Reseller Middle East January 2014

ISSUE 205 // January 2014 WWW.RESELLERME.COM

Outlook 2014

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CONTENTS

ISSUE 205 // January 2014

cover feature

29 Outlook 2014 Reseller ME speaks to industry stalwarts to get a lowdown of trends that are expected to transform the way the channel will do business this year and market predictions for the future.

Highlights 6

News

Hot products Skullcandy Crusher

We help you catch up on all the major news and announcements in the regional channel community.

Feature

Sony launches 2-in-1 dual connector USB Drive

43 Taking stock

Exploring the growth drivers and opportunities present for the channel in optimising storage solutions.

Vendor Focus

50

52

47 Innovate to profit

Adrian Pickering and Mario Georgiou from Juniper Networks discusses partner strategy and the way forward.

Interview 48 Positive grounds

Reseller ME catches up with Mathew Boice, Vice President EMEA & India, Ellucian to gain an insight into delivering technology solutions to the education sector.

Siemon’s RouteIT cable managers available in ME

Acer introduces Aspire S7 Ultrabook

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Reseller Middle East

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editorial Chairman Dominic De Sousa CEO Nadeem Hood Editorial Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1513

What’s in store for 2014?

Assistant Editor Janees Reghelini Contributing Editor Tom Paye Online Editor James Dartnell Advertising Commercial Director Rajashree R Kumar raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1511 Key Account Manager Merle Carrasco merle.carrasco@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1510 Sales Manager Nasir Bazaz nasir.bazaz@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1512 Circulation Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1645 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1643 Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1504 Digital www.resellerme.com DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developers Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Photographer and Social Media Co-ordinator Jay Colina webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE

Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor Talk to us: E-mail: jeevan.thankappan@ cpimediagroup.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ ResellerME Twitter: @ResellerME

What kind of game-changing technology trends will define the regional channel business in 2014? It has become a bit of tradition for us to start our January issue by talking to the industry thought-leaders to get their views on what will shape the channel in this year. As you can read in our cover story, some big trends have emerged.

I believe the Middle East channel is at a critical inflection point and probably the biggest technology trend that will transform the business is cloud. True, it has not yet entered the mainstream consciousness in this part of the world but that might just change this year. Gartner says the public could services market in the Middle East and North Africa region grew by 24.1 percent in 2013 to total $534 million. The research firm predicts from 2013 through 2017, $4billion will be spent on cloud services in MENA region. Can the channel afford to miss out on this opportunity?

Ever since the advent of this new paradigm in technology consumption, there has been a lot of uncertainty, especially among resellers, as to what would be their role in this market, and the trend of large enterprise software vendors selling directly to the customers has further exacerbated the situation. However, according to a new survey by the IT industry trade group CompTIA, the channel is finally finding its groove in the cloud. Contrary to doomsday predictions, the study affirms that the dominant consumption model for enterprises using cloud-based resources will be through the channel and adds that VARs will continue to play a role in how end users acquire IT resources.

The need of the hour for resellers is very clear – move away from box-shifting business model to a service-oriented one and become a trusted advisor for their customers. Businesses all over the world face the same challenges; they are looking to reduce costs while advancing their technology infrastructure. They want resellers to bring on board advanced technology solutions while leveraging the existing portfolio.

CompTIA breaks down the channel market in the cloud into four major categories: building cloud services for customers; integrating cloud services into existing systems; supplying ongoing management of cloud services or being a trusted consultant on cloud projects.

Despite all the concerns about security, downtimes, Cloud is here to stay and it’s time for the channel to embrace this trend to stay in business. Many major vendors have come out with packaged cloud offerings that will allow resellers to add value and offer ancillary services around it.

As for other trends, I don’t think 2014 is going to be radically different to 2013, and some of the trends we have seen last year such as mobility, Big Data will continue to gain traction, opening up new avenues for the channel.

Here’s hoping you have a fantastic new year ahead.

Tel: +971 4 375 1500 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press © Copyright 2013 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

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highlights

News

Tripp Lite signs Metra for MENA region Tripp Lite has partnered with Metra Computer Group to sell and support the vendor’s portfolio of SMB and Enterprise solutions through more than 5,000 channel partners across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

Vipin Sharma, Tripp Lite’s VicePresident for Middle East and Africa (MEA) said, “Metra has an established reputation in the regional ICT industry, a factor that makes them an ideal partner for us to widen our business reach and develop our channel presence in emerging growth markets like Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.”

Sharma added that Metra will act as Tripp Lite’s value-added distributor (VAD) and stocking wholesaler, offering a dynamic reseller base that covers all market segments from retail and SMB to corporate and enterprise. Through Metra, the vendor aims to make its wide array of UPS, PDUs, KVM and Console Server switches, surge suppressors, rack enclosures, cooling and cables available

to all IT and ICT users in the region.

“By partnering with Metra, we expect our sales performance and reach to grow markedly in the UAE and across the GCC and MENA,” he added Metra supports operations through an extensive sales and distribution network throughout the Middle East region and has future plans to widely expand in the promising African market, which was another influencing factor in Tripp Lite’s selection decision, according to the company.

Mohamed Eissa, Executive Vice President, Metra said, “Having witnessed the ICT boom in the region, we believe Tripp Lite’s innovative technology and Datacentre integrated solutions are well placed to respond to the needs of this rapidly growing industry and Metra, with is vast experience and expertise in delivering value to its partners and its vendors, is well poised to take these products and solutions to its partners.”

Vipin Sharma, Tripp Lite’s Vice-President for Middle East and Africa

Comstor sells Cisco products locally in Iraq

Renton D’Souza, Divisional Director, Comstor Middle East

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Cisco solutions’ dedicated valueadded distribution arm, Comstor, part of Westcon Group, has announced the availability of local stocks in Iraq. In line with its continued commitment to grow Cisco’s business in the Middle East, the company has invested in optimising its country focus through in-country resources, stocks and on the ground enablement activities.

“The initiative to have local stocks in Iraq is a part of our over-all commitment to grow the Cisco business in the region and in Iraq in particular. It is based on the need of the Channel to get easy access to Cisco Solutions and ensure timely delivery to their end-users,” said Renton D’Souza, Divisional Director, Comstor Middle East.

Comstor’s local stocks in Iraq include fast moving products such as Cisco’s 2960 & 3560 switches, 1941 & 2911 series routers, wireless access points and Cisco IP Phones.

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highlights

News

Symantec appoints Amit Mital as CTO Symantec has appointed Amit Mital as Chief Technology Officer, and he will be responsible for driving the company’s technology strategy with a focus on accelerating innovation, product development and R&D. Mital will report directly to Symantec CEO Steve Bennett.

Steve Trilling, Symantec’s current CTO, will be moving to an operational senior leadership role in the company.

Mital’s previous stint was with Microsoft, where he worked for 20 years in various capacities, most recently as the corporate vice president for the company’s Startup Business Group. He was responsible for managing strategic product development along with identifying and executing new innovation opportunities in that role. Mital holds 43 patents and is an innovator in several technologies that align with Symantec’s business including machine learning, Big Data and high scale web and cloud services.

“Amit is a leader with proven abilities to innovate, develop and execute new products,” said Steve Bennett, President and CEO, Symantec. “We’re on track executing roadmaps to leverage Symantec’s technology to solve our customer’s most important problems and Amit’s expertise will help us move faster and more effectively in this stage of our transformation. We are thrilled to add such a talented executive to our leadership ranks.”

“I’m excited to be joining Symantec at such a crucial juncture in the company’s history,” said Amit Mital, Chief Technology Officer, Symantec. “I’m looking forward to working alongside Steve and our more than 20,000 employees worldwide to develop and deliver innovative point solutions and integrated offerings that will drive the industry – and Symantec – forward.”

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SNB IT Distribution to debut at Intersec 2014

Sonia Sebastian, Business Unit Head, CCTV Surveillance, SNB IT Distribution SNB IT Distribution is all set to debut at Intersec 2014 to highlight its best-in-class security and surveillance product portfolio. The main focus will be CCTV solutions in addition to storage solutions, networking and video management software solutions. Intersec is the region’s premier securityfocused exhibition and attracts security and safety vendors from around the world.

“Our participation at Intersec 2014 will reiterate our position as the one-stop-shop for CCTV security and surveillance solutions for organizations across the region,” says Sonia Sebastian, Business Unit Head, CCTV Surveillance, SNB IT Distribution. “While the hospitality segment remains our key focus, our presence at Intersec will allow us to grow our

customer base and cater to other verticals such as the education and government sector. We believe the need for protection through surveillance is and will be a matter of high interest, and this presents us with tremendous opportunity to leverage our partners. The exposure that Intersec offers will provide us with the perfect platform to interact with companies and customers, so we can learn about their needs, and better equip ourselves to address their challenges.”

As the buildup of Expo 2020 gathers momentum, Dubai and the wider GCC region is poised to witness rapid growth in the next seven to eight years. With major construction and infrastructure projects in the pipeline, the demand for security, safety and surveillance solutions will increase. According to the company, this will be an excellent opportunity to highlight its vast product portfolio.

Positioned as a vendor’s representative company rather than an IT distributor, some of the company’s CCTV surveillance, networking and storage partners include Mobotix, AxxonSoft, Allied Telesis and Infortrend storage. SNB’s emphasis is to add value to the brands they offer and ensure high-levels of customer satisfaction.

Intersec 2014 runs from the 19th to 21st of January at the Dubai International Convention Center. SNB IT Distribution will be at Saeed Hall2, Stand S2-636 C at the event.

Shifra to distribute Corero Network Security products Corero Network Security has signed a distribution deal with the UAE-based value added distributor, Shifra. According to the agreement, the distributor will extend its security solutions portfolio 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, 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.”

Companies in the UAE are looking to invest and implement countermeasure products and services to block cyberattacks. As more

companies seek to avoid DDoS and other malicious attack activity, Corero provides on-premises DDoS defence technology that inspects, filters and removes attack traffic, while allowing good user traffic to pass un-obstructed; allowing traditional security solutions to operate as intended, says the company.

Ahmad Elkhatib, Managing Partner, Shifra said, “The rise in cyber incidents shows just how far the threats have escalated and the Middle East is no exception. A new wave of sophisticated cyber-attacks exists in the region and it has the potential to cripple petrochemical, finance and oil and gas companies,” said Elkhatib. “We have partnered with Corero to offer a range of security solutions within this market because we know threats that organisations face are real and serious.”

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highlights

News

StarLink to deliver Venafi offerings Venafi has appointed StarLink as its strategic distributor for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa. StarLink will sell Venafi’s products and solutions through its channel partners across the Middle East, Turkey and Africa to its enterprise and government customers.

While organisations adopt cloud computing and allow employee-owned devices onto the network, the challenge of securing company data increases exponentially. Cybercriminals have successfully used unsecured cryptographic keys and digital certificates to breach trust in order to steal valuable intellectual property and classified information.

“For too long organisations have blindly trusted keys and certificates and have little visibility into their threat risk exposure,” said Gregory Webb, Vice President of Marketing, Venafi.

“Malicious actors have taken note of this

Avinash Advani, Director Business Strategy, StarLink

blind trust, and use it nefariously against organisations who have no ability to detect anomalies or to respond to attacks on trust. The results are clear: terabytes of valuable information and IP are being pilfered from them before the compromise is even detected. We are excited to partner with StarLink to help organisations in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa respond to and remediate these trust-based attacks,” he added.

Avinash Advani, Director Business Strategy, StarLink said “The millions of dollars companies spend on perimeterbased security solutions every year are unfortunately not solving the problem of compromised keys and certificates, which provide cyber-criminals unfettered trusted access and status. With Venafi, we can now empower enterprises across the regions we cover to reduce the risk of malicious attacks on trust with complete visibility into key and certificate inventories and end-to-end automation of security and control processes.”

Westcon wins distribution award from Juniper Juniper Networks has awarded Westcon Group as ‘MEA Commercial Distributor Partner of the Year 2013’ at its annual Middle East & Africa regional partner summit in Dubai, U.A.E. The award recognises partners who have made the most notable contribution to their customers and have expanded their business value with Juniper throughout 2013.

“According to some independent market analysis, the MEA region is expected to have one of the fastestgrowing 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,

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Area Partner Director, 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 is especially honored to receive this award in response to our proven Westcon Way Recruit, Enable & Grow model, specifically designed to elevate midmarket partners. In 2013 many of our customers have focused on creating a holistic, effective security stance across their network from

january 2014

data center to mobile user to protect mission-critical applications. Combining Westcon’s local experience with Juniper’s innovative portfolio, we have been able to deliver highly-effective solutions to meet business needs,” said Steve Lockie, Group Managing Director MEA, Westcon Group The event is 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.

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highlights

News

EMT partners with Sariya IT

(L-R) Amjad Fathi Al-Omar, SARIYA-IT and Mohammad Mobasseri, EMT Distribution EMT Distribution has announced the appointment of KSA-based IT distributor Sariya Company as the exclusive in-country distributor for the complete suite for Altaro backup products including Hyper-V Backup, File Server Backup and Home PC Backup.

Altaro Software is a fast growing

developer of easy to use backup solutions targeted towards small- to medium-sized organisations worldwide. According to the company, within few years of its inception, it has managed to become a known name, in the backup space and serves over 10,000 customers globally, today. Altaro Hyper-V

Backup is a class leading backup software for Microsoft Hyper-V with practical features such as offsite backup, remote management capabilities and Exchange item level restore.

Amjad Fathi Al-Omar, General Manager, Sariya IT said, “As part of the overall strategy, our main focus initially would be to enhance the Altaro’s presence in the KSA channel market, Sariya is in the process of appointing new reseller and channel partners in Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh. The market for best of the breed backup solutions is gaining momentum in Saudi Arabia and we believe the timing for this unique tie-up will open new doors of opportunity.”

Sariya IT has a portfolio of security products, which it provides to its resellers for the last several years. Both, EMT and Altaro will work closely with Sariya IT to develop and market products in KSA. The partnership expects to increase the footprint of Altaro across the country and help support its partner base more effectively.

“Sariya has a countrywide presence with three main offices in Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh, which will allow us to offer better support to our channel partners that will help them to serve their customers more efficiently, as well as allow us to reach the remote corners of the kingdom,” said Mohammad Mobasseri, CEO, EMT Distribution.

Symantec releases updated Storage Foundation software Symantec has announced the latest version of its Storage Foundation software, which enables data centres to leverage Solid State Drives (SSDs) in ways that could allow customers to access mission critical data and applications 400 percent faster than traditional Storage Area Networks (SANs), says the company. It also claims to be the only offering to provide these benefits regardless of which storage hardware components are in place. According to the company, as a result, customers are free to choose any storage infrastructure provider, and

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businesses can make critical decisions faster.

The updated Storage Foundation 6.1 includes benefits such as a vendoragnostic intuitive caching layer, enabled by Symantec’s SmartIO technology and a Flexible Storage Sharing (FSS) technology, which enables servers to access remote data as if it were from local storage.

This allows organisations to reduce storage costs by up to 80 percent using commoditised storage hardware, while helping to ensure that all data is replicated, protected, and available, says Symantec.

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“Symantec’s latest offering is designed to help customers leverage the next generation of storage. In today’s informationcentric world, businesses want both increased performance and cost savings – and it doesn’t make fiscal sense to rip and replace existing storage to deploy new technologies like flash. However, with Storage Foundation 6.1, customers can ease into the adoption of new technologies, while mixing and matching high-end solutions with traditional hardware, without sacrificing existing service levels,” Ashish Nadkarni, Research Director, Storage

Systems, IDC The growth of missioncritical data and applications, supporting real-time decisionmaking, is driving SSD adoption to increase performance within the data centre. Adoption however has lacked the central management intelligence that customers need to manage their storage efficiently and effectively.

Symantec says its offering helps solve this problem while allowing customers to combine SSDs with existing Direct Attached Storage (DAS) and SANs without compromising availability.

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highlights

News

Comguard partners with Netsweeper

Ajay Singh Chauhan, Chief Executive Officer at Comguard

Comguard, a part of Spectrum Group, has signed a strategic partnership with Netsweeper, a Canada-based web filtering and security company. Under this partnership, a new enterprise business unit will be formed which will focus chiefly on enterprise, education, and government sectors. The companies believe this move will complement the already successful telecommunications portfolio that exists in the region.

Ajay Singh Chauhan, Chief Executive Officer at Comguard, said, “With the explosive growth in regional web filtering and security solutions requirements, Netsweeper’s offerings represent new opportunities for our channel partners.

We look forward to working together with Netsweeper to help our channel partners solve end-user business problems such as managing and securing corporate data.”

Netsweeper has been building a channel network across the Middle East

to extend the marketing and sales arm to expand its products in the region.

Comguard will work closely with the local sales and technical team to ensure that Netsweeper is supported with its software targeted at these sectors to bring customers a new option for their Web Security needs, says the company.

“With the complexity of web security and content filtering increasing due to the changing face of the internet and the growth of enterprise networks, Netsweeper is in a unique position to offer solutions required in today’s market. The road map moving forward with our new business team locally and our complimented partnership with Comguard is something we are very excited about,” explained Andrew Graydon, the COO at Netsweeper. With aggressive growth plans, this strategic partnership is paramount in achieving overall growth in the company’s objectives.

Gartner: Public cloud services in MENA to reach $534 Million in 2013

Ed Anderson, Research Director, Gartner

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The public cloud services market in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA) is on pace to grow 24.1 percent in 2013 to total $534 million, an increase of $103 million from the $431 million forecast for 2012, according to the latest outlook by Gartner. Software as a service (SaaS), is expected to grow 29.2 percent in 2013 to $102 million.

Gartner predicts that from 2013 through 2017, $4 billion will be spent on cloud services in MENA region, $1.1 billion of which will be spent on business process as a service (BPaaS).

“The public cloud services market continues robust growth in MENA through the forecast period of 2011 through 2017. While BPaaS dominates as the largest cloud segment, the

high growth rates of infrastructure as a service( IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS) and cloud management and security services make them important markets to watch,” said Ed Anderson, Research Director, Gartner.

Cloud services in the MENA region will be strong across all cloud services market segments through 2017. Software as a Service (SaaS) is expected to grow from $102 million in 2013 to $271 million in 2017. IaaS is expected to grow from $60 million in 2013 to $138 million in 2017.

The market in the MENA region is predicted to demonstrate high growth through the forecast period. IT spending on public cloud services in the region is expected to reach $1.1 billion in 2017.

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highlights

News

Logicom wins Cisco accolade

Logicom was awarded ‘EMEAR Services Distributor of the Year’ at Cisco’s recent EMEAR Distribution Business Forum.

From over 120 European distributors, Logicom was presented with the award at the ceremony held at Madrid recently.

This accolade recognises the hard work and contributions of the Cisco teams

across all Logicom’s regions. According to the company, it is a well-deserved recognition, following a good year of 152 percent YoY growth in the Cisco Services business.

The award was presented by Cisco’s Mathew Pickergill, EMEAR Distributor Services Manager, and Rachel D Forke,

Director of WW Services Partners – Distribution, to Logicom’s Director of Distribution, Michael Papaeracleous, and Logicom’s Cisco Services BDM, Paris Dimitriou. Upon presenting the award Pickergill said, “This time last year, I challenged everyone to double their numbers, and they came and trebled their numbers for Services in multiple countries. The two countries that were unbelievably outstanding were Saudi Arabia and Romania. Thus, the EMEAR Services Champions this year are undoubtedly Logicom” Papaeracleous said, “I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to all of our Cisco teams in our countries who made this possible. Through their dedication and focus, we managed to differentiate Logicom from our competition and raise the bar to such heights that led to ending the year with such great recognition from Cisco.”

“Everyone in the Logicom family contributed in achieving this fantastic result and a big congratulations is in order for everyone,” added Dimitriou.

Infor appoints new Manufacturing Channel Manager for ME Infor has appointed Gary Hopwood as the Manufacturing Channel Manager for the Middle East recently. This appointment is a part of the company’s ongoing growth throughout the region and it hopes to expand the Infor Partner Network (IPN), from which 20 percent of the license revenue is generated through the channel partners.

Hopwood, based in the company’s Dubai office in Media city, will be responsible for developing the manufacturing channel partner network throughout UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and Libya. With over two decades of experience in conducting business throughout the region, Hopwood has held a number of sales roles at SAP for the last five years and has particular

Gary Hopwood, Manufacturing Channel Manager, Infor Middle East

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expertise in the aerospace and public sector vertical markets.

“Infor has seen incredible growth and momentum in the region as the microvertical strategy has been brought to bear on not only the various sectors within manufacturing but other industries as well,” said Alain Raflé, Regional Vice President, EMEA Channels, Infor. “Combined with the new user interface, integration via ION and social business capabilities such as Infor Ming.le, our proposition for forward looking manufacturers in the Middle East is very strong indeed. In order to capitalise on this, we are looking for select partners that can match our passion for growth and Gary brings a wealth of experience to our Middle East operations. We are very excited to welcome him to the team.”

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highlights

News

Tech Mahindra launches global centre of excellence with HP

Sudhir Nair, Global Head – Infrastructure Managed Services, Tech Mahindra Tech Mahindra has announced the launch of its Global Centre of Excellence (CoE) with Hewlett Packard (HP) in Bengaluru, India.

The centre will focus on IT Application and

IT Infrastructure Performance Management solutions that transform customers’ IT Operations landscape through automation and unification of key services, says the company.

According to the company, at the CoE, it is in the process of creating service offerings in areas such as tools consulting and implementations to an integrated managed services delivery platform. With an emphasis on automation and unification of key services, the solutions will also facilitate complete and dynamic alignment of IT infrastructure with organisation’s strategic goals while deriving significant return on investment due to newer levels of productivity and efficiency.

“As organisations today grapple with complexity, it’s imperative to provide a comprehensive suite of services that will help our customers’ to stay ahead of the curve. We are glad to collaborate with HP to offer best in class services in areas ranging

from tools consulting and implementations to an integrated managed services delivery platform. This Center of Excellence enables us accelerate joint development of innovative solutions that deliver differentiated value to our customers and help them stay competitive,” said Sudhir Nair, Global Head – Infrastructure Managed Services, Tech Mahindra.

The company further says, that its Infrastructure Management Services (IMS) offers reliable, responsive, flexible and costeffective suite of IT infrastructure services and solutions that deliver differentiated business value to customers.

Harry Gould, Vice President, WW Alliances and Channel, Software, Hewlett Packard said, “Our partnership with Tech Mahindra has helped nurture several transformational offerings in the IT Infrastructure management with HP’s IT Operations Management Solutions. Through this CoE we are now strongly positioned to build and offer innovative and productised solutions that will address existing gaps and emerging needs”

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Advertorial

All geared-up Firosh Ummer, COO, Paladion Middle East and Amit Roy, VP and Head of Sales, GCC & Africa discusses the company’s Middle East operations and business plans for 2014 Could you give us an overview of Paladion Networks’ core function and geographical reach?

Present across multiple countries, Paladion Networks is a global information risk management firm. We provide end-to-end information risk management services and solutions for large enterprise customers, predominantly in sectors such as banking and finance, government, telcos and manufacturing. With our head office located in India, our second largest operations are from the Middle East, and we have direct offices in UAE, Qatar, KSA and Oman. Apart from that, we also operate in wider Middle East region through multiple partners, primarily in Kuwait, Bahrain, Jordan and Lebanon. The Middle East operations also oversee Africa as a region. Last two years, we have been doing multiple projects, primarily from African countries, such as Algeria, Nigeria, Uganda, Kenya and South Africa. Added to these regions, we also have operations in the US and the UK; and a significant business in South East Asia, where we are present in Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand.

Could you elaborate on the company’s business focus in the Middle East?

We started direct operations in Middle-East in 2006 and today, our core focus is to develop long-term customers. We have key services such as security operations services and managed security services, which provides us long-term revenue model with the customer. Our focus is to leverage our existing customer base and convert them to a long-term and multi-year service model. Paladion Networks has been at the forefront of technology innovation. Our new services such as security analytics and security operations intelligence are the next transformation in Paladion’s service portfolio.

How important is the region to Paladion Networks? What are your expansion plans?

Today, we have direct operations in all key countries in the region such as Saudi, Qatar, UAE and Oman. We will continue to expand our customer base in these countries. We also aim to expand our reach in the region. Currently, we work with a number of countries in the African continent and we plan to consolidate our position in each of those countries. It is going to be a two-fold strategy for us — expansion into Africa and bigger consolidation in the current region.

Could you discuss about the opportunities that you see within GCC? We work with most of the bigger enterprises within the GCC region. And it is worth noting that around 60 to 70 percent of our revenue comes from the financial sector.

We have established ourselves in this sector and now, our focus is to repeat the same success story with telcos, government and manufacturing entities. We want

to increase our base in these sectors as we see immense opportunities here. There have been several high-profile security related incidents in the region in the last couple of years targeted government organisations and petrochemical entities.

Governments are becoming much more concerned and worried about the security readiness of the key entities and critical infrastructure in the region. Because of this, we expect these markets to grow exponentially. And we are completely prepared when that happens, in terms of setting up information security framework and roadmap for the government customers. We are already working with the leading ministries and governments in the region and helping them in setting up the right standard, the right tools, the right procedures so that they are well geared-up against any evolving threats. Paladion is working as a specialist and partner to our customers, when it comes to the requirement of information risk management.

Are there any challenges that are unique to this region?

In this part of the world, there is a lack of strong legal and regulatory framework for information risk management and protecting end-user privacy and information..

The US and European markets have strong data privacy regulatory requirements, and because of which the organisations are mandated to comply with these requirements. Whereas, the Middle East region have very few requirements and this is one area where we, along with regional government entities, are working together to strengthen the regulatory framework. We are looking to improve and bring in a better awareness about information security across the region.

Could you discuss what Paladion Networks has in store for the coming year?

Our customers expect us to continue to support and develop the partnership with them and protect them from emerging threats. Most customers fail to continuously monitor and protect themselves from unknown and emerging threats. Our focus in the region is to bring out security operational intelligence and analytics to proactively identify security weaknesses in their environment and protect them from emerging threats. We have integrated deep analytics with 24/7 monitoring processes to gain more insights into attack patterns and avoid future attacks. This is where our customers are expecting us to go beyond the ordinary services and products offering and protect them from emerging attacks through a better intelligence and mature security operations. Paladion Networks will continue to work in collaboration with our key customers to create unique and innovative techniques and mechanisms to help organisations defend from any kind of security attacks to upscale and help them go after this new market,” he further explains.

opinion

Dell

2014: The year of the network Shabbir Ahmad, Regional Sales Director – Networking, Dell, EMEA Emerging Markets discusses networking trends for this year Networks in the Middle East had a big year in 2013. More photos were shared, mobile phones were connected, data was moved, and clouds were deployed than ever before, all made possible by networks. This unprecedented growth in connected devices, information and services put a lot of pressure on corporate networks, but demonstrated the strategic importance that the network plays in IT and in our daily lives.

2014 is poised to be an even bigger year for networks in the Middle East, perhaps ‘the year of the network’, when effective networks will make or break businesses and change the way we live our lives. These are the trends that Dell sees shaping the networking industry next year – our Networking 4 for ’14: SDN – Its defining moment In 2014, customers will want vendors to bring order to the chaos and show

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the industry how SDN should be implemented. In a fragmenting market with numerous open source and open standards efforts, and competing with vendor strategies, customers will vote with their wallets. Smart vendors will follow. Customers will force networking vendors to agree on a more cooperative, open approach that will make SDN practical and real.

40 is the new 10 The economics have changed and they are not changing back. The value in networking is no longer in the boxes – it is in the software. Year after year, fixed-form switches prove to be more power and space efficient than chassis platforms. In 2014, fixed form factor switches will continue to out-innovate the legacy chassis, providing server-like customisation, upgrades and economics.

40GbE will go main stream as right-sizing of data centres continues.

Customers can get more throughput

today for half the cost that they paid just a few years ago. 40GbE holds the key to improved capacity and can provide a smooth upgrade path as the need for speedy network connections increases.

Hardware silos crumble for good Innovation has broken the 20 year old boundaries between server, storage and networking. Next-generation converged systems – both smaller and bigger and more targeted, to mainstream and midmarket – will continue to push the old silos aside. 2014 is the year of the entire data centre, not the year of server, storage or networking.

Lose the wire – campus networks get turned inside-out Wired switches in networking closets are in trouble. Businesses, schools, hospitals and individuals can’t survive on wired access alone. In 2014, we will see a dramatic increase in next-generation WLAN innovation. It is all about wireless now. //

www.resellerme.com

Go explore.

.

The great online awaits. ESET will keep you secure Internet Security from ESET with its unique technology will look after you for your online journey. So go explore, find inspiration and let safer internet unlock a world of opportunities

www.eset.com/me Tel +971 43754052 / Fax +971 44290967 info@esetme.com Building No17, Office No: G-57 Dubai Internet City.

Celebrating channel icons The stakeholders of the channel gathered together for the second edition of Reseller Hot 50 Awards, which was held at H Hotel in Dubai. Fifty companies in the channel were recognised and awarded for their relentless efforts in providing optimal value to their customers while simultaneously ensuring profitability for themselves and their partners.

A shared CSR initiative by StorIT and CPI Media Group, ‘Imagine Possibilities’ was launched at the event. It aims to encourage the regional IT fraternity to participate in professional networking and social events that can help in generating funds for philanthropic causes.

Suren Vedantham, Group Managing Director, StorIT

Best IT Accessories Vendor: Intex Technologies

Best Managed Print Services: Lexmark

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Best Emerging Mobility Vendor: Touchmate

Best Partner Collaboration Initiatives: Fujitsu

Best Consumer Storage Vendor: NETGEAR

Best Next-Gen Firewall Vendor: WatchGuard

Best Test & Measurement Vendor: Fluke Networks

Best Channel Growth Initiatives: Huawei

Best Partner Education Initiatives: Avaya

Best Mobile Security Vendor: Entrust

Best Converged Infrastructure Vendor: HP Enterprise Group

Best Cyber Security Vendor: McAfee

Best Anti-Malware Vendor: Kaspersky Lab

Best Channel Marketing Initiatives: Asbis Middle East

Best Partner Training Initiatives: StarLink

Best Product Leadership: Unatrac IT Distribution

Best Partner Recruitment Initiatives: Westcon Group

Best Pre-Sales Support: ComGuard

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www.resellerme.com

Best Wireless Vendor: Aruba Networks

Best Partner Empowerment Initiatives: Cyberoam

Best Home Networking Vendor: Linksys

Best SME Networking Vendor: TP-Link

Best Backup & Recovery Vendor: CommVault

Best Channel Management Initiatives: Dell

Best Security Appliances Vendor: Dell SonicWALL

Best Endpoint Security Vendor: ESET

Best Partner Profitability Program: Riverbed

Best Product Innovation: Toshiba Gulf

Best Channel Marketing Initiatives: Logicom

Best Test & Measurement Distributor: Prologix Distribution

Best After-Sales Support: FDC International

Best Mobility Solutions Distributor: Almasa IT Distribution

Best Channel Enablement Initiatives: Aptec – an Ingram Micro Company

Best IT Solutions Distributor: Bulwark Technologies

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Reseller Middle East

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Best Consulting Services: COMPUTERLINKS

Best Demand Generation Initiatives: FVC

Best Strategic Partner Engagements: Metra Computers

Best Inventory Management: Mindware

Best Channel Development Initiatives: Redington Gulf

Best Retail Distributor: Trigon

Best Infrastructure Solutions: Intertec Systems

Best Brand Promotion Initiatives: Prestigio

Best Technical Support: SecureTech

Best Security Services Provider: Spire Solutions

Best Turnkey Solutions: Seven Seas Computers

Best Project Management: EMW

Best Security Solutions Provider: helpAG

Best Customer Experience Initiatives: Jacky’s Electronics

Best Security Integrator: Nanjgel Solutions

Best Channel Incentives Programme: Microsoft

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www.resellerme.com

Harnessing the value of information

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 |

P.O.Box 17417 Jebel Ali FreeZone Dubai, United Arab Emirates Fax: +971 4 887 1637 | Email: info@storit.ae | www.storit.ae

ICT System Integrator

IT - TELECOM - CONSULTING - OUTSOURCING

Seven Seas are a leading system integrator and an ICT solution provider in the UAE. Seven Seas Computers is an ISO 9001:2008 certified company since 1983 and a Tiered partner to almost all major technology vendors and are pioneers in delivering ICT solutions and services in Enterprise Systems, Data Networking & Security, Voice & Telephony, Microsoft Licensing & Solutions, Value Added Services, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery, Data Centers, Audio Visual, Access Control, CCTV, Video Conferencing and above all Functional Outsourcing & Managed Services.

Seven Seas partners with leading technology vendors including IBM, Microsoft, HP, DELL, CA, CISCO, AVAYA, MITEL, CITRIX, Websense, Stonesoft, ESET, Symantec, MessageLabs, Panduit, BrandRex, among few others.

With over 300+ ICT trained and certified professionals, Seven Seas Computers delivers cost effective and efficient design, project implementations, maintenance contracts to further provide the customer with highest level of service in all industry verticals such as Large and Medium Enterprises, Conglomerates & Airlines, Government, Oil & Gas, Banking & Finance, Hospitality, Retail, Healthcare and Education sector. Seven Seas Computers can be your ideal ICT provider for all your IT projects and intents at hand.

Enterprise Systems

(Servers, Blades, Storage Solutions, High-availability Systems, Enterprise Management, Cloud Solutions, Data Management)

Voice & Telephony

(VoIP based PABX, Contact Center, Call-billing /recording, Wireless Voice, UM, SIP and SMS Gateways and Fax solutions)

Data-networking & Security Infrastructure & ELV Microsoft Licensing & Solutions Managed Services

(Routing, Switching, Wireless solutions, Firewalls, besides Perimeter Security, End-point Security, e-mail security, content management, UTM, DLP, MDM and consulting)

(Structured Cabling, Data Center setup, Power solutions, Infrastructure Projects and Corporate fit-outs, CCTV, Access Control (certified by Dubai Police), Smart Office, Video Conferencing and Audio Visual Solutions ( Infrastructure Projects, Corporate and Fit-outs ) (Volume Licensing, Virtualization, MS-Exchange, Server Platform, Portals, Unified Communication, System Center, Desktop Deployment, VDI, & Cloud Services) (AMCs, SSIPs, FMS, Functional Outsourcing, Disaster Recovery, Hosting, NOC, Value Added Services, Service Management and Consulting) Seven Seas represent its Solutions offering to all the industry verticals like Enterprise, Medium Enterprise, Conglomerates & Aviation, BFSI, Retail Sector, Government, Oil & Gas, Hospitality, Healthcare and Education.

Our strategic alliances with the below technology vendors further reinforces our status of a leading System integrator representing the ICT with the most prevailing technologies installed across industry verticals. Our roadmap further is to get endorsed with industry certifications on compliance, frameworks and best practices on the technologies and services offered. The support team comprises of more than 150+ technical specialists across technology horizontals on Systems, Data Networks/Security, Voice & Telephony, Microsoft Solutions, Data Centers, Infrastructure, Structured Cabling, Smart-homes and Audio /Video.

Having a fleet of trained and certified professionals across all such technologies, Seven Seas has maintained extreme levels of customer delight and is continuing to build portfolios on the existing technology dominance. Our reference clients list comprises almost all the big names in these verticals, where we can provide references and testimonials against the availed skills and capability of Seven Seas resources.

Enabling continuous improvement Seven Seas Computers P .O. Box 8469 Dubai – UAE Phone: +971 4 308 3555 Fax : +971 4 336 6727 ssc@sscomp.ae http://www.sscomp.ae

Seven Seas Computers P .O. Box 44995 Abu Dhabi – UAE Phone: +971 2 619 5999 Fax : +971 2 619 5919 ssc@sscomp.ae http://www.sscomp.ae

CHANNEL OUTLOOK 2014

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CHANNEL OUTLOOK 2014 Security solutions to drive growth

Jose Thomas, Managing Director, Bulwark Technologies

The biggest growth drivers in 2014 will be security. With all the recent attacks on various organisations, there will definitely be a much higher interest in securing every aspect of the data institution. Solutions built on the cloud will act as one of the bigger catalysts for such solutions. We saw it in emerging stages in 2013, it is bound to get even bigger this year,

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considering the receptiveness of the market. Customers need to store information confidentially and need to have it available always, which is why businesses will adopt cloud infrastructure in a more prominent way. Certain services are keen on cloud as it gives a central management capability and the latest versions of products are updated automatically. While with on-

january 2014

premises solutions, customers take their time to update their software.

With Government initiatives that enable smart devices, mobility and related applications will be even bigger trends in the future that needs to be dealt in a smart and strategic manner.

There will also be a tremendous growth in storage and related areas. Organisations will need

to beef up their storage facilities especially when it comes to disaster recovery back-up, which will also lead to more data centres. We want to ensure that our resellers and their customers get the continuity in support for the investment they do in our products. We will also focus more on training as channel enablement is one area we will look at.

www.resellerme.com

Cloud-based distribution on the rise

Sajith Ray, General Manager, Logicom Gulf

Traditional distribution is seen shifting to subscription model.

A more cloud-based distribution is getting active in the software side. This will also create immense opportunities in the market and players will get more business through renewals.

This means the revenue will be

spread across a period of time instead of being recognised at a single time. Players need to be innovative to gain the highest market share in this kind of environment. They cannot ignore the changes happening in the market.

As a company, we will be

moving towards more serviceoriented and moving away from products-centric approach towards the customer. Although, from the vendor’s perspective, we will still be product focused because each vendor will want to highlight their products. But our market approach towards

resellers will be service or solution oriented. IT spending may or not go up as it depends on the dollar value too. Also, today, people are buying tablets instead of PCs and preferring smartphones to laptops, so these trends could affect the market dynamics.

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CHANNEL OUTLOOK 2014 Year of trinity – cloud, Big Data and tablets

Mario Gay, General Manager, Mindware

We see three distinct trends picking up in this region – cloud, Big Data and uptake of tablets. Services around cloud will consolidate further and become a stronger value proposition for the end user.

Although, the business model around cloud computing is clear, the revenue model for the

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distributors and the partners is not. This is where the vendors will still need to work.

Companies will focus more on Big Data Management and Big Data Analysis, the ability to do meaningful forecast and create correlations through Big Data will see high receptiveness in the market.

january 2014

Tablets have seen a huge growth this year. Many people have underestimated the impact of unbranded tablets; we didn’t think a market for unbranded tablets would see rapid growth in such a short time.

The biggest lesson for us has been in understanding

that the market is volatile. The channel must be prepared to face the highs and lows of the changing market dynamics.

Technology has always been around but today it is becoming public domain and much easier to use, and this is why it will be a part of the future plan, more than it was, in the past.

www.resellerme.com

CHANNEL OUTLOOK 2014 Spotlight to be on VARs

Taj El Khayat, General Manager MENA, Riverbed Technology

2014 will see an uptake on trends such as Big Data, virtualisation and services as a concept. In order to leverage these trends, the channel has to step up and become more consultative, more solutioncentric and offer solutions in-house. Also, ensure that they have the right components so that the customer receives the right value-added service.

As Riverbed, we want to get

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even closer to our channel, we must enable them to understand the positioning of our solutions in the way we see it. We want to involve our partner community in the decision-making process, right from day zero. This will be one of our key focus areas in this year. We also want to create a cohesive engagement between Riverbed, its channel and its customers to ensure that not only the vendors are seen

january 2014

in front of the customer but the whole partnership is visible.

We want to educate our customers in understanding our evolution from being a monoproduct company to a one that drives application acceleration platform. This means, it is a platform that has different building blocks that enables customers enhance their application performance over the network.

I believe that value-added distribution model will move away and volume distribution is going to be the way forward.

Value-added resellers are going to receive a lot more focus moving ahead, because they are the ones who bridge the endcustomer. Riverbed is definitely moving towards empowering, engaging and driving more focus on our value-added resellers.

www.resellerme.com

CHANNEL OUTLOOK 2014 Focus on security to increase

Steve Lockie, Group MD, Westcon Group

Security will continue to be of importance in 2014. But what is interesting to note is that it is still highly dominated by incidents.

Very few companies are spending money proactively to prevent such attacks, but it has begun and is being seriously looked at. There have been several high profile incidents in the region. However, the strange thing is that even

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though a particular company was targeted in a particular country, the peer companies still seem to wait to deploy security solutions.

Elsewhere in the world, we have seen the adoption of these technologies more linked to audit. Once the financial audits and business audits are done, companies are made aware of the risks in the market and are

january 2014

advised to take precautions against them. We don’t see that in this part of the world. Here, the adoption process is a lot slower.

But we are beginning to see more people come to us proactively for help in resolving security issues, since last year and this will grow further in 2014. We are seeing public sector spend quite high, this is because predominantly,

public sector is driving the growth in the Middle East markets.

Growth is easy but profitable growth for us, our resellers and our vendors is the harder part.

We believe in understanding the pain points of our vendors and resellers to develop initiatives to help them become more successful, we will continue this in 2014.

www.resellerme.com

Services lead the way

Boby Joseph, CEO of StorIT Distribution

Both volume and value distribution will continue in 2014 with distributors adding a lot more value in terms of services.

One of the most lucrative services for the channel will be to try to integrate the cloud into the customers’ existing working model with their legacy systems. There will also be an increase in service requirements from companies moving to the cloud, where a skills shortage still exists. So those channel players who enable themselves with these skills will definitely benefit.

When selling cloud, the channel will actually be selling services, as the products are in the cloud and what is actually being sold is only a licensing cost.

IT spending set to soar

Ashwin Venkatchari, Senior Program Manager, Imaging, Printing & Document Solutions in Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, IDC

Spending in IT will exceed $32bn in 2014, making the Middle East one of the fastestgrowing IT markets in the world, with growth at 7.3 percent year-on-year. Consumer and public communications as well as financial services sectors are expected to be the biggest IT spenders in the region, contributing to nearly 74 percent of the total Middle East IT spending in 2014.

We think that companies across the GCC will shift their tactics and channel strategies in 2014. We believe that the constant pressure on the margins and the increasing competitiveness of the IT industry in general will spur the channel to innovate.

Trends to grow slowly Trends such as cloud and BYOD are definitely making a mark in the market, but the growth is still gradual. UAE is a matured market and therefore these trends could take place faster when compared to others.

Also, it is not easy to convince people to accept these emerging trends as most of them have always done things the traditional way. It will take time.

2014 will also be another year for these trends to gradually evolve, although, we see a definite positivity in the future. And these trends will further enhance the business.

Jaison Korath, CEO, Despec

Year of SDN

Abdullah Al-Swaha, Director, Partner Org and Commercial, Cisco, Saudi Arabia

Cisco has identified seven key trends for 2014: Machineto-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.

We predict that SDN will take the lead, as it focuses on network functions and overlay scenarios. SDN requires true integration across physical and virtual spaces, and enhanced transparency and visibility, in order for more widespread adoption.

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CHANNEL OUTLOOK 2014 IT redefines markets

Prepare for the future There has been a lot of regional emphasis on the importance of cloud as a scalable and elastic IT-enabled service, and this interest is set to expand as more SMEs adopt cloud services in the Middle East. We expect to see new financing models such as ‘pay as you use’, ‘software as a service’, and ‘business process as a service’ gaining prominence in the region. The channel will be expected to reinvent itself to cater to the changing technology trends and customer buying trends.

Also, products, applications and services that cater to areas like cloud, security, big data, analytics, mobility and BPM gain momentum in 2014.

Sudarsan Chakravarthy, Operations Executive, Gulf Business Machines

Betting on personal cloud storage

Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director, Middle East, Africa & South Asia, WD

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The need to be mobile and have access to data on the go will continue to be a key trend in 2014.

End users who purchase an ultrabook, smartphone or tablet will be compelled to invest in personal cloud storage options.

However, given that end user knowledge about personal cloud solutions is still somewhat limited, the regional channel will have to take up the responsibility to have an educated sales force who can properly explain the benefits of these products to customers.

january 2014

Mohammad Mobasseri, CEO, EMT Distribution

Cloud, SaaS and IaaS are hot topics today and the channel needs to think about businesses around them. There has been growth in these areas in the last few years and that will only increase further.

The channel will play a greater role but my only concern is, are they ready for such offerings, and are they educated enough to deal with such products.

Hence, I suggest the channel be ready for the next wave. We will continue to support our channel with trainings, skill upgradation, knowledge transfer on new technologies to enable them for a future.

Revolutionising viewing angles

Vineeth Sebastian, Regionals Sales Director-MEA, MMD and AOC

Revolutionary technology such as Touch, 3D, Smart Android and Miracast connectivity will be trends to watch out for in the future. There is a distinct trend towards larger screen sizes and widescreen displays, allowing users to work with multiple documents or applications. The shift from TN-panels to IPS/AMVA panels is another important trend. These two technologies offer significant improvements in viewing angles and colour reproduction, which ultimately leads to superior image quality.

www.resellerme.com

Attention on easy access

Gary Hopwood, Manufacturing Channel Manager, ME, Infor

Mobility and having access to both business and social platforms, is key today, which technology companies will increasingly focus on, in 2014.

The ability for businesses to adapt and adopt this more fluid working environment is important in order to meet the requirements of the business now onwards.

The emergence of Android and the market penetration of Apple in the social arena will extend and push out into the business community, this will provide an opportunity for the channel to refocus its efforts and provide both the Software platforms and HW infrastructure together with business value understanding driving business opportunities.

Offering converged solutions

Aaron White, General Manager Middle East and Turkey, HDS

We predict that 2014 will see a pick-up in technology refreshes as enterprises focus their attention more on business outcomes via a wide range of applications. This means that for the channel there will be more opportunities to provide customers with converged solutions for select applications, which will reduce deployment times and improve operational efficiencies.

Furthermore, greater adoption of private cloud, coupled with a continued Big Data and enterprise flash explosion, will provide a great opportunity for the channel to offer a comprehensive range of storage solutions.

Enhancing security solutions

Stephan Berner, Managing Director, Help AG

Areas of interest and investments for 2014 in security will be modern malicious malware prevention, information security analytics solutions and digital forensics. It’s not about getting compromised, it’s about when will it happen, it is more about Incident Response. This includes the route cause analysis, malware reverse engineering, and the remediation itself. For the channel, this will mean either learning entirely new skill sets or expanding on existing skills.

Also, more specialist vendors will enter the market and they will depend on the wellestablished channel players to help them break into the region.

Wi-Fi to transform business

Nader Baghdadi, Regional Director MENA, Ruckus Wireless

Wi-Fi based location analytics will play a bigger role for organisations to increase business intelligence, define security policy, and improve customer Wi-Fi experience.

Analytics will become more important specifically to correlate the myriad data points from clients (locations, apps, device type and trending). We’ll see a continuation of adoption and integration of BYOD solutions and device management.

802.11ac Access Point (AP) adoption will increase, mainly driven by more 802.11acenabled devices, and as vendors release lower cost 2x2 802.11ac APs.

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CHANNEL OUTLOOK 2014 Opportunity for innovation

Dan Smith, Head of Integrated Marketing, MEA, Xerox’s Developing Markets Operations

SMBs are yet to adopt the cloud technology completely.

They are less advanced in terms of their technology mainly because of its initial investment cost. There is an immense range of ICT solutions that have been well received by many companies, however generating awareness of them is yet to be accomplished. Cloud, BYOD, mobile technology and social media will continue to drive the industry and create more opportunities for innovation.

Companies are taking decisions to invest further in these technologies and are aware of the long term benefits this would offer.

Data management becomes critical

Brooke Cunningham, Senior Director, Global Partner Marketing, QlikTech

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Wearable technology will become bigger in 2014.

From a system impact standpoint, we believe that the role of IT in a company will evolve from being purely executional to enabling innovation in business. In terms of data, while 2013 revolved around what businesses can do with increasing amounts of data, in 2014 the focus will be on what businesses should do with it.

There will mostly be a notable shift in data management practices this year.

january 2014

Beyond SDN deployments

Marcus Jewell, VP EMEA, Brocade

2014 will be the year of ‘Open network architectures’. We saw the benefits of Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and SDN especially in connection with telecom operators and service providers, enabling them to introduce new services faster and more costeffectively. 2014 will see actual deployments begin and enterprises will not just stop at SDN, but will extend the same ‘software-defined’ principle to data centers, storage and other elements of the infrastructure. Open and interoperable network infrastructure solutions will rise in prominence.

Power of tablets

Niranjan Gidwani, Deputy CEO, Eros Group

In 2014, the education sector will go through a major revamp with BYOD (Bring your own device) promotions happening in many schools. Also tablets are becoming an ideal replacement for corporate presentations and sales pitches for the on-the-go executive. This will create a major shake-up in the IT industry as channels get redefined. Furthermore, the growing importance of cloud technology has also played a major role in the way consumers store, use and access information.

www.resellerme.com

Integrating security solutions

Natalya Kaspersky, CEO, InfoWatch Group of Companies

The number of DLP integration projects in 2014 will grow due to global rise in data leaks.

Penetration of mobile devices will entail development of mobile security solutions. IT security technologies around preventing targeted attacks is promising. The challenge is that malware can stay undetected in company’s network for years. No antivirus today can detect sophisticated malware used for attacks thus solutions to counter this will be in demand. The trend that will be attractive for the channel is the integration of different security solutions in one complex system with centralised management.

Readying for IPv6 wave

Glen Ogden, Regional Sales Director, Middle East, A10 Networks

Cloud has been a trend for a while now and we’re starting to see many more cloud services being deployed in our region, so this is still a space to watch. IPv6 migration is something that simply cannot be ignored any longer.

Those companies wanting to mitigate their risk are reaching out for Carrier Grade NAT to extend their IPv4 space while others are looking to deploy IPv6 services with IPv4 – IPv6/IPv6 – IPv4 translation technologies. The move to IPv6 brings with it a huge burden for networking teams in both planning and operations, meaning companies will need to prepare.

Analytics to make headway

Zaied Yassine, Executive Vice President, Nexthink

IT operations analytics (ITOA) is a fantastic opportunity for the channel as it leads to the creation of new lines of business to deliver innovative services to customers, which in turn, brings new revenue streams. Customers are faced with growing amounts of data and complexity in their IT operations and there is an increasing need to be able to manage this complexity and provide the best quality of service to end-users, especially in the areas of security, ITSM and transformation. Nexthink gives our channel partners a competitive edge to succeed.

Increase in data centre requirements

Sakkeer Hussain, Sales and Marketing Manager, D-Link Middle East & Africa

When observing current networking trends, we believe datacentre requirements will be on the rise next year.

More networking vendors are starting to roll out 40G solutions to help enterprises cope with the increasing demand for higher bandwidth.

Customer expectations will be fully met with the new and reliable 40G solutions, which have proven highly effective in the past years. Security products like firewalls will also be on the forefront. Our focus for new technologies will be based on enhancing user experience, such as creating products offering faster connectivity, ease-of-use in terms of setup and navigation.

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Reseller Middle East

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Storage

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Sponsored by:

Taking stock As data is generated by the minute through various mediums, Reseller ME explores the channel’s role in optimising storage solutions.

Storage is something most people worry about. Not having enough of it is a universal problem. And for the channel, when it comes to selling storage, it’s a bit of a mixed bag; while many consider it a challenging task, some can only see the opportunities that come with it.

“We see tremendous opportunities in the regional storage industry with partners and the channel all looking for innovative solutions that address the challenges of today,” says Christian Assaf, Senior Sales Manager, Seagate.

“Although, the total available market has dropped over the past two years,

the GB per disk shipped has actually been growing quarter-on-quarter, with the Middle East home to the highest GB per disk shipped within EMEA this year. This growth is in part due to the increased adoption of cloud infrastructure, more robust video surveillance, and business NAS solutions that are all driving highcapacity demand for storage,” he adds.

While Taj El Khayat, General Manager, MENA, Riverbed Technology, agrees that storage is a complex sale as the requirements vary and there are different ways to sell it, “but definitely it is one of the fastest growing technologies today specifically around cloud and Big Data.”

Prospects and trends For Sreedhar Sreekumar, Regional Sales Manager, Mediterranean, Middle East & Africa at SanDisk, selling storage is not intimidating at all because of the immense opportunities Big Data brings into the picture. “In every country, Big Data will become a major point for storage. It is one of the fastest growing trends and will continue into 2014.

We are seeing major players such as Etisalat and Du provide these services, which consumers are using in the Middle East,” he says.

Khayat says the only challenges that exist are standard ones that are there for every technology. “For

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feature

Storage

example, technical capabilities and the capacity of the individuals within the channel to understand storage and what compliments it. To build a solution around storage, one needs to understand networking, application and security,” he further explains.

It can also be challenging because it isn’t easy to create one set of solutions for the changing needs of the market place. Scalability is key here.

And sometimes resellers also don’t see it lucrative enough to be in this business, making it even more difficult.

Dimuth Wijeratne, Product General Manager, Hitachi Data Systems, TechAccess, explains, “We have to enable our reseller base spread across the region so that they understand the storage solutions better, which eventually helps them in approaching the end users effectively. Apart from that, our reseller base is also hesitant in selling storage solutions as their margins reduce due to the high cost of services and support involved in the installation, configurations and set up.”

But this should be easy to resolve, provided resellers are made aware of the trends in this space and the opportunities it presents. For example, flash-based storage is expected to be the next big thing. Andreas Weiss, Director of Systems and Technology, Gulf Business Machines (GBM), says, “By the end of 2014, a significant segment of the market will adopt

“The need for greater security protocol and disaster recovery backups will be two of the most significant elements influencing the regional storage market in the year ahead.”

Christian Assaf, Senior Sales Manager, Seagate

flash as a storage solution. Once the transition starts, it can only accelerate.

With the increased commoditisation pressures on storage pricing, more players in the industry will switch to flash this year.”

Adding on, Assaf from Seagate says, “The need for greater security protocol and disaster recovery backups will be two of the most significant elements influencing the regional storage market in the year ahead. The surveillance business in particular has been one of the key growth drivers for the Middle East storage industry with new regulations in place across many different industries—from aviation to banking, healthcare, and even education.”

Meanwhile, Aaron White, General Manager Middle East and Turkey, Hitachi Data Systems, predicts that 2014 will see an increase in technology refreshes. “As enterprises focus their

“We have to enable our reseller base spread across the region so that they understand the storage solutions better, which eventually helps them in approaching the end users effectively” Dimuth Wijeratne, Product General Manager, Hitachi Data Systems, TechAccess

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attention more on business outcomes via a wide range of applications, what this means for the channel is that there will be more opportunities to provide customers with converged solutions for select applications, which will reduce deployment times and improve operational efficiencies.”

Other trends such as copy data storage, the software-defined data centre, Big Data and cloud too are creating waves in storage today. Data centres must evolve to deliver the highest quality of service at the lowest possible total cost of ownership as storage capacity continues to move to cloud. “Such cloud solutions must be the result of a collaborative effort among suppliers, partners, and end users, and in that sense requires a great deal of coordination between these stakeholders,” explains Assaf from Seagate.

The channel has a crucial role to play in this whole chain of distribution – to impart the right message to customers. “Vendors are dependent on the channel to position their solutions to the end customers due to the relationship they share with the customer, which in most cases is closer than the vendor,” Anand Choudha, Managing Director, Spectrami, points out.

Agreeing with Choudha, White from HDS says customers are becoming much more discerning in

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the way they buy and they are looking for total solutions from suppliers. “And vendors will not always be able to deliver that complete solution going forward, so there will always be a need for solution services provided by key channel partners.”

Approach to SMB The small and medium-sized business (SMB) space in the region has grown at an accelerated rate over the last two years.

It makes up for around 92 percent of the UAE’s total registered companies with around 40 percent of the country’s GDP coming from these small and medium-sized enterprises.

This growth can mean massive opportunities for the channel.

Assaf says, “SMB customers are really the drivers for our ‘value’ business and are a growing market for us quarter-on-quarter. That has, in turn, required us to develop a unique support model for these organisations, working with them directly at times as well as through specific channel partners who can offer them the best support relative to their business size.”

He further adds, “We are also regularly running seminars specific to SMBs that look at big-picture storage trends, effective use of cloud solutions, and even product trainings that give them a better understanding of current market dynamics and requirements.”

“SMBs can benefit from flash storage and SSDs to boost system performance and maintain cost requirements—the main reasons for virtualisation.”

Andreas Weiss, Director of Systems and Technology, GBM

Storage strategies are proving to be valuable for this sector’s unstructured data and understanding this, today, more and more small and medium enterprises are adopting storage solutions.

“It’s a misconception that only large and mid-sized organisations generate a demand for storage. IT professionals at SMBs are increasingly turning to hybrid storage solutions to manage their data, seeking to improve performance in virtualised environments. SMBs can benefit from flash storage and SSDs to boost system performance and maintain cost requirements—the main reasons for virtualisation,” says GBM’s Weiss.

Also, when compared to complex enterprise data, which has more number of entry points and is a part of a larger overall archive; SMEs and start-up companies can even have an upper-hand over larger organisations due to their lower volumes of data.

“Running marketing campaigns and supporting initiatives such as direct selling, inside sales among others also will make a difference to SMB customers.”

Anand Choudha, Managing Director, Spectrami

“But it is essential that they begin to meta-tag data assets, allowing for future accessibility as the data volume increases. The tiering of unstructured data is also a key element to look at for SMEs, in order to ensure that essential information is always available quickly, allowing them to improve access to business insights,” adds White from HDS. The best way to approach SMB customers, according to Choudha from Spectrami, is through the channel.

“Furthermore, running marketing campaigns and supporting initiatives such as direct selling, inside sales among others also will make a difference to SMB customers.” He further explains that for mid-sized to smaller business environments, the commoditised version of storage, which is entry level storage is most efficient.

It is clear that long gone are the days when selling storage was considered complex and tough, today this space is brimming with immense opportunities. The channel stakeholders should make the most of these emerging trends in this space and look at innovative approaches so as to gain the first mover advantage, whether it is in upgrade or other trends.

Because with infinite amount of data being generated in every sector every day, even more so through smart devices, the opportunities in this space can only grow even further. //

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Juniper Networks

Innovate to profit Adrian Pickering, Area Vice President, MEA, and Mario Georgiou, Area Partner Director, MEA, from Juniper Networks discuss the company’s partner strategy and the way forward

Adrian Pickering, Area Vice President, MEA, Juniper Networks

An organisation’s network is the pillar for driving growth and understanding data.

Today, as technology advances, the role of networks becomes a bigger part and parcel of each business. Juniper Networks, a provider of network solutions, understand this better than most, thanks to around two decades of experience in the space. According to Adrian Pickering, Area Vice President, MEA, Juniper Networks, for the channel, there are no shortage of opportunities in this market. “But the challenge is making the channel aware of the industry trends and how they can be executed profitably,” he explains.

This also means that a robust partner strategy needs to be in place. Although

the overall strategy has evolved in the last few years, the company is looking at how it can drive a better alignment with the partners they have.

Pickering adds, “We are not in a race to recruit a whole bunch of partners.

We want to develop the capabilities of the partners that we have, and in some instances, we are even looking at reducing the number of partners we’ve got.” The company is focusing on partners who have got the capabilities and willingness to work with it and who have the potential to find and execute opportunities.

Mario Georgiou, Area Partner Director, MEA, Juniper Networks, says that the Juniper Partner Advantage Programme, which was launched three years ago, was meant to capture new markets and discern how partners could

vendor focus

play a role in them. Taking into account trends such as cloud, the company recently announced the Juniper Partner Advantage Cloud. “This programme was created to help our partners move from the traditional way of things and go and capture the growth that we are seeing in cloud,” says Georgiou. “Because today, resellers need to go and position themselves in cloud, irrespective of whether they are going to develop infrastructure for a customer to create a cloud service, or they run the services for a service provider, or whether they are going to be the service provider selling the services. So in this programme, we have got a number of value-added aspects, which will help the partners to upscale and help them go after this new market,” he further explains. Also identifying profitable opportunities in services, the company has announced the Juniper Partner Services Programme recently, where it has integrated its various programmes into one.

Juniper plans to focus on the public sector and other key verticals such as oil and gas, defence and security and financial institutions, which will help enhance its business. Pickering adds, “Service provider is a big part of our business and we will continue to focus on working with the big telco operators in all the countries we serve. From an enterprise perspective, a number of key verticals come out and the public sector is very important. The investments that are being made by the government today, into education, healthcare and social services, is huge.”

Georgiou says that partners need to be innovative. “They need to go after the growth that is seen in emerging trends such as cloud, mobile internet and solutions around security to give value to customers.”

He further adds, “Partners are trying to differentiate themselves from old technology. It’s no longer just a choice but imperative to be profitable. Partners who are in different businesses can then wrap around their value-add as well, which is important, too. We live through our partners.” //

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Interview

Mathew Boice

Mathew Boice, Vice President EMEA & India, Ellucian

Positive grounds Reseller ME chats with Mathew Boice, Vice President EMEA & India, Ellucian to understand how the channel plays a role in the growing market of delivering technology solutions to the education sector

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What kind of channel expansion plans do you have?

Partners are absolutely essential to what we do in the market in the Middle East. We have good partners and we are certainly open to talking to others because the partner ecosystem is a vibrant and constantly changing place. However, there needs to be a real commitment from them around delivering to education, which is what we are really looking for. And this does separate the partners quite a bit.

We have a long-term strategy in place around the partners and they are planning long-term expansion as well.

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Recently, we signed a contract in Libya with the University of Benghazi and that was a partner project, through a company called International Turnkey Systems, based out of Kuwait. I’m delighted to see a reconstruction project in Libya as everybody wants to see these countries succeed. We are hoping that this project will be a landmark one, which others will be able to follow. This is a good example of our customer taking our technology and getting involved in something that has an important social aspect— reconstructing a university and helping it deliver better services for its students.

I believe the project in Libya could lead to other projects as well.

What is your business focus?

We have got active projects in places that have become important over the years such as Kuwait, Qatar, KSA and UAE. We are totally focused in these areas but will also enter into newer markets. One of our focus areas is to continue the expansion of our partners into other Arab countries. We have got a couple of projects in Egypt and it will be nice to see those expand. But for that, there needs to be even more investment by partners in Egypt.

We not only want our core markets to continue to grow but also see more projects across the Arab and North Africa peninsular. We are actively looking for conversations with the channel about their ideas for serving these markets.

We are also keen on bringing in more certification programmes, which is another focus area.

What kind of trends are you noticing from the channel’s perspective?

A positive trend that we are seeing is that the channel is looking to add value and not just do the same thing the next guy is doing. They are looking to deliver on the customer promise. We are conversing more about this with the channel.

When we see talented young Emiratis or Saudi Arabians picking up our technology and doing really good things with it, then we know we are on the good path.

Also, there has been a shift from tailoring software in order to do what the customer wants to helping the customer leverage what is already in the software. This is something different as usually everyone looks at customisation. This shows the maturity on what is happening with the partners, they realise that perhaps the customisation wasn’t in the long-term interest of their customers and a clean good implementation would be better.

What does this mean for Ellucian?

It is helpful that the channel is more in tune, because that means we can have a dialogue that is better focused on executing to the customers. We don’t want a generic discussion, we want the discussion to be about what is it that we are trying to do for a customer. People complained about the lack of channel maturity in the Middle East and that only superficial training was being carried out.

But that’s not true anymore, it is not trivial training activity that they are doing, they are hiring top level consultants who are providing specific consulting around our presence within our software, which is a value added service.

What do you consider as the biggest challenge in this space?

The biggest challenge for us is human capacity and finding talent. There is a huge shortage of talent around our solutions. This can be dealt with in different ways such as having programmes in universities, getting partners to build capacity and also we

got to bring more capacity to the market.

It’s true that we have good capacity development in some of our user base, however it is not universally true. I think that’s the big challenge. My passion is to see that develop with local people. When we see talented young Emiratis or Saudi Arabians picking up our technology and doing really good things with it, then we know we are on the good path.

Could you share how much you have grown last year and what is the objective for this year?

2013 was a fantastic year as we had about 100 percent growth on technology licensing. The business has largely come from two different places – existing customers and new customers. These two things indicate the health of a business. If you got only existing customers, the question is why don’t you have new customers coming in? And if you were not doing a good job with existing customers, then they won’t spend money with you again.

We certainly expect a strong double digit growth for 2014.

What is your message for the channel?

Being in this space means, you got to be specialists. It is an exciting sector and the customers are loyal. It might not be as exciting as banking or oil and gas for the channel, but the education customers are loyal and are definitely growing. I think education is starting to come into the centre of many economic discussions. And with Expo 2020, you will see education play a pivotal role. //

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Hot products

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Review

Skullcandy Crusher Skullcandy has yet again come up with a sufficiently high-performance product at a reasonable price.

High-quality headphones that offer plenty of deep bass sounds for a low price are two-a-penny in this market. Some brands differentiate themselves simply by undercutting the competition, but Skullcandy is targeting the mid-range segment with its new Crusher set of headphones. And the differentiation comes with the inclusion of an adjustable bass slider that works through a battery-powered amplifier.

Underneath the right ear cushion is a battery compartment for a single AA battery, which some retailers are choosing to include with the product. The battery powers the on-board amp, which basically allows users to adjust the levels of bass that the headphones will chuck out.

This doesn’t mean that you won’t have any bass at all without a battery, or if the battery goes flat – you’ll simply lose the ability to adjust the bass levels. Running out of juice actually isn’t so bad – unless you’re purposefully turning your bass up high, using

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the headphones in passive mode provides a warm, well-balanced sound that you could get by with very happily. But then again, you could probably get such a sound for half the price from a cheap, unknown vendor.

Happily, the adjustable bass slider can and does improve the sound offered up by the Crusher, and Skullcandy claims that a single battery will last for 40 hours of music playback. When it comes to actually using the slider, you can turn the bass up to hilariously heavy levels, ruining any semblance of good sound that a music producer might have tried to create. We’re going to assume, however, that most users won’t be cranking the bass up to its highest levels. Audiophiles will have great fun adjusting the levels to create what they perceive to be the perfect sound, and dubstep-loving kids will no doubt love the extra oomph that the slider affords.

But at $100, is the Crusher too expensive when all it does to differentiate itself is provide an adjustable bass slider? Well, when you put it like that, yes. However, the Crusher offers

an altogether more compelling package when you consider everything else.

For example, the earcups are extremely well-padded with plush, black cushions, and the headband also provides a satisfactory level of padding. This makes the Crusher extremely comfortable to use, even for long periods of time – something many headphone vendors fail to take into consideration. As on most of Skullcandy’s other products, the Crusher also comes with an inline remote control and microphone for smartphone users. The one-button remote worked with every device we tested it with, so you can turn the music on and off without getting your smartphone out of your pocket, but unfortunately there’s no volume control on the remote.

That aside, Skullcandy has yet again come up with a sufficiently high-performance product at a reasonable price. With the bass slider around the 25-percent mark, the headphones chuck out deep, warm and full sounds, making competitors’ efforts sound thin in comparison. Just remember that you don’t have to turn the bass up all the way. //

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Sony unveils SmartWatch 2

Plantronics launches Voyager Legend CS Plantronics has introduced the Voyager Legend CS, the latest addition to the Voyager headset line.

Designed to provide mobile flexibility, the latest 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.

The Voyager Legend CS provides seamless experience regardless of location, allowing easy management of mobile and desktop calls using Smart Sensor technology, which intuitively directs calls to your phone or headset and allows you to automatically answer by placing the headset on your ear, says the company.

The Voyager Legend CS comes with a sleek charging dock that connects directly to an office desk phone and includes the ability to manage desk phone and mobile device calls from a single headset. It is equipped with intuitive controls to answer/ end calls, mute and adjust volume. It can also use your voice to answer or ignore incoming mobile calls and for a host of other commands. It also features Caller Name Announcement for incoming mobile calls with integrated A2DP that lets you listen to streaming media from your mobile phone or tablet.

Sony’s SmartWatch 2 is compatible with Android and also is equipped with onetouch NFC. According to the company, it enhances existing phone functions and offers new benefits.

Usually, smartphone users look at their phones throughout the day for reading messages, checking time, viewing and updating social media, for apps, music, photos and games; the SmartWatch 2 allows these functions through a touch screen device on the wrist, which makes it convenient, says the company.

Sony is working closely with developers for even more optimised apps. The smart

watch also introduces new features as a natural successor to the Sony SmartWatch such as NFC connectivity for one-touch pairing, stunning premium design and a range of technologies including higher resolution for sharper viewing, better visibility even in sunlight, longer battery stamina, more intuitive interface, standalone watch functionality and a wide range of preinstalled and recommended apps.

Priced at AED 799, the Sony SmartWatch 2 is available with all leading regional retailers.

Jawbone’s Mini Jambox now online Mini Jambox speakers by Jawbone are now available online on Tejuri.com.

Thanks to the wireless and Bluetooth functionality, the speakers bring music, gaming and film experience to life no matter where you are, says the company.

It also offers 10 hours of continuous wireless playback.

Ayaz Maqbool, Managing Director for Tejuri.com says, “The Mini Jambox by Jawbone is one of the many new products we are introducing to the site over the next few months and we believe the bright and fun gadget will be a great success”.

Designed to fit in your pocket, Jawbone’s recently launched new app, which is compatible with iOS and Android, allows to wirelessly save and stream music as well as personalise the Mini Jambox speakers with new features at the touch of a button. Via the app, you can also track battery status so there’s no worry of losing power when you least expect, says the company.

It is available in bright and vibrant colours such as red, blue, green and yellow.

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Hot products

New Philips office monitors designed for wellbeing

MMD, the brand license partner for Philips Monitors, has announced the release of the new 24-inch ErgoSensor display to complement line-up of office displays designed for wellbeing at work.

With studies indicating that over 80 percent of users experience pain and fatigue after being in front of the computer for a whole day, Philips’ ErgoSensor addresses these challenges.

Like the other monitors in the series, the new 24-inch ErgoSensor P line display features a height adjustable, swivel and tiltable base, enabling users to adjust the height and angle of the display to precisely the right level – which reduces the likelihood of eye fatigue and neck pain. The display’s AMVA LED technology delivers wide-view super-high contrast, with vivid images.

It can also detect the position of the user’s face and head angle, measure the distance between the user’s eyes and the monitor, and suggest how users can adjust their posture or correct their distance from the screen. It also tracks the time spent at the screen and reminds people when they’re due for a break.

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Canon presents UV cheque scanner Canon Middle East has launched the imageFORMULA CR-190i UV cheque scanner with the capability to capture UV ink. With the new device, retailers, banks and financial institutions can identify fraudulent documents and ensure payments are processed with greater security, says the company.

This is because, it is equipped with both a traditional RGB light source and a UV light source. It captures standard and UV images, such as company logos or other proofs of authenticity printed with UV inks, in a single pass to help avoid counterfeit cheques being processed. The imageFORMULA CR-190i UV also improves fraud detection by helping to detect if any details or sensitive areas of a cheque have been tampered with. This can equally be applied to the processing of vouchers and coupons, where cheque scanners are often used.

Extending Canon’s range of cheque scanners, according to the company, the new

CR-190i UV is one of the fastest compact cheque scanners on the market processing up to 190 cheques per minute (160cpm in UV scan mode). It also includes innovative document handling technology and advanced image processing tools for accurate and efficient scanning.

The existing imageFORMULA CR-190i cheque scanner will continue to be available alongside the new CR-190i UV and both models include Scanning Utility software and a Ranger driver. Also included are ISIS and TWAIN drivers which allow organisations to use the devices across a broad range of scanning applications. Various software development kits are available on Canon’s cheque scanners enabling solution providers to create customised scanning applications for their customers, adds the company.

Sony launches 2-in-1 dual connector USB Drive Sony’s new USM-SA1 USB drive has been developed keeping in mind smartphone and tablet users. It has dual micro USB and USB ports with more options to backup, share and store photos, videos and music.

Available in capacities of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB, the compactly designed device gives users a convenient way to transfer and share files easily between devices, and is especially handy, according to the company, when

backing up the data on your mobile device to a desktop, or when files such as images and video clips need to be shared quickly amongst several individuals – all without the need for a Wi-Fi connection or a USB cable.

Compatible with PCs and Android smartphones and tablets, the USM-SA1 USB drive can also function as an additional media content storage device that can be easily plugged in and detached.

Users can also download the dedicated ‘File Manager’ application for free on Google Play onto their smart devices, to help manage the content across different devices with ease. Designed in white, black and purple colours, the USM-SA1 USB drive is now available at select electronics stores in the UAE.

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Lenovo’s ‘Vibe X’ smartphone Lenovo’s latest launch, the Vibe X smartphone comes in polycarbonate body with an advanced mold, laser-engraved 3D tactile finish. Its frame measures just 6.9mm and weighs in at less when compared to other smartphones. The five-inch 20/20 Vision display boasts a 1920x1080 full HD resolution, an IPS panel for wide-viewing angles and ultra-sharp 440 pixels per inch (PPI). The 20/20 Vision Display sits under a scratch resistant Corning Gorilla Glass 3 screen beveled at the edges.

Its front-facing camera is of 5 MP and has a wide-angle 84 degree lens. The 13MP auto-focus rear-facing camera comes enhanced with a

Acer introduces Aspire S7 Ultrabook The S7 Ultrabook is designed as thin as a smartphone with electroluminescent lighting and anodized aluminum. The dual torque hinge and Acer Green Instant On / Always Connect features enhances control and allows seamless usability.

The S7 also feature full HD IPS 10-point displays with 1920 x 1080 resolution, putting touch control at users’ fingertips. In addition, wideviewing angle technology provides consistent and accurate color from viewing angles up to 178 degrees. An embedded Li-Polymer battery provides up to 6 hours of battery life, and an optional second battery doubles computing time up to 12 hours. In addition, the S7 ships with a micro HDMI to VGA cable for use with projectors for presentations, and a USB to RJ45 port for connecting to a wired network.

back-illuminated sensor for sharper images and also has an LED flash.

Powered with Android 4.2 operating system and a Quad-Core MTK 6589T 1.5GHz processor, it has 2GB of memory and 16GB of internal storage. The Lenovo Vibe X comes preloaded with custom applications that allow users to conveniently share photos, videos, and documents, protect their device from malicious software, as well as backup and restore important data.

Siemon’s RouteIT cable managers available in ME Siemon has launched RouteIT in the Middle East, a new vertical and horizontal cable management system, specifically designed for high density enterprise and data centre cabling systems.

RouteIT cable managers provide a system for readily routing and protecting both horizontal cables and patch cords, to support high speed network cabling systems. The high capacity, field-replaceable fingers can easily accommodate more than 48 category 6A cables, to work seamlessly with high density patch panels and blade switches, while offering a finger radius that prevents deformation of cables entering or exiting the vertical managers, says the company.

The double-sided vertical manager has matching front and rear fingers and doors, plus adjustable divider brackets offer flexibility to accommodate capacity where it’s needed - at the front for patch cords, or at the rear for horizontal cables. Available in 1U, 2U and 4U sizes, the RouteIT horizontal cable managers also feature removable dual-hinge covers for easy access.

Vertical RouteIT cable managers feature full-length, dual-hinged doors that protect and conceal the cabling, providing a high quality appearance. A single finger latch operation

gives quick and easy access from both sides and the doors can be completely removed during initial loading.

The RouteIT vertical cable manager is PDU-ready, with multiple attachment points for optional tool-less button mounting of PDUs within doublesided managers, or at the rear of single-sided managers. The vertical manager’s six inch central frame depth is optimised to match the rail depth of cabling-purposed racks for maximum capacity, while its free standing

january 2014

Reseller Middle East

53

Cloud

Mulling over cloud

Reseller Middle East’s assistant editor offers her thoughts on the Middle Eastern technology channel.

Channel surfing

column

Cloud—everyone has been talking about it since … well actually since the 1950s. Yes, I looked it up. Of course, serious thought processes and deployments only started to happen recently, which is why the technology is still considered ‘emerging’.

Although talked and debated about furiously and endlessly, it still continues to be one of the hottest topics for the channel. Why? Simply because, while its advantages are clear and appealing, the security of information that is stored on a cloud-based programme is still questionable. And the revelations behind the NSA’s PRISM programme in the US last year only further helped make the idea of cloud even murkier.

But the key question here is, how can the regional channel sell cloud solutions and remove all shadows of doubt from their customers’ minds about the security of their information?

Although security solutions are being developed by many large companies, can they give a guarantee to the customer? Like it or not, this is what customers are on the look-out for.

There needs to be someone or some factor that can give them the assurance of security and a

way to restore everything. If channel players can deliver that, then from there, it’s a walk in the park. But like most things, who will bell the cat, or, in this case, who will be able to give that assurance?

There are immense opportunities for the channel when it comes to SMB customers because the advantages of cloud for them could mean saving more than just a few bucks. But to convince them to move away from the traditional way of things will require more than just rattling off the benefits of cloud. Channel players need to develop a consultative role with their customers. It’s not about ‘selling’ something but being able to direct your customers in the best way ahead, so that they come back to you when they prosper. For this, a thorough understanding of the changes in the market as it happens is required. It is important to develop a continued relationship with your customers, and this will only happen if they consider you a trusted advisor. This doesn’t just go for cloud, of course, but all technologies.

And from most of my meetings, I know that this is something the channel is working towards. But perhaps more importantly than consultancy, channel players should pledge consistency. A relationship with a customer should be an on-going consistent affair.

Both the storage and outlook features this month touch upon cloud and security in different ways. And I believe that these two areas will become underlying themes for 2014, because even as other trends are becoming widely popular, cloud and security will be closely related to all of them.

Janees Reghelini, Assistant Editor, Reseller ME

54

Reseller Middle East

january 2014

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