channels. For reasons of convenience, security and costs, companies are demanding virtualization within their data centres to unload the pressure placed on legacy IT architectures, hardware and servers. They recognize the need for constant connectivity. “As a result of this and other technological advancements, enterprise IT departments are requesting uninterrupted services and power backup. Thus, the increasing uptake of cloud is becoming a major driver for the UPS market across the Middle East and Africa. Moreover, the rapidly growing software industry and online streaming trends also calls for utilisation of various UPS models as the expectation of service is now continuous. While energy demand accelerates, there is also a growing call for sustainability, thus further placing pressure on UPS manufacturers to produce more efficient equipment,” says Chamayou.

THE CHANNEL FACTOR: Having the right kind of technology doesn’t suffice. There has to be a right channel to deliver the products and solutions to the targeted customers. In order to support the end user market, Schneider Electric provides a Channel Partner Program that substantially prepares its partners so as to be able to correctly identify and position the right product for the right need or application, thus ensuring that the end user is adequately protected and that the solution deployed is as efficient as possible. “Our Channel Partner Program actively promotes the development of technology awareness and transfer of skills through many online training resources and materials, as well as classroom type trainings sessions as well,” says Chamayou.

Maintaining strong relationships with channel partners is the key to Eaton’s success. “We value long-term relationships and have worked with many of our partners for years. Recently we decided to appoint a new IT Distributor to better serve our channel partners in the ME area, in

STÉPHANE LEVILLAIN

THIERRY CHAMAYOU

DATA CENTER BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR – EATON EMEA

ITB VICE PRESIDENT - MIDDLE EAST, AFRICA, CENTRAL & EASTERN EUROPE, SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC

“The cloud business and “pay per use” with more proportional IT gears will definitely change the consumption curve of the datacentre.”

“While energy demand accelerates, there is also a growing call for sustainability, thus further placing pressure on UPS manufacturers.”

line with our growth strategy. Redington has been selected as we were seeking for a premium Value-added partner to serve our IT resellers,” comments Levillain.

Eaton is also investing in Strategic Alliances with other IT Vendors to create the best ecosystem for our channel partners. For example Eaton participated to the VMware Forums in Dubai, Riyad, Nairobi and Johannesburg.

Similar events will be announced in partnership with EMC or Netapp for instance. “Finally the PowerAdvantage Partner Programme serves as the flagship of our commitment to our Partners.

And we recently invested in a brand new online training programme to better support them in acquiring knowledge in a fast-moving industry, where for example, Virtualization is bringing game-changing challenges to Power management. Eaton as a worldwide leader is spearheading all the innovations on this matter,” adds Levillain.

DEMAND DRIVERS: With the initiatives like making Dubai as a Smart City and keeping citizens interconnected, the increased use of UPS is even more inevitable. Education, m-governments, hospitality, healthcare, IT data centres, defence or security bodies, finance and telecom are but a few of the crucial verticals which cannot

afford electricity downtime. Today, companies are vigilant about the importance of business continuity and 24/7 availability; their strength to effectively manage unforeseeable disasters and mitigate business risks determines their reliability and organisational strength. “Heavy process industries too, such as those operating downstream refining and petrochemical, upstream oil & gas, power generation and water management are all using UPS systems, owing to the fact that any loss of power would jeopardize an entire plant’s operations as well as potentially negatively affecting the surrounding areas and communities. To mitigate industrial disasters or manufacturing delays, we are therefore also seeing an increasing uptake of UPS across these and other industries, such as electronic manufacturers, consumer packaged goods, food and beverage, and pharmaceutical companies,” says Chamayou.

Levillain says that the verticals driving the market currently include cloud providers, telecommunications companies, government and the finance industry.

FINALLY… With rising energy costs and increasing pressure for green IT along with the growing demand, the UPS manufacturers are in constant move to innovate for the best. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

feature.indd 29

29

11/09/14 11:00 am

MY VIEWS

VINEETH SEBASTIAN

REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR-MEA REGION AT MMD AND AOC

“Display is No Longer a Monitor on Desk; it’s a Smart Device” DISPLAY MARKET IS CONTINUOUSLY EVOLVING WITH MONITORS BECOMING SMARTER DAY BY DAY. THE PLAYERS IN THE MARKET ARE EXPANDING IN TERMS OF TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCTS. DISPLAY SPECIALIST, AOC PLANS TO EXPAND TO TABLETS AND PROBABLY SMART PHONES BY 2015. MANALI MISRA OF ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA SPOKE TO VINEETH SEBASTIAN, REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR-MEA REGION AT MMD AND AOC TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE DISPLAY MARKET IN MEA AND COMPANY’S PLANS OF EXPANSION.

30

Q&A-AOC.indd 30

How has the display market evolved?

Displays have evolved from being a monitor to a smart device today. Like the way mobiles have moved from phones to smart devices; even displays are moving towards that. It is no longer something which you connect to the desktop and see. It comes as a smart device. Today, there are displays which come as a bigger tablet and you have touch features, all android features, windows-based touch features and you don’t need connectivity wires, you can connect to it through a technology called Miracast etc. The gaming market is developing on the display side.

It’s not going to be a monitor on a desk. It is going to be a smart device on the desk.

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 10:50 pm

MY VIEWS

How ‘smart’ AOC monitors are?

AOC is a group of TPV Technology, the world’s biggest monitor manufacturer. Even the bigger brands are manufactured by us and the technology is pioneered by us. All the technologies mentioned above are already introduced by AOC in the market.

What is the price band of your products?

We start with products as low as $65 which is 15.6 "USB monitor where you don’t need a power cord and is a portable display. That’s the entry level and then we go as far as $400-500 with a smart display. The highest model is touch and android-based smart all-in-one. It has got every thing that you do on a tablet. The maximum size offered by us is 29” and resolution highest 4k.

What is the demand from B2B segment?

The way our business is structured in Europe, I think 65-70% of the business is around the B2B or enterprise business. In this part of the region, we are the other way around. We are 80-90% in channel and retail side. We are very less on B2B side. Partly due to the fact that the B2B business is today mostly haven’t been occupied by the bigger brands. The PC brands when they sell their desktops, the monitors go with them at the same brand. Because of which it is very difficult to address as a separate monitor case but I think the trends and technology are changing.

In Europe, traditionally, monitors are sold through the B2B business and it is a good business and Philips a big brand in Europe. Philips is entrenched in every B2B environment. In UAE, we are trying the same strategy and have just launched our products for the B2B market. We are doing the same kind of business in Saudi Arabia and it is good. We are constrained by manpower. We don’t have direct resources to address the market, so we are dependent on the channel. Channel has options and they would generally be like more of demand fulfilment. To be honest, the market is not that big on B2B side.

It’s 80-20 rule. 80% of the business happening in 20% of the countries and 20% of the business happening in 80% of the countries.

We have been in this market for 3-4 years.

We have grown in double-digits. We need to continue our 50% YoY growth in a de-growing market. The market is de-growing but we are growing which means we are taking the market share from the competition. There is no other way. Monitors are de-growing because of the tablets and mobile phones that have come in. It’s same as why laptops are de-growing or desktops are de-growing.

If the market is de-growing, how do you sustain your business?

I think we entered here late and in 4 years we have grown 100%, then why not be in business..

Elaborate on your channel ecosystem.

In Europe, we have a tier-1 and tier-2 channel.

Tier-1 is basically distribution and tier 2 is channel, resellers, retailers, corporate and then you have the end-users. The level Europe has reached is that they control the end-users and tier-2, they don’t even speak to tier-1. We have only reached the tier-1 part. This growth is just because we have arranged the tier-1 properly. We have a proper distribution in place in most of the region, we are covering. Next one year, we will focus on the next level which is tier-2.

distributor for AOC and one for Philips. For East & West Africa, and Saudi Arabia we have Redington. Total we have 9-10 distributors.

What are the challenges in this market?

The biggest challenge is that the market is degrowing. We are only in monitors' business. It is a strength as well as a weakness. Today, people are looking at bouquets. The strength is only in monitors, there is no other product where our attention goes. But when we go to a distributor, he says that monitors is fine, that gives me good revenue but what more can you offer? That’s another challenge we face in this market. The adoption of new technology takes time, which is yet another challenge.

You are growing in a de-growing market, what is your success mantra?

We have set the distribution channel right.

Before that we were not even addressing the distribution properly. We had one distributor addressing huge amount of countries without even going into those countries. So, today, we have addressed those distributors who have got in-country presence.

How many units are you expecting to sell this year?

We sell almost 250,000 monitors per year but this year we are expecting to do 300,000.

AS OF NOW WE ONLY HAVE MONITORS. WE PLAN TO EXPAND TO TABLETS AND PROBABLY SMART PHONES BY 2015

How many distributors do you have?

We have one simple policy of single product, What is your market share in single distribution. We don’t want multiple MEA? distributions. It can be one distributor has We have around 8% of the market share around both the brands: AOC & Philips or in the same MEA. The total market size is de-growing. Last geography one distributor has AOC and one year, the market size was 3.2 mn display units. has Philips. No two distributors would have This year we are expecting it to be in the vicinity the same brand except one market which is of around 2.8-2.9 mn. We are expecting 10% South Africa where we have two distributors de-growth in the market. The market in MEA for AOC brand. consists of sporadic markets. We have 52-55 For UAE and GCC, we have Jumbo Electronics countries in this region but the business happens in for AOC and for Philips we have Gulf Shadows.

7-8 countries and these are the real big markets.

In Algeria, which is a big market, we have one

What are your plans for expansion in terms of products?

As of now we only have monitors. We plan to expand to tablets and probably smart phones by 2015.

What is your strategy for expansion?

We have our demos and displays ready. We have already started speaking to distribution about this and who would be the distributors when we plan to introduce. It will be a more retail-focused approach. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Q&A-AOC.indd 31

31

11/09/14 10:50 pm

INFRASTRUCTURE

DELL

Treat from 30 Years of Experience 30 year old or 30 year young- Dell is here to stay. For thirty years, Dell has helped in finding a better way for companies, communities and people everywhere to use technology to achieve their goals. It is a moment to celebrate, pause, ponder, reflect and march ahead with a vision. n B Y: S O U M YA < S O U M YA @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

T

he Middle East is experiencing an interesting tipping point in Customers’ understanding and acceptance of industry trends, as well as their consequent demands from vendors. Around five years ago, customers reached out to IT vendors, described a business problem and asked for a solution around isolated technology verticals.

However, today Customers are often more tech-savvy and understand the boxes that are involved better than the vendors. They don’t seek solutions anymore but want value-added collaboration in engagements and partnerships for the long-term.

As the Middle East is all set for the ICT revolution, Dell is ready for the show.Shams Hasan, Enterprise Product Manager, Middle East,at Dell, explains, “The Middle-East’s expectations of IT – today – finds strong synergies with Dell’s mission and point of views. Dell delivers innovative endto-end technology solutions that are easier to buy, use, and grow, and are ready for constant change.

In today’s IT market vendorscannot manage by providing isolated technologies – storage or compute or networking. Customers today want

32

Infrastructure.indd 32

all-in-one end-to-end solutions, which provides them speed withprecision, flexibility withsecurity, and control withexcellent management of the services, all with a reasonable TCO and future protection. Customers seek vendors who can convince them that their business is in the right hands. A long term relationship of trust, expertise, and ROI is the need of the day. Dell believes powerful technology should be more accessible and affordable to more people. We have held true to this ideal since our founding decades ago. We are driven by an entrepreneurial spirit to question the status quo and make IT work better. So we never stop listening to our customers. We are deeply engaged with people from organizations of all sizes and around the world. Our engagement style has always been one of working side-by-side with customers where we can truly provide them with the right technology solutions that will enable them to grow and thrive.Today at Dell, we have our strongest-ever product and services portfolio and capabilities to address the full range of technology requirements – all to deliver comprehensive solutions with best value, ease of use, and flexibility.”

But then isn’t that what other players are doing

SHAMS HASAN

ENTERPRISE MARKETING MANAGER, MIDDLE EAST, DELL

“For Dell, innovation is not a marketing gimmick; instead it’s all about engineering at its best. Subtle changes of technology can lead to paradigm shifting.” too?It is being increasingly seen that after attaining leadership in a particular domain, providers are making a beeline into the other domains as well. So, the question that arises is with so many firms doing their best to provide package deals to their customers, how does Dell maintain its uniqueness?

DELL-A LISTENING COMPANY Shams shares, “Dell has always been a listening company.We don’tfollow the industry, but instead, the root of Dell innovations can always be found in the field, where the customers highlight crucial business needs. A great example

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

12/09/14 10:47 pm

INFRASTRUCTURE

of this is our award-winning PowerEdge VRTX solution that caught the market by surprise last year at its introduction. Called by many as “One of the most innovative server designs of the year” the VRTX is the first integrated IT solution designed specifically for remote-office and smalloffice environments.”

Shams adds, “Listening also translated in to co-creation. With our end-to-end technology capabilities, strong services and integration teams, and a deeply collaborative engagement approach, Dell engineers go the extra length to understand a Customer’s problems and the synergies of other factors within the infrastructure and business that may impact or be impacted by the engagement. A great example of our commitment to the Middle-East in this regards is the Dubai Dell Solution Centeropened last year.

Dell Solution Centersoffer working laboratories for customers, as well as potential customers, to test and refine different IT technologies for their businesses. Dell understands that as data centers evolve and become more complicated, IT leaders cannot get answers from just paper projections, estimates, and second-hand research. With the Dell Solutions Center we are uniquely positioned in the Middle-East committed to ensuring that customers explore, develop, and understand solutions that meet their needs.

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT- THE DELL ADVANTAGE When domain leaderstry to enter into new domains, the prime purpose of the vendor comes under scrutiny. Are they bringing a unique value proposition for the new domain, or are they just trying to open doors to sell existing legacy cash cows? Today, as Middle-East business and IT leaders become more tech-savv and understand the technology trends and synergies better, the way vendors engage with them becomes all the more important. It is crucial for solution providers to engage with customers to collaborate on solutions so both parties benefit by the association.

When asked about Dell’s advantage, Shams discusses the Dell approach in engagements with Customers. “As a company we have a complete portfolio of servers, storage, networking, software, middleware, and security solutions to help with any scale of business challenges;and then we also have niche products and appliances that cater to highly specific and isolated workloads and business needs. This is bolstered further by our commitments in the Middle-East with strong services and integration teams and live laboratories for proof of concepts such as

our Dubai Dell Solution Center. Our engineers often take on the role of advisors in engagements and our customer conversations can be broad and seamlessly transition from client to data center to cloud, and yet also be surgical and dive deep into a particular area of concern for the Customer. Furthermore, being able to have an end-to-end conversation, Dell addresses your present needs whilst also assuring to care for your future needs as well. We at Dell understand the value of customers’ investment and strive to offer full protection of the same. This capability and engagement approach has been great for us in the Middle-East where we build trust and value with Customers and long-term relationships.”

“Many vendors talk about standards, openness, modularity, scalability, advanced platforms, and end-to-end solutions, but there are lot of things that happen —often behind the scenes—that make IT more complicated than it already is.

Dell’s unique design philosophy truly sets us apart from all other technology providers today.

While other solutions block out competitors with proprietary components and software, Dell works with standards-based systems and an open approach to innovation. With our transparent commitments to certain architectures, we provide modular systems which are more cost-effective and easier to scale. While others develop closed management silos for their solution, which create fragmented environments, Dell designs management software to work with systems and software already in place to ease systems administration.

Finally, at Dell we have no legacy platforms and hence no vested interest in keeping alive marginrich, proprietary platforms of the past.We offer a full portfolio of solutions built on architectures optimized for the needs of the modern enterprise, while others bolt on new functionality to systems that were designed decades ago – not an optimal way to address new demands.”

Today, ICT is all about the best in terms of technology, innovation, and efficient marketing strategies. Dell as a company is constantly evolving its product portfolio and marketing strategy. Some interesting offerings from Dell today making waves in the Middle East include the PowerEdge VRTX, Fluid Cache for SAN solution – on Dell Compellent, the new Z9500 – the largest fabric switch positioned for softwaredefined networking with 512 10G non-blocking ports in a tiny 3U form factor.

ICT isn’t a small sector; there are several aspects at play. It might not be always possible for a company to be the best at everything. This creates the need for associations among various players.

The market sees a lot of acquisitions, alliances and collaborations these days. By sharing individual

prowess, it’s always easier for firms to tread ahead.

So, hasn’t Dell thought along similar lines?

NEW PARTNERSHIPS Shams shares with us what Dell is doing beyond its portfolios to go further in solving Customer challenges, “Organizations face common macrolevel, external challenges, including disruptive technology trends, changing business models, and shifting work paradigms. In addition, organizations face a wide range of common internal IT challenges when evolving to meet changing demands.Dell addresses these challenges not only through the capabilities we bring to market in our end-to-end products and services, but also in how we approach alliances. Dell’s standardsbased, open approach, and flexible modular designs help bring together an eco-system of partners with unique strengths and offerings for crucial business challenges.

This past July Dell announced an OEM relationship with Nutanixto make available single offerings combining compute and storage into a single 100% software-defined storage solution giving customers unmatched flexibility and simplicity of deployment.

With other partnerships such as the Dell Integrated Systems for Oracle 12c Database, Dell Acceleration Appliances for Databases, Dell InMemory Appliances for Cloudera Enterprise, and other similar offerings, Dell truly uniquely offers the one place for end-to-end solutions addressing the full IT spectrum to ensure your data center is ready today and ready for the future.

FINALLY...

Expect to see more of Dell! In a few weeks, in GITEX Technology Week 2014, Dell will showcase its latest portfolio of end-to-end software and technology solutions designed to help customers of all sizes integrate, optimize, and automate their infrastructure, applications, and IT service delivery and management. Dell will also showcase its Connected Security services and offerings that provide a complete lifecycle approach to enterprise protection.Visit Dell on Stand CLD-6 in Hall 6.

Continuing its commitments to the Middle-East Dell brings its flagship Solutions Tour for 2014 to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia – the first time ever in the Middle-East. It shall be a powerful, one-day, action-packed experience to explore the forces that are driving IT transformations today. It will provide a platform to experience Dell solutions, share their latest thinking and discover how they can help to master these forces to better scale your organization, accelerate results and maximize operational efficiency. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Infrastructure.indd 33

33

12/09/14 10:47 pm

COVER STORY

VIDEO

Enterprise Communication:

VideoWay Whichever way you look at it, the sheer scope of video technology and its current application potential is breathtaking, particularly when it comes to the collaborative benefits it can deliver in fields like education, healthcare, and government services. n W O R D S : S O U M YA S M I TA P R A J N A < S O U M YA @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M > n P H O T O : S H U T T E R S T O C K

V

ideo solutions used to be considered a luxury and something that only large enterprises could afford. Today’s climate of high business expectations, the need for cost reductions, and even just the way we communicate are shifting enterprise requirements towards integrated unified communication and collaboration. These days with the advent and the mainstream use of video as part of unified communications, enterprises of all sizes are leveraging video since they see it no longer as a luxury but as a necessity for daily business use.Video is transforming enterprise activities from executive communications and training to physical security, marketing and sales.

Ooredoo, the global mobile telecom operator, believes that the big change in video solutions

34

Cover story.indd 34

is the swing from customers buying traditional and expensive video conferencing equipment to wanting the same or better quality, but in a more flexible fashion. The important thing is being able to deliver that rich visual experience that adds value to a relationship. The company believes that its solutions like Ooredoo Cloud are delivering that quality to personal devices in a more accessible and more affordable manner.

Historically video has been based largely around on-premises MCU architectures and rooms systems, but today people are expecting multi-modal channels of communication.

High-definition video is no longer a sole communication trend – it’s not enough! Today we need functionality like sharing, annotating, and viewing of content as well.

“Video used to just mean the ability to avoid

business travel and reduce business costs, but today it is synonymous with effectiveness, efficiency and productivity”, says FadiMoubarak, Channel and Midmarket Director of Avaya for MEA and Turkey.

Encouragingly, MEA is ideally placed to tap into this new era of visual empowerment, given the projected global growth of mobile video traffic, which will account for 69 percent of total mobile data traffic by 2018. Mobile video traffic will increase 14-fold from by 2018 and will have the highest growth rate of any mobile application category.

The market potential for video conferencing solutions is on the rise. In fact, according to a recent global survey conducted by Polycom, Inc., 96 percent of business decision makers and 98 percent of HR professionals believe video confer-

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

12/09/14 10:53 pm

COVER STORY

96 PERCENT OF BUSINESS DECISION MAKERS AND 98 PERCENT OF HR PROFESSIONALS BELIEVE VIDEO CONFERENCING HELPS COMPANIES DEFY DISTANCE, IMPROVE PRODUCTIVITY AND BREAKS DOWN CULTURAL BARRIERS.

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Cover story.indd 35

35

12/09/14 10:53 pm

COVER STORY

WAEL ABDULAL, COLLABORATION MANAGER, CISCO UAE

“In this era of the Internet of Everything (IoE), Cisco believes that video needs to be available everywhere: from the browser, to the boardroom, to all the spaces in between.”

encing helps companies defy distance,improve productivity and breaks down cultural barriers.

This study also revealed that HR executives expect video conferencing to be their preferred business communications tool ahead of email and voice calls by 2016.

But there isn’t enough video collaboration technology: industry statistics show that more than 93 per cent of meeting rooms globally aren’t equipped with high-quality video. In this era of the Internet of Everything, video needs to be available everywhere: from the browser to the boardroom and inbetween.

Other research data has shown that the number of smart phones and tablets brought into workplaces will more than double by 2014. With video technology software available on tablets and mobile devices, secure, enterprise-grade, face-to-face collaboration has moved far beyond the office and will continue to actively transform the ways in which we work.

THE INFLUENCING FACTORS

36

Cover story.indd 36

FADI MOUBARAK, CHANNEL AND MIDMARKET DIRECTOR MEA AND TURKEY, AVAYA

“Video used to just mean the ability to avoid business travel and reduce business costs, but today it is synonymous with effectiveness, efficiency and productivity.”

Ease of use: With a younger generation of users entering the workforce, gone are the days when you had to have a dedicated room or book a session to be able to do video calls. The interoperability of video technology has made this easier to adopt. With the capabilities of using video on any devices, anywhere, it is now a ubiquitous technology that is accessed by anyone.

Robust Networks:Networks too have become stronger and more robust to be able to not only handle larger bandwidths but also prioritise its use, providing better quality and faster performance. The fact that the newer technologies use lower bandwidth makes this a lot easier to install and operate.

Managed services: More and more telecommunications organisations are offering video capabilities as a managed service. This makes it not only easier to adopt with an OPEX model rather than a CAPEX one, it demonstrates faster ROI for organisations because they need no longer dedicate resources to managing these services.

The enterprise market is flooded by several

DHARMENDRA PARMAR, GM – MARKETING, FVC

The latest addition is the new Polycom Immersive Studio, which will be launched in this region at Gitex, with live demonstrations.”

innovative solutions from the leading players.

Cisco believes video is an essential part of effective, natural collaboration; it provides a breadth of applications and endpoints to make pervasive video a reality. They have made voice over the network the standard for business and today they are doing the same for video. Cisco claims to have broadest suite of video endpoints tointegrate video into the fabric of the working environment.

Earlier this year, they launched a range of new video and collaborationsolutions designed to put high-quality video at the fingertips of everyone in theorganization. The systems allowpeople toeffectively share video and content in rooms of any size depending upon theirneeds as well as the setup of the room.

FVC provides a wide range of solutions for enterprises of all types and in different industry segments from Polycom. DharmendraParmar, GM – Marketing, FVC says, “Polycom is continuously adding to its portfolio. The latest addition is the new Polycom Immersive Studio, which will be launched in this region at Gitex, with live demonstrations.”

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

12/09/14 10:53 pm

OU R PU BLICATIONS

Accent Infomedia MEA FZ-LLC I N FO M E DIA

Standie ad.indd 4

Middle East & Africa : 223, Building 9, Dubai Media City, PO Box 500653, UAE , Tel : +971 (0) 4368 8523 India : 6/101-102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas, New Delhi 110 016 (India). Tel : 91-11-46151993/41055458 Email : info@accentinfomedia.com

12/09/14 12:19 am

COVER STORY

Avaya offers offer real time and scheduled video conferencing with video client software for PCs, tablets, iPhones, and Android devices and pull-through for Avaya collaboration and data networking. It gives business partners the ability to talk to customers about connecting their existing video systems, which are predominantly still based on the H.323 protocol stack, and it provides a bridge to the future of mass-deployed, personal video which will be based on the SIP standard. Avaya further meets the Bring Your Own Device trend. Avaya desktop solution also provides customers the ability to control, manage, schedule and monitor performance for their entire video from the software/desktop application.

Fadi comments, “Among the main differentiators are full interoperability with Video Conferencing Room Systems and Telepresence, from all endpoints including mobile devices and desktop clients. These all feature moderation capabilities, the ability to invite other attendees and fully control conferences, and H.239 compatible presentation capability with our unique Content Slider tool. Flexible licensing mode and embedded firewall traversal complete the distinctive advantages of our solution.”

According to Muhammad Mudassar, Assistant Director ICT Presales & Solutions - New Business function, Ooredoo, the advent of 4K screen technology has led to more opportunities for collaboration. That experience is creating so many new ways of working as it is super flexible, as well as providing a clarity and quality that really helps people work together productively.

At a user level the improvements in broadband technology, increasing speeds and lowering costs is also helping drive the market forwards.

Ooredoo has recently launched true 4K support which allows us to utilise all the resolution available in the latest 4K screens from TV manufacturers such as LG, Samsung etc. At the same time they have launched Software Only Room Systems which means that customers can very simply take consumer computing devices and build the highest resolution room systems on the market at a fraction of the price. Both 4K and Soft Rooms can then simply be connected to the Ooredoo Cloud. Add to that simple provisioning of desktop and mobile users and it’s a complete cloud service offering.

PwC’s 2014 Global CEO Survey reports that 78% of Middle East CEOs plan to go for mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, or strategic alliances across the wider region. The next breakthrough levels of business innovation and productivity will come from embrac-

38

Cover story.indd 38

ing new workplace trends, moving from the transaction-oriented era of the last decade to a more interaction-oriented era — so collaboration is critical now.

Enabling Middle East businesses to communicate face-to-face, Cisco’s Android-based DX70 and DX80 desktop collaboration devices work to streamline and simplify work lives by providing access to all the top tools and applications that highly collaborative work requires. While this integrated desktop experience is fit for a CEO, it is priced to scale to every worker.

Video conferencing is still too often plagued with grainy images, muffled audio, jerky motion, dropped connections, and difficult-to-use software. Businesses sometimes shy away from using basic video conferencing tools because the technology cannot provide professional-level image and audio quality.

FVC strongly believes that Polycom has been offering high definition video before it was mainstream in the broadcast sector in this region.

With new algorithms in the network, calls are more resilient to network issues, thereby addressing the issue of dropped calls. “As a standardbased technology, Polycom provides easy to use solutions while at the same time ensuring inter-operability” says Parmar.

Cisco’s collaborative video solutions offers a live, immersive, face-to-face experience which enables people from different offices, cities and geographical locations around the world to meet virtually using the power of the network.

The Cisco TelePresence experience for example, delivers high-quality audio and high-definition video over a reliable Internet Protocol (IP) network. Wael Abdulal, Collaboration Manager, Cisco UAE says, “Cisco is the number one overall voice vendor in the world, and the leader in most IP communications categories -- including Web and audio conferencing and messaging – as part of our commitment to delivering best-in-class video collaboration solutions.”

Avaya’s state-of-the-art technology in SVC, AVC, Netsense, H.264 High Profile, Dual 1080p 60, virtualization, and MCU dynamic port allocation contribute to counter quality and networkrelated issues, and they’re the core foundation of their video solutions.

Ooredoo is using Vidyo’s patented VidyoRouter architecture that is now widely recognised as delivering the highest quality video experience, with the highest resilience to unpredictable network conditions such as packet loss. Their service is aware of the network conditions and the device capabilities and dynamically adjusts the picture quality to ensure the users always get a great experience.

THE FUTURE OF VIDEO SOLUTIONS Two major technology enhancements are influencing the Video Solutions Market. The first is advanced codec technology that allows the transfer of higher definition video streams within the same or less-amount of availablebandwidth.

The second is increased broadband connectivity availability and affordability in the form of 3G, 4G, and Fiber to the curve or to the home.

That’s without forgetting cloud-based videoconferencing servicesof course.The sheer scope of video technology and its current application potential is breathtaking, particularly when it comes to the collaborative benefits it can deliver in fields like education, healthcare, and government services.For example, there is no longer the need for educational experts or trainers to travel hundreds of miles in order to deliver education, today and increasingly so in the future they are and will be available quite literally at the touch of a button. Video solutions are increasingly also enabling healthcare professionals to collaborate more easily, regardless of location, thereby improving both the timeliness and the quality of care delivered. Subsequently, healthcare institutions and providers are utilizing care-at-a distance technology to connect patients in the Middle East with physicians or specialists in the US or the Far East, for example, for vital healthcare consultations Such intelligent and innovative use of collaborative video technology will increase productivity, reduce overall costs and ultimately help transform companies, cities, countries and subsequently, individual lives. The future of video technology in the Middle East region is networked - using the full power of video and mobility, citizens will be able to collaborate, create and share knowledge as well as benefit from new experiences.

The market has gone from a video world of dedicated obsolete conferencing suites, to the Internet of Things (IoT).Whilst the IoT is not new, the ability with which users can connect devices, the cost of doing so, and the performance we experience with it has improved. As such the explosion of connected devices as part of the IoT is forecast to see billions of devices connected to the Internet.

Polycom strongly believes that VaaS is only going to increase in popularity as organizations look to reap the benefits of remote and flexible working. Employees are increasingly geographically dispersed, either across countries or across entire continents, and VaaS will allow more effective collaboration and more efficient meetings.As the number of mobile workers grow

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

12/09/14 10:52 pm

COVER STORY

GLYNN JONES, VP ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY GROUP EMEA, EMERGING MARKETS, POLYCOM

“Polycom’sVaaS offering uses open standards to orchestrate interoperability across all of the elements in a communications environment, including multiple solutions, vendors, networks, and connection protocols.”

(and there are currently one billion in the world), cloud based video conferencing will grow even further, as service providers can easily and cost effectively deliver video services securely and reliably across different platforms, networks and devices. By 2020, Polycom believes the number of global remote workers will increase by 50% with the support of cloud-based video services.

This will only strengthen the need for video collaboration solutions, which can be accessed and used wherever remote workers may be.

Glynn Jones, VP Advanced Technology Group EMEA, Emerging Markets, Polycom,says, “Polycom sees the Middle East as a high-growth market; we believe there are growing and robust business opportunities across the region and the UAE is the frontrunner. We also see the UAE as a business gateway to the wider Middle Eastern region. There is a high demand for technological innovation here, which makes it a key market for us.”

MUHAMMAD MUDASSAR, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR ICT PRESALES & SOLUTIONS NEW BUSINESS FUNCTION, OOREDOO

“The advent of 4K screen technology has led to more opportunities for collaboration. That experience is creating so many new ways of working as it is super flexible, as well as providing a clarity and quality.”

HOSTED SERVICE POPULARITY The Cloud is an accepted delivery model for many businesses particularly where there is a need for flexibility, scalability and simplicity.

Parmar of FVC says Polycom has solutions for telcos to enable them offer these (video) as a service. FVC has been working closely with telcos providers to offer Managed video as a service.

They have been working with du for some time, after having started with with Saudi Telecom and OmanTel last year. They have also built a Video Network Operations Centre (VNOC) to facilitate such services.

The cloud-based Video as a Service (VaaS) offering is powered by Polycom’sRealPresence platform. RealPresence Cloud complements and extends Polycom’s on-premise, hosted and managed video collaboration options, giving organizations the flexibility and scalability they

need to tailor a solution for their unique business needs.VaaS offerings can be used across any combination of environments- whether on the go with RealPresence solutions for tablets and smartphones, at home with a Laptop or Desktop, or in a conference room at work. It enables channel partners to quickly and profitably deliver end-to-end solutions to their customers.

The upfront cost for VaaS is way lower than the on-premise solutions and customers can start using video collaboration platform immediately without having to invest time in deploying, managing and supporting specialized hardware and software.Glynn says, “Polycom’s suite of enterprise video conferencing solutions eliminates the barriers of location, time, cost and culture that can hinder face-to-face collaboration. With the addition of RealPresence Cloud Video Meeting Services to this suite, Polycom can support all of an organization’s video conferencing requirements today—and into the future.

Overall, RealPresence Cloud is a convenient and affordable solution for companies that want to experience the benefits of video collaboration at a lower cost and have the ability to expand the investment in the services as the business grows.”

He adds that one of the major cost benefits for using VaaS is that the user only needs to pay for service usage. This brings the flexibility to easily scale the services contract up or down based on demand and multi-tenancy capabilities. The end-users don’t have to worry about infrastructure or software updates. As with its on-premise deployments, Polycom’sVaaS offering uses open standards to orchestrate interoperability across all of the elements in a communications environment, including multiple solutions, vendors, networks, and connection protocols.

Cisco provides a consistent combination of a broad set of collaboration applications; flexible deployment models across private, public, and hybrid clouds; and virtualized applications and desktop clients delivered through Cisco, service providers, and partners.Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solutions (HCS)offer highly secure collaboration solutions for public, private, and hybrid clouds from partners delivering Cisco Powered cloud services. Whereas historically organisations shied away from hosted services due to a perceived lack of security and control, Cisco HCS provides customers with carrier-grade security and manageability and much more. It offers collaborative technologies delivered as highly secure and reliable cloud services which include Voice and Video as a Service; Instant Messaging and Presence as a Service, Web Conferencing as a Service; and Mobility as a Service.

Ooredoo is offering managed and cloud

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Cover story.indd 39

39

12/09/14 10:52 pm

COVER STORY

services.Customers can use this service over any network, on smartphones, tablets, laptops, or can deploy more traditional conference suites with a higher quality picture than they may be used to.

There are few main features which are considered while designing and marketing video solutions; these are ease of use, mobility, interoperability, ROI, level of service, product features etc.

Abdulal says that Cisco places equal weight on designing and marketing video collaboration solutions that are reliable, high-quality, interoperable video—as opposed to video that’s webcam-based, unreliable or incapable of scaling.Parmar of FVC believes that though all the factors are important, he prioritises ROI, ease of use and interoperability as the top three in the list.

CIOs top concerns in the past was that video conferencing was considered a major capital expenditure that was not necessarily considered an important operational expenditure. In addition, it came with additional problems of bandwidth, security and a host of related expenses.These days, it is seen as a value-added tool for business, demonstrating measurable ROI. Parmar says that bandwidth concerns too are well addressed especially with some of the latest offerings from Polycom that consume the lowest bandwidth in the industry compared to its competition. In addition, with solutions offered by the likes of Riverbed, CIOs are able to manage the performance of their networks and prioritise applications.

Besides, other four main concerns of CIOs can be ease of deployment and use, quality of features, quality of services, and total cost of ownership. Ooredoo is of the belief that while CEO’s are focussed on the business direction, CIO’s are focussing on things like security, mobility andcollaboration. Vidyo’s offering works across so many networks from 3G, 4G Wi-Fi, LAN, WAN etc. and includes many ways to bring users into a rich experience with their colleagues, from smartphones to laptops to 4K systems.

There are several instances of firms who are not using video communications owing to budget constraints, unfamiliarity with technology, bandwidth availability and lack of interoperability.

Abdulal says Cisco’scollaborative video solutions portfolio givecustomers’ access to a broad product choice at different price points to suit a

40

Cover story.indd 40

variety of budgets as well as an integrated Cisco TelePresence architecture for many solutions and rich end user experiences. Their portfolio consists of three integrated product categories: endpoints, infrastructure and TelePresence cloud services (including intercompany).

Thanks to advancements in video technology, businesses of all sizes can now use reliable, highquality, interoperable, scalable, and cost-effective video solutions to collaborate from any location or device.Parmar of FVC echoes similar sentiments saying, “Our solutions today address all these concerns. All that such organisations need to do is to look into what is available and find the solution that addresses their needs.”

Avaya supports both H.323 and SIP based video conferencing solutions, enabling customers to interoperate with what they already have.Scopia solutions are used by institutions, enterprises, and service providers to create high quality, easy-to-use voice, video, and data collaboration environments, regardless of the communication network. Interoperability and interconnectivity is provided between any standards-based video device from any vendor including immersive telepresence systems, video room systems, desktop and mobile video systems, and with solutions from the market leaders in telephony and unified communications.Also, BYOD can be the easier way to adopt video for those companies still fighting with budget constraints, unfamiliarity with the technology, etc.

As far as the market presence of video solutions is concerned, Cisco is focused on helping its channel partners in the Middle East evolve their business models to respond to market transitions and new consumption models. According to Abdulal, worldwide, Cisco’s networking vendor depth and breadth includes 28 years of industry experience, 50 million devices, 6 million live customer interactions, and a 180 billion install base.

“Organizations of all sizes can join the Cisco Channel Partner program, which offers a wide range of broad and specialized solutions, including training, tools, and support that help set its customers apart from the competition” adds Abdulal.

As a VAD that covers Middle East and Africa, FVC has a large network of partners that offer video solutions for a very long time. Parmar says that they make sure that their partners need to be Polycom certified in order to be able to offer our customer the right level of service.

Polycom’sVaaS solutions provide channel partners and resellers with a broader services

portfolio. Channel partners can take advantage of strong market growth and revenue opportunities for public, private and hybrid cloud services by providing managed or hosted cloud services solutions to enterprise customers or wholesale services to other service providers.

The Polycom Choice Partner Program provides a simple framework for the partners to invest and grow in. The program gives knowledge, support and tools to help integrators deploy (unified communications (UC) solutions. In addition, the program offers rewards, resources and recognition for the partners based on their performance and revenue growth.

From a distribution perspective in MEA region Avaya hasAlmasa, Redington, Westcon, Toptel, Inala, and Itancia. Fadi says, “Our commitment to our distributors and resellers is to make sure they are capable to articulate our value proposition, to design optimized solutions and to implement and support those solutions for and with them”.

The current scenario in market space sees way too much competition, with every other player bringing its strengths to the table.

Parmar of FVC says, “As a VAD, value is what we do best. Our commitment to our partners is knowledge transfer in terms of sharing our technical competence with them through authorised and regular training sessions, providing the necessary logistics and technical support and knowhow, marketing assistance. We also ensure (through our briefing and demo centres) that our partners are able to demonstrate true value of Polycom solutions to their customers so that they can experience the technology before buying.”

Fadisays, “Avaya’s competitive edge comes from a seamless integration of Avaya’s own UC platform, giving our customers a platform to grow on both video AND voice,either as an integrated solution or by adding video to voice, or vice versa. On the infrastructure front we are offering complete mobility on BYOD devices like iPad, iPhone, and Android. Also we enable scheduling from BYOD devicesand dynamic resolution capability on the infrastructure supporting SVC AVC.”

FINALLY… The change in the way organizations connect with video communication has allowed the market to grow exponentially.Organizations shallgradually see even better returns on their video for business investments.With more useful opportunities to take advantage of corporate communications and other flexible options, the future of video solutions looks bright indeed. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

12/09/14 10:52 pm

SERVICES

LEXMARK

Catalyst of MPS Regime Printing technology, which is inevitable to any office function, is often ignored while the big bulky machines occupy a considerable space in the office and gobble a good amount of the budget. Now the time has come that the organizations wake up to the situation and bring the right solution to get rid of the obvious ordeal. n B Y: S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A < S A N J AY @ S M E C H A N N E L S . C O M >

W

ith the changing market and the introduction of new technologies, companies need to be agile and adapt quickly to meet customer demands. Lexmark migrated from basic imaging solutions such as printing, scanning and copying to a more integrated approach helping customers in various verticals, increase the use of electronic content management, such as; capture, process, collaborate, protect and access, to tackle their document challenges.

Mathias Militzer, General Manager, Lexmark Middle East and Africa, said, “We are proud of our heritage as a hardware company but are rapidly becoming a solutions business, delivering more value than ever before. Our combination of imaging and software puts us in a unique position in the solutions space.”

As per IDC, an average 14 per cent of revenue is what most global companies today are wasting on document-related tasks and sorely inefficient printing practices. Eighty percent of business content is unstructured or unmanaged, and of that, nearly half is paper. Mathias added, “We are here to help companies realize that and manage and transform their print infrastructure into a platform for delivering precise information. This not only a cost saving mechanism but it gives our customers control and visibility on their input and

output to benefit them short term and long term.”

Lexmark was just recognized as a leader third year in a row in the Quorcirca Managed Print Services Landscape, 2014 report. The company was also positioned leaders, according to IT research firm by IDC, Gartner and Forrester Wave. Lexmark is taking MPS to the next level.

He added, “We have seen a lot of end users looking for opportunities where their printing is less painful more efficient, where they want to see cost reduced as they are unaware of the printing and what is being printed. We are proud of our heritage as a leading MPS provider in this region.”

“We are looking at how MPS can bring about document volume reduction through the implementation of best practice, combined with business process and document workflow optimisation for greater operational efficiency.

We provide customized solutions for all vertical industries,” he maintained.

Not only does Lexmark’s MPS improve the enterprise print infrastructure, helping customers grow their return on investment through successive levels of engagement, but it now goes right to the heart of the business.

Mathias maintains, “That is why we had a 97% contract renewal rate on customers last year. We own our own technology.”

Many verticals in the region including education, manufacturing and services industries are happy using Lexmark MPS solutions.

MATHIAS MILITZER

GENERAL MANAGER, LEXMARK MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA

“In regards to MPS, we had a 97% contract renewal rate on customers last year. We own our own technology; we have been proving MPS for 20 years across the globe.”

MPS is no longer viewed as an added-value amenity, but instead as a valuable service that can also drive real business improvement. Market maturity has led to an increased interest in taking the next step toward what Lexmark calls ‘Smart MPS’, where we address businesses needs by closely aligning print, managing information and business process automation.

As per Mathias, the company has plans to expand the network and add more distributors and resellers that understand the pain points of customers and are able to offer them the best solutions that Lexmark has to offer.

FINALLY...

MPS continues to evolve as companies have strived to unlock hidden savings in the business.

Over time, this has evolved from output consolidation to automated fleet management and on to workflow enhancements. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Lexmark.indd 41

41

12/09/14 10:54 pm

MY VIEWS

are limitations on how much data one can bring in. With the big data platform of Splunk, one can bring in the raw data; one doesn’t even need to have a database on the backend. At Splunk, we don’t use a database; we can take data from any source without modifying it in any manner and make it available for searching, correlating, investigations and all that it might be required for.

How Splunk ensures privacy of the critical data of the customers?

Whenever any critical data is brought to Splunk, at the source, at the time when it is indexed, we can mask any critical information so that it doesn’t appear in your reporting engine. We also offer another option wherein these data can be masked at search time; meaning one can limit who can actually see the data.

Splunk is also an on-premise solution so we have an option to install the software on your hardware so that the data doesn’t leave your environment. There is also a cloud option for Splunk where you can send your log files or event information to Splunk in the cloud. For now, it’s available in the US only, and will soon be released in other regions.

KHALED CHATILA

REGIONAL SALES MANAGER, SPLUNK

Securing Data Without Tinkering With It MOST BIG DATA PLATFORMS USE DATABASES WHICH LIMIT THE KINDS AND AMOUNT OF DATA THAT CAN COME IN; SPLUNK OFFERS A UNIQUE PLATFORM WHICH IS INDEPENDENT OF A DATABASE AND DOESN’T MODIFY YOUR DATA AND KEEPS IT SAFE THE WAY YOU WANT IT.

What is Splunk’s USP in the IT security market?

Splunk is the platform for machine data.

Machine data refers to any data generated by any device whether it’s a security device, an aeroplane, an engine, etc. All these data can be brought into Splunk as a platform and from there one can start to analyse the data, build dashboards, visualiza-

42

My Opinion_Splunk.indd 42

tions, build correlations between different sources of data, etc. One of the main issues right now with Big Data platforms or any kind of solutions that bring lots of data from different sources is having the ability to take that data without the use of the database. Right now, many companies are having their databases that work for some platform. But when one has a database, there

How is the region behaving in terms of exposing their data over cloud and how active is Splunk over cloud?

We are very strong in the on-premise right now. Most of our deployments are on-premise.

But we are moving to the cloud. Since we have been mostly into the realm of critical information, private data, we do on-premise solution for that type of requirement.

What kind of resources you have in this region to tap the growing potential of this market?

Splunk is a relatively new firm in the Middle East. We have just started out. We have our office in the Dubai Internet City. We definitely plan to expand the business in this region in the coming months and years. During the GISEC 2014, we saw a lot of interest among the consumers of this region to know how Splunk can make things easier for them. For now we have more than 40 customers in the region and more than 7500 customers worldwide. The best part is that we have seen just about every kind of data related problem that can be there; we have catered to various kinds of customers from different verticals like government, aviation, commercial, manufacturing, retail- we have seen it all. So, when it comes to securing your critical information, we definitely know it the best. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2014

11/09/14 10:58 am

MY VIEWS

How many partners you have in this region?

We have partners for each country. We have different levels of partnership depending on which we engage with them. We work with selected few partners in this region.

What are your expansion plans for the future?

We are definitely looking at some partners from countries like KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman etc; our prime focus is GCC. We have few good partners in UAE and Bahrain; we are looking up to adding some partners in the other countries as well.

HARALD REISINGER

CEO

AJI JOSEPH

GM (ME), RADAR SERVICES

“We Don’t Want To Sell Products Rather Want To Sell Our Services” IT SECURITY MARKET IN THE ME REGION IS GROWING VERY FAST AND IT HAS LURED MOST OF THE COMPANIES TO OPEN THEIR BASE HERE. THIS IS ALSO GOOD FROM THE LOCAL MARKET PERSPECTIVE AS THEY GET ENOUGH OPTIONS TO CHOOSE FROM. ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA TEAM SPOKE TO HARALDREISINGER, CEO AND AJI JOSEPH, GM (ME), RADAR SERVICES TO KNOW ABOUT THE COMPANY’S USP IN THE IT SECURITY LANDSCAPE.

Tell us about your company.

We are an IT Security Risk Management Company headquartered in Austria. We do have local office here in Dubai. We are providing IT security services for our clients which meaningwe analyze the IT infrastructure of our clients.

We are constantly looking for threats and risks there. We analyze data that flows through the network; analyze log files thus providing security information, and vulnerability assessment for clients. We try to provide our customers something like a daily updated penetration testing report giving them the exact information about their security infrastructure and what to do about it.

The objective of RadarServices’ objective is to identify risks of a company arising from IT systems and information technology in general as well as make risks manageable without straining internal resources. We help to ensure the success of companies, to protect their values, and to avoid liability risks.

What is your strategy for Middle East and Africa?

For this region, we have a good set of channel partners and system integrators. We work closely with them, meet the customers, try to understand the exact needs and provide the solutions to them accordingly.

What kind of growth are you expecting from this region?

During the first phase, we wish to establish our brand over here, get customers and then grow on from there. When we came in, we didn’t have customers in this part of the world; so from that sense, we basically have started from the scratch and plan to go ahead from here.

How many customers you have in this region?

We do have customers in certain specific verticals as of now. We target some particular verticals like banking financial sector, insurance, manufacturing, media, hospital chains, etc.

Basically organizations that have 100 members or more can be our targets. Because when the numbers grow, networks tend to get complex and that’s where we come into the picture.

What kind of challenges are you facing in the market?

Our approach is different from the digital vendors; we don’t want to sell products rather want to sell our services. That is a challenge because people are used to the product approach wherein the vendor sells a product, dumps the box and walks away. We offer the services along with the products; so it’s a different ball-game when it comes to approaching the customers but when the customers are seeing what we’re doing, they love it.

What is your focus for this year?

Focus for this year is to establish the brand and get customers in the key segments that we are targeting.

What kind of marketing strategy are you following this year?

On the marketing front, we wish to reach out to the potential end users. For that, we are working on the partner model. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

My Opinion_Radar.indd 43

43

12/09/14 10:55 pm

ENTERPRISE SECURITY

NANJGEL

Delivering Diversified Services

For Nanjgel, it is about being able to have real-time visibility, dynamically being able to detect, and proactively being able to mitigate and block risk. n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

I

n the last few years, security has become an increasingly competitive market. The threat of security breaches has increased globally especially in the Middle East. With time, many vendors and solution providers who did not have security as their focus started to venture in this space. When Nanjgel started its operations in the Middle East in 2006, the company was more of network and security management but as the business demand started growing over a period of time, the demand for security grew higher. “We took it up as a passion and started building up more security management kind of solutions. We have a network portfolio and we do have a lot of product and appliance-based solutions as well. We are leading partners for IBM and have a strategic OEM relationship with IBM Security. We are the only IBM OEM Security Partner in the region,” says Jude Pereira, Managing Director, Nanjgel Solutions FZ-LLC. In Middle East, Nanjgel is Dubai-based and works in the GCC. It focuses on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. The company’s focus is purely on providing next-gen security to its clients who are primarily in the Oil & Gas, government, and banking sector. It provides end to end security to them in terms of being able to secure information and data in real time across the network. “We address around 10-12 security technologies and the best part of working with Nanjgel is the integration of all the technologies

44

Nanjgel.indd 44

together,” says Pereira.

The company represents around 13 vendors of which two solutions are primarily built by Nanjgel as part of the value addition to the entire security portfolio. It has developed InspecTView which is basically a session recording and session capture and replay solution. It is a combination of Single Sign On, Session Playback and 2FA and at the end of the day it helps to have a complete view of who did what, where and when. It gives all kinds of compliance based reports and dashboard alerts in real time. “We have an experience of over five years, the loopholes and drawbacks we have seen in other solutions, we have capitalised on them and made sure we have added all the value and intelligence to this product. We feel the customer response is very good and they appreciate it,” informs Pereira.

Pereira says that Nanjgel is specialised in security and it doesn’t believe in box-moving.

For the company, it is about being able to have real-time visibility, dynamically being able to detect, and proactively being able to mitigate and block risk. In order to have this as an automated process one has to have an understanding of the business requirement, the skill set to be able to deploy this and deliver it and the intelligence to make it sure that it is up and running 24*7. “We have a diversified set of services in terms of gap analysis, consulting, integration, we do implementation, support 24*7 along with the challenge of SLAs where we roll out the SLAs to our clients

JUDE PEREIRA

MANAGING DIRECTOR, NANJGEL SOLUTIONS FZ-LLC

“We are leading partners for IBM and have a strategic OEM relationship with IBM Security. We are the only IBM OEM Security Partner in the region.” for support. We do a lot of channel enablement.

We have regular sessions with them in terms of understanding the solution, understanding our vision, and to give them hands-on training,” he adds. Since it becomes very difficult for partners to make such investments, Nanjgel has set up a lab in its office. It gives the partners access to the lab and enable them to deploy and deliver the solutions.

FINALLY...

Pereira says that Nanjgel is monitoring the cloud and MSSP model but he still feels that there is a huge maturity part that is needed for the cloud.

“From a security perspective, I think we still have time, we cannot move everything to the cloud so we would have a hybrid model with lot of threat analysis and real time alerts coming in from the cloud but the solution has to be on-site,” he says.

Last year, Nanjgel had a turnover of 22 mn USD and the company is expecting much better growth this year. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 10:57 am

MY VIEWS

training sessions for the sales staff of our resellers wherein we train them how to handle objections, how to position the products in the market, how to write RFBs, etc. We add value to their team, and make them more capable to face the market and earn profits.

How many customers do you have?

We have a great customer base spread over the region; including Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Tanzania, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya, Egypt, Pakistan, Oman, Iraq, etc. Since we have entered into non-disclosure agreements with our customers, we can’t reveal their identities. But we do have several reseller success stories to our credit, be it in the banking sector or telecommunications or oil and gas etc.

How many vendors do you have in your portfolio?

Our portfolio is quite focussed; we have approximately six vendors only. We work closely with them and try to jointly deliver solutions best placed according to the needs of the market. But we cover different domains with success.

MOATASIM ABULQASIN

REGIONAL DIRECTOR, ELITEVAD

“Does not Believe in Over- Commitment” WITH THE GROWTH IN THE INFORMATION SECURITY MARKET IN MEA REGION, THERE HAS BEEN A GOOD RISE OF VADS IN THE REGION. ELITEVAD IS ONE OF THEM. ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA SPOKE TO MOATASIM ABULQASIN, REGIONAL DIRECTOR OF THE COMPANY TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR COMPETITIVE

What are your growth and expansion plans?

We are expanding slowly in the market. We don’t believe in the concept of over commitment.

Currently, we have 3 operations; one of them is in UAE, our headquarters and the other two are in Cairo, Egypt and KSA. When we say operations, we mean the complete set up comprising pre-sales, sales, administration, finance, and stocking. Apart from that, we have representative offices in Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Nigeria, and Libya;at each of these representative offices, we have arranged an engineer as pre-sales expert.

ADVANTAGE.

What is your company’s USP in the MEA IT security market?

We are a VAD company based inUAE and we are covering the regions of GCC, North Africa, Sub-Sahara, Egypt and Pakistanas well. We specializein very specific security products that can add value to our resellers. We further have commitment with our vendors to help them to increase their channel and their business through the expertise of our staff. At EliteVAD, we have approximately 32 plus people, of whom around 17 are in pre-sales meaning these are our security geeks, who are well-qualified, professionally certified and skilled with the latest knowhow when it comes to security solutions.

What value addition do you make to your offerings?

When we are talking about security solution, we want our reseller to maximize their profits by associating with us. We appoint our resellers after a thorough analysis and understanding of their background, knowledge, and expertise in the field. Once through with that, we undertake go-to-market visits to know their customer base and conduct POC studies. So, for the first time, we invest all the resources for the POCs, demos and if satisfied, close the deal. Our target is the transfer of expertise; we don’t require the revelation of all project details and thus assure additional confidentiality. We also conduct

The VAD space is getting pretty crowded, what is your secret of success and how aggressive you are?

Focus, focus and focus- that’s our power. These days vendors are seen appointing too many VADs; but many of these work on very small margins, hence making no real addition of value except possibly a slight addition to the finances.

For us, it’s not just about getting credits. What matters to us is we have stand with our resellers and face the market with them; be it the good or the bad we are there with them anytime they need us. When we say we add value, we mean it and we do it not just on one instance, but regularly on a day-to-day basis- that is our strength. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

My Opinion_EliteVAD.indd 45

45

12/09/14 11:16 pm

SECURITY CORNER

PALADION

Redefining Security Services With the rise in the complexity of information infrastructure, the vulnerability is always on rise. Unlike the good old days the infrastructure requires a lot of proactive approach in order to be safe from the eyes of the bad guys of the world.

T

he threat landscape is changing rapidly. The kind of issues that used to take place 4-5 years back were prevented by a Firewall or Antivirus or by any other end product have gone beyond that scale and the criticality has become very lethal. The attacks are happening on a mass scale over a period of time in a specialised slow and low manner like it happened with Target retail, US. It is also difficult to determine whether the attack is legitimate using the traditional technologies. Even if someone knows about it, it gives an impression of a low priority attack.

In such a kind of scenario the end products or even some of the sophisticated security products cannot act as deterrent. It requires data mining to understand the magnitude of the attack.

Only Analytics can alert the IT administrators or CISOs about the pattern of the variation of the access to the data and there can be alerts about the possible attacks or threat. The security administrator at Target retail, US, was perhaps late in tracing the change in pattern of the data access or attacks. By the time they realised, it was too late.

Therefore, risk management through data mining and analytics has become a niche domain and the companies who are early movers to this domain are at an advantageous position. Indiabased Paladion is one of the early movers and a positive player in this domain (as per Gartner).

Paladion provides complete spectrum of information risk management comprising of security

46

assurance, compliance, governance, monitoring, security analytics and security management services to large and medium sized organizations.

However, the company has started focussing on providing data mining and security analytics.

Firosh Ummer, Executive Vice President, GRC Services, Paladion, said, “The companies generate huge amount of data and they do not know what action can be taken on that. All the small security incidents do not come up to their priority list. So, we are mining all these data and using analytics platform to tell customers about the possible hot spots, which need their attention.”

“Although solutions like HP ArcSight can look at the various rule-based incidents but analytics can look at the period of the slow and low profile of attacks. Our focus is basically to go beyond lineal security and go to analytics,” he added.

Besides analytics, Paladion’s forte is to offer security consulting service, applications testing services, security implementation and management service. The company creates security policy for the customer, designs the security architecture, implements the solution and last but not the least manages the infrastructure.

As per Ummer, Paladion possibly is the earliest pure-play Infrastructure Security and Services Company. Even before people knew about products like Firewall the company had started supporting the market from Firewall stand point.

He added, “We are possibly the only pure play company in the Middle East region, which focuses tremendously on the services area.”

The company works with some of the niche

FIROSH UMMER

EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, GRC SERVICES, PALADION

“We are possibly the only pure play company in the Middle East region, which focuses tremendously on the services area.” brands including HP for ArcSight, IBM for QRadar etc. These products are specialised and requires a good amount of operational knowledge and expertise in implementation and management. Possibly that is the reason why the company has the largest SIEM implementation.

Ummer adds, “We are going to partner with those companies which have specialised solutions and where we can add value. We do not want to be known as product distributors. That is not the business model that we are in.”

FINALLY...

Started in India, Paladion is operating in the MEA market for last 8-9 years. The company has today 700 people spread across Middle East, India, Europe and US. If one classifies Paladion, it is the master in security designing consulting domain. Paladion’s offerings have been recognized and awarded by Gartner, Asian Banker, and Red Herring amongst others. Paladion is also actively involved in several information risk management research forums and has authored many books on the same. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

Security corner_Paladion.indd 46

12/09/14 10:56 pm

MY VIEWS

know that we can support in any kind of cyber threat. So our value added offer is about providing all the core services along withthe additional services which help our clients understand for themselves the nature of the threat they are facing hence allowing for more focussed investment decision making on behalf of the business.

BRIAN LORD

CYBER OPERATIONS AND CAPABILITY DIRECTOR AT PGI

“Beyond the Traditional Solutions Offering” WITH THE GROWTH IN THE SOPHISTICATION OF SECURITY BREACHES AND HACKINGS, THERE HAS BEEN SURGE OF SPECIALISED SECURITY AND SOLUTION VENDORS WHICH PROVIDE SOLUTIONS THAT ARE COMPLETELY

How PGI is different in terms of its offerings compared to the vendors who are also providing training and certification?

There is a difference between training somebody on particular projects and actually training people on understanding how to counter the threat. So, yes, we will provide user training on specific projects, not just our projects but other projects as well. Most companies will come, sell their technology, simply train only on that piece of technology and then leave without helping the organizations understand how to use that technology in order to counter the threat. We focus on understanding the threat and not just from a technical point of view rather from all three dimensions.

What is the competitive advantage of PGI? The way PGI differentiates itself from a number of providers is that PGI operates at a global level and with a level of deep understanding. A large number of our staff has come from incredibly privileged backgrounds in terms of intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, etc. PGI brings people with a wealth of experience in a training environment which is completely immersive; we train about all the aspects of threat instead of just brushing a few areas like the other smaller providers.

DIFFERENT FROM THE NORMAL PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS. PGI IS ONE SUCH COMPANY ENTERPRISE CHANNELS MEA TEAM SPOKE TO BRIAN LORD, CYBER OPERATIONS AND CAPABILITY DIRECTOR AT PGI TO KNOW ABOUT THEIR OFFERINGS AND GO TO MARKET STRATEGY. EXCERPTS.

What is PGI all about?

PGI is a privately owned company which specialises in information security and its major concern is to develop technology in order to solve many of the information security problems.

There definitely are a lot of companies which are known for extremely advanced technology and PGI is one of them as well. But what PGI also does is it adds the extra value too. We at PGI believe that information security comprises technical solutions and the solution around the human being and the physical dimensions as well. It is only by addressingthose entire entire

three components one can have a really effective information security regime. The focus of our services is helping our clients understand the nature of their problem.We have a valuable cyber threat intelligence service that’s also underpinned by helping to educate organizations in the area of information security. We have a great training regime.We also educate leaderships of the organizations in what it is like to be a leader in an information enabled organization. We train the entire workforce through various packages.

Because from a PGI perspective, from the vast experience of the people we have employed we

Is training a major part of your offerings?

It isn’t just training. We have clients everywhere to whom we provide the totality of cyber security projects. We cater a full gamut of technology, services, consultancy and training.

Do you also train the trainers in the local market?

The key element of PGI is the training we give to organizations. It’s not just training but capability and knowledge transfer. It’s not in our interest to provide course after course; what we do is work with an organization over a two-three year period, and completely transfer the capability so that the recipient organization has the complete knowledge with which it can train its other staff as well. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

My Opinion_PGI.indd 47

47

12/09/14 10:57 pm

ENTERPRISE SECURITY

STRENGTHENED AFTER THE ACQUISITION ARKOON-NETASQ

HAKAM KAYED

SALES DIRECTOR, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, ARKOON-NETASQ

n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

In the last two years, Netasq and Arkoon were acquired by Airbus Group in order to reinforce its leading position in CyberSecurity in Europe.

Recently, the two subsidiaries were merged.

“The companies were competing against each other but Airbus decided to acquire both. We have merged completely and we have decided to grow our security portfolio. The acquisition gave us credibility because our brands were not well-known,” says Hakam Kayed, Sales Director, Middle East and Africa, Arkoon-Netasq.

The network security and end-point security products are from Arkoon-Netasq and from Airbus Defence and Space CyberSecurity, there are other services and technologies like SOC solutions.

It also helps organizations in setting governance policies and training their staff to be able to counter attacks and also to give the right guidance to organizations to be able to have a secured infrastructure

and environment within organizations.

Arkoon-Netasq works with partners in different countries. It is also present in many of the GCC countries. “We have channel partners in most of the GCC countries. We are providing local support to customers who are having network and end-point security,” says Kayed.

Arkoon-Netasq works in a two-tier model wherein it has distributors and channel partners or System Integrators who provide local support to our partners.

Arkoon-Netasq is quite positive about reaching out to bigger customers, more important and sensitive clients and organizations like Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Interiors, Banks etc. “The acquisition gave us a very good edge and also made sure that we are going to be here for a very long time and we are backed up by the big group, the Airbus group,” he concludes. ë

EXPANDING ITS REACH CYBEROAM

RAVINDER JANOTRA

REGIONAL SALES MANAGER, CYBEROAM MIDDLE EAST

48

Half storys.indd 48

n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

With its new marketing strategy, Cyberoam is gearing-up to penetrate the GCC market. The company has hired Emitac has its distributor in Qatar. For Levant, it has Sevengate. The company is also planning to increase its team in Dubai as well and people who would be focusing more on the customers. “We are changing our strategy and this will definitely increase our market share.

The relationship between the customers and partners and the whole ecosystem will grow and lead to a way which will increase our business and reach in the region. We always work neck to neck in Dubai market in the UAE region but now our focus is also for the GCC countries,” says Ravinder Janotra, Regional Sales Manager, Cyberoam Middle East.

Janotra says that in last six months, since the appointment of Emitac, the company has seen a growth from Qatar business in terms of Cyberoam UTM segment. “Emitac has a huge channel base over there. They have their team of dedicated pre-sales and sales who are focusing on the customers and partners over there. In Levant also, we have Sevengate, our dedicated distributors who are also putting in their efforts,” he adds.

Cyberoam has increased its marketing and is

now organizing end-user road shows with the help of its partners which was not there before.

The company is doing this every quarter and almost 40-50 people are attending the road shows. “This is one the best marketing steps we have taken from our side to go to the end customer domain directly and we are there at most of the marketing activities,” he says.

With 2020 Expo coming in Dubai and FIFA World Cup in Qatar, the market is growing exponentially and the security needs are becoming bigger. Cyberoam is geared-up with its strategies. The company is putting more focus on each and every region. “We have our dedicated real value added distributors who are associated with Cyberoam from a long time. With dedicated skilled professional team of pre-sales engineers, sales engineers who are focusing on Cyberoam business and with our new strategies we are looking into the GCC market for more channel development,” says Janotra.

“We have grown exponentially in the region starting from Dubai to other GCC countries comprising Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar as well as Levant region which comprises Jordan and Lebanon market,” concludes Janotra. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 10:57 am

ENTERPRISE SECURITY

DELIVERING ONLY THE BEST SPIRE SOLUTIONS

SAMEH SABRY

REGIONAL MANAGER, PROFESSIONAL SERVICES, SPIRE SOLUTIONS

n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

Spire Solutions, a value-added distributor head-quartered in Dubai has a wide reach with a diverse team and likes to do things differently.

The company is 100% focused on information security. “From last couple of years we have been winning awards as the Best Information Security Services Provider. The reason is that we focus only on information security. We start where others stop. We complement solutions and we have what is needed to close the gaps between the solutions,” says Sameh Sabry, Regional Manager, Professional Services, Spire Solutions.

The company holds a number of products which it not only distributes in terms of taking one box from here and shipping it there but also engages in doing scoping, design, architecture review, proof of concept, implementation and certified training program as well as providing testing labs to customers as well as engineers. “We give after sales and deal-closure support. We have

services and products under the same umbrella of Spire. We cover from Morocco to India and our team is diverse speaking different languages.

This is the trust we gain from different parts of the world as well as the vendors,” he adds.

Sabry says Spire focuses on technology. The company does a lot of study and research and is quite careful in choosing the vendors. “We intend to deliver the things we only do best. We offer stuff that not every other VAD is offering.

We have our own dedicated labs, research and development teams in different parts of the world. We have a competent team of engineers. We have built trust with our clients so we can easily position our products. We know the pain points of customers, service providers and we are very good when it comes to research and development. Using these three things together, I think we deliver the best solutions in the market,” he concludes. ë

ENHANCING PRESENCE IN THE GCC GULF IT NETWORK

FERAS AL-HAKIM

CHANNEL MANAGER, GULF IT NETWORK DISTRIBUTION

n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

Gulf IT Network Distribution, a Value-added distributor based in Dubai focuses mainly on security and networking sector. The distributor has presence in Saudi, Oman, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, and Bahrain and is planning to enhance its existence in the GCC. Feras Al-Hakim, Channel Manager, Gulf IT Network Distribution says that the expansion strategy will start from 2015 after the company enhances its base in the GCC. Gulf IT is targeting enterprise customers in finance, government, defence and Oil & Gas. “All these companies are based everywhere and have data going everywhere all over the GCC and all over the world. We optimise their performance and we secure their data and files even their online applications which are open to the public,” says Al-Hakim.

National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Dubai Petroleum are among the customers of Gulf IT. Al-Hakim says that the way Gulf IT delivers projects is very professional be it pre-sales or

technical team. “We provide superb on-site support to our customers. We provide our partners proper resources in order to attain the customer satisfaction and deliver the quality of service. We train our partners, our customers technically and even give sales training. We qualify our partners to deliver our solutions to our valued customers,” he adds.

Al-Hakim elaborates on the product portfolio saying that Imperva is a full package data centre security solution focused on securing critical information, database and web application security. “The second product we are carrying is Silver Peak WAN Optimization which optimizes the connections between data centres as for all the data going through GCC, we need an optimizing tool to avoid all the obstacles, all data loss happening and things which are a big challenge for the customers. Third product we carry is Array Networks, an application delivery control which also optimizes the performance of our customers’ infrastructure,” he informs. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Half storys.indd 49

49

11/09/14 10:57 am

ENTERPRISE SECURITY

BEING A SPECIALIST WEBSENSE

NEIL THACKER

INFORMATION SECURITY & STRATEGY OFFICER, EMEA, WEBSENSE UK LTD.

n B Y: M A N A L I M I S R A < M A N A L I @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

In EMEA, privacy and data protection are one of the hot topics for IT security professionals. Websense, a global leader in protecting organizations and master of web security, has invested heavily in this region. The company is focused on bringing in more people and trying to offer education on what it does. “We are focused on a small area. We focus on data protection, web and email security and also mobile security. We focus on bringing a mature product which is highly scalable, always available and is built to last,” comments Neil Thacker, Information Security & Strategy Officer, EMEA, Websense UK Ltd. Websense TRITON security solutions unify web security, email security, mobile security and data loss prevention (DLP).

Thacker says that Websense focuses on web security and on top of that has a layer looking

for any type of malware coming in. The solutions protect any company’s data by stopping the data leaving the organization through web channel.

“We do exactly the same for the email, cloud and on premise and end point as well. So, where your data sits, data in motion or data in use, we have a technology that can ensure data protection. I see more demand for real-time, more predictive analytics running. We have that capability as part of our TRITON portfolio,” he adds.

Commenting on competition from UTMs, Thacker says that Websense is focused on data in web and email channels at the moment and is a specialist in this area. “We are looking at the data layer and looking at threats, identifying assets, looking at vulnerability. We are not trying to do too many things and that’s why we are the best at what we are doing,” he concludes. ë

GUARDING IDENTITY ENTRUST

n B Y: S O U M YA S M I TA P R A J N A < S O U M YA @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

KIERAN HERNON

REGIONAL SALES DIRECTORMEA, ENTRUST

50

Half storys.indd 50

Entrust is centred on the process of securing digital identities and information. It deals with the protection of identities, external identification of people, devices and applications. Kieran Hernon says, “We have three pillars that we focus on, primarily- authentication and fault detection, public infrastructure encryption and of course our cloud services (which also integrate our SSO solutions).”

Entrust’s key regions in the ME are KSA, Qatar, UAE. In Africa, they are focusing on Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa. They operate through some System Integrators and Value Added Resellers in the region. Additionally, they are also looking at distribution across the region.

The company is mostly focussed on the three prime verticals namely government, finance, and enterprise. Hernon says that they have had a lot of success with Government and Finance agencies; and would like to branch out and focus on utilities, energy, oil and gas, healthcare and education verticals as well.

Typically the solution in their focus in the ME is identity guard solution for strong authentication. Identity Guard product is a multi factor

authentication solution, wherein they offer a layered and flexible approach to manage the identities and authentication through a single platform, irrespective of whether the user wants to use username-password, SMS, OTP or even managing a virtual smart credential/mobile smart credential.

Financial organizations use Entrust’s solutions for identification and authentication during Internet Banking, online transactions, or addition of beneficiaries. Entrust helps globally trusted financial institutions fight fraud in real time with the most comprehensive fraud detection solution — Entrust TransactionGuard.

The “FFIEC: Authentication in an Internet Banking Environment” guidance recognizes the significant advances in criminal threats — both in sophistication and sheer frequency.

Recently, Entrust Entrust has also launched Entrust Identity Guard Cloud Service which consolidates the management of digital identities, SSL certificates and credentials via a single solution platform. The company believes that the having a single console will give a new level of visibility, scalability and control to users. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

11/09/14 10:57 am

ENTERPRISE SECURITY

ME IS A BIG GROWTH AREA NEUSTAR What is NeuStar’s offering to the enterprise market?

NeuStar is a market leader in information services and analytics. Neustar’s Enterprise services provide an innovative suite of solutions for its enterprise customers including managed domain name system and traffic management, website monitoring and load testing, IP geolocation, DDoS security threat monitoring, registry services and mobile marketing solutions.

ANTHONY CHADD

ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE, NEUSTAR INC.

What about your geographic presence?

We are a global company. We have offices across the globe in the UK, the USA and are currently working with partners in the UAE. We are looking to develop so that we can soon have our office here as well in Dubai.

What potential do you see in this region?

ME is a big growth area. We are very lucky to deal with the people over here. People out here are very forward looking and look for the best in breed when it comes to technology. And that’s what NeuStar believes in as well; we deliver

the best in breed. We look forward to grow our customer base over here.

What’s your expectation from this region from the growth perspective?

We have partners in different countries of the region. We hope to increase our current revenues from the region by around 100% over the next two years, and we believe it’s a very realistic target.

We aim to do a lot of business when it comes to our new products, which have got great feedback from the companies in this region over the past six months. We are looking into the verticals like Government sector, retail, financing, etc.

What kind of investment are you making in order to cope with your growth?

We have already made a huge investment in the region. We have strategic partners in this region and a person in UK who manages these relationships. We take part in all the major technology events in the region, the third of which was GISEC 2014 for us. We look ahead to two more shows in the coming months as well. We are expecting a great ROI from our investments. ë

SECURING MOBILE CONVERSATIONS TELSEC CORP

AFNANULLAH KHAN

CEO OF TELSEC CORP

n B Y: S O U M YA S M I TA P R A J N A < S O U M YA @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M >

How would you like to introduce Telsec?

Our company specialises in the area of IT security.

We provide services in the area of telecom as well.

We have got some really exciting products; one of them is the Crypto Phone which provides the functionality to mobile phone users to encrypt the conversation they have with other mobile phone users.The product comes with standard encryption algorithm (AES) but we also provide the functionality to our customers to use custom algorithm for encryption; the device can be used by the Corporates as well as Government agencies.

We also have a product called SharpEye, which is a data intelligence system build around the technologies of Hyper Spectral Imaging to detect targets on the ground like oil spills, floods etc. Our products niche is that it does not use probabilistic analysis rather target acquisition is done through

signatures which give much higher accuracy. We pride ourselves in going the extra mile and providing an un-beatable customer service.

What are your expectations from the Middle East region?

The GCC market is quite big and the potential over here is immense. In GISEC 2014, we tried to understand the market in a better way by interacting with the people out here; so accordingly we have plans to advertise and package our products.

What are your plans regarding your physical presence in this region?

We are planning to have offices in Dubai, and Jordan. We have a local partner in KSA. So, we are looking at expanding quite aggressively within the region. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Half storys.indd 51

51

11/09/14 10:57 am

GUEST TALK

Gulf Enterprises Prepare for the Mobile Generation Mobile devices are going to be the future of internet usage and business all over the globe. It is time to consider the transformational power of mobile within enterprises. The focus now is “individual enterprise” defined by four main characteristics- new business value, analytics, mobility and empowerment.

Just as the Internet did before, mobile networks—and the devices that exploit them—are radically changing the way we interact with the world. In the GCC, everything from how we transact with merchants, educate students, and entertain ourselves is moving to mobile platforms with stunning speed.

Over ten times more smartphones and tablets are sold every day than babies are born.

The average person checks their smartphone 150 times a day, or nearly once every six minutes.The market for wearable devices is also projected to grow at least fivefold over the next four years, with analysts noting that smartphonesalready account for more than half of all mobile phones in the GCC. The business world is well aware of this mobile shift. In IBM’s most recent C-suite study, 84% of CIOs rated mobile solutions as a critical investment to get closer to customers, while 94% of CMOs ranked mobile apps as crucial to their digital marketing plans. Yet most of the mobile applications they’re considering are customer facing, and that’s only half of the equation.

While businesses have been quick to embrace mobile and analytics as a competitive differentiator, they have struggled with its full implications.

52

Guest Talk-IBM.indd 52

We believe the time has come for organizations in the Middle East and across all industries to look beyond the crowds descending upon the consumer and consider the transformational potential of mobile inside the enterprise.

DEFINING THE INDIVIDUAL ENTERPRISE Information platforms, tailored to each employee’s specific needs, can dynamically reconfigure workflows to get the right information (and only the right information) to the right people at the right time in the right place. This is the Individual Enterprise—when each employee has the power to use mobility solutions to quickly acquire new skills, collaborate with colleagues, and make more informed decisions in real-time.

From initial case studies, we see four key characteristics that define the “Individual Enterprise” today: l Creating new business value The faster response times enabled by mobility make the Individual Enterprise significantly more nimble than its predecessor. After all, time-optimized decision making improves outcomes—for example, last-second pricing decisions optimize margins. l Powered by analytics

The value of analytics is amplified by mobile, not only by providing more precise information about time and place, but through its ability to break down large decisions into a series of smaller ones that can more accurately hone in on desired results. l Designed first for mobile Mobility redefines possible operating and engagement models, shifting the design of enterprise systems to focus on the experience of the end-user. Building apps with time, location, speed, temperature and ever more situational dimensions makes possible an anywhereanytime environment for business. l Unleash empowered employees The Individual Enterprise evolves from managing employees to optimizing ecosystems; from assigning ‘a person for the process’ to creating ‘a process for the person’.

By dynamically reconfiguring workflows around the individual, mobile combined with analytics can empower employees to make better, context-rich decisions based on situational awareness.

BUILDING BLOCKS FOR THE INDIVIDUAL ENTERPRISE In working with partners from across the Gulf, we have found that creating a true“Individual Enterprise”requires organizations

n B I R G I T TA O LT E R S D O R F, M A N A G I N G PA R T N E R F O R G L O B A L B U S I N E S S S E R V I C E S G U L F, L E VA N T A N D PA K I S TA N , I B M

to have a solid foundation from which to increase productivity and empower their employees. These organizational building blocks include: l Security - Secure systems deliver the trust and confidence necessary for the enterprise and individuals to embrace mobility. l Connectivity - ‘Always-on’ mobile networks facilitate a continuum of information and services throughout the enterprise. l Resiliency - Persistent availability of connections, data and services are essential to business continuity. l Orchestration - Processes and enterprises become configurable around workflows and situations in real-time. l Insights and learning - If mobile enables the Individual Enterprise, advanced analytics powers it. The new breed of apps that ingests, analyzes and manages context-rich data are needed to produce actionable insights and better informed decisions.

Organizations in the Gulf that architect their business and information systems with this model in mind will unleash the full potential of their employees, evolve their business models, or even createtotally new ones—thus realizing the full transformational benefits of mobility. ë

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

12/09/14 11:15 pm

INNOVATIONS

KEY CAPABILITIES n 100 page-per-minute device n Automates color control n More image quality n Applications are rendered at 1200 x 1200 dpi at up to 10 bits – that’s 300 percent more pixels and color precision rendered than the 600 x 600 dpi standard n New Ultra HD Resolution – an industry first

New Xerox Versant 2100 Press With the Xerox Versant 2100 Press, printers can competitively position themselves to win more new jobs and retain repeatable business with numerous workflow options. For example, with Xerox FreeFlow Core printers can automate complex prepress steps and with XMPie StoreFlow create and deliver revenue generating web-to-print portals.

With the Xerox Stock Library Manager, printers can simplify the management of paper stocks, easily adding new ones or using the preloaded validated, approved stocks.

The 100 page-per-minute device – versatile for any production environment – combines speed, exclusive image quality and automation features to create colorful personalized communications, collateral, brochures, photo publishing and specialty products. The press offers more performance, automates color control, creates image-to-media alignment profiles and delivers brand-managed color in less time with less waste with an inline, integrated Full Width Array. It maintains tight registration throughout the press from page to

page and run to run with Production Accurate Registration technology.

It produces smooth sweeps and gradients, sharp images, graphics and text with the new Ultra HD Resolution – an industry first. Applications are rendered at 1200 x 1200 dpi at up to 10 bits – that’s 300 percent more pixels and color precision rendered than the 600 x 600 dpi standard. It also provides brilliant and vibrant images with low gloss, low melt EA Dry Ink; offers consistent color across multiple printers and sites.

PLEASE SEND YOUR FEEDBACK AT EDITOR@ ENTERPRISECHANNELS.COM

FORTIGATE 5144C Fortinet firewall – the new FortiGate 5144C – exceeds 1 terabit per second (Tbps) throughput performance and offers 10GbE, 40GbE and 100GbE connectivity options. This firmly positions the FortiGate 5144C as the world’s fastest firewall, making it the ideal security solution for carriers, service providers and large-scale enterprises who have the most demanding performance and scalability requirements for network security, and who want unparalleled versatility and flexibility in delivering high performance data, application and network protection to their customers and users.

The new FortiGate 5000 Series is Fortinet’s flagship, chassis and blade firewall platform. Built for large scale enterprise data center and carrier-class environments, the FortiGate 5000 series includes fully redundant, hot-swappable power supplies, fans and firewall blades for maximum up time.

The new 5000 Series comprises a new chassis – the FortiGate 5144C, new controller networking blades (5903C/5913C) and new security blades (5001D) that utilize the latest NP6 network processor to deliver 40 Gbps firewall throughput per ASIC. Unlike common, off-the-shelf processors used by other vendors, the NP6 ASIC is a revolutionary, low-power design that produces unparalleled firewall throughput (40Gbps) as well as 2-3microsecond latency. Coupled with native IPv4 and IPv6 traffic processing, the NP6 is ideally suited for next-generation networks.

By running fourteen 5001D security blades concurrently, today’s 5000 Series delivers more than 1 Tbps firewall throughput.

KEY CAPABILITIES n exceeds 1 terabit per second (Tbps) throughput performance n offers 10GbE, 40GbE and 100GbE connectivity options n comprises a new chassis – the FortiGate 5144C

53

S E P T E M B E R 2 014

MEA

Innovations.indd 53

15-09-2014 13:16:05

INNOVATIONS

A10 Thunder 6435 Appliance

Silver Peak Unity

A10 Networks’ Thunder SPE appliance family is a new line of high-speed, high-capacity application networking appliances which leverage specialized hardware to perform security and policy enforcement at ultra high speeds. They deliver up to a 40 percent processing performance boost relative to current systems, creating a very powerful and secure application networking solution for large service provider and enterprise customers. It leverages A10’s innovative new Security and Policy Engine (SPE) to implement security and policy enforcement functions at higher speed, harnessing the power of additional and enhanced hardware components. The appliances are particularly powerful in preventing the rising occurrence of DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks. A10’s Thunder SPE takes security and policy enforcement performance to a new level combining the award winning, unparalleled performance of ACOS (Advanced Core Operating System) with a purpose built hardware processing engine. Moreover, A10’s continued focus on high performance (155Gps) small form factor (1 Rack Unit) appliances ensure companies maintain low OPEX relative to existing solutions.

No other solution in the market today provides an Application Delivery Controller (ADC) or Carrier Grade Network (CGN) solution with this level of extra hardware protection at scale.

The Thunder SPE appliances deliver ultra high-speed Security and Policy Enforcement and high-performance up to 155 Gbps for the most demanding application networking and security requirements. Thunder SPE appliances leverage A10’s innovative Security and Policy Engine (SPE) to implement security and policy enforcement functions at higher speed, harnessing the power of advanced Flexible Traffic Acceleration (FTA) technology and high speed lookup capabilities. Thunder SPE appliances offer the best performance per rack unit coupled with high density interface 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps and 40 Gbps port options and the highest level “80 PLUS™ Platinum” certification for power supplies to ensure a green solution and reduce power consumption costs.

Silver Peak Unity, the WAN fabric, unifies the enterprise network with the public cloud. Unlike traditional WAN optimization solutions, Unity correlates information about cloud services and Internet “weather” to intelligently route traffic over a secure, optimal path. By keeping SaaS and IaaS traffic on the Unity fabric, IT gains an ability it’s never had: the ability to monitor and control connectivity to the cloud while ensuring consistent SaaS performance.

Silver Peak Unity combines unique technology for monitoring, controlling and optimizing the new network. Advanced Exterior Routing identifies the closest egress to cloud data centers and directs traffic to a cloud service over an optimal path. Advanced Interior Routing dynamically selects the fastest, least-congested, or most available path for traffic by monitoring packet loss, latency, and bandwidth in real-time. The Unity fabric is built on IPsec VPN security without any performance degradation, using AES-256 encryption with SHA-1 authentication and a simplified deployment model. WAN compression and deduplication inspects all traffic in real-time, eliminating repetitive transmission of duplicate data. Applications are classified to prioritize critical traffic classes while constraining recreational or personal-use traffic classes. Cloud Intelligence, new subscription service delivers information about cloud services to Silver Peak software instances, creating an Internet weather map for intelligent routing decisions. Adaptive Forward Error Correction reconstitutes dropped packets in real-time, while Packet Order Correction re-sequences packets that may traverse multiple paths across the network.

Silver Peak software installed in data centers, branch offices and cloud interconnection hubs generates the Unity fabric, a network overlay that controls and accelerates connectivity to any combination of enterprise services, IaaS resources and SaaS applications.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Future-proof design capable of enabling an expanded set of security and policy enforcements. n All models are dual power supply-capable, featureSSDs and utilize no inaccessible moving parts for high availability.

54

KEY CAPABILITIES n Inspects all traffic in real-time n Adaptive Forward Error Correction n Ability to monitor and control connectivity

S E P T E M B E R 2014

MEA

Innovations.indd 54

15-09-2014 13:16:06

PROVEN AND TRUSTED ENDPOINT SECURITY

BY THE WORLD'S No ESET holds the record in consecutive " awards of all number of " antivirus makers. Find out how our expertise helps secure your company â&#x20AC;&#x201C; visit eset.com

ESET Symantec Avira BitDefender Sophos eScan GDATA Quick Heal Kaspersky Fortinet F-Secure Total Defense Business Avast!

McAfee AVG Norman Frisk Doctor Web Commtouch

Virus Bulletin Awards Success ratio (%) Selected Antivirus Vendors (not a complete list) Source: www.virusbtn.com, May â&#x20AC;&#x201C; December All trademarks and service marks that appear on this page are the property of their respective owners and are used solely to refer to those companies' goods and services.

www.eset.com/me Tel +971 43754052 / Fax +971 44290967 info@esetme.com Office 305, Building 2, Dubai Internet City

Advts.indd 8

11/09/14 9:53 pm

Advts.indd 9

11/09/14 9:54 pm