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PA G E S 3 2 VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 02 SEPTEMBER 2013 WWW.ENTERPRISECHANNELSMEA.COM

RETHINKING

STORAGE

OPTIONS DE LL SON ICWALL: “FOCUS ON TECH N ICAL CE RTI FICATION”

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The regional landscape for enterprise storage is in the midst of change as spending in emerging markets has started to outpace spending in more mature regions /14

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EDITORIAL

Big Data & Analytics to be the Game changer…

S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A EDITOR@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM

Everyone more or less knows about the resurgence of infrastructure business in the MEA region.

This not only does impact the economy and employment but also impacts the deployment of technology. Storage as a technology stands key component in the entire ecosystem. Within the storage domain big data and analytics are strong sub-components which make the data storage meaningful. For any sector: be it government, real estate, retail, banking, telecom – by the ways these sectors are growing faster in this region – big data and analytics can enhance productivity and business as well.

There are growing criticism about twitter, Facebook, Bing and LinkedIn. But these social outlets do generate a lot of intelligence for the marketers. Data residing in these Social Medias somehow gets stored in one’s system as unstructured data. For example for any retail outlet there might be thousands of loyalists, who form opinion and these opinions matter while creating marketing and branding programmes. Similarly it can help the healthcare, hospitality, government, banking and finance, telecom, oil & gas, etc. to reap benefits. The meaningful data for the decision makers of these sectors can help derive actionable insight that assist them to make informed and innovative business decisions.

But there are a terabytes of data which are useless. So the key challenge here is to find the right tool and practice to make the data actionable. There are a lot of tools available from companies like Microsoft, Oracle, SAS, SAP, Qlik Tech, etc. And, vendors like IBM, HP, NetApp, EMC, Dell, etc., are providing solutions and as a partner one has to take up this business seriously. Of course the partners in the region have taken serious interest but from the customers’ perspective, Big Data and Analytics are in the hype cycle. They should showcase customers’ case studies to make it tangible while discussing with any prospect.

By the way as per IDC, the MEA region external storage market is showing bounce back with 2% growth in Q1 2013 to touch $233 million, with terabyte capacity rising some 32% over the same period.

The Gulf Cooperation Council countries excluding the UAE and Saudi Arabia posted growth of 83% in the external storage market in the same period, with Bahrain and Qatar registering triple-digit growth.

Saudi Arabia’s storage market expanded 32% year on year in Q113 whereas North Africa (specifically, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) experienced a continued slump. However the industry experts are of strong opinion that Africa can be a large market in near future. ë

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CONTENTS VOLUME 01 ISSUE 02 SEPTEMBER 2013 W W W. E N T E R P R I S E C H A N N E L S M E A . C O M

2013

COVER STORY

RETHINKING STORAGE OPTIONS

The enterprise storage space has been radically transformed and is believed to be changing faster than all the other foundational infrastructure technologies. The regional landscape for enterprise storage is in the midst of change as spending in emerging markets has started to outpace spending in more mature regions /14 PARTNER CORNER /12

CATCHING UP WITH BIG BOYS JAI MULANI, CEO, IBT

PARTNER CORNER /24

Gung-ho About Growth SARWAN SINGH, MANAGING DIRECTOR, PROLOGIX LLC

INNOVATIONS /30

DELL POWEREDGE VRTX

FEATURE Managed Print Services /20 Transforming the Printing Culture

A tower form factor and delivers primary storage via as 25 SFF or 12 LFF drives and implements four server nodes with two SFF drives each

LEADERS’ PITCH /29

Focus on technical certification CFLORIAN MALECKI, EMEA PRODUCT & SOLUTION MARKETING DIRECTOR, DELL SONICWALL

EDITORIAL::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 03 CHANNEL STREET:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 05 WIRELSS:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 26 PARTNER STREET:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 28 INNOVATIONS:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 30

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CHANNEL

STREET PROMEDIA GUNGHO FOR LARGE SCALE PROJECTS IN QATAR

Qatar is witnessing a growing number of multi-billion USD construction projects and ProMedia is all prepared to play a major role in the process.

The company is looking to leverage the new Autodesk 2014 design and creation suites across the country’s small and large Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) companies to help design, innovate and deliver projects at a faster pace.

“With all eyes focused on Qatar’s development, the country’s AEC segment should prepare itself for the expected plethora of international companies and organizations that are ready to invest in Doha,” said Nidhin Dev, BDM, ProMedia.

SITE24X7 LAUNCHES CLOUD MONITORING SUPPORT Site24x7 launches monitoring support for hybrid and public cloud environments. Available immediately, the new capabilities let users monitor VMware vSphere hypervisors as well as Amazon EC2 and RDS web services. The move lets users optimize the uptime and performance of their private, public and hybrid cloud environments from a central Site24x7 console.

“Last quarter, Site24x7 pushed the envelope by delivering a combination of application performance and infrastructure monitoring,” said Gibu Mathew, Director of Product Management, Site24x7. “With this release, we’re pushing the envelope even further by extending our monitoring capabilities to include all cloud environments.”

AKBAR AL BAKER, CEO OF QATAR AIRWAYS

Wipro Launches Aviation IT Products Wipro launches a range of IT products for the aviation industry. The aviation IT product portfolio comprises of two categories of solutions namely enterprise and mobility solutions. Enterprise solutions include products for crew management, route profitability analysis, loyalty management, in-flight catering, aircraft maintenance planning and crisis management. Mobility solutions include products for pilots, cabin crew and flight dispatchers.

The extensive product portfolio aims to address critical airline business functions, which have a direct bearing on service quality, operational efficiency and strategic decision making. “These solutions have played a key role in enhancing customer service & operational efficiency of Qatar Airways,” said Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways. “Now these already proven solutions can be brought to market and deployed in a variety of means such as licensing or Software as a Service.”

In September 2012, Wipro entered into a strategic partnership with Qatar Airways to research and

develop the portfolio by bringing together Wipro’s expertise in application management and support, and Qatar Airways’ aviation systems’ expertise, resulting in new software products for the airlines.

Anand Sankaran, Senior Vice President and Business Head, Global Infrastructure Services & Wipro Infotech said, “We are developing new IPs with Qatar Airways which will augment our available suite of solutions. This is a very unique partnership with Qatar Airways where we are marketing their existing software products and leveraging the core competencies of both organizations to create tangible value to other airlines. We believe that this portfolio of products will transform the Airline industry and help them do business better.”

Srini Pallia, Senior Vice President & Global Head RCTG, Wipro Ltd. said, “The product suite that Wipro and Qatar Airways have jointly developed is targeted to play a key role in driving greater operational efficiency, enhanced customer service and faster decision-making.”

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CHANNEL STREET

AIM a Must for Reliable Enterprise Network Performance (IIM) solution, is to facilitate Structured cabling has long the management of the passive been the often overlooked though infrastructure in the future. critically important component In an AIM system, the entire of modern IT networks. The pasinfrastructure is represented in sive infrastructure, or structured a consistent database, a single cabling, invariably accounts for “source of truth”. This database up to 50% of network issues. provides precise and real time Shibu Vahid, Head of Technical information on the current state Operations, R&M Middle East, and future requirements of the Turkey & Africa points out that in data center. many installations, inventory and “AIM eliminates stranded management of physical infracapacity, facilitates end-to-end structure is done with “on-board SHIBU VAHID, HEAD OF analysis and agile infrastructure tools” such as Excel spread sheets TECHNICAL OPERATIONS, R&M MIDDLE EAST, TURKEY management and aids predictive and Visio graphics. Network & AFRICA analysis and dynamic infrastrucadministrators quickly reach the ture. Since in an AIM system limits of their capabilities if they the entire infrastructure is represented in a try to apply these methods to large data centers consistent database, inquiries into resources such or complex building cabling systems. Incorrect, as server ports, space in cabinets as well as energy out-of-date and unreliable documentation make requirements and cooling capacity are quick changes to the infrastructure something like and easy to answer precisely with this database. walking a tightrope without a safety net. There Improved capacity utilization of the existing is no doubt that a modern approach to cable infrastructure as well as the simple and exact management is now more important than ever. planning of changes and expansions are immediThe purpose of an Automated Infrastructure ate advantages of AIM systems,” said Shibu.

Management (AIM) solution, sometimes referred to as an Intelligent Infrastructure Management

ALCATEL-LUCENT READIES ITSELF FOR GITEX 2013 Alcatel-Lucent will reinforce its growing success in the infrastructure sector in the Middle East with a stronger presence at Gitex 2013 (Gulfcomms) scheduled to be held in Dubai World Trade Centre from 20th to 24th October 2013.

This year, as part of its “New PC Era” focus where PC means Personal Cloud, the company BAHER EZZAT, will be joined by REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR, several eco-system MIDDLE EAST REGION, vendor partners to ALCATEL-LUCENT showcase vertical sector solutions. There will be solutions for telephony, data center and cloud networking, BYOD and more on hand with live demonstrations focused on making technology personal.

Baher Ezzat, Regional Sales Director, Middle East Region, Alcatel-Lucent, stated, “Gitex is a great opportunity for us to share our knowledge and experiences from the past year and to discuss the most important trends and developments in Enterprise technology.”

EiQ Partners With Bulwark Technologies EiQ Networks enters into a distribution partnership with Bulwark Technologies. Through this partnership, SecureVue NGS will be offered to customers across the Middle East including United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait and neighbouring countries, to help combat the industry-wide challenges associated with traditional SIEM and log management.

“We have had many organizations come to us expressing their growing frustrations over the complexities and costs associated with traditional SIEM solutions,”

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JOSE THOMAS, MD, BULWARK TECHNOLOGIES.

said Jose Thomas, MD, Bulwark Technologies. “Our partnership with EiQ Networks is both refreshing and rewarding as we can

now drive demand within the end-user space and through the education of our solid partner base.

SecureVue NGS is a simple solution that provides immediate value for security and compliance to organizations of any size.”

SecureVue NGS solution delivers Unified Situational Awareness by combining next gen SIEM, secure configuration audit, compliance automation

and contextual forensic analysis, through a single console yielding a unified view, operational efficiency and lower total cost of ownership (TCO).

“Building solid partnerships across the globe is incredibly important to us as our go-to-market strategy is 100 percent channel driven for SecureVue NGS,” said Phil Demeo, Director of Alliances, EiQ Networks. “Our partnership with Bulwark Technologies will enable us to provide unparalleled security intelligence and unified situational awareness to customers across the Middle East.”

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CHANNEL STREET

FVC Strengthens its Security Portfolio strong market response to Rights FVC has signed a distribution WATCH to address these demands,” agreement with Watchful Software, said João Beato Esteves, EMEA Sales a leading provider of data-centric Manager for Watchful Software. “We information security solutions. This are pleased to be taking the lead in partnership allows FVC to offer delivering powerful and innovative Watchful Software’s information secusecurity solutions to the Middle East rity technology products throughout market,” said K.S. Parag, Managing the MENA region through its partner Director at FVC. “Our partners network. The agreement covers sales K.S. PARAG_FVC and their customers look to us to and support capabilities for Watchful provide access to the industry’s best Software’s line of security products, technology and to marry that with support and including RightsWATCH and TypeWATCH. services that leads to highly successful projects “This agreement signals the increased demand with a rapid ROI, and we feel that the Watchful’s that customers are placing on VARs for informaportfolio will deliver just that.” tion security technology offering in light of today’s constant information threats, and the

DIMENSION DATA UPDATES MANAGED SERVICES FOR VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS Dimension Data, the $5.8 billion ICT solutions and services provider, has announced an enhanced version of its Managed Services for Visual Communications (MSVC) offering.

MSVC takes the headache out of video management because it focuses on maximising end-user adoption – and, ultimately, return on investment announced the press release.

Ian Heard, GM (MSVC), Dimension Data Group, said, “Dimension Data is the world’s largest video integrator by revenue and endpoints. Through our Managed Services for Visual Communications, we manage 20,000 calls per month for 430 clients across 5,600 Cisco and Polycom endpoints today. We are already a big contender in this space, with the most comprehensive set of on-premise, managed, in the private cloud or as-a-service video services in the world.”

SRS FZE NOMINATED IN GCCA 2013 LATER STAGE AWARDS Sims Recycling Solutions FZE (SRS FZE) has been nominated in the Waste Management category for the 2013 Global Cleantech Cluster Association (GCCA) 2013 Later Stage Award. The nomination is for its focus on providing Compliant Solutions to manage the End of Life of Electrical & Electronic Products in the Middle East Region. SRS FZE is a part of a pool of over 160 nominees worldwide at the award.

The annual awards recognize innovative mid to late-stage cleantech companies around the world who are thriving in the new green economy and show great potential for growth. Winning companies will be announced at the Corporate Cleantech Venture Dayon November 20th, 2013 in Lahti, Finland.

Philip Hughes, MD, SRS FZE, said, “We are very proud to have been recognised and nominated for this award. Over the past year, we have worked hard to help educate the technology sector and the enterprises that use it to responsibly build and manage End-of-Life systems that ensure that all electronic and electrical equipment are disposed in an environmentally-friendly manner.”

GFI MAX IS ENHANCED WITH VIPRE 6.2 MALWARE PROTECTION GFI Software has releases latest version of GFI MAX Managed Antivirus solution, incorporating the latest VIPRE anti-malware technology. Also it has launched a free malware removal service for MSPs using the product.

Malware protection in GFI MAX – which is already used by MSPs to protect more than 250,000 endpoints worldwide – is based on the award-winning VIPRE from ThreatTrack Security and can be delivered as a stand-alone service or as part of the GFI MAX Remote

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DR. ALISTAIR FORBES, GENERAL MANAGER, GFI MAX BUSINESS

Management portfolio.

“Our free malware removal service for GFI MAX customers is not something that we have seen other

vendors offer but it underscores our absolute confidence in the anti-malware technology that is provided by the VIPRE engine,” said Dr. Alistair Forbes, general manager of the GFI MAX business unit.

“We have seen strong adoption of Managed Antivirus as result of the combination of the power of the VIPRE technology, ease of deploy-

ment from the dashboard and low overhead compared to other products on the market. This latest release sees further improvements in the level of security with no downside in system performance.

We are backing our claims with a free malware removal service – in the unlikely event that malware does get onto an MSP customer site protected by VIPRE then our technicians will carry out full remediation – at our cost.”

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CHANNEL STREET IN PUBLIC

“Manufacturers need to move along the spectrum for maturity in order to continue to stay competitive,” PIERFRANCESCO MANENTI, HEAD OF IDC MANUFACTURING INSIGHTS RESEARCH PRACTICE IN EUROPE, MIDDLE EAST & AFRICA.

Polycom Enhances Video Management Capabilities The latest Polycom RealPresence Resource Manager software v8.0 update gives large enterprise customers and service providers the ability to support up to 50,000 video user registrants joining from mobile, desktop or group video systems, helping IT organisations support the BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trend. Polycom also unveiled Polycom RealPresence Video DualManager 400 solution, a new Polycom RealPresence Platform offering available on an industry-standard server that provides resource management, broad call-control support and interoperability for enterprise video networks.

“Organisations of all sizes are seeking to equip employees with video collaboration capabilities

whether from the road, from home or right from their desks,” said A.E. Natarajan, Executive Vice President of Worldwide Engineering, Polycom.

“For large enterprises and service providers, the enhanced Resource Manager can help IT support BYOD since it’s optimised for the secure, highly scalable video collaboration that is being fueled by the proliferation of mobile and desktop video users. For midsized enterprises, the new RealPresence Video DualManager 400 is a single appliance that gives the IT organisation the intelligent infrastructure they need to make video collaboration always available so that their employees can have more productive meetings with their colleagues, partners and customers.”

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SECONDS

WACOM EXTENDS ITS CINTIQ COMPANION LINE Wacom extends the experience from desktop to a mobile environment with the new Cintiq Companion line of tablets. The Cintiq Companion line, available in two models, enables creative professionals to work wherever they want. The Cintiq Companion runs Windows 8 and full versions of creative software. The Cintiq Companion Hybrid, on the other hand, is a traditional Cintiq when plugged into a Mac or PC, but when used as a mobile device, works as a stand-alone Android tablet with enough power to do light sketching and start creative processes with suitable apps.

AOC ENHANCES ITS MYDISPLAY PRODUCT LINE Under the family name “myDisplay”, AOC has introduced the two latest Style Line members of its showpiece product range. The myUltraSpeed is a 24″ Full HD model mainly targeted at gamers.

On the other hand, the new 15.6″ ultra-mobile myConnect has its plug-and-play USB connectivity to enhance the experience of notebook users by extending desktop real estate. AOC myUltraSpeed and myConnect will be unveiled at Gitex.

GFI AND COMGUARD SUMMER PROMOTION Comguard in association with GFI Software announced a summer promotion offer for channel partners in the Middle East region. The offer runs for a limited period. The offers from GFI cover multiple products and are aimed at giving maximum benefits to channel partners. As the exclusive distributor for GFI Software in the Middle East region, Comguard will run this promotion offer across the region covering countries like UAE, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Pakistan, and Lebanon.

Scott Hagenus, Director of Channel, at GFI said, “GFI is committed towards the channel and the main aim for this promotional offer is to keep business moving for our channel partners during the lean months of summer in the region. We are confident that this limited promotional offer will give a boost to the market and enable our channel partners to maintain their revenue stream and make good margins.”

As with all other monitors of its range, AOC offers a 3-year carry in warranty on the myDisplay models.

NVIDIA PARTNERS WITH ACTIVISION NVIDIA announced a partnership with Activision’s Call of Duty: Ghosts, which will be released for PC on 5th November, 2013. Developed by Infinity Ward, the studio that created the original Call of DutyÒ and the seminal Call of DutyÒ: Modern WarfareÒ series, Call of Duty: Ghosts ushers in the next generation of the franchise. Powered by a new next-gen engine, Call of Duty: Ghosts continues the legacy of delivering gameplay, multiplayer, cinematics and engrossing characters

ACCESSDATA TO EXPAND FOOTPRINT WITH ARM AccessData has signed ARM to enlarge its footprint in the region and tap into the growing demand for cyber security and incident response solutions. ARM is responsible for business development and market expansion and has been contracted to build the channel partner community for AccessData, which includes recruitment, partner training, marketing support and first and second level technical support.

Simon Whitburn, Senior Vice President and General Manager at AccessData says, “We already have an existing channel engagement with DRS, ARM’s sister concern in South Africa and so we thought it only logical to extend the relationship to the Middle East as the company is very familiar with our highly specialized technology.”

ARM will be looking to recruit partners that are serious on developing their security portfolios, who understand networks and have experience in verticals that are important to national infrastructure.

and storyline.

DAFZA HOSTS STUDENTS FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY Dubai Airport Freezone (DAFZA) hosted approximately fifteen students from Harvard University to showcase the Freezone’s facilities, services and investment opportunities.

The students were welcomed by Nasser Al Madani, Assistant Director General at DAFZA, and Yousuf Behzad, the Executive Director of Human Resources and Marketing and Corporate Communications.

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MMD Launches Philips Clinical Review LCD MMD, the license partner for Philips Monitors, launches a brand-new range of Clinical Review Displays featuring a unique, antimicrobial coating to limit germ exposure and contamination. In addition, with screen sizes of 21.5, 24 and 27 inches, ultra-sharp, high-quality panels and DICOM-compliant D-Image for consistent color and grayscale reproduction, these displays accurately support clinical professionals in their diagnosis.

All the Philips Clinical Review Displays in the newline-up feature unique antimicrobial protective shield technology that inhibits the growth of bacteria and other microorganisms to halt the spread of infection. A (Japanese

Industrial Standard) JIS Z2801-compliant additive is incorporated directly into the housing material, creating a protective shield that inhibits the growth of common microorganisms. The displays also can easily be wiped down with standard cleaning products without impairing the performance of the coating – vital for clinical environments where cleaning is frequent so needs to be as efficient as possible.

With three Philips Clinical Review Displays in the new range, featuring ultra-sharp, high-quality panels for superb color reproduction and the best-possible viewing angles, MMD is launching solutions to cover a variety of clinical imaging needs.

TECH MAHINDRA REVENUE UP 17.7% YOY Tech Mahindra has announced its robust, audited consolidated financial results for the quarter ending June 30, 2013. Revenue stood at USD 724 million up 17.7% YoY and 3.7% QoQ. Consolidated net profit after tax (PAT) for Q1 was at USD 121 million up 22.3% YoY and 2.1 % QoQ. Tech Mahindra was selected by one of the largest reinsurers in Europe for a multi-year multimillion infrastructure outsourcing engagement.

GB Kumar, Vice President and Geo Head for the Middle East, Africa & Turkey, Tech Mahindra, said, “Strategically, Tech Mahindra is positioned at the heart of all this growth, highly enabling businesses to place strong focus on their core business and to help them handle key IT and network functions. The major wins that we have gained over the last few months prove as testament to the strong bond of trust and confidence given to us by businesses across various industry verticals and reflect the premium of commitment that we have placed on providing service par excellence to our clients.”

DIMENSION DATA ENHANCES MSVC Dimension Data launches an enhanced version of its Managed Services for Visual Communications (MSVC) offering. MSVC focuses on maximising end-user adoption and ultimately return on investment.

MSVC is the world’s first truly global service of its kind which eases video, the press release announced.

Ian Heard, Dimension Data’s Group General Manager, MSVC says, “Dimension Data is the world’s largest video integrator by revenue and endpoints. Through our Managed Services for Visual Communications, we manage 20,000 calls per month for 430 clients across 5,600 Cisco and Polycom endpoints today. We are already a big contender in this space, with the most comprehensive set of on-premise, managed, in the private cloud or as-a-service video services in the world.”

According to Heard, if managed effectively, videoconferencing has many benefits. “Not only can employees become more productive and organisations more agile, videoconferencing has the potential to transform the way we collaborate externally with colleagues, clients and partners. The critical element to the success of an organisation’s videoconferencing ROI lies in the area of user adoption.”

LOGICOM AND ZTE INK PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT Logicom has signed a distribution agreement with ZTE Corporation. Under this agreement, Logicom has been named regional distributor for ZTE Corporation in the UAE and ME, accelerating the adoption of ZTE smartphone devices all across the region.

“As the world’s fifth largest smartphone maker, ZTE believes that the Middle East Market is one of the fastest growing regions worldwide for the mobile industry which defines the success rate and

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number of other the acceptability of partners that Logicom particular mobile has signed this year, models. Our including HP Printing cooperation with & Networking, Logicom is a step NetApp, QNAP, and forward for us to Jabra, thus emphasizensure that quality ing the significant products with the investment Logicom best features reach has made in the end users.,” said DEMETRIS DEMETRIOU, region.

Zhang Rui, MarketGM, LOGICOM DUBAI Demetris Demeing Director, ZTE triou, GM, Logicom Dubai stated, Corporation.

“By signing the agreement with ZTE Corporation joined a

ZTE, Logicom is entering the mobility segment which is growing extremely fast and therefore allows us to offer additional options to our consumers. We would like to thank ZTE’s Management team for trusting us with their brand, and we are also looking to add new mobility products such as tablets to our product portfolio.”

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ADCB goes live with Polaris’ Intellect LMS Polaris Financial Technology Limited announced that Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB), UAE has gone live with Polaris’ Intellect Loan Management System (LMS).

The Intellect product will cater to the bank’s consumer lending product portfolio, thereby becoming a one-stop lending portfolio lifecycle management.

Polaris’ Intellect LMS handles the entire loan

servicing and enables the bank to offer consistently superior customer experience across consumer loan products. The implementation of Intellect LMS with its greatly parameterized product definition functions serves as a single platform for loan products across different consumer loan products.

K Srinivasan, EVP, IMEA, Polaris Financial Technolo-

gysaid, “We are happy to be chosen by ADCB as their technology partner. Our system will reduce complexities faced by the bank, enhancing its customer servicing levels.

Mortgage financing along with the other lines of consumer loan business are now initiated on Polaris’ LMS, helping the bank achieve their objective of using a single window LMS.”

WEB CLIPS ADATA LAUNCHES DASHDRIVE ELITE HE720 ADATA Technology has launched the DashDrive Elite HE720 in one terabyte capacity. The HE720 offers high speed data transmission through a USB 3.0 interface and has a thickness of only 8.9mm. The chassis of the HE720 is made of reflective stainless steel and provides 9H grade scratch resistance which prevents damage and marring even after long-term use. A gleaming LED indicator indicates power and data transfer status, accentuating the modern metallic lines of the drive body.

SONY LAUNCHES PORTABLE WIRELESS SERVER Sony launched the new Portable Wireless Server

MATRIX TO LAUNCH NAVAN CNX200 AT NIGERIACOM 2013 Matrix Comsec will launch its Office-in-a-Box solution NAVAN CNX200 at NigeriaCom 2013 exhibition, Lagos, Nigeria.

“NigeriaCom is a major technology exhibition for industry players to showcase latest telecom and ICT solutions. We are excited to participate in this event for the first time with our local partner Reliance Infosystems. Matrix will showcase its range of business phone systems, converged voice & data solutions, Android/iOS mobile softphone and GSM-VoIP gateways.” said Dipesh Patel, Business Manager.

At this event, Matrix will unveil its NAVAN CNX200 – all-in-one office solution for all Voice, Data, Internet, Wireless, Mobility and Messaging needs of small businesses and branch offices with up to twenty-four users.

(PWS) that provides consumers convenient options to view, share, and store content on the move or at home from their smartphones.

The device serves as a battery charger and card reader/writer offering users added control when managing multimedia data such as photos, videos, music files, and office documents, the press release announced. With a wireless connection, users can transfer content utilizing PWS as a convenient option for smartphones especially for devices that do not have a memory card slot.

SMARTPHONE SALES GREW 46.5 PERCENT IN Q2 OF 2013: GARTNER Worldwide mobile phone sales to end users totaled 435 million units in the second quarter of 2013, an increase of 3.6 percent from the same

MOVEMENTS Alcatel-Lucent announces the appointment of JEAN RABY as Chief Financial & Legal Officer, effective September 1, 2013. Jean Raby will relocate to Alcatel-Lucent’s headquarters in Paris.

EnterpriseDB announced that HESHAM EL KOMY has been appointed to lead its EMEA marketing initiatives as it builds its presence in this burgeoning market.

3.8 NUMBER GAME

percent

Worldwide Server Shipments Grew 4% While Revenue Decreased 3.8% in the Q2 of 2013

period last year, according to Gartner, Inc. Worldwide smartphone sales to end users reached 225 million units, up 46.5 percent from the second quarter of 2012. Sales of feature phones to end users totaled 210 million units and declined 21 percent year-over-year.

AUTODESK HOMESTYLER AVAILABLE IN MIDDLE EAST Autodesk launched iOS and Android versions of Autodesk Homestyler. The app, which is now available for consumers in the Middle East, provides access to ideas from a community of designers and design enthusiasts. Homestyler is a free app for creative real-time home design that allows users to blend high-quality 3D models of products from popular brands.

The app is unique because it can transform a single snapshot into a virtual home design playground,” said Samir Hanna, VP of Consumer Products, Autodesk.

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PARTNER CORNER

IBT

Catching up with Big Boys

One of the Best IT Support Companies in UAE, IBT has set example for others because of its high value, discipline and dedication. These fine qualities not only have enabled the company to gain trust among the customers but also have helped it to win accolades from many quarters. n WORDS: TUSHAR SAHOO <TUSHAR@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM> n PHOTOS: IN HOUSE

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tarted as a two people organization way back in 2008, today, Intelligent Business Technologies LLC., better known as IBT, has become a strong systems integrator with 80 strong people to cater to the entire Middle East market. The strength of IBT is to work with its clients through a combination of deep-level business and technical expertise, and a mature, highly capable delivery and services infrastructure.

A qualified IT engineer, Jai Mulani, the CEO of IBT, has learnt the tricks of the trade very hard way. He has understood that the basis of every success lies the commitment and dedication.

Therefore, before every practice, he holds punctuality as the highest priority. Therefore before other members come to the office, one could find Mr. CEO himself reaches office. However, he tries to inculcate this practice in each individuals of IBT, which has later been the strength of IBT. This was probably the reason while the veterans of the IT industry were getting out of the market, IBT had taken its baby steps.

IBT has two Business Divisions i.e. Enterprise IT Solutions, which covers End to End IT Solutions like Networking, IP PBX, Unified Communications, Data Center Solutions & Disaster Recovery and Professional Services, which covers Professional Services like Cloud Computing,

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Virtualization, Business Process Outsourcing and SLA. IBT understands that cloud computing and virtualization is going to change the IT market dramatically and services will be the core of enterprise IT business. Therefore the company has set up a 24x7 x 365 call center in Dubai to support the customers. Complementing to this, IBT has set up a delivery center for outsourcing and cloud computing back in Mumbai, India and data center in UK where the customers’ infrastructure is hosted on cloud.

As per Jai, virtualization and Cloud Computing is growing strongly these days into data centers because using virtualization customer can have reduced infrastructure costs, elastic scalability, redundancy and reliability, server consolidation, less complexity. Having said above benefits lots of data centers have migrated to virtual environment and a fair number of companies are planning to shift their data centers into virtual environment.

He adds, “IT Infrastructure business is purely dependent on growth of real-estate. When there are new offices coming up and smaller companies are moving to bigger offices and bigger companies are moving to event bigger offices.”

Jai maintains, “But as we are all aware that real estate is a challenging domain these days and due to this IT infrastructure business is not

as growth oriented as during 2008. However, year 2013 looks more promising and growing compared to 2011 and 2012. In this challenging market, business process outsourcing (BPO), Cloud Computing and virtualization are the most effective and most growing business for us.”

Because in BPO customers hire a company to run and manage your IT department in which customers don’t have any admin cost behind their IT department and complete management of IT is done by BPO companies so customers can focus on their core business.

In Virtualization, customer can have more number of servers and services in less number of physical servers. So management and admin cost decreases by at least 20% to 30%.

Similarly, in Cloud Computing, customers have zero cost of their IT management as there is no IT in their local office. IT is getting hosted on subscription based to third part companies who manage and maintain their IT on regular basis.

In this changing market dynamics, IBT has adopted solid strategies to be stronger in BPO, virtualization and Cloud Computing. Jai adds, “We have already captured a few higher enterprises to work with us. We are also approaching more customers in the market and showing them the benefits to work with IBT. Our objective is to capture maximum market share in BPO,

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PARTNER CORNER

THE BIG QUESTION How do you position BPO business in the market?

BPO is part of our Professional Services Division in IBT. And in Professional Services Division we have SMB and Enterprise as Sub Divisions. So we are targeting SMB and Enterprise both segments for Outsourcing very aggressively.

SMBs are moving faster towards BPO than enterprise segment because today market is really challenging for all the industries. And especially SMB wants to focus on their core business and activities. So we have seen good number of growth in SMB migrating to BPO. Moving towards BPO is always more beneficial to companies than Hiring in-house IT because BPO have really great results and benefits like Lower admin costs, Skilled Expertise, Focus on core competencies, Increased Productivity and Efficiency, Distribution of risk for the Company, Better People Management.

virtualization and Cloud Computing market.”

The technology domain that IBT has stepped into does prove that the company is ready to tap on to the big league of IT market in the region but it also does require infrastructure to back the initiative. Therefore, IBT has been strengthening its resources and delivery mechanism. Apart from its 1000+ square feet offices in Sheikh Zayed Road, call center in Karama (Dubai), delivery

center of Outsourcing and Cloud Computing back in Mumbai (India), the company also has an office in Abu Dhabi to provide quick support for its customers in Mussafah and iCAD (Abu Dhabi). The company has recently stepped into Doha (Qatar) and has aggressive plans and strategies to grow in Qatar.

IBT’s efforts have been well recognized by the industry as in last two years it has been conferred

JAI MULANI

CEO, IBT

“Our objective is to capture maximum market share in BPO, virtualization and Cloud Computing market.”

with awards like Best IT Support Company in UAE and Systems Integrator of the Year.

FINALLY… This does not end the pursuit of Jai as the young and dynamic leader sets his eyes on KSA and American Market for next two years. He concludes, “We are working on strong strategies to ensure to reach on targets as planned.” ë

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Rethinking storage options

The enterprise storage space has been radically transformed and is believed to be changing faster than all the other foundational infrastructure technologies. The regional landscape for enterprise storage is in the midst of change as spending in emerging markets has started to outpace spending in more mature regions n WORDS: NIVEDAN PRAKASH <NIVEDAN@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM> n PHOTOS: ISTOCK

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hile the market for enterprise storage is growing at a moderate rate in the Middle East and Africa (MEA), Big Data in this region is currently in its infancy.

According to the latest reports from IDC, external storage market in the MEA grew only 2 percent in the first quarter of 2013. The external storage revenue in MEA expanded slightly year on year in Q1 of 2013 to total $233 million, with terabyte capacity rising around 32 percent over the same period.

The major force driving this market is the constant need among enterprises to upgrade their business processes and enhance performance and efficiency. The other factors driving this market are continuous rise of unstructured data, demand to provide advanced and predictive analytics. Companies providing hardware and software IT solutions are looking forward to gain a better competitive advantage in this growing

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market, thereby creating sophisticated analytical solutions and data management platforms for the enterprises.

Also, as per IDC estimates, the South African storage market declined markedly, around 16%, year on year in the first quarter of 2013. However, this scenario of the relatively small installed base and sporadic nature of large-scale enterprise projects, hasn’t deterred the storage vendors from being bullish on this market.

Stephan Geyer, Regional Sales Manager, Software AG, points out, “One of the biggest reasons we have come across where businesses have slowed down in investment of storage subsystems is particularly, in reference to our previous statements, linked with how hard it is becoming to manage the diverse, abundant and exceptionally fast flow of information. Companies have started to struggle in how they manage their data, but more importantly, deciding which data to keep and how to actually monetize it.”

Although the industry as a whole saw a decline,

NetApp South Africa has seen good year on year growth. The company is currently witnessing a situation in the South African market, where end-users are looking for solutions that will deliver long-term functionality and in some cases customers are changing their procurement models to accommodate this. NetApp is able to provide the long-term stability and functionality customers are looking for.

CURRENT SCENARIO IDC forecasts that the strong uptake of external storage systems in MEA is owing to the largescale deployments and projects across different verticals.

Zeeshan Gaya, Research Manager - Security Appliances, Virtualization, Servers, and Storage Systems, IDC MEA, says, “Enterprise storage has dynamically evolved over the years to cater to the rising volumes of data. Storage solutions are considered an enabler to business growth as the vast amounts of data stored can be analyzed to

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in the Middle East market, external storage is expected to grow 20.7% year over year (2012/2013) and at a healthy CAGR of 11.8% over the next five years SOURCE: IDC

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produce valuable insights towards strategic business decisions. There are a number of emerging data use cases driving a transformation in digital storage, among them digital entertainment, digital imaging, data analytics, data retention, and data protection.”

Tech giants like NetApp are very much well positioned to cater to these requirements, as it is already seeing demand for external storage systems in the region. In fact, it has created a strong partner base which is equipped and ready to deliver against these demands.

“NetApp already has Petabyte scale customers throughout the world and, therefore, we are confident that as the demand for large-scale storage systems in MEA increases, we will be able to effectively deploy our solutions. Integrated stacks such as our FlexPod solution developed jointly with Microsoft also offer customers and service providers an easy and quick deployment path into large or high-scale storage environments,” adds Konstantin Ebert, Director – Middle East, Eastern Europe, NetApp. “We believe that storage requirements (in terms of how much data companies have to deal with in a daily basis) have not stopped, shrunk or slowed down, but it is crucial to empower companies to not only make the most of this data, but in many cases, to encourage companies to look beyond their current data sources and expand them in order to better understand their customers and their market with the help of Big Data technologies,” opines Geyer.

Out of the numerous trends prevailing in the MEA market, one of them is that a one-size-fitsall approach does not work. This is very evident with regards to shared-IT and big data as the storage requirements for each of these is completely different. Shared-IT enterprise storage requires data management, virtualisation and cloud integration capabilities while Big Data requires high-performance, dedicated storage with data management being performed at the application layer. The other emerging trends include the uptake of Flash-based technologies in order to drive better performance, greater consolidation of projects, and the adoption of cloud strategies.

Zaher Haydar, Senior Regional Manager, Systems Engineers, Turkey, Africa and Middle East, EMC, says, “The trend that is being witnessed over the past one year is that there is a clear momentum around unified computing (involving integration between storage and virtualization), which has been maturing in North America and EMEA for the last couple of years.

Today, many of the large customers are trying to leverage unified computing in order to speed up their go-to-market and reduce TCO. We are also

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in the midst of advanced form of consolidation.

While many companies have done infrastructure consolidation in the past, they are now looking at application and database consolidation which is again related to reducing TCO and increasing efficiency.”

“We are also seeing many CIOs and CEOs asking for more and more comprehensive as well as heterogeneous management of data centers, which we call as Storage Resource Management.

It has the ability to give comprehensive dashboard of all the assets lying in the data center. Last but not least, today, everybody is talking about Big Data and most of the customers have put it on their radar. Some organizations, depending on their nature of business and maturity of the organization, have started doing projects around Big Data and analytics,” states Zaher.

TECHNOLOGICAL INVESTMENTS In today’s environment, IT products and solutions need to be extremely flexible and adaptable.

The technology vendors are putting their efforts on innovation and integration which will continue to be the key drivers for IT investments in 2013. In the current economic scenario, organizations are looking at effective solutions to reduce capital costs, time utilized for deployment and drive higher performance.

This is where new trends and technologies like virtualization, cloud, software defined storage, and Flash are making inroads to improve the

ZEESHAN GAYA, RESEARCH MANAGER - SECURITY APPLIANCES, VIRTUALIZATION, SERVERS, AND STORAGE SYSTEMS, IDC MEA

“Technologies like data de-duplication, data compression, thin provisioning, storage virtualization, and multi-tiering will become widely adopted by end users”

OUT OF THE NUMEROUS TRENDS PREVAILING IN THE MEA MARKET, ONE OF THEM IS THAT A ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL APPROACH DOES NOT WORK.

utilization of infrastructure. As more and more companies build private cloud or shift to public cloud, it will lead to multi-tenant autonomic storage requirements.

Even industry experts predict storage to be a hot market in 2013, as businesses will invest in Big Data, Cloud, and Flash-based technologies.

This scenario has compelled the technology vendors to come out with innovative offerings in this space and the kind of efforts being put by each and every one of them, it certainly indicates that they are well prepared to cash on this burgeoning market.

Giving his perspective on the same, Gaya says,

“The rampant demand for storage has triggered adoption of numerous technologies and practices that help increase the efficiency of storage systems. Technologies like data de-duplication, data compression, thin provisioning, storage virtualization, and multi-tiring will become widely adopted by end users. Storage solutions designed to manage content (specifically fixed content, such as regulatory data, old email, and x-rays) will continue to provide a solid foundation for growth in new terabyte shipments.”

Adding further, Zaher points out, “EMC’s strategy for cloud has been there for several years now. From the cloud perspective, the market

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STEPHAN GEYER, REGIONAL SALES MANAGER, SOFTWARE AG

ZAHER HAYDAR, SENIOR REGIONAL MANAGER, SYSTEMS ENGINEERS, TURKEY, AFRICA AND MIDDLE EAST, EMC

“We believe that storage requirements (in terms of how much data companies have to deal with in a daily basis) have not stopped, shrunk or slowed down”

“While many companies have done infrastructure consolidation in the past, they are now looking at application and database consolidation.”

will remain hybrid. Many big organizations will build their private cloud and for that, EMC has been providing cloud technologies for the last so many years. We command the biggest market share from that perspective. Then, there is clear demand for public cloud services from SMBs and consumers. Here, EMC is providing technology and know-how to service providers who in turn giving cloud services to SMBs and end users. We have partnered with some of the large service providers in this space. In the past twelve months, we have seen is more and more adoption of public cloud services.”

“Flash is relatively a new domain. We have been one of the early entrants into the Flash market back in 2009-10, when we introduced Flash in our storage product portfolio. Our products like EMC Xtrem family of Flash-optimized server and storage products and introduction of a new line of EMC XtremSF PCIe-based Flash cards dramatically accelerate application performance. With the addition of XtremSF, EMC continues delivering the industry’s only best-of-breed portfolio of Flash products. By the end of 2013, we will be ready with first full Flash array, which is another brick in our portfolio.

EMC has built the complete Flash portfolio, which is fully integrated from software perspective,” highlights Zaher.

NetApp has already identified these three areas as key growth sectors and is already experiencing demand for these technologies. As a result of its strong product portfolio and well equipped sales force and partner base, the company is well placed to assist customers in implanting these technologies.

Ebert explains, “From a product and technology perspective, NetApp has pro-actively taken steps to prepare for this growth. For example, we recently announced the evolution of Clustered Data ONTAP to include a Software Defined Datacenter paradigm to enhance our cloud capabilities. We are also able to support flash at all levels of infrastructure including server, storage controller, and disk drives. Further, with regards to Big Data, our E-Series – also offered as an allflash storage array or in an integrated stack with Hadoop – delivers high-performance bandwidth storage and can provide high-performance computing, media content management and enterprise content repositories to organizations that require this.”

While talking about Dell’s approach towards Flash, Tony Parkinson, Vice President – EMEA, Enterprise Solutions, Dell, explains, “There’s been a lot of talk about all-flash arrays for some time. Prices are coming down. New companies are popping-up providing all-flash solutions.

Currently, there’s a small niche market for all-flash storage. It’s a niche for a couple of reasons - smaller vendors can’t provide a rich suite of supporting technologies or third-party integration, and the vast majority of storage users still get the most value of our tiring data to keep some data on high end flash, while other less-accessed data moved to less costly spinning disc.”

“We have taken a unique look at flash storage and are leveraging our strengths with automated tiring to do something none of our competitors have been able to do. Last month, we announced our next generation Dell Compellent Storage Center 6.4 array software, which is further optimized for data-intensive workloads like databases and OLTP and leverages the performance gains of SC 6.3 to fully exploit high-speed flash storage.

With SC 6.4, we unlock the broader potential of automated tiering to support new levels of flash tiering at the high-end while extending tiering to cost-efficient dense storage to offer the best performance at the lowest possible cost,” adds Parkinson.

“At Software AG, we fully agree with this trend.

Growing storage needs is something that has been on the rise, and will continue to be, for a long time. We also believe, however, that storage has many faces and storage requirements vary based on business uses. We see a huge trend towards not only making sense of all this data that needs to be stored, and thus drives storage requirements forwards, but also managing it.

Software AG is in a privileged position of being one of the leaders of Data Management, in particular, In-Memory Data Management with our Terracotta product offering,” asserts Geyer.

FOCUS ON AUTOMATION & MANAGEABLE ENVIRONMENTS The vast majority of IT organizations are seeking storage that is simpler to manage and uses automation to free up staff members for more-strategic tasks. Too often it is a drag on innovation. Provisioning times, cost effectiveness, accuracy of provisioning and responsiveness to business needs are the top four concerns, and organizations are willing to pay more for systems that reduce management complexity, saving them time and money in the long term.

For these reasons, storage vendors are placing a greater focus on automation and easier-to-

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manage storage environments to not only reduce storage complexity, but reduce costs as well.

Example innovations include automated tiering, snapshots, virtual server and desktop integration/ optimization, and de-duplication and compression as ways to apply additional under-the-covers automation to reduce overall costs. Automated tiering helps customers manage data when and where they need it, and in the most cost-effective storage tier.

Like for example, NetApp has always taken this approach to storage environments and this is what has enabled it to differentiate from the competition. Solutions offered by the company such as Clustered Data ONTAP accelerate workflow automation with the most comprehensive suite of application integrations and open programmable APIs, thus strengthening its position in this space.

Many organizations buy storage that’s capable of more performance than they can ever consume because they aren’t confident in their ability to measure and configure precise real-time demand for performance. Storage systems with automated tiering allow users to let the system determine the optimal tier for data workloads; over time, it will allow data to gravitate toward the media choice that best fits its actual needs and budget considerations. As part or all of a storage array, flash and other solid-state storage have been gathering momentum quickly as demand for faster response times increases and costs decrease.

“Our particular strength is in helping customers manage their data as it arrives into their data centers, to help customers take decisions and to infer greater insight. Our approach when it comes to storing this data is truly agnostic to storage platforms, allowing us to help customers without having to position heavy investments linked with changes in their storage subsystems,” highlights Geyer.

continue to support its partners by providing this type of storage as the basis for complex, full stack big data solutions.

Talking about NetApp’s contribution, Ebert states, “We will continue to assist our customers in making the right decision for their organization’s storage needs. Our very recent addition to the FlexPod range includes FlexPod Select with Cloudera’s Distribution including Apache Hadoop (CDH) and FlexPod Select with Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP). As a vendor, we believe this is the best way to accelerate deployment of a highly available, enterprise-class Hadoop environment that allows customers to derive tangible business value from large data chunks.”

Markets in the MEA region are becoming increasingly competitive, especially so after the credit crisis. There is a very clear advantage in the way companies are able to differentiate themselves from their competitors by rethinking the way they go to market, the type of products they offer to customers and the way they interact with their customer base. Big Data is not only a challenge for CIOs and CEOs, but also an opportunity to harness the change from a push type of product approach from companies, to a pull. The way customers are interacting with companies, and with other customers, today in social platforms allows companies to understand better what type of products they will be willing to consume.

Software AG does its bit by helping companies

KONSTANTIN EBERT, DIRECTOR – MIDDLE EAST, EASTERN EUROPE, NETAPP

“Our very recent addition to the FlexPod range includes FlexPod Select with Cloudera’s Distribution including Apache Hadoop (CDH) and FlexPod Select with Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP)”

SOFTWARE-DEFINED STORAGE, BECAUSE OF ITS ABILITY TO POOL STORAGE RESOURCES ACROSS MULTIPLE ARRAYS, WILL BE USEFUL TO ANY CUSTOMER WITH MORE THAN ONE STORAGE ARRAY.

BIG DATA, BIGGER CHALLENGES Big Data is posing a bigger storage challenge for businesses across the region. And it’s high time for business leaders to radically rethink on the approach to storage in order to cope and derive true value. Business decision makers need to invest in the appropriate storage infrastructure to support Big Data initiatives. Deriving significant business value from, for example, data mining, requires timely results which can only be provided by solid, reliable, dense, and highbandwidth storage.

In this scenario, storage vendors also need to play a significant role. NetApp already provides OEM storage to the likes of Teradata and will

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to transform the way they do business and reap rewards from thinking ahead of the pack without drastic investment requirements and by leveraging its in-depth Big Data expertise.

In addition to Dell’s support of the Hadoop platform, Dell offers two primary solutions geared at empowering customers to better extract valuable insight from complex and diverse data sources - Toad Business Intelligence Suite for self-service BI and Kitenga Analytics for big data analytics. l Toad Business Intelligence Suite is an integrated solution that enables organizations to easily access and extract meaningful informa-

tion from traditional and non-traditional data sources. It allows users to rapidly combine data across multiple sources, locations and formats — relational databases, BI platforms, cloud databases, and Big Data sources like Hadoop. Users can then synthesize this information through Toad Business Intelligence Suite’s customized BI tools, designed specifically for both business and IT users. l Kitenga Analytics enables business analysts and data scientists to analyze structured, semi-structured and unstructured data stored in Hadoop. With Kitenga, organizations can more efficiently and effectively process all data—infor-

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order to register the potentially related risks. It is also being utilized in less common industries around high performance computing,” adds Zaher.

STRATEGY FOR SOFTWARE-DEFINED STORAGE

TONY PARKINSON, VICE PRESIDENT – EMEA, ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS, DELL

“With SC 6.4, we unlock the broader potential of automated tiering to support new levels of flash tiering at the high-end while extending tiering to cost-efficient dense storage to offer the best performance at the lowest possible cost”

mation residing in traditional relational databases and Hadoop clusters, including documents, texts, CRM systems, log files, Twitter feeds, Facebook posts, etc.—and provide appropriate context and analysis to produce real-world business perspective.

“The market potential of Big Data is huge in this region. Though we cannot comment on market value from dollar perspective, it is certainly one of the highest growth markets.

It’s believed that it will be a very big market in the coming days fueled by advanced technologies like cloud adoption. As more and more cloud technologies will be adopted, the market potential for Big Data will certainly increase. Big Data adoption is seen from security and Flash perspective. Modernizing business intelligence will also require Big Data. Telecos and banks are looking at understanding better the behavior and pattern of their customers in order to maximize their return on those users. Insurance companies as well as banks are profiling their customers in

The amount of data stored is expected to grow quickly to 40 zetabytes by 2020 and at the same time, customers increasingly will be demanding storage infrastructures that are always available and provide automated capacity growth.

Software-defined storage (SdS) includes capacity that is scalable across multiple geographies and across commodity servers.

SdS because of its ability to pool storage resources across multiple arrays, will be useful to any customer with more than one storage array and who is looking to simplify their management. SdS will be even more useful if those arrays are from multiple vendors.

NetApp’s Clustered Data ONTAP helps to deliver on the promise of SdS, increasing IT agility and speeding up the delivery of services to application owners and development teams.

Clustered Data ONTAP is the only storage software which is able to abstract data access and services from pooled hardware resources for SAN and NAS while still supporting the broadest range of hardware. The recently announced version- Clustered Data ONTAP 8.2 paves the way for customers deploying Software-Defined Data Centers (SDDC) which cuts through the performance, availability and efficiency limits of traditional hardware-silo models. Softwaredefined storage is one component of the emerging SDDC model, which focuses on agility in delivering IT services to application owners while improving operational and IT resource efficiency.

As a result of its strategy and enhancements to Data ONTAP, the company believes that there will be an increase in the adoption of clustered Data ONTAP in the MEA market.

“We don’t have specific strategies for any region, it is across the board and there are multiple facets in building up software defined storage because customers don’t like revolution especially when it comes to storage. They want evolution which really comes down to talking to our customers about storage virtualization,” says Parkinson.

Zaher asserts, “Software-defined storage and software defined data centre is the ultimate goal.

It will probably take another couple of years for the industry and market to fully establish the technology around it. We have been the early adopter of software defined storage. Different

storage hardware offers different capabilities, making it possible to differentiate one vendor’s hardware from another’s even as software-defined storage is adopted. EMC’s Isilon line is designed for scale-out storage applications, while EMC’s VMAX line is designed for performance and high availability. Software-defined storage, because of its ability to pool storage resources across multiple arrays, will be useful to any customer with more than one storage array and who is looking to simplify their management. Softwaredefined storage will be even more useful if those arrays are from multiple vendors.”

Meanwhile, Software AG does not have a storage business unit. It deals exclusively in software to help manage data and software to process complex data sources. The company’s strategy is to empower companies to be able to handle much more data than they currently do, from many more sources than they currently have in order to be able to transform the way they interact with their customers and the way they compete in the market.

GROWTH EXPECTATIONS According to IDC estimates, in the Middle East market, external storage is expected to grow 20.7 percent year over year (2012/2013) and at a healthy CAGR of 11.8 percent over the next five years.

In terms of the Big Data and In-Memory Data Management expectations in MEA, the industry experts believe that the time is right. Big Data is gradually leaping from ‘buzz’ state and it’s moving ahead to be a true requirement from customers.

Software AG has started actively engaging in conversations with companies in the MEA region in 2013, and the company expects solid as well as organic growth as enterprises embark on the next step, the Digital and Data-Aware Enterprise.

Similarly, NetApp is quite bullish about the potential growth for the company in the MEA market. The company also firmly believes that its leading technologies can provide customers with both the support and skills through its channel to support the growth in the region.

FINALLY… The rate at which businesses are generating and consuming data, it is natural for enterprises to rethink their storage options. To store this abundance of data in the most efficient way, users must not only employ various technologies that help eliminate redundant copies of the data or boost utilization rates of available storage assets, but also increasingly consider moving beyond their own data centers and adding third-party storage services (public and private) to the pool of viable storage options. ë

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MANAGED PRINT SERVICES

Transforming the Printing Culture

Even in this era of digitisation, businesses heavily rely on printing. Leaving the printing department unmanaged can not only spiral IT spends but also decrease productivity. Consequently, many companies have turned their focus on Managed Print Services (MPS). n WORDS: MANALI MISRA <MANALI@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM> n PHOTOS: SHUTTERSTOCK

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ith economic uncertainty looming around, enterprises across the regions are looking for optimised solutions to reduce infrastructural costs through all segments.

The printing infrastructure is one of them. It has a lot of hidden costs involved which if managed can increase efficiency and bring down the cost. Keeping a tab on who prints what and where in any organisation is quite impossible.

Managed Print Services (MPS) offer an option to enterprises struggling with the handling of an unmanaged printing department.

THE PRINTING TREND The world might have started to print less but a complete digitised atmosphere is not in the offing.

The IDC 2012 data reveals that two million pages are printed every minute in EMEA region and the page growth in CEMA was driven by the Middle East and Africa region, where page volume rose more than 5% year on year. “The trend of digitisation and printing less may be true for Western part of the world but in MEA, there are still more documents printed every day because

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of the information explosion. Nearly 10-15 % of the emails are usually getting printed in an office environment. The print volume is still growing,” says Ravinder Kumar, GM, Business Solutions Division, Sharp Middle East.

Study reveals that increasing adoption of MPS and environmental concerns are amongst the factors that impacted page volume in EMEA. According to Jai Shankar, Senior Marketing Manager at Brother International Gulf, printing opportunities are high in emerging markets but the mature market is saturated. Jai informs that the number of printing units in MEA every year is close to three million units with Turkey being the biggest market.

The economic slowdown of 2008 gave way to a lot of cost-effective measures and interest in MPS witnessed a new vigour. Latik Gupta, Head, Enterprise Division, Jumbo claims that Jumbo is the pioneer of MPS as they were trying to popularise the concept in 2007-08 when not many people were aware of it.

OPTING FOR MPS The adoption of MPS reduces costs by aligning the print fleet according to need of the organisa-

tion. It also takes off the burden to manage the ordeal task of printer consumables and offers solutions for a green environment with better MFPs. SLAs constitute an integral part of any MPS contract. According to Quocirca Research MPS enables organisations to gain predictable expenses as contracts typically wrap hardware, service, support and consumables into a monthly payment. Latik rightly explains that there is a multiple-pitch for MPS contracts which starts with the basic step of understanding the organisation and its needs. “Better ROI, reduced carbon footprint, optimisation, efficiency, bringing the cost down, giving better SLAs, better management especially consumables stock are the factors taken care of in MPS.” He feels that getting the organisations out of managing a lot of transactions and making the life easier is the evolution of MPS. As per him Jumbo has positioned Ricoh for managed print services.

Ricoh is among the leaders in Gartner’s magic quadrant for managed print service. When Jumbo entered into MPS in 2007, Ricoh was the one who trained the company and showed the products distribution company a direction to move into services space. Latik adds, “Ricoh

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showed us the path of transition because the industry is supposed to transform. Ricoh has been leading this. Within the organization they have a focussed approach on the managed print services. with a separate division for MPS called MDS (managed document services). It completely looks into the document life cycle – be it printing, storage, archival, etc. The kind of range Ricoh has I doubt that any competititor can match that. It has got entry level personal printers till 130 ppm production printers. That is the plus point for us because not only do we get products but also get trained on other competencies including MPS, pre-sales, post-sales, etc.

We get access to a lot of tools this way. These tools help us in finding out what environment is prevalent in the customers’ locations of printing, what kind of volume they are printing and how they can optimize the printing.”

However Mathias Militzer, GM, MEA, Lexmark, is quite sceptical on the value addition of MPS to a business. “While cost savings of between 20-30% may be achieved it doesn’t necessarily improve efficiencies when it comes to the actual operations of the business itself,” he opines.

THE LARGE ENTERPRISES ARE EMBRACING MPS RAPIDLY SO AS TO STREAMLINE THEIR PRINT FLEET.

VERTICALS DRIVING MPS The large enterprises are embracing MPS rapidly so as to streamline their print fleet. “All verticals are implementing it as MPS is applicable to any organisation that has a large quantity of print devices”, says Dan Smith, Head of Integrated Marketing for the Middle East and Africa region of Xerox’s Developing Markets Operations.

However, the opinion varies. Jai and Latik feel that MPS is growing in government entities while Ravinder feels that MPS in government sector is still at very primitive stage. “In ME, opportunity is health and education because in these two sectors almost one third of the total GDP is invested.

Besides these, construction is supporting this growth with increased activity in production line. In Africa, SME is growing very fast,” adds Ravinder. Militzer finds opportunities existing in

the burgeoning educational institutions setting up in the region as well as the flourishing Middle East banking and finance sectors.

ROLE OF CHANNEL It is a proven and tested GTM strategy that a focused channel partner conveying the right marketing message brings in more sales. Hence, it is not surprising to note that companies prefer to offer MPS through their channel partners. Jai feels that to have a willing distributor who is ready to invest in the concept is the most important point. “We are extending the MPS opportunity for corporate and large enterprises based on their requirements. We don’t promote it directly but through our distributors,” says Jai. Dan thinks from an implementation perspective, key to all organisations is working with a

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PLAYERS IN THE FIELD Xerox/Fuji Xerox, HP, Lexmark, and Ricoh hold prominent positions within the Leaders category as per the IDC MarketScape Worldwide Managed Print and Document Services Vendor Assessment 2013. Canon, Konica Minolta, KYOCERA, Pitney Bowes, and Toshiba are categorized as Major Players. There is increasing competition as more number of players are coming into picture.

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MATHIAS MILITZER, GM, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, LEXMARK

“Managed Print Services are becoming increasingly popular in the region as businesses become more aware of the wide range of benefits they stand to gain by implementing them to their work processes”

JAI SHANKAR, SENIOR MARKETING MANAGER, BROTHER INTERNATIONAL GULF

“The concept of MPS is based on how good is the market and how good is the corporate segment of the country in terms of capital. The markets where capital investment is taken seriously MPS makes sense for them”

IDC MARKETSCAPE

WORLDWIDE MANAGED PRINT AND DOCUMENT SERVICES MARKET Xerox/Fuzi Xerox

Lexmark

HP Ricoh

Pitney Bowes

LEADERS Canon

CAPABILITIES

partner who focuses on the detail of change management. “This is critical to the success of any MPS roll out, and is often over looked. The change management process involves many different forms of end user communication, both during the pre-sales and post-sale process,” he says.

Lexmark continuously works with the channel partners to streamline the service offering to enhance customer experiences. “The Lexmark Fleet Manager 2.0 (LFM 2.0) is a programme for our channel partners with a focus on enhancing their ability to provide value-added services to their end-users. This also serves as an initiation into the immense possibilities that exist in harnessing the power of MPS. The programme provides a selection of service elements addressing printer fleet management issues which allows businesses to optimize network printing while reducing costs,” elaborates Militzer.

Dan sees huge opportunities for channel engagement in MPS. “Xerox is conscious to ensure that its partners are properly skilled to deliver the MPS message. In order for channel partners to sell Xerox MPS, there are required to go through a structured training programme, which focuses on both the sales side but importantly the technical aspect too. If successful, Xerox will then accredit the partner to officially sell Xerox MPS and thus open up a completely new market opportunity for them to help rapidly grow the business,” he says.

Xerox seems keen on delivering the benefits of MPS on all fronts. “Xerox is helping the channel to be strategically relevant and lock in their relationships with customers. Xerox is also supporting resellers to improve profitability and cash flow by contracting for recurring revenues.

For customers we are helping them control costs, improve budgeting and deploy better document processes that support their businesses,” says Dan. Sharp names MPS differently. It prefers to call it as Intelligent Print Service (IPS). “We are educating about IPS in different sectors. For our partners we are running a programme called Sharp Shooter Club focusing on color and incentivising the partners,” says Ravinder.

Toshiba Kyocera

Other vendors

Konika Minolta

MAJOR PLAYERS

CONTENDERS

PARTICIPANTS STRATEGIES

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DAN SMITH, HEAD, INTEGRATED MARKETING, MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA, XEROX DEVELOPING MARKETS OPERATIONS

“MPS has been offered for many years, but the reality is that the majority of implementations are still quite simple.”

CURRENT SITUATION AND GROWTH IN MEA Organisations across the continents are embracing MPS and the MEA region is no exception.

According to IDC, worldwide MPS grew from $10.8 billion to $11.8 billion at an 8.9% CAGR in 2012. “Managed Print Services are becoming increasingly popular in the region as businesses become more aware of the wide range of benefits they stand to gain by implementing them to their work processes,” says Militzer. However he feels that MPS is in an early phase in MEA region but opportunities are on the increase. Jai too feels that there is still time for MPS to become mainstream and the concept is not quite popular to the IT heads in MEA. “The concept of MPS is based on how good is the market and how good is the corporate segment of the country in terms of capital. The markets where capital investment is taken seriously MPS makes sense for them,” says Jai. Dan says that MPS has been offered for many years, but the reality is that the majority of implementations are still quite simple. He feels that it is partially because of the speed of customer acceptance and partially because of the skills of many companies that offer MPS services.

LATIK GUPTA, HEAD, ENTERPRISE DIVISION, JUMBO ELECTRONICS

RAVINDER KUMAR, GM, BUSINESS SOLUTIONS DIVISION, SHARP MIDDLE EAST

“We add on a lot of MPS software solutions with our offering such as cloud based services. The users can also authenticate themselves to print their job. They can even define rules for printing”

“Out of total deployment across the industry, 20% of the units are placed through MPS. In next 3 years, it may reach to a level of 40%”

“Given that MPS is still in its early phase in the region, opportunities are definitely on the increase. We continue to work along with our enterprise and channel partners to identify new opportunities for MPS implementation in the region, while also providing training assistance to enable partners to work effectively with customers to provide them with customised solutions,” tells Militzer. Ravinder is optimistic towards the growth of MPS. “Out of total deployment across the industry, 20% of the units are placed through MPS. In next 3 years, it may reach to a level of 40%,” he adds.

Companies are trying to reap profits from their MPS offering. “The share of MPS as a component of Lexmark’s overall revenue is on the increase worldwide. Revenue from MPS grew 7% in 2012 to reach $624 million,” informs Militzer.

THE FACTORS: MOBILITY AND CLOUD Consumerisation of IT and the rapid adoption of cloud based applications, mobile and tablets in workplace are opening up new opportunities in mobile printing solutions. Besides the core print fleet management, MPS offering needs to accommodate mobile and cloud printing solutions. “We

add on a lot of MPS software solutions with our offering such as cloud based services. The users can also authenticate themselves to print their job.

They can even define rules for printing,” tells Latik.

Militzer elaborates that Lexmark creates mobile workflows apps which enable the rapid creation of custom mobile workflow solutions to simplify business processes in a number of industries.

“Solution Composer tool and Mobile Capture app are unique in the market place, allowing users to create tailored apps for smartphones and tablets which take just minutes to create. We also deliver cloud-based document management solutions, namely cloud based print release, that manages the flow of information more efficiently and in some cases without the need to download and install the printer driver on your laptop or tablet PC,” he explains.

FINALLY....

The demand of printing environment is changing and the need of MPS will increase even more in the future. MPS will definitely have to grow out of managing print services to offer output and document management and long-term business improvement. Increase adoption of mobility and cloud will reshape MPS. ë

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PARTNER CORNER

PROLOGIX

Gung-ho About Growth Compared to other geographies, MEA region is perhaps bouncing back faster from slowdown. But it does not imply that the market is a cake walk for the IT companies. One has to have differentiation in offerings to claim the bounty. n WORDS: TUSHAR SAHOO <TUSHAR@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM> n PHOTOS: AGENCY

W

en the difficult time comes, fundamentally weak companies succumb to the pressure but those which are based on strong core values and right strategy create their own path of survival and thrive. One of those companies is Prologix LLC., which has brought in innovation to its offerings and created a balanced portfolio of distributor, systems integration and services to thrive in the market.

On one hand Prologix deals with power retailers like SharafDG, HyperPanda and LULU and on the other it sells high end products from Huawei, Emerson, Siemens, Alcatel-Lucent to the channel partners. Its systems integration and projects business is also growing faster where the company is positioning solutions from HP, Avaya, Cisco, Aruba, Sonicwall, Fortinet, Microsoft, etc.

Sarwan Singh, Managing Director, Prologix LLC., says, “We are witnessing growth from past 6 years almost growing at 100% year on year. We have increased our geographic presence to Nigeria, Kenya, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. We have found our growth areas majorly in the Telecom and Hospitality industry.”

Today, the whole region is growing piggy bagging the individual vertical growth. For example, tourism is growing in Dubai pulling out other sectors and moving on the growth path. Oil &

24

Gas market is growing in Abu Dhabi so are other sectors. The government sector is investing in security, hospitality, healthcare and education.

For example, the Ministry of Education, UAE has allocated 45% of the country’s GDP on the education loan which is very high. Government sector in the entire region is really gung-ho about eGovernance and mGovernance.

To cater to the high-growth market, Prologix has invested in various technology areas. For example, it is Gold Partner of HP and Microsoft and Platinum Partners of Avaya and Dell Sonicwall. Besides, the company is also partner of NSN (Nokia Siemens Networks), Huawei, Alcatel-Lucent. These partners are empowering Prologix to tap infrastructure projects - majorly Data Centers and Contact centres, even cloud computing.

Sarwan says, “We have already signed up an agreement with DU on MSP front. By the first quarter of 2014, we are starting our own cloud.

We will use the data center of DU and put up various services over cloud. During Gitex we will announce 3 - 4 eCommerce Websites.”

He adds, “On the systems integration front we have grown leaps and bounds in last 3-4 years.

Whether it is the Hiltons, Novotel or Sheraton or InterContinental in the hospitality sector, we have done a lot of projects around their networking, security and voice. We have integrated IPTV,

CCTV, access control, hospitality management system, the customer experience management etc.

To assist expanding business, Prologix has a team of 150+ professionals who are capable enough to take care of the clientele from the cross section of vertical industries including hospitality, Enterprise, Governments, Educational and Oil & Gas. Geography wise, Prologix has executed projects in entire Middle East and Africa. Sarwan says, “We have got projects in Nigeria. We have projects from Kenya Defence, Safaricom, Kenya Agriculture Industry, Kenya power, etc. Now after doing the projects in those areas we realize that Eastern Africa and Western Africa are the fastest growing areas as far as Telecom, Infrastructure and Cloud Computing are concerned.”

On the distribution front, Prologix is making a big announcement during Gitex as two new products are going to be introduced. Sarwan maintains, “This year our major growth is coming from distribution side of business. We have around 14 products and we focus on only the niche areas.”

Last year Prologix touched a turnover of AED 257 million and this year the company is trying to consolidate its growth and as per Sarwan they will grow approximately 15- 20 %.

On the wireless and Test & Measurements side

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PARTNER CORNER

ment and on some of the Microsoft applications like exchange, share point, etc. We are bringing in right product mix on the cloud.

We understand that the market where we are in is very dynamic, so we always have to keep changing and that is where the visionary, the mentors or we always try to actually go to the global exhibitions and bring in the latest things. But obviously we do see if our market is accepting those trends or not. Like cloud was famous for years ago but UAE market was not ready for it but now it is ready. So we feel that this is the right time to move towards cloud.

That is the reason we have done a very strategic tie up with DU that will not only enable us to put our cloud there but also sell DU’s infrastructure as a service. We will also sell DU”s infrastructure and we will become their MPS partner from not only sales prospective but also from technical perspective.

Which vertical markets will be driving this line of business?

SARWAN SINGH

MANAGING DIRECTOR, PROLOGIX LLC

Are you wishing to focus on Data centre and services market going forward?

We entered into the data center space almost two years ago but people were sceptical about it. We always try to align ourselves with the recent trends. So we know that the time is correct now and that is why we are bring our own cloud services on document management, HR manage-

also, the story of Prologix is very interesting as the company has worked with Dubai Police, Formula One, FIFA world cup in South Africa, etc. Sarwan adds, “We finished the FIFA project by connecting all their walkie-talkies (two way radio backhauling). Some projects are very unique. For example Abu Dhabi customs has put up surveillance cameras on Saudi border and all these cameras are connected by wireless and we have done this deployment. Similarly, Abu Dhabi Islamic Bank and National Bank of Abu Dhabi are our customers where we have enabled their branches to be connected securely over wireless.”

“Not only do we execute projects but also ensure that those projects are secure. Therefore, we do traffic generation and test the traffic to ensure that the switch is offering 100Gig/second throughput,” he added.

Prologix is managing a balanced portfolio of products and projects. Because they understand that in the projects the payments cycles are long term where as in the power retail and channel the

Normally the SME corporates would be going towards the infrastructure as a service because they have realized they won’t invest on a technology which gets obsolete every two years. So they want to keep their redundancy part or the risk of obsolescence towards the telecom operator. And as per our understanding with the telecom operators and the regional data center providers, the growth on the cloud is going to be 43 – 48% in the coming two years, which means they have also done their research and customers have also started accepting..

What is the total head count of the organization?

We have 160 people in UAE (including Dubai and Abu Dhabi), Kenya 17 people, Nigeria 10 people, Saudi 5 people and Qatar 4 people. Obviously it is going to grow soon.

“AS PER OUR UNDERSTANDING WITH THE TELECOM OPERATORS AND THE REGIONAL DATA CENTRE PROVIDERS, THE GROWTH ON THE CLOUD IS GOING TO BE 43 – 48% IN THE COMING TWO YEARS”

payment cycles remain under control.

While 40% of its revenues is coming from projects rest 60% comes from distribution and channel. Sarwan states, “We have to ensure that bottom line is healthy and the top line is growing.

Last year, we grew almost 100%, we try to ensure that our bottom line does not get depleted because of our top line aggression but this year we are trying to increase our bottom line more but grow the top line very reasonably.”

The company has 8 – 10 senior team leaders who are responsible for their own department. He adds, “What we have done is that we have made

every unit as a cost centre and ensure that the HOD’s are able to deliver.”

FINALLY… With a good growth in the Gulf region, Prologix is all set to strengthen its foot in Africa. Therefore, next 2-3 years, the company wants to be present in almost 15 – 16 countries. There is need to have right channel so that their growth drivers i.e. projects and the distribution, continues and achieve a turnover of AED 1billion company in next 5 years. ë

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WIRELESS

RUCKUS

Creating a Strong Ecosystem Investing in Wi-Fi solutions brings tremendous advantages to all target segments, be it carriers, enterprises, SMB and the end consumers. Sensing this, the technology vendors are putting concentrated efforts to meet the market demands. n WORDS: NIVEDAN PRAKASH <NIVEDAN@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM> n PHOTOS: AGENCY

T

he Middle East and Africa wireless market is on a growth path, which has opened a window of opportunities for technology vendors. The latest Gartner numbers suggest that IT spending is projected to amount to $192.9 billion USD in 2013 for the Middle East alone.

Currently, Middle East is the main driver in terms of volume and growth rate for IT investment and Africa is expected to strongly follow in the following years.

Nader Baghdadi, Middle East Regional Director, Ruckus Wireless, says, “The growth opportunities are available for us to capture. We are proud to say that Ruckus Wireless has created its presence and signature, in both Middle East and Africa as a leader in the Wi-Fi space.”

Investing in Wi-Fi solutions brings tremendous advantages to all target segments, be it carriers, enterprises, SMB and the end consumers. Wi-Fi technology is an extremely effective alternative to 3G/4G offloads because of the speed that it delivers and the costs associated with it – which is exactly what companies and consumers really want. If we refer to telecom operators, they do not only save capital cost by moving traffic from congested cellular networks [3G/4G LTE] to Wi-Fi networks, but also increase the capacity of the network quickly.

The increasing use of mobile devices and mobility at the work place is the main focus for the Middle East, with ‘enterprise mobility’ and

26

‘Bring Your Own Device’ (BYOD) being two very popular trends. Enterprise mobility is the concept by which companies are making use of wireless networks and mobile devices to conduct their business, whereas BYOD allows employees to use their personal devices within a working environment.

“Africa has more than 650 million mobile users (ICTs Delivering Home-Grown Development Solutions in Africa, World Bank) and with 50% of Internet connections being exclusively channeled through mobile devices, Africa is the second biggest mobile market in the world and the fastest growing. Out of the twenty largest mobile operators in the world, three exist in Africa. Our tele-density is still low with requirement for data exceeding demand,” adds Michael Fletcher, subSaharan Africa Sales Director, Ruckus Wireless.

Fletcher states, “We find that more and more subscribers are using their mobile devices to access the internet. This is also being accelerated by mobile manufacturers developing and making cost effective smartphones available in the market. In fact, statistics have shown that the ratio for accessing the internet via mobile device is 2/1 compared to the PC.” As Ruckus Wireless’ portfolio includes a wide range of indoor and outdoor Wi-Fi access points, the positioning of the company and its products here in the Middle East’s wireless segment is encouraged by the pace at which technology evolves. IT spending continues to increase

worldwide especially in response to Enterprise Mobility and BYOD trends, and the Middle East region is no exception. IT spending in the ME is projected to register a 5.5% increase this year, compared to 2012 with the telecom services market representing 77% of total IT spending in the region, according to Gartner.

Ruckus Wireless recognizes this growth as an opportunity. Ruckus Wireless’ range of products and services are manufactured with its customers’ best interest in mind, ensuring improvement in Wi-Fi performance, availability at all times, and security of the network.”

Amongst all the product lines, Ruckus Wireless’ HotSpot 2.0 is a very popular program in the region as it enables mobiles devices to automatically discover access points that have a roaming arrangement with the user’s home network and then securely connect. Additionally, the company’s BeamFlex provides Smart Wi-Fi adaptive antenna technology that maximizes signal coverage, throughput, and network capacity for greater speed, fewer errors, and instant bandwidth delivery.

ZoneFlex is another popular product family, available for indoors and outdoors. This product suite provides adaptive antenna technology as well as adaptive meshing to enable high-levels of Wi-Fi performance. The ZoneFlex access points are used in many domains such as hotels including guest areas and services, schools and stadiums covering sports facilities, and for

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WIRELESS

NADER BAGHDADI

MIDDLE EAST REGIONAL DIRECTOR, RUCKUS WIRELESS

general enterprises and outdoor areas where Ethernet cabling is not possible.

Ruckus also focuses on offering Cloud based services to enterprises through the Ruckus FlexMaster. This solution allows companies of all sizes to securely control, monitor and upgrade Smart Wi-Fi systems anywhere in the world, whether on the Internet or a private IP network.

Additionally, the demand for Ruckus Wireless’ Smart Wi-Fi infrastructure continues to grow as businesses from a wide range of sectors adapt to the booming trend of enterprise mobility. The main verticals which are driving the demand include government entities, education, hospitality, healthcare, retail, insurance, banking and finance.

“Ruckus Wireless has been particularly successful in providing backbone wireless access to the educational vertical in the Middle East, such as video on demand services, lectures, exams and many more. Mobility is a key driver in the educational sector today and Ruckus Wireless will continue to supply the latest technologies needed in this sector. We have also been successful in attending the hospitality sector’s needs in the Middle East and worldwide by working with high-profile brands such as Fairmont Hotels and Resorts, Marriott International, the Four Seasons and many more,” explains Baghdadi.

Baghdadi says, “As Ruckus Wireless avoids limiting itself to a single market or geography, it

MICHAEL FLETCHER

SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA SALES DIRECTOR, RUCKUS WIRELESS

AMONGST ALL THE PRODUCT LINES, RUCKUS WIRELESS’ HOTSPOT 2.0 IS A VERY POPULAR PROGRAM IN THE REGION AS IT ENABLES MOBILES DEVICES TO AUTOMATICALLY DISCOVER ACCESS POINTS.

allows the company to be exposed to a variety of channel programme opportunities. We focus on several of them in the Middle East region while ensuring the success of their partner’s business.

Additionally, potential partners are motivated to join Ruckus Wireless’ channel programmes as we continue implementing innovative strategic development and planning. Our channel ecosystem is a key factor of our success today and we are constantly expanding it for this reason.”

“We are currently focused on our reseller channel and working on creating and maintaining strong distribution partners across Africa, as with the right partners we will be able to grow our reseller and distribution channels and expand of our African footprint,” adds Fletcher.

In order to empower its channel partners, the company prefers constant engagement as well as end-user support when required. Quarterly sales and technical update via webinars and hands-on training are also targeted. Ruckus also focuses on

education through extensive training, demonstrating differentiation of the products/services and exposing them to the online forums where they are able to view what other channel partners are saying. This allows them to address and solve similar problems/challenges.

With regards to country-specific strategy in the region, Baghdadi, points out, “Being an emerging market with excellent growth pattern in the Wi-Fi space, we focus on our customer and channel requirements, we listen to them, address their pain-points, then we look for ways to overcome such challenges.”

FINALLY...

At this stage, the company is trying to consolidate the countries. The strategy here is to develop and maintain strong distribution and reseller partnerships and once this is achieved Ruckus will start developing relationship and partnerships in other regions across Africa. ë

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PARTNER STREET

DVCOM

Riding on Each Other’s Strength To cater to the MEA customers’ telecom needs, DVCOM has created a balanced portfolio of complementary products and Matrix Comsec is quite well positioned there. n WORDS: MANALI MISRA <MANALI@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

E

stablished in 2007 as the technology arm of Al Mashka Group, DVCOM Technology, a VAD with multi-vendor offering caters to the entire MENA region with Dubai as its headquarters and offices in Qatar, KSA, Oman, Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Bangladesh and India. It has close to hundred partners in the region and around twenty key partners who contribute around 50% of the total sales.

According to Sabu Thomas, VP- Channel Development, DVCOM Technology LLC., Dubai., DVCOM has been aiming to be a partner preferred Value Added Reseller.

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SABU THOMAS

VP-CHANNEL DEVELOPMENT, DVCOM TECHNOLOGY LLC. DUBAI.

“Matrix COSEC TimeAttendance and Access Control products are ideal for all customer segments and sizes.”

The company has an evolving channel partner programme, offer, pricing and support based on tiers, project registration protection as well as other project based discounts.

“We offer specialised trainings to develop their expertise and empower them to grow their business. By off ring demo units and online sales tools, we enable our partners to showcase the products easily to customers,” says Thomas.

As a partner for Matrix Comsec, Thomas adds, “Matrix COSEC Time-Attendance and Access Control products are ideal for all customer segments and sizes – SOHO, SMB, SME and large enterprises.”

And, DVCOM’s expectation of sales revenue from Matrix products is ambitious. “In the Middle East (ME), the customers these days prefer a single box solution that offers multiple telephony networks connectivity as an integral part of the solution. Compact and converged platform of Matrix ETERNITY NE / PE series provides integration to POTS, GSM, UMTS and IP networks and variety of user endpoints – Analog, Digital, IP and Mobile extensions. In addition to this the ME market is showing an increasing trend towards different gateways and ATA’s. Most of the SMB/SME telecom infrastructure tends to be of blended nature where both PSTN and IP based solution could co-exist,” explains Thomas.

However as a VAD, DVCOM has niche brands like Digium, Snom, Yealink, Draytek, Mediatrix, Valuepoint, Patton, Vu Telepresence and Viascope on its portfolio. “Our core competency is in Open source IP telephony based on asterisk and now with Matrix we have a wide range of gateways which complement the end solution,” comments Thomas. DVCOM focuses on road shows, technology trainings and also participates in various expos co-partnered with its partners in various countries.

Its consistent strategy to engage channel partners has yielded good results. In just six months of this year, DVCOM has touched 75% of its last year’s business. “Service providers in the region have started showing interest in our product offerings and we have also done POC’s with them which have been successful,” says Thomas

FINALLY...

This year DVCOM is excited about Matrix’s new innovations in Access Control and Time and Attendance solutions which are comprehensive, modular, scalable and flexible. These products are built on state-of the-art hardware and soft ware technologies and offer wide range of features which are reliable. ë

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LEADERS’ PITCH

DELL SONICWALL

Focus on technical certification

Dell SonicWALL’s state of the art products have allowed the company to maintain a competitive edge and with that have come its reputation and recognition

n WORDS: NIVEDAN PRAKASH <NIVEDAN@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM>

T

he Middle East & Africa network security market is all set for rapid growth as organizations in the region realize their vulnerability to increasingly complex cybercrimes.

The need to comply with government cyber legislations has further encouraged businesses to implement network security solutions, fuelling the market’s growth in the region.

According to Frost & Sullivan, the Middle East Network Security market is expected to experience a growth rate of more than 18 percent between 2012 and 2018, opening up opportunities for vendors to identify and tap. The market earned revenues of USD 341.4 million in 2012 and estimates this to reach USD 933.6 million in 2018.

For Dell SonicWALL, a leading provider of intelligent network security and data protection solutions, MEA is a key market. The company has grown the team in UAE and KSA to cover the Middle East. The same holds true for South Africa in order to cover South Africa / Central Africa. In this region, the company sees strong growth in partners, customers, and revenues amongst others.

The key verticals driving Dell SonicWALL’s business in the MEA market are education, healthcare, pharma, oil and gas, public, retail, finance and transport/logistics.

Florian Malecki, EMEA Product & Solution Marketing Director, Dell SonicWALL, says, “In the MEA region, we have adopted a very calculative marketing strategy. For Small and Medium Businesses, we focus on the enablement of the partners and push our offering to their

customers. And for enterprise segment, we look at promoting Dell SonicWALL advantages to the prospective customers.”

As far as channel strategy is concerned, the company adopts a 2 tier model with VAD and security resellers. Also, for the enablement of the channel, the company does it through on-going sales and technical trainings, generating leads, and pre-sales as well as post-sales support.

Meanwhile, for the empowerment of its channel partners, Dell SonicWALL has designed a partner programme training.

Dell SonicWALL has been traditionally known for its SME offerings. But the opening up of huge projects in this region has compelled the company to take strategic business decisions and come out with innovative product lines to cater to these increasing requirements. The launch of the e-class NSA, the Aventail acquisition and more recently, the launch of SM 10k and 9 series are some of the efforts in this direction.

In the recent times, the company has implemented its technology in the UAE’s number one multi-brand consumer electronics retailer, Jacky’s Electronics. The retailer, recently deployed Dell SonicWALL’s UTM security solution in order to optimize the bandwidth of its network around the country, especially in its twelve retail outlets and remote warehouse locations. This was part of Jacky’s Electronics expansion strategy across the UAE. A prototype network environment mirroring Jacky’s live environment was set up in the company’s Sharjah City Center outlet. After a few tests, it became apparent that there was a high degree of bandwidth optimization and ROI.

FLORIAN MALECKI

EMEA PRODUCT & SOLUTION MARKETING DIRECTOR, DELL SONICWALL

“We focus on the enablement of the partners and push our offering to their customers.”

Another successful project was the implementation in Topaz Energy and Marine, Dubai based oilfield services company. Topaz turned to Dell SonicWALL’s Network Security Solutions to manage the company’s network and connectivity requirements, in order to extend its growing global footprint. Dell SonicWALL was called in to deploy its firewalls solutions in two locations and across all offices worldwide within a year.

Topaz deployed Dell SonicWALL’s backup and recovery appliance Continuous Data Protection CDP6080, which was upgraded from the CDP 4440i appliance. Topaz upgraded its legacy SonicWALL firewalls to the new Dell SonicWALL E-Class NSA and NSA series and E-Class Email Security Appliance 6000.

FINALLY...

Dell SonicWALL is expecting a double digit growth this year. The reason being that there is a growing demand for next generation security appliances in this region, especially from customers who are realising its value. The company has shown significant year on year growth by increasing the install base of Next Generation Firewall. ë

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INNOVATIONS

Dell PowerEdge VRTX The Dell PowerEdge VRTX features a tower form factor and delivers primary storage via as

many as 25 SFF or 12 LFF drives and implements four server nodes with two SFF drives each. The server

nodes are Dell PowerEdge M620 or M520s, and with either option, the VRTX can deliver up to 64 physi-

cal processing cores (128 logical cores). The M620 maxes out with the Intel E5-2680 which is clocked at 2.7GHz, while the top-end for the M520 is the Intel E5-2470 at 2.3GHz. The M620s also provide 24 DIMM slots supporting up to 32GB of RAM each for a maximum capacity of 3072GB of RAM across the four server nodes; the M520 has 12 DIMM slots that also support 32GB each. As for design, at 5U the VRTX is rackable, but primarily is tailored for organizations that require robust performance from a unified system to simplify management and reduce hardware footprint and IT expenses. The VRTX is ideal for SMBs and remote/ branch offices avoiding allocating the space/budget for a traditional server rack that also enjoy the consolidation of their IT equipment into a single chassis.

KEY CAPABILITIES n Up to 12 x 3.5” NLSAS, SAS, or SAS SSDs n Up to 25 x 2.5” NLSAS, SAS, or SAS SSDs n 110/220V auto-sensing n Redundant power supplies support 2+2 (AC redundancy), and 3+1, 2+1, and 1+1 (power supply redundancy) modes n Dimensions (HxWxD): 19.1” (48.4cm) with system feet x 12.2” (31.0cm) with system feet opened x 28.7” (73.0cm) n Weight (empty): 69.7lbs (31.7kg); Weight (maximum): 164.9lbs (74.8kg) n Dimensions: (HxWxD) 8.6” (21.9cm) x 19” (48.2cm) x 28.7” (73.0cm) n Weight (empty): 54.5lbs (24.7kg); Weight (maximum): 151.5lbs (68.7kg)

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FUJITSU SCANSNAP SV600 Fujitsu ScanSnap SV600 is capable of contact-less scanning. Users simply place items on a desk to capture them. The scanner can digitise a great variety of objects: bound or stapled documents up to A3 size, such as notebooks, newspapers, catalogues, business cards, fragile originals, and objects up to 3 cm thick. This scanner even produces highquality images of curved objects. The ScanSnap SV600 offers the simple, intuitive, one-button operation that is the hallmark of the ScanSnap series to a new level. Its continuous scanning feature allows it to automatically capture another image as soon as the page is turned. The new solution represents instant scanning in the truest sense of the word. All a user has to do is place one or more documents on the mat (included as standard equipment), press a button and the digital document is ready for use on a PC or Mac, in a cloud service, or via a Smartphone or tablet, in just seconds.

The device digitises multiple documents or objects (Multi-Document Detection) in one scan. There is no need to arrange documents or objects on the mat. The scanner will automatically straighten and separate documents after capture.

The ScanSnap SV600 captures notebooks, newspapers and other bound or stapled documents in sizes up to A3 quickly and in top quality. Since the originals lie face up – in contrast to a flatbed scanner or copier – users can see the document while scanning, thus making it easier to avoid crooked, folded or covered pages.

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KEY CAPABILITIES n Comes with Adobe Acrobat, the CardMinder business card manager, and PFU‘s own Rack2-Filer Smart document manager. n This digital “binder” manages documents as if a user was working with a binder on a shelf. n Abbyy character recognition, the ScanSnap Organizer and the ScanSnap Manager are also included in the package.

The latter permits transfer of documents directly to PDF, images, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, multiple cloud services such as Evernote, Dropbox, Google Docs, as well as to email, and a large number of other applications. n Produce your own electronic books or newspapers with Rack2-Filer Smart

S E P T E M B E R 2013

MEA

04/09/13 8:04 AM

IT Outsourcing and Remote Infrastructure Management Solutions

Outsourcing IT services can accelerate your business growth as it frees up your time and internal resources to focus squarely on your core competencies.

providers, deal with crises, troubleshoot problems and run your network on your behalf … in the right way, in the right place and always at the right time.

But there are a myriad of competencies and skills to take into consideration when evaluating a potential services partner.

We’ve invested significantly in our people, processes, and systems to be able to move beyond management of point technologies to management of entire technology domain, particularly in the IT infrastructure space.

Does Service Provider have a proven track record in your vertical industry?

Are its IT services best practice aligned?

Is its services business robust and growing?

Does it have Solid Partnership with Hardware & Software vendors?

In IBT, we can answer all of these questions with a resounding ‘yes’. We manage vendors and service

We’re also your ideal choice of partner if you have – or are considering – adopting more of a strategic approach to sourcing IT, commonly known as Multisourcing. Our specialized client engagement teams can collaborate effectively with your other partners to deliver a seamless service experience.

Contact Us to discuss how we can help you maximize the Multisourcing opportunity.

P.O. Box: 124372, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Dubai Office Phone: +9714 3860110, Fax : +9714 3860557 Email: info@ibtevolve.com, Website: www.ibtevolve.com

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