Reseller Middle East November 2016

ISSUE 239 | NOVEMBER 2016 www.resellerme.com

MAXIMISING IOT IN CHANNEL PROFESSIONAL SERVICES PROSPECTS

READY TO ROLL

Channel advantages with HPE Aruba’s new integrated Partner Ready for Networking programme

Download the FREE ResellerME app and explore your favourite magazine PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

No need to host from Frankfurt or Singapore anymore Cut down latency at home and access international markets with Alibaba Cloud’s new data center in Dubai – the first international public cloud in the Middle East.

Middle East & Africa HQs now in Dubai

STRATEGIC VAD PARTNER

CONTENTS

ISSUE 239 // NOVEMBER 2016

28 READY TO ROLL COVER FEATURE

HPE Aruba’s Osama AlHaj-Issa on the channel advantages of its new Partner Ready for Networking programme.

48 REVIEW

BLACKBERRY’S DTEK50

50

4

NEWS

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

40 ENABLING TRANSFORMATION

OPINION

26 SYNCHRONISED SECURITY

Sophos’ Harish Chib on how partners can help in easing security pains for CSOs.

32

THE SERVICES ADVANTAGE Reseller ME investigates how building on professional services can help with partner profitability.

36 FUTURE OF THINGS

Experts explore Internet of Things prospects in the channel.

Ramkumar Balakrishnan from Redington Value Distribution on the company’s recent launches.

43 ABOVE THE CLOUDS

FEATURES

HOT PRODUCT

MICROSOFT DEBUTS FIRSTEVER DESKTOP

PARTNER WATCH

HIGHLIGHTS

Rahul Bhavsar from Ingram Micro META, on the partner benefits of its recently launched Cloud Marketplace.

VENDOR FOCUS

47 DRIVING FORCE

Husni Hammoud from RES, shares insights into the company’s solutions and goto-market strategy.

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

1

The world’s first truly Composable Infrastructure. HPE Synergy.

Put the speed and flexibility of cloud in your own secure data center with “infrastructure as code.”

HPE Synergy delivers fluid resource pools, software-defined intelligence, and a unified API. Now you can automate compute, storage, and fabric for applications in just minutes. And create new value across your business—instantly and continuously.

Accelerating infrastructure

Brought to you by HPE & Intel®. Intel Inside®. Powerful Productivity Outside. © Copyright 2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

EDITORIAL The IoT era

Janees Reghelini Editor

E-mail: janees.reghelini@ cpimediagroup.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ ResellerME Twitter: @ResellerME

FOUNDER, CPI MEDIA GROUP Dominic De Sousa (1959-2015) Publishing Director Rajashree Rammohan raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100

Published by

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 © Copyright 2016 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will notbe held responsible for any errors therein.

We have an idea of the extent to which Internet of Things (IoT) will transform everyday lives. We know that our devices and home appliances will be smarter and make everything effortless. But there is more to IoT than meets the eye.

The technology is also percolating into different verticals and functions. For example, in retail, increasingly we are seeing the automation of the supply chain through IoT and also RFID solutions and smart shelves that track inventory being deployed. The instore experience of tomorrow is truly going to be disruptive and transformed with things like smart price tags, smart thermostats and lighting, smart packaging, sensors that monitor quality of perishable goods and so on.

The healthcare sector is also no stranger to IoT-based technologies, which enable real-time location of people and assets, track patients’ fitness and offer analytical data through wearable devices. But it is only a matter of time before smart inhalers and ingestible cameras and internet-connected sensors become a part of common parlance.

In this regard, a company called Proteus Digital Health, is focused on a pill-sized ingestible sensor that measures if patients

are taking medications as prescribed by their doctors. In an IoT-driven world, sky is truly the limit to what can be achieved.

But when we talk about IoT, what partners need to remember is that it is quite expansive.

There are opportunities but partners need to identify a specific area to focus on and develop capabilities around that. Some key questions to think about are – which are the verticals to emphasise on? Should the offering revolve around IoT-enabled products or services only? Are there enough resources and skillset to grow the business over time?

Partners have to focus on being specialised; it won’t be enough to remain a generalist and cater to everyone. They have to develop niche skillsets and evolve into consultants. Today’s customers seek partners who can help them be ahead of the technology curve. And this is far from easy, considering that IoT is still in nascent stages. Partners will have to put in extra time and efforts to first educate themselves on standards and best-practices before they talk to end-users.

The opportunities are out there but it depends on the partner how he can win the customers over – having niche skillsets and market knowledge will be key differentiators.

EDITORIAL Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9129

ADVERTISING Group Sales Director Kausar Syed kausar.syed@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9130

Editor Janees Reghelini janees.reghelini@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9167

Sales Manager Merle Carrasco merle.carrasco@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9147

Online Editor Adelle Geronimo adelle.geronimo@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9135

CIRCULATION Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4440 9119

DESIGN Senior Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com Designer Neha Kalvani neha.kalvani@cpimediagroup.com

PRODUCTION Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9159

Operations Manager Shweta Santosh shweta.santosh@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9107 DIGITAL SERVICES Web Developers Jefferson de Joya Abbas Madh Photographers Max Poriechkin Charls Thomas webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100 DIGITAL www.resellerme.com Printed by Printwell Printing Press

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

3

HIGHLIGHTS

Dell EMC launches new partner programme

D

ell EMC has previewed the new Dell EMC Partner Programme, which is set to formally become effective in February 2017.

Designed in collaboration with partners and drawing from the best aspects of the former Dell and EMC partner programmes, the Dell EMC Partner Programme, according to the company, will provide unprecedented business opportunity for partners and reaffirms its strong commitment to the channel.

Built on three core tenets—to be “Simple, Predictable and Profitable”—the new programme is aimed at ensuring that partners have ample opportunity, business confidence and commensurate profitability regardless of their programme tier.

In December, Dell EMC will announce tier thresholds for partners, providing a full six months for partners to ramp up to the new criteria. Programme tiers,

4

developed to elevate Dell EMC The Dell EMC Partner partners over competitors Programme will go live 1st and establish a clear path to February 2017, with further up-level, will include Gold, details being announced in Platinum and Titanium, as well the coming months. “The as an exclusive, Titanium Black new Dell EMC Partner partner tier for the highest Programme will bring together performing partners. Tier levels two great programs into one align with key business models extraordinary programme John Byrne, Dell EMC of partners, enabling flexibility that enables our partners to where needed to meet customer needs. leverage our industry-leading portfolio and Benefits will include generous rebates for accelerate their business quickly,” said channel partners who drive new business, John Byrne, President, Global Channel, attach services, sell the full portfolio and Dell EMC. “The growth Dell EMC is offer the portfolio exclusively. experiencing in the channel is a brilliant According to Dell EMC, the expansive illustration of our mutual success to date, programme will encompass its entire and the new programme is purpose-built partner ecosystem, inclusive of solution to continue to fuel this momentum. This providers, cloud service providers, global programme provides that transparency alliances, OEM solutions partners and while ensuring predictability and distribution. As part of this full ecosystem profitability. The opportunities to win big strategy, included as well is the “Powered with this programme and with Dell EMC

by Dell EMC” brand programme for are extraordinary. Our goal is to excite those businesses that embed Dell EMC and delight this amazing and powerful technologies into the marketplace. partner community.”

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

HIGHLIGHTS

Splunk partners with Redington Value for META Redington Value has announced an agreement Ramkumar Balakrishnan, with Splunk, Redington Value provider of the leading software platform for real-time Operational Intelligence, to become a distributor of the company’s solutions.

The VAD will distribute Splunk products through its extensive network of channel partners to enterprise and government customers throughout the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

“Redington Value is excited to announce its distribution partnership with Splunk. The Splunk Platform delivers real-time Operational Intelligence, which is essential for businesses needing to make analytics-based decisions,” said Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value.

“With data being generated everywhere, from the IT estate to the Internet of Things, it has become

increasingly important to monitor, analyse and drive value from data. Our collaboration with Splunk represents a strategic addition to our existing portfolio and supports one of our key initiatives: enabling the channel to provide cutting-edge technology to the market,” added Balakrishnan.

Through the agreement, Splunk products such as Splunk Enterprise, Splunk Cloud, Splunk enterprise Security, Splunk IT Service Intelligence and Splunk Light will be available to Redington Value resellers.

“Splunk is pleased to work with Redington Value, one of the leading distributors in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa,” said Cheryln Chin, Vice President, Global Partners, Splunk. “Redington Value’s regional experience, technical expertise and strong relationships across our ecosystem will help organisations leverage machine data for deeper IT and business insights.”

QNAP, Redington Gulf partner for ME market development Jeetendra Berry, Redington Gulf and Tim Chen, QNAP

QNAP Systems has recently announced a partnership with Redington Gulf, a subsidiary of Redington India, to develop the Middle East NAS market and to boost its market share.

QNAP and Redington Gulf signed a distribution agreement covering the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The signing ceremony took place on 5th October 2016 in BurJuman Arjaan, Dubai.

“We are delighted to cooperate with QNAP to develop the Middle East market and bring comprehensive NAS solutions and versatile applications to

both home and business users,” said Jeetendra Berry, Vice President, Volume Division of Redington Gulf.

Under the agreement, Redington Gulf is now an authorised partner for the full-spectrum QNAP NAS products.

“The demand for NAS is booming in the Middle East market, and QNAP will strive to gain a dominant market share through widespread channels and localised customer service. The Middle East is one of the key target markets for QNAP sales penetration, and we are honored to have such a strong and renowned partner like Redington Gulf.

We are looking forward to a win-win situation with notable market growth together,” said Tim Chen, GCC Territory Sales Manager, QNAP.

Eaton partners with Mindware for GCC IT distribution Eaton and Mindware have signed a distribution partnership for its complete portfolio of power Karim Refas, Eaton management products across Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE. Under the agreement, Mindware will be responsible for the distribution of Eaton’s Power Infrastructure Solutions, including virtualisation-ready uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), rack mountable power distribution units (ePDU), and Intelligent Power Manager (IPM) software.

“This partnership represents a significant development for Eaton in our channel strategy,” said Karim Refas, Regional Channel Manager, Eaton Middle East. “We are confident that Mindware’s access to distribution networks across the GCC, together with Eaton’s range of Power Management Solutions, the partnership brings a strong proposition to the market.”

“We are delighted to team up with Eaton, one of the most reputable names in the power management arena,” said Nicholas Argyrides, Chief of Sales and Marketing and Deputy General Manager, Mindware.

“Always keeping in mind our channel partners’ needs and requirements, we feel that the Eaton line of products further complement Mindware’s existing infrastructure solutions portfolio.

We are looking forward to a fruitful partnership.”

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

5

HIGHLIGHTS

AlJammaz Distribution partners with STC Business

O

n the sidelines of its participation in GITEX 2016, STC Business Division has announced its partnership with the Saudi-based value-added distributor, AlJammaz Technology Distribution, which distributes advanced technology products, solutions and services in the areas of data centres, cloud, virtualisation, infrastructure, security, Unified Communications, mobility and broadband access as well as managing and developing IT channels.

This agreement enables STC Business to establish reseller community and recruit IT channel in Saudi to market and sell STC Business products and services and have a market coverage to reach all customers specially the SMEs around the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

On this occasion, Dr. Tariq Mohammed Enaya, Senior Vice President, STC Group Business said, “This agreement with AlJammaz Technology Distribution will enable us to reach our SME customers in all parts

of the Kingdom through IT resellers and system integrators. They will provide our services and solutions as part of their turnkey IT solutions to their endusers, making it easy for end-users’ SMEs to have a complete solution from information technology, data connectivity and cloud with high efficiency and in a short period of time from one source so they can focus on their business.”

Asim Saud Aljammaz, CEO, AlJammaz Distribution, said, “We are very happy from this partnership with STC business and proud that they have selected AlJammaz Distribution as STC Business Distributor. This agreement will open new horizons of business and

Boltt signs Trigon as UAE distributor

(L-R) Aayushi Kishore, Boltt, Arun Chawla, Trigon and Arnav Kishore, Boltt

Boltt has recently announced that it signed a partnership with Trigon to be its exclusive country distributor for UAE. Under the agreement, Trigon will be responsible for distributing Boltt’s range of products. “The market for wearable devices in both autonomous and passive categories has exploded in the UAE over the past couple of years, and we wanted the best-in-industry representation of our products. With Trigon, we feel we have a synergetic partnership. Trigon, knows the customer

6

base inside-out, and we can look forward to satisfying the customers’ desire for innovative wearables,” said Arnav Kishore, CEO, Boltt.

Arun Chawla, CEO, Trigon, said, “The UAE is paying attention to the ill-effects of obesity, and we will help the people achieve their fitness goals by making our state-of-the-art products easily available to them through our partnership. Trigon has excellent reach in the UAE to give our buyers a great product experience, from pre-sales to customer support.”

Boltt specialises in health and fitness technologies. Its product portfolio uses technology to gather metrics from the user’s activity. The company has developed wearable technology trackers like ‘smart bands’ and ‘stride sensors,’ that are powered by a virtual health coach which provides real-time audio feedback and interactive health

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

opportunities for IT resellers and system integrators in Saudi Arabia to provide advanced and complete integrated solutions. Today, IT companies will be able to provide comprehensive solutions to their SME customers in infrastructure, hardware, software, connectivity between branches and mobile teams, Internet, backup connectivity, information security and more. In the near future, this agreement will also support and enable IT resellers and systems integrator to transform their business model to the new technology trends through the data centres operated and managed by STC around the kingdom.”

coaching, depending on the activity and lifestyle of the user.

“The wide reach of Trigon, combined with their excellent customer service, complements the Boltt ideology. They have deep-rooted channels of sale ranging from power retailers, hyper markets to healthcare chains and Dubai’s famous duty-free market. We are fortunate to have such a strong partner in the UAE because they are veterans of the market and have their fingers on the pulse of the customer base,” said Aayushi Kishore, Co-Founder, Boltt.

$40 BN – VALUE OF GLOBAL MARKET FOR MACHINE LEARNING APPLICATIONS BY 2020

SOURCE: IDC

We have achieved our goals and more with Laserfiche.

It has enabled other applications to work hand-in-hand together with it.

Using Laserfiche,we have gone the extra mile.

Niyas Abdulrahiman Chief IT Advisor Aspire Zone Foundation

Enjoy life. Let Laserfiche connect you everywhere.

Don’t let anything stop you from accessing your information. By saving time and linking relevant data, Laserfiche allows users to see and analyze content that wasn’t readily available. Seamlessly integrate other third-party applications without any programming.

To learn more, please email us at ecm@laserfiche.com

laserfiche.com

HIGHLIGHTS

Spectrami expands operations to Northern Europe

S

pectrami has announced the Anand Choudha, Managing on increasing revenues.

Director, Spectrami. successful implementation Nicola Quincey, Quincey has a of its strategic geographical Sales Director, Northern expansion plans to Northern background in security Europe, said, “I’m pleased European markets with new recruitment and having worked for to announce Spectrami integrators, vendors and local presence. is bringing its hugely and distribution she Adding to the Spectrami team is successful Vendor Nicola Quincey, who has been appointed understands the Extension model to the UK requirements of all parties in Anand Choudha, as the Sales Director – Northern Europe and European markets.

Spectrami the channel model. for the management and execution of The company’s innovative She has also worked for large the next steps in the making.

‘Vendor Extension’ model allows organisations such as Microsoft where “Since its inception, Spectrami vendors of all sizes to recognise she was part of the team responsible for had a plan and vision to become significant revenue growth across the Enterprise and a VAD with multiple international theatres by Partner group sales footprint and drawing on our highly skilled technical Since its and operational operations across and operational teams to complement inception, strategy. More Europe, Middle and expand any existing geographic Spectrami had recently she has East and Africa footprint they may have. worked with both, (EMEA). The “Spectrami is now, the gateway a plan and large vendors and Northern Europe for new and existing vendors in UK, vision to become a VAD startups to help operations European and Middle East markets, define their go to headquartered in with footprint and delivering real value to vendors and market strategies, the UK is the first operations across ensuring the reseller community is messaging and step to expansion completely de-risked when taking on Europe, Middle East sales strategy, out of the middle the new and innovative technologies always with an eye east region,” said and Africa (EMEA).” that today’s customers demand.”

Certes extends Exclusive Networks partnership to ME Certes Networks, a provider of software-defined security solutions to protect enterprise applications, has expanded its partnership with Exclusive Networks to include distribution within the Middle East.

Building upon the existing partnership with Exclusive Networks France and Exclusive Networks UK, the agreement will see Exclusive Networks promote Certes’ award-winning CryptoFlow Solutions in the Middle East market.

As part of Certes’ move to accelerate its global growth, the partnership will involve Exclusive Networks continuing to build on its campaign of marketing, events and lead generation activity to support solution providers and resellers delivering Certes’ CryptoFlow Solutions, and providing insight into the benefits they will bring for enterprises.

Bernie Dodwell, EMEA Business Development and Channel Director, Certes Networks, says, “The extension of this distribution partnership with Exclusive Networks Middle East is a reflection of the cross-continental direction of our channel strategy. The existing relationships with Exclusive Networks UK and France are already supporting this move, and now continuing this growth into another region mirrors the global demand for CryptoFlow solutions.”

CryptoFlow Solutions, according to the company, complement the model of the Exclusive Networks CARM (Cyber Attack Remediation and Mitigation) initiative seamlessly.

Hinde Liepmannsohn, Head of Marketing, Exclusive Networks Middle East, adds, “Working with Certes Networks on an additional continent

is a testament to the strength of its offering and shows how it can faultlessly be integrated into another market. We are looking forward to continuing to raise awareness of the cybersecurity issues currently facing the Middle East market and solving them to shrink the increasingly growing attack surface.”

68.9M

UNITS – TOTAL NUMBER OF PC SHIPMENTS WORLDWIDE DURING Q3 2016, A 5.7 PERCENT DECLINE FROM THE THIRD QUARTER OF 2015

SOURCE: GARTNER

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

9

HIGHLIGHTS

FDC International Cisco, GBM showcases receives versatility of Apple solutions accolade from WD

D

Saif Khawaja and Stephen Milligan, WD; and Dr FB Safe and Marissa Safe, FDC

Dubai-based IT distributor FDC International has announced that it received an accolade from Western Digital for its overall business performance during the vendor’s 2016 Executive Partner Summit held in Prague.

FDC highlighted that the award cements its status as one of the top IT distribution houses in the MENA region and reinforces the commitment it shares towards growing the storage business in the region. “This award recognises FDC’s outstanding performance and accomplishments on Internal Drives in the MENA region,” said Dr FB Safe, CEO, FDC. “We are glad to be part of the success for our vendor (WD) and we are ready to repeat the performance year after year.”

In addition to more than 15 years of successful relationship with Western Digital (WD), FDC International also distributes a full suite of products including notebooks, tablets, hard drives, motherboards, graphic cards, optical storage drive, digital storage, networking products, security software, servers and memory comprising of brands such as Acer, AMD, Apacer, Asrock, Asus, ECS, Geil, Huawei, ilife, Intel, Lenovo, Liteon, Ricoh, Seagate, Shuttle, Synology, TP-Link, Viewsonic and XFX.

10

uring GITEX Technology Week, last month, Cisco along with its channel partner Gulf Business Machines (GBM), showcased various solutions built around the Apple enterprise product portfolio.

At the event GBM educated visitors on how Apple’s business strategy, consultancy and implementation services can help regional businesses improve mobile productivity, enhance mobile efficiency and be responsive to customer interactions.

“Businesses everywhere and in every category are reinventing themselves. They are becoming digital, software-driven and mobile-centric. Apple and Cisco are responding to this need by creating the very best app and voice experience for iPhone and iPad on corporate networks.

With new features in iOS 10 and the latest network software and hardware from Cisco, businesses can leverage their infrastructure to deliver a great user

experience,” said Frida Kleimert, Head of Channel and Commercial Hani Nofal, GBM Sales, Cisco UAE. Cisco and GBM focused on three areas for Apple solutions: networking, voice, and collaboration. The different offerings showcased at the event include optimising Wi-Fi connectivity, prioritising business apps and integrating voice and collaboration with Cisco Spark.

“In the current environment of relentless transformation around business models and enabling technologies, enterprises want a much broader choice of solutions and platforms, where the mobile customer interface needs to be more versatile and adaptable for business needs. This was a key reason why GBM aligned with Apple enterprise solutions and mobility,” explained Hani Nofal, Vice President, Intelligent Network Solutions, Security and Mobility, GBM.

Granteq Distribution strengthens solution offerings Granteq Distribution, during its recent participation at GITEX, has presented its latest offerings across product lines.

The Regional AV distributor, during the show, focused on its extended range of CTOUCH Laser Air+ Interactive Flat Panels models suited for classrooms and meetings. The large format interactive displays are equipped with high specifications and come in sizes that include 55-inch, 65-inch, 70-inch, 75-inch, 84-inch and 98-inch. The newly extended CTOUCH range, Laser Air+, can be used across verticals.

The distributor also highlighted its video cloud-based conferencing system coupled with solutions such as telemedicine cart from AMD. Girish Narayanan, MD, Granteq Distribution, said, “The AMD solutions coupled with Vidyo can be used for advanced patient care.”

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

The company also showcased a product called Girish Narayan, Montage from Granteq Distribution the vendor DisplayNote and offers certain valueadds to these interactive displays.

The DisplayNote software app allows customers to make presentations more interactive.

According to the company, ‘Montage for Meetings’ is a wireless presentation system designed to help customers to make the most of their meetings by eliminating time wasted messing with cables, passing screens and wondering if everyone can connect.

Partners can look forward to continued training initiatives, both on ground and through online platforms from the distributor.

HIGHLIGHTS

Help AG, Ixia enter reseller agreement Help AG has recently signed a reseller agreement with Ixia.

According to both companies, the agreement makes Help AG the only Ixia Elite Partner in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region and enables the company to offer the vendor’s technologies for network visibility and security testing.

Stephan Berner, CEO, Help AG said, “Visibility is the key driver of information security today. Organisations can only make informed decisions if they first know what is actually going on in their IT infrastructures. With the complexity of applications and networks scaling at an exponential rate, the need for technologies that deliver fine-grain visibility while still remaining easy to manage is growing. With Ixia, we can offer businesses the technologies that meet both these criteria.”

Building on its strong penetration into the government Stephan Berner, Help AG and large enterprise market segments, Help AG intends to drive adoption of Ixia products in the banking and finance, government, and oil and gas verticals.

The SI will leverage Ixia’s network visibility and security test solutions to strengthen its Zero-Trust Security Architecture. In the initial phase of the relationship, the companies will focus on serving customers in the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia as these are the leading regional IT markets in terms of maturity and cyber risk.

To ensure value addition for customers, Help AG’s engineers and consultants have been fully trained and certified by Ixia with the required

We’re thrilled to have Help AG join our Channel Xcelerate programme as an Elite partner. It’s a pleasure to work with an organisation that shares Ixia’s vision of alliances built on mutual trust, with the ultimate goal of helping customers.” hands-on experience “We’re thrilled to have Help AG join our Channel Xcelerate programme as an Elite partner,” said Derek Jackman, EMEA Regional Director, Ixia. “It’s a pleasure to work with an organisation that shares Ixia’s vision of alliances built on mutual trust, with the ultimate goal of helping customers.”

axiom telecom introduces ‘Tech Squad’ service

axiom telecom has announced the launch of its new ‘Tech Squad’ service, which aims to provide UAE residents technical support at their home or their office.

According to axiom, the unique service is the first-of-its-kind in the UAE, bringing international best practice in customer support to the Emirates.

“So many of our daily tasks rely on the seamless functionality of our mobile devices, making it important

that a handset or tablet that requires troubleshooting is restored both quickly and conveniently,” said axiom telecom CEO Fahad Al Bannai. “With ‘Tech Squad’, we can make the process of getting your device service as easy and hassle-free as possible.”

Customers facing issues with their mobile device can call a dedicated tollfree helpline ‘800-SQUAD (77823)’ and receive instant support. If the problem can’t be solved over the phone, then the Support Centre will dispatch an expert technician – complete with a fully equipped ‘mobile lab’ – to the customer’s doorstep.

The service costs just AED 349 per

year and includes five support requests and three onsite visits. The service is currently offered in the main areas of Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Sharjah.

“Finding this level of service in the UAE is hard to come by,” said Al Bannai. “With one of the highest levels of smartphone users in the world, we expect our ‘Tech Squad’ agents to be constantly driving around the streets and serving our customers.”

80%

OF NETWORK TRAFFIC WILL COME FROM STREAMING AUDIO AND VIDEO CONTENT BY 2020

SOURCE: CISCO

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

11

HIGHLIGHTS

Logicom named Microsoft OEM and FPP for entire Gulf region

L

ogicom, a regional distributor of technology solutions and services, has expanded its distribution agreement with Microsoft to include UAE, Kuwait, and Oman, thus covering the entire Gulf region.

The company is now the official distributor for Microsoft original

equipment manufacturer (OEM) and full packaged product (FPP) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait and Oman.

With this distribution agreement, which was signed on 1st September 2016, the distributor will be able to offer its customer base full access to the latest Microsoft OEM and FPP software, devices, and services.

Logicom has demonstrated a strong commitment towards bringing new business opportunities through excellent logistics, strategic marketing plans and stock availability, increasing Microsoft’s reach to our customers and enabling them to achieve more.”

The company has now added Microsoft-dedicated resources to all its growing local teams.

Peter Irinarchos, General Manager, Logicom UAE and Gulf, said, “We are very pleased to further expand our regional Microsoft Business to include UAE, Kuwait and Oman. Less than a year ago, we began our OEM business in Qatar, quickly followed by an expansion in Bahrain. To be awarded the OEM and FPP distribution to cover the complete Gulf is a significant recognition of the service and value we provide to our ever growing partner network.”

“We are pleased to expand our partnership with Logicom in the Gulf region,” said Lance Thorp, Consumer Channels Group Lead at Microsoft.

“Logicom has demonstrated a strong commitment towards bringing new business opportunities through excellent logistics, strategic marketing plans and stock availability, increasing Microsoft’s reach to our customers and enabling them to achieve more.”

Comstor to offer Cisco Powered cloud services WestconComstor has announced that the company’s Comstor business practice is extending its Renton Dsouza, commitment Comstor Middle East to Cisco Powered Cloud in the Middle East region through a new agreement with CloudHPT. Under the agreement, Comstor will now be offering Cisco Powered Cloud services including Backup asa-Service (BaaS), Disaster Recovery as-a-Service (DRaaS), Infrastructure as-a-Service (IaaS), Desktop as-aService and Database-as-a-Service.

12

According to the company, CloudHPT is the region’s first Cisco Powered Cloud built in the UAE for the Middle East.

“We look forward to combining our talent, technology, expertise with Westcon-Comstor to grow our footprint in the Middle East and North Africa, build relations with valuable partners, and provide our Cisco powered cloud solutions throughout this region,” said Christopher Dalala, Director, CloudHPT. For more than 25 years, Comstor has been committed to helping reseller partners worldwide accelerate their businesses leveraging Cisco solutions across a range of networking, collaboration

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

and data centre technologies. The agreement is the next stage in the companies’ dedicated partnership – made increasingly powerful by depth and breadth of Comstor’s expertise in Cisco technology.

“It’s almost impossible today for our customers to ignore the operational agility and the cost savings of Cloud Services. The addition of Cisco Powered Cloud

by CloudHPT to our portfolio will help our resellers generate recurring revenue by offering these services to their customers,” said Renton Dsouza, Divisional Director, Comstor Middle East. “We’re pleased to expand this portfolio with CloudHPT to continuously demonstrate the power of cloud.”

Optimize Power Management of your IT architecture

In the race to achieve a flexible, scalable and competitive IT environment, one vital component is often forgotten.

Power management.

In reality in today’s high-density, high availability environments a robust, intelligent power management strategy is essential to reap the benefits of your modern infrastructure and protect business continuity.

Build the optimal power management strategy for your IT environment by taking 5 practical steps!

• PROTECT valuable IT assets from power issues • DISTRIBUTE power intelligently • ORGANIZE IT equipment in an IT rack reliably and efficiently • MANAGE the power infrastructure and IT equipment through a single pane of glass • MAINTAIN the power infrastructure for reliability and greater peace of mind

Learn more at www.eaton.ae/optimizedpower Manage power your way. With Eaton.

HIGHLIGHTS

OMA Emirates gains ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management Certification OMA Emirates, a provider of technology solutions for the payment industry, has announced Niranj Sangal, that it OMA Emirates achieved the ISO 9001: 2008 Quality Management System across the organisation.

According to the company, the achievement reiterates its commitment to provide internationally recognised quality and high customer service levels.

The independent evaluation was undertaken by Worldwide Quality Assurance (WQA) and has standardised the company’s organisational policies, process flow, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).

OMA Emirates highlighted that the certification will enable them to raise customer confidence and empower them with higher efficiency and output. “Customer satisfaction and solution excellence have been our on-going priority. The ISO 9001:2008 certification further demonstrates our continued efforts to deliver and maintain stringent quality standards and we are already witnessing a higher customer satisfaction index. We are confident that the Quality Management System coupled with a deeper focus on skills enhancement will boost response to customer requirements and will subsequently have a positive impact on our business growth. I am extremely proud of our team for their all their efforts and dedication in maintaining customer expectations,” said Niranj Sangal, Group CEO, OMA Emirates Group.

14

ASGC partners with Finesse for BI solution deployment

Sunil Paul, Finesse, and Mariam Azmy, ASGC

A

SGC partnered with Finesse to enhance their ability to drive greater value from their information using BI and Analytics solution.

Finesse has implemented Qlik, a business intelligence solution which uses visualisation to depict performance across processes and departments.

The SI has successfully developed the solution using QlikSense and has gone live with the automation of the existing manual consolidation of KPIs for

performance of projects thus minimising the dependency on manual excel based processes. Maged El Hawary, Projects Control Director, ASGC, said, “ASGC was in need of having a simple; yet detailed; dashboard that highlights certain business aspects that are of interest to different Stakeholders. Finesse has delivered on their promise of delivering a dashboard that was tailored to our needs through the utilisation of Qliksense.

Throughout the project implementation period, Finesse has demonstrated great commitment to the project along with great flexibility and innovation in the utilisation of the available data on our systems to drive the desired output and present it all in one customised dashboard. Such results shall help in amending the way we collect and present data and would be of high benefit to view certain performance indicators in an easy, customised and user-friendly interface.”

Alibaba Cloud names new partners to AliLaunch programme Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group, has announced 12 new technology partners to the AliLaunch programme. The addition of the new partners will bring a diverse range of technology solutions and products to companies across various industries, and drive new opportunities within the global cloud computing ecosystem.

The AliLaunch programme serves as an integrated platform for enterprises on Alibaba Cloud to easily deploy software or services and gain convenient access to various technology partners worldwide.

According to the company, partners can leverage a variety of value-added offerings such as joint ventures, marketplace partnerships, wholesaling to capitalise on Alibaba Cloud’s network of 2.3 million customers worldwide. “With the recent introduction of the AliLaunch programme in August, we have continued our commitment to build a robust global cloud computing ecosystem which helps

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

connect developers and partners from different countries on a unified platform.

With more technology partners added to the programme, we look forward to enabling businesses to access an extensive suite of software solutions, and to fostering deeper collaborations between technology partners and our rapidly growing market of international customers,” said Sicheng YU, Vice President of Alibaba Group and General Manager, Alibaba Cloud Global.

Together with 11 existing technology partners listed on AliLaunch, the programme have 23 technology partners from the United States, Europe, Japan and Thailand. The new Global Technology Partners participating in Alibaba Cloud’s marketplaces cover a diversified mix of software products and solutions in different categories. Among the programme’s new partners are: CHEF, GTCOM, TeamViewer, Teridion, NinjaMSP, Axiom IO, BanyanOps, NS1, Cassiopae, Strikingly, OnCam, and Datometry.

HIGHLIGHTS

ForeScout opens regional office in Dubai ForeScout Technologies has recently announced the opening of its Middle East regional office in Dubai.

According to the company, the move is aimed at helping enterprise organisations and government entities protect against the latest cybersecurity threats.

“ForeScout is committed to protecting organisations in the Middle East against the latest IoT security threats,” said Hamed Diab, Regional Director, ForeScout. “ForeScout helps make the invisible visible. Our technology enables customers to see, control and orchestrate devices the instant they connect to a corporate network without requiring software agents or previous device knowledge.”

According to Gartner, the volume of IoT will reach 30 billion devices by 2020. As organisations in the Middle East continue to invest in IoT to help them innovate within their respective industries, including healthcare, financial services and public sector, it is critical that they have a security strategy as these devices find their way onto the corporate network.

The constantly evolving threat landscape means that attacks are becoming more sophisticated and the bad actors are now gaining access to the enterprise through IoT devices that have become the path of least resistance.

To help organisations protect against the latest security threats, ForeScout noted that it provides organisations with continuous monitoring across the most comprehensive set of traditional and IoT devices. The technology automates security controls of at-risk devices, easily integrates with more than 70 network, security, mobility and IT management products to orchestrate system-wide security, and helps organisations optimise on existing security investments.

16

D-Link showcases latest Smart Home solutions

D

-Link, during last month’s GITEX Technology Week, showcased its latest “Home Connect” series.

“The most recent addition to D-Link’s portfolio is our “Home Connect” series, with products using 802.11ah, Z-Wave and Zigbee-based technologies helping people to implement a complete smart home solution,” said Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East. “The “Home Connect” category includes simple-to-use, appenabled cloud products like power management devices, home sensors, cameras, smoke and water detectors, and door and window alarms; all aimed at enhancing and enriching human life.

The company had demonstrated the capabilities of these products at the Smart Home stand throughout the show.

“This range of products is very new to D-Link and is also a very Sakkeer Hussain, D-Link new concept in the market, so customers have told us that they are excited to see the capabilities for themselves at the live demos we are hosting at our stand,” said Hussain.

D-Link has also promoted the use of their mobile app, ‘My D-Link Cloud,’ at this year’s event. “This application configures all of the products on D-Link’s platform, meaning all of the products can be controlled remotely from a smart device,” said Hussain. “Most companies use third party products for this service, but we have created this platform and placed servers in different parts of the world to accommodate this.”

ManageEngine reveals results of ITSM Analytics survey ManageEngine, the real-time IT management company, has announced the results of its survey, ‘Everything You Need to Know About ITSM Analytics: Industry Insight 2016.’

The survey revealed that 85 percent of users believe ITSM analytics will enhance IT service delivery, which includes 36 percent who believe that analytics would improve service desk efficiency and 30 percent who believe it would identify any gaps in the ITSM process. With regard to generating reports, 42.6 percent of users preferred to do it on their own, while 21 percent of them depended on third-party software or other teams.

ManageEngine conducted this survey to get more insight into the trends shaping the ITSM analytics market. The company polled 160 ManageEngine users — including CIOs, managers and technicians from around the globe — on their requirements for an advanced analytics tool to analyse their service desk data.

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

Over the past few years, IT service management Sridhar Iyengar, (ITSM) has ManageEngine become an increasingly important part of an organisation’s IT strategy, and they are seeking new ways to improve IT service delivery and efficiency via better ITSM processes. This makes it all the more important to track and measure critical KPIs. However, due to overwhelmingly large amounts of data, users find it challenging to manually access, track and analyse critical service desk information quickly. Analytics solutions enable users to visually analyse critical information so they can improve IT service delivery.

“While this survey highlights the importance of analytics when it comes to enhancing IT service delivery, it also sheds light on what users expect from an analytics tool,” said Sridhar Iyengar.

HIGHLIGHTS

RheinBrücke IT Consulting receives accolade from Epicor

(L-R) Kendra Vandervoort, Epicor Software, Vetri Selvan and Kenneth Taormina, RheinBrücke, and Hesham El Komy, Epicor Software

RheinBrücke IT Consulting, an enterprise business systems and IT solutions and services company, has been recognised

by Epicor Software as the ‘2016 Epicor International Channel Partner of the Year’ at their recent annual Ignite Global Sales Conference.

An Epicor Platinum partner for Europe, Middle East, Africa and India (EMEAI), RheinBrücke won the award for its contributions in customer support, overall sales growth and innovative approaches to leveraging Epicor ERP solutions.

Hesham El Komy, Senior Director, International Channel, Epicor, said, “We are delighted to have a partner like RheinBrücke that has over seventy-five highly qualified

associates to deliver excellence and inspire customer satisfaction, and in doing so, create the foundation for sustained business growth and enable business transformation to stay ahead of the competition.”

“RheinBrücke’s strong growth in EMEAI can be attributed to the successful execution of our Epicor ERP strategy. In line with Epicor’s strategy of providing industry specific ERP solutions and cloud first deployments, we have invested in a team of solution architects with extensive domain knowledge in Manufacturing, EPC/Construction and Distribution. Between our unrivalled technical capabilities and our focus on the mid-market segment, leveraging our global footprint, today, we have over forty clients in the EMEA region across our service offerings including ALCON, Al Hajery Group, Arabian Industries Group, Bin Hindi Group, Federal Mogul Auto Parts, FLSmidth A/S, Kern und Sohn, Sandoz GmBH and ZF-TRW Automotive,” said Suresh Chandrasekharan, Chief Solutions Architect, RheinBrücke.

Ericsson wins Best IT Supplier of the Year award from Etisalat UAE

Ericsson received the award for the ‘Best IT Supplier of the Year’ during the Etisalat Strategic Suppliers Conference 2016, held recently in Abu Dhabi.

This award is the result of a close partnership between Etisalat and Ericsson over the years.

According to Etisalat, through Ericsson’s innovative OSS/BSS solutions and industry collaborations enables them

to able to offer flexible, personalised and customer-centric offers and services, in an agile manner, to meet distinct subscriber needs and remain in the lead position in the UAE. “We are so pleased to be recognised by our longstanding partner, Etisalat. To meet consumer demands, operators need to keep improving the customer experience, capture new revenues and drive business efficiencies. At Ericsson, we support our customers with state-of-the-art OSS and BSS solutions to ensure they offer superior services to delight their customers,” said Petter Järtby Head of Global Customer Unit Etisalat, Ericsson Middle East.

Veritas announces new data management offerings Veritas Technologies has announced its new vision for its data management platform Mark Coats, Veritas through a sweeping range of new solutions for cloud data management designed to help organisations in the Middle East as they transform into digital businesses.

The company highlighted that the new Vision and solutions address the three foundational pillars for comprehensive enterprise data management: data protection, data availability and data insight. With its new cloud data management solutions, Veritas will help organisations in the region manage the IT complexity of hybrid clouds with new capabilities that help them drive more value from their data while reducing cost and business risk.

“We are delighted to announce the launch of our data management platform across the Middle East to help our customers on their digital transformation journey. The Middle East is a growing market where customers are transforming their businesses to new digital platforms and asking for help to solve the data management obstacles that come along with this growth,” said Mark Coates, Emerging Markets Leader, Veritas. “The Veritas State of Hybrid Cloud research shows that today organisations leverage more than two hybrid cloud environments which highlights the need for them to ensure that their data is protected across physical, virtual and hybrid cloud environments.”

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

17

HIGHLIGHTS

Ethos Technologies partners with HOB and Storage Made Easy

E

thos Technologies, a technology distributor headquartered in Dubai, has recently announced partnerships with two European-based vendors: HOB and Storage Made Easy.

HOB is a German-engineered company comprising of competencies in server-based computing, secure remote access, VoIP and virtualisation. The partnership with Ethos will help distribute the company’s secure access solutions in the Middle East and Pakistan.

“The partnership with HOB is an important step in our drive to become a value-added solutions distributor offering a variety of complimentary solutions that are unique to Ethos,” said Mohammed Masood, CEO, Ethos Technologies. “With our distribution agreement covering the entire Middle East and Pakistan region

further confirms our commitment and strength towards our vendors in giving them a broad expansion to this region.”

Storage Made Easy is wholly owned

by Vehera, a private London based limited company. Vehera has offices in the United Kingdom, United States, Ukraine, Moldova and Switzerland. SME’s solutions include the Enterprise File Share and Sync Fabric, which enables IT teams to unify private and public file sharing into a single, converged storage infrastructure that can be easily managed and used to set governance and audit controls.

Storage Made Easy Solution currently supports more than 50 private and public data clouds and services such as Amazon S3, SwiftStack, EMC Atmos, Scality, Cloudian, SharePoint, DropBox, SalesForce, Office 365, OpenStack, Cleversafe, and others.

Jim Liddle, CEO, Storage Made Easy, said, “We continue to expand our global channel sales with key distribution agreements. To that end, we are very pleased to be working with Ethos in distributing our software into the territories they support.”

The partnership with HOB is an important step in our drive to become a valueadded solutions distributor offering a variety of complimentary solutions that are unique to Ethos.”

Red Vault – Forging Solutions for the future.

Red Vault is the name of Redington Value’s state-ofthe-art innovation centers spread across UAE, KSA, Kenya and Nigeria. We can leverage these centers for showcasing the latest technologies to the partner and end customer communities. Connected to our specialized training centers, the Red Vault shows technology in action and bring technology closer than ever.

Visit Redington Value office to experience technology at your fingertips with Red Vault’s transparent, interactive interface.

Schedule a Demo today.

# Catalyzingtransformation www.redingtonvalue.com | sales.value@redingtonmea.com

HIGHLIGHTS

Xerox unveils Conduent’s new global brand identity

X

client’s needs, delivery erox has excellence and a set of announced the core values – all in service latest milestone of creating more consistent in its plan to experiences and returns for separate into two our stakeholders.” independent, publiclyAccording to Xerox, the traded companies – name Conduent is inspired unveiling the global brand by the company’s expertise identity of Conduent Ashok Vemuri, Conduent in managing transactional Incorporated, its business relationships between their clients and process services company. their constituents in areas like customer “Our brand identity signifies core care, transportation solutions, ideas behind our company and the healthcare, and digital payments. value we create for our clients,” The company highlighted that said Ashok Vemuri, CEO, Conduent the bold typeface conveys stability following the company’s separation. and complements the symbol while “Both enterprises and governments acknowledging a 30-year history are seeking ways to improve and supporting the critical operations modernise the way they interact of businesses and governments. A with their constituents and clients. connection between the “N” and the We are forming a company built “T” in the typeface of “Conduent” around an unwavering focus on our

reinforces that the constituent is at the core of the company’s business model. The connected letters also draw the reader’s eye to this unique pronunciation of the coined name.

With approximately $7 billion USD in 2015 revenue and 93,000 employees worldwide, Conduent will be a Fortune 500 scale business process services company with expertise in transaction-intensive processing, analytics and automation. Conduent’s differentiated offerings touch millions of lives every day, including two-thirds of all insured patients in the US and nearly 9 million people who travel through toll systems daily.

Conduent expects to be separated from Xerox by year-end 2016. The transaction is subject to final approval

by Xerox’s board of directors, among other conditions.

Emitac Enterprise Solutions revamps brand identity but also on our investors, Regional systems integrator, partners and our employees Emitac Enterprise Solutions, as well.” has utilised GITEX as a The overhaul to its platform to unveil its new identity comes at a time brand identity. The 40-year when the company is old company has revamped looking to go to the next all aspects beginning from level to offer services the logo and website to even Basel Samara, Emitac beyond traditional systems its offerings.

Enterprise Solutions integration. Today the SI “Our vision over the last is focusing on managed and cloud 40 years has helped our customers services businesses. to achieve their corporate goals.

Samara says, “If you look at the Today our aim is take Emitac to the new company logo, the letter ‘E’ next level to provide excellence to incorporates all the letters of Emitac customers in the true sense. To attain and the colours are designed in a this, we need to elevate ourselves in beautiful, eye-catching style. The green terms of delivery and quality,” says and grey increases the sharpness of Basel Samara, Vice President, Sales, the yellow telling the customers that we Emitac Enterprise Solutions. “Our new have multipurpose options. identity is about reinventing ourselves “Along with managed and cloud to power growth for our customers. services, we are also focusing on Our objective is to be the leader in IT application management services. in providing solutions and services for our customers. This will have a positive We believe the services industry is important. We will be helping effect not only on our customers

customers with a lot of cost-cutting through our services.”

The company believes GITEX is the perfect timing and platform to announce its new brand identity, considering the exhibition boasts a large number of C-level visitors.

“Hundreds of international and local companies exhibit at and visit GITEX. It is the best platform to launch our new identity.”

The philosophy behind the rebranding is the “belief that defies the ordinary”.

He adds, “We aim to articulate this belief into reality to achieve excellence that encompasses the Emitac brand. Our message is that we are here to add value, to innovate and create, and we are here to service you with excellence.”

The company has also on boarded several senior executives to drive its new focused offerings around cloud and managed services.

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

21

APPOINTMENTS

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS RSA names new VP for EMEA operations

Jonathan Gill, RSA EMEA

RSA, the Security Division of EMC has named Jonathan Gill as the Vice President for its Europe, Middle-East

and Africa operations.

According to the company, the appointment continues its transformation to become an organisation well-positioned to lead in the unfolding new world order of business-driven security.

With more than 25 years’ experience in global enterprise security leadership, Gill has a proven track record of success in creating and executing sales strategies that drive incremental business growth and customer value. In this role, he will leverage his experience to drive sales growth and customer satisfaction in the EMEA region. Most recently, Gill served as Executive Vice President for Global Sales at Veracode following leadership and sales roles at CA, Arcot and IBM. “This is an exciting time to join RSA as it focuses to deliver business-driven security to organisations looking to more directly align their security strategy with a broader business impact,” said Gill. “The company obviously has a long and successful track record in delivering customer value and I am truly excited by the opportunity to further align our business to the requirements of our EMEA customers and partners.”

22

Ericsson announces new President and CEO Ericsson has announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Börje Ekholm President and CEO effective 16th January 2017.

He will also remain a member of the Board of Directors of Ericsson.

Ekholm joins Ericsson from his current position as CEO of Patricia Industries, a division within Investor. Prior to assuming this position in 2015, he held the position as President and CEO of Investor AB between 2005 and 2015.

Previous positions also include President of Investor Growth Capiwtal Inc., as well as positions with Novare Kapital AB and McKinsey & Co. “I am very excited about this opportunity,” said Ekholm. “As the networks and applications become

even more important in a 5G connected world, our customers, and Börje Ekholm, Ericsson the industry, look for continuous innovation. I look forward to joining the great team at Ericsson and work closely with existing and new customers around the world in shaping the future of our industry.”

Börje Ekholm is a member of the Board of Directors for Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, Alibaba, NASDAQ OMX Group, and Trimble Navigation. He is also a member of the University Board of KTH Royal Institute of Technology.

Jan Frykhammar will remain interim CEO until 16th January 2017.

Mindware names new Chief of Sales and Deputy GM Mindware has announced the appointment of Nicholas Nicholas Argyrides, Argyrides as the Mindware IT distributor’s new Chief of Sales and Marketing and Deputy General Manager.

Argyrides previously served as the General Manager of Logicom Dubai until 2010 and as the Managing Director of EMPA Middle East, before returning back to Logicom as the Group Director of Sales and Marketing in 2013. His professional career experience mostly revolves around IT distribution across the Middle East and South Eastern Europe.

Having joined Mindware at a very important time, Argyrides believes that the company’s main challenge is balancing the channel and vendor requirements in a profitable manner for the distributor.

“Given the rather harsh commercial

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

climate the region is recently undergoing, such task requires the careful handling of credit availability to the market and the close alignment with both partners and suppliers,” he said. “I am confident that, with the help of the Mindware team, I will be able to contribute my part to the future accomplishments of this fine organisation.”

Regarding the distributor’s 2017 development plans, Argyrides hinted towards both the horizontal (based on geography) and vertical (based on technologies/vendor portfolio) expansion of Mindware along with projects such as a Cloud Marketplace and Client Services also running in parallel. “It is worth noting here that the recent grim business climate in the region has been, definitely, contributing to the surfacing some significant commercial opportunities and, at Mindware, we certainly have our radars focused on a number of such prospects,” he added.

An overview of the latest people movement within the IT channel business.

Kaspersky Lab appoints new MD for META region Kaspersky Lab has announced the appointment of Maxim Frolov as its new Managing Director for the META region (Middle East, Turkey and Africa).

In this role, Frolov will be responsible for growing Maxim Frolov, the business within more Kaspersky Lab than 60 countries across the territory. He looks to strengthen the company’s leadership in the region, by establishing partner relationships and promoting new offerings for enterprise and SMB organisations.

“Kaspersky Lab focuses on turning its expertise into effective award-winning solutions and services, and helping customers protect what’s important

to them. There is still a lot of improvement needed in the area of cybersecurity in this fast developing region, so together with our local partners, we will work on making the Internet safer for users by providing solutions and raising awareness about cyberthreats,” said Frolov.

Frolov brings vast experience from the IT sector spanning sales, marketing, and primarily distribution roles. His previous experience includes working at Microsoft Russia as SMB Director.

Prior to that, he worked at Seagate Technology for 10 years, where he rose from Sales Representative to Managing Director of Russia and the CIS countries.

Zebra Technologies gets a CTO on-board Zebra Technologies Corporation has announced that Tom Bianculli, Zebra the appointment Technologies of Tom Bianculli to its newly created Chief Technology Officer (CTO) position to advance its standing in the growing market of Enterprise Asset Intelligence (EAI).

The appointment of Bianculli to CTO, according to Zebra, is a strategic move to address increasing demand for visibility solutions and expand the impact of its innovation across industries, giving companies unprecedented visibility into operations so they can make better realtime decisions to drive growth, improve productivity and achieve higher levels of customer service.

Anders Gustafsson, CEO, Zebra Technologies, said, “The formation of the Chief Technology Officer position is a

We are committed to building solutions that enhance real-time visibility for our customers and partners, and Bianculli’s leadership as our new CTO will help make this happen.” company first for Zebra. We believe that this underscores our deep commitment to innovation and growth. Bianculli was an ideal fit for this role as he has been an integral part of advancing Enterprise Asset Intelligence. We are committed to building solutions that enhance real-time visibility for our customers and partners, and Bianculli’s leadership as our new CTO will help make this happen.”

StarLink advances European expansion with key appointment StarLink has announced that as part of its planned investments to expand across the rest of EMEA, it has appointed Avinash Advani, Avinash Advani StarLink as Senior Vice President, Strategic Alliances and International Markets.

In his new role, Advani will focus from the company’s newly opened Central London office, on expanding all markets outside the Middle East, including its presence in Europe, the US, Africa and Turkey.

Advani was formerly Vice President, Business Strategy at StarLink’s Dubai Headquarters, and is responsible for driving strategic objectives across the organisation, focusing on portfolio evolution, geographical expansion, strategic partnerships, and strategic customer development.

“Becoming a multi-national organisation, and being closer to our vendors are essential parts of our mission statement,” said Advani. “In the pursuit of these goals, I am thrilled to spearhead our international expansion by replicating our true VAD business model into the UK, and then progressively covering the rest of Europe. Several vendors have already extended our distribution contracts across EMEA in support of our expansion efforts, and we have initiated an aggressive recruitment drive for various functions including sales, systems engineers, channel managers and inside sales. Our strategy for the remainder of this year is to increase awareness about StarLink’s leading technologies and valueadded capabilities within the UK channel and customer communities.”

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

23

Elo Interactive Digital Signage Create the Right Customer Experience.

Elo touch displays are attractive, professional-grade and durable, delivering the right digital experience with functionality you can depend on. Stunning Full HD multi-touch screens with beacon and gesture capabilities, perfect for use in retail and hospitality environments.

Stylish and thin

Optional computer modules and other useful accessories

Various sizes 10”-70”

Book your meeting with us now!

Call: +32 470 10 25 45 or Email: elosales.meta@elotouch.com

Elo Touch

Elo Touch Solutions

@EloEMEA

© 2016 Elo Touch Solutions. Elo and the Elo logo are registered trademarks and EloView is a trademark of Elo Touch Solutions. 16101BEA00034

APPOINTMENTS

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS Silver Peak announces executive management appointments Silver Peak has announced the appointments of four new executive leaders as the company carries out its service provider go-to-market strategy.

The company noted that it will be enabling service providers to address the increasing customer demand for managed SD-WAN services with a complete range of turn-key SD-WAN solutions that can be monetised today and offer extensibility to deliver incremental value in the future.

New leadership appointments include: • Shayne Stubbs, Vice President, Global Service Provider Sales, • Nav Chander, Senior Director, Service Provider Marketing • Bob Rodio, Vice President and Chief Technologist, Service Provider

• Maurice Abécassis, Director, EMEA Service Provider Sales The new service provider leadership team will focus on accelerating market penetration and empowering service providers to bring new managed SD-WAN services to market quickly to expand and grow their customer base and identify new revenue streams.

Silver Peak SD-WAN solutions enable service chaining for WAN optimisation, network infrastructure and security products. Service providers can deliver comprehensive and agile SD-WAN solutions to enterprise customers today and seamlessly address future technology deployments.

Tata Communications introduces new President of Global Sales Tata Communications has appointed James Parker as James Parker, its new President Tata Communications of Global Sales.

In his new role, Parker will be responsible for leading the company’s global sales organisation across all customer segments.

According to the company, Parker has an impressive track record in driving business transformation within the software and telecommunications industries across both developed and emerging markets. His leadership career has spanned sales, commercial and marketing roles in companies including CenturyLink, Microsoft and IBM. In these roles he has successfully built and developed high performing leadership

teams to deliver profitable growth on a sustainable basis.

James Parker, EVP and President, Global Sales, Tata Communications, said, “It is a really exciting time to be joining the Tata Communications team. The exponential growth of connected devices, emergence of social media, analytics, cloud computing together with widespread BYOD, all play a part in a major transition in the way businesses engage with technology and evolve their own business models. Tata Communications is at the heart of powering all of this. With a worldclass global network and strong portfolio of services, it has built an unparalleled foundation, upon which there is massive potential to unleash performance and growth.”

Paladion appoints new EVP and Regional Head for EMEA

Amit Roy, Paladion

Paladion has announced the appointment of Amit Roy as its new Executive Vice President and Regional

Head for EMEA. Roy is one of the founding members for Paladion’s operations in the Middle East and has been with the company for over 12 years. He will now head company’s business operations across Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and will be responsible for continuing Paladion’s impressive growth, overseeing sales operations and increasing the company’s presence across the region.

“Paladion has spearheaded several cybersecurity initiatives in its 16 years to combat ever evolving cyber threats,” said Roy. “I have witnessed, firsthand, for more than a decade how our teams have adapted their cyber defence techniques and mechanisms to changing technologies, attack strategies, evolving malware, evasion techniques and more to protect our customers from cybercriminals.

Paladion is at the height of its innovation with its ‘CyberActive Threat Defense and Response’ model; a cyber defense model that is constantly innovating and a security design that enables analysts to think like attackers and respond in a coordinated manner. I am excited to be leading the charge to bring this service to the Middle East.”

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

25

OPINION // SOPHOS

SYNCHRONISED SECURITY Harish Chib, Vice President Middle East and Africa, Sophos, explains how channel partners can play a critical role in easing security pains for CSOs and help achieve synchronised security.

T

he IT security and protection environment for end-users has become progressively complex. Industry researches and surveys increasingly indicate that Chief Security Officers (CSOs) are seeing reduced returns in their security environments due to the growing complexity of solutions.

In a recent statement, Joe Levy, Chief Technology Officer at Sophos, points out there is no such thing as perfect prevention. “Conventional wisdom in information assurance tells us to assemble best of breed network and endpoint components into arrays of controls that will provide some reasonable measure of defence in depth. While the practice is correct in its ingredients, the recipe is lacking.”

In other words, end-users are forced to adapt deployed security solutions to deliver the results they desire. And if they do not, they pay a price every day in terms of missed cues that might have led to attack prevention, response delays due to lack of information, or too much information leading to IT departments getting overwhelmed.

This is an opportunity for the security vendor and channel partners to enter end-user security environments with solutions whose components

26

talk to each other and help reduce the complexity of security management.

Network firewalls that talk to endpoints and endpoints that alert firewalls when they are compromised, is an example.

An integrated approach of security components talking, sharing and working with each other is the need of the hour.

Channel partners need to recognise that some of the biggest challenges CSOs are facing are connecting the dots between isolated events and alerts. Incident reporting and tracking is in terms of IP address, DNS records, IP address database, and correlation of network traffic.

This is a time consuming analysis especially when the intrusion or the source may no longer exist. On the other hand, the cost and complexity

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

of implementing additional layers of security technology to protect the gaps and make the security shell fool-proof can be overwhelming - multiple endpoint agents, management consoles, and security vendors to manage.

Vendor channel partners may also find performance of their security solutions curtailed by lack of funds and lack of available skilled manpower with end-users. Currently end-users are realising that while everyone wants an end-to-end security solution that functions effectively, not everyone can afford to own or invest sufficiently to operate one.

A synchronised security solution can help Chief Security Officers by automating the process of connecting the dots inside an end-user’s security

“Synchronised security is the new solution mantra that channel partners need to leverage that gets network security components to talk to each other and manage network threats in a rapid and predictable manner.”

environment. What is usually prolonged hours or days of analysis to unravel in terms of network events can become an automated response in a matter of seconds, allowing designated responders to focus on the nature of the threat, resolving, blocking, and remediating the threat, instead of spending limited, costly and time bound resources on identifying the nature and source of the threat.

A synchronised security solution is a radically different approach that enables endpoints and network components to directly share security related information improving protection and leading to faster and better decision making. For example, the approach used by Sophos is a secure communication channel between the endpoints and network controls called Sophos Security Heartbeat. As the technology for synchronised security solutions progresses, it will expand to include other control points that till now have been regarded as too discrete.

These may soon include encryption and protection for endpoints, mobile devices, cloud gateways, sandboxes, into an interconnected, synchronised security solution.

Security channel partners must look for such guidance from their vendors: do they have a synchronised security solution; what is the certification road map for them to become certified large scale integration partners; what is the road map of the vendor’s synchronised solution; does it include mobile devices, cloud, encryption, firewalls, gateways, DNS, network components; and other aspects to build longer

term confidence in their vendor partnership.

Synchronised security is the new solution mantra that channel partners need to leverage that gets network security components to talk to each other and manage network threats in a rapid and predictable manner.

The journey into endto-end security solutions for partners has just begun.

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

27

COVER STORY // HPE ARUBA

READY TO ROLL

Osama AlHaj-Issa, Regional Channel Sales Director, Middle East and Turkey, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, on the integration and channel benefits of the new partner programme.

28

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

O

ver a year ago, HP acquired Aruba Networks in a $3 billion merger deal, fortifying the firm’s networking and mobility business. In the last 12 months, the combined company has been busy looking into integrating processes, people and programmes.

This month the new HPE Aruba Partner Ready for Networking programme goes live, where it has retained the best aspects of its legacy offerings – Aruba PartnerEdge and HPE Partner Ready programmes.

Osama AlHaj-Issa, Regional Channel Sales Director, Middle East and Turkey, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, says, “A year ago we promised to have the integrated programme ready for our partners by FY 17, which begins in November for us.

True to our word, we have presented the best possible offering for our partners.”

The strategy was simple; he says – to bring the best of both worlds.

“It was also quite a tedious task as we had to combine systems, processes, people and tools. Partners came from different backgrounds with varied levels of training and certifications. Keeping in line with the strategy, we brought together the best of both programmes.”

The main pillars of the new programme were around profitability and simplicity.

“We wanted to make it easy for partners to understand and work with the company. The fact that we are gaining some of the strongest partners in the market and their loyalty to work with us is personally rewarding.

“Partners too are assured of our commitment to them and growing the business. Growth is the biggest reward for channel partners from HPE Aruba.”

This is important says AlHaj-Issa, especially in a business environment where companies are either shrinking or not growing their channel base.

Besides that, partners can take advantage of the different benefits such as discounts and rewards related to each level, certification, deal registration, competency and service.

Partners came from both Aruba Networks and HPE Networking background with significant investments made in the past such as certifying their workforce, achieving their levels and the revenue required. When the programmes were integrated, one of the key aspects the company ensured was maintaining tier integrity. Each partner was given a notification by the company that by end of August, if they achieved any level on either of the two programmes, they could retain it for another four years.

Partners who sign up with the company start out in the Business Partner stage and then have opportunities to grow into Silver, Gold and Platinum levels.

“Today any partner from either side who has achieved Silver or Gold or Platinum levels will continue into FY 17 in the same tier. This also comes with rewards that are applicable to each level.”

Each partner will have a year until the end of August 2017, to accomplish the requirements of the new programme and sustain the levels they have attained into FY 2018. Partners can upgrade to the next level by achieving the requirements on the revenue and certification aspects.

In the past, if one had to achieve the Platinum level, then it was mandatory for the partner to be in the Gold level across different business units such as servers,

“Growth is the biggest reward for channel partners from HPE Aruba.” storage, services and networking.

With the new combined programme, networking is now treated separately.

“This means partners can attain the Platinum level by achieving the requirements for networking only. One of the requirements is based around revenue and this differs as per market size and potential.

“The second requirement is around certifications. Any partner at the Platinum or Gold levels need to achieve two basic certifications – wireless LAN and switching,” he adds.

Apart from wireless LAN and switching, which constitutes the mobility foundation, there are certain other competencies that partners need to have such as being proficient in new technologies.

At the Platinum level, partners also need to achieve ClearPass certification, a solution within the company’s security portfolio; and mobility engagement certification.

AlHaj-Issa says, “Customers have welcomed these new technologies and they have been massively deployed in the recent times. These are innovative technologies, which are adding value to the infrastructure.”

Competencies and services are also part of the Partner Ready for Networking programme.

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

29

COVER STORY // HPE ARUBA

“Services is a sub programme within the overall one. This is for partners who want to sell their own products and services. They can buy the services and have the opportunity to rebrand it as their own and add value on top of it such as offering faster response time and resident engineers.”

However, partners also need to meet certain requirements here so that they can offer the right level of services.

“Services is recurring and therefore a good business. This is controlled by the partner, as to how much value they can add and the pricing structure that can be offered,” he explains.

The company’s core focus along with enterprise is also on the SMB segment.

“The new programme also impacts our SMB partners. The channel value is more on SMB than on the non-SMB customers.

Majority of our time goes in SMB because of the nature of the segment – it is more detailed, complex and requires more attention and investments.”

The company is investing more in terms of resources, marketing funds and carrying out enablement sessions with its value-added distributors so that they are equipped to cater to the SMB market.

“SMB is a central focus for us and is a strategic go-to-market approach that we emphasise on heavily,” he adds.

According to AlHaj-Issa, SMB partners can be one of the two types – a Business Partner or a reseller who doesn’t have any contracts with the vendor.

“And we have ways to work with both. Business Partners are the ones who usually don’t invest heavily and need support from our valueadded distributors.

“We also have continuous and specific offers for non-Business Partners, which they can buy at attractive prices.”

30

IN A NUTSHELL PARTNER READY FOR NETWORKING The key features of the integrated programme are as follow: Tier integrity maintained: Partners can retain the same membership tier that they have earned in the legacy programs for FY 2017, starting 1st November.

Simple structure with standardised discounts: The programme features a straightforward discount structure that makes it easy for partners to calculate deal profitability at the front-end and back-end. Programme rewards are also standardised for deal registration, membership tier and specialisations earned.

Deal protection and deal registration: Partners can take advantage of low deal-size minimums and easy to use deal registration.

Networking-centric: The programme features exclusively on networking solutions. Although partners can sell across the company’s ecosystem and leverage the respective rewards programmes.

Specialisation rewards: These are based on achieving a minimum number of sales and technical certifications.

Ease of doing business: The programme enables partners to do business and engage with the company effortlessly.

Exclusive site: Partners can access the company’s networking products and tools easily through a dedicated Partner Ready for Networking site on its Partner Ready portal. It will be a sub-site accessible via the HPE Partner Ready Portal and will provide partners with single-sign-on capability.

The company has special programmes for SMB par tners within Par tner Ready for Networking programme.

As we are entering into the new year, what can the market expect from HPE Aruba in FY 2017?

“It will be a full-speed year for the company,” says AlHaj-Issa. “I believe we will grow faster, gain more market share and meet our strategic objective globally – to be the number one in both wireless LAN and switching along with adjacent markets. We will continue driving our strategy, which is around mobility and mobility-first.”

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

On the channel front, the company hopes to have a sustainable SMB engine in the coming year.

“We like to see the channel fully deploying the Partner Ready for Networking programme. We only want to see partners upgrading levels and not losing one.

“We also need to have a SMB engine that keeps selling and growing without having direct engagement from us. We need these SMB channels to be self-sufficient with the help of our value-added distributors. We are doing the right investments in achieving this,” he adds.

FEATURE // PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

Reseller ME investigates how building on professional services can help with partners’ profitability.

32

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

I

n a cut-throat business environment where partners are struggling to make adequate margins, it is necessary to expand the business to developing market approaches such as services.

Research firm Gartner predicts governments in the Middle East and North Africa to spend $11.7 billion on IT products and services in 2016, as per its latest report, which includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data centre systems, devices and telecom services.

As regional organisations are looking to reduce costs and are moving towards digitalisation, it is the most ideal time and opportunity for channel partners to step up and play an important role in this transformation. As vendors continue to expand, they are in need for consultants who can be trained on their products and solutions to offer comprehensive services to customers.

Mike Beason, Vice President, Professional Services, International, Epicor Software, says, “These consultants provide value to customers through the implementation of our new products and the extension of existing systems with new modules, customer specific reports, forms and integration with existing and new third party systems.

“The need within the market to manage overall implementation costs

Mike Beason, Epicor Software

creates opportunities for our partner network to develop both on-shore and near-shore professional service capabilities to service the market and create greater intimacy with customers which in turn drives future opportunities for additional license and service revenues.”

Professional services can significantly increase a partner’s profitability, says Lorenzo Lumassi, Vice President, Dell EMC Global Services, Turkey, Eastern Europe, Africa, Middle East and Russia.

“The reselling of products provides good margins, but our partners consistently tell us that the real profitability comes from the reselling and delivery of services to customers.

At Dell EMC, we provide partners with a choice in how they choose to include services. They can easily resell Dell EMC’s services; which provides them with additional margin. In addition, many of our partners invest to become authorised by Dell EMC to deliver services under their own brand,” he explains.

Being authorised by a vendor to deliver its services can greatly add value also from a customer’s point of view. This is because they believe that partners will be highly trained in order to be in a positon to deliver the same brand standards “Our professionals are highly trained experts that can provide best practices, methods and tools to advise, install,

“The need within the market to manage overall implementation costs creates opportunities for our partner network to develop both on-shore and nearshore professional service capabilities to service the market.”

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

33

FEATURE // PROFESSIONAL SERVICES

implement, and migrate the new technology into their environment quickly and efficiently. This also allows partners to be a ‘one-stop-shop’ for their customers, meeting all of their needs rather than just selling them technology,” says Lumassi. “They can also use the Dell EMC brand to enhance their value to the customer, and provide resources and expertise that otherwise may not be available to them.”

Partners do spend substantially to maintain partnership levels with their vendors and professional services is a key component for them to realise these investments and maximise on their margin capabilities.

In order to offer professional services there are certain elements that partners need to keep in mind, says Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Riverbed Technology.

“They must invest in skilling up on their resources into the advanced level of technologies. It is important that they hire the right technical resources who have the vast experience and knowledge into different technologies, which complement the whole solutions set,” he adds.

It is important for partners to make it a point to not mix pre-sales and post-sales resources. Often in order to leverage their pre-sales resources completely, they re-deploy them into post-sale or implementation services, he further adds.

“There has to be a clear demarcation on what pre-sales team

Taj ElKhayat, Riverbed Technology

34

Lorenzo Lumassi, Dell EMC Global Services

“The reselling of products provides good margins, but our partners consistently tell us that the real profitability comes from the reselling and delivery of services to customers.”

does because these are different skillsets than what is required in implementation and professional services skillsets. It shouldn’t be the same person,” adds ElKhayat.

He further adds, partners should ensure that their post-sales implementation team always have time available for self and technical development.

“This team needs to be ahead of the curve to enhance customer level satisfactions,” he says.

What’s more professional services also enable partners to have recurring business with customers.

The rapport created with the customer during the professional services contract opens up doors of opportunity for partners to expand their business.

Epicor Software’s Beason, says, “This could take the shape of extra margins from upsell opportunities of new licenses and additional modules, potential new license margins from reference implementation, sales into the customer’s network, additional service

“It is important that partners hire the right technical resources who have the vast experience and knowledge into different technologies, which complement the whole solutions set.”

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

margins from specific market vertical implementation packages or working with our professional services team to augment direct implementations.”

He adds that within professional services, there is a clear need in the market for vertical skills and specifically within the oil and gas, construction and retail sectors.

“Customers need professional service consultants that not only understand the product but also understand the nuances of a specific market. This market knowledge will allow partners to find better opportunities and in turn, grow revenues and margins,” he says.

According to ElKhayat, vendors need to entice and empower partners to take leadership roles in customer projects.

“It is important for vendors to acknowledge the fact that the partner plays a vital role in professional services and that it should not only be vendors doing everything. Partners must have a responsibility in the actual implementation.

They need to also have adequate knowledge across technologies.”

Having vertical specific and comprehensive solutions set knowledge will allow partners to take the role of a ‘trusted advisor’, which will help build long-term relationships with customers.

“The journey is only beginning,” says Lumassi. “As more customer organisations around the region and the world, invest in transformation, the need for professional services to help accelerate the customer’s own, unique digital transformation journey will grow even more important.”

Write2Go Digital Memo Writing Pad Win

Mac

WorldPenScan X

WorldCard Color

WorldCard Mobile Phone Kit

Scan On the Go, Translate Immediately

Business card and photo scanner

Business card holder and reader for smartphone and PC

iOS

Android

Win

Mac

Win

iOS

Android

Win

Mac

FEATURE // INTERNET OF THINGS

FUTURE OF THINGS Industry experts explore the Internet of Things (IoT) prospects in the channel community as the number of connected devices is expected to explode by the year 2020.

36

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

I

nternet of Things (IoT) technology is fast revolutionising organisations across verticals. And as increasing number of regional enterprises realise the importance of moving towards digitalisation, IoT plays an even bigger role in enabling this transformation.

To understand exactly the enormity of what we are dealing with, let’s take a look at recent figures. IoT devices will include more than 6.4 billion connected objects in use by the end of this year, which is a 30 percent rise from 2015, as per a Gartner report. This number is predicted to further grow exponentially by 2020, where the research firm expects IoT market to include 20.8 billion things “The growing number of IoT deployments across the region cannot be missed as more e-services are introduced by governments with a significant focus on Smart Cities. Most firms now understand that digital is the way forward. With high Internet and smartphone penetration in the region and more smart services emerging, we can expect to see IoT expanding further,” says Fadi Moubarak, Channel Leader, Avaya International.

He further adds that customers are also increasingly embracing IoT and smart connectivity in order to continually innovate.

“The future of IoT in the region will be towards creating environments that

empower communities with always-on connectivity to the things that matter most, and the convenience that it brings.”

Shadi Salama, Channel Leader, Middle East Theatre, Cisco, says, “The oil and gas industry is probably one of the most advanced users of IoT technology with new production platforms containing more than 30,000 sensors, connected through a sophisticated central control and data management systems.

“Telecom companies have realised that the IoT revolution holds for them the promise of new found revenues in connecting the projected 50 billion things. The number of cellular machineto-machine connections grew 28 percent in 2014 and is estimated to reach to 1 billion connections annually by 2020.”

Customers across verticals are definitely picking up their interest in IoT, however it still remains in nascent stages. And this is where channel partners can play a vital role.

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

37

FEATURE // INTERNET OF THINGS

According to a recent research done

by Cisco, enterprise IT and business decision-makers revealed that their top three challenges with implementing IoT initiatives in their businesses were security of business data, standardisation of IoT infrastructure and compatibility with business systems and cost of implementation.

These challenges can become avenues of opportunities for the partners.

Salama adds, “In the IoT space across the Middle East, the most opportunities for partners lie in vertical skills and integration.”

Agreeing, Marwan Khoury, Regional Marketing Manager, Axis Communications, adds, “Knowledgebased approach combined with a customised solutions offering can help partners to narrow down on the opportunities in the IoT space and identify what works best with each individual business.”

Partners who can offer valuebased selling will be the ones who can differentiate in the IoT market.

But it is critical that partners have an understanding of not only the IT requirements but business outcomes as well. Customers are looking for partners who can be their advisors and consultants.

“The incorporation of this method of selling is a process that will not only show value in the immediate short term, but will also differentiate partners as they expand into new solutions and new verticals,” says Moubarak.

“Service providers need to provide their customers with a digital customer experience – so they need to digitise

Fadi Moubarak, Avaya International

38

“In the IoT space across the Middle East, the most opportunities for partners lie in vertical skills and integration.”

Shadi Salama, Cisco

themselves internally and the services they offer to the market. Internal digitisation includes things like providing an omnichannel relationship between them and their customers in dealing with tickets, service requests and so forth, and they also need to look at the services they provision to the market.”

For channel partners to be true consultants to customers, they need to develop niche skillsets and regularly update themselves on the latest happenings in the market. Partners should be in a position to recommend what is required or lacking from a technology perspective for customers’ businesses to advance in the competitive marketspace.

“It is the responsibility of vendors to continuously bridge the gap through trainings and certifications. Whether it is a large organisation with a solid IT team, or smaller customers with limited or no inhouse technology support, we work with our partners to transform the conversation from products and discounts led selling approach to value and outcomes based one,” Moubarak adds.

Salama says the people best suited to lead the transition of IoT into Internet of Everything (IoE) are those with fundamental networking experience.

“With high Internet and smartphone penetration in the region and more smart services emerging, we can expect to see IoT expanding further.”

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

“That is because they are equipped with the knowledge to build the bridge from network infrastructure to the application environment. Training current IT employees is half of the battle. The other half of the educational battle is to prepare youth from the beginning to understand the network and its underlying connection to everything,” he adds.

He says it is mandatory for IT companies to work with universities, secondary schools, networking academies and learning partners to develop curricula to ensure upcoming talent is well prepared to understand the functioning of the network and how it makes IoE work.

“Beyond understanding network deployment and operation, those at the forefront of the change will be taking the network in new directions, using 21st-century skills in the process: critical thinking, complex problem solving, data analysis, and communication and collaboration.”

According to Moubarak, as public and private organisations begin to realise an immediate return on their investments, the industry will see an increasing rate of adoption of IoT solution deployments across the region.

An IDC research reports that organisations in the Middle East and Africa will invest more than $6.6bn in IoT hardware, software, services, and connectivity this year, which is expected to cross more than $14.3 billion in 2020.

With varied and numerous prospects present in the market, the channel partners need to be focused and have clear objectives to emerge as a winner in the IoT space.

Supercharge your system with the reliable SSDs from WDÂŽ.

INTRODUCING THE NEW

WD Blue SSD. TM

Optimized for multitasking with high-end computing, the new WD Blue SSDs provide superior performance and leading edge reliability. With extensive compatibility testing and form factors to accommodate most computers, a WD Blue SSD lets you confidently upgrade your storage.

WD, the WD logo and WD Blue registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other marks may be mentioned herein that belong to other companies. Picture shown may vary from actual product.

Product specifications subject to change without notice. See support.wdc.com for limited warranty terms and conditions. Š 2016 Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates.

Available from

PARTNER WATCH // REDINGTON VALUE

ENABLING TRANSFORMATION Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value Distribution, sheds light on the company’s recently launched initiatives and urges partners to specialise.

T

he value-added distribution arm of Redington Gulf – Redington Value’s theme at GITEX 2016 was ‘Catalysing transformation’.

The distributor’s focus at the exhibition was around its fully functional solutions centre, Red Vault and Uniplum, its new consulting arm launched at the show. It also shared insights and the growth curve of its integrated cloud solutions platform, RedCloud, which was launched a year ago at GITEX 2015.

Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value Distribution, says, “We want to be a catalyst for the channel to help them transform. To achieve this, we are also investing in our role to partners.

The consumption models are changing from traditional sourcing of IT to sourcing it from cloud. We are trying to enable partners to thrive in this market transformation through key initiatives such as Uniplum.”

According to the President, Uniplum will be focused on three important areas where the company has observed a lack of skillset in the market with the channel. These are around the cloud transformation journey, Big Data and analytics and Internet of Things. The new division aims to provide consulting on new technology and solutions for numerous verticals and help partners to sell those solutions effectively.

“We are showcasing around 25 different solutions at our recentlylaunched executive briefing multi-

40

vendor solutions centre with plans to expand it further. The initial response we have got from partners and vendors who have visited the centre has been fantastic,” adds Balakrishnan, speaking about the Red Vault.

The front end of the Red Vault solutions centre is designed with one of the largest transparent LED panels in the region.

“It is imaginative and has captured the stack that we have built. It is also user-friendly and is a touch-enabled interactive medium. We will build VPN tunnels from all our major locations as well. We are going to expand these video walls to Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Nigeria and partners can access all the solution sets that we are providing here remotely.”

The company is also using collaborative technologies where a consultant can deliver solutions in the country, and seamlessly access

“We want to be a catalyst for the channel to help them transform. To achieve this, we are also investing in our role to partners.”

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

information and provide training from all these locations.

“Both Red Vault and Uniplum will be transformative and disruptive for the channel.”

The marketing initiative from the distributor termed as Red Enable also empowers partners through trainings and joint end-user demand generation focusing on certain technology verticals such as hyper-converged.

The company has been adding capabilities to Red Cloud, which was launched last year, in terms of its ability to self-service and provision.

“We are investing heavily to make the platform one of the best in the world.

It is a work in progress. The market will see more services that are being offered on SaaS, PaaS and IaaS. It is going to be a robust platform. Today we are able to get more and more channel partners subscribed to this platform and it is gaining momentum,” he adds.

According to Balakrishnan, specialisation is going to be key for channel partners in the coming years.

He says, “Partners have to specialise and choose their bets. This is going to be the most challenging aspect for the channel in the future. Unless they specialise and are able to deliver the specific value, the relevance will be highly questioned. It doesn’t work if they aim to be everything to everyone.”

Over the next year, the distributor will continue to focus and develop on its newly launched solutions centre and consulting arm.

CloudCloud Marketplace Marketplace Cloud Store

Ingram Micro Global Team

Online Ordering

Automated Consolidated Billing

Automated Provisioning

Manage Your Customers

Ingram Micro Launchs Cloud Marketplace

Cloud Marketplace Demo

The Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace is an ecosystem of buyers, sellers and solutions, that enables channel partners and professionals to purchase, provision, manage and invoice support that is too often inherent in cloud technologies.

▪ Multi-Vendor - True Multi-Vendor Cloud Marketplace ▪ Cloud Store - Build your own marketplace with your brand with Cloud Store ▪ Consolidated Billing - Get one single consolidated bill for all the orders placed during the month ▪ Ingram Micro Experience - Learn from Ingram Micro’s experience of managing 21 Cloud Marketplace, over 30,000 cloud resellers and +200 cloud vendors worldwide

Cloud Marketplace

Why Sign Up for Cloud Marketplace?

Online Ordering

Automated Provisioning

Manage your customer

Automated Consolidated Billing

How to Get Started on Cloud Marketplace

http://imcloud.me/marketplace/

Step: 1

Step: 2

Step: 3

Sign up for Cloud Marketplace

Log-in to Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace with credentials received from Marketplace team

You will be re-directed to Marketplace. Get started and place orders independently

For more information visit www.ingrammicrocloud.me

Extend Your Wireless Range with Ease DAP-1620 AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender The DAP-1620 AC1200 Wi-Fi Range Extender is a portable plug-in repeater that lets you extend an existing wireless network. You can place it anywhere in your home to increase the range of your wireless network. Tiny yet powerful, it supports Wireless AC speeds of up to 1200 Mbps, yet fits in the palm of your hand. >> Dual Band Wireless AC1200 Technology >> Range Extender and Access Point >> 1 x Gigabit Ethernet LAN Port >> Adjustable external antennas for maximum range >> Signal strength LEDs guide you to the optimum

placement within the house >> D-Link One-Touch AP Configuration >> New Intuitive Web User Interface (UI) >> Whole Home Wi-Fi Smart Technology connects

your devices to the best available Wi-Fi

Our Smart Wi-Fi Technology will automatically connect your devices to the best available Wi-Fi signal as you move around your home.

www.dlinkmea.com

+971 4 880 9022

facebook.com/dlinkmea

info.me@dlinkmea.com

APTEC – AN INGRAM MICRO COMPANY // PARTNER WATCH

ABOVE THE CLOUDS

Rahul Bhavsar, Director, Cloud Sales, Ingram Micro META, explains the advantages of the company’s recently launched Cloud Marketplace.

I

ngram Micro has announced the launch of its Cloud Marketplace – a fully automated portal for resellers to order, provision, manage and bill the cloud services from multiple vendors in a single place – across five countries in the Middle East region including UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain during GITEX Technology Week, held recently in Dubai. The company also has plans to expand it to Saudi Arabia in the near future.

Rahul Bhavsar, Director, Cloud Sales, Ingram Micro META, says, “The Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace is an ecosystem of buyers, sellers and solutions that enables partners to purchase, provision, manage and invoice a wide range of cloud solutions from a single portal.

“Our core strategy is to leverage on our existing relationship of channel partners by providing them with a platform, which is easy, highly scalable and can automate the processes of the cloud business.”

The marketplace offers cloud solutions from Microsoft Office 365 through the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) programme and migration services from SkyKick, which allows service providers to move their customers’ mail and related data to Office 365 in an easy

way for increased sales velocity and reduced project risk.

“We will be adding a number of new cloud offerings including Dropbox for Business and BitTitan soon.

Only resellers who have a trading relationship and credit line with the distributor are eligible to access the portal. They can place orders on behalf of customers on the marketplace and transact while it provisions the service in real time,” he adds.

This platform places the distributor among the world’s leading cloud aggregators.

“Our own platforms, Odin and Ensim, along with our 1700 plus global vendor relationships make us unique in the world. Ingram Micro Cloud Marketplace adds great value to our resellers because they can take advantage of the world’s leading cloud management platform at no additional cost and we help them build a strong cloud business,” he adds.

According to Bhavsar, without such a marketplace, there is no way a distribution company can scale the business and can continue to run it with the limited manpower.

“With the marketplace, we now have minimum work being done manually. Our focus is on selling, converting the resellers to go and

transact online and beyond that the system takes care of the rest.”

Resellers need to keep in mind that they need to invest in people who understands selling software well and can look at building the business.

“The good news about cloud is that it is recurring. Anybody who has a services background and is inclined to investing in building this business further will be the right kind of resellers who can join our marketplace. Our starting route is Microsoft, therefore all of the vendor’s resellers are welcome to become a part of this.

“We add value by supporting them and training them on the value of the marketplace. The order turnaround time is quite fast with the marketplace and it also enables them to scale up,” he adds.

Partners can look forward to the company’s cloud focused event in the region – Ingram Micro Cloud Summit – META, which will take place on 14th of this month. The two-day event will have over 120 cloud resellers and over 10 leading cloud vendors across the region.

“The key benefits for resellers to attend this event include learning best practices, knowing about new cloud products and talking to industry experts. It will feature strong content and knowledge from keynote speakers and a panel discussion from the cloud industry leaders,” says Bhavsar.

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

43

PARTNER WATCH // BULWARK TECHNOLOGIES

SAFE AND SECURE Jose Thomas Menacherry, Managing Director, Bulwark Technologies, takes us through company updates and shares insights on the regional security market.

C

ould you give an overview of Bulwark’s participation at GITEX 2016?

Bulwark Technologies’ participation at the GITEX Technology Week 2016, concluded on a high note exceeding the initial expectations of our business. Represented by our team of local experts and key vendors, we achieved a high level of brand and product awareness. We showcased an integrated range of innovative and specialised security solutions and services for the IT security industry including details of our track record of successful projects across the Middle East region. We also demonstrated our best-in-class products and solutions and elaborated on our collaboration with key vendors to act as their extended arms in the Middle East region.

How do these partnerships add to Bulwark’s portfolio and complement existing solutions?

We focus on providing high-end corporate security solutions through prominent systems integrators in the region. It was a year of adding major security vendors and building a stronger information security product and solutions portfolio. We have introduced niche leading global security products and solutions to the region to meet the cybersecurity requirements of customers. Being a specialised distributor with a robust portfolio, our aim is to continue being the extended arm for our vendors in the Middle East region. Our constant endeavour is to work in a highly efficient manner to create mutual growth for our vendors, partners and customers and strive towards improving the security landscape in the region.

Bulwark has recently signed up with new vendors, could you elaborate on these partnerships?

We announced some major partnerships during GITEX Technology Week this year. In order to address chief security concerns, especially those around malware and ransomware threats that customers are facing in the region, we have signed up with four new vendors. These include Lastline for Advanced Malware Protection and Breach Detection, Syncplicity for enterprise file sync and sharing, Mimecast for email cloud services such as security, archiving, continuity and Acunetix for web application and network security scanner.

Which aspects do enterprises need to strengthen to improve its security posture in the coming year?

Security is one of the most important and critical aspects for all enterprises.

They need to continuously look for ways to improve its security postures.

Organisations should periodically assess risk and document an entity wide security programme to secure themselves against threats and cyber-attacks. Enterprises should also look upon establishing a security management structure, implement effective security related policies and implement a programme to constantly monitor their security operations. This will enable organisations to enhance its security postures at

44

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

regular intervals of time. Employees should be trained on complete security awareness with effective security policies, which covers all aspects of IT environment including fixed and mobile devices. There should be security related procedures such as incident response, workflow, breach detection response, mitigation plans with complete security assessment of products, solutions and architecture, risk assessment and processes to reduce risk exposure.

What is your vision for Bulwark in the next two years?

Our vision and future focus is to constantly enhance our portfolio by adding new technology vendors to meet the security challenges and address emerging business enablers. We are involved in enabling our channel partners by creating and executing well-crafted channel programmes. Through the recent launch of our new distribution entity, Bulwark Distribution and the existing company, Bulwark Technologies, we plan to provide more focused and world-class customer service to meet the ever-growing demands of our vendors, partners and customers.

We are also focusing on adding more networking and security solutions vendors to our product portfolio. In a highly competitive IT security distribution market and considering the evolving security landscape in the region, we are focused on introducing niche security technologies, which address customers’ pain areas and provide a complete endto-end solution to their ever-growing and changing security requirements.

OXYGEN IS NOW AN OFFICIAL DISTRIBUTOR FOR HPE NETWORKING Oxygen Middle East - UAE Office 601, Fortune Executive Tower, Cluster T, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai, UAE T: +971 4 4547154 | F: +971 4 4473234 E: info@oxygen-me.com W: www.oxygen-me.com

/OxygenMENA @OxygenMENA /company/Oxygen-MiddleEast

VENDOR FOCUS // RES

DRIVING FORCE

Husni Hammoud, General Manager, RES, shares insights into the company’s solutions and go-to-market strategy with recently signed-up regional value-added distributor, Mindware.

R

ES has recently forayed into the Middle East market through partnership with Midis Group, one of the largest regional IT organisations.

According to the company, through its agreement with Midis Group, it aims to leverage its marketing, sales and operational capabilities “to immerse RES into the market, extend its reach and solidify its presence in the Middle East.”

The vendor’s core business function includes enabling IT to make digital workspaces secure, automated and people-centric for easy adoption and use. It achieves this by providing IT with the tools to design, build, deliver and control every aspect of the worker’s business journey with intuitive and context-aware selfservice and security.

At its maiden participation at GITEX 2016, the company displayed its latest RES ONE suite for automated workspace delivery and people-centric security, and focused on its new partnership with regional value-added distributor, Mindware.

Husni Hammoud, General Manager, RES, says, “GITEX is the biggest event in this territory and we are excited to debut our offerings on this platform. It is a great opportunity for us to announce our entry into the region and showcase our pioneering solutions such as the RES ONE suite.”

While RES solutions are renowned globally, the company now aims to focus on and develop the GCC market.

“RES solutions are essential and required in many areas across industry verticals. As organisations are moving towards digital transformation of operations, processes and workforce, our solutions can be a key differentiator,” says Hammoud.

The vendor’s solutions are in line with organisations’ objective of trimming down costs and being more productive.

According to the GM, the company can help in ensuring enterprises are utilising existing resources efficiently to offer premium quality to end-users.

He adds, “We can help in guaranteeing organisations have the right investments to enhance customer satisfaction and gain better profitability.

Our solutions meet the security requirement wherein several compliance guidelines and regulations are being put in place in Europe and will become mandatory in our region as well.”

There are numerous compliance requirements in the banking and government sectors in the region. RES solutions are proficient for compliance specifications, auditing and all security in data transportation and archiving.

Another area where RES ONE solutions can be beneficial for organisations is in ensuring a correct workflow for complex transactions and operations.

Hammoud says, “The solutions are apt for minimising any issues at the provisioning and deployment stage and help organisations to be prepared for go-to-market for any initiatives. Through our comprehensive solutions, we ensure that enterprises have a systematic approach across its operations.”

The company is well known for these capabilities globally and regional customers can look forward to unique offerings that range from data centre solutions to end-user automation.

Going forward, we will see the company looking to create and develop its ecosystem of newly recruited partners.

“We are now working on developing the market through our partners who have recently enrolled with us. Within a short span of time, we have been able to successfully sign up with leading IT companies and systems integrators in the region.

“We have received a positive market response and expect our solutions to complement partners’ existing portfolios. This will help in ensuring new business and growth and at the same time will guarantee that we have happy customers and users,” he adds.

The company has introduced all RES ONE solutions including RES ONE Security, RES ONE Workspace, RES ONE Service Store and RES ONE Automation to the Middle East market at the ICT trade show.

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

47

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

REVIEW

DTEK50

RATING

An entry level device, DTEK50 offers BlackBerry’s range of security, privacy and productivity matched with Android’s latest interface features.

B

lackBerry’s DTEK50 sports a pretty straightforward design as it is made of plastic with a faux-metal chamfer running around the edge.

Although it might not win any awards design-wise, the device does feel durable and light weighing at only 135 grams. It’s also thin, at 7.4mm, and compact for a 5.2-inch phone. The dimpled, rubbery rear side of the smartphone is quite an unusual detail but it makes the device easy to grip.

The BlackBerry DTEK50 also has a scratch and smudge resistance feature and its display runs at 1080p, which enables it to provide users with nice and vivid images, and crisp texts.

It runs Android 6 Marshmallow – the latest version of Google’s operating system. The device packs an octacore Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processor, clocked at 1.5 GHz, and backed by the Adreno 405 GPU and 3GB of RAM. The smartphone’s very snappy when opening, closing, and switching between apps.

DTEK50 only comes with a 16GB of on-board storage but the device does offer expandable storage via microSD card up to 256 GB, so for users who are big on downloading apps and capturing media, it will be best to purchase a microSD card.

It is equipped with dual front- and rear-facing speakers, which gives out

48

good sound quality that doesn’t get distorted even when it is turned up to the highest volume. On the battery side, the DTEK50 comes with only 2,610 mAh unit, which is quite small when compared to other similar smartphones in the market. It lasts up to about a day of light usage and around eight to nine hours of heavy usage.

The smartphone comes with a 13MP rear camera, with a f/2.0 aperture, phase detection auto focus, and a dual LED flash, along with an 8MP front-facing shooter, with a f/2.2 aperture. The camera doesn’t have a lot of bells and whistles but it produces decent images especially when shot in areas with good lighting. However, in low-light conditions the image quality gets really grainy, which is not uncommon in entry level devices.

Having said all this, the big selling point of the DTEK50 isn’t the design, the camera, or the specifications. It’s all about the software and the security that comes along with it. A big chunk of the device’s security features comes from the DTEK application. With DTEK, the user’s data is encrypted. They can also control the permissions of individual apps and what they are and aren’t allowed to access.

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

It also has a factory reset protection feature, so in the event that the device gets lost or stolen and gets reset, it won’t be usable anymore unless it gets verified through a Google account info.

Another notable feature of the device is the BlackBerry Hub. The BlackBerry Hub is a one stop shop for all notifications. It aggregates your BBMs, text messages, emails, phone calls, and social media, all in one place, making them very convenient for users.

Some apps tend to render slowly in the Hub but it seems like a minor issue in the grand scheme of things. However, for a device that’s being dubbed as ‘the most secure smartphone’ in the world, it is very curious that there’s no fingerprint scanner on the device as that is now a very common security feature in smartphones today.

All in all, the BlackBerry DTEK50 is a solid entry-level Android phone that puts security front and centre without overshadowing the core Android experience.

Dubai’s BIGGEST Events Are Now Accessible On Your Smart Phone Devices

Access to latest events

Search using the Browse chronologically key name, calendar or map

HOT PRODUCTS

BLACKBERRY ANNOUNCES NEW SMARTPHONE – DTEK60 BlackBerry has announced the latest in its series of most secure Android smartphones, DTEK60.

The DTEK60 is the second device in the DTEK series of Android smartphones. It comes equipped with all the security features that BlackBerry’s Android OS devices have, including best-in-class security patching and the DTEK by BlackBerry app that allows users to monitor and control their privacy on their phone.

Key features available on the DTEK60 include a fingerprint sensor, the BlackBerry Intelligent Keyboard and the BlackBerry Hub, which consolidates messages in one place – whether it is email, calendar, social or phone calls.

DTEK60 has a 5.5-inch Quad HD display, capable of displaying 16 million colours. The screen is made of scratch-resistant glass and features a specialised oleophobic coating to protect against smudges and fingerprints. It also supports micro SD cards up to 2 TB, providing the flexibility to add more memory.

It’s equipped with an 8MP front facing camera and a 21MP autofocus rear camera. It also packs a 3000 mAh battery.

DTEK60 supports BlackBerry’s powerful suite of EMM applications and secure productivity solutions.

50

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

APPLE UNVEILS THE NEW TOUCH BARPOWERED MACBOOK PRO LINE-UP Apple has recently introduced the latest edition of its MacBook Pro, which comes in 13-inch and 15-inch sizes, in both Silver and Space Gray colour options.

The devices according to Apple, are equipped with Retinaquality Multi-Touch display called the Touch Bar. The new MacBook Pro features the latest Retina display from the company, a Touch ID, a “more responsive” keyboard, a larger Force Touch trackpad and an audio system with double the dynamic range.

They are powered by a sixthgeneration quad-core and dual-core processors, up to 2.3 times the graphics performance over the previous

generation, super-fast SSDs and up to four Thunderbolt 3 ports.

The new Touch Bar places controls right at the user’s fingertips and adapts when using the system or apps.

For example, the Touch Bar can show Tabs and Favorites in Safari, enable easy access to emoji in Messages and provide a simple way to edit images.

They also feature a new enclosure design and all-metal unibody construction.

The 13-inch model comes with either a Core i5 or i7 depending on your preference, with Intel Iris graphics and Superfast SSD storage, while the 15-inch device comes with Intel Core i7 with sixth generation quad core processor.

MICROSOFT DEBUTS FIRST-EVER DESKTOP

Microsoft, during its most recent keynote event, has announced a number of Windows and Surface updates including its first-ever desktop device – Surface Studio.

The Surface Studio is an all-in-one PC with an ultrathin, 28-inch, 4.5K touchscreen. The screen is mounted on a pair of hinges that let it sit up vertically like a traditional desktop computer, and lower down to a drafting position, where the display is only inclined to the desk by 20 degrees.

The Surface Studio’s base is what holds the computer’s brains. The base

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

model features a quad-core Intel Core i5 processor, 1TB of storage, 8GB of RAM, and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX965M GPU with 2GB of VRAM. That can scale all the way up to a quad-core Intel Core i7 CPU, 2TB of storage, 32GB of RAM and a NVIDIA GeForce GTX980M GPU with 4GB of VRAM. According to reports, it seems like a direct attack on Apple’s desktop offerings, with its focus on creative output. Macs have been the computers of choice for many creative professionals, but it’s clear that Microsoft is aggressively going after that market with this launch.

HOT PRODUCTS

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

SAMSUNG FLAUNTS NEW GALAXY A8 Samsung has launched the 2016 edition of the Galaxy A8.

The smartphone is powered by an Octacore processor with 3GB RAM and 32GB storage internal memory. It features a 5.7-inch Full HD Super AMOLED Gorilla Glass 2.5D display, a 16 MP rear and 8 MP front camera, powered by a 3,300mAh battery that supports fast charging. Running on Android 6.0.1, the 2016 edition has a metal uni-body design and fingerprint scanner.

The 16 MP rear and 8 MP front cameras both features f/1.9 aperture take “crisp, brighter and very vivid” images.

The Wide Selfie function gives users a 103° view and lets you get more people and landscape into your snaps – even

with the front camera. Its Rear Cam Selfie function automatically detects the subject’s face. The smartphone has advanced selfie features including Ultra Wide Shot, GIF shooting modes and Auto Selfie Modes - Palm and Voice Selfie. With the ‘Beautifying effect’ allowing users to retouch facial features, such as slimming the face or enlarging eyes.

It is also equipped with the Always On Display, first seen on the Galaxy S7, lets users see their latest notifications and other key information immediately without waking the screen, using less than one percent per hour. It also has a microSD slot that can accommodate up to 256GB. The phone is available in Blue, Silver and Gold at a recommended retail price of AED 1799, starting November 7.

NEC LAUNCHES ENHANCED LASER INSTALLATION PROJECTOR NEC Display Solutions’ PX1004UL laser phosphor projector offers significant user and display benefits, features 4K picture processing and is capable of maintenance-free operation for up to 20,000 hours.

With up to 10,000 ANSI lumens brightness, the PX1004UL completes NEC’s Solid State Light (SSL) source line-up of projectors with 5,000, 6,000, 8,000, 10,000 and 12,000 ANSI lumens.

The device’s 4K signal support offers a future-proof and decent picture quality option with enhanced colour reproduction and high brightness.

Designed for 24/7 use, the combination of Digital Light Processing (DLP) technology and native WUXGA resolution ensures unwavering colour performance, projecting a long-term

vibrant image without loss of brightness.

The installation projector is ideally suited for large venue applications including higher education, museums and large corporate environments, as well as rental and staging uses.

Using SSL technology, the PX1004UL delivers up to 20,000 hours of operational use. Laser technology also eliminates the need for lamp replacement, reducing time-consuming maintenance.

NEC highlighted that the projector offers easy and flexible installation options with support for third party lenses. This enables the PX1004UL to be used as a drop-in replacement without any reprogramming. Furthermore, the projector supports automatic camerabased stacking and blending.

CANON RELEASES NEW IMAGERUNNER SERIES Canon has announced the release of its next generation multifunctional devices, the imageRUNNER Advance C5500 Series.

According to the company, the five colour A3 multifunctional devices (imageRUNNER Advance C5535, C5535i, C5540i, C5550i and C5560i) enhance productivity through intelligent document workflows and an intuitive user experience and help to address the total cost of print across a business. The series launches with the new imageRUNNER Advance shared platform for print management, and usability.

The new devices, according to Canon, offer an intuitive user experience thanks to a large, responsive colour touchscreen which can be customised to meet the needs of individual users and businesses. The user interface will be common on all future imageRUNNER Advance models as will the advanced personalisation capabilities which can ensure a seamless, highly personalised experience across an entire fleet environment.

Canon underlined that the devices feature V2 (Vivid & Vibrant) imaging technology, which ensures outstanding colour quality output on a wide range of media, even at large volumes.

www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // NOVEMBER 2016

51

HOT PRODUCTS

BROUGHT TO YOU BY:

SONY UNVEILS NEW XPERIA SMARTPHONES

Sony has unveiled two new models in the Xperia X series of smartphones: the new flagship Xperia XZ, and Xperia X Compact, both with Triple image sensing technology. Xperia XZ will launch globally from October, while Xperia X Compact will launch globally from September.

Triple image sensing technology, according to Sony, is its unique camera development that allows users to capture split-second moments in any environment. It works by fusing the following three technologies – image

sensing that boasts fast and accurate autofocus (“AF”); distance sensing with the Laser AF sensor which enables fast and accurate AF even in low light; and colour sensing with the RGBC-IR sensor which captures crisp colours regardless of the lighting environment.

Sony also noted that the two models also deliver significant advancements in video shooting as the first smartphones with 5-axis image stabilisation, enabling users to capture smoother videos, even in close-up zoom. Furthermore, the devices are packed with other features like Adaptive Charging technology developed with Qnovo, which extends its battery lifespan. Xperia XZ features a 5.2-inch Full HD display and metal casing while the Xperia X Compact features a 4.6-inch HD display.

INNJOO INTRODUCES NEW RANGE OF SMART TVS InnJoo has announced its entry into the TV market, which will be exclusively available at Souq.com in Saudi Arabia.

InnJoo has launched three High Definition TVs with sizes 32 inch, 55 inch and 65 inche. The new generation InnJoo TV offers a liquid crystal panel, LED backlight module and the InnJoo build-in image enhancement technology co-determined a real life picture quality, brilliant colours, stunning brightness and exceptional contrast.

The InnJoo T321 is a 32-inch HD LED TV has 1366x768 pixels resolution with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and 16.7 display colours

52

offers a wide range of connectivity ports such as HDMI, AV in, VGA in, earphone out jack, PC audio in and USB for video and audio playback.

Meanwhile, the InnJoo T551 is 55-inch full HD smart TV. The slim design TV is equipped with built-in WiFi and is powered

by Quad Core processor and 512 RAM. The InnJoo T651, on the other hand, is a 65 inch full HD smart TV that supports 2.4GHz 802.11b/g/n (2.4GHz) wireless Internet to speed up to a higher operation enabling Live videos, games, news, easy as pie. It is equipped with a Quad-core CPU and 512MB random access memory.

NOVEMBER 2016 // Reseller Middle East // www.resellerme.com

MISFIT LAUNCHES SPEEDO SHINE 2 Misfit and Speedo have launched the second Speedobranded activity, swim, and sleep tracker, Misfit Shine 2 Swimmer’s edition.

Powered by Speedo, known as Speedo Shine 2, the device is the next generation of Speedo Shine and is designed with swimmers in mind. Misfit and Speedo’s proprietary lap counting algorithms track a swimmer’s lap count with industryleading accuracy and work for all stroke types.

The new device features a vibration motor and multicolour lights, enabling multi-faceted user feedback—see progress and tell time in a halo of rainbow-coloured lights, or get motivated with activity reminders; it also has a countdown swim timer, which allows users to pick a time to swim and provides a gentle vibe alert when a workout is complete. It also receives text and call notifications and a silent vibe alarm.

Speedo Shine 2 is also compatible with Misfit Link, which turns the device into a music remote, selfie trigger, presentation clicker, or button to enable a variety of smart home devices and web services According to Misfit, the Speedo Shine 2 features its most advanced hardware and firmware, which offers dramatically improved touch responsiveness with capacitive touch technology, faster syncing, and an extended Bluetooth range. Its 12 lights display over 16 million colours and are bright enough to be seen in direct sunlight.

SAVE BACKUP SHARE The classic NAS

QTS SMB NAS

for SOHO/Home User

for Office Data Backup

TS-251

TS-653A

QTS Thunderbolt 2 NAS for Photographers

ZFS NAS with Dual Active Controllers for IT Managers

TVS-882T

ES1640dc

GCC Disty

UAE Sub Disty

Copyright © 2016 QNAP Systems, Inc. All rights reserved.

QNAP Dubai office : www.qnap.com | mesales@qnap.com

www.logicom-group.com

www.redingtonmea.com

www.datacaredubai.com

newcomshop.com

www.alershadgroup.com