Argyrides previously served as the General Manager of Logicom Dubai until 2010 and as the Managing Director of EMPA Middle East, before returning back to Logicom as the Group Director of Sales & Marketing in 2013. His professional career experience mostly revolves around IT distribution across the Middle East and South Eastern Europe.

Having joined Mindware at a very crucial time, Argyrides believes that the Company’s main challenge is balancing the channel and vendor requirements in a profitable manner for the distributor. “Given the rather harsh commercial climate the region is recently undergoing, such task requires the careful handling of credit availability to the market and the close alignment with both partners and suppliers,” he said. “I am confident that, with the help of the Mindware team, I will be able to contribute my part to the future accomplishments of this fine organization.”

Regarding the distributor’s 2017 development plans, Argyrides hinted towards both the horizontal (based on geography) and vertical (based on technologies/vendor portfolio) expansion of Mindware along with projects such as a Cloud Marketplace and Client Services also running in parallel. “It is worth noting here that the recent grim business climate in the region has been, definitely, contributing to the surfacing some significant commercial opportunities and, at Mindware, we certainly have our radars focused on a number of such prospects”, he added.

Looking ahead to the future – particularly as GITEX 2016 is just around the corner – the distributor is keen to display the new, redesigned Mindware that’s tailored to focus on solution-based selling while remaining lean and agile, thus catering for its more traditional channel business.

Called the Red Vault, the centre fully integrates more than 40 different solutions from numerous vendors, thereby making it the only such facility in the region with a multi-vendor environment.
The innovative new solutions centre will create a platform for existing and new partners and customers to get trained in vendor-authorised training centres.

A soft launch of the solutions centre was held at the company’s headquarters in Dubai in January. The facility is now being expanded to Redington Value’s branches in Saudi Arabia, Kenya and Nigeria.

The announcement comes as Redington Gulf, by far the largest distributor of IT products in the Middle East and Africa and a growing force in Turkey and CIS regions, plans to expand into new markets and strategically position itself as a value-added distributor for solutions.

The strategy behind setting up Red Vault is to position Redington Value into playing a much bigger role in speeding up its partners’ and end customers’ IT transformation journey. “We want to play a critical role in training and facilitating transformation among our partners,” says Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value Distribution.

He explains that Red Vault is an attempt by Redington Value to create a unique facility within the industry, especially in this region, for its partners and customers to get hands-on experience in the functioning of every possible mainstream IT Solutions in a live environment, aided by a giant display.

“Connected to our specialised training centres, the Red Vault shows technology in action and brings it closer than ever,” he says.

The fully functional solutions centre, with one of the largest interactive transparent display in the region, is currently operational at the Redington Value headquarters in Dubai, UAE.

The company’s solutions span across traditional technology domains such as networking, voice, servers, storage, software, security and infrastructure, even as it plans to grow more aggressively, catering to the newer growth potential areas such as Internet of Things (IOT), mobility, cloud and hyper-convergence.

The integrated touch panels of the solutions centre will connect to fully operational control and training rooms running live demos of various solutions such as Oracle’s ZFS Storage, xSeries servers, DB appliance, virtualisation software, enterprise manager and Oracle Cloud; Virtual Computing Group solutions such as Dell EMC’s VxRail and Vx Rack, Vmware’s software-defined data centre, virtual VSAN & NSX; security applications such as Trend Micro Deep Security & Deep Discovery Platform, Malware Bytes, Entrust, Cyberark, Check Point, Barracuda and Fortinet; Enterprise software solutions such as Red Hat covering virtualization, IaaS (Internet as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) and JBoss Middleware; Disaster Recovery, Backup, Monitoring and Migration solutions from DoubleTake & Veam; Public Cloud services including Amazon Web Services and Azure; and hardware solutions such as Sonicwall, Fidelis Security, Alcatel Lucent, Fortinet and HPE Converged System and Networking.

“The key milestone that we have for ourselves is to elevate Red Vault – the solutions centre and the whole approach of building solutions – to the mainstream. The idea is to attempt to help our partners and end customers in the transformation journey. So being a catalyst in transformation of the channel and its enablement is really at the core of what we do at Redington Value. A visit to our office offers a chance to look at all these different technologies, to see and test the whole environment,” says Balakrishnan.

Earlier this year Redington Value moved its offices into a more strategic location situated opposite the Dubai World Trade Centre, primarily to cater to its partners and enable them to get their end customers to visit the premises and showcase the solutions being built.

At last year’s Gitex Technology Week, Redington Value launched RedCloud, an integrated cloud solutions platform offering customers a one-stop solution for all their Enterprise Cloud requirements. Among the key highlights during this Gitex Technology Week will also be the announcement of new vendors for the RedCloud and the company’s expansion into new markets.

Gitex Technology Week will be held from October 16-20, 2016, at the Dubai World Trade Centre. Redington Value stand will be located in Hall 3, #C3-1 at DWTC.

“With the increase in sophisticated attacks across the region, companies are looking for smarter and simpler IT security solutions. GITEX, being the region’s largest ICT exhibition, is a perfect platform for Sophos to reach out to these companies and communicate our vision of ‘Synchronized Security’ with them. We plan to highlight our latest innovation, Security Heartbeat, which for the first time allows the endpoint and network security to actively and continuously share threat intelligence to effectively protect against sophisticated threats in a manageable way,” said Harish Chib, Vice President – Middle East and Africa, Sophos.

“GITEX 2016 will also give us an opportunity to meet our existing and potential customers and partners and share our highly innovative and simple-to-use and manage security solutions with them. In addition to this, we plan to strengthen our channel network further by meeting and signing on results-oriented partners in countries, where we would like to increase our market share and reach. Our security experts will hold presentations on the importance of implementing Synchronized Security and address security concerns customers and partners may have at the event,“ Mr. Chib added.

As part of its GITEX 2016 plans, Sophos will showcase its broad portfolio of security solutions including Sophos Intercept – its next-generation endpoint technology to boost protection against unknown exploits, the most updated versions of Sophos Clean and SG UTM, and its recently launched synchronized encryption solution – SafeGuard Encryption8, which can automatically respond to threat incidents from connected endpoint protection. Since enterprise mobility management is now a growing priority, the company will also showcase Sophos Mobile Control 6.0, a container solution with Sophos Secure Email that enhances data protection.

Sophos will promote its newly launched partner program for the Middle East and Africa region, which has been designed to address the needs of different partners and their engagement levels with Sophos.

Senior global executives and security experts from the company will be available at their stand D1-10, Hall 1 to meet with customers and partners, address the challenges they face and share the latest security trends and global success stories with them.
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Wearables are computing devices that can be worn as clothing or accessories – including smart watches, glasses, bands, cameras, and clothing. By recording, analysing, and communicating data, wearables can provide real-time contextual information to aid in decision-making and enhancing experiences.

Use cases include constant health and fitness updates, real-time transport tracking, and augmented reality enhancing construction sites and factory floors in manufacturing.

Thanks in part to growing GCC demand for wearables, the global shipments of wearables will grow from about 90 million in 2016 to over 200 million in 2020, according to the report.

“Smart wearables will rapidly advance in technology to replace smartphones by 2020, and provide a gateway for seamless citizen interaction with the Internet of Things and Smart Cities,” said Robert Scoble, a Silicon Valley insider speaking at GITEX Technology Week 2016.

Robert Scoble, who currently serves as Entrepreneur in Residence at augmented reality and virtual reality startup Upload VR, will be one of dozens of speakers at the GITEX Conference, and a headliner of GITEX Digital Marketing Monday on digital marketing innovations.

“The GCC, with its advancing Smart Cities, is well-positioned to be among global leaders in demonstrating how wearables can be optimised for hyper-connectivity. Smart wearables can deliver an enhanced experience that was only in the realm of sci-fi films, especially in verticals such as healthcare, transportation, marketing, and retail,” added Robert Scoble.

GITEX speakers addressing wearables will include Rafael Grossmann, the first surgeon to live-stream surgery with Google Glass, Shahid Azim, Co-Founder of medical wearables startup Quanttus, and Jonathan Reichental, CIO of Palo Alto, on the future of Smart Cities.

Smart Watches Dominate Wearables Growth
Globally, smart device manufacturers are looking to cash in on the smart wearables trend. Currently, the market is dominated by smart wristbands, at 51 per cent, and smart watches, at 41 per cent, but will become more diversified by 2020, according to research firm IDC.

Smart watches will dominate, accounting for more than 50 per cent of wearable shipments by 2020. Shipments of smart watches will grow by 69 per cent annually to 2020, with revenue accelerating faster than sales at 78 per cent annually, according to Frost & Sullivan.

Smart bands will remain a specialised market. Smart cameras, glasses, and clothing will see specialised growth – for example in athletics, or jobs in high-risk environments – before becoming more consumer friendly. Smart glasses will gain market traction in the next two to three years, with sales accelerating rapidly towards 2020, according to Frost & Sullivan.

While Apple has staked an early market lead in smart wearables, major technology brands such as Garmin, LG Electronics, Lenovo, and Samsung have seen double-digit shipment growth year-over-year, with strong potential in niche wearables, according to IDC analysis.

“The growing Samsung device ecosystem is one based on seamless connectivity and interoperability. Our smartwatches, including the recently-announced Gear S3, not only compliment this universe but adds an additional layer of functionality and mobility,” Mohammed Gharaibeh, Head of B2B for Information and Mobility at Samsung Gulf Electronics.

“As a fashion statement, activity tracker, personal assistant, music player and navigator, our smartwatches are transcending conventional confines of what a watch should be,” added Mohammed Gharaibeh.

GCC Set for Strong Wearables Growth

The Middle East is a growing market for wearable manufacturers and distributors, thanks to high mobile penetration in the GCC region, according to the Frost & Sullivan report.

“Dubai aims to be one of the world’s smartest cities, and wearable innovators will look to the city for how wearables can fully realise the potential of the Internet of Things. GITEX will be a showcase for how seamless connectivity can transform daily lives – across mobile operators, wearable developers, and startups,” said Trixie LohMirmand, Senior Vice-President, Exhibitions and Events Management, Dubai World Trade Centre.

Wearables will be in the spotlight at GITEX Tech Watch, showcasing the latest innovative and immersive technology. Global entrepreneurs in the wearables sector can seek funding and partnerships at the GITEX Startups Movement, which aims to be the world’s most global startup event in 2016. One of the leading wearable startups participating is Mosaikx, a UAE-based company that has launched the world’s first wearable smart voice recorder.

Aiming to boost the reach of startups will be accelerators and incubators such as Oasis500 from Jordan, the BADIR Programme for Science and Technology and InspireU by STC from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and the Skolkovo Foundation from Russia, the Dubai Technology Entrepreneurship Centre, and the Japan External Trade Organisation.

Shipments of mobile robotics will grow from 4 million in 2012 to 25.4 million in 2020. The fastest growing sector in this expansion is predicted to be logistics, with unit shipments of logistics-related robotics increasing from 1,400 in 2012 to 95,000 in 2020. The largest absolute growth will be in personal and household robotics, growing from four million in 2012 to 25 million in 2020.

“As robots get inexorably smarter with advances in Artificial Intelligence and know more about the world around them through access to the Internet of Things and Big Data, they will make more informed decisions and be able to adapt to the environments they inhabit. This in turn will lead to richer human-machine collaboration – driving massive gains in productivity, safer workplaces, and better lives,” said Paul Clarke, CTO at the United Kingdom-based Ocado, the world’s largest online-only grocery retailer.

Paul Clarke will headline GITEX’s Retail Wednesday, an all-day conference on how innovations are transforming e-commerce, brand engagement, and the retail supply chain.

He will present on “Harnessing the Power of Technology Tsunamis to Disrupt the Future of Online Grocery Retail and Beyond,” on how Ocado has scaled and sustained e-commerce by harnessing the power of innovative technologies.

Ocado ships over 200,000 weekly orders in the UK thanks to its automated warehouses, the latest of which will have thousands of robots fetching their customers’ groceries. Ocado is currently partnering with several European Union universities to develop the SecondHand humanoid robot, which aims for factory deployment by 2020.

“Humanoid robots with advanced artificial intelligence are set to be a major leap forward in complementing people and enhancing efficiency in the workplace, especially in high-risk and fast-paced environments. As the Middle East’s push for innovation continues, the region is primed to be a centre of having robots transform the workplace. Lessons learnt in retail could be extended to other verticals such as healthcare, hospitality, entertainment, and construction,” added Paul Clarke.

With more workplace automation, companies will be able to replace up to 10 workers with one robot, driving down costs by as much as 60 per cent, according to Frost & Sullivan.

The European Federation of Robotics, a non-profit organization that aims to promote, strengthen, and protect the robotics industry worldwide, predicts the Middle East will see strong take-up of robotics across businesses, especially in industrial and manufacturing.

“Robots increasingly have the artificial intelligence to carry out tasks based on their own decisions, enhancing efficiency and safety. We are on the brink of a major breakthrough in human-machine technology advancement, and the GCC and UAE have the ambition and early adoption mind-set to be global leaders in using robotics to transform daily lives,” said Simon Andersen, CIO at the European Federation of Robotics.

Robotics, Drones, and 3D Printing Drive Innovation

Robotics, along with drones and 3D printing, are three inter-related technologies that are rapidly decreasing in cost, advancing in sophistication, and driving innovation.

With mid-range 3D printers advancing in quality, there is strong industry take-up – from rapid prototyping in industrial manufacturing, to healthcare with hearing aids and dental braces. Globally, 3D printers and services will grow more than six-fold, from USD 2.5 billion in 2013 to USD 16.2 billion in 2018, according to a recent analysis by consultants PwC.

3D printing is making major waves in the retail sector – with industry analysts Gartner predicting at least seven of the top 10 retailers in the world using 3D printing. John Vary, Innovation Manager at UK department store John Lewis, will present at GITEX on how the company’s in-house Room Y innovation hub has prototyped 3D-printed products.

Drones are seeing strong take-up across a wide range of industry verticals – especially in monitoring sites and delivering goods across long distances, and present a global commercial value of USD 127 billion, according to a recent report by consultants PWC. The three strongest markets are infrastructure, agriculture, and transport, with infrastructure worth USD 45 billion across monitoring, conducting maintenance, and checking inventory.

In the energy field, oil and gas leaders from Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, Dolphin Energy, Emirates National Oil Company, and Takreer will discuss at GITEX Conferences on how drones and sensors can make energy sites safer and better monitored.

Bringing drones innovations to the Middle East, many of the world’s largest and most advanced drones manufacturers will showcase their latest drones at GITEX – including leading Chinese drones manufacturers Ehang, Prodrone, and Yuneec.

GITEX Startup Movement Supports Innovators

The new GITEX Startup Movement will support global startups experimenting in robotics, drones, and 3D printing in securing funding and reaching new markets and audiences.

UAE startup DigiRobotics, which launched CafeBot and CarBot driverless car at last year’s GITEX, will return to showcase the first virtual reality robotic simulator, 3D printing by a seven-axis robot, unmanned vehicles, and the UAE’s first 3D-printed humanoid robot.

“Following the vision of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum and the Future Strategy of UAE, DigiRobotics Technologies is seeing a surge of interest in robotics across 3D printing, humanoid robots for personal assistance, and unmanned vehicles and industrial robotics in the oil and gas, manufacturing, construction, and logistics sectors, especially for repetitive and dangerous tasks,” said Bilal Al Hattab, Managing Director of DigiRobotics.

At GITEX, DigiRobotics will join robotics innovators such as China-based Alpula, which specialises in child-friendly humanoid robots; The Hi-Tech, which says it has 90 per cent market share of India’s industrial and warehousing robotics; InSystems Automation from Germany, which creates robots ranging from industrial machines to 3D scanners; and the Korea Institute for Robot Industry Advancement, which promotes a wide range of robots.

Fuelling the next generation of startups will be GITEX Startup Movement’s global incubators and accelerators – such as STC’s InspireU and BADIR Programme for Science and Technology, Dubai Technology and Entrepreneurship Centre in the UAE, Oasis500 from Jordan, and the Japan External Trade Organisation.

At the Middle East centre of robotics, drones, and 3D printing innovation is the UAE, with government initiatives leading the way. Dubai recently opened the world’s first 3D printed office building, and the Dubai 3D Printing Strategy aims to make the city a global hub by 2030. Numerous government agencies are using drones to monitor security, utilities, and roads. The UAE will also host the World Future Sports Games 2017 for robotics.

“The UAE has shown how to imagine the future on a grand scale. GITEX Technology Week 2016’s theme of ‘Reimagining Realities’ will encompass how robotics, drones, and 3D printing manufacturers, early adopters, experts, and futurists see the world changing in the near future, in a place where new ideas are especially welcomed,” said Trixie LohMirmand, Senior Vice-President, Exhibitions and Events Management, Dubai World Trade Centre.

To experience the latest innovations in robotics, drones, and 3D printing, register for GITEX Technology Week 2016 at www.gitex.com. The event will run from 16-20 October 2016 at the Dubai World Trade Centre.