Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Tuesday, May 3, 2011— EMW, a provider of Information and Communications Technology won the NWME award for Systems Integrator of the Year 2011. The trophy was presented to the Mr. Serjios EL-Hage, CEO EMW Middle East, in the presence of three hundred attendees of who is who in the technology industry held at the Address hotel, Dubai Marina. The award recognized EMW’s excellence in delivering projects on time and on budget ensuring customers receive best of breed technologies for their current and future business needs.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr. EL-Hage commented, “We are honored to be recognized as the leading Systems Integrator in the region for the fourth consecutive year. EMW is ecstatic to have received this award and we thank our customers, suppliers and the panel of judges that made it possible. Winning re-enforces our value add and commitment to this market on account of our services and support capabilities to always deliver high-quality in Multi-Vendor environment. We constantly strive to utilize our unrivaled global experience and consummate expertise to exceed our customers’ expectations in terms of performance, reliability and cost of ownership”.

EMW is recognized in the region as the Smart Convergence and Applications Expert. It maintains global operations with offices in Asia, Europe, Middle East and the United States. The company is certified and specialized in several industry leaders: Arista Networks, Avaya, Blackberry RIM, Blue Coat, Brocade, Cisco Systems, Interactive Intelligence, Juniper & Trapeze Networks, Metelco, Microsoft, MobileIron, RSA, Teleopti and TigerTMS. EMW has reinstated it’s position as the only ‘Avaya Service Delivery Partner’ in the UAE since 2007 with major projects delivered in every market segment locally, regionally and globally in: Hospitality, Media, Government, Banking and Finance, Retail, Education, Medical and Logistics.

EMW ME has won several accolades over the years including: the ICT Achievement for Systems Integrator of the Year 2010, Arab Technology award for Enterprise Systems Integrator of the Year 2009 and Network Middle East award for Best Networking Integrator in the Middle East 2008. Arabian Computer News classified EMW among the ‘Topmost Systems Integrators in the Middle East’. Other accolades include ‘Top 10 companies to watch’, ‘Network Middle East Innovations Award 2006’, ‘Avaya Partner Of The Year for Converged Solutions’, ‘Avaya Best IP and Mobility Implementation Award’,  ‘Foundry Networks Exceptional Contribution Award’, ‘Juniper Best Partner System Engineer MEA Award’ and Trapeze Smart Mobile Best Performing Partner – Middle East Region.

—–      ends    —– 

About EMW ME

EMW ME, a member of EMW Inc., a privately held group of companies headquartered in Herndon Virginia USA with main offices in the UAE, Belgium, China and remote offices spanning four continents.  Established in the region since 2003, partner of global vendors with the objective of providing premier customer-oriented Information and Communications Technology products and services for local, regional and global clients. For additional information, please visit www.emw-me.com or email us on marcom@emw-me.com.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 23 April 2011 — Interactive Intelligence (NASDAQ: ININ), a global provider of Unified IP business communications solutions, and EMW Middle East, a provider of Converged Information and Communications Technology Solutions, have signed a reseller agreement.

In accordance with the agreement, EMW will offer customers throughout the Middle East the Interactive Intelligence solutions for contact center automation, enterprise IP Telephony, and business process automation. EMW will provide consulting, implementation, support, and customer development for the Interactive Intelligence solutions.

“EMW has eight years of experience deploying contact center and IP telephony solutions for organizations throughout the Middle East, including many large telecom service providers, enterprises, and government customers,”said Interactive Intelligence territory manager for Turkey and Middle East, Shaheen Haque. “These are key markets for us and we look forward to offering EMW customers the scalability, security, and reliability that come from our more than 16 years of experience developing unified IP business communications solutions.”

Interactive Intelligence has developed an open, single-platform, all-in-one IP communications software suits designed to deliver comprehensive multichannel applications minus the cost and complexity introduced by multipoint products. Its products can be delivered on-premise or via a hosted model.

“Interactive Intelligence offers a unique architecture designed to reduce costs, simplify administration, increase interoperability, and maximize customization options,” said EMW Middle East CEO, Serjios EL-Hage. “We look forward to combining these benefits with our experience of deploying hundreds of unified communications solutions throughout the region in order to give our joint customers the most value for their money.”

About EMW

EMW ME, is a member of EMW Inc. a privately held group of companies headquartered in Herndon, Virginia USA with main offices in the UAE, Belgium, China and remote offices spanning four continents.  Established in the region since 2003, partner of global vendors with the objective of providing premier customer-oriented Information and Communications Technology products and services for local, regional and global clients.

Certified and specialized in several leaders: Arista Networks, Avaya, Blackberry RIM, Blue Coat, Brocade, Cisco Systems, Interactive Intelligence, Juniper & Trapeze Networks, Metelco, Microsoft, MobileIron, RSA, Tiger TMS and Teleopti. Completed projects in every major market segment: Aviation, Hospitality, Banking and Finance, Retail, Education, Government, Logistics and Media. Awarded top honors three consecutive years in a row: ICT Achievement for Systems Integrator of the Year 2010, Enterprise Systems Integrator of the Year 2009 and Best Networking Integrator in the Middle East for 2008 and rated among the Topmost System Integrators in the Middle East. For additional information, please visit www.emw-me.com or email us on marcom@emw-me.com.

About Interactive Intelligence

Interactive Intelligence Inc. (NASDAQ: ININ) is a global provider of unified business communications solutions for contact center automation, enterprise IP telephony, and business process automation. The company’s solutions, which can be deployed via an on-premise or hosted model, include vertical-specific applications for insurance and collections. Interactive Intelligence was founded in 1994 and has more than 4,000 customers worldwide. The company is among Software Magazine’s 2010 Top 500 Global Software and Services Suppliers, and Forbes Magazine’s 2010 Best Small Companies in America. Interactive Intelligence is also positioned in the leaders’ quadrant of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center Infrastructure, Worldwide report (Feb. 22, 2010). The company employs more than 800 people and is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana. It has 19 offices throughout North America, Latin America, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific. Interactive Intelligence can be reached at +1 317.872.3000, +1 317.872.3000 or info@inin.com; on the Net: www.inin.com.

This release may contain certain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are described in the company’s SEC filings.

Interactive Intelligence Inc. is the owner of the marks INTERACTIVE INTELLIGENCE, its associated LOGO and numerous other marks. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners.

We recently met with a leading global retailer around their need to build a public and private enterprise mobile application strategy. Beyond the need to securely manage multi-OS application rollouts, policies and updates what struck me as interesting was the sheer diversity.  To work within their supply chain they need a warehousing tablet app for matching manufacturer samples.  To have the latest catalog at the store counters, they will develop a web-based catalog again using a tablet at the point of sale to replace paper copies. And, to manage their growing online shopper base, a new customer relationship (CRM) database application is underway including buying habit customization to meet the needs of clients with personal shoppers.

Yes, applications are everywhere!   I use them for business travel, sporting events, retailer coupons, managing my 401k, overseas Internet telephony, prospect web conferencing, customer CRM and even departmental applications like marketing automation.  The average smartphone owner spends more than 650 minutes a month using apps – no wonder my kids tell me to put down the ^*!@$ on weekends.  That is more time spent with apps than spent talking on a device or using it to browse the Web.

Mobility is no longer about OS preferences, what matters most going forward are secure public and private Mobile Applications.  Millions of business professionals use smart devices because always-on application connectivity is a huge productivity boost. And the OS vendors are quickly catching on.  For example, late last year relative new-comer Windows Phone 7 quietly reached 5,000 apps and will quickly double in 2011.  Impressive but still trailing Android and iOS.  The average Android and iOS user depends on 15 applications each month, BlackBerry users about 8 applications each month.

Third-party developers are also publishing enterprise applications for more than one platform.  And there is no right (write?) or wrong way to enable these applications.  Analyst firm Gartner went on record lately advising customers that “no organization should standardize wholly on either native or Web applications.”  The analyst outfit also encourages IT groups to establish guidelines to assist mobile architects and business users in choosing the most appropriate architecture.

Organizations will always want to manage applications — with the same level of control, security, and compliance monitoring they enjoyed in previous generations of computing.  What’s changed is that many leading organizations are taking a “trust and verify” model that gives IT control while opening up new application and device “greenfields” to the users.  MobileIron’s CEO Bob Tinker highlighted the latest user trend of allowing employees to “Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD)” with Bloomberg last week.  Since these devices are now dual-purpose personal/business computers users should not be  forced to work with locked-down applications and essentially useless smartphones and tablets on the job.  And, using an intelligent MDM solution ensures business IT will not simply have to open the flood gates and accept an application free-for-all. Everyone wins.

Mark your calendar for February 1, 2011, at high noon ET, and point your browser here to view the test results of the industry’s first 10GbE data center network fabric evaluation in live HD video streamed over the internet. You don’t want to buy data center switching equipment until you have seen the results of the Open Network Performance and Power Consumption Evaluation of 10 GbE Data Center Fabric Switches.

Nick Lippis, industry analyst and consultant will present the results of one week of testing 10GbE Top of Rack and Core switches at the state-of-the-art Ixia iSimCity lab in Santa Clara, CA.  Mr. Lippis will present details on the following products:

Alcatel-Lucent OmniSwitch 10K

Arista 7500 Series Data Center Switch

BLADE Network Technologies, an IBM Company

IBM BLADE RackSwitch G8124

BLADE Network Technologies, an IBM Company

IBM BLADE RackSwitch G8264

Force10 S-Series S4810

Hitachi Cable Apresia 15000-64XL-PSR

Juniper Network EX Series EX8200 Ethernet Switch

Voltaire® Vantagetm 6048

It is our hope that we can remove performance, power consumption and latency concerns from the purchase decision, allowing IT business leaders to focus on other purchase considerations in their data center switching procurements. 

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, October 19, 2010: EMW, The smart convergence experts and leading supplier of services and products in the telecommunication, ICT, Engineering and Project Management sector, today announced that it has signed a partnership contract with MobileIron to resell the company’s smartphone management solutions for mobile enterprises to EMW’s current and potential customers throughout the Middle East.

Commenting on the partnership sign-up, Mr. Kees van Veenendaal, GM & VP Sales EMEA, MobileIron said, “We have been receiving a lot of enquiries from customers in the Middle East asking us to provide an integrated solution that is mobile device agnostic and provides advanced management to their smartphone data, applications and access on their Blackberry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android. MobileIron’s Virtual Smartphone Platform provides just that. After an extensive search for the most qualified and capable partner that can deliver our solution to customers, we chose EMW primarily for their mobile technology expertise and exceptional customer service, in addition to the capable technical staff that constitutes 80% of their workforce.  EMW has built up a very impressive base of clients over the past 7 years in voice, data, wireless and unified communications and in our mind is undoubtedly the right choice”.

The MobileIron Virtual Smartphone Platform is the first solution to combine data-driven smartphone management with real-time wireless cost control. It provides visibility into what’s on a smartphone and how it’s being used, letting both IT and users better secure data and control costs without compromising privacy, even on employee-owned phones. The Virtual Smartphone Platform is packaged as an easy-to-install server that plugs into the corporate network and is up and running in less than a day. It lets companies get smartphone operations under control quickly with its ‘Advanced Management’ feature powered by virtual phone architecture. Its ‘Mobile Activity Intelligence’ can cut wireless bills upto 20%. Enterprise end-user web experience is enhanced through better service quality, access to internal and external mobile applications and full usage visibility.

Mr. Serjios EL-Hage, CEO at EMW Middle East, says, “We are privileged to have been chosen by MobileIron to represent them in the Middle East. The needs of our customers are our number one priority and we keep a close eye on the latest technologies that help increase their productivity and efficiencies while reducing costs. Mobile management is the trend of the future and our partnership with MobileIron is perfectly in line with our strategy of working with vendors who provide best-of-breed products and services”.

MobileIron, which has received various accolades including being recognized by Gartner, Inc. as one of the ‘Cool Vendors in Enterprise Networking 2010’, is currently conducting proof of concepts for a number of Middle East clients across verticals such as oil and gas, aviation, hospitality, financial institutions, sovereign funds. There has been a lot of interest among the region’s service providers who are looking to pitch the MobileIron solution as a value proposition to their clients.

17 – 21 October 2010

Visit us at Hall No. 1, NWME Stand B1-1.

Click Here to Book Meeting Now http://www.emw-me.com/forms/GITEX-Meeting.html

To confirm a time slot, please contact Nadia Jawad at +971 4 3686702 or email:  njawad@emw-me.com

Cash flow problems cause more businesses to fail than anything else, which is a sobering thought when you consider the sorts of challenges that IT channel companies currently face. Here are 10 key tips for keeping on top of cash flow.

By Andrew Seymour, ITP Publishing Group

It’s said that cash flow problems cause more businesses to fail than anything else, which is a sobering thought when you consider the sorts of challenges that IT channel companies are facing to get their money in the current climate.

Guy Whitcroft, principal consultant at CapitalSteps and an expert on regional channel issues, ran a cash flow management workshop at the Digital Consumer Channel event in the UAE earlier this year. Here are his top 10 tips for keeping on top of cash flow.

10. Accurate forecasting holds the key

Quite simply, cash flow forecasting remains the single most important business intelligence tool for any channel company as it forms the platform on which all other decisions are made. Analyse the payment history of your customers and factor that into your forecasting. Look at which customers are regular payers, which ones are slow players and which ones will accelerate payments based on incentives. “Never be optimistic on a cash flow forecast because that way you are going to make promises about payments [that you owe to your suppliers],” advises Guy Whitcroft. “It could be embarrassing if you miss a payment to a supplier or ask for a discount to pay upfront and then find you don’t have the cash to do it because your cash forecast was so wrong. Make sure your cash flow forecast is accurate. That way you predict where the problems are and you can be proactive by trying to get cash in early.”

9. Know your sales cycles

Understanding how product sales cycles work can mean the difference between staying afloat and getting dragged under. Evaluate sales data on a weekly basis – not monthly – and pay attention to shipping cycles. If you are a distributor then establish the duration between placing an order and getting the stocks into your warehouse – and then build that into your forecast. “What a lot of people do is get lazy,” says Whitcroft. “They take averages and build buffers onto each average, and it is the buffers that often kill you. You end up with far too much inventory because you have built in a week’s buffer on the order cycle, a week’s buffer on the shipping cycle and a week’s buffer on the clearance cycle. That can cost you dearly because if you then try and dump excess inventory in a hurry it becomes expensive.”

8. Keep tabs on market dynamics

Good price management is all about market intelligence. You need to know what your competition is doing and what deals are going on in the market because customers will negotiate. That is not to say you always have to be the cheapest though. Sometimes there is a good reason for a particular deal taking place, such as a company clearing excess inventory in a hurry to bring in cash. “At that point you have to make a rational decision as to whether you want to match the deal or let them take the deal and the hit, waiting until you have the inventory a week later when they will probably have run out at the normal price,’ says Whitcroft. “Those are things you need to understand and they are all down to market intelligence. There is no substitute for having your people in contact with the street and understanding what’s going on.”

7. Understand where delays can occur

Delays in the business cycle are inevitable. You get delays in the order cycle if the customer demand is there but your supplier hasn’t got stock or a shipment is re-routed unexpectedly. You get delays in sales because you don’t have the stock to sell to customers. And until you have made the sales you can’t get the cash in so you get a delay in collections. All of these factors impact cash flow, but that doesn’t mean they should be used as an excuse. “You need to understand those factors and where the delays can occur, and you need to have contingency plans for them,” argues Whitcroft. “Unfortunately a lot of people are very reactive and only tend to look at short-term fixes. But in reality you need to be proactive within your business plan and cater for different scenarios.”

6. Build bridges with your vendors

Vendors naturally want you to sell as much of their product as possible, but it is also in their interests that you are profitable. Have a relationship with them that is open and honest so that they understand the issues you face in your market. “Their first loyalty is to their own bottom line, but their bottom line will be severely impacted if you are not making a profit because you are not going to be able to pay and you are not going to enjoy the business,” says Whitcroft. “If you can develop a strong multi-level relationship where you understand their business processes, order cycles and product lifecycles — and you foster a strong working relationship at all levels of your organisation with all levels of their organisation — you are going to maximise the opportunities and minimise the problems.”