Comms Dealer

Industry hopes for swift uptake of Software Defined Network (SDN) are likely to be dashed unless a programme of end user education is established.

Research by Exponential-e has revealed that 86 per cent of businesses do not understand SDN while 95 per cent do not know what benefits it could bring to their enterprise.
 
"An agile and responsive network is central to driving competitive advantage," said Chris Christou, Director of Engineering at Exponential-e. "Providing a business with the ability to manage and control their network themselves enables them to support their business internally in their drive for increased revenues."
 
SDN effectively allows organisations to reconfigure network services on-demand. Enterprises can adapt the services that network providers deliver through a self-service interface.
 
"SDN increases efficiency and supports the flexibility demanded by fast moving organisations that are tasked with responding to unexpected outages and breaks in service," added Christou

"Using the database as a master A-Z then it's possible to map the optimum route to instantly reconfigure networks, reduce latency and meet peaks or troughs in demand.

"SDN effectively removes the impenetrable barrier between a customer and network provider, providing a more flexible and agile way to manage network configurations."

Avnet has sealed a pan-EMEA distribution agreement with Cumulus Networks.

Through this agreement, Avnet will offer Cumulus Networks' data centre network operating system software, Cumulus Linux, which can be integrated with hardware from multiple leading switch vendors.

Avnet is appointed distributor for Cumulus Linux in Austria, BeNeLux, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, UK and Ireland.

Dieter Lott, vice president of business development at Avnet Technology Solutions, EMEA, said: "Cumulus Networks is a good fit with VMware's NSX offering for network virtualisation and is complementary to our Red Hat open source portfolio."

Gamma has pledged £2,000 in support of The Technology Group's charity effort for Leeds Mencap.

Directors David and Jonathan Marsden will trek 100km across the Sahara Desert having already donated £50,000 worth of telephony and Internet solutions to help the centre.

Jonathan Marsden said: "I am impressed with the support Gamma has shown to us, not only in our day to day business activities, but now on a more personal level. This is a great example of what can be achieved when partners work together effectively."

Leeds Mencap is an independent charity that was created 62 years ago to help local people with learning disabilities.

The funds Gamma donated by Gamma will help to complete a specialist activity room in the charity's new purpose-built centre, fitting the room with interactive learning boards.

To follow and donate to the campaign please visit www.ttgsahara.co.uk

Dell has stated its intent to drive more business through distribution, and according to Andreas Schuetze, Director, Channel Marketing & Programmes, Dell EMEA, the firm will place a strong focus on new business, with incentives adding around 15% to new customer rebates. "We want to see a stronger distribution market and grow faster here," he said.

"We have new leadership, with Michael Collins in a new role as vice president, Strategy & Channel, Dell EMEA. His strategic view experience is important in developing channels.

"And we have changed the way targets are calculated so that growth comparisons for bonuses and rebates are based on average sales over the last few quarters rather than just the last one - this recognises that some of the deals come in over lengthy sales cycles."

Maintel has become one of Avaya's most accredited UK partners having collected the Technical Excellence Award 2016 at the vendor's UK Partner Connection Day event.

This accomplishment follows Maintel's five previous Avaya awards, most notably the Service Excellence Award 2015 and Technical Excellence Award 2014.

Eddie Buxton, CEO at Maintel, said: "This award demonstrates our ongoing commitment to adding value to our services and transforming UK business communications."

Robert Casula, Maintel's CTO, also became the first person outside of Avaya to pass its Avaya Certified Expert-Fx programme in the UK.

Intermedia has strengthened its channel offering with additions to its back-up and file sharing service, following feedback from 6,000-plus channel partners.

According to Intermedia the new SecuriSync offering will offer up-selling opportunities for resellers and enable them to add high-margin backup services that have traditionally been denied.

Updates include a suite of back-up capabilities, including real-time cloud file backup, to cater for resellers constrained by the pricing models of providers such as Dropbox and Box; and integration of enterprise grade data back-up for restore and retention capabilities.

Instead of deploying multiple vendors for different aspects of file management, businesses now only need a single tool for using, managing and protecting user files, noted the firm.

"As users embrace file sharing and mobile devices, the deficiencies of traditional back-up have grown clear," said Michael Gold, CEO of Intermedia.

"That's why businesses have opted for two separate providers-one for backing up files and another for sharing and managing them.

"SecuriSync now bridges this gap with a single, cost-effective tool for using, managing and protecting user files."

Claranet has partnered with Action for Children, the charity that helps disadvantaged children and young adults deal with issues such as neglect and abuse.

The charity is run out of six core offices that co-ordinate and support approximately 600 services, offering support and care across the UK.

By outsourcing its network requirements to Claranet, Action for Children has seen significant time and cost savings, as well as improvements to network efficiency and IT support.

With improved network connectivity, it has freed up its staff and volunteers so that they can focus on their primary roles - helping to care for and support children and young adults.

Channel Telecom's top 15 partners were treated to five star luxury during a 'thank you' skiing trip to Les Trois Vallees in the Alps.

The three night, four day stay in the heart of Meribel is the company's third such trip and included a programme of skiing, snowboarding, an outdoor heated pool, slope-side sauna, along with mild carousing at La Follie Douce, a mountain top bar.

Channel Telecom MD Clifford Norton said: "We wanted to treat our most successful partners for their hard work. Each year this trip gets bigger and better. This year the party grew to 15, next year we may be taking 20."

A cloud brokerage platform launched by NEC enables ICT service providers to offer SMB and enterprise customers business applications from the cloud via their own privately labeled one-stop marketplace.

Cloud Store is the latest expansion of NEC's services portfolio and builds on the vendor's previous cloud brokerage offerings first developed in 2009.

The new platform can be fully branded by NEC's channel partners, is managed by NEC in a Tier 3 data centre with all registering, ordering and billing capabilities included.

Cloud Store contains a growing catalogue of ready-to-use business applications including collaboration, security and productivity enhancing applications such as Microsoft Office 365.

"We see a great opportunity for our channel partners, integrators and service providers to expand their offering with cloud applications," said Paul Kievit, President and Head of NEC Enterprise Solutions in EMEA.

"Cloud Store enables them to compete with telco-OTT players without the need to invest in commercial negotiations with ISVs, application vendor boarding and the technical integration of marketplace settlement.

"NEC provides all of this off-the-shelf and ready-to-use. The low investment levels and flexible set-up of this open revenue sharing model make it an attractive proposition for even small sized ICT resellers."

Global smartphone sales hit 1.3 billion units in 2015, with an average price drop of 6% and overall market revenues stalling at $115bn.

Market forecaster GfK says smartphone growth in China is driving global demand while the emerging APAC and MEA regions continue as growth powerhouses.

GfK forecasts global smartphone demand to increase
7% in 2016.

In the full year 2015, 1.3 billion smartphone units were sold, an increase of 7% year-on-year.

However, this unit growth was partially offset by a decline in global average selling price (ASP) of 2% year-on-year, which caused revenues to increase on a slightly lower level of only 5% year-on-year to $399bn, says GfK.

Kevin Walsh, Director of Trends and Forecasting at GfK, stated: "Despite a record fourth quarter and a strong performance in 2015 in general, there are mixed results across countries.

"Local factors, rather than regional and industry trends, are increasingly driving markets. Diverging economic trends, device saturation, mass market adoption, politics, social change and even sport have an impact on smartphone demand and prices at country level."