Comms Dealer

Nimans and Unify have given resellers a marketing lift via seven bespoke packages spanning a number of mediums including telemarketing, emails and whitepapers.

"These marketing packages are designed to maximise opportunities in today's digital world," said Marcus Yates, Nimans' Solutions Business Manager for Unify.

"Both Nimans and Unify understand that often the key to success is planning ahead and making sure that marketing plans will generate demand and a healthy flow of leads.

"Effective marketing is about targeting the right customers, delivering the right messages and standing out above the competition."

Unify's 'Connect' personal marketing packages are designed to generate leads and new business, build a digital relationship with customers, syndicate online campaigns and also manage online assets and social media.

Yates added: "Activities can be planned against earned partner marketing funds to make the whole proposition cost effective and high impact."

CityFibre has signed up its 50th service provider partner, Hampshire-based ISP Onecom, the largest reseller in Vodafone's Partner Programme.

The link-up takes CityFibre to the half way point in its medium term strategy to secure 100 service provider relationships.

The five-year deal sees Onecom become the commercial launch partner for CityFibre's Southend-on-Sea network currently under construction.

The £1.7m agreement commits Onecom to a minimum of 150 business customer connections across the network.

CityFibre has now sold a total of 270 connections on the Southend asset, representing an incremental unit sales uplift of 125% above the original anchor customer commitment in only six months.

Greg Mesch, Chief Executive of CityFibre, commented:
"Onecom's national base of over 300,000 customer connections is testament to its established reputation for quality and customer service, making it an ideal addition to the CityFibre partner universe."

Distributor DMSL has put the spotlight on a new report into the growth of home businesses and is urging comms and IT resellers to recognise this trend as a significant opportunity.

The Heart of Home Business Britain report, which is based on analysis by the Centre for Economic and Business Research and includes research by YouGov (commissioned by Vonage UK), says that there are over 2.75 million home businesses in the UK, which accounts for more than half of the UK’s total private sector business population and represents a 23% increase over the past decade.

These businesses are contributing an estimated £94bn gross value added to the economy and the total annual revenue of home businesses is projected to be £212bn this year.

The report also says that while technology is enabling home business success by lowering the barriers for start-ups, it also notes that these businesses need more mentoring and support.

DMSL MD John Carter said: "The Heart of Home Business Britain report shows us that there is absolutely no shortage of opportunities for resellers who can offer the quick, simple and effective solutions and services that these small, home-based businesses will be looking for.

"Availability of high speed broadband is spreading and while this is an opportunity in itself, the greater potential lies in taking the benefits of cloud-based communications, like those offered by Vonage, and other services to these businesses."

According to Carter, most home-based firms will want the reassurance of knowing that their IT and communications supplier is local.

"What this report shows is that there is a massive hidden opportunity for B2B resellers out there. Many of these home-based businesses will be dependent on their IT and communications and when things go wrong they will need to get problems sorted out straight away. They will want their trusted IT supplier to be close at hand."

Exclusive Group's latest set of financial figures reflect a strong focus on value added services and technologies (VAST) and show significant returns on vendor business globally with the acquisition of cyber security VAD Transition Systems also paying off.

Exclusive's half-year results show 60% year-on-year growth with total revenues of 575m euros, keeping the firm on target to double revenue every two years.

"The intention to have a more blended business through our VAST strategy is paying dividends, with each of our ancillary services businesses contributing to strong growth," said Olivier Breittmayer, CEO of Exclusive Group.

"These results also show how well-balanced the Group is globally, able to absorb fluctuations in regional geographies and economies with little impact on momentum.

"It is particularly pleasing to see our expanding BigTec business in the software defined web scale infrastructure marketplace returning triple digit growth.

"This, allied to our strong cyber security-focused Exclusive Networks operations and a renewed focus on developing and expanding premium-based services is having a positive impact on the overall integrated business."

Group COO Barrie Desmond added: These strong six months have put us ahead of our plan and budget. But more hard work is needed to achieve our annual target of doubling revenue every two years until 2020."

Audio visual and document solutions distributor Midwich has bagged the lion's share of UK-based Holdan for £7.9m and also acquired New Zealand AV distributor Wired.

Holdan operates from Glossop in the broadcast, professional video and traditional audio visual markets and employs 35 staff.

In its last financial year ended 31st December 2015 Holdan reported annual turnover of £20.6m and profit before tax of £1.1m.

Midwich has acquired 75% of the issued share capital of Holdan from MD Chris Daniels and Sales Director Allan Leonhardsen. Daniels has stepped down as MD but will continue with the business on a full time basis before retiring in 2017.

Leonhardsen has taken over the MD role while Kieron Seth becomes Sales and Marketing Director.

Midwich has options to acquire the remaining 25% over the next three years in a deal linked primarily to earnings growth.

The Wired acquisition augments Midwich's existing market position and capability in the Australian and New Zealand markets. Wired reported revenues of NZ $2m in the year to 31 March 2016.

Midwich MD Stephen Fenby commented: "We recognised some time ago that the broadcast and professional video markets are a natural adjunct to our traditional audio visual activity.

"Having made some headway in penetrating these markets ourselves, we believe that the expertise and focus of Holdan will give Midwich the ability to provide a more comprehensive value added service to our customers in the UK and overseas.

"Similarly, Midwich's reach into the audio visual market provides Holdan's vendors with an opportunity to expand into a growing segment."

Microsoft's former General Manager of US Partner Sales Eric Martorano has joined Intermedia as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales.

He spent over eight years at Microsoft and was responsible for $17bn-plus revenue.

Michael Gold, CEO of Intermedia, stated: "Eric's understanding of the Microsoft ecosystem will prove invaluable as we expand our Office 365 offerings."

Prior to Microsoft, Martorano led a number of key initiatives and strategies at other notable companies such as Sage Software and Ingram Micro. He also holds an active seat on CompTIA's Board of Directors.

An industry body representing alternative infrastructure builders and ISPs has called on the Government to take measures to ensure that 80% of businesses and homes will have a pure fibre connection by 2026. The Independent Networks Corporation Association (INCA) also wants a suspension of all business rates on new fibre assets for the next ten years and an overhaul of advertising guidelines to emphasise connectivity quality.

Regulation that encourages competition and private sector investment should also be a priority, according to INCA.

In a report compiled by INCA, called Building Gigabit Britain, it is stated that the UK currently has the lowest FTTP deployment in the OECD, with around 2% coverage.

The report argues that Britain is at an inflection point, with legacy copper-based networks increasingly unable to cope with the growth in data.

INCA reaffirmed that fibre networks are needed to support the growth of both fixed wireless and mobile wireless services. And asserts that the deployment of pure fibre infrastructure - supporting greater speeds, more symmetry upstream as well as down and lower latency than copper or hybrid networks - is the only way to support the UK's growing needs. 

The report also pint doug that investment in pure fibre networks has accelerated in recent years, driven largely by a growth in operators challenging the dominance of BT and Virgin Media.

The Altnets are forecast to pass 4.9 million premises, or 18% of the UK population, with FTTP by 2020, estimated at 1.5 million more premises than BT and Virgin's networks combined.

Malcolm Corbett, CEO of INCA, commented: "Unless the UK Government takes action we will soon be faced with a clear divergence between supply and demand in our digital communications.

"The UK has some of the lowest pure fibre deployment in the OECD, yet our economy is one of the most digital in the world, which is dependent on our digital infrastructure.

"We urgently need to upgrade to pure fibre connections and government needs to act by setting the vision and framework to encourage competitive investment.

"The Altnets are doing a great job. Five years ago few of them existed, today they provide more than twice as many FTTP connections as BT and many more offer great wireless broadband services. These are the people Building Gigabit Britain and if we don't encourage and support their much needed investment, the UK's economic position will be put at risk."

INCA members include CityFibre, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, Relish, ITS, Warwicknet, Sky and Vodafone.  

GCI has bagged Stoke-on-Trent-based Packet Media for an undisclosed sum. The deal, which bolsters GCI's contact centre and UCaaS services with SMS messaging capabilities, is the MSP's third this year and follows its acquisition of Outsourcery's assets in June.

Mike Constantine, CTO at GCI, said: "Packet Media has some great parallels with our own business. We are particularly excited about its enterprise-grade SMS messaging platform and associated Management Information (MI) reporting capability.

"This new GCI SMS messaging service will fill an important gap in our portfolio and helps us to differentiate our proposition, particularly for the multi-touch contact centre environment.

"The capability blends nicely with our other core cloud and UC services, including Skype for Business, Azure and PCI DSS."

Julian Gallimore, MD at Packet Media, added: "SMS is what email used to be and the stats are compelling. While emails now clutter inboxes (many unopened), SMS messages are on average viewed within three minutes of receipt.

"Response rates are far better, it takes an average person 90 minutes to respond to email, but only 90 seconds to respond to text.

"We believe the deployment opportunities are endless - from patient prescription reminders to service renewal notices, to sales and marketing messaging, all fully trackable and MI reportable."

GCI CEO Adrian Thirkill said: "In the last 12 weeks we have not only gained some first class platforms, but have also strengthened the depth and breadth of our technical resource - our people.

"This new SMS capability is another critical addition to our portfolio. If the stats are to be believed, approximately 23 billion text messages are sent worldwide daily with a staggering 98% open rate.

"SMS is still mainly untainted, helpful and concise. That's the reason for its success and the reason it's a great fit in our portfolio. The timing is perfect."

RSA, the security division of EMC, has named Jonathan Gill as Vice President for EMEA.

Gill was most recently Executive Vice President for Global Sales at Veracode, following leadership and sales roles at CA, Arcot and IBM.

He said: "This is an exciting time to join RSA as it focuses on delivering business-driven security to organisations."

IT Europa has reported a record number pre-registration attendees for this year's Managed Services and Hosting Summit to be staged at 155 Bishopsgate, London, on 21st September.

The latest numbers show over 330 confirmed registrations, with over 70% at CxO level. The event has also attracted record levels of industry support this year with 30 sponsors from across the sector.

Under the theme of 'The Digital Dividend - The Role of Managed Services in a Digital World', this year's event will examine the rapid changes taking place currently in the industry and among IT customers.

New items on the agenda include presentations from the Open University on what the UK government is doing to support cybersecurity and training in the industry, plus the latest on the state of mergers and acquisitions in this fast-changing business, with guidance on hot sectors and company-selling timetables.