The face of security

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There are some significant technological mergers around the corner next year. - Lee Reynolds, managing director for the Middle East and Asia at Computerlinks.

Security distributors are privy to the changing trends of the market, more than their broadline counterparts. NME talks to four of these niche distributors on how evolving trends will affect the Middle East market.

Specialised security distributors are not rare in the Middle East, but they are not common either. By becoming skilled delivery vehicles in their security niche, these distributors enjoy a crystal ball view of the segment that is closed to most others, so when they predict trends, one would be better off listening.

"Integration and consolidation of technology and vendors is the major trend that will shape the security market of the region in the near future. I predicted Websense and SurfControl, but I don't know which ones now. Obviously, I know the roadmaps of the vendors, but I can't reveal these. All I can say, however, is that there are some significant technological mergers just around the corner next year," says Lee Reynolds, managing director for the Middle East and Asia at Computerlinks.

Zafar Shabdiz, managing director for Secureway agrees saying, "Mergers and acquisitions will play a big role in the near future. A few large companies will try to snap up specialist market niche leaders to round out their portfolios. How smartly these large companies manage the acquisitions is the question. They have the power to develop, or kill, the newly acquired company by enforcing their traditional non-fit strategies on them."

Apart from these larger, global and regional trends, these distributors predict that more and more specialised security practices will start to see the light of day in the region.

"Increasingly more system integrators (SIs) will focus on setting up security practices or companies. This trend is already happening and there will be more spawning of dedicated security practices. We will also see clear differentiation in the partners in their security offerings. It will no longer be acceptable for partners to go in and sell security as part of their infrastructure offerings. You will see more investment in specialist resources and certified personnel from partners," states Guru Prasad, general manager for networking at FVC.

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