Arabian Reseller - May 2020

MAY 2020

www.arabianreseller.com

Vol. 2. Issue 5.

THE

COVID-19 IMPACT

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CONTENTS 

16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

C OV I D - 1 9 I M PAC T The Pandemic Has Seen a Wave of a New Generation of Gamers

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Stay Close to Customers to Understand Their Needs Leadership Should Make Accommodations for Challenges They May Face

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Companies Should Ensure Employees Are Motivated Health and Wellbeing of Employees Have Taken Precedence

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It’s Time to Prioritise Movement, Agility, and Adaptability Protecting the Jobs of Workforce is Important Being Digital-First and Cloud-First is Key Staying Connected and Engaged With Each Other is Important Enabling Customers to Optimise Their Networks is Key

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Digital Transformation is the Need of the Hour

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Enabling the Connected Future is Top Priority

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Physical and Mental Health of Employees is Top Priority

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Experiencing Surge in the Uptake of Infrastructure and Security Solutions DCG Responds to its Members’ Concerns About the Impact of COVID-19

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EDITORIAL

MAY 2020

EDITOR IN CHIEF Chris N. Fernando chris@ryshamedia.com

SALES AND MARKETING Ranbir Sen ranbir@ryshamedia.com

CHRIS N. FERNANDO EDITOR IN CHIEF

How to Prepare for a Post COVID-19 BusinessWorld?

The coronavirus outbreak is first and foremost a human tragedy, affecting hundreds of thousands of people. It is also having a growing impact on the global economy. Thus, companies need to increase communication, balance the needs of the business with expectation setting and morale building, so employees know that their well-being is top of mind.

They also need to change working norms, making remote work practical and simple whenever possible. And of course, they must protect people’s health, with whatever measures are appropriate to the workplace: positive hygiene habits, personal protective equipment, amended sick-leave policies—whatever it takes to ensure health and safety.

Organisations must also consider how the current crisis will also change long-term social interactions, events, personal contacts and what products and services will better serve them in the new post COVID-19 world. Many customer behaviour changes will require new or modified products and services.

New market leaders will emerge while some past leaders falter. Many companies will struggle post COVID-19. Smart companies will adopt a proactive approach to understand what changes will occur and be ready

to adjust their products, services and strategies quickly to meet current and future customer needs.

Many believe that COVID-19 will affect more people and businesses directly and will have a more far reaching impact on businesses of all types than any crisis in the past half century. Thus our cover story section this month focuses on the impact COVID-19 has had on businesses in the region.

Inside, industry experts from across the region speak about the challenges faced due to the pandemic, what their companies have done to weather the challenges presented, stimulus for employees and customers, and so on. COVID-19 is dramatically changing consumer and business behaviors today. Undoubtedly, many of those behaviors will remain long after the diminishment and defeat of the virus.

New behaviours become permanent the longer they are in place. And in this case, one of the primary human emotions, fear propels and engrains the behaviour changes. Organisations must consider how the current crisis will also change long-term social interactions, events, personal contacts and what products and services will better serve them in the new post COVID-19 world.

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DEPUTY EDITOR Edward Frank edward@ryshamedia.com

SENIOR WRITER Priyan Sampath priyan@ryshamedia.com

GRAPHIC DESIGNER John Christy info@ryshamedia.com

EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Prarthana Mary prarthana@ryshamedia.com

DIGITAL TEAM Context Media LLP, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. www.arabianreseller.com

C O N TA C T I N F O R M AT I O N Rysha Media LLC, Sharjah Media City (Shams), Al Messaned, Al Bataeh, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.

Email: ranbir@ryshamedia.com Web: www.ryshamedia.com ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

While the publisher has made all efforts to ensure the accuracy of information in the magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors whatsoever.

Copyright @ 2020

NEWS

Acronis Announces the Launch of Cyber Protect Cloud

Fortinet Announces the New FortiGate 4200F Powered by NP7 Fortinet has announced another milestone in its ability to deliver the industry’s highest performance. Powered by NP7, the seventh generation of Fortinet’s custom-built network processor, FortiGate 4200F is specifically engineered to deliver the scalability and performance required for the networks of today and tomorrow.

required to cost-effectively meet the demands of today’s digital workplace. This has forced organizations to purchase security solutions with minimal performance and scalability headroom. As a result, when a critical event occurs, or the market requires digital innovation, firewalls become a bottleneck rather than an enabler.

John Maddison, EVP of products and CMO at Fortinet, said, “In recent weeks, the lack of performance and scalability of integrated firewall and VPN solutions has challenged organizations when scaling their secure remote access initiatives. Organizations deploying traditional firewalls cannot scale across multiple applications and have been forced to upgrade or even install completely separate appliances.

With 10 times the performance at the same price, the FortiGate 4200F powered by our 7th generation Network Processor (NP7) sets a new paradigm in network security performance. Our ability to deliver the highest performing firewalls on the market means customers can either scale far beyond their expectations at the same price point of competitors or spend less to get the performance they need. Either way, our customers win.”

To deliver security that keeps pace with the scale and performance demands of the new realities of today’s data centers, Fortinet is introducing the FortiGate 4200F, the newest addition to its portfolio of highend network firewalls. As an integral part of the Fortinet Security Fabric, FortiGate 4200F has been specifically engineered to enable an innovative, security-driven networking approach that seamlessly integrates networking with security. The hardware acceleration of FortiGate 4200F via Fortinet’s seventh generation network processor, NP7, delivers Security Compute Ratings 5 to 15 times better than comparable competitor solutions.

Organizations need to be able to expand and adapt their network security to changing business conditions at a moment’s notice. Whether an organization is retooling their network to suddenly support a remote workforce, or embracing digital innovation, performance and scalability are key. Unfortunately, most security solutions are simply unable to provide speed and scale at a price that most companies can afford.

That’s because security vendors simply have not invested in the technology

FortiGate 4200F enables ultra-fast network firewalling, accelerated internal segmentation, and massively scalable teleworker solutions to secure the data center edge and core across a variety of use cases. FortiGate 4200F, powered

by Fortinet’s 7th generation processor (NP7), radically increases the speed, scale, and performance for large enterprise data centers. The 4200F delivers the highest performance and scale to securely drive digital innovation and meet the huge capacity and performance demands of critical business operations across a wide variety of verticals and large enterprises including financial services, healthcare, education, advanced research, and high-velocity e-commerce.

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Acronis, announced the global launch of Acronis Cyber Protect Cloud, a cyber protection solution that integrates backup, disaster recovery, next-generation anti-malware, anti-virus, cybersecurity and management tools all in one single console. It delivers AI-powered integration of data protection and cybersecurity, and empowers users to address modern cyber threats. This the result of an effort from Acronis R&D centers (Schaffhausen, Sofia and Singapore): 500 developers and analysts.

“Traditional backup is dead because it is not secure enough, and traditional anti-viruses do not protect data from modern cyberthreats. Legacy solutions are no longer able to counteract the dangers businesses face,” said Acronis Founder and CEO Serguei “SB” Beloussov. Over the past decades, technology has developed and progressed at an incredible pace. What was impossible just ten years ago is now commonplace. Cyber Protect Cloud allows organisations to share highly sensitive data, and to protect conference call applications; a critical resource for most organisations worldwide these days.

Technology, traditionally an enabler of industry competition and growth, is now key in the fight against the pandemic. It is also critical for organisations, in particular health systems, to secure their technology applications to minimize the risk posed by cyber threats such as ransomware and the associated human, data and financial losses. Following an exponential growth in cyber threats in the UK, Acronis’ Cyber Protection Research Center (CPOC) in Europe based in its Swiss headquarters stopped 12% more cyber threats to its users in April 2020 compared to March 2020.

For MSPs, the tool eliminates complexity and enables them to efficiently make security a focal point of their portfolios, and meet their clients’ expectations. It brings vendor consolidation and frees up time to focus on other business operations. “The spike in remote workers is also creating an increased need for new, secure workloads,” explains Indresh Yadav, CEO of VMotion IT. “Leveraging Acronis Cyber Cloud, we are also working with customers to offer secure file sharing options. Access control and permissions and the ability to set specific terms around URL sharing is key.” For enterprises and individuals, it allows them to monitor devices and automatically stop threats.

NEWS

Dell Launches Dell EMC PowerStore

Attacks on Educational Web Resources Tripled in Q1 2020 The Kaspersky Q1 2020 DDoS attacks report has revealed the overall number of attacks grew during the first three months of the year, with a significant spike in attacks on municipal and educational sites.

conflicting messages abo

This can be due to the fact that DDoS actors are taking advantage of the current situation when people are locked down in their homes and are heavily reliant on digital resources.

Many schools and universities have also shifted to online lessons. In general, the total amount of DDoS attacks in Q1 2020 has increased as well.

During this period, Kaspersky DDoS Protection detected and blocked double the amount of attacks than in Q4 2019, and 80% more in comparison with Q1 2019. The average duration of attacks also grew: in Q1 2020, a DDoS attack lasted 25% longer than in Q1 2019.

The coronavirus pandemic, beginning in the first quarter of 2020, has caused almost all activities – be it learning, work, or leisure – to shift online. The increased demand in online resources was noted by cyberattackers, who conducted attacks on the most vital digital services or those that are growing in popularity.

For instance, the US government’s Department of Health and Human Services, a group of hospitals in Paris, and servers of an online game were all targets of DDoS attacks in February and March.

Kaspersky’s Q1 2020 DDoS attacks report also revealed notable growth in attacks on educational resources and cities’ official websites. In Q1 2020, this number tripled compared to the same period in 2019. The share of such attacks amounted to 19% of the total number of incidents in Q1 2020.

Kaspersky experts suggest that the growth in attackers’ interest is caused by the fact that people are becoming more reliant on these online resources remaining stable and accessible during the outbreak. If they have seen

ut the virus and what preventive measures can be taken, people may look at official sources of information for more assured guidance.

To help organizations protect themselves from DDoS attacks while staff work from home and during significant spikes in attackers’ activity, Kaspersky recommends taking the following measures: • Do not panic. Unexpected traffic peaks may look like a DDoS attack, but these instances can be caused by legitimate users. They can visit resources which were not as popular before, at times they were not previously accessing them.

• Conduct a fault tolerance analysis of your infrastructure to identify weak nodes and increase their reliability. Attack vectors and traffic peaks are changing, so some resources may work unstably.

• Consider DDoS protection for your non-public services. Their importance to business continuity may increase, making them a target for malefactors.

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Dell Technologies has announced the Dell EMC PowerStore, a modern infrastructure platform built from the ground up with superior technology and expertise to address the challenges of the data era. “Customers tell us a main obstacle keeping them from achieving their digital transformation initiatives is the constant tug-of-war between supporting the ever-increasing number of workloads–from traditional IT applications to data analytics –and the reality of cost constraints, limitations and complexity of their existing IT infrastructure,” said Dan Inbar, president and general manager, storage, Dell Technologies. “Dell EMC PowerStore blends automation, next generation technology, and a novel software architecture to deliver infrastructure that helps organizations address these needs.”

Organizations can accelerate decision making, data access and application performance with PowerStore, which is designed for six-nines (99.9999%) availability: • Any Workload: PowerStore simplifies IT infrastructure by supporting a wide range of traditional and modern workloads with its scale-up, scale-out architecture for block, file and VMware vVols.

• Performance Optimized: PowerStore is seven times faster and three times more responsive than previous Dell EMC midrange storage arrays, because of its end-to-end NVMe design and support for Storage Class Memory as persistent storage powered by dual port Intel Optane SSDs. • Efficiency Without Compromise: Customers can save on IT budget and capacity with always-on deduplication, compression and a guaranteed 4:1 data reduction.

• Machine learning and intelligent automation allows for faster delivery of applications and services with up to 99% less staff time to balance volumes.: • Programmable Infrastructure: Streamlines application development and reduces deployment timeframes from days to seconds, with VMware integration and support for leading management and orchestration frameworks including Kubernetes, Ansible and VMware vRealize Orchestrator.

• Autonomous Infrastructure: Built-in machine learning automates labor-intensive processes like initial volume placement, migrations, load balancing and issue resolution.

• Infrastructure Insights: Dell EMC CloudIQ storage monitoring and analytics software combines machine learning and human intelligence for real-time performance and capacity analysis and historical tracking for a single view of Dell EMC infastructure.

CHANNE L TALK

Over 200 Partners Attend Kodak Alaris’ First Virtual Partner Summit Over 200 partners joined Kodak Alaris at its first virtual Partner Summit this week. The global information capture specialist had planned on holding its annual partner conference for the EMEA region in Vienna from April 21 – 23, but in light of the current COVID-19 crisis, decided to make it a virtual event.

Alaris President and General Manager Don Lofstrom confirmed that despite the challenges presented by the current global pandemic, Kodak Alaris’ performance in the financial year ended March 31 was strong overall. In his address to partners, he provided an update on the impact of COVID-19 on the business and the marketplace over the past four months, as well as steps Kodak Alaris has taken to minimise disruption to its customers.

“Employee safety and supply chain management have been at the forefront of the company’s focus,” Lofstrom said. “Our supply chain is now intact and strong, our manufacturing sites in China are up and running at nearly full capacity. Scanner production is over 95 percent capacity now compared with 40 percent in March. Our secondary supply chain partners are also beginning to normalise, although we continue to monitor this very carefully in certain regions.”

Whilst March brought some delays and slippage to orders, Lofstrom said that this month has seen increased demand from a number of sectors including healthcare and logistics. “Work from home mandates are also creating market needs for digitization and remote collaboration solutions that involve our digital capture and software offers” he explained, adding: “We have also increased our use of remote monitoring and service to ensure we keep customers up and running, and do continue to provide essential on-site service in locations where government mandates allow.”

66% of partners who attended the virtual event said that COVID-19 had ‘considerably changed’ their business and that they were looking to change their business strategy. Lofstrom said that Kodak Alaris is thinking outside the box, looking for opportunities to offer expertise to help partners overcome these new challenges. “We expect some short-term decline for most applications as a result of the crisis but are confident that there will be some pockets of incremental demand. The need to share documents across remote teams and accurately capture data and automate business processes will remain critical, with many organisations under pressure to remove manual steps and reduce staff time,” he stated.

IBM Announces new Business Partner Program IBM at its Think Digital conference announced a reimagined Business Partner program that gives partners the flexibility to engage in one or more pathways to success. IBM PartnerWorld now includes clear pathways for IBM Business Partners that create applications, develop code, integrate their intellectual property (IP) or deliver services with the IBM Cloud.

The new evolution of PartnerWorld expands the program framework to three specialized tracks—Build, Service and Sell—each with tailored offers that are designed to help Business Partners unlock meaningful benefits faster. By adding the new Build and Service tracks alongside the existing Sell track, IBM aligns with the growing trend of partners shifting and expanding their models to better compete in a market driven by cloud adoption. With 58 percent of partner revenue now coming from their own IP, partners are increasingly focused on integrating and delivering cloud-based solutions and services.

This includes helping clients with their hybrid multicloud strategies, as well. As IBM continues to enhance its Systems portfolio with IBM Cloud, including Red Hat and IBM Cloud Pak solutions, clients look to partners to help them improve IT agility and bridge mission critical applications on IBM Z, Power and Storage Systems.

“The world looks drastically different than it did just months ago, and our current business environment has only advanced the trend toward business

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model flexibility,” said David La Rose, GM, IBM Partner Ecosystem. “During this time, our Business Partners continue to adopt cloud business models and strengthen their digital skills to serve clients, who are also facing new challenges. Our partners’ success is dependent on their adaptability and ingenuity when it comes to helping clients overcome these challenges, now more than ever. We’re counting on them to use IBM’s open, hybrid cloud approach to help clients discover new ways to solve problems during these uncertain times.”

The program changes reflect the latest industry research and feedback from IBM Business Partners. “At IDC, we believe the new PartnerWorld program framework gives partners the flexibility they need to succeed in the market rather than being relegated to a single partner type,” said Steve White, Program VP of IDC. “These tracks are innovative, giving builders, sellers and service partners access to the benefits that matter most to them. The best part is, all partners can participate in these tracks, no matter where they’re at in their program journey. In particular, the Partner Support Desk will be a huge help to partners navigating this new program, enabling them to maximize on everything PartnerWorld has to offer."

“At Flagship, we’ve focused on investing in our own IP over the last several years,” said Mark Wyllie, CEO of Flagship Solutions Group. “With these changes to PartnerWorld, I’m pleased to see a greater focus on partners that build solutions and offerings on the IBM Cloud.”

CHANNE L TALK

NEC and Intermedia Announce Global Partnership

Help AG and Forcepoint Partner to Help Companies Protect Their Data In a move that strengthens its ability to enable Middle East businesses to protect their data against breaches, insider threats and cyber-attacks, Help AG has entered into partnership with cybersecurity solutions provider, Forcepoint. While the agreement extends across Forcepoint’s entire product portfolio, Help AG will focus particularly on the vendor’s unique dynamic security protection offerings, Dynamic Data Protection, Dynamic Edge Protection and Dynamic User protection, offering these to enterprises in the UAE and KSA. “Data is one of the most valuable assets for businesses and its protection is therefore a top priority. Middle East organisations are looking to safeguard their data, not just for compliance purposes, but also because of the potential impact breaches can have on business continuity and brand reputation,” explained Stephan Berner, CEO at Help AG. Research by the Ponemon Institute has shown that the impact of data breaches has been especially severe for Middle East organisations. The region reports the world’s highest average number of breached records, at 38,000 per incident, with the average cost of each data breach averaging at nearly $6 million. Both these figures are about 50% more than the global average.

“Forcepoint’s security solutions perfectly compliment the rest of our portfolio and their model has the benefit of supporting both cloud and on-premise deployment options.

Furthermore, their open platform strategy facilitates seamless integration with other industry-leading solutions. We can therefore leverage their products to build comprehensive, multi-vendor solutions that protect the entire data life cycle for

our clients, whether in the cloud or in private data centres,” said Berner.

Forcepoint is a 9-time leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Enterprise DLP and their solutions protect organizations from information leaks and data loss at the perimeter, inside the organization and in enterprise cloud apps, including Office 365, Box, and Salesforce.

The vendor’s DLP solution includes an analytics engine that identifies and ranks high-risk incidents, reducing false positives and enabling businesses to isolate problems faster. Dynamic Data Protection employs behavioural analytics and machine learning in its solution to examine and assess user behaviour.

By understanding attributes like typical access patterns of users, this individualised, adaptive security protects enterprises against malicious user actions such as data exfiltration or unauthorized access to critical assets and systems.

“As business models evolve to meet the challenges of digital transformation, the way that organisations adapt their data protection strategies will prove critical. By moving to a human-centric approach which places the data, and the understanding of user behaviour at the centre of their design, organizations can proactively protect themselves,” said Gihan Kovacs, Senior Country Manager for UAE and Pakistan at Forcepoint.

“Help AG has a proven track record in rapidly assessing and embracing best of breed technologies that solve key cybersecurity challenges. We are confident that with their expertise and support we will be ready to successfully engage with and serve a broader segment of Middle East enterprises.”

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NEC Corporation has announced a global strategic partnership with Intermedia. Together, NEC and Intermedia are launching NEC Univerge Blue Connect, a fully integrated and born-in-the-cloud UCaaS solution, and NEC Univerge Blue Engage, a CCaaS solution for businesses of all sizes. For 120 years, NEC has transformed communications and IT for business.

NEC Univerge Blue Connect and Engage are built on Intermedia’s innovative, proprietary technology and world-class support and will be brought to market through NEC’s robust partner ecosystem. With NEC Univerge Blue Connect and Engage, NEC is bolstering its global cloud communications offerings to fully support customer organizations in their migration to the cloud.

“The global NEC Group continues to be committed to helping customers solve a wide array of both business and societal issues and challenges, not the least of which is building a sustainable and more efficient society through the digital transformation of business infrastructure. This partnership for the delivery of cloud-based communications, collaboration, and contact center solutions with Intermedia allows NEC and its global network of partners to build toward a brighter future with the utmost care for quality, cost, and customer service,” said Kimihiko Fukuda, Senior Vice President, NEC Corporation and President, NEC Platforms, Ltd. “NEC is committed to helping businesses meet the demands of today’s digital workforce through our Smart Enterprise portfolio, and we recognize that enabling customer migration to the cloud is a key component,” said Paul Kievit, President and Head of NEC Enterprise Solutions EMEA and Americas. “To support this rapid migration on a global scale, NEC aimed to team up with a born-in-the-cloud partner that could provide a best-in-class, fully-integrated suite of UCaaS and CCaaS solutions.”

Ram Menghani, SVP of Product Development for NEC Enterprise Communications Technologies, further stated, “After a comprehensive review of the market, Intermedia was the clear winner. Intermedia’s UCaaS and CCaaS solutions are elegant, intuitive, and deliver a seamless experience that allow for highly reliable and secure anytime, anywhere communications.

Combining this with its unique, partner-first philosophy and impeccable support and reliability – including its 99.999% guaranteed uptime service level agreements and being the only business cloud application provider to have been certified

by J.D. Power for its superior 24/7 technical support now four years in a row – made Intermedia the perfect fit for NEC.”

NEWS

Nutanix Partners with Avid Technology Nutanix have announced that its hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) software has been certified to run with Avid Media Composer video editing software and the Avid MediaCentral media collaboration platform. Nutanix is the first HCI-powered private cloud solution to be certified for Avid products, offering a fully integrated solution for any Avid environment with the hardware platform of choice, built-in hypervisor, and one-click management.

Nutanix is a trusted partner for the media and entertainment industry, helping content providers transform their businesses by increasing engagement with faster content delivery, especially at a time when end users are looking to access digital entertainment and content more than ever. Nutanix cloud software enables customers to increase cross-channel engagement, empower content creators, drive operating efficiency, and improve decision-making that’s uniform across all functions and locations.

“Media companies are facing a wide range of challenges today to ensure post production teams have immediate access to workflows and can collaborate with teams across the globe to accelerate the pace of production,” said Tim Claman, Chief Technology Officer at Avid. “Nutanix helps deliver these capabilities in a user-friendly solution that is not only scalable and powerful but also easy to deploy and maintain to deliver a simplified approach to adopting virtualization and hybrid cloud models.”

A leading software provider in the media and entertainment industry, Avid delivers one of the most open and efficient media platforms, connecting content creation with collaboration, asset protection, distribution, and consumption. Avid’s customer community uses the company’s comprehensive tools and workflow solutions to create, distribute, and monetize media globally.

Many media and entertainment organizations lack the resources to support tiered virtualization models with multiple management interfaces and complex design, making HCI an ideal solution. Nutanix accelerates this transformation with: • A single platform for applications. Nutanix supports application needs across customers’ workflows — from virtual desktops, to asset management, to transcoding to analytics — on a single, integrated platform.

• Greater operational efficiency and integration. By reducing IT complexity and simplifying management, Nutanix helps significantly reduce barriers to productivity, enabling teams to focus attention on innovation and smoother content delivery.

• Storing and securing digital content. Because security is designed in Nutanix’s HCI platform, rather than bolted on, digital assets remain more secure with less effort. This helps enable customers to access media assets in a seamless way.

Mimecast Report Shows Increase in Malicious Activity in the First 100 Days of COVID-19 While the world has been focused on managing the healthcare, economic and social consequences of the novel coronavirus, a war has been quietly raging as cybercriminals leverage the crisis to escalate their activities. According to a new Mimecast report – titled 100 Days of Coronavirus – that tracks cybercrime activity since the start of the coronavirus outbreak, the volume of malicious and opportunistic cybercrime across all types of cybercrime has increased significantly by 33% in the period January to March 2020.

The report provides a clear picture of how malicious actors are exploiting opportunities and provides a detailed analysis of all the trends across various regions, seen by the Mimecast Threat Intelligence team.

The new report has found that, in the period January to March 2020, monthly volumes of: • Spam and opportunistic cybercrime detections increased by 26.3%, • Impersonation fraud detections increased by 30.3%, • Malware detections increased by 35.16%, and • Blocking URL clicks increased by 55.8%, meaning people are more likely now to click on unsafe links than before the outbreak.

Carl Wearn, head of e-crime at Mimecast, said, “Many employees that suddenly find themselves working from home, are not sufficiently equipped or aware of cyber threats

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and may put their organisations at risk by engaging in unsafe behaviour.

Considering the rise in threats and unsafe clicks as shown by the report, there is an urgent need for organisations to step up their cybersecurity awareness training efforts to ensure employees have the tools and knowledge to avoid risky online behaviour.”

In addition, over 115 000 Covid-19 related spoof domains that are designed to steal personal information have been detected since January. When focusing on detections on Middle East and North Africa, the Threat Intelligence team found notable increases in malware and spam in the region. “In February and March, as the coronavirus started spreading in several of these countries, we saw a 22% increase in malware and a 36% increase in spam. Most interestingly was a 751% increase in unsafe clicks by users over the three-month period. This is likely an indication of people letting their guards down and desperate to learn more, as communication channels were flooded with information – both legitimate and fake – about the virus,” says Wearn.

“Given the continuing uncertainty over our immediate future and the impact of the virus on various communities, threat actors and cybercriminals are likely to continue to exploit the situation and to evolve their methods according to the current news cycle – with potentially disastrous consequences for unwary employees and organisations,” concluded Wearn.

NEWS

Genetec Says 2020 is When Businesses Go Digital Genetec has announced that it is significantly expanding its digital initiatives to make it easier for customers and partners to stay connected and informed over the coming months.

Following the success of Connect’DX, the Genetec virtual trade show and conference, the company is planning a similar event in the fall. Genetec is also ramping up its education programs with the immediate online availability of its entire technical curriculum including instructor-led classes, bespoke training, and self-paced learning options.

NetApp’s Project Astra to Offer Application-Integrated Data Management for Kubernetes NetApp has introduced Project Astra, a vision for a software-defined platform that is currently in development with the Kubernetes community. Project Astra will deliver the industry’s most robust, easy-to-consume, enterprise-class storage and data services platform for Kubernetes that enables both application and data portability for stateful applications.

Although companies everywhere are rapidly adopting Kubernetes, many organizations lack reliable data and application services, and have difficulty making application data as portable as the applications themselves are in Kubernetes. Yet to meet the standards that CIOs expect, IT teams and site reliability engineers must find a way to store, govern, protect, and replicate the data for both stateless and stateful cloud-native applications with enterprise-class cloud storage and data services.

Project Astra is being purpose-built for and in collaboration with Kubernetes developers and operations managers to help bridge the fundamental gap that exists between the popularity of containers today, the capabilities and user experience they require, and their ability to deliver true, comprehensive portability. NetApp’s vision for Project Astra is to enable companies to work seamlessly with their choice of Kubernetes distribution, on any cloud.

Project Astra leverages the underlying technology delivered through NetApp’s public cloud partners and enhances it through Kubernetes-native integration of data services with applications. NetApp

is working with the Kubernetes community to further develop technology that advances the user experience and extends the promise of Kubernetes to data-rich workloads.

Together, NetApp and the Kubernetes community are building a platform to help with: • Discovering applications with your Kubernetes of choice, whether on your premises or in any cloud • Integrating and unifying applications and data management • Delivering NetApp’s expertise in data and Kubernetes both as a service and as built-in capabilities • Extending the promise of portability for all workloads, including stateful, data-rich apps “Project Astra represents the next major step in the evolution of storage and data services for Kubernetes,” said Anthony Lye, senior vice president and general manager of NetApp’s Cloud Data Services business unit. “We are making a decisive and long-term commitment to addressing the data challenges of Kubernetes, together with the communities and platforms that use it. Project Astra will provide a software-defined architecture and set of tools that can plug into any Kubernetes distribution and management environment.”

Project Astra builds on NetApp’s experience in enabling customers to manage petabytes of container data with NetApp Trident and NetApp Kubernetes Services and adds a specific focus on the developers and operations managers who are innovating with containers today.

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Genetec also announced it will significantly reduce attendance at major in-person trade shows, conventions and conferences for the rest of the year. “The whole Genetec team is motivated and engaged to help the people who put their trust in us,” said Pierre Racz, President of Genetec, Inc. “These initiatives are about doing the right thing for our customers, our employees, and the industry as a whole. While we are all keen to get back on the road and interact with our customers and colleagues in person, I would much rather lose business than put a single customer or employee at risk.”

Over 8,200 industry professionals from all over the world registered for Connect’DX. Each of the 4,750 attendees who participated in the event spent an average of 9 hours each attending expert panels, educational sessions and product demos, and visiting partners’ booths, leading to a total of 20,057 unique presentation views and 22,426 booth visits. Over 40 hours of content from Connect’DX is now available on demand from the registration page, for existing registrants, and the post show registration page for newcomers.

Building on the success of its first virtual trade show, Genetec is planning another Connect’DX event this fall. An invitation-only gathering, it will be targeted at partners, consultants and end users. The company is also announcing a bi-weekly podcast that will explore the everyday challenges of managing and improving security, operations and intelligence with a practical look at real-world solutions and best practices.

“We are presented with a significant opportunity to reassess our in-person events model and think in nontraditional ways,” said Andrew Elvish, Vice President of Marketing at Genetec.

“Looking ahead, we will be putting the emphasis on our signature in-person events such as our Connect series, and in the near term focusing on digital experiences that deliver a high level of engagement without having to travel. The overwhelmingly positive feedback we received from everyone who participated in our first digital experience, Connect’DX, clearly demonstrates that the physical security industry is ready to embrace new ways of connecting, networking and learning.”

MOVE RS AND SHAKE RS

ThreatQuotient Gets New Regional Director ThreatQuotient has appointed Firas Ghanem as the Regional Director for Middle East and Pakistan. An industry veteran, Ghanem will be responsible for expanding the company’s presence in the region by continued investment in local sales, training, customer success and professional services. Ghanem will also be responsible for driving ThreatQuotient’s channel program, and establishing and growing all reseller partners and strategic alliances.

Leading organizations are heavily investing in digital transformation and recognize the need for security to become more of a focus. However, rising numbers of attack vectors and a rapidly changing threat landscape have led these local companies to view security as a bottleneck for economic growth. ThreatQuotient’s offerings, including the ThreatQ threat intelligence platform and the industry’s first cybersecurity situation room, ThreatQ Investigations, are uniquely positioned to address these challenges by helping organizations understand and act upon the most relevant threats facing their operations while ensuring the optimization of existing technology investments.

“ThreatQuotient has successfully been operating in Dubai for just under a year and Firas’s appointment is the next step to support an aggressive growth strategy in the Middle East and Pakistan.

His appointment is in direct response to growing demands for digital transformation in the Middle East and we are looking forward to supporting the security operation needs of this key region.

Firas brings a wealth of experience and industry knowledge and his background further strengthens our understanding of the region’s requirements and culture. This appointment will bolster our existing customer relations and help us establish new alliances and partnerships,” said Anthony Perridge, VP of International at ThreatQuotient.

Ghanem brings over 20 years of experience to the table and will play a pivotal role in achieving and maintaining a high-level of mutual success with all ThreatQuotient partners. Prior to joining ThreatQuotient, previous senior executive roles Ghanem held include Managing Director for Blue Coat Systems, and VSS Monitoring (part of Danaher Group). His role will focus on customer success, sales growth and building ThreatQuotient’s channel to satisfy the demand for threat intelligence solutions in the Middle East and Pakistan.

“This is an exciting time to join the company as threat intelligence is quickly growing in both popularity and importance. I hope to continue to build a strong and loyal channel program, ensuring all resellers share a deep knowledge of our technology and services, along with a commitment to the customer experience. The Middle East represents a significant opportunity for ThreatQuotient as we help our partners address their customer’s unique threat intelligence needs, today and in the future,” said Firas Ghanem as Regional Director – Middle East & Pakistan at ThreatQuotient.

BeyondTrust Gets New SVP of Global Channels and Alliances BeyondTrust has announced that Dee Dee Acquista has been appointed SVP of Global Channels and Alliances. Acquista brings more than 20 years of experience leading successful channel organizations. Her specialties lie in honing channel teams and programs to ensure the highest level of performance for her organization. Dee Dee joins BeyondTrust from SentinelOne where she led the worldwide channel effort for more than 2.5 years. Prior to this, Dee Dee worked alongside BeyondTrust CRO, Carl Helle at Proofpoint, Inc. (PFPT) where she developed and drove the worldwide channel strategy that yielded a 45% year-over-year growth trajectory for the organization.

“I am thrilled to have Dee Dee join our team. She is a seasoned executive with the skill, relationships and talent we need to drive our continued market leadership by executing on a global channel strategy,” said Carl Helle, Chief Revenue Officer at BeyondTrust. “Her vast experience will guide BeyondTrust and our global partners, providing the technical direction, sales alignment, business enablement, and the financial rewards that will assure them that BeyondTrust is a trusted partner.”

At BeyondTrust, Dee Dee will lead the global channel and alliances strategy, a key driver of the company’s leadership in Privileged Access Management (PAM), with a focus on expanding market share through their global partner ecosystem.

BeyondTrust will continue to build on its partner-first approach, by how we engage and enable our partners,

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utilizing our intellectual property, and helping our partners strategically and financially. These are attributes of a world-class channel framework, and critical to BeyondTrust’s partner-first commitment.

This new strategic addition to the sales leadership team will further drive BeyondTrust’s 2020 goals as the company looks to drive an increased percentage of bookings through the channel, grow managed services provider (MSP) offerings, and further enhance technology leadership with the innovative Universal Privilege Management approach.

This model enables organizations to secure and manage privileges across every user, session and asset in the IT environment by leveraging a combination of best-in-class solutions — from password management, to endpoint security and secure remote access.

“BeyondTrust’s security strategy and technology-leading products are very exciting, and I’m confident we will expand our channel to the next level of global growth, as a world-class partner,” said Acquista. “My aim is to leverage and build upon the great elements within the company’s current channel program while making improvements and enhancements to further elevate the global channel strategy. As we recast the company’s channel vision, we will articulate the mutual investments we make in partner education and enablement, while demonstrating our commitment to our partners to drive truly mutually beneficial value.”

Red Hat Gets New President and CEO Red Hat has announced that it has named Paul Cormier as president and chief executive officer of Red Hat, effective today.

Cormier, who previously served as Red Hat’s president of Products and Technologies, succeeds Jim Whitehurst, who is now president of IBM.

Huawei Gets New Middle East Enterprise Business Group President Driven by its commitment to help governments and industries with their digital transformation journeys across the Middle East, Huawei has announced the appointment of David Shi to the position of Regional Enterprise Business Group (EBG) President. The move is effective immediately and builds on the company’s plans to help shape the future of digital infrastructure using advanced ICT solutions.

Shi has more than a decade of experience working within the Middle East starting from 2007, and over 15 years of experience in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector, including technical sales, marketing, and business development. Having been with Huawei since 2005, he has held several roles for the company based in the region, helping the Huawei Enterprise Business Group to support the digital transformation plans of its customers across various industries.

Prior to his current position, Shi led Huawei’s Enterprise Group in Saudi Arabia as General Manager starting in 2017, driving the company’s continued success across the Kingdom. He has previously held the role of Marketing and Solution Sales Vice President for Huawei Middle East (2015-2017) and CTO of Huawei Saudi Arabia (20132015).

Speaking on the announcement, Charles Yang, President of Huawei Middle East, said: “In the enterprise business, we continue to be fully committed to our ‘Huawei Inside’ strategy, collaborating with our partners and sharing the value of digitalization with our customers. Today our Enterprise Business Group serves a diverse range of public and private sector organizations and their requirements. Someone with as strong a background and solid experience in the region as David is

ideal to head this division—leading the growth of not only our Enterprise Business Group, but helping businesses to lay the foundations for a digital Middle East.”

“Now more than ever, organizations are looking at their ICT needs to help them to futureproof their operations, while also providing possibilities to keep things moving in the current challenging times,” said Shi. “I am eager to step into this role at Huawei EBG and work with more of our customers across the Middle East to cultivate new opportunities. The trust of these partners and customers has been essential to our company’s success, and will continue to be moving forward.”

As of 2019, more than 700 cities and 228 Fortune Global 500 companies have chosen Huawei as their digital transformation partner. In addition, Huawei’s enterprise business has a network of more than 28,000 partners worldwide, which contribute up to 86% of the global revenue of the business group. Huawei has already established 13 OpenLabs worldwide to focus on the enterprise market. At these OpenLabs, Huawei supports partners in joint solution innovation, marketing, talent cultivation, finance, supply chains, and IT systems to continuously strengthen their capabilities and drive their digital transformation to achieve success.

“In the enterprise business, Huawei follows a ‘Platform + AI + Ecosystem’ strategy where we fully leverage the potential of AI technology to build platforms while creating a thriving ICT ecosystem. I look forward to working with our customers and partners to embrace multiple new ICT technologies that can bring digital to every person, home and organization for a fully connected intelligent world,” Shi added.

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Since joining Red Hat in 2001, Cormier’s leadership and vision have driven major strategy shifts and expansion of the company’s portfolio of products and services. Cormier is credited with pioneering the subscription model that transformed Red Hat from an open source disruptor to an enterprise technology mainstay, moving Red Hat Linux from a freely downloadable operating system to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, the industry’s leading enterprise Linux platform that today powers more than 90% of Fortune 500 organizations.

Cormier has driven more than 25 acquisitions at Red Hat, moving the company well beyond its Linux roots and helped create a full, modern IT stack based on open source innovation that disrupted the IT industry. The availability of true enterprise-grade open source products across the technology stack and changing business models have made open source a de facto source of innovation in the software industry, resulting in faster progress than proprietary vendors could provide alone.

For more than a decade, Cormier has championed a vision for open hybrid cloud, giving customers the flexibility to deliver any app, anywhere on any infrastructure from the edge and bare metal to multiple public clouds in a common, consistent manner. That vision helped establish Red Hat OpenShift, the industry’s most comprehensive enterprise Kubernetes platform, as a backbone of hybrid cloud deployments across industries. Cormier has also forged industry-changing partnerships, including a landmark partnership with Microsoft to bring broader choice to hybrid cloud deployments. He has been instrumental in Red Hat’s structural combination with IBM, focused on scaling and accelerating Red Hat while maintaining its independence and neutrality.

During his tenure at Red Hat, Whitehurst oversaw Red Hat’s expansion and increasing influence across the technology industry including growing revenue from more than $500 million to almost $3 billion for the company’s 2018 fiscal year, as well as the landmark acquisition of Red Hat by IBM for $34 billion in 2019. Under his leadership, Red Hat was named to Forbes’ list of “The World’s Most Innovative Companies” six times and named to Fortune’s list of the Most Admired Companies in 2019 and 2020. In addition to his new role as president of IBM, Whitehurst becomes chairman of Red Hat, succeeding Arvind Krishna, who is now CEO of IBM.

NEWS

Citrix Expands Remote PC Access Offerings Providing employees with access to their desktops from remote locations used to be a nice thing to do. Today, it’s a requirement to keep employees productive and businesses operating during the COVID-19 crisis. Faced with shelter in place and work from home mandates, many organizations rushed to arm employees with Virtual Private Network solutions (VPN) that allow them to connect to corporate systems.

But such offerings have their limitations. A recent Citrix-OnePoll survey of more than 2,000 US employees who work remote found that VPN-based remote work approaches resulted in “slow performance” and “lack of access to all the apps needed to get work done.” And further research has uncovered security and privacy concerns.

To provide a more secure and reliable alternative, Citrix Systems today announced that it is extending its globally leveraged Remote PC Access solution to the cloud, making it available as part of Citrix Desktop Service and Citrix Desktop Essentials. The move enables organizations of all sizes to deliver a familiar virtual desktop and high-performance experience that empowers employees to safely access all the apps, information and resources they need to perform at their best while working remotely.

“Businesses that rush solutions to accommodate remote work face security risks, questionable impact to productivity, and unknown network issues,” said Mark Bowker, senior analyst for Enterprise Strategy Group. “As companies work through addressing any shortcomings, now is an ideal time to consider VDI and other digital workspace technologies that can deliver a secure and productive experience for employees who are working from home.”

With Citrix Remote PC Access, IT organizations can quickly and easily deliver a full virtual desktop experience to employees by installing a small client (VDA) that allows users to securely remote into their Windows or Linux PCs from anywhere using virtually any device. Remote PC Access does not require a VPN and can enable security measures like multi-factor authentication to keep confidential content secure.

“As employees settle in to the new normal of working from home, it is more important than ever to provide access to a consistent and familiar set of tools that keep them engaged and productive while keeping corporate information safe,” said Paul Carley, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Desktop and Applications Group, Citrix.

Already included in Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops Advanced/Premium and Citrix Workspace Premium Plus, Remote PC Access is now offered as part of Citrix Virtual Desktops Essentials and Citrix Virtual Desktops Service. With Citrix Virtual Desktops Service, companies can deliver Remote PC Access to physical desktops as well as virtual desktop infrastructure located on-premises or in any public cloud.

Koch Industries Acquires Infor Koch Industries announced that it has completed the acquisition of the remaining portion of Infor from Golden Gate Capital. “Infor, a global leader in business cloud software specialized by industry, has been a key component of Koch’s technological transformation. Koch companies have made more than $26 billion in technology-related investments in the past six years, transforming a global portfolio of businesses spanning multiple industries. In addition to being an investor since 2017, Koch has been a key customer, implementing Infor solutions across its businesses in areas like enterprise resource planning, human resources, supply chain, asset management and finance,” the company said.

The acquisition brings new key capabilities to Koch to accelerate digital transformation, while providing Infor with resources and industry knowledge to continue growing its expertise in mission critical software for industries like manufacturing, retail and distribution, among others. Additionally, Infor’s industry-leading Healthcare Operations Platform and Interoperability Solutions extend Koch’s involvement in healthcare, where Koch companies are already engaged in connected device manufacturing, medical product purification, and hospital supplies.

Infor is now a standalone subsidiary of Koch Industries, and continues to operate under the company’s current management team from its headquarters in New York City. The acquisition positions Infor as one of the most well-capitalized companies in technology. Infor has invested approximately $4 billion in product design and development to deliver industry-specific CloudSuites that solve

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the most challenging operational issues for over 68,000 customers around the globe.

“Joining Koch Industries is an exciting new chapter in Infor’s history,” said Kevin Samuelson, CEO of Infor. “It allows us to take a long-term approach, focused on developing industry-specific solutions that help customers modernize and drive immediate, tangible impact.”

“It’s been clear from day one that Infor’s unique approach and innovative team are truly bringing value to the market,” said Jim Hannan, Executive Vice President and CEO of Enterprises for Koch Industries. “We want to thank Golden Gate Capital for such a productive partnership and welcome Infor’s 17,000 global employees to Koch Industries.”

“We are proud to have founded and grown Infor into an industry leader over the past 18 years,” said David Dominik, Co-Founder of Golden Gate Capital.

Golden Gate Capital Managing Director Rishi Chandna added, “We have enjoyed our partnership with management and Koch Industries, and wish the Infor team well in the company’s next era of growth.”

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Rothschild, Inc. and Citigroup Global Market, Inc. served as financial advisors to Koch, and Jones Day served as legal advisor to Koch. Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities and Credit Suisse served as financial advisors to Golden Gate Capital, and Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Nob Hill Law Group, P.C. served as legal advisors to Golden Gate Capital.

NEWS

Riverbed and IDC Conduct Study to Assess the Cloud and Network Readiness of UAE Organisations Riverbed has announced the results of its ‘Middle East Network Transformation Survey’, which assessed the state of cloud and network technology advancement for enterprises in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. The Report, which was commissioned by Riverbed and conducted by IDC earlier this year, provides excellent insights into just how prepared enterprises have been to roll out their remote work strategies.

Cloud Computing Specialists, Security and Data Protection Analysts Amongst High Demand Jobs in UAE UAE organisations are experiencing increased demand for individuals with deep technology skills, according to a new research by the International Data Corporation (IDC). The research commissioned

by Microsoft titled ‘Future of Work Skills’ and covers findings from key markets across the Middle East and Africa to examine insights, trends and challenges that the region is facing amidst its digital transformation journey.

The report finds that over 90% of organization in the UAE are in the process of implementing their digital transformation initiatives.

However there remains a gap in the depth of digital experience and skills needed to support these ambitious journeys. This is especially in the case of specific business functions such as marketing, sales and human resources. As it stands, 66% of businesses in the UAE expect to see an increase in positions that require deep technology skills over the next two to three years.

Recognising the cloud as a foundational technology needed to drive digital transformation, almost 73% of UAE-based organisations are already using some form of cloud-based solution. However, more than half of surveyed companies still lack the cloud computing skills they need, while 67%

agree they will need even more advanced skills in coming years.

UAE organizations are also aware that digital skills are not the only capabilities needed to help them compete in the digital age. This is evidenced by the fact that 41% of companies indicate they are lacking necessary networking skills and 53% believe they will need more of those skills in the future.

A key strategy is to retain and upskill existing staff, with 77% of companies saying they find this an effective approach to acquiring the digital skillsets they require. In fact, with the goal of developing a future-ready workforce, almost 70% of companies have reskilling programmes in place, many of which are now available for people to attend remotely.

To address the skills gap, Microsoft has set up a virtual training ecosystem designed to benefit, not only students and young professionals, but also employees specialising in certain skills that may soon be less needed or even obsolete. Initiatives like the Microsoft Cloud Society, till date, has over 256,000 members across the Middle East and Africa, and platforms such as the AI Business School are empowering individuals to remotely upskill in areas around AI, Cloud, Data and Security.

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With government measures to control the spread of the COVID-19 virus still in effect in both countries, organizations have had to prioritize the IT investments that enable their employees to work from home. Cloud-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings such as Microsoft 365, Salesforce, and Zoom are all seeing a significant spike in adoption rates, given their ability to be rapidly deployed at scale. It is no surprise then that three quarters (75%) of respondents agree that cloud is ‘important’ to their organization’s network strategy. Riverbed’s survey reveals that 29% of organizations in the UAE and Saudi Arabia have already completed migration of workloads to the cloud. This process is currently ongoing for a further 31% while an additional 20% of organizations will execute such migrations within the next two years.

The transition of employees to remote working arrangements has also meant that organizations must now ensure seamless and secure access to applications and data across the Internet and home networks. With business-critical services now being delivered to employees working from home via the cloud, it is no surprise that 77% of respondents stated that it is ‘very important’ for them to optimize connections to SaaS applications such as Microsoft 365 to ensure consistently good performance at all times.

Highlighting that 71% of organizations believe cloud is crucial for their digital transformation, Mena Migally, Senior Director, MENA, at Riverbed said, “Current events are hugely impacting all of us on a global scale and organizations are under immense pressure to maintain business continuity while safeguarding the health and safety of their employees. For many, this has translated to the rapid roll-out of workfrom-home policies whereby cloud has been instrumental. However, slow SaaS applications can reduce workforce productivity and significantly impact organizations’ ability to execute in highly demanding times.”

COVID -19 IMPACT

The Pandemic Has Seen a Wave of a New Generation of Gamers Paul Collins, the Country Manager for Middle East and Africa at Acer, speaks about the measures his company is taking to continue business without disruption, providing uninterrupted service to customers and more During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

Forunately, Acer already had the measures in place for the team to work from home so there was a seamless transition into the new working environment. Making the most of applications such as Microsoft Teams as well as internal Acer software has helped the team stay connected and ensure workstreams are maintained.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

Acer has witnessed a surge in demand, led by the number of professionals now working from home and students e-learning. A lot of consumers have had to upgrade their home devices, to ensure they have the right IT in their home, to meet their needs.

Acer is fortunate that all of our distributors in the UAE are operational and are capable of importing and supplying products. To cope with the rise in demand, we are working closely with our retail partners to be able to offer a range of laptops, allowing customers to choose the best laptops for them.

We have worked very hard on our forecasting with our partners, utilized our local logistics hub more than usual and looked at some financial assistance to partners to weather this storm. We do run a very tight just in time stock model which we have had to relax a little to mitigate some of the inevitable delays that we are experiencing.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

Acer has witnessed an increase of 20% in its gaming range, based on weekly monitoring. As a result of people spending more time indoors, we have noticed a rise in two types of gamers – casual and hardcore.

First, the ‘hardcore’ gamers who were already passionate about the activity are spending more time honing their skills, purchasing fancier equipment and rising through the ranks.

Secondly, the pandemic has seen a wave of a new generation of gamers joining the gaming community as people look for new ways of entertainment whilst at home. Since all the traditional sports have suspended their seasons and their broadcasts, fans are really searching for a way to get their sports fix.

Those who are passionate about sports but are stuck indoors, have also taken to gaming to discover the world of e-sports. In addition, our Acer for Education segment is thriving as we witnessed a surge in orders from educational institutions and their resellers as Learn from Home is the norm these days.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

These are indeed awakening times for individuals, businesses and governments who have all had to revisit strategies and shift tactics. From a supply chain perspective, we have

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managed to resolve any issues or delays faced in terms of getting the products to the end-user thanks to healthy levels of local stocks as well as cooperation with local ports of entry.

In terms of managing the team working remotely, Acer had already implemented measures in order for employees to seamlessly transition and to ensure output is not disrupted.

What sort of business and financial impact do you expect for your business as a result of COVID-19?

In the long term, we expect the impact of COVID-19 to continue to increase laptop sales and more. The personal computer or laptop is still very much in demand, and we expect the demand for these products to continue its upward trajectory.

In addition, as more companies adopt remote working, we foresee a strong shift to cloud-based colutions and Acer is well positioned to be able to cater to this demand. As we are witnessing a shift to a one student one device model in education across the region, we are also prepared to cater to this demand with the robust line-up in the Windows and Chrome environments.

Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?

To continue to motivate the team working from home, we have implemented various strategies to boost employee morale from weekly virtual meetings to weekly updates and even a virtual celebration as we have now 28 years of successful business in Middle East.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Stay Close to Customers to Understand Their Needs Maha Bouzeid, the Vice President and Head of Sourcing for Ericsson Middle East and Africa, speaks about how her company is handling business relations during the COVID-19 pandemic During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

Ericsson is closely monitoring the development around the coronavirus and following recommendations from relevant national authorities and international bodies. We are taking precautionary measures to ensure the health and safety of employees, to minimize the impact on the company’s operations and to prevent further spread of the coronavirus. We currently have a large number of employees working from home globally.

Ericsson has a global supply chain set up, which ensures the company works close to customers through its European, Asian and American operations. Our main production facilities are in Estonia, Poland, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and the US. All main Ericsson production sites are currently in operation. We continue to follow the situation of the pandemic and recommendations from local authorities and WHO, as the company assesses its supply chain.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

Mobile networks are increasingly recognized as a critical infrastructure. We are continuing to stay close to our customers to understand their needs and we are doing everything possible to support customers to maximize their network capacity and performance.

Our engineers and field staff are part of critical teams deployed

during a crisis. Even when a country goes into lockdown, our engineers are still active in order to keep the networks up and running.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

At Ericsson we don’t have a direct business with verticals as our go to market strategy is through the operators. Therefore, we can not really comment on their behalf.

However, what we can share are our lessons learned from this crisis to further enhance our supply chain for the future.

Ericsson has multi-source suppliers, hardware production sites across all continents, and a solid risk management framework in place, all of which work very well during any supply crisis. The current situation is, however, different from previous crises, with many of our suppliers across all countries getting affected simultaneously.

Increased communication becomes even more critical during these times to stay aligned. We review each country situation daily and communicate more often with our critical suppliers.

We are not only managing the current operational challenges but also planning ahead with different scenarios in mind.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

As a global company with around 100,000 employees and presence in 180 countries, we are aware of

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our responsibilities towards the societies where we operate. We have a process and organizational set-up to deal with potential issues that our company may face, both to ensure the health and safety our employees and to minimize impact on our operations.

Ericsson’s Group Crisis Management Council is responsible for the handling of major incidents or crises.

What sort of business and financial impact do you expect for your business as a result of COVID-19?

Our prediction remains for Q1, that we will see limited to no impact on our customers. For Q2 2020, our assessment remains that we can cover currently predicted demands, taking into account known implications and expected outcome from mitigations made following the outbreak.

Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?

Yes indeed, we have launched several initiatives for our employees to better handle this crisis. First of all, we announced that employees who don’t need to be on the field, can work from home. Our IT team provide our staff with all the needed tools and programs to ensure they can work remotely in the most efficient way.

Secondly, our Internal Communications and Engagement department have kicked-off several internal initiatives towards employees including health and safety awareness communications as well as collaboration sites for employees to share different tips while at home such as sports activities or hobbies.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Leadership Should Make Accommodations for Challenges They May Face Alain Penel, the Regional Vice President for Middle East at Fortinet, talks about the measures his company is taking to continue business without disruption, providing uninterrupted service to customers and more During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

We’ ve taken proactive measures to ensure the health and safety of our employees. These include implementing a company-wide remote worker policy, as well as many other cautionary steps. At Fortinet, we continue to closely monitor the situation and take additional actions to support updated best practices and guidance from the U. S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and international and local health authorities in countries where we operate.

In addition to ensuring our employees welfare, we are also doing our part to help the communities in which we live.

We have started by significantly increasing our donation matching program. These funds are earmarked to support non-profit organizations fighting the effects of the COVID-19 virus.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

For our customers, the need to support a remote workforce has never been greater than it is today. We are committed to helping them quickly transition to an effective and secure teleworker strategy of their own without incremental costs. Our existing customers already have remote

worker solutions embedded in their FortiGate firewalls that can be used at no additional charge.

The FortiClient VPN solution is also available free of charge to ensure remote workers have fast and secure network access. In addition, our technical teams are available to provide IT teams with additional support or resources they may need. We are also offering Fortinet’s NSE training program to provide essential cybersecurity knowledge free of charge online to partners and now customers.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

The global health crisis has affected every possible industry vertical. We are seeing an impact from a security point of view as businesses across verticals are making a rapid transition to a teleworker model to maintain business continuity. In this rush, things like security protocols can get overlooked, and criminals are looking to take advantage of any inadvertent security gaps.

Our FortiGuard Labs has been monitoring a significant spike in COVID-19 related threats and have seen an enormous spike in coronavirus-related scams – money scams, shared riding service scams, money transfer scams, credit card scams, and even scam kits designed for

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novice cybercriminals known as script kiddies.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

The public health crisis we face continues to be both dynamic and, in many ways, unprecedented. Global circumstances are in flux and cyber threats continue to increase, work flexibility and business resiliency have become critically important. This is why ensuring the safety and well-being of Fortinet employees, partners, and customers around the world and maintaining business continuity remain our top priorities at all time.

We will continue to take proactive measures to minimize the spread of COVID-19 which include preventative sanitization measures at all Fortinet sites and social-distancing for those essential employees who must be on location to complete their duties.

Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?

Fortinet is committed to the wellbeing of our employees and it is our top priority. We also understand many employees are balancing families and work, or perhaps family members that need extra care. All leadership teams have been instructed to help make accommodations for any challenges that may arise.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Companies Should Ensure Employees Are Motivated Anand Choudha, the CEO and President of Spectrami, says that his company has seen an increase in business related to Threat Intelligence and VPN Connectivity solutions During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

To protect the employees from getting infected and ensuring that we follow the guidelines laid by the authorities in terms of social distance, we have started working from home from 15th of March and will continue to do so until June 30th, unless the authorities extend it further. We have ensured that every user has a VPN access, and because we are very organized as a company, we have systems in place to ensure that the employees can work remotely in a seamless way.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

We are connecting with our customers, vendors and partners on a proactive basis. We have the engineers who are doing remote POCs and we have a lot of instances in Saudi Arabia and other territories where we have done successful POCs remotely for Blackberry, Tenable and other products. We believe in the people’s word and in the earlier scenario, it was important to have a face to face physical meetings with customers; however, in the new scenario, these have been replaced by face-to-face Zoom calls and phone calls and are there to help customers in case they need anything from us.

Also, we have introduced free cybersecurity assessments and health checkups to ensure that the customers are protected. As they moved to remote working, they have opened up their gateway to VPN tunnels, and there are changes in the way connectivity is happening and we want to help our customers and ensure that while they adhere to these new norms of remote working

and open their networks, they don’t have gaps that can be exploited by the hackers.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

As a business we are very fortunate to have focus on Cybersecurity. If we look at cyberthreats, they have only increased in the last one month. A simple example would be phishing attacks and other sophisticated attacks are happening in the network now. And this is only going to increase in the near future with many people losing their jobs and cybercriminals trying to exploit the fact that the networks of corporates have been opened to work from remote.

At the same time the IT teams of those corporates had to react to adapt to this new situation was short and the cybersecurity aspect has not been necessarily addressed by everyone. Once they have opened up the connectivity, now they have realizing the fact they that they are also open to new attacks happening on their network because of the change and they are trying to patch it up and put systems in place.

We have still a lot of orders coming in for Threat Intelligence and VPN Connectivity solutions. It is too early to estimate the overall impact the current situation will have, but we are closely monitoring the situation and we feel that would be a certain delay in procuring solutions, but we don’t see overall impact if we see the next 12 months cycle.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists

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or gets escalated?

It is very difficult to answer this question at this time because the situation is very alarming and is changing every day. Definitely, we are all trying to adapt to the situation. We have plans laid out in case the crisis extends beyond the end of June. But we are all prepared till end of June and have taken appropriate steps to ensure that we continue to exist as a business and support our customers, partners and vendors.

What sort of business and financial impact do you expect for your business as a result of COVID-19?

Again, it is very difficult to assess the situation. There are different timelines that have been projected by governments and the media houses globally as to how quickly the businesses be back to the earlier situation. There are different ways to look at it as there are various timelines indicated for the crisis to taper down – some indicate end of June and some indicate September, or even beyond that.

It is very difficult to assess the overall business and financial impact, but from a Spectrami perspective, we are ready as we have plans in place. The good thing for us that our financial year ends on March 31st. So, we are better off than all those companies who had put their financial plans in place in January, and never could have the opportunity to plan for this crisis.

We at Spectrami have been fortunate in this as while we were closing our financial year in March, this crisis happened, and we have been able to factor in the current situation in planning for our new financial year.

Hence, we believe are relatively more prepared with contingency steps in place to weather this storm.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Health and Wellbeing of Employees Have Taken Precedence Mohamad Abdallah, the Regional Director for Middle East, Turkey and Africa at SonicWall, speaks about how COVID-19 has impacted business and the contingency plans the company has put in place in case the crisis persists or gets escalated During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

SonicWall has a large remote workforce across EMEA. As a company we have thrived on a remote working model while providing continued support to our partners and customers. As our employees are routinely working from home, the infrastructure and policy needed for remote working are unquestionably already in place. Our scalable, remote access solution ensures that all our employees are protected outside the safety of our corporate network perimeter.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

As corporate networks extend beyond the firewall, security remains an ever-present concern, especially as malicious actors look to exploit fears over the pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic is also placing new demands on IT infrastructure, especially networks and datacenters. In addition, the explosion of exposure points has not only increased the attack surface area of organizations but has also taxed IT departments.

We’re combining our 28 years of experience, data and technology with our partner-led culture to deliver what we call ‘Boundless Cybersecurity platform’. The platform delivers seamless protection that stops the most evasive cyberattacks across endless exposure points and increasingly remote, mobile and cloud-enabled workforces. We are

helping organizations be prepared for an influx of cyberattacks, and are giving participating partners, both regionally and globally, a competitive edge.

Our recently launched enhanced version of the SecureFirst Managed Security Service Provider (MSSPs) Program provides the licensing models, resources and tools needed to help MSSPs mitigate the rapidly growing threat volume. To help organizations cost-effectively implement VPN technology for their rapidly expanding work-from-home employees, SonicWall is making its remote access products and services available to both new and existing customers at discounted rates during this period.

Enterprise and SMB customers in the Middle East can avail free Secure Mobile Access (SMA) virtual appliances along with discounts on SonicWall Cloud App Security and Capture Client endpoint protection when paired with SMA Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

Each vertical has been affected by COVID-19, but we’ve seen maximum impact from healthcare, education and government across the Middle East & Africa region. Organizations from across these industries are looking to quickly access and use features of their current IT to enable them to better cope with the crisis.

A lot of them have been moving

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to cloud-based services, and those services are being leveraged now.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

The health and wellbeing of our employees takes precedence while we continue to serve our customers and partners across the region. As a key security vendor in the market, we are increasing efforts to support customers virtually, with either existing products or new implementations.

What sort of business and financial impact do you expect for your business as a result of COVID-19?

COVID-19 has impacted businesses across the globe. However, over the last few months, we have been serving a large number of our installed base with different technologies from our portfolio like Secure remote access, cloud application security and end-point security solutions. We believe that businesses will continue to invest in securing their remote workforce, and SonicWall is here to respond to meet their needs.

Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?

In times of isolation, we are fortunate to have a strong leadership and a great team that keeps each other motivated and engaged just like in a real office environment.

Our teams are engaged in weekly live chats, competitions, and activities that stimulate the mind and help employees contribute to making our daily activity fun and productive.

It’s Time to Prioritise Movement, Agility, and Adaptability

COVID -19 IMPACT

Samir Chopra, the Founder and CEO at RNS Technology Services, speaks about the measures his company has undertaken to continue business without disruption During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

During this unprecedented event of lockdown and stay at home initiatives, it is essential for us to stay safe and healthy and fight this virus. The key initiates taken by us are clear, effective, precise and transparent communications internally. We ensure our teams are well aware of their responsibilities towards themselves, organization and most importantly the customers. It’s necessary to understand what success means to everyone and what they execute on timely basis in these tough times.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

RNS is a customer facing, customer focused organization; who prioritises customer success and getting things done from a business perspective and not just project deliverable perspective. It’s very important to us as its very deeply embedded in our DNA. We understand the impact/importance of a particular project or securing a particular application or securing infrastructure or why that is important to the customer and then in the process helping them to actually concentrate on their key business rather than panicking about trivial things about security availability, and so on.

Even during the hassle of WFH, our teams of experts, domain specialties and project manager’s, coordinators, L2, L3 specialized guys who are constantly in touch with the customers and execut-

ing their routine tasks and proactively reaching to the customers and taking care of their infrastructure, doing health checks while simultaneously looking for weakness in other areas. We are at this junction where the world is shifting into a different pattern of work; the attackers/hackers and the bad elements in the society have not taken a break, if at all we see increased level of attacks.

People are being lured by phishing attacks, man in the middle attacks, DNS poisoning and other various attack vectors. We see an increased attractively in this area, so you know our attention and focus is increasing while taking current situation into consideration, according to us, it is our responsibility as advisors be more vigilant and more consistent by being available for our customers and addressing the issues that arise on a daily basis.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

Interesting question. As we continue to serve our customers around the clock and add value to their organisation, we understand there are some organisations who have been deeply impacted than the others, some verticals for instance- Education is practicing new concepts to advance the quality of their services. At RNS, we understand the importance of adapting to change during this market situation and incorporate them, prioritize movement, agility, adaptability as they are the core values

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of a customer facing organization like ourselves. It’s due to our proactiveness that has helped us triumph over this lockdown.

With this perspective, we don’t see any business impacts and as mentioned earlier; the focus of the threat vectors, attackers are increased. There are more activities around this area, but yes, there are always cash flow concerns that we try to overcome and thankfully today we run a very healthy and nice space that eliminate any real concerns.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

Currently, our contingency and crisis plans revolve around our people and their well-being during this pandemic. Whether it’s in terms of them having access to all the infrastructure and the means to provide them so that they can provide services to the customer and perform their job functions and stay healthy and incorporate fitness into their routine.

All employees at RNS are advised to stay active both physically and mentally to delivery their best work even when quarantined. For a long term perspective, our senior management team from sales, marketing, technology have given their inputs and feedbacks into building stable financial plans.

I believe we have great understanding internally and our faith in one another, which reflects in our vision and help us curb the difficulties during this time by not drifting into different directions.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Protecting the Jobs of Workforce is Important Mark Ackerman, the Regional Director for Middle East and Africa at ServiceNow, says his company has also announced new community apps to help customers, including government agencies and enterprises, manage complex emergency response workflows What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

As part of our effort to support public and private sector customers in managing the COVID-19 pandemic, we have announced four new community apps to help customers, including government agencies and enterprises, manage complex emergency response workflows.

•

•

Emergency Outreach: during a crisis, this workflow leverages the Now Platform to help companies connect with employees to assess the impact. Employers can reach out by email to provide information and safety measures and request a response to confirm if employees are safe, and where they are located. Employers can also leverage the ServiceNow Now Mobile App to send push notifications to employees via mobile to get response.

Emergency Self Report: this workflow helps an employee notify their employer that they are self-quarantined and when the employee will return to work and provides

workflow support for the employer.

•

Emergency Exposure Management: when a company becomes aware that its employee is diagnosed with an illness, this workflow helps the employer identify other people who might have been exposed based on the employee’s meetings history and job location

•

Emergency Response Operations app for government agencies: Washington State Department of Health, a ServiceNow customer, created the Emergency Response Operations app on the Now Platform to manage their own response to COVID-19.

Working with ServiceNow, the Department of Health is making the app available to government entities at no charge.

Duration of free offer: These apps are now available at servicenow.com/crisisresponse for customers to access free of charge through September 30, 2020.

Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to

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better handle this crisis?

In addition to mandating work from home for all our employees, ServiceNow is committing to protecting the jobs of its 11,000-plus global workforce through 2020 despite the economic uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. The company also expects to keep hiring for new jobs worldwide this year. In addition, ServiceNow expects to continue to protect the jobs and salaries of several hundred support staff and contractors who are not working while ServiceNow’s offices remain closed.

Additionally, ServiceNow, along with Accenture, Lincoln Financial Group, and Verizon, this week announced People+Work Connect, a collaborative online employer-to employer initiative that will bring together companies with workforces laid off or furloughed due to COVID-19 with those in urgent need of workers. More than 800 ServiceNow jobs will be posted through this collaborative effort. At no charge for employers to join and participate, the initiative is intended to help shorten the complex, lengthy cycle of finding new employment.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Being Digital-First and Cloud-First is Key Praj Calthorpe, Deputy General Manager, Condo Protego, speaks about his company's plans to weather the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic

During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

Condo Protego has always been a digital-first and cloud-first organization. Even before the lockdown, our workforce has accessed business data and applications remotely from mobile devices, especially as our sales and technology consultants have been in the field to meet with customers.

Since coronavirus, the main changes have been in hosting virtual internal and customer meetings. Nothing can replace face-toface meetings, even when these are held through platforms such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, or Zoom. As coronavirus develops, we also need to keep our customers constantly updated on sudden changes in travel and supply chain for product deliveries.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

Only a few weeks ago, about one-third of GCC firms planned to shift to remote work. That figure is surely higher now. Middle East organizations should turn to knowledgeable and experienced channel partners to align strategic business goals with information management tactics in hardware acquisition, IT infrastructure, and business software.

The UAE’s banking, financial, and insurance (BFSI), education, and retail sectors are taking the lead in delivering digital innovations.

BFSI firms have had to purchase hardware and adopt collaboration platforms to move desk-bound employees to remote working.

Educators now teach about 1.1 million students with e-learning platforms.

With malls closed, retailers and restaurants are using Big Data, geo-location services, and targeted marketing to personalize customer shopping offers and develop plans to launch virtual malls.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

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Across the region, many companies view coronavirus as a shortterm challenge, though it’s likely that this push towards remote working will be a long-term business strategy. Remote working can help to support happier, more engaged, and more productive employees, especially Millennials and Generation Z. Secure access to business apps and data is key for remote work. We are seeing strong UAE demand for Dell Technologies’ secure mobile workforce solutions for working on the go, and RSA SecurID identity and access management suite with two-factor authentication.

Long-term remote working can use VMware’s virtual desktop infrastructure to host cloudbased desktop environments and business apps.

At the same time, we are continuing to focus on daily enablement for our employees, including meetings, workshops, and skills development courses across Dell Technologies, Forcepoint, Veritas, and VMware.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Staying Connected and Engaged With Each Other is Important Claude Schuck, Regional Manager, Middle East at Veeam Software, speaks about how COVID-19 has impacted business and the contingency plans the company has put in place in case the crisis persists or gets escalated During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our employees, our customers and partners, and the well-being of our community. At Veeam, we have imposed a work-from-home policy to limit the potential spread of infection. This virtual model is not unusual for Veeam as the majority of our employees work remotely anyway, but to ensure everyone’s health and well-being, we have closed our offices until further notice and asked everyone to work from home.

Despite the current situation, our daily operations have not been impacted that badly. This is largely due to two reasons. The first is, at a time like this when regional organizations are mandated to have employees working from home, technology solutions like Veeam that address cloud data management and data security are seeing maintained interest.

Secondly, within the Middle East we are fortunate to have an established and experienced team.

We have an in-depth understanding of our customers’ specific needs and requirements for them to drive success and business continuity, which is why organizations continue to rely on us.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

As we continue to implement our

business continuity processes, Veeam is operating as normal.

Partners and customers are continuing to receive the exemplary levels of service that they are used to, and we are leveraging all the technologies at our disposal to engage and support our community.

I mentioned that our community comes first in everything that we do. This is why we have decided to make our company’s annual user event - VeeamON 2020 – a little different this year. It was originally planned to take place in Las Vegas in May, but we’ve decided to host a virtual event instead – June 17 - 18. Veeam aims to bring the same level of content, insight and the rich user experience that attendees have come to expect from VeeamON through a virtual environment.

Looking at how we are helping our customer operate, as organizations adapt to rapidly evolving working conditions, Veeam helps them ensure that they are able to maintain business continuity by seamlessly protecting their remote workers’ workstations and productivity tools like Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Teams along with the rest of their cloud, virtual and physical workloads.

Veeam offers many of these software and services free of charge that can be of value to businesses; this freemium model is part of our DNA, and we want to ensure that we help our community protect their data no matter their size or location.

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Veeam has also adapted its own business practices to ensure that the company’s support teams are available and able to help customers with any issues. Veeam’s R&D teams are continuing their pace of building innovative products that make managing data as simple, flexible and reliable as possible.

Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?

It’s very important for the team to stay connected and engaged with each other. I make sure as far as possible that we connect with each other regularly on the phone or via video conference and not just talk about work but also about everyday life and world happenings. This mirrors the chats that we have with each other at the coffee machine or water cooler in the office which fosters good working relationships.

We need to stay as grounded as possible and social interactions across the Middle East team has really helped keep up the morale, vigor and energy during challenging times like this. It’s actually inspiring to see how creative our teams are in this new way of working, and how they are adapting to this ‘new normal’.

For example, the creativity on video calls by way of developing a theme for each call – wear green, dress up, bring your child to call. It has really galvanized the teams.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Enabling Customers to Optimise Their Networks is Key Mena Migally, Senior Director, MENA at Riverbed Technology, speaks about how his company has put its top priority is protecting health and safety of our employees, partners, customers, vendors, and the community at large During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

At Riverbed, our top priority is protecting health and safety of our employees, partners, customers, vendors, and the community at large. We have taken many steps to address the health and safety of our teams over the past few weeks including a constituted a work from home policy for all Riverbed employees and contractors inline with official Government regulations.

Riverbed Client Accelerator trial licenses to all our existing customers worldwide. This solution has consistently demonstrated its ability to optimize at-home network connections to achieve up to 99% data reduction while delivering 10x faster, reliable performance of cloud, on-prem, and SaaS applications. In recent weeks, we have seen a 6x increase in web traffic to our Client Accelerator webpage in less than a month and over 350 Client Accelerator 90-day trial requests from enterprise customers.

Given that as a company we have always focused on accelerating the performance and visibility for networks and applications, which includes software-based solutions that specifically optimize remote working, we are very fortunate that we can leverage our own technology so that our employees can continue to be highly productive and the performance and access to the networks and applications remains unprecedented wherever they work in order to continue to support our customers business.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

As organizations are quickly getting more equipped for mobile ‘working from home’ workforces, we are seeing a huge uplift in demand across the world in all industries including Aerospace, Consumer Goods manufacturing, Government, Oil and Gas, Pharmaceutical, Healthcare, Financial Services and Insurance, Professional and Consulting services.

We have been encouraging our teams across the world to increase the use of collaboration tools, with more conference calls, and particularly the use of video, so everyone can see and interact with their work colleagues on a regular basis.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

In response to the challenges businesses are facing, we are offering complimentary 90-day

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

Currently, our focus has been on enabling our customers to optimize their networks and efficiently manage the surge in the number of work-from-home employees while ensuring they are equipped to be productive. A large part of this centres around ensuring the

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performance and security of digital services, even as employees move from local network access to remote network access models.

In the long term, it is unlikely that the way people work will return to normal – in fact, Gartner has predicted that by 2030, the demand for remote work will increase by 30% due to Gen Z fully entering the workforce. As organisations adjust to this 'new norm', Riverbed will work to empower our partners and our customers to refocus on the future.

We will do so by helping them maximise network and application performance to support all workers - anywhere, anytime, and via any delivery method. At the same time, we aim to help them reduce risk by increasing visibility into their hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

What sort of business and financial impact do you expect for your business as a result of COVID-19?

The challenges organisations have faced as they adapt to the ‘new norm’ has highlighted the vital importance of network and application performance in facilitating business continuity. There is no doubt that in the long term, businesses across all verticals will double down on their IT investments to support more flexible workplace arrangements. This will make Riverbed more relevant than ever and we fully expect to extend our engagements with existing customers while simultaneously penetrating new enterprise accounts.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Digital Transformation is the Need of the Hour Zakaria Haltout, the Managing Director for SAP UAE, speaks about how COVID-19 has impacted business and the contingency plans the company has put in place in case the crisis persists or gets escalated During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

We are committed to maintaining visibility with our customers and partners, and across MENA we have moved completely to remote working to support our customers’ digital transformation journeys in this time of need.

Supporting the health, safety, and well-being of our employees, we are neither hosting nor participating in any in-person events scheduled to occur in the affected months.

In particular, our 2020 SAPPHIRE NOW and ASUG Annual Conference are moving from an in-person event to an online experience for customers, partners, and guests. In order to support students, professionals and anyone wishing to continue to learn during this challenging time, we recently announced a new digital learning initiative offering innovative, interactive educational content.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

The Middle East is a global leader in managing coronavirus, with organizations using real-time insights solutions to re-design supply chain, procurement, and travel, pre-screen for health issues, and enhance remote working

and staffing.

Frontline industries of healthcare, pharmaceuticals, research, and public security need to access information, address citizen sentiment, and accelerate reaction time. Retail, banking, education, insurance, and entertainment need to enable digital channels.

Wholesale distribution, retail, consumer, and oil and gas need to provide supply chain flexibility, ensure last mile delivery, and access to sources of supply and finance.

For fields directly hit, such as sports, entertainment, travel, transportation, evens, and construction, and for companies experiencing demand spikes, such as telco and gaming, they need to evaluate viability. To help manage the impact of the pandemic, EY, SAP, and Qualtrics have collaborated on providing agencies with a comprehensive set of services and solutions to meet the initial urgent and critical needs of governments, globally.

The services and solutions are provided in 8 languages – English, Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, French, German, and Greek – through EY implementation and enablement services. These solutions include: •

Qualtrics COVID-19 Pre-Screening and Routing, an online, guided pre-screening

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•

•

•

questionnaire.

Qualtrics COVID-19 Dynamic Call Center Script to help local governments set up call centers.

Qualtrics Healthcare Workforce Pulse to monitor healthcare providers and frontline healthcare workers.

Critical care protocol solution: for governments and ministries of health to early identify critical care and highrisk patients.

SAP is currently exploring investment in TrackYourBed, a responsive, Web-based solution that indicates hospital bed availability in real time, as well as many other ideas that have emerged through COVID-19 sprint in the SAP One Billion Lives initiative, the company’s social intrapreneurship program.

The SAP Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) team is providing infrastructure and accelerating new ways to engage through virtual volunteering and pro-bono consulting, offering more than 50 projects to date.

SAP has also established a €3 million COVID-19 Emergency Fund to support the urgent needs of the World Health Organization (WHO), the CDC Foundation, and smaller nonprofits and social enterprises that work on the front lines serving local communities in crisis.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Business Continuity and Crisis Management Plans Should be in Place John Hathaway, the Regional Vice President for Middle East and India at BeyondTrust, speaks about measures his company has undertaken to continue business without disruption During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

As a provider of Secure Remote Access solutions, which thousands of our customers across the globe use every day to support remote workforces, we understand the pressures that many organizations are now facing in response to temporary policies requiring hundreds or thousands of employees to work remotely. The balance between security and productivity is even more critical.

are also struggling to provide secure ways for remote IT administrators, contractors, and vendors to access critical systems to maintain business continuity and operations.

To help IT organizations address these challenges without compromising security, BeyondTrust is offering free use of its Secure Remote Access solutions for 90 days. The offer includes: •

As we comply with the work from home mandates across the region, all BeyondTrust employees work on secure, encrypted devices which means that during any period of remote operations we can ensure that confidential information and personal data remains secure.

Additionally, we have Business Continuity and Crisis Management Plans in place to ensure that we and our vendors are operationally ready for any shift to remote working.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across the world, organizations are closing offices and mandating remote work arrangements. This situation has put immense pressure on IT organizations and support desks who need to quickly set up and support teams of remote workers around the globe. Organizations

•

Remote Support: Enables service desks to provide secure, reliable remote support to employees both on and off their network. Support technicians can see the end-user’s screen, chat, elevate privileges, and even access the end-user’s mobile device camera to help them set up hardware and troubleshoot peripherals.

Techs can support Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and network devices with this single solution.

Privileged Remote Access: Gives external vendors and internal IT staff and administrators, who are working remotely, secure access to systems without requiring a VPN. This solution simplifies access by providing one secure and compliant tool that facilitates unattended access for all types of remote systems and endpoints.

Furthermore, for existing BeyondTrust customers, the company is also offering flexible terms to add-on licenses to cover the surge in support.

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Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?

Our employees are critical to our success and we are deeply committed to a strong company culture — one that fosters inclusion, camaraderie, personal and professional development and their overall well-being. To that end, we already have several employee-focused initiatives in place, including regular charity fundraisers and a weekly Tuesday lunch for employees to get together and socialize.

From having to adjust to working from home to having to stay mentally resilient during this period of social distancing and sheltering in place, we realize that now more than ever, we have a duty of care to provide our employees a strong support system. To that end, we have launched a couple of initiatives to encourage communication and teamwork. These include regular online quizzes, virtual cooking sessions and virtual workout sessions.

We have also set up new online channels so employees can continue regular communication — channels include everything from one where we can share how our pets are helping us work from home to one where parents can share ideas on how to entertain and educate kids during this trying period. We’re also donating the monies saved from our Tuesday lunches to local charities who are helping people during this crisis.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Enabling the Connected Future is Top Priority Redouane Gaouar, the Director for Go-to-Market Practices and Strategic Partner Alliances at Dimension Data Middle East, speaks about his company’s plans to weather the challenges brought forward by the COVID-19 pandemic During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

Our people and clients remain at the heart of what we do. Our foremost priority has therefore been to ensure their safety and well-being during this unprecedented time. To do this, we quickly implemented measures to mitigate the need for our people to travel, and based on local country guidelines, encouraged our staff to work from home.

As a technology company, collaboration tools have been leveraged quite extensively by our employees for the past two decades.

Therefore, while the adoption of collaboration tools is quite high in our organization, our main focus has been on rapidly equipping our fixed-desk colleagues with mobility solutions and providing clear guidance for effective remote working.

The majority of our 50,000 employees around the world are now working from home, which means they can stay safe and healthy while continuing to deliver the mission-critical services expected by our clients.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

As a business, our purpose is to enable the connected future, and

now more than ever, it is critical to do so. We have an extremely important part to play as the solutions we deliver help our clients, people and communities stay connected and navigate through this time.

Our service delivery teams have done a fantastic job of deploying our business continuity plans and delivering uninterrupted services to our clients. We have been agile and responded to their needs in ways that have made a significant difference to our clients and communities all over the world.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

Over the short term, our focus is strongly maintained on our clients and on delivering on our priorities, while keeping our workforce safe and connected.

Our role as leaders is to protect and enable our people so that we can collectively provide continuity of service and help our clients respond efficiently to Covid-19.

Every day, our people are supporting clients, both onsite and from our service and operations centres, in critical services industries such as healthcare, supply chain and food retailers. Our teams are advising and assisting businesses in implementing outcome-oriented innovative Smart application platforms, establishing digital solutions, rolling-out

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collaboration tools, enhancing networks and keeping operations secure.

While we keep monitoring the evolution of the global lockdown, we acknowledge that clear and frequent communications is more than ever essential. We therefore leverage the power of the digital channels to further enhance our communication so that we keep our people, clients, and partners well-informed as we adjust to the global impact of this situation.

What sort of business and financial impact do you expect for your business as a result of COVID-19?

We continue to see on daily basis a changing landscape as the world responds to Covid-19. This is impacting our habits, affecting our work-life balance, accelerating the implementation of new ways of working, and making us support differently vulnerable people in our communities.

Since it will take time to fully assess the impact of the pandemic, it is crucial to maintain an agile mindset and to collectively adapt to this new way of living and working. As a technology leader, Dimension Data is also committed to constantly monitoring the situation, communicating extensively with employees and customers, and continually adjusting our business model and operations.

COVID -19 IMPACT

Physical and Mental Health of Employees is Top Priority Thierry Nicault, the Regional VP for Enterprise Business Unit (EBU) for MEA and Central Europe, Salesforce, speaks about the measures his company has undertaken to minimize the business and financial impact During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

We remain committed to flattening the curve. Aligned with various local and national government guidelines, we have extended our office closures in North America, EMEA, APAC, and LATAM to early May. Our top priority remains the physical and mental health of our employees and their families.

We’re offering virtual workouts and meditations. We are hosting guest speakers to discuss how to manage anxiety and help our children and families through this difficult time.

Supporting our employees, we’re providing technology and content for WideOpenSchool.org, a new free online resource from Common Sense Media to support families and educators transitioning to remote learning as a result of COVID-19. These times remind us we’re more connected than ever. We continue to look forward, to find ways to help, to look for hope and are humbled by those who have committed to doing the same. We continue to support our local communities at the local, national and global levels.

To date, we’ve donated $3 million to UCSF’s COVID-19 Response Fund, the CDC Foundation's Emergency Response Fund and San Francisco’s Give2SF Fund, and matching employee donations. We announced we’re expanding our support for those affected by donating $1.5 million to organizations like the Italian Red Cross, Madrid Food Bank and New York COVID-19 Emergency Fund. The funds will support mitigation and direct relief for vulnerable populations.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?

We remain laser focused on helping

our customers in the Middle East and around the globe navigate through this crisis. For example, we are making some of our technology available for free for a period of time to help our customers and partners navigate through the crisis.

As coronavirus deepens, more than 3,500 organizations worldwide are using Salesforce Care solutions across customer contact centers, emergency response, small business support, and work from home. Salesforce and AWS are giving Salesforce Care customers free access to Amazon Connect for deploying virtual contact centers in minutes. We’re also supporting re-skilling with a surge in our Trailhead content.

Supporting Middle East organizations in their move to online shopping and deliver, we’re launching 3 Quick start packages from our Commerce Cloud portfolio to accelerate e-commerce transformation, and delivering service continuity from physical to digital commerce with Quick Start packs.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction?

Organizations need to adopt a crisis response strategy upfront called “from breakdown to breakthrough” to become stronger 18 months later than if the crisis had not happened. CEOs should adopt 5 points: • Collaborate with the community and turn them into allies • Exceed customer expectations in unexpected ways • Listen for the customer-driven single source of truth and share data-driven insights • Plan for the new normal – and start the transformation now with a team that works solely on post-crisis projects • Brand values should guide your daily problem-solving and serve

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communities and the world as human beings How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

Business priorities have shifted from playing offense to defense. It is a critical time to focus on helping new and existing customers to extract value from products and services. To address their concerns, organizations should consider creating a resource center or FAQ page. Businesses can empower customers with self-service apps that have knowledge articles and FAQs. Now is the time to optimize the mobile experience through either responsive web pages or native mobile apps.

What should companies do to weather the challenges faced due to the COVID-19 situation?

Top ten points for sellers include: • Whether what you’re selling will put your customer in a stronger personal or professional position right now • Add value to customers at each touch point and let customers set the pace • Play the long term with customers • Consider emotional intelligence and err on the side of caution • Listen to customers and prospects, and infuse messaging with empathy and value-based selling • Embrace inside sales • With sales reps spending only one-third of their time selling, ask your sellers how to set them up for success following coronavirus • The future of work is going to be a lot more reliant on video and CRM, and a little more forgiving of those working from home • Video is truly bridging the gap between people during this crisis • Spend your time brushing up on sales skills with online resources

COVID -19 IMPACT

Experiencing Surge in the Uptake of Infrastructure and Security Solutions Ranjith Kaippada, the Director of Cloud Box Technologies, speaks about measures and initiatives his company has taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers During this COVID-19 crisis, what measures have you undertaken to continue your own business without disruption?

We have shifted our work from on premise into a virtual environment.

Although we are in remote locations we are well connected with the right technology. We have implemented some of the most advanced CRM systems as well as communication applications and technology for our sales and post sales activities to be connected via virtual meeting platforms. For our customers we have specially designed an online service ticket facility which allows us to take care of their data centre problems remotely. However, we are also looking at this as a time when we are truly understanding the sustainability angle where we are experiencing a drastic decrease in paper printouts and the increased use of digital signatures and stamps. Similarly, our technical presentations have now gone online and is similar to a virtual class room.

What measures and initiatives have been taken to provide uninterrupted service to customers?  Given so many operational changes at this time, one of the primary things we are undertaking is to provide our customers with the necessary uptime to their networks.

We have put in a strong action plan to provide trouble shooting for their network data centres with effective remote assistance. It is also crucial that we are look into their security needs and supporting them with the necessary security software implementations. We are also engaging the services of professional couri-

ers and thus changing our logistics patterns to ensure that our deliveries are made on time. It goes without saying that we are now using online platforms and conducting virtual meetings.

Which top industry verticals and markets have you seen the maximum traction? How has COVID-19 impacted business with existing customers in those verticals and markets?

We are definitely experiencing a surge in our infrastructure and security solutions. Work from home solutions are also being implemented in much higher volumes across the board. In fact, we have been up to speed with the healthcare sector needs by providing and implementing passive and active solution be it cabling or routers, etc for COVID testing centres which are in high demand. We have also been quick to develop and provide a new application to ease cloud telephony that offers a seamless use of office telephones by redirecting calls to mobile or home phones and ensuring that employees do not miss any important calls.

One of the most important recommendations we make to our customers is to enter and strengthen their cloud space which helps them to adapt to this unexpected crisis.

Cloud Box Technologies is offering regional customers our Cloud space which also eases the customers perils of venturing into the private Cloud which have their own budget constraints. We are also helping some customers navigate their IT needs in terms of their hardware as well as

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software solution requirements to tackle their immediate requirements for the current crisis situation. We are also deploying software agents on laptops which helps employees connect remotely and access the necessary office tools. This is also supported with firewalls that will help set up VPN connectivity for secure access.

Have you put in place any contingency plans if this crisis persists or gets escalated?

If the situation continues for a longer period it will be a difficult situation since the IT solutions we provide requires the setting of the data centres and that will be a challenge.

We are discussing the possibility of trying extend our own Cloud facility at a nominal rate and provide hassle free access to customers with utmost security.

Have you kick-started any initiatives for your employees to better handle this crisis?

We are seriously working towards providing our employees with higher responsibilities and the liberty to make their team decisions. All our team members are continuously updated with all the information that will help them direct the crisis response team of our customers. We are aware that if we appoint temporary leaders among the teams during this unpredicted emergency, it will help generate confidence amongst out employees and promote a calmer approach that will entail ongoing operations irrespective of the location. What is important is open and regular communication and updates.

It helps speed up decision making.

COVID -19 IMPACT

DCG Responds to its Members’ Concerns About the Impact of COVID-19 Dubai Computer Group (DCG) has announced that it is working closely with its members and key stakeholders to safeguard the business interest of its members against any detrimental impact faced due to the global lockdown post the outbreak of COVID-19. DCG has thus formed a “COVID-19 RESPONSE TEAM” which is represented by Dharmendra Sawlani, Ashish Panjabi and Suchit Kumar. The response team has been formed to address the concerns and action plans to support the DCG members.

Speaking to the press, through a virtual conference, Dharmendra Sawlani, the President of DCG who is also the owner of Smile Computers LLC, said, “Sales channels have changed since restrictions on movement in the UAE came into place. Many of our members have had to improve their online presence and work more closely with the various e-commerce channels. This has meant adapting their logistical capabilities and finding innovative ways to continue serving corporate clients.”

Ashish Panjabi, the Chief Operating Officer of Jacky’s Retail and Board Member of DCG, said, the month of March saw a sudden surge in the demand for computers and other ICT products as e-learning and work-fromhome practices were adopted at a short notice. “Many of our members reported stronger sales during that period as virtually everyone has undergone a major largest digital transformation in the last few weeks,” he added.

Sawlani further added, “The pressure on SMEs has been immense because cash flow cycles have slowed down. As DCG, we’ve been trying to support our members where we can, be it in providing trainings for better managing finances, banking relationships, HR aspects or VAT. We’ve engaged with major IT distributors to listen to their concerns and highlight areas where we can arrive at a mutu-

al understanding to ensure business continuity. We’ve also written to over 150 landlords to seek some sort of reprieve for our members during this period. At the end of the day, we realise, we are all in this together.”

DCG has been closely working with Dubai Chamber to highlight the concern of the industry and seek support. Commenting on the government level initiatives Ashish Panjabi, explained, “The support of the government bodies has been extraordinary. We’ve engaged closely with the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and they have helped us co-ordinate with other government departments where necessary or find us resolutions to challenges we faced. It encourages us to know that we can reach out to them any time of day or week.”

Suchit Kumar, the Vice President of DCG said, “DCG has been closely monitoring and assessing the impact on the IT business, post the lockdown and closure of borders due to the pandemic. DCG will remain committed to doing its utmost to support members during this rapidly evolving situation. All our webinars have been well appreciated by the members with full participation.”

Emergency Board and General Meeting with members DCG organised an emergency board meeting for the discussion of plausible solutions and actualised the same with a Virtual General Meet with members understanding the various areas of concerns and the support desired. DCG assured its members of its relentless commitment to support and stand by with solidarity during the entire period of crisis with resolute measures.

Letter to the Landlords of Member Companies for Rental Reduction, Deferral and Rent Holiday A letter was issued to the landlords with a CC copy marked to the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry of over 150

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companies seeking support on rental reduction, a rent holiday and even deferrals.

There has been a positive response and some of the members have already been granted their desired benefit.

Ongoing Discussions with Dubai Chamber and DED DCG has been having regular discussions with Dubai Chamber and where needed DED’s support was sought on various points that concern our industry. We have highlighted cash flow concerns and to check on the possibility of a deferment of VAT payments. The issue of banking has also been raised and our concerns have been presented. The lack of access to shops or retail premises for retrieval of stocks for e-commerce deliveries was also highlighted and support is being sought to aid in this matter, however, this is also subject to approval from the NECMS who have the final authority.

Coronavirus Business Continuity Meeting (DCG ~ Distributor) DCG organised a meeting with major IT distributors. The virtual meet was attended by Asbis Middle East, Trigon Gulf, Ingram Micro, Logicom, and FDC. DCG requested the distributors for their continued support and to keep discussions active for achieving a workable middle ground during these times when members’ cash flow is under pressure.

Decoding Business in the Time of COVID-19 DCG conducted a Webinar for its members on the above subject with the CEO of UHY James, James Mathew as a speaker, to provide an in-depth understanding of the UAE business community’s challenges in the light of Covid 19. It highlighted aspects that every business owner needs to engage and embrace in theory and practicality to move forward. There were some key takeaways shared

by James on how to better manage finances during these trying times.

WOME N IN TECH

Flexibility and Perspective is Key Joumana Karam, the Marketing and Product BU Head for the Middle East at Acer, speaks about why she chose IT as a career choice, the next breakthroughs in the world of technology, and her advice for women looking to break into the field of technology Tell us about your philosophy, when it comes to your domain of expertise.

Listen and read carefully. Gather all available data and check its validity. A solution to any problem or obstacle can always be found, which is why flexibility and perspective is key. Finally, always prioritize helping colleagues/teammates to complete their tasks.

Why did you choose IT to advance your career?

At school, I developed a fascination for Maths and the Sciences and performed well in these subjects. Also, my aunt and uncle were my role models who were both engineers in the telecommunications and civil engineering industries, which led to me studying Electrical and Electronic Engineering at university. It was in my last year when I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in IT and be a part of the new innovations that would change our everyday lives.

Have you witnessed any transformation in the technology industry?

Throughout the course of my career, I have witnessed the growth of the Internet and the boom of cloud computing which has become ubiquitous today and has led to a new way of living and communicating. The growth of Artificial Intelligence and its impact on social media platforms, digital advertising and the creation of new products has also been a significant transformation. From a hardware perspective, I have seen an evolution from bulky desktops with limited specs to light and stylish laptops with high capacity, such as the Acer Swift 7.

Where, according to you, is the next technology transformation going to come from?

Cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence will continue to revolutionise technology. In addition, any new technology that will deal with the vast amounts of data that people are creating every second of their lives, will also revolutionize the industry as we know it.

What is your advice to women looking to break into the field of technology?

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IT is a very interesting and creative field. Take the risk and explore the world that technology will uncover. Who knows, you might just be the next great inventor. I would also encourage your daughters to study and work in IT if they ever express interest.

Are you involved in any sort of charity work?

I do help the community whenever possible, through the CSR initiatives that we support at Acer Middle East, as well as helping St Mary’s Catholic Church and St Francis Catholic Church, in my spare time. On the other hand, as a member of Dubai Chamber Choir, we do raise funds every year for multiple charity foundations during our annual concerts.

What is next for you in terms of your career in the tech industry?

My goals are to be able to lead diverse teams in this ever-changing industry, be at the forefront of the promotion of new technologies and be an inspiration for the next generation, including my daughter.

SPECIAL FEATURE

Create, Collaborate, Automate, and Explore with Autodesk PDM Collection Autodesk’s Product Design & Manufacturing (PDM) Collection gives you the power to create your ideas, collaborate more efficiently, automate, and explore more design options. In order to design and make better products, you need more than a great CAD modeling software. In this video, produced by Arabian Reseller, check out how Autodesk customers can use these tools within the PD&M Collection to innovate, create, and manufacture items of their choice.

You need a complete solution that is going to see your ideas all the way to manufacturing. A solution that includes powerful and flexible 3D modeling capabilities to design anything. Design validation tools to ensure

your concepts and designs will work. And the tools you need to effectively communicate with manufacturing teams.

Omnix International is the Authorised Value Added Distributor and Training Provider for Autodesk in the Middle East.

Being a pioneer in the industry, we also aim to expand business capabilities of users with a synergy of collaboration, operational expertise and rapid resource deployment form the framework of a sustained service excellence.

Autodesk Product Design & Manufacturing Collection is a set of integrated 2D & 3D CAD, CAE, and CAM applications for more innovative product development and efficient

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manufacturing planning. With this collection, you get the latest versions of Inventor, AutoCAD, software for factory layout and data management, and more. You can also explore cloud-based product development with Fusion 360.

For more information, contact Omnix International, Autodesk’s Authorised Value Added Distributor and Training Provider using the details below: Email: marketing.cae@ omnix.ae Contact Form: https://bit. ly/autodeskpdm

PRODUCT REVIEWS

4/5 ROG Zephyrus G14 So ROG has redefined how gaming laptops should look like yet again. The company announced the launch of the new ROG Zephyrus G14 a couple of weeks ago and we received the device for an unboxing and review.

AED 6999

Zephryus G14 is handled by Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 with Max-Q Design. You also get 16GB of DDR4 memory on the device along with 1TB of storage space.

Inside the box, you get the laptop and the battery charger along with some paperwork which includes the quick start guide and the warranty information. The ROG Zephyrus G14 is the first laptop to feature the 7 nanometer AMD Ryzen CPU which offers good performance and power efficiency settings.

It is also the company’s smallest gaming laptop featuring a 14- inch display with a 60Hz refresh rate. The display also offers WQHD resolution at 2560-by-1440 pixels and it is also PANTONE validated for content creators. The overall design and build quality is excellent – something we can expect from a brand like Asus.

The G14 is made of magnesium alloy with a honeycomb structure, which gives you a premium look and feel. It measures just 17.9 mm thin and weighs around 1.6kgs.

In terms of connectivity options you do get a bunch of I/O ports.

On the right edge, you get the USB3.2 Gen2 Type-C and two USB 3.2 Type-A Gen 2 port, along with the Kensington lock. On the left edge, you get the power port, an HDMI port, a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C with Displayport 1.4 and the 3.5mm audio/mic combo jack.

Under the hood, the laptop is powered by the AMD Renoir Ryzen 9 4000 Series CPU. The graphics on the ARABIAN RESELLER | May 2020

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The laptop comes with Windows 10 preinstalled and is powered by a 76Whr battery. You get a 65W battery charger inside the box, which allows you to charge the laptop to 100% in about 2.5 hours. You also get around 10 hours of battery life on the Zephyrus G14.

The Zephyrus G14 is being touted to be the first gaming laptop to integrate a fingerprint sensor. It is also the first gaming laptop to use a Single Sign On power button. The laptop also supports wireless networking with Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) technology, which is also known as 802.11ax.

On the top edge of the keyboard, you get dedicated volume and mic buttons along with another hot key to invoke Armoury Crate. This is a one-stop app that lets you connect and configure a range of ROG products. You can also customize features on your laptop, check out game deals, register products, read ROG news and so on.

During our review period, the ROG Zephyrus G14 performed consistently. There were no ghosting, lags, or stutters during our gaming sessions. Since the laptop featured the ErgoLift hinge design, the cooling of the internals is not an issue. The ROG Zephyrus G14 is priced at AED 6999. If you are on the lookout for a powerful, yet compact and light gaming laptop that can also be used for content creation on the go, the ROG Zephyrus G14 could be the one for you.

4/5

AED 599

HUAWEI WATCH GT 2e The HUAWEI WATCH GT 2e is the newest installment in the HUAWEI WATCH GT 2 Series, targeting urban consumers and youngsters in the region. Unlike its predecessor, the HUAWEI WATCH GT 2e features an integrated strap for a more streamlined, modern look.

The integrated design not only makes for better comfort and durability, but also helps with getting more accurate data when the watch is being swung. The concealed crown is also made into a flat square for better blending in with the case and mistouch prevention, further highlighting its sports-oriented design.

The HUAWEI WATCH 2e is equipped with a 1.39-inch AMOLED high precision touch display supporting a Retina-grade high resolution. The WATCH GT 2e features 100 workout tracking modes ranging from traditional sports to more trendy forms of home workouts. The WATCH GT 2e has been certified to 5ATM standards.

This means that the smartwatch is water resistant to up to 50 metres in depth for 10 minutes. Hence, the WATCH GT 2e is suitable for low-velocity and shallow-water activities, including swimming. The HUAWEI WATCH GT 2e is equipped with a positioning chip for lower power consumption.

With GPS and GLONASS dual-satellite system, the HUAWEI WATCH GT 2e is able to search more satellites to provide not only more location information, but also more accurate and reliable route tracking. For the

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first time, Huawei has also introduced a blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) monitoring feature to the WATCH GT 2e, whereby consumers in the UAE can set their fitness and sporting goals even when indoors.

The smartwatch is supported by a two-week long battery life and it has been engineered to bring a scientific, yet sporty concept to UAE consumers’ everyday life.

The HUAWEI WATCH GT 2e is equipped with Huawei’s proprietary Kirin A1 chip to provide a two-week battery life, assisting users to perform fitness and health management actively and comprehensively.

As such, the new smartwatch also supports precise heart rate monitoring, abnormal heart rate reminders, pressure level and sleep monitoring features that allow users to understand their health status in real time.

The HUAWEI WATCH GT 2e also comes packed with a large storage capacity, which can store around 500 mp3 songs.

With Huawei Music and Bluetooth headphones, users can enjoy their custom exercise playlist during their training. On the music playback screen of your watch, you can switch between songs, adjust the volume, and select a playback mode, such as Play in order, Shuffle, Repeat the current song, and Repeat list.

The HUAWEI WATCH GT 2e is available in Graphite Black, Lava Red, and Mint Green for a price of AED 599. The WATCH GT 2e will suit those who are looking for a sporty smartwatch that offers the perfect balance of performance and power consumption.

PRODUCT REVIEWS

4/5

AED 3999

Acer Swift 5 Acer has gone for the lightest design as possible for the new Swift 5. The laptop weighs just 990 grams, even though it packs in performance-aimed specs. It is so light that if you put it into your backpack, you might even forget it’s still there.

Since it is light weight, it is quite easy to carry it around the house, when you are working from home.

The laptop is built using of a combination of magnesium-lithium and magnesium-aluminum metal chassis. The overall design, build quality and the finish is very good. The one we received for review, was clad in white colour with golden accents around the hinges and its edges. The laptop is quite slim, measuring just 14.95 mm thin.

As soon as you open the lid, you come face to face with a 14-inch FHD touchscreen IPS display. You get a brilliant 86.4% screen-to-body ratio and 300 nits of brightness. The quality of the display is very good. Blacks are very black, even at maximum brightness, and the colours are vibrant.

battery supports fast charge – which means you can get around 4.5 hours of usage from just a 30-minute charge. In terms of connectivity, you do get a full range of options.

On the left edge, you get the power port, HDMI port, one USB port, and one USB Type C Thunderbolt 3 port. On the right edge, you get the Kensington lock, the power and battery indicators, one USB port, and the 3.5mm audio and mic combo jack. You also get a fingerprint reader for added security.

Due to its robust specs, the overall performance of the Acer Swift 5 was pretty good. Multi-tasking between multiple open software windows was a walk in the park. The overall responsiveness was very good and we did not encounter any lags or stutters. For someone working from home during the pandemic, the Acer Swift 5 offers lots of flexibility in terms of working from wherever you want to.

The Acer Swift 5 is a unique proposition since it is very lightweight, offers good design and build quality, solid specs, and very good overall performance.

The Acer Swift 5 is available for AED 3999 for the Intel Core i5, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD variant. There is also another variant that comes with Intel Core i7, 16GB, and 512GB SSD, which is available for AED 4999. The Acer Swift 5 will suit well for those looking for a feather-light laptop that does not compromise on the performance.

Under the hood, the Acer Swift 5 is powered by a 10th Generation Intel Core i5 processor running at 1.00GHz. You also get NVIDIA GeForce MX350 graphics, that offers up to 2.5 times faster performance than integrated graphics. In addition, the Swift 5 comes with 8GB of RAM. The laptop comes packed with a 56Wh battery that offers up to 12.5 hours of battery life. And the ARABIAN RESELLER | May 2020

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4/5

AED 1300 AND AED 650

ROG Theta 7.1 and ROG Throne Qi When it comes to gaming, headsets matter a lot. Especially RGB lighting via the AURA Sync section. when playing multi-player co-op games, communicating with your teammates can be a matter of on-screen life and death.

The ROG Theta 7.1 comes packed with eight Essence speakers Asus ROG’s Theta 7.1 is one of the company’s gaming headsets. with a neodymium magnet, four in each bowl. The first, frontal, has a diameter of 40 mm, and the remaining three (central, The awesomeness starts as soon as you start unboxing the rear and side) has a diameter of 30 mm. There is no dedicated device from its packaging, which comes clad in Red and Black. subwoofer – instead, it is virtual.

The packaging includes the outer cover and the main box. As you slide the outer cover, you reveal the main box, which opens The audio quality offered by the ROG Theta 7.1 is quite good. on the both the edges to reveal the ROG Theta 7.1.

It’s got deeper bass, and very good mids and highs. This makes for better sounding voices in both games and in videos. Once Inside the box, you get a removable microphone, an extension you switch over to surround sound using the sound mode adapter from USB-C to USB-A, an additional pair of ROG switcher, you can clearly feel the change in the audio detailHybrid interchangeable ear pads and some paperwork which ing. The overall gaming experience gets a bit better, especially includes the user manual and a warranty card. The extension first-person shooters and co-ops. cord adapter is an unbraided variety and is 1-meter in length.

The ROG Throne Qi, is a gaming headset stand with integrated The Type-A plug and Type-C connector on the extension cord 10W wireless Qi charging. It also offers additional connectivity adapter are all gold-plated, including the 3.5 mm microphone with a 3.5mm headphone and dual USB 3.1 Type a (1.5a) ports plug. The microphone also comes with an LED indicator. In to charge and connect your devices. terms of design and build quality, the ROG Theta 7.1 screams coolness.

You also get an integrated ESS 9118 digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and amplifier, which provides an instant upgrade to 7.1 And as you wear the headset, you cannot help but feel how surround sound for any 3.5mm headset. The ROG Throne Qi is snugly it fits. The headset does not get heated up on your ears priced at $175 (AED 650 approx.), which might seem to be on during extended gaming sessions. And the foam cushioning the higher side. But remember, it is a headset stand with a Qi makes for a brilliant and comfortable experience. The headband wireless charger, comes with a built in DAC, and offers RGB LED comes with a plush fabric cushion along the plastic plates, indieffects through Asus Aura Sync. And that makes it ;possibly cating the left and right orientation. worthwhile for those who appreciate innovative and quality products.

The volume rocker itself doubles up as a microphone mute switch. Simply roll it up and down to adjust volume, and press it For a price of $350 (AED 1300 approx.), the ROG Theta 7.1 to mute or unmute the microphone. Since the ROG Theta 7.1 isn’t a cheap headset. But, as they say, quality comes at a price. uses a USB-C connector, you need to make sure your laptop, PC The ASUS ROG Theta 7.1 is a headset made exclusively for or your device has this port. Once the headset is connected to games. And if you are a gamer and appreciate quality gaming your PC, you can use the ROG Armoury Crate to customise the products, then the Asus ROG Theta 7.1 is definitely for you.

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PRODUCT REVIEWS

3/5

AED 3299

HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15 The Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15 from HP is the company’s first-ever gaming laptops running AMD processors. Available at a very affordable price point starting at AED 3,299 for a gaming laptop, the HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15 pairs the goodness of AMD’s Ryzen processors with the power of NVidia’s GeForce GTX graphics.

The overall design is quite minimalistic and the build quality is sturdy. The laptop weighs around 2.3 kgs. HP has gone for a matte, black plastic chassis on the Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15. You will also find green elements on the keyboard backlight, the power LED, and the HP logo on the lid.

As you open the lid of the laptop, you come face to face with a 15.6-inch screen that offers a resolution of 1920-by-1080 pixels. You get a screen to body ration of 79%, along with an excellent refresh rate of 144Hz. The display quality is excellent – the images look bright and vibrant with vivid colours, and the viewing angles are quite wide, too.

The anti-glare coating on the display, helps to cut off the reflections which is a blessing, when working outdoors. Just above the display sits the integrated web camera. Just below the display, before the area where the keyboard is laid out is where you will find the B&O speakers. The speaker grille mesh carries on hexagonal patterns, something seen on the company’s OMEN series of ARABIAN RESELLER | May 2020

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gaming laptops.

The keyboard itself is quite comfortable to type on, while the trackpad is large enough. In terms of connectivity, you get good amount of I/O ports.

On the right edge, you get the HDMI port, a USB port, a USB Type-C Thunderbolt port, the LAN port with LED indicators, the 3.5mm combo audio jack, an SD card reader, and the storage activity LED indicator. On the left edge, you will find a USB port, and the power port with the power LED indicator.

Under the hood, the HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15 is powered by the AMD Ryzen 7 3750H processor with Radeon RX Vega 10 graphics, NVidia GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics with Max-Q Design, 16GB RAM, and 512GB of storage. In order to test our the real world performance, we played Watch Dogs and MotoGP 20 on the laptop.

The quality of the graphics was outstanding and the gameplay was butter smooth. We did not encounter any lags or stutters even when switching between multiple open software windows. Online gaming sessions on Fortnite was also an excellent affair.

Whether you are a gamer or a content creator, the Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15 can handle everything you throw at it. For a starting price of AED 3,299 the HP Pavilion Gaming Laptop 15 is a good buy.

4/5

AED 405

WD Black P10 Game Drive Remember when you thought a 128GB hard disk drive was more than enough for your storage requirements?

Well, guess what? There’s never going to be “enough” storage space for all the data we produce each day, every minute. That especially is the case with gaming consoles.

two months worth of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate for free.

On paper, the WD Black P10 Game Drive boasts up to 130MB/s read time. Well, it’s not as fast as an SSD, but pretty fast for a conventional USB 3.0 drive. The drive uses a 5,400 rpm spinning mechanical drive and the overall design and build quality is very good.

With every game developer opting to digitally deliver games through online marketplaces, the demand for external storage devices has been ever increasing. For years, WD Black has had a strong legacy when it came to storage devices specifically designed for gaming purposes. The WD Black P10 Game Drive is no different.

If you are familiar with the colour coding used by Western Digital on its drives, you know that green is economical, blue is for everyday use, red is for storage arrays, and black is for performance.The WD Black P10 comes in two variants – the standard Game Drive, and the Game Drive for Xbox, made specifically for the Xbox One. While the standard Game Drive offers storage capacities of 2TB, 4TB and 5TB, the Game Drive for Xbox One offers storage capacities of 1TB, 3TB and 5TB. We received the 3TB version for test drive a couple of days ago.

Since the drive comes with 3TB of storage, you really do not need to delete old gaming titles in order to install and run newer titles. Inside the box, you get the WD Black P10 Game Drive, along with the warranty information and manual, and a USB Type-A to Micro-B cable. You also get a voucher that offers

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For gauging the real world performance of the WD Black P10 Game Drive for Xbox One, we ran it through the ATTO Disk Benchmark. The WD Black P10 clocked 127 MB/s in read speeds and and 112 MB/s in write speeds.

We also performed random access performance test, which included copying a folder with 3.5GB worth of data inside it.

The 3.5GB data dump test folder included Word documents, Excel sheets, PowerPoint presentations, images, movie files, MP3 files, WAV files, zipped files, text files and so on. It took about 43 seconds to transfer the files from the a MacBook Pro to the WD Black P10 Game Drive. And when transferring the same data from the WD Black P10 to the MacBook Pro, we clocked a little more than 32 seconds for the transfer to complete.

As you can see, performance is not an issue, especially since it is the WD Black breed of storage device. WD also offers 3 years of warranty, when compared with 1 year of warranty by competing storage devices. For a price of $110, the WD Black P10 Game Drive for Xbox One offers good bang for your buck.

PRODUCT REVIEWS

3/5 Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S The Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S is a mid-range smartphone which was launched recently in the UAE. It comes packed with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 720G chipset, with an octa-core CPU running at a 2.3GHz maximum clock speed, and Adreno 618 GPU. The Note 9S is the first smartphone in the Redmi Note lineup to feature a Z-axis linear vibration motor that enables faster acceleration resulting in better haptic feedback compared to traditional motors that most other smartphones in this segment come with.

The device is powered by a massive 5020mAh high-capacity battery that keeps users going throughout the day even with heavy usage. When it’s time to recharge, the device offers 18W fast charging and comes with a 22.5W in-box charger which means it can charge fully in less than an hour.

The Redmi Note 9S supports 18W fast charging which means it can fully charge fully in about an hour. On the front, you get a 6.67-inch FHD+ DotDisplay with Redmi Note’s first-ever in-display front camera.

AED 899

you get ultra-high-resolution images.

The quad-camera setup also includes an 8MP ultra-wide-angle lens, a 5MP macro lens, and a 2MP depth sensor. You also get 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage space. The phone is powered by Android 10 operating system with MIUI11 running on top of it.

The UI is very smooth to use and we did not find any lags or stutters when switching between multiple open app windows. Xiaomi’s MIUI 11 offers a no-frills experience, keeping layout simple and easy to see. Colour options for the Redmi Note 9S include Glacier White, Aurora Blue, and Interstellar Gray.

On the left edge, you will find the dual SIM slot. There’s a side-mounted fingerprint sensor that also doubles as the power button on the right edge. The fingerprint scanner is reliable and snappy. You also get the volume rockers just above the power button.

On the front of the Redmi Note 9S, you will find the 16MP lens for its in-display selfie camera. On the bottom edge, you will find the charging port, the 3.5mm audio jack, a noise-canceling microphone, and the speaker grille.

On the top edge, you get the second noise-canceling microphone along with the IR blaster.

You get a 91% screen-to-body ratio, which is fantastic.

The body has a gloss finish to it and is a fingerprint and smudge magnet. But the overall design is very good and the build quality feels sturdy.

You also get splash-proof nano-coating and Corning Gorilla Glass 5 on the front and the back. You will find the quad-camera setup on the rear that includes a 48MP main lens. It also rocks a large 1/2” sensor, which means ARABIAN RESELLER | May 2020

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I had the Xiaomi Redmi Note 9S for almost a week now and I have had a good experience using the device. For a price of AED 899, you get a smartphone that’s reliable and has the battery and hardware to see you through the day without any problems.

•Two-year warranty extension program applies for purchases made in the EMEA region only. •To receive a two-year warranty extension you must register your product within three months of purchase.

•Please visit your local ASUS site for details.