Reseller Middle East January 2016

ISSUE 229 | JANUARY 2016 www.resellerme.com

K O O L T OU d Trends an gies technolo to set the pace this year

A tribute to Dominic de Sousa, Founder and Chairman, CPI Media Group

Download the FREE ResellerME app and explore your favourite magazine PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

CONTENTS ISSUE 229 // january 2016

Highlights 8

News

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

33

cover feature

opinion 22

Building profits

Vibhu Kapoor from Infor, explains how channel partners can stay relevant to optimise market opportunities.

Feature 29 Digital defence

Dimension Data’s Matt Gyde outlines key IT cyber-security trends to look out for in 2016 42 Business buoyancy

Reseller ME explores the opportunities present in the Qatar market and how channel partners can look at expanding their business.

Partner watch 48

Retail relativity

Julien Arnolda from Alpha Tech, discusses the company’s plans to expand its portfolio and open new doors over the course of this year.

Into the future

Industry experts examine the current market scenario and predicts what’s in store over the course of 2016

hot products

50

ASUS launches Zen AiO Pro in the UAE

51

Biostar’s GeForce GAMING GTX 750 Ti OC

review

49

Samsung Note 5

52

SanDisk expands its portable SSD lineup

53

Dell shows off refreshed latitude 5000 series

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Sell with confidence. Sell with Dell.

To learn more, visit Dell.com/partner/yoursuccess

Š 2015 Dell Inc. All rights reserved. Dell Emerging Markets (EMEA) Limited is registered in England and Wales. Company Registration No: 3266654. Registered address: Dell House, The Boulevard, Cain Road, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 1LF. Company details for other Dell UK entities can be found at www.dell.co.uk

Editorial GROUP Chairman and founder

Dominic De Sousa Group CEO

Nadeem Hood

Publishing Director Rajashree Rammohan raj.ram@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5685

Beating the odds

Editorial Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan jeevan.thankappan@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5678 Deputy Editor Janees Reghelini janees.reghelini@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5681 Contributing Editor James Dartnell Online Editor Adelle Geronimo Advertising Group Sales Director Kausar Syed kausar.syed@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 1647 Sales Manager Merle Carrasco merle.carrasco@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5676

Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor

Circulation Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5682 Production and Design Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5673 Designers Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5680 Neha Kalvani neha.kalvani@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 3751644 Digital www.resellerme.com DIGITAL SERVICES Web Developers Jefferson de Joya Abbas Madh Photographers Max Poriechkin Charls Thomas webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

Talk to us: E-mail: jeevan.thankappan@ cpimediagroup.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/ ResellerME Twitter: @ResellerME

For the channel, 2015 was a terrible year. As a result of tumbling oil prices and geopolitical factors, market remained bearish, taking its toll on all players in the channel ecosystem. Will 2016 be any better? With market remaining volatile and recovery in oil prices looking highly unlikely in the near future, channel players will have to brace themselves for a bumpy ride this year as well. However, everything is not as bleak as it appears. On the bright side, the easing of sanctions against Iran should bring some cheer back, as the country is tipped to become the fastest growing ICT market over the next five years, according to IDC. So far, Iran was heavily dependent on re-exports from UAE-based resellers and we have seen some vendors and distributors being penalized heavily for selling their wares to the country. With the lifting of sanctions, IDC says vendors will now be able to build their official channel ecosystems.

You can expect to see a huge demand for both hardware and software coming from Iran. Africa is another silver lining, where the business is flourishing as the continent continues to modernise its existing infrastructure.

On the technology side, I think some of the trends we have seen in 2015 will continue to drive business growth in 2016. Cloud is becoming more prevalent as enterprises are starting to embrace this new model in IT consumption, lured by huge cost savings. Most of the top tier tech vendors have reported a decline in their on-premise business, which is ominous for the channel. Big Data analytics is also gaining steam, which is going to be my top pick for 2016. There is a huge untapped potential around Big Data consulting services and hardware for channel and this market is slated to grow in double-digits by most market research firms.

Another silver lining is the emerging Internet of Things space, which is no longer just hype. This year, we are going to see many IoT products and platforms being released in the market, which is again an enormous area with growth potential for VARs and systems integrators. In fact, Gartner estimates 80 to 85 percent of IoT products will be sold thought indirect channels, and all this new breed of connected devices will require channel engagement to put together all pieces of IoT solutions. Though conventional wisdom might warrant us to adopt a cautious approach, risk taking is the way to go in 2016, if you want to grow your business.

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press Š 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

january 2016

5

Dominic De Sousa 1959-2015

On 16th December, 2015, Dominic De Sousa, Founder and Chairman of CPI Media Group, publishers of Reseller Middle East, passed away from cardiac arrest. Dom, was many things to many people. An extraordinary publisher who defied traditional norms of the industry. A singer who delighted audiences with his soothing voice.

A selfless wildlife lover who made it his life’s mission to rescue and rehabilitate sick and injured animals.

Known for being full of life and infectious charisma, he died doing what he loved most – singing on stage at our sister publication BBC Good Food Middle East’s annual awards ceremony at Jumeirah Zabeel Saray’s MusicHall.

Born to Goan parents in Kenya, Dom was raised in South London. After studying biochemistry at the University of London, De Sousa joined Reed Business Publishing as an advertising salesman on Middle East Computing, laying the foundations for his future career. After a short stint with Alain Charles Publishing, he moved to Dubai in 1994 and launched CNME, our sister publication.

Starting from a small back office in bustling Deira, CPI Media Group is now one of the leading B2B publishers in the region, thanks to Dom’s never-say-die character and entrepreneurial spirit, as well as his unflinching belief in company employees.

Today, CPI boasts more than 25 magazines, Web portals and numerous vertical industry awards programmes.

In stark contrast to other publishers, Dom wanted his staff to succeed, encouraging them to become his partners rather than employees. Constantly discovering new interests and giving credence to new ideas, he egged on everyone at CPI to think differently and act with clarity of thought. At Reseller Middle East, this approach and outlook helped us weather many storms and emerge as the number one IT channel magazine in the region.

For those of us who remain at CPI, he is quite simply irreplaceable. The number of lives he touched across multiple industries in the Middle East is humbling and we, his colleagues, have been overwhelmed by the messages and tributes from those who knew, respected and loved him. He will be missed more than we can express in words, but his legacy lives on in the magazines he helped create and nurture, and the employees whose professional lives have been so greatly enhanced through his faith and support.

Rest in peace Dom, you were a true leader.

highlights

Alpha Data launches public cloud platform in the UAE

A

lpha Data, the UAE-based systems integrator and Managed Service Provider, has launched ‘Alpha Cloud,’ a new public cloud service that features cloud functionality tailored to meet the country’s local cloud computing requirements. The company is one of the first local private systems integrators to launch a public cloud in the country. The debuting service reflects the systems integrator’s commitments to strengthen customer relationships through the delivery of premier IT services and sustain its market leadership through the adoption and deployment of emerging technologies.

The SI has invested into a secure, scalable and multi-tenant technology architecture and framework to make hybrid IT simpler, faster and more secure and has incorporated this model into its Alpha Cloud service. The new service brings agility and speed to customers, enabling them to scale

on demand, optimise for price, and ensure high performance and business continuity. It also boosts governance and control by enhancing security, business resiliency, and delivery.

Moreover, Alpha Cloud improves cost efficiency by enabling enterprises to shift their IT focus from CAPEX to OPEX, capitalise on the new economics of the cloud, and deliver almost everything as a service.

“Alpha Data has made a strong commitment to ‘Bring the Cloud to Life’ by making cloud services simple and easier to comprehend even for non-IT users. Our Alpha Cloud service packages are tailored to serve UAE customers and involve a very simple onboarding process. Users will be able to purchase our premier cloud services

either prepaid or postpaid. Basic cloud services such as compute, storage, and backup can be subscribed to through various plans along with value-added services. Alpha Cloud offers several business services such as Private Cloud, Virtual Private Cloud and Disaster Recovery provisioning to implement the cloud services delivery model, with the option of including traditional managed services along with core services,” said Murugesan Vaithilingam, Services Director, Alpha Data.

Over

50%

of organisations’ IT spending globally will be for third platform technologies (cloud, mobile, social business and Big Data analytics), solutions, and services by 2017 Source: IDC

TechAccess signs distribution agreement with Commvault

Chris Cornelius, TechAccess

TechAccess, the value-added distributor operating in the Middle East, North Africa, LEVANT and Pakistan, has signed a distribution agreement with Commvault, a global player in data protection and information management solutions.

According to the agreement, the distributor will utilise Commvault’s

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Reseller Middle East

complete platform of integrated data management solutions to enable their customers across the Middle East, LEVANT and Pakistan, to maximise the value of their data. The agreement expands and reinforces the vendor’s presence across the region while enhancing TechAccess’ strategic service offerings to its well established channel network.

“We are pleased to announce our partnership with Commvault as their best-in-class products complement our existing portfolio and add value to our data protection and information management offerings,” said Chris Cornelius, SVP Sales and Support, TechAccess. “By leveraging our strong channel network across the region, we aim to grow Commvault’s business and market share and expand its customer base across these markets. We look

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forward to working closely with their global and local teams to ensure that our resellers have the right tools, resources, training and support to sell Commvault’s solutions effectively.”

The distributor will also identify and onboard partners while conducting focused channel development activities. Through its training arm, the VAD will hold regular road shows, seminars, and training and certification programmes to enable their partners to enhance their selling capabilities. The distributor will also carry out proof-of-concepts at its multi-million dollar solution centre, while providing sales and pre-sales support, marketing and business development support to facilitate the vendor’s growth in its target territories.

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highlights

Ingram Micro joins Microsoft CSP programme in MENA

I

ngram Micro has announced that they have joined Microsoft’s Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) programme in the Gulf region, French speaking North Africa countries and East Mediterranean countries.

The CSP programme is designed to strengthen customer relationships and expand cloud growth by enabling channel partners to provision, bundle, invoice, manage and support Microsoft cloud offerings including Microsoft Azure, Microsoft Office 365, and Enterprise Mobility Suite.

Currently authorised to sell Microsoft cloud services via the Microsoft CSP programme in over 40 countries, Ingram Micro’s participation in 10 countries of the MENA region further demonstrates its commitment to serving channel partners worldwide who seek to profit from Microsoft cloud

META region, said, solutions. This latest “We are delighted with appointment follows Microsoft’s decision to the successful launch appoint us as a regional of the Microsoft CSP CSP distributor. programme through Our commitment the distributor’s Cloud to develop cloud Marketplace in the solutions in META company’s North countries is solid and America, Europe, Latin backed by significant America and Asia investments.”

Pacific regions.

Hazem Nabih, “Microsoft’s CSP Cloud and Enterprise programme is built for Rahul Bhavsar, Ingram Micro META Business Group Lead, scale and sustainable Middle East and Africa, business for Microsoft Microsoft, said, “The benefits of CSP and its partners, and we are very excited to partners are numerous. Partners to be the first distributor in the region own and control the customer billing, to launch this and all Microsoft partners partners are able to differentiate by can take advantage of this programme to build a successful and profitable cloud selling integrated offers and services in a single customer package, and business,” said Rahul Bhavsar, Director partners directly provision, manage and Cloud, Sales, Ingram Micro META region. support their customers to drive higher Ali Baghdadi, Senior Vice President satisfaction and services revenue.” and Chief Executive, Ingram Micro,

Canon announces Central and North Africa business

Canon, a global player in imaging solutions, held its annual partner conference for the Middle East and Central and North Africa regions. A key highlight of the conference this year was Canon Europe’s announcement of the founding of new ‘Canon Central and North Africa (CCNA)’ business division, which will enhance Canon’s business within the Africa region.

The three-day event, held at The Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Dubai, brought together over 150 partners from across 56 markets covering the Middle East and the newly formed CCNA region. The conference evaluated the growth and performance in 2015 before detailing the moving forward strategy for 2016.

Anurag Agrawal, Managing Director, Canon Middle East, said, “Canon Middle East marked a successful year in 2015 where we expanded into new markets and strengthened our offering to meet the evolving requirements of customers.”

Among the highlights of 2015 is the commencement of direct operations in Qatar and strengthening its facilities in Abu Dhabi. Building on the conference theme of ‘One’, the event also focused on ‘listening forums’ that encourage sharing feedback with partners through open communications. Canon has also announced the continuation of its ‘Executive Forums’ enabling it and partners to work collectively and more efficiently, towards new possibilities and wider horizons.

With the launch of CCNA, all African partners originally under Canon Middle East and Canon South Africa will now transfer to the new entity by January 2016, after which CCNA will be responsible for all aspects of the Africa business.

CCNA will meet customers’ demands in the rapidly evolving and challenging African market with increased on-ground support from Canon, and a focus on developing the market across all B2B and B2C product categories.

Roman Troedthandl, the new MD of CCNA, said, “The formation of CCNA will energise our operations across Africa as we roll out our strategy of growing our reach and engaging our customers. We welcome our partners to this new entity and hope to continue building a mutually beneficial partnership in the days ahead. Our clear strategy and fixed targets will enable us to grow in our target markets and meet the aspirations of our customers.”

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Reseller Middle East

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highlights

Microsoft unveils Windows 10 devices in the UAE

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icrosoft Gulf has launched the Surface Pro 4, Lumia 950 and 950 XL devices, and all run on the new Windows 10 OS. Designed to offer users the best of Windows 10 combined with powerful and performance driven technology, the new devices include innovative features including fast and secure login with Windows Hello; improved touch and pen experiences on Surface; and Continuum for phones, which enables the new Lumia 950 and 950 XL phones to work like PCs. “With our bold ambition of creating more personal computing and empowering individuals to do more, we are taking innovation to the next level and building upon the unique experiences of Windows 10 for our users,” said Mohammed Arif, Windows Business Group Lead.

“Surface Pro 4 brings together the performance of a laptop and the full power of Windows 10 with the portability of a tablet giving users

the ability to achieve greater mobility and productivity.

“We designed Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL for people who want the most productive smartphones running the most productive operating system. With full Windows 10 and features like Continuum for phone, it’s easy to do more than ever from your phone whether you’re in the office, at home or on the road,” he added.

With our bold ambition of creating more personal computing and empowering individuals to do more, we are taking innovation to the next level and building upon the unique experiences of Windows 10 for our users.”

At only 8.4 mm thin, Surface Pro 4 features a 12.3-inch PixelSense Display and 6th Generation Intel Core m, Core i5, and Core i7 processors, enabling everyone from students to professionals to get more done on the go.

Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL are the first Lumia phones to come preloaded with Windows 10 – delivering on the company’s promise of one familiar and consistent experience that transitions seamlessly across Windows devices from key apps such as Office built-in to access to files via OneDrive and the cloud, said the company.

Quantum on partner recruitment drive

UAE-based smartphone and tablet manufacturer, Quantum Global participated at the 21st Azerbaijan international telecommunications and information technologies exhibition, BakuTel 2015.

Under the mobility segment, Quantum Global displayed the main trends for 2015 including 4G and Octa-Core smartphones, dual-operating system tablets

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Reseller Middle East

and Intel processor tablets.

Quantum has announced that it has embarked on a partner recruitment drive, as part of the company’s broader plan to extend its geographical and business reach in the Middle East, Africa (MEA) and CIS. The move to appoint channel partners and distributors, follows the company’s recent participation at BakuTel Exhibition and Conference 2015 in Azerbaijan, where it met with potential partners that serve the IT and telecoms sector in that country. The company said it is impressed with the impact its products have had this year in the Middle East market especially after launching its Titano smartphone array.

The company’s Marketing Manager, Faraz Ali Khan said, “The appointment of partners will help

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Quantum to broaden its reach in MEA as well as the CIS market and contribute to developing the channel in this geography.”

Khan added that the company is also in the process of qualifying rolling out the QASP partners who will help the company to provide comprehensive after-sales support.

He added, “Quantum wants to have partners that are well-trained and capable of providing post-sales service for all the products that will be sold in Azerbaijan. The process of recruiting partners has already started and we are discussing modalities of how partners will work with us. We are hoping to conclude deals in the first quarter of 2016.”

The latest partner recruitment drive has seen the brand appoint distribution partners in East and West Africa.

Intertec Deploys Cisco Collaborative Solutions

Working together, people can achieve extra-ordinary things. Improve Collaboration with technology that empowers people to change and innovate — anywhere, on any device.

Intertec Systems LLC is a leading Systems Integrator in the GCC and Indian sub-Continent since 1991. As a Cisco Gold Partner, specialized in collaboration architecture, borderless network architecture and data center architecture, we have successfully deployed end-to-end Cisco Collaborative solutions in the leading organizations in the UAE.

Intertec Overview 

Established since 1991



1000+ customers from Banking, Government and Corporate sectors

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20+ alliances with industry leaders

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Presence across GCC & India

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ISO 9001:2008 certified

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Cisco uses an architectural approach, integrating mobility, video, and cloud to bring people together anytime, anywhere, on any device. Connect employees, customers, and suppliers to make decisions, resolve customer issues, or address supply-chain challenges. The architecture cost-effectively supports scalability, security, and accessibility. The Cisco collaboration strategy and architecture account for not only the technology, but also for what it means to your processes and culture.

Headquarters:

Phone No:

Riyadh: +966-14729431

Intertec Systems LLC

Dubai: +971-4-4479444

Bahrain: +973-17228070

Sobha Saphire, Level 2, Business Bay, Sheikh Zayed Road, PO Box No. 27130, Dubai, UAE.

Abu Dhabi: +971 2 6266360

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Oman: +968-24152301

Bangalore: +91-80-25270619

www.intertecsys.com | info@intertecsys.com

highlights

Levtech Consulting deploys Microsoft Dynamics ERP at KOSTCO

T

echnology consulting firm, Levtech Consulting recently initiated the deployment of Microsoft Dynamics AX at Kaddas Oilfield Services and Trading (KOSTCO).

Established in the year 1977 at Abu Dhabi, KOSTCO is the leading supplier of bulk piping and flow line materials, valves, fasteners, hoses and accessories for the oil, gas, petrochemical, power generation and water and general engineering industry. It also stocks a wide range of spares and equipment to cater to the needs of its clients.

The company has embarked on the journey of deploying Microsoft Dynamics AX to primarily achieve operational efficiencies in managing the sales pipeline, inventory levels and service delivery quality. Levtech Consulting will also map KOSTCO’s business processes into a detailed set of workflows, which will aid the development of a KPI-driven, paperless environment. The ERP will further

aid the delivery of comprehensive management information and reporting through in-built business intelligence and dashboard capabilities.

“Our business has grown over the years, and we are in need of the right tools for better planning, forecasting and financial reporting. We believe that the functional richness and technological innovation within Microsoft Dynamics AX, will provide us with accurate information, ondemand, which is the need of the hour.

Most importantly, we did evaluate different companies and found Levtech Consulting to have the right domain knowledge and resources for delivering our implementation. It is essential to choose a mature and stable implementation partner, and we found the right skills, management qualities, business roadmap and partner mindset with Levtech,” said Prasad Pamadath, IT Manager, KOSTCO. “KOSTCO has been a very successful business, built on great values and

Prasad Pamadath, KOSTCO

industry competence. Now, we look forward to enriching their model further with the deployment of industry best practices and efficient processes based on Microsoft’s ERP platform,” said Anilesh Kumar, Director Business Development, Levtech Consulting.

Having previously used an ERP system, KOSTCO plans to the next level of automation using the latest technical and functional features from Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3, while utilising Levtech’s significant consulting experience to re-engineer business processes.

Aptec, an Ingram Micro company wins Avaya accolade

Aptec, an Ingram Micro company, one of the largest value-added technology distributors in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa, has been awarded the Best Distributor of the Year award at Avaya Partner Forum 2016, held last month in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Manoj Karunakaran, Senior Business Unit Manager, Aptec said, “We are delighted to receive this prestigious award from Avaya, having

been chosen among distributors from APAC, Middle East, Africa, Russia, CIS and Turkey. We are proud to be recognised for our mid-market contribution towards the company’s full-stack solution portfolios, directly aligning with Avaya’s technology focus and customer-first strategy. Our extensive channel approach to recruit, enable and grow together has been applauded by the partner community

and created loyalty in the partner ecosystem towards Avaya midmarket solutions. We look forward to continuing our partnership and further growth.”

“The Avaya Awards celebrate and recognise the role our partners play in driving Avaya’s growth and customercentric strategy. We are investing and developing our partner ecosystem to enable more companies to implement business communications that improve customer experiences, team and employee productivity and network performance. The Avaya Partner Forum provides the perfect platform for us to drive innovation and deliver industry leadership across the combined regions,” said Fadi Moubarak, Regional Channel Director, APAC, Middle East, Africa and Turkey Region, Avaya.

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highlights

TechAccess, Fujitsu Help AG, BeyondTrust sign host reseller event partnership

Stephan Berner, Help AG

Yasser Eldawy, TechAccess

TechAccess has kicked off its distribution agreement with Fujitsu, with a launch session for its resellers, which focused on the vendor’s enterprise product portfolio.

The event was held in-conjunction with the vendor’s Middle East and Pakistan teams and also highlighted plans and strategies for resellers to reach out to target markets and verticals.

TechAccess will provide Fujitsu with 360-degree value-added services, which includes partner workshops, POCs and training at the distributor’s solution centre. It will also provide sales and pre-sales support, back-end and logistics support, along with marketing and business development initiatives and tools to facilitate Fujitsu’s growth in region.

“Our partner introduction sessions are crucial in order for resellers to thoroughly understand a vendor’s products, and the strategy that goes into making a partnership successful,” said Yasser Eldawy, General Manager Gulf & LENA, TechAccess. “Fujitsu’s solutions form a key element in our enterprise portfolio, and it is important for partners to understand where they fit in, and how they can bundle the right solutions for customers, and remain profitable themselves.”

TechAccess also briefed its resellers on how they could take advantage of support and other value-added services, which are designed to help them sell better and be more efficient.

Mohamed Menakbi, Director of Channel Sales, ME and Pakistan, Fujitsu, said, “With TechAccess’ increased level of support and vast reseller network, we will be able to meet the cumulative demand for our solutions within the growing customer base.”

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H

elp AG, an information security services and solutions provider in the Middle East, has signed a new partnership agreement with BeyondTrust, the global cybersecurity company focused on eliminating data breaches from insider privilege abuse and external hacking attacks.

The cyber security firm has already achieved the highest Platinum Partnership status with the vendor and will now offer the entire BeyondTrust portfolio to enterprises in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“Insider threats are among the most challenging security issues that organisations face as they are extremely hard to detect and can lead to loss or

exfiltration of large volumes of sensitive data. The solutions from BeyondTrust help mitigate the threat of data breaches while still enabling employees to be productive,” said Stephan Berner, Managing Director, Help AG. “Privileged Access Management (PAM) will form an integral part of the Help AG Cyber Security Blueprint and it is a solution set that we believe will be especially relevant to our customers from the government, banking and finance, and enterprise sectors.”

Help AG will focus on increasing awareness around the vendor’s PowerBroker Privileged Account Management solutions which enforce and audit access control policies, enabling IT teams to limit access to key systems, applications and data. The platform can be easily integrated with BeyondTrust’s Retina Vulnerability Management solutions to increase intelligence and enable better decisions by understanding risk across multiple areas. Help AG will also deliver unified management, reporting and analytics of all the vendor’s solutions by offering the BeyondInsight IT Risk Management Platform.

Task to bring Xiaomi smartphones to MENA Xiaomi’s line of smartphones is set to debut in the Middle East and North Africa early this year.

Task, a Dubai-based distributor, will launch a range of Xiaomi’s smartphones initially in Saudi Arabia and the UAE at the start of 2016, with a subsequent roll-out across the rest of the GCC and North Africa shortly afterwards.

Xiaomi has become one of the world’s leading smartphone companies since it launched five years ago, attracting users with its range of well-designed, high-end

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smartphones sold at incredible price points.

Latest figures from IDC research, which tracks the sales of smartphones worldwide, show that Xiaomi is now among the top five global smartphone brands.

“We are very excited to bring Xiaomi’s top-quality smartphones to the Middle East and North Africa in January 2016, as we believe that they will be a very attractive option for consumers in the region,” said Givemore Gurira, Chief Operating Officer, Task, the authorised distributor of Xiaomi in the MENA region.

TP-LINK appoints Redington Gulf as KSA distributor

T

he networking vendor,

TP-LINK Technologies has appointed regional IT distributor Redington Gulf, as its authorised distribution partner to handle its retail product range in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA).

As per the agreement, Redington Gulf has been granted rights to distribute the vendor’s entire consumer products range for retailers and resellers across KSA. According to the vendor partnering with Redington Gulf was a natural progression for TP-LINK as it looks to strengthen its retail footprint and dealer channels in KSA and the wider ME. Conrad Yang, Country Manager, KSA, TP-LINK Middle East, said the alliance defines the right path for both TP-LINK and Redington Gulf to develop a robust retail and reseller channel business in Saudi Arabia that puts consumer electronics retailers and resellers at

the forefront of growing the retail and SOHO business in the country.

“TP-LINK is an international brand and growing rapidly globally. As one of the top distributors in Saudi Arabia, Redington Gulf will help us to reach out to more reseller and retail partners, and raise brand awareness in the channel through the joint activities we will be rolling out together.

“We are upbeat that our alliance with a top distributor like Redington Gulf will help TP-LINK achieve its goal of becoming a top networking solutions brand in the retail and reseller segment in Saudi Arabia,” Yang added.

7.5%

Increase in server revenues worldwide during Q3 2015 Source: Gartner

Aptec an Ingram Micro company, receives NetApp ‘Distributor of the Year’ award Award 2015, because Aptec, an Ingram Micro Aptec is the partner of company had announced choice for supporting our that it received the growth strategy in the ‘Distributor of the Year country. We are thankful 2015’ awards for two for the support during regions, the Gulf region the past year and are and the Kingdom of looking forward to jointly Saudi Arabia, from supporting our partner NetApp. base and growing the According to both Bahaa Salah, Aptec-an Ingram business in the country,” companies, Dr. Ali Micro company said Fadi Kanafani, Baghdadi, Senior VP Regional Director Middle East and and Chief Executive of Ingram Micro, Pakistan, NetApp. META region, and Manfred Reitner, Bahaa Salah, Managing Director, Senior VP and General Manager Aptec, an Ingram Micro company, EMEA of NetApp, are both committed commented, “We are thankful to to working together across the EMEA NetApp for the recognition. We see region to further develop the FlexPod the relationship with them as a true business with Cisco and NetApp. partnership with positive engagement “NetApp awarded Aptec Saudi Arabia with the Distributor of the Year and strong collaboration.”

Toshiba announces positive growth for storage division

Santosh Varghese, Toshiba Gulf

Toshiba has announced that during Q3 2015, the company’s storage division has achieved market shares of 40.72 percent in KSA and 30.43 percent in the UAE and 26 percent in South Africa.

Moreover, the company highlighted that its current market share in the UAE is almost three percent higher than the previous quarter’s 27.60 percent, demonstrating a consistent increase in customer base.

Santosh Varghese, General Manager of Digital Products and Services, Toshiba Gulf, says that they are very happy about this continued success. “Even more important than earning high market share is knowing that consumers trust Toshiba products for its superior quality, reliability and product innovations.

Superior Customer Experience is our leading goal at Toshiba. All other achievements just naturally come with it.”

When asked about the contributing factors to the popularity of Toshiba’s storage solutions, Varghese said, “First of all, our newest models offer exceptional features such as wireless technology best suited for Smartphone external storage and very fast read and write speeds in our memory cards. Another contributing factor is our wide range of products which allows us to cater to everyone: customers with different backgrounds and requirements.

Toshiba’s reputation for being reliable, along with our customer-focused approach, has also helped greatly.”

Two of Toshiba’s latest storage products are the pocket-size and SSD-powered CANVIO AeroMobile, and the CANVIO AeroCast HDD. The company is planning to introduce more innovations to the storage industry in the coming months.

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highlights

Merlin Digital launches its patented technology at CES 2016

Rohit and Sharad Bachani founders of Merlin Digital

M

erlin Digital is set to present its range of wearables in the health and biotech industry as the first local brand to exhibit at the 2016 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Bringing to the market its most recent developments in health and

biotechnology virtual reality wearables, including its patented technology, the IntelliSense Coherence Kit, Merlin is set to take the virtual reality market by storm with an application and device that reduces stress through controlled heart rate monitoring and breathing trainer.

Sharad Hiro Bachani, Co-founder and CEO, Merlin Digital, said, “We

are excited to be launching our Coherence Kit to the market through such a massive platform as CES 2016.

The kit basically gives you three exclusive Virtual Reality environments to relax in, while the application keeps track of your daily heart rate variability and provides biofeedback simultaneously. The need for such a device arises from the stressful working situations that have plagued our daily lives, and while there are so many applications and products to salvage the body from stress and fatigue, there aren’t many options to combat stress at an internal level, which is important for mental wellbeing. The IntelliSense Coherence Kit has been a long-standing project of ours, and a patent out of many that we are proud to present to the world.

We hope to make a difference to those battling anxiety and stress on a regular basis, and are hopeful that our hero product will be well accepted at CES 2016.�

Finesse Global wishes you all a very

Happy New Year 2016

* Red Herring Global Top 100 * ICT Integrator Awards * GEC Awards * Tagetik - Emerging Partner Awards * Software AG - Emerging Partner Awards * SME Channel Awards * Dubai Smart Government Awards

appointments

Aruba appoints new country Sales Manager for UAE

Gamal Emara, Aruba, a HP Enterprise company

A

ruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company has announced the appointment of Gamal Emara as its Country Sales Manager for UAE. According to the company, Emara will assume responsibility of the regional sales organisation and will strive to grow market share and revenues with partners, alliances and associates, strengthening Aruba’s position in the region. Based out of Dubai, he will report directly to Ammar

Enaya, the company’s Regional Director, Middle East and Turkey.

With an industry experience of more than 18 years in the Middle East, Emara’s career includes previous sales leadership roles within Aruba, where he was country sales manager for KSA, Egypt and Levant.

Prior to that, he held an IT leadership position at the Saad Group.

“I am excited to be a part of this team,” said Emara. “We see immense potential for business growth across the region. So we want to get even closer to our customers and ensure that they fully understand the positioning and superiority of our solutions.”

By 2018,

50%

of consumers in mature markets will use smartphones or wearables for mobile payments

Zain Kuwait introduces new CEO appointment, she was Zain Group announces the Chief Regulatory the appointment of Officer of Zain Group.

Eaman Al Roudhan as “I am honoured to CEO of Zain Kuwait, be given this prime the Group’s flagship opportunity to continue operation. my rewarding journey Al Roudhan will with Zain,” said Al succeed Omar Al Roudhan. “As the Omar who will return flagship operation of to Zain Group in a the Group, Zain Kuwait senior advisory role Eaman Al Roudhan, Zain Kuwait is deeply entrenched in supporting the Zain the telecom, economic and social Group CEO in transforming the landscape in the country. I feel a company into an integrated digital strong sense of responsibility to lifestyle operator. continue working closely with the She brings over 20 years of Zain Group Board and Executive experience to the position, 18 management as well as the highly years of which were spent in talented Zain Kuwait team to various executive management maintain the mobile operation’s and leadership roles within Zain high standards and take it to new Kuwait as well as several Zain heights of innovation and service.”

Group affiliates. Prior to her new

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january 2016

Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

Infoblox announces new CMO Infoblox has announced Ashish Gupta as its new Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer.

In his Ashish Gupta, Infoblox new role, Gupta will report to Infoblox President and CEO Jesper Andersen, and drive the worldwide strategies for brand awareness, go-to-market programmes, and demand-generation initiatives.

These marketing programmes will align with and support the company’s business strategy for growth built on extending its industry leadership in DNS, DHCP, and IP address management (DDI) into categories such as security, cloud, and analytics.

Gupta joins Infoblox from Actian, where he was chief marketing officer and senior vice president of business development. Previously, Gupta was chief marketing officer and senior vice president for corporate development at Vidyo. He was also an integral member of the executive team that launched Microsoft’s Lync solution.

He also held leadership positions at Alcatel/Genesys Telecommunications, Telera, Deloitte Consulting, and Hewlett-Packard.

“Infoblox has a great story to tell and I’m excited to have the opportunity to help drive the next wave of growth for the company,” said Gupta. “The world of enterprise and service-provider networking is being transformed by new technologies, new security threats, and modern connected business processes. With thousands of customers relying on our network-control solutions to protect and scale their networks, the company has the credibility to be a trusted partner for IT organisations looking to get ahead of these changes.”

Report

Rocking the boat

Three-year old Barium Technologies departs local market leaving behind large amounts of debts.

Barium Technologies, a regional IT reseller and trading company has fled the market last month leaving behind debts to the tune of around $10 million, according to industry sources. The three-year old company dealt with products from top-tier brands.

The regional IT channel market has witnessed a number of companies exiting the market over the last year but nothing quite as big as the impact of Barium’s exit, say industry sources. The channel market continues to grapple with issues of over credit, low margin and competitive prices.

Shailendra Rughwani, CEO, DCG, said, “The market has been slow over the last couple of months, which is all the more reasons for resellers to be very cautious in their dealings.

“Resellers should not sell below cost or oversell.

Whatever the circumstances are, traders should refrain from falling under pressure and purchase products that are not required or do not have the bandwidth for.

Because then when he has to make the payment, he will

Whatever the circumstances are, traders should refrain from falling under pressure and purchase products that are not required or do not have the bandwidth for.”

Shailendra Rughwani, CEO, DCG

be compelled to sell below cost price. This might lead to immediate profits but creates a vicious circle in the long run.”

KU Shankri, Founder and CEO, Lucky Star Computers, said, “I believe vendors and distributors should work on controlling the demand and supply. The genuine business orders are getting affected by such incidents.

The responsibility lies with both parties, one who is giving the money and the other who is receiving it.”

According to Mario M Veljovic, VP Solutions, MEA, Global Distribution, a reseller fleeing the market impacts all, in one way or another.

“A reseller who runs away from the market not just leaves a loss at a distributor, but potentially with vendors, banks and insurance companies. They need to

make it up, by increasing margins, fees and premiums, which costs us all.

“Resellers should work transparent and pro-actively to secure credit lines with all major credit insurance companies. Especially during the current times, where credit insurer rather decrease than increase credit limits,” he said.

Rughwani further added, “The memory of the market is short-term. We have seen this happening over and over again in the last 15 to 20 years. The problem is that it is fairly easy to get credit in this market between traders.”

An insurance firm does not give credit to a company that doesn’t have three years of operation in the market, and even then a thorough background checking is done.

www.resellerme.com

“Therefore, how can the market extend open credit to newly-formed companies? We suggest a preliminary check is done to see if the company is a DCG member before extending credit. This helps as we do a background check on all members before they join.

Before joining DCG, the first step is to give us a reference from one of our existing members, and then we take down the complete details of the firm. This does not assure that the company won’t flee the market, however, at least in this manner, the basic vetting has been done.”

He added, “I hope with increased market awareness, players will rethink the way business is done. We are expecting the market to improve, second quarter onwards.”

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OPinion

Infor

Building profits

Vibhu Kapoor, Director, Channel Recruitment and Enablement, Middle East and India, Infor, advises how channel partners can stay relevant to optimise market opportunities.

We are in the midst of a transformational market, wherein the buying behaviour of the customer has overhauled the value that channel partners provide.

Today most enterprises are pushing their Chief Information Officers (CIO) and Line of Business (LOB) managers to acquire integrated solutions and address key concerns such as social, cloud and Big Data. The increased investments in IT and surging global competitive pressures are driving customers to rely on channel partners to help maximise revenues, deflate risk, and identify new opportunities, all while managing costs.

Faced with this new reality, if channel partners want to stay relevant and maintain their influence over the customer base, they are going to need to adapt to this transformation and leverage it as a new business opportunity.

For several channel partners who currently secure a higher portion of revenues from legacy technology, change is challenging. But if partners want to ensure that they aren’t just another ‘has been’ and at the same time gain a competitive advantage, it would behove them to scale their engagement with customers by focusing on three key areas.

1

Become an industry expert Earlier, the demand for best of breed infrastructure, networking and hardware was unequivocal. With the essentials in place, the interest for applications such as ERP, CRM,

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Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

Vibhu Kapoor, Director, Channel Recruitment and Enablement, Middle East and India, Infor

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and SCM, that aided effective decision-making, surged. The market was saturated with a pedigree of all-purpose solutions, which were acquired and implemented.

Unfortunately, today, most of these solutions have been deemed ineffective, primarily because these onesize-fits-all solutions do not address the nuances, needs and challenges of specific industries/markets and can no longer adapt to the rapid changes in the markets.

As a result, customers are migrating away from these generic solutions towards more industry-specific applications. Some are even going further and not just opting for industry-specific applications, but more specifically, micro-vertical solutions that target a particular segment within a particular industry. For example, although both can be considered part of the F&B industry, processes at a dairy are different than those at a bakery. So it is only logical then that business applications for a dairy should be different from those at a bakery.

Given that the emphasis is no longer on the product, in my view, partners can gain a competitive advantage by choosing to focus on just a few industries or LOBs, hiring associates with the specific industry or LOB experience and then building in-depth understanding of the industry/LOB needs, challenges and trends. In terms of solutions, partners should align with vendors that offer industry-specific, micro-vertical solutions.

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january 2016

2

Build a solution selling practice Today, customers demand that channel partners not just provide them with a product and a price but rather, understand their business challenges and needs, determine which solutions would be best suited to meet these needs and finally implement the solution. To

have started embracing a process of enablement called ‘Value Engineering’ - channel partners are trained as solution architects to map the customer’s business needs, understand integrated solutions better and ensure that the customer’s critical business drivers are aligned to sound technological strategy.

A channel partner who provides a custom solution after having evaluated the business needs is more likely to gain the confidence of the customer, be seen as a ‘trusted advisor’ rather than a ‘box pusher’ and ultimately make the sale.” this end, channel partners have to take a consultative approach and undertake a rigorous scientific process that includes identifying and understanding business challenges, devising a strategy and ultimately finding and implementing a solution. A channel partner who provides a custom solution after having evaluated the business needs is more likely to gain the confidence of the customer, be seen as a ‘trusted advisor’ rather than a ‘box pusher’ and ultimately make the sale.

In an effort to help their channel partners make this transition, a few vendors

Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

3

Transition to the cloud Traditional on-premise infrastructure often hinders business growth given the high TCO and inflexibility of the infrastructure. The cloud has emerged as a pertinent alternative – enterprises deploying a cloud solution are more agile when it comes to adapting to market changes, have accelerated their business growth and reduced TCO. Now admittedly, the pace of cloud adoption in the region is lagging other parts of the world, particularly US and Europe, but widespread

adoption of cloud business technology is inevitable. In fact, a recent cloud computing report by CompTIA found that 90 percent of companies use some type of cloud service for daily business.

The cloud has proven to give companies increased agility and rapid ROI. It offers flexibility to remain relevant in the prevailing highly competitive landscape.

Another attractive aspect of the cloud is that it works on a pay-as-you-go model which allows organisations to free up capital that can be reinvested in other parts of the business. Also, unlike on-premise solutions, cloud solutions can be expanded and enhanced without worrying about new hardware or modifications.

Given that cloud adoption in the region is only going to grow, more and more enterprises are going to look for partners to help them with the transition to the cloud and implementation of cloud solutions. To this end, it would help partners to have a cloud strategy in place and build a cloud practice sooner rather than later.

As we move forward in to 2016 and channel partners prepare to seize new business opportunities and adapt to the ever-increasing level of customer expectation, it is imperative that they change their business model and transition from being ‘box pushers’ to being ‘trusted advisors’. This will only be possible if partners focus on just a few industries or lines of business, take a consultative approach to selling and build a cloud practice.

Improve Collaboration and

Drive Business Growth

Solve collaboration challenges with social ERP

Collaboration is an essential element of successful businesses. Yet according to an Aberdeen ERP Benchmark survey1, many businesses struggle to support true collaboration across their organizations.

More ERP vendors are adding social ERP to their offerings, making collaboration easier and more fun for employees.

What Impedes Collaboration in the Workplace?

Social ERP Boosts Business Results

In the report: Solving Collaboration Challenges with Social ERP 2, the top two challenges in collaboration were identified as: Data in silos

46

Companies that implement social ERP have better business metrics than those that do not use social ERP.

Lack of infrastructure and tools

37

%

%

Decrease in cycle time for key business processes

Reduced time to decision

With social ERP Without social ERP

28% 21% 11% 9% How Social ERP Fits in the Work World

Internal schedule compliance

Employees that exceed performance metrics

Improvements in profit margins

95% 90% 58% 36% 19% 9% Forums, profiles and wikis That enable the exchange of information

A single hub for communication

A record of communication

For transparency and Where employees can accountability—from tag conversations, moments ago to products, projects, months and years customers, ago equipment, etc.

Enable Collaboration and Continuous Improvement Companies using social ERP vs. those that do not:

1X

How Best-in-Class Companies Use Social ERP

Are 4X more likely to be able to tag conversations to activities, customers, processes and more

48% 48% 61% 61%

use it to enable real-time collaboration across departments and divisions

use it to annotate, share and collaborate on reports or visuals in real-time

use it to gain insight from reports and views

use it to support continuous improvement initiatives by cross-functional teams

4X

1 2

1X

2X

Saw 2X the improvement in profit margins over the past two years

ERP Benchmark survey. July 2013. Aberdeen Group, Inc. Solving Collaboration Challenges with Social ERP. August 2013.

Aberdeen Group, Inc.

About Aberdeen Group

Aberdeen Group publishes research that helps businesses improve their performance. We identify Best-in-Class organizations by conducting quantitative primary research with industry practitioners. Our research is relied on by hundreds of thousands of business professionals to drive smarter decision making and improved business strategy. Start researching today at www.Aberdeen.com.

For more information about Epicor ERP, visit

epicor.com/mena/company/collaboration Copyright Š 2015 Epicor Software Corporation. Epicor, Business Inspired and the Epicor logo are trademarks of Epicor Software Corporation, registered in the United States and other countries. The contents herein are for informational purposes only.

OPinion

Red Hat

Enabling digital transformation Frank Basinski, Director, Partner Programmes and Enablement, Red Hat EMEA, discusses key channel trends for the year.

As IT technologies continue to evolve to support the inevitable digital transformation, 2015 has been a year of significant change in the market, driven mainly by customers. Over the past year, the technologies that are fundamentally changing businesses, cloud, Big Data and mobility, have begun to mature. This trend will continue in earnest into 2016 and those companies that aren’t able to provide or support these technologies will be in danger of being left behind. So what do channel partners and supporting vendors need to prioritise, pay attention to and nail down in 2016?

Training, training and more training – partners need to get trained up and vendors need to ensure that they are offering the type of training needed to put partners in a position of confidence and competitive advantage. Partners need to make crucial decisions – do they choose to specialise in one particular area or offer a wider portfolio? Partners that sit on the fence many find themselves at a significant competitive disadvantage with their solution provider or systems integrator

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january 2016

competitors, who will over-take them. Whatever they decide, they have to know that the vendors they are working with offer the training that they need.

In the first six months of the current fiscal year, we trained and accredited more than 1000 Red Hat Partners in its technologies in the EMEA region, and the momentum continues.

Additionally, the company has implemented a model for partners that gives them access to as much training as they need, free of charge, in order for its partners to ensure sustained quality-ofservice to customers. This is important to our partners as it dissolves potential barriers to adoption for our technologies, increases the speed to market for third platform solutions based on Red Hat, and provides our partners with a valuable and tangible quality and efficiency differentiator.

Interoperability and integration – The importance of this to customers cannot be stressed enough, and so we expect strategic alliances to play an important part in the direction that the industry will take next year.

Realistically speaking, end customers are invested in

Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

both, and need integration and interoperability to facilitate their digital transformation plans.

This removes a major question mark from the transformation strategies of end customers, representing a major business opportunity that has received so much positive resonance around the world with systems integrator partners.

The thriving hybrid cloud - Red Hat’s Certified Cloud and Service Provider programme was based on the continuing shift from on premise to cloud, and ensuring our partners are best-placed to deliver on customer projects. While not all organisations want to move entirely to the cloud, we will see much greater growth in the adoption of hybrid cloud, and organisations making this shift will want to do so sooner rather than later, and we see this playing a big part in business investment in 2016.

Battling for budget - IT will increasingly compete for technology budget with buyers from other lines of business within their organisations. As digital continues to play a larger part of marketing strategies,

organisations’ IT teams need the flexibility to integrate complex new solutions quickly, comprehensively and reliably. Because of this we are already seeing partners with complimentary skill-sets focus on building strategic collaborations, placing themselves in a strong position to offer end-users exactly what they require.

Knowing what’s needed is just as important as having access to it, and partners that keep their ears to the ground will have a much better understanding of why many end customers are planning to, or have already initiated the transformation of their IT and business methods.

Adaptability and flexibility play a major factor in end users’ investment decisions, which is why transformationenabling technologies are becoming the focus of many business’ future-proofing activities.

We started maturing our portfolio years ago in preparation for these trends to materialise as substantial market demand, and most channel partners will feel optimistic about 2016, with the prospect of another major technology transition in the market - particularly as this represents potential for massive growth in services.

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Cyber-security trends

feature

Digital defence Matt Gyde, Dimension Data’s Group Executive, Security Business Unit, outlines key IT cyber-security trends to look out for in this year.

In 2015, several high-profile security breaches kept the topic of cyber-security in the headlines — and the next 12 months doesn’t look any different. As organisations look to change their business models to adapt to the digital economy, they’re also looking to change their security posture to defend against

cyber-criminals. In an increasingly connected world — of social media, mobility, and cloud — the need for greater intelligence and insight will give businesses a stronger and smarter security stance. However, the complexity of the new digital environment is informing some radical new approaches when it comes to security in 2016.

Security steps up to meet the digital age The chief information security officer (CISO) faces a new headache - digital complexity. The digital world has changed how organisations communicate with the world out there.

The rapid increase in how we use technology to communicate has led to more data and more points of entry or breach. Because

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of the rapid pace, security hasn’t adapted fast enough.

We saw this in the explosion of hacks in 2015.

CISOs will now have to have a hard look at new policies and processes to address this as an urgent item on the security agenda in 2016. Information security, like any other discipline, has to be re-evaluated and re-aligned as part of digital transformation.

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feature

Cyber-security trends

Social media plays a fundamental part in this journey. People aren’t holding back on social media — they’re sharing more than ever before. Sadly, cybersecurity policies haven’t accounted for this. In 2016, these will have to gain alignment fairly rapidly as organisations strive for a greater depth of security.

For example, a disturbing new trend is ‘whaling’ — where hackers target senior executives with ransomware, demanding money or using their information fraudulently.

The challenge is to protect an individual and not just their cyber presence.

We also predict that forensics will be even more important in the coming year. As people use different types of technologies in the digital enterprise, these technologies will all be increasingly subject to exploitation. As the stakes get higher, businesses will need to continuously scan the dark web as cybercriminals become more bold and deliberate.

The reality is that no enterprise, no matter its size, can avoid security incidents anymore. Instead, the enterprise must be able to anticipate them, and have the capability to identify and respond to these threats, often in real-time. Many of our clients are seeing the value in outsourcing information security activities to third parties as part of their efforts to mitigate risk and bolster their defences.

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january 2016

Matt Gyde, Group Executive, Security Business Unit, Dimension Data

Cloud shatters the perimeter As organisations move security controls from a traditional perimeter to cloud-based providers, the traditional corporate network is becoming irrelevant. The adoption of cloud platforms and security-as-a-service, will continue in 2016.

We’ll see CISOs moving more of their perimeter security controls to these platforms as part of the efforts to reduce their physical footprint and costs associated with traditional infrastructure. When you’re able to turn security controls on and off as needed, and enable your security in real-time, there are obvious benefits but also hidden management complexities.

The perimeter was always considered the ‘catch-all’ for critical applications and workloads

Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

— such as ERP, bespoke applications, intellectual property, and so forth.

But the cloud has now shattered that paradigm.

Users and their devices are no longer confined to a single location — and the same applies for the data they’re accessing. In fact, some applications may not reside in a facility or location that businesses even know about.

The trend will be to start following, or tracking, workload applications and securing them wherever they ‘live’. In essence, organisations will need to replicate their onpremise security controls in the cloud. However, it’s important to keep in mind that these workloads and applications behave very differently than a network from a security point of view — they’re often a lot more unpredictable.

While perimeter security remains critical, security in the time of cloud and digital needs a new approach as we start to see an emergence of hybrid security infrastructures. The challenge, as we move into this year, is to have policy and event management that can be controlled centrally, regardless of the location of the application or data.

Business adopts a ‘seize’ mentality Yes, you read that right — a seize mentality. A year ago, we predicted a resurgence in interest in endpoint security. Security professionals were starting to take a closer look at their devices — whether a PC, Mac, smartphone, or tablet — for indicators of compromise.

Because companies have allowed so many employees to bring their

own devices into the corporate environment, traditional networkbased security controls aren’t able to keep up.

This is motivating many organisations to seize control of the security of devices at their endpoints without restricting a user’s mobility or productivity.

The focus now will extend into applications and patching. We expect businesses to start exploring methods to validate the safety of applications before allowing users to download these applications onto their devices. Identity will become more linked to the network as IT teams put individual users in the cross hairs: Where are they located? What information can they access? What device are they using?

Some of our clients are already talking to us about leveraging a system where devices or endpoints can evaluate and ‘rank’ local applications according to a perceived level of risk. We’re really moving away from a signaturebased identity model to a proactive approach — where you can verify the ‘intentions’ of an application before allowing it to be downloaded.

One thing we’ve noticed is that organisations struggle to create a business case for user awareness activities. We’ve worked with our partners to create a series of security awareness videos — called Inside Security — and we’re making these available to the community at no cost.

For security professionals, the caution is - the critical applications and workloads you need to protect may not be on the network anymore. You won’t understand the masses of data traversing your environment in the digital era without intelligence.

Intelligence takes on a defensive stance — keep your eye on the target Intelligence can’t be separated from any security initiative as we move into the next 12 months. With

engage a managed security services provider — to give you information about possible or real threats to your systems. The second is to augment these insights with deeper threat analysis and reporting. And this is where data will give you a stronger stance.

Most security professionals have masses of unstructured data at hand. The next step is to put this data in a structure that gives you a level of intelligence to make an informed decision on how

Most security professionals have masses of unstructured data at hand. The next step is to put this data in a structure that gives you a level of intelligence to make an informed decision on how to adapt your security posture.” better intelligence, you can get smarter about security — taking a proactive rather than a reactive stance.

All too often, businesses fall victim to malicious attacks because those monitoring and control systems in place provide them with too little information, too late. These traditional approaches of gathering intelligence tend to put you on the ‘back foot.’

Not only should your security allow you to anticipate attacks, but allow you to take the appropriate action.

We believe organisations should take a ‘one-two punch’ approach to intelligence. It’s important to keep your eye on the target and not on the ground. The first is to

to adapt your security posture. In this way, you’re making better decisions and taking swifter actions based on the events you’re seeing in your environment.

Hyper-virtualised, software-defined security — the appliance is dead, long live the (virtualised) appliance If anything, 2016 is set to be the year of hypervirtualised security. The firewall was always seen as the first and last line of defence for preventing threats, but this can lead to a false sense of security or, worse, an attitude of complacency.

With workloads dispersed over the Internet, security

www.resellerme.com

professionals will need to think of new strategies to build — and secure — critical applications and workloads in a variable security environment. It’s about taking the physical hardware of the firewall, which is sold as an appliance, and making it a software-based entity. In this way, you start solving a software problem with software. As with softwaredefined networking, software-based security will help create an agile and flexible infrastructure.

When you start to virtualise full-feature security workloads, you unlock true portability and cost efficiency. As vendors are required to deliver consumption models to their customers they may see their sales dip but then even out and become more consistent.

While there may not be large once-off hardware sales, vendors will start to see more repeatable and predictable sales.

Those enterprises making their foray into the digital space will reap almost immediate benefits.

Firstly, they’ll have more agility as there are no expensive assets to write off at the end of a cycle; secondly, they’ll be able to change their strategy to adapt to security concerns as they manifest in their own environments.

We predict that IT purchasing patterns of business will start to change in 2016, as businesses start to ‘take back’ security into their own hands.

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Outlook 2016

Market

Industry experts examine the current market scenario and predicts what’s in store over the course of 2016.

2015 has been a year of challenges for the regional channel market.

These challenges have revolved around a number of aspects such as political unrest, decline of the oil prices, currency fluctuations and other more age-old problems such as low margins and over credit issue. However, the industry is expecting

the market to grow significantly over the course of 2016. Although the first few quarters will continue to be sluggish, we should see a positive impact by the end of the year.

The reasons behind this growth are largely due to government-led infrastructure projects in the build up to Expo 2020. Also, an increasing number of companies

are looking to digitalise their operations, opening up new streams of opportunities for the channel players within the region.

Amar Singh, Head of Enterprise, Alpha Data, says, “Digitalisation is now widely regarded as highly relevant to the economic development of countries in this part of the world. Moreover,

We believe that retail has been at the centre of an international revolution enabled by ICT. Technological products have become a matter of necessity for the evolving consumers’ lifestyle, which has increased consumer demand for technology.”

Neelesh Bhatnagar, CEO, Emax

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january 2016

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stricter requirements on national security will push the technology business even further.”

Agreeing with Singh, Fadi Mubarak, Channel Leader, Avaya AMEA, adds that 2016 will see organisations across the region increasingly embrace the opportunities created by digital transformation.

“This will be at the centre of enterprise strategy across all industry segments and markets because it enables organisations to deliver different and better customer experiences. IDC is predicting ICT spending across the Middle East, Turkey and Africa will top $260 billion in 2016 as organisations increase expenditure on mobility,

cloud, social and Big Data initiatives to drive digital transformation.”

However, market conditions still remain a challenge as economic factors prevail, however there are signs of growth, says Eyad Al Shami, Channel Manager ME, Citrix. “We expect these growth opportunities to continue into 2016. A recent report indicated that UAE IT sales market is expected to hit around AED 22 billion by 2019, compared to the AED 17 billion it is worth now. This is testament that growth will be expected in some parts of the region more so than others.”

The major shift that the industry is experiencing is the move from traditional business models and legacy technologies to a more flexible dynamic structure centred on newer emerging technologies.

In such a scenario, only those professionals who are nimble and adaptive while thinking of innovative business ideas can truly differentiate themselves.

With ICT playing a major role in the transformation of business to align with market trends and dynamics, Reeman Ansari, Manager Partner Organisation, VMware MENA believes it is also necessary to remain competitive and relevant in a volatile market. She says, “You can either continue to innovate to remain relevant or stagnant and become

irrelevant for customers.

Mobile-cloud technology is driving fundamental change across every vertical industry you can name, redefining how companies compete, and how they engage with their customers.”

And related to this, another learning from 2015 has been the rising importance of the OPEX model within enterprises.

Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Riverbed Technology says, “Today, if you look at the Kingdom

that don’t have a play in OPEX models now have the opportunity to work with their selected vendors towards this end. They can help customers become more agile in how they manage their operations and through the use of automation, and outsourced manpower, free up technical resources within the customer organisation to focus on more missioncritical aspects of the business. Partners that invest in services, have an OPEX model in mind, and

revolution enabled by ICT. Technological products have become a matter of necessity for the evolving consumers’ lifestyle, which has increased consumer demand for technology.

Today 85 percent of UAE households have computers and tablets as they provide computing power to the user with mobility. According to several studies done in the UAE, the IT market is expected to grow eight percent YoY till 2018.”

By no means will 2016 be easier for the regional

Those channel partners that don’t have a play in OPEX models now have the opportunity to work with their selected vendors towards this end.

Partners that invest in services, have an OPEX model in mind, and that are working with fewer ‘trend-aligned’ vendors will have every reason to be optimistic about their business prospects in 2016.”

Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Riverbed Technology

of Saudi Arabia, there have been announcements about very stringent cuts in the CAPEX budget.

However, from an OPEX perspective, organisations still have to maintain the infrastructure they have already invested in. So, a lot of OPEX spending will be on optimisation and proper utilisation of existing infrastructure.

“Those channel partners

that are working with fewer ‘trend-aligned’ vendors will have every reason to be optimistic about their business prospects in 2016.”

The optimism also extends to the region’s retail sector where experts are predicting an upsurge in business in the coming months.

Neelesh Bhatnagar, CEO, Emax, says “We believe that retail has been at the centre of an international

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channel industry but by planning ahead and investing into the right resources, it can certainly be a more positive and better growth year. While there are a number of new technologies around which we will see huge progress in this year, most of them will stem from technologies such as Internet of Things, cloud, Big Data and analytics, mobility and security.

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Outlook 2016

Internet of Things “The increasing volume of data and bandwidth utilisation from the burgeoning number of Internet of Things (IoT) sensors and ‘smart’ connected devices such as healthcare devices, home security systems and appliances, vending machines and check-out stands; will drive traditional networks to the breaking point. Mesh topologies and fabric-based technologies will become increasingly attractive as the answer for cost-effective solutions that can accommodate the capacity needed and flexibility required for the constant changes in network traffic. Decades of client server architectures are coming to an end.”

Fadi Mubarak, Channel Leader, Avaya AMEA “Today, the integration of Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Everything (IoE) will require many services and the involvement of partners who understand how cloud applications, mobile applications, and mobile application development all play a part in the connectivity of everything.”

Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa, Riverbed Technology

“We are observing a growing awareness of, and maturity in, the Internet of Things (IoT) side especially with the technology directions set by the region’s governments, mainly in UAE. Furthermore, we believe that Big Data and storage in general will take a significant share of expenditures.”

Mohamad Abou-Zaki, COO, EMIRCOM

“IoT is the what needs to be watched out for in 2016. In B2B, the IoT is growing rapidly. By 2020, it is been estimated that there will be about 200 billion devices on the market globally – roughly 26 smart objects for every human on the planet. Most IoT devices are currently being used in businesses, healthcare and factories.

However, with the huge addition in the number of devices in use comes an increase in the number of potential challenges to overcome, including, security, enterprise, consumer privacy, data flow, bandwidth capacity, storage management, server technologies and data centre network.”

Leenna Jayachaandran, Director Enterprise Business, Genome Technology 36

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Big Data and analytics “The speeds of both, the business of technology and the technology in business, is becoming too fast for customers and channel partners who don’t understand the business principles of outsourcing, keeping the value chain simple, and ensuring (or rather ‘insuring’) agility in investments – especially technology investments.

For channel partners, some important tends to watch out for in 2016: the growing adoption of Software-Defined (networking, storage, and data centres), open, and hybrid technology solutions and platforms; initial forays into the Internet of Things; the rise in private cloud implementations; customers taking on singlevendor strategies, and the consolidation of the technology market and players.”

Shams Hasan, Enterprise Product Manager, Middle East, Dell

“Enterprise storage will continue to grow in the New Year. Data storage, data protection, data management, Big Data, high performance computing and data analytics solutions and services will continue to govern the regional channel business. In addition to this, we see an increase in business from the channel for our Managed Services portfolio, which we have launched recently. Going forward, we see cloud computing and Big Data analytics as major actors in bringing in a paradigm shift in the way we all do business.”

Ranjith Kaippada, Sales Director, StorIT Distribution

“We expect Big Data, cloud, mobility, security, data centre optimisation and the AV business to be the big tickets for regional channels this coming year. We predict a major shift from the service-oriented to the pay-as-you-grow business model from the customer side to reduce capital and operating expenses. We are particularly eyeing emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things and Big Data as well as physical security, among others. We also intend to focus on adding more resources for new technologies to ensure optimal delivery.”

Amar Singh, Head of Enterprise, Alpha Data

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Outlook 2016

Cloud and mobility “We are currently entering the ‘professional era of the cloud’. The cloud market itself is changing rapidly. The cloud that the industry has constructed to date looks a lot like a half-built bridge: picture two siloed towers that remain largely disconnected and disjointed. On one side you have the on-premises private-cloud tower, where governance is strong but app delivery is simply too slow. On the other side is the off-premises public-cloud tower, where app delivery is fast, but governance is weak. We must now move to a more connected and compatible era of cloud, in which businesses launch applications to the ‘span’ instead of a silo. This unified hybrid cloud represents the future of IT.” Reeman Ansari, Manager Partner Organisation, VMware MENA

“The top technologies that are currently in growing demand are cloud services and mobility. Increased demand for technologies that enable businesses to be agile and flexible – such as cloud services. Investing through the OPEX model will become the norm in the next few years as the pay-as-you-go model is easier, more flexible and permits growth as needed. In response to customer demand for flexible, scalable solutions, partners will likely focus on offering a greater selection of cloud services that drive better performance with less upfront investments such as SaaS and DaaS.” Eyad Al Shami, Channel Manager ME, Citrix

“The MEA region is widely considered the second-fastest growing market in the world. The SaaS sector is set to establish marked performance at a forecast of 29 percent expansion year-on-year. Converged systems will also establish strong growth as more organisations are looking to utilise the agility, productivity, flexibility and cost-saving benefits presented by such solutions to increase their competitive advantage. Also, private cloud will establish itself as an invaluable asset for many applications shared services providers. Telecommunication firms in MEA are also expected to transform to become IT and digital services hubs in the coming years with their strong interest and implementation of technological advancements.”

Rex Neate, Business Development Consultant, Software AG Middle East

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Security “As enterprises move along the education curve, particularly when it comes to getting comfortable with security around technologies such as BYOD and cloud, I believe there is going to be a large appetite for adoption of, particularly, cloud and mobility solutions. If partners want to be successful in 2016, they are going to need to build practices to support these technologies. Given that most of the technologies are interdependent, partners need to be able to provide solutions for the complete ecosystem and to this end it would behoove them to be vendor agnostic and focus on best-of-breed solutions rather than solutions from big name, legacy providers.”

Abdul Rehman, Regional Manager, Pulse Secure

“We believe that information security is a big area for businesses. There is a greater demand for emerging technologies such as social media, cloud, Big Data, mobile and Internet of Things, which are evolving in the market. There will also be significant development in the areas of storage and security that would show substantial growth and gain momentum in this year. As a security focused vendor, we know the battle is continuous and ongoing as new security breaches and discoveries emerge every moment and we are prepared to meet such challenges with latest technologies.”

Jose Thomas, Managing Director, Bulwark Technologies

“There is no one particular technology as such but rather a wide and prominent focus on IT security. IT security is foremost in investments and is therefore a golden opportunity for the channel. The Internet of Things trend is starting to give rise to the adoption of new technologies and usage models, and security plays a crucial element in securing the network. We are also seeing organisations across the GCC implement mobile security solutions, to cater to BYOD trends and the threats it exposes the organisations to.”

Maya Zakhour, Channel Director, Middle East, Fortinet

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Outlook 2016

Channel chat “The shift between traditional distribution model and online business model will continue to accelerate in the coming years. The companies that will be able to offer a solid e-commerce and market place platform with a rich offer of SAS solutions will dominate the landscape of the future years that will come. Today the traditional business model of distribution, is mainly built around few giant vendors that dictate their conditions to partners and to the market. The ability of reaching the partners and end-users with a wide offer of solutions and with a cost-effective approach, will open a new spectrum of opportunities and possibilities for the entire channel.”

Mario Gay, Managing Director, Mindware

“There is a world of difference between turning an operating profit and making enough money to survive. Channel players pre-occupied with top line sales growth need to pay more attention to the bottom line basics. A trading mentality continues to persist in the channel, which means some companies buy and sell at same price level with omega margin attached. This makes the top line sales figure look great and impressive, which gives a false illusion of the company’s size and power.

Partners should manage costs and work towards improving gross margins. It is important for all employees to understand the company’s goals and vision in order to create a strong motivated team.”

Arun Chawla, CEO, Trigon

“It’s important to continue reviewing your business model and adapt quickly.

Global has been already pioneering ‘solutions distribution’ in the region, which is stressing the importance of more partner education and training, providing alternative financing models and increase service opportunities.

The UAE’s and Qatar’s economies are well diversified and should remain a key driver in 2016. We even see new projects from Yemen, where the supporting countries are helping to rebuild the infrastructure.”

Mario M Veljovic, VP Solutions, MEA, Global Distribution

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feature

Country focus: Qatar

Business buoyancy Reseller ME explores the opportunities present in the Qatar market and how channel partners can look at expanding their business.

Fast Facts Population: 2.2 million Capital: Doha Area: 12,000 square kilometres Language: Arabic, English

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Occupying a peninsula that extends to the Persian Gulf, Qatar presents a wide range of opportunities for channel players who are looking to set shop in the fast-growing country.

The Middle Eastern country’s growth in the IT market is largely attributed to modernisation projects such as upgrades to infrastructures and continued investments in the build-up to hosting the World Cup in 2022.

According to a recent report by BMI Research, the ICT sector has been a key beneficiary of the government’s drive to diversify the economy away from the hydrocarbons, through its e-Government 2020 strategy and strong support for the development of smart cities. The market analysis firm further predicts a bullish outlook for the country’s consumer electronics market, stating growth drivers such as high per capita income, strong consumption

culture, steady population growth from the influx of migrant workers and the government’s continued commitment to investment in the ICT sector.

Maya Zakhour, Channel Director, Middle East, Fortinet, says, “Government spending on infrastructure projects in the recent years is a key driver for economic as well as infrastructural growth. This, in turn means increased investment by large enterprises that drive Qatar’s economy, and attracts manpower and enhanced infrastructure.

“Development translates into new opportunity and what could be better for channel partners than the chance to identify these

opportunities and capitalise on them. The growth of the economy creates more business opportunities for the channel players in the market. Qatar currently has one of the best fixed and wireless infrastructure in the GCC, which also is a great opportunity for channel players to upsell and cross-sell within the enterprise solutions.”

Agreeing, Stephan Berner, Managing Director, Help AG, says, “In a country that is in a development phase, we have to make sure to enable the organisations understand the importance of having an information security strategy in place. We make sure to elevate our customers

Post-sales support is one of the most important factors that the end users are looking for.”

Feras Masoud, Channel Manager, GCC, Levant and Egypt, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company

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in any and every aspect of information security protection to minimise the risk of falling victim to breaches from internal and external threat vectors.

For the country’s enterprises, the focus and investments are around emerging technologies such as Big Data, cloud, IoT and security, as is the case with other organisations across the Middle East.

With Smart City initiatives well underway, security becomes a key area of focus for the government.

Channel players should look into these areas and work towards being a trusted advisor.

Feras Masoud, Channel Manager, GCC, Levant and Egypt, Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, says, “As the country is going through huge infrastructure growth and expansion, it will need a lot of IT services to be provided to the customers in order to address the new IT needs. Channels in Qatar should invest on their resources and focus on providing services.

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feature

Country focus: Qatar

“Post-sales support is one of the most important factors that the end users are looking for. The second important factor for the partners to focus on is the show case and the demo centre that they need to have on their premises while most of the customers, if not all, are looking to attend a live demo and real show case for the required solutions. Mobility is one of the main required solutions that the partners have to show and present live to the end users before they take the decision to buy.”

Berner says, the focus for the company in Qatar is around managed security

services. But the country is not without its challenges.

“Big challenges for any organisation in the region includes lack of qualified information security resources, lack of skillsets and expertise, and the ability to monitor, detect, respond and remediate 24x7 to information security incidents. This is what we do by having our Cyber Security Operations Centre taking care of security event management, incident response, managed security devices without any data logs leaving the customer premises.”

According to Masoud, the other challenges facing the company and its partners are ensuring best possible post-

Numbers speak Computer Hardware Sales: Sales of $771mn in 2014 to rise to $1.0bn in 2019, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 5.5% in US dollar terms.

AV Sales: The growth will increase from $332mn in 2014 to $392mn in 2019, a CAGR of 3.4% in US dollar terms.

Handset Sales: The growth is forecasted to rise from $558mn in 2014 to $732mn in 2019, a CAGR of 5.6% in US dollar terms.

Software Sales: QAR548mn in 2014 to QAR828mn in 2019, a CAGR of 8.6% in local currency terms. The dominance of oil and gas in the local economy limits the size of the software market, but scope remains for growth in the enterprise market over the medium term through the modernisation and diversification initiatives of the government.

IT Services Sales: QAR1.20bn in 2014 to QAR2.07bn in 2019, a CAGR of 11.6% in local currency terms. Services are expected to perform well in the IT market in the medium term due to demand for cloud computing, smart systems and security services from the public and private sectors.

Source: BMI Research, 2015

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In a country that is in a development phase, we have to make sure to enable the organisations understand the importance of having an information security strategy in place.”

Stephan Berner, Managing Director, Help AG

sales support and brand and solution awareness in the Qatari market. Also, investing on demo centres and specialised labs to be used as a show case for the customers is another challenge.

“We at Aruba are creating special programmes for our partners to help them face these challenges. For example, we do provide special technical programmes for our partners with some specialised courses, plus several running enablement sessions country per country to provide more info about the new roadmaps and the new released products and solutions.”

The company also offers a large discount for the demo labs provided to its partners to help them build the best of class demo laps.

“From a marketing perspective we work closely with our partners to provide regular events in Qatar to educate our customers with the new released solutions and technologies, which will also help on providing solution and technology awareness,” he adds.

While the Qatar market presents a wide range of opportunities, it is important for channel partners to have clear and niche focuses, as only with a dedicated approach, can there be success.

Although due to declining oil prices the growth in the country may be sluggish at the moment, experts predict the market to stay steady and eventually pick up a faster pace over the next few years. Having said this, it is necessary for channel partners to undertake thorough market research and understand the local nuances well before setting up, to ensure a profitable business.

Zakhour says, “Vendors and systems integrators are investing into technology events and roadshows in the country to invite end-users to see how technology can transform their business to keep up with the rapid change in the landscape. Our plan for the next 12 months is to enable partners to help meet the growing demands and we will certainly contribute to growing this market.”

Alpha Tech

Partner watch

Retail relativity Julien Arnolda, Managing Director, Alpha Tech, discusses the company’s plans to expand its portfolio and open new doors over the course of this year.

Can you give us an overview of Alpha Tech?

Headquartered in the UAE, Alpha Tech is an experienced retail distribution specialist, with offices and warehouse facilities in Dubai Airport Freezone Authority (DAFZA) and serves retail partners throughout the MENA region. We are the regional logistics partner and GCC distributor for Jabra for the last 14 years, and also provides warehousing and logistics support, along with establishing and managing the channel partners.

Which are the other brands under your portfolio?

While Jabra is one of our biggest brands that we manage, we also take care of the logistics for other brands such as Jawbone

and Jacob Jensen, which is a brand from Denmark.

We have recently signed up with several other brands including rugged mobile phones manufacturer, Energizer for its Hard Case line-up for the UAE market.

We have also signed up with a Canadian company called Mio Global for performance activity trackers and sports watches. We are diversifying into a lot of wearable related devices.

Can you elaborate on the company’s key highlights in 2015?

One of our biggest achievements includes bagging the award from Jabra for the ‘Distributor of the year’ for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey regions.

Also, the fact that we are continuing our relationship with Jabra for the 14th year in a row is a worthy feat.

“We are looking to open more doors in the region. We are beginning to look at the sports category more seriously with brands such as Jabra, Jawbone and Mio Global.”

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What are some of the company’s plans for this year?

We are looking to open more doors in the region.

We are beginning to look at the sports category more seriously with brands such as Jabra, Jawbone and Mio Global. We are looking to target gyms, professional trainers and the like. It is definitely a growing market.

What is the extent of your partner network?

We cover 95 percent of retail distribution through partners in the likes of Virgin Megastore, Sharaf DG, Emax and Jumbo. We also work with the sports channel through stores such as Sun and Sands, and Modell’s.

What is your business focus?

We will be focusing on key brands that we handle.

Our primary market differentiator is that we have teams for each of the brand that we manage. We are not looking to handle 20 to 30 brands, which will eventually result in losing focus.

Therefore, we are also very picky even when it comes to attending global conferences

or exhibitions. We need to be clear on what we want to bring back from these shows before planning to go.

How has the company’s growth been amid challenging market circumstances?

Unfortunately, business has been slow in the regional market due to several outside elements and also because of currency fluctuations. That being said, I believe the market will improve over this year.

Compared to the previous year, we have had a 35 percent growth in 20132014. And although we were profitable in 2014-2015, our expectations were not met.

But in 2016, we will see a 30 percent growth largely because we have added new brands into our portfolio and we have started to focus on certain channels.

What is your message for the market?

We should all keep a close eye on the sporting category because it is growing and we believe that as a company, which is why we have added more sporting brands. We look forward to a prosperous year ahead.

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Samsung

REVIEW

Samsung Note 5 Elegant in design, powerful in performance, it’s hard not to desire Samsung’s latest launch.

As soon as you get a hold of Samsung’s latest launch, you know it’s different from its predecessors. The device is designed in a glass and metal body, lending it a premium look and feel. As a customer, you do feel a sense of pride in using the smartphone.

Samsung has come a long way from its first generation of Note to the latest. The Note 5 boasts few interesting features such as being able to write on a locked screen with the new and improved S Pen. The fingerprint lock was long overdue if compared to other smartphones in the same category. The gesture features such as being able to take a screen shot by just swiping the palm across the screen and being able to take selfies by holding up your palm are some aspects the customers can look forward to.

The look and feel of the icons and the general user interface have been enhanced to a great level, which was one of the sore points with customers earlier. Incorporated with a 5.7-inch screen and featuring

RME RATING

Super AMOLED touch screen display of 1440 x 2560 resolution with a Corning Gorilla Glass 4, pictures and videos, when viewed, have that clear high-quality feel, which features like these will bring to the table. Some might say the screen is too large and one handed use is not comfortable on this device, which is true to an extent. But it is worth keeping in mind that the phablet is targeted at customers who enjoy working on large screens and have an eye for detail. Single-handed use is not impossible but it’s not a risk customers should take, especially since there are chances of the metal body slipping from your hands.

The multi-window or the splitscreen option was quite useful, and enabled to stream videos on YouTube while also working on other apps simultaneously.

The rear primary camera of 16MP is capable of shooting bright and clear pictures. And with features such as dual shot capturing and video recording, geo-tagging, touch and auto focus, LED flash, smile and face detection, HDR, optical image

and stabilisation and panorama, the user has a plethora of options to play with, in order to get that perfect image. The front facing camera of 5MP is more than sufficient for crisp selfies and video conversations.

Running on Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, the device houses a powerful Exynos 7420 processor and has 4GB RAM. The piece reviewed was of 32 GB, but users also have an option of the 64 GB version.

However, even with a large memory bandwidth, there was a slight delay when launching some applications.

The battery life was another disappointing aspect, it barely about ran through a day of activities.

But on that note, the adaptive fast charging cable that came along with the device was useful and did speed up the charging process.

All in all, it is certainly a great device, one which users will be proud to own and look forward to use on a daily basis. With the price ranging up to AED 2000, it is certainly worth the money invested minus the battery life length and the slight lag in applications.

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hot products

Parrot introduces Zik 3 ASUS launches Zen AiO Pro in the UAE

ASUS announces the 23.8-inch Zen AiO Pro Z240IC the first model in its new Zen AiO Pro Series, a premium range of all-in-one PCs. Featuring an all-aluminum design, Zen AiO Pro is powered by 6th-generation Intel Core up to i7 processors and gaminggrade NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M graphics with 2GB of video memory.

The Zen AiO Pro Series also includes a 10Gbit/s USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port, up to PCIe 3.0 x4 M.2 SSD storage, and an Intel RealSense camera.

The device is also equipped with a powerful six-speaker ASUS SonicMaster Premium sound system that delivers 16W of rich and clear stereo sound.

Zen AiO Pro is an all-in-one PC to use the next-generation USB 3.1 Gen 2, which delivers data transfers of up to 10Gbit/s. It uses the latest USB 3.1 Type-C connector for improved ease of use — the connector is reversible, so it can’t be inserted the wrong way round.

And for all-device connectivity, Zen AiO Pro also has a full complement of four USB 3.0 ports plus a USB 2.0 port, along with the latest ultra-fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

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Parrot has introduced Zik 3 is the newest generation of Parrot’s wireless music and telephone headset, designed by Starck.

The new device, according to the company, reflects a couture spirit in shiny croc texture, leather-grain or overstitched details in trendy colours.

The design of the headphone has also been modified to incorporate an enlarged headband for more comfort.

Parrot Zik 3 is compatible with wireless Qi chargers with charging time at two hours for 18 hour autonomy. It is also is compatible with all mobile phones available on the market and accepts a variety of music sources (audio via Bluetooth and through a three-point mini jack cable for the connection to all audio and video systems). It also features integrated NFC technology for easy pairing.

Located on the entire surface of the right earpiece, a tactile panel accesses the Parrot Zik 3’s basic functions. A

vertical movement of the finger adjusts the volume, a horizontal swipe changes tracks and a tap pauses the music.

The Parrot Zik 3 detects when you remove the headset and automatically pauses the music. Putting the headphones back on your head prompts the music to resume playing.

Allied Telesis unveils IE510 series of gigabit industrial switches Allied Telesis has expanded its industrial networking portfolio with the launch of the IE510 series of feature-rich Gigabit stackable switches.

According to the company, the IE510 series complements the existing IE200 series of industrial Ethernet switches and are ideal as core or distribution switches for industrial applications. When deployed with the IE200 series, IE510 series switches are ideal for connecting devices such as CCTV cameras, industrial automation systems and building management systems, or anywhere that harsh environments are typical.

The first model to be released in the IE510 series, the AT-IE510-28GSX,

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provides the flexibility of 24 SFP bays along with an additional four 1/10Gbps uplink ports and the scalability provided

by Allied Telesis Virtual Chassis Stacking (VCStack). The switch also delivers features found within the Allied Telesis AlliedWare Plus next-generation operating system, including Ethernet Protection Switched Ring (EPSRing), comprehensive automation using scripting and triggers and Allied Telesis Management Framework (AMF).

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hot products

Canon launches LX-MU700 Canon Middle East has announced the launch of five projectors to its LV range including its brightest ever model – LX MU700.

According to the company, the new models are designed to meet the varying requirements of customers and integrators, particularly within the business and education environments.

The LX-MU700 is Canon’s brightest WUXGA installation projector to date, offering 7,500 lumens when both lamps are in use, ideal for environments such as large auditoriums where there are high levels of ambient light. In addition, dual lamp functionality offers higher levels of reliability as if one lamp fails, the projector can continue to operate in single lamp mode.

Canon also highlighted that the new projector also supports seven interchangeable lenses – ranging from short fixed to ultra-long –enabling integrators to choose the lens best

Micromax Canvas Silver 5

suited to the projection distance and environment. The device is supported by two, six-colour wheels optimised for brightness or colour, making it ideal for installations where the use of video content or computer graphics is required.

The latest LX models support HDBaseT, a new standard for connectivity, allowing for the transmission of HD media, audio and control signals over long distances via a single LAN cable. The LAN cable can span up to 100 metres, greatly improving convenience in system configuration and supporting information sharing.

Biostar’s GeForce GAMING GTX 750 Ti OC Biostar has announced the launch of the GeForce GTX 750 Ti graphics card for mainstream gaming.

Powered by Maxwell architecture, the BIOSTAR GeForce Gaming GTX 750 Ti OC delivers visuals with low power draw. Complimented by 2GB of GDDR5 on a 128-bit wide bus, the device allows users to play the latest games smoothly through its Gaming OC revision designed to meet competitive gamers’ needs, its 640 CUDA cores are factory overclocked to 1127Mhz with a Boost frequency of 1178Mhz for that extra kick.

The new Biostar Gaming FPS

design cooler cools the full-sized PCB card and maintain ideal temperatures. It also complements the Biostar Gaming line of motherboards, and supports multiple displays via dual DVI and miniHDMI output.

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Souq.com has announced the exclusive launch of Micromax Canvas Silver 5 from Micromax Informatics Limited.

Micromax Canvas Silver 5 is the lightest and slimmest 4G smartphone in the world, weighing under 100g and will be selling at AED 899.

Equipped with the Android lollipop 5.0.2 OS, the smartphone offers a range of apps, features and tools and is powered by a 64 bit Qualcomm MSM8916 Snapdragon 410 Adreno 306 GPU. The Micromax Canvas Sliver 5 features a razor thin 5.1mm body and only weighs around 97g. It also has an Aircraft Grade Aluminum that is light and strong.

The smartphone sports a 1280 x 720 pixels resolution and has a 16.7M color output. It also has a Corning Gorilla Glass 3 and is equipped with the ‘oncell’ technology for a more integrated touch response.

The Micromax Canvas Sliver 5 is built with an 8MP rear camera and incorporates a SONY IMX219 sensor, 4P Largan Lens, and a Blue Glass Filter.

In addition, the 5MP FF front camera allows you to click beautiful selfies while on the move. The smartphone is also equipped with an NXP Smart Power Amplifier and Dirac HD audio technology.

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hot products

SanDisk expands its portable SSD lineup

Zotac meets Skylake Zotac International introduces its 6th generation Intel Skylake processor in the Zotac ZBOX MI551.

The ZBOX MI551 is equipped with an Intel Core i5-6400T quad-core processor, featuring desktop level performance at near-mobile level TDP. According to the company, the result is a CPU which delivers tremendous speed at a fraction of desktop power consumption level capable of driving up to three displays.

Zotac highlighted that the ZBOX MI551 can reduce transfer times with the revolutionary USB 3.1 bandwidth.

With up to 10Gbps data transfer rate, users can upload files in a split second and take it to go with either the USB 3.1 Type-A or USB 3.1 Type-C port.

The device is also equipped with two storage slots. With the M.2 SATA slot, users can install the OS and frequently used software to turbocharge their start up time, and save their work on the more spacious 2.5-inch SATA drive. You can get the best of speed and mass storage all in one unit.

With the Plus model, Zotac said users no longer need to install any hardware as the ZBOX comes with 4GB memory and 120GB M.2 SATA SSD pre-installed.

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SanDisk Corporation recently expanded its SSD product line with a new high-performance, durable, water-resistant portable SSD. Designed for photographers and videographers, the SanDisk Extreme 510 Portable SSD delivers whether on location or in the studio.

According to the company, the storage device builds on the compact design of the highly-rated SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSD to offer ultimate portability and provide greater protection for users who want to take their storage on-the-go. With its rubber bumper and IP55-rating for water and dust resistance, the SanDisk Extreme 510 Portable SSD

stands up to hazards such as rain, spills and rough, dusty trails, while also cushioning against falls.

In a pocket-sized design, the SanDisk Extreme 510 drive delivers transfer speeds up to 430MB/s. and is available in 480GB capacity. The new SanDisk Extreme 510 Portable SSD also features SanDisk SecureAccess software with 128-bit encryption to secure files.

Ekahau introduces Site Survey and Wi-Fi Planner The Ekahau Site Survey (ESS) is a Wi-Fi design and maintenance tool for Wi-Fi professionals. It is capable of creating clear heat maps and easy-to-use reports which, according to Ekahau, makes Wi-Fi optimisation simpler.

ESS allows enterprises to plan and create Wi-Fi networks according to their respective performance and capacity requirements while keeping in mind the increasing amount of wireless clients and applications such as VoIP, HD video streaming and web browsing.

The platform also allows for 3D Wi-Fi network planning which entails predicting network coverage, performance and capacity, and generating 3D modelling in just minutes.

It is also equipped with the Hybrid Site Survey technology which, according to the company, can assist in performing active and passive network testing simultaneously. It also has the Active Survey which has two modes – end-to-end (Ping) and Active (iPerf).

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The Wi-Fi tool features the AutoPlanner which designs the network according to organisation’s capacity requirements. ESS also shows the overloaded APs and areas of excessive voice calls.

ESS works with 802.11ac as well as 802.11a/b/g/n. It is also capable in network planning optimised for virtually all major Wi-Fi systems and is compatible with operating systems such as Windows 10 (32bit, 64bit), Windows 8 (32bit, 64bit) and Windows 7 (32bit, 64bit).

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Honeywell introduces MultiRAE Benzene Honeywell has introduced MultiRAE Benzene, a wireless portable sixgas monitor with a benzene-specific, snapshot measurement designed to protect worker safety in hazardous environments.

The new MultiRAE Benzene includes an innovative six-tube cartridge called RAE SepTube Cartridge that operates in conjunction with the unit’s photoionization (PID) sensor. The MultiRAE Benzene measures benzene in the 0.1 to 200 ppm range while the RAE SepTube Cartridge filters out other volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and gases, eliminating cross-interference, a long-time problem in benzene-specific detection.

The benzene detection capability is one element of a unique, one-to-fivesensor module with interchangeable electrochemical, combustible and PID sensors to protect users from a broad range of toxic and combustible gases and VOCs.

Multi-RAE Benzene provides realtime, wireless access to instrument readings and alarm conditions, including a man-down scenario.

Other MultiRAE features of note include: wireless connectivity as a standalone or networkable solution; intelligent, field-replaceable sensors including oxygen, LEL combustibles, hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide and others. It also allows up to six months’ datalogging, automatic bump test and calibration (with AutoRAE2) and stainlesssteel housing with IP-65 water/dust ingress protection.

The MultiRAE Benzene has been certified for intrinsic safety IECEX /ATEX Ex ia IIC T4 Ga.

Samsung launches 2016 Galaxy A series

Dell shows off refreshed latitude 5000 series Dell has unveiled the newly refreshed Latitude 5000 Series, a fully-featured business-class notebook loaded with the new 6th generation Intel Quad Core processor.

Available in both 14-inch (E5470) and 15-inch (E5570) form factors, the new Latitude is up to 27 percent thinner and up to 18 percent lighter than the previous generation, said the vendor.

In addition to Dell’s own encryption, malware protection, and authentication options that are optimised for Dell devices, the Latitude 5000 Series offers an additional credential storage layer with optional integrated smartcard and touch fingerprint readers that isolate secure operations through Dell ControlVault.

It also features management capabilities built into the Latitude portfolio, it can manipulate BIOS

settings and configure systems with ample flexibility that organisational IT infrastructures require The newly refreshed device also sports an enhanced carbon fibre reinforced polymer materials for a thin and light design. It also has features such as USB Type-C cable docking; optional touch displays with Corning Gorilla Glass NBT; and ergonomic business-class ISO keyboard with backlit option among others.

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Samsung Electronics announced the launch of the latest Galaxy A smartphones. The Galaxy A is available in three screen sizes: the 5.5-inch A7, the 5.2-inch A5 and 4.7-inch A3.

According to the vendor, the Galaxy A combines metal and glass to create a beautifully harmonious premium design. The new Galaxy A features a large screen and thin 2.7mm bezel.

The device is also equipped with an enhanced camera system for capturing images and videos, with Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) preventing image blurring, as well as a 5MP front and 13MP rear F1.9 lens. With Samsung’s Quick Launch feature, double clicking the home button launches the camera in less than a second.

The Galaxy A7, A5 and A3 will first be available in Black, Gold, Pink Gold and White colour schemes, allowing for selfexpression from the second the device is picked up.

The smartphones are now available in global markets, and is now available at all major retailers in the UAE.

Reseller Middle East

january 2016

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Column

Channel surfing

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

Janees Reghelini, Deputy Editor, Reseller ME

Being responsible At the beginning of the New Year most of us usually feel quite hopeful and is filled with positive energy. Without a doubt we believe we are capable of losing those extra pounds or learning that new skill. It is that optimism that we need to remember all throughout the year.

The past 12 months have been a constant struggle for the channel partners. The challenges have been numerous and incessant. We have read reports of several resellers fleeing the market, especially in the last year, leaving behind huge debts. This impacts all the channel stakeholders and business on the whole. To avoid such situations, everyone in the industry knows what is the right thing to do on paper, yet these incidents continue to happen. And I strongly believe the responsibility lies with each member of the channel ecosystem.

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Resellers are forced to exit the market when they are burdened with large credit payments. Vendors push products to distributors, who in turn, puts the pressure on resellers.

Between the resellers themselves, they extend credit on mutual agreements.

However when the reseller is given a large sum on credit and resorts to price wars, and eventually is unable to pay back the amount, genuine market orders are affected. This gets quite frustrating for those companies who do business by the book.

The only way to avoid this circumstance is through tightening credit terms for newly-formed companies and making sure a thorough background check is done before entering into a business transaction. A reseller should not bite more than he can chew and equally a distributor and other traders should

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be aware of the company’s history and background before volunteering to transact on credit. Also an informationsharing attitude can go a long way to help curb this. A single incident alone can have a negative ripple effect on all stakeholders involved, so it is in the interest of everyone to share knowledge and market developments as and when it happens. This can only happen if each of us undertake the responsibility. We have the whole year ahead of us to build on this and put in stronger measures in place.

In the meantime, I hope the New Year’s optimism lasts right till the year end. We look forward to working with you even more closely on several exciting initiatives that we have planned for the next few months.

Hope you all have had a great start to your 2016 and here’s wishing you a year of prosperity.

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