Adobe partners with APTEC to expand Mid East reach

The partnership is in line with Adobe's strategy to step up its presence in the Middle East & Africa region - one of its strongest potential growth areas - where the company's revenue grew by a phenomenal 50 per cent annually.

"This appointment represents yet another solid partnership for us. The need to expand our channel reflects the tremendous growth we have witnessed in recent years and for Adobe to continue to grow at over 50 per cent year on year, we were looking to appoint a regional distributor with umatched local market expertise," said Andrew Lindstrom, Regional Manager, Middle East & Africa (MEA), Adobe.

"We decided to partner with APTEC as it not only provides us with the breadth and bandwidth within the regional channel network but will also provide world-class services to our customer and cater to our expanding product lines, including the growing consumer multimedia sector."

APTEC will help Adobe expand its customer reach and product breadth across Middle East and will directly handle sales and level one technical support for the company.

"With APTEC's reputation for attracting the right mix of resellers and market stability, we are confident they are well-positioned to help take Adobe to greater penetration across the region resulting in wider reach and a stronger partner network," added Lindstrom.

APTEC's established local presence in the GCC, Egypt and Lebanon and strong on-ground channel support will help develop, market and sell Adobe products. Additionally, they will sell Adobe's full range of localised products.

"The convergence of data and telecom, coupled with increasing broadband availability is opening up multimedia usage for both business and home environments across the region and there is no one better to address this segment than Adobe," said Bahaa Salah, Managing Director, APTEC Distribution LLC.

"We see this appointment as an important step to our vision of becoming a major player in the multimedia market segment. We look forward to adding Adobe's range of solutions to our extensive portfolio and are confident we will be able to increase the company's product sales."

Moreover, APTEC's strong domain expertise, logistics infrastructure and customer service capabilities across the region will provide greater exposure for Adobe's product lines and added value for the channel.

"By choosing APTEC, we are reinforcing our commitment to the market, our partners and end users. This partnership will help us strengthen our position as the preferred vendor for developing applications that deliver proven benefits," said Jacob Alex, Adobe's Middle East Channel Manager.

APTEC, which was short-listed from eight leading regional distributors, will be responsible for Adobe's solutions including its recently integrated Macromedia product line. APTEC will sell Adobe's creative desktop solutions via full package products, TLP and CLP licensing.

"With the multimedia sector gaining momentum in the Middle East, demand for digital content production and usage, including Arabic-enabled content, is on the rise," said Wilson Xavier - Business Unit Manager - Software, Aptec Distribution FZ.

"Further, broadband adoption across the region acts as a catalyst and media clusters such as Dubai's 'Studio City' and 'Media City' are testaments to this. Through this partnership, we believe will be able to provide our partners with a new dimension of prompt service and value added distribution."