April 2008

This month CRN

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

Inside This Issue

NEC predicts a boom
this year p13>>

Economy slows down

IT spend p22>>

Chipmakers continue to
support local desktop PC p53>>

SA’s energy crisis opens up

opportunities for resellers p13>>
 EDITOR’S: NOTE

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

Manda Banda – publisher

 Contents
News & Analysis

4 – What’s News

6 – Comings and goings

10 – Hi Five

12 – Demand Generator takes a look at how Novartis SA has

upgraded to VoIP. By Dominic Khuzwayo
10
CRN Contacts:
13 – Display vendor NEC is predicts a boom this year with its newly
Publisher:
launched large format LCDs, plasma screens and Vista-compliant projectors.
Manda Banda
By Dudu Shaba
mandab@systems.co.za

14 – Networking solutions vendor starts creating a collaborative

Online editor:
channel. By Kaunda Chama
Kaunda Chama
kaundac@systems.co.za
20 – Intel still sees great potential in indirect sales model.
By Kaunda Chama
12
Journalist:
Portia Shaba 22 – State of the economy slows down IT spend.
portias@systems.co.za By Dudu Shaba

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

Dominic Khuzwayo channel executives
dominick@systems.co.za
Features
Brand executive: 48 – Monitors: Early indications in 2008 are that sales of
Hellen Murahwa wide-screen LCD display panels would start outpacing square and
23
hellenh@systems.co.za CRT displays in PC bundles. By Dudu Shaba

Sub-editor: 53 – Local Brands: A few years ago, the question was whether
Jenny Bastomsky local brands would take off. Today, this is no longer a subject for debate,
jennybee@telkomsa.net.co.za chipmakers AMD and Intel continue to support the local desktop PC,
notebook and server market. By Dudu Shaba
Designer:
Spencer van Graan 56 – Security: Although virtualisation is now officially
spencerg@systems.co.za mainstream, industry pundits are cautioning against a rush to virtualise
without considering the security implications of doing so. Traditional 54
Database and subscriptions: security architectures and products are inadequate for this
Daisy Mulenga new topology. By Kaunda Chama
daisym@systems.co.za
Product and technology
copyright notice 63 – Product reviews, Vosonic multimedia viewer, HP
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2 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

WHAT’S NEWS
What do you have to say?
HP recently launched its “What do
you have to say?” campaign aimed
at engaging SME customers in its
Print 2.0 strategy. Thierry Boulanger,
IPG country manager, HP, says the
strategy focuses on areas such as
delivering a next-generation digital
printing platform that increases print
Thierry Boulanger
speeds and lowers the cost of
printing for high-volume commercial markets. The
campaign is designed to inspire HP’s customers and
empower them with new ideas and online tools to help
them think about what they have to say.
Konica SA introduces bizhub
C650
Konica Minolta SA (KMSA) has announced the
completion of its InfoLine designed trio of devices, with
the introduction of the bizhub C650.
Marianna Gdanis, KMSA colour division manager says
that the bizhub C650 printer targets CRDs and corporate
office environments with high volume requirements. She
claims that the bizhub C650 provides 100 percent duplex
productivity for the fast completion of double-sided jobs in
both colour and monochrome. The automatic duplexing
is standard and includes the processing of 256 gsm from
any paper tray says Gdanis.
New Lenovo 3000k desktops
Tarsus Technologies has unleashed the new Lenovo 3000K
range of consumer-focused desktops. This comes after the
launch of the highly anticipated Lenovo’s ThinkPad X300
notebook. Brett Walter, Lenovo product manager at Tarsus,
says that the 3000K range benefits from a mix of the
highest-end components available on the market today
and a number of innovative advancements from Lenovo’s
Lab in China. According to him, Lenovo has dealt with this
need by making the illumination of the desktop’s front
bezel change colour according mode.
Crystal laptop by Pinnacle
Pinnacle Micro launch MSI PR200 Crystal range of laptops.
It comes in a shiny UV glossy coating dominated by a white
and silver colour scheme and a finely detailed MSI logo.
Measuring at 30cm in length and 23cm in width, along
with a weight of 1.8 kg (including battery), the PR200
Crystal Collection is slim and portable. According to the
distributor the ACV technology gives the user the most
detailed and intricate images, resulting in high saturation
and high definition quality for a luxurious visual sensation
that’s easy on the eyes.
4 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
&
COMINGS
Timm bids farewell to
Faritec
Allan Timm, sales director at Faritec
Holdings, a JSE-listed IT company, has
resigned from the board of directors. To
ensure a smooth transition, Timm will leave
Allan Timm the company at the end of April 2008.
This doesn’t mean the end of the world for Timm; he will
be pursuing other business interests with
G
the appreciation of the board.
New marketing head at
O
Nokia Siemens Networks
Nokia Siemens Networks has appointed
Frederic Astier as head of marketing.
I
Frederic Astier Astier will be responsible for overall
marketing activities in all the regions and across the entire
portfolio of products and services.
N
He was previously a management team
member of the Vodafone Customer
Business Team at Nokia Siemens Networks.
G
Nthabiseng Mokone joins
GoldenRule
S
GoldenRule, a company within Amabubesi
Yasmin Forbes Capital Technologies (ACT), has appointed
Nthabiseng Mokone to its board. Holding a BCom Honours
degree with CTA, Mokone began her career in 1996 at
Transtel. In 2002, she moved to Transnet Group Finance to
start her training outside public practice. Then, she joined
ABC South Africa, a subsidiary of African Banking
Corporation Holdings.
Angus Young, CEO of ACT says, “Mokone has cemented
strong relationships across the board and brings with her a
wealth of experience from the banking and financial sector.
Westcon provide skills programme
Confronted with the growing skills shortage in the ICT industry, Westcon SA has launched
the Westcon SA Graduate Programme.
Ben de Klerk, national sales manager at Westcon SA says: “To support the growth that
Westcon SA is experiencing and aggressively driving, we need to ensure that the correct
resources are incorporated into the company. And we made a strategic decision to
invest in the industry and our own future by developing a graduate programme.”
WHAT’S NEWS
McAfee, VMware advance
virtualisation security
McAfee, has announced that it has entered into a
broad relationship with VMware to advance
virtualisation security. Chris van Niekerk, regional
director, Africa, McAfee says as part of the
relationship, his company plans to embed the
newly announced VMware VMsafe security
Chris van Niekerk technology into future security solution offerings.
McAfee has also signed an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)
agreement with VMware to utilise its VMware ESX Server 3i technology in
future security solutions. In addition, McAfee has also announced the
availability of its new e-mail and web security virtual appliance, which is built
from the ground up for the VMware platform.
Symantec Announces New
Norton AntiVirus for Mac
Symantec, makers of Norton security software announced
the new Norton AntiVirus Dual Protection for Mac. It
features a vulnerability protection technology and
antivirus for Mac users running Boot Camp or Windows virtualization
software. These programs allow users to run both Mac OS X Leopard and
Windows operating systems. This solution provides comprehensive
protection from both Mac and Windows-based vulnerabilities and viruses.
With this dual protection functionality, Mac users are set to benefit by
receiving both the Norton AntiVirus 11 for Mac and antivirus and
vulnerability protection of Norton AntiVirus 2008 for Windows.
McAfee releases virusScan for Mac
McAfee has released VirusScan for Apple Macintosh’s latest operating
system (Mac OSX) version 10.5 (Leopard). The VirusScan protects Mac
users from threats to their personal and private data wherever it resides.
Bernadine Botha, McAfee product manager at Workgroup says:
“VirusScan for Mac protects Macintosh end points against malware and
other unwanted programmes that can target systems”.
New Backup for Servers
Symantec, one of the global leaders in providing security, storage and
systems management solutions, announced its new Symantec Backup Exec
12 for Windows Servers. The Backup Exec 12 comes with a ThreatCon
global security alerting system, Enterprise Vault to protect email archives
and the new Symantec Protection Network for accessing offsite storage.
It restores data from a single pass backup with patent-pending Granular
Recovery technology, which obviates the need to run mailbox backups to
recover individual Exchange emails.
DCC stocks Sony Blu-ray writers
Drive Control Corporation (DCC) releases Sony’s second generation
Blu-ray disk writer drive, BWU-200S. “The advantage of the new BWU-
200S model is that it features a faster write speed, reducing burn time by
up to 50 per cent when compared with its predecessor. It now takes
approximately 45 minutes to record a 50GB BR-R disc,” says Michael
Tan, senior regional account manager, Sony applications & devices
6 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
marketing (Singapore), a Sony Electronics company. The BWU-200S
features a SATA interface. And the drive also supports recordings on
standard single layer 4.7GB DVD±R/±RW/RAM disks, 8.5GB DVD±R
double/dual layer disks and CDs.
New Intel server processors launched
Intel Corporation has introduced a two
low-voltage 45 nanometer (nm) processors for servers and workstations. It
is designed to run at 50 watts or just 12.5 watts per core and frequencies
as high as 2.50GHz. The L5400 processors are claimed to be 25 percent
faster and have a 50 percent larger cache size than Intel’s previous-
generation, low-voltage Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors. Others include
the quad-core L5420 and L5410 processors run at 2.50 GHz and 2.33
GHz, respectively.
New Sony E-Series LCD projectors
Rectron has launched the latest video projection
systems from Sony Electronics designed for use
in small to medium venues with limited space.
“The latest E-series business projectors are the
Sony VPL-EW5, VPL-EX50, VPL-EX5 and VPL-
ES5, all incorporating a three-LCD panel system
that delivers consistently bright, true-to-life
images of up to 2500 ANSI lumens of
Werner Kuhn
brightness,” says Werner Kuhn, peripherals
business manager at Rectron. The new models except for the VPL-ES5,
feature Sony’s BrightEra technology. “BrightEra enables the Sony E-Series
display panels to be significantly resistant to the damage of UV rays
caused by projector lamps and allow for increased aperture ratios.
Esquire releases BenQ projector
Esquire Technologies delivers the new ultra-
compact BenQ SP820 digital XGA projector,
which has been specifically developed for
corporate and educational markets. Mahomed
Cassim, marketing director, Esquire
Technologies, says that the SP820 arrives with a
high brightness of 4,000 ANSI lumens, a
2,000:1 high contrast ratio, a 1024x768 XGA
Mahomed Cassim
native resolution and digital zoom function.
Weighing only 3,71kg, he explains that the projector displays brightly and
features a compact housing with a convenient integrated handle that
allows users to carry it around easily or install it at a fixed location.
HP boosts midsize customers
HP has introduced an “easy-to-manage” virtual storage disk array. It is
designed specifically for midsize customers that need to reduce the costs
and complexity of implementing a storage area network (SAN). HP
Storage Works 4400 Enterprise Virtual Array (EVA4400) offers a combination
of high-performance and availability features, virtualisation capabilities
and advanced provisioning software. This is set to be ideal for midsize
businesses that want to cost-effectively manage large amounts of data in
a SAN environment without investing in deep storage experience.
WHAT’S NEWS
Epson, Rectron partner
Epson SA has appointed Rectron, to distribute Epson’s
products targeted at the SME market.
Hans Dummer, GM, Epson SA says the agreement covers
Epson projectors, scanners, dot-matrix printers, MFPs, inkjet
and photo inkjet printers, print consumables and other
supplies.
Dummer believes the expansion of Epson in the mid-range
of their consumer products is attractive to the company, as
well as the national foot print that Rectron has.
Rectron lands Samsung printer
distribution
Rectron, has signed another premium brand to its stable and
is now the authorised Samsung distributor.
In terms of the deals, Rectron will supply the local market a
complete range of Samsung’s mono and colour laser printers
and consumables in SA.
Zandré Rudolph, sales director at Rectron, says both
companies understand that Rectron’s strength as a key
player in ICT distribution lies in its wide-ranging customer
base and strong financial muscle. This will allow the two
firms to work jointly towards a common goal that of
becoming the number one player in the printing and
imaging business adds Rudolph.
Ingram Micro now Microsoft disti
Ingram Micro SA has signed a distribution agreement with
Microsoft SA. The deal will allow Ingram Micro to gain official
OEM distribution status for the vendor’s client operating
systems, client-side applications and server solutions.
Nicola Homewood, Microsoft product manager at Ingram
Micro SA says: “This agreement is of considerable value to us
locally as it allows us to offer our channel partners a more
complete portfolio of products which now encompasses both
hardware and software, aligning it with the one-stop shopping
experience Ingram Micro provides worldwide.”
8 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
Pinnacle closes Ritek deal
Distribution giant Pinnacle Micro has sealed a deal with Ritek
Corporation to distribute its range of RiDATA optical media
and flash memory products.
The deal comes hot on the heals of the distributer ending
its distribution deal with optical media vendor Verbatim.
“We have been in discussions with Ritek for more than a
year and they have been doing an intensive investigation of
Pinnacle Micro to ensure that we are the right company to
represent them in Africa,” says Hans Steyn, RiDATA brand
manager at Pinnacle Micro.
According to Steyn his company believes that the RiDATA
brand is going to make a big impact in the South African
industry and in Africa as a whole.
SMC Networks SA signs DCC
SMC Networks SA has appointed Drive Control Corporation
(DCC) as the local distributor for its next generation
networking solutions.
The development is effective immediately and will result in
the local market having access to a wider variety of product
sets from a single supplier.
Pierre Holtzhausen, networking specialist at DCC says: “The
agreement will allow DCC to deliver a wide range of quality,
cost effective networking solutions to our reseller base.
Paul Luff, country manager, SMC Networks SA says users
will immediately gain from a broader product range and an
enhancement of logistic services and technical support.
BDS signs X&R as Kenyan disti
Bytes Document Solutions, the authorised distributor of Xerox
products and solutions in 24 African countries, has appointed
X&R Technologies as its new Kenyan distributor.
Coenraad Ackerman, African operations manager at Bytes
Document Solutions says that the operations of the newly
formed company will be headed up by CEO Lucy Njoroge,
who co-founded, along with her husband, OpenView in
Kenya, an IT solutions company that services the corporate
market segment in East Africa.
HIGH FIVE: PANDA SECURITY
SOLUTION PROVIDERS

Panda security secures PCs

Addressing the challenges of IT security.

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

CRN: How are computer viruses affecting the IT industry?

JM: Viruses lead to downtime, malfunctioning systems and loss of

both financial and intellectual data, while spam (which accounts for
approximately 90 per cent of emails received by companies) leads to
unnecessary consumption of bandwidth. Then there are bots –
programmes that go resident on a computer waiting for commands
from their creators, and can take complete control of the infected system.
Currently, there are 500 000 bot infections worldwide every day.

CRN: What other challenges is the industry facing when it

comes to security?

JM: As an industry we face two main challenges. Firstly, many

businesses lack the education and awareness of how to protect
themselves and their IT environments. While technology is a vital
component, the human element involved in risk reduction should
not be underestimated. Staff need to be taught, for example, to
avoid carrying out unsafe actions – such as opening mails from
unknown recipients, opening links that arrive through mail instead
of typing them in the browser or downloading suspicious files
through P2P networks.
The other key challenge is virus attacks, the perception among
companies is that “it won’t happen to me”. This laissez-faire attitude
results in companies sidelining security resulting in insufficient
protection. A study from Panda’s laboratory last year showed that
almost 72 per cent of protected networks with more than 100
workstations were infected with active malware.
“Panda’s acclaimed TruPrevent Technologies has
been designed to protect PCs from unknown
viruses and intruders.” – Jeremy Matthews,
Panda Security
JM: In terms of percentages, the number of new examples of
malware that appeared in 2007 increased tenfold with respect to
2006 which, in turn, witnessed an increase of 172 per cent on the
previous year.
CRN: What gives Panda Security the edge?

CRN: What are the latest virus threats that the industry is
facing?
JM: Essentially, we face an onslaught of malware designed to steal
money. Leading the charge are Trojans (a quarter of all infections last
year). Banker Trojans, for example, are a very efficient tool for
cyber-crooks, since these malicious codes steal bank details, account
numbers, etc. which are later used to empty users’ bank accounts.
CRN: Looking at technology growth, which areas do you
see growing your business and offerings?
JM: Panda’s acclaimed TruPrevent Technologies has been designed
to protect PCs from both unknown viruses and intruders. These new
preventive technologies neither replace nor conflict with ‘traditional’
reactive technologies used by antivirus solutions.
TruPrevent analyses the behaviour of all the programs and files that
are running, blocking those that carry out damaging actions and
have unknown viruses.
By doing this, all processes are optimised. The “traditional”
antivirus component of your protection filters known viruses that the
firewall has let through, while TruPrevent focuses on analysing the
behaviour of the rest of the programs that are free of known viruses.

10 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

DEMAND GENERATOR: NOVARTIS SA
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
Novartis SA upgrades to VOIP
Standardising in line with parent company.
BY DOMINIC KHUZWAYO
N
ovartis SA, a local pharmaceutical company
recently upgraded its LAN and WAN, and
moved to a Voice over Internet Protocol
(VoIP) platform. This was done with the
assistance of KSS, a Johannesburg-based
system integrator focusing on integrated
data, voice and/or video solutions, and
Cisco, supplier of networking equipment
and network management for the Internet.
This upgrade is said to have increased the
reliability and performance of the company’s
networks, enhancing business efficiency and
communication, as well as enabling it to
meet the standardisation guidelines of its
international parent company.
“The implementation had to be carefully planned to ensure
minimal impact on operations through downtime.”
– Corne Sassenberg, KSS
Novartis SA is part of the global pharma-
ceutical organisation, one of the leaders in
the research and development of products
to cure disease, ease suffering and enhance
quality of life.
In 2006 the South African office had to
reassess its infrastructure due to new stan-
dardisation policies abroad on compliance
to global standards. This led the local
company to look at upgrading its existing
LAN and WAN, as well as upgrading its
telephony system to a VoIP platform.
“Due to growth and change, our LAN
and WAN networks were not functioning
optimally,” says Brigitte Thompson, service
delivery manager at Novartis SA.
“We needed to connect with two
branches in Cape Town and an additional
two in Durban but found our network slow,
unreliable and lacking the functionality we
required. We also needed to upgrade our
infrastructure to meet global standards.”
“In addition, our migration from a
Microsoft NT to XP platform further drove
the business case for a network forklift
upgrade. We felt this was essential to
Corne Sassenberg, KSS support our branches and continue
12 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
providing innovative medical solutions to
our markets,” says Thompson.
Wireless networK
The company also needed to expand its
wireless network at its head office in Isando
to provide mobility for notebook users.
Another key requirement was to migrate to
a VoIP platform as the telephone system was
not meeting the company’s requirements.
Novartis provided a design specification,
a list of hardware and required standards
to four solution providers. Novartis’ global
technology partner, BT, facilitated the
project implementation.
In addition, the expanded wireless
network required the installation of Cisco’s
4400 wireless controller with 16 LWAPP
access points to facilitate the wireless IP
phones which replaced the older cordless
phones. Cisco 2800 ISR routers and C3560
Power over Ethernet (PoE) LAN switches
were also implemented.
“The implementation had to be carefully
planned to ensure minimal impact on
operations through downtime. The first
phase of the implementation took place at
the head office in Johannesburg,” says
Corne Sassenberg, account manager at KSS.
“The hardware was ordered, an asset
count and a burn-in were completed. KSS
assisted with the pre-configuration, testing
and designing of equipment at its testing
facility in Midrand. The Johannesburg
implementation took three days and was
relatively free of challenges and hitches. The
Durban implementation was next, followed
by the Cape Town site,” adds Sassenberg.
According to Thompson, the network
now provides improved efficiencies due to
faster access speeds to the servers and the
ability to find information quickly.
“The IP Telephony solution has allowed
us to manage and contain costs. Reporting
is now available at the touch of a button
and with this information at hand,
management of our telephony costs are
simplified,” Thompson concludes.

NEC expects market boom
Educating the market to use display solutions.
BY DUDU SHABA
D
isplay vendor NEC is predicting a boom this
year with its newly launched range of large
format LCDs, plasma screens and Vista-com-
pliant projectors, designed for corporates.
Craig Butterworth, sales manager, NEC
Display Solutions SA says the unique style
and functional design of these new
products with their wide screens and digital
signage, combined with their many
features, make them valuable tools for
getting the right message or content across.
Butterworth says the company has been
in the market for a long time and has
clearly secured its position. He says that
customer satisfaction has top priority in the
company and that NEC’s partners will
receive marketing support in terms of
delivering the company’s best display
solutions and support to corporates.
“Corporates as well as business,
education, transport, mining, entertainment
and other sectors want to see themselves
adapting to technologies that enable them
to communicate in a fast and effective way.
With these products, we aim to educate the
market to start looking at proper and
quality public display solutions, using the
right products and also to stop using TVs as
display panels,” he says.
Butterworth says NEC’s display solutions
are already in the market and resellers will
have great opportunities for making profit
and will also be trained so they are able to
sell integration products for themselves.
“We have also started to inform our
distributors in the channel about our new
products through road shows and constant
education,” he says.
Butterworth states that the company has
also approached FIFA directly to negotiate
supplying it with public displays for the FIFA
World Cup.
ANALYSIS: NEC
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
“With these products, we aim to educate the market to start
looking at proper and quality public displays, using the right
products and also to stop using TVs as display panels”
– Craig Butterworth, NEC.
In Africa, he says that the demand for ChanneLink+ Partner Programme include:
public displays is the same as in SA. System Builder Select – the programme
“What we do in SA is what we do on the provides unprecedented value and support
rest of the African continent. We have started for all types of builders when selling
rolling out products in Kenya and are NEC’s products.
hoping to stretch to other African countries Consumer Select – the programme
as well because globalisation is the current supports solution providers that sell NEC’s
influential factor,” he says. products into consumer/retail environments.
“In SA, we have three distributors in the Display Solutions Select – brings integral
channel, which are Mustek, with 6 000 display solution components together, the
resellers, Inchbook distributors with 200 programme provides solution-selling resources
resellers and Edge Interactive with 150 as well as access to NEC’s broad partner
resellers,” he comments. programme to help integrators sell digital
Butterworth explains that the company signage or other larger display solutions.
has a partner programme called GovClub – is a membership programme
ChanneLink+. Because most system integrators with exclusive pricing and other benefits
do business in several vertical markets, such to resellers who sell to the state
as financial, medical and digital signage, and government.
NEC has several market-specific ProPartner Select – provides resellers that
programmes to address the unique target digital professional and other colour-
requirements of the various segments. critical markets with unprecedented value and
“The ChanneLink+ programme support when selling select NEC monitors.
consolidates all of NEC’s channel “ChanneLink+ is in the process of
programmes into one comprehensive educating partners on how to apply these
offering, providing resellers and system display solution relevantly, and we have
integrators with a single portal when selling more solutions that will be introduced this
NEC-DS LCDs and CRTs,” he says. year,” says Butterworth.
Butterworth points out that key enhancements Michael Mc Callum, Mustek Electronics
to ChanneLink+ include the programme debit Mecer, external dealer sales executive, says
card, awards and incentives, business-building that more opportunities are coming
opportunities, marketing and sales tools for a through NEC’s public display solutions.
variety of markets, customised and secure “NEC has got the right solution. The new
extranet platform, and resource centre. solutions are exciting, educational and
He goes on to say that the NEC partner create awareness, and will bring success in
programmes that have been rolled into SA,” he concludes.
ANALYSIS: CISCO
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
Creating a collaborative channel
Cisco encorages more partner alliances.
BY KAUNDA CHAMA
A t this year’s Cisco Partner Summit, perhaps
the other message besides the fact that the
vendor believes that the network is the
platform was a call for collaboration
among its channel partners.
After having recognised collaboration as
a necessity in meeting business demands,
the company has even set up what it calls
the Partner Exchange.
The exchange is a network that will help
partners to increase their revenue, extend
their expertise and deepen their relation-
ships with customers. Cisco says that the
move was a result of a global study it
carried out that indicated that collaboration
between channel partners is a large and
growing trend.
John Chambers, Cisco
14 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
The study, commissioned by Cisco and
conducted by Illuminas Research, was
designed to provide insight into the forces
shaping the reseller channel of the near
future. It polled more than 1 300 cus-
tomers and nearly 500 Cisco channel part-
ners across 12 countries: Australia, Brazil,
China, France, Germany, India, Japan,
Korea, Mexico, Russia, the United Kingdom
and the United States.
The study revealed that collaboration
among Cisco partners is generating 31 per
cent of channel revenue and is growing by
15 per cent annually. Furthermore, 62 per
cent of the partners believe that collabora-
tion will continue to grow over the next five
years. Cisco partners work with an average
of eight other partners on a regular basis.
Cisco’s Partner Exchange is designed to
help Cisco partners find, connect and
collaborate with the right group at the
right partner. The collaboration network is
now available to more than 8 500 Cisco
Certified Partners, managed-services
providers, distribution partners and applica-
tion partners from all over the world.
The international study revealed that IT
customers are demanding a greater
breadth and depth of expertise from their
vendor resellers as solutions become more
varied and complex. It found that many
channel partners are choosing to fill the
expertise gaps by partnering with other
resellers in a “coopetition” relationship.
Cisco says the Partner Exchange enables
partners to find, connect and collaborate
with other partners that offer a comple-
mentary blend of technology, services, and
industry and geographic expertise. It helps
group leaders at partners start to develop
trusted relationships with the right person
at the right partner.
Cisco Partner Exchange facilitates col-
laboration through three key features:
 Promote and Be Found: In less than

five minutes, group leaders can build a
customised profile to promote their
group’s unique capabilities, ensuring
that other partner group leaders can
easily find and do business with them.
 Find and Connect: Powerful search
and networking capabilities allow part-
ners to easily search, find and start to
develop trusted relationships with the
right person at the right partner.
 Learn and Collaborate: All partners
have access to best practices, online
events and discussion forums.
Cisco Partner Exchange is located within
Cisco Partner Space, a virtual environment
that enables connections and facilitates
collaboration between customers and part-
ners, among partners, and between Cisco
and partners.
At the event, Cisco also announced its
intent to purchase the remaining 20 per
cent interest in San Jose-based Nuova
Systems, a start-up focused on the develop-
ment of next-generation products for the
data centre market.
At the same time, it also unveiled the
Nexus 5000 Series, the first product
developed by Nuova. The Cisco Nexus
5000 is a 10 Gigabit Ethernet “top-of-rack”
switch that offers unified fabric capabilities
through the support for multiple data
centre networking protocols and
software intelligence.
Prior to the acquisition, Nuova operated
as a majority-owned subsidiary of Cisco,
which had invested $70 million and owned
80 per cent of the company.
The transaction is success based with the
total value primarily determined by the
revenue of Nuova products over three
measurement periods. The first measure-
ment period will commence in early fiscal
year 2010, the second measurement period
will commence in late fiscal year 2010 and
the third measurement period will
commence in mid-fiscal year 2011.
The existing relationship between the two
has allowed both companies to collaborate
actively in the development of the Cisco
Nexus 5000 through technology sharing,
product evolution and driving overall
market acceptance of innovative data
centre technologies.
As a result, the Cisco Nexus 5000 is
designed to be fully interoperable with the
ANALYSIS: CISCO
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
Key findings of the study include:
 Larger Projects, More Revenue: Cisco partners who collaborate with others
have developed deeper customer relationships and delivered more value to
customers. Collaboration enables 78 per cent of these resellers to win larger projects,
75 per cent to acquire new customers, and 74 per cent to increase their revenue.
 Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty: Customers overwhelmingly report that
collaborative resellers reduced the complexity of their IT business solutions.
Customers also enjoyed the single point of contact with a partner versus working
with the different vendors individually. Between 80 and 90 per cent of customers
globally are satisfied with the collaborative partners’ technical, business and industry
expertise; the ease of doing business with them; and post-sale service and support.
 Broader and Deeper Expertise: Partner collaboration also helps resellers to
broaden and deepen their expertise and, as a result, differentiate themselves from
their competition. Specifically, due to collaboration, 56 per cent of Cisco partners
witnessed improved levels of service; 78 per cent achieved greater technical
differentiation; and 66 per cent improved industry-specific expertise.
 Slow Adoption of Collaboration Tools: Despite the extent of partner-to-partner
collaboration, surprisingly few partners are taking advantage of collaboration tools
to work more effectively with other partners and customers. Only 33 per cent of
Cisco partners use Web-conferencing tools, 20 per cent use collaboration and
document-management tools, 20 per cent use project management software, and
15 per cent use shared electronic calendars.
recently introduced Cisco Nexus 7000 Series
switches through the sharing of a common
product architecture, operating system and
other software intelligence. The Nexus 7000
is an internally developed, modular data
centre-class switching system designed for
10 Gigabit Ethernet networks offering
industry-leading performance scaling up to
15 terabits per second.
“To succeed in today’s marketplace and effectively deliver on our
business strategy to capture key market transitions, Cisco drives a
combination of internal R&D, industry partnerships and corporate
development activities.” – Ned Hooper, Cisco
“To succeed in today’s marketplace and
effectively deliver on our business strategy
to capture key market transitions, Cisco
drives a combination of internal R&D,
industry partnerships and corporate
development activities,” says Ned Hooper,
senior VP, Corporate Development and
Consumer and Small Business Group,
Cisco. “In many ways, the efforts supporting
our Data Center vision are great examples
of this ‘build, buy, partner’ innovation
CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 39
ANALYSIS: CISCO
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
framework in action.” “Cisco’s decades of
switching innovation and expertise have it
well poised to be the architect of the next-
generation, network-centric data centre, a
vision defined as Data Center 3.0,” says
Mario Mazzola, current president and CEO
of Nuova Systems. “We expect the Nuova
team to make significant contributions
toward the realisation of this vision through
products and technology that help enable
data center consolidation and virtualisation,
while protecting customers’ current data
centre investments.”
“We expect the Nuova team to make significant contributions
toward the realisation of this vision through products and technology
that help enable data center consolidation and virtualisation, while
protecting customers’ current data centre investments.”
– Mario Mazzola, Nuova Systems
The acquisition is expected to close in Q4
of Cisco’s 2008 financial year and will be
the fifth one for the period.
Meanwhile, Cisco’s Nexus 5000 Series
strengthens the company’s existing data
centre switch portfolio and builds on its
commitment to invest heavily over the next
18 months in new products and capabilities
to help customers architect the next-gener-
ation data centre, creating a new market
opportunity for its channel partners.
The Cisco Nexus 5000 Series is designed
for data centre consolidation with
investment protection, helping to allow
customers to transition to a unified fabric
at their own pace. It also meets stringent
customer requirements for operational
continuity, transport flexibility and scalability.
With a unified fabric, IT organisations
can simplify cabling infrastructure, reduce
the number of required adapters, lower
costs, and reduce power consumption and
their carbon footprint. The Cisco Nexus
5000 Series delivers line-rate, low-latency,
10 Gigabit Ethernet switching, as well as
the industry’s first standards-based,
input/output (I/O) consolidation solution via
support for Fibre Channel over Ethernet
(FCoE), Data Center Ethernet and virtualisa-
tion technologies.
The switch is an extension to the Cisco
16 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
Nexus family designed to support increasing
I/O demands of multicore processors and
virtualised environments. With its support
for FCoE, the Cisco Nexus 5000 Series
consolidates local-area network (LAN), fibre
channel and iSCSI-based storage-area
networks (SANs) and server cluster traffic
onto an Ethernet-based unified fabric. It
also provides virtual machine (VM)
optimised services, supporting the Cisco
Data Center 3.0 vision by allowing IT
organisations to respond dynamically to
changing business demands through rapid
provisioning of application and infrastructure
services from shared pools of consolidated
compute, storage and network resources.
SAVVIS, a leading global IT utility services
provider specialising in hosting, network
and application services, is currently testing
the new Cisco Nexus 5000 switching plat-
form. “We believe the benefits to SAVVIS of
a unified fabric are multifold, including the
ability to provide our customers with a
higher quality of service as well as total cost
of ownership reduction within our data
centre operations,” says Bryan Doerr, chief
technology officer of SAVVIS. “ Cisco Nexus
5000’s ability to deliver this unified fabric
today makes it an attractive platform for us
and we are actively evaluating it.”
To further align with opportunities in the
data centre, Cisco has also evolved its channel
programme to help allow partners to build
a network-centric data centre practice. Part
of this effort includes the evolution of the
Cisco Data Center Networking
Infrastructure (DCNI) specialisation to DCNI
2.0, which recognises partners with a
highly qualified data centre practice.
Cisco DCNI 2.0 specialised partners will
be able to provide customers with in-depth
data centre technology skills and a proven
customer track record in selling, deploying
and providing sophisticated data centre
services and solutions.
In addition, for partners who decide to
build a network-centric data centre practice,
Cisco will offer technical and business
enablement tools and enhanced financial
incentives. This includes the introduction to
the Cisco Data Centre Value Incentive
Program (VIP), which rewards partners who
invest in a comprehensive business practice
focused on the data centre. Cisco is further
enhancing its partner enablement > p18
ANALYSIS: CISCO
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
>> p16 portfolio with the introduction of
the Cisco Data Center Partner Practice
Builder, a proven, simplified and repeatable
approach to building a Cisco solutions-
based practice, along with Steps to Success,
a business building platform that provides a
step-by-step customer engagement model
and associated resources designed to enable
partners to sell, deliver and support Cisco
advanced technology business solutions.
With more than 80 per cent of its annual revenue being sold by
channel partners, helping to preempt a skills shortage is a major
business imperative and one in which Cisco is investing substantial
time, money and resources.
“With a proven history of success in
delivering innovative network solutions in
data, voice and communications, video and
storage networks, Cisco and its channel
partners are uniquely positioned to lead the
transformation of the data centre into an
agile and efficient network that revolu-
tionises how our customers adopt new IT
strategies and respond to changing
business needs,” says Edison Peres, VP
worldwide channels at Cisco. “With a full
portfolio of data centre solutions, channel
programmes and enhanced financial
incentives through Data Center VIP; we are
helping to create extraordinary opportuni-
ties for our partners to accelerate their
growth, differentiation and profitability.”
Cisco has also expanded its services
offerings to help customers realise the full
potential of a unified fabric and take the
next step in data centre transformation.
Cisco Services provide the expertise and
experience needed to address the entire
data centre architecture and is designed to
support an organisation’s growth, server
performance as well as storage and
virtualisation goals.
In addition, Cisco Capital offers financing
solutions to support customers with the
development of their data centres, including
technology adoption, migration and lifecycle
management. It offers competitive rates,
high residuals and flexible terms for Cisco
data centre equipment and services globally.
The networking solutions vendor also
announced new solutions that further
18 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
optimise branch offices of all sizes, allowing
companies to customise branch networks
to meet their unique business needs.
It has done this by opening its Integrated
Services Router (ISR) and Cisco Wide Area
Application Services (WAAS) platforms to
customers and third-party application
developers, Cisco enables its customers to
optimise the branch infrastructure while
extending their accessibility to business
resources. It also provides Cisco channel
partners with new opportunities to deliver
differentiated solutions and services that
better align with customers’ business needs.
Cisco also introduced an array of new
security, wireless and unified communica-
tion products and service innovations that
elevate branch-office worker productivity
and deliver information technology (IT)
operational efficiencies.
Recognising the global shortage of skills in
the channel Cisco has also launched several
talent innovations, including its next-generation
partner talent platform, the Partner Talent
Network. This new platform uses advanced
social networking capabilities and interactive
video to transform how channel partners
attract, develop and retain employees.
“As I meet and talk with partners around
the world, they consistently tell me, regard-
less of location, that their top growth issue
is attracting, developing and retaining tal-
ent,” says Celia Harper-Guerra, director of
Worldwide Partner Talent at Cisco. “This
global feedback is the foundation of our
talent strategy, which was validated in a
recent study we commissioned in North
America. That study identified hiring skilled
sales and technical talent as the top barriers
to growth in the IT channel.”
With more than 80 per cent of its annual
revenue being sold by channel partners,
helping to preempt a skills shortage is a
major business imperative and one in which
Cisco is investing substantial time, money
and resources. Cisco invested early on,
more than 18-months ago, to work to
enhance the validity of its primary route to
market. The company’s new talent-building
initiatives include: The Partner Talent
Network: scheduled to launch in second
quarter of calendar 2008; Recruitment
Services Solutions; Professional Career
Accelerator; and the Talent Pool
Connections.
ANALYSIS: INTEL
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
Intel has strong channel belief
Partners still keep paying dividends
BY KAUNDA CHAMA
I f there was one thing that was certain at
this year’s Intel Solutions Summit (ISS) held
in Rome, it was the fact that the hardware
vendor considers its channel partners critical
to its success in all markets.
Thomas Rampone VP sales and market-
ing group and general manager of the
channel platforms group stressed that the
channel is Intel’s best customer because of
the reach and the advantage of flexibility
“As the demand for desktops across the board moves from
strength to strength, we are also quickly moving towards more feature
differentiation and innovation down our product roadmap.”
– Tom Rampone, Intel
that respective channel partners have in
their local markets.
While a lot of corporates might be of the
opinion that the desktop is fast dying and
the notebook is taking over as the PC of
choice, Rampone said that Intel is confident
there is plenty space left for penetration in
the desktop market.
In his keynote at ISS recently, Steve
Tom Rampone, Intel
20 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
Dallman, Intel’s sales and marketing group
VP and worldwide reseller channel
organisation GM, said the company is more
committed than ever to the channel.
Reinforcing Intel’s 45nm High-K
Transistor technology as the cornerstone of
opportunity, Dallman is encouraging
channel partners to embrace new
technologies and programmes such as
Intel’s latest mobile motherboards that
extend its channel mobile initiative and a
new loyalty programme for its channel
partner members.
Getting the channel ready for
’Montevina’
Dallman explained that Intel continues to
work actively with multi-national
companies, local and regional OEMs, the
channel and the PC ecosystem at large to
promote notebook PC adoption.
Dallman rallied the channel to get ready
for the next-generation Intel Centrino 2
processor technology platform, previously
code-named Montevina and expected to be
available in June this year.
Saying that mobility is a huge
opportunity for the channel, Dallman
announced Rich Creek 2, the code name
for a new mobile motherboard form factor
specification that expands Intel’s ongoing
efforts with the industry to develop
interchangeable building blocks for note-
book components.
Rich Creek 2 products will be rolled out
in a phased approach starting with select
local integrators, local OEMs and original
design manufacturers in several bare bone
and complete notebook configurations.
More offerings are coming online
towards the end of the year and in 2009.
Intel says the goal is for the ingredient-
based ecosystem to be mature enough to
support a broad distribution model for
all customers.
Intel as well as other industry partners
will offer Intel Mobile Boards based on Rich
Creek 2 that will launch time-to-market
with the Intel Centrino 2 platform. Initially,
the boards will be available in a bare bones
configuration from OEMs and local integra-
tors but not as a stand alone product.
According to the company, the desktop
business remains vibrant, accounting for
about 50 per cent of its business
Three new desktop mother-
boards
Keeping with this Intel has some new
pieces of hardware for the desktop space.
The vendor launched three new desktop
motherboards aimed at the extreme gamer,
the mainstream multimedia user and entry-
level PC user.
The vendor claims that the new mother-
boards, individually, enable a number of
innovative features for PCs such as greater
performance, clearer definition video and
low-powered technologies.
The new boards are the Intel Desktop
Board DX48BT2 Extreme Series (formerly
code-named ‘Bone Trail 2’), the Intel
Desktop Board DG35EC Classic Series
(formerly code-named ‘Eva Cove’), and the
Intel Desktop Board D945GCLF Essential
Series (formerly code-named ‘Little Falls’).
The D945GCLF will use the new Intel Atom
Processor and will be available towards the
second half of the year.
“From ultimate gaming bliss, to crisp
high definition, to the most affordable
Internet-centric desktop, Intel continues to
push the boundaries of world-class desktop

offerings,” says Tom Rampone, Intel’s Sales
and Marketing Group VP, and Channel
Platforms Group GM. “As the demand
for desktops across the board moves
from strength to strength, we are also
quickly moving towards more feature
differentiation and innovation down our
product roadmap.”
For extreme gaming performance, the
Intel Desktop Board DX48BT2 Extreme
Series board unleashes the fastest native
1600 MHz front side bus and memory sup-
port providing powerful performance and
extreme overclockability.
Supporting Intel Core 2 Extreme proces-
sors featuring quad or dual-core processing
and a faster 1600/1333/1066/800 MHz
FSB, it is built with the Intel X48 Express
Chipset with ICH9R that is validated for
chipset-level overclocking.
There are two DIMM sockets designed to
support up to 4GB of DDR3 1600 MHz
memory or four DIMM sockets designed to
support up to 8GB of DDR3 1333/1066/800
MHz memory.
The board has 2 IEEE 1394a ports and
12 USB 2.0 ports, dual full-speed PCIe 2.0
slots + x4/x16 PCIe slot, 2 PCI expansion
slots and 6 SATA 3.0 Gb/s ports. Further
included in the DX48BT2 board are Intel
Matrix Storage Technology and Dolby
Home Theatre.
The Intel Desktop Board DG35EC Classic
Series board is built with sharpest perform-
ing integrated graphics supported on Intel
architecture. Based on GMA X3500 inte-
grated graphics, the board supports a range
of processors, including Intel Core 2 Quad
and Intel Core 2 Duo processors.
Besides delivering outstanding perfor-
mance and stability, the integrated graphics
and connectors meet a variety of digital
needs, including 1080p video playback for
movie clips, media streams and the latest
generation of HD video cameras, without
the need for an add-in video card.
Intel claims that this is the first board to
have integrated Microsoft DirectX10 capa-
bility and it also supports OpenGL 2.0.
The Intel Desktop Board D945GCLF is an
“affordable” motherboard that integrates a
single unit of compute with a microproces-
sor, chipset, motherboard and heat sink.
Ideal for traditional channels to build and
package into a full PC system for under
SOLUTION
$300, these desktop boards are targeted at
entry-level computer users in the emerging
markets, as a second or basic home PC for
mature markets or customised for unique
usage models in vertical markets such as
home-lifestyle, banking or education.
The D945GCLF will use the new Intel
Atom Processor and will be available
towards the second-half of the year.
Behold Flex +
As far as channel activity goes, between
20 and 30 per cent of all Intel processor
unit sales go to the channel, and emerging
markets account for 60 per cent of these
channel sales.
Ensuring that these figures continue to
grow, the vendor announced a new
programme that is the latest of a compre-
hensive array of benefits for Intel channel
partner programme members.
In an ongoing effort to enhance
membership value, Intel added Intel Flex+
to recognise and reward resellers for build-
ing their solutions on Intel technology.
Announced in SA two weeks earlier, the
“Intel says the goal is for the ingredient-based ecosystem to be
mature enough to support a broad distribution model for all
customers.” – Steve Dallman, Intel
programme was launched to the European
region at the solutions summit.
The benefits programme will roll
out worldwide to more regions in the
coming months.
Intel Flex+ is available at no cost to
Premier and Associate members, who can
enrol quickly and easily online. Once
enrolled, they can begin earning points for
selected qualifying purchases through Intel
authorised distributors.
Members can also accrue points for
participation in a range of qualifying
activities such as online training, channel
events and promotions.
Through the programme, Intel offers a
broad range of redemption options, giving
members the flexibility to select the rewards
they most want. Members are free to use
their points for business rewards such as
consulting services, Intel merchandise and
CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 •
ANALYSIS: INTEL
PROVIDERS
Steve Dallman, Intel
technology demo units. They can also
redeem points for benefits such as travel,
iPass WiFi access, Priority Pass airport lounge
privileges and travel insurance.
Other award redemption options range
from free health and fitness memberships,
electronics vouchers and access to Formula
One racing activities for anyone in their
organisation.
“The Intel Flex+ Program offers Intel
partners another opportunity to benefit
from their collaboration with Intel, in addi-
tion to the Intel Inside Program,” says Chief
Purchasing Officer Sven Bauer. “This
programme has allowed us to reinvest the
points acquired toward a variety of business
and lifestyle awards such as telephone
surveys of customers conducted by Intel,
webinars that boost employee knowledge
and free hotel room charges for the Intel
Solutions Summit being held in Rome.
While the programme is in its infancy, there
are clear signs that channel partners will be
able to enjoy considerable benefits from it
in the future.”
Intel could be poised for some impressive
growth in the EMEA region due to the fact
that the SME space is showing healthy
demand on the notebook, desktop and
server side.
21
ANALYSIS: IT SPENDING
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
Economy slows down IT spending
Negative economic factors eroding reseller margins.
BY DUDU SHABA
T his year’s budget was delivered at a tough
time. In recent months, there has been an
increasing perception that revenue growth
would moderate in line with economic
activity, which has been greatly affected by
the Eskom debacle. In addition there has
been a slow down in IT spending due to the
economic slow down and credit crunching
is as well busy eating on people’s budgets.
Also, the Reserve Bank has also raised
“Over the last few years we’ve spent a lot of our time diversifying
so that we’re not just exposed to a single area of the market.
As a result, we find that when certain areas of the economy
are struggling, our business remains robust.”
– Dave Hardy, TitanIT
22 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
interest rates to a near five-year peak,
saying price pressures were spreading.
Governor Tito Mboweni said the decision to
raise the repo rate by half a percentage
point to 11,5 percent was also driven by a
deterioration in inflation expectations,
which predict the 3%-6 percent official
target range would be breached for three
more years.
Given these prevailing economic circum-
stances, CRN interviewed resellers in the
channel to find out how they are fairing in
the market.
Although the IT spending continues to
slow down, Neil Watson, MD, Digital Planet,
says that their company had a very good
start this year. “We’ve had a great start to
the year. January and February saw strong
growth versus last year. We are finding

March and April a bit slower as the many
negative factors such as public holidays and
load shedding have an effect,” he says.
Dave Hardy, MD, TitanIT says that their
reseller company has seen some margin
erosion in the last few months, driven largely
by smaller, opportunistic resellers.
“Customers are delaying larger infrastruc-
ture projects but we continue to attract
new business,” he comments.
Given these contributing factors that are
slowing down reseller businesses, Watson
says that they find that their customers are
still spending money on new IT equipment.
“Over the last few years we’ve spent a lot
of our time diversifying so that we’re not
just exposed to a single area of the market.
As a result, we find that when certain areas
of the economy are struggling, our business
remains robust,” he says.
Watson goes on to say that their retail
business is doing well although not grow-
ing as aggressively as they like.
“We see this as an indicator that the gen-
eral consumer is feeling the pinch. Our cor-
porate business is as strong as ever. People
seem to have high activity levels and are
being aggressive in new ventures and
opportunities,” he comments.
In spite of the tightening economy, Hardy
says that TitanIT is on a growth path. “We
remain convinced that loyalty to our cus-
tomers and primary vendors coupled with
“We focus on the small to medium corporate sector offering
leading brand name technology, superior support services and
trained certified staff in all divisions of the business.”
– Neil Watson, MD, Digital Planet
our strong service, certification and consult-
ing differentiators will continue to see us
grow,” he says.
He adds that their company has had
several large orders recently for desktops
and servers and our other key areas are
performing as expected.
“There are signs of a real growth in all
areas of the business in the next ten
months. Licence renewals and support
contracts are particularly strong performers.
Also, all of our primary vendors are
aware of the current market conditions and
ANALYSIS: IT SPENDING
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
they, together with the distributors are
offering more flexible pricing,” he remarks.
Watson says that online marketing is a
growing percentage of Digital Planet’s
online spend.
“Each media has its own place and
online is great for call to action. We think
the sky’s the limit for our online spend as
we see a great Return on this spend. We’re
still investing heavily in radio and print
however,” he remarks.
“We focus on the small to medium
corporate sector offering leading brand
name technology, superior support services
and trained certified staff in all divisions of
the business.
We believe that direct, focused sales and
marketing activities, supported by our
vendor partners, provides us with a unique
go-to-market message. All of our offerings
have a high degree of value add and we do
not spend much time on commoditized
products and solutions,” he says.
He adds the online marketing is also
becoming more important and several of
Neil Watson, Digital Planet
their technology partners have recently
begun online initiatives, we aim to take
advantage of.
Watson predicts that there may be
slowed growth over the next few years.
He says that Digital Planet’s aim is to
constantly invest in future growth.
“We are also finding that our ROI has
declined a little over the last few quarters
representing a slow down in investment
and a drop in confidence. We’re still very
optimistic about our prospects and we
believe we’re on a good wicket,” he says.
In conclusion, Hardy believes that these
uncertain times offer opportunities for
growth as others begin to focus inwards or
are forced out of the market.
“For us, this means we have to continue
focusing on our primary markets and tech-
nologies and we have set aggressive expan-
sion goals in all areas of our business”.
CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 23
ANALYSIS: SUN MICROSYSTEMS
SOLUTION
Sun microsystems
builds a strong ecosystem
Opening up big opportunity for partners.
BY DUDU SHABA AND DOMINIC KHUZWAYO
S un Microsystems has seen a 40 per cent
increase in the number of attendees at
its Tech Days developer conference, aimed
at building a strong partnerships and
creating developer community awareness
of its technologies.
This was said by Michael Schroeder, MD,
Southern and Eastern Europe, Middle East
and Africa, at the Sun Microsystems
developer conference which celebrated
its tenth anniversary.
Sun Microsystems provides a diverse
range of software, systems, services and
microelectronics that power everything
from consumer electronics, to developer
tools and some of the world’s most powerful
data centres. The company’s brands include
the Java technology platform, Solaris
“The Sun Tech conference opens up big opportunities for our
partner community.” – Patricia Martins, Sun Microsystems
operating system, StorageTek and
UltraSPARC processors.
Schroeder says the 2 500 developers that
registered for the event is evidence of the
excitement around its technology and that
the number of partners is increasing.
“We have seen the attendee numbers
growing from event to event since the
inception of the Tech Days Conference
10 years ago. This sends us the message
that we are helping our developers to
carry their heavy stuff, that our brand is
growing and more people will embrace
SunMicrosystems in the near future,”
he says.
Patricia Martins, channel manager, Sun
Microsystems said that the conference is
24 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
PROVIDERS
strategic to Sun Microsystems in that
it opens up big opportunities for its
partner community.
According to Martins, the Sun Partner
Advantage Program offers its partners a
number of resources to help them become
more competitive and profitable. She
explains that partners gain support such as
sales and marketing.
“Partners are able to join forces with Sun
and other partners to close sales all over
the world, and to take advantage of the
many sales and marketing tools available to
Sun Partners, including logo offerings that
leverage the Sun brand,” she explains.
Sun offers a broad range of industry-
leading hardware, software, services and
products for channel, OEM and integrator
partners to add to their product portfolios.
In addition, Martins says partners can
also expand by doing Web-based product,
industry, solutions selling and Java
Enterprise System training, and global
worldwide competency programmes.
“The focus of the conference this year is
to work with ISVs, system integrators, the
developer community and resellers. The
current trend is that technology is being
commoditised and only partners that sell
competititive solutions will be successful.
A lot of our partners also have their own
developers who create their own solutions
by bundling with our solutions who
can make good profits for themselves,”
she says.
Patricia Martins, Sun Microsystems
Martins says Sun Microsystems has a
two- tier partner model, VARS and channel
developer partners.
“If you follow government trends, you
will see that it needs to go open source,
which means that doors are open for our
partners to develop software solutions
that will make it easy for people to work
and add value to the development of
the country.”
This is also applicable to universities,
their partnership with SunMicrosystems will
create young business leaders who will
develop their own solutions in the near
future,” she says.
Molebogeng Yende, marketer, SPS ICT
solutions, says its software developer com-
pany based in Pretoria, signed a partnership
agreement with Sun Microsystems last year
and is looking forward to strengthening its
relationship with Sun Microsystems.
“Attending this conference is imperative
for our company because our aim is to
remain competitive and enhance our skills
as well as continue to network with other
developers,” Yende concludes.
Anton Herbst, MD at local consumables specialist distributor, Advanced Channel
CONTENTS >>
Technologies (A.C.T) has scooped the most influential Channel Executives Award for 26 Anton Herbst, A.C.T
2008. And while all executives that made the top 21 list in the 12th CRN Channel have
some influence in one way or the other, Herbst humility and a willingness to listen and
28 Craig Brunsden, Axiz
understand his company’s reseller channel seems to have put him in good standing with 30 Reggie Nxumalo, Microsoft
the channel at large.
32 Zandre Rudolph, Rectron

Herbst features in these awards for the third consecutive year and what a befitting 32 Graham Duxbury, Duxbury
honour for him to have received the most influential award. Networking
These award honour executives at vendor and distributor level, individuals who are
influential in their execution of day-to-day channel duties. 33 Rudi Pheiffer, Softline Pastel
The executives featured in the pages that follow are not only going out of their way to 33 Malan Voster, Omi Accounts
assist partners to close deals, embrace new business models and grow their businesses
34 Matthew Lee, Novell
to new profit heights, but they are at the forefront of championing partners to innovative.
A month of electronic polling on www.crn.co.za and CRN Flash, assisted the editorial 34 Graham Vorster, Westcon
team to tally the votes and pick 21 top channel executives for 2007. 35 Stefan Diedericks, Oracle

Resellers in the local channel voted for executives involved in channel management at 35 Patricia Martins, Sun
middle and senior management level. Each executive needed to receive a minimum of Microsystems
10 votes to be considered for nomination. The following was the criteria solution
36 Sally Berimbau, Novell
providers used:
38 Mark Perry, HP.
 Availability of channel executive
40 Uwe Brandkamp, Comztek
 Pro-activeness & dedication to address channel hurdles
 Commitment to helping partners win business deals 42 Carl Kleynhans, APC
 Influence on ho partner explore new business ventures 42 Steven Kramer, Tricon
 Relationship/team building style
43 Lisa Kelynack, Citrix Systems
 Openness of channel executive
44 Ron Keschner, Channel
The editorial team checked though the votes, eliminating any nominations that were
Capital, MB Technologies
invalid. In addition the results were audited by an actuary.
In the pages that follow CRN showcases the 2008 Channel Executive Awards winners. 44 Hans Dummer, Epson
From the entire CRN team we congratulate the winners. 45 Imi Mosaheb
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

A lesson in being humble

A.C.T’s Herbst gets channel nod. A.C.T’s Herbst gets channel nod.
By Manda Banda

When Anton Herbst, MD at local consum-
ables distributor, Advanced Channel
Technologies (A.C.T) talks about his
passion for the local IT industry, his
job in the consumables market
space and his love for the local
solution provider channel, his
enthusiasm is all-consuming –
you see it in his eyes and hear it
in his voice.
Yet, Herbst believes that if
there is one lesson that the
business world teaches one the
hard way, it is not to get too
comfortable on the high tides of the
business cycle.
For a man with over 20 years’
experience in the IT Industry, Herbst has
been taught a lesson in humility more than
once during his illustrious career. “Once you believe
you are riding the crest of the wave, you should always be on
the lookout for the inevitable crash, because more often than not it is
just around the corner,” he says.
“Once you believe you are riding the crest of
the wave, you should always be on the look-
out for the inevitable crash, because more
often than not it is just around the corner.” –
Anton Herbst, A.C.T
It is precisely these lessons in humility that have helped Herbst to
become a leader. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that solution
providers have recognised Herbst’s unrelenting efforts in assisting
them to grow their businesses.
Whiles this year’s win in the Channel Executives Awards is the
third consecutive one for Herbst; it is a befitting award as the
channel believes he is one of the most outstanding and influential
executives. A combination of factors has contributed to Herbst
receiving this top accolade.
For starters, he has been instrumental is segmenting A.C.T’s
channel base both from a vertical market perspective and
understanding exactly what its resellers’
businesses are all about.
Secondly, Herbst has played a pivotal
role in helping A.C.T to target and
serve the SME market better. To this
effect, the company has had to
understand the business dynamics
and challenges faced by resellers
who target this market. “We have
had to relook at investing more in
stock, credit, account management
and value adding to be relevant to
our reseller base,” he says.
“It is a team effort,” he says. “I am
delighted that my efforts have been
recognised in this manner but credit
must also go to the entire team I work with
at A.C.T.”
Having witnessed the Siltek group go under in
2001, Herbst says you cannot always assume how your
business partners perceive your business operation as that could
be detrimental. It is against this that Herbst has been urging his team
at A.C.T not to take reseller partners for granted but rather to
understand and know their businesses. “Last year, we embarked
on a programme to segment and establish what it is our reseller
partners do,” he says.
Herbst points out that this initiative has led to the next phase of the
plan in terms of understanding and delivering what partners serving
the SME market need. “This phase will see us layering resellers
deeper into channel segments such as group software specialists,
system integrators and specialist printing solutions resellers,” he says.
Along with serving the SME sector efficiently, Herbst says the
company has also stabilised its other eight branches, excluding the
head office in Johannesburg, in terms of stock, pre- and post-sales
support, footprint, etc. A.C.T now has branches in Cape Town,
Durban, Port Elizabeth, Klerksdorp, East London, Nelspruit,
Bloemfontein and Polokwane.
Herbst says as the traditional printer market has converged with the
office supplies sector(copier and fax), it is vital for resellers that would
like to play in this space to take cognisance of the fact that they have
to sell solutions and not product specifications, features and paper
feeds. He believes this belongs in the past. “We are not seeing a lot
of printing solution resellers,” he says. “I am led to believe there are
about 10 resellers countrywide that can sell printing solutions.”
Looking ahead, Herbst says A.C.T will continue assisting its resellers
and urging them to become printing solution specialists targeting
specific niche markets with a strong value proposition. “If resellers that
play in this space rely on offering the lowest price, they will be
swallowed as printer and copier convergence will force product
movers out
out of
of business
businessininfavour
favourofofsolution
solutionspecialists,”
specialists,”heheconcludes.
concludes.


26 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Change pays off
Benefits of improved partner focus.
By Manda Banda
Craig Brunsden, chief market-
ing officer at Axiz attributes his
nomination to the list of this
year’s top channel executives to
the fact that his business has seen
tremendous internal changes over
the past 12 months with the imple-
mentation of a new ERP system and its
management team has also spent a lot
of time looking at the business critically
from end to end.
“As a result, we’ve looked at the business through
the eyes of our customers more than ever. We’ve spent time
restructuring teams and making changes to internal processes to
improve the experience when dealing with us. It’s been very challenging
but rewarding, and is still very much ongoing,” he says.
He comments that the credit crunch and possible market
slowdown are a concern and Axiz is feeling pressure from all sides.
“As an industry, we need long-term solutions
to the skills and environmental challenges
that face us to be sustainable into the next
decades.” – Craig Brunsden, Axiz
“We’ve really focused on making changes to our business that
make it easier to deal with us at the most basic levels. If we can
reduce the time resellers have to invest in completing transactions
quickly and accurately, we can spend more time on converting oppor-
tunities to results which will benefit everybody in our ecosystem. Credit
is not the only challenge we face, and issues like post-sales support,
pre-sales expertise and tools for helping our customers win business
28 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
and be more competitive are high
on our agenda,” he explains.
He says his nomination comes
at a time when the company has a
decentralised and consultative man-
agement structure and he is fortunate
to represent a great team. “It’s been
the team’s efforts under pressure and its
commitment to constantly improve and
perform that has stood out for me over the
past year.”
“Like in any other industry, consolidation is some-
times necessary at all levels. The role of distributors has changed
over time and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for them to meet all
the objectives of the major global brands as well as the needs of a
diverse range of customers and be efficient (and profitable) in a
fiercely contested market. Consolidation either directly or through
partnerships makes sense to ensure the distribution channel as a
whole remains strong,” he continues.
Looking ahead, he says resellers can expect Axiz to improve con-
sistency in the experience of doing business with it. “We’ve made big
strides in the past six months and have a plan for the future that is
already showing results, which has changed the way we measure
and manage our business.”
Brunsden has been in the IT industry for13 years. “A mate of mine
working at Axiz convinced me it was better than a walkabout trip
overseas. I still haven’t been on that trip.” Before joining Axiz he
worked for Nedbank and tried his hand at running a small freight
forwarding business.
He says what fascinates him about the local IT industry is the
pace, which is exciting, yet has a weird sense of consistency about it.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
When he is not assisting resellers to close deal, he spends time
with his family and friends, running, mountain biking, cycling and
playing golf.
“The most pressing channel issues are different depending on
where you are in it and what the time scale is. As a whole, I’d say
the channel’s long-term sustainability is due to finite resources. This is
not just financial capital but human and natural capital resources as
well. As an industry, we need long-term solutions to the skills and
environmental challenges that face us to be sustainable into the next
decades,” he concludes. 
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Nxumalo wins with partners
Aligning strategies bears fruit.
By Kaunda Chama
Reggie Nxumalo, OEM director,
is the man in charge of taking his
business unit to market through part-
ners at Microsoft says that the past 12
months have been about working with
partners while at the same time aligning
strategies with them.
When he is not playing his part in the world
of technology, he fancies himself as an above
average golf player and as if that is not
enough exercise, he is planning to take part
in the Triathlon next year and has started
road running and swimming preparations.
He says that most of his efforts have been around creating
demand for the many products that the world’s largest software ven-
dor has been bringing to market.
“Our partners’ response has been very positive to our strategies
and product releases because they are always looking to us to rein-
vent and innovate with software solutions. Just look at what we are
doing in the virtualisation space,” comments Nxumalo.
He adds that the past year has seen him spending a lot of time
with Microsoft solution provider partners, working very closely with
them as away of fully understanding their needs.
30 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
He says that he has also seen
some reorganisation in the software
solution provider space, which will
have a positive effect on the market.
Regarding the consolidation in this space,
he comments: “From the outside it seems it’s a
simple case of big player takes little player, but it is
more dynamic than that. A lot of the smaller system
builders are shrinking due to global pressure and a lot of these guys
have either to be bought by the bigger players or reinvent themselves
in order to survive.”
He says that even if one looks at IDC data, it is difficult for local
system builders to compete in this market because the end-user is still
demanding global brands both on the software and hardware side.
“Looking ahead, resellers can look forward to thought leadership
and innovation as Microsoft continually reinvents its business
models in line with market trends and technology advancements,”
Nxumalo says.
His entry into the ICT space was somewhat interesting, much like
most of his peers. He started in the SMCG business with Coca-Cola
and later joined Cell C on its launch as the national sales manager.
He joined HP in 2001 and recently moved to Microsoft in his
current position.
“What excited me about the ICT sector so much is that it has
woven itself into every aspect of out society and I do not see it
slowing down any time soon,” Nxumalo comments.
When he is not playing his part in the world of technology, he
fancies himself as an above average golf player and as if that is not
enough exercise, he is planning to take part in the Triathlon next year
and has started road running and swimming preparations.
According to him, one of the most pressing challenges in
the channel as well as the ICT sector as a whole is the rate of
change from a technology introduction perspective as well as the
solution provider’s ability to anticipate that change and stay ahead
of the game. 
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Partner intimacy
By Manda Banda
Rectron’s Zandre Rudolph is among this year’s top
channel executives and says this is as a result of gain-
ing partner confidence by working closer with them
than before.
“The main focus has really been on working more
closely with our customers, and supporting and assist-
ing them in their business environments to make sure
we can grow and close sales. We have launched a couple
of new products in the past couple of months, so we have been real-
ly working closely with customers to introduce these products to their
customers. Product, position, price and promotions have been dri-
ving our activities with our partners over the past couple of months,”
he explains.
On the subject of the credit crunch and the possible slowdown in
IT spending, he comments that Rectron has seen a couple of chal-
lenging months, and some extraordinarily good ones.
Regarding his nomination, he says that one of the main reasons is
that he has been working closely with the company’s internal sales
team and its customers to help them grow their businesses together
with Rectron.
On the topic of consolidation, he says the industry will definitely
see something happen. “In these crazy times it’s about how you
spend your money, use your resources and manage your business
processes. Rectron has made a lot of changes to ensure that it runs a
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Trusted and tested leadership
By Dudu Shaba
Graham Duxbury, CEO, Duxbury Networking, has
been nominated by solution providers in the channel
as one of the top 20 Channel Executives for 2008.
Duxbury attributes this nomination to the support of his
team at Duxbury Networking.
“The excellent relationships we have fostered with our channel
partners are due to the application of a tried-and-tested business
formula that we first modelled 24 years ago. At its core are
requirements for excellence in support, technical backup and
partnering with world-class vendors,” he says.
According to Duxbury, the company has a number of important
plans for 2008. “We intend expanding our stock holding to meet the
requirements of our growing core of resellers, so new warehouse
facilities are on the cards,” he says.
Duxbury goes on to say that the company has learnt that a
distribution business can no longer be viable if it relies on a sales
force that is solely product sales orientated.
He adds that a challenge, which the company has successfully
met, has been to build a team capable of addressing areas that
generate profitable revenues, such as consulting, integration,
installation and support services.
32 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
lean and mean operation.” Looking ahead, Rectron will contin-
ue to support the reseller channel. It has just replaced HP with
Epson and Samsung, and has a couple of other new prod-
ucts in the pipeline. “So what can resellers expect from
Rectron… we will ensure that they have access to the best
quality products and service around, so that they can grow
their businesses.”
Rudolph’s career in IT started at Rectron. He has been with the
company almost nine years. Coming from a sales background, he
wanted to get involved in IT. “At that stage everyone was talking
about the IT industry and it was the field to be in. He had an inter-
view and got the job. “I started in sales as a junior account manag-
er and I guess I can say I have never looked back. I have grown with
Rectron throughout the years, and the IT industry and Rectron are still
my passions,” he explains.
When he is not working with his channel partners, Rudolph spends
his spare time at home with his family. “My wife and I were blessed
with a baby boy in December. So it has been an adjustment. But all
is good. He is indeed the apple of my eye.”
According to Rudolph, the most pressing channel business issue in SA
is the current market situation. “To be honest, we have been through
worse times. This is something we will have to deal with and manage. It
doesn’t help to be negative. Think about it, a couple of years ago we
were in a worse situation with the rand,” he concludes. 
“For example, we know that dealers are being asked to
optimise existing corporate networks and other infrastructures.
In these instances the technical ability to integrate diverse
product sets and implement software solutions that extend the
life of legacy systems are vitally important,” he explains.
Duxbury says the company has seen a steady increase in the
demand for technical training from its reseller partners.
“Our challenge is not only to take training to the reseller base, but
to broaden the skills of those who are already trained and, in the
process, take technical training to a higher level,” he remarks.
“One of our key messages to our channel partners is to continue
working with Duxbury Networking and leverage the technical skills
and support infrastructures that we bring to market. We say ‘let us
work with you to secure major deals and support larger customers.
We’ll all benefit in the long run’,” he comments.
Duxbury says the company’s strategy for the coming years is to
continue building on its strong foundation, the cornerstone which
was laid 24 years ago.
“This means that Duxbury Networking will continue to offer best-of-
breed networking products at the right price, in the right place with an
all-embracing partnership approach to business,” he concludes. 
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Relationships, relationships, relationships
By Manda Banda
Softline Pastel’s Rudi Pheiffer is one of the finalists in
this year’s Channel Executive awards as rated by
solution providers in the local channel.
In response to this he says: “As always, Softline
Pastel’s focus has been on empowering its channel
to go beyond accounting. Specifically, in the past
12 months we have concentrated on getting the channel
excited about BI, CRM and customer service, and have seen a
growing interest in these solutions.
Regarding his nomination, he comments that it’s all about
relationships and delivering on your promises. “I believe in win-win
scenarios and honest, two-way communication. It also helps that the
channel partners are a terrific bunch of people. At Pastel, we listen
carefully to our channel. We understand the role all 3 500 of our
partners play in our continued growth.”
He says that the company has seen and will continue to see
consolidation in the IT market. For example, while Pastel is South
African-born and is SA’s leader in accounting, payroll and business
software for the SME market, it is also used by 180 000 businesses
worldwide and is sold in over 52 countries through a network of
more than 3 500 channel partners. Market structures are fluid and
the world is definitely becoming a smaller place.
Looking ahead, he says that the company has just updated its
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Top honours for Voster
By Kaunda Chama
Omi Accounts’ Gauteng sales manager, Malan
Voster, has made it onto the list of the top channel
executives in this year’s CRN survey.
He says the past 12 months have seen him focus-
ing on brand awareness. “My top priority was creating
and maintaining brand awareness while at the same time
building good relationships between Omni Accounts and its
partners,” he says.
He comments the credit crunch has not really affected the compa-
ny’s channel partners because of the scalability of its product.
“Because of our product’s scalability, our dealers don’t have to
spend as much money initially, so they don’t wind up in a situation
where they have a lot of capital tied up in stock,” he says. This
means that the company’s top dealers can enjoy better margins.
He adds that the nature of Omni Accounts’ solution has received
very positive responses from existing and potential partners.
“Everywhere we go we get very positive responses,” Voster comments.
When asked what he attributes to his partners’ confidence in him
and his nomination to the list of top channel executives, Voster says:
“I think this is a result of the relationship s I have built up with our
dealers, and the nature and quality of our product. I strongly believe
that if you maintain healthy relationships with partners and have a
loyalty points structure in its channel programme which is now
aimed at benefiting everyone, especially the smaller players.
“We also have an exciting new release due later this year
which will provide excellent sales opportunities to the
channel and significant enhancements for customers. The
channel can also look forward to other exciting new products in
the online arena.”
Pheiffer has been involved with Pastel for the greater part of
10 years. “I started out as an article clerk using Pastel. My passion
soon shifted from numbers to people and I became a Pastel channel
partner myself. Given my passion for IT, working for Pastel was a
natural progression as it allowed me to combine all my interests
and passions.”
“While the tighter economy in 2008 will affect everyone, we are
finding that channel partners in the outlying regions face quite
different challenges to those operating in the metropolitan areas. The
outlying channel partners generally encounter more price-conscious
customers. Their challenge is to convince their customers to go
beyond accounting and consider solutions that provide a big picture
overview of the business and enable better strategic decision-making.
The channel partners in the metropolitan areas, on the other hand,
face greater competition and therefore have to do a lot more to
differentiate themselves,” he concludes. 
good solution to offer them, most of your work is done.”
He says if dealers like a product, they will like the person
who supplies it to them even more.
On the topic of the consolidation taking place in the ICT
space, he says that it makes sense in that when the global
economy gets a little tighter, smaller companies find it hard to
stay afloat and most of the time wind up being swallowed by the
bigger guys.
Looking ahead, Voster says Omni Accounts will concentrate on
maintaining its growth path. “We enjoyed very good growth last year
and we aim to continue that trend while focusing on improving prod-
uct quality and expanding our sales team,” he says.
Voster has been with Omni Accounts for three-and-a-half years,
before that he was an entrepreneur. What excites him about the
industry is that it is very vibrant and he enjoys being part of a sales
and marketing team on an exciting product.
When not part of an exciting sales and marketing team, Voster
enjoys getting away and doing a little traveling, he is also a lover of
nature and likes being in the great outdoors.
He says one of the pressing issues is provision of utilities, stating
that the current load shedding will definitely have adverse effects on
business in general and not just on the ICT sector. 
CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 33
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Lee in the lead
By Kaunda Chama
Novell’s Matthew Lee is on this year’s list of top channel
executives. He says the nomination is as a result of
his taking time to understand the company’s part-
ners and giving them what they needs as opposed
to just pushing product through them.
“At times this has called on me to help partners to
understand other technologies and not just ours, and this
makes a difference in the way they perceive you,” he notes.
He adds that end-users and partners have learned from the past
when they were sold technologies that they only used 30 per cent of
and are now more demanding.
Besides handling both value and volume partners since
November, Lee has also been placing a lot of emphasis on driving
skills development for partners.
“Many people wonder what the secret is to maintaining healthy
relationships with partners. I keep a good level of simplicity and
make sure that there is utmost ease of doing business with the com-
pany. We all have jobs to do and ethics to adhere to so, at the end
of the day, we just need to take the confusion out of doing business,”
explains Lee.
When asked about the consolidation taking place in the industry,
he says that it is about economies of scale and often smaller distribu-
tors find themselves in a situation where they do not have the capacity
to meet the business demands that come with growth.
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Vorster makes the list again
By Kaunda Chama
Graham Vorster, Chief Technology Officer and
Vendor Director at networking distributor Westcon
SA, is once again one of the top channel executives.
He attributes the confidence shown in him by his
company’s channel partners to the fact that the com-
pany has been focusing on various key initiatives,
which include adding further value to all its resellers
through its distribution programmes such as OneVoice, OneDefense
and ConvergencePoint.
Others include developing an overarching programme for all of its
commercial resellers to bring high growth technology opportunities to
them; building out on its data centre solutions, with significant
announcements in the short term; extending financial solutions to the
channel via Westcon Finance; extending cost-effective training to the
channel via the Westcon Academy; focusing resources on SP offer-
ings; verticalising its high-touch sales force to grow opportunities for
its resellers, that is government, retail and manufacturing; and a sig-
nificant investment in an ERP system.
“We have placed significant focus on extending our solution offer-
ing in the commercial market, where we are still seeing significant
growth opportunities for the 2T channel. Among these commercial
efforts, which are aimed at the mid and SME markets, are: various
security programmes, two major voice programmes and the
34 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
“This is when they need the backing of a bigger entity and in
most cases it means being bought by a bigger distributor,” he
comments.
Lee says that Novell partners can look forward to dealing
with a vendor that will be in bed with them engage with them
at all levels. “We will make sure that we are always here for
our partners because we believe that this is the true meaning of
a business partnership,” Lee says.
The company recently implemented a lead-generation tool for its
customers, which it predicts will go a long way in improving partners’
revenues on Novell business.
Lee has been in the ICT industry for 15 years. Interestingly, he
started as plumber about 17 years ago and, after a stint in the air
force, he worked for a networking distributor called Delta 9.
After this, he worked at Pinnacle Networking. He later joined
Comztek after which worked for Tarsus and then joined Novell last year.
When not dealing in ICT solutions, he is very much a family man
who enjoys the outdoors and scuba diving, a sport he recommends
to all who are not afraid of deep water.
Regarding pressing issues facing the channel, Lee says that skills
availability and shortage take the top spot. “The problem in the
industry is that there is not as much skills creation as there is skills
recycling and this is resulting in a lack of solution skills in the sector,”
he concludes. 
announcement of a significant data centre offering.
He says the company has, over the past 12 months, received
an overwhelming response to all of its initiatives, which is
proved by the large growth it has shown in reseller count
this year.
Regarding his nomination, Vorster says the hard work of all
the sales, product and marketing guys at Westcon SA, combined
with its closer relationships with its resellers were major contributors.
On the topic of consolidation in the IT industry he comments: “We
believe that to truly add value to the reseller community you need to
have the right scope and scale. I think we are seeing various eco-
nomic forces bringing the limitations of boutique distribution to the
fore, which will ultimately lead to the major vendors consolidating
their routes to market.”
Vorster is an 18-year veteran of the IT industry, 13 of those in the
distribution world, and five in the reseller community. “I joined the
industry with Arthur and Jenny Brooke at Triadic, when he was just
starting his networking outsource business from his house,” he says.
Regarding the most pressing channel business issue in SA at the
moment, he says it is the skills shortage, not only technical but also
for identifying the advantages which an early mover can have. “Our
channel has many look alike resellers with very similar GTM models.
We need innovators in this space.” 
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Undying commitment
By Dudu Shaba
Stefan Diedericks, senior channel manager, Oracle SA,
has been nominated by solution providers in the
channel as on of the best executives in the channel.
Diedericks comments that a nomination of this
kind from the industry at large is always a humbling
experience, yet simultaneously energises him in real-
ising that personal levels of passion, engagement and
delivery to the channel is valued and recognised.
“ I believe that a tri-partite commitment is necessary at all times to
ensure successful channel-based delivery to the end customers, this
involves extensive engagement between the vendor, the partner and
the channel manager to ensure committed delivery around a com-
mon objective and value set. Once these have been defined and
agreed, it is crucial to execute at speed to ensure go to markets suc-
ceed, that profitability is ensured for all parties involved and that cus-
tomer service of the highest levels is delivered,” he says.
Diedericks says that Oracle in Europe, the Middle East and Africa
has a series of drivers for the business and to the Alliance and
Channel organisation.
“This translates into 360-degree partner views and alignment,
executive partner engagement models, excellence in training adop-
tion and exceeded targets in terms of revenue and growth. In the
coming year, we will be focusing heavily on partner enablement and
growth in terms of sales and I mplementation services, and the
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Building trust with partners
By Dudu Shaba
Patricia Martins, channel manager, Sun Microsystems,
has been nominated by solution providers in the
channel as one of 2008’s admired channel
executives.
She says this is due to her drive towards excel-
lence with the vision of long-term sustainable partner-
ships. “Passion is a key ingredient for success,” she says.
In the year since joining Sun Microsystems, Martins says that the
company has been building trust with partners with a culture that is
based on transparency and predictability.
“One needs to really understand the partner’s business objectives
in order to get mind share and for them to further invest in the
respective technologies,” she says.
Martins says the company’s ongoing challenge is to assist partners
to increase profit.
“The market is competitive and we see IT becoming more com-
moditised. Customers are spending more wisely and looking to drive
down their costs,” she comments.
Martins says that the company’s plans are to increase profitability
for partners and to strengthen its current alliances.
“We aim to grow our market share in SA, East and Central Africa
and drive major growth in West Africa. Implementing a strong chan-
nel to drive our volume products such as X64 and modular storage
increased adoption of the product set across the Middle East and
Africa region,” he says.
Through partnering excellence, Diedericks says that
Oracle is turning its approach into a programme that nur-
tures, enables and engages new and existing partners.
“The objective is to build up their skills and competencies to
help them grow their revenues and extend Oracle’s sales cover-
age, the 19 500 strong global Oracle Partner Network.
Furthermore the Alliance and Channel Organization manages the
overall business relationship with Oracle’s partners to ensure they are
aligned with our products and strategies to help partners maximise
their revenue and profit opportunities through partnering with us,”
he says.
Diedericks says that the partner commitment to customer choice,
industry specialisations and applications has seen Oracle growing
and this is attributable to channel partners’ commitment to product
acquiescence, skills development and aggressive marketing.
Currently, Diedericks says the company is focused on increasing
the level of partner participation and presence in its marketing and
business development activities.
“Our goal is to work with ISVs to win more strategic deals with
customers, create more repeatable offerings with system integrators
and continuously improve our resellers’ skills to ensure they can
compete and win,” he concludes. 
into the market is our priority,” she remarks.
She goes on to say that Sun Microsystems is in the process
of changing market perceptions that it only plays in the high-
end server market.
“We want to continue to grow our SPARC business, we are
also prominent players in storage, software and systems such as
X64,” she says.
“One needs to really understand the partner’s
business objectives in order to get mind share to
further invest in the respective technologies.” –
Patricia Martins, Sun Microsystems.
Martins is encouraging Sun Microsystems’ partners to continue
with their innovation and also to adapt to the ever-changing dynam-
ics in the marketplace. “Flexibility and agility give partners a competi-
tive advantage. Look to sell complementary solutions coupled with
services to increase value and thus revenues,” she concludes. 
CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 35
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Berimbau one of the top
A.C.T’s Herbst gets channel nod.
By Kaunda Chama
Sally Berimbau, Novell
Product Manager at distribu-
tion house Workgroup says there
is much to be gained both person-
ally and in business from creating solid
relationships with partners.
“I do, however, believe that the right mix of
product and business model will help a lot of
distributors and solution providers to stay in
business through these tough times,” she
concludes.” – Sally Berimbau, Workgroup
She says that the main reason she was nominated one of the top
channel executives in this year’s CRN research is because of her and
the company’s focus on delivering good service, having a competi-
tive edge as well as maintaining good relationships with Workgroup’s
solution providers.
She says, she has noticed that the product base has changed quite
a lot because the company’s partners have been focusing on hetero-
geneous products for their solutions, adding that the good thing is
that most of them are available through the distributor.
“The past 12 months have also seen us placing a lot of focus on
training and other types of business development initiatives,”
says Berimbau.
36 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
She explains that on the back
of all these initiatives, she has
received an overwhelmingly positive
response from solution provider part-
ners. This has been so good that she has
managed to keep the Novell Distributor of the
Year accolade for the past two years.
On the subject of consolidation in the local and global
channel, Berimbau comments that the smaller players in the space
have been battling to stay afloat and most of them needed to be
bought and made part of bigger distributors as a way of helping
their businesses grow.
From a Workgroup point of view, Berimbau says that the company
has a very good reputation in the market and a business model that
is effective, adding that its business has been so good that it has
managed to maintain positive growth year on year since it became a
single entity.
Looking ahead, she admits that Workgroup needs to focus on and
do some hard work in the system resource management (SRM) space
as a way of growing its revenues.
Of her own career, Berimbau says that she has always been effec-
tive in sales and started off selling vacuum cleaners for Electrolux in
the ‘90s. In 2000 she sent her CV to Workgroup and the rest, as
they say, is history.
Workgroup remains one of the successful players in the channel
space locally and the Novell brand also remains top of mind for dis-
tributors, solution providers and end-users.
Even with this in mind, Berimbau believes that the new credit act is
causing quite a problem for credit lines not only in the channel but in
business in general, adding that it is causing a knock-on effect that is
affecting market stability.
“I do, however, believe that the right mix of product and business
model will help a lot of distributors and solution providers to stay in
business through these tough times,” she concludes. 
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Perry emerges victorious
Highly committed to giving excellent service.
“It’s a combination of superb products,
excellent people, great partners and market
acceptance of the entire package offered by
HP.” – Mark Perry, HP.
By Dudu Shaba
Mark Perry, country manager, Solutions Partner Organization, HP has
been nominated one of the best channel executives for 2008 by
solution providers in the channel. He attributes this to HP’s power
and its preferred partner brand.
“One cannot take all the credit alone, it is a combination of
superb products, excellent people, great partners and market accep-
tance of the entire package offered by HP,” he says.
According to him, HP’s plans for this year are to modify its
Preferred Partner Programme, to introduce some great new products
and continue to focus on skills and enterprise development in SA.
Perry says the company was faced with the challenge of resolving
38 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
issues concerning services but it managed to overcome them.
“We have had some challenges in the services area but these
have been aggressively addressed, with the help of our partners’
feedback and a dedicated services/support team, we are rapidly
improving the situation. Continuous feedback on progress is given
to our channel partners. As with any challenge half the battle is won
when you take cognisance of the issues at hand and have a con-
crete plan. Most importantly, it is key to monitor and ensure that
nothing detracts from the ultimate goal of satisfying the customer,”
he says.
The lessons learned here are that all our staff members have to
knuckle down and take ownership of a problem, even when their job
description does not match those actions,” he says.
Perry comments that the pressing issues in the channel are always
margin related.
“It has been continually preached that a company cannot survive
on hardware margins alone - the survivors have embraced the
Preferred Partner Programme and wrapped other value-added ser-
vices and offerings around the infrastructure,” he says.
Perry encourages channel partners is to stick with HP.
“We are evolving rapidly and your company can only benefit from
being a loyal preferred partner.
This year, our plans are quite simply to increase our dominance in
the worldwide market by empowering our partners and customers by
offering world-class business solutions,” concludes Perry. 
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE

Brandkamp takes it for Comztek

Cementing relationships
By Kaunda Chama

Uwe Brandkamp, Comztek’s Networks
Business Unit director has been
nominated one of the top channel
executives in CRN’s Channel
Executive survey.
Commenting on his nomination,
he says: “My focus has been
specifically on cementing
relationships with our customers
in the South African and African
markets. Additionally, we have
been on a drive to expand our
business in the mid-market and
SME channel.
I have also added to our very
competent team of channel
managers, and have added some
products to round off our network prod-
ucts portfolio. We have continued to add to
our very successful services offering.”
On the channel credit crunch, he comments that it’s
still about adding tangible business value to end customers and
gaining trust by providing a dependable service to customers.
“My focus has been specifically on cementing
relationships with our customers in the
South African and African markets.” – Uwe
Brandkamp, Comztek
“Opportunities to partner in providing innovative solutions exist in
our market – collaboration and planning together with our customers
has proved very successful in the past. As far as credit is concerned,
we have perhaps been a little more helpful than the rest of the distri-
bution market and although our customers often shy away from hav-
ing payment term discussions with their customers we have been very
successful in deals where financial discussions were introduced early
in the sales cycle,” says Brandkamp.
In the past 12 months Comztek has focused on building its call
centre capability and has tripled the number of resources.
“We have a team of good people working in our call centres and
telesales which has increased our call-han-
dling capacity and improved our customer
service by a significant magnitude in the
past year. I think we can still improve
further and this will continue to
remain a focus for us,” he explains.
Brandkamp further says the
reason the channel is seeing a lot
of acquisitions is that vendor and
market growth demands on the
industry as well as the increased
financial resources required to
sustain this are factors contributing
to current market conditions.
Regarding the recognition he
received, he comments that the compa-
ny’s loyal customers that enjoy good levels
of service and value have a lot to do with it.
“I hope that they will continue to let us know
where we can improve or fix our services. My com-
mitment is to continue to deal with such issues efficiently and
openly,” he adds.
On the issue of consolidation in the IT industry, particularly given
the rate at which solution providers are liquidated and the credit risk
distributors are subjected to, Brandkamp says: “The changes in our
market are not a bad thing and will hopefully take it to the next level.
Also, we have not had major changes since Siltek – maybe things
have bottled up a bit.”
Looking ahead, he says the company’s focus areas will be the
mid-market and SMEs (and all the bells and whistles to go with it) as
well as Africa.
Regarding his tenure in the IT space, he says: “I started in this
industry in the early ‘80s and if my parents had their way I would
have been a chemist or a doctor. Technology outside of the
mainframe was just rearing its head and I always admired what my
father was doing as an electronic engineer. So when the opportunity
presented itself to join NCR in those days I jumped at it. In the
mid-eighties I got involved in a fledgling venture around PCs and
networks – and this venture, through mergers and acquisitions,
landed me at Comztek in 1999.” He says that if he had his way, he
would have been a pro soccer player, but he really started consider-
ing IT as a career in his matric year.
When asked about the pressing isues in the SA channel today,
Brandkamp says that other than the clichéd issues such as credit,
skills, margins and the exchange rate, the channel should look at the
positives in the market.
“I still believe we have some of the best opportunities for growth
right here in SA and neighbouring markets, entrepreneurship, new
developments, creativity and bringing new solutions to market. So a
positive outlook would go a long way,” he concludes. 

40 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008

 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Kleynhans has the power
By George Maseko
When the APC-MGE deal was finalised last year, it
came with all the industry jitters of a merger, but the
company has managed to become an entity to be
reckoned with and the business venture could have
not come at a better time.
At the centre of this UPS vendor’s channel success is
Carl Kleynhans who, after the deal, stopped handling the South
African business, but soon after took control of it and has been run-
ning the Africa channel business for APC MGE.
Interestingly, while the rest of the ICT space has been feeling the
full force of the credit crunch, Kleynhans feels that the situation on
the continent (with the issues of load shedding) has protected APC
MGE because it is in the business of selling backup power solutions.
“Strictly speaking, the power crisis has played in our favour. Even
the new credit act has not affected us much,” he comments.
He adds that one of the strengths for the company over the past
12 months has been its dedication to doing all of its business
through channel partners who have also benefited from its “Payback”
channel programme. “With the help of these partners we have man-
aged to make a big impact in the corporate space, and now with the
power outages, we are seeing a lot of interest being generated from
the domestic market as well,” notes Kleynhans.
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Kramer among the top
By George Maseko
When asked what he sees as the reason for receiving
a vote of confidence from Tricon’s channel partners,
Steven Kramer business development manager,
commented that understanding their requirements
and catalysing their growth were major factors.
He comments that a lot of resellers do not fully
understand what is available to them from a services and
support point of view; and his job has been one of enlightening them
on all of this. In addition, Kramer also tasked himself with fully
explaining the advantages of IBM’s global finance to the company’s
channel partners.
He adds that the response to this has been tremendous with many
partners considering IBM Global Finance as an option.
Asked his opinion about the number of acquisitions taking place
in the channel, Kramer says some companies don’t have the finan-
cial backbone to finance their own growth and need the muscle of
the “big guys”, who are mostly listed entities, to provide the neces-
sary financial backing.
Especially in this time when local and global markets are feeling
the effects of the credit crunch,” he explains.
He comments that the another reason why he was received com-
mendation from the company’s channel partners is that the culture
within Tricon is that of having a close working relationship with part-
42 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
The company also boasts quite an impressive line up of
partners, including the likes of Tarsus, Dimension Data,
Square One and Drive Control.
Regarding the consolidation that is taking place in the
channel, Kleynhans feels that it is part of the industry’s natural
progression and it would happen even without the credit crunch.
APC MGE’s strategy involves a big focus on maximising the syner-
gies between both brands as well as value-added services and
revamping all of the company’s channel programmes.
Kleynhans started his career in the freight industry in the 1990s
and in 1998, saw the potential in the ICT space and after a very
effective referral made a conscious decision to join APC and has
been there ever since.
According to him, some of the pressing issues in the channel
include the fact that that there is not enough being done in terms of
people development and retention. He feels there is too much skills
recycling and not enough new skills being created.
He even suggests creating and implementing strategies around
bringing back a lot of the skills that have been lost through
people emigrating.
Finally, he says that the country’s and continent’s utilities need an
urgent upgrade to keep up with the rate of growth. 
ners to the extent where it even seems Tricon is an extension or
part of that business.
Looking ahead, and now that the Pinnacle-Tricon deal has
been finalised the business has officially moved over, Kramer
says: “From our perspective, it is vital that nothing changes in
terms of the way we engage our channel partners unless it is a
positive business change that is mutually beneficial. We are not
allowing the fact that Pinnacle Micro purchased our business to
change our business relationships.”
He adds that Tricon prides itself on is its level of skills in the IBM
and Lenovo space.
On a personal level, he is somewhat of a “veteran” in the ICT
space, he studied for a BSC in computer science, served a stint in
the army, after which he worked at NCR in 1987 on the technical
side. After leaving the country for 10 months, he came back and
worked for Epsidon, which later became First Distribution, ran the
IBM division as SDD, moved over to MTN for eight months and took
charge of the HP division at Axiz before joining Tricon.
He admits that he wanted to be a vet, but his BSC in computer
science paved his path into the ICT space.
When Kramer is not talking bits and bytes, he is quite a keen
golfer and makes time to go to the driving range every Wednesday
and Saturday. 
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Back to win
By George Maseko
When Gary de Menezes took a three-year sabbatical
from the world of IT, he surely did not expect to come
back and be a star performer in such a short time.
Barley seven months after returning to the IT sec-
tor and joining PC vendor Lenovo to head its chan-
nel business, he has already been recognised by the
company’s channel partners as a top performer.
As channel manager, De Menezes says that one of his
key strengths is that he takes time to build trust with Lenovo’s channel
partners and works hard to maintain it.
De Menezes recently spearheaded the launch of Lenovo’s new
rewards programme dubbed Club Lenovo, which rewards partici-
pants - both the owners of reseller businesses and their sales forces -
for selling Lenovo TopSeller products: PCs, monitors, peripherals and
services specifically configured and priced for the needs of SMEs.
“The programme has received great responses from the market. It
only got really active at the beginning of this year and we already
have about 500 registrations.
He comments that Lenovo and its partners have not really been
affected by the credit crunch that is currently upsetting the IT space,
stating that business is still growing between 50 and 70 per cent year
on year.
“The notebook space is still vibrant and the introduction of
Pinnacle Micro as our second distributor will give our products better
exposure and market coverage,” he says.
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Understanding customer strengths, challenges
By Stanley Chishala
Lisa Kelynack has already earned her heroine creden-
tials for pioneering Citrix’s channel training efforts
and taking them to resellers so they can skill up.
Now, this Citrix Systems partner account manager,
who started her career in the recruitment industry
where she specifically recruited for IT clients, appears
to be warming up to Citrix’s solution provider partners as
she charts a new course for the integration middleware vendor’s
renewed channel growth.
“I’ve been in the IT industry for close to 15 years. I started off in IT
recruitment, where I stayed for about 10 years and then moved to
Citrix, where I’ve been for the past four-and-a-half years,” she says.
With a strong IT recruitment background, Kelynack found it easy to
settle into her role at Citrix. But was IT her calling as a kid?
Kelynack says, on the contrary, computers and IT weren’t really a
big thing when she was growing up. “We still played outside and
rode our bikes in the street,” she recalls. “I didn’t really have one
specific passion. One week I wanted to be an air hostess, the next I
wanted to be a veterinary surgeon.”
Having carved a niche for herself in the IT industry, Kelynack says
she never regrets settling in this industry. However, she is astounded
by the fact that there are few resellers that value educating their staff.
This, along with the lack of skills and the continuing brain drain in
He adds that one of the major reasons that got him nominat-
ed is the taking of Lenovo kit to market with competitive pric-
ing, making sure that it is the right product and is available at
all times.
De Menezes does not see consolidation in the hardware
space becoming a big issue because despite the few changes
that have taken place, he is still seeing a lot of resellers coming
into the space.
“One of Lenovo’s strengths is its product quality, but this is also the
company’s best kept secret. However, the company’s engagement
through the channel has been remarkable with a good channel strat-
egy and increased product awareness,” he explains.
He says that looking at the next 12 months, the channel can
expect to see Lenovo going to market as an aggressive company
with innovative and new products in all its disciplines.
De Menezes is a 20-year veteran of the IT sector, having started
his career at Telkom, he then worked in the IT division of Nedcor
before moving to the then Ariel technologies (now T-Systems), then
moving to HP’s software division, then Compaq and was commercial
director at Acer before taking a three-year break.
“I like the IT space because of its vibe, there is never a dull
moment; there is always something happening whether it is good or
bad. On top of that, the people in the industry are great and very
professional so you make many friends and acquaintances in this
business,” he concludes. 
the IT industry continue to be pain points in the local channel,
says Kelynack.
She explains that it is for this reason Citrix SA has been
focusing on two key areas with regard to the channel in the
past 12 months. Kelynack says the two areas are educating
the channel, and getting solution providers to specialise and
focus on specific verticals. “We are now offering reduced cost and
free training to our channel to assist it in obtaining certification for
our solution offerings,” she says. “Our new incentive programme
also helps partners to focus on selling the Citrix Platinum range to
their customers.”
Kelynack says there are huge incentives for up-selling Citrix solu-
tions to their customers. In some instances, they can earn bonuses of
up to 50 per cent on all Advisor Rewards-approved claims that are
validated by Citrix.
Kelynack says one of the reasons that may have contributed to her
being recognised in the 2008 Channel Executive Awards has to do
with understanding the strengths and challenges of partners’ busi-
nesses, which has enabled Citrix to tailor its initiatives to assist them
in growing their businesses.
“Our main focuses for this year are around educating the channel
and giving back to it through rewards programmes for selling our
solutions into their customer bases,” she concludes. 
CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 43
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Erasing reseller cash flow worries
By Stanley Chishala
It’s been a great year for Channel Capital, MB
Technologies’ newest subsidiary, but you won’t hear
excessive bragging from the company’s MD, Ron
Keschner, who was instrumental in setting up this
financial business for local resellers.
It is no wonder Keschner has made it onto the 2008
Channel Executive Awards list. Keschner believes Channel
Capital has hit a nerve with reseller partners, as clearly a lot of them
are smarter businessmen.
It is this involvement in setting up Channel Capital and the overall
approach the entire MB Technologies group has taken in helping
resellers to ease their financial worries that have won him admiration
from the channel.
Keschner adds the move to launch Channel Capital and the
approach the company has taken is paying off. He adds that his
focus has been a simple one – to ease the cash flow concerns of
reseller partners in the channel and to add new income streams to
their businesses.
He points out that for too long, resellers have been playing
second fiddle to many of the other service suppliers to South African
businesses.
Having ventured into the IT channel as an “outsider” gave
Keschner a clear perspective of the industry without any preconceived
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Communication is king
Enhancing Epson’s visibility.
By Stanley Chishala
When Hans Dummer was a kid, all he wanted to be
when he grew up was an electrical engineer.
Dummer did not pursue his childhood ambition of
working in the demanding electrical engineering field
instead he decided to branch into the fast-paced IT industry.
As country GM at printing and imaging solutions vendor Epson
SA, Dummer has been instrumental in turning Epson into a printer
heavyweight in the local channel where a lot of printing solutions are
usually synonymous with one brand – HP.
In his more than 10 years at the helm of Epson SA, Dummer has
played a key role in establishing its traditional, retailer and photo-
graphic channels.
Of note have been his relentless efforts in building the Epson
brand to rival competitor brands in the local channel.
With over 20 years’ IT experience, Dummer is well aware of how
hard it is to build a channel that is loyal to a brand and the solutions
surrounding that brand.
He says over the past 12 months or so, the company has been
preoccupied with the expansion of its sales force to enhance its
channel visibility. “I believe in the ‘out of sight, out of mind’
principle,” he says.
44 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
ideas. “It was pretty clear to me that our customers needed a
lot more than just box moving from us,” he recalls. “My first
task soon after joining Tarsus was to create PartneRewards,
the channel’s longest running loyalty programme,” he says.
This was followed by another Keschner brainchild – Channel
Business College, a business skills channel training programme
which has proven successful and will be exported into the rest of
Africa later this year.
Prior to getting involved and establishing himself in the IT industry,
Keschner spent 14 years in the financial press field, looking after
Business Day and Financial Mail. “When industry doyenne Leo Baxter
asked me to come across to assist the MB Technologies group with
its JSE listing in 1998, I jumped at the opportunity to get into what
was then the ‘sexiest’ industry on earth,” he says. So after 10 years in
the fast-paced, ever-changing IT industry, Keschner believes he made
the best move ever and the channel is firmly in his blood. “I really
can’t imagine being anywhere else and, if the channel will permit, I’d
like nothing more than to see out the rest of my career right here,”
he says.
For someone who wanted to be a rock star when he was growing
up, Keschner enjoys riding motorbikes, watching his eight-year-old
daughter ride her horse and catching as much sport as he possibly
can in the limited leisure time that he has available. 
Dummer says as Epson’s product range is quite diverse it is
clear that in certain areas of its range the markets are very
buoyant and this is where the company has been focused.
In addition, he believes in simple, basic principles that
include regular communication to the channel. “Communication is
king and it is becoming clearer that training and communication are
key to our building a healthy channel,” he says.
Remarking on his nomination and making the top 21 Channel
Executives list for 2008, Dummer believes his policy of being trans-
parent with Epson’s partner community (distributors and resellers) is
paying dividends. He says this contributed immensely to his getting
the channel’s nod in this year’s awards.
Commenting on consolidation in the local IT industry, Dummer
says it is an ongoing process that will never stop. He explains
that it is part of maximising one’s value add and offering better
solutions at lower costs to the channel. Looking ahead, Dummer
says the challenge for Epson will be identifying and growing its
loyal resellers.
He says in terms of overall channel initiatives, Epson’s channel
ecosystem can expect more effective communication and better
product knowledge coupled with greater Epson exposure. 
 2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
It’s all good
By Stanley Chishala
It’s been a banner year for Advanced Micro Devices
(AMD), but you won’t any crowing from the chip
maker’s regional manager, sales and marketing
country manager, Imi Mosaheb.
To crown AMD’s banner year, the local solution
provider community has recognised Mosaheb’s
efforts as the company readies itself to tackle its fiercest
rival Intel.
Unlike the previous AMD representatives in SA, Mosaheb, who is
the first to set-up a fully-fledged AMD office in SA, tends to avoid
boasting to and antagonising competitors. Mosaheb has played a
pivotal role in restructuring and streamlining the vendor’s distribution
partners from seven in the past to appointing two master distributors
– Asbis Africa and Ingram Micro.
He says a direct result of this focus is the appointment of the two
master distributors Asbis Africa and Pinnacle Micro, as opposed to
the seven that AMD had a year ago.
Mosaheb says AMD has seen an opportunity to deliver greater
value to its customer base, despite not only the channel credit
crunch, but also the energy crisis.
He explains that the price-performance benefits from AMD and
ATI is unmatched, allowing the company to deliver solutions to buy-
ers that are cost-effective without sacrificing performance and pro-
ductivity. “We are seeing that this affordability reach is not restrictive,
2008 CHANNEL EXECUTIVE
Nxumalo wins with partners
By Kaunda Chama
Reggie Nxumalo, OEM director, is the man in charge of
taking his business unit to market through partners at
Microsoft says that the past 12 months have been
about working with partners while at the same time
aligning strategies with them.
He says that most of his efforts have been around
creating demand for the many products that the
world’s largest software vendor has been bringing to mar-
ket.
“Our partners’ response has been very positive to our strategies
and product releases because they are always looking to us to rein-
vent and innovate with software solutions. Just look at what we are
doing in the virtualisation space,” comments Nxumalo.
He adds that the past year has seen him spending a lot of time
with Microsoft solution provider partners, working very closely with
them as away of fully understanding their needs.
He says that he has also seen some reorganisation in the software
solution provider space, which will have a positive effect on the mar-
ket.
Regarding the consolidation in this space, he comments: “From
the outside it seems it’s a simple case of big player takes little player,
but it is more dynamic than that. A lot of the smaller system builders
are shrinking due to global pressure and a lot of these guys have
either to be bought by the bigger players or reinvent themselves in
but spans across all the Living Standard Measurement (LSM)
groups. Retailers are selling a Vista-based multimedia PC with
AMD and ATI solutions for well under R2 000,” he says.
Mosaheb says the opening of AMD’s office in SA has
delivered a sense of reassurance of the company’s long-term
commitment to this marketplace. “The growth in the local staff
complement has further demonstrated our commitment to local
resellers together with the marketing, sales and service needs for
processors, motherboards and graphics products from AMD and
ATI,” he says.
Mosaheb, who has been in the IT industry for 15 years, kick-start-
ed his career in distribution and the channel in North America. “IT
always fascinated me as it is never static. I find technology very cool
and useful in helping me to live a more productive life,” he says.
Aside from Mosaheb’s fascination with IT, he says the need for the
local channel to re-engineer itself to provide solutions and not just
components is far greater now than in the past.
“Buyers are looking for energy-efficient desktops, visually rewarding
PC systems for gaming, small business Exchange servers, etc,” he
says. “Resellers need to provide an out-of-the-box solution versus
customers selecting components and dealing with the complexity of
putting together the software stack to suit their needs.”
An avid soccer fan, Mosaheb loves watching football and spending
time with his family when he has some free time. 
order to survive.”
He says that even if one looks at IDC data, it is difficult for
local system builders to compete in this market because the
end-user is still demanding global brands both on the soft-
ware and hardware side.
“Looking ahead, resellers can look forward to thought lead-
ership and innovation as Microsoft continually reinvents its busi-
ness
models in line with market trends and technology advancements,”
Nxumalo says.
His entry into the ICT space was somewhat interesting, much like
most of his peers. He started in the SMCG business with Coca-Cola
and later joined Cell C on its launch as the national sales manager.
He joined HP in 2001 and recently moved to Microsoft in his
current position.
“What excited me about the ICT sector so much is that it has
woven itself into every aspect of out society and I do not see it
slowing down any time soon,” Nxumalo comments.
When he is not playing his part in the world of technology, he
fancies himself as an above average golf player and as if that is not
enough exercise, he is planning to take part in the Triathlon next year
and has started road running and swimming preparations.
According to him, one of the most pressing challenges in
the channel as well as the ICT sector as a whole is the rate of
CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 39
MONITORS FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
LCD monitors
outpace CRT
displays
A move that signifies the ever-changing monitor market.
BY DUDU SHABA
E arly indications in 2008 are that sales of
wide-screen LCD display panels would start
outpacing square and CRT displays in PC
bundles. With display research and develop-
ment focusing on lower power consump-
tion, improved picture resolution, increased
colour depth, smaller size screens and flexi-
bility as well as lowering cost, resellers stand
to make good margins if they position
themselves correctly to their customers.
Professional and home computer users
are increasingly swayed by factors such as
aesthetics and connectivity options when
they’re shopping for LCD displays, thanks to
maturing technology.
That’s according to Bongani Gumbo,
product manager for LCD displays at Acer
SA. He says that large-screen monitors with
fast response times, bright screens and high
contrast ratios have become affordable,
mainstream products.
“Users take high technical specifications,
sharp images and rich colours for granted,
and are now looking for LCD screens that
will look good in their homes or add to the
professional atmosphere in their offices,”
says Gumbo.
The route
An improved viewing experience, sleek design
and drop in price have increased LCDs’
appeal. Users are also being given ever more
choices as larger formats, including 19-, 22-
and even 28-inch monitors are emerging.
This is according to Bruce Byrne, visual
communications specialist, Drive Control
Corporation.
To protect their investments and make
more informed choices, he says that users
want to know why these new formats are
becoming available, which are more
suitable for which applications, which
monitors are more popular and which may
be phased out.
“The answers they are looking for can be
found in a mix of factors, namely the advance-
ment of technology and manufacturing
processes, changing business environments
and new lifestyle demands,” he comments.
“People are moving to smaller form
factors, namely from CRT monitors, which
take up a lot of desktop space and use
more power to LCDs that take up less desk
space,” says Craig Butterworth, sales
manager, NEC Display Solutions SA.
Brendon Land, country manager,
ViewSonic SA also notes that CRT monitors
are being phased out and replaced by LCD
solutions for a very simple reason, which is
that they are no longer profitable to make.
He says that the uptake of LCDs has
increased due to their obvious advantages
and as the demand has > p48
MONITORS FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
>> p46 increased, they have become
cheaper to produce.
“We are seeing that LCD is going wide
screen and DVI is the standard on most
LCDs. There is also Premium Panel
Technology, with enhanced aesthetics and
companies can incorporate elements of
their corporate design into monitors.
On the consumer products lines, there
are more connectivity ports, for example,
RCA, USB, DVI with HDCP support, HDMI
with HDCP support,” says Andrew
Tsobanoglou, portfolio manager, profes-
sional products, Fujistu Siemens Computers.
Gumbo points out that when users
choose LCDs, they look for screens that will
look good in their homes or add to the
professional atmosphere in their offices.
“They’re also increasingly looking for
monitors that feature connectivity options
such as HDMI (used for high-definition con-
tent sources like gaming consoles and
BluRay players) and DVI. Warranty support is
another factor that weighs in heavily when
making purchasing decisions,” he adds.
What’s new in display panels
The LCD monitor space is evolving rapidly
with significant developments in the market.
Shane Kennedy, national sales manager, IT
division, LG, says that one of LG’s current
developments and introductions to the mar-
ket include the LG Flatiron W52, W42, series
with its “Fun” key that enables one-touch
“LCD monitors’ advantages include aesthetics, office space
savings, ergonomics, and health benefits with less eye strain for
end-users.” – Bongani Gumbo, Acer.
access to many of its special functions.
“This user-friendly design is aimed at
general application usage by both business
and private consumers and is available in
sizes ranging from 19-inch units all the way
up to 24 inches.
The series has a fun key front and centre,
Bongani Gumbo, Acer.
emblazoned with LG’s slim logo. A press of
this button launches a special menu with
features that will appeal to serious gamers,
fans of online video and also caters for the
visually impaired. Main functions include
4:3 normal aspect ratio setting while using
the monitor in wide format allowing the
picture not to be distorted using e-zooming
and photo effect.
“It is widescreens, improved colour
gamut and uniformity, different resolutions
per screen size unfortunately often down to
lower resolution,” says Tyrone Young, sales
and marketing manger, Philips. I stand to
be corrected, but this doesn’t makes sense.
“19W will replace the 4:3 monitors as
the staple product. Same goes for 22”W
which enables users to view two A4 pages
simultaneously, especially useful for banking
and finance,” Lee-Anne Hutchins, Prestigo?
portfolio manager, ASBIS comments.
Benefits
LCD screens are becoming more estab-
lished, credible and trusted in the market.
Gumbo says that some of their benefits
include aesthetics, office space savings,
ergonomics, and health benefits with less
eye strain for end-users. Additionally, with
the rising electricity costs in SA, he believes
that companies are adopting LCD screens
because they consume less power than
their CRT counterparts.
“Not only do LCDs consume less power
than CRT screens, but they also run cooler,
which means that they put less strain on
power-guzzling air-conditioning systems,”
explains Gumbo.
Nevertheless, Gumbo explains > p50
MONITORS FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS

>> p48 that the growing popularity of

LCDs doesn’t mean that the CRT market is
dead. He says that many companies are still
opting for CRT screens because they have a
lower upfront purchase price.
Butterworth concurs with the statement,
he says that the uptake of LCDs has
improved, but due to the fact the CRTs were
the main monitor of choice for a long time
due to cost, they remain beneficial to a lot
of companies that are using them instead of
changing to the newer technology.
Werner Kuhn,
“The philosophy is more one of if it’s not Rectron
broken, don’t fix it,” he remarks.
Land says that another benefit is the
price where it plays a large role in emerging
markets where the current predominant
seller is CRT.
“While these markets will migrate to
LCDs, they will go with the cheapest solu-
tion, which is 15-inch. It will be based on
the swiftness of the CRT monitor being
made unavailable and a halt on production.
Once this happens there will be a drive to is used for. If a screen typically is purposely ics card,” LG who at LG? explains.
adopt 15- or 17-inch LCDs. Given the price designed as a monitor then it lacks some of According to him, studies have shown
erosion of technology and the pace at the TV specifications or features and vice that a second monitor greatly enhances
productivity and cuts down on printing.
“Usually adding a second monitor was
costly and a difficult procedure that
“CRT monitors are being phased out and replaced by LCD required installing a second graphics card in
solutions for a very simple reason, which is that they are no longer the computer.
The L206W can be connected using a
profitable to make.” – Brendon Land, ViewSonic SA.
simple USB cable and eliminates these
hassles, putting multiple monitors within
every computer user’s reach. If two screens
which this happens, sales of 17-inch LCD versa. What LG has done is added more of are not sufficient, users can connect up to
monitors as a CRT replacement is not unre- what you need on your desk. Instead of six monitors simultaneously. This multitalented
alistic,” he says. reaching down to reach an inconveniently monitor also includes DVI-D, and D-sub
situated USB port, the new USB L206WU connectivity options, making it compatible
Convergence LCD adds the ability to connect other USB with a wide range of computers and other
LG says that convergence still remains a devices to the monitor by putting a USB devices like DVD players and iPods. This
challenge or stumbling block for any manu- hub on you desk. connectivity makes it especially convenient
facturer of monitors and TVs. The addition of a second screen is also for use with laptop computers,” he explains.
“It’s a very fine line surrounded by a possible, in fact you can accommodate up Meanwhile, Butterworth believes
slippery slope that either lends the screen to six additional screens without having to that this is still an area that is not fully
towards one or the other as far as what it open up the computer for a second graph- understood by the channel, as > p52
MONITORS FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
>> p50 sometimes the wrong solutions
are sold into the wrong applications.
“People are currently using LCD TVs
instead of LCD monitors, plasmas where
LCDs should be used and vice versa,”
he remarks.
Solution providers
In order for solution providers to compete
in this space, Butterworth suggests that
they should focus more on the solution
instead of the hardware that goes with the
solution.
Werner Kuhn, peripheral business man-
ager, Rectron, says that solution providers
should also consider pricing factors.
“Here we have to distinguish between
the different LCD panels that are available
on the market. First, we have the standard
PC monitor which is used on PCs and only
has a VGA connector. Consumer display
“People are moving to smaller form factors, namely from CRT
monitors, which take up a lot of desktop space and use more
power, to LCDs that take up less desk space.” – Craig
Butterworth, NEC.
panels are mostly used for entertainment
and are generally more expensive than an
equivalent size PC monitor.
The reason for this is that the consumer
panels generally have other multi-media con-
nectors like RCA composite, S-VIDEO, HDMI,
etc and there will be extra tax charged on
these display panels since they have the abili-
ty to connect to a TV tuner. Due to this,
solution providers will have a slight advan-
tage in terms of pricing,” says Kuhn.
“Fujitsu Siemens Computers’ business LCDs
are manageable on corporate networks, for
example, you can remotely switch off the
LCD, change resolutions, says Tsobanoglou.
“Solution providers can compete effec-
tively by offering added value in terms of
systems integration and useful life support,
including upgrades,” says Hutchins
Young believes that this still remains an
area of great frustration.
“This is due to the amount of entry-level
products being sold but for a small premi-
um. There are fantastic value adds for buy-
ing a step up model, this obviously improves
the margin opportunity even for resellers.
SoHo, SMEs and consumers
The SoHo, SME and consumer space has a
great influence in the buying patterns of
LCD monitors and display panels, according
to Young, there are big opportunities in
this space.
“The SoHO and home users don’t have
the space for an old box monitor and these
are typically the users who will upgrade
their monitor on their own,” he says.
“I believe that all of them demand faster,
slimmer and nicely designed units,” says
Hutchins.
Butterworth suggest that the only thing
that solution providers can do is to follow the
market trends, the reason being that technol-
ogy changes timeously and they will be
forced to follow the market route when the
older technology is no longer be available.
Reseller margins
The demand for monitors is increasing, the
reason being that customers are beginning
to realise what it can do for them. To resellers
also, this is a great opportunity for them to
understand the needs of their customers so
that they are able to bundle in a way that will
enable them to make good profit.
“CRT is still available but with the lack of
support for CRT, the LCD market is seeing
an increase,” she says.
Young points out that a method that will
help resellers to make money for them-
selves effectively is through bundling.
“The only way to circumvent this is to
supply bundled PC offerings with a stand
alone brand monitor where there are
options in the range, not just the standard
offering that comes with the PC,” he says.
Gumbo agrees. “Resellers should look at
bundling monitors with complementary
products such as notebooks and desktops
to boost their profitability,” he comments.
“Focus on solution sales instead of selling
the hardware,” Butterworth remarks.
Looking ahead
According to Kuhn, the future of monitors
especially looking forward to 2010 is the HDMI.
“The World Cup Soccer has opened a lot
of opportunities when it comes to the qual-
ity of the viewing. PDP’s which are HDMI
ready or full HD are most asked for current-
ly, as well as the OLED, that has better pic-
ture quality and power saving,” she says.
“The future is one of new developments,
and new technologies,” says Butterworth. He
predicts that OLED is an up and coming tech-
nology and that digital signage is starting to
make its presence to be felt in the space.
Byrne concludes. “It is inevitable that LCD
screens will replace CRTs and businesses
and consumers are well aware of this
trend. LCD technologies are sufficiently
advanced that users can make their
purchases with confidence.
DCC has carefully selected its suppliers in
the LCD monitor sector, notably ViewSonic,
for the combination of quality, reliability
and cost efficiency their products deliver.”
 LOCAL BRANDING FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS

Local Brands here to stay

Remaining a better choice in SA.

BY DUDU SHABA

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

CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 53

LOCAL BRANDING FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
“Despite this increased competition, local
brands have managed to retain ground by
providing value-added services, which
successfully differentiate them from multi-
nationals,” he says.
“Local brands mean that there is a lot of job creation and the
option of different products is stimulating the local market. Local
assembly plants have all the expertise to assemble, install and
distribute the products in SA. We are all proud of our country and
what we are able to do.” – Cheslynne Britz, Rectron.
Neil Watson, MD, Digital Planet, a
reseller company in SA, says that it is find-
ing that local brands are being put under
pressure by international brands.
“The quality of the international brands
is making the local brands irrelevant as they
take market share due to their lower pricing
and marketing power,” he comments.
Cheslynne Britz, Rectron
54 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008
We create peace of mind for our cus-
tomers by providing a solution that offers
our customers products with excellent after-
sales service, competitive pricing, which
gives them the opportunity to compete
against the multinational brands
Advantages
Lottering states that Pinnacle has definite
competitive advantages that set it apart
from MNC brands. “We are able to react to
customer demands and market conditions
a lot faster than our MNC competitors.
Because we are a local company we have
local decision making. Our customers are
aware of this and because we can offer
them speed and flexibility in their ICT infra-
structure, it allows them to be more flexible
as well,” he says.
Lottering states that another advantage
is local knowledge. “It is hard for MNC
manufacturers to understand local condi-
tions. Because they are not living and
working here it is difficult for them to
understand problems like infrastructure,
cultures and the diversity of our country.
As a local company we understand this,”
he says.
“We can offer customers value-added
benefits that not only save them time and
money, but help them to focus on what they
are supposed to do instead of getting
bogged down with things like software con-
figuration. Local assembly enables us to do
this for our customers on our line where the
machines are assembled,” he comments.
Lotterring goes on to say that service and
support is another factor.
“We have local knowledge and because
we do not outsource our service and sup-
port, we are always in direct control of our
customers and any problems they might
experience. We are able to react faster,
solve problems quicker and keep our cus-
tomers running for longer,” he says.
According to De Beer, one of the biggest
value adds from a local brand perspective is
the ability to be first to market with new
Intel technologies: “In our competitive land-
scape being first to market provides a
major competitive advantage for the chan-
nel and local brands are able to do this
quite successfully,” he says.
In addition, De Beer says that local

brands are able to be more flexible when it
comes to meeting a customer’s exact
requirements.
He says that local brands provide a differ-
ent level of service to the channel.
“Axiz prides itself on the quality of its
products and the warranties it offers. This
not only meets the needs of our channel,
but ensures that we are easy to do business
with and able to meet customers’ require-
ments speedily. It is here, when the cus-
tomer needs an immediate response, where
local brands can shine,” he says.
Naidoo also mentions that the advan-
tages of local over international solutions is
that they are built to order and are posi-
tioned to better meet local demands, espe-
cially in terms of timing, logistics and sup-
port. There is also existing knowledge about
the local environment that may be absent in
international offerings.
De Beer’s Top Five Tips for
Local Brands
 Be first to market
 Get creative with your marketing
 Build your brand at a consumer level
 Offer a compelling warranty
 Be flexible and able to customise
solutions
Windows Vista
When asked if Windows Vista, Office 2007
and Windows Server 2008 will spur the
growth of locally branded desktop PCs,
notebooks and servers in the local channel,
Naidoo says it is not clear if this will have
an impact.
“In terms of the release of programs such
as Windows Vista, Office 2007 and
Windows Server 2008, it remains to be seen
what impact they are likely to have on the
market in general and whether they will, in
fact, escalate growth of locally assembled
solutions,” he comments.
“While there have been compatibility
issues with some program releases, these
are being addressed and concerned users
should experience peace of mind in the not
too distant future,” he adds.
“I can’t see how it will have an effect on
local branding,” Watson comments.
“We don’t feel that the operating system
will have much of an effect on the growth
LOCAL BRANDING FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
of local branded PCs and notebooks,”
says Britz.
Awareness
According to Britz, awareness and visibility
need to be created on the brand name
before anything else can succeed.
“Print media, online and retail advertising
to name a few. The main challenge is to
“We can offer customers value-added benefits that not only save
them time and money, but help them to focus on what they are
supposed to do instead of getting bogged down with things like
software configuration. Local assembly enables us to do this for our
customers on our line where the machines are assembled.” –
Francois Lottering, Pinnacle Micro.
get the name known as a quality brand.
After that, mostly any component will have
a chance of survival.
“Gigabyte was not known in SA, but
with a lot of advertising and creating
massive brand awareness, it has become
one of the best known computer manufac-
turers in SA. People trust and believe in the
brand, whether it’s PSUs, chassis, VGA
cards, motherboards, notebooks, cell-
phones, the list goes on,” says Britz.
Future
Watson says that international brands
offer the technology and price points
which mean that the niche of local brands
will disappear.
“In the future, we’ll see almost exclusive
internationally branded machines in the
market,” he predicts. Is this correct?
“Local brands are here to stay. We are
able to compete with MNC products on
day-to-day and mission critical products.
We can deliver in shorter lead times and
provide better service. Doesn’t this
make local brands the better choice?”
asks Lottering.
De Beer says that local brands need to
develop viable value propositions if they are
to compete with multinationals successfully.
“There is clearly room for local brands that
offer compelling service and first-rate
products,” concludes De Beer. Neil Watson, Digital Planet
CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 55
SECURITY FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS

New day, new security needs

As the world turns, so do corporate security needs.

BY KAUNDA CHAMA

A lthough virtualisation is now officially

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

yet the principles are the same. It is crucial

“Web-based attacks are being targeted at Web servers and
forms, business and financial applications, e-commerce applications
and blogs. Network-level security can no longer detect, let
alone prevent the majority of these attacks.”
– Nick Keene, Citrix
that it is protected and always available.
Apart from the physical threats to devices,
such as fire, theft, natural disasters and
general failures, there are virtual threats
such as malicious code, Trojans, viruses and
worms, the list is endless. Information will
be lost if you don’t have the correct
SECURITY FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
protective measures in place,” he says.
Botje says when hacking became
prevalent it was initially pranksters and
youngsters merely making their mark.
Unfortunately, the face of these attacks has
changed dramatically; they have now
become focused and are run in much the
same way as business organisations and
are they are far more effective, organised
and pose a far greater threat to companies
than before.
“Nowadays, it’s all about the financial
rewards, and with this industry becoming
one of the world’s biggest illegal money
spinners, the rewards are evident and
therefore threats are on the increase,”
he comments.
Security in organisations
According to Botje, the bottom line is that
organisations are responsible for their own
security. The Internet and cyberspace are
not policed, and we do not have the
resources locally to bring cyber criminals to
book. The only solution is for organisations
to be more vigilant and proactive in
securing their information from criminals
by implementing the best technologies
available.
When it comes to cyber threats, there
seems to be a move toward total security.
This means not only antivirus is being
deployed but advanced technologies
such as intrusion prevention, network
access control, anti-spam and advanced
backup programmes. As IT becomes more
diverse and complex, cyber security needs
to evolve to stay ahead of current and
future security threats.
Meanwhile, threats like ‘emulation’ are
becoming prevalent. Emulation refers to
the copying of pages from well-known “It is up to us, as vendors, to prove the
sites or financial institutions where one benefits to our clients and simultaneously
enters their information. These sites address possible risks. A good data centre
appear to be the original sites but are a and virtualisation strategy must be able to
front and the information one enters lands identify the aforementioned. Once it is
up in the hands of cyber criminals, who use identified it can be managed and when
it to gain access to personal information managed you can provide a secure infra-
and even finances. structure and the required business ser-
Lewis Taljaard, business unit sales vices,” he explains.
specialist at Novell comments that on the The trend towards virtualised processes
issue of information security in organisa- and storage will indeed increase the attack
tions, banks have seen the benefits of surface within the data centre.
sharing some of their resources and Recognising this, Novell is working with
processes such as cheque processing and the Distributed Management Task Force
“Basic prevention also protects against identity theft. Users should
take security measures to protect their computers against viruses,
spyware and keyloggers by using updated security software.” –
Benjamin Verduijin, BullGuard
clearing centres. Some telcos have shared (DMTF) on a standard virtual machine file
infrastructures in the form of data lines format – called the Open Virtual Machine
and signal towers. South African mobile (OVF) file format. This carries both a
operators had to follow the Mobile declaration of service level requirements
Number Portability (MNP) routing standards for the embedded virtual machine, and
to interconnect. certificates necessary to certify the
Businesses are well aware of shared validity of the virtual machine prior to
services models, their benefits and the coordinated deployment.
associated risks. Shared services are made Because the Internet seems to be one of
easier when technology such as virtualisa- the primary sources of threats, Nigel
tion is used correctly as an enabler. Hawthorn VP EMEA marketing at Blue
Mainframes were the pioneers of shared Coat Systems comments that the big issue
services a few decades ago and during the is that years ago the Internet was “black
past decade these shared services have been and white”: there was the good and bad
introduced to distributed environments and the dos and don’ts, but that has
through virtualisation. As with business changed creating a lot of grey areas.
shared services, IT shared services introduce “Today, there are so many shades of grey
their own benefits and associated risks. that the answer to what is good or bad for
SECURITY FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
a corporate would mostly be ‘it depends’,”
he comments.
This, Hawthorn says, creates an
opportunity for resellers and system
integrators to specialise and become
consultants to end-user organisations.
These companies can as well as handle
implementations of systems also play an
advisory role when it comes to setting up
security policies and implementing them.
Many local organisations are still coming
to terms with the dynamics that have been
brought on by Web2.0 applications such as
Facebook and YouTube and the security
threats that come with allowing their
employee to use applications such as
Instant Messenger and Skype or other
peer-to-peer services.
“Unfortunately, valuable corporate information is quite often
not protected, yet the principles are the same. It is crucial that it is
protected and always available.” – Neal Botje, Comztek
Benjamin Verduijin technology consul-
tant at BullGuard advises people to limit the
amount of personal information they make
available online. For example, avoid putting
full date of birth on these sites as well as
the names of children or pets as these are
often used as passwords.
Basic prevention also protects against
identity theft. Users should take security
measures to protect their computers
against viruses, spyware and keyloggers by
using updated security software.
“There are a lot of senior managers that
do not know what is going on in their
networks and they are equally unaware of
the threats, this is where a system integrator
can go into a company and install a piece
of security hardware for a week on a trial
basis and produce a report. This will go a
long way in enlightening companies about
what they need to do,” he explains.
He stresses that channel players should
be able to ask open questions as part of
being advisers in policy formulation.
He also agrees that the nature of threats
has evolved and that previously attacks
where all about infecting as many clients as
possible with a virus, but now the attacks
are targeted and are more about financial
gain or stealing sensitive information.
With targeted threats being so prevalent
and dangerous, he comments that it is a
fact that the human being is still the
weakest link in the security chain and this is
evident through the fact that social attacks
are still very effective.
Identity theft on the rise
According to recent statistics, between
2005 and 2007 over 167.7 million records
containing sensitive personal information
were exposed due to security breaches.
During the past two years we have seen
some big corporates and institutions
locking down on identity theft. For
example; the likes of Visa, MasterCard,
American Express and other members
enforce the Payment Card Industry Data
Security Standard (PCI-DSS). The PCI-DSS is
applicable to all companies accepting card
transactions and they are categorised
depending on the number of card transac-
tions over a 12-month period.
This shows us that businesses across the
globe are now protecting themselves and
the private information they manage. Not
only internal identities and transactions
need to be managed and audited, but
corporates are also being held responsible
for securing client and third-party identity
and private information.
Many organisations in South Africa have
embarked on identity management projects
and many more are planning to or are at
least investigating it. Along with various
other IT risk and operational issues,
organisations continuously need to moni-
tor, collect, audit and report on security
information and events.
Taking on the above two projects in two
different silos causes duplicated efforts and
puts undue pressure on IT staff.
Nick Keene, country manager of Citrix
Southern Africa comments that the finan-
cial incentive for breaching security and
stealing identities has motivated hackers
and information criminals to create a new
threat environment.
According to him these new, Web-based
attacks are being targeted at Web servers
and forms, business and financial
applications, e-commerce applications and
blogs. Network-level security can no longer
detect, let alone prevent the majority of
these attacks.
Keene explains that protection from a
Web application attack requires a firewall

to understand application language as well
as the basic constructs of hypertext markup
language (html), which is not offered by
many of the entry-level products available
on the market.
He says that despite their popularity, Web
applications are inherently insecure and
easily compromised. Statistically, the two
most common forms of Web application
attacks are Structured Query Language
(SQL) injection and Cross-site scripting
Huge amounts of spam and malware can easily overwhelm the
networks of small and mid-size businesses and, in some cases, even
small countries.
(XSS). SQL injections send commands to a
Web application that when passed to data-
bases, executes and allows the hacker to
gain access to sensitive information.
According to Keene, organisations wanti-
ng to ensure the integrity of their Web
applications should observe the following
key security requirements.
Companies should protect both users
and application infrastructure, guard
against zero-day stacks or breaches that
exploit vulnerabilities in custom application
code, prevent sensitive data from slipping
through by inspecting outbound traffic
and not blocking traffic that doesn’t
pose a threat.
These four key guidelines will assist
organisations to better protect their Web
applications from attacks or misuse.
Chris Mayers, principal security architect
at Citrix Southern Africa says wherever
there is access to information, data security
SOLUTION
needs careful consideration. According to
him, data security has many facets:
compliance regulations, data protection,
anti-virus controls, disaster recovery and
business continuity.
Executives know that it is technically fea-
sible to view sensitive data, wherever they
are, even on a PDA. The fact that it can be
complicated to maintain data security in
these circumstances is not their problem.
They can rightly demand a solution.
Technology has to be a business enabler,
not something that prevents people from
doing their jobs as effectively as possible.
Mayers believes that this has had a pro-
found impact on the way organisations
view information security.
The mainframe provided good security
but kept information behind company
walls. With the client-server model, firms
gave more processing power to the end-
user, but then gave priority to keeping out
external threats and attacks. It is not surpris-
ing that the traditional image of an impreg-
nable castle where outsiders were not wel-
come has persisted.
With the advent of Web services and
XML, businesses have begun to realise the
benefits of delivering information to mobile
employees, partners and customers. As
information has become a market differen-
tiator and enabler, organisations have come
under greater pressure to share data.
SECURITY FEATURE
PROVIDERS
Instead of being a concrete barrier to
entry, firewalls are now seen as more of a
wall of defence, but with openings for
access. He, however, warns that with new
access comes new risks. The corporate net-
work is more vulnerable to attack through
open ports and the careless use of mobile
devices by employees. The challenge
remains: how to enable access to sensitive
information from both inside and outside
the firewall without sacrificing security.
“Now that almost everyone is becoming
a road warrior, fast growing threats to the
company’s sensitive information are also
growing and this is demanding better
security policies and solutions. The only
positive here is that security on mobile
devices seems to be better than that on
notebooks,” comments Hawthorn.
Organisations that integrate their security
strategy with their access strategy are likely
to achieve better security, improved usability,
easier administration and greater trans-
parency to satisfy auditing requirements.
Some schools of thought have preached
encryption as a solution to vulnerabilities of
sensitive information, but Hawthorn says
that encryption is not essentially a total
solution because it can also be used by
malicious employees to get sensitive infor-
mation past their network administrators.
Webroot, one of the leading providers of
security solutions for the consumer, enter-
prise and SME markets, recently released its
latest research report, “State of Internet
Security: Protecting Business Email”. The
report reveals the significant impact that
rapidly growing email security threats, in
size and volume, are having on businesses
worldwide and underscores the need for a
multi-layered approach to Internet security.
SECURITY FEATURE
SOLUTION PROVIDERS
“The battle against spam is an ongoing
struggle for many organisations with spam-
mers continuing to present a serious and
costly threat to most businesses. In 2008,
we estimate there will be over 42 000
spam emails for every single business email
account or about 116 per day. And,
because spammers are working at beating
conventional filters with images and
attachments, the size of spam has grown
60 per cent since 2004,” says Mike Irwin,
COO, Webroot. “The size and volume of
these spam attacks is largely due to the
partial success of current filtering defences
that now make spamming success a
numbers game. It’s clear why first-genera-
tion defences such as appliances and server-
based software are struggling to keep up.”
Along with the rapid growth in spam,
there is a similarly rapid growth in malware.
Industry research shows that malware
jumped from about 50 000 variants in
2004 to 5.5 million in 2007. Webroot
research found that spam has become a
significant vector of attack for deploying
these new malware variants. But, while
companies are seeing increased malware
threats to their email, they are still using it
to gather and exchange vital customer and
employee information such as credit card
numbers and other confidential financial
data. About one out of five businesses that
responded to the survey experienced a
threat to sensitive or confidential online
information last year underscoring the
growing need for securing and storing
business email.
“Huge amounts of spam and malware
can easily overwhelm the networks of small
and mid-size businesses and, in some cases,
even small countries. In our survey, more
Key findings at a glance
Email is business critical
According to IDC, over 6.62 trillion business emails will be exchanged in 2008.
Three-fourths of Webroot survey respondents rely on email for communicating
with customers and providing customer support.
Risks to and from email are prevalent
More than half of those surveyed experienced spyware and virus attacks via email
and over 40 per cent experienced a phishing attack.
About one out of five organisations reported that sensitive online transactions
were threatened and confidential information was compromised as a result of
spam.
Over 60 per cent of respondents had at least one email outage in 2007.
One out of three survey respondents said that the hourly cost of an email outage
is over $1 000.
Employee behaviour increases email security risks
 Individual email users open messages before realising they are spam, open mes-
sages in junk folders and even make purchases from emails marked as spam.
 The 2007 eCrime Watch report found that employees were second only to hack-
ers as groups that pose the greatest cyber security threat to organisations.
 One out of three organisations reported employee misuse of email resources.
 Few companies have protective policies in place
 Less than a third of organisations surveyed have key employee email security
policies in place.
 Less than half of companies with more than 100 computers have policies in
place to restrict employees’ personal email use.
than half of the respondents said that they scale to exceed the demand.”
suffered spyware and virus attacks via In the “State of Internet Security:
email,” added Irwin. “Because existing Protecting Business Email” report, Webroot
defences are being overrun, large numbers studied email-related threats and the latest
of companies are increasingly losing methods to protect business email.
important data. Spam is growing in Webroot surveyed approximately 1 500
relation to the importance of email as a email security product decision-makers in
business communications tool. As a result, companies across seven countries:
companies and organisations need Australia, Canada, France Germany, Japan,
defences that can quickly and easily the United Kingdom and the United States.
 Reviews by: Kaunda Chama Highly Recommended

Vosonic multimedia viewer HP Photo Smart A441

Extremely handy A smart idea

What more does a person who likes large amounts of multimedia on the
move need than Vosonic’s Multimedia Viewer with 100GB HDD and
7-inch Digital Picture Frame with 128MB on-board memory?
This is, in effect, a high-capacity portable multimedia player that stores
videos, photos, music, ebooks and texts. It comes with a built-in internal
rechargeable battery
with four hours’ video or
seven hours’ music
playback and a protec- After having reviewed a higher-end HP Photo Smart printer (the
tive case. Photosmart A717), CRN found the Photo Smart A441 to be truly
It is perfect for storing entry level and pretty basic.
and viewing photos, Although you do not get lab-quality photos, the prints are com-
music, videos and texts paratively reasonable and the fact that the unit runs on batteries
directly from a digital makes it a good portable system.
camera, memory card or The camera takes 5 MP photos and is an easy point-and-shoot
a USB key via the OTG device, and once finished all you need to do is pop it into the dock
port to the internal 2.5” on top of the printer and press the print button.
hard disk. However, the printer is so basic that to view the photos you have
The extra clear, 3.5- to depend only on the camera’s 3.8cm display and, worse still, you
inch high-resolution can’t do any photo editing on the printer itself, you have to depend
colour display is perfect on the few functions available on the camera.
for viewing photos and videos, and supports all standard video formats in full Although printing 10 x 15 cm photos almost anywhere is a won-
DVD resolution. It also supports video and audio recording, and plays back in derful thing, especially if they are in full colour, the fact that the
DivX, Microsoft WMA, WMV and MP3 formats. prints are not the best you can get puts a damper on the total expe-
The device is also quite groundbreaking because it has the capability to rience.
record directly from TV in high-quality MPEG-4 format up to 640x480 at 30 Essentially, for an entry-level machine, it is quite a bargain because
frames per second. It also does basics like record voice like a Dictaphone. the almost lab-quality photos can be handled straight from the print-
This is a very impressive multimedia device and has a lot of impressive fea- er without smudging with HP Advanced Photo Paper.
tures for its size and is USB 2.0compatible to access files on a computer. Also, your photos will last without fading for “generations”.

Microsoft ergonomic keyboard, mouse

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

CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008 • 63

PARTING: SHOTS

DILBERT www.dilbert.com by Scott Adams

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

64 • CRN SOUTHERN AFRICA • APRIL 2008