Maxtor expands presence in Middle East and Africa with new RMA collection centre in UAE

Maxtor's first RMA collection centre for the MEA region is opening this month in Dubai, designed to enhance post-sales service to local customers. Initially the RMA collection centre will enable Maxtor's distributors to return drives requiring service locally, without need for re-export, and process the returns, as applicable. In phase two, the collection centre will offer RMA services to a wider range of Maxtor customers, including resellers, system assemblers and end users. The company has plans for similar RMA collection centers in Saudi Arabia and Egypt, with more countries expected to follow.

"We have achieved great progress since the opening of our Middle East and Africa office in Dubai last October in identifying this market's storage needs and how best to meet and anticipate those needs," said Didier Trassaert, vice president, Maxtor, EMEA. "To date, our plan is on track, with the roll-out of regional service centers designed to give our customers peace of mind, knowing that they have easy access to local technical support."

"We are also pursuing an aggressive in-country distribution channel expansion policy, which we've started with two key distributor appointments to achieve a stronger presence in more markets across the region, such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia."

To effectively meet the growing demand for personal storage solutions in the MEA region, Maxtor recently appointed its first retail-focused channel reseller for the UAE, Delta Business Products. Leveraging the company's first-to-market leadership and proven expertise in external storage solutions and push-button backup, Maxtor's award-winning Maxtor OneTouch II family of external hard drives (available in capacities from 160GB to 300GB) is strongly positioned to meet the demands of personal storage at home or in a small business office.

In its latest offering to consumers and small office/home office (SOHO) users in the region, Maxtor has introduced the Maxtor Shared Storage solution. The Maxtor Shared Storage solution enables home and SOHO users to easily connect, store and share data and digital memories while adding additional storage to their network. The drive is available in capacities of 200GB and 300GB, with private folder options and two USB 2.0 ports for further storage expansion and/or to share a printer on the network.

Maxtor also recently appointed its first in-country channel distributor in Egypt, M.A.S Egypt, to distribute its full product line, including desktop, server, enterprise and consumer storage solutions. In another move to build on the local strength of the Maxtor brand, the company plans to soon introduce its Platinum Partner program in the MEA region, providing sales, marketing and program support to strategic partners in the MEA region.