Reseller Middle East June 2018

ISSUE 258 | JUNE 2018 www.tahawultech.com

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CONTENTS

ISSUE 258 // JUNE 2018

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COVER FEATURE

HAILING CHANNEL INNOVATION

The 2018 edition of Reseller Middle East’s Partner Excellence Awards marked the achievements of regional channel-focused organisations and applauded endeavours to grow the industry.

HIGHLIGHTS

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FEATURES

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

EVENTS

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MARGIN BUILDER FORUM Reseller ME’s first edition of Margin Builder Forum equipped partners with invaluable insights from industry veterans as they step up to the challenges of the digital era.

REVIEW

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38 PROFITING FROM IOTLED ERA

43 DIGITAL DRIVE

Reseller ME discovers how channel partners can capitalise on the opportunities in IoT.

40 BEYOND BOUNDARIES

Reseller ME examines the prospects for partners and vendors in the Saudi Arabia market.

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LG UNVEILS SK10Y SOUND BAR

Taj El-Khayat from Citrix on reinforcing the firm’s market position as the partner of choice for digital transformations.

PARTNER WATCH

44 DEFINING FUTURE GROWTH

HOT PRODUCTS

MICROSOFT SURFACE BOOK 2

VENDRO FOCUS

FVC’s KS Parag and Sanjay Ahuja share how they are growing the business to the next level and the firm’s vision for 2018.

BELKIN LAUNCHES 3.5 MM AUDIO CABLE WITH LIGHTNING CONNECTOR

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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FLY THIS SUMMER TO EUROPE WITH PRINTEC Buy 350 toner cartridges per month for a quarter and qualify for fully paid incentive trip to Europe Terms and conditions: Promotion is valid from 1st May to 31st July 2018.

Any sales claim with incorrect or invalid information will be declined and any duplicate claims will be rejected.

All purchases should be through our authorised distributors only.

For more information please contact : Mr. Madhu Poojary | Mob: +971 50 173 7185 | +971 56 582 7575 madhu@printec.us or call 800PRINTEC

EDITORIAL Keeping an open mind

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Janees Reghelini Editor

E-mail: janees.reghelini@ cpimediagroup.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ TahawulTech Twitter: @TahawulTech

FOUNDER, CPI MEDIA GROUP Dominic De Sousa (1959-2015) Publishing Director Natasha Pendleton natasha.pendleton@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9139 Published by

Registered at Dubai Production City, DCCA PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 © Copyright 2018 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.

ast month we hosted our inaugural channelfocused event Margin Builder Forum, which was a resounding success. One of the takeaways that have stayed with me since then is something our keynote speaker Ramkumar Balakrishnan, president, Redington Value, mentioned during his presentation. “Collaborate with companies that you historically competed with,” he urged the channel partners in the room.

This is truly an aspect that is lacking in the industry. Developing niche skillsets for specific verticals and technologies will pave the path to long-term success.

However, this means that partners will have to join hands with those firms outside of their expertise to offer customers comprehensive solutions. A data management player will be able to

EDITORIAL Managing Editor Michael Jabri-Pickett mjp@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9158 Editor Janees Reghelini janees.reghelini@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9167 Online Editor Adelle Geronimo adelle.geronimo@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9135 DESIGN Head of Design Froilan Cosgafa IV froilan.cosgafa@cpimediagroup.com Senior Designer Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com

make his offering stronger if he was able to partner with a security expert or a managed services provider.

Partners have to double down on solutions selling to retain and attract new customers.

Today customers are seeking elaborate answers for their complex problems and only by collaboration can partners meet those expectations. Partners need to be open to new possibilities. Now more than ever building a strong ecosystem has become vital to the success of a channel business.

Read more insights in our detailed coverage of the event. In this issue, we have also recapped winners from the ninth edition of Partner Excellence Awards last month.

Wish you all a blessed holy month of Ramadan.

Designer Marlou Delaben marlou.delaben@cpimediagroup.com ADVERTISING Group Sales Director Kausar Syed kausar.syed@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9130 Business Development Manager Youssef Hariz youssef.hariz@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9111 Senior Sales Manager Sabita Miranda sabita.miranda@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9128 Sales Manager Nasir Bazaz nasir.bazaz@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9147

CIRCULATION Operations Manager Shweta Santosh shweta.santosh@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9107 DIGITAL SERVICES Web Developers Jefferson de Joya Abbas Madh Photographers Max Poriechkin Charls Thomas webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100 DIGITAL www.resellerme.com Printed by Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing LLC

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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HIGHLIGHTS

Redington Value partners with Nutanix to deliver enterprise cloud solutions

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alue-added distributor Redington Value has signed a regional distribution contract with Nutanix, an enterprise cloud computing vendor, for the Middle East market.

As per the terms of the agreement, Redington Value will deliver Nutanix’s complete range of solutions through its robust partner network.

With the demand for cloud computing and related solutions increasing in the region, customers are looking to empower their IT teams to effectively manage multi-cloud architectures. The Nutanix Enterprise Cloud OS software melds private, public and distributed cloud operating environments and provides a single point of control to manage IT infrastructure and applications at any scale.

As digital transformation reinforces the demand for cloud and HCI technologies, regional customers are seeking innovative solutions that can accelerate their business pace.”

Built on the leading Channel, Nutanix hyperconverged Middle East, said, “Our infrastructure (HCI) Enterprise Cloud OS technology, customers software is sold through can take full advantage channel and OEMs, and of the Nutanix softwareit is our priority to provide defined infrastructure partners with a complete stack that integrates solution portfolio that compute, virtualization, enables continuous storage, networking technology innovation, and security to power customer delight, and Ramkumar Balakrishnan, business-critical opportunities to build Redington Value applications. upon with complementary The Nutanix software services.” runs across different cloud environments Masri added that in the Middle East, to harmonize IT operations and bring the company has seen increasing frictionless mobility to all applications demand for public cloud-like private data within the enterprise. centre experience. This is driving strong Ramkumar Balakrishnan, president, interest in the Nutanix software solution Redington Value, said, “As digital for multi-cloud management. transformation reinforces the demand “Together with Redington, we are for cloud and HCI technologies, regional providing resellers with a simple but customers are seeking innovative elegant data centre solution that simply solutions that can accelerate their works and requires no complex legacy business pace. We are excited to offer infrastructure heavy-lifting. As a leader our partner community an opportunity in enterprise cloud computing and to expand their revenue streams with hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) the Nutanix solutions. We will continue solution, we are confident that resellers to invest in educating the channel on and customers will enjoy the benefits the significance of cloud solutions to such as faster time to value, lower total underpin enterprises’ digital drive.” cost of ownership, and higher return on Bassam Al Masri, senior manager, investment,” he said.

Seceon appoints Sariya IT as GCC distributor

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eceon, the threat detection challenges, today’s enterprise struggles and management firm, has to find a threat detection and response recently appointed Sariya IT platform that can bring a comprehensive Company as its distributor view of the organisation—spanning for the GCC. many locations, hybrid cloud and thirdSariya IT Company is party partner access—as a software and hardware well as the highly skilled distributor supporting security experts capable resellers, integrators in of managing them,” the Middle East focusing said Chandra Pandey, on security. Seceon and founder and CEO of Sariya IT Company have Seceon. partnered up to develop “Developed from new channels for the the ground up to Seceon Open Threat deliver comprehensive Management (OTM) cybersecurity for the platform and its aiSIEM digital era, the Seceon solution. aiSIEM platform brings “Faced with ongoing real-time automation Amjad Al-Omar, Sariya IT skill, resource and and simplicity to Company security infrastructure the traditional SIEM

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JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

approach. By collecting, ingesting and analysing raw logs, flows, traffic and identity across all assets, aiSIEM offers complete visibility, proactive threat detection, immediate containment and elimination of threats with continuous policy enforcement, and compliance monitoring and reporting. We are delighted to work with Sariya IT to bring real-time cybersecurity protection to companies in the region.”

Amjad Al-Omar, general manager, Sariya IT Company, said, “CyberSecurity is becoming a requirement for most of our global customers. Exclusive global distribution agreement with a fantastic vendor like Seceon will giving us the ability to offer even better and more real-time cybersecurity protection to our channel/ customers in the market.”

HIGHLIGHTS

StarLink signs MENA distribution deal with Acronis

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the most innovative and egional effective ways to store, distributor protect and defend StarLink has data from ransomware signed a attacks. distribution According to partnership with Acronis the company, this for Middle East, Egypt and collaboration will Libya. facilitate Acronis to Acronis, a global player continue expanding in hybrid cloud data their footprint in the protection and storage region by leveraging enables enterprises on the distributor’s with fast, complete and expertise, “wide channel secure data protection Nidal Othman, StarLink community network through an integrated set and well-established of solutions, including customer base”. backup, storage, disaster recovery, “With this alliance, we look forward to and file sync and share. With simplified setting the standards of data protection backup and disaster recovery of critical that meets today’s demands, enabling data, IT productivity and data recovery our customers to maintain business times can be improved, while reducing continuity, scalability and save on management complexity and total operational costs,” said Nidal Othman, cost of ownership. Acronis provides

managing director, StarLink. “StarLink’s exceptional on-the-ground technical, sales and professional services expertise, in key markets across the META region rightly attributes towards the distribution of Acronis Backup products and solutions in the region.”

“With StarLink’s extensive channel breadth, Acronis aims to establish a strong foothold in the Middle East.

StarLink can make this possible with its expertise and rich experience in enabling technology companies reach full market potential,” said Tareq Joudeh, partner manager, Middle East, Acronis.

He added that teaming up with StarLink moves the firm even closer to delivering on the “promise of enduser experience management for organisations of all sizes. As we are investing back in this region, we look forward for this strategic partnership.”

Exabeam signs up Exclusive Networks to deliver SIEM solutions

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IEM specialist Exabeam has chosen Exclusive Networks to accelerate its market impact in the Middle East enterprise sector.

The move supports Exabeam’s 100 percent channel model, which is focused on recruiting “specialist partners, market-shaping VARs and international SIs”.

Exabeam’s solutions aim to deliver on the original promise of SIEM – complete visibility into modern threats with automated response capabilities, according to the firm. The Exabeam Security Intelligence Platform provides organisations with “unlimited” data collection, machine learning-driven user behaviour analytics, and automated incident response, all delivered via one user interface.

Exabeam’s platform automatically creates a complete timeline of every event and anomaly tied to an attack – across devices, IP addresses, and credentials – to assess risk and automate many incident response tasks.

Oliver Downs, alliance manager at Exclusive Networks Middle East, said, “Exabeam’s platform makes a compelling and fast sales proposition

with an out of the box value, whether as a standalone solution or complimentary to existing SIEM deployments. Their security intelligence technology provides the missing link for operations teams, threat hunters and incident responders.”

As the latest addition to Exclusive Networks’ security portfolio, Exabeam joins a line-up of cybersecurity vendors benefiting from a concentrated campaign of technical and product management support, focused leadgenerating marketing activity and accelerated engagement with target partners. As well as underlining its integration within the CARM framework, this includes educating the channel about the unique opportunities surrounding UEBA and the Exabeam platform, and accrediting resellers to the Exabeam partner programme.

“Exclusive Networks is well respected and we’re excited to be building out our channel with them as a true extension of our team,” said Brett Candon, EMEA channel director at Exabeam. “They understand Exabeam’s position in the market and the opportunities that lie ahead for our partners. They have the right pedigree to help Exabeam fully execute on its

growth plan. The VCs of Exabeam – involved in the likes of Palo Alto, FireEye and Imperva – have witnessed this previously and we look forward to a longstanding, successful relationship.”

Exclusive Networks is well respected and we’re excited to be building out our channel with them as a true extension of our team.”

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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HIGHLIGHTS

Ring signs up X-cite by Alghanim Electronics for Kuwait

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ing has partnered with X-cite by Alghanim Electronics, Kuwait’s largest electronic retailer, to distribute Ring’s security devices. This partnership will help the vendor expand its reach across the Kuwait market, offering neighbors innovative security products and services, said the firm.

Mohammad Meraj Hoda, vice president, Business Development, Ring said, “Ring’s mission to reduce crime in neighborhoods drives every decision we make. By offering affordable, easy-touse, and effective devices and services that can not only help solve crime but prevent it from ever happening, Ring is changing neighborhood security as we know it today. We’re looking forward expanding to Kuwait and look forward to making a positive impact on neighborhood crime.”

According to Hoda, X-cite by Alghanim Electronics has been providing technologydriven business solutions in Kuwait controlling more than 70 percent of the market share when it comes to consumer electronics distribution, and home security

and communities safe products and solutions are are growing and therefore a natural extension to their we believe that our product offering. partnership with Ring “Ring is looking forward is a perfect fit. We see to working with X-cite by exciting new possibilities Alghanim Electronics to in this partnership with address neighborhood Ring across the country and home security and it will help X-cite by needs by extending our Alghanim Electronics product offerings through to better address our internet service providers, Mohammad Meraj Hoda, Ring customer’s needs in today’s online retailers, system environment of everintegrators, Internet service increasing demand for neighborhood providers and brick and motor channels where they have very strong relationship.” and home security solutions.”

As the value-added distributor in Fernando Vicente Lopez, vice Kuwait, X-cite by Alghanim Electronics president, Electronics, Alghanim will promote Ring’s latest suite of home Industries, said, “Under the Kuwait 2035 security products such as the Ring vision there are huge opportunities for Video Doorbell, Ring Video Doorbell Pro, the housing sector to grow and develop Ring Video Doorbell Elite, Ring Floodlight and we believe that the Internet of Cam and the Ring Spotlight Cam and Things is set to disrupt the way we live. conduct channel engagement, training Homes are going to get ‘smart’ with and activation programs for partners. connected products offering endless X-cite by Alghanim Electronics will also possibilities to make our lives easier, more convenient, and more comfortable. set up go-to-market strategies with key retail partners and provide the needed The awareness and demand for smart infrastructure for micro-channel to entry devices, such as smart doorbells engage with the Ring brand. that keep families, neighborhoods

Everteam becomes Qlik’s authorised Middle East reseller

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verteam has announced a strategic partnership agreement with Qlik whereby Everteam Global services is now an authorised Qlik reseller in the Middle East. Qlik is a global provider for solutions in data visualisation, self-service and BI applications.

The partnership will combine Everteam’s expertise and innovative solutions in the field of content services and information governance with Qlik’s practical knowledge in BI data analytics, said the firms.

“Everteam carefully picks the ‘best out of the breed’ as they say, to polish and refine its product offerings. Today we have added Qlik as a partner, completing all the important product components: Data Capture, Content Analytics and Data Visualization.

A win-win partnership with niche players,” said Roni Oneissi, VP

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Expertise and Solutions, Everteam Everteam will be able to upsell leading BI and data visualisation solutions to its existing clients and will enter the growing Business Intelligence space that has been witnessing strong demand in the Middle East.

Qlik will expand its coverage by maximising its presence in the region and relying on a solid solution provider like Everteam who has a strong and historical presence in the region with high profile and prestigious customers using our solutions in a missioncritical environment.

“This is an unpreceded opportunity for both parties because we have completed our solutions offering by addressing the end-to-end customers’ needs from capture, to management/ archiving and visualisation. This strengthens our solutions strategy by offering best-of-breed and modular architecture based on best-in-class

JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

solutions,” added Oneissi.

Business intelligence allows for an advanced data analytics process.

It provides the option to visualise structured data and optimise analytics offerings.

“We are always on the lookout to partner up with companies who can be of an added value to our services while gaining additional resellers. Everteam has a strong footprint in KSA and other Gulf countries. Our product highly complements Everteam’s product offering. This partnership is one with a very powerful synergy. Two leaders in the ICT industry joining forces,” said Kerry Koutsikos, area vice president, Emerging Markets, Qlik.

Everteam carefully picks the ‘best out of the breed’ as they say, to polish and refine its product offerings.

Today we have added Qlik as a partner.”

HIGHLIGHTS

I-Life enters Indian market with Flipkart partnership

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-Life Digital Technology has signed an exclusive partnership with Flipkart, India-based e-commerce platform, to enter the Indian electronics market. By leveraging Flipkart’s country-wide network, i-Life has started accepting pre-orders of its top-selling “ZED” range of budget-smart products.

In addition, this partnership will enable Indian expats in the Middle East to purchase i-Life’s affordable range of products via Flipkart and have it delivered to all major cities in India. i-Life Digital is one of the fastest growing PC manufacturers in the META region with presence in 43 countries. The company’s products, according to IDC, ruled the top spot in the entry-level notebook and tablet category last year in the META region.

Deepak Bhatia, i-Life’s global director, Sales and Marketing, said, “Flipkart’s unparalleled reach and service delivery made it a natural choice for our entry in the Indian market. We are happy to partner with Flipkart to bring world-

Dubai Technology Partners to deliver Quintiq solutions in MENA

class, yet affordable products for the Indian consumer who’s bold and aspirational needs require an equally amazing product. We constantly innovate to pack premium features and style without compromising on quality and affordability. It is our mission to develop innovative products that enhance people’s lives.”

“We are excited to partner with i-Life to launch its range of budget-smart laptops exclusively for the Indian market.

We are confident that iLife’s product proposition coupled with Flipkart unique capabilities to deliver the widest range of products seamlessly across the length and breadth of the country will go a long way. This would help in catering to the demands of the First Time Laptop buyers and thereby, grow the Laptop market,” said Hari Kumar, Flipkart’s senior director, Electronics.

Furthermore, i-Life has signed up with F1 Info solutions and services, India’s leading service provider in the country to provide customers with any after-sale service across 4400 ZIP codes in India.

Bulwark Technologies raises awareness on cyber resilience

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ulwark has recently hosted a customer event for IT decision makers in the UAE. The event, which was held in partnership with email and data security company, Mimecast, and reseller Virus Rescuers, provided insights into how Mimecast services can help better protect Microsoft Office 365 users from vulnerabilities and how a strategy around cyber resilience for email can strength the enterprise around email-borne attacks.

The event also served as a platform to educated customers on cyber-attacks like ransomware and spear-phishing and how they are evolving to become more sophisticated, dangerous and targeted.

Over 30 customers from a diverse range of industries including, financial institutions, healthcare and various verticals across the region attended the event.

Jose Thomas Menacherry, managing director, Bulwark Technologies, said, “The event addressed concerns around the region’s current cyber threat landscape, by providing insight into the importance of creating a robust Cyber Resilience for Email strategy.”

Among the key takeaways at the event is the importance of having a cyber resilience strategy for email engineered to protect them from email born threats, to keep email active during service disruptions and to recover data from loss or corruption.

Jeff Ogden, general manager, Mimecast Middle East, said, “The event allowed us to help our resellers in the region educate customers about the need to implement comprehensive security controls before, continuity during, and automated recovery after an attack. We also used the opportunity to share updates on our existing product portfolio and new security offerings.’’

Dubai Technology Partners (DTP), a regional business consultancy Abdul Razzak Mikati,DTP and systems integrator for the aviation industry, has signed a partnership agreement with Quintiq, a Dassault Systèmes company and global leader in supply chain planning and optimisation (SCP&O).

Since 2004, DTP has acquired extensive knowledge and skills to cater to the continuously evolving airport technology requirements. Due to the rapid growth of the aviation industry in the MENA region, this strategic alliance will allow DTP to extend its solution offering and provide its aviation customers with Quintiq’s planning and optimisation solutions that will help to improve operations efficiency, increase productivity and ultimately positively impact passenger satisfaction and retention.

“We collaborated with Quintiq in 2017 to deliver planning solutions to one of the biggest hub airports in the world to manage its fixed resources; including airport stands, gates, baggage belts and check-in counters.

That successful implementation has improved the airport’s overall efficiency, reliability and passenger satisfaction,” said Abdul Razzak Mikati, managing director, DTP. “Through that collaboration, we recognised our complementary capabilities and synergies, and collectively, we believe that the formalisation of our partnership will result in the delivery of much-needed, high-tech aviation optimisation solutions to stakeholders across the region.”

“On merit, DTP is our clear choice for a strong partnership in order to further strengthen Quintiq’s presence in the Middle East and North Africa’s aviation market. Our shared vision, goals and expertise will allow us to make day-to-day business easier for airports, airlines, ground handlers and ATCs and in doing so, set the highest industry standard,” said Henk De Bruin, director delivery, EMEAR, Quintiq.

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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HIGHLIGHTS

Toshiba honours top performing partners in the MEA region

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he Storage Division of Toshiba Gulf, the regional subsidiary of the Japanese digital and storage giant Toshiba, honoured top performing distributors, retailers and resellers in the Middle East and Africa region at its annual Toshiba STARS Award event.

The Toshiba Stars Award event was held at MonaLisa Yacht in Dubai Marina Promenade on 7th May and was attended by distribution, retail and dealer channel partners.

The event honours each business unit’s top performers in the distribution, retail and reseller category. The award has three categories – Gold, Silver and Bronze.

This year in the HDD distributor category, winners of the prestigious Gold Award included Al Futtaim Electronics (UAE), Ashtel (UAE and KSA); Mitsumi Distribution (East & West Africa), and Mustek Limited (South Africa). Jarir Book Store (KSA), Carrefour (UAE) and Lulu (GCC) were winners of Gold Award in Retail Partner category. Global Computers (UAE) won gold for top performance

as a reseller.

Santosh Varghese, vice president and general manager, MEA, Toshiba Gulf, said, “During the FY-17 Toshiba MEA region had a phenomenal growth in the storage segment, mainly HDD with year-on-year growth exceeding 48 percent. Our record sales growth in 2017 is a result of our excellent product and channel sales strategy.

“Toshiba HDD recorded a very high market share of 31 percent percent in the UAE and 52 percent in Saudi Arabia. The overall MEA market share was 30 percent. We had a 72 percent YoY growth in Africa region.

Our ‘Go Wide, Go Deep’ strategy and ‘Go Africa’ strategy helped in market expansion across Africa.”

Toshiba STARS award was part of Toshiba’s annual MEA Distributor Conference for Hard Disk Drive held in Dubai on 7th May 218 at the Hyatt

Regency Creek Heights. The annual Distributor event was attended by 22 distributors across Middle East and Africa region.

At the distributor event Toshiba launched its new branding campaign “Think Back Up! Think Toshiba!’’

During the event, Toshiba also unveiled a new range of colour-coded internal drive offering higher storage capacities, low power management or extreme performance for highintensity gaming and applications.

Highlights of the product launch was the World’s 1st 14TB Capacity CMR HDD with the Helium Sealed design for better Power efficiency (50 percent power saving W/GB)

Dell Technologies Customer Solution Centre opens in Dubai

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ell Technologies has opened its first Customer Solution Center for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa to demonstrate its commitment to enabling and shaping organisations in the region.

Set up in Dubai, the new Customer Solution Center showcases the company’s portfolio of technologies, from the edge to the core to the cloud, and aims to help regional organisations collaborate, innovate and validate their efforts towards digitisation.

According to the firm, the new facility has been designed to provide a trusted environment wherein world class IT experts collaborate with customers to explore, test and prove end-to-end solutions and share best practices, that can help drive business outcomes and create a competitive advantage.

In addition, the Customer Solution Center global network enables remote connectivity, which offers the ability to engage customers from any location.

Similarly, the Customer Solution Center

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provides customers with easy access to the whole portfolio of Dell Technologies’ solutions and ensures customers receive appropriate expertise and resources at every level to achieve their business objectives.

The Customer Solution Center was officially opened by Marius Haas, president and chief commercial officer at Dell EMC, Aongus Hegarty, president, Europe, Middle East and Africa at Dell EMC and Mohammed Amin, senior vice president, Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) at Dell EMC.

JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

“It is absolutely critical that companies leverage the latest technologies to navigate the fourth industrial revolution,” said Amin. “With this in mind, the Dell Technologies Customer Solution Centre is designed to serve as a thriving technology hub that bolsters the position of the META region at the forefront of transformation.”

He added that through the Customer Solution Center, Dell Technologies’ central goal is to share its vision of technology and provide organisations in the META region with holistic, dynamic and collaborative tools and resources necessary to power their digital future and ultimately, play a defining role in building an innovation-led economy that drives business success and human progress.

Following the opening ceremony, experts engaged partners and customers with technical briefings, architectural design sessions and Proof of Concepts.

HIGHLIGHTS

Pure Storage unveils new partner programme

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ure Storage’s new Pure Partner Program will empower partners with new training, certifications, support and incentives. The new programme is being debuted at the Global Partner Forum during the Pure//Accelerate 2018 conference and program benefits will go into effect August 1, 2018.

Pure Storage has made strategic investments in the tools and resources needed to achieve a partner programme that attracts, enables and retains partners. The programme is designed to reward partners who build a Pure practice and lead with Pure in the market. New features include: • New programme tiers: The new programme includes two tiers and is designed to enable partners of any size the ability to achieve top tier status. The programme includes a Preferred tier, which is the entry level tier for all partners.

The top tier is Elite; it is invite only based on partners successfully establishing a Pure practice consisting of their demonstrated sales and technical competency, business specialties and services, a budgeted marketing plan, as well as meet a minimum number

•

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of customers secured via the partner. Elite partners will receive a notification of their status in August 2018. Partners are evaluated for tiers annually.

Greater partner empowerment: A key enhancement to the programme is standardised discounts and price lists available to partners, empowering them to seamlessly source, secure and close opportunities independently.

Partners will also receive access to enhanced tools that enable them to provide proposals and quotes for Pure Storage based solutions.

Training: Pure will offer enhanced technical specialisation to all partners and completion of training opens up additional benefits. Pure also debuted the Pure Storage Foundation Exam and the FlashArray Architect Exam during the Global Partner Forum at Pure//Accelerate 2018. The programme will roll out additional certifications throughout the year.

Michael Sotnick, VP, Partners, Services and Business Development, said, “The investment for the new partner programme is our commitment to

Michael Sotnick, Pure Storage

partners that we are going to continue to make sure they have the assets, resources and incentives to prosper with Pure Storage. Pure’s technology innovations open up new opportunities for partners to lead the way for artificial intelligence and machine learning. Our partners are transforming and futureproofing customers’ environments every day to allow them to take advantage of their data and the growth of emerging applications.”

The investment for the new partner programme is our commitment to partners that we are going to continue to make sure they have the assets, resources and incentives to prosper with Pure Storage.”

SNB Middle East hosts exclusive partner event

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NB Middle East recently organised an exclusive event for SNB and Pelco’s channel partners.

The event gathered over 60 channel partners from across the GCC including those from Oman, Qatar, and UAE’s Northern Emirates.

The occasion was held at an Exclusive Yacht in Dubai Marina and kicked off with a welcome speech from the Sales Director of SNB Middle East Irshad Aboobacker followed up by the keynote speaker Pradeep Nair,

vice president Sales, ME, India and Africa at Pelco by Schneider Electric.

The distributor also gave out tokens of appreciation to its partners, which were presented by Deepesh Pillai, managing director; Jaiganesh Iyer, executive director; and Muhammed Faroos, director at SNB Middle East. www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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APPOINTMENTS

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS

Pure Storage names new EMEA channel and alliances head Pure Storage has appointed Matthieu Brignone as head of EMEA channel and alliances. Brignone will be responsible for driving high sales participation, accelerating growth and increasing profitability for partners. He brings more than 20 years of proven sales and management experience to the role.

James Petter, VP EMEA, Pure Storage, said, “Being a 100 percent channel focused company, partners are critical to our success. It was therefore crucial that we found the right leader for this role. Brignone’s experience in both international sales and partner leadership roles as well as most recently a country manager, made him an obvious choice to lead

our team into another ambitious and transformative year.”

Brignone joins Pure Storage from Commvault. Prior to this, he was EMEA channel sales director and France country manager at HP ESP (Enterprise Security Products). He has also held sales and management roles with Quest Software, WASATIS, Cisco, Trend Micro and Novell.

“It is an exciting time to be joining the Pure Team. The momentum that the team has built in EMEA even over the past 12 months, is impressive. Pure’s reputation as an innovative, easy-to-work with, partner-centric brand was evident in my interactions with customers in my previous roles. It is clear that Pure’s all-flash platform and Evergreen model

is being well received in the market. I am looking forward to working closely with Pure’s EMEA partners to drive continued success and results in the region,” said Brignone.

Matthieu Brignone, Pure Storage

Tech Mahindra announces new KSA and Bahrain country manager Tech Mahindra has announced the appointment of country manager, Enterprise – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Murtaza Adil has joined Tech Mahindra as country manager, Enterprise – Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. In this role Adil will oversee Tech Mahindra’s Technology and System Integration business catering to oil and gas industry, healthcare, government, banking and financial and other sectors such as energy and utility and government.

Adil has over 20 years of experience in the Information Technology industry, of which 12 years have been in the Middle East and eight years in European and other markets.

Previously, he has worked in Saudi Arabia with Tata Consulting Services and HCL and has also served these companies in other geographies.

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“We are pleased to appoint Murtaza Adil to head our business in Saudi Arabia, one of Tech Mahindra’s focus markets with high potential. His strong

Murtaza Adil, Tech Mahindra

JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

experience and knowledge of building IT services business in the Kingdom will enable Tech Mahindra to strengthen our market position and grow the business in the region,” said Ram Ramachandran, GM and Head Tech Mahindra (Enterprise) Middle East and Africa.

We are pleased to appoint Adil to head our business in Saudi Arabia, one of Tech Mahindra’s focus markets with high potential. His strong experience and knowledge of building IT services business in the Kingdom will enable Tech Mahindra to strengthen our market position and grow the business in the region.”

REDEFINING technology transformation

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OPINION // HPE ARUBA

Smart work spaces Morten Illum, EMEA vice president, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, says, designing smart workplaces in the Middle East is about giving users what they expect.

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ecent research by Google supports a point I have been discussing with customers for many months now; there is no real difference between the user experience and the employee experience any more.

In 2018, many of us don’t feel efficient unless we’re able to access applications on demand, and this applies to our work as much as our personal lives.

Given we spend as much time in our offices as we do at home, we have to consider how the workplace can become better equipped to meet our daily expectations.

Designing the workplace to better incorporate technology is not about being futuristic. It’s about meeting the minimum requirements that users now have. A business that does not consider how to improve its workplace design to suit our daily habits risks alienating its employees, and ultimately decreasing productivity, losing talent, or both.

Maximising efficiency of space So how do we go about creating a better workspace?

A win-win solution for the business and employee would be if building designers and technology companies collaborated on the designing of new, or redevelopment of, existing buildings.

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Working together to create a digital plan of each space, as well as the kind of structural, technical plans traditionally drawn up by those in the industry, could increase the chances of these spaces meeting the needs of its occupants. The point is, if these different viewpoints and experiences come together to create ‘smart’ workplaces, the people who work here will also be able to collaborate more – spending less time trying to find cables and connections, and more time getting the job done.

The tech platform to improve productivity With this design in place, it’s then time to address the technology that can get the best from your workforce. Is it a VR booth or a robot assistant? No. The smart office is about getting the basics right.

Access to a secure, reliable and fast Wi-Fi connection is essential for most job roles and industries now, especially for those who are officebased or working remotely. But if the future workplace is not just connected, but smart, it can become much more personalised for the workers who use it. Having user credentials that are recognised across any location or device, for example, removes the unnecessary task of repeated logins,

JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

which over the course of days, weeks and years is an enormous time saver.

Channel partners can play a significant role in assisting customers on the kind of technologies that they can implement to enable superior experiences at the workplace.

Better connection, improved communication From here, we can start to push the boundaries using IoT. Controlling the heating of a room to your liking using your smartphone, or turning on the coffee machine remotely, are just two examples of a quicker, more personal working environment using technology.

This is not only possible, but pretty affordable. And if you want to control a broader range of equipment, we are also seeing plug in multi-sensors entering the market, which use machine learning to identify the signals being sent by any number of electronic devices.

As a supplier of business connectivity, our energies are focused on managing, and securing, the explosion of traffic that will come from the digital workplace.

For the business owner, and the employee, their task is to remove barriers to mobile-friendly working, and gradually create the kind of smart, digital environment that people really want to work in.

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For sponsorship enquiries Natasha Pendleton Publishing Director natasha.pendleton@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9139 / +971 56 787 4778

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EVENTS // MARGIN BUILDER FORUM

MARGIN BUILDER FORUM : THE BIG TAKEAWAYS

Reseller Middle East’s first edition of Margin Builder Forum equipped partners with invaluable insights from industry veterans as they step up to the challenges of the digital era.

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(L-R) Savitha Bhaskar, Condo Protego; Farah Anwar, Ashraf Electronics; Sohrab Saeed, ENBD; Dharmendra Sawlani, Dubai Computer Group and Hesham Tantawi, Asbis Middle East

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eseller Middle East’s inaugural Margin Builder Forum 2018 kicked off with an insightful keynote address by Redington Value’s president Ramkumar Balakrishnan.

Gathering over 100 attendees across partner firms, Margin Builder Forum 2018 discussed intrinsic challenges and market opportunities close to the channel community.

Balakrishnan’s keynote speech, ‘The great margin game’, resonated well with the attendees as he discussed profitability within the IT channel industry.

He said, “Profitability has become a mirage – the closer you get, the farther away it looks.’

He stressed on the importance of partners learning to sell business

Ramkumar Balakrishnan, Redington Value

outcomes to be successful in the future.

“This means partners are not dealing with the IT manager any more but getting to understand the industry they are trying to sell to.”

According to Balakrishnan, partners can sell business outcomes by picking an industry and understanding the challenges that need to be solved, then designing customer specific solutions.

“Partners need to get an ecosystem going and get along with companies that they historically competed with,” he added.

Balakrishnan urged partners to understand their costs.

“Don’t do everything yourself, outsource functions without being emotional about it. Partners need to build a broad base of small long-term customers to ensure success in the future.”

Partners need to transform their individual businesses to the digital era before they attempt to become consultants for customers.

“Digital transformation is fundamental and will be part of almost every single project that partners will deliver. Partners need to walk the talk and digitally transform their own business first,” said Balakrishnan. “They need to invest in time and young talent to take their operations to the next level.”

The following panel discussion on ‘How to increase profit margins’ echoed similar thoughts from Balakrishnan’s address. Industry leaders Fayez Ibbini, CEO, Alpha Data; Shailendra Rughwani, MD, Experts Computer; Nehul Goradia, co-founder, Enabler One and Gareth Hansford, GM, Gulf Software Distribution delved into how partners

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EVENTS // MARGIN BUILDER FORUM

(L-R) Ramkumar Balakrishnan, Redington Value; Nidal Othman, StarLink; Asim AlJammaz , AlJammaz Distribution and Nicholas Argyrides, Mindware

can differentiate their offerings, maintain cash flow and broaden their revenue opportunities.

Ibbini highlighted the need for resellers and partners to avoid being labelled mere “conduits” in the technology industry.

“Channel partners are often perceived as conduits, which is not a recipe for profitability,” he said. “The first thing you need to consider is training staff to rid themselves of that mindset. You need to transform yourselves into consultants, architects and advisors, and you don’t you will be the lowest part of the equation. You could end up taking the highest risks for the lowest returns.”

The next panel discussion ‘Combatting challenges in the channel’ had experts Hesham Tantawi, VP MENA, Asbis Middle East; Dharmendra Sawlani, president, Dubai Computer Group; Sohrab Saeed, VP group credit, ENBD; Farah Anwar, co-founder, Ashraf Electronics and Savitha Bhaskar, COO, Condo Protego go head-to-head in an interactive discussion on challenges in the channel.

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CHANNEL SPEAK SURVEY 2018

(L-R) Fayez Ibbini, Alpha Data; Shailendra Rughwani, Experts Computer; Nehul Goradia, Enabler One and Gareth Hansford, Gulf Software Distribution

The panel touched upon issues around credit, evolving businesses to the digital age, understanding implementation of VAT and other market challenges.

Bhaskar focused on the need for technology players to recognise that selling new solutions would also mean a new business model for the consumer. “There’s a lack of understanding of what is happening in industry,” she said. “We need appreciation of value. It’s okay to lose one deal if that’ll prevent you from delivering value. We need to collectively work to ensure customers understand the financing costs of an opex model. It’s surprising when you hear end users asking if they can make quarterly payments for technology, and those selling it agree without batting an eyelid. Do they really understand the costs of that?”

The conference concluded with topline regional distributors Ramkumar Balakrishnan, president,

Redington Value; Nidal Othman, MD, StarLink; Nicholas Argyrides, chief of sales and deputy GM, Mindware and Asim AlJammaz, CEO, AlJammaz Distribution deliberating on the ‘Future of IT Channel’.

These channel titans exchanged ideas and solutions on what the partner community could do to thrive in the digital age of tomorrow.

Othman highlighted the technologies that he believed held the most promise. “With specialisation, channel partners will be able to master what’s next,” he said. “I would really encourage partners to invest in AI, alongside security. Machine learning, AI and automation should be the main priorities for the future. Also, having a small team dedicated to innovation to bring out new products at the right time will be key.”

Leaving the audience with vital insights, Margin Builder Forum 2018 was a huge success and well received by all stakeholders.

At Margin Builder Forum 2018, Enabler One, a unique go-to-market advisory firm and Reseller Middle East, a regional partner-focused technology publication have launched the first ever annual channel ecosystem survey in the Middle East and North Africa region – Channel Speak.

The survey’s objective is to discover the true state of the channel industry by offering a platform where partners can voice their opinions on the market uninhibited. The aim is to analyse how customers, distributors and vendors are engaging with the channel community to drive and deliver profitable businesses.

The technology and vendor agnostic survey will probe into solutions being demanded by customers and attempt to paint a true picture of the ground reality when it comes to adoption rates, going beyond buzz words and understanding business models.

Participants also have an opportunity to win prizes by taking the survey. The winners will be selected at random and announced in October 2018. Stay tuned for more details.

Nehul Goradia, co-founder, Enabler One, said, “Gartner states that the Middle East and North Africa IT spend is expected to reach $155 billion in 2018, a 3.4 percent increase from last year.

This growth wouldn’t have been possible without the channel eco-system. Over the years various studies published have all be on the overall IT

market and the Total Addressable Market (TAM) for various technologies. However, there hasn’t been a single in-depth survey on the partner ecosystem. With Channel Speak, we hope to close this gap.”

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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Partner Excellence Awards

HAILING C INNOVATI T

he ninth edition of Reseller Middle East’s Partner Excellence Awards took place at Jumeirah Emirates Towers and was attended by over 250 industry stalwarts. It recognised 30 organisations and IT channel leaders for their exemplary efforts in accelerating the channel industry.

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At the Bollywood Glamthemed awards event, guests were treated to a colourful and glamorous gala evening, filled with conversations with peers and leaders.

With an overwhelming number of over 200 nominations spanning across various categories from vendors, distributors and reseller companies, the Awards continues to raise

JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

the bar each year.

Winners were chosen by a panel of esteemed judges who had evaluated the set of nominations from across the region in a ten-day process to decide the most-deserving candidates. The panel comprised of Nehul Goradia, co-founder, Enabler One; Philip Hughes, managing director, Eventcloud DMCC and Sudhir Nair, CEO, SOL Analytics.

The evening also saw a number of special awards given away including Readers’ Choice for Vendor and Distributor, which was decided by Reseller ME readers via online voting and was won by D-Link Middle East and Africa and Westcon-Comstor accordingly.

Two attendees were also chosen as the winners for Best Dressed during

CHANNEL ION

The 2018 edition of Reseller Middle East’s Partner Excellence Awards marked the achievements of regional channel-focused organisations and applauded endeavours to grow the industry.

the course of the evening.

Gareth Hansford from Gulf Software Distribution and Nadia Jawad from AGC Networks bagged two Bollywood Parks tickets each, sponsored by Finesse.

Channel personalities were recognised for their leadership in boosting the IT industry from both vendor’s and distributor’s sides, winners include: Outstanding IT Executive

(Channel) – Jose Menacherry, managing director, Bulwark Technologies; Outstanding IT Executive (Vendor) – Alaa Elshimy, MD and VP, Huawei Enterprise Business Group; Partner Champion of the Year – Mohamed Khan, channel head, SAP Global Partner Organisation, MENA, SAP and Woman Executive of the Year – Nandini

Sapru, director sales, emt Distribution The most prestigious category of the evening, Best Partner Excellence Programme, both from a vendor and a distributor was awarded to Dell EMC and Ingram Micro respectively.

Dell EMC were the platinum sponsors for the evening with Redington Value as the strategic VAD

partner and AlJammaz Distribution as the disruptive technology partner.

Gold partners included SonicWall, VAD Technologies and Veritas while the Silver partners were Cambium Networks, Ivanti and Barracuda, StarLink, EnGenius and Gulf Software Distribution.

Attendees also won spot prizes from Raffle sponsor Touchmate.

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www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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The Night Toshiba Ninjas Were The Stars!

Saluting Our Partners & Winners

It was a night where the stars shone bright @ the Monalisa Yacht – Dubai Marina. And the Toshiba Stars cast their magic spell.

A team of value added partners, resellers, distributors and retailers. Toshiba recognises and respects their contribution.

ToshibaMEA

Toshiba Gulf FZE

121@toshiba-tgfz.ae

Toshiba.tgfz

GOLD WINNERS

Distribution Partners

Al Futtaim Electronics LLC (UAE)

Ashtel LLC (UAE & KSA)

Mitsumi Distribution LLC (East & West Africa)

Mustek Limited (South Africa)

Reseller Partner

Retail Partners

Jarir Book Store (KSA)

Carrefour (UAE)

Lulu (GCC)

Global Computers LLC (UAE)

SILVER WINNERS Distribution Partners

Reseller Partners

• Memory Technology Middle East (UAE & KSA)

• Arabian Business Machines Co. (Kuwait)

• Topmost Electronics Trading LLC (North Africa)

• Teknodome FZE (West Africa & ROA)

• Li Ah Choon & Co. Ltd – Titen Trading (Mauritius)

• TTID FZCO (North Africa)

• Asbis Middle East FZE (Middle East)

• Roshni Enterprise CC (South Africa)

• Compunics Technologies LLC (UAE) • MicroTrans (UAE)

Value Added Partner • SNB Middle East FZC (UAE)

BRONZE WINNERS Distribution Partners • Red Dot Distribution FZE (East & West Africa)

• Al Saraha - Good Impex Trading LLC (Libya)

• Al Futtaim Sons Co. W.L.L.(Bahrain)

• Vitad Global FZE –Marisol Group (North Africa)

Value Added Partner • Zuhair Issa Murad & Sons Co. (Jordan)

TOLL FREE 800-TOSH

• Linctus Global Trading LLC (UAE)

www.toshibamea.com

Partner Excellence Awards |Judges’ corner

Sudhir Nair CEO, SOL Analytics

Philip Hughes Managing Director, Eventcloud DMCC

Nehul Goradia Co-founder and principal

“It was wonderful to see the accomplishments being recognised and rewarded to all the welldeserved winners of Reseller Middle East’s Partner Excellence Awards 2018. It was my privilege to be part of the judging team and I do hope that Reseller Middle East will continue to motivate the fraternity and celebrate the success of achievers in the coming years as well. Many congratulations to all the winners.”

“Once again, the Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Awards was a great evening. Meeting so many old friends from the industry is an obvious highlight, but equally for me, the most exciting part of the event was hearing how, in what has been a difficult year, so many companies in the IT sector are innovating, investing in new skills and bringing new solutions to market.

As always with CPI events, the mix of formality and fun was just perfect. The appreciation of the work and relationship that the Reseller Middle East team have with the industry was shown in just how many guests made such great efforts to meet the Bollywood glamour dress code. A fantastic evening with fantastic people.”

“Judging the 2018 Reseller ME Partner Excellence Awards and seeing the various positive strides that the channel industry has made in their quest for excellence, as well as, the various innovations made whether in terms of new technology introduced or models of doing business encouraged, was truly an insightful and a great experience.

Every nominee showcased the value they were bringing to their partners and customers and should consider themselves winners. I look forward to being a part of this judging panel in the coming years.”

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enabler, Enabler One

Partner Excellence Awards

d

BEST PARTNER EXCELLENCE PROGRAMME OF THE YEAR BY DISTRIBUTOR Ingram Micro

d

BEST PARTNER EXCELLENCE PROGRAMME OF THE YEAR BY VENDOR Dell EMC

d

OUTSTANDING IT EXECUTIVE (CHANNEL) Jose Menacherry Managing Director Bulwark Technologies

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JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

Partner Excellence Awards

d

OUTSTANDING IT EXECUTIVE (VENDOR) Alaa Elshimy

MD and VP, Huawei Enterprise Business Group

d

PARTNER CHAMPION OF THE YEAR Mohamed Khan

Channel Head, SAP Global Partner Organization, MENA, SAP

d

WOMAN EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR Nandini Sapru

Director Sales, emt Distribution

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Partner Excellence Awards

d

CLOUD RESELLER OF THE YEAR TransSys Solutions

d ENTERPRISE RESELLER OF THE YEAR

Intertec Systems

d

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES RESELLER OF THE YEAR Raqmiyat

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Partner Excellence Awards

d

SECURITY RESELLER OF THE YEAR Nanjgel Solutions

d

SMB/CONSUMER RESELLER OF THE YEAR Quality Computers

d

SOLUTIONS PROVIDER OF THE YEAR AGC Networks

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Partner Excellence Awards

d

SYSTEM INTEGRATOR OF THE YEAR Gulf Business Machines

d

VOLUME DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR Redington Gulf

d

CLOUD DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR AlJammaz Distribution

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Partner Excellence Awards

d

CYBERSECURITY DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR Spire Solutions

d

EMERGING DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR Gulf Software Distribution

d

KSA DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR FVC

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Partner Excellence Awards

d

SPECIALISED DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR StarLink

d

VALUE-ADDED DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR Redington Value

d

READERS’ CHOICE DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR Westcon-Comstor

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JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

Partner Excellence Awards

d

CLOUD VENDOR OF THE YEAR NetApp

d

CONSUMER VENDOR OF THE YEAR Linksys

d

PERIPHERALS AND ACCESSORIES VENDOR OF THE YEAR Western Digital

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Partner Excellence Awards

d

SMB VENDOR OF THE YEAR Avaya

d

READERS’ CHOICE VENDOR OF THE YEAR D-Link Middle East and Africa

d

EDITOR’S CHOICE: EMERGING NETWORKING VENDOR OF THE YEAR Cambium Networks

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JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

Partner Excellence Awards

d

EDITOR’S CHOICE: EMERGING VALUEADDED DISTRIBUTOR OF THE YEAR VAD Technologies

d

EDITOR’S CHOICE: CRM VENDOR OF THE YEAR Centra Hub

d

EDITOR’S CHOICE: BEST PRODUCT INNOVATION EnGenius

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FEATURE // INTERNET OF THINGS

Profiting from IoT-led era

IDC predicts global spending on Internet of Things (IoT) to reach nearly $1.1 trillion by 2021.

Reseller ME discovers how channel partners can capitalise on the opportunities with this technology as customers look to invest in the infrastructure that enable IoT.

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he adoption of Internet of Things (IoT)in the Middle East region is projected to rise over the next few years as customers digitise their operations and enhance productivity.

IDC expects IoT to grow to a value of $1.1 trillion in 2021. The research firm also says that IoT hardware will be the largest technology category in 2018 with $239 billion going largely towards modules and sensors along with some spending on infrastructure and security. According to the report, services will be the second largest technology category, followed by software and connectivity.

“By 2021, more than 55 percent of spending on IoT projects will be for software and services,” said Carrie MacGillivray, vice president, Internet of Things and Mobility, IDC. “Software creates the foundation upon which IoT applications and use cases can be realised. However, it is the services that

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“The way to find high-potential IoT opportunities is to discover and clearly understand where value can be enhanced – and the types of applications or connectivity that can be successfully added.”

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help bring all the technology elements together to create a comprehensive solution that will benefit organisations and help them achieve a quicker time to value.”

“In our region, many countries have adopted diverse IoT trends, in both private and public sectors. One of which is the UAE’s initiative for “Smart Dubai”, which was launched in 2014 with a vision of transforming Dubai into the most efficient and safe city. The progress has been very successful so far, and Dubai is now moving towards its aim by establishing itself as the smartest city ever, enabling the government to improve productivity, efficiency, and citizen experiences,” says Mohammad Jamal Tabbara, senior systems engineer, UAE and Channel, Infoblox.

Eric Brouwers, VP, MEA, Barco, said, “More than just cutting costs, IoT usage can generate a strong return on investment by increasing customer

loyalty and referrals, uncovering insights to cross-sell or up-sell to customers, and developing customerappealing product. As organisations realise the added value that is provided by IoT, we are seeing further development of innovative industryspecific solutions.”

According to Graham Porter, head of channels, Middle East, Veeam, a number of vendors have been talking about “connected everything.”

For example, cars with sensors talking to the garage and insurance company; manufacturing machines on an IP network feeding back information about likely failures and component shortages; houses and communities being checked to ensure utilities are 100 percent available by monitoring pumps, generators, water levels and electrical consumption.

However, how does a partner fit into this picture? Porter says, “IoT solutions are typically verticalised and require a lot of services, so this becomes a fundamental question to partners ‘who are you and what do you do?’”

He goes on to explain that while there is a great deal of hype around the technology, the partnerships required to make it a reality are still in its

infancy. The potential of IoT is vast and enormous and partners need to be wellequipped to truly optimise it.

“Smart cities such as Dubai are looking at road management, where they have already rolled out a toll system based on RFID, however this is being driven by vendors and consultants today, not partners,” he adds.

Agreeing, Tabbara says, “Businesses are commonly looking for an integrated end-toend IoT solutions. Channel partners need to identify the current IoT trends and regional initiatives at first, and then offer integrated solutions that form an orchestrated ecosystem to their prospects.”

He believes by doing so, and by offering an end-to-end multi-vendor integrated IoT solution, partners can go after diverse opportunities, make more margins from multiple technologies simultaneously, and diversify their revenue stream.

“The way to find high-potential IoT opportunities is to discover and clearly understand where value can be enhanced – and the types of applications or connectivity that can be successfully added. IoT applications are already used across many industries to improve workplace productivity using real-time data. By

providing dashboards and reports to decision makers through smartphones or tablets, it provides easier access to take complex decisions in real time. It is all about identifying the gaps present in current operations, and seeing how IoT can help in transformational change,” explains Brouwers.

Pouya Parsafar, CEO, Enterprise Systems, says, “Training for the sales and presales teams to identify their client’s business dynamics and understanding their clients’ pain points is a key skill set needed for all eco and channel partners to start the IoT journey with their customers.”

Albeit there are several challenges such as rapid pace of technology, security, lack of skillsets and so on, hindering partners from maximising the prospects present to offer intelligent solutions; they should invest time and resources in enabling themselves. This also means utilising the support from vendors and distributors.

“Ultimately,” says Porter. “this is not “business as usual” for partners, as this demands a mixture of IT and industry knowledge. An element this region has lacked is vertically specialised partners, which is an opportunity partners should focus on.”

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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FEATURE // SAUDI ARABIA

Beyond boundaries

Saudi Arabia has been developing at a rapid pace with many new infrastructure and city projects being announced over the last year as the country accelerates towards its 2030 vision.

With the objective of moving away from being an oil-dependent economy, the country is increasingly embracing innovations in technology. Reseller ME examines the market prospects for partners and vendors.

S

audi Arabia has had a slew of announcements over the course of the last two years.

From its Vision 2030 to granting citizenship to a robot, the country has been surging forward to a new future under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. “The Saudi market represents significant opportunities for ICT investments driven by Saudi Vision 2030 that supports the digital transformation efforts in order to drive down CAPEX and engage latest technologies,� says Graham Porter, Head of Channels, Middle East, Veeam.

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Last year, Prince Mohammed also unveiled plans to create a specialised investment zone in the north-western region of the country called Neom.

This will be

JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

FEATURE // SAUDI ARABIA

backed by over $500 billion in capital as the Kingdom continues to diversify its economy away from depending primarily on oil.

Chris Wiese, regional channel manager, Credence Security, says, “With the announcement of Neom, Saudi Arabia is moving forward in diversifying its business and cultural approaches from legacy stances, to a much more modern free zone approach.”

He believes that the country needs to consider advanced platforms such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity to support businesses so that it builds investor confidence in new projects.

Besides public sector investments, verticals such as retail, hospitality, and transportation are driving IT investments for UC and collaboration solutions, security, and

“Saudi Arabia holds immense opportunities for the channel.

With AI and IoT implementations comes the need for effective security solutions and complementing data management and networking.” networking.

Monzer Tohme, regional vice president, Sales, MEA, Epicor, says, the new regulations that were recently introduced have made

doing business in Saudi much easier for all newcomers to the Kingdom.

“We are seeing businesses in Saudi keen to adopt cutting-edge technologies that are new in the market and be among the leaders to utilise and extend the benefit of these new technologies to their market, customers and business partners.”

Osama AlHaj-Issa, regional channel director, Middle East and Turkey, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, says although investment conditions have improved in the country, there are some challenges to be addressed.

He says, “The laws that govern the investment protection need to be reassessed. An investor with capital must have assurance that his investment will be protected and that he can move the capital with as much freedom as possible.”

AlHaj-Issa believes certain technological changes are also required to enable the country’s Vision 2030.

“To be attractive to new investors, appropriate infrastructure must be available and built. Saudi Arabia has always been at the forefront of investing in the latest technologies. However, the huge size of the country demands improved coverage and connectivity.”

Other challenges exist around logistics and shipping processes to and from Saudi Arabi.

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FEATURE // SAUDI ARABIA

“Although it is similar to many other countries, there is a requirement to apply for Saudi Arabian Standards Organization (SASO) certificate and then to apply from for a Certificate of Origin (COO) if the item is being shipped from the UAE,” Wiese adds.

Chanel partners have huge prospects as the country develops its economy and works towards Vision 2030.

Sanjay Ahuja, CEO, FVC, says, “Saudi Arabia holds immense opportunities for the channel. With AI and IoT implementations comes the need for effective security solutions and complementing data management and networking.”

He adds that by adopting the role of trusted advisors, partners need to work together with vendors and distributors to select the right solution for customers.

“It is important for partners to develop capabilities in technologies that correspond to the latest market trends including digital transformation, cloud computing, virtualisation, mobility and Big Data. They also need to invest in developing their professional services

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“It is important for partners to develop capabilities in technologies that correspond to the latest market trends including digital transformation, cloud computing, virtualisation, mobility and Big Data.

They also need to invest in developing their professional services capabilities since this will be a major source of revenues for the channel over the years to come.”

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capabilities since this will be a major source of revenues for the channel over the years to come,” adds Porter.

According to Ahuja, partners can prepare for the country’s 2030 vision by learning to deal with next-gen technology implementations that will primarily rely on AI, machine learning and IoT. He says, “Having these skills in place will greatly help create advantage for partners. Understanding the customers’ requirements, and putting forward an efficient implementation plan is just the start. Partners need focus on services and managing the customer’s expectations post implementation.”

He adds that aligning with vendor strategies and objectives will help pave the way to unlocking new opportunities.

“With Vision 2030 as its goal, the country will continue its technological evolution to help support new business investment and infrastructure. The big five sectors which are oil and gas, industrial and manufacturing, utilities, hospitality and healthcare, and infrastructure will lead this growth,” he says.

VENDOR FOCUS // CITRIX

Digital drive

Taj El-Khayat, regional director, Middle East and North Africa, Citrix, on reinforcing the firm’s market position as the partner of choice for digital transformations.

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aving joined Citrix at a time when enterprises are reassessing their operations to take on the digital era, regional director for Middle East and North Africa Taj El-Khayat, says his strategy for the firm revolves around four key pillars.

The first pillar is to build on the success of Citrix as the partner of choice for a customer’s digital transformation journey. This will be largely carried out in three important markets – UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

El-Khayat says, “We have just opened up our legal entity in Saudi Arabia and hired a country manager. Over the next 18 months, we will be investing and building our business in these markets significantly.”

The second pillar is to educate the market on the company’s complete networking portfolio.

“We have capable and strong applications delivery networking technology. We have been innovating tirelessly to stay ahead in the applications delivery controllers space. We have also started looking at different security features such as web application firewalls and IP protection,

“We are quite focused and extremely conscious of the fact that partners need to make profits. We have created the Ultimate Rewards Program in a way that provides our partners the ability to maintain good margins.” which are now part and parcel of the Citrix portfolio. The mandate to the team is to position the whole portfolio as a solution.”

El-Khayat’s third strategy is around partners.

He says, “My passion lies with partners and I am very channel-centric.

The partner ecosystem at Citrix has done a phenomenal job in terms of how they have maintained the firm’s

leadership when it comes to the virtualisation aspect of the business.”

Recently the firm has revamped its existing channel programme to introduce Ultimate Rewards Program.

The new programme simplifies the process and streamlines the incentives for partners. According to the firm, the initiative is closely aligned with the company’s goal of helping customers make the strategic transition to cloud.

“We are quite focused and extremely conscious of the fact that partners need to make profits. We have created the Ultimate Rewards Program in a way that provides our partners the ability to maintain good margins with Citrix without any grey areas. It is extremely automated process oriented. It is based on artificial intelligence.”

When a partner registers a deal, it goes through an automated process of checks and gets approved without any human intervention.

El-Khayat adds, “The beauty of it is that we protect the investment of the partner no matter what. After a deal registration is accepted and approved, if the partner faces unforeseen circumstances and the customer has to select someone else, we will still protect the partner’s deal to keep him motivated and so that he won’t lose the whole deal completely. Our programme pays for those types of efforts.”

The programme also motivates partners to align with the company’s strategy with the fourth and final pillar being around cloud.

“Citrix is becoming a cloud-centric technology vendor. Our progamme incentives partners to select us as we are quite strong in helping customers adopt cloud technologies. It also rewards technical capabilities and skill sets,” he explains. “Our programme doesn’t compromise on integrity and credibility. There should be nothing standing between the partner and him realizing his efforts.”

The company will continue its efforts in emphasising on cloud and networking technologies with its partner community. The firm’s distributors Mindware and StarLink have the mandate to manage the recruitment of resellers in all the markets, excite and inspire new comers to Citrix’ portfolio and support them to have the right capabilities, El-Khayat says.

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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PARTNER WATCH // FVC

Defining future growth We catch up with FVC’s chairman and MD KS Parag (KP) and recently-appointed CEO Sanjay Ahuja (SA) to learn more on how they are growing the business to the next level and the firm’s vision for 2018.

Could you share the biggest highlights from FVC over the past year?

KP: FVC is focused on value-added distribution across the Middle East and North Africa. We have built our operations in emerging technologies in different areas such as unified collaboration, communication and smart meeting rooms. We have also expanded into infrastructure and cybersecurity domains.

Over the past 12 months, we have split the company according to different domains and emphasised our focus on each one.

Today our business units include unified communication and collaboration, AV solutions, infrastructure and security as well as unified communications and voice.

The objective was to identify partners across the region in these key domains and work with the OEMs. We have also worked with the respective OEMs and ensured that they are supported in terms of channel breadth and increase in net new channels.

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JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

“We have undertaken an exponential growth objective for the organisation for which we are strengthening our back-end operations. We are increasing our financial capabilities to support our partners with more options in terms of credit.”

PARTNER WATCH // FVC

Can you elaborate on your key priorities for the firm over the next few months?

SA: We have undertaken an exponential growth objective for the organisation for which we are strengthening our back-end operations. We are increasing our financial capabilities to support our partners with more options in terms of credit. We are also reinforcing the sales team to bring in more focus in specific geographies. We see Saudi Arabia and North Africa as the key growth markets for the next 12 months. Therefore, we are making significant investments in these two geographies to ensure that we are able to bring in a substantial amount of growth. We are also revamping our executive briefing centres, which is basically a walk-in for partners and end customers to get into experiential selling so that they fully understand the solutions being sold.

Can you discuss channel enablement initiatives that partners can look forward to from FVC? KP: We conduct many channel enablement sessions. We do this for our existing partner relationships as well as new partners, which we onboard in different technologies. We also make sure that we support them with our own professional services team. Our sales team supports our partners, especially when it comes to consulting with large enterprise customers. On the whole, our objective is to make sure that we train partners so that they can handle complex implementations, while we are there on the back-end to help and support them.

What are the industry challenges faced by distributors today?

SA: While cash flow and credit continues to be a challenge, it has greatly improved over the past year. We have worked in line with many partners. We have been flexible in understanding their customer requirements and have structured credit appropriately.

We have seen that a partner today has limited capability of providing professional services across the board. We have worked on ensuring that the services, which partners offer customers are of excellence or above excellence with FVC’s support.

What can the market expect from FVC over the coming months?

KP: We are focusing on driving more partnerships on the cybersecurity side of business. We will be strengthening our channel as well as OEM partners in this area. The market will see many new vendor relationships being announced over the next few months.

We are also looking deeply into Internet of Things (IoT) and how it is going to map into large enterprises.

As a value-added distributor, we are examining how we can collaborate with specific partners who want to work in this domain.

We are also investing in cloud where we are seeing many enterprises seriously considering this technology.

We are going to see how we can work towards migration and other aspects within cloud, together with the channel community.

“We are focusing on driving more partnerships on the cybersecurity side of business. We will be strengthening our channel as well as OEM partners in this area. The market will see many new vendor relationships being announced over the next few months.�

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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REVIEW

MICROSOFT SURFACE BOOK 2

RATING

If you are looking for a productivity powerhouse, Microsoft’s latest premium 2-in-1 laptop might just be a perfect fit for you.

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icrosoft’s follow-up to the original Surface Book is a new heavyweight in the high-end laptop space, but comes at a price.

The 13.5-inch version is priced at $1,199, and features an Intel Core i5 processor with 8GB or 16GB of RAM. The 15-inch version packs a 8th Gen Intel Core i7 processor, with options for either 256GB, 512GB or 1TB of storage.

Two-in-one tablet-laptop obsessives will be delighted – the Surface Book 2’s tablet is extremely lightweight, which gives it a classy, professional feel, with a PixelSense display delivering near-4K picture quality.

Some may deem it a luxury feature, but the Surface Book 2 has an undeniable edge over Apple’s MacBook range through its touch screen capability, which definitely adds to its likeability.

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The Surface Book 2’s typing experience is extremely smooth. If you’d rather go incognito when knocking out that 10-page report, then good – the keys are easy on the touch and the ears.

In terms of design, the Surface Book 2 barely differs at all from the original Surface Book, but that’s not a bad thing. Although unorthodox, the crinkled hinge is more than stable enough.

Battery usage isn’t at all bad – a mix of app usage means the Surface Book 2 can last around 11 hours on one charge.

However, Microsoft has chosen to exclude the Surface Pen from the package, and that’ll cost users an extra $100 for the privilege of having its digital ink capabilities as part of the package.

This is something of a disappointment, and would’ve been a nice addition given the considerable potential of the lightweight detachable tablet.

JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

What could represent Microsoft’s biggest coup with the Surface Book 2 is the upgrades it has made to entice and accommodate gamers. It’s added an Nvidia GTX 1060 graphics card and Xbox Wireless support, which has now made it a realistic option for hardcore gamers.

Ultimately, the Surface Book 2’s most prohibitive aspect is pricing.

At a whopping $2,499 for the 15inch model, and starting at $1,199 for the 13.5-inch model, those choosing to go this route for their laptop need to have deep pockets.

There’s absolutely no denying that the range guarantees a great device, whatever size you decide to opt for, but asking over $1,199 for a laptop means Microsoft has set the bar high in terms of user expectation.

PRODUCTS

BELKIN LAUNCHES 3.5 MM AUDIO CABLE WITH LIGHTNING CONNECTOR Belkin has announced pre-order for its 3.5mm Audio Cable with Lightning Connector which allows iPhone users to connect directly to the car stereo or home speakers with a single cable. The new cable outputs high resolution audio by converting digital signals to analog.

It is available in multiple lengths, giving consumers the freedom to listen to music and other content at home or in the car.

This new cable joins the Lightning Audio + Charge RockStar and the 3.5mm Audio + Charge RockStar to grow the firm’s portfolio of digital audio products.

“Bringing our audio legacy into the digital realm is a natural progression of Belkin’s mission to connect people to the experiences they love most,” said Melody Saffery, senior director of product development, Belkin. “Most of us are music lovers, and the ability to

work on technology that can make other music lovers’ lives more fulfilling, better and more connected, inspires our teams to continue innovating.”

The 3.5 mm Audio Cable with Lightning Connector is available for purchase on Belkin.com.

LG UNVEILS SK10Y SOUND BAR

RING INTRODUCES NEW SMART SECURITY CAMERAS Ring has launched the Spotlight Cam Battery with 1080HD video, LED spotlights and a 110-decibel siren and the Spotlight Cam Solar Panel, which is equipped with HD camera with twoway talk and spotlights, connected to a Solar Panel for non-stop power, giving customers smart security all day long and at every corner of their homes. It adds next-level security and convenience to any home. With the launch of these two new products in the region, Ring has added an outdoor light/camera hybrid that illuminates the area and records video when its motion sensor is tripped, with multiple power options to its roster of Wi-Fi connected home security devices.

“Ring is continuously innovating and offering best-of-breed smart home security solutions. The mission of both the company and our products is to ‘to reduce crime in neighborhoods’ and we are proud to introduce our Ring spotlight Cam Battery, which will offer our customers with a new way to protect the entire perimeter

of the home - from the front door to the backyard,” said Mohammad Meraj Hoda, vice president, Business Development, Ring.

The new Spotlight Cam features LED light panels that automatically turn on when motion is detected, as well as a 1080p camera with night vision, twoway audio, and a 110-dB siren.

Retailing at AED799 (excluding VAT), SAR 849 (excluding VAT) and KWD 60 (excluding VAT), it is available in UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

LG Electronics Gulf (LGE) has launched its new flagship Sound Bar, the LG SK10Y. Building on the success of last year’s SJ9, the 2018 upgrade brings with it a host of new connected services and features, including Dolby Atmos compatibility and Google’s Chromecast built-in for multi-room music and control via the Google Assistant.

LG has partnered with audio company Meridian Audio to tune the new LG SK10Y Sound Bar for precision quality and fidelity. The LG SK10Y Sound Bar will include the company’s digital sound processing (DSP) modes including bass, space and height elevation, which raises the sound to the level of the screen.

“With the launch of the premium LG SK10Y Sound Bar, we are offering our customers an incredible audio experience in a sleek and elegant design that is sure to be a perfect addition to LG’s range of OLED TVs for the home,” said Yong Geun Choi, president, LG Electronics Gulf, The LG SK10Y Sound Bar will retail for AED 4,999 and will be available across the GCC region from May this year.

www.tahawultech.com // Reseller Middle East // JUNE 2018

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Tech talk Reseller Middle East's Online Editor Adelle Geronimo shares her views on the current tech scene.

Adelle Geronimo, Online Editor, Technology Division

All hands on deck

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ast month, I attended the Cisco Girls Power Tech event in Dubai, which was aimed at encouraging and empowering young women to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) fields. The programme involved engaging mentoring sessions for young female students about the latest innovations today. More than just being informative, I found the event inspiring as well. Students were able to directly engage with women executives at Cisco who shared inspiring stories about their careers and their vision for what the future holds.

Women have made great strides, across various fields from sports to fashion to government to STEM, however, they are still significantly under-represented in the workplace across the world.

According to recent reports, women only account for 27 percent of STEM

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professionals in the United States, which underlines the issue further.

In the Middle East, particularly the UAE, the narrative is changing.

The country has created a national strategy in place to empower women and has established government councils aimed at equalising opportunities between men and women in the workforce. 56 percent of today’s STEM graduates in the UAE are women – much higher than the Western world. On top of this, 35 percent of Internet entrepreneurs in the Arab world are woman.

Dr. Ahmad bin Abdullah Humaid Belhoul Al Falasi, the minister for higher education and advanced skills, recently said, “Historically, STEM has been perceived as a male-dominated field, but I can tell you from the ministry, we are seeing female participation increase in the workforce and in STEM studies.”

JUNE 2018 // Reseller Middle East // www.tahawultech.com

BUT WHY DOES ENCOURAGING WOMEN IN STEM MATTER? More than the obvious societal reasons such as equality, diversity and empowerment, underrepresentation of women is an important topic to tackle due to the rising demand for talents in STEM fields.

The numerous changes being brought on by the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) are set to transform the way we interact with information – how we process and utilise it to change the way we live and how organisations do business. Encouraging highlyskilled individuals, including women, is crucial in harnessing diverse perspectives that can lead to gamechanging innovative solutions.

The 4IR is here and is gaining traction at an unprecedented pace and we can’t afford not to have all hands on deck.