Reseller Middle East April 2016

ISSUE 232 | APRIL 2016 www.resellerme.com

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH GSD’S GM PG. 42

CHANNEL PROSPECTS IN SDS PG. 48

EXPLORING THE EVOLVING ROLE OF SIs

A NEW LEAF

PG. 44

Hewlett Packard Enterprise on differentiating the business through partner-led value-added offerings

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CONTENTS

STRATEGIC VAD PARTNER

HIGHLIGHTS 6

News

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

ISSUE 232 // APRIL 2016

36

COVER STORY

OPINION 32

Evolving roles of security

Harish Chib from Sophos on how the channel business in network and IT security needs to evolve.

35

Thriving in the SD era

VMware’s Reeman Ansari advises resellers to enhance capabilities to help drive business in the SD age.

A NEW BEGINNING

INTERVIEW 40

The total offering

Mindware’s new GM, Gilbert Lacroix, on the company’s plans to become a true solutions player.

42

Solution-centric

Philippe de Mazieres, GM, Gulf Software Distribution, on channel strategies and market opportunities.

FEATURES 44

Bringing it all together

Reseller ME examines how systems integrators can evolve to meet customer expectations.

48

Powering up

Reseller ME explores how software-defined storage can be more of a channel play.

REVIEW

57

Zik 3

Reseller ME catches up with Khaled Alsaleh, Regional Director, HPE MEA Software to learn about the company’s channel strategy and plans for the region.

HOT PRODUCTS

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Toshiba announces line of Exceria SD cards

Apple launches iPhone SE

Synology announces DiskStation DS216j

Canon releases EOS 1300D

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I was at GISEC last month, and was pleasantly surprised at the number of channel players exhibiting at the event.

Be it system integrators or specialised security solutions providers, their presence at the biggest security event in the region is a testament to the fact the channel is eyeing this burgeoning market to fuel growth in these uncertain times. Spanning consulting to penetration testing to managed security services, there is a rich bouquet of services on offer for the regional enterprises grappling with the ever-changing threat landscape and dearth of skills. What’s more, some of these players are even considering setting up security operations centres to scale up and capitalise on the opportunities, especially in the government and critical infrastructure sectors.

Probably after devices, security is the fast growing segment of the IT market. Downturn or not, organisations are forced to loosen their purse to build highperformance security architectures to keep attackers at bay. The cost of not doing so can be disastrous given the fact that breaches take place almost on a daily basis and some regional organisation who have been lax at securing their information were forced to pay ransom to cybercriminals to get their data back. If the threat predictions are anything to go by, ransomware is going to be the more predominant threat this year, and it can lie dormant in enterprise networks undetected for years.

Security pundits predict we might also new era of mobile worms that can be transmitted through SMS or MMS. All these new attack vectors are forcing businesses, regardless of size, to look around for trusted partners to fortify their defence strategies.

With businesses trusting their partners with little scrutiny, now the onus is on the channel to take on the responsibility and be up front with customers about their approach to security. Various studies indicate a majority of regional organisations are looking at the option of outsourcing their security operations, which means that the channel will have to communicate in standardised language about risks and solutions, and educate users on best practices and what they should be looking for technically and legislatively to ensure information security. The name of the game here is transparency.

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

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Reseller Middle East

APRIL 2016

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HIGHLIGHTS

Exclusive Networks debuts BigTec

Nathan Clements, Exclusive Networks Middle East

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xclusive Networks has officially launched BigTec , a value-added distributor for data centre transformation, in the MEA region through its recent participation at GISEC 2016.

BigTec showcased their vendor portfolio including Nutanix, Nuage, F5, vArmour and VMTurbo at the cybersecurity event.

As enterprises seek to increase the performance and flexibility of their core IT and data assets, while streamlining expenditure into an OPEX model, BigTec aims to help reseller partners harness opportunities from new cloud architectures and virtualised data centre functions that are progressively more web-scale and software-defined.

“We think the introduction of BigTec comes at a perfect time in the MENA region,” said Nathan Clements, Managing Director, Exclusive Networks. “This is a place where the volume, velocity and value of data is rising exponentially,

generating a complex problem that only greater intelligence – not just greater horsepower – can resolve.

BigTec’s bold vision is to enable its partners to address this huge market opportunity and help enterprises build a new generation of user driven data centres.”

$1B

FORECASTED VALUE OF GCC NETWORK SECURITY SECTOR BY 2018

SOURCE: FROST AND SULLIVAN

TP-LINK showcases offerings at GITEX Shopper 2016 TP-LINK Technologies was at this year’s GITEX Shopper Spring edition to support its retail partners and showcased its latest technology in routers, range extenders, 4G and 3G mobile WiFi, IP cameras and powerline products.

TP-LINK added that it used GITEX Shopper as a platform this year to unveil the “Upgrade your WiFi Network Campaign,” to raise awareness and help consumers adopt its latest networking technology and products.

As part of the campaign, the company will run targeted end user marketing campaigns on radio, SMS, social media, dedicated consumer websites and other platforms to reach out to a wider audience across the region with the campaign.

Lucas Jiang, Country Manager, TP-LINK Middle East and Africa (MEA),

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said, “The company is delighted to have once again teamed up with all its retail partners that participated at GITEX Shopper 2016, where we showcased and promoted the latest

The company is delighted to have once again teamed up with all its retail partners that participated at GITEX Shopper 2016, where we showcased and promoted the latest technology and products.”

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Lucas Jian, TP-LINK

technology and products.”

During the event, the firm also showcased and promoted its recently launched Neffos smartphone, which also marked the company’s entry into the mobile handset market. According to the company, the latest smartphone will help TP-LINK set up a link with smart devices through standard protocol to create an ideal digital ecosystem for end-user customers in the region.

SUSE signs Aptec as VAD

Sakkeer Hussain, D-Link Middle East

S

USE has announced that Aptec, an Ingram Micro company, has recently joined its Partner Solution Provider Network as a value-added distributor.

As part of the partnership, Aptec will have access to SUSE solutions including SUSE’s Linux Enterprise Server, OpenStack Cloud and Enterprise Storage, and will be able to provide regional enterprises with open source infrastructure solutions for deploying and managing IT services in physical, virtual or cloud infrastructure.

With a team dedicated to SUSE, Aptec will be responsible for distributing the vendor’s solutions

across the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. “Signing on Aptec as a value-added distributor is an important step for us as we continue to grow our footprint and business in the Middle East,” said Paul Abi-Chahine, Regional Director, Emerging EMEA, SUSE. “The region is showing a healthy appetite for open-source solutions and our priority is to offer a variety of bestof-breed solutions to enterprises looking to modernise and standardize their IT infrastructure, leverage cloud computing and software-based storage solutions, and make use of new technologies like Big Data, all while achieving zero-downtime environments for their business-critical workloads.”

1.5 B

ESTIMATED TOTAL NUMBER OF SMARTPHONE UNITS TO BE SOLD GLOBALLY IN 2016 SOURCE: GARTNER

Spectrami introduces Exabeam at GISEC Spectrami has announced its partnership with Exabeam, the provider of user and entity behaviour analytics, as the highlight of its inaugural participation at GISEC 2016.

Anand Choudha, Managing Director, Spectrami, said, “We have been actively following GISEC for the last few years and now feel that with the kind of traction the show has developed, it is the right time for us to be present.

“From a conceptual point of view, it is a great initiative as it is focused on security. This year, having combined other events such as IoTx, Big Data Show and GEMEC, the show resonated with the solutions landscape.”

The distributor is using the

platform to connect with new set of partners while also exploring new avenues of growth. The company recognises that prevention strategy is an illusion in itself and therefore is investing into new technologies such as the ones Exabeam offers.

We have been actively following GISEC for the last few years and now feel that with the kind of traction the show has developed, it is the right time for us to be present.”

GBM reveals fifth annual security survey results

Hani Nofal, GBM

Gulf Business Machines (GBM)’s latest security survey unveiled at GISEC 2016, has revealed that nearly 50 percent of GCC executives lack confidence in their organisations in having the right tools to predict and prevent cyber-attacks.

The fifth edition of the annual GBM Security Study polled over 700 executives and IT professionals based in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Corporate investment in IT security is a major focus of the GBM survey, and despite internal and external threats to organisations, 71 percent of executives confirmed that their IT security budgets will either stay the same or decrease in 2016.

Hani Nofal, Vice President of Networks, Security and Mobility said, “Security is no longer strictly an IT function but companies across the region increasingly understand that this is a boardroom and organisational conversation.

“That said, the survey has revealed that there is still lack of confidence in the tools to predict and prevent cyber-attacks and there is more work to be done across the GCC in terms of security strategy and awareness. While IT security budgets are getting more management focus from 29 percent of organisations, our survey has shown that nearly 70 percent of enterprises and SME’s don’t outsource their security operations. Organisations need to adopt integrated security architecture with intelligence feeds from internal and external resources to help them to predict and prevent cyber-attacks,” added Nofal.

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APRIL 2016

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HIGHLIGHTS

Intel Security recognises top partners at ‘Channel Kick-Off’ event

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ntel Security, recently held its Annual Channel Kick-Off for the Middle East at Fairmont, The Palm, Dubai.

The event brought together 75 partners from 15 countries including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait, during which Intel Security laid out the 2016 channel priorities, and recognised key partners for their contributions in 2015.

At the event, value-added distributor Mindware took home the award for ‘Best Distributor of the Year’ in recognition for maintaining the highest market share, developing business in many new accounts and markets and sharing their expert resources to support partners and the team in driving new business and growing the revenue base.

“This award is truly a testament

to the outstanding collaboration between Mindware and Intel Security and the many successes we have had in the MEA region.

We are honoured to have received this prestigious award and would like to thank Intel Security for their tremendous support, for the trust they have placed in us and for recognising our contribution to the channel,” said Eyad AlEriksousi, Sales Director, Network and Security, Mindware.

Winners in other categories included: High Growth Distributor of the Year – Aptec, An Ingram Micro Company; System Integrator of the Year – SecureTech; Enterprise Security Partner of the Year – Technology Control Company; Commercial Security Partner of the Year – i4 Solutions; BDM Partner of the Year – Al Falak; and Security Connected Partner of the Year – Paramount.

Redington Value wins VMware accolade Redington Value, the value-added distribution division of Redington Gulf, has been recognised as the ‘Emerging Markets Distributor Partner of the Year’ by VMware at the vendor’s Partner Leadership Summit, held recently at Scottsdale, Arizona.

VMware’s Partner Innovation Awards, a regular feature at the company’s annual summit, highlighted partners’ excellence and dedication to its business throughout the year.

Redington Value’s emphasis has been on its journey to transform itself into a solutions player over the last two years. In this regard, the regional value-added distributor has been developing its core strengths in the security, convergence and infrastructure as well as the server and storage space.

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“It is a great honour to be recognised by VMware at a global stage, especially at a time when the industry is going through massive

It is a great honour to be recognised by VMware at a global stage, especially at a time when the industry is going through massive transformation and VMware being right up there on the innovation curve.”

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transformation and VMware being right up there on the innovation curve. Redington will continue to focus and invest in the new and transformational technologies and intensify efforts in areas like network virtualisation, SDDC and hyper-converged infrastructure,” said Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value.

Ross Brown, Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partners and Alliances, VMware, said, “We are very proud to recognise all of the VMware Partner Innovation Award winners. The performance and dedication our partners consistently bring forward is valued, as together, we provide robust software-defined technologies to a diverse set of companies worldwide.”

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HIGHLIGHTS

Finesse opens new Process Excellence Centre

Finesse has recently announced that its Central Business District office will now function as a Banking Process Excellence and BPO Centre to service their existing client base and further expand to new customers in the Middle East region.

According to the company, the new division will provide its customers in UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain with professional managed services, training and project, and technology support. With existing head office in Business Bay, Dubai; the CBD centre will mark Finesse’s second regional operating office in UAE. Raju Ramesh, Co-Founder and CEO, Finesse, said, “With the Middle East’s sizeable and strong developing financial services market, there is an increasing need for sound business process outsourcing. As we focus on the region’s positive economic plans and expanding business network, we are very excited about our strategic investment and look forward to offering our customers a more efficient, competitive and industry aligned service delivery centre.”

Finesse currently supports over 150 enterprise clients around the globe, which include major banks, financial institutions, energy and commodity firms, corporations and government entities around the world. Finesse has their operations and offices in over 10 global locations including various cities in India, Singapore and Canada.

StarLink partners with Veracode

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tarLink has signed a distribution agreement with Veracode, an application security solutions provider.

The agreement enables StarLink to provide partners and customers the opportunity to benefit from Veracode’s solutions and offerings.

In addition, StarLink partners and customers will have access to Veracode’s platform, providing centralised procedures, metrics and reports. The offerings provide solutions for: secure Web application development, Web perimeter security, software

supply chain and security, mobile application security.

“Information security must transform to meet the needs of a user- and application-driven world.

Today’s enterprises are beginning to realise that applications are not created with security in mind, resulting in a major area of risk,” said Nidal Othman, Managing Director, StarLink. “This partnership enables StarLink to provide access to the world’s leading application security solution. The Veracode solution is simple, scalable and provides organisations a way to secure Web, mobile and third-party applications across the software development lifecycle.”

Meta Byte Technologies inks strategic deal with Thoughtonomy

Salil Dighe, Meta Byte Technologies and Terry Walby, Thoughtonomy (L to R)

Meta Byte Technologies has recently entered a strategic partnership with Thoughtonomy, a virtual workforce platform provider for the Middle East.

Under the terms of the agreement, Meta Byte Technologies has been granted distribution rights and will distribute and deploy Thoughtonomy’s Virtual Workforce solution, a flexible as-a-service automation platform to channel partners, managed service providers and enterprise customers across the region.

“In today’s world, enterprises are always in pursuit of solutions that can support them to expedite operational outcomes, increase

agility and deliver greater value to customers. Thoughtonomy’s Virtual Workforce platform uses robotic process automation (RPA) to enable frictionless automation of human work processes without changing systems or processes thus helping clients rapidly realise benefits in efficiency, speed and error reduction,” said Salil Dighe, CEO, Meta Byte Technologies. “By partnering with Thoughtonomy, we will now enable enterprises to deliver business improvements, enhance service offerings, and ensure human staff are focused on delivering client value.”

“We are delighted to partner with Meta Byte Technologies to support the delivery of ground breaking automation efficiencies to the enterprises across the Middle East region. We are certain that the robotic automation of knowledge work will contribute significantly in enabling businesses to deliver the next level of operational improvement,” said Terry Walby, Chief Executive, Thoughtonomy.

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HIGHLIGHTS

HCL Infosystems, Avaya partner to bring digital transformation to India

Vishal Aggarwal, Avaya

H

CL Infosystems has announced a strategic alliance with Avaya to help businesses and organisations in India to accelerate their digital transformation strategies.

As part of the alliance, HCL Infosystems will offer Avaya’s complete portfolio of customer and team engagement and data networking solutions and services to its customers across different sectors.

Madhavan P, Senior Vice President, Office Automation, HCL Services, said, “This is in line with our mission to add the utmost value to our customers by

providing them the choice of solutions through leading edge capabilities and solutions, especially in emerging technologies such as IoT, mobility and cloud, which are becoming imperative for digital transformation.”

Vishal Aggarwal, Managing Director, India and SAARC, Avaya, said, “By working with an innovative company like HCL Infosystems that has pioneered IT in India, we can deliver the best technology services and solutions that give enterprises competitive edge through greater agility. HCL Infosystems’ strong footprint, brand reputation and industry expertise will help us grow our presence across India.”

According to HCL Infosystems, their pan-India presence will enable its customers across the country to gain access to Avaya’s solutions and services.

It will also offer smart applications from Avaya to help enterprises make informed decisions that can transition them into digital enterprises.

Quantum Global partners with PC Jordan Quantum Global has announced the appointment of PC Jordan as its authorised distributor for Jordan.

Under the terms of the agreement, PC Jordan will distribute Quantum Global’s entire tablet and flagship Titano smartphone portfolio to retailers and the traditional reseller channels across Jordan.

In addition, PC Jordan will develop Quantum’s channel business in the retail and consumer electronics sector, and dealer channel. As per the partnership, the distributor has also been given rights to provide after-sales support under the Quantum Authorised Service Provider (QASP) programme.

Tamer Ismail, CEO, Quantum Global, said the company is

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delighted to have partnered with PC Jordan to develop the business in the Kingdom of Jordan.

Ismail said Quantum selected PC Jordan because of its strong channel credentials, financial stability, strong presence in the retail and reseller channels, and the ability to provide post-sales support to end user clients on behalf of channel partners. “After meeting with PC Jordan management, we were impressed with the company’s capability especially in providing after-sales support,” he said. “As we move to develop in-country markets in EMEA, we felt it was crucial that we sign with a distributor that is able to provide pre- and post-sales support to partners and their enduser customers.”

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Paladion hosts cybersecurity conference in Qatar

Firosh Ummer, Paladion

Paladion organised a cybersecurity conference in Doha, Qatar along with Kaspersky Labs.

During the conference, the company showcased its active cybersecurity model; a service model conceived

by Paladion’s cybersecurity experts to defend against today’s advanced persistent threats. The event also presented the latest developments in security intelligence and its integration into everyday security operations.

The half-day conference had a panel of distinguished speakers from both Paladion and Kaspersky, who shared their expertise on specific and high impact topics to benefit CISOs, so they can leverage their existing processes, security technology and people to counter the latest threats, and create and implement a SOC Maturity model.

Firosh Ummer, Managing Director, EMEA, Paladion said, “It is the willingness of our peers to participate in such events and share their experience and knowledge that keeps us ahead of cyber criminals. We hope attendees benefited from our diverse and dynamic group of speakers who provided in-depth insights, as well as, actionable and practical tools to create an active security framework for enterprises.”

Representatives from several large companies such as Barwa Bank, Doha Bank, CBQ, Muntazat, RasGas, Al Jazeera, Asghal, Ministry of Environment, Qatar Stock Exchange, Al Fardan and UCC among others were present at the conference.

Paladion plans to conduct several similar conferences in Saudi Arabia and UAE in the coming months.

Honor expects to double growth in ME in 2016

BenQ tops UAE video projector market, says report

Huawei Honor has announced that its Honor 5X smartphone launched in February, sold five times more than its predecessor 4X device, further driving the brand’s 100 percent growth yearon-year, which is delivering a 15 percent contribution to the company’s extensive progression in the Middle East.

Globally, Honor’s revenue contributed 30 percent to Huawei’s registered 69 percent revenue growth in 2015 compared to the previous year.

Within the priority markets for Huawei honor, there is a huge shift occurring toward mid-range phones (USD 100-300) – in 2015 according to the IDC this sector increased by 25 percent in the UAE and 34 percent in KSA. According to Honor, they see the evolving changes in the market and the shifting consumer purchasing as a huge opportunity to further project its growth in the Middle East.

“Gone are the days when purchasing the latest smartphone with cutting edge technology will break the bank. At Huawei Honor we are committed to innovating on behalf of the end user and making high spec smartphones that enhances their digital lives, far more accessible.

As better specs are available in the mid-price range, people are migrating from high-end to mid-range devices”, said Chris Sunbaigong, Vice President, Huawei Honor Middle East.

enQ is named the top player in the UAE video projector market with 25 percent market share, according to the latest report released by Future Source Consulting, for Q4 2015.

Manish Bakshi, MD, BenQ Middle East and Turkey, said, “We offer a wide range of projectors for corporate, education, home theater and home entertainment, bringing images to life with utmost clarity and life like colour.

Our projectors are also popular for their interactive features, allowing for group collaboration, contribution and co-creation with touch screen and wifi compatible projectors.”

According to BenQ, they are committed to innovation in projector

70%

OF ENTERPRISES AND SME’S DON’T OUTSOURCE THEIR SECURITY OPERATIONS SOURCE: GBM

B

Manish Bakshi, BenQ

technology. Recently, the company launched their new home video projector series with Rec. 709 technology- the international HDTV standard to guarantee accurate reproduction of cinematic colour.

According to the company, in addition to delivering true cinematic colours, select models in the series feature a 1080p full HD optimised optical system for unmatched picture clarity and detail along with lens shift, side projection, short-throw technology, big zoom, as well as Full HD wireless connectivity and userfriendly interface.

Avaya takes channel partner programme to the next level Avaya has announced changes in its channel partner programme, with new incentives, greater focus on selling solutions, and a reduction in administrative requirements.

Changes in the Avaya Connect partner programme include a focus on All New Growth Bets – a new growth programme tailored to those channel partners willing to break new ground in five specific areas of market opportunity, which are midmarket, cloud, contact centre, fabric networking, and modernise the customer base.

The evolved programme also encourages partners to take a solutionled approach, rather than productled, with a comprehensive training programme addressing all stages of the sales lifecycle, including pre- and post-sales support. The company is changing certification requirements to

Fadi Mubarak, Avaya

make it easier for partners to improve their skills.

Fadi Moubarak, Channel Director, Middle East, Africa, and APAC, Avaya, said, “Avaya Channel Partners start from a position of strength, equipped with a portfolio of unified communications, customer experience and networking solutions that is unmatched in the industry. We are making that position even stronger with new programme elements that will bolster their capabilities and reach as we streamline how we work together.”

The vendor is also simplifying its channel rebate programme by consolidating incentives and reducing administration time.

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HIGHLIGHTS

Koenig receives ‘Android Authorised Training Centre’ certification

K

oenig Solutions has revealed that it has received the ‘Android Authorised Training Centre’ certification from Android Advanced Training Consultants (Android ATC).

The new certification will allow Koenig to offer various Android-based training courses and assessment exams to certify their Android skills and competencies.

According to Koenig’s senior executives, the company will be offering professional Android programming courses that can help Middle East developers make their mark in the mobile application development and testing segment. The company has strategically partnered with Android ATC to empower application developers and IT-oriented employees with the skills to build advanced Android applications.

Lalit Singh, Senior Android

Lalit Singh, Koenig

Consultant for Koenig will be leading the Android ATC programme offerings.

Singh is recognised as the only Android Certified Engineer (ACE) in the whole of the US, India and GCC combined.

The programme is composed of comprehensive and integrated Android IT courses for different levels of trainees, including Java Fundamentals for Android Development; Professional Android Apps Development; Android Application Development; Expert Android Apps Development; Monetise

Android Applications and Android Security Essentials Android NDK. “We are aware of the value of Android applications in the world of telecommunications, because we know that Android devices are on the increase and developing fast worldwide and because we know that it facilitates our lives, we determined to launch this training program in the Middle East,” said Lalit Singh, Senior Android Consultant, Koenig. “This new certification will now allow Koenig Dubai to deliver android courses and training materials, attendance certificates and official exams through android ATC certified instructors who are qualified to provide Android training courses proficiently. This new development falls in line with our continuing commitment to provide world-class fully efficient IT training courses to meet the demands of today’s rapidly changing business landscape.”

TechAccess signs distribution agreement with BlackBerry TechAccess has expanded its software vendor and solution portfolio by signing a distribution agreement with BlackBerry.

The distributor will now offer the BlackBerry enterprise software portfolio as part of its services, which includes the recently introduced Good Secure EMM Suites

by BlackBerry, a comprehensive set of mobile security, management, productivity and collaboration offerings including app security and containerisation, identity and access management and enterprise file sync and share with file level data protection.

“Blackberry offers the industry’s most secure and integrated enterprise mobility solutions,

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and we are delighted to be their partners, as it enables us to provide a complete end-to-end mobile security solution to our partners,” said Chris Cornelius, SVP, Sales and Support, TechAccess. “As organisations move toward a cloudbased mobile working environment, Blackberry’s Enterprise Software solutions will help businesses of all sizes take advantage of workforce mobilisation, and benefit from new levels of productivity coupled with unmatched end-to-end security.

The inclusion of Blackberry into our portfolio will strengthen our enterprise software offerings, and help our partners address the rising demand for highly secure enterprise mobility solutions.”

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Chris Cornelius, TechAccess

As part of its 360-degree support model, TechAccess will onboard new resellers, while integrating BlackBerry’s existing partners into its fold to maintain continuity. TechAccess will offer pre-sales support, marketing and business development support, and provide training and certification programmes to enable partners to enhance their selling capabilities.

The solutions centre will be utilised to carry out proof-of-concepts and training sessions.

eSentire partners with Credence Security

e

Sentire has understanding of the announced local market, and most that it importantly, relationships partnered with resellers and end with Credence customers,” said Mark Security to provide midAdams, Vice President, sized enterprises in the Channels, eSentire. “As a Middle East and Subvalue-added distributor, Saharan Africa regions, with Credence Security has the cybersecurity capabilities pre-requisites to help us Mark Adams, eSentire and threat protection. ‘tell the eSentire story’ and This announcement work with us to deliver follows eSentire’s recent launch of its best-in-class cybersecurity solutions to new global channel partner programme, mid-sized enterprises in the Middle East which spans North America, EMEA, and and Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Asia Pacific. eSentire recognises that Partnering with Credence Security security is a business issue across the allows eSentire to gain market presence globe and has invested in the creation and access to a key part of the EMEA of a Security Operations Centre that will market, connecting its service capabilities support customers in the Middle East to partners and customers in that region. and Africa.

By partnering with eSentire, Credence “As a new entrant in to the region, it Security can further strengthen its is essential to partner with a company portfolio of complementary security that is solely focused on cybersecurity, solutions, creating opportunities for has strong technology and sales support growing its business with existing capabilities, in-depth knowledge and accounts, and adding new customers.

H3 Secure inks distribution deal with Blancco Technology Group

Hatem Al Hatu, H3 Secure

H3 Secure has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Blancco Technology Group to sell its data erasure and mobile diagnostics solutions to enterprise organisations in the Middle East and North Africa.

Through this agreement, H3 Secure will primarily target

businesses in telecommunications, retail, finance, healthcare, utilities and government.

“The digital ecosystem in the Middle East and North Africa is more advanced than most think,” said Hatem Al Hatu, Managing Director, H3 Secure. “With an increasing number of mobile subscribers and

As an eSentire distributor for reseller partners in the Middle East and SubSaharan Africa, the distributor will have dedicated resources focusing on providing pre-sales support to partners and end customers for eSentire’s core portfolio of Active Threat Protection services, specifically Network Interceptor, Host Interceptor, Log Sentry and Continuous Vulnerability Scanning (CVS).

“Cyber-attacks like phishing and watering hole attacks are growing more and more sophisticated by the day and can easily bypass traditional security technologies that focus on perimeter defense,” said Garreth Scott, Director of Sales, Credence Security. “Backed by eSentire’s best-in-class technology solutions, skilled security analysts, threat intelligence team, and global network of sensors, we can now offer mid-sized enterprises in the Middle East the most advanced cybersecurityas-a-service available, ultimately helping them stay one step ahead of the attackers.”

explosive growth in data, servicing the market with the best data erasure and mobile diagnostics technology solutions, such as Blancco 5, Blancco Mobile and the SmartChk diagnostics tools, is important to the continued growth of the region. I’m confident that with Blancco Technology Group, we’ll be able to help educate regional organisations on proper data removal methods, mobile device diagnostics processes and industry best practices.”

With an increasing number of mobile subscribers and explosive growth in data, servicing the market with the best data erasure and mobile diagnostics technology solutions is important to the continued growth of the region.”

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HIGHLIGHTS

Trend Micro, Starlink sign distribution agreement

T

rend Micro has signed a distribution agreement with Starlink to further strengthen its presence in the MENA region.

According to the agreement, the VAD will sell, install and support Trend Micro products through its extensive network of Channel Partners to enterprise and government customers in the region.

Nidal Othman, Managing Director, StarLink, said, “The technologies that make up Trend Micro’s portfolio align perfectly with each area of StarLink’s Solutions Lifecycle, including data centre and cloud, data governance, risk analytics, threat protection, secure mobility and incident response. With the state of the IT Security landscape in the region, combined with Trend Micro’s best-of-breed portfolio, there is excellent potential for us to expand the breadth of their channel network, while assisting enterprise and government

Nidal Othman, Starlink and Ihab Moawad, Trend Micro

customers protect their environments against next-generation threats. We are truly excited about this partnership.”

Ihab Moawad, VP Mediterranean, Middle East, Africa, Russia and CIS, Trend Micro, said, “I would like to share my excitement about the huge business potential that can be unleashed between the two companies.

Starlink is one of the most admired

security VADs in the region, who has gained the respect of all vendors that partnered with them, due to their commitment, focus, and strong market coverage. With our leadership on data centre security, complete end-user protection, and network defence, I believe we have a lot to accomplish together and create a role model for how a partnership should be.”

OMA Emirates expands business to North Africa OMA Emirates has announced its investment in Morocco based Business Rules Solutions (BRS), an IT consulting firm that specialises in software development in advanced fields.

According to the company, the move supports its global expansions plans and will now have a stronger presence in the North African markets. It will also provide a base for research and development projects that will enhance the overall offerings of the company.

BRS which began operations in 2005 offers payments solutions, network monitoring and barcodes for asset management.

“OMA Emirates has been steadily expanding its business into multiple markets. The business opportunities that are available in North Africa within the payments solutions are immense. While we have a long history of providing these services in the Middle East, BRS has been

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Niranj Sangal, OMA Emirates-Solution Gulf

at the forefront of developing specific payment system products in Morocco.

The synergy that we have with BRS is one of the prime reasons for our investment in the company. It will be a catalyst for our reach into North Africa as well as strengthen our overall suite of payments solutions,” said, Niranj Sangal, Group CEO, OMA Emirates, Solutions Gulf.

With Morocco operations now in place, OMA Emirates is all set to

www.resellerme.com

OMA Emirates has been steadily expanding its business into multiple markets.

The business opportunities that are available in North Africa within the payments solutions are immense.” address the needs of the North African market with BRS as the regional office. The local presence paves the way for OMA Emirates to begin services in French speaking countries and North African markets thus provide sales and support functionalities to our clients.

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HIGHLIGHTS

Canon Central and North Africa partners with Invest in Africa

C

anon Central and North Africa (CCNA) has signed a partnership agreement with Invest in Africa to launch Canon “Professional Print Excellence” programme to train and mentor small and medium (SME) sized printing companies in Ghana.

The “Professional Print Excellence” programme aims to improve the commercial and technical skills of 20 local professional printing SMEs in Ghana’s growing printing sector by providing them with focused training

that will help them run large volumes of business and deliver world-class printing products and services.

Rokus van Iperen, President and CEO, Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa, said, “We look forward to working with Invest in Africa to provide SMEs in the printing sector in Ghana with the skills and knowledge they need to better serve their local customers.

Canon is committed to empowering this region through the improvement of vocational skills and creation of job opportunities, and this is demonstrated

through Canon’s partnership with Invest in Africa.”

As part of the partnership, Canon will provide specialised printing training for 20 SMEs from Q3 2016 to Q4 2016, followed by a mentorship programme in 2017, while Invest in Africa will provide training on business development and business management best practices. Participating SMEs will be able to obtain details of tenders from international companies in Ghana via Invest in Africa’s ‘Africa Partner Pool’, with the ultimate objective of winning more tenders than they would have been able to do without the training.

THE MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA PC MARKET SUFFERED A

28.7% YEAR-ON-YEAR SLUMP IN SHIPMENTS IN THE Q4 2015 SOURCE: IDC

Mionix appoints Deal Time as GCC distributor

Jack Dcosta, Deal Time

Mionix has announced that it signed a distribution agreement with Deal Time for the GCC region.

According to the agreement, Deal Time will promote and distribute the Mionix brand and develop a solid reseller network for the vendor across the region.

“Mionix products are all about the craftsmanship. Our company’s vision is to own the desktop experience and our mission is to craft products that define our time,” said Carsten Berger, Head of Sales, Mionix. “As part of our expansion plans, we felt it was important to reach the large gaming community in the Middle East, which is a very important market for us.”

“Deal Time, a reputed distributor of some of the best-known gaming brands in the GCC region, has the market reach, knowledge, and expertise in the gaming segment making them a perfect partner for Mionix in our Middle East foray. We are looking forward to working closely with their team and are confident that our products will be well-received in this market,” he added.

Mionix will be available in UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait through Deal Time’s extensive channel network across these countries.

Jack Dcosta, Managing Director, Deal Time, said, “The Middle East region has one of the most active and dynamic gaming communities, who are always looking for the latest and best gaming peripherals. Mionix is a company that believes in craftsmanship and innovation and has developed some of the best gaming mice, keyboards and headsets. We are excited to represent Mionix in the GCC region and are confident that their award-winning products will be well accepted by gamers in these countries. We will work closely with Mionix and our channel partners to grow Mionix’s business and market share in the GCC region.”

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HIGHLIGHTS

Granteq Distribution, CTOUCH strengthen partnership

Eva Chen, Trend Micro

G

ranteq Distribution and CTOUCH have further strengthened their partnership with the launch of the vendor’s new interactive screens for corporates, education and other segments.

According to the distributor, the CTOUCH displays for education are designed exclusively for intensive use with multi touch points in education markets. The product is designed for active long hours of usage, the picture quality and interactive performance stay unbeatably strong. Users can have the option of switching smartly between educational programsme, (school) TV and the internet helps in retaining student’s attention and engagement.

CTOUCH displays, according to Granteq, has productivity tools such as an HD-based multi-party video collaboration with duplex audio; built in Content Management System (CMS) and an underlying Content Delivery Network (CDN); lecture capture; and student note taking and collaboration among others.

Granteq has also been recently honoured by CTOUCH with runner-up award for ‘Best Distributor.’ The award was announced during the vendor’s annual Partner Conference 2016 in Amsterdam held recently and is in recognition of Granteq Distribution’s sales contribution, channel development and customer satisfaction initiatives.

Girish Narayanan, Managing Director, Granteq Distribution, said, “It is a privilege to receive this award for the second year in a row. It is also an endorsement of the persistent efforts we have been putting in as a team to build new customers and contribute towards a joint revenue maximisation.

With a lot of emphasis on smart interactive technology today, we are sure our partnership will continue to grow. This award is a great motivation to continue the momentum and also instilling customer faith in our expertise.”

Nanjgel highlights ‘Cyber Security Framework’ As a participant at GISEC for three years now, Nanjgel Solutions’ aims to further create market awareness of their capabilities.

The company also aims to support its vendors and its customers through the event. “It really makes us feel good when we have most of our clients who make it a point to visit our booth at GISEC just to get a quick overview of the entire portfolio and have a quick chat with the entire team,” said Jude Pereira, MD, Nanjgel Solutions.

According Pereira, the biggest company announcement at this year’s event is the success of “Nanjgel Cyber Security Framework”, which the company had launched during GISEC 2015. “We are proud to state that we have five customers

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that gave us the opportunity to implement the complete end-to-end framework, which not only keeps them ahead from the security or risk

OMA Emirates has been steadily expanding its business into multiple markets.

The business opportunities that are available in North Africa within the payments solutions are immense.”

www.resellerme.com

Jude Pereira,, Nanjgel Solutions

perspective but also helps them achieve the quickest ROI from a certification and compliance perspective. Apart from all this, we are proud to be associated with a few new vendors such as Looking Glass – Cyber Security Threat Intelligence, DNS Defender, Virus Tracker and Digital Guardian, among others.”

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HIGHLIGHTS

Spectrami joins Pure Storage Partner Programme

Jumbo Electronics organises smartphone festival

J

umbo Electronics has recently launched the ‘Jumbo Mobile Festival’ to encourage the growth and business development of its independent retail (IR) channel partners.

The smartphone festival aimed to develop opportunities and boost sales for small and medium retailers, who are also often collectively known as the independent retail channel. Vishesh Bhatia, Chief Executive Officer, Jumbo Group, said, “Small and medium-sized retailers are one of the keys to national economic growth, and require the industry’s wholehearted support. The 45-

day festival was organised by Jumbo’s Mobility and Solutions division and was launched in January 2016 with the support of key dealers from across the UAE, as well as Jumbo’s brand partners such as Du, Lava, Hisense, LG and Obi. Participating retailers were incentivised through rewards based on sales performance.

Jumbo and its partner brands also provided considerable investments in advertising support, leaflet distribution and awareness generation in select locations, trained promoters for activations, provided branded merchandise and in-store promotional materials.

Gartner forecasts ME IT spending to reach $212.9B in 2016 Middle East IT spending is projected to reach $212.9 billion in 2016, a 3.7 percent increase from 2015, according to the latest forecast by Gartner.

The IT industry is being driven by digital business, and an environment driven by a connected world.

Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research, Gartner, said, “We see positive IT growth and scenarios in the Middle East despite some level of economic uncertainty in world markets.”

With devices representing close to 19 percent of total IT ME spending tablets and PCs are showing good momentum in the forecast period.

Tables and PC sales are forecast to

Peter Sondergaard, Gartner

reach nearly $8 billion in 2016, and surpass $10 billion in 2018. Mobile phone sales will grow from slightly above $30 billion in 2016 to nearly $37 billion in 2019.

With IT services doubling software expenditures in 2016, business IT services will represent 84 percent of the total services segment; while in software, enterprise application software will present the largest growth rate in the forecast period.

Anand Choudha, Spectrami

Spectrami has announced that it has become a certified member of the Pure Storage Partner Programme (P3) and will now provide Pure Storage’s all-flash enterprise storage solution to its customers in the GCC. “Pure Storage will not only form a key part of our portfolio but will also complement our existing product portfolio of next generation storage solutions,” said Anand Choudha, Managing Director, Spectrami.

“Enterprises in the region are beginning to recognise the advantages that All-Flash storage offers over traditional spinning disks and I am confident that Pure Storage has the solutions to significantly simplify storage while improving performance and efficiency.”

Christian Putz, Director Emerging Markets, Europe, Middle East and Africa, Pure Storage, said, “Spectrami is a standout solutions provider with extensive experience and an excellent reputation in information security, storage, data centre infrastructure, and data communication networks.

We are delighted that they have joined our network of valued partners.

Strong partners like Spectrami help us achieve our mission to make flash storage the storage medium of choice for IT environments of all sizes.

Together, we will expand the footprint of flash in the data centre and enable customers across industries to realise new levels of storage efficiency.”

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

HIGHLIGHTS

Souq.com receives $275B in funding

Xerox Emirates, Almoe Group sign partnership agreement

Andrew Horne, Xerox Emirates Ronaldo Mouchawar, Souq.com

Souq.com recently announced that it has completed a funding round of more than AED 1 Billion ($275 million), which according to them, was the largest financing of an e-commerce business in the Middle East.

The significant investment will support the company’s future growth, strengthen e-commerce in the region and empower more businesses to grow online through Souq.com’s platform.

The e-commerce company also added new strategic investors to diversify its investor base, including Standard Chartered Private Equity, IFC (a member of the World Bank Group), Baillie Gifford, and many reputable regional and techfocused financial institutions. Allen and Company LLC served as financial advisor to the e-commerce company’s latest round of financing.

Ronaldo Mouchawar, CEO and Cofounder, Souq.com, said, “The funding will be used to drive further growth by investing in technology, scaling our marketplace operations, launching new product categories and recruiting the best talent. The e-commerce market in the Middle East is growing very fast and is expected to reach $20 billion this year. We are constantly enhancing its customer experience, for both buyers and sellers. SMEs in particular are true growth drivers in our economy and our aim is to empower merchants to reap the benefits of e-commerce and further drive growth via mobile. Capitalising on the step-change in consumer behaviour and business benefit towards mobile commerce, Souq.com will continue to lead the e-commerce industry in the region.”

X

erox Emirates has announced its partnership with Almoe Digital Solutions (ADS), the Audiovisual and IT solutions arm of the Almoe Group.

In addition to the technology sales partnership, Almoe has also become Xerox’s partner for the sale of Xerox branded cut sheet paper. According to both companies, this new partnership for paper sales between them is expected to further generate sales revenues.

“We believe that with this new partnership, Xerox Emirates will add a measurable value to Almoe’s offerings, servicing a wider range of customers and

resellers. This partnership will also help us to further expand our company’s presence across various verticals including the public sector and education in particular,” said Andrew Horne, General Manager, Xerox Emirates.

Jamal Sabri, CEO, Almoe Group, said, “Xerox has proven its strong market position with more than 75 years of expertise and excellent quality that comes with it. We are certain that this partnership will open doors to more collaboration agreements between Almoe and Xerox Emirates in the future.

At this stage, paper supply agreement will definitely add value to our range of products and services and will support our organic market growth.”

Almoe’s channel network and distribution infrastructure experiences higher market demand year on year. Increasing demand across such verticals as banking, finance, education and retail requires widening of products and services offering that will support continuous progression and expansion of the company.

D-Link backs retail partners at GITEX Shopper 2016

Sakkeer Hussain, D-Link Middle East

D-Link Corporation participated at this year’s GITEX Shopper Spring Edition, where it had supported all its retail partners that took part at this year’s show.

According to the vendor, being at GITEX Shopper is not only about offering special deals to consumers that visit the show, it is also a great platform to meet and hear from end users on some of the pain

points they experience with their home networks.

During the event, the company showcased its bundles and special offers at this year’s most sought after consumer electronics event in conjunction with Jumbo Electronics, Emax, Jacky’s Electronics and Sharaf DG. Sakkeer Hussain, Director – Sales and Marketing, D-Link Middle East and Africa (MEA), said the company showcased a comprehensive range of offerings covering routers, range extenders, IP camera and other products.

Hussain said being at GITEX Shopper together with the their retail partners reinforces D-Link’s commitment to the market and the investments partners are making in growing the brand in the consumer sector.

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VMware

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But everyone who relies on technology knows that change is constant. That is why VMware and the extensive VMware partner network offer a practical and evolutionary approach to accelerating IT in the mobile-cloud era. Across the data center to the virtual workspace, VMware and the VMware ecosystem are advancing the following key imperatives for the Software-Defined Enterprise: Software-defined Data Center Extending the cost & operational benefits of server virtualization to all data center infrastructure—compute, networking, security & storage— through an open architectural approach; also using automation that enables IT to move at the speed of business.

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Trend Micro finalises acquisition of HP’s TippingPoint

Eva Chen, Trend Micro

T

rend Micro International has announced the close of an agreement to acquire TippingPoint, a provider of next-generation intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and integrated network security solutions, from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE).

Trend Micro TippingPoint solutions will now be available to bring customers

comprehensive threat intelligence and protection for current and zero-day vulnerabilities and exploits.

“We are very excited to see this agreement come to fruition as it demonstrates our ongoing commitment to enterprise security,” said Eva Chen, CEO, Trend Micro. “With the addition of TippingPoint, Trend Micro provides customers with the unmatched ability to respond to known and unknown threats, exploits and vulnerabilities across the entire attack lifecycle. Trend Micro is now in a unique position to deliver these integrated, layered capabilities to address the complex network security challenges facing global companies today.”

Trend Micro TippingPoint includes the threat intelligence from Digital Vaccine Labs (DVLabs), as well as the power of the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), the industry-leading bounty

programme that encourages and rewards independent security researchers to identify previously unknown vulnerabilities. When combined with Trend Micro Smart Protection Network, it will be able to provide advanced capabilities to protect enterprises across the network, data centre, cloud and endpoints.

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APPOINTMENTS

INDUSTRY APPOINTMENTS An overview of the latest people movement within the IT channel business.

Qualys appoints new CMO

NEC strengthens sales leadership in EMEA

Qualys has announced the appointment of Shail Khiyara as Chief Marketing Officer.

Khiyara will lead all Shail Khiyara, Qualys elements of the company’s worldwide marketing strategies, including branding, end-to-end marketing functions, product marketing, corporate communications, demand generation and other go-to-market initiatives.

He is joining Qualys’ executive team to further advance the company’s vision of helping 8,800 customers in over 100 countries secure their IT infrastructures, providing a continuous view of each customer’s security and compliance landscape.

“Rapidly evolving advanced cyber threats require a radical transformation in the security market, to meet customer needs and to protect organisations. Qualys is leading this transformation with 100 percent SaaS based solutions that reach well beyond vulnerability management,” said Shail Khiyara, CMO of Qualys. “Qualys has over two billion annual scans, 50 plus global F100 brands and over 8,800 customers. I am excited to join the team and am looking forward to accelerating our growth and awareness of the Qualys Cloud Solutions.”

NEC Display Solutions Europe has announced its new strategic sales and market initiative with two key sales leadership appointments in EMEA. Simon Jackson is appointed to lead Strategic and Vertical Sales EMEA and Antonio Zulianello is appointed to head Regional Sales EMEA to drive forward strategic sales efforts.

The initiative will further strengthen NEC’s ability to holistically support and scale both global and regional sales programmes across a range of vertical sectors, to capitalise and build on the success and growth the company is experiencing in the EMEA region.

Simon Jackson, Vice President Strategic and Vertical Sales EMEA, has been responsible for the UK operation since 2007. In July 2015 he was appointed to lead the newly created Strategic and Global Sales division, reinforcing NEC’s global sales infrastructure and focus on customer solutions. This role will continue with a major focus on high value and complex display projects, and better support for strategic customer

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Simon Jackson and Antonio Zulianello, NEC Display Solutions

solutions, bringing together vertical industry expertise and excellent products. Simon has held a range of roles and responsibilities during his time at NEC. Antonio Zulianello, Vice President Regional Sales EMEA, joined NEC Display Solutions in 2007 and has most recently been General Manager for Italy and the Southeast Mediterranean territory, heading regional corporate and channel sales, marketing and sales operations. Antonio has held various positions and responsibilities during his time at NEC and brings 25 years of experience within the IT/AV industry and a wide range of sales experience and channel expertise to his new role.

Jackson and Zulianello will both report to Bernd Eberhardt, President and CEO of NEC Display Solutions Europe GmbH.

“Rapidly evolving advanced cyber threats require a radical transformation in the security market, to meet customer needs and to protect organisations.”

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GBM appoints new Country GM for Pakistan

Saqib Ahmad Khan, GBM

Gulf Business Machines (GBM) has announced the appointment of Saqib Ahmad Khan as the new Country General Manager for GBM Pakistan.

In his new role, Khan will be responsible for growing the business in the country, nurturing skills development and strengthening GBM’s relationship with customers in Pakistan.

He has previously worked for GBM Pakistan as Country Sales Manager and GBM Bahrain as Product Manager.

“I’m looking forward to taking on this new and challenging role,” said Khan. “Pakistan is one of GBM’s

most thriving markets, with the executive management showing great confidence in Pakistan by planning to broaden our scope of business in terms of industries, markets, and lines of businesses. We will continue to focus on developing a motivated, highly skilled, and dependable workforce in GBM in order to deliver on our commitments and add value to our customers.”

Saqib Ahmad Khan brings over 23 years of regional IT experience to his new role, starting his career in 1993 as a Systems Engineer at IBM Pakistan looking after pre-sales and support.

Prior to taking over this position, Khan was the Regional Business Development Manager for GBM’s Services department based in Dubai.

Khan holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration from IBA, University of Karachi and Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from FAST ICS, University of Karachi.

ALE announces new EVP and GM of Communications Business division ALE, operating under the Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise brand, introduced Matthieu Destot as the newly appointed Executive Vice President, General Manager for the ALE Communication Business Division.

In his new role, Destot will guide the company’s strategy connecting traditional communications solutions with the cloud to deliver a Personalised Connected Experience.

Under the new strategy, ALE will promote its cloud offerings by becoming a cloud service provider, delivering flexible Unified Communication (UC) services. The company said it will introduce AlcatelLucent Rainbow, a new, cloud-based freemium service, which offers

customers technology investment protection regardless of existing communications systems.

Features of Rainbow include IM, rich presence, voice and video conversation including screen and file sharing.

Matthieu Destot, EVP, GM Communications Business Engine, said, “The delivery of business communications is evaporating towards the cloud, so to speak.

Businesses want flexible, real-time communications that enable their business processes. Gaining this from the cloud saves on cost and creates a consumption based use model that makes sense for the customer, the partner and the vendor.”

Malwarebytes hires lead for Middle East expansion

Christopher Green, Malwarebytes

Malwarebytes has announced that Christopher Green will head its Middle East operations as the Regional Director. The global firm, which is based in Santa Clara, California, will start operations in Dubai in April.

Green brings with him a wealth of IT security experience and a history of planning and executing successful go-to-market strategies with his main objective being to develop a successful two-tiered channel across the region.

His most recent role was as Divisional Director for Westcon Group overseeing their Security Practice since 2012. Prior to that, he spent seven years at Avnet Middle East, setting up their operations and building the component distribution and HP ESSN businesses.

“I am delighted to be joining the Malwarebytes team, this is cutting edge technology in the Endpoint Security space,” said Green. “I believe we have a fantastic opportunity to make the Endpoint the starting point for any layered security approach” “We are delighted that Green has decided to join Malwarebytes and lead our expansion in the territory,” said Anthony O’Mara, Vice President, Malwarebytes, EMEA. “The Middle East is an important part of our EMEA sales strategy and having someone of Green’s experience and deep knowledge of two tier channels is only going to accelerate our expansion.”

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OPINION SOPHOS

EVOLVING RULES OF SECURITY Harish Chib, Vice President Middle East and Africa, Sophos, shares insights on the way channel business in network and IT security is set to develop in the era of third platform technologies.

Just as firewalls have moved beyond ports and protocols, so has evolved the channel business in network security. Network and IT security continues to gain increased awareness and greater share of IT spend as seen with an increasing number of organisations in the Middle East and Africa (MEA). The impact of cloud and other third-platform technologies fundamentally changed the way security vendors develop, market and sell

their products by emphasising costeffectiveness and ease of scalability. It also changed the way IT departments buy and use security technologies. However, we often overlook how this tech revolution came to impact channel partnerships. In this era of third-platform technologies, if vendors and their partners do not evolve their channel strategy, then they inevitably risk being marginalised. In nutshell, if you are still busy selling

products, you are just missing out on the new role that your customer needs and the industry has for you – that’s the solution provider as agent of change. You can’t survive if you turn deaf ears to the drumbeat of data breach incidents.

For resellers who really want to look ahead and emerge more relevant for changing times, it pays to invest attention around these areas.

Firstly, try and see how there is a shift going on in the security

IF VENDORS AND THEIR PARTNERS DO NOT EVOLVE THEIR CHANNEL STRATEGY, THEN THEY INEVITABLY RISK BEING MARGINALISED.” 32

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business – a shift from reactive to proactive and a shift from products towards solutions. Now ask yourself if your current vendor partner can help you thrive through this transition. The age of point products is coming crashing down. Network security no longer protects any perimeter, for there is no perimeter any more.

Today is about securing a digital enterprise and this involves protecting mission-critical assets within and outside corporate network.

Business of security has become more specialised, more holistic, requiring deeper understanding of customer challenges and ability to deliver end-toend expertise. If your vendor brings end-to-end expertise spanning both network, endpoint and cloud, then you have great odds at your disposal. This is also what CIOs demand across verticals.

Secondly, you should assess your vendor partner on the kind of quality and commitment, it offers resellers. Whether the company you are representing in the market has an elaborate partner program. Now ask yourself, are you getting access to new revenue opportunities, and whether you receive training and certification assistance on a periodic basis to keep abreast of latest skills. You must weigh these areas seriously, for only the right kind of partner enablement can open doors to new opportunities. Rapid economic development in regional industries such as oil and gas, banking services, financial and insurance, as well as the easy exchange of sensitive personal data associated with the growth in mobile devices and e-commerce, have made these prime targets for hackers and cyber-attackers. Your customer expect you to act as advisors and guardians.

Therefore, channel partners need to undertake the role of the trusted advisor to guide customers to understand the advantages of proactive, integrated and automated security technology and how it can enhance everyday business, while opening doors to new opportunities securely. The business ecosystem and CXOs in the Middle East are moving away from the traditional style of managing IT and security, and

embracing the new digital style more aggressively.

Channel has to respond to this change and that means evolving to more dynamic ways of doing business.

Thirdly, factors such as need for greater automation, demand for faster threat discovery, greater and better visibility into network, devices and users, and finally the need for making security technologies

address increased endpoint risk or when a customer asks for a solution and all you could think of were just few products. This is where the inflection point lies. Just as cybercriminals and threat actors have stayed ahead of the curve, the same machination needs to be reflected by vendors and resellers alike. This is the right time to take a departure from product-focused selling to

BUSINESS OF SECURITY HAS BECOME MORE SPECIALISED, MORE HOLISTIC, REQUIRING DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF CUSTOMER CHALLENGES AND ABILITY TO DELIVER END-TOEND EXPERTISE.� work in concert are causing an obvious shift in the traditional reseller business model and the part resellers play in the grand setup that is the channel. Let me make this simple with an example.

Say you have products in network security but you have no answers when a customer wants you to

solutions driven channel model. This opens up many cross-selling and upselling opportunities while allowing resellers to concentrate on subscription renewals to keep bottomline performance strong.

Where once, resellers were called upon only to refresh and update existing security hardware

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or software or when a technology would break down, today’s solution providers are being relied on to enable business continuity and address security as a business challenge and not as a technical glitch. Businesses in the MEA understand that with the right kind of solution providers they can build better relationships with their consumers, solve business problems that have yet to be defined and, in some cases, save their businesses from potential risks, regulatory violations and closure.

In conclusion, I would like to state that the business of network and IT security today involves the amalgamation of a variety of expertise and technologies including anti-virus, anti-malware, firewalls, IPS, logging and reporting, data encryption, firewalls and even new flavours like sandboxing and APT mitigation. Only by acting as a provider of these solutions can one help reduce the risks of massive data loss, while ensuring business continuity in the event of an attack and thrive with better recurring revenue models, being able to enjoy more lucrative ties with customers.

Moving beyond simply selling security products, resellers need to evaluate the business value that comes with selling solutions and end-to-end security expertise.

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VMWARE OPINION

THRIVING IN THE SD ERA Reeman Ansari, Regional Channel Manager, MENA, VMware, advises resellers to develop a range of augmented capabilities that will enable them to drive transformation for customers in the software-defined age.

There has always been a need for resellers and partners to adapt and change to new developments in the market.

The future, it is said, lies in software – with even the slowest, most conservative industries being disrupted by innovative, software-led business models. The names most closely associated with market-shaking disruption owe everything to softwareenabled differentiation: Uber, Deliveroo, and Netflix have all revamped the services traditionally offered by competitors via a customercentric software layer.

This trend has, in turn, changed the way the IT industry approaches infrastructure – with the mainstream now turning to the cloud in order to build the new and more fluid infrastructures needed to cope with the software gold rush.

Preparing for a new world This all presents resellers with expanded opportunities. But the change in IT is so fast and far-reaching that, in VMware’s view, many resellers will need to undergo an almost

complete metamorphosis.

They will need to rebuild their approach from the ground-up; developing the capabilities to offer customers the dynamic agility they will increasingly expect from their IT. In this new era, customers want IT systems that can be scaled and adapted instantly.

They will expect their solutions provider to have the same qualities, be capable of offering them options to run critical business and productivity apps on-premise or in the cloud; and to provide a complete software-defined infrastructure that is virtual and scalable and can take advantage of public IaaS. They will want IT partners to be capable of designing, delivering and supporting all of these solutions and services too.

This will be a colossal challenge for what we call ‘resellers’ now. Imagine, for example, the complexity and planning that would be required to take a customer organisation that today, runs everything across a physical data centre and network infrastructure, with mobile users connecting via VPNs, and hands-on management, to a system that is completely

cloud-based and uses software-defined networking to provide every user with secure anytime-anywhere access with totally dynamic and scalable systems that are monitored and managed remotely.

Finding your super power To provide all this, ‘resellers’ will need to become IT and business ‘superheroes’, capable of understanding detailed customer requirements and business objectives, and delivering and supporting highly complex technology systems upon which those customers will depend entirely. They will need their own resilient infrastructure and 24/7 support services.

Or to develop a watertight ecosystem of partnerships that will enable them to meet the much greater demands that will be placed upon them by customers.

They will also need to mirror the new and more dynamic business structures being adopted by their customers, abandoning the pre-defined silos that separated the data centre from the network and from security and management

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services, for one that is much more fluid and integrated.

By doing all of these, resellers can become not just IT suppliers, but also transformation partners for their customers. It’s a daunting challenge, but one that we believe partners must embrace.

We have already started to work with our partners to help them develop this extensive range of abilities.

We have restructured our partner programme to enable more skills acquisition and development and we envisage working even more closely with our partners in the future.

The stakes in this new era are going to be considerably higher, both for customers and resellers and integrator businesses that serve them.

Of course, some resellers have already started transitioning their business. Others are only just beginning to understand what will be required.

Customers are starting to envision the IT infrastructures they will need in the future; reseller businesses that want to become their trusted partners and providers of solutions, technology and services, need to start building their capabilities now.

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COVER STORY HPE

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A NEW BEGINNING Reseller ME catches up with Khaled Alsaleh, Regional Director, HPE MEA Software, for a detailed discussion on the company’s plans post the split and how regional channel partners can differentiate their business through value-added offerings.

2015 has been a year of change, can you elaborate on some regional milestones at HPE? With technology changing more rapidly than ever before, it’s imperative that we adapt to this new environment and that’s precisely why we split and launched Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) at the end of 2015.

This was an important milestone because our focus now is on helping our customers and partners transform and innovate in what we see as the Idea Economy - an environment where the ability to turn an idea into a new product, a new capability, a new business or a new industry has never been easier or more accessible and enterprises need to embrace both the challenges and opportunities this presents.

To help our customers achieve this, our company wide strategy across all business units is now focused on four key areas: • Transforming to a hybrid infrastructure: The emphasis here is in helping

customers seamlessly manage information across traditional IT and private, managed and public cloud environments.

• Empowering a datadriven organisation: Here we work with customers in turning information into insight and insight into action.

• Protecting the digital enterprise: Critical to our customers is managing risk, monitoring operations, protecting information and applications and sustaining operational integrity.

• Enabling workplace productivity: Driving innovation and creating best-in-class experiences for employees, customers and partners through mobility and networking solutions.

partners? What are the changes that the channel partners can expect?

On the day we separated and launched as a new company, we immediately started in a strong position, being number 1 or 2 in most of our key markets, and in delivering one of the broadest go-to-market capabilities in the industry with our channel partners and sales teams.

As a new and distinct organisation, HPE benefits from strong leadership, employee experience and knowledge, coupled with the agility and responsiveness typically found in leaner companies. Our focus on the channel now is more tuned in than ever with major enhancements being made to channel processes, operations, enablement, support, resources and tools.

All these factors combined make us stand

“Partners benefit from having one ‘Partner Ready’ programme across the board for HPE.”

Post the split, what has the impact been on regional business and

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out from our competitors and provide added value to our partners.

Has it been challenging to make the transition to HPE from a regional channel point of view?

The feedback from our partners since the split has been extremely positive.

Partners benefit from having one ‘Partner Ready’ programme across the board for HPE, making it easier and more seamless to operate and manage their rebates, programmes, bonuses and more.

What are the differentiated advantages for the channel when they become an HPE partner?

Partners can expect HPE to be more agile and focused from an R&D and go-tomarket strategy perspective.

Our Gold Certified partners and above are assigned an HPE Channel Manager who work to develop joint business plans. We know their mix of hardware versus software versus services, we know their strategic plan on where they are headed and what investments they are making.

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This joint planning also helps us better allocate our Market Development Funds (MDF) and if the partner is aligned with a transformation area, the plan is approved for creating more market demand.

Over the last year, there have been significant enhancements made to the new ‘Partner Ready Programme’ of HPE. We have reduced the amount of sales certification from nine to one and certifications will be focused on the four transformation areas we’ve outlined.

Additionally, our partners can access Software Support Online (SSO) through the Partner Ready Portal. SSO provides all the information and support needed for a successful customer engagement. The self-solve knowledge-base contains demos and downloads, discussion forums, tools for servers and developers, enhancement requests, full manuals and general support.

We have also added a new partner locator on the portal, which makes it easier to find partners from a customer perspective.

With IoT, Big Data and cloud technologies gaining more importance, what are some of HPE’s investments in these areas for the region?

Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, and cloud, among other innovative technologies, play an integral role in HPE’s four transformation areas and we’ve significantly invested in these technologies.

For example, in Big Data, we recently

announced the immediate commercial availability of HPE Haven OnDemand, an innovative cloud platform that provides advanced machine learning APIs and services that enable developers, startups and enterprises to build datarich mobile and enterprise applications.

We also launched a new HPE Investigative Analytics software solution, designed to enable financial institutions and other highly regulated organisations to identify and analyse risk events and take action to prevent them.

In the cloud space, we’ve established a strong relationship with Microsoft Azure, appointing them as a preferred public cloud partner for our customers while HPE will serve as a preferred partner in providing infrastructure and services for Microsoft’s hybrid cloud offerings.

Finally, with IoT, we’ve developed new HPE Edgeline IoT Systems and Aruba Sensors to expand our IoT capabilities at the edge.

All of this has happened just in the last few months and we’re excited about what lies ahead for us in the future.

What is your channel strategy going forward?

In which technology areas will we see more partners coming on board?

We will continue to evolve and enhance our channel offerings and build tools, processes and other initiatives to extend market share in the enterprise market.

There is also strong focus on the SMB segment, which has been highly profitable for HPE and our channel. Our transaction business remains strong as we continue to enable and move partners towards the transformation areas. As such, cloud, Big Data, mobility and security will continue to be the pillars for innovation and channel recruitment.

“By affiliating with us, our channel is assured of a vendor who is uniquely positioned to be the most trusted technology partner.”

How can partners accelerate their business considering the current market situation?

Everyone knows that we’re facing a challenging macroeconomic environment.

Soft consumer spending, continued weakness across Europe, Middle East and Africa, and stock market volatility continue to drive uncertainty.

Despite this, the recent launch of HPE will enable us to remain focused on our ability to execute

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consistently and profitably and we are well-positioned to deliver on our plan to grow in 2016.

By affiliating with us, our channel is assured of a vendor who is uniquely positioned to be the most trusted technology partner across infrastructure, software, hybrid IT and more. We are focused on continual innovation, delivering value for our customers, and creating better business outcomes for our shareholders, partners and employees.

What is the business focus for MEA in 2016?

We started our journey as a new company on 1st November, 2015, and over the next five years our aim is to generate growth and longterm value for our customers and partners.

From where we are today, we will be able to continue to grow by maintaining our focus on the four transformation areas. We’re purposefully concentrating our strategy around these areas as we believe they are the four most important components customers and partners need to focus on in order to successfully navigate their way through the huge technological changes they are witnessing in their industries and enable them to create real benefits for their businesses.

The plan remains to work more through channels in future. They will be instrumental in delivering upon our vision.

We recognise that every partner will have their own transformation journey and we will support each one achieve their goals.

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INTERVIEW

MINDWARE

THE TOTAL OFFERING

The newly-appointed General Manager of value-added distributor, Mindware, Gilbert Lacroix, shares plans for transforming the company into a true solutions player.

What has been the impact of the slowdown in global and regional economy on the channel market?

The geopolitical and economic woes may have had an impact here just like the rest of the world, but there is still a huge demand for technology in our region. The governments are leading the technology spending in the Middle East, and I don’t see that slowing down any time soon. Yes, of course, during times like these, you need to evaluate with whom you

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deal with, because payment cycles are getting longer.

You will see many weak players disappearing from the market while the strong become stronger. We are part of the $4 billion Midis Group, which employs more than 5000 people in this region. We have a solid base in terms of finance and the right set up to face any economic crisis. If you do the right things, you can weather any storm and emerge stronger.

Are there plans to expand your coverage?

The natural way to distribute is to go to the main system integrators, and they go to the biggest users. That market is easy

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to cover. But, when you start to go one level down the pyramid, you need to put in more efforts and it’s impossible to do face-toface interactions with all your partners in that tier.

This is why we are planning to use new types of digital media to engage them and define the touch points. It is also important to decide what kind of partners you need to bring with you; the SME partners are not the ones you need to address government or service provider market. So segmenting your partners according to the markets is key to success. We are also looking to fine tune our operations, logistics and automate back-office functions to gain process efficiencies and keep a lid on costs.

What differentiates Mindware?

If you are a vendor coming to this market, you have got two choices – either go with global distributors or local players. Often, you will see global distributors have many compliance issues, and they may not be prepared to invest in the market during crises and stay put here. Being a local company, Mindware knows the dynamics of the local market and we know how to deal with tough economic conditions.

We may not be a huge company, but we aren’t small either. Being part of the Midis Group, we combine many things such as systems integration, and vendors know that we are here to stay.

Do you have any plans to expand the portfolio?

We don’t want to become an exhibition company. We are not trying to cover all the brands and products; we are going to focus on products where we know we can add value and we don’t have any competing products in our portfolio.

We want to organise the company by solutions, because that’s the path we are taking.

The plan is to introduce plugand-play type of solutions for the SME market, so that our partners don’t have to make the effort to put it all

“We want to organise the company by solutions, because that’s the path we are taking. We want to prove to our vendors that we can bring to the table the value-addition that others can’t.”

Gilbert Lacroix , General Manager of value-added distributor, Mindware

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together. We want to prove to our vendors that we can bring to the table the valueaddition that others can’t.

What kind of growth are you targeting this year?

We had around 30 percent growth last year and we are hoping to achieve the same kind of growth in 2016 as well. We have to make sure that we don’t make any mistakes and become more selective about the partners we work with.

We are on track to achieve our revenue target of $400 million this year. Achieving this target is easy, but we want to do it in a certain way and make sure that we remain profitable.

Distribution has become a low-margin game now and it is hurting the bottom lines of many players. How do you plan to steer clear of this trend?

We are not playing the low-margin game, and we will not sacrifice margins to sell more. We know the kind of margins we want to build and how to go about it. It might be difficult to get high margins from some products but we compensate by selling low-volume, high-margin products. It’s all about the balance. Right now, volume products account for 25 percent of our revenues but going forward that is going to shrink as we transform ourselves into a solutionsfocused distributor.

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INTERVIEW

GULF SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION

SOLUTION-CENTRIC

Philippe de Mazieres, General Manager, Gulf Software Distribution, explains channel strategies and the opportunities in the market, which the newly-formed VAD aim to capitalise on over the next few quarters.

What is the thought process behind launching Gulf Software Distribution?

Gulf Software Distribution (GSD) began operating in the region in October 2015.

Although a fresh and agile start-up organisation, GSD brings with it, a relationship with long-standing regional IT solutions company Gulf Business Machines (GBM), which affords GSD financial stability and backoffice support.

As GBM is the region’s number one provider of IT solutions in the GCC, the idea to bring together our assets and competencies came as a natural next step, in order to help other business partners with promoting IBM’s growing software portfolio while also giving them the opportunity to benefit from the IBM rebates programme to maximise their margins.

GSD is the facilitator of a unique software partnership with IBM, where GSD is one of the international technology giant’s preferred value-added distributors (VADs) in the region. GSD, therefore, brings the international class solutions of IBM paired with its own ability to provide these in

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the most cost effective way to business partners in the region.

How does GSD aim to be a differentiated valueadded distributor?

The company offers the region’s most comprehensive approach to the VAD market. Its unique relationship with IBM and GBM, offers business partners the agility of a newly established organisation combined with the expertise, financial stability and mature back-office infrastructure of a company with a 25 year heritage in the GCC. GSD provides business partners with comprehensive access to IBM software solutions and a solid technical ecosystem that ensures the right resources are in place for them at all times.

GSD’s extended team also has over 300 IBM software certifications, which sets it apart from other companies in the GCC. This team will be able to support partners with tailored solutions designed, to help them cross-sell other software products

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where they might not have proper competencies and knowledge. The team is also able to provide after technical services and after sales support to our partners.

GSD is also able to provide its education and training services across the GCC market, ensuring that our partners are armed with the right level of expertise and knowledge on our software portfolio.

We also want our business partners to maximise their margins.

IBM has a unique and extremely rewarding rebates programme that no other vendor offers.

GSD will allow partners to benefit from these rebates and ensure that non-IBM business partners are made aware of them. A dedicated team that is well versed in the ins and outs of the rebates programme is already in place at GSD and is committed to helping partners maximise their margins.

Have you identified any specific technology areas where you want to carve a niche in?

We plan to cover the overall IBM portfolio and help our partners do business better.

The technology industry is rapidly evolving and GSD is enabling business partners to keep ahead of the trends and in tune with the latest software requirements through its close partnership with IBM and ability to deliver value-added comprehensive solutions.

As a value added distributor, GSD will focus on the technologies that

are indispensable in today’s market including mobility, analytics, cloud, security and collaboration.

What kind of vendor portfolio are you planning to have?

IBM is going to be our main vendor and where the team’s focus will be. We may look at potentially offering products that can complement the IBM offering in the future to offer our partners a onestop-shop solution.

There are four pillars to IBM’s recently revamped Big Data Analytics portfolio — analytics, social data, cloud and mobile. From an analytics (social, mobile, cloud) perspective, IBM is looking at systems of engagement, and has solutions that bring analytics together, presenting information to people on the front line that could come from multiple diverse data sources.

GSD is adhering to this approach, ensuring that for each of these solutions, relevant resources are made available to business partners that require them. We will also provide expertise in the domain of application development, integration and infrastructure; which is encompassed in the WebSphere, MQseries, Message broker and Rational family of products.

Will the focus be more on providing solutions?

What kind of technical expertise are you offering to partners?

At the end of the day, our business is to sell software

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and more specifically, IBM software. The IT landscape has changed however, and customers aren’t just buying software alone today, they are looking for solutions for their specific business needs.

This is precisely where we are positioning ourselves with our partners. GSD will offer an end-to-end solution and a clear, consistent point of contact in order to implement the most effective solution for their customers across the region.

What is the extent of partner network that you are looking at? What are some of the initiatives partners can expect from this division?

GSD is looking to target any IT companies in the GCC that are active in the areas of security, analytics, cloud, mobile and social.

These partners could be value-added resellers or consulting companies or independent software vendors and IT integrators providing turnkey solutions to the market. The type of business partners we are targeting can build value around IBM software solutions and help customers innovate and succeed within their specific industries.

What will be the geographical footprint of this new entity?

The GSD headquarters are located in Dubai Internet City. Our geographical footprint, however, will extend across the whole GCC region and currently covers the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Bahrain.

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FEATURE SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER As the industry moves towards a softwarefocused and solutions-oriented economy, traditional systems integrators (SIs) are compelled to enhance their offerings and prove their relevance in such an ecosystem. Reseller ME examines the importance of systems integration in today’s business and how SIs can evolve to meet customer expectations.

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Enterprises in the region are in the midst of a digital transformation where ensuring all systems and solutions are integrated and work in tandem are of prime importance. The current technology landscape compels organisations to look at its IT consumption models from a different perspective.

And here is where the systems integrators of today can make a difference.

The traditional role of an SI is to help customers with their IT challenges and achieve business objectives while saving on costs and improving efficiencies. This role remains unchanged, but in light of emerging technologies, an SI must have a more futurefocused outlook.

Bertram MJ Collins, Head of ICT Portfolio, CNS, says, “Customers require certain technologies for different business outcomes and as systems integrators, we are the conduit that ensures that they get the right solutions they need from the right vendor.

“We aim to ensure that the customers get the best set of technology solutions tailored to their business requirements.

With technologists and innovators constantly coming up with new products and solutions, although beneficial for the industry, it also creates a lot of complexities,” he says. “It

Customers require certain technologies for different business outcomes and as the systems integrators, we are the conduit that ensures that they get the right solutions they need from the right vendor.”

Bertram MJ Collins, Head of ICT Portfolio, CNS

is important for customers to make sense of these technology complexities and look at why they need systems integration for their businesses. The purpose of SIs is to guide them in knowing how these technologies can help their businesses go to the next level. SIs need to constantly stay ahead of the curve and be active in advancing and modifying their offerings on a regular basis. They need to know what a particular technology does and how it can benefit the customer.”

However, what SIs need to remember is that the pace of change of IT won’t allow them to build experience the way they used to, says Amjad Mustafa, Executive Director, Entermarkets. “They used to create these experiences through repetition of plans and processes with different customers.”

That will not be sufficient anymore as more companies embrace serviceoriented architecture, new channels and new devices,

there are more innovative systems that eliminate procedure rather than legacy core systems.

“SIs are therefore expected to manage the innovation process, as business and commerce continue to become acutely aware of the speed of change in IT. “SIs have to be a part of their customers’ business innovation, in order to completely understand how to make their operations better. This means that SIs need to work hand-in-glove with a wide range of their clients’ divisions – not just CIOs. Most importantly, SIs cannot work independently or separately from their clients,” Mustafa adds.

Sunil Paul, Co-Founder and COO, Finesse, agrees to this saying that an individual competences of the role change quite dynamically hand-in-hand with evolving technologies, with the need to using implementation methods suitable for specific delivery types.

Along with the dynamic

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technology environment, customer demands have also evolved emphasising more on value.

According to Sakkeer Hussain, Sales and Marketing Director, D-Link MEA, customers are demanding products, which feature the latest technology.

“For example, energyefficient products, which are cost-effective and at the same time value-engineered for optimum performance.

Skilled engineers and SIs who offer value-added services to enhance the expertise of IT personnel by providing for example technical support, are always appreciated by endcustomers.”

And those who don’t or remain status-quo stand at risk to losing to competition.

Mustafa explains, “They need to understand the evolving and fluid nature of IT and IoT to maximise opportunities.”

According to Collins, SIs need to recognise that they are not just resellers of

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FEATURE SYSTEMS INTEGRATION

technology. “They need to become an end-to-end value chain organisation. This means that they have to provide services form value intelligence up to value optimisation. They should be able to act as advisors for their customers as well as optimisers of the solutions set in place, and everything else in between.

“IDC has predicted that services business will grow by a compounded annual growth rate of 89 percent, which is very significant as this shows that customers are increasingly looking out for service providers who can give them strategic advice and optimisation,” he says.

This is what will differentiate an SI from competition. SIs are gearing up to become full-fledged IT services providers, cloud providers and managed services providers building on the integration expertise they offer the market.

However, to be in a position to offer these services, is not without challenges.

The biggest hurdle that they face today is transforming their business models.

“Integrators need to adapt to ever-changing external conditions, keep up with acceleration, continue investments in training, simplification and shrinking. They need to respond to adoption of new technologies and requests for replacement or elimination of parts of enterprise information systems,” Paul says.

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Vibhu Kapoor, Director Channel and Alliances Ecosystem, India, Middle East and Africa, Infor, adds, “The move from ‘implementers’ and ‘box pushers’ to ‘trusted advisors’ and ‘consultants’ requires the SIs to make considerable investment in in-house technical and business ‘consultants’, provide continuous training to make sure these consultants are well-versed with the latest technologies as well as have the necessary soft skills.”

Acquiring the right talent is a vital aspect of systems integration. Unfortunately,

Another is the need for ICT skills and competencies.

This is one of the most difficult bottlenecks for SIs because customers often desire a one-stop-shop solutions providers.”

The only way to overcome this is through regular training and knowledge-sharing forums.

SIs need to ensure that their staff have the right technical skills required for a particular job and also look at honing skills from junior levels.

“The quality of systems and certifications in the ICT industry is also another

SIs need to recognise that they are not just resellers of technology. They need to become an end-to-end value chain organisation.” this is also one of the biggest concerns for companies in the region.

Stephen Fernandes, Executive Vice President, TransSys Solutions, says, “Attracting and retaining key IT talent and skills have always been an uphill task in the SI industry.”

The skills shortage is more so because most of the sales are value-driven and require the partner to have some consultative skills.

Collins adds, “One of the challenges for SIs at the moment is having adequate industry and business knowledge.

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challenge. The processes for acquiring certain certifications to be able to have systems that will help you manage customers and design specific solutions for them is very tedious. And customers are looking for certifications from organisations like ourselves all the time, and that is a major challenge,” Collins explains.

Despite a challenging environment, the future of systems integration looks bright, considering the region is propelling towards creating smart governments.

Deepak Verma, Managing Director, Think SS, believes those SIs who are willing to change and adopt new roles will succeed and will be ahead of the curve.

Maged Eid, Regional Director, Nexthink, says, “SIs can sharpen their competitive edge by embracing IT analytics solutions to differentiate their offerings, better meet customer needs and deliver IT projects on time with a fast ROI.” According to Jude Pereira, Managing Director, Nanjgel Solutions, SIs can be successful provided they are well-educated on nextgeneration technologies and have a highly skilled professional team of certified engineers.

Most of all, he says, “They need to continue to support the client wholehearted post-implementation of the solutions.”

SIs should look at long terms relationships and build the rapport with their customers. Organisations often require highly customised service, and SIs should be able to deliver that while also counseling the customer on the best suited solution for his needs.

Sanjay Ahuja, VP, MEA, AGC Networks, adds, “Doing this requires a deep understanding of present and potential customers, who they are, what they need, where they are and where they need your expertise. The SI who knows at this level can be more effective in gaining a leadership position in the market.”

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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

FEATURE SOFTWARE-DEFINED STORAGE

POWERING UP

With reports of around 2.5 quintillion bytes of data being created every day, organisations are now seeking ways to analyse, manage and store it. Software-defined storage (SDS) enables businesses to control storage infrastructures and offers flexibility to platforms among other aspects. Reseller ME explores how SDS can be more of a channel play.

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Forty-four zettabytes. That’s how much the world’s data is expected to amount to by the year 2020, according to the annual Digital Universe study by IDC. The impact of this will extend across verticals and global enterprises. Businesses will find it challenging as well as beneficial to analyse and structure this vast repository of data. One of the biggest challenges will include storage management. And this is where Software-defined storage (SDS) can play a significant role.

Through SDS, enterprises are able to provide a more on-demand and agile experience for business users.

Chetan Parekh, Regional Sales Manager, IBM Systems, GBM, says, “Customers are looking at SDS because it’s an exciting new way to deploy storage services that offers a lower cost of storage together with simplified management, higher flexibility, and almost limitless scalability.”

When the storage hardware is separated from the software that manages the storage infrastructure, the technology enables users to purchase heterogeneous commodity storage hardware without hassles such as interoperability and functionalities.

“SDS also brings great flexibility to users because it provides a single software

interface to potentially manage all storage hardware, regardless of the vendor. This would allow our customers to purchase storage systems that are tuned for specific workloads, thus, ensuring enterprise-class quality of service. For example, a storage system that is storing CCTV videos can be used alongside a system that is suited for hightransactional workload while being managed from a common interface,” explains Parekh.

The technology presents massive opportunities for channel players to optimise and grow profitably.

to flexibly allocate, deploy, and manage storage to meet demands from different clients.”

Wang further explains that as the demand of SDS increase rapidly and the proliferation of its benefit, service providers that own their SDDC (softwaredefined data centre) and SDS deployment expertise but charge a fair price have high chance to win the customers that do not have the resources to deploy and maintain their own SDS infrastructure.

“But considering the competition is getting intense, providing a highperformance, reliable, cost-

still require to deploy local SDS to ensure sensitive or critical data is secure.

Shashi Kanth, Senior Sales Manager, StorIT Distribution, says, “SDS has got a huge potential in private cloud with storage and network provisioning, media and entertainment where huge volumes of media workflow need to be managed, data analytics, e-commerce and live web service, research and development and high performance computing (HPC).”

And with more customers looking to move to an OPEX model from a CAPEX one, to

If I had to choose the elements, a partner should invest in when offering SDS solutions, it would be having the necessary skills as well as having the required understanding.”

Chetan Parekh, Regional Sales Manager, IBM Systems, GBM

Victor Wang, Sales Manager, Synology, says, “Due to the hyperconvergence and simplicity of deployment of SDS, channel partners such as service providers do not need dedicated area network infrastructure to provide storage service for customers, instead, they’re able to create a pool of shared storage from industry-standard server,

effective and professional technical support would be the key factors to stand out in the crowd of competitors,” he says.

“As the demand for data storage is growing, it is opening doors for SDS solutions. Even though the majority of data, created by emerging trends such as IoT, BYOD, cloud and mobility, is being stored in the cloud, organisations will

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minimise operational costs, SDS becomes an ideal technology for partners to capitalise on.

“Customer data is growing at a rapid pace and this calls for more storage space requirement.

Most customer have their data distributed across many different storage options because they expand the storage as they grow,” explains Pramod

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FEATURE SOFTWARE-DEFINED STORAGE

WORLD’S DATA EXPECTED TO REACH

44 ZETTABYTES BY 2020

(source: IDC) Kurian, Chief Operating Officer, Pinnacle Smart Technologies.

“SDS will help customers to extend the life of existing storage assets, avoiding hardware manufacturer level limitations and allow them to scale up, simplifying management by automating across different class storage operations,” he adds.

The main problem that channel partners face today with this technology, which can also be looked at as an opportunity, is that it is still in the nascent stages.

This means partners can differentiate their offering

through SDS. However, faces a challenge when it comes to gathering the right resources.

Parekh from GBM says, “If I had to choose the elements, a partner should invest in when offering SDS solutions, it would be having the necessary skills as well as having the required understanding.

This is why I separate the storage functionalities into two layers – control plane and data plane.”

The control plane is a software layer that manages the virtualised storage resources.

It provides all of the

high-level functions that are needed to run the business workload and enable optimised, flexible, scalable, and rapid provisioning storage infrastructure capacity.

On the other hand, the data plane encompasses the infrastructure where data is processed. It consists of all basic storage management functions and is the interface to the underlying hardware infrastructure where the data is stored. Partners need to have in-depth knowledge to carry-out the deployment smoothly.

“All of this could add a multitude of complexities, if not understood properly and the integration of different vendor technologies could add to another dimension of challenges too. Hence, investing in the appropriate skills is of paramount importance,” says Parekh.

Agreeing, Kurian adds, that awareness and product knowledge is lacking in the channel community.

SDS will help customers to extend the life of existing storage assets, avoiding hardware manufacturer level limitations and allow them to scale up, simplifying management by automating across different class storage operations.”

Pramod Kurian, Chief Operating Officer, Pinnacle Smart Technologies

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“As we see, vendors are not making enough efforts to educate the partner community at large.”

Vendors do have an important responsibility of ensuring partners are trained adequately and have the right resources at hand. Even though, we see most vendors undertaking extensive training programmes, there is still more work to be done here.

“Most of the top vendors are already supporting the channel by developing and embedding SDS along with their solution stack, providing aggressive commercials for SDS opportunities, supporting on solution design, deployment, maintenance and trainingservices,” Kanth says.

Wang stresses that storage is a challenge for any dynamic and modern business.

“With the large number of small and mediumsized businesses in the Middle Eastern market, and their desire to upgrade to enterprise-level technology, some believe that networkattached storage (NAS) devices will play a large role in the storage landscape for the following years,” he says.

In the next couple of years, resellers can be sure of SDS being a good avenue for growth. Because data is only going to increase even more, thanks to emerging trends and technologies.

Those resellers who focus on upskilling and gain indepth knowledge have an opportunity to stand out from competition and make a visible difference to their bottom line.

EVENT HUAWEI CXO COUNCIL

WALK IN THE PATH OF LEGENDS

Huawei Enterprise Business Group Middle East recently hosted its inaugural three-day CxO Council event organised in Abu Dhabi, offering an ideal platform for its partners to come together and acquaint themselves with the company’s strategies and ambitions for the year ahead.

Huawei Enterprise Business Group built on its commitment of its ‘Transforming Together’ strategy, - which it announced a year ago at its April Partner Summit, with the three-day CxO Council event.

Top level owners and CxOs from the vendor’s channel community attended the exclusive event, which its channel department arranged to be its first worldwide partners’ meeting. Themed ‘Walk in the path of legends’, the event aimed to inspire

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partners to differentiate and walk the extra mile to nurture their businesses.

The company’s ‘Transforming Together’ strategy revolves around four chief aspects – focus, enablement, enlargement and incentivise. Driven and launched by the company’s Regional Vice President, Channels and Alliances, Hany Hussein, the strategy aims to construct a strong network of partners that can be a vital advisory base for its customers.

Hussein set the pace for the event by giving an overview of the company’s

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achievements and outlining the way forward that will be partner-driven.

“We believe we can ‘Transform Together’ with our partners through a number of initiatives,” Hussein said. “The first is by boosting partnerled business. Next, by categorising our partners’ landscape by business units, verticals and accounts. We are working towards enhancing partner self service capability.

Finally, we are placing our efforts in completing the partner ecosystem by ensuring we have the

relationships with the right kind of partners.”

He urged partners to lead the company’s business with passion, and gain specialisations and enablement skills, which can prepare them for the challenges that lie ahead in 2016.

Partners had an opportunity to learn key messaging on the company’s objectives, solutions and vertical plans from the several presentations made at the event. The sessions helped in strengthening relations between each of the

partners and the Huawei team. The Q&A sessions that took place after each presentation developed into interactive discussions, shedding light on partners’ suggestions and concerns and Huawei’s consolidated feedback on the solutions it will be providing on different levels.

The conference wasn’t a case of all work and no play – partners also experienced several exciting team-building activities, which included a competitive race around the Yas Track in Abu Dhabi.

One of Huawei’s partners who attended the event, Aliasgar Dahodwala, Managing Partner, VisionTech, added that the company had the edge and command on the technology and solutions being delivered.

“The CxO council was the smartest way of putting all partners together and making them value their relationship with Huawei without competing with each other, instead creating opportunities by joining forces,” he said.

“It was great to network

“It was great to have our partners share their success stories and also the areas that needed development.

It was a fantastic experience to see all our much-admired partners in the same place.”

Hany Hussein, Regional Vice President, Channels and Alliances, Huawei, Enterprise Business, Middle East with the Huawei partners across the Middle East and learn details about the company’s plans and

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support strategies for partners of choice.”

Part of the company’s ‘Transforming Together’ strategy is also to maximise partner profitability, which comes under the ‘incentivise’ pillar. Over the next few months we can expect Huawei to implement all the aspects of the strategy in a much bigger way.

“Today has seen the final pieces of the puzzle come together and set up a milestone in Huawei’s history,” said Hussein.

“It was great to have our partners share their success stories and also the areas that needed development. It was a fantastic experience to see all our much-admired partner CxOs under one roof for the ‘Walk in the path of legends’ themed Huawei Partner Council event. We are proud to celebrate the success of our ‘Transforming Together’ strategy’s first phase and look ahead into a promising phase two in 2016.”

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VENDOR FOCUS

LINKSYS

GEARING THE CHANNEL

Amanulla Khan, Managing Director, META, Linksys, urges resellers to evolve to solution providers to optimise business opportunities.

The networking vendor, Linksys, has been focusing on strengthening its SMB portfolio over the last few years. Having doubled the business in 2015, the company is expecting to have a similar growth this year as well.

Amanulla Khan, Managing Director, META, Linksys, says, the reason why the company is positive of high growth is because as a business it understands the SMB market really well.

“SMB requirements are similar to enterprise needs such as efficiency, improved productivity, great customer experiences and no downtime. They want these benefits at SMB price point,” he says. “This is our biggest strength.

We have brought in a product portfolio, which is manufactured specifically with the SMB business owner in mind.”

The company has unveiled a number of new releases over the last few months including MUMIMO enabled routers, range extenders with spot finders that identify optimal placement of the devices, EA7500 - MAX-STREAM AC1900 Dual Band and EA9500 - MAX-STREAM AC5400 Tri-Band routers to name a few.

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The vendor aims to enable its channel network optimise these products through four key focus areas.

Khan explains, “We have four key channels – retail, resellers, systems integrators and service providers. All four are extremely strategic and important to us as a company. We are doing tremendous amount of work in each channel to ensure we grow our business together.”

On the retail front, the company works with partners such as Sharaf DG, Emax, Virgin Megastore, Carrefour, Souq.com and other online portals. Here the biggest focus for the vendor is on consumer experience.

“We want to ensure that when a consumer walks into the store, they have a great consumer experience. We want to make the process simple for them and make sure we give them enough information so that they make an informed decision,” says Khan.

Once an informed decision is made, the customer is able to make the right purchase depending on his requirements. Even if he has to invest more, he is aware that the product he

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is purchasing is best suited to his needs.

“We are trying to educate the customer on the shelf, so they know what they want. This way customers buy the right products and to a large extent eliminate returns,” he adds.

The company also invests in trainings and role plays to ensure retailers understand customer requirements.

Additionally, the vendor also helps retailers manage the category.

In the reseller space, the company predominantly focuses on improving their bottom line and help increase their margins. This is done through its rebates programme where it has three categories of resellers – gold, silver and bronze, which is based on the revenues the partners do.

“We also do ‘lunch and learn’ sessions. We book one of the hotels within the computer street in each market and bring them during the lunch hour to train them. These sessions are interactive and engaging.”

In the SI space, it is purely about developing their technical skills, says Khan.

“We invest heavily on boot camps and workshops. We set up our products and get them to

create customer scenarios.

We are doing a pure solutions-driven hands on boot camp in this category.”

On the service provider business front, the company has invested a lot of time in educating the service providers on not winning the business through low-cost products.

“Our strength is our value proportion. Our discussion with the service providers over the years, has been to differentiate the consumers. When consumers are investing in higher bandwidth subscription, you need to differentiate them and offer a product or network equal to their demands.”

The company has seen visible progress in this category.

Khan adds, “We have brought about a mindset shift here. We are close to signing on few service providers about which the market will hear more from us in the coming months.”

According to Khan, the most challenging area is the reseller space.

“We are spending majority of our time with our resellers because they have to evolve. We are working with them to see how we can create a value proportion, rather than just shifting boxes,” he adds.

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PARROT

Zik 3

REVIEW

RATING

We took the Parrot Zik 3.0 Bluetooth headphones for a spin and we liked what we heard.

The device’s new and improved features such as noise cancellation and head detection alone could entice a user to purchase Parrot’s latest launch – the Zik 3.0 Bluetooth headphones.

But let’s begin with the design aspect. The company has once again collaborated with designer, Philippe Starck for the exterior of the thirdgeneration Zik, and the result is interesting. It features two textures, which are cross-stitched/quilted and Croco (a faux-crocodile feel). While the style might not be to everyone’s taste, it sure does make the Zik 3’s look iconic.

It retained its signature softcushioned pleather cup and closedback design and other functionalities of its predecessor. This includes the capacitive panel on the right ear cup of the device and the left cup remains as the nest for headphones’ replaceable rechargeable battery.

The structure of the device has also been improved with ergonomics in mind, as the steel side-arms and padded headband can now extend wider as compared to the earlier model. Weighing at 9.5 ounces or 270g, Zik 3 is reasonably lighter and more comfortable too.

The device features NFC connectivity, which makes it easy to pair with NFC-enabled devices.

Although this amounts to only a minor feature, as non-NFC-enabled devices can pair to Bluetooth devices easily, but from an efficiency perspective, this is definitely a plus point for the Zik 3. Users of the

device are also spoiled for choice, as they have the option to listen to Hi-Fi audio either via Bluetooth, audio jack or USB port.

A noteworthy element of Zik 3 is its head detection feature – when you remove the headset, the music automatically pauses and when it is back on, it resumes playing promptly.

However, we experienced a lag with the headphones’ sensors because often it took a few extra seconds before detecting that the headsets are back on the head again.

Another component of the new headphones that we liked, and we think music enthusiasts will enjoy, is its enhanced noise cancelling feature. It smartly adapts to your environment, allowing users to experience crisp and balanced sound

whatever music genre they may be listening to.

The device has a companion app, ‘Parrot Zik,’ which can be downloaded on any Apple or Android devices. The app allows you to access the noise cancellation feature, monitor the battery level and control the equaliser. Moreover, with an 830mAh Li-On battery, the headphones can last up to six hours of continuous usage via Bluetooth.

Occasionally, we encountered minor issues when restarting the headphones – it will be detected by the paired device but it won’t work immediately unless we restart the app. But that being said, the sound quality and easy interface of the Zik 3 still makes it worth the buy, even at a hefty price of AED 1649.

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HOT PRODUCTS

TOSHIBA ANNOUNCES LINE OF EXCERIA SD CARDS

CHENBRO RELEASES RM23624 Chenbro, a company that designs and manufactures mechanical solutions for server and storage systems, has announced that it released a new high performance 2U server/storage chassis - RM23624.

According to the company, the device features 24 swappable 2.5inch drive bays for HDDs or SSDs and a 12Gb/s SAS expander that provides higher performance and reliability that data centres demand.

The RM23624, according to Chenbro, provides a high-density

storage solution that achieves superior IOPS performance with the on-board 12Gb/s SAS expander to meet the growing demands of high-speed storage solutions.

The device is also equipped with the LSI Databolt technology that enables bandwidth enhancement to 12Gb/s from existing 6Gb/s SAS structure for performance-intensive enterprise storage environments. The RM23624 is designed with up to four patented anti-vibration fans with smart speed control configuration, and two optional 40mm rear fans.

LG AND AJM KOOHEJI GROUP LAUNCHES LG GRAM SERIES

LG Electronics (LG) in association with AJM Kooheji Group has announced the launch of LG Gram, with an exclusive partnership with Batelco.

Available in shades of white and gold, the LG Gram series consists two models in 14 inches and 15.6 inches which will be initially available across all Batelco stores in Bahrain.

The LG gram series supports the latest standards for connectivity, including Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless technology, along with extra ports for USB 3.0, a micro-USB and micro-SD slot. It also comes with a built-in HDMI port, which is uncommon among

laptops of this size, which generally require HDMI adaptors.

In addition, it is equipped with a 6th Gen Intel Core processor and Windows 10. With LG gram’s instant boot feature, the operating system starts up immediately when the user opens the display whether it’s totally powered off or simply in sleep/hibernation mode. It has a battery life of up to 7.5 hours.

LG Gram series also offers a full HD picture quality, with a 1920 x 1080 resolution and 16:9 aspect ratio for a more lifelike, immersive viewing experience. The display also features LG’s In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology, which brings accurate colour saturation and contrast, even at wide viewing angles.

Toshiba launched a range of professional-grade SD cards in the MEA region.

Offering maximum performance for creative professionals, Exceria SD cards, according to the vendor, provide the highest possible write speeds for continuous shooting in RAW and JPEG format as well as Full HD and even 4K video capture.

Toshiba highlighted that the Exceria Pro provides a write speed of 260 MB/s for action shots, and a read speed of 260 MB/s. It also offers continuous Full HD performance and allows 4K shooting In addition, Exceria SD cards a minimum write speed of 30 MB/s, a read speed of up to 95 MB/s, and its compliant with UHS Speed Class 3 (U3) for 4K video recording. The SD and microSD cards are compliant with the SD memory card standard UHS-II and UHS-I Classes.

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KODAK ALARIS UNVEILS I3300 SCANNER

SANDISK LAUNCHES EXTREME PRO MICROSDXC The Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS-II card, according to SanDisk, enables action camera, drone and smartphone users to offload huge video files at unprecedented speeds.

The new card, which is available in 64GB and 128GB capacities, delivers transfer speeds of up to 275MB/s to offload high-quality content.

Featuring Class 10 and UHS Speed Class 3 (U3), the SanDisk Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS-II card can store Full HD and 4K Ultra HD video. It also includes a USB 3.0 card reader to conveniently offload files to a PC. It is backwards-compatible with UHS-I host devices, performing up to UHS-I speeds allowed by the host device.

SanDisk highlighted that the new card is also designed for today’s durable devices, as it can keep up in extreme environments. The Extreme PRO microSDXC UHS-II microSD cards4 are shockproof, temperature-proof, waterproof, and X-ray-proof.

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Kodak Alaris has recently introduced the Kodak i3300 Scanner, a new addition to the i3000 family from the company.

According to the vendor, the i3300 Scanner is ideal for general office settings in a wide range of industries and vertical markets, including government, banking, insurance, healthcare, and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO). Scanning at 70 pages per minute, it fits between the i3200 Scanner (50ppm) and the i3400 Scanner (90ppm) in the Kodak Alaris portfolio.

Kodak Alaris also highlighted that the device also allows extraction critical data from documents and seamlessly feed it into a business process or workflow.

The i3300 Scanner includes a control panel designed to shorten the learning curve for new users.

Additional features of the i3300 Scanner include the latest version of Perfect Page technology with built-in barcode reading. It also has an advanced imaging technology that requires no tradeoffs in terms of productivity or scanning speed for colour or highresolution images. It also features an Intelligent Document Protection (IDP) to defend against potentially damaged documents and lost data.

SYNOLOGY ANNOUNCES DISKSTATION DS216J

Synology has launched DS216j, which according to the company is a NAS perfect for home media streaming, as well as file sharing and backup. Powered by a dual-core CPU with a floating-point unit (FPU), the two-bay NAS is designed for home and personal users.

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According to the vendor, the DS216j’s main CPU is enhanced with a built-in floating-point unit (FPU) that speeds up thumbnail generation. It delivers file transfer speeds of 112.75 Mb/s reading and 97.6 Mb/s writing.

Moreover, DS216j is designed with energy efficiency in mind, consuming only 14.85 W during peak usage and 6.95 W when hibernating.

DS216j also runs DiskStation Manager (DSM). With its range of applications from multimedia file sharing to backup, DSM satisfies essential home entertainment, as well as backup and file sharing needs.

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TP-LINK’S ARCHER VR2600V

APPLE LAUNCHES IPHONE SE Apple’s latest smartphone launch, iPhone SE, combines the size and body of the iPhone 5s and the capabilities of iPhone 6s. It has an A9 chip with 2GB of RAM for a speedy interface and performance. The device also has an integrated M9 motion coprocessor which enables the always-on ‘Hey Siri’ functionality. It has a 12MP rear camera and a 1.2MP FaceTime HD camera. Other features include faster LTE with support for up to 19 bands at speeds of up to 150MB/s, plus it has fast 802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 support. It is available in 16GB and 64GB configurations.

The iPhone SE can shoot 4K video and capture 63MP panoramas, and it can take Live Photos, but there is no 3D Touch support. A firstgeneration Touch ID sensor and an NFC chip are also integrated in the iPhone SE, enabling Apple Pay functionality.

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TP-LINK has introduced its latest AC2600-VoIP-WLAN-DSL-Router, the Archer VR2600v.

According to the vendor, the Archer VR2600v suits well for gaming enthusiasts and entertainment aficionados.

The router features 2600Mbps Wi-Fi speed, multi-user MIMO technology, four-stream 11AC wireless technology, and a 1.4GHz dual core processor, the Archer VR2600v delivers Wi-Fi performance to support high-bandwidth activities,

such as multi-player online gaming and multi-device, high definition video streaming.

The device has integrated VDSL modem and VoIP capabilities. The Archer VR2600v is capable of providing Internet, VoIP, and DETC base station services, all at the same time. With DETC base station services, users can connect up to six cordless or CAT-iq 2.0 telephones and enjoy a range of features, including caller ID, call waiting, call forwarding, conference calling, and voicemail.

ASUS INTRODUCES ROG GX700 According to Asus, ROG GX700 runs a desktop-class Nvidia GTX 980 GPU with 8GB of GDDR5 memory and Intel Core i7-6820HK Skylake processor at full speed. It has a detachable liquid-cooling module for extreme overclocking. The device is also equipped with a pair of traditional blower fans to help it exhaust hot air when the dock is not attached.

It has up to 64GB of DDR4 memory and is compatible with either Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro. Along

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its sides are the standard assortment of ports you’d expect from a gaming machine. These include SD, USB-C, USB 3.0, Display and Mini Display connectors.

Asus claims that this device is the first ever 17-inch real 4K UHD gaming laptop to feature Nvidia G-Sync. The laptop is priced at AED 19,999 and will be available for pre-order soon.

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HOT PRODUCTS

CANON RELEASES EOS 1300D

Canon’s new entry-level EOS DSLR – the EOS 1300D features a Wi-Fi and Dynamic NFC to make sharing simpler. It also has

a range of improved features to help users take impressive, creative photos and movies.

It is also equipped with an 18MP sensor and responsive handling.

The EOS 1300D, according to Canon, is enabled for capturing images with a distinct look and feel that are immediately shareable.

The EOS 1300D features Canon’s DIGIC 4+ processor and a large APS-C sized, 18MP sensor, letting users capture intricate detail and the diversity of colour in every scene.

According to Canon, users can shoot scenes where people and items pop from a blurred background, through the device’s shallow depth of field capabilities deliver just that.

HID GLOBAL ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF NEW ID ISSUANCE DEVICES HID Global has released its latest Directto-Card (DTC) Fargo DTC5500LMX ID Card Printer/Encoder, which according to the company, is designed to meet the high-volume, card issuance demands of large government agencies, universities, healthcare facilities and other large enterprises.

The company also announced its new FARGO HDP5600 ID Card Printer/Encoder that builds upon its high definition printing (HDP) solutions for retail stores, recreation facilities, governments and other

organisations focused on brand image and/or visual security.

HID Global also introduces the DTC5500LMX, which is equipped with a ‘wasteless’ lamination technology.

It completely eliminates traditional carrier-film waste, offering a 40 percent savings in consumables costs. It also has a Green Circle certified wasteless lamination printer. It also has the new iONTM technology allows printer / laminator to heat up and initiate lamination in just 45 seconds, saving users up to 80 percent of the time typically needed to print the first card.

Meanwhile, the new Fargo HDP5600 ID Card Printer/ Encoder delivers 600 dpi printing capabilities. The device also doubles the resolution of its HDP5000 predecessor for crisply defined barcodes and accurately reproduces small text including complex characters, such as Kanji, Arabic and Cyrillic.

ZEBRA TECHNOLOGIES’ TC70

The TC70 rugged handheld computer, according to Zebra Technologies, combines the ease of use of a smartphone with the purpose-built durability, reliability and performance that businesses demand.

Zebra highlighted that the device is designed to boost efficiency and customer service in the retail, wholesale and manufacturing industries. It also mentioned that the TC70 offers a set of features designed to strengthen productivity including a large touch screen that can be operated with fingertips, stylus and gloves in all environments.

The large touch screen of the TC70 offers access to critical data and is housed within a frame that can withstand multiple 2.4 metre drops to concrete and full water submersion. It also comes with a rugged connector on the back of the TC70 allows it to be tailored to industry-specific applications, such as high-intensity bar code scanning, or in vehicle use.

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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

Awards night!

It has been an extremely hectic first quarter for us at Reseller Middle East, as is the case with most of you, I’m sure.

We are gearing up for our Partner Excellence Awards 2016, taking place on 25th May. This is the seventh year we are hosting this prestigious awards and each year we try to outdo ourselves and present an evening that is not only memorable but also represent a new chapter in the annals of regional channel history. The channel business, albeit interesting, is also quite challenging, especially in the current market circumstances.

As a publication that has been following and voicing the trends and developments of the industry for over two decades, we understand that better than anyone else. The raison d’être of our awards is to honour and recognise the efforts of channel players in building a vibrant IT market. We want to ensure their 66

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great work never go unnoticed.

The awards aim to motivate them to continue that and set higher goals each year. We accomplish this through a straightforward and transparent process of judging, a fact we take immense pride in.

Each nomination is diligently evaluated by our esteemed panel of judges. The award programme completely depends on how strong the nomination is and purely on the merit of the players. One of the questions I’m asked each year is, “what makes a strong nomination”?

Here’s the answer to that.

The nomination form should be a detailed account of the company’s achievements in the channel business in the last year. Also, each nomination form should have the relevant information matching the category it is being sent for.

A distributor nomination form should have details such as what kind of partner enablement

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initiatives were launched? How did that boost partner’s business? What kind of pre- and post-sales support were made available to the partner?

How much investments were made into training and certifications? How much MDFs were offered to the channel?

A vendor nomination form should answer questions on business development, channel leadership, channel development programmes, services and support.

While the reseller and retailer forms should have information on how services were delivered to customers, the kind of customer support and services offered and the market reach of the company.

Over and above that, attach supporting documents to strengthen your nomination.

I hope that helped. Look forward to see you all next month at the Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Awards 2016.

Gulf Software Distribution, is the region’s smarter choice for reselling IBM’s world-class leading software. We realize that our network of IBM Business Partners is the heart of our mission. Each of our strategies will have positive impact to your business, and your success will be the index of our achievement.

Our experience of the market is incomparable and we build on it. We bring into the recipe all the ingredients required to proceed in this market. Our passionate team is ready to support during the full opportunity lifecycle, from building the solution to financing your deal, and much more. Take action now and join our network of success.

Dubai Internet City, Building 2, Premises 09 If you wish to become an IBM Software Business Partner, contact us on info@gulfsoftware.com | www.gulfsoftware.com

ISSUE 232 | APRIL 2016

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VOICE OF THE CHANNEL