StarLink, a value-added-distributor in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa region hosted its much-awaited channel event of the year, the Annual StarLink Partner Summit on March 21. With over 300 plus channel partners from across the META region, the event was a huge success.
The event theme “Partnering for Innovation”, was very much in alignment with StarLink’s vision to empower partners to achieve channel autonomy. And supporting them in stepping up and taking a holistic approach in assisting customers in the region to achieve data governance, enterprise mobility, security intelligence and visibility.
During this event, three key initiatives were announced:
The StarLink Innovation Centre – a platform for creative collaboration and driving technology-led innovations to tackle the most pressing real-world IT challenges.
The StarLink Academy – a facility to empower aspiring IT professionals with top of the range training programmes enabling them to become future cybersecurity leaders.
The StarLink Marketplace – an e-commerce destination in the cloud that provides existing and new partners flexibility with payments, scalability, end-to-end visibility and instant order processing features.
“This event provided resellers an opportunity to engage and network one on one with participating vendors: Citrix, ForeScout, Quest, One Identity, Lookout, Riverbed, Extreme Networks and Palo Alto Networks”
This event provided resellers an opportunity to engage and network one on one with participating vendors: Citrix, ForeScout, Quest, One Identity, Lookout, Riverbed, Extreme Networks and Palo Alto Networks. The vendor presentations were highly informative, providing various product updates, as well as deep insight into channel partner programmes. All this, to ensure that the channel is well equipped with essential sales and marketing tools, to drive their business objectives.
A key highlights of the event was the 2017 Partner Appreciation Awards. The categories and winners were:
- Computer & Power Technology: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Vision
- Alpha Data: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Focus
- Gulf Business Machines: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Leadership
- Al Moammar Information Systems Company: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Strategy
- Innovative Solutions: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Integration
- FutureTec: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Sales
- SecureTech: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Growth
- PRO TECHnology: Partner Appreciation Award for Data Center Excellence
- Versos: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Initiatives
- Al Jeraisy: Partner Appreciation Award for IT Security Management
Nidal Othman, Managing Director at StarLink commented, “We were extremely excited to receive an overwhelming response with high-level turnout from the executive management teams of strategic partners from across the META region, which in itself is a reaffirmation of the trust and faith they have upon us”.
He added that the latest initiatives, StarLink Innovation Centre, StarLink Academy and the StarLink Marketplace are designed at supporting the channel community to empower their business and build a top-level security ecosystem.”