Computer Reseller News Sept 08

September 2008

www.crn.co.za

ProCurve gaining ground HP’s best kept secret emerges from behind the curtains p.16>>

Inside AMD takes a solutions focus p16>> HP local head bids fairwell to the vendor p33>> Intel launches new partner programme p36>>

PUBLISHER’S: NOTE

The year ahead I

t’s been a roller coaster 2008 for businesses and consumers alike. The year has seen the financial meltdown in the US, high crude oil prices and a looming economic recession in the US. Generally, there is a lot of uncertainty in the global markets something that should be of concern to those in the local IT channel. The globe markets’ uncertainty coupled with the consumer credit crunch, a financial meltdown in the US which has sent the world stock markets to tumble has forced many consumers and businesses to scale down or put on hold any IT spending or upgrade. As 2008 draws to a close, it is time for solution providers to reflect on and assess the year that was. For others it is the time when they make resolutions for the year ahead and outline priorities for the new year. So as solution providers look to 2009, it is vital that they focus on enhancing products and solutions that have helped their businesses to grow this year and also discover the new technology offerings they believe will be hot next year. Although assessing business performance and identifying new technologies that show potential is not easy, savvy resellers who get it right will see their businesses grow to new profitability levels. Those who err in this regard will see their businesses falter come 2009. Few things come to mind that I believe resellers should be looking at come 2009. The momentum around Software as a Service (SaaS), Web 2.0 tools, VoIP, unified messaging, instant messaging, desktop and server virtualisation and Telepresence is something that those reseller companies that have capital should consider looking at. There is also hype around WiMax, WiFi, WLANs, 3G and other offerings in the wireless and mobile space. As pointed out, there has been a lot of talk around SaaS with some industry pundits even advocating that distributors should also get involved. In addition, selling IT services has been key to the survival of most resellers as margins on product sales continue to be squeezed However, this does not mean that resellers should abandon selling products but rather use the initial sale of software and hardware products as a spring board for providing full-fledged services that will bring in the much-needed annuity revenue to complement declining product margins. Therefore, it goes without saying that resellers in the local channel ought to balance their product and services mix and make sure that they have within their mix products that will win them long-term service contracts. For it is the right mix of products and services that will differentiate them from the competition and, in turn, influence them to invest in specific vendor sales, technical training and certification programmes they believe will aid them in achieving their goals of growing their businesses to profitability. Identifying new technology trends, skilling up and enhancing their current product and services offering should be a priority for resellers in 2009. Resellers that do the best job of helping their customers understand and adopt new technologies – while still maintaining their integrity – will more than likely have the competitive edge over their competition and grow their businesses to even greater profitability. Let me know about your plans for 2008 and the areas where you will be focusing your business as a channel player operating in an everchanging, cutthroat IT industry. I can be reached at [email protected] Enjoy the read

Manda Banda – publisher

Contents News & Analysis 4 – What’s News 6 – Comings & Goings 8 – Dmoves 10 – High Five: Infor 12 – Demand Generator: KSS

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13 – Siemens regroups globally. By Dominic Khuzwayo CRN Contacts: Publisher: Manda Banda

14 – Microsoft unveils next generation business applications. By Dudu Shaba

[email protected]

20 – HP ProCurve acquires Colubris. By Dominic Khuzwayo Online editor: Kaunda Chama [email protected] Journalists: Portia Shaba [email protected] Dominic Khuzwayo [email protected] Brand executive: Hellen Murahwa [email protected]

22 – AMD at home, work, play. By Kaunda Chama 25 – Microsoft Partner Summit 2008.

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By Kaunda Chama 35 – Cover story: HP ProCurve gaining more ground. It might once have been HP’s best-kept secret as the markets concentrated more on the vendor’s other technology disciplines such as notebooks, servers and printers, but ProCurve has now come to be a networking brand to be

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reckoned with. By Kaunda Chama 39 – HP bid farewell to its CEO. By Dudu Shaba

Sub-editor: Jenny Bastomsky

Features

[email protected]

40 – Steady uptake of BI evident in business. By Designer:

Dudu Shaba

Spencer van Graan [email protected]

44 – Bright future for UPS market. By Dudu Shaba 48 – Gaming solutions. By Kaunda Chama

Database and subscriptions: Daisy Mulenga

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51 – Winning with ISVs. By Kaunda Chama

[email protected]

Products 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 Registered with the Audit Bureau of Circulation

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54 – Oki C8800: Sheer printing pleasure 55 – Nokia E71: It keeps getting better 56 – Dilbert

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56 – Snapshot: Giuseppe Colonnello, Vox AmVia

CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • SEPTEMBER 2008

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

WHAT’S

NEWS

COMINGS Nyathi scoops top Microsoft spot

&

Mteto Nyati is to succeed Pfungwa Serima as the new Microsoft SA boss. Nyati, who assumed his new position on 1 September, comes to Microsoft from a 12-year career at IBM, where he was the director of IBM Global Technology Services for South and Mteto Nyati Central Africa since June 2005. Nyati, who led three large business units – telecommunications, Small and Medium Business and IBM Global Services in his time at IBM, says he aims to continue building on the success of Microsoft SA, and to help its customers, partners and the community to better harness technology.

VMware launches new partner program VMware has unveiled the VMware System Builder Programme, a new initiative within its VIP Partner Programme. The programme is designed for system builders that sell VMware virtualisation solutions. The VMware System Builder Programme provides benefits for system builders, including pre-sales technical support, targeted training programmes and new as well as improved marketing tools. Steve Dallman Steve Dallman, vice president, Intel Corporation says: “We are excited about VMware’s new System Builder Programme, which provides the necessary certified education and technical enablement resources for Intel channel partners to customise their server hardware solutions rapidly for a time-to-market advantage.”

Lenovo unleashes ThinkPad W700 Lenovo has introduced its ThinkPad W700, a 17-inch widescreen mobile workstation. The ThinkPad W700 is engineered to meet the demands of the most data and graphics-intensive jobs. According to Peter Hortensius, senior vice president, notebook business unit Lenovo, the company brings the industry’s first built-in digitiser and colour calibrator to a mobile workstation. The ThinkPad W700 comes with NVDIA Quadro FX mobile graphics and supports Intel’s mobile quad-core processor. Other features include an optional dual hard drive with RAID configurations and up to 80GB of high-speed DDR3 memory.

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • SEPTEMBER 2008

GOINGS Clarkson leads Industry sector

Stuart Clarkson has been appointed to head-up the Industry Sector by Siemens. Clarkson spent more than a decade at various Siemens operations in Europe, North and South America, 2007 saw Stuart Clarkson him return to South Africa as the new Divisional Director for Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S). After graduating from Witwatersrand Technikon, Clarkson joined Siemens in 1981 as a trainee commissioning engineer, and spent the next 12 years in the commissioning department of I&S installing and commissioning standby power systems, UPS and diesel generators. This was followed by a move into the process automation, specialising in plants in the pulp and paper and chemical industries, and later into the mining sector as well.

Integr8 targets VoIP space Integr8 Telecoms, a company within the Integr8 Group, announced its intention to establish a competitive presence within the local telecommunications services market. The company, in association with several joint venture partners, will offer what it believes is cost-effective, reliable service to clients. Walter Bredell, CEO, Integr8 Fax/ Telecoms, points to the strength of Integr8 Telecoms’ expertise, its extensive sales force and market experience in infrastructure management as key strengths in the campaign. According to Bredell, with inter-connects and access to clients through its infrastructure it is now possible to change the normal TDM Telkom client platform to a VoIP service.

Faritec aims to drive virtualisation Faritec has announced its commitment to becoming the clear leader in virtualisation over the next two years. The company regards this innovative area of the ICT industry as strategic to its business. Gordon Love, regional executive, Faritec, says virtualisation is gaining momentum and becoming a key driver behind many of Faritec’s customer solutions. “With our superior skills base and reliable track record of delivery in this area, we are able to offer companies tangible, measurable value. We are confident that our focus on virtualisation will be a strong differentiator and that we will reap the rewards of this decision in the years to come,” he says.

PC chips to carry Intel Core name Intel Corporation has announced that desktop processors based on the company’s upcoming new microarchitecture, codenamed Nehalem, will be formally branded Intel Core processors. Sean Maloney, Intel Corporation executive vice president and general manager, sales and

WHAT’S

NEWS

marketing group says that the first products in this new family of processors, including an Extreme Edition version, will carry an “i7” identifier and will be formally branded as an Intel Core i7 processor. He adds that this is the first of several new identifiers to come as different products launch over the next year.

New ThinkPad range from Lenovo Lenovo has unveiled new SL series ThinkPad notebooks targeted at local SME users. Rashid Wally, country manager, Lenovo SA says the three notebooks, SL300, SL 400 and SL500, feature cutting-edge technologies, such as LED backlit displays, an optional Blu-Ray DVD player as well as a black glossy cover. Wally says Lenovo combined software that helps with Rashid Wally everything from data recovery to simplifying Internet connection with a new service package featuring online data backup and an on-site repair warranty. “The launch of the ThinkPad SL notebook range places us in a great position to pursue the local SME market and to offer a platform designed specifically with these users in mind,” Wally says.

McAfee secures HP PCs McAfee, one of the leading security technology companies, has announced that its products will provide security on HP commercial PCs. Targeted at small business customers McAfee will provide, worldwide, a 60-day trial of pre-installed McAfee Total Protection software on selected HP commercial desktop computers and notebooks. “The need to protect computers from complex Internet threats is becoming a top concern for smaller business customers,” says Todd Gebhart, senior vice president and general manager, McAfee consumer, mobile and small business. “Total Protection Service from McAfee leverages the software as a service (Saas) technology McAfee has used to protect small business customers for more than nine years,” he says.

SecureData offers resellers discounts SecureData Security, the local distributor of Trend Micro’s information security products, is offering a 40 per cent conversion discount to resellers. The discount is only offered to resellers who upgrade customers running Symantec products to the Trend Micro product range. The conversion programme is especially aimed at resellers who fear that they will lose income following the introduction of new channel policies by the COO of Dean Healy Symantec in the information security market, the company claims. Dean Healy, Trend Micro product manager, SecureData Security says: “Together with SecureData, Trend Micro aims to keep its channel partners fully engaged with their customers. Partners are never forcibly excluded from additional revenue streams generated by renewals and upgrades.”

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • SEPTEMBER 2008

New Infor PLM Optiva Infor has announced the latest release of Infor PLM Optiva. The Infor PLM Optiva is a product lifecycle management (PLM) solution for process manufacturers and retailers with private label products. The new release is set to improve formula development, including editing, strengthen performance modelling and production simulation, providing greater flexibility and data analyJane Thomson sis capabilities. Jane Thomson, MD, Softworx, an EOH company and distributor of Infor in sub-Saharan Africa says, “A new Advanced Formula Editor, a key enhancement to Infor PLM Optiva, enables manufacturers to visually model multiple formulas and versions, rapidly assess ideal iterations and identify associated risks.”

ProScan launches multipurpose scanner ProScan Distribution, a member of the ProScan Group, has introduced the new QuickScan Mobile cordless linear imaging bar-code reader. The scanner is suitable for a broad range of retail and commercial applications. According to Andrew Fosbrook, ProScan’s group MD, the new product provides an outstanding return on investment for users seeking a cordless handheld device for general purpose retail activities, includAndrew Fosbrook ing point of sale, inventory, price-checking and shelf replenishment as well as commercial data collection applications. He says that the QuickScan Mobile reader features Datalogic’s cordless STAR-System, one of the market’s most secure and reliable systems for 433/910 MHz narrow-band communications.

Esquire unveils BenQ series notebooks Esquire Technologies, leading distributors of IT and digital lifestyle products, has unveiled the latest BenQ series of Joybook laptops. The A53,S32, and Q41 models combine advanced technology and contemporary design. Manish Bakshi, GM BenQ Middle East and Africa says the company has designed the A53, S32 and Q41 as a perfect blend of contemporary design and leading-edge technology with distinguishing features that will appeal to stylish consumers.

Mustek sets the record straight Following comments by Pierre Spies, MD of Tarsus Technologies in an article that appeared on ITWeb (21 August 2008) titled “Local PC brand sales slump”. David Kan, CEO at local OEM assembler Mustek, says while it is true that international brands such as Acer, HP and Lenovo are selling at prices similar to locally Pierre Spies branded desktop PCs, the multinational brands are offering very outdated CPU configurations. Kan says the CPU configurations are at least six months old in comparison with product offerings from Mecer, Mustek’s flagship PC brand. “Mecer has always been at the forefront of PC technology, and in the rapidly developing PC industry, anything older than six months can be considered obsolete,” he says.

ANALYSIS: DISTRIBUTION

MOVES

SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

3Com, appoints Lefatshe Global networking solutions vendor 3Com appointed Lefatshe Technologies as its exclusive H3C Advanced Solutions Partner in South Africa. The partnership was announced at the GovTech 2008 conference in Durban. Chris Huggett, regional sales director, 3com in EMEA says, “3Com, through H3C, has a world-leading offering in the arena of IP networking infrastructure with IP security, IP communication and IP storage.” Noedine Isaacs-Mpulo, Lefasthe Technologies CEO says: “Our partnership with 3Com to deliver H3C’s quality IP networking infrastructure to South Africa’s public and corporate sectors will challenge the status quo, offering the market an alternative networking solution at an extremely competitive price point.

Lexmark partners with Itec Lexmark has appointed Itec Distribution as a value print partner opening up a new road to market for both companies. The move has promoted Itec to the position of a Value Print Partner. The Value Print Programme enables Itec to offer customers pay-per-page service contracts that are affordable and tailored to their needs. The programme is integrated directly into Itec’s service offering. “We chose to partner with Itec as this gives Lexmark a valuable partner in the office automation space,” says Lawrence van Namen, sales director for channel partners and SMEs at Lexmark.

Galdon Data Microsoft voice partner Microsoft has appointed Galdon Data to be part of as its local unified communications Voice Partner Program. This distinction solidifies Galdon Data’s expertise in Microsoft’s unified communications solutions, including Exchange Server 2007 and Office Communicator 2007. Erich Gebhardt, director unified communications and EMEA time zone lead for Microsoft’s voice business says: “We are looking forward to a fruitful joint business which will deliver great value to Galdon Data’s customers.” Galdon Data CEO Garry Ackerman says: “The acceptance into this elite unified communications programme demonstrates our commitment to the overall Microsoft solution as well as our ability to embrace, become certified on and deploy leading-edge voice, messaging and collaboration technologies.”

Siemens, Enterasys in JV The Gores Group has signed a definitive agreement to form a joint venture with Siemens AG. The agreement will combine Siemens Enterprise Communications, Enterasys and SER Solutions. According to Mike Fabiaschi president and CEO Enterasys Secure Networks, combining the

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • SEPTEMBER 2008

three companies will leverage Siemens’ distribution capabilities, global reach and customer base. The joint venture will be 51 per cent owned by the Gores Group and will be entitled to continue using the Siemens brand. On an operational level, the business will be driven by Gores who will work with the current Enterasys, SER and Siemens Enterprise Communications management teams and employees to fulfil customer needs and expand the business.

HP acquires Colubris HP has acquired Colubris Networks, a global provider of intelligent wireless networks for enterprises and service providers. HP plans to integrate Colubris’ extensive product line into its ProCurve Networking product portfolio. This is set to expand HP ProCurve’s reach into vertical markets such as hospitality, transportation, health care, manufacturing, service provision and education. Marius Haas, senior vice president and general manager, HP ProCurve says: “The acquisition of Colubris Networks will strengthen ProCurve’s hardware, management platform and services significantly improving the overall performance capabilities of both wired and wireless networks as well as deliver more best-in-class choices for our customers worldwide.”

Riverbed partners with Microsoft Riverbed Technology, players in wide-area data services, has announced its partnership with software giant Microsoft. This comes after the company entered the Microsoft Protocol Optimisation Licensing Program. This will see Riverbed having access to Microsoft’s intellectual property and technology. It will also help Riverbed to build on its expertise and success by accelerating and optimising Microsoft Windows-based applications over the WAN. Christo Briedenhann, country manager, Riverbed SA says: “By working closely with Microsoft we are obtaining access to application protocols to further enhance our customers’ experience and IT efficiencies over the WAN.”

Phoenix distributes S.A.D. GmbH Phoenix Software has won a contract to partner with S.A.D GmbH to distribute its software ??throughout its South African channel. S.A.D. Software is one of the leading publishers of application and entertainment software in German-speaking countries. Phoenix Software has offices in the UK, Germany, Zambia and SA as well as affiliate partnerships in the Middle East, South East Asia and the US. The company says its strength lies in its ability to offer good margins and value-added services to its channel partners, while offering its vendors a total solution for ‘in-country’ representation via physical and ESD distribution.

HIGH FIVE: INFOR SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Infor launches partner campaign BY DOMINIC KHUZWAYO Infor, one of the world’s largest software companies, has launched a channel partner recruitment campaign across Europe, Middle East and Africa. The campaign aims to increase the number of Infor partners across Europe, Middle East and Africa significantly. According to the company, the campaign will comprise a series of road shows. To find-out more about Infor’s partner campaign, we chatted to John O’Donnell channel manager, Infor, Africa.

Saharan Africa, we are focused on getting two or three partners who can support us in financial management solutions, human capital management (HCM) and expense management (EM). In addition to this, we are also working with existing partners who have clearly demonstrated their willingness and enthusiasm for further investment in complementary solutions. In recent months our South African partners have clearly demonstrated the benefit of collaboration with the creation of virtual networks of cross-selling opportunities.

CRN: Why are you implementing this campaign?

CRN: How will your customer benefit from this campaign?

JO: Infor is the 10th largest software company in the world and has grown by acquisition and organic growth. In Europe, Middle East and Asia Africa?(EMEA), 18 per cent of our licence revenues come from the channel and we wish to grow this. We already have a very successful channel business in sub-Saharan Africa and want to grow this even further.

CRN: What is the campaign all about? JO: The recruitment campaign is taking place across EMEA and we are looking for quality, customer-orientated business partners to continue growing our channel business. The campaign has been launched across Europe, with a series of road shows planned for the remainder of 2008. Our focus will turn to SA in the early part of 2009 where we will work closely with one of our master distributors and our existing partners.

CRN: What are you plaanning to achieve? JO: We are targeting established businesses that have a proven track record of delivering successful solutions within their specific domains. We are looking for around 40 partners across EMEA. In sub-

JO: Infor has 70 000 customers globally and we have one of the highest customer satisfaction rates in the industry: 93 percent of our customers renewed their maintenance contracts last year. Existing customers are very happy with their products, ongoing research and development, and the support they get from Infor. Last year we grew organically with 2 200 new customers globally. This recruitment drive is designed to help us continue that organic growth and to enable existing customers to achieve additional benefits from other solutions.

CRN: What impact will the campaign have in Africa? JO: Infor has a collaborative network of partners who distribute and support an extensive range of solutions in manufacturing, enterprise resource planning, supply chain management, warehouse management, enterprise asset management, performance management and financial management. But with a wider portfolio of solutions we are looking for additional partners to embrace, for example, HCM and EM. As a result of this our partner network will continue to grow, new customers will be attracted to our solutions and our existing customers will invest in complementary solutions.

DEMAND

GENERATOR:

KSS SOLUTION

KSS

PROVIDERS

boosts Micros

SA

Enhancing contact centre’s infrastructure. BY DOMINIC KHUZWAYO

K

SS Technologies recently proved why it is one of the leaders in designing, implementing and supporting converged networking solutions by enhancing Micros SA Johannesburgbased contact centre. Micros, a provider of point of sale and hospitality solutions, is seeing significant improvements in its operations, including the intelligent management of calls and resultenhanced services since partnering with KSS Technologies. The company, which essentially features four contact centres in one servicing its Micros (point of sale solution); Opera (property management solution focused on the hospitality industry), Fidelio (older version of

Opera) and CLS (another property management solution) products had been struggling with call visibility. Looking at some of the challenges Micros was facing, Hylton Proctor-Parker, support operations manager, Micros SA says, “We had no visibility of our calls and could not determine how many were coming in, how many callers were waiting in the queue, the duration of each call and which were abandoned.” As a result of these challenges, Micros Fidelio decided to upgrade its contact centre infrastructure and partnered with KSS who recommended, supplied and implemented Cisco’s latest Unified Communications

“Micros SA now has full control of the contact centre with clear track records of all calls and visibility.” – Chris Kok, KSS

Chris Kok, KSS

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Manager CallManager 6.1 (an upgrade from CallManager 4.2), IP Contact Center Express (IPCC) 5 (an upgrade from IPCC 4) and the Datavoice Libra Voice Recording solution. Chris Kok, project manager, KSS says, “We had no problems installing the solutions and we now service Micros SA’s 60 contact centre agents as well as 200 users countrywide.” “Micros SA now has full control of the contact centre with clear track record of all calls and visibility.” CallManager 6.1, a software-based call-processing system, tracks all active VoIP network components; these include phones, gateways and conference bridges. The IPCC Express 5 solution offers automatic call distribution, interactive voice response and computer tele-

CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • SEPTEMBER 2008

phony integration on a single platform. Additionally, the Libra Voice Recording solution provides fail-safe recording of all voice transactions for legal purposes which minimises risk, and enhances quality assurance and training as well as productivity measurement in contact centres. Lyn Andrews sales executive, KSS says, “The new system provides Micros SA and, more importantly, the contact centre with the visibility they need. With the integration of a dashboard, for example, it can now determine how many agents are logged on; how many calls have been dropped and how the calls were handled – in a simple and easy to interpret viewing format.” “Moreover, due to the system’s intelligent design, calls can be moved over - after a certain period - to Micros agents if the Opera contact centre is busy. This regulates the workload ensuring calls are not abandoned and are readily attended to,” adds Andrews. “We can now intelligently determine how many calls were dropped, investigate why this occurred and rectify it accordingly. This improves the efficiency of our contact centre and overall service delivery,” explains Proctor-Parker. Due to the system’s dynamic and automated nature, a voice recording will now tell customers what number they are in the queue and how long they will need to hold on before being attended to. According to Kok, “This can also be changed according to the needs of the contact centres, shortening the time before calls are moved over to the next team - dynamically adapting the infrastructure according to the volume of calls and so forth.” In addition Proctor-Parker says, “The solution has allowed us to create a contact centre infrastructure that supports our clients in an intelligent, efficient manner.” Do you have demand generator stories to share with us, please e-mail Dominic Khuzwayo at [email protected]

ANALYSIS: SIEMENS SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Siemens regroups globally Telecoms giant implements new strategies. BY DOMINIC KHUZWAYO

W

ith just 14 months with the new CEO in position, Siemens announced that it was going back to the drawing board, and came up with a ‘new look’ by reshaping the company globally. As part of the ‘new look’ Siemens Southern Africa has reorganised the operations of its 11 business units into three sectors; Industry, Energy and Healthcare. With some companies when they say ‘we changing our company’ they mean retrenchment as well but when we asked Siemens it said it is not at liberty to make any statements in this regard since the consequences for the individual Siemens locations and countries are part of internal consultations on a global basis. Coming back to the three sectors, the Industry sector will be headed by Stuart Clarkson and consists of six divisions: Industry Automation, Drive Technologies, Building Technologies, Industry Solutions, Mobility and Osram. Dion Govender will head the Energy sector, which also have six divisions, including Fossil Power Generation, Renewable Energy, Oil and Gas, Energy Service, Power Transmission as well as Power Distribution. Graham Maritz will take-up Healthcare, which has been divided into three divisions, Imaging and IT, Workflow and Solutions, and Diagnostics. Everyone wants to know why Siemens is restructuring the company and how customers will benefit from the new structure. Sigi Proebstl, CEO, Siemens Southern Africa says, “Siemens has realigned its organisation to further increase its profitability and transparency. Clear sector responsibilities will ensure closer positioning and improved focus on customer needs. “It was important to realign the organisation to become more efficient, profitable, competitive and, above all, responsive - not only to the needs of our customers but also to the demands of society now and into the

future. It is important for the organisation to examine its portfolio every few years to ensure it is in line with customer requirements and the growth markets of the future. This is what Siemens has done,” he says. According to Proebstl, by focusing on the Industry, Energy and Healthcare sectors, the new Siemens structure will place the organisation in a better position to capitalise on its ability to deliver products, solutions and services in a manner that meets the demands of these dynamic environments. The new structure will improve customer needs due to the following: The company will be able to respond to customer needs faster Innovations will provide the best technological answers to the challenges societies face today The company will create value add for our investors, for example, by growing profitably in the marketplace and by keeping costs competitive with lean internal structures. When it comes to how Siemens will engage partners, Proebstl says: “Generally speaking, we adopt a direct approach to market, but in certain of our areas, especially product business, we use the services of external partners, for example, agents and distributors. In some of the southern and east African countries (outside of South Africa), we also use agents and distributors. Siemens Southern Africa is responsible for the entire southern and east African region.” This new structure has created a lot of questions about whether the company’s IT solutions and services will be hindered by the changes. But the company says Siemens IT Solutions and Services will continue operating as a cross-sector partner in addition to driving its own business across the IT value chain. Proebstl adds, the vertical sectors in which Siemens IT Solutions and Services operates include the public sector, healthcare, energy, media and telecommunications, transporta-

Sigi Proebstl, Siemens tion, financial services and the manufacturing industry. The systems and solutions offered within these vertical sectors are continuously evolving and focus on the integration of shop floor operational systems with management information systems. In addition, Siemens IT Solutions and Services supports the Siemens Industry, Energy and Healthcare sectors that possess IT and software competence and thus increase the total offering Siemens presents to its customers. Special focus is placed on fully integrated, industry-specific IT solutions developed together with the Siemens sectors. Proebtsl believes the new structure will be simpler, more transparent and focused and as a result closer to all stakeholders. “We believe our customers will see the benefits of a new streamlined organisation that has the ability to answer tough questions in the growth markets of the future,” he concludes.

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ANALYSIS: MICROSOFT SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

Microsoft

Dynamics AX 2009 enables businesses to thrive Manages costs and increase employee productivity. BY DUDU SHABA

M

icrosoft has launched the newest generation of its business software, Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, in SA. Jumana Helal, head, Dynamics Business, Microsoft SA, says the new software is set to signal a new chapter in enterprise resource planning (ERP) user productivity by providing an easy-to-use interface and information tailored to specific roles within a company.

“Organisations are looking for a state-of-the-art ERP solution to bring together their disparate business processes and increase the productivity of their employees.” – Jumana Helal, Dynamics business, Microsoft. “AX 2009 aims to help businesses thrive in a competitive global marketplace by controlling costs, managing risk and increasing employee productivity. Microsoft’s vision of ERP is that it will start to prompt its users to take certain actions instead of merely being a reactive tool that people use to pull weekly reports from,” she says. Helal says that Microsoft Dynamics AX includes applications for financial management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, human resource management, project management and analytics. “Because it integrates with well-known Microsoft products, such as Microsoft SQL Server, BizTalk Server, Exchange, Office and Windows, employees can work with familiar tools and thus keep training costs down,” she says. According to Helal, the perception of ERP has changed fundamentally over the past five years. She believes that organisations are looking for a state-of-the-art ERP solu-

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CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • SEPTEMBER 2008

tion to bring together their disparate business processes and increase the productivity of their employees. “In short, ERP now lies at the heart of every forward-thinking enterprise,” she says. In addition to that, Helal says that endusers have also become a far more important consideration for organisations when evaluating their ERP strategies. “In the past, the optimisation of business processes was the chief priority and the enduser experience was a secondary concern. Employees had to wade through inefficient, time-intensive steps, as they entered transactional data and ran reports, before they could get on with their day-to-day jobs. Today, this approach is unacceptable. A new generation of employees brought up on computer games and intuitive software tools has entered the workforce with clear expectations about the quality of the user experience,” she says. She goes on to say that new ways of accessing applications through mobile devices and Internet browsers are also emerging, making ERP available to a far greater proportion of an organisation’s workforce. “The business case for ERP is now heavily reliant on the acceptance of these new solutions by end-users. At Microsoft, our focus has been on boosting productivity and ROI by placing the individual user at the centre of our development efforts. Our range of Dynamics ERP products has been developed in the knowledge that if users don’t accept a solution imposed by the company, the implementation simply won’t succeed. We believe that this is the key trend shaping our ERP applications today and tomorrow,” Helal comments. Looking at what partners can look forward to gaining from Microsoft Dynamics AX

ANALYSIS: MICROSOFT SOLUTION

2009, Helal says that the solution is supplied exclusively through a network of channel partners, providing specialised services and local support. “We have approximately 150 partners in more than 30 countries using Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP software in a hosted and subscription-based pricing model. Our ERP partners are seeing success by differentiating their services by offering business process outsourcing services using Microsoft Dynamics AX. With future releases of ERP solutions we will introduce additional functionality to help reduce our partners’ cost of hosting and improve scalability and system administration. At this time, we believe our partners are meeting the market demand for hosted and subscription-based ERP, and we have no plans to offer a hosted solution direct from Microsoft,” she remarks. Is the local market ready for Microsoft AX 2009? In her response, Helal says that AX 2009 is well-positioned to help local businesses thrive in a competitive global marketplace by controlling costs, managing risk and increasing employee productivity. “For example, Adcorp CIO Kobus Pienaar says the group has a clear roadmap for rolling out AX technology to all 15 of its subsidiaries. Adcorp has 1 700 full-time employees, and administers 70 000 fulland part-time staff for its clients at any given time, pays R2.2 billion a year in salaries, and processes 70 000 timesheets and 60 000 payslips a week,” she says. “The complexities of managing accurate business insights and standardising operations across multiple locations are immense. Microsoft Dynamics AX helps us to manage complex financial and supply chain processes more easily. For example, the new software can run multiple legal entities on a central installation and provide a single, integrated view of financial and supply chain information from facilities around the country, helping us to simplify our planning. Advanced planning and reporting scenarios, such as consolidation or budgeting, are offered through integration with Microsoft Office Performance Point Server,” says Pienaar. According to Microsoft, the targeted market for Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 is midsize companies and enterprises with 50 to

more than 3 000 concurrent users. Helal says the strategy for Microsoft Dynamics AX in the enterprise is about surrounding customers’ current legacy systems and providing a solution to fulfil the requirements of a subset of large enterprises such as plants, departments, brands and subsidiaries. “Microsoft Dynamics AX is a good fit for implementations where the enterprise’s headquarters may be using a business management solution from a different vendor for its core finance needs, and where subsidiary offices that need more flexibility and support for specific business processes use Microsoft Dynamics AX. This way Microsoft Dynamics AX can be a key element of the IT governance strategy of large enterprises. Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 also demonstrates high scalability, says Helal. Discussing Microsoft’s ERP strategy for the future, Helal says this year represents a major milestone for Microsoft’s ERP products. In addition to the launch of Dynamics AX 2009, she says that this year will also mark the arrival of Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009. “Looking ahead, we will continue to invest in developing solutions for our customers and partners that improve the user experience and productivity as well as reduce operational costs and drive informed decisionmaking,” she concludes.

PROVIDERS

Jumana Helal, Microsoft

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ANALYSIS: IBM SOLUTION

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IBM

Upgrades Cognos BI, Expands Mobile capabilities Manages costs and increase employee productivity. BY RICK WHITING, CHANNELWEB

I

BM Cognos debuted a major upgrade of its core business intelligence platform recently, along with a new financial analysis application and enhancements to the Cognos Go! Search and Go! Mobile software. IBM says the additions would expand its Information on Demand strategy.

The most significant enhancements are to the IBM Cognos 8 Go! tools that extend the core BI platform. The new Go!

IBM says the new release, IBM Cognos 8 v4, offers a new self-serve, flash-based dashboard and new mobile and search capabilities that bring business intelligence capabilities to a wider audience of users. While analysts are traditionally the most frequent users of BI tools, IBM Cognos 8 v4 will particularly appeal to business users, business managers and executives who make up 80 percent of workers in the average company. The new software will be available by the end of the year. IBM acquired Cognos in February for $4.9billion. The most significant enhancements are to the IBM Cognos 8 Go! tools that extend the core BI platform. The new Go! Dashboard provides Flash-based graphics for personalized dashboards used to deliver reports and information from the IBM Cognos 8 BI system, as well as other sources such as RSS feeds. Go! Mobile now uses GPS information from a user’s BlackBerry, Symbian or Windows Mobile device to provide reports and other content that is “location

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aware” and automatically adjusts to a user’s location. And Go! Search offers new search-assisted authoring and exploration capabilities. “I think this is a big advancement from a usability perspective,” says Jeetu Lakhotia, CEO of Locus Solutions, a solution provider, speaking about the enhanced Go! Mobile application. Locus, which resells Cognos’ BI software, has already deployed the new Go! Mobile application for several customers and Lakhotia thinks its new capabilities make it attractive to a wider audience of operational managers. The new IBM Cognos 8 Business Viewpoint is a collaborative business modeling tool that helps users create, manage and share views of information for performance management applications, all without the help of IT managers or without disrupting the underlying data. And the new IBM Cognos 8 Financial Performance Analytics software for J.D. Edwards and Oracle E-Business Suite applications extracts financial data from those ERP systems for analysis. The product, for example, can be used by line-of-business managers for analysing the financial performance of their operations and identifying performance discrepancies. The new adaptive application framework technology in the core platform “really lowers the cost of deploying and maintaining an application,” says Myron Weber, CTO at Parsons Consulting, a financial consulting firm that resells and implements Cognos financial analysis software. Weber said many of his customers require some customisation of the applications and the new release makes that easier to do. “Customers don’t want to buy tools,” he says, “they want to buy content.”

ANALYSIS: FINANCE SOLUTION

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VARs struggle

to keep up with Wall street’s wild ride Manages costs and increase employee productivity. BY SCOTT CAMPBELL, CHANNELWEB

I

t’s a straightforward question, but the answer, according to John McNeely, is anything but simple: How has the wild ride of Wall Street this week impacted your business? The CEO and president of Sword & Shield Enterprise Security, a solution provider says it’s a hard question to answer because his business is being hit on a number of fronts these days. The good news is that US stocks rebounded Tuesday, a day after the Dow Jones fell 777 points when Congress couldn’t agree on a financial markets bailout. The Dow rose 485 points or 4.7 percent Tuesday. Meanwhile, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was up 99 points or 5 percent. But McNeely points out that the wild economic swings of recent weeks can fester in many different ways. For one, there’s the fuel crisis snaking its way through several North American southern cities, most recently and perhaps most notably Atlanta. Knoxville, about three hours north of Atlanta, recently had some of the highest prices in the country, based solely on rumors of an impending shortage. Then there’s the financial markets situation. Sword & Shield deals mainly with regional banks that haven’t been impacted by the struggles of the big financial institutions, but McNeely is smart enough to know his company’s financial security can change tomorrow. “We have a lot of things in place already that aren’t impacted by current crisis, but where we have concerns and where we’re keeping an eye on is we have five lines of credit with five different distributors for product reselling. It remains to be seen how that is impacted,” he says. Then there’s the housing market. McNeely

typically recruits nationally and pays for people to relocate to Knoxville because the local talent pool can’t meet his IT requirements. He can still find people he wants to hire, but now nobody can afford to sell their house to move to Tennessee, even at a cheaper cost of living, he says. “If they can’t get out [of their current situation], they’re not willing to move.” Like McNeely, Mark Wyllie, COO of Compuquip Technologies, a solution provider also chuckles at the question of what the market’s ups and downs will hold for his company. Compuquip closes its fiscal year today and Wyllie noted that among the top 20 accounts he had on this date last year, sales with 17 accounts are down a collective 26 percent. “And 10 of those customers are financial institutions,” he says. His top 20 accounts today, mostly different names from a year ago, are up 32 percent through the first 11 months of Compuquip’s fiscal year, Wyllie says. “We’ve also had a bunch of other companies approaching us about acquiring them or doing some partnerships because business is not that good for them,” Wyllie says. All the solution providers can do is try to plan appropriately and hope the roller coaster ride is over. “We’re in trouble whenever we see banks of significant size being bought or taken over, that’s a sign we’re in something serious,” McNeely says. “People are comparing this to the Depression, but there’s a big difference between now and then. There’s still a lot of cash that companies have. Some of this depends on where government goes with a bailout. If that happens, we will rebound. But I’m not sure anybody really knows what will happen.”

“We’re in trouble whenever we see banks of significant size being bought or taken over, that’s a sign we’re in something serious” – John McNeely

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ANALYSIS: HP PROCURVE SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

HP Procurve buys Colubris Move to expand the use of WLANs. BY DOMINIC KHUZWAYO

H

P recently announced it is buying Colubris Networks, a company that specialises in intelligent wireless networks for enterprises and service providers. Founded in 2000, Colubris Networks Intelligent Mobility Solutions deliver wireless integrated access, management and security products as well as 802.11n capability – all of which helps enterprises and service providers to broaden the reach and impact of voice, data and multimedia applications. And with HP also a supplier of WLANs through HP ProCurve, this move is seen as making HP ProCurve even stronger in the WLAN area. HP plans to integrate Colubris’ extensive product line into its ProCurve networking products portfolio. This will allow HP ProCurve to expand its reach in areas such as hospitality, manufacturing, transportaion, health care and education as Colubris Networks plays a major role in these markets. “The acquisition of Colubris Networks will strengthen ProCurve’s hardware, management platform and services, significantly improving the overall performance capabilities of both wired and wireless networks, and will deliver even more best-in-class choices for our customers worldwide,” says Marius Haas, senior vice president and general manager, HP ProCurve. “With our vision and continued support from HP leadership, I am convinced that ProCurve’s impressive growth and market leadership is unlimited,” he adds. The move is also set to give HP ProCurve and its partners a huge boost with access to 802.11n capability, which HP ProCurve didn’t have in its product line. On CRN.com Haas commented on having access to the 802.11n saying: “It’s a technology space we felt we needed to own. It’s a good augmentation to what we have.” Meanwhile locally, Lorna Hardie business unit manager, HP ProCurve SA says, “ProCurve will continue to offer its existing

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APs and WESMs as part of its extensive WLAN product line.” “In addition ,Colubris’ overlay architecture complements and strengthens existing ProCurve wireless solutions by giving customers additional choices for unifying their wired and wireless communications,” she says. According to Hardie, the introduction of Colubris products and technologies into the ProCurve portfolio will give channel partners even stronger wireless solutions to offer their customers. “Furthermore, HP ProCurve is impressed with Colubris’ next-generation technology and its alignment with ProCurve’s value proposition to deliver networks that are secure, easy to deploy and manage, reliable, flexible and affordable, enabling our customers to select standards-based solutions, she says. Lorna Hardie, HP ProCurve SA

“The introduction of Colubris products and technologies into the ProCurve portfolio will give our channel partners an even stronger wireless solutions offering for their customers.” – Lorna Hardie, HP ProCurve SA.

“HP is committed to developing the ProCurve business, emphasising its commitment to working with trusted industry partners to provide customers with best-in-class solutions, products and services.” When asked if industries like transportation, health care and hospitality are ready for WLAN technology, Hardie says: “Absolutely, in fact we believe that over the next 20 years, information will drive overall business success across all industries.” According to Hardie, this means real-time access to critical business intelligence needs

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Vincent Williams, Faritec

ANALYSIS: HP PROCURVE SOLUTION

to be seamless no matter when, where or how users connect, this directly impacts the need to support WLAN. Hence it is said that Wireless LAN (WLAN) technology will continue to grow as an essential enterprise resource. In fact, end-user spending in the WLAN enterprise-class market is expected to

“With our vision and continued support from HP leadership, I am convinced that ProCurve’s impressive growth and market leadership is unlimited.” – Marius Haas, HP ProCurve.

increase at a compound annual growth rate of 12 per cent from 2004 through 2009 to $1.6 billion, with wireless switches and controllers accounting for 31 per cent of that amount (Forecast: Wireless LAN Equipment, Worldwide, 2002-2009.” Gartner. January 26, 2005. Article).

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She explains that if one had to look at specifics in terms of industry this is no different and, in fact, has become more of a necessity rather than a “nice to have”, as an example in terms of the transportation, health care and hospitality industries their networking requirements are very similar that is the need for an advanced, secure, reliable and easy-to-manage wired and wireless LAN infrastructure combined with the benefits of real-time access. “In addition, visitors to your organisation no longer expect to be greeted just with a cup of coffee and a handshake. They also expect you to give them access to your wireless network so they can be as productive as possible,” she says. It seems the WLAN is becoming the ‘in thing’ in many industries and with HP now having Colubris Networks in the ‘bag’, HP ProCurve will try to capitalise on the market. On the other hand, the competition is on for WLAN vendors to claim the number one spot, HP ProCurve, 3 Com, Nortel…. on your marks, get set, ready, GO!

ANALYSIS: AMD SOLUTION

PROVIDERS

AMD at home, work, play Focusing on platforms. BY KAUNDA CHAMA

E

arly this year chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announced that it would move away from a model of selling components to selling platforms and has enjoyed a reasonable response from the market. This model saw the vendor selling platforms that were tailor-made for users that were using their computers for gaming, word processing, multimedia rendering and other specialised fields. However, even with this amount of success, the company feels it should step up its go-to-market strategy a notch and advance it from selling platforms to selling solutions. With the desktop platform space well penetrated AMD feels it is ready to move in the solutions direction and has already identified home, work and play as the three target areas it intends going for. All of the systems that will be shipped with AMD chips sets will be labelled accordingly and will come with stickers stating that they are AMD Live (for home and multimedia use), AMD Game (designed specifically for the gaming fraternity) and AMD Business Class for enterprise users. “All of these solutions are tailor-made for specific segments and, as a company, AMD is confident that it will stay ahead of its competition. Users will have an even easier job choosing systems that are suited to them because the stickers will indicate what a specific PC is designed for,” explains Giuseppe Amato, AMD’s EMEA sales and marketing technical director. He adds that all the new solutions AMD will bring to market will increase productivity in their specific management segments. One thing AMD has done well and is confident will go a long way in improving the end-user experience is the capabilities that its discrete graphics give to its systems. “Everywhere from home to play to business; people are demanding better graphics performance and AMD has just the solutions

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“Our mission is not to undersell our solutions against what our competitors have on the market, but to show customers that with our solutions they can truly get more bang for their buck.” – Giuseppe Amato, AMD they have been looking for with its advanced graphics capability. “Both corporate and home users are now getting used to high-definition video conferencing and corporates are also adopting high definition on their training videos or Web-based training because they cannot

CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • SEPTEMBER 2008

afford to have a lot of employees out of the office at any given time,” explains Amato. He adds that many companies are producing their own corporate videos and the amount of video rendering required calls for both improved microprocessor and graphics card performance.

ANALYSIS: AMD SOLUTION

“The discrete graphics card on the Puma platform-based notebooks gives users the same processing, graphics power and performance as desktop PCs. AMD’s main goal is to simplify the computer and give endusers the best and simplest experience possible,” notes Amato. Although the vendor appreciates the difference between ordinary and power users, it wants to be part of the solution to make using PCs as comparatively simple as using cellular handsets. Meanwhile, the company claims that its Business Class solution was designed with business in mind to deliver the best value on the market, enabling industry-leading platform stability and longevity, essential security and manageability, and exceptional performance and energy efficiency.

Stability and longevity Thanks to AMD’s reliability, stable image support and consistent 64-bit architecture across servers and clients, businesses can build a computing infrastructure that does more for longer. The solution boasts image stability of up to 24 months across AMD Athlon processors, AMD Phenom processors and AMD 780 chipsets backed by the vendor’s reliability. The company’s AMD64 technology provides improved system consistency and compatibility across servers and clients.

Performance and energy efficiency AMD Business Class technology delivers all the application and graphics performance employees need to be productive with energyefficient features designed to keep costs low. It comes standard with support for native, true multi-core performance with AMD Athlon X2 processors, AMD Phenom X3 and AMD Phenom X4 processors helping systems to meet and exceed real-world application performance needs. AMD’s professional-grade efficiency enhancements like Cool‘n’Quiet 2.0 technology and ATI PowerPlay, platforms based on its Business Class technology can help to enable low power consumption and smaller form factors. ATI Radeon integrated graphics support dual-monitor capability to help maximise productivity.

Essential security and manageability Meanwhile, the vendor’s open standardsbased approach enables future-ready solutions with features and interoperability for businesses without getting locked into a single, proprietary technology. In addition, the solution has chip-level security, including support for the Trusted Platform Module (TPM) specification and integrated virtualisation for enhanced security from the moment systems start booting up. AMD promises a commitment to security and management standards (TCG and DMTF) that keep businesses from getting locked into proprietary technology as well as support for choice through proactive

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solution partners to their customers, AMD is providing its channel partners will all the necessary aids, such as technology videos, to ensure that they easily understand its mission, vision and technology and, at the same time, transfer the intuitiveness of its solutions to their customers. “Our mission is not to undersell our solutions against what our competitors have on the market, but to show customers that with our solutions they can truly get more bang for their buck,” says Amato. “With AMD Live resellers are able to bundle PCs with products such as high-definition video cameras because they complement each other. At the same time, with the processing and graphics power we are putting

With the introduction of its external graphics card, which can be connected to systems via a USB port, AMD is confident that it will not compromise on graphics performance on the mobile side adding that it is bringing the same power experience from the desktop to the notebook.

development of the emerging DASH standard for out-of-band management. It also boasts a commitment to open platforms based on industry standards, enabling integrated management solutions while preserving choice in the industry. Standards-based components can also integrate easily into existing IT infrastructures and work seamlessly and predictably with systems from multiple vendors. AMD’s compliance with standards helps to ensure compatibility with popular management tools, making it easier to manage client devices because the non-proprietary functionality helps provide a consistent management experience across the infrastructure. It also shares a consistent foundation with the SMASH server management standard for greater consistency and reliability between data centre and client management. To ensure that its distributors and valueadded resellers (VARs) earn the best possible revenues from its solutions and become

into notebooks we are ensuring that mobility gets better without compromising on graphics quality thereby giving users the best performance per rand per watt.” With this said, it will be interesting to watch the battle between the Intel/NVidia collaboration with the AMD/ATI solution because AMD claims that with its Puma platform, it is able to give its customers better productivity with even higher video graphics quality. In addition, with the improved power management system built into AMD systems, the company says it will give its competition a good run when it comes to battery performance. With the introduction of its external graphics card, which can be connected to systems via a USB port, AMD is confident that it will not compromise on graphics performance on the mobile side adding that it is bringing the same power experience from the desktop to the notebook. “This is a great opportunity for improved margins for VARs because we deliver on the price and performance side,” he notes. Vincent Williams, Faritec On the small form factor side.

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Microsoft Partner Summit – a windfall for Durban Microsoft SA’s decision to hold its flagship Partner Summit and Tech-Ed annual events in Durban this year was worth millions of rands to the local economy, as more than 3 000 delegates from across the country descended on the city in the first week of August. The events, which ran back to back from 3-8 August at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli Convention Centre (ICC), are the highlights of the software maker’s annual calendar. Microsoft uses these events to lay out its technology and business roadmap for the coming year to its partners, IT professionals and developers and to highlight areas of innovation that will benefit end users. The Partner Summit and Tech-Ed events drew more than 3 000 delegates, and accommodating them resulted in a minor boom for the local hospitality industry and businesses in early August, said eThekwini mayor Obed Mlaba. “Durban is no stranger to hosting major business events, and Microsoft’s decision to host these events in our city meant that our enthusiasm for growth, change and development has not gone unnoticed,” said Clr Mlaba. Partner Summit culminated in a glittering Partner Awards function on 7 August, at which Microsoft’s top-performing partners were recognised for the impact they have on customers and their ongoing contribution within South Africa. Both Partner Summit and Tech-Ed have been held at Sun City for the past few years, and Microsoft SA’s Head of the Server and Tools business, Manoj Bhoola said the change of venue was part of a decision to give these events a fresh, new face. “The Microsoft partner eco-system is growing rapidly, and we felt that Durban would be able to provide a vibrant and compelling backdrop to these premier events while offering the facilities required to host these expanding events and a greater number of session rooms to cater for the diverse range of topics,” said Bhoola. “We’re looking to expand our presence strongly in other regions of South Africa, and we feel this will be a strong platform for us going forward.” A study in 2007 by IT industry researcher IDC found that the Microsoft ecosystem – defined as people working at IT companies and IT professionals who create, sell, or distribute products that run on Microsoft platforms – plays a key role in driving the IT industry’s overall contribution to job growth and economic development. Microsoft-related IT activities in South Africa were the source of more than 153 000 jobs in 2007, constituting 43% of the entire South African IT workforce. The study also found that the revenues earned by partners working with Microsoft in South Africa far exceed the revenues earned by Microsoft itself. For every R1 that Microsoft currently earns, partners working with Microsoft earn an estimated R9.69. Of this, R1.50 is generated in the software arena, R1.92 in services and R6.27 in hardware (that is, hardware sold with Microsoft software already loaded.) The Microsoft Partner Summit builds on the strong relationship between Microsoft and its partners and creates a solid platform for growing the Microsoft ecosystem.

Microsoft would like to thank the Partner Summit sponsors: Platinum sponsor

Gold sponsors

Silver sponsors

Service sponsors

To find out more about Microsoft Partner Summit visit: www.partnersummit.co.za

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iSolve stars at Microsoft Partner Awards iSolve Business Solutions, Dimension Data and Leaf were the big winners at Microsoft’s Annual Partner Programme Awards in Durban, with iSolve walking away with four Solutions Competency Awards, Dimension Data winning three awards and Leaf taking home the coveted Managing Director’s Award for its remarkable growth in the mobile space in the past year. iSolve won awards for competency in Custom Development Solutions, Data Management Solutions, Information Worker and Learning Solutions, while The IT Department beat off some strong competition to win the Small Business Specialist Award for the second year running. Other companies to do well were AccTech Systems, IS Partners and Integr8IT, which each pocketed two awards at a glittering ceremony at Durban’s ICC. Microsoft’s head of the Platform and Developer Evangelism Group David Ives was effusive in his praise for the Microsoft Partner Programme Award winners, saying they were delivering “unmatched innovation and value” to customers as part of Microsoft’s diverse and talented partner ecosystem. He singled Leaf out for special praise, saying the company has demonstrated “commitment and vision” in its approach to the strategically important area of telecommunications, placing itself at the forefront of the South African mobility market while tapping into the lucrative consumer space. The company has grabbed 90% of the local Windows Mobile market while growing its Microsoft revenue 53% year-on-year. A delighted Himal Ramjee, director of iSolve, said Microsoft’s commitment to the partner model had played a key role in the company’s ability to deliver focused solutions across a range of disciplines. “The Microsoft Partner Summit remains a key event in the iSolve management calendar, as it clearly outlines Microsoft’s strategy and the ways that we as partners can align ourselves to it,” said Ramjee. “Our ongoing interaction with Microsoft has played a key role in our ability to provide world-class solutions to our clients, using shared skill sets and Microsoft technologies.” The IT Department’s Mornay Durant said the award underlined the way his company had been able to articulate Microsoft’s small business focus through embracing shared marketing opportunities as well as new licensing models. “Small Businesses have very clear needs from their IT infrastructure, and we feel we’re at a point where we can enable them to see their IT infrastructure as reliably supportive of their business operations on a day-to-day basis,” said Durant. The glittering Microsoft Partner Programme Awards 2008 Gala Dinner took place on 7th August 2008, hosted by Fernando de Sousa, former interim Country Manager for Microsoft South Africa and Cheick Diarra, Microsoft Africa Chairman. Awards were presented by the Microsoft award owners; business group leads and business managers responsible for each of the award categories.

Microsoft Partner Programme Awards 2008 Winners Advanced Infrastructure Solutions Competency Award – Dimension Data Dimension Data has shown real commitment to the Microsoft stack by driving infrastructure solutions to large Enterprise customers. The company has focused on providing management solutions – winning a number of Enterprise System Centre deals. Its understanding of Directory Services as a key component in winning the entire stack, as well as its commitment to the Infrastructure Optimisation strategy has gained it many tenders against competing technologies and its expertise in selling and deploying solutions has translated into a number of case studies.

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Custom Development Solutions Competency Award – iSolve iSolve consistently builds robust infrastructure solutions and adding custom development solutions for clients has been this partner’s forte for many years. A competitive partner in the Custom Development space, iSolve has been actively developing many niche solutions for Microsoft’s key clients including Business Intelligence, IW solutions and continuing specific custom development for their clients – this has gained them many awards and recognition from Microsoft and customers alike. The company continues to develop custom-built applications that drive adoption of the Microsoft platform in key development areas of Microsoft .Net.

Data Management Solutions Competency Award – iSolve iSolve has again this year demonstrated its continued support for Microsoft’s Business Intelligence and Data Management solutions. The company’s passion for Microsoft and its products truly sets it apart. This was very evident during the 2008 Wave Launch campaign where iSolve showed tremendous commitment by being the first implementer of SQL Server 2008 in a 64-bit environment at a customer. iSolve also achieved considerable year-on-year growth in the area of Data Management and grew Business Intelligence and SQL Server-influenced revenue in both the EPG and SMS&P spaces.

Business Process and Integration Solutions Competency Award – Business Connexion Business Connexion is a leader in the Enterprise integration space with a proven track record of high customer satisfaction scores. The company has contributed significantly to the Microsoft server business generally, and has innovated with BizTalk server to win several competitive deals. Business Connexion’s focus on solutions and interoperability is the key to their success and the commitment to employing the highest skilled integration specialists places them at the top partner in this space.

Information Worker Solutions Competency Award – Intervate Besides selling, implementing and influencing the entire stack of Information Worker products across EPG, SMS&P and Public Sector, Intervate has invested in training, skills development and new technologies to address key customer challenges. The company was instrumental in driving OpenXML adoption and messaging in South Africa and has delivered the highest number of Enterprise search engagements for the local Microsoft subsidiary.

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Information Worker Solutions Competency Award – iSolve iSolve has delivered yet another great performance in FY08. Its enthusiasm and energy is notable, in particular the way the company enables people through technology. Its alignment with Microsoft’s framework has made it easy to engage and work with iSolve while its support in the government sector and growth in the SMS&P space makes it a deserving winner.

ISV/Software Solutions Competency Award – AccTech AccTech Systems has deployed more than 35 ISV Solutions in the past 12 months. It follows a strict project methodology and implementation process based on the Microsoft Solution Framework which enables it to deliver quicker wins. AccTech also uses the ISV Royalty Licensing programme to sell SQL, Office 2007 and SharePoint packaged along with its own products. AccTech ‘s passion for cutting edge Microsoft technology, including its embracing of Silverlight and PhotoSynth, coupled with its investments in R&D, enables innovation in designs and state of the art products.

Learning Solutions Competency Award – iSolve Business Solutions iSolve’s business model consisting of consulting and training, and its alignment to the Infrastructure Optimisation models, gives the company a true competitive edge with its training offerings. iSolve has not only shown a significant growth in its training business in FY08, but a commitment and dedication to training, certification and skills development that that is key for Microsoft. The numerous projects iSolve is involved in at a development level is testament to its dedication to driving a stronger, more successful industry.

Licensing Solutions Competency Award – First Technology First Technology has managed to grow their licensing business despite a tough competitive landscape. Its customer centric business model has facilitated their winning a number of new accounts, while maintaining 100% of their large existing customer base. The company’s strong focus on the Software Assurance Benefits programme, and its innovation in this area, provides its customers with a clear understanding of how to best leverage the programme. Its mentorship programme is also empowering a number of new entrants to the skills market.

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Microsoft Business Solutions Competency Award – IS Partners IS Partners has shown full commitment to not only Microsoft Dynamics, but more importantly so to its customers. Consistently delivering exceptional customer service through its deep understanding of customer’ business needs, IS Partners leverages their own best practices along with industry experts to bring best of breed business models to their business pursuits. Its dedication to constantly exceed customer’s expectations, has allowed them to have achieved the highest growth rate year on year of any other Microsoft Dynamics managed partner in South Africa in FY08. IS Partners was awarded into the President’s Club for Dynamics, forming part of the top 500 Dynamics partners worldwide – a huge achievement.

Security Solutions Competency Award – BUI Networking Infrastructure Solutions Competency Award – Integr8IT Integr8IT is a high performing organisation that has won numerous industry awards during the past year. The business has seen good growth through its winning of new customers from competing technologies while maintaining its existing customer base. It has produced a number of great case studies, including some focused on Software plus Services solutions. The company is committed to driving the full Microsoft stack and has displayed alignment to the Microsoft vision.

Microsoft’s entrance into the security space has created new opportunities for partners to deliver a total end-to-end Security Solution. BUI has adopted a Forefront practice that has driven a number of wins against competitors in this highly specialised area, has taken part in the Technology Adoption Programme and is a trusted security advisor to many large and SME customers. BUI has been committed to driving the Microsoft security stack which adds to its value proposition to its customers.

Citizenship Award – Netsurit Netsurit has clear Citizenship programmes incorporated into its Internship Programme including ‘Feed the Kids Day’ and a comprehensive Community Training programme. These are great examples of giving back to the community, driving skills development and improving the lives of others. They are key components in helping to address some of the challenges we face in South Africa by helping to develop the economy.

Mobility Solutions Competency Award – Digital Matter As a strong mobile development house, Digital Matter excels at creating flexible, innovative solutions to customers challenges, and their ability to accommodate customer requests has driven lucrative engagements with large customers. Its solutions are contributing to the growth of the mobility business which is a key strategic area for Microsoft in South Africa. Its commitment to skills and building expertise makes the company a deserved winner.

Winning Customers Initiative Award – Information Systems Partners IS Partners has displayed a dynamic and innovative approach to solving real world issues around BI and CRM. The company provides complete coverage to our customers in three of Microsoft’s main focus areas: BPIO, APIO and Business Solutions. It has demonstrated an absolute winning performance by investing in new solutions from Microsoft, selling and deploying these solutions to customers, driving incremental revenue, competing aggressively and winning against other vendors in a very crowded area.

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XBOX Retailer of the Year Award – Look & Listen Special Initiative Award: Unified Communications – Dimension Data In the exciting area of Unified Communications Dimension Data has shown great support and investment in the enterprise space. Even though the company is a supplier for a number of voice solutions it has embraced the Microsoft UC vision and worked at integrating the technology into existing products to deliver great value to its customers. Based on its UC strategy Dimension Data has managed to up sell a number of customers to Enterprise CAL suits as well as deliver several proof of concepts.

Look and Listen has been part of the XBOX family since its launch. The company has embraced the XBOX brand and has taken retail execution to a new level. Its in-store execution of all XBOX products is of a world-class standard and it has invested heavily in a key programme - the Retail Sales Staff Training. The company has exceeded targets set by Microsoft and the range and depth of software titles it carries is unmatched in the market.

Royalty OEM Partner of the Year Award – Mustek Customer Experience Initiative Award – Integr8 IT With a primary focus in the small and medium business market, Integr8 has demonstrated its commitment and dedication to Customer Experience achieving a 98% customer care rating and generating multiple case studies and testimonials. The company has solid processes in place to deal with complaints and it continually displays that customers are at the heart of its values – a key component in driving a great customer experience.

Special Focus Award: Office Deployment – AccTech AccTech has helped Microsoft drive customer satisfaction by utilising Desktop Deployment Planning Services benefits offered to Volume Licensing customers to increase return on their software investment. They have shown a strong commitment to DDPS and demonstrated excellence by adopting a strict project methodology and implementation process based on the Microsoft Solution Framework. This has resulted in increased customer satisfaction and deployment of the latest technologies.

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Mustek, with its Mecer brand, has continuously embraced the Microsoft vision and participated in joint marketing campaigns to help drive the local PC ecosystem. Mustek has a direct OEM agreement across all Microsoft Business Groups to ensure that its customers get the best value from preinstalled Microsoft software on their PCs. All its PCs are assembled on a Mercer ISO-certified assembly line and carry the “Designed for Windows” logo accreditation to ensure a rich end-user experience.

SDA Retailer of the Year Award – Incredible Connection Incredible Connection has grown its market share to over 70% of the total Microsoft Entertainment and Devices SDA business. The company has dedicated substantial in-store retail space to highlight the Microsoft product range, while investing in merchandising and advertising these. The company is passionate about the Microsoft SDA product offering and has worked tirelessly with our distributor and the Microsoft product team to develop a range in their stores that showcases the retail Microsoft brand.

Small Business Specialist Award – The IT Department Distributor of the Year Award – Workgroup Workgroup has had a great year, exceeding expectations in FY08 by growing their business 25% year-on-year in both Volume Licensing and Commercial Full Packaged Product. Workgroup’s success in FY08, and previous years, is attributed to its highly skilled staff compliment and continuous analysis of its customers which has allowed the company to understand the broader channel, identify channel readiness requirements and uncover and nurture opportunities.

Managing Director’s Award – Leaf This year’s Managing Director’s Award goes to a partner that that has epitomized the Microsoft value of passion for technology. In a short space of time Leaf has grown into a market leader which is set to take the industry into the next wave of innovation. The company has demonstrated commitment and vision in its approach to the strategically important area of telecommunications and has embraced Microsoft’s strategy of Software+Services. Through its leveraging of mobile hardware and the development of software applications this partner has placed itself at the forefront of the South African mobility market while tapping into the lucrative consumer space. The company has attained 90% of the local Windows Mobile market while growing its Microsoft revenue 53% year-on-year, and its investment into recruiting and growing skills demonstrates its commitment to taking the market forward. For its alignment to Microsoft’s vision and its investment into reaching strategic segments of the market, we are proud to present this year’s Managing Director’s Award to Leaf.

The IT Department truly encapsulates what it means to be a Small Business specialist. In its use of the right technology for the right solution, it focuses on the customer’s needs and sees the value in partnering with other partners. It has shown dedication to growing this market segment by forming a Small Business Server user group and encouraging other partners to explore the opportunities the product offers. It has also grown its licensing business and offers software asset management as a value-add to customers.

Large Account Reseller of the Year Award – Dimension Data Dimension Data stands out not only for its business growth but for transitioning to deliver strategic services over and above pure licence fulfilment. The company has consistently driven initiatives like Infrastructure Optimization to enable the customer environment and secure deployment resulting in increased customer satisfaction. Dimension Data enables its people to tackle the most complex customer scenarios and has introduced best practice service level agreement management; ensuring that customers extract maximum value from their purchases while always striving to be the trusted advisor for both customer and Microsoft.

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Benefits Overview The Microsoft Partner Programme recognises your expertise, rewards you for the total impact you have in the technology marketplace and delivers tools and resources to help your business succeed, regardless of its size or focus. Expand Skills. Through the Partner Learning Centre, you can grow your expertise to help you capitalise on new market opportunities. Choose from hundreds of marketing, sales and technical training offerings – available at no charge. Partner Skills Plus is the gateway to exclusive certification offers. Save on practice tests and exams to help grow your expertise and fulfil certification requirements. Increase Opportunities. Growing your business is about acquiring new customers, discovering new opportunities, forging new relationships and nurturing existing ones. Find programme tools that can help you connect to customers and to other partners, thereby building new, profitable partnerships. Using the Partner Marketing Centre, you can generate leads and help increase your sales. Take advantage of the market momentum created by targeted Microsoft campaigns by using customisable marketing materials – including email messages and collateral – to help you attract new customers, and to offer services and up-sell solutions to existing customers to drive incremental revenue. Close More Sales. With an array of no-cost sales-assessment tools and customisable, scenario-based demonstrations, you can evaluate customer needs and show how your solutions can help conquer real-world business challenges. In the Demo Showcase for the People-Ready Business, you’ll find predefined customer scenarios, along with a customisable virtual machine environment. With Technical Sales Assistance, you can take advantage of direct, unlimited access to Microsoft presales professionals, who can help you with technical and competitive-sales questions – at no additional cost (available to Microsoft Certified and Gold Certified Partners). Support Customers. Using Technical Support Services, you can take advantage of a rich portfolio of services that can help you successfully sell, design, troubleshoot and deploy customer solutions. We help you build customer loyalty by helping to expediently resolve customer issues. Reach out to technical support specialists online or by phone, or chat with other partners and Microsoft professionals in newsgroups. We also offer a Customer Satisfaction Index, which allows our partners to receive direct, measurable feedback from their customers – and use it to help improve service levels and retention (available to Microsoft Certified and Gold Certified Partners). The New Microsoft Partner Portal We have increased the site content by around 66% and restructured it, using appropriate, intuitive left-hand navigation. The benefits to you include: 

Faster access to the tools and resources you need, saving you time and effort



Increased resources, providing a greater choice of business development tools



Easy, intuitive navigation, which helps you find what you need



A greater understanding of how you can get more out of the Microsoft Partner Programme



Offers, information and resources that are targeted at your membership level and your competency achievements Visit the Partner Portal regularly to get the latest news, plus information on products, events, training, and resources at: https://partner.microsoft.com/SouthAfrica

For any queries contact us on the Partner Support Line: 0860 MS PART (67 7278).

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HP ProCurve

gaining more ground HP’s best-kept secret emerges from behind the curtains.

BY KAUNDA CHAMA

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t might once have been HP’s best-kept secret as the markets concentrated more on the vendor’s other technology disciplines such as notebooks, servers and printers, but ProCurve has now come to be a networking brand to be reckoned with. In what seems a deliberate move by the vendor to keep its networking brand at the back and not lead with it as one of its top brands, the ProCurve products and solutions have proven formidable competitors to what many know as the top networking brands on the market today. The likes of Cisco, 3Com and Nortel have enjoyed very good market share both globally and locally and it is now evident that “the new kid on the block” is well poised to give the so-called “established” networking brands some well-deserved competition. Boasting case studies like the Venetian Hotel resorts in Atlantic City and Las Vegas as well as global software as a service company Mimecast, HP’s networking brand has truly managed a well-orchestrated sneak attack on its competitors and is showing no signs of slowing down. Lorna Hardie, business unit manager for ProCurve Networking Business South Africa and English Africa talked to CRN about HP’s “best-kept secret” which the

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company insists is not a new kid on the block in the proper meaning of the phrase. She states that ProCuve as an organisation continues to grow both locally and as a global team to such an extent that the organisation has had to split into two central divisions within ProCurve which are the Solutions Business Group (SBG) and Commercial Business Group (CBG). “The reason for this is we realised that we have a very broad spectrum of offerings in terms of our product range; we have products that are very enterprise orientated and solutions orientated, and products that are SME orientated although in many instances you can have a mix and match of products within one customer,” she explains. She adds that vendor often find that the smaller branches of a company will use the SMB-type products whereas the head offices or bigger branches will opt for the larger enterprise solutions. “As an organisation, we realised that what was needed to develop the commercial sector was focus and dedication to target the right products for that sector of the market and similarly within the solutions group it was the same concept,” Hardie states. The company is heavily involved in the mobility space and has seen a lot of expansion in the security space. So if one looks at solutions infrastructure, security and mobility, and the data centre arena – focusing on solutions per se rather than products - one can see why the organisation had to split into two for better focus. “As such it has been a direct result of expansion in the product set, taking on new areas and driving and developing both the solutions as well as the SMB arena,” she notes. According to her, there has been a misconception for some time that ProCurve was very much an SMB player, when it has a very strong foothold in the enterprise space. “If one looks at the competitive horizon it changes, if one looks at the different speed and feeds, and form factors and different arenas and at the horizon in the unmanaged space, we will be dealing with the more SMB-type players. If one looks at the Chasse arena, one looks a at the more enterprisetype offerings because they would be used in a larger office, head office or an environment with a large number of users,”

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she explains. Hardie goes on to say that this could tie in depending on if they were used in the distribution or the core within the networking environment, so the competitive horizon changes in this instance as well. “This also comes into play when one looks at 10Gig because it is used more in the data centre or the core or even in bandwidthintensive environments which are typically on the more enterprise side,” she adds.

“HP continues to see networking as a major growth area and we are growing at a pace that is more aggressive than that of the market which means that we are performing very well and the networking business is a very lucrative one.” – Lorna Hardie, HP ProCurve

Hardie also says that the competitive horizon changes when one looks at the revenue arena respective of the ports arena; so there are basically three ways to measure a vendor, by ports, by revenue and the other way is by looking at independent reports from the likes of Gartner and Forrester (these reports look at what a company is delivering against what the market requires and measures to see if it makes logical and business sense). So if one looks at who could be ProCurve’s competitors, one finds it is a very broad spectrum player in both the SMB and the large enterprise space whereas most of its competitors chose a niche and stuck to it. “For example, a Netgear or a D-Link are very SMB focused and even a Linksys, whereas in the corporate and enterprise space one starts looking at other players such as Cisco, which has a broad spectrum like us, and a Nortel and Juniper that chose to play in certain areas only,” she says. Locally, the ProCurve brand was introduced to the market as a subsection under the HP server business about 10 years ago and stayed there until it came into its own. Hardie stresses that the ProCurve brand has always been its own entity as it has

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always been a division within HP. “If one looks at it realistically, HP is one of the few companies that has made a success of its networking business even as a turnkey IT company,” she claims. Meanwhile, HP has been involved in the networking business for well over 25 years and it was involved in 10 base T as a technology and the ratification of the standard which was the foundation for Ethernet today. The reason behind this was that the vendor was involved with the likes of Xerox and

“Customers are talking about the positive experiences they have had from investing in ProCurve solutions and I am getting feedback from the channel and end-users that HP networking is now placed right up there with the best of brands.” – Lorna Hardie, HP ProCurve

other vendors to facilitate the common use of products such as printers. In essence, HP’s networking division has over the years levitated between divisions such as storage and services until the company realised the quality of its offering after having released some quality products into the market that received astounding responses. Its 4000 and 8000 range of switches is still being supported in the South African market. This is why HP decided to have a networking sub-brand because it has its own R&D labs, and sales and marketing teams. Over the past 48 months, ProCurve has been quite active on both the unit movement as well as acquisition side: it recently acquired Colubris Networks. HP plans to integrate Colubris’ product line into its ProCurve networking products portfolio. This will expand ProCurve’s reach into vertical markets such as hospitality, transportation, health care, manufacturing, service provision and education. Colubris’ Intelligent Mobility Solution delivers wireless integrated access, management and security products as well as 802.11n capability – all of which help enterprises and service providers to broaden the reach and impact of voice, data and

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multimedia applications. “The acquisition of Colubris Networks will strengthen ProCurve’s hardware, management platform and services, significantly improving the overall performance capabilities of both wired and wireless networks, and will deliver even more best-in-class choices for our customers worldwide,” says Marius Haas, senior vice president and general manager, HP ProCurve. “With our vision and continued support from HP leadership, I am convinced that ProCurve’s impressive growth and market leadership is unlimited.” “HP continues to see networking as a major growth area and we are growing at a pace that is more aggressive than that of the market which means that we are performing very well and the networking business is a very lucrative one,” comments Hardie. A recent international report also showed that HP’s networking business is growing at a pace that is three times that of the total market. “Our market growth is very healthy for SA specifically, in Q2 2008 our growth was very positive in a declining market and it has been exceptionally healthy in the South African market even compared to competitor vendors,” she says. Hardie claims that the South African ProCurve business holds about 14.5 per cent of the port allocation in the Europe Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. This translates into the local business being number two in both revenue and port allocation in the EMEA region. “The significance of our revenue positioning was that it was a direct result of our product expansion within the solutions space. So from a solutions perspective we launched a new product set that was targeting both a high-end distribution product set as well as new core product range,” notes Hardie. This product set has had strong positioning in the local market because it has been comparatively strong in meeting the requirements of the local customer as well as reducing OPEX. The company also invested significantly in the wireless space and a recent IDC report cited ProCurve’s wireless offering as having more than 400 per cent return on investment over a three-year period.

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Working with partners HP recently revamped its partner programme and added a Gold Partner status to its offering (commences H1 2009). Networking was one of the top disciplines when the company announced this. Even with the company’s recent acquisitions in the networking space, their impact will not be visible until the end of October this year. “HP has the Preferred Partner Programme and it will be launching the Gold Partner Programme next year within that there are 15 specialisation tracks and one of those is a networking one. What is exciting about it is that its subset is viewed separately from a networking perspective so we fall under the umbrella of the Preferred Partner Programme so it contains all the benefits plus it has very specific benefits for networking partners who are part of it. There is a strong link to certification and skills because these lead to confidence as well as sales generation and the ability to reap greater returns from the likes of service delivery and solutions. It also gives our partners more confidence in approaching the solutions side of things which means that at the end of the day our partners gain more ownership within an account because they are now providing a solution to a case of problems that a customer has,” says Hardie. HP remains committed to doing all its business through the channel so with the steady growth of the company’s networking

Lorna Hardie, HP ProCurve skills and capabilities,” she notes. Hardie is very proud to say that local HP networking channel partners are outdoing their expectations. “We achieved significant

“HP continues to see networking as a major growth area and we are growing at a pace that is more aggressive than that of the market which means that we are performing very well and the networking business is a very lucrative one.” – Lorna Hardie, HP ProCurve

business distributors and resellers can look forward to potentially improved margins on not only the traditional HP products but the networking portfolio as well. “We are a very channel-oriented company and are committed to developing channel

growth in SA over the last quarter compared to the corresponding period last year.” The growth rates out of the EMEA region are way over the 25 per cent mark over the corresponding period last year. Its rating in the port and revenue segment shows that the

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company has held a sustainable position as the second largest vendor for the past 11 consecutive quarters. Hardie says there is a concerted effort to gain further awareness of the ProCurve brand through various initiatives and activities in the global and local markets, and there has been a tremendous amount of success from word-of-mouth sales.

“We will continue investing in the brand and skills around it and also in creating awareness around it and both the products and solutions that customers require and have come to expect of the brand.” – Lorna Hardie, HP ProCurve

“Customers are talking about the positive experiences they have had from investing in ProCurve solutions and I am getting feedback from the channel and end-users that HP networking is now placed right up there with the best of brands,” she explains. The company intends sustaining its current growth rate and anticipates keeping up its pace. It also states that it will continue investing in the local team and work with HP’s Solutions Partner Organisation as well as end-user account managers. “The ProCurve team is not just us but also the extended team. But our team has grown three fold over the past 12 months,” notes Hardie. She points out that with the growth of the team there will be higher targets to meet but remains confident that the solutions offerings coupled with the team behind them will ensure the ProCurve team meets its objective. Its local authourised distributors are Duxbury, Tarsus and Axiz, and it also operates in southern and east Africa out of the South African office. To boost its channel efforts, HP recently acquired the skills of Chantel Davy, who joined the team in the role of HP ProCurve channel development manager for SA. Davy is responsible for driving and executing against the key strategies and objectives that ProCurve has for the channel business

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within SA, this is based on both local and EMEA guidelines, while working and aligning its strategies with the HP solutions partner organisation (SPO) as a whole. In addition, she is responsible for identifying, maintaining and developing relationships between channel partners and ProCurve in order to grow awareness, market share and sales in the region. Looking ahead, the ProCurve team plans to continue its training programmes both on the technical and sales side. It has also invested in a trade-in programme for customers looking to upgrade their networks to ProCurve solutions. This programme is not only limited to HP products but encompasses competitor brands as well. HP recently announced it is offering twice the normal rebate when customers trade in their existing network switches – from any manufacturer – for selected HP ProCurve Gigabit switches, including the new ProCurve 2510G switch series. The promotion is part of HP’s strategy to provide SMBs with an upgrade path to Gigabit Ethernet, enabling them to use highbandwidth applications such as graphical data, video streams and data storage. In addition, customers will enjoy ProCurve’s lifetime warranty. As part of the vendor’s commitment to reducing its environmental impact, with this promotion, customers will get the added benefit of HP recycling old products free of charge. The trade-in process is as follows: After customers log onto www.hp.com/eur/ procurvetradein to request their double trade-in rebate, ProCurve will pick up and recycle old equipment free of charge. Customers will then receive their double-rebate payment directly into their bank account. The limited offer runs until 31 October 2008 and is targeted at SMBs. The promotion has been rolled out in all countries in the EMEA region where the Trade-In programme exists. “We will continue investing in the brand and skills around it and also in creating awareness around it and both the products and solutions that customers require and have come to expect of the brand,” she concludes.

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Mokgosi-Mwantembe bids farewell to HP channel Moving forward to meet fresh challenges. BY DUDU SHABA

A

fter four years as MD at HP, the first black woman to be appointed a local head of USbased technology multinational, HP and a powerful woman in the IT channel, born in Sophiatown, Thoko Mokgosi-Mwantembe has bid farewell to HP and partners in the channel. Mokgosi-Mwantembe says it has been great working with HP and that her resignation has been emotional due to the relationships she has built at HP. Mokgosi-Mwantembe pointed out that her reason for resigning is to lead an investment holdings company she will be launching in the new year. “This is my ultimate, I have been waiting for this opportunity and it has presented itself,” she remarks. She also highlights that she is very proud of her achievements over the past four years. “I have been in a very comfortable position and was able to achieve a lot with my team. I am also proud of the fact that the HP business has experienced growth predominantly above market share,” she says. From a transformation point of view, she says the company has done well and has a policy of managing diversity and has improved a lot on it. “Due to the transformation process in the country, doors have opened up and there are great opportunities, especially for women, out there,” she says. Mokgosi-Mwantembe has also received awards while working at the company. “I won an award for Businesswoman of the year in 2007, CRN Magazine Best Women in IT in 2005 and an ICT Achievers award in 2005. All of this talks to what we are doing as a collective and also to what I have contributed as a team leader.” Mokgosi-Mwantembe has expressed her satisfaction with her successor, Fortuin should have person’s full name who has been the general manager of the Technology Solutions Group at HP SA since April 2007. “I am delighted with his appointment, I

have no doubts about his leadership because I know his background as a colleague,” she says. Mokgosi-Mwantembe also touched base on the challenges during her time in office. “When I started working at HP, it was very difficult for me because everything was new and I was faced with the challenges of learning about the culture of the company and having people understand my leadership style. My other challenges were around motivating people and the economic slowdown because we had to meet certain targets. My objective has always been to grow with people, create wealth and expand the skills of the people I work with,” she says. “I can never forget to thank all the HP people because I could not do without them. HP is indeed a winning company,” she comments.

Thoko Mokgosi-Mwantembe, HP

“I can never forget to thank all the HP people because I could not do without them. HP is indeed a winning company.” – Thoko Mokgosi-Mwantembe, HP Talking to all women who regard her as a role model, she advises them to consider the following recipe for success:  Be prepared to learn continuously  Integrity is important for success  Nothing substitutes hard work  Always maintain a balance between work and home  Ignore noise and always choose to listen to music. She goes on to acknowledge her husband, who has been with her through thick and thin. “My husband has always been supportive and has given me space to grow and be the best person I can be,” she comments. Mokgosi-Mwantembe concludes she has done her homework as far as establishing her own company goes and the only thing left for her to do is to reap the benefits.

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A steady uptake of BI evident in business A necessary tool to be fully immersed into an organisation BY DUDU SHABA

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he main goal of BI is to integrate, analyse and optimise organisational data and to create business insight and value. Like any other business sectors, SMEs are also demanding that technology solve their business problems and y are also looking forward to BI to help them to make good business decisions and enhance customer loyalty. According to Keith Fenner, Strategic Sales Director, Softline Accpac, BI can be defined as a measurement and alert process, or a presentation layer in which multiple data streams make sense of huge storage volumes using real-time techniques. Martin Rennhackkamp, COO of PBT says that BI is moving away from being an exclusive tool for a few users to a more flexible, affordable and accessible tool for a larger market.

“BI tools were previously the sole domain of large organisations. This was because they were able to support the upfront investment and deliver the IT skills needed to use the larger BI product sets.” – Ashley Ellington, Softline Enterprise.

“This is happening because of the driving need for an advanced solution which can offer faster and better insight into the business environment. There is a steady uptake of BI for executives as a concept in SA and Africa, as report packs and dashboards for executives are being implemented in many organisations. However, the concept of BI for the masses and advanced BI are two areas where SA lags behind the US and Europe,”

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he says. According to Ashley Ellington, MD, Softline Enterprise, BI tools were previously the sole domain of large organisations. In his view, this was because they were able to support the upfront investment and deliver the IT skills needed to use the larger BI product sets. While these products provided the cross business information view required they were not user products. “They needed IT expertise to develop, maintain and use the complex logic required to make sense of the underlying data that users wanted to address. This situation has now changed. User-led products have been developed, allowing organisations to pull information from multiple databases into BI reports and user portals both cost-effectively and without incurring IT overheads. These products enable mid-market organisations to enjoy the same improved visibility of information as larger companies without the large upfront investment. Software vendors who deploy BI tools with their ERP applications have also taken care of the complex logic in a preconfigured environment, adding to lower investment yet providing information relevant to the user’s role in the business,” he comments. According to Riaaz Jeena, business manager, Business Intelligence, the major current trends in BI are performance management, score-carding and dashboards. He says the majority of enterprise clients have invested in enterprise data warehouses and now want to leverage further.

Drivers Looking at what could be driving BI adoption; McWilliam says that many companies collect massive amounts of data and infor-

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE SOLUTION

mation on their customers, but few draw maximum value and insight from it. “Customer information such as purchasing patterns, past interactions and pending sales is often captured by different systems and processes and is never fully leveraged. But many companies are beginning to take steps to change this. Today’s empowered consumers are looking for clear and compelling differences among retailers. This challenges a team to develop dynamic, customer-centric business models driven by fast, unfettered access to customer, product and other information,” he remarks. McWilliam believes that BI needs to be adopted within SA so that businesses can be provided with the reach, consistency and freedom to drive powerful, ongoing programmes that support strategic differentiation in today’s fiercely competitive retail environments. Fenner also believes BI was traditionally report-driven and that is where many midmarket businesses still are today. “BI adoption is very vendor driven as companies bundle BI solutions into their ERP offerings at no cost. This allows customers their first taste of BI, which is typically a live Excel interface and management report packs with drill down capabilities. What we are seeing is that after this initial adoption, businesses are moving to more comprehensive BI which is tied to business process from, for example, a CRM solution through to alerting and messaging from an ERP solution. The possibilities of BI are only limited by the imagination and budget as the technology is certainly alive and ready for businesses to adopt and thrive on,” he comments. “BI is well known for providing a solution to information problems experienced by most organisations and as such, BI is seen as an important business strategy tool that should be fully immersed into an organisation and its business processes, certainly driving its adoption. Competition is also a major driving force. If your competitors are analysing how to increase their share of the customer’s wallet, you cannot sit on the sidelines and watch them slow pull further and further ahead. In the financial services sector, regulatory reporting requirements are also driving many BI implementation initiatives. If done correctly, the BI platform is the only place where organ-

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Ashley Ellington, Softline Enterprise isations can consistently and auditably report the required aspects, especially over time as the business, its rules and the underlying systems change,” Rennhackkamp comments.

Vertical adopters According to Rennhackkamp, the vertical adopters of BI are based in the financial services industries; he also states that there are still stumbling blocks in politics, mindsets and corporate culture. He goes on to say that the telecommunications industry, especially the mobile telecoms providers, are some of the fastest adopters of BI. “In SA, adoption is fast, but implementation is not always so clean, we still see silos and departmental initiatives undermining the enterprise-wide BI drive. In some of the developing countries in Africa we see the best, cleanest BI implementations in these industries,” he comments. “.Also, businesses which have many operations across the world are looking for a perregion graphical interface which can define when a measure is broken and then drill down into that data and make decisions.

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This is largely where BI is in Africa for the mid and low small? enterprise business today. At the top end, this is being embedded into the decision- making process, removing human intervention,” says Fenner.

Implementation of BI projects According to Rennhackkamp, the implementation of BI into highly complex business processes requires more than simple thought and basic activity, and this is where most organisations seem to go wrong, resulting in all sorts of myths and hype around the benefits and value of such a solution. He says that understanding the core importance and value of implementing BI and, more importantly, where it needs to be implemented in the organisation, the value expected and measurement criteria on return on investment in the solution should be the starting point for any organisation considering BI.

“Today’s empowered consumers are looking for clear and compelling differences among retailers. This challenges a team to develop dynamic, customer-centric business models driven by fast, unfettered access to customer, product and other information.” – David McWilliam, Cognos. “This is not only to ensure that the organisation implements BI where it is required, but so that it can determine what it need from the solution and gain the most from its BI infrastructure, reaping all the rewards it has to offer,” he explains. He goes on to say that decision-makers and CIOs who take the time to determine and understand BI and what the organisation can expect can help to eliminate the possibility of a bad outcome, resulting in a successful BI infrastructure that offers the organisation the essential information it needs to deliver best quality results to its clients. “Decision-makers and CIOs as well as the team of business analysts responsible for determining the objectives of the BI solution will also learn that a BI project is not an end in itself, but rather a foundational tool and an ongoing process that needs to be managed and monitored to maximise ROI

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and deliver the value promised. From implementation throughout the entire lifecycle of a BI solution, decision-makers and CIOs need to make sure that relevant, valuable information is derived from their BI infrastructure, and that it is not only understood but correctly managed,” he says. According to Paul van Aswegen, GM of Informatica South Africa, one of the main challenges facing BI implementation is the consolidation of data across people, processes and systems. He believes that the BI consolidation projects require data to be migrated from one system to another. “The main issue when consolidating systems is not simply deciding which system stays and which goes but, more importantly, which aspects of the old system need to be incorporated into the new system and what data needs to be migrated across in order for the business to continue functioning successfully. Businesses typically underestimate the time and resources required for a successful migration or consolidation. They often operate under the assumption that migration or consolidation is as simple as putting a new system in place and flipping the switch. Unfortunately, this is not the case, as when it comes to these projects there is always the issue of the data. It is not only the issues around data volumes but more specifically about understanding what data is important to the business from both a commercial and compliance perspective and thus has to be migrated to the new system,” he says. Adrian van der Merwe, MD, 8thMan comments: ”For VARs to be successful in BI, they need to have a full understanding of the product, experience or a track record in the BI space, knowledge of the business implementing the application, and client buy-in. If the client does not take action to ensure the program is successful, then the system will not be effective.”

Vendor offerings According to Corey Springett, strategic business manager, Progress Software SA, BI in SA is divided into two camps, direct vendors and channel vendors. In his view, this model is going to change in the next few years, with traditional channel vendors having been acquired by IBM and SAP.

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ERP and BI Analysing how BI and ERP correlate, Van der Merwe says that the correlation between the two is that a BI application can only be as effective as the ERP-developed database from which it draws its information. “If the ERP system does not contain the data required, then the BI application won’t be implemented effectively. Ultimately, BI is an extension of ERP, which is needed to collect data so that BI can implement it. In the past ERP was seen as a wall-to-wall solution, but including BI makes it a wallto-wall and floor-to-ceiling implementation,” he comments. According to Van Aswegen, in the past, businesses had no simple solution for integrating data held off-premise in a softwareas-a-service (SaaS) application with the data held in on-premise application software. He says that recently, solutions have been created that enable organisations to productively and securely replicate the corporate data and data schema to an on-premise database without installing any in-house data integration software. “This streamlines the integration process and gives customers a new opportunity to gain business value from their integrated information assets. It allows organisations to replicate their off-premise data rapidly and cost-effectively to ensure all the transactional and master data is available on-premise as needed. Finally, users can more fully use SaaS solutions without compromising data access or integration,” he comments.

The future of BI Not only can BI tools transform how employees interact and serve customers, says McWilliam, but can also help to develop more targeted offers, products and services. He suggests that organisations consider the following questions when it comes to BI: -Do your BI capabilities give employees tools to offer more personalised customer service, regardless of the channel? Can you build more successful, targeted promotions based on customer segmentation and purchasing patterns in specific locations? According to McWilliam, the future of BI looks at empowering consumers to develop dynamic, customer-centric business models driven by fast, unfettered access to cus-

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tomers, products and other information. “BI is going to become part of everyday life at home and in the workplace. In a business context, the decision-making process will be driven by BI trends not reports and there will be no need for human intervention at any stage,” Fenner predicts. He goes on to say that at home, BI will also become as humdrum as the PC.

“There is a steady uptake of BI for the executives as a concept in SA and Africa, as report packs and dashboards for executives are being implemented in many organisations. However, the concept of BI for the masses and advanced BI are two areas where SA lags behind the US and Europe.” – Martin Rennhackkamp, PBT

“We will see intelligence in everyday devices. I predict we will also see RFID tags that can monitor each parcel in a delivery process for metric-like temperature or pressure readings, giving live feedback to the BI layer,” he says. Rennhackkam’s view is that BI opportunities in SA are enormous. “All those growing businesses need information to manage growth and with explosive growth, it is even more important to keep a finger on developments and their impact on business in near real-time,” he says. One challenge, however, especially in Africa, is to get skilled and experienced resources, and then to ensure appropriate and successful skills transfer. “BI is too complex for an organisation to try and grow internally on its own, it is too costly to make mistakes and too much business value gets lost in the time trying to build things up. BI is too different from conventional IT to assume traditional IT resources can implement it correctly. It requires different approaches and methods, enormous business understanding and collaboration and, in many cases, very specialised skill sets. But again, when you get the specialists in, make sure you ensure skills transfer to upgrade and extend the solution after they have left,” he concludes.

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User education a bright future for UPS market It is essential for users to be given right choices.

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BY DUDU SHABA

oad shedding has created an enormous awareness around the benefits and use of UPSes. This is according to Christelle Larkins, area manager, South Africa, MGE Office Protection Systems. She says that although the market has slowed, it will continue to yield gradual growth, and that quality rather than cost will become a determining factor when purchasing UPS systems.

“The current challenge that is faced by the market is that the market is flooded with cheap, inferior UPS brands. She believes that as the market is largely uneducated about UPSes, they don’t know what to ask or look for when buying one” – Christelle Larkins, MGE Office Protection System..

Christelle Larkins, MGE

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According to her, quarter one was extremely lucrative due to the high demand for UPS devices during load shedding. The market has, however, slowed down considerably since load shedding was stopped. John Middlewick, channel manager, Comztek, agrees that the UPS market received a shot in the arm as a result of the power crisis that rocked SA a few months ago. He says that the crisis led to substantial growth of the market in a very short space of time. “However, the sales spike experienced at the beginning of 2008 has died down and the channel has returned to its normal sales cycle. Consumers, on the other hand, are finding the current status very confusing. Many small businesses make capital purchases on a need-to-buy basis, and not

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knowing whether there will be any further load shedding leaves them in a difficult position. The purchasing decision is further complicated by the large number of products from different vendors that came onto the market as well as the price wars between different suppliers,” he says. Nevertheless, Middlewick says the large variety of products from different vendors has given consumers greater choice when purchasing UPS solutions. “What we are seeing from all these changes is the emergence of the wiser, more cautious customer. Buyers are comparing products more closely, including features and benefits, and after-sales services. Suppliers who better understand customers’ needs and provide superior after-sales services will thrive in the current market,” says Middlewick. “Business Unity of South Africa recently stated that the ongoing power cuts had cost businesses, particularly SMEs, millions of rands with no end in sight. On the back of this, Eskom has assured the country that rolling blackouts will continue until consumers decrease power usage. This scenario presents both a challenge and an opportunity,” Larkins comments. She believes that the challenge comes in ensuring it’s business as usual when the lights go out, and the opportunity to maximise energy cost savings through the use of high-efficiency energy devices. “It remains good practice to evaluate the power quality status of your business, to know what is at risk and to take the necessary steps to keep your business going during a power cut,” Larkins adds. Larkins goes on to say that the current

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problem facing the market is that it is flooded with cheap, inferior UPS brands. She believes that as the market is largely uneducated about UPSes, people don’t know what to ask or look for when buying one. “Quality, features and after-sales service are therefore often overlooked in favour of the price tag. It is essential that the end-user asks the right questions, for example, about features,” she says.

“BEE companies should start looking at ways that will deal with what is becoming an energy crunch” – Steve Buck, MD, Edgetec Latest releases The actual power derived from UPSes has improved significantly. This is according to Middlewick, he says that a power factor of 0.9 is now standard in products from most leading vendors. “The uptake of modular or scalable systems has also been very strong. Along with the demand for lighter and smaller devices, especially in SA where fuel and transportation costs are high, these promise to be the market drivers in the next three to five years,” he remarks. X-head Going green As companies in SA must demonstrate their BEE credentials in order to do business, Steve Buck, MD, Edgetec believes that they will also have to show their commitment to a green, sustainable way of doing business. “Gartner predicts that as part of purchasing criteria, by 2010, 75 per cent of buyers will look at the lifecycle energy and CO2 footprint when buying new hardware. Gartner is seeing companies starting to assess their products and question suppliers about energy use and carbon output. Gartner expects companies to start publicising their products’ lifecycle energy and carbon facts starting in 2009. Three years from now, Gartner sees suppliers to large global companies having to prove how green they are with regular audits, not only to show what they are doing for the earth or the efficiency of their products, but to retain or improve their preferred supplier status,” he comments.

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On that note, Buck suggests that BEE companies should start looking at ways to deal with what is becoming an energy crunch. He suggests they embark on the following:  Begin investing in virtualisation technology today. Virtualisation offers many benefits such as reduced software costs; recentralisation for easier management, reduced total cost of ownership, enhanced return on investment; and improved security and integrity. Virtualisation, combined with new-generation blade technology, can reduce dozens of servers to a single logical footprint, with dramatic savings in energy consumption, cooling requirements and floor space.  Only buy servers that use energy-efficient processors. Advances in chip manufacturing have improved processing power by up to 300 per cent, while eliminating 75 per cent of costs associated with power and cooling. This becomes particularly important when it is considered that for every kilowatt of energy used by a server, another is needed to cool it.  You will experience power outages. Of that you can be 100 per cent certain. Plan for when this happens by investing in energy-efficient, green and quiet inverters rather than noisy, polluting generators.  It’s only a matter of time until you are forced down the green route. Rather begin today and reap the benefits ahead of everyone. It is good practice to evaluate the power quality status of your business, to know what is at risk and to take the necessary steps to keep your business going during a power cut. While it is advisable to have a detailed assessment conducted by a trained professional, Larkins suggests that the following pertinent questions will give you a good indication of how risky your business is in terms of experiencing power quality problems.  Do you have electronic equipment that is especially sensitive to power quality disturbances, like computers, laser printers and fax machines?  Is your office building more than 10 years old? Older buildings were not designed to handle the demands of today’s business equipment.  Do you have equipment that operates 24 hours a day? The Highveld is notorious

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for its summer lightning storms. Lightning strikes are responsible for more than 10 per cent of outages and other power quality disturbances.  Do you have a modem line or coaxial cable entering your facility?  Does your business have more than five users on a computer network system? The larger a computer network grows, the more susceptible it becomes to power disturbances.  Does your business lack adequate protection against power quality disturbances, like point-of-use surge suppressers and uninterruptible power supplies (UPSes) for critical equipment. If you answered “yes” to three or more of these questions your business has a high risk of experiencing power quality problems, says Larkin. She says that high availability power is the key to business continuity. Businesses must ensure they are protected against any type of power supply fault and should proactively monitor power to ensure data integrity. Larkins advises that a good starting point is to determine which devices would benefit from continued operation in the event of a power outage and to then support these with a UPS. She also advises that users should select a model with the option to add extra battery units to increase the runtime of critical devices. “Also, you should protect and manage structured wiring and networking applications with a UPS that enables remote management of automation functions and ensures protection in the event of a power outage,” she says. Be aware though, she adds, that no matter what UPS system you select, there will be some energy lost between the utility and the output. “However, high-efficiency UPS systems can dramatically limit the energy loss, resulting in substantial cost savings. Energy efficiency of a UPS can be expressed as the difference between the amount of energy that goes into it versus the amount of useful energy that comes out of it to power your loads,” she adds.

Business opportunities Larkins says there are many opportunities that resellers can take advantage of, especially through add-on sales and the sale of solutions which protect the equipment they are already selling. Middlewick comments that leading vendors such as MGE OPS, in conjunction with

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John Middlewick, Comztek

“The UPS market has been shot in the arm as a result of the power crises that rocked South Africa a few months ago. He says that the crisis led to the substantial growth of the market in a very short space of time” – John Middlewick, Comztek. its distribution partners, provides technical and sales training on UPSes for resellers.

Partner programmes Larkins says that MGE has introduced the Energize programme that will benefit its IT and ET partners. “When they enrol, partners receive various benefits, including access to a dedicated website and updated selling tools, a reseller logo as well as joint visits with professional sales staff, to name a few. Partners can join the programme by logging onto

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More power to the gamer Graphics and CPUs meeting performance needs. BY KAUNDA CHAMA

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he explosion of gaming solutions has given rise to stiff competition between chip makers AMD and Intel as well as other vendors that supply graphics and gaming software solutions who are also cashing in on the boom. For system builders and gaming solutions specialist resellers, bundling gaming solutions with the right LCD monitor size and the sheer performance of the machines they sell is a key advantage. Basically, resellers looking to move gaming units need to bear in mind that they should be offering competitive solutions in terms of system performance and power as well as bundles that appeal to gamers, and

Mahomed Cassim, Esquire Technologies

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how consolidation in the graphics and CPU market is impacting the gaming market. Gamers are notoriously performance-conscious and are some of the most demanding PC users. They spend a great deal of money ensuring that their hardware performance is nothing short of stellar, so anything that impedes that has to go. They are paying more than R1 500 for a low-end graphics card and R10 000 for dual cards – that’s just for the graphics cards. In addition, gamers want software that protects their machines from malicious code and hackers while they’re online and as advanced users they understand the need for security. They face a collection of threats from Trojans, worms, spyware as well as other viruses and hackers. In addition, their profiles and user accounts are increasingly at risk. The computer game industry has grown and will remain one of the “above-average” growth segments of the global entertainment industry into 2011. PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests game sales could exceed music spend this year. The channel has seen the opportunity this represents and players in this space are making reasonable revenues on hardware and software sales. These products sell themselves to savvy gamers and competition will increase in a market that is fiercely contested. Until then, vendors are ensuring that they continually improve their products to stay ahead of the curve. Microprocessor technology vendor AMD has taken the graphics side of things very seriously and in addition to the advancements it continues to make on the processor side, it continues to lead on the graphics side with its line of discrete graphics processors (GPUs) for both desktop and mobile platforms. The GPUs delivers improved visual experiences through best-in-class immersive highdefinition gaming and high-definition multimedia playback. “We set out to revolutionise the graphics

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market by introducing leading-edge technology at game-changing price points,” says Gautam Srivastava, vice president, sales and marketing and managing director, Middle East, Africa (MEA) and Pakistan, AMD. “We’ve delivered on this challenge, broadening the enthusiast gaming market so that more people than ever before have access to the phenomenal gaming and multimedia experiences that the ATI Radeon HD 2000 series introduces.” Last year, the company brought a family of ATI Radeon HD 2000 series products to market that introduced immersive DirectX 10 gaming enabling the next generation of visual effects at every price point. The line-up boasted many firsts for the graphics industry, including a powerful second-generation Unified Shader Architecture (USA), a 512-bit memory bus designed for full performance high dynamic range (HDR) rendering and new Unified Video Decoder (UVD) technology for high-fidelity HD multimedia playback. Having been the first graphics company to introduce a WHQL driver for Windows Vista, ATI Catalyst drivers continue to deliver industry-leading game compatibility and an extremely stable user experience in Windows Vista. The ATI Radeon HD 2000 series was designed to deliver compelling game-play experiences never seen before in DirectX 10 games. The series brings gamers astounding frame rates at all resolutions, advanced visual effects and improved realism for what AMD calls immersive HD gaming. The new cards were optimised for dynamic geometry acceleration, complex pixel processing and expanded non-graphical compute capabilities for more advanced characters and animation, more detailed environments and more realistic real-world physics simulations. For gamers wanting even more horsepower, it also features native ATI CrossFire technology, opening the door for a wide variety of multi-GPU configurations and eliminating the need for any master cards. On the other side, Intel’s Software Partner Program provides a framework for collaborative solution development around Intel architecture. From business planning and product development to marketing and sales, the program strives to drive increased business

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success and market opportunities. Meanwhile, game development companies like NetDevil are taking advantage of the Intel Software Partner Program. Providing product support at all stages, from strategic design through development and post-release marketing, the Intel Software Partner Program dramatically simplifies its partner companies’ ability to build broad, robust support for the latest Intel architecturebased platforms into their games. The Intel Software Partner Program offers participants like NetDevil the hardware expertise to help deliver fantastic results with Intel Graphics, it is relatively easy for them to tune their titles for an optimal visual experience for multiple audiences. Just as more advanced graphics hardware

“We offer a wide national footprint, a professional attitude toward our vendors and their ranges as well as many years’ experience in the industry – there was no doubt we’d fit the profile required by Point of View,” – Mahomed Cassim, Esquire Technologies allows higher resolutions, frame rates and depth of field, more powerful processors can enable more lifelike effects. It is important to take full advantage of the available resources as well as to scale these quantities back when necessary to safeguard the user experience. “Intel’s expertise at finding and evaluating performance results is a massive help in guiding us down the right path in terms of figuring out what is actually causing a bottleneck,” says – Scott Brown, president, NetDevil. “The software partner program gives us ready access to expertise that we wouldn’t have otherwise. Taking better advantage of the hardware gives our products an extra edge.” Members are able to take full advantage of the latest processors and make game development more efficient as new processor architectures become available; it is an ongoing challenge for software vendors to take advantage of feature enhancements. When a new instruction set like the recently introduced Streaming SIMD Extensions 4 (SSE4) emerges, developers need help get-

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ting up to speed on the potential benefits and how to take advantage of them. Members also have ready access to expertise that helps them to ramp up quickly. Likewise, refining threading implementations to take full advantage of the latest multi-core processors is an area where most developers can benefit from Intel’s assistance. To build development efficiency, a key value offered by the Intel Software Partner Program is to give software companies the ability to focus on their core competencies rather than getting mired in extraneous details. Brown states that, “in the business of making games, minimising development time is everything”. With the breakthrough energy savings available from Intel architecture-based servers, the value of targeting the Intel Xeon processor as an execution platform is greater than ever. Optimisation expertise from Intel is a clear benefit in taking advantage of the energy-efficient performance of these servers. As a result, they can support very

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ers and highly tuned software libraries to performance analysers and threading-analysis tools. These products enable the industry to improve performance and development efficiency. Ecosystem support also continues beyond product launch, with co-marketing opportunities that put the trusted Intel name to work distinguishing software products from the competition. “The Intel Software Partner Program gives us ready access to expertise that we wouldn’t have otherwise. Taking better advantage of the hardware gives our products an extra edge,” comments Brown. Meanwhile, Annex Distribution, one of the leading local suppliers of ‘building blocks’ to the ICT industry, last year set up a gaming solution supply chain initiative aimed at the micro retailer as a way of reinforcing efforts by retailers to meet growing demand for quality, an affordable digital lifestyle and gaming products. To make this happen, Annex shipped in stocks of internationally distributed gaming

“The software partner program gives us ready access to expertise that we wouldn’t have otherwise. Taking better advantage of the hardware gives our products an extra edge.” – Scott Brown, NetDevil favourable numbers of users per hosting server, and the operating cost per server is also kept very low. As another advantage of the Intel Software Partner Program, this effort is far simpler than it would be for NetDevil to undertake on its own. Lower operating costs increase average net revenue per user, helping to optimise the profitability of the entire enterprise. The Intel Software Partner Program also brings advantages to member companies in terms of expertise with other components of the Intel ecosystem as well as with co-marketing support. For example, NetDevil uses the Havok physics engine (acquired by Intel in 2007) for many of its games, a component for which Intel can provide unparalleled development expertise. As another added value, Intel provides a range of softwaredevelopment products ranging from compil-

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technologies and infrastructure, including consoles, related components and peripherals. The product portfolio includes the Microsoft X-Box, Sony PlayStation 2; Sony PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable (PSP). The supply chain solution offers retailers access to sound cards and speakers manufactured by Creative Lab, game pads and driver simulation pods produced by Logitech as well as PC games and joysticks. “We are proud to take this step to increase our contribution towards the growth of a strong and competitive segment of the market. The digital lifestyle space remains a key target market for Annex and there is significant business opportunity, especially for the independent retailer,” explains Wayne Britz, director at Annex. The initiative is expected to continue on a long-term basis and the product line will be

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broadened as growth and innovation take place in this market, as well as the anticipated demand from retailers. “Obviously, the retailer will have to keep up with change, innovation and level of technology development in this space to remain competitive. Our role is to facilitate the effective supply of required products. Direct access to stock, and advice and support from Annex will certainly add value,” says Britz. Local IT distributor Esquire Technologies recently signed a distribution agreement with Point of View, a provider of graphics cards, gaming solutions, IT products and home accessories, extending Point of View product availability in sub-Saharan Africa while expanding Esquire’s range of gaming products and accessories. Mahomed Cassim, sales and marketing director at Esquire Technologies says that under the agreement Esquire will distribute the full range of Point of View products through its branches in Gauteng, Western Cape, Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Mpumalanga, and sub distributors and resellers in Mozambique, Swaziland, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. “We offer a wide national footprint, a professional attitude toward our vendors and their ranges as well as many years’ experience in the industry – there was no doubt we’d fit the profile required by Point of View,” he says. “The company prides itself on a high level of customer service, as do we, and its range of offerings fits our product profile to a T.” Point of View focuses on digital lifestyle devices adding a high level of enjoyment and quality to the mix. Cassim believes the range will gain popularity quickly due to the growing local adoption of lifestyle-oriented multimedia products. Over the past few months, Esquire’s channel and South African consumers have been introduced to numerous Point of View products like the GeForce 8400 GS series, a range of nVidia-based graphics cards and special bundled products that incorporate the latest games. The company has also brought Point of View GeForce FX, -6, -7 and -8 series graphics cards, legacy graphics cards, gaming cases, power supplies, sound peripherals, mouses and accessories to the local market.

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Making solutions

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independantly

The importance of the ISV. BY KAUNDA CHAMA

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he importance of independent software vendors (ISVs) in the South African market cannot be understated. Both vendors and distributors have recognised them as an integral part of their solution development processes. In addition, VARs and solution providers are now increasingly developing solutions and business applications that are not tied to a single hardware or software platform; open source and open standards have become the way forward. More proprietary vendors are now backing open source software, and have seen the advantages that come with working with ISVs even Microsoft has for years been public about the fact that it considers open source a reasonable alternative. Partnering with ISVs is an important component in any IT vendor’s strategy to expand market share and provide increased customer value through third-party applications. However, meeting the needs of ISVs through a structured programme is not an easy proposition, although many top vendors are expanding their offerings to support the full life-cycle activity of these partners. According to an IDC report, where vendor offerings for ISVs have historically been in technical enablement, the focus is moving equally to sales and marketing. Each of the components of a programme (rewards and incentives and infrastructure are others) is different by degrees by vendor. IDC believes that technical marketing and sales enablement are the three key pillars driving successful ISV relationships. Some key insights include the following:  Technical resources are the most important category of offering provided by vendors to ISVs overall, but marketing and sales resources are not far behind, whereas rewards, incentives and infrastructure are not considered very important.  IT vendors need to focus their efforts on improving the value provided to ISVs

across the three most important components of a programme: technical, marketing and sales resources.



Meeting needs IT vendors have traditionally focused their efforts with ISVs around technical resources, including support and tools for enablement of porting and interoperability. The handoff from technically enabling an ISV to helping it go to market with its application has not



Vendor relationship: It is often assumed that partners involved with a vendor technology ought to naturally join the programme. However, IDC has found that partners often don’t see the inherent value of joining a formal programme or fail to entice partners to further develop market activity. Partner allegiance: As partners continue to see value in their relationship with the vendor, their commitment to the

An important factor in a vendor’s planning for ISV partner offerings is what the ISVs find of highest importance when partnering with vendors. been elegant. Vendors are, however, putting more effort behind enabling an ISV’s sales cycle through sales and marketing resources that address ISV-specific requirements. An important factor in a vendor’s planning for ISV partner offerings is what the ISVs find of highest importance when partnering with vendors. Meanwhile, IDC says a great vendor partner programme alone cannot drive sustained sales or market position. Rather, a vendor’s partner programme exists as one element within a broader economic system where vendors work with and through partners to drive business in a particular market. This system can be described as having four key causal elements that each need to be monitored and managed to maximise market impact:  Market characteristics: This includes factors such as business/technology trends, ISV perceptions of vendor, market perceptions of vendor and overall market demand for the vendor’s products.  Market affinity: This refers to the alignment between the vendor and partner at a technology and account level.

economic system grows and results in a certain amount of business loyalty. However, a consistent failure in one aspect of the system (for example, poor market position, low value proposition in a partner programme) over the long term is very tough to overcome and will decrease the ability of the partner’s economy to grow and function as desired.

Brief programme profiles Below are some of the top global ISV partner programmes. BEA Partner Program: The BEA Partner Program supports all partner types, including ISVs, in a global framework. The goal of the programme for ISVs is to increase joint solution creation and customer adoption in targeted industry segments. ISVs can access customisable go-to-market collateral and promotional templates with predefined BEA product content, market-ready messages and print-ready graphics. These include joint customer case studies, public relations templates, alliance overview tem-

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plates, datasheet templates, and promotional marketing campaign and event templates. HP Developer and Solution Provider Program (DSPP): HP has a global partner programme that involves more than 7 000 ISV, system integrator and IHV member companies. The DSPP is HP’s foundation programme supporting all business and technical requirements for these partners. Registration for the foundation programme is free of charge. DSPP members may be invited to participate in special interest groups segmented by solution, industry or geography and aligned with HP’s corporate initiatives. Participants in special interest groups have access to incremental resources based on the level of commitment by the partner to develop joint business and the expected leverage of HP products and services. Approximately 800 ISVs participate in special interest groups. IBM PartnerWorld: PartnerWorld (PW) is a global programme that encompasses all business partner types, including approximately 10 000 ISVs that have access to a range of sales, marketing and technical enablement offerings. ISVs participate at one of three levels: Member, Advanced or Premier. IBM has 3 000 ISV-enabled solutions on its middleware and hardware. PW members, including ISVs, are encouraged to leverage PW Industry Networks, which offers access to technical, sales and marketing resources to enable them on IBM middleware and hardware. PW Industry Networks aligns with IBM’s knowledge of 15 key industries across both large and SMB markets and provides a platform for ISVs to form relationships with other IBM partners. Advanced ISVs must be enabled for IBM middleware and hardware and have customer references. They can also choose to optimise in specific industries by completing additional requirements. ISVs can specialise in specific solutions or technology areas. This gives them greater visibility within that IBM industry or product group’s field team. The Industry Networks also offer integration with key technology initiatives, providing additional support and benefits for companies building solutions on Linux or in software as a service model. Solution specialisation was introduced

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in 2006 to provide ISVs with technical road maps for building applications in these identified areas. So far, IBM has introduced the Service-Oriented Architecture speciality and plans to launch others. Premier ISVs are classified as either ISV Advantage or Strategic Alliance, both of which are by invitation only. ISV Advantage for SMB partners agrees to lead with the vendor, drive a majority share of their business on IBM hardware or middleware, and to publicly support open standards in return for IBM marketing, technical and relationship support beyond what is provided in PW and PW Industry Networks. For developers, IBM offers a number of online communities that include developerWorks and alphaWorks. The former is a resource for open standards, open source and IBM technologies, and the latter is a resource for emerging technologies. Intel Software Partner Program: The Intel Software Partner Program has global scope and is focused on targeting ISVs developing commercial applications that run on Intel technologies. Launched in 2006, the Software Partner Program evolved out of Intel’s Early Access Program, a single-tier programme that focused exclusively on technical enablement. The new programme has a four-tiered structure and provides benefits that address planning, sales, marketing and technical enablement. Intel maintains its Software Network to provide online resources for developers. Benefits in the programme are additive to what was available through the Early Access



Market and sell, primarily for marketing personnel to use as go-to-market templates and tools.

The programme also offers the opportunity for the ISV to align its product development work around Intel platform, as well as participate with Intel in specific growth markets. From 2006, ISVs have had a choice of three initiatives, including gaming, collaboration and manageability. A creative media initiative was launched in 2006. On completion of their product development work, ISVs can take advantage of support for their sales and marketing activities. Each initiative has its own criteria, and ISVs are entitled to participate in more than one. Intel measures success with ISVs by the number of products ported to its platform. Microsoft Partner Program: The global Microsoft Partner Program supports the technical and business needs of all partner types and includes approximately 31 000 ISVs, 5 500 of which meet an ISV Competency requirement, with the other 25 000 having self declared as ISVs. These ISVs participate in one of three programme tiers: Gold Certified, Certified or Registered. Half of Microsoft’s registered ISV base participates in an offer called Empower, targeting ISVs new to the Microsoft platform and providing support for accelerated development. Novell PartnerNet: Novell’s PartnerNet is a global programme that encompasses all business partner types, including approximately 1 500 ISVs under

On completion of their product development work, ISVs can take advantage of support for their sales and marketing activities. Program. The three benefit areas include those under the categories of:  Plan and strategise, for business strategy personnel to understand potential growth market segments of interest and how their products intersect with Intel’s Develop and Solve, including offerings of different software engineering tools and technologies for development of product on the Intel platforms.

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its Technology Partner banner, that participate in the following four tiers: Platinum, Gold, Silver or Ready. PartnerNet benefits support the vendor’s focus on five key markets: the data centre, security and identity, resource management, workgroup and the desktop. Novell’s Ready level is a basic no-fee arrangement that requires ISVs to have products that work with Novell technology in exchange for listings in

ISV SOLUTION

the Novell Partner Product Guide and some early access to beta and evaluation software. Oracle PartnerNetwork: The Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) is a global programme that supports all business partner types, including 8 500 ISVs that have the option of participating in one or more product focus areas, such as Oracle Database and Oracle Fusion Middleware. OPN has three tiers: Partner, Certified Partner and Certified Advantage Partner. OPN provides offerings to encourage and assist ISVs to build on, integrate with, or embed Oracle technology (, Oracle Database) and applications (Oracle EBusiness Suite). ISV participants in a product focus area receive tailored content and are eligible to participate in specific solution initiatives, such as the Application Integration Initiative for ISVs that integrates their applications to Oracle applications. Key goals for Oracle with ISVs are to promote its community and drive opportunity through its Solutions Catalog and a focus on business development activities. Progress Partner Program: The Progress Partner Program is a global programme that supports all partner types. It has predominantly ISV membership but is evolving to include OEMs and VARs. ISVs on the programme design, develop, sell and support branded commercial business applications built on Progress infrastructure technologies. The programme has been refined over the years to identify ISVs with growth potential and to support those partners with programmes, resource, and staff. Progress uses its Growth Stage Assessment process to evaluate the financial positions, business and technical acumen and overall capabilities of ISVs. Resources available to ISVs are determined by their growth stage. Partners in the Progress Partner Program include ISVs, alliance, managed service (for SaaS enablement), technology and distributor. Approximately 600 of these partners are ISVs that are individually assessed and participate in the programme at one of three levels: Preferred, Premier or Elite. Progress provides its ISVs with guidance through the programme level, as well as in the development of its products and business strategy. The vendor works with all ISVs in planning sessions to identify their business,

technical and operational requirements to provide offerings that fit their needs. Member ISVs are entry-level partners that are provided with support in building and selling their OpenEdge-based applications. Preferred ISVs generally have a focus on specific markets or geographies. Premier ISVs are leaders in markets or geographies. Elite ISVs have strong expertise in their often global markets. Elite ISVs have dedicated technical, marketing and sales focus from Progress and are focused on SOA-enabling their applications with Sonic, EasyAsk and Apama from the Enterprise Infrastructure product lines. SAP PartnerEdge and Powered by SAP NetWeaver: SAP offerings for ISVs are available under two programmes: SAP PartnerEdge and the Powered by SAP NetWeaver programs. The former is targeted

FEATURE

PROVIDERS

is focused on the approximately 1 500 ISVs with solutions running on the SAP NetWeaver platform. Within its programme structures, SAP provides various initiatives and communities for ISVs to participate in, including Industry Value Networks, SAP Developer Network (SDN) and Business Process Expert (BPX) Communities, and the Enterprise Services Community. SAP maintains its Software Partner Program, which was launched in 2002, with ISV members that have software solutions that are interoperable with and add value to SAP solutions. Symantec Technology Enabled Program: Symantec’s Technology Enabled Program (STEP) is provided for ISVs, IHVs, OSVs and other partner types that integrate their products with Symantec solutions. The programme, which is the result of the integration of Symantec and Veritas Technology

Key goals for Oracle with ISVs are to promote its community and drive opportunity through its Solutions Catalog and a focus on business development activities.

at SMB ISVs that develop and sell solutions based on Business One and All-in-One under the Channel Partner track, and the latter to enterprise ISVs that develop packaged applications or SAP xApps composite applications on the SAP NetWeaver platform. The Powered by SAP NetWeaver program and its ISVs will join SAP’s PartnerEdge Software Solution Provider track over the next two years. SAP organises its ISVs internally into three tiers based on solution maturation, strategic value, certifications and market opportunity. These tiers directly correlate with levels of marketing, sales and technical resources, and include the Certified Partner Community, SAP Endorsed Business Solutions Partners and Global Partners/Titans. Externally, SAP PartnerEdge recognises ISVs (and includes resale partners such as VARs) for resale and development around Business One and All-in-One solutions within its Software Solution Provider track and puts them in one of three tiers: Associate, Silver or Gold. The Powered by SAP NetWeaver program

Programs, has three levels: Base, Compatible and Certified/Qualified. Symantec also supports approximately 50 partners in the global strategic partner programme; a select subset of STEP partners closely aligned with Symantec’s market offerings. Symantec has a goal to develop solutions to capture a broader base of regional and industry-focused ISVs over the next two years.

What next Essentially, ISVs will continue to be an important factor in vendor technical and go-tomarket strategies. Providing appropriate offerings across the product and sales life cycles to these partners will become more critical to success. IDC says to be competitive, vendors will be required to build effective ISV recruitment and retention strategies, which will include focused efforts in the areas most important to ISV success. It is likely that investment in programmes in support of ISV activity will continue to increase.

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Highly Recommended

Reviews by: Kaunda Chama

OKI C8800, sheer printing pleasure

At first sight, the C8800 looks like any other A3 colour printer that delivers less than it promises, but brace yourself, this one is a giver. The first thing you notice about this printer is that it is not bulky or slow. This LED-powered printer is almost the same size as most A4 printers on the market today and can print in colour at up to 26ppm. However, straight from the beginning, it is only fair to mention that it is not cheap to maintain but compares well against other A3 printers on the market. Although it comes in a number of variations, the basic OKI C8800 has a built-in 10/100Mbps Ethernet interface and integrated print server for use on Windows and Apple Mac networks. It comes standard with a 300-sheet drawer and 100-sheet multipurpose feeder, and the same LED-powered print engine is used on all models in the range. It has some impressive processing power as it comes with a 500MHz PowerPC processor, which is supported by 256MB of memory. An extra hard disk comes as an optional extra. It has a maximum print resolution of 1200 X 600dpi with support for both PCL5/6 and PostScript emulations. It would be an overstatement if one said this is a solution for topnotch graphics professionals, but the printer is perfect for printing

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proofs and business documents. I put it to the test by printing photographs and I am pleased to say that it did not disappoint at all, I did not even have to change driver settings. Compared to similar models from competitors in the same price range it is relatively quiet, but it does take a couple of minutes to warm up. However, once operational the first page of any document appears in under 10 seconds with a top A4 speed of 32ppm in mono (26ppm colour); A3 documents take twice as long. One negative note is that it needs a good deal of maintenance with separate toner refills and image drums required for each of the four colours. On the plus side, however, the C8800 compares well on price with other colour A3 printers on the market. It comes with both Windows and Mac drivers, including network management software to supplement the built-in Web-based interface. Users will also benefit from a template manager utility that aids the quick creation of all kinds of documents from business cards to corporate brochures.

Reviews by: Kaunda Chama

Highly Recommended

Nokia E71, it gets better Extremely handy. At first this seems like just another phone from Nokia, but the E71 is definitely something to write home about; as a matter of fact, it could be one of the best Nokia phones to date. On features alone, this handset will be very hard to beat by competitor mobile phone manufacturers. From the design, specs, size and feel it is clear to see that this is the phone that Nokia and handset users have been waiting for. At a time when everybody seems to be buzzing about Blackberrys, the E71 provides great competition as a smartphone with a full QWERTY keyboard, and I personally prefer it. Compared to the E61, one quickly sees that the two devices are worlds apart. The first thing users will notice about this device is its outstanding dimensions. The E71 is very thin, yet extremely comfortable to hold and use. One great thing on the design side is the entire phone is chrome and while it’s definitely a fingerprint magnet it is a stunning looker. The phone is quick to flash users because the middle select key also serves as the notification light as well as other functions. When a user has a missed event, the border around the middle key flashes white until it is cleared. The handset comes with a 320?240 screen that looks very bright. The one disappointing factor is I felt that the graphics could have

been sharper, even some older model handsets have better looking graphics. However, the screen real estate isn’t a problem at all as it is a very comfortable size and is well sized even for Web browsing. On the connectivity side, this little darling is a quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE phone with 850MHz/1900MHz UMTS/HSDPA support, Wi-Fi 802.11 a,b,g, Bluetooth 2.0, and GPS. Like most recent Nokias, the GPS is assisted by the network, but also has a physical GPS chip. The E71 comes with a single, but very loud speaker in the upper-left side, which is perfect for voice playback, truetones and alert sounds. True to the E-Series nature this device can handle email; not just POP3/IMAP supported protocols, but the phone also comes with Nokia’s Mail For Exchange which is relatively easy to setup. It also supports BlackBerry Connect, but has no support for HTML email. The keyboard, due to the fact that the keys are a little smaller than those on the E61, can take a little getting used to, but for those with smaller hands, they are pretty easy to press The keys have nice white backlighting which makes them very easy to read; the keys themselves do not light up, just the letters and symbols which give the phone a very clean look. The strange thing, however, is that even with a QWERTY layout the phone includes predictive text. After using the phone for three weeks I found that helps more than it gets in the way as it helps prevent accidental spelling mistakes and reduces the amount of typing required. This might sound funny coming from a scribe but it can also save users a good amount of typing time. It comes standard with a microSD card slot right above the microUSB port for memory expansion to the largest microSD card a user can find. On the call quality side, the E71 doesn’t disappoint, it exceeds voice quality on all Nokias on the market. I even found it quite good at holding onto a signal in low-coverage areas. The phone has a long battery life (up to seven days) because it comes with a 1500mAh battery with average use of constant email, phone calls, Web browsing and other functions. This is a definite “worth a try” handset even for people that do not usually use Nokia phones.

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PARTING: SHOTS

DILBERT

www.dilbert.com

by Scott Adams

S n a pshot Company: Vox AmVia Position: Channel manager Age: 36 Best personal achivement: Becoming a father Management style: Open door with a clear direction.

Giuseppe Colonnello

Customer service is the focus Most admired company: Vox Telecom Most admired executives: Douglas Reed, CEO of Vox Telecom Best IT product: Single Click Entry, the most extraordinary product from Captaris, which can save companies millions in reduced work and enhanced processes Most pressing local business issues: Getting the message to the channel Key to success: Always focus on your core product. Perseverance and bit of luck Favourite car: Mercedes-Benz Your car: Hyundai Favourite authors: Dan Brown Where do you live: Blairgowrie, Randburg Birthplace: Johannesburg Hobbies/sports: Cooking, squash, hockey and golf Favourite periodicals: Business Times Pet hates: Disorder

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