Three Days, One Booth! What Comtech and Cisco Actually Showed Up With at ITCN Asia 2026 - ProPakistani

Two Cisco executives, who asked different questions on the same day, gave the same one-word answer. That happened at the Comtech Associates (Pakistan) booth during ITCN Asia 2026, which wrapped up its 28th edition on September 24 at Expo Center Karachi.

Comtech, a Pakistan-based enterprise networking and cybersecurity provider, ran a joint booth with Cisco for all three days. Three things stood out: the hardware on display, the sessions led by its head of solutions, and what Cisco leadership told Comtech’s CEO on camera.

Muhammad Irfan Ghauri, Comtech’s Head of Solutions, led a session on Cisco Meraki, Cisco’s cloud-managed networking platform. It reportedly ran past its scheduled slot as audience questions kept coming.

His slides pitched one browser-based dashboard for switches, wireless, security appliances, and cameras, from a single branch to thousands of sites. Key points were zero-touch deployment (“no truck roll, no on-site expert required”), built-in security, and new sites online in “hours instead of weeks.” These are Cisco’s own claims.

Meraki was one of several sessions Comtech scheduled to use the expo for technical education rather than just booth traffic. Ghauri’s other two decks, on AI data centers and Cisco Webex, follow the same habit: start from the buyer’s problem, then map it to hardware.

This talk, “Why the world needs AI data centers,” argues that traditional facilities were not built for AI workloads. A conventional rack draws 5 to 10 kW with air cooling, while an AI rack needs 40 to 100+ kW and liquid cooling. Gartner puts 2026 data center electricity use at 565 TWh.

Cisco’s answer centers on the Silicon One G300, a 102.4 Tbps switching chip, and the systems built on it. The slides organize the portfolio around three ways AI infrastructure grows:

The Webex talk presented an “open, AI-powered” suite that unites calling, meetings, messaging, and devices under one console, Control Hub. Its most practical idea was interoperability: Cisco devices run native Webex alongside Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet, with no forklift upgrade, from headsets to boardroom systems.

A senior Cisco delegation, including Mohamad Besher, who leads Cisco’s Gulf, Levant, Turkey, and CCA regions, and Kashif Ul Haque, Country General Manager for Pakistan, spent time at the booth with CEO Muhammad Farooq Zaheer. He hosted both interviews himself, so the answers below respond to a partner’s questions, not an independent press interview.

Farooq Zaheer asked Kashif Ul Haque six questions, and the answers ranged from Pakistan’s technology history to what a good partner owes its customers.

Kashif has worked in the industry since around 1996 and in Pakistan since 2004. He said technology used to be a conversation held “at about 40,000 feet” and credited Gen Z for pulling it down to earth, since young people would rather use an app than visit a bank in person. In 2004, he said the security conversation “was security guards.”

He pushed back on the premise. Kashif said any misconception lasts only until someone lands in Pakistan, and anyone who has worked with the country, even over Webex, already knows the technology exists. He recalled outdated assumptions from his visits in the 1990s but said he does not see much of that today.

This was the least specific answer. Kashif said he has been connected to the industry for about 25 years and believes it is “genuinely heading in a good direction.” He acknowledged that Pakistan has “our own set of problems,” as every country does, said enterprises know what they are doing, and noted that people are stepping up on a self-reliance basis.

Zaheer framed this as security or AI. Kashif’s reply became the line of the event: “I put security above AI, because AI will not work without security.” He added that “anything you touch has to deal with security,” and that ignoring it could leave a business “in trouble.”

Service quality, and he used an airline to make the point. Kashif said that as a gold member he is touched in a positive way at least three times between check-in and his seat, regardless of the cabin. Recurring customers, he said, need to feel they are getting service “unlike any other brand,” and without that there is no repeat business.

Service levels and technical resources. His point was that sales alone does not keep a customer: “It’s not the sales that sells.” He said business flows back to a vendor on the strength of customer feedback, and a happy customer comes back, while an unhappy one remembers the night something went down at midnight and no support arrived.

Besher leads Cisco’s business across the Gulf, Levant, Turkey, and CCA. A large part of the job, he said, is making sure partners are enabled, certified, and ready to talk to customers in a way that proposes “value rather than just products.” He said AI is changing customer behavior, and customers increasingly want a partner they can rely on.

He named two obstacles. The first is people: many small businesses have no security, AI, or network specialist, just “one guy who runs the show.” A partner like Comtech fills that gap, he said, by bundling those skills into one managed service and stitching together technology from several vendors.

Besher disputed the idea that enterprise gets all the attention. In his words, SMB is Cisco’s fastest-growing segment, growing faster than any other segment in the company, though that is his statement and hasn’t been independently verified here. He pointed to partner programs, specialization tracks, promotions, and a dedicated SMB portfolio and said the focus began years ago rather than recently.

“Security, without any hesitation.” Besher said attackers don’t distinguish by company size: small, medium, enterprise, and public sector customers “are under the same kind of attacks,” so security is a priority in every segment and the one technology that spans them all.

Pakistan’s IT exports hit a record high in the fiscal year ending June 2026, with the government targeting $10 billion by FY2029. Local enterprise and SMB buyers still need networking, security, and data center partners, which is Comtech’s space.

Booth traffic and two Cisco executives naming security as the priority don’t build a market position alone. But for a company positioning itself as a full-lifecycle infrastructure partner rather than a hardware reseller, that alignment from the vendor’s own people is solid supporting evidence.

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