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Brocade Targets Aggressive Growth in Middle East with Senior Executive Appointments and Strategic Focus on Ethernet Fabrics, SDN and NFV
Published Aug 7, 2014
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Following the recent appointment of Yarob Sakhnini as regional director for the Middle East, Mediterranean and Africa (MEMA) region earlier this year, Brocade® (NASDAQ: BRCD) today announced a number of key regional senior executive appointments designed to drive growth in the Middle East market and consolidate its leadership position in Ethernet Fabrics, Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) technologies.
IT infrastructure spending, comprising storage, server, and enterprise networking equipment, in the Middle East and Africa is forecast to reach $3.47 billion, a 4.1 percent increase from 2013, according to a report by Gartner.. The report states that ‘IT infrastructure spend in this region will be driven by data centre modernization efforts, coupled with new data centre build out, by local, as well as international companies.’ With Brocade being a pioneer and industry leader in data centre transformational technologies like Ethernet Fabrics, SDN and NFV, it is little surprise that the company has been experiencing a high degree of success in the Middle East with a 50 percent staff growth and 30 percent revenue growth over the past year. With the new appointments and increased focus, the company intends to accelerate this growth even further.
“The Middle East is one of the fastest growing regions for Brocade,” said Marcus Jewell, vice president, EMEA at Brocade. “With the emergence of smart cities across the region and state-run mega projects requiring the latest networking infrastructure, as well as the need for regional enterprises to overhaul their existing legacy networks in order to support cloud, mobility and big data trends, there is immense potential for Brocade to play a big role in the area’s transformation. As such we need a strong leadership team that can execute on the company’s vision. We believe we now have that team in place.”
The appointments include:
Fayez Eweidat has been named regional sales manager, MENA. He has more than 13 years of IT industry experience in senior sales management positions in companies including Apple, Cisco, Foundry Networks (acquired by Brocade) and Emirates Computers. He has been tasked with expanding Brocade’s footprint in the region, especially in emerging technology areas such as data centre Ethernet fabrics, Software-defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV).
Abdul Reham Tariq has been named regional channel manager, MENA. In this role he is responsible for spearheading Brocade’s local channel strategy, which includes driving channel partner enablement, accelerating channel recruitment and sales, ensuring partners are able to fully leverage the unique differentiation delivered by Brocade’s Alliance Partner Network (APN) programme.
Hesham El Komy has assumed the post of regional marketing manager, MEMA. He is a marketing and business development veteran, having set up marketing and channel operations for the last two companies he worked for, EnterpriseDB and Red Hat. Hesham is responsible for creating marketing and lead generation programmes that enhance the corporate image of Brocade in the region and support overall sales objectives.
Brocade dominates the Storage Area Networking (SAN) market in the Middle East. The company is now focusing on increasing its share in the IP space, targeting key verticals like healthcare, education, banking and finance and service provider businesses.
It is constantly bringing the latest innovations in data centre networking technologies to the region. Last month, the company unveiled the Brocade® Vyatta® Platform, the industry’s only true open and modular networking platform for cloud and telecommunications service providers seeking software-based solutions to achieve new revenue streams and regain control over their networks. As enterprises in the Middle East make the transition to SDN, the company sees a healthy uptake of its OpenFlow-enabled products that are available across all of its flagship switching and routing product families in the industry’s only true hybrid port mode.
“While we are now capable of offering end-to-end support for OpenFlow 1.3, we realise that the SDN momentum in the Middle East is still gaining pace and customers will need to gradually adopt this technology while ensuring a continued quality of service from their existing networks. The hybrid port mode means they can enjoy a steady and cost-effective migration instead of having to opt for a rip-and-replace approach,” says Yarob Sakhnini, regional director MEMA at Brocade.
Channel enablement is a key part of the company’s strategy in the Middle East. Brocade in April this year launched a ‘Partner Academy’ in the region that will educate Brocade channel partners about the latest technology trends and product innovations, as well as provide unique insights to drive the sales pipeline and revenue growth. There will be two interactive Partner Academies held every quarter across different regions in the Middle East. There will also be a number of localized channel programmes introduced that cater specifically to the unique needs of Middle East channel partners.
“We want to establish a strong identity in the region as a market leading networking solutions provider so that when enterprises begin to transition to future-proof networks based on Ethernet Fabric technology and start embracing software-defined technologies, Brocade will be their first port of call. I am fully confident in this leadership team’s ability to position Brocade well for success in the near term and beyond,” concludes Sakhnini.
Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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