Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 08 | Page 7

NEWS UAE Logicom hosts Aruba-partnership launch event in Dubai Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company recently signed a value-added distribution agreement with Logicom for the regions spanning across the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Yemen, Cyprus, Greece, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. The agreement requires Logicom to promote networking, security and mobile engagement products to partners, and to provide them with policy management, policy firewall, intrusion protection and VPN services. Through this association, Aruba HPE aims to increase their customer base in the market. Ahmed Elsayed, Distribution Account Manager for Middle East at Aruba HPE said, “In terms of industry verticals, we are a major player in the hospitality and education sectors. We are targeting within these sectors very aggressively and are customising our products and solutions to better serve these verticals.” To inaugurate the Aruba-Logicom partnership, Logicom hosted the Logicom Aruba launch event in UAE on June 1, 2016. Held at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in DIFC, Dubai, the ceremony was attended by Logicom partners from across the region and entertained dialogue on the operations and benefits of the newly formed alliance. Spokespersons at the event included Gamal Emarat, Country Manager at Aruba, Vikram Grover, IBM signs $300 million deal with Emirates Airlines IBM has announced that it has signed a ten-year technology services agreement with Emirates Airline worth approximately US$300 million. IBM will provide IT infrastructure delivered as a www.intelligentcio.com Product Manager HP-ESS at Logicom and Hemayun Bazaz, Regional Manager, Channel Sales at Aruba, among others. Being the VA distributor for Aruba HPE, Logicom will conduct enablement training sessions for partners in order to help them promote Aruba solutions in their respective markets. Hemayun Bezaz, Regional Manager, Channel Sales at Aruba HPE said, “We intend to increase our footprint in the market, and this can only be done if we have enabled partners who go and talk to our customers and present our products for us. It is, therefore, very important for us that Logicom enables as many partners as possible in the sales and technical aspects of the product line. Given that technology, solutions and products change at such a fast pace, we want to ensure that we conduct training sessions frequently so partners get a good refresher of the technologies and solutions offered by Aruba HPE. For the purpose, we will conduct enablement sessions on a quarterly basis as opposed to the previously adopted strategy of conducting them once a year.” service, allowing the airline to improve efficiency on its passenger support systems and functions. The agreement provides fully managed services for the IBM mainframe and storage that will help Emirates encrypt data in near real-time. Additionally, the platform allows the airline to build new apps that will support the API Economy - a commercial exchange of business functions, capabilities, or competencies as services packaged in APIs. Emirates also collaborated with IBM earlier this year to enhance its Passenger Service System (PSS). IBM technology and services will allow Emirates to re-design its business processes and streamline airport operations. By moving its IT Infrastructure delivery into a managed services model, the airline will benefit from improved business application performance, resilience, scalability, an agile service delivery model, and significant operational savings. Emirates has run its ticketing and reservations system on the IBM mainframe for more than 30 years. IBM’s z Systems is the foundation for all of the airline’s mission critical data and transactions. z Systems technology has enabled Emirates Airline to process ultra- high volumes of real-time business transactions including flight reservations, inventory, check-in, ticketing, and flight information. Emirates Airline has selected IBM technology to provide its travellers with the benefit of reliable, secure ticketing and gate information when and where they need it, anywhere in the world. INTELLIGENTCIO 7