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ISSUE 194 // february 2013 WWW.RESELLERME.COM

defining new value Almasa Value Distribution supports partners with a right combination of products and services Trends and technologies to watch in the year ahead

vendor focus

Reviews

Product

Infor looks for new partners in the region to drive business growth

Canon EOS 60D lives up to expectations

Belkin launches NetCam HD

mid-market

fertile breeding ground

CONTENTS ISSUE 194 // february 2013

Highlights 6

cover feature

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

ANALYSIS 14 Large-format ambition

Canon took part in the Middle East Sign and Graphics Exhibition for the first time in January, demonstrating its commitment to the large-format printing market and the channel partners.

Si watch 20 Geared for growth

Year of change and transformation?

The Dubai-based ICT solutions and services provider Visionaire serves a diverse range of industries in the region. Aneeta Gupta, CEO of the company, talks about what sets her company apart from the pack.

Vendor Focus 22 In for the long haul

When Infor marched into town last month there was a noticeable difference to previous years â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this time it brought the hype.

Feature

26 Channels of profit

Times have never been better for security-focused channel players. The fast changing threat landscape and the emergence of advanced threats promise to make it a watershed year for the industry.

Hot products Linksys rolls out Wi-Fi solutions

F5 enhances application delivery security

40 Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about mid-market

The burgeoning mid-market offers a plethora of opportunities for the channel willing to invest in services and solutions, and become trusted advisors

54 february 2013

Reseller Middle East

The World’s Most Important Gathering of CIOs and Senior IT Executives Focus. Connect. Lead. Join more than 500 CIOs and senior IT executives at the inaugural Gartner Symposium/ ITxpo on 5 – 7 March in Dubai. This global conference spans across 7 countries and is held throughout the year, offering the most comprehensive and strategic insight for IT to help drive the business forward.

Your source for actionable insight in IT and world-class networking Symposium is designed to provide you with direct access to relevant and actionable new research for the Middle East along with many opportunities to network with highly qualified senior peers across targeted roles and industries.

Research specific to the Middle East Sessions will cover these key IT and business focus areas of this region: • Workforce Management • Leadership Development • Business Intelligence • Mobility

• Sourcing and Vendor Management • Governance • Infrastructure • Security

Industry specific content is also featured throughout the agenda for: • Government

• Financial Services

• Energy and Utilities

View the most comprehensive IT agenda for 2013 at gartner.com/me/symposium and register your place now!

EDITORIAL

Publisher Dominic De Sousa Group COO Nadeem Hood

Editorial

Good tidings in security

Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan@cpidubai.com +971 4 4409109 Contributing Editors Ben Rossi Joe Lipscombe

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Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor

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All the predictions for 2013 have rolled in and every industry expert worth his salt reckons security is going to be a top IT budget priority this year. The research firm Gartner estimates that the worldwide spending on security has touched $60 billion in 2012 and is slated to touch $86 billion over the next three years. Even a cursory glance at today’s threat landscape would tell you what is really driving the need for businesses to spend on security infrastructure, which includes software, services and appliances. In the face of advanced persistent threats, targeted attacks, sophisticated malware and cyber espionage, organisations are left with no choice but to invest in security infrastructure to mitigate risks and reduce vulnerabilities. The Middle East region, which was lulled into a false sense of security, has had a rude awakening in the form of a string of targeted attacks against its critical industry infrastructure. The fact that regional enterprises are prioritising security budgets spells good news for the channel. The opportunity to provide security services including consulting, audits and vulnerability assessments are huge in addition to products. However, this comes with a caveat: the margins from commoditised security technologies such as anti-virus and traditional firewalls are shrinking and the channel will have to look at high-end security technologies that offer much better bottom-lines. And to do this, it’s imperative that partners have to rethink their business models and invest more in building skill sets and service capabilities. Providing security consulting services tailored to meet customers’ specific needs can not only offer fatter margins but also help you to create a competitive advantage in the market. It might be a good idea to shift the focus from volume sales to drive top line growth and start listening to your customers to understand what they want and offer innovative solutions to suit their pressing needs. Value-added resellers that have not got onto the security bandwagon yet should align themselves with a partner that is already in this space to cash in on what this lucrative market has to offer.

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Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press © Copyright 2013 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

february 2013

Reseller Middle East

highlights News

Symantec announces new strategy

Steve Bennett, Symantec president and chief executive officer

“Symantec’s strategy is clear: We want to enable people, businesses and countries to focus their energies and time on achieving their aspirations, instead of being consumed with how to keep their

digital lives safe and protected,” said Steve Bennett, Symantec president and chief executive officer. “This is a story about more focus and better execution by Symantec to make things better and easier for our customers and partners. Our path is straightforward: Offer better products and services tailor made for customers, and make it easier for them to research, shop, buy, use, and get the help and support they need.” Symantec is focusing on 10 key areas that combine existing products and services into new, innovative and comprehensive solutions that meet multiple customer needs with integrated and higher value offerings. The overall development process is estimated to take six to 24 months depending on the specific offering. In order to continue delivering value to customers in the future, Symantec will increase its investment in research and development and homegrown innovation to better meet next generation needs. Symantec will also establish strategic partnerships where it can integrate what it does with others to add even more value for customers. This will help customers stay ahead of increasingly

challenging information and protection challenges at the endpoint, network and data centre levels. “There is a huge set of underserved and unmet needs that customers are experiencing with regards to protecting, moving and managing their information on multiple devices,” continued Bennett. “With our resources and know-how, we are in a better position to meet those needs than anyone. We have the infrastructure to deliver real value to help customers and this new strategy will improve both our focus and execution. We also have the expertise to know and see what they’re going to need next. It’s a question of alignment and regaining focus on the current and future needs of customers via a renewed emphasis on innovation plus developing new technology.” Symantec’s sales process will continue to rely heavily on the channel to manage current customers and free up Symantec’s sales force to focus on generating new business. Symantec will also enhance the marketing organisation with more strategic resources and capability to accelerate focus and organic growth.

EMEA PC shipments see Q4 decline According to a new report from IDC, the number of PC shipments in the EMEA region continued to contract in Q4 2012, showing a decline of 10.7% compared to the same quarter last year. Weaknesses in consumer demand and budget constraints in the commercial segment were cited as the main reasons for the contraction, which came in line with IDC expectations.

The total number of PC sales in the EMEA region came to 105.6 million units for the full year 2012, showing a decline of 1.6% compared with 2011. Portable PC shipments declined by -0.8% in 2012, and desktops declined by -2.9%, IDC said. “As expected, PC sales remained constrained across EMEA in Q4 2012 as consumer demand concentrated further on tablets during the holiday season, and despite the

launch of Windows 8 and new designs which did not provide the hoped upturn effect,” said Maciej Gornicki, Senior Research Analyst, IDC EMEA Personal Computing. “As a result, notebook sales continued to display negative trends in the last quarter of the year, with a decline by 12.8% of portable PC shipments in EMEA in Q4 2012.” According to IDC, tablets continued to act as a disrupting

factor in Q4 2012, while both consumer and commercial markets have been affected by macro-economic conditions. This has led to a shrinking disposable income among consumers and tighter budgets for business investments. The public sector across most countries also remained under pressure, with most announcing further cuts and austerity measures, adversely affecting PC demand, IDC said.

Epicor fine-tunes channel strategy

Keith Deane, senior vice president for Epicor EMEA Epicor Software, which provides business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organisations, has fine-tuned its channel strategy to drive growth opportunities in the EMEA region. As part of the expanded strategy, Epicor will be looking at recruiting new partners, particularly for key markets such as France, Germany,

Russia and Benelux, and boosting its channel presence in the Middle East and South Africa. To support the ambitious initiative, Epicor has recruited several new channel managers as well as a channel marketing director. “We have invested in our channel organisation this year in readiness to support our expanded strategy and being able to work more closely with our partners across EMEA on new business development and implementations,” said Keith Deane, senior vice president for Epicor EMEA. “Our goal is to at least double our channel generated revenues within the next two years. To help us achieve this we need to recruit a number of new partners in our key markets, and boost the breadth of experience we have within the channel in other markets.” Epicor will be looking at recruiting partners that already have enterprise resource planning (ERP) experience, typically with knowledge of the larger systems such as SAP, Oracle, Infor or some Microsoft solutions. Many may be facing a ‘build-or-buy’ decision, either having legacy products that are due for replacement, or looking at building upgrades to older products.

“Our sweet spot is within manufacturing and distribution but Epicor is also a great fit in other industries so we are not only looking for partners with manufacturing or distribution experience, but also those who have expertise within other industries or niche domains,” said James Frampton, channel vice president for Epicor EMEA. “We are, however, not changing the strategy of only recruiting a select number of partners. Unlike some of our competitors we don’t want a large channel with resellers that compete against each other. Epicor therefore offers true partnerships, often with some sort of specialism, perhaps domain or vertically driven or to cover certain geographic areas. He continued, “It is critical to us that the partners we select to work with become successful and we understand that this includes achieving a good return on their investment within a reasonable amount of time. We therefore invest an increasing amount of time and resources with partners that have the right attitude and aspirations for success, working closely with them as an extended sales force.”

Westcon named Juniper’s EMEA distributor of the year Westcon Group has been named “EMEA Distributor of the Year” by Juniper Networks for the third time in four years. The award was presented at the annual Juniper Networks Global Partner Conference in Las Vegas, where the company recognises outstanding achievements and commitment on the part of its channel partners. Westcon Group impressed with its security business practice, which thrived in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. It also achieved strong performance in Turkey through Neteks, it Turkish joint venture. Overall, Westcon Group demonstrated more than 25% growth in EMEA during

2012. The success was largely attributed to its Configure-toOrder (CTO) project for Juniper Networks’ MX Series 3D Universal Edge Routers. “We congratulate Westcon Group for its outstanding achievements and commitment to leading customers to build nextgeneration networks,” said David Helfer, Vice-President of Partners, EMEA, Juniper Networks. “Our annual partner awards recognise those partners from around the world demonstrating outstanding leadership in sales, customer service, technology expertise and service specialisations – all combining to drive network innovation in the marketplace.”

The award was accepted by Leena Jayachandran, Business Lead for Sales and Marketing, Westcon Middle East Group. “Receiving the award for EMEA thrice in four years from Juniper is a testament to our commitment to our vendor partners on the global level and we are greatly honoured,” she said.

“Juniper is a strategic partner for Westcon as a group and we constantly strive to ensure that our technical competency, sales skills and customer service and support are at the highest levels. We endeavour to continue to build on this success in the years to come.”

february 2013

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highlights News

Software reseller pays damages to Microsoft In February 2012, the Anti-Economic Crimes Department of the Dubai Police carried out an enforcement action against a computer and software reseller in the Bur Dubai area. A number of allegedly counterfeit Dell branded Microsoft Windows Certificates of Authenticity (COA) labels were seized. An out-of-court settlement was recently agreed between Microsoft and the reseller in which the latter admitted that selling loose Windows COA labels infringed Microsoft’s IP rights and did not result in licensed installations of the software for the end users, signed undertakings covering future behaviour and paid AED 150,000 to Microsoft in damages. Dale Waterman, Microsoft’s Corporate Attorney for Anti-Piracy for the Middle East and Africa, said the enforcement actions by local authorities were crucial to combating piracy and counterfeiting in the UAE and driving increased awareness about the detrimental effects of piracy. “Pirated or counterfeit software has an enormous impact upon the software industry. Piracy hurts our honest channel partners who are just trying to

earn a living. Partners who must compete with pirates lose more than software revenue; they lose system sales and the opportunity to service those customers over the years. Microsoft is therefore determined to protect its customer, reseller and partner ecosystem from the threat and losses associated with piracy, and to prevent unscrupulous resellers from taking advantage of innocent consumers and gaining an unfair advantage over our honest partners,” he added. Pirated software can also introduce risks to the health of IT security systems. The impact is felt by end-users who unknowingly expose themselves to malware and viruses existing in pirated software, making it easier for hackers to access sensitive information. Such threats have been recently seen in the oil and gas industry, banks and even government websites. The priority at Microsoft is to ensure that customers have a safe, secure and satisfying experience with their products. Since 2005, more than 400,000 customers have come forward through Microsoft’s How to Tell website, offering details about fake software that left their computers infected with viruses and malware.

Cisco to buy Cognitive Security Cisco has announced plans to acquire Czech security vendor Cognitive Security, in a deal that will be finalised in Q3 2013. Cisco said that Cognitive’s advanced threat behaviour analytics will help to take its current range of security products to the next level. The firm wants to combine the technology with

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its global cloud-based threat intelligence system. “We’re moving from a perimeter-based defence to being able to identify markets,” said Christopher Young, Senior Vice-President of Security and Government, Cisco. “Cognitive’s threat behaviour analytics give us the ability to identify

and stop advanced cyber threats.” Young said that cyber threats are constantly evolving, and that enterprises now need to take a number of steps to stay ahead of attackers. Cisco is now looking at ways to identify threats before they make it into the system, or else find

threats that have already found their way into the system. Cognitive, which is based in Prague, collaborates in a joint security research programme with the Czech Technical University. Cisco said that the collaboration will continue after it acquires the security firm.

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highlights News

Acer commits to channel partners

Amin Mortazavi, VP, Acer Middle East and Africa Acer’s Dubai-based management team has committed to delivering sustainable, profitable growth to its channel partner ecosystem across the Middle East. The brand has recently “fortified” its MEA operations with new hires and the introduction of top-end products, the team said, explaining that Acer’s channel community is growing “bullish” about future prospects. “Acer commits to a significant increase in the level of support we provide to our partners to facilitate a dynamic business model that encourages them to be pro-active,” said Amin Mortazavi, VP, Acer Middle East and Africa. “Working together, we can capture an even more significant share of this growing, hugely exciting IT market.” The brand will soon embark on a road show to educate all of its channel partners on its new strategy and channel programme for 2013. Acer will also recognise its best partners and distributors from 2012 at the events that it holds. The road show will visit Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait, with the first event starting in Dubai this month. Dedicated events for SMBs will be held in the afternoons during the Dubai leg. The road show will then hit Saudi Arabia in February, before heading to Kuwait. In March, Acer will visit Qatar before finishing up in Oman. The brand also has plans to visit Karachi in Lahore, in Pakistan, which, the brand notes, is a quickly growing market. “MEA remains one of the strongestperforming IT markets in the world. Empowering our channel partners in the region and facilitating their growth is instrumental for Acer’s continued success,” said Mortazavi.

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Plantronics eyes Middle East expansion Plantronics has expanded its relationship with distributor Westcon Convergence, in an effort to reach key telephony accounts and grow the wireless and Unified communication business opportunities in the region. The Plantronics devices that are now available through Westcon include Contact Centre, Enterprise and Unified communications devices, the firm said. “We’re very pleased to announce an expansion of our relationship with Westcon into the Middle East,” said Susan Hansen, Vice-President of Marketing, Asia Pacific, Plantronics. “Westcon has a proven expertise in delivering excellence in core distribution services around the globe.” Westcon Middle East specialises in the convergence of voice, data and video application technologies, including VoIP, Internet security, wireless and mobility solutions. The firm claims to offer a global portfolio in the Middle East, featuring “best-inclass” products, services and solutions from reputable vendor partners.

Susan Hansen, Vice-President of Marketing, Asia Pacific, Plantronics “We are excited to add Plantronics to our portfolio,” said Manoj Panchai, Divisional Director, Westcon Convergence. “We consider this as a win-win relationship of quality products and sophisticated distribution, providing Plantronics with expertise in recruiting, enabling and growing the enterprise channel at the same time as expanding our Unified communication offerings.

Eros Group awarded best re-exporter of the year Eros Group, distributor for consumer electronics in the UAE, was felicitated at the 5th ESEA E-Services Excellence Awards as Best Re-Exporter of the Year 2012. The E-Service Excellence Award is an annual award organised by Dubai Trade to encourage “e-transformation” in trade and logistics and to recognise the most active online performers throughout the year. Commenting on this occasion, Deepak Babani, CEO, EROS Group said, “It is a proud moment for all of us at Eros Group to receive the prestigious E-Services Excellence Award from Dubai Trade, the premier cross-border trade facilitator. We take this opportunity to

thank all our principals, trade partners, staff and customers for taking us further ahead in our quest for excellence.” The 5th E-Service Excellence Award was held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai.

highlights News

Allied Telesis unveils new SwitchBlade at partner event

Allied Telesis has recently launched the new SwitchBlade SBx8112 at its annual event for partners from the Gulf countries, the Levant region, East Africa and Pakistan. The product is a next-generation, intelligent Layer 3 chassis switch, the vendor said, highlighting the contribution that it can make to the “Stairway to the Cloud”

model. Allied Telesis said in the presentation that the product would enable every small, mid-size and large enterprise to “easily and effectively” migrate to cloud operations. With its 160 non-oversubscribed, wire-speed 10G ports in a 11-rack unit, the SBx8112 is the highest capacity and density Layer 3 chassis on the market, the firm said.

Allied Telesis added that the new product can be combined with multiple SwitchBlade x908 switches, creating a single “virtual core”, regardless of physical connections and positions. The firm also showcased a live resilient network solution demonstration at its December partner event, which attracted over 70 partners. The firm also held a presentation on the latest information on the vendor’s service and support models. “Allied Telesis has seen considerable growth in the Middle East markets,” said Sabbahuddin Khan, Regional Manager for the Middle East, Allied Telesis. “Customers are looking for high-performance, reliable solutions, alongside excellent support and affordability. These are an integral part of the Allied Telesis offering, which makes us the natural choice. “Channels in the region have realised that they can ensure better customer satisfaction when working with Allied Telesis solutions.” To finish off its conference, the firm showcased its Star Partner Programme, a membership programme designed to attract partners through a range of benefits.

Siemon expands EMEA commercial team Global infrastructure specialist Siemon is expanding its commercial team in EMEA to accelerate development and investment in the North East area of the region, plus boost marketing presence in the Middle East andAfrica. The company is now recruiting inRussiaand theMiddle Eastto add to the sales and marketing resource across EMEA. The expansion also sees promotions for two of Siemon’s global marketing team: Daniel Vout has been promoted to the newly created role of regional

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manager for the company’s ‘North East’ area and Lyndsey Parham steps up into the role of marketing communications manager. Dan Vout’s new role for the North East of EMEA sees him take control of Siemon’s business inRussia,Central Asia, the Baltic and Nordic countries. He will continue to report to managing director for EMEA, Steven Foster and will travel continuously throughout the region, working with Siemon’s existing distribution partners and developing major end user relationships.

Explaining his appointment to this senior post, Steven Foster commented, “Dan is the ideal person to drive our continued expansion and investment in the rapidly developing markets in the North East region. His focus will be on educating IT professionals and supporting channel partners across the region with the latest high-end technology, plus supporting end users with system specification – a strategy that has proven successful for Siemon globally. Dan’s marketing expertise will also be harnessed to develop awareness of Siemon

and what the company can offer to the enterprise and data centre markets.” The promotion for Lyndsey Parham ACIM comes after two years of success in a marketing executive role at Siemon. She now takes complete responsibility for the company’s marketing communications strategy across EMEA and will manage a team spread across the region. She too reports to Steven Foster and will play a key role in the global marketing team, working closely with Siemon’s vice president of marketing, Robert Carlson.

Red Hat beefs up partner programme

Petra Heinrich, VP, Partners and Alliances, EMEA-Red Hat

Red Hat has announced that the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s channel has grown over the past four years with channel bookings at 53 percent of total bookings in FY08 to 60 percent in FY12 and most recently, 65 percent for Q3FY13. Channel momentum has contributed to total company annual revenue that reached $1,133M in FY12. Red Hat has unveiled several partner programme enhancements and investments designed to support and reward Red Hat partners. Red Hat is launching an overhauled training curriculum for all partners, including a refreshed curriculum covering pre-sales, sales and delivery training that provides qualified partners with access to Red Hat Services best practices. Additionally, partner training will now be available online and free of charge, making training available to partners when and where they need it. The updated Red Hat partner training is available immediately via Red Hat Partner Center.

Red Hat has also announced availability of the Red Hat Partner Demo System, a new, online virtual demo lab that partners can use for training, customer demonstrations or to provide proof of concepts. The Partner Demo System includes demonstrations for all Red Hat products and requires only a browser to access, designed to save partners time and expense while adding convenience. The Red Hat Partner Demo System is available today in North America via Red Hat Partner Center, with other regions to follow. In 2012, Red Hat launched a new Partner Lead Pass Program, a programme designed to pass qualified sales leads from Red Hat to qualified partners. Since its launch, Red Hat has made several enhancements to the programme, including making leads available through the Red Hat Partner Center and creating a one-step process for converting eligible leads to deal registration opportunities.

ANALYSIS Canon

Large-format ambition Canon took part in the Middle East Sign and Graphics Exhibition for the first time in January, demonstrating its commitment to the large-format printing market and the channel partners.

Naoshi Yamada, Deputy Managing Director, Canon Middle East While it has always thrived as a manufacturer of high-end cameras and printers, Canon now has an eye on the rapidly expanding large-format printing (LFP) market. In January, the firm participated in the Middle East Sign and Graphics International Exhibition for the first time, alongside a number of its channel partners, such as EFI, DevStudio, ESRI and Colortrac, to name a few. Canon is keen to build up its presence in the large-format printing market, in which,

the company claims, it is already one of the leaders. To become the leader, though, the firm recognises that it needs to invest resources into its channel partnerships. “We have around a 20% market share across the Middle East and Africa so far,” says Ayman Aly, Marketing Manager, Professional Solutions, Canon Middle East. “We are trying to grow aggressively, and we are anticipating a 40% growth in this business in 2013, compared to 2012. We are investing in more resources for our channel, so I think we will be able to achieve our target of 40% “What we are offering to our channels now is that we are trying to make selling Canon products more profitable, and we are trying to have long-term partnerships with them for both tier-one and tier-two channels. And we are trying to help them find new opportunities in new, vertical markets, covering new industries, new applications and new products, so there are new opportunities for them.” No doubt the brand will need to invest in its channel over the coming year, then, if only to support its burgeoning portfolio of LFP products. At the Sign and Graphics expo, Canon launched seven new products in the Middle East, serving markets from photography and proofing to production, in-house printing and computer-aided design (CAD) industries. The newly launched LFP printers included the imagePROGRAF 760 and the imagePROGRAF 675, which, Canon

“We are trying to make selling Canon products more profitable, and we are trying to have long-term partnerships with our partners for both tier-one and tier-two channels.” 14

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claims, are tailored to meet the needs of the CAD industry, which needs to produce high-quality print content accurately at high speeds. Aly says that 70% of Canon’s business in this segment comes from CAD products, but that the firm hopes to drive that number down to 60% or 50%, leaving room for its other solutions. “What professionals in this market are looking for in a product is its ability to tackle all their needs in a cost-effective and efficient way without compromising on quality,” said Hendrik Verbrugghe, Marketing Director, Canon Middle East, upon the launch of the new products. “Our versatility is unmatched.” Canon claims that the very fact it debuted these products at the Middle East Sign and Imaging expo illustrates its commitment to the regional LFP market. And of course, attendance at such a show is always a good way to meet new LFP resellers. “There are many LFP resellers and partners coming to this event, so I’d like to show our product portfolio of solutions to our partners and to be able to expand our channel,” says Naoshi Yamada, Deputy Managing Director, Canon Middle East. Yamada says that it is important to support any channel partners who might come on board as a result of the show. “We will introduce our channel partner programmes , which is a total support package for our partners, this year. Through these kinds of programmes, we’ll provide a lot of support, such as materials seminars and reward systems. This will hopefully get more partners on board.” Canon is already taking bold steps ahead of securing more channel partners, though. In June 2012, the firm opened its Live Showroom on Dubai’s Sheikh Zayed Road, and particular focus is being paid to the display of LFP-related products, Yamada says. //

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analysis Cisco

Market domination At its annual Cisco Live conference held in London, the vendor has unveiled plans to cementing its name as the dominant force in enterprise networking solutions. Tom Paye reports.

When Cisco sold its home networking arm, Linksys, to rival Belkin in January, the firm said that it wanted to commit to its enterprise and service provider businesses. Having all but dominated the world of home networking for more than a decade, it was time for Cisco to step back and get its priorities straight. The word of the day seemed simple: Cisco has a lot more to offer the world than a decent WiFi router. And, in the enterprise segment at least, the firm is becoming something of an unstoppable force, as shown by its products that seem, at first glance, way ahead of the competition. A certain change is in the air at Cisco, then, but, as Padmasree Warrior, CTO, Cisco, noted in her keynote speech, change is happening all around the technological world. “The most significant change that amazes me is the growth in the number of devices that we use. In 1984, when Cisco was being created, there were 1,000 devices connected to the Internet. By 1992, that number became 1 million. By 2020, we expect 50 billion devices to be connected to the Internet.”

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The message that IT managers and CIOs had to get into their heads, she implied, was that they need to find ways to accommodate all of these devices on their networks. Indeed, much of Cisco Live was spent discussing how to better manage this exponential growth in the number of devices connecting to the Internet. Of course, Cisco had its own solutions to this problem, and was keen to show them off at the London conference. The mantra of Unified

Padmashree Warrior, CTO, Cisco

Access is at the core of the company’s plans going forward, Cisco said. This means being able to manage multiple networks through one unit and allowing any wired or wireless device safe access onto enterprise networks. “We believe that networks need to be simpler, more secure and easier to operate,” said Rob Soderbery, Senior Vice-President and General Manager of Enterprise Networking, Cisco, in his keynote speech. “But in terms of new users, and new types of devices, and all the things that come onto your network, these things are actually working against that idea. Our idea is to keep all of those devices, and the network, safe.” To this end, Soderbery previewed a new set of products that would help companies upgrade their networks so that they are easier to manage. At the core of the new product line-up, he said, is the new Unified Access Data Plane ASIC, which allows for a new architecture that converges the processing of wired and wireless traffic into a single data plane. “We’re going to converge that wired and wireless network,” explained Soderbery. “The Unified Access Data Plane ASIC is at the core of our new converged wired and wireless platforms, giving you all of your wired features, and, at the same time, all of your wireless services as well.” Part of the new line-up included the new Catalyst 3850 Unified Access Switch, which delivers one physical infrastructure for wired and wireless networks, and the new 5760 Unified Access WLAN Controller, which 60Gbps performance. The 5760 can be managed through Cisco’s IOS-based software, which provides information on what kinds of devices are connected to the network, how much bandwidth they use, and who they belong to. But the ability to converge wired and wireless networks was not the only trick that Cisco had up its sleeve in London. On the second day of the conference, security was the order of the day, with the vendor releasing its annual security report and its new solutions to address the changes in security needs. With its new range of products and vastly expanding partner ecosystem, Cisco looks set to offer great things for 2013. And judging by the professional response to its announcements at Cisco Live in London, it seems as if the vendor should get on fine without its home networking business. //

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partner watch Almasa Value Distribution

Roger El Tawil, Executive Director, Almasa Value Distribution

Defining the new value With a right combination of resources, Alamasa Value Distribution is bringing technology solutions to the market and in the process, creating a true value proposition for its partners. Roger El Tawil, Executive Director of the company, talks about the plans for 2013 and how it is betting big on video to drive growth.

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

You are a fairly new entrant into the regional VAD landscape. How’s the journey been? It’s been two years since our inception and we are progressing in line with our plans. We have had some setbacks due to market conditions last year but it’s been building up to a promising 2013. If you listen around, last year was a challenging one for the whole channel ecosystem but we were able to perform despite challenging conditions. I am bullish about 2013 because there are better sentiments. Isn’t it challenging to function as a VAD unit within a broadline distribution set up? Almost ten years go, Almasa had a value business unit called networking. But, when you are playing a broadline game, which has different metrics, methodologies and approaches, it’s very hard to think about value. So we decided to create an entity called Almasa Value Distribution with its own team, focus, and go-to-market strategy. The expectations from channel, vendors and market are very different and you have to cater to all of those. We are independent from a decision making point of view but share the same infrastructure such as warehouses, back office and logistics; we are trying to drive forward with a different approach than the rest of the company. Do you have any plans to expand operations? Right now, the key focus areas are UAE, Saudi and Iraq. We were in Egypt but pulled out because of the conditions, and we have an in-country presence in Kuwait. We are also looking at the African market and probably will explore more of a JV opportunity to address the Central and East West Africa. How do you define value? Everyone has their own unique approach and for me, it’s all about people. We have a solutions-led approach rather than a product-centric one, and we are hiring expertise to put solutions and bundles together so that our partners don’t have to invest in these resources.

Do you evangelise technology on behalf of vendors? Some vendors expect us to but the reality is that customers and partners want to hear it directly from them. So what we really do is to bridge the gap, and create platforms to bring vendors and partners together. How about training and certification? The channel partners and customers want certifications from vendor-led training centres. The value we bring to the table is that we train our partners’ sales force and assist them with PoCs. We don’t want to drive any technical training but we facilitate that with vendorauthorised training centres. Recently, we have

Do you have plans to cash in on some of the hot tech trends such as mobility, security, virtualisation, etc? Security is indeed something we are looking at. Today, everything is getting virtualised and we are working with Avaya on their virtualised platforms for networking and video. I think video is going to be the key that will drive the whole BYOD trend ahead. Do you encourage your partners to explore the opportunities in the services space? Every partner has to play a service role. If you look at any business that gets half of its revenues from services and other half from products or integration that is a good formula

“We have a solutions-led approach rather than a product-centric one, and we are hiring expertise to put solutions and bundles together so that our partners don’t have to invest in these resources.” invested in an in-house video conferencing solution centre to enable knowledge transfer to our partners. How many partners do you have? We have around 100 active partners at the moment. As for vendors, Avaya and HP are the key brands that we work with and we are going to sign up a couple of more to complement our existing portfolio in the next six months. Video is coming up big and we are building solutions around it. We are going to focus on key verticals such as education, retail, healthcare and government. In terms of technologies, apart from video we are also looking at smartboards, digital signage and video surveillance. There is a whole convergence of technologies and video is one example, which used to be very niche. Now it’s moved into the realm of IT and same is true in the case of digital signage. It’s a not an AV game anymore.

to have. But, if you tend to move more on products your top line might look good but profitability is going to suffer. I always have this debate with our partners – do you bring people first or projects first? If you bring in the right people, you will get the right projects. That’s exactly why are investing in people even though the revenue opportunity may not be immediate. How do you see the distribution model evolving in the context of cloud computing? Yes, we have to adapt when the cloud model kicks off. But, there is a still a lot of infrastructure and connectivity required in this part of the world for that to happen. Small businesses will of course look at cloud services and service providers will need someone to transact for them. I think in such a scenario, distributors will become services aggregator and play the role of transaction gateways. We still have to wait and see how this model is going to evolve. //

february 2013

Reseller Middle East

SI watch Visionaire

Aneeta Gupta, CEO, Visionaire

Geared for growth The Dubai-based ICT solutions and services provider Visionaire serves a diverse range of industries in the region. Aneeta Gupta, CEO of the company, talks about what sets her company apart from the pack.

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

Many people still think of Visionaire as an AV company. Can you tell us a bit about your systems integration business? A lot of people want us to be branded that way but if you look at the projects that we did, almost everything large-size and complex in this country was done by us. We didn’t do huge numbers in terms of ports but we did substantially large projects such as 33,000 network points in the UAE University spread across 65 buildings. It’s one of the most advanced networks in the country today. Also, our positioning is somewhat different; it’s very unique. We’re not a gold partner with anybody. Yes we do have the highest levels of partnership with Microsoft, VMware, HP, etc, but we don’t believe in signing up with these vendors for volume sales or guarantee that we will always sell their products into what we do. We are typically a vendor-neutral, designbuild-manage house, and a lot of system integrators in the business today don’t have any design capabilities. So they will go over to a vendor, become their gold partner, and then the vendor designs everything and hands it over to them. We decided early in our life that that’s not what our mantra is going to be. We wanted to learn and add value for ourselves and that allows us to be very flexible. What value are you bringing to the table? What is your USP? The first thing is the integration value. We are a system integrator. We really squeeze the system to over-perform. The first thing we give is much more enhancement. A case in point is the UAEU data centre project, for which we have won an award. We worked with APC for this project and they were trying to push their design. We didn’t take it so we redesigned everything and created something which was much more balanced that cost the client 40-50% less. We have two things that are unique about us: one is that we give what’s called best of breed. There is nothing that we have to buy because we have the flexibility. And I think that is the reason that a system integration company exists today in the world. Our job is to basically look at the client, help the client

achieve their best functional advantage rather than trying to push a vendor’s quota. Are you looking at the opportunities around some of the emerging technologies? We look at what we call the four Cs. The first is the connectivity, and we take both wired and wireless together as connectivity and access. That’s the connectivity infrastructure. Cloud is the second one – cloud and mobility go together. Linked to mobility is BYOD and whatever else you want to do. The third thing is communication and collaboration, which I think is the most important thing in terms of the growth of where the industry is going to go, as people want to communicate and collaborate all the time. And then the fourth is converged services, which is how you manage your services to keep this running for you.

We don’t ship boxes, we ship complete, configured systems to the client. We assemble everything here, we deploy it, test it – even the clients can sometimes come in and test everything while their construction needs are going on. How much of your revenues come from the basic infrastructure projects and the applications projects? I would think right now about 60 percent is infrastructure, because we design major projects. We don’t just go running after every job. If you came to me and said, “I have a simple office building – 300 people – set it up”. Would that interest us? No. If you came to me with a campus or you came to me with a deployment in hospitality or you looked at some of the complexity you

We are typically a vendor-neutral, design-buildmanage house, and a lot of system integrators in the business today don’t have any design capabilities. The entire philosophy, which now we’ve labelled under one name called technomics – the economics of technology basically is now labelled. Technomics is our branding, it’s a platform that we have built that brings the four Cs below it, and then we can extend that outwards to give the client exactly what he wants to achieve in the four Cs, depending on his business case and whatever he wants for his business. How do you see the industry evolving this year, especially the system integration industry? Do you think it’s going to change, with cloud and everything coming into the picture? I think in services, there’s definitely going to be an opportunity. Hardware is going to get more and more simple. Software is going to drive much of what’s going to happen, and we need to have strong skills and understanding there. The hardware is going to shrink down into boxes. Maybe all these vendors will just ship the preconfigured box, so we may not have to do too much there.

require for deployment, then we get very interested in that. How was 2012 for you? Where did the growth come from? This year was a very good year for us. Growth has come from two areas. One from services – that is a strong business area that we put together – and infrastructure is still growing. We just won the Abu Dhabi Education Council corporate headquarters building now, and there are many more that are coming up as we go across. I have no regrets – in fact I’m very excited about 2013 now. What are the plans for 2013? We are going to dramatically expand our solution offering. And we are putting that together with the four Cs approach. We have a lot of visibility in the company – we’re the premium sponsor of Gartner’s IT symposium, the highest level sponsorship that one can have. We’re working closely with Gartner on a white paper that will be published right now. I’ve just finished a white paper on transformational ICT, which is the real business of the CIOs. //

february 2013

Reseller Middle East

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vendor focus Infor

Mike Hibbert, Channel Manager, MEA, Infor

In for the long haul When Infor marched into town last month there was a noticeable difference to previous years â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this time it brought the hype.

vendor focus Infor

It’s taken a change of management, a change of strategy, another change of strategy, and it’s taken time, but Infor landed in Dubai last month revelling in the success of a new era that has been promised for far too long. Prior to Infor’s roadshow in Paris back in November when it announced the release of its brilliant new upgraded system solution known as ION, the company had been moving along at walking pace with nothing but ideas and expectations. However, when ResellerME visited Infor at its annual Middle East roadshow the blueprints had been replaced by profits and productivity, and Infor had never looked stronger. Channel manager for the region, Mike Hibbert, has been pushing Infor to move more prominently in the Middle East and has been trying to get more support on the ground in order to establish a solid brand in this part of the world. Recently he was able to announce that he had succeeded. Hibbert says that Infor is also currently recruiting more personnel, as well as already bringing in two more support engineers into the area. “Our major problem, as we’ve said before, is the working day issue. If we had a customer who needed support on a Sunday, they wouldn’t get anywhere for hours. We needed to bring Infor people in and have them the ground offering full support,” he says. “We’re going through a lot of changes at the moment and this is one for the better. We have our own team set up here now and I’m here 90 percent of the time now which gives me far more time to spend with the partners and customers. It’s been a very productive last few months.” Infor has recently split its go-to market into five separate business units; supply chain and manufacturing, finance, public sector, healthcare, and hospitality – Hibbert has taken control of the supply chain and manufacturing vertical which he says makes choosing partners and dedicating time to customers far more doable. “We’re looking for new partners in the region as we speak. But we’re going for quality partners now instead of having just anybody. It’s about quality not quantity this time. We’re looking into Saudi as well, that’s a buoyant market so we’re going to put someone on the ground there, I think we’ll get more out of it that way,” he says. “I have about 12 in my sector and they all made the roadshow too which is great.”

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

Time of change A lot has changed for Infor since its last visit to town, the most significant being that its hyped up market strategy and product base has begun to ship as well be deployed in live scenarios. Most recently, Infor sold ION to Pan Emirates, a local furniture manufacturer which upgraded its legacy system and deployed ION through Infor’s partners. Hibbert says many legacy customers who have ERP systems already in place are finding Infor as a safe bet for individual products, an area of its business which is growing. “Most companies have ERP systems, not necessarily Infor systems but perhaps a homegrown system which is becoming outdated. In this case we’re selling individual applications and technologies which will integrate with their current system instead of just full whack products or upgrades,” he said.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man Infor has witnessed a major turnaround in the last couple of years which Hibbert puts down to the introduction of new CEO Charles Phillips and his executive team which he brought with him. Described as not only a business man, but also a product man, Hibbert believes that the fresh approach, intelligence and ability to follow through on projects has helped take Infor to the next level. “The team we had before were great, but they got us to a certain point and we needed to then go above and beyond that point – Charles has taken us there. “We needed some fresh thinking, we needed to invest, and we needed to get things moving, he’s done that,” he adds. Phillips joined Infor from Oracle two years ago and the company has seen a dramatic turnaround since, so is Infor beginning to click because of

“Infor has recently split its go-to market into five separate business units; supply chain and manufacturing, finance, public sector, healthcare, and hospitality.” “ION isn’t new, it’s been around under another name but it has really started to take off now, that’s a major difference. It’s all starting to click into place. That’s one of the differences with us as a company now – we’re productive, we’re full of energy and making waves as opposed to just discussing ideas.” Infor has been described as the world’s largest start-up due to the way it operates and perhaps its relatively low profile in comparison to its major competitors, giants such as Oracle and SAP who have been around for decades. But Hibbert thinks this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. “I’ve come from start-ups, so I know exactly what they’re about, and in ways we are like a start-up. We’ve been around for ages but everyone is dedicated to helping each other and getting things done for the team and that’s a really great feeling. In these well established firms, people will sit back and just work by their job description, there isn’t much urgency or team work. But with us, and many start-ups, there is a real team effort, people will do what needs to be done in order to get results.”

Phillips or because of its rival – Oracle? “I think it’s all about Charles, but that’s my view,” Hibbert claims. “He is a real doer, and a strategist. The team he brought with him are all very complimentary to that strategy too, so it works. We were drifting a little off track with our products and vision and he really pulled us back on track.” Revelling in the now, investing in the future Infor has done a lot in the last 18 months, claims Hibbert. He says the company has done a complete 180 in terms of business and with heavy investment, more dedicated partners and focused teams on the ground, Infor can continue its surge in the Middle East. “It’s a great time to be us, it’s a very productive and positive time.” “Our major issue has always been branding, we’ve never branded ourselves well enough. However, now we’re working on this, especially in this area and we’re starting to get noticed. SAP and Oracle obviously have a 20 year head start on us, but we’re getting there,” Hibbert says. “But we’re committed to the region and the future looks bright.” //

feature Security

Channels of profit Times have never been better for security-focused channel players. The fast changing threat and the emergence of advanced threats promise to make it a watershed year for the industry. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time for the channel to raise their game and grab these new opportunities.

feature Security

Following a spate of wellpublicised breaches, security is top of mind for Middle East enterprises, regardless of the size. If the industry predictions are anything to go by, the security market is poised to touch new highs this year with many organisations budgeting for protection of their critical assets. The emergence of new technology trends such as BYOD, virtualisation and cloud has also made it mandatory for IT decision makers to think about the security ramifications and many of them are looking towards partners to help them keep pace with the ever-changing threat landscape.

“With the recent targeted attacks and breaches in the Middle East, IT managers/ CSOs are more and more being pushed hard by their executive team to show a clear security position that will protect their business. Security and data protection are, therefore, at the top of organisations’ IT expenditure, and there is a growing need for partners to make sure they are able to fulfil the demand for the right levels of security – and this is good business for them,” says Sushma Kajaria, Regional Channel Manager, Trend Micro. Meera Kaul, MD of Optimus Technology & Telecommunications, agrees that governments, corporations and end users

“Tackling security in the era of hypermobility is going to be a critical area that the partner community needs to prepare itself to exploit.” 28

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

have put security as an important priority on the technology agenda for 2013. The region has, in the wake of recent technology security breaches, evolved its strategy to cover all aspects of technology security enablement. She adds that the fastest growing security segments in the region are SIEM (security information and event management), anti-virus, and network security. “The channel will also find ample opportunity in the security compliance domain. There is an apparent need of growth in the security services market like risk assessment and security architecture planning, which should be the focus of most of the channel as it augments the growth of the security software and appliances market.” Aman Manzoor, Channel Manager, Kaspersky Lab, adds a different perspective: “Tackling security in the era of hypermobility is going to be a critical area that the partner community needs to prepare itself to exploit. As the BYOD trend is now a market reality, assisting the customers in managing the corporate data

feature Security

“Last year alone, 75 million known variants of malware caused over $12 billion in reported losses and infected over one billion computers worldwide.” in an environment where the employees are increasingly introducing their own devices into the network is going to be the opportunity that we have to address. This area not only needs a robust technology but also a partner who is able to translate the technology into a solution that fits in the customer environment and matches the customer’s business policies.” Anand Choudha, MD of Spectrami, points out some alarming statistics – last year alone, 75 million known variants of malware caused over $12 billion in reported losses and infected over one billion computers worldwide. “Malware has become a crisis of epic proportions. I think APT protection and zero-day malware analysis are the two key trends that partners need to have their eyes on,” he adds. New vistas of growth Should channel partners move to high-end security technologies from more traditional ones such as AV and UTM? The opinion is divided in the industry and what is for sure is that there exists a huge gap in the security market in the region. “There is a huge gap in skill capabilities to consult and execute security strategy and governance infrastructures within the enterprise in the region. The channel needs to plan and invest in skills, capabilities and certifications on people, processes and technologies that may be able to address a holistic security infrastructure rather than just devices and applications,” says Kaul. Manzoor says that in the current marketplace most of the AV vendors are already striving to ensure that their products

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

evolve into a comprehensive security solution to respond to the emerging threats. “And we are witnessing similar trends in other security technologies as well. It is a critical requirement that our partner community has to work tirelessly to remain at the bleeding edge of these technological innovations. This means investing in training for all their team members, including the sales and post sales operation. These efforts will result in a workforce that is able to spot opportunities in their customer bases and translate the customer pain into commercial advantage for both the customer and their organisations.” Kajaria advises the channel to look beyond simple AV solutions, and says there has to be a multi-layered approach to security. “The market is now driving security vendors and they have to respond to new models of computing such as BYOD, consumerisation and cloud in various guises. Channel partners have to follow the market and invest in skills to meet the ever changing needs of their customers.” A key tend in the IT security market is the transition toward more of a servicesled model. “According to Gartner, the IT management segment of security services is forecasted to grow from $9.361 billion in 2012 to $14.9 billion in 2015 which is almost double the size of the security services market for managed security using the outsourced management model. The security service market is increasing rapidly with more security technology providers offering their technologies as services,” says Miguel Braojos, Vice President of Sales Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, SafeNet. Manzoor says this transition into a services-

Sushma Kajaria, Regional Channel Manager, Trend Micro

Anand Choudha, MD of Spectrami

feature Security

led marketplace has been occurring at a more rapid pace than before. The key reason for this is that in the current threat landscape, the attack vectors are many and diverse. For the customer to navigate this landscape independently is going to be difficult due to the rapid pace of changes occurring in this landscape. As such the customers need their suppliers to not only be aware of these changes but have effective recommendations and solutions for securing the IT infrastructure of the customer, he adds. Choudha from Spectrami says that there is a concentrated push from vendors and system integrators alike to move towards more of a services approach. “With the sophistication of attacks, lack of skills, not even budgets, and the high stakes Meera Kaul, MD of Optimus Technology & Telecommunications

Miguel Braojos, Vice President of Sales Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, SafeNet

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

partners to provide consulting and services to assess their business and technology requirements, and provide them with solutions accordingly.” Alexander Zarovsky, International Business Chief, InfoWatch, says it’s a good idea for the channel partners to focus on specific areas within the security domain. “Information security technologies are quite a narrow field. That’s why the channel should use the synergy of different companies to meet the client needs. All vendors offer different versions of security solutions and the channel should have multi-vendor agreements.” How can channel partners create competitive differentiators to position them as viable contenders in this space? Kaul says channel partners can create

“It is pertinent that the channel ramps up and invests in expertise, people and processes to bring consulting and services expertise to the end customer.” involved, we see an interesting trend where in customers are looking at SLA or service approach to security. The other aspect driving services led market is the fact that no matter how many products a customer deploys, he still needs high end services, be it malware or breach analysis or incidence response.” In this context, it is pertinent that the channel ramps up and invests in expertise, people and processes to bring consulting and services expertise to the end customer. This expertise may be product agnostic or linked to the products being positioned by the channel, according to Kaul. Braojos agrees: “This is a competitive and growing area, unless channel partners are up-to-date and equipped with the right skills they will not be able to compete and benefit from the opportunities in the market. Businesses rely on vendors and

differentiation through the quality of service they offer. “The channel partners need to differentiate themselves on expertise through customer consulting and services in this domain. This may be an expertise in performance management of networks and devices, incident response planning or service continuity but the market is keen to accept differentiation in expertise.” So what does it take for the channel to succeed in this challenging market? Probably, Kajaria sums it up best: The partners need to know the solutions their customers need, then have the right vendor relationships to deliver those solutions, acquire the right skills to implement and manage those solutions and support them ongoing. Know your customer, be a ‘real’ trusted advisor to your vendors as well as your customer.” //

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opinion SonicWALL

Cyber security challenges in 2013 The security issues affecting businesses are similar around the world, writes Florian Malecki, Head of Product Marketing Manager –EMEA, Dell SonicWALL The key issues and points of vulnerability are around human engagement – most of it innocently – such as bringing an infected personal mobile device into the corporate network, or clicking on a social media link that looks harmless but hides a Trojan or Worm that will secretly steal data and money and, potentially, remain undetected with severe impact on security of the infected device. The major cyber-security challenges to businesses through 2013 will come from • Increase in Exploit Kits • Increase in mobile device cyber-security threats • Increase in sophistication of threats Increase in Exploit Kits: Exploit Kits represent the dark but massively profitable side of cyber-security attacks. Exploit kits comprise malicious programs. They quickly identify and then attack cyber vulnerabilities and spread malware. Exploit kits are created, sold and rented, on the black market. We predict they will be increasingly used because of their ease of deployment (rental model) and ease and speed of infection they deliver. The impact of these attacks will be felt in loss of data, IP, identify theft, financial fraud and theft, as well as in diminished business productivity and continuity. We expect to see exploit kits targeting Windows 8, MAC OS X and mobile devices, particularly Android based, in 2013 as these three targets represent fast-growing segments used by corporates and consumers alike to transact communications, business and commerce.

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

The growth of malware will continue at an explosive pace. In 2012, Dell SonicWALL identified nearly 16 million unique malware samples through its GRID (Global Response Intelligent Defense system) compared to 13.5 million in year 2011. Already, there are around 44,000 new malware samples every day Increase in mobile cyber-security vulnerability: The adoption of NFC (near field communication) for mobile payment systems makes mobile platforms a very attractive target for financially motivated cybercrimes. The increased use of personal devices because of trends like BYOD (bring your own device) in businesses creates entirely new cyber security issues from loss of company data and IP, financial threat, non-compliance issues to name a few. As social media continues to be adopted universally for personal and business purposes alike, malware will increase dramatically across Facebook, Twitter and Skype in 2013. This triple threat threatens targeted mobile devices at the point of commerce, through their access to corporate networks and through their access to social media channels. It will be particularly dangerous and become more advanced and prevalent. Increase in sophistication of cyberattacks: Last year, we saw cybercriminals abandon older scareware methods such as Fake AV scams and move over to Ransomware scams. We expect to see this continue and become more global and multilingual which also represents a growing threat to LATAM. Ransomware attacks lock down a computer, device or service and holds all the data hostage or even threatens court action if the user does not pay. These are very

Florian Malecki, Head of Product Marketing Manager – EMEA, Dell SonicWALL devious attacks that are embedded deep into the computer or device and it is nearly impossible for an average user to regain control over his own system and data. The sophistication and ability to attack and paralyze websites will continue to grow at dramatic pace. For example in 2011, there were 1,596,905 DDoS (distributed denial-ofservice attacks) compared to 120,321,372 in 2012. As businesses of all sizes continue to move services and infrastructure to the cloud, the issue of DDoS will be high on many agendas at it has the potential to quickly cripple entire cloud infrastructures. Viruses, Trojans, Worms, and Ransomware do not differentiate between a large or small business. They represent the same risk, no matter if you have a lot or only very little budget to invest in network security. Irrespective of the size of your business, these threats can mean loss of profitability and productivity, loss of data and financial assets, and potentially catastrophic loss of business continuity. It is likely that small businesses are more likely to fall pretty to these attacks, because they do not have the budget, IT infrastructure or support that a large business can afford. On the other hand, the more people a business employs, the greater the vulnerability of its network. //

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opinion Sophos

13 security trends for 2013 Looking forward to 2013, we will see an extremely high rate of trends continuing from 2012. Therefore, many of the following aren’t as much predictions of new surprising trends but, rather, a baseline of what we still need to deal with next year, says James Lyne, Director of Technology Strategy, Sophos being developed and older toolkits being strengthened. Modernisation and hardening of operating systems. One positive trend for 2013 is the modernisation and hardening of operating systems. In 2012 a plethora of vulnerabilities made headlines, such as the recent string of Java vulnerabilities (the 2012 equivalent of Adobe in 2011). Despite the attention these received, exploiting vulnerabilities in general became harder as people adopted more modern operating systems with new security features. The ready availability of DEP, ASLR, Sandboxing and new trusted boot mechanisms make exploitations more challenging.

James Lyne, Director of Technology Strategy, Sophos

Attack toolkits continue to proliferate Over the past year we’ve seen significant investment by cybercriminals in toolkits like the Blackhole Exploit Pack. Features such as scriptable web services APIs, malware quality assurance platforms, anti-forensics and self-protection mechanisms are becoming readily available. Slick reporting interfaces and ‘premium features’ are fostering new innovation and ensuring that the barrier to entry to cyber crime is low and the quality of malicious code is growing. This trend will continue in 2013, with new toolkits

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

Cloud based malware testing changes the threat protection model In 2012 malware testing platforms were widely used to test malicious code before it was released in the wild to make detection by anti-malware products much harder. These testing platforms are now growing more feature rich and introducing money back guarantees, and continuous testing features making cyber criminals even more agile. These platforms have forced the use of more behavioural and reputation based security mechanisms, a trend that will strongly continue and accelerate in 2013. Watch out for more bi-directional security data exchanges between endpoints and security labs and new strategies on intelligence gathering to equal the efforts of cyber criminals.

Increased focus on layered security The aforementioned attack tools plus the trend of targeted, low-volume attacks means we will see more attacks where the malware authors will gain long-term access to systems (a trend most definitely now established). As a result, 2013 will see a stronger focus on layered security systems that detect malware across the entire threat lifecycle, not just the initial point of entry. One step forward, two steps back We all know the story. The pace of adoption of new technologies, devices and operating systems is only increasing. Throughout 2012 many of these have already ended up in common use, a trend that will naturally continue in 2013. The challenge however is that many of the new devices and protocols we introduce are making basic mistakes which allow simple attacks we had previously eliminated to once again be effective. The security community needs to watch these new technologies closely in 2013 as they are already in production in most cases. Mobile attacks become more advanced Most mobile attacks to date have been comparable to 1990s PC malware or simple attacks. They can largely be avoided by correct device configuration and management. The increased adoption of mobile control and security solutions will force mobile malware authors to alter their strategies in order to remain effective. This is also likely as the mobile device becomes a more interesting platform for attackers to

target in terms of pay off. In 2013 it is likely we will see mobile malware start to borrow more techniques from its PC cousin (though volumes are likely still to remain low with more of a focus on attacks than malware). Web servers back in the crosshairs Attacking web servers to distribute malware has been the default for some time – in SophosLabs we find a new infected website every couple of seconds. While most businesses have protection for traditional PC environments and endpoints, many neglect to adequately protect their web server environments. In 2012 we saw a large number of web server and database hacks . Like most trends, malware attacks come in cycles, and it has become fashionable to extract credentials from web servers. This trend was gaining momentum in 2012 and it shows no signs of slowing down for 2013 It is likely we will see even more web server attacks in the coming year. Integrate “all of the things” Mobile devices, applications and social networks (amongst others) continue to become more integrated, which will potentially breed new opportunities for cyber criminals in 2013. New technologies like NFC being integrated into mobile platforms and increasingly creative use of GPS services to connect our digital and physical lives means there will be new opportunities for cyber criminals to compromise our security and/or privacy. Diverse business models and irreversible malware Business models and motives for malicious code are diversifying. One particularly concerning category is ransomware. Ransomware encrypts your data and demands money to unlock your files, forcing you to pay the criminals or to restore to a backup, a process can go poorly in many enterprises. Whereas early samples were low in numbers and easy to reverse and remove, the latest versions are more widespread and use public key

cryptography. In some cases their damage is irreversible. We can expect to see more of this class of malware and potentially similar evolutions in 2013. Skills problem becomes more apparent As the platforms and technologies that we are using and need to secure are diversifying, so too are the targets of the attackers. Securing platforms like Linux is increasingly on the priority list of many organisations (not necessarily from malware, but from hackers) and getting staff with up-to-date skills will be an increasing issue. Staff will need to plan to upskill on mobile platforms, new computing delivery models and even protocols such as IPv6 as

More advanced hacktivism and political debate It goes without saying that hacktivism has a huge place in the public eye and that it is likely to continue to escalate next year. Interestingly, political debates are raging over whether methods like DDoS are legitimate online versions of protest. Over the year we saw hacktivists employ a wide range of techniques beyond DDoS, though many organisations still perceive this as the primary threat from hacktivists. There has been an upward trend in more advanced hacktivist attacks and we can expect more nasty surprises and news headlines next year. Organisations should not limit their field of thinking on hacktivists to DDoS.

“Ransomware encrypts your data and demands money to unlock your files, forcing you to pay the criminals or to restore to a backup, a process can go poorly in many enterprises.” they become more relevant. With perhaps the greatest degree of change occurring in computing platforms in the enterprise since we moved from the mainframe, the next couple of years will bring many new lessons to learn. Cyber criminal anti-forensics Cyber criminals and hackers are now using the techniques we’ve used in the security industry against us. Reputation lists that block forensics teams, labs and security researchers from accessing malicious code networks are being shared between crime packs. The sharing of intelligence in the cyber criminal community presents more challenges for those doing forensic investigation and trying to chase down incidents. Forensics specialists, law enforcement and vendors need to work carefully to avoid falling into cyber criminals traps.

Arguments over big data vs analytics and confusion With the challenge of malicious code and attackers bypassing traditional singlelayer controls, lots of organisations are discussing the hot topic of the moment: ‘big data’. There is a great deal of marketing hype around the topic, with many claiming magical solutions to the security problem by just combining lots of information together. This process somehow works together to then output actionable and useful intelligence, even though the original data was often poor in quality. Many organisations are still chasing basics like patching. In 2013 the hype turns more to reality as more get to grips with what is actually required to execute on these projects and slowly develop the business process and organisational maturity to benefit from these forms of analysis. //

february 2013

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feature Mid-market

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about mid-market The burgeoning mid-market offers a plethora of opportunities for the channel willing to invest in services and solutions, and become trusted advisors

february 2013

Reseller Middle East

feature Mid-market

IT heads in mid-sized enterprises have to provide the same services as those in large enterprises, but without access to the same resources or budgets. These companies rely on solution provider partners to overcome these hurdles to drive innovation and add business value. Almost all major technology vendors have started to shift their focus towards this still untapped, lucrative market segment, resulting in profitable growth opportunities for the channel. “In the Middle East, the mid-market sector faces some challenges by nature as recently stated by the research analyst group IDC; by the year 2015, IT spending in the mid-market will reach more than $24 billion in the MENA region (with Saudi Arabia and the U.A.E extensively

“Most of the prominent vendors and their distributors are ramping up the support to help their channel partner tap the opportunities in the storage market.” 40

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february 2013

contributing to this investment). The challenges faced by SMEs in this region include competing with larger organisations as well as engaging new customers to expand their operations as well as increasing their profits while maintaining low costs,” says Dan Smith, Head of Integrated Marketing for the Middle East and Africa region of Xerox’s Developing Markets Operations. Aman Manzoor, Channel Manager, Kaspersky Lab, echoes a similar opinion: “When we examine the mid-market segment then we are looking at organisations with networks of 250 nodes and reaching up to a thousand nodes. The complexities and crises that these organisations face are similar to many of the larger enterprise organisations. However the IT management teams in these organisations are not on par with their large enterprise counterparts in-terms of size and responsibilities. Hence, these teams need to have specialisation and expertise on multiple technologies and diverse concepts, in simpler terms these teams need to be like the Swiss army knife in the field.” While the definition of what is a midmarket company depends on who you are talking to and geography, the accepted

norm in the region is usually the ones with 10 to 100 employees. “Mid-market is a relative term and it has a different definition for different products and organisations (targeting them). For us, a company with a budget of $10,000 to $500,000 is an SME organisation. They normally don’t have in-house IT people to manage a solution and requirements are not streamlined,” says Sunando Banerjee, Channel Business Manager, Openbravo. Though there is hardly data related to the total addressable market opportunity in the region, the market size is considerably large. “This has prompted most of today’s technology vendors to start work on developing and distributing solutions that can suit the market and also meet its current demands and requirements,” says Hani Khanfer, Channel & Pre-sales Coordinator, Smartworld. Most of the vendors have adapted their products and service to cater to the unique

the tools required for them to have these characteristics as a part of our training programs accessible for no additional cost to the reseller as a part of our partner extranet,” says Manzoor. DLP vendor InfoWatch is planning to extend its product line for small and medium-size business market. “In 2013, along with our DLP solution for the SMB market, we will get acquainted with InfoWatch endpoint security. And we have marketing and lead-generation programmes for our partners to maximise the sales opportunities in this market segment,” says Alexander Zarovsky, International Business Chief, InfoWatch. Banerjee believes there is an increasing demand for ERP solutions in the mid-market enterprises. “When the market is growing exponentially and the SME market is striving to get better cash-flow in operation by doing their management right, we feel ERP is something that they need. We have

Aman Manzoor, Channel Manager, Kaspersky Lab

“Most of the vendors have adapted their products and service to cater to the unique characteristics of this market and enabled their channel to address the opportunities.” characteristics of this market and enabled their channel to address the opportunities. “The mid-market needs the reseller organisations that serve this segment have certain mandatory characteristics. These organisations need the technical teams that assist the customers through the various phases of deployment. They require support response that is quick and consistent. They need the sales persons of their reseller to not only understand the technology but be able to address their unique pain points. This translates to the account managers becoming sales advisors. “We at Kaspersky make it our endeavor to provide our partners with

launched the Openbravo On-Demand and the Web POS mainly to cater the SME segment who wants a cost-effective solution at lower cost of maintenance.” Wireless vendor Ruckus has also adopted a partner-led strategy to tap the mid-market opportunities. “We collaborate with and recruit partners that have expertise in specific industry verticals. This concept also applies for mid-market customers – we are likely to develop promotions and campaigns that address such channel category, with focus on their training path. In addition, our technology portfolio is quite easy to comprehend, so this enables us to market for the channel

Sunando Banerjee, Channel Business Manager, Openbravo

february 2013

Reseller Middle East

feature Mid-market

Hani Khanfer, Channel & Pre-sales Coordinator, Smartworld

Alexander Zarovsky, International Business Chief, InfoWatch

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

relatively quickly,” says Nader Baghdadi, Middle East Regional Sales Director of the company. Most of the vendors expect mobility, cloud, big data and security to be the priorities for mid-market CIOs in 2013. “The next big thing that we anticipate in 2013 is the rise of internet enabled mobile devices proliferating in both the consumer and enterprise space. It is going to be the era of hypermobility. The need to protect and manage the data in these devices will be a key area of focus. We expect this to accelerate in the mid-market segment. Further, as the need to drive more revenue from ever shrinking budgets means that virtualisation and cloud services move into the main stream. This means increasing opportunities in the mid-market space as well,” says Manzoor. Khanfer says more and more mid-market companies are now looking at managed solutions services that are either in-house with all systems hosted within the customer’s premises and managed by the partner or the complete solution managed and hosted at the service provider’s premises. For the channel partners looking to cash in on this opportunity, verticalisation and improving their capabilities to sell solutions are absolutely vital. “Focusing on a particular vertical to find a niche in the marketplace is the great strategy that reseller organisations employ to succeed in the market,” says Manzoor. He adds that verticalisation could occur in two ways - one is the technology-focused model, where the reseller becomes a specialist in deploying a particular technology or the second is the industry focused one, where the reseller becomes specialised in serving the needs of a particular industry. “In my opinion the mid-market segment verticalisation when done industry wise is more effective than the technology wise. The main reason I believe is that when it comes to choosing suppliers in the mid-market space, the

Avaya eyes mid-market opportunities Recognising that more than 90 percent of businesses in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey have fewer than 500 employees, Avaya has introduced a suite of midsized business solutions for unified communications and networking. Research conducted by T3i Group as well as Avaya’s own insight into the midmarket indicates that companies with between 100-500 employees want similar features and functionality as larger businesses, but at a lower cost of ownership because IT budgets and resources are more limited and managed in-house. New solutions introduced by Avaya, aimed at the mid-market, to help this segment realise the benefits of improved communications include Avaya IP Office 8.1—which can serve SMEs as small as 5 employees and scale up to 500 users in a single location. This gives mid-sized companies a more cost-effective, simplified way to manage more people on a network across one or multiple sites. It also provides Avaya business partners with new opportunities to provide their growing base of mid-market customers with an affordable, yet high-capability collaboration solution. IP Office 8.1 can also be paired with Avaya’s recently introduced ERS 3500 switches to automate network set-up. One simple command automatically configures the switches and enables IP phones on Avaya IP Office. Avaya says its midmarket Continued on page 44

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feature Mid-market

Dan Smith, Head of Integrated Marketing for the Middle East and Africa region of Xerox’s Developing Markets Operations

customers are looking for a partnership than a transactional relationship. This becomes economically viable only when a reseller is able to deliver more than one technologies for the same customer. This means that the reseller needs to have expertise in more than one technology while maintaining an acute understanding of a particular industry.” Smith from Xerox agrees that verticalisation is a definite way to create more value for customers. “Knowledge of a specific market, and further a specific solution within that market can be invaluable.” Banerjee adds that his company’s channels are getting enormously benefitted by developing industry specific solutions. “In Openbravo we have a space called exchange where our partners are developing solutions, connectors and industry verticals and we as a company promote them.” To sum up, the regional mid-market offers growth and revenues for partners who are willing to explore new trends and assume a strategic advisory role rather than just selling solutions or services. It is a large but fragmented market, and with all vendors looking to leverage their channel network to serve SMEs the timing is indeed right for partners to join the bandwagon. //

Continued from page 42 communications solutions, which are more comprehensive and multifeatured than any other alternatives in the regional market, address these specific issues for SMBs in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. “Seeing that 90 percent of the market in the UAE and Middle East are SME’s making them a huge factor in a successful economy, it is detrimental that they are equipped with the best solutions at a reasonable cost. The products and technologies mid-size companies invest in these days must provide solid and significant value in helping them fulfil their business objectives while addressing specific challenges. With this in mind Avaya has completed our midmarket road show throughout the Middle East, Africa and Turkey to properly equip our channel partners with the resources and solutions needed to address the Midmarket community,” says Nidal Abou-ltaif, VP- Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, Avaya.

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Interview Palo Alto Networks

Blazing a new trail Next-gen firewall is emerging as the centre of enterprise security. Palo Alto, which defined this category on its own terms, is bringing new innovations to market. Karl Driesen, VP EMEA, Palo Alto Networks, talks about the strategy for growth in the region and opportunities for its channel partners.

Karl Driesen, VP EMEA, Palo Alto Networks

What kind of opportunities do you see in the Middle East market? This is a very strategic market for us and we are investing heavily here to grow our business. The recent highprofile security breaches in the region have spurred demand for next-generation security technologies and what we offer is a revolutionary technology that is being appreciated by both customers and partners. The market opportunity is on a multiple billions-dollar level per year, which we serve through a 100 percent channel model. Most firewalls deployed by end users today are based on 15 years plus technology. We believe the current stateful inspection firewalls will become obsolete over the next couple of years and next-generation firewall is the way to go to meet this generation’s network and threat environment. How do you define NGFWs? Palo Alto Networks has pioneered the next generation of network security with its platform that allows enterprise customers to secure their network and safely enable the increasingly complex and rapidly growing number of applications running on their networks. The main principles of the Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) were developed in 2005 and the first product was launched in 2007. At the core of our platform is its NGFW, which delivers visibility and control over application, users, and content within the firewall using a highly optimized hardware and software architecture. This platform offers enterprises the ability to identify, control, and safely enable applications

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

while inspecting all content for all threats in real time. The Palo Alto Networks NGFW platform can address a broad range of network security requirements, ranging from the data centre to the network perimeter to the far edges of the enterprise, which includes branch offices and mobile devices. There is a common perception that Palo Alto products are more expensive. Is it because you do everything from ground up on high performance hardware, compared to your competitors who have retro-fitted? To the chagrin of many IT professionals, the industry’s traditional response to new applications and threats has been to add more appliances – each “helping” the firewall with a piece of the network security function. This unsustainable approach has long proven complex and costly, and now appears to be broken – since these firewall helpers either can’t see all of the traffic, rely on the same portand protocol-based traffic classification that has failed the legacy firewall, or proxy a very limited number of applications (a dozen instead of hundreds or thousands). Given that enterprises had little choice, most have adopted an array of firewall helpers – resulting in a network security infrastructure that is expensive, difficult to manage, and increasingly ineffective at controlling application or the threats that applications might carry – characteristics proving unacceptable to enterprises today. What is the difference between NGFW and UTM? Are they conceptually the same?

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Interview Palo Alto Networks

As mentioned above, Palo Alto Network’s next-generation firewalls enable policy-based visibility and control over applications, users and content using three unique identification technologies: App-ID, User-ID and Content-ID. Due to the fact that the Palo Alto Networks firewall can perform traditional firewall functions, and is also capable of blocking threats and controlling web usage, logical comparisons to Unified Threat Management (UTM) offerings are made. Our firewall is not a UTM. Palo Alto Networks’ next-generation firewalls fix the problem that is plaguing network security – the inability to identify and control the applications running on enterprise networks. By giving control

traditional security solutions. To meet this challenge, Palo Alto Networks has developed WildFire, which provides the ability to identify malicious behaviors in executable files by running them in a virtual environment and observing their behaviors. This enables Palo Alto Networks to identify malware quickly and accurately, even if the particular sample of malware has never been seen in the wild before. Once a file is determined to be malicious, WildFire automatically generates signatures for both the infecting malware and the resulting command and control traffic. Signatures are delivered with regular security updates to provide

Modern attackers have increasingly turned to targeted and new unknown variants of malware in order sneak past traditional security solutions. back to IT in the firewall, many network security band-aids can be removed. The only value proposition a UTM provides is to collapse the traditional (broken) network security infrastructure into a single box as a cost savings mechanism. All in all, UTM solutions are merely attempting to reduce the cost of deployment without addressing the business and security risks presented by the loss of visibility and control over applications, users and content that IT managers are faced with today. What is WildFire? It’s a cloud-based malware-detection and analysis service that can detect targeted attacks within 30 minutes. It’s a subscription-based service that allows our customers to monitor zero-day malware attacks and block them. Modern attackers have increasingly turned to targeted and new unknown variants of malware in order sneak past

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

automated in-line protection from these highly advanced threats. Your IT team is provided with a wealth of forensics to see exactly who was targeted, the application used in the delivery and any URLs that played a part in the attack.

How do you plan to address virtualisation security? Two months back, we introduced the first virtualised version of our next-gen firewall which is a server-based software intended to run on VMware platform. Called VM-series, this new software will allow security managers to set up firewall application-layer controls in virtual machines and overcome the limitation that physical firewall appliances face in virtual environments. Though we are entering the virtualised firewall market, it doesn’t mean we will not stop selling physical application-layer firewalls.

In fact, we have recently updated our physical appliance portfolio by introducing two new NGFWs – the PA 3020 and PA 3050, which respectively deliver 2Gbps and4Gbps of throughput. All of our new products are based on an updated OS, PAN OS 5.0. How do you plan to tackle competitors and what differentiates your company? By Innovation. Palo Alto Networks was the first manufacturer bringing NGFW technology to market back in 2007. Two years later, Gartner validated that what we did was setting the pace. Since 2011 we are being considered a technology leader by Gartner per their Magic Quadrant of Enterprise Firewalls. Palo Alto Networks is one of the few companies in this market being dedicated to Network Security and is committed to continue to innovate in a market in which the problems customers have to deal with are very dynamic. Given the fact that NGFW is a relatively new technology, how do you plan to create awareness among users and also train your channel to sell this technology? We are in contact with our addressable market on a daily basis. The largest organisations we are in contact with directly, mid size and small companies via our value added resellers. In parallel we have dedicated channel teams and distributors educating our channels on an ongoing basis in line with our NextWave Partner program. What is your message to the channel community? Palo Alto Networks is one of our most exciting companies in the tech industry today. We have reinvented firewalls and we have bet everything on it. Our motto is very simple - nothing that travels on your network should be invisible to a next-gen firewall. The era of traditional firewalls is very likely to be over and the NGFW market is a long term revenue opportunity with significant profit for the channel community. //

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review Canon/Belkin

Canon EOS 60D With its impressive bloodline, this DSLR had a lot to live up to upon launch. Happily for Canon fans, the EOS 60D is a more than worthy successor to its fantastic forebears. Canon’s EOS 60D comes as a replacement for the EOS 50D, which was a solid, semi-pro digital SLR that came with some nifty features and plenty of reliability. The 50D was also the follow-up to the extremely wellreceived EOS 40D. The new 60D, then, has got an impressive bloodline. Canon has made good use of this DNA and come up with yet another great DSLR to add to its EOS range. It comes with an 18-megapixel sensor that borrows the same low-pass filter that you find on the pro-spec Canon EOS 7D. You can also boost the ISO to 12,800 and it comes with a fantastic iFCL metering system, all of which can be found on the professional camera. Another big talking point on the 60D is the swivel-out, three-inch screen, which offers a 3:2 aspect ratio. This is the first swivel screen that Canon has fitted to one of its DSLRs, and it’s clear to see the benefits from the off. Interesting photo angles are easier than ever to obtain, meaning that the 60D is useable in just about any scenario. It also begs the question why more professional-spec DSLRs don’t come with a swivel screen. The photo quality is what’s expected of a camera in this price range. The 60D will offer startlingly clean images all the way up to ISO 1,600. Even past this, it’ll take some zooming to see any real visual noise. The noise becomes an issue past

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

ISO 3,200, though, particularly on JPEGs, and it’s intolerable by ISO 6,400. Shooting raw will combat the problem, but it will also result in a loss of shadow detail, so it’s up to the user to decide which way to go. The colours burst with vibrancy, even when the camera is set to its default settings. The sharpness could take some fiddling with, but this is a very capable DSLR straight out of the box. A good few weeks of heavy use might be required to get to grips with all the settings, though; it can be difficult to know if fiddling with the buttons is making things better or worse. The EOS 60D sports one of the most well-sorted autofocus features on any semi-pro DSLR, however, the same cannot be said for the automatic white balance. It’s not bad under well-lit conditions, but in a mixed-lighting environment,

the quality of the images drops. Of course, this can be remedied by manually adjusting the white balance, but it’d be nice if the automatic function worked a little better. The 60D works extremely quickly. Canon claims that it will focus and shoot in good light in 0.3 seconds. It’ll take about 0.5 seconds for a lower-contrast shot, but that’s still not bad at all. What’s more, the autofocus is brilliant at picking out the right parts of the picture. There’s also a 5 fps burst mode, which is actually a frame slower than on the 50D, but the quality of the images makes up for the lack of frames. Another aspect that has moved this line of cameras forward is the HD video capture, which is extremely smooth and produces great, high-quality shots. With some decent video mastering software, it’s possible to shoot high-quality movies with this thing. Indeed, the 60D is now a well-used tool among indie filmmakers. It’s possible to shoot at a number of different frame rates and the manual

controls allow users to customise the shots very nicely. Even when it comes to recording audio, the 60D performs well, despite the mono sound. There’s a wind filter with 64 levels of control, too, so shooting outside shouldn’t affect the sound too much. In the UAE sun, however, the LCD screen does become a little hard to view. Apart from that, the 60D is a difficult camera to fault. There are a couple of annoyances with the interface, but they’re easy to work around after a week or so. And the LCD screen could be a little brighter. Die-hard Canon fans will fall head over heels for this camera. For everyone else, the good points still heavily outweigh the bad. //

Ratings: Hardware

8/10

performance

9/10

Value for money 8/10

The verdict While the Canon EOS 60D isn’t a full-on, professional-spec digital SLR, it comes close enough for most of the users who will buy it. For an amateur photographer simply looking to up his or her photography skills, this will provide everything and more. And with its fantastic HD shooting mode, the 60D is hugely versatile. The price tag may scare off some customers, but given the quality of this product, it’s simply a case of “you get what you pay for”.

These reviews were done by RWME online editor Tom Paye. He can be reached at tom@cpidubai.com

Belkin WeMo switch The idea of controlling a home’s electronics from a remote location is not a new one. However, such systems are, traditionally, notoriously expensive, and often have to be installed by proper professionals. What’s more, those who do try to control every power outlet in their homes with an iPad app often find that the system works intermittently at best, despite having paid thousands of dirhams for the privilege. Belkin hopes to change this state of affairs with its new WeMo range of products, which is so far limited to just two models, the WeMo Switch and the WeMo Switch + Motion. Both are Wi-Fi-enabled power adapters that can be used to turn the power supply on or off via an iOS app. At the top, there’s a blue light that indicates the device is connected to the Wi-Fi network, and there’s a power button below the light that can be used to manually turn the power supply on or off, whether the user has a Wi-Fi connection or not. It’s possible to buy as many of the WeMo Switches as the house needs, and operate them through Belkin’s free WeMo app. This is where the device comes into its own. Users can flip any one of the devices that’s connected to the Wi-Fi network on or off with a simple button. And it is easy to keep track of which device is which, thanks to the ability to name each one individually and even add photo icons to go next to each Switch’s information. Users can also set the Switches to timers, which should

appeal to those who are conscious about their power costs. The feature is also useful where children are concerned, as parents can cut the power to their rooms at bed time, ensuring they don’t stay up late once they’ve been sent to sleep. It’s all wonderful in theory, but what’s really impressive is that the system works flawlessly in practice. Setting up will come as naturally as signing into a Facebook account, and, after that, the app takes care of everything. In terms of downsides, the WeMo Switch is a reasonably big device, and it might obscure the socket next to the one that it’s plugged into. But perhaps a bigger concern would be whether customers will actually consider the WeMo a worthwhile investment; prices start at AED 249.

february 2013

Reseller Middle East

Hot products New launches

Radvision intros new MCU Radvision, an Avaya Company, has rolled out its next-generation Scopia Elite 6000 Series multipoint control unit (MCU), enabling real-time video collaboration for businesses of any size. The new Scopia Elite 6000 Series, which is the latest addition to the Elite Series MCU portfolio, reduces the cost per port for high definition video conferencing by up to 50 percent, offers double the density and performance, and requires up to 75 percent less power than traditional hardware-based MCUs. Video conferencing is becoming more pervasive due to an increasing number of video-enabled devices. As a result, there is growing demand for higher quality

video and greater ability to support more participants and conferences as well as a mixture of endpoints. The Scopia Elite 6000 Series MCU delivers that high quality through full 1080p60fps high definition video communication while minimizing the bandwidth requirements for HD video in a streamlined, easy to use and administer, cost-effective solution. The Scopia Elite 6000 Series MCU features dual 1080p/60fps channels for video and content, simultaneous H.264 High Profile for bandwidth efficiency and H.264 Scalable Video Coding (SVC), along with multi-stream immersive telepresence connectivity deliver uncompromised multi-party collaboration. It also boasts

a hybrid architecture with support for 40 full 1080p HD ports on a single 1U system, and the highest processing performance available in the market. Scopiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s â&#x20AC;&#x153;Virtual MCUâ&#x20AC;? management solution provides an intelligent, distributed multi-party conferencing architecture for maximum scalability and resiliency. For end users, Scopia Desktop and Scopia Mobile, both of which are supported on the Elite 6000 Series MCU, enable one-click-to-video and an intuitive interface for video conferencing on-thego. Participants can moderate a call, share content, record and stream and even choose individual layouts featuring up to 28 on-screen participants.

TE Connectivity launches Core VSM The new core vertical switch management platform (Core VSM) from TE Connectivity is an innovative solution to the challenges posed in the data centre by high-density core switches with a vertical blade configuration. The design consists of a cable management guide that fits above the switch and copper or fiber modules that provide connections for blades of either media. The complete Core VSM platform can be installed within an 800 mm wide cabinet, saving valuable white space in the data center.

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

The new TE solution is designed to remove the need for cable management at the side of the frame, and enables data center managers to save space, reduce cost and improve data centre efficiency by ensuring clear representation of the switch ports and ease of access. In the new Core VSM platform, all patch cables, whether fiber or copper, are managed vertically, and just one length of patch cord is required to patch within a frame, simplifying the build process and ongoing logistics.

F5 enhances application delivery security F5 Networks has announced new security offerings designed to safeguard organizations’ network and application infrastructures. With the introduction of BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager and enhancements to other security offerings, F5 claims it is the first in the industry to unify a network firewall with traffic management, application security, user access management, and DNS security capabilities within an intelligent services framework. When deployed with F5’s new VIPRION 4800 hardware, the F5 application delivery firewall solution provides performance levels well beyond what other vendors can offer, including: • 640 Gbps of firewall throughput • 288 million concurrent sessions • 8 million connections per second At the core of F5’s application delivery firewall solution, the BIG-IP Advanced Firewall Manager product is a network firewall built on full-proxy architecture to provide outstanding security. By

orienting application security around the applications themselves, F5’s approach simplifies firewall policy management. This applicationcentric security model leverages F5’s application delivery capabilities and intelligence to enhance customers’ overall security posture, while alleviating the complexity associated with mapping application infrastructure to static constructs such as traditional firewall zones. With support for SAML 2.0, F5 now offers improved single sign-on (SSO) capabilities for web-based, VDI, and client/ server applications—whether hosted in corporate data centres or the cloud.

In addition, BIG-IP APM offers identity federation across multiple product instances within an organisation, reducing the number of passwords needed by users to access corporate applications. Managing credentials in this way helps customers mitigate security risks and reduces the burden of administrative tasks on IT personnel.

Fortinet launches new network security appliance Fortinet has announced the newest addition to its next-generation firewall (NGFW) appliance family - FortiGate3600C, which offers large enterprises and MSSPs the most advanced network security appliance in the industry. The FortiGate-3600C runs FortiOS 5, the most powerful network security

operating system in the world and includes next-generation firewall capabilities that feature: • More control with network, user and device defined policy • Integrated security with firewall, IPS, application control and VPN functionality with advanced behaviour inspection for improved advanced threat detection • Enhanced performance for every customer environment

The 3600C can be deployed in a standalone security application mode such as a firewall or as an NGFW that includes firewall, IPS and application control. Additional applications such as virtual private network (VPN) or advanced threat detection, which uses behaviouralbased detection in conjunction with a cloud-based reputation system that tracks botnets and elements of their threat life cycle, can easily be enabled and configured.

february 2013

Reseller Middle East

Hot products New launches

WD expands SMB storage portfolio WD, a Western Digital company, has expanded its product portfolio addressing small- and medium-sized businesses with the addition of network backup software and appliances from Arkeia Software, recently acquired by WD. WD also announced that the Arkeia Network Backup version 10.0 software has become generally available.

Arkeia’s software, appliances and virtual appliances back up data to disk, tape and cloud storage. The company’s patented Progressive Deduplication technology speeds hybrid-cloud backup by reducing the bandwidth necessary to replicate backup sets over wide area networks. Arkeia sells its products through resellers and managed

Belkin launches NetCam HD Belkin has unveiled NetCam HD, a high definition wireless networking camera that allows you to see your home in highquality 720p resolution for a smoother, more detailed picture on your smartphone or tablet. Another development is the addition of WeMo SMART, meaning NetCam HD can be integrated with other WeMo devices from Belkin. WeMo SMART is a partnership program designed to bring WeMo, Belkin’s simple, Wi-Fi based home control platform, to new devices, products and brands. With WeMo SMART functionality added, the

Reseller Middle East

february 2013

NetCam HD is viewable from the WeMo app and acts as an additional motion sensor on a WeMo network to trigger another device to turn on or off when it senses motion. The NetCam HD sets up easily using any iOS or Android device and connects directly to a Wi-Fi router without the need of a computer. The free NetCam app allows you to monitor your home remotely anytime, anywhere. The app also provides email alerts, notifying you when motion is detected and sending you a snapshot of the motion in full HD.

service providers worldwide. Arkeia will be integrated into WD’s Branded Products SMB unit and the products initially will retain the Arkeia name. WD will support all Arkeia customers on current maintenance and plans to retain both Arkeia’s software and appliance product lines.