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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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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…