EMEA research shows that enterprises are putting the cloud at the heart of their IT strategy, with 48 percent seeing it as key to empowering agility and business performance. As organisations strive to compete in today’s economy, with workers demanding instant access to information wherever they are, the cloud is becoming a critical part of modern business strategy. Supporting this trend are the results from a new research project from Brocade indicating that 48 percent of EMEA businesses are already actively deploying cloud architectures, with more than half of respondents citing business agility as the key driver.
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Global research and analyst firm Gartners is predicting that worldwide smartphone sales will reach 468 million units in 2011, a 57.7% increase from 2010. According to Gartner, by the end of 2011, Android will move to become the most popular operating system (OS) globally and will build on its strength to account for 49% of the smartphone market by 2012. Sales of open OS devices will account for 26% of all mobile handset device sales in 2011, and are expected to surpass the 1 billion mark by 2015, when they will account for 47 percent of the total mobile device market. Read More…

Despite the serious threat posed to enterprises from accidental and malicious misuse of data, uptake of data loss prevention technology will remain low for the next four years, according to Ovum. In a new report, the independent technology analyst firm states that the data loss prevention (DLP) technology market will reach global revenues of just $832 million by 2015, from a low base point of $458 million in 2009. These figures are small in comparison to other key IT security markets such as network security, which will reach revenues of $6.5 billion in 2015.Read More…

Over the past decade and a half, an unprecedented wave of expansion has altered the global telecom industry. New global competitors are emerg­ing swiftly in the Gulf Cooperation Council region, bringing with them the oppor­tunity for operators to capture their full synergy potential and derive maximum benefits from their enormous foot­print. GCC operators must recognize to what degree they can create synergies across six key areas: procurement, product and service offerings, new revenue sources, shared services, knowl­edge sharing, and international best practices. Read More…

IT Advantage: Spring 2011, a new publication from The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) described the global economic moves through 2011, and the companies facing far greater then ever before. For many of these businesses, the strength of their IT may prove to be a key competitive differentiator. It further sheds the light on a variety of ways in which companies can optimize the performance of their IT capabilities–and, in the process, maximize IT’s contribution to the bottom line. It features interviews with two chief information officers who are tackling a number of mission-critical challenges. The first interview is with Jeff Keisling, chief information officer of Pfizer. Keisling discusses a range of topics, including the IT-specific challenges in bringing together Pfizer and Wyeth; how to strengthen the IT organization’s relationship with the business side of the company; and leadership.

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Channel strategy networks are becoming increasingly important for any business to reach its desired market, target audience and better serve its customer base. Carefully chosen networks and value added resellers are essential to the success of forming a connection with each customer to ensure that services and products are conveniently and easily accessible. Xerox Emirates entered into the indirect channel marketing model and by having made this its core focus in 2010, continues to reach out to resellers with specialized expertise in document management technology, advanced solutions, software and services for SMB customers.

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These consumer devices [iPad 2 and other tablets], theorised as thin clients back in the 1990s, are great lightweight personal terminals, but users now want everything brought together in one place. However, because of the devices’ lightweight form factor (they literally don’t have the physical ports in most cases), they simply can’t be connected into the traditional wired network. This is creating a mandate for high-quality wireless networks that can run mission-critical enterprise applications.
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According to new research commissioned by Brocade wherein 76% of 600 CIO’s surveyed from EMEA region believed that IT consolidation is key for their enterprises and they are are looking to consolidate their existing IT infrastructure in the next 12 months. Apart from IT consolidation the other two key areas of focus would be virtualisation and security. The study revealed that the CIOs expect tomorrow’s corporate networks to fulfill a wide range of sometimes-conflicting demands. They want unprecedented scalability but reduced management complexity (61 percent). Read More…