Taj El-Khayat, the General Manager for MENA at Riverbed speaks to Channel Post MEA regarding his company’s plans for GITEX Technology Week 2013
What sort of technology trends have you seen in the Middle East and Africa market over the past few months?
Riverbed Technology has noted several technology trends driving the global technology market and these are in tandem with similar trends in the Middle East and North Africa regions.
The virtualization of data centres will be increasingly making its way to the edge of the organization. Virtualization technology has enabled enterprises to create multipurpose “branch office boxes,” completely eliminating the need for conventional remote servers. The more advanced the organization is in terms of virtualization deployments, the higher the level of benefit and value can be derived.
Together with the consolidation within a branch, advances in technology allow companies to build “stateless branch” offices. Achieving 100 percent consolidation of edge servers, applications and data into the data center enables IT to more effectively secure, manage and protect its resources.
With organisations aiming to increase automated, policy-based computing, a programmable infrastructure allows enterprises to visualize and control their network with their own tools and setting their own parameters. With software-defined networking and software-defined data centers, more enterprises can strategize on how to build their future data centers in order to rapidly carve up their network and data center as needed. By creating entire functioning ensembles of servers and networking to meet changing business demands, these new networks and data centers are offering up a level of flexibility and agility that is not available with traditional networks and data centers.
In addition, the whole market is experiencing an exponential growth in the penetration of mobile devices in enterprises compared to fixed access devices. The availability of 802.11 Wi-Fi, together with the rising trend for mobile networks using 4G, the typical office will become completely wireless. More enterprises will be incorporating bring your own device (BYOD) policies into its IT planning, especially as organisations plan and manage BYOD as it converges with virtual desktop adoption.
Riverbed works together with its channel partners throughout the Middle East and North Africa to support the enterprises in these regions and their constantly evolving IT requirements.
Riverbed products and solutions are designed to solve network bandwidth and performance problems in several areas of technology including application acceleration, bandwidth optimization, data center, branch office and server consolidation, data protection and disaster recovery, visibility and network performance management, cloud server and storage acceleration.
How has the regional ICT market grown over the past few years?
According to a recent report by International Data Corporation (IDC), the software market in the Middle East has witnessed a year-over-year growth of 7.2% in 2012. This was the fourth consecutive year of solid growth in the region. At the same time, Gartner estimates a 5.6% increase in IT spending in 2012 versus 2011. They also forecast a 7.7% rise for 2013, as well as a 15.7% growth for 2014.
The figures clearly demonstrate that the regional IT market continues to grow. IT organizations and technology providers in the Middle East are equally influenced by cloud, social media, mobile and information and consequently, telecom, devices, IT services and software represent most of the total IT spending forecast for this year, maintaining the trend from 2012, according to Gartner.
In this respect, Riverbed is well aligned with what is clearly recognized as the main areas of market growth.
What sort of ICT products are in demand in the MEA region? Has there been a major shift in what the consumers want in ICT products? Which technologies do you think are the most-wanted technologies in the MEA region for sectors such as enterprise, SMB and end consumers?
Riverbed products and solutions target organisations looking for IT needs in virtualization, consolidation, cloud computing, data loss prevention and mobile application performance platforms.
Recently, we have seen in the region an uptake in two areas of the Riverbed product portfolio: Riverbed Granite product family and Riverbed Stingray product family.
Granite appliances allow organizations to de-couple storage from the branch location and move all of the data into the managed and secured data centre; whilst offering the users in the branch the performance and availability they would experience as if the storage (and applications) were local to them.
With Stingray products, customers can deploy an application delivery controller (ADC) solution with Web Content Optimization (WCO) and Web Application Firewall (WAF) security capabilities. Stingray products provide a multitude of benefits including:
What do you plan to achieve through GITEX Technology Week and GITEX Shopper this year? Can you please share your plans?
GITEX 2013 gives us great opportunities to showcase Riverbed’s solutions and initiatives to organizations in the Middle East, whilst providing the company with a wider reach in other regions, for example Africa.
GITEX facilitates interaction with potential clients and partners to discuss business challenges, channel initiatives and the solutions we offer.
Riverbed will showcase products and solutions for effective IT infrastructure from across its product portfolio, including:
Riverbed Steelhead product family
The performance of private, public and Internet-based network is critical to every globally connected enterprise. Wide Area Networks (WANs) — and now hybrid networks — connect people, applications and data to make business possible. With Riverbed Steelhead appliances, organizations run faster and more efficiently— with improved application performance and service delivery.
Riverbed Performance Management (RPM)
Riverbed has recently announced continued integration of its Application Performance Management (APM) and its Network Performance Management (NPM) solutions – allowing existing and new customers the benefits of each product set. Introducing a single appliance that joins both APM and NPM, enabling end-user-experience, application transaction, and deep packet analysis, customers will be able to reduce IT spending whilst increasing their IT efficiency.
Do you plan to launch any new products or technologies at GITEX Technology Week and GITEX Shopper this year?
Riverbed is constantly launching new products, solutions and additional functionalities to our existing portfolio. This year visitors to our booth will be enlightened with the latest developments and enhancements to the products and solutions within our portfolio.
What’s going to be your theme at GITEX Technology Week this year?
‘Storage consolidation’ is the theme for Riverbed at GITEX 2013. The main message we wish to convey at this year’s GITEX is that enterprises, like people, come in all shapes and sizes, so they should be able to tailor their data storage strategies accordingly.
The sheer quantity and breadth of data running through organisations today mean that no matter what the size, scope and resources available to modern businesses, the need for effective data storage has never been more pressing. In this context, Riverbed can provide the best-in-class storage consolidation solutions.
What sort of channel strategies are you going to follow this year?
Going Deeper with Fewer is the main objective for our channel strategy. We have three pillars in our channel strategy:
- Distribution Rationalization: we will consolidate our distribution landscape to become more relevant and drive a more streamlined go-to-market across the region with a strategic Value Added Distributor.
- Engage in Strategic Partnership: Riverbed will identify, recruit and plan with “selected” strategic System Integrators and Value Added Resellers a joint Riverbed Go-To-Market model based on the technology of interest and the complements provided through the strategic partner’s key business drivers and solutions.
- Activate Technology Alliances: Riverbed will increase its centre of attention, alignment and engagement with some of its key Technology Alliances across the MENA region. The company will also be – like never before – focused on supporting our reseller and partner community to embrace the Riverbed IT Performance Platform evolution – directly and through our Value Added Distributor.
Do you have any specific engagement for your channel community this year at GITEX?
Riverbed is always keen to have partner-focused activities at GITEX, and as every year, Riverbed will be running Solution and Product demos to drive awareness within our partner community. We will also have a special presence at the stand of our Value Added Distributor FVC, where the theme is all about partners and how to join the Riverbed Partner Network.
