Redington Value, the value-added distribution division of Redington Gulf, the largest distributor of IT products in the Middle East and Africa (MENA), has announced the launch of RedCloud, the region’s first integrated cloud solution at Gitex Technology Week 2015.

RedCloud is a marketplace that offers customers a one-stop solution for all their Enterprise Cloud requirements.  The company is in the process of partnering with about 30 to 40 SaaS (software as a solution) service providers thereby facilitating clients with a single log-in platform for all products, unified billing and online payments, while offering live chat and agent management among other features.

The move is part of the company’s strategy to transform itself as a solutions partner, positioning itself as an ideal source for complete IT solutions to its partners in the region. The company’s solutions span across technology domains such as networking, voice, servers, storage, software, security and infrastructure.

A latest forecast by Gartner projects IT spending in the Middle East to reach $214.7 billion in 2015, with business intelligence and analytics, infrastructure and data centre, and cloud being the top three priorities. Public cloud services in the MENA region is forecast to reach $851 million by the end of 2015 and is expected to touch $1.5 billion by 2018. The report also indicates that SaaS is fast growing in the region and is set to become the largest segment of the cloud services market in MENA by 2018.

“The demand for public and private cloud solutions has been growing fast across the Middle East and Africa. From start-ups to larger corporations, most companies are enabling cloud solutions in an effort to reduce their capex and improve innovations. Adoptability is set to increase by over 20 per cent this year alone as more and more companies are getting onboard even as the industry moves towards implementing virtual infrastructure and cloud-based solutions to provide performance, scalability and accessibility,” says Ramkumar Balakrishnan, President, Redington Value Distribution.

Redington has already tied up with major players such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft Azure for the cloud solution. RedCloud had a soft launch in September and is expected to be officially rolled out during the fourth quarter of 2015.

Describing it as a work in progress, Balakrishnan says Redington Value with over 40 brands across 27 markets and more than 200 employees is best suited to introduce the various cloud solutions in the region.

Among the key priorities are enabling the customers, which includes individual entrepreneurs, SMEs and large enterprises, to optimise their IT infrastructure and provide end to end consulting for rapid cloud adoption. “A dedicated team is being set up to help customers to do the cloud assessment in terms of readiness and offer various other assistance in terms of design and implementation, migration and deployment and optimisation of cloud resources. We have also built a whole ecosystem of partners with experienced and certified engineers with cross domain experience to routinely train and assist our clients,” says Balakrishnan.

As part of the unified catalogue of cloud service offerings, RedCloud also offers a cloud-based marketplace linking buyers and sellers. Partners can use a single log in to access all solutions, get competitive rates, make payments online and even track their orders and credit history.

As part of the AWS service, Redington is currently offering free AWS consultation worth $500 besides free training on cloud enablement. Visitors to the Redington Value stand in Hall 3, # A3-7, at the ongoing Gitex Technology Week in DWTC, will also be able to attend a series of training sessions and product introductions on various cloud solutions.