Reseller Middle East July 2016

ISSUE 235 | july 2016 www.resellerme.com

Samsung s7 review

Opportunities in peripherals market

A round-up of upcoming vendors in the region

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CONTENTS

STRATEGIC VAD PARTNER

ISSUE 235 // JULY 2016

30

COVER FEATURE

NEW VISTAS

Reseller ME speaks to new players to discover how they can best capitalise on the growing prospects in the Middle East region.

HIGHLIGHTS

FEATURE

6

News

40

Taking centre stage

We help you catch up on all the major news and announcements in the regional channel community.

Reseller ME speaks to industry experts to learn how channel partners can monetise the opportunities present in the peripherals market.

OPINION 24

Step up

Ashwin Venkatchari from IDC urges channel partners to move up the value chain to be a true solutions provider.

INTERVIEW 28

The right path

Vimal Kocher from Arrow ECS discusses plans to strengthen its solutions-oriented business.

REVIEW

48

Samsung S7

VENDOR FOCUS 44

Unleash print

At Drupa 2016, a global trade show for print enthusiasts, Reseller ME sat down with Venkatasubramanian Hariharan from Canon ME to learn about the company’s channel play.

47

In full view

Vineeth Sebastian, Regional Sales Director, MEA, MMD and AOC, shares expansion plans and company focus for the year.

HOT PRODUCT

50

HP unveils Spectre

Editorial founder, CPI MEDIA GROUP Dominic De Sousa (1959-2015) Publishing Director Rajashree Rammohan raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9139 Editorial Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9129

The cure for storage blues

Deputy Editor Janees Reghelini janees.reghelini@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9169 Online Editor Adelle Geronimo adelle.geronimo@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9135

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Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor Talk to us:

Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9159

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The global enterprise storage systems market declined by 7 percent year over year to $8.2 billion during the first quarter of 2016, according to IDC. Total capacity shipments were down by 4 percent to 27.8 exabytes during the quarter, and external storage systems, which remains the largest market segment, declined by 3.7 percent to $5.4 billion in sales.

This was probably not surprising as many industry pundits have predicted a terminal decline in the storage market, which enjoyed a robust growth for many years in the past. There are mainly two reasons for this. First is the change in buying behaviour. The shrinking budgets have made users look for ways to reduce cost and increase performance. This means they no longer throw more storage at performance bottlenecks. Second is the tectonic shifts in technology. Flash technology is eating into the market for HDD, which is likely to fade out sooner or later. Cloud storage is being increasingly preferred over NAS. The emergence of hyperscale data centres and private cloud means that enterprises no longer build data centres the way they used to – storage, networking and compute in silos. This explains why server-based storage market continues to grow while SANs are on the wane. As IDC points out, external storage systems are now moving into virtualisation systems that are not tied to hardware. As software-defined technologies take hold in the enterprise, storage has not been immune to this trend.

Today, the software, not the hardware, defines the storage architecture. Software-defined storage has made it possible to manage storage per VM instead of per unit of storage.

The industry experts also expect a shake out in the storage market this year with many start-ups exiting the market. Dell’s buy out of EMC is said to be just a starting point, and many established storage players are expected to either go private or make acquisitions, leading to further consolidation in the market. What does this mean for channel partners? The boom in the storage market has attracted many channel players in the past, and now they have to stay on top of these market and technology trends. All is not lost for the enterprise storage market – there are still pockets of growth in technologies such as hyper-convergence, scale out NAS and flash arrays. To ride out the storm, you must hitch your wagon to these areas of growth within enterprise storage because old architectures are definitely going the way of dinosaurs.

Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press © Copyright 2016 CPI All rights reserved While the publishers have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of all information in this magazine, they will not be held responsible for any errors therein.

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Reseller Middle East

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highlights

Epson acquires textile printing company Fratelli Robustelli

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ollowing customers around the Epson Italia world. The move will assist S.p.A’s Epson in using Robustelli’s agreement to expertise to accelerate acquire 100 the development of digital percent of the capital of inkjet textile printers Fratelli Robustelli S.r.l. that further enhance the (“Robustelli”), a textile companies’ abilities to meet printing company, Epson customer needs with a said it aims to attaing wider lineup of products.

Khalil El Dalu, Epson further growth for its digital As part of the enhanced printing business in the Middle East. acceleration, the two companies According to both parties, the plan to focus on joint R&D efforts to agreement aims to drive synergies achieve this goal. and further increase customer value Khalil El-Dalu, General Manager, by expanding the scope of the two Epson Middle East, said, “Digital companies’ longstanding collaboration printing technology will define the in digital inkjet textile printing. future of textile printing. With a strong The entry of Robustelli into the appetite for fashion and retail, this Epson Group will allow it to leverage region is a key market for Epson and Epson’s manufacturing capability to now with acquisition of Robustelli, we bring the advantages of its digital will be able to provide high quality inkjet textile printers to more digital printing products.”

Digital printing technology will define the future of textile printing. With a strong appetite for fashion and retail, this region is a key market for Epson and now with acquisition of Robustelli, we will be able to provide high quality digital printing products.”

MEA region wearables market sees growth in Q1 2016

The Middle East and Africa (MEA) wearables market experienced a 65.3 percent year-on-year growth in shipments in the first quarter of 2016, according to International Data Corporation (IDC).

IDC tracks seven major countries across MEA, and shipments into these countries totalled 419,925 units in Q1 2016.

“The growth of the wearables market provides a rare ray of light amid an overall downturn for personal computing in the region,”

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says Nakul Dogra, a senior research analyst for personal computing, systems, and infrastructure solutions, IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey.

“This growth has been spurred by a number of factors, including declining average selling prices, new product launches, the entrance of lower-cost wearables, and the introduction of sleeker designs.”

The IDC report further highlighted that Smart wearables, which are classified as devices capable of running third-party applications, are still finding their feet in the market as many consumers continue to view the devices as too expensive for the features and functions they offer.

As such, most of the growth in this segment of the market stems from the increasing popularity of smart watches.

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Basic wearables, which are not capable of running third-party applications, continue to dominate the overall MEA wearables market with 71 percent unit share versus 29 percent for Smart wearables.

This dominance can be attributed to the growing popularity of fitness bands, which have been flooding into the market for a while now, proving to be a big hit with consumers.

The future of the MEA wearables market looks bright with IDC forecasting a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 20.1 percent for the 2016–2020 period.

This growth will primarily be driven by increased adoption of smart watches and wristbands as these devices evolve to become more sophisticated than simple health and fitness trackers.

Wi-Fi second most important living essential for families

A

ccording to an International Data Corporation (IDC) research, which was conducted on behalf of Linksys, almost 30 percent of people consider food as a day-to-day necessity while 18 percent consider Internet and Wi-Fi as the second most important modern day necessity.

The research titled The Home Network, the Neglected Workhorse

by IDC and Linksys underlined that 84 percent of users cite performance as the most important attribute when purchasing a new router, far out distancing range, security and even price.

The research also shows that the frequency of buffering and performance issues during various activities are 42 percent while playing online video games, 34 percent while streaming videos, 25 percent while listening to music and

and Africa. “To keep up the speed and performance of their wireless experience, families should upgrade to premium Wi-Fi routers that are inbuilt 18 percent surfing the web with the latest technology resulting to a dissatisfied needed for all the new wireless experience. One devices coming into the of the main causes for home, and never have to the poor performance is worry about their network.” the use of outdated WiSupporting Middle East Fi technology. Nearly 50 home connectivity, Linksys percent of connected families launched a range of home are observed using router networking devices, which running version of Wi-Fi at includes Linksys MAXAmunalla Khan, Linksys least 12 years old.

STREAM AC5400 Tri-Band “As we swiftly move to a super Wi-Fi Router with MU-MIMO (EA9500) connected era, families see Wi-Fi as routers with Smart Wi-Fi Software one of the top lifestyle essentials. applications and the first MU-MIMO Year on year, they continue to invest enabled USB adapter the Linksys MAXin connected devices such as 4K STREAM AC600 USB MU-MIMO Adapter HDTVs, smartphones, and home (WUSB6100M) that upgrade Wi-Fi automation devices without making technology in smart devices. any essential advancements in their The company also launched a new Wi-Fi technology. This in turn chokes range extender with next-generation their complete networking experience,” AC Wave 2 technology – MU-MIMO the said Amanulla Khan, Managing Linksys MAX-STREAM AC1900+ MUDirector, Linksys, Middle East, Turkey MIMO Wi-Fi Range Extender (RE7000).

eHDF, Netcure and LogRhythm launch Cyber Defense Centre eHosting DataFort Threat Protection, (eHDF) has announced Incident Management the launch a Cyber and Response, DDoS Defense Centre (CDC) Protection, Endpoint based in the UAE. Security Management, and The Cyber Defense more. The importance of Centre will offer Managed Security Services customers a portfolio and how customers can of Managed Security benefit from end-toServices (MSS) along end security lifecycle Yasser Zeineldin, eHDF with Remote Managed management was also SIEM Services. The announcement outlined. was made at a seminar hosted along “Security threats are at an with Netcure and LogRhythm at Burj epidemic level. Volume Zero day Al Arab, Dubai. threats have more than doubled Titled ‘Detect & Respond in the last 12 months from 23 in Quickly to High Impact Threats’, the 2014 to 54 in 2015”, said Jeff Ogden, seminar covered a range of topics Managing Director of the eHDF and highlighted the most pressing Cyber Defense Centre. “Targetted issues connected to cybersecurity. attacks aimed at customers has The seminar discussed growing seen a 54 percent growth and the popularity of Managed Security most important focus of the CDC Services which covers Advanced is to deliver the highest levels of

security. This will be delivered either within the data centre, on premise at the customers’ site or in the cloud”.

“We can assist customers in the complete end-to-end security lifecycle which include patching services, collecting and analysing security data. The services also include incident management which offers a single dashboard of their security posture, attacks, and incidents. In addition, our unique OPEX based approach allows eHDF to pass on tangible cost benefits to customers planning to procure new security technologies. Purchasing capital assets through eHDF on an OPEX Model eliminates the need for lengthy evaluation and procurement. It also provides ongoing monthly based payment plans for our customers,” said Yasser Zeineldin, CEO, eHDF.

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highlights

Veritas names Condo Protego as its MVP in the Middle East

D-Link announces support for Apple Home Kit D-Link has announced the development of a new Wi-Fi camera that will support Apple Harrison Albert, D-Link HomeKit Middle East and Africa and the new Home app in iOS 10 later this year, making the global networking company one of the latest major brands to support Apple’s Smart Home framework.

D-Link offers a range of Wi-Fi cameras as part of its Connected Home series with the new D-Link Wi-Fi camera built for HomeKit’s camera category – one of two important new accessory types announced in the keynote speech at Apple’s annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) event in San Francisco. “In D-Link, we’ve been building Wi-Fi cameras for more than 10 years and we understand the strategic importance of these cameras to your home’s IoT ecosystem,” said Harrison Albert, Regional Director, D-Link Middle East and Africa.

“We’ve been working hard with Apple to help make a unique connected home experience that meets the real needs of users. Now, through the new HomeKit-enabled D-Link camera and Apple’s new Home app in iOS 10, we are excited that families around the world will have an easy and secure way to monitor their homes.”

Furthermore, the addition of Siri support with HomeKit allows cameras to be voice-enabled, giving families even more options to control and monitor their homes with faster results.

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Andrew Calthorpe, CEO, Condo Protego receives the MVP Award

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lobal IT company Veritas has crowned Condo Protego as its “Most Valuable Partner” in the Middle East and Africa at the recent Veritas Channel Awards.

Condo Protego has also won “Enterprise Partner of the Year – Gulf” at the event. This was the first awards since Veritas once again became an independent company this year.

In an interesting experiment, Amer Chebaro, Regional Director, Emerging Europe, Middle East, Africa, Veritas, requested the whole audience to stand, and then sit down as he counted the number of years that audience members had been affiliated to Veritas. Once he reached 10 years, (when Veritas was previously independent) a number of key Condo Protego team members made up the majority of those still standing.

“Winning the Veritas awards signifies our in-depth knowledge, experience and long-term commitment as their partner.

We look forward to further sharing global best practices on information management and business innovation with our customers, and to growing our business with Veritas.” said Andrew Calthorpe, CEO, Condo Protego.

StarLink, Cylance sign distribution deal StarLink has inked a Lifecycle.” He added, distribution contract “With the state of the with Cylance, a IT Security landscape in cybersecurity company the region, combined specialising in the use with Cylance’s nextof artificial intelligence generation endpoint in preventing advanced technology, there is persistent threats and excellent potential malware. for us to rapidly grow Under the market share by Avinash Advani, StarLink agreement, StarLink will assisting enterprise sell, install and support Cylance and government customers products through its network of protect their environments against Channel Partners to enterprise cyberattacks. We are truly excited and government customers in the about this partnership.”

Middle East, Turkey and Africa.

With ransomware emerging as According to both companies, one of the most challenging cyber the partnership is the next step threats of 2016 causing real harm to to expedite the growth and businesses and individuals across adoption of Cylance’s proactive and the globe, Cylance has expertise preventive artificial intelligence in combating ransomware attacks technology across the EMEA region. with prevention, as well as helping Avinash Advani, VP Business new customers who are in need Strategy, StarLink, said, “Cylance fits of assistance in remediation from perfectly into the Threat Protection the effects of cyber-attacks that unit of StarLink’s Solutions leveraged Trojan malware.

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highlights

Emircom bags Fortinet’s ‘Best Growth of the Year’ award

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mircom has we will continue to recently won for facilitate the deployment ‘Best Growth of of cutting-edge network the Year’ during security solutions powered the first Middle

by Fortinet’s enterpriseEast Partner Conference level products. We believe organised by Fortinet in Dubai. in adding the highest value Fortinet’s inaugural regional to our customers through channel conference gathered our strategic partnerships more than 100 partners with the world’s best ICT Mohamad Abou-Zaki, Emircom from across the GCC and names.”

Levant regions. During the event’s Top During its channel conference, Partner Awards ceremony, Emircom Fortinet unveiled its Security Fabric – a certified Fortinet Gold Partner – which addresses the most sophisticated was honoured for driving exceptional cybersecurity challenges, providing growth in the deployment of Fortinet protection against threats from IoT solutions in the UAE and the Kingdom and remote devices, through the of Saudi Arabia, two of the Arab World’s infrastructure core and into the key information and communications cloud. Also, Emircom gained valuable technology (ICT) markets. insights on Fortinet’s solutions such Mohamad Abou-Zaki, Chief Operating as Internal Segmentation Firewalls Officer, Emircom, said, “This award (ISFW), the Advanced Threat Protect marks another major milestone in (ATP) framework, and Secure Access Emircom’s efforts to deliver best-inArchitecture (SAA) designed to work class and innovative technologies to its together as an integrated security fabric customers. As a Fortinet Gold Partner, to provide a end-to-end protection.

Fujitsu, Gulf Shadows sign VAD agreement Fujitsu has appointed Gulf visibility to our variety of Shadows Computers to be products.” its value added distributor Eyas Shouman, CEO, Gulf for the UAE. Under the Shadows Computer Systems, terms of the agreement, said, “Our reliable and valueGulf Shadows will take on adding business approach the Fujitsu Client Computing have helped us in gaining products which include substantial partnerships notebooks, desktops, all-inwith major IT companies in ones, tablets and displays this region. Our major focus Amr Abdelsamad, Fujitsu ME for UAE. is to provide broad category Amr Abdelsamad, Channel Director, portfolio to our channel partners. The Fujitsu ME, said, “Customers today are addition of Fujitsu’s CCD products to looking for the best technology teamed our portfolio enables us to make a with quality service. Gulf Shadows more comprehensive offering to our has a proven record for having an partners. While we stay committed outstanding retailing and channel to continuously delivering high levels capabilities in the Middle East. The of value to our vendor and reseller new partnership will reinforce Fujitsu’s partners we always strive to serve as presence in the UAE and will provide the most trusted link between them.”

Sophos named a ‘Visionary’ in Gartner Magic Quadrant report Sophos has announced that Gartner named Sophos a Visionary in the Magic Dan Schiappa, Sophos Quadrant Report for Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) Suites for the third year in row.

As an enterprise mobility management solution, Sophos Mobile Control enables IT administrators to set up, configure and manage.

Accordingo to the company, the product features secure and encrypted containers that separate business and personal data, protecting company information and personal privacy, which is important for both corporate and bring-your-owndevice (BYOD) scenarios. “Mobile devices continue to challenge businesses as IT leaders need to assess the security of everything that connects to their network in order to prevent costly breaches and satisfy data protection and privacy legislation. Smart devices that are used to access corporate data via email or share files on cloud-based collaboration tools represent another attack surface for hackers and another way to leak data,” said Dan Schiappa, Senior Vice President and General Manager, Enduser Security Group, Sophos. “Sophos Mobile Control has been developed to provide the most comprehensive protection and to deliver all the productivity benefits of BYOD by keeping business data secure and personal information separated and private.”

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Evanssion inks MEA distribution deal with Rubrik its operations in the EMEA region in response to tremendous customer and partner demands. Its Converged Data Management (L-R) Karl Driesen, Head of EMEA Sales, Rubrik with Dilip Kalliyat, President of Evanssion software powers the Company’s vanssion has expanded r300/r500 Series appliances, which its solutions portfolio by deliver automated backup, instant signing a distribution recovery, unlimited replication, agreement with Rubrik, and data archival at infinite scale. a company focused on The company was recently named converged data management. The a Gartner Cool Vendor in Storage agreement enables Rubrik to expand Technologies. its presence in the Middle East and The company also announced the Africa, while allowing Evanssion to appointment of IT industry veteran broaden its portfolio and serve a Karl Driesen, as Head of EMEA Sales. greater variety of requirements.

As the former Vice President, EMEA Rubrik highlighted that it had at Palo Alto Networks, Driesen built experienced rapid customer growth a team of over 200 employees and a in North America, and has launched $200 million business in five years.

E

“Evanssion’s strategy is to provide its partners with a strong and diverse portfolio, by bringing vendors that offer differentiation in their solution offerings,” said Dilip Kalliyat, President, Evanssion. “Rubrik brings a new approach to data management and protection with its solutions that has helped organisations simplify and meet their stringent data management requirements. Our aim is make this technology available, so organisations can benefit from Rubrik’s end-to-end data protection solutions.”

2.3%

year-on-year decline in worlwide server revenue during Q1 2016

Source: Gartner

HID Global opens Dubai office HID Global has and the region is recently set up a new now one of our key office in the UAE at the growth markets. We Dubai Silicon Oasis have experienced technology park. significant business The new office success since we first will serve as the began our operations company’s regional here, and we now look head office, and will be forward to taking our responsible for sales success to the next Wisam Yaghmour, HID Global and service across the level,” said Wisam Middle East and Levant.

Yaghmour, Director of Sales, Middle Prior to the opening of this East and Africa, HID Global. “We new space, HID Global has actively pride ourselves on delivering costparticipated in the region and effective, customised solutions that has been a consistent participant cater to each and every customer at tradeshows such as GITEX demand, and we look forward to Technology Week. “HID Global working more closely with both has been serving the Middle East our partners and customers in the market for close to a decade, coming months and years.”

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We have experienced significant business success since we first began our operations here, and we now look forward to taking our success to the next level.”

HID Global will continue its recruitment drive regionally in order to provide customers local hands-on expertise and knowledge.

ECity opens ninth store in the UAE

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City, a part of the ALBATHA Group of Sharjah, has recently opened its ninth store in the UAE. The newly opened outlet, which is located at Dalma Mall in Abu Dhabi, was inaugurated in the presence of ECity senior officials and representatives from various partners. The store features the company’s rebranding initiative, including the new logo and identity, reflecting its unique concept of utilising technology, fixtures, layouts and displays that have never been used in today’s industry and the markets. The company’s tagline, ‘Experience the future of electronics,’ throws the spotlight on today’s leading innovative brands and the products and services they offer, some of which have never been experienced or witnessed in the UAE. The technology and fixtures used are one of a kind, utilising

European. The company highlighted that every inch of the store has been designed to give customer’s the benefit of convenience and a unique experience.

Jaouad Dakir, CEO, ECity, was at the helm of the company’s move to strengthen its position in the consumer electronics retail segment.

“We are proud of the opening of this new store, which features our new redesigned logo and identity,” said Dakir. “Our rebranding initiatives reflect our one-of-a-kind specialty consumer electronic concept and ably complements our expansion

strategy. All of our stores will be redesigned with a strategic layout that will improve the overall customer experience– presenting them with a smart and friendly shopping environment that focuses heavily on convenience, online shopping and in-store and home repair services.”

ECity announced that its rebranding efforts, which is focused on consolidating its position as the region’s first ‘Technology Convenience Store.’ “Consumers today have demonstrated an increased preference for all things compact and multifunctional–a trend that has set the tone of experiencing the future of electronics and what it can offer. The trend also reflects our continued investment and commitment in the retail industry, as well as our dedication to provide only the best quality experience for our customers,” said Dakir.

Al-Futtaim Technologies introduces network on-demand service Al-Futtaim Technologies with changes in their has recently held an business requirements. event for its customers Venkat Raghavan, in Dubai to introduce a General Manager, Alradical new approach to Futtaim Technologies, network infrastructure. said, “We are very excited The event, held in to bring to the market partnership with ALE, a unique business Venkat Raghavan, AlFuttaim Technologies marketed under the model for network Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise infrastructure, one that brand, showcased the new Network will appeal to business and IT leaders on Demand (NoD) service which simultaneously and complement enables businesses to enjoy the our managed services offering. NoD latest networking technology on a removes the upfront capital cost pay-per-use basis. of equipment for businesses and According to Al-Futtaim aligns the cost to the actual use.

Technologies, this new consumption This solution is ideal for businesses model offers companies an seeking the latest technology while alternative to capital expenditure, only paying for what they need and enabling them to focus investing in when they need it.” key business priorities and to link With the new NoD offering, infrastructure operational spending businesses are only charged based on

the usage of their network devices.

For example, educational institutions with limited network activity on weekends and holidays would not be charged for parts of the network not being used; network connectivity service for hotel rooms can be charged based on occupancy; areas of stadium facilities which are typically occupied part of the week would only be charged during usage periods.

Baher Ezzat, Regional Director Middle East, ALE, said, “NoD will completely revolutionise the way businesses set up their network infrastructure. With this solution, the power now lies with the customer who can better control and optimise their costs. With NoD, businesses can now scale up or down their network requirements to better suit their consumption.”

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TP-LINK ties-up with KSA’s Jarir Bookstore TP-LINK Technologies has Jarir Bookstore has more signed an alliance with than 30 stores across the Kingdom of Saudi KSA and has influenced Arabia-based consumer consumers a lot in their electronics retailer Jarir lives through the wide Bookstore. range of IT, networking According to the and wireless products and company, the agreement consumer electronics it with Jarir Bookstore will sells through its shops.

Conrad Yang, TP-LINK not only reinforce TPTP-LINK, as a leading Middle East, KSA LINK’s presence in the KSA SOHO and SMB product retail sector, but will open avenues brand for networking solutions is for its products to be sold in more glad to work with Jarir Bookstore. We than 30 retail outlets across Saudi believe with a good cooperation, we Arabia. The deal with Jarir Bookstore both can have good profit from this has been finalised together with its alliance.” distribution partner Redington Gulf.

Yang added that Jarir Bookstore Conrad Yang, Country Manager, now has the opportunity to resell KSA, TP-LINK Middle East, said networking products to the the company is delighted to have consumers and TP-LINK will help partnered with Jarir Bookstore the retailer to develop its store in because it is known in the Saudi the store concept and further push Arabia market for providing the best the company’s products in the Saudi quality IT and consumer networking market. “We are hoping, TP-LINK products and services. “Currently becomes the top selling networking

With the good quality products, excellent after-sales service and good product training to promoters, we should be able to help Jarir to develop the business in the retail segment across the country.” brand in KSA retail stores just like in the UAE,” he said. “With the good quality products, excellent after-sales service and good product training to promoters, we should be able to help Jarir to develop the business in the retail segment across the country.”

highlights

Think SS expands services into GRC consulting

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hink Software Services (Think SS) has announced the expansion of its services into IT governance, risk and compliance consulting through a new vertical called Think Consulting.

According to Thinks SS, as a company focused on systems integration it aims to differentiate itself by offering customers the highest degree of availability, scalability, manageability and security in the IT business.

Think Consulting combines the understanding of both business process knowledge and technology expertise. It integrates the strengths and strong partnerships with both expertise and Think SS’s systems integration capability to effectively address any kind of technology related issues.

The new consulting arm of

Think SS will provide insight on Corporate Governance to its clients to enhance their technology practices to meet new regulations and to satisfy their stakeholders’ need for a higher standard of Governance and Compliance. It will focus on assisting customers in facilitating the IT Strategic Road Map Planning based on the company’s in-depth corporate experiences at both the board of directors and senior management levels.

Rahul Mathur, Partner, GRC and Faheem Siddique, Head of Technology Services, will be leading Think Consulting’s operations. As a GRC specialist Mathur will provide insights and advisory services to tackle risk and compliance challenges across the enterprise. Powered

by Mathur’s experience in GRC for 20 years and Siddique’s technical

TechAccess unveils Unify SME Initiative TechAccess has unveiled its Unify SME Initiative and new promotions to partners. An update session, which was held at the Sheraton Hotel in Dubai, introduced partners to the new initiative and shared details on rebates and promotions. Partners were also updated on Unify’s channel programme, benefits, and TechAccess’ value proposition.

Feras Zeidan, Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Unify, attended the event to thank partners for their continued support, and reinforced Unify’s commitment to enabling them with the solutions to help them grow their business.

The SME promotion is valid on

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Unify’s X3 and X5 Openscape UC bundles, and open to Unify partners in the GCC, KSA, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Levant.

Partners who achieve and exceed their targets, stand a chance to avail of attractive rebates and marketing support.

“Unify has an exceptional UC portfolio that caters to enterprises and SMBs, and they have recently stepped up their focus on the SMB segment in the region. TechAccess’ current promotion also targets the growing SMB segment, through which we offer enticing incentives, while continuing to support partners in selling a combination of the industry’s best UC bundles,” said Roshan Sequeira, Product

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Faheem Siddique and Rahul Mathur, Think Consulting

experience, which spans 18 years, Think Consulting has developed an industry specific GRC solution portfolio that includes business domain and technology expertise, a unique combination which drives a successful GRC program in any enterprise.

Think Consulting is also partnering with major Vendors like RSA, MetricStream to provide IT GRC solutions to the UAE region.

Manager – Networks, TechAccess.

“As a true value added distributor we strive to ensure that our vendors and partners grow and achieve their business objectives – these promotions offer partners encouragement to seek new business opportunities, benefit from attractive incentives, and grow their business.”

“The Middle East and Africa are key growth markets, and Unify is delighted to be working with TechAccess to address the burgeoning SME segment in these regions. TechAccess has demonstrated exceptional commitment to Unify, and we have seen some very encouraging results thanks to their strong SME partner network, market reach and expertise,” said Zeidan.

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highlights

Huawei partners with SamTech

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uawei has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with SamTech Middle East, a regional systems integrator specialising in smart vehicle tracking systems, to develop integrated solutions for the regional transport sector. The MoU will see SamTech develop customised applications that integrate with Huawei’s connected-vehicle solution to improve public safety and comfort across all forms of transport including buses, taxis and heavy goods vehicles.

“The regional transport industry is about to make a major leap into the future, with new ICT solutions enabling increased levels of capability in safety, efficiency and comfort,” said Safder Nazir, Regional Vice President, Smart Cities and IoT, Huawei Middle East.

“Huawei’s connected-in-vehicle solution coupled with SamTech’s

Safder Nazir, Huawei Middle East and Samir I. Abdul Hadi, SamTech Middle East

intelligent software delivers on a key capability for regional Smart City initiatives whilst enabling critical control capability for transportation and emergency service stakeholders.”

The connected-in-vehicle offering is part of Huawei’s Smart City solution set and is underpinned by its ‘Leading New ICT’ initiative designed to facilitate the evolution of traditional IT architecture of enterprises into a cloud-based model. It is a combination of

technologies that include cloud computing, Big Data, IoT, 5G and SDN as components of Huawei’s cloudpipe-device strategy.

Samir I. Abdul Hadi, founder and CEO, SamTech Middle East, said, “SamTech’s innovative solutions and applications are conceived, planned and developed in Dubai to utilise state-of-the-art hardware applications in partnership with leading vendors in the Internet of Things (IoT) industry. We appreciate Huawei’s leadership in the intelligent transportation sphere and are proud to be partnering with them in the journey to revolutionise the regional transport landscape.”

97%

of educators in the MENA region believe that technology plays a big role in transforming education systems

Source: Microsoft

Seidor MENA brings HCM solution to Unikai Seidor MENA has solution including payroll announced that it management solution has been selected by with efficient employee Unikai to implement and management selfits Nomina solutions services to ensure their for managing human important assets human capital processes such resources who are their as payroll calculation active contributor to their Ignacio Ruiz de Eguilaz, and employees success.

Seidor MENA administration.

After a thorough Unikai is a food company in the evaluation of numerous solution Arabian Peninsula with wide range of within the market place, Unikai dairy, ice cream and juice products decided to implement the Seidor produced in UAE and sold both Nomina solution for the automation at the domestic and international of their payroll management markets. The company has been process. “We are very proud to using manual system to run their bring Unikai on board and support payroll. The acceleration in business their Human Capital Management growth and employee growth approach. Counting on the Nomina compelled Unikai to look for a solution Unikai will automate robust human capital management human capital management

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process in smarter ways which lets HR department to focus on the workforce more, and employees to focus on their jobs. Nomina is fully localised and compliant with UAE and other GCC Countries labour law and statutory requirements.

Keeping employees happy by paying them on time and keep yourself happy by having a better visibility over your cash flow are one of the most important in managing people. Our system is mature, and supported with number of references by leading companies in UAE. Seidor MENA is ready to give excellent support to leverage the system by getting full benefit of Nomina and make Unikai employees happy,” said Ignacio Ruiz de Eguilaz, Managing Director, Seidor MENA.

LandmarkShops revamps website

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andmarkShops.com, the flagship E-commerce and Omni-Channel initiative of the Landmark Group, has recently launched a brand new redesigned and reengineered version of its website.

The site features over 100 structural, design and technological improvements aimed at offering customers a simpler, faster, more useful and more exciting shopping experience, according to the company.

A brand new version of the Android app has been launched for a fresher, faster and more modern experience on-the-go. This new version is based on Google’s latest design philosophy – Material design – in line with best-in-class apps like YouTube, Gmail, Evernote, Slack and AirBnB. Additionally, the online shopping experience for leading home retailer Home Centre has become easier and more convenient, with the launch of Scheduled Deliveries. Home Centre’s

online shoppers can now choose a preferred date and time for their furniture deliveries. They also have the option to choose faster Express Delivery for an additional AED 250.

Savitar Jagtiani, Business Head, E-commerce, said, “We’re excited about the launch of what we believe is the best version of LandmarkShops ever. Delivering a great customer experience is easier said than done. The launch of the revamped website aims to bring a brand new LandmarkShops experience. The platform has over 100 improvements, a fresher, faster and more modern Android app along with Scheduled Deliveries for Home Centre, we believe that we continue to walk-the-walk on genuinely making our customers’ lives better.”

Bulwark signs VAD partnership with EnGenius Bulwark has signed a distribution agreement with EnGenius, a company specialising in wireless communications and radio frequency (RF) Jose Thomas, Bulwark technology for voice Technologies and data.

Under the agreement, Bulwark will promote and distribute EnGenius SMB and enterprise solutions through its extensive channel network of value-added resellers (VAR) and systems integrators (SI) across the GCC region except KSA. Jose Thomas Menacherry, CEO, Bulwark Distribution, said, “Through our competent resources, technical, sales and marketing experts and huge partner network, we are ready to distribute Engenius wide array of products to the market. We are very pleased to add EnGenius to our product portfolio and emphasise that we are now the value-added-distributor for Engenius, to the market. Their products highly complement our existing product portfolio.’’

GBM Bahrain hosts IT security event Gulf Business Machines (GBM) has revealed at an exclusive event for Bahrain’s business community, that nearly 50 percent of the GCC’s executives lack confidence in their organisations having the right tools to predict and prevent cyber-attacks.

The statistic was among a range of figures revealed at a GBM-hosted IT security event held in Bahrain.

The event brought industry-leading experts from Cisco and IBM together with customers to highlight the importance of best practice in securing data across the Kingdom.

Held under the theme of ‘How Can We Predict Cyber-Attacks?’ the event gave customers and IT experts the opportunity to discuss their views about security and highlight what

confirmed that their IT security budgets will either stay the same or organisations need to do to decrease in 2016. Hani prevent cyber-attacks.

Nofal, Vice President, “The event was an excellent Integrated Network opportunity to highlight the risks Solutions (INS) organisations in Bahrain still face Mobility and Security, from cyber-attacks. While there GBM, said, “The is a certain level of awareness, conference in Bahrain not enough is being done to Abdulla Ishaq, GBM has provided insight focus on predictive security, so that a proactive approach towards it is a pleasure for GBM to facilitate the cybersecurity can save significant necessary knowledge sharing between amounts of money for our customers industry-leading experts from our network, Cisco, IBM and our customers,” in the long-run. The learnings from our survey and today’s panel said Abdulla Ishaq, Country General discussion with experts of IBM and Manager, GBM Bahrain.

GBM’s findings at the event outlined Cisco, allow us to offer customers best practices on how to develop a holistic that despite a frequency of cybersecurity model, and gain continuous attacks, corporate investment in IT protection and visibility along their security is expected to decrease this entire security journey.” year. 71 percent of GCC executives

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highlights

Tintri, StorIT to offer new scale-out storage platform in MENA

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intri has distribute nine new Tintri announced a VMstore T5000 all flash new scalemodels with capacity out storage expansion capabilities, platform in VM Scale-out software, the Middle East and Tintri Analytics for North Africa to enable predictive capacity and enterprises and cloud performance planning, Suren Vedantham, StorIT service providers (CSPs) and two new Tintri Distribution to build their own Cloud offerings across Amazon-like cloud infrastructure the region. The simplicity of VAS for diverse virtualised workloads. enables organisations to scale The new platform forms the from 17 TB to 10 PB with a common foundation for the industry’s platform and less than one full largest all-flash scale-out, with time employee dedicated to support for up to 160,000 VMs, storage management.

10 petabytes of capacity, and 6.4 Suren Vedantham, Managing million IOPS, for less than $1/ Director, StorIT Distribution, said, GB. StorIT will be distributing the “We’ve recently partnered with new platform along with Tintri’s Tintri in the MENA region as its VMexisting portfolio. aware storage is ideal for customers StorIT will also help Tintri to who require data storage for

virtualised environments. Our customers require simplified management and high performance and with the new scale out storage platform from Tintri customers will have the ability to grow their own IT infrastructure. Unlike traditional scale out storage the Tintri solution can support tens of thousands of VMs, perfect for any enterprise or growing organisation. There is also the added bonus of Tintri’s predictive analytics which will automate the entire process and guarantee QoS.”

65.3%

year-on-year growth in wearables shipments in mea Q1 2016

Source: IDC

Fast Lane receives Microsoft Silver Learning Partner title Fast Lane Computer modern-day technology.

Consultancy has Mobile- first is not about announced it is now a mobility, but rather the Microsoft Silver Learning mobility of experiences Partner in the United that are orchestrated by Arab Emirates. the cloud platform. Cloud “We are proud computing and storage to be a part of the solutions provide users Microsoft’s Ecosystem,” and enterprises with said Josef Miskulnig, various capabilities to Josef Miskulnig, Fast Lane Founder and CEO, Fast store and process their Lane. “Microsoft’s mission is to data in third-party data centres, empower every individual and whereas, mobility encompasses the organisation across the globe to rich collection of data, applications, achieve more without the extra and services that accompany our push. As a training centre, we strive customers as they move from to build the best-in-class platforms various settings. This delicate and productivity services for a transformation can only be led by mobile-first, cloud-first world. By one of the best, and as a training doing so, we help individuals as centre, we are excited to partner well as organisations transform with Microsoft especially at a time the way they use and interact with when the mobile-first, cloud-first

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world is transforming the way individuals and organisations use and interact with technology.

“We are committed to deliver exceptional service and value to our customers by employing and dedicating the best technical team in the industry. Our designation as a Microsoft Silver Learning Partner only strengthens our portfolio and highlights our unique skill set. ” Fast Lane will now offer Microsoft’s complete certification training program in Dubai. With customers transitioning into the cloud and adopting new technologies the company’s main focus will be on the Cloud, Platform as a Service and Infrastructure as a Service offerings. Fast Lane has also enrolled into the Software Assurance Voucher Program (SATV).

Aptec Ingram Micro, Aruba ink distribution deal

A

ptec, an is authorised to distribute Ingram Micro all Aruba products in UAE, company has Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, announced Qatar, Yemen, KSA, Turkey that it signed a and Lebanon. distribution agreement with “We are confident Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Aptec’s deep Enterprise company. understanding of “Aruba’s advanced the market and their next-generation-mobility excellent technical Ali Baghdadi, Ingram Micro META products are a great expertise will greatly complement to our already strengthen Aruba’s strong network solutions,” said Ali reach throughout the region and Baghdadi, SVP and Chief Executive, help us penetrate the government, Ingram Micro’s META region. “Aruba hospitality, education and healthcare has great products and a very strong sectors, which are key verticals for mobility-technology offering.” our company,” said Osama Al HajUnder the agreement, Ingram Micro Issa, Channel Director, Aruba.

Canon expands 3D print offering in EMEA Canon Europe has announced that it will roll out its 3D print proposition across the EMEA region, following successful launches in nine territories since March 2015.

According to the company through the delivery of 3D printing, they were able to support their customers across the region expand their offerings, achieve faster time to market through rapid prototyping, enhance their sales propositions through concept modelling and improve production line efficiencies.

Furthermore, the firm highlighted that because of the rising interest in innovative technology solutions, they have been experiencing high growth of 3D print solutions within their core markets. Vertical segments including AEC (architecture, engineering and construction) and education industries have been demanding increased speed, agility and choice. Close collaboration with existing customers and in-

depth knowledge of their business and technology needs has allowed Canon to deliver the cutting-edge advice, skill development and technology required for clients to realise the 3D opportunity and invest in the future.

Chris Blake, Sales and Marketing Director, 3D Printing, Canon Europe, said, “The market for 3D printing is growing exponentially as customers are realising the huge commercial opportunities it presents. At Canon, we are dedicated to helping our customers seize that opportunity and supporting them with expertise and consultancy every step of the way. There has never been a better time to invest in 3D. From expanding propositions to fast and accurate prototyping, 3D print can unlock the potential of the most aspirational businesses in AEC and manufacturing. We will continue to build on our early success in 3D by investing further focus on maximising these opportunities for our customers.”

Malwarebytes partners with Redington Gulf Value Distribution Malwarebytes has recently announced the appointment of Redington Gulf Value Distribution as its first distributor Anthony O’Mara, in the Middle Malwarebytes East.

Anthony O’Mara, Malwarebytes VP, EMEA, said, “Our enterprise solution has a strong track record for being highly effective against the most advanced, pernicious threats. Because of this, we now protect over 10,000 businesses, detecting and blocking 605,000 threats per hour and saving 750 million IT hours on over 28 million endpoints.

Having recently started operations in Dubai and launched a channel offering headed up by newly appointed Executive Chris Green, the Silicon Valley-based company has significant momentum in the region. Redington Gulf Value Distribution will build upon this by providing a focal point for enterprise customers and resellers to purchase products through a local distributor. The partnership further supports Malwarebytes’ wider dedication to the channel in EMEA, joining an ever-growing operation in the UK, Ireland, Estonia, France, and Germany, with more to be announced in the coming months.

Hishamul Hasheem, VP, Security and Software, Redington Gulf, said, “Cybersecurity is a top priority for businesses across the Middle East and our mission is to provide organisations with the very latest technology that allows them to address these advanced threats.

Malwarebytes has established a great reputation for stopping and removing nefarious, cutting-edge threats. This is why we chose to work with the company.”

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appointments

Industry appointments An overview of the latest people movement within the IT channel business.

GBM Oman appoints Injazat Data Systems appoints new Deputy CEO new Country part of the Information and Mubadala, the Abu General Manager Communications Technology Dhabi investment and Gulf Business Machines (GBM) has announced the appointment of Iyad Al Chammat as the new Country General Manager for GBM Oman.

Iyad Al Chammat, GBM Oman Al Chammat will be responsible for aligning the company with transformational IT initiatives taking place across a range of the Sultanate’s business sectors.

Phillipe Jarre, Chief Executive Officer, GBM, said, “GBM is proud to have Iyad on board. His 20 years of system integration, operations, strategy and leadership experience will ensure that GBM Oman builds on its commitment to provide worldclass IT Solutions that supports the growth of companies across the Sultanate.”

Al Chammat aims to further nurture key GBM solutions around analytics, mobility, cloud, collaboration, data centres, digital innovation, security and enterprise content management.

“To be appointed the new Country General Manager for GBM Oman is both a tremendous honor and challenge.

My aim is to strengthen GBM Oman’s already healthy business to help the country continue to lead the region’s IT industry evolution. We have a very strong team at GBM Oman and I believe we will have a very successful future together,” said Al Chammat.

His leadership experience – including 12 years in a number of senior roles at Cisco, such as General Manager for Yemen, Oman and Afghanistan – will continue to develop GBM Oman’s customer portfolio, which includes some of the largest public and private sector enterprises in the country.

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team within the Aerospace & development company, Engineering Services Platform, has announced that and more recently was Amal Al-Jabri has been seconded into Injazat Data appointed Deputy CEO Systems to project manage of Injazat Data Systems, Amal Al-Jabri, Injazat one of its large strategic a regional IT managed Data Systems initiatives. In addition to her services company owned work with Mubadala’s ICT portfolio,

by Mubadala.

Amal led the critical educational and Homaid Al Shimmari, CEO, learning programs helping create the Aerospace and Engineering Services next generation of Science, Technology, (AES) at Mubadala, said, “Amal Al-Jabri Engineering and Math (STEM) talent in has distinguished herself as part of the UAE. Mubadala’s AES asset management “We are delighted to welcome Amal platform, and she will be an excellent addition to the Injazat team. Amal is an to the Injazat family. Her track record of leadership, sector knowledge and example of emerging UAE leadership practical experience, will be a great critical to sectors driving the country’s addition to the team. I look forward to diversification.” working with her in the future,” said Al-Jabri joins Injazat from Ibrahim Lari, CEO, Injazat Data Systems.

Mubadala where she was an integral

Xerox Corporation announces new CEO excellence and customer Xerox has announced focus that is in place today. that its board of directors As an independent company appointed Jeff Jacobson as and with the benefit of the the new Chief Executive strategic transformation we Officer for Xerox are aggressively implementing, Corporation, which will take we will capture the many effect upon the completion opportunities available of the company’s planned Jeff Jacobson, Xerox to us to strengthen core separation into two publicly businesses and pursue select growth traded companies. opportunities,” said Jacobson.

Jacobson currently serves as On 29th January 2016, Xerox president of Xerox Technology and will announced its plans to separate into continue in his current role until the two independent, publicly traded separation is complete. companies – Document Technology “I am honoured by the board’s and Document Outsourcing decision to appoint me to lead one of the world’s most iconic companies and businesses, and Conduent a business process services company. The confident that we will build a bright company is on track to complete the future for Xerox on the foundation of separation by the end of 2016. disciplined management, operational

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Opinion

IDC

Step up

Ashwin Venkatchari, Research Director, Imaging Printing and Document Solutions, IDC Middle East, Africa and Turkey, urges channel partners to move up the value chain to be a true solutions provider for customers.

With the macroeconomic outlook looking relatively pessimistic for the Gulf region in the short to medium term, it is now more important than ever to look for ways to maintain a competitive advantage. In the Middle East and Africa (MEA) hardcopy peripherals market, shipments declined 16.3 percent in volume and 16.6 percent in value year-on-year in 2015 to total 5.39 million units worth $1.99 billion.

Despite this overall decline, the two largest markets in the Middle East – the UAE and Saudi Arabia – were relatively resilient.

One of the trends emerging out of the data for 2015 was the robust

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year-on-year growth in both units and revenue seen in the UAE’s A3 laser segment.

This segment is important as it is not only the one that is most closely linked to print services contracts, but is also an overall indicator of continued growth potential within the country’s business sector. That said, projections for relatively low oil prices mean that the prevailing macroeconomic trends across the wider region do not favour substantial unit and value growth over the coming years.

While hardcopy documents remain at the core of business, necessary for everything from the drawing up of contracts for large deals to printing receipts for every day purchases, the trend towards the digitisation of documents and processes is leading to a slow decline in the volume of pages being printed.

The hardware offered by vendors has also become progressively more reliable, and with very little innovation taking place in the market (especially in the laser technology), the hardware refresh rates for printers and copiers have been slowing in recent times.

This all means that end users are keeping their devices for longer, choosing to continue buying consumables and servicing their existing equipment rather than purchasing new machines.

Accordingly, IDC’s forecasts relatively

pedestrian growth for the MEA print hardware devices market over the next five years, with shipments increasing at a compound annual growth rate of just 1.37 percent for both volume and value through to 2020. The growth in hardware will primarily be led by the region’s more developing economies, such as Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria, with the more mature markets experiencing slower unit and value growth. This is consistent with the global trend; as markets become more mature, the portion of total IT spending on hardware declines as the focus shifts to software and services.

This trend is already evident in the print ecosystems of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. While there has been a slowdown in overall hardware shipments in these two countries, we are seeing substantial growth in their print services markets, with revenue up 10.4 percent year-on-year in 2015 to total a combined $282.63 million. There is great scope for continued growth in this regard, as the penetration of print services compared to the total print hardware market is still much lower in MEA than in Western Europe and the US. Print vendors and the channel should take this period of market consolidation in hardware sales as a signal to make an important decision –

whether to remain a player in a hardware market that has limited growth prospects or move to a rapidly growing market that is embracing a more solutions-oriented approach. End users in both the private and public sectors have begun to demand print services as the acceptance of managed services for IT infrastructure accelerates.

The reasons why this solutions-based approach is becoming increasingly popular can be found in the benefits that organisations accrue in terms of cost savings, reduced downtime, and the reduction in support staff required to service hardware.

This trend is not confined to print services, as the move towards the third platform sees the convergence of Big Data, cloud, mobility and social business driving end-user purchasing patterns as firms look to technology in order to maintain a sustainable advantage.

Print services can form part of this strategy; for example, integrating mobility solutions with the existing print environment enables employees to become more efficient.

In practice, the shift from providing standardised hardware to a fully customised solution is a costly exercise. The channel – which is already operating on fairly narrow margins – cannot be expected to

The growth in hardware will primarily be led by the region’s more developing economies, such as Egypt, Kenya, and Nigeria, with the more mature markets experiencing slower unit and value growth. singlehandedly invest in the training and capacity required to enable the provision of print services.

Training the salesforce and hiring/retaining a pool of skilled engineers and consultants to service clients all requires significant commitment from channel partners wishing to provide print services. As such, the OEM print vendors will be required to support their channels, and while certain vendors have already implemented strategies to enable this support, there is still room for significant improvement.

Aside from this vendor support, the channel also has a role to play by providing feedback on the local market conditions. At the beginning of the sales process, the channel is in the best place to influence the market and buying decisions. It can be an active participant in pushing a solutions-based approach, highlighting the benefits to potential clients that may be lacking information in order to make the decision best suited to their needs.

As the partnership develops

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between the print services client and the provider, the channel is once again best placed to understand the requirements of the businesses they service and must be able to communicate these needs back to the vendors, as technology is continuously changing the way business is conducted.

This evolution will ultimately shift the market’s perception of the print channel from being a provider of a commoditised piece of hardware that was increasingly competing only on price, to being a solutions provider that is necessary for the efficient functioning of any business.

This is in line with the global trend that is seeing the print environment evolve towards providing businesses with solutions so that they can focus on doing what they do best.

Given the relatively flat outlook for print hardware growth in the MEA region (in contrast to projections for the growth in services), the time to move up the value chain is rapidly approaching.

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Promoted content

Service

centred Collin Clack, Head of Professional Services, Aptec - an Ingram Micro company, presents a detailed account of how channel partners can build a successful professional services business in the region.

What is the status quo of the professional services (PS) market in the Middle East and Africa?

According to a March 2015 report published by Service Performance Insight (SPI Research), the industry growth is currently at an average of 10 percent due to larger project backlogs. Talent management remains the top challenge with services organisations struggling to source and retain skilled resources due to the global skilled talent shortage.

What are the main influences on organisations’ decisions to procure professional services?

Trust is the key to ensuring that an organisation will purchase professional services. There is always a high level of insecurity when it comes to the procurement of services as it is not a tangible product like hardware and software and also does not come with any guarantees. As a result, the organisation will need to be assured that you have the competencies to be able to deliver. This level of trust is heavily influenced by your market reputation as a services organisation and the reference customers you have in your portfolio.

Can a channel partner play in the professional services space without the necessary training? What is the importance of acquiring certifications if you want to be successful in this space?

Appropriately trained and certified engineers are critical to a service organisation’s success. This provides the customer with the necessary confidence that their solution will be deployed and integrated based on the vendor’s best practices. A proper deployment ensures that the customer has a working solution that provides them with the maximum ROI of their hardware and software investment. In most instances, vendors require engineers to have current certifications

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before they are allowed to deploy the technologies. Without the certification in place, the partner will find it difficult receiving support from the vendor, should they face any challenges during the deployment. This requirement ensures the vendor that their brand reputation remains intact and that they do not have dissatisfied customers.

How is Aptec helping and guiding its channel partners to build successful professional services practices?

As a value-added distributor, we are helping our channel partners by either offering a full deployment for the solution sold or complementing their own services capabilities. This way they have a single point of contact from the solution design right through to project sign off from the customer. This significantly reduces the complexity when it comes to resource allocation and planning, when managing the project. Also, the fact that they only have to deal with one organisation and its policies and procedures rather than multiple ones, further helps. This reduces both cost and project timelines.

What type of professional services are you encouraging your channel partners to be offering in the market?

Aptec as a value-added distributor has its own Professional Services arm. Therefore, we are able to offer our channel partners, a full-fledged solution that includes hardware, software and the complete deployment and integration of the solution that has been sold to their end-users. We have developed a detailed and customised ‘Statement of Work’ for each service that we propose as part of the solution design.

Which professional services show the greatest potential for growth in MEA for partners, and why?

With CIOs now having a mandate to reduce their OPEX, the biggest areas of opportunity in the services arena are managed services with clearly defined SLAs and Resident Engineers (outsourcing). This also means that the

challenges of finding the right resource with correct level of skills are also moved from the company’s HR department to the services provider.

What kinds of margin can channel partners expect to make if they move into the IT professional services segment?

There are many factors that influence the margin that a Professional Services unit will be able to make. One of the key influences is the billable utilisation of your resource pool.

If you are able to ensure a minimum of 60 percent billable utilisation then you could expect to be making margins of between 40 to 50 percent. However, one should bear in mind that in an IT solutions organisation that is able to offer professional services as part of their portfolio, there are additional benefits as well. It costs a significant amount of time and effort to acquire new customers. The PS arm of a business is crucial in ensuring that the customer has a good experience during implementation. A good experience during this part of the cycle will ensure that a customer will be retained and therefore provide repeatable business opportunities throughout the business units.

How do you see the IT services in general and professional services market in particular evolving in MEA in the coming year?

Implementation, post sales annual maintenance contracts and consulting have been the backbone of the services industry for many years. As the region is maturing, there has been an acceptance of the concept of remote services and cloud services. This is particularly prevalent in the SMB market where many of their day-to-day IT operations activities have now been outsourced to MSP. I foresee more and more customers making use of these services to reduce the cost and complexity of managing their IT infrastructure themselves.

What can your channel partners expect from Aptec in the IT professional services space in the next 12 months?

We currently have services capability to deploy NetApp, Symantec, Veritas, VMware, Veeam, Intel Security, Cisco and Brocade technologies. We are expanding our services offerings to include implementation and consulting services in the cybersecurity domain. We are now offering implementation services for IBM Guardium, QRadar and BigFix. We are also able to offer consulting services for penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, application security, network security, mobile application security assessment, source code audit and web malware removal. Our focus over the next 12 months will be to expand our services offerings around cybersecurity.

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interview arrow

The right path Vimal Kocher, the newly-appointed Managing Director of Arrow ECS, aims to strengthen its solutions-oriented business model through strategic initiatives.

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Arrow ECS has been building its solutions model for the last two years and that continues to be the focus for Vimal Kocher, who has recently taken over the reins of the distribution firm.

Coming with almost three decades of experience, Kocher believes the way forward is by offering a complete suite of solutions to customers via robust channel partnerships.

He says, “One of Arrow’s core competencies is to bring together complete solution for our solution providers by providing them with access to a comprehensive portfolio of innovative IT products, software, solutions, and services offered by some of the best-of-breed global vendors.

“We have long-standing relationships with some of the largest and most innovative IT vendors in the industry. We also provide our customers with a complete solutions range that includes consulting, training, logistics and distribution, marketing and technical support to end-users.”

According to the MD, a good value proposition can help to survive in the market even when the going gets tough. This has aided the distributor to achieve its targets in the last quarter.

“The current market circumstances are most likely to affect those companies who are vendor focused and deal in the volume business.

But those who have the solutions portfolio and support the partners from that perspective won’t be

impacted significantly.

“There is a slowdown in the market but if you have a strong value proposition then it will work,” he says.

Cloud offering is the distributor’s global strategy and ArrowSphere is the pillar of that offering.

According to the company, it is a multi-tier technology platform that simplifies the connection between cloud services providers, cloud services resellers and business users.

Kocher adds, “We understand that solution providers face considerable challenges in transitioning into a comprehensive

opportunities and if it fit with our local strategy, go for it. We are working on a couple of new opportunities where Arrow Corporate has worldwide relationships and depending upon our evaluation, will move forward.”

In the next couple of quarters, we will see the distributor bringing in new technologies, especially in the security and converged infrastructure segments, which is growing at a fast pace in the region.

According to Kocher, the emergence of thirdplatform technologies is making security

“We aim to develop partners on hyper-converged infrastructure where end customers want to have integrated solution with respect to their infrastructure.” service practice cloud solutions. Currently, we are looking into the cloud offering and evaluating the market so as to launch ArrowSphere in the region.

Post several meetings with our key partners and end customers, we believe there is an opportunity here.”

The company is aiming to introduce ArrowSphere in the region by year end.

Arrow is constantly looking to add on new technology offerings to complete its portfolio and provide end-to-end solutions within each segment for its customers.

“We always look for new

requirements more complex; traditional approaches such as virus protection, firewalls and network access control (NAC) are required but are no longer enough.

“Enterprises now need to deploy sophisticated multilayer security solutions to keep up with today’s constantly evolving threat landscape. State-of-theart authentication and encryption solutions are replacing basic passwordbased solutions that no longer meet today’s security requirements,” he says.

“Threat intelligence solutions are now required

to anticipate potential threats and managed security services are increasingly being sought out and delivered by specialist service providers.”

Arrow’s role is to ensure enterprises’ data and interests are secure without inhibiting their employees, customers or innovations. In the Middle East region, its security portfolio includes Trend Micro, Checkpoint, F5, Gigamon, IBM Security, Infoblox, McAfee, RSA, and Force Point (Websense).

“We see the adoption of converged infrastructure is gaining pace in the market.

The concept of converged infrastructure provides data centres with an ‘all–in-one’ solution for the entire infrastructure.”

The company’s converged infrastructure offering includes VCE and EMC, VSPEX Blue HyperConverged Infrastructure.

“We aim to develop partners on hyperconverged infrastructure where end customers want to have integrated solution with respect to their infrastructure. We are aggressively working on EMC VxRail for enterprise and mid-market segment.

We are enabling our partners so they can offer end-to-end solutions to their customers. We have created demo pool so as to support our partners,” he adds.

The distributor considers training and partner enablement to be critical elements of its channel strategy.

“Our engineers are fully certified and specialised in providing technical expertise and counsel

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not just on individual products, but also in giving an integrated solution approach,” he says. “Our channel enablement programmes assist solution providers to grow demand, explore new market segment and spot new opportunities with endcustomers. We focus a lot on enabling our partners because they function as our extended arms.”

He believes channel financing and adequate credit analysis are lacking in the regional channel market.

In this regard, the former is one of the initiatives partners can expect from Arrow over the next couple of months.

“I see a lack of financing proposition in the market, which has been the case since the last decade. My experience is that if we really work on this, we can achieve the growth from the distribution point of view.

We are discussing with a couple of companies on how we can bring channel financing to the region.”

Kocher says, backed by resources and strength of being part of a Fortune 150, a $23 billion company, the distributor serves as a trusted advisor to its solution providers, supporting and enabling them to help their end-customers to manage IT complexity and deliver desired business benefits and results.

“Arrow is there to support the partners, to enable them in the marketplace and make them more competitive. We are offering the complete suite of products and solutions so that partners can satisfy the customer needs.”

Reseller Middle East july 2016

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Cover feature new vendors

New vistas

The Middle Eastern region is laden with opportunities as third platform technologies are increasingly being explored and businesses are looking to operate in a more efficient and secure manner. Reseller ME speaks to new players to discover how they can best capitalise on these growing prospects and what role their channel partners will play.

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www.resellerme.com

Attivo Networks Ray Kafity, Vice President

HQ: USA Regional distributor: StarLink

Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, Attivo Networks was founded in 2011 and established business in the META region earlier this year in February.

“Our regional offices are based in Dubai. We are a leader in dynamic deception technology, which in realtime detects intrusions inside the network, data centre, and cloud before the data is breached. Not reliant on signatures, Attivo uses

high-interaction deception techniques to lure BOTs/APTs to reveal themselves and provides actionable alerts and the forensics to shut down cyber-attacks,” says Ray Kafity, Vice President, Attivo Networks META. The company believes there are extensive opportunities in the Middle East market across multiple verticals such as government, financials and banking, oil and

gas, telecommunication, healthcare and education.

Kafity says, “Our channel strategy is 100 percent partner driven. We operate a two-tier distribution strategy with StarLink as our regional distributor, serving 20 plus local resellers and partners across META region.”

He further adds the challenge the company faces is around the lack of market awareness about the insider cyber threat

lifecycle and the means to defend against them.”

The company hopes to be the dominant cyber deception platform solution across META by the end of this year.

Kafity says, “Cyber breaches are inevitable.

CISO and security officers have to balance their spending between prevention technologies and insider threat detection and defense.”

the processes within their clients’ Office of Finance.”

This typically results in value-added services such as implementation, training, process optimisation, and change management.

The opportunities from services is an area in which partners can differentiate themselves.

An ideal partner for the company will be one who sells ERP or CPM software or has built a practice that transforms and optimises

finance and accounting.

“Also, if you are an on-premise ERP reseller looking for a cloud software that does not disrupt operations or just looking for a way to grab the attention of the CFO, then BlackLine is the right solution for you,” says Di Paolo. “Our primary business objective is to partner with a select number of ERP and CPM resellers and quickly identify opportunities in the Middle East.”

BlackLine

Kim Di Paolo, VP, Global Partner Channel HQ: USA Regional distributors: To be announced

Having identified a huge potential in the regional market for its solutions, BlackLine, a provider of Enhanced Finance Controls and Automation (EFCA) software and a unified cloud platform supporting the entire close-to-disclose process, is looking to sign up with channel partners.

Kim Di Paolo, VP, Global Partner Channel, BlackLine, says, “We recognise the importance of the local relationships and situational fluency

our partners have with their clients and within their region. Our programme is designed so that partners have an opportunity to strengthen the relationships with their customers.

“Partners are not only solving problems for their clients through our solutions but also earning first-year and recurring revenue in the process.

In addition, we have allowed our partners to gain greater visibility into

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Cover feature new vendors

Centrify

Kamel Heus, Regional Manager HQ: USA Regional distributor: ComGuard

Prior to the opening of its office in Dubai during the first quarter of 2016, Centrify managed the regional business from its UK office and through its channel network.

A leader in securing enterprise identities against cyber threats that target today’s hybrid IT environment of cloud, mobile and onpremises, the company helps protect against the leading point of attack used in data

breaches ― compromised credentials — by securing an enterprise’s users as well as its privileged accounts.

“Since the MEA is one of our fastest growing regions, we felt it was important to have a local office in Dubai to support our growing number of customers and resellers,” says Kamel Heus, Regional Manager, MEA, Centrify.

The company has implemented a two-tier channel strategy in the

region – one well-established distributor with a strong channel network of dedicated systems integrators and value-added resellers (VARs).

“We strongly believe in long-term relationships and have extended full commitment to our channel partners so that they can add greater value to their customers. We also enable our channel partners by holding regular training programmes and

workshops and supporting their sales efforts.”

The company has signed a VAD deal with ComGuard for the region.

“Centrify is underdistributed in the region and we aim to keep it that way in order for our partners to maximise their ROI. Our go-to-market partners are SIs and VARs focused on security and/or identity management in the enterprise and midsize space.”

Fidelis Cybersecurity

Roland Daccache, Senior Systems Engineer HQ: USA Regional distributors: Credence Security, Redington Gulf and Spectrami Operating in the Middle East for less than three years, Fidelis Cybersecurity enables organisations to reduce the time to detect and resolve incidents, prevent data theft and stop attackers at every stage of the lifecycle.

“Our complete portfolio of products combined with threat intelligence enables organisations to proactively get one step ahead of the attacker before they achieve their goal,” says Roland Daccache, Senior Systems Engineer, Fidelis

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Cybersecurity.

The company believes the current political and economic uncertainty in the region are in part giving rise to increased cybercriminal activities.

“Traditional solutions are no longer able to respond to the changing landscape.

Organisations need to look not just at products but also services to help address their changing security needs.”

Fidelis’ channel programme includes a

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network of authorised commercial and government resellers, certified partners and value-added distributors. Along with UAE and Saudi Arabia, which are its biggest markets, it also has a strong presence in Kuwait and Jordan.

“We always welcome new partners to join forces with Fidelis, providing them with help for onboarding, training, opportunity registration and marketing development funds for building awareness and demand generation. In

addition, channel partners gain preferred access to our products and solutions at adjusted prices,” adds Daccache.

Currently, the company’s main distributors are Credence Security, Redington Gulf and Spectrami.

“We are looking for partners who are keen to work with Fidelis, who want to enable their customers’ transformation and help them evolve to defend against the latest threats.”

Genetec

Firas Jadalla, Regional Director, MEA HQ: Canada Regional distributor: Connexiox and Aligntech

Genetec has recently moved to its new offices in DAFZA, which will be the headquarters for its Middle East and Africa (MEA) operations. The company has executed many large scale projects in the region and has worked on several citywide, government and transportation installations throughout the Middle East.

For over 15 years, the company has led the development of unified IP

security solutions globally.

The company creates added-value by partnering with like-minded organisations that are equally dedicated to hearing what customers say and driven to innovate.

Firas Jadalla, Regional Director, MEA, Genetec, says, “We focus on building strong relationships with dedicated integrators and distributors in the region, as well as on forming partnerships with

other technology leaders.

Much of our success comes from the mutual respect and long-term loyalty built with all our partners.”

The company’s distributors in the UAE include Connexiox and Aligntech.

“We place a high premium on the value of our relationships with partners.

This can be attributed to our best-in-class integrators and distributors who possess in-depth experience and

knowledge of security system engineering and IT, enabling us to provide innovative solutions around the world.”

Over the next few months, the company is looking to expand its presence further in the Middle East market.

“We are currently expanding in Saudi Arabia by hiring additional regional sales managers dedicated to serve the western part of the Kingdom,” he adds.

million people with nearly 40 percent aged between 15 and 35, who are open to new technology and have easy access to favourable Internet infrastructures.

Yu explains that the company is at an early stage of building overseas channel architecture and will go to market through its channel partners, which fall into two tiers. The first tier is the distributor or valueadded partner and tier-two includes premium and certified partners.

“We are pushing both hardware and software products to the international market, however, our ultimate goal is to acquire more users using Remix OS to achieve our goal as the world’s third billion user OS.” The company is yet to finalise any distribution agreement within the region.

However, they are in the process of negotiating with several local distributors and resellers and we will hear more about it towards the end of the year.

Jide Technology

Johnson Yu, International Sales Director HQ: China Regional distributors: To be announced Jide Technology, well known in regions such as North America, EU, SEA and parts of Africa, made its first strategic move into the region only recently.

“Sponsoring Reseller ME Partner Excellence Awards 2016 represented a good start for us as we had the opportunity to meet with local channel players and make crucial connections to begin operation in ME,” says Johnson Yu, International Sales Director, Jide Technology.

As of now, the company is yet to establish a branch in the region. However, it is in the cards, says Yu. “We see the Middle East as a market with great potential for our brand ‘Remix’ and therefore are in the process of looking for ideal partners in the region to kick-start our business.”

According to Yu, there are several opportunities in the region– from being open for trade and sporting a friendly business culture to having a population of over 200

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Cover feature new vendors

Malwarebytes

Christopher Green, Regional Director, Middle East HQ: USA Regional distributor: Redington Gulf Value Distribution

Having entered the Middle Eastern channel market earlier this year, Malwarebytes aims to build out a sustainable channel and replicate the high trajectory of growth it has seen in Europe region locally.

Christopher Green, Regional Director, Middle East, Malwarebytes, says, “We will increase the local team with additional sales and technical resources

to accelerate our demand generation capabilities.”

The company’s solutions protect consumers and businesses against malicious threats that escape detection by traditional antivirus solutions.

“The Middle East has some of the largest malware infection rates in the world. Since 2012, every country in the region has had at least

double the number of infected systems than the global average.

This makes the region highly important for the company.”

The firm has signed Redington Gulf Value Distribution as its first distributor in the region earlier in the year. With a strong channel-focused strategy in the Middle East, it will announce more distribution partners in

the coming months.

“We look for channel partners that offer impeccable customer service and are experts in security, as well as their markets. This is a massive opportunity for both us and our channel so we want partners who are going to use their trusted advisor roles with the customers to help us make the region more secure,” adds Green.

support they need to deliver our services to their customers.”

Relying on its distribution partners to support the brand and help grow its customer base by means of their reseller networks, the company values channel commitment.

“Distributors must have commitment to understanding our business and products, commitment to their resellers and endusers to ensure a positive customer experience, and

commitment to helping develop our brand in the market and educating businesses on how we can help them to protect themselves,” he adds.

Bekker says the company found not having permanent presence in the region impacting its ability to build the brand.

“But with our offices opening in Dubai we hope to overcome that challenge and be more available to serve the needs of our growing network.”

Mimecast

Brandon Bekker, Managing Director HQ: United Kingdom Regional distributors: Bulwark and Progress Mimecast’s presence in the region continues to be strengthened through channel partnerships.

Brandon Bekker, MD, Mimecast MEA, says, “Through our security, archiving and continuity cloud services, we deliver comprehensive email risk management in one fullyintegrated subscription service. Mimecast reduces the risk, complexity and cost traditionally associated with protecting email.”

The company has

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established working partnerships with two security focused distributors – Bulwark and Progress enabling them access to a large network of resellers across the region.

Bekker adds, “As a fully channel-based organisation, we have a robust channel programme to support our distributors, and integrate our products into their resellers’ service stacks; providing them with the educational tools, sales enablement and marketing

www.resellerme.com

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Cover feature new vendors

NetScout

Abhishek Hajra, Regional Director, Middle East and Africa HQ: USA Regional distributor: FVC, Al-Jammaz Distribution and Bitrate

Having announced the launch of its extended portfolio at GITEX 2015, NetScout, a provider for service assurance and cybersecurity solutions, hopes to continue its market expansion plans over the course of this year.

It has recently launched Connect 360, which is a multitiered channel programme. It is designed to enable highlyvalued partners to sell more effectively and profitably by providing access to sales and

technical resources that they need to be successful.

Abhishek Hajra, Regional Director, Middle East and Africa, NetScout, says, “The MyNETSCOUT partner portal provides partners with a convenient, onestop online destination for accessing the company’s solution knowledgebase, obtaining collateral materials, registering sales opportunities and applying for marketing event funds.

“As part of Connect 360, a

global, channel management team will be dedicated to supporting all authorised partners, including training, enablement and certification of the partner base and assisting when necessary on a pre-sales and post-sales basis.”

The company has signed regional distributors providing coverage of specific geographies such as FVC for GCC, Al Jammaz for KSA and Bitrate for Sub Saharan Africa.

When it comes to selecting a channel partner, the company looks for those who focus on value-selling.

“These kind of partners will align with our go-tomarket strategy. NetScout solutions require higher technical skillset and a value selling approach, which in turn provides them with higher margin rewards to cover costs. We want to develop long-term strategic relations with our partner community.”

PNY Technologies

Talus Arukalil, Regional Manager HQ: USA Regional distributors: Redington Gulf, Trigon and Mediasys

(more to be announced soon)

PNY Technologies Middle East began soft operations since January, 2016 and have been in full-fledged operations since April, this year.

Talus Arukalil, Regional Manager, PNY Technologies, says, “We see it as a great opportunity to expand our footprint in Middle East, Africa and Levant and we are now in the position to offer a full assortment of products

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through three known and trusted brands – Imation, HP and of course PNY. “We will be focusing to build all of our product categories, which include PNY portfolio of storage and mobility accessories, optical and storage category of Imation, HP branded flash drives, professional and consumer graphics cards from NVIDIA through distribution network with

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expertise in respective product category.”

Having acquired the Imation business in ME, the company also gained their well-established distribution network.

Arukalil says, “For new products categories, we are looking for new distribution with focus per country.”

With a wide range of product portfolio, the company is looking to join

hands with partners to build up business in their respective expertise.

“With complementing product categories, our aspirations are to add more value to the partnership. As 2016 is our launch year, we target to build distribution network across the region, gain retail listings and establish the ME operation to prepare for future opportunities,” he adds.

Pure Storage

Christian Putz, Director, EEMEA HQ: USA Regional distributor: Global Distribution and Spectrami

Provider of all-flash storage solutions, Pure Storage established a legal entity in the Middle East more than a year ago.

Christian Putz, Director, EEMEA, Pure Storage says verticals such as banking, insurance, telco and large retailers have been most receptive to enterprise flash storage.

The company operates a channel programme known as the P3 Programme, which is focused on enablement

and education.

Putz adds, “It is designed for partners who are focused on Pure, and on selling flash.

The more of their resources they commit to being trained and educated on selling a Pure all-flash array, the more we invest back in them. From a sales perspective, we are also now producing tools for our partners, similar to the ones we use with customers, such as flash selling guides, TCO calculator tools and Evergreen Storage proposals.

“We are also applying a lot of focus on enabling our partners’ technical teams.

We are training them on building our solutions, including our converged offering (Flashstack), and being able to install and support our product.”

The company has been working with Global Distribution for the last two years and has signed up with Spectrami in 2015.

“We are looking for partners that have significant

long-term customer relationships rather than short-term opportunistic oneoff projects,” he says. “We are a 100 percent channelfocused business so the partner is a representation of Pure in the market.”

The company is also focusing on SIs and solution providers.

Over the next year, we will see the company continuing to expand its product lines, presence and strengthening partner network.

Silver Peak

Bhaskar Peruri, Regional Sales Manager, Middle East HQ: USA Regional distributor: FVC

Silver Peak entered the region in early 2014, having identified it to be a highgrowth market.

Bhaskar Peruri, Regional Sales Manager, Middle East, Silver Peak, says, “The Middle East is transitioning from a hardware-based environment to a softwarebased one, and this shift is laden with opportunities for us.

“SD-WAN, in particular, is growing in popularity;

with the Internet becoming increasingly business-critical to organisations, the demand for SD-WAN is growing.”

The company’s strength lies in providing easy-touse, simple and flexible software-defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) solutions, while costeffectively utilising both Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) and the Internet to reduce costs to the end-user.

The company believes

the channel needs a better understanding of new technologies that are being released and need to get closer to their customers.

“Silver Peak’s objective is to better educate channel partners via training, and to better negotiate the gap between them and their customers.”

The company has partnered with FVC for the MEA region. While in Qatar, the company works closely

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with Qatar Datamation Systems (QDS) and Oregon Systems in Bahrain.

“Some of our key partners in Oman are Sultan and MHD Infotech. Among our most recent partners are Gerab System Solutions in Dubai and we are in dialogue with MTS and others.

We’re expanding our reach across the region, and are supported by some of the strongest players in the field,” he adds.

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Cover feature new vendors

ThreatQuotient

Anthony Perridge, Regional Director HQ: USA

ThreatQuotient aims to revolutionise cyber defense capabilities by building analyst-driven applications that help organisations manage threat intelligence and defend against sophisticated cyber-attacks.

The company has been working with partners in the region for just over three months through a single tier model.

The company has recently launched a Threat Alliance Program

(TAP), which is uniquely designed to work with all types of partners from resellers and strategic vendors to Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs), and Value-added Resellers (VARs), according to Anthony Perridge, Regional Director, ThreatQuotient.

Embracing a 100 percent focus on the channel while maintaining a vendor agnostic approach, TAP is a multi-tiered channel

partner programme committed to the success of various types of partners by providing them with flexible levels of investment based on their unique business goals and growth strategies.

“With competitive margins, deal registration protection, NFR programmes, training and certification, TAP partners have the tools necessary to meet and exceed sales goals,” he

adds. “Furthermore, TAP provides partners with a deep understanding of and access to ThreatQuotient’s Threat Intelligence Platform (TIP), ThreatQ, allowing them to address their customer’s unique threat intelligence needs today and in the future.”

The company believes the market has highgrowth opportunities and plans to scale through with its channel network.

ZyXEL

Arsalan Abbasi, VP, Sales HQ: Taiwan Regional distributors: SNB Middle East and Global Distribution

Three years ago, ZyXEL began operations in the Middle East region with the aim to replicate its success in Europe and US markets through a structured and wellorganised channel approach.

Arsalan Abbasi, VP, Sales, ZyXEL, says, “With all the necessary tools and resources, our partners are free to create and sell enterprise-level solutions tailored to their customers’ needs.”

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The company’s partner programme is reserved for value-added resellers that work face-to-face with their customer base and provide consulting. The programme members must also sell their networking and security products in the MEA region and have a purchasing relationship with an authorised ZyXEL distributor.

“We are working with SNB ME as a VAD in UAE, KSA and Qatar. We are also working

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with Global Distribution for business in the UAE. We are working closely with distributors to develop effective channel and identify new channel partners.”

The company selects those partners who have the ability to position its product in the right way, has the insight and the right strategy to help grow its market share.

“A strong local presence coupled with a good technical background helps to reach

out to the customers in a more effective way,” he says.

Although the year has been challenging, Abbasi says, the company has maintained its growth in business.

“We are aggressively working to reach out to more resellers and have also joined hands with some leading SIs. We continue to expand our reach to new territories and launch of new products to address competition and market demands,” he adds.

For more information or to place an order on Red Hat, please write to sales.value@redingtongulf.com

feature

Prospects in peripherals

Reseller ME speaks to industry experts to learn how channel partners can monetise the opportunities present in the peripherals market.

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The peripherals market globally has gone through several curves over the last few years. In the recent past, the segment has suffered slightly, considering the overall market circumstances – declining oil prices and currency fluctuations.

According to an IDC report, the Middle East hardcopy peripherals (HCP) markets deteriorated year-on-year in both volume and value in Q1 2015. However, players in the segment are positive that with the right go-to-market strategy, the numbers will climb up.

“The market for display solutions is growing at reasonable pace and in the recent past, we have witnessed a steady stream of projects around the Middle

East and Africa region,” says Vineet Sebastian, Regional Director, Philips, AOC. “This has helped us shaped our fortunes in the market and both of our monitor brands AOC and Philips have fared well enabling us a double digit growth, defying the market trends in the region.”

Another IDC report indicated that the worldwide production print market continues to show year-over-year growth in unit shipments, gaining 9.9 percent in the third quarter of 2015. According to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly Production Printer Tracker, unit shipments increased to approximately 10,500 units (printers and MFPs) and shipment value increased 5.9 percent to more than $1.2 billion in the same time period.

Pui Chi Li, Head of Marketing for Middle East and Africa, Xerox, says, “Consumers in the United Arab Emirates tend to be highly brand-conscious and enthusiastic early adopters of technological innovations. High disposable income levels in the country also encourage many consumers to be open to new launches such as our various digital offerings - Connect Key technology and its duplex portable scanners. With consumers spending an increasing amount of time online, portability will be of key importance in the forecast period.”

According to Sebastian, it is very important for every channel partner to identify the growth segments in the economy and arm themselves with what customers want.

The peripherals and accessories market in the Middle East will grow significantly driven by proliferation of connected devices, increasing disposable income of consumers in urban areas in GCC and growing Internet penetration, which in turn is leading to the rising preference of consumers towards online retail in these regions.”

Pui Chi Li, Head of Marketing for Middle East and Africa, Xerox

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Prospects in peripherals

“In display solutions market, we have observed that the B2B segment has witnessed decent gains and partners should look at addressing this market. Our products offer quality technology also value for money.

“Together with AOC and Philips monitors, our product portfolio boosts the widest range of display solutions that enables a partner to scale up its offerings to its customer and I am sure any channel partner with such an ability will be able optimise their margins,” he says.

According to Johnson Yu, International Sales Director, Jide Technology, the key is to offer clients and customers differentiation through innovation. “With a software solution like Remix OS, you are able to obtain a competitive edge in two forms of innovation: technology and cost,” he says. “You have the latest operating system that expands the possibilities of mobile technology while offering traditional PC functionalities at a fraction of the cost. At the end of the day, giving the customer the best value is a primary driver for growth.”

The first aspect partners need to ensure is that they need to be convinced of the product that they are selling. Customers are seeking partners who can guide them in their digital transformation and that

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means, having enough knowledge to be in a position to counsel. In this regard, channel partners have the opportunity to increase their margins in this segment by focusing on value-added services.

According to Sebastian, services is definitely a very important aspect.

“This is one of the key factors in differentiating the success of channel partners. Services can allow partners to win projects and also make them stand out from the crowd. Depending on the customer requirements, partners can bundle their services along with the products.”

Xerox strongly believes that integrating technology and services into one offering to the customer is the future.

Chi Li says, “This approach provides USP benefits and introduces a consultative interaction with customers driving out better margin opportunities and longevity in customer relationships as you explore ways to answer their document management needs.”

Agreeing, Yu from Jide Technology says, “Resellers can and should bundle their offering with services and we encourage such attempts to create more use cases and offerings.

“In this scenario, Jide provides the basic function or core value of the bundle and the reseller adds

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value to it. We will also give training and technical support to partners.”

But for partners to be able to climb the ladder and become the trusted advisor that customers are looking for, they need to work hand-in-hand with vendors.

Sebastian adds, “Vendors and channel partners needs to work closely as a team.

And, also vendors should support their partners with knowledge and information that is critical to identify the real requirements of customers before offering them any product or solution. Box pushing is no longer a viable business model but understanding the customer’s need is the most important task while selling.”

Chi Li says vendors can play a key role in enabling partners identify opportunities in this market by ensuring they are a part of ideal partner programme for their business.

“For example,” she says, “the new Xerox Partner Plus Program is designed to help channel partners take advantage of current and future market opportunities by focusing on employee development and training.

Identified training and learning paths for the sales people, analysts and technicians of our partners will lead to a highly-skilled workforce to better meet the needs of current and future customer demands.”

Jide makes sure partners have easy access to its resources, says Yu.

“We have our own source of leads information through our global user community and Jide keeps pace with the latest trend in the industry by our own team’s market research and sharing from strategic partners. Jide will dispatch internal periodic potential lead summarisations and also updates from our social networking accounts to partners.”

Chi Li says, “The peripherals and accessories market in the Middle East will grow significantly driven by proliferation of connected devices, increasing disposable income of consumers in urban areas in GCC and growing Internet penetration, which in turn is leading to the rising preference of consumers towards online retail in these regions.

“Increasing adoption of mobile devices among the youth in the GCC region is providing significant stimulus for growth of the electronic accessories market in the region.”

Partners need to focus on thinking outside the box to develop relevant services that add value to the customer. By constantly keeping an eye on market trends and understanding the customer’s requirements well, channel partners can optimise the opportunities present in the peripherals segment.

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vendor focus

canon

Unleash print At Drupa 2016, a global trade show for print enthusiasts, Reseller ME sat down with Venkatasubramanian Hariharan, Regional Sales Director, Canon Middle East, to learn about the company’s channel play.

Can you discuss the channel strategy and how it has evolved with the current times?

Traditionally, we have worked in a single distribution model, where Canon works with the distributor who is then responsible for the channel development among the tier-two partners.

This model has worked well for us. However, over the years, the market has evolved and our fundamental strategy has been to establish closer ties with the customers.

Our idea is to move into a three-dimensional model, where we handle products, channel and also engage with tier-two partners. We will not be selling to the second channel as that will only be handled by the distributor. Nevertheless, we aim to enable them to sell more efficiently through better marketing of our products. This involves training, product offering and helping the distributor to improve their sales. The communication will be directly from the Canon sales team to tier-two partners.

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What kind of support can partners expect from Canon?

Apart from our regular training and enablement programmes, one of the things we do is send our sales personnel along with resellers to help close leads.

This way we add value to our tier-two partners at the same time they understand what is coming straight from the vendor. For tier-one distribution, the value-add is where we are helping them to take the technology directly to the resellers and making sure the sales are getting better.

From a sales perspective, we want to address the channel with the company’s whole portfolio. In whichever area, specialist expertise is required, we bring in business development managers from the product team so that we ensure every opportunity from a product and offering point of view is maximised. That is how we are trying to increase our market share too.

Also, the market has gradually moved from single distribution model to a multiple one, considering the channel dynamics of the

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region. Distributors need to move away from pushing boxes and focus on adding value. For us to have the end-to-end coverage, we are working on developing the existing channel and partnering with other distributors to target different segments. We have multiple distributors for different segments in most countries and we are also able to rightly manage the competition between them, if any.

Low margins have continued to plague the channel community over the years. How is Canon addressing this issue?

Eroding margins have now become a part of life, however, Canon has been supportive of how we are able to provide value rather than compete on prices. We also encourage our distributors to add more value, for example, offer bundles and provide more warranty, rather than cutting on prices. Partners should also focus more on providing related services along with their existing offerings. The customer is no longer talking about the box but about an end-to-end

solution and that is Canon’s strength. Although we provide product knowledge, training, expertise and support in helping close deals, the end delivery has to be managed by partners.

According to you, how can partners advance to the next level?

The most important aspect is to understand customers’ requirements. To achieve this, they need to be upto-date with technology development and have resources for know-how transfer. This is also one of the biggest challenges for resellers. Today customers are well-informed and partners need to cope up with the evolution of their demand. They need to have resources within them who are as resourceful and knowledgeable so that they can find the right solution for customers’ needs.

What is your message for partners from Drupa 2016?

Canon has priorities set and we are progressing well across verticals. We encourage our partners to ‘unleash print’ and benefit from the opportunities.

For more information, please contact arrow team on + 971 4 501 5814 | www.arrowecs.ae

AOC-mmd vendor focus

In full view

Vineeth Sebastian, Regional Sales Director, MEA, MMD and AOC, shares the company’s expansion plans and focus for the year.

AOC-MMD has worked on developing its channel strength over the last two years.

Recently it has appointed Trigon as the authorised distributor for its entire range of monitors for UAE, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Iran.

According to Vineeth Sebastian, Regional Sales Director, MEA, MMD and AOC, partners can now experience a robust programme put together for the channel.

He says, “Now that we have a consistent partner in Trigon, we can strengthen our channel initiatives. In this regard, Partnernet, our partner programme, is one aspect. However, we also plan to do cash-back and rebate programmes besides our regular channel activities and loyalty programmes.”

The vendor also plans to organise activities for its partners around GITEX 2016. For the company, building its distribution base has been a priority in the last two years.

Trigon was a distributor for the company’s Philips brand for over a year and

continues the partnership to AOC this year. Redington Gulf continues to be a distributor partner for both Saudi and Egypt markets.

Sebastian says, “We now have solid distributors with strong financial background. We have gone across the market with single distribution to ensure partners make enough margins.

“In the coming months, we are focusing on moving deeper into the B2B segment, especially in Saudi, which is a large B2B market.”

The company believes B2B is a sustainable and a long-term business.

“This is because it is the actual requirement on the ground,” he says. “We are working on growing our share of B2B business much more. Today, we only have channel-facing people and will need to invest resources for B2B business too. We are looking at expanding into B2B with headcounts so that we can speak to B2B users directly.”

The company aims to “put technology before pricing”.

“We have many new products, which can benefit the users from a technology

aspect. We need to see if B2B can sustain or increase the current levels of volumes.”

Sebastian says, unfortunately monitors do not have a big game in retail as the units occupy a large amount of shelf space and the cost of business is quite high.

“Currently, retail is not a part of our channel strategy as we need to evaluate the return on investment. That being said, we do have plans if the cost of business comes down in this segment,” he explains. “It is more about visibility when we work in retail because revenues are pretty low.”

In terms of geographies, the company is looking to develop business in Iran.

“Although the sanctions do not address all the pertaining issues yet, we are already talking to a partner to see how things will progress in Iran. It will definitely be a positive impact for us,” Sebastian says.

Egypt is another potential market for the vendor.

“The biggest issue in Egypt is that they do not have foreign currency. The government has regulated the dollar outflow in the

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country. However, there have been some key projects in the country that we have been a part of.”

He adds that Algeria has always been a big market for the company and will continue to be a growth factor. Although the company did explore Kenya and Nigeria, it found the market conditions to be unfavourable.

“That part of Africa continues to be a challenge and we are trying to see how we can address that.

Redington is a partner for us in Nigeria and Kenya,” he says. “This year our focus is more on UAE, Saudi and GCC. UAE is maintaining a constant growth.”

In the next couple of months, we will see the vendor investing in local on-ground sales people in Iran and South Africa.

“We want to increase headcounts in South Africa because it is mostly a B2B market, which relates back to our focus on the B2B segment.”

Having experienced a successful first half of 2016, the company is expecting to close the financial year with double digits.

Reseller Middle East july 2016

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REVIEW Samsung

Galaxy S7

RATING

The premium flagship device caters to the everyday requirements of an average user.

Samsung’s Galaxy S7 is everything an average user will desire for. From a well-crafted design, which is a slightly enhanced version of its predecessor, to features such as a heart rate monitor and water resistant body, the device is capable of lasting more than a day’s worth of usage.

With a 5.1-inch quad HD display, it is quite comfortable to handle the device, although more care has to be given for single-handed usage.

The device is enclosed in Gorilla Glass 4 and its sides curve slightly, improving its overall appearance and grip.

Although the fingerprint sensor was quite responsive, one of the challenges is, you need to press down on the home button for the sensor to kick in. Some users may prefer this, as it avoids unlocking your phone if you are just holding the device. However, it does seem more effortless if the user simply had to place the finger on the sensor without having to press it down. That being said, it is a small worry in the larger scheme of things.

The device packs in a 12 MP (dual pixels) primary camera, which allows users to take crisp highresolution images. Although the number of pixels have dropped compared to S6’s 16 MP, it doesn’t make much of a difference in terms of the clarity of images. The rear

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5 MP camera also does a great job for selfies and the company has extended gesture and voice controls to its latest flagship device.

The smartphone sports 32GB of internal storage that is expandable up to 200 GB with a microSD card. This is more than sufficient for the average user.

For music lovers, the S7 may fall slightly short, as Samsung has continued with the single speaker feature that is embedded at the base of the device. This means there are chances the sound gets muffled while holding the phone.

Both Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are waterproof with an IP68 rating, allowing it to be submerged in up to 1 metre of water for 30 minutes. After introducing it in the S5, the company had withdrawn this feature with S6. However, this is a much welcomed feature as the user can freely use the device.

Regular features such as multi-window mode and shortcuts to quickly launch apps does make the smartphone much easier and more efficient to use. However, Samsung hasn’t made any improvements on eliminating duplicate apps that collide with native Google apps. This uses up unnecessary space and is inconvenient for the user. Moreover, if the company had made enhancements to how

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its icons and interface look, the S7 would be a stronger offering compared to its competitors.

All in all, the smartphone is a premium device and a great buy, catering to a user’s daily needs.

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hot products

Western Digital launches My Passport Wireless Pro

HP unveils Spectre

My Passport Wireless Pro is Wi-Fi enabled portable hard drive.

Using the direct Wi-Fi connection, creators can automatically backup files from compatible cameras, as well as save, edit and transfer work seamlessly from up to eight other devices connected to the drive. Tethered connections are also available for faster transfers and it also includes a built-in SD card reader as well as a USB 2.0 port.

Available in capacities up to 3TB, the My Passport Wireless Pro device also features up to 10 hours of battery life and a built-in battery pack that can even be used to charge phones and other devices like digital or video cameras.

According to WD, to ensure creative professionals can continue to work while in the field, My Passport Wireless Pro devices include compatibility with Adobe’s Creative Cloud for mobile photo and video editing, as well as compatibility with Plex Media Server, which is capable of playing up to four streams of content while on-the-go.

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The HP Spectre weighs at 1.1kg, with a width of less than 1.5cm, and the options of an Intel Core i5 model and an Intel Core i7 model. It features an entertainment experience with full HD 13.3-inch diagonal edge-to-edge display and Bang & Olufsen sound. It has up to 15GB memory and uses 802.11 2x2 WiFi antenna for elevated wireless speeds.

According to HP, Spectre has four unique modes – stand mode notebook, tablet and tent. It has Solid-State Drives available in 128GB, 256GB, 512GB or 1TB variations.

Spectre has high gloss copper accents, which reflect a handpolished, jewelry-like finish and hidden piston hinge, creating the illusion of a hingeless design. HP highlights that the device’s aluminium unibody is carefully chiseled by computer numerical control (CNC) machines, a process used by the aerospace industry.

The new 13.3-inch diagonal HP Spectre laptop is now available in the UAE with a starting price of AED 5,499.

Bose releases Quietcomfort 35 QC35 around-ear headphones offer noise cancellation when used either with the wire or wireless. It also has a customengineered Bluetooth system for a consistent connection anywhere. The QC35 has up to 20 hours of battery life from a rechargeable lithiumion battery. It also has buttons placed on the right earcup – on/ off, music volume, play/pause, and answer/end calls for more convenient interface.

According to the company, with microphones inside and outside the earcups, the

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QC35 senses, measures and sends unwanted sounds to two proprietary digital electronic chips – one for each ear, which respond with a precise, equal and opposite signal in less than a fraction of a millisecond.

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hot products

NEC flaunts 55- and 65-inch UHD InGlass touch displays NEC Display Solutions Europe has announced a series of 55- and 65-inch Ultra High Definition (UHD) displays that feature advanced filtering components.

According to NEC, the new MultiSync X551UHD and X651UHD-2 InGlass touch displays are designed to be used as touch tables, making them ideal for industries where applications are used for creating, sharing and collaborating, such as entertainment, creative media, interactive gaming, education and corporate. Businesses can use the touch displays to save time, working more efficiently whilst meeting the collaborative and productivity requirements that these industries demand.

The ‘pixel-free’ 55- and 65-inch 4K UHD displays include colourfast details from NEC’s integrated SpectraView colour engine, providing full colour management and adjustment of all

visual parameters to further improve any colour-critical application.

The XUHD touch displays have a ‘plug and play’ feature, with no need for driver installations for all major operating systems, and can be easily enhanced with the optional “Windows based” slotin-PC using the integrated OPS option slot, further simplifying installations and reducing the points of failure.

With the IP rated and waterproof surface, the touch table displays are durable and are ideal for public spaces.

Zebra Technologies introduces ‘Total Wearable Solutions’ Zebra Technologies has introduced its Total Wearable Solutions, a family of wearable devices built on the Android operating system (OS) and backed by Zebra Mobility DNA, with hands-free and speech-directed picking that increases user mobility, comfort and accuracy.

According to the company, compared with traditional speech-only wearable devices, the new multi-modal solution delivers 15 percent productivity improvements, with a 39 percent reduction in errors.

Designed for inventory management, yard management and picking and put-away applications in warehouse, manufacturing and retail environments.

Zebra’s Total Wearable Solutions include the WT6000 Industrial Wearable Computer, featuring a touch display and secure tap-to-pair NFC technology to

easily establish connectivity with Zebra’s RS6000 Wearable Ring Scanner and HS3100 Headset as well as Zebra Bluetooth-enabled printers for increased productivity. It also featured the RS6000 Wearable Ring Scanner, which according to the company, provides improved picking speed and accuracy with programmable line-of-sight LED colours to direct user activity as well as improved range and motion tolerance, even when the worker or an asset is in motion. Lastly, the wireless HS3100 Headset, enabling speech-driven applications and voice communications along with superior noise cancellation technology.

Fujitsu presents fi7030 document scanner Fujitsu subsidiary PFU (EMEA) presents the latest addition to the world’s leading professional document scanner range – the Fujitsu fi-7030.

Compatible for public and commercial organisations the fi-7030 is the ideal entry point into professional document capture, according to Fujitsu.

The fi-7030 is released with the first deployment of PaperStream Capture Version 1.5; offering a new ergonomic, touch compatible user interface.

Following the release of the fi-7030, PaperStream Capture 1.5 will be made available for all fi Series products, expanding new functionalities to the complete product line.

The fi-7030 also includes an integrated bar code module, facilitating mixed batch scanning with automated processing for many different business processes. Important elements of the software are touch compatible for use in touch-to-scan environments. fi-7030 captures 27 sheets of paper per minute (54 images A4 duplex, portrait, colour, 300 dpi). This amounts to a 35 percent increase in speed compared to its predecessor.

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Reseller Middle East

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53

Column

Channel surfing Reseller Middle East's deputy editor offers her thoughts on the Middle Eastern technology channel.

Janees Reghelini, Deputy Editor, Reseller ME

Simplicity is key The month has gone by quickly and fairly quietly, as expected. One of the things some people do, during the summer months is declutter. As a kid, this was the ‘spring cleaning’ time of the year. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how rewarding it always felt after systematically arranging everyday things around you. That’s because suddenly everything becomes simpler and organised. And this is the same philosophy channel partners should keep in mind on a daily basis.

The regional channel business has been tough in the first half of the year and players in the market expect this to continue over the next few months as well. However, some say the market is resizing to the actual demand on ground. But whatever the case, partners need 54

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to be cautious and smart in their dealings to sustain their business.

And what can help in such a circumstance is ‘keeping things simple’ and ‘decluttering’.

End customers want it to be simple from the word go. Partners should understand that and keep purchase processes not only easy to begin with but also make it stress-free for customers to keep coming back to. Ease of use (whether it is placing an order or using a product or service) in as fewer steps as possible should be the goal.

Just as a related example of what not to do; recently, I was trying to log on to my online banking account that I haven’t been using in a while and to my frustration, I found that all my

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passwords had been disabled and the only way I could create new ones was by submitting a physical form. My instant thought was to close the account with this particular bank. You have to remember to make it simple for customers because they can and will choose the next best option.

The regional channel is gradually consolidating and this is the time when partners should also think of tossing what hasn’t been working for them. Vendors can play a role here by helping partners identify what could be a better revenue stream for them. When you think about it, it is truly the small things that can make a huge difference.

On that note, I think it’s time for me to declutter my desk.

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