Reseller Middle East December 2016

ISSUE 240 | DECEMBER 2016 www.resellerme.com

NAVIGATING

CHANGE

Westcon-Comstor to guide partners through market evolution

CHANNEL PROSPECTS IN PRINTING WHY PARTNERS SHOULD HAVE A VM STRATEGY

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CONTENTS

ISSUE 240 // DECEMBER 2016

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NAVIGATING CHANGE COVER FEATURE Westcon-Comstor CEO Dolph Westerbos discusses regional strategies and evolution in distribution.

54 REVIEW

HUAWEI HONOR 8 HOT PRODUCT

HP LAUNCHES MINI WORKSTATION

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HIGHLIGHTS

05

FEATURES

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

OPINION

27 THE CLOUD STORY

Mohamed Naim, TechAccess discusses channel cloud prospects.

Reseller ME examines the significance of implementing vendor management strategies.

44 BOLD PRINTS

Reseller ME explores how partners can maximise prospects in the printing sector.

VENDOR FOCUS

EVENT

28 EXCELLENCE AT ITS BEST

A glance at Reseller ME’s Hot 50 Awards 2016.

INTERVIEW

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38 TEAM UP

48 ALL ABOUT SERVICES

Commvault’s Wael Mustafa says partners are keen to deliver around services.

PRODUCT WATCH

LEAD WITH PARTNERS Mathew Thomas from HP Inc. reveals company and channel plans for the region.

52 THE DEFENCE HUB

Yasser Zeineldin and Jeff Ogden from eHosting DataFort on its new Cyber Defense Centre.

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

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EDITORIAL Ask and you shall receive

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)

Last month I had the opportunity to sit down with members of the Dubai Computer Group during their networking evening and hear discussions around some of the most persistent issues plaguing the regional IT channel. This included a number of things from trade finance, credit risk to sustaining the profit margins.

From the beginning of this year, we have regularly heard about instances where resellers, including prominent ones, have fled the market and left behind a huge amount in debts. This in turn affects the entire ecosystem and creates a domino effect.

One of the interesting takeaways from that evening was – when in trouble, ask for help.

The panel members, comprising banking and insurance experts, insisted that if a reseller genuinely finds himself in a financial crunch, he can and should ask for help. There are measures in place to address such a situation without being compelled to choose the extreme option.

The number one reason why resellers bolt is because of the fear of being put behind bars or not knowing the consequences. Although the bankers and insurers did say there are policies to handle the situation, they also said that the reseller needs to come to them early on, right from the first sign of trouble. The resellers in the

room seemed skeptical about this, perhaps because of previous experiences a banker or insurer would be the last person they will go to.

But this could be a sound preventive strategy, provided the entire community is on board. The warning signs are usually evident early on such as if a reseller delays payments consistently or takes on a different business model overnight.

But the industry has to work together to be able to curtail this.

First and foremost, bankers and insurers with the support of vendors need to educate the reseller community on a larger scale, as to what can be done exactly if they are in such a critical situation or is moving towards one. At the moment, there is a lack of knowledge about the policies that could help. It also works both ways, resellers too should make it a point to learn about these measures and share that with peers.

While other parties involved can share information or ring the alarm bell, it is important for the reseller himself to take onus and ask for help. There is no disgrace in asking for help and yet it is something we all hesitate to do.

I believe if everything is laid out in the open, each party understands what can and cannot be done, it will go a long way in reducing, if not preventing such instances altogether.

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

Published by

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

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

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE

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

Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Š 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.

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3

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HIGHLIGHTS

Amazon in talks to buy Souq.com

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mazon.com is said to be in discussions with Souq.com over a $1 billion purchase of the Dubai-based online retailer.

Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the deal, said that although Souq. com had initially planned to sell a stake of at least 30 percent, Amazon is considering a bid for the entire site.

The deal would give the US-based e-commerce giant a footprint in the

high growth Middle East market, Bloomberg reported.

No conclusive agreements have been made thus far.

A spokesman for Souq.com declined to comment, and a representative for Amazon didn’t respond to calls or email requests, Bloomberg added.

In February, Souq.com announced it had completed a funding round of more than AED1 billion ($275 million), the largest financing of an e-commerce business in the region.

In September, Souq.com appointed Goldman Sachs Group to find buyers for a 30 percent share of the company, it was reported. The company’s existing investors – Tiger Global Management and South Africa’s Naspers – were also said to be weighing selling their holdings.

Avaya announces new partner programme Fadi Moubarak, Avaya

Avaya has announced a new channel programme, which according to the company, can give partners the flexibility to meet their customers’ needs in today’s fast-paced digital marketplace.

The new programme—Avaya Edge— will help drive mutual profitability and better equip partners with the skills needed to help customers achieve their Digital Transformation objectives, according to the vendor.

The company highlighted key elements of the programme, which include simplified structure with streamlined requirements and new gem designation levels—Diamond, Sapphire and Emerald—reduce complexity and the resources needed for partners to manage the programme. Through the

new programme partners can also now be compensated for a broader scope of revenue, including not only hardware/ product sales as well as recurring services and software.

In addition, new incentives will reward partners for strategic areas of achievement, such as customer value, growth and new product adoption. The introduction of five partner tracks aligns with their go-to-market model, and maps partner revenue targets and rewards based on track and geographic region.

To support the transition, existing authorised partners are evaluated under both the previous and new programmes and awarded at the higher level for the first six months. “This new programme empowers our channel partners to take our innovative solutions into the marketplace and help our customers achieve their digital business goals,” said Fadi Moubarak, Channel Leader, Europe and AMEA, Avaya.

$1 billion e-commerce platform set to launch in the UAE and KSA The online shopping experience in the Middle East will forever be changed with the launch of Noon in January.

The “region’s largest-ever ecommerce company,” Noon will be a driver of innovation which will offer a vast product selection and fast delivery across all categories.

With an initial investment of $1 billion, Noon will launch in the UAE and KSA markets and will soon cover the entire Middle East region rapidly. Noon aims to grow online sales in the region from two percent of the total market ($3 billion), to 15 per cent ($70 billion) within a decade.

Emaar Properties Chairman Mohamed Alabbar, who is leading the venture with prominent GCC investors, described Noon as ‘nothing less than a quantum leap in retail in the region, and the world’. “We come with the endurance to build a customer-centric business for the long-term. For us, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I am pleased to announce that the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia will take 50 percent equity in Noon. In addition, the head office of Noon will be based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.”

Noon will bring over 20 million products covering fashion, books, home and garden, electronics, sports and outdoor, health and beauty, personal care, toys, kids and baby products, and more. It will also have more than 10 million sq ft of warehousing. At 3.5 million sq ft the UAE fulfillment centre will cover more than 60 football fields. The platform will also deliver same-day delivery through Noon Transportation, an in-house express delivery service and NoonPay, a secure and innovative payment gateway.

Noon’s team has a wealth of e-commerce experience earned at firms such as Amazon, Apple, PayPal, eBay, Google, Flipkart and others.

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

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HIGHLIGHTS

Syncplicity, Bulwark sign ME distribution deal Syncplicity, an enterprise file synchronisation and share (EFSS) company, has signed a distribution agreement with Bulwark Jan Jensen, Syncplicity Technologies.

Under the terms of the agreement, Bulwark’s channel partners will offer Syncplicity’s EFSS solutions to enterprise customers across the Middle East region.

Syncplicity’s most secure file sharing and collaboration solution making it ideally suited to the needs

enterprises in the ME region. A wide network of businesses and individuals rely on Syncplicity to deliver secure solutions with exceptional performance. ‘’Bulwark is a leading and specialised distributor in the cybersecurity area and we are delighted to partner with them in the region,” said Jan Jensen, Executive Vice President Worldwide Sales, Syncplicity. “Syncplicity is a leader in the market because it focuses and understands the demanding and unique needs of large enterprise customers while meeting the most stringent security, governance and IT administration requirements of the ME region. Together with Bulwark,

we are able to further extend our reach to enterprises delivering a complete file sync and share solution package to customers for long-term business success.’’

In addition, Bulwark will support Syncplicity in building and growing successful EFSS deployments, leveraging the distributor’s channel network, deep regional roots and uncompromising focus on partner enablement. Bulwark will also organise sales and technical training sessions along with various marketing initiatives to boost sales in the region. Bulwark would also provide technical support to the channel community through its team of technical experts.

Intel Security expands partner ecosystem Intel Security has announced continued growth and product integrations across its extensive partner ecosystem, through the Intel Security Innovation Alliance.

Check Point, Huawei and other top companies have joined the Intel Security Innovation Alliance to provide a truly integrated, connected security ecosystem that maximises the investment customers are making in their cybersecurity infrastructure.

According to Intel Security, one year ago, at its FOCUS 15 event, it has unveiled a new strategy emphasising an integrated, open security system powered by a connected architecture across Intel Security and third-party products alike. Since then, the Intel Security Innovation Alliance has executed on that strategy, doubling the number of partner companies that have existing, or are developing, technology integrations with McAfee Data Exchange Layer (DXL).

McAfee DXL provides a standardised integration and communications fabric for products regardless of underlying proprietary architecture, according to the cybersecurity vendor. This open security architecture enables customers to

6

integrate their solutions and gain visibility across their IT environment, analysing data more efficiently and yielding more available and actionable intelligence.

D.J. Long, Head of the Intel Security Innovation Alliance, said, “By joining forces with industry leaders, the Intel Security Innovation Alliance is providing a truly integrated, unified security ecosystem, enabling rapid deployment, simplified management and maximised protection.”

The company highlighted that the integration between its McAfee DXL, McAfee Threat Intelligence Exchange (TIE) and Check Point firewall products enables intelligence sharing and workflow optimisation. Real-time communication between these products allows customers to scale and automate their security environment, thereby saving time and resources.

The alliance will also see Intel Security products McAfee ePolicy Orchestrator (ePO) and McAfee Enterprise Security Manager (ESM) now integrate with Intel Security Innovation Alliance partner HPE Aruba product ClearPass. This crossvendor integration covers two dimensions

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

in the latest advanced security protection paradigm: threat intelligence sharing, and automatic detection and remediation.

Meanwhile, Huawei and Intel Security will work to provide indicators of compromise (IOC) data alerts to McAfee DXL and McAfee TIE, providing dynamic behaviour analytics and intelligence sharing to customers.

The vendor underlined that through the Intel Security Innovation Alliance customers will now have the added capability of user behaviour analytics (UBA). Security professionals now can deploy a new wave of UBA products to accelerate attack detection and incident response and pinpoint anomalies in real time.

$480B

– ESTIMATED VALUE OF IT SPENDING ON GLOBAL FINANCIAL SERVICES IN 2016

SOURCE: IDC

HIGHLIGHTS

Cisco honours top performing Middle East partners

The Cisco Middle East channel team with GBM, one of the winners

C

isco has announced that 16 partners from the Middle East region were recognised for their outstanding performance in 2016, receiving Cisco Partner Summit awards across several categories in the region.

Two of the partners were honoured with the Cisco Partner Summit Geographical Regional awards for the EMEAR region.

The company announced the winners during its annual partner conference which took place in San Francisco, California.

According to the vendor, awarded to exemplary channel partners, the Cisco Partner Summit awards are designed to recognise business best practices and serve as a model to the industry within their respective countries and regions.

Areas of consideration include innovative practices, architecture-led successes, strategic business outcome-focused programmes, seizing new opportunities and sales approaches.

“It’s an honour for Cisco to work with some of the best channel partners in the Middle East to transform the IT landscape that enables customers to differentiate and define their business strategies,” said Shadi Salama, Channel Leader, Cisco Middle East.

The Middle East theatre winners at the Cisco Partner Summit San Francisco

2016 are: Middle East Partner of the Year – Salam Technology; Architectural Excellence: Enterprise Networks – Emircom; Architectural Excellence: Collaboration – BAUD TELECOM COMPANY; Architectural Excellence: Data Centre – Diyar United Trading and Contracting Company; Architectural Excellence: SP Architectures – Saudi Telecom Company – Advanced Solutions (STCAS); Architectural Excellence: Security – GBM; Cloud Builder Partner of the Year – NETAS TELEKOMUNIKASYON AS; Cloud and Managed Services Partner of the Year – Saudi Telecom Company- Advanced Solutions (STCAS); Commercial Partner of the Year – GBM; Enterprise Partner of the Year – GBM; Solution Innovation Partner of the Year – CDW; Distributor of the Year – Ingram Micro – ME; Learning Partner of the Year – Al Khaleej Training and Education; Cisco Capital Partner of the Year – Saudi Business Machines; Services Partner of the Year – MDS; Marketing Innovation Partner of the Year – Smartworld.

The winners of the Cisco Partner Summit Geographical Regional awards for the EMEAR region are: STCA as the Architecture Excellence Service Provider Architectures Partner of the Year; and GBM as the Mid-Market Partner of the Year.

Asbis signs distribution deal with Kingston Technology ASBIS Enterprises has announced that it signed an agreement with Kingston Technology Company for the distribution of the vendor’s complete range of products across the Gulf region and North Africa in addition to the nine European countries under the master contract.

“The distribution of innovative Kingston portfolio strengthens ASBIS market position and simplifies entrance into target segments. We are thrilled to expand our partnership with Kingston and offer more one-stop purchase opportunities to ASBIS customers in the Gulf region and North Africa. As it is seen from initial sales results, Kingston products have already proved to be commercially successful in these regions,” said Eduards Lazdins, Memory MPLM, ASBIS Enterprises.

Under the new agreement, ASBIS officially distributes Kingston memory products including DRAM, USB drives, flash cards and solid state drives across a number of countries and regions: Bulgaria, Belarus, Czech Republic, Croatia, Latvia, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Ukraine, the Gulf region and North Africa.

100M

NUMBER OF CONSUMERS THAT WILL SHOP IN AUGMENTED REALITY BY 2020

SOURCE: GARTNER

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

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HIGHLIGHTS

Veeam joins HPE Complete Programme

Peter McKay, Veeam

Veeam Software has announced that it joined the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Complete programme. The programme adds Veeam solutions to HPE’s price list so that customers can purchase complete HPE and Veeam solutions directly from HPE and its resellers.

In addition, as part of the HPE Complete programme, customers will be able to purchase Veeam Availability Suite, Veeam Backup and Replication and Veeam Backup Essentials Enterprise and Enterprise Plus editions for both VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V environments.

“Veeam has enjoyed a longstanding relationship with HPE, and I am delighted that we are further strengthening this by becoming an integral part of the HPE Complete programme,” said Peter McKay, President and COO, Veeam.

The joint solution leverages Veeam’s vision for today’s cloudfirst era – Veeam Availability Platform for the Hybrid Cloud – in which businesses are actively seeking true availability solutions to meet modern Service Level Objectives (SLOs) for recovery of data and applications in the Hybrid Cloud to deliver enhanced efficiency, agility and reliability across their entire operations.

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Epicor launches new partner programme in EMEA and APAC

E

picor Software Corporation has announced the launch of a brand new partner programme in its Europe, Middle East and Africa and Asia Pacific regions.

According to the company, the new programme is designed to further accelerate international growth and support the company’s cloud-first strategy, the new programme gives partners benefits that focus on the value they bring to both businesses.

“We recognise that the world is changing at rapid pace and we need to continue to evolve our channel strategy in order to better serve our customers and enable them to focus on growing their business,” said Hesham El Komy, Senior Director, International Channel, Epicor Software. “We now offer an innovative style of programme that is tailored to the needs of our international partners, rather than the traditional

tiered programs with stepped reward systems that have not changed in the Hesham El Komy, Epicor last 30 years.

The programme is based on the latest channel industry best practices that will reward our partners for adding value, growing their Epicor business and thereby helping to grow ours. This will not only help us future-proof our channel but it will also give partners access to great benefits beyond just margins.”

Epicor highlighted that the new programme includes features such as structured and tailored on-boarding process to help new partners get up to speed quickly; range of training and certification streams, online and offline to cater for different learning preferences; demand generation support for both digital and more traditional marketing tactics.

TP-Link Middle East unveils SMB Partner Programme TP-Link Technologies has unveiled a new SMB Partner Programme for the Middle East and Africa (MEA).

The launch, held at Burj Al Arab in Dubai, saw more than 60 systems integrators (SIs) from the UAE market attending, where TP-Link outlined its goto-market strategy, competitive advantage and, its R&D commitments.

The launch of the SMB Partner Programme paves the way for the company to recruit and develop a select number of SI partners who will resell its SMB products and solutions in the region.

Lucas Jiang, GM, TP-Link Middle East and Africa (MEA), said the launch of the programme will see the company work closely with its distributors to identify and on board the right partners for the SMB business across the region.

Jiang added that TP-Link is seeking

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

to recruit, train and certify new partners that Lucas Jiang, TP-Link will be tiered in Middle East three categories namely Authorised, Silver and Gold. “We are delighted to have finally unveiled a partner programme that will support the development of our SMB business in MEA,” he said. TP-Link is offering two certification programmes for sales, pre-sales and technical people.

The sales and pre-sales training will see partners that get through the programme and pass an online exam get certified as a TP-Link Network Associate (TPNA).

On the technical front, partners that take their employees through the technical training initiative and pass the online exam will be recognised as a certified TP-Link Network Professional (TPNP).

HIGHLIGHTS

GBM, Ankabut strengthen IT support for UAE education sector

(L-R) Miguel Khouri, GBM Abu Dhabi & Yemen with Fahem Al Nuaimi, Ankabut

Gulf Business Machines (GBM) has partnered with Ankabut for the first deployment of an Internet Services Provider (ISP) Control Desk in the education sector in the UAE. The new solution called REACH is expected to help universities to reduce their IT support costs and adopt service management capabilities without the burden of hosting it, thus serving students and faculty more efficiently.

Miguel Khouri, GM, Abu Dhabi and Yemen, GBM, said, “When Ankabut came

to GBM with the request to implement a multi-tenant service desk for better visibility of their network, infrastructure, applications and assets, we knew this was a great opportunity to create an innovative solution which would be a game-changer in the UAE education sector.”

According to GBM, REACH will enable Ankabut to streamline the IT service management procedures across the connected universities and academic institutes. Moreover, with the new deployment, Ankabut can now provide a broader range of support services to its subscribers with a scalable solution.

The REACH service desk will control and distribute the privileges and permissions for clients based on their requirement and services. An ITIL-focused approach has also been incorporated in order to manage the services of a wide range of universities with ease and accuracy.

SonicWall launches Secure Mobile Access 1000 Series OS 12.0 SonicWall has announced significant enhancements to its Secure Mobile Access (SMA) solution offering enhanced security to customers.

In SonicWall’s first product enhancement since beginning independent operations earlier this month, the new SonicWall SMA 1000 Series OS 12.0. “The exponential growth of BYOD and the increased need for remote access have driven a new requirement for security with high availability to business wireless and mobile networks,” said Bill Conner, President and CEO, SonicWall. “SonicWall Secure Mobile Access provides customers and partners with highly reliable access security without the risk and complexity of moving to the cloud.”

Bill Conner, SonicWall The SonicWall SMA 1000 Series OS 12.0 features policy enforced SSL VPN to mission critical applications, data and resources from all operating systems and mobile devices.

New features of the SonicWall SMA 1000 Series OS 12.0 include global high availability offers a turnkey approach to delivering remote access where a high degree of business continuity is required, all without any downtime and aggressive SLAs; blended SSO technology, which enables organisations to move to the cloud utilising a single pane of glass to access traditional campus resources and SaaS cloud applications, allowing service owners to seamlessly move resources to the cloud while maintaining a familiar access experience for their users.

SentinelOne, Exclusive Networks host end-user event in Bahrain SentinelOne has recently host an end-user event for the first time in Bahrain with Exclusive Networks and First Defense.

The event, which was held on 22nd November 2016, focused on SentinelOne’s capability as a next-generation endpoint protection provider delivering real-time protection powered by machine learning and intelligent automation in the EMEA region with its trusted distributor, Exclusive Networks.

Attendees gained first-hand knowledge on replacing the ‘Old Guard’ of legacy antivirus software and provided with a unique, standalone approach to endpoint security.

SentinelOne combines behavioural-based detection of both known and unknown threats, with automated mitigation as well as forensic tools to defeat attacks. It also employs a combination of advanced techniques to detect malware, exploits, or malicious scripts. First Defense, one of the oldest partners of Exclusive Networks in Bahrain, also gave the audience an overview of their latest offerings along with a glimpse of current market trends.

72%

OF GLOBAL SMARTPHONE SHIPMENTS WILL BE COMPRISED OF LTE-CAPABLE DEVICES BY 2020

SOURCE: CCS INSIGHT

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

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HIGHLIGHTS

Alibaba Cloud unveils new data centre in Dubai

(L-R) Fahad al Hajeri, Yvolv; Simon Hu and Ethan, Sicheng Yu, Alibaba Cloud

A

libaba Cloud has announced the launch of a new data centre in Dubai that will be operated by Yvolv, a joint venture between Alibaba Cloud and Meraas Holdings.

According to Alibaba Cloud, the first full-fledged public cloud in the region which is hosted at a local data centre, will offer a portfolio of services to address the increasing demand for mission-critical, affordable and secure cloud computing in the Middle East.

“We are excited that our global footprint has now expanded to the Middle East which is also a major area covered by China’s ‘one belt, one road’ initiative. With the Dubai data centre, our global cloud network will be able to meet enterprises which are going global,” said Simon Hu, President, Alibaba Cloud.

By enabling the digital transformation of businesses, Yvolv will be complementing Alibaba Cloud’s offering to serve customers as they migrate their day to day IT operations to the cloud and developing unique and innovative solutions to help them streamline operations.

“Alibaba Cloud has established a strong reputation as a leading cloud services provider in China and at Yvolv, we are certain that this success can be replicated in the region where innovation is thriving. We remain steadfast in our

Spectrami hosts security roadshow for channel partners and end-users Spectrami has recently conducted a security roadshow “Predicting Threat Intelligence through Analytics,” Anand Chouda, Spectrami along with a few of its vendors namely Fidelis, Logrhythm, Tenable, NSFocus, A10 Networks, Trapx and Galaxkey.

The event that was hosted in Kuwait and Oman were targeted at potential channel partners and endusers across the regions. Experts from both Spectrami and its respective vendors gave presentation and training to enhance the understanding of both technology and product.

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Sarfaraz Kazi, Technical Director, Spectrami, said “The ideal concept of this activity was to impart knowledge to the channel partners and end-users on the latest technology to bring about an awareness about the growing risks and breaches that pose a threat to large enterprises, also giving them an opportunity to interact with the vendors.

It was also a good platform for us to position the latest technology additions to the Spectrami portfolio and train the delegates on the same.”

Among the customers that attended were Kuwait University, National Bank of Kuwait in Kuwait and SGRF, Oman Human Rights Commission and Bank Muscat in Oman. Among the partners in Kuwait were National Computer Services, Tasaheel Global and to name a few in Oman were Insight Information Technologies, Imtac and Paramount Computer Systems.

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

commitment to articulating the objectives outlined in the Dubai Smart City Initiative and the UAE Vision 2021, and the opening of this data centre is a step in the right direction,” said Fahad Al Hajeri, Chief Executive Officer, Yvolv.

Some of the existing regional and global customers of Alibaba Cloud are OneMT, MenaMobile, VSun, Dahua and JollyChic. Intel, who has collaborated with Alibaba Group globally in the areas of Cloud, Big Data and artificial intelligence (AI) has joined the event to highlight how cloud usage is driving transformative change across all industries.

Alibaba Cloud has also recently signed the number of partnerships in the region. The most recent deals are with Detecon, leading Saudi data centre services provider and Chinese Business Hub, which is designed to facilitate the move of Chinese SMEs to the UAE.

Anand Choudha, Managing Director, Spectrami said, “We are extremely happy with the response we have received from our channel partners and customers for both the roadshows. This reflects their commitment and loyalty to Spectrami.

These roadshows not only provide a platform for knowledge transfer but also helps to understand the challenges faced by both the Channel partners and their customers. We also plan to conduct a similar activity in KSA and Abu Dhabi with several other vendors.”

5.8%

Y-O-Y DECLINE IN WORLDWIDE SERVER REVENUE DURING Q3 2016

SOURCE: GARTNER

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HIGHLIGHTS

Seclore appoints Data Wide as distributor for Saudi Arabia Seclore, an Enterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM) solutions company, has Amit Malhotra, Seclore announced the appointment of Data Wide as its new distributor in Saudi Arabia.

According to Seclore, the appointment supports its strategy and business expansion plans in Saudi Arabia, where the company is building a new leadership and technical support team. Data Wide, according to the vendor, already works with a number of leading companies – including many of the leading banks – in Saudi Arabia.

Data Wide supports customers throughout their IT infrastructure management lifecycle and deploys technologies to enable enterprises to leverage IT for operational efficiency, speed, cost efficiency and productivity. It works with the energy, telecoms, education, retail, banking and government sectors in Saudi Arabia.

Amit Malhotra, VP Sales India Middle East and Africa, Seclore, said, “Saudi Arabia is a key strategic market for Seclore in the Middle East. We have established a new country leadership team to develop the opportunities there and we are already working with leading companies such as The Zahid Group – one of Saudi Arabia’s oldest and largest family businesses. With the appointment of Data Wide, Seclore is now very well positioned to accelerate the expansion of our business in Saudi Arabia with a focus on securing customer’s data in an increasingly collaborative and diversified business environment.”

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Opengear, Al Maria Middle East Technologies sign distribution deal

Derek Watkins, Opengear and Zaheer Assariya, Al Maria Middle East Technologies

O

pengear has announced a new distribution agreement with Al Maria Middle East Technologies, which will see the distributor offer channel partners in Abu Dhabi and the GCC infrastructure management solutions from the vendor.

“Al Maria Middle East Technologies have a sound understanding of infrastructure management technologies and they know how to put solutions together for the key verticals,”

explained Derek Watkins, Vice President of Sales EMEA and India, Opengear, “With a great set of existing relationships within their reseller customer base and experienced teams with proven success in taking a brand to the IT channel, this new partnership offers a perfect fit to distribute Opengear within the GCC.” Al Maria Middle East Technologies offers a range of value-added services including deal registration programmes, product demonstrations, customisation, integration, technical evaluation and extensive vendor support.

Zaheer Assariya, CEO, Al Maria Middle East Technologies, said, “We have been working towards building on our momentum across the region and look forward to a beneficial relationship working closely with Opengear.”

HTC launches e-commerce site for UAE HTC Middle East has announced the launch of its UAE e-commerce store.

This is the first HTC e-commerce site in the Middle East and Africa Nikitas Glykas, HTC MEA region where customers will be able to access the entire range of HTC smartphones and accessories such as the HTC 10, the Desire range, Ice View covers, car chargers, high-res audio earphones among many others, at their convenience.

According to the company, customers will also enjoy free next day delivery anywhere in the country on their purchases from the HTC online store, irrespective of the amount spent.

The e-commerce sector is quickly growing across the Middle East North Africa region, boosted by a young population and advanced connectivity options. AT Kearney expects the market to grow to a value of $20 billion by 2020,

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

driven by millennials and their familiarity and comfort with shopping online, mostly for electronics, clothing, travel and food.

Nikitas Glykas, President, HTC MEA, said, “e-commerce is not just a buzzword in this region, but a clear direction in which the industry is moving, and the young, tech-savvy population that is driving this growth is the same audience for our innovative and award-winning smartphone range.”

“As HTC continues to grow its brand and customer base, we believe it is important to have one place for our customers where they will be able to access the entire range of HTC smartphones and accessories,” he added.

“The portal will also be a platform to improve product and service experiences through customer feedback.”

The e-commerce store will be accessible to customers in the UAE immediately at http://www.htc.com/ mea-en/. The HTC e-commerce store is expected to be launched in Saudi Arabia and Egypt shortly after the UAE roll out.

HIGHLIGHTS

Fast Lane now an A10 Networks authorised training centre Fast Lane Josef Miskulnig, Fast Lane Computer Consultancy has partnered with A10 Networks to become the first A10 Networks Authorised Training Centre (ATC) for the META region.

“Fast Lane’s success is due to the solid strategic alliances we have built with our bespoke vendors,” said Josef Miskulnig, Founder and CEO, Fast Lane.

“Our mission is to empower the region’s talent with the knowledge and expertise required for today’s technological challenges. A10’s architecture and product portfolio positions it as an ultimate vendor for providing a range of high-performance application networking solutions that help organisations ensure that their data centre applications and networks remain highly available, accelerated and secure. The

partnership has strengthened our portfolio and highlights our unique skill set.”

Mohammed Al-Moneer, Regional Director, MENA, A10 Networks said, “As Middle East enterprises look to enable people and let them rely on their resources, A10 decided to increase the number of skilled people in the region by empowering undergraduates to build for the first step of career growth. Also, A10 is about to launch the First Full Education Campaign in partnership with Fast Lane on a variety of security products including DDoS with A10 TPS, SSL Insight, DNS security, and cloud.”

Initially, Fast Lane will offer two core training courses: How to become an A10 admin user and How to configure/ manage and launch the Application Delivery Controller.

SUSE signs BPS as MENA distributor

(L-R) Negib Abouhabib, BPS Middle East and Paul Abi-Chahine, SUSE

SUSE has recently announced that it signed BPS, a pure play service provider channel cloud distributor, as its distributor for the Middle East and North Africa region.

As part of the agreement, BPS will spearhead the task of recruiting and on-boarding cloud service providers (CSPs) and providing flexible and bespoke business models for these partners to offer on-demand solutions to their customers.

“BPS has been focused for several years now on cloud distribution models for various technology vendors in the

region. By partnering with SUSE as a cloud distributor for Middle East, their experience will be leveraged to offer such technology-on-demand offerings as an opportunity for partners, to develop innovative delivery methods which in turn will help them become more competitive and to offer a unique value proposition to enterprises,” said Paul Abi-Chahine, Regional Director, Emerging EMEA, SUSE. Focusing initially on enterprises in the telecom, utilities, banking and public sectors, across the UAE, KSA, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Pakistan, BPS will be responsible for building a capable cloud / service provider channel model in the region for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server for SAP, SUSE High availability and Management Extensions, SUSE OpenStack Cloud and SUSE Enterprise Storage.

TechAccess sharpens focus on Saudi Arabia TechAccess has announced that it will strengthen its focus on Saudi Arabia and is Sherif M. Alashery, TechAccess encouraging its partner community to advance their skills by taking advantage of its fully equipped Partner HUB. The company’s dedicated Partner HUB located in Riyadh, is part of its efforts to enable its reseller base with complete insight on solutions and current market dynamics. Sherif M. Alashery, General Manager, KSA, TechAccess, said, “The Partner HUB is an indispensable component of our value addition efforts to ensure that our partners update their skills, and provide customers with live demos of solutions that they are investing in.”

The Partner HUB facility consists of a Partner Academy for training, a Partner Studio for customer meetings, a Migration Centre and a Systems Room. The Partner HUB has been fully functional for more than a year and TechAccess has conducted numerous partner and customer training. All training and courses are delivered by experienced professionals and covers the full range of solutions including server and infrastructure, virtualisation, security, data backup, storage, data archiving, disaster recovery, networks and UC. The Migration Centre at the Partner HUB is designed to provide practical and technical support to partners for migrating or upgrading solutions. The Partner Studio offers a central location for partners to meet with their customers and prospects.

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

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HIGHLIGHTS

Buzinessware deploys NetApp solution to enhance cloud services

Sajid Mulla, Buzinessware

Buzinessware has announced that it deployed NetApp’s SolidFire all-flash scale-out storage to help further reinforce its hosting and cloud services.

According to the solutions provider, the strategic new partnership with NetApp will enable its customers in the UAE with key access to agile, scalable, on-demand storage infrastructure that delivers “predictable and cost-effective” performance in the cloud – along with reliable 24/7 UAE-based support.

“We are very excited with this new development for Buzinessware– being the first in the region to offer NetApp SolidFire,” said Sajid Mulla, CEO, Buzinessware. “Our partnership with NetApp will now give us the ability to deliver the exact level of performance required for each and every one of our customer’s applications while also making changes to performance and capacity on the fly without any disruption.”

Buzinessware highlighted that the NetApp SolidFire allows them to guarantee performance to each and every customer application and workload, scale out non-disruptively, and automate its entire storage infrastructure to keep operational costs low. As a result, it provides a superior hosting and cloud computing experience to customers by delivering reliable, high-performance, costeffective infrastructure services.

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TAQNIA Cyber receives Microsoft ATC certification

K

oenig Solutions has revealed that its partner, TAQNIA Cyber, has been granted a Microsoft Authorised Training Centre certification, allowing them to join the ranks of Microsoft’s Learning Partners authorised to deliver Microsoft Official Courses (MOC).

Receiving the certification is also attributed to the strong ties maintained

by TAQNIA Cyber with Koenig, which is considered a valuable Microsoft partner and recipient of the Microsoft Partner of the Year Award in India for six consecutive years.

The partnership between TAQNIA Cyber and Koenig has led to the opening of a modern cyber academy, which is completely aligned with the objectives of Vision 2030 to provide quality training to the Saudi population. With the certification, the academy will now be able to cover Microsoft courses in KSA.

“We will be bringing in the best quality Aditya Girish, Koenig training in the Solutions market with training delivered only through in-house trainers and not through freelancers,” said Aditya Girish, Territory Manager Middle East, Koenig Solutions. “Koenig, has the largest pool of IT trainers in the world and the same would be of immense help to cater this demand.”

The training centre will now be able to cater to the needs of cybersecurity experts from leading banks, financial institutions, government entities, law firms, healthcare centres, utility and transportation providers. The modern training facility will also offer Koenig’s 30+ authorisations including that of Microsoft, EC Council, PMP, Adobe, and Security Management, among others.

Viacomms Telecom receives Avaya Edge Diamond status Avaya has awarded Viacomms Telecom with a Diamond Level designation, the highest level available, under its new Avaya Edge partner programme.

Introduced in November this year, Avaya Edge is designed to give partners the flexibility to meet their customers’ needs in today’s fast-paced digital marketplace, while providing rewards for those partners that deliver exceptional value.

This new programme, according to Avaya, will help drive mutual profitability and better equip Viacomms Telecom with the skills needed to help customers achieve their Digital Transformation objectives.

“Viacomms is excited for having achieved this new milestone and is fully committed to advancing Avaya business in Kuwait by continuing investing

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

in human resources, training and Jolian Ibrahim, certifications, Viacomms Telecom and refreshing lab equipment.

The Avaya Edge Diamond designation will empower us to position Avaya’s cutting-edge solutions thus helping our customers meet their digital transformation objectives,” said Jolian Ibrahim, CEO, Viacomms Telecom KSCC. Avaya highlighted that the Diamond Level (Enterprise VAR Track) designation will support Viacomms in enabling the delivery of exceptional customer experience; growing business in software, services and cloud- based solutions; supporting go-to-market model based on targeted customer segments and expertise and more.

HIGHLIGHTS

Xerox’s Versant 80 Digital Press to enter Omani marketplace

Xerox Middle East and Africa has recently launched its state of the art Versant 80 system, light and versatile production digital press.

The launch event has been accompanied by ‘The Future of Digital Printing’ seminar and held at the Crown Plaza Muscat, Oman in collaboration with Bishara Xerox’s

exclusive distributor in the Sultanate.

The new ‘V80’ press is ideal for any organisation that produces high quality documents of up to 1,000 pages or wishes to harness the power of personalised communication.

“Oman is one of the most important markets for us in the Middle East, where Xerox continues to lead in the digital press solutions segment. Our current market share in the Sultanate is 80 percent in digitally printed documents segment and we are determined to grow beyond the existing mark in the nearest future,” said Simon Howells, Regional General Manager, Xerox Middle East and Africa Operations.

Xerox Middle East Operations’ leadership team has attended the event in order to demonstrate its commitment to the Omani marketplace.

Thales signs distribution partnership with Shifra Shifra has partnered with Thales to offer the latest data protection and trust management solutions to the region.

Thales has recently committed to growing its presence in the Middle East, in light of the rising need for cybersecurity – a theme that has heavily underscored the region’s shift to virtualisation, cloud services, and mobility.

Under the agreement, Shifra will make available to the regional channel community Thales’s advanced data security solutions, and will work towards building the provider’s market share in the application security space, by delivering hardware security modules (HSMs) and solutions for PKI, digital signatures and electronic IDs. Incidentally, Shifra is also the regional distributor for the Vormetric Data Security Platform, which has recently come under the Thales umbrella.

“The very digital trends that have Ahmad Elkhatib, Shifra revolutionised user access to data are unfortunately the same ones that have left businesses vulnerable to intrusions from cybercriminals. And as attacks become more sophisticated, data protection becomes more critical,” said Ahmad Elkhatib, Managing Partner, Shifra.

“Businesses in the Middle East are rapidly expanding and deploying new digital infrastructure which is being actively targeted by cybercriminals. Thales wields heavy-duty experience in data protection and digital trust management, and there is immense scope for our partners to benefit from its wide range of products. We look forward to working closely with the Thales team to increase their footprint in this region.”

Help AG joins ‘Carbon Black Connect’ Alliance Program Help AG has joined the ‘Carbon Black Connect’ Alliance Program as a Managed Security Stephan Berner, Help AG Services Provider (MSSP) partner.

As a ‘Connect’ partner, Help AG has the benefit of using Carbon Black’s security solution, Cb Enterprise Response, to help its customers remediate cyber-attacks and breaches. As the Help AG team identifies malicious files used to execute an attack, they use Cb Enterprise Response to pinpoint each endpoint and server on which malware has landed and reveal the entire ‘kill chain’ of the attack. This enables responders to identify where and how the attack started quickly and efficiently, and enables Help AG to contain attacks rapidly and accelerate remediation efforts.

“Partnering with Carbon Black further enables us to provide our customers with the leading-edge, managed security services they need to defend their networks and protect sensitive data,” said Stephan Berner, CEO, Help AG. “As we lead our customers on a nextgen digital journey, Carbon Black’s enterprise response solution will play a critical role.”

Help AG already holds the Authorised Solution Partner (ASP) and Security Service Provider (SSP) status with Carbon Black in the GCC. For over a year now, the company has leveraged the vendor’s endpoint security solution in its 24×7 Cyber Security Operations Centre to enhance its Managed Security Services (MSS) and Incident Response (IR) services.

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

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HIGHLIGHTS

Landmark Group pivots its e-commerce strategy The Landmark Group has announced that it pivoted its e-commerce strategy to offer a “simpler, more useful and more customer-friendly” online shopping experience.

On 24th November 2016, the Landmark Group’s Web Team replaced the existing online portal LandmarkShops.com with seven individual, brand websites – HomeCentre.com, BabyshopStores.com, MaxFashion. com, SplashFashions.com, ShoeMartStores.com, LifestyleShops. com and CentrepointStores.com, for Home Centre, Babyshop, Max, Splash, Shoe Mart, Lifestyle and Centrepoint respectively. iPhone and Android apps for each of the seven brands were also launched at the same time.

“We’re excited to announce this important pivot in our digital strategy.

Our new brand sites and apps bring our millions of customers closer to

the brands they love regardless of whether they shop online or offline,” says Savitar Jagtiani, Business Head, e-commerce, Landmark Group.

“Shopping for our brands in just one checkout will keep our customer experience both simple and convenient. This is the next chapter in our Group’s e-commerce and omnichannel growth story and we’re as committed as ever to continuously improve our customer experience,” Jagtiani added.

Customers can browse over 55,000 products across the seven brands, add their purchases into one universal basket and complete their shopping in a single checkout. If they’ve shopped with LandmarkShops in the past, their accounts will remain unchanged. This includes their profile details, payment particulars, brand preferences, order history, Shukran preferences and more. Existing customers can continue to sign in and shop

Savitar Jagtiani, Landmark Group

using their current username and password.

Over the next three years, Jagtiani noted that the Landmark Group aims to grow its E-commerce business significantly and better bridge the gap between online and offline shopping. This includes introducing more omni-channel features, bringing more brands online, launching the platform in other territories and offering an Arabic language version.

AXILSPOT expands operations to the MEA region

Bruce Zhou, AXILSPOT

AXILSPOT has launched its operations in the Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.

As part of its regional expansion plans, the company will appoint distributors and strengthen its channel network by onboarding partners across the region.

AXILSPOT offers enterprise wireless connectivity solutions including wireless access points,

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bridges, base station, enterprise WLAN management platforms and PoE Switches to name a few.

The company noted that its key differentiator from its competitors is its patented multi-beam smart selection array system called Rscan, that reduces interference, allows the highest transmission speeds, successfully manages hundreds of concurrent users and offers the more precise location based service (LBS).

“The Middle East and Africa has some of the fastest growing mobility growth rates as well as state of the art service provider technologies.

With the arrival of 4G+ technologies in the region, end users want the same lighting fast mobile experiences available from service providers inside their offices, homes and in some public places too. Rscan, the AXILSPOT patented antenna array technology,

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

fitted into all of our products, allows end users to experience the fastest wireless networking transmission speeds with minimum drop outs and line of sight interference,” said Bruce Zhou, CEO, AXILSPOT. In order to tap the fast-growing mobility opportunity in the region, AXILSPOT also announced its intention to appoint key channel partners in the region across its three partner categories — Authorised Solution Partner, Authorised Value Added Distributor, and Master Distributor.

Based on the above levels, AXILSPOT channel partners are variably offered price discounts, online training, onsite training, deal registration, market development funds, sales and marketing tools, account manager, purchase demo kits, dedicated sales person, dedicated trained engineer, and marketing activities.

Transform with Flash!

FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS AF

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The FUJITSU Storage ETERNUS All-Flash accelerates, modernizes and transforms data centers in a flash new world. Built on a powerful architecture, it delivers all the strengths of flash storage, plus seamless management integration with existing disk storage environments, thus ensuring a smooth transition of data centers to flash.

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APPOINTMENTS

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS New MEA Business Operations Director joins OKI Europe

Mark Thompson, OKI MEA

OKI Europe has appointed Mark Thompson as the Business Operations Director for OKI Middle East and Africa (MEA) region.

In his new role, Thompson will be responsible for the business operations and logistics to overall enhance OKI’s distribution model across MEA with an immediate focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

Thompson joins from Lexmark, where he has had various managerial roles since 2008. He was responsible there for the Channel, Enterprise, Annuity Business and Distribution for MENA region.

“We are glad to have Thompson as part of our team,” said Mathias Militzer, Vice President (META).

“With his 16 years of experience and expertise in printing industry and a wide knowledge of OKI’s printers, we are well assured Mark will be able to harness his extensive knowledge to contribute significantly to growing our business within these regions.”

“I am excited to be part of OKI’s team at a time when OKI Middle East is on a strong growth path. Our focus is to develop the distribution channels in the region and allow the brand to be more accessible to our customers. I look forward to working with the entire Middle East team to achieve this,” said Thompson.

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Xerox Emirates names new General Manager Xerox Emirates, a joint venture between Xerox Corporation and Mohamed Hareb Al Otaiba, has announced the appointment of Chris Govier as the new General Manager.

Govier brings with him over 20 years of expertise in the Middle East region, the new GM according to the company, will bring an impactful market understanding, as well as an innovative business approach towards driving its growth and support its expansion in the UAE. “I am delighted to have been given the opportunity to head Xerox Emirates.

The UAE is a big market for Xerox technology and services. I am happy to lead an experienced and motivated team to further expand the Xerox brand within

the UAE. I look forward to developing and implementing Xerox Emirates’ Chris Govier, Xerox Emirates strategy and lead the company towards the next phase of growth. We have a fantastic market place, a superb customer value proposition and a determined and experienced team to realise our goals.

It promises to be exciting years ahead”, said Govier.

According to Xerox Emirates, it recognises the importance of maintaining its leadership position in the Managed Print Services domain, as well as in the Graphic Arts sector in the country.

A10 Networks appoints new Regional Director for MENA A10 Networks has announced the appointment of Mohammed Mohammed Al-Moneer, Al-Moneer to A10 Networks the position of Regional Director, Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

In his new role, Al-Moneer will be responsible for the overall direction and management of all sales and business development operations in the MENA region, while working closely with channel partners to provide customer centric solutions to the public and private sectors.

Al-Moneer has held various sales leadership positions at networking and other high tech companies. Most recently at Infoblox, he served as regional manager for Saudi Arabia, where he leveraged his success in leading the services business to drive

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

operational efficiencies and innovation and achieve exceptional growth. Prior to that he worked as territory sales manager for enterprise servers, storage and networking at Hewlett-Packard.

“I am excited to take up this position at A10 Networks and have the opportunity to drive the brand forward in the region. The company has pioneered a new generation of application networking technologies with a wide choice of virtualised and hybrid appliances as well as an innovative on-demand licencing model that is a very attractive proposition to customers. With A10’s recent launch of the world’s most powerful DDoS protection solution to mitigate colossal cyber-attacks, we are helping MENA region service providers and enterprises fight back against the rising DDoS onslaught so they can be proactive, not reactive,” said Al-Moneer.

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

Comba Telecom appoints new GM for MENA region communications and, in Comba Telecom Systems turn, the pressure on mobile Holdings has announced that network operators to facilitate it will expand its business coverage anywhere-anytime footprint in the Middle East is mounting. Meanwhile, the and North Africa (MENA), number of subscriptions, in response to the region’s too, is seeing unprecedented growing network coverage Dr. Hazim Al Rawi, growth – multiple countries and capacity needs.

Comba Telecom within the region have extremely In line with this, the high smartphone and mobile device solutions provider has appointed Dr. penetration rates,” said Dr. Al-Rawi.

Hazim Al-Rawi as its new general Dr. Al-Rawi plans to leverage Comba’s manager for the region who will be classification as a ‘Tier 1’ antennas in charge of managing and providing provider and its expertise in full-turnstrategic direction to Comba’s regional key of In-Building Solutions (IBS) and business across all products, solutions Distributed Antennas Systems (DAS) and services. to help existing and new customers “The MENA region continues to enhance their mobile networks. experience exponential growth in data

HDS announces new Country Manager for Saudi Arabia Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) has appointed Sameh Hassan as the new Sameh Hassan, HDS Country Manager for Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

In his new role, Hassan will be responsible for implementing and driving Hitachi Data Systems’s transformation across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, working closely with HDS’s Middle East and global teams to accelerate growth. Based in Riyadh, he will report to Assaad El Saadi, General Manager and Sales Director for Middle East and Pakistan, HDS. “We are pleased to welcome Sameh to our organisation and look forward to his valuable contribution to our team. With his knowledge and background in the Saudi market, we are confident that he will lead our

sales operations to greater heights.

Sameh’s appointment comes at a time when we are expanding HDS’ business within the Middle East in the digital transformation space. Now with a specialised leader in Saudi Arabia, we are growing our team and showing our dedication to the Saudi market,” said Assaad El Saadi, Regional Sales Director and GM, Middle East and Pakistan, HDS. With more than 21 years of experience in Saudi Arabia alone, said joins HDS after seven years with Veritas Technology, where he lead a team and managed to close multimillion dollar deals.

“I am very excited to join and lead HDS team in Saudi. With the 2030 vision, I am very optimistic about growing our business in the Saudi market by aligning our goals to the government’ agenda and vision,” said Hassan.

EES names new Area Sales Manager for Abu Dhabi Emitac Enterprise Solutions has announced that it appointed Tareq Al Alami as its Area Sales Manager for Abu Dhabi.

Al Alami brings with him more than 20 years of IT Sales experience. In his role, he will be responsible for expanding EES’s reach in Abu Dhabi, setting up and leading a new team, implementing the new business plan and identifying the best prospects in targeted segments.

“We are pleased to have Tareq join our team,” said Basel Samara, Vice President, Sales, EES. “With his experience and expertise, I am confident of his significant contribution to growing our business. He has a wealth of sales management experience and valuable know-how and will be an asset to our fast growing team at EES.” According to EES, Al Alami has worked with wellestablished and reputed brands within the region like Emirates Computers, Siemens, Cerner and Morpho, with his most recent one being of the Regional Sales Director at Morpho. “I am excited to join EES right at the time when EES is on a strong growth path,” said Al Alami. “I look forward to leveraging my regional industry experience to drive the company’s ambitious growth strategy, expand its reach and further build on our market leadership.”

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

21

REPORT

M&As

As another year draws to a close, Reseller ME takes a look back at some of the biggest news in the IT industry.

YEAR IN REVIEW 2016

Dell completes EMC acquisition

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Dell Technologies has announced completion of its acquisition of EMC Corporation. The combination created a $74 billion expansive organisation with an expansive technology portfolio that aims to solve complex problems for customers in the industry’s fast-growing areas including hybrid cloud, softwaredefined data centre, converged infrastructure, platform-as-a-service, data analytics, mobility and cybersecurity.

We look forward to bringing the power of our combined investment in R&D – more than $12.7 billion over the last three years to extend the industry’s most complete set of capabilities.”

Mohammed Amin, Dell EMC

Oracle closes $9.3 billion NetSuite deal

Microsoft acquires LinkedIn

The $9.3 billion acquisition of NetSuite has officially closed as enough NetSuite shares were tendered in favour of the offer, initially made in July, according to Oracle.

Now officially a part of Oracle, NetSuite plans to localise its products for many more countries while expanding its data centre capacity, sales operations, expanding its channel community and other assets to reach customers in those new areas.

Microsoft snapped up LinkedIn for $26.2 billion in the largest acquisition in its history. The tech company’s CEO Satya Nadella hopes the deal will open new horizons for Microsoft’s Office suite as well as LinkedIn, both of which have saturated their markets, and generally bolster the firm’s revenue and competitive position.

C h i n a’ s H N A G r o u p b u y s Ingram Micro for $6 billion Technology distributor Ingram Micro has been acquired for $6 billion by Tianjin Tianhai Investment Company, an entity that’s part of Chinese conglomerate HNA Group.

As part of the deal, Ingram Micro will cease trading on the New York Stock Exchange, making it the only one of North America’s six largest IT distributors to be privately held.

With its well-established supply chain management expertise and broad portfolio of easyto-use technology solutions, Ingram Micro exemplifies HNA Group’s strategy of investing in companies with strong positions in growing markets in our core areas of focus.”

Adam Tan, HNA Group

Partner programmes A r u b a’ s n e w pa r t n e r programme Networking provider Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) company, has launched its new Partner Ready for Networking Program, which retains the best aspects of both Aruba PartnerEdge and HPE Partner Ready programmes.

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

With profitability and simplicity as its main pillars, the new programme aims to help enable partners to capitalise on the burgeoning enterprise mobility market opportunity.”

Omar AlHaj-Issa, Aruba, an HPE company

Solutions centre

Key appointments

R e d i n g t o n Va l u e u n v e i l s R e d Va u lt Redington Value, the value-added distribution division of Redington Gulf, during this year’s GITEX Technology Week, has launched Red Vault, a new functional solutions centre that fully integrates more than 40 different solutions from numerous vendors.

The company noted that the new solutions centre will create a platform for existing and new partners and customers to get trained in vendor-authorised training centres.

Alaa Elshimy, Managing Director and Vice President, Huawei Enterprise Business Group

Claire Jones, Partner Sales Director, MEA, Juniper Networks

Gilbert Lacroix, General Manager, Mindware

Jean Philippe Barleaza, VP, Channel and Alliances, EMEA, VMware

Nathan Clements, Managing Director, Exclusive Networks ME

Ramzi Itani, Regional Channel Sales Director, Middle East, Riverbed

Ricardo Moreno, Vice President of Worldwide Channels, Infoblox

Tony Alam, CEO, Emitac Enterprise Solutions

Cloud A p t e c , a n I n g r a m M i c r o c o m pa n y p r e s e n t s n e w c l o u d s e r v i c e s p o r ta l Ingram 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.

The Cloud Marketplace features cloud solutions like Microsoft Office 365 through the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) programme and a suite of migration services from SkyKick. A number of additional cloud offerings including Dropbox for Business and BitTitan are expected to be added soon.

A l i b a b a C l o u d l a u n c h e s Y v o lv Alibaba Cloud has announced the launch of a new data centre in Dubai that will be operated by Yvolv, a joint venture between Alibaba Cloud and Meraas Holdings.

Yvolv is the first full-fledged public cloud in the region that is hosted at a local data centre. It will offer a portfolio of services to address the increasing demand for mission-critical, affordable and secure cloud computing in the Middle East.

L o g i c o m , A L S O f o r m c l o u d pa r t n e r s h i p ALSO and Logicom have entered into a strategic partnership to bring a wide range of local and global cloud-based software services to customers in Southern Europe and the Middle East. Both companies joined forces to make the ALSO Cloud Marketplace platform available to over 10,000 Logicom partners in 13 countries including Greece, Cyprus, Malta, Italy, Romania as well as KSA, UAE, Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman and Qatar.

Avaya u n v e i l s ‘Avaya E d g e ’

Dell EMC’s new partner programme

Avaya has introduced a new partner programme called Avaya Edge. Key elements of the programme include simplified structure with streamlined requirements and new gem designation levels—Diamond, Sapphire and Emerald. Also, new incentives will reward partners for strategic areas of achievement, such as customer value, growth and new product adoption.

The new Dell EMC Partner Programme will be effective in February 2017.

The new programme draws from the best aspects of the former Dell and EMC partner programmes. It will encompass its entire partner ecosystem, inclusive of solution providers, cloud service providers, global alliances, OEM solutions partners and distribution.

Devices

Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus

D-Link AC5300 Ultra Wi-Fi router (DIR-895L)

Microsoft Surface Studio

HP Elite x3

Google Pixel

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

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EVENT

CHANNEL WATCH Industry experts at Dubai Computer Group’s business symposium and networking event shared insights on the burgeoning issues in the regional channel.

A

t its recently held business symposium and networking evening at JW Marriot Marquis, Dubai Computer Group (DCG) brought together key players from banking and insurance sectors to address challenges in the channel.

DCG President, Shailendra Rughwani said, “The networking event is increasingly gaining popularity within members and non-members alike. We expect it to become one of the most important events for people in the IT industry to attend. We invite prominent personalities from different sectors to interact with our members to enhance business for the computer group.”

The 100-plus attendees had an opportunity to raise concerns around issues of trade finance, credit risk, compliance, credit re-structuring, credit insurance management, project financing and converging organisation governance.

Some of the most discussed issues were around credit management, profitability, and resellers fleeing the market leaving behind huge debts.

Mahan Bolourchi, Regional Head Financial Risks Middle East, Howden Dubai, said it is critical for resellers to have the right insurer as their partner and sound internal credit management.

He added, “However the current developments within this region have prompted the insurers as well as the distributers to review how they approve and extend credit facilities.”

Bolourchi believes going forward, any distributer who looks for healthy profitability need the right set up and infrastructure such as an excellent

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Dharmendra Sawlani, General Secretary, DCG, moderating panel discussion

Suchit Kumar, Head, Working Committee, DCG

procurement for sourcing from the right suppliers and a committed insurer who is mitigating the risk of potential losses.

He added, “A superb CFO who is generating the required cash flow and working capital with a modest interest rate is also a must.”

A panel member at the event, Raghuvir Mehra, Managing Director, Credit and Assets, Retail Banking, RAK Bank, advised partners to operate only in their area of expertise to remain profitable.

He said, “Many resellers get into multiple product trading and spread

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

Shailendra Rughwani, President, DCG

their cash flows into areas that are only used as additional income or investments. They need to have their financial model reviewed regularly, whether through a bank or through their accountants. “Often, we have seen that the owners have little idea about their cash flows and get trapped into a crunch environment.”

Mehra also underlined supplier identification and management as another big area that customers tend to ignore. “Having few suppliers but with good credentials is definitely key

to a vibrant cash flow model thereby reducing chances of imbalance in payments. Low operational costs are also key for maximising profits – in a challenging market you need to think smart and execute fast,” he added.

According to Mehra, to prevent resellers fleeing the market comes down to managing their cash flows appropriately. “That is so vital,” he said. “Managing suppliers, debt and getting your business model and income statements reviewed regularly can prevent overburdening and mismanagement of funds.

Customers should approach banks as their partners, banks have invested money in them they should take advice from banks and not get overleveraged and borrow to the extent they can’t manage.”

He added that in adverse circumstances when the business is going through a low phase, resellers should approach banks to look at their business model and ask for help, rather

than exiting the country unlawfully.

“Early warnings are always aspects that a businessman can sense. That is the time to approach banks, not when they are already in heavy debts and there’s no way out for help. The mantra is to manage your cash flows effectively, although it sounds quite simple, it is not.”

When a reseller flees the market, it could be either of the two – intended fraud or genuine debts and tight cash liquidity.

Bolourchi said, “In the past we have seen several such cases within SMEs and not all were related to a fraudulent activity. Tight cash liquidity is the major issue which lead the firms into serious cash flow issues. Banks are not lending and a typical insolvency is that last act.

“Thankfully the insolvency law will be implemented soon and this will change the market behaviours significantly. But this will take time. In the meanwhile, one needs to monitor the market closely. It is important to have the right mix of finance and

insurance partners who are advising you with whom to deal with.”

Although over the course of the coming year, the risks will remain as there will be more global, political and business challenges affecting the regional market directly, it is up to the players to stay vigilant.

The association’s General Secretary Dharmendra Sawlani said, “DCG Business Symposium and Networking is the third event in our series on the concept of ‘Bridging Business – Connecting Ideas’. The objective is to pass on to the industry via this event that for us to succeed in this rapidly changing world of technology, we have little choice but to evolve and innovate. These events are opportunities for our members to brainstorm and tackle impediments to their growth and progress.”

The Business Symposium was supported by Huawei Enterprise in partnership with FDC Provalue and New Trend Computer Networks.

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TECHACCESS // OPINION

THE CLOUD STORY

Mohamed Naim, Regional Sales Manager, Gulf, TechAccess, examines the regional cloud market and how partners can develop the demand.

O

n a global level cloud has gone from concept to reality for thousands of SMBs and enterprises, and it’s easy to see why. Cloud-based business models have enabled organisations to reduce capital expenses, while increasing productivity and collaboration. Having addressed concerns around data theft, loss of control of data, governance issues and privacy laws, organisations across the globe are now reaping the benefits of cloud.

In the Middle East however, we are still at a nascent stage with regards to cloud adoption. Generally speaking, decision makers are aware of the vast benefits that cloud can offer, but for many organisations, questions about implementation and security, as well as concerns about being able to access their applications and data at all times, have been stumbling blocks. Costs are also a concern for those who want to host their own data centres, and this is especially relevant now, as regional markets have slumped in the last few months.

Vendors and their channel partners have to keep these market dynamics in mind, along with the concerns potential

Mohamed Naim, TechAccess

customers have, if they wish to develop the space. But before they approach the market, they have to ensure that they have the talent and skills to not only sell solutions, but to properly deploy and support customers in the long run. It’s also important for vendors and partners to engage and educate potential customers - there are always cases where information is out-of-date or incorrect.

From a TechAccess point of view, we have invested in our own cloud solution centre to help partners sell solutions. Presently, we offer IaaS and partners can use the facility to conduct demonstrations, and benchmarks.

DBaaS cloud services are also functional within the facility, and we are now working on deploying our SaaS and PaaS services, to provide partners with a comprehensive cloud environment. We are also offering partners market awareness sessions to help them understand where opportunities exist.

Within the region, large enterprises in sectors such as BFSI, oil and gas and the government, could benefit from a cloud-based model. Here, it’s important

“Cloud-based business models have enabled organisations to reduce capital expenses, while increasing productivity and collaboration.”

to understand that these organisations generate and store massive volumes of sensitive data. The nature of the data generated, access to this data, its security and where it resides, may deter organisations from adopting a cloud-only based model. A hybrid cloud might be the ideal way forward but for these organisations the ultimate goal will be to host data centres within their own premises to ease access and security concerns. It is here that channel partners have the opportunity to sell complementary solutions, while also offering technical services to support the customer in the long term.

The next solution for large organisations is to turn to off-site data centres and here, the lack of local facilities comes into play - these business entities will be unwilling to host their data in facilities that fully comply with US or European regulations.

Fortunately, in the not too distant future, regional data centres and hosting services will become a reality, and will help these organisations embrace cloud. And although there will still be concerns about loss of control of their data, the fact that the data centre is within the region, and will abide by regional laws and security guidelines, will help address most issues.

The regional market for cloud solutions is still in its infancy, and has to be nurtured by vendors, distributors and their partners. It’s also important that they offer tailor-made solutions that demonstrate tangible value to their customers because one thing is for certain, cloud is here to stay.

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

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1

HOT 50 AWARDS // EVENT

EXCELLENCE AT ITS BEST

Top regional IT channel companies honoured at Reseller Middle East’s fifth annual Hot 50 Awards last month.

Reseller Middle East, the channel publication of publishing industry veteran CPI Media Group, hosted its annual Hot 50 Awards ceremony on Sunday, 27th November at The Oberoi Hotel, Dubai.

Now in its fifth year, the Hot 50 Awards puts the spotlight on IT companies that have shown great prowess and commitment in reaching their business objectives while contributing to the continuous growth of the regional IT channel landscape.

The exclusive event, held at a glamorous open air setting by the poolside at The Oberoi

hotel in Dubai, brought together over 150 key stakeholders from various industries across the region. Handpicked by the Reseller ME editorial team, the 50 honourees of the programme include vendors, distributors, systems integrators, resellers and retailers alike.

The award’s sponsors include Redington Gulf Value Distribution as Strategic VAD Partner, HP Enterprise as Strategic Technology Partner and Alibaba Cloud as Strategic Cloud Partner. The event partners include Mindware, AlJammaz Distribution and AGC Networks.

Take a look at the star-studded evening.

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COVER STORY // WESTCON – COMSTOR

NAVIGATING CHANGE

Reseller ME sits down with Dolph Westerbos, Chief Executive Officer, WestconGroup, to learn how services and cloud solutions will lead the evolution in distribution.

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T

he distribution industry is gradually moving into a more services model as we see the region embracing cloud and virtualisation deployments.

Value-added distributor of security, collaboration, networking and data centre solutions, Westcon-Comstor, rebranded from WestconGroup earlier this year, too has been focusing on its services and cloud journey over the last year.

Five years ago, the company was largely a product-focused business but keeping in line with changing market trends, today it is half way between products and solutions. According to the company CEO, Dolph Westerbos, the evolution in distribution must be around services.

“This has to take place in the distribution of services, digital services and adding services around emerging solutions to help resellers with capabilities that they might not have themselves or don’t want to focus on.

They also might not have the financial resources to build every piece of the puzzle themselves,” he says.

“Here is where our role comes into the picture – to step up the position in the marketplace to help the resellers.

In this regard, we have made heavy investments. As a company, cloud too has been one of our business priorities.”

The regional market has been

increasingly moving towards and focusing on digital transformation in the last two years. But how is the company enabling resellers to remain relevant in the digital era?

“By taking a bigger responsibility around their internal operations,” says Westerbos.

According to him, there are two main barriers preventing resellers from making a successful journey into the clouds. The first one is the fear of being disintermediated when an end customer starts to consume IT in a different way.

“There is a risk that they will begin a direct relationship with the service provider and resellers might be unable to see the opportunity for them in the long term.”

To address this, the company has constructed a platform called BlueSky, which specifically keeps the reseller at the centre of the on-going digital services lifecycle.

“This way,” Westerbos says, “not only will resellers help to facilitate that first transaction, if somebody wants to buy Symantec Backup solution or Azure’s compute solutions, but also the complete usage will fall on this platform through them.”

Resellers can view all the analytics that happens at the customer level. And every time the customer wishes to make a change such as add new people or a new functionality, rather than going

“Our vision is to help the reseller community navigate an ever complex IT landscape.” www.resellerme.com // Reseller Middle East // DECEMBER 2016

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COVER STORY // WESTCON – COMSTOR

back directly to the service provider, it actually goes through the reseller, via the platform back to the distributor and then to the service provider.

“The reseller is able to monetise every step of the way and has all the analytics to attach services around it. We have ensured that resellers are kept involved through this engagement platform.”

The second challenge that resellers face is the complexity to operate in a digital environment. It demands different kinds of billing solutions and systems.

In this respect, the company provides billing solutions on the resellers’ behalf.

Here it can generate the consumptionbased bills with the resellers’ logos or put a feed into their systems.

He adds, “Instead of them changing their order entry systems, they can use our systems as a backbone. The same is true for upselling and reselling. The initial contract is often a small one and you can only make money by upselling and cross-selling. Often the resellers don’t have the bandwidth to do all that is possible for this. So our call centres allow us, on behalf of the resellers, to call and upsell and cross-sell. This way our resellers can continue to generate more revenue.”

How can resellers make money?

How can they stay engaged? And how can they support the operational challenges? These are some of the

AT A GLANCE Company: Westcon-Comstor CEO: Dolph Westerbos HQ: New York, USA Founded in: 1985 Group MD, MENA: Steve Lockie Middle East operations: 1993 Presence in: 70 plus countries across 6 continents

biggest concerns for resellers today, according to the CEO. “This is because their expertise is around the technology, around the customer and business case. It is not around how to build or provision or how to monitor the kind of usage – those aspects are really complex. It then becomes the distribution’s role to play.”

In terms of technologies, Westerbos believes that security will continue to be its biggest growth driver.

He says, “Security has really become the core of who we are as a distributor and we are expanding that.”

Traditionally, the company has been offering solutions around network and infrastructure security. It is now expanding that into endpoint security.

“It involves not only endpoint devices but also aspects such as routers and switches, particularly as machine-tomachine and IoT are starting to become

“Our sense of responsibility will increase even further whether it is to do with financing solutions, access to digital consumption models or new services capabilities around new technology solutions.”

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more prominent and drives security to the edge considerably. In the coming year, the market will see us rolling out a specific business practice around endpoint security.”

Going forward, we will see the valueadded distributor investing significantly around reseller enablement, especially in cloud solutions and services as these are the two key areas.

He adds, “Apart from services capabilities and cloud distribution, we are also investing in Internet of Things technology. We are yet to define what our strategy will be in the IoT space as we are in the process of learning. It is definitely a big opportunity and the market will hear more from us on IoT in the near future.”

Westerbos’ vision for the company is to be an organisation that helps the reseller community “navigate an ever complex IT landscape.”

He says, “What used to be a productfocused company has got to become an all-solutions provider organisation. This doesn’t mean that we will ever compete with the resellers but instead want to help enable them.

“Our sense of responsibility will increase even further whether it is to do with financing solutions, access to digital consumption models or new services capabilities around new technology solutions. Going forward, I see us as an enabler for the reseller community and a leader in services and cloud.”

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INTERVIEW // HP INC.

LEAD WITH PARTNERS Mathew Thomas, Managing Director, Middle East and Saudi Arabia, HP Inc, offers insights into the company’s strategies and plans for the region.

ore than a year ago, the technology behemoth, HP, officially divided its business into two separate entities – HP Enterprise, focusing on software and business services and HP Inc, which now runs its personal computer and printer operations.

Mathew Thomas, Managing Director, Middle East and Saudi Arabia, HP Inc, says the split has given the company the advantage of agility and speed of a start-up with the muscle of a Fortune 500 firm.

“As a $50 billion plus organisation, HP Inc’s strategy has been to grow and protect the three areas of our business. These include keeping our positon strong in our core business, bringing in innovative products and keeping customers

refreshed on primary products such as printers, desktops, notebooks and the like.”

The company is looking to sustain the market share it enjoys in its main line of operations while working towards enhancing its growth areas such as the A3 copier market.

“The recent acquisition of Samsung printers was an endeavour towards this. Other new growth segments include commercial mobility, where we have recently announced Elite X3, which is a new product for this segment.”

Over and above this, the firm also has a long-term strategy in place where it is exploring and investing into areas such as 3D printing, blended and virtual reality.

“The idea is to invest today for the

“There are different opportunities and partners should know that they cannot focus on everything. We help identify profitable areas of business to see how we can invest and grow jointly.”

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product of tomorrow,” says Thomas.

“As far as 3D printing is concerned, we have made our focus, interest and investment clear in this space.”

Presently, HP is doing several activities with different companies exploring various aspects such as the kind of materials and technology that can be used in 3D printing and the areas where this will be useful.

He adds, “It is still a work in progress. Our aim is to bring in products that are fast and costeffective. Although this hasn’t been translated to the channel yet, partners will hear more on this front in the future.”

The company’s partner programme, Partner First, was revamped recently in order to make it simpler. With three segmentations – Platinum, Gold and Silver – partners have well-defined tracks and objectives depending on if the nature of their business is volume, valueadded or ISP. “The programme is now simple and partners can identify where they belong, start investing and reaping the benefits of each segment. We have also made it more specific in terms of specialisations.”

To remain profitable in the challenging hardware space, Thomas says, partners should

keep a lookout on the direction the market is moving towards.

“Partners’ capital deployment should be done with this in mind.

They need to identify the areas they want to focus on. The biggest issue partners are facing today is the decision of whether their business should be broadline or specialist.”

In this regard, the company is helping partners to maximise the prospects in the specialisations they wish to focus on, whether it is printing and managed print services, commercial mobility or devices as a service.

He adds, “There are different opportunities and partners should know that they cannot focus on everything. We help identify profitable areas of business to see how we can invest and grow jointly.”

Thomas believes that the business will move from transactional to contractual in the near future. Although it is happening gradually at the moment, it will increase even further, he says.

“We aim at creating win-win partnerships with our channel and offer the expertise to make this happen. We train our partners, share opportunities and do several co-marketing initiatives with them. This way we ensure our partners become an extended arm of HP,” Thomas says.

Over the course of the coming year, partners can expect a robust partner programme, distinct commitment to the channel business and new technologies from the company.

“Globally, we have announced that we will increase the

percentage of our business with partners. Bringing new technologies to the market is part of our DNA. With these elements, we are in a strong position to work together with our channel ecosystem.”

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FEATURE // VENDOR MANAGEMENT

TEAM UP

Ideal partnerships are those that are profitable for both vendors and partners. Reseller ME examines the importance of implementing vendor management strategies and what resellers and solutions providers need to keep in mind when doing so.

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E

very business is about the people who drive it. Vendor relationship management, a well-known idea, is often ignored at the partner level. But channel players need to understand that it is just as important as managing customer relationships.

Albert Raj, Managing Director, Fujisoft, agrees that most organisations hesitate to invest in vendor management and it is an undervalued concept within the region.

“The biggest reason behind this,” he says, “is because there is no structured or disciplined approach to vendor management as most incorporate a complex multivendor model. This affects collaboration, innovation and vendor performance.”

Stephan Berner, Help AG

“Vendor management has also helped up identify which relationships make the most sense for us to invest further into.

As a reseller with 18 vendor partners, this is essential as we need to maximise our human and financial resources.”

However, some industry experts believe that even though the MENA region, when compared to firms in Europe and other parts of the world, is lesser into sound vendor management strategies, partners here are gradually realising the value a dedicated manager

can bring to the relationship between vendors and partners.

“We are seeing a steady shift towards building strong relationships that go beyond just the monetary and revenue goals and aim towards collaborative working and people

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FEATURE // VENDOR MANAGEMENT

management,” says, Manisha G, MarComm Manager, Finesse.

“The relationship formed by systems integrators with customers yields revenue on which they make margins that turn into profit – those margins are determined by the relationship they have with vendors whether it’s in the form of discounts or additional resources, rewards, promotions or even training.

All these elements are critical in the IT ecosystem, and are usually reflected in SLAs between the two parties,” says Sebastien Pavie, Director MEA Sales, Identity and Data Protection, Gemalto.

From identifying the relationships that are most profitable to being in sync with business objectives, a sound vendor management strategy brings in many advantages to a partner’s business.

Karim Refas, Regional Channel Manager, Eaton, says that although their title may not highlight this, the company’s reseller partners have a designated and dedicated key contact person that is handling their relationship He says, “In most cases, it will be someone from the team wearing a ‘pre-sales hat’ and with a technical background. This is imperative for us to transfer knowledge and have technically-enabled resources available within our reseller partners.”

Ghassan Al Kahlout, Nexthink

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Albert Raj, Fujisoft

“Flexibility is another aspect that will bind the relationship. Being flexible will illustrate that you are willing to work together.”

For Help AG, a regional systems integrator, having a vendor management strategy in place gave the company the right visibility and transparency to focus on the relevant business objectives with clearly defined timelines associated to it, according to its CEO, Stephan Berner.

He adds, “Especially with the rate at which technology is progressing, it is essential for us to know the product roadmap for our vendor partners.

This allows us to better position these to our customers and enables us to incorporate them in our reference architectures.

“Vendor management has also helped up identify which relationships make the most sense for us to invest further into. As a reseller with 18 vendor partners, this is essential as we need

to maximise our human and financial resources. It is precisely because of this exercise that today we have managed to achieve the highest degree of certification with many of our partners.”

A dedicated vendor management strategy has also enabled the SI to maintain a portfolio of solutions that is constantly evaluated to ensure that they are still best-in-class.

Berner adds, “In some cases, this exercise has resulted in us having to terminate our agreements with vendor partners.”

Nexthink’s Regional Director, Ghassan Al Kahlout, believes a vendor relationship manager should be trained by the vendor to understand compliance, processes, how to deliver the right message to the market, and to

“The vendor relationship manager plays the role of an advocate of the vendor to the internal management of his or her company, and therefore, may adopt new strategies such as offerings for customers. A well-managed vendor relationship results in increased customer satisfaction, reduced costs, better quality, and better service from the vendor.”

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

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VENDOR MANAGEMENT // FEATURE

tailor the sales and marketing strategy for certain territories.

“This is important because the vendor relationship manager plays the role of an advocate of the vendor to the internal management of his or her company, and therefore, may adopt new strategies such as offerings for customers. A well-managed vendor relationship results in increased customer satisfaction, reduced costs, better quality, and better service from the vendor,” he adds.

How can partners go about devising a sturdy vendor management strategy?

Regional distributor, Spectrami’s Managing Director, Anand Choudha, says, every vendor’s technology is different and accordingly it’s positioning.

“Aspects such as type of customer focus, sales cycle and product positioning along with competition defines the vendor management strategy.”

“It is also critical to have an understanding of what both, the vendor and partner, want to achieve. This could be revenue expectations, new product sales, penetrations into new verticals or territories,” says Omar Akhtar, Regional Channel Manager, Middle East and SAARC, Veeam Software.

Partners need to begin the process by selecting the right vendors that are in line with their business goals.

They need to do this based on various criteria, which will vary from business to business. They need to have a constant and clear communication with their point of contact from each vendor. It is also important to evaluate the progress and identify areas for improvement on a regular basis.

“Flexibility is another aspect that will bind the relationship. Being flexible will illustrate that you are willing to work together,” adds Raj from Fujisoft.

Partners should look at investing in dedicated vendor managers to grow the business to higher levels through collaboration.

BEST VENDOR MANAGEMENT PRACTICES “It is best practice for vendors and partners alike to ensure that the SLAs agreed on are detailed and clear. For vendor management strategies specifically, SLAs must cover recruitment policies, marketing processes and sector focus alignment in addition to ensuring clear details on response time, issues escalation and consequences of not adhering to the obligations in the agreement. Having the necessary paperwork in place ensures a smooth working relationship between vendors and systems integrators.”

Sebastien Pavie, Gemalto

“Agreed documented business plans with measurable objectives broken down per quarter with delegated owners for each objective to ensure execution is done correctly and the end goal is achieved.”

Omar Akhtar, Veeam Software

“A key element for a successful relationship is having clear communication around setting targets, goals and performance management.

We have seen great improvements in the results of our partners when the targets are clearly set and agreed. Reviewing performances (KPI’s) regularly is integral with the way we work with our partners.”

Karim Refas, Eaton

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BOLD PRINTS

As emerging technologies take centre stage within the regional market, Reseller ME explores its impact on the printing industry and the opportunities it present for partners.

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PRINTING PROSPECTS // FEATURE

O

ne would have thought that as enterprises move into the digital era, there would be a decline in the printing industry. However, the recent reports from Smithers Pira suggest the contrary.

The firm predicts the global printing market to sustain an annual growth rate of 2 percent per year till 2020. This is driven by growth in package printing, continued growth in emerging economies, and added-value opportunities associated with digital print. According to the firm, the total printing revenues in the MENA region were $17.6 billion in 2012, and is forecast to grow to 7.2 percent per annum reaching $26 billion by 2018.

Earlier this year, trade show management company, International Expo Consults (IEC) part of Falak Holding, reported that the investments in theme parks, infrastructure and retail in UAE will further advance the billion-dollar printing industry. It is expected to grow notably across the MENA region due to the investment by governments in various sectors especially infrastructure.

Hendrik Verbrugghe, Marketing Director, Canon Middle East and Canon Central and North Africa, says, “Commercial printing industry in the MENA region continues to see rapid growth due to the growing infrastructure

Pui Chi Li, Xerox

Hendrik Verbrugghe, Canon Middle East

“Commercial printing industry in the MENA region continues to see rapid growth due to the growing infrastructure and associated developments despite a paradigm shift to alternative technology.”

and associated developments despite a paradigm shift to alternative technology. This trend in terms of digital or electronic books and online communication has taken prominence but cannot scale the popularity of the printed tangibles as yet.”

Emerging technologies such as Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud have compelled the printing industry to transform and evolve. This has also led to the regional channel market maximising opportunities in services related to the sector.

According to Albert Raj, Managing Director, Fujisoft, technologies such as cloud and IoT have impacted the printing industry in terms of capabilities and it will be become a norm in the future.

“Because of these emerging technologies, the print industry is now under the process of understanding where the new market lies. It is

“We offer a range of partner programmes that support channel partners’ growth and increase opportunity for improved profitability. The certification process is a key enabler for the partners and our partners’ customers to help differentiate their business and gain a competitive advantage.”

composed for an upsurge of acquisition and streamlining, as vendors look to adapt to new market demands and shed assets that no longer meet strategic needs,” he says.

Verbrugghe adds, “Innovations in smart sensors and RFID chips are increasingly making devices intelligent assets that can be connected, monitored and managed remotely.

Today, many smart printers are equipped with embedded technology to enable remote management.”

For example, vendors now offer the convenience of printing from smart devices and online storage services.

“Smartphones and printers are already talking to each other via nearfield communications (NFC). Printer hardware is already becoming more powerful, most offer cloud connectivity and increased document processing capabilities and intelligence. We are seeing sensors and networking technologies being added to printers and MFPs, and businesses are gaining valuable real-time insight into print usage,” he adds.

However, Wajid Shaikh, HP IPG Product Manager, Logicom, disagrees that these technologies are impacting the printing industry.

“Advances in cloud and IoT currently have little or no impact on the printing industry, as regional and re-export markets are still in the process of becoming fully equipped

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FEATURE // PRINTING PROSPECTS

with and updated on technological advancements, such as cloud computing,” he says. “But once the printing industry becomes completely aligned with cloud and IoT, consolidation is likely to take place among resellers.

These resellers who have a traditional ‘box moving’ mentality will need to adapt to become more solutionoriented. As such, specialised training will become a necessity in order for them to upgrade their technical knowhow and better equip them to deliver solutions to customers.”

Raj from Fujisoft adds, “Cloud computing models will help generate new markets for the print industry. With models that promote both users and

Wajid Shaikh, Logicom

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vendors the capabilities to introduce new and innovative products, new markets can be introduced to the degree that the print industry has not yet witnessed.”

But for partners to really optimise the prospects present, they need to scale up. This is easier said than done since they are faced with challenges such as cost, technology and skillset.

“The region is still a cost sensitive marketplace. Although it is widely acknowledged that quality is highly valued, most organisations are still working with tight budgets. This is where a company’s reputation and strong brand name gives the company an edge, as people

“The challenge for partners going forward will be the paradigm shift in the process of assessing and delivering a need-based solution, rather than merely securing a transactional goal.”

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

know they can trust the technology produced,” says Verbrugghe.

“For instance, Canon is no longer just a camera manufacturer, we’re a full service provider having imaging, printing and video surveillance solutions in our portfolio. It therefore becomes imperative to inform the market about what we are offering and see how the new technology is being consumed. Educating the market is therefore of prime importance.”

It is critical for partners to keep themselves updated with the latest market trends and developments. They must invest time and resources to be certified in specialised areas with printing so customers can rely on them.

Pui Chi Li, Head of Marketing, Middle East and Africa, Xerox, says. “There are two areas that are important for channel partners to consider when looking to invest and develop. Channel partners should invest in training analysts familiar with Java or Windows C programming.

With these skills, they can easily create a wide range of bespoke or generic applications based on needs identified at a customer location.

“We offer a range of partner programmes that support channel partners’ growth and increase opportunity for improved profitability. The certification process is a key enabler for the partners and our partners’ customers to help differentiate their business and gain a competitive advantage.”

Shaikh says, “The challenge for partners going forward will be the paradigm shift in the process of assessing and delivering a need-based solution, rather than merely securing a transactional goal.”

The opportunities for partners will only increase as the industry evolves and incorporates emerging technologies. Resellers must regularly update themselves and identify areas for innovation to stay differentiated in the market.

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VENDOR FOCUS // COMMVAULT

ALL ABOUT SERVICES

Wael Mustafa, Channel Director MESAT, Commvault, elaborates on partners’ interest to deliver around services.

ore than a year ago, the technology behemoth, HP, officially divided its business into two separate entities – HP Enterprise, focusing on software and business services and HP Inc, which now runs its personal computer and printer operations.

Over the last year, Commvault’s growth plans have centred around the channel and this continues to be the focus for the data and information management software firm in 2017.

Wael Mustafa, Channel Director MESAT, Commvault, says, “The emphasis on the channel is a continuous strategy for us, because we can see the value from our distributors, resellers, SIs and OEMs. “Today’s customers are looking out for channel partners who can offer value to them. They are not seeking commodity-focused partners. This is also Commvault’s messaging – it is not about backup any longer but about advance solutions that help customers meet and add value to business requirements.”

The company has focused on ensuring that it has the right portfolio of partners to reach the appropriate markets for the desired segments.

“We are looking to hire the right distributors who can support us from the coverage perspective.”

In the last 12 months, the company has grown its distribution partners from one to three to include TechAccess, StorIT and Logicom.

He adds, “We have grown our distribution base because we are

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looking to cover more markets as the demand for our solutions has grown within the region. We hired partners last year to touch base in countries where we did not have a presence before. Today they are trained and ready to go and can add value to Commvault’s solutions and services.”

Increasingly partners are asking to lead customer engagements with services, says Mustafa. This is not only encouraging but also interesting as this means partners are realising how they can maximise their business through contemporary ways.

“This way high demand comes to Commvault in enabling partners from the services perspective. One of the value-adds, partners can offer customers is around services. This is also why our partners have leveraged the benefits of our Service Advantage programme, where we enable and certify the partner to offer the solutions and services for end-users,” he adds.

The company runs three separate channel programmes – Channel Sales programme for the traditional distributors and partners, Service Provider programme, which is around hosting and subscription model and the Service Advantage programme for services certification.

The company has observed customer requests increasingly around cloud and partners too are keen to be on this journey, says Mustafa. “This is an area where we have advanced offerings.”

The company has seen growth coming in from all its markets,

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

although Mustafa says countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey are more advanced when it comes to technology.

“In general, the investment is more in these countries.”

Going forward, the company’s messaging will be around what it is going to do for partners and is seeking more advanced and industrial kind of partners.

“We are looking for vertical specialised partners in healthcare and telco to name a few. We will also look at helping existing partner base to specialise and integrate in key verticals.”

Plans for the next few quarters will be around expanding its market coverage with the help of its channel, alliance and OEM partners.

“Having the differentiation in the market already is a privilege for us.

We continue to work towards our customers seeing the value from Commvault. This is also extended to our partners and systems integrators.

We need to increase our coverage from services point of view and the market will hear more from us around service provider offering and cloud technologies.”

Mustafa adds, “Our aim is to provide more solutions-centric approaches, optimise the whole environment and add value to businesses. Commvault’s unique offering is – we have a platform for the whole data management that a customer may require for any business.”

VENDOR FOCUS // SOTI

THE PARTNER WAY Nassar Hussain, Managing Director, EMEA, Soti, talks business and partner strategy for the region.

C

an you give us an overview of Soti’s operations?

Soti, an enterprise mobility management firm, has been in operations for the last 25 years. We enable organisations to use mobility to meet their business goals.

We have been established in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region for almost six and half years. Our business in the MENA markets has grown from strength to strength and the key factor behind this success is – we are a channel-centric company.

As a company, we believe in longterm relationships and partnerships.

Partners find us interesting because we enable them to open up additional revenue streams. For example, we enable a company that offers hardware to start offering managed services. We enable companies that are offering software solutions to be able to offer additional support services. We see our partners as enablers for Soti.

We have a strong team in the MENA region. From the partner’s perspective, we pretty much do all the legwork in each market to help the partner achieve his goals and targets.

Soti has the unique advantage of being able to view the market’s evolution. We are in a position to take our experience and educate our partners.

This allows our partners and ourselves to stay ahead of the curve.

What was the channel strategy and how has it changed considering current market scenarios?

Recently we have put together a

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programme called Partner Altitude. This allows us to streamline and fast-track partner engagement and also make sure partners have the right tools, support and people available. The Altitude programme has helped us streamline the focus for the channel. The programme itself has been a big driver in bringing in new partners and supporting those partners in the long term.

We continue to enhance the programme as the market, the company and our channel evolves. There are always new technologies coming out. It is important to stay in sync with market developments. We have Internet of Things (IoT) connected deployments and live scenarios of customers using our technology to manage non-mobile type of devices. The Altitude programme is central to enhancing the experience of our partners and giving them an insight into what we are doing. Last year, we saw a 26 percent year-over-year growth in our channel ecosystem with a 45 percent growth in our revenue through the channel programme.

Is the programme customised as per region?

It is a global programme that is localised for each region. Customisation is critical because what works in one market may not work in others. We have different stages of the partner programme. Several of these stages are based on what type the partner is. For example, if it is an ISV or a software company, there would be different criteria and markers within that programme. All of our partners, irrespective of what stage they are at, get

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

a dedicated account manager. They have a dedicated presales engineer and have access to all the resources available. They all have the same amount of knowledge and resources. It completely depends on how the partner want to drive the engagement with us.

Who are some of Soti’s typical partners?

We have a great mix and in this region particularly, we enjoy a lot of diversity.

We have resellers who sell hardware devices and technology, systems integrators and ISVs. What is the company’s business focus for 2017?

Our focus continues to be enhancing our channel presence and supporting our channel market. We are excited about the region as we expect many of our success stories to come from here.

What can partners expect from Soti going forward?

We have enhancements coming to our support for multiple platforms. IoT will be a huge driver and we already have related deployments for this region. We have our IoT technology which will be specially launched in 2017. There is a lot of technical innovations that partners can expect from us. And there is also several enhancements that are going to come for our outreach programme to help our partners streamline the processes right from ordering new licenses to receiving support.

Partners are our lifeline, we will continue to stay as a channel-centric company.

PARTNER WATCH // EHOSTING DATAFORT

THE DEFENCE HUB

Earlier this year, eHosting DataFort (eHDF) together with Netcure and LogRhythm launched a Cyber Defense Centre (CDC) in the UAE. Yasser Zeineldin, CEO, eHosting DataFort and Jeff Ogden, Managing Director, eHDF Cyber Defense Centre, discuss CDC’s objectives and future plans for the region.

Yasser Zeineldin, eHDF

T

ell us about your objectives behind the launch of the Cyber Defense Centre.

Yasser Zeineldin (YZ): The Cyber Defense Centre was launched in May this year. It aims to offer customers a range of Managed Security Services (MSS) and Remote Managed SIEM Services. eHDF as a company has been in the managed services business since 2002, offering 24/7 management for critical customer infrastructure. With the rise of security threats globally and here in the region we thought it’s very important to ensure that our customers in the Middle East specifically here in the GCC to have access to state-of-the-art security services and support.

We felt that there was a gap in that space. There are a lot of resellers and distributors of security products present in the market. However, when it comes to managing and responding to threats in real-time there are only a few organisations that provide those services. Moreover, what typically happens is that the organisations that provide those services also rely on security operations centres overseas.

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The customers will then have to wait for those operations centres to get back to them only to find out that they will only be given a set of recommended steps to address the threats. That should not be the case. It is not ideal to leave the response part to the customers because your customers aren’t security experts and they may find it challenging to put your recommendations into action. With our legacy as a 24/7 managed services provider, this is an area we excel at.

So that’s the market gap we intend to fill with the new Cyber Defense Centre.

Can you please explain the kind of services you offer at the CDC? Jeff Ogden (JO): Our key focus is mainly on giving customers the visibility of what’s going on within their infrastructures either globally or locally. So, we launched a service called real-time threat monitoring (RTTM). What that service does is collect all the data from a customer’s network and bring those data into a centre point, which is the SIEM solution. Our analysts will then take a look at it and evaluate whether it’s safe or there are indications of threats in that data. After which, they will alert the customer on the end result and make a decision to mitigate any threats on the customer’s behalf.

The RTTM platform is something that we have invested significantly in. Some of our customers have already bought that technology and have it on their sites.

Through the platform, we can import their data into our data centres in the UAE and do the analytics for our customers.

We believe that you can’t manage what you can’t measure. So the first step is

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

always to measure everything. Take the data, analyse it and only then can you help your customers secure it and make long-term strategic decisions regarding that data.

The second offering that we have is the Remote Managed SIEM Services (RMSS), which does the same processes as the RTTM but for an on-premise implementation. So if a customer doesn’t want to buy the technology they can get in touch with our analysts to examine their data and do the same analytics for them from our data centre.

Apart from managing mission critical applications we also offer firewall management, DDoS protection and web application protection among others.

We have already invested on those components and we deliver them as managed services.

What are your plans over the next few months? Will you be launching new solutions and services?

JO: Going forward we plan to launch two to three other services through the CDC. Many customers are struggling with cloud security and soon we will introduce a cloud access security platform (CASP).

This will enable organisations to control the access of users’ devices to cloud platforms like Office 365, Salesforce.com and so on.

The second service we’d like to introduce in the coming months is centred on encryption. So, depending on policies, we can encrypt any data that leaves the organisation to make sure that if it does fall into the wrong hands they won’t be able to access it.

REVIEW

HONOR 8

RATING

Glesni Holland, Deputy Editor, CPI Media Group, tries and tests Huawei’s latest launch, Honor 8.

A

s a longstanding and loyal iOS lover, I have always been sceptical about Android phones.

However, for under AED 1600, this slick looking, glass-back smartphone ticks a lot of boxes.

For starters, it has a particularly sensitive and attentive finger-print scanner, conveniently located on the back of the device for instantaneous access. It unlocks the phone in a fraction of a second, and can also be used as a shortcut to apps, i.e. one tap for Google Chrome, two taps for Facebook, and so on, which is quite useful.

The 12-megapixel rear camera is a dual-lens; one is colour and the other is monochrome, which aims to boost the amount of light information captured in every shot, and increases the device’s performance in low-light situations. The front-facing camera is 8-megapixels, and both cameras take good quality images. When opening the front camera, the ‘Beauty’ mode was automatically activated; it softens your skin and brightens your eyes, but does also seem to soften the sharpness of the image at the same time, which some users may not appreciate. The mode can be easily disabled for those opting for the more natural look. With 32GB of storage, 4GB of RAM and the option to insert a

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microSD card, there is ample space on this device to store a variety of media.

While I may be sceptical about Android devices, there are certain features of the Honor 8 that resemble those of the iOS 10 operating system, one being the notifications and shortcuts dropdown menu. Notifications will appear here to warn users of power-intensive apps running in the background, where it will then give you an option of whether or not you want to close the app. Although this may seem like a useful process to have in place, it can also become frustrating as it clogs up the notification panel and prevents you from being able to take a quick glance at the more relevant notifications that have appeared. The home screen also has an iOS feel; recently used apps are placed in a sliding carousel, and there is no app drawer meaning all of the apps are accessible directly from

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

the home screen. However, where it does differ from the latest Apple model is that the Honor 8 is the proud owner of a conventional headphone jack.

The battery life for this device is particularly impressive, as is the speed at which it charges from the mains power supply. Top tip: do not charge via the USB lead while connected to a PC, as this rate of charging is significantly slower.

This premium looking smartphone comes in four attractive colours: sapphire blue, pearl white, midnight black and sunrise gold. While the glass-back gives a sleek, upmarket feel to the device, be aware that it makes it very easy to lose grip on.

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GALAXY TABPRO S

RATING

Usually reserved for its Android line-up, Samsung’s Galaxy branding is also extended to its recent Windows 10 device.

T

he aesthetically designed Samsung Galaxy TabPro S feels quite solid in hand and is an ideal choice for an average tech-savvy individual’s media consumption.

It sports a metal band that runs around the device with a plastic back option of white or black. It features the company’s famous screen technology – a 12-inch super AMOLED

panel – and Intel Core M CPU, through which the user is assured of not hearing a fan whirring or feel heat dissipating from the device.

Included in the box is a folder-style full-sized keyboard that covers the device elegantly and enhances the look and feel. However, trying to open it with one hand can be cumbersome at times. While the keyboard is not as advanced as the Surface Pro 4, it still is a great addition to be included free-ofcharge by Samsung.

A complaint, users might have here is that the keyboard setup is restricted to only two viewing angles. This is not convenient for all users at all times.

Equipped with just one connectivity port – the USB-C for data transfer and charging, it has a volume rocker and sleep wake button

present along the metal frame of the device. There are also two speaker grills on either side of the device when held in landscape mode.

If a user is looking to consume media, write down meeting minutes, email, use basic Excel then this device is a great option. However, don’t expect any heavy programmes or software to run smoothly as even a simple action like folding the keyboard backward and moving to tablet mode, resulted in it getting stuck frequently.

Although this may be the case only with the review piece, there is always a learning curve associated with certain devices. And in that respect, this aspect might require a bit of getting used to.

The 5200 mAH battery does pretty well for a day of light usage. Other features include Bluetooth 4.1, GPS, GLONASS, 4k video playbacks and a front and rear camera of 5MP each.

Priced at around AED 4000, the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S is on the higher end, pitched against the likes of Surface Pro 4. However, the company could have matched it with higher specs for the two-in-one to stand up better to competition.

All in all, it is not a bad shout, depending on the user’s objectives with it.

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

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BOSE LAUNCHES NEW WIRELESS SOUNDBAR AND SURROUND SOUND SYSTEMS

Bose has launched three new wireless speaker systems: the SoundTouch 300 soundbar, and two new Lifestyle home entertainment systems, combining “stunning surround sound with an equally stunning design.”

The SoundTouch 300, a singlespeaker for music and movies, measures just 38.5-inch W x 4.25-inch H x 2.25-inch D, and claims to deliver “the best audio performance for any soundbar its size.” It is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled with NFC for easy pairing.

It has a thin profile and includes a perforated wrap-around metal grille and sleek glass top.

Meanwhile, the Lifestyle 650 home entertainment system, including four new OmniJewel satellite speakers, measuring in at 1.84 inches wide and 5.77 inches high. Like the SoundTouch 300, the 650 applies QuietPort technology and advanced DSP for depth, clarity and realism; ADAPTiQ for optimal acoustics in any space; and 4K pass through with 6 HDMI inputs. It’s also WiFi and Bluetooth enabled with NFC, and compatible with other SoundTouch systems for wholehome, wireless audio.

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LENOVO UNVEILS NEW PHAB2 PRO Lenovo has launched the Phab2 Pro “the world’s first Tango-enabled smartphone.”

According to Lenovo, the Phab2 Pro allows users to create more experiences by revolutionsing a smartphone that can monitor depth perception, motion tracking, and gauge area learning features. The 6.4-inch smartphone is also equipped with a fast-focusing 16 MP camera and virtual backgrounds.

The Phab2 Pro, powered by Tango technology that senses and maps its surroundings, supports motion tracking, depth perception and area learning features. With motion tracking, the Phab2 Pro’s “eye” sees its own location in 3D. Area learning tells the smartphone its location. Depth perception lets the device analyse the shape of the world around it by detecting surfaces and obstacles. And now for the first time ever, a smartphone

can visualise and understand its surrounding objects and environment via sensors that capture more than 250,000 measurements a second.

The device is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor, which brings efficient hardware integration and processing, 4G LTE connectivity and sensor processing capabilities. It also features a Dolby Audio Capture 5.1 with Dolby Atmos playback capabilities. In addition, it also has an intelligent Assertive Display with a pin-sharp QHD (2,560 x 1,440) resolution, capable of optimising image quality based on ambient lighting and content.

The Phab2 Pro is priced at AED 1,999, the Phab2 Plus is priced at AED 1,099, and the Phab2 is priced at AED 799.

QNAP, AMD LAUNCH TVS-X73 NAS QNAP has partnered with Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and announced the release of the new TVS-x73 NAS series.

With an AMD Embedded R-Series quad-core APU, up to 64GB RAM, AESNI hardware encryption engine, two M.2 SATA 6Gb/s SSD slots, SSD cache, USB 3.1 (10Gbps), 10GbE expandability, dual HDMI output, and hardware-assisted 4K video decoding and encoding acceleration, the TVS-x73 series provides small and medium businesses with a NAS solution to build a private cloud for applications.

Built with a metal design and topped off with a stylish gold finish, the business-class TVS-x73 series is available in 4, 6, and 8-bay models. It is powered by an AMD RX-421BD quadcore APU (2.1 GHz base, 3.4 GHz boost)

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

and dual-channel 8GB/16GB/64GB DDR4 RAM (up to 64GB), supports four Gigabit LAN ports and two built-in M.2 SSD slots and is capable of delivering up to 1,172 MB/s throughput. Two PCIe slots are available for greater system flexibility. One is pre-installed with a dual-port USB 3.1 Type-A card and the other allows for an optional QNAP dual-port 10GbE (10GBASE-T or SFP+) network card. The 10GbE-enabled TVS-x73, according to QNAP fully satisfies businesses that demand higher bandwidth for virtualisation and fast backup and restoration for an evergrowing amount of data.

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LINKSYS LAUNCHES NEW WRT ROUTER WITH TRI-STREAM 160 TECHNOLOGY Linksys has announced the next generation of its WRT router – the WRT3200ACM. The new Linksys AC3200 WRT Gigabit MU-MIMO Wi-Fi Router features Tri-Stream 160 technology creating the fastest dual band router available and MU-MIMO technology for simultaneous Wi-Fi connections to multiple devices at the same time.

The device is open-source ready with OpenWrt or DD-WRT for complete flexibility and customisation of networking functions or for optimising the router for specific use cases, such as privacy, VoIP, and small office applications. The newly updated Linksys Smart Wi-Fi app allows users to manage and monitor their home or office Wi-Fi via the cloud from their mobile device, anytime, anywhere.

The new WRT3200ACM extends the MU-MIMO lineup in a high performance, “feature rich” solution ideal for homes or small business.

In addition, the new WRT3200ACM is Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) certified to allow operation at 160 MHz channel width in the 5 GHz band. It uses three streams at 160 MHz channel width to drive data at 867 Mbps per stream, providing up to 2.6 Gbps.

BENQ RELEASES W1210ST HOME PROJECTOR BenQ has recently launched its W1210ST home projector.

According to the vendor, the device’s low input lag ensures fast responsiveness for an ultra-smooth video gaming experience, while the elimination of distracting motion blur cranks up in-game realism. It has customisable game modes, cinemaquality sound, and short throw technology (100” at 1.5 meters).

BenQ noted that the W1210ST takes user gameplay to an all new level as it projects a 100-inch image to fill your field of view. Whether you’re playing on the Xbox One, PS4 or Wii U, gamers can count on the W1210ST to deliver bigger, smooth and detailed visuals that lock them into the excitement. Plus, the mobility of W1210ST home projector,

gamer can choose to play where they want, and when they want.

BenQ noted that the W1210ST is the world’s first home projector optimised for low input lag to create a smoother and more responsive video game experience free from distractions and delays. The W1210ST also boasts microsecond DMD response times to eliminate unwanted motion blur. Customised Game modes further enhance performance under different play conditions.

The short-throw projector achieves 100 inches of viewing area when placed just 1.5 meters from the projection surface, and the 1.2X zoom allows positioning freedom.

The intuitive user interface makes operation so easy that even novices can feel like audiovisual experts.

HUAWEI UNVEILS MATEBOOK Huawei Consumer Business Group has announced that the Huawei MateBook is now available for purchase in the UAE. The MateBook is Huawei’s first 2-in-1 device, which is available in the HZ-W09 and HZ-W19 models in two colours: grey and gold.

The MateBook runs on Windows 10 and is powered by a 6th Generation Intel Core m-series processor, putting high-speed processing power and essential business productivity tools like Microsoft Office, at users’ fingertips. The device offers up to 8GB of LPDDR3 memory and a solid-state hard drive with capacity up to 512GB. Utilising a unique stacked hardware process, The MateBook’s keyboard case is made of soft PU leather and features a 1.5mm keystroke and a chiclet keycap design, which allows for larger key surfaces to minimise typing errors.

The built-in touchpad uses multi-touch technology to support smooth and precise finger movements.

The screen has a resolution of 2160×1440 and a 160-degree wide angle for an immersive experience.

The colour gamut reaches an impressive 85 percent, capable of displaying true-to-life colours.

The accompanying MatePen stylus offers 2,048 levels of sensitivity, which offers zero delay.

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

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SIEMON LAUNCHES VALUE RACK Siemon has announced the expansion of its RS series of equipment racks in the Middle East with a new Value Rack.

According to the company, the new two-post open rack for mounting and securing IT equipment in a variety of telecommunications spaces saves time, money and valuable floor space. It features EIA-310-D 19-inch universal rail spacing with mounting holes in 3 in (76mm) deep channels and 1.75 in (44.5mm) marked and numbered U spaces.

Siemon highlighted that the Value Rack is easy to assemble with standard hand tools and mounting holes for anchoring to the floor whilst its heavy duty construction offers a 1200 lb (544 kg) eight capacity. The rack features an integrated ground path with bonded

assembly and ground studs, an open header design for routing cables and securing cable tray and U space markings that remain clearly visible with rack-mounted equipment installed.

The new Value Rack offers 45U of space and is fully compatible with Siemon’s range of vertical and horizontal cable managers and accessories that allow for customisation of a complete racking solution. These include cable hangers, front mount panel and multiaccess horizontal cable managers as well as vertical cable management and patching channels.

SAMSUNG GEAR S3 NOW AVAILABLE IN THE UAE Samsung has announced that its latest addition to the Gear universe, the smartwatch Gear S3 is now available in the UAE. Priced at AED 1399, the Gear S3 is available in the Frontier and Classic versions. Alluding to the traditional art of watchmaking, the Gear S3 combines IP68 water resistance, wireless fast charging, SOS and location tracking capabilities and a dedicated speaker. The smartwatch is compatible with a range of Samsung smartphones. Applications from the Galaxy store can be downloaded directly onto the Gear S3. The Classic edition allows you to use any 22mm watchstrap so that you can match it to your favorite outfits.

Lasting four days on a single charge,

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the Gear S3 also features a 16 million colour Super AMOLED screen with Corning Gorilla Glass SR+, an Always On Display (AOD) and a customisable user interface.

The Gear S3’s signature rotating bezel allows a range of functions, including exercise programmes, with its alti/ barometer and speedometer tracking everything from altitude and atmospheric pressure to sudden changes in weather, distance traveled and speed. Additionally, with the built-in speaker, users can activate voice messaging and listen to their favourite tunes.

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

SONY FLAUNTS NEW WIRELESS NOISE CANCELLING HEADPHONES Sony has unveiled the MDR-1000X, noise cancelling headphones.

With flagship noise cancelling performance, this pair of premium headphones offers responsive cancellation of ambient sound frequency range.

Extending the range of wireless and noise cancelling headphones already available from Sony, the 1000X lets users tailor the noise cancelling features to their ears with a ‘Personal NC Optimiser’ function.

The 1000X also showcases for the first time ‘Quick Attention’ mode that lets users place the palm of your hand to the outside of the headphone ear cup to have a conversation with someone, without taking the headset off. These unique listening experiences are realised by the newly developed SENSE ENGINETM feature.

According to Sony, these are also the first headphones with the DSEE HX built in to upscale compressed music from any source to near high-resolution audio sound quality, even in wireless mode.

It also features the ‘Personal NC Optimiser’ that analyses the shape of the user’s head and how they wear the headphones to ensure they have a tailor made experience every time they listen to their favourite track.

In addition, Sony underlined that long days at the office or quiet time at the library are no longer a problem as the 1000X wireless and noise cancelling headphones have a 20-hour battery life; users can take these headphones on a flight to a far flung destination on a single charge.

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MERLIN INTRODUCES RIDGE VR Merlin Digital has recently unveiled Ridge VR, a “groundbreaking and revolutionary innovation” in the Real Estate sector.

Launched at this year’s GITEX Technology Week 2016, the Ridge VR, according to Merlin, revolutionises the way real estate agencies, sales agents, developers, designers and architects can sell properties to buyers off-the plan.

Sharad Hiro Bachani, Co-Founder, Merlin Digital said, “Virtual reality (VR) headsets are set to become the biggest trend in wearables this year, with almost every technology giant jumping on the bandwagon. Taking advantage of the scenario, we are pleased to introduce the world’s first virtual reality cordless headset that does not need a computer or a smartphone to power the device.

There are no boundaries for VR and Merlin is still exploring the possibilities.

We are hopeful that the Ridge VR will

FUJITSU ANNOUNCES NEW SP1425 DOCUMENT SCANNER

simplify a lot of real estate companies that have off-plan projects in the UAE.” Through Ridge VR, real estate agents can create immersive 3D virtual walkthrough, whereby they plot any real estate layout and turn it into a 3D visual representation, so the buyer can get a 360-degree video feed of a house and walk around the plot.

The Ridge VR is powered by an octacore CPU and high-end graphics processor. It has a 16GB built-in memory and microSD card support, and runs on Android OS. It comes with a Bluetooth joystick for personal control, headtracking GPS, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, and is priced at $250 (AED 918).

HP LAUNCHES MINI WORKSTATION HP has unveiled the “world’s first mini workstation” designed for users in CAD and other computeintensive industries.

The new HP Z2 Mini Workstation is only 2.3-inch high, which makes it 90 percent smaller than a traditional business-class tower.

According to the vendor, the HP Z Workstation products have become the industry standard for customers demanding a full performance workstation. Building off the success of the HP Z240 SFF, the HP Z2 Mini Workstation is twice as powerful as any commercial mini PC on the market today and has the ability to support six displays right out of the box.

The workstation comes equipped with next generation Intel Xeon processors,

NVIDIA professional graphics and the availability of HP Z Turbo Drive for handling large files remarkably fast.

The ultra-compact workstation, according to HP, provides users with numerous versatility options: on/under the desk, behind an HP Z display, or on a wall.

HP engineers created custom designed fans and a cooling system for whisperquiet acoustics (63 percent quieter than an HP business-class mini PC).

HP Z2 Mini Workstation is expected to be availabile in mid-December starting from AED 2933.

The new SP-1425 is the latest addition to the SP Series line of scanners. The new model, according to Fujitsu, captures 25 pages per minute (A4 colour, duplex 200/300dpi) and combines the productivity of an ADF with the flexibility of a flatbed device.

The SP-1425 can process a variety of documents, including bound material. Designed for ease of use it features simplified user-friendly scanning. The scanner has a compact footprint and a lower height than a typical MFP, enabling easy access at the desktop of any knowledge worker. Typical applications are dedicated to single business functions such as accounting or use in a small mail room.

The SP-1425 combines ADF and flatbed functionality in one device.

The SP-1425 ships with the PaperStream IP driver and image enhancement software and the first deployment of PaperStream Capture Lite. This software, according to the vendor, is designed to improve scanning efficiency, offering a new ergonomic and touch screen compatible user interface with enhanced functionality, improving efficiency and interactions across the entire enterprise capture process.

Fujitsu also announced that an upgrade to the full PaperStream Capture version is possible.

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

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COLUMN

Tech talk Reseller Middle East's Online Editor Adelle Geronimo shares her views on the regional tech scene.

Adelle Geronimo, Online Editor, Technology Division

Virtual is reality The last year in technology will be remembered for a number of things, from several big mergers and acquisitions, a lack of headphone jacks to exploding phones. However, one key milestone will undoubtedly be the advances in virtual reality (VR) technologies.

This year, VR headsets like the Samsung Gear, Facebook Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive have made headlines in the tech world. These devices have caught the eye of consumers as they promise to change the way people live, play and learn.

However, consumers are surely not the only ones who can enjoy the benefits VR technologies offer.

It will affect industries far and wide, ranging from healthcare, education, services all the way to entertainment and commerce. A report from analyst firm IDC claims that the combined revenue for both the augmented reality (AR) and VR markets will hit $5.2 billion globally

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by the end of 2016 and will reach $162 billion by the year 2020. This shows that VR and AR are finding their place in the market and both are expected to have a significant impact on the business domain in the near future.

In the Middle East, a number of organisations in the retail and entertainment sectors have begun to incorporate VR solutions into their strategies. VR opens up new avenues for bringing enhanced customer experience (CX) and businesses are unquestionably beginning to take advantage of the technology.

This is becoming more evident in the services sector where travel companies can give prospective clients a fully immersed view of the destination they’re interested in and auto companies can have a virtual showroom to display actual-scaled versions of cars.

Apart from bringing enhanced CX, there is also a huge opportunity

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

for using VR as a tool for hosting training and workshops.

Organisations can create VR-based scenarios and simulations to give their workforce the chance to improve both their technical and practical capabilities.

With all the usability it presents, VR can be game-changing for the channel community as well. This can transform the way vendors hold their partner training, and the way systems integrators and distributors conduct their proof-of-concept activities. However, while VR shows tons of promises, the technology is still very much in its infancy and there are still challenges that need to be addressed. Chief of which is the shortage of apps and content that will accompany VR technologies. Nevertheless, despite all this, one thing is for sure – VR technologies will continue to gain popularity in the future and will head towards even wider adoption.

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