Computer News Middle East January 2018

ISSUE 312 | JANUARY 2018 WWW.TAHAWULTECH.COM

THE

MOST INFLUENTIAL TECHNOLOGY VENDORS IN THE MIDDLE EAST HOW BLUE CHIP FIRMS ARE TRANSFORMING THE REGION

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EDITORIAL

Masters of the art PRESENTS

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I'd like to open this issue by wishing all our

E-mail: james.dartnell@ cpimediagroup.com

readers a very happy new year. As a prelude to CNME’s upcoming Masters of Tech Awards, which will be hosted on Monday 29th January at Jumeirah Beach Hotel (very exciting stuff), our editorial team decided to name the 18 vendors – it’s 2018 now – that we believe will make the biggest impact in the Middle East this year.

These companies were selected based on the ways they’ve helped transform

Our online platforms

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CNME decided to name the 18 vendors that we believe will make the biggest impact in the Middle East this year.

the region in 2017, their global R&D and the ways they’ve used technology in innovative and positive ways. The elite list begins on page 24.

We also get a selection of short and sharp takes on page 16 from some of this region’s top CIO’s, who told CNME the technologies they believe will take off over the next 12 months.

Glesni Holland examines the

impact of VAT’s arrival – it’s finally here – on page 10, with analysis on how back end systems could be affected by the change. She also spoke with GE’s Our social media

first ever global chief digital officer Bill Ruh, the interview for which resides on page 14.

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James Dartnell Editor

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CPI Media Group and Tahawul Tech have nominated the companies that they believe comprise the top 10 vendors for each category. The final decision will come down to the results of an online public vote, which is open now.

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ISSUE 312 | JANUARY 2018

10

FEATURE: VAT IN THE GCC

24

THE 18 MOST INFLUENTIAL TECH VENDORS IN THE MIDDLE EAST

14

10 A new era

24 The leading pack

14

42 The key dimensions of

INTERVIEW: GE CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER BILL RUH

16

46

INSIGHT: ORACLE MEA SVP ABDUL RAHMAN AL THEHAIBAN

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

Glesni Holland asks regional experts about the need-to-know aspects of VAT adoption, and analyses the impact it is expected to have on IT infrastructures across the GCC in years to come.

Next-Gen

As a prelude to the inaugural Masters of Tech Awards, the CNME editorial team decided to give its own take on the most influential technology vendors that are transforming the Middle East.

business ecosystems

Bill Ruh, GE’s first ever global chief digital officer, told CNME what it takes to head up the digital strategy of a 125-year old multinational conglomerate.

CIOs need to think about strategy, relationships and value exchange when considering digital ecosystems, writes Gartner’s Betsy Burton.

What GCC CIOs expect from 2018 A collection of the Middle East’s top CIO’s dust off their crystal balls and predict the technologies that they think will really take off in 2018.

46 How to make the most of your organisations' data in 2018

Pure Storage's Alex McMullan highlights four factors that CIOs and CTOs should consider to get the most value from their organisations’ data.

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DIGITAL SERVICES Web Developer Jefferson de Joya Abbas Madh Photographers Charls Thomas Maksym Poriechkin

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© Copyright 2018 CPI All rights reserved While th e p ub lish ers have made ever y ef for t to en sure th e accur acy of all information in this mag azin e, th ey will n ot b e h eld re sp on sib le for any errors th erein.

Dealing with transformation in a virtualised world NETWORK VIRTUALISATION IS THE FUTURE

69% of respondents agree operators that do not virtualise their networks will struggle to compete.

69%

NFV/SDN needs to be a strategic priority for operators and CSPs.

73%

BUMPS IN THE ROAD Several barriers are holding back significant progress from being made, with positive results so far being hard to come by.

73% of businesses are behind schedule on their NFV/SDN deployment.

CSPs ARE PLAGUED

BY A LACK OF SKILLS

80%

The industry is facing a worrying skills gap: “There is a clear lack of knowledge in the industry as a whole.�

80% say that operators need to invest more in training to manage NFV/SDN infrastructure.

Communication Service Providers (CSPs) are under pressure to embrace network virtualisation. But, the technology is still in its relative infancy, and deployment has proven to be more difficult than expected.

OPERATIONAL CHALLENGES SHOULDN’T BE UNDERESTIMATED 52% agree the amount of operational change required to move to a virtualised network is overwhelming.

Managing a hybrid environment is seen by 65% of respondents as one of the main operational complications.

65%

A CULTURE CLASH IS HOLDING OPERATORS BACK

69%

“The biggest hurdle is the culture. Network teams are not ready to relinquish control to IT.” 69% say there needs to be a fundamental change in company culture to benefit from network virtualisation.

CONCLUSION Though the path to network virtualisation isn’t smooth, these hurdles can be overcome. For NFV/SDN deployment,CSPs will need to create a comprehensive business plan, prepare staff for change, and find the right partners. Only then can the future of networks be truly realised.

Source: Cartisian

IBM PC 5150

I

t wasn’t that long before the August 1981 unveiling of the IBM PC that an IBM computer often demanded at least 60 people to run it in a quarter-acre of air-conditioned space, with an eye-watering price tag of up to $9 million.

But the IBM 5150 changed all that. Not only was it much smaller than any machine on the market prior to its release, but it could process information much faster than the laborious mainframes that had swarmed the PC marketplace since the 1960s.

The development team behind the IBM PC felt there was no time to develop and test all components. Instead, they shopped around for pre-tested sub-assemblies and went to outside software developers for the operating system and application software. The tactics paid off, and the team was able to announce the launch of the IBM PC in just 12 months – setting a new record for the creation of any other hardware product in the company’s history at the time.

The IBM PC signalled the company’s first step in its desire to compete in the ever-growing segment of information processing, with the aim of offering advanced features to make the machine appealing to business users of the era.

At the time, IBM said it had designed its PC for both the firsttime or advanced computer user. The $1,565 price tag bought a system unit, a keyboard and graphics capabilities. Its five expansion slots could be used to connect add-on options, including a display, a printer, extra memory, gaming “paddles” and application packages.

Powered by an Intel 8088 microprocessor, the IBM PC operated at speeds measured in “millionths of a second.” Its overall size was similar to that of a portable typewriter, and contained 40K of read-only memory and 16K of user memory.

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FEATURE

VAT in the GCC

A NEW ERA January 2018 is finally upon us, and the long-anticipated roll out of value-added tax in the UAE is here. Glesni Holland asks regional experts about the need-to-know aspects of VAT adoption, and analyses the impact it is expected to have on IT infrastructures and processes across the GCC in years to come.

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www.tahawultech.com

S

ix months ago, the UAE issued the Federal VAT Law establishing the domestic rules for applying taxes across the seven emirates. A 5 percent standard rate, which had been previously agreed by the UAE and five other Arabian Gulf states in the Unified VAT Agreement, was to be rolled out across the country on 1st January 2018 on goods and services to create new income streams to ‘top up’ government revenue from falling oil prices.

Sultan Al Mansouri, the UAE’s Minister of Economy, has estimated that VAT will generate AED 12 billion of additional revenue in its first year of implementation, and EY has forecast the proposed VAT rate to contribute approximately 1.4 percent ($25 billion) to the GCC’s annual GDP going forward.

But despite being an age-old phenomenon in many countries, experts believe the change could

www.tahawultech.com

be a cause for concern. A survey conducted by Oracle in June 2017 – just over seven months prior to the tax deployment - indicated that only 21% of GCC businesses had started preparing for VAT, and more than three-quarters were still awaiting clarification from the government.

The roll-out has demanded a shift in both technical and cultural thinking for businesses, and considering the long-term implications that this will have on an organisation’s IT infrastructure has caused headaches for many CIOs. “Every business, however big or small, will need to gear up to be VAT-ready by incorporating VAT into their accounting systems and supply chain,” says Ali Hyder, Group CEO, Focus Softnet. “At the core, this will mean updating their ERP or accounting systems, renegotiating with suppliers, hiring new staff and/ or training staff to be VAT-compliant.

JANUARY 2018

11

FEATURE

VAT in the GCC

The technologies need to be simple to implement, flexible to customise and easy to use if businesses seek to undergo a smooth adoption process.”

A recent EY survey found that only 13 percent of companies considered education and training a focus area for ensuring VAT compliance. While the skill calibre of those leading VAT implementations is likely to be very high – such as those with CFO or CIO status, this new regime goes beyond the realms of the finance and IT department, and affects each and every person within a company, says Aarti Mohan, Oracle’s director of ERP EPM cloud applications strategy and sales development for the ECEMEA regions.

“Due to the fact that this process is a new concept in the region that is likely to have a widespread effect on consumers, it is imperative that customer-facing members of staff have a strong understanding of the VAT process, so that – for example, if a cashier is questioned on it by a customer, they can explain the recalibration process that has gone

This new regime goes beyond the realms of finance and IT departments, so it is imperative that customer-facing members of staff have a strong understanding of the VAT process.

Aarti Mohan, Director of ERP EPM Cloud Applications Strategy, ECEMEA, Oracle

on with the invoicing to reach the final figure,” she says.

But failing to invest in developing the correct skill-set that can appreciate the importance of complying with the UAE’s VAT regulations is a challenge that Khaled H. Musilhy, SAP’s director

Compliance is one of the main risks that companies have to consider when implementing VAT processes, as failing to do so could result in huge penalties.

Khaled H. Musilhy, director of globalisation services, SAP 12

JANUARY 2018

of globalisation services, feels many businesses may struggle to adhere to – at least in the first quarter.

“Compliance is one of the main risks that companies have to consider when implementing VAT processes, as failing to do so could result in huge penalties,” he says. “Technology vendors today are all trying to market their software as assisting the VAT journey, but how many of these products are compliant?”

He adds, “It is crucial that organisations only look for the solutions that have been certified by the Ministry of Finance, as adopting immature products that are not equipped to deal with the complex scenarios that VAT presents will only result in further issues for regional businesses.”

Among these complex scenarios is the varied levy on certain products, and identifying which of these are either exempt from the charge, zerorated or are those which are set to be subject to a higher rate in the future.

“Automation is key,” says Mohan.

“Businesses must have the means www.tahawultech.com

to understand the interlinking of processes – from identifying the rate, the goods that it should be applied to, where the invoice should be sent to, and when the payment is happening – from an end-to-end perspective to ensure the filing process and monthend is smooth. This will assist in enabling the business to present itself as being compliant with the Federal Tax Authority (FTA) regulations.”

Nisith Naik, CEO, Centra Hub, echoes this view, and believes the more automated the VAT solution, the easier and more transparent it is for organisations within the region to align themselves with the VAT regime.

“Automated solutions also expedite the audit processes, the VAT reporting, and the VAT claims processes for these organisations,” he adds. “They further reduce administrative burdens

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on the management and financial accounting resources within those organisations, giving them clear insights and visibility towards their business top-lines, bottom lines, and profitability conversations.”

A logical choice for many companies looking to adapt to this new era may be to deploy their VAT solution in the cloud. This can enhance compliance with the FTA’s regulations while also taking the responsibility off the hands of the organisation that has adopted the solution, as any updates to the VAT process will be automatically adjusted within the cloud solution by the vendor.

“The on-demand nature of a cloud solution eliminates extensive investments that organisations would need to make in order to deploy onpremise, VAT-enabled accounting

software, in addition to employing a resource pool to maintain and administer the related infrastructure as well,” says Naik.

Another benefit with cloud-based VAT solutions is the time spent on implementation – which tends to take weeks as opposed to months for onpremise alternatives. This could be a major selling point for businesses that demand a speedy upgrade if they are to report back to the FTA in a timely and accurate manner.

“Entry level cloud-based applications are the simplest and easiest to get implemented with a VAT model, though it comes with the risk of not covering all the functions of the operations,” warns Hyder. “If one gets a cloud option with fully-fledged ERP covering VAT compliance, then that would be the best option for mid-sized companies.”

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13

FEATURE

GE CDO Bill Ruh

Next-Gen Glesni Holland caught up with Bill Ruh, GE’s first ever global chief digital officer, to find out what it takes to head up the digital strategy of a 125-year old multinational conglomerate.

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www.tahawultech.com

D

riving digital transformation within an organisation is a complex task; one that cannot be taken lightly if a business is to succeed in the long-term. This drastic change in mindset, business processes and organisational management has ultimately demanded, and justified, the need for businesses to have a dedicated figure to spearhead these digital journeys.

A recent Strategy& study which surveyed the world’s largest 2,500 public companies found that 19 percent have a dedicated chief digital officer (or equivalent) – a significant increase from just 6 percent in 2015.

Among them is General Electric’s (GE) CDO Bill Ruh, who also heads up the company’s software and industrial internet division, as CEO of GE Digital. Having joined GE in 2011 to establish its Industrial Internet strategy, he is now driving the company’s digital initiatives through harnessing the power of Big Data and advanced analytics, in a bid to enable the heavy machinery industry to operate faster, smarter and more efficiently.

“Within GE, I have been responsible for embedding digital tools throughout our operations and product lines,” he says. “I work with a fantastic team to reimagine the infrastructure by connecting software, apps and analytics to industrial businesses.”

Like many large-scale organisations, GE is undoubtedly betting big on its digital future.

It was revealed earlier this year that the company has invested $4 billion in developing products from tiny sensors in jet engines, www.tahawultech.com

to augmented reality and software programmes that can crunch large volumes of data.

However, Ruh is confident that facing competition in the digital age will not hamper GE. “No industrial company has our software knowledge, and no software company has our industrial knowledge,” he says. “In a datarich world, the digital future does not belong to any one enterprise. It will instead belong to those who go beyond the conventional limits of what is possible.”

To drive these digital visions, Ruh says a CDO is “integral” to a strategy’s progress. “A CDO brings a unique and holistic skillset that is crucial in driving the digital vision of an organisation. A CDO is not a luxury; the role is central to integrating the physical and digital worlds of enterprises.”

Following his appointment, the stakes were high for Ruh to recreate and reimagine the way digital strategies would impact industry going forward. “Personally, I do not see it as a high-pressure job, but one that challenges you to think differently and contribute to a new body of knowledge that will ultimately have a significant impact on humanity,” he says.

While juggling his three senior positions at GE – working as the company’s senior vice president, chief digital officer, and CEO of GE Digital – Ruh is also a member of the Industrial Internet Consortium.

Comprising over 250 members, Ruh sees his involvement as an opportunity to learn and create something new. “I see great passion and outstanding talent in the industry today among my fellow CDOs and their teams,” he says. “As

In a data-rich world, the digital future does not belong to any one enterprise.

It will instead belong to those who go beyond the conventional limits of what is possible.

leaders, they understand the value of digital innovation, and are working to integrate digital technology into every aspect of their operations.”

But for all this talk of digital, it begs the question as to what really constitutes ‘digital transformation’ within an organisation – a concept that could be regarded as subjective to a large extent, depending on industry, geographical location and scope for change.

However, Ruh disagrees, and believes that digital is not “mere automation,” and a digital company is one that explores business intelligence with “hardcore data analytics” to continuously improve systems and practices.

“Digital transformation cannot be subjective: it is real,” he says. “It is the application of software into business process and operations to unlock their true potential. Focusing purely on building an IT infrastructure is a thing of the past.”

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15

INSIGHT

CIO Insights

WHAT DO GCC CIO'S EXPECT FROM 2018?

The CIO of 2018 is so much more than a technologist. The role demands a deep understanding of the business in which it operates, an ability to influence formidable peers and, perhaps most importantly, an uncanny ability to spot the technologies of tomorrow. CNME asked some of the Middle East’s top CIO’s and technology decision-makers to dust off their crystal balls and predict the technologies that they think will really take off in 2018.

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www.tahawultech.com

Abdalla Al Ali, director of IT, DMCC

I believe the hottest topics for 2018 will be Blockchain, artificial intelligence, VAT compliance, the Internet of Things and cybersecurity. All of these issues will be important for every CIO.”

Adam Lalani, group head of IT, Tristar Group

IT departments will have to deliver more services that are focused on collecting data, and using it to make business-driven decisions a la smart contracts. Organisations that don’t move quickly in 2018 to affect change will suffer.”

Ahmed Al Ahmed, CIO, Nakheel

IT divisions have proven that they no longer act as business enablers, but are strategic partners. AI, robotics and Blockchain are hot topics that will be considered by many organisations in 2018.” www.tahawultech.com

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INSIGHT

CIO Insights

Ajay Rathi, Senior Director of IT, Meraas Holding

2018 will be the year of AI and blockchain. Business excellence and customer happiness will now be achieved through AI. Blockchain will start producing value-adding distributed applications.

Anshul Srivastav, CIO, Union Insurance

2018 will set the technology tone for the next couple of years, while business model redefinition will be chartered out.

Customer engagement technologies will define the experience and retention of customers.�

Anthony Tomai, CIO, AECOM EMEIA

Sensor-based technologies will allow the AEC sector to better manage assets, reduce rework and trigger maintenance alerts.

Predictive analytics can detect stress on infrastructure, and predict areas of vulnerability prior to an event.

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Ashith Piriyattiath, group head of IT, Al Masah Capital

This year, most banking and financial organisations will be focusing on using Blockchain in the investment and lending spaces. I also expect AI and Big Data analytics to be used in demand forecasting and managing volatile market situations and fluctuations.�

David Ashford, CIO, The Entertainer

Businesses will find more commercial uses of AR, 3D printing, automation, IoT and chatbots.

2018 will see continuous improvement in BI and the quest for AI through machine learning and predictive analytics. Blockchain is here to stay, calling out for distributed or decentralised platform developers.

Faizal Eledath, CIO, National Bank of Oman

I believe the use of cognitive technologies such as machine learning and robotics will intensify within all business verticals in 2018 and beyond. Within the financial services space, we will see growing interest and experimentation with Blockchain.� www.tahawultech.com

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19

INSIGHT

CIO Insights

George Yacoub, CIO, SEHA

IoT will empower shoppers and force companies to provide better products, services and experiences in what will become a new era for consumer choices in many industries, including banking, healthcare, transport, entertainment and many others.

Herbert Fuchs, CIO, ASGC

Analytics, for end-to-end project analysis and predictions with all aspects of time, materials, labour, assets and financials. Robotics, for core construction business activities like brick laying. Blockchain is more of a buzzword than reality in our industry and the GCC region so far.

Mansour Al Ketbi, CIO, Mubadala Investment Company

Companies will start to realise how Blockchain can be adopted and will put it into use. Data scientists will start to emerge. AI and cognitive computing will be adopted very quickly. Simple chatbots will start to affect white collar jobs.

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Mario Foster, group CIO, Al Naboodah Group Enterprises

AI will be on the radar in 2018, but I don’t expect a major adoption rate change before 2019. As governments continue to move to online services, I foresee them facing more cyber-attacks than before.

Mark Beer OBE, CEO, DIFC Courts

Blockchain, blockchain, blockchain.

That will be the story of 2018.

Smarter public and private chains will empower efficient global supply chains.

Will we embed explainable AI into blockchain and have a global virtual dispute resolution platform? Maybe not in 2018, but definitely before Expo 2020.”

Mubarik Hussain, head of IT, Petroserv

I expect the rise of Middle East technology startups in 2018. I believe we will see an acceleration of entrepreneurs in the technology space whose businesses are enabled by cloud and software service providers.”

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21

INSIGHT

CIO Insights

Nitin Bhargava, CTO, business technology, Mashreq

Banks will need to streamline processes and enable tax structures across industries and government offices to assist with VAT’s quick adoption. The rise of Fintech, AI and robotics will completely revamp how banks conduct a wide variety of their services.”

Surendra Shetty, CIO, UAE Exchange

In my view, 2018 will see the continuing maturation of Fintech, bots and AI, which will become more visible to end customers. We will also see Blockchain becoming a more promising platform for designing innovative products and services.”

Terence Sathyanaryan, director of IT, Drake & Scull

It’s time to harness the Big Data that’s been accumulated over time, and combine it with machine learning and embed it with artificial intellectual voice agents to operate enterprise systems. Systems will only get smarter over the coming year.”

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www.tahawultech.com

ADVERTORIAL

SECURE INNOVATION

Manoj Gopalakrishnan, ICT director, Al Abbar Group, explains why cybersecurity and digitalisation projects must be balanced to deliver a culture of secure innovation.

H

ow can organisations balance ambitious digitalisation projects with prudent security policies?

New technology, by its nature, is disruptive. It breaks and remakes business models, reshapes definitions of value in markets, and creates not only new forms of competition, but new competitors too.

Today, the number of new technologies that are emerging is breathtaking – 3D printing, infinite computing, crowdsourcing, robotics, machine learning, drones, big data, the Internet of Things, predictive analytics, augmented reality and generative design to name a few.

In parallel with these developments, cybersecurity-related threats are also escalating, and are forcing organisations to increase their efforts and attention towards understanding and mitigating cybersecurity risk.

Without strong cyber and information security capabilities, it will be impossible for companies to earn and maintain the trust of their customers, employees and shareholders, particularly for financial transactions.

Are too many organisations recklessly pursuing technology initiatives without considering IT security?

Often, but not always, these two priorities (innovation through digitalisation and security) are at odds with one another, and companies are forced to make necessary trade-offs. Few organisations believe that they have found the right balance between www.tahawultech.com

the two priorities, and are experiencing relatively low negative impact on innovation imposed by the cybersecurity activities.

It is also clear that some companies take on too much risk, often without fully realising it, while others may not be taking full advantage of the available technologyenabled innovation opportunities and may be leaving value on the table.

Is IT security just as important as wholesale digitalisation?

Yes. Technology-enabled innovations started to be applicable to streamlining processes that not only saved time, but improved quality, leading to fewer errors, and ultimately lowering costs. Once process improvements became applicable to various business activities, it quickly became apparent that value creation with the help of technologies can not only reduce costs, but also help increase revenues. At the same time, based on the increasing levels of cyber and information security breaches, it is clear that the trustworthiness of many established and new technologies is not yet well addressed or appreciated as a fundamental core value in the new digital economy. Consequently, companies are aggressively pursuing strategies to increase the cyber and information security of their existing and new digital assets.

Do IT security teams have to be in conflict with those working on digitalisation projects?

No. IT security should be the underlying

Manoj Gopalakrishnan, ICT director, Al Abbar Group

fabric of a digitalisation project. CIOs should continue to maintain the responsibility for the ongoing management of cyber and information security efforts as well as technology innovations.

What are the worst possible consequences for organisations who ignore IT security risks?

Cybercrime can come in any shape or size, and not always the form you’d expect. Cybersecurity isn’t something that line of business executives are measured on until something goes wrong, but they are the stewards of data that is coveted by cybercriminals.

Implementing these proactive technologies is crucial, but organisations must ensure they do not come at the expense of worker productivity. It’s a difficult balance to strike.

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TOP VENDORS

THE ELITE OF '18 As a prelude to the inaugural Masters of Tech Awards, the CNME editorial team decided to give its own take on the most influential technology vendors that are transforming the Middle East. While Masters of Tech will give the public the chance to name its favourite products and services, CNME has named the blue-chip technology firms that look set to build on excellent regional work over the last 12 months, and are also making their mark across the world through innovation and using technology for good.

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TOP VENDORS

Executives from Alibaba Cloud and Meraas Holding at the Dubai data centre launch

Jack Ma, founder, Alibaba Group

Simon Hu, SVP of Alibaba Group, president of Alibaba Cloud

ALIBABA CLOUD

L

ast year was a busy one for Alibaba Cloud. It recently celebrated its one year anniversary since establishing its Dubai-based data centre – the "first full-fledged" public cloud in the region. The cloud arm of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group also announced it is set to open its second data centre in Dubai before 2018 is over.

The firm’s technology also played its part in the FIFA Club www.tahawultech.com

World Cup that was held in Abu Dhabi late last year. As presenting partner, the company’s presence at the event enabled football fans of all ages to test out its exciting challenges at Zayed Sports City.

A partnership between Alibaba Cloud and Khalifa University was also agreed in 2017, in order to identify joint opportunities in Big Data, the IoT, robotics and cloud computing. The University’s Masdar Institute of Science and

Technology leveraged Alibaba Cloud’s strength in cloud computing with the research capabilities of the Institute to create major technological advancements that could help Abu Dhabi achieve its 70% oil recovery goal.

Some of the firm’s other customers in the region include Mashreq, Dubai Parks and Resorts, Arabic games developer Onemt, Pegasus and e-commerce platform JollyChic.

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TOP VENDORS

Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon

AMAZON WEB SERVICES

A

s the poster-child of cloud computing, AWS’ long history in enabling enterprises to successfully adopt cloud models has led to the company delivering a mature set of services specifically designed for the unique security, compliance, privacy, and governance requirements of large organisations.

By the end of Q3 2017, Amazon Web Services (AWS) had already brought in $12.3 billion worth of revenue, and was expected to hit $18 billion before the end of the year.

What may be surprising to some is that this revenue stream amounts to a majority stake of Amazon’s total annual profit – including its huge global e-commerce presence.

In an increasingly saturated cloud computing market, AWS’ determination to be the first to go to market over a decade ago has acted as marked advantage over 26

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its competitors in recent years. A Synergy Research Group report released in February 2017 claimed that despite rising competition, AWS is “maintaining its dominance” in the burgeoning public cloud services market with over a 40 percent share.

The AWS Cloud today powers thousands of businesses in 190 countries around the world. With data centres in the US, Europe, Singapore, and Japan – and plans to open a presence here in the region by the end of 2019 - customers across all industries are taking advantage of its low cost, elastic, open and flexible, secure platform.

In January 2017, AWS opened offices in Dubai and Manama to serve its rapidly growing customer base in the region. Following the announcement to open the Bahrain data centre by 2019, an Amazon spokesman said the company would not go into details about plans for

AWS in the Middle East, but added that it is “far from being done adding cloud computing data centres in this part of the world.”

Choosing Bahrain over more established markets such as the UAE may have seemed a bold move

by AWS to some, but the company reportedly chose the Kingdom because of the country’s focus on executing renewable energy goals and its proposal to construct a new solar power facility to meet AWS’s power needs. Plans have also been announced to establish data centres in France, Hong Kong and Sweden.

Aside from its cloud computing developments, Amazon has also been making significant progress in the region’s growing e-commerce space over the last 12 months. Amazon's $600 million acquisition of Souq. com may well be the decisive move in the coming years for Middle East e-commerce. www.tahawultech.com

TOP VENDORS

Apple CEO Tim Cook

The long-anticipated iPhone X

Apple’s Dubai Mall store

APPLE

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n Apple’s case, it’s often easier to let the numbers do the talking.

Interbrand named Apple the world’s most powerful brand for 2017, with its brand valued at $184.1 billion, while the firm has sold over 1.2 billion iPhones in the decade since the first model launched.

Last year saw the longanticipated launch of the iPhone X, the tenth anniversary model which features its Face ID feature and OLED www.tahawultech.com

screen, and now no iconic home button. The official November launch of the X allowed Apple’s market cap to briefly pass the $900 billion mark in November.

Apple Pay was finally launched in the Middle East in 2017, as was the firm’s Dubai Mall store, while it has reportedly been in talks to set up a presence in Saudi Arabia.

In terms of smartphone models, the UAE’s Telecommunications Regulatory Authority reported that for Q2 2017, Apple had the four most-used smartphone brands in the country – the iPhone 6, 6S, 7, and 7 Plus – accounting for the top

8.5 percent of devices registered on UAE networks.

The Cupertino firm has also committed $1 billion to SoftBank’s $93 billion Vision Fund, which is also backed by Mubadala Investment Company and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund.

However, the firm faced varying criticisms last year, the Eurpopean Commission forcing it to pay Ireland $15.4 billion back in taxes for illegal state aid, while it faced lawsuits regarding accusations that it slowed down older iPhone models in an attempt to force users to upgrade their devices.

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The Avaya Middle East team celebrates emerging from Chapter 11

AVAYA

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or better or worse, 2017’s headlines for the Santa Clara firm were always going to centre on those dreaded words: Chapter 11.

The bankruptcy filing, designed to clear $6.3 billion of debt the firm had accumulated, was announced in January 2017, and raised alarm throughout the Middle East’s technology industry.

However, in the 12 months since, the firm deserves huge credit for the position it now finds itself in, having reduced its debt load by approximately $3 billion.

Things are now looking brighter for the firm, having announced in November that it would exit Chapter 11 status.

The concern that emanated from the region reflects Avaya’s continuing importance in the GCC technology landscape, and president of Avaya International, Nidal Abou-Ltaif, has gone on record as saying that the firm’s Middle East business was “very healthy” prior to the Chapter 11 filing.

As has been the case with many of the world’s largest technology vendors, Avaya has had to face the 28

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Regional Avaya executives exhibit solutions to CEO Jim Chirico

President of Avaya International Nidal Abou-Ltaif

reality that comes with transitioning from being a hardware to a software and services-driven business.

Avaya’s quick emergence from Chapter 11 suggests it is back on its feet, and ready to serve the Middle East as it has done so ably in recent years. www.tahawultech.com

TOP VENDORS

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins

CISCO

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n a bid to marry its more traditional, market-leading networks portfolio with the era of software-defined networking, Cisco has rewritten its enterprise operating system to a modern data model structure with APIs, which has given customers a development platform, while it has striven to embed its network offerings with analytics.

The firm has pressed ahead with its strategy of acquiring smaller competitors, in its bid to become an all-rounder in the networking and security spaces.

Still a global leader in the cloud infrastructure equipment market, Cisco boasts an overall market share of around 11.5 percent, while it has tied up high-profile partnerships with IBM and Apple to shore up its cybersecurity offerings.

On the smart city front, Cisco introduced its $1 billion City Infrastructure Financing Acceleration www.tahawultech.com

Chuck Robbins inaugurates the Dubai Innovation & Experience Centre with Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum

Programme, which has been designed to assist cities in adopting technologies that will “transform their communities”.

In November, the world’s leader in networks launched its 11th global Innovation and Experience Centre in Dubai, which is set to become a fullyfledged startup incubator in the next “12-18 months”.

CEO Chuck Robbins displayed his clear admiration for the UAE at the Centre’s launch, saying the country’s focus on delivering digital citizen services was happening at a level that the firm did not see “anywhere else in the world”.

Cisco also hosted its Girls Power Tech event in Dubai in May, emphasising diversity and technology careers for women.

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Dell Technologies CEO Michael Dell

TOP VENDORS

DELL EMC

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n the new company’s debut year following the record $67 billion merger that was finalised in September 2016, signs have been positive both globally and in the Middle East for Dell EMC.

Mohammed Amin, Dell EMC’s SVP for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa

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Combined, the firm now represents a powerhouse in cloud and infrastructure services.

In its inaugural year, Dell EMC has created a $35 billion Dell Technologies channel and global channel programme that has added 10,000 new business customers to the Dell EMC portfolio.

Dell EMC also experienced almost double revenue growth in underpenetrated accounts in the first half of 2017. According to the firm, this has been fuelled by cross-selling of server, storage, client and converged infrastructure solutions.

On a regional level, the new company has begun life positively,

with EMC veteran Mohammed Amin leading the new organisation as senior vice president for the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

The firm has made in-roads in Kuwait, agreeing new deals with Kuwait National Petroleum Company and National Bank of Kuwait, receiving glowing references from both customers.

An independent IDC survey revealed that 91 percent of customers believe that Dell EMC has delivered on the promises it made ahead of the merger.

In the cloud infrastructure equipment market, the firm remains a joint leader, while it is the market leader on cloud storage infrastructure. www.tahawultech.com

TOP VENDORS

Facebook staff celebrate the opening of the Dubai MENA HQ

FACEBOOK

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ince 2012, Facebook has grown its Middle East and North Africa user base by 264%, now equating to 164 million monthly active users, 8.4 million of which are in the UAE. The firm also announced in June that it had reached 2 billion monthly active users globally. www.tahawultech.com

Facebook’s research reveals its own clear popularity – MENA users spend an additional 57.6 million hours on Facebook during Ramadan.

The firm opened the doors to its new regional headquarters in Dubai in October – five years after launching a local presence in the MENA region.

Facebook’s vast audience grants it significant influence in the digital marketing space across the region, and the world. For 2017, Facebook and Alphabet were expected to hoover up half of all digital marketing revenue worldwide, and more than 60% of that in the United States.

In terms of its own technology R&D, the firm made headlines in August when it was forced to halt an artificial intelligence engine after developers discovered that the AI had begun communicating in its own unique language that humans couldn’t understand.

Researchers at the Facebook AI Research Lab found that bots Bob and Alice had begun using a new language developed without human input. It was suggested the new linguistics pattern was a new form of shorthand only the bots could understand.

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TOP VENDORS

The Fujitsu World Tour covered 20 countries including the UAE

Farid Al Sabbagh, managing director, Fujitsu Middle East

FUJITSU

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uring Fujitsu’s recent world tour, which was hosted under the theme, 'Human Centric Innovation: Digital Co-Creation', the firm sought to reiterate the fact that organisations cannot undergo the process of building technology around people alone.

Liquid cooling servers are the Japanese firm's most exciting new product, which are submerged in a liquid that contains no oxygen – the idea 32

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behind this being that the liquid keeps the server cold, which Fujitsu claims will slash an organisation's power bill by 40 percent over a period of three years.

These servers will be brought to the Middle East market in Q1 2018.

Looking ahead, the company is seeking to collaborate with a selection of influential organisations in the region – including Expo 2020 and Dubai Smart Cities, while also delving deeper into the AI domain.

PFU, a Fujitsu company, recently

opened a Knowledge Suite facility in the UAE, located at Dubai Silicon Oasis. The facility is designed to improve collaboration between PFU, the scanner manufacturer and its partners and end users in order to deliver the solutions that customers need. The Knowledge Suite is an "ideal" location for training, seminars, product launches and software development collaboration and forms the cornerstone of the firm’s channel enablement policy. www.tahawultech.com

Google co-founder Sergey Brin meets HH Sheikh Hamdan Bin Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in Dubai

TOP VENDORS

GOOGLE

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oogle opened its fiveperson Dubai Internet City office back in 2008.

Since then, the firm has expanded its core online advertising business to affirm its position as both a local and global technology player.

Launching its regional presence has enabled Google to drive the growth of Arabic content on the web, and there are now over 10,000 e-books in Arabic on the Google Play store.

In addition, Google has backed a number of tech startups in the region www.tahawultech.com

through its partnership with Astrolabs – an entrepreneurial hub based in Jumeirah Lakes Towers, and is a supporter of 80 startups across 46 nationalities.

Any UAE resident – no matter how long they have lived here – will still use a digital map service. A study conducted by marketing research firm AlphaBeta quantified the economic impact that services like Google Maps and Google Earth brought to consumers, businesses and society in 2016 across the emirates.

Sundar Pichai, Google CEO

According to the study, modern mapping services have the potential to unleash consumer benefits worth over AED 2 billion ($550 million) per year.

In addition, digital maps technology enabled users to travel faster by reducing travel time by 16 percent on average in the UAE, placing the value of time saved at AED 25 billion ($6.7 billion) – based on local wage rates.

Outside of the UAE, Google was ranked by job-hunting and employeereview site Comparably as the best place to work in 2017 in the U.S. Over half a million employees from over 30,000 ‘large’ companies – those with 500 employees or more, provided three million ratings to come up with an overall satisfaction ranking, and Google’s score of 4.54 out of 5 was enough to secure the top spot.

The tech giant has also recently launched a YouTube hub - dubbed ‘Batala’ - to promote female-led content in the Arab world.

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Johannes Koch, managing director, MEA for HPE and Ali Saleh, SVP and chief commercial officer for GE Digital MEA

TOP

VENDORS

HPE

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he former enterprise arm of Hewlett-Packard has undergone some serious restructuring over the last 18 months. Prior to the split, CEO Meg Whitman – who is due to step down before the end of January - said that at the time, HP “was an enormous conglomerate” that confused customers because it sold too many disparate products - from servers to software to printers.

In 2016, it decided to spin-off its software and IT services businesses and entered into talks to merge these with Micro Focus International and Computer Sciences Corporation.

Closer to home, HPE recently signed a strategic partnership agreement with General Electric (GE) that will bring GE Digital’s digital industrial solutions at scale to the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. The 34

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Meg Whitman, CEO, HPE

three-year agreement with HPE is the first collaboration of this scale and scope in the region, and will focus primarily on cybersecurity solutions in operational technology, with the potential to move into other digital solution in the future.

In addition, HPE announced a five-year collaboration agreement with UAE telco du in October 2016.

Together, the pair will support the Smart Dubai initiative to drive economic growth and enhance the UAE’s goal of a sustainable society.

Specifically, HPE was selected as

systems integrator in establishing the Dubai Smart City Platform.

HPE is also a major contributor to the OpenStack open source cloud computing community, in addition to contributing to open source data platforms in areas such as Big Data with its Vertica SQL analytics portfolio.

The firm is also investing in R&D in areas such as network functional virtualisation, smart cars and IoT, with its Universal IoT Platform, which is intended to offer a flexible, open and scalable platform for customers to manage their IoT solutions. www.tahawultech.com

TOP VENDORS HUAWEI

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cross its Carrier, Consumer and Enterprise business groups, Huawei made a selection of big announcements and introductions for the Middle East in 2017.

Its broad selection of technologies around Big Data, IoT and cloud have helped fortify its position as an end-toend solution provider.

The firm has laid out its ambition to be among the world’s “top 5” cloud providers, and is looking to make its mark in the banking, energy and safe city spaces in its burgeoning enterprise business.

Its progress in the latter industry has really begun to mark it out as a transformative player in Dubai’s smart city ambitions, with its Video Cloud and Crisis and Disaster Management Solutions offering new ways for public sector organisations to keep citizens safe.

Huawei partnered with Dubai Civil Defence in May, and already counts a number of influential organisations across the region among its customers, including Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Interior,

www.tahawultech.com

Dubai Civil Defence sign an MoU with Huawei

Huawei’s rotating CEO Eric Xu

Dubai Police and Abu Dhabi Marine Operating Company. Perhaps most impressively, its safe city technologies have enabled it to offer tangible change in improving citizen safety.

Alaa Elshimy, managing director and VP, Huawei Enterprise Middle East

It also launched its Dubai OpenLab and 1,200-square-metre innovation centre in Riyadh last year, which both exhibit the firm’s solutions.

Huawei even managed to increase its Q2 server business by 57.8 percent.

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IBM

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IBM CEO Ginni Rometty

The launch of IBM’s Cognit venture with Mubadala

IBM’s Middle East and Africa GM Takreem El-Tohamy signs a ‘Cognitive Centre of Competence’ deal with Smart Dubai

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hroughout 2017, Big Blue was a close partner of Smart Dubai, the Dubai government arm that has a mandate to build the world’s “smartest and happiest” city through technology.

In March, Smart Dubai announced it would set up a cognitive AI Lab in partnership with IBM, which would assist with public and private sector employee training, prototype testing, and go-to-market support for new AI services.

Along with CosenSys, IBM is also set to be responsible for building a ‘Blockchain-as-a-Service’ platform for the Dubai government, and helping the emirate deliver on its Dubai Blockchain Strategy 2020, which aims to cut 100 million annual government paper transactions.

The Emirates Towers Service 1 centre, meanwhile, has been an excellent customer-facing initiative, allowing the public to access services from 14 different Dubai government entities, with the centre making heavy use of IBM’s AI and robotics technologies.

On a global level, IBM partnered with Google in January to combine its customisable PowerAI toolkit with the firm’s AI tools, allowing deeplearning systems to more accurately find answers to complex questions or recognise images or voices.

March also saw IBM launch its first “enterprise-ready” Blockchain service, which can deliver “1,000” transactions per second. IBM also announced a Blockchain partnership with Dubai Customs and Dubai Trade to enhance the import and re-expert processes from the emirate through Blockchain. www.tahawultech.com

TOP VENDORS

CEO Charles Phillips

INFOR

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t its core, Infor’s ethos is pretty simple – run business-critical apps in the cloud, and make user experience as simple and seamless as possible.

Targeting 13 major industries, Infor has set its sights in particular on disrupting manufacturing, hospitality, healthcare and retail, and since grouping the India, Middle East and Africa regions as one, the move looks to be yielding results.

In the Middle East, the firm announced last year that its business had grown 131 percent, with its shift away from a channels-only strategy having reaped the results it had hoped for. www.tahawultech.com

President Stephan Scholl

Since appointing technology industry veteran Charles Phillips at the helm in 2010, Infor has gone about integrating its wide array of technology acquisitions into a selection of slick business apps, and has already built up a following of dedicated customers in the region and around the world.

One of the most eye-catching

Tarik Taman, VP and GM, Infor IMEA

things about the New-Yorkheadquartered firm is its commitment to building “beautiful” applications, which are designed through its inhouse creative agency Hook & Loop.

Infor also acquired Cairo-based Accentia Middle East last year, showing its commitment to increase its foothold in the MENA region.

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TOP VENDORS

Intel exhibits an autonomous driving concept with BMW

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here’s no denying Intel’s importance not only to technology, but to the world.

So many of the planet’s biggest technology companies and businesses across industries are so reliant on Intel’s products, and their innovation which continually pushes the boundaries of what can be achieved with software.

The “keeper of Moore’s Law”, Intel halves processing speeds every 18 months as Gordon Moore predicted would be the case from 1965 onwards.

The declining global PC market hasn’t even affected the firm badly, with its data centre and IoT offerings performing well in 2017.

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In March last year, Intel set up its Artificial Intelligence Products Group, which will focus on the development of chips and software products tied to machine learning, algorithms, and deep learning.

The new group could well become Intel’s single most important division, as firms ease machine learning into operations. The company is tweaking more chips and developing software to take on workloads like analytics, image recognition, and automation.

Intel has also made moves in the driverless car space, acquiring Mobileye, a former supplier of Tesla, for $15 billion in March.

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich

www.tahawultech.com

TOP VENDORS

The Micro Focus Middle East team

MICRO FOCUS

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aving completed the acquisition of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s software business in September, business apps firm Micro Focus has shot towards the top of London’s FTSE 100 index, becoming the United Kingdom’s largest software company in the process.

Micro Focus now constitutes a $4.5 billion company in revenue.

The firm is taking a “best-ofboth-worlds approach” to digital transformation, and aims to www.tahawultech.com

continue supporting what its existing customers have, while offering a migration path to new services.

Micro Focus has appointed its (now former) CFO Mike Phillips as director of M&A activity, showing its intention to build a slick portfolio of emerging technology.

The firm has put analytics as the cornerstone of “everything it does”, from DevOps and security to information governance and management. Micro Focus has said that security will be a crucial

partner to analytics in its strategy.

Micro Focus has also committed to making hybrid IT simple through secure, software-defined offerings that enable customers to move data seamlessly across their onpremises data centres, private cloud, managed cloud and public cloud environments.

They have also prioritised the development of the intelligent edge and flexible consumption models to help customers transform their IT environments.

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TOP VENDORS

Microsoft’s Seeing AI app

MICROSOFT

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he world’s biggest software company has continued to take the necessary steps to give the world the "intelligent cloud and intelligent edge”, having abandoned its “cloud-first, mobilefirst” mantra.

The firm remains a close technology partner of the Kuwaiti government, as well as being Mashreq’s “digital transformation partner” of choice.

Despite undergoing a global restructuring process earlier in the year to focus its salesforce on Azure, CEO Satya Nadella has laid out an ambitious roadmap that has the potential to reap huge benefits for the firm, which generated $89.95 billion in revenue for 2017.

In September 2016, the firm launched its 5,000-person AI and Research Group, while it has continued to embed AI into its Azure and Azure Stack offerings, as well as launching an internal AI University to help develop its own talent in the field.

Nadella has also highlighted the need for responsible development of technology, and using artificial intelligence as a force for good, a 40

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Scott Guthrie, EVP of Microsoft’s cloud and enterprise group

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

pledge that has caught the eye of the CNME team.

Microsoft’s Seeing AI, the iOS app that helps the visually impaired to identify people’s faces and objects

that are in front of them via and iPhone’s camera, is evidence that that promise is being kept.

Consultancy Interbrand named Microsoft the world’s third most powerful brand, and the Redmond firm has marched on in its bid to infuse its cloud offerings with AI abilities that can transform the enterprise. www.tahawultech.com

TOP VENDORS

Larry Ellison, co-founder and CTO, Oracle

ORACLE

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ast year saw Oracle open a new office in Dubai, called the Oracle Digital Hub. The office is designed to house 400 cloud sales representatives, with the goal of helping mid-sized organisations in the region transition to the cloud.

Oracle also announced it had plans to hire 1,000 cloud professionals across Europe, the Middle East and Africa - many of whom will end up here in Dubai. The company is also nearing the completion of its first data centre here in the region, which Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban - Oracle’s SVP of technology for the Middle East and Africa, believes will assist in creating relationships with government organisations in the region that are looking at cloud options. www.tahawultech.com

Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, SVP of technology, MEA, Oracle

The company has been heavily investing in knowledge management through its academic initiatives in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE to ensure the perceived lack of talent surrounding cloud computing in the region will not pose as an issue going forward. Globally, over 3 million students in 110 countries have been enrolled in the Oracle Academy scheme. In the UAE alone, over 12,000 students in 27 institutions are registered and licensed with the resource programme and curriculum software. Oracle also signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Communications and IT in Saudi Arabia to train and certify a further 5,000 graduates.

Abu Dhabi Department of Finance has deployed a private

cloud shared services platform built upon Oracle hardware and software, enabling other public entities to shift their focus from financial management issues to core capabilities, such as improved municipal services for constituents.

ADNOC Distribution, one of the largest petroleum companies in the Arab Gulf Region, manages its operations on Oracle’s engineered systems in a private cloud.

It is clear that Oracle is continuing to pour money into the cloud – highlighted by the $9.3 billion deal to acquire NetSuite. Aside from this, it is beginning to explore the potential for artificial intelligence (AI), and is set to open the first AI lab in the region at Dubai Internet City by the end of January.

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TOP VENDORS Executive member of the board Bernd Leukert

SAP CEO Bill McDermott

Saudi Aramco becomes the first firm to run solutions on the SAP Cloud Hub

SAP

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hroughout 2017, SAP has continued to be a cornerstone component of a large number of enterprises in the Middle East, delivering a broad suite of business apps by industry.

Since taking the hotseat, CEO Bill McDermott has had a huge part to play in reinventing the German firm’s image as being a slick provider of user-friendly business apps, rather than a less glamorous necessity of the back office.

McDermott also helped tie up a significant partnership with Microsoft in December, integrating the firms’ offerings to deploy each other’s cloud solutions internally. The firms will coengineer and go to market together with solutions, as well as providing joint support services to customers.

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Opening a new Middle East and North Africa headquarter office in Dubai Internet City last year, the firm has committed to a five-year, $200 million investment in the UAE, including the introduction of a public cloud data centre in the country.

Perhaps most significantly within the Middle East, SAP announced plans to build a public cloud data centre in Saudi Arabia in collaboration with the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, one of the few firms to do so in the Kingdom.

In May 2016, McDermott initially told CNME that the first site would be in Dubai, but now, a $75 milllion investment is set to be rolled out over the next four years in Saudi Arabia, with SAP’s Cloud Hub comprising four key pillars.

These will include the establishment of a public cloud data centre in the Kingdom; an “open platform” for local developers; a coinnovation centre to support Saudi startups and customers, and further localisation of SAP solutions.

As part of the announcement, the Ministry of Economy and Planning and Ministry of Communication and Information Technology will work with SAP to explore integrating the SAP Cloud Hub into Saudi Arabia’s planned government cloud.

Oil giant Saudi Aramco was the first firm to begin running solutions on the Cloud Hub, while the firm has also tied up important partnerships this year, including one with Dubai Electricity and Water Authority.

SAP has also said it will be the first international software provider to launch a public cloud hub in Saudi Arabia by the end of 2017. www.tahawultech.com

INSIGHT

Adam Lalani, head of IT, Tristar Group

Why Blockchain’s only limit is human imagination Tristar Group’s head of IT Adam Lalani explains why he believes Blockchain has the potential to be as disruptive as the Internet.

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ack in the mid-90s, when I first had access to the Internet, I couldn’t really understand what the hype was all about.

I was a gamer in those days, so my first use case for the Internet was to find WAD files – custom maps, weapons and characters – for the game Doom, that people posted on their Geocities pages.

Fast-forward a quarter of a century, and the Internet is used for just about everything – banking, communications, shopping, research, news, social networking – limited only by our imaginations.

For me, Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt the way we work not only in my home industry, logistics, but also in other industries, in just the same way – limited only by what we can imagine.

Here is a simple situation we can all relate to, that shows just how Blockchain can make our lives easier.

After a car accident, when the police arrive, each party adjusts their story in an attempt to avoid blame.

What if there was a way to eliminate 44

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this dishonest finger pointing, where neither party could attempt to rewrite history following the collision? Enter Blockchain.

To begin with, Blockchain’s use will be similar to the early use of the Internet. However, moving forward, we can use this technology to solve so many existing problems.

One such problem is how visibility in the supply chain has been difficult to provide between multiple parties and stakeholders – in the main due to disparate, non-connected systems.

Due to this, disputes are commonplace – scenarios like “my product was delivered late” or “my product was short delivered” or “I didn’t receive my product” happen all too frequently.

They can be eliminated using this shared ledger technology – where neither party can attempt to alter the facts after they have happened.

I am a big believer in applying Sir Richard Dawkins’ theory of cumulative selection to the technology space – the idea that a complex end-product results from a sequence of non-random steps that originate from ultimately or comparatively simple beginnings.

Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt the way we work not only in my home industry, logistics, but also in other industries, in just the same way – limited only by what we can imagine.

For me, it is clear that Blockchain fits this idea perfectly – a ledger technology initially used to store financial transactions, now for us at Tristar being used for end-to-end logistics tracking.

In the future, the technology will only be restricted by the limits of human imagination. It really is that powerful. www.tahawultech.com

PRESENTS

Monday, 29th January 2018 Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai

#CIO100ME www.tahawultech.com/cio100/2018/

CELEBRATING TECH INNOVATION CNME is now accepting nominations for its 2018 CIO 100 Awards.

As IT becomes the driver of digital change in the Middle East, the region’s chief information officers have the opportunity to put themselves at the core of business decision-making.

The CIO 100 Awards 2018 celebrates leaders who are grabbing this opportunity with both hands, and constantly striving for innovative practices.

CIO 100 winners will receive their awards at our annual CIO 100 Symposium & Awards Ceremony, and will also be featured in the February 2018 issue of CNME magazine.

For sponsorship enquires, please contact STRATEGIC VAD PARTNER

Kausar Syed, Group Sales Direcror Mobile: +971 50 758 6672 QUALITY TESTING INNOVATION PARTNER

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INSIGHT

Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, SVP of technology, Oracle MEA

Data and people: the golden ratio Oracle Middle East and Africa’s senior vice president of technology, Abdul Rahman Al Thehaiban, explains why skilled human beings are needed alongside machines in order to extract the maximum value from raw data.

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s a raw material with a recognised value, data is often likened to gold. Just as explorers earlier crossed continents in search of gold, many companies today spare no expense in collecting as much data as possible to inform their decision-making. Like gold, data has a market value even in an uncertain economy. Just as gold must be mined and processed to be crafted into items of even greater value, data must be collected, collated and analysed to provide businesses with valuable insights from their ‘digital gold’.

People are crucial at every stage of the analytical process. Without people, the value of the large volume of data that machines create cannot be unlocked. A goldsmith can double or treble the value of gold by turning it into a ring. Similarly, skilled people can turn data into insights, applications or whole business models with incredible value. To succeed in a data-driven economy, businesses need visionaries to imagine and explore the value within their data. They need inspirational thinkers to plan a path to unlock that value, and they need technical minds and problem solvers to harness the full power of technology to connect and mine data for insights.

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Plans to unlock the value of data must not underestimate the role people play alongside machines.

Every business needs to find the right balance of each – a golden ratio where the right people are working with the right data and tools to deliver maximum value.

Consider the many businesses sitting on huge stockpiles of information. There has been a stream of predictions around how the Internet of Things (IoT) will change the way companies work. But apart from a few major players, most industrial organizations use a fraction of their IoT data. Most are still only scratching the surface of what’s possible when it comes to analyzing that information.

So what is holding companies back? They certainly have enough data and the technology to collect and analyse it exists. It is often the right people who are missing. People are at the centre of planning, decisionmaking and perpetuating advances in technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning.

Only people can ensure the business is working with the right data, ask the right questions of its analytics, and most crucially, apply those learnings in a way

that addresses human needs and problems. In many instances, there are not enough people doing so. Some businesses may think more machines and more data are the answer, but it is about striking a balance and that includes having qualified people.

There is undoubtedly a digital gold rush happening right now and it will favour those businesses with the right people in place. These people will be the gold miners and goldsmiths of the data-driven businesses of tomorrow.

How machines are shaping the ‘golden ratio’ of data-driven business Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, said this about how data should flow in a modern business, in 2007: “Any enterprise CEO really ought to be able to ask a question that involves connecting data across the organisation, be able to run a company effectively, and especially to be able to respond to unexpected events. Most organisations are missing this ability to connect all the data together.”

Berners-Lee’s point was that the value of data is not being fully realised if it is sitting in silos and people are making decisions based www.tahawultech.com

only on a partial view of all the available information. If businesses lack the people and the technology to bring data together for a more comprehensive view of their opportunities, their worth is only fraction of their potential value.

The ability to collect, collate and connect data at a large scale simply did not exist until the onset of cloud computing, which is breaking down the silos Berners-Lee alluded to. The rise of cloud computing has not only exponentially increased the amount of data in circulation, but has also given that data a far greater currency by making it easier to collect, share and analyse.

The connectivity that cloud provides across businesses, supply chains, customers, platforms, applications and databases allows organisations to gain a

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single view of their operation. The power and flexibility of cloud means they can process unprecedented volumes of data at speed through cloud applications, platforms and infrastructure.

Retailers looking to improve customer experience and satisfaction are turning to interconnected sensors spread through the supply chain and IoT to uncover new ways of increasing efficiency, reducing cost, improving product availability and providing more accurate product information.

In the back office, companies are experimenting with machine learning and AI-powered technology, such as self-service chatbots, to improve the HR experience for employees. Rather than having to wait on HR to answer routine questions, workers can simply interact with a chatbot linked directly

to the organisation’s HR systems.

There is a clear business benefit here in addition to improved employee satisfaction – HR teams who spend less time on these admin tasks can focus on more projects that require their unique expertise.

However, automation is certainly not about replacing employees with machines. It is about improving the decision-making capabilities of people by arming them with the richness of highly relevant, topical and timely data that otherwise would not be possible to collect.

It all comes back to the idea of a ‘golden ratio’ of the right people, using the right data and machines in perfect balance. No business wants too many, or an unprofitable amount, of either, but will always need all three in pursuit of data-driven success.

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INSIGHT

Betsy Burton, vice president and analyst, Gartner

The key dimensions of business ecosystems CIOs need to think about strategy, relationships and value exchange when considering digital ecosystems, writes Gartner’s Betsy Burton.

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usiness ecosystems sometimes create partners from competitors, at least for a little while. When BMW and Toyota need to develop key technologies, such as batteries, they may join together and then later go on to compete in the marketplace.

Apple, Fitbit and Garmin created an ecosystem focused on fitness and apps. In a less competitive ecosystem, groups in the government, charity and community spaces might collaborate on health or public policy because each entity has a shared interest and goal.

Ecosystems enable organisations to exist in an increasingly digital world.

CIOs and IT leaders must shift and expand their approach to focus on their organisation’s strategy and execution within their business ecosystems, from an outside-in perspective.

Ecosystem strategy Every organisation exists in multiple business ecosystems. These ecosystems are networks of entities interacting with each other to create and exchange sustainable value for participants. The challenge is deciding how your organisation will survive and thrive in its ecosystem.

Know that ecosystems can emerge organically or deliberately.

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created based on evolving industry, government and market trends.

Deliberate business ecosystems might emerge in a more planned manner — for example, Amazon’s ecosystem of sellers, buyers, advertisers and collaborators.

Decide what role your organisation will play in these ecosystems: Leader, disruptor, niche player, orchestrator, or something else.

Degree of openness The degree of openness within ecosystems is driven by strategies, common goals and shared interest.

An ecosystem may be public, private or hybrid. Many organisations actually participate in a hybrid of public and private ecosystems.

The openness of an ecosystem has two implications. The degree of change is dependent upon the possibility of new entrants and disruption to relationships and value.

It will also define the nature of the relationships in the ecosystems and how they are formed and maintained. It will define the nature of collaboration and competitions.

Engagement of diverse participants With increased connectivity, organisations will need to figure out how to integrate things like smart

advisors and artificial intelligence into their ecosystems.

CIOs need to understand that the diversity of an ecosystem and the roles that people, businesses and things play will change and evolve depending on the situation.

Types of ‘relationships’ With 7 billion people and more than 30 billion devices connected to the internet by 2020, interconnection will create an ecosystem challenge. Digital platforms — wherein participants with different goals and objectives are connected on a commission basis — are how most companies are mediating relationships in ecosystems. The platform provides the core integration, application and management services for participants. For example, Outdoorsy connects camper owners with those looking to rent campers.

Form of value exchange In addition to monetary-based value exchange, ecosystems may dynamically leverage information, reputation, services, and other non-monetary forms of value. For example, Boeing collaborated with 50 vendors to create the 777 aircraft.

Ecosystems enable companies to exchange products and services for www.tahawultech.com

information or analytics. It’s important to understand the changing definition of ‘value’ that ecosystems create.

overlapping ecosystems will create a new ecosystem, while other overlaps will highlight redundancy.

Diversity of industries Ecosystem expansion can result in unexpected partnerships for organisations. Partners could include organisations within the primary industry, adjacent industries or, most unexpectedly, far-neighbour industries outside of the business’s industry (i.e., travel and healthcare).

Technologies Discussions about ecosystems can be overwhelming, but CIOs should keep in mind that they are responsible for the technology that will enable the business ecosystem strategy now and in the future. Leverage a digital business platform (i.e., open APIs, analytics, security capabilities, etc.) Success will require a strategic integration of technology, information and business processes.

Organisations that do not work toward understanding their business ecosystems risk falling into a participatory role only, enabling other competitors or partners to take the leadership role and thus define the rules for engagement in that ecosystem.

Complexity of multiple ecosystems Large organisations will most likely be involved in multiple ecosystems.

The key is to understand how these ecosystems interact, identify potential fractures and overlaps, and acknowledge constraints and implications. Keep in mind that some

Specifically, CIOs must: • Proactively reach out to collaborate with business counterparts on how and why to integrate ecosystems to improve the overall corporate strategy • Ensure any customer, partner, employee or supplier-focused applications or solutions being developed today are at least considering these future business ecosystems • Make sure to set aside development budget every year for the next five years for the most critical customer, partner, employee or supplier-focused applications, solutions and supporting infrastructure to enable change to reflect evolving ecosystem strategies.

INSIGHT

Alex McMullan, EMEA CTO, Pure Storage

How to make the most of your organisation's data in 2018 Alex McMullan, EMEA CTO, Pure Storage, highlights four factors that CIOs and CTOs should consider to ensure that they get the most value from their organisations’ data.

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n the same way that a CFO sets out the strategy and framework for investment and cash flow, CIOs and CTOs need to take control of making dataflow work for their organisations. Data is now a currency, but one which carries extra responsibility for the holder, especially where our personal information is involved. This data currency will come under regulation in 2018, where failing to get a clean audit will have similar reputational and monetary consequences as failing a finance audit.

Against this backdrop, below are four factors that CIOs and CTOs should consider, to ensure that they get the most value from their organisations’ data in the coming 12 months.

Cloud control – hybrid architectures will dominate The debate around whether to use cloud technologies is history.

Multi-cloud deployment has now become the norm. The increased requirements for data control are going to further boost the attractiveness of the hybrid model - a trend that will only accelerate as each business seeks to balance its own technology demands against the 50

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relative TCOs of public vs on-premises cloud platforms.

IT and culture must change to support data stewardship GDPR implementation is imminent, and for some organisations the initial cost of compliance will be substantial.

It fundamentally requires companies to be good data stewards. That means knowing and showing where personal data is, where it is not and demonstrating fine grained data control from ingestion to deletion.

That said, organisations that rely on technology alone for GDPR compliance will struggle. There will also be significant cultural and procedural changes needed to achieve and maintain GDPR compliance. IT can help but it has to be part of an end to end approach, starting with the data architect and permeating the organisation from the back office through to every customer facing representative.

Leveraging AI and machine learning Forrester suggests that 70% of enterprises are expected to implement some form of AI over the next year. However, I believe that, across the full range of businesses,

the benefits of machine learning (ML) are going to be felt more immediately.

In my discussions with customers, several have equated the automation and guidance provided by ML based systems with having an additional infrastructure engineer on staff 24/7.

This frees up IT staff to invest time in making use of the data they are storing and securing for their organisations.

Storage conversations should become data conversations 2018 will be seen as a tipping point, where automation and orchestration technologies abstract modern infrastructure technology operations.

Developers can now be given access to the block, file and object storage that they need, on a common scalable platform, with certainty over performance and ongoing, non-disruptive enhancement of the underlying technology. They no longer need to have discussions about where the next terabyte is coming from, or how it will be delivered. The simplification of data management that this offers opens up the opportunity for data scientists, researchers and designers to focus on their data pipelines and enhancing design processes, rather than talking about infrastructure. www.tahawultech.com

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PRODUCTS

PRODUCT OF THE MONTH

Launches and releases

Brand: Honor Product:

Brand: Transcend Product: StoreJet 600

Honor 7x is the latest addition to the X-series range of Huawei Group’s smartphone e-brand – Honor.

The new smartphone features a 5.93-inch edge-toedge display, with a metallic chassis and rounded edges. It also features a One-key Screen Split function.

In addition, Honor 7x is also equipped with dual-lens 16MP + 2MP rear camera with Phase Detection Auto Focus (PDAF).

The device is powered with octal-core Kirin 659 and graphics processing unit, 4GB RAM and EMUI5 to ensure “intuitive” multi-tasking and gaming functions. Honor 7X packs up to 64GB of internal storage and an extended 128GB. It has a 3,340 mAh battery, which supports Ultra Power Saving Mode.

Housed in a metallic casing, the StoreJet 600 for Mac is a 240 GB portable SSD device. The device utilises the USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, which achieves double the transfer speeds of USB 3.1 Gen 1 devices, and meets UASP standards to boost transfer rates up to 470 MB/s.

In addition, the device comes with both USB Type-C cable and USB Type-C to Type-A cables to accommodate Mac models that use Thunderbolt 3, USB Type-C, or USB 3.0 interface.

Honor 7x

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: Honor 7X is the first device to feature Honor FullView Display, a 5.93 inch edge-to-edge, bezelless screen design. The screen has an 18:9 ratio with 2160 X 1080 resolution, providing ultrahigh definition display.

The device is also equipped with a number of security features such as facial recognition, pattern and biometrics.

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WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: StoreJet 600 for Mac features the latest USB 3.1 Gen 2 interface, pre-formatted HFS+ file system and supports Time Machine backup, allowing it to be used right out of the box.

The device also supports Transcend Elite, data management software that enables easy digital file saving, sharing, encryption, backup and restoration.

Brand: Siemon Product: Z-MAX 45 Category 6A Siemon has launched its new Z-MAX 45 shielded Category 6A outlet in the Middle East.

The device features a shorter, compact design with the ability to terminate cable at a 45-degree angle, reducing rear depth requirements whilst maintaining proper bend radius.

Z-MAX 45 outlets use a reversible rear cap that enables cable to exit the outlet at a 45-degree angle to accommodate shallow back boxes and wall-mounted raceway applications. With 40 percent less depth compared to standard outlets, Z-MAX 45’s hybrid design supports both flat and angled mounting orientations. Unlike true 90-degree side entry outlets, Z-MAX 45 also enables side stacking for high density applications, while the plastic bezels prevent contact between metal housings for superior alien crosstalk performance.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW: The new outlet can be terminated to stranded and solid cable types from 22 to 26 AWG. It also features Siemon’s patented crowned jack geometry, a jack-plug connection that support PoE applications. The crowned jack geometry, according to the firm, improves electrical and mechanical performance and ensures that any contact damage caused by arcing while unmating under PoE load occurs well away from the final mated contact position. www.tahawultech.com

COLUMN

Glesni Holland, Deputy Editor, CNME

SLEIGHT OF BRAND 2

017 has been an interesting year for Apple.

The tech giant’s crowning moment of the last 12 months was undoubtedly celebrating its 10th anniversary. The launch of the longawaited iPhone X that followed - the device, armed with FaceID and no Home button – has since revolutionised the smartphone market as we know it, setting the bar for innovative mobile technology for years to come.

On the flip side, Apple also starts 2018 trying to erase the memory of a few incidents from an otherwise successful year. These include delaying the launch of the HomePod until 2018, and allowing one of the most vulnerable security breaches imaginable back in November, when it was revealed that anyone with physical access to a macOS machine could access and change personal files on the system without needing any admin credentials.

Despite fixing the issue very quickly, it seems Apple’s recent demeanours may 54

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still have ended 2017 on a sour note, after the company admitted to intentionally slowing down the performance of older iPhone models – somewhat tainting 2017’s overall iPhone X high with a dose of mistrust and deception.

Apple acknowledged that it “miscommunicated” what was happening with its power management features, but has since insisted that it will offer discounted prices on outof-warranty battery replacements as some sort of apology. It has also announced plans to release an iOS software update in early 2018 that will give users more visibility into the health of their iPhone’s battery.

Apple’s decision not to disclose its intentions with regards to battery performance is verging on incompetent.

It has played into the hands of those who that claim the company deliberately dampens the performance of older devices to force users to upgrade, and has led to a long list of lawsuits being filed across the globe for

customer deception – with one case demanding nearly $1 trillion in damages.

Ironic really, when you consider that Apple has long benefitted from being a seemingly consumer-driven company. What’s more, CEO Tim Cook has often publicised his interest in social issues during keynote speeches at product launches, demonstrating his passion for enhancing the company’s moral standing as well as its innovation goals going forward.

Whether or not this latest glitch in the iPhone has been done by design or is simply due to new types of software is still unknown, but it certainly makes for an interesting case. For other tech vendors however, these lawsuits should act as a warning. The incident won’t ultimately have a huge detrimental effect on Apple’s public image – not longterm, anyway. But for less established vendors, it is crucial to remember that while software innovation is key, customer transparency and trust should always take precedent. www.tahawultech.com