Redington Value Plus July 2015

ISSUE 223 | july 2015 www.resellerme.com

Crest of success The secure mobility VAD Oxygen Middle East aims to strengthen value initiatives in the channel

PUBLICATION LICENSED BY IMPZ

CONTENTS

26

ISSUE 223 // july 2015

cover feature report

30

MAKING A MARK

hot products

In a wide-ranging interview with Reseller ME, Khalid Laban, CEO, Oxygen ME reveals extensive channel initiatives and plans for the year.

Highlights

Partner watch

6

News

54 Centre of growth

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

opinion 24

At your service

Glen Ogden from A10 Networks urges channel partners to ramp up their services offering.

Reseller ME Partner Excellence Awards 2015

69

KODAK i2820 document scanner

70

WD redesigns My Passport Ultra

73

New Dell Inspiron laptops released

Safedata’s DP Sangal on CS Infocomm partnership.

56 Conquering disruptions

Jean-Loup Desamaison-Cognet from Arrow ECS discusses new routes to market.

Vendor focus 58

Prime alliances

Primavera’s Jorge Marques on channel plans for the region.

Feature 50

Open secret

event report

Reseller ME evaluates the opportunities present in open source solutions for the channel.

59

Pillars of opportunity

Dell Software on its strategy to enable channel partners.

Scale smarter.

Manage easier.

Innovate faster.

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Learn more about our award-winning server and revolutionary in-server flash designs.

Visit Dell.com/accelerate Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

1 Based on Principled Technologies report ‘Simplifying systems management with Dell OpenManage on 13G Dell PowerEdge servers’, September 2014, commissioned by Dell, testing Dell’s 13th generation R730 with Enterprise-level Dell systems management. As compared to manual configuration.

2 Based on product specifications for Intel S3700 SATA SSD and Express Flash results from the Storage Networking Industry Association.

3 Based on Dell internal analysis August 2014 comparing SATA SSDs to Express Flash - PCIe-Gen3 x4 testing random reads. ©2014 Dell, Inc. Dell is a registered trademark of Dell, Inc. Pudae ratet faces rerrori beaquide ped etusae. Um lant, test fugiaes dit rem qui aribusd aepuditatur aut apit lam sandebisque ea volupienis ent, odipiendaeIhicatem rem eatur adiasim porero berum sim rem dolora es ad quam, to debitis est dolorest, omnihit la santusam re, corrovid ut aditias eseque ad

Contact your nearest office for further details: mssales@mindware.ae | UAE: +9714 4500600

Editorial GROUP Chairman and founder

Dominic De Sousa Group CEO

Nadeem Hood

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

The retail battle

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

Jeevan Thankappan Group Editor

Circulation Database and Circulation Manager Rajeesh M rajeesh.nair@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5682

Talk to us:

Production and Design

E-mail: jeevan.thankappan@ cpimediagroup.com

Production Manager James P Tharian james.tharian@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5673

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ ResellerME

Designers Analou Balbero analou.balbero@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 375 5680 Neha Kalvani neha.kalvani@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 3751644 Digital www.resellerme.com

DIGITAL SERVICES Web Developers Jefferson de Joya Photographers Max Poriechkin Charls Thomas webmaster@cpimediagroup.com +971 4 440 9100 Published by

Twitter: @ResellerME

A couple of months ago, I was at DISTREE, which brought together IT and consumer electronics channel in Abu Dhabi.

The event featured many speakers who talked about the evolution of retail in the digital age. Many bricks-and-mortar retailers that I’d met at the show agreed unanimously that omni-channel is the future of regional retail industry, and many of them have already added e-commerce channels to their business. But is that enough? The real challenge that many of them face is how to transition to an integrated omni-channel model and offer a consistent, engaging personal experience to their customers. That is easier said than done.

In today’s connected and mobile world, customers want a seamless experience across various platforms - be it websites or apps - and will probably walk away from companies that fail to offer this kind of customer experience.

Globally, there has been a double-digit growth in digital commerce and online shopping now accounts for a lion’s share of retail business. Are the physical retailers in our region ready to embrace this change? They might have taken the basic steps, but are struggling to offer a multichannel shopping experience to their customers. A recent survey from Accenture highlights the barriers they face in this rather painful transition – retailers are hamstrung by operational and technological challenges in meeting customer expectations, even though they see ommi-channel maturity as a priority and key brand differentiator.

The survey says majority of shoppers today expect to view in-store inventory online, and prefer to buy online and pick up their purchase in a physical store. Now, how many of our retailers can meet this demand? Not many, I am afraid.

For this to happen, retailers will have to integrate their siloed IT systems and consolidate them to gain visibility into real-time inventory across stores as well as track consumer behaviour across various channels.

Long gone are the days when you could attract consumers with fancy and expensive stores and discounts; they want a unified service and simplified shopping experience. With the lines blurring between online and physical shopping, the only way to do this for retailers is to introduce digital commerce into every aspect of their supply chain and spur organisational transformation to be relevant in the age of the customer. The clock is ticking.

Registered at IMPZ PO Box 13700 Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 440 9100 Fax: +971 4 447 2409 Printed by Printwell Printing Press © Copyright 2015 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 july 2015

5

Sariya IT, BullGuard signs distribution agreement

Amjad F. Al Omar, Sariya IT

Sariya IT has announced that it will now sell, market and support BullGuard’s internet and mobile security product range to resellers throughout MENA region.

As part of a continued approach to providing clients with the solutions required to meet strategic business objectives, Sariya IT has expanded its package proposition to include comprehensive security for PCs and mobiles from leading provider BullGuard.

“The opportunity provided by our partnership with BullGuard is going to be a game changer,” said Amjad F. Al Omar, General Manager, Sariya IT. “As a robust and attractively priced solution that stands apart from the rest of the market, its range of reliable and user-friendly products fulfil an important need for our clients, and we are very excited to meet and cooperate with B2C key players in the region with BullGuard behind us.”

The new partnership is also designed to facilitate plans for expansion into the entire MENA region following the successful opening of a Dubai office in 2014. These will include expansion into Qatar at the end of 2015 and Africa by mid-2016.

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july 2015 Reseller Middle East

highlights

Etisalat honours top SMB achievers performance and secured During a gala evening the top honours. last month, Etisalat Govind Rao, Channel Partner Awards Vice President, SMB recognised the top Partnership, also performers in building announced the new and delivering sales to the Partner Acceleration all-important SMB sectors.

Programme, a competition The channel partners that will run over the next play an important role three quarters, kicking in the commitment off with immediate effect. of Etisalat – leading Govind Rao, Etisalat It offers a structured telecoms provider in rewards incentive whereby the Middle East and each quarter has its own, separate Africa – to the UAE’s SMB sector target and awards. Through the and ensure that tens of thousands programme, Premier Channel of businesses receive a dedicated, Partners will be receiving prizes bespoke service and product advice such as Rolex watches every tailored to their needs. quarter. Meanwhile, for Select Etisalat led a series of awards Channel Partners, top sales and incentive progammes for performers get a Nissan Sunny the valued channel partners, and every quarter – and two winners the evening of June 7th put the get either 1kg or 0.5kg of gold, said spotlight on the top achievers the company. who had delivered exceptional

ALE announces new Value for Partners (V4P) Programme

Rui Silva, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) has introduced a new strategic channel partner programme to further strengthen its position in the enterprise communications market.

The programme aims to help build revenue for partners with new models and helps enterprises harness the evolution of technology while achieving tangible business outcomes.

“Partners are crucial and essential to our success, the V4P programme is a complete overhaul of how we do business. We are

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re-looking at every aspect of the partner processes to further drive successful relationships with our business partners. The V4P programme has three main pillars, the key drivers include reducing a partner’s cost of doing business with us, increasing their revenues moving forward and co-invest in our joint transformation,” said Rui Silva, Channel Manager, ME, AlcatelLucent Enterprise.

The launch of ALE’s Value for Partners global programme demonstrates a commitment to engagement, growth and focus to put partners at the centre of opportunity.

Through the programme they can aim to significantly cut the total cost of partnering with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise and reduce the ordering and supply chain complexities such as the online buying process and adapt and customise product promotions to meet regional requirements.

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highlights

VMware hosts Middle East Partner Summit

Emitac Enterprise Solutions partners with Kony The regional systems integrator, Emitac Enterprise Solutions (EES) has partnered with Kony for enterprise mobility solutions.

Through this partnership, EES aims to accelerate expansion of its solutions range, and support continued business growth. The agreement allows EES to add tremendous value to its mobility portfolio by introducing Kony’s mobility solutions to its vast customer base, and enhance its own mobile and cloud services offerings.

The Kony mobility platform aims to simplify development, integration, deployment and management of sophisticated HTML5, native, hybrid, and mixedmode applications for any mobile delivery channel from a single code base across the entire Business-

to-Employee, Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer mobile device and OS landscape.

“We are extremely delighted to partner with Kony and look forward to leveraging our Kony solutions partnership to develop applications that can be delivered across the spectrum of mobile devices that are available today and in the future. Additionally, we also have the experience and expertise to customise and deliver these applications based on our customers’ needs, which makes us highly competitive and enviable.

With this partnership, we would be able to enable enterprises to offer feature-rich mobile applications in less time and at lower costs,” said Farrukh Sarfraz, Director of Enterprise Business, EES.

Aptec wins VMware Distributor of the Year award

Bahaa Salah, Aptec - an Ingram Micro company

Aptec, an Ingram Micro company, was awarded the VMware Distributor of the Year accolade at the VMware Partner Summit Middle East and Northern Africa (MENA) 2015, which featured over 100 partners and distributors as attendees.

The award comes as recognition of Aptec’s business for VMware in the MENA region.

Managing Director Bahaa Salah received the award on behalf of Aptec, an Ingram Micro company.

“We are delighted to receive this prestigious award. I would like to thank VMware and our partners for continued support. VMware is a key strategic vendor for Aptec. This award is recognition of Aptec’s commitment to the brand and to our partners in all countries where we are present with this brand across the region,” said Salah.

VMware held its first Partner Summit in the region through which they recognised distributors and partners for their continued excellence and strong commitment towards VMware business.

VMware celebrated their partners last month at an awards dinner during the Middle East Partner Summit hosted at Atlantis, Dubai.

During the course of the evening, 10 different awards were handed out to celebrate the successes of VMware’s top partners over the last 12 months. These included recognising companies and individuals, including Distributor of the Year and Emerging Technology Partner of the year.

“VMware, together with the VMware Partner Network, continues to support businesses in the Middle East in their transformation to thrive in the growing mobile cloud era,” said Reeman Ansari, Manager Partner Organisation, VMware Middle East North Africa. “We congratulate all of our partner award winners for their accomplishments, and look forward to continued collaboration and mutual success with our partners in the future.”

The winners were, Distributor of the Year Award - Ingram Micro; Distribution Champion of the Year - Sayantan Dev, Redington; Specialised Partner of the Year – Technology Competency - Saudi Business Machines; General Business Partner of the Year- Gulf Business Machines – Dubai; Rising Star Partner of the Year - Bahwan IT; VMware Technology Champion of the Year - Ezzeldin Hussein, VAS; Emerging Technology Partner of the year - MDS Computers; Strategic Win of the Year –SecureTech; Services Partner of the Year Award- Midware Data Systems Sal; and Partner of the Year Award - Alpha Data.

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Reseller Middle East july 2015

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Sharaf DG opens revamped Times Square Centre outlet

Sharaf DG has unveiled its newly revamped store at the Times Square Centre, which reflects the retailer’s concept of “new way of doing things”.

Nilesh Khalkho, Sharaf DG, CEO, said, “It has taken us close to two years of work starting from consumer shopping behaviour research, to understanding what drives customers to visit stores, be it online or physical stores and creating a customer centric shopping experience. It’s a new way of doing things, a new way of shopping.

One that is fresh, new and stylish.”

Khalkho further stated that through the revamped store they aim to provide a unique shopping experience, which they believe can make their customers spread the word and strengthen their brand.

Attractions at the store include the DG Lounge, which is flanked on either side by the Solution Bar; the headphone section and the DG+ demo rooms; large displays of TVs; the photography wall; and the smart home experience, among others.

A new feature in the store is the concept of automated vending machines used for dispensing laptops, tablets, mobiles and cameras, which helps in reducing the checkout time for customers.

Sharaf DG also announced the launch of a new mobile app, a new website, a new feature of shop online and pick up in store, a new store at Times Square Centre all at one go. It has also introduced a new concept of DG @ Business, a Retail-to-Business initiative, which will serve the growing needs of small and medium sized businesses.

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highlights

StarLink becomes Infoblox authorised training centre Infoblox technical courses StarLink announced that presented by Certified it has now become an Infoblox Instructors. We Infoblox Authorised Training are happy that StarLink, Centre (ATC) for the Middle one of our Valued-Added East, Turkey and Africa.

Distributors has taken It will now offer certified this initiative to further training for Infoblox strengthen their position in products and services the region, as well as, add through instructor-led Cherif Sleiman, Infoblox additional value to their courses. The training will be partners and to customers.” for DDI (DNS, DHCP, and IPAM).

“We are extremely excited to be an The distributor will deliver the Infoblox ATC in the region,” said Khaled NIOS Configuration Class (NCC), T. Kokhon, Director, Customer Success, Advanced Administration Class (AAC), StarLink. “At a time when the demand and (ADTC) Advanced Diagnostic and for training on security awareness is Troubleshooting Class consisting of rapidly increasing, StarLink is proud theory and access to state-of-the-art to offer, design, deployment and now labs and training facilities at its offices. training for Infoblox solutions, enabling Cherif Sleiman, GM, Infoblox, said, customers to effectively control and “Infoblox Authorised Training Centres are partner facilities that deliver official secure their networks.”

Nexans hosts Certified System Partner training programme

Nexans has conducted a three-day intensive Certified System Partner (CSP) Training programme for their resellers and partners at Crowne Plaza Doha – The Business Park.

The event was held in co-operation with Nexans’ distributor in Qatar, M/s Al Bawakir Enterprises, and was led by Alain Geypens, Training Manager from Nexans Belgium. Participants who successfully completed the training programme are now eligible to apply for a 25 years warranty certificate from Nexans including the labour warranty.

Mavy Pereira, Sales Manager, Nexans Cabling Solutions said,

“At Nexans, we believe in order for our customers to receive the best service and installation support, our partners need to be well trained on all aspects of Nexans including features and benefits of our products, installation rules and guidelines, installation practice and testing and post implementation support. The transmission quality of a cabling installation depends on the cabling system used as well as on the installation itself and the threeday intensive training that Nexans conducts ensures that our partners are well-equipped to handle large and complex projects.”

The trainings were divided into different modules, which addressed different topics and helped the participants to improve their knowledge and skills in the cabling domain.

highlights

Red Hat, Samsung partner for enterprise mobile solutions Red Hat has announced a strategic alliance with Samsung to deliver the next generation of mobile solutions for the enterprise.

Samsung David Postel, Red Hat, MEA Business Services and Red Hat plan to deliver, business applications with a series of enterpriseready industry-specific mobile applications that will run on the Red Hat Mobile Application Platform and address key workforce management and business tasks, such as business intelligence, field and customer service, inventory management and sales catalogue, pricing, ordering, and invoicing. They also plan to introduce a developer ecosystem with tools

and resources to build and nurture a new ecosystem of enterprise partners and developers to promote rapid innovation that meets both current and emerging needs in mobility.

David Postel, Partner & Alliances Leader, Red Hat Middle East & Africa, said, “This key alliance between Samsung and Red Hat brings a wealth of opportunities to our partners, especially those active in the Mobile space for enterprise and government.

They will be able to position new Mobile Business Applications tailored to specific verticals, developed by Samsung and Red Hat and with support from Red Hat. They will also gain new developer tools and resources and be able to provide services around Red Hat Mobile Application Platform and Openshift.

This is a very exciting opportunity for us and our partner ecosystem.”

Polaris joins Infor Partner Network

Vibhu Kapoor, Infor

Infor, the industry cloud company, has announced that Polaris ESL has joined the Infor Partner Network (IPN), a selective group of channel partners that re-sell and service the company’s leading business application software.

Polaris will focus on selling and supporting Infor LN, PLM and Infor ION solutions throughout the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Through the appointment of Polaris, Infor is expanding its coverage in the Middle East, enabling the company to focus on key industries including: industrial manufacturing, distribution and general business.

Jitin Goyal, CEO, Polaris Consulting and Services, said, “Our partnership with Infor is an important aspect of our digital transformation capabilities.

The new Infor Xi platform offers many innovative features and has deep industry specific applications, which is exactly what our clients are demanding. Together Polaris and Infor offer world-class solutions for organisations pursuing a digital transformation strategy.”

Vibhu Kapoor, Senior Director, Channels Recruitment and Enablement, Infor, said, “The Infor Partner Network continues to help our partners rapidly build profitable and sustainable businesses around our applications. Through the IPN programme and innovative product developments like ION, and Xi together with out-of-the box industryspecific functionality, Infor partners are armed with superior products and support to help them win deals and grow their revenue.”

Cisco to implement ‘Security Everywhere’ strategy Cisco has announced new offerings to embed security throughout the extended Rabih Dabboussi, Cisco UAE network – from the data centre out to endpoints, branch offices, and the cloud – for pervasive threat visibility and control.

By integrating security everywhere, enterprises and service providers gain the ability to deliver the threatcentric security requirements demanded by today’s dynamic threat landscape and capture emerging business opportunities created by the rise of the Digital Economy and the Internet of Everything (IoE).

Rabih Dabboussi, General Manager, Cisco UAE, said, “To protect against today’s threats and increase agility for organisations in the Middle East to seize new growth opportunities and implement new technologies, security must be pervasively embedded across the entire network infrastructure.

By integrating ‘Security Everywhere’ throughout the extended network and through cloud-delivered services, Cisco is protecting a wider array of attack vectors. This also provides enterprises and service providers with the confidence that they have the continuous and retrospective visibility and control to support new technologies and business opportunities in the Internet of Everything and the Digital Economy.”

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Reseller Middle East july 2015

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Solutions Middle East achieves Citrix Specialist status Solutions Middle East has announced that it has been awarded the Citrix Specialist status after successful Asad Siddiq, Solutions ME completion of the Citrix Solutions Advisor Specialisation programme.

Solutions Middle East is the first in the region to be awarded platinum specialisation by Citrix.

Citrix Specialisations are designed to recommend partners with technical competency and endto-end service delivery of mobile workspace solutions to customers.

Solutions Middle East has demonstrated the skills and ability needed to successfully plan, design, implement, manage and support holistic mobile workspace solutions that meet customers’ needs and has achieved specialisation on all three of Citrix’s test platforms, namely mobility, networking and virtualisation. The company has also achieved the Platinum Partner status for the region by Citrix in 2014 “We are proud to be the first and only Citrix Specialist covering virtualisation, mobility and networking. This is part of our overall target to deliver quality valuable projects in the MEA region,” said Asad Siddiq, Executive VP, Solutions Middle East. “To achieve a specialisation, a Citrix Solution Advisor must demonstrate deep, hands-on experience and customer success through completion of rigorous requirements. We work very closely with our partners in order to deliver the best products and services to our customers.

Having a Platinum specialist status is the epitome of an organisation that meets the highest levels of commitment, technical expertise and customer focus.”

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highlights

Think Software awarded at Dell User Group conference Think Software Services recently received an award by Dell Software at the User Group conference held at Grand Hyatt, Dubai last month.

The Dell User Group conference, Dubai was targeted for end users across all industries. The event served as a platform to extend knowledge sharing on Dell Software products as well as highlight contributions of their key channel partners. Think Software’s award was for the team’s excellence in Network Security and accomplishments as a trusted partner of Dell Software.

The award was accepted by Think Software Services team members together, Samir Chopra, Director Sales & Delivery; Kumanan D., Programme Manager; Erin Boubel, Technical Product Manager; and Faheem Siddiqui, Head Technology Services.

Deepak Verma, Managing Director, Think Software Services, said, “We acknowledge the ongoing support of Dell Software and thank them for

recognising Think Software Services with the Network Security excellence award. This reflects the fact that our team has delivered commitments and earned utmost trust, which is imperative for every organisation’s credibility.

Additionally, this also is an added responsibility to continue delivering our highest potential towards Dell Software’s partnership. Our prime focus is to jointly work with our partners and expand our product offerings for each industry segment.”

Fluke Networks appoints FVC as ME distributor Fluke Networks has signed FVC as a value-added distributor (VAD) for the Middle East and Africa region. As part of the partnership, the distributor K. S. Parag, FVC will align with the global network performance monitoring and diagnostics solutions provider to meet customer demand in the region, by increasing the market share of the vendor’s enterprise solutions.

“Fluke Networks is an established global leader, and we are keen to help Fluke Networks further expand its market reach here in the region.

Our partnership with Fluke Networks

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further strengthens FVC’s capabilities, allowing us to add yet another world class vendor to our IT Infrastructure and Security portfolio,” said K. S. Parag, Managing Director, FVC. FVC will market all enterprise solutions from Fluke Networks, giving businesses across the region immediate access to world-leading technologies, providing them with an edge in an increasingly competitive global arena.

Fluke Networks has also announced the launch of its new Enterprise Partner Programme for the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region. The programme will help the company’s partners provide complete end-to-end solutions to its customers, including network and application performance management, and wireless LAN security and network monitoring.

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ensure that users, devices and applications can connect securely to the network. And all of these technologies are backed by the human intelligence of the FortiGuard threat research experts.

Every organization, no matter how large or small, is a potential target for advanced targeted attacks. Don’t take the risk - protect your network with Fortinet.

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highlights

Quantum signs MoU with Beltron

Crayon Middle East partners with LiveRoute Crayon Middle East announced that LiveRoute will be its official Microsoft Office 365 deployment partner in the region.

The Joachim Hagström, Crayon ME collaboration with LiveRoute will secure clients an all-inclusive solution for Microsoft Cloud services starting from acquiring the right licenses to full deployment and migration of business applications to Microsoft Cloud.

Joachim Hagström, CEO, Crayon Middle East, said, “As part of our commitment to the best-in-class client servicing, we ensure joining forces with leading partners to optimise our quality service innovation in

the region. LiveRoute is a Microsoft Gold partner with the highest cloud certification level and holds a rich portfolio of successful deployment cases. We fully entrust that together with LiveRoute we will bring the right synergy of licensing expertise and deployment to eliminate complexities that businesses might face throughout their migration process.”

LiveRoute will support Crayon’s exclusive offer for Microsoft Enterprise Agreement holders in UAE, extending further benefits and valueadded features to eligible clients planning to move to Microsoft Cloud and deploy Office 365. LiveRoute will be deploying Office 365 products at no cost based on the number of users, requirements and needs. The offer is valid until June 30, 2015 and for the clients based in UAE.

Fast Lane introduces new cybersecurity training course Delivered in an instructor-led Fast Lane Computer setting over a five-day period, Consultancy announces CyberSec First Responder: the addition of CyberSec Threat Detection and Response First Responder: Threat is designed for information Detection and Response assurance professionals who to their public training perform job functions related schedule. to the development, operation, This cyber-security management, and enforcement training course and Josef Miskulnig, Fast Lane of security capabilities for corresponding ProCert systems and networks.

Accredited certification, Certified Josef Miskulnig, Founder and CEO, CyberSec First Responder, were Fast Lane, said, “Our mission is to developed by Logical Operations with empower the region’s talent with the the goal of helping organisations knowledge and expertise required combat cyber-security threats. for today’s technological challenges.

The number of exceptional IT With businesses in the Middle East security breaches continues to grow facing a growing risk of cyber-attacks, exponentially, which is part of an Fast Lane acknowledges the need for overall trend toward increasingly security professionals that understand destructive hacking incidents. These larger security framework, rather than hacking incidents further highlight specialise in any one given practice area. the enormous demand for qualified “Fast Lane is excited to partner with security professionals who can Logical Operations to address the gap protect their organisations’ networks in the field of cyber-security today.” and prevent significant losses.

Quantum has recently signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with India-based Beltron Green Energy Telecom.

According to the company, the MoU will lead to the establishment of a joint venture between Quantum and Beltron to be based in India and will see the new entity supply the Department of Minority Welfare and Information Technology for the Government of Bihar with all its IT product needs.

The deal is expected to pave way for Quantum-Beltron to start supplying mobile devices including tablets, notebooks and smartphones to the Government of Bihar.

Islam Abdul Hamid, Deputy CEO, Quantum, said the company is delighted to have signed a landmark agreement with Beltron Telecom, a development that will open the Quantum brand to the Indian market.

Ramesh Kumar, Managing Director, Beltron said the deal will help the two companies through this joint venture partnership to supply IT products including tablets, notebooks and smartphones to government departments in the Government of Bihar. “We have started in Bihar State initially, but we will extend this to other states as the brand gains momentum in India. We are delighted at the fact that we will not just be supplying products, but offer post-sales support with in-country facilities,” Kumar said.

He further explained that through Quantum-Beltron, the company plans to supply tablets, smartphones, notebooks, PC and servers to the Government of Bihar.

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highlights

Palo Alto Networks acquires CirroSecure

Criteo establishes regional hub in Dubai

Palo Alto Networks announced its acquisition of CirroSecure, a Silicon Valley-based Saeed Saeed Agha, Agha, General Palo Alto Manager, Palo Networks Alto Networks Middle East company, specialising in securing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications.

Saeed Agha, General Manager, Palo Alto Networks Middle East, said, “The Palo Alto Networks Enterprise Security platform provides the industry’s leading ability to safely enable applications and prevent cyber-threats from compromising an organisation’s data and infrastructure. The platform is able to secure high risk, unsanctioned applications by providing superior visibility and control.”

The addition of the CirroSecure technology to the Palo Alto Networks platform expands this functionality by providing additional security for SaaS applications such as Box, Dropbox, GitHub, Google Drive, and salesforce.com that are highly collaborative, yet often store some of an organisation’s most sensitive data.

The CirroSecure technology offers a different approach to securing SaaS applications by providing complete visibility across all user, folder, and file activity while applying deep analytics into dayto-day usage to quickly determine if any policy or data security violations have occurred. These violations are prevented through the use of granular, context-aware policies that allow organisations to quickly quarantine users and data as soon as a violation has occurred to prevent loss of sensitive data.

This technology is expected to be available in the second half of 2015 as a new subscription-based service.

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july 2015 Reseller Middle East

Criteo, the performance marketing technology company has announced the launch of its regional operations in Dubai, showing the company’s commitment to the Middle East.

The regional hub for Criteo is being headed by Dirk Henke, Managing Director for Eastern Europe and MEA. Henke said, “E-commerce in the Middle East is at an exciting crossroads. Understandably, advertisers and marketers are vying to secure a sizeable online presence, and to do so better and faster than the rest. Criteo is specially equipped to deliver these market needs. We are excited to increase our regional

presence with our new regional hub at a time when businesses in the Middle East are wired for positive change, and Criteo looks Dirk Henke, Criteo forward to supporting new and existing clients in implementing effective digital strategies.”

Leveraging on direct relationships with more than 10,000 publishers worldwide, Criteo already provides this service for over 7,800 advertisers across 75 countries.

WD introduces enhanced myWD Channel Partner Programme WD has recently re-launched its comprehensive myWD Partner Programme, a loyalty channel programme for MSPs, VARs, and integrators with Khwaja Saifuddin, WD new features such as product solution centres, industry-focused marketing assets and on-demand product training.

The myWD Partner Programme provides channel partners with the resources and benefits they need to drive their business. The new and improved site of the programme offers new features that lead to a seamless user experience for partners providing relevant and easy-to-access information at their fingertips.

Khwaja Saifuddin, Sales Director, India, Middle East and Africa, WD, said, “Since the launch of myWD in 2012, the programme has grown to over 25,000 partners worldwide

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Since the launch of myWD in 2012, the programme has grown to over 25,000 partners worldwide spanning across 190 countries and 17 languages.” spanning across 190 countries and 17 languages. With the re-launch of myWD, WD is proving its commitment to invest in the channel by presenting our valued partners opportunities to build their business in the growing storage applications of NAS, surveillance and data centres.”

New features of the site include, solution selling centre on growing markets such as surveillance, NAS, and data centre. Partners can also receive up to a 40 per cent discount on qualifying products which can be used for demonstration, seed units or internal use.

CSFi partners with CNS

Exclusive Group secures investment from Cobepa direction of the business Exclusive Group has and in our strategy for announced that it further market scale and has recently received share. The Group’s goal to substantial new hit EUR 1 billion revenues corporate investment by 2017 is further assured from Cobepa to take by this investment, which a majority stake in the will allow us to develop business. more services and Cobepa, an identify and capitalise on independent, Olivier Breittmayer, Exclusive Group new opportunities within privately-held the markets and sectors investment company that we operate in.” headquartered in In addition to the investment, the Belgium will be joined by Edmond de distributor has also secured a new Rothschild Investment Partners who finance facility from existing financing are re-investing for the third time. partner, UK-based Intermediate Olivier Breittmayer, CEO of Capital Group (ICG). These new Exclusive Group, said, “We’re financial arrangements give the delighted to welcome Cobepa as an Group the platform to deliver the investor, and feel that their decision next phase of business growth. demonstrates confidence in the

Zebra Technologies unveils WiNG Express for SMBs in EMEA Zebra Technologies has unveiled a new wireless local area network (WLAN) called the WiNG Express, specifically priced to meet the needs of small and mid-size businesses and is designed for simplicity without compromising on the Zebra WLAN enterprise-class features and functions used by Fortune 500 companies.

WiNG Express requires virtually no IT department support with an

Zebra WiNG Express gives users all the benefits of highperformance wireless connectivity at a cost that small and midsize businesses can afford.”

easy-to-use, easy-to-understand graphical user interface that simplifies end-to-end WLAN management. The WiNG Express offering provides a competitive pricing model while still creating a fully network-aware WLAN that has the intelligence required to route every transmission as efficiently and securely as possible for unsurpassed wireless performance.

Mark Smith, Sales Director, Enterprise Networks and Communications EMEA , Zebra Technologies, said, “Zebra WiNG Express gives users all the benefits of high-performance wireless connectivity at a cost that small and mid-size businesses can afford. The ease of deployment and scalability allows customers to grow their network as their business grows, all while maintaining best-in-class operational efficiency and delivering outstanding customer service.”

US-based CSF International (CSFi) has recently signed a new Master Value-Added Reseller (MVAR) agreement with Computer Network Systems (CNS).

Through the agreement CSFi will rely upon CNS as a regional reseller to provide consulting, training, support and implementation expertise for the sales and distribution of SWITCHWARE and other CSFi supporting products used for ATM driving and electronic debit

CNS’ proven ability to provide its clients with the rapid roll-out of turnkey, state-of-the-art technology and a stellar record of customer support were some of the key factors in CSFi’s decision to partner with the firm.” and credit payments management solutions in the Middle East.

“CNS’ proven ability to provide its clients with the rapid roll-out of turnkey, state-of-the-art technology and a stellar record of customer support, were some of the key factors in CSFi’s decision to partner with the firm,” said Tony Cappadora, VP, Sales and Marketing, CSFi.

Middle East spending on devices is forecast to reach

USD 36 billion in 2015, up 16% from 2014.

Source: Gartner

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appointments

Mayflex names new network and sales manager

TP-LINK ME appoints new Business Development Manager

David Fagan, Mayflex

Mayflex has recently appointed David Fagan as the Networking and Security Sales Manager for the Middle East and Africa region.

Fagan joined the company in April and brings with him a wealth of experience earned both in the industry and in the region itself.

He previously held the role of Managing Director with DerwentMEP Solutions and was responsible for the strategic planning and direction of the business along with the management of the strategic, technical and commercial portfolios. He also holds a number of industry certifications involving technologies supporting convergence, mobility and wireless.

Fagan’s appointment has been necessary due to the continued growth of both the networking and security product ranges and activity within Mayflex in the MEA region.

Andrew Percival, Managing Director, Mayflex, said, “I am delighted to welcome Fagan on board. This is an exciting time for the business as we continue to grow and introduce new brands. Fagan has a vast amount of experience in the networking and IP security marketplace and will be instrumental in keeping Mayflex first and foremost in customer’s minds when it comes to networking and security requirements.”

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Fazal Khan, TP-LINK

TP-LINK Technologies has appointed Fazal Khan as the new Business Development Manager for its KSA operations.

Khan’s appointment will help the vendor to develop its channel business in Saudi Arabia.

In his role, Khan will drive TP-LINK’s channel business with distributors and entire partner

network across Saudi Arabia, and ensure there is a robust pipeline of opportunities. In addition, Khan will help the company identify opportunities for campaigns, services and distribution channels that should lead to increased sales in the Kingdom.

Khan said using his knowledge of the market and competitors, he will help TP-LINK identify and develop its unique selling propositions and differentiators to reseller partners and end user customers.

“There are good prospects for companies that want to resell their IT products to the Saudi Arabian market,” said Khan. “However, there are certain marketing procedures and sales techniques, which have to be observed in order to develop and sustain business relationships over a long period of time in KSA. This is where I’ll be focusing in my role.”

Exclusive Networks announces new ME Head of Sales

Abdullah Abu-Hejleh, Exclusive Networks

Exclusive Networks has appointed Abdullah Abu-Hejleh as its new Head of Sales for the Middle East

region.

Abu-Hejleh brings with him over 25 years of hands-on experience in the IT industry across the region.

He has worked with a number of key technology industry players such as Compaq and Cisco Networks.

His previous stints include working with the telco division of Emitac, after which he joined Hewlett Packard as the Regional

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Sales Manager for Software Solutions. He has also had the chance to establish a new company within Emirates Computers Group and has worked with them for four years before joining SCOPE-IS as Sales Director.

“I have been privileged to witness Exclusive Networks’ achievements for the last 10 years, and now I look forward to playing a considerable part in assisting the company with their ambitious plans for the future. I promised our partners in ME with a closer business relationship and more hand-by-hand engagements in our approach to market,” said Abu-Hejleh The company aims to have a reseller focused sales force with Abu-Hejleh on board.

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GAMING

Appointments

huawei names new Middle East President

Smartworld appoints new CEO Smartworld recently announced the appointment of Abdulqader Obaid Ali as the new Chief Executive Officer.

Obaid Ali brings with him three decades of experience across various fields including IT, quality, HR, construction and audit.

Through his appointment, Obaid Ali is expected to bring innovative solutions to serve and to leverage the success of Smartworld to further strengthen its position in the telecommunication infrastructure industry.

Apart from his association with Smartworld, he has also worked with two key industry players in the Emirate, namely DUBAL and Dubai World. In 2011, he was awarded the prestigious Kano Medal Excellence Catalyst. He led the Arabisation

Abdulqader Obaid Ali, Smartworld

projects such as Certified Internal Audit CIA Certification and the ‘Sawyer’s Guide to Internal Audit’.

He also founded and chaired the Ideas Arabia, which is dedicated to innovation with the core emphasis on Suggestion Reward Programmes.

With Obaid Ali at the helm, Smartworld is aiming to provide innovative technology solutions that will enable digital economic growth in the Gulf, Middle East and Africa.

Fortinet announces new MEA marketing manager crucial time when it is scaling Fortinet has announced up its focus on partners and the appointment of customers,” said Rafeh. “The Manal Abi Rafeh as its Middle East and Africa are Regional Marketing highly competitive markets Manager for the Middle but there is plenty of scope for East and Africa. new business. I look forward In her role as to playing an integral part in Regional Marketing Fortinet’s ongoing success in Manager, Rafeh will the region.” oversee and execute all “My aim is to primarily of Fortinet’s field- and Manal Abi Rafeh, Fortinet increase Fortinet’s brand channel-marketing awareness, and ultimately initiatives in the increase revenue and market share Middle East and Africa regions. in the region. Fortinet has a very This includes solidifying existing comprehensive product portfolio relationships with partners and for both SMB- and enterprise-class customers, planning and executing organisations but the brand is marketing campaigns, increasing largely associated with enterprise lead generation, maximising return level products. My priority will on investment, and identifying new be to dispel these assumptions business prospects. through tailored initiatives that “Fortinet is one of the fastest will give individual attention to all growing network security vendors of our partners across the region,” in the region, and I am thrilled explained Rafeh. to be joining the company at a

Charles Yang, Huawei Enterprise

Huawei Enterprise has appointed Charles Yang as President for the Middle East region.

Yang will oversee the company’s operations, guiding its strategic direction, leading its business development and customers’ relations to drive wider adoption of Huawei’s technology innovations.

“This is an exciting time for ICT solutions providers as the telecommunications industry continues to evolve to contribute to a global digital economy. Huawei’s Middle East market strategy has never been more compelling, proven by our growth in this strategically important region in light of our customer centricity approach. I look forward to leading Huawei’s business groups into the next phase of innovation that is continuing to win over the hearts and minds of customers,” said Yang.

Huawei established its Middle East headquarters 15 years ago and the Middle Eastern market is one of the fastest growing regions for the vendor around the world.

In the rapidly expanding ICT sector, the company’s end-toend solutions and its cloudpipe-device strategy has helped it to innovate across the ICT value chain.

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opinion

A10 Networks

At your service Glen Ogden, Regional Sales Director, Middle East, A10 Networks, says the Middle East channel can tap into new revenue streams and high margins in emerging technologies, once they develop their professional services capabilities.

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Value-addition is the name of the game in channel today. Margins are getting tight on hardware and as hardware costs fall, even these slim margins decline. With customers always asking for more from their solution providers, the need for specialisation and differentiation is evident.

Developing a well-tailored

professional services portfolio is a highly profitable and sustainable way of doing exactly this.

Without a doubt, professional services is the biggest area of opportunity for channel. There is a huge demand for this in the region. Not only do professional services give channel players the ability to make the most revenues and margins, it elevates them to the highly desirable status of a ‘trusted advisor’, which helps reel in new customers while also introducing the possibility of extending the sales conversation with the existing customer base.

Addressing vendor competition The regional interest in professional services is evident. In fact, channel organisations are not the only ones that have stood up to take notice. There are vendors that have their own professional services divisions and this obviously does not leave much room for their channel partners to follow suit.

Unfortunately, this challenge is only worsened by a customer mindset that still believes there is a difference between the quality being delivered by the vendor and the partner.

In the Middle East, high spending companies like banks and telcos don’t trust channel service quality and often mandate that a vendor delivers the services. The channel needs to invest in professional service capabilities and also affiliate these in some way

to the vendors before it can tap into this set of highvalue end customers.

As most channel partners cannot hope to compete with the sheer scale of these vendors, they should instead look at ramping up the skills of their teams up to a point where they are considered to be an arm of the vendor. Once they have done that, there is a huge amount of ‘marginrich’ opportunity. There are also vendors who would rather let their channel partners offer professional services and consultancy.

These vendors typically extend a high degree of support to their partners, which rapidly accelerate the skillsets and knowledge of the channel teams.

Not only do professional services give channel players the ability to make the most revenues and margins, it elevates them to the highly desirable status of a ‘trusted advisor’

Areas of opportunity Professional services can call for a significantly high upfront investment and recurring operational expenses in order to maintain a high quality of service. Observing market trends and developing proficiency in appropriate or high-growth potential areas is therefore the first step in establishing a flourishing professional services business.

In the Middle East, IT security is a big market and its rapidly changing nature means that customers are always on the lookout for long term strategic partners who can help them stay one step ahead of their potential attackers.

In recent years, enterprises have invested in security solutions and are continuing to invest. So the

capability of the channel to service these solutions is going to be key throughout 2015 - especially within the government sector.

Although government entities may have their own internal teams, they typically only have a few individuals who are dedicated to IT security and these professionals need to be supported by the channel.

IPv6 migration is also something that simply cannot be ignored any longer. Those companies wanting to mitigate their risk are reaching out for Carrier Grade NAT to extend their IPv4 space while others are looking to deploy IPv6 services with IPv4 – IPv6/ IPv6 – IPv4 translation technologies.

The move to IPv6 brings with it a huge burden for

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networking teams in both, planning and operations, meaning companies will need the support of the channel for preparation and also in the long term.

The cloud has been trending for a while now and we are starting to see many more cloud services being deployed in the region, so it still remains a space to watch. Cloud has also been driving our understanding of data usage with latest statistics showing businesses are nearly doubling its use year-on-year. Big Data is fast becoming a priority in the large enterprise, government and health verticals. Supplementing innovative solutions with analytics capabilities will be the need of the hour.

There is also a huge push throughout the region on virtualisation.

Organisations are now beginning to take a keen interest in technologies such as Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) and Software Defined Networking (SDN). But with widespread confusion and rampant misconception, there is plenty of opportunity for the channel community to step in and guide the adoption of these new technologies.

This again goes back to professional services.

The channel needs to be looked upon as the trusted advisor in new areas as enterprises are now looking for a much more consultative sell. It is up to the channel to hone its consultative skills and reap rich rewards in future.

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cover story Oxygen Middle East

Making Deeper engagement with partners and focus are the cornerstones for growth, says Khalid Laban, Chief Executive Officer, Oxygen Middle East. In a wide-ranging interview with Reseller ME, the CEO reveals extensive channel initiatives and plans for the year.

What have been some highlights at Oxygen Middle East over the last six months?

As a company, we are focusing more on deeper engagement with the channel. We are doing this through our site survey and other channel development initiatives.

We are always looking at adding value to the channel, this is our priority being a valueadded distributor. We evolve ourselves to meet the dynamics of the value that our partners identifies us with. This is important for us.

We have participated at IDC roadshows across UAE, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

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As the market shifts from building networks in the traditional manner to the new way of BYOD, it is important to understand how to leverage the opportunities present here. With mobility, the whole network infrastructure as we know it will transform.

And this is where Oxygen comes into play. We need to provide solutions to manage mobile content, apps and remote storage.

However, it is well known that mobility breaks security. Therefore, you need to have an adequate infrastructure so that mobility and security can work hand in hand.

Oxygen is unique in the market because we are the only VAD who talks

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about ‘secure mobility’.

This gives us an edge in the market and brings a deeper value to the customer and to the channel. We have been organically growing at 40 per cent yearon-year and is on target to achieve our numbers this year.

are offering to do this job on the partner’s behalf. It is an advanced site survey initiative with Autocad and 3D integration, interference reporting, capacity planning and identifying the best areas to position the access points in order to get maximum performance.

We have given the engineers from our partners, a bonus of AED 300 to allow us to help him with the site survey and an extra bonus of AED 300 per site survey

“We are always looking at adding value to the channel, this is our priority being a value-added distributor.”

Can you elaborate on the site survey initiative?

Site survey is the least soughtafter job in the Wi-Fi implementation process.

Through this initiative we

At a glance Company: Oxygen Middle East CEO: Khalid Laban Years in operation: 8 Distribution model: Valueadded distribution Location of support offices: KSA, UAE, Egypt Top vendors: Aruba, Fortinet, MobileIron, Box Total resellers: 300 plus Vertical focus: Hospitality, government, retail, healthcare, banking and finance, oil and gas, construction Business focus: Staying ahead of the technology curve

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cover story Oxygen Middle East

to our own engineers. We want to standardise the way site survey is done to make it professional, simple, secure, smart and equip it with ample support capacity. At the moment we have 20 engineers doing both indoor and outdoor site surveys, my dream is to double this number over the coming months.

Can you elaborate on your training initiatives for the channel?

As part of our Oxygen Value Incentive programme, we have channel enablement programmes to educate the partners on the vision of how you built secure mobility. This is from a strategy point of view and Exceed, our sister company carries out the certification training.

both of which have a fixed number charge.

Today many customers are demanding for the advance support, especially as the complexity increases in the technology implementation. This requires higher skills and support and services 24/7.

However, the basic support is no longer sufficient for customers while the advance is too expensive.

We have identified an opportunity here and introduced Oxycare, where we have incorporated many features from the vendors’ advance support, so it is the basic with additional advance support features.

And we are charging only a bit higher than the vendors’ basic support for almost the entire suite of advance support.

This is a big value for the channel and we are hoping this will help us position better, not only from a technology and a channel support point of view but also from the end user satisfaction perspective. Additionally, we are doing channel satisfaction surveys, where we touch base with partners to understand

“The concept of creativity and positioning is key to sustain a healthy growth, which brings in higher margins.”

Services are becoming the focus for most regional VADs; have there been any initiatives from Oxygen in this regard?

All professional services are done through Exceed.

We have a new initiative on services called Oxycare.

Vendors usually have two types of support – basic and advance,

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how their experience was when dealing with Oxygen. We also make amendments based on the survey feedback.

What challenges are the partners grappling with today?

Today the challenge for partners is that there are too many low hanging fruits, which amounts to reduced margins as the competition is fierce. What partners need is a unique positioning so that it gives them an edge over other SIs. And this is a challenge that the channel has to be aware of and fight against consciously. The concept of creativity and positioning is key to sustain a healthy growth, which brings in higher margins.

What are some of your expansion plans?

For Oxygen, the largest market is Saudi Arabia, followed by UAE and Egypt. We have about 40 executives, three offices and a warehouse in Saudi Arabia. We are planning to set up an office in Qatar within the next three months. And we are also looking at expanding into Jordan.

Are there plans to sign up any new vendors over the next couple of months?

We are looking to sign up new and exciting partnerships in the mobility and security space, which

we can discuss only at a later stage.

As a value-added distributor, what are your challenges?

It is always a challenge to keep bringing in fresh new concepts and tweaking our policies to match market evolution. Also, it takes a lot of effort and planning to provide more value to our channel and modifying our strategy to create better business opportunity.

What has been the key to your success?

What has propelled our growth is our drive to be ahead of the market. We focus on being different and thinking smarter and faster while also launching new initiatives.

The key word is ‘focus’.

We began our operations with a focus on a niche segment – wireless. Today we have expanded into a focused secure mobility value-added distributor.

And this is where I believe the future is. It is important to maximise the opportunities a disruption in the market offers.

Oxygen is built as a team with a crystal clear vision of what we are trying to do in the market and we are not afraid to invest.

We are already looking at having more engineers for the site survey even before the market demands it. Staying ahead of the curve is essential to our growth story.

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Partner Excellence Awards 2015

Let’s samba!

From sequin dresses, exotic carnival masks to traditional Brazilian dancers, the attendees of Reseller Middle East Partner Excellence Awards 2015 were treated to a festive night of colour and entertainment. The sixth edition of the Awards celebrated excellence in the channel business and was an opportunity for the industry leaders to let their hair down and party hard.

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At its sixth annual Partner Excellence Awards 2015, Reseller Middle East, bestowed its highest honour upon the best performing companies from the regional IT channel community. Held on 3rd June, at Jumeirah Beach Hotel, the awards commended channel players who have strived to grow their business through differentiation and innovation.

The evening kicked off with CPI Media Group’s Chairman, Dominic De Sousa’s welcome speech where he encouraged the industry to “raise the bar even when it seems impossible.”

Presenting sponsor Octagon International’s Managing Director, Sukant Mishra emphasised the significance of evolving with the times and embracing technology to enable business.

Hazem Amer, Market Development Manager, Gulf Region from Platinum sponsor, Intel, gave the second keynote address for the evening. He said, “Exciting times are ahead of us, if technology was a movie, we are only seeing the trailer now.”

The Awards recognised the very best from the industry who have used a dedicated channel approach, sustaining and driving their business despite market challenges, and for leading the space with innovation as their core strategy.

The esteemed panel of judges - Amer Khreino, Founder and Managing Director, Avenues; Manjeet Singh Chhabra, MD, CRIF Dun & Bradstreet UAE; Moustafa Abd El-Mohsen, Founder/ CEO, Shaheen Management Consultancy and Philip Hughes, Consultant - analysed the array of over 250 nominations from across the region in a ten-day process, to name the frontrunners across 21 categories from channel partners, distributors and vendors. Other categories included Editors’ Choice and Readers’ Choice.

Besides the awards ceremony itself, the 400-plus attendees were treated to a host of entertainment programmes, all of which blended in perfectly with the theme for the event – Brazilian Carnival. Reseller Middle East also gave away spot prizes for the best themed dressed male and female.

The presenting sponsor for the event was Octagon International while Intel was the platinum sponsor. The second platinum sponsor was Dell and other sponsors included Mindware, Sariya IT, TYCONZ, SAP, Aptec – an Ingram Micro Company, StorIT Distribution, ComGuard, Nanjgel, Aruba Networks, Westcon Group, D-Link, AOC, Acronis, Prestigio, Fortinet, SNB IT, Fujisoft, Vsun by ibs and raffle sponsor, Quantum.

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Partner Excellence Awards Vendor categories

Networking Vendor Winner: Cisco

Cisco is proud to be recognised as the Networking Vendor of the year 2015, which is an achievement and an honour. This award is a testimony of our team’s dedication to providing the best and most innovative solutions, services and support to our customers.

We would like to thank the editors of CPI Publishing, Reseller Middle East, the panel of judges, our customers, partners and employees for their trust in us.”

Finalists

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise | Aruba Networks | Cisco | D-Link Middle East & Africa | Dell | Huawei Enterprise

Rabih Dabboussi, Managing Director, Cisco UAE

Microsoft Gulf is so excited to receive this prestigious award. It reflects on Microsoft’s contribution in empowering the channel to develop their knowledge and grow their capability to scale their business. Partners are transforming their business to better capture the cloud opportunity and Microsoft is supporting them to succeed in a cloud-first economy.”

Haider Salloum, Channel Sales Manager, SMB, Microsoft Gulf

Software Vendor Winner: Microsoft Gulf Finalists

Citrix | Microsoft Gulf | Orixcom | SAP | VMware

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Mobility Vendor Winner: Quantum Finalists

Aruba Networks | Avaya | Huawei Enterprise | Prestigio Middle East | Quantum

Reseller Middle East is a big name in the Middle East region and winning an award for the best Mobility Vendor is an achievement that we are really proud of. For Quantum, the most important aspect is to have a good and reliable business environment with strong and knowledgeable team. Having a good environment and experienced team allows the company to achieve most of the recent achievements and future goals.�

Tamer Ismail, Vice President, Quantum Global

We are delighted that RSA has been recognised by CPI as the Security Vendor of the year. Organisations across the region have realised that traditional security is failing and that it is time for a new approach. This is a great testimony to the success of our Intelligence Driven Security vision and strategy.�

Security Vendor Winner: RSA

Ahmed Abdella, Regional Director, Turkey, Africa & Middle East, RSA, The Security Division of EMC

Finalists

Cisco | Dell Software | ESET | Fortinet | Palo Alto Networks Middle East | RSA www.resellerme.com

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Partner Excellence Awards Vendor categories

Peripherals and Accessories Vendor Winner: Xerox Corporation Finalists

Lexmark International Middle East | Oki Europe | Western Digital | Xerox Corporation

Xerox is once again recognised for the strength of our offerings and the work we do with our channel partners. It is especially pleasing as this award is essentially a testament to the hard work of our staff and our reseller partners, along with the faith that our customers put in those people to find great ways to do better work.�

Chris Govier, General Manager, Xerox Middle East

Systems & Hardware Vendor Winner: Dell Finalists

Aruba Networks | Dell | EMC | Hitachi Data Systems | Western Digital

Dell has been investing heavily into our channel ecosystem recently and the channel has spoken!

Dell is delighted to be recognised as the Systems and Hardware Vendor of the year for the third year in a row.�

Basil Ayass, Marketing Director, Dell

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Partner Excellence Awards Vendor categories

Best Product Innovation Winner: Prestigio Middle East

Best Growth Initiative by a Vendor Winner: D-Link Middle East & Africa

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We are very happy to get recognised by CPI media group and I would like to dedicate the award to all our partners and colleagues without them this achievement wouldn’t have been possible.�

Sakkeer Hussain, Director, Sales & Marketing, D-Link Middle East & Africa

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Partner Excellence Awards Reseller/SI/Retailer categories Super Retailer Winner: Jacky’s Retail Finalists

Emax | Jacky’s Retail | Jumbo Electronics

Having started the new entity, Jacky’s Retail, for handling dedicated brand shops a year and a half ago, we’re proud to be recognised in this category.

Our team has worked extremely hard during this period and this is a testament to their efforts.”

Ashish Panjabi, Chief Operating Officer, Jacky’s Retail

Systems Integrator Winner: Help AG Finalists

Alpha Data | EMW ME | Finesse | Help AG | Prologix | VisionTech International

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Following our market assessment Help AG introduced Managed Security Services and Coordinated Threat Mitigation. We have made significant investments to ensure that all these are delivered locally and with an emphasis on complete customer satisfaction. Our core strength and, I believe, the reason for the win is the breadth of our technical services, focus on cyber-security and locally unmatched level of technical expertise.

It is rewarding to see that the industry is responding so positively to these efforts.”

Alexandra Pisetskaya, Marketing Manager, Help AG

Enterprise Reseller It is a great honour to be recognised by the industry and such an esteemed panel of judges. We extend our congratulations to CPI for hosting a wonderful event and offer our thanks to the industry in recognition of this prestigious award.�

Sami Esber, President, MDS Gulf

Winner: MDS UAE Finalists

Alpha Data | Al Moayyed | Finesse | Help AG | MDS UAE | Seven Seas Computers

SMB & Consumer Reseller Winner: Accent Office Supplies Finalists

Accent Office Supplies | Data Care | Lucky Star Computers | Quality Computers | Xerox Emirates

The success of Accent comes due to the joint efforts of a close knit and well integrated team of people. Personnel are the biggest asset a company can own and we are proud of having this strong asset on our balance sheet.�

Sachin Gehani, Director, Accent Office Supplies

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Partner Excellence Awards Distributor categories

Redington Gulf-Volume Division continues to improve its offering to customers across segments i.e. corporate, channel and retail. These include availability of over 60 product categories from various global manufacturers through our 24 stock points across Middle East and Africa, making it simpler for customers to communicate with Redington and providing multiple financial instruments to meet business plans of customers. Focusing on the above has helped Redignton Gulf become the preferred Volume Distributor for the channel.�

Ashish Bharti, President, Redington Gulf

Volume Distributor Winner: Redington Gulf Finalists

BDL Group | FDC International | Mindware | Mitsumi Distribution | Psilog International | Redington Gulf

Networking Distributor Winner: Westcon Group Finalists

Aptec - an Ingram Micro Company | Arrow ECS | ComGuard | Logicom | Mindware | Westcon Group

We would like to thank all our resellers and vendors for their constant support.

We will continue to invest in the channel and expand our service offerings as a key networking distributor in the region.�

Steve Lockie, Group Managing Director, Westcon Group

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july 2015 Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

Mobility Distributor Winner: Oxygen Middle East Finalists

Asbis Middle East | BDL Group | FDC International | Oxygen Middle East | Psilog International | Spectrami

I am incredibly honoured to accept the Mobility Distributor of the Year award. Oxygen provides a high-end intelligent mobility solution for government and enterprise environments along with providing the IT security necessary to help keep the data safe and protected.”

Khalid Laban, CEO, Oxygen ME

Security Distributor Winner: ComGuard Finalists

Aptec - an Ingram Micro Company | ComGuard | Redington Gulf Value Distribution | Spectrami | Westcon Security

We are deeply honoured to win this award for the third consecutive year, more so since it comes from one of the most recognised and prominent publications in the region.

This award once again reinstates ComGuard’s excellence in the domain of security distribution and I would like to thank my entire team who have been fundamental in getting us to where we are today.”

Ajay Singh Chauhan, CEO, ComGuard

www.resellerme.com

Reseller Middle East july 2015

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Partner Excellence Awards Distributor categories Specialised Distributor Winner: StorIT Distribution Finalists

Asbis Middle East | ComGuard | StorIT Distribution | Trigon | Westcon UCC

Delighted to have won the Specialised Distributor Award for the third consecutive year. Kudos to the CPI team on hosting a fabulous event. This highly respectable awards event has also become the most entertaining and glamorous one in town!�

Suren Vedantham, Group Managing Director, StorIT Distribution

Value-added Distributor Winner: Aptec - an Ingram Micro company

We are delighted to be recognised as the Value-Added Distributor of the Year by CPI and its readers. This is a true testimony from the market that recognises Ingram Micro and Aptec, its wholly owned subsidiary, as the leader in solution and service provision to the IT industry in the Middle East.�

Finalists

Ali Baghdadi, President Ingram Micro Technology Solutions, META region

Aptec - an Ingram Micro Company | Logicom | Mindware | Oxygen Middle East | Redington Gulf Value Distribution | Westcon Group

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july 2015 Reseller Middle East

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Partner Excellence Awards Distributor categories

KSA Distributor Winner: Sariya IT Distribution Finalists

This is a pure team effort, all departments contributed to make it happen.”

Nirmal Menon, Corporate Sales Manager, MENA, Sariya IT

AlJammaz Distribution | BDL Group | Logicom KSA | Oxygen Middle East | Redington Gulf Value Distribution | Sariya IT Distribution

Emerging Distributor Winner: Global Distribution Finalists

Global Distribution | Granteq Distribution | Oxygen Middle East

We are very proud to be honoured with the Emerging Distributor of the Year Award. It’s important that, no matter how long you are in business, you need to keep emerging.”

VM Chandrasekar, CEO & Owner, Global Group

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july 2015 Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

Partner Excellence Awards Distributor categories

Thank you CPI and Reseller Magazine for the recognition.

It is encouraging to be recognised by such a leading publication. It definitely motivates us to do even better and develop new programmes to serve our channel eco-system.”

Anand Choudha, MD, Spectrami

Best Growth Initiative by a Distributor Winner: Spectrami

Readers’ Choice category

Readers’ Choice Vendor Winner: HP Finalists

Avaya | Cisco | Dell | EMC | HP | Huawei Enterprise | Intel | Microsoft Gulf | SAP | VMWare

HP has been a leading brand in the region and we are overjoyed to have this status reiterated by our esteemed customers. HP’s priority will continue to be customer satisfaction and we are extremely pleased to have been awarded the Readers’ Choice Vendor of the year.”

Alaa AlShimy, Vice President Enterprise Group MEMA & Managing Director, HP MEMA

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july 2015 Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

Readers’ Choice category Readers’ Choice Distributor

We would like to thank all our business partners and readers of Reseller ME for honouring Logicom with this most valuable award.

We believe that this recognition will further fuel Logicom’s desire to continue to improve our efforts to serve the channel in the best way possible.

Thank you all for your support and encouragement.”

Winner: Logicom Finalists

Aptec - an Ingram Micro company | Arrow | Asbis ME | BDL Group | ComGuard | Exclusive Networks | FDC | FVC | Global Distribution | Jumbo Electronics | Logicom | Mindware | Redington Gulf | StorIT | Westcon Group

Sajith Raj, General Manager, Logicom Distribution

Editors’ Choice category Outstanding Executive IT channel Winner: Bahaa Salah, MD, Gulf and Near East, Aptec – an Ingram Micro Company It was an honour to receive such a prestigious award. It has been a wonderful 18 years so far dealing with the channel in the Gulf and I enjoy and cherish every year of it.”

www.resellerme.com

Reseller Middle East july 2015

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Partner Excellence Awards Editors’ Choice category

Outstanding Executive - Vendor Winner: Aaron White, General Manager, Hitachi Data Systems It is not only a great honour but truly humbling for me to be able to accept this award. The past nine years have been an enlightening and challenging journey where I have been focusing my efforts to contribute change in the end user and channel landscapes. I have tried to involve myself more deeply in aiding our partners deliver cutting-edge business solutions in the Middle East and it is extremely gratifying to know that we have been able to play an integral part of the development of the region as a whole. It is even more rewarding to be recognised in front of my peers and I want to thank you all for the mark of support.”

Woman Executive Winner: Tanya Lobo, Distribution Director, Global Growth Market, Avaya Earning the Woman Executive of the Year in the channel award by CPI is not a light achievement and certainly requires a number of female leaders to drive success. I like to acknowledge the team that has supported me along my career path at Avaya and through whom I have gained the power to engage with the technology channel in the region.

These women have contributed to my success and belong to the various behind-the-scenes functions that are not usually visible to channel partners – finance, admin, marketing, operations and HR. With those women at Avaya, I like to share my success.”

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www.resellerme.com

Best Partner Excellence Programme by a Distributor Winner: Mindware Finalists

Comstor ME | Mindware | Oxygen ME | Spectrami | StorIT Distribution

We are delighted to win in this category for the third consecutive year, this is a great achievement for Mindware and a recognition of the channel initiatives we offer to our partners, which we will continue to develop in order to build and maintain our channel base across the regions and to support the resellers with the right tools to meet the demands of the changing market demand. Thank you to Reseller ME team, vendors and partners for nominating Mindware for this prestigious award.�

Mario Gay, General Manager, Mindware

Team work makes the dream work!�

Best Partner Excellence Programme by a Vendor

Mohammed Khan, Channel Head, SAP

Winner: SAP Finalists

Avaya | Cisco | Intel | Microsoft Gulf | RedHat | SAP

www.resellerme.com

Reseller Middle East july 2015

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feature

Open enterprise

Open secret Open source solutions are now moving to ERP and CRM; and increasingly organisations are seeing the benefits of deploying these solutions to achieve more cost-effective operations. The prospects in this space are no secret, Reseller ME evaluates what this spells out for partners.

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JUly 2015 Reseller Middle East

www.resellerme.com

There is no debate that businesses in the region are primed for growth and are on the lookout for technology solutions that can help carry out their operations more efficiently and in a costeffective manner.

Open source solutions have been gaining popularity as customers become more aware of its benefits and flexibility.

As is with other emerging technologies, partners have a definite opportunity here to cash in on.

Renjan George, Managing Director, DVCOM Technology, says, “Businesses in this region are focused on growth and are investing in new advancements to upgrade their customer experience tools and strategies. A robust CRM is an integral part of an organisation to support all business processes to manage the customer life cycle. Open source CRM/ERP give complete flexibility to the clients as to how they deploy the system. Whether it be multi-tenant cloud service, private instance in the cloud or it could be as flexible to allow the customer to deploy it on their private cloud.”

As the awareness of the opportunities with open source grows and

industry players shed light on some of the myths, especially around security, not only large organisations but also SMBs are increasingly adopting the technology.

“Therefore, more and more vendors are beginning to invest in open source products.

Secondly, even some of the proprietary vendors like SAP, although their solutions are still proprietary, they are beginning to build a number of their solutions on LINUX platforms,” says David Postel, Partner & Alliances Leader, Red Hat Middle East & Africa.

Other reasons driving its growth are thanks to factors such as data privacy, customisation, flexibility and security, says Amanulla Khan, Director, Belkin International MEA. He adds, “The ability to be able to employ and host an open source solution inside a country is the most underlining security issue that an open source solution addresses. All this means is that propriety technologies are closed for public view, so no one outside the company who owns propriety technology has a clue on the security bugs it may contain. These issues in open source tend to get fixed immediately.”

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For partners, the technology offers promising prospects, provided they take advantage of the current market situation.

Today one of the most basic requirements from a customer is customisation. And partners have a distinct role to play in this area.

Khan says, “Customising as per the customer’s requirement, freedom, flexibility and interoperability are the benefits that partners can take when selling open source solutions.”

Agreeing, Postel says, if looked at from the cost perspective, open source solutions are more cost effective than proprietary solutions for two key reasons – development costs are much lower and they are sold using a subscription model rather than a license model.

He explains, “Partners that choose to sell open source solutions will be able to pass these ‘savings’ on to the end customer and offer the solutions at more attractive prices than their counterparts that are selling proprietary solutions and thus win more business.

“Also, in proprietary solutions, approximately 70 per cent of the solution cost is accounted for by the hardware which leaves

Reseller Middle East JULY 2015

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Open enterprise feature

only 30 per cent for spend on services. On the other hand, in open source solutions, the subscription fee accounts for only 30-40 per cent of the cost, which means that customers can spend greater wallet share on services, which is where most partners make their margins.”

George reiterates that partners can benefit from the ‘adaptability’ nature of an open source solution platform.

He adds, “Open source software is published under licenses that allow everyone access to the source code, letting them customise, download add-ons and explore the real possibilities of the software. In fact, if you have the right talent onboard to customise the software, you don’t have to ever disappoint your client.

Today many organisations are hiring open source talent to customise the business application for maximising the results and minimising the huge cost on associated resources.”

But the challenge for partners is how can they remain profitable by selling this solution?

Profitability continues to be a key issue in the regional channel environment. According to George, partners will need the right kind of resources, trainings and opportunities to deploy and manage the open source projects successfully and to maintain profitability.

“The key is also to have the right expertise onboard to understand the customer requirement and do the necessary customisation to provide the optimum solution.”

However, sometimes partners feel intimidated at the complexity of the technology implementation and shy away from embracing it. But according to Khan, as open source solutions provide greater control at lower costs to customers, partners will be compelled to enter this space if they have

The road ahead “I often see partners who are bit too entrenched in their old ways and are more reactive. Open source solutions are beginning to lead innovation – if we look at new technologies such as IoT and SDN, we find open source at the core. So partners need to have an open mind, start monitoring global industry trends and understand the open source technologies that are behind those trends and ensure that they get enabled on those technologies quickly.”

David Postel, Partner & Alliances Leader, RedHat Middle East & Africa “Open source solutions moving forward are only going to increase in importance for both customers and partners.”

Amanulla Khan, Director, Belkin International MEA to sustain in the market, as “commercially backed open source can beat its rivals moving forward.”

Vendors carry the responsibility to educate partners and enable them to successfully close deals in this space.

Open source software is published under licenses that allow everyone access to the source code, letting them customise, download add-ons and explore the real possibilities of the software. In fact, if you have the right talent onboard to customise the software, you don’t have to ever disappoint your client. Today many organisations are hiring open source talent to customise the business application for maximising the results and minimising the huge cost on associated resources.”

Renjan George, Managing Director, DVCOM Technology

www.resellerme.com

Postel from Red Hat says, “Vendors need to have robust partner training programmes such as webinars and training on demand, which provide partners with tools that will in turn enable them to go out and sell. In parallel, they need to support the partners in terms of marketing and demand generation.”

Although partners too need to take the initiative to invest in learning about the benefits of open source platforms in order to be considered as a trusted advisor by the customer. Today customers expect nothing less from a reseller partner and it remains to see if partners will rise to the occasion and triumph.

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Partner watch Safedata

Centre of growth DP Sangal, Founding Partner & Managing Director, Safedata, on the CS Infocomm alliance and relevance of services in the region.

Over the years the focus on services has become more prominent for companies across the region. Channel organisations are now ramping up their offerings in this area as increasingly customers are demanding for better and customised services support.

For Safadata Middle East, a regional solutions provider and systems integrator, services was the foundation with which the company began its operations 13 years ago.

DP Sangal, Founding Partner & Managing Director, Safedata, says, “No one was talking about services back in 2002 when we started out. But how can technology products be sold without any support? We saw a huge opportunity in this area and were appointed as the first service provider for Compaq in the whole region.

“Compaq was focused on support and service and used to face the end user together with the partner.

Therefore the partner strength was very important for them. There was a time when we were doing 30 per cent of calls in UAE.” The SI continued to be a preferred partner even after the completion of the HP and Compaq merger. As HP policies began to change

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in 2007, Safedata undertook selling products as well.

Sangal adds, “They were looking at the market from a different perspective.

HP wanted every partner to sell. We had the added advantage of being a service provider, although both divisions needed to work separately to avoid conflict of interests.”

One of the latest highlights at Safedata has been partnering with CS Infocomm, an Indian company, exclusively into contact centre solutions.

Incorporated as a division of Safedata, CS Infocomm’s product lines have been sold since last November.

Sangal says the objective behind keeping the brand name was to aid in extending the existing relationships such as Cisco and Avaya into this region.

There are three components for any solution – product, consultancy and services – followed up by support.

Being a services company, Sangal found that the gap in the market existed in terms of providing the technology.

He says, “While the platform offering is good, the real question is how well is it implemented?

And it is critical to invest in people as it is all peopleoriented. We brought services into the region on the professional side. We

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are positioning ourselves as not only a solution provider or a consulting company, but someone who can offer the platform too along with the support.”

As an organisation, how well positioned are you to deliver services to the customer? This is the only differentiating factor remaining in the market today.

With CS Infocomm on board, the company is largely focusing on contact centres as its main technology area, although it continues to deliver existing solutions and products. The SI aims to be a complete end-to-end solution provider.

“Today it is all about customer services,” says Sangal. “No longer do only features of a product or solution attract customers, services go a long way in gaining their loyalty. As an organisation, how well positioned are you to deliver services to the customer?

This is the only differentiating factor remaining in the market today.”

As consultation is an important component

for the contact centre, he adds that there is a presales executive involved right from the moment the customer decides to work with them. Whereas in systems integration, the pre-sales is built into the sales person itself.

The contact centre market in the region is still in the nascent stage. “All the contact centres existing the market today were set up around 10 years ago, therefore they all need to be revamped and redesigned.

There is a huge opportunity and there is awareness in the market on the need for customer service, however there is still a long way to go before we consider the market to be mature.”

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Partner watch Arrow

Conquering disruptions Jean-Loup Desamaison-Cognet, CEEMEA Vice President, Arrow ECS, on exploring new routes to market and company focus for the year.

Many companies in the region are realigning their strategies to leverage the opportunities present in emerging disruptive technologies such as virtualisation. This means identifying and developing better go-to-market strategies in order to enable partners to be at the forefront of this discussion.

Arrow ECS has been a strong player in this regard with virtualisation solutions from VMware and Citrix globally and is also a distributor for VMware through EMC in the Middle East region.

Jean-Loup DesamaisonCognet, CEEMEA Vice President, Arrow ECS, says, “Virtualisation has been

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JUlY 2015 Reseller Middle East

a big disruption in the market. Vendors approach us asking how we can help secure virtualisation and how we can help them go to the channel players who are in the virtualisation space. This is why the data centre approach including security is very important for vendors today.

“A distributor like ourselves can not only help with this but also bring in other channel opportunities. It is a challenge for channel partners because for specialised security, they have to first understand the virtualisation technology and be present from the beginning of the process.”

Today enterprise projects don’t revolve around just one technology but has more aspects to it such as convergence and security. The challenge for partners is to be equipped to execute related technologies simultaneously.

Desamaison-Cognet says, “Resellers too must adapt to disruption. For example, today EMC is pushing for new technologies in flash as it is a new disruption in storage, however they are also pushing new disruptions in hyperconvergence, which is a new topic too. The challenge for value-added resellers is that there are multiple routes to market now.”

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These disruptions in the market create the need to train resellers to not only solve customers’ problems but also proactively present new technologies by understanding their needs.

For Arrow, the strategy continues to revolve around data centres and onboarding new vendors. The distributor believes growing its portfolio and developing new routes to market are important to cash in on the market opportunities.

“New routes to market is about addressing Managed Service Providers (MSPs), Systems Integrators (SIs) and Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) – this is key for us.”

The VP explains that these three segments are significant for a number of reasons. MSPs provide services and purchase solutions from the distributor. SIs are now evolving from being an advisor to being interested in implementations. ISVs look at selling the solution that is close to their software and can help them be more tuned to new technologies.

Desamaison-Cognet says, “The interdependence of technologies offers us an opportunity to go to a reseller and say if you sell a particular technology, then you should also look at these related ones.”

The distributor will be focusing on these new routes to market extensively in the coming months.

“We are already working with MSPs everywhere, we are the largest Oracle distributors in the world.”

And along with new routes, the company is emphasising on vendor alignment and disruptive technologies such as social, mobility and analytics.

“Developing a strong relationship with vendors is key. Thank to our portfolio of enterprise vendors, we have a compelling offering in this space, however, all of them are asking us to go to the mid-market. Today the solutions they are providing are increasingly more adaptive for this segment.”

In terms of geographical expansion, KSA now constitutes 60 per cent of the total Middle East market for the distributor.

“We were already doing business in KSA and now have the ability to do door-to-door deliveries in the country. It is about securing the vendors and the resellers to make sure it is aligned with the laws and compliance, which is key for this region,” he adds.

Identifying Middle East and Africa as high growth markets, we can expect to see many more initiatives from the VAD in the second half of the year.

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vendor focus

Primavera

Prime alliances The Portugal-based software company, Primavera, set shop in the region close to a year ago and is looking to develop its partner network. The company’s Country Manager Jorge Marques, talks about channel plans for the region. an international and regional level. However, we offer an alternative solution that is tailored to fit the needs of each organisation.

Can you give us an overview about Primavera?

Primavera is a software company, headquartered out of Portugal, specialised in developing business management solutions for large, medium and small enterprises. The company started by creating an accounting software and now boasts a wide range of solutions that go from HR to Asset management.

The company also operates in African countries such as Angola, Mozambique and Cape Verde. Besides having subsidiaries in Dubai, Lisbon, Madrid, Luanda and Maputo, the company also has more than 400 business partners around the world.

Who are your biggest regional competitors?

The biggest players in our sector are Microsoft Navision, Oracle and SAP. Those are our competitors at

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JUlY 2015 Reseller Middle East

Who are the channel partners you work with in the region?

We are working with channel partners that focus in management business solutions and with partners that work with specific industries such as construction, manufacturing, healthcare or retail. For example, we work with Prologix, TNC (Transnational Computers) and Abacus.

At this stage our channel network covers the UAE and we have two active partners in Qatar, but we want to grow our channel, welcoming more partners in these two countries and Saudi Arabia as well. For Primavera, this is an ongoing process so we definitely will onboard new partners as the company grows in the region. Knowing the importance that cloud solutions have nowadays, and having products that match the market demand, we are also looking for a local provider that can help us enable these solutions.

Can you discuss your channel strategy for the region?

Our aim is to build a strong

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channel partnership programme with providers that not only sell our products, but also deliver them to the client. This means that, besides attracting new clients on behalf of us, our partners need to be able to implement our solutions and accompany the clients throughout the entire process. Our strategy is to have value-added resellers.

The objective is to create a dynamic channel network, not unlimited but always open to new partners to guarantee that we respond to the market demands and to our expected growth.

Can you discuss the partner enablement initiatives put in place for the region?

First, we have a formal partner programme that rules the business relationship between Primavera and its partners.

Additionally, it serves as the instrument that sustains the principles of our strategy and business policy – the marketing of our products through an indirect sales model, and with total transparency and fairness in the management of the relationship with every component part of the Primavera ecosystem.

All our partners have been trained by us, making

sure they have a deep understanding of our solutions. We always assist our partners in the initial projects by creating mixed teams with executives from the company. It is part of our policy to give channel partners a continuous support and accompaniment from presales to implementation. We also give support in events in which our partners are participating, and when launching new products and innovative concepts.

What is your business focus for the year?

Our priority is to transform our best leads into signed contracts and guarantee that all our channel partners close the year implementing our solutions successfully for their clients. At this stage our goals are qualitative. We aim to be successful providing the best solutions to our clients. We want to keep growing at an international level and that was the main reason for coming to Dubai. The entire world is represented here and, economically, this is a region that is thriving. We will continue investing our time and resources in expanding to other countries in the Middle East, simplifying the lives of organisations and creating job opportunities in the future.

DELL EVENT

Pillars of opportunity The two-day Dell Software conference for partners and endusers shed light on the company’s strategy to enable channel partners to grow their business.

Last month Dell Software hosted a partner event at Grand Hyatt, Dubai, which gathered over 100 channel partners, distributors, vendors and resellers. The main objective of the conference was to orient partners with Dell’s channel strategy and partner programme.

Gaby Matar, Managing Director, EMEA Emerging Markets, Dell Software, kicked off the event by saying, “Dell Software is a big part of the Dell Solutions brand. We are among the top 15 software companies in the world with 6,000 team members.

We are also recognised by large industry analysts including Gartner.

“Dell Software is serious in developing its products in order to maintain and even progress its position in the market. We have grown rapidly over the past few years and we aim to continuously develop quality products and

further add value to the market,” he added.

Matar went on to explain the current status of the software and technology industry. Describing the challenges and trends present in the market today, he added that about 82 per cent of businesses in the EMEA region will be moving to the cloud in the next three years. In light of this, the complexity of data platforms is increasing as time passes because as more businesses migrate to the cloud, issues on data management security also increase.

“The mission and purpose of Dell Software is to help our partners provide the right information management and security platform to their customers. We aim to always fulfill three commitments to our partners – simplify IT management, mitigate risks and accelerate results.”

Dell Software’s strategy for helping their partners win in the industry is outlined by five pillars. The

first one is ‘enablement’, which entails providing their partners with the right market knowledge and skills, through training, workshops and exposures in the company’s roadshows. The second pillar is ‘demand generation’, through which they help partners generate leads. Next is ‘support’, wherein the vendor ensures that its partners are always aptly guided whenever needed, especially when speaking to potential customers in selling Dell solutions. The ‘awareness’ pillar entails promoting partners’ brands with the best marketing strategies.

Finally, ‘rewards’ is through which the company aims to provide their partners with rebates and other incentives to motivate them to further grow with the Dell Software brand.

The conference also included other speakers including Brent Schroeder, Senior Distinguished Engineer, Dell Software Group, Office of the CTO,

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who discussed the different IT trends and capabilities setting in the future and how their partners can capitalise on it; Sandy Audi, Channel Strategy Programme Lead, Emerging Markets, talked about the Dell Software’s channel strategies and Partner Direct Programme; Rachel Meuleman, Marketing Manager, EMEA Emerging Markets, also discussed the different marketing campaign that they have and how partners can be incorporated in it; and lastly a presentation from Shahnawaz Sheikh, Distribution Channel Director, which delved into the latest updates in the channel market.

The second day of the conference brought together both end-users and partners on a platform that looks into different opportunities in the channel space. The event also featured an awards and gala dinner where the company honoured its top performing partners.

Reseller Middle East JUlY 2015

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Event SAP & TYCONZ

Delivering on the Big Vision of Small Business SAP along with its Gold partner, TYCONZ, organised an end user event, which was a platform to educate attendees on SAP Business One solution, an ERP solution designed specifically for SMEs along with SAP Business Intelligence solution for SMEs. SAP, together with its Gold partner TYCONZ, an SAP-certified consultancy firm in the MENA region, held an end-user conference last week, at the Jumeirah Beach Hotel, Dubai, where the 100-plus attendees had an opportunity to learn how to increase organisations’ efficiency through SAP solutions.

The half-day conference kicked off

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with a presentation from Jawad Fakih, Managing Director, TYCONZ, where he introduced SAP’s solutions portfolio.

He said, “We are certified training vendors and provide end-to-end SAP certifications.

The focus is on SAP Business Intelligence and Business One solutions. Customers can transform their business with these solutions.”

Uma Shankar Dubey, Channel Manager Business One MENA, SAP MENA, said

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that the company’s primary aim is to help customers “run simple”.

“SAP is not only for enterprises but also for SMEs. We are all about innovation and we believe that we have to start at grass root levels. If an economy has to grow, technology is the major driver.”

Following Dubey’s presentation, Shadi AbdelKhalek, Business Development Manager, SAP Business One, TYCONZ,

elaborated on SAP Business One solution.

Organisations can now avoid the hassle and expense of integrating multiple systems as its business grows. SAP Business One - a complete ERP system designed to help small- and midsized companies - offers integrated reporting and analytics for the customer’s complete business needs.

“It is a complete integrated, extensible,

Shadi AbdelKhalek, TYCONZ

Jawad Fakih, TYCONZ

Uma Shankar Dubey, SAP MENA

innovative and truly affordable solution,” Shadi AbdelKhalek added. During the event, Fakih also did a live demo on SAP Business One solution to reveal how organisations can streamline operations to achieve optimum performance. This proved to be an interesting session, where the audience took the opportunity to participate and get answers to their business challenges.

Tarek AbdelKhalek, Managing Director, TYCONZ, discussed in detail the advantages of deploying Business

based on any data and Intelligence (BI) and mash it up with other analytics solutions to data,” said Tarek make informed and better AbdelKhalek. business decisions.

“We are certified The conference “SAP BI solutions was a huge cater to various training vendors and success in terms specific needs provide end-to-end SAP of educating of businesses. fast-growing BI can help you certifications. The focus is organisations collect data from on SAP Business Intelligence on SAP’s multiple structures business – access any data and Business One solutions. enablement and consume Customers can transform solutions. It information provided an anywhere. In their business with these ideal platform addition, SAP Lumira is solutions.” for customers and a simple data acquisition partners to network and transformation tool with SAP and TYCONZ through which users can executives. create different dataset

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Advertorial

Hyperconverged and converged infrastructure

Simplifying convergence Converged infrastructures are a fast-growing market opportunity, which the partners must leverage to be profitable.

The IT architecture is constantly evolving, and as organisations expand and grow into larger entities, it is of utmost importance that it houses a scalable and agile IT infrastructure. Therefore, implementing converged and hyperconverged infrastructures is imperative for growing businesses as it can lighten the burdens of deploying and managing everything from servers and storage to applications for the data-driven organisation.

Converged infrastructures also centralise, automate and simplify separate IT components to optimise processes. And better utilisation of data centre assets results in lower IT spending and less capex over time while better productivity and environmental efficiencies help reduce opex.

The demand for these technologies in the Middle East region will stem strongly from Smart City initiatives and the implementation of large-scale transportation 62

july 2015 Reseller Middle East

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projects. Verticals such as financial services, healthcare, manufacturing and education are looking to actively adopt hyperconverged infrastructure technologies in the region.

Jed Scaramella, Research Director, Servers and Datacentres, IDC, said in a report earlier in the year, “IDC believes hyperconverged systems will achieve significant market penetration in the next 18 months while still in the nascent stages of market development.”

However, vendors must develop their partners’ skillset to be successful in this space. On a global level, the research firm has predicted that fierce competition and buyer demand will accelerate the metamorphosis of this market into a mature one with only a few dominant vendors.

The IDC report stated that the only survivors in this market may be “vendors with robust partner

ecosystems and/or vendors with commercial variants of open source platforms.”

Being well-versed with the technologies is the first step for a partner in order to be able to successfully counsel a customer to execute it. To upskill, “It is critical that partners understand the value of hyperconvergence and offer the value benefits to their customers,” says Kalyan Kommuru, Business Lead, Cisco Data Centre Business, Aptec- an Ingram Micro Company.

Often, there is a lack of understanding in the differences between converged and hyperconverged infrastructures.

Kommuru says, “The most important difference between the two technologies is that in a converged infrastructure, each of the components in the building block is a discrete component that can be used for its intended purpose.” For example, the server can be separated and used as a server, while storage too can be separated and used as functional storage.

“In a hyperconverged infrastructure, the technology is software-defined, which means the technology is, in essence, all integrated and cannot be broken out into separate components.”

The converged infrastructure technologies spell out many benefits for customers, enabling partners to sell more easily and mark higher profits. The advantages begin with decreased cost as the initial deployment is faster and much less expensive than traditional architectures. As the hardware components are not as many, the maintenance demands are significantly reduced. Also, converged infrastructures’ administration require a much smaller staff compared to traditional architectures, allowing organisations to reallocate its IT staff resources and expand its ability to server customers in different ways.

“Converged Infrastructure leverages the virtualisation capabilities of each layer, integrates them into a single unified infrastructure, and wraps end-toend management or automation or orchestration

Aptec’s converged infrastructure offering Flexpod: Cisco-Netapp Oracle: Exadata IBM: Versastack: Purepower Lenovo: Pureflex HP Converged system Dell Vstart

In a hyperconverged infrastructure, the technology is softwaredefined, which means the technology is, in essence, all integrated and cannot be broken out into separate components.”

Kalyan Kommuru, Business Lead, Cisco Data Centre Business, Aptec- an Ingram Micro Company

software around the entire stack to enable automated application and business-process-centric provisioning of coordinated IT resources,” says Kommuru.

Partners can offer a compelling case to their customers with hyperconvergence as it provides a number of benefits such as the following: • Ease of procurement: It has a single SKU for all components.

• Faster time to deployment: The set-up is simply with wizard-driven installation.

• Simplified lifecycle management: It is easy to operate and upgrade the appliance.

• Shift from specialists to generalist: There is no need for advanced skills to build a server and storage solution.

• Strong economics: The deployment can be done within the allocated budgets and it reduces hardware, power, cooling and footprint costs.

• One support call: Through the one support call, it becomes easier to get an answer on any and all components.

“A 360 degrees approach is important in positioning the hyperconvergence bundle. Partners should look at joining forces with respective technology vendors and position the value proposition of these vendors to customers to be able to successfully sell.”

The converged infrastructure space is definitely on a growth trajectory. Partners need to take advantage of the current landscape and make themselves indispensable to customers by offering real value and undertaking the role of trusted advisors.

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vendor focus ACER

In high gear Against the backdrop of an evolving regional channel landscape, the recently appointed Channel Sales Manager for Acer Middle East, Asad Sayed, outlines the company’s partner strategy. for the Middle East.

What have been some of the highlights at Acer over the last 6 months?

The key for Acer has been consistency. We have been re-establishing the commercial channel over the past few months. The key message has always been in-country reach and closeness to the customer.

What is Acer’s channel objective in the Middle East?

The key objective is to achieve a profitable business for the channel and for Acer.

Our focus is to meet the customer’s needs and derive profitable growth.

Who are some of your distributor partners?

We work with regional distributors such as Redington, FDC and BDL. Currently, we are in the process of getting key incountry partners on board 64

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Can you explain the channel initiatives in place for the remaining part of the year?

One of the most important elements of sales is knowledge of the product you are selling – know the unique features and be well-informed on the market trends and new technologies. Therefore, we plan to start product roadshows and channel events across the region to re-enforce knowledge of Acer products and communicate the company’s roadmap going forward.

The key focus is on the education vertical where Acer has been successful and has been leading in Europe. We are working towards bringing a similar growth and a share of that business here.

Chromebooks are definitely a growth area in the next few quarters for the region. Acer has strong market shares and has been successful in Europe with this product line.

Can you elaborate on Acer’s partner programme? What can partners expect?

We are in the process of finalising the Acer Synergy Programme for the

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channel and will launch it in the coming quarters. We recognise the importance of the channel and partnership with resellers who share our ambition for growth and sustainable business.

Acer Synergy Partner Programme is designed for partners who meet the company’s goals and requirements and ensure commitment to deliver market leading solutions for the commercial market.

The key features for the programme include: • Realistic and achievable criteria to reward partners • Value-added marketing documentation and technical training programmes • Access to our Solution Competence Centre, which can offer assistance in developing tailor-made solutions When identifying partners, the key criteria is on those resellers who focus on SMB and education verticals.

sanctions uplifting happens.

Windows 10 will definitely bring in more growth. Twoin-one Windows tablets is also another growth segment. We believe there are many opportunities in the education segment.

What are some challenges for partners today? As a vendor how can you support them further?

The challenge for partners today is growth. The market is getting tougher in driving profitability. Innovation is the way forward. We are trying our best to have inventory levels in check to avoid price erosion and hence profit loss.

How do you see the regional channel landscape evolving?

The region has seen a slowdown over the last couple of months, probably due to the lower oil prices.

Iran has been a ‘wait and watch’ scenario and Iraq is not yet completely out of troubles since the past year.

Currently I fear the channel is high-inventory laden, leading to price erosion and profit pain to almost all the PC vendors. The channel will go through this period of slowdown and market challenges and eventually maintain a sustainable growth. Windows 10, 2-in-1’s and GITEX later on this year will definitely bode well for the channel. Hybrid resellers, (largely retail shops and SMBs trading to the GCC) will evolve and specialise into their unique strength as a focused segment, which is the way to drive profitable growth.

We are seeing that those channel players who focus on channel breadth and wider product portfolio will win as this is a golden and proven mantra.

Where do you see the growth coming from?

Traditionally, in the Middle East, Q3 is a slow one while Q4 ramps up.

Iran could potentially be an interesting growth market provided the June nuclear accord and

What is your message for your partners?

Partners need to work towards achieving a sustainable and profitable growth. This can be done by staying focused, reaching out to more customers and expanding the product portfolio.

SANDISK vendor focus

Driving storage Pascal de Boer, VP, Retail Sales and Marketing, EMEA, SanDisk shares regional storage trends and plans for 2015.

As technology advances, it transforms the way customers interact with data.

And retailers in the business need to go that extra mile to understand this gradual evolution and suggest solutions that will enable customers to store and transfer data without any hiccups.

Pascal de Boer, VP, Retail Sales and Marketing, EMEA, SanDisk, “One of the things we are in the process of doing is to bring in trends that we see in the marketplace and try to translate it into business opportunities. This year, our aim is to get retailers and the channel to focus more on offering solutions to end users to help them manage their data from their mobile devices and educate them on the many different ways of transferring data.”

According to De Boer, regional retailers don’t always showcase all the opportunities present to the end user. He believes retailers need to create a dedicated space where mobile memory solutions are displayed.

He says, “The end user is faced with a number of challenges on a daily basis, which can be easily addressed with the products and solutions that we have. We believe there are improvements to be made as to how these solutions are marketed and sold to the end user in the retail space.”

Today, retailers pair the obvious products with hardware. A micro SD card is sold with a smartphone, however De Boer suggests

there is a lot more to it than that.

“This is what is lacking today. If you look at the trends that are being implemented around the world, it is those retailers who create spaces where end users can go and find a solution for his problem, who enjoy return business.

If you get customers who buy more and are satisfied with the purchasing experience, you can be sure they will be loyal to you.

“I think the real challenge for regional retailers is to offer the consumer a solution, which will make him come back. As the region offers infinite options, the customer has got many choices.

So the retailer who adopts some of the new

The real challenge for regional retailers is to offer the consumer a solution, which will make him come back. It is how quickly they adopt or how quickly they exceed that opportunity to excite the customer in the store, which will make the customer choose him as the preferred retailer. www.resellerme.com

concepts that we are offering will give them that added advantage over his competitor. It is how quickly they adopt or how quickly they exceed that opportunity to excite the customer in the store, which will make the customer choose him as the preferred retailer.”

SanDisk was present at DISTREE ME 2015 this year to re-engage with partners from the region.

“We have been coming to the event for the last 7 years now. The event was an opportunity to reconnect with these partners. It was also a platform to look at regional opportunities with large retailers and to see what prospects for growth exist in markets where we currently don’t have a big market share.

Globally, the company is seeing the growth of mobile devices expanding the solutions people have to handle their data.

“Another trend we see around the world is the growth of SSD storage, flash replacement of Hard Disk Drive. If you look at the size of the business in this region compared to the penetration of SSD in other regions, it is much less here. So there is a need to educate the end users and have the merchandising and marketing of the products done in the right way. We will be focusing on that more over the next few months. It is a technical product, so it requires better segmentation and more refined marketing,” added De Boer.

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review Oppo

Oppo N3

RME RATING

The smartphone comes powered with many features but the camera alone is worth the buy.

The N3 is Oppo’s current flagship, and it’s obvious the Chinese company has set its sights on the likes of Apple, Samsung and LG with its latest offering.

The N3’s trump card is a 16-megapixel image sensor, which is attached to a Schneider Kreuznach F2.2 lens. The sensor and lens are housed in a motorised rotating module, so like the older Oppo N1, the N3 relies on one top-mounted camera for regular shooting and selfies. The module can rotate 206-degrees.

In testing, the sensor, lens and camera software were up to the task.

There’s a decent range of standard shooting options, including a manual mode, and we were completely blown away with the quality of captures.

Shooting in normal mode in daylight, photographs were sharp and exceptionally detailed, while colours appeared natural. Using the manual mode options and a steady hand, we also grabbed impressive low light

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photographs but perhaps the camera’s biggest party trick is panoramas.

With the N3, all you have to do is enable the panorama shooting mode, hold the phone steady and watch as the camera module automatically swivels and grabs perfect captures, every time. The camera and the phone’s usability is enhanced by the included O-Click 2.0 remote, which allows you to control the camera, the included music app and can even be used to find the N3. As the control is Bluetooth based however, the functionality is limited by range.

Priced at AED 2,399, the N3 is a solid phone for everyday use even beyond the camera. The 5.5-inch capacitive screen is responsive, and offers detailed visuals thanks to its 1920 x 1080 pixel resolution. Vibrancy is not a strong point but other than this, there’s nothing to complain about. The combination of a 2.3GHz quad-core CPU and 2GB of RAM makes quick work of apps, games and multi-tasking.

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Battery life, as expected (given the high-end hardware), is only average with mixed use, and was down to 4 per cent by the end of the day.

In hand, the N3 doesn’t offer the same feel good factor as one gets when grasping an iPhone 6 or a LG G4.

While the body feels like it could easily shrug-off knocks and drops, it lacks a premium feel – the camera module in particular is glaring, as it is clad in inexpensive faux leather. There are also a few design missteps that impact the user experience.

When sliding the phone in and out of the front pocket of our jeans, we noticed that the camera module would move as it rubbed against the denim. The positions of the USB (left side, bottom) and headphones ports (right side, top) also leave something to be desired. If you’re a leftie (as this reviewer is), the phone can be awkward to hold when the USB cable is attached, as that side of the phone sits flush with the palm of your hand. Likewise with the headphones, when they’re connected to the phone, they will stick out and prevent the phone from sitting straight in your pocket - you’ll have to wiggle the phone out.

Quick read

Specifications: ColorOS based on Android 4.4.4, 2.3GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU, 2GB RAM, 32GB built-in storage, 5.5-inch screen, O-Click 2.0 Bluetooth remote, fingerprint scanner, SD card memory upgrade slot, 802.11a/b/g/n/ac WiFi, 192g, non-removable 3000mAH Li-Po battery, 12-month warranty.

Verdict: While the N3 isn’t perfect, it’s a well-priced, highly usable device with a camera that will delight content creators and social media buffs.

Contributor: Jason Saundalkar

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hot products

Microsoft unveils Nokia 105 and Nokia 105 Dual SIM

KODAK i2820 document scanner Kodak Alaris has launched the KODAK i2820 scanner, an addition to its i2000 Series Scanner platform, which has new features and enhancements to address the challenges faced by users with heavy-duty desktop scanning needs.

The scanner reverses the buildup of paper and makes businesses more productive. Dual indirect LED document illumination requires no warm up time and delivers outstanding image quality which means information is captured clearly for more accurate OCR. Integrated Perfect Page technology corrects image imperfections to minimise the need for rescanning with Smart Touch technology allowing specific processes to be programmed for staff to then start multiple step scanning at the touch of a button. This includes creating PDFs, attaching documents to emails, organising them in folders or sending them to Cloud services.

With the inclusion of KODAK Capture Pro Software Limited Edition, users can test the popular application and upgrade to the full version if they need to address more complex batch scanning requirements.

The KODAK i2820 document scanner is now available with a list price of approximately AED 6,900.

Microsoft has announced the new Nokia 105 and Nokia 105 Dual SIM. Aimed at first time mobile phone buyers, as well as people looking for a reliable back-up device for their smartphone, the new Nokia 105 will enable more people to have a voice and experience the benefits that a mobile phone can offer.

The original Nokia 105 has sold more than 80 million units to date, introducing people from across the globe to mobile experiences.

The device comes with enhanced functionality and features. Now also available in Dual SIM variant, the new Nokia 105 allows people to connect with people and businesses without great expense. It also lets the use enjoy the current and new features of the previous Nokia 105 including expanded storage for up to 2,000 contacts, enhanced audio for greater call clarity, increased talk time for up to 15 hours, and up to 35 days standby time and a refreshed

sleek, and durable design, available in three colours: cyan, white and black.

The new Nokia 105 and Nokia 105 Dual SIM will be available in cyan, white and black for an estimated retail price of USD 20 before taxes and subsidies, and will begin rolling out in select markets starting June.

A10 Networks launches Thunder 6435

A10 Networks has launched Thunder 6435, an application delivery controller for secure high-performance application delivery.

Thunder SPE ADC appliance provides SSL performance, and DDoS and network protection in hardware with the Security and Policy Engine (SPE) hardware, which can enable web giants and service providers to secure the most demanding data centre applications and networks.

The device is based on A10’s Advanced Core Operating System (ACOS). According to A10 Networks, it also leverages the same data centre-

efficient designs as other ACOS-based appliances, consuming less power, cooling and rack space, which are critically important metrics for large data centre operators. Trends such as the digitalisation of business practices, Big Data, cloud networking, and mobility are driving demand for highperformance data centre infrastructure solutions. Thunder 6435 is expected to meet today’s performance and security needs by dramatically increasing L4 and L7 connections per second and SSL performance benchmarks compared to its previous generation of appliances.

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Axis introduces the AXIS M7011 video encoder Axis Communications introduces the compact AXIS M7011 Video Encoder.

The single-channel video encoder offers easy integration of analogue CCTV cameras into an IP-based video surveillance system.

AXIS M7011 provides excellent H.264 video compression performance in a small package, without any limitation of the number of individually configured video streams.

The video encoder is compatible with all analogue camera types, both fixed and pan/tilt/zoom cameras.

Featuring Power over Ethernet (PoE), the same Ethernet cable is used

for both data and power, making installation flexible and easy. The video encoder also features a card slot for edge storage with microSD cards or NAS (Network-Attached Storage). AXIS Camera Companion and AXIS Video Hosting System are supported.

Alcatel OneTouch launches Idol 3 in the UAE Alacatel OneTouch has launched its latest flagship Idol 3 smartphone in the UAE. The launch also saw the presence of manufacturing partners, namely Harman, Qualcomm and Technicolor.

The IDOL 3 has been engineered with two front facing JBL certified speakers and Clari-Fi music restoration technology. It has a 13 MP camera for shots in the dark, indoors or for macro close-ups and is equipped with the new digital colour technology and immersive video experiences from Technicolor. The device is powered with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 615 processor.

A feature exclusive to the phone is its complete reversibility – users can grab and use their phone upside down.

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During the UAE launch, Nicholas Zibell, ALCATEL ONETOUCH’s President of International Business started off with a welcome speech to highlight the brand’s commitment to the MEA market.

“We are definitely focusing on the MEA region, we are making Dubai our new Hub this June for the region that is no longer dependant from Europe.

This will allow us to be closer to this high potential market to adapt to its requirements and to react much faster by bringing the innovation, and best consumer experience, in terms of price, colours, technology and design.”

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WD redesigns My Passport Ultra

WD recently introduced the new, redesigned My Passport Ultra portable hard drives and My Passport for Mac drives.

With the My Passport line now in its 7th generation, the My Passport Ultra and My Passport for Mac portable hard drives are now available in capacities up to 3 TB and in four different colours – Classic Black, Brilliant White, Wild Berry and Noble Blue. WD is also introducing a new optional accessory – WD Grip Pack – a soft band, available in a variety of colors, which encircles the drive, offering consumers an easy way to personalise their My Passport drives.

My Passport Ultra portable drives come in 3 TB, 2 TB, 1 TB and 500 GB capacities and feature 256-bit AES hardware encryption – delivering a high level of security with no impact to write-speed or CPU activity. If your My Passport Ultra falls into the wrong hands, the 256-bit AES hardware encryption protects users’ files, folders, photos, videos and music with a password known only to them. USB 3.0 compatibility provides fast data transfer rates of up to 5 gigabits per second, while being backwardly compatible with USB 2.0.

My Passport for Mac portable drives are available in capacities of 3 TB, 2 TB, 1 TB and also feature 256-bit AES hardware encryption with USB 3.0 connectivity.

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Targeting small and medium-sized organisations, BusinessOne’s automated system offers integrated reporting and analytics, covering all of a company’s basic needs, including financial management, sales, inventory and human resources.

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New Dell Inspiron laptops released Dell has announced at Computex 2015 a comprehensive new line-up of Inspiron devices, targeted at meeting everyday computing needs.

Adding to Dell’s consumer product line up, the new portfolio includes the Inspiron 5000 Series laptops Demonstrating Dell’s commitment to offering something for everyone, these new devices are available with a wide range of processor options and configurable features, enabling students, families and value-conscious shoppers to connect, learn and achieve more.

The Inspiron 5000 Series offers a broad array of processor options from Intel and AMD for zippy, responsive performance whether surfing the web, writing a term paper, editing videos or initiating web chats. The 14”, 15” and 17” notebooks come with a rich set of standard features, which include sharp high resolution displays, firm keyboards

InnJoo rolls out Fire Series in UAE and KSA markets that are easy to type on for hours, exceptional battery life, and great wireless performance. A touch display is available in either FHD 1080p resolution on the 15” and 17” models, or in HD on the 14” and 15”. The 14”, 15” and 17” notebooks also come with True Colour, which allows users to customise the display’s colour temperature, vibrancy and tone for exceptional visual clarity and colour fidelity.

In addition to premium performance and stunning visuals, stylish shoppers will enjoy the laptops’ sleek design details and vibrant chassis with a matte silver finish.

The Inspiron 5000 Series notebooks are now available in the Middle East starting at Dhs 1,599

Canon introduces new imageRUNNER ADVANCE C3300 series Canon Middle East has launched its new flagship A3 colour multifunctional devices (MFDs) – the imageRUNNER ADVANCE C3320, C3320i, C3325i and C3330i.

The new imageRUNNER ADVANCE C3300 series combines Canon’s smart MFD platform with enhanced document handling and new print engine to reduce the total cost of documents in busy office environments.

It has a large customisable touchscreen interface combined with the intuitive imageRUNNER ADVANCE operation which speeds up workflows and provides a consistent user experience across fleets. Users can quickly scan to various destinations and convert documents into a range of formats including Office Open XML PPT and Word. Support for mobile is also available such as printing from mobiles as well as scanning to cloud services ensures on-the-move productivity. It can produce professional-looking documents including

booklets can be produced automatically and in-house while Canon’s new V2 (Vivid & Vibrant) imaging technology delivers good colours. A new compact Inner finisher combines both traditional stapling and ecostapling in one to reduce waste as well as simplify recycling and shredding. The costly administrative and management burden of print is removed through automatic toner management, remote diagnostics and automatic meter collection.

InnJoo has introduced its brand new Fire series of smartphones in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Fire series has two versions and both the devices have a built-in 2GB RAM, with Fire supporting 3G and Fire Pro with 4G LTE network.

According to the InnJoo, both Fire and Fire Pro are exclusively available in UAE and Saudi Arabia on Souq.com.

Registrations are open to book orders with the handsets prices starting price from AED 333 and which also comes with the InnJoo’s own proprietary software.

Powered by a Quad-core 1.3GHz processor, Fire offers higher performance, faster browsing and keeps multitasking with a lower consumption. The Mali-400 MP GPU ensures great colour display and a feature rich user experience. Other features include cost effective, Dual SIM 3G connectivity with 2GB RAM, 16GB flash memory and a 5 MP front and 5MP rear camera.

The Fire Pro handset is a 4G LTE smartphone that is equipped with 2GB RAM, 16GB ROM, Dual SIM, QuadCore processor and Android Lollipop operating system. The 5 inch HD IPS display, while plus a 5 MP front and 8MP rear camera, it ensures a stunning display and browsing effect as well as clear angle for capturing.

Both devices are equipped by 2500mAh long-lasting battery and powered with rapid charging and high energy density technology.

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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

Be of service The regional IT channel has been gradually moving towards the concept of services, although there is still lot of ground to cover before we see any tangible impact. The opportunities for partners are infinite here and they have a chance to gain much higher margins as well. In this month’s cover story, Khalid Laban, CEO, Oxygen Middle East, says the challenge is that partners tend to go for the ‘low hanging fruits’, from which they can obtain only a limited margin. He makes a valid point because partners find it hassle-free to simply go after easy wins rather than invest the time, efforts and money into a richer margin business.

For a customer, ensuring that a technology solution is implemented well or is integrated into the existing

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infrastructure seamlessly are some of the primary concerns. They also need to be sure that the deployed solution trims down the operational costs to optimise the business. And beyond that they also expect 24/7 support and timely and quality services. Partners need to have a thorough understanding of what the customer’s objectives are with a particular technology and offer relevant services such as professional services, consultancy, presales, training and cloud. They need to listen to their customers. They need to willfully develop this area of their business especially because in tomorrow’s world, services will be the only way through which a partner can make any kind of dent in his growth and ensure repeat and higher volume of sales.

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In the regional retail segment, although services are being looked at as key market differentiators, I’m yet to experience one that has been exceptional or made me feel special as a customer. Hopefully this will change for the better. Well, it has to.

It has quietened down a great deal here after our outstanding and memorable Awards show last month, being our biggest event just before the summer kicks in. I definitely miss the excitement, although we continued to see the euphoria when we went around taking pictures of all the winners. Take a look at our post event Partner Excellence Awards coverage to relive that electrifying evening.

Wish you a holy month of Ramadan and happy holidays for those of you away on vacation.

CORPORATE OFFICE: 29th Floor, BB2, Mazaya Business Avenue, Jumeirah Lakes Towers, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Tel No.:+971 4 4576500 | Fax:+971 4 3908520 | www.spectrumgroup.co

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1 Based on Principled Technologies report ‘Simplifying systems management with Dell OpenManage on 13G Dell PowerEdge servers’, September 2014, commissioned by Dell, testing Dell’s 13th generation R730 with Enterprise-level Dell systems management. As compared to manual configuration.

2 Based on product specifications for Intel S3700 SATA SSD and Express Flash results from the Storage Networking Industry Association.

3 Based on Dell internal analysis August 2014 comparing SATA SSDs to Express Flash - PCIe-Gen3 x4 testing random reads. ©2014 Dell, Inc. Dell is a registered trademark of Dell, Inc. Pudae ratet faces rerrori beaquide ped etusae. Um lant, test fugiaes dit rem qui aribusd aepuditatur aut apit lam sandebisque ea volupienis ent, odipiendaeIhicatem rem eatur adiasim porero berum sim rem dolora es ad quam, to debitis est dolorest, omnihit la santusam re, corrovid ut aditias eseque ad

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