Reseller Middle East

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

ISSUE 176 // AUGUST 2011 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

Adding value is now a game winner for some channel players

Ahsan Ali, Senior Vice President, Marketing, TechAccess

Jocelyn Al Adwani, Deputy CEO, STME

KS Parag, Managing Director, FVC

Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecom

Stephen Berner, Managing Director Middle East, help AG

Business kinect

Just in time

Closing the gap

Infusion, Microsoft’s UAE partner of the year is also working on bringing Kinect into business applications.

Turn to page 22

Spectrum Group’s acquisition of Psilog International made in 2009 is showing potential for good returns based on Dubai’s positive trading outlook. Turn to page 26

Huawei ties up with Stage 2 Learning to meet the demand gap in IP certifications.

Turn to page 28

FEATURE

IP Telephony

CONTENTS

ISSUE 176 // august 2011

FEATURE 43 Connection in progress

IP telephony is only part of the gains expected from Unified IP communication

IN FOCUS

COVER FEATURE

Champions of value addition 2011 The combination of global economic changes and new technology life cycles has made global IT vendors more accountable for the business value of their solutions.

This has created a sea change in the approach of selling technology solutions through channel partners.

Whether a partner is at the position of a distributor, reseller or system integrator, they have all had to modify their solutions and services to work towards a much better value of engagement and accountability with their end-customers. Enter champions of value addition!

30

22 Business kinect

Infusion, Microsoft’s UAE partner of the year is also working on bringing Kinect into business applications.

26 Just in time

Spectrum Group’s acquisition of Psilog International made in 2009 is showing potential for good returns based on Dubai’s positive trading outlook.

28 Closing the gap

Huawei ties up with Stage 2 Learning to meet the demand gap in IP certifications.

PROFILE

22

53

54

Zornitza Hadjitodorova

45

Salim Ziade

REGULARS 05 07 14 46

Editorial Tie-ups Announcements Products & Technology

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IF YOU CAN EMAIL IT,

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EDITORIAL Publisher Dominic De Sousa COO Nadeem Hood Managing Director Richard Judd richard@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9126 Editorial

New breed of champions

Dave Reeder dave@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9106

During the Reseller Middle East conference in June 2011, two presentations got me thinking. The first was from HP’s Hemayun on vendor-partner expectations and the second was from Optimus’ Meera on why value and volume cannot be put in the same basket.

Were these two thought platforms related? In the months of June and July, I met more than a dozen key players from all sides including vendors, distributors, resellers and system integrators to get to the core of their thinking and then consolidate them into our story.

Senior Editor Arun Shankar arun@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9142 Advertising Sales Director Rajashree R Kumar raj@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9131 Advertising Executive Merle Carrasco merle@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9134 Circulation Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9146

Arun Shankar Senior Editor arun@cpidubai.com

Art Director Kamil Roxas kamil@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 91112

The story is done and we are proud to present 2011’s champions of value addition. The story on the esoteric subject of value addition runs in three mini chapters: value gains - what are the benefits of the value game; value alliances – who can enable the channel to jump start in this game; and value pains – why going down the value route is not plain sailing. And then we have the champions themselves.

Our small group is by no means an exclusive and conclusive one.

We are sure there are more of them in the market. But we hope we have given this subject a momentum and recognised a key driver transforming the regional channel industry.

On another note, how far away are we from a time when you switch on a TV and get a Microsoft icon, or a gaming console, or a phone or any other non PC computing device for that matter? Infusion, which won Microsoft’s developer partner of the year award in July, is doing some cutting edge application development on consumer and corporate device interfaces. Is the market under-rating Microsoft’s ability to get back into tomorrow’s converged application and device space? Read the article on Infusion which gives you an idea that tomorrow’s application interfaces are being developed today. Reseller Middle East promises you more insights into the Microsoft application landscape in the coming issues.

Designer Analou Balbero analou@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9104 Photographer Cris Mejorada cris@cpidubai.com +971 4 4409108 Digital www.rwme.net DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma

With regard to the coming months we also promise you more suchlike Reseller mega brands like the Champions one in the last quarter of 2011. So stay connected with us either through print or through Issuu.com or our web site, whichever is best for you.

Web Developers Jerus King Bation Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Louie Alma online@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9100

As we enter the holy month, we are happy to wish all our readers “Ramadan Kareem”.

Published by

1013 Centre Road, New Castle County, Wilmington, Delaware, USA PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

Branch Office PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE

ISSUE 176 // AUGUST 2011 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press LLC © Copyright 2011 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

Adding value is now a game winner for some channel players

Ahsan Ali, Senior Vice President, Marketing, TechAccess

Jocelyn Al Adwani, Deputy CEO, STME

KS Parag, Managing Director, FVC

Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecom

Stephen Berner, Managing Director Middle East, help AG

BUsinEss kinEcT

JUsT in TimE

closing ThE gAp

Infusion, Microsoft’s UAE partner of the year is also working on bringing Kinect into business applications.

Turn to page 22

Spectrum Group’s acquisition of Psilog International made in 2009 is showing potential for good returns based on Dubai’s positive trading outlook. Turn to page 26

Huawei ties up with Stage 2 Learning to meet the demand gap in IP certifications.

Turn to page 28

FEATURE:

If you’d like to receive your own copy of RME every month, log on and request a subscription: www.resellerme.com

IP TelePhony

AUGUST 2011

Reseller Middle East

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TM

Jebel Ali Free Zone, Dubai, UAE ● Tel: (+971) 4 8863300 ● Fax: (+971) 4 8863311 ● UAE Sales Center: (+971) 4 3555520 ● P.O. Box: 262221 ● Email: info@gse.ae ● Website: www.gse.ae

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Redknee and Tech Mahindra sign global partnership Redknee, provider of business-critical billing and charging solutions has entered into a global partnership with Tech Mahindra.

The partnership is meant to jointly deliver software and services to the communications service providers market.

Redknee and Tech Mahindra announced the partnership at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2011. This partnership brings to market the combination of Redknee’s integration of real-time billing capabilities with Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Tech Mahindra, Microsoft Communications Sector partner of the year award winner in 2011.

Larry Goldman, Head of Telecoms Software Research at Analysys Mason, commented, “Communications service providers increasingly value fully integrated software solutions. This agreement provides a broad range of integrated billing, charging, customer care and OSS capabilities that deliver improved time to market and reduced cost.”

Tech Mahindra will integrate Redknee’s Turnkey Converged Billing and Customer Care solution, which is based on Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011, Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2, and Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2, into its existing portfolio of OSS/ BSS solutions.

By pre-integrating Redknee’s solutions into its offering, Tech Mahindra can deliver extended BSS capabilities with a faster deployment speed for service providers.

The partnership will also widen the scope of business opportunities that Redknee can address among service providers, through the additional range of services delivered through Tech Mahindra.

Lucas Skoczkowski, CEO of Redknee commented: “We are very excited to partner with Tech Mahindra, one of the premier global telecom system integrators, to deliver our next generation converged billing platform to more customers around the world.”

Tech Mahindra registered revenue of USD 1,126.6 million in the year ended March 31, 2011 and is supported by 38,300 professionals.

Kaspersky appoints Overseas Business Machines as partner

Tarek Kuzbari, Managing Director, Kaspersky Lab Middle East and Turkey and Mohamad Al-Bolbol, General Manager of Overseas Business Machines with the team.

Kaspersky Lab, announced appointment of Overseas Business Machines, as an enterprise partner for the Sultanate of Oman. Overseas Business Machines will provide on-ground pre-sales, technical and maintenance support to the corporate customers based in Oman.

It will work closely with Kaspersky Lab to develop the enterprise business by presenting corporate solutions directly to the corporate customers with networks larger than 500 nodes.

Commenting on this new partnership, Tarek Kuzbari, Managing Director, Kaspersky Lab

Middle East and Turkey said, “Kaspersky Lab’s main aim for this year is to become one of the top three providers of IT security solutions in the global market, and this partnership comes in line with this vision and our commitment to developing a stronger security infrastructure for the end-users and corporate customers worldwide and in the Middle East region.”

Mohamad Al-Bolbol, General Manager of Overseas Business Machines said, “We are very proud to have added a respected vendor like Kaspersky Lab to our company’s portfolio.” OBM is affiliated with OmniTech Holding group, part of the MiDiS group.

help AG launches MI-Token across the region help AG, announced addition of Mi-Token to its range of security solutions. help AG is the first in the region to launch Mi-Token solutions. Through Mi-Token, help AG offers customers a new, more efficient way of managing hard tokens or “soft tokens” like one-time passwords via BlackBerry, Nokia, iPhone or SMS. As security evolves, enterprise clients expect both hardware and software “proof of identity” options. Mi-Token supplies simple, secure authentication for SSL VPN services, Outlook Web Access, Windows Logon and custom applications.

Mi-Token, CEO Colin Bastable said, “We are excited to work with help AG to support our clients in the Middle East region. There is an increasing need for companies and government agencies to migrate their legacy authentication solutions to a more open and secure platform and Mi-Token can help make this transition securely and economically.”

Originally developed by cryptographic specialists for the banking industry, Mi-Token supplies simple, secure authentication. It is currently in use by more than one million banking and enterprise users worldwide.

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

VIP Computers signs up as OCZ Technology distributor VIP Computers, a distributor of components, peripherals and consumer products has signed an agreement with OCZ Technology Group, provider of high-performance solidstate drives and memory modules. As per the terms, VIP Computers will make OCZ SSDs readily available throughout the entire MEA region.

The manufacturer, who recently shipped its one millionth solid state drive, has identified MEA region as a key area for growth in 2011.

Peter Berkhout, Regional Sales Director at OCZ Technology Group said: “OCZ has established itself as the leading manufacturer of SSDs in the world and the potential is enormous, especially in the MEA region where we are looking to secure a strong foothold.”

“OCZ products are of the highest quality and are a perfect addition to our product offering,” said Harprit Singh, Managing Director at VIP Computers MEA.

Harprit Singh, Managing Director, VIP Computers MEA

VIP Computers is headquartered in the UK, with regional operations in the UAE, Spain, the Netherlands, Romania, and the USA.

Smartworld announces channel partnership with Etisalat

Mustafa Kaddoura, Acting CEO, Smartworld Smartworld, an ICT services provider in the Middle East, has signed a channel partner arrangement with Etisalat to resell a range of Etisalat services for SMEs in the Jebel Ali area of Dubai.

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As part of this channel partner arrangement, customers can come directly to Smartworld to sign up for various Etisalat services ranging from data packages, BusinessOne broadband internet, internet leased lines, telephone lines among other services. Smartworld has a portfolio of ICT products and services across unified Communications, collocation services and managed services through which it adds value to customers in addressing their diverse ICT requirements.

Mustafa Kaddoura, Acting CEO of Smartworld, said, “With small and medium businesses making up the majority segment in the UAE, there is significant scope for companies like us to come in and act as a value added advisor and customer service channel.”

Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Waqf signs agreement with BBM Gulf Business Machines and the Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Waqf in Bahrain have signed an agreement for development of customised disaster recovery infrastructure and revamping of the production site. The project will be undertaken and implemented by Bahrain Business Machines, GBM’s Bahrain division.

The project was awarded based on a thorough technical evaluation by Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Waqf.

According to Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Waqf spokesperson “BBM’s strong credentials in offering disaster recovery solutions reinforced their selection for this project. With their vast experience in providing mission critical projects, we are positive that we have chosen the right vendor for the implementation of this project. Our decision to work with BBM was also based on its track record with various government ministries in Bahrain. We are confident that we will benefit from continued access to bestin-class technical support and expertise even after the completion of this project.”

IBM products that will be used include, IBM Blade Servers, IBM System Storage DS5020. This system will provide the ministry with infrastructure simplification using next-generation 8GBPS FC Interface, up to 67.2 tb of fibre channel physical storage capacity, system management, data management and data protection features.

“We are proud to be associated with Bahrain’s Ministry of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Waqf offering them state-of-the-art solutions from IBM to enable data protection and disaster recovery at a lower cost. It is evident that the Bahraini government and its entities are serious about enhancing their IT efficiencies while adopting the latest in technology,” said Abdulla Ishaq, Country General Manager, BBM.

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Microsoft launches learning initiative with Besix

Microsoft Gulf signed a MoU with Besix Foundation for launching the “Right 2 Learn” initiative at an event to reaffirm support for civil society organisations in the UAE. The partnership is aimed at training blue collar workers in construction shelters in UAE to develop basic computer skills that are essential in everyday life.

Besix Foundation operates within the Besix Group which is the largest Belgian construction group comprising of a conglomerate of companies active in the construction, engineering, environmental, real estate and concession sectors in the UAE. At the event, Microsoft recognised

UAE civil society organisations for raising public awareness on the use of technology.

Microsoft actively partners with civil society organisations for helping people realise their potential by leveraging technology to address national social and economic priorities.

Samer Abu-Ltaif, Regional General Manager, Microsoft Gulf said, “Our strategy is built around ensuring our support to nonprofit organisations to help advancing their operations and outreach through the innovative and appropriate use of technology. This approach enables us to offer a comprehensive set of services, products, and tools that are relevant to the communities NGOs serve.”

According to Dr Zaki Khoury, Business Manager Gulf, “We are delighted to partner with Besix Foundation and sign a memorandum of understanding to train their blue collar workers on Microsoft digital literacy curriculum. The event is also an opportunity for us to renew and support our partnership with various civil society organisations in UAE.” Philippe Dessoy, General Manager, Besix stated, “We welcome Microsoft’s involvement and commend their strong commitment to supporting our foundations’ attempt to give our workers a brighter future.”

Jumbo ties up with Epicor as VAR Jumbo Enterprise, the enterprise solutions division of Jumbo Electronics, has been appointed a value added reseller in UAE for Epicor Software Corporation.

“UAE continues to be an extremely important market for us,” said Basil

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Daniells, Vice President of sales at Epicor.

“We were looking to appoint a VAR that could actively cultivate the market for our solutions and work to implement those solutions quickly, and cost effectively.

We are proud to partner with Jumbo Enterprise as they have a proven track

record as a leading consulting firm.”

Jumbo Enterprise offers a spectrum of professional services and managed services to companies helping them plan, build, support, manage, improve and innovate their IT infrastructures.

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Shastech to distribute Belkin in KSA

Columbus to roll out Microsoft Dynamics at Intercoil

(Left to right) Samujjwal Banerje, Business Development Manager, Columbus IT; Qasid Parkar, Chief Operating Officer, Columbus IT MEA & India; Hassan Al-Hazeem, Managing Director, Intercoil International; Tamer Elhamy, Dynamics Lead, Microsoft Gulf.

Youssef El-Arif, National Account Manager MEA, Belkin Belkin, a connectivity solution vendor, has appointed Shastech as its new distribution partner for KSA. Shastech will service both the retail and SMB sectors across the KSA market.

The objective of the partnership is to strengthen Belkin’s presence in the KSA market. Shastech will distribute the full range of Belkin products and shall be responsible for covering all verticals including power retail, corporate, SMB and other sectors.

“We are looking forward to working closely with Shastech to further support our active regional expansion,” explains Youssef El-Arif, National Account Manager MEA, Belkin.

Eng Tariq Al Ghounaim, CEO, Shastech said, “This business win would not have been possible if we did not have the local expertise in the local market.”

Shastech is a well-known company in the Saudi market and owns various sales outlets including wholesale services and distribution teams. Headquartered in the city of Riyadh with many branches in the kingdom and the Middle-East, Shastech provides targeted professional services and solutions to the business as well as consumer markets in the region.

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Microsoft Gulf announced that Intercoil International is implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX ERP. The suite will be deployed by strategic partner Columbus IT Middle East, across several business areas including finance, supply chain, manufacturing, HRM, payroll and maintenance management.

Qasid Parker, Chief Operating Officer, Columbus IT MEA and India said: “After a stringent evaluation and thorough analysis, Columbus IT has been chosen to implement this project. Columbus IT with its global delivery capabilities and experienced consulting workforce, will deploy industry best practices to optimise and integrate the flow of information across business areas to provide Intercoil a scalable, robust and adaptable solution to their business needs.”

Intercoil was seeking to accelerate business decision-making by replacing the production and financial legacy applications with Microsoft’s single, integrated platform.

Microsoft Dynamics is an adaptable business management solution that helps improve efficiency, allows for better visibility into the entire organisation, and reduces IT complexity.

“With diversified business units and manufacturing facilities, we were looking for a solution that has the ability to streamline

and simplify our daily operations and reduce our overall costs,” said Hassan Al-Haseem, Managing Director, Intercoil International.

“Organisations are facing complex issues where they need to streamline operations and find ways to use resources more efficiently, without incurring extra costs,” added Tamer Elhamy, Dynamics Lead at Microsoft Gulf. “Microsoft Dynamics AX is built for growing manufacturing companies that need to scale their operations seamlessly to new geographies while relying on a single common database. Microsoft Dynamics AX will enable Intercoil to look more deeply into its supply chain, and more intelligently into its decision-making. Intercoil is set to transform the way they work thereby enabling them to offer better customer service and compete more effectively in the global marketplace.”

The implementation of this technology platform will bring business benefits by allowing Intercoil to automate business processes across the company’s offices, distribution centres and retail locations across the region, improving productivity across the organisation.

Microsoft Gulf opened its Dubai-based headquarters in 1991 and oversees activities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the UAE and Yemen.

EnGenius is positioned as a wireless solution provider in the last mile.

Our products are designed for enterprise and industrial market, providing wireless data and voice communication in demanding business environment.

IN THE BEGINNING Announcements

Secureway announces Frontier channel programme Secureway Network Distributors, operating in the areas of IT security and mobility in the Middle East, announced the launch of its Frontier Partner Programme designed to support and empower its channel partners.

Through the new Secureway Frontier Programme, channel partners will have access to various resources from Secureway such as its partner portal, training support, project lifecycle support, technical support, lead generation, marketing tools and resources, rebates and discounts.

Speaking on the programme, Pouya Parsafar, Regional Sales Director, Secureway Network Distributors said, “Secureway has grown significantly over the last few years because of the strong support we have received from our partners. We believe that our channel partners are an integral part of our success and hence we want to show them our commitment by launching our new Frontier Partner Programme that will not only offer them the right resources and tools but will also reward them for their competencies and capabilities.”

“To qualify for the Secureway Frontier Partner Programme, our partners have to meet certain criteria, which relate to their technical knowledge, revenue levels and number of brands added to their portfolio.

Depending on the level of partnership and requirements, Secureway will provide

Pouya Parsafar, Regional Sales Director, Secureway Network Distributors partners training, support and leadgeneration as well as financial support on certain key projects.”

Through this programme, partners can avail of Secureway’s demo units loan programme, virtual lab access, pre-sales and post-sales support and subsidised demo kit. Secureway also provides partners access to their authorised training centres in Dubai and Saudi Arabia.

Secureway Network represents F5 Networks, Fortinet, Actividentity Identity Management systems, Sourcefire Enterprise Threat Management, Sophos AV protection, Loglogic and Lumension.

Sony Ericsson targets Facebook users with Xperia Targeting over two million Facebook users in the UAE, Sony Ericsson has introduced “Facebook inside Xperia,” a unique application that allows instant communication and advanced social media experience. “Facebook inside Xperia” is included in the latest Xperia mini and mini pro series.

An inbuilt feature for the Xperia family, an application provides social media integration

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throughout the phone, making Facebook immediately accessible from the most used areas of the phone such as the picture gallery, music player, phonebook and calendar.

Furthermore, it enables users to “like”, share and comment more easily than ever.

Software AG acquires memory leader Terracotta Software AG announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Terracotta. This acquisition will allow Software AG to provide cloud solutions and increase the performance and scalability of its business process excellence platform.

Terracotta’s product portfolio provides in-memory technology and is the de facto caching standard for enterprise Java. Terracotta’s in-memory processing will provide the foundation technology for Software AG’s cloud offerings.

With in-memory data access up to 1,000 times faster than database access, this will enable Software AG to increase revenue with existing and new customers. The acquisition also extends Software AG’s business model options by adding a large and thriving open source community.

This transaction will strengthen Software AG’s market leadership in business process excellence. Terracotta will be the in-memory technology in the Software AG product stack, supporting a highly scalable product portfolio and enabling a much broader usage of Software AG’s products in the most extreme application conditions.

Customers will now have the most advanced technology solution available for analysing vast amounts of data more efficiently and cost-effectively.

This will provide vital real-time business information and insights and greater control over business processes and operations.

Founded in 2003, Terracotta is a privately held company with 55 employees in San Francisco and New Delhi and has more than 500,000 deployments of the open source technology.

IN THE BEGINNING Announcements

FVC Egypt partner training on AlcatelLucent technology

FVC has hosted a three-day training session for its partners across Egypt to introduce Alcatel-Lucent’s range of enterprise solutions including unified communications, telephony, data and security solutions.

The training sessions, aimed at both sales and technical support, was an extension of the partnership between FVC and Alcatel-Lucent announced at the beginning of the year.

Ahmed Youssef, General Manager at FVC Egypt said, “Unified communications is a productive and useful tool in every enterprise’s armour but our partners need to have the right level of knowledge and skills to ensure their customers are getting the best value out of their investment in technology.”

Alcatel-Lucent is a transformation partner of service providers, enterprises, strategic industries such as defence, energy, healthcare, transportation, and government worldwide, providing solutions to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users.

FVC has offices in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Egypt, Morocco and an expanded presence in Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, and Algeria. FVC works through its growing network of channel partners in over 45 countries across the region.

Cisco supports charities and community Cisco employees took part in “giving back week”, to support local charities within the UAE. By holding fund-raising initiatives, donating their time and increasing awareness, Cisco gave back to the local community.

Cisco supported charities including; Al Noor Children’s Centre, Dubai Centre for Special Needs, Feline Friends, K9 Friends and Emirates Environment Agency.

Giving back week is an important week in the Cisco calendar, as employees invest time to enrich and support the community in which they work.

Highlights: • Al Noor Children’s Centre: Cisco’s sporting volunteers played cricket with 25 children, enjoyed lunch with them after the game and presented them with goodie bags.

• Feline Friends: Cisco provided the centre with books and DVDs to be sold as a fundraiser.

• Dubai Centre for Special Needs: Employees embraced their artistic side, participating in a half-day interactive art workshop alongside 127 children with special needs.

• Office recycling drive: Helping to reduce its environmental impact, Cisco placed recycling bins on all floors of the Dubai office to reduce, recycle and reuse plastic, paper, glass and metal.

• Charity exhibition: Showcasing local charities in the Cisco Dubai office, volunteers sold goods on behalf of the charities in order

Infor signs on Catalyst for EMEA Infor, vendor of business application software announced a partnership with global systems integrator, Catalyst Business Solutions. The agreement will be strategic in nature and will support Catalyst to market, implement, train and provide professional services for Infor’s ERP LN, ERP VISUAL, Enterprise Asset Management and

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Performance Management solutions across the Middle East and Africa.

“We have observed Infor over a long period and for a number of reasons we want to accelerate formalising our relationship.

We have witnessed Infor’s increasing scale and the investment in its development of pertinent solutions for what we consider

Cisco employee interacts with community to raise much needed funds and strengthen awareness.

“Giving back to the community is one of Cisco’s founding principles and our giving back week enables the entire UAE community to connect and make a difference. We believe that volunteering is an important way for Cisco employees to build ties with the communities in which they work in and we’re proud that Cisco can leverage the network as a platform to better the world,” said Wayne Hull, Director and General Manager, Cisco, UAE.

is a rather neglected market segment in EMEA,” comments Jean-Baptiste Blanc, Vice President, sales at Catalyst Business Solutions.

“As an established systems integrator with enterprise applications experience, we welcome Catalyst to our growing network of channel partners,” said Jean-Philippe Pommel, Infor’s Vice President of channels, EMEA.

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IN THE BEGINNING Announcements

Alfalak sets up new employee portal

Al-Futtaim Panatech sets up Panasonic ePlus shopping portal

Ahmed Ali Ashadawi, CEO and President, Alfalak Electronic Equipment and Supplies

Al-Futtaim Panatech, products from the comforts of exclusive distributor for their home or office.”

Panasonic in the UAE “By shopping online, has set up an online UAE customers also contribute shopping portal for their significantly to the Japanese principal. The environment by reducing use response from consumers of personal transport, the to this portal can be ethos that Panasonic strongly gauged by the fact that in advocates and implements,” the very first week of its said Koyanagi. launch it attracted nearly “Al-Futtaim Panatech is 100,000 visitors. proud to be associated with Probir Mukherjee, Managing Director, Al-Futtaim a dynamic and innovative Panasonic is the first Panatech during the launch of ePlus portal consumer electronics brand like Panasonic. ePlus company to set up an is the right step forward online shopping portal within the UAE. especially given the shopping trends that we “I must thank Al-Futtaim Panatech for are witnessing among internet savvy UAE helping make the launch of ePlus possible,” consumers,” said Probir Mukherjee, Managing said Seiji Koyanagi, Managing Director of Director, Al-Futtaim Electronics.

Panasonic Marketing Middle East.

Al-Futtaim Panatech has provided the “Online shopping is growing in the UAE logistics and back-office support for all purchases made on the ePlus portal. The purchased product will be delivered at the specified location within UAE in four working days.

The portal is using a secured payment gateway for all online payments. The ePlus website is currently only available in English for the UAE, but Arabic and a wider Middle East version will be launched at a later date.

Alfalak Electronic Equipment and Supplies, a technology solutions provider in the Middle East, has launched a new employee self service portal to facilitate and streamline frequent human resource inquiries and requests.

These include personal profile updates, salary slips, employee expenses management, leave and air ticket requests, iqama and passport renewals, and visa related requests, among others. The selfservice online tool provides a convenient and cost-effective way to share information and decentralise HR practices.

“Our people have been the key to our success, so they deserve programmes such as the self service portal, which make their work life more convenient and empowered,” said Ahmed Ashadawi, CEO and President, Alfalak Electronic Equipment and Supplies.

Alfalak has partnerships with HP, Imation, Genius, 3M, Adobe Creative, Lexmark, SAS, Oracle, Testhouse, Compuware, IBM, SERENA, Sterling Commerce, TecFacs, Vanguard, Halcyon, Ericsson, PAV Data Systems, Juniper Networks, Aruba, Alcatel-Lucent, Blue Coat, ADC, NETASQ, Codebaby, Motorola, and Secure Computing.

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and as a customer-centric organisation, Panasonic aims to provide customers unmatched convenience of shopping from anywhere anytime. As the UAE grows with communities springing up in almost every location, this online portal provides customers the opportunity to shop online for Panasonic

IN THE BEGINNING Announcements

AQTC introduces Canon’s latest photo video products Canon Middle East Verbrugghe, launched its photo-video Marketing line up in Riyadh, Jeddah Director, and Dammam in response Canon to increasing demand Middle East. witnessed in DSC, DSLR Obtaining and DVC categories. clearer and The new line up crisper images in low light unveiled with Canon situations has often been a channel partner, AQTC challenge for regular DSC users. aims to further strengthen Canon’s HS system addresses this Canon’s position in the issue enabling users to capture Saudi market in terms of extremely low lit environments range of products within with clarity even without the help Hendrik Verbrugghe, Marketing Director, Canon Middle East this segment. of a flash.

“Digital SLR “We are excited to offer photography has captured the imagination Saudi consumers the latest Canon of consumers globally. Every year, more and innovation in DSC technology. The new more individuals are looking to record key life DSC models such as Ixus 310 and SX 220 events with unrivalled quality or to test and delivers the highest image quality available explore their creativity. The latest EOS 1100D in the IXUS and Powershot range, and the and 600D redefines the entry level DSLR new high sensitivity sensor allows users category, putting technologies and features to take better photos in a wider range previously the preserve of the professional of situations including low-light scenes,” into the hands of the consumer”, said Hendrik added Verbrugghe.

Canon Middle East assumes responsibility over East African markets

Canon Middle East it is assuming responsibility over operations in East African markets as part of a strategy to enhance delivery of support services to channel partners in the region.

To develop its new alliances with Canon partners from Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Somalia, Eritrea, Rwanda and Burundi, a kick-off

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meeting was organised at The Palace hotel in Dubai. The company discussed its strategy and highlighted opportunities in markets across East Africa.

Canon pointed out transfer of operations is greatly beneficial to East African customers as it establishes tighter trade links to the African

market by capitalising on the advantageous location of Dubai as a main gateway.

“The transfer of operations of the East African market is part of our continuing efforts to raise the level of support that strengthen our relations with partners. Moreover, it reaffirms Canon’s commitment to find new ways to deliver quality products and services to consumers in line with our closer to customer strategy,” said Anurag Agrawal, Managing Director, Canon Middle East.

Canon presented and discussed its strategies for the second half of 2011 during the meeting with the East African partners, underlining Canon’s goal of maintaining its leadership in all East African markets. Canon also presented the new team that will oversee operations in the East Africa territory. The channel partners were also invited to a tour of the Canon Middle East offices at Dubai Internet City.

IN FOCUS Infusion

Business kinect Microsoft’s UAE partner of the year is also working on bringing Kinect into business applications

Fusing Microsoft’s latest technologies with business, Vimal Sethi, General Manager Middle East, Infusion

excellence and vertical and industry segment awards. From the UAE, Infusion was selected as Microsoft’s partner of the year.

Infusion was setup in UAE in 2009 by its current General Manager, Vimal Sethi who was working in the local office of Microsoft as its Developer and Platform Evangelist (DPE).

He had moved from Microsoft in UK to Microsoft in UAE in 2006 with the task of setting up the DPE group.

So when he was invited by New York based Infusion to set up its UAE operations in 2009 and had been working with Microsoft for nine years already, he decided to move to the

Windows 8 is a truly unified platform with seamless user experience across all platforms

At its 2011 worldwide partner conference in the middle of July, Microsoft recognised the innovative and top of the market efforts made by its developer and reseller community.

The annual awards were across various categories including emerging technologies and innovation; country partner of the year; partner network competency; sales

other side of the fence.

His goal over the last three years has been to put Infusion’s Middle East operations on a path that establishes it as Microsoft’s leading application development and consulting company. The current staff strength has reached 40 over the last two years and includes some leading software professionals from UK, Holland, Germany as well as from the local pool. Sethi’s team members are often key speakers at software conferences, write blogs with thousands of followers and also write books and white papers.

Infusion specialises in natural user interfaces and business cockpits across complex development type projects requiring deep technical knowledge and strong business skills. The roll outs usually have an interactive business intelligence dashboard or map interface with a strong user experience

How Infusion won the award Each year Microsoft receives a few thousand nominations for its awards. Infusion Middle East’s country partner of the year nomination had to provide answers to multiple criteria before it could be shortlisted.

The list of criteria requiring clarifications were: - Business problem and opportunity addressed - Innovation and uniqueness in the solution - Positive business impact of the solution - Winning against competition - Exceptional customer experience - Usage of Microsoft products in the solution - Engagement with local Microsoft office

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The summary of the customer project submitted for nomination was as follows: The customer requirement was to have an improved internal system to support a business and communication effectiveness platform. Infusion in UAE was engaged to help the client with these challenges and within less than a year, the team was able to design, implement and rollout both Microsoft Productivity Platform and Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions.

The Infusion team created a SharePoint 2010 intranet that serves not only as portal to access line-of-business applications, but also as a platform for future applications. The

intranet is heavily personalised and provides a rich content management framework, collaboration features, search and social computing capabilities.

Infusion also designed and implemented a robust document management solution with records management, scanning functionality, automatic tagging and advanced metadata management. Dynamics CRM was used to improve business processes in several areas and is being deployed to individual business units. Each of the above streams followed Infusion’s software development lifecycle process and was implemented over Visual Studio Team Foundation Server technologies.

With the release of Microsoft’s Kinect and Surface developer platforms, businesses and consumers can look forward to much richer interactive experiences

and are accessible through intranets or large scale public portal web sites. The final rendering to the user interfaces are done by its digital design agency.

As an example, with the release of Microsoft Kinect a number of enterprises are interested in bringing the same type of hand movement interactivity into their business applications.

The verticals within which Infusion operates are financial, health care and life sciences, oil and gas, public sector, retail, hospitality and tourism. Its client base includes Jumeirah Hotels and Resorts, JW Marriott, Fedex, Continental Airlines,

Travelport, Conoco Philips and others.

Sethi also points out the price point for his projects are at par with those in the developed economies like US and Europe and not at lower price points similar to Indian software developers.

So how has Sethi been able to ramp up his high value business model in the Middle East? A key differentiator from other software developers is the calibre of Infusion’s developers. The members of his team who are invited to participate in global software conferences and workshops are usually followed up by customers for business engagements. Word of mouth is actually

Infusion’s primary marketing tool. Projects done in the US and Europe, help fuel inquires out of UAE. Another factor that helps Infusion capture high value deals is the localisation of the team in Dubai. “Just the ability to do brainstorming, white-boarding and build joint architectures locally, without having to work with people offshore, is a benefit many customers like,” says Sethi.

Sethi’s nine years in Microsoft and his DPE role are also probably instrumental in setting Infusion on its present high growth, high value track. One of his main responsibilities in the DPE role was to ensure

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IN FOCUS Infusion

that the local developer community had peers within Microsoft, not related to sales and marketing, with whom they could talk.

In the UAE, the developer community is present within select large user organisations in airlines, oil and gas and others. The DPE role helps Microsoft build the platforms that developers build on. The same developer community also tests and runs Microsoft’s products before they are made commercially launched.

Infusion’s Dubai based team also spends time working closely with Microsoft on joint account planning and management. “We have delivered a number of key solutions to a number of key customers in the region on the latest Microsoft platforms. We have delivered new business to them where they typically would have lost that business to another vendor.”

While Infusion’s Middle East operation is part of Microsoft’s regional developer network, it earns only 1% of its revenue from licenses. Hence the vendor rebate and licensing structures do not actively fit into its revenue model and are usually left to the large account resellers. Implementations are also focused around custom built applications rather than hardware and network infrastructure.

A typical project starts with the envisioning engagement where customer needs are discussed in detail along with ideas to improve business. After this Infusion will present its proposal and costing on how the project will be managed. This will cover the full software life cycle including project management, architects for systems design, development, testing, quality assurance, implementation and support. Sitting on top of the development process is the experience

In the UAE, the developer community is present within select large user organisations in airlines, oil and gas and others 24

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MICROSOFT COUNTRY PARTNER OF THE YEAR, 2011 awards Middle East, North Africa, Levant Algeria

Orsima

Bahrain

Almoayyed Computers

Egypt

Link Development

Jordan

Farah Trading & Contracting

Kuwait

Expit

Lebanon

Anzima

Morocco

Nelite North Africa

Oman

Bahwan IT

Qatar

Mannai Software Division

Saudi Arabia

Al-Kam Trading

Tunisia

Advancia

Turkey

VeriPark

United Arab Emirates

Infusion Rest of Africa

Angola

Menshen

Ethiopia

Computer Revolution Africa

Ghana

IPMC

Kenya

Computer Revolution Africa

Malawi

Techno Brain

Nigeria

Signal Alliance

Senegal

Full Technologies Formations

South Africa

South Africa ScanTrack

Uganda

Computer Revolution Africa Asia (partial list)

China

BST Company

India

Wipro Technologies

Pakistan

Inbox Business Technologies

Sri Lanka

Tech One Global

Source: Company website

design team which will ensure the final user experience is of high standard.

Successful projects include: doctorpatient consultation interface; health care delivery services interface; managing scalable computing power for financial data analysis; managing financial exposure and calculation of credit risk; development of a web portal with location intelligence services; graphical and interactive branch locator; online banking application with 360 degree view of current and future

personal financial status; knowledge sharing application with business process sharing, tracking and approvals.

With Windows 8 developer conference a few months from now and huge OEM interest in convergence of consumer devices, Sethi currently has his hands full managing applications for Windows Phone, Xbox and Kinnect, slate, tablet, integrated TVs and PCs. “It’s a truly unified platform with seamless user experience across all platforms”, is his forward looking comment for now.

Our solutions + your customers = great business!

Global sourcing - local support In a world of technologies, focusing on the ones that deliver benefit is good for your business.

That’s why FVC partners with global IT leaders to bring the most effective, most transformative products and technologies to you, our channel. From telepresence to network traffic management, WAN optimisation to information security, we’re the leading VAD in MENA, supporting products with logistics, implementation and training. Let us be your partner of choice for tomorrow.

IN focus Psilog International

Just in time The acquisition made in 2009 is showing potential for good returns based on Dubai’s positive trading outlook In 2009, Ajay Singh Chauhan, CEO of Spectrum Group acquired the Middle East operations of Psion Teklogix at the peak of global recession. Trading demands into and out of Dubai as well as globally had reached rock bottom levels and Psion’s principals wanted to pull out of the region.

Chauhan had cash ready, the valuation of the logistics equipment company was also correspondingly low and hence a bargain was struck. Chauhan’s Spectrum Group is now the holding company for Psilog International, Psion’s authorised distributor and service centre for 15 countries across the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan.

With present import and export trading levels soaring out of Dubai and the local government’s initiative to pump expansion and development funds into Dubai International and Dubai World Central Airports, Chauhan is beginning to see the possibility of high returns on his 2009 investment.

Today the training and service centres for Psilog equipment are fully operational.

The typical range of equipment suitable for a trading, warehousing and logistics hub like Dubai and provided by Psilog include handheld computers and PDAs, vehicle mounted computers, accessories and other radio frequency and networking equipment.

Amongst the parts of a PDA that suffer the most field damage are the screens and keypads. With Psilog’s local service centre, customers now have much shorter downtime for damaged equipment.

However Chauhan has gone one step further from the standard break-and-fix support services and is offering software technical expertise for integration of these devices at a customer site.

“We also help develop an interface between these devices and backend logistic

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ERP applications whether based on Microsoft SQL or Dotnet or Oracle or SAP,” says Chauhan. With such customer facing value initiatives, Chauhan is also setting the turf for the type of reseller partners he is looking for. “They are traditionally mobile device application developers specialising in RFID or wireless connectivity.”

The other portfolio criteria for future reseller partners is an existing relationship in any of the strategic customer accounts including telecos, logistics, trading and shipping companies and any others with large field force.

“We need a partner who has penetration in an account. If you are having a good relationship in an account, we will hand-hold you through out. We have technical skill sets and application knowledge to do the entire solution for you. Once you are trained and see a lot of business in it and feel it is the right sector to invest, please invest more in your own engineers and implementation.

You will be able to get more margins since you will be doing it yourself.” Chauhan’s ramp up model for Psilog’s reseller partners is easily described.

The other important decision Chauhan took at the time of the 2009 acquisition was to build and grow Psilog’s operation as a separate business under an independent set of managers. “We could have had it under the Comguard umbrella but we decided to separate the businesses since it required different skill sets.”

Awaiting Psilog’s return on investment, Ajay Singh Chauhan, CEO Spectrum Group

Historically both Comguard, the security and network software distribution company, and Psilog International were added after Spectrum’s initial portfolio of training business was setup.

Spectrum’s initial business was in the area of IT training and certifications and was started in 2004. Currently the vendor training portfolio has expanded to include Kaspersky, Microsoft, Juniper Networks, Brocade, EC-Council, Arcsight, Array Networks, Beyond Trust and others.

During bull runs on the local economy, demand for Psilog’s products and Spectrum training are expected to drive group revenues.

On the flip side during consolidations and threats, it is likely to come from demand for Comguard’s audits and security services.

There are perhaps few other distribution companies in the region that have invested in training and vendor certification services at a level comparable to Spectrum. It has 14 classrooms and trained 5,000 students in the last year. There are close to 80 engineers available in the region and in India and these can be cross leveraged for any project emerging out of Comguard, Psilog or Spectrum businesses themselves.

As the trading hub of Dubai expands it remains to be seen how Psilog copes with demands of growth supported by parent Spectrum Group's resources.

During bull runs on the local economy, demand for Psilog’s products and Spectrum training are expected to drive group revenues

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IN focus Huawei Technologies

Closing the gap Huawei ties up with Stage 2 to meet gap in IP certifications

(Left to right) Sunday Li, Director of Enterprise Services UAE, Huawei; Michael Xiong, Director of Enterprise Services, Middle East, Huawei; Lu Jun, General Manager, UAE, Huawei; Al Waleed Aldryaan, Chairman, Stage 2 Learning Solutions; Tanya Weidinger, Training Co-ordinator, Stage 2 Learning Solutions

In the early part of July 2011, Huawei Technologies signed up with Stage 2 Learning Solutions to provide the market with a datacom certification programme. Stage 2 will now roll out the programme across UAE, Oman, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon.

For Saudi Arabia, Huawei has already signed up with Al Khaleej Group, which is also the holding company for Stage 2 Learning Solutions across these countries. In Saudi Arabia Al Khaleej Group also holds the rights for New Horizons, Direct English, Takniat for management classes, and other training franchises for language, marine studies and vocational training.

Huawei’s datacom certification programme involves three tiers of certification starting with the introductory Datacom Associate, the mid-tier Datacom Professional and advanced Datacom Expert. According to Huawei’s Michael Xiong, Director of Enterprise Services, Middle East, Huawei, more than 200,000 people in China were

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certified at the introductory level. Only 8-10% of the starting group finally reach the third expert certification level.

Says Xiong, “While the associate certification may not be enough it still means something in comparison to those not certified. However if you want to win the business from the customer you need to improve yourself.”

The pyramid like structure, starting with the large numbers of entry level certifications is important to maintain the final number of highly skilled certifications emerging at the top.

Formal classes across the centres will start from September 2011 and the target number of certifications in 2011 is expected to be around 500.

The initial batch of students will be made up of Huawei employees including technical sales and support staff and business partners, from across the region.

Also in the initial ramp up phase, the instructors will be selected from Huawei’s pool of certified engineer employees and

as the number of trained and experienced instructors goes up, the responsibility for managing instructor led training will shift to Stage 2’s own resources.

“It is a collaborative effort. As the vendor, Huawei knows the certification track they would do the training. We will do the marketing, customer service, scheduling, rotation of instructors and partnerships because we are just starting,” clarified Saudi based Al Waleed Al Dryaan, Chairman of Stage 2 Learning Solutions.

Currently Huawei has 11 local channel partners in the region one of which is INTC, the regional level master system integrator and goto-market partner for its enterprise solutions.

These include: routers, switches, unified communications and video conferencing.

With Huawei’s regional revenue at $2.7 billion and growing at above 20%, employee strength at 4,000, there is enough backlog of student certifications from Huawei staff and partners to keep the training centres full for some time to come.

Huawei’s umbrella Learning Partner Programme also involves a contribution from the vendor in providing technical equipment infrastructure to be used as virtual demonstration labs. The equipment will simulate fully functional proof of concept equipment to help students familiarise themselves with real-life situations.

“They give you a huge discount on the labs and machines and that becomes their investment into the venture,” says Aldryaan.

In the initial stages there will be two labs, one maintained at Dubai, UAE and the other operational in Saudi Arabia.

Moving ahead Huawei has plans to approach regional universities to participate in their career focussed education certifications. But the main driver will remain professional training emerging out of the mismatch between demand and supply for certified engineers.

“Technology is ever changing, that is where the gap comes in. The training business narrows the gap between what the industry used to know and what they should know,” says Aldryaan.

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COVER STORY Champions of value addition

The combination of global economic changes and continuing new technology life cycles have made global IT vendors more accountable for the business value of their solutions.

This has created a sea change in the approach of selling technology solutions through partner channels. Whether a partner is at the position of a distributor, reseller or system integrator position, all have had to modify their solutions and services to work towards a much higher value of engagement and accountability with their end-customers.

Enter champions of value addition!

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One of the most significant changes emerging from vendors recently is the pressure on channel partners to move towards product and technology specialisation programmes. Global vendors now grade their partners on the basis of the number of certified engineers and the types of technology certifications they have opted for. By end 2011 most global vendors would have dissolved their previous sales linked programmes and switched over to certification and competency based programmes.

In the current transition phase across old and new global vendor programmes, channel partners have been partly alienated by the sheer pace of change, the challenge of investing in up-skilling their technical work force and the complexity of new partner programs. Used to claiming rebates on relatively straight forward sales programmes they are now struggling to become eligible for the same rebate margins based on new set of parameters including skill levels, qualified work force and solution specialisations. With millions of dollars unspent rebates at their end, global vendors state that resellers are not doing enough to understand their new programmes and leaving rebates as unclaimed. Resellers are equally polarised and say the programmes

Partners must understand market transitions, and be clear on which role their company will play in realising these market transitions.”

Claire Jones, Regional Sales Manager UAE, Cisco are too complex to understand and follow in the short term. Both sides are working towards closing the gap.

But from all this there is definitely a clear winner and that is the end-customer. With end-customers faced with budget squeezes and higher accountability on delayed or failed projects from within, vendors have had to look closely into reasons for project escalations, delays, poor solution performance and even implementation failures.

A singular reason for such occurrences consistently emerges and that is lack of technical competency of the engaging partner. Either the partner was unable to build the optimal solution or was unable to implement and manage it satisfactorily. In either case, for the end-user, it is a case of failed vendor technology. help AG, a value added reseller operating in the information security services space, competes with the big five for its consulting services. The skills and specialisation of its technical workforce and its delivery model for complex end-user projects are its forte.

Says Stephen Berner, Managing Director Middle East, “If the vendor is not going to make sure the

right qualifications are in the field, they are going to fail to sell their solutions successfully.”

Vendor specialisation programmes are therefore meant to help channel partners avoid such project failures by encouraging them to train and certify their technical workforce. They are also meant to help endusers select suppliers on vendor established competency metrics rather than lowest bid and other subjective credentials. In the near future, an end user will be unable to negotiate a project with a supplier who is not vendor specialised and certified. And a supplier who is not vendor certified will be unable to provide products and services to an end customer.

Meera Kaul, Managing Director of Optimus Technology and Telecom, an added-value distributor, who initially started off as a reseller entrepreneur working across UAE and Qatar, has seen the progression of changing vendor and distributor business models.

“The financial recession was good for the market - it corrected a lot of things, since some of the partners were there on hype,” she reflects.

For partners who have a strategy to continuously invest and improve their technical workforce, the vendor specialisation initiative has been welcomed since it eliminates suppliers who chose not to invest in their technical workforce and therefore have higher probability of failure at the end-customer. Other than the resulting shake out at the bottom, channel partners who are actively adopting this route see vendor specialisations as a marketing tool and positive differentiator in the market place. For vendors, competent partners would also become preferred partners to be awarded projects they win out of the named space accounts where they operate directly.

Cisco, a strong proponent of partner competency, runs multiple partner programmes based both on its products and market facing strategies. Says Claire Jones, Regional Sales Manager UAE: “At Cisco we highlight the impact that a programme can have on a partner’s ability to differentiate themselves to their customers in the market and the profitability that it will bring to their company.”

Spectrum Group is the holding company for Comguard security applications distributor, and Psilog logistics equipment distributor. Says Ajay Singh Chauhan, CEO Spectrum Group, “Once

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COVER STORY Champions of value addition

Optimus Technology Category: Value added distributor Specialisation: IT technology infrastructure for enterprise Vendors: Avaya, Molex, Tandberg, Netgear, Bakbone, Opti- UPS, Swivel, Novell Value addition: Design, implementation, support, training for complex projects Primary markets: Oil and gas, real estate, construction, banking and finance, hospitality, healthcare, education, government Sales offices: UAE, Qatar, Egypt, KSA, Pakistan Support offices: UAE, Qatar, Egypt, KSA, Pakistan Engineers: 23 Employees: 65 RME opinion Optimus is actively working with its channel partners across the region to help them understand and adopt the concept of value addition. At the early stage of a new relationship with a reseller partner, Optimus’ presales team works jointly with them on prospective end-customers. Customer proposals are assessed, design blue prints and BOQ prepared, procurement is streamlined, there is hand holding through implementation, and services for post implementation support. Partners are encouraged to move towards better designed and optimised solutions, selected from Optimus’ portfolio, with lower TCO rather than lowest final price or best deal negotiations. An important part of this shift for resellers is the understanding of linking proposed technology solutions with an end-customer’s business benefit. Another service differentiator Optimus would like its partners to adopt is the facility of IT Service Management. With this facility endcustomers can opt-in for a solution on the basis of recurring operating expense rather than a one-time capital expense. Optimus also works actively on managing the credit risk of its partners with a long term win-win perspective in mind.

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Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecom

the partner is specialised we help them recover some of the benefits from the vendor programs and differentiate themselves from the other resellers, otherwise they are all in the same basket.”

STME, a systems integrator has a revenue model built around data integration and protection services and after sales support services. Says Jocelyn Al Adwani, Deputy CEO, “All the vendor partner programmes are evolving to actually help us and encourage other partners to follow the right track in terms of specialisation.”

While global vendors closely monitor and operate across named accounts, the open space account is left to channel partners to penetrate. Under such conditions, “Partners act as the extended arm of the vendor and therefore it is important they are specialised,” says Hemayun Bazaz, UAE Channel Manager for HP’s networking division.

The value gains There are more positive spin-offs. “End customers are ready to pay more for the right solution, right services and right implementation. They are not ready to pay more for a solution that is not right or exceeds requirements,” asserts Bazaz.

By ensuring the customer is getting the optimal and right solution and the implementation is being correctly executed, the partner can look forward to a more satisfied customer, one of the prime considerations for repeat business from the endcustomer.

Vendor programmes therefore have the benefit of

elevating the status of a specialised partner where the end-customer is ready to pay an additional premium for the value of engaging with the partner over and above the price of the vendor product. Depending on the end-users perceived value of the partner, these premium markups will vary. The more strategic and business aligned the benefits of working with a channel partner, the more elevated will be the value of the channel partner. On the flip side, the more commoditised the benefits offered by a channel partner the less will be its ability to charge a premium during its engagements with the end-customer.

SAS’ Regional Alliances and Partners Manager, Amir Sohrabi, calls it the natural law of economics. Any product or service that is a commodity can be quickly replicated and offered by a lot of competitors. Prices will be hammered downwards. But for SAS, who expects partners to be competent enough to tackle complex business issues and whose portfolio of services includes business analyses, presales, implementations, support and maintenance, not everyone may fit into the SAS partner fabric. “If you are tackling complex

Our technology allows further discussion with business rather than IT. When you drive value, you drive value with the business side. You are positioning a solution that can have a higher impact on the business profitability and better decision making.”

Amir Sohrabi, Regional Alliances and Partners Manager, SAS Middle East problems and solving complex issues there are going to be less of those types of integrators in the market. They can demand a premium and get a premium, because it is a simple law of economics and they are driving value,” says Sohrabi.

In the region, SAS has ramped up the number of its partners to 35 over the last eighteen months. It has moved from a 100% direct model in operation for the last twenty five years towards a mix of both direct sales to hard deck accounts and partner driven indirect sales. In its business model for partners, the ratio of revenue from vendor products to value driven partner services ranges from 1:1 to 1:2. The component of services increases based on the complexity of the project and the business maturity of the end-customer. SAS selects its partners based on either technology or vertical market competency.

“Our technology allows further discussion with business rather than IT. When you drive value, you drive

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COVER STORY Champions of value addition

value with the business side. You are positioning a solution that can have a higher impact on the business profitability and better decision making,” says Sohrabi.

The ability to map technology to business and to include it in every discussion with the end-customer is a key part of survival for channel partners. “The way technology is going to sell is going to change. You will not need an aggressive sales person to sell it - you will require a person who can actually fit technology into a business to sell it,” says Kaul.

While help AG competes with the big five consulting companies in the arena of consulting services its core competency lies in its ability to combine the product business and strategic consulting. “To combine them you need a different skill set which we have on board,”

rebates and other money sops.

Loyalty is therefore a two-way, winwin business process built on the platform of vendor specialisations for channel partners.

“How much are

End customers are ready to pay more for the right solution, right services and right implementation. They are not ready to pay more for a solution that is not right or exceeds requirements.”

Hemayun Bazaz, Channel Manager UAE, HP networking division says Berner. The value added reseller competes only for complex projects and will even decline invited bids for projects involving commodity products. The reason is the reseller has built its business model on the basis of price points it can win when taking charge of complex projects from end-customers. By accepting projects at lower price points it not only erodes its own financial viability but it diverts expert resources to projects that can be executed by less qualified and expensive staff.

“We can only add value to our end-customer if they talk about complex project requirements. If the requirement coming from the customer is not complex enough then in many cases we are the wrong company to deal with,” explains Berner.

Not only does help AG consistently sustain its price points on the services side, it also sustains them on the products side. “The kind of margins we achieve on products is much higher than other resellers in the commodity business, because not everyone can implement complex intrusion prevention solutions.” The reseller is experiencing 100% YOY growth driven by products. With these inbuilt skills, help AG often finds itself elevated to the level of trusted advisor on products. Another spin off – nine out of ten new customers want help AG to stick around with them post implementations and sign up for its 24x7 support contract.

Vendor specialisation programmes will help partners retain customers through better sizing of solutions and better implementations. And if a partner’s business is growing that will make the partner more loyal to the vendor. Increasing loyalty by a partner towards a vendor makes it easier for the vendor to reciprocate with

partners benefitting and how much they add value to each other – this drives loyalty”, comments Bazaz on the dynamics of vendor-partner loyalty.

“After recession the game has changed for vendors as well.

Vendors are aggressively supporting the channel and have started taking smaller VARs more seriously,” observes Kaul.

The value alliances While the benefits of channel partners building skills and competency along vendor programmes may be clear and relatively well marketed the path to achieve those goals are more subjective and require considerable effort and ingenuity to attain. A key enabler can be the role played by vendor distributors to aid its reseller partners to jump start into the value game.

“Generally you do not see resellers being faithful towards one distributor unless they see a significant value add,” comments on Bazaz on the importance a distributor can have in partner loyalty.

FVC, a distributor for Polycom and other network and communication technology streams, relies on being ahead of local Continued on Page 39

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COVER STORY Champions of value addition

TechAccess Category: IT enterprise sector Specialisation: Hardware infrastructure, software, services, logistics Vendors: Oracle, NetApp, HDS, Symantec Value addition: Technical and marketing support, technical enablement, specialisation, training, proof of concept, configuration setting, demand generation capability, vertically focused marketing, support services and financing Primary markets: Government, education, banking, healthcare, energy Sales offices: UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia Support offices: UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia Engineers: 20+ Employees: 100+ RME opinion TechAccess and its partners are in a position to leverage on the synergy of Oracle’s hardware and software portfolio. The distributor has invested in proof of concept demonstration equipment with Sun stack servers and resident Oracle software to help partners make inroads into new accounts.

TechAccess is encouraging its partners to sell Oracles’ hardware and software portfolio as one infrastructure solution. Symantec and NetApp fit in well with this base infrastructure layer. Typically TechAccess resellers are one-tier below large scale system integrators. The distributor plays an active role on behalf of its vendors in market and partner development and has well defined lines of operation between itself and its partner vendors. It provides presales, professional services, installation and credit support for its partners. Profit margins for reseller partners selling TechAccess’ infrastructure portfolio are higher in comparison to commodity IT products.

The distributor launched its partner loyalty programme from July 2011. This is entirely funded by TechAccess itself. The rationale for the programme is to build loyalty across TechAccess’ reseller partner community and

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Ahsan Ali, Senior Vice President, Marketing, TechAccess

therefore does not involve any vendor.

Any TechAccess reseller partner, who has closed more than $20,000 shipped sales in fiscal ending 30 June 2011, is eligible for this annual loyalty programme. The other condition is that the partner must show a minimum of 10% shipped sales growth over the previous year.

The annual loyalty programme will run across TechAccess’ three geographies, namely Gulf, Saudi Arabia and the combined North Africa-Levant geography.

Partners in these three regions can apply with their shipped sales during fiscal 2011-12 closing on 30 June, 2012, and will be applicable whenever full payment has been received. The top two resellers in each geography and each TechAccess partner category, are eligible for a business or leisure reward. The business awards range from full expenses paid for Oracle Open World or VM World or an IDC event. The leisure packages cover travel on a cruise, holiday destination or safari amongst others.

COVER STORY Champions of value addition

help AG Category: Information security services and solutions Specialisation: Application security, network security, mobile security, next generation modern malware protection Vendors: F5, Juniper, Blue Coat, Symantec, Fire Eye, Infoblox, RSA, Nitro Security, Cisco IronPort, Cyber-Ark, RSA, others Value addition: Technical expertise, support services, correlation between technical and strategic information security Markets: Government, finance, energy, education, others Sales offices: UAE, Qatar Support offices: UAE, Qatar Engineers: 20 Employees: 28

Stephen Berner, Managing Director, help AG

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RME opinion help Ag follows a model of high level security consultancy based on audit and assessment of the internal and external business practices of its end-customers. It specialises in complex business requirements and tends to shy away from standard commodity implementation requests. Its pricing for services is pegged to business consultancy engagements rather than fixed cost IT projects. Help AG has a full portfolio of technical and consulting services ranging from assessments and audits to ISO certifications. The services include implementation, application audit, network security assessment, vulnerability assessment, firewall audit, platform audit, penetration testing, IT security training and product enhancement. Based on this level of expertise help AG has a product to services revenue of 65% to 35%. Even for products, help AG claims to have a higher profit margin based on the complex nature of its implementations versus commodity product implementations. An index of its successful implementations comes from the fact that 95% of its first-time customers sign-up for post implementation support.

Across five years of operation help AG claims to have no failed or delayed implementation project. It has a sophisticated ticket-system to track after sales support requests and customer escalations.

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competition by hand picking vendor technologies and solutions that have begun to rise above the pack in developed economies. Once selected the technology competence gets embedded within itself through investment in its training centres, the training sessions it holds for its partners, its availability of proof of concept demonstration equipment both onsite and offsite, and the availability of its presales force. In some technologies it is building alliances with telecos and other service delivery partners, to partner on generating revenue from its managed services. All these components create a value framework for its reseller partners to build on.

Says KS Parag, FVC’s Managing Director, on the technology selection differentiator: “If it is a completely mature technology, there is no value addition. And if you cannot add value there is very little money to be made for us or our partners.”

With the rapid convergence of network and communication technologies, FVC is proactive to ensure that its vendor solutions are complementary to each other rather than competitive. With the levels of investment it maintains around its portfolio, for itself and its partners, receiving the right financial support from vendors is critical. Says Parag: “Our vendor partners recognise the value added distributor model and provide margins accordingly, clearly differentiating our services from that of a volume distributor.”

For Avaya distributor Optimus Technology, much of its business delivery model is built on alleviating pain points, its founders experienced a decade ago when they first started as resellers in the region. Managing Director, Meera Kaul prides in calling herself “serial entrepreneur” and says any business that can be built on an enabling layer of technology is of interest to her.

The distributor takes credit in negotiating vendor contracts and localising them to work across the region; it selects partners for whom service delivery is an important part of their business model; its presales teams work jointly with its partner network from business development right upto winning business; it helps manage extended credit lines for its partners; and it provides IT managed services moving IT capital expenditures into operating expenses.

Says Meera: “We have deliberately picked up products that can create a value proposition for the customer. We thought the best way to enable the

channels to value sell, to convert a lot of partners into value partners, was to show them the way. We used our consultants, made the blueprint, selected the partner, took the partner into the account, and we actually built their business.”

For TechAccess, it is leveraging actively on its global portfolio of Oracle hardware and software delivery platform and Symantec security solutions. It has built a sophisticated proof of concept demonstration unit for its partners to capitalise on. While large system and network integrator are part of its portfolio its primary relationships are built with partners a level below.

For mid-tier integrator partners its value proposition is across its stable baseline of global solutions; its ability to provide solutions across all major vertical market segments; its consistent ability to maintain, sustain and drive profit margins from vendors to its partners; its consistent support to partners as they pitch for high value deals and its ability to provide after sales support across 17 countries.

“A medium to small partner can score a big deal if the value-add elements are available through a distributor,” clarifies Ahsan Ali, Senior Vice President, Marketing, on their support role for partners.

TechAccess has established well defined lines of operational roll out between itself and its vendor partners and this has been responsible for maintaining healthy go-to-market relations with all parties. It has recently

Volume and value are two sides of the same coin, but they cannot be put together in the same basket. Value is delivered through services and is aligned to business delivery and growth. The key enablers for a pure value player are technical staff and their skills, know-how of the technology and total cost of ownership and business benefits for end-customer. Volume is generated through leverage on vendor brands and product attributes. The key enablers for a pure volume player are pricing, availability, deal making skills and scale of operations. In reality all players are a mix of both with varying degrees of each.

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COVER STORY Champions of value addition

FVC Category: Value added distributor for emerging technologies Specialisation: Unified communication, information security, application delivery, cloud computing Vendors: Polycom, Alcatel-Lucent, HPTippingPoint, nCircle, Barracuda, Citrix, Riverbed, ipoque, Google Enterprise Value addition: Cheer partner programme (channel enablement, education and rewards): sales support, joint business planning, sales and technical training, support for demonstration, proof of concept at the end-user, marketing support for lead generation, rebates and incentives Primary markets: Education, oil and gas, telecom, banking and finance, government Sales offices: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria and Algeria Support offices: UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Pakistan Engineers: 36 Employees: 130 RME opinion: The value added distributor has built up a fine model of identifying and selecting networking and communication solutions from vendors likely to add significant business benefit to end-customers in the region. FVC’s core competency is its ability to select a suitable vendor technology at the right point of inflexion, below its peak of sales maturity but also on an established track of sales and stability performance. The distributor is also able to significantly ramp up the competence of its partners in understanding such new additions to the portfolio. It does this through its training centres and makes available on-site proof of concept equipment linked to customer inquiries and sales potential. At any particular point of time, FVC ensures that the vendor solutions in its portfolio are working together in a complementary fashion and not in a competing fashion. A recent market facing investment is FVC’s backward integration around Polycom’s video conferencing solutions. It has set up a

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video network operations centre and is making available the managed video services to new category of services reseller partners. Early sign-up for FVC’s video managed services include telco major du and Egypt based Linkdotnet, an internet services provider. This is another fine example of forward looking added value by the distributor, built on technology competence and vendor support, across a network of resellers with definite end-customer business benefits.

STME Category: IT solutions and systems integration Specialisation: Data management, multi-platform solutions, best of breed technologies, solution design specialist, support service engineers Vendors: IBM, Netapp, HDS, Symantec, Cisco, Tandberg and Quantum Value addition: Advisory, design, implementation and testing, commissioning, training and technical support Primary markets: Financial services, telecom, oil and gas Sales offices: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan Support offices: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, UAE, Jordan, Egypt, Pakistan Engineers: 60+ Employees: 100+

Jocelyn Al Adwani, Deputy CEO, STME

RME opinion Over the past twenty years, STME has built considerable operational efficiency across eight countries in the region. Its strength is its ability to implement a systems integration project with focus on data management and protection across multiple countries using its multi-vendor portfolio of solutions and technologies. A key added-value is its pre-sales consultancy that usually gets included with a typical systems integration project. Further since STME maintains support offices along with sales offices, it can also efficiently support projects that it has implemented in selected countries.

STME’s technical resources are similarly apportioned across multiple country offices depending on active projects and help to offset their cost from the company’s bottom line. Demand to continuously invest in vendor certifications and upgrading technical skills is a current challenge.

Vendor rebates and partner programs are important for STME to manage the costs of investing in its skilled resources. Attracting and retaining skilled resources familiar with multiple geographies and market segments where it operates is also a challenge.

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COVER STORY Champions of value addition

Continued from Page 39

started its own loyalty programme to reward partners committed to growing their business through its portfolio of solutions.

Even vendors can help partners to jump start into the value proposition with end-customer. For example SAS is looking for partners who actively want to engage with customers in opportunity areas not open to them today. “If they are looking at taking their business to another level then we are the right fit for them. If they are looking at SAS as another software company for margins then we are not the right fit for them”, says SAS’ Sohrabi.

On the flip side, not all resellers necessarily need to leverage completely off the distributors and some would prefer to invest internally in their own skills and resources.

For information security consultants help AG, if a customer desires high quality products and services they also need to be ready to pay the right price for it. help AG therefore draws a line between what its customers expect it to deliver and what help AG expects its partners to support it with. “We simply do not utilise the services value-add distributors provide because we believe it is our job and we have to deliver this,” says Berner. On the other hand if the distributor fails to provide the basic support to its partners, like pricing and warranty support, all its other investments and claims of value additions are of little use.

The value pains Whether partners choose to use a vendor or distributor plank to jump start into the value game, ramping up is a little more complicated and requires a certain degree of business acumen. Significantly adding skilled technical staff to the payroll is an immediate drag on monthly recurring costs, while bids for related consulting supported projects may take time to materialise. Partners should have sufficiently deep pockets to sustain these investments focussing at least 12 months down the line.

In the case of the Spectrum Group, which provides vendor certifications and training under the name of Spectrum, it maintains a payroll of around 85 engineers across multiple geographies. Other than Spectrum training these engineers are shared with its other divisions Comguard and Psilog. Together the technical team doubles up to provide training, presales and other support functions. But even with such apportioning of costs the focus needs to be down the line.

“We have to apportion it for at least five years. We were prepared for it and we decided on that model, others may be unable to accept it,” says Chauhan, Spectrum Group’s CEO. “The key factor here is to have sufficient volume of work to generate sufficient margins to cover the cost”, says STME’s Aladwani.

Working across geographies and multiple business divisions can help to generate sufficient volume of work.

To further offset the costs, global vendors support the cost of partner certifications and training, wherever it is part of the formal programme.

In some cases it may be as much as 50% of the cost. This support may come in the form of rebates when the partner uses the vendor staff for training or in the form of funds from vendor marketing budgets.

“Vendors are willing to subsidise these costs. They believe it’s a high value add for the end user, it helps to retain the end user for a

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longer period of time, the sizing of a project is better, and the solution is right,” says Chauhan.

While global vendors justify such support on the basis of their equivalent technical staff costs not available to partners in the open space account, vendor rebates are not meant to substitute the margins partners are supposed to recover from end users.

“It is very difficult to offset the amount of investment with rebates, however it does release some of the pain, but it cannot offset the costs,” is the way Aladwani looks at her technical staff overheads. STME recovers the other part of its technical staff costs during turnkey SI projects.

Again vendor rebates can only support a partner’s technical staff costs up to a point. For a services intensive partner like help AG, the breakdown point is quickly surpassed. “Vendor rebates don’t really matter for us. If you build your business on a rebate model coming from the vendor it is a matter of time till it becomes unviable. It is good to have it in place and nice to have, but certainly should not be a must to have,” says help AG’s Berner.

However not all partners ramping up their vendor certified staff numbers, automatically qualify for training rebates. There is another bogey in the line called vendor loyalty. Global vendors frown on partners who go to market with alternative vendor solutions in their pockets. The higher up the partner programme you are, the less leeway is allowed. “In the open space, loyalty of a partner is valued by the vendor. We also don’t want to train and certify a partner who eventually does not have the right resources, footprint and finances to go and win business for us,” says HP’s Bazaz.

While formal training and certification rebates are the norm for global vendors, for smaller players it works differently. These players are locally opportunistic and don’t need to manage regional or geographical consistency. For FVC its vendor programmes are less formalised and less documented. Getting support from them is on oneto-one basis and based on local factors.

Another factor that comes up in the early stages of business development is the localisation of a vendor’s business outlook. Unless partner programmes have been adapted for the region as well as for individual countries, there is little chance of early success.

“It is a huge impediment to business when you are working with vendors who are not basing their strategy for the Middle East market and on the intricacies of how business needs to structured and executed in this region. Partner companies have walked out when they have seen European contracts that make no sense to the business environment or profitability here,” remarks Optimus’ Meera from her long standing experience both as a reseller and value added distributor in the region.

To sum up, channel programmes have traditionally focussed on volume movement of products. Now there is a new requirement from end customers which is to support value. Global vendor specialisation programmes are a movement in this direction but also require other components to fall in to place. “You cannot put volume and value in the same basket and expect that it will work”, reflects Kaul. With the final challenge stated by Cisco’s Jones, “Partners must understand market transitions, and be clear on which role their company will play in realising these market transitions.”

feaure IP telephony

Connection in progress IP telephony is only part of the gains expected from Unified communications The business case to move to a Unified solution of voice, data and video is strong.

The complexity of managing administration of three separate technologies and infrastructures in sync with the growth of business versus a Unified solution makes TCO calculations straight forward. However the adoption curve and key facilitators for Unified communication, in which IP telephony is one part is a bit more complicated.

Legacy EPABX systems in a business have copper wire connections running end to end. Costs of such systems have typically been amortised and recovered by now on balance sheets and any new investments have to make a strong case linked to the stability and anticipated growth of business.

With both factors either unsure or absent, justifying an IP solution at such a stage may seem to be an unnecessary priority.

“It appears that many organisations still believe cost reduction is not big enough to justify the initial cost of implementation of an IP telephony solution,” according to IDC’s Giacomo Laurini, Senior Research Analyst, European Vertical Markets.

While IP telephony projects may not be getting universal green signals to replace antiquated voice systems, awareness levels are high as per IDC. Level of awareness is 80% in healthcare, transport and manufacturing; 60% in media, government, retail, wholesale, utilities and oil and gas.

Amongst aware users 36% have adopted an IP PBX solution.

As per European market tracking agency MZA, IP based PBX units grew at 16% in the first quarter of 2011, versus a 7% growth for the overall industry. Cisco and Avaya are the leading global players in IP PBX solutions.

“TDM (digital) telephony is declining

Supporting Avaya’s tier-two partners, Farhat Khan, Senior Technical Consultant and Product Manager for Avaya solutions, Optimus Telecom

and customers are realising that TDM is not a good investment because there is already a new and better generation of communication that can take them from day one or in phases from dial tone to video, presence, mobility, conferencing using any platform or operating system. TDM is about voice dial tone and IP is about any media of communications,” says Cisco’s Wael Abdulal, Collaboration Manager UAE. An active concern raised by end users is the costs involved along the migration path from legacy telephony investments to adoption of new IP based solutions.

For Cisco, key regional market segments with demand for Unified communication solutions include healthcare, education and connectivity service providers.

To improve the capability of partners across the whole Unified solutions portfolio, the vendor has developed a quick start Express Unified Communication Partner programme. After completing the first programme partners move to Advanced

Unified Communication and finally to the Video Technology Partner programme.

Cisco’s distribution partners include Aptec, Comstor and Logicom.

For Avaya, another key player in the IP telephony space, early adopters in the region include government, telecom, finance, hospitality and healthcare market segments.

For medium and large businesses, cost savings from IP telephony become attractive when connectivity between geographically dispersed offices is considered. Avaya’s One-X Communicator Softphone loaded onto a PC or an Android smartphone along with a VPN can remotely dial into the head office IP PBX saving voice communication costs.

“More bandwidth at a cheaper price can remove some of the inhibitors in deploying more Unified communications,” says Avaya’s Mohammed Areff, Managing Director, Gulf and Pakistan. A partial list of Avaya’s key installations in the region includes RTA, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Emirates Bank, Vodafone and Citibank.

For Avaya regional distributor Optimus, enabling new authorised reseller partners at a tier-two level to penetrate medium to large accounts is a key part of its go-to-market responsibility. Optimus provides presales and support services for Avaya’s enterprise solutions. Its value added services for tiertwo partners include project planning, TCO estimations, BOQ and solution sizing. For tier-one partners who operate with Avaya in the named space account, the vendor provides a direct high-touch support in business development.

According to Optimus’ Managing Director, Meera Kaul, business needs drive communications costs more than availability of technology. “Given the business strategy of any enterprise, a well-planned IP

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feature IP telephony

telephony strategy creates an ROI scenario that places elimination of redundancy and services costs at the forefront. So if a corporation has a lot of employees on the move or at remote locations and across borders, a well planned execution of Unified communications will lead to greater ROI versus a single location business.”

Taking a macro implementation perspective, there are two key transitions in the IP telephony space. The first movement is from traditional analog or proprietary TDM voice based solutions to IP based telephony solutions. However, there is also a second movement and that is from vendor proprietary IP telephony to open IP telephony solutions.

Some of the early products from Avaya were built on H323 protocol and these devices can only operate with Avaya’s communication operating system, Aura Communication Manager. Newer models now in the market have been built on SIP technology, which is vendor neutral.

“SIP technology allows multi vendor solutions on the same PBX as well as third party phones”, says Farhat Khan, Senior Technical Consultant and Product Manager for Avaya solutions at Optimus Telecom.

According to Khan there is another key factor that tends to get neglected in the sizing of IP telephony projects. This

High touch support for tier-one partners, Mohammed Areff, Managing Director, Gulf and Pakistan, Avaya

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Encouraging partners to enrol in Unified Communication programme, Wael Abdulal, Collaboration Manager UAE, Cisco

is related to the selection and nature of end points or IP telephony terminals. The nature of the IP telephony device best suited for an end point depends on the nature of the particular end-user at the end point. A device for a senior manager or an administrator or front office assistant will each be different both in terms of functionality as well as in cost.

Since the cost of end points can account for upto 30% of the total hardware cost of the project, it needs to be factored in at the initial design and BOQ stage. “End points from vendors tend to be expensive”, says Farhat, especially those that come with inbuilt video connectivity, touch screen and collaboration options.

On the flip side SIP protocol IP phones from third party vendors, are less expensive than equivalent vendor phones and are also compatible to the operating environment.

A balanced mix between vendor and third party IP end points in a project can therefore help to meet an end-customer’s budgetary requirements.

Other than IP end points, a typical IP telephony project involves the following components. The software operating solution is resident on a hardware server.

Both need to be scalable in terms of managing increase in the number of twoway trunk lines, number of end points and number of channels to manage

communication flow. There is also a one-time charge for the software licensing based on an estimated number of end points likely to be operational in the near future.

Interconnectivity to the telecom service provider is through the gateway.

“IP telephony is a best effort network without fundamental quality of service guarantees”. In other words the technology by itself does not provide any guarantee of service. It is between the end-customer and the vendor to work towards a redundant technology solution depending on the critical nature of communication uptime.

Another vendor operating at the fringe of IP telephony space is Siemens spin off - Gigaset, which is traditionally a leading player in the handheld telephony market. In anticipation of the opening up of regulation in regional markets it also supplies hand held phones with in-built dual DECT and IP telephony options. The vendor’s forte is making and selling products for at-home telephony requirements. Cordless voice phones make up 100% of its portfolio.

For such a hybrid model, customers do not change their usage behaviour and will switch to the appropriate protocol based on their requirement. If they are on the move, the remote DECT option can be activated and when they are next to the IP port they can switch to the IP option.

For sales, Gigaset is completely focussed on the retail consumer segment.

It uses a single distributor for each country that it operates in, with the exception of India where it uses three. In the UAE, Gigaset uses Better Life as is its distributor, who also manages the independent Siemens brand for consumer appliances.

Better Life distributes the Gigaset hand-held product range to super retail outlets including Carrefour, Sharaf DG, EMax, Plug-Ins, Lulu, E-City, Jacky’s, KM Trading and other telecom retail shops.

Stock replenishments are done over 15-21 days in super retail outlets and 25-30 days in telecom retail outlets. The distributor negotiates shelf space with super retailers on an annual basis, according to Abdulla Al Gurg, Group General Manager, Easa Saleh Al Gurg Group.

Top of the range IP phones and solutions Cisco • Unified SIP phones 3900 series: Entry level IP end points, suitable for low to moderate voice communication usage, replacement phones for traditional analog and digital phones which support only single line.

• Unified IP phones 6900 series: Supports two lines, voice and video communication, expands into Cisco Unified Communications.

• Unified IP phones 7900 series: Delivers high definition voice, colour display, gigabit Ethernet, multiple call sessions, wired and wireless endpoints, mobile widgets, personal video communication.

• Unified IP phones 8900 series: Advanced multimedia rich end points, VGA quality in built video cameras, colour display screen, high definition voice, blue tooth headsets, keyboard and mice.

• Unified IP phones 9900 series: This is a full-feature video phone with advanced multi-media communication capability, Cisco unified video camera, full screen two and multiparty H264 standard video,

Gigaset’s C610A IP dual IP and DECT handphone

Cisco Unified IP phone 7900 series

30 frames per second.

• Cisco IP Communicator: Simulates a Unified IP phone through a PC, soft phone application.

• Cisco Unified Personal Communicator: Collaboration tools for messaging, web conferencing, video conferencing on PC or Mac. • Cisco Unified Video Advantage: Video support software for Unified IP phones 6900 and 7900 series and 2 megapixel video telephony USB camera.

Avaya • 1400 series digital deskphone: Mix of IP/ digital input, requires Avaya Aura, IP Office, 16 button, phone for everyday user. This is an Avaya proprietary phone.

• 1600 series IP deskphones: Built in SIP, integration with Avaya Aura Session Manager, Avaya Aura Communication Manager, Avaya Midsize Business Template, 2 way speaker phone, suitable for everyday user, supports headsets through a jack, adjustable viewing screen angle, Ethernet interface.

• 2400 series digital deskphone: 10 fixed feature keys, 24 programmable keys, call log, speed dialling, ring patterns, headset jack, two way speaker phone. This is an Avaya proprietary phone.

• 3600 series Wifi IP telephone: Works with Avaya Aura Communication

Manager, some models require Avaya Voice Priority Processor, suitable for healthcare, retail and manufacturing verticals, shock protected, Lithium battery pack 4-80 hour discharge time, connects to the PBX through IP access point. This is an Avaya proprietary phone.

• 3700 series DECT R4: Suitable for Communication Manager, IP Office, In building Wireless Server, supports text messaging SMS, GUI, Bluetooth headset.

This is an Avaya proprietary phone.

• 9600 series IP deskphone: Meant for everyday, navigation and essential user, SIP phone, access to multiple incoming lines, two Ethernet interfaces, two way speaker phone, backlit screen, 100 entry call log, 250 contact entries, some models gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth, colour touch screen.

Supports both SIP and H323 protocols and VPN software. Works with One-X Communicator Softphone Software and VPN to give remote PBX dial-in capability.

• Avaya Aura Communication Manager: A business application that supports IP telephony solutions, multi vendor integration, extensions to voice and video telephony features, SIP session management, can support upto 18,000 IP end points, One million users per network. Available as Standard and Enterprise editions.

• Avaya Server: Runs Avaya Enterprise Survivable Server, Linux based OS, scalable support for 450-18,000 IP, digital or analog end points, 450-12,000 trunks, 50-250 gateways. Primary models include S8300D for medium size business and DL360G7 for enterprise business.

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PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY News

3TB Mybook Studio from Western Digital Now available with a 3 Tb storage capacity, the new design features a brushed aluminium casing to match the appearance of a Mac computer. The aluminium exterior, combined with its WD Green drives, eliminates the need for an internal fan to reduce drive noise and extend the life of the drive. Although formatted for Mac computers, the My Book Studio external hard drives can also be reformatted for PCs.

The My Book Studio external hard drive includes its fast and flexible Firewire 800/400 and USB 2.0 interfaces, usercontrolled automatic backup software and drive management, password protection and hardware encryption. Shipping in capacities of 1 Tb, 2 Tb and 3 Tb, the My Book Studio drive also includes the WD GreenPower Technology.

Price for My Book Studio with 1 TB is $150; 2 TB is $200; 3 TB is $250.

L-Series LED TV from Benq Benq’s LED backlight technology on the L-Series results in less power consumption due to its ultra-slim design which enables light to be transmitted at a higher efficiency rate. It presents a dynamic contrast ratio of 4,000,000:1 between the brightest and darkest areas for greater depth and definition. The motion blur free, full HD 1080P L-Series LED TVs are built on 10-bit VA LED panels and feature Benq’s 24P real cinema mode, which is built with proprietary algorithmic chip. The Benq L Series doubles the rate of frames per second from 60 to 120 – eliminating motion lag and blurred shadows, while making fast action scenes notably smoother and more lifelike.

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The LED TV provides 27.3% more contrast in comparison to other TVs and the special coating of the reflection defence panel creates deeper blacks. For sound it has SRS TruSurround HD technology with two built-in 8W speakers and a 10W subwoofer for bass effects.

Logitech Cooling Pad N200 The cooling device uses two silent tilted fans with a large grill, rear and side air intakes and is powered through the USB port.

Laptops can overheat on uneven surfaces or without proper ventilation and this solved by this device. It is priced at $60.

Multimedia players from Vinverth Vinverth’s multimedia players are equipped with coaxial and optical outputs which are capable of transferring digital audio signals. The highlight of the multimedia player is that it can be watched on Youtube and live streaming can be watched on TV.

VGMMP 220 specifications: Decoder format: HD MPEG1/2/4, H.264, HD AVC/VC-1, RM/RMVB, Xvid/ DivX3/4/5/6 Media format: Avi/Rm/Rmvb/Ts/Vob/Mkv/ Mov/Mpg/Mp4/Iso/Wmv9,Asf Music format: MP3/WMA/AAC/WAV/OGG/ APE/FLAC Photo format: JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG/TIFF USB host: High speed USB 2.0U DISK and USB HDD HDD file system: FAT 16/FAT 32, NTFS, EXT 3 Supported subtitle: SRT/SMI/SUB/SSA/ IDX+USB High definition video output: HD max 1920 x 1080 pixel LAN: RTD 1073 TO PC Hard disc driver: External 3.5” SATA HDD, support to 2Tb, built in 3.5” SATA HDD Network (IMS): Picasa, You tube, Flicker, RSS News, Weather, Stock Digital audio output: Optical/Coaxial/ HDMI Limited one year warranty Selling Price: $101

VGMMP 110D specifications: Decoder format: HD MPEG1/2/4, H.264, HD AVC/VC-1, RM/RMVB, Xvid/ DivX3/4/5/6 Media format: Avi/Rm/Rmvb/Ts/Vob/Mkv/ Mov/Mpg/Mp4/Iso/Wmv9, Asf Music format: MP3/WMA/AAC/WAV/OGG/ APE/FLAC Photo format: JPEG/BMP/GIF/PNG/TIFF Card reader: SD/MMC/MS USB host: High speed USB 2.0 U DISK and USB HDD HDD file system: FAT 16/FAT 32, NTFS, EXT 3 Supported subtitle: SRT/SMI/SUB/SSA/ IDX+USB High definition video output: HD max 1920 x 1080 pixel File copy: Copy with USB/CARD/DVD Digital audio output: Coaxial/HDMI Limited one year warranty Selling Price: $71

Roccat Kone plus, gaming mouse

This is the successor to the awardwinning Kone game mouse. It’s performance is based on its revolutionary 6000dpi Pro-Aim Laser Sensor R2.

In conjunction with its 10.5 megapixel resolution and 1,000Hz polling rate, the laser sensor offers maximum precision, transmitting lightning fast mouse movements with up to 30Gs of acceleration and with speeds of up to 200ips without loss or lag. The introduction of the Easyshift button makes it possible to assign two functions to each button. A second button can be used for the Easyaim function.

When the button is depressed, a preselected DPI setting is automatically switched to, useful in situations when precise in-game aiming is called for.

Four multi colour LEDs, together with the enhanced light pipes can light up, alternate or pulsate in more than four different colours at the same time. A weight system comprising 4x5 gm weights is included, allowing gamers to customize the weight to suit their preferences.

Roccat products are exclusively distributed across the region by Uber Technologies.

Price is $150.

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Imagerunner Advance C2000 from Canon The Imagerunner Advance C2030 and C2020 series are equipped with solutions to suit small and medium-sized workgroups in office environments. Running at 20 ppm and 30ppm, they provide a range of options and functionality to enhance networked security, worker productivity, cost efficiency and environmental benefits.

Available in light or full versions, they provide organisations with a choice of HDD and flash drive functions. The flash option provides a basic functionality that is ideal for price competitive colour printing for small and medium sized workgroups, whilst HDD option supports the maximum functions. The device has copy and scan functions, one touch workflows, USB multi-media support, an internal finisher, 2,000 sheet paper handling capability in stock weights from 64 to 220 gsm. It has a security and cost control pack, USB print and scan and iW360 document handling and productivity suite. Available in Saudi Arabia.

Xerox Documate 4440 printer The Xerox Documate 4440 has been designed to minimise the security risks associated with unorganized paperwork in office environment, typically the healthcare and insurance segments amongst others. It offers duplex scanning performance of up to 80 images per minute or 40 pages per minute, plastic hard card scanning, Kofax VRS image enhancement and ultrasonic double feed detection.

Healthcare and insurance markets have scanning requirements that go beyond scanning printed quality pages. These include items such as ID cards, multi-part forms, varying paper sizes, barcodes and hand-written notes require different imaging techniques.

To make this happen, bundled software includes Kofax VRS, Nuance PaperPort, OmniPage Pro, ISIS and WIA

drivers and Visioneer OneTouch with Kofax VRSTM technology. Kofax VRS Pro barcode scanning software is optionally available.

Priced at $895, the Xerox Documate 4440 comes with Kofax VRS Basic.

Colorqube 8870 printer from Xerox This is the second desktop product under the Colorqube brand.

The printer’s cartridge-free ink produces 90 percent less printing waste than other colour laser printers. With print speeds as fast as 40 pages per minute in both colour and black and white, the printer is suitable for offices that depend on colour for business proposals, reports and flyers, as well as everyday documents such as e-mail and spreadsheets. The price starts at $2499.

Its green features include: • Earth Smart print driver defaults for two-sided printing, proof print, recycled paper and draft mode.

• Intelligent Ready feature that learns usage patterns and moves to low-power mode when the printer is least likely to be in use.

• GreenPrint software that automatically highlights unnecessary pages such as those with only banner ads or logos, prior to printing.

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Products from Touchmate

20.1� TFT LCD monitor 2.1 Channel surround-sound speaker system This is a digital home theatre suitable for movies and games. It has power bass without distortion from its sub-woofers, surroundsound and magnetic shielding.

The monitor is priced for the small office-home office segment. It has a flickerfree resolution of 1440x900 pixels, super-fine horizontal dot pitch of 0.283 mm and built-in speakers.

18.5� Wide LED monitor It has a flickerfree resolution of 1360x786 pixels and a super-fine horizontal dot pitch of 0.30 mm and built-in speakers.

Mosaic MP3 player with headset It has a powerful bass headset and supports MP3/WMA rechargeable battery. It uses USB2.0 for easy plug and play.

Slim swing USB drive This is a small size USB drive for data storage and file transfer and also doubles as a special gift for promotions.

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Iomega® StorCenter™ ix2 Network Storage

Central storage, backup and shared accessibility Powerful media server with anywhere access The StorCenter ix2, built on EMC® technology, offers simple, powerful, and affordable network storage in configurations starting at 2TB and expandable up to 6TB in a single array. High reliability features – including RAID with hot-swap drives and automatic rebuild, dual hot-swap power supplies, and redundant variable-speed hot-swap cooling fans – ensure maximum availability. Robust connectivity allows simultaneous multi-protocol filelevel and iSCSI block-level access.

©2011 Iomega Corporation, Iomega, the Stylized “i” logo, and StorCenter are registered trademarks or trademarks of Iomega Corporation in the U.S. and other countries. Certain other product names, brand names and company names or designations of their respective owners.

· Easy to use and manage, set up in just four steps! · PC, Mac®, and Linux compatible · Capacities from 2TB to 6TB · Robust data management powered by enterprise-class EMC® LifeLine™ software

www.iomega.com

PEOPLE Zornitza Hadjitodorova

Aptec’s green evangelist

Sustainable inspiration In February 2011, Zornitza Hadjitodorova approached Dr Ali Baghdadi, CEO of Aptec Holdings, with idea of travelling with Robert Swan’s spring expedition to Antarctica. Aptec, an ICT distributor for Middle East, Pakistan, Turkey and Africa, was developing its three year environment protection programme and this seemed to be a good way to kick-start the initiative.

Baghdadi agreed and in March Hadjitodorova was on her way to Antarctica for a three week scientific tour of the world’s last wilderness. Hadjitodorova and other members were exposed to Swan’s dynamic personality where he inspired them to go back as environmental leaders and motivate and inspire people in the community to make a sustainable and long term change.

The returning team members carry with them Swan’s parting motto, “the greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it”. But a transformed and inspired Hadjitodorova now working full time at Dubai based Enviroserve, an IT and industrial recycling aggregator, has her own passionate takeaway. “Sustainable inspiration triggers sustainable leadership”.

In a first of its kind in the region, Hadjitodorova and Aptec are working together to align business practices and social investments to create long-term value for stakeholders. The company is reviewing its internal operations to make environmental friendly changes and is increasing awareness levels amongst its

employees and customers on the need for a lower carbon footprint.

From an early age Hadjitodorova was exposed to the idea of recycling at her home.

The turning point for her was when in China on an official tour she broke away and visited an animal skinning plant. “I cannot accept it when people litter or kill animals for fidgety things like fur. The way I was raised, you don’t just use and abuse and take as much as possible.”

She feels there is another side to an individual or community’s general apathy towards the environment. “If you are negligent about your environment chances are you are negligent about a lot of other things.”

Hadjitodorova studied at John Cabot University, Rome and plans to complete her formal education with an MBA in Europe.

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PEOPLE Salim Ziade

HP’s biking go-getter

Gearing up Salim Ziade, General Manager for the Personal Systems Group has been working with HP for the last fifteen years now. He has moved through various divisions and various geographies during this time. From the supply chain side to product marketing to channel sales and finally to his current position. The most challenging part of the last fifteen years was when he was channel sales director for the Mediterranean, African and Middle East regions. With such a vast geography and multiple levels of country dynamics putting together a cohesive sales strategy was a tough one. And in his current job role putting

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a looking glass on the volatility of the Middle East region to prepare a workable business forecast is another tough one.

But then the way Ziade has set himself up he is always looking ahead in his career for challenging roles to learn and progress.

He calls this personal mantra, “The one’s to come,” and he is ready and waiting for more. Ziade is also a people guy and enjoys developing internal talent, bringing in external talent and building teams from diverse backgrounds. For himself Ziade feels he is a go-getter with passion and puts his heart and energy into anything he does. One of his latest passions is to

get on a motorbike and drive out into the desert. He is also a passionate sailor and the UAE lets him do both at any time.

Along with rest of the outdoors and travelling, Ziade takes out time every morning to spend an hour on the computer with a cup of coffee scanning the news and the blogs. He feels it is necessary for him and his job role to be on top of things. His favourite device he can’t go without is his Palm Pre 2 with HP WebOs mobile. Ziade has a Masters in Industrial Engineering from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Génie Industriel in Grenoble, France.

www.eset.com/me www.eset.com/me Dubai:+9714 Dubai:+9714 3754052 3754052

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