SanDisk has given one of its everyday USB-C flash drives a football-inspired makeover with the FIFA World Cup 2026 Global Edition, and the result is a storage accessory that blends practicality with collector appeal. While the internals remain familiar, it is the packaging, colourful finish and official FIFA branding that make this version stand out.

This review unit comes with 128GB of storage, USB 3.2 connectivity and quoted read speeds of up to 300MB/s, making it suitable for quickly transferring large photo libraries, 4K videos or project files between smartphones, tablets and laptops equipped with USB-C ports. It also supports SanDisk’s mobile backup application for users looking to automate backups from compatible Android devices.

Design is where this limited edition earns its personality. The drive adopts a compact, cap-style construction, with the USB-C connector protected by a removable cover that fits securely during use.

The colourful geometric artwork inspired by the FIFA World Cup 2026 branding gives the drive a fresh, premium appearance, while the embossed football pattern on the rear adds a subtle finishing touch.

Unlike many novelty editions, this one doesn’t feel overly flashy and still looks professional enough to carry daily.

A welcome addition is the included official FIFA World Cup 2026 lanyard. Besides adding collector value, it makes the tiny drive significantly easier to carry or attach to a backpack, camera bag or key organiser, reducing the chances of misplacing such a compact storage device.

In everyday handling, the flash drive feels lightweight yet well assembled. Its compact size means it occupies very little space when plugged into laptops or tablets, although, like most cap-based drives, users will need to keep track of the removable cap when in use.

Overall, the SanDisk FIFA World Cup 2026 Global Edition USB-C Flash Drive is a simple but attractive limited-edition product.

It combines dependable USB-C storage performance with official tournament branding that football fans will appreciate.

For users already looking for a high-speed USB-C flash drive, the FIFA edition adds enough exclusivity and thoughtful presentation to make it more memorable than a standard storage device, without compromising the practicality SanDisk is known for.

Matthew Prince, Co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare.

“ Egress fees are nothing but a tax on developers, stifling innovation and creativity. We are redefining the standard of how developers work with object storage, allowing them to focus on innovation, rather than the costs of accessing their data. That is why R2 Storage will never have egress fees,” said Matthew Prince, Co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare.

Since launching the R2 Storage service as an open beta eight weeks ago, more than 11,000 developers have an active account with R2 Storage. With the global general availability of R2, developers are free to focus on innovation instead of worrying about the costs of storing their data, and can:

• Slash their cloud provider egress and storage bills
• Take advantage of the performance of object storage built with Cloudflare’s global network
• Unlock the power and scale of Cloudflare Workers within their applications
• Access data efficiently from anywhere
• Integrate R2 Storage across Cloudflare’s product portfolio
• Seamlessly fit R2 Storage into existing workflows

Speak about IceWarp messaging and collaboration platform and why do you claim it as the only alternative to G-Suite and Microsoft 365?

IceWarp is a 21-year company that provides unified communication and collaboration solutions for enterprise customers. Our solution ecosystem is competent to transform how teams share information online and optimize business processes through its streamlined and seamless team collaboration tools.

We observe messaging, communication, collaboration, and security are the important pillars of IceWarp. Following that, we invested time and R&D resources for over two decades to come up with a unified web-based platform, which facilitates the entire enterprise communication in a sophisticated and secured manner.

Pramod Sharda, CEO, IceWarp, India and Middle East

When an enterprise customer chooses IceWarp, they can handle the entire communication, data sharing, collaboration, and storage activities through a single platform without installing multiple agents or applications on the computer. It also has unimaginable capacities to customize for the changing needs of enterprise customers. Therefore, we claim IceWarp as the most solid and reliable alternative to G-Suite and Office 365.

The rapid shift to remote and hybrid working scenarios in the past couple of years has made IceWarp’s family of applications a highly sought-after one, owing to its smooth interface and incredible ability to be used alongside widely used enterprise collaboration software.

What unique features or claims do you have to keep IceWarp solutions over its competitors?

IceWarp platform has everything that an SMB, a government enterprise requires to efficiently collaborate with its workforce and customers simultaneously. Although the competitors claim the same, the consumers eventually need to juggle between multiple agents/windows in a system to keep them intact. We offer a single pane window on a browser interface for unified communication besides giving the feeling of a desktop application. While attending a meeting, the user could compose an email, respond to a message, or handle a shared file (similar to doc or excel) without shifting the application.

The UI supports all devices, such as a PC, an iPad, and a mobile, and the experience will be the same. The platform has also been enhanced to customize based on the needs of users invariable to industry verticals.

How about the pricing options for IceWarp solutions and migration from the previous platform(s)?

As opposed to our competitors, IceWarp offers better plans with convenient pricing. We offer Lite, Standard, and Pro plans with varied features and storage options. When an organization opts for the IceWarp solution, it can choose an appropriate one based on the requirements of each of its users. It saves the cost that usually incurs when choosing the prominent collaborative tools.

Migration to IceWarp from other platforms is totally hassle-free. We let customers use their previous email solution and with our hybrid solution, IceWarp can co-exist with their existing solution on a single domain. Similar support is given for data sharing as users get to share documents of all sizes with users in the same network or outside domains through our cloud service. Complete ease is guaranteed to view and edit documents or share/co-author them. Flexibility to invite users for videoconferences via links irrespective of their domain lenience is another feature IceWarp solutions offer. All of these activities happen in a secure environment and without vulnerabilities make us stand out from the crowd.

Tailored to today’s fast-paced business environment, organizations can work with Dell Technologies to plan, deploy and manage their entire IT footprint and choose how they consume and pay for IT solutions. Customers can scale IT as needed to launch new applications, start new projects, and address the changing needs of their business.

How does APEX Flex on Demand work?

Dell Technologies assists organisations to determine their hardware, software and services requirements to establish for today and plan for their future needs. From there, all technology is installed and made available to customers. Automated tools allow for a quick response to new service requests, workload fluctuations and changes driven by the business to improve IT flexibility. Customers can also customise configurations based on their workload and therefore avoid over-provisioning and control cost by paying for elastic resources only as they are consumed. Using the APEX Console, Flex on Demand customers can also view and monitor usage of consumed resources and view and approve invoices.

Martin Uchytil, Regional Sales Director – Dell Financing MERAT said: “Organizations across UAE and Saudi Arabia are fast-tracking technology implementation to drive long-term business success. But lack of budget and resources means they are looking for a more agile and simple way to continue their technology investments. With the introduction of APEX Flex on Demand, Dell Technologies is enabling customers to overcome these barriers to transform their IT. APEX Flex on Demand allows businesses to acquire infrastructure and services, paying only for what they use, with the ability to scale up and down, and enables them to start using technology more quickly to help achieve their business goals.”

With the introduction of APEX Flex on Demand, organizations in UAE and Saudi Arabia can now use a pay-per-use flexible consumption model for custom configurations, where elastic capacity is delivered and measured at the product level. For instance, customers can choose the term of the usage, the minimum commitment and cap costs.

APEX Flex on Demand is also available through channel partners in UAE and Saudi Arabia

As APEX Flex on Demand helps to accelerate our customers digital transformation journey, it also offers the Dell Technologies partner community in UAE and Saudi Arabia the ability to grow their opportunities and customer base. Solution providers can play a major role in assessing and supporting their customers by helping them optimize their costs, resources, and performance with a pay-per-use consumption model from Dell Technologies.

AI-Ready-Infrastructure 

Data is the fuel driving today’s AI revolution. While many pioneers have pushed the limits of what’s possible with AI within their own industries, the vast majority of enterprises have had to struggle to get started. Today, not all data’s value is easily accessible. Without fast, easy access, data becomes an organization’s most expensive asset rather than its most valuable. AI needs to reach more enterprises faster, and provide value immediately. Pure Storage is working with Cisco to make this reality for customers with AIRI, the industry’s first solution to simplify AI-at-scale, powered by the NVIDIA DGX-1. AIRI is the industry’s first complete AI-ready infrastructure, architected by Pure Storage and NVIDIA to extend the power of NVIDIA DGX systems. Powered by FlashBlade storage and NVIDIA DGX-1 servers, AIRI offers enterprises a simple, fast, and future-proof infrastructure. It is configured with four NVIDIA DGX-1 Systems, four petaFLOPS of deep learning performance, Pure FlashBlade 15x 17TB Blades, 1.5M NFS IOPS, and two 100Gb switches with RDMA. AIRI Mini is powered by one Pure Storage FlashBlade, configured with 7x17TB blades, two NVIDIA DGX-1 servers, Cisco 100 GbE switches, supporting GPUDirect RDMA for maximum distributed training performance, and delivers two petaFLOPS of deep learning performance. All software comes included, so that data scientists can get started on their projects by simply turning the system on.

FlashStack Powered by FlashBlade

While some organizations are using Data Lakes or AI data pipelines, many organizations still deploy most of their mission critical work on a data warehouse. FlashStack powered by FlashBlade, purpose-built for Oracle Data Warehouse, is an integrated infrastructure solution validated by Cisco.

There are three primary problems with existing data warehouse solutions:

• Performance – Data warehouse appliances historically have not kept up with data growth.
• Pricing – When compute and storage are coupled, as is with warehouse appliances, organizations end up buying too much of one or the other.
• Flexibility – An inflexible appliance is only effective for a single workload. Data warehouses aren’t protected for the future when data pipeline and AI are involved.

The new FlashStack, built on FlashBlade and engineered specifically to modernize the Oracle Data Warehouse, delivers more than 2x faster performance than the next-best system. Customers only pay for the amount of compute and blades needed for their project or initiative. FlashStack for FlashBlade is ready for extension into modern analytics and AI when ready.

After the successful integration of Exablox earlier this year, StorageCraft is laser-focused on helping businesses analyze, protect, and store their data. The company features a new approach that recognizes the disappearing lines between primary and secondary storage and combines data backup, availability and data protection.

“By launching OneBlox, our converged mid-market storage technology in the Middle East, we go from being a leader in business continuity to a leader in the data management market,” said Andy Zollo, vice president of sales for EMEA at StorageCraft. “Our customers around the world operate non-stop and their data volumes are going through a phase of explosive growth. At the same time, uptime requirements are becoming more stringent. We now have the unique ability to address both problems that Middle East businesses are witnessing.”

StorageCraft makes its debut at GITEX Technology Week 2017 with its Middle East distributor, Redington Gulf. Headquartered in Draper, Utah, StorageCraft is a leading provider of award-winning backup and recovery solutions that make it a trusted resource for business continuity since 2003.

“StorageCraft is a unique technology provider with robust solutions to offer Middle East businesses looking to protect all their data and ensure its availability and accessibility on a constant basis,” said Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Gulf Value Distribution. “UAE businesses will be able to witness StorageCraft technology at GITEX and Redington Gulf is very happy to be StorageCraft’s partner in the region.”
At GITEX 2017, StorageCraft demonstrates its Instant Recovery technology that successfully integrates multiple award-winning products—StorageCraft ShadowProtect® SPX, OneBlox 5210 and StorageCraft Cloud Services. StorageCraft Instant Recovery is a radical advancement in backup and recovery, providing nearly instantaneous recovery capabilities at ground-breaking economics.

“The increasingly distributed nature of data and the massive growth of data volumes for companies in the Middle East, are creating huge recovery challenges for organizations here,” continued Zollo. “With this demonstration, we have successfully removed multiple levels of cost and complexity while delivering massive scale – all for one single purpose: to help organizations backup and restore their data for uninterrupted business continuity, no matter what happens.”

Please visit StorageCraft at GITEX Technology Week 2017 in Dubai along with its Middle East partner, Redington Gulf on stand E4-30 in Hall 4 and in the Sheikh Maktoum Halls at stand SM-3.

The CANVIO PREMIUM series offers versatile connectivity in a stylish design with an aluminum finish and diamond-cut edges in silver metallic or dark gray metallic. The top of the device is flat, making it easy to store, and curves have been minimized to emphasize the thinness of the drive and give it a sharper look. It is accompanied by USB Type-A to USB Type-C [2] adapter that can be inserted in any orientation for easy connectivity to everything from notebooks to high-end desktop PCs. The 2TB devices in the Premium line have a 13.5mm profile, 5.5mm slimmer than the previous model. The 1TB devices also have a 13.5mm profile and the 3TB devices have a 19mm profile.

CANVIO Premium

The CANVIO ADVANCE series has a flat design and four color options – black, white, blue or red – with a glossy finish. The 2TB devices in the Advance line have a 14mm profile, 5.5mm slimmer than the previous CANVIO CONNECT model. The 1TB devices have a 14mm profile as well, and the 3TB devices have a 19.5mm profile.
“We are always striving to create more compact, high-capacity devices to handle the growing amount of digital content that today’s consumers need to store,” said Santosh Varghese, General Manger –MEA at Toshiba Gulf FZE. “Achieving 1TB per platter capacity is a major milestone that allowed us to create our densest storage solution yet.

CANVIO Advance

These new drives offer high-capacity storage in an easy-to-use, slimmer design, making it more convenient than ever for consumers to store their files.”

The CANVIO PREMIUM and CANVIO ADVANCE blend form and function, offering high-capacity storage, easy backup, and trustworthy security in a slim, stylish design.

The brand new Toshiba backup software is available for download, enabling users to easily back up important data through an improved user interface with option to set your own backup schedule. Additionally, the brand new Toshiba security software allows for simpler password setting with a more intuitive user interface so users can protect private data and prevent unauthorized access.

“Our microSD cards are now at the center of many consumer devices, and we’re excited to not only raise the bar with the launch of the world’s fastest microSD card, but to also offer a family of 256GB microSD cards that give consumers the flexibility they need to capture life at its fullest,” said Dinesh Bahal, vice president of SanDisk product marketing, Western Digital. “As a leading global storage provider with one of the most trusted flash brands, we take pride in transforming the way consumers capture, store and share their content.”

Whether taking pictures, shooting 4K UHD or Full HD video, or storing high-fidelity music, the new 256GB cards give consumers the freedom to capture and carry a massive amount of content on their devices without concern about storage limitations.

“At DJI we focus on creating easy-to-use drone technology for consumers to capture everyday exploration and photography, and our customers need quick and reliable access to their high quality aerial footage,” said Eli Morgan Harris, strategic partnerships, DJI. “With the new 256GB SanDisk microSD UHS-I cards, they now have greater flexibility to capture their content on high-performance storage and the peace of mind knowing they can continue shooting when it matters most.”

The 256GB SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card delivers unmatched transfer speeds of up to 100MB/s, allowing users to save time transferring large files, as well as write speeds of up to 90MB/s** for rapid capture of photos. Users can record an estimated 14 hours of 4K UHD video1 on the 256GB card, making it ideal for high-performance drones, action cameras, and 4K-capable smartphones, among other devices.

The 256GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition, is ideal for Android-based smartphone and tablet users who don’t want to worry about running out of space on their devices. The new card is capable of storing more than 24 hours of Full HD video1, and also features premium transfer speeds of up to 95MB/s**. At this speed people can move files quickly – up to 1,200 photos in just one minute2.

Built to perform in harsh conditions, the new cards3 are also waterproof, temperature-proof, shock proof, and X-ray proof. Additionally, the SanDisk microSD card line up is compatible with the SanDisk® Memory Zone app for Android, giving users an easy way to manage and back up content on their device. The app is available for free through the Google Play Store4.

The new suite of cards is the latest breakthrough offering to join the SanDisk portfolio of mobile memory solutions. The first to introduce 128GB and 200GB microSDXC, and 512GB SDXC high-capacity cards, SanDisk continues to pioneer technology that keeps up with consumers’ evolving storage needs.

The 256GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition, will be available worldwide in August 2016 with a U.S. MSRP of $149.99. The 256GB SanDisk Extreme microSDXC UHS-I card will be available worldwide in calendar Q4 2016 with a U.S. MSRP of $199.99.

These awards are the most comprehensive in the region in terms of recognitions across different ICT technology solution segments. They are also the only one focused on the value add ICT segment. The awards survey was hosted online and saw a significant rise in number of votes from the SI database across the region vis-a-vis past years. The winners were decided on the maximum votes polled in each category by participating nominees. A modest weightage was also given to the nomination write-ups submitted at the time of nominations.

There were also a few Editor’s choice awards that decided select recognitions based on market intelligence available to the editorial team.

The Awards are held by The Integrator magazine, the unrivalled leader in channel publications catering to the value add ICT segment and which is published by JNS Media International MFZE. The Integrator Awards come under the broader banner of the ICT Champion Awards initiative that include the highly popular VAR COC (Choice of Channel Awards) that have concluded 10 editions to date.

Mr. Vivek Sharma, CEO of JNS Media International and publisher of The Integrator said, “The Integrator ICT Champion Awards follow a comprehensive methodology in helping recognize the best performances over the past year. It is heartening to see that the ICT value Business is continuing to show resilience and growth, which these awards applaud.”

One of the highlights of the evening’s gala event also included a brilliant but brief sketching session by a gifted young artist from Zambia that was much appreciated by attendees. Mr. Victor, the artist dealt with his handicap of losing his power of hearing at the tender age of three and has discovered his talents with the paintbrush. The organizers of the Awards are also thankful to Mr. Jude Pereira, Managing Director, Nanjgel Solutions who announced his willingness to sponsor the further education of Mr. Victor in a wonderful and spontaneous gesture.

The categories and the winners of Integrator Awards 2016

“We are pleased to announce our new partnership with Commvault, the leader in Data Protection and Information Management solutions. Commvault will strengthen and complement our existing portfolio of best of breed solutions from leading technology vendors in the Data Management domain. This partnership will be one of the key drivers in our constant pursuit to offer cutting-edge technology solutions and services that not only enable our reseller partners to compete at the highest level in the rapidly evolving enterprise IT market segment but also create new business opportunities for them. We look forward to working closely with Commvault to engage our channel partners in identifying new opportunities and ensure that they have the right tools, resources, training and support required to sell Commvault’s solutions effectively,” says Suren Vedantham, Managing Director, StorIT Distribution fzco.

As a Middle East value added distributor, StorIT will help Commvault identify and onboard systems integrators and resellers, provide value-added services and conduct focused channel development and enablement activities such as training, certifications, systems design and architecture, implementation support and services to name some. It will further enhance Commvault’s offerings through its dedicated channel network which will be supported by the distributor throughout the entire cycle of sales and technical support. The StorIT team will work closely with Commvault to ensure that its channel network receives strong sales, marketing, and technical support to effectively sell the vendor’s solutions across industry verticals.

“The Middle East is an important region for Commvault and having a solid channel network has always been at the centre of Commvault’s growth strategy. StorIT is a specialist valued added distributor in the Middle East with expertise in the data management and storage domain, and hence a perfect partner for Commvault in this region. With their market expertise, valued-added services and exceptional customer service, we are confident StorIT will help increase our market share and reach and help us in our efforts to deliver unparalleled value to our customers. Our global and local teams will work closely with them to offer partners a variety of ways to learn and grow profitably with Commvault,” said Wael Mustafa, Channel Director MESAT, Commvault.