AMD’s online training portal in Arabic, www.onlinechanneltraining.com, has gone live. The portal, which is an integral part of AMD’s AMD Fusion Partner Program, offers concise information in Arabic to AMD’s channel partners in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa (META) region on AMD’s CPU, GPU and Chipset product portfolios and VISION technology. In addition to product information and training modules, audio commentary explains the benefits and product features of AMD’s architecture and technology.
Canon Middle East has appointed Anurag Agrawal as its new managing director for the Middle East and North Africa. Agrawal has over 15 years experience in the regional market. He joined Canon in 2000 and has been responsible for various sales, marketing and service-oriented initiatives through his different assignments in the company. Agrawal succeeds Bertil Widmark, who returns to his home country to take over as managing director of Canon Sweden.
This week, Gulf Bridge International (GBI), the Middle East’s first privately owned submarine cable operator, revealed that Batelco will be providing a landing station for the company’s new sub-sea cable. The GBI Cable System, which will utilize the latest subsea fiber cable technology, will connect all the countries of the Gulf region to each other and provide onward connectivity via Italy in Europe and India in Asia. Scheduled to launch in 2011 and designed to operate for up to 25 years, the GBI Cable System will connect all the Gulf countries via a self healing core ring, which can re-route traffic thereby increasing resilience. With a design capacity of up to 5 terabits per second on certain cable sections, the GBI Cable System will have the capability to meet the rapid growth in demand that has been forecast for traffic originating and terminating in the Gulf.
GBI has already announced that STC will provide the landing station for GBI’s cable on the east coast of Saudi Arabia. For the UAE, du will be landing the GBI cable in its newly built Fujairah Cable Landing Station. Additionally, Vodafone Qatar will provide a landing station for GBI’s cable in Qatar.
Riyadh Exhibitions Company (REC) has put forward figures revealing that computer hardware sales in Saudi Arabia are expected to reach SR7.5 billion in 2010, fuelled by the growing adoption of technology solutions within the country. PC penetration has now reached 24 percent and is expected to exceed 30 percent by 2014. Saudi Arabia is the biggest IT market in the GCC with an expected value of SR19.5 billion by 2014 from an estimated SR13.875 billion this year.
REC will be hosting GITEX KSA 2010 from April 25-29. Mobile computers and IT accessories are expected to be among the best-selling product categories at the event, with analysts estimating that at least 550,000 PCs will be sold in the country this year. GITEX KSA will run concurrently with Saudi Communications 2010.
IDC expects the Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa (CEMA) Hard Copy Peripherals market to return to growth in 2010, with businesses and government leading the way. However, given the size of the decline in 2009, a region-wide recovery is not expected before 2011/2012.
Companies are getting smarter when it comes to printing, and corporate management now considers the total cost of ownership (TCO) as well as purchase price when acquiring devices and/or supplies. IDC expects this trend to intensify in 2010. That will mean changes in how supplies are procured and online procurement will increase. Sales of laser devices will grow faster than those of inkjet devices in 2010 in the CEMA region. While color laser will constitute the fastest-growing laser segment and will propel overall laser technology growth, operating cost considerations will drive users to adopt tools that control color printing. Additionally, expect a price war between vendors supplying original consumables and those providing compatible consumables. End users could benefit, as the market expects new alternatives and price cuts.
