March 2014 | Issue 01
TheGrid
leading the pack Creating strategies by anticipating market demands
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CONTENTS
04 Management speak
11 Citrix
05 Profile : Gaining traction
12 Emerson
06 Profile: Path to success
13 Dell
07 Profile: Modus operandi
15 McAfee
08 Avocent
16 Microsoft
09 Brocade
20 Symantec
10 CA
21 SAP
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March 2014 Issue 01 | TheGrid
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Management speak
Gear up for tomorrow
Mario Gay, General Manager, Mindware
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e are delighted to present the first edition of The Grid— a publication that aims to be your go-to guide when it comes to business information and updates. In this issue, you will find interviews with our product managers and vendors to gain a better insight in to what lies
ahead for us. The year has begun well with most of the growth coming from cloud, Big Data and mobility. You will notice that our vendors too are focusing largely on these trends. Although there has been a flurry of activities around cloud and related services, we believe this part of business will further consolidate in the coming years. And more and more companies today, are seeing the immense opportunities Big Data analytics can bring into the market. It can go a long way in shaping the strategies of tomorrow and can also help in being closer to the final customers. The region has seen a tremendous uptake of tablets in the last few months. However, how this space will map out is something we will have to wait and watch. With the market being extremely volatile, it is important for partners and vendors alike, to be in sync with the changing demands and expectations of the customers, in order to grow. In fact, the need of the hour is to be a step ahead and anticipate the evolving demands. Therefore, it is important to gear up as technology is becoming public knowledge by the day and more a part of the future than ever before. We hope you enjoy reading this issue. Do write to us with your feedback and look forward to doing business with you in the coming months.
Capturing the growth
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Radwan Basheer, General Manager, Mindware, KSA
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elcome to the inaugural issue of Mindware’s booklet—The Grid. Through this initiative, we aim to keep you informed with the latest news and updates from our vendor-partners across different regions. We have had an in-country presence in the Saudi Arabian markets for the last five years. And I’m happy to share that the business has been growing at 10 to 14 percent year on year. Like most markets, the KSA region also has its own challenges. The coalition in the market makes business decisions unpredictable. Companies are not as professional as they should be, making it difficult to have realistic forecasts. But that being said, it has definitely gotten better over time and I see it maturing even faster within the next couple of years. Taking this scenario into consideration, we plan to expand our portfolio and work even more closely with resellers and partners in the region. We want to create initiatives that will further enable our partner community. One of our objectives this year, is to increase the number of partners. And we plan to do this through careful selection so that we continue to maintain the quality of standard of our partners. Our focus on partner training programmes helps to empower our partners further. We want our partners to think of us as strategic advisors when it comes to their business decision. And our partner programme is well in place to offer various initiatives such as rebate, discount or marketing. We are extremely optimistic about the outlook for this region. We extend our expertise to you in every regard. As much as you will invest, we will invest better, therefore let’s go capture the growth together.
www.mindware.ae
Profile
Gaining traction The Grid speaks to Shadi Tahan, Solutions Unit Manager, MENA, Mindware, to gain an overview of the company’s strategies in the region. What is your business objective for the current year? In 2014, we plan to expand our incountry presence as being more on the ground will help us to understand better our clients’ priorities and challenges, which is key for us. Could you discuss the company’s plans for this market? We are investing more in security, storage and cloud resources to be aligned with this market’s big bets. How do you plan to develop the business here? Are there any marketing or expansion strategies in place? We are mainly focusing on increasing the number of sales and technical resources on the ground in each country to support our partners.
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hat strengths do you bring to the table with your experience? I believe my experience of 10 years of regional distribution with deep understanding of the supply chain and market potential for each country vertical and technology have been my biggest strengths till date. Could you discuss the importance of the MENA region for the company? Mindware is present only in the Middle East North Africa region. It is one of the highest growing regions and offers immense opportunities in the ICT business. Also, this region has a fast uptake of new technologies.
www.mindware.ae
“Mindware has a customercentric culture and we see ourselves as an extra hand to our partners and vendors”
Shadi Tahan, Solutions Unit Manager, MENA, Mindware
What kind of challenges do you face here? Each country in MENA has its own dynamics and needs on all fronts, be it technology, logistics or finance. Therefore, we tailor our offerings to fit accordingly. Can you discuss any market trends that you have noticed here? Cloud is getting more traction in addition to data security in the region. Companies are open to experiment with cloud solutions and also understand that security is a musthave add on. Anything else you would like to add? Mindware has a customer-centric culture and we see ourselves as an extra hand to our partners and vendors.
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Profile
Path to success The Grid speaks to Salim Karam, Country Manager, Levant Region, Mindware, to understand his responsibilities in the new role.
Could you discuss the importance of the region for the company? The Levant offers great potential over the five coming years. The Lebanese Information Technology sector has been growing rapidly, having reached a market size of USD 337 million by 2012. Over the next five years, the market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 percent and reach a value of USD 570 million in 2017. In Iraq, more than 90 percent of the population under the age of 55 is working to rebuild the post-war country. The core drive of private and public businesses being IT solutions and services, the Iraqi market thus offers great potential for business expansion and growth.
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ould you discuss your responsibilities in your new role? As Country Manager of Mindware Lebanon, my role is to manage operations, ensure breadth and increase the profitability of the Levant region, with all that it entails in terms of managing and developing team members, driving and monitoring performance, ensuring alignment on the global strategy and adherence to best practice processes, while prioritizing stakeholders’ needs. What strengths do you bring with your experience? My extensive experience derives from multinational telecom solutions and service providers (LibanCell, Siemens and Motorola Networks). The professional and cultural practices I gained complemented my technical and managerial skills earned through
“Over the next five years, the market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12 percent.”
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vendors, partners and end clients. Aligned with the above, reinforcing our presence in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon all while establishing a solid presence in the Iraqi market.
Do you foresee any challenges within the region? The Levant faces many difficulties, but the main challenge remains the continuous political turmoil and instability.
my B.E. in Electrical Engineering (AUB) and Executive MBA (ESCP Europe). What is your business objective for the current year? Setting forth a cultural shift in the business practices at Mindware Lebanon to become a valueadded distributor that proactively understands, anticipates and services the complex needs of customers being
Salim Karam, Country Manager, Levant Region, Mindware
Anything else you would like to add? Quoting Mr. Carlos Ghosn: “Good is somebody who delivered and allowed the company to overcome obstacles, without leaving a profound impact on its culture. Great is somebody who leads his company to achievements and performance and value that nobody was expecting it had.” Change is unpleasant to the human nature, difficult and timeconsuming. However, it is the natural path for evolvement, as great outcomes can only be reached through change.
www.mindware.ae
Profile
Modus operandi The Grid discusses about the updated ERP system and more with Wissam Hajj, Regional Operations Manager, Mindware.
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an you give us a brief overview of the ERP system? How has the update improved operations? Our updated ERP, which is designed to run on Microsoft Windows Server platform, has enhanced operations in several ways. Quotation management & control has now improved. The update has helped automate the Quotation conversion into sales orders & integration with B2B where applicable. And also has automated the Credit Control management process & approvals thus speeding up the credit decision process. Now there is a better back-log management for both the Purchasing & Sales Order. And other enhancements include better inventory, stock aging, and stock depreciation control, enhanced cashflow management and faster response to business needs. What are the benefits for the vendors and other partners? Our System segments our partners horizontally in the areas they’re addressing, i.e. Enterprise - Midsize Enterprise – SMB and so on, and vertically in function of the ‘Vertical Market’ they’re dealing with or supporting like banking, public administration, oil & gas, media, hospitality, service and retail. Both our ERP & CRM combined can target the right market sector with the right promotional campaigns with the right material and products. Could you take us through the Order-to-Delivery processing at the company? Order-To-Delivery Process all these activities are driven by our ERP system. First, the Back-office team processes the Sales Order. The Credit team then
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checks the credit limit of the customer and approves the sales order for purchasing. After which, the Purchase team checks the “TO Order Report”. All Sales Orders approved for purchase by credit team gets listed in this report. Purchase Team places PO with the vendor. Wherever the vendor is equipped with B2B automation, the Purchase Orders placed in our ERP system automatically gets submitted to vendor via Biztalk Server (B2B automation). This helps us in avoiding the duplicate task of placing purchase order through the vendor’s website. Then receives the Invoice from vendor through Biztalk Server (B2B automation) where applicable and also receives the stock against the PO by our warehouse teams. For back to back orders, system will trigger alerts to the concerned sales person notifying them of the stock arrival. The Sales team, then, checks the Sales
Wissam Hajj, Regional Operations Manager, Mindware
Order backlog and identifies the Orders to be released and gets the approval from the Credit team. The Warehouse team checks ‘To Ship’ report. This report lists the Sales Orders which are ready for Invoicing. The Warehouse team then reserves the stock against sales orders/ prepare the picking list. And the same team packs the items and Invoices the Sales Order. Finally, the customer collects the items from our premises, or the items are dispatched to customers through the designated freight forwarder. What kind of innovation can we expect to see this year? There will be more automation and integration where possible. And we plan to enhanced Data Mining & BI. There will be continuous technological improvement by updating and ugrading our technological infrastructure to enhance security, reliability and speed up our business response timing. In terms of customers, we are in the process of implementing a new partner portal. Our objective is to achieve the following tasks with this new Partner portal: Partner Registration: Any prospective customer should be able to register with us through our portal to become a partner. Tracking Order Status: Our partners should have the facility to track the status of all their pending orders with us. Document management: Partners logging on to the Portal only see the documents they are authorized to see. Partners should have the facility to view/ download documents like invoices and statement of account. RMA Management: Partners should have the facility to submit RMA requests and they should be able to track the RMA status via portal. Publishing Promotions/News: Our partners should have access to our latest promotions/events/news via our partner portal. Order management for promotional items: For any promotional Items, our partners should be able to place orders with us via our port. March 2014 Issue 01 | TheGrid
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Avocent
Innovate to expand The Grid speaks to Wolfgang Goretzki, Product Marketing Manager EMEA, Avocent Products & Solutions, Emerson Network Power, to understand business plans and new products. customers’ critical infrastructure and maximise availability, capacity and efficiency of their critical infrastructure.
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hat is the business focus? Our business model depends on two main silos: a) We have strong commitment to creating and executing the Avocent business through our partners / resellers. That certainly includes enablement and training as well as marketing and sales support such as lead generation activities. b) From product/solution point of view our focus is on the whole range of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM). This includes access/control (such as KVM switches), console servers, service processor managers, intelligent rack power distribution units and software for point solutions as well as a consolidated solution for managing the complete data center – IT as well as the facility infrastructure. The objective is to optimize our
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TheGrid | Issue 01 March 2014
Wolfgang Goretzki, Product Marketing Manager EMEA, Avocent Products & Solutions, Emerson Network Power
How do KVM solutions help organisations improve efficiency? The Avocent MergePoint Unity KVM switch from Emerson Network Power enhances the in-band management typically done through the NIC of IT equipment by providing secure and remote out-ofband connections directly to the physical KVM, USB and serial ports. This unified approach enables IT administrators a faster method to diagnose, reconfigure or restore equipment to meet SLAs and minimize downtime. They improve Remote Management and Staff Efficiency: Reduce the time required to remotely diagnose/reconfigure/repair/restore servers as well as network devices and other hardware with serial configuration and/or management consoles. Complement in-band tools to create a more complete remote management solution to access servers and network equipment at remote locations. Virtual media enables remote USB connections to map CD-ROM and other USB mass storage devices directly to remote servers to transfer/copy files, load updates or install new applications, etc. Integrated serial device support allows secure SSH connections to the physical serial ports of devices attached to the MPUIQ-SRL module. The Cisco configuration settings electronically pin out the module to enable a fast and direct connection to Cisco configuration ports, without the need for any additional external wiring adapters or special wiring. They improve Physical Security: Remote smart card/CAC reader support is provided for advanced security
requirements. Using the virtual media capabilities of the MergePoint Unity switch, a smart card reader can be mapped from a desktop PC out to a remote server. Reduce the need to physically enter the data centers for local access and control. The MergePoint Unity switch provides remote users the capabilities of a direct physical connection from anywhere to KVM, USB and serial ports of servers and other IT equipment. What kind of demand was seen in the region? How has the market responded? There is a strong trend towards service processors, these are addressed by Service Processor Manager Appliances such as the Avocent Universal Management Gateway. However KVM-over-IP technology is a very stable and flexible solution and so there still is growing demand for them in the region. What innovation exists in the switches space? In industries and applications like broadcast, video and audio post production, medical, control desks in industrial environment or digital signage there is a growing demand for high performance KVM technology, which has to fulfill advanced requirements, such as perfect user experience with high quality, high resolution video representation with no latency. That market cannot be addressed by traditional data center KVM switches – for that purpose we have the Avocent Matrix High Performance KVM. What new products can the market expect from Avocent? About two years ago Avocent launched the Universal Management Gateway, which is a multi-purpose appliance that consolidates access and control to all IT assets. It provides access and control capabilities with KVM over IP, serial console and service processor access in a single appliance. This unique and flexible concept still is exclusive in the market. www.mindware.ae
Brocade
Lead with channel Eyad Aleriksousi, Business Unit Manager, Mindware, shares Brocade’s channel strategies and plans for the future with The Grid.
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ould you discuss how and why Brocade considers itself to be a value added vendor? Brocade is an industry leader in Ethernet switching and routing, campus networking, application delivery, Software-Defined Networking (SDN), and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV). Brocade develops extraordinary networking solutions that enable today’s complex data-intensive businesses to optimize information connectivity and maximize the business value of their data. We can say that always partners being evolved into a ‘value-added reseller’ and yes Brocade has adopted the same principles to support partners as a ‘value-added vendor’, through assured technology they provide, the peace of mind to customers through lifetime warranty for campus switches, lining partner’s and customer’s pockets by supporting partners with healthy margins and customers with good pricings with great savings on TCO compared to competitors, on top of the channel loyalty program. Eyad Aleriksousi – Business Unit Manager, Mindware
“All the initiatives focus on enabling and scaling the partners up not only in technology but also sales.” www.mindware.ae
What are the channel strategies in place for 2014 from the vendor’s perspective? In the region we can see Brocade valuing its channel partners and relying on them to develop the Brocade business in the market. The strategy that we see for this year is to focus on few partners to lead the Brocade sales in the region through various channel programs such as Brocade Rewards, new APN programs including free Fabric trainings and so on. All the initiatives focus on enabling and scaling the partners up not only in technology but also sales. How does Mindware enable the vendor’s business? What is the value add? We at Mindware are always aligning ourselves to the vendor’s strategy in terms of channel partners along with Mindware channel loyalty program that is in place. We are supporting vendors in the partner enablement through different workshops for partners, extensive specialized training programs to upgrade the partners’ partnership level with the vendors, recruiting new partners, providing POCs and demo equipment, representing the vendor in the remote regions where they lack presence such as Qatar, Bahrain and Levant. Could you discuss the business focus for the next six months, from both Mindware and Brocade’s perspectives? Having a new innovative team in place for Brocade, we are seeing the business focus for the rest of the year is on channel partners in regions such as KSA & UAE to support Brocade growth in Data Center IP networking solutions.
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CA
Managing data The Grid speaks to Hussein Moghnieh, Channel Manager, CA, to get an insight into backup and recovery space.
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an you give a brief overview of ARCserve D2D? CA ARCserve D2D is an image-based backup product designed to provide the perfect combination of reliable protection and rapid recovery of your customer’s business data. It has Bare Metal Restore to dissimilar hardware and patentpending block-level infinite incremental snapshots (I2 technology) in one package. So not only can your customers recover in minutes, our innovative patentpending I2 technology means never having to do another full backup on that server. It also helps reduce the backup window, network traffic, disk storage and load on our customers’ production applications.
“We strive for perfection in everything that we do, and our customers’ satisfaction ALWAYS comes BEFORE ANYTHING ELSE.”
What advantage does it have from other similar products in the market? Simplicity is a key aspect of all ARCserve products and especially ARCserve D2D, where customers can manage multiple technologies, systems and sites from a single console thus reducing the labor time and helping our customers focus on other duties while D2D is protecting their data. How has the backup and recovery space evolved in the last two years? Several technology trends got into high demand zone and it became a must for backup and recovery vendors to adapt to this shift in the market, hence we have seen data management vendors like CA Technologies improving their solutions to perform better in the field of cloud computing, Big Data and virtualization. How has the demand developed in the region? With the increased awareness at the end users level about the challenges and technologies that can make managing IT disasters a piece of cake, the demand has simultaneously increased, with the customers now being more specific about their needs and armed with the knowledge of which solution is the right fit for their environment. What kind of innovation can the market expect from you this year? Our customers always expect new
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Hussein Moghnieh, Channel Manager, CA
innovations from us, and we always manage to meet their expectation on regular basis, this year CA Technologies has couple of new releases should change the way our customers manage their continuous data protection. Anything else you would like to add? We strive for perfection in everything that we do, and our customers’ satisfaction comes first. We work on the clock to deliver to the market tomorrow’s technology today with competitive prices and user friendly solutions.
www.mindware.ae
Citrix
Matters of mobility The Grid speaks to Vijay Kumar, Citrix Business Unit Manager, Mindware, to understand the complexities of enterprise mobility.
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ould you briefly discuss the solutions and offerings from Citrix on enterprise mobility? In order to be be effective, people need to operate without the boundaries of location, time or technology. Closing deals, building relationships, managing finances and driving strategic value with agility is the demand of today’s global economy. With the acceptance of BYOD and IT consumerization, enterprise mobility is now a must have solution for many organizations. Citrix solutions for enterprise mobility allow for the management and security of mobile apps, data and devices in the workplace, including, Mobile Device Management, Mobile Application Management, Mobile Information Management and other mobile enablement technologies, such as secure email apps or remote support. How do you work around the security issues that come with enterprise mobility? Enterprise mobility allows workers to become more productive and gives them the freedom of using their own devices, but it also increases security risks. While mobile security concerns range from passcode enforcement to device encryption, data breach, data leakage, network protection and stolen /lost devices are at the top of the list for implementers of mobile work style programs. From a security perspective, organizations need a solution that provides them with tools to proactively monitor, control and protect the enterprise from end to end, across devices, apps, data and the network.
www.mindware.ae
Vijay Kumar, Business Unit Manager, Mindware
Citrix products for managing enterprise mobility enable organizations to conduct business from anywhere, on any device, while still meeting security and compliance mandates. With Citrix solution you can set granular policies, block access based on compliance status, protect your corporate network from bad or non-compliant applications, distribute documents to secure document containers or users and monitor mobile user activity regardless of device ownership. If it’s a company owned device you can wipe it clean and if it’s an employee owned device you can remove your corporate data without impacting the personal apps and data of the user. Hence, your corporate information is always secure. Citrix XenMobile delivers the real-time defense enterprises need to capture the business opportunities that mobile business brings while safeguarding corporate IP, customer and employee
data, non-public financial information, and business intelligence. With cloudbased and on premise offerings, Citrix lets IT professionals secure and manage the most comprehensive array of mobile devices, gain visibility into and control over mobile apps, and shield the corporate network from mobile threats. How has the reception of customers been, in terms of adopting and embracing BYOD and related solutions and trends, in the region? With the explosion of tablets and smart phones, the region’s customers have been slow in embracing this technology. However, in the recent months, the pace of adoption to these technologies have picked up and we have seen various successful live implementations in the region. We have seen clients adopting the enterprise mobility in stages. Let’s Get Mobile: Many customers start by getting their users mobile by delivering basic Mobile Device Management (MDM) capabilities with XenMobile MDM and then providing users access to email using the native email client. In addition, they know that with email and email attachments, they need to find a way to solve the DropBox problem and turn to ShareFile, which is much more corporate and secure solution. Complete Mobile Experience: In the final stage, users want to be able to access to all their apps – Windows desktop apps, SaaS, web and other mobile apps. How are the channel partners playing a role in your business? As the channel partners are closer to the end customer, they are the first to know of their requirements. Mindware is engaged with its channel partners in enabling the sales and technical team of partners. This would empower our partners to address these demands on Enterprise Mobility in a much more mature and knowledgeable way.
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Emerson
Emerson unveils Liebert RDU-S The Grid learns more about Emerson’s recently launched monitoring unit.
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merson sees efficiency as the result of accurate monitoring. In one of its recent newsletter, it stated, “Our clients need to know in detail about every event which may affect their IT infrastructure. Being in the dark about such events can cause productivity losses because their systems are down or malfunctioning. There may also be an impact on system performance and security. So we need to offer them a solution which identifies the problem and enables them to take appropriate remedial action. Every step must be quick, simple and intuitive.” Identifying and understanding this need, the company’s Emerson Network Power has devised a wide range of monitoring solutions, which improve the performance of data centres and
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Peter Lambrecht, Vice President, Sales, IT and Finance Segment, Emerson Network Power, EMEA
“We are mainly focusing on small and medium business With Enterprise side of things.” therefore optimize and control their operating costs. Recently, the company introduced Liebert RDU-S, a solution which uses a series of sensors to monitor the environment inside racks and within the data centre in general. The unit can accommodate multiple sensors, such
as temperature, humidity, water, smoke, motion and door sensors. It can also be used for remote notification such as activating a beacon light to report problems. The Liebert RDU-S is Ethernetready and Web-enabled. Last year, Emerson’s Network Power division announced the launch of its Innovation Partnership Programme across the Middle East. The programme extended to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan and Lebanon. Peter Lambrecht, Vice President, Sales, IT and Finance Segment, Emerson Network Power, EMEA said, “The main products we are focusing on are Single-Face Power and EDUs; our ability to provide wall-to-wall infrastructure for a customer’s needs. It’s important for our customers to know that we can provide the support and data centre as well as the capability and technology to help them.” “The Middle East is a strategic, lesssaturated market for us in comparison with other regions. Working with Mindware means that our partners can greatly benefit from world-class training, information and tools, enabling them to address key customer challenges while maximizing their revenue and opportunity potential. The implementation of the programme across EMEA means that the Middle East will be one of the first regions to join Emerson Network Power’s strategic Innovation Partnership Programme initiative,” he further added. Pierre Havenga, Managing Director, Emerson Network Power, MENA, added, “In 2012, 1654 patents were registered – nearly five a day – and so we realise the need for us to stay ahead of the game. We are mainly focusing on the SMB and enterprise side of things. As the customer grows we are able to grow to support them. Emmerson is moving into a new facility in Jebel Ali, and we are investing in a large office in Saudi Arabia.”
www.mindware.ae
Dell
Engaging with enterprise Anand Dathatreya, Dell Enterprise Product Manager, Mindware, sheds light on Dell’s enterprise business in the region.
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hat is the business focus for Dell? Mindware focuses on Dell Commercial business, which constitutes Dell clients (Desktops/Laptops) and enterprise products, viz., Dell servers/storage solutions, across UAE and Gulf. Its prime goal is to achieve the maximum share from the corporate and the SMB market, offering technology solutions. How much growth is expected from the enterprise business this year? The Middle East is still one of the fastest growing markets in the world so there is huge scope for further expansion, across the regions.
“Areas like data centre solutions, data storage and virtualization are shaping purchasing decisions in the commercial sector.” www.mindware.ae
How do you plan to increase the growth further in the region? From a channel perspective, we are always looking to adapt our offering in line with the changing technology and landscape. We strive to increase our channel breadth across the regions to achieve the maximum mind-share, of the local channels, who are being approached by our respective country managers. We evolve partner programs for the SMB channels and ensure that partners are up-to-date in an ever-changing world of technology and business solutions. What are the solutions being offered to enterprise? Mindware thrives on Dell’s strong IT solutions portfolio to address customer needs. With the vendor’s support, we provide a set of technology solutions that span from the device to the data centre to virtual solutions that so capably address customer requirements. The breadth of Mindware’s offering ensures that we can meet the requirements of all customers, whether they are an SMB channel or a major international corporation. Dell’s enterprise chiefly encompasses solutions on servers, storage, networking and virtual solutions. What do you believe is lacking in the enterprise segment? True value-add distribution that can
Anand Dathatreya, Dell Enterprise Product Manager, Mindware
offer end-to-end solutions to the resellers in the market is still a maturing area in this segment. The role of our value partners is to form an extended arm for Dell’s presence in the Middle East. They should provide value-added services with our support, for us to reach areas and end-users, which we can’t do directly. What is your outlook for this segment? Areas such as data centre solutions, data storage and virtualization are shaping purchasing decisions in the commercial sector. This translates into significant sales opportunities for our channel partners, whose roles as trusted advisors ensures they are in an ideal position to provide the solutions that customers need. Mindware, as one of Dell distributors for enterprise products, look forward to a strong business relations in the corporate channel segment.
March 2014 Issue 01 | TheGrid
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McAfee
Consolidating IT security Brian Donegan, Product Manager, McAfee, shares insights on the changing landscape in IT security with The Grid. their mind-set. Organizations should monitor for unusual activity in their networks, particularly any attempts to breach the perimeters. A far greater threat to both the individual and organization is the adoption of private and public clouds without adequate research on terms of use and security measure in place. Staff members should be specifically trained on social engineering mitigation tactics along with regular security awareness training especially since these services are being used within the corporate environment.
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ould you discuss how the perception of IT security has evolved in the last two years? The security landscape is never at rest. It remains one of the most dynamic factors affecting the IT organization in enterprises today. Gone are the days of hacking for fame or denial of service. Todays attacks are centered around stealing corporate data, public defacement leaving questions of compliance or inflicting damage without leaving a trace. Recent attacks such as ‘OpPetrol’ publically announced by anonymous hacking group have shown that cyberwarfare is no longer fought in the dark. Adding fuel to the fire is the lack of competencies. According to ESG Research, 25% of enterprise (i.e. more than 1,000 employees) and mid-market (i.e. 250 to 999 employees) organizations claim that they have a ‘problematic shortage’ of IT security skills. What remains apparent is that organizations are still quite reactive to security breaches and need to shift www.mindware.ae
Brian Donegan, Product Manager, McAfee
How is the company keeping up with changing market demands? Organizations continue to adapt their IT infrastructure to keep up with the ever-changing threat landscape. The McAfee Security Innovation Alliance (SIA), the security industry’s premier technology-partnering program, is designed to deliver integrated solutions that maximize the value of existing customer investments. Integrated solutions are also designed to improve visibility and dramatically reduce the time it takes to resolve problems, all while lowering overall operational costs. Recent acquisitions and introduction of protection against Advanced Threats demonstrate our pro-active approach. How do you expect the future to shape out in terms of IT security? A clear trend today and for the future is consolidation. One needs only look at the latest wave of high profile acquisitions in the industry. Various’ commodity’ security services and solutions in the IT organization are
now being catered to by single vendors, offering the age old ‘best of breed’ solutions with the added advantage of centralized management and reporting. Intel’s acquisition of McAfee and introduction of niche solutions offering protection take this concept to the next level offering protection to the OS before it has even started. Can you discuss the latest products from McAfee? Which is the bestselling category? Latest solutions include our Comprehensive Threat Protection solution tightly binds and shares threat intelligence and workflows across endpoints, network, and the cloud. It provides protection, performance, and operational savings that are not possible from point products, which aren’t designed to optimize security and risk management as an IT function and carry the overhead of manual integrations. McAfee’s Next Genertation Firewall (NGFW) is the market-leading product from Stonesoft, which was recently acquired by McAfee to enhance its network security portfolio. McAfee NGFW provides unified, modular and flexible network security for every enterprise environment from corporate headquarters and branch sites to data centers and the network edge. The McAfee Data Center Security Suite for Server provides complete visibility to all workloads in hybrid data centers so enterprises can securely expand into any cloud environment. This added flexibility gives organizations elastic security that is auto-deployed when new virtual devices are provisioned either onpremise or in the public cloud. March 2014 Issue 01 | TheGrid
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Microsoft
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Things the channel needs to know Bruno Delamarre, SME & Channel Director, Microsoft Gulf, shares insights with The Grid.
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Office 365 business now generates $1.5 billion annually for Microsoft. Do you have your share? Partners who start selling cloud solutions see a 34 percent increase in new customers.
Cloud partners have 2.4X faster growth than traditional partners.
By September 2015, Microsoft will sell more cloud licenses for Office than onsite.
Of customers who buy cloud solutions, 70 percent are new and have not transacted previously.
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TheGrid | Issue 01 March 2014
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Microsoft
On cloud nine
Jeff Jacob, Business Unit Manager, Mindware, says Microsoft’s cloud business is set to grow further in the region.
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ow has the uptake of cloud solutions been in the region? How do you see it further consolidating? Cloud computing has always been there in IT, it’s just that the terminologies have changed over time. In the past when people used Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo mail etc, no one realized that they were actually using the cloud. Today with the nomenclature changing and SAAS as a concept being pursued by all vendors, has resulted in a huge amount of excitement and noise. About a couple of years ago, no one actually understood or believed that the cloud will be accepted by organizations. The Middle East, being slightly more conservative when compared to Europe and the US, has shown gradual interest in the cloud. With Microsoft’s launch of ‘Office 365’, the cloud concept has shown rapid growth in the region. As per statistics, until the channel had access to the Office 365 SKUs, the direct online subscription model has already gained momentum in the region. With Microsoft’s strong push towards cloud and the number of cloud offerings increasing, we are sure to see a huge uptake of cloud in the region. We believe that the end customers, especially, large corporates and Governments will adopt a ‘Hybrid’ cloud model where mission critical and sensitive workloads will be based on an ‘on-premise’ hosting model and day-to-day routine workloads being shifted to the public cloud namely offerings such as Office 365. Do you believe partners in the channel are capturing the complete potential of the market, when it comes to cloud? In the initial avatar of Office 365, partners did not have much of a say in an Office
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is a recent addition to Microsoft’s product mix. Partners are seeing a great potential to incorporate and develop custom built solutions tailor made for the current mobile workforce, unleashing the great potential of Office 365’s Onedrive. Why is the region a strategic one for the company? As per analysts, the SMBs in the MEA region are the fastest growing in terms of mobile and ICT spend. The Governments in the region are the main drivers of this trend, primarily Qatar and UAE leading the way in terms of IT spend in the educational sector. Being a long time Microsoft distributor, we see Microsoft laying major emphasis on the SMB segment end customers in the region, especially with the Office 365 mid-size business SKU, which is the right fit for a typical SMB end customer. This offering is suitable for organizations ranging from 10 – 250 desktops. Another predicament we see is the tendency of SMBs for resorting to piracy to fulfill their IT requirements primarily due to budget constraints. This is an area where the cloud subscription model, which substantially cuts down IT spend, will bring in a major shift.
Jeff Jacob, Business Unit Manager, Mindware
365 sale since the model followed by Microsoft was a direct online sales one, with only an advisory role for the partner. But the launch of channel centric SKUs for Office 365 in the last fiscal year has given all partner types a chance to convert their end customers who are presently on the legacy software licensing models into the cloud model. A few niche partners in the region are customizing feature specific solutions to bundle on top of an Office 365 sale, which is a great opportunity to upsell into the marketplace. A few areas where partners could leverage the uptake of cloud adoption would be telephony solutions incorporating lync and enterprise social networking apps such as Yammer, which
What are some of the future plans for Microsoft in the next couple of months? We have received communications that Microsoft is intending to release the Windows Intune through the channel in the region soon. Windows Intune is an offering, which lets you manage PCs and mobile devices from the cloud. Previously, this offering was available only in select markets and only through the direct subscription model. Also one major deadline is approaching customers who are still on Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003 as support for these versions are coming to an end on the 8th of April 2014. This provides a great opportunity for us as Microsoft partners to leverage the upgrade opportunities in the install base of XP and Office 2003.
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Symantec
Scaling up Mansoor Ibrahim, Distribution Manager, Symantec, talks to The Grid about the company’s new products and business strategy in the Middle East market.
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hat is the business focus for the next couple of months? The external environment is changing rapidly and the security threat landscape in the Middle East continues to evolve. Targeted attacks are increasing and small businesses and large enterprise organizations are the targets of cyber activity, increasing risk of losing critical data. This means more sophisticated attackers, more complex threats and more attack surfaces everyday. Symantec makes the world a safer place by helping people, businesses, and countries protect and manage their information, so they can focus on achieving their goals. Symantec is focused on aligning solutions with meeting three key customer needs - making it simple to be productive and protected at home and work, keeping businesses safe and compliant and keeping business information and applications up and running. What has the strategy been in the Middle East region? Symantec makes the world a safer place by helping people, businesses, and countries protect and manage their information, so they can focus on achieving their goals. Our goal is to improve existing products and services, and develop new, innovative technologies that solve important customer needs. In addition to delivering the right offerings, we want to make sure we have the right go to market strategy and
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align competencies to partners’ capabilities who can get us the market reach and access to customers. We are laying huge focus on channel enablement. The new partner program will help us getting the right choice of partners to drive specific focus in Security and Availability segment. Could you give an overview of your new products, Symantec NetBackup 5230 appliance and Symantec Backup Exec 3600 appliance? Symantec is focused on delivering value to clients, and we have stacked our portfolio into three peaks— User Protection and Productivity, Information Security and Information Management. There is rising demand from resellers, solution providers and
Mansoor Ibrahim, Distribution Manager, Symantec Corporation
integrators around our NetBackup appliances and more integrated backup solutions. NetBackup Appliances provide a convenient upgrade path for the media server hardware. NetBackup Appliances are fully integrated, optimized for performance and installed in under an hour. With the release of NetBackup 7.6 software, the NetBackup 5230 Appliance saves customer’s time and reduces operating expenditures in three key areas: Greater performance and scale - Expanded deduplication capacity Enhanced usability – Next generation user interface Improved supportability – Automated health checks and log collection Symantec also delivers Symantec Backup Exec 3600 appliance for the mid-market and provides turnkey protection and recovery of physical and virtual servers with maximum efficiency utilizing deduplication at the data source and target. What kind of innovation can we expect further from Symantec? As Symantec, we want to delight our customers with our innovation and technology through existing and future offerings. To address our customers’ highest order and most challenging jobs, we completed a systematic and strategic process to retool, refuel, and re-imagine our offerings. We want to make sure customers get the “Right for me” solutions which helps them in solving their business needs. Anything else you would like to add? Symantec is focused on delivering value to clients, in addition to the right products. Partners are at the center of Symantec’s strategy, vision and success. We are more committed to our partners and distributors than we have ever been before.
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SAP
How BI can transform business Sevag Kalaydjian, Territory Director, SAP Distribution, SAP EMEA, discusses the market uptake of Business Intelligence tools in the region.
“Companies from all verticals in MENA are successfully using the SAP Business Intelligence tools, making their businesses run better on a daily basis.” packaged and priced to address the specific needs of small businesses, granting them access to industry leading Business Intelligence solutions and accompanying them in their growth.
C
an small businesses benefit from business intelligence tools? In an era, where business requirements for small businesses, midsized companies and large enterprises are in convergence and constantly more demanding, small businesses alike have to anticipate changing market conditions, proactively assess and respond to risks and seize new opportunities. Therefore, SAP Business Intelligence suite of solutions are now a must have for small businesses. SAP’s Business Intelligence and Analytics solutions are designed,
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Sevag Kalaydjian, Territory Director, SAP Distribution, SAP EMEA
What is new in SAP Crystal Solutions? The 2013 release of SAP Crystal Solutions brought key enhancements to the product suite such as: Mobile access to all of the BI content on mobile devices, fit to screen or original size, thus enabling our users to have a quicker access to important decision making information on the go. Visualizing and manipulating actionable data anytime with user friendly dashboards has become easier specially with an enhanced support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic, a noticeable advantage for our users in the Middle East.
Advanced administration and deployment capabilities and tools, giving more value from the available data in less time. SAP Crystal Server 2013 has made it much easier to get set up correctly and quickly, so users can spend more time accessing and engaging with the data, to drive more informed business decisions. Can you give us some success stories from the region? Companies from all verticals and industries in MENA are successfully using the SAP Business Intelligence tools, making their businesses run better on a daily basis. To name a few, several leaders in the regional banking sector rely on SAP BI solutions using the software to give their customers access to role and scope based reports and dashboards, enhancing customer interaction and satisfaction. Numerous ministries, governmental agencies, telecommunication companies and airliners, use SAP Crystal server for automated reporting purposes. What has been the market feedback to the latest version of Business Object BI suite? Very positive. Our existing customers greeted with enthusiasm the release of the latest version, taking advantage of the new features and enhancements right after the general availability. We also saw a market hype in the region, bringing new clients and market segments to our resellers’ reach. Does it integrate with SAP in-memory database and collaboration platform? There is full integration with SAP HANA, our in-memory computing and columnar data storage platform. Reports run on SAP BI Solutions that aggregate and perform calculations on huge volumes of data returning a small result set make best use of HANA’s power. Integration with SAP JAM, SAP’s collaboration tool, connects various teams to the analysis they need to get new insights, in the office or on a mobile device.
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Products
Symantec Backup Exec 3600 Appliance Symantec NetBackup 5230 Appliance
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t is an enterprise backup appliance with expandable storage and intelligent end-to-end deduplication for physical and virtual environments. Only Symantec appliances deduplicate on both the client and target side. Equipped with Symantec V-Ray technology, it provides unique visibility into virtual environments that speeds recovery and reduces storage costs. Content-aware deduplication reduces the size of backups so you can store more data cost effectively and replicate faster. It is suitable for any environment—starting at 4 TB and expandable up to 76 TB usable capacity, NetBackup 5230 is ideal for both remote offices and enterprise data centers. NetBackup 5230 can be deployed as master server, media server with built-in deduplication, or both for a NetBackup domain. It fits into existing NetBackup environments by easily expanding or refreshing existing NetBackup environments without disrupting operations. It supports ultimate virtual machine protection—built-in support for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V, no proxy servers required. It has Wide Area Network (WAN) optimization—up to 10x faster transfer rate for backups to cloud and replicating off-site. Its NetBackup Accelerator delivers traditional, full backups at the speed of incremental backups. It has simple and fast snapshot replication—accelerate snapshot replication management and granular file level. It has operational simplicity—power up and walk through the installation wizard to start backing up in minutes. It helps improve resource utilization by decreasing backup storage up to 50 times and bandwidth consumption up to 99 percent. It also has flexible deduplication options—deduplication at source or target; inline or post-process. 22
TheGrid | Issue 01 March 2014
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ymantec Backup Exec 3600 Appliance is the only solution that provides Symantec Backup Exec software on optimized hardware integrated into an affordable appliance from the industry leader in backup—Symantec.1 Equipped with integrated data deduplication, granular recovery, and virtual machine protection, the Backup Exec 3600 Appliance manages data growth and effectively reduces rising storage costs while enabling faster backups. Unlike other solutions, the Backup Exec 3600 Appliance reduces downtime with patented Symantec V-Ray technology that restores entire servers, critical Microsoft® applications, and VMware or Microsoft Hyper-V virtual guests in minutes. Its key features include reducing backup complexity and simplifying data protection with an all-in-one backup and recovery solution that integrates software and hardware from a single vendor. It speeds up backup windows and achieves faster recovery times using disk storage. It dramatically minimizes downtime and data loss by rapidly recovering what you need, when you need it. It includes a wide variety of pre-licensed Backup Exec Options, enabling protection of applications on physical or virtual servers, including Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint, Active Directory, as well as Lotus Notes, Oracle, and virtual instances on VMware, Hyper-V, and more. Replicates backup data to another Backup Exec 3600 Appliance or managed Backup Exec media server in any location when using the Enterprise Server Central Admin Server
Option (included with the Backup Exec 3600 Total Protection Suite or sold separately). The Deduplication Option provides customers with the ability to reduce backup storage by 90 percent or more, improve backup windows, and facilitate better remote office protection. It is easy to deploy, configure, and manage through a single console. Protects and integrates with all key VMware and Hyper-V technologies, including VMware vStorage, vStorage APIs for Data Protection (VADP), and Microsoft® Hyper-V Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS). It offers Microsoft-certified backup and recovery for the latest Windows environments, including Windows 2012 and 2008 R2, Microsoft Exchange 2013 and 2010 SP1, Windows 7, and Hyper-V. Simplify backup with an all-in-one comprehensive backup appliance The Backup Exec 3600 Appliance offers the most comprehensive backup and recovery solution for your environment, reducing the complexity of protecting your company’s most valuable asset—its data. Whether that data resides on a Windows file server, VMware or Hyper-V virtual server, or on a critical application server like Exchange, SQL, or SharePoint, Backup Exec 3600 Appliance provides full protection and recovery for both data and entire systems. More than just a backup target device, Backup Exec 3600. Appliance integrates pre-licensed Backup Exec software with optimized hardware, simplifying backup and reducing backup costs. www.mindware.ae
Citrix XenMobile Fastest path to mobile productivity
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itrix XenMobile is a comprehensive solution to manage mobile devices, apps, and data. Users have single-click access to all of their mobile, SaaS and Windows apps from a unified corporate app store, including seamlessly-integrated email, browser, data sharing and support apps. IT gains control over mobile devices with full configuration, security, provisioning and support capabilities. Flexible deployment options give IT the choice to manage XenMobile in the cloud or on-premise. In addition, XenMobile securely delivers Worx Mobile Apps, mobile apps built for businesses using the Worx App SDK and found through the Worx App Gallery. With XenMobile, IT can meet their compliance and control needs while users get the
freedom to experience work and life their way. The key benefits include giving users device and app choice while ensuring compliance, delivering business class productivity apps that users love and IT embraces, enabling business by allowing simple, scalable and anywhere access to apps and providing advanced app and data controls to keep users happy while assuring content security for IT. Its other features include: • XenMobile securely delivers Worx Mobile Apps, the industry’s largest collection of apps built for business. • With XenMobile, IT can deliver Citrix-developed apps that are built for business. The apps are fully containerized on the mobile device, separate from personal apps, for secure productivity.
DCF Optimized Rac Optimized Design, O Optimized Value
These apps include WorxMail, WorxWeb and ShareFile • It includes a unified corporate app store that provides a single place for users to access all of their apps mobile, web, SaaS and Windows on any device. • Through the unified corporate app store, users are given secure multifactor single sign-on across their mobile, web and Windows apps ensuring that they don’t need to remember yet-another-password.
A Rack System Designed to Meet The Challenges Your Data Center •Faces FREEToday XenMobile MDM edition licenses or get 20 % off Your mission-critical networks are XenMobile Enterprise licenses carrying an ever-increasing amount of voice, video. of Looming on the withdata the and purchase first year horizon is a critical mass of VoIP, Software Maintenance for high speed access, wireless applications and new anddemand existingfor XenApp or increasing blade server XenDesktop Platinum customers deployment.
with perpetual licenses current The DCF optimized rack system from on Subscription Advantage (SA). Emerson Network Power integrates your This promotion ispower available for computing hardware, management technologies and peripherals in your a limited-time only, contact a data center. It gives superior design and flexibility, Mindware Sales representative to allowing optimal data center equipment learn more. performance and easy installation.
DCF Optimized Rack System A flexible foundation for infrastructure support
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he DCF optimized rack system from Emerson Network Power integrates your computing hardware, power management technologies and peripherals in your data center. It gives superior design and flexibility, allowing optimal data center equipment performance and easy installation. DCF Optimized Rack Systems offer advantages such as flexibility, higher availability and lowest total cost of ownership. Flexibility: • Available in eight standard sizes, to
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meet site needs • Compatible with Emerson Network Power Rack PDUs, Liebert rackmount UPS and Aisle Containment — all from a single source • Factory installation of rack PDUs, for fast deployment • Tool-less accessories simplify cable management, airflow management and component mounting • Static load capacity up to 3000lbs/1,363kg • Simple integration of power, cooling and monitoring equipment
Higher Availability: • 75% front and rear door perforation provides maximum airflow to internal equipment • Easy access to and management of equipment • Front and rear locks for security • Fast on-site deployment Lowest Total Cost of Ownership: • Easy installation saves time and money: lift off hinges, dual side panels, 19” rail adjustment, U markings on 19” rails, low profile casters, tool-less accessories • Excellent value for features,
durability and price 2 Integral part of the total data center solutions from Emerson Network Power saves time and money on configuration and integration March 2014 Issue 01 | TheGrid
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