the grid issue 06

TheGridOctober | Issue 06 - GITEX 2015

roadmap to successClearing the path for regional growth

October 2015 Issue 06 | TheGrid 3 www.mindware.ae

CONTENTS Published by

04 Management speak

06 Arcserve

08 Citrix

10 EMC

14 Intel Security

16 Juniper Networks

20 Pulse Secure

22 Riverbed

24 Veritas

4 TheGrid | Issue 06 October 2015 www.mindware.ae

Founded in 1992, Mindware’s solid grounding of local operations has run parallel to the development of the

Middle East and North Africa IT market. Until now, the company’s journey has been defined by the successful alignment of its services with vendor strategies – and ensuring it stays in-tune with the latest trends. Their range of vendors, with whom they partner to offer value-added products and solutions, are also adapting to suit new trends like cloud computing, BYOD, and expanding to greenfield markets in the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mindware began H1 of 2015 on the back of strong performance

Mario Gay, General Manager, Mindware

Mind over matter

Management speak

The role of the value-added distributor is evolving. As traditional hardware provision no longer suffices alone, VADs need to provide contemporary services to stay ahead of the game. Mindware UAE General Manager Mario Gay discusses

how his firm is meeting the needs of the Middle East.


foundations from 2014. However, Mario Gay, General Manager, Mindware UAE, is taking nothing for granted in his pursuit of success, and is determined to ensure all bases are covered when it comes to guaranteeing the future stability of the company. “2016 is a question mark,” he says. “If the oil prices continue to be low, there’ll be less government spending and less demand associated with the public sector. Budgets will be reduced and therefore by default, you can’t keep up with the SMB or enterprise space or compensate what you’re losing from one side.”

There’s no denying that the Middle East is an exciting evolutionary phase of technology. However, the time where VADs acted as distributors of ‘black boxes’ is long gone. As the IT market shifts its emphasis towards solutions, software and services, the role of commodity hardware is gradually diminishing. Against this backdrop, VADs have an extra duty to ensure that their services add value in the modern sense of technology. Mindware has been a leader in the VAD space for some time, but has stayed on the ball when it comes to delivering value, and is committed to adding value to the channel through strategic work. Whether it’s the company’s solutions portfolio, its training of partners or post-sales support, Mindware always has – and always will – endeavour to find ways to truly add value to a business, and it has made significant investments to continue its steady growth.

In terms of business development, Mindware has already successfully built a solid foundation for its channel partner program, which enables it to provide end-to-end solutions to partners across a wide array of segments, including networking, components, hardware, servers, storage, software, and security, all under one name.

One trend that groups all these elements together is cloud. A potential game-changer for businesses who can

leverage it to suit their own vertical needs, the jump to cloud does need to be handled carefully, and end-users need to find the right partner who can guide them through the transition. Gay says the next step of value addition will centre around providing a seamless connection platform that can offer multiple solutions on-premise as well as on cloud. He believes that all other leading distributors and MNCs are currently working towards this goal. “The market is shifting on to the cloud,” he says. “In order to combine so many products as per the needs of the customer, standard tools aren’t enough, hence the market is going to need a distributor which can make things easy and doable for them, without affecting their business continuity and that’s where Mindware comes in.”

As the firm looks to help deliver ‘as-a-service’ models to its customers, Mindware is also seeking to create a common platform to engage with these services at the click of a button. The technology may have a disruptive effect, but Mindware wants to ensure that the same can’t be said for any customer’s operations.

A key facet of Mindware’s offerings has been its willingness to provide solutions across the spectrum of technology; from security and networking through to storage solutions. Still, the company has acknowledged that gaps in its portfolio have acted as an inhibitor

in terms of providing end-to-end solutions offerings for its partners. That is set to change. Mindware has exciting plans afoot, as it eyes GITEX Technology Week 2015 to announce two new strategic partnerships at the internationally-renowned trade show.

Mindware is no stranger to GITEX. Last year’s event saw the company pen a distribution deal with Riverbed Technology’s regional branch. This time round, the stage is set for the firm to cement its status as a one-stop shop for any enterprise technology need. Although Mindware is keeping its cards close to its chest for the time being, the announcement of two new partnerships is expected to reaffirm the company’s standing as a formidable provider of comprehensive solutions. In addition to the exciting news, visitors to the 35th edition of GITEX can investigate the possibilities on offer from the Mindware Academy, Mindware UAE’s new educational brand.

It may seem a given to some, but understanding the importance of customers is a concept that evades all too many VADs today. Mindware’s professional culture has been borne out of the notion that customers come first, and that only through strategic partnerships can the most effective solutions emerge. The company has always prized personal service, competitive pricing and fast delivery, and constantly takes extra care to deliver upgrades to its solutions offerings to ensure that partners and resellers are always armed with market-ready services, encompassing seamless integration on a variety of platforms. “I don’t believe in mindless revolution, rather the continued process of changing, upgrading and evolving every year,” Gay says. “We want to be somebody that it is easy to do business with; we try to simplify as much as we can. It’s obviously hard to quantify how successful we’ve been at that, but we do everything in our power to ensure that’s the case.”

“As ThE IT MArkET shIFTs ITs EMphAsIs TowArDs solUTIons, soFTwArE AnD sErVIcEs, ThE rolE oF coMMoDITy hArDwArE Is GrADUAlly DIMInIshInG. AGAInsT ThIs bAckDrop, VADs hAVE An ExTrA DUTy To EnsUrE ThAT ThEIr sErVIcEs ADD VAlUE In ThE MoDErn sEnsE oF TEchnoloGy.”


Arcserve

Rami Nasser, Regional Sales Director, EMEA Growth and Emerging Markets, Arcserve

backup and recovery firm Arcserve is solely reliant on the local channel, with 100 percent of its business coming from distributors. rami nasser, regional sales Director, EMEA Growth and Emerging Markets, Arcserve, discusses the firm’s Unified Data protection appliance.

what’s been Arcserve’s focus and business strategy for the Middle East channel in 2015?

The Middle East is an important area for Arcserve and we’ve had a presence here for a number of years; as part of CA before we became independent last year, and now as Arcserve in our own right.

In the Middle East and like everywhere else, Arcserve is investing in regions with local dedicated people for the company to develop our channel business and to enable partners. Arcserve is 100 percent channel-based. We have introduced a new Channel Partner Program that focuses on driving faster and easier transactions for channel partners, lead generation assistance and competitive incentives.

Arcserve will keep investing in the Middle East region as the demands

virtual backup and recovery, and that does give us the edge over our competitors who tend to offer one or the other. We’re very versatile with multiple solutions for virtual and physical platforms that can be tailored to a customer’s needs. In fact, we’ve found that many of our customers in the region have adopted both types of solution.

What channel initiatives is Arcserve rolling out in the Middle East this year?Arcserve recognise that the Middle East is an important region, and we have appointed a new team in Dubai who is managing our channel business.

We rolled out a partner incentive by rewarding our resellers with Apple products. We also launched a webinar series schedule in order to enable partners and customers. We have done regular hands-on technical training which has taken place in the UAE, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. We have supported our partners by doing joint marketing activities from joint events to lead generation campaigns.

What role are your distribution partners such as Mindware and reseller partners expected to play?Mindware is a key distributor for us, it has been a long relationship and they are the main Arcserve point of contact for our resellers in region.

What will be Arcserve’s major highlight at the 2015 GITEX Technology Week?UDP - the first solution to combine industry-proven backup, replication, high availability and true global deduplication technologies within one unified console for virtual and physical systems.

We are launching our new UDP Appliance, which offers simple and affordable protection on and offsite.

What is the importance of participating in a technology trade fair such as GITEX?You can meet and network with partners and customers. At the same time, you showcase your brand and build awareness while generating new leads.

“ArcsErVE wIll kEEp InVEsTInG In ThE MIDDlE EAsT rEGIon As ThE DEMAnDs on DATA proTEcTIon AnD rEcoVEry kEEp coMInG. DATA Is GrowInG ExponEnTIAlly, AnD orGAnIsATIons ArE UsInG ThAT DATA To MAkE bUsInEss-crITIcAl DEcIsIons, so ThEy nEED AccEss To IT AT All TIMEs.”

on data protection and recovery keep coming. Data is growing exponentially, and organisations are using that data to make business-critical decisions, so they need access to it at all times.

How is Arcserve helping its channel partners to take advantage of the improving business climate in the Middle East?Our portfolio of backup and recovery products includes Unified Data Protection (UDP), the first solution to combine industry-proven backup, replication, high availability and true global deduplication technologies within one unified console for virtual and physical systems.

Middle East channel partners, like many others, are looking for a solution that offers as many features as possible and at the same time is simple to install and manage. Arcserve provides both physical and

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citrix

Eyad Al Shami, Channel Manger,

Middle East, Turkey and Africa, Citrix

Curbing CAPEXcitrix is determined to reduce the upfront costs of mobility. Eyad Al shami, channel Manger, Middle East, Turkey and Africa, citrix, highlights the importance of delivering affordable mobile workspaces.

what has been Citrix’s focus and business strategy for the Middle East channel in 2015?

Citrix has increased its commitment to the channel through the Citrix Partner Growth Plan – a multi-year initiative for partners in markets whose technology focus is on virtualisation, mobility and networking. This plan is comprised of four pillars: an enhanced CSA program with specialist track as its cornerstone, greater field collaboration, strengthened partner enablement and robust marketing demand generation.

The program enables partners to earn greater rewards, establish a competitive advantage in new and established markets and grow revenue by selling Citrix products and solutions.

Therefore, our focus this year has been on introducing our new and improved program and bringing partners up to speed on our expanding portfolio of products and solutions.

How is Citrix helping its channel partners to take advantage of the improving business climate in the Middle East?We are making significant investments in partner training programs to ensure that our partners are able to educate regional businesses on the importance of adopting business mobility strategies.

What channel initiatives and programmes is Citrix rolling out in the Middle East this year?Because our channel partners represent our primary go-to-market strategy, it is important that we continue our longstanding channel leadership by strengthening traditional channel programs while building new opportunities for our partners.

In the Middle East and Africa region, we have been heavily expanding our channel base and aim to have a wider partner network that will deliver value and partner differentiation to improve market reach, revenue and scale. We are also continuing our investment in partner training programs where we have created new tools and resources that will help increase productivity and enable partners to compete more effectively in the region, with our growing mobile workplace solutions portfolio.

In addition, we are investing heavily in enabling partners to be able to sell and deliver successful end-to-end mobility solutions to customers.

What role are your distribution partners such as Mindware and reseller partners expected to play?A primary challenge that partners face is resistance from customers. Some customers have the wrong perception that business mobility solutions require a very high upfront cost. This was true a couple of years ago. However, as the technology is being more widely adopted, overall upfront costs have reduced. We work closely with our channel partners to mitigate this challenge and empower them to help customers become more informed on the importance of mobility solutions.

Our distributors also ensure that they work as the extended arm of Citrix, recruiting and enabling partners all the way to hand-holding them during their first few deals.

What will be Citrix’s major highlight at the 2015 GITEX Technology Week?This year, we will be participating at GITEX through our partners, sponsoring booths of Microsoft, Nutanix and Dutech, where we will

be showcasing the Citrix Workspace Cloud, a cloud-based platform that simplifies the design, delivery and management of mobile workspaces.

What can your channel partners (distributors and resellers) expect from Citrix in the next 12 months in the region?

Through the intensive training programs that Citrix offers, most of our channel partners are self-sufficient when it comes to their business. Once the partners are well versed in the technologies and products, we focus on providing technical support to them to help them grow their business. For instance, we work closely with them to draft and respond to RFPs where necessary.

What technology or business trend is Citrix tracking in the next 18 months?We are seeing a change in the way business applications are developed – designing in security from the start. Organisations will select and integrate security solutions designed to protect their data and the user’s privacy, choosing apps that include policies for adaptive access controls to combat potential threats and security breaches. Ultimately, instead of thinking about security as an add-on, organisations will reinvent the way they think about designing products and follow a ‘contextual-security’ model that includes security as a key priority from the beginning throughout all products and services.


Ashraf Hamid, Channel Manager, Gulf and Pakistan, EMC

Federal force Ashraf hamid, channel Manager, Gulf and pakistan, EMc, discusses how the sextet of technology firms in its Federation are driving the company’s smart city platform.

what’s been EMC’s focus and business strategy for the Middle East channel in 2015?

EMC’s vision is laid out to lead in the third platform and help our customers transform. Our number one priority is our customers; we engage with them not as a vendor but more as a technology partner that consults them and support them through every step of their transformation journey.

We also work with Global alliances who offer applications and solutions that reside on our information infrastructure solutions. This is an ongoing relationship and it gets closer and closer with the evolution of technologies where we will see more harmony in the integration between applications and infrastructure for the third platform.

EMC will continue to make investments in human development in a bid to support government initiatives to boost economic diversity and establish knowledge-based economies across the region.

How is EMC helping its channel partners to take advantage of the improving business climate in the Middle East? What are the channel initiatives planned for this year?With the speedy pace of the transformation to the third platform of IT powered by cloud, mobile, social and Big Data, we plan to continue to enable and help our partners through the EMC Business Partner Program, to design solutions that solve customers’ challenges and help them embrace the opportunities presented by evolving technologies. With flexibility and choice from across the EMC federation, our partners will be able to deliver the solutions that best meet their clients’ needs.

What is the state of the Middle East IT reseller channel in terms of business opportunities and potential for EMC’s solutions in the market?We are already seeing that organisations today want IT to assume the role of a strategic driver of business and are more aligned to business goals in order to identify the means of revenue while cutting down costs and enabling excellent service delivery in order to achieve competitive advantage and sustain business growth. This has largely impacted their approach to investing in storage solutions and we are already seeing such demand for virtualisation, cloud, flash, converged infrastructure and software-defined solutions.

What role are your distribution partners such as Mindware and reseller partners expected to play?Channel partners continue to be central to our success in the region; they don’t just drive our business but ensure that

the right set of solutions and services are offered to customers. This is why we continue to introduce initiatives that provide them with the technologies, tools, resources and support to ensure they are prepared to leverage new business opportunities that lie before them with the transformation to the third platform of IT.

What will be EMC’s major highlight at the 2015 GITEX Technology Week?EMC will outline its Smart City platform built upon technologies from the EMC Federation of companies. We will focus on showcasing the power of the Federation, with an emphasis on Big Data, converged infrastructure and flash solutions like XtremIO, as well as solutions like the Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud and the Federation Business Data Lake.

What is the importance of participating in a technology trade fair such as GITEX?GITEX Technology Week continues to be an event of great importance and value as it brings together ICT vendors and partners together with customers from across the wider region, all working towards the same goal of bringing innovation to the core of business growth. The event is a perfect platform for our partners to showcase and make announcements about EMC’s vast array of new products and technologies to customers across the region. It also gives us the opportunity to come together with our partners to highlight the strength of our partnership backed by the power of the Federation and its leading technologies.

What can your channel partners - distributors and resellers - expect from EMC in the next 12 months in the region?We are focused on ensuring that our reseller partners deliver best-in-class EMC products and solutions to meet the breadth and depth of customer IT challenges across the Middle East region and through the Business Partner Program, that aims to bring our partners the enhanced flexibility and choice by harnessing the power of the EMC Federation.

EMc


Intel security

Hamed Diab, Regional Director, Intel Security

In the crosshairs hamed Diab, regional Director, Intel security, discusses the importance of effective IT security in a region that represents a prime target for international cybercriminals.

can you tell us how you see the security market evolving in the region?The cybersecurity market

is one of the most rapidly growing markets in the world, especially in light of the increasing sophistication and volume of cyber-attacks. We have witnessed an increase in spending on cybersecurity solutions in the region both in public and private sectors and in particular in the most sensitive infrastructure sectors of banking and oil and gas that are heavily spending on cybersecurity solutions after traditional cybersecurity solutions proved their vulnerability towards cyber-attacks. The threat of advanced cyber-attacks has caused the growth of cybersecurity products and services in the Middle East.

Technologies such as antivirus, firewalls, data encryption and

protection, UTM and DDoS mitigation are among the technologies currently used in many industrial organisations in the Middle East. Governments have also been directly involved in bringing about and enforcing regulations that impose the use of cybersecurity technologies on businesses and organisations such as payment card industry security standards (PCISS), and the establishment of computer emergency response team (CERT), the cybersecurity experts group operating in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait.

Are there any specific trends unique to the market in region?There are no unique trends as such within any market around the world; threats are worldwide. Any attack used here can be used elsewhere by a different group or attacker. All it takes is a few individuals with an agenda or an axe to grind, and they now have the tools to launch distributed denial-of-service attacks or attacks that wipe out data. The Middle East region is wealthy and home to constant political instability which makes it a unique target for hackers and cybercriminals. As such, hacking is higher in the Middle East than in the rest of the world. A successful detection, prevention and protection strategy based on proactive response to cyber-threats becomes key regardless of where you are in the world.

Can you tell us more about Intel Security’s aims and business focus in the region?We aim to enhance our partnerships with leading companies and governments in the region as we seek to build new partnerships with partners who share the same objective as ours of creating, as much

as possible, a secure cyber-world. It is important to remember that as the sophistication of cyber threats increases, technology or product solutions to protect against them is not enough to stay secure. Identifying the right security plan or strategy as to what is at risk of a security breach within an organisation, or which assets need protection and what is the best method to protecting them should always come before choosing the appropriate security solution or product.

Intel Security’s main focus is inventing new security solutions to cope with the increasing security threats that we see in the world today with a special focus on the enterprise portfolio. The evolution of the McAfee product and solutions portfolio is also a key priority, and its integration within the Security Connected framework. Maintaining our relationship with our current partners and customers from both public and private sectors in the MENA region while gaining new customers is key.

What are Intel Securitys top releases for 2015?TIE, new virtualisation capabilities and new SIEM-related releases.

How do you see the security landscape evolving in the coming months?We expect Internet vulnerabilities to continue, with cybercriminals creating more malware that will try to take advantage of known vulnerabilities. It is important that businesses move quickly to shore up their systems once notified of any vulnerabilities discovered.

We do expect Internet trust exploits, mobile, Internet of Things and cyber-espionage to continue to be the top threats.

The future of technology is more secure

than ever.

McAfee is now part of Intel Security.

2014 © McAfee Inc. McAfee and the M-shield are trademarks or registered trademarks of McAfee, Inc. The Intel logo is the trademark of Intel Corporation in the U.S. and/or other countries.

Intel® Security combines the expertise of McAfee® with the performance and trust of Intel to deliver secure computing to consumers and businesses worldwide. We believe that as technology becomes more deeply integrated into life, security must be more deeply integrated into technology. Because when everyone has the confidence to use technology to its full potential they can achieve their full potential. Visit intelsecurity.com.

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Juniper networks

Fadi Chami, Distribution & Broad Channel Manager, MEA, Juniper Networks

Juniper enriches JPA programme benefitspartners can look forward to the enhanced benefits of partnering for business growth in the Juniper partner Advantage programme

several enhancements to the Juniper Partner Advantage (JPA) programme that was announced in February began

from 1st July. Most importantly, it’s the effective date of increased benefits and requirements for the company’s Elite and Select level partners. The vendor takes a moment to remind partners about what to look forward to as it grows its business together in the second half of 2015 and beyond.

In Juniper Networks’ ‘Partnering for Business Growth’ video, Partner Chief, Matt Hurley explained, “Our partner strategy expands programmes and

to help you market better with us. These marketing concierges are available to work with you to create personalized campaigns, assist you with nurturing leads, and build pipeline.

“We are excited about what the future holds and thank you for your partnership and commitment to Juniper.”

“oUr pArTnEr sTrATEGy ExpAnDs proGrAMMEs AnD rEwArDs ThAT MATch yoUr bUsInEss MoDEls. wE Also wAnT To AFForD GrEATEr FlExIbIlITy AnD GIVE yoU MorE TIME To EArn ThE MAxIMUM proFIT. wITh ThE chAnGEs EFFEcTIVE FroM 1sT JUly, wE’rE GIVInG yoU MorE TIME To MAkE MorE MonEy wITh MorE Tools AnD rEsoUrcEs.”

rewards that match your business models. We also want to afford greater flexibility and give you more time to earn the maximum profit. With the changes effective from 1st July, we’re giving you more time to make more money with more tools and resources.”

The vendor has streamlined Product Authorization requirements from seven to just three — routing, switching, and security. And has added new features to its Champion Programme and Learning Academy to help partners further develop their expertise to best serve the next-generation markets.

Elite and Select partners can participate in its Base Product Incentive Rebate and a new Commercial Accelerator Rebate. Additionally, Juniper has added a half-yearly target to the Quarterly Incentive Programme and Consistency Bonus for quarterly achievement. Elite Partners with Support Services Specialization may be eligible for the company’s quarterly rebate when achieving performance metrics. The vendor will also provide incentives for sales reps at its partners who sell products into new customers. Partners can learn more by visiting the JPA page in Partner Center.

In addition, Hurley said, “We’re really excited about our revamped Juniper Marketing Concierge. We’re making it a stronger demand generation platform that all partners can use to drive growth within your business. Besides personalizing assets and campaigns, you will have access to live marketing resources


Abdul Rehman Tariq, Regional Manager, Channel and Sales, Middle East and Africa, Pulse Secure

New stabilityThough pulse secure may be a “new” company, born from the sale of Juniper networks Junos pulse product line to siris capital the company has over ten years of understanding of customer needs and goals. now, as a standalone company, pulse secure brings additional resources and focus to solve the challenges in enterprise mobility.

What role are your distribution partners such as Mindware and other reseller partners expected to play?Distribution is the extended arm for Pulse Secure providing a value-add in the truest sense. We expect our distribution partners to provide technical support, POCs, demo capabilities and design skills along with the coverage needed to touch the major customers and channel partners in the Middle East region.

What will be Pulse Secure’s major highlight at the 2015 GITEX Technology Week?A major highlight will our new Pulse Secure Appliance that provides next-generation secure access capabilities to customers. We will also be sharing some insights on our mobile security portfolio.

What is the importance of participating in a technology trade fair such as GITEX?GITEX is a brilliant platform to showcase our brand and our enterprise mobility solutions to customers and channel partners. By being able to speak to our existing customers and show what’s in store for the future, we are able to use GITEX as the right stepping stone to get coverage.

What can your channel partners expect from Pulse Secure in the next 12 months in the region?

Channel partners can expect lots of opportunities to grow their business. Most of our channel partners are already working with customers that have our products. There is a great opportunity to reach out to these customers, share the aggressive roadmap that we have planned for our solutions and ensure customer retention.

What technology or business trend is Pulse tracking in the next 18 months?We are looking at BYOD mobile security and next-generation secure access as the key technologies for the next 18 months. With new products such as the iPad Pro coming out, BYOD security is going to be a major talking point for most CIOs.

what’s been Pulse Secure’s focus and business strategy for the Middle East channel

in 2015?Pulse Secure officially started operations in August 2015, completing the transition from Juniper and establishing the brand as an independent entity.

Since then, the focus of the company has been to reach out to all its existing channel partners, share the vision of the company and help partners embark on this new journey with us.

Following the mantra of ‘Stabilise, energise and accelerate,’ we have been able to stabilise the business by retaining key channel partners and distributors in the region, energise them with our new solutions and roadmaps and accelerate the business with new programs and initiatives we are launching throughout this year.

How is Pulse Secure helping its channel partners to take advantage of the improving business climate in the Middle East?Pulse Secure has already introduced

pulse secure

some aggressive sales initiatives and invested marketing development programs in the region to help the channel take advantage of the improving business climate, and also to help establish a healthy pipeline for the channel in the process.

What channel initiatives is Pulse Secure rolling out in the Middle East this year?We are in the process of launching some major marketing campaigns in the region for the channel partners and distributors.

Pulse Secure is proud to have the most rewarding deal registration program, that offers true differentiation between tactical partners and strategic focus channel partners.

Topping sales initiatives is a robust enablement plan that will be rolled out to all strategic partners.

What is the state of the Middle East IT reseller channel in terms of business opportunities and potential for Pulse Secure’s solutions in the market?We live in a world where an enormous amount of corporate data is being accessed from an ever-changing and complex ecosystem of new devices and platforms such as the cloud.

Big and small companies alike are now facing this new reality. Soon, we’ll consider BYOD a fad, replaced by a mobile workforce that never knew differently. It’s why Pulse Secure is better positioned now than at any point in its past.

With the NAC market constantly growing and a boom of BYOD requirements, Pulse Secure is perfectly positioned as the vendor of choice for the channel to recommend to their enterprise customers.


Taj ElKhayat, Regional Vice President, Middle East and Africa at Riverbed Technology

Nerves of steelriverbed has fine-tuned its focus this year, setting their eyes on distribution. This has resulted in a number of fruitful partnerships for the company. TajElkhayat, regional Vice president, Middle East and Africa, riverbed Technology talks about the relationships they have fostered, and what lies ahead.

can you elaborate on some successes the company has had in the last six months?This year we have enjoyed a

very healthy uptake of our SteelFusion solution in the aviation, construction and retail sectors. SteelFusion is at the forefront of branch converged infrastructure.

Over the last six months, we have successfully refined our focus on distribution. This has meant working closely with our distributors and empowering them so that they can drive value addition to the channel. Thanks to these efforts, we now see that our distributors are capable of supporting the reseller community by delivering the Riverbed Application Performance Platform as a solution.

Finally, we have had a great deal of success in our partnership with Microsoft, which includes Microsoft’s certification of our solutions and the addition of SteelCentral to the Azure marketplace. By creating a closer relationship with Microsoft for the Azure, SharePoint and Office 365 platforms, Riverbed has increased its relevance in the local market and managed to engage with a wider customer base.

What is your business focus for 2016? What are some of the activities planned to help achieve this?We intend to double down our focus on the service provider and oil and gas sectors. We will achieve this by having a dedicated focus for these verticals in terms of solutions as well as reference architectures. With telecom providers in particular, we are keen to leverage a strategy which has worked particularly well for us in other markets like Europe, which is to sell through the operators.

We will also aim to have more reseller and SI partners who embed

our technologies into their end-to-end solutions. This means working together with them in order to design the Riverbed Application Performance Platform into their reference architectures.

Finally, we will continue to strengthen local ties with Riverbed Technology Alliance (RTA) partners such as EMC, VMware and Microsoft with the intention of creating more joint opportunities.

Which are your focus markets within the region and what are the opportunities you are seeing in those areas?The UAE, Saudi Arabia and Turkey remain key markets for Riverbed, while

we are also increasing our focus in South Africa. A lot of the opportunities in these countries relate to the business need for visibility and control. Both enterprise customers as well as government entities are feeling the need for more visibility into their applications and cloud-based infrastructures such as Office 365, Azure, and Salesforce. The notion and demand for virtualisation and consolidation are also driving our sales in these areas.

You have recently launched a new partner programme – RATP, how does this enable partners to stay ahead of the curve?With the new RATP program, we are adding flexibility to the training partners and enabling them to be more agile in meeting market demands. The program moves them from a royalty-based structure to a kit-based approach as they now purchase eLabs and kits. They can then deliver the training on their own schedules, rather than being constrained by our timelines. Also, this allows them to work with customers directly.

By offering ebooks for course materials, we have eliminated challenges related to logistics and the need for RATPs to purchase and maintain hardware and software specific to classroom needs. With our rapidly advancing technologies, this approach allows them to always have up-to-date materials without the associated procurement and overhead costs.

What other support services does Riverbed offer to its channel partners? We have worked hard to enable our distributors to offer true value addition to the channel. We have a growing team of pre-sales and sales executives who readily assist partners in closing deals. In addition, we also have our own Professional Services team in the region that engages directly with our VARs for post-sales support.

What kind of growth are you looking at for this year? We are eager to maintain our strong momentum through the end of 2015. We are a company that is still very much in growth mode and this means that we will continue to venture into new markets and verticals.

riverbed

©2015 Riverbed Technology. All rights reserved.

Del Monte Foods is all about quality and value, and that requires business agility and speed. With all their apps in the cloud, Del Monte runs on Riverbed for superior application performance. More than 26,000 companies rely on Riverbed for end-to-end application visibility, optimization, and control.Riverbed.com/performance

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Amer Chebaro, Regional Director, Gulf & KSA, Veritas

Volume vs valueThe need for firms the likes of Veritas has never been greater. Unchecked data growth is an expensive burden—and a potential security risk. with a majority of the world’s enterprise data holding no legal, regulatory, or business value, the cost in time, money, and resources to store and manage it is staggering. Amer chebaro, regional Director, Gulf & ksA, Veritas, tells us what we can expect from Vertias in the Middle East this year.

what has been Veritas’ focus and business strategy for the Middle East channel in 2015?

Veritas is gearing up for regional growth and has operational and dedicated partner and customer-facing teams to serve the channel community. This year, we have launched key products for rapidly evolving data centres and announced upgrades to our core portfolio of backup and information management products.

How is Veritas helping its channel partners to take advantage of the improving business climate in the Middle East?The Veritas team will be more focused on a smaller set of technologies that will be more rewarding for partners. The sales teams are focused on information to empower our partner base, who can benefit from a very profitable channel program.

Veritas has switched from volume-based to value-based rewards to focus on specialised managed partners that

are invested in the relationship through means such as certifications. Engaged partners have already seen a significant uptake in profitability.

We are also committed to the channel and aim to grow indirect sales from approximately 78 percent as it currently stands, to 85 percent. Veritas also wants to simplify the way partners can do business with them. This includes bringing in a new buy-in program, new ways of licensing technology, reducing the amount of skews in the channel by 17 percent, and introducing a single price list as opposed to multiple ones.

What channel initiatives is Veritas rolling out in the Middle East this year?This year, Veritas will be reinforcing its commitment to the Middle East channel community and distribution partners in the region. We value these relationships as instrumental to our regional growth and we will be letting the community know about forthcoming updates to our channel program in the new quarter.

What is the state of the Middle East IT reseller channel in terms of business opportunities and potential for the Veritas’ solutions in the market?Veritas is offering a fundamentally different approach for customers to shed light on their data and make sense of the sheer volume of digital information now created by organisations.

What role are your distribution partners such as Mindware and reseller partners expected to play?Our distribution partners, such as Mindware, are an extension of the Veritas team and act as a catalyst to showcasing the value of the Veritas

solution portfolio, product roadmap, as well as assisting in positioning the Veritas value proposition against regional competitors. The Mindware teams acts as a knowledge transfer partner to our resellers by training their technical and sales team to deliver the best consultative solution to customers.

Our strategic partner network can demonstrate the value of the Veritas partner program and overall benefits to our reseller base - such as Growth Accelerator Rebate, Renewal Rebate, Opportunity Registration Rebate and Partner Development Fund. Resellers who enroll to the highest level of Veritas Partner Program can obtain up to 38 percent of back end rebates.

What will be Veritas major highlight at the 2015 GITEX Technology Week?At GITEX, the Veritas team will be allocated on the Mindware stand to demonstrate the new product portfolio in Information Management, Information Availability and Data Insight.

Elsewhere, Veritas will be unveiling a significant piece of research based on an EMEA-wide survey highlighting Information Management issues such as data management, cloud and the value of data. Veritas will be sharing these insights to local media and regional stakeholders during the event.

What is the importance of participating in a technology trade fair such as GITEX Technology Week?GITEX Technology Week is an important platform for Veritas to reconnect with our stakeholders, customers and the local ICT community. It is a prime opportunity for us to unveil the newly formed Veritas brand and reinforce our commitment to the region.

What can your channel partners (distributors and resellers) expect from Veritas in the next 12 months in the region?You can expect more focus, more engagement and more innovation. Following the separation from Symantec, Veritas will be able to drill down into its core areas and create better products for customers. The business will focus on three key pillars - data protection through backup, data governance through archiving, and high availability.

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