Reseller Middle East

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

ISSUE 175 // JULY 2011 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

RESELLER AWARDS 2011 reader's choice best partner excellence oustanding executive editor's choice networking vendor software and security vendor STORAGE VENDOR peripherals vendor components vendor printing vendor systems and hardware vendor it distributor components distributor networking distributor value added distributor specialised distributor software and security distributor peripherals distributor enterprise reseller smb and consumer reseller super retailer systems integrator n

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Reseller Partner Up Conference 12 June 2011, Dubai

Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation

Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecom

Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laserjet and Enterprise Solutions, HP

Vishnu Deuskar, Managing Director, Salvus Strategic Advisors

SOFTWARE CONGRESS 2011

EXACT software buyout

Thought leaders from business and technology deliberated on key issues around convergence of IT and corporate strategy. Turn to page 26.

Exact Software Middle East has bought out its management's equity and will now operate as distributor. Turn to page 29.

FEATURE

CO N S U M A B L E S : PAY A S YO U G O

John Andrews, Director of Marketing MEA and APAC, Computerlinks

NEW products Prestigio's new tablets.

Turn to page 64.

CONTENTS

ISSUE 175 // JULY 2011

IN FOCUS

COVER FEATURE

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Reseller Awards 2011

Partner Up Reseller Middle East’s 2011 Conference Top notch speakers at the Reseller Conference covered a wide gamut of channel topics including upcoming technology trends, value addition, vendor-partner relationships, cash flow and social marketing.

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Software Congress 2011 Thought leaders from business and technology deliberated on key issues around convergence of IT and corporate strategy at this CPI event

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Linking up again

32 12 june 2011 200 nominations 25 awards 400 attendees

A core team of ERP specialists that left Arthur Andersen in 1996 finally realise their dream in the Middle East at Exact Software.

FEATURE 58

Pay as you go After sales contracts based on printed pages are an important source of recurring revenue. A look at consumables and supplies market.

PROFILE

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Madhav Narayan

Hemayum Bazaz

64 05 06 16 70

Products and technology Prestigio MultiPad PMP7100C

Editorial Tie-ups Announcements Movements

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Reseller Middle East

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EDITORIAL

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EDITORIAL Publisher Dominic De Sousa COO Nadeem Hood Managing Director Richard Judd richard@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9126 Sales Director Raz Islam raz@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9129

First salvo is out

Editorial

Last month we mentioned about the Avatars of 2011. The first salvo has been launched! Anybody who has tried out Samsung’s Galaxy SII will know what we are talking about. The smartphone is very fast on the social media applications and there are a number of reasons for that.

Dave Reeder dave@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9106 Senior Editor Arun Shankar arun@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9142

For one it is inbuilt with a dual core Cortex processor giving it a download speed three times faster than any of its closest rival’s currently. Coupled with a telecom carrier’s 4G network, this is being pushed even further upwards.

Advertising Group Sales Manager Rajashree R Kumar raj@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9131 Advertising Executive Merle Carrasco merle@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9134

The second is that each of the social media application interfaces that have been inbuilt into the phone is optimised for the phone. The screen zoom-in and zoom-outs are intuitive and make for a complete experience. Coupled with the super Amoled screen, extra sharp characters, 110% vivid colour enhanced contrast makes the whole user interface leap to life.

Circulation Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9147

Arun Shankar Senior Editor arun@cpidubai.com

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 91112

Place it next to your laptop, go through the social media applications, and you will not see a significant difference in usage speeds. That is provided of course you are using the same carrier and wifi access points. Priced at AED 2,599 or $707, the price point is way up and very close to an entry level notebook. So what gives?

Which product is being attacked, who is being replaced, and who is being targeted? There are no immediate answers. But Samsung Galaxy SII is sold out. Outlet after outlet in Dubai is reporting a sell-out position, but not to worry stocks are also rolling in, every second day.

Designer Analou Balbero analou@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9104 Digital www.rwme.net

The stage has been set for the other Avatars!!

On another note, this issue carries reports on three important CPI events.

Our annual Reseller Awards was well received with 400 attendees. We gave away 25 trophies and were floored when we received 35,000 online nominations for our Reader’s Choice selection. We completed our first Reseller Conference on the same day with the pleasure of sitting through some excellent learning and interactive Q&As.

DIGITAL SERVICES Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy P Maagma Web Developers Jerus King Bation Erik Briones Jefferson de Joya Louie Alma

And then there was CPI’s second annual Software Congress. The event opened the wide chasm that exists between end users under pressure to justify hard returns on IT investment versus yet another vendor jugglery called the Cloud. More space to “wait and watch”.

online@cpidubai.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

Read on for what this issue has to offer on these topics, as well as how a simple commodity called a printer consumable today drives more than 50% of revenues for some global vendors.

1013 Centre Road, New Castle County, Wilmington, Delaware, USA

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

ISSUE 175 // JULY 2011 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

Head Office PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409

RESELLER AWARDS 2011 reader's choice best partner excellence oustanding executive editor's choice networking vendor software and security vendor STORAGE VENDOR peripherals vendor components vendor printing vendor systems and hardware vendor it distributor components distributor networking distributor specialised distributor value added distributor software and security distributor peripherals distributor enterprise reseller smb and consumer reseller super retailer systems integrator n

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Reseller Partner Up Conference 12 June 2011, Dubai

© 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.

Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation

Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecom

Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laserjet and Enterprise Solutions, HP

Vishnu Deuskar, Managing Director, Salvus Strategic Advisors

SOFTWARE CONGRESS 2011

EXCEL SOFTWARE BUYOUT

Thought leaders from business and technology deliberated on key issues around convergence of IT and corporate strategy. Turn to page 26.

Excel Software Middle East has bought out its management's equity and will now operate as distributor. Turn to page 29.

FEATURE

John Andrews, Director of Marketing MEA and APAC, Computerlinks

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

NEW PRODUCTS Prestigio's new tablets.

Turn to page 64.

CO N S U M A B L E S : PAY A S YO U G O

JULY 2011

Reseller Middle East

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

help AG first F5 unity service partner in UAE Help AG, an information security consulting company, has been appointed

by F5, an application delivery networking vendor, as the first official F5 unity service partner to deliver L1 IT support to customers in the UAE. As an F5 unity service partner, help AG has been recognised as having the in-house technical expertise necessary to offer responsive support to businesses in the ME region.

F5 monitored help AG's technical support service capabilities for six weeks as well as the degree of difficulty in each of the cases. As an F5 unity service partner, help AG will act as a single point of contact delivering L1 IT support services in-house on behalf of F5.

“We have been monitored closely by F5 on the level of complexity of our technical support cases,” explains Stephan Berner, Managing Director, help AG. “Thanks to our technical consultants, we passed with a 100% compliancy of case quality, which means only support cases

Stephan Berner, Managing Director, help AG related to bugs or advanced configuration were opened. As a matter of fact we are further investing in our F5 service capabilities to strengthen our position.”

Diego Arrabal, ME Regional Director,

F5 commented: “In recognition of the support levels that help AG has already been delivering upon, we have decided to reduce the trial period to six weeks rather than the normal trial period of three months.”

It was agreed under the F5 unity service partnership that help AG must continuously maintain and enhance their services portfolio. Therefore every six months a surveillance audit shall be conducted by F5.

With the certification to provide F5 L1 support, help AG will be able to offer local and highly responsive field support by certified F5 engineers within the same geographical boundaries, time zones and languages.

F5 solutions help integrate disparate technologies to provide control of the infrastructure, application delivery and data management. Help AG is an information security consulting company, founded in Germany in 1995 and has been present in the Middle East since 2004.

help AG first support partner for Palo Alto Networks Additionally help AG, has been officially named the region’s first support service partner for Palo Alto Networks.

Help AG began working with Palo Alto Networks in January 2010 and currently has highest number of Palo Alto Networks certified engineers in the Middle East region. This partnership with Palo Alto Networks defines help AG as a single point of contact for enterprise customers.

Help AG’s certified consultants will provide round the clock, support services under the service level agreement through phone, email and onsite support services.

In addition, help AG SLA customers

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will also have access to the help AG online support centre where they log their support requests, download minor and major software releases, utilize the knowledge base and monitor the support cases at any point in time.

“From the very beginning we have invested strongly in our Palo Alto Networks partnership and as of date we are the only authorised service partner and the only authorised Palo Alto training partner in the Middle East,” explained Stephan Berner, Managing Director, help AG. Recent security breaches at RSA security and Sony put IT information integrity at the forefront of business

concerns. “Currently enterprise customers invest 90% of their budget for IT security into the network layer, this is surprising given that 70% of all attacks and vulnerabilities come from the application layer,” remarked Berner.

“At the same time, if you look into the business requirements coming from the end customer, more and more services will be “webified” and therefore spending should be more balanced.”

As the information security market matures, organisations and government entities shift to bridge the gap between policies and procedures and technical security controls in order to meet compliance requirements.

AOC appoints distributors for South Africa, Sudan and Iraq

(Left to right) Ricky Correia, General Manager, Platinum Micro with Tony Yu Business Development Manager for South Africa AOC.

AOC, manufacturers of flat-screen monitors and TVs, with operations in close to 100 countries throughout the world, has appointed IT distributor Platinum Micro as distributor for the South African market.

Platinum Micro will distribute a range of AOC monitors including the AOC Razor range of ultra-slim monitors which offer ultra-slim cabinets of just 0.92cm thickness and 1.2cm thickness with screen sizes ranging from 18.5 inches to 23 inches.”

Ricky Correia, General Manager, Platinum Micro said, “We will have stock within a month and will distribute the monitors nationally through direct channels, which are soon to be finalised. This is a huge brand coup for Platinum Micro and a great opportunity. It will lead to a permanent presence in South Africa for AOC and we already have a distribution channel reward and incentive scheme in place to attract top resellers.”

Tony Yu, Business Development Manager for South Africa, AOC, said, “We are glad to sign up with Platinum Micro and given the wide reach of Platinum in channels across the country, AOC will be able to penetrate further into the South African market”

For Iraq, AOC has announced Al Seera Computers as its authorised distributor.

Zeyad Al-Sammaraie, Managing Director, Al Seera Group, said, “We believe that IT users in Iraq will be happy with AOC, as it offers a wide choice of eco-friendly, feature rich, high quality, ergonomically designed, value for money monitors. As both, Al Seera and AOC work towards same goal of providing excellent product at the best price for consumers and on other hand safeguarding the margins for our resellers.

Hence, we are excited to introduce AOC to the Iraq market.”

Al Seera Group has five showrooms and two service centres, apart from its offices in Baghdad and Dubai. Al Seera Group was started in the year 2000 and since then it has grown to a base of 140 active resellers across the country.

Speaking on the occasion, Suchit Kumar, DGM AOC said, “Iraq is one of the key emerging market for IT products in the region and the dominance of Al Seera in IT distribution space will provide us a platform to address the Iraq marketplace.

ACC, said, “AOC is a monitor brand, which not only offers a wide range but also provides value for money. With our reach and product portfolio, we expect AOC to become the number one monitor brand in Sudan very soon.”

ACC started operations in Sudan in 1996 and has four offices across the country and works closely with close to 200 resellers.

Speaking on the occasion AOC’s Country Manager for Egypt and Sudan, Ahmed Mossa, said, “AOC has been witnessing high business traction in the continent and we are glad to partner with ACC, which is one of the most influential players in the IT distribution space in Sudan. We are sure that with support from ACC, AOC will become a top monitor brand in the country.”

AOC’s Country Manager for Egypt and Sudan, Ahmed Mossa

Zeyad Al-Sammaraie, Managing Director, Al Seera Group For Sudan, AOC has announced Arabian Computer Centre (ACC) as its authorized distributor.

Omer Abulgassim, Managing Director,

Last year, despite the recession, AOC shipped 16-million monitor units worldwide.

It has maintained average annual growth of more than 20% for the past three years.

Admiral Overseas Corporation (AOC) was established in 1967 in Taiwan. AOC is the house brand of TPV Technology Ltd.

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Tuqnia enters alliance with Xerox Emirates presence in the UAE and today offer total solution services ranging from IT hardware to software services and consulting”, said Amar Singh, Sales Director of Tuqnia.

“Expanding market reach not only helps (Left to right) Andrew Hurt, General Manager for Xerox Emirates and Amar Singh, Sales Director of Tuqnia increase sales Xerox Emirates, document management, and profits but technology and consulting services vendor is also one of the key criteria to survive in announced the appointment of Tuqnia as today’s challenging economy. Our strategic a business partner to sell Xerox products, alliance with Tuqnia will help us expand our services and consumables. market reach in the UAE thereby offering our Tuqnia is a systems integrator offering customers the wide range of products and a range of solutions from Dell, Microsoft, solutions offered by Xerox”, said Andrew Juniper, EMC, Symantec and Cisco to name Hurt, General Manager for Xerox Emirates. a few.

This alliance forms part of Xerox’s The partnership alliance between channel vision for 2011, which in summary is Xerox Emirates and Tuqnia will provide their to be considered for business process and customers in the UAE with a selection of document management opportunities within products and service offerings. relevant markets and leverage distribution “We have been rapidly expanding our and channel partner relationships.

Equinox Egypt achieves Cisco gold certification in Egypt Equinox Egypt announced it has achieved Cisco gold certification in Egypt. “Achieving Cisco gold certification concludes an important chapter in our growth and success story. However, it also marks the beginning of an even more challenging chapter where the expectations are higher and more difficult to attain,” said Osama Qadan, Managing Partner, Equinox International, the holding company of Equinox Egypt.

“We are committed to providing the tools, training and programs that facilitate

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partner growth, differentiation and profitability,” said Olaf Krahmer, President and General Manager, Cisco, Egypt.

As Cisco gold certified partner, Equinox Egypt achieved specializations in unified communications, routing and switching, security, and wireless LAN. Using a third-party audit process, the program validates a partner’s technology skills, business practices, customer satisfaction, presales and post-sales support capabilities, customers consider when choosing a trusted partner.

Golden Systems adds Viewsonic to Its portfolio

(Left to right) Ehsan Hashemi, COO, Golden Systems Middle East with Junaid Gul, Country Manager Middle East, Viewsonic.

Golden Systems, distributor of IT products in the Middle East, announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with Viewsonic, global provider of visual display products for the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Iraq.

As per the terms of the agreement, Golden Systems will distribute and promote Viewsonic’s range of LCDs and intelligent communicating tablets through its channel and retail partners in Qatar, Iraq and Kuwait. Only the LCD range will be distributed in the UAE. “We see a huge opportunity for their products in the Middle East and are confident their LCD and Viewpad range will be well-received by our channel partners and customers in the region,” said Ehsan Hashemi, COO, Golden Systems.

Viewsonic manufactures LED display screens, high-resolution LED TV, projectors, digital signage, mini PC, all-in-one PC, e-books, high-resolution audiovisual players, handheld audiovisual players to name a few.

“We are confident our partnership with Golden Systems will help us strengthen our brand, expand our reach and increase our market share further in the Middle East,” said Junaid Gul, Country Manager Middle East, Viewsonic.

Golden Systems, represents various brands which include Gigabyte, Logitech, G Data, Kaspersky, ZOTAC, BitDefender, Cooler Master, Intel, Hitachi, Choiix, Axtrom, Leadtek, Kingmax, Nvidia, NEC, Twinhan, AMD and ATI to name a few.

Viewsonic develops products including tablets, LED TVs, computers, LED monitors, projectors, digital photo frames, digital signage displays, 3D devices and digital media players.

TM

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

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Meeza signs deal with Qatar’s Supreme Council of Family Affairs Meeza, a Qatar based IT solutions and services provider, has signed a partnership agreement with Qatar’s Supreme Council of Family Affairs, a large MEEZA Chairman and CEO, government and Rashid Al Naimi public entity.

The partnership covers complete IT outsourcing including, IT infrastructure design, building, management and support, consultancy and project management. With this new agreement, Meeza will be providing the necessary IT solutions and infrastructure to help the Supreme Council for Family Affairs reduce costs, enhance productivity and efficiency, provide business scalability as well as reduce risks.

By signing this partnership, Meeza will be able to support the government sector, promote international trends in IT services, and most importantly contribute to the 2030 Qatar National Vision of a knowledge based economy.

The Supreme Council for Family Affairs will be the first government entity in Qatar to outsource all its services to Meeza, paving the way for other entities to follow it.

Her Excellency Ms Noor Al Malki General Secretary of the Supreme Council for Family Affairs said, “This partnership will enable the Supreme Council for Family Affairs to continue functioning in a more professional manner, supporting the main aim of strengthening the Qatari family presence and its role in society.”

MEEZA Chairman and CEO, Rashid Al Naimi said, ”The Supreme Council for Family Affairs will benefit from Meeza’s experienced people, standards-driven processes and worldclass technology.

Meeza in turn aims to promote increased IT maturity within government and public sectors in Qatar by enabling these entities to focus on their core functions, increase their productivity and be able to rapidly scale their organisational operations to service the Qatari community.

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Avnet expands distributor agreement with HP responsible for providing HP’s reseller partners with sales and technical enablement, logistics and operational support, and programmes and services to develop business growth opportunities in the region.

(Left to right) Venkat Raman, Sales Director, Gulf and Levant, Avnet Technology Solutions In addition to this support, ME, Dennis Evers, Director Business Development EMEA, Avnet Technology Solution, Alfred Avnet is investing in channel Chrispanous, ESSN Distribution Manager, HP ME initiatives and will hold a series of road shows aimed at growing the market for HP Avnet Technology Solutions, expanded its networking solutions. Avnet will also offer training distribution agreement with HP to cover and educational programs designed to further Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, increase the data centre and networking skills of Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Yemen. its channel partners across the region.

“Avnet will now be able to offer our Middle Commenting on the relationship, Alfred East channel partners all elements of HP’s Chrispanous, ESSN Distribution Manager, HP converged infrastructure, including networking, Middle East, said, “We are happy to engage servers, storage and software solutions,” said with Avnet and believe that our association will Venkat Raman, sales director-Gulf and Levant, allow us to enhance our penetration in the SMB Avnet Technology Solutions, Middle East. market, and help us gain incremental business in As an authorised value-added distributor the region.” for HP’s networking products, Avnet will be

Tripp Lite, Redington Value sign distribution agreement Manufacturer of power Redington Value to leverage Tripp protection equipment, Tripp Lite, Lite’s products along with other brands has entered into a distribution like Cisco, Fujitsu and HP as essential agreement with Redington components for a data centre.

Gulf, IT distributor operating "Data centres are now in the Middle East and Africa. established as a critical part of IT The move is part of Tripp Lite’s development in the region and have efforts to position itself across become a key component in attracting Vipin Sharma, Vice President, the developing markets of the local and global investment from Middle East, Africa and CIS Middle East and African region. the IP, telecoms, hosting, integrator, Sales, Tripp Lite Under the terms of the BPO and IT outsourcing sectors. partnership, Redington Value, the value Our strategic new partnership with Redington added distribution division of Redington Gulf, Value ably positions Tripp Lite as a key provider will distribute Tripp Lite’s range of products of integrated solutions in today's data centre including UPS Systems, UPS Batteries, PDUs, installations," said Vipin Sharma, Vice President, KVMs, cables, power inverters, racks and surge Middle East, Africa and CIS Sales, Tripp Lite. suppressors.

Tripp Lite has a 2,500 product portfolio For Tripp Lite, the plus point of this new that allows its customers to organise, connect, partnership is Redington Value’s presence in control and protect computer and electronic over 14 countries across the Middle East and equipment that are essential to their day-to-day African region. The partnership will also allow operations.

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Etisalat is HP business optimisation champion

HP announced that Etisalat has been selected as one of its eight 2010 EMEA business optimisation champions. Picked by a panel of HP business and technology leaders, EMEA business optimisation champions are selected based on the delivery of exceptional business value using HP software and solutions, with measurable improvement in IT and business outcomes.

Etisalat was chosen as a champion because its solution demonstrated a fast and efficient way of generating returns and benefits. Etisalat’s solution implemented a service level management platform built on a range of HP software, including HP Service Manager software, Universal CMDB

software, Discovery and Dependency Mapping software as well as HP Operations Manager, Network Node Manager and Performance Insight software.

The complete solution provided Etisalat with a centralised service view of customer networks, enabling the company to monitor and manage service level agreements and aiding the connection of UAE businesses with new markets.

“The major achievements were on the improvements of the quality of service enabling proactive monitoring on the customers equipments, as well as automatic ticket notification and assignments to the respective teams,” said Mr. Nasser Salim, SVP-Information Technology, Etisalat.

“At HP we applaud businesses such as Etisalat that are challenging and transforming business practices by using and investing in a range of technological solutions,” added Abbass Tarraf, Country Manager, HP Software– UAE & Oman.

Redington to push Seagate’s retail products Seagate Technology, a vendor producing hard drives and storage solutions, has partnered with Redington Gulf, a Middle East supply chain solution and service provider, to distribute its portfolio of retail products in the region.

Redington Gulf will distribute Seagate’s GoFlex and Expansion ranges of external hard drives and the company’s BlackArmor network attached storage solutions for small and medium enterprises across the region.

“The continued growth in demand for digital storage by consumers and businesses, presents a significant window of opportunity for us,” said Sofocles Socratous, Seagate, Sales Director, Middle East.

Ashish Bharti, Senior Vice President, IT Volume ME Business, Redington Gulf, said, “Seagate has a strong local sales and marketing team on the ground in the Middle East, and we look forward to working with them. Seagate’s range of retail products covers the spectrum of users’ needs whether they are in the home, on the move or at work.”

The Middle East market for hard drives is estimated to be worth around US$380 million a year with retail products accounting for a quarter of total sales.

Redington Gulf, a part of Redington India, operates across Middle East, Turkey and Africa region with a turnover of US$1.6 billion for the year 2010-11. Redington Gulf works with over 5,700 channel partners in 19 markets to distribute close to 30 global IT and telecom brands.

Announcements Nvidia announced it has completed its $367 million cash acquisition of Icera, manufacturer of wireless modems for 3G and 4G cellular phones and tablets. Icera is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Nvidia operating under the Icera trade name.

Etisalat and HP executives at the HP business optimization champion award ceremony

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Canon continues second year support for summer camps

Canon Middle East, has announced it is expanding its support to include a greater number of universities across the GCC for the "ICDL Summer Camps." The summer camps, which will run from June to July 2011, are being organised by educational authorities and universities throughout the region and overseen by International Computer Driving License program (ICDL) in the GCC States and Iraq.

Canon revealed that it will be extending region-wide support this year, to include countries such as UAE, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait, while it is likewise increasing the number of universities and training centres that it will be supporting.

Canon will partner with ICDL to offer rewards to students who are enrolled in the summer camps, giving away valuable gift items such as printers and cameras in recognition of the highest achievers among the thousands of ICDL candidates.

Thousands of students all over the region will undergo computer training in accordance with the globally recognised ICDL standard through the summer camps.

The participants are expected to achieve the ICDL "Start" certification after

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passing official tests that affirm their competence in using computer and the internet.

“Knowledge and skills in computer applications are particularly crucial now more than ever as the GCC region aims to build a knowledge-based digital society. Canon is therefore keen to support the ICDL Summer Camps for the second year in a row as we are confident that this program will serve as a tool towards achieving our vision of creating a better future for our society," said Anurag Agrawal, Managing Director, Canon Middle East.

Meanwhile, Canon Middle East announced it is also conducting a series of special photography skills development training sessions in the various universities that are hosting the ICDL camps in UAE, Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. Canon’s training sessions cover basics of photography, including better composition, capture and printing.

Canon's support of the ICDL Summer Camps is in line with the company's corporate philosophy of ‘kyosei,’ which envisions all people, regardless of race, religion or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future.

Sandisk expands into Turkey with Telpa Group

Tareq Husseini, SanDisk’s Middle East and Africa Sales Director SanDisk Middle East and Africa, announced its expansion into Turkey through its partnership with Telpa Group, a mobile retailer in Turkey. The partnership will drive Sandisk MEA’s strategy in Turkey and take advantage of the country's growing mobile market growth in Turkey.

“Our partnership with Telpa reinforces our objective to expand our product reach in Turkey. The entire range of Sandisk storage products will now be available to a wider market through the expertise and established distribution networks of Telpa,” said Tareq Husseini, Sandisk’s Middle East and Africa Sales Director.

Telpa has a widespread distribution network and directly works with 3,500 dealers and 6,200 retail shops. The company’s infrastructure, with an established working environment for dealers and an online B2B platform, will enhance Sandisk’s market presence in the country.

Sandisk’s product portfolio includes flash memory cards for mobile phones, digital cameras and camcorders; digital audio-video players; USB flash drives for consumers and the enterprise; embedded memory for mobile devices; and solid state drives for PCs.

Contact your sales manager to find out more about summer promotional offers.

IN THE BEGINNING Announcements

Comm-IT to roll out Infor ERP at SPPC Infor announced that Saudi control over its supply Printing and Packaging chain and help improve Company (SPPC) has invested accuracy, enabling sharper in its ERP LN enterprise information to make better resource planning solution. decisions.

Infor’s channel partner, CommIt will also help IT, is working with Infor and SPPC improve visibility, SPPC in the roll out. traceability and connectivity Infor ERP LN will provide within the sales, visibility of SPPC’s operations procurement and finance across its three companies departments. Once the in the city of Riyadh, Jeddah application is implemented, Paul Hammond, General Manager, Infor Middle East. and Dammam, which are the sales team will be able responsible for printing the to automatically process Kingdom’s most popular newspaper orders and follow up on status as well as and magazine titles, as well as flexible check inventory, location and lot control, packaging and commercial labels. instead of its previous manual system of "We are confident that Infor ERP LN telephone and email follow ups. will significantly contribute to SPPC’s “With our heavy printing and improvements in operations and revenue packaging operations we required a generation for many years," said Naushad solution that would integrate data across Khalid, general manager, Comm-IT Middle our major activities and plug in the holes East LLC. in our old manual systems,” said Saad Al "As an increasing number of enterprises Azwari, the chief executive officer of SPPC, in the Middle East turn to Infor ERP LN, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. we have witnessed its benefits to reduce "We continue to improve our Middle complexity, increase flexibility and internal East customers' operations by providing visibility and control for the company." flexible solutions that enable them to be The ERP will integrate data across dynamic in their approach to the ever SPPC’s supply chain – from the raw increasing customer demands in the materials to the completed printed region," said Paul Hammond, general product or label. This will increase SPPC’s manager, Infor Middle East.

Avnet holds HP software training in KSA Avnet Technology Solutions, a value added distributor in the Middle East and Africa region, held a special training programme called “HP Software Academy” in association with HP to educate its partners in Jeddah and Riyadh, Saudi Emad Aboukhater, Avnet account manager for HP software solutions Arabia.

“HP Software Academy” was a one day event designed specifically to inform partners about the HP software portfolio. All participants were awarded with a certificate which was presented by HP and Avnet.

"HP Software Academy was a perfect opportunity for Avnet and HP to meet with our partners. It also enhanced the understanding and knowledge of partners about the wide portfolio of HP software products and solutions available for them in Saudi”, said Emad Aboukhater, Avnet account manager for HP software solutions.

Emad further added, “At the same time, the sessions also acted as a strategic venue to discuss the current challenges in the industry and develop solutions and strategies that can help reinforce HP leadership in the KSA region."

Encouraged by the overwhelming response Avnet plans to take the “HP Software Academy” to remote areas in Saudi Arabia like Mecca and Abha later this year.

HP opens second office in Cairo Under the patronage and presence of HE Dr Magued Osman, Egypt’s Minister of Communication and Information Technology, HP announced the opening of its new premises in Smart Village, Egypt’s Communication and Information Technology business park.

The event highlights the stability of the Egyptian economy, development of Egypt’s ICT sector that continues to attract international investment, and HP’s

Representatives of HP and Information Technology Industry Development Agency (left to right): Eyad Shihabi, MD, HP Middle East; Yasser El-Kady, CEO, ITIDA; Bassem Bouzid, Regional VP and GM Enterprise Services HP MEMA; and Hussein Hamza, Country MD, HP Egypt. commitment and contribution to local businesses and governments.

“We are honoured to have such an auspicious opening for our Smart Village premises,” said Eyad Shihabi, Managing Director and Enterprise Business Lead, HP

Middle East. “The investment into our new premises, increasing staff strength and growth is a testament to our commitment to the Egyptian people and the country.”

The 5,500 square metres HP premises in Smart Village will be its second major Continues in page 18

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workshops@sme.sas.com For a free workshop on Data Management* * first 10 requests

IN THE BEGINNING Announcements

Tawasul to roll out HP portfolio at Kuwait Petroleum HP and local Kuwait partner, Tawasul Services have implemented HP Business Availability Centre Software at Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC). KNPC Tayfun Topkoc, HP Software Director for the Middle East one of the world’s largest national oil companies, is using HP solutions to transform its technology environment, streamline operations and provide advanced warning of service disruptions and isolation of their root causes before they impact the business.

With more than 7,500 users, KNPC was determined to continue providing superior service while their information and IT projects rapidly increased. Historically, KNPC managed information and IT projects through manual change processes.

“KNPC is striving to improve our ability to respond to market changes to supply gas to businesses more efficiently,” said Khaled Al-Asousi, IT Manager, KNPC. “By eliminating manual practices and providing better change processes, HP Software will help KNPC accelerate business transformation without increasing risk,” said Tayfun Topkoc, HP Software Director for the Middle East.

The HP solution includes HP Network and Operations Management Centre, HP Business Availability Centre and HP Storage Essentials.

Networker Strategy implements Sonicwall suite at Al Rajhi Al Rajhi Holding, a diversified business conglomerate with operations across the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, has secured and integrated its wide area network using Sonicwall’s Network Security Appliance series. The implementation was done with Sonicwall’s partner Networker Strategy.

“Our partner in Saudi Arabia, Networker Strategy, worked with the Al Rajhi’s team in Saudi Arabia to roll out Sonicwall’s NSA 240, 2400, NSA 3500 and NSA 4500 firewalls over the course of a year. We are pleased with this initiative and hope to continue deploying new and improved solutions to strengthen Al Rajhi’s network,” said Shahnawaz Sheikh, Sonicwall’s Regional Director, Middle East, Africa and Turkey.

“Instead of one appliance per application, security consolidation aggregates multiple interconnected security applications on a single piece of hardware without compromising security and performance,” said Afran Khan, branch manager, Networker Strategy.

As malware and phishing attacks were growing in strength and frequency globally, controlling peer-to-peer applications, instant messaging and the sharing of multimedia content and applications became critical. With ever-growing Internet security threats and increased vulnerabilities due to employee remote access and branch connectivity issues, Al Rajhi's technology team decided to take decisive action.

The group sought an integrated solution to manage and secure traffic across their WAN. They consulted their IT solutions provider

Networker Strategy, who suggested Sonicwall’s Network Security Appliance series.

With Sonicwall, the group was able to improve bandwidth by 75%, reduce IT costs by 30%, streamline administration with centralised management, lower hardware costs through consolidation and, by training in-house staff on Sonicwall technology, internalise functions they used to outsource.

The group, with distributed server assets across various locations: Jeddah, Jubail, Dammam and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia; and Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah in the UAE, sought to gain enhanced returns on its technology investments by better controlling the cumbersome and expensive maintenance and upkeep of hardware and network infrastructure.

Al Rajhi had deployed a SSL-VPN 2000 secure remote access solution and have already upgraded to the more powerful Sonicwall Aventail E-Class SRA EX-6000. The group is to further update its network security to the highperformance low-latency SuperMassive NextGeneration Firewall. Plans are also underway to adopt the Sonicwall Global Management System, which allows users to manage and monitor the activity of all its Sonicwall devices from one central console.

“The benefits achieved through deploying Sonicwall had a significant impact on our operations. Al Rajhi now has an integrated network with a centralised data centre in our head office in Riyadh and seamless connectivity to network users in different areas.” explained Dr Marwan Al Siddiqi, group ICT director, Al Rajhi Holding Group.

From page 16

office in Cairo, with the first established in Nasr City which also serves as the country headquarters. At the new location, HP will accommodate the Enterprise Services Global Delivery Centre and go-to-market teams.

“In Egypt, we’re not just focused on commercial progress but also social investment, given the large, young Egyptian population who are well-positioned to take

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on a greater role in the ICT sector,” added Hussein Hamza, Managing Director and Enterprise Business lead, HP Egypt. “We’re laying particular emphasis in two areas: innovation in education and entrepreneurship education. At HP, we believe innovation in education is vital to developing the next generation of high-tech innovators and entrepreneurs.”

HE Dr Magued Osman, Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology joined an HP delegation to officially open HP’s new office in Smart Village, Cairo.

IN FOCUS Conference

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Partner Up

Reseller Middle East’s 2011 Conference Top notch speakers at the Reseller Conference covered a wide gamut of channel topics including upcoming technology trends, value addition, vendorpartner relationships, cash flow and social marketing.

On 12 June, Reseller Middle East kicked off its first conference directed at the reseller community. The conference was a day-long, single track event, held at Westin Dubai, UAE. The highlights of the conference were intended to be the wide range of channel issues tackled by a high-level team of experienced industry leaders selected from vendors, distributors and consultants. The presentation content of each topic was set to appeal at an operational level rather than at a conceptual level.

The conference was kicked off by a short welcome address by Reseller’s senior

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editor Arun Shankar, after which the key note speaker was invited to the stage The keynote address for the conference was presented by Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation. There were a number of important highlights in the presentation. Nauthoa drew the attention of the audience to the increasing purchasing power of the emerging markets. The index used to track the changes in purchasing power of the markets is the number of weeks of income required to buy an average priced consumer laptop.

In 1994, it required 151 weeks of income to

12 buy a laptop in the emerging markers versus 6 weeks of income in developed markets. In 2010, the same comparison has changed to 12 weeks of income in emerging markets versus 1 week of income for developed markets.

This shows that a vast segment of population in the emerging markets is moving towards affordable ownership of a PC or a laptop.

Today, one billion people own a PC device, but 2.2 billion people can afford a PC and have not invested in such a device. A further 3.5 billion people still cannot afford a PC device.

The engine of the emerging markets is so compelling that by end 2011 and early

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PCs shipped to emerging markets will overtake mature markets by the end of 2011: Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation

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Present cash flow projections to decision makers on daily basis: Vishnu Deuskar, Managing Director, Salvus Strategic Advisors

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Market dynamics through the eyes of data: Vasudevan KS, Managing Director, Satvik

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Due diligence before exports: Dr Ashraf Ali Mahate, Head of Export Market Intelligence

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Shifting trends in the market: Amir Sohrabi, Regional Alliances and Partner Development Manager Middle East, SAS

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Know your reseller’s business like your own business: Hesham Tantawi, Vice President, Asbis

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Value addition is a differentiator in the channel: Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecommunications

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Social media still an unknown ROI: John Andrews, Director of Marketing MEA and APAC, Computerlinks

70% of UAE companies have no anti-counterfeit policy in place: Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laser and Enterprise Solutions, HP

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End of the day, question and answers

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13 2012, the total number of PCs shipped to the emerging markets will overtake the developed markets.

Nauthoa also pointed out the changing nature of the personal computing device. It is not just PCs and laptops which the growing segment of population will use for computing.

By 2015, only 56% of mobile traffic will be generated by laptops. Rest of the traffic will be generated from smart phones, home gateways and others. The forms of computing devices are changing and the all-in-one PC screen, ultra-book, smart TV, tablet and netbook are all possible variants of today’s desktop PC.

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Sorting out vendor and partner disconnects: Hemayun Bazaz, Channel Manager, HP Networking

However is the PC dead? Nauthoa indicated that the death knell of the PC was announced in 1997 with the network computer; again in 1999 with internet appliances; in 2005 with the cloud; in 2007 with the smart phone; in 2009 with the netbook; and in 2010 with the tablet. In 2010 there were one million devices shipped per day. All forecast indicate that by 2015 there will be two million shipped per day.

So the PC is not dead!

Intel’s vision of the future: by 2020 there will four billion connected people, 31 billion connected devices and 25 million applications.

The key drivers for computing devices will

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remain performance, security and connectivity.

After Nathuoa’s visionary address, there was a round table discussion on the growth dynamics across the Middle East.

The participants were jointly made up of speakers from the Reseller Conference and some special invitees. The speakers of the conference who sat on the panel included Nassir Nauthoa, Intel Corporation; Meera Kaul, Optimus Technology and Telecommunications and Hesham Tantawi, Asbis.

The special invitees included Sukant Mishra, Managing Director, Octagon International; Prateek Dayal, Channels &

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IN FOCUS Conference

Alliances Director, Xerox Emirates; KS Parag, Managing Director, FVC; Parag Saxena, Head of Sales, Redington Value; Patrick Mulligan, General Manager, Emitac Distribution.

Reseller Middle East’s senior editor Arun Shankar, moderated the discussions.

The next pair of speakers after the panel discussion was Vasudevan KS, Managing Director, Satvik and Amir Sohrabi, Regional Alliances & Partner Development Manager Middle East, SAS. Both addressed the issue of analysis to aid in channel sales.

The focus was on interpreting market dynamics through the eyes of data; the shifting trends in the market; the changing business priorities and an introduction to marketing, risk and operation analytics.

The next speaker was Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecommunications. Her theme was around possible value addition by a distributor in the channel market. With channel sales accounting for 60-80% of IT vendor sales, the role of a channel player is vital in today’s market. A channel player is faced with the task of differentiation from other players and the increasing demand from customers, but is probably the only one who has a deep understanding of a customer’s complex ecosystem.

Kaul presented how a channel player can leverage on this fact and be better prepared to address tomorrow today. For a vendor, value and volume are like birds of two different colours. “Channel has become an extension of the vendor”, she summarised.

An important topic before lunch was counterfeit products in channels by Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laser and Enterprise Solutions, HP. Azzam pointed out that the current market size for counterfeit products is $775 billion and will cross one trillion in 2015. The number of jobs lost because of this illegal trade in G20 countries alone is two and half million. Usage of counterfeit products is an operational disconnect for HP since it creates void warranty claims when toners leak inside the printer.

Across the Middle East last year HP conducted 3,000 channel audits to check for trading in counterfeit. Any incidence of

illegal trading leads to termination of business partner status. According to Azzam, a starting point for corrective measures is an end-user corporate policy that avoids purchase of counterfeit products. 72% of UAE companies have no such anti-counterfeit policy in place.

After lunch, the audience was presented with a business focussed and well directed presentation by Hemayun Bazaz, Channel Manager, HP Networking.

Bazaz explored in straight-forward language disconnects that sometime exist between vendors and reseller partners in the channel space.

Partners complain that vendor programs are complicated in terms of rebates, available marketing support and specialisation training programs. Vendors complain that partners do not make an effort to understand their programs and miss out on financial returns.

Bazaz stressed that the solution lay at the half-way mark, both sides making an effort to meet mid-way.

The next presentation was on cash flow management by Vishnu Deuskar, Managing Director, Salvus Strategic Advisors. Deuskar presented a sound operational plan to avoid cash flow crisis. Companies should have a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly cash flow forecast based on probabilities with worst case scenarios in-built separately and highlighted.

This should be sent to decision makers on a daily basis to avoid emergency plans being created like private funding at high interest rates. Another possible area of financial loss by traders in the re-export business is in currency mismatches, when incorrect rates are used in quotations and invoices.

Continuing on the economical perspective of the market, the next topic was on the dynamics of exports out of UAE. Dr Ashraf Ali Mahate, Head of Export Market Intelligence talked about the need to export out of UAE in the face of growing entry of low cost players and development of production scale. Dubai is ideally suited to be a hub for exports. All countries can be reached by shipping within 30 days and by air within 24 hours.

Exports have been consistently growing

at close to 30% for the last five years.

However Mahate warned that an exhaustive due diligence of a planned export strategy should be completed before project roll out is initiated. The due diligence should cover target countries, IP protection, distribution partners, and marketing plans amongst others.

The next topic addressed by Hesham Tantawi, Vice President, Asbis was on bottlenecks in the channel. Hesham chose to focus on explaining the drivers of sales in the current market, types of pricing, the relation between value and price, and some key parameters of profits. On pricing Tantawi differentiated between market based and cost based pricing. He gave an empirical formula for the calculation of GPROCA. An interesting numerical example showed that a 10% improvement in lead generation and conversion process actually yields 46% increase in sales and 61% increase in profits.

The last session of the day was addressed by John Andrews, Director of Marketing MEA and APAC, Computerlinks, on the subject of zero cost marketing and the power of social communications. Andrews started by comparing the costs of launching a brand over the last ten years. In 2001, the launch cost of Microsoft XP brand was $0.7 billion, and in comparison the Coke advertising budget in 2009 was $3.6 billion.

In addition to the five Ps of marketing, Andrew added process and physical evidence to bring it to seven Ps. For zero cost marketing, Andrews listed electronic mailing, e-newsletters, social media and press opportunities. Andrew pointed out that although his company maintained a social media team to monitor customer feedback, the team was still posted as a marketing expense without a tangible return on investment. His key takeaway, “people are your biggest marketing asset, more powerful than any social media.”

The Reseller Conference concluded with a vigorous question and answer session directed at a panel made up of speakers again. Speakers participating in the end of day session included Meera Kaul, Hesham Tantawi and John Andrews.

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in focus Conference

Participants

Panel discussion: Middle East growth wave The leading question to the panel was to summarize their assessment of the growth dynamics in the region. From a technology point of view, Nauthoa indicated that the multiple technology life cycles had not created any cyclical period of sales in the Middle East and as per the technology dynamics there should be good growth in the region. But where is it, remains the big question?

Tantawi of Asbis, who had just returned from a trip to Egypt indicated that current business was about 80% of the expected value. And overall growth across North Africa was expected to be flat by the end of the year. Kaul of Optimus, indicated that different regions are at different points of the innovation curve. For some it was cloud and for others it was infrastructure. Overall an upswing was expected.

Parag of FVC, which operates in MEA countries, indicated that it was important to understand customer pain areas. Once that has been achieved business needs can be addressed and market growth can happen.

Xerox’s Dayal mentioned that revenues across the region have been consistent. The company changed its channel structure over the last few years and has seen significant growth at the lower end of its product range.

For Octagon which uses Kenya as its trading hub, the growth from Africa is in double digits and is looking “very green at present”.

Inspite of the volatility in the region, Mishra indicated that overall Middle East business was stable. For Redington which operates in six African and six Gulf countries, the business from Africa has been good and the momentum of sales is picking up driven by Saudi along

with Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.

However, each market has different demands according to Saxena.

Emitac’s Mulligan pointed out the inherent risks still prevailing across the region. “I think we're in really dangerous hands. There's a lot of volatility in the market and significant financial exposure in places like Bahrain and Libya. So markets are unpredictable. The question is: how do we balance growth and danger?”

The next round of questions was on managing credit risks through channel partners. Tantawi pointed out that Asbis always monitors every channel partners risk as if it were its own. It always monitors the sales of each of its partners and understands their business as well. Octagon’s Mishra stated that there have been substantial changes in the way the channel is working, but the challenge still remains on how to manage credit risk?

For Redington Value, the problem of credit risk was addressed seven years ago when they brought in credit insurance. However the distributor carefully monitors the behaviour of its reseller channel partners. “It’s the classic problem of distribution, sell to end users and the risk is low. Sell to resellers and the risk is high,” remarked Saxena. For FVC, it manages risk based on the vertical market segment where it operates. “For example there is always a long payment cycle in the government sector”, said Parag.

In terms of market development the panel was asked about their changing business models. Intel’s Nauthoa was of the opinion, “we need to ask our channel customers what is the purpose of their business? This will deliver focus. Then match the customer with the supply chain.”

(LEFT TO RIGHT)

Arun Shankar, Senior Editor, Reseller Middle East (moderator) Patrick Mulligan, General Manager, Emitac Distribution Sukant Mishra, Managing Director, Octagon International Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecommunications Prateek Dayal, Channels & Alliances Director, Xerox Emirates Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation KS Parag, Managing Director, FVC Hesham Tantawi, Vice President, Asbis Parag Saxena, Head of Sales, Redington Value

For players that operate in Africa, like Octagon, the weak infrastructure would be a constraint in limiting roll out of connected consumer devices. “Africa is a generation behind. Technology is available but cannot be used because of a lack of infrastructure,” said Mishra.

For Optimus, operating across vast geographies from Levant, West Asia, North Africa and the Gulf, "every country has its own growth curve and technology is taken up differently in different territories.

For example, the UAE is all about cloud services but that is not being spoken of at all in Saudi,” said Kaul.

For Redington Value, their biggest value-add opportunity in the near future lies in the growing requirement for security.

For FVC another value-add player, the challenge is always to keep asking “where is the big value? We need to add value or die,” said Parag. Another key differentiator that FVC adopts is to look at cutting-edge technology from the point of view of the customer and ROI. //

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IN FOCUS Software Congress 2011

Panel discussion in progress

Software Congress 2011 Thought leaders from business and technology deliberated on key issues around convergence of IT and corporate strategy On 27 July 2011, the second annual Software Congress was organised by CPI in Dubai. The half-day Congress featured speakers from various corporate end-user organisations and sponsors including Etisalat and SAS. The speakers included: Dr Deepak Kalra, Group IT manager, Safeer Group; Dr Hazem Turki El Khatib, CIO Department of Finance, Abu Dhabi; Carel Badenhorst, Head of technology practice, SAS ME; and Ahmed Al Hammadi, Manager, Product marketing e-hosting, Etisalat.

After the four speaker sessions a panel discussion was held with Sathya Mithra Ashok, Senior Editor of CPI’s Computer News as the moderator. All the speakers were invited as members of the panel discussion. In addition they were joined by Ramesh Krishna Bhandari, Business Development Specialist, Central Marketing, Etisalat; Arun Tewary, CIO, Emirates Flight Catering and Rolf Elevald, Director of Information and Software Development, Jumeirah Group.

A lot of the debate focussed around adoption drivers and inhibitors for Cloud based computing. Excerpts of the key statements from the sessions and the panel discussion:

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Dr Deepak Kalra, Group IT manager Safeer Group

On ups and down of IT spending: Business will not invest in IT, if they are not doing good business On selection of a supplier: They should be able to defy you in terms of thinking On managing recession: A rollingwave approach for IT spending may be necessary, since long-term planning is not possible On selection of a technology: Don’t run after a new technology, focus on matured technologies On project management: There is nothing like best practices, every organisation is different.

On project management: The success or failure of a project is yours not of the implementation partner

Ramesh Krishna Bhandari,

Business Development Specialist, Central Marketing, Etisalat On late adopters to cloud services: I don’t see ERP moving to the cloud in a hurry On first movers to the cloud: I see the SMEs moving to the cloud On inhibitors to cloud adoption: Nobody is asking you to move lock, stock and barrel into the Cloud On Cloud SLA’s: Check the SLA for a pay-back or guarantee clause for free service in return On Cloud technologies: Vendors are being forced to move to the cloud

Carel Badenhorst,

Head of technology practice SAS ME On adoption of new technologies: You have to be very careful with new technologies, since you are sitting on a gold mine of data that has to shine On inhibitors to data analysis: 60% of cases data is not shared because of ownership or politics On inhibitors to data analysis: 61% of cases data is not shared because of corporate culture based on silos On inhibitors to data analysis: 42% of cases data is not shared because of lack of business sponsorship

On SLAs: We can provide an endto-end SLA for a cloud application

Dr Hazem Turki El Khatib, CIO Department of Finance Abu Dhabi

On cost of roll outs: An ERP implementation can cost upto AED 15 million per govt department On consolidation: We are hosting 30 ERP solutions for government departments On changing role of IT: The challenge is to move from a technology partner towards a strategic partner On relevance of Cloud: Cloud computing is an IT issue not an end user issue On IT planning: Each IT manager needs to have a three-year IT strategy.

On Cloud adoption: In the Middle East we are not yet ready for the Cloud

Ahmed Al Hammadi,

Manager, Product marketing e-hosting, Etisalat On server under utilisation: 45% of RAM not used 99.9% of time, 85% of CPU not used 99.9% of time, 68% of hard disk space not used at all On server ramp-up time: We need 4-6 weeks lead time to set up a server On post-virtualisation benefits: Server utilisation increases from 10% to 75% On post-virtualisation benefits: 100 servers can be reduced to 8 servers On disaster recovery: Out of country, backup requests are considered on case to case basis

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IN FOCUS Exact Software Middle East

Linking up again A core team of ERP specialists that left Arthur Andersen in 1996 finally realise their dream in the Middle East

Committed to going the partner route, Nizar Badwan, General Manager, Exact Software Middle East

In middle of June 2011, the core team of Exact Software Middle East, led by Nizar Badwan, bought out the management stake of the Netherlands based parent company Exact International. The local subsidiary which had since 2002 existed as direct sales model was now “green to go” to change into an indirect, distributor-reseller, VAR based model.

Why did Badwan and his team buy out the parent company’s shares and change the sales model for a solution that today exists in 15 countries across the Middle East? The story goes back more than fifteen years to a time when Badwan was working in Arthur Andersen in Denver, USA. At Andersen, Badwan’s forte was in the alignment of business and IT strategy in enterprise customers. He worked with organisations to define their IT strategy and

keep it in sync with business strategy. He also worked on implementation of business solutions aligned with business outlook.

Badwan and a core team moved to the Middle East in 1996 and brought with them Great Plains Dynamics ERP to an as yet virgin market for business solutions. After setting up as a local office and distributor, they found the market to be devoid of VARs and the only resellers that existed were pure box pushers.

Over the next four year’s Badwan developed the market for VARs and groomed them to be consultants, implementation and support partners for the ERP solution. The customer base reached close to five hundred by the year 2000.

“Today if I hand over a customer to a reseller that can’t support them – I will probably lose the customer and eventually lose the reseller."

In the year 2000, Microsoft acquired Great Plains Dynamics and Badwan’s team ceased to exist in the Middle East as a local supporting entity. “Somebody moved my cheese and we needed to go find new cheese,” Badwan reflects.

In 2002, the same team that left Denver in 1996, regrouped as Exact Software Middle

East, and operated as the local subsidiary for the Netherland based ERP vendor. They set up the operation as a direct sales model and engaged directly with small and medium businesses in the region. That is until middle of June 2011.

After working in the region for just under ten years, Badwan and his team felt that further penetration in the market required them to go indirect. There were also VAR partners like Compusoft, Afcom, Emitac and others, from Badwan’s Great Plains business, who wanted to engage with Exact Software but could not do so because it was built up as direct sales operation.

In June 2011, Badwan and his core team, still loyal to each other since 1996, bought out the parent company’s management stake and cleared the formal route to transform to an indirect sales model across the region.

Globally, Exact Software operates in 40 countries and has an installed base of 180,000 countries. But it exists as an indirect sales model in only two other countries, US and Netherlands. Now Badwan has added Middle East to that select group of operations justified on the basis of scale and go-tomarket opportunities.

The first industry groups on the business development road map are manufacturing, wholesale distribution, professional services and human resource management. As with any other indirect sales operations partners would fall into two categories: VARs who would invest in consulting and customer support activities; and resellers who would go down the opportunity or trading route.

On priority, Badwan is looking for channel partners who can get Exact into customer accounts where they have failed to penetrate till now; or VARs who have industry specialisation – a key expectation of customers today.

What are Badwan’s credentials now that

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in focus Exact Software Middle East

he has taken the first step in his go-to-market vision? Badwan and his team have nine years of first-hand experience in implementing these solutions across the region, which they are ready to pass onto partnering VARs. For the other category of resellers, Badwan is looking at tapping into business contacts developed during the Great Plains stint from 1996 to 2000, when they operated across the region in the same indirect sales manner.

The installed base of customers is a referral point where Exact has a reputation and proven track record of software performance. From the revenue point of view, the annuity of license renewals across the installed customer base is the supporting income to keep operations moving till the indirect channel ramps up.

Some of Exact’s leading customer names include Electric House Establishment in Saudi Arabia, Gulf Investment Corporation in Kuwait, Nutrecia Middle East in UAE, Eagle Industries in UAE, Eli Lily in UAE, amongst others. The customer base is also built up from multinationals like Siemens and Loreal, which are large enterprise customers on an aggregated global basis, but on a local scale fall into the small and medium business segment.

The core modules of the solution include manufacturing, accounting and human resources. Across the Middle East, Exact also has an office in Kuwait.

Looking at the bell shaped curve of software licenses versus the number of establishments, the extreme points are set at 5 users to 1,200 users. But the sweet spot is set at 20-30 users. In the Middle East a 20-30 user license falls into a small and medium category, but this would be different in the US or Europe.

Is Badwan going to open up the customer base to partner’s from the outset?

“Today if I hand over a customer to a reseller that can’t support them – I will probably lose the customer and eventually lose the reseller.

So it’s a lose-lose situation.” Once Badwan sees a strong community of resellers that gives everyone confidence, and he can introduce to the customer, “the customer will benefit, reseller will benefit, and I will benefit.”

Exact Software's HR and professional services interface For now Badwan’s local operation will have their hands-full managing the roll out of Exact Software into the channel. But over the months once the roll out has stabilised itself, and the community of resellers

familiarised themselves with the product and the core team, will there be more software products in the pipeline or a business name change? Even for Badwan that is still work in progress.

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COVER STORY The Reseller Awards 2011

The Reseller Awards 2011 12 june 2011

200 nominations 25 awards 400 attendees

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Networking Vendor of the Year Cisco

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Our partners are core to our business and a key driver for Cisco's future growth," said the visionary CEO of Cisco, John Chambers at an annual partner meet.

With partners a key component of Cisco’s annual growth, their programmes have also changed with technologies. One of the initiatives announced is to help partners monetize the cloud opportunity and expand their professional services practices. Another programme is towards selling end-to-end communications called Collaborative Professional Services.

As more customers place a premium on working with certified partners, developing talent to strengthen joint competitive advantage is also a priority. This has led to the formation of the Partner Sales Force programme.

This programme focuses on increasing partner’s business revenue by leveraging Cisco's expertise to help partners differentiate.

The vendor continues with its three types of partner relationships: Resale Channel programme, Managed Services certification and Outsourcing Channel programme. The Fit4Talent programme helps identify the right channel partner.

Software and Security Vendor of the Year Blue Coat Systems

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n February 2011, Blue Coat introduced its Cloud Partner programme. This is an internet delivered service that leverages web security technology and collaborative web-pulse community to provide web protection to users. Blue Coat provides existing partners with the sales and technology training they need to begin selling the new service.

The Blue Coat cloud service complements existing Blue Coat products and allows cloud-ready partners to expand their product portfolio. By offering both an appliance-based and a cloud-based web security solution, partners can help their end-users choose the solution that is right for their business. Benefits include expanded solution portfolio, new revenue opportunities, new service opportunities, better customer visibility.

Other channel partner programmes during 2010-11 included Blue Coat Assessment Service: a new cloud-based reporting and analytical service; Fast Start enablement programme to quickly ramp up partners that sell Blue Coat WAN optimization solutions; new Try-and-Buy programme to simplify the evaluation process and reward partners that successfully convert evaluations into sales; new training and education resources through the Blue Coat University; and the virtual marketing service centre.

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Storage Vendor of the Year Western Digital

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uring 2010-2011, Western Digital launched top of the range products including Caviar Green 3TB, VelociRaptor 600GB, Scorpio Blue 750GB. All these products excelled with fastest access speeds available. In line with upcoming product technologies it launched the SiliconEdge Blue, the first consumeroriented solid state drive.

Western Digital’s product portfolio allowed channel partners to be ahead of competitors by offering select technology and capacity point, which in turn boosted sales.

Western Digital’s philosophy is to develop the three P’s: people, partners and products. With this in mind the vendor launched an enhanced online version of its loyalty programme called SelectWD partner programme online. An EMEA-wide telemarketing project “serving the channel” was also initiated to reach past, present and new partners.

Through the online loyalty programme partners were able to feel more connected to their sales performance and accumulated rebate returns. The ongoing programme supports three types of partners: platinum, gold and silver. It has more than 1,000 members across EMEA.

Peripherals Vendor of the Year Genius

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he product range from Genius includes accessories like mice, keyboards, webcam and digital cameras, graphic tablets, headsets, headphones, speakers, subwoofers and gaming items.

In 2010, the vendor launched its power retail programme for all its retail partners in UAE, which includes a dedicated brand representative. For the reseller market, Genius launched the Shop-InShop programme. This programme has been successful in implementing a retail concept in distribution stores. The programme allows partners the flexibility of stock rotation and a dedicated in-store sales executive to promote the products.

A technical support centre available at 800-GENIUS has been set up, however the returns of defective goods under warranty remains at 0.1%, year on year.

Channel meets and road shows were conducted for partners in UAE, KSA, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. The vendor participated in Cebit, Gitex, Computex, Elecomp, Saudi Arabia Gitex, Distree Monte Carlo and Distree Fujairah.

Using its established base in the Gulf, the vendor is now expanding into the African market.

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IT’S MORE THAN A PRINTER IT’S A SMART INVESTMENT HP LASERJET. IT PAYS YOU BACK.

HP LASERJET XXX XXXXXX ET ASIMI, UT FUGITE NESCIAT RATATIO. IPSUS ET FUGA NOSA CUM IUSCIA EL INT Et asimi, ut fugite nesciat ratatio. Ipsus et fuganosa cum iuscia ipsum

WOULD YOU LIKE TO CUT YOUR PRINT COSTS? The HP LaserJet P2055 Printer isn’t just a decision to choose leading-edge print technology; it’s an investment in efficiency that will quickly pay for itself and then start paying you back.

Make an investment that will pay you back, choose HP. To find out more, go to www.hp.co/me JULY 2011

Reseller Middle East

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Components vendor of the year Intel Corporation

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ntel is not only the world’s largest semiconductor company but designs technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s computing devices.

Over the last 15 years, the channel has proved its importance and value to Intel’s growth and success, and delivers now just over a third of all Intel’s sales. Intel has been in the Middle East region for over two decade and has continually supported the reseller channel with latest knowledge and strategic tools.

During 2010-11, Intel transformed its Channel Partner programme into a new programme designed to recognise and reward all partners for the Intel-based hardware solutions they sell.

The Intel Channel Partner programme, meant for PC builders has been merged into Technology Provider Programme meant for resellers.

The Technology Provider programme supports the sales and marketing efforts of all reseller partners that specify, design, build or resell Intelbased technology solutions through a single membership programme.

The Technology Provider programme keeps the most successful elements of the Channel Partner programme and also supports other business models which deliver Intel-based solutions to end customers.

Printing vendor of the year HP IPG Middle East

H

P has a comprehensive printing portfolio with solutions for consumer, commercial, corporate and graphics segments. It has inkjet printers for consumer and commercial setups, laser printers and multi-function devices, large format printers and production outdoor and indoor printers, and commercial web digital printing

presses.

During 2010, HP’s Imaging and Printing group, decided to take a pro-active approach towards restructuring the channel programmes.

The hardware and supplies channels were merged into one business.

In addition HP has partner-specific programmes to cater for the different types of business and channel partners. It now has the largest channel team ever in the Middle East.

A number of product update tours have been completed keeping resellers up to date on the latest products and technologies such as the ePrint cloud printing technology. Another announcement was Printonomics, which is an effort to educate partners to enhance the office printing environment, reducing unnecessary waste and saving their customers time and money. The vendor also held total cost of ownership workshops for channel partners and provided them with marketing and sales tools.

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Systems and hardware vendor of the year Dell Middle East

D

ell was once a leading proponent of the revolutionary, just in time, direct sales model. Today 25% of its global commercial revenue comes through the channel. In the Middle East, 100% of its revenue is generated through the channel.

Dell launched its key channel programme PartnerDirect in EMEA in early 2008. However the vendor brought in various key channel initiatives in the last year. For marketing development funds, Dell has allowed partners to use Campaign Builder for better content and quicker implementation. The Voluntary Concessions programme allows partners with outdated inventory to lower costs.

The Smart price list offers fixed configurations, at fixed prices with unique identifiers and volume discounts across the product portfolio.

This price list is the single source for competitive pricing, and allows distributors to order and match their inventory codes with Dell SPL ID numbers.

IT distributor of the year Aptec Holding

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ptec operates across Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Morocco. It completed thirty years of operation in the year 2010. It initiated advanced logistical services in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt dedicated to IT, telecom and electronics industry. It uses Altair fleet management and tracking devices to manage its vehicle movements.

Its revenue grew by 14% in 2010 over the previous year. The last twelve months saw it receiving various recognitions including Microsoft highest OEM distribution revenue of the year; highest commercial distribution revenue of the year to Aptec Saudi; HP distributor of the year; best distributor of the year by Linksys; and D-link distributor of the year awards.

Aptec also added new tie-ups to its portfolio. It is now an authorised ME distributor for Avaya enterprise. It is also regional distributor for Cisco, which allows it to offer the full portfolio across ME and other emerging markets.

Aptec focused on its main deliverables for resellers: value technology, value services, and value delivery.

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Components distributor of the year FDC International

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DC considers itself to be a house of brands. These include Lenovo, Acer, Packard Bell, Asus for notebooks; ECS, Asus, Asrock, Intel for motherboard; Seagate, WD for hard disk drives; XFX, Asus, Palit, ECS for graphic cards; Liteon, Sony for ODD; Kingston, Apacer for Memory; Intel, AMD for CPU and Kaspersky for security.

It received various recognitions over the last twelve months including AMD Award: Elite Fusion Partner 2011; AMD award: FDC as premier member of the AMD Fusion Partner Programme 2010; Inter Regional Award Winner: Intel Solution Summit 2011.

FDC supports its channel partners by having dedicated in country account managers looking after sales, service, replacements and warehousing. This ensures pending issues get resolved without delay.

There is also a centralised contact centre for consolidation of pending reseller issues.

FDC has a preferred four point-programme for its channel partners.

Members get preferential status for marketing support, pricing, rebates and allocation of stock.

Sales and technical staff from channel partners receive regular vendor and technology training from FDC.

Networking distributor of the year Westcon Middle East

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uring the year Westcon’s Cisco division won the Cisco UAE distributor of the year award; regional distributor of the year award for its Africa and Levant operations; and global distributor of the year award at the Cisco Partner Summit, 2011. As part of the continuing relationship with Cisco it received exclusive distributorship of Cisco Tele Presence and Iron Port.

Westcon believes its resellers go through a six-step cycle in any enduser engagement. This includes preparation, approach, discovery, solution design, presentation and implementation.

It therefore offers various real-world, analytical, online and email based tools for every stage. These include WebTrack, FastTrack, MailVision, SolutionsBase, ServiceVantage, Current Analysis, E-Business Compass.

To ensure larger success for its channel community it has expanded its support across the full six-stage sales and implementation cycle. The support includes: Credit as a service, around finance; Marketing as a service, around go-to-market activities; and Annuity tracker, for renewable licenses.

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Specialised distributor of the year FVC, Inc

D

uring the year FVC received various vendor recognitions. From Polycom it received Partner of the Year for the MENA region; and Competitive Knock-Out Award at EMEA level, for replacing competitive products with Polycom in one of the leading telcos in the GCC region. The company was recognised by nCircle as Partner of the Year for 2010 in EMEA. FVC entered into a partnership with du to set up a video network operations centre. The key offering is video as a managed service and to move it from a capital purchase to an operating expense for potential customers. FVC is in various initiatives to replicate this model with other regional telecos. This offering is built around Polycom’s open visual communication initiative.

The business strategy is built around various drivers including: demand creation for emerging technologies, enablement through education and development of technical competence through training.

As an extension of the above, it has created a dedicated support programme for specialised resellers built around related attributes: demand creation, differentiation and profitability. The programme is called CHEER for channel enablement, empowerment and rewards. The programme also has a back-end CRM to support lead generation.

Value added distributor of the year Optimus Technology and Telecommunications

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ver the last year, Optimus doubled the number of channel partners; started ventures in Afghanistan and Pakistan; opened inventory of goods in Qatar and Egypt; enhanced credit management and cash flow; increased the size of local technical and sales teams in UAE, Qatar, KSA, Pakistan and Egypt; conducted certification and training programmes; and launched new products from security, information, storage data and convergence technologies into its channel.

Optimus claims to be a distributor that has executed the value model across multiple regions. Optimus 360 is meant to encapsulate the full portfolio of value addition for its reseller community. This includes sales and marketing support, lead generation, centralised pre-sales help desk, bid support services, professional services support desk, training services, logistics support services with multi-country local stocking, financial support services The distributor provides a single window for its resellers to access a broad portfolio of infrastructure technology and telecom solutions.

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Software and security distributor of the year Computerlinks

A

cross 2010-11, the distributor created a reseller profiling programme based on the strengths of the reseller, available market opportunity and strengths and weakness of vendor technologies. The partner profile summary is shared with Computerlinks’ professional services team and a gap analysis report is generated.

Training programmes are planned out on the basis of this gap analysis and further developed into growth opportunities for each reseller across finance, education, teleco, e-governance and other vertical markets.

Computerlinks and partner vendors support the cost towards training and certification, business development and long term growth of specific reseller partners. This brings a better understanding between the distributor and its reseller community, which Computerlinks believes is its unique value-add in the region.

Another initiative is the facility of virtual proof of concepts called “demo on demand”. This is a service where demonstration or proof of concept videos are hosted or sent via e-mail as embedded files and give the reseller a virtual hands-on of the technology or product.

Peripherals distributor of the year Logicom

D

uring 2010-11, Logicom was awarded the Highest Sales Revenue Award 2010 by Linksys; and Microsoft OEM Readiness Champion Award. Along with its portfolio of primary vendors including Microsoft, Cisco, HP, the firm also added Hitachi, Belkin and Adobe.

It is implemented Microsoft CRM to manage its sales requests and transactions with resellers and has developed an online portal for booking orders. It expanded its warehouse facility in Dubai by 7,000 sqm to increase the size of its inventory reducing lead times for its resellers. It will further expand its warehouse area in 2012.

Technology training for its reseller partners is conducted under “Logicom Technology Forum”, which is a regular monthly training workshop. The forums also involve customer interactions and the distributor has completed ten of these events in 2010-11.

It is leveraging on its key relationships with HP and Cisco.

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Enterprise reseller of the year help AG

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elp AG, an enterprise security reseller had a growth rate of over 100% in 2010-11 and increased its customer base by 60%. It’s customer base typically consists of companies or establishment with over a thousand users. The product portfolio includes over 15 vendor solutions built around the data centre and new technologies like web application firewalls and advanced malware protection.

In 2010, help AG signed on new vendors including Palo Alto, Sourcefire and Fire Eye. Currently help AG is the only authorised service partner and training centre in the Middle East for Palo Alto and in a short span has already received the MENA Partner of the Year award.

Help AG was also presented Partner of the Year award, based on their strength in the enterprise security area and professional services,

by Symantec in 2010. Further the vendor recommended these services to their enterprise customer base. After Symantec’s acquisition of PGP, help AG is the only master specialised PGP partner in the Middle East.

Revenue from Symantec’s portfolio grew 500% over the previous year.

SMB and consumer reseller of the year Accent Office Supplies Trading

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ast year revenues grew by 15% for Accent Office Supplies. It is a reseller for APC, Canon consumables and HP products. It is an active member of the Dubai Computer Traders Group.

With the group, Accent has actively pitched to initiate a credit rating system for all trading partners. It has also been active in anticounterfeit initiatives in conjunction with vendors like Epson, Canon and HP. Its customer portfolio includes Emirates Bank, Emaar, Dubai Properties, Majid Al Futtaim Group and others. In recognition of its close business association with vendors and annual sales performance, Accent has received awards from Canon and various nominations with HP. In line with growing consumer sales through the retail sector, it has opened a retail store front in Dubai. It offers a range of laptops through its retail outlet.

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Our solutions + your customers = great business!

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

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

Super retailer of the year X-cite by Alghanim Electronics

X

-cite by Alghanim has seen its repeat customer visits move to at least six times per year. Instead of adopting a sell-sell approach inside its stores, this super retailer has tried to move towards increasing shopping value as a differentiator.

Some of the differentiators across its stores include running a Facebook page; in-store, on-the-spot approval of easy instalment pay-backs; sponsoring popular events like Nancy Ajram concert, Cirque du Soleil and Moscow Circus with complementary tickets for shoppers; look and touch product experience across its outlets; monitored check-out delay times for customers; home consultancy through personal sales visits reducing lead time for consumer IT purchases.

Other initiatives include pro-active extended warranty programmes over the full range of smartphones and IT products; setup and configure IT products after purchase thereby reducing post purchase hitches; flexible goods return policy; 24 hour, seven days a week, working hours for primary outlets; phone order booking; multi-lingual trained shop floor staff; and used goods swap-deals for gaming consoles and smartphones.

X-cite, which is the largest electronics retailer in Kuwait, trades in 4,000 different IT items, and across its entire portfolio 15,000 unique items from 300 brands.

Systems integrator of the year Gulf Business Machines, GBM

G

BM has a long standing relationship with Cisco. It has been recognised by Cisco for customer satisfaction excellence and given Gold partner status for eight continuous years. Based on its consistent implementation performance, Cisco has also awarded GBM, Public Sector partner and Service Partner of the year awards

for UAE. However GBM is also moving towards a multi vendor portfolio. It has relationships with Juniper Networks; Mettoni solutions including Datapulse, Arc Solutions, Exxcom; Aeroscout; Riverbed; Leviton; iST and others.

It has opened a network operations centre in Dubai to remotely manage and monitor customers’ IT infrastructure. In addition to the monitoring function, it has a help desk for network support functions. GBM has a large number of Cisco certified engineers across various specialisations including Cisco Certified Internet, Advanced Security, Advanced Unified Communications, Advanced Wireless LAN, Advanced Routing and Switching, Advanced Data Centre Networking Infrastructure, Cisco Advanced Technology Provider in Telepresence, Outdoor Wireless Mesh and Video Surveillance.

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Best partner excellence, vendor Microsoft Gulf

I

n late 2010, Microsoft reworked its partner network programme removing the previous Gold, Certified and Registered levels of membership to just two including Gold and Silver competency. It also created specialisations with regard to user maturity levels and its own technology delivery platforms.

The user specialisations include Application Integration, Business Intelligence, Customer Relationship Management, Data Platform, Enterprise Resource Planning, Independent Software Vendor, OEM Hardware and Unified Communications. Microsoft customer facing platforms include cloud computing, Office 2010, servers, Office 365 and Windows Intune.

However the main reasons for the restructuring was they were aligned by Microsoft’s technology deliveries and not end-user approach to the market. That has now been reworked and partners have till October 2011 to complete their migration.

The qualification for Silver competency partner network programme includes the following: two Microsoft Certified Professionals, one individual with Microsoft Licensing overview assessment, one individual with online Sales and Marketing competency assessment, three customer references and payment of annual membership fees.

Best partner excellence, distributor Redington Gulf

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edington Gulf achieved revenue of $1.31 billion in 2009-10 and has 4,900 channel partners across the region. It operates out of 23 offices and employees 800 people. It is an offshoot of its Indian parent Redington India Ltd. It has 40 service centres across the region and supports 35 brands including Aastra, Acer, APC, Ascom, Asus, Avaya, Canon, Cisco, Check Point, Coral Telecom, Dell, Epson, Fujitsu, HP, Juniper, Imation, Lenovo, Molex, NComputing, Nokia, Packard bell, RedHat, Samsung, Sandisk, Seagate, Sonicwall, Sony, Symantec, Toshiba, Trend Micro, Tripplite, Western Digital.

It is a preferred partner for all of its vendors and resellers and has an average relationship of ten years with them. To ride out the recession, Redington increased interactions with its partners as well as the service standard across its centres. Redington believes after-sales support is a key factor in driving sales in depressed market conditions and creates a win-win scenario for its partners.

The distributor also increased its inventory levels across 2010, leading to quicker supply chain movement. Typically this was less than 24 hours for retail customers in the UAE; and less than 72 hours for retail customers in the GCC.

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Microsoft Partner of the Year

For the second consecutive year, ALMOAYYED Computers has won the Microsoft Partner of the Year Award.

This reafďŹ rms our position as a market leader and is conďŹ rmation of our excellence in innovation and implementation of Microsoft based technology.

For over three decades, we have been the partner of choice for the region's government organizations and MNC's.

We're proud to continue to serve them with a spirit of excellence.

First Bahraini ICT Company to win Channel Middle East Award

Ranked among ACN's Top System Integrators in the Middle East

Outstanding executive, IT channel Madhav Narayan

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adhav Narayan is currently working at Samsung Electronics as Regional Director, Enterprise Business. As part of the senior management team, he developed and implemented the distribution strategy to drive growth of IT products within the ME markets.

This included market analysis, strategic planning, sales forecasting, distribution channel development, solution selling, and new product roll-out. He also recruited, built and today manages the highperformance team to run this operation.

Samsung notebooks, is now the fastest growing brand in the consumer IT segment reaching the top positions in Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Narayan expects the overall product performance to be three times better than the previous year.

Narayan also launched other product categories including laser printers, large format display and external storage and brought them to the top positions in the Middle East consumer markets. In order to achieve this he established and developed operations in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Prior to joining Samsung, Narayan worked at Dell UAE from 2003 as regional manager, for the dynamic home and small business segment. He drove the business from scratch to reach the $250 million figure in a period of three years and led Dell to the top position in Saudi Arabia. Narayan also displayed fast-track performance at Redington Gulf from 1994 to 2003 bringing it amongst the top three players of the region.

Outstanding executive, IT channel Lee Reynolds

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ee Reynolds calls himself a “get the job done�, hard working guy, with ambition and drive to succeed. His experience has taken him to over 35 countries and most parts of the world. His forte is consulting on IPO’s; worldwide channel strategies for IT vendors; starting a new venture from scratch; running and developing business from the top.

Give him any of these assignments and Reynolds with his drive and enthusiasm is going to make a difference. He works best in organisations that are dynamic, challenging and most of all rewarding. His business qualities: creating, managing, leading and selling.

He set up Fusion Distribution a value added distributor operating in the Middle East market which was subsequently acquired by Computerlinks Group in 2007. Today as Managing Director he looks after Computerlinks MEA and APAC based out of Dubai.

His main activity is group expansion and has set up offices in Johannesburg, Singapore and Sydney. Prior to that Reynolds worked at IT ConX marketing. He has engineering honours from Sheffield Hallam University.

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Reader’s choice, vendor Advanced Micro Devices, AMD

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MD follows “customer-centric innovation,” and it represents the guiding principle. AMD does not underestimate the value of partner collaboration. Close relationships with distributors and resellers are its top priorities In 2009, AMD introduced the Fusion partner programme, with the aim to provide channel partners with tailored tools and resources to help support sales. AMD’s product portfolio includes GPUs, CPUs, chipsets and AMD Fusion family of APUs. The AMD Fusion partner programme has various areas of benefits including training through AMD academy, support for partner events and demand generation marketing campaigns. Partner programmes include Elite, Premier and Select.

Examples of the training programmes include: AMD Opteron Processor Architecture and its components; AMD64 Software Architecture Course; x86 Online Training Course; Intro x86 Architecture eLearning Course; x86 Instruction Set Architecture book; Book and Video about HyperTransport 3.

By combing its four existing partner programmes into one, AMD aims to effectively focus on supporting the sales process for all AMD solutions.

AMD also has an innovation competition amongst its developers. The OpenCL innovation challenge is to encourage development of applications requiring massive vector operations like game physics, facial recognition, voice recognition, video searching, video stabilisation and others. Prize money starts at $20,000.

Reader’s choice, distributor Asbis Middle East

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sbis operates across Europe, Middle East and Africa as a “one-stopshop" for a wide range of hardware and software products. While it claims to be a specialist in emerging markets, a key geographical focus is UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Gulf countries.

Asbis’ range of products includes IT components meant for local and export assemblers, system integrators and retailers, as well as Level-I vendor products like desktop, laptops, servers and networking products.

The hardware product portfolio includes Intel, AMD, Seagate, Toshiba, Dell, Lenovo, Sapphire, AOC, Gainward, Lexmark, Foxconn. The software product portfolio includes AVG, ESET, Symantec, Acronis, Promise and Ability Software. For accessories, Asbis owns brands Prestigio and Canyon, which it distributes through its retail network.

At the EMEA Channel Awards at Monaco in the first quarter of 2011, Asbis won the best distributor award for North Arica and Middle East with 41% of the live votes.

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WATCH OVER YOUR DATA

STORE. SHARE. PROTECT.

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Editor’s choice Kaspersky Lab

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n its 2010 global report on security software Gartner has ranked Kasperksy Lab as one of the fastest growing vendors. In terms of revenue it is now amongst the top ten globally. The top five positions are occupied by Symantec, Mcafee, Trend Micro, IBM and EMC. In terms of Euro revenue growth, Kaspersky Lab grew by 49% in the consumer segment, and 37% in the enterprise segment - an indication of the demand for its solutions across these segments. EMEA is the vendor’s largest market globally, with Asia Pacific and North America following next.

Products within the security market are undergoing rapid evolution, in terms of both new delivery models — with security as a service showing increasing popularity — and new technologies being introduced, often by start up companies.

The products for the retail and small office segment include, Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011, Kaspersky Internet Security 2011, Kaspersky Pure and Kaspersky Small Office Security 2. The products for the corporate segment include Kaspersky Open Space Security and Kaspersky Administration Kit 8.0.

Kasperky operates through a 100% indirect sales model. The channel programme has three kinds of direct partners, consumer republishing, value added distribution and enterprise partner. It has five types of indirect partners: sub-distributor, premier retail reseller, premier business reseller, trusted reseller and authorised reseller. A premier retail reseller is the most trusted and valued type of partner.

JURY PANEL, RESELLER awards 2011 An independent four-member jury panel sorted

solutions in research and business analytics,

IPG products in the Middle-East. Prior to joining HP

through close to 200 nominations to select 25

marketing intelligence and mobility solutions.

he worked for distributors and resellers of software

award winners

Vasudevan comes with multi-functional and multi-

and hardware vendors including AutoDesk HP

industry experience by virtue of working in strategic

and IBM. Khaled currently lives in the United Arab

Guy Whitcroft, NED Solutions

roles with Samsung and Sanyo focusing major part

Emirates and offers consultancy and senior level

Whitcroft has previously been principal consultant

of his career in the Middle East.

coaching and training all over the Middle East and

with CapitalSteps, Group COO of Aptec, and

During his 17 years of executive stint in UAE,

Africa region.

held a C-level role at MB Technologies. He has a

Vasudevan has played various management

unique understanding of the IT channel industry

roles including sales, marketing, HR, commercial

Samer Karawi, Managing Partner G&K

with four decades of experience. He has played a

finance, logistics, PR, legal, corporate and strategic

This is a consulting firm focusing on providing

role as vendor, distributor, reseller and end-user.

management issues. He has extensively travelled in

American and European ICT companies with

Credited with the growth of Tarsus Technologies-

the Middle East, African continent and CIS countries.

business development services in the Middle East.

MB Technologies from a small niche distributor to

This also includes selection of appropriate channel partners, recruitment, training, enablement and

strong focus on the top and bottom line and what's

Khaled Kamel, Partner at Maham Management Consulting

required to achieve success.

Prior to Maham, Kamel has worked for two years

worked for over 25 years in major multinational IT

as the Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan Regional

companies in various capacities and has experience

Vasudevan KS, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Satvik Inc

Managing Director at Lenovo. Before that Khaled

in both European and Middle East markets. Samer

was Country Manager for HP in Saudi Arabia, HP

holds a bachelor degree in Computer Science and a

This is a new age research and analytics solutions

business development manager for large format

master degree in marketing from France. //

provider, with capabilities in consulting oriented

printers in the Middle-East, and sales manager for all

South Africa's largest distribution group, Guy has a

sales and marketing support. Prior to this, Samer

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FEATURE Supplies and consumables

Lexmark now has a universal ink jet cartridge which fits all models in operation. Medmark and its resellers only need to stock the Vizix 100, multi-color box cartridge for the ink jet printer range.

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LEFT PAGE: Optimised inventory for supplies and consumables, George Saliba, Sales Manager, Medmark

Pay as you go After sales contracts based on printed pages are an important source of recurring revenue Sometime back George Saliba, Sales Manager of Lexmark’s distribution partnerMedmark, carried around a circular handy-guide to figure out, which cartridge fitted into which ink jet printer. Inventory management was complicated and Medmark and its resellers were required to carry stocks of all ink cartridges that were in demand, along with the handy guide.

Since 2010 Lexmark has downsized the number of ink jet printer models. In parallel it reengineered it’s versatile ink cartridges and brought the number of variations downs to the smallest possible number, that is “one”.

Lexmark now has a universal ink jet cartridge which fits all models in operation.

Medmark and its resellers only need to stock the Vizix 100, multi-color box cartridge for the ink jet printer range. The Vizix cartridge has four box slots for four inks and each can be replaced based on the consumption cycle.

While Lexmark has been able to reengineer its ink cartridges, HP still maintains it’s range of multiple cartridge options. Says HP’s Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laserjet and Enterprise solutions: “It’s easy to do that when you have a small portfolio of products. But when you have a huge portfolio of products you cannot limit yourself to one model of cartridge.”

Another reason why HP has not adopted the cartridge optimisation route is because part of the inkjet printing mechanism is maintained inside its cartridge. Lexmark on the other hand has moved the entire printing head into its printers thereby reducing the footprint of the cartridge.

Support services are proactive based on network alerts from contracted equipment. The billing pattern is similar to utility consumption, “pay as you go.”

However Azzam points out that a family of ink jet printers uses the same cartridge and the cartridges only vary based on the family of printers. The other variation HP has brought into its inkjet supplies is a volume based size variation. Cartridges are available based on duty cycles for light and heavy users.

Another initiative taken by Lexmark was to get out of the single function, low end ink jet market space. “Beginning 2010, Lexmark decided to stop single function inkjet printers and focus on multi-function printers,” says Medmark’s Saliba.

However the most innovative ink cartridge in the market is Xerox’s Cartridgefree solid ink. This is a wax based, ink block that has four different shapes to match four different colour slots in its range of solid ink printers. The ink block has no exterior frame, fits into one of the slots in the printer even during running operations, is bio degradable and has little waste residue after usage.

On the super retail store front, ink jet and laser printer cartridges, play another role.

Supplies are stocked next to printers and take up shelf space. “A lot of this is to create brand awareness,’ says Jacky’s CEO Ashish Panjabi. The right display of supplies can improve the appeal of the shelved products.

Availability of supplies helps to bring the customer to the store, keeps the cycle running, does not take up a huge space and gives a fair return.

“If you don’t have it, you lose the customer to somebody else,” points out Panjabi and he would much rather continue shelving supplies rather than discontinue them.

For HP, its print hardware distributors in the Gulf, excluding Saudi Arabia, are Jumbo Electronics, Emitac, Redington, Metra, while Despec does only supply distribution. From a distributor point of view, the business of print supplies is about keeping availability of stocks. If resellers have to use multiple distributors to complete sourcing supplies, they will not return. Says Azzam: “Supplies is a different ball game from hardware.”

The annuity game plan When inkjet printers were initially launched, printing vendors dropped the cost of hardware and proportionately increased the cost of supplies. The idea was to obtain a profitable return from the total cost of ownership, across the life of the printer, while reducing the barriers of an initial higher product price.

However the casualty of this novel

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FEATURE Supplies and consumables

approach was the single function inkjet printer, usually with a price point equal to a single cartridge, which did not have the robustness to live out its calculated life span and hence was not a viable product.

In today’s SME and enterprise world of multifunction printer models, the idea of continuing returns from the sale of supplies and service maintenance still has a strong win-win appeal.

“For a customer it is not necessarily the initial purchase of the box, but ongoing support and services and security of knowing somebody has the spares to fix it in a timely manner, that is most important,”, says Andrew Hurt, General Manager, Xerox Emirates.

Xerox which has been in Gulf operations since 1985 has classically followed a 100% direct sales model. It is only with the recent expansion of the market, it has started developing indirect channels in the Gulf.

Xerox’s game plan: channel partners who sell the equipment should also sell out annuity services including supplies and uptime of the equipment.

“If we sell a machine, we want to ensure that we protect the service of the machine and revenue by providing a comprehensive service contract,” explains Hurt. The only minor difference, Hurt calls it page-packs and likens it to the recharge vouchers for

Multiple competing printers; mismatched work cycles and functionality; security concerns; interdependability of fax, email and scanning means there is an opportunity to streamline business processes and document management.

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Based on the customer’s machine and the type of printing volume, page packs gets the customer a predetermined number of print impressions.

Encouraging corporate policy against counterfeits, Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, LaserJet and Enterprise Solutions, HP air time.

Based on the customer’s machine and the type of printing volume, page packs gets the customer a pre-determined number of print impressions. In other words the customer is covered for a number of print impressions inclusive of supplies and uptime of the equipment. Once the page-pack is complete, they call the supplier for a fresh purchase.

This cycle allows the channel partner to keep engaging with a customer after the purchase of the equipment, through page packs or annuity contracts.

For the annuity contracts, the support services are provided by Xerox’s team by default. More than one third of Xerox’s staff work at customer sites providing support. The channel partner after obtaining the contracts would sub-contract the support requirement back to Xerox. All prices for such vendor subcontracting are given to the channel partner before-hand.

However, the channel partner has the flexibility to decide whether to adopt the subcontracting route and depend on the parent

vendor while keeping a light shop or retain the customer fees in full and reinvest it into their own support services.

In light of the second approach, Hurt has invested in training rooms and instructors at Xerox’s Dubai hub. “While Xerox is a world recognised brand, it does require us to train the partners on the value proposition, and it requires a continuum in order to maintain the standards of your partner.”

Hurt is also working out more customerfriendly post-sales contracts to ensure there is no slow down in services revenue from channel partners. As per global averages, the ratio of supplies and service revenue across the five year life span of a printer, versus the hardware cost of the printer is 2:1. Hence the annuity income is a significant part of Xerox’s total global revenue.

From a Lexmark point of view, “the ink cartridge helps to recover the cost of the printer. Profit is coming from consumables and supplies. Even with the new range of multifunction inkjet printers, cost of supplies covers the cost of hardware,” says Saliba.

Managed print services A standard annuity contract is reactive — service responses are as per SLA in the annuity contract. However there is a more innovative variation of this support service called managed print services. Equipment is pre-selected, optimised and deployed after a business processes audit is completed.

Support services are proactive based on network alerts from contracted equipment.

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FEATURE Supplies and consumables

Contribution of print supplies, services towards total revenue Vendor

Global revenue 2010 ($ billion) Total

%

Remark

Annuity, supplies services

HP

25.8

Not listed

x

IPG, net profit 17.1%

Canon

24.5

Not listed

x

Office business unit, operating profit 14.8%

Xerox

21.6

17.1

79%

Consolidated, operating profit 34.4%

Ricoh

19.3

Not listed

x

Imaging and Solutions, operating profit 9.2%

Lexmark

4.0

2.9

73%

Consolidated, operating profit 36.2%

Source: Annual reports 2010

W

ith declining profit margins on hardware all vendors are moving towards enhanced services to beef up both top-line and bottom-line margins. As per 2010 balance sheet figures, supplies and print services are already an important component of revenue for Xerox and Lexmark.

For Xerox which is dominantly a direct services company, pulling in channel partners, as it moves from a direct sales model towards more of an indirect sales model, to drive its annuity and managed services business is the current challenge.

For HP which uses a 100% indirect sales model, mobilising its channel partners to sell more annuity and managed services as a value add, while managing support services from within the channel itself, is the current challenge.

Note: Graphics are meant to be representative only.

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The billing pattern is similar to utility consumption, “pay as you go.”

While not directly linked to consumables and supplies, the opportunity of print management allows vendors to enter the enterprise workflow space. Multiple competing printers; mismatched work cycles and functionality; security concerns; inter-dependability of fax, email and scanning means there is an opportunity to streamline business processes and document management.

However the minimum success factors are good understanding of the customer’s vertical markets, understanding of the customer’s business processes and competency in vendor solutions.

Says HP’s Azzam: “We have software solutions which range from security to print feed to document management, which require certain expertise to sell these specific solutions. Managed print service is not about the product anymore, it’s about the prints.”

Says Hurt: “IT spending is under control, payroll is under control, marketing is under control, but an area of business that is not under control is document production.”

For such an out of control customer situation, Xerox will send a dedicated business process outsourcing team to look at the document life cycle within an organisation. The initial discussions do not start with equipment specifications. They start with the portfolio of Xerox’s managed print services and how they fit in with customer’s business processes.

Xerox uses Lean Six Sigma and green or black belt certified consultants to complete this audit followed by its recommendations.

Traditionally key market segments for Xerox across the region include healthcare, education, financial services, graphic arts and construction.

Grey markets and counterfeit An ink or laser toner cartridge built as per vendor specifications follows strict quality compliances. You take into consideration toner materials, safety of the user, safety of the printer and safety of the environment. All these add up to a minimum defined cost for

Xerox’s game plan: channel partners who sell the equipment should also sell out annuity services including supplies and uptime of the equipment. an original supplies product.

A counterfeit product by nature is meant to be well below such a defined price and therefore violates many of the safety criteria in an original product. Usage of such a product will annul the warranty of the printer.

Printers and cartridges are smart devices today and link up with each other through unique IDs, creating an audit trail.

An original ink or toner cartridge, selling well below the recommended price in a market, which has been brought in through a non-regulated inbound route, is another type of challenge. If a reseller chooses to trade in such a grey market product and dumps

Services led technology company, Andrew Hurt, General Manager, Xerox Emirates the official distributor quota in favour of such a deal, there will be a shortfall of target volumes as well as reduced rebates and discounts. The reseller will find themselves with reduced margins and higher costs.

Finally a corporate counterfeit policy is a policy of actively avoiding any possible

purchase of such products. The policy should give guidelines on where to buy, how to inspect, how to monitor products within the company and finally safe disposal of the cartridge. According to Azzam, 72% of companies in the region have no such policy in place. //

The green printers n

n

HP recycled 120,000 tons of electronic products and supplies in 2008. In 2011 it

toner cartridges or 1,000 Inkjet cartridges can be packed per air freight pallet. It has

wants to triple the figure based on 2007 volume. To date, HP has recycled more

manufactured 555 million inkjet cartridges from the recycling programme.

than 2 billion pounds of hardware and print cartridges globally.

HP’s Planet Partners recycling programme

n

began in 1991 for Laserjet toner cartridges.

In 1997 it was expanded to include inkjet

n

cartridges and today it includes any brand of IT equipment. To date it has received and recycled 319 million laser and inkjet cartridges.

HP has recycling solutions available in more than 50 countries and regions. 75 Laserjet

n

n

HP reduced the weight of inkjet cartridge packing by more than 40% in 2009. This allows 100% more units to be packed in the same truckload and reduces carbon dioxide units by 1.7 million pounds.

Xerox began supporting recycled paper in 1973 and educating customers on proper paper use and energy-saving tips.

Xerox remanufacturing has given new life to the equivalent of more than 2.6 million copiers, printers, and multifunction systems,

n

n

n

n

while diverting hundreds of millions of kilograms of potential waste from landfills.

Xerox operations worldwide conform to the Xerox Ozone Depleting Substances Policy established in 1992 that prohibits ODS from all Xerox processes, products, and services.

Xerox has reduced air emission from facilities 93% from 1991 levels.

Winter temperatures in Xerox manufacturing facilities cool production processes rather than using massive air conditioners.

Xerox creates products with increased reliability reducing the kilometres service technicians have to drive each day to customer sites.

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PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY News

Prestigio MultiPad PMP3084B Dimensions 161x213x11mm; Weight 490gm; Display Size 8.4”; Resolution 800 X 600 pixels; Display Technology TFT LCD resistive touch screen, Screen rotation 4 way G-sensor; CPU ARM 11 660MHz CPU with hardware video acceleration DSP; Power Lithium Polymer Battery; Battery Life 4000mAh; OS Android 2.1 Eclair; Keyboard Android soft; WIFI 802.11b/g; Memory 256MB DDR, NAND Flash 4GB; Expansion Slots SD Card (up to 16GB); Other Interfaces USB2.0 high speed port; 3.5mm Earphone, Speakers Stereo, built-in; INCLUDES USB cable and power adapter, Stylish leather pouch, Quick guide, Warranty card

Xpression flash drive The Integral Xpression USB range is available in a variety of fun designs that stand out from multitude of plain black, blue and silver USBs in use. New ‘music’ and ‘animal’ Xpression collections join the popular Xpression “pattern collection” that have had success with fashion conscious users.

Prestigio MultiPad PMP7100C

Dimensions 270x150x12 mm; Weight 480gm; Display Size 10.1”; Resolution 1024 x 600 pixels; Display Technology T FT LCD capacitive multi touch screen; Screen rotation 4 way G-sensor; CPU ARM Cortex A8 1 GHz by Texas Instruments; Power Lithium Polymer Battery; Battery Life Audio up to 36h, video 7h, web 10h; OS Android 2.2 Froyo; Keyboard Android 2.2 soft; WIFI 802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 2.1 EDR; Memory 256MB DDR; Internal Flash 8GB; Expansion Slots microSD Card; Other Interfaces USB2.0 highspeed port, USB host; HDMI output, 3.5mm Earphone; Audio Speakers & microphone built-in; Camera Front, VGA, INCLUDES High quality earphones; USB cable; Quick Start Guide; Legal and safety notice; Power charger; Warranty card

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Hard drive copy station

Crypto Dual drive The Integral Crypto Dual is a 256-bit AES hardware encryption USB flash drive that fulfils the need for sensitive data to be securely stored on a USB and protected from loss or theft.

Crypto Dual features a dual password option so that an IT administrator can override a user’s password and recover data if they forget their password or leave the company. The drive also has dual operating system compatibility, running on both Windows PCs and Mac. The Crypto Dual has been independently tested for data encryption by the Federal Information Processing Standards (FIPS) committee and validated to FIPS 197. The USB provides mandatory encryption of all files, unprotected files cannot be saved to the Crypto Dual. The Integral Crypto Dual operates comfortably with endpoint security solutions by using an embedded unique ID. Specifications AES 256-bit hardware encryption; FIPS 197 Validated-Certificate No. 1137; Secure Entrydata cannot be accessed without the correct high strength alphanumeric 8-16 character password; Brute-Force Password Attack Protection-data is automatically erased after 6 failed access attempts; Unique number-the USB pin on each drive is etched with a unique and random 7-digit code; Rugged triple-layer waterproof design-protects the Crypto Dual against knocks, drops, break-in and submerging in water; Multi-lingual interface.

The Integral hard drive copy station allows an identical copy of a computer hard drive to be made easily, at the touch of a button. It is a standalone solution with no PC required.

The copy station allows the user to backup and upgrade a hard drive or switch to a solid state drive without any fuss.

Specifications Compatible with 2.5" and 3.5" SATA drives; copy HDD and SSD drives; works as an external storage device with USB or eSATA connections; Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7 and Mac OS X 10.1+ compatible for use as an external storage device

Nvidia GeForce GTX 560M for notebook gamers The GeForce GTX 560M graphics processor hits the “sweet spot” for gaming notebooks by delivering gaming experience at full 1080p resolution. OEMs will also be offering GeForce GTX gaming GPUs with Nvidia Optimus technology.

The GeForce GTX 560M and Nvidia Optimus mean gamers get 50 frames per second in Duke Nukem Forever and five hours of battery life in Microsoft Office.

Available only with Nvidia GPUs, Nvidia Optimus technology enables extra-long battery life by automatically switching on and off the GPU so that it runs only when needed.

The convenience of Nvidia Optimus technology is designed into over 80 percent of GeForce 500M Series notebooks and is used by major notebook OEMs. For thin-and-light notebooks, Nvidia

also refreshed its entry-level GeForce GT 500M GPUs with the arrival of the new GeForce GT 520MX GPU. Alienware and Toshiba will be offering notebooks featuring GeForce GTX 560M and Optimus technology. ASUS, Clevo, MSI, Medion and others will be offering notebooks featuring GeForce GTX 560M. ASUS, Samsung and others will be offering notebooks featuring GeForce GT 520MX.

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PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY News

Fujitsu Lifebook P771

Nvidia 3D vision wired glasses Nvidia’s advanced active-shutter technology allows gamers and 3D enthusiasts to access 3D content including more than 525 full-HD 3D games, Blu-ray 3D movies, and streaming 3D video from YouTube and 3DVisionLive.com.

Nvidia’s 3D Vision wired glasses also support more than 65 different 3D Vision monitors, notebooks, and projectors, giving user flexibility in configuring their 3D Vision PCs. Nvidia’s 3D Vision wired glasses include a 10-foot USB 2.0 cable for direct, easy connection to a 3D Vision PC or notebook. This makes it suitable for LAN gaming events and iCafe gaming centres, as it does not require batteries. The new glasses are at an affordable price of AED 364.

Desktop visualiser from Epson The device, essentially a highquality 5 megapixel camera on a rugged, hinged arm, is designed to help teachers at primary and secondary schools effortlessly share 3D objects, books, experiments and even living things with classes and also create multimedia lesson notes.

The large A3 shooting area means objects don’t need to be precisely positioned or continually readjusted, while the buttons are intuitive. Use the dedicated buttons to: auto focus; switch between inputs, PC or visualiser’s camera; zoom in and out; take photos; or

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record video. Rotating the head of the arm through 90 degrees to adjust the camera’s viewpoint is simple too. And science teachers can easily attach a microscope to share a close-up view via the included attachment.

The advanced application software manages the interactive functions and multimedia options.

Take still images and record videos or even watch ice-cream melt at speed with the time-lapse feature which captures up to 72 hours.

Battery runtimes of up to 18 hours using Intel chipset technology and ultra low-voltage processors; optional solid state hard drive; optional second battery fitted in the modular bay; removable DVD drive; advanced theft protection; optional fingerprint sensor; data protection from the optional trusted platform module; lid made from lightweight magnesium; shock sensor that automatically disengages the mechanical heads; spillresistant keyboard.

DECISIONS. POWERED BY INTELLIGENCE

Easy to use Retail Ready Business Intelligence Suite (Cloud Computing Based) CYQUENT TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANTS launch their first Niche Line of business application (BIRetail) on the Cloud Computing platform for the Middle East. “ With overarching pressures on price & cut throat competition, RETAIL players are beginning to like this RETAIL ready Business Intelligence tool which Cyquent is making available at hardly any cost compared to the savings in terms of predictable & spot-on decisionmaking. Its RETAIL ready, it’s easy to start (no proof of concepts, no pilots) as it is available on the Cloud i.e. “Software as a Service”, it is business user friendly and is priced very conveniently ” says Praveen Thawani, Director, Cyquent Technology Consultants.

Built for retail: As a Business Intelligence solution that is designed exclusively for retailers‚ BIRetail transforms your data driven decision-making environment. BIRetail analytics covers retail functions across your enterprise – Sales, Inventory, Suppliers, and Customers etc. We are committed to ensuring that at every stage‚ from your supply chain to your stores‚ you benefit from the approach that comes with BIRetail Solution. It incorporates a wide range of features including reporting‚ analysis‚ dashboards, alerting‚ and monitoring.

Best of Breed Business Intelligence BIRetail is an affordable, easy-to-use intuitive Business Intelligence (BI) solution designed from the “ground up” for retailers. It is a complete “BI in a Box” solution – it delivers all the components that make up a Business Intelligence solution including data warehouse, ETL, OLAP, reports, dashboards, KPIs, etc.

Made for Retail Single Platform for analysis and Reporting Pre-Built retail KPI’s Preconfigured reports Highly optimized retail algorithms and Standards Best of Breed BI Web-Based Environment Built on SaaS Technology Full Stack BI Suite

Actionable Intelligence Our innovative solution drives “Profit” by providing “Actionable Intelligence” in at least three areas: Operational intelligenceautomated data collection and translation, resource planning, supplier analysis and inventory optimization Customer intelligence- marketing automation, marketing optimization, and market basket analysis Inventory intelligence- inventory planning, assortment, size, space, price, promotion, and markdown optimization.

For a free presentation or Demo of BIRETIAL please send your queries to info@cyquent.ae

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY News

Creative’s new audio wireless range The ZiiSound Dx series of pure wireless modular speakers includes the flagship ZiiSound D5x wireless one-piece speaker, the affordable room-suitable ZiiSound D3x wireless one-piece speaker and the extended deep bass ZiiSound DSx wireless subwoofer.

The speakers can connect independently to stereo Bluetooth devices such as iPhone and Blackberry mobiles and iPad and Creative ZiiO tablets. They can be connected wirelessly to form a multi-channel home audio system and feature apt-X audio technology for sound quality.

Creative’s WP-450, WP-350 and WP250 Bluetooth music listening and voice communication headphones are wireless companions for smart communication devices such as iPhone and Android

mobiles. All models come with in-call voice quality, wireless connectivity and ‘invisible mic’ built into the earpiece.

Creative ZiiSound D5x wireless modular speaker AED 1,099; Creative ZiiSound DSx wireless modular subwoofer AED 499. The Creative ZiiSound D3x wireless modular speaker available from September 2011 at AED 499; Creative D80 wireless speaker available from June 2011 at AED 169.

Twinmos X3, A3 USB3.0 flash drives Compared to USB2.0’s 480Mbps transfer rate, USB3.0’s transfer rate reaches as high as 5Gbps. Transferring a 20GB high-resolution video will take less than 7 minutes.

Twinmos drives have capacity from 8GB to 32GB with energysaving modes.

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The Creative ZEN Style M100 (4GB), Creative ZEN Style M300 (4GB) and Creative ZEN Style M300 (8GB) portable media players available from mid June 2011 at AED 179, AED 219 and AED 269 respectively; Creative WP-350 headphones available from June 2011 at AED 349; Creative WP-450 and WP-250 headphones available from September 2011 AT AED 449 and AED 229 respectively.

Huawei MediaPad This is a 7-inch Android 3.2 Honeycomb tablet with Qualcommís dual-core 1.2GHz processor, supported

by Huawei Deviceís Hi-Space cloud solution and Google Android Market.

The MediaPad supports HSPA+ data services, Flash 10.3 videos and comes preinstalled with Facebook, Twitter, Let's Golf and Documents to Go. With the 7-inch IPS touch screen, the MediaPad offers visual experience for photos, movies and applications.

Entertainment and gaming features are accessory enabled through HD playback and HDMI port.

Excellence in distribution By offering thousands of products from leading IT and Telecommunications manufacturers and a wide range of solutions and services to more than 10,000 resellers in the region, we are the leading and largest Value-Added Distributor in the Middle East, Turkey & Africa.

From offices and warehouses in 11 countries, including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and with more than 650 specialized staff, Aptec serves over 25 countries.

With our regional geographical coverage, extensive customer base and our value added services, we have become the fastest growing distributor in the region. Having been in business for 30 years, when it comes to value added distribution in the region...

we clearly have no competition.

12 NetApp

3

Aptec Distribution FZE LLC P.O.Box 33550, Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE Tel: (+971 4) 3697111 Fax: (+971 4) 3697110, email : info@aptecme.com, www.apteconline.com Aptec Egypt: Tel: (+202) 6444264 / 6355030, Aptec Kuwait-KFTZ: Tel: (+965) 4610280 Ext. 215, Aptec Pakistan: Tel: +9221 2788736, Aptec Lebanon: Tel: (+961) 4718891, Aptec Saudi: Tel: (+966 1) 4601950, Aptec Turkey: Tel: (+90 212)Reseller 259 0064.

JULY 2011 Middle East 69

PEOPLE Movements

Qtel reshuffles Dr Nasser Marafih, who was CEO of Qtel Qatar, is now CEO of the Qtel Group, with responsibility for driving efficiencies and growth across all the group companies.

The role marks another significant responsibility for Dr Nasser, who began his career at Qtel in 1992 as Expert Advisor from the University of Qatar, and later Strategic Planning and Development Manager in 1994.

Since becoming CEO in 2002, Dr Nasser has led Qtel successfully guiding it through its transformation program and restructuring of the company in Qatar and across the region. During Qtel’s international expansion, Dr Nasser has held the dual roles of Qtel Qatar CEO and Qtel Group CEO

Alaa Al Shimy has been appointed to the position of HP Enterprise, Storage, Servers and Networking Director for the Middle East.

In his new role, AlSimy is responsible for managing growth and cost control for revenue streams in Middle East focusing on the end to end business and operational management in the region.

Prior to this role, AlSimy was the Regional Director for HP Networking for the Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa (MEMA) region. He has more than 22 years of experience in the IT industry and joined HP 11 years ago. He holds an MBA from the London Business School.

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Sheikh Saud Bin Nasser Al Thani, who was previously Executive Director of HR and General Services, will be CEO of Qtel Qatar. Sheikh Saud Bin Nasser Al Thani joined Qtel in 1990, and, over the course of 21 years at the company, has gained a wide range of experience and knowledge across the business. In his new role, he will direct operations throughout Qatar.

Sheikh Saud has handled key projects like the restructuring of the organisation in 1998, the structure review in 2000 and the job evaluation and compensation review with Qtel’s auditors KPMG. Sheikh Saud also sits on the board of Nawras in Oman, which is part of the Qtel Group. Through his dual portfolio of HR and General Services, Sheikh Saud has developed an understanding of the Qtel

Has taken over from Fawwaz Qadan who has been appointed as the Director of HP Networking for Mediterranean, Middle East and Africa.

Tom Eggemeier has been appointed global sales leader for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. He will be responsible for driving sales of Genesys, Communications and Networks products and solutions worldwide through global accounts, channels and strategic alliances that currently include HP and IBM. Previously Eggemeier served as EMEA sales leader for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. Prior to this,

business in Qatar, and has played a key role in developing new processes for growth, Qatarisation and human development.

Waleed Al-Sayed, formerly Executive Director of Customer Services, was named as the new COO of Qtel Qatar. Joining the company in 1987, Waleed Al-Sayed has held senior roles across sales, marketing, project management, business solutions, communication and customer services within Qtel.

In 2006, he was appointed as Executive Director, customer services to establish a superior customer experience, where he led an exercise to transform the retail environment to better engage customers. In 2010, Waleed led the Qtel team to win the highest tally of honours at Contact Centre World Awards in the UK and the Contact Centre World Awards in US. Nick Dent, formerly COO of Qtel Qatar, will work with Waleed Al-Sayed on the transfer process, before moving to a new role within the Qtel Group.

Tom held a variety of management roles in both the carrier and enterprise markets at AlcatelLucent, Enterasys Networks, and Compaq.

Eggemeier is a frequent speaker and advocate of the power of social media and the role it plays in connecting employees to the enterprise, and new engagement opportunities for customers with brands. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Dayton.

Adrian Pickering has been appointed area Vice President, Middle East and Africa for Juniper Networks. Pickering will be responsible for driving sales and operations across the Middle East and Africa region and will be reporting to Sean Dolan, Senior Vice President, EMEA. Pickering joins Juniper from Cisco Systems where he worked most recently as a senior director in the emerging markets East team.

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PEOPLE Movements

Local directors on Huawei Australia’s board John Brumby, Alexander Downer and John Lord have been announced as independent Directors to sit on Huawei Australia’s newly established board of directors.

As part of Huawei’s localisation strategy, the announcement marks the first time Huawei has created a local board John Brumby with three independent directors anywhere in the world. The board will be charged with overseeing Huawei’s local strategy and developing further inroads into the Australian market.

Alexander Downer

John Lord

The full board will be comprised of the three independent Australian directors, alongside Huawei Australia CEO Guo Fulin, Huawei South Pacific President Jeff Liu, and

Blue Coat revamps regional sales heads Gary Olson has been named Vice President of sales for the Americas, Steve Rowland Vice President of sales for APAC and Marc Andrews as Vice President of sales for EMEA, at Blue Coat. The new regional sales leaders are responsible for developing and executing regional go-to-market strategy, market penetration and partner relationships. All three report to Kevin Biggs, Senior Vice President of worldwide sales and field operations.

Prior to joining Blue Coat, Gary Olson was Vice President of worldwide sales at Mu Dynamics. He graduated with honors from Troy State University, and has a BS in Engineering and Political Science from the United States Air Force Academy.

He served as an officer in the United States Air Force and is a veteran of Desert Storm.

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Prior to this appointment, Steve Rowland led sales in the Americas for three years. Before joining Blue Coat, he was Senior Vice President of sales at Workbrain Corporation and Vice President of sales at BMC Software.

He holds a BS in Engineering from Texas A&M University.

Prior to joining Blue Coat, Marc Andrews was President of Micro Focus International.

Previously, he was President of international operations for Saba Software and CEO at NETIQ. He also led sales and marketing for EMEA at BMC Software.

two members from Huawei’s global Board: global director Ms Chen Lifang, and global Executive Director Li Jie. John Lord will act as Chairman of the Board. The Board will meet in Australia and at Huawei’s global headquarters in Shenzhen, China.

Huawei’s Australian business has grown substantially since the company opened its first office in Chatswood with just 20 staff in 2004. Most of Huawei staff are now locals, with staff numbers set to double from 300 at the end of 2010 to more than 600 by the end of 2011.

Yakob Kafina has been appointed as General Manager for FVC’s operations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Before joining FVC, Kafina worked as Director with Jeraisy Computer Services, a system integrator in KSA. During his 25-year career, he has worked with leading vendors in emerging technologies including unified communications, security and networking. Yakob has plans to expand FVC’s presence in the Kingdom across education, finance, telcos and energy.

George DeBono has been appointed as General Manager for Red Hat in the Middle East and Africa region.

DeBono, who previously held a senior global operations role within Red Hat, will now lead the company’s business in the region. Prior to joining Red Hat, DeBono held management roles at Sun and Computer Associates.

PROFILE Madhav Narayan

Reseller Awards 2011 Outstanding executive, IT channel

Tower builder Madhav Narayan, Regional Director of Enterprise Business, Samsung Electronics, describes himself as “impatiently aggressive.” And with a trail blazing record through Samsung, Dell and Redington, it’s only part of the story.

Narayan adds further ingredients to his success recipe.

“Passion accompanied by discipline, dedication and determination”, are the remaining parts.

At Samsung Electronics since 2007, he has set up the Gulf distribution network for IT products from scratch. Notebooks, laser printers, storage and large format displays now move across the region. And in a few countries they are also leading brands. At Dell since 2003, he built the small business and consumer channel also from scratch when it was unknown in the region, and left them at the $250 million mark three years later.

At Redington, he had the longest Gulf stint from 1994 to 2003, and brought the conglomerate into the top three club.

Narayan qualifies this stint as most memorable since it also gave him the best learning experience.

Looking back at his span of 25 years corporate experience, Narayan considers himself lucky to have worked with an Indian, Japanese, Singapore, American and finally a Korean employer.

Every organisation he has worked for helped him to acquire new skills, while he added value to their operations.

At every stage, “the challenge of building a solid organisation with key industry talent and efficient processes following a global directive”, is what he has enjoyed the most.

And most trying has been to change an organisation from a product centric mindset to customer centric one.

With a bachelor of engineering in electronics and master of business administration degree, is continuous learning still an integral part of himself? Absolutely!

Narayan unwinds by travelling with his family and a smattering of culture, reading, music and sports thrown in.

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PROFILE Hemayum Bazaz

HP’s channel champion

The motivator Hemayun Bazaz is HP Networking’s channel manager for UAE. The challenge of building working teams across the region with its cultures, local politics and dynamics is what enriches Bazaz’s professional life the most.

Bazaz is a people’s manager and believes in transferring knowledge, skills and understanding to his partners - all towards mutual business goals. “The challenge to get the best out of each individual has been satisfying”, he reflects. “I like to drive people and keep them motivated”.

After putting in the hard work, getting to the corners of the region, motivating the channel teams to work together, and then seeing customer demand pull products across the full cycle, gives Bezaz satisfaction of a good job done.

Reflecting on his career progression, he believes each step did something to enrich his life. In his first job at Philips India, he learnt from the breadth of experienced managers in the company.

At Techdata and later at 3Com, as part of the HP facing team, he began to understand the Middle East market and dynamics of HP technologies and customer demand.

This brought him to a lead role in the relationship with HP, qualifying him to keep it during the later acquisition of 3Com by HP in 2005. Today, Bazaz keeps his work life transparent, is honest in his engagements and feels this is key to success he has achieved.

Bazaz unwinds with a good game of cricket, bit more of sport whenever possible and his family. Facebook keeps him connected with his friends but Bazaz doesn’t find social media to be a valueadd for him in his worklife. He is a science graduate and master of business administration from the University of Pune.

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g.

kin r o w

net f o ules r e th

HP is changing networking.

Gone are the days of networks that are hard to manage, vulnerable to attacks, and expensive to maintain. With HP game-changing solutions, the status quo is history.

The New Rules of Networking #1 Simplified network designs that are twice as secure1 #2 Up to 2x better performance for greater flexibility2 #3 Up to 65% lower cost of ownership3 Put the new rules to work for you. hp.com/networking/change Outcomes that matter.

Copyright Š 2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. 1. Respondents from Infonetics September 2008 survey report that Tipping Point blocks 2.3x more threats compared to next-closest competitor 2. Based on line rate comparison between HP 12518 128x 10G (2.2 Bpps) and Cisco Nexus 7000 Series 18 (960mpps) 3. IDC white paper sponsored by HP, ROI of Switched Ethernet Networking Solutions for the Midmarket, #219843, August 2009

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