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PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

ISSUE 192 // DECEMBER 2012 WWW.RESELLERME.COM

CASTING A NEW LINE

BDL Group seeks business in the buoyant ICT market ANALYSIS

VENDOR FOCUS

REVIEWS

Windows 8 is finally here. But, is channel excited about this new proposition?

Symantec enlists the support of partners to maintain leadership position.

Axtrom offers low priced, high performance tablet.

NETWORKING CHANNEL

N E W V I STA S O F G ROW T H F O R PA RT N E RS

Your next router will unleash your content.

Your next router will love your wireless devices.

Your next router will make your home a hotspot.

Your next router will use apps.

Your next router is here.

App-ready for a whole new level of control.

This new generation of Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Routers gives the same powerful wireless performances expected from a Linksys router, plus it is app enabled for anytime, anywhere access that makes it easy to run a connected home from any browser or mobile device. With an ever-expanding suite of apps Linksys Smart Wi-Fi Routers bring a whole new level of control to a home network such as setting site permissions, blocking malicious content, home camera monitoring and remote sharing.

To learn more, please visit linksys.com

Maximum Performance derived from IEEE Standard 802.11 speci cations (draft speci cations for 802.11ac). Actual performance can vary, including lower wireless network capacity, data throughput rate, range and coverage. Performance depends upon many factors, conditions and variables, including products used, interference and other adverse conditions. 802.11ac 1300 Mbps in the 5GHz Band is approximately 3 x faster than 802.11n 450 Mbps in the 2.4GHz Band. An 802.11ac adapter will be needed to achieve 11ac data rates and up to 1300 Mbps wireless speeds may be achieved when connecting to other 802.11ac 1300 Mbps devices. Š 2012 Cisco. All rights reserved. Cisco, the Cisco logo and Linksys are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its a liates in the United States and certain other countries. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or website are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.

CONTENTS ISSUE 192 // DECEMBER 2012

HIGHLIGHTS 6

COVER FEATURE

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

ANALYSIS 20

Key to success For Dell, its Storage Forum in Paris was all about revealing five end-to-end updates to its storage portfolio, but behind the products we find that the channel is the real key to its success.

22

Windows 8 touches down in Dubai In true rock star fashion, Microsoft ended its world tour of Windows 8 with a bang from inside the tallest building on the planet, in the heart of Dubai. Is channel excited about this new proposition from the software giant?

FEATURE 28

New vistas of growth With enterprises refreshing network infrastructure to keep up with emerging technologies, it’s time for the channel to scale up and lap up the opportunities in this high-growth market.

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CASTING A NEW LINE BDL Group is branching out into the regional ICT market

VENDOR FOCUS

HOT PRODUCTS

40

Canon PIXMA iP7240

Steady as it goes Symantec has recently laid out its management and product strategy.

The company, which has gone through a leadership change, is planning to enlist the support of its partners to ward off competition and maintain its leadership position.

Linksys X-Series

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

EDITORIAL

New game, new rules

Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan@cpidubai.com +971 4 4409109

Gone are the days when networking was just about connectivity.

With the high cost of downtime, it has become increasingly important for companies to ensure their networks are available 24/7, performing at their peak when users need it. Now, with the advent of technologies such as virtualisation and cloud, enterprise IT decision makers are rethinking the way they design networks. All over the world, network spending is picking up as companies refresh their network infrastructure to keep up

Contributing Editors Ben Rossi Joe Lipscombe

ADVERTISING Commercial Director Rajashree R Kumar raj@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9131 Key Account Manager Merle Carrasco merle@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9134 Sales Manager Nasir Bazaz nasir@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9144

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 Designer Analou Balbero analou@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9104 DIGITAL www.resellerme.com DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developers Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Photographer and Social Media Co-ordinator Jay Colina online@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor

Talk to us: E-mail: jeevan@cpidubai.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ ResellerME Twitter: @ResellerME

with the new technology trends.

According to TheInfoPro’s 2012 Network Technology Study, core router and switching upgrades are the top project priorities for network managers, followed by wireless implementations. The research firm says the top network projects that enterprises plan to tackle in the next 12 months will include Unified Comms, VoIP, network expansion, WAN optimisation, mobile device management, to name a few. What does this mean for the channel? This means unprecedented opportunities, not just around networking gear but related services as well. Though all major networking vendors are trying to push their partners into the services game, unfortunately, in the Middle East not many have paid enough attention to this hugely untapped area. Vendors, on their part, have made their partner programmes flexible and made available enough tools and resources to help the channel evolve towards successful professional services delivery. All you need to do is take up the gauntlet, create differentiated technology solutions around networking, and not let these opportunities go a-begging.

Personally, I think IPv6 and SDN (software-defined networking) will also gain enough steam in 2013. For the uninitiated, SDN represents a revolutionary change in network architecture and promises to make the network more flexible, easy to manage and programmable. It is expected that the initial focus of SDN implementation will be data centres because that’s where the network has been most impacted by the new requirements. I recommend you ask your suppliers to keep you informed about key SDN developments and track the new standards closely to get into the game early.

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press © Copyright 2012 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

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HIGHLIGHTS News

Condo Protego ups the ante Condo Protego, a value-added reseller focused on storage and data protection, is riding on the crest of the growth wave in the storage market, and says there is a sea-change in the way businesses perceive storage.

“Business leaders in the Middle East are increasingly determined to move away from the notion of data storage as a diffuse, overwhelming burden to embrace it as an integral part of a business strategy driven by information visibility and accessibility,” says Andrew Calthorpe, CEO of Condo Protego.

Calthorpe believes that the era of information being dumped and dispersed across multiple servers and mainframes is long gone, and business leaders are rightly looking for solutions that are faster, more efficient and, above all, safer.

He says the regional storage market is growing rapidly, even when many other market segments have struggled during the economic downturn. While the average storage utilisation levels hover around 30

percent in most enterprises, Calthorpe says some users have learned to use storage optimally. “Companies buy big lumps of storage without being scientific about what they need it for and smart ones buy based on project by project basis by working out how much capacity they need.”

Calthorpe says his company’s unique value proposition is its consultative approach.

“We work with two major vendors – EMC and Symantec. We try to understand what the customer challenge is and then recommend a solution to address it. We don’t want to sell anything that we can’t support completely, because we are involved right from the design stage to implementation and postsales support.”

Condo Protego, which sees huge opportunities around virtualisation, backup and recovery, works very closely with its partners to cash in on this. “We are a signature partner of EMC, the highest level of partnership, and are among the only partners who buy directly from them. We are also a

Andrew Calthorpe, CEO of Condo Protego master specialist partner for Symantec for the MENA region, and deal with all of their availability product lines.”

Being a service-enabled partner, Condo Protego is now eyeing opportunities outside of the UAE and plans to get itself more aligned with the product roadmap of its vendor partners to further explore the opportunities in the data storage market.

STME acquires Symantec data protection specialisation

Afchine Tabrizian, Services and Support Director at STME STME has achieved Symantec specialisation in the area of data protection with a focus on Symantec’s backup and recovery technologies.

Symantec data protection specialisation recognises partners with a proven expertise in Symantec’s NetBackup and Backup Exec product ranges, including the latest NetBackup 5220 Appliances and ensures they have the skills and experience required to deliver differentiated services to customers.

“By achieving this milestone specialisation, STME has demonstrated an investment and expertise in Symantec backup technology and an ability to provide complete protection for their customers’ informationdriven enterprise. STME is now in an even better position to

meet the needs of its customers by delivering high-value solutions to protect and manage their information”, said Afchine Tabrizian, Services and Support Director at STME. Symantec specialisations, which recognise partners with a proven expertise in a particular area of business, provide partners with the skills and experience required to deliver differentiated service to their customers. Symantec partners achieve specialisation by meeting certain requirements that deepen their knowledge and proficiency in a solution family, and specialised Symantec partners receive exclusive benefits as a result of their

investment.

“The data protection specialisation was designed to enable partners to differentiate themselves from the competition, maximise customer opportunity and accelerate revenue based on their expertise in the data protection market,” said Ramzi Itani, Channel Manager, Middle East & French-speaking Africa, Symantec. “Specialised partners have invested in Symantec’s solutions to manage and protect their customers’ identities as well as critical information, and we are committed to our partners by providing them with the products and services to help grow their business.”

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HIGHLIGHTS News

Vox Spectrum teams up with Almasa

Roger El-Tawil, Executive Director of Almasa Value Distribution Vox Spectrum,an International group of telecom companies and the master distributor of Plantronics Headsets in the region, has appointed Almasa Value Distribution as its value added reseller of Plantronics headsets in the UAE. Under the agreement, Almasa Value Distribution will generate demand for and

build logistics to supply Plantronics’ products, including wireless headsets, through its channels in the GCC, including Saudi Arabia.

Almasa Value Distribution was chosen as the partner to address the rising enterprise market demand for Unified Communications (UC) solutions across the region, including voice communications and collaboration.

“Vox Spectrum has identified the growth in demand for Plantronics unified communications solutions around the region, but needed a partner with the relevant expertise and market reach to address these opportunities.

With Almasa’s focus on the UC sector and knowledge of the needs of the Middle East’s market, we have found the ideal conduit for Plantronics to reach our target base of regional resellers and ultimately, end-users,” said Manoj Gopinath, Chief Operating Officer, Vox Spectrum. “We look forward to working in close alliance with Almasa, to strengthen the Plantronics brand recognition through joint marketing activities and to meet the Middle East’s increase in UC market needs.”

Vox Spectrum and its subsidiaries have been operating in the region for more than

twenty five years and had been the Plantronics distributor for nearly twenty. The company’s new partnership with Almasa is set to considerably accelerate its business due to a wider channel network and prompt distribution of its solutions. As an existing partner of Avaya, Almasa serves all the segments of the regional enterprise market from large enterprises, to the mid-market which includes call centres, to the SMB office and mobility markets.

“Plantronics, a global leader in headset and communication devices, has technology which is vital to the growth of UC in the Middle East, and Almasa is delighted to add these elements to the first-class solutions we provide to our regional channel community. We understand that innovative wireless headsets are becoming more and more popular, because they assist in enhancing productivity and simplifying connectivity. So by bundling Plantronics headsets with our range of Unified Communication products, Almasa is delivering competitive advantage to our channel partners and ultimately, to the wider regional market,” said Roger El-Tawil, Executive Director of Almasa Value Distribution.

Comguard to distribute FixMeStick Comguard has entered into a distribution agreement with Canada based security vendor, FixMeStick.

FixMeStick is a technology innovation that is powered by multiple anti-virus engines which increases the number of detectable viruses, and clean external scanning devices prevent viruses from hiding or from interfering with their removal. Three of the best anti-virus engines in the world Kaspersky Lab, Sophos, and GFI powers FixMeStick for detection and removal of virus.

FixMeStick is a Linux-based device that runs before Windows

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boots, enabling it to clean the PC while malware is inactive.

Everything that is required to remove the virus and malware from a computer is built into the USB device. There is no need to download or to install any new software, thereby completely avoiding conflict with any of the existing software programs in the system.

Mohammad Mobasseri, Senior Vice President at Comguard, said, “FixMeStick is one of the most progressive innovations in IT security domain and yet so simple to use. It is a bootable USB device running on Linux and is powered by three

of the world’s leading antivirus engines; Kaspersky Labs, Sophos, and GFI to automatically remove malicious files.”

He added further, “We are sure FixMeStick will provide a great relief to both individuals and businesses in the region.

While, it will provide an immense opportunity for all our channel partners across the region, who have been looking for a product like FixMeStick to expand their market base and make inroads into new business territories.”

The product is available across the Middle East region including countries like UAE,

Mohammad Mobasseri, Senior Vice President at Comguard Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Oman, among others.

Click. Click.

Let the video collaboration begin.

Connecting your business with video comes easy with Avaya.

With Avaya, your next video call is always just a click, swipe or touch away. And unlike other vendors, we connect to your existing infrastructure to create a video system that’s simpler and more affordable. To learn more about video and support services where everything just clicks, visit avaya.com/click.

Š 2012 Avaya Inc. All rights reserved.

HIGHLIGHTS News

WD extends distribution in Africa

Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director- India, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, WD

WD, a Western Digital company, has appointed Nairobi-based Mitsumi Distribution as its new partner for Africa.

With this tie up, WD further strengthens and extends its global footprint by specifically catering to rising demand from Africa’s growing storage market. Enterprise and home users alike will have better availability of the comprehensive range of storage, networking and entertainment solutions offered by WD. Mitsumi Distribution is WD’s first Africa-focused partner.

Mitsumi Distribution, one of Africa’s leading IT distributors, will cover the Central, East and West African regions for WD’s component and branded products. WD’s component products include internal storage products such as desktop, mobile, SOHO NAS and enterprise hard drives, while the company’s branded products comprise external storage devices, home entertainment

solutions, small business storage, and networking solutions.

“Africa’s storage market, while rapidly growing, is still underserved. This presents long-term growth opportunities to WD,” explained Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director India, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, WD. “Mitsumi Distribution was appointed to focus specifically on the Central, East and West African regions in countries such as Kenya, Nigeria, Ghana, Ethiopia, Congo, Algeria, Tanzania and Uganda. We partnered with Mitsumi owing to its healthy regional reach and strong in-country presence, as well as its wide customer base.”

Mitsumi operates in 19 countries in Africa, but will cover the key markets of Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Ethopia, Congo and Algeria. Mitsumi Distribution will also provide customer support via its incountry service centres.

Symantec targets partners to develop better mobile security Symantec has enhanced its partner programme in the Middle East with a new specialisation that addresses both the increasing needs of companies for relevant and reliable mobility strategies and the opportunities for channel partners to benefit from this growing trend. By acknowledging the skills and experience that qualifying partners have in the mobility market, the new specialisation empowers them to deliver greater value to customers, maximise opportunities and accelerate their profitability with Symantec’s mobility portfolio, while further differentiating their businesses in this booming and competitive market.

The mobility solution specialization enables Symantec specialised partners across

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the Middle East to help their customers to gain granular control over their mobile deployments and have different levels of oversight on mobile devices, according to their specific policies and needs. The specialisation comprises the following Symantec product/ solutions: mobile application management (MAM), mobile device management (MDM) and mobile security “As technology continues to evolve and mobility becomes a key priority for organisations in the Middle East, partners must be continually adjusting and broadening their offerings in order to address ever-changing needs and provide the value their customers expect, “ said Ramzi Itani, Regional Channel & Alliance Manager, Middle East and North Africa. “Our new mobility solution

specialisation provides partners with the tools and resources needed to leverage business opportunities in mobility, drive additional revenue and maximise their returns from their Symantec investment.”

The new mobility solution specialisation offers benefits to qualified partners who have acquired comprehensive knowledge and expertise in Symantec’s mobility solutions.

Partners who achieve the mobility solution specialisation benefit from additional discounts (via their distributor) and enhanced rebates through opportunity registration, as well as access to consulting toolkits.

As a specialist, they have access to specialised training, sales tools and technical resources.

Specialists also have their investment in the specialisation

Ramzi Itani, Regional Channel & Alliance Manager, MENA at Symantec promoted to prospect customers though the Symantec Partner Locator, and can differentiate further their status with a mobility solution specialization logo. Specialists can also access Symantec’s beta product program and can also benefit from other commercial benefits (such as teaming plans).

HIGHLIGHTS News

Cloud creates channel opportunities, says Brocade survey

Regan McGrath, Senior VP of Worldwide Sales at Brocade

New research from Brocade surveying 500 channel organisations worldwide shows that professional services in the area of cloud computing is expected to be the main revenue generator for channel by 2020. If this is to be the case however, vendors need to play an important ‘enabling’ role by enhancing their own capabilities, tailoring their partner programmes and making it less complex, increasing flexibility and developing innovative products and solutions. At the moment lack of all these factors is impeding channel in their efforts to move toward cloud-based professional services.

For the majority of channel respondents, professional services today accounts for 25 percent or less of revenues. The survey also revealed growing customer demand for professional services. The biggest hurdles to this are complexity and CapEx constraints. Another interesting statistic is the fact that only 11% of respondents seek innovative financing

solutions from their vendors and 19% for marketing funding – both important competitive advantages when trying to build a brand and reputation rather than sell on price.

Regan McGrath, Senior VP of Worldwide Sales at Brocade said, “Revenue focused channel programs like our Brocade Alliance Partner Network, combined with differentiated technology solutions that help address customers’ needs for innovative and easy to deploy networks, flexible financing solutions such as Brocade Network Subscription, and tools and resources that help channel develop their reputation as consultants, will all become increasingly critical to developing competitive consultancy businesses that drive significant revenue returns.”

Regan cautions that the channel need to be critical and evaluate their vendors vision, strategy, technology and enablement programmes to ensure that they complement the partner’s efforts in offering professional services.

GBM: Security worries hinder cloud adoption Concerns over data security is the top factor delaying the widespread adoption of cloudbased services, according to a new survey of IT professionals conducted by Gulf Business Machines (GBM), the region’s leading IT solutions provider.

According to the survey, which coincides with the launch of GBM’s Intelligent Network Solutions (INS) division, concerns over service reliability and availability, as well as the cost of cloud-based solutions are often cited reasons for the slow adoption of outsourced enterprise cloud services.

While two-thirds (62 percent) of the regional IT professionals

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polled stated that data security was a concern and 40.5 percent identified cost as a barrier, 43 percent cited service reliability concerns. In comparison, a lack of support from non-IT decision makers was mentioned by less than a quarter (22 percent) of the respondents.

“These findings should come as a serious concern for the industry since perceptions, as opposed to facts, appear to play a significant role in decisions to defer the adoption of cloud services in an enterprise environment,” said Hani Nofal, Director of Intelligent Network Solutions (INS) at GBM. “While it is important

to note that the use of cloud technologies is part of the IT function’s evolutionary process, it is equally important to realise that change is usually a gradual process. It is only a matter of time before the benefits of using the cloud, such as cost effectiveness and scalability, outweigh these unfounded concerns.”

Nofal added: “At GBM INS, we aim to partner with our customers to introduce them to cloud-based services at a pace that is in line with their comfort levels. We truly believe that the region offers significant potential for scaling up the adoption of cloud solutions and we aim

to use our combination of experience and access to bestin-class technologies to support this trend.”

Significantly, almost a quarter (24.6 percent) of the respondents said that their organisations were planning to outsource business applications and services to cloud-based service providers in the next 12 to 18 months. The study also revealed that while one-in-10 IT professionals owns five or more personal devices - such as smartphones and tablets – a third of those polled owned up to three devices. However, only 6.2 percent admitted to owning one device.

HIGHLIGHTS News

Cloud services in MENA market to surpass $378 Mn in 2012: Gartner The Middle Eastern and Northern African public cloud services market is forecast to grow 15.3 percent in 2012 to total $378.5 million, compared to $111 billion worldwide, according to Gartner. Business process services (also known as business process as a service, or BPaaS) is on pace to be the largest segment, accounting for about 52 percent of the total Middle East and Northern Africa market in 2012, while cloud management and security services represents the fastest-growing segment of the public cloud services market and is expected to grow 41.4 percent in 2012. ”The cloud services market is clearly a high-growth sector within the overall IT marketplace,” said Ed Anderson, research director at Gartner. “The key to taking advantage of this growth will be understanding the nuances of the

opportunity within service segments and geographic regions, and then prioritizing investments in line with the opportunities.”

BPaaS is the largest segment primarily because of the inclusion of cloud advertising as a subsegment. BPaaS is forecast to grow to $195.1 million in 2012, up from $191.7 million in 2011. In 2011, human resources BPaaS services represented about 19 percent of the total public cloud services market, making it the biggest identifiable subsegment in the forecast.

By 2016, cloud advertising will become the largest segment accounting for about 22 percent of total public cloud services spending in the Middle East and Northern Africa region.

Software as a service (SaaS) is the next-largest segment and is forecast to grow to $74.6 million in 2012, while IaaS

is forecast to grow from $35 million in 2011 to $47.5 million in 2012. Growth in application infrastructure services (also known as platform as a service, or PaaS) will also be high, although it is a smaller market relative to the other segments.

PaaS is strategic and considered to be a critical growth driver for other segments, including BPaaS and SaaS. The PaaS segment in the Middle East and Northern Africa region is forecast to grow to $15.8 million in 2012. Cloud management and security services constitute a new forecast segment comprising cloud security services, IT operations management (ITOM) and storage management (including backup and recovery services). The cloud management and security services segment is forecast to grow to $45.5 million in 2012.

Fortinet hosts global partner conference Fortinet has recently hosted its annual Global Partner Conference, which this year took place on board the Royal Caribbean Cruise Liner ‘Majesty of the Seas’, on November 5-8. This year’s conference attendance was Fortinet’s largest, encompassing more than 1,000 distributors and silver and gold resellers from 70 countries.

During the event, one of Fortinet’s highlights was the introduction and channel training of its new FortiOS 5.0, the world’s most advanced security operating system.

This new release provides

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more security, intelligence and control to help enterprises be better protected against today’s advanced threats and enables more secure BYOD environments. Bringing more than 150 new features for FortiGate, FortiManager, FortiAnalyzer and FortiClient products, FortiOS 5.0 provides Fortinet’s partners with a real competitive advantage by allowing them to offer enterprises of all sizes solutions that better defend against new advanced threats and help manage and protect networks against the influx of mobile devices and applications.

Fortinet also recognised the outstanding achievements drawn from the company’s distributors and resellers around the world, rewarding its best partners of the year.

“Fortinet continues to rapidly gain market share in the overall network security market, and our channel is key to that success,” said Bashar Bashaireh, Regional Director of Fortinet Middle East. “This year’s conference was the perfect opportunity to share our latest technology innovations and business strategies with our silver and gold resellers in order to have them best equipped

Bashar Bashaireh, Regional Director of Fortinet Middle East to address the increasingly challenging security requirements of our end customers.”

iPad

Authorized Value Added Distributor

HIGHLIGHTS News

Empa inks pact with Supermicro EMPA Middle East has signed a master distribution agreement with Supermicro, a prominent server manufacturer. As per the agreement, EMPA will now offer Supermicro’s full range of server, workstation, storage, and embedded products through its extensive reseller network across the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT).

“Our channel partners have been instrumental in making Supermicro the fastest emerging company in servers and storage space,” said Dr.Gaith Kadir, Regional Sales Manager, Supermicro MENAT. “Our faith in EMPA Middle East reflects our commitment

Nicholas Argyrides, MD at EMPA Middle East

to our resellers’ success by providing the programmes, training and support that will help them accelerate their business growth. This collaboration is a milestone for Supermicro and we are looking forward to working closely with EMPA.” Nicholas Argyrides, MD at EMPA Middle East said, “Our alliance with Supermicro is a decisive step forward for EMPA as it matches our strategy of expanding offerings into the enterprise space, also covering SME. We are confident that the combination of Supermicro’s competitive technologies along with EMPA’s regional grasp will put a lot of smiles onto our resellers’ faces.

Ultimately, it all boils down to listening to our channel partners and executing. This is really exciting.”

Microsoft signs up Westcon Convergence Microsoft has announced a new strategic global partnership with the value added distributor Westcon Convergence. The announcement coincides with Gartner’s recent Magic Quadrant for unified communications, 2012 report, in which they evaluated Microsoft’s current in-market technologies including Lync 2010 and Exchange 2010, which came out as strong leaders in nnified communications.

Microsoft views the strategic alignment and collaboration with Westcon Convergence as a key partnership to enabling and driving Microsoft channel

partners to fully extend Microsoft Lync Unified Communication solutions to market with maturity and consolidated support from the Lync eco-system vendor partners.”

Westcon Convergence’s proven expertise in delivering excellence in core distribution services around the region is key to supporting market expectations of our customers and partners”.

“Westcon believes that Lync will continue to play an even more important role in the business of Unified Communications as the market continues to grow and evolve,” said William Hurley, Chief Technology Officer, Westcon Group. “Lync exemplifies Westcon’s belief that the Unified Communications

market is transitioning from a hardware oriented solution to software and services oriented solution.”

“We are happy to see that the Gartner report considers Microsoft a leader in the unified communications space, as they have for several years.

“Our customers continue to realise value by using Microsoft Lync for enterprise voice, IM/presence and conferencing and as the Lync partner ecosystem continues to grow at a rapid pace, we are glad to announce our strategic partnership with Westcon Convergence as we’ve always felt that the company shared our vision for unified communications,” he added.

HIGHLIGHTS News

Rittal showcases data centre solution Rittal Middle East, a system supplier for enclosures, power distribution, climate control, IT infrastructure and software and services, recently organised and hosted two end-user focused seminars in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon during last month.

Rittal Middle East along with its strategic channel partners in the respsective regions organised an in-depth exploration of Rittal’s complete data centre solution, christened Rimatrix5. The solution consists of server and networking Racks, UPS systems, power distribution and cooling, in addition to monitoring and remote management.

The delegates were addressed by the representatives of Rittal including Joseph Najjar, MD, Rittal Middle East, George

Gibbler from the Rittal Headquaters in Germany and regional sales managers who introduced their products along with the opportunities that exist.

These IT seminars compliment the business agenda for Rittal Middle East noting the significant investments made in terms of staffing, local office setup and sales enablement programmes for channel partners in these key markets strengthening their contribution to the Middle East numbers.

Joseph Najjar, MD at Rittal MEA said : “The Middle East is one of the fastest growing region in the Rittal businesses globaly. The rapid innovation in our products and offerings that kept pace with the needs of our IT clients have been fueling sustained growth in IT

Joseph Najjar, MD at Rittal MEA sales. Our diversified products offerings in the Middle East will contribute to robust growth for IT business in 2013”.

Shifra adds Versatile Security to lineup The regional security VAD Shifra Middle East has partnered with Versatile Security Sweden to market its smart card management system vSEC:CMS in the region. The use of smart cards has gained increasing adoption and prominence throughout the Middle East, across a wide range of business and commercial organisations.

According to new research conducted by Frost and Sullivan, the value of the smart card market in the Middle East and

Ali Hyder, CEO, Focus Softnet

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North Africa is expected to reach $328.5 million by 2014, with the telecommunications industry representing more than 64 percent of the market.

With the entry of vSEC:CMS, Versatile Security and Shifra hope to provide a smarter and more cost-efficient alternative to current offerings in the market.

Smart card management systems are essential to implementing high security electronic identity and can be used to control access

to a company’s facilities and information systems. “It is being increasingly adopted in the region, and the demand for secure authentication is expected to increase as security threats continue to increase in severity and frequency. We are delighted to have been chosen by Versatile Security to introduce their market-leading smart card management systems throughout the Middle East,” said Ahmad Elkhatib, Managing Partner, Shifra.

Versatile Security CEO Joakim Thorén said, its favourable participation in GITEX 2012 opened doors of opportunities for the company to penetrate the Middle East. “Shifra has enormous experience and expertise in enterprise security as well as extensive knowledge of the region. Together we will be able to secure customers of all sizes in Middle East and can deploy smart card based security solutions in a tactical way,” he added.

HIGHLIGHTS News

Brocade appoints new EMEA channel head Brocade has announced the appointment of Thomas Langkjaer as Channel Sales Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA), and Alain Valluy, who previously held the channel role, as Regional Director – Southern Europe. The appointments signify the company’s commitment to its channel and driving business opportunities across the region, bolstering operations in Southern Europe to focus on markets such as France, Italy, Portugal and Spain.

“Southern Europe is of strategic importance to Brocade in EMEA, so finding the right leadership is critical to our ongoing success,” stated Alberto Soto, Vice President – EMEA, at Brocade. “Alain [Valluy] has done a terrific job in leading the channel team over the past two years, and in this new role [Regional Director – Southern Europe] he will be instrumental in driving our expansion in the Southern region to capitalise on the

Thomas Langkjaer as Channel Sales Director for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) market opportunities in front of us. Thomas [Langkjaer] will continue Alain’s work in building our channel and ensuring our ongoing commitment to partner growth is met. With these two seasoned professionals,

I am confident that Brocade in EMEA will continue to flourish.”

Langkjaer will be responsible for developing Brocade channel strategy, focusing on accelerating channel recruitment and sales and ensuring partners are able to fully leverage the unique technology differentiation delivered by Brocade innovative networking solutions, and its Alliance Partner Network (APN) programme.

Langkjaer has more than 18 years’ experience of sales, marketing and business development in the global networking market place, most recently as the Brocade OEM prime for the DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) region, and before that he held several senior sales, marketing and distribution roles at Hewlett-Packard and Compaq across EMEA and in the US.

ANALYSIS Dell

KEY TO SUCCESS For Dell, its Storage Forum in Paris was all about revealing five end-to-end updates to its storage portfolio, but behind the products we find that the channel is the real key to its success.

The channel is a significant aid in Dell’s operations all around the world and probably no more than in the Middle East, where despite having a large presence out here it utilises to the full.

The clearest sign of this on show at the Dell Storage Forum was the latest result of the tech giant’s long-running partnership with CommVault.

Dell PowerVault DL2300 is a new enterprise-class data protection appliance that combines Dell PowerEdge 12th generation servers with CommVault Simpana 9 modern data protection software to provide large enterprises with data backup, recovery, replication, archiving and deduplication for both physical and virtual servers.

The new appliance incorporates latest generation processor and memory capabilities to optimise deduplication database configurations for higher backup performance.

Users can also save administrative time with built-in policy-based automation for managing backup and archiving.

“For us in the Middle East, we actually do a lot of work with CommVault,” said Kevin Pickford, Solutions Director, Dell ME. “We have a very good working relationship as well – it’s mutual on both sides.

“We have joint account visits and see customers together, so it’s a really healthy relationship. It goes hand in hand. The relationship with CommVault became quite strong from an early start. In the Middle East it goes beyond 2007, but it started in the UK in the late 90s or early 2000s, so we go back a long way.

“The channel is the key to our success.

Channel for Dell is a must. We are very channel friendly in the Middle East – we have to work through it. For us to actually grow we have to be working and educating our channel.”

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Darren Thompson, GM, Dell Storage Another significant channel announcement to come off the back of Dell’s releases in Paris was a partnership with networking company Brocade, which hopes to offer the new Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.3 array software.

The software offers enhanced scalability and performance for Dell Compellent arrays, and along with Compellent SC800 controllers can increase performance up to 100 percent over previous versions when running enterprise workloads, Dell said.

With this release, Dell has become the first storage provider to announce end-to-end 16GB fibre channel capabilities, which it said doubles bandwidth and speeding access to business critical applications and data.

Designed for medium to large enterprises

and cloud computing, Dell Compellent arrays offer automated tiering, advanced data protection and increased ease of use, combined with a modular design that enables users to update storage software at no additional cost.

The solution also includes Brocade M6505 16 Gbps FC embedded SAN I/O module by Dell, which enables Dell PowerEdge M1000e Blade Enclosures to directly connect to the higher bandwidthcapable Compellent storage arrays.

“Driven by the deployment of cloud and virtualisation, storage continues to grow at unprecedented levels and demand for fibre channel storage technology is increasing, along with an accelerated adoption of 16 Gbpsbased SAN products,” said Jason Nolet, VP, Data Center Networking Group, at Brocade.

Whilst Dell Storage GM Darren Thompson’s keynote speech did not go into further detail on Dell’s partnerships, he did highlight their importance.

“The market dynamics are changing and we’re going to have to mould ourselves to fit into these dynamics,” he said. “We’re going to have to partner with new partners and do all kind of things.”

Furthermore, Dell’s investment in the Middle East was well demonstrated when Mohamed Laher, Enterprise Solutions Director, Emerging Markets, Dell, revealed plans for a solutions centre in the Middle East.

“We haven’t executed it yet but that’s the plan,” Laher said. “The solutions centre will be a hub of the ones in Ireland and the one in the US, and we’ll pass technologies through that map into this region.

“So the organisations that are worried about data going outside the region can use the hub, which will be in either Dubai or Abu Dhabi. Once we’ve set this up we’ll use the facility to have access to the wider solutions centres and then do stuff locally.” //

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ANALYSIS Windows 8

WINDOWS 8 TOUCHES DOWN IN DUBAI In true rock star fashion, Microsoft ended its world tour of Windows 8 with a bang from inside the tallest building on the planet, in the heart of Dubai. Is channel excited about this new proposition from the software giant?

The Windows crew has been touring the globe, demonstrating the latest version of its classic operating system since mid October. The Middle East was chosen as the final stop, fitting for a product based on reinvention and innovation.

Hundreds piled into the Burj Khalifa to see Microsoft executives Antoine Leblond and Ali Faramawry showcase the most radical version of Windows to date. Though Windows 8 has already been tried and tested all over the world prior to the event, it didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the party at all.

“This isn’t a product launch,” said Faramawry, Corporate VP at Microsoft Middle East. “This is a celebration, and we’re thrilled to be sharing it with you all here this evening.”

Innovation demonstration Leblond walked the audience through a number of new features on Windows 8 which, to some, would be completely alien, considering the drastic redesign since the highly popular Windows 7. Using a number of devices, including Window’s own Surface tablet, Leblond demonstrated how the brand new, tile style user interface worked. A very socially influenced user interface which

presents apps, programmes and settings all on one screen in the form of individual tiles.

Leblond showed how simple changes had also been made, in terms of start up times, closing programmes, saving documents, sending documents, using the touch screen, and gaining the most from the thousands of available apps.

“This is a no compromise product,” Leblond stated. “It allows you to benefit from its features through touch screen as easily as you would through mouse and keyboard.”

One of the main selling points of Windows 8 is how it’s been influenced by consumer products but uses these features to improve its service for businesses. The Windows 7, more successful, according to Forrester statistics, is still available on Windows 8, ensuring that comfortable users won’t be left totally dumbstruck by the transformation. However, the features available on Windows 8 aren’t sacrificed in order to accommodate Windows 7, you get the whole package.

“Windows 8 builds on what is great about Windows 7 – it works well side-by-side with existing Windows 7 infrastructure to deliver the experiences people love and the enterprise-grade solutions organisations need.

“Windows 8 builds on what is great about Windows 7 – it works well side-by-side with existing Windows 7 infrastructure to deliver the experiences people love and the enterprise-grade solutions organisations need.”

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Windows 8 also helps companies improve the way they do business through immersive apps developed to better reach employees and improve customers’ experiences.”

Now available on more than 1,000 certified PCs and tablets on a wide variety of screen sizes, configurations, and designs, Windows 8 is supported by thousands of apps available in the Windows Store.

“The innovation Windows 8 is sparking in the region is impressive,” said Faramawy.

“Just a few weeks after its global launch, Windows 8 is already transforming the lives of consumers, businesses and economies through a set of amazing new devices and rich apps. UAE Smart Learning is a great example of how technology is helping to make the region more competitive internationally by equipping students with access to latest technology.”

A questionable release However, a day prior to the event in the Middle East, Forrester released results from a survey which suggested that Windows 8 had received the opposite response to that of its predecessor in 2009, which was actually very positive.

Forrester surveyed enterprises on a number of factors relating to the launch of Windows 7 during its release three years ago, the same questions were asked about Windows 8 this year. The results were very interesting.

Windows 7 received high praise from industry, and statistics showed that high numbers of customers were planning to upgrade to the release, or had thought about it. In contrast, Windows 8 appeared to be left in the dark. The majority of

Ali Faramawry, Corporate VP at Microsoft Middle East customers surveyed said they either weren’t considering upgrading, or were waiting for the next release and planned on skipping Windows 8 altogether.

47% of firms said that they hadn’t taken Windows 8 into consideration, compared to only 27% who said the same three years ago.

On the other hand, 24% said they expected to migrate to the new operating system, where as 49% said the same during the launch of 7.

The results put the new release in the spotlight for sure. The popularity of Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating systems may have presented a bigger challenge for Microsoft than originally expected. The new Windows 8 interface has been designed by Microsoft as a route into the handheld device market, however, previous Windows versions may have been seen as a more stand out household brand with less competition.

Faramawry dismissed the idea that the survey results had anything to do with the quality of Windows upgrade, paying praise to its former.

“If anything, this says a lot about how successful Windows 7 was,” he said.

“Our customers are so happy and comfortable with that version, that they see no need to upgrade. Vista may have had something to do with it, the release prior to Windows 7. On the one hand, these results show that people are happy with Windows 7, on the other hand it shows, maybe, we have a lot of work to do to show people what is required for Windows 8.”

Despite the results of the single survey, Faramawry claims that the release was exactly what Microsoft needed in order to force its way back among the technological elite, regardless to if that’s what it wanted to do.

“We’ve seen a change in demand from customers. These new applications and platforms have set a trend and yes, we had to react. Did we want to change our culture as a company? What do you think? Sometimes you have to move out of your comfort zone and do something new,” he said.

“It’s been a fantastic year for us though, we’ve done all we planned and it’s been extremely successful.”

Microsoft, regardless to the Forrester survey results, has seen a very good initial uptake of Windows 8. Perhaps not as good as Microsoft may have liked, however, considering it’s a completely new area for the company, it can take some solace from the fact that it’s being talked about across the technology wire.

Filling the app gap One key factor may lie in the form of apps.

Microsoft has planted a pretty decent product on the market with the Surface, however, it currently offers only 10,000 apps. Google Play offers around 675,000 apps and the Apple App Store, unsurprisingly, offers in excess of 700,000.

For all the trials and tribulations surrounding Microsoft in the wake of its major transformation, it can’t be too disappointed with its initial response. People, again, are talking about Microsoft. //

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ANALYSIS SAP

FORECAST OF INNOVATION SAP is a big company, so it goes without saying that it should present itself in a big way.

Sapphire Now, its annual European event was hosted in Madrid, where the company revelled in the glory of HANA, its in-memory database analytics tool, and insisted that further innovation and growth is on the horizon.

Despite Madrid being the location of political protests during the same week, SAP managed to successfully gather 11,000 customers, partners, journalists and analysts into the Spanish capital, and like many conferences this year, the main theme was on the innovation and growth of the mobile and social markets.

Although ending in triumph, SAP’s conference began on a sad note, as keynote speaker, Bill McDermott, co-CEO, SAP, had to address the audience via satellite link, following a tragic family event which prevented him from travelling. The commitment to the event was appreciated however, and the warm reception helped McDermott to deliver a positive and personal speech.

“The world used to be business to business, now it’s business to business to consumer. The customer demands digital, demands mobile, it’s critical. In Kenya they skip meals to pay mobile bills - that says it all,” he said.

McDermott was quick to speak of the success of SAP’s customers since adopting mobile business capabilities, as well as newly designed, socially based application interfaces and products. The rise of mobile platforms, virtual desktops, BYOD, and big data has made dealing with these a necessity. And McDermott says: “Necessity is the mother of invention – we needed to transform ourselves.”

“Customers are 40% more likely to buy if something is marketed on a social platform.

This is already proved, so now we just need to build upon it.”

Taming big data Statistics on big data have continued to stun in the past 12 months, and ways of controlling it and benefiting from it are a high priority for

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businesses everywhere. Two years ago, SAP developed the first version of HANA, the inmemory database analytics tool. Now, it’s just entered its fifth stage of development and SAP believes that the rest of the industry is starting to realise the importance of its capabilities.

Even Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison was critical of the idea at first, as Product Manager, Ingo Brenckmann said.

“He called us complete lunatics, and asked where we were getting our drugs from.

So now that companies like Microsoft are moving into this type of analytic, we’re proud.”

“The fifth version has incorporated text analysis, this is a brilliant feature because it now gives people the chance not just to view data and sort it, but to analyse it in context.

For example, you can now use HANA to not only see how many people are tweeting about SAP, but what they’re actually saying, what’s the response, is it negative or positive? What are main issues, what are the thoughts and numbers and what do they represent? The power of this instantaneous data is crucial to companies working in this digital era,” he said.

Brenckmann believes that the big data issue is a snowballing effect. He says that the speed of business and the growth of data is causing companies to take great measures to consolidate it, which creates more data. This cycle has demanded a response from companies like SAP, which strongly feels that HANA is the answer.

HANA is now a complete software package that supports applications and runs servers through it, on top of the analytics and data control element. It’s truly one of a kind according to SAP. With HANA, businesses can implement entire applications from scratch. It stops them needing a web server or an application server – everything is connected through one server.

Bill McDermott, co-CEO, SAP “We’re trying to provide a complete new user experience, keeping our customers mobile and free all the while,” said Brenckmann.

“No other company is providing what we are at the moment, they’re behind, and are just starting to realise this isn’t such a dumb idea after all.”

The simplicity of products hasn’t been abandoned on any front by SAP. Deploying or hiring HANA couldn’t be easier. Businesses can fully benefit from HANA on a month by month cloud based purchase. Alternatively, they can acquire HANA and have an engineer fit the software with each element fully set-up, attach it to the network and it’s ready to go.

Bill McDermott concluded in his keynote that HANA is the ultimate collaboration of mobility, data and tapping the value chain.

“This is true innovation – The Stone age didn’t end because we ran out of stone, that’s a fact.”

OPINION Red Hat

CHANNEL CHANGES IN 2013 George DeBono, GM- MEA at Red Hat, spells out how the solutions provider landscape will change in the coming year

George DeBono, GM- MEA at Red Hat Wayne Gretzsky, one of ice hockey’s greatest legends and goal-scorers, was once asked why he was so successful. Gretzky gave the advice to “Skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” As we head into a new year filled with challenge and change, this is great advice for channel partners: get your business to move to where the market and your customers are going; not where they are today.

In this spirit, I see four key items driving change and challenge for solution providers in 2013: New Business models: Solution providers need to build business models that are designed to deliver services and solutions

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to their customers, not just sell products.

Gone are the days when customers just want a channel partner to fulfill a product need.

They truly want trusted advisers: someone who can guide them through the technology industry changes and help provide them with competitive differentiation in their market or industry. This will be increasingly important as we head into the new year and its economic uncertainty. Similarly, we anticipate continued consolidation among channel partners as they team up with other solution providers to meet these challenges.

Cloud: Closely related to new business models for solution providers is new business models for their customers, namely the adoption of software, infrastructure, and

platform-as-a-service (SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS, respectively). Many enterprises are looking to build and deploy services via clouds. Cloud is no-longer a buzzword; it’s a reality and solution providers have a huge opportunity to help their customers migrate to the cloud.

Big data: Real-time analytics and decision making are making big data a big reality.

The amount of data being produced by enterprises is staggering and providing ways to make better decisions using this data is all about providing your customers with differentiation and competitive advantage.

They are looking to you to show them the way. Fast growing enterprise organisations looking to glean the most useful information from their growing data sets will seek out solution providers with big data capabilities.

Enterprise mobility / application strategy: The sophistication of mobile applications is set to explode in the next few years. Solution providers and ISVs need to build applications that best align with their target marketing and deliver the style of application that is best suited for the task at hand. We expect cloud and big data to be two core elements of these applications and solution providers need to develop skill sets and practices around application modernisation tools so they can help their customers migrate existing applications to where their markets and industries are headed.

For many solution providers, 2013 is going to be a year of challenge and change. Many have already embraced change, adopted new business models and are thriving despite the global economic conditions in which we operate. They have already created their competitive differentiation and have already moved to where their customers want to be in the future. As Gretzsky’s advice implies, move to where you want to go, and you’ll be well positioned for success. //

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FEATURE Networking Channel

NEW VISTAS OF GROWTH With enterprises refreshing network infrastructure to keep up with emerging technologies, it’s time for the channel to scale up and lap up the opportunities in this high-growth market.

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Both enterprises and service providers are opening up their wallets for networks, adding advanced capabilities. According to IDC, the global networking hardware market will reach $51.4 billion in 2014, with lion’s share of revenues coming from switching, IP telephony and routing.

IDC believes the biggest drivers of the networking market revolve around the buildout and adoption of the next generation of IT in support of the intelligent economy. The research firm estimates enterprises have invested around $39.4 billion in both network intelligence and network bandwidth upgrades to create a robust foundation to support trends such as mobility, cloud and video.

A growing networking market has opened up new vistas of growth for the channel. And now with cheaper network hardware and more efficient networking software being promised by suppliers, channel organisations that specialise in networking are in demand.

The networking behemoth Cisco believes the big IT trends that are transforming the market and creating huge opportunities for its partners are cloud and data centre virtualisation, mobility and video.

“These trends will drive major upgrades to enterprise networks in the near future. The intelligent, secure, and agile network is at the center of all three, and Cisco is synonymous with the network. Selling architectures, professional services, and smart solutions will help drive differentiation and profitability in capturing these market transitions for partners,” says Claire Jones, Regional Manager, Cisco UAE. Gautham Raj, HP Networking Sales Director for Middle East, agrees that the move to cloud will drive investments in the data centre switching space. “We are also seeing enterprises roll out wireless in their organisations like never before. This is happening as users embrace new computing devices and wireless becomes the new access layer.”

Increased focus on security will also drive major network upgrades in 2013, according to Hani Nofal, Director of Intelligent Network Solution at GBM. “In a recent GBM survey of more than 900 IT professionals in the GCC, more than 32 percent of the respondents stated that they have more than three personal mobile devices, while more than 36 percent of the regional IT professionals surveyed said that they have four personal devices or more. Of those with four personal devises, 62 percent confirmed that their organisations allow them to connect those personal devices to the enterprise wireless or wired network. So, the challenge is not only in supporting such an increasing demand, but also ensuring they maintain the highest levels of control and security.”

Within the network security domain, Dell SonicWALL expects to see massive adoption of next-gen firewall technology.

“IT departments expect threat protection to be part of the firewalls they purchase. Now with additional features offered by NGF, IT managers will be able to know immediately about a problem, prompting them to take corrective measure. In 2012, we will see much more of this and it’s a technology that is ahead of the curve,” says Shahnawaz Sheikh, Regional Director of the company.

Renton D’Souza, Divisional Director of Comstor, has a different take: “On an EMEA level, with the economy expected to continue to grow sluggishly, we foresee that enterprises will look to getting more “bang for the buck” with their existing infrastructure.

This will mean more services revenue for vendors and more focus by the channel around annuity based services.”

He adds that in the ME region, there will be greater effort to control costs around upgrades as well. The need to assess networks and understand where vulnerabilities lie will be more prevalent which will lead to a more focused approach to network upgrades. Most network upgrades will be made to fix vulnerabilities, address end of life product issues and make networks video ready as well.

Most of the big networking vendors are beefing up their partner programmes to help channel partners reach new customers and roll out some of these advanced technologies. Cisco, for example, revamped its partner programme in 2011 to better align its channel partners with the company’s three major areas of focus and shift them beyond technology solutions into architecture-based solutions.

The company’s channel partner programme introduced new architecture specialisations for Borderless Networks, collaboration and data center, which requires its partners to go through training and certification in at least one of the specialisations, depending on their partner level.

“Cisco’s Channel Partner Program focuses on a partner’s ability to deliver intelligent networks and technology architectures built on integrated products, services, and software platforms. The programme offers training in the latest Cisco technologies, provides valuable branding resources, and rewards partners with incentives. The benefits also include: co-marketing resources, financing, incentives and promotions, and service and support,” says Jones.

HP Networking, on its part, are designing and running education programmes which focus on implementations and troubleshooting. “This is being eagerly adopted by our partners. We also have constant knowledge sharing sessions between our own technical resources and the key channel resources on a monthly basis to share best practices,” says Raj. D’Souza from Comstor says the channel will also need to skill up on how to address the needs of the existing networks. Assessment and monitoring services will be key. It will enable very relevant discussions around how to make the network more robust and future proof. Additionally the channel skill sets need to be beefed up around having business conversations – basically how the network solution will enable better productivity for that business or add value to it, he adds.

Claire Jones, Regional Manager, Cisco

Gautham Raj, Sales Director, HP Networking

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FEATURE Networking Channel

Shahnawaz Sheik, Regional Sales Manager, Dell SonicWALL

Vendors are also making huge investments to enable the partners to increase market competitiveness and revenue opportunities. Cisco has announced that it will be investing $75 million globally in fiscal year 2012 in initiatives and programmes supporting our partners in the form of marketing resources, incentive programmes and access to Cisco Technical Engineers Network to accelerate partner growth. “Our partner programme focuses on a partner’s ability to deliver intelligent networks and technology architectures built on integrated products, services, and software platforms.

As more customers place a high premium on working with certified companies and qualified vendors, Cisco and our partners know that these customers also want to work with top-quality individuals. Developing talent to strengthen our joint competitive advantage continues to be a main priority,” says Jones.

Raj from HP says customers and partners alike are now looking for a dual vendor approach. “It is the skill set and the capabilities of partners that should differentiate them in front of the client and not a vendor’s support.

In general we have found that the channel has not yet prepared itself for the wireless opportunity. The skill sets and the capabilities to offer a end to end experience from wireless site surveys to design to implementation and support in a wireless era is something that the channel is struggling with. We see this as an opportunity for the partners who are willing to invest in these skills.”

Undoubtedly, the opportunities for network channel are aplenty but the key questions is, how does the Middle East network channel look today and how will it change over the next two years? “In the past, the networking

The ongoing cloud computing paradigm, and the shit in IT from an on-premise to off-premise model is slated to have a far reaching impact on the networking channel.

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channel’s strength was dependent on their strong relationship with the vendor. They did not have the choice. Today with significant marketshare gains that HP has had this provides them with options. They can compete in the marketplace based on their strengths. With the adoption of open standards and best of breed solutions, system integration value add goes up in the marketplace. This provides opportunities for the channel. With the inevitable openflow adoption that will happen, the network switches will be vendor neutral and will provide a level playing field for the channel,” predicts Raj. Cisco believes services will a big focus in the next two years. The company has recently launched a new partner programme specific to its services business, which is a collapsing of nearly 50 different global programs into one, re-designed umbrella programme, and a way for Cisco partners to capitalise on what is roughly a $200 billion market opportunity with the potential to expand individual deals by as much as 12 times their value. The Cisco Services Partner Program offers performancebased incentives according to the breadth and competence of the services partners provide customers.

“We will also be seeing the Middle East channel as business advisors as opposed to technology advisors which will add more value and better ROI for our customers.

Additionally, as cloud fundamentally changes the way customers consume technology, partners must evolve their business models to succeed and grow.

Partners are evolving their technology competencies around virtualisation, automation and management, oftentimes in collaboration with many of our technology ecosystem partners. They are also evolving their financial and service models for selling, pricing and delivering as a service cloud offerings,” says Jones.

Cloud and the channel The ongoing cloud computing paradigm, and the shit in IT from an on-premise to off-premise model is slated to have a far reaching impact

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FEATURE Networking Channel

Renton D’Souza, Divisional Director of Comstor

on the networking channel. “Cloud computing will involve multiple services and its integration and customisation. Channels will have to be trained in new competencies like data centre management, provisioning, billing, customer support etc,” says Farook Majeed, CEO of Precedence Technologies, a networking SI. He adds that trends such as BYOD will disrupt the traditional hardware selling channels as customers are going in to bring all kinds of devices from all kinds of sources.

However, providing security and upgrading the network/bandwidth are going to open up new opportunities for channel.

Cisco estimates that the market for cloud infrastructure will grow to $112 billion by 2015, while the market for cloud services will reach $113.6 billion over the next three years. This represents opportunities for channel partners to sell infrastructure for private clouds, to become cloud providers or to resell cloud services of cloud service providers.

“As the trend for delivering technology as a service continues, now more than ever, partners must evolve their business to support the demand for new consumption models such as cloud and managed services. In order to support our partner’s evolution, Cisco continues to evolve our channel partner programme to help partners profitably monetize the cloud and managed services opportunity. As cloud fundamentally changes the way customers consume technology, partners must evolve their business models to succeed and grow,” says Jones.

Raj says with cloud, conventional ways of network provisioning will not serve the purpose. “Software Defined Networks are the solution and that is clearly the outcome

“Industry surveys reveal core router and switch upgrades are the top project priorities for network managers in the coming year, followed by wireless implementations. And therein lies a huge opportunity for the networking channel.”

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of the cloud adoption. We at HP are the only mainstream networking vendor to have launched a large portfolio of openflow enabled switches in our portfolio. The adoption of openflow enabled switches will bring down the TCO for clients as they will not be locked down to any single vendor.”

However, there are growing fears in the channel about cloud and most aren’t sure if it’s a threat or opportunity. “I believe that although all major hardware and software vendors are talking about cloud computing and trying to demonstrate their understanding and readiness to support it. But, those vendors are yet to prove to their channel partners that they are serious and committed to support that shift. The reality is that they are not there yet. In addition to the evolution of the channel programs, a major change should take place in the vendors’ sales incentive programs in order not to block the sales teams’ attention to cloud based services and solutions. I believe that this will be similar to the journey that we have seen from product sale to managed services. I would argue that not all vendors and providers got that market shift right in terms of their channel programs and sales incentives,” says Nofal.

Dsouza says we are at the cusp of a new era – consumerisation of enterprise IT. “The change in consumption models is already hitting many vendors. The old Capex model of buying upfront is now going to change to a “pay as you use” model. This will be a huge change for most vendors and channel partners.

With the cloud model, the upfront money to be made is almost negligible, it happens as the end user adopts and uses the technology.”

While cloud adoption is ramping up, many IT departments are still grappling with aging network equipment while juggling demand for new network initiatives, such as mobile device management, fuelled by IT consumerisation and BYOD trends. Industry surveys reveal core router and switch upgrades are the top project priorities for network managers in the coming year, followed by wireless implementations. And therein lies a huge opportunity for the networking channel. //

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FEATURE Certifications

INFORMED CHANNEL The need to educate the channel on the value of training and certification is more important than ever in today’s market, where adding value and making the most of products and functionality is paramount to growing a sustainable business.

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We often hear the names of companies and distributors being accredited by various vendors, or channel partners that are certified to sell certain product lines. But what does this all actually mean?

From one point of view, certain certifications can be seen as nothing more than a branding and marketing exercise, aimed at improving credibility and brand awareness within the channel, but there are certain certifications that genuinely mean something.

The industry agrees that proper training and certification is by far one of the best value-adds, especially in an industry that is still dominated by a number of box-pushing resellers, which could ultimately do more damage to a brand than the little good of pushing up sales figures.

Especially when considering the new technologies, certification and training play a very important role in differentiating skills, aiming to ensure that a reseller or channel partner does not over-commit themselves just to close a deal.

With thinning margins and increasing competition, the channel is under pressure.

This requires the ability to provide a better level of service and higher level of qualified staff than their competitors. Though the comprehensive partner programmes that big name vendors are offering, quality

privy to regular updates and new products.

Certification increases competence levels of the engineer, enabling customers to have more trust,” says Shahnawaz Sheikh, Regional Director – MEA & Turkey, Dell SonicWALL. Jai Shankar, Marketing Manager, Brother International Gulf, agrees: “People trust a certified partner. It means you have the right people, skills and after-sales support.

Training and development is an integral part of our partner strategy and certification is mandatory for partners to move up the tiers in our channel structure.”

Boby Joseph, CEO of StorIT, offers another perspective on the value of certifications for the channel: “The greatest value in certifications is to let the partner drive the opportunity independently and know the technology Jai Shankar, Marketing Manager, Brother International Gulf

People trust a certified partner. It means you have the right people, skills and after-sales support.

Training and development is an integral part of our partner strategy and certification is mandatory for partners to move up the tiers in our channel structure.” training has become available to everyone.

But it is up to the distributors and resellers to take advantage of these programmes and ensure that their staff become certified, and that they are continually improving their skill sets.

Particularly with technologies such as cloud, virtualisation and mobility coming to the fore, the channel needs to be better equipped to be able to take advantage of the need for these new technologies, and the sustainable revenue that could be generated.

“Certification usually means that a partner has a broader and better understanding of the technology and its key features. Our certified partners become part of our regular communication and are

better. This will help the customer to understand the partner value additions as compared to a normal partner.”

Another vendor who has marked the channel for education is Kaspersky Lab. “Enabling our partners to help serve our customers better by providing them with training and transferring product and technological know-how is one of the key pillars of our success here at Kaspersky Lab. Our partner programme places a lot of emphasis on the certification requirements of partners,” says Aman M. Manzoor, Channel Manager, Kaspersky Lab Middle East & Turkey.

The security vendor addresses the requirements of partner education with the Kaspersky Knowledge Space, which is

Aman M. Manzoor, Channel Manager, Kaspersky Lab Middle East & Turkey

DECEMBER 2012

Reseller Middle East

35

FEATURE Certifications

designed to spread and share knowledge about products and technologies designed

by Kaspersky Lab. It brings together all current training methods (training centres, electronic materials, forums) and new ways of receiving knowledge through the use of programmes that organise training in real time for its partners.

“The Kaspersky Knowledge Space is available at no additional cost, as a part of our partner extranet to our channel community. Further, on the sales training

For example, if a partner has taken one of our specialized courses on either wireless or email security we at Dell SonicWALL will recommend them to a customer looking for solutions in these fields.”

Boby Joseph, CEO of StorIT

Saeed Agha, Cisco UAE Regional Manager

Alexander Zarovsky - International Business Chief at InfoWatch

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Reseller Middle East

others provide specialized knowledge of certain technologies. Certification levels reflect a partner’s technology skills breadth,” says Saeed Agha, Cisco UAE Regional Manager.

He adds that specialization levels definitely reflect a partner’s depth of expertise, capabilities, and end-to-end service and support for specific solutions and technology architectures. “The higher their level of certification, the more credentials and resources our partners

DECEMBER 2012

side, we provide free sales training sessions,” says Manzoor.

Data loss prevention solutions vendor InfoWatch says value of certifications is signifant because the company’s certified partners can independently integrate and initially support InfoWatch solutions.

“DLP solutions are only efficient with a great deal of consulting. We call it a three step DLP approach including Pre-DLP, DLP and Post-DLP. The Pre-DLP stage is a necessary part of the process when all data existing in the company is classified and divided into several categories (strictly confidential, confidential, not confidential, etc). Only after such classification can the DLP solution be integrated to function efficiently, and without Pre-DLP the system efficiency is only 30%. Therefore, InfoWatch’s certification programme gives our partners all knowledge and skills necessary to maintain such full cycle integration,” says Alexander Zarovsky - International Business Chief at InfoWatch.

Most vendors agree that certification levels reflect a partner’s technology skills and breadth. “Partner certifications are similar to academic degrees. Some specialisations are prerequisites for becoming certified while

need to meet the requirements. Certification reflects a breadth of skills across certain technologies and is based on your organisation’s ability to support customers within a single country or country grouping.”

Joseph from StorIT says some of the most sought after technical certifications in the channel today are around storage, virtualisation and security. From a security perspective, there is a growing interest in certifications on firewalls, secure remote access with BYOD, and identity access management.

“From our experience with operating in a client’s infrastructure, the majority of channel partners face different technical complexities, such as setting https, specific setting of IT security policies, and integration into client’s existing infrastructure. Therefore, certification programmes aimed at training the partners to solve these highly technical tasks are in real demand,” says Zarovsky.

The bottom line is that training is imperative to enabling the channel to support their customers in choosing the right solution.

This is not a tactical approach, but rather a strategic one, which aims to ensure that long term relationships are built with the end-user. //

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INTERVIEW BDL Group

Tamer Ismail, CEO, BDL Group

CASTING A NEW LINE The Saudi based BDL Group has raked in revenues exceeding $790 million in 2012, clocking a robust growth rate of 19% year on year.

Now, this prominent distributor is branching out into the regional ICT market and has recently formed a strategic business unit to address the opportunities in this sector. Tamer Ismail, CEO of the company, spoke to us about the company’s game plan.

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DECEMBER 2012

How do you plan to switch your focus from IT to the ICT market? What kind of opportunities do you see in the regional ICT market?

BDL will not switch from the IT market to the ICT market since the company has two strategic business units. The first unit is for the IT market and one of its most important goals is to be the best in the Middle East market. The other unit is for the ICT market (communications, mobile devices and tablets). Its goal is to have a big role and a strong presence in this growing market.

The ICT market is growing rapidly in the region, where business cycles are quick, offering much better margins and cash flows. We believe at tablet offering will have a significant impact in the commercial, business and government sectors.

Do you have any plans to expand your portfolio and enhance your services capabilities to address this market?

BDL as a company always deals with its partners with an open mind and carefully considers the offers available for the business development and takes the new partnership decisions by studying them carefully and in-depth.

How do you plan to enable your channel partners to tap the opportunities in the ICT market with less investment from their part?

BDL opens sales opportunities for its partners in both IT and ICT fields by ensuring all the products in our portfolio are available to them, backed by good

“We have a very strong logistics infrastructure, which enables us to keep a tight control on inventory. In fact, logistics services is one of our key strengths, and we support this through good planning to purchases and sales on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.” support and logistics. In addition to this, we support and develop our partners’ businesses continually and we very well understand the meaning of FMTG (fast moving technology goods).

Moving stock quickly continues to be the key to success for regional distributors.

Are you planning to ramp up your logistics infrastructure?

We have a very strong logistics infrastructure, which enables us to keep a tight control on inventory. In fact, logistics services is one of our key strengths, and we support this through good planning to purchases and sales on a weekly, monthly and quarterly basis.

Vendors today need significant value add from their distributers, up and down the channel. What kind of initiatives are you taking to create end-user awareness and channel development?

We have adopted a strategy of diversity which means we add value to the products, services, various programmes and offers. This is supported by the huge customer base we have and we deal with them daily through sales, technical support, marketing and aftersales services.

“The ICT market is growing rapidly in the region, where business cycles are quick, offering much better margins and cash flows.”

Can you give us an insight into the most current issues and opportunities in today’s channel?

We think today’s information technology market is characterised by two revolutions. First is the mobility, represented by the rapid proliferation of tablets and smartphones, which was first started by Apple and then followed

by Samsung. The second revolution is fairly more recent and has three main elements. The first one is Windows 8 and the second is Intel-powered Ultrabooks.

Thirdly, we are seeing a huge change in the way these devices are designed.

The typical design of a laptop is now changing from clamshell type to more innovative convertible types or what we call laptop tablets.

Mobile computing has become a way of life and these hybrid computing devices have become more robust and powerful with high-speed processors and specs, and support even professional softwares such as AutoCAD. This represents big growth opportunities for the distribution channels in the IT market and we have earmarked this as huge growth area for us as more and more consumers desire portability.

Are you looking to cash in on some of the emerging technologies such as cloud and virtualization?

All the new technologies and developments provided by our vendor partners will be available to our partners through us. //

DECEMBER 2012

Reseller Middle East

39

VENDOR FOCUS Symantec

STEADY AS IT GOES Symantec has recently laid out its management and product strategy. The company, which has gone through a leadership change, is planning to enlist the support of its partners to ward off competition and maintain its leadership position. Jason Ellis, VP of Channel- EMEA at Symantec, spokes to us about the role channel plays in the strategy.

Will there be any disruptions in the business due to the sudden leadership change?

For Symantec, it’s our partners who bring the products and solutions to life for our customers. Symantec’s partners are an extension of our brand and “trusted advisors” who match innovation, drive and talent with experience and expertise. Symantec continues to put significant focus towards the channel, demonstrating value to our partners’ business with market-leading products, financial rewards, engagement, ecosystem of resources, and service-rich opportunities to help them grow their business.

As a partner-focused company, Symantec will continue to develop new Specialisations and Master Specialisations to give partners the ability to grow alongside the latest IT needs and trends in the market. In evolving a partner-led approach, new Master Specialisations are available to eligible partners who specialize and maintain an active consulting practice, and complete business and technical assessments in each solution area.

Steve Bennett has a strong record of corporate leadership, with previous positions as CEO of Intuit and a 23-year career at

General Electric before that. Steve has been on Symantec’s board since 2010 and served as its chairman since 2011 so he already has strong insight into the company and its strengths, including our valued relationships with the channel partner community.

How does Symantec plan to maintain its market share in the coming years in the face of increasing competition in the marketplace?

Symantec has continued to reinforce its commitment to its partners through the Symantec Partner Program, which provides partners a broad array of benefits and resources to help grow their business and support customers. Specializations are the foundation of Symantec’s Partner Program and the key way in which the company enables its partners to differentiate themselves from competitors, deliver more value to customers and take advantage of new market opportunities thereby helping them grow their business. Specialisations are a unique recognition for partners with a proven expertise in a particular area of business. Partners are able to achieve Specialisations by meeting certain requirements that will extend their knowledge and proficiency in a solution family, such

“The vision of Symantec’s global channel program is to offer opportunities for predictable, profitable growth for its Middle East partners.”

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as data protection, security or compliance among others.

Symantec has focused on partner profitability through the enhanced partner program that will help partners get the most from their technical staff. The vision of Symantec’s global channel program is to offer opportunities for predictable, profitable growth for its Middle East partners and enable them to deliver solutions and services that protect customers’ most critical information.

How do you plan to educate partners and customers over the coming year around new technologies such as mobility and virtualisation?

Recently Symantec enhanced its partner program in the Middle East with a new specialisation that addresses both the increasing need for relevant and reliable mobility strategies and the opportunities for channel partners to benefit from this growing trend. By acknowledging the skills and experience that qualifying partners have in the mobility market, the new specialization empowers them to deliver greater value to customers, maximise opportunities and accelerate their profitability with Symantec’s mobility portfolio, while further differentiating their businesses in this booming and competitive market.

The Mobility Solution Specialization enables Symantec specialised partners across the Middle East to help their customers to gain granular control over their mobile deployments and have different levels of oversight on mobile devices, according to their specific

With our partners at the core of our business across the world, we are dedicated to ensuring partners have the right skills, education and training to keep up to date with changes in technology and IT trends.

Late in 2011 Symantec unveiled its Managed Service Provider (MSP) strategy, which was designed to make it easier and more cost effective for partners to deliver Symantec’s market leading backup and security solutions as managed services. In addition, Symantec has adopted a partner-led services approach to help organizations manage IT risk and maximize IT performance around Symantec solutions.

This affords Symantec customers the broadest set of offerings along with competitive pricing for IT consulting.

Symantec’s Managed Security Services (MMS) blends industry leading security technology with the expertise from top security analysts providing 24/7, around the clock monitoring of the entire security framework.

Being connected to Symantec’s Global Intelligence Network means that organizations benefit from an unparalleled source of Internet threat data to identify new and evolving threats with more than 240,000 sensors in over 200 countries monitoring attack activity, and more than 133 million systems providing malicious code intelligence. In addition, MSS allows an organization to outsource their security threat monitoring to experts in real time, while helping the organization build and sustain a resilient incident management program. By outsourcing security monitoring and management an organisation can reduce investments in security operations infrastructure and redeploy basic security operations staff to other mission critical operations.

Jason Ellis, VP of Channel- EMEA at Symantec policies and needs. The Specialisation comprises the following Symantec product/ solutions: Mobile Application Management (MAM), Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Security.

With its promise of greater efficiency and lower cost, virtualisation is a key customer priority. Symantec offers partners a Data Protection Specialization to recognise partners that provide complete protection for their

customers’ information. Each of the backup solutions offer a single integrated product that protects virtual and physical environments, simplifies backup and disaster recovery, and provides unmatched recovery capabilities.

Do you have any plans to ramp up support capability in the region, particularly in the Cloud-based and managed security services space that requires high skills?

Do you have any plans to enhance your partner and channel programme? How do you plan to drive partner profitability?

Symantec’s vision is to give every one of our partners the opportunity for predictable, profitable business growth; offer relevant market-leading solutions to protect and manage their customers’ information; and provide the education and training tool to ensure partners are skilled to deliver superior value to their customers.

DECEMBER 2012

Reseller Middle East

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VENDOR FOCUS Symantec

As Specialisations become central to its program, Symantec’s partners will find even more opportunities to differentiate themselves and deepen their expertise in Symantec solutions and services. Symantec will continue to deliver several new tools and resources over the next few months to help partners in the Middle East maximise sales opportunities and accelerate profitability in the new model.

Do you have plans to expand your partner ecosystem in the Middle East? Will MSPs play a key role in your partner strategy?

Symantec has seen particularly strong expansion of our partner ecosystem in the Middle East region with good coverage in all disciplines among several partners, as well as geographical growth in Qatar and Kuwait and expansion into the French-speaking Africa region with Morocco and Tunisia. The specialisation programme has also enabled Symantec to provide advanced professional support to partners who invest in particular skills, thus significantly raising the value of the service they deliver to customers.

Specialisation partners also receive support to drive profitable, predictable growth and shorter sales cycles.

Through new and expanded integration with leading remote monitoring and management (RMM) platforms and new cloudbased offerings, Symantec is helping partners more effectively deliver and manage multiple products and services while minimising added overhead costs. Symantec’s MSP strategy also includes the ExSP Licensing Program, a pay-asyou go subscription licensing model designed for service providers, and a recently enhanced SMB Specialization program with benefits for service provider partners, including partnerspecific technical support offerings.

Symantec provides partners with opportunities for enhanced profitability, business growth, market-leading solutions, and the technical expertise and tools to help them deliver superior value.

How do you plan to up-skill your partners to deliver complex technologies?

Symantec realises that now more than ever

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before, customers are taking every detail into consideration when selecting a solution provider. Symantec values its partners and strives to give them every advantage over the competition. By providing them with more in-depth knowledge about products and better access to resources, partners will be able to prove their value to potential and existing customers.

Specialisation is the foundation of Symantec’s partner programme where they can earn multiple Specialisations in specific technology focus areas. As technologies advance and evolve, Symantec will add new specialisations to meet customer

gaps in the marketplace and work with partners to put focus on developing their skill set and overall performance.

Can you outline some trends with opportunities for the channel next year?

How will cloud impact the channel?

Cloud computing is a trend that most of our partners are exploring and thinking about how to best leverage for their customers. Symantec continues to enhance specialisations related to cloud computing as another tool to enable partners to become well-versed in as it becomes increasingly important to customers.

“Symantec provides partners with opportunities for enhanced profitability, business growth, marketleading solutions, and the technical expertise and tools to help them deliver superior value.” requirements and help expand opportunities for its partners. Master Specializations recognise and promote partners with advanced consulting, technical, and service capabilities in a specialised solution area. This specialisation category is part of Symantec’s partner-led consulting services model, which offers partners increased scalability to meet customer requirements, reduces channel conflicts, and creates opportunities for greater license sales potential. The Master Specialisation recognizes deep expertise in providing consulting services to Symantec customers and are available for each of the solution Specialisations.

By achieving specialisation, partners can demonstrate their expertise and show customers that they are serious about helping solve their problems through insight, experience and innovative solutions.

Symantec provides technical and sales training to partners so they can add skills and capabilities to their organisation.

Symantec continuous to enhances its investment in existing partners to identify

In addition to cloud computing, there are a number of other IT trends that will offer partners the opportunity to become more strategic with their customers, as well as provide them with increased revenue opportunities.

The evolution of cyber attacks is an ever evolving trend and Symantec predicts that 2013 will see an increase in targeted attacks and cyber conflict between nation states, people and organisations. In addition, organizations of all sizes must find viable ways to cope with the information explosion which is predicted to grow 67 percent over the next year for enterprises and 178 percent for SMBs, according to Symantec’s 2012 State of Information Survey. Lastly, the rise of the mobile workforce as more businesses adopt “Bring Your Own Device” strategies poses a number of benefits but also a number of challenges for IT. It is an exciting time in IT and our partners can use the evolving IT trends and landscape as a way to deliver more value to their customers in the Middle East. //

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PARTNER WATCH Axtrom

SPREADING WINGS Axtrom, which develops computer components, peripherals and accessories, is looking to cash in on the booming mobility market with its AXPAD range of tablets.

Mohamed Samy, Business Development Director, Axtrom Within a short span of time, tablets have grown from a niche product to become mainstream and have already overtaken global netbook PC sales. Reports indicate the global tablet market will reach $ 31.86 billion this year, breaking the 100 million unit shipment barrier.

Tablet prices under $100 with Android is a big win for mobile consumers looking for low cost, high performance tablets. This is where Axtrom fits in, which believes in the philosophy of offering quality products at affordable prices. The company is now beefing up its channel network to push

into new markets and tap the opportunities around the mobility space. “We see a lot of room for growth in the tablet market and it’s only the beginning. Axtrom is being distributed by Golden Systems Middle East in the UAE and BDL Group for the rest of the GCC region. We have also signed up a new distributor in Egypt,” says Mohamed Samy, Business Development Director, Axtrom.

Axtrom says it’s uniquely positioned in the burgeoning tablet market. “We don’t intend to position in the high end dominated

by Apple and Samsung but somewhere in between with quality products at reasonable prices. A lot of investment has gone into

our products to ensure quality and we don’t intend to play in the lower end of the spectrum, which is driven by price. We will never be the cheapest,” says Samy.

Currently, Axtrom has three models in its tablet portfolio and is going to expand it to eight to nine models by the end of this quarter, all sporting the new version Android Jelly Bean. Also on the cards are models based on Windows 8 once the platform is mature from a manufacturing standpoint.

Samy says the company is focused on branding, rather than just selling maximum volume at lower prices. “We focus on certain specs, which you don’t see in the third tier products. All our products come bundled with a leather carry case and screen protector, and we pay special attention to packaging.

In addition, we are registered with all the regional telecom regulatory authorities with the intention of making our products available to carriers as well. We are not just focused only on the consumer market because it’s a finished market that can reach all market segments.”

Axtrom claims authenticity is another value proposition it is bringing to the table.

“We include authorised software and we get all the new version and updates. We offer full technical support, not just for dealers but users as well. We have service centres in Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and we are in the process of setting up one in Egypt,” says Samy.

Axtrom is also planning to expand its geographical coverage in the region.

“Though our products are available across the region, we do realise we can’t tackle the entire market at once. We have a strong presence in Qatar, Kuwait and Oman, and we are tying up with retailers where we don’t have a presence yet,” says Samy, who plans to ship around 20000 units every month starting Q1 of next year. //

DECEMBER 2012

Reseller Middle East

45

PARTNER WATCH Spectrami

SPECIALISED IN VALUE Armed with best of breed technology solutions, value added distributor Spectrami has carved a niche for itself in a very short span of time.

Anand Choudha, MD of Spectrami Successful trade show participation continues even after the stands are put away and it holds very true in the case of the Dubai-based Spectrami. The VAD, which made its Gitex debut this year, plans to capitalise on the brand visibility it achieved during the show and put its business on the fast track.

“It couldn’t have been any better for us.

We wanted to let people know about our brand and send a message to the partner and user community. It was also an excellent platform for our vendor partners as it gave them a better understanding of the market, which in turn, has resulted in more commitment and resources. The top management from the partners were here and now they are seriously looking at this market and developing product features tailored for the region,” says Anand Choudha, MD of Spectrami.

A cursory glance at Spectrami’s portfolio might make you think some of the names are not too familiar in this part of the world.

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Reseller Middle East

DECEMBER 2012

However, Choudha says all these specialised vendors are globally well known and the technologies they offer are very important to the security landscape. “Security is evolving and you can no longer protect against advanced threats with traditional security tools. That’s why WD thinks our portfolio is very relevant to this market,” he says.

As a VAD, Spectrami is focused on two areas; security and storage. “Again, we are not in the traditional storage space but what we offer is what Gartner calls protection and availability storage. What it basically means is copy data management, as multiple copies are being made of production data for backup, DR, anlystics, etc. It is estimated that 15-120 copies are being made for various purposes, which accounts for major chunk of your storage infrastructure. What we are offering is a solution from Actifio that reduces the storage by 90 percent,” says Choudha.

Spectrami’s security line of business also boasts of very specialised vendors in the domain.

While Fidelis offers cyber security solutions, Verdasys is a data loss prevention vendor and LogRhythm specialises in SIEM. Others include Tenable for vulnerability management and Titus for data classification solutions.

Choudha says value means different things to different people and is one of the abused words in the industry today. “It is interesting to see how value is being defined. You have mainline disties who offer value add in the form of logistics and credit facilities. Then you have true VADs who give you technical capabilities and dedicated product management. But, I call us as a VEM (vendor extention model), which basically means that we behave like a vendor or as an extension of their brand. We interact with customers, develop proof of concept centres and even do marketing for the vendor partners.”

Spectrami is currently looking to expand its partner base but is choosy about

it as well. Choudha says the company is looking for specialised partners who are committed and focused. “Six months back we were pushing channel partners at our set of and now it’s the other way around.

We want to be selective and what we have done is segment partners and certify them for a specified technology. We want to make sure that our partners are certified, have the right skills and are ready to invest in growing this business.”

To upskill its partners, Spectrami organises training programmes every month with the help of its vendors, and has invested in a lab that can be remotely accessed by the partners. “Some of these are complex technologies that can’t be mastered in a day and we even go to the extent of providing on-job training to our partners,” says Choudha.

Though 2012 raised serious concerns about the health of the channel industry, Choudha says it has been a different case for Spectrami, as some of the high-profile security breaches in the region have created a huge demand for security. “What happened at Aramco and RasGas has been a blessing in disguise. In the first half of the year, people were talking about security, without really budgeting for it, but this has turned the game around on its head. Now, companies who did not have a security-specific budget are creating one and the mandate today is just do it. 30000 infected PC being replaced at Aramco was not a joke.”

Almost a year and half since starting operations, Spectrami is now gearing up for the next phase of growth by increasing the headcount from 11 to 25 by the end of Q1 next year and new offices in Saudi and Morocco.

“We want to continue to be niche and we don’t want to get into the volume game,” sums up Choudha. //

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INTERVIEW Infor

Charles Phillips, CEO, Infor

‘WE’RE THE DISRUPTIVE ALTERNATIVE’ Charles Phillips joined Infor as CEO two years ago with a brand new team and a lifetime of experience, which he claimed were critical to breaking the stronghold of its competitors. Now, he is revelling in Infor’s recent success.

Having just moved offices into the heart of New York and kick started the next generation of application integration, the Arkansas man is on a roll.

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INTERVIEW Infor

How have your first two years been at Infor?

We’ve had a blast. I brought with me a tightly linked team which works well together. Having the guys I chose personally has been really beneficial.

I’ve worked at Oracle, which is a fantastic company, and I’ve worked in plenty of other sectors too. I’ve seen the industry from lots of different angles so I brought with me a huge amount of experience.

How do you see Infor’s presence in the Middle East?

We’re doing very well in the Middle East right now. We’re seeing a particular success in healthcare. We already have about a 70% share of all hospitals in the US. The healthcare system in the Middle East is going through radical change, more so than anywhere else. There are world class hospitals being built, and for us it’s an amazing opportunity. This hard work was rewarded when we won the Healthcare Deployment of the Year at CNME’s ICT Achievement Awards 2012.

What is your strategy here, do you work directly on the ground or mainly with partners?

In any given year, about a third of our business goes to our partners. However, we want more feet on the street. One way to do that is to keep up good relationships with partners locally. It’s critical - no matter how many people we hire we can never hire enough to cover all the opportunity. Partners have unique relationships with customers which we can benefit from. We’re always looking for more partners.

How do you see the market at the moment?

It’s a great time to push in this region. The

“The partners are critical for us outside of the US. We have long lasting relationships inside the US but when we step outside, our partners become more and more important to our penetration.” partners we’re signing now don’t want to go through legacy and training on older product bases such as Oracle or SAP. Our new products are easy to use and learn and quick to implement so it’s a good time to be active in a fast moving region such as the Middle East. It’s a little easier for us because we’re relatively new - we didn’t have the old middleware and didn’t have to carry that with us so for a new partner they can skip those generations. Those sorts of details have helped us here and generally all over.

Can you elaborate on the next-gen integration technology?

We recently built a next generation integration platform. We took an internet based approach to integration. It’s exponentially simpler than traditional middleware, which works for our purposes.

The problem with application integrations is that when you change one thing, 500 other things break. We’ve solved that with this.

How should the next generation of business applications be delivered?

The next generation user will demand beautiful products. They will want to work on platforms and applications which are similar to those which they use in their personal time. Creating socially inspired working applications will promote easier tasking, better productivity and happier employees. We have developed

“The next generation user will demand beautiful products. They will want to work on platforms and applications which are similar to those which they use in their personal time.”

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INFOR TEAMS UP WITH VMWARE Infor has teamed up with VMWare to help customers of its Infor LN ERP (enterprise resource planning) software run on VMWare’s latest virtualisation technology, opening a door to cloud deployments and potentially lower infrastructure costs.

The companies have created a reference architecture that customers and partners can use to create a virtual appliance with VMWare products such as vSphere, Cloud Director and vFabric, according to the announcement. Customers will be able to deploy the appliances to either on-premises or cloud infrastructures, Infor said.

Infor is hoping to work with customers on the virtual appliances and will likely have packaged products out within six months.

The VMWare announcement follows a similar one Infor made with Red Hat in September.

our unique social business platform - reinventing our applications to look beautiful, integrating social media with business for the future users.

People are used to consumer products.

We’re making the step of pushing it now and moving that chapter forward. If you look at Twitter or Facebook, this is how our applications will look soon enough. We’re about three to five years ahead of our competitors so we will drive this move and others will have to react. Unfortunately for them, they have big architectures so they won’t be able to change anything quickly.

This is the time for disruptive technology and we want to be the disruptive alternative.

REVIEW Sony

SIZE DOES MATTER Why fork out $900 for a 50-inch TV, when you can get a 100-inch for the same price?

I must admit, I had never before considered buying a projector.

But when I was sent Sony’s new home theatre projector – the VPL-BW120S – everything changed.

Previously, I was of the seemingly misinformed opinion that the picture quality on a projector did not live up to the standards of the high definition plasma TVs we take for granted today. Or perhaps it was an accurate opinion, but the new home theatre projectors on offer now are doing great at narrowing that gap.

Yes, the VPL-BW120S is a heavy and bulky piece of equipment, but far less so than a television so that’s not significant. It can also be placed close to a wall or screen without the need to mount it.

The really smart thing is the short throw technology. This means that the projector can be placed 15 feet away from the intended surface or as close as 5 feet away and still produce a clear 100-inch image and brightness.

As soon as you turn it on, it’ll light up your living room and you’ll wonder why you never invested in one of these before.

Using 3LCD display technology, the VPL-BW120S reproduces picture with a brightness output of 2600 lumens (on high lamp mode) at WXGA (1280 x 800) native resolution. It also has a high contrast ratio of 4000:1 for colour reproduction and 12-bit 3D gamma correction, meaning you get an overall excellent picture quality and don’t find yourself missing your plasma.

According to Sony, the projector achieves uniform image colour and brightness that extends right to the corners of the screen, and I certainly couldn’t dispute that claim. It also offers energy-efficient features such as a power saving mode, standby mode, and a synchronised lamp and filter replacement cycle of 6,000 hours.

Furthermore, built-in speakers enable a one cable (HDMI) connection, and the projector also comes with a variety of other input options such as RGB, Composite,

S-Video, RS-232C control input/output and audio ports.

However, there is one big disclaimer on the VPL-BW120S. It will ruin your social life.

Let me explain.

On my first day with the VPL-BW120S I watched my favourite TV show Homeland and decided it was the best thing since sliced bread.

On my second day, I was scheduled to go to the cinema with my friends. Having re-evaluated the situation I could no longer see any sense in spending a small fortune to watch a movie in a cramped seat just for the benefit of a big screen. That big screen experience was now in my living room with my comfy couch and cheap snacks, so I stayed at home and celebrated the now redundant relevance of cinemas to my life.

On day three I was again all set to head out to with my friends, this time to watch my beloved football team play on the big screen at a local establishment. Again, I failed to conceive why I should sip on overpriced drinks just for the sake of watching my severely underperforming team fail in their attempts to kick a football around. Instead, I wallowed in my self-pity with my new best friend – the VPL-BW120S. The conclusion is that with the VPL-BW120S you can be the envy of your friends and play host at the same time. But make sure you save that alone time too because this projector is sure to be the new love of your life. //

This review was done by Ben Rossi, Reseller Middle East’s contributing editor

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Less complex

Less maintenance

More points

Sophos RED

Provides complete protection for even the smallest branch and home offices. Ì

Complete UTM Security: It extends your Network, Web and Email Security subscriptions on your Sophos UTM to branch offices.

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Unified

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Endpoint

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For more information: www.sophos.com/unified Sophos Middle East | Office 205-EIB 5 | Alpha Building PO Box 500469 | Dubai Internet City | Dubai | UAE Email: salesmea@sophos.com | Tel: +971 4375 4332 | www.sophos.com

REVIEW Axpad

AXTROM AXPAD 7I02 We’re certainly not spoilt for choice when it comes to top of the range tablets these days, but what about the lower end of the spectrum?

The Axpad 7i02, from Axtrom, fits comfortably into that category, but what exactly are the requirements?

To me, the ‘lower end of the spectrum’ means one thing; price. If I purchase a product towards the lower end of the spectrum, I expect it to be affordable, simple, and charismatic. The Axpad 7i02 is all of these things.

It’s a simple tablet with no hidden agenda - a tidy package of features and apps, and little more than a light tug on your wallet – it sells at AED399, a tiny amount for an Android device.

I’ll spell it out for you now however, if you’re looking for a tablet tablet, then this isn’t for you. It’s not going to rival your laptop with its entertainment system, it’s not going to rival your smartphone with its camera capabilities, and it’s not going to provide you with crisp browsing like the higher end tablets will.

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REVIEW Axpad

To move past the obvious; this device isn’t here to compete with Apple, Microsoft and Samsung, etc. I’ve been playing around with it for a couple of days and trying to figure out the meaning of life for the Axpad. With Christmas approaching, it struck me that, although marketed as a lower end tablet device, the Axpad is, in fact, a high end toy.

I’ve heard countless stories where business professionals have handed their handheld devices over to their children to fiddle with and taken them back in a state far worse off than when the handover happened. In my professional opinion, this is the perfect answer to this issue.

This tablet is extremely sturdy. It’s a tough cookie, believe me, because I often take the form of a small child and have dropped it twice already. However, it’s not actually built for this, as the first page of the user manual states; ‘do not drop, bend, hit, throw or puncture.’

It’s smaller than most tablets, lighter ( just 36g), simpler, and compliments smaller hands just fittingly. I’m not saying it’s a kids game, it isn’t. It’s got 3G capability, document applications, maps, and other handy features as standard.

It has five swipe home screens with the capability to customise your interface easily just by dragging and dropping, it does its best not to over-complicate any process – a businessman could easily find many productive uses for it.

In fact, you’ll find a heap of little Android touches all over the device, which isn’t unusual as it runs on the 4.1 Jelly Bean operating system. The browsing is fast, seamless, and web pages look pretty good. The resolution, however, is pretty poor, though presented as 800x480, I wasn’t totally convinced. The screen can be somewhat unresponsive at times, and perhaps the backwards facing speakers could have been better positioned.

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RATINGS:

The camera – we all know I like a good camera. Sadly, this doesn’t possess such a thing. In fact, the chances are that your smartphone carries a better camera than the 2mp one situated on the back of this device. However, those people that hold up tablets and snap pictures with two hands can be irritating at the best of the times, it’s not built for those people. A sweetener is that it does sport a forward facing camera, and with Skype already installed, you can use it to for video calling. That’s a great feature whatever your age or purpose.

The winning feature on this device is that it supports 3D games. The SD card can run up to 32G maximum, it’s pretty impressive and the games run very smoothly on the device as a whole. //

HARDWARE

8/10

PERFORMANCE

6/10

VALUE FOR MONEY

7/10

The verdict Overall, what it claims to do, it does well. It hasn’t arrived to take a run at the iPad or the Surface, it’s a light, small, and delightfully cheap Android device. Great for fast gaming, customising, instant messaging and general play time. The Axpad is the ideal travel partner, whether alone or with several kids in tow.

This review was done

by Joe Lipscombe, subedtior at CP Technology

HOT PRODUCTS New launches

CANON INTROS NEW PIXMA PRINTERS

Canon Middle East has launched three new premium PIXMA printers that produce photo-lab quality prints at home and boast advanced design features, the PIXMA iP7240, PIXMA MG5440 and PIXMA MG6340.

Joining Canon’s All-in-One Photo printer range are the MG5440 and MG6340, two high-performance PIXMA devices which feature fast print speeds, the option of costsaving high capacity XL inks, and enhanced connectivity for printing around the home.

The launch also includes the new PIXMA iP7240, a document and photo printer replacing the iP4950, with faster print speeds and Wi-Fi connectivity. The iP7240 also supports tablet and smartphone printing.

The latest PIXMA printers have been designed to be even easier to use. The MG6340, for example, features a large 8.8cm colour touch-screen display that combines with Canon’s Intelligent Touch System, which is integrated into the surface of the printer, for easy and intuitive, light-guided touch operation.

The new printers also feature Auto Power Off, an energy saving function that allows the PIXMAs to automatically switch off if left idle for a set amount of time. For added convenience, Auto Power On turns the printer on automatically when a print job is sent to it, particularly useful when printing wirelessly.

EPSON LAUNCHES 4-COLOUR PRINTERS Epson has expanded its SureColor wideformat printer line-up in the Middle East with three, 4-colour printers for CAD, GIS and POS applications. The Epson SureColor SC-T7000, SC-T5000 and SC-T3000 offer fast, reliable printing on coated and non-coated media up to 44-inch (1,118mm), 36-inch (914mm) and 24-inch (610mm) wide respectively. Epson also revealed that the 36 inch printer is a new size that the company was introducing to the market for the first time.

The SC-T7000, SC-T5000 and SCT3000 are ideal for applications where speed and economy are paramount, such as printing architectural designs and plans, maps, presentations, posters and indoor signage. The printers take just 28 seconds to produce an A1 print in draft mode on plain paper, and offer optimised running costs with a choice of 700ml, 350ml and 110ml ink cartridge sizes.

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The printers use Epson’s new UltraChrome XD Ink, which has been specifically developed to produce highquality, durable prints with deep blacks, a wide colour gamut and crisp, dense lines with a minimum width of 0.02mm.

Epson’s Variable-size Droplet Technology brings clarity to fine detail while delivering optimum efficiency for larger areas of colour.

WD ROLLS OUT 16TB SMALL OFFICE STORAGE SERVER

WD now offers its WD Sentinel DX4000 small office storage server with a capacity of 16TB, in addition to existing shipping capacities of 4 TB, 6 TB, 8 TB and 12 TB. WD Sentinel is a storage server designed specifically to meet the storage needs of smallto-medium sized businesses (SMBs).

The WD Sentinel 16TB unit includes four 4TB hard drives, which offer small business owners the capacity, performance and capabilities they need to support their business. The WD Sentinel DX4000 small office storage server acts as the “on-premise cloud storage” solution for the SMB. The WD Sentinel includes backup & recovery licenses for up to 25 client computers and features redundant network, power and USB 3.0 connectivity, a complete DLNA media server and secure remote web access to all authorized users.

The DX4000 servers ship with KeepVault, an optional cloud backup storage provider, which provides an integrated offsite backup solution for SMBs’ most important information, providing a secure offsite disaster protection plan at an SMB price point.

KINGSTON UNLEASHES HYPERX BEAST Kingston Technology has unveiled HyperX Beast, the latest addition to the HyperX product line. It matches high performance with the largest available capacities and is XMP ready. HyperX Beast is aimed at gamers, and content creators, who want highperforming hardware in an innovative design.

HyperX Beast is part of the Predator family, and features kits up to 2400MHz for faster processing times in applications requiring maximum performance, and is available in capacities from 8GB-64GB. The new

CISCO EXPANDS LINKSYS X-SERIES

heatspreader colour and design adds diversity and character to the current HyperX memory offerings. It is designed to work with thirdgeneration Intel Core i5 and i7 processors as well as the latest AMD A-Series processors. For added benefit, HyperX Beast is Intel XMP ready so users can easily achieve the best performance optimisation by simply selecting a speed profile, hand-tuned by Kingston engineers.

NOKIA DEBUTS LUMIA RANGE

Nokia Middle East has launched Nokia Lumia 920 and the Nokia Lumia 820, based on Windows Phone 8 in the region.

The Nokia Lumia 920 is the flagship Windows Phone 8 smartphone, including Arabic language capabilities and the latest advances in Nokia PureView imaging innovation.

Using advanced floating lens technology, the camera in the Nokia Lumia 920 is able to take in five times more light than competing smartphones without

using flash, making it possible to capture clear, bright pictures and video indoors and at night.

The Nokia Lumia 920 also comes with Nokia City Lens, the latest addition to the Nokia location suite. By pointing the camera at a city street, City Lens overlays information about restaurants, shops, hotels and more on the surfaces of buildings, for the most intuitive way to explore surroundings. Nokia City Lens is the start of a new augmented reality experience that also enhances Nokia Maps, making it possible to move between maps view and augmented reality view to help people check their direction and surroundings.

Along with enhancements to Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport, the Nokia location suite of services represents the most comprehensive, integrated mapping experience of any smartphone.

The Nokia Lumia 920 comes in yellow, red, grey, white and black. The Nokia Lumia 820 comes in red, yellow, grey, cyan, purple, white and black.

Cisco has introduced a new addition to its X-Series product line, the Linksys X1000. This 802.11n Wi-Fi router with built-in ADSL modem can be connected to an ADSL line or to a cable or fibre modem and share the broadband connection wirelessly to all devices in your home.

The new model is the first to feature the new X-Series design that matches the rest of the Linksys Wi-Fi portfolio. The new design, with a black matte finish, makes it a stylish addition to any modern home. As with all products in the Linksys X-Series, the Linksys X1000 is an ideal solution for consumers who want an easy way to install Wi-Fi solution for their home that works with both Mac and Windows computers.

Linksys X-Series products work with Cisco Connect Express, a free mobile app for smart phones and tablets that enables users to keep control of their home Wi-Fi. Connect a Smart TV to your Wi-Fi with a push of a button or enable the guest network for visitors and immediately send them the password through a text message or e-mail – all directly from your mobile device. The Cisco Connect Express App is available for free from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.

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HOT PRODUCTS New launches

CYBEROAM UNVEILS UTM FOR SMBS Cyberoam has rolled out the NG Series appliances for future-ready security in IT networks. The NG Series enables SOHO/ SMBs networks to become future-ready as they move towards gigabit network

infrastructure and high Internet speeds, says the company.

NG Series appliances come preloaded with CyberoamOS – the most powerful Cyberoam firmware till date.

The new firmware tightly integrates with the hardware for network and crypto acceleration to deliver high performance.

The CyberoamOS also extracts full performance from a multi-core platform, along with offering minimum latency and improved processing speed with use of optimized Interrupt rates and FastPath technology. The NG series appliances also boars of powerful hardware consisting of Gigahertz processors for nano second security processing along with Gigabit Ethernet ports and high port density. The unique design and robust components used in the NG series support high speed I/O throughputs for better performance as well as protect against tough environment conditions, including power surge and fluctuations.

SOURCEFIRE STRENGTHENS FIREPOWER Sourcefire has strengthened and expanded its FirePOWER appliance family, providing users with the unmatched ability to protect against sophisticated malware, advanced persistent threats (APTs) and targeted attacks. One of the latest innovations is the introduction of advanced malware protection for FirePOWER, which provides visibility and control of modern threats on the network – from point of entry, through propagation, to post-infection remediation.

Sourcefire also introduced additions to the FirePOWER 7000 Series appliance

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lineup, and new 5.1.1 software featuring file type detection and control, as well as security intelligence for IP reputation and blacklisting. With the new models, Sourcefire’s performance range now spans from 50 Mbps to 40+ Gbps.

FirePOWER appliances provide industry-

best threat protection with proven performance leadership, and comprise Sourcefire Next-Generation Intrusion Prevention Systems (NGIPS), with and without application control, and NextGeneration Firewall (NGFW) models on a universal platform.

PEOPLE FOCUS Waleed Al-Basheer

Waleed Al-Basheer, Intelligent Network Solutions Manager at GBM

Driven to succeed Waleed Al-Basheer, Intelligent Network Solutions Manager at GBM, has an almost sagely advice to his peers: “Life offers many opportunities and one should always make the right use of it.”

Al-Basheer, who is a young achiever, describes himself as a very straightforward, level headed person, who has learned to take challenges head-on and use it as a fuel to push ahead. “I am adventurous by nature and like to take up new challenges, which gives me the zeal and impetus to work towards excellence.

One thing I firmly believe in is that one should always strive towards individual betterment. I am never scared of beginning where others end,” he says in an impassioned tone.

Probably, Al-Basheer’s unique style and personality stems from his attitude towards challenges and his innate ability to embrace change. He says he has been motivated and inspired by a quote from Martin Luther King Jr.--“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”

He adds that in today’s fast growing global and business world, the possibility of change sits constantly on our shoulders. “Truly, nothing is certain and constant except change. I enjoy adapting to new technological advancements, which have changed the shape of our lives over the past couple of decades.”

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Al-Basheer, who has been in the IT industry for 10 years, is fascinated by the pace of change and has witnessed the rapid evolution of IT trends that have a far-reaching impact on our everyday lives. “Computational power rises exponentially, not linearly, and so does the rate of change. Adapting to these changes has polished and enriched my experience in IT,” he says.

He adds that the most interesting aspect of his work is being able to interact with different kind of people through his role in the channel and exposure to different market segments. “However, the most challenging part of my professional life is ensuring customer satisfaction. In the competitive marketplace, customer satisfaction is a key performance indicator and is seen as a key differentiator against competitors.”

This led to his firm conviction that it is an imperative for businesses to provide more than just products and services. “Businesses are also responsible for helping customers with technical issues, even small ones, because they can have an enormous impact on the customer experience. Understanding the customer’s needs, enhancing service delivery and providing quality assurance will help not only to meet but to surpass customer expectations,” Al-Basheer says.

Since Joining GBM in 2007, Al-Basheer says he has become more assertive, even in situations outside of comfort zone. Working at

GBM has also honed his interpersonal skills, be it with colleagues or customers. Though Al-Basheer spends most of his time at work, like many in the industry, he has been able to strike a fine balance between work and personal life.

“It has been a conscious decision, and I am always mindful of drawling lines between them.

Whether I am at work or at home, I do my best to stay fully invested in that place at that time. If I am at home with the family, I set aside work and enjoy them to the fullest,” he says.

By force of habit, Al-Basheer starts his day with reading emails and organizing his calendar, and feels hapless without his mobile, laptop and iPad, even if he is on a holiday. “Multitasking and fairly balancing between my personal and work life is key.

The trick is to detach from one or the other, depending on the situation and the priority.

Al-Basheer, who is passionate about learning, says he is particularly interested in learning new disciplines in math, physics and fringe science. He also likes to watch documentaries during his spare time.

Married with twins, Al-Basheer is a doting dad and says he always finds the time to spend with his children. And his ultimate dream in life? “I like the academic path. My lifelong ambition has always been to get a PhD in a science, such as math or physics. I am also interested in eventually volunteering to teach courses at a university, while completing research and theses,” he says. //

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T7600

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