Can you tell us about the cooperation that took a place recently between F5 & MCS?

F5 recently confirmed Mideast Communication Systems (MCS) as its new value-added distributor in Egypt.

MCS is now part of F5’s Unity+ Partner Program, which has been specifically designed to address the evolution of the market, F5, and our partner business models. The program provides a clear path to success for serving customers with F5’s best in class portfolio of products.  Significantly, the onboarding of MCS markedly enhances F5’s ability to deliver its services and solutions across Egypt, which is one of our most strategically important regional markets.

What is the return of this on the Egyptian market as well as customers?

MCS has emerged as one of the leading, and most innovative, distributors in Egypt. Its strong in-country presence and extensive channel network will enable the sale, deployment and support of F5’s entire service portfolio, with a strong focus on multi-cloud and modern application-related services.

It is also important to note that MCS joins us at an important time for F5 in Egypt. More than ever, our customers are demanding seamless, rapid, secure, and personalized experiences. At F5, we empower organizations to get their apps to market faster, protect their business from existing and emerging threats, adapt quickly to changing conditions, and harness the power of AI to make better business decisions. MCS will be central to delivering our solutions and services at scale.

What are the most important sectors that you will focus on in the Egyptian market?

The union will be particularly beneficial for F5 and MCS’ continued support of the government’s transformational Digital Egypt plan, which is a key component of its  ICT Strategy and 2030 Vision. F5 is already delivering a wide range of services under the Digital Egypt umbrella, including project work related to modernizing digital infrastructures and processes across the government, telecoms, military, education, energy, finance, and government sectors. F5 will continue to expand its work in all these sectors, while also working with MCS to unlock new opportunities and adapt to shifting market demands.

Following the Covid-19 crisis, how have F5 and MCS helped organisations maintain business continuity? 

Our guiding principle at F5 is more applicable than ever: do the right thing – for each other, our customers, our shareholders, our community, and the world. We believe if all decisions are made through this lens, decision-making becomes much more focused and efficient. Importantly, it also reflects the ‘human-first’ culture of our company.

Wherever organizations are in their COVID-19 response efforts—needing to respond quickly to new connectivity and security requirements, determining how best to resume “business as usual,” or innovating in response to changing customer needs— F5 and MCS have been there to help. That will not change.

What about security solutions that F5 can provide for combating security crimes?

If you want to protect the capabilities that drive your business, it means protecting the apps that make them happen.

F5 uniquely enhances organizations’ security strategies with the broadest portfolio of app-centric security solutions and services on the market. With F5, you can extend robust and customizable security policies and controls across multiple clouds, on-premises environments, and deployment models like containers and co-location services. You can also monitor and manage everything from a single point of control to simplify management, optimize performance and more efficiently address constantly changing risk factors.

Ultimately, F5 makes sure your apps remain available, and accessible by the right people, to ensure the integrity of both data and brand. It’s our long history of understanding all aspects of the app—how its constructed, how it operates, and its supporting infrastructure—that enables us to deliver solutions, services, and products that protect against the primary risks associated with apps—no matter where they reside.

With the cooperation between F5 & MCS, how will this help the Egyptian government in their initiatives regardless the digital transformation projects?

F5, buoyed by the new partnership with MCS, is now in its best position yet to help government organizations.

No matter where our customers deploy their apps, our goal remains the same: more agile application deployment and management, without giving up security or performance.  We can reach every app, anywhere, with services that span from the inception of code to application delivery.

F5, with the addition of NGINX and Shape Security, now has the most comprehensive set of application services in the industry. Importantly, we can flex to whatever cloud is needed for the job, including virtual machines, container-native, SaaS, and purpose-built hardware.

We are also confident of realizing a future where applications, like a living organism, can naturally adapt based on environment. They will grow, shrink, defend, and heal itself as needed. In other words, the combination of application services, telemetry and automation will enable the emergence of truly adaptive applications.

The government’s ICT strategy and 2030 Vision are era-defining commitments. F5 and MCS are proud that our services are now able to support these profound, transformational shifts with more impact than ever before.

What is the next plan for Egyptian market for 2021 year and what is F5 expectations?

Egypt is now one of our top five markets in the Middle East, Turkey, and Africa (META) region, and our partnership with MCS further emphasises our ambition going forward. We expect to grow our presence in Egypt in the coming years, continually enhancing our ability to deliver our services wherever they are needed.