With the UAE economy showing no signs of slowing down and the worldwide IT spending growth among SMBs to increase by 7% this year, Emirates Computers reckons there will be a great uptake of technologies targeted at the SMB sector. Hence, the company has announced an event for Small and Medium businesses in association with its partners Cisco and 3M. At the event, which was held at Murooj Rotana last week, Emirates Computers, Cisco and 3M showcased their newest communication products targeted at the SMB sector to the attendees at the event.
“Small and medium businesses across the Middle East continue to adopt IT and telecommunications products, and are on track to invest more in information and communications technologies in 2008,” explained Talal Sabih (CISCO product manager) at Emirates Computers. “ As SMBs in the Middle East increase their levels of investments in IT, and specifically communications; as IP telephony and Unified communications is becoming more essential than ever before .We believe it is important to increase awareness in this area, and hence the need for such a focused event.”
A variety of specialised technologies for the SMB sector have been showcased at the event. Such technologies include Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Businesses, Cisco Unified Communications Manager (UCM) Express 4.x, Cisco Unity Connection 2.0 3M’s 10G Copper Solution that includes Volition Network Solutions, Fibre Interconnect products and Copper Interconnect Solutions.
Cisco Unified Communications 500 Series for Small Businesses allows companies to cost-effectively unify the benefits of voice, video, mobility, and messaging on a single platform and eliminates the need for multiple servers to run each application. Combining the applications on a single platform simplifies the installation, support, and ongoing management of the system, while reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO). It also integrates with existing desktop applications such as calendar, e-mail, and customer relationship management (CRM) programs. The easy-to-manage solution supports up to 48 users in flexible deployment models based on an SMB setup’s needs. Meanwhile, embedded in the Cisco IOS Software that provides call processing for Cisco Unified IP phones, the Cisco Unified Communications Manager Express 4.x enables the large portfolio of Cisco access and integrated services routers to deliver a comprehensive set of features commonly used by many businesses.
