April 14

emt Distribution to Offer Kasperky Lab Authorized Training Courses

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pa g e s 5 2 Volume 01 | issue 09 April 2014 www.enterprisechannelsmea.com

Dave Brooke, GM, Dell Middle East

Scan to read the Case Study

Ready to lead the pack

Working steadily in the direction of building a sustainable business, Dell is confident to beat its competitors in all departments and endeavour channel partners to play a big role. /36

A p r i l 2 0/46 14 “Changing the undlerlying econimics of storage business

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pa g e s 5 2 Volume 01 | issue 09 April 2014

ICT: Extending Support to Hospitalaity Business The hospitality industry in the MEA region has widely adopted and implemented varied ICT solutions in their businesses in order to enhance service quality, improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and increase customer loyalty. This scenario has also prompted the technology vendors as well as service providers to come up with innovative offerings to meet the rising demand from this sector. /24

r i l 2014 “Strengthening the Service Capabilities”A p/30

INDIAECM032014

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editorial

Good Numbers to Chase

sanjay mahopatra editor@accentinfomedia.com

This finance year starts with the right note as Gartner Symposium in Dubai tees off the year with a certain number to chase. The first number is US$3.47 billion spending on IT infrastructure development and the core of the spending will be on storage, server, and enterprise networking equipment.

The second number is that the Middle East (ME) IT spending is projected to total $211 billion in 2014, an 8 percent increase from 2013. This number is against the global IT spending forecast of $3.8 trillion in 2014.

Another forecast of Gartner says that Governments in the Middle East & Africa will spend US $11.9 billion on IT products and services in 2014, an increase of 2.3 percent over 2013. This forecast includes internal IT (including personnel), hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications. Government comprises local and regional government and national and international government.

Telecom services, including fixed and mobile telecom services will be the largest overall spending category throughout the forecast period within the government sector. It is expected to grow 2.7 percent in 2013 to reach US $5.4 billion in 2014 – led by growth in mobile network services. The software segment includes enterprise application software, infrastructure software and vertical specific software. Software spending will achieve a growth rate of 10.5 percent in 2014 to reach US $1.1 billion led by growth in enterprise application software (which includes enterprise resource planning (ERP), office suites and content, communications and collaboration amongst others).

These numbers are really encouraging for the entire ICT ecosystem in the region as the numbers not only look practical to achieve but easily supposable as His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister and Vice President of the United Arab Emirates, and ruler of Dubai has been pressing the need of smart governance in the region and also pursuing the government organizations to meet the deadline. He is also seeking greater cooperation from the private organizations to make it happen. I could well imagine that the number of departments and number of loose ends to be connected are not just countable as it will evolve with the passing of time.

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volume 0 1 issue 09 april 2014 www.enterprisechannelsmea.com

cover story

2014

ICT: Extending Support to Hospitalaity Business PARTNER STREET

/42

Strengthening the Service Capabilities

With the rise in the adoption of cloud and‘as-a-service’ model, the MEA region is witnessing a change in the way system integrators are approaching the market. corporate story /44

Building on the Growth Momentum

Wit the rise in the threat vectors and blended attacks, enterprises are taking a more proactive approach to secure their businesses.

corporate story

Enterprise storage has dynamically evolved over the years to cater to the rising volumes of data.

a p r i l 2014

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innvoations /49

Dell Wyse Cloud Connect

FEATURE The Metamorphosis of Display.. /36

Innovation and disruptive technologies have completely transformed the display market and the vendors who have adapted to the change are thriving.

Dell Wyse Cloud Connect is an ultra-compact and highly mobile cloud-access device that instantly delivers desktop virtualization and personal cloud services to any HDMI- or MHL-enabled display. The pocket-size device delivers a full-HD experience with enterprise-level security, manageability and reliability.

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“Changing the Underlying Economics of Storage Business”

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The hospitality industry in the MEA region has widely adopted and implemented varied ICT solutions in their businesses in order to enhance service quality, improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and increase customer loyalty. /24

EDITORIAL::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 05 CHANNEL STREET::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 08 partner street:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 34 ENTERPRISE SECURITY::::::::::::::::::::::::: 44 MY VIEW::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 46 INNOVATIONS::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 48

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street Oracle Solutions to be Distributed by Redington Value Redington Value will distribute Oracle solutions in the Middle East region including Egypt. It will provide a multitude of services for the entire Oracle Stack to its value-added reseller partners, including Sales Support, Market Intelligence, Pre Sales Support, Commercial Skills and also provide Oracle Authorized Solution Centers for the benefit of partners and customers across the region.

Redington Value will focus on the development of the Oracle channel in the Middle East driving deeper adoption of Oracle’s technology and application products within the Middle East IT channel. Redington will offer its partners pricing and deal support for Oracle solutions, as well as support in terms of enablement and demand generation.

Logicom to Provide Full HP Services Portfolio Logicom will add HP Services to its Enterprise Group Portfolio. It will officially be named an HP Services Contract Specialist Distribution Partner for the UAE. This partnership enables Logicom to provide the full HP services portfolio, complementing its existing HP Enterprise Group product range.

Following its new agreement with HP TS as a services contractual distribution partner (SCSP-D), Logicom will be able to support all HP’s Tier 2 partners in the sale of the following - Upfront and post warranty Care Pack Services; Installation services and Lifecycle Event Services; HP Education Services; and Contractual support for HP Servers, storage, networking and software products including renewals, multi-year and conversions.

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Mary Mesaglio, research vice president at Gartner

IT Infrastructure Spending in MEA to Reach $3.47 billion: Gartner IT infrastructure spending, comprising storage, server, and enterprise networking equipment, in the Middle East and Africa is forecast to reach $3.47 billion, a 4.1 percent increase from 2013, according to Gartner.

“CIOs in the Gulf are beginning to prepare their enterprises to stay relevant in the digital business era, and they will continue to invest in technologies such as mobility, cloud, social and analytics,” said Mary Mesaglio, research vice president at Gartner. “In 2014, we expect a lot of digital business and innovation to be driven by the convergence of these forces in the Gulf.”

IT infrastructure spend in this region will be driven by data centre modernization efforts, coupled with new data centre build out, by local, as well as international compa-

nies. Server is the biggest component of this infrastructure market, accounting for US $1.3 billion (US dollars) in 2014, and it’s expected to reach US $1.54 billion in 2017.

“Private cloud, security and mobility are key drivers for the infrastructure spend in the Gulf region,” said Naveen Mishra, research director at Gartner. “The mid-market in the Gulf is expected to fuel infrastructure spending, primarily by focusing on virtualization and the public cloud.”

“Security continues to be a key barrier for enterprises while many consider mainstream cloud adoption. Desktop virtualization, managing storage growth, and integrated systems are other key priorities that will influence infrastructure spending in this region during 2014,” added Mishra.

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channel street

emt Distribution to Offer Kasperky Lab Authorized Training Courses emt Distribution has been appointed as the Authorized Training Center by Kaspersky Lab for the GCC region.

Speaking about the new development, Mohammad Mobasseri, CEO, emt Distribution, said, “Professionals can now get trained on Kaspersky Lab Authorized Training Courses and take the exams for their professional certifications. We are pleased to offer Kaspersky Lab training courses at our facility. The partnership with Kaspersky Lab will strengthen

Mohammad Mobasseri, CEO, emt Distribution

our position as a leader in providing IT learning solutions in the GCC region.”

As part of the agreement, emt Distribution will offer

Kasperky Lab Authorized Training courses such as KL Certified Professional, KL Certified Systems Engineer, KL Certified Administrator, KL Certified Sales Engineer, and KL Certified Consultant. “emt Distribution has recognised ICT as a thrust industry which helps in building knowledge economies. Unless there is effective adoption of technology, such economies fail to sustain,” explained Mobasseri.

‘Panorama’ Megaproject Chooses R&M Cabling Solutions R&M has been contracted to deliver a high-performance, end-to-end cabling infrastructure solution for the Panorama commercial and residential project in Oman, comprising of R&M’s proprietary Cat. 6 UTP connectivity technology. The high-performance cabling solution for voice, video and data transmission will provide the backbone for delivery of reliable, secure and high-speed internet, IPTV, CCTV, videoconferencing and similar modern day communication applications.

The cabling solution comprises 4500 points of R&M Cat. 6 copper cables enabling upto 10Gbe connectivity and supporting applications with bandwidth of up to 500 MHz. Installation of the R&M cables which is expected to be completed by March 2014, is being carried out by the cabling vendor’s partner, Al-Jassar Telecom (AJT).

Software AG Highlighting Portfolio with Strong Partners “Not every business is digital—but every business needs to become digital.” This is Software AG’s message for CeBIT 2014. In keeping with its motto, The Road to the Digital Enterprise, the company is joining forces with partners at booth C11 in Hall 4 to present its comprehensive technology portfolio that supports businesses and organizations in their digitization efforts.

In addition to Accenture, CGI, FACT and Fujitsu, ITM Consulting, nterrra integration GmbH and Telefónica Deutschland Holding AG will be presenting their successful usage of Software AG solutions.

Together the companies are presenting new technologies that enable intelligent business operations and master the challenges of Big Data—these are how users succeed in transforming to a customer-centric business, which is the prerequisite for future growth and success. “Our partners have been accompanying businesses all over the world on their road to greater digitization for years. Therefore, it is very important to us to demonstrate at CeBIT that this expertise is part of our strategy,” states Frank Schiewer, SVP Global Partner Business at Software AG. “With more partners at our booth than ever before, we can highlight the range of our solution portfolio for the digital enterprise and offer real-world, practical orientation for decision-makers.”

Dell Releases Highest Performing Server Dell has announced a new addition to its PowerEdge server portfolio for enterprise, the Dell PowerEdge R920. The PowerEdge R920 is now Dell’s highest performing server, allowing customers to achieve faster results, quickly adapt to changing business needs and improve overall reliability.

The PowerEdgeR920 offers exceptional capabilities in the handling of mission critical workloads, like enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), e-commerce, and very large databases – including in-memory databases.

The PowerEdge R920 sets itself apart from

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other server solutions through the following qualities: Getting results faster: Applications can perform more transactions in less time, with up to 60 cores of processing power. Several significant data access enhancements have been added, such as the 8 low latency/high performance NVMePCIe Express Flash drives that far surpass IOPS performance of rotating drives, the new H730P PowerEdge RAID controller (PERC) that doubles the previous cache size and delivers up to 100% more IOPS performance, and the dual PERC capacity.

Scaling to match the challenge: With 96

•

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DIMMs of memory and up to 24 local storage drives, the R920 is designed to allow IT to grow quickly in response to dynamic business conditions. The R920 is also an excellent candidate for threaded HPC applications that require large amounts of shared memory (SMP codes). These “fat nodes” are essential in most modern HPC systems to accommodate applications that scale-up (vs. scale-out).

Running without disruption: With built-in reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) features, such as Dell’s Fault Resilient Memory and Intel’s Run Sure Technology the R920 lets customers operate their data centers with added confidence.

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Mindware Bags Two Awards Mindware has bagged two awards at different ceremonies. At ME Channel Awards, Mindware won under the Award Category of Channel Executive Award for Outstanding Contribution to the ME. Mario Gay, GM was awarded with Editor’s Choice Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Middle East Channel. The award was given in recognition of the outstanding Channel Executive contribution to the Middle East Channel within a channel organization who has shown

exceptional commitment , has done the most to help the broader regional channel through personal initiative, dedication to serving others and hard work .

The other award was from the category Network Value Added Distributor at Network Middle East Awards. The award was given for the distributor’s specialized expertise to handle complicated aspects of networking projects. Mindware received over 1800 votes for this competitive category.

Riverbed Recognized as a Leader in NPMD Riverbed Technology announced its position as a “Leader” in Gartner’s introductory 2014 “Magic Quadrant for Network Performance Monitoring and Diagnostics (NPMD).” This is the third Gartner Magic Quadrant in which Riverbed has been recognized as a leader, including the Application Performance Monitoring (APM) and WAN Optimization Controllers Magic Quadrants.

Riverbed is the only vendor to be named a leader in both the NPMD and APM Magic Quadrants. Riverbed Performance Management (RPM) solutions – including Network Performance Management (NPM) and Application Performance Management (APM) offerings – are the only performance management solutions that combine user experience, application and network visibility to detect and help the customers resolve issues before end users notice. Riverbed Performance Management delivers visibility, analytics and insight to drastically reduce the time and effort required to develop and deploy applications and ensure their performance.

Specifically, Riverbed NPM solutions are leveraged throughout today’s rapid application lifecycle and across IT operations and development teams, providing a centralized and common solution to maximize efficiency, performance and productivity in today’s application driven world.

AccessData’sInSight Platform to Manage Data Incidents AccessData has announced the InSight Platform, a cybersecurity system enabling enterprises to adeptly manage the rapidly accelerating volume of data incidents caused by cyber-attacks, mobile risk, GRC (Governance Risk & Compliance) and eDiscovery requests.

The intuitive InSight Platform enables the entire incident detection, analysis and resolution lifecycle in a single, consolidated platform with the ability to automate every step. As threats are identified, endpoint and network forensics information, contextual data, and analysis results are automatically obtained, digested and presented in a unified view for immediate analysis. Delivering on AccessData’s vision of Continuous Automated Incident Resolution, the InSight Platform has one common code base that consolidates existing market- leading cybersecurity, forensics and e-Discovery products and leverages their combined capabilities to identify and resolve every data incident or data request as efficiently and accurately as possible.

Craig Carpenter, CMO, AccessData, says, “The InSight Platform is the market’s first incident resolution solution, working seamlessly with legacy investments to give CISOs and IT departments a comprehensive, real-time visibility into threats and incidents and the ability to remediate and resolve them quickly and easily. We look forward to delivering beneficial response time reductions like those experienced by IDT to enterprises and government entities across the globe.”

Toyo ENPPI Deploys Polycom Solutions Toyo/ENPPI (Engineering for the Petroleum & Process Industries), a joint venture between Toyo, the Japanese engineering giant, and ENPPI, one of the Middle East’s leading engineering organisations, has deployed Polycom High definition (HD) Video Conferencing solution in Cairo and Alexandria to enable faster communications between its two sites and reduce Internet costs.

As a joint venture, Toyo/ENPPI has to work with and consult teams in Egypt (Cairo and Alexandria), India (Mumbai) and Japan

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(Tokyo). In addition, the management and team at the joint venture also had to collaborate with several suppliers around the globe. This made communication essential and critical.

Mohammed Al-Desouky, IT Manager, Toyo/ENPPI JV, said, “Most of our services are cloud hosted. So we needed a solution that would optimise bandwidth use and enable our own VoIP systems to integrate with the new communications system and accept/send calls to mobile phones not

just over the Internet but also on the GSM voice network.”

Al-Desouky said Toyo/ENPPI picked Polycom as the most favourable brand because it satisfied all its business and technical needs. He added, “Arkan’s pre-sales team knew and understood our needs and provided the right solution for us to implement. I was given strong pre-sales and technical support from Arkan and FVC. It was important for us to have strong vender support with such a critical system.”

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Additionally, Dell SonicWALL network security goes deeper than other firewalls by providing high-performance SSL decryption and inspection, an intrusion prevention system that features sophisticated anti-evasion technology, and network-based malware protection that leverages the power of the cloud. Now your organization can block sophisticated new threats that emerge on a daily basis.

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channel street In public

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“As the Internet of Things grows rapidly, it is linking millions of assets, including devices, people and places, to deliver and share information, enhancing business value and competitive advantage, and creating new business opportunities.”

SeconDS

Hung LeHong, vice president and Gartner Fellow

Axis Communications Recognizes Mackeen Technology Mackeen Technology has recently won the ‘Best Silver Partner Award’ in the Middle East by Axis Communications, a market leader in innovative video surveillance and access control, during the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the company held in Dubai. Mackeen was honored for having achieved thehighest business performance in the integration of security cameras, measured by revenues, customer service support and training goals during 2013.

Salman Kaldari, CEO, Mackeen Technol-

ogy, said, “Mackeen Technology is elated on receiving the award from Axis Communications for our impressive performance in the integration of security cameras in 2013. We are grateful to our partner for extending their support in successful implementation of several of our projects with some of the leading organizations in Qatar. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Axis Communications in offering cutting-edge solutions to our customers in Qatar.”

Dimension Data Adds Cisco HCS to its Portfolio Dimension Data is extending its portfolio of cloud-based Unified Communications services to include Cisco Hosted Collaboration Solution (HCS). Dimension Data’s strategy is designed to utilize its expertise in UC and cloud to empower enterprises to realize the full benefits of the cloud, regardless of their stage of cloud UC adoption.

Dimension Data will deliver its Cisco HCS-based services globally as a part of its portfolio of public, private and hybrid cloud services with multiple consumption models to support both dedicated and multi-tenant, usage-based environments. It’s UC services for cloud will complement its existing UC services for voice, pervasive video, contact center, instant messaging and presence.

Toshiba no. 1 Notebook Vendor inJordan, KSA and East Africa Toshiba Gulf FZE is the number one vendor forNotebook market sales inJordan, KSA, and East Africaaccording to the latest International Data Corporation’s (IDC) CY 2013 final results.

Toshiba maintains the top position in Jordanfor two consecutive years withahighmarket share of 30 per cent in CY 2013. In addition, Toshiba has exhibited market dominance by sustaining number one position in Saudi Arabia and East Africa. Toshiba maintains the top position in KSA for three consecutive years with a high market share of 24 per cent for CY 2013. Within the GCC region, Toshiba holds 17 per cent market share in CY 2013. Toshiba holds the top position in East Africa with a high market share of 23 per cent and a massive year over year growth of 118 per cent in CY 2013.

“Our continued efforts to develop and offer innovative products, services and programmes towards our customers and partners have driven us to strengthen our position in the market,” shares Santosh Varghese, General Manager, Digital Products & Services, Toshiba Gulf.

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DSG Provides Ten Kiosks for MyID Service Registration The MyID service for single sign-on to Dubai government services is witnessing a positive response from the business sector and the public through 10 kiosks provided by Dubai Smart Government (DSG). The MyID locations include DED branches in Dubai Mall, Al Twar Centre and Business Village; EIDA branches in Rashidiya, Karama and Barsha; Aswaaq branch in Mizhar; Dubai Municipality in Al Twar; and at Ruler’s Court.

Users can easily access the services of five government entities currently participating in the MyID service: Dubai Department of Economic Development (DED), Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA), Roads and Transport Authority (RTA), Dubai Public Prosecution and Dubai Smart Government.

SANS Institute to Hold Information Security Course in Bahrain The SANS Institute’s hugely popular course, SEC401: Security Essentials Bootcamp Style will take place in Manama’s Sheraton Bahrain Hotel from 17-22 May, 2014.

Students registering and paying before 2nd of April save US$ 250 on the course fee.

Led by certified SANS Instructor Ted Demopoulos, ‘SEC401: Security Essentials Bootcamp Style’ is an intensive, 6-day course that teaches the essential skills and techniques needed to protect and secure an organisation’s critical information assets and business systems. The course is renowned worldwide as the learning track that should be undertaken before attempting GIAC’s vital GSEC Certification exam.

This is a public course and SANS welcomes registrations from all organisations and nationalities. However Bahraini nationals can apply for funding for this course via the Tamkeen Professional Certifications Scheme (TPCS). Under this government funded programme, applicants can choose from a list of certifications accredited by the most reputed awarding bodies in the world.

Omnix Helping in KSA’s IT Transformation System integrators like Omnix International are helping government entities and private sector companies implement IT solutions and services across Saudi Arabia, and the Kingdom remains on course to be the Middle East’s most competitive economy by 2020.

For well over a decade, Omnix International has been heavily involved in KSA’s IT transformation with a proven track record of delivering state-of-the-art technology solutions for high profile clients across the private and public sectors and executing prestigious projects on time and within budget. Recognizing this track record of Omnix in KSA and across the region, Al-Rashed Group a business conglomerate based in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, has recently acquired a minority stake in Omnix.

The Kingdom’s IT market, the largest in the GCC, is slated to grow from USD 3.8 billion in 2011 to USD 5.4 billion in 2017, with the software and services market growing from USD 1.8 billion in 2011 to USD 2.8 billion in 2017, according to Business Monitor International.

For Omnix, key successes in KSA include 18 of the Kingdom’s government Ministries, the Holy Makkah Municipality, Kingdom Holding, and Mobily to name a few.

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Schneider Releases PNS v3.1 Schneider Electric released PowerChute Network Shutdown v3.1 with enhanced virtualization support, a network-based server shutdown solution for IT equipment.

PowerChute Network Shutdown v3.1 works in conjunction with APC by Schneider Electric’s Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) Network Management Card to enable automatic virtual machine migration and graceful virtual machine and host shutdown in VMware® and Microsoft® Hyper-V clusters.

Thierry Chamayou, Vice President - Middle East & Africa IT Business, Schneider Electric, said, “Schneider Electric’s IT business brings customers the ultimate product for power protection with continuous uptime and a dependable, solid IT backbone for the company and the consumer. We are pleased to present the PowerChute Network Shutdown v3.1 - a product that will serve as an insurance against virtual downtime disasters.”

Citrix Synergy to Provide Insights on Mobile Working Space The Citrix Synergy conference will take place May 6-8, 2014, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Los Angeles, California. Citrix also announced that customers who are transforming their businesses with Citrix mobile workspace solutions, demonstrating how its virtualization, networking and cloud services technologies empower new ways for people to work better.

The global event will provide strategic insights into mobile workspaces, including: Mobility strategy: BYOD, flex-work and telework, secure app, data and device mobility, business continuity, security and compliance.

Mobility in key industries: healthcare, financial services, education, public sector.

Mobility technologies: enterprise mobility management, desktop and app virtualization, secure data sharing, app stores, cloud networking and public/private/hybrid clouds.

Steve Daheb, chief marketing officer, Citrix. “As technology has become a seamless part of people’s work and personal lives, Citrix has removed the barriers for secure delivery of apps, desktops, files and services to any user, on any device, anywhere.”

ESET Uncovers a Widespread Cybercriminal Campaign Security researchers at ESET, in collaboration with CERT-Bund, the Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing as well as other agencies, have uncovered a widespread cybercriminal campaign that has seized control of over 25,000 Unix servers worldwide.

The attack, which has been dubbed “Operation Windigo” by security experts, has resulted in infected servers sending out millions of spam emails. Its complex knot of sophisticated malware components are designed to hijack servers, infect the computers that visit them, and steal information.

ESET’s security research team, which uncovered Windigo, has published a detailed technical paper, presenting the findings of the team’s investigations and malware analysis.

“Windigo has been gathering strength, largely unnoticed by the security community, for over two and a half years, and currently has 10,000 servers under its control,” said ESET security researcher Marc-Étienne Léveillé.

“Over 35 million spam messages are being sent every day to innocent users’ accounts, clogging up inboxes and putting computer systems at risk. Worse still, each day over half a million computers are put at risk of infection, as they visit websites that have been poisoned by web server malware planted by Operation Windigo redirecting to malicious exploit kits and advertisements.”

Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks to Build ‘All Wireless Workplace’ Aruba Networks has unveiled Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks, a new architecture for IT departments in the UAE to build an ‘all-wireless workplace’ designed to enhance #GenMobile productivity and job satisfaction. Aruba also introduced five new software innovations that deliver IT granular visibility, performance optimizations and security automation to support the networking needs of highly mobile employees.

AmmarEnaya , Regional Director at Aruba Networks Middle East & Turkey said, “Our

16

research in the UAE unveiled some interestingfindingsincludingthe fact that a very high percentage of respondents (75%) prefer Wi-Fi over 4G, 3G or wired connections. This is understandable considering the high cost of data packages in the country. To be a leader in today’s competitive business environment and to retain and attract employees, enterprises in the UAE need to create a truly all-wireless workplace where Wi-Fi is pervasive, guest and BYOD security are automated, office appliances are mobile-device friendly,

and communications applications on mobile devices simply work better.”

Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks transform enterprise networks into intelligent systems, providing total control over the allwireless experience. Unlike traditional static Wi-Fi networks, Aruba Mobility-Defined Networks eliminate the need for IT professionals to make manual changes to accommodate new mobile devices and applications.

The results are fewer helpdesk complaints and a better end-user experience.

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channel street

Alpha Data Completes Data Center Development for Ankabut Alpha Data, the UAE’s leading systems integrator with over 30 years track record, has completed its contract for the development of a data center for ‘Ankabut,’ the UAE’s Advanced National Research and Education Network (NREN) that connects the country’s education institutions to other academic institutions across world.

The contract scope for Alpha Data included design, and installation of the new data center for hosting academic institutions services as

part of Ankabut’s R&D network. The facility will provide comprehensive data center platform for the country’s education sector.

Fahem Al-Nuaimi, CEO, Ankabut, said, “We were impressed with Alpha Data’s credentials and experience on projects of such importance and scale. The work of Alpha Data will help ensure that our network can accommodate even the most demanding use cases and applications.

We believe it will be very effective in supporting Ankabut and its members.”

StarLink Adds Dell SonicWall Security Products to Its Portfolio StarLink has entered in a new agreement with Dell Software expanding distribution of Dell SonicWall across the Middle East region. StarLink’s channel partners in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon can now provide their customers with Dell Software’s leading connected security solution.

“This extended distribution coverage with Dell Software is very exciting for us, as it enables StarLink to work closely with our channel partners across the region to grow our Dell Software business with SonicWall security products,” said AvinashAdvani, Director – Business Strategy, StarLink.

Movement Brocade appoints IT industry veteran Christine Heckartas the new Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) and will report directly to Lloyd Carney, the CEO. Riverbed Technology has promoted Taj El Khayat to managing director for Middle East, Turkey, North, West, and Central Africa (METNA).

Seagate has appointed Jamie Lerner as President for Cloud Systems and Solutions.Lerner most recently held the position of Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Cloud and Systems Management Technology Group at Cisco Systems.

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Number Game

2.8

%

increase

is forecasted on it spending in healthcare sector in Middle East & Africa to take the spending to $2.8 billion.

web clips Souq.com Breaks the Record by Raising $75m Funding Souq.com, the largest ecommerce platform in the MENA region, has secured US$75 million (AED 275.5m) in an additional round of funding from existing investor Naspers Limited. This round of funding brings the total amount raised by Souq.com to US$150 million (AED 551m) – the largest amount raised by any Internet-based business in the region.

Building on its pioneering reputation in the ecommerce space in the MENA region, and with a strong supply chain and fulfillment system, Souq.com has grown more than 10-fold in the past two years, further establishing its leadership position in the ecommerce market. Souq.com registers 23 million visits per month on its website, and has 6.2 million registered users.

It offers the widest selection of products in over 15 categories, from electronic gadgets to baby diapers in a combined retail and marketplace model.

Ronaldo Mouchawar, Co-Founder and CEO, Souq. com, said, “This latest round of funding is testament to the trust that the market and our investors have in our offering. We plan to use the funds to deepen our technology investment. We will focus on innovation to provide our customers with a unique and advanced mobile experience, a personalized user experience, and unprecedented delivery and customer service quality.

We will also invest in our talent pool to help build these world-class standards.”

Microsoft Gulf Donates Licenses for NGO through Injazat Data Systems Microsoft Gulf has generously donated licenses expected to impact over 250 women and children for its various products to the EWA’A Shelters for Women and Children through Injazat Data Systems as part of its ongoing Software Donation Program to NGOs. Injazat Data Systems seized on its long-standing affiliation with Microsoft to suggest the idea of giving out licenses to help out the charitable organization, which the latter willingly acceded to. Both IT companies are known for their impactful corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives across the country.

TCS Wins Multi-Million Deal from GDF Suez TCS has won a multi-million, multi-year deal from GDF Suez, a global leader in the energy sector. This is the first landmark deal won by its new integrated entity which, emerging through its acquisition of Alti S.A in July 2013. The engagement will pan across France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to rationalize and standardize CRM and billing applications.

Kumar Narayanan, Director & Country Head, TCS France said, “We are privileged to partner with GDF Suez to help them meet their strategic objectives in Europe and globally. This is a first landmark deal, which reinforces the tremendous synergies between TCS’ global capabilities and the local talent base as well as knowledge we have secured through our acquisition of Alti S.A. TCS recently unveiled its plans to further activate the capabilities and the talent pool it had acquired, by setting up a new TCS SAP Innovation Center. The center will seek to develop cutting edge enterprise solutions for multiple industries, in co-innovation with TCS’ customers. It will be located in the Île-de-France region and is expected to be operational later in 2014.

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Symantec Highlights on Secure m-Government Services From interacting with customers to improving engagement and productivity, mobility – in particular, the use of smartphones and tablets – has proven its effectiveness as a business tool. During his keynote address at the inaugural M-Gov Conference in Dubai, Kevin Isaac, Regional Vice President, Symantec, highlighted the unqique opportunities and challenges which characterize the Middle East as a forerunner in ‘smart city’ adoption

and innovation, while providing insights into creating secure mobile government (m-government) services for decision-makers in the Gulf.

“A successful mobile government strategy must not only address the incredibly complex infrastructure required, but also ensure that infrastructure is secure, managed and up and running to maintain a positive user experience,” said Isaac.

Tech Mahindra Upgrades Billing System at Nawras Tech Mahindra has successfully upgraded the Infinyspostpaid billing system at Nawras, a member of Ooredoo Group, from IRB 2.2. to RBM 5.3.7. This enables the Telecom major to ensure transparent billing system and better revenues.

The project also involved a hardware platform change from HP Unix to IBM AIX and migration of all data from the legacy system. This upgrade will enable Nawras to improve customer experience and as part of their drive to increase efficiency and reduce costs. “We were delighted to have Tech Mahindra – our long term partner – to take on this critical project. This successful upgrade vindicates our decision to go with Tech Mahindra and they were able to handle all the technical challenges efficiently,” said AbdulazizJaafar, Director – Information Technology, Nawras.

“Nawras is one of our strategic accounts in the MEA and we are proud of the trust they have placed in us. The enablement of an upgrade in a record timeframe and ensuring customer delight makes us a partner of choice,” said GirishBhat, Head – Telecom, Middle East & Africa, Tech Mahindra.

Agile FT to Deploy General Insurance Solution for African Grey Insurance Agile Financial Technologies has won the contract to deploy its general insurance solution for African Grey Insurance in Zambia.

Agilis Core General Insurance, which was chosen after a strict evaluation process, will help African Grey Insurance’s growth plans and enhance its operational efficiencies and service capabilities.

“Our vision is to be a responsive and agile company that provides quality products and services that anticipate and satisfy our customers’ requirements. Our aim is to create value for our customers and make a difference. Taking into account our growth plans, we decided to invest in a reliable technology platform that would help us streamline our business processes whilst helping us attain sustainable and quality growth,” said Charles Nakhoze, CEO of African Grey Insurance.

“After evaluating and testing several solutions in the market, we narrowed down to Agilis Core General Insurance. We then conducted customer sites for the shortlisted vendors to understand how these solutions were working and got a first-hand understanding from end-user customers. We decided to go with Agilis as it was featurerich, scalable and future proof. The solution has strong mobile integration capabilities that would help us provide mobility and accessibility to our agents and customers,” he added.

Avaya to Highlight Dynamic Business Technology at COMEX 2014 Avaya is participating in COMEX 2014. Business agility, flexibility, and simplicity are key features of Avaya’s business strategy and will underpin its presence at COMEX 2014, highlighting the importance of these traits to the growing Omani economy. Companies of all sizes need to be dynamic, as the increasingly mobile world produces technology end-users who expect an always-on, adaptable experience.

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Avaya will punctuate its on-floor presence at the industry-leading event in Oman with exhibits, speaking sessions, and live demos that showcase how Unified Communications, Customer Experience Management, and Networking portfolios make for diverse and powerful collaboration environments. A complete business infrastructure that engages employees, customers,

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Mohamed Areff, MD, Gulf Region, Avaya.

and end users ultimately makes Omani companies more agile,

and powers the economy, and Avaya will demonstrate that at COMEX 2014.

“Our presence at COMEX 2014 reinforces our focus on Omani customers and channel partners, and we are delighted to be playing a more significant role in helping to grow the business communications market and economy of Oman,” said Mohamed Areff, MD, Gulf Region, Avaya.

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channel street

EastNets Outlines Strategy for 2014-15 EastNets has outlined its agenda for 2014-15 to ensure that they are aligned with the company’s vision, mission, and core values. The alignment of strategies guarantees efficient use of resources and time towards meeting the company’s objectives.

HazemMulhim, CEO, EastNets, said, “It’s a thrill to bring together every year our top executives and teams to discuss significant industry and company issues. Our agenda

this year was to align our strategies for 201415 to make sure that we are aligned with our vision and goals and that we understand the challenges as well. We believe that our strategies will only become more effective and efficient if they are in harmony with each other, and we were able to accomplish that agenda as we closed this year’s meeting with success. We look forward to a more successful and fruitful year ahead.”

du Celebrates Success of 2013 in its AGM Emirates Integrated Telecommunications Company (“du”) held its AGM where the Board of Directors presented a review of 2013 and granted approval for all AGM agenda points including authorisation of the second half dividend of AED 0.19 per share was granted.

Commenting on the company’s perfor-

MyID Service Records 11,200 Registrations As many as 11,200 users have so far registered in the MyID service for single sign-on to Dubai government services in collaboration with the Emirates ID card issued by the Emirates Identity Authority, according to the latest statistics unveiled by Dubai Smart Government (DSG). Users can easily access more than 250 services provided by five government entities currently participating in the service, these being Dubai Department of Economic Development, Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, Roads and Transport Authority, Dubai Public Prosecution and DSG. H.E. Ahmad Bin Humaidan, Director General, Dubai Smart Government, said, “Due to the overwhelming response from the public and the many calls that we received to inquire about the service and the best way to benefit from it, and based on our keenness on providing a 5-star service, we responded to their requests with another group of government entities of concern to customers joining the service soon including Dubai Land Department, Dubai Courts, Dubai Customs, Dubai Health Authority, Dubai Police and Mohammed Bin Rashid Housing Establishment.”

Ahmad Bin Byat, Chairman, du

mance, du’s Chairman Ahmad Bin Byat said, “We are proud to report another year of strong performance. For the seventh year running, we recorded robust fundamentals due to our dedication to creating shareholder value and delighting our customers.

“Since inception, we have established a coherent strategy for the future of our business, all creating sustainable value for our shareholders. As our company enters a phase of maturity, we will seek to build on this value to provide our customers with superior service and an excellent range of products.”

Canon Middle East Partners With Adenar Canon Middle East has partnered with specialist distributor Adenar Ltd. to provide advanced video security products and solutions to customers in the United Arab Emirates.

Investment in new infrastructure and mandatory safety standards required by commercial establishments are driving further demand for innovative security solutions, particularly as the nation prepares to host World Expo 2020 in Dubai.

Adenar was set up to provide

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AnuragAgrawal, Managing Director of Canon Middle East

IP surveillance solutions to the CCTV installation industry and is strongly focussed on customer relations. The strategic alliance

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with Canon will allow Adenar to expand its range of offerings across aviation, oil & gas and large corporations.

AnuragAgrawal, Managing Director of Canon Middle East, said, “The UAE’s position as a global business and leisure hub is underlined by its reputation as a safe destination. The government invests significantly in upholding the highest security standards and has set clear guidelines for commercial establishments for ensuring adequate security

provisions.

AnandSubbiah, Director, Adenar Ltd added, “As a key distributor of Canon products, our partnership for providing security solutions will enable us to focus further on customer service by providing the most advanced solutions in the market today. The new IP security cameras from Canon offer governmental security initiatives and commercial establishments the true power of advanced technology, reliability and scalability.”

experts views

Interactive Intelligence

Excelling at Mobile Customer Service in the Middle East

Companies need to create a seamless mobile and social experience that can form winning customer relationships.

T

he rapid advance of smartphones and the development of mobile apps have given consumers newfound freedom and convenience.

The Middle East region is expected to account for the second-largest mobile phone population of any region in the world, according to eMarketer’s Global Media Intelligence Report. For businesses, this new mobile approach has provided a way to serve customers better and faster and form stronger and more lasting relationships — if done correctly. But that’s the problem. Many organizations in the Middle East have struggled to determine how best to use these new tools to their advantage, and provide their customers with a capability that works well and adds value. Gaining that advantage requires delivering the type of mobile experience users have come to expect, an experience that can take place from anywhere, and with less effort.

The challenges are many. Developing custom mobile applications can be costly, and typically a different app is needed for each of the popular smartphone platforms. Compelling mobile apps also need an ongoing string of enhancements and new features to keep the user engaged. However, the most challenging aspect is deciding exactly what the app must do and how it can add value to the customer relationship. That functionality can be different for manufacturers, retailers, financial services firms, and virtually every other type of business.

Yet no matter the business sector, the one function common to all organizations is the need to service and support their customers.

For instance, banks and financial services firms

Shaheen Haque

commonly provide account access via a mobile device. Retailers promote special offers. Insurance companies allow customers to file claims. In most cases, mobile services like these examples come down to an automated process devoid of human contact. That’s fine if the customer needs to check a balance or perform some other routine task, but what if the customer has an issue, and must speak to a service representative to help resolve the problem? The typical scenario is that the app serves up an 800 number so the customer can call the contact centre. When, and if, the customer does call, they often sit in queue (burning cell minutes) until they reach an agent, where they will have to describe the issue from the start. All told, the process can diminish the customer’s experience and do nothing to cultivate their loyalty.

In the contact centre, the key to excelling at customer service is to integrate all customer touch points. When the customer calls, agents have access to all information regarding that customer and what they’ve been through, allowing the agent to help resolve the issue quickly, and the customer is spared from having to repeat the same information over and over again. The contact centre industry has been perfecting those techniques for decades; however, the mobile revolution has thrown a new wrinkle into the mix. However, as people become more attached to the mobile lifestyle, it will be critically important to integrate the mobile experience successfully with the rest of the customer support plan.

Mobility is changing how people live, and excellence in the customer service provided to

Territory Manager, Middle East & Turkey at Interactive Intelligence

“The key is recognizing that customer service is at the core of those relationships.” those mobile users will be an all-important factor to business success. Already, customers prize effective well-thought mobile applications that make their lives easier. But customers also bristle at mobile apps that perform poorly, that take time out of a busy schedule, and that prove to be more trouble than they’re worth. In that context, companies that can create a seamless mobile and social experience — that gets the job done in a fast and efficient fashion — can form winning customer relationships.

The key is recognizing that customer service is at the core of those relationships. As the number and types of customer touch points continue to increase, companies will need to look at the full arsenal of tools they have to serve those customers. And it’s not just having the tools, but integrating them effectively across multiple mobile channels. Whether a customer reaches out by phone, social network, email message, Twitter, or text on a wired or wireless device, they will get the same level of efficient service.

Companies need to deploy a complete mobile platform that allows them to build constant improvement into customer service capabilities, to differentiate their offerings and result in stronger customer bonds. ë

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“ICT to Change Hospitality Business” The hospitality industry in the MEA region has widely adopted and implemented varied ICT solutions in their businesses in order to enhance service quality, improve operational efficiency, reduce costs, and increase customer loyalty. This scenario has also prompted the technology vendors as well as service providers to come up with innovative offerings to meet the rising demand from this sector.

n w o r d s : NI V EDAN PRA K ASH < n i v e d a n @ a c c e n t i n f o m e d i a . c o m > n P h o t o : s h u t t e r s t o c k

T

he information and communication technology (ICT) is the backbone for the growth of any industry. It is one critical element that can’t be ignored by any industry vertical. In fact, in this competitive world, businesses have to continuously evolve with the changing market dynamics and this can only be achieved with the effective usage of ICT that helps them keep afloat in the marketplace.

Hospitality is one such sector that has always been in the forefront of adoption of ICT solutions. The effective use of information communication and technology definitely makes businesses more productive as well as more efficient. Hence, the contribution of ICT is very significant in the development and evolution of service offerings that the hospitality sector gives it to its customers.

This industry’s fundamental objective is to

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provide better service to its customers and this is where ICT solutions enable them to do so.

Apparently, ICT has played a very significant role in the overall growth of the hospitality business in the Middle East and Africa region. As the Middle East is seen as one of the world’s most prominent tourist destinations, a large number of hotels in this region have improved their customer service and interaction level, and created a better guest experience. In this process, they have been able to develop a brand loyalty by not only retaining the old customers but also attracting new customers.

“The ICT solutions play a very significant role in every industry today, and the hospitality sector is no exception. The important aspect to note here is that the integration of business processes, increased operational efficiency and improved customer service

actually measures business goals within the hospitality industry. And these all can be achieved by investing in modern day ICT solutions and services. There are great business opportunities for ICT vendors like us within the hospitality business as well as for hotels to be more efficient that can capitalize on ICT solutions and increase the bottom-line. It is also being estimated that for Dubai Expo 2020, there will be a significant increase in the number of hotels in Dubai, which throws a window of opportunities for players like us,” says Jawad Squalli, Regional Vice President, Epicor Software Middle East, Africa and India.

Opportunities for ICT Solutions Looking at the current scenario, the industry experts believe that there is a huge

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scope for ICT solutions and services in terms of opportunities in the hospitality business.

“Hotels need a fast, reliable and secure IP network that includes wired and wireless coverage as most of its ICT applications connect in a full-converged network. A Unified Access is the best solution for a hotel to have seamless management of LAN and Wi-Fi to reduce the complexity of the network, optimize the TCO and enhance the efficiency as well as the security. Since applications like VoIP are becoming a standard in almost all businesses, hotels have to deal with many specific applications such as IPTV, Digital Signage, Building Management System and PMS. Therefore, the IT backbone has to support different communication flows and different devices while connecting guests with the proper bandwidth. The new technology trends in hospitality are to offer new guest services,” highlights Xavier Mongin, Regional Director for Middle East, Global Accounts & Hospitality, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.

Mig Cardamone, Director of Sales and Marketing at Sennheiser Middle East, further states, “As well as being able to offer the products that are required in the hospitality sector, we are also able to offer consultation and design services that ensure our customers not only get what they need from our systems but are also advised on technologies that they may not yet be aware of. For the hospitality sector in particular, design and aesthetics take on significant importance which is why designing a solution that seamlessly blends into the surroundings while maintaining quality is a vital service. We are also seeing an increase in convergence of audio and IT systems.”

Meanwhile, this growing need of ICT solutions in hospitality business has brought a plethora of opportunities for the system integrators / service providers as well. For example, the rise in the IT security requirement of this sector has allowed companies like Help AG to offer unique solutions for these customers.

“As a security specialist, our solutions are mostly centered on securing the information and specifically, the credit card information.

This is where our strong financial industry background as well as our specific knowledge on PCI compliance plays in. Our portfolio of solutions also helps them control user behavior, mobility, and modern day threats.

Here, we work closely with some of the biggest names in the industry on securing their enterprise environment and datacen-

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Xavier Mongin, Regional Director for Middle East, Global Accounts & Hospitality, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

“Hotels need a fast, reliable and secure IP network that includes wired and wireless coverage as most of its ICT applications connect in a full-converged network.”

Mohammed Areff, Managing Director - GCC, Levant, Iraq, Pakistan, Avaya

“The hotel industry has some of the most advanced customerfacing requirements of any industry, and it requires customer-facing technology solutions to truly excel.”

“A majority of the hotels in this region have started making provisions for self check-in and check-out from the mobile devices and at the same time, improving their network infrastructure.”

ters,” mentions Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services at Help AG. For Better Management By now, it is very much evident that the hospitality industry requires technology to a great extent in order to efficiently manage their day-to-day operations. Besides, the adoption of modern day technologies enables this industry to go beyond traditional obstacles and operational barriers and in turn, provides them an enhanced access to the global market and a wider audience.

Andrew Horne, General Manager, Xerox Emirates, asserts, “ICT plays a very critical role in helping this industry manage their

day-to-day operations. For example, the central reservation systems have to be very proactive in taking customers’ requests, billing and collection has to be efficient, and almost every work process in the hospitality sector benefits from the use of technology because it enables them to be active and efficient. The hospitality sector is a very-very competitive industry and their success totally depends upon the quality service that they provide to the customers. And there isn’t much room for getting it wrong.”

As maintaining a healthy relationship with its guests and providing a quality service to them are the main focus areas for this industry, the IT team of many hotels has invested

Cover Story

Challenges of Hospitality Industry & Mitigating those with Innovative ICT Solutions & Services

Challenges

Mig Cardamone, Director of Sales and Marketing at Sennheiser Middle East

“We are offering consultation and design services that ensure our customers not only get what they need from our systems but are also advised on technologies that they may not yet be aware of.” in the latest CRM tools to keep customer records, which in turn, enable automated profiling and storage of the guests’ previous experiences with the hotel, their preferences in terms of services, etc. Besides, the hotels are also equipping their workforce with latest gadgets so that they are more proactive to customers’ demands.

Additionally, the wide adoption of ICT solutions provides the hospitality industry a strong platform for conducting optimum operations like automated tracking, billing systems for the services that the customers use during their stay at the hotel. Another classic example is the usage of mobility devices by both internal staff as well as guests.

While the employees can keep a track of databases, room availability and rates, hotels are giving their guests an access to mobile apps and other mobile services to enhance their experience.

“The hotel industry has some of the most advanced customer-facing requirements of any industry, and it requires customer-facing technology solutions to truly excel. As the

Mitigation

Technology adoption and advancement on the part of their customers as well as workforce

Need to stay flexible & up-to-speed on the demands that modern mobile computing place on their infrastructure

IT directors in hotels face issues when they have to connect external users to their IP network without jeopardizing speed, ease of access, and for free

Meeting rooms for seminars should be equipped with video conferencing systems, smart boards and collaboration tools

Guests are demanding more bandwidth for emails, business applications, downloads and streaming

Hotels adopt advanced technologies to provide guests with the very best experience, and this is only possible when IT departments invest in new technologies and services that are provided by vendors

Guests also expect the hotel to supply a full working environment including an ergonomic desk, highspeed internet access, wireless LAN, an advanced desk phone and a wireless handset

As guests expect to feel at home, hotels need to connect their smartphones or tablets to a TV, and provide hotel notifications on their personal mobile

There is a constant focus on avoiding budget increases while still handling more and more advanced threats

Protection of customers’ assets and business justification has to be kept in consideration to gain management approval of any solution

As technology advances the need for large organizations to have single location events and meetings is diminishing

The hospitality outlets and venues are becoming more innovative in their approach to ensuring that they can attract higher levels of clientele. Things like themed venues and entertainment are definitely on the increase

world and the market become exponentially more tech-savvy, it will soon be the industry that can keep up the fastest that will thrive.

Understanding how both modern hotel customers and modern hotel operators live and work with their technology is the paramount challenge. On the consumer side, a healthy appreciation for tech mobility and the power of social applications is the key. And for employees and the hotel as an enterprise, advanced networks with BYOD policies and a strong security focus are the biggest priorities,” explains Mohammed Areff, Managing Director - GCC, Levant, Iraq, Pakistan, Avaya.

Although the CIOs/CTOs within the hospitality industry are generally satisfied with the solutions and services offered by

the technology vendors as well as service providers in the MEA region, the industry experts feel that there is still scope for customization. For example, there is a need for such solutions that could reduce the uptime and improve efficiency while the hotels are servicing the customers, especially for the front-desk operations and quicker check-in facilities.

Meanwhile, at one side, there are hotels that are making significant investments in technology; on the other side, there are a few business houses that are cautious in their approach. They are of the view that there is a pertinent problem with the technology, which is evolving so fast that there is a danger of spending a lot of money on new technologies only for it to be insignificant or outdated

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in a few years.

And in order to counter the above-mentioned argument, a faction of the industry believes that there is a risk if certain businesses choose not to invest. They argue that if those hotels opt to lengthen the lifecycle of IT systems in order to reduce costs in the short term; in the near future, there may be a large number of owners and operators with ageing legacy core systems that may no longer be fit for purpose.

Solutions in the Offing In order to address the burgeoning market requirements and address the specific needs of this industry, all the leading vendors as well as service providers are leaving no stone unturned in offering best-of-breed solutions and services.

At the moment, the main solution that Xerox offers to the hospitality sector is managed print services and a lot of hotels in the MEA region are pretty vast and they cover a large geographical area. The benefit of deploying printing solution is cost management, ease of use, and the ability to move around the sites and print effectively on demand.

“The managed print services that we provide to the hospitality sector in particular are not totally sophisticated but it certainly enables hotels to manage and reduce costs.

We have realized that by deploying managed print services, hotels can save at least 20-25% of the total cost. We have deployed managed print services at the Dubai World Trade Center amongst other places,” adds Thorne.

As a leading player, Avaya offers two best solutions to this industry that includes networking solutions and unified communications. The company believes that modern virtual networks are faster, more secure, easier to manage, less error-prone, self-healing, and they recover from disaster quicker. With more and more people logging on to them every day, legacy networks are going to get overwhelmed faster and faster, and hence its solutions are becoming more and more necessary.

To improve competitiveness, AlcatelLucent has addressed the hospitality industry with a full portfolio covering LAN, WLAN, IPPBX, video and a suite of bespoke applications such as BYOD for Guest Mobile Call, eConcierge Apps integration, GRMS integration on the phone and Location Based

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Andrew Horne, General Manager, Xerox Emirates

“The hospitality sector is a very-very competitive industry and their success totally depends upon the quality service that they provide to the customers.”

Nicolai Solling, Director of Technology Services at Help AG

“Since any security slip up can badly tarnish a brand and immediately impact customer trust and footfall, IT security is a very big concern for this segment” applications.”

“For the hospitalitity business to register significant growth by 2015, they need to use artifical intelligence-based technologies to forecast food and beverage demad.”

Apps. Alcatel-Lucent also provides the right solutions to any hotel size, ensuring efficiency and a unique guest centric experience.

Mongin further says, “With AlcatelLucent’s BYOD, your room extension shifts to your mobile. You can always stay connected and can call any service in the hotel with no charge. The Location Based System, which is the ability of Wi-Fi to locate your device and therefore change the guest experience, is the future. Hotels can push notifications on purpose, guide you to find your way in the hotel and manage security of people.”

Given that conferencing capabilities are now seen as a basic requirement for hotel meeting rooms, Sennheiser has unveiled the Sennheiser TeamConnect system which is an

end-to-end professional grade solution for standard meeting rooms with up to 16 users on site. This all-in-one system offers intuitive smartphone, tablet or laptop control and integrates speakers, mics, a central control unit and connectivity management to deliver conferencing capabilities. The company has also recently launched its ADN-Wireless Conference System in the region. This can be used by hotels in large scale deployments such as auditoriums and allows up to 150 wireless discussion units to be connected simultaneously while additional units can be added quickly and easily during the conference itself.

“At Epicor, we have developed a solution specifically for hospitality industry,

FEATURE Cover Story

Jawad Squalli, Regional Vice President, Epicor Software Middle East, Africa and India

“There are great business opportunities for ICT vendors like us within the hospitality business as well as for hotels to be more efficient that can capitalize on ICT solutions and increase the bottom-line.” called iScala Hospitality. This solution helps in streamlining operations, maximizing efficiency, integrating front and back office systems, analyzing financial data in real-time, preparing budgets and forecasts, and achieving controls to meet compliance.

Besides, it can support a single location hotel or multi-site operations with mixed shared service centers and local facilities around the globe. It also allows hotels to focus on their

primary business objectives while gaining the competitive edge in an ever-changing market,” asserts Squalli.

Moreover, as a service provider, Help AG is assisting one of the biggest regional and global players in connecting their different properties both within the region as well as overseas. For this specific customer, consolidation of multiple security functions was a key focus and the company has worked closely with one of its premium vendors, Palo Alto Networks, to address the same.

“Like with any other customer segment, Help AG is known for its capabilities within the IT information security domain. And for hospitality sector, this is no different. In fact, since any security slip up can badly tarnish a brand and immediately impact customer trust and footfall, IT security is a very big concern for this segment,” states Solling.

Future Course Going ahead, the industry experts believe that there will be a lot of innovation as well as evolution happening in terms of ICT solutions and services that could effectively and rapidly help the hospitality industry to grow their business and keep them ahead of the curve. Not only will there be an increase in the dependency on the technology but the customer service would come with more personalized touch.

Thorne is quick to point out her that the important aspect to understand is where the managed print services heading to. The first phase of managed print services offering was about cost saving and efficiency. But now, it has evolved into end user productivity and security. Adding to the cost reduction, MPS is providing customers with much better control of their printing environment along with security in terms of access to the devices. Going forward, the indirect costs or impact on the business, sustainability,

and reduction in the power consumption, using more environment-friendly devices, and implementing business intelligence – all these will be the key considerations for the hospitality businesses.

In fact, a lot of advancements are taking place in ICT solutions and services that could assist in transforming the hospitality business in the coming years. Like for example, a majority of the hotels in this region have started making provisions for self check-in and check-out from the mobile devices and at the same time, improving their network infrastructure for the customers to make video calls from anywhere within the premises of the hotel.

“We expect audio systems to include a more ‘connected’ approach to the people who are listening to it. This will require product offerings to include more than just loudspeakers and amplifiers so advanced network and streaming capabilities are bound to be just around the corner,” concludes Cardamone.

According to Deloitte, for the hospitality business to register significant growth by 2015, they need to use artificial intelligencebased technologies to forecast food and beverage demand more accurately as pressure grows for better cost control and reduction of waste. There is also a need to replace creaking core legacy systems and the new systems will use self-healing technology. And lastly, inroom product innovation will continue but consumers, not hotels, will define the future technologies they require.

Finally...

The businesses in the hospitality sector that continue to deploy new technologies and solutions to deliver smoother customer experience and at the same time, aid internal management and communication will always stay ahead in the race. ë

STAY UPDATED WWW.ENTERPRISECHANNELSMEA.COM

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Display Solution

The Metamorphosis of Display Technology Innovation and disruptive technologies have completely transformed the display market and the vendors who have adapted to the change are thriving.

n words: ManaliMisra <manali@accentinfomedia.com>

D

isplay has hardly left any aspect of our lives untouched. Be it mobile phones, wrist watches, TV, laptops, monitors, digital signage, digital cameras, projectorsetc. are a direct application of display technology. Displaysfacilitate communication. With time, as new innovations started coming in, each improving on the shortcomings of the previous development, display took a completely different picture.

From flat to curve displays, and now foldable, the technology gradually found use in various industry verticals as well. Corporations found it crucial in meeting rooms and for hospitals 3-D displays have proven useful. LCD, TFT, OLED, LED, Plasma have already gained foothold and

transparent display and e-paper are yet another disruptive technologies.

Evolution in Technology: Display is changing at a very fast pace because of new disruptive technologies.

It has changed in size and with time more functions are getting added to make it more convenient to use with other devices.There is a nexus between display and internet which has opened new vistas in the world of display technology. Vineeth Sebastian, Regional Sales Director-MEA at MMD and AOC says, “Screens are getting bigger and better with technologies such as QHD and UHD. Also,

Play it large with the myPlay

www.aoc-europe.com

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display solutions today are available with more connectivity options such as MHL for mobile, USB for convenience, and wireless for more flexible media streaming. Furthermore, smart/cloud technology is also changing displays into standalone devices.”Sharp has recently launched itsthe indium, gallium, zincoxide (IGZO) thin-film transistor technology.

Ravinder Kumar, General Manager – Business Solutions Division, Sharp Middle East and Africa says that this technology brings finer details through extraordinarily high resolution and energy efficiency. Users can now view the content of four full HD screens on a single, seamless display. “This super-high resolution makes the monitor ideally suited

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feature

to a wide range of professional applications in settings where detailed information needs to be displayed with tremendous precision.

Furthermore, IGZO is powering the speedy development of the MEMS shutter display.

This revolutionary technology enables constant moving picture displays easily visible in almost any type of environment,” he adds.

In terms of resolution, 4K has become popular. “Primarily interactive displays are gaining traction, from desktop to LFD and interactive projectors. In the projector market, LED and laser technology will become more common, although laser primarily for larger venues and not the enterprise segment in the short term. Ultra High Definition is also becoming increasingly common and NEC can offer 4k resolution across a range of professional display solutions,” says Ian Gobey, General Manager, Middle East, NEC Displays.

We spend too much time on laptop, tablets, phablets and our eyes bear the brunt. BenQ has come with technologies like flicker-free and low blue light, and integrated them with most of its monitors. “With these, we are supporting the consumer with less eye fatigue and strain,” says Manish Bakshi, Managing Direc-

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tor, BenQ, United Arab Emirates. The company has also launched borderless monitor where viewable area is more than expected.

Displays now come with all-in-on feature making it easy to play games and surf the internet. Multi-port displays help in connecting to mobile or any other device. Some of them are Wi-Fi enabled for easy connectivity.

“Cloud will help in globalization of workforce on cheap so in the future all of computing may be through server but there is still something required to be displayed for the client, which is the opportunity of monitors,” says Mohammad Reyaz, Regional Sales Manager – MEA, ViewSonic International Corp. (Middle East).

Market Growth: The conventional display market is not expected to grow as much as the new versions.

One of the factors in evolution of technology is growing consumer needs. MarketsandMarkets research shows thatGlobal display applications’ market is expected to reach $164.24 billion by 2017, at an estimated CAGR of 3.1% from 2012 to 2017. It also points out that North America is the leading region in the overall display market; followed by Europe

and APAC. In rest of the world, Middle East and Africa are the largest contributors. Sebastian says, “The Middle East and Africa market for display solutions has been growing over the past few years and it is mostly developing towards large screens. The market share of 24-inch displays will grow from 7% in 2014 to 16% by 2017. In addition, 27-29-inch displays will grow from 2% in 2014 to 6% by 2017.”

Vertical-wise Application: The growth in display market is also because of the various industries that need it. Use of display in Healthcare, Corporates, Home and Consumer Appliances, Education, Hospitality etc. is surging in upward direction.“Education and hospitality are key verticals with high-growth for the professional display sector. Some of the display solutions that we supply to our education and hospitality clients include interactive displays (all sizes), Intelligent Touch Board, LED displays, Ultra HD Displays and video walls,” comments Kumar. Gulf Education Supplies and Solutions (GESS) 2014 also witnessed showcase of interactive solutions for education sector. “Across EMEA, it is the Financial Services, Engineering,

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Vineeth Sebastian, Regional Sales Director-MEA at MMD and AOC

“We also expect the clinical review market to develop quite rapidly due to new installations in the Middle East and Africa region.”

Scientific, Command and Control, Back-Office, DTP, Media and Creative Services, Call Centres, Film and Photographic processing. In the Middle East, we are seeing a lot of demand in the education, security (Command and Control) and the AV sector,” says Gobey.

Bakshi feels that gaming is growing the fastest.

“Some of the segments may not be growing but we are creating our Total Area Market (TAM).

62-65% of the thrust is going in gaming. We have already been announced as the major brand in gaming monitor across the world. R&D and innovation are best in these. Our 45-50% revenue comes from gaming,” he adds.

From standard LFDs and video walls to specialized displays, Samsung offers a broad spectrum of display solutions to meet various corporate needs. With the integrationready digital Signage Solution by Samsung, corporations can create a collaborative work environment focusing on higher network performance and reinforce their brand image.

Vendor’s Strategy: Just having the right technology is not enough but having the right strategy to market it

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Ravinder Kumar, General Manager – Business Solutions Division, Sharp Middle East and Africa

“As an example, the connectivity and cloud adoption within the education sector complements our recently launched Intelligent Touch Board solution for smart learning.”

makes the difference. To grab the market and woo the clients, every vendor carves a different strategy. NEC believes in keeping close to its customers andensures that products meet customer needs today and tomorrow, at an attractive price. NEC believes in delivering quality solutions tailored to its customers for use in smart applications, empowered by innovation. The company believes that its display solutions are designed to help customers address the challenges they face through brilliant image quality, advanced connectivity and interactivity, and low power consumption.

BenQ has taken a different course in its strategy at the global level which filters down even to the regional level. In display, its focus is more on the vertical segment divided into two: Display Monitors and Display Solutions.

Having AU Optronics, the third largest panel manufacturer in the world and Qisda, the manufacturing arm and BenQ, the marketing company, it’s all in house that BenQcomes up with innovative products. “In display monitors we are deeply into vertical segment. We are one of the best companies in the word to offer the gaming monitor. We are into CAD/

Mohammad Reyaz, Regional Sales Manager – MEA, ViewSonic International Corp. (Middle East)

“Allying with third party to provide solution instead just providing standalone product is our strategy.”

CAM and the color management which is purely for graphic designers,” adds Bakshi.

As far as solutions are concerned, BenQ has six of them: Video Walls for corporate and retail, Interactive Flat Panel as an additional support for its projector line up in education sector, digital signage for kiosks, Cloud Monitor which is bigger form of tablet and smaller form of digital signage with processor and memory in built for kiosks, Transparent Display and Dual Display.

Reyaz says that allying with third party to provide solution instead just providing standalone product is Viewsonic’sstrategy. “That is why we work with software vendor for digital signage and could products,” he adds. However, Kumar refraining from commenting on Sharp’s internal strategy, said that as a business philosophy, Sharp is dedicated to the use of its unique and innovative technologies to contribute to the culture, benefit and welfare of people throughout the world.

“We are leading in innovations and technology. We leverage our strengths as the world’s biggest display manufacturer to offer a wide range of solutions for the industry. We

feature

Ian Gobey, General Manager, Middle East, NEC Displays

Manish Bakshi, Managing Director, BenQ, United Arab Emirates

“In the Middle East especially, we are seeing growth in demand for signage for staff communication and meeting room technology such as interactive LFD and projectors.”

“We have already been announced as the major brand in gaming monitor across the world. Our 45-50% revenue comes from gaming.”

will continue to grow our leadership and keep providing our clients with innovative and outstanding products,” says Sebastian.

ments, “Cloud computing aids and promotes the Free-Desk-ing office environment as well as tele-working and worker mobility. Such offices require displays which are highly flexible, reliable, configurable and with extensive ergonomic adjustment. Human Sensor technology also reduces power consumption as well as improves data security in offices.”

The Road Ahead: As cloud is gaining ground, the vendors believe that it will be in tandem with the burgeoning demand of displays. Gobey com-

Sharp is confident that the adoption of cloud will complement the growing demand of the display market, which is driven by factors such as the growing consumer goods industry and improved image quality. “As an example, the connectivity and cloud adoption within the education sector complements our recently launched Intelligent Touch Board solution for smart learning, which enables wireless collaboration with PCs and mobile devices, sharing onscreen content and bidirectional writing,” adds Kumar.

According to Sebastian, 27-29-inch displays will grow from 2% in 2014 to 6% by 2017.

“We also expect the clinical review market to develop quite rapidly due to new installations in the Middle East and Africa region. According to a IHS (former InMedica) research, the clinical research market will see a growth of 8.9% CAGR by 2017,” he adds.

NEC estimates that close to 22 million Business and just over 10 million Consumer desktop displays are to be sold in EMEA in 2014 according to latest Meko market research reports. “NEC focuses specifically on the business market, and is expecting that the average screen size in this segment will continue to grow, with the 23”/24” size becoming the dominant form factor in 2014.In the Middle East especially, we are seeing growth in demand for signage for staff communication and meeting room technology such as interactive LFD and projectors,” says Gobey.

Finally: In today’s world, display market offers myriad choices. Looking into the crystal ball, displays are sure to witness even newer disruptive trends in technology. This will spur the growth in application of displays. ë

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corporate story

Ready to Lead the Pack Working steadily in the direction of building a sustainable business, Dell is confident to beat its competitors in all departments and endeavour channel partners to play a big role.

n words: manali misra <manali@accentinfomedia.com>

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corporate story

DELL

D

ell, a company which needs no introduction, is known for its intriguing nimble moves.

With time, Dell shifted its focus from providing hardware to a solution-centric and problem solving approach, thus in turn making the ICT offering more relevant to the enterprises. The move gained momentum when in 2013 Dell became a private company. It is the confidence of Dell’s resources and its continued spotlight on serving the best to its customers that makes Dell stand against its competitors.

Dell is also known for its acquisitions as a part of strengthening its strategy and portfolio - be it in the space of cloud computing, storage, security or services. It has bought over 20 companies in last five years primarily in the enterprise space. Also, Dell doesn’t believe in shedding the acquired companies’ brand equity in a trice. Dave Brooke, General Manager, Dell Middle East comments, “When we acquire technology, we also acquire the brand that comes along. Some of the brands that we have acquired have excellent brand equity and brand value. In the short term, the strategy is not to destroy that brand equity.

As we move and integrate technologies for the product, you may see less of the original brand names.”

Brooke says that he hopes Dell’s competitors are confused in understanding what Dell is and what it is doing. He is confident to focus on customers and channel. “When we engage with our customers against our competitors, we will beat them more times than we lose,” he adds.

Growth in the region: There is no doubt that IT industry in Middle East is burgeoning. Companies are steadying themselves so as to leverage the opportunities in the market. “The IT industry is certainly going to benefit from the growth in the region. If you look all of the countries around

the region be it Saudi, UAE, Qatar and Gulf territories, growth is an integral part of the engine and we certainly expect that to happen. The region is dynamic and pushing the boundaries,” adds Brooke.

In today’s cost-cutting times, Brooke feels that this industry is going to drive hard at areas of interoperability of technologies and open standards which is really now no longer a buzz word. “Any company that buys proprietary based solutions is literally buying a more expensive and less flexible solution moving into the future. Workloads are the critical component, companies buy IT technologies for workload,” he adds. Dell is bullish to tailor its focus, investments, and people on how do we get to high growth opportunities as well as looking after and consolidating our core businesses.

Dell has been successful in providing client solutions in this region for many years and Brooke has intention to remain ‘incredibly’ successful for Dell across the region.

“Focus around customers is incredible in this company and I think this is going to put us in a really good position for this coming year and forward,” says Brooke.

Strategy around Big Data, Cloud, Storage: If we look at transformation of organizations in IT, there is a tremendous challenge that customers are facing today. The customers who have significant investments in infrastructure today are facing a challenge in deciding how to move to cloud. People within the organizations are driving the cloud decisions without necessarily understanding the complexity of current environment which becomes one of the problems faced by CIOs. “It’s a journey to the cloud and we have full proposition that talks about how do you get to the cloud, how do you get consolidation, virtualization, how to get a private or a hybrid cloud and we have a number of options around them. From a consultancy to all the

way of an actual cloud offering, whether it will be private or hybrid, Dell is working with many of the largest cloud providers to work with them as brokers of the cloud. We have got amazing assets of managing your infrastructure when you are in the cloud when in private or public cloud and how do you manage infrastructure across both,” he adds.

Dell claims to be changing the dynamics of storage because the way companies procure storage and head to replace their storage infrastructure every year is a thing of the past. “You don’t have to get rid of the infrastructure that works, our competitors will make you do that but we don’t. One of the customers told us that if it wouldn’t have been for Dell Compellent, his business would have been in real trouble,” tells Brooke.

Brooke says that Big Data is important but it is not a single solution. It is about do you have the right data at the right cost for the right people and then how do you analyse that. “We have got that full value proposition and a consultancy program that will walk customers through that,” he adds.

Security becomes a value proposition now from Dell. It’s more than just security. Dell likes to talk about connected security because security comes from several points one is end point device, managed service offering from Dell Secureworks which manages 60bn security events every single day as a managed service through dedicated security operations and hubs. It is way more than the traditional Dell that many people still see.

Channel: Channel is a critical element for Dell in terms of capability and capacity to reach its customers. Dell’s focus will be to develop capacity and capability in the existing channel in the year ahead as well as taking new opportunities for the additional channel partners in its business. “We are

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corporate story

Dave Brooke, GM, Dell Middle East

“When we engage with our customers against our competitors, we will beat them more times than we lose.”

willing to build relationship with potential partners who have not been historically Dell partners because they have operated in areas that we potentially have not been operating in. As we bring the channels together of all these acquisitions, we have much more significant value proposition to the channel,” tells Brooke. At the end of the day, the channel wants to have a simple business experience and how do they drive growth, profitability and have a value proposition that in some way differentiates them from their competitors.

“At Dell, we believe that across our channel programmes as well as our full stack our actual technology solutions, we have a massively good value proposition for the channel to take forward to their customers,” he elaborates.

Goal: Dell’s goal is to build a sustainable business in capability and capacity that allows it to exceed and beat its internal matrix as well as exceed the expectations of customers. This sustainable business has components namely customer and channel. Dell is an indirect organization primarily in the Middle East, at the infrastructure level, it is 100% channel- focused. “Channel should be able to identify and progress an opportunity, close that opportunity and deploy and install all of our products. Beat the market every quarter in every addressable area that we operate in and we beat it by delighting our customers because they talk and share experiences. This is my goal as the leader of this business. People within the

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organizations are foundation for local success.

My job is to attract the best, motivated and engaged people in the industry. A channel is part of the same programme. Over the last several years, Dell has been globally recognized and seen to be having huge investment embracing channel at a global level. That drives sustainability,” explains Brooke.

He feels that “Get out, Go to the customers” and to know what dynamics they are looking for is important. Dell has recently opened the solutions center. “That is a significant step in the type of engagement that Dell has with the customers and with the channel. How do we enable customers to come here and look, feel, touch technologies without asking them to go to Europe or the US. We allow people to bring in competitive products and test how they work with Dell. I am fairly convinced that they would want to leave the competitive product once they have looked into the end to end solutions. We work in an interoperable open society and that’s one of the core foundational success for Dell,” tells Brooke.

Scan to read the Case Study

FINALLY… Brooke says that Dell has helped changed this industry. “Michael Dell made technology available to the masses in this industry at a better price point, more available and more accessible than any other company in this industry. We have a tremendous heritage.

We have done that once on the client’s side.

We have value proposition in the enterprise side that will change the industry again,” he concludes. ë

SCAN TO WATCH DAVE BROOKE ONLINE

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Enterprise Security

hid global

Securing Identities through Strong Partnerships With the rising security threats in the MEA region, the demand for secure identity solutions is also increasing. These changing market dynamics is compelling the vendor companies in this domain to provide its customers as well as partners with the ability to securely create, manage, and use identities for a variety of applications. n words: Nivedan Prakash <nivedan@accentinfomedia.com>

T

he Middle East market offers a huge potential to the security and surveillance products, owing to the fact that there is an increased customer demand for advanced security solutions that are cost-effective and offer higher security levels. In fact, this industry is seeing a marked change in the Middle East due to escalating security threats in this region. Customers are investing strategically in cost-effective solutions, keeping in mind that their purchases will allow for migration to future capabilities.

It also increasingly evident that customers are now focused on working with vendors who are able to provide end-to-end solutions, in particular in verticals such as government, oil and gas, aviation financial (banking) and education sectors that are investing heavily in advanced security solutions in the Middle East.

Looking at this burgeoning market opportunity, HID Global, a worldwide leader in secure identity solutions, has created a strong foothold in the region for physical access control and secure issuance solutions with increasing demand for its strong authentication solutions especially in the financial sector and for enterprise authentication.

Nat Pisupati, Regional Sales Director Identity & Access Management Middle East & Africa, HID Global, says, “This is a trend we are seeing both in the Middle East, as well as in Africa. Our extensive global experience across verticals, strong

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local channel partner tie-ups and programs and our ongoing investments in ensuring a continued customer-centric approach has been instrumental in helping us grow in the region. We work very closely with local channel partners to address customer demands and meet their requirements.

We have seen rapid growth in the region for our solutions in the last five to seven years and are seeing growth rates in double digits.”

Meanwhile, the company aims to deliver even greater simplicity while helping its customers create, use and manage secure identity solutions, in a world where security threats continue to grow and privacy assurances are increasingly critical.

HID Global’s core products include: n Physical Access Control Solutions – offer the most extensive range of powerful, versatile and secure access control readers, controllers and credentials whilst providing guaranteed care to reader interoperability with existing and future products and services. n Identity Assurance Solutions – offer an integrated logical access control portfolio consisting of strong authentication, credential management and single-credential solutions that enable enterprise, financial services and government customers to meet their security and compliance requirements with the industry’s broadest range of identity assurance solutions. n Secure Issuance Solutions – provide the most comprehensive array of FARGO printer/encoders

for custom card personalization, from creating high-quality color photo IDs to encoding smart cards. n Visitor Management – the company’s suite of EasyLobby visitor management solutions provide comprehensive, enterprise-class visitor registration, badge printing, tracking, reporting, asset and package management, web-based pre-registration and employee/contractor time and attendance. n Partner Solutions – the company’s embedded solutions combine its strength in secure credentialing with partner solutions to solve business problems by extending the use of a single credential. HID Connect partner solutions using Genuine HID Technology include biometrics, mobile access, secure print authentication and electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in addition to a wide array of other applications. For contactless and contact-based, EMV-compliant and proprietary financial transactions systems, HID Global offers smart card and RFID products and services, including MasterCard PayPass certified and Visa contactless compliant products.

Go-to-Market Strategy HID Global’s go-to-market strategy involves doing business with channel partners wherein it has successfully built a comprehensive ecosystem of partners. Typically, HID Global has different types of channel partners that include system integrators, OEMS and distributors/resellers. For

Enterprise Security

Nat Pisupati, Regional Sales Director Identity & Access Management Middle East & Africa, HID Global

“With our key channel partners in the Middle East, we have laid strong emphasis on the added value that we offer each other through our collaboration.”

example, system integrators are companies who buy products from HID Global and integrate it in an end-user solution. This could be for access control or IT security or a combination of both.

Distributors/Resellers tend to work with smaller integrators or installers, predominantly in the physical access control area and for secure card issuance distribution.

“With our key channel partners in the Middle East, we have laid strong emphasis on the added value that we offer each other through our collaboration. We have worked together to build long-term relationships in the region,” adds Pisupati.

Moreover, the company’s Advantage HID Channel Partner Programme is designed to develop and maintain a long-term value proposition with channel partners. The company provides a comprehensive set of benefits to enable its partners to extract significant value from these customer relationships. From industry leading margin on its product resale, deal registration benefits, training, Market Development Funds (MDF) and leads, through to joint marketing activities, HID Global has a deep understanding of how to build mutually beneficial partner relationships.

“We are committed to helping our partners develop revenue opportunities through our HID Channel Partner Programme. With our

integrated marketing approach constituting online and offline, outbound and inbound activities across multiple media, we have achieved very strong and successful lead generation activities that are mutually beneficial.

This would not be possible without the investments of a growing regional team which supports or channel partners. We also strengthen our presence in the region by participating in some of the region’s most important platforms such as GITEX, ASIS, Intersec, and Cards & Payments ME, which helps our partners in the region,” highlights Pisupati.

Major accomplishments Recently, HID Global has been recognized for its world class products and solutions across regions. The company was selected by Government Security News in the United States for its pivCLASS 4.0 Government Solutions portfolio, as the winner of 2013 Homeland Security Award for Best Integrated System for HSPD12/FIPS-201 Compliance. The annual awards recognises top 2013 Homeland Security Award top IT security and physical security solutions dedicated to protect federal, state, county and municipal government agencies.

The European Banking Forum selected HID Global’s ActivID Authentication Appliance as the winner of the Most Innovative Security

or Risk Service Product in the 2013 Retail Banking Awards – Security and Risk. The award recognizes and champions excellence as a celebration of success and innovation in the banking industry.

The company has also been selected as one of China’s Top 10 Access Control Brands for 2013 for the tenth consecutive year by A&S China, a leading security publication in the nation. The award reinforces the company’s on-going initiatives to deliver new capabilities for meeting current and future secure identity requirements.

Finally, HID Global’s iCLASS SE Encoder was selected as the winner at the 2013 ASIS Accolades Security’s Best competition that recognises the industry’s most innovative new technologies, products and services.

Finally…

The MEA region is seeing significant customer demand for advanced security products and solutions. As a trusted source and adviser for innovative products, services, solutions and know-how for millions of customers globally, HID Global is successfully addressing these customer demands. Today, HID Global has the broadest portfolio of secure identity solutions in the marketplace.ë

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PARTNER STREET

Miguel Angel Villalonga CEO, Emitac Enterprise Solutions

“Strengthening the Service Capabilities” With the rise in the adoption of cloud and‘as-a-service’ model, the MEA region is witnessing a change in the way system integrators are approaching the market. Their focus is to build service capabilities and in turn, forge a long term relationship with the customers. Enterprise Channels MEA spoke to Miguel Angel Villalonga, CEO, Emitac Enterprise Solutions, to get an insight into the company’s foray into the services business and the strategies going forward.

In the current scenario where the role of channel partners / system integrators are changing, how are you evolving with the time?

At the end of the day, we are an IT services company. Hence, the value and evolution is to put more emphasis on our ability and capac-

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ity as the service provider. If you look at from our financials point of view, we are trying to balance the composition of services that we have rather than just focusing on reselling business. Product reselling is easy as well as aggressive with competition very high and you have to squeeze your margins to remain

in the game. The only differential value that you have is your own services. This is how you develop the trusted advisor relationship with the customers.

The factors like predictability in terms of delivery, ability to execute, expertise in technology, and services capabilities are actually helping us to compete and position ourselves strongly in the marketplace. With service provider concept coming into our traditional space and making it more professional services, we are developing capabilities to be more service provider oriented, and developing service level agreement and long term relationship with the customers. This is the only way that a company in systems integration space can sustain and grow.

Why is this realization of looking at services as serious stream of business this year itself and not in the past?

It’s a trend that we have been definitely investing on and building our services capabilities. The main difference now is that customers are starting to buy the ‘as-a-service’ model more and more. However, I don’t see this approach being active in MEA region yet but we know that it would certainly come

PARTNER STREET

this way. The vision in this part of the world is still not that aggressive and they are still a lot of traditional projects happening.

Also, most of the market here are either government or government-owned be it telecommunications, transportation, energy, etc. And it is an open market for the service providers servicing these sectors. Since the government has started to move more and more operations into those service providers, our approach has been to work rather than competing with them.

How much of your focus has been towards the cloud services and ‘as-aservice’ model?

Cloud is a concept that people have started to consume. One of our main practices is building the data center that will have a flavor of either public cloud or private cloud.

But this has to be decided by the customers.

We are also building services that can be provided in these new ways of consuming IT i.e. ‘as-a-service’ model.

Furthermore, we are launching new services like End Point Management as-aservice, Testing-as-a-Service, wherein we are entering into a service-level agreement with the customer and keep the entire infrastructure required to deliver those services. This is the way we are seeing how the market is evolving.

In the cloud domain, what all services are you providing to the customers?

As of today, in the cloud space, we are launching Testing-as-a-Service and End Point Management as-a-service. The other area of focus is implementing cloud services with our partners. We have a partnership with Microsoft, wherein we either provide a pure Microsoft cloud infrastructure whether it Office 365 or Azure, or combine those offerings within our own cloud offerings.

For example, in the End Point Management as-a-service, we offer different levels of end point management that can be from pure infrastructure or security point of view and that can be linked to Microsoft tools. So, we can combine these offerings either on our own premises or use the public cloud services that Microsoft is offering.

At this point, have you set any roadmap or target for launching different services in terms of co-branding or white labeling?

Again, there will be several practices that we will continue following. Like for example, we are very much committed to the portfolio that Microsoft is putting together, ensuring that Office 365 and Azure platform-as-aservice is very much there in the marketplace.

Besides, we are looking at some options in the field of Infrastructure-as-a-Service as well. And above all, we are building our own services portfolio that will be provided to all the customers, which will be combination of both third-party as well as our own services.

This is the way we want to evolve.

At the end of the day, it is very difficult to predict the size of this services revenue streams in the next couple of years, as it is still a new model being adopted by the customers. Hence, it is not feasible to put any number on the different services that we are going to offer in the coming future. In

Do you agree that Infrastructureas-a-Service is picking up fast as compared to other models?

It totally depends upon the environment we are looking at. If you look at government entities, then you will find that there is a big push for the concept of shared services. If there are environments that provide this kind of security at the end of the day, where people can move towards a shared environment without compromising on security, then obviously you will see Infrastructure-as-aService picking up fast.

But that’s a very different story from going into a public cloud. There is a big difference here. Take an example of a bank, which will not hesitate on putting certain applications on the cloud like CRM but putting all its Core Banking System on the cloud will probably take many-many years to happen. This shows

“One of our main practices is building the data center that will have a flavor of either public or private cloud.”

fact, we may be one of the very few system integrators who would be venturing into this space. And we are certainly the early movers into this domain.

As of today, are you finding enough takers for cloud or customers are still in dual minds?

Cloud is again a very broad concept where everyone is talking about it but a very few of them is upbeat about public cloud. Apparently, public cloud is something which is very interesting but I don’t see too many people really putting a bet on it – neither from vendors nor customers.

Meanwhile, a lot is being talked about private cloud as well, which is seen as a step forward in terms of how you procure your data center. Automation, provisioning, and virtualization – all these elements are being implemented today. And the way customers are buying data centers is changing as well.

For example, we have a number of projects now in disaster recovery environment where customers have the data centers but want to outsource disaster recovery. This shows that there is a change or evolution in the way people are buying the competing needs that they have to put all the new services that they require.

that there are certain concerns or restrictions and even if there is an environment that takes care of these issues, it won’t happen so soon.

Though we are getting more mature from technology point of view, a lot also depends upon politics, government policies and decisions, organizational structure, etc.

What are your strategies in terms of revenue generation and allocation of resources that would yield good results for the company?

Our strategy is to move more and more people towards services. The change here is that customers just don’t buy for one-time projects rather than they sign recurring contracts. This gives you more flexibility in terms of planning. Now, we are preparing packages and then selling it to the customers.

Once we start getting contracts, then at our end, we start sizing our teams so that they can take care of the service-level agreements that we have with our customers.

The first step is to create awareness and start employing people and as we grow in volume, then obviously we will increase the number of people required to deliver the services. Today, we have the expertise but the focus has to be more on consulting than operational services. ë

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CORPORATE STORY

Watch Guard

“Building on the Growth Momentum” With the rise in the threat vectors and blended attacks, enterprises are taking a more proactive approach to secure their businesses. This has compelled the UTM vendors to come up with solutions that work to support and secure networks while giving the management real time updates on all aspects of the system. n words: Nivedan Prakash (nivdan@accentinfomedia.com)

I

n the Middle East and Africa market, WatchGuardhas emerged as one of the leaders in the security domain. This is further validated by the fact that the company has attained its position as a ‘leader’ in Gartner’s 2013 Magic Quadrant for Unified Threat Management (UTM).

Additionally, independent test have shown and confirmWatchGuard’s ability to protect mid-sized businesses nearly 3.5 times faster than competing solutions, when all standard UTM features are enabled.

Talking about the USP of the brand, SurenderBishnoi, Regional Manager – MEA, WatchGuard, says, “Our UTM solutions combined with powerful security subscriptions to offer comprehensive protection from malware. All security capabilities are managed from one intuitive console, with centralized logging and reporting features for an up-to-the-minute view of network security activity. Organizations will be able to lower operational costs by easily upgrading to a higher appliance model within the line with a software license key as opposed to investing and setting up new separate systems to defend against specific threats.”

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The company uses a best-of-breed strategy to create the most reliable security solutions in the market. By partnering with industryleading technology vendors, WatchGuard delivers an all-star family of UTM network security products.

“Our latest solution, WatchGuard Dimension, a cloud-ready network security visibility solution that comes standard with WatchGuard’s flagship UTMplatform, provides a suite of big data visibility and reporting tools that instantly isolate and distill key security issues and trends, speeding the ability to set meaningful security policies across the network,” adds Bishnoi.

Following the Growth Path In February this year, the company set a new record with its Q4 2014 financial results.

Driven by the October launch of WatchGuard Dimension, the company’s net billings grew worldwide by 23 percent in Q4 in comparison to the fourth quarter of 2012.

Taking a cue from this worldwide success, WatchGuard continues to identify the MEA region as a key growth market, and further invest in marketing and training to help support and expand its existing presence

throughout the region. Considering the Middle East is a global business hub, the company is excited to continue its pace of innovation and growth momentum, as the market continues to embrace the value proposition of UTM and its ability to simplify security and reduce the overall total cost of ownership for network security solutions.

“At GITEX in 2013, we introduced our DLP solution for UTM. Besides enabling businesses to instantly protect data and prevent costly regulatory attacks within their network, the DLP solution has an updated Web User Interface compatible with mobile devices, and tremendous new flexibility in the configuration of VPNs in today’s more complex network environments,” asserts Bishnoi.

Moreover, WatchGuard Firebox T10 UTM solution has recently been introduced to the family, which enables end-users to extend a powerful network security to small office home office (SOHO) environments.

However, while writing the success story, the company does have to face certain challenges as well. One of the biggest challenges that refrain enterprises to invest in security

CORPORATE STORY

Surender Bishnoi, Regional Manager – MEA, WatchGuard

“A key focus for the company in the next one year will be to provide our channel partners with all the necessary tools and support required to handle the increase in demand.” solutions is senior management not grasping the influence cyber threats have on their networks.

As per Bishnoi’s views, it all comes down to justifying the ROI of investing in security protection. Compare the costs of the risk equation, to the cost of the security controls and their efficacy. The difference in cost is your ROI. If the security controls cost more than the risk outlined above, then it may not be a worthwhile option for the business.

However, if the security control is a fraction of the cost of the risk, then you have great ROI. Channel Ecosystem WatchGuard believes that its relationship with channel partners differs from many other companies. It is a 100% channel-driven company, wherein it works with its partners

and trusts them to sell and support WatchGuard, while managing sales and implementing software and products. Besides, the company has never dealt with the service side of client relations, and instead allows partners to develop this area of business.

“And finally, we give our channel partners as much support as we possibly can. We give them the tools to represent WatchGuard products with detailed knowledge of products, implementation and benefits.

Working together allows us to share possible opportunities with partners, while encouraging development with our tiered partner model. We invest for the long run, and we believe that strengthening bongs and working on relationships benefits everyone, including end users,” highlights Bishnoi.

In reference to capitalizing on opportunities

in the region, WatchGuard’spartners are successful in business because they are highly skilled in what they do, and benefit from the 100% support that it gives them. Moreover, the company passes on any potential business leads to all of its partners, which they then develop by creating relationships with the clients.

From the channel perspective, the main focus has been expanding its partnerships throughout the region. The company looks at many different aspects when deciding about potential partnerships. One of these is looking for businesses that are skilled and knowledgeable in specific products or services. This year, WatchGuardwill be launching Security Pays in the region which is its ‘credit card’ incentive scheme for the Professional and Expert partners. Every time a WatchGuard box is sold, the company will reward the salesperson by putting credit on the card. Also, it will have regular promotions which will be announced at the beginning of each quarter.

“Besides looking to connect with new partners, we have also been developing existing bonds with our channel partners. We do this by working together to share business leads, offering training and information on new product, and conducting partner events.

Additionally, we work to help partners within the tier levels of the WatchGuard partnership program, and support their goals of progression.A key focus for the company in the next one year will be to provide our channel partners with all the necessary tools and support required to handle the increase in demand,” mentions Bishnoi.

Future Prospects 2014 is looking like an extremely promising year for WatchGuard. The company is also seeing partners becoming more specific on what types of services they specialize in. For example, as security solutions become more prominent and profitable, many partners are making this their key market. Once they define which market they want to focus on, they have the ability to choose the specific services or products they are interested in.

“One of the other big things that we are seeing is partner programs, which work as an incentive. Depending on sales, there is the ability to climb up the ‘tier ladder’ with every level bringing with it extra benefits for the partner. If a partner is happy at the tier they are at, then that’s great, but there is always the opportunity to develop if they want to,” concludes Bishnoi. ë

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My view

“Changing the Underlying Economics of Storage Business” Enterprise storage has dynamically evolved over the years to cater to the rising volumes of data. One such radical transformation is being seen in the field of ‘copy data management’, which tech vendors like Actifio has pioneered to address the storage explosion with a totally new approach to manage copy data across enterprise.

Give us an overview of how Actifio started and why did you chose to focus on data storage business?

Started in July 2009, Actifio is a third venture for me. Since I have led the HP Storage business in the past, data storage is a zone of comfort and a market that I know very well.

Besides, I have been in this market for the last 25 years or in a way, from the very beginning of the storage days. I was involved in the very first specifications of storage and when the storage first came out in the market, I built the very first disc array in the world. I have been in this business for a very long time and not only understand the business but also the technology as well as the buyers.

Each of my companies led the evolution of the storage market. First one was all about this new network and storage on fibre channel.

Then, it was about better management of storage devices, etc. I consider myself very fortunate that I came in very early into this market. Along with me, the investment group that I was part of, I had other colleagues who were much more open-minded and smarter wherein they invested in Facebook and LinkedIn. But I could never understand this approach. Instead I am an old-fashioned guy wherein I want something that could add value.

At the end of the day, people call it data center and not server or network center.

Hence, it is all about data and from the very beginning, it was always about data. This is a market which has a long cycle and a lot of innovations keep happening in this domain.

Where do you see your scheme of things fitting into this changing ecosystem and market dynamics?

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Ash Ashutosh, Founder and CEO, Actifio

my view

Actifio is all about data and we don’t expect to become anything more than the core value proposition of what we understand very well i.e. data. Any place where data is created, there will be an Actifio component to manage it whether it’s in the mobile, cloud, data center, server, and laptop. This is our big vision.

The reality is that’s where the information is lying along with the entire value. Today, we are just talking about better business resiliency and faster access to information.

But pretty soon, you will hear us talk about life sciences analytics, retail analytics, and better manufacturing analytics.

As long as you put the right data ready and bring the application immediately, you cut out the entire process of moving the data. The killer is in moving the data.

Bringing the application is free because it is virtualized. Hence, the whole theory is stop doing this movement of data, as it is cheap and instant to bring up application and for this customers do need to have a new storage system. All you have to make sure is that right data is available. The trick is to make storage system look like it’s in the time you wanted it to be. This is the beauty of what we try to do. It is like enterprise time machine.

You talk a lot about ‘copy data’.

What does this really entail to?

It is very simple to understand. For example, when you click a picture from your mobile phone, it is on this device lies the original data. Then through iCloud, it goes to your iPad and Mac and then you post in on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other places. All those are copies of data. And they all have their own life. So, instead of all those guys manage themselves, what if in the enterprise space, there is one place from Actifio where you have your own copy and other copy is here and everybody uses and shares this same information. We will manage the life of this copy and it is the ability to use the same copy for many things allows you to not buy more storage space. There is a ‘golden’ copy that can be used for many applications.

Copy data truly solves the problem created by the storage explosion including the unmet SLAs, extended recovery times, complex IT environments, and labor intensive IT management requirements.

What’s your vision for Actifio?

We are going through a very interesting phase. Till five years ago, if you would ask me, then it was likely to get acquired.

How does Actifio help its customers get rid of the likes of EMCs, IBMs, and NetApps of the world?

Earlier, it was infrastructure centric model where bringing up an application was very expensive. Since application was running on a server, and if you want to make these applications run, you bring the data to the applications. And each of the applications was from different vendors like EMC, IBM, and NetApp. And at the top of everything, cloud has taken precedence, wherein your application is free and coming up instantly.

So, instead of moving the data, how about move the application to where data is residing. And the data is Actifio.

Which are the areas where you are making investments currently?

We are making investments in two big areas.

First is the go-to-market that includes sales, support, and services. We need sales and field engineering kind of resources. Today, not too many people are aware about ‘copy data’ but to make it happen a couple of years down the line, I need people in the field to go and sell it to enough of the large customers. We are almost doubling or tripling the number of people in all the 31 countries we are currently present in.

Secondly, if you want to become this middle engine, we need people to succeed with Actifio. If you are a customer of Actifio, you will have somebody who will show up once or twice a week just to say how things are going and is there any kind of assistance required. This whole customer

“Any place where data is created, there will be an Actifio component to manage it whether it’s in the mobile, cloud, data center, server, and laptop” People acquire companies for a very simple reason. For example, if I am acquiring your company which is selling $10, then I can make it sell $100 because I am connected to the customer. But this is not the case anymore. From the industry point of view, customers don’t care about buying from IBM or Cisco. They are kind of ancient companies who are putting billions in the cloud.If I don’t have control over my customers, then it is impossible for me to acquire you as I am not able to create the value that is being given by the global players. We are exactly in the same position. Hence, this is an exciting time where the existing guard and leaders are under pressure and seize that people like us will go and become billionaires. Today, new leaders have started emerging globally and the existing players are getting eclipsed by the new set of players. We see an opportunity of being one of the new leaders.

Today, when the application is going into the cloud and infrastructure is getting virtualized, we see an opportunity that there is a big whole in between and we could become this application centric data management engine that every application will talk to because the customers don’t know where the infrastructure is.

success management is about managing a patient to be healthy rather than to be sick.

We make investments so that our customers are proactively being managed and in the process, we are just trying to meet customers’ expectations. Today, customers want service levels and pay you by the outcomes and not the boxes.

After the US, which is the biggest market for Actifio?

For us, it is the UK and Germany markets that come after the US. It is followed by Australia and Japan. And after these four countries, Middle East & Africa region falls under our purview as well as the priority list.

However, out of the 31 countries that we are currently present in, we don’t sell in either China or India. It is because if you talk about China and India, then both of them are big markets but there vendors don’t seem to make any money.

As far as the Middle East and Africa region is concerned, we have registered triple digit growth in the past and will continue to do so in the next 3-4 years at least. We have a direct presence in this region with our company registered in Dubai. Besides, we are hiring resources in South Africa and Saudi Arabia.ë

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innovations

Ruckus ZoneFlex R700 Ruckus ZoneFlex R700 is the world’s first dual-band, three-stream indoor Wi-Fi product specifically designed from the ground up built on the new 802.11ac standard. The R700 is the only 802.11ac product on the market that integrates patented Ruckus BeamFlex+ adaptive antenna array technology to extend the range, reliability and speed of indoor Wi-Fi services, giving enterprises and service providers the ability to offer reliable, gigabit-class Wi-Fi performance.

Operating as a standalone access point (AP) or part of a centrally managed wireless LAN (WLAN), the Ruckus ZoneFlex R700 is purpose-built for the 802.11ac standard, and is ideal for high capacity and challenging Wi-Fi environments such as airports, hotels, schools, hospitals, warehouses and high-density venues.

Equipped with patented BeamFlex+ technology, each ZoneFlex R700 can automatically select, on a per packet basis, from thousands of potential directional antenna patterns, transmitting and receiving traffic using horizontally and vertically polarized radio waves for more reliable Wi-Fi connections to low-powered handheld devices, such as smartphones and tablets, that are constantly changing their orientation.

Key Capabilities:

Dell Networking Z9500 The Dell Networking Z9500 is an energy-efficient, highest density per rack unit, and only pay-as-you grow 10/40 GbE data centre core switch available today. It is the highest-density fixed-form factor data centre switch with a full suite of L2/L3 routing and switching protocols.

The switch is designed to address data centre 10/40 GbE aggregation requirements through centralized core or distributed core architectures for high performance enterprise data centers, cloud computing, provider hosted data centers, and enterprise LAN cores. The Fabric Switch is ideal for workloads such as Web 2.0, high performance computing and virtualization.

It delivers up to three times the density per RU and throughput of more than 10 Tbps with one half the latency compared to Dell’s previous generation switches. It is also Highly efficient: consumes approximately half the power per port of the Cisco Nexus 6004 and tool-less Enterprise ReadyRails mounting kits reduce time and resource for efficient rack installation.

n Uses a unique channel selection approach called ChannelFly that is capable of yielding significant capacity gains over alternative background scanning approaches to further

Key Capabilities:

improve performance and ensure the best possible user

n New Dell Networking Z9500 Ethernet fabric switch –

experience.

densest, highest performing fixed-form factor switch for

n Distinctive capacity-driven channel selection technology

scale-out data centre and cloud workload designs.

helps to avoid Wi-Fi interference by predicting and automati-

n Future ready scalability with ‘pay-as-you-go’ licensing

cally selecting the best performing channels at any given time

for 36, 84, or 132 port SKUs in a fixed form factor switch

using statistical, real-time capacity analysis of all RF channels.

to build fabrics for small scale data centers and increase

n Operates with full functionality using standard 802.3af

fabric capacity as compute demand grows

Power over Ethernet (PoE) ¬– delivering aggregate data rates

n Ultimate flexibility: 3RU core switch with 132 40GbE ports

of up to 1.75 Gbps using the 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz bands while

and expandable to 528 10GbE ports

offering an improvement in Wi-Fi signal coverage.

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Card

experts views

EMT

Three Questions Every CISO Should Ask Himself

Ensuring that software vulnerabilities, and in particular the critical ones, are being handled should be at the top of the CISO agenda

C

ISOs around the world, across industries, are operating in an increasingly complex environment; the external threat landscape is becoming more aggressive and fast-paced, and companies’ attack surfaces are expanding rapidly, due to new ways of working. The work is being monitored, audited, and reported on, and the CISO is expected to be responsive, deal with the threats, and ensure that the risk is managed, often under a budget constraint.

The CISO knows that he is responsible for protecting the digital assets and is aware of the negative impact that a potential breach can have on image, brand, and revenue. This description will resonate with most CISOs, creating an immediate need to equip his organization with the resources to navigate. As the threats evolve so does the range of solutions that can be invested in to secure the digital assets.

And most security measures make sense.

However, what most organizations overlook is how to get control of the root cause, namely the vulnerabilities. In a recent study, Gartner works with the assumption that through 2015, 80% of successful attacks will exploit well known vulnerabilities and will be detectable via security monitoring. Based on this claim, the CISO and the security team can get a head-start on their IT-Security efforts and ‘beat the cybercriminal’ by having access to and working with reliable and targeted vulnerability intelligence.

Therefore, the call out to the CISOs is: empower your organization and enable it to monitor and implement a targeted and efficient security

approach that is driven by reliable intelligence.

Ensuring that software vulnerabilities, and in particular the critical ones, are being handled should be at the top of the CISO agenda. Having said that, read on, to find out the three questions you should be asking yourself and your organization.

1. Am I enabling my security team to provide the most effective security?

Spotting vulnerabilities, determining their criticality and knowing what to do about them, is not a 1-hour task at the start of the work day – it’s a science that requires the dedicated attention of specialists and a reliable source of intelligence to ensure that: • It is in fact a vulnerability • The criticality is defined to enable prioritization • The intelligence is customized to your organization to ensure efficiency 2. How are we dealing with the critical vulnerabilities?

Secunia research shows that nearly 20% of the vulnerabilities are ‘highly’ or ‘extremely’ critical, and 77% of the vulnerabilities being exploitable ‘from remote’ (meaning that the attacker is not required to have access to the system or a local network in order to exploit the vulnerability. It covers services that are reachable by the Internet (including client applications used on the Internet). This means that you can save a lot of resources if you focus on the right vulnerabilities – the trick is to know which ones are critical, and when and how to deal with them.

3. How are we dealing with zeroday vulnerabilities and have we been exploited?

Zero-day vulnerabilities belong to a special group

Mohammad Mobasseri

CEO at emt Distribution

“Empower your organization and enable it to monitor and implement a targeted and efficient security approach that is driven by reliable intelligence.” of vulnerabilities where a patch is not available. It means that even though you have a vulnerability assessment solution in place they will not be identified – and this is where the vulnerability intelligence (VI) is essential. Your organization needs to make a work-around, maybe disable access to a certain program and so on.

In order to address all the questions above, you need to have a vulnerability intelligence solution in place. Whatever industry sector you operate in – whether Financial Services, Government/ Private Sector, Energy & Utilities, Education, or Healthcare – your organisation must comply with privacy and data protection laws, regulations, and policies designed to protect confidential information.

Dealing with software vulnerabilities and in particular the critical ones is essential for your organization’s IT-Security and ability to meet compliance requirements. Vulnerability intelligence solutions such as those from Secunia, give you and your organization the power to make the remediation priorities - in due time. ë

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innovations

Dell Wyse Cloud Connect Dell Wyse Cloud Connect is an ultra-compact and highly mobile cloud-access device that instantly delivers desktop virtualization and personal cloud services to any HDMI- or MHL-enabled display. The pocket-size device delivers a full-HD experience with enterprise-level security, manageability and reliability. Organizations of any size can now deliver streaming cloud services and IT solutions in a cost-effective, mobile offering for work, home and on the go.

It bridges thin clients and mobile devices as part of Dell Cloud Client-Computingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s end-to-end desktop virtualization solutions portfolio. The extremely compact, secure, cloud-managed device with a low total cost of ownership (TCO) supports multiple use cases including mobile workers, students, digital signage, kiosks and other space-constrained environments.

Cloud Connect represents a new category of smart connected device and is the only device of its kind that is seamlessly integrated into a secure, controlled, end-to-end desktop virtualization portfolio that includes: Software for mobile device and application management and control with Dell Wyse Cloud Client Manager, Flexible desktop virtualization solutions from Dell partners Citrix, Microsoft and VMware, Personal cloud access to files and apps through Dell Wyse PocketCloud, Global customer support expertise through Dell ProSupport for Cloud,etc.

Key Capabilities:

HP Officejet Pro 8600 series The new HP Officejet Pro inkjet printers designed to simplify printing for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs).SMBs are looking to ink technology for their printing needs because of the cost savings, improved print speeds and added functionality ink delivers. Delivering on this need, the HP Officejet Pro 8600 series is compatible with services such as HP Instant Ink and features like mobile print and print management solutions to help business owners save time and money, allowing them to focus on their business.

Giving SMBs a competitive edge, the new HP Officejet Pro 8630 e-All-in-One, HP Officejet Pro 8620 e-All-in-One and HP Officejet Pro 8610 e-All-in-One offer high-quality color printing for up to 50 percent lower cost per page compared to color laser printers. Additionally, the new devices help SMBs increase productivity with easy printer management through HP Web Jetadmin and streamlined content organization and access through the cloud with HP Flow CM Professional.

The suite of new HP Officejet Pro printers are eligible for HP Instant Ink, HPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ink replacement service that can save customers up to 50 percent on ink. With HP Instant Ink, customers can enroll in one of three monthly plans allowing the printer to order Original HP replacement cartridges before the ink runs out.

n Quick and secure access for mobile and remote workers to virtual desktops and a variety of cloud assets including

Key Capabilities:

content, applications, virtual desktops and IT support

n Meet Mopria global standards for delivering simple wireless

n Easy remote connections to personal computers running

printing from smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.

Microsoft Windows OS or Apple Mac OS to access data,

n Supports mobile printing solutions already available on

content or applications

most smartphones and tablets such as HP ePrint, wireless

n Plug-and-play interactive presentations run in full-HD directly

direct and other solutions

from the cloud or device, on any compatible display

n The HP Officejet Pro 8630 and 8620 offer cutting-edge

n Pocket-size, battery-free alternative in the event of loss, theft,

NFC touch-to-print capabilities that let users simply tap a

or failure of primary devices

device directly to the printer for instant document printing.

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Connect.

Share.

Give.

Take.

Solve.

Save.

Smile.

Unify.

Introducing Unify.

Unifying business communications for the new way to work. unify.com

Formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications

Copyright Š Unify GmbH & Co. KG, 2014

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