November 2019 / Volume 7 / Issue 89
www.VARonline.com
CELEBRATING
Felicitating the best in business GITEX is an important event in Dubai that attracts audience and participants from across the globe. It is a platform where companies showcase their latest innovations and cuttingedge products. True to its reputation, the 2019 edition of GITEX saw experts discuss the latest developments in technology and its impact on various industry segments. There were insightful sessions where speakers enlightened and enthralled the audience with their insights and a sneak peek into future products and services. We are pleased to present exclusive insights from business leaders who participated at the event and showcased some of their cutting edge products and solutions at the event. Another marquee event we witnessed is the ICT Champion Awards 2019. This annual event celebrates the best in the business and acknowledges their outstanding contribution. Winners were felicitated across a range of categories at this prestigious industry event. The event also witnessed and acknowledged innovative products and services that stand to leave a lasting impact on the market. The winners set themselves apart with their truly unique offerings. Needless to say, the event was a huge success with enthusiastic participation from all quarters. We have also included useful information about important announcements, product launches, and initiatives to help you keep abreast of the market buzz.
Vivek Sharma Managing Editor
Commercial Director: Mallika Rego Content Lead, Print & Online: Deepti Israni Art Director: Faiz Ahmed
ICT Champion Awards 2019 – Page 14 The 13th Edition of the Prestigious ICT Champion Awards was held on October 6th, 2019.
We Would Like To Build A Complete Security Ecosystem – Page 11
Merger Of Belkin With Foxconn Is Phenomenal For Both – Page 8 Black Gives You The Winning Edge – Page 7
Our Customer Retention Rate Is Close To 98% - Page 12
We Are More Like A Software Company – Page 20 Customer Satisfaction Is Important To Us – Page 25
Dubai Is At The Forefront In Surveillance – Page 22
Keep reading.
Managing Editor: Vivek Sharma
ontents
Dear Readers
After Sales Service Is Strong Forte Of Trigon – Page 26
Published by: JNS Media International MFZE
P.O Box 121075, Dubai UAE, Tel: +971-4-3705022 Fax: +971-4-3706639, website: www.VARonline.com Sales Inquiries: sales@var-mea.com All other Inquiries: info@var-mea.com | Editorial: editor@var-mea.com Disclaimer: While the publishers have made every attempt possible to get accurate information on published content in this handbook they cannot be held liable for any errors herein.
News In Detail
Tosh Speech BOT: The BOT that has GOT it all! T
rue to the Toshiba tradition of being at the forefront of pathbreaking technology and an early adopter, here is yet another first from the mega Japanese brand. The Tosh Speech BOT. Integrating Automatic Speech Recognition, Natural Language Processing, Text To Speech Technology all of which is tightly hinged with the Toshiba Call Centre and its IVR System. That's the essence of Tosh Speech BOT . The BOT that has GOT it all. " Distilling and analysing conversational behaviour, their intent and offering solutions without the need for customers repeating themselves is a key metric of the Tosh Speech BOT. Be it vide an IVR or the Call Centre. Truly designed to augment the customer journey, reduce friction and deliver speedier and desired customer experience, the BOT is a refreshing and vitalising interface that delivers the next level of customer success ", remarked Santosh Varghese, Vice President, Toshiba Gulf LLC. The Tosh Speech BOT has been developed in partnership with Intentico Inc., a Cognitive Customer Experience company based out of the USA. To summarise what the Tosh Speech BOT would do, it delivers Proactive customer interaction, propels increased customer engagement, offers 24/7 support to customers, drives PreTrained and Progressive customer service with product and service
information and demonstrates conversational maturity with different types of customer behavior. A couple of highlights to bear in mind about the Tosh Speech BOT would include its built in Context Retention Module which can retain the context of the user. For eg, in case a user talks about hard disks and has follow up questions, he/she need not repeatedly refer to the product (hard disk) but converse with the BOT which will retain the context. Moreover, the BOT also has Speech tweaks, accent tweaks for the BOT to engage convincingly and comprehensively with the Middle East diaspora.
QNAP Releases QTS 4.4.1 Operating System
At the GITEX 2019, QNAP launched its QTS 4.4.1 operating system which will enhance business workflows. The company also displayed its Fibre Channel SAN storage and backup solution. QNAP also announced that its TVS-x72XU series storage solution has been adopted as a technology solution for Expo 2020 Dubai to be held in the UAE. QNAP demonstrated its HBS 3 multi-cloud backup and synchronization functions with QuDedup technology that de-duplicates data at the source to
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enhance multi-version backup efficiency and optimizes storage utilization. HybridMount file-based cloud storage gateway supports mounting public cloud storage to a NAS and creates cache space to transform the NAS into a cloud storage gateway between the NAS and public cloud services. QTS 4.4.1 comes with an added Fibre Channel support on QNAP NAS. A QNAP NAS with Fibre Channel connectivity can be easily added to an existing SAN environment to leverage many benefits, including
snapshot protection, Qtier tiering storage, SSD cache acceleration, and more. QNAP displayed its QGD-1600P Guardian Smart Edge PoE Switch, which is the world’s first PoE managed switch that supports QTS and virtual machines. It features 4-port 60-watt and 12-port 30-watt Gigabit PoE (with two PoE/SFP Combo port) for a flexible networking environment deployment. With a dualCPU design, the QGD-1600P provides both Layer 2 management functions for VM and QTS applications. The QGD1600P also features Software-Defined Networking (SDN), enabling it to function as a NAS, NVR, router, firewall and AP controller for IP surveillance, network security, storage expansion, and wireless LAN management applications. QNAP also showcased Intel-based TVS-x72XU and TS-x83XU NAS series to demonstrate high-availability enterprise ZFS NAS solutions at GITEX 2019.
Kaspersky Opens Privileged Access to its Threat Intelligence
K
information.
company’s threat intelligence, providing
of advanced threat detection technologies
companies from cyberthreats. To meet
all cyberattack data and insights gathered
such as heuristic analysis and Kaspersky
our mission of building a safer world, we
by the company. Kaspersky has now made
Cloud Sandbox, to monitor its behavior and
are happy to announce that the Kaspersky
this deep threat analysis tool available to a
actions. Besides advanced threat detection
Threat Intelligence Portal will make relevant
wider audience of incident responders and
technologies, information about submitted
and insightful data available to a wide
Security Operation Center (SOC) analysts to
files, URLs, IP addresses or hashes, the
range of companies,” – commented Artem
help companies speed up their analysis of
portal is enriched with threat intelligence
Karasev, Senior Product Marketing Manager,
suspicious objects, making the work of IT
aggregated from fused, heterogeneous
Cybersecurity Services, at Kaspersky.
security departments more effective.
and reliable sources. The anonymized data
aspersky Threat Intelligence Portal is a single point of access for the
Every submitted file is analyzed by a set
from. Therefore, having access to up-todate information is essential to protect
Every user of the Threat Intelligence
A recent Kaspersky survey, however,
is carefully inspected and refined using
Portal can upload any number of files to
has revealed that at present only 36% of
several pre-processing techniques and
check with lookups for URL, hash or IP
enterprises use threat intelligence, while
technologies, such as statistical systems,
limited by 100 requests per day. Users with
one third (31%) of respondents seeking to
similarity tools, sandboxing, behavioral
a full commercial license will have access to
implement the use in the next 12 months.
profiling, whitelisting verification and
additional premium functionality, including
analyst validation.
detailed Threat Lookup and Cloud Sandbox
One of the main barriers to adoption is the high cost of commercial threat
“IT security teams in enterprises deal
reports, APT Intelligence and Financial
intelligence sources. With the opening up
with numerous alerts every day. To find
Threat Intelligence Reporting and Sandbox
of the portal, general public will be able
out which require detailed investigation
for URLs. Kaspersy plans to introduce
to access select functions which were
or immediate response, specialists need
advanced APT detection, static analysis and
previously only available to enterprise
context such as how widespread the
other features to the portal at a later date.
customers and will be able to tap into a
suspicious object is, or where it originates
range of up-to-date and historical threat intelligence collected by the company. Analysts will be able to validate which alerts pose real threats and prioritize incidents based on the risk levels. Whenever SOC analysts check a suspicious threat indicator on the Kaspersky Threat Intelligence Portal, the portal will determine if it is malicious, as well as provide information on how widespread the threat is. It will also present the names the threat was previously detected under, details of organizations that registered a suspicious web resource, the date the domain was created and when the file was seen for the first and last time, among other
November 2019 | 5
News In Detail
Schneider Electric Opens Smart Distribution Center in the UAE
S
chneider Electric has opened its new Smart Distribution Center in Dubai, the first in the region. The center features innovative digital technologies that can be leveraged to support a host of industries as they pursue their path toward greater integration and digitization. The Smart Distribution Center has been set up as a model for industrial digitization to support development of the UAE’s national Industry 4.0 agenda as it works towards a future based on harnessing the power of the Industrial Internet of Things and Smart Manufacturing. This is Schneider Electric’s sixth Smart Distribution Center launched in 2019, following inaugurations in Australia, China, Brazil, France, and India. Smart Distribution Centers enable Schneider Electric’s Tailored Sustainable Connected 4.0 supply chain digital transformation where the company leverages its EcoStruxure platform and architecture across its supply chain operations to deliver end-toend integration and visibility to improve performance. The digitization of Dubai’s Smart Distribution Center will shorten the delivery time to customers, optimize supply chain operations to provide delivery excellence, and deliver a host of benefits across all layers of the company’s logistical operations including: agile management and process efficiency, asset performance management, empowered operators, and energy efficiency and reliability. Schneider Electric will collaborate with the local government to develop the support infrastructure to help them reach their digitization goals. The company will share knowledge with government agencies, partners, customers and learning institutions to further the UAE’s national digitization agenda and develop local talent. The Smart Distribution Center, spanning
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across an area of 30,000 square meters, is open for Inbound, Outbound and Local adaptation entities interested in learning about the company’s innovative technologies delivered through its IoT-enabled, open, interoperable architecture, EcoStruxure. “Our new Smart Distribution Center in Dubai highlights our commitment to the UAE and the region. Through the implementation of our EcoStruxure architecture and platform we are enabling a wide range of industries, as well as government institutions in the UAE, to fulfill their long-term ambitions for digital transformation. In the short to midterm, our Smart Distribution Center is already increasing the end-to-end efficiency of our operations up to 5% by cutting delivery time to customers, optimizing supply chain operations by reducing equipment downtime and reducing overall power consumption saving approximately 10 - 12%,” said Ahmed Khashan, President of Gulf Countries & Pakistan, Schneider Electric.
TechKnow | Western Digital
Black Gives You the Winning Edge When you’re playing a game against somebody over a network, you not only need the fastest network connection, you also need the fastest response time, says Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director, Western Digital
How has GITEX been for you so far? This year GITEX is more focused. There's a good bunch of solutions and it's more about the industries which provide us solutions. If you talk about data center, there are both hardware and software vendors. GITEX provides all vendors with a platform to showcase because the event attracts consumers and customers from all walks of life. What is the core area you feel is boosting your product? Is it end user, gamer, or enterprises? It's difficult to say that only one area is boosting the core. From a consumer perspective, if consumers are mobile users, they create content and use social media. Gamers need space as well as speed, because they don’t want to miss that moment. Students and 9-to-5 employees need reliability. Which verticals are you targeting for enterprise solutions? We have enterprise hard drive storage across platforms. We have SSD’s SAS from enterprise storage perspective irrespective of architecture. Then, we have our platform solutions. From a hard drive storage perspective, it is about 60-70% of the cost. We realized that when people buy our hard drives and put it into a chassis, which is not qualified/compatible or there is no ventilation, or there are vibrations, they didn't work. So, we introduced our platform solutions. These have certain propriety structures which not only keeps the chassis cool but every hard drive in it has a car-like suspension which eliminates vibrations. For this region, our core focus at the moment is security and surveillance. What is your go-to-market strategy? We entered this market two quarters ago and we have been successful more than our expectations. Security and surveillance are growing industries and will continue growth. Please tell us about Black. Gamers always want more. When you’re playing a game against somebody over a network, you not only need the fastest network connection, you also need the fastest response time. You cannot wait as action must happen at the speed of thought. This is why we introduced our NVME Solutions or Black. Black, as a hard drive, had always been there and was very well received. It was our only hard drive from a consumer perspective which had dual controllers, dual actuators, higher level of cache, turbo chargers,
Khwaja Saifuddin Senior Sales Director Western Digital
super chargers to provide the boost needed. With Black, we have taken a step further. We have now launched Black for gamers, who want to carry the games with them without the need to carry the consoles. Is it already launched? We launched it at the GITEX Shopper, 2019. Why should gamers opt for Black? I think if gamers don’t have Black on their PC, they’re on the losing side. November 2019 | 7
TechKnow | Foxconn Belkin
Amanulla Khan Managing Director, META Foxconn Belkin
Merger of Belkin with Foxconn is Phenomenal for Both
The WiFi 6 helps attain a lot more density, which means one can connect more devices simultaneously at a much faster speed, informs Amanulla Khan, Managing Director – Middle East, Turkey & Africa, Foxconn Belkin With the merger last year you have one entity Foxconn which includes Belkin and Linksys. Now, what is your market strategy? This acquisition is important. If you look at what Foxconn does, it is basically into contract manufacturing and is a global leader. It efficiently manages manufacturing for some of the world's best and largest brands. Foxconn manufactures for one of the largest mobile manufacturers. Globally, 40-45% of the IT and electronic manufacturing is done by Foxconn. Belkin is consumer-centric and consumer focused. We saw that there was a need for consumers to connect their devices. This is where we started with a simple way to connect a printer to a PC. So we have the DNA where we look at the consumer needs and solve them. Make it simple, make it rich in experience, make it something which consumers would love to own and make their digital life as simple as possible, that’s in our DNA and that’s how we have been successful. Foxconn has its strengths in manufacturing, we have ours in the consumer space where we bring technology innovation. So, there is a great synergy, because instead of sub-contracting
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our manufacturing to a third party, we are doing it in-house with efficiency in everything we do. We add a lot of value because of the strength of manufacturing logistic operations. Now we can bring products to the market much faster, more efficiently and also at a great price. All of these benefits that we bring with the acquisition to Foxconn will be passed on to the consumer. Our resources can be more focused on innovation rather than manufacturing. So, this merger is phenomenal for both the organizations. When you mention digital transformation, what are the challenges that the market is facing? Everybody, including government and enterprise, is talking about digital transformation. And they are basically referring to everything they want digitized. They want everything to be accessible from anywhere, to be connected, and have block chain where if something is updated somewhere the same information flow should be available everywhere. It is something amazing in the technology world that is making the life of an individual, human community, and society a lot friendlier, easier, and happier.
But for location-agnostic digital transformation, you must have the fundamental foundation—connectivity. This is where we come into the picture. Even before governments invest in creating a digital transformation strategy, they must create the infrastructure for digital transformation. Similarly, for a smart or connected home, you need to create a robust technology that can give you wireless connectivity. We believe that digital transformation for the market, consumer and businesses will happen and one cannot stop it. But they must make the investment today so that when transformation happens, they can actually benefit from it. In 2017, we introduced the Mesh technology, our Linksys Velop. It was the first true mesh product in the marketplace. When we launched it, the adoption of mesh was less than 1%. Today the adoption is 22%, which means 22% of the routers sold in the market are mesh routers. Now we are accelerating the adoption of this technology. We are facilitating and ensuring that the adoption of this technology is as quick as possible. And we have 65% market share for the Velop product. We had launched a broadband product, but now we are also coming up with the AC6, WiFi 6. You will see a lot of products in the mesh space to support the consumer wireless network. Can you tell us more about WiFi 6? The WiFi 6 helps you with a lot more density, which means you can connect more devices simultaneously at a much faster speed. Since this product collects a lot of data, what about the security of the data and what security precautions are you taking? Each product is built to the highest standard of security as we are conscious about the GDPR. We make sure, all products are compliant and all the data is protected. We don’t share data. We take care of the confidentiality, but that is from the policy perspective. From a security perspective, we host our cloud on AWS, which is one of the recommended and leading security platforms. Then we have WPA2, the highest level of enterprise level security on our devices. We are investing in audits and we hire external agencies to find out if they are able to hack or find vulnerability on our devices. So do these products directly go to the market or do you follow a channel? No, we don’t go to the market directly. Our job is to educate business development team, create awareness, and create the business, while it is our partners who actually engage, deliver and deploy the solutions.
How often do you train your partners? We have training programs for our existing partners. We also train new partners for onboarding. Every time we have new partners, there is a series of training that they go through. We qualify them and make sure we do proof of concept, demo equipment. We want them to be comfortable and familiar with a product before actually going out to the market to sell and offer solutions to the customers. How does your road map look like for the next one year? I have been running this business for the last 10 years. Since the merger with Foxconn, I can see that we are bringing in twice the
Our resources can be more focused on innovation rather than manufacturing. So, this merger is phenomenal for both the organizations.
number of products we used to generally, but twice quicker. We try to be the first to the market and also best in the market. How has your GITEX been in 2019? It’s a good place to engage, showcase technology, and interact. This year for the first time we are participating under the Foxconn entity. We have all our brands under one roof, so we are showcasing Linksys, Belkin and Phyn brands. For Linksys, we are showcasing our consumer and commercial solutions. So, all our brands now fall under a single umbrella and that’s phenomenal. Are you planning to do something at Expo 2020? We have just signed up with DU to market our Phyn solutions. Phyn works on WiFi and it immediately connects with Linksys. With Phyn, WiFi will become more important to consumers because it will most likely be deployed as an extension of WiFi. It's going to become very important. We are also talking to a lot of utility companies in the region to take the products to them. Our job is to accelerate the adoption of this new technology. November 2019 | 9
TechKnow | Manage Engine
ZIA can Provide Real-time Visibility Tell us about ZIA. ZIA is a core set of technologies that covers all our products. Your software must have intelligence. For instance, I show something on the phone and it know the answer. This is what we’re building to understand the language. What happens when somebody feeds wrong data to a business application? That’s a concern with AI, as people have some natural bias which can get engineered into the system. There is a concept of explainable aid, where every time an AI software makes a decision, it explains the reasons behind the decision. We are building a system around natural language processing that currently supports English. Another area we are investing in is machine learning that brings in predictive capabilities to all our products. People use software to manage their infrastructure and they must know if everything is working smoothly. All these predictions can actually be built-in. If there is a virus threat, ZIA will say yes, you should also check. Or, when trying to push a patch to 1,000 computers at one point, ZIA may say, no 80% of your users are occupied with important work. Does ZIA give real-time visibility when you ask for a report? Humans are typically bad at tasks like making predictions. At times you don't look at the right set of data and then there are tasks that you get bored of. These are the two things that ZIA helps with. The concept called left shifting is most suitable for automation using AI. We are working toward bringing such shift to Manage Engine products with ZIA powering everything. What about sentiment analysis? We do sentiment analysis. When somebody sends an email, ZIA can look at it and inform whether the user is happy, unhappy, disgruntled, or angry. For example, if I send an angry email to
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People use software to manage their infrastructure and they must know if everything is working smoothly. All these predictions can actually be built-in, advises Rajesh Ganesan, Vice President – Product Management, Manage Engine someone saying I want something done within two hours else I will escalate. The next time that person gets an email from me, ZIA will warn the person to complete it in two hours! Do you promote AI in open banking? As a company that believes in AI, we think the technology is applicationagnostic—it could be banking, insurance, manufacturing, or health care. Do you do your business through channel partners? In the Middle East it's primarily through channel partners. We have distribution partners in all the countries, UAE, Saudi, Oman, and Bahrain. Overall, we have more than 25 partners in the Middle East and North Africa. Wherever English is not the primary language, we go through the channel. Please share your go-to-market strategy in terms of channel marketing? Nothing particularly new or innovative at this point in time. Middle East was the first region where we tried channel marketing. This model was successful and
Rajesh Ganesan VP, Product Management Manage Enginet
we replicated it around the world like Latin America and most of Eastern Europe. Do you conduct training programs? Very frequently. We recommend a training session every quarter because that’s how fast things change both in the industry as well in terms of products. Share three tips for C-level executives and three tips for channel partners? 1. Approach privacy differently from security 2. Invest in left shifting 3. Invest in analytics. Analytics is about answering abstract questions. For eg., is my team efficient? Or, are my customers happy? Questions such as these are abstract but directly impact the business. Do you believe there should be Data Protection Officers everywhere? Yes, absolutely. We have a DPO in our company. Europe came up with GDPR, Saudi has its own law on privacy, so do India and Australia. More and more companies are now aware of privacy, but it doesn’t typically fall into the CSO's portfolio.
TechKnow | Sophos
We Would Like to Build a Complete Security Ecosystem In security, it's fundamental that you cannot prioritize anything. Even for the lowest priority security loophole, which may not be a problem now, you cannot tell if it's low or high priority unless you have penetrated it, warns Ajay Nawani, Director, Sales Engineering, Sophos What's new you are showcasing at GITEX and also for the UAE market? Sophos is always discussing synchronized security, as that’s our core. First, for network security, we have introduced central reporting and management on the Sophos central, which means anybody can see a report and manage from one console. Second, we have introduced EDR. It is the lateral movement protection which is integrated only with Sophos central. Third, we have renamed MDR (manage, detect, and respond) to MTR which means Managing Threat Response. We have added MTR to our automation technology, EDR, and the Sophos central to enable human intelligence which is available 24/7 to monitor the customer environment for targeted threats. We have also introduced Cloud Optics. Dubai is increasingly moving towards cloud, but it is lacking in visibility, compliance, and security governance. Our Cloud Optics brings in all three with one central console. What are the pre-existing vulnerabilities that can be improved? Patching is a kind of a race. Vulnerability may be identified but disclosed. Somebody may be misusing it for long and when he exposes it, the vendor will release the patches. You can never know how long the vulnerability existed in your system. Customers should think about deploying a next-generation, signatureless and machine learning driven solution which can work on the core, such as the operating system, to monitor all the weak areas that can be exploited. We must use automated solutions and follow the best practices. Do you work on predictive prioritization? If my system has some vulnerabilities and I know the first one will impact
Ajay Nawani Director, Sales Engineering Sophos
my system, can the others wait for remediation? In security, it's fundamental that you cannot prioritize anything. Even for the lowest priority security loophole which may not be a problem now, you cannot tell if it's low or high priority unless you have penetrated it. And, it could well turn out to be high priority. We raise incident alerts for activities that can impact critical system files and work on the remediation plan. Tell us about your recent partnerships. Sophos central is a security system where you have multiple products that talk to each other on a centralized view. We would like to make it as complete security ecosystem. We are coming up with many APIs to allow integration of Sophos central with many products across enterprises. Going forward, there will be more announcements about partnerships. These collaborations will bring a lot of
advantages to the customers as they won't have to worry about integration. Will Sophos central be based in the UAE as well? It's global. Even for backup, the engine is integrated. You may assume that your back up is secure by default, because when you backed up a system, the data was intact and backed up correctly. But, what if your back up was infected? We ensure that the data is clean so you get a clean back up. Tell us about you go-to-market strategy as with AKS you must brand together. We will leverage each other's channel because although we are different businesses, our customers are the same. We will have cross channel training and there will be a lot of workshops to coach them about the benefits of these two products working together. November 2019 | 11
TechKnow | Mimecast
Our Customer Retention Rate is Close to 98% When businesses go through acquisition or consolidation, they may become less competitive while trying to merge different technologies together. With cloud, it’s much easier to make acquisitions or consolidate, informs Jeff Ogden, General Manager – Middle East & Africa, Mimecast
What is new for you at GITEX? I was talking to somebody about the themes around GITEX and it is very much about trying to bring technology and people together. For us, one of the key things is to bring our human element and security awareness to train people and make them understand the cyber threats. As a result, this year we have integrated the two together. We get threats coming in through an email platform—which is where most of the threats usually come from—as a link or an attachment. We de-weaponize the links and attachments and send them to the customers. It looks like an attack still happened but since we de-weaponized them, it becomes a great way of educating the users whether it's a good link or a good attachment. They answer with a yes or no and we assign them a risk score. We used to do it for a three month period, but now we do it in live email. This is a big activity we are doing around security awareness. Business email compromise is on the rise. Can you suggest some guidelines for safety? First is to educate your staff. We believe threats continue due to 90% of the people clicking all sorts of links. Second, most organizations are now using a platform that is easier to deploy and has a broader scope. In the past, organizations bought a lot of point technology which meant they had five or six technologies to fix a problem. Now that itself has become a big problem.
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Jeff Ogden General Manager, MEA Mimecast
Inside our platform, we have 10 technologies. When organizations migrate to us, they can switch on any of those technologies. This is incredibly useful as it also reduces cost and complacency. When we stop spam, attachments, attacks, and targeted attacks, organizations can see where the threats came from. They also get to see things like data loss prevention inside our platform. The customers can reduce cost and complacency and use a single provider who has more technologies available on a single platform. Which vertical among government, public and private is boosting your cyber security business in the UAE? Honestly, they are all the same. We get customers from every sector. In Dubai, we have the fifth biggest port of the world. As a lot of logistics companies use shipping companies to ship items, we have 10 logistic companies who we try to secure as they are not particularly mature in their IT division. Government is a bit less, because it's cloud-based. They are still nervous about cloud. So governments are still on the fence. The banking sector will invest a lot of money in this area. They are beginning to come to us now. Do you have a go-to-market strategy for the next three months for the UAE? In terms of go-to-market messaging, earlier it was more focused on just security. Now it’s about selling the whole portfolio.
We have created a lot of packages which we internally call 2 hour and 3 hour. Basically they refer to security with archiving, storage, recovery and incidence response all in a single package, which customers need. Regionally also we are expanding. We have opened an office in Saudi Arabia. We are now supporting India from here. We have a lot of Indian customers coming on board and some of the GCC countries as well. Oman is taking big interest. Bahrain has an advanced view of cloud and they are moving to the cloud very quickly. So, we are getting a lot of opportunities. What are the pain-points that customers pinpoint as challenges to moving to the cloud? Some customers are worried about data sovereignty and where the data is stored. We have data centers at 10 locations around the world. Some people are worried about the ambiguity around data sovereignty. The legislation around GDPR or those based on GDPR will help because it will stop people from worrying about the data location and more about how they control it. If I were to use an analogy, a petrol car is like on-premise technology whereas an electric car is like cloud technology. Things like GDPR will help us because cloud is here for good. Everyone visiting our stand wants to move beyond data centers. We have some customers who are already 100% on cloud. We have a few oil and gas companies that just closed their data centers down. Life has changed, head counts have gone down, while efficiency, security, and agility have gone up. People are a bit concerned about data privacy. As we come up with legislation and refine legislation, everyone will move to cloud whether it's within the country or international. How does your road map look like for the next one year? We will continue to add products to our portfolio. That's one growth area. Second is regional expansion. We don’t yet have an office in India, but we are opening an office in India soon. I think it will be in Bangalore first. We have done a lot of events in different cities in India and settled on Bangalore. We want to build a technology team. The most important thing about cloud service is its annual revenue and its retention. When you get people to the cloud, they want to make sure they are with you for the first three to five years because they don’t want to put their data into your cloud and then want to move it because they aren’t happy with the service. Traditional vendors are struggling with the concept to look after the customers once they have sold their technology. Calling up the help desk doesn’t work anymore. Therefore, our focus is to build a big team here and to provide the excellence support needed. Our retention rate is well over 95%, close to 98%. Our customers tend to stay with us. We are towards the end of 2019, can you highlight three key drivers that will drive the IT market in 2020? The first thing is about legislation and to make people understand how they can use cloud. Second is cost as everybody is trying to make the business more efficient. Cloud can give
them the ability to reduce cost as well as improve agility. When businesses go through acquisition or consolidation, they may become less competitive while trying to merge different technologies together. With cloud, it’s much easier to make acquisitions or consolidate. The other one we should mention is security. Last year there was a debate at the World Economic Forum around security. As people move to cloud, we want to assure people that we are securing the cloud. What is your view on vulnerability existing and not being patched? That’s a complicated area because lot of vulnerabilities exist for a very long time. We are generally not aware of it because the person who finds it, tries to sell it to the vendor. This is because when a vulnerability becomes public, it can have an adverse impact on the vendor's reputation. As a result a lot of vulnerabilities continue to exist. At times, it's difficult to understand why those vulnerabilities don’t get fixed because there is a whole business running around vulnerabilities. I am no expert on that but I think the concern around cloud is a single vendor and the dominant vendor gets targeted. We have seen over the years that Microsoft have always been targeted because it has the biggest footprint. If Office 365 continues to dominate the market around email, then they will be targeted because that’s the easiest way to get a return on your investment. As a cyber integrator, it is important for us to know how we can make sure office 365 and Microsoft have a resilient cloud like us that can provide backup and recovery, up time availability, and recoverability. Cyber integrator is a big strategy for us. Do you conduct any training programs? Yes, we have security awareness training programs for all our channel partners that we conduct quarterly. In the last 12 months we have done a great job on channel enablement. We are a channel-driven company. We don’t do anything direct. We have tier distribution as we can't do anything without the channel. The biggest challenge I have is convincing sales people inside my organization to trust the channel. It's important for me to enable my channel partners so that sales people can trust them and we are at that tipping point now where we have got really good channel partners. Do you have a unique business model when it comes to channel engagement? Interestingly, it’s a cultural thing because if you have a traditional vendor or reseller in the channel, the concept of selling cloud is quite alien to them. Most of them think they don’t make a great deal of margin. They are concerned about having a dedicated cloud team. It also means that their revenue flow changes, so they may start charging monthly or quarterly for services. If you have been selling hardware for 25 years where you get the money upfront or within a month, and now you get it on a monthly basis, you have got to remodel your business as well. We are finding a lot of niche markets and are having more success selling cloud services perhaps than traditional resellers. We are, therefore, focusing on both. November 2019 | 13
ICT Champion Awards 2019
T
he 13th edition of the prestigious ICT Champion Awards ceremony was held on Sunday, October 6th, 2019 at the spectacular Headlines at Dubai World Trade Centre attended by the best performing vendors, distributors and Resellers of the year. The Awards are instituted by JNS Media International MFZE – an ICT channel communication company. With 239 editions in print for VAR Magazine and 89 Editions in print for “The Integrator” it gives JNS Media International the distinction of being the largest (in terms of editions published) publisher of ICT Channel Communication Magazine across all countries in MEA. Its online reach is also unparalleled. It celebrates the very best in the industry in the value-add ICT channel space in over 26 award categories of excellence. These domains provide the best of brands, products and services a platform to compete to decide one winner.
14 | November 2019
ICT Champion Awards are popularity based awards voted by the ICT channel. The process included a nominations phase and an online survey. The awards survey witnessed a significant rise in number of votes from the resellers across the region vis-à-vis past years. The winners were decided on maximum votes polled in each category by Resellers. The ICT Champion Awards is where winners can bask in the recognition as industry’s best in business for their exceptional products or services. It covers every aspect of Technology from product invention to distribution and everything in between. Attending the awards ceremony it guarantees a fantastic networking opportunity. Also, the 14th Edition of ICT Champion Awards will be held on Day 1 of Gitex 2020. Looking forward to engaging again.
November 2019 | 15
ICT Champion Awards 2019
Projector Brand of the Year
Workplace Brand of the Year
Epson, the winner of the category with its ability to produce a high standard of compatibility and sharper looking image year after year for gamers, film makers, viewers and/or sporting events through uncompromising quality in innovation, design and value.
Xerox, the winner of the category provides with Workplace Solutions and helps us securely connect your technology without sacrificing convenience, security and affordability. A brand that never stops innovating making printers that listen and software that intuitively personalizes and humanizes.
Innovative Display Brand of the Year
SMB Networking Brand of the Year
AOC, the winner of the category is a company founded half a century ago, this brand has been specializing in display technology. Their goal is to provide us with a great display experience and whatever our specific need are.
D-Link, the winner in this category is a company providing new product solution includes Switches, Leading in Wireless technologies, with products & solutions in Surveillance, IP Cameras Video Storage Accessories CCTV, IP Telephony, Storage Network Security, VPN Routers UTM Firewalls & Structured Cabling.
Home & SOHO Networking Brand of the Year
Linksys, the winner of the category creates products that help people realize the power of technology and make their lives better, easier and more fulfilling. Enhances the technology that connects us to the people, activities and experiences we love.
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Laptop Brand of the Year
Dell, the winner of the category is a brand one needs to truly value the evolution of the personal computer and how sleek design, power packed work machines with longer battery life, durability have always been the cornerstone of computing. For home users or work this brand provides wide range of options and flexibility of choice to its trusted users.
Accessories Brand of the Year
IP Telephony Brand of the Year
Port design, the winner of the category is one of the world’s leading players in luggage and accessories for technology products. Distributed in more than 60 countries worldwide, the company markets a complete offer of products for tablets, laptop cases, backpacks and trolleys as well as an accessories range designed to complement new technologies.
Avaya, the winner of the category is a company with latest emerging technologies such as AI and speech analytics to the future of Unified Communications and advanced CX applications, Avaya’s participation at GITEX will be a canvas packed full of innovative ideas deployed in real-world use cases.
Security Software Brand of the Year
ICT Retailer of the Year
Kaspersky, the winner of the category is where the idea implemented is to protect software against malicious attack and other hacker risks. Security is necessary to provide integrity, authentication and availability.
Carrefour, the winner of the category has been chosen from among leading retailers of the region that have end-to-end ICT product portfolios listed and are quite popular among consumers as popular destinations for on spot purchases of ICT products with a very strong showing in the survey.
AV Integrator of the Year
VAD Of The Year
Trigon, the winner of the category has been in mainstream distribution for over 25 years now but also has made the B2B segment a key pillar of its business. The push into the B2B space was conceptualized almost a decade back. The company specializes in the many segments but taken leadership in Digital Signage & Video Wall Solutions.
Aptec, the winner of the category is a company with its focus and dedication to provide the best and highest quality cloud, mobility, technology lifecycle, supply chain and technology solutions adds value to businesses who aim to execute efficient operations all the while catering to various different markets.
November 2019 | 17
ICT Champion Awards 2019
Regional Distributor of the Year
Volume Distributor of the Year
Ethos Technologies, the winner of the category is a brand that emphasizes professionalism in maximizing technology for its consumer, its passion drives the brand on the daily basis to be the best it can be and deliver on complex solutions.
Mitsumi, the winner of the category is a company where considering various factors such as PCs, PC building blocks, networking, software and enterprise solution products, this brand truly helps place the true meaning of the word volume into context all the while maintaining consistency and improving quality through structure.
Smart Terminal Brand of The Year
IT Infrastructure Distributor of the Year
OMA, the winner of the category is a brand strives to provide all our customers, merchants, carriers, issuers and merchant acquirers a whole range of products and solutions with benefits that include convenience, security, increased revenue, efficiency and a differentiation factor to enhance their business processes and systems.
Malco Technologies, the winner of the category provides companies with infrastructure solutions that focus and caters to customers requirements. With their specialized team of technology experts and wealth of industry knowledge, they work with our clients to ensure that they have the best choice of infrastructure solutions for their business requirements.
Networking Reseller of the Year
Cyber Security Integrator of the Year
New Trend Computers Network, the winner of the category is a company that is so unique and how they reinvented their business approach and understand customer needs to adding Value added product re-selling as part of their business portfolio developing a name for itself as a trusted source of Networking and related product line in the market.
DTS Solution, the winner of the category is a company which provides the full end-to-end solution in cyber security from Network Security, Data, Infrastructure, Systems & Application security, Software defined security, cloud security, Data Centre security and top managed security service provider.
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Champion Reseller of the Year
Storage Brand of the Year
Finesse, the winner of the category is a brand that works tirelessly to conceptualize their vision and deliver on the challenge of digital transformation by operating precisely, accurately and with quality in areas that include re-engineering, digital design and architecture, deployment and maintenance of business critical solutions and services.
Toshiba, the winner of the category is what makes this brand successful is not just its innovation but its ability to redefine standards of performance with wide range of choice to its customers. They understand need of the market, have been developing and manufacturing storage solutions.
Regional Brand of the Year
Entrepreneur of the Year
Touchmate, the winner of the category is a brand which has the ability to elevate its presence amid strong sense of competition and innovate while going beyond the expectation of its consumers as well as competitors to provide quality products and services.
Shailendra Rughwani, the winner of the category started his company 25 years ago with a humble beginning and an entrepreneur who truly believes that our clients are our biggest asset and customer loyalty is our ultimate goal. He builds a profile distributing cherry pick products in display, storage, printing, security etc.
Leader in Digital Transformation
Brand Of The Year
Champion Distributor of the Year
Redington, the winner of this category is a company whose goal is to help partners and customers transform to the new era of the smart digital world. This company is a key cog in the wheels of technology adoption.
WD, the winner of this category is a brand which creates environments for data to thrive, helping customers capture, preserve, access and transform an ever-increasing diversity of data.
Asbis, the winner of the category has championed the synchronization of various factors that include delivering the right products, at the right time, in the right place, and in the right condition.
November 2019  |  19
TechKnow | Synology
and videos, so they can be stored on Synology NAS. We have a complete product line, right from 1 to 12. This means, you have a compact machine that can hold upto 12 hard drives. Please elaborate on storage at home. It's more like providing a buffet, where you just choose whatever you like. It doesn’t mean you just use Synology NAS, you can still use USB drives. Other than cloud serving data protection, we also do surveillance. The biggest feature we have is the central management system that lets you manage 5,000 IP cameras and 300 recording servers at the same time. We have a complete suite of data protection features to help you back up files from your personal device or your company server. Synology NAS has multi-version backup against ransomware and the destination can be local or remote. You can also sync files with our public cloud solution C2.
Nick Jheng Sales Manager, Middle East & South Africa Synology
We are More Like a Software Company NAS is smart storage that can be used for home with enterprise level features and multimedia entertainment, informs Nick Jheng, Sales Manager – Middle East & South Africa, Synology
Please tell us more about Synology. We are more like a software company. We are into smart storage, and have routers and our own public cloud service which is called Synology C2. We are into data management because we are integrated with all the common platforms and familiar devices. If we look at the storage industry there are NAS, SAN, public cloud services. We do a lot of integration with other public cloud service like Microsoft and Google and are compatible with other devices whether people use it for home or for business. At GITEX we are focused on three main areas, multimedia, and networking for home and enterprise. Although, people do not download music much now, there are services like Spotify, where people have their own creation. People take a lot of photos
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Do you market these products directly or through the channel? We go B2B through our distributors, resellers and end users. We provide consulting for technical support whether they are users or channel. Do you conduct training programs as well? We have our own technical support engineers. We also train our local customers no matter whether they are end users, enterprise customers, or resellers. Every year we have solution events to introduce our software features, new hardware products and to interact with local people. When you say smart surveillance solution, is it just for home or B2B as well? Both. The features are all the same and you deploy it based on your needs. How does your road map look for the next five years? What are the plans for the UAE market in the coming years? Synology is a 400-million US-dollar company. But, what we are doing here is not even 5%. I see a lot of potential as the solution is ready. We just need sales and marketing to raise awareness among people. Can you highlight the challenges faced in the UAE market? The demand exists, but not many people know about Synology. We have complete solutions and multi-functions that can cover Home, SOHO, or enterprise. In Saudi, they use our solutions to manage IP cameras in 5-star hotels. In Jordon, they use our solution to manage IP cameras all over the country. What will be your strategy in the UAE market? We do a lot of activities like training events, participating in GITEX and marketing reviews. We work with the local media to introduce our product and features depending upon the audience.
TechKnow | Focus Softnet
We are Early Adopters of the Trends in Technology With artificial intelligence, the skills remain the same for everybody. So, you are not dependent on the skill of the people you hire. If AI can do something for one company, it can do the same for other companies, says Ali Hyder, CEO at Focus Softnet This happens to be the 25th GITEX for your company? Yes, I came to Dubai in May 1996 and the first event I participated was GITEX. Initially, I knew nothing about GITEX and within three months somebody asked me if I would be participating in GITEX. I asked about the event and was informed that it’s the biggest regional exhibition in the UAE. Then I decided I should participate. I spoke to people and inquired about participation formalities. But, by the time I decided to participate there was no opportunity left for a stand. Luckily, we found a partner who was participating and he offered half of his stand to us. It was a small six-meter stand that we began our participation with. So yes, we have a lot of memories associated with GITEX. What are you exhibiting this year? Artificial Intelligence? We have always followed the latest trends. In fact, we are early adopters of the trends in technology. When we started offering accounting solutions in 1992, Windows had just been introduced and people did not really know how to use it. We launched the first version of the product—a GUI product. In the era of monochrome GUI monitors, we offered color monitors. When people saw the GUI product with mouse control on application, they were surprised and thought of it as just a business application. They thought they could use it for drawing, as people were not used to colorful VJA monitors. But, we explained to them that it was not a drawing software but an accounting software. From then onward, whenever new technology was about to be launched, we were the earliest adopters—be it Windows 95, .Net, cloud, mobile applications etc. It has always been our endeavor to stay ahead of the competition and provide our end users with the best technologies products. When we saw the potential of AI, we immediately started working on it. Today,
Ali Hyder CEO Focus Softnet
we are among those few companies who have launched AI integrator enterprise solutions to our users so they can experience AI-enabled ERP. Don’t you think everyone is reducing investment on human capital for example Dubai Government. Do you think the automated society will come with challenges as well? Yes of course, there will always be challenges in what can be automated and what cannot. The challenge is to know this and prioritize activities that are easily possible over those that are difficult to achieve. Basic activities such as service desk, receiving calls, answering questions, punching team data, entry vouchers, or email campaigns can be automated easily and these activities should be the first that you can start with. Then move on to more complicated things like using AI for decision making. However, decision-making should always have some sort of human intelligence because decisions cannot be left entirely to the systems. Systems may be accurate but must monitor whether the decisions taken by the systems are accurate or not.
Can you please highlight three USPs of the AI integrated solution software that you recently launched? First is efficiency. A BOT can do what 10 people do and that too 24/7. So, you can do away with the 9-5 jobs. The second is skill. Human intelligence is dependent on a human mind and the work at hand is dependent on the skill of the person handling that job. With AI, you are not restricted as it has the same intelligence for everybody. You are not dependent on the skill of the people you hire but on the kind of AI app you use. If AI can do something for one company, it can do the same for other companies. As a result, you get equal skills on almost all the computing grounds or computing companies. The third is the choice of the channels. You are not confined to using your business app only on the desktop or mobile. You can use Alexa, Google, Google Chrome, Facebook, or Skype and still be able to get the information and business data without having to open the application. Therefore, you are not just getting an application, you are getting information. There are so many USPs of using AI. The more you think about it, the more you are convinced that your future is nothing but AI. What will be your strategy to take this product to the market? We have already started connecting with our customers to showcase and demonstrate AI. We are also launching an AI platform that is not meant only for our division. We are creating an AI plugin that can integrate with other applications and can even get data from them. The customers can continue using them without the need to change plus they get the AI platform. So we can provide our customers with AI enablement using other computing products also. This ensures an open AI for seamless migration. November 2019 | 21
TechKnow | Netweb
Dubai is at the Forefront in Surveillance What's your reason for participating at GITEX? The good part about GITEX is that there is no bigger IT exhibition than this. We have been participating in a lot of shows in India, Indonesia, and Singapore. But, the footfall seen here is not seen anywhere else. We get higher footfalls here than anywhere else. So far it has been good for the brand and the company. Tell us more about the two brands Ozaas and Tyron. We started out with enterprise solutions based on IT infrastructure. So, we are known for that. Ozaas has been with us for nearly 1.5 years and we are into security surveillance, IoT, and smart devices. Tyron has been with us for longer and is the the main bread and butter for us. You mentioned Ozaas is a new product. And with IoT being everywhere, how will you actually tap it? Sachin: IoT is powering home automation products. We have with WiFi-based products which makes it easier for people to connect as everybody has WiFi at home or office and they don’t have to invest too much. We have bulbs, switches, and plugs. And, we are coming out with a whole new range of modes, sensors, heat sensors, proximity sensors, and touch sensors for windows and doors. We are trying to introduce offerings that provide complete solution for home or office. Can you highlight the USPs for Tyron and Ozaas ? Sachin: Our basic USP is that our solutions are customized. We don’t have a box in, box out sort of a movement. When it comes to Tyron, we understand the customers' requirements and their applications, their upgrade plans, the size in a particular department. So, it’s a tailormade sort of a solution. This is our USP if you compare it with any other brand.
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Sachin Tilve Director Netweb
The three technologies that will drive the IT market in the UAE include Surveillance, Artificial Intelligence, and Block chain. Dubai is at the forefront when it comes to Surveillance and it will witness a massive growth, inform Arun Sachdev, General Manager, and Sachin Tilve, Director, at Netweb
We have more than 500 server models listed o our website. If you go to our competition you will not find more than 10 models. In our case, we can scale down and customize according to the customer requirement. With Tyron, the good part is that around 70% is referred business. This is something we want to continue with because people refer products only when they are satisfied with the services. Arun: for Ozaas, we have three
segments—passive, surveillance, and smart phones. Our passive products are approved by Etisalat for quality and we provide them to the government. In the 1.5 years, our passive products including cables etc are all certified. We are among the very few brands that are certified. They are tested by InterTech US and approved by Etisalat so the quality is a statement for our cables. Can you highlight super computing on
demand services? We are well-known in the super computing field. We have more than 300 super computing installations in Asia and Africa and we also provide endto-end solutions on super computing. Because of our expertise in this area, we have something called an HPC on cloud. We provide the same services but they are targeted and not generic like public cloud for Amazon. We provide access to people who want to test HPC for their applications. At this point in time large companies in Dubai are using our complete facility as it caters to their specialized requirements. Are there any specific verticals you’re targeting? What verticals are boosting your business in the UAE? Arun: We would say Surveillance. Sachin: Yes, the biggest is Surveillance, followed by Education and Oil & Gas. Have you launched anything new at GITEX 2019? We are trying to primarily focus on PIA solutions. We have machines for artificial intelligence that are GPU-based. We have solutions that can start at one GPU, although we have 220 GPUs in a single machine. We are also building up machines that can have all the frameworks for AI. We use the complete solution so that the customers need to just plug-and-play and start working on their application software.
Are you contributing to the Smart Dubai Project or Expo 2020 as part of that? Arun: As of now nothing. But, surely we will be run different campaigns at the right time. We are present with sharaf DG, Jackie’s, AUH and Sharjah cooperative, and union cooperative. So, our products are present in the market and during every festive period we have one or the other promotion running.
You've been here for four years now. How is the response from the marketing? Arun: Ozaas has been in the UAE for 1.5 years and Tyron since 4 years. We are running the power retail channel as far as the channel program for different festivities and different occasions are concerned. During Expo 2020 also there will surely be something.
Do you deal directly with the customers or are you a channel-driven company? Arun: We are a channel-driven company. For Ozaas we have distributors. In the UAE we have three distributors. One is specific for power retail. The other two distributors cater to the corporates, projects, and system integrators.
It's almost the year-end. Can you highlight three technologies that will be drive the IT market? Sachin: Number one is surveillance, which is going to grow massively. The good point for us is that Dubai is driving it in particular. Dubai is at the forefront when it comes to Surveillance. Others would be Artificial Intelligence and Block chain.
How frequently do you conduct training programs for the distributors? Arun: As far as training is concerned, we have two systems. We have a weekly review with all the distributors and a monthly training. If there is an additional new product, then we train them in between.
Have you already decided the name for the product? Sachin: We do have a name, but right now it is internal from the development side. Market name will be different. What are three tips that you would share with C level executives? Sachin: In the IT industry, change is key—whether it is about mindset or your offerings. If that change doesn’t happen fast enough, then you will always lag behind. It is an ever-changing field and we must keep evaluating and changing our strategies. It’s all about change.
You come from Singapore. How do you see UAE catching up with Singapore in terms of adopting new technologies? Sachin: Smart IoT at this point of time is still less available and is at an initial stage. People are trying to assess how it can be useful for them. Do you feel there are challenges in the UAE market? Arun: So far from our experience what we see is smart products, home products. There’s more acceptability. In the segment of villa owners, they are still using traditional lights but in few villas we have seen adoption of smart products.
For security in surveillance, do you utilize the data, decrease the data for smart decision making? Yes, we are introducing a new product which will have analytics on cloud. An edge device which will send footage to the cloud. The analytics will happen on it and customers can get real time feedback or an action point that can be triggered. We plan to launch it in the middle of 2020.
Arun Sachdev General Manager Netweb
Is there anything else you’d like to highlight? Sachin: Yes, one thing about HPC. We have more than 300 installations which very few companies have. We have a sales team everywhere. Then we also have a technical team and a pre-sales team. November 2019 | 23
TechKnow | Poly
We Look at Our Competitors As Our Partners We align with other business vendors and help the same customers. Our solutions work with any other solution and that really gives us an advantage, says Sonal Bisht, Head of Corporate Communications, EMEA, Poly
Sonal Bisht Corporate Communications Head EMEA, Poly
What’s new for you at GITEX 2019? One of the main things is we are at GITEX for the first time as the new Poly brand. We rebranded in March 2019 and it is an exciting time for us to be in the market. It’s a growing area, and seeing a lot of potential we continue to invest in this market. Is GITEX the main event to participate in? Oh yes, absolutely. To make sure we reach out to more customers, we are present not just on this booth, but we are present in our partner booths, including Microsoft, as well. Poly means the power of many—oneto-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many. When you look at one-to-one setting or one-to-many settings, headsets could be a solution. You could attend meetings from your desk, or you could be on audio or always have your headset around. It's really quick and easy to take the call or video meetings on your phone. Mobilefirst workers may need mobile stations. You don’t want to switch from your mobile to your laptop. You can continue using your phone through one of our solutions. How are you then humanizing the touch? One of our products has something called
24 | November 2019
Poly meeting AI (artificial intelligence). It has a certain level of facial recognition but we don’t want to call it facial recognition, because everyone gets apprehensive. For facial recognition, you need a data base at the back-end. Our software tells us the person has eyes, a nose, and lips that are moving. One of the cameras in the system would just be stationary and within that a picture-in-picture would appear. We also have conference call solutions, people call it spider phones or UFOs, Polycom is known for that. These solutions recognize noise. I'm calling it noise recognition and not cancellation because nobody can cancel noise 100%. We attenuate it, which suppresses the noise either by reducing white noise or framing it correctly. The solution can be combined to work with ceiling mikes. The solution knows where the ceiling mikes hang, and understands that anything coming from the inside must be allowed, while anything coming from outside must be blocked. That’s like an acoustic fence which is invisible and is called Polytrio. Which of these three levels is doing better in the UAE? In the UAE, as well as internationally, the concept of open office is rising. We are also removing the cubicles because we want people to collaborate. But, open offices come with their own challenges. You can hear people talking at different volume levels and at times it becomes difficult to concentrate. It then becomes important to block out the external noise. In 99% of the cases, the biggest peril is your colleagues.
We have got an amazing response from our customers and partners for this product. We provide this customer feedback to our channel partners in order to enable them. How often do you conduct training programs for your channel partners? We have a channel optimization and rationalization program. In this program, we looked across both sets of partners from Plantronics and Polycom and found that there are lots of synergies. So, we merged the two. It’s a big process as in Polycom itself we had over 7,000 partners internationally. We are merging the system and we have rationalized the channel. The next step is to introduce a brand new program. At present, we are continuing with the Plantronics and Polycom partner programs. How is GITEX treating Poly? It's really good. Several customer meetings and lots of business discussions are taking place. We are present at the Microsoft booth. We have a marketing team working here as well, actively scanning badges. One of the key things we have done in GITEX this year is have our own stand. Until last year we used to be with our partners like Microsoft, which is one of our key alliance partners. We align with other business vendors as well because we look at our competitors as our partners. There is no point fighting because at the end of the day we help the same customers. Our solutions work with any other solution and that really gives us an advantage. The GITEX stand is an amazing opportunity.
TechKnow | Nutanix
Customer Satisfaction is Important to Us Nutanix has introduced its own public cloud services called Xi, with the first service being DR and which customers can enable easily, says Bassam Al Masri, Director of Channel – METI, Nutanix
What are your offerings at GITEX and what are you anticipating this year? We participate in GITEX every year and try to showcase the latest from Nutanix. This year we are driving a message that we are here to run and host any customer application—whether its' data- or cloud-based application and big data solutions. We also tell our customers that we can deliver on their goals towards multi-cloud. They can build up their private data cloud centers easily and integrate them with public cloud service providers—say Google and Facebook. At the same time, Nutanix has introduced its own public cloud services called Xi (check). Today, customers can utilize the first service on Xi which is DR as a service and can be enabled easily—just like enabling iCloud on your iPhone—and you get extended limitless services available. Tell us more about DR. DR is a service where a lot of customers like to have two sides of a data center, that is the main side and the DR side— disaster recovery side—or sometimes multiple DR sites. DR side is a big investment for customers. Many clients are thinking about investing all of this in the infrastructure. They want to use the cloud service to be their DR site and pay based on their usage. When a customer has a disaster incident and starts using public cloud, he pays. If it is not used, he doesn't pay. It's as simple as using electricity.
On the cloud side of services, it's become opex instead of capex. How challenging has it become for you as customers can switch over easily? That’s against the DNA of Nutanix. Whether its private or public, we always help our customers to unlock their potential so they can use any platform and run any application. Nutanix is basically a cloud operating system. Customers can use it for their cloud service. They can use whatever services they want and we make sure that our customers are happy with us. In a third-party survey that takes place every quarter, we have always scored 90-92% on customer satisfaction. This survey is based on direct customer feedback and not on the information gained from vendors. Have you made any changes to your channel strategies to add value and excite the channel? Last year we had announced a big change on the channel program and we released a channel charter. The channel program sets KPIs for partners to help them move to a higher level. We want to enable our partners to master and deliver an enterprise cloud platform to their customers and help customers with their transformational journey. In the charter, we have specified focus on how we can enable and educate our channel partners to become the cloud transformation partner for the sales and system engineers and deliver consultancy for the site. The requirements for our partners are training and certification. We
Bassam Al Masri Channel Director METI, Nutanix
make sure our partners can deliver good quality work to their clients. Is certification a pre-condition for onboarding? There are three levels: minimum, medium, and high. It begins with the minimum, which is the pioneer level, then comes the scaler and then the master level. At the master level, we expect our partners to deliver a certain transaction and not certain revenue, as that’s a KPI. This is because we want our partners—whether big or small— to get a chance to be masters. As far as geographic expansion of channels is concerned, are you eyeing certain geographies for investment and expansion? We are always expanding. We cover the Middle East and Turkey from Dubai. So, we have proper coverage on tier one resellers across the UAE. We have a distribution model that enables development of the tier two resellers. We want to grow this segment of business as it represents 20% of our business. There will soon be an OEM relationship manager who will develop the relationship with OEM partners and OEM resellers. November 2019 | 25
TechKnow | Trigon demand experiences that are personalized and attractive. Trigon provides a complete suite of solutions which includes a wide selection of information display solutions ranging from standard display, video wall, and special indoor as well as outdoor signages and hospitality TVs. Please share your after-sales service process for the customers. After-sales service has been a strong forte of Trigon. We have been commemorated by our vendors as well as our customers for the excellent after-sales service. Trigon is managing various AMCs with large scale enterprise customers where 24/7 services and support is provided. During the last 3-4 years, we have enhanced out service team and doubled the strength of the technical team.
Kamran Khayal Vice President Trigon
What advantages does Trigon AV integration offer? First, Trigon has a decades' old relationship with global leaders of the display technology. This ensures we provide our customers with innovative products and services across various vertical markets like Hospitality, Retail, Education, Banking, Govt, Oil & Gas, backed by excellent after-sales service. Second, Trigon is a part of UAE-based multi-billion dollar Al Ghurair Group and hence we are committed to be part of the growth and development of UAE as well as the GCC region. Trigon has branch offices in Riyadh, Oman, and Bahrain.
After-sales Service is a Strong Forte of Trigon Cost-effective finer pitch LEDs are now available from major manufacturers and there is a gradual shift from video walls to finer pitch LEDs. This category grew substantially during 2019 and will continue to grow in the coming years, informs Kamran Khayal, Vice President, Trigon For over two decades Trigon has been a leader in A/V product distribution and for the last 4-5 years it took to A/V integration business. What made Trigon take this plunge and do you see success in this vertical in the times ahead? Since its inception in 1997, Trigon has been a market leader in display technologies. For decades, we have been closely associated with global display technology leaders like Samsung, LG, ViewSonic, Barco, Philips, AOC, BenQ, etc. Hence, it was inevitable that Trigon would leverage its strong position in the display segment and venture towards AV integration. Most of Trigon’s display vendors have redefined their go-to-market strategy and positioned themselves as more of a solution provider rather than a standard box mover. Audio Visual System Integration is a complex process, please take us through your product line portfolio tell us how about your 360 degree approach. Consumers are updated with the evolving technologies and they
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Which territories and customer verticals does Trigon focus? Trigon is headquartered in Dubai, UAE, with branch offices in Riyadh, Oman, and Bahrain. Beside these regions, we operate in certain countries in the Middle East and Africa region in collaboration with our partners. In today’s world, display technologies have become a necessity rather than an option in vertical segments like Hospitality, Retail, Education, Banking, Govt, Oil & Gas. As such, Trigon focuses more on these verticals with dedicated sales and pre-sales teams. What new services were launched in 2019 and what more is expected in 2020? With cost-effective finer pitch LEDs available from major manufacturers, we have seen a gradual shift of clients from video walls to finer pitch LEDs. This category grew substantially during 2019 and will continue to grow in the coming years. In fact, we have bagged a multi-million dollar outdoor LED contract from a UAE government entity which will be completed in Q1-2020.