infamous platform with a majority of users praising the platform for its ease of use. Windows 8 will take this usability to a whole different level and we can already see a massive chunk of the market transitioning to devices built on this latest Microsoft platform. This is why our teams are also working on devising an option built on the latest Windows platform that will be offered to consumers at a competitive price,” he added.

In addition to the GenX range of tablets, MTC is also showcasing the latest GenX smartphones and digital video cameras at its stand at GITEX Technology Week. The company believes that high quality at lower costs is the secret behind their success as consumers want access to the latest technology platforms but don’t see the need to pay hefty prices for it.

MTC and GenX are also set to launch the ‘Android Box’, a device that when connected to an LCD TV allows users to convert these into fully functional Smart TVs.

Memory Technology Middle East (MTC), the regional distributor for brands such as GenX and Xtreme is working towards cashing in on the demand for handheld mobility devices such as smartphones and tablets in the region.

At GITEX Technology Week 2012, the company is showcasing its line up of latest tablet PCs that are targeted at the low to mid cost segment of the Middle East market. The tablets running on the Android 4.0 platform come in a variety of screen sizes and offer users access to connectivity on-the-go at competitive prices.

“We have been studying the market for quite some time now and have noticed a huge demand for mobility products and see GITEX as the right platform to throw the light on the innovations we bring to market. GenX offer consumers’ access to all the applications and necessary features that are packed into compact and extremely portable devices at half the price,” said Mohamed Rizwan Noor, VP of MTC.

The company is now working on creating a Windows 8 based tablet device to tap into the demand for much awaited Microsoft OS. “The thing about a giant like Microsoft is the familiarity that comes with their technology; Windows is an

MTC to cash in on the demand for IT mega trends

60 MinsShow dates: 14-18 October 2012, Dubai World Trade Centre | AT GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK | Exhibition hours: 11am -7pm

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Mohamed Rizwan Noor, VP of MTC

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Shifra Middle East, a regional valued added distributor, is aiming for a lion’s share of increased spending on network security in the Middle East, by enhancing its portfolio of security solutions that is being showcased at GITEX 2012.

Increased government investments on information and communication technologies

will spur the growth the network security sector in the Middle East, in addition to the consumerisation of the Bring-Your-Own-Device phenomenon which has seen growing adoption in the region. According to Frost & Sullivan, the Middle East network security market is expected to experience a healthy growth rate of over 18 per cent between 2012 and 2018, opening up huge opportunities for vendors to identify and tap.

Public and private sector companies are enhancing their security infrastructure as IT gains more critical significance in their business operations and desired growth. As IT applications within organisations grow in complexity and coverage, so does its security requirements. We expect deployment of integrated security solutions to have a massive growth in the next few years,” said Ahmad

Elkhatib, Managing Partner, Shifra.At GITEX 2012, Shifra has

announced its appointment as the MENA distributor of Centrify Corporation, a global provider of security and compliance solutions. Shifra is showcasing security products and solutions from Gemalto, and Stonesoft, in addition to archiving solutions from Proofprint.

Shifra is also displaying next-generation security software solutions from OpenTrust which are designed to help today’s enterprises meet complex security challenges and establish agile, end-to-end trusted IT infrastructures; and Bradford Networks, whose Adaptive Network Security platform fortifies networks and leverages features from existing infrastructure to dynamically enforce security policies across both wired and wireless networks.

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Ahmad Elkhatib, Managing Partner, Shifra

Shifra eyes regional network security market

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“Another mega trend emerging in the region is the demand for Smart TVs that bring users maximum connectivity to YouTube and other Internet entertainment that they can enjoy on a high quality screen that is much larger than the traditional connected devices such as notebooks or desktops,” he said.

Established in 1999 by MTC, GenX has witnessed significant growth in the markets of North Africa, Egypt, Levant and the GCC. GENX has established management hubs in Dubai, Jeddah, Riyadh and Yemen, and distributes its products and services to large enterprises, SMEs, service providers and consumers directly through its own sales force and indirectly through a network of channel partners. The company is also working on improving warehousing facilities in the UAE to guarantee better inventory stocking and supply to partners in and around the region.

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UAE SMB websites are ‘substandard’: report

Samsung showcases display solutions

Dubai-based online company Local Media, in partnership with vSplash, has presented the findings of the first quarterly audit of UAE SMBs at GITEX 2012.

The SMB DigitalScape audit covered more than 100,000 SMBs in the UAE and over 11,812 SMB websites. The report, which will be updated quarterly, describes the overall state of SMB websites in the UAE as ‘substandard’,

with websites not meeting even the most basic level of robustness.

According to the report, two-thirds of websites do not have a contact form or address on the homepage, more than 90 percent have no video content embedded, and 99.9 percent have no privacy policy.

Further results showed that more than 90 percent have no links to social media platforms, over 80 percent have no local address on the website and practically no websites are mobile ready or have a shopping cart.

It is estimated that 200,000 SMBs operate in the UAE, with more than 80 percent of private sector companies in the UAE in the small to medium class. The UAE Ministry of Economy reported that in 2011 60 percent of UAE GDP was generated by SMBs.

The report concluded that the state of UAE SMB websites is substandard, referring to the fact

that a preponderance of websites do not even meet a minimal level of robustness and do not follow accepted best practices, and that they do not provide users with a satisfying and supportive experience.

It also found that, in spite of the explosive growth in social and mobile platforms, most SMB websites are barely scratching the surface of these two important realms, and are hugely sub-optimised from an SEO standpoint, costing businesses critical organic search rankings.

According to Local Media, which offers online and directory listings and a one-stop shop for business search and media services, the indications for UAE SMBs are potentially serious, as website deficiencies take an economic toll on those companies.

“On the whole, SMBs in the UAE are simply not leveraging the web the way they should be. Given the web

deficiencies, a key question will be whether it is even worth ‘fixing’ a subpar website, or whether it makes more sense simply to create a new website. This question will need to be resolved by individual SMBs and their service providers,” said Andrew Thomas, Managing Director, Local Media.

“It is a critical question for Dubai and the wider UAE, which aims to develop a knowledge economy and is already successfully attracting new companies to the country and supporting local start-ups, especially across the many free zones. With online and social media growing strongly in the region, these SMBs risk falling behind their own customers,” he added.

SMB DigitalScape by vSplash is a powerful data collection and analysis engine that gauges the state of SMB digital media and commerce. Local Media is the exclusive distributor of SMB DigitalScape data in the UAE.

Publisher Dominic De Sousa, COO Nadeem Hood, Managing Director Richard Judd, Commercial Director Rajashree R Kumar, Group Editor Jeevan Thankappan Editors Pallavi Sharma, Ben Rossi Sub-editor Joe Lipscombe Circulation Manager Rajeesh M, Production Manager James Tharian, Design Director Ruth Sheehy, Senior Designers Analou Balbero, Froilan Cosgafa IV, Glenn Roxas, Digital Services Manager Tristan Troy Magma

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Samsung Electronics is this week showcasing its comprehensive range of display solutions aimed at various business verticals.

The company has introduced its transparent display (NL22B) , the 75” LED LFD (ME7DB) and the 3D video wall for the first time in the region.

Additionally, Samsung is showcasing its range of digital signage solutions (LFDs) and SMART TVs (Series 7 and Series 8) at its GITEX stand.

Samsung’s portfolio of display

solutions can be integrated in various business verticals such as education, government, hospitality, healthcare, aviation, retail, corporate and malls, the company said.

It provided examples, saying its NL22B transparent display and 75” LED LFD can be used in a retail environment to provide customers with an interactive experience, whilst the latter can also be used as an E-board in schools to enhance the learning process of students.

“Samsung’s display solutions offer our customers a unique, modern and dynamic mode of communicating with its audience,” said Madhav Narayan, Senior Regional Director, GCC, Enterprise Business, Samsung Electronics.

“At GITEX this year, we unveiled cutting edge products that can be easily integrated across various industries. Our innovative display solutions will enable businesses to introduce the next generation of interactive experience to

their customers.”Samsung Electronics is exhibiting at

stand 5 in Hall 6.

Andrew Thomas, MD, Local Media

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All systems go

Cloud, virtualisation and mobility are driving the latest boom in systems integration market and the UAE-based Intertec Systems is all set to ride the crest of this new wave. The company’s MD, Naresh Kothari spoke to us about the blueprint for growth.

The challenging economic climate has had an adverse impact on the SI market. How have you fared?

We have grown from 100 to 300 people within a span of four years. The business had been tight from 2008 to 2010, and it was veering towards negative growth, but last year we have achieved a 30 percent growth and this year looks promising as well. There are ups and downs because of the choppy market situation, but players who are focused on customers will have an opportunity to grow. The new trend that we have seen, at least in Dubai, is that there are lot of greenfield companies that have come up and we are seeing lot of investments being ploughed into the market here, and the UAE contributes 90 percent of our business.

We have offices in Bahrain, Oman and this year, we are opening up our office in Saudi. It is a very different market where the style of doing business is unique. Major bulk of our business in the kingdom will be done through our channel partners and our object is to provide the local support.

What is your focus as a SI? Are there any particular technologies that you focus on?Our focus is on system integration, which means quite a few things. There are people who call themselves SIs but in reality they only supply products. We don’t do that and our focus is delivering full steam projects. Our focus is on the customer, his business and the solution that is suited for his business.

If you are a SI, focusing on one particular technology doesn’t really work. We are partnering with 21 different vendors and when you are dealing with 21 different technologies you have to have skill sets internally to deliver the support, implementation, development, etc. Anything we want

to sell, we want to develop the internal delivery capabilities because the major focus is repeat sales as sustainance is the best way.

Second thing is, particularly in matured markets like the UAE and Bahrain, customers are looking at service level agreements, and as a company we have set ourselves 90 percent KPI and today we do around 93 percent on that. When you achieve that sort of level, you get your customer attention. Though there are issues of prices, and shrinking margins, It’s up to us how you can manage those margins.

Which are the major vendors you work with?We work with HP and Cisco on infrastructure side, where the focus is mostly on security, systems and storage. On the applications side, we work with Oracle and Microsoft. The future for SIs is managed services and that where we are moving to this year. We already have a managed services model wherein we have our engineers based on customer premises and a helpdesk based in our office but moving forward our plans are to set up a network operations centre.

If you are not into managed services, you are not going to be in business for long, especially with the advent of cloud. Every large vendor today has a cloud offering and what is going to be big is the private cloud. The infrastructure for cloud is already available and issue has been with applications, which have started coming in from last year. We will be focusing on building private clouds for the enterprises.

This year, we are going increase our on two areas – virtualisation and mobility. Today, ever customer is looking at mobile and applications have to be compatible. We will also focus on VDI, which has been gaining lot of traction in the region. The technology has come a long way, it is more mature now and the costs are down. Another trend that we see coming is the BYOD phenomenon,

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which may sometime in the region. However, you need to create an infrastructure that can support all these emerging technologies.

One of the earliest adopters of VDI has been the education sectors. Which other sectors are you targeting for this?Pretty much every vertical. VDI hasn’t been really successful before of the ROI issues. But you have to take a five year view, and then you can achieve 20-25 percent savings. We have realised that selling VDI as it is doesn’t really work; you have to build that as part of the infrastructure, which is cost effective.

You mentioned about skill sets before. Do you invest in training and certification?Yes we invest a lot in training and our average yearly budget is $100000 on training people. This is not just product training, as we spend on skill sets training. Then comes the certification training which is the only way we can meet service delivery commitments.

How big is your focus on services? What are the verticals you focus on?

As an SI, our focus is three areas – infrastructure, applications and services. Today, 60 percent of our business comes from infrastructure with the rest coming from software and services. In terms of verticals, 40 percent of our revenues come from corporate sector, 40 percent from government and the rest from the finance industry.

Do you follow industry best practices when it comes to project management? We have PMI certified project management, and we follow industry best practices and frameworks. Our success rate on project delivery is 90 percent.

What is your roadmap for this year?It is of course on new channels and areas of business. We are looking to improve our banking portfolio as well. Banks haven’t been spending on the levels they should be, especially on the risk side of the business and we expect that to happen this year.

Naresh Kothari, MD, Intertec Systems