Computer Reseller News April 2008

April 2008

This month CRN profiles the top channel execs as voted by SA resellers p25>>

Inside This Issue NEC predicts a boom this year p13>> Economy slows down IT spend p22>> Chipmakers continue to support local desktop PC p53>> SA’s energy crisis opens up opportunities for resellers p13>>

EDITOR’S: NOTE

HP touts new specialisations

A

t this year’s Hewlett-Packard Preferred Partner Conference held in San Francisco recently, the vendor urged its preferred partners to remain focused despite a recession in the US economy and turmoil in global markets. The vendor was quick to point out that remaining focused and maintaining vital customer relationships during a tumultuous economy will help them to keep their numbers on the upswing. The vendor says its counting on partners to keep the company in growth mode. To this end, the vendor has launched a new Virtualisation specialisation bringing to 13 the total number of specialisations it is offering its preferred partners. Solution providers in the local channel have welcomed the Virtualisation specialisation as it comes at a time when the vendor has been expanding its alliance with virtualisation software vendors, namely VMware, Microsoft and Citrix. In addition, the new specialisation has been launched at a time when solution providers are turning server virtualisation, one of the fastest-growing segments in the IT market, into their own gravy train. HP has also unveiled a new Gold Specialisation for its partners on the HP Preferred Partner Programme, which will come into effect on 1 November 2008. The new Gold Specialisation is being mapped and readied for the financial year 2009, and is part of the company’s broad initiative to upgrade the number of partners on the Gold Specialisation and expand the number of partners in the transactional business space. According to the vendor, details of the new Gold Specialisation programme will be released in the EMEA region starting the week of 5 May 2008 and partners will have until10 September 2008 to familiarise themselves with the stringent criteria, get trained and certified as Gold partners. Sean Gallagher, director SPO at HP in EMEA, says the introduction of the HP Preferred Partner Gold Specialisation follows months of rigorous planning based on partner feedback. Gallagher says the programme is open to both specialists and non-specialist partners although there will be more benefits for partners with a specialisation. Gallagher adds the programme will not only segment partners but also increase partner coverage in the various markets. “Our partners have been telling us they can’t differentiate themselves and this programme has been designed with this in mind,” he says. Solution providers at the conference were delighted to see HP taking the bold stance of growing its business through the channel. What’s your take on the two new specialisations from HP? Are you ready for the two specialisations? Let me know at [email protected]

Manda Banda – publisher

Contents News & Analysis 4 – What’s News 6 – Comings and goings 10 – Hi Five 12 – Demand Generator takes a look at how Novartis SA has

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upgraded to VoIP. By Dominic Khuzwayo CRN Contacts: Publisher: Manda Banda [email protected]

13 – Display vendor NEC is predicts a boom this year with its newly launched large format LCDs, plasma screens and Vista-compliant projectors. By Dudu Shaba

14 – Networking solutions vendor starts creating a collaborative Online editor:

channel. By Kaunda Chama

Kaunda Chama [email protected]

20 – Intel still sees great potential in indirect sales model.

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By Kaunda Chama Journalist: Portia Shaba

22 – State of the economy slows down IT spend.

[email protected]

By Dudu Shaba

Intern:

25 -45 Channel execs: CRN profiles this year’s top

Dominic Khuzwayo

channel executives

[email protected]

Features Brand executive:

48 – Monitors: Early indications in 2008 are that sales of

Hellen Murahwa

wide-screen LCD display panels would start outpacing square and

[email protected]

CRT displays in PC bundles. By Dudu Shaba

Sub-editor:

53 – Local Brands: A few years ago, the question was whether

Jenny Bastomsky

local brands would take off. Today, this is no longer a subject for debate,

[email protected]

chipmakers AMD and Intel continue to support the local desktop PC,

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notebook and server market. By Dudu Shaba Designer: Spencer van Graan

56 – Security: Although virtualisation is now officially

[email protected]

mainstream, industry pundits are cautioning against a rush to virtualise without considering the security implications of doing so. Traditional

Database and subscriptions:

security architectures and products are inadequate for this

Daisy Mulenga

new topology. By Kaunda Chama

54

[email protected]

Product and technology copyright notice CRN Southern Africa is published monthly by Systems Publishers (Pty) Ltd. The copyright of all material in this publication is reserved by the proprietors, except where expressly stated. The publisher, however, will consider reasonable requests for the use of material by others on condition that the source and author of the report are clearly attributed. Due to the nature of the newspaper print process, Systems Publishers cannot be held responsible for colour variations in printed advertising. Printed by Ultra Litho. CRN Southern Africa is a licensee of CMP Media LLC.

Private Bag X12, Rivonia, 2128 Tel: (011) 234 7008 Fax: (011) 234 7025

63 – Product reviews, Vosonic multimedia viewer, HP Photosmart A441, Microsoft ergonomic keyboard and mouse

Parting shots 64 – Snapshot: Nicola Homewood, Ingram Micro SA 64 – Dilbert

Registered with the Audit Bureau of Circulation

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

Scans in this publication have been reproduced on the EPSON PERFECTiON 2450 photo

63

WHAT’S

NEWS

What do you have to say? HP recently launched its “What do you have to say?” campaign aimed at engaging SME customers in its Print 2.0 strategy. Thierry Boulanger, IPG country manager, HP, says the strategy focuses on areas such as delivering a next-generation digital printing platform that increases print Thierry Boulanger speeds and lowers the cost of printing for high-volume commercial markets. The campaign is designed to inspire HP’s customers and empower them with new ideas and online tools to help them think about what they have to say.

Konica SA introduces bizhub C650 Konica Minolta SA (KMSA) has announced the completion of its InfoLine designed trio of devices, with the introduction of the bizhub C650. Marianna Gdanis, KMSA colour division manager says that the bizhub C650 printer targets CRDs and corporate office environments with high volume requirements. She claims that the bizhub C650 provides 100 percent duplex productivity for the fast completion of double-sided jobs in both colour and monochrome. The automatic duplexing is standard and includes the processing of 256 gsm from any paper tray says Gdanis.

COMINGS

&

Timm bids farewell to Faritec

Allan Timm, sales director at Faritec Holdings, a JSE-listed IT company, has resigned from the board of directors. To ensure a smooth transition, Timm will leave the company at the end of April 2008. Allan Timm This doesn’t mean the end of the world for Timm; he will be pursuing other business interests with the appreciation of the board.

New marketing head at Nokia Siemens Networks Nokia Siemens Networks has appointed Frederic Astier as head of marketing. Frederic Astier Astier will be responsible for overall marketing activities in all the regions and across the entire portfolio of products and services. He was previously a management team member of the Vodafone Customer Business Team at Nokia Siemens Networks.

New Lenovo 3000k desktops Tarsus Technologies has unleashed the new Lenovo 3000K range of consumer-focused desktops. This comes after the launch of the highly anticipated Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300 notebook. Brett Walter, Lenovo product manager at Tarsus, says that the 3000K range benefits from a mix of the highest-end components available on the market today and a number of innovative advancements from Lenovo’s Lab in China. According to him, Lenovo has dealt with this need by making the illumination of the desktop’s front bezel change colour according mode.

Crystal laptop by Pinnacle Pinnacle Micro launch MSI PR200 Crystal range of laptops. It comes in a shiny UV glossy coating dominated by a white and silver colour scheme and a finely detailed MSI logo. Measuring at 30cm in length and 23cm in width, along with a weight of 1.8 kg (including battery), the PR200 Crystal Collection is slim and portable. According to the distributor the ACV technology gives the user the most detailed and intricate images, resulting in high saturation and high definition quality for a luxurious visual sensation that’s easy on the eyes.

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

Nthabiseng Mokone joins GoldenRule

G O I N G S

GoldenRule, a company within Amabubesi Capital Technologies (ACT), has appointed Nthabiseng Mokone to its board. Holding a BCom Honours degree with CTA, Mokone began her career in 1996 at Transtel. In 2002, she moved to Transnet Group Finance to start her training outside public practice. Then, she joined ABC South Africa, a subsidiary of African Banking Corporation Holdings. Angus Young, CEO of ACT says, “Mokone has cemented strong relationships across the board and brings with her a wealth of experience from the banking and financial sector. Yasmin Forbes

Westcon provide skills programme Confronted with the growing skills shortage in the ICT industry, Westcon SA has launched the Westcon SA Graduate Programme. Ben de Klerk, national sales manager at Westcon SA says: “To support the growth that Westcon SA is experiencing and aggressively driving, we need to ensure that the correct resources are incorporated into the company. And we made a strategic decision to invest in the industry and our own future by developing a graduate programme.”

WHAT’S

NEWS

McAfee, VMware advance virtualisation security McAfee, has announced that it has entered into a broad relationship with VMware to advance virtualisation security. Chris van Niekerk, regional director, Africa, McAfee says as part of the relationship, his company plans to embed the newly announced VMware VMsafe security Chris van Niekerk technology into future security solution offerings. McAfee has also signed an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) agreement with VMware to utilise its VMware ESX Server 3i technology in future security solutions. In addition, McAfee has also announced the availability of its new e-mail and web security virtual appliance, which is built from the ground up for the VMware platform.

Symantec Announces New Norton AntiVirus for Mac Symantec, makers of Norton security software announced the new Norton AntiVirus Dual Protection for Mac. It features a vulnerability protection technology and antivirus for Mac users running Boot Camp or Windows virtualization software. These programs allow users to run both Mac OS X Leopard and Windows operating systems. This solution provides comprehensive protection from both Mac and Windows-based vulnerabilities and viruses. With this dual protection functionality, Mac users are set to benefit by receiving both the Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac and antivirus and vulnerability protection of Norton AntiVirus 2008 for Windows.

McAfee releases virusScan for Mac McAfee has released VirusScan for Apple Macintosh’s latest operating system (Mac OSX) version 10.5 (Leopard). The VirusScan protects Mac users from threats to their personal and private data wherever it resides. Bernadine Botha, McAfee product manager at Workgroup says: “VirusScan for Mac protects Macintosh end points against malware and other unwanted programmes that can target systems”.

New Backup for Servers Symantec, one of the global leaders in providing security, storage and systems management solutions, announced its new Symantec Backup Exec 12 for Windows Servers. The Backup Exec 12 comes with a ThreatCon global security alerting system, Enterprise Vault to protect email archives and the new Symantec Protection Network for accessing offsite storage. It restores data from a single pass backup with patent-pending Granular Recovery technology, which obviates the need to run mailbox backups to recover individual Exchange emails.

marketing (Singapore), a Sony Electronics company. The BWU-200S features a SATA interface. And the drive also supports recordings on standard single layer 4.7GB DVD±R/±RW/RAM disks, 8.5GB DVD±R double/dual layer disks and CDs.

New Intel server processors launched Intel Corporation has introduced a two low-voltage 45 nanometer (nm) processors for servers and workstations. It is designed to run at 50 watts or just 12.5 watts per core and frequencies as high as 2.50GHz. The L5400 processors are claimed to be 25 percent faster and have a 50 percent larger cache size than Intel’s previousgeneration, low-voltage Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors. Others include the quad-core L5420 and L5410 processors run at 2.50 GHz and 2.33 GHz, respectively.

New Sony E-Series LCD projectors Rectron has launched the latest video projection systems from Sony Electronics designed for use in small to medium venues with limited space. “The latest E-series business projectors are the Sony VPL-EW5, VPL-EX50, VPL-EX5 and VPLES5, all incorporating a three-LCD panel system that delivers consistently bright, true-to-life images of up to 2500 ANSI lumens of Werner Kuhn brightness,” says Werner Kuhn, peripherals business manager at Rectron. The new models except for the VPL-ES5, feature Sony’s BrightEra technology. “BrightEra enables the Sony E-Series display panels to be significantly resistant to the damage of UV rays caused by projector lamps and allow for increased aperture ratios.

Esquire releases BenQ projector Esquire Technologies delivers the new ultracompact BenQ SP820 digital XGA projector, which has been specifically developed for corporate and educational markets. Mahomed Cassim, marketing director, Esquire Technologies, says that the SP820 arrives with a high brightness of 4,000 ANSI lumens, a 2,000:1 high contrast ratio, a 1024x768 XGA Mahomed Cassim native resolution and digital zoom function. Weighing only 3,71kg, he explains that the projector displays brightly and features a compact housing with a convenient integrated handle that allows users to carry it around easily or install it at a fixed location.

HP boosts midsize customers DCC stocks Sony Blu-ray writers Drive Control Corporation (DCC) releases Sony’s second generation Blu-ray disk writer drive, BWU-200S. “The advantage of the new BWU200S model is that it features a faster write speed, reducing burn time by up to 50 per cent when compared with its predecessor. It now takes approximately 45 minutes to record a 50GB BR-R disc,” says Michael Tan, senior regional account manager, Sony applications & devices

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

HP has introduced an “easy-to-manage” virtual storage disk array. It is designed specifically for midsize customers that need to reduce the costs and complexity of implementing a storage area network (SAN). HP Storage Works 4400 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA4400) offers a combination of high-performance and availability features, virtualisation capabilities and advanced provisioning software. This is set to be ideal for midsize businesses that want to cost-effectively manage large amounts of data in a SAN environment without investing in deep storage experience.

WHAT’S

NEWS

Epson, Rectron partner

Pinnacle closes Ritek deal

Epson SA has appointed Rectron, to distribute Epson’s products targeted at the SME market. Hans Dummer, GM, Epson SA says the agreement covers Epson projectors, scanners, dot-matrix printers, MFPs, inkjet and photo inkjet printers, print consumables and other supplies. Dummer believes the expansion of Epson in the mid-range of their consumer products is attractive to the company, as well as the national foot print that Rectron has.

Distribution giant Pinnacle Micro has sealed a deal with Ritek Corporation to distribute its range of RiDATA optical media and flash memory products. The deal comes hot on the heals of the distributer ending its distribution deal with optical media vendor Verbatim. “We have been in discussions with Ritek for more than a year and they have been doing an intensive investigation of Pinnacle Micro to ensure that we are the right company to represent them in Africa,” says Hans Steyn, RiDATA brand manager at Pinnacle Micro. According to Steyn his company believes that the RiDATA brand is going to make a big impact in the South African industry and in Africa as a whole.

Rectron lands Samsung printer distribution Rectron, has signed another premium brand to its stable and is now the authorised Samsung distributor. In terms of the deals, Rectron will supply the local market a complete range of Samsung’s mono and colour laser printers and consumables in SA. Zandré Rudolph, sales director at Rectron, says both companies understand that Rectron’s strength as a key player in ICT distribution lies in its wide-ranging customer base and strong financial muscle. This will allow the two firms to work jointly towards a common goal that of becoming the number one player in the printing and imaging business adds Rudolph.

SMC Networks SA signs DCC SMC Networks SA has appointed Drive Control Corporation (DCC) as the local distributor for its next generation networking solutions. The development is effective immediately and will result in the local market having access to a wider variety of product sets from a single supplier. Pierre Holtzhausen, networking specialist at DCC says: “The agreement will allow DCC to deliver a wide range of quality, cost effective networking solutions to our reseller base. Paul Luff, country manager, SMC Networks SA says users will immediately gain from a broader product range and an enhancement of logistic services and technical support.

Ingram Micro now Microsoft disti Ingram Micro SA has signed a distribution agreement with Microsoft SA. The deal will allow Ingram Micro to gain official OEM distribution status for the vendor’s client operating systems, client-side applications and server solutions. Nicola Homewood, Microsoft product manager at Ingram Micro SA says: “This agreement is of considerable value to us locally as it allows us to offer our channel partners a more complete portfolio of products which now encompasses both hardware and software, aligning it with the one-stop shopping experience Ingram Micro provides worldwide.”

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

BDS signs X&R as Kenyan disti Bytes Document Solutions, the authorised distributor of Xerox products and solutions in 24 African countries, has appointed X&R Technologies as its new Kenyan distributor. Coenraad Ackerman, African operations manager at Bytes Document Solutions says that the operations of the newly formed company will be headed up by CEO Lucy Njoroge, who co-founded, along with her husband, OpenView in Kenya, an IT solutions company that services the corporate market segment in East Africa.

HIGH FIVE: PANDA SECURITY SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Panda

security secures PCs

Addressing the challenges of IT security. BY DOMINIC KHUZWAYO This month’s High Five looks at Panda Security, a creator and developer of antivirus products that keep customers’ IT resources free from virus, malware, Trojans and other computer threats. Jeremy Matthews, head of Panda Security’s sub-Saharan operations takes the high five.

CRN: How are computer viruses affecting the IT industry? JM: Viruses lead to downtime, malfunctioning systems and loss of both financial and intellectual data, while spam (which accounts for approximately 90 per cent of emails received by companies) leads to unnecessary consumption of bandwidth. Then there are bots – programmes that go resident on a computer waiting for commands from their creators, and can take complete control of the infected system. Currently, there are 500 000 bot infections worldwide every day. CRN: What other challenges is the industry facing when it comes to security?

JM: As an industry we face two main challenges. Firstly, many businesses lack the education and awareness of how to protect themselves and their IT environments. While technology is a vital component, the human element involved in risk reduction should not be underestimated. Staff need to be taught, for example, to avoid carrying out unsafe actions – such as opening mails from unknown recipients, opening links that arrive through mail instead of typing them in the browser or downloading suspicious files through P2P networks. The other key challenge is virus attacks, the perception among companies is that “it won’t happen to me”. This laissez-faire attitude results in companies sidelining security resulting in insufficient protection. A study from Panda’s laboratory last year showed that almost 72 per cent of protected networks with more than 100 workstations were infected with active malware.

“Panda’s acclaimed TruPrevent Technologies has been designed to protect PCs from unknown viruses and intruders.” – Jeremy Matthews, Panda Security

JM: In terms of percentages, the number of new examples of malware that appeared in 2007 increased tenfold with respect to 2006 which, in turn, witnessed an increase of 172 per cent on the previous year.

CRN: What gives Panda Security the edge?

CRN: What are the latest virus threats that the industry is

JM: Panda’s acclaimed TruPrevent Technologies has been designed

facing?

to protect PCs from both unknown viruses and intruders. These new preventive technologies neither replace nor conflict with ‘traditional’ reactive technologies used by antivirus solutions. TruPrevent analyses the behaviour of all the programs and files that are running, blocking those that carry out damaging actions and have unknown viruses. By doing this, all processes are optimised. The “traditional” antivirus component of your protection filters known viruses that the firewall has let through, while TruPrevent focuses on analysing the behaviour of the rest of the programs that are free of known viruses.

JM: Essentially, we face an onslaught of malware designed to steal money. Leading the charge are Trojans (a quarter of all infections last year). Banker Trojans, for example, are a very efficient tool for cyber-crooks, since these malicious codes steal bank details, account numbers, etc. which are later used to empty users’ bank accounts.

CRN: Looking at technology growth, which areas do you see growing your business and offerings?

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

DEMAND

GENERATOR:

NOVARTIS SA SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Novartis SA

upgrades to VOIP

Standardising in line with parent company. BY DOMINIC KHUZWAYO

N

ovartis SA, a local pharmaceutical company recently upgraded its LAN and WAN, and moved to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) platform. This was done with the assistance of KSS, a Johannesburg-based system integrator focusing on integrated data, voice and/or video solutions, and Cisco, supplier of networking equipment and network management for the Internet. This upgrade is said to have increased the reliability and performance of the company’s networks, enhancing business efficiency and communication, as well as enabling it to meet the standardisation guidelines of its international parent company.

“The implementation had to be carefully planned to ensure minimal impact on operations through downtime.” – Corne Sassenberg, KSS

Corne Sassenberg, KSS

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

Novartis SA is part of the global pharmaceutical organisation, one of the leaders in the research and development of products to cure disease, ease suffering and enhance quality of life. In 2006 the South African office had to reassess its infrastructure due to new standardisation policies abroad on compliance to global standards. This led the local company to look at upgrading its existing LAN and WAN, as well as upgrading its telephony system to a VoIP platform. “Due to growth and change, our LAN and WAN networks were not functioning optimally,” says Brigitte Thompson, service delivery manager at Novartis SA. “We needed to connect with two branches in Cape Town and an additional two in Durban but found our network slow, unreliable and lacking the functionality we required. We also needed to upgrade our infrastructure to meet global standards.” “In addition, our migration from a Microsoft NT to XP platform further drove the business case for a network forklift upgrade. We felt this was essential to support our branches and continue

providing innovative medical solutions to our markets,” says Thompson.

Wireless networK The company also needed to expand its wireless network at its head office in Isando to provide mobility for notebook users. Another key requirement was to migrate to a VoIP platform as the telephone system was not meeting the company’s requirements. Novartis provided a design specification, a list of hardware and required standards to four solution providers. Novartis’ global technology partner, BT, facilitated the project implementation. In addition, the expanded wireless network required the installation of Cisco’s 4400 wireless controller with 16 LWAPP access points to facilitate the wireless IP phones which replaced the older cordless phones. Cisco 2800 ISR routers and C3560 Power over Ethernet (PoE) LAN switches were also implemented. “The implementation had to be carefully planned to ensure minimal impact on operations through downtime. The first phase of the implementation took place at the head office in Johannesburg,” says Corne Sassenberg, account manager at KSS. “The hardware was ordered, an asset count and a burn-in were completed. KSS assisted with the pre-configuration, testing and designing of equipment at its testing facility in Midrand. The Johannesburg implementation took three days and was relatively free of challenges and hitches. The Durban implementation was next, followed by the Cape Town site,” adds Sassenberg. According to Thompson, the network now provides improved efficiencies due to faster access speeds to the servers and the ability to find information quickly. “The IP Telephony solution has allowed us to manage and contain costs. Reporting is now available at the touch of a button and with this information at hand, management of our telephony costs are simplified,” Thompson concludes.

ANALYSIS: NEC SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

NEC expects market boom Educating the market to use display solutions.

D

BY DUDU SHABA isplay vendor NEC is predicting a boom this year with its newly launched range of large format LCDs, plasma screens and Vista-compliant projectors, designed for corporates. Craig Butterworth, sales manager, NEC Display Solutions SA says the unique style and functional design of these new products with their wide screens and digital signage, combined with their many features, make them valuable tools for getting the right message or content across. Butterworth says the company has been in the market for a long time and has clearly secured its position. He says that customer satisfaction has top priority in the company and that NEC’s partners will receive marketing support in terms of delivering the company’s best display solutions and support to corporates. “Corporates as well as business, education, transport, mining, entertainment and other sectors want to see themselves adapting to technologies that enable them to communicate in a fast and effective way. With these products, we aim to educate the market to start looking at proper and quality public display solutions, using the right products and also to stop using TVs as display panels,” he says. Butterworth says NEC’s display solutions are already in the market and resellers will have great opportunities for making profit and will also be trained so they are able to sell integration products for themselves. “We have also started to inform our distributors in the channel about our new products through road shows and constant education,” he says. Butterworth states that the company has also approached FIFA directly to negotiate supplying it with public displays for the FIFA World Cup.

“With these products, we aim to educate the market to start looking at proper and quality public displays, using the right products and also to stop using TVs as display panels” – Craig Butterworth, NEC.

In Africa, he says that the demand for public displays is the same as in SA. “What we do in SA is what we do on the rest of the African continent. We have started rolling out products in Kenya and are hoping to stretch to other African countries as well because globalisation is the current influential factor,” he says. “In SA, we have three distributors in the channel, which are Mustek, with 6 000 resellers, Inchbook distributors with 200 resellers and Edge Interactive with 150 resellers,” he comments. Butterworth explains that the company has a partner programme called ChanneLink+. Because most system integrators do business in several vertical markets, such as financial, medical and digital signage, NEC has several market-specific programmes to address the unique requirements of the various segments. “The ChanneLink+ programme consolidates all of NEC’s channel programmes into one comprehensive offering, providing resellers and system integrators with a single portal when selling NEC-DS LCDs and CRTs,” he says. Butterworth points out that key enhancements to ChanneLink+ include the programme debit card, awards and incentives, business-building opportunities, marketing and sales tools for a variety of markets, customised and secure extranet platform, and resource centre. He goes on to say that the NEC partner programmes that have been rolled into

ChanneLink+ Partner Programme include: System Builder Select – the programme provides unprecedented value and support for all types of builders when selling NEC’s products. Consumer Select – the programme supports solution providers that sell NEC’s products into consumer/retail environments. Display Solutions Select – brings integral display solution components together, the programme provides solution-selling resources as well as access to NEC’s broad partner programme to help integrators sell digital signage or other larger display solutions. GovClub – is a membership programme with exclusive pricing and other benefits to resellers who sell to the state and government. ProPartner Select – provides resellers that target digital professional and other colourcritical markets with unprecedented value and support when selling select NEC monitors. “ChanneLink+ is in the process of educating partners on how to apply these display solution relevantly, and we have more solutions that will be introduced this year,” says Butterworth. Michael Mc Callum, Mustek Electronics Mecer, external dealer sales executive, says that more opportunities are coming through NEC’s public display solutions. “NEC has got the right solution. The new solutions are exciting, educational and create awareness, and will bring success in SA,” he concludes.

ANALYSIS: CISCO SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Creating

a collaborative channel

Cisco encorages more partner alliances. BY KAUNDA CHAMA

A

John Chambers, Cisco

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

t this year’s Cisco Partner Summit, perhaps the other message besides the fact that the vendor believes that the network is the platform was a call for collaboration among its channel partners. After having recognised collaboration as a necessity in meeting business demands, the company has even set up what it calls the Partner Exchange. The exchange is a network that will help partners to increase their revenue, extend their expertise and deepen their relationships with customers. Cisco says that the move was a result of a global study it carried out that indicated that collaboration between channel partners is a large and growing trend.

The study, commissioned by Cisco and conducted by Illuminas Research, was designed to provide insight into the forces shaping the reseller channel of the near future. It polled more than 1 300 customers and nearly 500 Cisco channel partners across 12 countries: Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. The study revealed that collaboration among Cisco partners is generating 31 per cent of channel revenue and is growing by 15 per cent annually. Furthermore, 62 per cent of the partners believe that collaboration will continue to grow over the next five years. Cisco partners work with an average of eight other partners on a regular basis. Cisco’s Partner Exchange is designed to help Cisco partners find, connect and collaborate with the right group at the right partner. The collaboration network is now available to more than 8 500 Cisco Certified Partners, managed-services providers, distribution partners and application partners from all over the world. The international study revealed that IT customers are demanding a greater breadth and depth of expertise from their vendor resellers as solutions become more varied and complex. It found that many channel partners are choosing to fill the expertise gaps by partnering with other resellers in a “coopetition” relationship. Cisco says the Partner Exchange enables partners to find, connect and collaborate with other partners that offer a complementary blend of technology, services, and industry and geographic expertise. It helps group leaders at partners start to develop trusted relationships with the right person at the right partner. Cisco Partner Exchange facilitates collaboration through three key features:  Promote and Be Found: In less than

ANALYSIS: CISCO SOLUTION

five minutes, group leaders can build a customised profile to promote their group’s unique capabilities, ensuring that other partner group leaders can easily find and do business with them.  Find and Connect: Powerful search and networking capabilities allow partners to easily search, find and start to develop trusted relationships with the right person at the right partner.  Learn and Collaborate: All partners have access to best practices, online events and discussion forums. Cisco Partner Exchange is located within Cisco Partner Space, a virtual environment that enables connections and facilitates collaboration between customers and partners, among partners, and between Cisco and partners. At the event, Cisco also announced its intent to purchase the remaining 20 per cent interest in San Jose-based Nuova Systems, a start-up focused on the development of next-generation products for the data centre market. At the same time, it also unveiled the Nexus 5000 Series, the first product developed by Nuova. The Cisco Nexus 5000 is a 10 Gigabit Ethernet “top-of-rack” switch that offers unified fabric capabilities through the support for multiple data centre networking protocols and software intelligence. Prior to the acquisition, Nuova operated as a majority-owned subsidiary of Cisco, which had invested $70 million and owned 80 per cent of the company. The transaction is success based with the total value primarily determined by the revenue of Nuova products over three measurement periods. The first measurement period will commence in early fiscal year 2010, the second measurement period will commence in late fiscal year 2010 and the third measurement period will commence in mid-fiscal year 2011. The existing relationship between the two has allowed both companies to collaborate actively in the development of the Cisco Nexus 5000 through technology sharing, product evolution and driving overall market acceptance of innovative data centre technologies. As a result, the Cisco Nexus 5000 is designed to be fully interoperable with the

PROVIDERS

Key findings of the study include: 







Larger Projects, More Revenue: Cisco partners who collaborate with others have developed deeper customer relationships and delivered more value to customers. Collaboration enables 78 per cent of these resellers to win larger projects, 75 per cent to acquire new customers, and 74 per cent to increase their revenue. Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty: Customers overwhelmingly report that collaborative resellers reduced the complexity of their IT business solutions. Customers also enjoyed the single point of contact with a partner versus working with the different vendors individually. Between 80 and 90 per cent of customers globally are satisfied with the collaborative partners’ technical, business and industry expertise; the ease of doing business with them; and post-sale service and support. Broader and Deeper Expertise: Partner collaboration also helps resellers to broaden and deepen their expertise and, as a result, differentiate themselves from their competition. Specifically, due to collaboration, 56 per cent of Cisco partners witnessed improved levels of service; 78 per cent achieved greater technical differentiation; and 66 per cent improved industry-specific expertise. Slow Adoption of Collaboration Tools: Despite the extent of partner-to-partner collaboration, surprisingly few partners are taking advantage of collaboration tools to work more effectively with other partners and customers. Only 33 per cent of Cisco partners use Web-conferencing tools, 20 per cent use collaboration and document-management tools, 20 per cent use project management software, and 15 per cent use shared electronic calendars.

recently introduced Cisco Nexus 7000 Series switches through the sharing of a common product architecture, operating system and other software intelligence. The Nexus 7000 is an internally developed, modular data centre-class switching system designed for 10 Gigabit Ethernet networks offering industry-leading performance scaling up to 15 terabits per second.

“To succeed in today’s marketplace and effectively deliver on our business strategy to capture key market transitions, Cisco drives a combination of internal R&D, industry partnerships and corporate development activities.” – Ned Hooper, Cisco

“To succeed in today’s marketplace and effectively deliver on our business strategy to capture key market transitions, Cisco drives a combination of internal R&D, industry partnerships and corporate development activities,” says Ned Hooper, senior VP, Corporate Development and Consumer and Small Business Group, Cisco. “In many ways, the efforts supporting our Data Center vision are great examples of this ‘build, buy, partner’ innovation

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ANALYSIS: CISCO SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

framework in action.” “Cisco’s decades of switching innovation and expertise have it well poised to be the architect of the nextgeneration, network-centric data centre, a vision defined as Data Center 3.0,” says Mario Mazzola, current president and CEO of Nuova Systems. “We expect the Nuova team to make significant contributions toward the realisation of this vision through products and technology that help enable data center consolidation and virtualisation, while protecting customers’ current data centre investments.”

“We expect the Nuova team to make significant contributions toward the realisation of this vision through products and technology that help enable data center consolidation and virtualisation, while protecting customers’ current data centre investments.” – Mario Mazzola, Nuova Systems

The acquisition is expected to close in Q4 of Cisco’s 2008 financial year and will be the fifth one for the period. Meanwhile, Cisco’s Nexus 5000 Series strengthens the company’s existing data centre switch portfolio and builds on its commitment to invest heavily over the next 18 months in new products and capabilities to help customers architect the next-generation data centre, creating a new market opportunity for its channel partners. The Cisco Nexus 5000 Series is designed for data centre consolidation with investment protection, helping to allow customers to transition to a unified fabric at their own pace. It also meets stringent customer requirements for operational continuity, transport flexibility and scalability. With a unified fabric, IT organisations can simplify cabling infrastructure, reduce the number of required adapters, lower costs, and reduce power consumption and their carbon footprint. The Cisco Nexus 5000 Series delivers line-rate, low-latency, 10 Gigabit Ethernet switching, as well as the industry’s first standards-based, input/output (I/O) consolidation solution via support for Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE), Data Center Ethernet and virtualisation technologies. The switch is an extension to the Cisco

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Nexus family designed to support increasing I/O demands of multicore processors and virtualised environments. With its support for FCoE, the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series consolidates local-area network (LAN), fibre channel and iSCSI-based storage-area networks (SANs) and server cluster traffic onto an Ethernet-based unified fabric. It also provides virtual machine (VM) optimised services, supporting the Cisco Data Center 3.0 vision by allowing IT organisations to respond dynamically to changing business demands through rapid provisioning of application and infrastructure services from shared pools of consolidated compute, storage and network resources. SAVVIS, a leading global IT utility services provider specialising in hosting, network and application services, is currently testing the new Cisco Nexus 5000 switching platform. “We believe the benefits to SAVVIS of a unified fabric are multifold, including the ability to provide our customers with a higher quality of service as well as total cost of ownership reduction within our data centre operations,” says Bryan Doerr, chief technology officer of SAVVIS. “ Cisco Nexus 5000’s ability to deliver this unified fabric today makes it an attractive platform for us and we are actively evaluating it.” To further align with opportunities in the data centre, Cisco has also evolved its channel programme to help allow partners to build a network-centric data centre practice. Part of this effort includes the evolution of the Cisco Data Center Networking Infrastructure (DCNI) specialisation to DCNI 2.0, which recognises partners with a highly qualified data centre practice. Cisco DCNI 2.0 specialised partners will be able to provide customers with in-depth data centre technology skills and a proven customer track record in selling, deploying and providing sophisticated data centre services and solutions. In addition, for partners who decide to build a network-centric data centre practice, Cisco will offer technical and business enablement tools and enhanced financial incentives. This includes the introduction to the Cisco Data Centre Value Incentive Program (VIP), which rewards partners who invest in a comprehensive business practice focused on the data centre. Cisco is further enhancing its partner enablement > p18

ANALYSIS: CISCO SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

portfolio with the introduction of the Cisco Data Center Partner Practice Builder, a proven, simplified and repeatable approach to building a Cisco solutionsbased practice, along with Steps to Success, a business building platform that provides a step-by-step customer engagement model and associated resources designed to enable partners to sell, deliver and support Cisco advanced technology business solutions. >> p16

With more than 80 per cent of its annual revenue being sold by channel partners, helping to preempt a skills shortage is a major business imperative and one in which Cisco is investing substantial time, money and resources.

“With a proven history of success in delivering innovative network solutions in data, voice and communications, video and storage networks, Cisco and its channel partners are uniquely positioned to lead the transformation of the data centre into an agile and efficient network that revolutionises how our customers adopt new IT strategies and respond to changing business needs,” says Edison Peres, VP worldwide channels at Cisco. “With a full portfolio of data centre solutions, channel programmes and enhanced financial incentives through Data Center VIP; we are helping to create extraordinary opportunities for our partners to accelerate their growth, differentiation and profitability.” Cisco has also expanded its services offerings to help customers realise the full potential of a unified fabric and take the next step in data centre transformation. Cisco Services provide the expertise and experience needed to address the entire data centre architecture and is designed to support an organisation’s growth, server performance as well as storage and virtualisation goals. In addition, Cisco Capital offers financing solutions to support customers with the development of their data centres, including technology adoption, migration and lifecycle management. It offers competitive rates, high residuals and flexible terms for Cisco data centre equipment and services globally. The networking solutions vendor also announced new solutions that further

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optimise branch offices of all sizes, allowing companies to customise branch networks to meet their unique business needs. It has done this by opening its Integrated Services Router (ISR) and Cisco Wide Area Application Services (WAAS) platforms to customers and third-party application developers, Cisco enables its customers to optimise the branch infrastructure while extending their accessibility to business resources. It also provides Cisco channel partners with new opportunities to deliver differentiated solutions and services that better align with customers’ business needs. Cisco also introduced an array of new security, wireless and unified communication products and service innovations that elevate branch-office worker productivity and deliver information technology (IT) operational efficiencies. Recognising the global shortage of skills in the channel Cisco has also launched several talent innovations, including its next-generation partner talent platform, the Partner Talent Network. This new platform uses advanced social networking capabilities and interactive video to transform how channel partners attract, develop and retain employees. “As I meet and talk with partners around the world, they consistently tell me, regardless of location, that their top growth issue is attracting, developing and retaining talent,” says Celia Harper-Guerra, director of Worldwide Partner Talent at Cisco. “This global feedback is the foundation of our talent strategy, which was validated in a recent study we commissioned in North America. That study identified hiring skilled sales and technical talent as the top barriers to growth in the IT channel.” With more than 80 per cent of its annual revenue being sold by channel partners, helping to preempt a skills shortage is a major business imperative and one in which Cisco is investing substantial time, money and resources. Cisco invested early on, more than 18-months ago, to work to enhance the validity of its primary route to market. The company’s new talent-building initiatives include: The Partner Talent Network: scheduled to launch in second quarter of calendar 2008; Recruitment Services Solutions; Professional Career Accelerator; and the Talent Pool Connections.

ANALYSIS: INTEL SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Intel

has strong channel belief

Partners still keep paying dividends BY KAUNDA CHAMA

I

f there was one thing that was certain at this year’s Intel Solutions Summit (ISS) held in Rome, it was the fact that the hardware vendor considers its channel partners critical to its success in all markets. Thomas Rampone VP sales and marketing group and general manager of the channel platforms group stressed that the channel is Intel’s best customer because of the reach and the advantage of flexibility

Dallman, Intel’s sales and marketing group VP and worldwide reseller channel organisation GM, said the company is more committed than ever to the channel. Reinforcing Intel’s 45nm High-K Transistor technology as the cornerstone of opportunity, Dallman is encouraging channel partners to embrace new technologies and programmes such as Intel’s latest mobile motherboards that

“As the demand for desktops across the board moves from strength to strength, we are also quickly moving towards more feature differentiation and innovation down our product roadmap.” – Tom Rampone, Intel that respective channel partners have in their local markets. While a lot of corporates might be of the opinion that the desktop is fast dying and the notebook is taking over as the PC of choice, Rampone said that Intel is confident there is plenty space left for penetration in the desktop market. In his keynote at ISS recently, Steve

Tom Rampone, Intel

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extend its channel mobile initiative and a new loyalty programme for its channel partner members.

Getting the channel ready for ’Montevina’ Dallman explained that Intel continues to work actively with multi-national companies, local and regional OEMs, the channel and the PC ecosystem at large to promote notebook PC adoption. Dallman rallied the channel to get ready for the next-generation Intel Centrino 2 processor technology platform, previously code-named Montevina and expected to be available in June this year. Saying that mobility is a huge opportunity for the channel, Dallman announced Rich Creek 2, the code name for a new mobile motherboard form factor specification that expands Intel’s ongoing efforts with the industry to develop interchangeable building blocks for notebook components. Rich Creek 2 products will be rolled out in a phased approach starting with select local integrators, local OEMs and original

design manufacturers in several bare bone and complete notebook configurations. More offerings are coming online towards the end of the year and in 2009. Intel says the goal is for the ingredientbased ecosystem to be mature enough to support a broad distribution model for all customers. Intel as well as other industry partners will offer Intel Mobile Boards based on Rich Creek 2 that will launch time-to-market with the Intel Centrino 2 platform. Initially, the boards will be available in a bare bones configuration from OEMs and local integrators but not as a stand alone product. According to the company, the desktop business remains vibrant, accounting for about 50 per cent of its business

Three new desktop motherboards Keeping with this Intel has some new pieces of hardware for the desktop space. The vendor launched three new desktop motherboards aimed at the extreme gamer, the mainstream multimedia user and entrylevel PC user. The vendor claims that the new motherboards, individually, enable a number of innovative features for PCs such as greater performance, clearer definition video and low-powered technologies. The new boards are the Intel Desktop Board DX48BT2 Extreme Series (formerly code-named ‘Bone Trail 2’), the Intel Desktop Board DG35EC Classic Series (formerly code-named ‘Eva Cove’), and the Intel Desktop Board D945GCLF Essential Series (formerly code-named ‘Little Falls’). The D945GCLF will use the new Intel Atom Processor and will be available towards the second half of the year. “From ultimate gaming bliss, to crisp high definition, to the most affordable Internet-centric desktop, Intel continues to push the boundaries of world-class desktop

ANALYSIS: INTEL SOLUTION

offerings,” says Tom Rampone, Intel’s Sales and Marketing Group VP, and Channel Platforms Group GM. “As the demand for desktops across the board moves from strength to strength, we are also quickly moving towards more feature differentiation and innovation down our product roadmap.” For extreme gaming performance, the Intel Desktop Board DX48BT2 Extreme Series board unleashes the fastest native 1600 MHz front side bus and memory support providing powerful performance and extreme overclockability. Supporting Intel Core 2 Extreme processors featuring quad or dual-core processing and a faster 1600/1333/1066/800 MHz FSB, it is built with the Intel X48 Express Chipset with ICH9R that is validated for chipset-level overclocking. There are two DIMM sockets designed to support up to 4GB of DDR3 1600 MHz memory or four DIMM sockets designed to support up to 8GB of DDR3 1333/1066/800 MHz memory. The board has 2 IEEE 1394a ports and 12 USB 2.0 ports, dual full-speed PCIe 2.0 slots + x4/x16 PCIe slot, 2 PCI expansion slots and 6 SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports. Further included in the DX48BT2 board are Intel Matrix Storage Technology and Dolby Home Theatre. The Intel Desktop Board DG35EC Classic Series board is built with sharpest performing integrated graphics supported on Intel architecture. Based on GMA X3500 integrated graphics, the board supports a range of processors, including Intel Core 2 Quad and Intel Core 2 Duo processors. Besides delivering outstanding performance and stability, the integrated graphics and connectors meet a variety of digital needs, including 1080p video playback for movie clips, media streams and the latest generation of HD video cameras, without the need for an add-in video card. Intel claims that this is the first board to have integrated Microsoft DirectX10 capability and it also supports OpenGL 2.0. The Intel Desktop Board D945GCLF is an “affordable” motherboard that integrates a single unit of compute with a microprocessor, chipset, motherboard and heat sink. Ideal for traditional channels to build and package into a full PC system for under

PROVIDERS

$300, these desktop boards are targeted at entry-level computer users in the emerging markets, as a second or basic home PC for mature markets or customised for unique usage models in vertical markets such as home-lifestyle, banking or education. The D945GCLF will use the new Intel Atom Processor and will be available towards the second-half of the year.

Behold Flex + As far as channel activity goes, between 20 and 30 per cent of all Intel processor unit sales go to the channel, and emerging markets account for 60 per cent of these channel sales. Ensuring that these figures continue to grow, the vendor announced a new programme that is the latest of a comprehensive array of benefits for Intel channel partner programme members. In an ongoing effort to enhance membership value, Intel added Intel Flex+ to recognise and reward resellers for building their solutions on Intel technology. Announced in SA two weeks earlier, the

Steve Dallman, Intel technology demo units. They can also redeem points for benefits such as travel, iPass WiFi access, Priority Pass airport lounge privileges and travel insurance. Other award redemption options range from free health and fitness memberships, electronics vouchers and access to Formula One racing activities for anyone in their organisation.

“Intel says the goal is for the ingredient-based ecosystem to be mature enough to support a broad distribution model for all customers.” – Steve Dallman, Intel

programme was launched to the European region at the solutions summit. The benefits programme will roll out worldwide to more regions in the coming months. Intel Flex+ is available at no cost to Premier and Associate members, who can enrol quickly and easily online. Once enrolled, they can begin earning points for selected qualifying purchases through Intel authorised distributors. Members can also accrue points for participation in a range of qualifying activities such as online training, channel events and promotions. Through the programme, Intel offers a broad range of redemption options, giving members the flexibility to select the rewards they most want. Members are free to use their points for business rewards such as consulting services, Intel merchandise and

“The Intel Flex+ Program offers Intel partners another opportunity to benefit from their collaboration with Intel, in addition to the Intel Inside Program,” says Chief Purchasing Officer Sven Bauer. “This programme has allowed us to reinvest the points acquired toward a variety of business and lifestyle awards such as telephone surveys of customers conducted by Intel, webinars that boost employee knowledge and free hotel room charges for the Intel Solutions Summit being held in Rome. While the programme is in its infancy, there are clear signs that channel partners will be able to enjoy considerable benefits from it in the future.” Intel could be poised for some impressive growth in the EMEA region due to the fact that the SME space is showing healthy demand on the notebook, desktop and server side.

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ANALYSIS: IT

SPENDING

SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Economy

slows down IT spending

Negative economic factors eroding reseller margins. BY DUDU SHABA

T

his year’s budget was delivered at a tough time. In recent months, there has been an increasing perception that revenue growth would moderate in line with economic activity, which has been greatly affected by the Eskom debacle. In addition there has been a slow down in IT spending due to the economic slow down and credit crunching is as well busy eating on people’s budgets. Also, the Reserve Bank has also raised

“Over the last few years we’ve spent a lot of our time diversifying so that we’re not just exposed to a single area of the market. As a result, we find that when certain areas of the economy are struggling, our business remains robust.” – Dave Hardy, TitanIT

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interest rates to a near five-year peak, saying price pressures were spreading. Governor Tito Mboweni said the decision to raise the repo rate by half a percentage point to 11,5 percent was also driven by a deterioration in inflation expectations, which predict the 3%-6 percent official target range would be breached for three more years. Given these prevailing economic circumstances, CRN interviewed resellers in the channel to find out how they are fairing in the market. Although the IT spending continues to slow down, Neil Watson, MD, Digital Planet, says that their company had a very good start this year. “We’ve had a great start to the year. January and February saw strong growth versus last year. We are finding

ANALYSIS: IT SOLUTION

March and April a bit slower as the many negative factors such as public holidays and load shedding have an effect,” he says. Dave Hardy, MD, TitanIT says that their reseller company has seen some margin erosion in the last few months, driven largely by smaller, opportunistic resellers. “Customers are delaying larger infrastructure projects but we continue to attract new business,” he comments. Given these contributing factors that are slowing down reseller businesses, Watson says that they find that their customers are still spending money on new IT equipment. “Over the last few years we’ve spent a lot of our time diversifying so that we’re not just exposed to a single area of the market. As a result, we find that when certain areas of the economy are struggling, our business remains robust,” he says. Watson goes on to say that their retail business is doing well although not growing as aggressively as they like. “We see this as an indicator that the general consumer is feeling the pinch. Our corporate business is as strong as ever. People seem to have high activity levels and are being aggressive in new ventures and opportunities,” he comments. In spite of the tightening economy, Hardy says that TitanIT is on a growth path. “We remain convinced that loyalty to our customers and primary vendors coupled with

they, together with the distributors are offering more flexible pricing,” he remarks. Watson says that online marketing is a growing percentage of Digital Planet’s online spend. “Each media has its own place and online is great for call to action. We think the sky’s the limit for our online spend as we see a great Return on this spend. We’re still investing heavily in radio and print however,” he remarks. “We focus on the small to medium corporate sector offering leading brand name technology, superior support services and trained certified staff in all divisions of the business. We believe that direct, focused sales and marketing activities, supported by our vendor partners, provides us with a unique go-to-market message. All of our offerings have a high degree of value add and we do not spend much time on commoditized products and solutions,” he says. He adds the online marketing is also becoming more important and several of their technology partners have recently begun online initiatives, we aim to take advantage of. Watson predicts that there may be slowed growth over the next few years. He says that Digital Planet’s aim is to constantly invest in future growth. “We are also finding that our ROI has

SPENDING

PROVIDERS

Neil Watson, Digital Planet

“We focus on the small to medium corporate sector offering leading brand name technology, superior support services and trained certified staff in all divisions of the business.” – Neil Watson, MD, Digital Planet

our strong service, certification and consulting differentiators will continue to see us grow,” he says. He adds that their company has had several large orders recently for desktops and servers and our other key areas are performing as expected. “There are signs of a real growth in all areas of the business in the next ten months. Licence renewals and support contracts are particularly strong performers. Also, all of our primary vendors are aware of the current market conditions and

declined a little over the last few quarters representing a slow down in investment and a drop in confidence. We’re still very optimistic about our prospects and we believe we’re on a good wicket,” he says. In conclusion, Hardy believes that these uncertain times offer opportunities for growth as others begin to focus inwards or are forced out of the market. “For us, this means we have to continue focusing on our primary markets and technologies and we have set aggressive expansion goals in all areas of our business”.

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ANALYSIS: SUN

MICROSYSTEMS

SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Sun microsystems builds a strong ecosystem Opening up big opportunity for partners. BY DUDU SHABA

AND

DOMINIC KHUZWAYO

S

un Microsystems has seen a 40 per cent increase in the number of attendees at its Tech Days developer conference, aimed at building a strong partnerships and creating developer community awareness of its technologies. This was said by Michael Schroeder, MD, Southern and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, at the Sun Microsystems developer conference which celebrated its tenth anniversary. Sun Microsystems provides a diverse range of software, systems, services and microelectronics that power everything from consumer electronics, to developer tools and some of the world’s most powerful data centres. The company’s brands include the Java technology platform, Solaris

strategic to Sun Microsystems in that it opens up big opportunities for its partner community. According to Martins, the Sun Partner Advantage Program offers its partners a number of resources to help them become more competitive and profitable. She explains that partners gain support such as sales and marketing. “Partners are able to join forces with Sun and other partners to close sales all over the world, and to take advantage of the many sales and marketing tools available to Sun Partners, including logo offerings that leverage the Sun brand,” she explains. Sun offers a broad range of industryleading hardware, software, services and products for channel, OEM and integrator

“The Sun Tech conference opens up big opportunities for our partner community.” – Patricia Martins, Sun Microsystems

operating system, StorageTek and UltraSPARC processors. Schroeder says the 2 500 developers that registered for the event is evidence of the excitement around its technology and that the number of partners is increasing. “We have seen the attendee numbers growing from event to event since the inception of the Tech Days Conference 10 years ago. This sends us the message that we are helping our developers to carry their heavy stuff, that our brand is growing and more people will embrace SunMicrosystems in the near future,” he says. Patricia Martins, channel manager, Sun Microsystems said that the conference is

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partners to add to their product portfolios. In addition, Martins says partners can also expand by doing Web-based product, industry, solutions selling and Java Enterprise System training, and global worldwide competency programmes. “The focus of the conference this year is to work with ISVs, system integrators, the developer community and resellers. The current trend is that technology is being commoditised and only partners that sell competititive solutions will be successful. A lot of our partners also have their own developers who create their own solutions by bundling with our solutions who can make good profits for themselves,” she says.

Patricia Martins, Sun Microsystems Martins says Sun Microsystems has a two- tier partner model, VARS and channel developer partners. “If you follow government trends, you will see that it needs to go open source, which means that doors are open for our partners to develop software solutions that will make it easy for people to work and add value to the development of the country.” This is also applicable to universities, their partnership with SunMicrosystems will create young business leaders who will develop their own solutions in the near future,” she says. Molebogeng Yende, marketer, SPS ICT solutions, says its software developer company based in Pretoria, signed a partnership agreement with Sun Microsystems last year and is looking forward to strengthening its relationship with Sun Microsystems. “Attending this conference is imperative for our company because our aim is to remain competitive and enhance our skills as well as continue to network with other developers,” Yende concludes.

Anton Herbst, MD at local consumables specialist distributor, Advanced Channel Technologies (A.C.T) has scooped the most influential Channel Executives Award for 2008. And while all executives that made the top 21 list in the 12th CRN Channel have some influence in one way or the other, Herbst humility and a willingness to listen and understand his company’s reseller channel seems to have put him in good standing with the channel at large. Herbst features in these awards for the third consecutive year and what a befitting honour for him to have received the most influential award. These award honour executives at vendor and distributor level, individuals who are influential in their execution of day-to-day channel duties. The executives featured in the pages that follow are not only going out of their way to assist partners to close deals, embrace new business models and grow their businesses to new profit heights, but they are at the forefront of championing partners to innovative. A month of electronic polling on www.crn.co.za and CRN Flash, assisted the editorial team to tally the votes and pick 21 top channel executives for 2007. Resellers in the local channel voted for executives involved in channel management at middle and senior management level. Each executive needed to receive a minimum of 10 votes to be considered for nomination. The following was the criteria solution providers used:

CONTENTS >> 26 Anton Herbst, A.C.T 28 Craig Brunsden, Axiz 30 Reggie Nxumalo, Microsoft 32 Zandre Rudolph, Rectron 32 Graham Duxbury, Duxbury Networking 33 Rudi Pheiffer, Softline Pastel 33 Malan Voster, Omi Accounts 34 Matthew Lee, Novell 34 Graham Vorster, Westcon 35 Stefan Diedericks, Oracle 35 Patricia Martins, Sun Microsystems 36 Sally Berimbau, Novell 38 Mark Perry, HP.

     

Availability of channel executive Pro-activeness & dedication to address channel hurdles Commitment to helping partners win business deals Influence on ho partner explore new business ventures Relationship/team building style Openness of channel executive

40 Uwe Brandkamp, Comztek 42 Carl Kleynhans, APC 42 Steven Kramer, Tricon 43 Lisa Kelynack, Citrix Systems 44 Ron Keschner, Channel

The editorial team checked though the votes, eliminating any nominations that were invalid. In addition the results were audited by an actuary. In the pages that follow CRN showcases the 2008 Channel Executive Awards winners. From the entire CRN team we congratulate the winners.

Capital, MB Technologies 44 Hans Dummer, Epson 45 Imi Mosaheb

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

A lesson in being humble A.C.T’s Herbst gets channel nod.

A.C.T’s Herbst gets channel nod.

By Manda Banda

When Anton Herbst, MD at local consumables distributor, Advanced Channel Technologies (A.C.T) talks about his passion for the local IT industry, his job in the consumables market space and his love for the local solution provider channel, his enthusiasm is all-consuming – you see it in his eyes and hear it in his voice. Yet, Herbst believes that if there is one lesson that the business world teaches one the hard way, it is not to get too comfortable on the high tides of the business cycle. For a man with over 20 years’ experience in the IT Industry, Herbst has been taught a lesson in humility more than once during his illustrious career. “Once you believe you are riding the crest of the wave, you should always be on the lookout for the inevitable crash, because more often than not it is just around the corner,” he says.

“Once you believe you are riding the crest of the wave, you should always be on the lookout for the inevitable crash, because more often than not it is just around the corner.” – Anton Herbst, A.C.T

It is precisely these lessons in humility that have helped Herbst to become a leader. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that solution providers have recognised Herbst’s unrelenting efforts in assisting them to grow their businesses. Whiles this year’s win in the Channel Executives Awards is the third consecutive one for Herbst; it is a befitting award as the channel believes he is one of the most outstanding and influential executives. A combination of factors has contributed to Herbst receiving this top accolade. For starters, he has been instrumental is segmenting A.C.T’s channel base both from a vertical market perspective and

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understanding exactly what its resellers’ businesses are all about. Secondly, Herbst has played a pivotal role in helping A.C.T to target and serve the SME market better. To this effect, the company has had to understand the business dynamics and challenges faced by resellers who target this market. “We have had to relook at investing more in stock, credit, account management and value adding to be relevant to our reseller base,” he says. “It is a team effort,” he says. “I am delighted that my efforts have been recognised in this manner but credit must also go to the entire team I work with at A.C.T.” Having witnessed the Siltek group go under in 2001, Herbst says you cannot always assume how your business partners perceive your business operation as that could be detrimental. It is against this that Herbst has been urging his team at A.C.T not to take reseller partners for granted but rather to understand and know their businesses. “Last year, we embarked on a programme to segment and establish what it is our reseller partners do,” he says. Herbst points out that this initiative has led to the next phase of the plan in terms of understanding and delivering what partners serving the SME market need. “This phase will see us layering resellers deeper into channel segments such as group software specialists, system integrators and specialist printing solutions resellers,” he says. Along with serving the SME sector efficiently, Herbst says the company has also stabilised its other eight branches, excluding the head office in Johannesburg, in terms of stock, pre- and post-sales support, footprint, etc. A.C.T now has branches in Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Klerksdorp, East London, Nelspruit, Bloemfontein and Polokwane. Herbst says as the traditional printer market has converged with the office supplies sector(copier and fax), it is vital for resellers that would like to play in this space to take cognisance of the fact that they have to sell solutions and not product specifications, features and paper feeds. He believes this belongs in the past. “We are not seeing a lot of printing solution resellers,” he says. “I am led to believe there are about 10 resellers countrywide that can sell printing solutions.” Looking ahead, Herbst says A.C.T will continue assisting its resellers and urging them to become printing solution specialists targeting specific niche markets with a strong value proposition. “If resellers that play in this space rely on offering the lowest price, they will be swallowed as printer and copier convergence will force product  movers out out of of business businessininfavour favourofofsolution solutionspecialists,” specialists,”heheconcludes. concludes.

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Change pays off Benefits of improved partner focus.

By Manda Banda

Craig Brunsden, chief marketing officer at Axiz attributes his nomination to the list of this year’s top channel executives to the fact that his business has seen tremendous internal changes over the past 12 months with the implementation of a new ERP system and its management team has also spent a lot of time looking at the business critically from end to end. “As a result, we’ve looked at the business through the eyes of our customers more than ever. We’ve spent time restructuring teams and making changes to internal processes to improve the experience when dealing with us. It’s been very challenging but rewarding, and is still very much ongoing,” he says. He comments that the credit crunch and possible market slowdown are a concern and Axiz is feeling pressure from all sides.

“As an industry, we need long-term solutions to the skills and environmental challenges that face us to be sustainable into the next decades.” – Craig Brunsden, Axiz

“We’ve really focused on making changes to our business that make it easier to deal with us at the most basic levels. If we can reduce the time resellers have to invest in completing transactions quickly and accurately, we can spend more time on converting opportunities to results which will benefit everybody in our ecosystem. Credit is not the only challenge we face, and issues like post-sales support, pre-sales expertise and tools for helping our customers win business

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and be more competitive are high on our agenda,” he explains. He says his nomination comes at a time when the company has a decentralised and consultative management structure and he is fortunate to represent a great team. “It’s been the team’s efforts under pressure and its commitment to constantly improve and perform that has stood out for me over the past year.” “Like in any other industry, consolidation is sometimes necessary at all levels. The role of distributors has changed over time and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to meet all the objectives of the major global brands as well as the needs of a diverse range of customers and be efficient (and profitable) in a fiercely contested market. Consolidation either directly or through partnerships makes sense to ensure the distribution channel as a whole remains strong,” he continues. Looking ahead, he says resellers can expect Axiz to improve consistency in the experience of doing business with it. “We’ve made big strides in the past six months and have a plan for the future that is already showing results, which has changed the way we measure and manage our business.” Brunsden has been in the IT industry for13 years. “A mate of mine working at Axiz convinced me it was better than a walkabout trip overseas. I still haven’t been on that trip.” Before joining Axiz he worked for Nedbank and tried his hand at running a small freight forwarding business. He says what fascinates him about the local IT industry is the pace, which is exciting, yet has a weird sense of consistency about it. The more things change, the more they remain the same. When he is not assisting resellers to close deal, he spends time with his family and friends, running, mountain biking, cycling and playing golf. “The most pressing channel issues are different depending on where you are in it and what the time scale is. As a whole, I’d say the channel’s long-term sustainability is due to finite resources. This is not just financial capital but human and natural capital resources as well. As an industry, we need long-term solutions to the skills and environmental challenges that face us to be sustainable into the next decades,” he concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Nxumalo wins with partners Aligning strategies bears fruit.

By Kaunda Chama

Reggie Nxumalo, OEM director, is the man in charge of taking his business unit to market through partners at Microsoft says that the past 12 months have been about working with partners while at the same time aligning strategies with them.

When he is not playing his part in the world of technology, he fancies himself as an above average golf player and as if that is not enough exercise, he is planning to take part in the Triathlon next year and has started road running and swimming preparations.

He says that most of his efforts have been around creating demand for the many products that the world’s largest software vendor has been bringing to market. “Our partners’ response has been very positive to our strategies and product releases because they are always looking to us to reinvent and innovate with software solutions. Just look at what we are doing in the virtualisation space,” comments Nxumalo. He adds that the past year has seen him spending a lot of time with Microsoft solution provider partners, working very closely with them as away of fully understanding their needs.

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He says that he has also seen some reorganisation in the software solution provider space, which will have a positive effect on the market. Regarding the consolidation in this space, he comments: “From the outside it seems it’s a simple case of big player takes little player, but it is more dynamic than that. A lot of the smaller system builders are shrinking due to global pressure and a lot of these guys have either to be bought by the bigger players or reinvent themselves in order to survive.” He says that even if one looks at IDC data, it is difficult for local system builders to compete in this market because the end-user is still demanding global brands both on the software and hardware side. “Looking ahead, resellers can look forward to thought leadership and innovation as Microsoft continually reinvents its business models in line with market trends and technology advancements,” Nxumalo says. His entry into the ICT space was somewhat interesting, much like most of his peers. He started in the SMCG business with Coca-Cola and later joined Cell C on its launch as the national sales manager. He joined HP in 2001 and recently moved to Microsoft in his current position. “What excited me about the ICT sector so much is that it has woven itself into every aspect of out society and I do not see it slowing down any time soon,” Nxumalo comments. When he is not playing his part in the world of technology, he fancies himself as an above average golf player and as if that is not enough exercise, he is planning to take part in the Triathlon next year and has started road running and swimming preparations. According to him, one of the most pressing challenges in the channel as well as the ICT sector as a whole is the rate of change from a technology introduction perspective as well as the solution provider’s ability to anticipate that change and stay ahead of the game. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Partner intimacy By Manda Banda

Rectron’s Zandre Rudolph is among this year’s top channel executives and says this is as a result of gaining partner confidence by working closer with them than before. “The main focus has really been on working more closely with our customers, and supporting and assisting them in their business environments to make sure we can grow and close sales. We have launched a couple of new products in the past couple of months, so we have been really working closely with customers to introduce these products to their customers. Product, position, price and promotions have been driving our activities with our partners over the past couple of months,” he explains. On the subject of the credit crunch and the possible slowdown in IT spending, he comments that Rectron has seen a couple of challenging months, and some extraordinarily good ones. Regarding his nomination, he says that one of the main reasons is that he has been working closely with the company’s internal sales team and its customers to help them grow their businesses together with Rectron. On the topic of consolidation, he says the industry will definitely see something happen. “In these crazy times it’s about how you spend your money, use your resources and manage your business processes. Rectron has made a lot of changes to ensure that it runs a

lean and mean operation.” Looking ahead, Rectron will continue to support the reseller channel. It has just replaced HP with Epson and Samsung, and has a couple of other new products in the pipeline. “So what can resellers expect from Rectron… we will ensure that they have access to the best quality products and service around, so that they can grow their businesses.” Rudolph’s career in IT started at Rectron. He has been with the company almost nine years. Coming from a sales background, he wanted to get involved in IT. “At that stage everyone was talking about the IT industry and it was the field to be in. He had an interview and got the job. “I started in sales as a junior account manager and I guess I can say I have never looked back. I have grown with Rectron throughout the years, and the IT industry and Rectron are still my passions,” he explains. When he is not working with his channel partners, Rudolph spends his spare time at home with his family. “My wife and I were blessed with a baby boy in December. So it has been an adjustment. But all is good. He is indeed the apple of my eye.” According to Rudolph, the most pressing channel business issue in SA is the current market situation. “To be honest, we have been through worse times. This is something we will have to deal with and manage. It doesn’t help to be negative. Think about it, a couple of years ago we were in a worse situation with the rand,” he concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Trusted and tested leadership By Dudu Shaba

Graham Duxbury, CEO, Duxbury Networking, has been nominated by solution providers in the channel as one of the top 20 Channel Executives for 2008. Duxbury attributes this nomination to the support of his team at Duxbury Networking. “The excellent relationships we have fostered with our channel partners are due to the application of a tried-and-tested business formula that we first modelled 24 years ago. At its core are requirements for excellence in support, technical backup and partnering with world-class vendors,” he says. According to Duxbury, the company has a number of important plans for 2008. “We intend expanding our stock holding to meet the requirements of our growing core of resellers, so new warehouse facilities are on the cards,” he says. Duxbury goes on to say that the company has learnt that a distribution business can no longer be viable if it relies on a sales force that is solely product sales orientated. He adds that a challenge, which the company has successfully met, has been to build a team capable of addressing areas that generate profitable revenues, such as consulting, integration, installation and support services.

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“For example, we know that dealers are being asked to optimise existing corporate networks and other infrastructures. In these instances the technical ability to integrate diverse product sets and implement software solutions that extend the life of legacy systems are vitally important,” he explains. Duxbury says the company has seen a steady increase in the demand for technical training from its reseller partners. “Our challenge is not only to take training to the reseller base, but to broaden the skills of those who are already trained and, in the process, take technical training to a higher level,” he remarks. “One of our key messages to our channel partners is to continue working with Duxbury Networking and leverage the technical skills and support infrastructures that we bring to market. We say ‘let us work with you to secure major deals and support larger customers. We’ll all benefit in the long run’,” he comments. Duxbury says the company’s strategy for the coming years is to continue building on its strong foundation, the cornerstone which was laid 24 years ago. “This means that Duxbury Networking will continue to offer best-ofbreed networking products at the right price, in the right place with an all-embracing partnership approach to business,” he concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Relationships, relationships, relationships By Manda Banda

Softline Pastel’s Rudi Pheiffer is one of the finalists in this year’s Channel Executive awards as rated by solution providers in the local channel. In response to this he says: “As always, Softline Pastel’s focus has been on empowering its channel to go beyond accounting. Specifically, in the past 12 months we have concentrated on getting the channel excited about BI, CRM and customer service, and have seen a growing interest in these solutions. Regarding his nomination, he comments that it’s all about relationships and delivering on your promises. “I believe in win-win scenarios and honest, two-way communication. It also helps that the channel partners are a terrific bunch of people. At Pastel, we listen carefully to our channel. We understand the role all 3 500 of our partners play in our continued growth.” He says that the company has seen and will continue to see consolidation in the IT market. For example, while Pastel is South African-born and is SA’s leader in accounting, payroll and business software for the SME market, it is also used by 180 000 businesses worldwide and is sold in over 52 countries through a network of more than 3 500 channel partners. Market structures are fluid and the world is definitely becoming a smaller place. Looking ahead, he says that the company has just updated its

loyalty points structure in its channel programme which is now aimed at benefiting everyone, especially the smaller players. “We also have an exciting new release due later this year which will provide excellent sales opportunities to the channel and significant enhancements for customers. The channel can also look forward to other exciting new products in the online arena.” Pheiffer has been involved with Pastel for the greater part of 10 years. “I started out as an article clerk using Pastel. My passion soon shifted from numbers to people and I became a Pastel channel partner myself. Given my passion for IT, working for Pastel was a natural progression as it allowed me to combine all my interests and passions.” “While the tighter economy in 2008 will affect everyone, we are finding that channel partners in the outlying regions face quite different challenges to those operating in the metropolitan areas. The outlying channel partners generally encounter more price-conscious customers. Their challenge is to convince their customers to go beyond accounting and consider solutions that provide a big picture overview of the business and enable better strategic decision-making. The channel partners in the metropolitan areas, on the other hand, face greater competition and therefore have to do a lot more to differentiate themselves,” he concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Top honours for Voster By Kaunda Chama

Omi Accounts’ Gauteng sales manager, Malan Voster, has made it onto the list of the top channel executives in this year’s CRN survey. He says the past 12 months have seen him focusing on brand awareness. “My top priority was creating and maintaining brand awareness while at the same time building good relationships between Omni Accounts and its partners,” he says. He comments the credit crunch has not really affected the company’s channel partners because of the scalability of its product. “Because of our product’s scalability, our dealers don’t have to spend as much money initially, so they don’t wind up in a situation where they have a lot of capital tied up in stock,” he says. This means that the company’s top dealers can enjoy better margins. He adds that the nature of Omni Accounts’ solution has received very positive responses from existing and potential partners. “Everywhere we go we get very positive responses,” Voster comments. When asked what he attributes to his partners’ confidence in him and his nomination to the list of top channel executives, Voster says: “I think this is a result of the relationship s I have built up with our dealers, and the nature and quality of our product. I strongly believe that if you maintain healthy relationships with partners and have a

good solution to offer them, most of your work is done.” He says if dealers like a product, they will like the person who supplies it to them even more. On the topic of the consolidation taking place in the ICT space, he says that it makes sense in that when the global economy gets a little tighter, smaller companies find it hard to stay afloat and most of the time wind up being swallowed by the bigger guys. Looking ahead, Voster says Omni Accounts will concentrate on maintaining its growth path. “We enjoyed very good growth last year and we aim to continue that trend while focusing on improving product quality and expanding our sales team,” he says. Voster has been with Omni Accounts for three-and-a-half years, before that he was an entrepreneur. What excites him about the industry is that it is very vibrant and he enjoys being part of a sales and marketing team on an exciting product. When not part of an exciting sales and marketing team, Voster enjoys getting away and doing a little traveling, he is also a lover of nature and likes being in the great outdoors. He says one of the pressing issues is provision of utilities, stating that the current load shedding will definitely have adverse effects on business in general and not just on the ICT sector. 

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2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Lee in the lead By Kaunda Chama

Novell’s Matthew Lee is on this year’s list of top channel executives. He says the nomination is as a result of his taking time to understand the company’s partners and giving them what they needs as opposed to just pushing product through them. “At times this has called on me to help partners to understand other technologies and not just ours, and this makes a difference in the way they perceive you,” he notes. He adds that end-users and partners have learned from the past when they were sold technologies that they only used 30 per cent of and are now more demanding. Besides handling both value and volume partners since November, Lee has also been placing a lot of emphasis on driving skills development for partners. “Many people wonder what the secret is to maintaining healthy relationships with partners. I keep a good level of simplicity and make sure that there is utmost ease of doing business with the company. We all have jobs to do and ethics to adhere to so, at the end of the day, we just need to take the confusion out of doing business,” explains Lee. When asked about the consolidation taking place in the industry, he says that it is about economies of scale and often smaller distributors find themselves in a situation where they do not have the capacity to meet the business demands that come with growth.

“This is when they need the backing of a bigger entity and in most cases it means being bought by a bigger distributor,” he comments. Lee says that Novell partners can look forward to dealing with a vendor that will be in bed with them engage with them at all levels. “We will make sure that we are always here for our partners because we believe that this is the true meaning of a business partnership,” Lee says. The company recently implemented a lead-generation tool for its customers, which it predicts will go a long way in improving partners’ revenues on Novell business. Lee has been in the ICT industry for 15 years. Interestingly, he started as plumber about 17 years ago and, after a stint in the air force, he worked for a networking distributor called Delta 9. After this, he worked at Pinnacle Networking. He later joined Comztek after which worked for Tarsus and then joined Novell last year. When not dealing in ICT solutions, he is very much a family man who enjoys the outdoors and scuba diving, a sport he recommends to all who are not afraid of deep water. Regarding pressing issues facing the channel, Lee says that skills availability and shortage take the top spot. “The problem in the industry is that there is not as much skills creation as there is skills recycling and this is resulting in a lack of solution skills in the sector,” he concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Vorster makes the list again By Kaunda Chama

Graham Vorster, Chief Technology Officer and Vendor Director at networking distributor Westcon SA, is once again one of the top channel executives. He attributes the confidence shown in him by his company’s channel partners to the fact that the company has been focusing on various key initiatives, which include adding further value to all its resellers through its distribution programmes such as OneVoice, OneDefense and ConvergencePoint. Others include developing an overarching programme for all of its commercial resellers to bring high growth technology opportunities to them; building out on its data centre solutions, with significant announcements in the short term; extending financial solutions to the channel via Westcon Finance; extending cost-effective training to the channel via the Westcon Academy; focusing resources on SP offerings; verticalising its high-touch sales force to grow opportunities for its resellers, that is government, retail and manufacturing; and a significant investment in an ERP system. “We have placed significant focus on extending our solution offering in the commercial market, where we are still seeing significant growth opportunities for the 2T channel. Among these commercial efforts, which are aimed at the mid and SME markets, are: various security programmes, two major voice programmes and the

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announcement of a significant data centre offering. He says the company has, over the past 12 months, received an overwhelming response to all of its initiatives, which is proved by the large growth it has shown in reseller count this year. Regarding his nomination, Vorster says the hard work of all the sales, product and marketing guys at Westcon SA, combined with its closer relationships with its resellers were major contributors. On the topic of consolidation in the IT industry he comments: “We believe that to truly add value to the reseller community you need to have the right scope and scale. I think we are seeing various economic forces bringing the limitations of boutique distribution to the fore, which will ultimately lead to the major vendors consolidating their routes to market.” Vorster is an 18-year veteran of the IT industry, 13 of those in the distribution world, and five in the reseller community. “I joined the industry with Arthur and Jenny Brooke at Triadic, when he was just starting his networking outsource business from his house,” he says. Regarding the most pressing channel business issue in SA at the moment, he says it is the skills shortage, not only technical but also for identifying the advantages which an early mover can have. “Our channel has many look alike resellers with very similar GTM models. We need innovators in this space.” 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Undying commitment By Dudu Shaba

Stefan Diedericks, senior channel manager, Oracle SA, has been nominated by solution providers in the channel as on of the best executives in the channel. Diedericks comments that a nomination of this kind from the industry at large is always a humbling experience, yet simultaneously energises him in realising that personal levels of passion, engagement and delivery to the channel is valued and recognised. “ I believe that a tri-partite commitment is necessary at all times to ensure successful channel-based delivery to the end customers, this involves extensive engagement between the vendor, the partner and the channel manager to ensure committed delivery around a common objective and value set. Once these have been defined and agreed, it is crucial to execute at speed to ensure go to markets succeed, that profitability is ensured for all parties involved and that customer service of the highest levels is delivered,” he says. Diedericks says that Oracle in Europe, the Middle East and Africa has a series of drivers for the business and to the Alliance and Channel organisation. “This translates into 360-degree partner views and alignment, executive partner engagement models, excellence in training adoption and exceeded targets in terms of revenue and growth. In the coming year, we will be focusing heavily on partner enablement and growth in terms of sales and I mplementation services, and the

increased adoption of the product set across the Middle East and Africa region,” he says. Through partnering excellence, Diedericks says that Oracle is turning its approach into a programme that nurtures, enables and engages new and existing partners. “The objective is to build up their skills and competencies to help them grow their revenues and extend Oracle’s sales coverage, the 19 500 strong global Oracle Partner Network. Furthermore the Alliance and Channel Organization manages the overall business relationship with Oracle’s partners to ensure they are aligned with our products and strategies to help partners maximise their revenue and profit opportunities through partnering with us,” he says. Diedericks says that the partner commitment to customer choice, industry specialisations and applications has seen Oracle growing and this is attributable to channel partners’ commitment to product acquiescence, skills development and aggressive marketing. Currently, Diedericks says the company is focused on increasing the level of partner participation and presence in its marketing and business development activities. “Our goal is to work with ISVs to win more strategic deals with customers, create more repeatable offerings with system integrators and continuously improve our resellers’ skills to ensure they can compete and win,” he concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Building trust with partners By Dudu Shaba

Patricia Martins, channel manager, Sun Microsystems, has been nominated by solution providers in the channel as one of 2008’s admired channel executives. She says this is due to her drive towards excellence with the vision of long-term sustainable partnerships. “Passion is a key ingredient for success,” she says. In the year since joining Sun Microsystems, Martins says that the company has been building trust with partners with a culture that is based on transparency and predictability. “One needs to really understand the partner’s business objectives in order to get mind share and for them to further invest in the respective technologies,” she says. Martins says the company’s ongoing challenge is to assist partners to increase profit. “The market is competitive and we see IT becoming more commoditised. Customers are spending more wisely and looking to drive down their costs,” she comments. Martins says that the company’s plans are to increase profitability for partners and to strengthen its current alliances. “We aim to grow our market share in SA, East and Central Africa and drive major growth in West Africa. Implementing a strong channel to drive our volume products such as X64 and modular storage

into the market is our priority,” she remarks. She goes on to say that Sun Microsystems is in the process of changing market perceptions that it only plays in the highend server market. “We want to continue to grow our SPARC business, we are also prominent players in storage, software and systems such as X64,” she says.

“One needs to really understand the partner’s business objectives in order to get mind share to further invest in the respective technologies.” – Patricia Martins, Sun Microsystems. Martins is encouraging Sun Microsystems’ partners to continue with their innovation and also to adapt to the ever-changing dynamics in the marketplace. “Flexibility and agility give partners a competitive advantage. Look to sell complementary solutions coupled with services to increase value and thus revenues,” she concludes. 

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2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Berimbau one of the top A.C.T’s Herbst gets channel nod.

By Kaunda Chama

Sally Berimbau, Novell Product Manager at distribution house Workgroup says there is much to be gained both personally and in business from creating solid relationships with partners.

“I do, however, believe that the right mix of product and business model will help a lot of distributors and solution providers to stay in business through these tough times,” she concludes.” – Sally Berimbau, Workgroup

She says that the main reason she was nominated one of the top channel executives in this year’s CRN research is because of her and the company’s focus on delivering good service, having a competitive edge as well as maintaining good relationships with Workgroup’s solution providers. She says, she has noticed that the product base has changed quite a lot because the company’s partners have been focusing on heterogeneous products for their solutions, adding that the good thing is that most of them are available through the distributor. “The past 12 months have also seen us placing a lot of focus on training and other types of business development initiatives,” says Berimbau.

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She explains that on the back of all these initiatives, she has received an overwhelmingly positive response from solution provider partners. This has been so good that she has managed to keep the Novell Distributor of the Year accolade for the past two years. On the subject of consolidation in the local and global channel, Berimbau comments that the smaller players in the space have been battling to stay afloat and most of them needed to be bought and made part of bigger distributors as a way of helping their businesses grow. From a Workgroup point of view, Berimbau says that the company has a very good reputation in the market and a business model that is effective, adding that its business has been so good that it has managed to maintain positive growth year on year since it became a single entity. Looking ahead, she admits that Workgroup needs to focus on and do some hard work in the system resource management (SRM) space as a way of growing its revenues. Of her own career, Berimbau says that she has always been effective in sales and started off selling vacuum cleaners for Electrolux in the ‘90s. In 2000 she sent her CV to Workgroup and the rest, as they say, is history. Workgroup remains one of the successful players in the channel space locally and the Novell brand also remains top of mind for distributors, solution providers and end-users. Even with this in mind, Berimbau believes that the new credit act is causing quite a problem for credit lines not only in the channel but in business in general, adding that it is causing a knock-on effect that is affecting market stability. “I do, however, believe that the right mix of product and business model will help a lot of distributors and solution providers to stay in business through these tough times,” she concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Perry emerges victorious Highly committed to giving excellent service.

“It’s a combination of superb products, excellent people, great partners and market acceptance of the entire package offered by HP.” – Mark Perry, HP.

By Dudu Shaba

Mark Perry, country manager, Solutions Partner Organization, HP has been nominated one of the best channel executives for 2008 by solution providers in the channel. He attributes this to HP’s power and its preferred partner brand. “One cannot take all the credit alone, it is a combination of superb products, excellent people, great partners and market acceptance of the entire package offered by HP,” he says. According to him, HP’s plans for this year are to modify its Preferred Partner Programme, to introduce some great new products and continue to focus on skills and enterprise development in SA. Perry says the company was faced with the challenge of resolving

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issues concerning services but it managed to overcome them. “We have had some challenges in the services area but these have been aggressively addressed, with the help of our partners’ feedback and a dedicated services/support team, we are rapidly improving the situation. Continuous feedback on progress is given to our channel partners. As with any challenge half the battle is won when you take cognisance of the issues at hand and have a concrete plan. Most importantly, it is key to monitor and ensure that nothing detracts from the ultimate goal of satisfying the customer,” he says. The lessons learned here are that all our staff members have to knuckle down and take ownership of a problem, even when their job description does not match those actions,” he says. Perry comments that the pressing issues in the channel are always margin related. “It has been continually preached that a company cannot survive on hardware margins alone - the survivors have embraced the Preferred Partner Programme and wrapped other value-added services and offerings around the infrastructure,” he says. Perry encourages channel partners is to stick with HP. “We are evolving rapidly and your company can only benefit from being a loyal preferred partner. This year, our plans are quite simply to increase our dominance in the worldwide market by empowering our partners and customers by offering world-class business solutions,” concludes Perry. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Brandkamp takes it for Comztek Cementing relationships By Kaunda Chama

Uwe Brandkamp, Comztek’s Networks Business Unit director has been nominated one of the top channel executives in CRN’s Channel Executive survey. Commenting on his nomination, he says: “My focus has been specifically on cementing relationships with our customers in the South African and African markets. Additionally, we have been on a drive to expand our business in the mid-market and SME channel. I have also added to our very competent team of channel managers, and have added some products to round off our network products portfolio. We have continued to add to our very successful services offering.” On the channel credit crunch, he comments that it’s still about adding tangible business value to end customers and gaining trust by providing a dependable service to customers.

“My focus has been specifically on cementing relationships with our customers in the South African and African markets.” – Uwe Brandkamp, Comztek

“Opportunities to partner in providing innovative solutions exist in our market – collaboration and planning together with our customers has proved very successful in the past. As far as credit is concerned, we have perhaps been a little more helpful than the rest of the distribution market and although our customers often shy away from having payment term discussions with their customers we have been very successful in deals where financial discussions were introduced early in the sales cycle,” says Brandkamp. In the past 12 months Comztek has focused on building its call centre capability and has tripled the number of resources. “We have a team of good people working in our call centres and

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telesales which has increased our call-handling capacity and improved our customer service by a significant magnitude in the past year. I think we can still improve further and this will continue to remain a focus for us,” he explains. Brandkamp further says the reason the channel is seeing a lot of acquisitions is that vendor and market growth demands on the industry as well as the increased financial resources required to sustain this are factors contributing to current market conditions. Regarding the recognition he received, he comments that the company’s loyal customers that enjoy good levels of service and value have a lot to do with it. “I hope that they will continue to let us know where we can improve or fix our services. My commitment is to continue to deal with such issues efficiently and openly,” he adds. On the issue of consolidation in the IT industry, particularly given the rate at which solution providers are liquidated and the credit risk distributors are subjected to, Brandkamp says: “The changes in our market are not a bad thing and will hopefully take it to the next level. Also, we have not had major changes since Siltek – maybe things have bottled up a bit.” Looking ahead, he says the company’s focus areas will be the mid-market and SMEs (and all the bells and whistles to go with it) as well as Africa. Regarding his tenure in the IT space, he says: “I started in this industry in the early ‘80s and if my parents had their way I would have been a chemist or a doctor. Technology outside of the mainframe was just rearing its head and I always admired what my father was doing as an electronic engineer. So when the opportunity presented itself to join NCR in those days I jumped at it. In the mid-eighties I got involved in a fledgling venture around PCs and networks – and this venture, through mergers and acquisitions, landed me at Comztek in 1999.” He says that if he had his way, he would have been a pro soccer player, but he really started considering IT as a career in his matric year. When asked about the pressing isues in the SA channel today, Brandkamp says that other than the clichéd issues such as credit, skills, margins and the exchange rate, the channel should look at the positives in the market. “I still believe we have some of the best opportunities for growth right here in SA and neighbouring markets, entrepreneurship, new developments, creativity and bringing new solutions to market. So a positive outlook would go a long way,” he concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Kleynhans has the power By George Maseko

When the APC-MGE deal was finalised last year, it came with all the industry jitters of a merger, but the company has managed to become an entity to be reckoned with and the business venture could have not come at a better time. At the centre of this UPS vendor’s channel success is Carl Kleynhans who, after the deal, stopped handling the South African business, but soon after took control of it and has been running the Africa channel business for APC MGE. Interestingly, while the rest of the ICT space has been feeling the full force of the credit crunch, Kleynhans feels that the situation on the continent (with the issues of load shedding) has protected APC MGE because it is in the business of selling backup power solutions. “Strictly speaking, the power crisis has played in our favour. Even the new credit act has not affected us much,” he comments. He adds that one of the strengths for the company over the past 12 months has been its dedication to doing all of its business through channel partners who have also benefited from its “Payback” channel programme. “With the help of these partners we have managed to make a big impact in the corporate space, and now with the power outages, we are seeing a lot of interest being generated from the domestic market as well,” notes Kleynhans.

The company also boasts quite an impressive line up of partners, including the likes of Tarsus, Dimension Data, Square One and Drive Control. Regarding the consolidation that is taking place in the channel, Kleynhans feels that it is part of the industry’s natural progression and it would happen even without the credit crunch. APC MGE’s strategy involves a big focus on maximising the synergies between both brands as well as value-added services and revamping all of the company’s channel programmes. Kleynhans started his career in the freight industry in the 1990s and in 1998, saw the potential in the ICT space and after a very effective referral made a conscious decision to join APC and has been there ever since. According to him, some of the pressing issues in the channel include the fact that that there is not enough being done in terms of people development and retention. He feels there is too much skills recycling and not enough new skills being created. He even suggests creating and implementing strategies around bringing back a lot of the skills that have been lost through people emigrating. Finally, he says that the country’s and continent’s utilities need an urgent upgrade to keep up with the rate of growth. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Kramer among the top By George Maseko

When asked what he sees as the reason for receiving a vote of confidence from Tricon’s channel partners, Steven Kramer business development manager, commented that understanding their requirements and catalysing their growth were major factors. He comments that a lot of resellers do not fully understand what is available to them from a services and support point of view; and his job has been one of enlightening them on all of this. In addition, Kramer also tasked himself with fully explaining the advantages of IBM’s global finance to the company’s channel partners. He adds that the response to this has been tremendous with many partners considering IBM Global Finance as an option. Asked his opinion about the number of acquisitions taking place in the channel, Kramer says some companies don’t have the financial backbone to finance their own growth and need the muscle of the “big guys”, who are mostly listed entities, to provide the necessary financial backing. Especially in this time when local and global markets are feeling the effects of the credit crunch,” he explains. He comments that the another reason why he was received commendation from the company’s channel partners is that the culture within Tricon is that of having a close working relationship with part-

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ners to the extent where it even seems Tricon is an extension or part of that business. Looking ahead, and now that the Pinnacle-Tricon deal has been finalised the business has officially moved over, Kramer says: “From our perspective, it is vital that nothing changes in terms of the way we engage our channel partners unless it is a positive business change that is mutually beneficial. We are not allowing the fact that Pinnacle Micro purchased our business to change our business relationships.” He adds that Tricon prides itself on is its level of skills in the IBM and Lenovo space. On a personal level, he is somewhat of a “veteran” in the ICT space, he studied for a BSC in computer science, served a stint in the army, after which he worked at NCR in 1987 on the technical side. After leaving the country for 10 months, he came back and worked for Epsidon, which later became First Distribution, ran the IBM division as SDD, moved over to MTN for eight months and took charge of the HP division at Axiz before joining Tricon. He admits that he wanted to be a vet, but his BSC in computer science paved his path into the ICT space. When Kramer is not talking bits and bytes, he is quite a keen golfer and makes time to go to the driving range every Wednesday and Saturday. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Back to win By George Maseko

When Gary de Menezes took a three-year sabbatical from the world of IT, he surely did not expect to come back and be a star performer in such a short time. Barley seven months after returning to the IT sector and joining PC vendor Lenovo to head its channel business, he has already been recognised by the company’s channel partners as a top performer. As channel manager, De Menezes says that one of his key strengths is that he takes time to build trust with Lenovo’s channel partners and works hard to maintain it. De Menezes recently spearheaded the launch of Lenovo’s new rewards programme dubbed Club Lenovo, which rewards participants - both the owners of reseller businesses and their sales forces for selling Lenovo TopSeller products: PCs, monitors, peripherals and services specifically configured and priced for the needs of SMEs. “The programme has received great responses from the market. It only got really active at the beginning of this year and we already have about 500 registrations. He comments that Lenovo and its partners have not really been affected by the credit crunch that is currently upsetting the IT space, stating that business is still growing between 50 and 70 per cent year on year. “The notebook space is still vibrant and the introduction of Pinnacle Micro as our second distributor will give our products better exposure and market coverage,” he says.

He adds that one of the major reasons that got him nominated is the taking of Lenovo kit to market with competitive pricing, making sure that it is the right product and is available at all times. De Menezes does not see consolidation in the hardware space becoming a big issue because despite the few changes that have taken place, he is still seeing a lot of resellers coming into the space. “One of Lenovo’s strengths is its product quality, but this is also the company’s best kept secret. However, the company’s engagement through the channel has been remarkable with a good channel strategy and increased product awareness,” he explains. He says that looking at the next 12 months, the channel can expect to see Lenovo going to market as an aggressive company with innovative and new products in all its disciplines. De Menezes is a 20-year veteran of the IT sector, having started his career at Telkom, he then worked in the IT division of Nedcor before moving to the then Ariel technologies (now T-Systems), then moving to HP’s software division, then Compaq and was commercial director at Acer before taking a three-year break. “I like the IT space because of its vibe, there is never a dull moment; there is always something happening whether it is good or bad. On top of that, the people in the industry are great and very professional so you make many friends and acquaintances in this business,” he concludes. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Understanding customer strengths, challenges By Stanley Chishala

Lisa Kelynack has already earned her heroine credentials for pioneering Citrix’s channel training efforts and taking them to resellers so they can skill up. Now, this Citrix Systems partner account manager, who started her career in the recruitment industry where she specifically recruited for IT clients, appears to be warming up to Citrix’s solution provider partners as she charts a new course for the integration middleware vendor’s renewed channel growth. “I’ve been in the IT industry for close to 15 years. I started off in IT recruitment, where I stayed for about 10 years and then moved to Citrix, where I’ve been for the past four-and-a-half years,” she says. With a strong IT recruitment background, Kelynack found it easy to settle into her role at Citrix. But was IT her calling as a kid? Kelynack says, on the contrary, computers and IT weren’t really a big thing when she was growing up. “We still played outside and rode our bikes in the street,” she recalls. “I didn’t really have one specific passion. One week I wanted to be an air hostess, the next I wanted to be a veterinary surgeon.” Having carved a niche for herself in the IT industry, Kelynack says she never regrets settling in this industry. However, she is astounded by the fact that there are few resellers that value educating their staff. This, along with the lack of skills and the continuing brain drain in

the IT industry continue to be pain points in the local channel, says Kelynack. She explains that it is for this reason Citrix SA has been focusing on two key areas with regard to the channel in the past 12 months. Kelynack says the two areas are educating the channel, and getting solution providers to specialise and focus on specific verticals. “We are now offering reduced cost and free training to our channel to assist it in obtaining certification for our solution offerings,” she says. “Our new incentive programme also helps partners to focus on selling the Citrix Platinum range to their customers.” Kelynack says there are huge incentives for up-selling Citrix solutions to their customers. In some instances, they can earn bonuses of up to 50 per cent on all Advisor Rewards-approved claims that are validated by Citrix. Kelynack says one of the reasons that may have contributed to her being recognised in the 2008 Channel Executive Awards has to do with understanding the strengths and challenges of partners’ businesses, which has enabled Citrix to tailor its initiatives to assist them in growing their businesses. “Our main focuses for this year are around educating the channel and giving back to it through rewards programmes for selling our solutions into their customer bases,” she concludes. 

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2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Erasing reseller cash flow worries By Stanley Chishala

It’s been a great year for Channel Capital, MB Technologies’ newest subsidiary, but you won’t hear excessive bragging from the company’s MD, Ron Keschner, who was instrumental in setting up this financial business for local resellers. It is no wonder Keschner has made it onto the 2008 Channel Executive Awards list. Keschner believes Channel Capital has hit a nerve with reseller partners, as clearly a lot of them are smarter businessmen. It is this involvement in setting up Channel Capital and the overall approach the entire MB Technologies group has taken in helping resellers to ease their financial worries that have won him admiration from the channel. Keschner adds the move to launch Channel Capital and the approach the company has taken is paying off. He adds that his focus has been a simple one – to ease the cash flow concerns of reseller partners in the channel and to add new income streams to their businesses. He points out that for too long, resellers have been playing second fiddle to many of the other service suppliers to South African businesses. Having ventured into the IT channel as an “outsider” gave Keschner a clear perspective of the industry without any preconceived

ideas. “It was pretty clear to me that our customers needed a lot more than just box moving from us,” he recalls. “My first task soon after joining Tarsus was to create PartneRewards, the channel’s longest running loyalty programme,” he says. This was followed by another Keschner brainchild – Channel Business College, a business skills channel training programme which has proven successful and will be exported into the rest of Africa later this year. Prior to getting involved and establishing himself in the IT industry, Keschner spent 14 years in the financial press field, looking after Business Day and Financial Mail. “When industry doyenne Leo Baxter asked me to come across to assist the MB Technologies group with its JSE listing in 1998, I jumped at the opportunity to get into what was then the ‘sexiest’ industry on earth,” he says. So after 10 years in the fast-paced, ever-changing IT industry, Keschner believes he made the best move ever and the channel is firmly in his blood. “I really can’t imagine being anywhere else and, if the channel will permit, I’d like nothing more than to see out the rest of my career right here,” he says. For someone who wanted to be a rock star when he was growing up, Keschner enjoys riding motorbikes, watching his eight-year-old daughter ride her horse and catching as much sport as he possibly can in the limited leisure time that he has available. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Communication is king Enhancing Epson’s visibility. By Stanley Chishala

When Hans Dummer was a kid, all he wanted to be when he grew up was an electrical engineer. Dummer did not pursue his childhood ambition of working in the demanding electrical engineering field instead he decided to branch into the fast-paced IT industry. As country GM at printing and imaging solutions vendor Epson SA, Dummer has been instrumental in turning Epson into a printer heavyweight in the local channel where a lot of printing solutions are usually synonymous with one brand – HP. In his more than 10 years at the helm of Epson SA, Dummer has played a key role in establishing its traditional, retailer and photographic channels. Of note have been his relentless efforts in building the Epson brand to rival competitor brands in the local channel. With over 20 years’ IT experience, Dummer is well aware of how hard it is to build a channel that is loyal to a brand and the solutions surrounding that brand. He says over the past 12 months or so, the company has been preoccupied with the expansion of its sales force to enhance its channel visibility. “I believe in the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ principle,” he says.

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Dummer says as Epson’s product range is quite diverse it is clear that in certain areas of its range the markets are very buoyant and this is where the company has been focused. In addition, he believes in simple, basic principles that include regular communication to the channel. “Communication is king and it is becoming clearer that training and communication are key to our building a healthy channel,” he says. Remarking on his nomination and making the top 21 Channel Executives list for 2008, Dummer believes his policy of being transparent with Epson’s partner community (distributors and resellers) is paying dividends. He says this contributed immensely to his getting the channel’s nod in this year’s awards. Commenting on consolidation in the local IT industry, Dummer says it is an ongoing process that will never stop. He explains that it is part of maximising one’s value add and offering better solutions at lower costs to the channel. Looking ahead, Dummer says the challenge for Epson will be identifying and growing its loyal resellers. He says in terms of overall channel initiatives, Epson’s channel ecosystem can expect more effective communication and better product knowledge coupled with greater Epson exposure. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

It’s all good By Stanley Chishala

It’s been a banner year for Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), but you won’t any crowing from the chip maker’s regional manager, sales and marketing country manager, Imi Mosaheb. To crown AMD’s banner year, the local solution provider community has recognised Mosaheb’s efforts as the company readies itself to tackle its fiercest rival Intel. Unlike the previous AMD representatives in SA, Mosaheb, who is the first to set-up a fully-fledged AMD office in SA, tends to avoid boasting to and antagonising competitors. Mosaheb has played a pivotal role in restructuring and streamlining the vendor’s distribution partners from seven in the past to appointing two master distributors – Asbis Africa and Ingram Micro. He says a direct result of this focus is the appointment of the two master distributors Asbis Africa and Pinnacle Micro, as opposed to the seven that AMD had a year ago. Mosaheb says AMD has seen an opportunity to deliver greater value to its customer base, despite not only the channel credit crunch, but also the energy crisis. He explains that the price-performance benefits from AMD and ATI is unmatched, allowing the company to deliver solutions to buyers that are cost-effective without sacrificing performance and productivity. “We are seeing that this affordability reach is not restrictive,

but spans across all the Living Standard Measurement (LSM) groups. Retailers are selling a Vista-based multimedia PC with AMD and ATI solutions for well under R2 000,” he says. Mosaheb says the opening of AMD’s office in SA has delivered a sense of reassurance of the company’s long-term commitment to this marketplace. “The growth in the local staff complement has further demonstrated our commitment to local resellers together with the marketing, sales and service needs for processors, motherboards and graphics products from AMD and ATI,” he says. Mosaheb, who has been in the IT industry for 15 years, kick-started his career in distribution and the channel in North America. “IT always fascinated me as it is never static. I find technology very cool and useful in helping me to live a more productive life,” he says. Aside from Mosaheb’s fascination with IT, he says the need for the local channel to re-engineer itself to provide solutions and not just components is far greater now than in the past. “Buyers are looking for energy-efficient desktops, visually rewarding PC systems for gaming, small business Exchange servers, etc,” he says. “Resellers need to provide an out-of-the-box solution versus customers selecting components and dealing with the complexity of putting together the software stack to suit their needs.” An avid soccer fan, Mosaheb loves watching football and spending time with his family when he has some free time. 

2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Nxumalo wins with partners By Kaunda Chama

Reggie Nxumalo, OEM director, is the man in charge of taking his business unit to market through partners at Microsoft says that the past 12 months have been about working with partners while at the same time aligning strategies with them. He says that most of his efforts have been around creating demand for the many products that the world’s largest software vendor has been bringing to market. “Our partners’ response has been very positive to our strategies and product releases because they are always looking to us to reinvent and innovate with software solutions. Just look at what we are doing in the virtualisation space,” comments Nxumalo. He adds that the past year has seen him spending a lot of time with Microsoft solution provider partners, working very closely with them as away of fully understanding their needs. He says that he has also seen some reorganisation in the software solution provider space, which will have a positive effect on the market. Regarding the consolidation in this space, he comments: “From the outside it seems it’s a simple case of big player takes little player, but it is more dynamic than that. A lot of the smaller system builders are shrinking due to global pressure and a lot of these guys have either to be bought by the bigger players or reinvent themselves in

order to survive.” He says that even if one looks at IDC data, it is difficult for local system builders to compete in this market because the end-user is still demanding global brands both on the software and hardware side. “Looking ahead, resellers can look forward to thought leadership and innovation as Microsoft continually reinvents its business models in line with market trends and technology advancements,” Nxumalo says. His entry into the ICT space was somewhat interesting, much like most of his peers. He started in the SMCG business with Coca-Cola and later joined Cell C on its launch as the national sales manager. He joined HP in 2001 and recently moved to Microsoft in his current position. “What excited me about the ICT sector so much is that it has woven itself into every aspect of out society and I do not see it slowing down any time soon,” Nxumalo comments. When he is not playing his part in the world of technology, he fancies himself as an above average golf player and as if that is not enough exercise, he is planning to take part in the Triathlon next year and has started road running and swimming preparations. According to him, one of the most pressing challenges in the channel as well as the ICT sector as a whole is the rate of

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LCD

monitors outpace CRT displays

A move that signifies the ever-changing monitor market. BY DUDU SHABA

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arly indications in 2008 are that sales of wide-screen LCD display panels would start outpacing square and CRT displays in PC bundles. With display research and development focusing on lower power consumption, improved picture resolution, increased colour depth, smaller size screens and flexibility as well as lowering cost, resellers stand to make good margins if they position themselves correctly to their customers. Professional and home computer users are increasingly swayed by factors such as aesthetics and connectivity options when they’re shopping for LCD displays, thanks to maturing technology. That’s according to Bongani Gumbo, product manager for LCD displays at Acer SA. He says that large-screen monitors with fast response times, bright screens and high contrast ratios have become affordable, mainstream products.

“Users take high technical specifications, sharp images and rich colours for granted, and are now looking for LCD screens that will look good in their homes or add to the professional atmosphere in their offices,” says Gumbo.

The route An improved viewing experience, sleek design and drop in price have increased LCDs’ appeal. Users are also being given ever more choices as larger formats, including 19-, 22and even 28-inch monitors are emerging. This is according to Bruce Byrne, visual communications specialist, Drive Control Corporation. To protect their investments and make more informed choices, he says that users want to know why these new formats are becoming available, which are more suitable for which applications, which

monitors are more popular and which may be phased out. “The answers they are looking for can be found in a mix of factors, namely the advancement of technology and manufacturing processes, changing business environments and new lifestyle demands,” he comments. “People are moving to smaller form factors, namely from CRT monitors, which take up a lot of desktop space and use more power to LCDs that take up less desk space,” says Craig Butterworth, sales manager, NEC Display Solutions SA. Brendon Land, country manager, ViewSonic SA also notes that CRT monitors are being phased out and replaced by LCD solutions for a very simple reason, which is that they are no longer profitable to make. He says that the uptake of LCDs has increased due to their obvious advantages > p48 and as the demand has

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increased, they have become >> p46 cheaper to produce. “We are seeing that LCD is going wide screen and DVI is the standard on most LCDs. There is also Premium Panel Technology, with enhanced aesthetics and companies can incorporate elements of their corporate design into monitors. On the consumer products lines, there are more connectivity ports, for example, RCA, USB, DVI with HDCP support, HDMI with HDCP support,” says Andrew Tsobanoglou, portfolio manager, professional products, Fujistu Siemens Computers. Gumbo points out that when users choose LCDs, they look for screens that will look good in their homes or add to the professional atmosphere in their offices. “They’re also increasingly looking for monitors that feature connectivity options such as HDMI (used for high-definition content sources like gaming consoles and BluRay players) and DVI. Warranty support is another factor that weighs in heavily when

making purchasing decisions,” he adds.

What’s new in display panels The LCD monitor space is evolving rapidly with significant developments in the market. Shane Kennedy, national sales manager, IT division, LG, says that one of LG’s current developments and introductions to the market include the LG Flatiron W52, W42, series with its “Fun” key that enables one-touch

emblazoned with LG’s slim logo. A press of this button launches a special menu with features that will appeal to serious gamers, fans of online video and also caters for the visually impaired. Main functions include 4:3 normal aspect ratio setting while using the monitor in wide format allowing the picture not to be distorted using e-zooming and photo effect. “It is widescreens, improved colour

“LCD monitors’ advantages include aesthetics, office space savings, ergonomics, and health benefits with less eye strain for end-users.” – Bongani Gumbo, Acer.

access to many of its special functions. “This user-friendly design is aimed at general application usage by both business and private consumers and is available in sizes ranging from 19-inch units all the way up to 24 inches. The series has a fun key front and centre,

Bongani Gumbo, Acer.

gamut and uniformity, different resolutions per screen size unfortunately often down to lower resolution,” says Tyrone Young, sales and marketing manger, Philips. I stand to be corrected, but this doesn’t makes sense. “19W will replace the 4:3 monitors as the staple product. Same goes for 22”W which enables users to view two A4 pages simultaneously, especially useful for banking and finance,” Lee-Anne Hutchins, Prestigo? portfolio manager, ASBIS comments.

Benefits LCD screens are becoming more established, credible and trusted in the market. Gumbo says that some of their benefits include aesthetics, office space savings, ergonomics, and health benefits with less eye strain for end-users. Additionally, with the rising electricity costs in SA, he believes that companies are adopting LCD screens because they consume less power than their CRT counterparts. “Not only do LCDs consume less power than CRT screens, but they also run cooler, which means that they put less strain on power-guzzling air-conditioning systems,” explains Gumbo. > p50 Nevertheless, Gumbo explains

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that the growing popularity of >> p48 LCDs doesn’t mean that the CRT market is dead. He says that many companies are still opting for CRT screens because they have a lower upfront purchase price. Butterworth concurs with the statement, he says that the uptake of LCDs has improved, but due to the fact the CRTs were the main monitor of choice for a long time due to cost, they remain beneficial to a lot of companies that are using them instead of changing to the newer technology. “The philosophy is more one of if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” he remarks. Land says that another benefit is the price where it plays a large role in emerging markets where the current predominant seller is CRT. “While these markets will migrate to LCDs, they will go with the cheapest solution, which is 15-inch. It will be based on the swiftness of the CRT monitor being made unavailable and a halt on production. Once this happens there will be a drive to adopt 15- or 17-inch LCDs. Given the price erosion of technology and the pace at

Werner Kuhn, Rectron

is used for. If a screen typically is purposely designed as a monitor then it lacks some of the TV specifications or features and vice

“CRT monitors are being phased out and replaced by LCD solutions for a very simple reason, which is that they are no longer profitable to make.” – Brendon Land, ViewSonic SA.

which this happens, sales of 17-inch LCD monitors as a CRT replacement is not unrealistic,” he says.

Convergence LG says that convergence still remains a challenge or stumbling block for any manufacturer of monitors and TVs. “It’s a very fine line surrounded by a slippery slope that either lends the screen towards one or the other as far as what it

versa. What LG has done is added more of what you need on your desk. Instead of reaching down to reach an inconveniently situated USB port, the new USB L206WU LCD adds the ability to connect other USB devices to the monitor by putting a USB hub on you desk. The addition of a second screen is also possible, in fact you can accommodate up to six additional screens without having to open up the computer for a second graph-

ics card,” LG who at LG? explains. According to him, studies have shown that a second monitor greatly enhances productivity and cuts down on printing. “Usually adding a second monitor was costly and a difficult procedure that required installing a second graphics card in the computer. The L206W can be connected using a simple USB cable and eliminates these hassles, putting multiple monitors within every computer user’s reach. If two screens are not sufficient, users can connect up to six monitors simultaneously. This multitalented monitor also includes DVI-D, and D-sub connectivity options, making it compatible with a wide range of computers and other devices like DVD players and iPods. This connectivity makes it especially convenient for use with laptop computers,” he explains. Meanwhile, Butterworth believes that this is still an area that is not fully understood by the channel, as > p52

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sometimes the wrong solutions are sold into the wrong applications. “People are currently using LCD TVs instead of LCD monitors, plasmas where LCDs should be used and vice versa,” he remarks. >> p50

Solution providers In order for solution providers to compete in this space, Butterworth suggests that they should focus more on the solution instead of the hardware that goes with the solution. Werner Kuhn, peripheral business manager, Rectron, says that solution providers should also consider pricing factors. “Here we have to distinguish between the different LCD panels that are available on the market. First, we have the standard PC monitor which is used on PCs and only has a VGA connector. Consumer display

“Solution providers can compete effectively by offering added value in terms of systems integration and useful life support, including upgrades,” says Hutchins Young believes that this still remains an area of great frustration. “This is due to the amount of entry-level products being sold but for a small premium. There are fantastic value adds for buying a step up model, this obviously improves the margin opportunity even for resellers.

SoHo, SMEs and consumers The SoHo, SME and consumer space has a great influence in the buying patterns of LCD monitors and display panels, according to Young, there are big opportunities in this space. “The SoHO and home users don’t have the space for an old box monitor and these are typically the users who will upgrade

also, this is a great opportunity for them to understand the needs of their customers so that they are able to bundle in a way that will enable them to make good profit. “CRT is still available but with the lack of support for CRT, the LCD market is seeing an increase,” she says. Young points out that a method that will help resellers to make money for themselves effectively is through bundling. “The only way to circumvent this is to supply bundled PC offerings with a stand alone brand monitor where there are options in the range, not just the standard offering that comes with the PC,” he says. Gumbo agrees. “Resellers should look at bundling monitors with complementary products such as notebooks and desktops to boost their profitability,” he comments. “Focus on solution sales instead of selling the hardware,” Butterworth remarks.

Looking ahead

“People are moving to smaller form factors, namely from CRT monitors, which take up a lot of desktop space and use more power, to LCDs that take up less desk space.” – Craig Butterworth, NEC.

panels are mostly used for entertainment and are generally more expensive than an equivalent size PC monitor. The reason for this is that the consumer panels generally have other multi-media connectors like RCA composite, S-VIDEO, HDMI, etc and there will be extra tax charged on these display panels since they have the ability to connect to a TV tuner. Due to this, solution providers will have a slight advantage in terms of pricing,” says Kuhn. “Fujitsu Siemens Computers’ business LCDs are manageable on corporate networks, for example, you can remotely switch off the LCD, change resolutions, says Tsobanoglou.

their monitor on their own,” he says. “I believe that all of them demand faster, slimmer and nicely designed units,” says Hutchins. Butterworth suggest that the only thing that solution providers can do is to follow the market trends, the reason being that technology changes timeously and they will be forced to follow the market route when the older technology is no longer be available.

Reseller margins The demand for monitors is increasing, the reason being that customers are beginning to realise what it can do for them. To resellers

According to Kuhn, the future of monitors especially looking forward to 2010 is the HDMI. “The World Cup Soccer has opened a lot of opportunities when it comes to the quality of the viewing. PDP’s which are HDMI ready or full HD are most asked for currently, as well as the OLED, that has better picture quality and power saving,” she says. “The future is one of new developments, and new technologies,” says Butterworth. He predicts that OLED is an up and coming technology and that digital signage is starting to make its presence to be felt in the space. Byrne concludes. “It is inevitable that LCD screens will replace CRTs and businesses and consumers are well aware of this trend. LCD technologies are sufficiently advanced that users can make their purchases with confidence. DCC has carefully selected its suppliers in the LCD monitor sector, notably ViewSonic, for the combination of quality, reliability and cost efficiency their products deliver.”

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Local Brands here to stay Remaining a better choice in SA. BY DUDU SHABA

A

few years ago, the question was whether local brands would take off. Today, this is no longer a subject for debate, chipmakers AMD and Intel continue to support the local desktop PC, notebook and server market. With this, a new onslaught from local OEM assemblers such as Axiz, Pinnacle Micro, Mecer, Sahara Computers, Rectron, Corex and Esquire, to mention a few, has boosted the local brands market as most of them have brought their own solutions to market, accompanied by comprehensive pre- and post-sales support. Francois Lottering, his titlePinnacle Micro, a manufacturer and distributor of Proline Computers, says that SA is an anomaly in the world market when it comes to locally branded systems. He says that in this country t local brands are able to compete with MNC brands. “As a local OEM we accept the fact that we have to work five times harder to sell our products because of perceptions of local brands, but when you look at the numbers you will clearly see that Proline Computers, is a genuine competitor to MNC brands,” he remarks. Gary Naidoo, deputy MD, Sahara agrees that the local OEM assembler market is under no more pressure than is usually the case. “Local brands remain competitive, particularly within the entry-level notebook space, and there is also more activity from a desktop point of view,” he says. Looking at the current situation in SA, Cheslynne Britz, GM, Rectron, believes that local brands are definitely important. “Not just from a competitive, but also from an economical point of view. Local brands mean that there is a lot of job creation and the option of different products is also stimulating the local market. Local assembly plants have all the expertise to assemble, install and distribute the products in SA. We are all proud of our country and what we are able to do,” she says.

Multinationals putting on pressure Despite the ability to compete and the hard work done by OEMs, Kobus de Beer, components platform lead, Axiz, says that local brands have been forced to redefine their value propositions as multinational players continue to compete aggressively for market share.

“Local brands remain competitive, particularly within the entrylevel notebook space, and there is more activity from a desktop point of view as well.” – Gary Naidoo, Sahara.

Gary Naidoo, Sahara

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“Despite this increased competition, local brands have managed to retain ground by providing value-added services, which successfully differentiate them from multinationals,” he says.

“Local brands mean that there is a lot of job creation and the option of different products is stimulating the local market. Local assembly plants have all the expertise to assemble, install and distribute the products in SA. We are all proud of our country and what we are able to do.” – Cheslynne Britz, Rectron.

Neil Watson, MD, Digital Planet, a reseller company in SA, says that it is finding that local brands are being put under pressure by international brands. “The quality of the international brands is making the local brands irrelevant as they take market share due to their lower pricing and marketing power,” he comments.

Cheslynne Britz, Rectron

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We create peace of mind for our customers by providing a solution that offers our customers products with excellent aftersales service, competitive pricing, which gives them the opportunity to compete against the multinational brands

Advantages Lottering states that Pinnacle has definite competitive advantages that set it apart from MNC brands. “We are able to react to customer demands and market conditions a lot faster than our MNC competitors. Because we are a local company we have local decision making. Our customers are aware of this and because we can offer them speed and flexibility in their ICT infrastructure, it allows them to be more flexible as well,” he says. Lottering states that another advantage is local knowledge. “It is hard for MNC manufacturers to understand local conditions. Because they are not living and working here it is difficult for them to understand problems like infrastructure, cultures and the diversity of our country. As a local company we understand this,” he says. “We can offer customers value-added benefits that not only save them time and money, but help them to focus on what they are supposed to do instead of getting bogged down with things like software configuration. Local assembly enables us to do this for our customers on our line where the machines are assembled,” he comments. Lotterring goes on to say that service and support is another factor. “We have local knowledge and because we do not outsource our service and support, we are always in direct control of our customers and any problems they might experience. We are able to react faster, solve problems quicker and keep our customers running for longer,” he says. According to De Beer, one of the biggest value adds from a local brand perspective is the ability to be first to market with new Intel technologies: “In our competitive landscape being first to market provides a major competitive advantage for the channel and local brands are able to do this quite successfully,” he says. In addition, De Beer says that local

LOCAL BRANDING SOLUTION

brands are able to be more flexible when it comes to meeting a customer’s exact requirements. He says that local brands provide a different level of service to the channel. “Axiz prides itself on the quality of its products and the warranties it offers. This not only meets the needs of our channel, but ensures that we are easy to do business with and able to meet customers’ requirements speedily. It is here, when the customer needs an immediate response, where local brands can shine,” he says. Naidoo also mentions that the advantages of local over international solutions is that they are built to order and are positioned to better meet local demands, especially in terms of timing, logistics and support. There is also existing knowledge about the local environment that may be absent in international offerings.

De Beer’s Top Five Tips for Local Brands     

Be first to market Get creative with your marketing Build your brand at a consumer level Offer a compelling warranty Be flexible and able to customise solutions

Windows Vista When asked if Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Windows Server 2008 will spur the growth of locally branded desktop PCs, notebooks and servers in the local channel, Naidoo says it is not clear if this will have an impact. “In terms of the release of programs such as Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Windows Server 2008, it remains to be seen what impact they are likely to have on the market in general and whether they will, in fact, escalate growth of locally assembled solutions,” he comments. “While there have been compatibility issues with some program releases, these are being addressed and concerned users should experience peace of mind in the not too distant future,” he adds. “I can’t see how it will have an effect on local branding,” Watson comments. “We don’t feel that the operating system will have much of an effect on the growth

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of local branded PCs and notebooks,” says Britz.

Awareness According to Britz, awareness and visibility need to be created on the brand name before anything else can succeed. “Print media, online and retail advertising to name a few. The main challenge is to

“We can offer customers value-added benefits that not only save them time and money, but help them to focus on what they are supposed to do instead of getting bogged down with things like software configuration. Local assembly enables us to do this for our customers on our line where the machines are assembled.” – Francois Lottering, Pinnacle Micro.

get the name known as a quality brand. After that, mostly any component will have a chance of survival. “Gigabyte was not known in SA, but with a lot of advertising and creating massive brand awareness, it has become one of the best known computer manufacturers in SA. People trust and believe in the brand, whether it’s PSUs, chassis, VGA cards, motherboards, notebooks, cellphones, the list goes on,” says Britz.

Future Watson says that international brands offer the technology and price points which mean that the niche of local brands will disappear. “In the future, we’ll see almost exclusive internationally branded machines in the market,” he predicts. Is this correct? “Local brands are here to stay. We are able to compete with MNC products on day-to-day and mission critical products. We can deliver in shorter lead times and provide better service. Doesn’t this make local brands the better choice?” asks Lottering. De Beer says that local brands need to develop viable value propositions if they are to compete with multinationals successfully. “There is clearly room for local brands that offer compelling service and first-rate products,” concludes De Beer.

Neil Watson, Digital Planet

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New day,

new security needs

As the world turns, so do corporate security needs.

A

BY KAUNDA CHAMA

lthough virtualisation is now officially mainstream, industry pundits are cautioning against a rush to virtualise without considering the security implications of doing so. Traditional security architectures and products are inadequate for this new topology. The new ICT environments come with different challenges and, of course, potential solutions to address best practices and secure virtualised environments within hosted or enterprise data centres. Neal Botje, Comztek’s Symantec business development manager comments that people are very vigilant when it comes to security in the real world. Houses and businesses are protected from intruders by electric fences, high walls and sophisticated alarm systems. Often no expense is spared. So why not place the same emphasis on your company’s most valuable asset – information. “Unfortunately, valuable corporate information is quite often not protected,

“Web-based attacks are being targeted at Web servers and forms, business and financial applications, e-commerce applications and blogs. Network-level security can no longer detect, let alone prevent the majority of these attacks.” – Nick Keene, Citrix

Nick Keene, Citrix yet the principles are the same. It is crucial that it is protected and always available. Apart from the physical threats to devices, such as fire, theft, natural disasters and general failures, there are virtual threats such as malicious code, Trojans, viruses and worms, the list is endless. Information will be lost if you don’t have the correct

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protective measures in place,” he says. Botje says when hacking became prevalent it was initially pranksters and youngsters merely making their mark. Unfortunately, the face of these attacks has changed dramatically; they have now become focused and are run in much the same way as business organisations and are they are far more effective, organised and pose a far greater threat to companies than before. “Nowadays, it’s all about the financial rewards, and with this industry becoming one of the world’s biggest illegal money spinners, the rewards are evident and therefore threats are on the increase,” he comments.

the copying of pages from well-known sites or financial institutions where one enters their information. These sites appear to be the original sites but are a front and the information one enters lands up in the hands of cyber criminals, who use it to gain access to personal information and even finances. Lewis Taljaard, business unit sales specialist at Novell comments that on the issue of information security in organisations, banks have seen the benefits of sharing some of their resources and processes such as cheque processing and

“It is up to us, as vendors, to prove the benefits to our clients and simultaneously address possible risks. A good data centre and virtualisation strategy must be able to identify the aforementioned. Once it is identified it can be managed and when managed you can provide a secure infrastructure and the required business services,” he explains. The trend towards virtualised processes and storage will indeed increase the attack surface within the data centre. Recognising this, Novell is working with the Distributed Management Task Force

“Basic prevention also protects against identity theft. Users should take security measures to protect their computers against viruses,

Security in organisations According to Botje, the bottom line is that organisations are responsible for their own security. The Internet and cyberspace are not policed, and we do not have the resources locally to bring cyber criminals to book. The only solution is for organisations to be more vigilant and proactive in securing their information from criminals by implementing the best technologies available. When it comes to cyber threats, there seems to be a move toward total security. This means not only antivirus is being deployed but advanced technologies such as intrusion prevention, network access control, anti-spam and advanced backup programmes. As IT becomes more diverse and complex, cyber security needs to evolve to stay ahead of current and future security threats. Meanwhile, threats like ‘emulation’ are becoming prevalent. Emulation refers to

spyware and keyloggers by using updated security software.” – Benjamin Verduijin, BullGuard

clearing centres. Some telcos have shared infrastructures in the form of data lines and signal towers. South African mobile operators had to follow the Mobile Number Portability (MNP) routing standards to interconnect. Businesses are well aware of shared services models, their benefits and the associated risks. Shared services are made easier when technology such as virtualisation is used correctly as an enabler. Mainframes were the pioneers of shared services a few decades ago and during the past decade these shared services have been introduced to distributed environments through virtualisation. As with business shared services, IT shared services introduce their own benefits and associated risks.

(DMTF) on a standard virtual machine file format – called the Open Virtual Machine (OVF) file format. This carries both a declaration of service level requirements for the embedded virtual machine, and certificates necessary to certify the validity of the virtual machine prior to coordinated deployment. Because the Internet seems to be one of the primary sources of threats, Nigel Hawthorn VP EMEA marketing at Blue Coat Systems comments that the big issue is that years ago the Internet was “black and white”: there was the good and bad and the dos and don’ts, but that has changed creating a lot of grey areas. “Today, there are so many shades of grey that the answer to what is good or bad for

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a corporate would mostly be ‘it depends’,” he comments. This, Hawthorn says, creates an opportunity for resellers and system integrators to specialise and become consultants to end-user organisations. These companies can as well as handle implementations of systems also play an advisory role when it comes to setting up security policies and implementing them. Many local organisations are still coming to terms with the dynamics that have been brought on by Web2.0 applications such as Facebook and YouTube and the security threats that come with allowing their employee to use applications such as Instant Messenger and Skype or other peer-to-peer services.

networks and they are equally unaware of the threats, this is where a system integrator can go into a company and install a piece of security hardware for a week on a trial basis and produce a report. This will go a long way in enlightening companies about what they need to do,” he explains. He stresses that channel players should be able to ask open questions as part of being advisers in policy formulation. He also agrees that the nature of threats has evolved and that previously attacks where all about infecting as many clients as possible with a virus, but now the attacks are targeted and are more about financial gain or stealing sensitive information. With targeted threats being so prevalent and dangerous, he comments that it is a

“Unfortunately, valuable corporate information is quite often not protected, yet the principles are the same. It is crucial that it is protected and always available.” – Neal Botje, Comztek

Benjamin Verduijin technology consultant at BullGuard advises people to limit the amount of personal information they make available online. For example, avoid putting full date of birth on these sites as well as the names of children or pets as these are often used as passwords. Basic prevention also protects against identity theft. Users should take security measures to protect their computers against viruses, spyware and keyloggers by using updated security software. “There are a lot of senior managers that do not know what is going on in their

fact that the human being is still the weakest link in the security chain and this is evident through the fact that social attacks are still very effective.

Identity theft on the rise According to recent statistics, between 2005 and 2007 over 167.7 million records containing sensitive personal information were exposed due to security breaches. During the past two years we have seen some big corporates and institutions locking down on identity theft. For example; the likes of Visa, MasterCard,

American Express and other members enforce the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). The PCI-DSS is applicable to all companies accepting card transactions and they are categorised depending on the number of card transactions over a 12-month period. This shows us that businesses across the globe are now protecting themselves and the private information they manage. Not only internal identities and transactions need to be managed and audited, but corporates are also being held responsible for securing client and third-party identity and private information. Many organisations in South Africa have embarked on identity management projects and many more are planning to or are at least investigating it. Along with various other IT risk and operational issues, organisations continuously need to monitor, collect, audit and report on security information and events. Taking on the above two projects in two different silos causes duplicated efforts and puts undue pressure on IT staff. Nick Keene, country manager of Citrix Southern Africa comments that the financial incentive for breaching security and stealing identities has motivated hackers and information criminals to create a new threat environment. According to him these new, Web-based attacks are being targeted at Web servers and forms, business and financial applications, e-commerce applications and blogs. Network-level security can no longer detect, let alone prevent the majority of these attacks. Keene explains that protection from a Web application attack requires a firewall

SECURITY SOLUTION

to understand application language as well as the basic constructs of hypertext markup language (html), which is not offered by many of the entry-level products available on the market. He says that despite their popularity, Web applications are inherently insecure and easily compromised. Statistically, the two most common forms of Web application attacks are Structured Query Language (SQL) injection and Cross-site scripting

needs careful consideration. According to him, data security has many facets: compliance regulations, data protection, anti-virus controls, disaster recovery and business continuity. Executives know that it is technically feasible to view sensitive data, wherever they are, even on a PDA. The fact that it can be complicated to maintain data security in these circumstances is not their problem. They can rightly demand a solution.

Huge amounts of spam and malware can easily overwhelm the networks of small and mid-size businesses and, in some cases, even small countries.

(XSS). SQL injections send commands to a Web application that when passed to databases, executes and allows the hacker to gain access to sensitive information. According to Keene, organisations wanting to ensure the integrity of their Web applications should observe the following key security requirements. Companies should protect both users and application infrastructure, guard against zero-day stacks or breaches that exploit vulnerabilities in custom application code, prevent sensitive data from slipping through by inspecting outbound traffic and not blocking traffic that doesn’t pose a threat. These four key guidelines will assist organisations to better protect their Web applications from attacks or misuse. Chris Mayers, principal security architect at Citrix Southern Africa says wherever there is access to information, data security

Technology has to be a business enabler, not something that prevents people from doing their jobs as effectively as possible. Mayers believes that this has had a profound impact on the way organisations view information security. The mainframe provided good security but kept information behind company walls. With the client-server model, firms gave more processing power to the enduser, but then gave priority to keeping out external threats and attacks. It is not surprising that the traditional image of an impregnable castle where outsiders were not welcome has persisted. With the advent of Web services and XML, businesses have begun to realise the benefits of delivering information to mobile employees, partners and customers. As information has become a market differentiator and enabler, organisations have come under greater pressure to share data.

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Instead of being a concrete barrier to entry, firewalls are now seen as more of a wall of defence, but with openings for access. He, however, warns that with new access comes new risks. The corporate network is more vulnerable to attack through open ports and the careless use of mobile devices by employees. The challenge remains: how to enable access to sensitive information from both inside and outside the firewall without sacrificing security. “Now that almost everyone is becoming a road warrior, fast growing threats to the company’s sensitive information are also growing and this is demanding better security policies and solutions. The only positive here is that security on mobile devices seems to be better than that on notebooks,” comments Hawthorn. Organisations that integrate their security strategy with their access strategy are likely to achieve better security, improved usability, easier administration and greater transparency to satisfy auditing requirements. Some schools of thought have preached encryption as a solution to vulnerabilities of sensitive information, but Hawthorn says that encryption is not essentially a total solution because it can also be used by malicious employees to get sensitive information past their network administrators. Webroot, one of the leading providers of security solutions for the consumer, enterprise and SME markets, recently released its latest research report, “State of Internet Security: Protecting Business Email”. The report reveals the significant impact that rapidly growing email security threats, in size and volume, are having on businesses worldwide and underscores the need for a multi-layered approach to Internet security.

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“The battle against spam is an ongoing struggle for many organisations with spammers continuing to present a serious and costly threat to most businesses. In 2008, we estimate there will be over 42 000 spam emails for every single business email account or about 116 per day. And, because spammers are working at beating conventional filters with images and attachments, the size of spam has grown 60 per cent since 2004,” says Mike Irwin, COO, Webroot. “The size and volume of these spam attacks is largely due to the partial success of current filtering defences that now make spamming success a numbers game. It’s clear why first-generation defences such as appliances and serverbased software are struggling to keep up.” Along with the rapid growth in spam, there is a similarly rapid growth in malware. Industry research shows that malware jumped from about 50 000 variants in 2004 to 5.5 million in 2007. Webroot research found that spam has become a significant vector of attack for deploying these new malware variants. But, while companies are seeing increased malware threats to their email, they are still using it to gather and exchange vital customer and employee information such as credit card numbers and other confidential financial data. About one out of five businesses that responded to the survey experienced a threat to sensitive or confidential online information last year underscoring the growing need for securing and storing business email. “Huge amounts of spam and malware can easily overwhelm the networks of small and mid-size businesses and, in some cases, even small countries. In our survey, more

Key findings at a glance Email is business critical According to IDC, over 6.62 trillion business emails will be exchanged in 2008. Three-fourths of Webroot survey respondents rely on email for communicating with customers and providing customer support.

Risks to and from email are prevalent More than half of those surveyed experienced spyware and virus attacks via email and over 40 per cent experienced a phishing attack. About one out of five organisations reported that sensitive online transactions were threatened and confidential information was compromised as a result of spam. Over 60 per cent of respondents had at least one email outage in 2007. One out of three survey respondents said that the hourly cost of an email outage is over $1 000.

Employee behaviour increases email security risks 



  



Individual email users open messages before realising they are spam, open messages in junk folders and even make purchases from emails marked as spam. The 2007 eCrime Watch report found that employees were second only to hackers as groups that pose the greatest cyber security threat to organisations. One out of three organisations reported employee misuse of email resources. Few companies have protective policies in place Less than a third of organisations surveyed have key employee email security policies in place. Less than half of companies with more than 100 computers have policies in place to restrict employees’ personal email use.

than half of the respondents said that they suffered spyware and virus attacks via email,” added Irwin. “Because existing defences are being overrun, large numbers of companies are increasingly losing important data. Spam is growing in relation to the importance of email as a business communications tool. As a result, companies and organisations need defences that can quickly and easily

scale to exceed the demand.” In the “State of Internet Security: Protecting Business Email” report, Webroot studied email-related threats and the latest methods to protect business email. Webroot surveyed approximately 1 500 email security product decision-makers in companies across seven countries: Australia, Canada, France Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Reviews by: Kaunda Chama

Highly Recommended

Vosonic multimedia viewer

HP Photo Smart A441

Extremely handy

A smart idea

What more does a person who likes large amounts of multimedia on the move need than Vosonic’s Multimedia Viewer with 100GB HDD and 7-inch Digital Picture Frame with 128MB on-board memory? This is, in effect, a high-capacity portable multimedia player that stores videos, photos, music, ebooks and texts. It comes with a built-in internal rechargeable battery with four hours’ video or seven hours’ music playback and a protective case. It is perfect for storing and viewing photos, music, videos and texts directly from a digital camera, memory card or a USB key via the OTG port to the internal 2.5” hard disk. The extra clear, 3.5inch high-resolution colour display is perfect for viewing photos and videos, and supports all standard video formats in full DVD resolution. It also supports video and audio recording, and plays back in DivX, Microsoft WMA, WMV and MP3 formats. The device is also quite groundbreaking because it has the capability to record directly from TV in high-quality MPEG-4 format up to 640x480 at 30 frames per second. It also does basics like record voice like a Dictaphone. This is a very impressive multimedia device and has a lot of impressive features for its size and is USB 2.0compatible to access files on a computer.

After having reviewed a higher-end HP Photo Smart printer (the Photosmart A717), CRN found the Photo Smart A441 to be truly entry level and pretty basic. Although you do not get lab-quality photos, the prints are comparatively reasonable and the fact that the unit runs on batteries makes it a good portable system. The camera takes 5 MP photos and is an easy point-and-shoot device, and once finished all you need to do is pop it into the dock on top of the printer and press the print button. However, the printer is so basic that to view the photos you have to depend only on the camera’s 3.8cm display and, worse still, you can’t do any photo editing on the printer itself, you have to depend on the few functions available on the camera. Although printing 10 x 15 cm photos almost anywhere is a wonderful thing, especially if they are in full colour, the fact that the prints are not the best you can get puts a damper on the total experience. Essentially, for an entry-level machine, it is quite a bargain because the almost lab-quality photos can be handled straight from the printer without smudging with HP Advanced Photo Paper. Also, your photos will last without fading for “generations”.

Microsoft ergonomic keyboard, mouse Pleasure with comfort Yet again Microsoft scores top marks for its ergonomic designs with its Natural Ergonomic Desktop 7000 both on design and functionality. The design of the both the keyboard and mouse support a more natural hand placement, which reduces impact on the wrist and makes forearm posture more natural. Essentially, the product achieves the aim of all ergonomic devices, which is to make your time on the computer more comfortable and productive. It also uses 2.4 GHz wireless technology which connects to a desktop or notebook through a USB mini-transceiver and has a wireless range of up to 30 feet. The accompanying mouse works pretty much on the same principles and also has a great design, and is finished off with soft-touch materials. Its ergonomic design allows it to fit into your hand like it is meant to be there. On top of that, it also naturally uses Microsoft’s High Definition Laser technology making it more precise and responsive, and gives it much smoother tracking. It comes with five customisable buttons that can be programmed to perform some frequently used functions. There are also quite a few improvements on the number pad from previous models in that commonly used symbols such as the equal sign, left and right parentheses, and backspace are located just above the number pad. In addition, there are a number of hot keys that allow you, with just a touch of a button, to access the Internet and read e-mail. Lastly, the “My Favorites” hot key allows you to access the folders, files and Web pages you use most with just a single touch of the “My Favorites” key.

CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 •

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PARTING: SHOTS

DILBERT

www.dilbert.com

by Scott Adams

S n a pshot Ingram Micro SA Position: Microsoft Product Manager Age: 35 Best personal achivement: Quitting smoking Most admired company: Virgin Most admired executives: Richard Branson Best IT product: Google Most pressing local business issues: Volatile exchange rate and the ever-decreasing margins in distribution. Key to success: Ambition and perseverance. Favourite car: Mini Cooper Your car: VW Polo Favourite author: Philipa Greggory Where do you live: Morningside, Johannesburg Birthplace: Cape Town Hobbies/sports: Cooking, Reading and shopping Favourite periodical: I’m embarrassed to say it but Heat magazine! Pet hates: Dishonesty, people who cannot admit when they are wrong and people who tap their feet in meetings. Company:

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

Nicola Homewood