Toshiba Offers Stronger Support to Resellers

A leading business house, which has been marketing Toshiba products in Saudi Arabia, has launched a plan for resellers which offers maximum value to customers and ensures better incentives to its agents. “Our aim is to serve our resellers as trusted allies,” said Mohammed Najamuddin Qureshi, MarCom executive for Toshiba at Olayan-Arabian Business Machines Company.

Najam, who focuses on Toshiba products, particularly laptops and office automation, explained that his goal was to ensure partners received what they needed to run their business more competitively and successfully. Recently, Najam has been conducting training and demonstrating advance technology for staff involved in promoting Toshiba’s products locally. Toshiba has acknowledged the positive result of this strategy due to the significant market increase in laptop sales in Saudi Arabia.

“We now have a solid foundation on which to build and we will continue the work of educating the market and supporting ABM’s key channel partners,” said Najam. For the coming quarters, ABM plans to organize partner incentive programs, increase targeted advertising, enhance channel sales training and product awareness training and host quarterly seminars which add value to business.

ZIIC Consolidates IT Infrastructure

HP has designed and implemented a sophisticated IT solution for the Saudi conglomerate, Zamil Industrial Investment Company (ZIIC). By consolidating and virtualizing its IT infrastructure, ZIIC is now able to meet current and anticipated future demand for responsive IT services across its own organization and the three other businesses its central IT function serves. In addition to the enhanced performance and reliability, the highly available solution is scaled for growth and features a low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

Led by Zaki Sabbagh, ZIIC’s chief information officer, the IT service organization of the Dammam-based conglomerate is responsible for all internal and external IT requirements of ZIIC and those of Zamil Air Conditioners, Zamil Steel and Zamil Glass Industries.

“HP understands our business requirements and our need to respond to continual market changes and dynamics, and it has delivered a world class solution which provides the high performance technology we require to optimize our people, processes and technologies,” said Sabbagh.

HP was selected over competitors to deliver the enterprise solution based on its previous track record of success with ZIIC and its ability to meet and respond to the customer’s needs. ZIIC chose to consolidate its Data Center using HP’s Enterprise and Management solution including servers, software, StorageWorks systems and related services. By partnering with HP, ZIIC has incorporated the latest technologies into its Data Center including virtualization offerings — which allow IT resources across storage systems, servers, networks and entire data centers to be pooled together.

Cartoon Network Content Services Come to Mobile

Info2cell.com has joined with the Turner Broadcasting System to deliver content services from Cartoon Network to the growing number of young mobile subscribers across the Arab world. Info2cell.com will provide subscribers with Java games, wallpapers, themes and ringtones from Cartoon Network. Info2cell.com will leverage its WASP platform, which is interconnected to 27 mobile operators in the Middle East, to ensure that Cartoon Network services are available to subscribers throughout the region, including in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Syria Yemen and Iraq.

“Cartoon Network’s Java games and wallpapers are extremely popular all over the world, and Info2cell.com is delighted to bring these unique offerings to the youth in the Middle East. With this partnership, we further demonstrate our commitment to build alliances with leading content providers to introduce innovative mobile content services for all sections of society,” said Bashar Dahabra, founder and CEO, Info2cell.com. “We expect Cartoon Network’s content offerings to be an instant hit with mobile subscribers in the Arab world, especially among the tech-savvy youth who constitute a fair percentage of the region’s population.”

Mobily Selects Motorola for Network Expansion

Etihad Etisalat Company (Mobily) has selected Motorola, among other vendors, to expand its GSM network within the Northwest and Southwest regions of the Kingdom. Under the agreement, Motorola will deploy its latest Motorola Reach GSM solution and provide various managed services for the Mobily network.

Additional capacity and network coverage of the newly expanded network will enable Mobily to launch new services rapidly and smoothly while maintaining high quality of service, thereby enhancing customer loyalty and reducing the potential for customer churn.

In managing Mobily’s network, Motorola will be responsible for project management services as well as the operation and maintenance of the network according to an agreed set of key performance indicators, and will also include the ongoing network planning and optimization of the network to meet the operator’s increasing subscriber demand for high quality of service. The managed services contract will enable Mobily to help reduce network operational expenditures and total cost of ownership.

“Since we launched the service a year ago, we have had an ambitious expansion strategy. This deal not only increases the capacity and coverage of our network so that we can serve more customers, but also enhances our responsiveness to customer demands as we continue to deliver new applications and services,” said Mobily CEO Khalid Al-Kaf. “We’re excited to expand our relationship with Motorola, among other major vendors, to realize our business goals.”

“This Motorola Reach GSM network expansion will enable Mobily to significantly extend its network coverage and enhance its services offering, allowing the company to reduce its national roaming costs,” said Ali Amer, senior director of sales for Motorola Networks and Enterprise in the Middle East, North Africa and Pakistan. “Leading operators in the Middle East increasingly look to outsource all or parts of their network to realize strong business growth. The managed services component will allow Mobily to leverage Motorola’s expertise and expansive services portfolio, enabling Mobily to maximize its infrastructure investment and focus on its core business objectives.”

A portion of the revenue on this contract was recognized by Motorola in the second quarter of 2006. Motorola began working with Mobily in 2004, supporting its business goal to reach over 3.5 million nationwide subscribers by the end of its first year of service in May 2006.