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In: Enterprise, Feature Story, News

Polycom, a global provider of unified communications (UC), has been named the 2011 Microsoft Unified Communications Innovation Partner of the Year Award, for the company’s showing in delivering innovations that provide powerful, enterprise-grade UC and visual collaboration solutions for customers. Polycom is being honored for demonstrating excellence in innovation and implementation of customer solutions based on Microsoft technology. Polycom will be officially honored at Microsoft’s Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) 2011 next month during the Vision keynote and at the WPC 2011 Award Winners Executive Luncheon.Read More…

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Stratus Technologies recently announced the opening of their Middle East office in Dubai which will be managed by Maged Shaker. Stratus has been operational in the region for a long time through its network of partners and distributors. The two core markets are manufacturing operations and electronic payment processing, both of which have strong market in the Middle East. And, apart from manufacturing operations and electronic payment processing, Stratus also offers solutions for travel, transportation and logistics, financial services, banking, healthcare, and public safety.
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HP appointed Alaa Al Shimy as the Director of Enterprise, Storage, Servers and Networking (ESSN) Director for the Middle East. In his new role, Alaa is responsible for managing growth and cost control for the ESSN revenue streams in Middle East focusing on the end to end business and operational management in the region. Prior to this role, Alaa was the Regional Director for HP Networking for the Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa (MEMA) region, and grew the networking business by over four times in the last two years.Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Feature Story, Networking, News

Equinox Egypt today announced that after meeting all the rigorous standards set forth by Cisco in networking competency, service, support, and customer satisfaction, it has achieved Cisco Gold Certification in Egypt. Speaking on the occasion Osama Qadan, Managing Partner at Equinox said, “We are extremely excited by this achievement and want to assure our clients and partners that Equinox will continue to be their default choice whenever they seek quality and unparalleled customer satisfaction. Today, Equinox is the choice for clients who strive to work with an industry leader excelling in project management, technical strength in delivery, training and competency development – all existing in a single center of excellence”.
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In: Africa Focus, Component, Feature Story, Hardware, News

AMD announced the next generation in mainstream consumer computing with the availability of the new high-performance AMD Fusion A-Series accelerated processing units (APUs). Enabling truly immersive computing experiences in consumer notebooks and desktops, the AMD A-Series APUs enable brilliant HD graphics, supercomputer-like performance and over 10.5 hours of battery life. In an increasingly digital and visually-oriented world, consumers are placing ever-higher priorities on multitasking, vivid graphics, lifelike games, lag-free videos, and ultimate multimedia performance.
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In: Africa Focus, Enterprise, Feature Story, News, Software

South African based system integrator Gijima has acquired the South African BMC Business Service Management business from African Legend Indigo (AL Indigo). BMC, based in Houston, USA, is a global provider of business service management software. The highly-qualified BMC team has transitioned to Gijima to strengthen and complement Gijima’s own BMC skill set. There are now 74 BMC skills focusing on BMC solutions within Gijima. With the acquisition, Gijima becomes an elite partner to BMC, providing enterprise service management (ESM) and mainframe service management (MSM) solutions.Read More…

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In: Feature Story, News, Storage

HP has appointed Chris Johnson as the Vice President for its Storage Division in Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. HP Storage Division is part of the larger Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) group. Chris is responsible for the overall management of the business and will oversee all go-to-market and operational elements, including sales, supply chain, marketing, product portfolio planning, channel and partner resources, service and support, and finance. He will be based in the United Kingdom.
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In a survey conducted at the SAP User Group Middle East (SUG-MENA) annual conference in Dubai, 100 percent of respondents agreed that the role of the CIO would become more strategically important in 2011 (compared to 86 percent of those questioned in November 2010 and 69 percent in March 2010). With regards to which innovations the company would most likely adopt as part of its business strategy business analytics was the most popular answer (30 percent), followed by on-device technology (26 percent), virtualization (24 percent), cloud computing (20 percent).Read More…

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In: Feature Story, News, Security, SME

McAfee recently announced the launch of the SMB Specialization within the McAfee SecurityAlliance program (MSA) to enable partners to improve profitability while addressing the unique needs of SMB customers. McAfee SMB specialization is a program that enables partners to sell targeted security solutions to customers with less than 250 employees. By enrolling in this, partners can offer their customers email, web, data and endpoint security solutions, with on-premise or SaaS delivery models. Also, program partners can take advantage of a monthly billing option, a full range of enablement tools, turnkey marketing programs, and dedicated resources. Read More…

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In: Africa Focus, Feature Story, News, Telecom

South African-based First National Bank (FNB) is seeing a rapid uptake of its cellphone banking services in Africa. According to the bank, it has recorded year-on-year growth of 376% in Zambia, 277% in Botswana, 204% in Namibia and 473% in Swaziland. Danny Zandamela, CEO of FNB Africa says: “When we introduced our cellphone banking solution into other African countries, sceptics were not convinced by this channel as being a successful financial offering. However, the numbers are seeing confirmation that the African continent is actually an ideal market for mobile banking services.”Read More…

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The first week of Olympic ticket payments has seen the continuance of cyber attacks, according to the latest information from Norton. Cyber criminals have employed tried and tested methods to target ticket hopefuls, including poisoned Internet search results and fake e-mail confirmations. Over 1 500 malicious Web links were identified when searching for common Olympic related terms such as “London 2012 stadium diagram”, “London 2012 stadium seating chart”, “London 2012 stadium map” and “London 2012 logo ideas”. Read More…

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Oracle has announced that it is has entered into an agreement to acquire FatWire Software (FatWire), a provider of web experience management solutions.

Web experience management enables organisations to build and deploy a targeted and interactive online presence that optimises the interactions companies have with their customers. Increasingly, more companies have come to rely on their web sites as the most important channel for communication, marketing, customer engagement and commerce.
FatWire’s proven solutions provide organisations with the ability to deliver relevant customer content, build community engagement and drive site stickiness and loyalty.Read More…