60mins Day 3 - AM (2019)

GITEX 2019 TECHNOLOGY PARTNERS

Inspires Transformation

R epog rafix

GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK tahawultech.com

Show dates: 6-10 October 2019, Dubai World Trade Centre | Exhibition hours: 11am-7pm

Dell EMC to spotlight digital enterprise tech at GITEX 2019

HPE Digital Life Garage to “2019 has been the year turn customers’ business of change for cloud”: vision into reality Exclusive Networks CEO

Dell EMC is sharing its latest innovations in digital enterprise technology at this year’s GITEX. Fady Richmany, Dell EMC

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HPE will showcase their soon-to-be open Digital Life Garage at this year’s GITEX Technology Week.

Morad Qutqut, HPE Middle East

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2019 has been the year of change in the Middle East where cloud is concerned, says Nathen Clements.

Nathan Clements, Exclusive Networks

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Emircom showcases new Injazat’s agile factory is A10 Networks’ Saudi energy and sensor data positioned to accelerate expansion to witness the digital journey huge IoT investment intelligence platform Emircom is showcasing their new energy and sensor data intelligence platform.

Lerrick D’lima, Emircom

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Trend Micro to demonstrate art of cybersecurity at GITEX

The launch of Injazat’s new agile factory is set to help customers accelerate their DX journey.

Isam Bin Omran, Injazat

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Abdulmajeed Al Obailan, A10 Networks

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Lenovo Financial Services WebNMS makes enabling partners to Middle Eastern finance their own deals inroads in IoT

Trend Micro has commissioned six artists to interpret cybersecurity data at GITEX. Dr. Moataz Bin Ali, Trend Micro

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Exciting times are in prospect for the next-generation, network and cloud security company A10 Networks,

Lenovo now offers a “true financial services offering” across hardware, software and managed services Richard Wilcox, Lenovo Data Centre Group

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Customers can take advantage of WebNMS’ “uncomplicated” approach to IoT.

Karen Ravindranath, WebNMS

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Dell EMC to showcase digital enterprise tech at GITEX 2019 Dell EMC, the multinational IT leader, is sharing its latest innovations in digital enterprise technology at this year’s GITEX. Fady Richmany, Senior Director and General Manager for the UAE at Dell EMC, explained the importance of the ICT flagship event for the company.

“This year is a very important year for us to be at GITEX. Our purpose is to drive progress across enterprise technology, and this can only be possible by modernising the IT structure of a company.

“It’s all about providing customers with the means to have an all-digital enterprise.

We are helping customers move forward in their digital transformation journey. GITEX is one of the best events to share this message and showcase our solutions – we have been here for the past fifteen years and we hope to be for many years to come,” said Richmany.

Dell EMC’s theme for this year’s GITEX is digital enterprise.

The stand is showcasing how to successfully implement next generation technologies such as Blockchain, IoT and Artificial Intelligence.

Richmany added, “All these technologies need to come together to provide future-proof

Our purpose is to drive progress across enterprise technology, and this can only be possible by modernising the IT structure of a company.”

Fady Richmany, Dell EMC

solutions for our customers.

Thanks to these, we are also helping the UAE government achieve their Vision 2021 – We are supporting the future of safe

and digital cities.”

Dell EMC has a very strong partnership with the UAE government. Expanding on how they are helping achieve Vision 2021, Richmany explained their end-to-end solutions resonate perfectly with the government’s vision.

“Vision 2021 is all about digitising and taking a leap from a digital perspective – we are playing a big role in this innovation with many government entities. They believe in our capabilities and our end-to-end solutions

Vision 2021 is all about digitising and taking a leap from a digital perspective, and we are playing a big role in this innovation with many government entities.” www.tahawultech.com

resonate very well with them.

“We understand harnessing data is the way forward. To achieve this, we are investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as other disruptive technologies. Whether it’s running blockchain, or smart contracts, or developing an IoT strategy for smart cities – we are providing the means to achieve this vision.

Richmany also believes automation will be the main driver of digital transformation in the next years, as more and more organisations hope to automate their processes.

“83 percent of organisations we have surveyed in over forty countries, including UAE and Saudi, have said they believe that a level of automation is needed to achieve their business goals.

Emerging technologies will help us drive this forward.

“We are helping customers in this journey, may this be IoT, AI, or from a security perspective,” concluded Richmany.

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HPE Digital Life Garage to turn customers’ business vision into reality The Digital Life Garage will focus on startups, helping them bring their solutions into the right context and to the right customers.”

Morad Qutqut, CTO, HPE Middle East

Hewlett Packard Enterprise is showcasing their soon-to-be open Digital Life Garage at this year’s GITEX. The Digital Life Garage, HPE new innovation centre in the UAE, supports and brings together six types of partners, explained Morad Qutqut, CTO at HPE Middle East.

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“First of all, we focus on our customers. They are the font of inspiration to bring ideas to life.

To do this, we also rely on our Research partners – in many advanced use cases we need to to consult experts to make sure we are on the right track. These experts advise on whether it is

worth investing into a project, and sometimes even give us suggestions to shorten the path to the solution. Universities play a big role in this – we have partnered with many local universities already who have shown a great interest in the project. They help us develop concepts and ideas,” explained Qutqut.

He went on to say that local channel partners also play a big role as they give the IT-leader the local perspective needed to succeed.

“We also work many innovation players, this being technology players who have a strong partnership with HPE. However,

the Digital Life Garage will also focus on startups, helping them bring their solutions into the right context and to the right customers.

“The last type of partners we have been working with is service providers – they play a huge role as they facilitate collaboration and connectivity, helping us leverage their own innovations to build new ones,” continued Qutqut.

At GITEX 2019, HPE will focus on showcasing the Digital Life Garage and how the new innovation centre will help convert customers’ ideas and aspirations into proper digital solutions matching their business needs.

Qutqut explained that most digital strategy challenges are due to an unclear digital strategy in organisations.

“The most of common challenges for organisations start from bottom up – at HPE, we believe companies need to have a clear look at their business needs before they start implementing new technologies that may not be relevant to these needs.

“We always start from the customers – what they need, their hopes and dreams. Then we bring in a huge ecosystem of players and innovators to support their visions.”

HPE is demonstrating the capabilities of the Digital Life Garage with real uses cases at their stand. They are showcasing the full journey HPE is taking with clients, from the initial stage to converting ideas into real prototypes to achieve their digital business goals.

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“2019 has been the year of change for cloud”: Exclusive Networks CEO The channel will always have a place in the supply chain.

Where there is complexity and uncertainty, there is a need for a trusted advisor.”

Nathan Clements, Exclusive Networks

2019 has been the year of change in the Middle East where cloud is concerned. We’ve seen the big cloud providers enter the market, and from speaking with our partners, we’ve heard how their customers from all vertical markets have started their move to cloud. We’ve seen end users delay hardware renewals and hardware refreshes as they consider the question: do we buy more of the same, or do we move to cloud?

I hear constantly that the channel will be obsolete when

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customers move to the cloud, and that end users will buy all they need directly from cloud providers. However, the common feedback we hear, from vendors, partners, and from our colleagues around the globe, is about the lack of knowledge in the market when it comes to moving from ‘on-prem’ to ‘off-prem’. We’ve all read about the skills shortage in both cyber and cloud.

This is where the channel will always have a place in the supply chain. Where there is complexity

and uncertainty, there is a need for a trusted advisor.

At Exclusive Networks, I am confident that we have chosen the best in breed vendors in cyber security and cloud transformation – we have grown our business by 53% this year, which I believe is a testament to the relevance of the vendors that we work with. This has coincided with the launch of our ‘Cloud Competency Centre’, where we are delivering authorised vendor and cloud agnostic training

courses to our customers – with the aim of helping fill the skills shortage, and to empower our channel to have the confidence to engage in conversation with their customers on cloud transformation.

Is the channel going to be obsolete? Of course not! Not for those who evolve and dare to differentiate. And on this theme, I’m excited to announce our involvement in GITEX this year. A wise philosopher once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.”

So, this year we have decided we will not exhibit ourselves on a stand, as we have done multiple years running.

This year we have taken over Cubano Lito for two days - a restaurant and bar a short 2-minute walk from the halls of GITEX. Take a break from the hustle and bustle of GITEX, and join us at Cubano Lito where you will find the Exclusive Networks team and a number of our vendors.

Join us for lunch, or drop in for a drink and a chat. Enjoy the informal environment, recharge, and get ready for the rest of your afternoon!

On Tuesday evening, at the same location, we will host our famous Thirsty Club. This is always a popular after show party so be sure to register for this event to guarantee access.

I look forward to seeing you all at Cubano Lito!

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Injazat enables customers to deploy a strong digital transformation strategy

Olivier Schaller, Director of Strategy, Injazat - A Mubadala Company, explains why a digital strategy is vital to any organisation hoping to move forward in their digital transformation journey.

A strong digital strategy is now more than important, it is vital.

However, the challenge in this digital era is that competition does not always come from your well-known competitors.

Digital native organisations have disrupted many sectors as new market entrants, grabbing market share by connecting customers to suppliers through innovative digital services. Incumbents in every sector must respond to this threat by competing in new digital ways, sometimes exploring new sectors, new channels, new offerings. The competitive market is constantly changing and evolving and so today’s organisations need to be agile, and this adaptability must be inherent in the mindset, part of the company culture.

Digital transformation must be at the heart of business strategy. It touches every fibre of an organisation. It is not just about process optimisation and automation, but new about business models and revenue streams, investments, talent management and culture. It’s all encompassing and so to be successful, digital transformation must be CEO-led.

Injazat works in partnership with its customers – enabling and empowering their digital transformation - from early stage design-thinking and MVP/ rapid prototyping services, to implementation at scale.

We enable our customers to become digital product delivery organisation and achieve continuous delivery with agile and DevOps methodologies.

As Director of Strategy my ultimate responsibility is to develop and implement strategies that

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Digital transformation must be at the heart of business strategy. It touches every fibre of an organisation.”

Olivier Schaller, Director of Strategy, Injazat - A Mubadala Company

drive growth for Injazat. Significant growth is coming from our portfolio of products and services that enable our customers to adapt to embrace the digital revolution.

It is common knowledge that every organisation, no matter which industry, is facing both disruption and opportunity as a result of this revolution. Injazat prides itself in being the partner of choice in the region for those organisations that want to engage in their own digital transformation.

Injazat must be agile and innovative so that it can evolve ahead of the curve enabling us to offer our customers the benefits of the most relevant emerging technologies. For some this might be Injazat’s InCloud platform, which complies with the highest level of security and UAE data residency mandate, for others this could mean leveraging the platform to implement AI, IoT and Blockchain. We work with our customers to translate their business strategy into a digital transformation roadmap and work with them to ensure successful

integration, implementation and cultural adaptation.

However, digital transformation cannot succeed without an enterprise-wide change management initiative. Employee education is critical, and every organisation must have a plan to re-skill their employees not only in IT but also educate every line of business to understand the impact of emerging technologies on their specific industry sector.

According to a Gartner 2018 CEO Survey, CEOs expected digital revenues to grow at a CAGR of 10.3% between 2017 and 2020 and 37% of CEOs see a need to make significant or deep changes to their company culture by 2020.

Culture change is vital.

Although digital disruption, has been happening for a while, its prevalence as a dominating force has been growing exponentially.

So today digital skills and an agile mindset are essential competencies for employees yet it’s challenging to find people with such qualifications and experiences. This is where Injazat can play a key role. For example, in the survey mentioned above, CEOs felt the highest value potential lies in AI. However which company has widespread talent in AI? At

Injazat, we can offer AI as a service to our customers, instead of them needing to find and invest in their own technology stack and team of skilled data scientists. As such, we enable organisations to rapidly demonstrate the value of AI and move from proof of concept to scalable AI deployments.

GITEX 2019 An event like GITEX is showcasing the latest IT products and emerging technologies. Technology has and always will be an enabler for business growth. However, there is a lot of hype around new technologies and how they will disrupt every industry - yet not every technology is appropriate or relevant to every organisation.

Injazat works in partnership with its customers to help them understand each emerging technology and discern how it is relevant to their organisation and strategy; how it might enable their ability to compete, to innovate and differentiate, to optimise and reorganise. We use applicable industry cases and we help our customers consider the right time to invest. We help our clients see, through the lens of digital transformation, their place in the future and the art of the possible. www.tahawultech.com

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Emircom showcases new energy and sensor data intelligence platform

Emircom, a market leader in ICT in the Middle East, is showcasing their new energy and sensor data intelligence platform at this year’s GITEX. SEnergy, Emircom’s newest

platform is built from IoT building blocks to monitor energy consumption and related parameters which help develop better and more intelligent decision making.

Empowering operations and maintenance personnel with detailed data and analytics from SEnergy has become a critical steppingstone for Emircom’s customers to achieve efficiency, safety and, last but not the least, conservation.”

Lerrick D’lima, General Manager at Emircom, said, “SEnergy helps with decision making for optimum energy utilization and conservation.

Our customers will benefit from the visibility of multiple facilities and equipment from a unified dashboard.”

Moreover, the platform offers in-depth live, statistical and visual insights into day-to-day operational and aggregate efficiency parameters of all facility and infrastructure equipment.

“Empowering operations and maintenance personnel with detailed data and analytics from SEnergy has become a critical steppingstone for Emircom’s customers to achieve efficiency, safety and, last but not the least, conservation,” D’lima added.

SEnergy has a wide range of applications for every industry vertical. It’s cloudbased and offered as a Capex or subscription-based offering.

This helps eliminating any large Capex investment. SEnergy implementation and integration can be done in weeks and not months, providing the quick time to market needed in today’s digital economy.

Emircom ensures value and ROI within the year for customers who implement SEnergy.

Emircom is the leading partner to many heavyweights

Lerrick D’lima, Emircom

SEnergy, Emircom’s newest platform is built from IoT building blocks to monitor energy consumption and related parameters which help develop better and more intelligent decision making.” in the ICT segment, most notably Cisco, Oracle and Dell EMC, contributing to a major portion of these technology heavyweights’ business in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

Emircom will be present at GITEX at two stands, Software AG and Oracle. Visitors can find out all about Emircom’s contribution to a techno-humanity society during the week.

GovTech Founder, CPIMEDIA GROUP Dominic De Sousa (1959-2015), Publishing Director Natasha Pendleton, Group Sales Director Kausar Syed, Business Development Manager Youssef Hariz, Senior Sales Manager Sabita Miranda, Deputy Editor Sharon Saldanha, Editor Mark Forker, Deputy Editor Giorgia Guantario, Online Editor Adelle Geronimo, Design Manager Froilan Cosgafa, Senior Designer Analou Balbero, Designer Marlou Delaben, Operations Manager Cherylann D’Abreo, Web Developer Jefferson de Joya, Abbas Madh, Photographers Charls Thomas, Maksym Poriechkin

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Injazat’s agile factory is positioned to accelerate the digital journey Isam Bin Omran, Director of Products at Injazat – a Mubadala company has articulated how the year end launch of its new agile factory will help customers accelerate their journey towards digital transformation.

The charismatic executive is playing a key role as Injazat continues to solidify its position as the go-to player for enterprises seeking to undergo a digital transformation journey in a digital era where new and more sophisticated technologies continue to emerge.

His primary roles and responsibilities in his capacity as Director of Products is to ensure that all Injazat’s products and services across all their lines of business are fit for both the market and customers. Injazat has a diversified portfolio which includes hybrid cloud, enterprise applications, cyber-defense and emerging technology.

Omran explains this in more detail, “Underneath the CTO organisation we do two things really. Firstly, we develop and enahce our products and Services, and secondly we create the end to end solutions. So you’ve basically got the design, development and solutioning of the products.”

The Director of Products acknowledged that many of its customers are embracing new disruptive technologies and Injazat stands ready to help them navigate their way through the many challenges they will face.

He added, “The key thing for us is all our clients to some degree are going through some form of transformation and the way we’ve designed our portfolio is to support them through their entire digital transformation journey. We have invested heavily into emerging technologies. www.tahawultech.com

Isam Bin Omran, Injazat

We’re seeing a lot of demand from clients to Ai-enable their capabilities through natural language and to get better insights from their data.”

Omran also touched upon the impact that Injazat’s agile factory will have and outlined how it is set to empower customers to accelerate their digital transformation journeys. He also

provided an example of how the factory can enable them to deliver solutions in a much quicker and more efficient way.

He said, “Our agile factory, is really the process in which we get solutions delivered very quickly to our customers. We’ve already had great success delivering services to clients very quickly. It took us just 16 weeks to launch a UAE

All our clients to some degree are going through some form of transformation and the way we’ve designed our portfolio is to support them through their entire digital transformation journey.”

client product with a the minimal viable product that was launched within 12 weeks - and then we just customised it. This is a new agile way of working and that’s what the emerging tech field is all about.”

He concluded by highlighting the investment Injazat has made in emerging technologies.

Omran said, “We’ve put emerging technology very close to enterprise applications because you still have the core data and the enterprise applications and what emerging tech does is really enrich that core business capability using AI, IoT and Blockchain capabilities.

It’s an exciting area and I think from a market perspective that’s where customers expect gains to accelerate their journeys, the agile factory will help them do that and enrich or transform their services.” @tahawultech

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STANDS TO WATCH

Huawei

Finesse

A10

Business France

Z2-A10

H7-9

H4-E30-F30

SR-J10

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STANDS TO WATCH

BitDefender

Dell Technologies

Fortinet

HPE

SR-E2

SR-C10

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H6-D1

H7-A1

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STANDS TO WATCH

Injazat

Logicom

Mindware

Redington

S3-A1

H4-F36

H6-B2

HE-E1

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A10 Networks’ Saudi expansion to witness huge IoT investment Exciting times are in prospect for the next-generation, network and cloud security company A10 Networks, which plans to launch a major new office in Saudi Arabia in the fourth quarter of this year.

While the company already has a presence in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, much of this has been focused on sales, but the new operation will be on a much larger scale and will include significantly strengthened technical support.

Especially notable, says Abdulmajeed Al Obailan, A10’s country leader for Saudi Arabia, will be the inauguration of a laboratory that customers will be able to visit.

Currently the company has about 18 people in Saudi Arabia, but Al Obailan says that this will soon grow to more than 25.

The growth in numbers reflects a significant increase in turnover in Saudi Arabia for A10 Networks, which was established in Silicon Valley in the United States in 2004 and which has its regional headquarters in Dubai.

Between 2015 and 2017, turnover in Saudi Arabia was around $2.5 million, but in 2019 alone revenue is forecast to reach about $8.5 million.

“At that [earlier] time, A10 had a very strong product, but there was no solid team [in Saudi Arabia]. With new management, the new team, we’ve become stronger, with a more of a presence to our customers,” said Al Obailan.

The company has become better able to visit customers to understand their business challenges and how its solutions can help. It reflects, says Al Obailan, the “massive support” that A10 Networks offers the Middle East from the highest levels of the organisation.

Indeed, Al Obailan says that A10 Networks’ way of doing business in Saudi Arabia involves offering consultancy and advice to clients.

“We recommend solutions even from our competitors to help our clients to overcome [their challenges],” he said.

A10 Networks’ brisk growth in Saudi Arabia comes as the country’s government is investing heavily in digital solutions and in fields such as the Internet of Things. Such investments, says Al Obailan, “helps us on sales on the ground to pitch our messages”.

Abdulmajeed Al Obailan, A10 Networks

“I think with the digital transformation journey that’s happening in Saudi, everyone is moving into digitised infrastructure,” he said.

I think with the digital transformation journey that’s happening in Saudi, everyone is moving into digitised infrastructure. A10 can leverage cloud security and network infrastructure, and use them with our AI and machine learning tools.” www.tahawultech.com

“A10 can leverage cloud security and network infrastructure, and use them with our AI [artificial intelligence] and machine learning tools.”

A10 Networks’ enterprise business in Saudi Arabia is expanding especially quickly, says Al Obailan. In January, he says, it made up about 17 percent of turnover in the Kingdom, but by the end of the third quarter of this year, the proportion had increased to 31 percent.

“By next year, we need to have equality between the service provider and the enterprise business. My target is to have equality and even exceed the service provider,” he said. @tahawultech

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Trend Micro to demonstrate art of cybersecurity at GITEX Trend Micro, a leader in cybersecurity solutions, has announced it will showcase how 400 million pieces of global security data can enable enterprise protection in the cloud at GITEX Technology Week 2019.

Cybersecurity will be a major topic of discussion at GITEX, the leading technology event in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia, especially as cyber-attacks caused USD 12.5 billion in losses from 2016 to 2018. In 2018, Trend Micro blocked 48 billion threats and discovered 200 new ransomware families.

To bring these cyberthreats to life, Trend Micro has commissioned six artists to process and interpret cybersecurity data. Rather than at a standalone stand, Trend Micro will showcase these artistic interpretations specialized pods at six different partners’ stands, as well as on screens between demos.

“As the cybersecurity landscape becomes more complex, cyber-threats can be abstract to understand and ugly to confront when they strike,” said Dr. Moataz Bin Ali, Vice President, Trend Micro, Middle

Dr. Moataz Bin Ali, Trend Micro

East and North Africa. “However, with our GITEX theme of ‘The Art of Cybersecurity,’ we aim to show how cybersecurity can be beautiful when organizations literally see how siloed threats can be put together to show a big picture, helping organizations stay one step ahead of cyberthreats.”

Supporting cybersecurity, Trend Micro will highlight its Deep Security solution for cloud and data security with AWS, Microsoft, and VMware, along with its new XDR detection and response solution for email, endpoint, server, and network with its channel partners Redington and StarLink. Trend

With our GITEX theme of ‘The Art of Cybersecurity,’ we aim to show how cybersecurity can be beautiful when organisations literally see how siloed threats can be put together to show a big picture, helping organisations stay one step ahead of cyber-threats.” www.tahawultech.com

Our proven foresight, XGen crossgenerational security strategy, and passionate people can enable Middle East organisations to prepare, withstand, and recover from cyber-threats.”

Micro will also highlight security innovations across DevOps, collaboration, and cloud apps.

“Trend Micro’s everywhereat-GITEX approach will help us to get closer to our vendors, our customers, and our channel and alliance partners across every industry vertical and technology,” added Dr. Moataz Bin Ali. “Our proven foresight, XGen cross-generational security strategy, and passionate people can enable Middle East organisations to prepare, withstand, and recover from cyber-threats.” @tahawultech

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Lenovo Financial Services enabling partners to finance their own deals

Richard Wilcox, Lenovo Data Centre Group

Richard Wilcox, Regional Director, Lenovo Data Centre Group, Middle East, has said the Lenovo Financial Services platform is now empowering companies to finance their own deals.

Wilcox is one of the most experienced IT leaders in the

Middle East region with over 18 years of experience. He joined Lenovo over 18 months and was tasked with the responsibility of managing their data centre group in the Middle East, which also encompasses Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen and Afghanistan.

In addition to Lenovo’s Financial Services offering, the dynamic executive discussed the company’s collaborative approach with its alliance and channel partners, its commitment to Green IT and why even after all these years GITEX still excites him.

When discussing the Lenovo Financial Services offering, Wilcox pointed to research from Gartner and IDC that highlighted the impact it can have for enterprises as its addressing a real issue for them.

Wilcox said, “We’ve just launched the Lenovo Financial Services which is really enabling us to offer a true financial services offering across hardware, software and managed services, so right across the board we’ve now got the platform to finance an entire deal. If you look at figures released by Gartner and IDC they’ve discovered that enterprises look at 86% of the decision in relation to whether or not the vendor can actually finance the deal.”

Lenovo’s Financial Services are up and running in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, but the Regional Director also touched on the role its playing in Green IT. He added, “We’re also looking

We’re software agnostic in terms of our approach into the data centre, so whether its VMware, Microsoft or Nutanix, we’re putting the customer in the middle in order to get the right solution to them.”

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at a full device refresh and we’re focusing very hard on enabling companies to recycle IT equipment. There’s no point companies holding on to equipment that has become obsolete. We’ve partnered with the worlds’s largest IT recycler and we can now give a full green certificate for corporate social responsibility.”

Lenovo has enjoyed phenomenal success of late and its customer-centricity and collaborative approach is paying dividends for them.

Wilcox added, “We’ve got a very collaborative approach at Lenovo both with our alliance partners and the channel. In terms of our alliance partners we’re software agnostic in terms of our approach into the data centre, so whether its VMware, Microsoft or Nutanix we’re putting the customer in the middle in order to get the right solution to them. Customers now are incredibly more educated, more demanding in terms of what they want and are much more focused, so it’s very important to be both adaptive and flexibile.”

Wilcox concluded by highlighting the important role GITEX plays in the ICT ecosystem in the Middle East.

He said, “GITEX is just amazing. You walk around and you see all these new companies with these incredible new technologies and you think to yourself where has this come from? That’s what really excites me and that also enables us to provide a stable platform that allows those partners to come in and know that they’re working with a trusted vendor in the marketplace to go forward.” www.tahawultech.com

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WebNMS makes Middle Eastern inroads in IoT The enterprise Internet of Things solutions specialist WebNMS has been enjoying steady growth in this region as customers take advantage of the company's “uncomplicated” approach to IoT. Large-scale deployments on the Arabian peninsula, including a major project in Oman, are helping WebNMS to make further inroads into the Middle Eastern market.

Karen Ravindranath, director, IoT, says the company's enterprise IoT platform is employed in everything from remote asset management to fleet management, industrial IoT and smart city solutions.

“The platform is gathering the sensor data from the different devices. The platform does all the core processing of alerts etc, and we have capabilities built on top of the platform layer,” she said at GITEX. “These capabilities help our customers create industrial solutions very easily. It's seamlessly connecting the infrastructure, [including] even legacy devices … Our focus is on uncomplicated IoT; we bring the ecosystem together.”

Unlike open-source IoT, WebNMS's platform does not have problems linked to scalability, says Ravindranath. Also,

Karen Ravindranath, WebNMS

WebNMS's end-to-end solutions offer a much higher level of security than noncommercial alternatives.

A major lighting project that WebNMS carried out for Muscat Municipality is a local deployment that the company is keen to highlight. Ravindranath says the project offers significant cost advantages to the authority in the Omani capital.

“It reduces the cost of operations and the energy cost to power 2,000-plus street lights. We started this lighting

deployment about three years back. We've got inroads into facilities management and also have some energy management [projects],” she said, adding that the company had also completed Industrial IoT projects for the oil and gas sector.

“We look forward to extending our channel partnerships and systems integrator base in the Middle East,” she said. “We can bring these new IoT solutions to our partners and enable them to bring value-added solutions.”

While saying that the United

The platform is seamlessly connecting the infrastructure, including even legacy devices.

Our focus is on uncomplicating IoT, and bringing the ecosystem together.”

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States was the first market for WebNMS, Ravindranath describes the Middle East as “an important market” and one that is growing.

“We've successfully deployed here and … we've been steadily growing our customer base into the key areas like oil and gas, and facilities management,” she said.

WebNMS is keen to secure more business in the government sector, and the company hopes that Expo 2020 Dubai will offer significant opportunities.

WebNMS is one of the three divisions of Zoho Corporation, which was founded in the United States in 1996 as AdventNet. Across Zoho Corporation's three divisions there are about 8,000 research and development staff, with most innovation coming from the company's research centre in Chennai, India. www.tahawultech.com

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QNAP to flaunt new cloud offerings at GITEX

Are you launching/announcing any new products and services at this year’s GITEX? QNAP has officially released QTS 4.4.1 at this year’s GITEX Technology Week. In addition to integrating Linux Kernel 4.14 LTS to support next-generation hardware platforms, QNAP is advancing NAS usability by incorporating highly-anticipated services, including a cloud storage gateway that makes hybrid cloud storage and applications easier, sourcebased deduplication to optimise backup and recovery efficiency, a Fibre Channel SAN solution, and much more.

met many potential customers and business opportunities in Gulf regions. Since GITEX is the most important and successful technology show, we are here to promote our latest product lines, such as Fibre Channel SAN and cloud backup solutions.

What are the most exciting developments in the Middle East’s technology landscape over the last 12 months?

We’ve seen cloud solutions as one of the most popular applications in 2019. Many customers have come to QNAP over the last 12 months with the need for a high security data backup solution for their business or project. From ATM machines storage backup to airport CCTV, QNAP is offering a complete 3-in-1 storage backup solutions (3 copies, 2 backups, 1 more location) to address this demand.

Why is GITEX such an important platform for your company to connect with the Middle East’s technology industry?

Over the past 8 years, QNAP has

What do you think are the biggest trends that will transform the market you’re operating in?

QNAP is focusing on cloud and

Alex Tsai, QNAP

Since GITEX is the most important and successful technology show, we are here to promote our latest product lines, such as Fibre Channel SAN and cloud backup solutions.”

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data backup solutions, as we’re seeing that many customers require private and fast data storages to sync in their offices.

We are offering a high security and encryption data protection on our QNAP Network Attached Storage (NAS) offering.

Can you highlight any major regional customers you have onboarded over the last 12months?

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is our first priority for this region. We are working closely with Sariya IT and Logicom KSA to engage local SMB and enterprise customers such as ABANA and SBM. How are they using your technologies and services to grow their business?

With QNAP Hybrid Backup Sync 3.0 software, it helps provide another data copy in NAS and cloud sync, and this deduplication optimises backup and recovery efficiency.

How are you innovating to ensure that your offerings are future-proof?

AI, 5G, IoT, AR/VR technology are the happening right now – and all of these technologies will ultimately need a big pool of storage to keep the data they’re producing secure. QNAP is offer a hybrid cloud backup solution for both cloud and edge sides. As the data grows, QNAP are also offering an expansion storage solution for third party clouds, such as Google and Amazon.

Why is security important in enabling digital transformation in the region?

As data grows, the need for more security and backup also

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is our first priority for this region.

We are working closely with Sariya IT and Logicom KSA to engage local SMB and enterprise customers such as ABANA and SBM.” grows. Customers are requiring a cloud solution to transfer their traditional data, and access and data encryption are becoming highly important as a result.

QNAP offers a private cloud solution that can integrate with 23 public clouds, meaning customers are more flexible to choose sources and destinations to have a highly secure backup on QNAP NAS. www.tahawultech.com

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GITEX day 2 spotlights impact of 5G in Middle East

Dr. Mohamed Madkour, Huawei

Drawing the attention of industry heavyweights, GITEX’s 5G Countdown stage hosted dedicated panel sessions and keynotes on day 2, welcoming telecoms leaders such as Dr. Mohamed Madkour, VP Global Wireless Networks Marketing and Solutions at Huawei.

Speaking on the human aspect of 5G, Madkour said, “We often think about 5G in isolation. However, we need to see it as an interconnected mechanism that empowers businesses and entire nations through digital transformation.

We need to remember that people are the driving force behind these technologies, and the question we need to ask ourselves is how can we all gear up for a future in which we live better lives.”

We often think about 5G in isolation.

However, we need to see it as an interconnected mechanism that empowers businesses and entire nations through digital transformation.”

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Fadi Pharaon, President of Middle East & Africa at Ericsson, gave examples of how companies and brands can take advantage of 5G. He said, “The key considerations of realising the full potential of 5G are by capturing the opportunity of 5G’s revenue potential, identifying industry pain points, mastering the go to market and investing in deployment capabilities.”

Industry leaders from Etisalat and du provided a more local angle during a panel session titled Battleground for 5G: what’s at stake.

Hatem Bamatraf, Chief Technology Officer, Etisalat International, highlighted that there are fine nuances between countries and the readiness of rolling out 5G networks, which will be a gradual process, he said. He highlighted that different markets have unique economic and infrastructural features that will impact the implementation of 5G across the region.

Discussing 5G’s sustainability aspects, Saleem Alblooshi, Chief Technology Officer at du, said, “We have to become more energy efficient, and sustainable technology is important, hence needs to be encouraged with the support of the regulators and other industry players. For that, we need to use more solar energy, for example, and make sure that sustainability goals are very strictly managed.”

Acoba launches new Smart City Cloud platform Acoba, the cloud video-surveillance partner to store recorded video in the cloud for easy remote access, is launching its new Smart City Cloud platform, SPARK, at this year’s GITEX. The platform allows businesses to centralise video surveillance cameras in a private or a public cloud. SPARK allows the use of several workstations from different points of the city, the use on the move for police and municipal services responsible for maintenance or green spaces and security services. It can also connect panic buttons to local shops and allows to do a quick video verification in case of aggression in a store.

Nicolas Dupre, CEO at Acoba explained GITEX is the perfect opportunity for the company to share more about their products and solutions.

“GITEX is one of the largest and most successful cutting-edge technology shows in the world.

It attracts lots of famous leading brands all over the world in the IT industry to exchange innovation with each other. It gives the perfect opportunity to interact with both exhibitors and visitors and to discover the latest trends in related field.”

Acoba provides a full white label customisable Cloud video surveillance and alarm videoverification for Distributors, Integrators, ISP, Telco, Alarm panels manufacturers & Alarm Monitoring Centers.

Dupre also discussed the biggest trends that will transform the market Acoba is operating in, including cloud and big data.

“Technologies such as cloud, big data, social and mobility become investment priorities.

The biggest trends are IoT and Artificial intelligence – I believe IoT solutions have transpired in the form of smart city to increase the well-being if citizens, while Artificial

Nicolas Dupre, CEO, Acoba

The SPARK platform allows businesses to centralise video surveillance cameras in a private or a public cloud.”

Intelligence is implemented in a wide variety of tasks. Both of them are playing a smart role in transforming cloud market into a must have technology,” said Dupre.

“Acoba is always following the latest trends in the world of Cloud technologies, making sure every product and service it offers works perfectly to ensure its customers full satisfaction.

“Acoba uses technology and digital marketing strategies to ensure it thrives well into the future, even in an ever-changing digital world. The key is to understand how technology is progressing in business,” he continued.

At GITEX 2019, Acoba is also launching its new Smart home surveillance camera with an integrated Alarm Hub and integrated Video Verification to avoid false alarms.

Acoba will in Hall 4, booth H4 – E30. www.tahawultech.com

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STANDS TO WATCH

SOPHOS

VEEAM

VERITAS

MANAGE ENGINE

SR-D10

H7-E20

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H7-C20

H7-C1

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STANDS TO WATCH

HID

QNAP

MINDWARE

SONICWALL

H7-D42

H3-C12

H3-E1

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SR-B20

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“UAE startup climate never been better”: Dubai Silicon Oasis CFO As the UAE continues to make significant progress towards a wholly integrated innovation ecosystem and to build on the 10X initiative, which aims to make the UAE one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, William Chappell, the CFO and EVP at Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority took to the GITEX 10X Stage to share his advice for local tech entrepreneurs.

“Startup talent always needs an ecosystem to thrive,” he said.

“The Yahoo-Maktoob acquisition has been a major trigger for entrepreneurial activity in the region, and capital earned from exits has

been invested back in the region to create new innovative businesses and high-tech jobs. The UAE is still a young startup nation and has taken just over 15 years to build a robust

Today, Dubai Silicon Oasis is home to over 800 startups with founders coming from over 70 different nationalities.”

ecosystem with a strong pipeline of investments and deals. Today, Dubai Silicon Oasis is home to over 800 startups with founders coming from over 70 different nationalities.”

Chappell highlighted that support for startups has never been better, due to the vision of the government in ensuring that startups have the right factors to enable growth. However, there is a need for more partners to come

DVCOM showcases cloud-based solutions at GITEX 2019 DVCOM Technology, a leading value-added distributor in the region, is showcasing some of the latest innovations and solutions in Unified Communications and Collaboration at GITEX 2019.

Working closely with their vendor partners – Yealink, Yeastar, DrayTek, IceWarp, amongst other – DVCOM has ventured into cloud-based solutions to meet the accelerated managed services growth in this region.

IceWarp was introduced as one of the latest additions to DVCOM’s Brand Portfolio as the only and most effective alternative to

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Exchange Server, Office 365 or G Suite.

Yealink, the world’s number 1 ranked SIP phone supplier, introduced T5 business phone series Yealink Management Cloud Service (YMCS) as a part of the brand’s new product and service offerings Yealink is also taking Unified Communications to the cloud with Yeastar Cloud PBX Platform and Yeastar Management Plane (YMP), a cloud-based unified communications platform, capable of delivering premium class hosted PBX services.

Renjan George, DVCOM Technology

DrayTek strengthened their product and service portfolio with the introduction of Vigor 903 Router and VigorConnect, a singlesite Central Management system for DrayTek products with most advanced features.

on board to support startups in the UAE and around the region. A wholly integrated ecosystem will require the right mix of talent, cross-border engagement, investors at all stages and integration with universities. The combination of all of these factors will not only spur the regional startup ecosystem to new levels but will also give rise to homegrown technology that will unlock economic impact at scale, Chappell said.

Working closely with their vendor partners, DVCOM has ventured into cloud-based solutions to meet the accelerated managed services growth in this region.”

DVCOM invites the visitors at GITEX 2019 to experience innovation at their stand Z2-C1, Zabeel Hall-2.

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Esharah Etisalat Security Solutions launches AI Drone solution at GITEX 2019 Esharah Etisalat Security Solutions, experts in the field of wired and wireless Telecom Networks (TETRA & Public Safety LTE), and Security Solutions, are showcasing their latest and innovative products designed for public safety at GITEX 2019.

Esharah’s participation reflects the dynamism and growing size of the region’s security and safety market. The company is presenting its products and solutions which include cameras utilising Artificial intelligence. Esharah has installed Artificial Intelligence cameras at Nedaa stand to monitor visitors arriving, providing information about the male and female count, as well as the number of people entering the venue. The company is also presenting CAD

technology connected to tesla at their stand that can be used to record incidents using Nedaa’s 4G network – this is the STASHCAT secure messenger application that helps create communication groups for the team and assists in sending messages, videos, pictures etc. using real time endto-end encryption.

Moreover, Esharah’s latest drone technology uses artificial intelligence adding to the drone’s capabilities to make it smarter and more efficient. Machine learning algorithms improve the drone performance over time as they are repeatedly exposed to increased data. The drones also have the ability to analyse visual input, in addition to using the input of sensors to add value and process

information faster; an element critical in incident response.

Ali Bahlooq, General Manager at Esharah Etisalat Security Solutions, said, “Digitisation and technological advancements in camera, drone specifications, mapping software, and sensory applications are expected to drive the commercial drone market growth. Drone technology is rapidly emerging as innovative front runners in the safety and security sector. At Esharah, safety is our primary focus and we take pride in bringing forth technologies that can be implemented to ensure that both regionally and globally.

This is an exciting time for the IOT sector, with continued growth in solutions to cater to the increased demands in this area, in turn

Ali Bahlooq, Esharah Etisalat Security Solutions

creating new opportunities for implementing innovative solutions that can drive greater efficiency with less cost. We are honored to take part in this year’s event and look forward to meeting with partners and customers eager to join us in our journey.”

Kingston to Unveil Latest Innovative Solutions at GITEX 2019 Kingston Technology Europe, a world leader in memory products and technology solutions, is showcasing their latest product launches at GITEX 2019. The company is presenting the products and solutions that reflect their achievements of introducing encrypted devices and memory products that will help strengthen the security landscape in the region.

Kingston is presenting their Supermicro server upgraded with the latest Intel Cascade Lake processor, along with promoting all the memory modules of the portfolio, such as 2933MHz modules and their DC SSD product line. Kingston is also highlighting NVMe SSDs in servers, accompanied by live demos of their encrypted USB’s.

“Data protection has become a baseline requirement for most Laurent Sirgy, Kingston Technology

At Kingston, we are constantly exploring new solutions for organisations to improve and successfully gain control and visibility of their security environment by mitigating risk in today’s digital world.” www.tahawultech.com

businesses in these times. At Kingston, we are constantly exploring new solutions for organisations to improve and successfully gain control and visibility of their security environment by mitigating risk in today’s digital world.

“With our cutting-edge technologies, we continue

to upgrade our products infrastructure to deliver on our commitment of supporting digital transformation in the region.

Our philosophy of developing new solutions rests on the premise of providing products that offer consistent and reliable performance, as has been our hallmark,” said Laurent Sirgy, Regional Director SEMEA Kingston Technology.

“By actively taking part at GITEX, an event that embodies the UAE’s leadership in the field of future technologies, we will be showcasing market leading encrypted storage solutions for data protection, along with high quality Kingston memory solutions that play a prominent role in driving digital transformation and developing the ICT sector in UAE,” continued Sirgy. @tahawultech

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Using AI to transform the security industry The security products and solutions provider Hikvision sees major changes for the security industry thanks to artificial intelligence. Alan Zeng, the company’s after-sales director for the UAE, discusses the transformation that is taking place.

GIVE US A BRIEF OVERVIEW OF YOUR COMPANY. Hikvision is a world-leading provider of security products and solutions. Featuring an extensive and highly skilled research and development workforce, Hikvision manufactures a full suite of comprehensive products and solutions for a broad range of vertical markets.

In addition to the security industry, Hikvision extends its reach to smart home technology, industrial automation and automotive electronics to achieve its long-term vision.

Hikvision products also provide powerful business intelligence for end users, which can enable more efficient operations and greater commercial success.

Committed to the utmost quality and safety of its products, Hikvision encourages partners to take advantage of the many cybersecurity resources that we offer, including the Hikvision Cybersecurity Centre.

WHAT DIFFERENTIATES YOUR COMPANY FOR YOUR COMPETITORS? In the CCTV industry, all manufactures are performing well. Each has its own advantages, so this business is still undergoing rapid development.

We have focused on video technology, and we provide security products and solutions.

Initially, we focused on monitoring www.tahawultech.com

Alan Zeng, Hikvision

and then gradually extended to areas such as automatic driving and industrial automation.

In the era of mobile Internet, we developed EZVIZ, a sub-brand of Hikvision, which offers security intelligence for households, individuals and small enterprises.

We need to be close to the customer and to understand their needs so that we can provide products that perform better and are of higher quality, more

competitively priced and delivered rapidly. The customer is always our priority.

WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST TRENDS THAT WILL TRANSFORM THE MARKET YOU’RE OPERATING IN? Nowadays CCTV is no longer used only for security. For example, you might need a camera to watch over your pets when you are not at home. A retail manager might

One of the biggest trends in this market is artificial intelligence.

The revolution of big data has already begun.

In terms of CCTV, you might need to find the five seconds of useful video evidence from a 24-hour recording among hundreds or thousands of cameras.” need, for example, employee attendance data to help in business management. That is what we have seen – a lot of opportunities, but also challenges from the market.

One of the biggest trends in this market is artificial intelligence. The revolution of big data has already begun.

In terms of CCTV, you might need to find the five seconds of useful video evidence from a 24hour recording among hundreds or thousands of cameras.

Using the traditional method, you might need to hire dozens of people to watch all the video to get the clip.

However, by utilising AI, all the data will be structured, which can help you to search according to the specific features of objects captured on video, such as a person’s gender identity, physical @tahawultech

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attributes and the colours of the clothes that he or she is wearing.

This helps to easily and quickly find the target individual.

The revolution is just starting.

We need to explore what more AI can bring to this industry, and also to work with customers to keep on improving our products.

ARE YOU LAUNCHING ANY NEW PRODUCTS OR SERVICES AT THIS YEAR’S GITEX? The most important products that we are releasing this year are: – Sira-approved ANPR: In July this year, Hikvision’s ANPR product was approved by Sira.

We are the third company overall and the first Chinese company to

have obtained this approval. The conditions and regulations for the approval require that the products cover the whole of the GCC region’s car number plates with more than 98 percent recognition accuracy. This opens up a new market for Hikvision.

– Fusion server: We have already released a series of highperformance intelligent-analysis servers for public security.

However, there is market demand for a lighter and more flexible solution for midsize projects with facial recognition and other related requirements. So we are offering the Fusion Intelligent server, which is an all-in-one server that combines an analysis

server with big data and storage. It provides functions like list alarm, face-picture comparison, search by picture, human appearance frequency search and one person one archive.

– ColorVu: View in colour, even in darkness – this is what the ColorVu series products can bring. For example, if you describe the first person you saw today, for sure the description will include information such as that he was wearing a blue suit and black shoes This shows that the color is a key element of a description. Losing colour means losing core information.

– Interactive Tablet: The 86-inch Interactive Tablet integrates the functions of

The revolution is just starting. We need to explore what more AI can bring to this industry, and also to work with customers to keep on improving our products.” www.tahawultech.com

computers, projectors, interactive whiteboards, sound boxes, cameras, HDTVs, advertising machines and so on.

The device integrates technologies like 4K display, infrared touch, human-machine interaction, multi-media information processing and network transmission, and provides users with various features such as writing, annotating, multi-screen sharing and remote video call.

WHAT ARE YOUR GOALS AND OBJECTIVES FOR THE REMAINDER OF 2019?

Our main long-term goal is to survive and thrive in the market.

Huge technological changes can cause fluctuations in the performance of parts of the enterprise.

We have been changing ourselves and our products all the time, from the compressed card provider to becoming involved in digital hard disk recorders (DVRs), cameras and other business development. We never stop moving forward. @tahawultech

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GITEX 2019 HIGHLIGHTS

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Airbus presents latest Mission Critical Innovations at GITEX 2019

Andrew Forbes, Airbus

Airbus a leading provider of secure communications and collaboration solutions is promoting its end-to-end mission critical offerings during the GITEX Technology Week 2019.

Airbus is highlighting its innovative mission-critical technologies. The company is presenting its Tactilon Agnet 500 – a modern, scalable, and flexible collaboration solution which is ideal for group communications.

The Tactilon Agnet 800 application with the Tetra cloud is also visible, along with Artificial Intelligence applications from Airbus’s SmarTWISP programme.

Tactilon Agnet is a Mission Critical push-to-talk application based on 3GPP standards. It features secure individual or group video, voice, data, and messaging services adapted for mission-critical and public safety use. The solution also allows the incorporation of state-of-the-art

Airbus-certified, professional applications allowing options such as facial recognition and licence plate recognition, amongst others.

The company is also showcasing application demos for the SmarTWISP programme such as the dual authenticator for Tactilon Dabat. This ensures reinforced privacy through anonymous authentication, and features an additional level of security with double-step authentication on the Tactilon Dabat smartphone and on a remote server.

“We are honoured to take part in this year’s event and actively look forward to introducing technologies that play a key role in the future of communications

and public-safety. This year’s GITEX is the perfect platform for Airbus to demonstrate how we are working with customers and partners from around the world to deliver secure, flexible and reliable solutions that meet our customer’s expectations in today’s fastmoving communications world, hence contributing to a smart and safe Emirate.” declared Andrew Forbes, Head of Middle East North Africa for Secure Land Communications of Airbus.

This year’s participation in the region’s biggest Information and communication technology (ICT) expo will host a range of one-toone meetings between the vendor and partner community. In addition, Airbus is promoting its complete product and solutions portfolio comprising of Tactilon Dabat and the Tactilon Agnet solution.

Abu Dhabi Digital Authority announces Microsoft partnership The Abu Dhabi Digital Authority (ADDA) has used GITEX as a platform to announce that it has selected a host of Microsoft’s cloud and AI tools to drive the agency’s Smart Citizen Experience, including Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power BI. “Our partnership with Microsoft will allow us to build an intelligent customerservice platform that will fulfil the ambitions of our leaders to streamline and optimise citizens’ and residents’ requests across Abu Dhabi government entities,” said His Excellency Saeed Al Mulla, Government Service Executive Director ADDA. Through its TAMM platform, ADDA has started to consolidate more than 1600 government services into 80 customer journeys for the purposes of www.tahawultech.com

efficiency and optimisation, with the end goal of increasing citizens’ happiness.

Sayed Hashish, General Manager, Microsoft UAE, said, “We are a long-time partner of the Abu Dhabi government in its ambitions to elevate its e-services to peerless standards. Abu Dhabi’s leaders’ vision of a secure, confident society with a competitive, sustainable and globally open economy, is one we share.”

Our partnership will allow us to build an intelligent customer-service platform that will fulfil the ambitions of our leaders to streamline and optimise citizens’ and residents’ requests across Abu Dhabi government entities.” @tahawultech

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Cybersecurity heavyweight expands its offerings to Middle East enterprises With more than 500 million users globally, Bitdefender is one of the world’s top cybersecurity companies. Tarek Kuzbari, the company’s regional director for the Middle East, explains how the company has been extending its range of services.

NOWADAYS DATA SECURITY IS ONE OF THE MAJORS CONCERNS FOR ORGANISATIONS. HOW CAN YOUR ORGANISATION HELP COMPANIES HAVE A STRONG SECURITY STRATEGY? Bitdefender is a global cybersecurity player, tried and trusted by 150 partners and more than 500 million users in over 150 countries across the globe.

DX is expanding the attack surface, increasing the potential for organisational damage and, as a consequence, making it imperative for organisations to take a continuous improvement approach to security.” www.tahawultech.com

In the past three years alone we have had 100 patents issued for core technologies, and have 230 more currently filed for examination.

Tarek Kuzbari, Bitdefender

We are an engineering company at our core, with more than 50 percent of our work force in research and development, and we are a technology provider for more than 38 percent of the global security industry.

This explains why we have been consistently at the top of most leading third-party independent comparatives for more than seven

years in a row.

Bitdefender is a full-stack security provider ensuring protection for endpoints, mobile devices, gateways, proxies, appliances, traffic, data and IoT devices.

We have technology alliances with Citrix, Vmware, Nutanix, Linux Foundation, Microsoft and NETGEAR.

WHAT DIFFERENTIATES YOUR COMPANY FOR YOUR COMPETITORS? At Bitdefender, we are led by a vision to be the most trusted cybersecurity technology provider in the world, which means we constantly anticipate, innovate and go the extra mile to ensure our customers are protected against cyberattacks.

Bitdefender is the provider of choice, embedded in more than 38 percent of the world’s security solutions. Our product portfolio currently includes endpoint protection platforms (EPP), endpoint detection and response (EDR), advanced cyber threat intelligence (CTI), network traffic analytics (NTA) and sandboxing, as well as training and knowledgetransfer services.

As of today, several highprofile government entities and enterprises in the region rely on Bitdefender GravityZone Enterprise Security to safeguard their most critical assets, whether it be in physical, virtualised or cloud environments.

With the recent integration of Network Traffic Security Analytics (NTSA) into the GravityZone platform, we can now offer Middle East enterprises a more efficient, @tahawultech

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comprehensive and layered approach to security – a capability that no other vendor in the industry currently offers.

From just a single console, security teams can now threat hunt and conduct investigations on both the endpoint and the network, saving them considerable time in the detection and remediation of threats.

ARE YOU LAUNCHING ANY NEW PRODUCTS OR SERVICES AT THIS YEAR’S GITEX? We aren’t specifically launching any new products or services, but through a mix of live demonstrations and hourly presentations at the stand at GITEX, we will highlight how Bitdefender Network Traffic

Security Analytics (NTSA) utilises network traffic to provide an effective threat and breachdetection solution, improving the security posture of IoT infrastructures.

We will also showcase how Bitdefender GravityZone can offer organisations an end-toend breach avoidance platform across endpoint, network and cloud, enabling them to protect both IoT and IT infrastructures by yielding complete visibility on security-relevant events across both environments, and providing the tools to respond proactively before an attacker can establish a presence in the infrastructure.

To further highlight the challenges around IoT security and advise Middle East organisations

on how best to secure their infrastructures, we will host a 25-minute presentation in the X-Labs area entitled, “Defending IIoT: From Stuxnet to Trisis – 10 years of industrial cyberattacks.”

Led by Bogdan Carlescu, cybersecurity evangelist at Bitdefender, the presentation will highlight the evolution of industrial attacks between the two milestones, Stuxnet and Trisis.

During the session, Bogdan will also lay out Bitdefender’s predictions for 2020.

WHAT ARE THE MOST EXCITING DEVELOPMENTS IN THE MIDDLE EAST’S TECHNOLOGY LANDSCAPE OVER THE LAST 12 MONTHS? This year has brought interesting

We are an engineering company at our core, with more than 50 percent of our work force in research and development, and we are a technology provider for more than 38 percent of the global security industry.”

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developments in terms of new emerging threats, significant “upgrades” to old threats, and a change in cybercriminal tactics when choosing targets and tools to increase revenue.

The number and complexity of reported vulnerabilities has increased, with security researchers disclosing not just vulnerabilities in software, but also in hardware.

– Ransomware is still a steady presence, with new families appearing, and varying ransom notes based on compromised endpoint or data.

– Cryptocurrency miners, considered an important threat in 2018, have been refined by threat actors and kept as serious threats that endanger infrastructure and pose serious security risks to organisations.

– Fileless malware, usually associated with advanced persistent threats and cyberespionage campaigns, has started being adopted en masse to deliver seemingly benign threats, such as cryptominers.

A RECENT STUDY BY IDC SHOWS THAT BETWEEN 2018 AND 2022, IT-RELATED SPENDING ON DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION WILL TOUCH $7.5 TRILLION. HOW WILL ORGANISATIONS ADAPT TO THESE CHANGES? Despite the promise of digital transformation to drive business initiatives, security concerns are a primary worry for the tech executives at the helm of these projects.

The digital transformation is altering security needs in some fundamental ways. It is expanding the attack surface, increasing the potential for organisational damage and, as a consequence, making it imperative for organisations to take a continuous improvement approach to security. Cybersecurity defenses and processes need to be continuously monitored and to evolve to adapt to the changing threat landscape. www.tahawultech.com

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