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As cloud computing gathers pace across the region, vendors play an important role in delivering focused partner programs to support the channel to develop a response and evolve their business models in respect to ‘cloud’ – especially cloud services. Vendor channel programmes have to incorporate specializations and education programs designed to help partners gain maximum revenues, and deliver services and consultancy to capitalise on increased demand from customers. Professional services and consultancy are certainly the growth area; and are driving a culture change within the channel. But this does demand different strengths and a commitment to training and education. Vendor sponsored education will play a key role here. Read More…

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Financial Institutions across Middle East and Africa will adopt latest technologies and communication trends in 2012 to improve customer experience, brace for competition with global players on the region’s markets, and to comply with increasingly stringent regulatory requirements. This according to top 10 finance industry predictions published by market research and advisory company IDC. Middle East and Africa saw similar economic growth levels in 2011 as in the previous year, with an average gross domestic product (GDP) of 4.6%. The finance vertical has experienced healthy growth in technology adoption since 2010, and IDC estimates the IT expenditure totaled $7.5 billion across MEA as a whole in 2011, representing 6.0% year-on-year increase. Strong growth rates were seen especially in Saudi Arabia (13.7%), and the United Arab Emirates (8.8%).Read More…

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Khalid Wani is an storage expert who heads the sales of the branded business of Western Digital in Middle East, Africa & India, takes us through the journey and evolution of connectivity. Over the past decade the Internet has become part of our everyday lives and connectivity more widely available for a lower cost, revolutionising the way we work, play and communicate. From a time when a home with an Internet connection was a rare exception, we have evolved to the point where Internet connectivity at the home is now the norm. As this evolution has continued, connectivity has spread from computers to mobile phones and even televisions, enabling us to use a variety of new technological advances to network entire homes into powerful content sharing portals – the connected home. Read More…

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Khalid Wani is an storage expert who heads the sales of the branded business of Western Digital in Middle East, Africa & India, evaluates the way forward with the data exploding manifold. In a world where digital information is more than doubling in size every two years, storage technology is experiencing a myriad of challenges to keep pace with the increasing demands for efficient and cost-effective methods to create, capture, manage and save all of this data.Read More…

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In: Expert Views, Networking

Adoption of Unified Communications technology is reaching critical mass, corroborated by a report from In-Stat earlier this year that predicted small office spending on IP telephony would grow by 83 per cent in 2011. The trend is moving away from premises-based Unified Communications towards technology hosted in the Cloud, as consumers become aware of the benefits and the technology becomes more accessible, affordable and scalable. According to research conducted by Frost & Sullivan last year, the Unified Communications (UC) market in the Middle East is expected to reach US$235 million by 2014. Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Expert Views

Roelof Louw, is an expert on Cloud Computing and he works with leading South African ICT outsourcing service provider, T-Systems. The proliferation of cloud computing has seen some people happily floating on cloud nine and prophesise an inevitable paradigm shift in IT while others believe it is really just a rebottled and labelled version of an existing technology. Indeed, there are few other IT topics that generate a wider chasm in opinions.
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In: Enterprise, Expert Views, Storage

Greg White is a storage specialist and is expert on subjects like Data Management, Data Protection, Data Backup and Recovery. Greg works with the leading storage solutions provider CommVault Systems as Senior Manager of Product Marketing. It’s no secret that today’s unprecedented data growth, datacentre consolidation and server virtualisation is wreaking havoc with conventional approaches to backup and recovery. Read More…

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Pieter le Roux is an technical expert who works as an Technical Director with one of the leading ICT solution provider from South Africa, The Webcom Group. In this article Pieter talks about the benefits of Virtualised desktops for standardisation, security and performance in distributed environments. Virtualisation is one of several buzzwords currently making the rounds within the Information Communication Technology (ICT) departments of most large corporates, heralded as a convenient way to reduce costs and improve the overall management of ICT, including licensing, within the organisation.Read More…

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The two studies, from the Enterprise Strategy Group and The Clipper Group, evaluated the costs of long-term storage for various scenarios that included tape and disk as the primary storage medium. In each case, the studies found that tape had considerable long-term cost advantages when compared to a scenario that relied on a disk-only solution. The Linear Tape-Open (LTO) Program Technology Provider Companies, HP, IBM and Quantum, announced that two recently-released separate studies found that tape had significant total cost of ownership (TCO) benefits over disk, including lower cost per GB, lower operating expenses and lower energy costs.Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Expert Views

Paul McKibbin is an technology expert who is the Divisional CEO with one of the leading South African ICT organisations, Jasco Carrier Networks. Cloud computing is gaining ground in South Africa for a number of reasons. This includes vastly improved bandwidth capability, both in terms of quantity and quality, greater affordability of bandwidth and improved security technology that addresses many of the concerns businesses have had around the concept of the cloud in the past. Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Expert Views

Robert Brandt is an power solutions expert who works with a leading South African IT distribution company Drive Control Corporation as a Product Specialist for UPS & Infrastructure. The importance of power management and backup solutions for South African businesses cannot be argued. After all, even though we have seemingly moved past the infamous load-shedding incidents of 2008 our power remains notoriously unstable, with spikes, surges and dips in voltage that can cause damage to expensive equipment as well as frequent power failures that can cause loss or corruption of data. Read More…

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Riaan Leuschner is the Managing Director of Nology, a leading South African security-driven broadband, networking and communication hardware and solutions provider. As a result of recent investments into infrastructure, broadband is no longer a costly, exclusive commodity to be consumed sparingly. The opening up of the service provider market, along with several undersea cables that have landed, with more on the way, and fibre loops beginning to come into effect in metropolitan areas, have enabled bandwidth to become far more readily accessible, at higher speeds, with better quality, and at a reasonable cost.
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