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Expansion includes key strategic partnership with Ankabut and local channel network

DUBAI, UAE - November 19, 2014 - Nutanix, the web-scale converged infrastructure company, today announced it is expanding its presence in the Middle East with investment in its local pre-sales and support teams to help grow its steadily growing customer base and channel network across the region. Focused initially on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, the investment will allow customers who deploy Nutanix in the region to take full advantage of a simple and highly available virtualised IT infrastructure platform and reduce TCO by as much as 60% within months as opposed to years. Due to the unprecedented demand for web-scale technologies, Nutanix serves 1000+ customers in over 50 countries and recently closed a $140 million Series E funding round, valuing the company at over $2 billion.

Speaking at the event, Dirk Marichal, VP of Sales Europe, Middle East and Africa at Nutanix, commented: "Nutanix web-scale solutions are powering the most demanding applications and services in the most demanding IT environments around the globe. As we grow our business around the world, we see great potential in the Middle East where the government and private sectors are working together to expand and invest in infrastructure. We're currently successfully deployed in major large corporate accounts across GCC countries, including academic institutions, government agencies, investment and finance institutions and oil and gas companies. Our strategy is to make sure that we have on-the-ground resources to support our channel network as well as our customers in the region."

Nutanix has appointed Ahmad Qadri as its regional director for the region. Ahmad brings very strong regional experience as well as networking and datacentre experience to his role. He, along with an experienced team, is working on strategic partnerships with key organizations like Ankabut to provide technological resources across the Middle East.

"As the UAE's Advanced National Research and Education Network (NREN) offering academic institutions connectivity to other education networks around the world, Ankabut is always looking for technology solutions so that we can offer our members better resources for their educational and research purposes," said Fahem Al Nuaimi, CEO, Ankabut. "We are exploring the possibilities of a long-term strategic partnership in future with Nutanix and look forward to working closely with the team in the Middle East."

At a private press briefing, Nutanix also shared details of its recent announcement as part of its OEM agreement with Dell and its proposed strategic partnership with Ankabut. The company also shared details related to its growth since it set up operations in the Middle East earlier in 2014.

Basil Ayyas, Marketing Director at Dell Middle East, commented, "As customers seek solutions to overcome their most pressing pain points, Web-scale IT is making huge inroads compared to traditional DAS, NAS and SAN architectures. The Dell XC-series appliance integrates Dell's proven x86 server platform (PowerEdge R720xd) and Nutanix web-scale software to provide an uncompromisingly simple and cost-effective solution with enterprise class performance, scalability, availability and data management features. We are looking forward to working with the local Nutanix team."

Currently Nutanix works through a host of partners that have made considerable investment into resourcing teams to deploy Nutanix in the region. In addition, as part of its global multiple distribution strategy, it will be appointing additional channel partners in the key GCC countries soon. Nutanix has already assisted several of its existing partners to secure qualified sales and technical skills, and is in the process of setting up partners as accredited training centres.