Comms Dealer

Privately-held Veeam has reported Q4 2015 results which indicate a 22% overall growth year-on-year, with a total of nearly $500 million in total bookings revenue.

This sort of growth means it is expected that the company will pass the half-billion dollar revenue mark in 2016 and expect momentum to continue, carrying Veeam toward its goal of $1 billion in annual revenue by 2018.

Veeam is dependent on continuing increases in virtualisation, particularly with VMware which has seen its growth fall back as it reaches high levels of penetration in the enterprise market and competition from cloud.

Recent results from 451 Research, which reported public cloud storage spend will double in two years, while legacy storage spend will fall by 17%.

The UK & Ireland also indicated strong growth once again, with an overall 17% increase in total bookings revenue year-on-year (Q4-2015 vs Q4-2014) and a 35% increase in Enterprise specific revenue (2015 vs 2014).

The UK & Ireland now has a total of 13,032 customers, and 2,440 ProPartners, it says.

PC shipments in EMEA reached 20.8 million units in the fourth quarter of 2015 - an 18.2% decrease year on year, according to IDC.

After a strong shipment push of devices under Microsoft's Bing promotion from summer 2014 to January 2015, the focus for hardware manufacturers and their channel partners has been to deplete stock, leading to an 18% contraction for 2015 with 76.3 million PCs shipped in EMEA.

In 2014 PC shipments were driven in commercial by the end of Windows XP support as well as the need to renew the first Windows 7 portables four years after their deployment, while in the consumer segment Bing successfully targeted the needs of price sensitive users.

The strengthening of the dollar also led partners to gamble on cheap products in the fourth quarter of 2014. But 2015 turned into a very costly year for all of them as inventory clearing not only took eleven months but also strong promotions and price reductions.

Year on year comparisons were therefore unfavourable during 2015 and the introduction of new technologies such as Windows 10 or new CPUs failed to reverse the trend. But it is not all bad news- as there are some signs of stabilisation and 2015 results will support a more positive comparison in 2016.

"The market contraction was to be expected," said Chrystelle Labesque, associate director, IDC EMEA Personal Computing. The combination of various economic and political factors led all three sub-regions to contract in 2015Q4. Western Europe declined by 13.1%, while in line with expectations, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) contracted 24.7%.

In Western Europe, the UK consumer market reported the best result, while in the commercial segment some public spending in particular in Austria and Italy supported shipment volumes.

A sharp decline in oil prices together with currency and political instabilities affected the CEMA region in particular, while the slowdown in the Chinese economy is worsening the business outlook in export-oriented Western European countries.

Looking at the full 2015 performance, Western Europe was down by 13.8% over 2014, and market consolidation becomes more obvious as the top 3 players (HP, Lenovo, Dell) accounted for 54% of the market in 2015 vs 50% in 2014.

"2015 was clearly a very difficult year for the PC market. Demand remained weak across all four quarters with double-digit contractions in CEE and MEA," said Stefania Lorenz, associate VP, IDC CEMA. "The CEE region contracted by 26.4% year-on-year in 2015. The region was negatively affected by the devaluations of local currencies and high PC inventory levels left from 2014.

"The worst impact on purchasing power was felt in the Eastern part of the region: Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan as well as the Rest of CEE subregion. Other factors that prevented the market from rebounding in the commercial space included government budget freezes."

"In Q4 2015 the PC market in the CEE region was in line with the forecast at -24.7% year-on-year," said Nikolina Jurisic, product manager, IDC CEMA. "Viewing the country mix, the "star" was Hungary, with a positive result of 11.5% growth year-on-year thanks to last minute deals in the public sector. The other countries in the CEE region reported PC market declines.

In many cases the unfavorable comparison with Q414 (and the Bing push) resulted in a sharper decline for Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, and Croatia.

Entanet has slammed plans announced by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and Ofcom to impose new restrictions on broadband advertising that doesn't take account of how smaller ISPs operate.

The company says that the plans to force broadband suppliers to advertise costs that include the line rental will put smaller resellers at a disadvantage.

Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing, said: "Our main concern and disappointment is that once again the ASA/Ofcom strive to apply 'one size fits all' type proposals to solve a market problem that has arguably been caused by the larger mainstream providers.

"Many smaller ISPs in the UK broadband channel provide the broadband service without requiring their customers to take line rental in the same package."

He notes that in some cases consumers may want to buy line rental and broadband from different suppliers. The new rules suggest that ISPs may be forced to offer both and if this is the case, it will restrict customer choice.

The company also highlights that in its joint study of the market, the ASA and Ofcom have based their findings on views taken from just 300 consumers, when there are 23.7 million fixed broadband lines in use in the UK today.

VIA and Speakerbus have launched a cloud-based trader voice solution for the financial sector, called VIA Trade, which removes the need to operate an on-site telephony solution, reducing on-site equipment and cutting the amount of costly storage space within offices.

The solution combines VIA's cloud-based infrastructure with the Speakerbus iTurret dealerboard.

On installation, a direct and exclusive network connection is established between VIA's data centres and the client's office. This dedicated link, when connected to the iTurret devices, allows organisations to trade and record calls whilst guaranteeing unrivalled levels of security and resiliency.

By taking the intricate elements of a traditional trading system and hosting them in the cloud, VIA Trade reduces on-site communications equipment by 90%.

Alex Tebbs, Director, VIA, said: "Combining the expertise of both VIA and Speakerbus, VIA Trade ensures users can benefit from a highly resilient and secure solution, while also achieving significant cost savings through low setup costs and a substantial reduction in on-site equipment."

VIA Trade also integrates with VIA Voice, the company's fully hosted unified communications solution, which has already been deployed by more than 250 businesses globally.

Tebbs added: "We have ensured that VIA Trade works hand-in-hand with VIA Voice, so both traders and non-traders within a company can benefit from joined-up communications."

Ofcom's Broadband Business Code of Conduct is a vital step to ensure that every business has access to affordable, reliable and sustainable broadband connectivity, according to TalkTalk Business.
 
"TalkTalk Business has been working on the code with Ofcom for the last 12 months and were delighted to sign the agreement in December 2015," stated Jon Nowell, Head of Product at TalkTalk Business.

"Connectivity is increasingly the lifeblood of business and we had no hesitation in signing up to Ofcom's new Business Broadband Speeds Code of Conduct."

Slow Internet speed has emerged as small businesses' biggest time-waster, according to a new study commissioned by Virgin Media Business.

The findings also reveal that senior decision makers in SMEs think the average employee loses 15 minutes a day to slow Internet speeds, meaning that a business with eight employees could lose a full day of work each week, waiting for their connection to catch up.
 
The online research, conducted by YouGov with 1,103 senior decision makers in British SMEs, marks the launch of Virgin Media Business's new, ultrafast broadband packages including a 300Mbps product.
 
The research shows 57% of SMEs believe that the internet is critical to their business and that they wouldn't be able to function without it. However, poor connections are becoming detrimental to their daily operations.
 
Faster speeds can provide small businesses with a significant online boost - opening then up to new technologies and allowing greater productivity.
 
When small businesses were asked what they would do if they could complete their daily tasks more quickly, the top three responses were spending more quality time with family (40%), having dinner with their partner (30%) and going to the gym or playing sport (30%).
 
Peter Kelly, Managing Director, Virgin Media Business, said: "Small businesses are the lifeblood of the UK's economy but need the right tools and technology to thrive."
 
In October Virgin Media Business launched a report, 'The UK's Digital Opportunity', which revealed digital technologies could provide a £56 billion boost to SMEs, as well as creating over 920,000 new jobs.

Over the coming years Virgin Media is investing £3 billion in its infrastructure.

Technology Services Group (TSG) has achieved a seventh top rating from Microsoft.

As a strategic member of the Microsoft Partner Network, TSG has strengthened its position with the latest 'best in class' Gold Status Competency to add to its haul of six awards.

The competencies are Microsoft's recognition to partners who have the proven skills and experience in a particular area, setting them apart from competitors and re-affirming to their customers that TSG are experts in what they do.

Of Microsoft's 650,000 partners worldwide, less than one per cent are regarded highly enough to hold a single gold competency.

Newcastle-based TSG's seventh gold competency has been awarded in the cloud productivity area, the company's second cloud-specific award.

Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp, said: "By achieving a gold competency partners have demonstrated the highest, most consistent capability and commitment to the latest Microsoft technology.

"These partners have a deep expertise that puts them in the top one per cent of our partner ecosystem and their proficiency will help customers drive innovative solutions on the latest Microsoft technology."

TSG's chief executive David Stonehouse added: "Picking up our seventh Gold Status Competency, while actively retaining the other six, demonstrates to our customers that we go that extra mile to show we are trusted, expert advisors for our key strategic partners.

"A lot of our customers rely heavily on Microsoft's product stack. Achieving all these Microsoft Gold Status competencies reflects our continued investment in helping customers get the most out of Microsoft's portfolio of products."

High Wycombe-based Olive Communications is to significantly scale up its operations following a £15.25m funding boost. Business Growth Fund (BGF) has invested £10m growth capital while Barclays has provided £5.25m in new debt facilities.

Olive has seen revenues climb from £11m in 2012 to almost £30m at the end of this financial year, and has featured in the Sunday Times Tech Track for the past three consecutive years.

The funding package will be used to expand Olive's customer base and develop its range of services.
The business also plans to grow its 150 strong team with appointments across its three sites in High Wycombe, Hatfield and Towcester.

Martin Flick, CEO, said: "Over the past few years we have experienced continued growth. The results have been impressive on a self invested basis but we have ambitions to develop our product offering for customers and partners even further."

"BGF's minority, long-term funding model gives us the flexibility to do this. At the same time, we keep control of the business."

Mark Nunny, an Investor at BGF who will also take a seat on the board of Olive, added: "Our flexible equity will give Olive the headroom to invest organically for growth and consider acquisitions as part of its strategy."

GCI has repositioned as a managed UC provider and under the leadership of incoming CEO Adrian Thirkill the company will develop a UK Centre of Excellence for UC that builds on its Skype for Business pedigree, its standing as a Microsoft Gold Partner for Communications and Hosting, Vodafone Platinum Partner status and Broadsoft expertise.

Thirkill said: "Customer demand for affordable per user, per month managed UC services is growing exponentially and now is the perfect time for GCI to step up to the plate.

"Today, many organisations are in an entirely pre-UC world, or one where selected disparate UC functions are employed to a limited capacity but not integrated. Our intention is to set the benchmark in managed UC services in a market valued at £14.7bn globally."

ICUK marked its 15th year in business with the launch of version 15 of its Control Panel portal, a celebratory cash reward for staff, the expansion of its network and a promo for channel partners.

The latest version of ICUK's platform offers partners free PSTN and ADSL activations plus new features and enhancements.

Neil Barnett, Head of Business Development, said: "A common barrier for partners are the upfront installation costs with telephone services and broadband, especially when attracting new customers who might be on a tight budget.

"Our free line rental installation and broadband offer eradicates this problem, and gives our partners an edge."

The company has also expanded its network infrastructure and upgraded its MPLS core to 20Gbps.

Tim O'Donovan, Technical Director, stated: "We've added more POPs in central London giving us access to more carriers and greater capacity.

"This year we plan to continue this expansion, allowing our partners and their end users to tap into the best possible resources for their broadband, hosting and Ethernet connectivity."

ICUK has achieved year-on-year organic growth based on a wholly technical bias and no sales team, and currently has circa 100,000 end users.

Founding Director Paul Barnett explained: "ICUK is made up of highly skilled technical people, developers and support staff, all dedicated to driving the constant development of our wholesale platform.

"We have always believed that if we can make something better the sales will naturally come, and they have."

Leslie Costar, founding Director, added: "Our team is everything, and our development people are very much the unsung heroes of ICUK. They dedicate every working hour to taking the platform to the next step."