The general manager of IT distributor Mindware, Mario Gay, today spoke of his delight after being selected to distribute the portfolio of storage giant EMC across all of the Gulf countries, excluding the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

EMC started its selection process a little under a year ago when it decided it needed a second distributor for its entire portfolio, excluding its security and VMware products, which have their own channel and distribution.

HP has transformed its position in the networking space from a year ago and is now ready to do the same with Big Data, according to the heads of its Middle East operations.

The company has now reached around 11 percent market share in networking, which places it at number two in the market, miles

HP enjoys networking success, predicts the same for Big Data

60 MinsShow dates: 20-24 October 2013, Dubai World Trade Centre | AT GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK | Exhibition hours: 11am -6pm

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Mindware partners with EMC

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WHAT’S INSIDE

Dell to showcase latest solutions

Sourcefire exhibits cybersecurity solutions

GITEX preview: Seagate

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HP...ahead of those below it.

“The advantage this year over last year is that customers are now taking HP very seriously when it comes to software defined networks,” said Eyad Shihabi, MD & Enterprise Business Lead, Middle East, HP. “I think networking will continue to be very strong for HP.”

This success can be attributed to the vendor pioneering the rise of software-defined networking (SDN), according to Ernest Sales, VP & MD, Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa, HP.

“In storage and networking, this year we bring equipment which is better than our competitors in any way you want to compare them, and that was not the case a year ago,” Sales said.

“SDN has been a very big

standard for us in the networking space. We are the only company today that has a controller in SDN that can allow us to program the network in one single place. We are very unique in the SDN arena.”

From a situation of holding a lot of discussions on the new technology, CIOs in the region are now fully aware of the benefits and opportunities it creates.

“There had been a lot educational discussions, but now we just say here is the offering and opportunity, and many are interested in doing a pilot,” Sales said.

“We are the number two in the market, and then everybody else has either 1 or 2 percent market share. I think next year we’ll be in an even better position. We’ve just

launched a new full portfolio for Wi-Fi and we will for sure be very strong.”

HP is now expecting to see the same interest in Big Data, which until now has seen more hype than adoption.

The vendor has launching its Big Data platform, HP HAVEn, and believes it has the solution to take a lead in this field.

“Next year, I think we’ll be having a very similar discussion to this one on HP HAVEn, our Big Data platform,” Shihabi said.

“It uses Vertica technology, which all the big players in the market of Big Data are using today. It’s 100,000 times faster than the competition. The speed is just fantastic. “

Sales added: “We have seen

Vertica blow up everywhere in the world. Once customers see what it can do, boom, they want it.”

Whilst many compare the trends of cloud and Big Data in terms of their impact on the enterprise, Big Data is moving at a much faster pace, according to Shihabi.

“People have been talking about cloud for five years and up until a year or two ago people were still experimenting,” he said. “It took five years but now people are using it.

“With Big Data, it’s going much faster because it brings in real tangible results to the business. It’s a very quick turnaround to make them more competitive. The companies that have piloted or shown interest, the speed of adoption is phenomenal.”

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Dell to showcase latest solutions Dell will unveil its latest array of end-to-end solutions at GITEX Technology Week 2013, demonstrating how its cutting-edge technology can help Middle East businesses manage and scale their IT operations, including examples in the oil and gas, education and finance industries. Dell believes technology priorities can be categorized into four key pillars: Transform; Connect; Inform; and Protect, and will demonstrate on the stand how these pillars can be used to solve technology challenges.

Underscoring the importance of the Middle East to Dell, Marius Haas, Dell’s President, Enterprise Solutions, will travel from the US to attend GITEX Technology Week this year. Haas is responsible for the worldwide engineering, design, development and marketing of Dell

enterprise products, giving him a unique global overview of server, networking and storage trends. Dell will also be unveiling a new Solutions Center in Dubai later this year, a state-of-the-art technical lab and datacenter equipped to address the business objectives and IT challenges of customers in the Middle East through powerful solution engagements.

“Many of our Middle East customers and partners from the region travel to GITEX , and this is an opportunity for us to reach out to them and demonstrate Dell’s end-to-end integrated solutions,” said Dave Brooke, Dell’s Middle East general manager. “Dell has the technology and capabilities to help them solve their IT challenges, and Gitex is a good venue to showcase this.”

New launches in 2013 that will Dave Brooke, GM of Dell Middle East

“It’s been a challenge to arrive to the end of a process of selection,” said Gay. “They’ve been very demanding.

“At the end we are extremely happy because it is a portfolio we have been looking for to build and forge a new partnership for a long time. It’s a new beginning.”

Mindware has been appointed the countries of Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Bahrain and Yemen.

“All these countries already had a Mindware presence,” Gay said, “but for us it means a new boost in

the business.”The distributor has appointed

a team of seven people, who will have the objective of developing the business from the channel, whilst also, with the help of EMC, working towards the end-user.

“For us as EMC, distribution is very key,” said Havier Haddad, Channel & Alliances Director, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Turkey & NW Africa.

“When we sign a distribution, we don’t do it every day. It’s about success. Every year we decide distribution for the next year, and almost one year ago we decided

we needed a second distributor for all the Gulf countries, excluding the UAE and Saudi.”

EMC conducted the selection process with more than 10 interested distributors before finally deciding upon Mindware.

Haddad spoke of EMC’s preference of quality over quantity when it comes to the vendor’s distribution channel.

“We cover a huge territory and we don’t have more than 10 or 12 distributors, so we don’t have many,” he said. “However, we have long-term distribution agreements in place, and it’s all about being

strategic and relevant to each other.”Summarising EMC’s decision,

Haddad said the decision came down to value add.

“We treat the distributor as an extended force for us,” he said. “We invest in channel and have all types of specialists in place, and we expect the same from our distribution.

“They need to have the sales expertise, pre-sales expertise, how to build the indirect model and engine, the after-sales, and all types of value adds. This is why it took a bit long, to make sure we got the decision right.”

be displayed for channel partners and end-users during GITEX include PowerEdge VRTX and Active Infrastructure 1:1. PowerEdge VRTX is the first converged IT solution designed specifically for remote and small office environments, with enterprise-class capabilities in a desk-side, space-saving design. Active Infrastructure 1.1 is a solution that helps organisations accelerate the delivery of business applications and IT services, improve data center efficiency, and strengthen IT service quality.

During GITEX, Dell will connect with channel and alliance partners to update them about Dell’s enhanced PartnerDirect channel program, and how Dell’s technology can help them grow their business.

Visit Dell on Stand CLD-6 in the Cloud Confex section of Hall 6.

Sourcefire exhibits cybersecurity solutions In partnership with Secureway Network Distributors, Sourcefire is demonstrating the latest enhancements to its FirePOWER network-based security platform, including Next Generation Intrusion Prevention Systems (NGIPS) and Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW) at GITEX Technology Week. The company also showcasng its dedicated Advanced Malware Protection solutions at the week-long event.

“As a Sourcefire partner for the Middle East, it is important that we work jointly to address our customers’ needs. GITEX Technology Week, the region’s most awaited ICT event, provides us a strong platform to not only demonstrate the product range, but also greater interaction to understand the current trends and work alongside our partners and customers,” said Fari Boustanchani, CEO, Secureway

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Network Distributors.The potential threat of cyber-

attacks in the Middle East region has seen a steep growth, as has the rest of the world. This has made many enterprises susceptible to these attacks “There is an increased awareness by corporations that are addressing the security issues more effectively. Increasingly businesses in the region know that it is not a question of if they are attacked, but when they are attacked. The security model has changed and therefore it is critical we can manage our security, before, during and after an incident rather than purely rely on defending the perimeter,” said Anthony Perridge, EMEA Channel Director at Sourcefire.

Sourcefire specialists and management will be available for meeting and discussions along with Secureway at Hall 1, Stand B2-1 at the World Trade Centre, Dubai.

GITEX preview: Seagate1) What is the main theme of your presence at GITEX this year?Seagate is known for storing the world’s content, and that repute will be seen across our various activities and product lines showcased at this year’s GITEX Technology Week as well as during GITEX Shopper. For more than three decades our products have been helping people across the Middle East and around the globe to store, share and protect their valuable digital content. During this year’s GITEX, visitors will be able to see how we have advanced over the past year in offering the industry’s broadest portfolio of hard disk drives, solid-state drives and solid-state hybrid drives, as well as an extensive line of retail storage products for consumers and small businesses along with data-recovery services for any brand of hard drive and digital media type.

2) Are you releasing/launching anything new at GITEX 2013? If so, what?During this year’s GITEX, Seagate will have an active presence showcasing its unrivaled range of both external as well as internal storage solutions.

For those interested in home computing and enterprise storage, our internal hard drive solutions will be out in full force including our latest developments in SSD, SSHD, NAS, Enterprise and Cloud technologies. This includes the world’s fastest hard drive—the Enterprise Turbo SSHD—as well as

a new network-attached storage (NAS) HDD lineup plus two new enterprise-class HDDs optimized for emerging cloud infrastructures and large-scale data centers.

In the consumer space, Seagate has also made some great advancements this year through increased investments in its branded personal storage solutions. Our recently launched Seagate Wireless Plus and Seagate Central wireless storage devices will be leading our lineup this year, as well as the newly unveiled Seagate Slim drives and our bespoke business NAS solutions for SMEs.

3) How is your company presenting itself at GITEX this year to differentiate it from competitors?The sheer diversity and quality of our product portfolios really do speak for themselves. By bring together a team of global Seagate solution experts and with an expanded stand at this year’s GITEX to showcase where storage technology is heading in the coming years, we are confident in offering visitors an unparalleled experience at this year’s exhibition.

4) What are the key trends influencing your approach to GITEX 2013 and the offerings you are pushing?The global storage market is growing rapidly as a business sector as well as evolving in terms of its solutions offerings.

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Commvault to plug Simpana 10 at GITEX

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Today’s global storage solutions are undergoing rapid advances in terms of hardware, software, and how they are implemented within the modern enterprise. Increased mobility and cloud-based storage applications are motivating end users to rethink their traditional approach to storage architecture.

5) How have you seen the Middle East respond to those trends in question, and how did you think that will change over the next year?Looking ahead, we believe that data growth driven by cloud, mobile and open source advancement will present new and significant opportunities in the EMEA region. Organizations across the Middle East have largely recognized the value that they can reap from more efficient, tiered storage solutions which consider the long-term implications of these trends. We feel well positioned to help our customers take full advantage of that potential in the coming years.

6) How do you think GITEX 2013 will be different to previous editions?GITEX has always played a major role in shaping the Middle East Africa and South Asia (MEASA) region’s technology landscape. Bringing together so many different stakeholders—bother geographically and in terms of expertise—we have found that each year’s event presents a fresh lineup of ideas, products and opportunities. There have been some notable expansions onto this year’s agenda in particular.

Data protection specialist Commvault will use the GITEX 2013 stage to market its Simpana 10 technology, which it claims can cut storage-related costs by up to 50 percent.

Simpana’s new ‘Edge’ software capabilities allow users to securely share, search and restore files across their own mobile, desktop and laptop devices, without the need for IT assistance or third-party services.

It also enables the accelerated delivery of managed services and

cloud computing through new automation of large-scale data centres, according to CommVault, which also says the solution will reduce administrative overheads by up to 80 percent, and lower aggregate support costs by up to 35 percent.

Fiona Moon, Commvault’s marketing director, EMEA said, “A relentless explosion of Big Data in the Middle East plagues many stakeholders, from IT to Legal, as they grapple with how best to retain, access, discover

and ultimately delete content in compliance with evolving regulations.

“Simpana software offers regional enterprises investment protection with a core software platform that is flexible, modular, and ready to conquer new challenges as they emerge. It does the jobs of many point-level products, only better, more cost effectively, and much more simply.”

Simpana 10 incorporates a number of features that enable regional IT departments to align technology with current and future business demands.

It shares a single code and common function set, to deliver data protection, archive, replication, search and resource management capabilities.

“Mobility is gaining momentum in the region and because employees can utilise Simpana’s self-service access from mobile devices, they can increase value from corporate information and improve productivity,” Moon added.

To help clients adjust to the new software, CommVault is offering instructor-led classrooms and e-learning to explain it.

Earlier in the year, CommVault was recognised by research firm Gartner as a Leader in its 2013 Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Backup/Recovery Software.