An-Nahar selects HP as strategic IT partner

According to a new agreement between the two companies, HP is the sole provider of its full range of products and services. This makes available to An Nahar the full breadth of the HP portfolio from HP ProLiant servers, HP StorageWorks storage and HP OpenView software to an entire suite of desktops, workstations and printers. . HP partner, CIS Lebanon played a key role as the integrator of all these technologies.

The partnership brings together two leaders in their respective arenas. The synergy is emphasized in the logos with An Nahar "inform" - the leader in news, and HP "invent" - the largest IT technology and solutions provider in the Middle East with a reputation for innovation.

Announcing the agreement at a press conference in Beirut, Joseph Hanania, Managing Director of HP Middle East said that HP welcomed the opportunity to work closely with a visionary market leader such as An-Nahar and to play an integral part in achieving their business objectives and development plans. "This partnership is testimony to our widespread market penetration in Lebanon and our successful strategy of continuously introducing new products that benefit the media and communications industry. It also reiterates our commitment to the Lebanese market and our partners," commented Hanania.

Mr. Gebran Tuéni, General Manager of An-Nahar explained that in partnering with HP, An-Nahar stood to gain a globally experienced, committed and trusted advisor on board. " The partnership with HP will give An-Nahar access to the latest technologies not only when they are available in the market but long before, which will help An-Nahar prepare the ground for a better use of this technology, and let our readers benefit of any technological development that takes place. An-Nahar having always been a leader in implementing, developing and spreading newspaper's trends in the Arab world, and HP being a leader of innovation in technology trends, one of our common missions is to help the community getting the necessary information in various ways for a better understanding of the facts," he commented.

"The An-Nahar/HP partnership is a step towards the future. By mixing the best in technology and the best in information, our readers will be assured to get the best information by the most sophisticated and up-to-date solution available in the market," he added.

The HP logo will appear on An Nahar Online to demonstrate that it is "powered by HP". Thus this partnership is fully dimensional reaching all levels of the company's hardware and infrastructure to consulting and services. The integral part played by the CIS Lebanon in this implementation is exemplified by their logo "CIS- integrate". Speaking at the signing ceremony, Doctor Antoine Kareh, CIS Group Managing Director, stressed that An-Nahar was among the several successful projects implemented by CIS Group of Companies where different environments were involved. As a leading solutions integrator in the Middle East and Africa, CIS Group looks forward to working with HP similarly in the future.

One of the most exciting aspects of the technology partnership includes an archiving application ANAIS (An-Nahar Archiving and Information System) based on HP StorageWorks platform. Two million documents are being archived using an in-house tailor made application, including 72 years' of newspaper archives and more than 700.000 digital pictures, as well as An-Nahar index solution since 1987. The next phase is the search and retrieval system that will eventually provide access to An Nahar journalists to more than 5.000.000 digital pictures.