ISSUE 193 // janUary 2013WWW.rESELLErME.COM
PUBLICATIONLICENSED BY IMPZ
vendor focusAvayalooks forward to a channel driven 2013 with its select regional partners
Trends and technologies to watch in the year ahead
reviews Product Acer Aspire M Touch – The fun of the future
Huawei launches new smartphones
s t o r a g e m a r k e t R i p e f o R R i c h p i c k i n g s
outlook 2013
© 2012 Avaya Inc. All rights reserved.
Video conferencing with anadded bonus. Simplicity.
Al Masa and Avaya now offer high-performance video conferencing that easily
connects across mobile devices, desktops and conference rooms. It’s never
been easier to keep your teams connected and your customers happy. To find
out how spontaneous video can be, please contact [email protected]
Connecting your business with video comes easy with Al Masa and Avaya.
cover feature
CONTENTSISSUE 193 // janUary 2013
HigHligHts
6 News We help you catch up on all the
major news and announcements in the regional channel community
aNalYsis
14 A new dawn December saw HP unveil its
biggest storage announcements in over a decade and, along with it, ‘Project Dawn’ – the code name of the ambitious channel strategy HP hopes will win it new business.
PartNer watcH
18 A different league The global technology distribution
giant Ingram Micro has taken a significant step forward into the value business with the acquisition of Aptec.
20 Leading the pack Within first five years of operation,
Redington Value has already made its mark in the regional value-added distribution landscape.
feature
40 The next frontier The burgeoning data storage
market is opening up long-term revenue opportunities for channel partners. What does it take to succeed in this mature market?
veNdor focus
54 The time is now
Avaya’s VP of Emerging Regions, Nidal Abou-Itaif looks forward to a channel driven 2013 and believes it is the perfect time for the company’s 25 carefully selected regional partners to push new technologies.
Year of change and transformation?
Hot Products
New Dell convertible Ultrabook
58
Linksys rolls out Wi-Fi solutions
59Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 3
© 2012 Dell Products. Dell, the logo, XPS, Latitude and Vostro are registered or unregistered trademarks of Dell Inc. in the United States and other countries. Ultrabook, Celeron, Celeron Inside, Core Inside, Intel, Intel Logo, Intel Atom, Intel Atom Inside, Intel Core, Intel Inside, Intel Inside Logo, Intel vPro, Itanium, Itanium Inside, Pentium, Pentium Inside, vPro Inside, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Other trademarks or trade names may be used in this document to refer to third-party products (such as operating systems and software) included with the products o� ered by Dell and the entities claiming the marks and names of those products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. Dell Corporation Ltd, Dell House, The Boulevard, Cain Road, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 1LF.
Being on the move doesn’t mean you have to be unproductive. With Dell mobility solutions, featuring a 3rd generation Intel® Core™ i7 processor, your team can do business wherever they are, safe in the knowledge that our laptops stay as securely connected outside of the o� ce as they do inside.
Solutions include:
• The new XPS™ 14 Ultrabook™. Inspired by Intel – designed to bring you an experience that's premium in every way
• The Vostro™ 3360 – cost-e� ective without compromising on high performance
• The Latitude™ E6430s – a high-performance business-class 14" notebook weighing just 1.75kg
See how Dell’s mobility solutions can benefi t your business at YourDellSolution.com/me/mobility
With Dell™ mobility solutions, every corner of the world becomes a secure extension of your o� ce.
Latitude E6430sVostro 3360XPS 14 Ultrabook. Inspired by Intel
Dell recommends Windows® 7 Professional.
19033_Dell Q3_mobility Campaign_270x207-ME-V01-NV.indd 1 06/09/2012 14:45
EDITORIAL
Harbinger of change
PublisherDominic De Sousa
Group COONadeem Hood
Managing DirectorRichard Judd
[email protected] +971 4 440 9126
EDiTOrial
Group EditorJeevan Thankappan
[email protected] +971 4 4409109
Contributing EditorsBen Rossi
Joe Lipscombe
aDvErTisinG
Commercial DirectorRajashree R Kumar
[email protected] +971 4 440 9131
Key account ManagerMerle Carrasco
[email protected] +971 4 440 9134
sales ManagerNasir Bazaz
[email protected] +971 4 440 9144
CirCulaTiOn
Database and Circulation ManagerRajeesh M
[email protected] +971 4 440 9147
PrODuCTiOn anD DEsiGn
Production ManagerJames P Tharian
[email protected] +971 4 440 9146
DesignerAnalou Balbero
[email protected] +971 4 440 9104
DiGiTalwww.resellerme.com
DiGiTal sErviCEs
Digital services ManagerTristan Troy P Maagma
Web DevelopersErik Briones
Jefferson de Joya
Photographer and social Media Co-ordinator
Jay Colina
[email protected]+971 4 440 9100
Published by
registered at iMPZ
PO Box 13700Dubai, UAE
Tel: +971 4 440 9100Fax: +971 4 447 2409
Printed byPrintwell Printing Press
© Copyright 2013 CPIAll 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.
E-mail:[email protected]
Facebook:www.facebook.com/
ResellerME
Twitter:@ResellerME
Talk to us:
The year gone by was one of change for the regional channel.
We witnessed business strategies evolving to keep pace with
the changing market realities and technology landscape. The
gloomy global economic climate and political unrest in some
of the countries in the region had a cascading effect, with the
channel struggling to do business on wafer-thin margins.
Now the question is what does 2013 hold?
We spoke to some of the key industry stakeholders to gauge
what trends will drive growth this year. Though the answers vary
depending on who you talk to, there are some commonalities. It
appears almost certain that the channel will shape up to a year
around mobility, BYOD, security and big data. Cloud computing is also
top of mind for many organisations.
The year ahead looks promising and what is for sure is that
we will continue to see a fundamental transformation in the whole
channel eco system with some of the new technology trends causing
a disruption of sorts in the business model for many. The role of
distributors may not change radically, but the way they do business
and meet the surging customer demands will definitely evolve. The
market research firm IDC predicts distributors will start to add value
upstream and downstream and seek to explore alternative streams
revenue to credit , logistics and financing. For the reseller community,
which actually owns and manages the end-user relationships, the
writing on the wall is clear; It’s time to move away from price-oriented,
box pushing models to more of a value-added proposition. The
margins lie in integrated solutions and services, especially in the
untapped SME segment, which accounts for lion’s share of the market
in this region. Services have long been the holy grail for the channel
partners and those who don’t invest to ramp up their capabilities in
this domain run the risk of going out of business this year. And finally,
channel enablement is more relevant than ever for vendors. There
has never been a more opportune time to re-think their channel
strategies and give the partners what they need to transition through
this time of painful metamorphosis.
Here is wishing you luck.
Jeevan ThankappanGroup Editor
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 5
Reseller ME B2B Security 270x207-E.indd 1 10/24/12 6:21 PM
Computerlinks partners with Sophos
riverbed Technology
announced that it has closed
its acquisition of OPnET
Technologies. The riverbed
Cascade business unit and
OPnET will be combined into
the new riverbed Performance
Management business unit and
will be led by General Manager
Paul Brady.
The OPNET acquisition
builds on Riverbed’s heritage
and experience in delivering
solutions that improve the
performance of technology
for business. OPNET has built
its success on application
performance management
(APM). By combining APM
with leading-edge network
performance management
(NPM), Riverbed is now able to
offer customers performance
management solutions that
diagnose both application and
infrastructure issues. Whether
the problem is server, application,
or network-based; in a virtual,
physical or cloud infrastructure;
or, using mobile or fixed
clients, Riverbed performance
management solutions will help
application and infrastructure
teams identify the problem and
deliver actionable insight for
solving the issue.
“Customer satisfaction,
employee productivity, business
agility, and the bottom line
all hinge on business-critical
applications working as
expected,” said Philippe Elie,
Director, Business Operations
EMEA at Riverbed. “The
application and the underlying
infrastructure on which it
runs are tightly coupled, but
previously were managed in
fragmented technology silos.
Through the OPNET acquisition,
Riverbed is the only company
that provides customers with
the solutions needed to manage
and optimise all aspects of
both application and network
performance in a single portfolio
of products, ensuring high
performance, very fast problem
resolution, and an enhanced
end-user experience.”
Riverbed completes OPNET acquisition
in line with its strategy to add more value
back to the channel and tap the sMB
market, the regional value-added distributor
Computerlinks has signed up sophos.
“We are very strong in the enterprise
space and over the last 12 months, we
have had a major push into the mid-market,
which we will continue to do this year as
well. Most of our vendors are asking us
to play in this market, which is looking for
end-to-end solutions and that’s exactly what
Sophos offers,” said Lee Reynolds, MD,
Computerlinks, MEA and APAC.
He added that in the Middle East,
Computerlinks’ focus is on bringing to the
market some of the smaller brands which
can offer more value to the customers and
margins to partners. “It is really important
that we offer more than top-tier brands to
help small and medium-sized resellers.
And we are still very much a VAD, which
means we will bring the same levels of
technical and commercial resources to the
mid-market. We are growing at a rate 25%
year-on-year and we have to find a strategy
to sustain that growth momentum. It doesn’t
mean that we are going to de-focus from the
enterprise market, but drive our growth into
the mid- market.”
Under the agreement, Computerlinks will
distribute the whole Sophops product range
in the Middle East. “We are a 100% channel
company and Computerlinks will distribute
the whole portfolio right from gateway to end-
point protection to mobile device management
solutions. There is a huge demand for security
solutions in the SMB market and our focus is to
make security easy and usable to address 99%
of their pain points,” said André Scheffknecht,
Vice President NEEMEA, Sophos.
Sophos now has two distributors in the
region, and Scheffknecht says Computerlinks
was chosen for its loyal and pro-active partner
base. “The value Computerlinks brings to
the table is their pro-active channel and our
strategy is to enable our partners to sell, install
and maintain our products. We segment our
channel partners into two categories- general
partners and solution partners, who need twice
the number of certification training as there is
a direct relationship between the education
levels of partners and brand reputations.
Computerlinks will play a big role in training
and educating our channel.”
hIghLIghTSNews
Lee reynolds, MD, Computerlinks, MEa and aPaC
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 7
Harman Middle East has expressed
confidence in achieving a 45 per cent
increase in sales during its participation at
this year’s edition of the Dubai shopping
Festival (DsF), the uaE’s largest annual
shopping event that will run until February
3, 2013. The forecast is attributed to
the increasing demand for consumer
electronics across the region in general
and the uaE in particular. The retail chain
is on track in achieving its target revenue
of $ 400 million for the Fiscal Year 2013.
Industry analysts have pointed out that one
important factor that will help drive retail growth
is the pick-up in tourists visiting the UAE—
bringing in an increased spending on consumer
electronic goods. In addition, product innovation
and competitive price cuts have also been
identified as key drivers for AV spending. During
DSF 2013, customers visiting ‘harman house’
stores will have the opportunity to redeem 10
Harman Middle East aims 45% sales jump during DSFto 40 per cent of the purchase value on any AV
product in the store while also receive gifts.
We are excited about our participation in
DSF 2013, which is being positioned as the
largest and best yet. Moreover, we are seeing
that the buying trend is still on the high and
this year we are offering some unbeatable
offers on products like flat screens and
Smart TVs, home theatre systems, docking
stations and headphones,” said Amit Malani,
President, Harman Middle East. “We are
currently witness to a positive change in the
consumer electronics segment and DSF 2013
will surely prove to be rewarding as well—with
consumers seeking products that showcase
quality products with better connectivity,
performance, speed and the convenience to
suit their lifestyles. During our participation at
DSF we are focusing on giving more value to
the customer for each purchase of our bundle
offers and promotions.” amit Malani, President, Harman Middle East
hIghLIghTSNews
8 Reseller Middle East january 2013
The iCT solutions value-added distributor
aptec, an ingram Micro company, has
launched netapp’s Expresspod sMB
virtualisation solution in the Middle East.
ExpressPod is netapp and Cisco’s new
prepackaged solution, which combines
computing, networking, storage, and
management products into a solution
architected for streamlined deployment.
ExpressPod integrates Cisco uCs C-series
servers, netapp Fas2220 or Fas2240
storage, and Cisco nexus 3048 switches
with infrastructure management to support
an open ecosystem of management and
hypervisor solutions.
Expresspod is a miniature version of
the successful Flexpod model. It is targeted
exclusively at mid-sized businesses that
are budget-conscious and have limited
IT resources. Flexpod celebrated its
second anniversary recently and has been
adopted by more than 1300 organisations
in 35 countries that have accelerated their
transition to the cloud using the product.
“After having a successful run globally,
with Flexpod being adopted by the enterprise
and mid-sized enterprise customers, now
NetApp and Cisco have launched Expresspod
to replicate the same success in the fast
growing MSB segment,” said Govind Haridas,
business unit manager, Security and Storage
at Aptec. ”It is a validated design and a
viable alternative for the customers who want
hIghLIghTSNews
Aptec Ingram Micro, NetApp launch pre-configured platform for SMBs
Kaspersky Lab launches affiliate programme in the Middle EastKaspersky lab has partnered
with affiliate network,
avangate, to offer the
Kaspersky affiliate Program to
partners in the Middle East.
Commenting on the launch,
Tarek Kuzbari, Managing
Director, Kaspersky Lab Middle
East and Turkey, said: “We
are proud and very excited to
announce the launch of a new
Affiliate Program. Introduced
worldwide, we are now
introducing this unique initiative
in the region in order to give
our many partners in the Middle
East an opportunity to boost
their business. In addition to the
significant commission rates, as
part of this programme, affiliates
will get access to localised
links and creative resources to
promote the latest products and
launches. Through this initiative
we hope to generate innovative
ways for partners to boost their
business while simultaneously
contributing to the growth
of Kaspersky’s leading edge
solutions in the region.”
According to the company,
commissions are based on
three affiliate levels – Standard,
Advanced and Premier Affiliates.
Partners begin the programme
as Standard Affiliates and as
they generate a higher value
of sales every month, partners
progress to a higher level of
affiliation and a higher rate of
commission.
With the Kaspersky Affiliate
Program, partners can successfully
increase their own Web traffic,
earn regular incentives and
bonuses, and enjoy special
promotions and discount coupons
in addition to gaining access to
creative resources completely free
of charge
The Kaspersky Affiliate
Program is aimed at driving
traffic to Kaspersky online stores
with the Affiliate receiving
commissions based on sales
results. Kaspersky’s generous
commission scheme is designed
to reward successful affiliates –
by providing higher commission
rates for affiliates that make
higher sales.
Govind Haridas, business unit manager, Security & Storage at aptec Ingram Micro
Tarek Kuzbari, Managing Director, Kaspersky Lab Middle East and Turkey
to enjoy enterprise-class performance with
limited IT budgets.”
Critical to the success of FlexPod and
ExpressPod customers are the more than 660
certified FlexPod Partners, including 33 Premium
Partners in EMEA and the Americas, who help
deploy the infrastructure. In addition to a wide
range of sales, and marketing resources designed
to help partners grow their businesses and
accelerate customer success, Cisco and NetApp
offer a Plan, Design and Implement Help Desk
that allows partners to collaborate with NetApp
and Cisco on solving real-world implementation
challenges. Clear deployment guidance and
training, coupled with support, marketing, and
demand-generation resources from Cisco and
NetApp, provide the tools to help partners build
and extend infrastructure solution practices to IT
departments globally.
Aptec is the only VAD in the region that
distributes NetApp, Cisco and VMware. The
company has launched extensive marketing
campaigns to promote Expresspod and is
also driving initiatives to enable channel
partners to support the various customer
engagements, according to Haridas.
ExpressPod implementation guides are
already available to partners beginning
December 2012 through VADs.
10 Reseller Middle East january 2013
Canon hosts partner conference
The solutions distributor avnet Technology
solutions has joined the nviDia Tesla
Preferred Partner programme to help high-
performance computing (HPC) customers
drive business growth in expanding
industries, including life sciences, finance,
oil and gas and manufacturing.
The Tesla Preferred Partner programme is
a sales, marketing and business development
programme for VARs, OEMs and ODMs that
are driving the growth of the HPC market. As a
programme member, Avnet will provide partners
and resellers across EMEA with advanced
server and workstation platforms with the new
NVIDIA Tesla K20 family of GPU accelerators,
which are based on the next-generation NVIDIA
Kepler GPU computing architecture.
Rajesh Suman, Vice President of Computer
Components, Avnet Technology Solutions, EMEA,
commented, “Joining the NVIDIA partner programme
Avnet collaborates with NVIDIA
Building on its “closer to customers”
strategy, Canon Middle East has hosted its
2012 Partner Conference in Morocco under
the theme: “Build the Future”.
The conference, which brought together
over 100 partners from 45 countries in the
Middle East, North, West and East Africa region
aimed to shed light on some of the new Canon
innovations which will pave the way for the
future of imaging technologies and connectivity.
Over the years, Canon has seen its Middle
East business catching up rapidly with global
trends. While the global cloud computing
market is anticipated to increase to $241 billion
by 2020, the Middle East and Africa region
is expected to have the highest cloud traffic
growth rate – estimated at 79% Compound
Annual Growth Rate (CAGR), followed by Latin
America (66% CAGR), and Central and Eastern
Europe (55% CAGR) – by 2016. Similarly, the
number of Web-connected devices is expected
to grow more than fourfold by 2020, reaching a
watershed of 50 billion devices globally.
In light of these industry trends, Canon
Middle East and its partners discussed a
new phase of continuous innovation within
hIghLIghTSNews
the imaging industry, which constitutes the
company’s vision for the future and the direction
in which the industry at large is heading.
Anurag Agrawal, Managing Director,
Canon Middle East, said: “In an ever changing
environment, new technologies are constantly
being integrated in everyday life. From input
through cameras, to output through printers,
Canon’s integrated cross media imaging
solutions enable connectivity across different
technology components including Canon’s
own devices as well as other devices such
as smart phones and tablets, Wi-Fi and cloud
enabled devices.
“From consumers to businesses, we
aim to be everyone’s imaging partner. We
foresee that the world is moving towards more
integration and Canon’s unique strength in
this respect lies in the wide range of products
and services which provide an end to end
solution to consumers and businesses.
Catering to integration is thus allowing us to
become closer to our customers and making
technology more usable, thus enabling
everyday life.”
expands our ability to provide resellers and partners
with solutions that improve application performance
up to several orders of magnitude faster, addressing
some of the most challenging computational tasks
such as processing financial trades, gridding oil in
the sea and evaluating solar systems”.
“Our channel partners can also
leverage our extensive portfolio of
complementary off-the-shelf components,
distribution and integration services to
improve time to market adding significant
value to their business,” Suman added.
Server shipments grew in Q3, Gartner says
Meta Byte emphasises on data governance
The regional solution provider
Meta Byte Technologies has
unveiled its new approach to
help enterprises in the region to
implement Data loss Prevention
(DlP) projects in a much more
meaningful, informed and
successful manner.
Salil Dighe, Managing
Director at Meta Byte
Technologies explains, “Meta
Byte’s approach is like a first
step for enterprises who
aspire to have the ultimate
data protection. Meta Byte’s
approach allows organisations
total visibility and control over
their data, ensuring that only
the right users have access
to the right data at all times.
Enterprises that have tried
to limit access to only the
right people have found that
there is a lengthy and manual
communications process
between IT and data business
owners when it comes to
answering the question, who
should have access to this
data? We give enterprises the
visibility and the intelligence to
eradicate the problem with a
fraction of the resources they
devote to it today.”
Salil adds, “Our unique
approach to protect data revolves
around the concept of data
governance that defines the
framework of people, processes,
permissions, privileges or access
rights to ensure proper data
use. Enterprises in the region
need to have a strategy and
processes in place to govern
appropriate and authorised use of
business data, thereby significantly
lowering the risk of data misuse.”
in the third quarter of 2012 worldwide
server shipments grew 3.6 % year-on-year,
while revenue decreased 2.8 from the third
quarter of 2011, according to Gartner.
“The third quarter of 2012 again produced
shipment growth on a worldwide level, but
server revenue was weak due to ongoing
economic weakness and market segment
differences,” said Jeffrey Hewitt, research vice
president at Gartner. “Only the North America
and Asia/Pacific regions managed any revenue
growth, and even those were essentially flat
year to year, with North America showing a 1.1
% increase and Asia/Pacific a 0.7 % increase.
The picture in terms of shipments was slightly
more positive with North America, Latin
America and Asia/Pacific all growing, but both
EMEA and Japan continue to struggle and
hIghLIghTSNews
In Europe, the Middle East and Africa
(EMEA), server shipments totaled almost
590,000 units in the third quarter of 2012,
down 2.8 % from the same period of 2011 (see
Table 3). Server revenue totaled $3 billion, a
decline of 9 % year on year (see Table 4).
“Against a backdrop of continued
economic and business challenges, EMEA
remains the weak spot for global server
sales,” said Adrian O’Connell, research
director at Gartner. “Each of the three EMEA
sub regions saw revenue contract: Western
Europe by 7.6 %, Eastern Europe by 11.8 %,
and the Middle East and Africa by 14.0 %.
We’re not seeing signs of demand weakening
significantly, but EMEA continues to present
a very challenging environment for server
vendors to operate in.”
both saw shipments contract, compared to the
same period last year.”
“x86 server shipments grew 4.3 % in the
third quarter of 2012, and revenue increased
4 % from the third quarter of 2011. RISC/
Itanium Unix servers continued to fall globally
for the period – a 31.1 % decline in shipments
and a decrease of 16.4 % in revenue
compared to the same quarter last year.
The ‘other’ CPU category, which is primarily
mainframes, showed a decline of 17 % in
terms of revenue,” Hewitt said.
In terms of server form factors, x86
blade servers declined 7.1 % in shipments but
increased 2.3 % in revenue for the quarter.
The x86 rack-optimized form factor declined
0.2 % in shipments and decreased 0.3 % in
revenue for the third quarter of 2012.
Salil Dighe, Managing Director at Meta Byte
Greg Clark, chief executive officer at Blue Coat
Blue Coat snaps up Crossbeam
hIghLIghTSNews
Blue Coat’s leading Unified Security solution,
the X-Series is an ideal control point in the
network for managing applications that
secure both inbound and outbound traffic
from all users in any location.
“Blue Coat and Crossbeam are natural
partners. The combination of Blue Coat’s Web
security solutions and Crossbeam’s scalable
X-Series platform is an exciting proposition
for us,” said Matthew Gyde, Global General
Manager of Security at Dimension Data. “We’re
confident that this union will appeal to our
clients that are looking to innovate securely and
cost effectively.”
Together, Blue Coat and Crossbeam will
continue to embrace an open ecosystem
and support best-of-breed ISV applications
that allow customers to cost effectively
deploy the security solutions that best fit
their needs.
Blue Coat systems has entered into an
agreement to acquire the network security
vendor Crossbeam systems. By acquiring
Crossbeam, Blue Coat says it is laying
the foundation for a broader strategy to
transform the way businesses secure and
optimise their networks.
“Our service provider and enterprise
customers are excited we are bringing
together two complementary technologies,”
said Greg Clark, Chief Executive Officer
at Blue Coat Systems. “With Crossbeam,
Blue Coat gains a best-in-class support
infrastructure and a high performing platform
that scales to meet the needs of even the
most complex enterprise IT environments.”
The Crossbeam X-Series
portfolio provides the platform that allows
businesses to consolidate their security and
networking infrastructures. Combined with
December saw HP unveil its biggest storage announcements in over a decade and, along with it, ‘Project Dawn’ – the code name of the ambitious channel strategy HP hopes will win it new business.
ANALYSISHP
it is no secret that it has been
another challenging 12 months for
HP, a true veteran of the iT industry.
Meg Whitman became the
fourth CEO of HP in just seven years when
she took on the role in September 2011, and it
has been by no means a smooth ride for her
as profits have continued to dip.
“It has been an incredible year for this
company,” Whitman said as she took the stage
at the HP Discover conference in Frankfurt.
“There have been a lot of challenges but
there have also been a lot of victories.”
“Despite what you may have heard,
innovation is alive and well at HP. Our culture
of great engineering and innovation is a
tremendous asset and it’s not that we don’t
have enough innovation at HP, it’s that we
need to work harder on commercialising that
innovation and getting those ideas to market
faster. That’s one of the things we’re focusing
on in the next 12 months.”
Meg Whitman, CEO, HP
14 Reseller Middle East november 2012
That innovation was evident as HP chose the
conference to unveil the most significant updates
to its storage portfolio in over 10 years, which it
claimed will lead a revolution in data storage.
It attributed this revolution to the use
of a modern single storage architecture to
provide ‘polymorphic simplicity’, which is a
new concept that enables a single-system
architecture to exist in several forms whilst
retaining common data services for block,
object and file applications.
The first announcement centred on the
latest result of HP’s acquisition of 3PAR. The
new HP 3PAR StoreServ 7000 range was
billed as the industry’s only midrange quad-
controller platform offering tier one storage
availability and quality-of-service features at
an easy entry price point for organisations.
The second portfolio expansion to be
revealed was HP StoreOnce 2000 and
4000 Backup with support for HP StoreOnce
Catalyst software.
These new models provide efficient data
movement and high-performance deduplication
to reduce data protection costs in remote sites
and data centres, and perform backup operations
up to three times faster at a 35 percent lower cost
than the closest competitive system, HP said.
The final product to be unveiled was HP
StoreAll Storage, a highly scalable platform
for object and file data access, providing a
simplified environment for big data retention
and cloud storage that reduces the need for
additional administrators or hardware.
vital strategy
However, it is the channel that HP is relying on
as it sends these products to market in the hope
of resurging the company to former glories.
As a result, HP has spent the last few months
investing extensive time on ‘Project Dawn’, the
code name for its vital channel strategy.
This strategy has involved the rigorous
training of HP’s 800 resellers, which make up
the biggest channel of any IT vendor in EMEA,
to convert them from EVA to 3PAR and the
new midrange platforms.
“We’ve invested all the time up front in
getting them trained, enabled and ready to
go, and now we’ll try to get all of those guys
selling 3PAR as quickly as possible,” said
Chris Johnson, EMEA VP, HP Storage.
“The reaction is superb – they’re super
excited. This is something that is pretty
disruptive for them to sell and get behind.
We’re going to be very competitive in the
midmarket. We’ve got the opportunity to
refresh both our own and our competitors’
base, and win on the new business.”
HP also hopes the new range will help
it take on the high end market, which is
currently dominated by EMC.
“If you imagine that data is growing 50
percent per year, for a lot of the customers
that have traditionally bought high end
storage, it is becoming absolutely paralysingly
expensive for them to do that,” Johnson said.
“So we see a lot of the big banks, telcos,
retailers and manufacturers – all of the high end
customers – starting to look at tier II storage and
how they can get some of the applications of
tier I to manage on tier II. 3PAR is perfect for that
environment, so you’ll start to see us positioning
midrange storage for the big enterprise
customers. This is why we are super excited – it
is game changing in the industry.” //
a New dawN
Rich pickings in 2013 for those who prize value over price, predicts Sushma Kajaria, Channel Manager, Trend Micro
forecast for tHe cHaNNel laNdscaPe
OpINIONTrend Micro
Well, it’s that time of the year
again: time to engage in some
amateur crystal ball gazing to
pick out the channel trends of the
next 12 months. in all honesty, i think 2012
went better than any of us could have
hoped, given the continued macro-
economic slump throughout Europe.
Considering the less-than-glorious forecast
for the coming year many will fear the
worst, but there is definitely success to be
had as long as channel players don’t get
sucked into a price war.
According to analyst Canalys, UK
distributors grew their business by a
negligible amount in 2012, vendors did a bit
better, while resellers topped the lot with
around 10 percent growth. Vendors could
have done better but as competition grew for
the best resellers many were caught giving
away margins to offer more attractive deals.
That kind of short-term strategy is simply not
sustainable for any length of time especially
if the economy gradually recovers, and could
well lead to a few casualties next year.
There has definitely been more stability
in the reseller world than in vendor sphere
or in distributor land, which has helped their
success in 2012. When it comes to generating
sustainable success going forward however,
those that follow the path of value rather
than price and look to offer managed service
packages or bundled solutions rather than
cheap point offerings will prosper.
This has already been happening to an
extent in 2012, for example in the sphere of
virtualisation security. It’s been one of the
key growth areas for Trend Micro while more
traditional segments such as AV have barely
increased at all. We’ve seen huge increase
in project-based virtualisation, and there is
optimism that VDI roll-outs, especially among
government customers, are going to be in
huge demand next year.
Virtualisation is one of those areas
where resellers can really provide that
value-add, that expertise and know-how
to offer customers a holistic solution to a
business problem. It’s good for them, for the
vendors and the channel as a whole if we
move towards these kinds of deals and away
from the high volume, low value contracts
which can only end in a destructive race to
the bottom. Another benefit of virtualisation
for the channel in this time of economic cut
backs is that it perfectly fits the CIO agenda of
consolidating and cutting infrastructure costs.
Looking ahead, advanced persistent
threat technology is another area where
resellers and vendors have a great
opportunity to work together to respond
to huge customer demand for a solution to
their security problems. Again, we’ve seen
the larger customers, including public sector
bodies and some big name banks looking at
this area in 2012 and we’re likely to see more
next year, with the mid-sized market following
suit as market awareness grows.
Mobile and consumerisation is another
area where the channel can tap a growing
industry trend to provide solutions to business
problems. With BYOD snowballing in 2012
and set to continue next year there’s an
opportunity for resellers to use their expertise
to knit together different but complementary
technologies into effective mobile device
management/security solutions. Mobile
products from Good Technology and Trend
Micro fit together well, for example, but are
sometimes thought of as non-complementary –
it’s the resellers’ value-add that will bring such
offerings together in a compelling solution.
This year also saw a fair amount of
consolidation in the distributor world, and
given these things tend to run in cycles,
2013 could well see more of the same but
in the reseller space. SecData has already
acquired Quadrant, so expect more deals
of this nature. However, if this does set off
a domino-like acquisition spree it is likely to
lead to a return, in the short term at least, to
more low margin deals as the acquiring firms
try to generate RoI from their purchases. Let’s
hope for the channel’s sake that this doesn’t
become the norm again. //
Sushma Kajaria, Channel Manager, Trend Micro
“Virtualisation is one of those areas where resellers can really provide that value-add, that expertise and know-how to offer customers a holistic solution to a business problem.”
16 Reseller Middle East january 2013
pARTNER wATChAptec-an Ingram Micro Company
Dr ali Bagdhadi, VP and CEO of aptec- an Ingram Micro Company
The global technology distribution giant Ingram Micro has taken a significant step forward into the value business with the acquisition of Aptec. The combined company will now benefit from an expanded geographical footprint and customer base. Dr Ali Bagdhadi, VP and CEO of Aptec-an Ingram Micro Company, talks about the plans and strategy to address the rapidly growing market.
a differeNt league What does this merger really
mean to both ingram and aptec?
Ingram Micro is keen to find
new ways to increase the value
to shareholders, and enter high growth,
high profit areas. They have embarked
on two directions in addition to broadline
distributions- one is value-added distribution
and services and the other one is telecom.
So they have acquired Brightpoint to offer
device lifecycle and solutions for the mobile
industry. Similarly, the Aptec acquisition gives
them two things- they get a foot in the VAD
business services, both in terms of vendor
relations and expertise, which they don’t have
in abundance. In addition to that, we also
bring to the table a geography they were not
present in, and the whole Middle East and
18 Reseller Middle East january 2013
I just came back from a board meeting at
Ingram’s HQ and they believe in the ideas we
have discussed around value and services.
What are the advanced technologies on your
radar? any plans to expand the portfolio?
Cloud is going to be really big for us. I
don’t think any other distributor globally has
invested more than Ingram in cloud. We have
five different solutions areas right now, and
we are looking to strengthen our offerings
in the areas of security, storage, enterprise
computing and business intelligence with
vendors. In addition, we are looking at
two other solutions areas that Ingram has
created – one is point of sales and warehouse
management systems for retail and the other is
the graphic design solutions area. We do have
a wish-list of vendors that we want to bring in
but we will not incorporate any broadline or
consumer types of vendors in our portfolio.
What will be the impact of the cloud model
on the traditional distribution model?
If you look at cloud, public cloud in particular,
there are types of offerings – platform-as-a
service, infrastructure-as-a-service and
software-as-a-service, which accounts for
50% of the market. We are committed to
both SaaS and IaaS. But what is it really
going to change? Some of the smaller start-
ups and SMBs might opt for an off-premise
model. But on the enterprise level, we
see a hybrid model emerging and we are
providing solutions to enable this model.
We are going to be a cloud aggregator and
we don’t see any change in our business
model. What is going to change is the role
of distributors; the industry is moving more
towards services and consulting rather than
just supplying boxes. //
Africa, and Turkey region is one of the fastest
growing markets in the world today.
Will ingram bring into this region the same
level of infrastructure it has elsewhere?
Ingram is very committed to this region and
they have already invested significantly in
working capital and so forth. We are looking
for other things as well such as opening
up in new countries, investing in new
infrastructure services and offering financial
services to our partners.
It’s a phased approach and today we are
present in 73 countries within this massive
region. Because of the Brightpoint acquisition,
we will establish Aptec in South Africa in the
first quarter and also set up a new office in
Kenya to address the east African market. In
Turkey, we are moving to larger premises,
hiring more resources, and in Egypt we are
taking a new office and warehouse.
What are the implications of this merger on
your partners in terms of credit, choice of
suppliers, etc?
To start with, no one should see any
change in terms of credit, relationships
and suppliers. Instead, they will see more
offerings from us and we’re expanding
training centres, enhancing our logistics
services by looking at Ingram’s best
practices, and working on a cloud
aggregation platform. Ingram has invested
in three data centres, and we are offering
our infrastructure as a service to partners.
We will develop the market for software
and infrastructure as a service, and offer
business consulting training programmes for
our partners to adopt and make money out
of this new cloud model.
now, as part of a massive us company,
are there many processes that you need to
comply with?
If you look at Aptec’s history, we’re part
of a Nasdaq listed company and we have
always been very strict on compliance.
All of our vendors are US-based and
our company culture doesn’t believe in
anything that deviates from compliance.
In fact, it was one of the biggest reasons
why Ingram felt comfortable in entering
into this merger. There aren’t many other
companies in the region that adhere to
compliance like us.
vendor partner programmes can often get
very difficult to navigate and distributors
have to take the lead in educating the
channel. What are your initiatives to train
and certify the partners?
When you are a broadline distributor, you are
focused on fulfillment. But when you are a
VAD the role changes because you have to
do the right intelligence gathering, and recruit
the right partners and enable them through
training and certification. This is why we are
expanding our training centres, not just in the
UAE, but in Saudi, Oman, Egypt and Pakistan
as well. This enablement programme is what
makes the partner capable of delivering and
we will continue to handhold them through
our ATS division.
How many of these resellers are looking at
the services opportunity?
Many of the big resellers have already
managed cash in on this opportunity and
we are enabling and encouraging others,
especially the SMB resellers, to tap the
services potential.
How does ingram plan to drive the value
business? Would it be a hybrid model to has
done with its azalan division?
On the global, there are initiatives within
Ingram to drive the value business, which can
be done through solutions. We are exploring
options to see how best to grow the value
business within Ingram and I believe you have
to differentiate value from broadline from a
branding point of view and the kind of skill sets
you need for value business is very different.
“Many of the big resellers have already managed cash in on this opportunity and we are enabling and encouraging others, especially the SMB resellers, to tap the services potential.”
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 19
pARTNER wATChRedington Value
B ramkumar, VP of Value Business at redington Gulf
Within first five years of operation, Redington Value has already made its mark in the regional value-added distribution landscape. B Ramkumar, VP of Value Business at Redington Gulf, is now eyeing the top slot with a strategy backed by its geographical footprint and strong network of partners.
leadiNg tHe Pack so how was 2012 for you?
We are still in an evolutionary
phase where we are acquiring
new relationships and what we
have been trying to establish since inception
has now become very mainstream. From
an industry point of view, 2012 may not
have been the best year but for us, it was
one of the best years because we have
achieved more than 80% penetration into
the markets where we serve. Also, we are
probably the only distributor, which has the
best positioning in Saudi and the English-
speaking Africa.
Do you see this increasing trend of
broadline disties getting into value business
is really working out, given the fact that
dynamics are completely different?
I think it’s working out beautifully. In the
past there were questions about whether a
broadline distributor can really be a VAD and
how effective it can be. In my experience
in building this business, this model can
work as long as you manage the business
separately. Being a VAD within a broadline
distributor is a sweet spot because it gives
you access to the best of logistics capabilities
and infrastructure in every location. For
example, we have 32 people in Saudi
alone, spread across three locations and we
have a huge presence across the Middle
East and Africa. And if I compare myself
with a pure-play VAD, there is no way they
can deploy this kind of infrastructure and
manage the overheads. Except for sharing
logistics, warehouses and finances, we are a
completely independent entity and we sit in
separate offices with dedicated marketing,
pre-sales and back-office resources. We have
built everything from scratch to emerge as
one of the top two VADs in the region, and
this has happened only because we operate
under the Redington brand. If we started
as a stand-alone entity, we wouldn’t have
been able to scale and one of the reasons
why vendors choose Redington is our reach,
diverse channel and the ability to execute
their channel programmes in-country.
20 Reseller Middle East january 2013
already account for 30-40% of their bottom
line but the real value-added reseller channel
is missing out on the services opportunity
because they are not willing to invest.
Do you think the cloud computing paradigm
will have an adverse impact on distribution
of infrastructure products?
I believe cloud is still hyped up and no one
is really making money out of it. The real
opportunity is in the private cloud. I can’t
think of any distributor globally, which has
an established go-to-market strategy to
address this paradigm or know how to
monetise cloud. However, we are exploring
opportunities within the infrastructure-as-a-
service domain.
You have won a number of awards this year
including our reseller Hot 50…
We were recognised as the best distributor
by four different vendors across the Middle
East and Africa. This includes Trend Micro,
Dell SonicWall, Red Hat and Avaya. We
got the Reseller Hot 50 for best pre-sales
and I thought this was a nice recognition
as it is an unsung community and no one
gives them credit for the value they bring
to table. What is really special about these
awards is that it’s not about sales figures
but about the value we offer by taking
these brands into difficult markets and
make it work. Our real USP is our proximity
to channel and I believe we are breaking
away from the pack in the value-added
distribution game. //
How do define value-added distribution,
as it often means different things to
different people?
Two to three years back, the basic pre-
qualification that you required in order to
become VAD was resources, pre- and post-
sales capabilities. However, in the current
context it means two fundamental things
– are we able to build a relevant channel for
our vendors? Can we provide an end-to-end
portfolio for our channel partners and enable
them to win business? To get this right, you
have to do a lot of work in the back-end;
you have to have highly skilled and certified
resources, a robust marketing engine and
evangelise technology.
To give you an example, in the first 6
months of this fiscal year, we have done
around 50 unique events for our vendors.
For mainstream vendors such as EMC
and Cisco, it’s about their proposition and
product bundles. But for lot of other new
vendors that we have brought to the market,
it’s all about educating the channel about
their technologies.
Do you have any plans to expand the
portfolio?
We have five focused business units. One
is dedicated to Cisco and EMC, and the
other for HP enterprise group. Then we
have software and security, convergence
and infrastructure, and servers and storage.
We have recently signed up five or six new
vendors and by the end of this fiscal, it should
be around 30 vendors.
are you looking at vendors who can
complement your existing portfolio?
Largely complementary. However, the
beauty of our model is that we can sign up
competing vendors as well. For example,
we might be working with particular vendor
in Saudi and the competitor in Africa. As
a VAD, it’s our responsibility to provide a
certain amount of choice and options to
our partners and it’s highly unlikely that we
will have exclusive contracts. We have very
mature systems and management practices
in terms of how we handle competing
vendors internally to ensure there is no
conflict of interest.
Within your portfolio, which are the faster
growing technologies in terms of demand?
I would say storage and security. The recent
breaches in Saudi have opened up new
opportunities for the security business. If you
look at virtualisation and mobility, the hottest
technology trends today, people have paid
no attention to security in these areas. We
expect regional enterprises to make huge
investments in security in the coming years to
address the threats.
Do you up-skill your partners and encourage
them to specialise?
We do that for a living. A major part of our
compensation and rebates with vendors is
directly linked to how we are able to skill,
certify and bring the channel forward. To sell
a product to a non-certified partner is not a
viable option, so by default we drive channel
enablement through training and certification.
Sales enablement is easy but technical
enablement is an on-going process.
services offer a hugely untapped
opportunity for partners. How do you enable
them to transition towards it?
To be honest, that’s an area where there
is a lot of work needs to be done, as a
vast majority of resellers are not able to
understand the potential or have limitations
in terms of investing in services capabilities.
For the large and mid-tier partners, services
For the large and mid-tier partners, services already account for 30-40% of their bottom line but the real value-added reseller channel is missing out on the services opportunity because they are not willing to invest.
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 21
manageability
without thecomplexity.
This communication has been created for you by a company reselling Dell products.
© 2012 Dell Products. Dell, the Dell logo and Latitude are registered or unregistered trade marks of Dell Inc. in the United States and other countries. Intel, the Intel Logo, Intel Inside, Intel Core, and Core Inside are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries. Windows and the Windows logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks or trade names may be used in this document to refer to third-party products (such as operating systems and software) included with the products o�ered by Dell and the entities claiming the marks and names of those products. Dell disclaims proprietary interest in the marks and names of others. [Dell Corporation Ltd, Dell House, The Boulevard, Cain Road, Bracknell, Berkshire, RG12 1LF.
Mindware FZ LLC I Tecom – Cayan Business Center I Dubai, UAEP.O. Box: 55609 I T.: 04 450 0600 I E: [email protected] I W: www.mindware.ae
Presenting the new generation of Dell Latitude™and OptiPlex™ business-class solutions.Latitude laptops and OptiPlex desktops enable new levels of control and seamless data protection, no matter how big your team becomes.
• 3rd generation Intel® Core™ processors and e�cient manageability with Intel® vPro™ technology
• Dell’s unique extensions for remote out-of-band BIOS or battery management
• Effective and efficient IT management with Dell KACE™
• Long, stable lifecycles and managed transition periods for effective planning
• Safeguard data and mett compliance regulations with Trusted Platform Module (TPM), Dell Data Protection | Encryption and encrypted hard drive options
• Space-saving 9010 All-in-One desktop includes integrated power
supply, VESA mounting and wireless keyboard/mouse options
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
lati_opti_20.7x27cm.pdf 1 12/26/12 3:57 PM
The inaugural reseller Hot 50 awards were presented at a glittering ceremony held at the H Hotel in Dubai, which rallied together all the key stakeholders from the channel universe. These companies, including vendors, distributors, sis, resellers and retailers, have worked effectively to create value for their customers and profit for themselves and their partners. We turned the magnifying glass on these stellar performers from vendor and channel communities and winners were picked by our editorial team.
HoNouriNg cHaNNel suPerstars
Brocade - Best Storage networking Vendor Imation - Best SMB Product Vendor
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 23
redington Value - Best Presales Support
EMPa - Best after-sales Support
Mitsumi - Best Emerging Distributor
Optimus - Best Partner Training Initiatives
jacky’s Electornics - Best Specialist retailer
Comguard - Best Software Distributor
Unatrac - Best Demand Generation Initiatives
FVC - Best Enterprise Hardware Distributor
Key Information Technology - Best reseller Performance Initiative
Westcon - Best Product Leadership
asbis Middle East - Best Consumer Hardware Distributor
Mindware - Best Strategic Partner Engagements
STME - Best Storage Integrator
Trigon - Best retail Distributor
Logicom - Best Convergence Distributor
aptec - Best Logistic Services
24 Reseller Middle East january 2013
HelpaG - Best Security Solutions Provider
VIP Computers - Best Consumer Electronics Distributor
Emitac Distribution - Best Channel Marketing Initiative
BDL - Best Volume Distributor
almoayyed Computers - Best Infrastructure Services
Golden Systems Middle East - Best Brand Promotion Initiative
COMPUTErLInKS - Best IT Solutions Distributor
Promate - Best Lifestyle Technology Vendor
nanjgel Solutions - Best Security Integrator
Prologix - Best Infrastructure Distributor
almasa - Best Channel Enablement
Touchmate- Best Home-grown Brand
Emitac Enterprise Solutions - Best Project Management
FDC - Best Channel Management
Metra - Best Systems Distributor
HP networking - Best Partner Education Initiatives
Goodram Middle East - Best Memory Vendor
Bitdefender - Best Mobile Security Vendor
ESET - Best Channel Growth Initatives
HP PPSG - Best Product Innovation
Kaspersky - Best Internet Security Vendor
Lexmark - Best Print Services Vendor
Fluke networks - Best Test & Measurement Vendor
Dell - Best Data Centre Solutions Vendor
Targus - Best accessories Vendor
D-Link - Best Green Technologies Vendor
Fortinet - Best Enterprise Security Vendor
avaya - Best UC and Collaboration Vendor
Western Digital - Best Consumer Storage Vendor
ManageEngine - Best network Management Vendor
Cisco / Linksys - Best Wireless Vendor
Iomega - Best network Storage Vendor
26 Reseller Middle East january 2013
AUTHORIZED DISTRIBUTORS*
* Please check our website of respective distributors coverage of countries and channels in the region.
Tel: + 971 43552270 Email: [email protected]: + 962 65626440 Email: [email protected]: + 254 204442241 Email: [email protected]: + 971 048132400 Email: [email protected]: + 966 920000089 Email: [email protected]
Al Shadawi TradingDespec Levant
Despec East AfricaITE DistributionJarir Bookstore
Email: info@redington gulf.com
Tel: + 971 43734712 Email: [email protected]: + 973 17736363 Email: [email protected]: + 201 001562258 Email: [email protected]: + 254 738999344
Lifestyle by RedingtonNational trading house
Nordix EgyptRedington Africa
Designed for Life: Yours
Over 3000 businesses in the Middle East trust ManageEngine’s real-time IT Management products.
Network Monitoring | Servers & Application Monitoring | IT Help Desk
Windows Infrastructure Management | Log Analysis & Security | Desktop Management
MSP Solutions | Integrated IT Management
www.manageengine.com
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 29
Everything around big data and BYOD will be
topical and challenging for the regional CiOs. The
adoption of smart devices as business tools has
also clearly impacted PC sales and will continue to
do so for the foreseeable future. Extending video to the edge
will be a key growth market, mobility and BYOD management
will also be top of mind and compliance will start to be a
greater driver of market growth. We aim to have specific
offerings to allow us partners a meaningful dialogue with
clients around these key opportunities.
Access control and data management issues around BYOD and
capturing business advantage from big data will be central to the
leaders in this region. Though enterprise IT spending may not gain
much steam in 2013, in addressing the issues of BYOD and big data
plus impending compliance reviews we expect a shift in budget from
classic infrastructure upgrade to these newer areas.
We will also continue to see greater maturity and specialisation
in the channel to address the needs of the regions CIOs. Greater
partnerships or development in the mobile applications space will
definitely yield results. Innovative applications that pull through
mobile devices and lucrative services opportunities and look for
opportunities to upgrade consumer grade solutions to truly robust
and secure mobile applications.
Key to profit and growth this year will be to get focus into the
commercial sector and specifically the SMB segment and ensure
partners are fully equipped to capture this growth.
Riding the BYod wave
Steve Lockie, MD, Westcon ME Group
30 Reseller Middle East january 2013
2013 in this region will see a huge impetus on technology
infrastructure building. This was planned in 2012 but
political and economic delays led to a setback in the
number of projects that actually went into execution.
The Middle East and Africa is a highly diverse and heterogeneous
region. As such, the predictions on top trends for each of the
countries of the region will also vary. Whereas there is a lot of
sentiment of uncertainty in the economies of some countries across
the region, some countries are witnessing a huge inflow of investment
from these troubled geographies.
The Gulf countries are witnessing a huge real estate revival, which
is likely to spur technology infrastructure spending in these select
countries. This will mean that there will be a potential spend on IT
Infrastructure projects and projects involving IT applications roll outs.
E-Government projects seem to be pivoted to gain momentum as further
automation of citizen services and facilities will lead to greater use of
data collection, data mining and business intelligence technologies.
2013 will see a spurt in IT spending in banking, manufacturing
and industrial ventures as apart from IT infrastructure; the IT security
aspects of their technology set ups will need to be upgraded as well.
Many small and medium business enterprises will move
non-critical applications to public clouds. Government and
semi-government enterprises will see an impetus to move their
applications to private or hybrid clouds. There will therefore be a
huge spend on cloud infrastructure, data centre equipment, backup,
disaster recovery, storage and optimisation applications.
the YeaR of infRastRuctuRe
Meera Kaul, MD, Optimus Technology & Telecommunications
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 31
Middle East markets are leapfrogging developed
economies by embracing new business models and
technologies to achieve their social and economic goals.
In recent years we have witnessed many
governments in the region making significant investments in creating
and upgrading their respective national technology infrastructural
networks. They have done this by introducing new collaborative
technology which will help to drive innovation to make a difference
to every citizen’s life. Today, the network is the vital platform for
creating intelligent, sustainable solutions for public safety and
security, transportation, buildings, utilities, healthcare and education.
This network platform will be crucial for driving growth, innovation,
efficiency and productivity for the nation and its people.
Given the explosive growth of information and the applications
to access that information anywhere, anytime, the Middle East
is experiencing robust adoption of technologies such as cloud
computing, virtualisation, unified communications and internet based
voice and video.
The challenge that the industry will face by the BYOD trend is
introducing and managing a solid security strategy. As more and
more employees are using devices for both personal and business
activities, the issues with potential loss of confidential company data
increases as IT departments are less in control. Companies in 2013
will have to ensure that devices have business application and data
isolated and protected s that it is not affected by any malware coming
from games, email attachments and unsecure internet connections.
netwoRks get a facelift
Claire Jones, Regional Manager, Cisco UAE
32 Reseller Middle East january 2013
*Maximum performance for the Powerline AV Network Adapter is derived from HomePlug Powerline Alliance Homeplug AV speci� cation. Actual performance can vary, including lower powerline network capacity and data throughput rate. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume of network tra� c, home wiring construction, operating system used, mix of networking products used, interference from other electrical devices, age of home wiring, wireline range and coverage as determined by wiring route or path between devices and other adverse conditions. Power outlets and electrical wiring must
all be part of the same electrical system. **The maximum performance for wireless is derived from IEEE Standard 802.11 speci� cations. Actual performance can vary, including lower wireless network capacity, data throughput rate, range and coverage. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including distance from the access point, volume of network tra� c, building materials and construction, operating system used, mix of wireless products used, interference and other adverse conditions.
© 2012 Cisco. All rights reserved. Cisco, the Cisco logo and Linksys are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its a� liates in the United States and certain other countries. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or website are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.
Linksys PLSK400Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter Kit
• Plug and Play - Transform any electricity socket into an Internet connection• Ready for HD streaming with transfer speeds up to 200 Mbps*
• Device pairing at the push of a button with no software required• 4 Ethernet ports to connect devices
Expand your home network
Linksys AE1200Wireless-N USB Adapter
• Getting connected to Wi-Fi networks• Helps reduce congestion in active online households• Streaming HD video and online gaming• Wireless speeds up to 450 Mbps**• Maximum range with a full antenna array
*Maximum performance for the Powerline AV Network Adapter is derived from HomePlug Powerline Alliance Homeplug AV speci� cation. Actual performance can vary, including lower powerline network capacity and data throughput rate. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume
Go wireless with your laptop/desktop. Or, upgrade to the latestnetwork standard to enjoy higher speeds and better range
Easily add wireless technology to your PC
Linksys.com
Linksys AE2500Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Adapter
Expand your home network
Linksys PLSK400Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter Kit
Expand your home network
Linksys RE1000Wireless-N Range Extender
• Extend your wireless range• 1 Ethernet port - Connect your devices• Easy install• Cisco Connect software
Wireless-NRouter Linksys RE1000
Wireless-N Range Extender
Increase your wireless coverage throughout your home
*Maximum performance for the Powerline AV Network Adapter is derived from HomePlug Powerline Alliance Homeplug AV speci� cation. Actual performance can vary, including lower powerline network capacity and data throughput rate. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume of network tra� c, home wiring construction, operating system used, mix of networking products used, interference from other electrical devices, age of home wiring, wireline range and coverage as determined by wiring route or path between devices and other adverse conditions. Power outlets and electrical wiring must
all be part of the same electrical system. **The maximum performance for wireless is derived from IEEE Standard 802.11 speci� cations. Actual performance can vary, including lower wireless network capacity, data throughput rate, range and coverage. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including distance from the access point, volume of network tra� c, building materials and construction, operating system used, mix of wireless products used, interference and other adverse conditions.
© 2012 Cisco. All rights reserved. Cisco, the Cisco logo and Linksys are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its a� liates in the United States and certain other countries. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or website are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.
Linksys PLSK400Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter Kit
• Plug and Play - Transform any electricity socket into an Internet connection• Ready for HD streaming with transfer speeds up to 200 Mbps*
• Device pairing at the push of a button with no software required• 4 Ethernet ports to connect devices
Expand your home network
Linksys AE1200Wireless-N USB Adapter
• Getting connected to Wi-Fi networks• Helps reduce congestion in active online households• Streaming HD video and online gaming• Wireless speeds up to 450 Mbps**• Maximum range with a full antenna array
*Maximum performance for the Powerline AV Network Adapter is derived from HomePlug Powerline Alliance Homeplug AV speci� cation. Actual performance can vary, including lower powerline network capacity and data throughput rate. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume
Go wireless with your laptop/desktop. Or, upgrade to the latestnetwork standard to enjoy higher speeds and better range
Easily add wireless technology to your PC
Linksys.com
Linksys AE2500Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Adapter
Expand your home network
Linksys PLSK400Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter Kit
Expand your home network
Linksys RE1000Wireless-N Range Extender
• Extend your wireless range• 1 Ethernet port - Connect your devices• Easy install• Cisco Connect software
Wireless-NRouter Linksys RE1000
Wireless-N Range Extender
Increase your wireless coverage throughout your home
*Maximum performance for the Powerline AV Network Adapter is derived from HomePlug Powerline Alliance Homeplug AV speci� cation. Actual performance can vary, including lower powerline network capacity and data throughput rate. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume of network tra� c, home wiring construction, operating system used, mix of networking products used, interference from other electrical devices, age of home wiring, wireline range and coverage as determined by wiring route or path between devices and other adverse conditions. Power outlets and electrical wiring must
all be part of the same electrical system. **The maximum performance for wireless is derived from IEEE Standard 802.11 speci� cations. Actual performance can vary, including lower wireless network capacity, data throughput rate, range and coverage. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including distance from the access point, volume of network tra� c, building materials and construction, operating system used, mix of wireless products used, interference and other adverse conditions.
© 2012 Cisco. All rights reserved. Cisco, the Cisco logo and Linksys are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its a� liates in the United States and certain other countries. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or website are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.
Linksys PLSK400Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter Kit
• Plug and Play - Transform any electricity socket into an Internet connection• Ready for HD streaming with transfer speeds up to 200 Mbps*
• Device pairing at the push of a button with no software required• 4 Ethernet ports to connect devices
Expand your home network
Linksys AE1200Wireless-N USB Adapter
• Getting connected to Wi-Fi networks• Helps reduce congestion in active online households• Streaming HD video and online gaming• Wireless speeds up to 450 Mbps**• Maximum range with a full antenna array
*Maximum performance for the Powerline AV Network Adapter is derived from HomePlug Powerline Alliance Homeplug AV speci� cation. Actual performance can vary, including lower powerline network capacity and data throughput rate. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume
Go wireless with your laptop/desktop. Or, upgrade to the latestnetwork standard to enjoy higher speeds and better range
Easily add wireless technology to your PC
Linksys.com
Linksys AE2500Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Adapter
Expand your home network
Linksys PLSK400Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter Kit
Expand your home network
Linksys RE1000Wireless-N Range Extender
• Extend your wireless range• 1 Ethernet port - Connect your devices• Easy install• Cisco Connect software
Wireless-NRouter Linksys RE1000
Wireless-N Range Extender
Increase your wireless coverage throughout your home
*Maximum performance for the Powerline AV Network Adapter is derived from HomePlug Powerline Alliance Homeplug AV speci� cation. Actual performance can vary, including lower powerline network capacity and data throughput rate. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume of network tra� c, home wiring construction, operating system used, mix of networking products used, interference from other electrical devices, age of home wiring, wireline range and coverage as determined by wiring route or path between devices and other adverse conditions. Power outlets and electrical wiring must
all be part of the same electrical system. **The maximum performance for wireless is derived from IEEE Standard 802.11 speci� cations. Actual performance can vary, including lower wireless network capacity, data throughput rate, range and coverage. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including distance from the access point, volume of network tra� c, building materials and construction, operating system used, mix of wireless products used, interference and other adverse conditions.
© 2012 Cisco. All rights reserved. Cisco, the Cisco logo and Linksys are trademarks or registered trademarks of Cisco and/or its a� liates in the United States and certain other countries. Mac and the Mac logo are trademarks of Apple Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document or website are the property of their respective owners. The use of the word partner does not imply a partnership relationship between Cisco and any other company.
Linksys PLSK400Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter Kit
• Plug and Play - Transform any electricity socket into an Internet connection• Ready for HD streaming with transfer speeds up to 200 Mbps*
• Device pairing at the push of a button with no software required• 4 Ethernet ports to connect devices
Expand your home network
Linksys AE1200Wireless-N USB Adapter
• Getting connected to Wi-Fi networks• Helps reduce congestion in active online households• Streaming HD video and online gaming• Wireless speeds up to 450 Mbps**• Maximum range with a full antenna array
*Maximum performance for the Powerline AV Network Adapter is derived from HomePlug Powerline Alliance Homeplug AV speci� cation. Actual performance can vary, including lower powerline network capacity and data throughput rate. Performance depends on many factors, conditions and variables, including volume
Go wireless with your laptop/desktop. Or, upgrade to the latestnetwork standard to enjoy higher speeds and better range
Easily add wireless technology to your PC
Linksys.com
Linksys AE2500Dual-Band Wireless-N USB Adapter
Expand your home network
Linksys PLSK400Powerline AV 4-Port Network Adapter Kit
Expand your home network
Linksys RE1000Wireless-N Range Extender
• Extend your wireless range• 1 Ethernet port - Connect your devices• Easy install• Cisco Connect software
Wireless-NRouter Linksys RE1000
Wireless-N Range Extender
Increase your wireless coverage throughout your home
in 2013 we can expect to see two key growth areas:
cloud computing and security.
The transition to cloud computing will not happen
overnight, but it will definitely become a major reality
within three to four years, with particular emphasis on the private
cloud. Public cloud adoption will take a bit more time, but a good
number of GBM customers will experiment with some form of public
cloud computing in the next 18 to 24 months.
Security is becoming an important concern for the IT industry,
and understandably so. Internet access, BYOD programmes and
almost unlimited access granted to all employees on server networks
require any company or government entity to set up security
requirements in order to operate safely. Each of those requirements
is unfortunately susceptible to intrusion.
The industry is generating increasingly sophisticated security
tools to protect company information. Meanwhile, more and more
threats are materialising at every corner.
We definitely think that enterprise IT spending will continue
to grow in 2013, and in the region we will continue to see a
progressive shift of IT investment from CAPEX to OPEX. Businesses
are increasingly understanding the importance of investing in IT
solutions, and they are realising the positive impact IT has on their
operations. Companies are now looking to adopt solutions that
will allow them to keep up with today’s fast-paced, competitive
and demanding business market. This is why we always work
very closely with our customers to evaluate the adaptability and
scalability of their IT infrastructure and help prepare them for the
changing IT environment.
secuRitY on top of mind
Cesare Cardone, CEO, GBM
34 Reseller Middle East january 2013
We definitely see the demand for mobility
products increasing exponentially in 2013. The
hottest growth areas for us in the coming year are
tablet PCs and other mobility products.
We perceive a definite positive trend in the
market with customers inclined towards investments
to bring in efficiency within their infrastructure
framework. Organisations are additionally focusing on
increasing investments in new-age technologies such
as cloud computing and virtualisation for reducing
capital expenses. The emphasis is on driving greater
efficiencies within the organisations indicating an
increase in IT spending.
Our industry is facing a very unique set of challenges and
there is really no way to tell what the future will hold for IT
distribution. Nonetheless, the latest trends show an emphasis
on VAD and service and we feel that this trend will continue as
our markets continue to mature.
“Big data” is at the top of many lists. That should
be no surprise, given the massive volumes of
information being stored and the promise that Big
data holds. The sheer quantity of data being
produced by all manner of iP devices is only part of the story.
Big data’s real value is in the ability to analyse data quickly,
and use it to make much better-informed decisions. The
ultimate goal is to make decisions in real-time, when the
impact is the biggest.
If history tells us anything, is says the new technologies
of today often become the normal everyday way of doing
things tomorrow. We predict the same will apply to “intelligent
infrastructure management systems”. Two or three years
ago these were systems associated with the high end or
with sophisticated end users. In the Middle East, as an early
adopter region, these systems will just be the normal way IT
professionals design, deploy and manage the physical layer of
IT networks.
Betting on moBilitY getting phYsical
Ehsan Hashemi, COO, Golden Systems Middle East Ciaran Forde, VP, Enterprise, Middle East & Africa, CommScope
36 Reseller Middle East january 2013
D-Link Cloud Cameras allow you to watch over your loved ones
and monitor valued possessions anywhere, anytime from
a mobile device such as a smartphone or tablet.
Check on your loved onesfrom anywhere, anytime
DCS-932LWireless N IR Home
Network Camera
DCS-2132LHD Wireless N Cube
Network Camera
DCS-5222LHD Wireless N Pan & Tilt
Network Camera
DCS-930LWireless 11n MJPEG
Network Camera
+971 4 880 9022
facebook.com/dlinkmea
www.dlinkmea.com
DCS-930LWireless 11n MJPEG
Network Camera
DCS-2132LHD Wireless N Cube
Mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets will
likely become the device of choice for casual content
consumption in the consumer segment of the
market. in line with this cloud-based storage will also
grow in popularity owing to the limited storage capacity of
mobile devices and the demands of users to have access to all
of their data. as more and more users adopt cloud storage for
their data, security solutions designed to protect user data will
be critical as attackers always follow the trail led by users.
Channel players should try to position themselves as enablers
by being knowledgeable about these trends and by offering the
right products for consumers as well as businesses.
The consumerisation of IT will also see an increasing number
of these consumer-focused mobile devices integrated into
business environments. Going hand-in-hand with this, products
that offer cloud storage capabilities will also become more
popular, as consumers will want access to all of their content
when they’re on the go.
Customer will wish to add value to their business
by the use of strategic iT initiatives. asking
vendors to deliver service led offerings allowing
customers to focus on their core business will build.
adding value through consultancy, post-sale excellence and
the provision of management data to drive efficiency and
excellence will increase.
Cloud Computing will grow in the mid space markets
as SMBs look to capture opportunities here. BYOD will be a
trend that is on an upswing, and clients will have to work with
vendors on the challenges this brings in security, application
development and mobile working. Xerox has the ability to
help clients with these challenges and provide users and IT
professionals with the best of both worlds.
Partners must work as groups of providers rather than
stand-alone resellers. They must train and align resources to
new realities and become familiar with the nature of delivering
against customer requirements as part of a greater whole.
cloud stoRage on the caRds cReating new value
Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director, Middle East, Africa & South Asia, WDDan Smith, Head of Integrated Marketing –MEA, Xerox ‘s Developing Markets Operations
38 Reseller Middle East january 2013
Copyright © 2012, Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. Intel Inside, Intel Core, Ultrabook, Intel, and the Intel logo are trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and other countries.
Discover what’s possible with an Ultrabook™
A New Era in ComputingUltra responsive. Ultra sleek. Ultrabook.™
The rise of cloud infrastructure is predicted to the
biggest trend for the year 2013. With the intensification
of services exceeding future calculations, cloud
computing will drift even more into enterprises with
hybrid clouds. interoperability and standards in cloud computing
will keep advancing. Businesses will scrutinize the impact of the
cloud, its benefits, usage and rOi more than ever before.
Are deployments delivering the agility and cost savings
predicted? Are users benefitting? How can one measure
cloud ROI when, by design, the assets are not owned by the
organization? We predict that IT organizations will attempt to take
back control of their own assets and budgets and the deployment
of private cloud architectures will accelerate in later half of FY13.
In the coming year, we expect a sea-change in the evolvement
of channel ecosystem. New opportunities are on the rise with many
breaking grounds new technologies coming up in 2013. Video
conferencing and cloud computing will acquire a major chunk of
market share perhaps developing a wider platform for channel partners
to participate and grow. The net growth investment ratio might
see a spike with many people in UAE and Qatar choosing to make
investments in various IT ventures. With lots of infrastructure building
up, the ecosystem for the channel is expected to be positive for 2013.
i believe 2013 will witness a major shift in the iT
market across the Middle East, where only
companies who are capable of integrating in the
new world of iT will survive. Many companies now
are starting to develop their cloud strategy deciding on
deploying a private, public or hybrid cloud model.
Traditional “box movers” will need to shift more towards
being value added Distributors and resellers (vaD and
var) so they can direct and guide their customers through
the cloud evolution.
Virtualization of servers, storage and desktops is certainly
going to be one of the hottest growth areas in the coming
period. The market needs to be ready to embrace big data/
analytics and ‘social business’, which is the integration of social
media into the business mix. Consumer devices are increasing
in the corporate space. Additionally, I believe non-conventional
connected devices and the offering of complete integrated
solutions will be a key focus for companies in 2013.
IT vendors and channel partners need to be closer now
more than ever as this is a transitional phase where each
channel partner is defining the role he/she can play in the new
world of IT.
a cloudY foRecast BRave new woRld
Sarwan Singh, Director, Prologix Ossama Eldeeb, Regional Sales Manager – AMD META
40 Reseller Middle East january 2013
Innovations to propel your business successDoing more with less is no longer just a buzz phrase. It’s a directive.And at the center of this all-important task is the focal point of yourIT infrastructure: your servers. You need servers that can simplifyyour infrastructure and IT management. Transform mountains of datainto mountains of insight — faster. And process complex workloads.You need the performance of next generation Dell PowerEdge servers.
New 12th generation Dell PowerEdge servers, featuring Intel® Xeon® processors, offer:
• Maximum flexibility. Dell’s exclusive PowerEdge Select Network Adapter lets you seamlessly migrate between 1GbE and 10GbE interconnections directly on the motherboard, future-proofing your network.
• Simplified management. iDRAC7, Dell’s agentless systems management tool, provides direct access to hardware status, inventory and configuration even if the OS is down or not installed. You get increased oversight with fewer resources.
• Energy efficiency. Every component in Dell PowerEdge servers is optimized for the most efficient operation which minimizes power consumption. In addition, 12th generation Dell PowerEdge servers are powered by the new Intel® Xeon® processors, which Intel® estimates can provide up to 80% more performance than previous generations.
The next generation of Dell PowerEdge servers can help your company process more data, support more applications and increase efficiencies without hurting your bottom line.
Learn more at [email protected]
Performance comparison using geometric mean of SPECintratebase2006, SPECfp*_rate_base2066, STREAM*_MP Triad, and Linpack* benchmark results. Baseline geometric mean score of 166.75 on prior generation 2S Intel® Xeon® Processor
X5690platform based on best published SPECrate* scores to www.spec.org and best Intel internal measurements on STREAM*_MP Triad and Linpack as of 5 December 2011. New geometric mean score of 306.74 based on Intel internal measured
estimates using an Intel® Rose City platform with two Intel® Xeon® processor E5-2690, Turbo and EIST Enabled, with Hyper-Threading, 128 GB RAM, Red Hat* Enterprise Linux Server 6.1 beta for x86_6, Intel® Compiler 12.1, THP disabled for
SPECfp_rate_base2006 and enabled for SPECint*_rate_base2006. Intel, the Intel logo, Xeon, and Xeon Inside are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.
The GCC is witnessing an increasing demand for
data leakage prevention solutions and social media
monitoring tools. Other trends are the exponential
growth of data volumes owned by Gulf-based
companies, the increasing diversity of iT infrastructure and
corporate staff getting more involved in using various web and
mobile services, which is only going to increase going forward.
all these factors make corporate information protection a really
challenging task.
The amount of information owned by companies will continue
to grow steadily and it will be extremely difficult to control this
huge and unstructured data without the implementation of a
specialised data monitoring and control system. Another trend is a
telecom revolution where the widespread use of new generation
4G communication standard will inevitably lead to facilitation
of e-commerce and also indirectly to more data being stored
electronically. Companies will then need to think about data
categorisation and protection from unauthorised usage.
virtualisation will probably be the hottest
immediately followed by storage, which is directly
related and has already been on a strong growth
path for some time.
The distribution and reseller security channel has
acknowledged and factored in some of the major trends in
security consisting of providing more security to secure more
data and versatile and complex IT environments. In 2013
the already well-established security specialist distributor
and reseller channels should keep growing while in parallel
broadline distributors and resellers are expected to accelerate
the integration of security components and aspects to their
overall portfolio. On top of that the channel is also actively
developing its value added services offering and capability
overall but also more specifically when it comes to security in
order to be able to advise their more and more security savvy
customers, integrate security solutions in their environments
and support their implementations and evolving needs.
getting a gRip on data changing secuRitY peRspective
Alexander Zarovsky - International Business Chief, InfoWatch Miguel Braojos, VP of Sales Southern Europe, Middle East and Africa, SafeNet
42 Reseller Middle East january 2013
Market trends
within the security
sector are driven
by end customers
business initiatives - by
correlating business
potential with accumulated
security risks. The trends we
see are modern malicious
malware protection,
advanced DDOs prevention
and mobile device security.
information security strategy
plays a key role when considering investments within the right
technical security controls. Everybody wants to be mobile,
wants to carry private as well as corporate information on the
same device without sacrificing user-friendliness. This is a
challenge in itself and needs to be mitigated with a clear
separation between corporate data and private data.
Growth areas will be in areas of technology that
increases productivity, reduces complexity and increases
information security. If an enterprise organization wants to
succeed in their line of business they have to open up to
new marketing strategies and use social media.
in 2013, we see
a strong trend
of customers
looking for
more powerful devices
which help them stay
connected, enhance
mobility and entertain.
We anticipate growth in
lighter and thinner
devices which are
growing their presence at
a rapid pace in the
Middle East.
We see the channel becoming more aware of the
prominent role that accessories play in their product
offering and that focus is being given to driving attach,
which definitely is a healthier model, enhancing profitability.
It is instrumental that vendors share their strategies with
partners. Partners are vital to growth and expansion plans
for vendors, They are constantly updated with new products
launches and given their proximity towards the end user,
their feedback on customers trends is crucial for further
developing the business, hence a win-win scenario.
help ag taRgus
Stephan Berner, Managing Director, help AG
Riyaz Abdulla, Regional Sales Director, Targus Middle East
We will see more
investment in saas
as the region
becomes more in
tune with the benefits this
model has to offer. also i feel
that a mobile device
management solution will be
on the wishlist of many iT
managers in 2013 and you
can expect to see more
investment in big data.
GFI Software has
already introduced mobile security technology into our GFI
VIPRE suite of solutions, for both business and consumer
markets. I expect to see more MSP activity in the channel
and more value added services from distribution. At GFI
Software we are constantly assessing the landscape and
fine-tuning our strategy and partner activities to ensure we
maximise the potential of every opportunity.
We at Cambium
are seeing
several shifts in
terms of
technology choices. in the
operator space we are
seeing a shift towards low
cost unlicensed
equipment and in the
securities market we are
seeing a shift to the
licensed micro wave
equipment. if you
consider the amount of mobile data devices now in the
market i do believe we will start to see the need for more
capacity than ever.
Our channel ecosystem has changed year on year and
it is amazing to seeing new business developing application
driven networks are now really starting to come to the
service and work with across the region.
gfi softwaRe camBium netwoRks
John Spoor, Regional Director –MEA, GFI Software
Graham Owen, Rregional Sales Director, Cambium Networks
44 Reseller Middle East january 2013
some interesting figures first. according to
iDC, the disk storage capacity shipped by
vendors worldwide has surpassed seven
exabytes for the first time in the third
quarter of 2012. This represents 24.4% year
on year growth.
The analyst firm says driving the double-
digit growth in storage was demand for
multi-protocol storage systems such as fibre
channel and Ethernet-based storage as well
as a strong demand for upper mid-range and
high-end range storage systems.
Despite concerns about global and
The burgeoning data storage market is opening up long-term revenue opportunities for channel partners. What does it take to succeed in this mature market?
tHe Next froNtier
regional economies, end users continue
to invest in storage infrastructure to deal
with the unprecedented explosion in digital
data. In the Middle East, storage sales are
witnessing a significant upturn fuelled by
demand for technologies such as data
de-duplication, thin provisioning, solid-state
drives and automated tiering. This, in turn, has
opened up new opportunities for the channel
looking to grow the business and margins.
“The data storage boom of the last few
years has, unquestionably, given a different
meaning to the word storage. It has not
become an essential requirement at all levels,
from personal all the way to enterprise.
With numerous studies predicting that data
needs will grow 50-fold by 2020, this makes
storage an impartial constituent of that
growth equation. It is a no-brainer that part
of this opportunity is there to be seized by
the channel,” says Nicholas Agyrides, MD of
EMPA.
Sid Deshpande, Senior Research
Analyst, Gartner, agrees that is a high margin
opportunity for the channel. “Buyers prefer
to purchase storage and wider integrated
STORAgE fEATuREData storage
46 Reseller Middle East january 2013
solutions from one vendor or channel partner
so that they can make it responsible and
accountable for the products and offerings
and reduce operational complexity.”
He adds that while regulations differ
from country to country and do not always
mandate that storage hardware vendors
should go to market through partners, it is the
preferred way of doing business because of
cultural reasons and the better effectiveness
of the go-to-market strategy. Additionally,
the heavy inclination toward the “solutions”
approach (as outlined in the above section)
means that enterprise organisations are more
inclined to deal with a single point of contact
for the entire data center project.
While this does not
preclude storage hardware vendors
from being directly involved in the bid,
it is only in the case of some global
strategic accounts that Gartner has
observed storage vendors having a direct
presence. Alternatively, in some cases,
government organisations that use public
funds may be wary of going through system
integrators with a bidding process and
may directly approach data center portfolio
vendors in a closed RFP approach.
Gartner says regionally and vertically
specialised channel players are very
important to storage vendors’ go-to-
market strategies, not just for the reasons
outlined above, but also because of their
ability to identify and secure strategic
opportunities in individual countries. In
some of the smaller countries of MEA, the
larger storage vendor/system integrator
remains the technology expert while the
specialised local partner is the identifier
and facilitator of business opportunities.
“In many niche markets in MEA, it
becomes almost imperative to go through
a local channel partner, because they
have a closer pulse on the local market
dynamics and upcoming projects. The strong
penetration that local channel players have
in the MEA region overall is underscored
by announcements of system integrators
aligning or partnering with other vertical-
specific channel players to either increase
their strategic scope of coverage and/or
target specific deals,” points out Deshpande.
Khwaja Saifuddin, Senior Sales Director,
Middle East, Africa & South Asia, WD, says
that though storage offers opportunity
for high margins, the margins one makes
depends on the approach adopted when it
comes to selling. “If the approach is just to
move boxes then it is difficult to generate
decent margins on storage products. This
is why the approach should always be to
properly educate sales staff on storage
products that are being sold, so that the
product or solution can be pushed based
on merits such as performance, features,
value additions and its ability to satisfy a
customer’s needs. If you are able to satisfy a
customer’s needs in this way, it’s very likely
that you will be able to move the product
without needing to offer discounts in order to
complete the sale.”
Sarwan Singh, Director of Prologix,
echoes a similar opinion: “It is irrefutable
that organisations, in general, store massive
data demanding high data security. Mission
critical data might include employee details,
inventory, and customer information or
achieved files that have to be kept safely to
be retrieved easily. We anticipate money-
spinning opportunities for the channel with
Sid Deshpande, Senior research analyst, Gartner “In many niche markets in MEA, it becomes almost imperative to go through a local channel partner, because they have a closer pulse on the local market dynamics and upcoming projects.”
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 47
Data storage
increased buoyancy in data storage market.
The sound management of data is critical
for the enterprises, which further opened
many new avenues for channel partners.
IT spending in data backup and recovery
solutions is escalating due to increased
demand for storage capacity powered by new
applications including disaster recovery and
seamless business continuity. “
Buying trends and patterns
Gartner observes that the enterprise
segment in the Middle East and Africa
(MEA) overall still displays very traditional
purchasing behaviors, with storage area
network (SAN) demand being driven by
database workloads and other structured
applications, such as ERP and CRM. The
service provider segment in MEA is displaying
signs of innovation and adoption of the
data center technology stacks, fabric-based
computing architectures and storage arrays
that are specifically targeted at the service
provider cloud environment.
“A majority of storage purchases in
the Middle East are directly or indirectly
driven by government projects or initiatives,
across verticals. In the private sector,
the storage opportunity is very strong in the
banking and telecom verticals. Network-
attached storage (NAS) is expected to grow
its share from 24% of the storage hardware
market in MEA in 2011 to 41% in 2016,
indicating a strong opportunity for storage
hardware vendors,” says Deshpande.
Gartner believes that
the storage hardware market is still
underpenetrated in the MEA region overall,
with many organisations not having the
insight or education required to assess
the correct storage infrastructure for their
application and service requirements. In
the SMB segment and the lower end of the
large-enterprise segment, there is more
dependence on the storage vendors or
their partners to suggest products and
technologies that fit business requirements,
rather than IT departments taking the lead
and dictating their requirements to vendors
and providers.
Most of the prominent vendors and
their distributors are ramping up the support
to help their channel partner tap the
opportunities in the storage market. WD, for
example, works with all of its partners closely
and focus heavily on partner education
where it trains partner sales staff across the
full spectrum of products. “An educated
sales force is one that will be able to close
deals quickly, without resorting to discounts
in order to tempt the buyer into spending
his money. WD’s own sales staff is also on
the ground to assist partners whenever
the need arises. All of our partners have
access to our WD University online product
training tool and can also participate in our
myWD partner programme. The latter gives
partners access to marketing collaterals,
demos, future product information and there’s
also an incentive system that rewards sales
successes,” says Saifuddin.
Agyrides from Empa says it provides
training to the resellers with the involvement
of the vendors. “These include market
briefings, technology updates, upcoming
product roadmaps, and technical workshops.
Certifying our reseller partners on our
vendor technologies is another priority
as it helps them be more competitive as
well as it broadens their view in which key
technologies to invest in. Lastly, certification is
often correlated to receiving hefty rebates via
vendor programmes.”
Going by the projected data growth,
storage market exhibits strong growth
potential and is likely to sustain its double-
digit growth momentum in 2013 as well.
Channel partners who can differentiate
themselves with specialisation and solution-
focused approach can indeed make hay while
the sun shines. //
“Most of the prominent vendors and their distributors are ramping up the support to help their channel partner tap the opportunities in the storage market.”
nicholas agyrides, MD of EMPa
STORAgE fEATuRE
48 Reseller Middle East january 2013
The World’s Most Important Gathering of CIOs and Senior IT Executives
Focus. Connect. Lead.Disruptive technologies like cloud, social, mobile and information are revolutionizing business. The opportunity to leverage information innovation is right before us.
Faced with fundamental changes to the enterprise ecosystem, IT leaders must acquire a new ability to Focus on the issues that matter, Connect people and ideas, and Lead with creativity and confidence.
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo is the world’s most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives in the Middle East. Our 2013 agenda offers analyst sessions, workshops, roundtables and mastermind keynotes across three full days. With role-based and industry tracks, the agenda targets your specific title responsibilities and ways to adapt new ideas and strategy to your industry, along with insight on what’s next in IT.
View the most comprehensive IT agenda for 2013 at gartner.com/me/symposium
Symposium/ITxpo is for IT industry leaders, including:
• CIOs
• CTOs
• Senior IT Leaders
• Technology and Business Strategy Executives
• Institutional Investors & Venture Capitalists
• Technology and Service Providers
Save the Date and register your place now at gartner.com/me/symposium
Early Bird:
SAVE $500
when you register now
Riverbed, which started off with making WAN optimisation gear, is evolving into a performance platform company. Philippe Elie, Director of Business Operations and Nino D’Auria, VP of Channels EMEA, spoke to us about the plans to work more closely with partners to grow the market share.
Programmed for growtH
How strategic is this market to
your growth plans?
Philippe: Riverbed has been active
in the Middle East and Africa for
four to five years and we’ve managed to have
some significant references like Petrofac and
Qatargas. We feel that there is still very big
potential and we’re going to put more and
more focus on the Middle East – not only
from a resource perspective, but also the way
that we position Riverbed in the market. The
latter will be achieved by transitioning from a
single family of products to a whole portfolio
of products which are aimed at addressing
the IT performance issues as a whole. This
may seem simple, but it has a number of
sequences. One is we have to not only deal
with networking people within the accounts,
but now we’ve got a value proposition that
makes a lot of sense for CIOs and CEOs.
When we meet CIOs and CEOs we can now
discuss more consolidation products, which
in the Middle East is a hot topic because
everybody wants to consolidate to simplify IT
and reduce costs.
What is your value-proposition?
The value proposition that we bring to
customers is evolving. It’s ramping up in
terms of potential attraction and relevance for
CIOs and CEOs. This is really why we want
to reposition Riverbed as the IT performance
company in the Middle East as has been the
case in continental Europe. This has a number
of implications in terms of how we manage
our partners because this is a brand new way
to address the market and to drive their skills
in different directions. The way we manage
our channel will have to adapt as well.
What is your partner strategy? Do you
consider your channel as an asset?
nino: This company is evolving. From an
engineering standpoint we are in great shape.
The portfolio is mature but is continuously
vENDOR fOCuSRiverbed
50 Reseller Middle East january 2013
adding new features and keeping the focus
on performance. The performance is at the
centre of what we do every day, but we are
changing our typical counterparts within the
customer base and we are starting to be
more consultative in the way we propose
our philosophy. The same concept must be
followed for the partner community. Now
we are giving to the channel community
additional chances. First of all we have to
understand and agree who our ideal partner
is. Whether they are a system integrator or a
solutions provider, they must be able to build,
manage services and other activities around
our portfolio. We are not in the market to sell
professional services, but our engineering
portfolio resonates very well with a system
integrator or partner to build around the
solution. We are moving in this direction. I
joined with the task of moving and evolving
the EMEA channel to the next level. The
corporate Riverbed base in San Francisco
is very aware that 80% of the stuff can be
done and packaged and manufactured
in HQ, but we need to localise for a very
simple reason. We are working in 29
different countries with many different
languages and cultures so we have to be
very focused in following the differences in
the different countries. So 80% of the stuff
is invented in San Francisco, which then
needs to be translated to meet the needs of
each market.
Also from the channel perspective
I think that we in EMEA have been very
sophisticated so we are successful with
the service providers, and we are growing
a community of partners made up of real
systems integrators. Our distributor is a value
added distributor so fortunately we don’t
have to reinvent the wheel – we have a great
asset which we can count on. Even in terms
of the channel community, we have to be very
positive with them in saying it’s a matter of
decision because every 40 days we bring to
the table an additional part of our technology.
We have to make the decision together if it is
fitting with their portfolio offering, if they are
able to build services and we have to work
together to understand what is the feedback
from market on the proposition. That is the
key to what we are doing. We have a great
scale. We have partners in the UK that are
just focusing on the security part and we have
partners somewhere else that have already
built up an entire managed services portfolio
that are very sophisticated. So it is definitely
also a matter of transferring the right concept
to the community. From my standpoint, my
job is to give the opportunity to present in a
very candid and open way the potential and
now is a matter of decision of what to do
together. We are visiting many countries and
places because I wanted to meet one-to-one
the main players in each geography and be
clear in relaying our evolution concept that
change will be the only constant part of our
philosophy.
What is your message to the channel
community and what is the direction riverbed
is taking?
nino: The big difference between being a
vendor and a partner is as a partner all the
vendors come to you because the partners
are literally bombarded with additional
offerings or new vendors that want to sell
something – they must be selective. The offer
must resonate with what they do. There is no
room for improvisation because it takes a lot
of time to understand the offering, to certify
people, to educate them, and to be credible
because it’s all a matter of credibility and
reputation in this market. The goal for the
company is to get up to $2 billion by 2015.
We are such in acceleration mode that I’m
trying to keep all of the community together
in making sure we are fitting with our
partners’ offerings. We also have the goal of
being more consistent in investment, we are
adding people and we want to be successful
in the Middle East. //
“This company is evolving. From an engineering standpoint we are in great shape.”
vENDOR fOCuSRiverbed
Philippe Elie, Director of Business Operations, riverbed
nino D’auria, VP of Channels EMEa, riverbed
52 Reseller Middle East january 2013
Security Information & Event Management
Privileged User Identity & Password Forensics
Session Recording
Our Partners
Contact us
Tel: +971 4 433 0560Fax: +971 4 453 7281Email: [email protected]
Portfolio:Security Intelligence & AnalyticsEnterprise Risk & Compliance ManagementForensics & Investigation ManagementIT Infrastructure & operations ManagementCyber SecurityManaged ServicesServices & training
Avaya’s VP of Emerging Regions, Nidal Abou-Itaif looks forward to a channel driven 2013 and believes it is the perfect time for the company’s 25 carefully selected regional partners to push new technologies.
tHe time is Now
vENDOR fOCuSAvaya
a few years back avaya’s channel
only accounted for about 60% of
its global business. Much of its us
sales, as well as some of its Europe
sales, were attributed to direct business.
However, the managerial decision was made
to reduce this direct business and become a
channel driven company. These days, the channel
contributes more than 80% of Avaya’s sales.
After seeing success through this
method, Abou-Itaif says 2013 will continue to
centre on Avaya being almost 100% channel
driven in the MEA region.
“We address the market through our
channel and have only a few customers
direct,” he says. “The direct accounts, which
we have no plans on giving to the channel,
are due to a special agreement for them to
utilise our technology. We deal with them like
a partner, whilst the remainder will continue to
be channel driven.”
He adds that “the time is now” to put new
innovation in the market because end users
no want to use IT to build for the future.
With this in mind, Avaya wants to reward
partners for adapting its technologies and
selling them to the market.
“We want to reward them with better
margins, discounts, selling next to them and
also certifying them to do that. I believe that the
partners that adapt to the change will be the
partners that will be the focus of our new work
and innovation. The majority of the business
will come from new innovation that the young
generation is demanding and we believe that
partners that are willing and brave enough to
accept the changes will work with us best.”
Avaya takes the approach of signing
fewer partners - 25 in the region - than other
organisations of its size and believes this
allows them to make more margin than with
its competition.
As further incentive, it now extends
what it calls New Product Initiatives (NPIs)
to its partners for extra discount. “We also
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 55
incentive tem on rebate and help them with
implementation,” Abou-Itaif says.
However, the key to mastering the
channel is convincing resellers to specialise
in your technologies. Abou-Itaif believes this
largely comes down to mindset.
“If a partner is not able to change
there is no way I can train them to change.
So it’s the business decision of the partner
to say that they are ready to change and
want to adapt to the technology. They also
need to understand they cannot do it all on
their own.
“They need to cooperate with other
partners to form an ecosystem around us
to put the solutions to market. If they are
a small player they may need to partner
with a big company or if they are a niche
player they may need to make themselves
available for acquisition. That’s how we
will encourage them to change. Over the
last three years we’ve made sure that if
people don’t change we’ll change them,
so today I have people talking about the
future now and understanding what the
customer wants.”
The right understanding
Avaya’s partners, Abou-Itaif says,
understand the customer more than they
understand the technology.
“The minute they understand the
customer they can bring the technology into
it, they can’t do it the other way around. We
moved from value selling to solutions and
training our partners. Some partners are
changing, some are not. I want them all to
consolidate, become stronger and acquire
companies to complement our solutions,”
he says.
“It’s a journey but we chose 25 partners
for 2013 and we have a business plan
together, we evaluate their people together,
we have a monthly meeting and every
five or six partners are sponsored by an
executive from EMEA who looks into that
transformation with the partner. For those 25
partners it has so far become positive and I
hope that continues.”
Avaya announced during GITEX
Technology Week 2012 in October the
signing of a memorandum of understanding
(MoU) with Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority
(DSOA) to open its Middle East, Africa and
Turkey training centre in the integrated free
zone technology park.
The dedicated training centre within
Dubai Silicon Oasis (DSO) will feature Avaya’s
latest video and networking products.
Partners and enterprises from the
Middle East, Africa and Turkey region will
be able to use the centrally located facility
to increase their knowledge of Avaya video,
networking and midmarket technologies,
while obtaining industry certifications on new
communications solutions.
“We already had a certified partner that
did training in the region but then we realised
it wasn’t fast enough in gearing up to the
technology we have,” Abou-Itaif says. “The
end user wants to have the training as part of
the solution.
“We also realised that for people from the
Middle East, even though we have a training
centre in South Africa, it’s not easy for them
to get there. So what I’ve managed to deliver
with the approval of my management is to
bring a training centre to Dubai Silicon Oasis
which is beginning as a video training centre
for MEA because video is the new way of
communication.”
He concludes that the new training
centre is proof of Avaya’s commitment and
investment in the regional channel.
“We’re adding more sales force in the region
to help sell the technology and are adding
more professional service to help them
evolve and make sure they’re not afraid to
brake that ‘it’s new’ barrier. As a company we
continue to improve our tools and processes
to make it easier to do business and adapt to
the new world.” //
Avaya’s partners, Abou-Itaif says, understand the customer more than they understand the technology.
vENDOR fOCuSAvaya
nidal abou-Itaif, VP of Emerging regions, avaya
56 Reseller Middle East january 2013
Learn more at www.EMC.com/VSPEX
INTRODUCINGEMC VSPEXPROVEN INFRASTRUCTURE
VSPEX Proven Infrastructure provides modular solutions built with best-of-breed technologies that enable faster deployment, more simplicity, greater choice, higher e�ciency and lower risk for SMBs and Midmarket companies.
EMC2, EMC, the EMC logo, and where information lives are registered trademarks or trademarks of EMC Corporationin the United States and other countries. © Copyright 2011 EMC Corporation. All rights reserved.
C
M
Y
CM
MY
CY
CMY
K
EMC_VSPES_ADV copy.pdf 1 11/1/12 2:27 PM
Want to get the most out of Windows 8 whilst still having the complete control of a laptop experience? Well, look no further than the Acer Aspire M Touch.
acer asPire m toucH – tHe fuN of tHe future
REvIEwAcer Aspire M Touch with Windows 8
Every now and then a piece of
technology comes along that
you just can’t put down - this
was one of those pieces. With a
large, beautiful, slim keyboard supporting
a 15.6 inch screen and the solid Windows
7 system available at the touch of a
button, the acer aspire M Touch is a
fantastic package for anyone, business or
professional.
The outstanding battery life and Nvidia
Kepler based graphic card makes it an ideal
platform for gamers, whilst sitting at 2cm
high and weighing only 2.1kg, complete
with a DVD writer and three USB ports, it’s
perfect for business.
The sleek brushed metal finish (albeit
mixed with plastic) makes the Aspire a
lovely looking thing, as well as sturdy
and solid when in use or in transit. The
keyboard is nicely spaced and very user
friendly, as is the rather large track pad
situated slightly to the left of the machine.
The point here is; the M Touch is big
without being big.
A key thing to note about the Acer
is that it’s a consistently cool and quiet
performance piece, even when gaming.
Add to this a nine second boot up time
from shut down and a two second boot up
time from sleeping and you’ve got a very
complete and solid machine. This can all be
This review was done by joe Lipscombe, Sub-Editor, CPI Technology
put down to the impressive third generation
dual-core processor Intel Core i5, complete
with 6GB of memory and a 120GB SSD.
Once you’ve finished doing your
homework or destroying enemies on COD,
you can start to really enjoy the Acer
Aspire. Now running on the Windows 8
operating system, arguably built for the
tablet market, the M Touch transforms into a
futuristic multi-touch device which feels like
something James Bond might be presented
with at Q branch.
As previously mentioned, it boasts a 15.6
inch screen which makes the Windows 8
tiled homepage look fantastic, and the apps
breathtaking. It really is where the fun starts. I
spent hours sliding apps around, painting my
face and researching worldly destinations via
the new Bing app (which is superb).
I have used Windows 8 on countless
non-touchscreen devices and I’m one of
those people who isn’t overly keen on it.
I find it a rather difficult tool to manage,
not to mention my chosen screen tends
to whizz off at any given moment leaving
me typing a web address into a Skype
conversation. So, back to the point, having
all the power of a large, powerful and swift
laptop combined with a classy, 15.6 inch
touch version of Windows 8 makes this
Acer model an absolute winner. I’m still
not convinced that the Windows 8 OS is
really very business friendly, however, with
the Acer Aspire M Touch you can take full
advantage of all the media communications
apps such as Skype and Lync, both of which
are smart and simple to use.
With my work completed, and therefore
Windows 7 and the keyboard rendered
completely redundant, I sat down and
watched all my favourite YouTube clips in
stunning HD as well as playing several apps
in the background, throw in a couple of
Skype conversations to friends across the
water and I managed to drain just under
eight hours of play time, more than you get
from many smartphones.
in conclusion – I loved the Acer Aspire
M Touch. It’s a brilliantly solid laptop with
the feel and look of a high end device
which draws the best out of the Windows
8 OS. For all you get, it’s well priced and I
would have happily held on to it for a much
longer time. //
58 Reseller Middle East january 2013
The XPs 12 is two devices in
one: a fully-featured,
full-powered laptop
that easily becomes a
fully-featured touch-
powered tablet. The unique
flip hinge touchscreen display
is elegant and innovative and easily
transitions between laptop and tablet
mode with a simple flip. When in tablet
mode, the display completely covers
the keyboard, protecting it from dirt
and spills. The vibrant Full HD display
provides 90 percent more pixels than a
standard HD display for an exceptionally
crisp reading and viewing experience.
The XPS 12 works with the new
New dell coNvertible ultrabook
Windows 8 Pro operating system and
features Intel Smart Connect Technology
that automatically updates your email,
work contacts, social networks, and
favourite apps, even when the convertible
Ultrabook is in sleep mode.
hOT pRODuCTSNew launches
The new acer aspire Zs600 aiO desktop
with a 23-inch Full HD 1920 x 1080
lED backlit display and Dolby Home
Theater v4.0 audio enhancement, is
said to deliver exceptional image quality
for cinematic entertainment, graphics-
intensive application and games, as
well as immersive audio. The 10-point
multi-touch screen allows multiple
user scenarios, while the adjustable tilt
ensures more comfortable use. Thanks
to the wall-mount kit the aiO with HD
experience can be enjoyed on the wall
as well.
With an optional Blu-ray Disc optical
drive , multi-in-one card reader, TV-tuner, and
HDMI in and out ports, the Aspire ZS600 is
destined to become the hub of the family
digital life: from watching movies and TV to
playing games or enjoying pictures, all the
entertainment is within easy reach.
Running on 3rd generation Intel iCore
processors combined with advanced
graphics solutions, this desktop can
handle demanding tasks, enable smoother
multitasking and ensure maximized
entertainment and productivity.
The ThinkPad Helix is a premium
convertible for business
professionals featuring a “rip and
flip” design and first functions as
a high performance ultrabook.
For added mobility, the 11.6-inch
tablet can separate from its base to
become the thinnest full-function
intel 3rd generation Core tablet
with vPro. adding to its mobility,
the tablet weighs 835 grams, also
making it the lightest in its class.
unlike other convertibles, the “rip
and flip” screen lets users flip
the tablet 180° and snap it back
into the base – this mode, called
stand mode, transforms Helix into
a mini-movie theatre or business
presentation central. From here,
users can also fold the screen down
to use it as a tablet while keeping
the base connected for added ports
and connectivity.
To connect virtually anywhere,
ThinkPad Helix comes with optional
LTE high speed wireless and also
pioneers the emerging Near Field
Communications (NFC) technology
that allows devices to share data
seamlessly by simply tapping to
pair them.
leNovo iNtros tHiNkPad Helix
acer uNveils all-iN-oNe desktoP
60 Reseller Middle East january 2013
Cisco linksys has expended its linksys
smart Wi-Fi portfolio with three new
802.11ac powered smart Wi-Fi routers, a
new compact 802.11ac usB adapter, new
features and new smart Wi-Fi apps. linksys’
latest additions to its smart Wi-Fi router
portfolio include the linksys smart Wi-Fi
router aC1200, aC1600 and aC1750. all
three of the new dual-band linksys smart
Wi-Fi routers are equipped with the latest
802.11ac technology, offering fast wireless
speeds—up to three times the speed of
liNksYs rolls out wi-fi solutioNs
amd debuts New server cHiPsThe Nokia Lumia 920 also comes
with Nokia City Lens, the latest addition
to the Nokia location suite. By pointing
the camera at a city street, City Lens
overlays information about restaurants,
shops, hotels and more on the surfaces
of buildings, for the most intuitive way
to explore surroundings. Nokia City
Lens is the start of a new augmented
reality experience that also enhances
Nokia Maps, making it possible to move
between maps view and augmented
reality view to help people check
their direction and surroundings.
Along with enhancements
to Nokia Drive and Nokia
Transport, the Nokia location
suite of services represents
the most comprehensive,
integrated mapping
experience of any
smartphone.
The Nokia Lumia 920
comes in yellow, red, grey, white
and black. The Nokia Lumia 820
comes in red, yellow, grey, cyan,
purple, white and black.
Nvidia debuts tegra 4 Processor
nviDia has introduced nviDia Tegra
4, which it claims, is the world’s fastest
mobile processor.
The Tegra 4 is based on ARM’s quad-
core Cortex-A15 processor and also packs
in 72 graphics processing unit cores – six
times the GPU horsepower of Tegra 3.
Among the Tegra 4 processor’s
breakthroughs is its Computational
Photography Architecture, which
automatically delivers high dynamic range
(HDR) photos and video by fusing together
the processing power of the GPU, CPU and
the camera’s image-signal processor.
nokia Middle East has launched nokia
lumia 920 and the nokia lumia 820,
based on Windows Phone 8 in the region.
The nokia lumia 920 is the flagship
Windows Phone 8 smartphone, including
arabic language capabilities and the
latest advances in nokia Pureview
imaging innovation.
Using advanced floating lens
technology, the camera in the Nokia Lumia
920 is able to take in five times more light
than competing smartphones without
using flash, making it
possible to capture
clear, bright
pictures and
video indoors
and at
night.
Wireless-n, excellent range and backward
compatibility with existing wireless
802.11b/g/n devices.
All three of the new Linksys routers
are also equipped with Gigabit Ethernet
and USB 3.0 ports. The USB ports allow
for storage devices such as USB flash
drives or hard drives, to be connected to
the router. With Gigabit Ethernet and USB
3.0 ports the routers can rapidly transfer
files between the connected storage and
other devices – ideal for using the router’s
USB storage capabilities to back up media
from consumers’ smartphones, tablets or
notebooks.
Linksys is also adding beamforming
technology to all new 802.11ac routers to
deliver better network range and faster Wi-
Fi speeds in the home. Linksys Smart Wi-Fi
Routers with beamforming technology are
designed to precisely adjust, steer and
monitor the direction and shape of the Wi-
Fi signals in order to send data back and
forth over the optimal path.
Reseller Middle Eastjanuary 2013 61
Hot productsNew launches
Huawei launcHes new smartpHones
new Zotac ZBoX
Huawei has launched three smartphones—
the Huawei Ascend Mate, Huawei Ascend D2,
and Huawei Ascend W1—as well as a home
device solution dubbed the MediaQ and a full
range of LTE mobile & desktop devices.
Featuring a 6.1-inch HD IPS+ LCD
screen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 and
a screen-to-body ratio of 73%, the Huawei
Ascend Mate is perfect for both business
and entertainment purposes. It includes a 1.5
GHz Hi-Silicon quad-core processor and a
whopping 4050 mAh battery.
Huawei also unveiled the Huawei Ascend
D2 which boasts a 5-inch IPS Super Retina
LCD screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080,
443 PPI and a 3000 mAh (typical value)
battery capacity. The Huawei Ascend D2
features a 13MP BSI auto-focus rear-facing
camera with detail capturing technology and
an ISO sensitivity level higher than other
smartphones in this category.
Its first Windows Phone 8 smartphone, the
Huawei Ascend W1 offers a smarter alternative
with its dual-core 1.2 GHz Qualcomm
Snapdragon CPU and Adreno 305 GPU, a
4-inch IPS LCD screen, and 1950 mAh battery
with the longest standby time in its class.
ZOTAC International has given a
performance boost to its ZBOX with
greater graphics processing capabilities
using the latest AMD Radeon HD
iClass or MiFARE compatible. They usually
include a back-up of up to 1000 mechanical
key lock options that if necessary can
override the electronic lock to open or
close the cabinet door. Also, from a single
PDU connection you can cascade up to a
further three PDUs per cabinet.
The box itself includes two large visual
LED temperature monitoring windows. Two
other temperature monitors are also available
directly from each PDU giving a potential
of 10 temperature and humidity sensors
per cabinet. The additional temperatures
can be viewed either via the software or
on the PDU LCD screen itself. The 1U rack
mounted unit also has a dual AC / DC input
accommodating a power fail feature.
austin HugHes unveils caBinet controllerAustin Hughes has developed a cabinet
controller that can be used for either small
or large data room installations. InfaSolution
X allows cabinet control and monitoring of
door handles, switching and monitoring of
PDUs, control of cooling fan units, monitoring
of temperature and humidity, as well as
smoke, shock and water alarms for up to 800
cabinets over a local or wide area network.
The web based GUI (Graphic User
Interface) management software allows
up to eight simultaneous users to access
and control different cabinets. In detail
the handles are designed for use with
either inductive, mechanical or optical door
opening / closing sensors with alternative
smart card access that can either be HID,
7340 graphics processor. “The new
ZBOX gives users up to a 10-percent
performance boost for even greater
system responsiveness and usability in
applications and games. A media remote
is included with the performance-
boosted ZOTAC ZBOX for easy
navigation of popular home theater PC
applications such as Microsoft Windows
Media Center and XBMC. The new
performance-boosted ZOTAC ZBOX
ships as a barebone (ZBOX AD06) and
also available with 2GB of memory and
a 320GB hard drive preinstalled (ZBOX
AD06 Plus).
62 Reseller Middle East january 2013
Redington Value is a value-added distributor for the following brands in parts of Middle East and Africa:
Redington Value is an end-to-end value-added distributor in Middle East and Africa. It assists value-added resellers with most optimalIT solutions across technology domains such as Unified Communications, Virtualization and Cloud Computing, Converged Infrastructure,
End-to-end security, Mobility Solutions, Power Solutions, Cabling Solutions, Storage, Back-up and Recovery. They are also supported with in-house pre-sales expertise and regular sales/technical training and programs.
For more information, contact [email protected]
Breathe easy. Partner with Redington Value.
Some recent recognitions:
Dell SonicWallDistributor of the Year 2012
Trend MicroDistributor of the Year 2012
Red HatValue Added Distributor of the Year 2012
AvayaDistributor of the Year 2012