Cisco Systems helps Qatar's business-leaders uncover 'hidden' costs of IT investment

At the Cisco Expo in Doha, Cisco's Middle East executive team addressed Qatar's business community and outlined how companies incur unnecessary costs in maintaining separate voice and data networks. They described how this can create a cycle of escalating costs and a higher Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) as businesses attempt to adopt and integrate new business solutions, such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), e-commerce and e-learning across two separate network architectures.

Cisco also addressed network availability showing how down-time for routine upgrades and maintenance can significantly impact costs in terms of lost business and reduced productivity. Cisco outlined how these costs can be minimised by deploying AVVID (Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data), Cisco's scalable network architecture.

Eyad Alqadi, Cisco's regional manager for the Gulf and Pakistan said: "A corporate network is not a one-time investment that directors can decide upon once every three years or more. The technology is evolving so quickly that for some customers, expensive forklift upgrades of infrastructure will be required with greater frequency. This will result in rapidly escalating costs for the enterprise and service provider alike. To avoid this unnecessary expense, businesses need to define a network architecture that is designed to be scalable, flexible and capable of integrating new technologies."

Then importance of information security and storage were also presented as Cisco urged Qatar's local businesses to implement the most robust solutions possible in order to protect data and mission-critical applications.

During the Expo, Eyad Alqadi quoted examples of customers such as the Hamad Medical Centre and the Qatar National Olympics Committee, which have successfully adopted e-business strategies, and concluded by saying: "The choice for businesses in Qatar is clear - invest senior management time in developing the right IT strategies with real longevity."

Cisco Expo was supported by the team of local and international channel partners GBM, Mannai Corporation, MDS (Mideast Data Systems) and NCR. For more information on Cisco Systems, please visit its Middle East Web site at www.cisco.com/me.

Ends