LSI announced the acquisition of the leading provider of flash storage processors for enterprise and client flash solutions and solid state drives (SSDs) SandForce for nearly $322 million. The acquisition greatly enhances LSI’s competitive position in the fast-growing server and storage PCIe flash adapter market, where the WarpDrive family of products from LSI already uses SandForce flash storage processors. Read More…

Disaster recovery and data protection solutions provider, Acronis recently introduced new professional education programmes to bolster channel enablement. The first of the new initiatives is the Acronis Sales Professional Certification, an extension of the courses currently provided under Acronis Academy. The new certification provides sales professionals within resellers with guidance on how to sell Acronis products to make more revenue. Read More…

Emirates Authority for Standardization and Metrology (ESMA), the sole standardization body in the UAE strengthens the implementation of a standardised model for all power plugs marketed in the country by restricting the entry of appliances and electrical equipment having 2-pin plug configurations in 2012. This requirement is expected to reduce the usage of plug adaptors, which are potential fire hazards, especially when pins fit loosely in sockets causing sparking and other problems.Read More…

A new IBM study of more than 1,700 chief marketing officers from 64 countries and 19 industries reveals that the majority of the world’s top marketing executives recognize a critical and permanent shift occurring in the way they engage with their customers, but question whether their marketing organizations are prepared to manage the change.
The research shows that the measures used to evaluate marketing are changing. Nearly two-thirds of CMOs think return on marketing investment will be the primary measure of the marketing function’s effectiveness by 2015. Read More…

World’s leading video game publishers Ubisoft, the developers of games like Assassin’s Creed and Prince of Persia, announced that it will establish a new development studio and participate in a new game development academy in Abu Dhabi, making it the first time a major games publisher to enter directly in the region. Ubisoft will establish a games development studio at Twofour54. Read More…

HP announced its new services and solutions based on HP Converged Infrastructure that empower service providers and enterprises to rapidly deliver cloud services while leveraging existing investments, minimising risk and lowering costs. Organisations are under increasing pressure to deliver IT resources on demand to gain agility, increase competitive advantage and meet customer expectations. Legacy data centers, rigid IT architectures and technology sprawl are key barriers to implementing new delivery models such as IT as a Service and cloud computing. Read More…

Brocade is organising an seminar titled ‘Fabric 101: Essentials of Ethernet Fabric’. The event will take place in Dubai on the 22nd of November 2011, at the Address Hotel in Dubai Marina from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.
The seminar will focus on the deployment of an Ethernet fabric-based infrastructure in their company’s data centre. Seminar will cover various topics like the market and technology factors driving the fabric evolution in the data centre, the inner workings and key components of an Ethernet fabric, the integration of Ethernet fabrics into the traditional Ethernet network. It will also highlight the Standards, terminology, and technologies including TRILL, convergence and Spanning tree.
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StarLink signed a partnership agreement with a leading information security specialist, Safenet to distribute its complete range of data protection solutions in the Middle East region. Nidal Othman Sales and Marketing Manager at StarLink said, “Partnering with SafeNet offers a promising future for both companies and customers. We are extremely proud to grow relationship with SafeNet.”Read More…

Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited has implemented a new solution from IBM to increase the productivity and efficiency of the company’s oil refinery operations in East Africa. The solution, based on IBM Maximo asset management software, will allow KPRL to better utilize its production equipment, facilities and IT systems to reduce risk and control costs. The agreement was finalized by IBM’s business partners Computer Source Point Ltd and Powertech IST Data.Read More…

Bytes Document Solutions, the distributor for Xerox in 26 African countries appointed Linxia to distribute its range of Xerox multifunction devices (MFDs) and printers in the Republic of Mauritius and surrounding Indian Ocean islands. “We have extended our partnership to Linxia’s 300 channel partners, and we are supporting them out of South Africa, with a regional Xerox reseller programme. That infrastructure is a key factor in the success of Xerox in the region, since Mauritius is increasingly serving as a hub for the Indian Ocean islands.”Read More…

As part of its ongoing Oracle Day roadshow across the EMEA region, Oracle today held the “Oracle Day” in Kuwait to share with local customers and the local IT community the latest innovations that were unveiled at Oracle OpenWorld 2011 event in San Francisco, California, earlier this month. Oracle Day coined as “More Expertise. More Innovation. More Insight”, was a powerhouse combination of C-level, functional, and technology tracks, all dedicated to one goal: showing Oracle customers and prospects how the power of simplicity can change IT to a force that drives business innovation.Read More…

eHosting DataFort believes that as the business models for Data center are rapidly changing with the increased adoption of managed services and the growing awareness of cloud computing that results in reduced costs, higherflexibility and lower risks. Yasser Zeineldin, CEO at eHosting DataFort said “Driven by the need to innovate and increase efficiency within their IT infrastructure to better serve customers,clients are now looking to make the transition to managed services and cloud computing.eHDF’s managed service offerings and experience with several organizations across the region are helping drive this evolution for customers,thereby enabling them to focus on new business initiatives.” Read More…