Avaya’s EMEA President, Michael Bayer, has said that 2012 is the year of execution for the company following a year of careful consideration and planning.

Focusing on unified communications and new multiplatform video solutions, which can be implemented into communities, either to add value to existing infrastructure or to help build new smart communities from scratch, Avaya is demonstrating its biggest presence at GITEX to date, which Bayer claims is a way of showing its dedication and commitment to the region.

“This is our biggest presence yet, we have good penetration in the Middle East and GITEX is a fantastic opportunity for us to meet people face to face and talk with our partners,” said Bayer.

Avaya is keen to promote its latest unified communication solution package - IP Office 8.1 - in the emerging regions, which it says is very attractive due to lack of legacy compared to other regions.

“Greenfield areas, such as the Middle East and Africa want completely new infrastructure. These areas lack legacy and as a result they can leapfrog technology,”

Year of execution for Avaya

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

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areas are ready and willing to invest. Using Avaya video capabilities and networking capabilities to add value to pre-existing telephony systems which will improve their overall infrastructure.

“Everybody seems excited about the idea of adding this technology and creating these modern, smart infrastructures. We have a strong legacy of committed customers in

said Claire Macland, Head of EMEA Marketing, Avaya. “The partners that I’ve been meeting this week are looking at opportunities where whole areas of real estate are being built from scratch and how villa based communities can use our technology to be able to provide that very smart home solution, for a quality intense system.”

Avaya is focusing specifically on the mid market range, claiming these

Michael Bayer, EMEA President, Avaya; Claire Macland, Head of EMEA Marketing, Avaya

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partners across the Greater Middle East region covering 17 countries offering our partners’ cutting edge IP based solutions from world leading companies such as Axis Communication, Milestone and many more.

While we remain committed to offering pioneering and high quality solutions more accessible to our regional customers, we also focus on future proofing their investment in those technologies, and we believe that the EMC Iomega NVR solutions and their impressive channel initiatives will help us greatly in this respect. Partnering with this world leader and global brand also bodes well for our plans to develop and establish regional strategic partners and markets in order to be able to best serve and represent our partners and provide better business values and ethics summarized in genuine quality and professional products and services” said Wael Abdallah NIT General Manager.

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4 CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Iomega signs NIT

Cizar Abughazaleh, regional director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey at Iomega

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The storage specialist Iomega has signed NIT Network Information Technology as Security Value Added Distributor for UAE, Saudi, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait, Lebanon and Jordan with the aim of increasing its reach into SMEs, SMB Security and Surveillance resellers and value-added resellers.

“With our focus on Iomega Security and Surveillance solutions

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for SMB channel, this comes as part of a wider reach strategy which Iomega is investing in for the ME region, with an tremendous focus to be on the ground to support the SMB market as well as the SMB business-to-business distribution structure. With NIT, we are fulfilling another part of our B2B reach and expanding our support. NIT has been chosen because of its strength and reach to different channel segments within the Security and Surveillance segments. “We are confident NIT will be an important addition to our existing value added distributors in the region, where there is room for all to grow,” said Cizar Abughazaleh, regional director for the Middle East, Africa and Turkey at Iomega.

“Network Information Technology was established back in 1995 in Dubai, U.A.E. and is a Value Added Distributor of IP Video Surveillance and Physical Security solutions. NIT has more than 600 channels

this geography as well as brand new customer opportunities, it’s two different things. It’s the ideal time for us to be exhibiting our largest presence yet and we have big growth opportunities coming up,” Macland said.

Yesterday, Avaya signed a deal with Dubai Silicon Oasis to create a new technology training facility, which Bayer believes, again, demonstrates its willingness to invest and deploy big projects in the region.

“The signing shows our commitment. The difference to this year from the last is that last year was a year of consideration. Our customers were uncertain about spending, and there was a lot of uncertainty for us. This year is the year of execution. We’ve been able to prove our value to business and since Ramadan we’ve made great progress with contracts and customers,” concluded Bayer.

Year of execution for Avaya

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GITEX TECHNOLOGY WEEK 2012 HIGHLIGHTS

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MEA most exciting region for networking: Ciena

du launches DDoS Protect solution at GITEX

Alexander also pointed to the Africa market, where the uptake of technology is happening at a rapid pace.

“It’s been really fascinating to see the changes in some of the market places. There has been tremendous advance, for example, in Africa, where they’ve gone from 10,000 phones in the country to millions of phones, which are now also becoming smartphones with the ability to have localisation of content and applications. From the infrastructure point of view, this is all good,” he said.

“Anything that feeds demand into the network we like because we basically build all the connections between cities and cell towers. You look at all these additional services coming on board from the emerging countries and it’s a huge increase in traffic, which ultimately drives demand back in infrastructure. Then we can satisfy that demand with some of the new technologies that we bring in to market.”

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Emerging regions like the Middle East and Africa are the most exciting places to be when it comes to implementing the latest networking technologies, says Steve Alexander, CTO, Ciena.

With networks becoming more converged and cloud technologies changing how organisation approach enterprise architectures, being in a greenfield environment is an advantageous position to be in.

“In developed countries people are always saying this is a wonderful technology but it’s only viable in a greenfield environment. The great thing about the Middle East is you have those greenfields. There isn’t a lot legacy that organisations have to worry about when implementing new technologies and so they have the opportunity to look forward more than they look back and put in place architectures that really set up for future service deliveries,” Alexander said.

“Here you have the opportunity to really map services and applications

In recognition of the need to protect its customers’ digital assets against increasingly more frequent Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, du has expanded its portfolio of managed business solutions by launching DDoS Protect.

“DDoS attacks today are even larger in scale than ever before, and leave targeted companies crippled with the lack of business continuity and subsequent effects on profits,” said Farid Faraidooni, Chief Commercial Officer, du. “We offer

There have been transitions in networking away from the static provision networks of the past to networks that are much more flexible and dynamic.

“If you think about it that has a lot to do about changing network architecture so that instead of being basically a bunch of static and provision connections, the network becomes effectively a programmable platform,” said Alexander, who has been discussing the topic at ITU 2012.

“We use that term platform very deliberately in the sense that platforms are things that you build other things on top of, so once you have a programmable platform you set yourself up for new types of services and applications, the personalisation of the network and the virtualisation of the network. That’s just a different way to look at network architecture than what we’ve done in the past,” he concluded.

directly to local need which speeds up development and provides some really interesting advantages. Some of the infrastructures being deployed here are the first that have been deployed and they therefore have the ability to pick and choose the absolutely best architecture available from all the great new technologies out there.”

Steve Alexander, CTO, Ciena

a comprehensive, sophisticated protection system including a complete package of security measures, that is convenient and cost-effective. Our business customers can experience peace of mind knowing that their brand integrity and profits will not be affected by DDoS threats. DDoS Protect from du offers round the clock protection, supported by team of technical experts and service level agreements.”

“Traditional security is not effective

against DDoS attacks, as they target the very services that firewalls have to allow through. DDoS Protect detects and stops threats in our ISP network or cloud, neutralizing it before it can reach digital assets,” he added.

There are two primary types of DDoS attack: Volumetric, and Application-layer.

Volumetric DDoS attacks are generated by internet bots or via compromised personal computers that are grouped together in large-scale botnets. They are generally

high-bandwidth, causing upstream congestion in the provider’s network, and cannot be stopped at the enterprise or data-centre edge.

Application-layer DDoS attacks threaten the business viability of customers, targeting specific services such as web commerce, DNS services, email, online banking and more.

du provides protection to its customers through a layered network, which can combat both volumetric and application-layer DDoS attacks. It has the capability to safeguard against both types, using a network-based service component.

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Recipe for a successful show

A message of protectionDespite being the world’s largest provider of internet security and backup software, Symantec has gone full force in its marketing strategy at GITEX Technology Week 2012. The company’s bright yellow branding could be seen at just about every section and hall of the venue and in addition, it is also the main sponsor of the exhibition’s new SME Zone.

This positioning fits perfectly into the company’s future strategy in the region and around the world, as it refocused much of its business to the SME segment, with the creation of Symantec Small and Medium Enterprise, a brand new business unit tasked to serve the unique needs of this market.

“We’ve increased our marketing spend, we’ve created a new sales team focusing specifically for SMEs. We’ve also changed our product line and designing specific solutions for this market. It’s really about continuing that brand recognition and

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Five days of adrenalin-filled engagements, collaborations, presentations and demonstrations would pretty much encapsulate the experience of all the exhibitors at the GITEX 2012.

The number one tradeshow in the MEASA region has always had

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about 46% of SMEs in the country were considering cloud computing solutions. The survey also highlighted a high level of awarness of cloud technology across the board, which Tom expects to lead to a sharp increase of SMEs moving to the cloud to manage their security. “The primary reason for that is the need to save time, with smaller organisations, the IT manager is also the owner of the business, or someone who does IT on top of another job. They don’t have a lot of time to spend on managing and researching their IT. They need things to be quick and easy and we saw that in the study, and it’s a general trend and demand that we are seeing globally,” Powledge adds.

Among the new solutions front and centre at the show are Backup Exec 3600, a simplified and intuitive backup solution, as well as the Endpoint Protection Small Business

Edition 2013, which will be available early next year. The latter offers simple, fast and effective protection against viruses and malware, and include both a cloud-managed service as well as an on-premise option, in case a business is not quite ready to switch to the cloud. The value proposition for the cloud option, Tom says, is the easy of use and time-saving benifits as well as the ability to receive all feature upgrades automatically, by simply being a annual subscriber the product.

Coming from the US, this is the first time Powledge participated in GITEX, and he could not help but be taken back by the size and energy of the exhibition. “You don’t see that many of these huge technology trade shows anymore in places like the US, so it’s great to see it come to life here. One of the distinct impressions for me is having all of the countries represented, and seeing all of the IT companies in the region. It reminds me of all the technology shows we used to see in the US before,” he says.

Tom Powledge, VP of SMB Delivery at Symantec

our message of protection is most important to want Symantec stands for,” says Tom Powledge, VP of SMB Delivery at Symantec.

Symantec recently unveiled the findings of its 2012 SMB Cloud Adoption Survey. The survey was conducted in the UAE and found that

a lot to offer, be it the number of ICT Professionals at the show or the number of companies from across the globe. This was especially true in the case of ManageEngine.

“At the ManageEngine booth, excitement was at a superlative

level as we had our customers visit us in large numbers to express their contentment with the various ME products they use. Considering this is the sixth straight year we have left a mark in the 30 glorious years of GITEX legacy, it feels rather humbling to note that not only has our customer base increased manifold, but also the fact that we have retained almost all of them over the years,” says Vaishnavi Sundar, Public Relations, ManageEngine.

ManageEngine’s permeation into the GCC region has largely been via channel partners, who have been very successful in creating and retaining satisfied customers for a while now. “The customers, almost all of them single out ManageEngine to be the kind of company, ‘one can just pick up the phone and talk to!’ It is evident from the abundant

customer testimonials and case studies we have had, and the ones to come would only reinstate the fact,” says Vaishnavi.

She adds that the company’s 5 days at the GITEX technology week has been enriching, energising and engaging. “At ManageEngine, we promise to collate this prized learning acquired by networking with the customers and adapt them as functional addition to the products. We are already looking forward to GITEX 2013, which would encompass endless rewarding business relationships like always. We are thoroughly inspired by the glorious legacy of GITEX and we fully intend to complement the journey that started out as a gathering of 46 exhibitors in 1981 and has since become a forerunner in bringing the world together.”