The Shelf Issue 03 by Redington

Presents

A Quarterly publication from Redington Volume Division

Issue 03 May 2014 08 Samsung 16 WD 19 HP 25 Lenovo

On the go Redington Gulf encapsulates the growth of mobility and devices market to enable partners to stay ahead of the curve.

Redington Volume Division is an authorized distributor for the following brands in parts of Middle East & Africa

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Contents

From the Director’s Desk Dear Partners,

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Redington recommends

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Samsung Madhav Narayan from Samsung discusses the trends in the printing segment.

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WD

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HP

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From laptops to accessories, the latest products in the market.

WD’s Khwaja Saifuddin talks about the changing landscape of storage solutions.

Ernest Azzam from HP, shares the prospects present in the Designjet market.

Narayanan Venkataraman from HP, elaborates on the trends present in commercial segment.

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Lenovo Mohammed Hilili from Lenovo Gulf, on how technology should have many modes.

As we enter the summer in Middle East, there is an air of positivity in the business environment.

Businesses are becoming more active than last year, customer spending is increasing and the regional economy seems in a good state. An increase in customer spending will witness a number of new start-up companies which could give competition to established players, giving customers a wider choice. While both new and existing businesses focus on unearthing new customers and addressing the present customers, an important aspect to consider is the investment in building a service-oriented organisation.

Building a service-oriented organisation involves three broad aspects: 1) Cultivating a customer-focused culture to deliver enhanced customer experience and embedding it into business goals and mission 2) Keeping employees motivated as happy employees make happy customers 3) Ensuring flexible systems & processes that can meet the needs of target consumers.

The input of Stakeholders are critical when it comes to identifying key areas which need to be improved for building a service-oriented organisation.

Once a framework is set, it’s important that the people who run the company are motivated. A business may not be able to cater to all types of customers, therefore, it must identify its key customers and ensure its systems and processes are aligned to meet the needs of its target customers.

As companies try to run marketing, sales and support across both traditional and digital channels, improving customer experience has become more important than ever. This becomes even more relevant to our region as partners have to pay special attention to their relationship with customers to maintain their competitive edge. When everyone has access to the same brands, products and services, those who can completely understand the importance of a customer-oriented culture and achieve that desired level of relationship with their customers will eventually prevail.

The current issue of ‘The Shelf’ focusses on a variety of offerings from Redington Gulf, which promises new levels of agility, flexibility and ease of use.

We hope you will find some of the contents useful for building your product portfolio and improve your customer experience.

Yours Sincerely Raj Shankar Managing Director, Redington Gulf

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Redington recommends

Computing

Dell Venue 7

The new palm-sized Dell Venue 7 is a lightweight tablet that is powered with a dual-core Intel Atom 1.6 Ghz processor and works on Android Jellybean 4.2.2. It is equipped with 1GB memory and has an 8GB eMMC. It also comes with an integrated webcam both in the front and back. It supports dual band 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and GPS as well as BT 4.0. It also has a card slot for microSD which is expandable up to 32GB.

HP ProBook 400 Series The HP ProBook 400 series now includes the HP Probook 440 G1, the HP ProBook 450 G1 and the HP ProBook 470 G1—with the speed of the latest 4th generation Intel Core i3/i5/ i7 processors to help business users work faster. The HP ProBook 450 G1 also features an optional touch interface on a premium shatter-, reflection-, smudge- and scratch-resistant screen, enabling greater productivity by providing another way to interact with apps and data.

The HP ProBook 400 series is designed to look good on the go with an attractive meteorite gray chassis with soft touch finish and an all-metal keyboard deck. The HP ProBook 400 series adds substance to its style with a new hybrid hard drive option that offers the responsiveness of an SSD with the capacity of a traditional hard drive, along with optional 4G LTE,HSPA+ WWAN, Skype and rich DTS Sound+.

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IdeaPad Yoga 13 convertible The Yoga 13 stands out mainly due to its 360-degree flip-and-fold design through the Lenovo Transition, which automatically switches system settings and locks the keyboard in place.

Installed with the Windows 8 Pro operating system, the Ultrabook uses the webcam as an input device and flips pages, change music, change volume and gesture other simple commands with the flick of a hand. It comes with HDMI output easy connection to a television set or monitor. The Cloud storage enables a user to protect important data while also making content sharing quick and easy. Data can also be transferred to other devices faster by using USO 3.0 SuperSpeed.

HP Spectre XT TouchSmart Ultrabook Featuring a 15.6-inch diagonal multitouch Radiance Full HD display with IPS technology, the HP SpectreXT TouchSmart Ultrabook delivers strong performance and the ability to go beyond keyboard and mouse with an optimized touch experience and runs on Windows 8.

Measuring 17.9 millimeters (mm) thin and weighing 4.77 pounds, it comes in an allmetal design featuring edge-to-edge glass, a soft-touch base for comfort and grip, a glass touchpad and tilted speakers with Beats Audio for optimal sound.

The HP SpectreXT TouchSmart Ultrabook is the company’s first notebook with Intel ThunderboltTM

technology for blazing-fast transfer of music, movies and data to external devices. HP USB Boost technology charges devices via USB ports while the Ultrabook is on or off.

The notebook also features HP CoolSense for a noticeably cooler PC; an HP Imagepad for precise multifinger and gesture navigation; HP ProtectSmart for added hard-drive protection; an HP TrueVision HD Webcam; and other applications.

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Components

Acer DA220HQL The Acer Media all-in-one brings 100 percent tablet enjoyment on the 21.5-inch HD optical 2-point multi-touch display with more than 600,000 apps to explore, and easy navigation through a touch user interface. The Full HD screen provides crisp images, sharp details and rich colors. Working on Android 4.0 Operating System, the device comes equipped with 8GB internal storage with 1GB RAM. Powered with built in 1.2 front facing camera with two integrated speakers, the device supports two USB 3.0 and one micro USB 2.0. It has one Micro HDMI-in Port and can be accessorized with ireless Keyboard and Mouse.

Acer P1173 projector In the Acer P1173 Projector, colors remain balanced and images accurate with advanced Acer technologies.

Everything comes to life with crystal clarity thanks to exceptional resolution and high brightness. What’s more, this projector is DLP 3D ready, depicting lifelike and breathtaking visuals with greater depth. It has a display panel of 0.55-inch DarkChipTM 3 DMD with a resolution of Native SVGA (800 x 600), Maximum UXGA (1600 x 1200), WUXGA (1900 x 1280).

Its aspect ratio is 4:3 (native) and 16:9 while the contrast ratio is 13000:1. The brightness of the device can be adjusted to 3000 ANSI Lumens (Standard), 2400 ANSI Lumens (ECO).

And the lamp life can sustain 5000 hours (Standard), 6000 hours (ECO) and 10,000 Hours (ExtremeECO). Weighing 4.4lbs, its projection lens come in F = 2.57 ~ 2.65, f = 21.00mm ~ 23.10mm and has 1:1.1 Manual Zoom and Manual Focus.

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WD Purple WD Purple surveillance class hard drives are equipped with AllFrame technology which works with ATA streaming to reduce frame loss, improve playback and increases the number of drive bays supported. AllFrame reduces video interruptions that commonly occur when desktop hard drives are incorrectly used as storage in security systems.

Engineered for compatibility these hard drives are built for compatibility with industry leading chassis and chip set manufacturers for seamless integration into new or existing video surveillance system. WD Purple hard drives are optimized to support up to 32 high-definition surveillance cameras. With IntelliSeek technology, WD Purple drives calculate the optimum seek speeds, which lowers power consumption, noise and vibration that can damage and cause drives to wear out more quickly

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Peripherals

HP LaserJet Pro MFP M435nw With HP’s new MFP, the user can expand printing potential and bring innovation to the office. The printer boosts efficiency with fast print speeds, and produces crisp, clear documents—including broad layouts and images on paper sizes up to A3. The new product also help the user to master workflow and can now scan straight to email and networked folders. It features a 7.62cm Touchscreen, LCD.

SL-M3370FD Samsung Multifunction ProXpress M3370 series are fast, professional-quality multifunction printers with lower operating costs.

High speed printing and image processing Robust ProXpress M3370 series feature print speeds of up to 40 ppm, powered by a Cortex-A5 core processor and up to 256 MB of memory.

High speed and performance enable businesses to accelerate document and image processing for increased efficiency.

ReCP technology improves readability of printed documents by enhancing thin lines and sharpening the edges of negative text. The ProXpress M3370 series deliver sharp, solid prints and scans with effective output print resolutions of up to 1200 x 1200 dpi. It reduces operating expenses with economical features and solutions. Its other features include toner save mode, duplex printing where it prints on both sides of the paper, skips blank papers and comes with an easy eco driver software.

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HP Designjet T520 ePrinter Achieve fast and professional results with HP’s featurerich, large-format printer - Designjet T520 ePrinter. Able to produce prints up to 2400 dpi, it processes complex files at high speeds.

Original HP inks helps in delivering architectural designs, maps, photos and presentations without sacrificing quality. And it reduces downtime and improves productivity.

The intuitive, full-colour, 109 mm (4.3-in) touchscreen simplifies navigation and lets you access and print files right from your printer.

HP Designjet ePrinter enables the user to print from laptop, Apple or Android smartphone or tablet with HP Designjet ePrint & Share. It also automatically savea copies of your work to the cloud, and access them from virtually anywhere with the ePrint & Share feature. www.redingtonmea.com

Lifestyle

WireSlim WireSlim offers a patented ultra-flat wire solutions which can hide any visible wires or cables. By creating an extremely thin and adjustable wire, it provides flexibility to stick it, bend it, cut it, paint it or simply hide it. Now, the TV, computer or even a light fixture can be hung without any wires being visible. All the user needs to do is cut and fold the wire to the required length and paint over it when done.

The product is easy to install and available in audio, video, RCA, RJ-45 and HDMI cable types.

EDIFIER E30

The Edifier Spinnaker is a 40cm tall, 2.0 powered speaker system that is Bluetooth enabled and comes with a wireless remote control. Its unique design adds to its edge over other speakers in the market.

It features six separate amplifiers, which drive two silk domed tweeters, two 2 3/4” mid-range and 2 downward firing 4” bass drivers. It also supports within a 10m radius.

The wireless remote controls track navigation, playmute and volume adjustment within a 30’ radius. To add to it, it also has an optical/auxiliary input port, which is available for connectivity to other multimedia devices.

And its output port allows an external subwoofer to be connected for additional bass performance. It is available in burgundy and black colours.

Samsung

Setting the pace Madhav Narayan, Senior Regional Director, Enterprise Business Group, Samsung Gulf Electronics, discusses with The Shelf, the trends in the printing segment and how the company has innovated in this space.

Could you elaborate on Samsung’s market differentiators?

We have three unique differentiators: Components leadership – High quality and high performance in printers can be realized only with the best-in-breed component technologies. Samsung is a world leader in most of the key components that go into a multi-function printer including but not limited to semiconductors, optical scanners, mechanical systems, control screens and chemicals.

Continuous investment in research and development of technologies / platforms helps Samsung to sustain Leadership in component technology. This in turn helps enables Samsung to design printers that deliver superior performance and quality.

Design and manufacturing capability – Samsung printers are designed and developed in-house leveraging heavily from Samsung designed and manufactured components. Most importantly the printers are manufactured at our own ISO-certified manufacturing facilities. By managing the entire value chain from R&D, to manufacturing, quality control & logistics, which includes both components and finished products, we can ensure that we deliver the right products at the right place and at the right time.

Digital convergence expertise – Samsung

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Electronics was established more than four decades ago with clear vision of ‘Digital Convergence’.

Today’s Samsung digital expertise spans multiple technologies including and not limited to computers, displays, semiconductors, telecommunications and even software. Samsung has the unique ability to converge these digital technologies to create worldclass products and printers are no exception. Our expertise in smartphones and displays converge to create touch-screen panels that handle tasks with just a few swipes. Our expertise in semiconductors and mechanics converge to engineer all-in-one boards that boost reliability and lower power use.

What kind of expertise does Samsung bring to the table with its 30 years of experience in this field?

Samsung is the world’s second largest laser engine manufacturer. Years of experience, technological expertise and proven reliability support our reputation in manufacturing and building the best products by the best names, such as the world’s smallest color laser printer, world’s fastest A4 copier MFP and the world’s first NFC printer.

Could you discuss the company’s innovations in the Printing segment? How does Samsung

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implement the latest technologies to innovate in its products?

Today’s office environment is no longer based on the traditional client-server system. Work processes are neither confined to one location, nor within a building. Customers are working with more mobility and agility than ever before.

To meet these changes to the customer’s environment, the new printing market is looking for an integrated cost-efficient IT solution that includes monitors, tablets and printers to accelerate digitisation of documents based on mobile and cloud printing solutions. Samsung’s leadership in digital convergence puts it in a unique position to deliver on those requirements.

Samsung has several innovations that attest to this: The world’s first NFC printers, all-in-one processor board for improved reliability and reduced power consumption, dual core processors for faster printing, ReCP (Rendering Engine for Clean Page) for cutting-edge print quality.

What can enterprise customers look forward to from Samsung in the printers’ category?

Today, documents are evolving from traditional paper to digitized files, which are produced on mobile devices, shared by cloud services and displayed on-screen. As a result of this change, the paradigm of the printing market is shifting to mobile service using the cloud and embedded solutions.

This paradigm shift needs innovative changes from traditional business that includes service, sales, marketing and technology. Samsung printing solutions have been preparing for these changes as a complete eco-system provider with powerful printers, solutions for printing anywhere and an open-service platform. Samsung plans to leads this paradigm shift.

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How can channel partners further optimise this? What kind of value can channel partners gain from Samsung? Can you discuss your channel plans for this segment?

The channel is obviously an essential element to our continuous success in the market. At Samsung, we pride ourselves on product and solution innovation and also strive to bring improvements to our distribution model to enhance our ability to fulfill our customers’ needs.

We are continuously cultivating and expanding our partner ecosystem to ensure we are able to provide robust support for driving business growth.

The Samsung Team of Empowered Partners Programme (STEP) has been designed to support our distribution network and resellers who implement Samsung solutions within the Business-to-Business environment through their sub channel-network.

Through STEP, we are offering organizations differentiated partner benefits to meet their unique needs in deploying innovative B2B solutions.

Integral to the programme is the identification and accelerated implementation of marketing and revenue opportunities.

The programme features Platinum, Gold and Silver tiers which are crafted and matched to your organization’s unique business needs to ensure you receive the necessary expertise and support from Samsung in terms of both monetary and non-monetary benefits. This is a formal partner management system designed to assist with the development of joint go-to-market strategies, access the most up-to-date sales and marketing material and support for qualified business opportunities.

Your association with this Programme will also increase market awareness of your partnership with Samsung, as well as offer rewards based on revenue achievement.

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Which are the fastest moving products within this segment? Do you plan to launch new products in this year?

Mobile printing needs will further grow as a result of a rise in the number of smartphone users and the increase of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend. According to an IDC report about “mobile device users/non-users printing, scanning and document management” published in 2012, it is forecasted that about 50% of smartphone users and 58% of tablet users will use mobile printing in 2015. However, 64% of smartphone user do not know how to print from their mobile phone and 65% believe their printer does not support this function. In response, Samsung unveiled the world’s very first near-field communication (NFC)-enabled laser printer that ensures easy and convenient mobile printing. In fact, Samsung Smart Printing Solutions has the most competitive smartphone pairing solution.

Can you discuss Samsung’s plans for the region in the mobile printing space?

Samsung will be taking the industry to an innovative new direction with the launch of Cloud Printing Solutions. It will seamlessly connect mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets, with printers and other devices through the cloud.

Furthermore, Samsung is launching A3 Copiers in this region. An A3 MFP has more than 12,000 parts and requires electronic, mechanical, chemical, and optical engineering expertise, so its industry has a very high barrier for entry. It takes more than three years to develop one A3 MFP and its development costs are approximately equivalent to a car. For this reason, no other new player has entered this market in the last 30 years except Samsung.

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Madhav Narayan, Senior Regional Director, Enterprise Business Group, Samsung Gulf Electronics Issue 03

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Products from Samsung

ProXpress and Multifunction ProXpress Series For small and medium-sized business customers and home office use Samsung’s line of ProXpress mono laser printers and multi-function printers (MFPs) is designed for small and medium-sized business customers and home office use. These products offer fast print speeds, high print quality and versatility and have been specifically designed for users who require low operating costs and high performance. The M4020/M3820/M3320 printer series and M4070/M3870/3370 MFP series offer an all-in-one integrated toner system, robust eco features and duplex printing for lower operating costs and higher efficiency.

With print speeds of up to 40 ppm, each of the models provide fast, reliable and economically efficient performance for business users. The units enable document and image processing for increased work flow, through their Cortex A5 processor and up to 256 MB of memory.

All models come with standard automatic duplex, which allows for printing on both sides of the page and a multi-purpose tray, which supports media of up to 220 gsm in weight. Offering more printing choices for professional documents such as labels, cards and envelopes, the multipurpose tray enhances the units’ versatility and usefulness to the users.

Samsung’s image processing technology, Rendering Engine for Clean Pages (ReCP), improves the readability of printed documents by enhancing thin lines and sharpening the edges of negative text. Coupled with print resolutions of up to 1,200x1,200 dpi, the ProXpress series delivers unparalleled image quality in its class.

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With Samsung’s Easy Eco Driver and One Touch Eco Button, SMB customers can effectively manage printing options. These functions help reduce paper, toner and energy consumption.

The Easy Eco Driver can reduce toner use by up to 20 percent with the toner saving mode. This mode allows the user to remove images, convert from bitmap to sketch and remove bold text to save toner.

In addition, four different toner cartridges supporting different printing volumes are available.

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Xpress C410W series NFC-enabled color laser printer and multifunction printers Introducing the industry’s first NFC (Near Field Communication)-enabled color laser printer and multi-function printers (MFPs), Samsung’s Xpress C410W series allow users to print high quality photos and documents from their smartphones with ease.

The new printer Xpress C410W series consists of the C410W color laser printer, the C460W color laser MFPs with print, copy and scan functionality, and the C460FW color laser MFPs with print, copy, scan and fax capabilities. These C410W series have been specifically designed with the home and small office user in mind who wants to print content from their smartphones. These three models are able to print up to 18 pages per minute (ppm) in black and white and four ppm in color.

The Xpress C410W series connects wirelessly with mobile devices for fast, integrated and convenient printing on the go. Users can effortlessly and securely print pictures, documents, e-mails and web content

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by simply tapping their smartphones on the printer. Scanning and faxing documents is also made easy as users are able to sync the contacts on their smartphones with the printers.

With Samsung Mobile Print App users are now able to print everything from PDF files to Microsoft Office documents directly from their smartphones.

The Xpress C410W series also support Google Cloud Print. This solution allows users to print over the web from anywhere with any smart device.

Additionally, owners of Samsung’s GALAXY smartphones and Galaxy Tab series have the added benefit of being able to print images from the gallery app, documents, email and web browser pages.

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Scan the tag to see more of what Office 365 can do.

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Redington recommends Microsoft Software

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WD

Scoring with storage Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director India, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, WD, shares with The Shelf the changing landscape of storage solutions.

What kind of storage opportunities exist in the market? How has WD optimised these opportunities?

As the volume of data being created day-to-day is growing at a significant rate, the storage market across the various segments (consumer, SMB and enterprise) offers significant business opportunities. From a component perspective, WD has successfully been able to tap these opportunities with class leading products that are optimised for specific usage scenarios. Under our ‘Power of Choice’ commitment to end customers and partners, WD offers its Blue, Green, Black, Red and Purple family of hard drives. The Blue drives are designed for mainstream, everyday computing scenarios, while the Green and Black drives are built to conserve power and offer high performance respectively. The two newest drive families - Red and Purple - are respectively optimised for use in 1-to-5 bay SOHO NAS systems and mainstream surveillance systems where

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Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director India, Middle East, Africa and Turkey, WD

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Products from WD

up to eight drives and 32 HD cameras may be used. These last two drive families allow WD, and its partners, to address the two fastest growing segments of the storage market as various verticals adopt NAS devices and surveillance systems.

Going forward, what kind of innovation can we expect from WD in terms of NAS solutions?

WD was the first storage vendor to introduce a hard drive family (WD Red) that was specifically designed for 1-to-5 bay SOHO NAS devices.

Last year WD updated the Red family with the world’s first 2.5-inch SOHO NAS drive and is, to date, the only vendor that offers both 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch drives for 1-to-5 bay SOHO NAS devices. The WD Red family boasts a number of WD exclusive optimisations including NASWare 2.0 and IntelliPower. From a solution perspective, WD offers the WD My Cloud EX4 4-bay NAS device for SOHOs, which can be configured with up to 16TB of storage and enables users to create a personal cloud that can be accessed remotely via computing devices including tablets and smartphones. For the SMB segment, WD also offers the WD Sentinel DX4000 NAS, which allows SMBs without IT staff to centralize their data and also offers remote connectivity.

What can WD NAS hard drives such as Red offer to the SOHO segment?

Before the WD Red drive family was introduced there was no hard drive that was optimised specifically for use in 1-to-5 bay SOHO NAS devices. This meant that customers had to choose between a low-cost desktop hard drive that was never designed for 24/7 usage and expensive enterprise grade hard drives. Neither choice was optimal, therefore, WD Red was introduced

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to offer the perfect balance of performance, reliability, NAS compatibility and cost. With WD exclusive technologies such as NASWare 2.0 and IntelliPower, WD Red hard drives allow a customer to buy and setup a SOHO NAS system without ever worrying about issues such as compatibility, performance, reliability and heat generation.

Could you elaborate how WD Purple is making an impact in surveillance?

Purple is the colour of surveillance. With a WD Purple drive integrated into a mainstream surveillance system where up to 32HD cameras and eight hard drives may be used, the customer can rest assured that he has the best drive for the job at hand. Like WD’s other internal drives, WD Purple is designed and engineered to tackle the demands of surveillance systems and boasts unique technology such as AllFrame to reduce video frame loss and improve playback performance. WD Purple drives also boast enhanced caching algorithms that are setup for write-intensive, low bit-rate, high stream count applications that are usually seen in surveillance applications. For mainstream surveillance needs, WD Purple is the drive of choice.

What kind of benefits will users see from WD Black²?

WD Black² is not a hybrid drive but is in fact the world’s first 2.5-inch ‘dual drive’. While both drives (hybrids and dual drives) offer a combination of flash and mechanical storage, the way this storage is presented to the user, and used, is different. With a hybrid drive the user sees just one drive and has no control over where his data is stored – the drive makes the choice to move data from the mechanical storage into the flash storage based on pre-programmed internal algorithms. With a dual drive, the flash storage

“With the right training, partners will be able to properly address customer queries.”

and mechanical storage (120GB flash and 1TB mechanical in the case of Black²) are both visible to the user as two separate drives. What this means is that the user has the power to choose exactly where to place specific data, so he could choose to have his OS and most frequently used apps and games stored on the flash, while leaving data such as music and photos on the mechanical storage. Going the dual drive approach the user is able to fully experience the performance benefits of flash and the capacity benefits of mechanical storage by opting for a single 2.5-inch drive.

What is WD’s business focus for the next few months?

The NAS and surveillance markets are growing at a fast pace and with products such as WD Red and WD Purple, the market offers significant business opportunities. Over the coming months WD will focus on developing these opportunities with its partners with the aim of generating sustainable long-term business results.

Could you elaborate plans for your channel partners as well?

WD supports its channel partners consistently and with highly technical products, it’s important that partners are fully trained on these products.

With the right training, partners will be able to properly address customer queries and in doing so, will become trusted resources that customers go back to for repeat business. In line with this, a part of our plans will focus on partner training whether done virtually via the www.wduniversity. com website or in person via training seminars or 1-to-1 sessions. Partners will also be encouraged to enroll into partner programs such as myWD, as the program offers resources that partners can take advantage of to further grow their business.

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WD

WD Black² The WD Black² dual drive solves storage limitations and adds true high-performance SSD speed to a PC. It offers a lower cost-per gigabyte advantage over the solid-state competition. With a generous 1 TB capacity hard drive, WD Black² also features a fully accessible 120 GB solidstate drive. The result is the world’s first 2.5-inch dual drive storage solution.

WD Black² features innovative 20nm NAND flash processes with remarkable power efficiency that are poised to redefine what is possible in the storage industry. The dual drive is designed for use in most 9.5 mm 2.5-inch drive bays.

WD Black² ShiftTechnology is race-ready from the starting line with enhanced firmware and improved algorithms for faster

performance and data management. This allows you to migrate larger data files to the hard drive and provides your SSD with less system drag, which increases the overall endurance and mileage of the SSD. Resistant to high temperatures, shocks and vibration, WD Black² combines agility and reliability in an evolutionary dual drive form factor. Advanced firmware and intelligent algorithms assist in heightened performance, resulting in cooler temperatures with nearly inaudible operation.

WD Red WD Red is the only hard drive for NAS systems that have 1 to 5 drive bays. The drives are designed and extensively tested for compatibility in the unique 24x7 operating environment and demanding system requirements of home and small business NAS. naSware Advanced firmware technology built into every WD Red drive, enables seamless integration, robust data protection and optimal performance for systems operating in NAS and RAID environments. Innovative technology reduces power consumption and lowers the operating temperature, resulting in a more reliable and affordable solution for always on 24x7 NAS environments. With a 35 percent MTBF improvement over standard desktop drives, the WD Red drive is designed and manufactured to be a more reliable and robust solution.

Our enhanced dual-plane balance control technology significantly improves the overall drive performance and reliability. Hard drives that are not properly balanced may cause excessive vibration and noise in a multi-drive system, reduce the hard drive life span, and degrade the performance over time.

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HP

Projecting for growth Ernest Azzam, Large Format Design Business ManagerMiddle East, Mediterranean & Africa, HP, shares with The Shelf on the prospects present in the Middle East region for resellers within the Designjet market.

Ernest Azzam, Large Format Design Business Manager- Middle East, Mediterranean & Africa, HP

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What are the opportunities for resellers in the designjet market in ME? With the growing portfolio of HP Designjet printers, resellers catering to corporate, SMB as well as retail consumers have varied solutions to offer to their customers. Starting from the T120 A1 Wifi printer up to production and multifunction Designjets, the range of Large Format Printers cater to requirements from students up to production environments.

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HP

“ By targeting new market segments, SMBs and consumers resellers will find that margins are better.�

What do you think resellers can do further to leverage the opportunities present in this market?

Resellers and retailers can start looking at all market segments for Large Format Design.

There are a lot of untapped opportunities in the education, hospitality and medical sectors.

Resellers usually focus on the large deals for large corporates. But such deals have stiff competition from other resellers. So by going after new segments the result is more sales but with better profitability.

What kind of margins can they make? Is this consistent?

Margins vary and depend on the solutions offered. By targeting new market segments, SMBs and consumers resellers will find that margins are better. In addition, by benefiting from the broad HP portfolio, resellers can combine products such as HP Workstations and solutions into one offering for the customer. This enhances their competitiveness and increases their margins.

Going forward, what kind of programs will HP have to enhance its ME resellers?

We are working on different levels to enhance the capabilities and profitability of our partners.

From the programs perspective, HP launched recently two new programs for HP Designjet partners. The Designjet Specialist program (DS) caters to partners who are certified with sales trainings to sell most of the Designjet portfolio and receive rebates against their

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achievements. In addition, the new Designjet Production Specialist program (DPS) allows certified partners exclusive access to selected production products. The certifications required are both sales and technical as the DPS partners will be providing technical support for these selected products. In addition to the programs for Designjets, we run specific promotions with the resellers who are actively promoting the products through marketing activities.

What kind of challenges exist for resellers? How does HP help in addressing these issues?

Resellers need healthy profitable business with least possible issues. This is what HP Designjet products offer to our resellers. HP enjoys very high market share in large format printing at 68% for the region as per the latest IDC report.

It shows the customer’s trust in these products.

This is possible only because the Designjet printers provide the best technology in the market combined with the best reliability and support. All these factors contribute to the success of the resellers.

Could you elaborate on the training and technical support given to your resellers?

Resellers have access to sales trainings and certifications that allow them to advise better and serve their customers. As for technical support, HP regularly holds face-to-face technical service trainings for our service

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providers. We also ensure that most of the spare parts are available to make sure we avoid any delays in servicing the customers. In addition, HP also offers to our customers through our resellers an optional of higher level of support, this is called the HP Carepack.

How does HP plan to create a profitable business environment for its resellers dealing with designjet?

By allowing solution selling and differentiation, we make sure that partners can benefit from new business segments while increasing profitability. For example, by offering Workstation and Designjet bundles, the resellers can differentiate themselves from other resellers while increasing their profitability. HP also supports resellers with activities to generate business. The more a reseller is active the more support they will get from HP. This helps in going after new market segments and increasing the profitability of the resellers.

Anything else you like to highlight on?

The HP large format printing team is ready to provide any reseller or retailer interested in selling the basic products portfolio, an update and help in developing existing partners even further. If they have any ideas to market the Designjet products targeting selected market segments, please contact your local HP Designjet team or Redington team and we are ready to provide the necessary support to plan a successful business.

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Products from HP

HP Designjet T120 ePrinter series The Designjet T120 ePrinter series can be used as two printers - print from Letter to D using the B+ tray or 24-inch wide front-loading media roll. It can be installed anywhere thanks to WiFi connectivity.

It helps to reduce downtime and improve productivity by using Original HP inks. The intuitive, fullcolor, 4.3-inch touchscreen simplifies navigation and printing. The print can be done quickly and accurately, thanks to true print previews from the driver. By using Apple or Android smartphones or tablet, the user can print from virtually anywhere. Users can access and print projects when they are away from the studio, using HP Designjet ePrint & Share. It automatically save copies of work to the cloud when you print using HP Designjet ePrint & Share.

HP Designjet T520 ePrinter Achieve fast and professional results with HP’s feature-rich, largeformat printer - Designjet T520 ePrinter. Able to produce prints up to 2400 dpi, it processes complex files at high speeds.

Original HP inks helps in delivering architectural designs, maps, photos and presentations without sacrificing quality. And it reduces downtime and improves productivity.

The intuitive, full-colour, 109 mm (4.3-in) touchscreen simplifies navigation and lets you access and print files right from your printer.

HP Designjet ePrinter enables the user to print from laptop, Apple or Android smartphone or tablet with HP Designjet ePrint & Share. It also automatically savea copies of your work to the cloud, and access them from virtually anywhere with the ePrint & Share feature.

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HP

“ Customer and partner engagement are key for any execution in addition to the brand loyalty that we enjoy.�

Narayanan Venkataraman, Country Category Manager Computing, Middle East, HP 22

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Leading by design Narayanan Venkataraman, Country Category Manager Computing, Middle East, HP, takes The Shelf through the trends present in commercial segment and how the company plans to lead the space with ground-breaking technology.

Can you discuss HP’s plans for commercial laptops in the next two years within the region?

At the beginning of this year, we refreshed the full range of commercial Notebook (NB) range, these NB come with the state of art technology keeping in view the latest mobility and industry needs. We have been positioning these products both across enterprise and SME/SMB customers in the region and have had good reviews and acceptance in addition to the major wins we have had with this portfolio. HP will continue to progress in this space with innovation and key technology, over the coming years. Middle East will be one of the key markets where we will be making aggressive growth in this space.

What kind of strategies have you implemented to execute these plans?

Customer and partner engagement are key for any execution in addition to the brand loyalty that we enjoy, we will continue on this engagement as

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well as improve and get closer to our partners and customers.

What kind of consumer trends are you noticing in this space within the region?

The consumer segment is a large one with multiple trends. The first time buyer is looking at basic computing needs with standard configurations, then we have consumers with different needs such as gaming, frequent travelers, fashion seekers and gadget freaks who look at areas not limited to configurations but also design, form factors, multi-OS, thin and light and so on. And then today’s youth are active users who spend a lot of their time on these devices for educational and research purposes clubbed with social media usage, so this is a large segment today. Given that the market includes such large and diverse users – every new technology has been well accepted in this space. Touch has been one of our focus for the last year and we see gradual but good adoption of this technology.

What kind of growth opportunities do you see here?

Mobility, new form factors and multi OS are new technology trends on the consumer side, HP will try and capitalize on the growth in this space, also consumerization is a new trend and offers growth opportunities that HP will address.

Which are your best selling products within this category? Do you have plans to launch any new products this year?

Clamshell products still dominate as it remains as a primary computing device, we have also seen good momentum on detachable. We recently announced Pavilion X360 (Convertible) and Slate 6 voice enabled tablet during Spring Gitex. We will continue to develop on multiple form factors as we go through the year.

Can you talk about the design innovations that HP has brought into this segment?

HP has done a lot on design innovations across Commercial and Consumer product categories over the last 12 months, today you will see that we have an Iconic, progressive, consistent design across our PC product portfolio that is optimized across multiple form factors and unique to HP. Anything else you like to add?

We would like to thank our customers and partners for the loyalty they have shown towards HP and looking forward to a much stronger engagement in the years ahead! We are brand that is proud to be associated and committed to our channels partners across the region.

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Products from HP

HP Envy 15 HP’s Envy 15 comes powered with Windows 8 and weighs 4.68 pounds and has a thickness of 1.1 inches. Available in silver or black, the 15.6-inch LCD display is perfect for viewing videos and paying games apart from professional uses such as comparing graphs and charts. The 2.4 Ghz Intel Core i7-4700MQ notebook is installed with Beats Audio processing and quad-core AMD processors with integrated graphics. It is also equipped with a high performing webcam taking video conferencing to the next level. It is Bluetooth 4.0 enabled and has Intel HD Graphics 4600/Nvidia GeForce GT 740m.

HP Pavilion x360 Users can now effortlessly convert from notebook to stand to tent to tablet mode for all their productivity and entertainment needs with HP’s Pavilion x360 convertible PC, featuring a 360° hinge. Equipped with a touchscreen, users can make the most of this flexible device.

With BeatsAudio and dual speakers optimized for use in any position, the HP Pavilion x360 is designed for the best-sounding, richest audio on a PC, says the company.

HP TrueVision HD Webcam enables capturing all the details with vibrant clarity, even in low light and users can enjoy the nuances of face-to-face conversations on the 11.6-inch display. Powered by Windows 8, it is available in 4GB and 8GB memory with a varied choice for internal storage. It also has 500GB hybrid hard drive among other features.

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Lenovo

Mohammed Hilili, General Manager, Lenovo Gulf

Serving all modes

Believing that life has many modes and therefore, so should technology, Mohammed Hilili, General Manager, Lenovo Gulf, shares with The Shelf, how the company reflects this philosophy.

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What is Lenovo’s prime business focus for the second half of 2014 in the region?

As part of our Protect and Attack strategy, we will continue to protect and leverage our leadership position in the $200b-plus PC industry across all segments, consumers, SMBs and enterprise with flagship products such as Yoga 2 Pro, Flex, All-inOne and New X1 Carbon.

In addition, we will further attack the regional market with our portfolio of tablets and smartphone, which include flagship products such as the game-changing Yoga Tablet, Vibe X and Vibe Z smartphones.

Over the past year, Lenovo has grabbed significant tablet and smartphones market share in the Gulf and we expect to maintain quarteron-quarter growth. We have

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Products from Lenovo

several new and innovative devices coming this year that will cement Lenovo as a key player in tablets and smartphones.

What kind of opportunities do you see in the crowded smartphone market? How do you plan to grow this segment within the region? What will your differentiators be?

Lenovo has established its position as a relevant smartphone player by becoming the world’s 4th largest smartphone vendor in a very short period.

In the MEA region, Lenovo introduced a broad portfolio in UAE and KSA in June 2013 and most recently, we launched our portfolio in Nigeria.

Lenovo has more than 10 smartphone models in the region including entry level, mid-range and the flagship Vibe X and Vibe Z. The portfolio fits every style and personality. In 2014, Lenovo plans to introduce its smartphone portfolio to several markets within the Middle East. In addition, Lenovo will continue to refresh its portfolio with new flagship models coming later this year.

Lenovo has introduced phablets into this market recently, how do you see the screen size evolving in the next few years? What is Lenovo’s take on this trend?

Lenovo smartphones are designed to cater to intuitive and trendy users who demand stylish, fast and sleek smartphones to stay connected, share picture perfect photos and enjoy multimedia videos and gaming on full HD screens.

We strongly believe screen size does matter and this is now the trend. We introduced in the region the slender S930, a 6-inch high definition wideview display with the ease of a tablet and convenience of a 3G phone, which makes it more fun to call friends, watch movies, video chat or play games. We added in Dual cameras, Dolby Digital 26

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Plus audio, and Dual SIM, making the S930 the phablet that has it all.

In addition, we introduced the incredibly powerful and super fast Vibe Z, a 5.5-inch with full high definition (1920x1080) IPS wide angle viewing touchscreen display and with its custom imaging software, high resolution front and rear cameras and wide screen, the Vibe Z surpasses the shutterbug features of other smartphones.

Vibe Z offers Lenovo-specific software supporting motion and gestures for better one-handed usage on large screen devices How have customers responded to the Yoga range of laptops and tablets? Going forward, how does Lenovo plan to increase this market share?

Lenovo was the first to introduce the 360-convertible Yoga laptops. The launch of Yoga laptops brought people a new way to get the most out of their PC/tablet hybrid experience.

We saw great demand for the Yoga, which led to the introduction of Yoga 2, Yoga 2 Pro and the Thinkpad Yoga.

With the Yoga Tablet, Lenovo changed the game. Yoga tablet features three unique modes, giving consumers a better way to use a tablet.

With hold, tilt and stand modes, the tablet adapts to the way people use it instead of forcing people to adapt to the technology. Additionally the Yoga Tablet has up to 18 hours of battery to truly fit users’ ultra mobile lifestyles.

Discovering that people frequently use tablets in three main ways allowed us to exceed expectations of not only what customers need, but what they want, a better way to read, browse, watch and interact with content. The launch of Yoga Tablet further affirms our commitment to becoming the leaders in PC+ and boosts our market share. We recently announced the launch

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of Yoga Tablet HD+, which will be in the region very soon.

Lenovo currently has the largest portfolio of multimode devices in the market. We believe that life has many modes, so should technology.

“ We strongly believe convertibles and multimode devices will be must-have household products.”

Could you elaborate on how design plays an integral role in Lenovo’s market strategy?

Design is an integral part of our strategy and innovation is in our DNA. As mentioned earlier, Lenovo was the first to introduce the 360-degree Yoga convertible and with Yoga Tablet, we introduced a truly unique design.

Lenovo has won many awards for its design and innovations. Earlier this year, Lenovo won record 61 Awards at CES and most recently we won two prestigious Red Dot awards for our New Thinkpad X1 Carbon and our Panoramic ThinkVision LT2934z monitor.

As a global leader in PC, what kind of growth plans do you have for desktops in the region?

We are seeing huge potential growth in the commercial space for desktops. Lenovo has a market share of 24% in Desktop PC in the UAE, according to IDC Q1 FY1415 Preliminary results and through our Protect and Attack strategy, we will further increase our share aggressively this year.

What kind of trends can you predict for this market? How do you see this space shaping out?

We strongly believe convertibles and multimode devices will be must-have household products; and Lenovo is leading this space with the widest range of multimode devices, such as the Yoga range, Helix, Flex, Twist, Yoga Tablet and many more.

The world is shifting towards PC Plus and Lenovo is in a great position to capitalize on this and become a leader in PC Plus. www.redingtonmea.com

YOGA TABLET

YOGA 2 PRO

Yoga Tablet 10’s design incorporates a battery cylinder and kickstand on the side of the device, shifting the center of gravity and opening up multiple usage modes: Hold, Tilt, and Stand. In hold mode, the weight of the device falls into your palm rather than your fingers, making it more comfortable for reading and browsing. Lay it down for Tilt mode and you have a perfect viewing angle for typing or gaming. Flick the kickstand and rest it upright in Stand mode to comfortably watch videos, listen to music, or video-chat.

It keeps going over the long haul with its off-the-charts battery life. Its battery lasts up to 18 hours without recharging. This is possible because of its cylinder-shaped side chamber allows more room for battery storage.

Its 10.1” HD (1280 x 800) display delivers high definition visuals at a 178 degree viewing angle thanks to the display’s in-plane switching (IPS) technology.

Integrated Bluetooth, 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and GPS keep the user connected.

The 5.0M rear and 1.6M front cameras let you take high-definition pictures and enjoy crisp, clear video chats. Expand the Yoga Tablet 10’s native 16GB of eMMC storage with up to 32GB micro-SD card storage support.

Yoga 2 Pro’s high resolution QHD+ multitouch display flips back 360 degrees to offer four different usage modes: Laptop, Tablet, Stand, and Tent. Life has many modes; so should your technology.

Easily change between four modes — Laptop, Stand, Tablet, and Tent — while Lenovo Transition automatically switches system settings and locks the keyboard in place. The Yoga 2 Pro’s unique design and touchscreen display allows the screen to flip around 360 degrees, which means you can select the mode you use based on what you choose to Do. Installed in the ultrabook, the Lenovo Recommends software recognizes when you switch modes and recommends apps that work best. The Yoga 2 Pro’s super-highresolution QHD+ (3200 x 1800) 10-point multitouch Corning glass display delivers spectacular visuals, while in-plane switching (IPS) technology assures that images will be crisp across a wide viewing angle.

Starting at a mere 1.39kg (3.1 lbs) and just 15.5mm (0.61”) thick, the Yoga 2 Pro is ultraportable — it’s perfect for doers on the go. And with up to 9 hours of battery life, you can go all day without recharging.

Users can use the webcam as an input device — effortlessly flip pages, rewind/forward music, change volume, and gesture other simple commands with the flick of a hand.

The AccuType keyboard is ergonomically designed to make typing more comfortable and to reduce errors, while backlighting makes it easy to use in low-light settings.

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Products from Lenovo

FLEX 20

Flex 14 Flex 14 is a thin and light dual-mode notebook PC with a touchscreen that flips to 300 degrees. Powered with 4th generation intel core i7 processor, users can now have enhanced viewing with the 14” HD display with 10-point multitouch technology. With memory expandable to 8GB, it is equipped up to 1TB HD with integrated 16GB SSD or 1TB SSHD with integrated 16GB NAND flash or up to 256GB SSD. The notebook is designed to be responsive and easy to use and is optimised for Windows 8. Flex 14 can even perform simple commands through the voice control feature and the AccuType keyboard with individual rounded keys makes typing more comfortable and accurate, says the company. The energy manage feature enables the battery to last longer by using energy-saving technology. The notebook is also integrated with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi connectivity and has a 720p HD webcam.

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The Flex 20 is a sleek all-in-one desktop that transitions into the interactive, multi-user table mode. The two different modes — Stand mode and Table mode — allow you to touch, type, create, and share, while its portable design gives you the flexibility to move it from room to room.

Use the Flex 20 as an all-in-one PC with a comfortably adjustable screen angle, or lay it flat and enjoy an unprecedented multi-user experience using it as a new category of device.

When it is used as a table PC, two or more people can simultaneously access content via this distinct new user interface called Aura. It makes the PC a social device, bringing users together around a single screen to enjoy fun apps and multimedia.

Interact with the device by using simple, intuitive gestures directly on the 19.5-inch 10-point multitouch display — and enjoy high-def visuals with a wide viewing angle. It comes with a wide range of multi-player games and educational apps.

Enjoy a crisp, clear, immersive surround sound experience over built-in stereo speakers, with increased audio clarity and maximized volume output without distortion.

It enables up to 10 times faster file transfer, allowing for lightning-fast copying of large media files, as well as seamless connections between audio- and video-related peripherals.

Backwards-compatible with USB 2.0 devices.

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Final take

Era of mobility The world is awash with smartphones and tablets, and this trend shows no signs of abating. To put this in perspective, it took almost a century for telephones to reach 50 million users, and 13 years for TV. Today, a simple but innovative smartphone app can reach that milestone in a matter of days. If you have any doubts over the popularity of smartphones, look at the numbers – the global smartphone market topped one billion shipments last year and is expected to reach 1.75 billion this year. The decline in average selling prices has propelled smartphones and tablets to make up 43 percent of the consumer technology market, with smartphones being the largest category compared to TVs, wearable devices, PCs and cameras.

The increase in the number of vendors in the mobility space (smartphones and tablets) has given more options for consumers in emerging markets such as ours, giving them affordable means of computing. Consumers requirement to have anytime convenient access to information is diverting consumer spending towards smartphones and tablets, offering an opportunity for the channel to look beyond traditional revenue streams of a stand-alone PC. Redington Gulf has been riding the crest of this tidal wave, since we forayed into mobility solutions six quarters ago. We distribute these products from leading PC manufacturers who recently introduced these products and also some exclusive tablet and smartphone manufacturers. Redington Gulf has experienced higher than forecasted growth in the expected shipments for Tablets and in the current financial year we expect mobility products to account more than 20 per cent of our Middle East volume distribution business.

At Redington, we are excited about the future of smart devices in a hyperconnected world and we are gearing up for a concerted push into this dynamic market along with our partners. We are hoping to build on our success by continuing to expand our portfolio, and working very closely with our channel partners to make the most of these new opportunities.

We would love to hear from you about any feedback or any perspectives on the market. Do write to us at sales.volume@redingtongulf.com to share your views and experiences.

Ashish Bharti President, Redington GulfVolume Division, Middle East

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