Reseller Middle East

ISSUE 175 // JULY 2011 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

PUBLICATIONLICENSED BY IMPZ

Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation

C O N S U M A B L E S : P A Y A S Y O U G OFEATURE

SOFTWARE CONGRESS 2011Thought leaders from business and technology deliberated on key issues around convergence of IT and corporate strategy. Turn to page 26.

EXACT SOFTWARE BUyOUTExact Software Middle East has bought out its management's equity and will now operate as distributor. Turn to page 29.

NEW pROdUCTS

RESELLER AWARDS 2011reader's choice n best partner excellence n oustandingexecutive n editor's choice n networking vendor n

software and security vendor n STORAGE VENDOR n

peripherals vendor n components vendor n printing vendor n systems and hardware vendor n it distributor n components distributor n networking distributor n value added distributor n specialised distributor n software and security distributor n peripherals distributor n enterprise reseller n smb and consumer reseller n super retailer n systems integrator

Prestigio's new tablets.Turn to page 64.

Reseller Partner Up Conference

Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecom

Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laserjet and Enterprise Solutions, HP

Vishnu Deuskar, Managing Director, Salvus Strategic Advisors

John Andrews, Director of MarketingMEA and APAC, Computerlinks

12 June 2011, Dubai

www.resellerme.com

www.techaccess.com/loyalty

Reseller Awards 2011

COVER FEATUREIN FOCUS

20 Partner UpReseller Middle East’s 2011 ConferenceTop notch speakers at the Reseller Conference covered a wide gamut of channel topics including upcoming technology trends, value addition, vendor-partner relationships, cash flow and social marketing.

26 Software Congress 2011Thought leaders from business and technology deliberated on key issues around convergence of IT and corporate strategy at this CPI event

29 Linking up again

A core team of ERP specialists that left Arthur Andersen in 1996 finally realise their dream in the Middle East at Exact Software.

64 Products and technology

CONTENTSISSUE 175 // JULY 2011

7473

32

05 Editorial

06 Tie-ups

16 Announcements

70 Movements

FEATURE

58 Pay as you goAfter sales contracts based on printed pages are an important source of recurring revenue. A look at consumables and supplies market.

Prestigio MultiPad PMP7100C

12 june 2011 200 nominations 25 awards400 attendees

PROFILE

Hemayum BazazMadhav Narayan

Reseller Middle EastJULY 2011 3

EDITORIAL

4 Reseller Middle East JULY 2011

www.redingtonvalue.com

Last month we mentioned about the Avatars of 2011. The first salvo has been launched! Anybody who has tried out Samsung’s Galaxy SII will know what we are talking about. The smartphone is very fast on the social media applications and there are a number of reasons for that.

For one it is inbuilt with a dual core Cortex processor giving it a download speed three times faster than any of its closest rival’s currently. Coupled with a telecom carrier’s 4G network, this is being pushed even further upwards.

The second is that each of the social media application interfaces that have been inbuilt into the phone is optimised for the phone. The screen zoom-in and zoom-outs are intuitive and make for a complete experience. Coupled with the super Amoled screen, extra sharp characters, 110% vivid colour enhanced contrast makes the whole user interface leap to life.

Place it next to your laptop, go through the social media applications, and you will not see a significant difference in usage speeds. That is provided of course you are using the same carrier and wifi access points. Priced at AED 2,599 or $707, the price point is way up and very close to an entry level notebook. So what gives?

Which product is being attacked, who is being replaced, and who is being targeted? There are no immediate answers. But Samsung Galaxy SII is sold out. Outlet after outlet in Dubai is reporting a sell-out position, but not to worry stocks are also rolling in, every second day.

The stage has been set for the other Avatars!!

On another note, this issue carries reports on three important CPI events. Our annual Reseller Awards was well received with 400 attendees. We gave away 25 trophies and were floored when we received 35,000 online nominations for our Reader’s Choice selection. We completed our first Reseller Conference on the same day with the pleasure of sitting through some excellent learning and interactive Q&As.

And then there was CPI’s second annual Software Congress. The event opened the wide chasm that exists between end users under pressure to justify hard returns on IT investment versus yet another vendor jugglery called the Cloud. More space to “wait and watch”.

Read on for what this issue has to offer on these topics, as well as how a simple commodity called a printer consumable today drives more than 50% of revenues for some global vendors.

Arun ShankarSenior Editor

[email protected]

If you’d like to receive your own copy of RME every month, log on and request a subscription: www.resellerme.com

PublisherDominic De Sousa

COONadeem Hood

Managing DirectorRichard Judd

[email protected] +971 4 440 9126

Sales DirectorRaz Islam


EDitOriAl

Dave [email protected] +971 4 440 9106

Senior EditorArun Shankar


ADvErtiSing

group Sales ManagerRajashree R Kumar


Advertising ExecutiveMerle Carrasco


CirCulAtiOn

Database and Circulation ManagerRajeesh M


PrODuCtiOn AnD DESign

Production ManagerJames P Tharian


Art DirectorKamil Roxas


DesignerAnalou Balbero


DigitAlwww.rwme.net

DigitAl SErviCES

Digital Services ManagerTristan Troy P Maagma

Web DevelopersJerus King Bation

Erik BrionesJefferson de Joya

Louie Alma

[email protected]+971 4 440 9100

Published by

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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.

First salvo is out

ISSUE 175 // JULY 2011 // WWW.RESELLERME.COM

PUBLICATIONLICENSED BY IMPZ

Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation

C O N S U M A B L E S : P A Y A S Y O U G OFEATURE

SOFTWARE CONGRESS 2011Thought leaders from business and technology deliberated on key issues around convergence of IT and corporate strategy. Turn to page 26.

EXCEL SOFTWARE BUYOUTExcel Software Middle East has bought out its management's equity and will now operate as distributor. Turn to page 29.

NEW PRODUCTS

RESELLER AWARDS 2011reader's choice n best partner excellence n oustandingexecutive n editor's choice n networking vendor n

software and security vendor n STORAGE VENDOR n

peripherals vendor n components vendor n printing vendor n systems and hardware vendor n it distributor n components distributor n networking distributor n specialised distributor n value added distributor n software and security distributor n peripherals distributor n enterprise reseller n smb and consumer reseller n super retailer n systems integrator

Prestigio's new tablets.Turn to page 64.

Reseller Partner Up Conference

Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecom

Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laserjet and Enterprise Solutions, HP

Vishnu Deuskar, Managing Director, Salvus Strategic Advisors

John Andrews, Director of MarketingMEA and APAC, Computerlinks

12 June 2011, Dubai

EDITORIAL


IN THE BEGINNINGTie-ups

Help Ag, an information security

consulting company, has been appointed

by F5, an application delivery networking

vendor, as the first official F5 unity

service partner to deliver l1 it support to

customers in the uAE.

As an F5 unity service partner, help

AG has been recognised as having the

in-house technical expertise necessary to

offer responsive support to businesses in

the ME region.

F5 monitored help AG's technical

support service capabilities for six weeks

as well as the degree of difficulty in

each of the cases. As an F5 unity service

partner, help AG will act as a single point

of contact delivering L1 IT support services

in-house on behalf of F5.

“We have been monitored closely by F5

on the level of complexity of our technical

support cases,” explains Stephan Berner,

Managing Director, help AG.

“Thanks to our technical consultants,

we passed with a 100% compliancy of case

quality, which means only support cases

related to bugs or advanced configuration

were opened. As a matter of fact we

are further investing in our F5 service

capabilities to strengthen our position.”

Diego Arrabal, ME Regional Director,

Additionally help Ag, has been officially

named the region’s first support service

partner for Palo Alto networks.

Help AG began working with Palo

Alto Networks in January 2010 and

currently has highest number of Palo

Alto Networks certified engineers in the

Middle East region. This partnership with

Palo Alto Networks defines help AG as

a single point of contact for enterprise

customers.

Help AG’s certified consultants will

provide round the clock, support services

under the service level agreement

through phone, email and onsite support

services.

In addition, help AG SLA customers

will also have access to the help AG

online support centre where they log

their support requests, download minor

and major software releases, utilize the

knowledge base and monitor the support

cases at any point in time.

“From the very beginning we have

invested strongly in our Palo Alto

Networks partnership and as of date we

are the only authorised service partner

and the only authorised Palo Alto training

partner in the Middle East,” explained

Stephan Berner, Managing Director, help

AG.

Recent security breaches at RSA

security and Sony put IT information

integrity at the forefront of business

concerns. “Currently enterprise

customers invest 90% of their budget

for IT security into the network layer,

this is surprising given that 70% of all

attacks and vulnerabilities come from the

application layer,” remarked Berner.

“At the same time, if you look into the

business requirements coming from the

end customer, more and more services

will be “webified” and therefore spending

should be more balanced.”

As the information security market

matures, organisations and government

entities shift to bridge the gap between

policies and procedures and technical

security controls in order to meet

compliance requirements.

Stephan Berner, Managing Director, help AG

help AG first F5 unity service partner in UAE

help AG first support partner for Palo Alto Networks

F5 commented: “In recognition of the

support levels that help AG has already

been delivering upon, we have decided

to reduce the trial period to six weeks

rather than the normal trial period of three

months.”

It was agreed under the F5 unity

service partnership that help AG must

continuously maintain and enhance

their services portfolio. Therefore every

six months a surveillance audit shall be

conducted by F5.

With the certification to provide F5

L1 support, help AG will be able to offer

local and highly responsive field support

by certified F5 engineers within the same

geographical boundaries, time zones and

languages.

F5 solutions help integrate disparate

technologies to provide control of the

infrastructure, application delivery

and data management. Help AG is an

information security consulting company,

founded in Germany in 1995 and has been

present in the Middle East since 2004.


ACC, said, “AOC is a monitor brand, which

not only offers a wide range but also

provides value for money. With our reach

and product portfolio, we expect AOC to

become the number one monitor brand in

Sudan very soon.”

ACC started operations in Sudan

in 1996 and has four offices across the

country and works closely with close to 200

resellers.

Speaking on the occasion AOC’s

Country Manager for Egypt and Sudan,

Ahmed Mossa, said, “AOC has been

witnessing high business traction in the

continent and we are glad to partner with

ACC, which is one of the most influential

players in the IT distribution space in

Sudan. We are sure that with support from

ACC, AOC will become a top monitor brand

in the country.”

Last year, despite the recession, AOC

shipped 16-million monitor units worldwide.

It has maintained average annual growth

of more than 20% for the past three years.

Admiral Overseas Corporation (AOC) was

established in 1967 in Taiwan. AOC is the

house brand of TPV Technology Ltd.

For Iraq, AOC has announced Al Seera

Computers as its authorised distributor.

Zeyad Al-Sammaraie, Managing

Director, Al Seera Group, said, “We believe

that IT users in Iraq will be happy with AOC,

as it offers a wide choice of eco-friendly,

feature rich, high quality, ergonomically

designed, value for money monitors. As

both, Al Seera and AOC work towards same

goal of providing excellent product at the

best price for consumers and on other hand

safeguarding the margins for our resellers.

Hence, we are excited to introduce AOC to

the Iraq market.”

Al Seera Group has five showrooms and

two service centres, apart from its offices

in Baghdad and Dubai. Al Seera Group was

started in the year 2000 and since then it

has grown to a base of 140 active resellers

across the country.

Speaking on the occasion, Suchit

Kumar, DGM AOC said, “Iraq is one of the

key emerging market for IT products in the

region and the dominance of Al Seera in IT

distribution space will provide us a platform

to address the Iraq marketplace.

For Sudan, AOC has announced

Arabian Computer Centre (ACC) as its

authorized distributor.

Omer Abulgassim, Managing Director,

AOC, manufacturers of flat-screen monitors

and tvs, with operations in close to 100

countries throughout the world, has

appointed it distributor Platinum Micro as

distributor for the South African market.

Platinum Micro will distribute a range of

AOC monitors including the AOC Razor range

of ultra-slim monitors which offer ultra-slim

cabinets of just 0.92cm thickness and 1.2cm

thickness with screen sizes ranging from 18.5

inches to 23 inches.”

Ricky Correia, General Manager, Platinum

Micro said, “We will have stock within a month

and will distribute the monitors nationally

through direct channels, which are soon to

be finalised. This is a huge brand coup for

Platinum Micro and a great opportunity. It will

lead to a permanent presence in South Africa

for AOC and we already have a distribution

channel reward and incentive scheme in

place to attract top resellers.”

Tony Yu, Business Development Manager

for South Africa, AOC, said, “We are glad to

sign up with Platinum Micro and given the

wide reach of Platinum in channels across the

country, AOC will be able to penetrate further

into the South African market”

AOC appoints distributors for South Africa, Sudan and Iraq

(Left to right) Ricky Correia, General Manager, Platinum Micro with Tony Yu Business Development Manager for South Africa AOC.

Zeyad Al-Sammaraie, Managing Director, Al Seera Group

AOC’s Country Manager for Egypt and Sudan, Ahmed Mossa



Xerox Emirates, document management,

technology and consulting services vendor

announced the appointment of tuqnia as

a business partner to sell Xerox products,

services and consumables.

Tuqnia is a systems integrator offering

a range of solutions from Dell, Microsoft,

Juniper, EMC, Symantec and Cisco to name

a few.

The partnership alliance between

Xerox Emirates and Tuqnia will provide their

customers in the UAE with a selection of

products and service offerings.

“We have been rapidly expanding our

presence in

the UAE and

today offer total

solution services

ranging from

IT hardware to

software services

and consulting”,

said Amar Singh,

Sales Director of

Tuqnia.

“Expanding

market reach

not only helps

increase sales

and profits but

is also one of the key criteria to survive in

today’s challenging economy. Our strategic

alliance with Tuqnia will help us expand our

market reach in the UAE thereby offering our

customers the wide range of products and

solutions offered by Xerox”, said Andrew

Hurt, General Manager for Xerox Emirates.

This alliance forms part of Xerox’s

channel vision for 2011, which in summary is

to be considered for business process and

document management opportunities within

relevant markets and leverage distribution

and channel partner relationships.

Tuqnia enters alliance with Xerox Emirates

(Left to right) Andrew Hurt, General Manager for Xerox Emirates and Amar Singh, Sales Director of Tuqnia

Equinox Egypt announced it has

achieved Cisco gold certification in

Egypt. “Achieving Cisco gold certification

concludes an important chapter in our

growth and success story. However, it

also marks the beginning of an even

more challenging chapter where the

expectations are higher and more difficult

to attain,” said Osama Qadan, Managing

Partner, Equinox international, the holding

company of Equinox Egypt.

“We are committed to providing the

tools, training and programs that facilitate

partner growth, differentiation and

profitability,” said Olaf Krahmer, President

and General Manager, Cisco, Egypt.

As Cisco gold certified partner, Equinox

Egypt achieved specializations in unified

communications, routing and switching,

security, and wireless LAN.

Using a third-party audit process, the

program validates a partner’s technology

skills, business practices, customer

satisfaction, presales and post-sales

support capabilities, customers consider

when choosing a trusted partner.

Equinox Egypt achieves Cisco gold certification in Egypt

Golden Systems adds Viewsonic to Its portfolio

golden Systems, distributor of it products

in the Middle East, announced that it has

signed a distribution agreement with

viewsonic, global provider of visual display

products for the uAE, Qatar, Kuwait and iraq.

As per the terms of the agreement,

Golden Systems will distribute and promote

Viewsonic’s range of LCDs and intelligent

communicating tablets through its channel and

retail partners in Qatar, Iraq and Kuwait. Only

the LCD range will be distributed in the UAE.

“We see a huge opportunity for their

products in the Middle East and are confident

their LCD and Viewpad range will be

well-received by our channel partners and

customers in the region,” said Ehsan Hashemi,

COO, Golden Systems.

Viewsonic manufactures LED display

screens, high-resolution LED TV, projectors,

digital signage, mini PC, all-in-one PC, e-books,

high-resolution audiovisual players, handheld

audiovisual players to name a few.

“We are confident our partnership with

Golden Systems will help us strengthen our

brand, expand our reach and increase our

market share further in the Middle East,” said

Junaid Gul, Country Manager Middle East,

Viewsonic.

Golden Systems, represents various

brands which include Gigabyte, Logitech, G

Data, Kaspersky, ZOTAC, BitDefender, Cooler

Master, Intel, Hitachi, Choiix, Axtrom, Leadtek,

Kingmax, Nvidia, NEC, Twinhan, AMD and ATI

to name a few.

Viewsonic develops products including

tablets, LED TVs, computers, LED monitors,

projectors, digital photo frames, digital signage

displays, 3D devices and digital media players.

(Left to right) Ehsan Hashemi, COO, Golden Systems Middle East with Junaid Gul, Country Manager Middle East, Viewsonic.


Jebel Ali Free Zone, Dubai, UAE ● Tel: (+971) 4 8863300 ● Fax: (+971) 4 8863311 ● UAE Sales Center: (+971) 4 3555520 ● P.O. Box: 262221 ● Email: [email protected] ● Website: www.gse.ae

TM

www.gse.ae

www.gse.ae

mailto:[email protected]


Manufacturer of power

protection equipment, tripp lite,

has entered into a distribution

agreement with redington

gulf, it distributor operating

in the Middle East and Africa.

the move is part of tripp lite’s

efforts to position itself across

the developing markets of the

Middle East and African region.

Under the terms of the

partnership, Redington Value, the value

added distribution division of Redington Gulf,

will distribute Tripp Lite’s range of products

including UPS Systems, UPS Batteries, PDUs,

KVMs, cables, power inverters, racks and surge

suppressors.

For Tripp Lite, the plus point of this new

partnership is Redington Value’s presence in

over 14 countries across the Middle East and

African region. The partnership will also allow

Redington Value to leverage Tripp

Lite’s products along with other brands

like Cisco, Fujitsu and HP as essential

components for a data centre.

"Data centres are now

established as a critical part of IT

development in the region and have

become a key component in attracting

local and global investment from

the IP, telecoms, hosting, integrator,

BPO and IT outsourcing sectors.

Our strategic new partnership with Redington

Value ably positions Tripp Lite as a key provider

of integrated solutions in today's data centre

installations," said Vipin Sharma, Vice President,

Middle East, Africa and CIS Sales, Tripp Lite.

Tripp Lite has a 2,500 product portfolio

that allows its customers to organise, connect,

control and protect computer and electronic

equipment that are essential to their day-to-day

operations.

Meeza signs deal with Qatar’s Supreme Council of Family Affairs

Avnet expands distributor agreement with HP

Tripp Lite, Redington Value sign distribution agreement

Meeza, a Qatar based

it solutions and

services provider, has

signed a partnership

agreement with

Qatar’s Supreme

Council of Family

Affairs, a large

government and

public entity.

The partnership covers complete IT

outsourcing including, IT infrastructure

design, building, management and support,

consultancy and project management. With this

new agreement, Meeza will be providing the

necessary IT solutions and infrastructure to help

the Supreme Council for Family Affairs reduce

costs, enhance productivity and efficiency,

provide business scalability as well as reduce

risks.

By signing this partnership, Meeza will

be able to support the government sector,

promote international trends in IT services,

and most importantly contribute to the

2030 Qatar National Vision of a knowledge

based economy.

The Supreme Council for Family Affairs

will be the first government entity in Qatar to

outsource all its services to Meeza, paving the

way for other entities to follow it.

Her Excellency Ms Noor Al Malki General

Secretary of the Supreme Council for Family

Affairs said, “This partnership will enable the

Supreme Council for Family Affairs to continue

functioning in a more professional manner,

supporting the main aim of strengthening the

Qatari family presence and its role in society.”

MEEZA Chairman and CEO, Rashid Al

Naimi said, ”The Supreme Council for Family

Affairs will benefit from Meeza’s experienced

people, standards-driven processes and world-

class technology.

Meeza in turn aims to promote increased IT

maturity within government and public sectors

in Qatar by enabling these entities to focus on

their core functions, increase their productivity

and be able to rapidly scale their organisational

operations to service the Qatari community.

Avnet technology Solutions, expanded its

distribution agreement with HP to cover

Bahrain, Egypt, iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, lebanon,

Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, uAE and Yemen.

“Avnet will now be able to offer our Middle

East channel partners all elements of HP’s

converged infrastructure, including networking,

servers, storage and software solutions,” said

Venkat Raman, sales director-Gulf and Levant,

Avnet Technology Solutions, Middle East.

As an authorised value-added distributor

for HP’s networking products, Avnet will be

Vipin Sharma, Vice President, Middle East, Africa and CIS Sales, Tripp Lite

MEEZA Chairman and CEO, Rashid Al Naimi

(Left to right) Venkat Raman, Sales Director, Gulf and Levant, Avnet Technology Solutions ME, Dennis Evers, Director Business Development EMEA, Avnet Technology Solution, Alfred Chrispanous, ESSN Distribution Manager, HP ME

responsible for providing HP’s

reseller partners with sales and

technical enablement, logistics

and operational support, and

programmes and services

to develop business growth

opportunities in the region.

In addition to this support,

Avnet is investing in channel

initiatives and will hold a series of

road shows aimed at growing the market for HP

networking solutions. Avnet will also offer training

and educational programs designed to further

increase the data centre and networking skills of

its channel partners across the region.

Commenting on the relationship, Alfred

Chrispanous, ESSN Distribution Manager, HP

Middle East, said, “We are happy to engage

with Avnet and believe that our association will

allow us to enhance our penetration in the SMB

market, and help us gain incremental business in

the region.”


www.oscompme.com


www.facebook.com/oscomp

www.linkedin.com/company/oscomp

www.twitter.com.oscomp

HP announced that Etisalat has been

selected as one of its eight 2010 EMEA

business optimisation champions. Picked

by a panel of HP business and technology

leaders, EMEA business optimisation

champions are selected based on the

delivery of exceptional business value using

HP software and solutions, with measurable

improvement in it and business outcomes.

Etisalat was chosen as a champion

because its solution demonstrated a fast

and efficient way of generating returns and

benefits. Etisalat’s solution implemented

a service level management platform built

on a range of HP software, including HP

Service Manager software, Universal CMDB

software, Discovery

and Dependency

Mapping software

as well as HP

Operations

Manager, Network

Node Manager and

Performance Insight

software.

The complete

solution provided

Etisalat with a

centralised service

view of customer

networks, enabling

the company to monitor and manage service

level agreements and aiding the connection

of UAE businesses with new markets.

“The major achievements were on

the improvements of the quality of service

enabling proactive monitoring on the

customers equipments, as well as automatic

ticket notification and assignments to the

respective teams,” said Mr. Nasser Salim,

SVP-Information Technology, Etisalat.

“At HP we applaud businesses such as

Etisalat that are challenging and transforming

business practices by using and investing

in a range of technological solutions,”

added Abbass Tarraf, Country Manager, HP

Software– UAE & Oman.

Etisalat is HP business optimisation champion

Etisalat and HP executives at the HP business optimization champion award ceremony

Seagate technology, a vendor producing

hard drives and storage solutions, has

partnered with redington gulf, a Middle East

supply chain solution and service provider,

to distribute its portfolio of retail products in

the region.

Redington Gulf will distribute Seagate’s

GoFlex and Expansion ranges of external hard

drives and the company’s BlackArmor network

attached storage solutions for small and

medium enterprises across the region.

“The continued growth in demand for

digital storage by consumers and businesses,

presents a significant window of opportunity

for us,” said Sofocles Socratous, Seagate,

Sales Director, Middle East.

Ashish Bharti, Senior Vice President,

IT Volume ME Business, Redington Gulf,

said, “Seagate has a strong local sales and

marketing team on the ground in the Middle

East, and we look forward to working with

them. Seagate’s range of retail products

covers the spectrum of users’ needs whether

they are in the home, on the move or at work.”

The Middle East market for hard drives is

estimated to be worth around US$380 million

a year with retail products accounting for a

quarter of total sales.

Redington Gulf, a part of Redington

India, operates across Middle East, Turkey

and Africa region with a turnover of US$1.6

billion for the year 2010-11. Redington Gulf

works with over 5,700 channel partners in 19

markets to distribute close to 30 global IT and

telecom brands.

Redington to push Seagate’s retail products

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passing official tests that

affirm their competence

in using computer and the

internet.

“Knowledge and skills

in computer applications

are particularly crucial

now more than ever as the

GCC region aims to build

a knowledge-based digital

society. Canon is therefore

keen to support the ICDL

Summer Camps for the

second year in a row as we are confident

that this program will serve as a tool towards

achieving our vision of creating a better

future for our society," said Anurag Agrawal,

Managing Director, Canon Middle East.

Meanwhile, Canon Middle East

announced it is also conducting a series

of special photography skills development

training sessions in the various universities

that are hosting the ICDL camps in UAE,

Kuwait, Qatar and Oman. Canon’s training

sessions cover basics of photography,

including better composition, capture and

printing.

Canon's support of the ICDL Summer

Camps is in line with the company's corporate

philosophy of ‘kyosei,’ which envisions all

people, regardless of race, religion or culture,

harmoniously living and working together into

the future.

Canon Middle East, has announced it is

expanding its support to include a greater

number of universities across the gCC for

the "iCDl Summer Camps." the summer

camps, which will run from June to July

2011, are being organised by educational

authorities and universities throughout

the region and overseen by international

Computer Driving license program (iCDl) in

the gCC States and iraq.

Canon revealed that it will be extending

region-wide support this year, to include

countries such as UAE, Oman, Qatar and

Kuwait, while it is likewise increasing the

number of universities and training centres

that it will be supporting.

Canon will partner with ICDL to offer

rewards to students who are enrolled in

the summer camps, giving away valuable

gift items such as printers and cameras in

recognition of the highest achievers among

the thousands of ICDL

candidates.

Thousands of

students all over the

region will undergo

computer training in

accordance with the

globally recognised

ICDL standard through

the summer camps.

The participants are

expected to achieve

the ICDL "Start"

certification after

Canon continues second year support for summer camps

Sandisk expands into Turkey with Telpa Group

SanDisk Middle East and Africa,

announced its expansion into turkey

through its partnership with telpa

group, a mobile retailer in turkey. the

partnership will drive Sandisk MEA’s

strategy in turkey and take advantage

of the country's growing mobile market

growth in turkey.

“Our partnership with Telpa reinforces

our objective to expand our product reach

in Turkey. The entire range of Sandisk

storage products will now be available to

a wider market through the expertise and

established distribution networks of Telpa,”

said Tareq Husseini, Sandisk’s Middle East

and Africa Sales Director.

Telpa has a widespread distribution

network and directly works with 3,500

dealers and 6,200 retail shops. The

company’s infrastructure, with an

established working environment for

dealers and an online B2B platform, will

enhance Sandisk’s market presence in the

country.

Sandisk’s product portfolio includes

flash memory cards for mobile phones,

digital cameras and camcorders; digital

audio-video players; USB flash drives for

consumers and the enterprise; embedded

memory for mobile devices; and solid state

drives for PCs.

Tareq Husseini, SanDisk’s Middle East and Africa Sales Director


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Infor announced that Saudi

Printing and Packaging

Company (SPPC) has invested

in its ErP ln enterprise

resource planning solution.

infor’s channel partner, Comm-

it, is working with infor and

SPPC in the roll out.

Infor ERP LN will provide

visibility of SPPC’s operations

across its three companies

in the city of Riyadh, Jeddah

and Dammam, which are

responsible for printing the

Kingdom’s most popular newspaper

and magazine titles, as well as flexible

packaging and commercial labels.

"We are confident that Infor ERP LN

will significantly contribute to SPPC’s

improvements in operations and revenue

generation for many years," said Naushad

Khalid, general manager, Comm-IT Middle

East LLC.

"As an increasing number of enterprises

in the Middle East turn to Infor ERP LN,

we have witnessed its benefits to reduce

complexity, increase flexibility and internal

visibility and control for the company."

The ERP will integrate data across

SPPC’s supply chain – from the raw

materials to the completed printed

product or label. This will increase SPPC’s

control over its supply

chain and help improve

accuracy, enabling sharper

information to make better

decisions.

It will also help

SPPC improve visibility,

traceability and connectivity

within the sales,

procurement and finance

departments. Once the

application is implemented,

the sales team will be able

to automatically process

orders and follow up on status as well as

check inventory, location and lot control,

instead of its previous manual system of

telephone and email follow ups.

“With our heavy printing and

packaging operations we required a

solution that would integrate data across

our major activities and plug in the holes

in our old manual systems,” said Saad Al

Azwari, the chief executive officer of SPPC,

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

"We continue to improve our Middle

East customers' operations by providing

flexible solutions that enable them to be

dynamic in their approach to the ever

increasing customer demands in the

region," said Paul Hammond, general

manager, Infor Middle East.

Comm-IT to roll out Infor ERP at SPPC

Avnet technology

Solutions, a value added

distributor in the Middle

East and Africa region,

held a special training

programme called “HP

Software Academy” in

association with HP to

educate its partners in

Jeddah and riyadh, Saudi

Arabia.

“HP Software

Academy” was a one day event designed specifically

to inform partners about the HP software portfolio. All

participants were awarded with a certificate which was

presented by HP and Avnet.

"HP Software Academy was a perfect opportunity

for Avnet and HP to meet with our partners. It also

enhanced the understanding and knowledge of

partners about the wide portfolio of HP software

products and solutions available for them in Saudi”,

said Emad Aboukhater, Avnet account manager for HP

software solutions.

Emad further added, “At the same time, the

sessions also acted as a strategic venue to discuss the

current challenges in the industry and develop solutions

and strategies that can help reinforce HP leadership in

the KSA region."

Encouraged by the overwhelming response Avnet

plans to take the “HP Software Academy” to remote

areas in Saudi Arabia like Mecca and Abha later this year.

Avnet holds HP software training in KSA

HP opens second office in Cairo

Paul Hammond, General Manager, Infor Middle East.

Emad Aboukhater, Avnet account manager for HP software solutions

under the patronage and presence of

HE Dr Magued Osman, Egypt’s Minister

of Communication and information

technology, HP announced the opening of

its new premises in Smart village, Egypt’s

Communication and information technology

business park.

The event highlights the stability of

the Egyptian economy, development

of Egypt’s ICT sector that continues to

attract international investment, and HP’s

commitment and contribution to local

businesses and governments.

“We are honoured to have such an

auspicious opening for our Smart Village

premises,” said Eyad Shihabi, Managing

Director and Enterprise Business Lead, HP

Middle East. “The investment into our new

premises, increasing staff strength and growth

is a testament to our commitment to the

Egyptian people and the country.”

The 5,500 square metres HP premises

in Smart Village will be its second major

Representatives of HP and Information Technology Industry Development Agency (left to right): Eyad Shihabi, MD, HP Middle East; Yasser El-Kady, CEO, ITIDA; Bassem Bouzid, Regional VP and GM Enterprise Services HP MEMA; and Hussein Hamza, Country MD, HP Egypt.

Continues in page 18

IN THE BEGINNINGAnnouncements


[email protected] a free workshop on Data Management** first 10 requests

HP and local Kuwait

partner, tawasul

Services have

implemented HP

Business Availability

Centre Software

at Kuwait national

Petroleum Company

(KnPC). KnPC

one of the world’s

largest national oil

companies, is using HP solutions to transform

its technology environment, streamline

operations and provide advanced warning of

service disruptions and isolation of their root

causes before they impact the business.

With more than 7,500 users, KNPC was

determined to continue providing superior

service while their information and IT

projects rapidly increased. Historically, KNPC

managed information and IT projects through

manual change processes.

“KNPC is striving to improve our ability

to respond to market changes to supply gas

to businesses more efficiently,” said Khaled

Al-Asousi, IT Manager, KNPC.

“By eliminating manual practices and

providing better change processes, HP

Software will help KNPC accelerate business

transformation without increasing risk,” said

Tayfun Topkoc, HP Software Director for the

Middle East.

The HP solution includes HP Network and

Operations Management Centre, HP Business

Availability Centre and HP Storage Essentials.

Al rajhi Holding, a diversified business

conglomerate with operations across the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the uAE, has

secured and integrated its wide area network

using Sonicwall’s network Security Appliance

series. the implementation was done with

Sonicwall’s partner networker Strategy.

“Our partner in Saudi Arabia, Networker

Strategy, worked with the Al Rajhi’s team in

Saudi Arabia to roll out Sonicwall’s NSA 240,

2400, NSA 3500 and NSA 4500 firewalls over

the course of a year. We are pleased with this

initiative and hope to continue deploying new

and improved solutions to strengthen Al Rajhi’s

network,” said Shahnawaz Sheikh, Sonicwall’s

Regional Director, Middle East, Africa and

Turkey.

“Instead of one appliance per application,

security consolidation aggregates multiple

interconnected security applications on a

single piece of hardware without compromising

security and performance,” said Afran Khan,

branch manager, Networker Strategy.

As malware and phishing attacks were

growing in strength and frequency globally,

controlling peer-to-peer applications, instant

messaging and the sharing of multimedia

content and applications became critical. With

ever-growing Internet security threats and

increased vulnerabilities due to employee

remote access and branch connectivity issues,

Al Rajhi's technology team decided to take

decisive action.

The group sought an integrated solution

to manage and secure traffic across their WAN.

They consulted their IT solutions provider

Networker Strategy, who suggested Sonicwall’s

Network Security Appliance series.

With Sonicwall, the group was able to

improve bandwidth by 75%, reduce IT costs by

30%, streamline administration with centralised

management, lower hardware costs through

consolidation and, by training in-house staff on

Sonicwall technology, internalise functions they

used to outsource.

The group, with distributed server assets

across various locations: Jeddah, Jubail,

Dammam and Yanbu in Saudi Arabia; and

Dubai, Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah in the

UAE, sought to gain enhanced returns on its

technology investments by better controlling the

cumbersome and expensive maintenance and

upkeep of hardware and network infrastructure.

Al Rajhi had deployed a SSL-VPN 2000

secure remote access solution and have already

upgraded to the more powerful Sonicwall

Aventail E-Class SRA EX-6000. The group is to

further update its network security to the high-

performance low-latency SuperMassive Next-

Generation Firewall. Plans are also underway

to adopt the Sonicwall Global Management

System, which allows users to manage and

monitor the activity of all its Sonicwall devices

from one central console.

“The benefits achieved through deploying

Sonicwall had a significant impact on our

operations. Al Rajhi now has an integrated

network with a centralised data centre in our

head office in Riyadh and seamless connectivity

to network users in different areas.” explained

Dr Marwan Al Siddiqi, group ICT director, Al Rajhi

Holding Group.

Networker Strategy implements Sonicwall suite at Al Rajhi

Tawasul to roll out HP portfolio at Kuwait Petroleum

Announcements

Tayfun Topkoc, HP Software Director for the Middle East

office in Cairo, with the first established in

Nasr City which also serves as the country

headquarters. At the new location, HP will

accommodate the Enterprise Services Global

Delivery Centre and go-to-market teams.

“In Egypt, we’re not just focused

on commercial progress but also social

investment, given the large, young Egyptian

population who are well-positioned to take

on a greater role in the ICT sector,” added

Hussein Hamza, Managing Director and

Enterprise Business lead, HP Egypt. “We’re

laying particular emphasis in two areas:

innovation in education and entrepreneurship

education. At HP, we believe innovation

in education is vital to developing the next

generation of high-tech innovators and

entrepreneurs.”

HE Dr Magued Osman, Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology joined an HP delegation to officially open HP’s new office in Smart Village, Cairo.

From page 16

IN THE BEGINNING


www.mercury-pc.com


IN FOCUSConference

PARTNER UP Reseller Middle East’s 2011 ConferenceTop notch speakers at the Reseller Conference covered a wide gamut of channel topics including upcoming technology trends, value addition, vendor-partner relationships, cash flow and social marketing.

On 12 June, reseller Middle East kicked off

its first conference directed at the reseller

community. the conference was a day-long,

single track event, held at Westin Dubai,

uAE. the highlights of the conference were

intended to be the wide range of channel

issues tackled by a high-level team of

experienced industry leaders selected from

vendors, distributors and consultants. the

presentation content of each topic was set to

appeal at an operational level rather than at

a conceptual level.

The conference was kicked off by a

short welcome address by Reseller’s senior

editor Arun Shankar, after which the key note

speaker was invited to the stage

The keynote address for the conference

was presented by Nassir Nauthoa, General

Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation. There

were a number of important highlights in the

presentation. Nauthoa drew the attention of

the audience to the increasing purchasing

power of the emerging markets. The index

used to track the changes in purchasing

power of the markets is the number of weeks

of income required to buy an average priced

consumer laptop.

In 1994, it required 151 weeks of income to

buy a laptop in the emerging markers versus

6 weeks of income in developed markets. In

2010, the same comparison has changed to 12

weeks of income in emerging markets versus

1 week of income for developed markets.

This shows that a vast segment of population

in the emerging markets is moving towards

affordable ownership of a PC or a laptop.

Today, one billion people own a PC device,

but 2.2 billion people can afford a PC and have

not invested in such a device. A further 3.5

billion people still cannot afford a PC device.

The engine of the emerging markets

is so compelling that by end 2011 and early

1 2

8

12

3

97


2012, the total number of PCs shipped to the

emerging markets will overtake the developed

markets.

Nauthoa also pointed out the changing

nature of the personal computing device. It is

not just PCs and laptops which the growing

segment of population will use for computing.

By 2015, only 56% of mobile traffic will be

generated by laptops. Rest of the traffic will be

generated from smart phones, home gateways

and others. The forms of computing devices

are changing and the all-in-one PC screen,

ultra-book, smart TV, tablet and netbook are all

possible variants of today’s desktop PC.

However is the PC dead? Nauthoa

indicated that the death knell of the PC was

announced in 1997 with the network computer;

again in 1999 with internet appliances; in 2005

with the cloud; in 2007 with the smart phone;

in 2009 with the netbook; and in 2010 with the

tablet. In 2010 there were one million devices

shipped per day. All forecast indicate that by

2015 there will be two million shipped per day.

So the PC is not dead!

Intel’s vision of the future: by 2020 there

will four billion connected people, 31 billion

connected devices and 25 million applications.

The key drivers for computing devices will

remain performance, security and connectivity.

After Nathuoa’s visionary address,

there was a round table discussion on the

growth dynamics across the Middle East.

The participants were jointly made up of

speakers from the Reseller Conference and

some special invitees. The speakers of the

conference who sat on the panel included

Nassir Nauthoa, Intel Corporation; Meera Kaul,

Optimus Technology and Telecommunications

and Hesham Tantawi, Asbis.

The special invitees included Sukant

Mishra, Managing Director, Octagon

International; Prateek Dayal, Channels &

13

4

10 11

5 6

1PCs shipped to emerging markets will overtake mature markets by the end of 2011: Nassir Nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation

2Market dynamics through the eyes of data: Vasudevan KS, Managing Director, Satvik

3Shifting trends in the market: Amir Sohrabi, Regional Alliances and Partner Development Manager Middle East, SAS

4Value addition is a differentiator in the channel: Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecommunications

570% of UAE companies have no anti-counterfeit policy in place: Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laser and Enterprise Solutions, HP

6Sorting out vendor and partner disconnects: Hemayun Bazaz, Channel Manager, HP Networking

7Present cash flow projections to decision makers on daily basis: Vishnu Deuskar, Managing Director, Salvus Strategic Advisors

8Due diligence before exports: Dr Ashraf Ali Mahate, Head of Export Market Intelligence

9Know your reseller’s business like your own business: Hesham Tantawi, Vice President, Asbis

10Social media still an unknown ROI: John Andrews, Director of Marketing MEA and APAC, Computerlinks

11End of the day, question and answers

12Audience participation

13Audience participation


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Alliances Director, Xerox Emirates; KS Parag,

Managing Director, FVC; Parag Saxena, Head

of Sales, Redington Value; Patrick Mulligan,

General Manager, Emitac Distribution.

Reseller Middle East’s senior editor Arun

Shankar, moderated the discussions.

The next pair of speakers after

the panel discussion was Vasudevan KS,

Managing Director, Satvik and Amir Sohrabi,

Regional Alliances & Partner Development

Manager Middle East, SAS. Both addressed

the issue of analysis to aid in channel sales.

The focus was on interpreting market

dynamics through the eyes of data; the

shifting trends in the market; the changing

business priorities and an introduction to

marketing, risk and operation analytics.

The next speaker was Meera Kaul,

Managing Director, Optimus Technology and

Telecommunications. Her theme was around

possible value addition by a distributor in

the channel market. With channel sales

accounting for 60-80% of IT vendor sales,

the role of a channel player is vital in today’s

market. A channel player is faced with the

task of differentiation from other players and

the increasing demand from customers, but

is probably the only one who has a deep

understanding of a customer’s complex

ecosystem.

Kaul presented how a channel player

can leverage on this fact and be better

prepared to address tomorrow today. For a

vendor, value and volume are like birds of two

different colours. “Channel has become an

extension of the vendor”, she summarised.

An important topic before lunch

was counterfeit products in channels by

Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, Laser and

Enterprise Solutions, HP. Azzam pointed out

that the current market size for counterfeit

products is $775 billion and will cross

one trillion in 2015. The number of jobs

lost because of this illegal trade in G20

countries alone is two and half million. Usage

of counterfeit products is an operational

disconnect for HP since it creates void

warranty claims when toners leak inside the

printer.

Across the Middle East last year HP

conducted 3,000 channel audits to check

for trading in counterfeit. Any incidence of

illegal trading leads to termination of business

partner status. According to Azzam, a starting

point for corrective measures is an end-user

corporate policy that avoids purchase of

counterfeit products. 72% of UAE companies

have no such anti-counterfeit policy in place.

After lunch, the audience was

presented with a business focussed and

well directed presentation by Hemayun

Bazaz, Channel Manager, HP Networking.

Bazaz explored in straight-forward language

disconnects that sometime exist between

vendors and reseller partners in the channel

space.

Partners complain that vendor programs

are complicated in terms of rebates, available

marketing support and specialisation training

programs. Vendors complain that partners

do not make an effort to understand their

programs and miss out on financial returns.

Bazaz stressed that the solution lay at the

half-way mark, both sides making an effort to

meet mid-way.

The next presentation was on cash flow

management by Vishnu Deuskar, Managing

Director, Salvus Strategic Advisors. Deuskar

presented a sound operational plan to avoid

cash flow crisis. Companies should have a

daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly cash flow

forecast based on probabilities with worst

case scenarios in-built separately and

highlighted.

This should be sent to decision makers

on a daily basis to avoid emergency plans

being created like private funding at high

interest rates. Another possible area of

financial loss by traders in the re-export

business is in currency mismatches, when

incorrect rates are used in quotations and

invoices.

Continuing on the economical

perspective of the market, the next topic was

on the dynamics of exports out of UAE. Dr

Ashraf Ali Mahate, Head of Export Market

Intelligence talked about the need to export

out of UAE in the face of growing entry of low

cost players and development of production

scale. Dubai is ideally suited to be a hub for

exports. All countries can be reached by

shipping within 30 days and by air within 24

hours.

Exports have been consistently growing

at close to 30% for the last five years.

However Mahate warned that an exhaustive

due diligence of a planned export strategy

should be completed before project roll out

is initiated. The due diligence should cover

target countries, IP protection, distribution

partners, and marketing plans amongst

others.

The next topic addressed by Hesham

Tantawi, Vice President, Asbis was on

bottlenecks in the channel. Hesham chose

to focus on explaining the drivers of sales

in the current market, types of pricing, the

relation between value and price, and some

key parameters of profits. On pricing Tantawi

differentiated between market based and

cost based pricing. He gave an empirical

formula for the calculation of GPROCA.

An interesting numerical example

showed that a 10% improvement in lead

generation and conversion process actually

yields 46% increase in sales and 61% increase

in profits.

The last session of the day was

addressed by John Andrews, Director of

Marketing MEA and APAC, Computerlinks, on

the subject of zero cost marketing and the

power of social communications. Andrews

started by comparing the costs of launching

a brand over the last ten years. In 2001,

the launch cost of Microsoft XP brand was

$0.7 billion, and in comparison the Coke

advertising budget in 2009 was $3.6 billion.

In addition to the five Ps of marketing,

Andrew added process and physical

evidence to bring it to seven Ps.

For zero cost marketing, Andrews listed

electronic mailing, e-newsletters, social media

and press opportunities. Andrew pointed

out that although his company maintained

a social media team to monitor customer

feedback, the team was still posted as a

marketing expense without a tangible return

on investment. His key takeaway, “people are

your biggest marketing asset, more powerful

than any social media.”

The Reseller Conference concluded

with a vigorous question and answer session

directed at a panel made up of speakers

again. Speakers participating in the end of

day session included Meera Kaul, Hesham

Tantawi and John Andrews.

Conference

IN FOCUS

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• Advanced power management capabilities

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www.touchmatepc.com

Panel discussion: Middle East growth wave

the leading question to the panel was to

summarize their assessment of the growth

dynamics in the region. From a technology

point of view, nauthoa indicated that the

multiple technology life cycles had not

created any cyclical period of sales in the

Middle East and as per the technology

dynamics there should be good growth in

the region. But where is it, remains the big

question?

Tantawi of Asbis, who had just returned

from a trip to Egypt indicated that current

business was about 80% of the expected

value. And overall growth across North Africa

was expected to be flat by the end of the

year. Kaul of Optimus, indicated that different

regions are at different points of the innovation

curve. For some it was cloud and for others

it was infrastructure. Overall an upswing was

expected.

Parag of FVC, which operates in MEA

countries, indicated that it was important to

understand customer pain areas. Once that

has been achieved business needs can be

addressed and market growth can happen.

Xerox’s Dayal mentioned that revenues across

the region have been consistent. The company

changed its channel structure over the last few

years and has seen significant growth at the

lower end of its product range.

For Octagon which uses Kenya as its

trading hub, the growth from Africa is in double

digits and is looking “very green at present”.

Inspite of the volatility in the region, Mishra

indicated that overall Middle East business

was stable. For Redington which operates in

six African and six Gulf countries, the business

from Africa has been good and the momentum

of sales is picking up driven by Saudi along

with Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman.

However, each market has different demands

according to Saxena.

Emitac’s Mulligan pointed out the inherent

risks still prevailing across the region. “I think

we're in really dangerous hands. There's a lot of

volatility in the market and significant financial

exposure in places like Bahrain and Libya. So

markets are unpredictable. The question is: how

do we balance growth and danger?”

The next round of questions was on

managing credit risks through channel

partners. Tantawi pointed out that Asbis always

monitors every channel partners risk as if it

were its own. It always monitors the sales of

each of its partners and understands their

business as well. Octagon’s Mishra stated that

there have been substantial changes in the

way the channel is working, but the challenge

still remains on how to manage credit risk?

For Redington Value, the problem of credit

risk was addressed seven years ago when

they brought in credit insurance. However the

distributor carefully monitors the behaviour of

its reseller channel partners. “It’s the classic

problem of distribution, sell to end users

and the risk is low. Sell to resellers and the

risk is high,” remarked Saxena. For FVC, it

manages risk based on the vertical market

segment where it operates. “For example

there is always a long payment cycle in the

government sector”, said Parag.

In terms of market development the panel

was asked about their changing business

models. Intel’s Nauthoa was of the opinion,

“we need to ask our channel customers what is

the purpose of their business? This will deliver

focus. Then match the customer with the

supply chain.”

PArtiCiPAntS

Arun Shankar, Senior Editor, Reseller Middle East (moderator) Patrick Mulligan, General Manager, Emitac Distribution Sukant Mishra, Managing Director, Octagon International Meera Kaul, Managing Director, Optimus Technology and Telecommunications Prateek Dayal, Channels & Alliances Director, Xerox Emirates nassir nauthoa, General Manager, GCC, Intel Corporation KS Parag, Managing Director, FVC Hesham tantawi, Vice President, Asbis Parag Saxena, Head of Sales, Redington Value

For players that operate in Africa,

like Octagon, the weak infrastructure

would be a constraint in limiting roll out of

connected consumer devices. “Africa is a

generation behind. Technology is available

but cannot be used because of a lack of

infrastructure,” said Mishra.

For Optimus, operating across vast

geographies from Levant, West Asia, North

Africa and the Gulf, "every country has

its own growth curve and technology is

taken up differently in different territories.

For example, the UAE is all about cloud

services but that is not being spoken of at

all in Saudi,” said Kaul.

For Redington Value, their biggest

value-add opportunity in the near future

lies in the growing requirement for security.

For FVC another value-add player, the

challenge is always to keep asking “where

is the big value? We need to add value or

die,” said Parag. Another key differentiator

that FVC adopts is to look at cutting-edge

technology from the point of view of the

customer and ROI. //

Conference

IN FOCUS

(LEFT TO RIGHT)


IN FOCUSSoftware Congress 2011

SoFTwARE CoNGRESS 2011Thought leaders from business and technology deliberated on key issues around convergence of IT and corporate strategy

On 27 July 2011, the second annual Software Congress was

organised by CPi in Dubai. the half-day Congress featured

speakers from various corporate end-user organisations

and sponsors including Etisalat and SAS.

The speakers included: Dr Deepak Kalra, Group IT

manager, Safeer Group; Dr Hazem Turki El Khatib, CIO

Department of Finance, Abu Dhabi; Carel Badenhorst, Head

of technology practice, SAS ME; and Ahmed Al Hammadi,

Manager, Product marketing e-hosting, Etisalat.

After the four speaker sessions a panel discussion was

held with Sathya Mithra Ashok, Senior Editor of CPI’s Computer

News as the moderator. All the speakers were invited as members

of the panel discussion. In addition they were joined by Ramesh

Krishna Bhandari, Business Development Specialist, Central

Marketing, Etisalat; Arun Tewary, CIO, Emirates Flight Catering and

Rolf Elevald, Director of Information and Software Development,

Jumeirah Group.

A lot of the debate focussed around adoption drivers and

inhibitors for Cloud based computing. Excerpts of the key

statements from the sessions and the panel discussion:

On ups and down of IT spending: Business will not invest in IT, if they are not doing good business

On selection of a supplier: They should be able to defy you in terms of thinking

On managing recession: A rolling-wave approach for IT spending may be necessary, since long-term planning is not possible

On selection of a technology: Don’t run after a new technology, focus on matured technologies

On project management: There is nothing like best practices, every organisation is different.

On project management: The success or failure of a project is yours not of the implementation partner

Dr Deepak Kalra, Group IT managerSafeer Group

Panel discussion in progress


On late adopters to cloud services: I don’t see ERP moving to the cloud in a hurry

On first movers to the cloud: I see the SMEs moving to the cloud

On inhibitors to cloud adoption: Nobody is asking you to move lock, stock and barrel into the Cloud

On Cloud SLA’s: Check the SLA for a pay-back or guarantee clause for free service in return

On Cloud technologies: Vendors are being forced to move to the cloud

On SLAs: We can provide an end-to-end SLA for a cloud application

On cost of roll outs: An ERP implementation can cost upto AED 15 million per govt department

On consolidation: We are hosting 30 ERP solutions for government departments

On changing role of IT: The challenge is to move from a technology partner towards a strategic partner

On relevance of Cloud: Cloud computing is an IT issue not an end user issue

On IT planning: Each IT manager needs to have a three-year IT strategy.

On Cloud adoption: In the Middle East we are not yet ready for the Cloud

On adoption of new technologies: You have to be very careful with new technologies, since you are sitting on a gold mine of data that has to shine

On inhibitors to data analysis: 60% of cases data is not shared because of ownership or politics

On inhibitors to data analysis: 61% of cases data is not shared because of corporate culture based on silos

On inhibitors to data analysis: 42% of cases data is not shared because of lack of business sponsorship

On server under utilisation: 45% of RAM not used 99.9% of time, 85% of CPU not used 99.9% of time, 68% of hard disk space not used at all

On server ramp-up time: We need 4-6 weeks lead time to set up a server

On post-virtualisation benefits: Server utilisation increases from 10% to 75%

On post-virtualisation benefits: 100 servers can be reduced to 8 servers

On disaster recovery: Out of country, backup requests are considered on case to case basis

Ramesh Krishna Bhandari,

Business Development Specialist, Central Marketing, Etisalat

Dr Hazem Turki El Khatib, CIO Department of FinanceAbu Dhabi

Carel Badenhorst, Head of technology practiceSAS ME

Ahmed Al Hammadi,Manager, Product marketing e-hosting, Etisalat


Exact Software Middle East

IN FOCUS

in middle of June 2011, the core

team of Exact Software Middle

East, led by nizar Badwan,

bought out the management

stake of the netherlands based parent

company Exact international. the local

subsidiary which had since 2002 existed as

direct sales model was now “green to go” to

change into an indirect, distributor-reseller,

vAr based model.

Why did Badwan and his team buy out

the parent company’s shares and change the

sales model for a solution that today exists

in 15 countries across the Middle East? The

story goes back more than fifteen years to

a time when Badwan was working in Arthur

Andersen in Denver, USA.

At Andersen, Badwan’s forte was in

the alignment of business and IT strategy

in enterprise customers. He worked with

organisations to define their IT strategy and

keep it in sync with business strategy. He

also worked on implementation of business

solutions aligned with business outlook.

Badwan and a core team moved to the

Middle East in 1996 and brought with them

Great Plains Dynamics ERP to an as yet virgin

market for business solutions. After setting

up as a local office and distributor, they found

the market to be devoid of VARs and the only

resellers that existed were pure box pushers.

Over the next four year’s Badwan developed

the market for VARs and groomed them to

be consultants, implementation and support

partners for the ERP solution. The customer

base reached close to five hundred by the

year 2000.

In the year 2000, Microsoft acquired

Great Plains Dynamics and Badwan’s team

ceased to exist in the Middle East as a

local supporting entity. “Somebody moved

my cheese and we needed to go find new

cheese,” Badwan reflects.

In 2002, the same team that left Denver

in 1996, regrouped as Exact Software Middle

Linking up again A core team of ERP specialists that left Arthur Andersen in 1996 finally realise their dream in the Middle East

East, and operated as the local subsidiary

for the Netherland based ERP vendor. They

set up the operation as a direct sales model

and engaged directly with small and medium

businesses in the region. That is until middle

of June 2011.

After working in the region for just under

ten years, Badwan and his team felt that

further penetration in the market required

them to go indirect. There were also VAR

partners like Compusoft, Afcom, Emitac and

others, from Badwan’s Great Plains business,

who wanted to engage with Exact Software

but could not do so because it was built up as

direct sales operation.

In June 2011, Badwan and his core team,

still loyal to each other since 1996, bought out

the parent company’s management stake and

cleared the formal route to transform to an

indirect sales model across the region.

Globally, Exact Software operates in

40 countries and has an installed base of

180,000 countries. But it exists as an indirect

sales model in only two other countries, US

and Netherlands. Now Badwan has added

Middle East to that select group of operations

justified on the basis of scale and go-to-

market opportunities.

The first industry groups on the business

development road map are manufacturing,

wholesale distribution, professional services

and human resource management. As with

any other indirect sales operations partners

would fall into two categories: VARs who

would invest in consulting and customer

support activities; and resellers who would go

down the opportunity or trading route.

On priority, Badwan is looking for

channel partners who can get Exact into

customer accounts where they have failed

to penetrate till now; or VARs who have

industry specialisation – a key expectation of

customers today.

What are Badwan’s credentials now that

“Today if I hand over a customer to a reseller that can’t support them – I will probably lose the customer and eventually lose the reseller."

Committed to going the partner route, Nizar Badwan, General Manager, Exact Software Middle East


www.fdcinternational.com


he has taken the first step in his go-to-market

vision? Badwan and his team have nine years

of first-hand experience in implementing

these solutions across the region, which they

are ready to pass onto partnering VARs. For

the other category of resellers, Badwan is

looking at tapping into business contacts

developed during the Great Plains stint from

1996 to 2000, when they operated across the

region in the same indirect sales manner.

The installed base of customers is a

referral point where Exact has a reputation

and proven track record of software

performance. From the revenue point of view,

the annuity of license renewals across the

installed customer base is the supporting

income to keep operations moving till the

indirect channel ramps up.

Some of Exact’s leading customer names

include Electric House Establishment in

Saudi Arabia, Gulf Investment Corporation in

Kuwait, Nutrecia Middle East in UAE, Eagle

Industries in UAE, Eli Lily in UAE, amongst

others. The customer base is also built up

from multinationals like Siemens and Loreal,

which are large enterprise customers on

an aggregated global basis, but on a local

scale fall into the small and medium business

segment.

The core modules of the solution include

manufacturing, accounting and human

resources. Across the Middle East, Exact also

has an office in Kuwait.

Looking at the bell shaped curve of

software licenses versus the number of

establishments, the extreme points are set at

5 users to 1,200 users. But the sweet spot is

set at 20-30 users. In the Middle East a 20-30

user license falls into a small and medium

category, but this would be different in the US

or Europe.

Is Badwan going to open up the

customer base to partner’s from the outset?

“Today if I hand over a customer to a reseller

that can’t support them – I will probably lose

the customer and eventually lose the reseller.

So it’s a lose-lose situation.” Once Badwan

sees a strong community of resellers that

gives everyone confidence, and he can

introduce to the customer, “the customer

will benefit, reseller will benefit, and I will

benefit.”

For now Badwan’s local operation will

have their hands-full managing the roll out

of Exact Software into the channel. But over

the months once the roll out has stabilised

itself, and the community of resellers

familiarised themselves with the product and

the core team, will there be more software

products in the pipeline or a business name

change? Even for Badwan that is still work in

progress.

Exact Software Middle East

IN FOCUS

Exact Software's HR and professional services interface


The ResellerAwards 2011

reader's choice n best partner excellence n oustandingexecutive n editor's choice n networking vendor n software and

security vendor n STORAGE VENDOR n peripherals vendor n components vendor n printing vendor n systems and hardware vendor n it

distributor n components distributor n networking distributor n specialised distributor n value added distributor n software and

security distributor n peripherals distributor n enterprise reseller n smb and consumer reseller n super retailer n systems integrator

COVER STORYThe Reseller Awards 2011

12 june 2011 n 200 nominations n 25 awards n 400 attendees


"Our partners are core to our business and a key driver for Cisco's

future growth," said the visionary CEO of Cisco, John Chambers

at an annual partner meet.

With partners a key component of Cisco’s annual growth,

their programmes have also changed with technologies. One

of the initiatives announced is to help partners monetize the cloud

opportunity and expand their professional services practices. Another

programme is towards selling end-to-end communications called

Collaborative Professional Services.

As more customers place a premium on working with certified

partners, developing talent to strengthen joint competitive advantage is

also a priority. This has led to the formation of the Partner Sales Force

programme.

This programme focuses on increasing partner’s business revenue by

leveraging Cisco's expertise to help partners differentiate.

The vendor continues with its three types of partner relationships:

Resale Channel programme, Managed Services certification and

Outsourcing Channel programme. The Fit4Talent programme helps

identify the right channel partner.

In February 2011, Blue Coat introduced its Cloud Partner

programme. This is an internet delivered service that leverages

web security technology and collaborative web-pulse community

to provide web protection to users. Blue Coat provides existing

partners with the sales and technology training they need to begin

selling the new service.

The Blue Coat cloud service complements existing Blue Coat

products and allows cloud-ready partners to expand their product

portfolio. By offering both an appliance-based and a cloud-based web

security solution, partners can help their end-users choose the solution

that is right for their business. Benefits include expanded solution

portfolio, new revenue opportunities, new service opportunities, better

customer visibility.

Other channel partner programmes during 2010-11 included Blue Coat

Assessment Service: a new cloud-based reporting and analytical service;

Fast Start enablement programme to quickly ramp up partners that sell

Blue Coat WAN optimization solutions; new Try-and-Buy programme to

simplify the evaluation process and reward partners that successfully

convert evaluations into sales; new training and education resources

through the Blue Coat University; and the virtual marketing service centre.

Networking Vendor of the Year

Cisco

Blue Coat Systems

Software and Security Vendor of the Year


During 2010-2011, Western Digital launched top of the range

products including Caviar Green 3TB, VelociRaptor 600GB,

Scorpio Blue 750GB. All these products excelled with fastest

access speeds available. In line with upcoming product

technologies it launched the SiliconEdge Blue, the first consumer-

oriented solid state drive.

Western Digital’s product portfolio allowed channel partners to be

ahead of competitors by offering select technology and capacity point,

which in turn boosted sales.

Western Digital’s philosophy is to develop the three P’s: people,

partners and products. With this in mind the vendor launched an

enhanced online version of its loyalty programme called SelectWD partner

programme online. An EMEA-wide telemarketing project “serving the

channel” was also initiated to reach past, present and new partners.

Through the online loyalty programme partners were able to feel

more connected to their sales performance and accumulated rebate

returns. The ongoing programme supports three types of partners:

platinum, gold and silver. It has more than 1,000 members across EMEA.

The product range from Genius includes accessories like mice,

keyboards, webcam and digital cameras, graphic tablets,

headsets, headphones, speakers, subwoofers and gaming items.

In 2010, the vendor launched its power retail programme for

all its retail partners in UAE, which includes a dedicated brand

representative. For the reseller market, Genius launched the Shop-In-

Shop programme. This programme has been successful in implementing

a retail concept in distribution stores. The programme allows partners

the flexibility of stock rotation and a dedicated in-store sales executive to

promote the products.

A technical support centre available at 800-GENIUS has been set up,

however the returns of defective goods under warranty remains at 0.1%,

year on year.

Channel meets and road shows were conducted for partners in UAE,

KSA, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon. The vendor participated in Cebit, Gitex,

Computex, Elecomp, Saudi Arabia Gitex, Distree Monte Carlo and Distree

Fujairah.

Using its established base in the Gulf, the vendor is now expanding

into the African market.

Storage Vendor of the Year

Peripherals Vendor of the Year

Western Digital

Genius



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Intel is not only the world’s largest semiconductor company but

designs technologies that serve as the foundation for the world’s

computing devices.

Over the last 15 years, the channel has proved its importance

and value to Intel’s growth and success, and delivers now just over

a third of all Intel’s sales. Intel has been in the Middle East region for over

two decade and has continually supported the reseller channel with latest

knowledge and strategic tools.

During 2010-11, Intel transformed its Channel Partner programme into

a new programme designed to recognise and reward all partners for the

Intel-based hardware solutions they sell.

The Intel Channel Partner programme, meant for PC builders has

been merged into Technology Provider Programme meant for resellers.

The Technology Provider programme supports the sales and marketing

efforts of all reseller partners that specify, design, build or resell Intel-

based technology solutions through a single membership programme.

The Technology Provider programme keeps the most successful

elements of the Channel Partner programme and also supports other

business models which deliver Intel-based solutions to end customers.

HP has a comprehensive printing portfolio with solutions for

consumer, commercial, corporate and graphics segments. It has

inkjet printers for consumer and commercial setups, laser printers

and multi-function devices, large format printers and production

outdoor and indoor printers, and commercial web digital printing

presses.

During 2010, HP’s Imaging and Printing group, decided to take a

pro-active approach towards restructuring the channel programmes.

The hardware and supplies channels were merged into one business.

In addition HP has partner-specific programmes to cater for the different

types of business and channel partners. It now has the largest channel

team ever in the Middle East.

A number of product update tours have been completed keeping

resellers up to date on the latest products and technologies such as

the ePrint cloud printing technology. Another announcement was

Printonomics, which is an effort to educate partners to enhance the office

printing environment, reducing unnecessary waste and saving their

customers time and money. The vendor also held total cost of ownership

workshops for channel partners and provided them with marketing and

sales tools.

Components vendor of the year

Intel Corporation

HP IPG Middle East

Printing vendor of the year




www.trackdistribution.com

Dell was once a leading proponent of the revolutionary, just in time,

direct sales model. Today 25% of its global commercial revenue

comes through the channel. In the Middle East, 100% of its

revenue is generated through the channel.

Dell launched its key channel programme PartnerDirect in

EMEA in early 2008. However the vendor brought in various key channel

initiatives in the last year. For marketing development funds, Dell has

allowed partners to use Campaign Builder for better content and quicker

implementation. The Voluntary Concessions programme allows partners

with outdated inventory to lower costs.

The Smart price list offers fixed configurations, at fixed prices with

unique identifiers and volume discounts across the product portfolio.

This price list is the single source for competitive pricing, and allows

distributors to order and match their inventory codes with Dell SPL ID

numbers.

Systems and hardware vendor of the year

Dell Middle East

Aptec operates across Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, Turkey,

Azerbaijan and Morocco. It completed thirty years of operation in

the year 2010. It initiated advanced logistical services in the UAE,

Saudi Arabia and Egypt dedicated to IT, telecom and electronics

industry. It uses Altair fleet management and tracking devices to

manage its vehicle movements.

Its revenue grew by 14% in 2010 over the previous year. The last

twelve months saw it receiving various recognitions including Microsoft

highest OEM distribution revenue of the year; highest commercial

distribution revenue of the year to Aptec Saudi; HP distributor of the year;

best distributor of the year by Linksys; and D-link distributor of the year

awards.

Aptec also added new tie-ups to its portfolio. It is now an authorised

ME distributor for Avaya enterprise. It is also regional distributor

for Cisco, which allows it to offer the full portfolio across ME and other

emerging markets.

Aptec focused on its main deliverables for resellers: value technology,

value services, and value delivery.

IT distributor of the year

Aptec Holding


www.ocztechnology.com


www.vip-computers.ae

www.dpsy.com

www.ete-it.com



FDC considers itself to be a house of brands. These include Lenovo,

Acer, Packard Bell, Asus for notebooks; ECS, Asus, Asrock, Intel for

motherboard; Seagate, WD for hard disk drives; XFX, Asus, Palit,

ECS for graphic cards; Liteon, Sony for ODD; Kingston, Apacer for

Memory; Intel, AMD for CPU and Kaspersky for security.

It received various recognitions over the last twelve months including

AMD Award: Elite Fusion Partner 2011; AMD award: FDC as premier

member of the AMD Fusion Partner Programme 2010; Inter Regional

Award Winner: Intel Solution Summit 2011.

FDC supports its channel partners by having dedicated in country

account managers looking after sales, service, replacements and

warehousing. This ensures pending issues get resolved without delay.

There is also a centralised contact centre for consolidation of pending

reseller issues.

FDC has a preferred four point-programme for its channel partners.

Members get preferential status for marketing support, pricing, rebates

and allocation of stock.

Sales and technical staff from channel partners receive regular

vendor and technology training from FDC.

Components distributor of the year

FDC International

During the year Westcon’s Cisco division won the Cisco UAE

distributor of the year award; regional distributor of the year

award for its Africa and Levant operations; and global distributor

of the year award at the Cisco Partner Summit, 2011. As part

of the continuing relationship with Cisco it received exclusive

distributorship of Cisco Tele Presence and Iron Port.

Westcon believes its resellers go through a six-step cycle in any end-

user engagement. This includes preparation, approach, discovery, solution

design, presentation and implementation.

It therefore offers various real-world, analytical, online and email

based tools for every stage. These include WebTrack, FastTrack,

MailVision, SolutionsBase, ServiceVantage, Current Analysis, E-Business

Compass.

To ensure larger success for its channel community it has expanded

its support across the full six-stage sales and implementation cycle. The

support includes: Credit as a service, around finance; Marketing as a

service, around go-to-market activities; and Annuity tracker, for renewable

licenses.

Networking distributor of the year

Westcon Middle East


During the year FVC received various vendor recognitions. From

Polycom it received Partner of the Year for the MENA region;

and Competitive Knock-Out Award at EMEA level, for replacing

competitive products with Polycom in one of the leading telcos

in the GCC region. The company was recognised by nCircle as

Partner of the Year for 2010 in EMEA.

FVC entered into a partnership with du to set up a video network

operations centre. The key offering is video as a managed service and

to move it from a capital purchase to an operating expense for potential

customers. FVC is in various initiatives to replicate this model with other

regional telecos. This offering is built around Polycom’s open visual

communication initiative.

The business strategy is built around various drivers including:

demand creation for emerging technologies, enablement through

education and development of technical competence through training.

As an extension of the above, it has created a dedicated support

programme for specialised resellers built around related attributes:

demand creation, differentiation and profitability. The programme is

called CHEER for channel enablement, empowerment and rewards. The

programme also has a back-end CRM to support lead generation.

FVC, Inc

Specialised distributor of the year

Optimus Technology and Telecommunications

Over the last year, Optimus doubled the number of channel

partners; started ventures in Afghanistan and Pakistan;

opened inventory of goods in Qatar and Egypt; enhanced

credit management and cash flow; increased the size of local

technical and sales teams in UAE, Qatar, KSA, Pakistan and

Egypt; conducted certification and training programmes; and launched

new products from security, information, storage data and convergence

technologies into its channel.

Optimus claims to be a distributor that has executed the value model

across multiple regions. Optimus 360 is meant to encapsulate the full

portfolio of value addition for its reseller community. This includes sales

and marketing support, lead generation, centralised pre-sales help desk,

bid support services, professional services support desk, training services,

logistics support services with multi-country local stocking, financial

support services

The distributor provides a single window for its resellers to access a

broad portfolio of infrastructure technology and telecom solutions.

Value added distributor of the year



www.empa-me.com


Across 2010-11, the distributor created a reseller profiling

programme based on the strengths of the reseller, available

market opportunity and strengths and weakness of vendor

technologies. The partner profile summary is shared with

Computerlinks’ professional services team and a gap analysis

report is generated.

Training programmes are planned out on the basis of this gap

analysis and further developed into growth opportunities for each

reseller across finance, education, teleco, e-governance and other

vertical markets.

Computerlinks and partner vendors support the cost towards

training and certification, business development and long term growth

of specific reseller partners. This brings a better understanding between

the distributor and its reseller community, which Computerlinks believes

is its unique value-add in the region.

Another initiative is the facility of virtual proof of concepts called

“demo on demand”. This is a service where demonstration or proof of

concept videos are hosted or sent via e-mail as embedded files and

give the reseller a virtual hands-on of the technology or product.

Software and security distributor of the year

Computerlinks

During 2010-11, Logicom was awarded the Highest Sales

Revenue Award 2010 by Linksys; and Microsoft OEM

Readiness Champion Award. Along with its portfolio of

primary vendors including Microsoft, Cisco, HP, the firm also

added Hitachi, Belkin and Adobe.

It is implemented Microsoft CRM to manage its sales requests

and transactions with resellers and has developed an online portal for

booking orders. It expanded its warehouse facility in Dubai by 7,000

sqm to increase the size of its inventory reducing lead times for its

resellers. It will further expand its warehouse area in 2012.

Technology training for its reseller partners is conducted under

“Logicom Technology Forum”, which is a regular monthly training

workshop. The forums also involve customer interactions and the

distributor has completed ten of these events in 2010-11.

It is leveraging on its key relationships with HP and Cisco.

Peripherals distributor of the year

Logicom

www.iomega.com

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Help AG, an enterprise security reseller had a growth rate of over

100% in 2010-11 and increased its customer base by 60%. It’s

customer base typically consists of companies or establishment

with over a thousand users. The product portfolio includes

over 15 vendor solutions built around the data centre and new

technologies like web application firewalls and advanced malware

protection.

In 2010, help AG signed on new vendors including Palo Alto,

Sourcefire and Fire Eye. Currently help AG is the only authorised

service partner and training centre in the Middle East for Palo Alto and

in a short span has already received the MENA Partner of the Year

award.

Help AG was also presented Partner of the Year award, based on

their strength in the enterprise security area and professional services,

by Symantec in 2010. Further the vendor recommended these services

to their enterprise customer base. After Symantec’s acquisition of PGP,

help AG is the only master specialised PGP partner in the Middle East.

Revenue from Symantec’s portfolio grew 500% over the previous year.

help AG

Enterprise reseller of the year

Last year revenues grew by 15% for Accent Office Supplies. It is a

reseller for APC, Canon consumables and HP products. It is an

active member of the Dubai Computer Traders Group.

With the group, Accent has actively pitched to initiate a credit

rating system for all trading partners. It has also been active in anti-

counterfeit initiatives in conjunction with vendors like Epson, Canon and

HP.

Its customer portfolio includes Emirates Bank, Emaar, Dubai

Properties, Majid Al Futtaim Group and others. In recognition of its close

business association with vendors and annual sales performance, Accent

has received awards from Canon and various nominations with HP.

In line with growing consumer sales through the retail sector, it has

opened a retail store front in Dubai. It offers a range of laptops through its

retail outlet.

SMB and consumer reseller of the year

Accent Office Supplies Trading


Our solutions + your customers = great business!

Global sourcing - local supportIn a world of technologies, focusing on the ones that deliver benefit is good for your business. That’s why FVC partners with global IT leaders to bring the most effective, most transformative products and technologies to you, our channel. From telepresence to network traffic management, WAN optimisation to information security, we’re the leading VAD in MENA,supporting products with logistics, implementation and training. Let us be your partner of choice for tomorrow.

www.fvc.com


www.alcatel-lucent.com/enterprise

www.alfuttaimtechnologies.com


www.al-futtaim.ae

X-cite by Alghanim has seen its repeat customer visits move to at least

six times per year. Instead of adopting a sell-sell approach inside

its stores, this super retailer has tried to move towards increasing

shopping value as a differentiator.

Some of the differentiators across its stores include running a

Facebook page; in-store, on-the-spot approval of easy instalment pay-backs;

sponsoring popular events like Nancy Ajram concert, Cirque du Soleil and

Moscow Circus with complementary tickets for shoppers; look and touch

product experience across its outlets; monitored check-out delay times for

customers; home consultancy through personal sales visits reducing lead

time for consumer IT purchases.

Other initiatives include pro-active extended warranty programmes

over the full range of smartphones and IT products; setup and configure IT

products after purchase thereby reducing post purchase hitches; flexible

goods return policy; 24 hour, seven days a week, working hours for primary

outlets; phone order booking; multi-lingual trained shop floor staff; and used

goods swap-deals for gaming consoles and smartphones.

X-cite, which is the largest electronics retailer in Kuwait, trades in 4,000

different IT items, and across its entire portfolio 15,000 unique items from 300

brands.

Super retailer of the year

X-cite by Alghanim Electronics

GBM has a long standing relationship with Cisco. It has been

recognised by Cisco for customer satisfaction excellence and

given Gold partner status for eight continuous years. Based on its

consistent implementation performance, Cisco has also awarded

GBM, Public Sector partner and Service Partner of the year awards

for UAE.

However GBM is also moving towards a multi vendor portfolio. It has

relationships with Juniper Networks; Mettoni solutions including Datapulse,

Arc Solutions, Exxcom; Aeroscout; Riverbed; Leviton; iST and others.

It has opened a network operations centre in Dubai to remotely manage

and monitor customers’ IT infrastructure. In addition to the monitoring

function, it has a help desk for network support functions. GBM has a

large number of Cisco certified engineers across various specialisations

including Cisco Certified Internet, Advanced Security, Advanced Unified

Communications, Advanced Wireless LAN, Advanced Routing and Switching,

Advanced Data Centre Networking Infrastructure, Cisco Advanced

Technology Provider in Telepresence, Outdoor Wireless Mesh and Video

Surveillance.

Systems integrator of the year

Gulf Business Machines, GBM


In late 2010, Microsoft reworked its partner network programme

removing the previous Gold, Certified and Registered levels of

membership to just two including Gold and Silver competency. It also

created specialisations with regard to user maturity levels and its own

technology delivery platforms.

The user specialisations include Application Integration, Business

Intelligence, Customer Relationship Management, Data Platform,

Enterprise Resource Planning, Independent Software Vendor, OEM

Hardware and Unified Communications. Microsoft customer facing

platforms include cloud computing, Office 2010, servers, Office 365 and

Windows Intune.

However the main reasons for the restructuring was they were

aligned by Microsoft’s technology deliveries and not end-user approach

to the market. That has now been reworked and partners have till

October 2011 to complete their migration.

The qualification for Silver competency partner network programme

includes the following: two Microsoft Certified Professionals, one

individual with Microsoft Licensing overview assessment, one individual

with online Sales and Marketing competency assessment, three customer

references and payment of annual membership fees.

Microsoft Gulf

Best partner excellence, vendor

Redington Gulf achieved revenue of $1.31 billion in 2009-10 and has

4,900 channel partners across the region. It operates out of 23

offices and employees 800 people. It is an offshoot of its Indian

parent Redington India Ltd.

It has 40 service centres across the region and supports 35

brands including Aastra, Acer, APC, Ascom, Asus, Avaya, Canon, Cisco,

Check Point, Coral Telecom, Dell, Epson, Fujitsu, HP, Juniper, Imation,

Lenovo, Molex, NComputing, Nokia, Packard bell, RedHat, Samsung,

Sandisk, Seagate, Sonicwall, Sony, Symantec, Toshiba, Trend Micro,

Tripplite, Western Digital.

It is a preferred partner for all of its vendors and resellers and has an

average relationship of ten years with them. To ride out the recession,

Redington increased interactions with its partners as well as the service

standard across its centres. Redington believes after-sales support is a

key factor in driving sales in depressed market conditions and creates a

win-win scenario for its partners.

The distributor also increased its inventory levels across 2010,

leading to quicker supply chain movement. Typically this was less than

24 hours for retail customers in the UAE; and less than 72 hours for retail

customers in the GCC.

Redington Gulf

Best partner excellence, distributor


Microsoft Partner of the Year

For the second consecutive year, ALMOAYYED Computers has won the Microsoft Partner of the Year

Award.

This reaffirms our position as a market leader and is confirmation of our excellence in innovation and

implementation of Microsoft based technology.

For over three decades, we have been the partner of choice for the region's government organizations and MNC's. We're proud to continue to serve them with a spirit of

excellence.

First Bahraini ICT Companyto win Channel Middle East Award

Ranked among ACN's Top System Integrators in the Middle East


www.almoayyedcomputers.com

www.twinmos.com


www.faceboo.com/twinmos.tech

www.youtube.com/twinmostech

www.twitter.com/twinmostech

Lee Reynolds calls himself a “get the job done”, hard working guy,

with ambition and drive to succeed. His experience has taken him to

over 35 countries and most parts of the world. His forte is consulting

on IPO’s; worldwide channel strategies for IT vendors; starting a new

venture from scratch; running and developing business from the top.

Give him any of these assignments and Reynolds with his drive and

enthusiasm is going to make a difference. He works best in organisations

that are dynamic, challenging and most of all rewarding. His business

qualities: creating, managing, leading and selling.

He set up Fusion Distribution a value added distributor operating in the

Middle East market which was subsequently acquired by Computerlinks

Group in 2007. Today as Managing Director he looks after Computerlinks

MEA and APAC based out of Dubai.

His main activity is group expansion and has set up offices in

Johannesburg, Singapore and Sydney. Prior to that Reynolds worked at

IT ConX marketing. He has engineering honours from Sheffield Hallam

University.

Lee Reynolds

outstanding executive, IT channel

Madhav Narayan is currently working at Samsung Electronics as

Regional Director, Enterprise Business. As part of the senior

management team, he developed and implemented the distribution

strategy to drive growth of IT products within the ME markets.

This included market analysis, strategic planning, sales

forecasting, distribution channel development, solution selling, and new

product roll-out. He also recruited, built and today manages the high-

performance team to run this operation.

Samsung notebooks, is now the fastest growing brand in the consumer

IT segment reaching the top positions in Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. Narayan

expects the overall product performance to be three times better than the

previous year.

Narayan also launched other product categories including laser

printers, large format display and external storage and brought them to

the top positions in the Middle East consumer markets. In order to achieve

this he established and developed operations in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and

Jordan.

Prior to joining Samsung, Narayan worked at Dell UAE from 2003 as

regional manager, for the dynamic home and small business segment. He

drove the business from scratch to reach the $250 million figure in a period

of three years and led Dell to the top position in Saudi Arabia. Narayan

also displayed fast-track performance at Redington Gulf from 1994 to 2003

bringing it amongst the top three players of the region.

Madhav Narayan

outstanding executive, IT channel


Asbis operates across Europe, Middle East and Africa as a “one-stop-

shop" for a wide range of hardware and software products. While it

claims to be a specialist in emerging markets, a key geographical

focus is UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the other Gulf countries.

Asbis’ range of products includes IT components meant for

local and export assemblers, system integrators and retailers, as well as

Level-I vendor products like desktop, laptops, servers and networking

products.

The hardware product portfolio includes Intel, AMD, Seagate, Toshiba,

Dell, Lenovo, Sapphire, AOC, Gainward, Lexmark, Foxconn. The software

product portfolio includes AVG, ESET, Symantec, Acronis, Promise and

Ability Software. For accessories, Asbis owns brands Prestigio and

Canyon, which it distributes through its retail network.

At the EMEA Channel Awards at Monaco in the first quarter of 2011,

Asbis won the best distributor award for North Arica and Middle East with

41% of the live votes.

Asbis Middle East

Reader’s choice, distributor

AMD follows “customer-centric innovation,” and it represents the

guiding principle. AMD does not underestimate the value of partner

collaboration. Close relationships with distributors and resellers are

its top priorities

In 2009, AMD introduced the Fusion partner programme, with

the aim to provide channel partners with tailored tools and resources to

help support sales. AMD’s product portfolio includes GPUs, CPUs, chipsets

and AMD Fusion family of APUs.

The AMD Fusion partner programme has various areas of benefits

including training through AMD academy, support for partner events and

demand generation marketing campaigns. Partner programmes include

Elite, Premier and Select.

Examples of the training programmes include: AMD Opteron Processor

Architecture and its components; AMD64 Software Architecture Course;

x86 Online Training Course; Intro x86 Architecture eLearning Course; x86

Instruction Set Architecture book; Book and Video about HyperTransport 3.

By combing its four existing partner programmes into one, AMD aims to

effectively focus on supporting the sales process for all AMD solutions.

AMD also has an innovation competition amongst its developers. The

OpenCL innovation challenge is to encourage development of applications

requiring massive vector operations like game physics, facial recognition,

voice recognition, video searching, video stabilisation and others. Prize

money starts at $20,000.

Reader’s choice, vendor

Advanced Micro Devices, AMD



WATCH OVER YOUR DATA

STORE. SHARE. PROTECT.

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Netgear readynas EYE ad copy.pdf 1 6/27/2011 6:40:54 PM

www.netgear.com

www.readynas.com





www.quickheal.ae

An independent four-member jury panel sorted

through close to 200 nominations to select 25

award winners

guy Whitcroft, NED SolutionsWhitcroft has previously been principal consultant

with CapitalSteps, Group COO of Aptec, and

held a C-level role at MB Technologies. He has a

unique understanding of the IT channel industry

with four decades of experience. He has played a

role as vendor, distributor, reseller and end-user.

Credited with the growth of Tarsus Technologies-

MB Technologies from a small niche distributor to

South Africa's largest distribution group, Guy has a

strong focus on the top and bottom line and what's

required to achieve success.

vasudevan KS, Managing Director and Co-Founder of Satvik IncThis is a new age research and analytics solutions

provider, with capabilities in consulting oriented

solutions in research and business analytics,

marketing intelligence and mobility solutions.

Vasudevan comes with multi-functional and multi-

industry experience by virtue of working in strategic

roles with Samsung and Sanyo focusing major part

of his career in the Middle East.

During his 17 years of executive stint in UAE,

Vasudevan has played various management

roles including sales, marketing, HR, commercial

finance, logistics, PR, legal, corporate and strategic

management issues. He has extensively travelled in

the Middle East, African continent and CIS countries.

Khaled Kamel, Partner at Maham Management Consulting Prior to Maham, Kamel has worked for two years

as the Middle East, Egypt and Pakistan Regional

Managing Director at Lenovo. Before that Khaled

was Country Manager for HP in Saudi Arabia, HP

business development manager for large format

printers in the Middle-East, and sales manager for all

IPG products in the Middle-East. Prior to joining HP

he worked for distributors and resellers of software

and hardware vendors including AutoDesk HP

and IBM. Khaled currently lives in the United Arab

Emirates and offers consultancy and senior level

coaching and training all over the Middle East and

Africa region.

Samer Karawi, Managing Partner G&KThis is a consulting firm focusing on providing

American and European ICT companies with

business development services in the Middle East.

This also includes selection of appropriate channel

partners, recruitment, training, enablement and

sales and marketing support. Prior to this, Samer

worked for over 25 years in major multinational IT

companies in various capacities and has experience

in both European and Middle East markets. Samer

holds a bachelor degree in Computer Science and a

master degree in marketing from France. //

JURY PANEL, RESELLER awards 2011

In its 2010 global report on security software Gartner has ranked

Kasperksy Lab as one of the fastest growing vendors. In terms of

revenue it is now amongst the top ten globally. The top five positions

are occupied by Symantec, Mcafee, Trend Micro, IBM and EMC.

In terms of Euro revenue growth, Kaspersky Lab grew by 49% in

the consumer segment, and 37% in the enterprise segment - an indication

of the demand for its solutions across these segments. EMEA is the

vendor’s largest market globally, with Asia Pacific and North America

following next.

Products within the security market are undergoing rapid evolution, in

terms of both new delivery models — with security as a service showing

increasing popularity — and new technologies being introduced, often by

start up companies.

The products for the retail and small office segment include,

Kaspersky Anti-Virus 2011, Kaspersky Internet Security 2011, Kaspersky

Pure and Kaspersky Small Office Security 2. The products for the

corporate segment include Kaspersky Open Space Security and

Kaspersky Administration Kit 8.0.

Kasperky operates through a 100% indirect sales model. The channel

programme has three kinds of direct partners, consumer republishing,

value added distribution and enterprise partner. It has five types of indirect

partners: sub-distributor, premier retail reseller, premier business reseller,

trusted reseller and authorised reseller. A premier retail reseller is the

most trusted and valued type of partner.

Editor’s choice

Kaspersky Lab


FEATURESupplies and consumables

Lexmark now has a universal ink jet cartridge which fits all models in operation. Medmark and its resellers only need to stock the Vizix 100, multi-color box cartridge for the ink jet printer range.


Pay as you goAfter sales contracts based on printed pages are an important source of recurring revenue

Sometime back george Saliba, Sales

Manager of lexmark’s distribution partner-

Medmark, carried around a circular

handy-guide to figure out, which cartridge

fitted into which ink jet printer. inventory

management was complicated and

Medmark and its resellers were required to

carry stocks of all ink cartridges that were in

demand, along with the handy guide.

Since 2010 Lexmark has downsized the

number of ink jet printer models. In parallel it

reengineered it’s versatile ink cartridges and

brought the number of variations downs to

the smallest possible number, that is “one”.

Lexmark now has a universal ink jet

cartridge which fits all models in operation.

Medmark and its resellers only need to stock

the Vizix 100, multi-color box cartridge for the

ink jet printer range. The Vizix cartridge has

four box slots for four inks and each can be

replaced based on the consumption cycle.

While Lexmark has been able to

reengineer its ink cartridges, HP still

maintains it’s range of multiple cartridge

options. Says HP’s Ernest Azzam, Business

Manager, Laserjet and Enterprise solutions:

“It’s easy to do that when you have a small

portfolio of products. But when you have a

huge portfolio of products you cannot limit

yourself to one model of cartridge.”

Another reason why HP has not adopted

the cartridge optimisation route is because

part of the inkjet printing mechanism is

maintained inside its cartridge. Lexmark on

the other hand has moved the entire printing

head into its printers thereby reducing the

footprint of the cartridge.

However Azzam points out that a family

of ink jet printers uses the same cartridge

and the cartridges only vary based on the

family of printers. The other variation HP has

brought into its inkjet supplies is a volume

based size variation. Cartridges are available

based on duty cycles for light and heavy

users.

Another initiative taken by Lexmark was

to get out of the single function, low end ink

jet market space. “Beginning 2010, Lexmark

decided to stop single function inkjet printers

and focus on multi-function printers,” says

Medmark’s Saliba.

However the most innovative ink

cartridge in the market is Xerox’s Cartridge-

free solid ink. This is a wax based, ink block

that has four different shapes to match four

different colour slots in its range of solid ink

printers. The ink block has no exterior frame,

fits into one of the slots in the printer even

during running operations, is bio degradable

and has little waste residue after usage.

On the super retail store front, ink jet and

laser printer cartridges, play another role.

Supplies are stocked next to printers and

take up shelf space. “A lot of this is to create

brand awareness,’ says Jacky’s CEO Ashish

Panjabi. The right display of supplies can

improve the appeal of the shelved products.

Availability of supplies helps to bring the

customer to the store, keeps the cycle

running, does not take up a huge space and

gives a fair return.

“If you don’t have it, you lose the

customer to somebody else,” points out

Panjabi and he would much rather continue

shelving supplies rather than discontinue

them.

For HP, its print hardware distributors in

the Gulf, excluding Saudi Arabia, are Jumbo

Electronics, Emitac, Redington, Metra, while

Despec does only supply distribution. From

a distributor point of view, the business of

print supplies is about keeping availability

of stocks. If resellers have to use multiple

distributors to complete sourcing supplies,

they will not return. Says Azzam: “Supplies is

a different ball game from hardware.”

the annuity game plan

When inkjet printers were initially launched,

printing vendors dropped the cost of

hardware and proportionately increased

the cost of supplies. The idea was to obtain

a profitable return from the total cost of

ownership, across the life of the printer, while

reducing the barriers of an initial higher

product price.

However the casualty of this novel

Support services are proactive based on network alerts from contracted equipment. The billing pattern is similar to utility consumption, “pay as you go.”

LEfT PAGE: Optimised inventory for supplies and consumables, George Saliba, Sales Manager, Medmark


approach was the single function inkjet

printer, usually with a price point equal to

a single cartridge, which did not have the

robustness to live out its calculated life span

and hence was not a viable product.

In today’s SME and enterprise world

of multifunction printer models, the idea of

continuing returns from the sale of supplies

and service maintenance still has a strong

win-win appeal.

“For a customer it is not necessarily

the initial purchase of the box, but ongoing

support and services and security of

knowing somebody has the spares to fix it

in a timely manner, that is most important,”,

says Andrew Hurt, General Manager, Xerox

Emirates.

Xerox which has been in Gulf operations

since 1985 has classically followed a 100%

direct sales model. It is only with the recent

expansion of the market, it has started

developing indirect channels in the Gulf.

Xerox’s game plan: channel partners who sell

the equipment should also sell out annuity

services including supplies and uptime of the

equipment.

“If we sell a machine, we want to ensure

that we protect the service of the machine

and revenue by providing a comprehensive

service contract,” explains Hurt. The only

minor difference, Hurt calls it page-packs

and likens it to the recharge vouchers for

air time.

Based on the customer’s machine and

the type of printing volume, page packs

gets the customer a pre-determined number

of print impressions. In other words the

customer is covered for a number of print

impressions inclusive of supplies and uptime

of the equipment. Once the page-pack is

complete, they call the supplier for a fresh

purchase.

This cycle allows the channel partner

to keep engaging with a customer after the

purchase of the equipment, through page

packs or annuity contracts.

For the annuity contracts, the support

services are provided by Xerox’s team by

default. More than one third of Xerox’s staff

work at customer sites providing support. The

channel partner after obtaining the contracts

would sub-contract the support requirement

back to Xerox. All prices for such vendor sub-

contracting are given to the channel partner

before-hand.

However, the channel partner has the

flexibility to decide whether to adopt the sub-

contracting route and depend on the parent

vendor while keeping a light shop or retain

the customer fees in full and reinvest it into

their own support services.

In light of the second approach, Hurt has

invested in training rooms and instructors at

Xerox’s Dubai hub. “While Xerox is a world

recognised brand, it does require us to train

the partners on the value proposition, and it

requires a continuum in order to maintain the

standards of your partner.”

Hurt is also working out more customer-

friendly post-sales contracts to ensure there

is no slow down in services revenue from

channel partners. As per global averages, the

ratio of supplies and service revenue across

the five year life span of a printer, versus the

hardware cost of the printer is 2:1. Hence the

annuity income is a significant part of Xerox’s

total global revenue.

From a Lexmark point of view, “the ink

cartridge helps to recover the cost of the

printer. Profit is coming from consumables

and supplies. Even with the new range of

multifunction inkjet printers, cost of supplies

covers the cost of hardware,” says Saliba.

Managed print services

A standard annuity contract is reactive —

service responses are as per SLA in the

annuity contract. However there is a more

innovative variation of this support service

called managed print services. Equipment is

pre-selected, optimised and deployed after

a business processes audit is completed.

Support services are proactive based on

network alerts from contracted equipment.


Encouraging corporate policy against counterfeits, Ernest Azzam, Business Manager, LaserJet and Enterprise Solutions, HP

Based on the customer’s machine and the type of printing volume, page packs gets the customer a pre-determined number of print impressions.

Multiple competing printers; mismatched work cycles and functionality; security concerns; inter-dependability of fax, email and scanning means there is an opportunity to streamline business processes and document management.




www.trackdistribution.com

The billing pattern is similar to utility

consumption, “pay as you go.”

While not directly linked to consumables

and supplies, the opportunity of print

management allows vendors to enter

the enterprise workflow space. Multiple

competing printers; mismatched work

cycles and functionality; security concerns;

inter-dependability of fax, email and

scanning means there is an opportunity to

streamline business processes and document

management.

However the minimum success

factors are good understanding of the

customer’s vertical markets, understanding

of the customer’s business processes and

competency in vendor solutions.

Says HP’s Azzam: “We have software

solutions which range from security to print

feed to document management, which

require certain expertise to sell these

specific solutions. Managed print service is

not about the product anymore, it’s about

the prints.”

Says Hurt: “IT spending is under control,

payroll is under control, marketing is under

control, but an area of business that is not

under control is document production.”

For such an out of control customer

situation, Xerox will send a dedicated

business process outsourcing team to

look at the document life cycle within an

organisation. The initial discussions do not

start with equipment specifications. They start

with the portfolio of Xerox’s managed print

services and how they fit in with customer’s

business processes.

Xerox uses Lean Six Sigma and green or

black belt certified consultants to complete

this audit followed by its recommendations.

Traditionally key market segments for

Xerox across the region include healthcare,

education, financial services, graphic arts and

construction.

grey markets and counterfeit

An ink or laser toner cartridge built as per

vendor specifications follows strict quality

compliances. You take into consideration

toner materials, safety of the user, safety of

the printer and safety of the environment. All

these add up to a minimum defined cost for


Contribution of print supplies, services towards total revenue

vendor global revenue 2010 ($ billion) % remark

Total Annuity, suppliesservices

HP 25.8 Not listed x IPG, net profit 17.1%

Canon 24.5 Not listed xOffice business unit,

operating profit 14.8%

Xerox 21.6 17.1 79%Consolidated, operating

profit 34.4%

Ricoh 19.3 Not listed xImaging and Solutions,operating profit 9.2%

Lexmark 4.0 2.9 73%Consolidated, operating

profit 36.2%

Source: Annual reports 2010

With declining profit margins on hardware all vendors are moving towards enhanced

services to beef up both top-line and bottom-line margins. As per 2010 balance

sheet figures, supplies and print services are already an important component of revenue

for Xerox and Lexmark.

For Xerox which is dominantly a direct services company, pulling in channel partners,

as it moves from a direct sales model towards more of an indirect sales model, to drive its

annuity and managed services business is the current challenge.

For HP which uses a 100% indirect sales model, mobilising its channel partners to sell

more annuity and managed services as a value add, while managing support services from

within the channel itself, is the current challenge.

Note: Graphics are meant to be representative only.


Services led technology company, Andrew Hurt, General Manager, Xerox Emirates

Xerox’s game plan: channel partners who sell the equipment should also sell out annuity services including supplies and uptime of the equipment.

n HP recycled 120,000 tons of electronic

products and supplies in 2008. In 2011 it

wants to triple the figure based on 2007

volume. To date, HP has recycled more

than 2 billion pounds of hardware and print

cartridges globally.

n HP’s Planet Partners recycling programme

began in 1991 for Laserjet toner cartridges.

In 1997 it was expanded to include inkjet

cartridges and today it includes any brand

of IT equipment. To date it has received and

recycled 319 million laser and inkjet

cartridges.

n HP has recycling solutions available in more

than 50 countries and regions. 75 Laserjet

toner cartridges or 1,000 Inkjet cartridges

can be packed per air freight pallet. It has

manufactured 555 million inkjet cartridges

from the recycling programme.

n HP reduced the weight of inkjet cartridge

packing by more than 40% in 2009. This

allows 100% more units to be packed in the

same truckload and reduces carbon dioxide

units by 1.7 million pounds.

n Xerox began supporting recycled paper

in 1973 and educating customers on proper

paper use and energy-saving tips.

n Xerox remanufacturing has given new life

to the equivalent of more than 2.6 million

copiers, printers, and multifunction systems,

while diverting hundreds of millions of

kilograms of potential waste from landfills.

n Xerox operations worldwide conform to the

Xerox Ozone Depleting Substances Policy

established in 1992 that prohibits ODS from

all Xerox processes, products, and services.

n Xerox has reduced air emission from

facilities 93% from 1991 levels.

n Winter temperatures in Xerox manufacturing

facilities cool production processes rather

than using massive air conditioners.

n Xerox creates products with increased

reliability reducing the kilometres service

technicians have to drive each day to

customer sites.

The green printers

an original supplies product.

A counterfeit product by nature is meant

to be well below such a defined price and

therefore violates many of the safety criteria

in an original product. Usage of such a

product will annul the warranty of the printer.

Printers and cartridges are smart devices

today and link up with each other through

unique IDs, creating an audit trail.

An original ink or toner cartridge, selling

well below the recommended price in a

market, which has been brought in through a

non-regulated inbound route, is another type

of challenge. If a reseller chooses to trade

in such a grey market product and dumps

the official distributor quota in favour of

such a deal, there will be a shortfall of target

volumes as well as reduced rebates and

discounts. The reseller will find themselves

with reduced margins and higher costs.

Finally a corporate counterfeit policy is

a policy of actively avoiding any possible

purchase of such products. The policy

should give guidelines on where to buy, how

to inspect, how to monitor products within

the company and finally safe disposal of

the cartridge. According to Azzam, 72% of

companies in the region have no such policy

in place. //


Dimensions 270x150x12 mm; Weight 480gm; Display Size 10.1”; resolution

1024 x 600 pixels; Display technology t Ft lCD capacitive multi touch

screen; Screen rotation 4 way g-sensor; CPu ArM Cortex A8 1 gHz by texas

instruments; Power lithium Polymer Battery; Battery life Audio up to 36h,

video 7h, web 10h; OS Android 2.2 Froyo; Keyboard Android 2.2 soft; WiFi

802.11b/g/n; Bluetooth 2.1 EDr; Memory 256MB DDr; internal Flash 8gB;

Expansion Slots microSD Card; Other interfaces uSB2.0 highspeed port, uSB

host; HDMi output, 3.5mm Earphone; Audio Speakers & microphone built-in;

Camera Front, vgA, inCluDES High quality earphones; uSB cable; Quick

Start guide; legal and safety notice; Power charger; Warranty card

Dimensions 161x213x11mm;

Weight 490gm; Display

Size 8.4”; resolution

800 X 600 pixels;

Display technology

tFt lCD resistive touch

screen, Screen rotation

4 way g-sensor; CPu ArM

11 660MHz CPu with hardware

video acceleration DSP; Power lithium

Polymer Battery; Battery life 4000mAh; OS

Android 2.1 Eclair; Keyboard Android soft; WiFi

802.11b/g; Memory 256MB DDr, nAnD Flash 4gB;

Expansion Slots SD Card (up to 16gB); Other interfaces

uSB2.0 high speed port; 3.5mm Earphone, Speakers Stereo,

built-in; inCluDES uSB cable and power adapter, Stylish

leather pouch, Quick guide, Warranty card

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGY

the integral Xpression

uSB range is available in

a variety of fun designs

that stand out from

multitude of plain black,

blue and silver uSBs

in use. new ‘music’

and ‘animal’ Xpression

collections join the

popular Xpression

“pattern collection” that

have had success with

fashion conscious users.

XPRESSION FLASh dRIVE

News

PRESTIgIO MULTIPAd PMP3084B

PRESTIgIO MULTIPAd PMP7100C


the geForce gtX 560M graphics

processor hits the “sweet spot” for

gaming notebooks by delivering gaming

experience at full 1080p resolution. OEMs

will also be offering geForce gtX gaming

gPus with nvidia Optimus technology.

The GeForce GTX 560M and Nvidia

Optimus mean gamers get 50 frames per

second in Duke Nukem Forever and five

hours of battery life in Microsoft Office.

Available only with Nvidia GPUs, Nvidia

Optimus technology enables extra-long

battery life by automatically switching on

and off the GPU so that it runs only when

needed.

The convenience of Nvidia Optimus

technology is designed into over 80 percent

of GeForce 500M Series notebooks and is

used by major notebook OEMs.

For thin-and-light notebooks, Nvidia

also refreshed its entry-level GeForce

GT 500M GPUs with the arrival of the

new GeForce GT 520MX GPU. Alienware

and Toshiba will be offering notebooks

featuring GeForce GTX 560M and Optimus

technology. ASUS, Clevo, MSI, Medion and

others will be offering notebooks featuring

GeForce GTX 560M. ASUS, Samsung and

others will be offering notebooks featuring

GeForce GT 520MX.

NVIdIA gEFORCE gTX 560M FOR NOTEBOOk gAMERS

the integral Crypto Dual is a 256-bit AES hardware

encryption uSB flash drive that fulfils the need for

sensitive data to be securely stored on a uSB and

protected from loss or theft.

Crypto Dual features a dual password option so that an

IT administrator can override a user’s password and recover

data if they forget their password or leave the company. The

drive also has dual operating system compatibility, running on both

Windows PCs and Mac.

The Crypto Dual has been independently tested for data encryption by the Federal

Information Processing Standards (FIPS) committee and validated to FIPS 197. The USB

provides mandatory encryption of all files, unprotected files cannot be saved to the Crypto

Dual. The Integral Crypto Dual operates comfortably with endpoint security solutions by

using an embedded unique ID.

Specifications

AES 256-bit hardware encryption; FIPS 197 Validated-Certificate No. 1137; Secure Entry-

data cannot be accessed without the correct high strength alphanumeric 8-16 character

password; Brute-Force Password Attack Protection-data is automatically erased after 6

failed access attempts; Unique number-the USB pin on each drive is etched with a unique

and random 7-digit code; Rugged triple-layer waterproof design-protects the Crypto Dual

against knocks, drops, break-in and submerging in water; Multi-lingual interface.

CRyPTO dUAL dRIVE

hARd dRIVE COPy STATIONthe integral hard drive copy station allows

an identical copy of a computer hard drive to

be made easily, at the touch of a button. it is

a standalone solution with no PC required.

the copy station allows the user to backup

and upgrade a hard drive or switch to a solid

state drive without any fuss.

Specifications

Compatible with 2.5" and 3.5" SATA drives;

copy HDD and SSD drives; works as an

external storage device with USB or eSATA

connections; Windows

2000/XP/Vista/7

and Mac OS X

10.1+ compatible

for use as an

external

storage device


nvidia’s advanced active-shutter technology allows gamers and 3D enthusiasts to access 3D

content including more than 525 full-HD 3D games, Blu-ray 3D movies, and streaming 3D video

from Youtube and 3Dvisionlive.com.

Nvidia’s 3D Vision wired glasses also support more than 65 different 3D Vision monitors,

notebooks, and projectors, giving user flexibility in configuring their 3D Vision PCs.

Nvidia’s 3D Vision wired glasses include a 10-foot USB 2.0 cable for direct, easy connection

to a 3D Vision PC or notebook. This makes it suitable for LAN gaming events and iCafe gaming

centres, as it does not require batteries. The new glasses are at an affordable price of AED 364.

Battery runtimes of up to 18 hours using intel

chipset technology and ultra low-voltage

processors; optional solid state hard drive;

optional second battery fitted in the modular

bay; removable DvD drive; advanced theft

protection; optional fingerprint sensor;

data protection from the optional trusted

platform module; lid made from lightweight

magnesium; shock

sensor that

automatically

disengages

the

mechanical

heads; spill-

resistant

keyboard.

FUjITSU LIFEBOOk P771

NVIdIA 3d VISION wIREd gLASSES

dESkTOP VISUALISER FROM EPSONthe device, essentially a high-

quality 5 megapixel camera

on a rugged, hinged arm, is

designed to help teachers at

primary and secondary schools

effortlessly share 3D objects,

books, experiments and even

living things with classes and also

create multimedia lesson notes.

The large A3 shooting area

means objects don’t need to be

precisely positioned or continually

readjusted, while the buttons

are intuitive. Use the dedicated

buttons to: auto focus;

switch between inputs, PC

or visualiser’s camera; zoom

in and out; take photos; or

record video. Rotating the head of the

arm through 90 degrees to adjust the

camera’s viewpoint is simple too. And

science teachers can easily attach a

microscope to share a close-up view

via the included attachment.

The advanced application

software manages the interactive

functions and multimedia options.

Take still images and record videos or

even watch ice-cream melt at speed

with the time-lapse feature which

captures up to 72 hours.

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGYNews


CYQUENT TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANTS launch their �rst Niche Line of business application (BIRetail) on the Cloud Computing platform for the Middle East.

“ With overarching pressures on price & cut throat competition, RETAIL players are beginning to like this RETAIL ready Business Intelligence tool which Cyquent is making available at hardly any cost compared to the savings in terms of predictable

& spot-on decisionmaking. Its RETAIL ready, it’s easy to start (no proof of concepts, no pilots) as it is available on the Cloud i.e. “Software as a Service”, it is business user friendly and is priced very conveniently ” says Praveen Thawani, Director, Cyquent Technology Consultants.

Built for retail: As a Business Intelligence solution that is designed exclusively for retailers‚ BIRetail transforms your data driven decision-making environment. BIRetail analytics covers retail functions across your enterprise – Sales, Inventory, Suppliers, and Customers etc. We are committed to ensuring that at every stage‚ from your supply chain to your stores‚ you bene�t from the approach that comes with BIRetail Solution. It incorporates a wide range of features including reporting‚ analysis‚ dashboards, alerting‚ and monitoring.

Best of Breed Business Intelligence BIRetail is an a�ordable, easy-to-use intuitive Business Intelligence (BI) solution designed from the “ground up” for retailers. It is a complete “BI in a Box” solution – it delivers all the components that make up a Business Intelligence solution including data warehouse, ETL, OLAP, reports, dashboards, KPIs, etc.

Actionable Intelligence

Our innovative solution drives “Pro�t” by providing “Actionable Intelligence” in at least three areas:

Operational intelligence- automated data collection and translation, resource planning, supplier analysis and inventory optimization

Customer intelligence- marketing automation, marketing optimization, and market basket analysis

Inventory intelligence- inventory planning, assortment, size, space, price, promotion, and markdown optimization.

For a free presentation or Demo of BIRETIAL please send your queries to [email protected]

DECISIONS. POWERED BY INTELLIGENCE

Easy to use Retail Ready Business Intelligence Suite (Cloud Computing Based)

Made for Retail

Single Platform for analysis and Reporting

Pre-Built retail KPI’s

Precon�gured reports

Highly optimized retail algorithms and Standards

Best of Breed BI

Web-Based Environment

Built on SaaS Technology

Full Stack BI Suite

the ZiiSound Dx series of pure wireless

modular speakers includes the flagship

ZiiSound D5x wireless one-piece speaker,

the affordable room-suitable ZiiSound

D3x wireless one-piece speaker and the

extended deep bass ZiiSound DSx wireless

subwoofer.

The speakers can connect

independently to stereo Bluetooth devices

such as iPhone and Blackberry mobiles and

iPad and Creative ZiiO tablets. They can be

connected wirelessly to form a multi-channel

home audio system and feature apt-X audio

technology for sound quality.

Creative’s WP-450, WP-350 and WP-

250 Bluetooth music listening and voice

communication headphones are wireless

companions for smart communication

devices such as iPhone and Android

CREATIVE’S NEw AUdIO wIRELESS RANgE

mobiles. All models come with in-call voice

quality, wireless connectivity and ‘invisible

mic’ built into the earpiece.

Creative ZiiSound D5x wireless modular

speaker AED 1,099; Creative ZiiSound DSx

wireless modular subwoofer AED 499. The

Creative ZiiSound D3x wireless modular

speaker available from September 2011 at

AED 499; Creative D80 wireless speaker

available from June 2011 at AED 169.

The Creative ZEN Style M100 (4GB),

Creative ZEN Style M300 (4GB) and Creative

ZEN Style M300 (8GB) portable media

players available from mid June 2011 at AED

179, AED 219 and AED 269 respectively;

Creative WP-350 headphones available from

June 2011 at AED 349; Creative WP-450

and WP-250 headphones available from

September 2011 AT AED 449 and AED 229

respectively.

TwINMOS X3, A3 USB3.0 FLASh dRIVES

hUAwEI MEdIAPAd

Compared to uSB2.0’s

480Mbps transfer rate,

uSB3.0’s transfer rate

reaches as high as

5gbps. transferring a

20gB high-resolution

video will take less

than 7 minutes.

twinmos drives have

capacity from 8gB to

32gB with energy-

saving modes.

this is a 7-inch Android

3.2 Honeycomb tablet

with Qualcommís dual-core

1.2gHz processor, supported

by Huawei Deviceís Hi-Space

cloud solution and google

Android Market.

The MediaPad supports

HSPA+ data services, Flash 10.3

videos and comes preinstalled

with Facebook, Twitter, Let's Golf and Documents to Go.

With the 7-inch IPS touch screen, the MediaPad offers

visual experience for photos, movies and applications.

Entertainment and gaming features are accessory enabled

through HD playback and HDMI port.

PRODUCTS & TECHNOLOGYNews



Excellence in distribution

By o�ering thousands of products from leading IT and Telecommunications manufacturers and a wide range of solutions and services to more than 10,000 resellers in the region, we are the leading and largest Value-Added Distributor in the Middle East, Turkey & Africa.

From o�ces and warehouses in 11 countries, including UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and with more than 650 specialized sta�, Aptec serves over 25 countries. With our regional geographical coverage, extensive customer base and our value added services, we have become the fastest growing distributor in the region. Having been in business for 30 years, when it comes to value added distribution in the region...

we clearly have no competition.

Aptec Distribution FZE LLC P.O.Box 33550, Dubai Internet City, Dubai, UAE Tel: (+971 4) 3697111 Fax: (+971 4) 3697110, email : [email protected], www.apteconline.com

Aptec Egypt: Tel: (+202) 6444264 / 6355030, Aptec Kuwait-KFTZ: Tel: (+965) 4610280 Ext. 215, Aptec Pakistan: Tel: +9221 2788736, Aptec Lebanon: Tel: (+961) 4718891, Aptec Saudi: Tel: (+966 1) 4601950, Aptec Turkey: Tel: (+90 212) 259 0064.

NetApp123 alte

rego

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AptecAD_Review230x275_03JULY11.pdf 1 7/3/11 11:50 AM

Dr nasser Marafih,

who was CEO of Qtel

Qatar, is now CEO of

the Qtel Group, with

responsibility for

driving efficiencies

and growth across all

the group companies.

The role marks

another significant

responsibility for Dr Nasser, who began his

career at Qtel in 1992 as Expert Advisor from

the University of Qatar, and later Strategic

Planning and Development Manager in 1994.

Since becoming CEO in 2002, Dr Nasser

has led Qtel successfully guiding it through

its transformation program and restructuring

of the company in Qatar and across the

region. During Qtel’s international expansion,

Dr Nasser has held the dual roles of Qtel

Qatar CEO and Qtel Group CEO

Sheikh Saud Bin

nasser Al thani, who

was previously

Executive Director of

HR and General

Services, will be CEO

of Qtel Qatar. Sheikh

Saud Bin Nasser Al

Thani joined Qtel in

1990, and, over the

course of 21 years at the company, has gained

a wide range of experience and knowledge

across the business. In his new role, he will

direct operations throughout Qatar.

Sheikh Saud has handled key projects

like the restructuring of the organisation in

1998, the structure review in 2000 and the

job evaluation and compensation review

with Qtel’s auditors KPMG.

Sheikh Saud also sits on the board of

Nawras in Oman, which is part of the Qtel

Group. Through his dual portfolio of HR

and General Services, Sheikh Saud has

developed an understanding of the Qtel

business in Qatar, and has played a key role

in developing new processes for growth,

Qatarisation and human development.

Waleed Al-Sayed, formerly Executive Director

of Customer Services, was named as the new

COO of Qtel Qatar. Joining the company in

1987, Waleed Al-Sayed has held senior roles

across sales, marketing, project management,

business solutions, communication and

customer services within Qtel.

In 2006, he was appointed as Executive

Director, customer services to establish

a superior customer experience, where

he led an exercise to transform the retail

environment to better engage customers. In

2010, Waleed led the Qtel team to win the

highest tally of honours at Contact Centre

World Awards in the UK and the Contact

Centre World Awards in US.

Nick Dent, formerly COO of Qtel Qatar,

will work with Waleed Al-Sayed on the

transfer process, before moving to a new

role within the Qtel Group.

Qtel reshuffles

Alaa Al Shimy has

been appointed to

the position of HP

Enterprise,

Storage, Servers

and Networking

Director for the

Middle East.

In his new

role, AlSimy is

responsible for managing growth and

cost control for revenue streams in

Middle East focusing on the end to end

business and operational management

in the region.

Prior to this role, AlSimy was the

Regional Director for HP Networking

for the Middle East, Mediterranean and

Africa (MEMA) region. He has more than

22 years of experience in the IT industry

and joined HP 11 years ago. He holds an

MBA from the London Business School.

Has taken over from

Fawwaz Qadan who

has been appointed

as the Director of

HP Networking for

Mediterranean, Middle

East and Africa.

tom Eggemeier has been

appointed global sales

leader for Alcatel-Lucent

Enterprise. He will be

responsible for driving sales

of Genesys,

Communications and

Networks products and

solutions worldwide

through global accounts,

channels and strategic alliances that currently

include HP and IBM.

Previously Eggemeier served as EMEA sales

leader for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise. Prior to this,

Tom held a variety of management roles in both

the carrier and enterprise markets at Alcatel-

Lucent, Enterasys Networks, and Compaq.

Eggemeier is a frequent speaker and advocate

of the power of social media and the role it plays

in connecting employees to the enterprise, and

new engagement opportunities for customers with

brands. He holds a Juris Doctor degree from the

University of Chicago Law School and a Bachelor

of Arts degree from the University of Dayton.

Adrian Pickering has

been appointed area Vice

President, Middle East and

Africa for Juniper

Networks. Pickering will

be responsible for driving

sales and operations

across the Middle East

and Africa region and will

be reporting to Sean

Dolan, Senior Vice President, EMEA.

Pickering joins Juniper from Cisco Systems

where he worked most recently as a senior director

in the emerging markets East team.

PEOPLEMovements



www.gitex.com

www.gitex.com/resell

Local directors on Huawei Australia’s board

Blue Coat revamps regional sales heads

John Brumby, Alexander

Downer and John lord have

been announced as independent

Directors to sit on Huawei

Australia’s newly established

board of directors.

As part of Huawei’s

localisation strategy, the

announcement marks the first time

Huawei has created a local board

with three independent directors

anywhere in the world. The board will be

charged with overseeing Huawei’s local

strategy and developing further inroads into

the Australian market.

Gary Olson has been named Vice

President of sales for the Americas, Steve

Rowland Vice President of sales for APAC

and Marc Andrews as Vice President of

sales for EMEA, at Blue Coat. The new

regional sales leaders are responsible

for developing and executing regional

go-to-market strategy, market penetration

and partner relationships. All three report

to Kevin Biggs, Senior Vice President of

worldwide sales and field operations.

Prior to joining

Blue Coat, gary

Olson was Vice

President of

worldwide sales at

Mu Dynamics. He

graduated with

honors from Troy

State University,

and has a BS in

Engineering and Political Science from

the United States Air Force Academy.

He served as an officer in the United

States Air Force and is a veteran of

Desert Storm.

The full board will be comprised of the

three independent Australian directors,

alongside Huawei Australia CEO Guo Fulin,

Huawei South Pacific President Jeff Liu, and

two members from Huawei’s

global Board: global director Ms

Chen Lifang, and global Executive

Director Li Jie. John Lord will act

as Chairman of the Board. The

Board will meet in Australia and at

Huawei’s global headquarters in

Shenzhen, China.

Huawei’s Australian business

has grown substantially since the

company opened its first office in

Chatswood with just 20 staff in 2004. Most

of Huawei staff are now locals, with staff

numbers set to double from 300 at the end of

2010 to more than 600 by the end of 2011.

Prior to this

appointment, Steve

rowland led sales

in the Americas for

three years. Before

joining Blue Coat,

he was Senior Vice

President of sales at

Workbrain

Corporation and

Vice President of sales at BMC Software.

He holds a BS in Engineering from Texas

A&M University.

Prior to joining Blue

Coat, Marc Andrews

was President of

Micro Focus

International.

Previously, he was

President of

international

operations for Saba

Software and CEO at

NETIQ. He also led sales and marketing for

EMEA at BMC Software.

Yakob Kafina has been

appointed as General

Manager for FVC’s

operations in the

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Before joining FVC,

Kafina worked as Director

with Jeraisy Computer

Services, a system

integrator in KSA. During his 25-year career, he

has worked with leading vendors in emerging

technologies including unified communications,

security and networking. Yakob has plans to

expand FVC’s presence in the Kingdom across

education, finance, telcos and energy.

george DeBono has

been appointed as

General Manager for

Red Hat in the Middle

East and Africa region.

DeBono, who previously

held a senior global

operations role within

Red Hat, will now lead

the company’s business in the region. Prior to

joining Red Hat, DeBono held management roles

at Sun and Computer Associates.

John Brumby Alexander Downer John Lord

PEOPLEMovements


Madhav Narayan

PROFILE

Madhav narayan, regional Director of Enterprise

Business, Samsung Electronics, describes himself

as “impatiently aggressive.” And with a trail blazing

record through Samsung, Dell and redington, it’s

only part of the story.

Narayan adds further ingredients to his success recipe.

“Passion accompanied by discipline, dedication and

determination”, are the remaining parts.

At Samsung Electronics since 2007, he has set up the Gulf

distribution network for IT products from scratch. Notebooks,

laser printers, storage and large format displays now move

across the region. And in a few countries they are also leading

brands. At Dell since 2003, he built the small business and

consumer channel also from scratch when it was unknown in the

region, and left them at the $250 million mark three years later.

At Redington, he had the longest Gulf stint from 1994 to

2003, and brought the conglomerate into the top three club.

Narayan qualifies this stint as most memorable since it also gave

him the best learning experience.

Looking back at his span of 25 years corporate experience,

Narayan considers himself lucky to have worked with an Indian,

Japanese, Singapore, American and finally a Korean employer.

Every organisation he has worked for helped him to acquire new

skills, while he added value to their operations.

At every stage, “the challenge of building a solid

organisation with key industry talent and efficient processes

following a global directive”, is what he has enjoyed the most.

And most trying has been to change an organisation from a

product centric mindset to customer centric one.

With a bachelor of engineering in electronics and master of

business administration degree, is continuous learning still an

integral part of himself? Absolutely!

Narayan unwinds by travelling with his family and a

smattering of culture, reading, music and sports thrown in.

Reseller Awards 2011Outstanding executive, IT channel

Tower builder


Hemayun Bazaz is HP networking’s channel manager

for uAE. the challenge of building working teams

across the region with its cultures, local politics and

dynamics is what enriches Bazaz’s professional life the

most.

Bazaz is a people’s manager and believes in transferring

knowledge, skills and understanding to his partners - all towards

mutual business goals. “The challenge to get the best out of each

individual has been satisfying”, he reflects. “I like to drive people

and keep them motivated”.

After putting in the hard work, getting to the corners of the

region, motivating the channel teams to work together, and then

seeing customer demand pull products across the full cycle, gives

Bezaz satisfaction of a good job done.

Reflecting on his career progression, he believes each step

did something to enrich his life. In his first job at Philips India, he

learnt from the breadth of experienced managers in the company.

At Techdata and later at 3Com, as part of the HP facing team, he

began to understand the Middle East market and dynamics of HP

technologies and customer demand.

This brought him to a lead role in the relationship with HP,

qualifying him to keep it during the later acquisition of 3Com by HP

in 2005. Today, Bazaz keeps his work life transparent, is honest in

his engagements and feels this is key to success he has achieved.

Bazaz unwinds with a good game of cricket, bit more of sport

whenever possible and his family. Facebook keeps him connected

with his friends but Bazaz doesn’t find social media to be a value-

add for him in his worklife. He is a science graduate and master of

business administration from the University of Pune.

HP’s channel champion

The motivator

PROFILEHemayum Bazaz


HP is changing networking.

Gone are the days of networks that are hard to manage, vulnerable to attacks, and expensive to maintain. With HP game-changing solutions, the status quo is history.

The New Rules of Networking

#1 Simplified network designs that are twice as secure1

#2 Up to 2x better performance for greater flexibility2

#3 Up to 65% lower cost of ownership3

Put the new rules to work for you. hp.com/networking/change

Outcomes that matter.

Copyright © 2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.1. Respondents from Infonetics September 2008 survey report

that Tipping Point blocks 2.3x more threats compared to next-closest competitor

2. Based on line rate comparison between HP 12518 128x 10G (2.2 Bpps) and Cisco Nexus 7000 Series 18 (960mpps)

3. IDC white paper sponsored by HP, ROI of Switched Ethernet Networking Solutions for the Midmarket, #219843, August 2009

the rules of networking.

www.hp.com/networking/change

Contact us:P.O.Box : 500327, Dubai Media City, U.A.ETel : +971 4 3688118; Fax : +971 4 3688170Email : [email protected] Thuraya Tower 1, 24th floor, Dubai Media City, Dubai, UAE

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Take IT Easy 27 x 20.7 cm.pdf 1 6/21/2011 3:40:16 PM

Reseller Middle East

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