Reseller Middle East

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

ISSUE 181 // JANUARY 2012 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

Dubai’s dancers break marathon record

Gartner’s top predictions, 2012 and beyond

Duo of dancers enter the Guinness Book gyrating to Microsoft Kinect’s Dance Central II P20

As users take more control of the devices they will use, business managers are taking more control of IT budgets. Loss of control echoes through Gartner’s top predictions P42

FEATURE

YEAR OF MOBILITY

HOT PRODUCTS Remote computing with Razr MotoCast previewed P52

DON’T FALL VICTIM

TO FAKES

ORIGINAL HP HP SUPPLIES. SUPPLIES. THEY THEY PAY PAY YOU YOU BACK BACK ORIGINAL Keep an eye out for counterfeit print cartridges and help to keep your printers safe.

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Check the holographic security label (on selected supplies).

Look for any tampering – there should be none!

Use HP Toner Cartridge authentication software. To download authentication software, visit www.hp.com/go/tonercheck

If you suspect you’ve been sold a counterfeit, inform HP and we will take the appropriate action.

Don’t put your business at risk, always buy Original HP supplies.

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Emitac Distribution LLC PO BOX 8391 Dubai, UAE

UAE Dubai: +971 46058200 Abu Dhabi: +971 2 641 9219

www.emitac.ae email: HPsupplies@emitac.ae

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1994-2011 Hewlett-Packard Hewlett-Packard Company.

Company. All All rights rights reserved. reserved. All All product product and and company company names names referenced referenced herein herein are are trademarks trademarks of of their their respective respective owners. owners.

1994-2011 4AA3-3955EEE, August August 2011 2011 4AA3-3955EEE,

Qatar Doha:+974 44355440

Editorial Tie-ups

Bahrain & Oman: +973 33 107 088Events Kuwait: +965 22612616

Movement

ts

CONTENTS ISSUE 181 //JANUARY 2012

cover feature 24 Socially mobile

Patrick Hayati, Managing Director, Emerging Markets, Belkin

23

25 Nations and networks

Wayne Hull, Director and General Manager, Cisco UAE

26 Government up, corporate down

Noman Qadir, Regional Manager Channels for MENA and Turkey, Citrix

27 Application explosion

John Coulston, Channel Programmes and Operations Director, Dell

28 IT’s biggest transformation

Havier Haddad, Channel and Alliances Manager, TEAM Region, EMC

29 Reading the cards

Serjios EL-Hage, CEO EMW

30 Demand transformation

Amin Mortazavi, General Manager, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Middle East

31 Innovation battle

Salim Ziade, General Manager, PSG, HP Middle East

32 Data overload

Amir Sohvabi, Regional Alliance Manager, Middle East and Africa, SAS

Predictions on the year ahead from industry veterans

33 Bull Run

Mazen Jabri, Head of Ecosystem and Channels, Middle East and North Africa, SAP

34 Hosted services, opportunity or

feature

46 Year of mobility

threat

Narendra Talreja, Director IT and Managed Services, Seven Seas Computers

35 Mobility, security, storage

Ramzi Itani, Regional Channel and Alliance Director MENA, Symantec

36 Personal Cloud

Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Director of Sales, Middle East and Africa, Western Digital

38,39 Rest of Outlook 2012 41 Frost & Sullivan’s regional forecast

42 Gartner’s top predictions

A late entrant into the fast paced smartphone arena, Microsoft is expected to cover ground with its Mango ecosystem. Motorola’s Razr is also expected to expand into the enterprise market.

PRODUCTS 52 Remote computing with Razr

MotoCast is an impressive remote computing feature inside Razr, Motorola’s latest smartphone. Other productivity enhancers include SmartAction, Quickoffice and MotoPrint. A hands-on look at these differentiators!

05

Editorial

07

Tie ups

20

Events

46

Feature

52

Products

58

People january 2012

Reseller Middle East

3

EDITORIAL Publisher Dominic De Sousa COO Nadeem Hood Managing Director Richard Judd richard@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9126 Editorial Senior Editor Arun Shankar arun@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9142 Advertising Commercial Director Rajashree R Kumar raj@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9131 Advertising Executive Merle Carrasco merle@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9134 Circulation Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9146 Art Director Kamil Roxas kamil@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9112 Designer Analou Balbero analou@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9104 Photographer Cris Mejorada cris@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9108 Digital www.rwme.net DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developers Jerus King Bation Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Louie Alma online@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

Currents of 2012 What a year 2011 was and what a year 2012 promises to be. Captured in this issue are the opinions of 25 industry stalwarts who were given free reign to say what they felt about 2012.

Their opinions are vast and diverse, probably as dispersed as their businesses are, but there are also some common reverberating themes.

The certainty of dealing with Cloud as a business enabler has become decisive in 2012, but there are divergences on how compelling it will be in this region. Growing and out of control challenges of managing data driven by the cross currents of social media exchanges and alwayson connectivity for the employee, will start to find themselves on board room tables. This will be especially true when IT and business managers finally concede they have little clue on what lies inside their web data repositories.

Demands for storage space will appear never ending as employees and consumers pile on pictures, music, videos, flash, PDF, HTML, Office, files at every moment of their work and personal lives. And yet data will sit unused and unprocessed at various locations including data centres as the world grapples with how to manage this inundation.

Security concerns will expand from not just finding the right strategy for corporate containment but also to independent audits of security solutions being recommended by independent consultants. Such scenarios would arise when Cloud based security or Cloud based storage alternatives arrive in the market place and are compelling enough to make IT managers ask the next question of “What if they fail…?”

The other buzz words that resonate across pages 23 to 44 are consumerisation of IT, SLAs, wireless, virtualisation, government, public sector, managed services, Big Data, Green IT, ERP, SMB and many more.

And then there is the world of smartphones and the world of Windows Phone. We address the

smartphone industry dynamics more closely in our feature on page 46. As Windows Phone prepares itself for its comeback with the Mango platform, there are indications that it may have got the formula right this time around. But Microsoft it appears is not in a hurry to reach the masses and wants the checker board set up properly, learning from its experience across the last ten years and from benchmarking itself to the standards of Apple and Google soaring at growth rates never seen before. Around the corner is the upcoming launch of Windows 8 with its empowerment of the touch screen and any intelligent mobile device. A definite game changer in making is what people say!

Also catch our review of MotoCast on page 52, sitting on Motorola’s Razr, which is a good preview of how mobility is going to reset the role of the PC in the workspace.

So significant and contradictory are the currents of technology in 2012, that IDC believes the year end will reflect the vendor line up for rest of the decade. Microsoft, RIM, Apple, SAP, HP and others are at crossroad moments and so may be many channel players in the region.

Tread carefully but boldly is probably the best way forward for the year. Keep going!

Arun Shankar Senior Editor arun@cpidubai.com

1013 Centre Road, New Castle County, Wilmington, Delaware, USA Branch Office PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press LLC © Copyright 2011 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

january 2012

Reseller Middle East

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Emitac Distribution expands into KSA NetBase, SAP offer vendors. The market potential is compelling, both from a size and growth rate perspective, and we are making a substantial investment to develop Emitac’s share of the business,” said Patrick Mulligan, General Manager of Emitac Distribution.

Emitac Distribution has entered the Saudi market with its well established HP IPG business and will diversify with into other brands over the next few months. The Saudi team will be managed by in country manager, Patrick Mulligan, General Manager of Emitac Distribution Ziad Meslemani.

“The Saudi Market is one of the largest Emitac Distribution has opened its Saudi growing markets in the region and it is operation in Riyadh. The essential for all vendors and decision to move into distributors to strengthen their the Saudi market is part presence on ground in order of Emitac’s geographical to grab a profitable share. With expansion plans. Emitac the new Saudi Government Distribution is already present declared IT spending for in most countries across the this year there will be a GCC and parts of Africa. huge business opportunity “We are extremely excited for everybody,” said Ziad about the Saudi market, and Meslemani, Country Manager, we expect to establish our Emitac Distribution Saudi business very quickly, based on Arabia. Emitac Distribution’s the support we have received office is located in the business Ziad Meslemani, Country Manager, Emitac Distribution Saudi Arabia from the channel and our district of Tiyadh.

FVC partners with Prolexic for DOS protection FVC has signed a partnership agreement with Prolexic, a vendor in Distributed Denial of Service protection. This service fits FVC’s vision to bring emerging Cloud based applications and information security services into the MENA region.

KS Parag, Managing Director at FVC, said, “Information security is one of our key technology areas. DDoS mitigation as a service from Prolexic is a valuable addition for our partners and their enterprise customers.”

As organisations look to increase their online footprint, the risk of DDoS attack increases, eating into profitability for industries like financial services, online gaming, e-Commerce and many others.

DDoS attacks are constantly evolving so it’s important for enterprise and network

managers to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, tools and techniques. Prolexic offers 24 hours, 365 day support and a time to mitigate SLA. “DDoS attacks are already originating from and targeting legitimate businesses in the Middle East and North Africa,” said Matt Payne, Vice President EMEA sales at Prolexic.

“Basic mitigation services from ISPs, telcos and content delivery networks only offer limited protection against larger, complex attacks, which is why Prolexic’s services are becoming essential to protect web site availability and e-Commerce revenues.”

Prolexic cautions organisations with an online presence that the magnitude of recent global DDoS attacks is confirmation that attacks are escalating in size and complexity.

social media analytics

To help global enterprises capitalise on the use of social media data, SAP AG and NetBase have announced that SAP will resell NetBase’s solutions.

SAP Social Media Analytics, sold and supported by SAP as a solution extension product, delivers marketers real-time analytics for understanding their markets and customers through the social Web. It processes billions of social media posts across millions of sites globally to extract structured insights and metrics that enterprises can use to quickly discover market needs and trends, quantify perceptions about products, services and companies, and effectively track their success in the market.

“The social web provides marketers with an unprecedented opportunity to transform the way that we understand our consumers and go to market,” said Stan Sthanunathan, Vice President, Marketing Strategy and Insights, The Coca-Cola Company. “The companies that can listen carefully to what the market is saying, understand these perceptions clearly, and act confidently are the ones that will gain competitive advantage.”

“SAP customers have recognised that social media offers them great potential beyond listening to and engaging with their customers,” said Sanjay Poonen, President, Global Solutions, SAP. “We believe that sophisticated sentiment analysis is at the core of a variety of business decisions. NetBase offers scalable, more accurate technology; tools that are easy to integrate with SAP solutions; and iterative analysis capabilities that will allow businesses to take advantage of social media as a strategic data source.”

According to a report written by Zach Hofer-Shall, analyst at Forrester: “Too many companies remain trapped by merely monitoring or passively collecting social media. Few actually reach social intelligence: driving their marketing and business strategy using the data that social media creates.

Today, companies underutilise social data and often leave it sitting in its own silo. By keeping social media in listening silos, companies are missing the biggest opportunity to connect social data with other customer data for deeper social Intelligence.”

january 2012

Reseller Middle East

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Informatica Qatar signs up Safari Group, Sky Net to boost Huawei phone sales

Informatica Qatar has entered into an agreement with Safari Group and Sky Net Group, two of its major channel partners, to boost sales of devices it distributes locally for Huawei.

Huawei recently signed up Informatica Qatar to be exclusive distributor and aftersales service provider of its Ideos, Ideos X5 and other mobiles it will introduce into the Qatar market. The Android OS 2.2 powered is ideal for heavy users of multimedia, social networking sites, instant messaging and email, while the higher-end Huawei

8

Reseller Middle East

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X5 runs on Android OS 2.2 (with 3D user interface capability and is intended for professionals and technology enthusiasts.

Safari and Sky Net offer visibility and sales platforms for Huawei’s products.

Safari conducts its hypermarket business via four local outlets in Abu Hamour, Salwa Road, Umm Salal and Al Saad, while Sky Net, a mobile phone retailer with 25 outlets, has branches in Najada Souq, Industrial Area, Barwa Village, Salwa Road, and City Centre.

“Safari Group and Sky Net both have strategic locations in Qatar that will enable us to strongly position the Huawei brand and ensure good local accessibility to its products. Our agreement with them reflects the strong partnerships we have, which enable us to extend the reach of our services and solutions,” said Wisam Costandi, General Manager, Informatica Qatar.

SIT exclusive distributor for Case Power SIT Distribution, a mobility and accessory distributor, has entered into a partnership to be exclusive distributor of CasePower’s line of accessories for Apple products Cyrus Roche, Marketing Manager of SIT Distribution across the UAE and Middle East.

CasePower products are innovative rechargeable cases with a built-in battery for iPhones and iPads. These cases power up the iPhone and iPad through lightweight, ultra-thin rechargeable battery case which is seamlessly integrated into the protective case. All CasePower products are “MFI certified by Apple” for iPods, iPhones and iPads and are available in attractive colors.

CasePower newly offers innovative bumper case-battery for iPhone users plus many other accessories. CasePower is the permanent power source that doubles the battery time and all the battery devices are made in acordance with Apple Standards.

“SIT is the ideal partner to increase our presence in the UAE and the Middle East,” said Parlan Fritz, Sales Manager of CasePower.”

“CasePower is the power and protection iPhone, iPad and iPod users desire in the Middle East market. SITD’s partnership with CasePower is in line with our strategy to align with vendors and introduce innovative products to our network of retailers,” said Cyrus Roche, Marketing Manager of SIT Distribution.”

SIT Distribution has offices in UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and walk-in service centres located in Dubai, Manama, Kuwait City, Jeddah, Riyadh and Al Khobar.

CasePower is a Sweden based brand for Apple accessories.

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Cisco and Etisalat sign strategic MOU

(Left to Right) Etisalat Group CEO, HE Ahmad Abdul Karim Julfar and Cisco’s Senior Vice President for Emerging Markets, Duncan Mitchell.

Cisco and Etisalat have signed a memorandum of understanding to map all strategic mutual objectives and a Global Frame Agreement to cover all of Etisalat’s affiliates for buying Cisco products and services across Etisalat’s 18 footprint countries.

The signing ceremony was held at Etisalat headquarters in Abu Dhabi and was attended by HE Ahmad Abdul Karim Julfar, Etisalat Group Chief Executive Officer and Duncan Mitchell, Senior Vice President, Cisco Emerging Markets. The delegation also included Wayne Hull, Director and General Manager, Cisco UAE and Mohammed Tantawi, Regional Manager, Cisco UAE. As part of the agreement Etisalat and Cisco intend to work towards extending Etisalat’s business including wireline, mobile, managed services and data centre technology.

The agreement will also aim to improve Etisalat’s customer experience and satisfaction by collaborating with Cisco to bring thought leadership from worldwide service providers.

Cisco will collaborate with Etisalat to help build a high level strategic articulation and a comprehensive framework for Cloud services based on the specific countries of presence for Etisalat. Cisco will help provide Etisalat

with products and services to build their Next Generation IP Network.

Through this agreement, Etisalat will explore utilising Cisco’s services to lower total cost of network ownership, increase network availability, improve business agility and facilitate faster time to market. This includes exploring the group’s wide deployment and utilisation of Cisco’s Network Optimisation Services.

The agreement will help Etisalat and its affiliates to identify optimal ways to acquire Cisco equipment and services capitalising on Cisco Capital, the financing arm of Cisco which provides flexible and innovative financing across the region.

Etisalat has operations and investments in the Middle East, Asia and Africa including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan, Pakistan, Tanzania, Benin, Burkina Faso, Gabon, Niger, Togo, Republic of Central Africa, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Afghanistan, India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

Golden Systems in partnership with PNY Golden Systems Middle East announced they have signed a distribution agreement with PNY Technologies for the Middle East region. According to the agreement, Golden Systems will promote and distribute PNY’s full range of Nvidia-based professional Quadro graphics solutions through its network of channel partners across the region.

“We are happy to distribute PNY’s Nvidia Quadro Graphics cards as it complements our existing product portfolio and adds value to our channel. PNY is known for its ability to understand the needs of the professional graphics arts industry segment and is innovating its technology to meet these needs. We plan to work closely with our channel partners and systems integrators in different market segments to increase PNY’s visibility and market share in the Middle East,” said Iman Mozaffari, Sales and Product Director of Golden Systems Middle East.

PNY’s Nvidia Quadro solutions deliver the fastest 3D application performance, quality workstation graphics and are certified on industry professional applications. PNY’s Nvidia Quadro professional solutions takes computer-aided design, digital content creation and visualisation applications to a level of interactivity by enabling capabilities in performance, programmability and precision.

“Our aim is to build long-term partnerships with our customers by providing them with the best possible technology, products and support. We are confident our partnership with Golden Systems will not only help us increase our geographical footprint and market share in the region but will also help us establish our position as the leader in professional graphics solutions in the Middle East,” said Raphaël Berthelot, Sales Manager, South Europe and Middle-East Professional Solutions, PNY Technologies.

Golden Systems will promote PNY’s range of professional graphic solutions to professional users like architects, game creators, Iman Mozaffari, Sales and Product Director of Golden Systems Middle East. video, cinema, animation designers and industry designers.

Golden Systems distributes Gigabyte, Intel, Nvidia, CoolerMaster, ZOTAC, AMD, Epson, Kingmax, Axtrom, Bitdefender, Choiix, Creative, GDATA, Hitachi, Kaspersky, Leadtek, Logitech and ViewSonic brands amongst others.

january 2012

Reseller Middle East

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Comendo signs distributor agreement with Bulwark Technologies

(Left to right) Jose Thomas, Managing Director Bulwark Technologies; Houda Naji, Managing Director, Comendo and Chris Oestergaard, Product Director and Co founder, Comendo The agreement between Bulwark Technologies and Comendo is a strategic step in Comendo’s commitment to expand in the Middle East market and gain visibility among end-users and businesses across the region. Bulwark’s extensive network of resellers along with Comendo’s advanced technology makes this a strong partnership covering UAE and other GCC countries.

Comendo, an email security provider, announced the signing of distributor agreement with Bulwark Technologies,

a value added distributor for information security products and solutions in the region.

Comendo’s hosted email security provides virus and spam filtering service along with live unlimited email backup. The solution protects at an Internet level which ensures that all emails are filtered before they arrive at the customer’s network. The result is removing 95% or more of email traffic blocked due to spam and virus, freeing up bandwidth for the customer while saving money on internet traffic costs. Since it

is a hosted managed solution there is no maintenance or change in email behaviour for the customer.

“We are excited about this partnership with Comendo. We have been looking for an established email security provider who has the right mix of products and local business understanding capabilities to complete our security portfolio offerings. We chose Comendo because they provide competitive, scalable and cost effective hosted email security service along with proven technology and expertise. Besides, Comendo has multiple data centres worldwide including one in the Middle East operated out of Dubai, benefitting customers in this region with easier accessibility to their services,” explains Jose Thomas, Managing Director of Bulwark.

“Since the launch of our Middle East regional office in 2010, we have been looking for capable, relevant partners to work with and we are honoured to begin this partnership with Bulwark,” says Managing Partner, Houda Naji from the Comendo office in Dubai. “The agreement further extends our reach in the Middle East region, as a provider of email Security.” Bulwark commenced its operation in United Arab Emirates in the year 1999.

Avnet brings HP academy to Iraq Avnet Technology Solutions will be conducting a special training programme “HP Networking Academy” in association with HP Networking division.

Fadi Bawab, Channel Manager Iraq, Avnet Technology Solutions, said, “Most of the existing channel trainings are held outside of Iraq. Due to high travel cost and existing visa issues this means that majority of local channel partners and customers from Iraq miss out opportunities to update themselves with the latest technology. We believe that this academy will provide a great platform for many more local partners and end users to be on a par with rest of the region.”

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Reseller Middle East

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The two-day academy will be held in December at Erbil, Iraq. The first day of the academy will host end users and customers along with key partners, while the second day is exclusively for local channel partners coming from all parts of Iraq.

Experts from both Avnet and HP will give an overview and technical (Left to right) Fadi Bawab, Channel Manager Iraq, with Osama AbdElHai, training on HP Networking products, Channel Manager HPN of Avnet Technology Solutions including the latest developments and offerings, especially tailored for partners in Iraq. For channel partners, offer this certification free of cost as the training includes the HP Networking certification enables channel partners to certification as a special benefit. HP will win more projects.

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120o HD 5MP Digital Vehicle Recorder (In-Car Video Camera 12MP with Software Interpolation)

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G-Shot 507 12.0MP Rechargeable Li-ion 2.7” LCD, 8X Zoom

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Qtel Group provides support for Arab Games 2011 In its role as Diamond Sponsor for the 12th Arab Games, Qtel has offered a sustained support campaign. As well as Qtel providing Diamond Sponsorship, other companies within the Qtel Group have acted as associate sponsors.

Support was provided by Nawras (Oman), Wataniya (Kuwait), Asiacell (Iraq), Nedjma (Algeria), Tunisiana (Tunisia), Bravo (Saudi Arabia), Wataniya Palestine (Palestine) and wi-tribe (Jordan).

In addition, Qtel has worked with the Qatar University Wireless Innovations Centre to build a new mobile application that enabled sports fans to follow the progress of every sport and venue during the games. The application works on BlackBerry and Apple smartphones, as well as other phones using a mobile web browser such as Opera.

GSMA partners with Qtel, Qualcomm to launch mobile health university challenge GSMA in partnership with Qtel Group and Qualcomm, launched the GSMA Mobile Health University Challenge, a global competition that highlights key mobile health initiatives taking place within the university community.

“Pressures on the health services around the world are growing and mobile is seen as a channel to deliver innovative healthcare solutions,” said Dr Craig Fridericks, Director of Health, GSMA. “Many new developments in this area are coming out of the academic community and the GSMA with its partners wants to foster and stimulate this fresh thinking.”

During the challenge, teams of

university students will be asked to develop a mobile health concept that will address a specific healthcare need.

These concepts could take the form of a business concept or a technology development. The teams will compete to reach the challenge finals, which will be hosted at Cape Town in May 2012.

Two members of the top ten teams will be invited, expenses paid, to attend the Summit and present their entries to a judging panel comprised of venture capitalists, major industry players and thought leaders in the mobile and heath ecosystem. The winning team will be awarded up to $5,000 worth of training

and mentoring towards the future development of their innovation.

“The Qtel Group is proud to sponsor the GSMA Mobile Health University Challenge and as a supporter of the development of m-Health eco systems for the regions of the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, this competition is in-line with our overall mHealth strategy,” said Dr Nasser Marafih, CEO, Qtel Group.

“We aim to support innovative best practices for deploying and implementing wireless technologies and communication systems to enable access to healthcare and health-related applications and information.”

“Qualcomm is breaking new ground yet again, helping companies in the medical device, pharmaceutical and life services industries develop connected health solutions,” said Rick Valencia, VP and GM of Qualcomm Wireless Health.”

january 2012

Reseller Middle East

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

TECOM and EMC sign MoU to prepare IT professionals

(Left to right) Mohammed Amin, EMC Senior Vice President and Regional Manager for Turkey, Emerging Africa and Middle East Region; Joe Tucci, Chairman and CEO of EMC; and Dr Ayoub Kazim, Managing Director, TECOM Investments’ Education Cluster TECOM Investments, a diversified conglomerate and a member of Dubai Holding and EMC Corporation, announced signing of a Memorandum of Understanding, with the intent to work together on joint initiatives through the EMC Academic Alliance programme.

This programme is designed to help prepare future IT professionals for successful careers in the ICT industry. The EMC Academic Alliance programme is collaboration with colleges and universities around the globe to address the widening knowledge gap resulting from explosive data growth. Additionally, as part of EMC’s Fresh Graduates hire programme, the

joint effort will help provide job opportunities to the top talented students upon graduation.

The MoU was signed at a press conference

by Dr Ayoub Kazim, Managing Director, TECOM Investments’ Education Cluster and Joe Tucci, Chairman and CEO of EMC. The event was also attended by members of EMC’s local senior management team including Mohammed Amin, EMC Senior Vice President and Regional Manager for Turkey, Emerging Africa and Middle East Region, and other officials from Tecom Investments.

Dr Ayoub Kazim, Managing Director, TECOM Investments’ Education Cluster, said: “The important role played by the ICT sector

Awal signs agreement with NAQA

Awal, a cloud and business continuity services provider in Saudi Arabia, has entered into a cooperative agreement with NAQA, a charitable association, to provide IT and logistic services to support the association’s anti-smoking campaigns

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Reseller Middle East

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across Saudi Arabia. The agreement was signed by Suleiman Bin Abdul Rahman Al Sabi, Purity Secretary General and Abdul Rahman Obeid, Marketing Executive Manager at Awal.

Commenting on the agreement, Abdul

is well acknowledged, both as a driver of economic activity and a contributor to almost every other industry. In this scenario, the demand for human resources that meet the needs of the ICT industry is continually growing.

We look forward to supporting EMC’s Academic Alliance programme through collaborations with our academic partners at Dubai International Academic City to offer programmes that respond to industry requirements.”

EMC’s Joe Tucci said, “The explosive growth of digital information is a major challenge facing the IT industry. It is a call to action, to fundamentally change the way we build, operate, and consume IT. TECOM and EMC understand that it’s imperative that graduates entering this rapidly transforming industry be able to fully leverage enhanced and emerging technologies. EMC is committed to technology enablement in the markets in which we operate, and develop education programmes with companies like TECOM will play an important role.”

The EMC Academic Alliance programme focuses on the principles, best practices and underlying technology most prevalent in the industry, rather than specific vendors’ products.

With more than 750 colleges and universities, in over 50 countries participating, the EMC Academic Alliance programme has educated more than 80,000 students since its inception in 2006.

Rahman Obeid said, “This partnership is part of our CSR programme and reflects our commitment to helping the Saudi community address the smoking habit.

Recent studies show that more than 30% of the Saudi population are smokers. Over SAR 1 billion is spent annually on smoking, which has become a bad habit among students and fuelled by various social and work-related problems.”

NAQA establishes specialty clinics that help smokers quit the habit, develops awareness programmes on the harmful effects of smoking and coordinates with local and foreign government and private organisations to share its anti-smoking expertise and initiatives.

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APTEC DISTRIBUTION FZ LLC CALL Aptec at Tel: (+9714) 3697111 Extn: 154/155/147/286/496 Fax: (+9714) 369 7110 Visit: www.apteconline.com

Intel, the Intel Logo, Intel inside, Intel Core and Core Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

International Turnkey Systems winner of Techaccess promotion Techaccess recently hosted a gathering to announce the winner of its Mercedes promotion which was launched at the beginning of year in January 2011.

International Turnkey Systems was announced as the winner of the promotion. Khalid Al Amiri, Assistant General Manager was present along with key members of the International Turnkey Systems team at the event to receive the grand prize. The event reflected Techaccess commitment to being a VAD champion in the region. This promotion was the first of its kind focusing on developing and incentivising its partner community in MENA.

Chris Corneliues, Vice President Sales & Support, Techaccess presented the keys and plaque to Al Amiri. Upon receiving the keys, Al Amiri expressed his gratitude and thanked Techaccess for the excellent services it provides to its partners. He said, “We are

GE, Microsoft launch JV aimed at healthcare system transformation General Electric Company through its healthcare IT business and Microsoft announced plans to create a joint venture aimed at helping healthcare organisations and professionals use real-time, systemwide intelligence to improve healthcare quality and the patient experience. Upon formation, the new company will develop and market an open, interoperable technology platform and clinical applications focused on enabling better health management.

As healthcare providers and payers around the globe shift from episodic single-patient care to continuous population management, new requirements have emerged for integrated care processes, greater insight and engaging patient experiences. These delivery system reforms, including a shift toward new payment

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models, require healthcare providers to address gaps and integrate data across silos of care delivery to help enable better care coordination and performance improvement.

This new venture will combine Microsoft’s expertise in building platforms and ecosystems with GE Healthcare’s experience in clinical and administrative workflow solutions, empowering healthcare professionals and organisations with the intelligence and capabilities to respond to the rapidly evolving and complex healthcare landscape.

“High quality affordable healthcare is one of the biggest challenges facing every nation, but it’s also an area where technology can make a huge difference,” said Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft. “Combining Microsoft’s open, interoperable health platforms and software expertise with GE’s experience

proud to be associated with Techaccess, as it has great people and a wide range of value-added services which it provides to its partners”.

To mark the ceremony, Al Amiri presented Techaccess with a beautiful souvenir representing the rich cultural heritage of Kuwait.

Shomail Ghalib, President and CEO Techaccess thanked International Turnkey Systems and reiterated the importance of the excellent relationship that Techaccess enjoys with International Turnkey Systems. Techaccess aims to continue developing its partner base and plans to offer similar promotions in the future.

and healthcare solutions will create exciting opportunities for patients and healthcare providers alike. Working together, GE and Microsoft can help make healthcare systems more intelligent and cost efficient while improving patient care.”

The new company will deliver a distinctive, open platform that will give healthcare providers and independent software vendors the ability to develop a new generation of clinical applications. The venture will develop healthcare applications on the platform using in-house developers and the platform will connect with a wide range of healthcare IT products.

The new venture complements the existing offerings from both parent companies and is expected to yield job growth in its first five years of existence. It will operate globally, offering interoperability platforms and application solutions targeting both healthcare providers and payers.

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

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Dubai’s dancers break marathon record A duo of dancers broke the standing record of non-stop video game marathon dancing using Microsoft Kinect’s Dance Central 2 The Mall of Emirates in Dubai, UAE has amongst the highest tourist and resident consumer foot falls in the region. So it was no surprise when Microsoft’s Kinect team decided to set up shop in front of the cinema multiplex, the heaviest footfall area within the Mall itself. The reason: to get two of UAE’s best professional dancers to break the existing Guinness world record for non-stop video game marathon dancing set at 15 hours and 18 minutes approximately. Then two dancers Christopher Lawrence, aka CL and Christian Ortega, aka Ian started the record breaking

feat at 6AM on 15 December gyrating to Kinect’s Dance Central 2 interactive music and dance video. The pair was allowed intermittent breaks of ten minutes every hour if they required it, keeping the time counter running and by the 13th hour were developing cramps and fatigue. However the team of physiotherapists, partners, supporters and fans kept cheering on the duo and they went onto establishing a new record at 16 hours and 21 minutes, ending at 10:30PM. Microsoft’s Kinect device, sold as part of the Xbox 360 gaming solution, tracks

hand and body movements and rates the ability of participants to move in sync with the video and audio lead tracks. “Having already been recognized by the Guinness World Records as the fastest selling consumer electronics device, Kinect is no stranger to breaking records. But this new record is even more special as it has been set in our local market Dubai. It is also a testament to the passion and magic that Kinect for Xbox 360 has been able to ignite,” said Aman Sangar, Interactive Entertainment Business Category Lead MEA at Microsoft, after the event.

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Powered by 2nd gen Intel® Core™ i3, Intel® Core™ i5 and Intel® Core™ i7 processors, with long life battery options, communications functionality and interactivity devices (standard and optional), it can be as productive as you need it to be.

For more info contact: Dell_sales@mindware.ae Riyadh Office: +966 1215 3126, Jeddah Office: +966 2650 3236 Dell, the Dell logo, ExpressCharge, Latitude and Tri-Metal are registered or unregistered trade marks of Dell Inc. in the United States and other countries. Intel, the Intel Logo, Intel Inside, Intel Core, and Core Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Windows and Windows Vista are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. WiMAX is a registered trademark of the WiMAX Forum. Bluetooth is a registered trademark of Bluetooth SIG, Inc. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. Copyright © 2011 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell Corporation Limited, Reg. No. 02081369, Dell House, The Boulevard, Cain Road, Bracknell, Berkshire RG12 1LF.

managed services cloud mobility storage data security erp smartphone government smb corporate green it wireless slas windows 8 touchscreen smartphone government smb corporate green it wireless slas windows 8 touchscreen managed services cloud mobility storage data security erp managed services cloud mobility storage data security erp smartphone government smb corporate green it wireless slas windows 8 touchscreen smartphone government smb corporate In the following pages, over two dozen veterans of the industry express their opinions on what lies ahead in 2012. There is good dealwindows of optimism and 8 green it wireless slas bullishness on the prospects of technologies converging into the personal and professional workspace. Despite the gloom emanating from the European markets and the smouldering fires of the Arab services spring, the mood is upbeat on touchscreen managed cloud getting 2012’s products and solutions into the market place. Vendors, channel partners and end users all seem keen to play this out. Read on! mobility storage data security erp managed services cloud mobility january 2012

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Patrick Hayati, Managing Director, Emerging Markets, Belkin

Socially mobile The surge in sales of smartphones and tablets is driving demand for accessories as well as wireless routers. From vendors of these products we expect to see more activity than what we have seen in the past two years including more offers, more product introductions and more aggressive pricing.

Vendors are expected to take advantage of what looks like a promising year ahead.

With new emerging product categories as well as expansion of product portfolios, a more unique channel strategy and go to market

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approach is required. Specialist retailers, first to market and category management will be much more relevant in 2012 and there will be more demand on resources and investment in the channel.

Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, South Africa and UAE are expected to be high growth countries in the next year. Amongst products, mobility accessories, wireless routers, surge, power and AV cables will be the categories with primary focus. The launch of iPhone 4S in December 2011, iPad 2 and Samsung’s range of tablets is expected to drive demand for related accessories into 2012.

Wayne Hull, Director and General Manager, Cisco UAE

Nations and networks Gulf markets are leapfrogging developed economies by embracing new business models and technologies to achieve their social and economic goals. Over the past years we have been witnessing governments making significant investments in creating and upgrading their respective national technology infrastructures and investing in new collaborative technology infrastructure, helping innovation touch every citizen. The network is today the platform for creating intelligent, sustainable solutions for public safety and security, transportation, buildings, utilities, healthcare and education. This network platform will be crucial for driving growth, innovation, efficiency and productivity for the nation and its people.

The Middle East is on the brink of revolutionising its use of technology.

At the centre of this will be the prolific uptake of the use of video across business, government and consumers. Given the explosive growth of information and applications to access that information anywhere, anytime, the Middle East has also become an emerging hotspot for technologies such as Cloud computing, virtualisation, unified communications and internet based voice and video.

More and more data is moving to the Cloud. Cloud is becoming a critical element for the future of information technology and delivery of video and content. The Cisco Global Cloud Index 2010–2015, forecasts how dramatically Clouds are changing business IT and consumer services. The study predicts that over 50% of computing workloads in data centres will be cloud-based by 2014, and that global Cloud traffic will grow over 12 times by 2015.

Cloud is the fastest growing component of data centre traffic, which itself will grow four-fold at 33% CAGR annually till 2015. Cloud is estimated today to be 11% of data centre traffic, growing to more than 33% of the total by 2015. The vast majority of the data centre traffic is not caused by end users but by the data centres and Clouds themselves undertaking activities that are largely transparent to end users, like backup and replication. By 2015, 76% of data centre traffic will remain within the data centre itself as workloads migrate to virtual machines and background tasks.

Another major technology growing exponentially is video. Four years from now video will be the leading way to communicate and the primary form of IT. In 2010, video accounted for 51% of internet traffic and by 2014 this will skyrocket to 91%. According to Cisco’s Visual Networking Index, Middle East and Africa will be the fastest growing region in Internet traffic between 2010 and 2015.

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Noman Qadir, Regional Manager Channels for MENA and Turkey, Citrix

Government up, corporate down Desktop virtualisation and cloud technologies will further penetrate into all sizes of enterprise and into new industry sectors. We will see a push towards building private clouds in larger enterprises that enable workforce mobility, flexibility and drive down overall operational costs of managing IT assets. Service delivery from IT to end users will come to the fore, and availability of these services on any device and access from any location will be the key to success.

More priority will be given to value added distributors and value added resellers as enterprises continue to expect more from their investments. Channel players who work around price will find it increasingly difficult to survive in a value-orientated marketplace.

Smaller scale value added resellers will begin to undertake larger projects and hence will become more dominant in the market.

Channel partners who realise this shift early will succeed over the medium to long term and will reshape the current mix of resellers and solution providers.

End user demands are predicted to vary as the market that

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followed the economic crisis demands more service for a lower price, creating a competitive market situation where the end user has chance to set the rules. This situation is likely to lead channel communities to explore alternative means of generating income in order to survive price challenges of the market.

Overall regional growth will most likely be flat or small positive.

UAE as an IT market will continue to grow because of large infrastructure advancement in Abu Dhabi. Saudi Arabia will continue to follow its upward trajectory especially in sectors relating to government, education and healthcare. Egypt’s political volatility will affect businesses for the next 12 months making it a difficult market to predict, though it continues to retain its status as an important regional market along with Kuwait and Qatar.

Technology investment by government will balance reluctance of corporate to spend. Overall, governments will continue to spend on building the infrastructure to better service their citizens, while corporate will focus on reducing their overall costs and working on new initiatives that have a clear business benefit.

John Coulston, Channel Programmes and Operations Director, Dell

Application explosion IT environments in the Middle East are becoming increasingly complicated and the number of applications to manage is exploding. Virtualisation, mobility, Cloud computing, data storage requirements, digital home, personalisation, ubiquitous data access and ever-present security concerns are fundamentally changing the way people use technology and fundamentally changing what customers want from their technology providers. For channel partners, profitability lies in specialisation and having both the right specialists and the right vendor certifications to meet your customers’ needs.

Cloud is the trend to have the most impact on channel partners in the years to come. Businesses in the Middle East are increasingly seeking providers, which can help them navigate to the Cloud, while also addressing uncertainties such as security and agility. Channel partners and vendors should make investments in this space to help customers embrace the technology and for evolving from on premise to Cloud enabled. Corporate data migration may not be overwhelming during 2012, but this will be an important time for businesses to prepare for the benefits of Cloud computing.

It is estimated that data in the digital universe will double every 18 months. Approximately 95% of that data is unstructured, as it is difficult to control and manage coming from several locations, in many different formats, sometimes incompatible amongst themselves. Even more, 90% of the data is never used after it is created, causing organisations to pay for storage they never actually use. Virtualisation offers organisational control for least cost and has emerged as a credible alternative to traditional computing.

With consumerisation of IT and evolving workforce, the need to access data anytime and anywhere will continue to increase. Security and control systems become important in the mobile universe and channel partners that can help customers ensure corporate data is not compromised can claim the hyped status of trusted advisor.

Green IT is a topic that customers and partners will wrestle with in 2012. Channel partners will be looking at ways they can help their customers in the Middle East get on the path of green IT and enhanced data centre efficiency. As an example, partners could evaluate customer’s energy use by conducting an energy audit. Intelligent data management is another relevant topic in the world of storage and is increasingly appearing on the channel radar. In 2012, the channel will be able to make margins through solutions. Partners need to select right vendors, not necessarily supporting those they have been historically tied down to.

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Havier Haddad, Channel and Alliances Manager, TEAM Region, EMC

IT's biggest transformation We are now experiencing one of the biggest waves of IT transformation in history. Cloud is part of it and Big Data is another part of it. Cloud is becoming more and more into a reality. It is changing from “nice to have”, into a “must have” IT's asset. Cloud is transforming IT into a service and this is becoming into a reality today. On the other hand data is growing at an enormous rate and in an exponential manner – you cannot control or manage it anymore. This is happening in certain market segments like media, healthcare, CTV, oil and gas, research and development.

Vendors today have a choice to provide Cloud services themselves as a service provider or to provide technologies, products and solutions for partners to transform themselves into service providers. These are mutually exclusive choices! Vendors cannot be a service provider themselves and also compete with partner service providers. Wherever Cloud meets Big Data, vendors need to be able to provide a complete portfolio

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of solutions that cover data availability, data reliability, data security, data virtualisation and data leveraging.

Vendors that provide such a range of solutions can actively help their partners go though the IT transformation process. In fact for partners to sell Cloud services, vendors need to have special channel programmes to make this happen. Typically vendors would find themselves in build, operate and transfer mode with their partners. They would help partners to build their business, operate the solutions for them and then transfer the knowledge and know how to their partners – an end to end enablement and activation.

Cloud channel programmes also need to have extra rebates, extra margins and incentives to boost the bottom line margins of partners as they develop and scale their business. Vendors also need to develop Cloud solutions and products that are optimised for sell through the channel and not necessarily through high touch.

Serjios EL-Hage, CEO, EMW

Reading the cards Looking into 2012, here is a list of high probability events.

Microsoft will begin to dominate new networking and technology areas by increasing its share of unified communication and voice over IP solutions. It is also expected to acquire online major Yahoo and increase its share of search engine traffic and online advertising.

Mobile devices and specifically smart phones will continue to play a larger part of consumer daily activity and are expected to become a major device category by 2015. Mobility solutions and applications will mature quickly and evolve to dominate our professional and personal life. Major services providers; customer facing organisations like banks, public sector, airlines, transportation; others will start rolling out their mobile applications. Mobile application developers will see an increasing demand in 2012.

Apple will become the world’s top PC vendor in 2012 due to its continuing success of the iPhone and iPad devices. The Android operating system will continue to dominate global mobile market share and will increase its penetration in the Middle East and Africa region. While social media is driving adoption and evolution of every

possible intelligent device it will also be responsible for evolving contact centres into context based operations.

The adoption of mobile devices will increase exponentially in the enterprise segment. Mobile device management and mobile device security will be a major new technology to be rolled out in the enterprise and will witness a high rate of adoption. Investment in mobile device management and mobile security management is expected to grow by 46% globally and 200% across Middle East and Africa.

The ubiquitous Cloud computing will continue to gain attention throughout 2012 but adoption will be slow due to enterprise security concerns. However expansion of Cloud services will drive demand for data centre infrastructure and data centres will represent the biggest IT spending projects in 2012.

For the first time Smart TVs will begin to start growing in 2012, largely due to content providers beginning to start rolling out their services including online pay per view and on demand streaming services. As tablets improve their performance and form factors, market share of Netbooks will be cannibalised and will be eroded further.

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Amin Mortazavi, General Manager, Imaging and Printing Group, HP Middle East

Demand transformation 2011 was a year to reckon with for the Middle East IT industry, because of the impact of the worldwide economic situation coupled with the political unrest in the region.

These pressures are changing the behaviour of customers both in the consumer space and in the corporate and SMB segments.

There will be less focus on device specifications and price and a move towards interest in features, services and total cost of ownership. With the economic and political situation in the region impacting investment decisions, customers will look for reliable, trusted and innovative solutions and technologies to help them cut costs while boosting productivity and effectiveness.

In the consumer space, mobility will continue to be the main driver in 2012. Vendors that lead their industries with innovations in portable and mobile devices, cloud services, mobile printing and connectivity will win attention of customers. Consumers will look for technologies that allow them to be on the move, remain connected to the web and the cloud, while helping them to save on total cost of ownership.

The SMB, corporate and government sector customers will realise

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even further the importance of total cost of ownership, which includes running costs, manageability, integration, maintenance and more.

Corporate companies and government entities will look at new ways of running their IT infrastructure. An example of this is managed print services, which allows customers low cost of ownership and initial investment, while providing them with the latest technologies for their printing requirements.

From a channel perspective, markets are becoming more competitive and aggressive. Channel partners will look to vendors to provide them with tools to be able to compete profitably. Tools should include differentiating technologies and solutions, support programs tailored to their requirements and necessary knowledge transfer and expertise. Channel partners need to use these tools to create offerings, services and solutions tailored to their customers that are unique and differentiating.

So in 2012, we expect customers to be more attentive to purchasing decisions looking at innovation and total cost of ownership rather than specifications and price. The IT industry is driven by innovation and providers that invest in introducing leading technologies that drive change in their markets will help customers and partners cut costs, be more effective and more competitive.

Salim Ziade, General Manager, PSG, HP Middle East

Innovation battle 2011 has been a year of transformation for the technology sector and we have witnessed new trends and significant product and service innovation. The market has evolved and stabilised over the last two years. As consumers demand more lifestyle innovations and integration with the PC we have also seen the rise in demand for gaming, design and music functionality.

Innovation and research and development are vital for an IT business. However, to do this we need to understand the consumer and commercial needs and expectations. Customers, at home and work are increasingly looking for simple, more secure and more reliable machines. It is no longer just about a high performance PC, but the additional functions and supporting products that come with it.

This is not just a challenge for HP but for all technology businesses globally, whether it is integrating new software such as Microsoft with Windows 8 or Intel with its new processor for ultra books. Due to all these factors competition will continue to be fierce.

So what lies ahead? The introduction of software such as

Microsoft Windows 8 is an important and innovative step forward with its touch functionality, and this will transform the way consumers utilise and interact with their PC. This trend will also further accelerate the demand for tablets, and also the use of cloud computing, a term that many consumers are still unsure of. A crucial link in the channel chain is our retailers and the relationships we hold with them. Based on these new innovations we expect to see significant market growth in the second half of 2012.

From a sector perspective we expect demand and growth in education, healthcare and financial segments. There has already been an increase in investment in education with universities and schools looking for more effective technologies to support the learning and teaching process. The introduction of proof of concept in universities in Egypt, for example, ensures that technology platforms are affordable, scalable and sustainable.

This ensures educators have more time preparing students for the 21st century workforce.

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Amir Sohrabi, Regional Alliance Manager, Middle East and Africa, SAS

Data overload The year 2012 promises to continue the fast pace of technology evolution and convergence and this means IT will continue to grow and expand across a range of industries. The key to success will be to stay focused on what matters and what can make the biggest impact on your business. The IT business will continue to grow and expand across a range of industries at a faster pace than we have seen before.

Information management is not a product, but rather a strategy or approach for organizations to leverage information as a compelling asset, regardless of type or source. It can be defined as the integration of unstructured and semi-structured data into the established discipline of business intelligence, as well as extraction and analysis of structured data to maximize business value of information.

The convergence of Big Data and analytics is an area of rapidly growing diversity. Some of the characteristics include

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the notion that customary data warehousing solutions are slow, limited in scalability, and expensive to integrate both structured and unstructured data from multiple data sources on the fly. Swift expansion of social media is increasing the flow of data from these sites, which if harnessed appropriately will enable organisations to better serve their clients.

New and advanced skills will be required to harness the values of information management, Big Data and social media. Obtaining, enabling and keeping these skills require a vibrant workforce and a robust compensation strategy that emphasizes hiring, training, retaining, or outsourcing to the best talent available. This will drive many firms to collaborate and create consortiums based on their talent pool.

Growing market pressures and scrutiny from regulators, senior management and boards of directors have made organisations anxious to promote sound policies and procedures that foster business practices that are trustworthy, reliable and effective.

Mazen Jabri, Head of Ecosystem and Channels, Middle East and North Africa, SAP

Bull Run Notwithstanding the turmoil in the region, the outlook for ERP solutions across the region remains bullish from 2012 into 2015. Driving this growth are market segments like oil and gas, public sector and family run conglomerates. The latter segment is very important and unique to the MENA region where about a hundred family run diversified businesses control about 60% of the region’s turnover. The conglomerates remain entrenched in trading, manufacturing and retail, amongst others.

Another key market segment to support growth is the small and medium businesses. A Cloud based solution is favourable for this market segment. However there are still regulatory issues that are limiting the roll out of Cloud based solutions in this region. While best practices from other parts of the globe can be adopted for the region, the legal framework that defines ownership of a Cloud based license, the title of the license, book keeping for the revenue transfer, amongst others do not match the global best practices.

Since the legal framework of the region cannot be modified, the

Cloud based licensing model needs to be modified to match the regional legal framework. “The book needs to be written from scratch�. The time to market for the Cloud based solution for the small and medium business is dependent on this process.

To ride the expected regional Bull Run, ERP channel partners need to be enabled, less in terms of numbers but more in terms of skills and capability. Once a partner has been identified and has been accepted in terms of both their business model and vendor fit, skills development becomes the next most important stage of the transition process. And after skills enablement, the partner works with the vendor on business development and lead generation. Hence in order to scale effectively with the regional ERP business opportunity, the focus shifts from recruitment of channel partners, to enablement, then demand generation from small and medium business segments and finally to fulfilment and continuing support.

For SAP, the MENA region is the second most important investment region globally after Russia and CIS countries.

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Narendra Talreja, Director IT and Managed Services, Seven Seas Computers

Hosted services, opportunity or threat The economic downturn had stalled all evolutions except on the technology front, where vendors and service providers moved their focus on enabling technologies as opposed to being product centric.

Virtualisation, consolidation, private and public Cloud, mobility solutions, SaaS, PaaS, IaaS and managed services are few of the technologies being aggressively positioned via the channel community to the end customer. The deterrents in this area are availability, pricing, contractual fulfilment and compliance.

Consumerisation of IT would become a trend across the region by means of the above enabling technologies. IT infrastructure would be available as subscription and on demand based on consumption. Challenges would still haunt in terms of pricing, technical support, SLAs and data integrity due to vagueness of cyber laws, compliance and regulation in the region. Conventional partner or system integrator model will be restricted or limited to

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only delivering on-premise solutions or private cloud offerings.

Acceptance of consumerisation of IT and performance will remain a big question mark until bandwidth is available and cheap.

Changing business models like collocation, hosting services, application service providers, IT resource augmentation by system integrators and conglomerate companies would soon become a trend. International providers would seek local partnerships and models to provide the same services with regional telecos getting more competitive in price and technologies.

A deterrent here would be localisation of data and services being provided. Regional balances would definitely aid UAE in particular considering the focus of the vendors and providers being present in emerging markets in the Gulf and Middle East.

Though the above pointers are well accepted in the IT fraternity, the deterrents mentioned above would still need to be managed in the near future.

Ramzi Itani, Regional Channel and Alliance Director MENA, Symantec

Mobility, security, storage Various megatrends will shape the IT industry in 2012.

The channel can derive significant benefit if they adjust their business model to match these trends.

The line between personal and corporate devices is slowly fading. Employees are bringing new devices into the corporate network and IT departments are challenged with ensuring company data remains safe and secure on these devices. Productivity levels can be hindered if organisations do not allow employees to be mobile and have access to the data they need, anytime, anywhere. This means IT departments need to have the ability to encrypt the device, authenticate the user, protect the data and finally manage the device.

According to IDC, there is huge growth in server virtualization across 2012. However, visibility is important because you cannot protect what you cannot see. While virtualisation brings flexibility and efficiency, it also brings real challenges if new business drivers are not addressed. Being able to see exactly what is happening in your virtual environments is necessary to ensure they are secure, backed up and available.

The explosive growth of data is one of the top challenges every data centre faces today. It is estimated that over 80% of enterprise content now consists of email, documents, presentations and other types of unstructured information. This explosion of information has a significant impact on storage spending.

75% of attacks hit less than 50 computers, implying every business faces customised threats. The security threat landscape is becoming more complex and more dynamic every year and is now not only a concern for the IT department, but also at the board level. Companies are learning through experience that an anti-virus and a firewall are not sufficient to keep them protected.

There is a distinct move away from securing infrastructure and appliances, toward securing information and interactions.

Finally, Cloud is and will continue to be the biggest change that has happened to IT in the last 30 years. The question is what role will channel partners play in the Cloud delivery business and other unfolding opportunities.

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Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Director of Sales, Middle East and Africa, Western Digital

Personal Cloud The main trends in 2012 will circle around mobility and the Cloud. The idea of being permanently online in every situation and place will prevail more and more. It is not just our homes which will be connected but our whole lives. Due to the rapidly growing amounts of data being produced not only storage and backup but also management and easy accessibility of this data from anywhere, will become crucial for consumer and business users.

The demand for safe and uncomplicated storage solutions will grow, within the public, private and hybrid Clouds. Network attached storage solutions are still very abstract and technical in the minds of most consumers. As trust in public Cloud solutions and their commitment to data security has been decreasing, consumers will begin to be interested in personal Cloud solutions. Looking at huge data volumes, transfer speed will become an important topic with innovations such as the Thunderbolt interface, which has not really established itself in the market due to high costs, gaining momentum in 2012.

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2012 will be a challenging year for the European economy due to the Euro crisis. But it will not be a bleak time for the IT market and there will be great opportunities emerging from the crisis. IT productivity will become even more important for companies and they might rather invest in upgrades rather than buying new solutions. If the IT industry succeeds in meeting these requirements some companies may be able to excel. Also certain segments will boom despite the crises especially tablets and smartphones.

2012 will also be a very busy year for Western Digital. The flood in Thailand in October last year posed enormous challenges for the company and its aftermath continues into 2012. To bring normalcy it will work closely with its component suppliers to rebuild the complete supply chain. It is also expected to close the acquisition of Hitachi Global Storage Technologies in the near future. With the need for storage space growing rapidly there is little risk of overcapacity or decrease in demand levels. Without exception, wherever data is stored, in the public cloud, the corporate or private cloud, hard disk drives will continue to be the best mass storage medium for a long time.

PARTNERS For WHY US >>>

Brocade The company PC is becoming a thing of the past, as businesses allow and encourage employees to bring their consumer devices into the workplace and access corporate applications. This will allow application availability anytime, anywhere and Manu Bonnassie, will help business slash procurement costs. Next Regional Sales year we will see at least one high profile security Director Central disaster as a result of this trend. In the current Europe, Middle East and Africa, Brocade economy, businesses look to sweat every asset Communications at their disposal and more and more will look to leverage their data centre environments to offer cloud services as an additional revenue stream. The maturity of server virtualisation means that hardware is less important. And finally, the year of FABRIC, holistic data centre fabrics, from storage environments to Ethernet networks, are going to be the big trend in 2012.

Commvault Data management is becoming a business critical issue for CIOs and this will be a key focus in 2012.

Significant strides and investments in infrastructure and connectivity have meant easier and faster access to data. We are all storing and copying two Colin Summers, times, three times or even ten times more data, Regional Director, and in so many different forms, than we were two CommVault or three years ago. We must also consider this increase is neither stopping nor slowing down. The key question is: “How can I more effectively manage the growth of data, without increasing costs and within my budget constraints?� For the channel, it makes sense to consider adding data management solutions to their specialisations. Since CIOs also have the challenge of weighing up capital costs versus operational costs, channel partners need to be able to offer an array of different financing options.

FVC The year 2012 will see activity in many areas.

End users will ask for more, but will be ready to pay less and channel partners need to be ready to meet this expectation. Compliance on security standards, transition to opex from capex as a payment mode, higher demand KS Parag, Managing Director, FVC for unified communication solutions, gradual acceptance and trial of Cloud based solutions and movement away from traditional email to more of instant messaging type of communication, will be amongst the leading trends in 2012. For channel partners, Cloud will create an opportunity for migration of data platforms and for consulting services to manage the change process. End customers are approaching the Cloud in a stepwise fashion and there are opportunities for solution providers to take them to the next level of adoption.

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Commscope The UAE market will shrink in 2011 but has sufficient opportunities to maintain business levels. Saudi Arabia is now firmly the largest single IT market and will continue to maintain current levels, which are impressive compared to other Middle East and African Ciaran Forde, Vice markets. Further, normalisation and increased business President Enterprise, is expected from emerging markets within this region Middle East and like Iraq and Afghanistan. Cloud computing will still Africa, CommScope be the talk in the industry but commercial enterprises will not flip for this architecture for another two to three years. 4G GSM trials will be in place by most mobile operators. This will trigger activity for superior in-building wireless technology, which can cater for large buildings and allow multiple operators to use a single infrastructure effectively.

Corporate enterprise will see a greater move to technologies that yield green dividends and to smart or intelligent networks and systems.

ESET We have a positive outlook for the coming year as we expect the regional market to do well in 2012 once countries like Egypt, Bahrain and Libya stabilise. The channel will face more competition on margins and providing better support to clients Aji Joseph, General will be the key differentiator for them. We will Manager, ESET also see distributors focusing more on their value added business in the coming year. As far as the threat space is concerned we expect mobile devices including smart phones and tablets to be a major target for cyber criminals in the coming year. We will also see a rise in attacks on Java, PDF and Flash file types. Signing of malware with stolen digital certificates will be major issue in 2012. Social media will continue to be a major target for cyber criminals as more people have started using the applications.

GBM Customers’ expectation will continue to increase in making effective use of technologies as more smart devices are sold. The sale of these devices will be higher than laptops and PCs combined. Employees are demanding to use these devices in the work place. This creates a major opportunity for improved Soubhi Chebib, Director IBM Systems connectivity of applications, systems and networks, Brand, Gulf Business increased demand on data networks, increased Machines expectation for higher level of service levels and increased access and data security risk. This will increase the demand for products and services to improve security and reduce vulnerability. The journey towards smart computing will also accelerate. In 2011, we have already seen the drive to get more for less from operational expenses. In 2012, we can expect consolidation, virtualisation and automation to gain full speed in order reduce the operational costs.

HelpAG Cloud is a technology that is going to change all of our business in the coming years. But end users are still to come to terms with the security concerns of the Cloud, especially when it involves confidential data. For such data, who is going to decide what is confidential or not for an organisation and this will Stephen Berner, Managing Director, decide the nature of SLAs. If you look at security help AG concerns, more than 70% of the incidents are from within an organisation. How will you control people? Overall the information security market will be much better in 2012. Even in 2011, market segments like banking and finance, healthcare, educational institutions invested in information security solutions and this is expected into 2012. In 2011, government departments went through budget restructuring and this has now been completed. They are also expected to invest in information security in 2012.

MSI Although Android now has a high market share in tablets and smart phones, the total shipments are not as good as expected. The launch of Windows 8 in the second half of 2012 may be a game changer.

Windows 8 highlights a lot on touch functions and Green Lin, NB Channel will support multiple platforms including tablets and Marketing, Micro-Star smart phones. Saudi Arabia is still one of the biggest International markets in the Middle East. The penetration rate for laptops has already reached 80% of the total PC market and we see this number still growing. For high-end products, UAE and Kuwait are good markets. Retailers are growing and many of them are opening more branches in different cities and even other countries. We see the channel landscape becoming more like a pan-Middle East business.

The gaming market is booming in the Middle East and this is a good time to bring high-performance desktops to the market.

Ruckus Wireless The Middle East is full of opportunity in 2012. WiFi is a fast moving technology. All the industry players use the same chipsets and they are going to be updated in 2012. Additionally 2012 is the year that Smartphones are expected to outpace PC sales Arnaud Lehung, EMEA worldwide. In the next year we expect employees, Marketing Director, customers and partners to bring smartphones, Ruckus Wireless tablets and other devices to the office and expect network connections. Gone are the days of the IT department controlled desktop PC. We need to adapt the technology to deal with hundreds of additional devices all connecting simultaneously. The Middle East is a huge market for smartphones and tablets, so the need for WiFi is increasing rapidly. Thousands of visitors are travelling for business reasons in the region and carry several connected devices. Iraq has a huge potential.

Red Hat Year 2012 looks like an interesting year in the region. The Arab Spring will have lingering effect in some countries and will create opportunities in other countries. From the middle of 2012, we will see recovery in countries like Libya and Egypt.

Other powerhouses like Saudi Arabia and UAE George DeBono, General Manager will continue to be key markets, but one or two Middle East and Africa, countries will start to fight for a greater share of Red Hat global awareness and investment. The impact caused by current situations in Europe and US will be marginalised to certain sectors like banking and finance. In all probability, we will start to see Middle East as a key player in global recovery. We see a maturing of offerings in areas such as Cloud driven by users coming to grips with what Cloud actually is - a service delivery platform.Â

Optimus Cloud has moved out of the blueprint into the technology bill of materials for the enterprise community. What are they doing with Cloud: Infrastructure, customization, integration, cross pollination and brokering. However, barriers for Meera Kaul, Managing adopting Cloud solutions are huge and biggest Director, Optimus amongst them is to find a place in the existing Technology and enterprise technology blueprint. Another looming Telecom concern is security: even the largest public Clouds have failed to address this completely. Solutions and business models that promote Cloud adoption with lower TCO of technology will rule the market. Technology infrastructure on virtualisation, mobility and security will seemingly make the trend. Usage of legacy networks and storage in a highly virtualised environment is already leading to performance issues. There will be growth in mobility and security.

Safenet Predictions for 2012 in the Middle East show the share of security spending within the overall IT budget will keep increasing for both private and public sector. The drivers are threats of data breach, compliance, regulation, mobility, virtualisation or Cloud computing. In parallel Sebastien Pavie, Regional Sales most major IT vendors have actively continued Director MEA, Safenet developing their security offerings organically and through a number of significant acquisitions in 2011, within existing applications as well as through new security solutions. In 2012 the established security distributor and reseller channels should keep growing, while in parallel broadline distributors and resellers are expected to accelerate the integration of security components into their overall portfolio. On top of that the channel is also actively developing its overall value added services offering.

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Frost & Sullivan’s regional forecast Technology adoption including the role of 3G and 4G data services dominate the regional forecast from this global research firm. Geographical fragmentation, multiple languages, cultural differences limit the ability of African markets to scale at pace with the Middle East.

Across Saudi Arabia, ERP and CRM form a significant portion of the total enterprise application market in the region. The need to automate and integrate enterprise-wide resources has led to higher adoption of ERP in Saudi Arabia.

For 2010, the ERP market was primarily driven by government, manufacturing, retail and distribution and telecom sectors signing in for large scale implementations, which contributed to over 60% of the total ERP revenue. The ERP market in Saudi Arabia is expected to grow at a CAGR of about 18%.

The research firm expects to see continuing merger and acquisition activities in the MENA telecommunications region during 2012. The Middle East and North African market is dominated by major global tier one telecom service providers, followed by a host of smaller regional and locally owned companies. Outsourcing service providers conduct customer care operations with onshore, near shore and offshore operations. Due to geographical issues, multiple languages and cultures, the MENA market is very fragmented. Financial services, high technology, credit card, insurance and communications continue to represent the most prominent vertical markets. Help desk services around information technology, high technology and general customer servicing continues to be one of the fastest growing segments within contact centre outsourcing.

Content generation is likely to be another area of increased activity in 2012 on all sorts of media platforms. There is an active participation by various stakeholders

such as content and media companies to promote activity in this segment.

The development of mobile and web applications is likely to be the greatest area of focus in this regard.

With a parallel launch of LTE services in Saudi Arabia, by Mobily and STC, the intense data race has become even more evident with a clear agenda to maximise market share and gain early leadership. Seamless connectivity, geographic reach, quality of

Financial services, high technology, credit card, insurance and communications continue to represent the most prominent vertical markets. service and content are amongst the other likely contributors. Social networking, video sharing and online gaming is increasing in popularity and thus mobile customers in Saudi Arabia now record higher mobile data usage levels. The initial launch of LTE services will be limited to only major cities, with operators expected to increase service coverage gradually in 2012-2013.

Regional operators Etisalat and du, are competing on technology and gearing up towards launching 4G networks.

The operators have announced their commitment towards LTE and are working

with infrastructure vendors in trials and deployment of LTE networks. Other technologies being utilised for wireless broadband are 3G, HSPA+ and WiMAX. However, these services are limited to a few cities and therefore there is huge scope of expansion in the broadband market with the introduction of LTE technology in Saudi Arabia.

Fixed-Line infrastructure sharing is a key part of the TRA’s plan to increase competition in the fixed-line voice and data sector. Infrastructure sharing will now allow residents from any part of the UAE to choose their fixed line provider. Efforts and investments are expected to be seen in the area of broadband technologies (4G), satellite communications, wireless technologies, security and encryption and sensor area networks.

The historic growth levels of the MENA mobile market are unlikely to continue as most countries in the region are nearing maturity, but the region’s fixed line market is expected to show high levels of growth as operators make increased investments in fibre to the home. The UAE is expected to be the first country in the world to have 100% broadband internet penetration through FTTH technology.

With economic growth seemingly back on track, 2012 should be a year in which telcos within the MENA region can reinstate their growing trends and is expected to feature as one of the most dynamic and fast growing telecommunications sector in the world. //

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Gartner’s top predictions As users take more control of the devices they will use, business managers are taking more control of IT budgets. Loss of control echoes through Gartner’s top predictions presented below. This comes along with relentless attention to security in a changing world. As the world of IT moves forward, it is finding it must coordinate activities in a much wider scope than it once controlled.

By 2016, at least 50% of enterprise email users will rely primarily on a browser, tablet or mobile client, instead of a desktop client.

While the rise in popularity of mobile devices and the growing comfort with browser use for enterprise applications preordains a richer mix of email clients and access mechanisms, Gartner believes the pace of change over the next four years will be breathtaking. The growing popularity

Highlights IT budgets are moving out of the control of IT departments, which means IT must reach out to the business Cloud models are forcing changes onto internal IT departments and onto traditional outsourcers, but security assertions and certifications for cloud providers are still lacking in completeness and availability Mobile devices continue to outgrow PCs as preferred primary computing devices The availability of large amounts of data will overwhelm most companies’ ability to understand that data

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of Google Gmail, which is optimised for browser access, as an enterprise email supplier will accelerate email browser dependency, as will the uptake of HTML5.

Migration away from local email archives to very large, centralised mailboxes, particularly in the cloud, will decrease the need for a desktop email client. Lifestyle changes will also accelerate the trend. There is a growing expectation on the part of businesses that employees will be available during non work hours, and that location should not be a barrier to communication.

Gartner expects the impending Windows 8 by year end 2012 from Microsoft to contribute to the trend. This OS will run on ARM processers, in addition to Intel processors, and will be touch-enabled for deployment on tablets, accelerating the uptake of Outlook running on tablets and smartphones. Gartner believes it is inevitable that Microsoft will release versions of Outlook running on Android.

By 2016, 40% of enterprises will make proof of independent security testing a precondition for using any type of cloud service.

Cloud providers of all kinds, including providers of application operations, data management, infrastructure management and security, will become top targets for hackers from all over the world. This is because cloud providers store critical

data from a large number of cloud clients, which from the hackers’ viewpoint is worth stealing, and run applications that are worth abusing. For this reason, while enterprises are evaluating the potential cloud benefits in terms of management simplicity, economies of scale and workforce optimisation, it is equally critical they carefully evaluate cloud services for their ability to resist security threats and attacks.

Enterprises will be unable to test cloud providers’ systems themselves for a number of reasons. The applications the cloud provider uses to service its clients are its most valuable intellectual property, and the provider will be reluctant to grant access for inspection purposes. Moreover, even when inspection is authorised, most enterprises do not have necessary skills or resources to conduct such security testing. For this reason, many enterprises will use cloud services brokerages as the inspecting agency.

Vendors of application security testing technologies, both static application security testing and dynamic application security testing, will play a critical role in the third party independent testing and compliance verification of outsourced, packaged and cloud applications. Most of these vendors have already begun to deliver their capabilities as services, offering them alongside their application security products.

Technology is short term, but partnership is long term

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

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

demand-driven value networks. Supply chain service providers, including consulting and advisory firms, will need to deliver more sophisticated and comprehensive supply chain assessments.

By 2014, 20% of Asia-sourced finished goods and assemblies consumed in the US will shift to the Americas.

Political, environmental, economic and supply chain risks are causing many companies serving the US market to shift sources of supply, from Asia to the Americas, including Latin America, Canada and the US. Except in cases where there is a unique manufacturing process or product intellectual property, most products are candidates to be relocated.

North American enterprises underestimate the total supply chain costs of offshoring the supply network to Asia.

Escalating oil prices globally and rising wages in many offshore markets, plus the hidden costs associated with offshore outsourcing, erode the cost savings that did not account for critical supply chain factors, such as inventory carrying costs, lead times, demand variability and product quality.

Double-digit economic growth in many offshore markets means a larger portion of output generated in those markets will be consumed within those markets instead of being exported to developed markets.

Locating manufacturing or sourcing from suppliers that are closer to customer demand enables enterprises to respond faster, thereby reducing risks, lead times and costs, including transportation and inventory carrying costs.

Enterprises must analyse their supply chain networks. Supply chain realignments will become a public relations challenge.

Decisions that involve repatriating operations will be lauded, while those that involve outsourcing will be criticised. The net result is enterprises will need help in assessing, redesigning and transforming internally oriented supply chains into market-focused, 44

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By 2015, 35% of enterprise IT expenditures for most organisations will be managed outside the IT department’s budget.

Next generation digital enterprises are being driven by a new wave of business managers and individual employees who no longer need technology to be contextualised for them by an IT department. These people are demanding control over the IT expenditure required to evolve the organisation within the confines of their roles and responsibilities.

Global spending on media tablets is forecast to increase at an annual average rate of 52% through 2015. That is set against a backdrop of weakening demand for traditional PCs in developed economies.

These devices will have an increased impact on the enterprise and yet it is users who are driving both purchases and platform support decisions.

A constant refrain from CIOs has been the desire to drive greater alignment between the IT organisation and the rest of the business. That wish is rapidly coming true, but not necessarily in the way imagined. Rather than seeking help to apply established IT products within established IT practices, non-IT professionals understand the potential of digitisation and are applying ideas in their own way.

CIOs will see some of their current budget simply reallocated to other areas of the business. In other cases, IT projects will be redefined as business projects, with line of business managers in control.

By year end 2016, more than 50% of Global 1000 companies will have stored customer sensitive data in the public cloud.

With the current global economy facing ongoing financial pressure, organisations are compelled to reduce operational costs and streamline their efficiency. Responding to this imperative, it is estimated that more than 20% of organisations in 2011 have already begun to selectively store their customer sensitive data in hybrid architecture that is a combined

deployment of on premise solutions with a private or public cloud provider.

Many CIOs rank the improvement of their agility very high, but fear the tradeoff in introducing greater risk. Leaders of organisations must realise that by going to hybrid architectures, not only will they add significant complexity, but they will also continue to bear both the tangible and intangible costs of running multiple environments.

This journey to the public cloud will take organisations to the next level. However it will inevitably prove to be one with its fair set of challenges. Organisations will recognise the need to reengineer their business processes and governance policies as they embark on the public cloud. The growth of organisational roles such as legal counsel, infrastructure planning engineers and network and security specialists will be in much greater demand.

Through 2015, more than 85% of Fortune 500 organisations will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive advantage.

Current trends in smart devices and growing Internet connectivity are creating significant increases in the volume of data available, but the complexity, variety and velocity with which it is delivered combine to amplify the problem beyond the simple issues of volume. As the number and diversity of smart devices grows, so does the volume of data they generate.

While volume of data is an issue, the complementary aspects of velocity: the speed with which data is being presented, variety: the broad range of data types being presented and complexity: around growing volume of unstructured data from social networks, are equally challenging.

The combination of challenges and the relentless increase in accessible data available and being presented leads us to the conclusion that the majority of organisations will fail at one or more of these steps, effectively reducing their ability to gain a competitive advantage from big data through at least 2015.

Excerpted with permission from Gartner's Top Predictions for IT Organisations and Users, 2012 and Beyond. Analysts: Daryl C Plummer, Stephen Prentice, Claudio Da Rold, Joseph Feiman, John Pescatore, William Clark, Matthew W Cain, Brian Prentice, Sandra Notardonato, Michael Dominy, Gavin Tay, Michael Gartenberg, Peter Middleton, Jorge Lopez.

feature Smartphones

Year of mobility A late entrant into the fast paced smartphone arena, Microsoft is expected to cover ground with its Mango ecosystem. Motorola’s Razr is also expected to expand into the enterprise market.

Microsoft is not a new player in the smartphone landscape. In 2001 Microsoft announced Windows CE, their first attempt to bring intelligent devices under a unified operating systems umbrella.

But as a mobile operating systems vendor, with limited functionality in their offering, they made little progress in this landscape. In late 2010 they launched a much improved Windows Phone version 7.0 and handset vendors began to pay attention to Microsoft’s development team. In September 2011, Microsoft released a hugely enhanced version 7.5 termed as Mango and the snowball has been rolling since.

The new Mango interface features Live Tiles, an interface that allows the complete matrix of social media application to be displayed on one layer. The cumbersome process of navigating through individual interfaces has been removed. Any updates to your social media accounts are displayed on one layer and are easy to spot. You can move pix, clips and other content from one application to another using the Live Tiles layer. Mango also has inbuilt corporate and enterprise applications including Office and Link for unified communication.

However, unlike its traditional IT market, Microsoft is now entering the world of smartphones as a late entrant with Mango.

Rival Google’s Android operating system, used by equipment vendors Samsung and HTC, now dominates the smartphone landscape. The sheer level of hardware, touch screen and download capability innovation by Samsung in its Galaxy II series of smartphones, sitting on top of the Android OS platform amongst others, has seen its

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volume growth surging close to 300%, year on year. The loyal iPhone community has also secured iOS firmly in the landscape and this is growing at more than 50%.

Reflects Adnan Al Falah, Chairman, SIT Distribution, which handles HTC’s distribution in the GCC: “18 months ago we had a combination of Android and Windows Phone from HTC on the shelves. Since then Microsoft has had to reinvent itself.” From an HTC point of view, Microsoft was actually the first smartphone platform in the market when it launched Windows Phone 7 in 2010.

“But the platform itself was neglected by

At this stage, Fuchs objective is to give any online consumer in the region, the choice to select an appropriate Windows Phone device, with its inbuilt configuration and applications, purchase it and have fun Microsoft. They never really pushed it or encouraged the corporate reseller to adopt the sales of smart phone devices through the corporate channels, which was in any case Microsoft centric. That game was missed by Microsoft, which meant the gap was open for others to walk in. Google’s Android changed the landscape totally and before that Apple changed the landscape totally.”

Today with Mango, Microsoft is entering the market with almost a clean slate and may have a winner in place. Remarks Hannu Ruoppa, Senior Vice President Middle East

and Africa, Brightpoint, Microsoft’s regional e-commerce partner: “Windows Phone 7 was good but I am impressed by the quality of Windows Phone 7.5. We are pretty optimistic based on the prospects of Windows Phone.

The smart phone business is growing and we want to be the front runner of that business.”

“We launched Windows Phone globally a year ago and we have taken small steps on making it available in this region”, says Gustavo Fuchs, Director, Mobility, Microsoft Middle East and Africa. The dynamics of consumer go to market in the region are quite different from the western world and in this region the retail channel is very important to get smart phones to the consumer.

However Microsoft’s immediate regional objective is to get Windows Phone with any of its associated hardware partners like Acer, Dell Nokia, HTC, LG, Samsung and ZTE amongst others, to its early adopters and enthusiasts as the first launch wave. It is for the this reason that is has tied up with global wireless device distributor Brightpoint, to use its e-commerce capability to set up a portal targeted at Middle East and Africa for its Windows Phone devices and related accessories. The portal will handle orders and deliveries to 25 countries and will use UAE and South Africa as the logistics hubs. At this stage, Fuchs objective is to give any online consumer in the region, the choice to select

Another late entrant into the smartphone arena is Motorola Mobility. It recently launched its Razr device based on Android OS in November 2011. The Razr has a strong feature portfolio built for both the consumer and business user. But the business side outweighs the consumer side by far. While there are 300,000 applications globally built for the Android platform, Motorola has been able to differentiate its offering on the Razr device. “When it comes to differentiation, if it is a standard platform, it does not mean you cannot differentiate. We are adding, value added technology on top of Android. We get Android from Android like all the other vendors but we choose not to launch it in vanilla form. We believe this is the winning recipe,” explains Raed Hafez, Managing Director Middle East and Africa, Motorola Mobility.

Motorola is using three go to market channels for its latest Razr smartphone device. “Middle East in general is a very strong retail market. Retail has to be in the forefront of any go to market strategy for a smart phone operator.” The other channel is through data and air time promotions with telecom operators across the region and Motorola has made progress with Etisalat in UAE and STC in Saudi Arabia. The third and most important channel is entry into the enterprise user space.

The IT manager is faced with an increasing variety and number of active smartphone devices on the corporate wireless network. Their top most concern is to have a centralised way of managing the devices including real life vulnerability and

an appropriate Windows Phone device, with its inbuilt configuration and applications, purchase it and have fun.

Fuchs plans to reach the mass consumer somewhere in 2012 when all the components are in place. The check list and count down for these components includes tie ups with telecom operators for partner device bundling, application payment gateways linked up with operator billing systems, operator specific applications developed or uploaded at the Windows Phone hub, operator specific applications ported to hardware vendor devices, sufficient number of regional applications available at Windows Phone hub, fully enabled Arabic localisation and standardisation of device chassis specifications with OEMs. Most of these items have already been completed between Microsoft and its developer partners and the rest is being shared with OEMs and telecom operators ramp up towards a mass launch in 2012.

While Microsoft can prepare the operating system platform and the applications to support the device vendors, Fuchs draws the line over there. “Each OEM makes local decisions in which country it will be available. Every OEM has their business decisions and we respect that. We want to make sure when they decide to come to a market we are here to support them.” This is line with Microsoft’s brand objective where product development is directly linked to market requirement and opportunity. Hence an OEM’s readiness to go or not go to market is not an influencing decision for Microsoft’s regional launch date.

security concerns. The enterprise features on Razr allow an IT manager to enable or disable the device, wipe clean the micro SD, disable the USB port and camera and lock the device in case it is lost or stolen. Razr also has other enterprise features like Motocast that allows remote access of files; MotoPrint that allows remote printing; Polycom for unified communication including VPN; Citrix to manage a PC remotely and Quickoffice for Microsoft Office files.

“Globally people are looking for more choices for enterprise devices. IT managers are looking at how to bring in a new breed of smart phones into their work without losing control. Since Android is the largest smartphone platform every IT manager is looking to see what they need to do to make the network ready for Android.” Razr is designed with a complete enterprise management portfolio and “few other Android device vendors have this today,” according to Hafez.

With so many cross currents in the smartphone landscape it is not surprising that IDC calls 2012, “the year of mobile ascendancy.” It will be a year when mobile device shipments exceed the number of PCs for the first time in technology history and the industry shifts to the third platform. This will force players to make bold and fateful decisions. “Companies like Apple, Microsoft, RIM, HP, SAP and others, will face crossroads moments in 2012,” says Frank Gens, Senior Vice President and Chief Analyst IDC. “By end of 2012 we should have a good idea, which vendors will and which won’t be among the leaders at the end of the decade.”

Global smartphone market (Millions of units)

Operating system

Q2, Q3 2011

Market share %

Rank by share %

Q2, Q3 2010

YOY growth %

Samsung

Android, Bada

40.9

HTC

Android

24.4

Rank by growth %

18%

1

10.9

275%

1

11%

4

10.3

137%

2

Apple

iOS

37.4

17%

2

22.5

66%

3

RIM

OS propreitary

24.2

11%

5

23.6

3%

4

Nokia

Symbian OS

33.5

15%

3

50.5

-34%

5

Others

64.2

29%

29.4

118%

Total shipments

224.6

147.2

53%

Source: IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker. Vendor shipments are branded shipments and exclude OEM sales for all vendors.

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feature Smartphones

Gustavo Fuchs, Director, Mobility, Microsoft Middle East and Africa

Fully loaded Windows Phone is built on three pillars of usage: communication, applications and internet beyond the browser. The latest version of Windows Phone operating system 7.5, nicknamed Mango, has much more powerful features of social media and contact integration than the release in 2010.

The idea is that the application developer community should have enough time to develop applications and make them available on the Windows Phone hub before a full blown launch of the phone takes place in 2012. However due to various factors like localisation of the Arabic language, sufficient volume of hardware units in the regional markets, tieups with telecom operators amongst others, Windows Phone with the Mango platform is not yet available in regional markets. “But Microsoft has a huge ecosystem of developers in addition to mobility, on PC

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and Cloud. Those developers are on Microsoft platform and they want to develop applications for mobility,” explains Fuchs.

Microsoft has therefore encouraged its mobility application developers to sell their applications both globally and regionally.

“And developers from this region can make money from the western world -- that was our objective.” In the last six months 500 Mango applications from UAE and 3,000 applications from the region have been uploaded at the Windows Phone hub. “It is not about the phone it is about what developers can do.”

Another requirement for application developers is to have their applications security checked before they are made available to the user community. “We want to avoid cases that happen in other eco systems, that is why our market place has these procedures.”

Other than working with its developer community on applications, the next most important link in the chain for Microsoft is to work with hardware device vendors or OEMs.

While Microsoft can build in checks to monitor the quality of the applications, the final user experience while using the phone from any of its equipment partners is also to be kept into consideration. Since mobile devices can range between a good phone and a terrible phone; an expensive phone and a cheap one; Microsoft has come up with the idea of a chassis specification for any partner OEM. All mobile devices that support Mango must have a minimum of three buttons including the phone, lock-unlock and camera click button; it must have a minimum processor of 1 Ghz; and must have a 5 mega pixels inbuilt camera. OEMs can adopt a lot of ways to differentiate themselves but the minimum chassis configuration specified by Microsoft must be adhered to, otherwise the end user experience will be compromised. “We do not want that, this is the key aspect. While competing on price points will be important in the market place, we do not want to compromise.”

Hannu Ruoppa, Senior Vice President Middle East and Africa, Brightpoint

Online powerhouse Brightpoint is a global value added distributor for mobile wireless vendors. Other than box moving Brightpoint provides customised packaging, software updates, accessory packing, corporate customisation, reverse logistics and delivery to end customers in some parts of the world. In 2010, close to 100 million mobile devices shipped through its warehouses in 35 countries, which is 7% of the global volume. In the Middle East and Africa it supports Acer, Nokia, LG, ZTE and Samsung in select countries.

Brightpoint has been supporting e-commerce sites for telecom operators and retail outlets in the US and Europe for the last five years. “In these countries people buy phones over the internet and not in retail,” says Ruoppa. He also clarifies, “You will never find an e-commerce site branded as Brightpoint because we are not a retailer.” The value added distributor in fact has a high ROI from

this technology knowhow, since with the same technology backend, backoffice support and logistics backbone it can support multiple vendor fulfilment sites. All the vendor e-commerce sites will have different front ends and completely different product portfolios, but will have backend integration. Hence the same investment supports multiple service offering and relationships.

While online purchases in the Middle East and Africa have been lagging their western counterparts, Ruoppa feels the time is now right.

“We have been monitoring the Middle East market and the trends are now right to get more active in e-commerce.” A key driver for setting up an online portal around Windows Phone and its accessories is the lack of availability of stock outside the UAE. “People underestimate how many smart phones are sold in these markets and many times partners cannot find proper stock at the right price. Even in UAE a lot of devices are not available for this market.” Unlike

the west, a key inhibitor for shipments is the fact that sometimes geographically adjacent markets are in different growth phases and have different demand points.

Ruoppa’s immediate concern is to secure availability of Windows Phone for customers in Middle East and Africa transacting through the joint venture portal with Microsoft. By jointly going to market with this online portal, Ruoppa hopes to get a different kind of visibility with Microsoft’s OEM partners. “Being official with Microsoft makes the value proposition more attractive for multiple people.” The joint portal also represents a partnership in which both parties know the other will do well.

While the partnership was announced in October 2011’s Gitex, the actual project has been underway for some time now. From Brightpoint’s side of things the portal is ready and the value chain from local payment gateways through to shipments has been tested. “We can do many things but we cannot influence when the vendor makes the product available to us,” is the reason why Ruoppa is waiting to go live into 2012.

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feature Smartphones

Raed Hafez, Managing Director Middle East and Africa, Motorola Mobility

Styled for business Motorola Mobility, recently acquired by Google, has been operating in the region for some time and has an established channel structure. It uses in-country distributors and in the UAE, Axiom Telecom and Globalnet are its distributor partners.

With regard to its latest smartphone product Razr, while it has both consumer and business focussed features, an objective assessment will reveal Razr to be overloaded for the enterprise user. Amongst its most impressive features is Motocast that enables remote access to files that have been published through the Motocast Cloud portal. Motocast therefore can be used to access personal files like pictures, clips and Microsoft office files and can also be accessed by the mobile worker accessing their office laptop from a remote offsite location.

“Motocast is the crown jewel when it comes to software functionality and there is a consumer side and professional side of its functionality,” says Hafez. Motorola’s established channel

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structure will take the product to retail outlets.

On the corporate side, with regard to the IT manager, Motorola is trying to engage with them through all possible touch points including value added resellers and telecom operators.

However Hafez still believes the retail channel in the region is key to penetrating the corporate segment. “What we have seen work is to build the consumer interest in the device. As long as you get the consumer to the retail outlet and they ask for the device, that same consumer is going to ask for the device to be enabled on the work network.” Since the Razr smartphone is optimised for the work environment with its level of security control features, Hafez believes that once on the corporate network the IT manager will be convinced of its suitability for rest of the workforce. “We are not looking to push it into people. We are more at driving the demand and pull from the consumer side,” he clarifies.

A key factor that has helped Motorola’s Razr jump the innovation curve versus other hardware devices was the acquisition of

3LM by Motorola Mobility in 2010. Razr now incorporates critical device policies commonly requested by businesses and governmental entities and is designed to enable adoption of Android devices among enterprise users by addressing ease, cost-of-management and security concerns of IT managers. However in line with Google’s open software policy the same standards are also available to other device vendors including HTC, Sony Ericsson, Pantech, Sharp and others.

One of the primary drivers for 3LM to develop the solution was to enable next generation mobile devices like tablets and phones to become the primary computing devices at enterprises, replacing laptops but without sacrificing security or functionality.

“Every vendor that is a leading smart phone vendor has made sure there is differentiation on the software side in addition to the hardware side, when they are launching their smart phones,” points out Hafez. “Since consumers want to be associated with a brand, just providing any vanilla software and vanilla hardware will not give your brand any differentiation.”

Adnan Al-Falah, Chairman, SIT Distribution

Brand building In 2006, HTC which manufactured mobile devices for Imate decided to discontinue the arrangement and enter the Middle East with its own brand. At the time of taking the decision, the HTC brand was not well known in the region since they manufactured mobile PC’s as an OEM and had not established themselves in the region.

Today SIT is its regional distributor and operates in six GCC countries. HTC’s mobile devices are sold primarily through the retail channel. While in UAE, the super retail is the dominant channel, in other countries like Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the independent reseller is also important. SIT delivers to retailers through its own logistic resources as well as through Aramex.

Over the years, even though HTC’s mobile phones have changed from standard devices to the current range of Android OS smart phones and even Windows Phones in 2010, there has been no change in the distribution strategy

according to Al-Falah. “It is about how we work with our existing partners to enable them to leverage on this growth. What Apple and Android have done is to make this device more of a consumer centric device.”

While SIT does negotiate with retailers for shelf space, there are other equally important parameters that it needs to consider with them.

“You need to create a unique selling proposition for the product that you are taking, so the retailer can say I will take this product against this product. You have to generate that brand awareness.” Both HTC and SIT, work jointly to build this brand awareness at the retail end.

However with Microsoft pitched to aggressively join the regional smartphone landscape in 2012, Al-Falah believes that HTC will have to set up direct operations in the region. “HTC will have to take a more direct role with the number of vendors involved in the product segment, the attention the segment is getting, the number of products coming to the market and the frequency of the launches.”

Al-Falah also looks at it from the retailer’s perspective. “At the end of the day it really does not matter who makes it. It is really about what is going out of the door. If it does not leave the shelf the retailer will not stock it,” indicating the importance of HTC’s direct role in regional brand building. Another key role that HTC could play with retailers in the region is to keep them abreast of the product road map and the schedule of launches.

Another challenge is the rapidly changing business model for channel partners. With doubling and tripling of growth rates for Android phones and the expected Windows Phone launch, the product segment is fast approaching a volume business. While smartphone product launches are still with price points at the top of the curve, Al-Falah believes that even in such a scenario price alignment for channel partners starts within six weeks of the launch. Margins start reducing and pressure to do more volume starts increasing. “This is the same cycle that IT business went through. When people are expecting volume to increase substantially and demand is not catching up, you are going to have pressure. And I think the pressure will come.” //

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PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY Motorola

Remote computing with Razr MotoCast is an impressive remote computing feature inside Razr, Motorola’s latest smartphone. Other productivity enhancers include SmartAction, Quickoffice and MotoPrint. A hands-on look at these differentiators!

The MotoCast application is first installed on a PC and the account registered by the user.

The MotoCast application can be downloaded from mymotocast.com

The first time user can verify accessibility of devices or folders or files through MotoCast by logging into their newly created MotoCast account before actually using their smartphone or any other remotely connected device.

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After the application is installed it detects folders in the PC based on file types that can be accessed through the MotoCast application. This typically includes picture, music, video and MS Office file types.

After logging into their MotoCast account the devices, folders and files that have been made accessible will be displayed. If the selection is not suitable at this stage the user can make modifications as required.

After verifying that the folders and files are accessible as required through MotoCast, the user can remotely access their newly created account using a Razr smartphone.

Once the user has logged into their MotoCast account via Razr smartphone, various applications that can access the files remotely are displayed including MotoPrint for remote printing and Quickoffice for MS Office files.

Razr’s file manager will display devices that are accessible through MotoCast.

Devices are accessible in the MotoCast Computers folder.

Multiple devices that are accessible are visible under the MotoCast Computers folder.

Clicking on any of the accessible devices will show folders available in the devices.

Further drill down into the folders will show files that can be accessed.

The required file can be downloaded to the Razr phone in case changes need to be made.

Quickoffice suite includes Word, Excel, Powerpoint and PDF convertors in the form of Quickword, Quicksheet, Quickpoint, and QuickPDF.

An MS Office Excel file opened with Quicksheet.

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PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY Motorola

An MS Office Word file opened with Quickword.

Motocast displays music and video clips that are remotely accessible and files that have been saved on the Razr smartphone have an icon displayed in front of them.

An MS Office Powerpoint file opened with Quickpoint.

Music and video clips can be streamed remotely via MotoCast or saved on the Razr smartphone.

Songs and video clips that are saved on the Razr phone are displayed on a calendar month graphic.

Managing a Facebook account on the Razr smartphone.

The integrated social media interface on the Razr smartphone.

A powerful personal productivity feature is the Smart Action utility. Every Smart Action setup inside the Razr smartphone has two components.

The first is the trigger and the second is the set of actions to be completed

by Razr smartphone.

A list of triggers that can be selected and sensed by the Razr smartphone.

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PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY Motorola

A list of actions that the Razr smartphone will complete when any of the programmed triggers is encountered.

An example of Smart Action using GPS aided location trigger and a set of linked actions.

An example of Smart Action using multiple missed calls as trigger and a set of linked actions.

An example of Smart Action using battery charging as trigger and a set of linked actions.

An example of Smart Action using low battery level as trigger and a set of linked actions.

Another impressive feature is MotoPrint which allows a user to print a file from the Razr smartphone direct to a printer on the wireless network.

Specifications MULTIPLE NETWORKS: WCDMA 850,2100,1900,900; GSM 900,850,1900,1800; HSDPA 14.4 Mbps (Category 10), EDGE Class 12 OPERATING SYSTEM: Android 2.3.5 (Gingerbread) MEMORY: 16 GB internal ACCELEROMETER: Yes PROCESSOR SPEED: 1.2GHz Dual-Core, Dual-Channel RAM Processor REMOVABLE MEMORY: Supports up to 32 GB microSD SENSORS: Proximity, ambient light, eCompass, battery temp, Accelerometer WEIGHT: 127 grams SIZE: 130.7 x 68.9 x 7.1 mm DISPLAY SIZE: 4.3-in Super Amoled Advanced qHD (540 x 960) MATERIALS AND FINISH: Made

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with laser-cut Kevlar fibre and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass ANTENNA TYPE: Internal quad band FORM FACTOR: Touch Tablet SYNCHRONISATION: FOTA, PC Sync, Corporate Sync, Google Sync WIFI: 802.11 b,g,n (2.4GHz and 5.0GHz) DATA ACCESS: Yes3G MOBILE HOTSPOT: Be a mobile hot spot for up to 8 other devices CONNECTOR TYPE: Micro USB, HDMI Micro Connector cable GPS AND LOCATION SERVICES5: aGPS(assisted), eCompass, sGPS (simultaneous), GLONASS HEADSET JACK: 3.5 mm WEB BROWSER: Android HTML Webkit, Adobe Flash Player 10; Firefox browser via webtop

EMAIL: Corporate Sync, Google Mail, Push Email, Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, AOL IMAGE FILE FORMATS: GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP INSTANT MESSAGING: Google Talk CAMERA TYPE: HD P2P Video DIGITAL ZOOM: 8x FOCUS: Automatic IMAGE EDITING TOOLS: Cropping, rotating, Geo Tagging, brightness, color, enhance, flip, resizing, and effects MEGAPIXELS: 8 MP MUSIC ENABLED: Bass enhanced music playback MUSIC PLAYER: Yes VIDEO CAPTURE: 1080p HD, audio scene selection PLAYABLE FORMATS: H.263, AAC+, H.264, eAAC+, MP3, MPEG-4, WAV, AAC, WMA9, WMA10, AMR WB, AMR NB,

WMA v9, MIDI STREAMING MEDIA: Audio, Video, Internet Radio VIDEO CAPTURE RATE: HD 1080p quality, 1920X1080 resolution, up to 30fps capture and playback //

DISTRIBUTORS Egypt Delta Systel Raya Holdings

Saudi Arabia Axiom Telecom Jarir Bookstores SaleCo

Jordan HMG

UAE Axiom Telecom Globalnet

Lebanon Class

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PEOPLE Josef Miskulnig

Fast Lane’s engineer entrepreneur

Into the wind Josef Miskulnig worked with IBM and its partners for almost twenty years before deciding to set up Fast Lane for technical training services. By temperament a hardware and systems specialist, Miskulnig has built Fast lane around Cisco’s networking technologies. Although he graduated with Electrical and Electronics engineering from Austria, the first year of Fast Lane in 1996-97 was the toughest challenge of his life. “I had a good reputation with IBM and the customers, however nobody knew Fast Lane. I had to prove personally prove its value.”

Today as its CEO and President, Miskulnig can look back at the rich experience he has gained from growing Fast Lane from a one man organisation to an international company. The best part of his current role is when he looks across his international offices, with employees from different cultures and different working environments, all focussed on maintaining the quality standards of Fast Lane. At the UAE office, there are more than ten nationalities working together and Miskulnig rates this as one of his strengths. “I am a big fan of understanding different cultures and environments.”

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Working in the fast paced IT industry and staying ahead of the pack is his biggest challenge. Surviving in this industry and the region however is a differentiator and Miskulnig has seen many competitors come and go. Having completed years of training during his extended work span with IBM, Miskulnig has learnt rest of the tricks of managing business and people on the go and also learnt from goof ups. He sets high standards for himself and whatever he does himself he does well. He believes in leaving space for other talented people to fill up.

Miskulnig unwinds by spending quality time with his family including three daughters and grand children and relatives and friends over dinner or at the beach. He is fascinated by car, motorbike and boat engines and the faster they are the better. He also rates himself as an early adopter for gadgets and devices and his current favourites include an IBM Thinkpad, dual SIM mobile phone and iPod for music in the car. He is a casual user of social media and his favourite daydream: no emails and no mobile phone calls. Greed and ruthlessness are strong turnoffs. //

Authorized Distribtuor Middle East

DESPEC MERA LTD. P.o. Box 61050, Jebel Ali Free Zone United Arab Emirates

MERA

Tel: +971 4 8811191 Fax:+971 4 8811190 sales@despec.ae