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ISSUE 180 // DECEMBER 2011 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

OFFICE 365 Mohammed Arif

Partner strategy and program LEAD

Yasir Khokhar

Business group lead MICROSOFT OFFICE

Michael Mansour

developer platform EVANGELISM LEAD

HDD MELTDOWN

DATA APPLIANCE FOR SMEs

Octoberâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flooding of Thailand has knocked out quarter of the global hard disk manufacturing base. Normalcy will take another six months and a lot can change in the industry along the way. P22

SAS and EMC Greenplum come together in the region to launch a power packed data management solution for SMEs. P26

FEATURE

E D U C AT I O N C H A N N E L S

Outdoor enterprise tablet Motorola has developed the rugged E1 tablet especially for industrial use and to support enterprise applications. P47

CONTENTS ISSUE 180 // december 2011

IN FOCUS

COVER FEATURE

Office 365 Microsoft rolls it out

Data appliance for SMEs SAS and EMC Greenplum come together in the region to launch a power packed data management solution for SMEs.

A new paradigm of unified and remote computing, targeted at small and medium enterprises, is being rolled out across the region. So significant is the change that even the current channel structure will need to be revamped to accommodate the new approach to selling. This can be both an opportunity and threat for reseller partners. Read on!

SPEAK OUT 32

“We are a supply chain services provider in the emerging markets”

Raj Shankar, Managing Director, Redington Gulf

A discussion on multiple facets of their regional business model and vision.

FEATURE 42

PEople 05

Editorial

Speak out

Tie-ups

Events

Movements

Laimoon.com

Angelika Plate

PRODUCTS 47

Outdoor enterprise tablet

Sherifa Hady HP’s aspiring inventor

Motorola has developed the rugged E1 tablet especially for industrial use and to support enterprise applications.

Quad Enterprise Social Software

Cisco’s thin client application allows a user to work across business and social media feeds through one interface. december 2011

Reseller Middle East

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©2011 Schneider Electric. All Rights Reserved. Schneider Electric, Smart-UPS, PowerChute, and APC are trademarks owned by Schneider Electric Industries SAS or its affiliated companies. Web: www.apc.com/support • Dubai Silicon Oasis, Dubai, 341057, UAE • 998-2194_ME-GB *Full details are available online.

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

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

Closing score The Dubai air show attracted half as many visitors as October’s, week long, sprawling and extravagant Gitex — a good number by any benchmark. While most of the airshow exhibitor participants were from supplies, propulsion, aerodynamics and training, of interest was the avionics and electronic support systems mostly for military command and defence. Boeing’s stall featured a simulator for its largest selling F15 tactical fighter. What caught my interest was the headup, 180 degree simulation screen. Compared to Panasonic’s 152 inch 3D screen solution displayed at Gitex 2011, it appeared to be at least ten years behind in technology prowess. A look at the instrumentation inside the F15 cockpit and at other instrumentation exhibitors also gave the impression that they were considerably behind today's technology life cycles. No sign of the high contrast, touch screen, multi input interfaces, so much a part of IT industry's CEO cockpit solutions. Northrop Grumman’s airborne radar system was however more in tune with IT technologies. Its trio of data display panels had touch screen interactivity, some amount of 3D data manipulation and gave the impression that its output data stream could probably interface well with any 3D display device from our side of the fence. Its electronic data detection system can resolve objects and attribute them to graphical icons helping to enhance command decision making. A much needed support system for this region's vulnerable coast line.

and also supporting public internet connectivity. A military grade version tablet demonstrated how it could combine data and video feed channels, in some ways more sophisticated than our unified end point terminals. Interesting stuff all around! Turn to page 18 for more. And then there were the global burps. Wikileaks named a hundred plus technology vendors, whose solutions are being used by repressive regimes for public surveillance. And this has created a flurry in regional IT channels. And then there is the European financial imbroglio, far away from this region, yet closely connected in terms of ripple effect, to lead rating agencies to warn of liquidity concerns across regional banking systems into 2012. The double dip has finally come! Thailand’s hard disk meltdown, following the floods in October has a number of between the lines, threat warnings and possible silver linings, spelled out by IDC. Read more about this and what the local industry is saying on page 22. On a more operational level, Microsoft’s Office 365 gets rolling over the year end. Any business user can sign up for 30 days free trial and for now Microsoft is allowing some leeway on extending the free trial period to more than 30 days. The catch for the channel is to move into an advisory role with the end user. Contrary to the packaged software cycle, a Cloud reseller will find their business opportunity actually begins after their customer starts using the software. Make hay while the cloud shines, is our story on page 36. See you all next year.

Another area of interest was the field support networking devices either affixed to the body of an aircraft or as a ground based portable system with connect speeds from 50kbps upto 50 Mbps

Arun Shankar Senior Editor arun@cpidubai.com

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

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

SPEAK OUT Red Hat

Virtualisation with strings Vendor solutions can become the mother of all lock-ins says Red Hat’s Kananov. An open virtualisation platform is safer to gain productivity benefits during business scaling.

With virtualisation comes the potential to reduce costs and enhance productivity, realising savings across server count, carbon footprint, power consumption and cooling requirements. Whether a CIO is looking to go green, for green’s sake, enhance brand image or improve competitiveness, virtualisation is an attractive proposition. At its core, virtualisation enables organisations to make the most efficient use of available system resources by consolidating applications onto fewer physical servers. As demands in data centre infrastructure change, or in response to 6

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

It is a vendor’s responsibility to offer guidance on best practice and organisations should not be afraid to ask tough questions and demand answers traffic spikes, physical resources that are not immediately required are automatically turned off, enabling a more efficient, environmentally friendly use of resources.

To execute a successful virtualisation deployment, CIOs must first be clear about what they wish to achieve and determine if the technology is a good fit for the business. Within any organisation, disruptive or revolutionary initiatives have the highest chance of failure. By approaching virtualisation as a step-by-step evolution, organisations can boost their success rate. Virtualisation is becoming a commodity, and should be treated accordingly. As the market matures, CIOs are becoming more savvy and waking up to the potentials and limitations of the technology and what can be expected from a vendor. It is a vendor’s responsibility to offer guidance on best practice and organisations should not be afraid to ask tough questions and demand answers. Determining what percentage of an organisation’s workload can realistically be virtualised is a good first step. We seldom see organisations immediately migrate the majority of workloads to a virtual environment, instead it is common practice to start with less critical workloads, gain experience with the platform and then increase workloads to include mission-critical ones as well. It is advisable for organisations to migrate further workloads once they are confident with the platform and support offered by a vendor. Rather than view virtualisation as a standalone project, organisations should have a deeper look at the internal processes which might be impacted by adopting virtualisation technology adoption. This could include provisioning and change management considerations. Otherwise, customers might find that expected benefits of virtualisation, especially improving IT agility, are not achievable. In other words, often the biggest hurdle to the successful adoption of virtualisation is not the technology itself, but the processes that surround it. Such processes include provisioning and change management. Each application involved might compete for computing resources and it is important for organisations to deploy software that grants greater visibility into the IT architecture to determine how

coupled with recouped floor space can often see savings of up to 50%. Administration of the virtual environment is critical, but maintenance hours are vastly reduced. Administrators will need to support a smaller footprint of physical servers and the virtual system allows them to add additional applications remotely, while the system is still running. Deploying applications to a physical server often takes a lot of time and resources. This process can be reduced from days or hours to minutes in a virtual environment, allowing organisations to realise costs savings through reduced administration time and travel costs,

Aram Kananov is Product Marketing Manager EMEA, Platform and Cloud at Red Hat. He is an experienced IT consultant, IT architect and team leader with specialisation in system management, high availability, virtualisation and migration.

applications are running. Greater visibility allows administrators to predict conflict and monitor performance to ensure critical applications receive priority and performance levels are met. Costs savings are the primary reason that enterprises look to move to a virtual environment. Reducing costs whilst driving productivity is in-line with any business objective and virtualisation is a budget-saving technology. That is not to say there are no upfront costs. Initial investment is necessary and return on investment will result from a reduction in data centre footprint, hardware, maintenance, personnel and management costs. Virtualisation technology alone may not reduce operating expenses. Going green not only enhances a brand’s image but can also reap substantial cost savings. By reducing the number of physical servers, organisations can greatly reduce the amount of rack space required which equates to substantial savings, especially if an organisation is renting space from a data centre provider. In an organisation’s own data centre, decreased power and cooling

For too long, vendors have offered closed proprietary technology stacks, with little or no focus on interoperability with other market players. and increased productivity. Virtualisation reduces personnel costs as organisations no longer need to support sprawling physical hardware, allowing administrators to focus their attention on more important tasks. Virtualisation raises a new set of security concerns. As organisations migrate further workloads into a virtual environment, they expand their technology footprint and the amount of data exposed. In a non-virtual environment, a hack might gain access to just one server, but in a virtual environment, a hacker has access to every application which runs on a compromised server. Security risks can arise from personnel within an organisation or from third-party attackers. With an increase in employees wishing to connect personal devices to the office network, it is imperative for enterprises to ensure access to data from personal devices is not abused. Vendors can enable organisations to keep all data off their desktops and end user devices to ensure

data does not leave the virtual environment. Employees will be able to view data on their monitors but will be unable to copy or export data from the virtual environment. In fact this is a frequent scenario for deployment of virtual desktop infrastructure. One way to ensure security is to opt for a vendor that offers kernel-based security policy enforcement infrastructure. For too long, vendors have offered closed proprietary technology stacks, with little or no focus on interoperability with other market players. With no pre-defined open standards, virtualisation can become the mother of all lock-ins. Vendor lock-ins can have a real impact on IT and business efficiency. The inability to move workloads across different platforms and difficulty in extracting data from virtual environments can restrict business. With infrastructure defined in a way that is friendly to IT vendors, rather than customers, once users get stuck in one proprietary technology it is hard for them to move. Some of the leading vendors in this space are moving towards stricter licensing models that include significant charges for high density workloads, thereby limiting the amount of memory that can be allocated per CPU based on the customer’s licence. This defies one of the founding values of virtualisation: flexibility. With fluctuating workloads, nobody can predict future long-term requirements. By opting for an open source and open standards policy, focusing on interoperability and portability to end vendor lock-ins, enterprises can ensure they are in control. Harnessing the flexibility offered by virtualisation technology, organisations can react to immediate business needs and accelerate time to market of new initiatives. Virtualisation is the perfect component of a forward thinking IT strategy, offering a natural progression to cloud computing which allows organisations to take existing virtualised workloads and move them into a cloud environment. Virtualisation can be seen as preparing businesses for a move to the cloud and is platform to migrate missioncritical workloads. //

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Huawei acquires Symantec stake in Huawei Symantec Huawei and Symantec have announced an agreement where Huawei will acquire Symantec’s 49% stake in Huawei Symantec Technologies Guo Ping, Deputy Chairman of Huawei for US$ 530 million. Upon closing, the agreement will give Huawei full ownership of Huawei Symantec. Huawei Symantec is a Hong Kong-based joint venture established by Huawei and Symantec in 2008. The company provides customers with security, storage and systems management solutions. Over the past few months, Huawei and Symantec have held several rounds of discussions and negotiations over the future of the joint venture. Huawei and Symantec have mutually agreed that the next stage of growth for the joint venture would benefit from the direction of a single owner. “I am thrilled that Huawei Symantec will become a key pillar of Huawei’s ICT solutions. The integration of Huawei Symantec’s innovative security and storage technology

with Huawei’s enterprise products will reinforce Huawei’s position in cloud computing,” said Guo Ping, Deputy Chairman of Huawei. “Symantec achieved the objectives we set four years ago and exited the joint venture with a good return on our investment, increased penetration into China and a growing appliance business,” said Enrique

Salem, President and Chief Executive Officer, Symantec. “China is one of Symantec’s fastest growing markets. It has grown 46 percent over the last three fiscal years. The agreement is subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first quarter of 2012.

Huawei head office

Adobe Systems signs up Alfalak for Saudi Arabia Adobe Systems MENA announced that Alfalak Distribution has been appointed as distributor for the Saudi Arabian market. Alfalak joins the company’s strategic network of Middle East and North African distributors which includes Logicom, Mindware, Disway and Grapheast. Alfalak will be supporting the full range of Adobe products to ensure availability for business users and retail outlets.

“During the past year, we have been carefully reviewing our distribution strategy in Saudi Arabia to ensure that we understand the needs of channel partners and customers, and have the ability to deliver products efficiently and effectively across the Kingdom,” said Abdallah Saqqa, General Manager, Adobe Systems MENA. “Alfalak has an extensive understanding and widespread penetration of the market in the Kingdom

and we are pleased to welcome them to our network.” Ahmed Ashadawi, CEO and President, Alfalak Electronic Equipment and Supplies commented, “We are delighted to join the Adobe network as an authorised distributor. Through this partnership, we will be offering our customers in Saudi Arabia with optimal solutions, while complementing the growth strategy of Adobe in the Kingdom.”

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Interactive Intelligence signs up with Alnafitha, Malaz Technology reseller of Interactive Intelligence, and will offer customers in Saudi Arabia business communications solutions for contact centre automation, enterprise IP telephony and business process automation. It will also provide consultation, implementation, support and custom development for the Interactive Intelligence solutions. “Saudi Arabia has a fastgrowing telecommunications (Left to right) Abdul Nasser Bangcola, Country Manager for Saudi Arabia at market and has recently witnessed Interactive Intelligence with Othman Alahdal, Regional Manager central region at Alnafitha International a tremendous demand for top-flight unified business communications Interactive Intelligence, a global vendor of solutions such as those provided by Interactive unified IP business communications solutions, Intelligence. Alnafitha International has has signed a reseller agreement with long been a systems integrator in Saudi Alnafitha International, a solution provider in Arabia, familiar with leveraging cutting-edge Saudi Arabia. Alnafitha International will serve technologies for maximum market penetration. as the systems integrator and value-added As with Interactive Intelligence, Alnafitha

Interactive Intelligence has also signed a reseller agreement with Malaz Technology, a provider of converged information and communications technology solutions in Saudi Arabia. Malaz Technology will offer customers in Saudi Arabia, solutions for contact centre automation, enterprise IP telephony, and business process automation. Malaz Technology will provide consulting, implementation, support and custom development for Interactive Intelligence solutions. “Malaz Technology is a systems integrator and has been at the forefront of implementing these technologies within government and private sector enterprises. We intend to penetrate the Saudi market by leveraging Malaz Technology’s knowledge of the local market, technical expertise and strong customer base”, said Abdul Nasser Bangcola, country manager for Saudi Arabia at Interactive Intelligence. “We are excited to be partnering with Interactive Intelligence. The global evolution of technology is moving towards software

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

International too is committed to providing software-only solutions, which is what makes this partnership mutually beneficial”, said Abdul Nasser Bangcola, country manager for Saudi Arabia at Interactive Intelligence. Commenting on the partnership, Othman Alahdal, Regional Manager central region at Alnafitha International said, “We firmly believe that Interactive Intelligence’s unique communications solution architecture will be widely adopted by customers in Saudi Arabia. We are confident that in providing customers with value-added services such as consultation, implementation, and after sales support, together we will significantly increase our and Interactive’s footprint in the region.” Alnafitha offers IT consultancy, professional services and support, business and office automation, e-process and workflow, document management and archiving, help desk management and training systems, outsourcing and hiring and customer relations management.

and costly implementation and maintenance”. Interactive Intelligence offers a solution for all aspects of a company’s business processes through its standardsbased, all-in-one IP platform. (Left to right) Mohammad Munir Almulki, Managing Director at Malaz Technology with Abdul Nasser Bangcola, This platform Country Manager for Saudi Arabia at Interactive Intelligence can be tailored to suit the solutions and their technology is in line requirements of a host of different industries with this,” said Mohammad Munir Almulki, including insurance, banking, credit unions Managing director at Malaz Technology. and accounts receivable management, “This is a key differentiator and advantage government, and outsourcing. Their solutions compared to other competitor solutions can be deployed on-premise or as a hosted which consist of multiple systems with various model, including vertical-specific applications administration points that require complex for insurance and collections.

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Cyberoam appoints FDC as distributor Cyberoam, a network security provider has announced appointment of FDC International as distributors for the Middle East. FDC will handle Cyberoam products with special attention to the newly launched NetGenie routers. FDC was chosen for their channel partner base vital for a retail product like NetGenie with potential for a region with high internet penetrations levels. “Since the launch of NetGenie in the region last month, we have received extremely positive response to the product FDC and Cyberoam tie up and are certain that the appointment of FDC International as our distributors will enhance the potential that this revolutionary product Surender Kumar Bishnoi, General Manager, has to offer.” said Pradeesh VS, Regional Sales Cyberoam Middle East said, “FDC International Manager, Cyberoam NetGenie Middle East. has been chosen to distribute the entire range “Their strength lies in the wide network they of Cyberoam products and will strengthen have for retail sales and we are confident of their Cyberoam’s overall distribution network for the capability of building the NetGenie brand.” region.” Commenting on the partnership and the Speaking on the market for Cyberoam, overall Cyberoam business in the region, Rohit Mathur, Business Unit Manager, Value

Business, FDC International, said, “We have in-depth experience in IT distribution and have a full suite of products. The increased market demands will help us to cater to them with Cyberoam appliances. Their comprehensive network security features and next generation identity based technology provided offers robust security to networks in the region.” Cyberoam and FDC International have arranged a special gathering for all channel partners to showcase the NetGenie range this month. They have also worked out promotional activities which include tie-ups with some of the major retail outlets as well as other marketing communication platforms. Cyberoam UTM delivers the complete range of security features such as stateful inspection firewall, VPN, gateway anti-virus, gateway anti-malware, gateway anti-spam, intrusion prevention system, content filtering in addition to bandwidth management and multiple link management over a single platform.

Visioglobe and Flagship tie up for map services Visioglobe, a French company that specialises in visualisation of map data on smart phones, has entered into a strategic partnership with Flagship Projects, a Dubai-based mobile and web applications provider, aimed at enhancing cooperation in developing map data applications. The agreement was signed by Eric Bernard CEO, Visioglobe and Shadi Hasan, Managing Director, Flagship Projects. “This agreement reflects the importance of featuring maps on smart mobile phone applications. The partnership is designed to motivate businesses, governments and end users to embrace this technology which is in infancy in GCC. We pride ourselves on developing world class sensitive, real-time information and communication solutions for smart phones,” said Hasan. “We have partnered with Visioglobe

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

because we believe in its thought leadership in the global map data visualisation industry. We expect this partnership to facilitate the dissemination of mobile application technology on smart phones and to enjoy Visioglobe technology that provides outdoor and indoor (Left to right) Eric Bernard CEO, Visioglobe and Shadi Hasan, Managing Director, Flagship Projects environments in 3D irrespective of the operating systems.” Bernard said, “Our automotive high-end smart phone platforms and and mobile developments on large urban develops applications for organisations areas such as whole countries, cities have seeking to execute products on mobile enabled Visioglobe to gain extensive devices. Its applications target iOS, expertise in 3D data processing. This is Android, other devices available in the now available to ordinary people to find market. Visioglobe technology can be used intuitively their positions or visit large cities for pedestrian navigation and automotive around the world.” navigation and even ski trails navigation. Flagship Projects is one of the earliest Its advantages include added 3D content providers of solutions for this rapidly and interactive elements to create rich expanding smart phone market. It provides applications.

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IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

Etisalat’s Tamdeed Projects, 3M Gulf announce partnership 3M Gulf and Etisalat Tamdeed Projects, under the stewardship of Etisalat Services Holding have entered into a strategic partnership to offer solutions for structured cabling systems and fibre to home networks across various sectors in the UAE. The scope of the newly formed alliance will witness 3M, a manufacturer of specialised telecom products and Tamdeed Projects, provider of integrated network solutions to offer a package of end-to-end solutions to customers. The new partnership will not only increase mutual commitment between the two organisations, but would also lead to the penetration of key vertical markets under the Etisalat-Tamdeed umbrella. Commenting on the association with Tamdeed, Abdel Rehman Obaid, Area Business Manager, Middle East and Africa Electro and Communications Business said, “3M Electrical and Telecommunications has been at the forefront of developing innovative products for the global and regional telecom industry. We are proud of our partnership with Etisalat and are confident that we will mutually benefit from existing reputation, market share, customer database and will offer preferred solution

(Left to right) Ali Alomari, General Manager of Tamdeed Projects, Irfan Malik, Vice President Middle East and Africa 3M Gulf, Ali Al Sharid, CEO, Etisalat Services Holding and Abdel Rehman Obaid, Area Business Manager, Middle East and Africa Electro and Communications Business packages for every industry in the UAE.” Ali Al Sharid, CEO of Etisalat Services Holding, said, “This partnership is a strategic step for Tamdeed Projects towards actively developing advanced networks and for enabling fast and easy interconnectivity of fibre optic systems. This addition to our portfolio expands our ever growing ability to satisfy our customers with innovative technology and superior quality, value and service.” Ali Alomari, General Manager of Tamdeed Projects said, “In addition to offering turnkey solutions for Indoor and Outdoor telecom

networks, Tamdeed Projects, a specialised business unit part of Etisalat Services Holding, has established itself in the UAE for service delivery of fibre optic solutions.” With in-house capabilities in fibre to home and telecom infrastructure, Tamdeed offers surveying, planning, designing, implementation, maintenance and support, monitoring, auditing and consulting services to the UAE market and neighbouring countries. Prior to forging this alliance, 3M and Tamdeed had jointly executed a specialised project for the Abu Dhabi Education Centre Schools.

Zservices and Zajil Telecom sign agreement for Kuwait Zservices, the provider of local cloud security services in the Middle East, has signed a partnership agreement with Zajil, provider of data communication and internet services in Kuwait. As per the agreement, Zajil will offer Zservices’ cloud-delivered web security solution as a value-added service to its customers. This service provides local traffic termination and in-country privacy for the end user. The Zservices web and email security SaaS

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

cloud will be physically present at Zajil’s location. Commenting on the partnership, Khalifa I Al Soulah, Managing Director and CEO at Zajil Telecom said, “Most of our customers use their internet Khalifa I Al Soulah, Managing Director and CEO at Zajil Telecom bandwidth for surfing and it is not uncommon for them to face security cloud based web and email security service risks from web-based malware and other to our customers, we can provide them with malicious content. By offering Zservices’ complete protection Contuation on Page 16

IN THE BEGINNING Tie-ups

BenQ partners with Geekay Distribution for gaming monitors BenQ, a provider of digital lifestyle, announced their partnership with Geekay Distribution to distribute their gaming monitor range in the region. Geekay Distribution is one of the subsidiaries of the Geekay Group, a major business entity with independent profit centres in retail and distribution across the entertainment segment. Apart from their strong retail presence of 14 stores across UAE, Bahrain and Oman the Geekay Group distributes Nintendo games software, hardware and high quality accessories. They exclusively represent Steelseries, Gioteck, Licensed Nintendo, Licensed PlayStation, Duracell Gaming and the Ben 10 licensed range. Manish Bakshi, General Manager of BenQ for the Middle East and Africa, said, “The gaming market is a priority market for BenQ and we continue to invest in strategic resources to build upon our position as a preferred brand in this segment.” Added Bakshi: “Our partnership with Geekay Distribution, a renowned gaming distributor with strong presence across channels in our target markets in UAE, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait, complements our strategic expansion plans for the region.” The partnership with Geekay Distribution will initially focus on distributing BenQ’s latest XL and RL Gaming Series. Included in the XL series is BenQ’s best-seller, the new 23.6”

Manish Bakshi, General Manager for the Middle East and Africa, BenQ and Kishan Deepak Palija, Managing Director, Geekay Distribution

BenQ XL2410T LED Gaming Monitor, which is a gamer’s tour-de-force, featuring a 120 Hz refresh rate, LED panel and backlighting, 3D-ready and 2ms response time. In addition, the monitor is equipped with an extensive range of gaming modes, the capacity to display video from two sources at the same time and the ability to be adjusted to just about any angle. A new XL gaming monitor, the BenQ XL2420T will be available in the market early next year. In the RL series, the world’s first Real-Time Strategy gaming monitor BenQ RL2240H, features the Black eQualiser, an exclusively designed color engine technology that reveals

critical combat details with improved visibility in darkened areas. The Black eQualiser allows gamers to adjust the screen brightness without over-exposing white levels, enabling them to screen critical combat details speedily with added gameplay comfort. “Our partnership with BenQ will not only expand Geekay Distribution’s portfolio of the latest gaming hardware, but will also provide gamers in the Middle East with easy and direct access to BenQ’s award-winning and worldclass products that are used by professional gamers from around the globe,” said Kishan Deepak Palija, Managing Director, Geekay Distribution.

Contuation from Page 14

Zservices and Zajil Telecom sign agreement for Kuwait against internet security threats. The ultra-low latency, high reliability and availability of the Zservices cloud infrastructure means endusers can enjoy a better browsing experience with near-zero downtime”. “The Zservices Cloud infrastructure is the first cloud-based web and email security service in the Middle East. The solution is scalable and interacts with the Zscalar global

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

cloud infrastructure to protect users from webbased security threats, enforce security and policies and provide real-time reporting,” said Nidal Taha, Managing Director, Zservices. Zajil International Telecom is a regional MPLS service provider in the MENA region. Based in Kuwait, Zajil is also Kuwait’s first Internet Service Provider. Zservices is deploying, building and operating Middle East

local Zscaler cloud. Zservices has deployed Zscaler cloud nodes at the most strategic internet points in the Middle East region. This enables the company to offer region-wide web and email cloud services and logging, local traffic termination and end-user data privacy. The infrastructure is built to serve GCC and Levant with local cloud equipment within each country. Zscaler’s integrated, cloud-delivered security services include web security, mobile security, email security and DLP.

IN THE BEGINNING Dubai Airshow 2011

Grummanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s spatial data management At the Dubai Airshow 2011, US based Northrop Grumman displayed its airborne surveillance radar and display system. The airborne radar system permanently affixed on a Hawkeye E2D aircraft is capable of detecting targets over the horizon to a range of 300 nautical miles. The reflected images are consolidated and displayed on multiple digital display systems. Since the Hawkeye radar system is airborne, the reflected data can be processed to allow vector and spatial real time decision making. In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s complex and dynamic environment, responses of both civil and military forces can be severely hampered by limited data availability and communication. Branded as Knowledge 360, the airborne Hawkeye detection and processing system provides a networking backbone architecture that allows information flow throughout the control region amongst aircraft, ships, soldiers, civilians, local and remote authorities and local and remote command centres.

The real time data processing systems use high speed processors, massive memory processing and tracking algorithms, open architecture systems, fibre optic networks as well as internet protocols to interoperate with other command centres. The systems also support multi channel inputs from satellites and unmanned drones to allow the control space to be viewed across multiple precision resolutions other than what the steerable Hawkeye Rotodome provides.

The airborne detection systems extends across 360 degrees of space in any environment and across any terrain while providing enhanced detection in particular areas of this aerial space. Other than combat offensive management, the Hawkeye detection system also has significant civilian applications including disaster control management, humanitarian assistance, search and rescue, air traffic control, anti piracy, sea lane monitoring, anti drug operations amongst others.

Specifications: Global count: 100 aircraft operational Flight ceiling: 11,000M Range: 2,700 km Fight time: 6 hours, non refuelled; 12 hours refuelled Incoming radar data refresh rate: 10-12 seconds No of data reports: 3,000 per second No of onboard operator manned stations: 3 Communication and data links: HF, VHF, UHF, Advanced UHF, SATCOM, GPS, inertial navigation Detection modes: friend or foe, electronic emitter classification, automatic radar correlation, automated sensor systems

The 7M fixed radar system onboard the Hawkeye E2D aircraft that can fly at 11,000M and has a range of close to 3,000 km

Touch based screen management gives superior operator control

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

The Hawkeye aerial detection system has three panel display station

A remote drone system that can feed the airborne Hawkeye data systems

Data from the airborne radar can be presented in three dimensions with spatial and vector information.

The Haweye data processing system accepts independent satellite and remote drone feeds

Electronic emitter classification associates the reflected radar data with user assigned graphical icons

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

IN THE BEGINNING Dubai Airshow 2011

Boeing’s F15 cockpit simulator: The panorama display technology appeared to be less advanced than those seen at Gitex 2011, for example Panasonic’s custom display solutions including 3D switched eye spectacles. The twin seat cockpit simulator allows the instructor to sit behind the pilot trainee and has a positive environmental impact by saving fuel costs, aircraft wear and tear by simulating rather than creating warfare and attack situations. Multiple simulator cockpits can be networked together so that in-formation training can also be simulated. Boeing supports simulation solutions with key products, including Visual Integrated Display System, Manned Combat Stations and Combat Environment Server. Lockheed Martin provides the instructor and operator stations, the non-combatant natural environment system, electro-optical infrared imaging system and geographic databases.

Airborne broadband connectivity modem: Boeing’s phased array antenna systems, provides wideband communications using a low profile antenna system supporting both satellite and line of sight communication. Phased array antenna systems can meet the bandwidth requirements of a diverse community of users and aircraft including internet connectivity. The antenna system is electronically scanned and has no moving parts.

Data link stations: Communication Systems West also provides wideband data link stations to deliver real time, full motion video and other data streaming requirements. The station can be place 1 km away from the local user and still provides Type 1 and AES encryption. The bit error rate is 10 minus 8 at maximum range limit and data link speeds range from 200 kbps to 45 Mbps. With built-in wide band router, standard network interfaces including Ethernet, RS232 and RS422, the station acts as a gateway into net-centric battle space.

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

Military grade tablets: The Rover 5i from US based Communication Systems West, is a small, lightweight, rugged radio that provides digital capability for full motion video, situational awareness, battle damage assessment and other situations where eyes on target are required. It is securely interoperable with other air to ground platforms and has robust IP networking capabilities. It supports RS422, RS232, Ethernet, USB2.0 interfaces and has data link capability from 50kbps to 5Mbps.

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IN FOCUS Hard disk drives

Washed out October’s flooding of Thailand has knocked out quarter of the global hard disk manufacturing base. Normalcy will take another six months and a lot can change in the industry along the way The large scale flooding in Thailand in October 2011 has affected 20% to 30% of the global manufacturing capacity of hard disk drives. In the first half of 2011, Thailand’s captive hard disk manufacturing base accounted for 40% to 45% of global production. With nearly half of the capacity at the Thailand’s twelve major plants compromised, IDC released a statement indicating, “Damage to the hard disk drive industry is significant and this will have a direct impact on worldwide PC shipments through the first half of 2012.” IDC also indicated that hard disk supply shortages will start in November 2011 continue into Q1 2012. Other independent consultants have stated that Thailand’s flooding will be more disruptive to global IT supply chains than

Expecting hard disk volume shortfall in Q1 2012, Harprit Singh, Managing Director, VIP Computers

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

Japan’s March 2011 Tsunami. Thailand’s industrial areas are home to 60% of Western Digital’s global hard disk manufacturing capacity. And with compromised local industrial output, ”Our outlook for the current quarter ending in December is 22 to 26 million drives, compared to 58 million shipped in the September quarter”, says Daniel Mauerhofer, Head of Public Relations, EMEA and India at Western Digital Germany. While Western Digital’s hard disk

In the first half of 2011, Thailand’s captive hard disk manufacturing base accounted for 40% to 45% of the global production production plants may have been directly affected, it is also the production plants of IT component suppliers that have been compromised. Says Girish Kewalramani, Deputy Vice President of FDC International: “The flooding in Thailand has affected production of IT components on a large scale. And this has created a regional short supply of hard disk drives against reasonably high demand.” Seagate’s two production plants at Teparuk and Korat have not been directly affected by the flooding. But Seagate’s local component suppliers have been compromised leading the vendor to announce that its production of hard disk drives in the last quarter of 2011 would be affected. “Given the volatility of the situation it is unclear what the magnitude of the supply chain disruption will be to Seagate’s hard

Price hikes are expected, Daniel Mauerhofer, Head of Public Relations, EMEA and India at Western Digital disk drive output from its Thailand operations. Seagate anticipates hard drive supply will be constrained throughout the current quarter,” was Seagate’s official statement. Western Digital is also experiencing similar competent shortages. “Many of our component suppliers have been impacted, as well, leaving material for hard drive production and hard drive supply to customers considerably constrained,” says Mauerhofer. Other significant component supplier manufacturers who have been affected by the floods to varying extents include Sanyo Semiconductor, Toshiba Semiconductor and Storage, Benchmark Electronics, Hana Semiconductor, Avago, Nidec Corporation and Emcore, amongst others. Electronic equipment manufacturers Panasonic and

Sony have also been affected. “The market started to suffer severe shortages in supply and manufacturers have revised their calculations to reflect this shortage. FDC has received, in some cases, letters from vendors with the Force Majeure clause,” explains FDC’s Kewalramani. However, as per IDC, “The severity of hard disk shortages in the coming months largely depends on the industry’s ability to recover lost production capacity in Thailand.” However in spite of the recovery attempts by global vendors both hard disk drive and component supplies will remain compromised, and this will have varying impacts in the channels and the parent PC industry. In the regional channel markets, resellers have begun to see significant changes in the hard disk sales dynamics. Soon after the onset of the crises, vendors started

withdrawing stocks from distributors to prioritise inventory holding patterns with leading OEMs. This quickly led to partners speculating on withholding hard disk stocks leading to channel induced shortages. Resellers also reported that distributor pricing was slow and hesitant due to lack of clarity from vendors around cancellation of their orders, withdrawal of existing stocks and removal of sales rebates. As the situation has progressed into November 2011, partners claim that vendors are increasing their prices by 20-30% every week and the net resulting selling price has shot up by 80% to 150% of the pre-crises price. In the region Western Digital is distributed by Redington Gulf, Metra and FDC International. Seagate is distributed by Redington Gulf, FDC International, Asbis and Almasa. “Some vendors have already started

Soon after the onset of the crises, vendors started withdrawing stocks from distributors to prioritise inventory holding patterns with leading OEMs revising their prices upwards. This was expected as supply has become short due to the floods,” says FDC’s Kewalramani. “Limited component availability throughout the hard disk supply chain and efforts by manufacturers to bring systems back online as quickly as possible may have the effect of raising hard drive prices. Market forces along the distribution chain, which are outside the control of manufacturers, could

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

IN FOCUS Hard disk drives

also impact prices,” clarifies Western Digital’s Mauerhofer. While there has been volatility in the availability and pricing of hard disk drives, these are mostly from on-going channel recovery operations, rather than any real shortage related issues. Most of the price and product swings are taking around the 30 to 45 days of inventory that has existed in the sell-through part of channel movements. “The full impact of the loss of production will really be felt in the next quarter”, says Harprit Singh, Managing Director, VIP Computers. Since the opening regional demand for hard disk drives in Q4 2011 was low, most of the vendor driven reverse logistics has been fulfilled by existing unsold stocks with resellers and where resellers did not have the cash reserves to hold onto their stocks into Q1 2012, at considerably elevated price points. “Once these supplies dry out, the situation will most likely worsen”, says Singh. Vendors are briefing distributor partners to plan for 40% to 55% of incoming hard disk units in comparison to the previous quarter. Regional channel players expect hard disk supplies and prices to be tightly controlled by vendors for at least next two quarters until middle of 2012, after which operations may return to normal. Price points may remain elevated 30% to 40% higher than pre-crises price points for most of 2012, along

No change in retail PC pricing for now, Ashish Panjabi, CEO Jacky’s Electronics

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

with supply volumes down by 20% to 25% across most of 2012. IDC expects global hard disk drive prices to increase as demand exceeds supply and manufacturers face increased costs for components, expedited shipments and shifting of production to new locations. The hard disk industry will begin to recover in Q1 2012, with pricing stabilising by mid 2012 and the industry running close to normal in the second half of 2012. The volatility of hard disk pricing and availability of volume will also create a seesaw effect on the global PC industry. With most of the Q4 2011 PC production completed either at warehouses or in the supply chain or about to be completed with stockpiled component inventories, IDC does not expect the impact of the Thailand floods to be more than 10% in this quarter. It is only in Q1 2012 onwards, that the compromised production capacity will begin to show. In the region, super retailers are still using their previous price list for PCs and laptops. “For now prices have remained stable but we are expecting to get new price lists from most brands once their model line-up changes before Dubai Shopping Festival in January 2012,” says Ashish Panjabi, CEO Jacky’s Electronics. Panjabi also expects price revisions to kick in with new PC stock lots. With shortfall of hard disk volumes, large PC vendors will put increasing pressure on manufacturers to meet their requirement quotas on priority even at increased price points. “In response to the crisis, priority will be given to the large PC manufacturers that drive hard disk shipment volumes as well as to the high-margin products used in enterprise servers and storage,” says IDC. As an example, Dell is engaging on a daily basis with their hard disk suppliers to manage their end to end supply chain. In its latest global

The severity of hard disk shortages in the coming months largely depends on the industry’s ability to recover lost production capacity in Thailand advisory, HP has downsized its next quarter revenue performance citing a range of factors including flooding in Thailand amongst other macros economic factors. Since medium and small PC vendors will come under pressure, as well as low and entry level PC products, there is an opportunity to capture select enterprise accounts and accelerate consolidation in fast growing markets. Hard disk vendors can also look for opportunities to leverage their position with PC vendors through strategic partnerships. The looming downside into 2012: Smaller PC companies with limited supplier leverage and resources, faced with escalating price points may run out of both customers and products to sell. The possible silver lining in the cloud: High prices for hard disk drives into 2012 may bring them at parity with solid state memory storage and make them a viable option for PCs. Form factors for Ultrabooks may also get kick started. //

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IN FOCUS SAS, EMC Greenplum

Data appliance for SMEs SAS and EMC Greenplum come together in the region to launch a power packed data management solution for SMEs In order to bring data warehousing and data analytic solutions into the small and medium enterprise space, SAS amd EMC Greenplum have come together at a regional level and are offering an appliance solution for this market space. Called D1 appliance, it combines the hardware data warehousing platform from EMC Greenplum with data management and business analytic applications from SAS as a pre-configured, network ready, ready to

use device. The solution has an entry level price point that has been chosen on the basis of affordability for the market segment, the possible return on investment and the business benefits on a medium term basis. The D1 appliance also has an upward migration path, allowing end users to add on additional SAS applications as the end user progresses towards more demanding business returns from the solution. For a small and medium enterprise wishing to implement a data warehousing

and data management solution there are two primary hurdles. The first is the cost of the application software and the second is the capacity to execute systems integration, knowledge transfer and data migration. The D1 appliance has been set at a price point that makes it affordable for a small and medium business to consider investing in such a solution. Moreover the hardware and software combination comes fully integrated, fully installed and ready to run eliminating technology and cost hurdles of

SAS channel partners Just two years ago SAS operated in the region as a direct vendor. Today it has more than twenty five regional partners. As a channel partner with SAS, there is a shift of engagement from the IT side of a customer’s business to the management side. A channel partner will find discussion on selection and right sizing of SAS solutions takes them into customer decision areas they have not been able to go before. “If a partner is looking at taking their business to another level, to make sure they are having the right discussions with business then we are the right fit for them,” says SAS' Sohrabi. “What we are looking for are partners who can understand what they can gain from us.” Other than the open space left to reseller partners SAS also maintains hard deck accounts, who demand direct SAS involvement because of their IT and business scale and complexity.

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

Regional partners • Altis, Dubai, UAE • Bitek Verimlilik Cozumleri ve Danismanlik, Istanbul, Turkey • Data Gear, Cairo, Egypt • Data Market, Maslak, ?stanbul, Turkey • DirectCom, Kosuyolu, Instanbul, Turkey • Diyar United Company, Hawalli, Kuwait • Kafein Yazilim Ve Bilgisayar Hizmetleri San Ve TIC, Istanbul, Turkey • Likya Bilgi Teknolojileri Ve Iletisim Hizmetleri, Istanbul, Turkey • Maven Partners, Ras Al Khaimah, UAE • Optimiza, National Computer Co, Amman, Jordan • Online Modern Solutions, Cairo, Egypt • Peppers and Rogers Group Pazarlama Hizmetleri, Istanbul, Turkey • Peppers and Rogers Group Turkey, Istanbul, Turkey • Philogica Bilisim Yazilim Sistemleri Ve Hizmetleri Ticaret, Istanbul, Turkey

• Satvik, Dubai, UAE • Ultima Bilgi Teknolojileri AS, Istanbul, Turkey • YemenSoft Co, Sana’a, Yemen • Zoofi Tech Co, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Consulting services partners (partial global list) • Accenture • Amdocs • Capgemini • Computer Sciences Corporation • Comsys • Deloitte Consulting • Elite Technology Solutions • IBM Global Services • Mainline Information Systems • Modern Analytics • Pinnacle Solutions • Qualex • Wipro Technologies • Zencos

(Left to right) SAS and EMC Greenplum go to market, Amir Sohrabi, Regional Alliance Manager, Middle East and Africa at SAS Middle East, Philip Roy, Director Data Computing Division, EMC

implementation and go-live activation. Says Philip Roy, Director Data Computing Division, EMC, ”This product is focussed on small and medium enterprises, because it breaks these two barriers of entry. Very large enterprises have specialised IT teams who can choose different products, integrate them together and build their own business intelligence solution. For small and medium enterprises this is not possible.” By avoiding the costly and time consuming route of systems study and custom implementation across a business is the functionality of the D1 appliance restricted in any way for the small and medium enterprise end users?

For a reseller entering an account there is a path forward they can actually follow with end users to move them up the food chain

“The functionality of the D1 appliance is the same as in a telecom service provider or at a large financial institution. The limitation is not in terms of functionality, it is in terms of storage space for data and scalability of the appliance,” says Roy. “Moreover any business that spends a lot of time on Excel spreadsheets and builds them manually can automate and make them faster and more accurate by implementing the D1 appliance.” On a global scale, due to the strong synergies between the two companies, there are examples of such alliances. However, the D1 appliance is a regional initiative and road shows for UAE have just been concluded. The next step is to make the solution available across the Middle East. “The appetite of the two companies to work together is so high that there are local initiatives as well. D1 is really the physical deliverable for this sort of appetite of doing things and being of more value to the market,” continues Roy. “The launch of the new D1 offering reflects the strategic relationship we have with EMC Greenplum, says Amir Sohrabi,

Regional Alliance Manager, Middle East and Africa at SAS Middle East. The D1 appliance has been built from the ground up taking into consideration business benefits for the small and medium business segment. However SAS and EMC Greenplum operate their sales completely through channel partners and both vendors have also setup up their channel structure to facilitate delay-free sell-through and sellout of the D1 appliance from the distributor to the reseller and onwards into the end customer. In fact as per the current channel structure, the vendors, distributor, reseller and end customer are connected by an almost seamless pipe ensuring the solution reaches the customer with minimum delay and technology adaptation holdups. UAE based Altis is the in-country distributor for the D1 appliance for both SAS and EMC Greenplum resellers. However Altis is also the implementation and support partner for the solution, thereby reducing the need for the reseller community to either ramp up their technology and product skills or to plan for vendor certification training

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

IN FOCUS SAS, EMC Greenplum

FOUR PRONGED BENEFIT APPROACH

SMB CUSTOMER

Access to affordable data warehousing, business intelligence and analytics solution

ALTIS

SAS, EMC GREENPLUM

Hardware and software alliance targeted at SMB market segment and new breed of SMB reseller channel partners

D1 APPLIANCE

RESELLER

Opportunity to enter new customer accounts, new product portfolio and new breed of professional services

Focus on D1 appliance business, one stop shop for distribution, integration, training and support, new breed of reseller channel partners

Source: Reseller ME

D1 Appliance This appliance combines the best of SAS and EMC Greenplum to provide an entry level solution for the SMB market segment Specifications • Hardware and software combination appliance from EMC GreenPlum and SAS with data warehousing, data management and analytics capability • Data warehousing features from EMC Greenplum • Extraction, transformation, loading and in-Database processing from SAS Data Management

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

• Data integration, extraction, transformation and in-Database processing from SAS Data Management • Statistical data mining, forecasting and scenario planning from SAS Advanced Analytics • Business intelligence capability to easily add web development, Microsoft Office, web-services and enriched intelligence from company’s own disparate data from SAS Business Intelligence • GreenPlum data warehouse solution leverages SAS Analytics via InDatabase Analytics

• Product portfolio stack: #1 Data warehousing and data management #2 Data warehousing, data management and business intelligence #3 Data warehousing, data management and analytics forecasting • US$55,000 for Base Appliance, Data Warehousing, SAS Data Management Suite. Business Intelligence, Analytics and Advanced Analytics Modules to be added on • Installation and annual support provided by UAE based Altis

IN FOCUS SAS, EMC Greenplum

•

• •

•

Conventional VAD model End user requirement and BOQ needs to be established Proof of concept required to establish performance Possible project delays during implementation Partner needs to get trained on enabling technology and solution Competitive pricing from multiple suppliers

SAS - EMC Greenplum - Altis appliance model • Appliance entry level and upward migration path is predefined • Ready to use appliance with predefined performance

• •

•

Appliance implementation project plan is predefined Fast track approach with Altis as single point of contact Entry level pricing defined based on end user ROI and business benefit

Why D1 appliance has a faster go to market? Source: Reseller ME

programmes in the short term. “Some resellers can do more presales and they can keep that. Since the burden of integration and design is taken care of by Altis, it becomes simple for a reseller, no matter what their speciality is to take this box to the market if they have an end user who is interested in it.”

The functionality of the D1 appliance is the same as in a telecom service provider. The limitation is not in terms of functionality, it is in terms of storage space for data 30

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

By having Altis as the guaranteed implementation and support partner, resellers can focus on penetrating new customer accounts with confidence as well as expanding their current portfolio of services with customers by upselling business consulting services around the D1 appliance and other SAS solutions. “For the reseller entering an account with entry level D1, there is a path forward that they can actually follow to generate value for end users to move them up the food chain and generate business value around that. The reseller only needs to be focussed on the end customer and understand their needs,” explains Roy. The purpose of bringing in Altis as a distributor partner and removing the technology ramp up obstacle is meant to

allow resellers to rapidly and confidently penetrate small and medium customer accounts and generate sales volume around the D1 appliance. “Altis is focussed on D1. The idea is to make this value available to the channel, so that the channels can take this forward. Altis takes care of the go to market and SAS and EMC Greenplum take care of the technology underneath by providing the product that Altis can integrate.” By generating volume growth, resellers get an incentive for investing in further business development; Altis gets access to reseller partners and the growing product base; while SAS and EMC Greenplum are able to provide the best technology bundle for potential market segments. A carefully planned win-win for all! //

speak out Redington Gulf

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are a supply chain services provider in the emerging marketsâ&#x20AC;? Shankar heads the largest IT distribution business in the region. At close to Dollar two billion, Redington Gulf has the highest top line revenue, the largest number of vendor partners and the broadest geographical reach amongst all regional channel players. It operates in 14 country markets, offers channel partners products and solutions from over 30 vendors and has logistical facilities in over 10 countries. A discussion on multiple facets of their regional business model and vision. Raj Shankar, Managing Director, Redington Gulf

With rapidly changing business models in the region and across technologies, how would you describe Redington Gulfâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s forward looking vision? Shankar: Redington would like to position itself as an emerging markets supply chain services provider, participating in different verticals of the business. Of course IT has been the predominant vertical of the past,

Redington participates in the supply chain from end to end. In a way of speaking, we are a DHL or FedEx and a GE Commercial Capital or a bank and a service provider all rolled into one 32

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

but may not necessarily be into the future. Unlike conventional wisdom where in aggregation you create value, we believe that in disaggregating the supply chain you can actually unlock greater value. This is our vision statement. What is your approach in the emerging markets? Shankar: We are a supply chain services provider in the emerging markets. As a group Redington is present in India, the Indian sub continent including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives operating out of Singapore and METACIS or what is called Middle East, Turkey, Africa and CIS countries. In India we are a leading player by far with almost equitable business between us and Ingram Micro. For Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, it has been a three to four year journey but we are definitely a strong up and coming distributor.

For last five consecutive years we have managed to keep leadership position in Middle East and Africa. The acquisition of Arena late last year, the second largest distributor in Turkey, has definitely helped us to cover a good part of our footprint. This leaves us the largely untapped and unexplored markets of North, Central and Southern Africa and CIS countries. In terms of priority, we are first addressing Africa and over time CIS countries. In your vision statement, you mentioned the reverse disaggregation approach to supply chain management. How does this generate value for you? Shankar: We have broken the supply chain into four blocks: distribution, logistics and warehouse services, financial services and post sales support services. Hence we call ourselves a supply chain services provider and not just a supply chain manager.

Redington participates in the supply chain from end to end. In a way of speaking, we are a DHL or FedEx and a GE Commercial Capital or a bank and a service provider all rolled into one. We are a three in one and this for a customer is a good suite of services. Hence we are a supply chain services provider participating in emerging markets across different verticals and by disaggregating we try to create value. You mentioned IT is one of the vertical market segments in your forward looking business model. What are the other areas? Shankar: While it is true that IT has been a big vertical for us in the past, to some extent in the Middle East and Africa, but today we are in the telecom space in India. We distribute

Vendor profile Systems: Acer, Asus, Dell, Fujitsu, HP, Lenovo, Packard Bell, Samsung, Sony, Toshiba Software and security: Checkpoint, Symantec, Trend Micro, Red Hat, SonicWall, HP Peripherals and storage: Acer, Canon, Epson, Fujitsu, HP, Imation, LG, Samsung, Packard Bell, Sandisk, Western Digital, Seagate, APC, HP Servers and Storage, Fujitsu Storage, Tripp-Lite Networking: Avaya, Aastra, Cisco, LifeSize, HP Networking Accessories and consumables: Epson, Canon, Samsung, HP Services and training: Acer, Dell, Canon, Fujitsu, IBM, HP, Nokia, Toshiba Others: Molex, Nokia phones

the Blackberry in this part of the world and in Africa we distribute Nokia. In India we are going into consumer durables distribution, we are into gaming and we distribute the Xbox from Microsoft in India. We are into distribution of lifestyle products largely Apple - iPod, iPad, MacPC and we distribute the digital printing press from Indigo. We are an IT distributor, but we do not want to be branded as an IT distributor. There is nothing wrong or right about it, it is just that our model is different. Being a value added distributor has become a fashionable term today. Yet when Redington created the division it was not an established way of business. What prompted you to go down the value route? Shankar: In the past we started like any trader or distributor dabbling with products that have a good sales velocity and we were on the volume side of business. Little more than four to five years ago we said to ourselves, for this company to evolve and transform itself it is important for us to become a value added distributor. This is something we had already initiated in India in the late nineties. We told ourselves, five years ago, why not look at the value added distribution space. This is something where we see an opportunity with not too many players. A few system integrators and a few players were focussed on pockets of opportunity like security and networking. It was a struggle for us. Many value vendors would look at us and say: Hey, you are a broadliner! How do

We are an IT distributor, but we do not want to be branded as an IT distributor. There is nothing wrong or right about it, it is just that our model is different

Till we got the brand it was difficult to prove and without proving yourself the vendors would not give you their brand. Finally we did crack it to the full credit of Ram Kumar and his team we know you have the capacity to do value added distribution? Till we got the brand it was difficult to prove and without proving yourself the vendors would not give their brand. Finally we did crack it to the full credit of Ram Kumar and his team. Now we have built a portfolio of brands in both the volume and value space. In India we have ninety brands and here in Middle East and Africa we are relatively impoverished, with one third the number of brands as in India. What is the scale of your investment in logistics and warehouse services? Shankar: In Dubai we have a distribution centre that is 100,000 sq feet with a stackable height of 16 metres and 25 loading bays. We have another automated centre in Chennai in India with Calcutta, Delhi and Mumbai to follow. Being in the supply chain, it is important to have our factory and warehousing. In India we have godowns but not warehouses and in the Middle East we have warehouses but not distribution centres. By creating logistic centres, a good part of which is used for captive consumption, there is another portion with which we can engage in third party logistics services. What we can do for ourselves, we can also do for vendors. This can be another income stream. In current times of slow cash liquidity in the channel, how do you manage large government and corporate deals with extended terms of credit?

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

speak out Redington Gulf

Shankar: In India we have set up a non banking finance company, where we do what is called trade finance. The same partners who want to buy products are constrained by 30 to 45 days of credit from Redington or any other distributor. Sometimes when you are selling to a large corporate or government, they would have a longer capital working cycle, however the partnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s balance sheet is not bankable. Banks are not willing to support them with working capital, or if they give them they would want many times the loan value as collateral and they are not able to provide the collateral. We thought to ourselves why not try to get into this business. We know the customer - who is credit worthy and for how much. They could even buy the product from competition, but we could do the financing. But that is a business and we are not giving the finance interest free. We have been into this business for three and half years and for three years we have been profitable from day one. Our non performing assets are zero. When you give 30 to 45 days credit you get zero percent interest. But when you give cash they are ready to pay interest because they get working capital. What is the scale of your investment in support services? Shankar: In India we have 350 repair service

We have professionals who come into the business and think and behave as entrepreneurs. Hence we call them as intrapreneurial. They think and behave as if this was their own company and business. 34

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

centres and in Middle East and Africa we have over 40 repair service centres. Our ability to do warranty and out of warranty support and annual maintenance contracts gives us another opportunity to provide services to the customer. Your core team is spread across multiple counties with different mind sets, cultures and value system. How do keep them cohesive? Shankar: You will find this very different about Redington. We are a very people driven company. We have professionals who come into the business and think and behave as entrepreneurs. They think and behave as if this was their own company and business. Hence we call them as intrapreneurial.

vendors would have contributed north of 70% of the total PC business, with 25% to 30% coming out of all the remaining brands. The same story today, my tummy tells me, is about 50%. What has really happened? There are too many brands in the fray and not necessarily the ones who are leading the pack are the ones continuing with big strides. The ones who were otherwise called tier-two brands are suddenly gaining traction, because of their ability to take Middle East as a focus market, price aggression, offering, I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know! Initially some of the distributors would prefer not to carry these brands. Now these are the same distributors, Redington included, who are saying: Hey we should not shy away from signing up these guys, because there is definitely a momentum.

What is your perception on the regional IT vendor dynamics and the need for channel partners to adapt accordingly? Shankar: Lots of vendors today are facing huge pressures. There was a time when business was in motion, but today there is huge pressure. A few years ago the top five

Is there a learning point here? Shankar: It is not necessarily small is beautiful and big is too big to fail. This is a classic case where big is under pressure, not able to grow and growth is all taken up by tier-two guys who are now coming to the fore, in my scheme of things. //

COVER FEATURE Office 365

Microsoft's Cloud A new paradigm of unified and remote computing, targeted at small and medium enterprises, is being rolled out across the region. So significant is the change even current channel structures will need to be revamped to accommodate the new approach to selling. Microsoft’s Office 365 represents an enterprise grade of solutions made available to all segments of the market, who can pick and choose solutions, which best fit their business. The complete suite of solutions covering Office, Link, Sharepoint and Exchange are usually beyond the budgetary and technology resources of most SMB companies. Office 365 therefore represents a platform in which a complicated and sophisticated set of applications is made simple and affordable for the vast number of businesses operating in this market segment. An end user business signing up for Office 365 gets multiple benefits, which includes a guarantee of 99.9% availability, full disaster recovery capability, storage on demand, full administrator rights, latest software version and 100% licensed software. Microsoft’s channel partners are encouraging end users to avail of the free trial period to experience the capabilities of Office 365. “We are offering the free trial to potential customer with the full range of features,” says Jawwad Rehman, Managing Director, Live Route, which has been selling Cloud solutions in the region for the last two years. Office 365 offers businesses multiple plan options and users can opt and pay for the features that best suit them. When customers sign up with Live Route for the free trial they are activated with the full suite of products and features allowing them to make more intelligent decisions on what fits them best. “Office 365 is a great proposition if people really find out what it can do for you. All the business in SME and mid market space will 36

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move to Office 365 in terms of the value it has and in terms of the capability. It is just that people need to absorb this,” explains Rehman. Also contrary to some perceptions there is no lock-in of data with Office 365. An Office 365 customer receives administrative access to manage user rights and “nothing stops you from downloading data,” says Rehman. But for end users looking at downsizing their IT resources and management cost such actions like localised data storage would be counterproductive. For Live Route a prospective Office 365 customer usually meets three criteria. They usually work in distributed and mobile computing environments and hence appreciate the benefits of remote logins from

Large system integrators wanting to jump into the mainstream of selling Office 365 solutions may find the value of transactions to be low in comparison to their established business. the public cloud. They have an inherent level of IT maturity and are moving away from additional IT infrastructure and operational investments within their business. While defining the profile of early adopter users, Office 365 is also redefining the traditional channel structure. Resellers will find they are redundant if they visualise their role as only selling Cloud licenses. The web replaces the role of the

Transforming sales and support services for Aptec’s Cloud resellers. Mario Veljovic, Operations Director at Aptec Holdings

traditional transactional reseller. An end user has the flexibility to purchase online Office 365 licenses for a period less than 12 months. If the end user purchases licenses for a period of three months for three users for example, the size of the transaction is reduced in comparison to what packaged software would generate for the same number of users and with twelve months validity. “The margins at the end of the day, the way Microsoft will collect and pay, are very marginal margins. You cannot build the business on that. A few years down the road, the snow ball effect will kick in and you may be talking about something more reasonable. But right now I cannot build the business model on the basis of Office 365 license margins. It is small as a percentage and it is percentage of a small number,” explains Rehman.

So how should resellers operating in the Cloud channel structure build their business model? “Our delivery is a key differentiator within the realm of smaller budgets and tighter timelines. We have to and must add value to a customer.” Usually this means providing some level of professional services around various aspects of usage including what is the business expectation from Office 365; what are the user rights and requirements; is there any level of customisation required; is any data migration required; is end user training required? Since the end user has already invested in the software licenses, they would usually prefer their reseller partner to also play the role of advisor and assist them in the implementation. A Cloud reseller would then complete the above one-time tasks over a period of a few days as an administrator and at the end hand over control and disengage from further support activities. A typical professional services support of this nature would range in 1:1 ratio or above against software licensing costs, depending on the complexity of the engagement and with a minimum cost base. Another reason for end users to engage with resellers for professional and consulting service support is because Office 365 is inherently a complex suite of enterprise applications managed by Microsoft at the backend through a software as a service model. “There is a right way to use it and a potentially complicated way to use it,” especially when the purpose is to downsize running costs of IT administration. For resellers, adding value for the end user through professional services is the right way forward but this does require experience and the right set of tools.

When customers sign up with Live Route for the free trial they are activated with the full suite of products and features allowing them to make intelligent decisions on what fits them best.

An early lead over other Cloud solution providers, Jawwad Rehman, Managing Director, Live Route

An end user business signing up for Office 365 gets multiple benefits, which includes 99.9% availability, disaster recovery, latest software versions and 100% legal software Once the end user has begun to use Office 365 and in the event the implementation has run smoothly, the reseller may find themselves called in to support expansion of users, additional training, additional customisation, help desk provisioning and other ongoing support and maintenance services. Managed services for Office 365 end users is another possible opportunity for Cloud channel players. Says Santosh Kumar, Business Unit Manager, Aptec Distribution and Microsoft’s VAD partner for the region: “I do not think any organisation will go for an end to end public cloud. We are looking at a complex integration scenario of on-premise and public Clouds. We will bring in the synergy of hybrid Cloud, managed services and hybrid cloud integration.” Live Route looks at it a little differently. “What else can I do that helps me and

helps the end user. Nothing stops me from capitalising on the relationship.” “Another reason why customers like to work with a Cloud partner is because it is not their cup of tea and it is not their core competency,” says Rehman. But he claries there is no catch and there is nothing mandatory in Office 365 that makes it necessary for an end user to engage with a reseller for professional and managed services. Engagement with resellers for this level of support depends on what their expectations are from Office 365. From VAD Aptec’s point of view, Microsoft’s technical support for its channel partners is still work in progress. Amongst the queries unresolved are who will provide the back end support for technical troubleshooting with resellers during a professional services engagement? What is the go-to-market certification approach for channel partners wanting to establish competency in selected areas of Office 365, like Link for example? Who will the end user consult for higher levels of technical trouble shooting in the absence of the reseller? Another important aspect of the channel transformation is the point of contact for Cloud decision making at end user organisations. “We are not selling anymore to the IT manager or CIO. You need to get to the CEO level and sell it there. This is different,” says Mario Veljovic, Operations Director at Aptec Holdings, who also manages professional services support for reseller partners. Veljovic believes Microsoft can help out in sales training programmes especially around how to help resellers reposition Cloud consulting services. Large system integrators wanting to jump into the mainstream of selling Office 365 solutions may find the value of transactions to be low in comparison to their established business. And this is likely to deter a few. “Nobody is going to jump into the Cloud business, just because they want to be in the Cloud business, unless they see an ROI in the Cloud business and it takes time to build the competence,” says Rehman. There is no carrot in the distance and turning a big ship around will take time as well. But the Cloud will roll and time will tell. //

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

COVER FEATURE Office 365

Return on experience

Michael Mansour, Developer Platform Evangelism Lead, Microsoft Gulf 38

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The role of Microsoft’s developer partner evangelism is to excite and make ready its developer communities around the latest emerging technologies. Last year the focus was around Cloud and this year it includes Cloud, Surface and Phone. Another key focus with developer communities is to help get their solutions to the market as fast as possible and accelerate them through their software development life cycle. While the developer partner is important so is the end customer. “We go in as brokers, to facilitate knowledge transfer and partner engagement. We will typically select the partner that can give the best value to the customer,” says Michael Mansour, Developer Platform Evangelism Lead, Microsoft Gulf. The underlying drive is to expose the customer to the latest solution innovations from Microsoft. Continues Mansour: “There is a new paradigm approach for developer partners including system integrators and independent software vendors, which is to first excite the end user community here with mock-ups and aesthetics and then follow up with back end integration.” Due to in country aspirations and the need to be different from other markets, there is tremendous demand on developer content and web experience. Microsoft’s C-level discussions indicate there is a significant imbalance between business needs and the ability of the technical team to deliver. The gap between business and IT continues to widen because of two reasons. The first is limited growth of skills to support quality innovation and this leads to churn in human resources, when they are imported into this market. And the second is ramping up of the delivery cycle to meet the demand for innovation. “It is my view that investment made into IT is insufficient to meet the demand required at the business level. There is a sense of urgency and yet the gap is still there with IT,” Mansour explains. The demand for immersive application experience fuelled by the release of Surface, Cloud and the next generation of Windows continues to grow in this market. While the cost of software development in the UAE market is very close to western developed markets, certain breed of end users are no longer interested in cost benefits. “They are looking for agility, quality and brilliant return of experience. If those three are met they are happy to spend premium dollars to have such a development house.” Microsoft’s software development process whether for a Cloud based application or any other platform like Phone, Surface or Slate is built on two independent pillars. The first is to generate a compelling visual and immersive experience and the second is to support back end software development. These two pillars are heavily leveraged in the UAE and less in other markets. While back-end software development may take place anywhere in Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan and India, the requirement of having back and forth discussions with customers requires a high level creative team be based in UAE. For the developer community, Windows Azure provides on-demand compute, storage, networking and content delivery capabilities to host, scale and manage web applications through Microsoft data centres. Microsoft SQL Azure Database is a cloud-based relational database service built on SQL Server technologies and provides a scalable, multitenant database service hosted by Microsoft in the cloud.

Partner advisor

Yasir Khokhar, Business Group Lead Microsoft Office

Office 365 represents Microsoft’s transition from selling software as a product to selling software as a service. This transition has not been created by Microsoft and represents an industry shift with its share of compelling benefits and entry barriers. An important factor to be understood and recognised is that Microsoft will continue to sell packaged software through its traditional channel partner network while in parallel building the capability of its partners to sell software as a service. This creates an opportunity rather than a threat. “A smart reseller will jump onto the bandwagon of selling both traditional software and services, explains Yasir Khokhar, Business Group Lead Microsoft Office. Office 365 will be commercially available sometime in the first half of 2012. In the meantime, regional end users are being encouraged to sign up for 30 day free trials and sometimes longer through reseller partners. Acceptance of the Cloud based service, with multiple levels of subscription based services, features and pricing, is completed through a commercial SLA between the end user and Microsoft directly. “If the service goes down at any time, the privacy and security of the data that the customer entrusts us with, can only be maintained if we have a direct relationship with the customer,” explains Khokhar. For every financial transaction between the end customer and Microsoft, both distributor and reseller partners are rewarded by a percentage of the transaction. In Microsoft’s services based channel, the role of a reseller is upgraded from a trader harping on price and availability, to an advisor for the end customer. By Microsoft’s scheme of things, a reseller continues to advise their customers on Cloud based data migration, user rights, CRM, ERP and is the first line of support that a customer should approach. “We know the enterprise and we know the SMB customers. We know they will need help in getting to the Cloud. That is why we pay our channel partners,” clarifies Khokhar, on why the reseller continues to play an important role even in the new channel structure. However for a reseller partner to be effective in the new Cloud channel programme, they need to organise themselves to sell services to the end user. A critical success factor in this new model is to have an ongoing, strategic, consultative relationship with the customer. On the other hand distributors are incentivized to increase the number of Cloud partners who are transacting with them. “The model of distributors as an engine to get us reach still holds very true.” Office 365 has been launched in UAE, Kuwait and Qatar. “Cloud is on the agenda of every CIO, we know that as a fact,” says Khokhar. In Qatar and Kuwait, Microsoft has found demand in the SMB segment, but in UAE there is pent-up demand. The need for Cloud based services appears overdue for SMB’s in the UAE. For the corporate segment, defined by Microsoft as between 250 and 1,000 users, they are experiencing pain with IT departments wanting to scale back operations, move applications and large complex workloads to the Cloud and save on data centre maintenance costs.

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

COVER FEATURE Office 365

Cloud and partner democracy Microsoft manages all its partners under one broad programme called the Partner Network. Globally it includes 640,000 partners and in the region it includes 1,500 partners excluding Saudi Arabia. It has four levels of partners, starting with registered partners, subscription partners, silver and gold partners. The last two levels are based on skill levels across 29 specialisations including Digital Marketing, Distributor, OEM Hardware, Software Asset Management, Mobility, Hosting, Learning, Independent Software Vendor, CRM, ERP, Midmarket Solution Provider, Content Management, Portals and Collaboration, Project and Portfolio Management, Search, Unified Communications, Desktop, Identity and Security, Server Platform, Systems Management, Virtualization, Data Platform, Application Integration, Application Lifecycle Management, Software Development, Web Development, Business Intelligence, Volume Licensing and Cloud. Says Mohammed Arif, Partner Strategy and Program Lead: “Cloud is the biggest story for us today and for many years to come. The two Cloud partner programmes are connected to the Microsoft’s Partner Network but are not melded into it. Moreover any partner who is on the leading edge of technology change will benefit.” Since the early mover status will prove decisive for a reseller wanting to actively adopt the role of a Cloud strategic advisor for an end customer, the partner eco system is likely to be democratised. Smaller resellers may find themselves selling to larger end user customers than those addressed by large scale system and infrastructure integrators. This open up the possibility of smaller resellers with Cloud advisor competence, partnering with system integrators used to managing enterprise grade complexities for data migration into the Cloud and other related opportunities.

Cloud partner programmes Cloud Essentials License grant: Microsoft Office 365 250 licenses; Windows Intune Subscription for 25 PCs; Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 250 licenses; Windows Azure platform 750 hours of extra-small-compute instance, 25 hours of small-compute instance, 20 gigabytes of storage, and 250,000 storage transactions; Microsoft SQL Azure Web Edition database: 1 gigabyte; Windows Azure AppFabric: 100,000 access control transactions and 2 service bus connections; Data transfer: 25 gigabytes in and 25 gigabytes out Benefits: Listing as Cloud Essentials partner on the Microsoft Pinpoint online marketplace; Listing in the Microsoft Office 365 Marketplace; Marketing resources; Online sales and financial modelling tools; Presales and technical support

Cloud Accelerate License grant: Microsoft Office 365 250 licenses; Windows Intune Subscription for 100 PCs; Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 250 licenses; Windows Azure Platform; MSDN Premium subscription; PlatformPlus, all Cloud essentials Pack benefits; All of the core benefits provided to members of the Microsoft Partner Network that have earned a silver competency. Benefits: Online sales and financial modelling tools; presales and technical support; training platform specialized cloud training; additional business benefits

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

Mohammed Arif, Partner Strategy and Programme Lead, Microsoft Gulf

FEATURE Education Channels

Volume and value jostle Today’s IT education players need to balance a mix of high value and high volume training programmes. Demand seasonality, mixed vendor fortunes, a new breed of emerging technologies implies there are no firm bets. A look at business models of some leading players. Josef Miskulnig worked in IBM from 1977 to 1996. In 1997 he decided to set up Fast Lane as both a systems consulting company and an IT training company. Along the way as business picked up speed, resource priorities started clashing. Miskulnig realised he would have to make a choice. He decided to stick to training and has never looked back since then. Today he is a preferred training partner for Cisco across the region. Miskulnig’s Fast Lane operates in Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Jordan and Lebanon with operations supported out of Dubai. Right from the beginning Miskulnig also had another choice. Either, go for the volume type training with lower profit margins and commodity type, me-too training delivery. Or focus on the specialised, higher value, higher profit

Partners look at the overall profitability of the project. Since the training is outsourced by them we are under pressure all the time to be price competitive and to increase the partner’s total profit margin. 42

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training delivery. Coming from systems hardware and networking background Miskulnig chose to align with Cisco rather than align with an enterprise application vendor like Microsoft.

Networking master Today Fast Lane focuses on partner implementations of Cisco solutions. An implementation driven by a tier-one Cisco partner generates two opportunities for Fast Lane. End customers need to be trained and certified on the solution being implemented. Market expansion opportunities imply that new employees in partner companies need to be trained and certified. And existing employees need to be promoted with new certifications or recertified as required. Once end users technical staff are brought into Fast Lane training programmes, they usually continue with their own certification road maps. Approximately 33% of students are from partners; 40% from end customers and the balance are either Cisco employees or from Cisco driven projects. “We are not turning anybody away, but our target market is Cisco channel partners and business customers. Our model is geared up for the high end of the market and not so much for the consumer,” explains Miskulnig. Payments for such type of training programmes are through tier-one partners and their cost is usually in built within the turnkey project bid. Do partners make a margin

Looking to add another vendor, Josef Miskulnig, CEO, Fast Lane

on training services? “Partners look at the overall profitability of the project. Since the training is outsourced by them we are under pressure all the time to be price competitive and to increase the partner’s total profit margin”, says Miskulnig. In other words for a partner’s bid to be competitive, all components are driven to the minimum price point and this includes the cost of training from Fast Lane. He reflects: “In the past partners used to get away with quick fix and hands on

training. Now customers are asking for specific authorised training. We also have a consultative approach on training. When there is a big tender, partners ask us what would be the right package and we mix and match different training modules. There are usually a mix of loyal partners and also adhoc ones looking for the best price.” While tier-one partners may be the primary segment for Fast Lane’s business from a single supplier point of view, tier-two partners are also important on an aggregated scale. While they may generate lower revenue per partner in comparison to tier-one partners, on an aggregated scale their business is also significant. Since a large number of tier-two partners are being brought into the Cisco channel mainstream by value added distributors, entry level certifications are an important part of partner training programmes. Other than partner driven projects, Fast Lane also thrives on technology life cycles. Sometime back networking technology was the need of the day, this progressed to security, followed by unified computing and wireless, leading to today’s demand driver of data centres and unified cloud computing. “Our business is surviving on the change.” Is Miskulnig looking at expansion of Fast Lane’s portfolio of vendor solutions? The condition for such an addition: it should not be a direct competitor and should be complementary to the current portfolio. The current trio of vendor customers, Cisco, Netapp and VMware

Profitability depends on the strategy for seasonality and offerings are not fixed

Oracle Solaris, Cisco, HP Education and Citrix. “The training industry has evolved a lot. We were the driving force on vendor certifications and new product launches. As we grew the demand for certification courses has became less and changed to knowledge driven technology know-how,” reflects Mohammed Aslam, COO, New Horizons. New Horizons scans markets to track the latest in demand technologies from end users. Another driver, according to Aslam, is the regions aspirations to implement the latest technologies,

Regional operations of New Horizons are able to generate a gross operating profit of 30% to 40% Scanning for end user opportunities, Mohammed Aslam, COO, New Horizons

are closely integrated in the area of unified computing, data centre and cloud technology. “I strongly believe in focussing on what you are good at and the past 15 years has shown that I was quite successful. Cisco and NetApp keeps us very busy and on our toes.” He admits Fast Lane is actively looking at vendor customer expansion but alternatives that meet these conditions seem hard to find.

Vendor alignment Global player New Horizons drives its regional training business by aligning closely with vendors. The Dubai based franchise, along with its Qatar and Kuwait operations are part of Human Soft Holding Company listed under the Kuwait Stock Exchange. Its primary training business is built around courseware from Microsoft,

solutions and upgrades. “Lots of new vendors come up, we see their implementations, what they have done, what is the market share and is there a training demand.” Microsoft continues to dominate the share of end user attention and therefore also dominates New Horizons’ training portfolio and services. Vendor customers also suggest training programmes to New Horizons based on their assessment of end user application usage and the need to upscale end users to new applications or upgrades. New Horizons also approaches end users as a training consultant. Since it is vendor neutral and has a rich portfolio of vendor training programmes, end users are open and receptive to discussions on technology platform selection and suitable training programmes. Regional training operations of New Horizons are able to generate a gross operating profit of 30% to 40%.

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

FEATURE Education Channels

While the business may set its target of profit margins, the bigger challenge is to generate these margins from the seasonality of demand, rather than from its own choice of courses and training programmes. “Profitability depends on the strategy for seasonality and offerings are not fixed,” says Aslam. Every season needs a combination of courses that meet a volume demand and have a lower price point and those that are more specialised and can command a higher price point. New Horizons’ profits are therefore an average of the profitability of individual training programmes. On site customer driven solutions are also part of their training portfolio. What is New Horizons differentiator in the market? The first is the recent adoption of mentor led training, where students can set the pace of their learning as well as the subject of interest. The second is its ability to launch training programmes around latest vendor technologies for example cloud computing, virtualisation, Microsoft Link. Another variation is its capability to offer specialised training courses like Microsoft CRM, Great Plains and Dynamics. And the third is its ability to deliver training programmes anywhere in its geographical area of operations. Is New Horizons looking at expanding its vendor portfolio? “There are so many technologies within Microsoft itself that are keeping us busy,” says Aslam. For the same reason it does more of Cisco’s entry level courses rather than high end ones.

In the past partners used to get away with quick fix and hands on training. Now customers are asking for specific authorised training. 44

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Two sides of a coin The portfolio of vendor training programmes from Dubai based Spectrum is built around Microsoft, Juniper Networks and EC Council. For Microsoft, training programmes are limited to UAE and India and for Juniper Networks they are available across the Middle East and Africa. While Microsoft and

The primary applications driving revenue in Microsoft training programmes are Unified Communication, Active Directory, Sharepoint, Link, Exchange and SQL Server Juniper Networks training programmes are the primary drivers for Spectrum’s business, their go to market activities are considerably different. Partner and end user certifications are an important part of Juniper Networks training programmes. A very small component of the training is driven by end customers approaching Spectrum directly for certifications. Whenever a new technology or product is released the initial signs-ups are from Juniper Network’s partners. Once the solution comes into the sales cycle, the number of end user sign-ups also starts to increase, while the number of partner sign-ups begins to decrease. Partners are usually responsible for supporting the costs of the end user training, and this is inbuilt into the deal transaction. For skills upgrade of training partners, Juniper Networks offers partners a 50% discount when they sign up with Spectrum. On the flip side, for Microsoft training

New developments in the next quarter, Sanjeev Singh, CTO, Spectrum Group

programmes, 90% of the training is driven by end user demand requirements. “End user training is driven by IT managers and attrition of skilled resources is an important driver here,” says Sanjeev Singh, CTO, Spectrum Group. Most of the end user training is supported by training vouchers, which end users receive at the time of purchase of licensed software. “We do considerable amount of training business around vouchers, because it is from the enterprise and we know the enterprise.” Spectrum does not cater to certification programmes for walk in independent professionals. Microsoft partner led training programmes are limited in demand and usually around the most recent technologies. This includes Hyper-V, Sharepoint 2010 and Link. The primary applications driving revenue in Microsoft training programmes

are Unified Communication, Active Directory, Sharepoint, Link, Exchange and SQL Server. In 2012, Link is expected to be an important demand driver. Microsoft Office is usually bundled as part of a bulk corporate programme and yields a low profit. It was in high demand during the Office 2007 to Office 2010 migration. At Spectrum, Microsoft courseware is offered without the Prometric certification allowing students to take up the certification exam at a later time. Juniper Networks training covers the security, routing and switching product portfolio as well as the four certification levels of the partner programme. Partners receive the schedule of training programmes from Spectrum on a regular basis. For Spectrum, its volume of students trained has been growing at 40% CAGR for the last three years. However, admits Singh: “Profit has not been growing at the same rate.” A key dynamic is Spectrum’s dependence on Juniper Network partners to get them end user training registrations. “We discount training services to our key partners, so that they can bid at a lower cost and get the deal to ensure we get training students. Training is usually 5-7% of the total order.” Another flexibility that Spectrum exercises in order to get a partner deal is the unit of cost in a particular training programme, whether per

Microsoft partner led training programmes are limited in demand and usually around the most recent technologies. This includes Hyper-V, Sharepoint 2010 and Link.

man day or per batch of students or per programme. While training programmes for Microsoft and Juniper Networks represent two contrasts within Spectrum’s business model, is there place for another entrant into its portfolio? Singh admits that Spectrum is seriously considering vendor customer expansion in the next quarter. “Adding an enterprise vendor is useful for the bottom line since the customer base will remain the same.” With Juniper Networks solutions present in almost all large enterprises, adding on an enterprise

Pearson In Practice is a relatively new player in the regional IT training space. application vendor, for example, would be a complementary addition. He however rules out expansion of the Microsoft training portfolio into other countries, where overcrowding of players would most likely lead to further price erosion.

High touch Pearson In Practice is a relatively new player in the regional IT training space. It has been in delivery mode for the last two years and is now functioning in UAE. There are plans to open seven more education centres across the region. Its regional business model is meant to replicate the UK one. UK based certified instructors would be responsible for teaching in UAE. And the idea is to maintain the same level of academic standard with student certification being conducted through Edexcel. “When we talk to corporate they are impressed with the pedigree quality of Pearson,” says Richard Firth, Regional Director Middle East, Pearson In Practice.

Pedigree offering, Richard Firth, Regional Director ME, Pearson In Practice

“Even though there is a recession they are still spending money on development and there are still training budgets out there. They are just choosing to spend it more wisely,” is his observation. Pearson’s portfolio currently includes an entry level and an advanced level, full time programme of 18 weeks each, as well as part time vendor certification programmes. Firth’s confidence is also based on their previous experience. “This model has worked well elsewhere and we found the quality of delivery and pass rate is high.” Replacement of visiting faculty with local faculty is planned for the next year. With so many factors at play, ranging from business volatility to faster technology cycles, IT training players will need to use a new breed of marketing and business development techniques to keep their top and bottom lines margins in the green. //

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY Motorola E1 Tablet

Outdoor enterprise tablet Motorola has developed the rugged E1 tablet especially for industrial use and to support enterprise applications From an exterior appearance the ET1 tablet looks the same as other Android based tablets. Hold the tablet in your palm and you feel the change in ergonomics. It is a shade heavier, does not flex and slides into the palm more securely. It has been designed for industrial use and designed to support enterprise applications with multi user access levels. The current model only supports access through Wifi LAN. Later releases of models will support access via a carrier network. The tablet has been designed to withstand drops, extreme ranges of temperature upto 50 degrees centigrade, and an ultra strong and scratch proof Gorilla glass. Data storage is encrypted ensuring it complies with industrial and government regulations. With multi user logins, each user interface can be customised to suit the job profile and access rights. The tablet is blue tooth enabled and has external ports to support bar and magnetic code reading as well as pen based applications. Development of applications uses a tool called RhoElements that is operating system and model agnostic. Hence once an interface is developed it does not need to be adapted for a different form factor or operating system. The batteries can be hot swapped even when the device is live.

The tablet has been designed to withstand drops, extreme ranges of temperature upto 50 degrees centigrade, and an ultra strong and scratch proof Gorilla glass

The Motorola ET1 tablet is ergonomically developed to fit snugly in the hand. Meant for industrial applications handling and durability are key considerations in its design.

While current models are built on the Android OS, the developer platform RhoElements allows the same user interface to be used across multiple operating systems and form factors.

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY Review

Quad Enterprise Social Software Ciscoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s thin client application allows a user to work across business and social media feeds through one interface. Global enterprise application vendors have worked for the last two decades to build productive and effective collaboration software tools. In the late nineties, Lotus and Microsoft used knowledge management as a key driver and enabler for their collaboration tools. In this decade with the advent of unified communication technologies and the huge number of one to many and many to one exchanges via social media applications,

technology vendors are looking at this scenario as another opportunity. Cisco Quad is a next-generation enterprise collaboration platform that provides an integrated user experience. Quad enables a user to be more productive by finding and connecting with people, communities and information from a personalised dashboard. Users can communicate and collaborate with colleagues

and share knowledge through a unified posting model. Quad is representative of the convergence of communication tools and social software with enterprise content management systems and line-ofbusiness applications. It has a key attributes built around content posting and sharing, people collaboration, social media feeds and customisation and communication interoperability.

Managing my communities These features allow users to list communities of which they are members All Communities: This shows a list of all communities within Cisco Quad to which you have at least read access and allows name and keyword search; for each community, there is a one-click Join option. My Communities: Shows a list of communities of which you are a member; for each community, there is a one-click Leave option; for communities to which you have owner role, there are one-click view membership

request, assign members, assign user roles, edit, manage pages, leave and delete options. Communities I Manage: Shows a list of communities of which you are an owner; for communities, there are one-click view membership request, assign members, assign user roles, edit, manage pages, leave and delete options.

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

My View A personalised dashboard for accessing and engaging people, communities, and information Watch list: This feature enables easy tracking of any content that you have posted or commented on, sorted in reverse chronological order based on your last participation activity. Social activities: This feature provides a centralised stream of status messages and activities from contacts and communities associated with the user, allowing and encouraging collaboration and interaction among users. Add application: This feature allows instant addition of blog aggregator, bookmarks, calendar for Microsoft Exchange, content publisher, dictionary, documents,

IFrame, images, My Communities, openSocial app, RSS Feed, recent documents, social activities, tag cloud, voice messages, watch list, welcome, wiki and wiki link to any pages within My View. Open Social App Portlet: This feature allows one or more Open Social-compliant gadgets to be added to any pages within My View. Library: This feature lists new posts, my posts, favourites, videos and deleted items that you have created or that has been shared with you, sorted by title, last modified date, number of changes, and author. It also provides separate lists of documents, images,

and bookmarks. You can create custom views to filter for a specific user, tag, or community. Userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s core profile attributes: Shows name, presence, avatar or photo, job title, latest status message, location, time zone, mobile and work phone numbers, primary and secondary email addresses, and instant messaging (IM) addresses; attributes can be imported and synchronised with any Lightweight Directory Access Protocol Version 3 (LDAPv3)-compliant directory. Userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s blog: Shows your blog posts, sorted in reverse chronological order. Userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Activities: Shows a centralised stream of your public activities. Expertise: Shows your expertise as keywords. Interests: Shows your interests as keywords. Public Communities: Shows a list of public communities of which you are a member and that you have selected to be shown. Contacts: Shows a list of contacts with whom you have connected and whom you have selected to be shown. Following: Shows a list of people you are following and who are following your public activities.

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY Review

Collaboration within a community Users can add and manage communities based on their work and knowledge collaboration patterns Types of collaboration • Open: Anyone can join; name and content area are visible in search results • Restricted: Only those allowed can join; name is visible in search results; content is visible in search results only for those who are members • Hidden: Only those allowed can join; name is not visible in search results; content is visible in search results only for those who are members. • Actions: List of one-click actions such as create a post, create a Wiki, start a discussion, add a blog entry, upload a document, upload a video, upload an image, invite members, edit community and leave this c.

• Add Applications: Allows instant addition of portlets like actions, activities, blog, bookmarks, calendar, community members, content publisher, dictionary, discussions, documents, IFrame, images, OpenSocial App, RSS Feed, recent documents, survey, tag cloud, Wiki and Wiki Links to any pages within the community. • OpenSocial App Portlet: Allows you to add one or more OpenSocial compliant gadgets to any pages within the community. • Invite: Allows you to invite up to 20 users at a time by email to join the community. • Library: Lists all posts such as new posts, my posts, favourites, videos, and deleted items

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

Technology is short term, but partnership is long term

Global sourcing - local support In a world of technologies, focusing on the ones that deliver benefit is good for your business. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why FVC partners with global IT leaders to bring the most effective, most transformative products and technologies to you, our channel. From telepresence to network traffic management, security to WAN optimisation, we are the leading VAD in MENA, supporting products with logistics, implementation and training. Let us be your partner of choice for tomorrow.

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY Review

People This provides a directory for browsing and finding people and contacts All: Shows a list of all users within Cisco Quad and allows for name and keyword search; for each user, options include one-click add contact, IM chat, call and email. My Contacts: Shows your list of contacts; for each contact options include one-click remove contact, IM chat, call and email. Security Trimmed Search Results: Protects sensitive information by showing only search results for which a user has at least read permission. Faceted search results: Enables easy and fast filtering of search results through facets such as mine, people profiles and expertise, communities, information types, file types and date range.

Technical specifications Compatibility Cisco Unified Communications Manager 7.0 or later Cisco Unified Presence 8.0 or later Cisco Unity Connection 8.0 Cisco WebEx Meeting Center 8.5 Cisco WebEx Connect Cloud Microsoft Exchange 2003 or later Microsoft Office Communications Server (Cisco IP Communicator Web access) 2007 R2 or later Protocols HTTP, HTTP/SSL, NT LAN Manager, SSO, LDAP, OAuth, WebDAV, CMIS, WSRP, XMPP, BOSH APIs Authentication, OpenSocial, Notifications, Content Web Services Hardware Cisco Unified Computing System Vblock 0 (for +10,000 user environments) and Cisco UCS C-Series (2,500-10,000 user environments) Optional for enabling HTTP/Secure Sockets Layer (SSL): Cisco ACE Application Control Engine Module Software Cisco Enterprise Policy Manager (included) Cisco Show and Share 5.2.1 (included)

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

VMware ESXi 4.0 Oracle Database 10g Browser support Microsoft Windows and Mac OSX platform support Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 Firefox 3.6 Safari 4.0 (Mac OS only) Chrome 8.0 (Windows)

PEOPLE Recruitment

Less means more Fewer but better screened applications from this recruitment portal can provide a higher ROI for would-be employers Laimoon.com describes itself as a disruptive online recruitment portal. Its approach to recruitment is definitely innovative and path breaking. For every post that employers upload they are expected to provide various criteria for selection of the right candidates. Laimoon converts these employee specified conditions into a set of 6 pairs of flash cards

that prospective candidates weave through before arriving at a set of best-fit, suitable job openings. Candidates then apply only to Laimoon accessible job openings. “The workflow provides clear signals in the noisy world of job search,” is how the portal describes the process. Unlike conventional online recruitment

portals, the complete mosaic of job openings at Laimoon is not accessible to candidates on entering the portal. “Candidates respond with how their experience fits the job, almost like a micro-interview.” To ensure there is sufficient volume of job postings for candidates at the end of its flash card navigation, Laimoon also displays links to external job postings. For Laimoon registered employers there are no advance payment charges for uploading job openings. As the number of pre-qualified candidate application accumulates, employers can then decide whether to complete the transaction fee to access the candidate applications based on a visible and well defined ROI. //

Various employee postings available at Laimoon.com for candidates to apply for.

Prospective employers need to specify the top most criteria for pre-qualification of candidates. Laimoon converts employer criteria into flash cards and progressively presents them to candidates thereby filtering down the numbers to the most suitable.

Registered candidates at Laimoon.com are presented a pair of six flash cards to shortlist whether their profiles fits the available job openings at the portal. Only after responding to the pre-qualification questions and meeting the criteria of the prospective employer does Laimoon allow them to submit their applications to a particular job opening. Employer customers can monitor the build up of responses at Laimoon.com without any payment and are assured that the numbers have already gone through a pre-qualification process. In comparison to other recruitment portals these numbers are fewer but employers have the assurance of better screened candidates. They are provided full access to the applications once they have completed the payment transaction to Laimoon.com.

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

Affordable

Easy to use

Powerful

Network Performance Management Software Trusted by over a million administrators worldwide

w w w . m a n a g e e n g i n e . c o m / n p m Customer speaks: “…Before ManageEngine, we were using a number of different monitoring systems depending on the type and brand of equipment being Monitored.... Now we have a single application that monitors nearly any piece of equipment we have on our network...”

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Awards:

Our Network Performance Management includes: Automatic L2/ L3 Network Mapping | Network devices health and performance monitoring | WAN and VoIP performance monitoring | Network Traffic Analysis | Network Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring | Network Change and Configuration Management | EventLog, Syslog and SNMP Trap monitoring | Server Virtualization monitoring – VMware/ Hyper-V | Indepth Application Performance Monitoring

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PEOPLE Movements

SAP has announced appointment of Qais Gharaibeh to the role of Managing Director for UAE. In this role, Gharaibeh will lead SAP’s growth strategy and field operations in the country, and will report to Sam Alkharrat, Managing Director, SAP Middle East and North Africa. Gharaibeh is an IT veteran with more than 15 years of experience in the Middle East industry. In the past ten years, he has served in various management roles with EMC and HP. Last year, Gharaibeh founded and led Encloud, an IT Manager Service Provider focused on cloud computing subscription-based services in the Middle East. Epson has announced the appointment of Feras Al Sweilam as the new Business Sales Manager for Epson Middle East. Al Sweilam, who rejoins the company after starting his career with Epson ten years ago, previously worked at the Canadian Foreign Affairs and International Trade since 2008 as a Trade Commissioner within the diplomatic corps in the UAE. In his new role, Al Sweilam will have the opportunity to utilise his expertise in sales management, as he leads the sales team and oversees the company’s projects in the region. Al Sweilam holds a degree in information systems and post graduate studies in international business. He has worked with clients in telecommunication and IT, life science, biomedical and ocean technologies sectors. Al Sweilam has built a track record in business development and sales management with global companies such as RIM, Nortel, Bell Canada, Etisalat, Du and Dubai Airports among others. Muhammad Awais Sheikh joins SIT Distribution as the Independent Reseller Manager for Kuwait market as a part of its expansion plans. Muhammad brings with him experience and

insights into the industry. Muhammad believes keeping abreast of industry trends and requirements will be critical for developing customer breadth. Mastering Business Administration from Lahore, Pakistan, Muhammad has more than 18 years of experience in IT and consumer electronics. He will be responsible for developing and implementing business plans and strategic business relationships in the independent channel space and ensuring closer working relationships with key partners. CommScope has named Ciaran Forde, Vice President of Enterprise sales for the company’s newly created Middle East and Africa region. The company created two new regions from the former EMEA territory, one for Europe and one for Middle East and Africa. Forde will be responsible for leading sales and customer relationship activities within MEA. Forde reports to Anne Marie Kenneally, who was promoted to Senior Vice President of Global Enterprise Sales, where she leads CommScope’s business enterprise sales activities around the world. She previously served as Regional Vice President of Enterprise sales for Europe, Middle East and Africa. Forde is based at CommScope’s Dubai office, which opened in September. He has held several management positions within CommScope over the past 13 years. Most recently, he was Managing Director of Sales, Enterprise, in the Middle East and Africa. He began his career in the telecommunications industry working for British Telecom and Raychem. VMware announced the hiring of Sam Tayan as its new Regional Director for the Middle East North Africa region. The appointment comes at a time when organisations in the region are increasingly looking to virtualisation and cloud computing to control costs and become more efficient. Based out of Dubai, Tayan will be responsible for delivering VMware’s sales strategy and customer service operations in the region. With over 20 years experience in the IT industry across Europe and the Middle East, Tayan will

work closely with customers to drive VMware’s solutions. Tayan joins VMware from Getronics Middle East, where he served as Regional Director for six years. Prior to Getronics, Tayan held management positions at Sun Microsystems, EMC and Veritas Software. Sharp has appointed Hiroshi Sasaoka, 54, as the new Chairman of Sharp Middle East, Africa and CIS. Sasaoka brings with him the experience of spearheading expansion in the UK and Europe for Sharp Corporation, in addition to familiarity with the Middle East gained from the start of his time with the corporation, where he was involved in the sales division for the MEA region. He will lead the operations from Sharp Middle East’s headquarters in Jebel Ali, with Dubai acting as the gateway to Sharp’s business in the region. Foregenix has appointed IT security expert, Nick Barratt to drive the sales of its cardholder data discovery suite across EMEA. Barratt will also be responsible for forming technology and reseller partnerships with companies across Europe to support Foregenix’s direct sales efforts. He has been in the IT security industry for more than twelve years. His most recent positions include that of Sales Manager at SafeNet and overseeing reseller and security sales programmes at Equip Technology. Nick has broad expertise in security technologies including intrusion detection and prevention, anti-virus and anti-spyware, content delivery and protection and high speed internetworking. Qatar Telecom announced that Yves Gaultier is leaving his post as Chief Executive Officer of Tunisiana, Tunisia. Gaultier will be succeeded by Kenneth Campbell. Campbell, a veteran global telecom executive, came from his most recent role of CEO at Wind Mobile, Canada, and will report to the Qtel Group Chief Executive Officer, Dr Nasser Marafih. Gaultier assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer of Tunisiana at start-up in 2007. //

december 2011

Reseller Middle East

PEOPLE Sherifa Hady

HP’s aspiring inventor

Building teams, building winners Sherifa Hady has been with HP Imaging and Printing Group in the Middle East for more than eleven years now. Within the IPG department she has managed channels and marketing for the Middle East. Today as Channel Sales Manager, she is responsible for IPG’s partner ramp up across English speaking Africa. With an early English schooling in London she completed her Bachelor of Engineering in Cairo and joined ICL, now Fujitsu, in 1991 and has never looked back since then. Hady loves challenges and believes, “You can make your role as challenging as you like,” by adding to the level of expectations from yourself. Along with personal challenges is the element of newness in her job role, where she meets new people and new cultures. Extending this further, she feels the best part of her job role is working towards being part of a winning team. And in the process learns continuously from her peers, colleagues, partners and even her two children. The job rotation she has gone through during her long stint at HP has also

Reseller Middle East

december 2011

helped to enrich her learning and professional life. In 2005 Hady was recognised at HP’s High Achievers Summit and in 2006 was awarded the Women in ICT, Middle East Excellence Award. She describes her professional drive as the ability to put down her objectives and do the best to achieve them. Does she look for formal recognitions for her efforts? “I always say, if you can look in the mirror and feel proud of what you have achieved, that is as rewarding as any external recognition or award.” Hady describes herself as positive, energetic, creative and ready to expect the unexpected. She loves IT, electronics and cars. Off work, she unwinds by spending time at the gym or at the beach, running or riding her new Harley Davidson motorbike. Her favourite day dream: to fly a plane and visit all the countries in the world. Many years ago she took up engineering to invent a product that would benefit everyone. “Well that did not happen”, but today she works for a company that wants it to happen.

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