January 2014 by GEC Media Group

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PA G E S 4 8 VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 06 JANUARY 2014 WWW.ENTERPRISECHANNELSMEA.COM

Redundant IT infrastructure can have serious repercussions on functioning of any organization and GCAA has braced up to avoid any of those. With the astute leadership of GCAA higher management along with H.E Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi -Director General’s encouraging support, IT department has excelled in the area of automation and strongly progressed towards the Smart government initiative. /28

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RAISING THE BAR “B E I NG STORAG E-AG NOSTIC IS A BOON” /31

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ENTER A NEW LEVEL OF VALUE ADDED DISTRIBUTION AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTOR FOR:

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PA G E S 4 8 VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 06 JANUARY 2014 WWW.ENTERPRISECHANNELSMEA.COM

ACHIEVING THE TECHNOLOGICAL EXCELLENCE

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Looking at the crystal ball, the industry experts are predicting a big scope and healthy growth for IT business till the end of this decade and beyond. /32

CONSOLI DATI NG TH E CHAN N E L /27

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SMART SERVICES 183

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EDITORIAL

Middle East Till 2020

S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A EDITOR@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM

Led by UAE, the entire Middle East till 2020 is going to change the order of global economy. The region is going to be the focal point of major global happenings. Of course we may not see the excitement going out of the roof soon but yes it is the most lucrative market for sure. The biggest benefactor is the entire infrastructure developer industry and it will take other industries on its stride. It is expected that the aggregate GDP should by 2020 reach US$2 trillion, which will make up 1.7% of the world GDP. From the specific countries’ point of view, Dubai will add at least 1.5 percentage points per year to its GDP by virtue of its holding the World Expo 2020. Apart from the development of infrastructure for the grand spectacle in 2020, the country is going to see some of the amazing infrastructure development till 2020. For example MEED Projects estimated the total value of contracts awarded in the UAE during 2013 will close out at approximately $30 billion, but 2014 will see number of awards increasing to $35 billion. The multi-billion-dollar Mohammad Bin Rashid (MBR) City comprises four things family tourism, retail, arts and entrepreneurship. It will include a park capable to receive 35 million visitors. There will be over 100 hotel facilities to meet the needs of visitors. It will hold the Mall of the World, the largest shopping mall in the world. It will also have the largest art galleries in Mena. The Bluewaters Island worth of 6 billion dirhams will be one more tourist hotspots in the world. It will feature a demarcated retail, residential, hospitality and entertainment zones and will house Dubai Eye, the world’s largest Ferris wheel. Besides, there are thousands of projects coming up in the country, which will change the financial outlook of the country. Similarly, Abu Dhabi is going to spend $100 billion until 2020 on infrastructure. Construction projects will remain the most active with $30 billion worth of projects to be awarded in the next seven years, followed by the oil & gas sector with a project pipeline valued at $25 billion. Similarly, KSA will spend USD 293 billion on infrastructure projects – including hard infrastructure like transportation, power and water and soft infrastructure like schools and hospitals, etc. till 2020. Qatar to witness $120bn projects by 2020 and countries like Oman and Bahrain are also aggressive on 100s of billions of worth project. It has therefore prompted us to bringing out a report on the impact of such projects on the IT industry. Happy Reading and Happy New Year to all of you! ë

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CONTENTS VOLUME 01 ISSUE 05 DECEMBER 2013 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

COVER STORY

2013

ACHIEVING THE TECHNOLOGICAL EXCELLENCE

Looking at the crystal ball, the industry experts are predicting a big scope and healthy growth for IT business till the end of this decade and beyond. /32

MY VIEWS /31

“BEING STORAGEAGNOSTIC IS A BOON” MIKE RESSELER, PRODUCT STRATEGY SPECIALIST, EMEA EVANGELIST, VEEAM SOFTWARE

MY VIEWS /42

“Rising demand of integrated security solutions” NAZIR KAZI, AVP - MEA & AFRICA, ESCAN

INNOVATIONS /45

NEC DISPLAY 32-INCH V323 LCD DISPLAY

FEATURE Evolution of Channel Partners /24 Donning Multiple Roles

NEC Display 32-inch V323 LCD display, a high-performance addition to its commercial-grade V Series that utilizes LED backlighting for improved power consumption and a slimmer cabinet depth.

CORPORATE STORY /28

Raising the Bar

EDITORIAL::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 05

Redundant IT infrastructure can have serious repercussions on functioning of any organization and GCAA has braced up to avoid any of those.

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CONVERGED STORAGE ARCHITECTUREyour path to the Cloud

Autho r i ze d M i d d l e E ast Va lu e A d d e d D istr i b uto r

StorIT Distribution fzco Tel: +971 4 881 9690 | Advts.indd 3

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CHANNEL

STREET INFOR PARTNERS WITH AUTOMATION CONSULTANTS

Infor has signed a partnership agreement with ILA Advanced Technology - the holding company of Automation Consultants during Cairo ICT 2013. Automation Consultants is an Egyptbased provider of cloud-based software and IT products and systems. As part of the partnership, Automation Consultants will sell and implement a comprehensive range of Infor’s public sector applications throughout Egypt and the Middle East as part of their Automation Business Cloud (ABC) services. ABC products and services incorporate a comprehensive set of offerings for the public sector in the Middle East with specific Infor applications to address some the most pressing challenges within the region through a single cloud market place for the business and government sectors.

IMDAAD TO DEPLOY FLEETMAN GPS TRACKING SOFTWARE Imdaad will install FleetMAN, a GPS-based fleet/asset tracking and monitoring system, for the vehicle management cycle of its fleet of vehicles from initial acquisition until its final disposal. FleetMAN is developed by Dubai Technologies, a specialist in the field of supply and implementation of transport systems. Through the FleetMAN solution, Imdaad can perform duties such as vehicle profiling, trip planning, maintenance, driver identification and dispatch efficiently. It will empower the FM company to handle all its vehicle related tasks such as financing, maintenance, telematics etc.

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H.E. AHMED BIN HUMAIDAN, DIRECTOR GENERAL OF DSG

DSG Holds Workshop on Information Security Dubai Smart Government (DSG) recently organized an introductory workshop to highlight its latest services and solutions complementing the Dubai Government’s Information Security Regulation (ISR). The workshop, which was attended by representatives of information security sector in all Dubai government entities, is aimed at boosting investments in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) infrastructure development, promoting government performance and achieving a high status within the global knowledge economy. The workshop complements the efforts exerted by DSG to fulfil its obligations after the Information Security Committee has earlier this year adopted DSG’s Information Security Regulation in implementation of resolution No. 13 for 2012 on information security at Dubai Government which was issued by the Dubai Executive Council. The aim was to enhance information security and protect its technical systems in line with an integrated framework and a unified strategy for information

security that will ensure the creation of a secure and reliable environment to preserve government information efficiently as well as maintain customer data privacy. H.E Ahmed Bin Humaidan, Director-General, Dubai Smart Government, said: “The introductory workshop addressed major strategic themes to create an integrated digital environment to process government transactions according to the highest standards of security, reliability and transparency. Spreading information security culture between local government entities and strengthening mechanisms for notification of emergency incidents affecting the security infrastructure are the top most agenda of DSG, which has recently adopted the ISR to accelerate the transition towards the smart government model.” Furthermore, the workshop shed light on the importance of spreading awareness about information security among government employees and clients.

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CHANNEL STREET

Juniper Felicitated Westcon ME Westcon Group has achieved MEA “Commercial Distributor Partner of the Year 2013” by Juniper Networks, the industry leader in network innovation. “According to some independent market analysis, the MEA region is expected to have one of the fastest-growing Internet penetration rates globally, so effective, secure high-performance networking is a key business driver for service providers and enterprises in Middle East and Africa,” said Mario Georgiou, area partner director for Juniper Networks, Middle East & Africa. “Because we operate an indirect go-to-market model, Juniper’s channel partners are fundamentally important to our customers’ experience and Juniper’s success. Westcon Middle East has been a great example of an effective partnership to build the best networks for our shared customers this year. ” Westcon ME received its award on December

OPTIMUS LAUNCHES MANAGED VIDEO SERVICE

WESTCON ME TEAM

4th during Juniper’s regional partner summit, an annual event designed to bring together key distribution and reseller partners to review best practices and discuss Juniper’s strategic plans and objectives for the coming year. Partners attended this year’s event from Egypt, Jordan, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Oman, South Africa, Qatar, U.A.E. All attending partners work with Juniper Networks within the Juniper Partner Advantage program.

STRIKE A SMARTER WORK-LIFE BALANCE WITH PLANTRONICS VOYAGER LEGEND CS Plantronics unveiled Voyager Legend CS, the latest addition to its Voyager headset line. Designed to provide mobile flexibility without sacrificing in-office productivity, the Voyager Legend CS headset system blends all the features of the Voyager family – precisely tuned audio, Smart Sensor technology and intuitive voice enabled controls – with connectivity for both the mobile phone and desk phone. Whether today’s workers are in the office or a non-office environment, they require a headset that provides a high level of audio quality and can move with them throughout the day.

Optimus has launched its cloud based managed video as a service product in the MENA region. As per the release, Maelys is an extremely scalable and powerful video as a service solution and based on the needs of the local market for better collaboration. Initially being offered to only a few selected partners and customers; Optimus’s foray into business development has changed the face of distribution in the regional market. Optimus’ Managed Video Service offering would include endpoint subscription wherein subscribers will be able to place & receive calls on the video unit. This product will enable subscribers to activate the facilities of unlimited video calling, plug n play activation and central directory. Behind every call made with Maelys is a worldwide network that features PoPs (points of presence) in key cities throughout the world, powered by Videxio. Maelys will include personal video accounts which have enabled Self-Service Registration, Smart Roaming and BYOD.

Ooredoo Bags More Accolades Ooredoo has received two more major global awards, as the company continues to enjoy its most successful year of honours ever. At the “Convergence to Oman 2013” conference this month, the SAMENA Council presented two key accolades to the company. The Ooredoo Chairman, His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah Bin Mohammed Bin Saud Al Thani, received the prestigious “Best Telecom Leader” award for his role in driving the transformation of Ooredoo around the world, and for his important contribution to the global communication industry.

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SHEIKH ABDULLAH BIN MOHAMMED BIN SAUD AL THANI

Ooredoo also received the “Best Innovative Service” award for Ooredoo Mobile Money services, which now support more than one

million customers in Qatar, Indonesia and Tunisia. The SAMENA Telecommunications Council is a tri-regional association that represents over 40 telecommunications operators in 25 markets . Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Ooredoo, said, “These awards are an important reflection of the range and diversity of services that Ooredoo provides to enrich the lives of people around the world. The international recognition of our Chairman,

His Excellency Sheikh Abdullah, demonstrates the incredible role he has played in raising standards and transforming the communications industry, both nationally and around the world.” Sheikh Abdullah has continued to raise Qatar and Ooredoo’s profile around the world in 2013. At the recent ITU Telecom World event in Thailand, Sheikh Abdullah challenged telecoms operators, regulators and partners to work together to support new broadband infrastructure projects and enhance access for all.

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OKI to Showcase Colour Printers at SGI “The new ES9541 5 colour printer OKI Europe is showcasing the indusis an affordable, high definition device try’s first 5 colour, A3 digital LED that enables you to not only print the printer, the ES9541, at SGI 2014 in full range of process colours using Dubai, UAE. Targeted at the specialist CMYK, but also offers an additional graphic arts market, the ES9541 offers fifth, spot colour, in white or clear affordable spot colour in white or gloss. Previously these processes clear gloss, at a highly competitive could only be achieved through the price point, for short-run, digital, use of expensive digital or lithoprint-on-demand performance. TERRY KAWASHIMA, graphic printing equipment; now it “OKI is extremely excited about the MANAGING DIRECTOR, OKI EUROPE LTD. is available to any creative business introduction of this pioneering new or reprographics studio, on demand, offering digital LED print technology which reinforces endless opportunities” Kawashima concluded. OKI’s focus on developing innovative technology to benefit businesses,” said Terry Kawashima, Managing Director, OKI Europe Ltd.

NEC DISPLAY SOLUTIONS UNVEILS MDVIEW272 NEC Display Solutions Europe has unveiled the MDview272, a 27-inch display that incorporates some of the latest display innovations into a review and referral display for healthcare professionals. The NEC MDview272 combines the latest display technology with industry standard compliance ‘out of the box’ as well as a range of user productivity enhancements and eco-friendly features. The use of the latest Advanced High Performance In Plan Switching (AH-IPS) panel brings exceptional colour quality and an impressive 3.7 Megapixel (2560x1440) native resolution.“Whether for image reporting in radiology or as a hospital information system monitor, access to the best-in-class displays is imperative for diagnostic review by trained physicians,” said Ian Gobey, General Manager, Middle East and Africa.

SHIFRA TO DISTRIBUTE CORERO NETWORK SECURITY Shifra has signed a distribution deal with Corero Network Security, a leading provider of First Line of Defense solutions for Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) and cyber threat protection. The deal will see Shifra extend its portfolio of security solutions in the region. “We are excited to partner with a leader like Shifra and look forward to our products and solutions having an extensive reach,” said Paul Lawrence, VP International Operations with Corero. “The Gulf represents a prime area for growth due to its economic strength and widespread usage of online media. Organisations in the region are looking to strengthen their security measures to counteract potential threats, where traditional security solutions are proving insufficient.”

‘AUTODESK UNIVERSITY EXTENSION DUBAI 2013’ OPENS IN DWTC ‘Autodesk University Extension Dubai 2013,’ the preeminent design and engineering conference in the Middle East, opened at the Sheikh Maktoum Hall of the Dubai World Trade Centre (DWTC), with key attendance of professionals from the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC), Manufacturing, and Media & Entertainment industries. The event, which is being hosted by Omnix International, the authorized distributor for Autodesk products in the Middle East, is part of the ‘Autodesk University’, an annual series of Autodesk in-person and virtual user conferences that has already enjoyed two decades of success in the US. More than 100 million people from around the world use Autodesk software to help realize their ideas. Featuring select customers, partners and executives, the one-day program gave attendees a key insight into implementing the latest product and technology innovations to help solve creative business problems across multiple industries. The event also featured talks and presentations from leading Autodesk technical evangelist Lynn Allen; Nick Manning, EMEA Industry Marketing Manager, Autodesk Media & Entertainment and Pat Williams, Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific & Emerging Markets for Autodesk.

UD SIGNS PARTNERSHIP WITH SHIPCOM MEA The University of Dubai (UD) has signed an agreement with Shipcom MEA that will provide the university with hardware and software in exchange for educational and research services. The agreement, which was signed at the university’s campus by University of Dubai President Dr. Eesa Bastaki and Shipcom MEA Managing Director

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DR. EESA BASTAKI, PRESIDENT OF UD, & QURESH GOGA, SHIPCOM MEA MANAGING DIRECTOR

Quresh Goga, will also open opportunities for collaboration in marketing endeavors based on Shipcom’s hardware and software technology. Shipcom will primarily be providing technology by means of Automatic Identification

and Data Capture (AIDC) and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID), the same technology used in Dubai’s Salik road-toll system. Students from UD’s College of Information Technology (CIT) have used RFID technology in the past as part of some very successful capstone projects.

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By 2016, 20 percent of enterprise BYOD programs will fail due to enterprise deployment of MDM measures that are too restrictive.” KEN DULANEY, VICE PRESIDENT AND DISTINGUISHED ANALYST AT GARTNER

SECONDS

SONY LAUNCHES NEW HANDHELD HD CAMCORDER Sony has launched the HXR-NX3 handheld HD

Logicom Adds CommVault Logicom Group has signed a ‘Value-Added Distribution (VAD)’ partnership agreement with CommVault. The contract will enable the company to distribute the data and information management vendor’s products and services into KSA, UAE, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen and Afghanistan through Logicom’s extensive network of resellers and system integrators. Nicholas Argyrides, Director of Sales & Marketing – Distribution at Logicom Group said, “CommVault’s state-of-the-art data management & security solutions are a seamless fit to Logicom’s current brand portfolio and they orderly

supplement our channel offerings. As we anticipate a substantial growth in the data storage & backup verticals, we are confident that our collaboration with CommVault will fully address the needs of our enterprise channel partners.” The distributor intends recruiting a minimum of 15 to 20 new partners within the first two quarters of operation and grow it to 30 partners within FY’2014. Logicom will position CommVault both as a stand-alone product and also as a part of its data centre integrated converged architecture offering and are looking at building CommVault into storage value-bundles for its channel partners.

camcorder, the latest addition to the NXCAM lineup. Perfect for the professional videographer, the HXR-NX3 combines Sony’s exceptional imaging technology with the ability to connect seamlessly with other devices such as smartphones or tablet computers with built-in WiFi technology allowing the camcorder to be controlled remotely. The HXR-NX3 combines leading lens, sensor and LSI technology to achieve impressive image quality. Sony’s Exmor 3CMOS Sensor system with three 1/2.8” sensors provides 1920x1080 Full HD effective pixel count. NVIDIA GRID VGPU TECHNOLOGY AVAILABLE WORLDWIDE Businesses worldwide can now offer their designers and engineers – including those working remotely – cost-effective, secure, graphics-intensive applications using NVIDIA® GRID™ vGPU™ (virtual GPU) technology. It launches today with the general availability of Citrix XenDesktop® 7.1 and Citrix XenServer 6.2. NVIDIA GRID vGPU technology lets employees use essentially any computing device, including

STARLINK TO PROVIDE VENAFI SECURITY SOLUTIONS

their own notebooks and portable devices, to

StarLink becomes Venafi’sStrategic Distributor for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Venafi is the market leading cybersecurity company in Next-Generation Trust Protection (NGTP). As a Gartner-recognized Cool Vendor, Venafi delivered the first trust protection platform to secure cryptographic keys and digital certificates that every business and government depend on for secure communications, commerce, computing, and mobility. As part of an enterprise infrastructure protection strategy, Venafi Director prevents attacks on trust with automated discovery and intelligent policy enforcement, detects and reports on anomalous activity and increased threats, and remediates errors and attacks by automatically replacing keys and certificates. Venafi Threat Center provides research and threat intelligence for trust-based attacks. Venafi customers are among the world’s most demanding, security-conscious Global 2000 organizations in financial services, insurance, high tech, telecommunications, aerospace, healthcare and retail. Venafi is backed by top-tier venture capital funds, including Foundation Capital, Pelion Venture Partners and Origin Partners.

desks – from anywhere at any time.

access all their office productivity and design applications virtually – just as they would at their clients, at home or around the office.” MATRIX TO LAUNCH ITS SATATYA HVR SERIES AT INTERSEC DUBAI Matrix will showcase its complete portfolio of security products encompassing range of Access Control and Time-Attendance and Video Surveillance Solution. At this event, the main focus of the company will be to highlight the new COSEC DOOR PVR and Door controllers. ZOTAC ZBOX STEAM MACHINE COMING SOON ZOTAC International previews the upcoming

HI-TECH MANUFACTURING’S LACK PROPER BACK OFFICE FRONT OFFICE INTEGRATION IDC Manufacturing Insights White Paper sponsored by Epicor titled, “Get Customers Inspired – A Call to Action for High-Tech Manufacturers,” reveals barriers between high-tech manufacturing companies not utilizing modern enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions to full capacity and the driving factors to implement a customer experience strategy. The high-tech manufacturing industry is a consumer-driven, fast paced sector where success is fully influenced by meeting those consumer expectations at the end of the value chain.

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ZBOX Steam Machine mini-PC with Steam OS at The Consumer Electronics Show 2014 in Las Vegas, Nev. The ZOTAC ZBOX Steam Machine is engineered from the ground up for breathtaking gaming performance in a compact mini-PC form factor that’s a fraction the size of traditional mini-ITX based gaming systems. Expect the ZOTAC ZBOX Steam Machine to reach retailers in the second half of 2014. More details will be released closer to the launch date.

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Westcon Signs Distribution Partnership with ForeScout Westcon Group has entered into a distribution partnership agreement with ForeScout. The agreement allows Westcon to enhance its Web Security portfolio through ForeScout’s pervasive Network Access Control (NAC) security solutions and distribute these across the UAE, KSA, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. IT market trends such as Bring-Your-OwnDevice (BYOD), continuous monitoring, contextual security, and security automation are driving NAC opportunities in the region. Enterprise customers are demanding NAC solutions that can be easily deployed and managed and are capable of providing enterprise-wide device visibility, handling advanced threats and easily integrating with BYOD, SIEM, MDM & APT solutions. NAC platforms are critical to operations of data centric organizations - particularly banks, government ministries, defence, oil and gas, education, and airlines. Responding to this market demand, Westcon

will distribute the entire suite of ForeScout solutions, including the ForeScout CounterACT platform - along with extended integration modules for SIEM, MDM, vulnerability assessment, advanced threat detection and mobile security. Steve Lockie, Managing Director at Westcon Middle East, said, “We believe in the benefits of best-of-breed solutions, and ForeScout is the leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Network Access Control. We are further strengthening our endpoint security portfolio by partnering with this industry leader and will leverage our extensive regional expertise to gain a significant share of this growing market segment.” “We are excited to welcome Westcon to the ForeScout family as an authorized Value Added Distributor (VAD). With its established reputation and proven expertise in emerging technologies, along with well-founded service offerings, the partnership with Westcon is sure to be highly successful and valued by our mutual partners and customers,” said John Hagerty, EMEA director for channels and strategic alliances at ForeScout.

TOSHIBA PARTNERS WITH MTC AND MULTIMEDYA Toshiba Gulf FZE announces Memory Technology Corporation (MTC) and Multimedya International FZE as the official distributors for its digital media solutions. The partnership aims to strengthen Toshiba’s reach in the storage segment. “Both MTC and Multimedya’s in-depth market intelligence, presence in key markets and strong distribution strategy are integral for Toshiba to increase its market share and reinforce its position as a leading storage solutions vendor,” sayss Santosh Varghese, General Manager, Digital Products and Services, Toshiba Gulf FZE. MTC will be working closely with the reseller channel network to distribute Toshiba Flash and SD products.

SAUDI PRINTING MARKET SUSTAINS 8 PERCENT ANNUAL GROWTH RATE Recent market studies indicate that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s (KSA) printing market – the oldest and the largest in the Gulf – is worth an impressive USD 800 million and as it grows steadily at a rate of eight percent per annum. This upbeat growth forecast is underpinned by the thriving publishing segment that is responsible for producing an estimated 5.1 million copies of newspapers daily and nearly 2 million copies of magazines in the Kingdom each month. Backed by 10 years of significant success, Saudi Print & Pack 2014, the 11th International Trade Exhibition for Printing & Packaging Technologies will be held at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center (RICEC) from 17 to 20 February, 2014. Zeyad Al Rukban, Deputy General Manager at the Riyadh Exhibitions Company, said, “The printing industry in the Kingdom is the oldest and the biggest in the entire Gulf region. The country’s economic growth, increasing government expenditure, population expansion, rising cultural and educational activities and the growth in retail have all contributed to intensifying printing, advertising and marketing activities. This in turn has created additional demand for printing equipment and services leading to the overall growth of industry.”

Epson to Display Latest Range of Printers Epson will showcase its latest range of printers – including the SC-F7000, SC-F2000, and SC-S70610 from its SureColor Series – at the 17th Annual Sign & Graphic Imaging (SGI) Middle East, the latest edition of the largest and longest-running event for the region’s signage, outdoor

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media, screen and digital printing industries running from January 7 to 9, 2014 at the Dubai World Trade Centre. The new SC-F7000 dye sublimation printer and the company’s first direct-to-garment t-shirt printer, SC-F2000, will be the highlight of the Epson’s state-ofthe-art stand.

SC-F7000 is the first printer in its category to have each component designed and manufactured by one company to ensure quality, performance and reliability for maximum productivity and lower total cost of ownership. A durable and robust roll-fed Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Key (CMYK) model, it

supports a range of applications. SC-F2000, on the other hand, is a high performing printer with a low maintenance and running cost which is perfect for small and medium print businesses. The printer can produce customized designs on t-shirts, caps and bags up to 25mm thick.

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CHANNEL STREET

New Certificate from Red Hat

ASHESH BADANI, VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER, CLOUD AND OPENSHIFT, RED HAT

Red Hat has announced the introduction of the Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) in support of OpenShift

Enterprise by Red Hat, the company’s award-winning private PaaS. Through the Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Platform-as-a-Service, Red Hat is providing enterprises with confidence that their teams possess the skills necessary to get the most out of their OpenShift Enterprise environments. The new certification helps tests candidates’ knowledge, skills and ability to create, configure, and manage a cloud application platform.

Ashesh Badani, vice president and general manager, Cloud and OpenShift, Red Hat, “Red Hat is committed to providing services to help enterprises deliver applications faster through improving productivity and increasing operational efficiency, and Red Hat Certificate of Expertise in Platform-as-a-Service is another example of that. It builds on Red Hat’s leading certification program, which focuses on hands-on testing of real-world skills. ”

WEB CLIPS PALADION LAUNCHES PKIT DGlobal full service managed security provider Paladion has launched PKit, a solution built for Government Entities to comply with the Dubai Government’s Information Security Regulation (ISR). Addressing the needs of Dubai Government Entities (DGE) IT decision makers, chief security officers, and compliance officers for a cost- and time-efficient ISR solutions, the PKit brings topnotch information security processes through a combination of automated tools, built-in features, ready-to-use content and expert guidance. The PKit solution is market proven with over 100 organizations achieving and sustaining international accredited information security certifications including ISO27001, PCI-DSS and HIPPA.

GARTNER NAMES RIVERBED A LEADER IN APM Riverbed Technology announced its position as a “Leader” in Gartner’s 2013 “Magic Quadrant for Application Performance Monitoring.” This marks the third consecutive time that Riverbed has been named to the Leaders Quadrant for Application Performance Monitoring. “Riverbed is proud to again be recognized as a leader in the Application Performance Management (APM) market,” said Paul Brady, senior vice president and general manager, Riverbed Performance Management. “Today’s application ecosystem has become much more complex with cloud, SaaS, and mobile applications being accessed by countless devices from people in all locations. Our customers need integrated, powerful and intelligent application monitoring and management solutions that can analyze and master such a complex global environment, and provide actionable information to the business.”

MACKEEN TECHNOLOGY OFFERS NEW ARCHIVING FEATURE Mackeen Technology has added an intelligent archiving feature to its Document and Data Management Solutions that will enable organizations to maximize efficiency and minimize cost and risk by reducing document handling complexity. The unique function is designed to seamlessly incorporate all information into the digital forms retrievable at any stage and from any location. Mackeen will offer Data management and Work Flow Solutions through four processes – document digitizing, records management, workflows and integration with multiple work systems. Through these systems, organizations will be

MOVEMENTS FADI KANAFANI has been appointed as the new Regional Director for the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan at NetApp.

TIM YEATON, has rejoined Red Hat in the newly-created position of senior vice president, Infrastructure Group.

Infor has appointed GARY HOPWOOD as manufacturing channel manager for the Middle East.

10 NUMBER GAME

growth

is expected in the SCM space in 2014.

able to store new or old documents digitally, in a safe and efficient manner, retrievable on demand when needed. They will help businesses eliminate repetitive tasks, boost productivity, win customer satisfaction and loyalty, reduce overhead costs, and improve information security. SAUDI INCREASES HEALTHCARE BUDGET BY 8 PERCENT The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has recently announced the annual budget for 2014, allocating SAR 108 billion for expansion of health and social services which amounts to 8 per cent increase in comparison to 2013. The announcement is set to improve the healthcare and social services sectors through the introduction of new medical facilities and upgrades to existing ones. The Saudi healthcare market has undergone major development during the last few years supported by various factors, including an overall increase in healthcare spending by government.

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H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Commends EIAST H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates Airline & Group, commended the Emirates Institution for Advanced Science and Technology (EIAST) for its successive achievements in the space industry and technological innovation which have contributed to the UAE’s pioneering position in the global space industry. This came during a recent visit by H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed to EIAST Headquarters, accompanied by a high-profile delegation. A team of leading engineers from EIAST further showcased the most important achievements made in 2013, including the successful launch of DubaiSat-2 which has placed the UAE as a prime satellite manufacturer and a global leader in the space industry. The visit also featured a detailed presentation on ‘Khalifa Sat’, the first 100 per cent Emirati-built satellite scheduled to be launched by 2017. H.E. Hamad Obeid Al Mansoori, Chairman of the Board of Directors, EIAST said: “The visit of H.H. Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum and the accompanying delegation

INTERACTIVE INTELLIGENCE CAAS ACHIEVES PCI COMPLIANCE

PHOTO OF H.H. SHEIKH AHMED BIN SAEED AL MAKTOUM INNAGURATING EIAST

reaffirm our leaders’ strong confidence in EIAST. We will remain steadfast in our commitment towards comprehensive scientific development under the supervision of national talents who are able to transfer the UAE into one of the leading global centers in the space industry – a key pillar for building a sustainable future. The successive achievements we accomplished throughout 2013 drive us to continue our quest towards excellence across current and upcoming projects while complying with the leading corporate values of robust scientific research, technological innovation, professional commitment, efficiency, and transparency.”

SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC TO SHOWCASE LATEST VIDEO SECURITY TECHNOLOGY Schneider Electric is set to introduce the latest in Video Security Technology by its brand Pelco by Schneider Electric at the 16th edition of Intersec, the largest and most comprehensive exhibition and conference for security, safety and fire protection in the Middle East. Pelco’s product range includes Fixed and PTZ IP cameras, enclosures, video management systems, as well as thermal imaging products and extreme environment systems that make it a leading supplier in the video surveillance industry. Also included in the launch are eight new series of IP Video Accessories designed to operate in all environments and applications, this gives installers the ability to specify complete, end-to-end solutions by removing all guesswork with tested, compatible, ready-to-install products.

Interactive Intelligence’s cloud-based communications-as-a-service offering has successfully met the Security Standards Council’s Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard 2.0 for Level 1 compliance. An Independent PCI-Qualified Security Assessor, Intersec Worldwide, conducted the assessment, from which it determined that the Interactive Intelligence Communications as a Service dedicated cardholder data environment was compliant with PCI DSS version 2.0 Security Standards. “Validation of the Interactive Intelligence CaaS environment’s compliance with PCI DSS ensures that a company’s payment network meets industry best practices and security controls that card brands have established to keep customer credit card data safe and secure for digital-based processing, storage and transmission,” said Intersec Chief Information Security Officer Jeff Tutton. “Interactive Intelligence cloud customers get the additional reassurance of Level 1 validation, which is the highest level offered and means that an independent PCI QSA has reviewed and officially signed off on the compliance status.” “With nearly two decades of experience working with contact centers that are regularly tasked with collecting sensitive customer data, we’re no stranger to strict security standards,” said Interactive Intelligence Vice President of CaaS Mike Szilagyi.

PROLOGIX TO STRESS ON SECURITY NEEDS AT INTERSEC Prologix Distribution has announced its participation in the Intersec security and safety expo being held in Dubai from the 19th to the 21st of January, 2014. The company sees the increasing use of security and surveillance solutions by government, educational institutions and enterprises as a prime area for growth and hopes to engage with

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key decision makers from these sectors during the event. Sarwan Singh, Managing Director at Prologix, said, “2013 proved to be an eye-opener from a security perspective with business being

SARWAN SINGH, MANAGING DIRECTOR AT PROLOGIX

exposed to both external and internal threats from both the virtual and physical domains. We have brought to Intersec the most comprehensive portfolio of security solutions to help them mitigate

such business risks. This startof-year event is a must attend for Middle East businesses as it will help understand, plan and budget their security spending through the year.” Furthermore, to attract and incentivize channel partners and customers at the event, Prologix will offer special discounts on all the products being displayed at Intersec.

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HID Global and Temenos to Highlight on Secure Banking HID Global announced with support from its partner Temenos, to drive adoption of next generation banking solutions in the Middle East. HID Global and Temenos are hosting an insightful event for financial institutions investing in banking system modernization to enable secure online and mobile financial services with confidence. It will be held in Dubai on 20th January 2014, at the World Trade Centre, Sheikh Zayed Road. Financial institutions in the Middle East are experiencing an outbreak of sophisticated online attacks from international cyber criminals targeting banking transactions, in more recent cases using a surveillance virus, such as Gauss that eavesdrops on financial transactions. These attacks have resulted in millions of dollars being stolen from banks in the region and even greater negative impact on the reputation of the affected banks. Cyber criminals are now specifically targeting Middle Eastern financial institutions because of the perceived combination of high liquidity and a relatively underdeveloped IT security environment that exposes banks to

increasing unforeseen cyber vulnerabilities. The event will focus on the following: l deploying innovative, cost-effective banking solutions to support a multi-channel security strategy l launching mobile and internet banking financial services with trust and confidence l learning about the latest advances to mitigate against malware and other advanced attacks including spear phishing, pharming, DNS poisoning, Man-In-The-Middle (MITM), Man-In-The-Browser (MITB), SMS and mobile malware l complying with increased bank security guidelines responding to evolving threat landscape “HID Global, along with Temenos, is contributing to the concerted cybercrime response needed by today’s financial institutions in the Middle East”, said Christy Serrato, solutions marketing, financial services, at HID Global. “We are fuelling the tide of change with our next generation secure online and mobile banking solutions.”

2X APPLICATIONSERVER XG VERSION 11 RELEASED 2X Software has released the much anticipated 2X ApplicationServer XG version 11 in the Middle Eastern markets. This is the latest major update to 2X ApplicationServer XG which enables any desktop or Windows application to be virtualized, centralized and managed in the datacenter and instantly delivered to users anywhere on any device. 2X ApplicationServer XG version 11 focuses on additional core Enterprise functionality which includes Sites Management and Role Based Administration. These enhancements contribute to scalability, positioning the product in the Enterprise market. Sites Management allows more concurrent users to work within the same farm while Role Based Administration allows multiple administrators with different roles to simultaneously interact within the system. 2X has also set a new standard in Enterprise licensing for Cloud infrastructure by offering their solution at a cost of $75 per concurrent user. The new flexible pricing enables customers to leverage a userbased licensing model. 2X Software is made available in the Middle East region by EMT Distribution.

ARUBA NETWORKS CONDUCTS ROADSHOW IN SAUDI Aruba Networks is set to host the final leg of its EMEA Mobility Roadshow with an event in Saudi Arabia that will be held at the Holiday Inn, Izdihar on the 6th of January, 2014. The event has been designed for Networking Managers, IT managers, architects and engineers from across various industry verticals and will feature informative sessions and demonstrations to help address the challenges of enterprise mobility. Manish Bhardwaj, Regional Marketing Manager for Middle East and Turkey at Aruba Networks, said, “Saudi Arabia now has a smartphone penetration of over 60% and the number of organizations subscribing to the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) trend is encouraging. At the same time, IT should understand that gigabit wireless speeds and the support for more connections, devices and apps are now basic requirements of enterprise mobility.” He continued, “To increase productivity and innovation, they must turn to solutions that supplement these basic requirements with advanced features such as contextbased policy control, robust security, intelligent traffic prioritization and assured QoS. As the industry leader in business mobility, Aruba Networks is hosting this roadshow to share this latest information with the Saudi market.”

A10 THUNDER TPS SERIES LAUNCHED A10 Networks has launched A10 Thunder TPS Series, designed to provide high-performance, network-wide protection against a variety of volumetric, protocol, resource and more sophisticated Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks and improve service availability for critical Internet infrastructures and public-facing websites. The Thunder TPS product line is built upon A10’s Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS) platform, which delivers up to 155Gbps

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of throughput, thereby helping enterprise and service provider customers address the increasing scale of DDoS attacks. Broad multi-vector attack detection capabilities are designed to secure customers’ networks against a variety of attack types, while support for multiple deployment modes provides the flexibility needed to integrate with various customer network designs. Thunder TPS is architected with an open design, which allows it to be readily deployed

into a variety of existing network architectures and integrated with third-party attack detection systems. Thunder TPS supports flexible deployment models for in- and out-of-band operations, and routed or transparent operation modes. In addition, aXAPI, an open RESTful API, enables integration to custom or third-party detection solutions, allowing the Thunder TPS to take advantage of the growing ecosystem of multi-level threat protections solutions.

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GUEST TALK

MOBILE MAGIC

Mobility Solutions Opening Up New Horizons For Enterprise IT Mobile solutions have opened up new vistas in cost savings, employee productivity, market reach and engagement, among many others. n W O R D S : J A W A D S Q U A L L I , R E G I O N A L V I C E P R E S I D E N T, E P I C O R S O F T W A R E C O R P O R AT I O N n PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

Among the props most remembered by fans of the 1960s American space fantasy TV show ‘Star Trek’ was the iconic ‘Communicator,’ a wireless hand-held device that allowed the protagonists to communicate with their orbiting spaceship over the airwaves. Although work on the development of wireless telephony had already begun as early as 1918 , mass use of cellular telephones was just science fiction half a century ago. Today, users can easily download their favourite electronic games, video chat with loved ones, prepare office reports and even exchange information with just a tap to a fellow mobile device. Mobility has become such a ubiquitous part of everyday living that many people now have difficulty leaving the house without their precious cell phones or tablets. IT research firm Gartner predicts that mobile devices will become the most common web access tools in 2013, surpassing the beloved PC to become the go-to connection to the internet. The impact of mobility on businesses has been just as significant. Mobile solutions have opened up new vistas in cost savings,

employee productivity, market reach and engagement, streamlined operations, responsiveness and service quality, among many others. Corporate trends such as ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) and mobile enterprise apps attest to strong industry-wide recognition and appreciation of the huge impact of mobility – a game-changing force which emerged as one of the biggest influencers on enterprise IT in 2012. Cisco’s visual networking index forecast sets a probable 65 per cent compound annual growth rate for business mobile traffic through 2016. Mobility will be the key catalyst for change for enterprises in 2013 as mobile experiences move more towards the ‘cloud.’ Among the many strategic developments to watch out for in enterprise mobility in the coming months and over the next few years are the consumerization of IT, machine-to-machine solutions, mobile enterprise security, and mobile applications. For businesses operating in regions such as the Middle East and Africa where the role of IT in accelerating social and economic development is rapidly expanding, mobility is a focal point for

performance and productivity strategies over the next few decades. There are many factors pushing mobility adoption, such as pertinent Government initiatives and support, improved connectivity, growing mobile and smartphone penetration, and a nascent yet steadily growing tablet market. Traffic from wireless and mobile devices will exceed traffic from wired devices by 2016. By 2017, wired devices will account for 45 percent of IP traffic, while Wi-Fi and mobile devices will account for 55 percent of IP traffic2. In 2012, wired devices accounted for the majority of IP traffic at 59 percent. The surge in mobility adoption among businesses is not just about user convenience or a passing technology fad. Studies have shown that mobility does have a significant, positive impact on responsiveness and productivity. According to the Aberdeen Group, the need for instant access to ERP stems from the need to cut costs through efficiency and visibility. Instant access to ERP improves efficiency, especially in organisations with operations in multiple geographical locations or with employees out in the field. While instant access

to data enables decision makers to react to problems without delay and facilitates a quick response to the needs of its customers. Epicor, a leading developer of enterprise software solutions, has been responding to the rising demand for enterprise mobility through products designed to support the easy deployment and management of mobile devices and services to diverse users over multiple and dispersed locations. This is fuelled by the evolution toward customer needs and being business inspired. This means that technology trends and the dynamic nature of business call for a robust industry specific enterprise resource planning (ERP) offering that encompasses both the business needs of its customers and the latest technology to facilitate efficiency. Turnkey solutions from Epicor include software that securely, seamlessly and cost-effectively extends business data to mobile and remote users; world-class support from its global service network; and superior device management to provide IT staff with complete visibility and control of mobile devices and applications. ë

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FEATURE

EVOLUTION OF CHANNEL PARTNERS

Donning Multiple Roles

Technological innovations are changing the business dynamics of IT and channel partners are widening their roles to meet the expectations of end-users and vendors. n WORDS: MANALI MISRA <MANALI@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

echnology has brought a telling change in business environment almost at every level. When new solutions or products are introduced, it surely demands adaptation from vendors, channel partners and end-users. Hence, the market place changes which in turn requires an improvised way to be approached with. In this context, channel partners who are a key in B2B IT business are also finding themselves in a new mould.

EVOLVING ROLE Based on a survey conducted by Brocade last year of over 500 channel organizations worldwide, almost half of channel respondents expect professional services to become their main revenue generator by 2020. Yet, for the majority of respondents, professional services accounts for 25 percent or less of revenues today. “Businesses hoping to upgrade their IT infrastructures are now beginning to look to the channel and in this scenario the channel need to act as financial advisors and also offer innovative financing options e.g. subscription based financing and ‘pay-as-you-go’ model,” says Marcus Jewell, VP EMEA, Brocade. Nidal Othman, Managing Director, StarLink observes that most channel partners have been focusing on volume licenses, networking or traditional security solutions over the last decade

and many have been extremely successful with their business models. “But now that rampant competition exists in the channel landscape, and these traditional technologies have become commoditized and in some cases even have completely saturated market places, channel partners are now looking to differentiate themselves from others to stay profitable and grow by developing focus in one or more of a few things: niche/ emerging technology, managed services, consulting services, application development/integration, or to develop significant value in their existing capabilities by offering not only product and basic services, but end-to-end comprehensive solutions along with technical Pre-Sales and post-sales services so that they depend less on distributors and vendors,” comments Othman.

BLURRING LINES As the IT industry is moving from products to solutions, so are the channel partners. Jai Shankar, Senior Marketing Manager, Brother International (Gulf) FZE, comments, “Today’s challenges involve being able to provide services as well. Box movers should also look towards exploring new horizons—they should mull expansion, think like service providers and enhance their overall presence in the markets they service.” With the undergoing transition, the channel fraternity is widening its role to accommodate

provision of services along with products. “The emergence of new technologies and innovations have distinguished the essential role of today’s service providers—they require more knowledge of the new technology at hand while also being expert channel partners, in able to understand and explore the new technology as well. Box movers, as simply defined, are only mere market takers,” says Ahmed Qasem, Channel Sales Manager, Epson Middle East. However, Stephan Berner, Managing Director, Help AG disagrees that new technological innovations have blurred the line between a box mover and a service provider. He says, “The complexity of new technological innovations is in fact making it very easy to distinguish between box movers and service providers. Advanced solutions today require specific knowledge and skill sets for their implementation. Box movers tend to focus on driving business through sales and therefore do not have the necessary technical capabilities. Solution providers on the other hand go far beyond simply fulfilling an order. They work with the customer right from the requirements and risk assessment phase through the implementation and support.” It is noticed that channel partners providing solutions have a better margin than those just concentrating on products. Othman says that StarLink will definitely choose to be a service provider in a choice between a box-mover and service provider. “Today other than com-

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moditized products, almost all best-of-breed next-generation technologies require a certain level of skill and expertise to sell and then to deploy. Being able to provide such advanced services automatically provides significant profit advantages as services revenue is more profitable than product margins, and specialized services almost always command a premium. By being an advisor to customers, which drives new business (product and services), customers in turn expect far more than just product delivery, but end-to-end support across the project and the life of the product. This can only come from a service provider and not a box mover,” he emphasises. Jewell points out that channel needs to change their business models and be prudent about which vendors they associate with. “Value-added services is the game changer and where the channel will be able to differentiate itself from competition. The channel organizations that have the capabilities to offer these services will succeed. Gone are the days of pure ‘box-moving’. Professional services and consultancy is where channel need to focus their efforts,” he adds.

OPPORTUNITIES The changing business environment has opportunities for the channel partners. Also, the solution-based approach is opening up new avenues for the channel. However, industry is of the view that Cloud is still not an area where

channel partners are likely to see a growth in Middle East. The basic reason is that companies are still hesitant in adopting cloud. Othman says, “Over the past few years it can be seen that some customers in this region have started migrating

MARCUS JEWELL VP EMEA, BROCADE

“Gone are the days of pure ‘box-moving’. Professional services and consultancy is where channel need to focus their efforts.”

over their day-to-day operational tools such as CRM, email, file sharing to the cloud to platforms such as SalesForce, Google Apps and DropBox respectively, but overall all critical businessrelated applications are still very much onpremise. Now this creates for a huge opportunity if MSP and cloud service providers can get it right and convince customers in the region that their data is safe and always accessible.” When the adoption rate of cloud will increase then surely the partners will have tremendous opportunities. Berner comments, “When we talk about the cloud, it is important to remember that large enterprises are highly unlikely to move to a 100% cloud-based infrastructure. What we will see are either private or more likely hybrid cloud models being adopted. In both these cases, a fair amount of the IT infrastructure will still be maintained within the organization and the task of building these environments will be carried out by channel players.” Furthermore, in the era of the cloud, SLAs (service level agreements) are going to be vital and customers are going to get far more demanding. “Channel players already have extensive experience in providing after-sales support to their customers and support for cloud services is merely the logical evolution of this. So while the cloud will definitely change the way we go about conducting business, you definitely cannot remove the channel from the equation. And in truth, smart channel players will in fact be able to develop entirely new revenue streams,” he adds. Othman says as technologies that are designed to protect cloud infrastructure become adopted such as virtualization encryption, storage encryption etc, the growth of cloud computing will become exponential. The other growth area is Managed IT services. “For the Managed IT services segment, we are seeing that channel partners will continue to play both an important and strategic role—providing key logistical and technical services to enterprises,” says Qasem. Othman feels that Managed IT services is the future for channel partners. More and more technology is required to secure and give access to the enterprise today, complexity of the network is increasing, the cost of resources are getting more and more expensive every day, and there is a shortage of skilled resources. “The only way for enterprises to scale their business and IT infrastructures is to leverage on managed IT services so channel partners will have to evolve to provide such capabilities to survive and remain profitable,” he adds. At Help AG, Managed Security Services (MSS) is a strategic and major initiative we will

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NIDAL OTHMAN,

STEPHAN BERNER,

“Channel partners are now looking to differentiate themselves from others to stay profitable.”

“While the cloud will definitely change the way we go about conducting business, you definitely cannot remove the channel from the equation.”

invest into resources, time, and infrastructure the coming years. “MSS build, run, and operate locally in the UAE is key and will be successfully offered only by a few companies, therefore it will distinguish us from most of the other players in the market. Any kind of MSS will be not enough though. Pure Monitoring Services are too incomplete. As a Service Partner to our enterprise customers we have to make sure that additional value added services, such as Incident Response, Rout Cause Analysis, and Remediation Services, only to mention a few of them, need to be added on top of it as well,” tells Berner.

assess our internal procedure and processes which is needed for success in the long run,” Jewell adds. Competition due to an increased number of channel partners, difficulty in achieving differentiation, a shortage of skilled resources, increased cost of resources, the rapid pace of technology change, sophisticated customers with expectations of relationship and expertise, shrinking product margins, the requirement to evolve from volume to value and commodity to specialization are the challenges which Othman feels is troubling the channel community.

MANAGING DIRECTOR, STARLINK-

MANAGING DIRECTOR, HELP AG

CHALLENGES

EMPOWERING THE CHANNEL

Innovation moves with a fast pace and it is trying for the channel partners to keep themselves updated with the latest trends. This evolution as every side has its two sides, is creating opportunities is also giving channel partners a tough time. One of the issues has been the lack of technical expertise in the market as Berner points out. “For us, it has made finding the right people to further strengthen our market position as the leader in IT & Information Security a demanding process. This was and still is challenging as our resources are hand-picked and the hiring process is quiet strict. The good thing though, is that it helps us to re-

In order to give channel partners support in these changing times, vendors have a crucial role to play. Over the last few years, Brother has introduced the Brother Premium Partner Program that aims to help partners achieve their set targets. “Through this program, we are able to provide key training programs and workshops for the sales teams of our partners which help increase their knowledge about our products,” informs Shankar. At present, the biggest chunk of Brocade’s investment in the Middle East is happening in the channel. The company is investing heavily in channel education and channel

JAI SHANKAR,

SENIOR MARKETING MANAGER BROTHER INTERNATIONAL (GULF FZE

“Today’s challenges involve being able to provide the services as well.”

incentives. Brocade’s go-to-market model is 100% indirect and partner focused. “Our partners are our extended arms - they represent our architecture and technology and as such channel management is a very important aspect of our overall strategy as the efforts of our channel reflect directly on our bottomline. Brocade’s key focus is developing converged partners with true system integration skills in the IP networking, campus and data centre markets,” says Jewell. Brocade has begun to organize three technical training programs for the channel every quarter attended by partners from all over - Oman, from Jordan, from Egypt, for Qatar and Iraq. The training runs over four days. “We believe that Ethernet Fabrics is the future of Networking and to ensure that our partners understand the technology, we have come up with a specific educational programme called Ethernet 101,” Jewell adds

FINALLY... The industry is unanimous on the fact that in these changing times the channel partners too have moved out of their basic role.It is imperative for them to differentiate themselves in the competing marketing place. The vendors are helping the partners with various programmes to meet the challeneges. ë

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POWER SOLUTIONS

EMERSON NETWORK POWER

Consolidating the Channel

With its partnership with Mindware, Emerson Network Power is all set to expand its business in IT channel n MANALI MISRA <MANALI@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

merson Network Power started strengthening its presence in the Middle East and Africa when it began catering to the needs of small and medium businesses through an expanding IT channel. In 2012, Emerson signed a strategic alliance with regional distributor Mindware in the MENA region. “We are now expanding the business towards channel to one and two tier business and Mindware is supporting us in boosting our message to the IT channel,” says Federico Mastroleo, Marketing Manager EMEA, Channel, Emerson Network Power. Mastroleo says that Emerson Network Power didn’t tap such kind of opportunities earlier and now Mindware is helping them. “They have introduced us to a large community which we didn’t see before. We were always in the kind of business where you have high-level and high-end products,” he adds. For a certain standpoint of view Emerson Network Power sees itself as a new comer in the business that it is doing since ages but now it is towards different drivers. It has to consolidate its position in the market. “We are not competing with anyone in reality. It doesn’t make any sense to compete in terms of replicating the same marketing mix that somebody else did decades ago in the region. So, we are doing a different operation. We are moving from our core established business and moving to the enthusiast community,” says Mastroleo. Emerson is in the Middle East region since 1980s. It has been reinforced by the Avocent acquisition in terms of penetration and awareness in various MEA markets. Avocent also brought

into its former trusted distributor Westcon. “70% of our portfolio is dealt through Mindware and we have 30% of additional business which is empowered by Westcon,” he informs. Now, Emerson is doubling its market initiatives in the region as compared to the average by Emerson in Western and Eastern Europe. But for the company, being aggressive doesn’t mean adopting low pricing policy but more of the kind delivering products that are more reliable and giving more margin to the partners which is the key. “This market has cultural distinction too starting from the language. For the first time in Emerson, the relevant things like portal will in Arabic. It is a message that we want you to understand us and for that we have to talk your language. This is fundamental otherwise you are just imposing the message,” comments Mastroleo. According to various market resources, in the region Emerson Network Power currently has 5-6% market share. “We definitely need to ramp up. We are still at the stage we can’t consolidate figures as to how much business from the channel and how much is direct. We are now boosting the business and nurturing all channel investment. Our idea is to move from negligible percentage of business in IT channel to moving up rapidly,” he informs. For the channel, Emerson will provide all the benefits starting in relation to training, deal registration, and lot of other things like tools to facilitate configuration. An online tool dedicated to partners was missing to speed up any configuration. IT channel configurator will be provided exclusively to IT partners. “We are also providing boosts in terms of incentives. What really makes

FEDERICO MASTROLEO,

MARKETING MANAGER EMEA, CHANNEL, EMERSON NETWORK POWER.

“This market has cultural distinction too starting from the language. For the first time in Emerson, the relevant things like portal will in Arabic.” the difference is that if you do business with us, you can’t compare the same profit, the best level of average profitability in the market,” emphasises Mastroleo. There is also an event in Riyadh this month. Emerson Network Power believes that distributor is the gate to the market and would be our trusted advisor to get the business even larger. “Infrastructure Business Partners (IBP) is the key initiative to enrol the recruitment. Phase I is done and IBP basically kicks off Phase II partnership program,” he reveals.

FINALLY... Emerson Network Power is widening its core business and consolidating its reach to the IT channel fraternity and Mindware is supporting it to do the same in most effective way. ë

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CORPORATE STORY

ENG. MOHAMMED AL SHEHHI

DIRECTOR INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, UAE GENERAL CIVIL AVIATION AUTHORITY (GCAA).

“It was a difficult task to manage constant processes, software and infrastructure changes and expanding operations with new locations.”

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GCAA

Raising the Bar

Redundant IT infrastructure can have serious repercussions on functioning of any organization and GCAA has braced up to avoid any of those. n WORDS: MANALI MISRA <MANALI@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

he use of advanced Information Technology is at the heart of an efficient civil aviation as it is with other industries. The General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) which is the sole authority for the control and regulation of civil aviation in the UAE is on the path of modernizatiion of its IT infrastructure. With the astute leadership of GCAA higher management along with H.E Saif Mohammed Al Suwaidi -Director General’s encouraging support, IT department has excelled in the area of automation and strongly progressed towards the Smart government initiative. Today, under the leadership of Eng. Mohammed Al Shehhi, Director Information Technology, UAE General Civil Aviation Authority GCAA, the Authority has completely transformed to a paperless organization with 184 online eServices and 51 Intranet eServices. Initially, their IT team was very small with limited manpower, in-adequate Infrastructure and limited business applications to support GCAA and its customers. “Under dynamic IT leadership and dedicated team performance, IT Department managed to develop, acquire and implement most advanced IT infrastructure, systems and applications and grew accordingly,” says Al Shehhi. Now, IT department has raised

the standards of its infrastructure, applications and technical support services by transforming manual services to E-services and then to Smart Services and centralized back office operations by implementing ERP system.

THE JOURNEY From numerous backlogs of documents, GCAA has moved to paperless functioning and it has to be credited to Al Shehhi. An IT computer engineer, his mission and vision was very clear from the beginning to leverage IT department on both the standards and technology front. The GCAA soon started getting bestowed with awards. In the Year 2010, Al Shehhi enabled the GCAA UAE to become the first Aviation Authority in the world to obtain Integrated Management System (IMS) for the IT department. Under his leadership, the IT department of the Authority won two prestigious Shaikh Khalifa Awards in the Year 2012. The first award was for the Best Federal Department category and the second for the Best eServices. The awards were presented by H.H Shaikh Mohammed Bin Rashid personally. Al Shehhi has also been honored with the GCC e-Government Awards for Best eContent

& Best Portal categories, Green ICT Award, Best CIO Award, Network Middle East Award, NME Innovations Award, last but not the least, appreciation from State Audit Institution for “Zero Findings” & 100% compliant to the GIA guidelines for the IT department. “We are building everything in-house instead of buying anything from outside. Our Disaster Recovery system is in Dubai. We have more than 184 external services inclusive of technical services like pilot licensing, aircraft registration, etc. and over 51 internal services. The challenge now is to transform them to mobile services to support the UAE initiative on Smart Government,” he adds.

VISION As the information and technology becomes the backbone of business, IT department plays a critical role in helping the Authority provide efficient customer services, reduce risk, and ensure growth and longevity. The GCAA IT Department vision of Standardization, Modernization and Mobilization of technology was well practiced throughout the years. To support the vision of the department, IT developed a three years IT Roadmap in line with the Authority strategy and defined two main goals. “The first being to understand and support Authority’s core objectives and translating them quickly and accurately into IT Priorities & secondly to support Authority in achieving its strategic goals and objectives by providing stateof-the-art technology support and high quality services,” comments Al Shehhi.

THE BEGINNING GCAA IT Department was stressed without a proper service management system for delivery of IT Services to its customers. “It was a difficult task to manage constant processes, software and infrastructure changes and expanding operations with new locations. There was an urgent need for a service management system to improve the customer satisfaction & quality of services without affecting the ongoing operations & customer services,” informs Al Shehhi. In the absence of an E-Archiving Solution, the Authority departments were finding it cumbersome to manage the backlog and huge number of manual documents processing. “It was increasingly becoming difficult to store, retrieve, secure and manage large number of important departmental documentation and files due to which inefficiency was evident from departmental day to day operations,” he adds. With the rapid increase in the customer base, Real-Time end user monitoring and ensuring compliance to internal IT policies was increasingly becoming very difficult.

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CORPORATE STORY

SOLUTION INFOGRAPH HP SERVICE MANAGER BENEFITS

l Automation of core IT processes such as l Incident Management l Problem Management l Knowledge Management l Software and Infrastructure Change Management l Automation of Support and Service Operations and Delivery

E-ARCHIVING BENEFITS

l Reduced Documents Storage space l Reduction of Operational Costs l Fast and Flexible Document Retrieval l Improved, faster and more flexible search l Improved Document Distribution and Sharing l Improved Document Security l Improved Departmental Operations and staff efficiency

NEXTHINK BENEFITS

l Continuous compliance to IT Policies l Reporting of Systems and Network Problems l Consolidated and Centralized IT Asset Management l Faster Decision Making l Network Monitoring l Management of Applications, Systems and Software l Compliance Reporting to IT Policies

SERVICES DEPLOYED GCAA did a thorough process for vendor evaluation and selection. All the vendors were then evaluated by procurement department on the basis of Satisfying technical requirements, Previous projects experience and competence, Product quality, Financial soundness of the service provider to fulfill its obligations, Performance with other customers and End user Support. Among many of the best-of -breed & sophisticated technology projects, below were some of the important projects which were carried out on a high priority basis: n HP Service Manager (HPSM) – Service Management n E-Archiving Solution for Document management n Nexthink – Desktop/Laptop Monitoring & Compliance

PARTNERSHIP WITH EMITAC Emitac was identified for acquiring applications and tools due to their professional approach, technical competency, market penetration and reputation owning to their strategic alliances with

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global technology giants such as HP, Microsoft, CISCO and Nexthink for providing complete technical and financially viable solutions according to our business requirements. “Their 24/7 online and onsite customer support for technical queries/issues is commendable. GCAA has executed several projects with Emitac with the confidence that the projects would be carried out on the agreed timeline and with professionalism. As a consulting and solution partner to GCAA, Emitac has demonstrated good understanding of our vision, requirements and IT challenges involved,” he adds. Emitac has been proactive in providing the right solution to the requirements of GCAA IT, thus helping it to be aligned with the latest technological trends and automation. Emitac helped GCAA in automating its core IT processes such as Change management, Incident management, Problem Management and Help Desk function by providing HP Service Manager. Manual Documents and files, not only took storage space, incurred cost but also created difficulties in its management and retrieval thus resulting in overall delay and inefficiency

in the day to day departmental operations. Working closely with the IT department, Emitac proposed and implemented an E-Archiving solution helping GCAA in converting all manual documents into PDF format and storing them in the centralized document management system for efficient retrieval, timely distribution, long term safe and secure storage and efficient departmental operations. “Now the question was how to strengthen our internal control systems. For that Emitac proposed and deployed a real time desktop/laptop monitoring system from Nexthink ensuring audit and compliance to IT Security Policies, thus helping us achieve our objective,” informs Al Shehhi.

FINALLY... GCAA IT Department’s future strategy is to modernize the IT Infrastructure to increase agility, efficiency, service quality and to support the growth of the Authority. “We have numerous initiatives on the technology front and shall focus more on the Smart Government initiative related to the mobilization of services and support from Emitac like companies is therefore very important,” concludes Al Shehhi. ë

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MY VIEWS

mized specifically for backup workloads, then you will see that after the first backup, the customers can save a lot of bandwidth, uptime, and certainly the amount of data that is being sent. It is also specifically built to give us an insight into the fact that whether it is a good copy, we can restore from that copy or not, flexibility to change the time frame, etc. Hence, our solution certainly helps in addressing the challenges of today.

MIKE RESSELER

PRODUCT STRATEGY SPECIALIST, EMEA EVANGELIST, VEEAM SOFTWARE

“Being storage-agnostic is a boon” “WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN SELLING DIFFERENT PRODUCTS AND BRINGING THEM TOGETHER BUT RATHER FOCUS ON A SINGLE SOLUTION FOR MODERN DATA PROTECTION DISASTER RECOVERY THAT ADDRESSES ALL THE CHALLENGES OF TODAY”.

What’s your impression about today’s enterprise storage market? Looking at the enterprise market of today and in our discussion with people on the floor, we have realized that the important thing for those people is to get more out of it that they have already invested in. If you think about buying expensive storage, they try to get more out of it today. For example, if you look at our solution, you will find that we are completely storage agnostic. But on the other hand, we are now really working more together with the likes of HP to make sure that customers can more use of their investment in backup strategy as well. Another trend that we are seeing in the industry is that if you look at the investments, then you will find that deduplication and compression

have become more important to save on storage costs. Hence, we are not only working on our deduplication and compression technologies but also work together with other deduplication platforms. For example, we work with Windows Server 2012 deduplication that together gives pretty good results. This clearly shows that customers today want maximum out of their storage investments. How does Veeam helps its customers in this situation? When a customer is doing data protection, we make sure that he uses the few good features of our product that could help him resolve those bandwidth issues. If you look at our WAN accelerator, which is custom built by us and is opti-

Is it a single product that you offer containing all these features? We have one solution called backup propagation and all the features are inside it. Depending on the version that customers are going for, like standard or enterprise, then of course, they will get difference in the features. But yes, it remains one single product and depending on the license that customers opt for, they will have access to those features. We do not believe in selling different products and bringing them together but rather focus on a single solution for modern data protection disaster recovery that addresses all the challenges. In most of the cases, the cost of UV licenses is less than actual annual maintenance renewal for our competitors. And that’s why we say that our products and solutions are affordable What about compatibility with competition products? As of today, we are working very closely with HP. We have built a plug-in portal where we don’t have to release a new version or service-pack but create a new plug-in for a storage vendor. We are open to have conversations with any storage vendor in the marketplace. It’s not only the technical perspective that we have to look at but also the business or commercial aspect. In the current scenario, we are talking to a lot of vendors and we might soon announce partnerships as well. Which are the vertical industries that you target? Today, we are pretty large in the SMB market. Last year, we grew very hard in enterprise segment as well and we hope grow even big in the future. The reason for this is that we have added new features in our product that could address the requirements of the enterprise market. And this has resulted in us being picked up enterprise organizations very fast. We are aware of the fact that based on the vertical; the data protection requirement is different. However, we are not targeting any particular vertical industry as such. Every customer is an asset for us. In fact, we have customers in pretty much every vertical. ë

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COVER STORY

MISSION 2020

Achieving Technological Excellence

While MEA’s technology and business services industry has flourished in the last decade, the industry stakeholders will need to break out of the traditional mould that resulted in past successes and step up to the aspirations of 2020. Looking at the crystal ball, the industry experts are predicting a big scope and healthy growth for IT business till the end of this decade and beyond. n WORDS: NIVEDAN PRAKASH <NIVEDAN@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM> n PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

he Middle East and Africa IT market, which has grown by leaps and bounds in the last two decades, is expected to grow at a much higher rate till 2020. While the mega events like Dubai Expo 2020 is seen as a significant contributor towards this growth in the Middle East region, the Africa market will get a major boost with more and more foreign direct investments. The MEA region has been a very high growth market, as the technology spending in this region is forecasted to grow at double the global average. Apparently, the IT spending in this region is expected to grow at a CAGR of 7.1% between 2012 and 2017 and will likely continue at similar levels through to 2020. As per IDC estimates, this market is expected to surpass US$ 105 billion by 2017, which is almost the double the size from over a decade ago. Organizations in this region have much less

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legacy IT as compared to more developed markets, and this in many ways, will help the region to leapfrog technology generations much more rapidly. A number of rapidly growing economies, expanding populations, rapid urbanization and ICT focus by governments, by and large, will drive IT spending across the region.

FACTORS DRIVING THE GROWTH As the enterprises across the MEA region are seeking new ways to build on their revenue stream and identify better ways to deliver the services, the reliance on information technology is certainly increasing. And this trend will surely lead to a spurt in the growth of the MEA IT market in the years to come. Also, in the coming years, the region will witness a spate of ICT innovations and tech trends. With this, several technology deployments will

move from pilot to production level. Eventually, more and organizations, including private and public sector establishments, will want to profit from ICT. Ranjit Rajan, Research Director - IT Services and Software, Middle East Turkey and Africa, IDC, says, “Much of this growth will be driven by spending on packaged software and IT services as organizations strive to achieve greater automation, agility and efficiencies on top of their infrastructure deployments. Public infrastructure expansion, communication network growth, e-government initiatives, city-focused mega events (such as the Expo 2020, FIFA World Cup 2022) and smart city initiatives in the Gulf, foreign investments and economic growth in Africa, are some of the drivers for this growth.” “Technology will continue to drive the demand for data processing and storage. Besides the requirement for new data centers, the upgrad-

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COVER STORY

ing of current facilities will be a big driver. This growth will drive the requirement for power and with the cost of energy we foresee a major focus on energy efficient solutions/technology. We might see a major shift from buying on price to focusing more on total cost of ownership with rising energy cost,” adds Pierre Havenga, MD at Emerson Network Power, Middle East and North Africa.

MEGATRENDS SHAPING UP THE LANDSCAPE The global ICT industry is in the midst of a once in a 20-25 year transition – to a new platform of technology delivery and consumption. IDC calls this the 3rd platform of technology transformation – a platform that is underpinned by four forces – mobile, cloud, social and big data analytics. By 2020, the share of these forces to worldwide ICT spending will rise to about 40% (from currently about 20%). While the spending on these technologies grows at over 11% CAGR, the spending on traditional IT will remain flat during this period. These technologies will have a significant impact on the MEA region as well. Adding further, Havier Haddad, Channel and Alliances Director – Turkey, Emerging Africa & Middle East, EMC, says, “We believe that the next phase of transformation will be driven by the ‘3rd platform’, which IDC describes not just as a technology revolution, but also a customer revolution as the transition will likely give rise to models that enable access to and consumption of applications when and where they want. As businesses move from what has been a tightly connected and physically wired environment to a more loosely connected platform made up of mobile broadband, social business, cloud-based services, and big data combined with analytics, it will enable companies to reap the rewards of increased business prosperity and market dominance.” According to IDC, by 2020, the industry could also see much progress towards the ‘Internet of Things’ (IoT) wherein various ‘intelligent’ things are connected effectively across networks and enable more rapid transfer of data and delivery of services. With IoT momentum building in 2014, IDC expects to see new industry partnerships to emerge as traditional IT vendors accelerate their partnerships with global telecom service providers and semiconductor vendors to create integrated offerings in the consumer electronics and connected device spaces. This kind of collaboration and coordination will be necessary to reach the 30 billion autonomously connected end points and $8.9 trillion in revenues that IDC believes the IoT will generate by 2020.

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RANJIT RAJAN, RESEARCH DIRECTOR - IT SERVICES AND SOFTWARE, MIDDLE EAST TURKEY AND AFRICA, IDC

PIERRE HAVENGA, MD AT EMERSON NETWORK POWER, MIDDLE EAST AND NORTH AFRICA

“The growth will be driven by spending on packaged software and IT services as organizations strive to achieve greater automation, agility and efficiencies on top of their infrastructure deployments.”

“We might see a major shift from buying on price to focusing more on total cost of ownership with rising energy cost.”

ACCORDING TO IDC, BY 2020, WHEN THE ICT INDUSTRY GENERATES $5 TRILLION IN SPENDING, 40% OF THE INDUSTRY’S REVENUE AND 98% OF ITS GROWTH WILL BE DRIVEN BY THIRD PLATFORM TECHNOLOGIES.

“Cisco has identified seven key trends i.e. Machine-to-Machine Connections, Context Aware Computing, Mobile Device Management, Security, Building the Next Internet, Browser Based Video and Collaboration, and Video Mega Trends. Driving these trends is the ‘Internet of Everything (IoE), which is bringing together people, processes, data, and things. The IoE is leading to context-aware computing in which mobile devices will analyze objects’ data to learn about people’s schedules, locations, and needs. We predict that connecting 212 billion things to networks by 2020 will open up a market value of

USD 8.9 trillion,” highlights Abdullah Al-Swaha, Director – Partner Organization and Commercial, Cisco Saudi Arabia. Beginning 2014, markets aligned to big data and other information management initiatives, such as enterprise content management, data integration tools, and data quality tools will begin to see increased levels of investment. Besides, the boom of applications, smart devices, and video on demand will influence the demand for IT infrastructure through 2020 and beyond. Meanwhile, there will be a surge in the demand of value added services that will help

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HAVIER HADDAD, CHANNEL AND ALLIANCES DIRECTOR – TURKEY, EMERGING AFRICA & MIDDLE EAST, EMC

“The next phase of transformation will be driven by the ‘3rd platform’, which will likely give rise to models that enable access to and consumption of applications when and where they want.”

enterprises across all verticals and of all sizes to not only store, manage, and automate but also secure the Big Data. This market will also witness an increase in the investment towards cloud computing by service providers. Also, the cloud services will attain the next level with the rise of network functions virtualization that will allow the control and processing functions for services delivery to be virtualized. Software-defined everything too might become reality by then.

TRANSFORMATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES While demonstrating much greater awareness towards information technology in comparison to other global markets, the MEA region has not only emerged a key growth market for all the global IT players but has also served as a catalyst of new opportunities that is bound to continue throughout the remaining decade. Giving his perspective on the same, Ravinder Janotra, Regional Sales Manager – Middle East,

Cyberoam Technologies, says, “Business and IT decision makers in MEA now realize how the impact of trends like cloud, BYOD, mobility ties with network security and this really augurs well for the business of network security. We foresee that network security business in MEA will experience a significant change and growth under the influence of emerging IT trends and growing adoption of IT throughout all sectors. It has been estimated that likely business from cloud oriented network security from the region of UAE alone will exceed US$70 million by 2019, registering a whopping growth over 45%.” With the rise in the dominance of Nexus of Forces – cloud, mobility, social, and big data analytics – the MEA market will also see an evolution in the role of both IT vendors as well as service providers. Not only will there be reassessment and revamping of product portfolios and coming out industry specific as well as tailor-made solutions but also an increased focus towards providing managed services. “Service providers will compete with OTT (Over the Top) providers such as Amazon, and we will likely see a mixture of competitive responses from service providers as well as more formal relationships between service providers and OTT players. Also, services providers and top system integrators will need to offer new, differentiated services to win and sustain more customers. In addition, the regional service provider’s and private network infrastructure will need to be modernized to cope with both cloud and mobile needs for high-capacity and highly-reliable connectivity, and we will see this modernization being used as a competitive advantage for service providers,” opines Omar Alsaied, Middle East Carriers Sales Director, Ciena.

VERTICALS AT THE FOREFRONT Organizations across all verticals are becoming more aware of the benefits of IT, which will lead to major investments going forward. As the government continues to carry out investments in large infrastructure projects, IT vendors will find many opportunities across the vertical industries, primarily in the telecommunications, government, banking and finance, oil and gas, education, manufacturing, and energy. The mega events like Expo 2020 and Soccer World Cup at Qatar in 2022 will further drive investments in travel, hospitality, logistics, healthcare, transport, and retail among others. Moreover, the public sector has always played a major role in the growth of IT markets in the Middle East. As political stability returns to most

IT VENDORS’ VISION & GOAL FOR 2020 n EMC’s strategy is laid out to lead the 3rd Platform of IDC and help its customers transform. The company engages with its customers more as a technology partner that consults and supports them through every step of their transformation journey. It will continue to make investments in human development in a bid to support government initiatives to boost economic diversity and establish knowledge based economies in the Kingdom and across the region. n Emerson strives to maintain a sustainable growth supported by leading technology, best of breed quality solution offering, and very strong customer focus. The company is committed to continue to invest in the MEA region and be the technology partner of choice. n Technology has transformed and will keep redefining the way Ciena does its business today. The company’s vision for 2020 is to enable growth and enhance productivity. As such, it is focused on ensuring organizations are well placed to take advantage of all the benefits of an on-demand world, ensuring that network services align with on-demand cloud compute and storage services. n Cyberoam is geared to emerge as a trusted network security partner to technology users, business organizations and governments in MEA. The company’s roadmap is not confined only to building innovative and future-ready network security for its customers but it also wants to enable security practices and contribute towards creating cyber-security knowledge capital and skilled manpower for MEA.

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COVER STORY

ABDULLAH AL-SWAHA, DIRECTOR – PARTNER ORGANIZATION AND COMMERCIAL, CISCO SAUDI ARABIA

RAVINDER JANOTRA, REGIONAL SALES MANAGER – MIDDLE EAST, CYBEROAM TECHNOLOGIES

“The MEA market will be at the heart of the technological transformation, with Cisco projecting the region to have the world’s-highest cloud traffic growth rate at 57 percent CAGR from 2012-2017.”

“We foresee that network security business in MEA will experience a significant change and growth under the influence of emerging IT trends and growing adoption of IT throughout all sectors.”

parts of the region and its neighbors, public sector IT spending will be back on the rise, particularly around eGovernment initiatives. Besides, the SMB segment, which was considered as the early adopters of IT trends till some time back, will also be in forefront of adopting all the modern day technologies by the end of this decade. Out of the technology areas where these investments will take place, cloud computing is seeing a lot of this investment and is an important area of focus. According to recent research by Gartner, $4 billion will be spent on cloud services in MENA region between 2013 and 2017. Secondly, enterprises will also increasingly deploy mobile device management solutions to protect both corporate and personal data. Thirdly, organizations managing mission-critical networks such as SCADA and ICS based systems will demand capable defense and next-generation security capabilities. Fourthly, healthcare and education will also ramp up their IT spend on the back of significant investments from state govern-

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OMAR ALSAIED, MIDDLE EAST CARRIERS SALES DIRECTOR, CIENA

“The regional service provider’s and private network infrastructure will need to be modernized to cope with both cloud and mobile needs for high-capacity and highlyreliable connectivity.”

“BY 2020, THE INDUSTRY COULD ALSO SEE MUCH PROGRESS TOWARDS THE ‘INTERNET OF THINGS’ (IOT) WHEREIN VARIOUS ‘INTELLIGENT’ THINGS ARE CONNECTED.

ments, deploying more advanced solutions for patient care, tele-medicine, e-learning, and digital campuses. And lastly, with the social trend growing, businesses will need to increasingly adopt Big Data analytics solutions to enhance their customer satisfaction and retention. “The Middle East and Africa will be at the heart of this technological transformation, with Cisco projecting the region to have the world’shighest cloud traffic growth rate at 57 percent CAGR from 2012-2017. The next generation Internet will be an essential component to enable greater data center virtualization and interconnected clouds. With the IoE driving an explosion

of data, IT departments need to make sense of the large and valuable data from a wide variety of devices, from smartphone apps to city infrastructure. Companies will need to create new computing resources through data center software and hardware, designed to work in cooperation with new mobile apps,” explains Al-Swaha.

CHALLENGES TO BE DEALT WITH While the industry has the potential to generate trillions of revenues in 2020, a portion of this opportunity is at risk if continuing problems are not tackled soon. Some of the

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COVER STORY

MIDDLE EAST IT SPENDING FORECAST (BILLIONS OF U.S. DOLLARS) 2012 SPENDING

DEVICES

2012 GROWTH (%)

2013 SPENDING

2013 GROWTH (%)

2014 SPENDING

2014 GROWTH (%)

2015 SPENDING

2015 GROWTH (%)

2016 SPENDING

2016 GROWTH (%)

27.4

5.6

29.6

7.7

34.2

15.7

38.9

13.8

44.5

14.5

DATA CENTER SYSTEMS

3.5

3.7

3.6

4.3

3.9

5.6

4.1

5.3

4.2

3.2

SOFTWARE

3.2

0.0

3.4

7.1

3.7

8.0

4.0

7.6

4.3

7.2

IT SERVICES

7.4

-4.1

7.7

4.0

8.0

3.7

8.3

3.8

8.6

3.8

TELECOM SERVICES

141.3

4.4

148.5

5.1

153.4

3.3

157.1

2.4

161.4

2.7

OVERALL IT

182.9

4.1

192.9

5.5

203.2

5.3

212.4

4.5

223.0

5.0

SOURCE: GARTNER (MARCH 2013)

common challenges that needed to be overcome include reliable and affordable energy supply, political instability, crime and corruption, cost of conducting business, less complex environment to conduct business, and investment from governments into infrastructure. Rajan is of the view that political instability in some parts of the region, rampant corruption (especially in Africa), and lack of effective governance are some factors that could hamper this growth. Shortage of IT skills, both in quality and quantity, will slow down adoption in both the Middle East and Africa, and hamper capabilities of providers. Human resource-rich centers such as Egypt, Jordan or some parts of Africa will try to capitalize on this opportunity, however, keeping abreast of skills needs especially those relevant to 3rd platform technologies, will continue to be a challenge. One faction of the industry also believes that the whole process of this technology transformation has to be safeguarded from all the possible and evolving cyber threats, as they can seriously hamper the development process in MEA. And this can only be achieved by creating enhanced awareness about security measures amongst the enterprises and educating them on security best

practices. “The business landscape of the region is ever changing, with new developments continuously arising, and this requires attention to detail when developing IT skills, making sure that they are specialised to the current environment. We also expect to see Middle East businesses continue to expand beyond the region and there will be an increasing need for more international submarine based connectivity to ensure global businesses can operate seamless IT environments,” mentions Alsaied.

EVOLVING ROLE OF PARTNERS According to IDC, the emergence of the 3rd platform will lead to a shake-out in the channel. Growing competition and falling margins are persuading channel players to move from hardware and software resale (box moving) business to a services focused business. Cloud can cause further disintermediation between the vendor and the customer, and force traditional system integrators to reassess their portfolios. “We foresee that channel partners will continue to play a key role in the small to medium business (SMB) segment. Given the range of products

distributed by channel partners, we foresee that there is an opportunity to become a solution provider/system integrator for the SMB segment where IT skills might not be similar compared to large entities,” asserts Havenga. While giving his views on the same, Janotra says that MEA region is required to build a solid cyber resilience to sustain ICT led socioeconomic transformation and make the progress more lucrative and inclusive for everyone. With this, channel partners in IT can envisage a greater role beyond box selling and become end-to-end experts. This will help them explore new business models and maximize their growth prospects. “We will also see a change in roles as service integrators become value add resellers; resellers will probably focus on services reselling vs. systems or become service providers; and end users in many cases become service providers for their own stakeholders in addition to becoming service providers for other companies as well. Distributors will also continue to flourish as they bring together a variety of services from different vendors and bundle these onto an outsourced IT infrastructure and market the services as white-label cloud services portfolios,” concludes Haddad. ë

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

SECURITY

Defining the Security Posture for enterprises

The Middle East security market is all set for rapid growth, as organizations in the region realize their vulnerability to increasingly complex cybercrimes. n NIVEDAN PRAKASH <NIVEDAN@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

he awareness about IT security is growing in the Middle East region, which has led to an increase in the uptake of enterprise security solutions in this market. Proof of this lies in the successes that both the security vendors as well as system integrators have had over the last couple of years in this domain. One such strategic information security consulting company, Help AG, has tasted this success too. In fact, the company has become a familiar name to reckon with in the field of security services and solutions. Founded in Germany in 1995 and being present in the Middle East since 2005, Help AG provides leading enterprise businesses across the region with strategic consultancy combined with tailored information security solutions and services that address their diverse requirements enabling them to evolve securely with a competitive edge. After Dubai, the company started its operations in Abu Dhabi in the year 2009, and in September 2011, it opened up offices in Doha and Qatar. “As an organization, we started way back in 2005 here in Dubai, with a complete focus on IT information security services and solutions. At that time, security was considered as a niche area. In fact, it is still perceived the same if you look at the investments going into enterprise organizations. But the importance is rising year-on-year. Earlier, security used to be at no. 10 in any CIOs’ priority list, which gradually moved up to no. 7 and then in last couple of years, it climbed up to no. 3 position. We believe that in 2014, security

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would be their top priority and accordingly you will see the spending behavior of the large enterprises,” says Stephan Berner, Managing Director, Help AG. He further adds, “Security is just not about placing a hardware or software or next-gen firewall. Any type of technical security control needs to be implemented as per the information security policy of an enterprise organization. The key factor here is not just spending $500 on a product but investing a right amount of money into a company who is able to implement in a proper way. And that’s why; Help AG became the number one security consulting company in the UAE and going to be number one in Qatar two years from now.”

OVERALL PERFORMANCE When the company started in 2005 in this region, it was relatively small and did a business of US$700,000. Over the years, it grew the business in a conservative way. The company ended the year 2010 with US$8.4 million; touched US$11.2 million in 2011; then in 2012, it garnered revenue of $16.5 million; and it is looking to close the year 2013 at an estimated figure of $27 million. Currently, 70 percent of the Help AG’s business comes from solutions and the rest 30 percent from services. Going forward, the company is going to maintain the same ratio of revenue contribution from the business segments. It is because the company believes that in order to grow the services business there is a need for an army of people who could act as consultants.

“It is evident with the fact that at the beginning of 2012, we are 28 people and now, the number has grown to 60 (70 percent technical). And in 2014, we are planning to add another 30 people across all the core functions like security consultants, security analysts, business development, back office administrators, and strategic consultants to serve our existing as well as prospective customers,” adds Berner.

FOCUS AREAS Help AG solely focuses on IT security and it is very much evident with the fact that within the UAE, the company covers about 15 to 20% of high end security market. The company has an experienced strategic security consulting team providing companies and organizations with quality IT consultancy services to ensure a successful certification process to create added value to their customers/key stakeholders. “In the UAE as well as Qatar market, there are not many IT information security specialists. And we consider ourselves are specialists of this domain. For us, security is the core function. What we see at the IT spending of an organization, until 2012, security was part of the infrastructure budget for most of the enterprises. But in 2013, many vertical industries had kept a separate IT security budget to spend. And this is going to further increase in 2014 and henceforth. And that’s where we are well positioned and not going to deviate our business model. Today, we are considered as trusted advisors of information security,” asserts Berner. Since Help AG focuses solely on IT security, it comes as no surprise that the main verticals that have been driving the company’s business have been those in which security is essential to conducting business. These include banks and financial institutions, telecom, government entities and sectors like oil & gas and critical infrastructure which are increasingly being targeted by attackers. “In 2012, 22% of our business came from government, 20% from financial institutions, 14% from education sector, 12% from oil & gas, and 8% from healthcare. These are the vertical markets that we focus on. Today, 9 out of the top 10 banks or government organizations in UAE are our customers. The same holds true for oil & gas sector. Our focus is on enterprise organizations having more 1000 users,” points out Berner.

CORE STRENGTHS Help AG has emerged as the only security player who is authorized to provide level 1 and level 2 support services on behalf on principle vendors like F5 Networks, Juniper Networks, Palo Alto Networks and Infoblox.

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

LIST OF SERVICES FROM HELP AG’S SECURITY ANALYSIS DIVISION n VULNERABILITY ASSESSMENT AND PENETRATION TESTING: Help AG will assess all targets which range through Microsoft based system, Unix / Linux, networking device and services, VOIP, Wi-Fi (personal / enterprise), and web application. n DETAILED WEB ASSESSMENT: Help AG’s security team is qualified with advance software development backgrounds as well as ethical hacking. Help AG believes that utilizing such resources is the only adequate approach to perform a detailed web assessment. n MOBILE HACKING: Help AG offers this service for both mobile apps and browser based mobile interfaces. The conmpany’s auditors will utilize Help AG’s smart phones whether Apple, Android or Symbian which are prepared with all necessary tools to perform an efficient mobile security assessment. n CONFIGURATION REVIEW: Configuration review can be performed against networking devices or other platforms. Help AG offers this service as per the following goals - compliance with a strategic standard and base lining against a technical standard for hardening the environment

STEPHAN BERNER

MANAGING DIRECTOR, HELP AG

“We engage with our customers - right from the beginning, wherein we help them build the information security strategy and by doing so, we start to deliver security assessment services.” Explaining further, he states, “As a security vendor, we do not just sell products but solutions to the customers based on their business requirements. We engage with our customers - right from the beginning, wherein we help them build the information security strategy and by doing so, we start to deliver security assessment services. We look into the organizations’ current set-up; do risk assessment and business impact analysis; and basis on this, we can identify what are the technical security controls missing from that organization. It’s not about implementing encryption solution or a DLP solution, but about policies, procedures, processes, and people. From strategic security consulting point of view, we follow these 4Ps.” As part of its services, the company is aggressively focusing on security analysis for vulnerability assessment and penetration testing; detailed

n ARCHITECTURAL REVIEW: Help AG offers an architectural review targeted toward securing the network. This can be accomplished through – Analyses of gateway layer(s); Analyses of switching layer; Analyses of security devices such as firewalls, web application firewalls, IPS; Server multitier analyses; Zone segregations; Failover and HA structure; Traffic flow; Logging and monitoring. n SOURCE CODE REVIEW: Help AG offers source code analyses and software assurance maturity audits within three different scopes - One-time source code analyses engagement; Source code analyses on-demand executed by Help AG; and Source code analyses on-demand (support module) executed by the client with support from Help AG. n SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT POLICY: Help AG can address all aspects of a software development policy by implementing the following policies for its clients, including internal software development policy, coding and programming best practices, and contractual amendments for third party providers.

web assessment; mobile hacking; configuration review; architectural review; source code review; and software development policy. Some of the other unique strengths, capabilities and initiatives of Help AG include unmatched technical capabilities with over 80% of staff appointed in technical roles and capability of in-house development and enhancement of vendor solutions to meet precise requirements of customer even when vendor solutions falls short of expectations. Besides, the company has introduced Help AG ‘Learning Lab’ sessions which is course material developed and delivered by Help AG. These have been extremely well received by the customers who have been looking for vendor neutral and unbiased description of technical problems without the focus on pushing technology solutions or boxes.

FUTURE OUTLOOK Apparently, it has also chalked out growth plans for coming years as well. For 2014, the company is targeting to do a business of $34 million, then around $44 million by end of 2015, and finally, around $57 million by 2016. “In 2014, we will be consolidating our existing product portfolio in technical security controls. As an organization, the strategic initiatives, which are already running for the last six months, will be implemented in 2014. This includes managed security services and Help AG’s Coordinated Threat Mitigation (CTM) services. We are going to serve market specifically in these areas. As part of our services, security analysis is another area that we are keenly focusing on, which we believe is an ever growing business line,” concludes Berner. ë

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SMART GOVERNANCE

CISCO

Cisco Intends to Support Dubai’s Smart City Ambitions

Having secured Expo 2020, Dubai’s rapidly accelerating Smart City bid comes at an opportune time. Senior Cisco executives outlined the company’s blueprint for creating a sustainable, smart and connected city.

n W O R D S : 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 >

isco believes that the principles of openness that made the Internet a thriving ecosystem over the past 20 years can be applied to create and grow a networked platform for connecting people with products, services and information. This same network can also provide a means for cities to manage services, provide citywide information, learn how citizens use managed services, and deliver business opportunities. Drawing on examples from current strategic partnerships – taking place via smart city initiatives in places like Barcelona in Spain, Nice in France and Hamburg in Germany, amongst many others - experts and analysts agreed that Dubai’s Smart City plans could create one of the world’s most connected and sustainable urban centers. Having secured Expo 2020, Dubai’s rapidly accelerating Smart City bid comes at an opportune time. Frost & Sullivan estimate that the global market potential for smart cities - infrastructure development, technology integration, and e-government, energy and security services - could reach $3.3 trillion by 2025. “The way we will move around in and interact with the city of Dubai is being revolutionized, and companies like Cisco are working very closely with both government and businesses to guide

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and support this momentous change. The era of inert buildings, unresponsive citizen services, and lack of logistical transparency is over, and Dubai has everything in place to become an exemplary smart city pioneer, not only throughout the region but also on a global scale,” said Rabih Dabboussi, Managing Director, Cisco UAE. The global need for cities to adapt is intensifying. Research from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) predicts that cities in the future will account for nearly 90% of global population growth, 80% of wealth creation, and 60% of total energy consumption. According to analysis by McKinsey, one billion people will enter the global “consuming class” by 2025 – a rise of 70% from today. To cope, cities will need to construct floor space equivalent to 85% of all of today’s urban building stock – an area the size of Austria. Cisco’s Smart+Connected Communities (S+CC) – A Reality Today Cisco is currently involved in over 90 S+CC projects worldwide, all of which feature an open-architecture platform that enables Cisco, its partners and customers to create and deploy new smart services and applications. To learn about cutting-edge Cisco smart city technologies in action, a delegation of Dubai

government representatives recently visited Barcelona, one of Cisco’s most prominent S+CC engagements. The Born District of Barcelona is using Cisco Smart+Connected City Wi-Fi and sensing devices to improve liveability for citizens, create a smart city blueprint and demonstrate thought leadership in the region. City Wi-Fi is also the foundation for infrastructure-based management services. For example, environmental smart sensors report in real-time on variables such as temperature, noise, humidity, gas and dustparticle concentration. The data gathered helps to paint a picture of the city’s overall liveability, and also generates alerts when actions are required. Smart parking sensors, for instance, help citizens find open parking spaces via a smartphone app, whereas waste containers are equipped with sensors that signal when they become full or are emitting odours above a set threshold. They also emit data to inform optimal pickup routes. Other innovations include smart street lighting sensors that can detect movement, including people and animals, and adjust light levels accordingly. Cisco’s reputation is already well established in the technologies, standards and experience of smart cities, with the company having supported the development and growth of the Internet.

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SMART GOVERNANCE

RABIH DABBOUSSI,

MANAGING DIRECTOR, CISCO UAE

“The era of inert buildings, unresponsive citizen services, and lack of logistical transparency is over, and Dubai has everything in place to become an exemplary smart city pioneer, not only throughout the region but also on a global scale.”

Today, it is helping to take things to the next level through The Internet of Things and its next incarnation, The Internet of Everything (IoE). IoE could connect 50 billion people, processes, data and things by 2020. “We can deliver the intelligent network —a network that listens, learns and responds—on a scale like never before,” explains Dabboussi. “The rise of the smart city is intimately linked to Cisco’s IoE strategy, which we estimate has a value of $14.4 trillion USD.” Another example of Cisco’s smart city expertise is the recently launched “Connected Boulevard” in Nice, France. An ambitious proof-of-concept project built to demonstrate the benefits and value of IoE for both residents and city leadership, the project includes four types of city services—smart circulation (traffic), smart lighting, smart waste management and environmental

monitoring. The applications gather information from about 200 wireless devices and sensors deployed along the 800-yard-long Boulevard Victor Hugo. The shared network platform makes it possible to transform raw data from these sensors into the actionable intelligence that, when scaled, has the potential to transform Nice into a smart city. Meanwhile, in the city of Hamburg, Germany, Cisco is using Smart+Connected City Wi-Fi to improve service delivery to mobile citizens in order to boost the local economy, and to provide smart parking via the Hamburg Port Authority. City Wi-Fi also provides the foundational platform for enabling IoE innovations such as traffic congestion management and automated water metering, resulting in greener and more efficient city infrastructure management. On the public safety and security front, the City Wi-Fi

solution improves situational awareness by accelerating incident detection and it can trigger a combination of automated response, real-time collaboration and escalated decision support for optimal city operations and planning. According to Amr Salem, Cisco’s Dubai-based Managing Director for Global Smart+Connected Communities, it is Cisco’s track record with projects of this nature that marks it out as an ideal partner to support the delivery of Dubai’s smart city strategy. “Dubai has to be commended for its leadership’s smart city vision and for its commitment to making it a reality,” he said. “Dubai’s strategy is a carefully considered, robust plan structured to benefit residents, businesses and visitors, and it is emblematic of the city’s receptivity to cutting-edge technology. The fiber optic networks, high-speed wireless Internet and sensors set for deployment across Dubai will mean a continuous flow of improvements that will benefit everything from education, healthcare and transport to utilities and general security.” Salem added that Cisco’s approach to addressing these needs is to leverage the network as the foundation for managed city and business services. This foundation layer will then incorporate all manner of mobility, security, cloud computing, virtualization, collaboration and video—as well as other evolving technologies—and rely on, and accommodate, a diversity of cross-functional, open-architecture applications that package and distribute information and services. ë

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MY VIEWS

NAZIR KAZI,

AVP - MEA & AFRICA, ESCAN

“Rising demand of integrated security solutions” ORGANIZATIONS IN THE MEA REGION ARE COMMITTED TO SECURITY TO STAY RESILIENT TO ATTACK, REDUCE RISK OF DATA COMPROMISE, AND PROTECT SENSITIVE DATA AND REPUTATION. WITH ATTACK VECTORS INCREASING EXPONENTIALLY, IT’S THE RIGHT TIME TO MAKE AN INVESTMENT IN INFORMATION SECURITY BUSINESS.

The MEA IT industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the last two decades. How do you foresee the MEA IT business evolving till 2020? According to EMC, the technology spending in the Middle East is forecasted to grow at double the global average. The Middle East IT industry has been undoubtedly a very high-growth market in the recent times. According to Gartner, IT spending in the Middle East and Africa was estimated by 14.3 per cent in 2013, in contrast to flat or declining budgets in North America and Europe. Looking at the current scenario of IT security landscape wherein threats for IT users across all segments and verticals are only increasing, IT security is a serious issue. This has created new business opportunities. Businesses have assigned budgets on the IT security applications. As Information security becomes vital worldwide,

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MY VIEWS

that they understand the IT security needs of customers and accordingly offer them IT security solutions. We have already initiated strategic alliances with businesses with various IT-related and mobile brands such as Samsung to ensure that eScan is available in all major retail outlets. This will enhance eScan’s visibility as well as market penetration in SMB and corporate market segment.

and not just in MEA, security software market has brought new opportunities for IT security market.

integrated security solutions that not only fulfil security needs but also help manage the networks effectively from a single console.

What kind of growth expected out of IT business by 2020?What are the factors that will drive this growth in the region? As mentioned, IT industry in MEA has been undoubtedly a very high-growth market in the recent times. With the constantly rising internet usage graph, threats in the cyber security landscape will surely continue to grow. They are expected to be more sophisticated in terms of both – technology and social engineering, and will be targeted to cause extensive and irreparable damage to the IT infrastructure. IT users across all segments and verticals are equally at risk. The increasing number of endpoints in the network has made endpoint security a critical component to consider in terms of IT security strategy. The growing trend of IT consumerization, cloud computing and virtualization in businesses will continue to grow, thus leading to increasing risk of data leakage. Today as IT is increasingly becoming the backbone of every business, threat management cannot be avoided. Hence, demand of integrated security solutions that provide comprehensive protection to digital life of IT users as well as business is constantly increasing. This has led to the increasing market for security solutions.

Which all new verticals and customer segments that will largely invest in IT? In which areas, do these investments will take place? In MEA, government, banking and education will largely invest in IT. As mentioned that today IT has become pivotal need of users across all vertical and customers segments. IT users continue to increase the time spent online and Internet increasingly becoming an integral part their lives in all major aspect right from education to shopping, banking, entertainment as well as social networking. As far as businesses are concerned, IT is increasingly becoming crucial to every business. Hence, with continuous advancements in the IT landscape, the need to protect networks and all related digital devices in it from evolving cyber security threats has led to an increase in the demand of IT security software.

How will the role of channel partners evolve with these changing times? How significant will be their contribution in the growth of IT business by 2020? Today, channel partners are more updated about the technologies than before. They take interest in ensuring that they have updated knowledge about the products and related technologies so that they can understand the needs of their customers better and offer right product to customers.

As a leading player, what will be the contribution from your end to build the domestic market?

While MEA’s technology and business services industry has flourished in the last decade. Industry

Highlight some of the megatrends that will drive IT business landscape and create new opportunities for the industry by 2020? The increasing usage of wide range of endpoints and mobile devices is the major concern today. The biggest driver of growth will be mobility that includes smartphones and tablets. This is creating new opportunities for IT security business. What kind of transformational opportunities does the evolved landscape present for the MEA IT business? As mentioned, increasing usage of internet as well as wide range of endpoints in the IT infrastructure will lead to IT security concerns. Moreover, managing security because of these endpoints will also be a challenge. As far as the emerging trends are concerned, mobile computing, virtualization, cloud services, and social networking continue to be the emerging IT trends. This will lead to the demand of

“WE AIM TO BE THE FOREMOST IT SECURITY BRAND THAT WILL ENSURE MOST ADVANCED SECURITY TO THE IT USERS ACROSS ALL VERTICALS AND SEGMENTS IN MEA”

Amidst of increasing cybercrime, to ensure secured computing environment to IT users and businesses, we have special designed security solution that are tailor-made to fulfil their IT security needs. To create mass awareness about IT security, we have strategic plans for various marketing activities such as road shows, ad campaigns, branding, etc. eScan has its presence on all major social media platforms. We use these platforms effectively to communicate with our customers and keep them updated about latest trends in IT security landscape as well as interact with them. Being a channel centric brand, we have a special partner program for our esteemed partners that facilitates them with sale, marketing and technical support to ensure that they reach effectively to the customers. We provide them special training to ensure

stakeholders will need to break out of the traditional mould that resulted in past successes and step up to the aspirations of 2020. Please comment. Yes, we firmly believe that MEA’s technology and business services industry has flourished in the last decade. With increasing number of digital devices in IT landscape, ensuring IT security and managing it is a big challenge. Hence, industry stakeholders will need to break out of the traditional mould. What’s your vision and goal for 2020? Please outline your roadmap to achieve this goal? We aim to be the foremost IT security brand that will ensure most advanced security to the IT users across all verticals and segments in MEA. ë

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GUEST TALK

Voicing the Devices TECHNOLOGY

Manually operating devices is soon going to become a passé and Nuance Communications is redefining the human-machine interface in an innovative way.

n WORDS: ANIL KUMAR, DIRECTOR SALES, NUANCE C O M M U N I C AT I O N I N C . , M I D D L E E A S T, C E N T R A L & E A S T E U R O P E , BALKANS AND TURKEY n PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK

The advancements in gesture and voice recognition technology are touching new heights in the current technologically advanced times. Human and machine interaction has become more interactive. Forrester’s workforce survey reveals that 37% of information workers who have smartphones use voice command at least occasionally. Nuance Communications, a leading provider of voice and language solutions for businesses and consumers is taking the technology to even greater level. “We voice-enable any device. You can talk to your coffee machine soon. Essentially, what we are trying to do is break the barrier of interfacing with the machine through keyboard or typing. The largest one among the input mechanisms is voice,” says Anil Kumar, Director Sales, Nuance Communication Inc., Middle East, Central & East Europe, Balkans and Turkey. According to Frost and Sullivan, the surge in smartphones, tablets, and PCs that support these technologies will propel innovations

and consumer electronics industry will witness a large scale adoption in the coming 3 to 5 years. Dragon is one of the products by Nuance which is totally based on speech. “For the mobile app, you are biometrically authenticated and your voice becomes your password. We are the only one doing this in the world. The mobile app has a high level of conversation capability. You can just talk like you talk to a person and it understands what you are saying. The whole concept of natural language understanding is started and that’s how Siri was born,” explains Kumar. Siri uses natural language user interface for Apple’s iOS. With the voice recognition technology by Nuance a lot of work which was done by humans is eliminated. For example, whatever the doctor says goes into the medical files directly thereby killing the transcription time. “So, this is a big piece of what we have contributed. We do similar things with government, enterprises like banking or telecos,” informs Kumar. In this manner, Nuance

is increasing self-service. Many things that were done through agents no longer require a human to do them. It goes into an automated box. “We set up all the grammars and do everything for the customers. The potential is humungous as every language can be understood. We have compatibility for 78 languages and take about six months to build up a new language,” he adds. Samsung integrates Nuance’s voice technology across handsets, tablets, TVs and wearables also. Samsung’s new GALAXY Gear wearable device and Samsung GALAXY Note 3 integrate Nuance’s voice and language capabilities as part of Samsung’s expanding lineup of S-Voice powered devices. It is the first use of Nuance’s voice and intelligent systems-based technology into the wearables’ category as part of a larger expansion of Nuance Cloud Services. “We have a cloud based service but as per UAE banking they are not allowed as our cloud is in the US,” he says. Nuance works with OEM

partners, local distributors or implementation partners. “Cisco, Avaya, Genesys are our three biggest channels worldwide and we work with their partners locally. For mobile applications, we work with Accenture,” says Kumar. Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) is the licensing component by Nuance. In fiscal 2013, Nuance reported GAAP revenue of $1,855.3 million, a 12.3% increase over GAAP revenue of $1,651.5 million in fiscal 2012. “We own about 85% of the market worldwide. Voice recognition or anything to do with that comes from the Nuance family. We are a two billion company and 900 million comes from healthcare,” reveals Kumar. FINALLY... Nuance is eyeing a phenomenal growth with an aim for 200% YoY growth for next three years. “We have signed large telecos and we are doing POCs with them. We are running a large airline in Dubai. We are seeing over 100% growth YoY,” concludes Kumar. ë

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INNOVATIONS

NEC Display 32-inch V323 LCD Display NEC Display 32-inch V323 LCD display, a highperformance addition to its commercial-grade V Series that utilizes LED backlighting for improved power consumption and a slimmer cabinet depth.

Delivering a greater than 40 percent decrease in power consumption compared to its predecessor, the V323 large-screen display maintains its remarkable brightness and adds a full HD panel. Its edge-lit

LED backlight enables a slimmer cabinet depth and lightweight design, providing flexibility for a variety of installations. Integrated temperature sensors and fans protect display installations. The V323 also features

built-in, 10-watt speakers and an Open Pluggable Specification (OPS) compliant expansion slot. This future-proofs the display and allows for the seamless integration of a computer or other NEC/third-party accessories. Moreover, video, RS-232 control and power are passed internally from the display to the computer, eliminating additional cabling and simplifying installations.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Commercial-grade LCD panel and components, which enable extended run times n LED backlighting technology for reduced power consumption n 1920 x 1080 full HD native resolution, which provides stunning clarity n 320/450 cd/m² brightness (typical/maximum) and 1300:1 contrast ratio for brilliant imagery n DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI-D (in/out), VGA 15 pin D-sub (Composite, Component, S-Video), which enable connectivity to a wide range of peripherals n RS-232C, Ethernet (RJ45), IR Remote, DDC/ CI for external control n Built-in, 10-watt speakers enhance the experience with superior sound n TileMatrix, which facilitates video walls up to 10 x 10

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EPSON’S FIRST DIRECT-TO-GARMENT T-SHIRT PRINTER Epson Middle East’s first-ever direct-to-garment t-shirt printer - the SureColor SC-F2000 with the garment printing market expected to be worth over EUR 200 million by 2014, small to medium businesses. Combining high performance with low maintenance and running costs, the latest addition to Epson’s textile printer line up enables businesses to offer new t-shirt design and print services. Online t-shirt shops, production t-shirt printers and even corporate users will benefit from the SC-F2000 as its ink is crack-resistant and is soft against the skin. Users can configure the system to suit their needs by choosing from two sets of Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black (CMYK) ink for white garments or CMYK with up to four white inks for coloured garments. Epson’s Garment Creator software is bundled with the package, which includes a cost calculation function that allows users to estimate the print cost by calculating the amount and cost of the ink used for each print job. This is useful when setting a tax rate or discount. The software enables designers to unleash their creativity and easily produce customised, eye-catching designs of up to 25mm thick on t-shirts, caps and bags.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Displays the L800 photo printer from its Ink Tank Systems range n Micro Piezo printhead technology and prints up to 1,800 high quality 10x15 cm photos to deliver an ultra-low-cost per photo n Can quickly print on white and dark-coloured t-shirt without sacrificing print quality.

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INNOVATIONS

HP Z1 G2 HP Z1 with Windows 8 Touch and Intel Thunderbolt capabilities makes it the most powerful, innovative and fully featured all-in-one workstation. Ideal for knowledge workers and specialists in CAD, graphic arts and university education, the HP Z1G2 offers fast data transfer speeds for compute-intensive workloads and new technologies like Thunderbolt offer the flexibility for high-performance external expandability. Whether it’s being used by an engineer creating 3-D components, an architect designing buildings or a videographer editing event footage, the HP Z1G2 gives creative professionals the power they need to bring ideas to life faster. The HP Z1 G2 is joined by three new all-in-one PCs ideal for use in small and midsize business (SMB) and enterprise environments, including the HP Slate21 Pro All in One, HP’s first commercial Android all-in-one PC. The HP Slate21 Pro offers seamless integration with Android-based phones and tablets, along with access to efficient manageability tools, security enhancements and apps available through the Google Play app store. HP is the only workstation vendor to offer Thunderbolt as an option across both desktop and mobile workstations. Thunderbolt enables cutting-edge creative work, and the addition of this technology to the HP Z1 G2 expands HP’s leadership in innovation and demonstrates its commitment to the professional market. KEY CAPABILITIES n The power of Thunderbolt. Connect in a flash with up to four times USB 3.0 bandwidth using optional high-performance Thunderbolt 2.0 ports located on the side of the HP Z1G2. n Professional display. Let ideas shine on the HP Z1 G2’s brilliant nextgeneration, 27-inch diagonal IPS display. Choose from 10-point touch with stunning edge-to-edge glass or non-touch with antiglare capability. n Tool-less chassis. Change most parts or make upgrades without tools or a service technician. Simply snap open the chassis and customize as needed. n Bold and bright. A wide range of 3-D professional graphics options, including NVIDIA Mobile Quadro GPUs, gives users the power they need to bring their creations to life.

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Schneider Electric Pelco IP Camera Schneider Electric Pelco IP camera lines, the Sarix Enhanced Range with SureVision 2.0 and the Sarix Professional Range are available in the market and offers a complete line of IP cameras for any lighting condition, application and environment, the press release announced. The additions deliver on the company’s commitment to creating an IP-driven product portfolio and enhancing customer-focus. The two ranges add to Pelco’s continually expanding IP camera offering in Saudi Arabia, following the introduction of the Sarix Value Range cameras earlier this year, part of more than 50 new IP cameras to be released in 2013. All of the new Sarix cameras integrate with major third-party video management systems through the Pelco API, and other third-party software and systems through the open ONVIF Profile S standard, and work seamlessly with Pelco video management systems. The Sarix Enhanced is well suited for the most difficult lighting conditions and available in a wide range of indoor, environmental and vandal options, including box cameras and domes. The Sarix Professional Range delivers choice to customers, allowing users to mix and match technical options. The Sarix Enhanced is well suited for the most difficult lighting conditions and available in a wide range of indoor, environmental and vandal options, including box cameras and domes. Additional benefits include: KEY CAPABILITIES n Performance IQ: Equipped with SureVision 2.0 technology, delivering advanced low-light capability, true wide dynamic range (WDR), and antibloom technology for industry-leading image quality. n Performance processing: Offers full HD video (up to 30 ips) with 1080p resolution using H.264 compression for optimized bandwidth and storage efficiency and up to two simultaneous video streams for the most demanding applications - such as Prisons and city surveillance. n Optimized design: Features an optimized modular design for quick install, built-in analytics, and advanced features for a premium user experience. n Mission critical: Designed with superior reliability and fault tolerance for mission-critical applications, these rugged fixed IP cameras ensure users always get the video needed. n The Sarix Professional Range delivers choice to customers, allowing users to mix and match technical options.

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Redefining office IT. PowerEdge VRTX.

The first and only full integration of servers, storage, networking and management in only 5U. Up until now, there hasn’t been an IT solution designed specifically for an office environment. Enter the new Dell PowerEdge VRTX powered by the Intel® Xeon® processor, an integrated end-to-end solution built specifically for the growing office. It’s the only 5U PowerEdge shared infrastructure platform design based on input from over 7,000 customers, featuring four integrated servers, 48TBs of storage, networking and systems management to simplify all aspects of IT. You inspired it. We built it. To see how we can redefine your office IT, visit www.dell.com/ae/vrtx

Dell PowerEdge VRTX is a trademark of Dell Inc. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. ©2013 Dell Inc. All rights reserved.

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