Alain Penel, the Regional Vice President for Middle East at Fortinet, speaks about his company’s plans for GITEX 2014
What sort technology trends have you seen in the Middle East and Africa market over the past few months?
Advanced Persistent Threats is the new trend that has been making news, while firewalls and its web security continue to remain at the heart of conversations. We are also seeing an increase in adoption of DDoS solutions owing to an increase in service disruptions in recent months.
How has the regional ICT market grown over the past few years?
As security threats and breaches have intensified, so have investments in security solutions. Governments across the region have taken the lead in deploying complex security infrastructures, followed by telcos and banks. We have also witnessed that SME’s too have started to take security serious.
What sort of ICT products are in demand in the MEA region? Has there been a major shift in what the consumers want in ICT products?
From a security viewpoint, Firewalls are very much in demand across the region, followed by DDoS solutions, Mobile and cloud security. They is certainly a shift in solution demand, as we can see that Advanced Threat Protection solutions as organizations seek to stay ahead of hackers and malicious content.
Which technologies do you think are the most-wanted technologies in the MEA region for sectors such as enterprise, SMB and end consumers?
Firewalls and Web security products are most in demand. For Fortinet, our FortiGate firewall platform is popular due to its high performance and scalability. Its various versions cater to large enterprises and well as SME’s. The FortiWeb Security Service provides fully automated updates to ensure protection against the latest application layer threats.
It employs advanced Application vulnerabilities, Robots, Suspicious URL Patterns, data type patterns and heuristic detection engines to enable FortiWeb appliances to prevent both new and evolving application threats from gaining access to your web applications and its valuable content and sensitive data. Fortinet provides global updates via the Fortinet’s FortiGuard global threat research & response team for comprehensive protection against all application layer threats.
What do you plan to achieve through GITEX Technology Week and GITEX Shopper this year? Can you please share your plans?
We will be showcasing our latest Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) framework and Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) Attack Mitigation Appliances at GITEX Technology Week 2014. Our participation at GITEX Technology Week will enable us to demonstrate our commitment to our customers and partners across the region efforts to help CIOs make decisions.
With the growing volume of threats it’s imperative that organizations across the region take the necessary measures to protect themselves, and with our product line-up, we intend to help customers make informed decisions.
Do you plan to launch any new products or technologies at GITEX Technology Week and this year?
We will be launching a new FortiGate product, details of which will be revealed during Gitex Technology Week.
What’s going to be your theme at GITEX Technology Week this year?
This year, we will be focusing on ATP’s and the FortiSandbox which is an Advanced Threat Protection Detection designed to identify the highly targeted and tailored attacks that increasingly bypass traditional defenses and lurk within networks.
It offers a unique dual-level Sandbox, inspection of all protocols and functions in one appliance and optional integration with with an existing FortiGate infrastructure, FortiSandbox delivers highly effective protection against this emerging class of threats that is affordable to buy as well as simple to deploy and manage.
Do you have plans to conduct raffle draws, give away gifts and so on for end consumers this year?
We will be having some activities on our stand to engage with our visitors.
What sort of channel strategies are you going to follow this year?
Partner training and certifications is going to be our focus throughout this year. We have a number of new products which we have launched earlier this year, and there will be a few more launches later. It is imperative that our partners are onboard and have the capabilities of meeting customer requirements efficiently.
Do you have any specific engagement for your channel community this year at GITEX?
We will be meeting with a number of partners during Gitex, and will host a gala dinner to thank our partners for their support and recognize the outstanding achievers. The event will also act a networking platform for the Fortinet team and our channel from across the region.
