Blue Coat and Synergy combine forces for regional strength

SPS will become the only Middle East Authorized Training Center for Blue Coat, and will extend training to and exchange knowledge with end-users and resellers.

"SPS employs more than 50 qualified information and communications technology (ICT) trainers accredited by leading vendors, and the largest number of certified full-time ICT instructors in the Middle East," said Melad Ghabrial, President and CEO, Synergy. "We are very pleased with the fact that Blue Coat selected SPS out of a number of other leading training and development companies."

SPS boasts the largest remote lab and training facility in the region with more than Dirhams 9.2 million (US$ 2.5 million) worth of investment in equipment and technology. Located at Knowledge Village in Dubai, the facility has the capacity to run 25 advanced Cisco Labs/courses in parallel per week as well as support all SPS branches and affiliates all over Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region.

"Our products are cutting edge and in Synergy Professional Systems we have a partner who is knowledgeable and competent to provide us with the necessary training support in the region, be it directly to the end user or our numerous resellers and partners. We trust that as the industry and therefore our products continue to evolve, SPS and Blue Coat will together continue to be 'the-best-in-business-team," said Nidal Taha, Regional Technical Manager, Blue Coat Middle East.

As the region continues to experience an economic boom that has pushed large and small enterprise alike to increase their dependence on technology and the Internet as a business critical driver, the Web browser is fast becoming the universal window into mission-critical communications and information. While this has many advantages for the enterprise as Web-based applications and protocols are fast, inexpensive and easy to deploy and manage, they may come at a steep price.

When every user on the network has a Web browser, every user also has the means to negatively affect the network infrastructure - whether intentionally or not. Despite their ability to help users communicate more efficiently, evolving applications such as Web browsing, instant messaging (IM), Web-based email, and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing bring numerous risks to the enterprise.

"Productivity and resource losses brought on by internal or external security breaches can be resolved through proper product training," continued Taha. "With the assistance of SPS training professionals, we intend to make sure that essential knowledge is disseminated to our system integrator partners and end-users as soon as it becomes available."

Blue Coat helps organizations make the Web safe and productive for business. Blue Coat proxy appliances provide visibility and control of Web communications to protect against risks from spyware, Web viruses, inappropriate Web surfing, instant messaging (IM), video streaming and peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing - while actually improving Web performance. Trusted by many of the world's largest organizations, Blue Coat has shipped more than 20,000 proxy appliances to its credit.

To make wider inroads into the regional market, Blue Coat will tap into the local knowledge and a compatible business model Synergy Professional Services (SPS) to disseminate training of Blue Coat products.

SPS is based in Knowledge Village - Dubai with offices in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Oman, Jordan, Egypt and Madrid in addition to a group of appointed Sponsored Organizations (SOs) covering other countries in the Middle East and Europe. SPS is focused on meeting the growing need for information and communication technology (ICT) expertise in the both global and local markets.

SPS enables its clients to accelerate business growth through more effective use of ICT in their respective industry. SPS will provide advanced programs and high-end training on behalf of Blue Coat to customers who are using Internet Protocols (IP) in their core technology networks. The company is known to have the highest number of vendor certified professionals, the broadest range of ICT service offerings and the widest geographic coverage in the region.