Schneider Electric, a global specialist in energy management, plans to boost its datacenter infrastructure management market in the Middle East and the Gulf region through new tieups with distributors and strengthening its team, said a senior official.

The company has a presence in the Middle East represented by 5,000 employees, two distribution centers and eight manufacturing plants in the region.

“As one of the top three players in datacenter infrastructure management, Schneider Electric is in a unique position to bring customers innovative solutions that meet the most specific of requirements. Our emphasis on quality ensures that our solutions are designed, developed and delivered by leading technologists,” remarked Goktug Gur, the country president, UAE and Oman.  

“The Middle East and the Gulf is extremely crucial to the overall growth of the company. As part of our expansion plans across the region, we are looking to grow our team of professionals and the number of offices in the region. We also aim to forge new partnerships with distributors,” he added.

Gur was speaking on the opening day of Schneider Electric’s Middle East Datacenter Solutions Conference titled ‘Power to the Cloud’. The session was headlined by the company's top executives including Mike Hughes, the senior VP, EMEA (IT Business), Paul-Francois Cattier, the global VP (Datacenters, IT Business) and Christian Bertrand, the VP for Middle East and Africa (IT Business).

"Schneider Electric offers a comprehensive portfolio of products and solutions. Our strong reach within the region and resilient relations with our partners and customers have helped us capture a fair share of the market in this critical geography across our business units," he added.

Gur pointed out that the worldwide datacentre market had witnessed a 22 per cent growth in 2012 which hit $105 billion compared to $86 billion the year before. The Middle East is the fastest growing sector in this category, he added.

Schneider Electric executives pointed out that the evolving trend of datacenter-focused IT strategies necessitate the synchronization of IT and facilities management to produce optimal results.

The experts also indicated that virtualization and cloud computing promise a transformation in services automation and provisioning through driving greater efficiencies within the datacenter.

Paul-Francois Cattier said: “As one of the top three players in datacenter infrastructure management, Schneider Electric is in a unique position to bring customers innovative solutions that meet the most specific of requirements. Our emphasis on quality ensures that our solutions are designed, developed and delivered by leading technologists.”

Schneider Electric’s focus on cloud virtualization comes at a time when IT spending in Europe, the Middle East and Africa is set to rise 1.4 per cent in 2012 and reach $1.154 trillion by 2013, according to Gartner.

Leveraging this forecast, Schneider Electric aims to capitalize on the growing demand for cloud and virtualized environments, he added.

Christian Bertrand said: "Datacenters are a cornerstone for businesses, and as demand for storage and operation continues to expand, we are providing the right solutions to manage the power and cooling of this business critical infrastructure."

"We are seeing enterprise IT trend towards virtualization, which will result in booming demand for cost-effective solutions, speed and simplicity, efficiency of scale, and overall energy consciousness. We are confident that our expertise will open up significant opportunities in these areas, he added.-TradeArabia News Service