Comms Dealer

Gamma's annual UK roadshow gets under way on March 2nd at Hopetoun House in Edinburgh, the first in a run of four 'Gamma does Downton' stately home themed events.

Previous roadshow themes include museums, universities and castles. Richard Bligh, Chief Operating Officer, commented: "We're always looking at ways we can improve what we do and our annual roadshow plays a vital part in making this happen.

"Feedback from our partners is fundamental to shaping our roadmap, helping us to come up with innovative ideas and staying ahead of the curve. Last year we welcomed over 600 channel partners to our roadshow and this year we're expecting even more."

During the roadshow delegates will hear about Gamma's latest product developments such as the launch of its MPLS-based solution, Converged Private Networks, and Gamma's new mobile service, as well as a first look at SIP Trunk Call Manager. Chris Daffin, Network Services Director at Maintel, added: "It's a great opportunity to get together and catch up with the Gamma team and other channel partners, all under one roof."

The roadshow also stops at Crewe Hall (March 3rd), Ragley Hall (March 8th) and London's 8 Northumberland Avenue (March 9th).

SAP experienced 'exceptional momentum' in the fourth quarter with fast growth in cloud and double-digit growth in its core license business, it has confirmed.

For the full year, cloud and software revenue grew by 20% or 12% at constant currencies and exceeded the outlook of 8% - 10% growth at constant currencies. New cloud bookings increased 103% in the full year to €883m and 75% in the fourth quarter to €344m.

"Our strength in 2015 shows that the S/4HANA innovation cycle is well underway," said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP. "Our completeness of vision in the cloud has distinguished SAP from both legacy players and point solution providers. We beat on cloud and software, we beat on operating income and we are ever confident that SAP will remain a profitable growth business well into the future."

"Our tremendous 2015 results validate our strategy of innovating across the core, the cloud and business networks to help our customers become true digital enterprises," said Luka Mucic, CFO of SAP. "We have transformed our company and made it leaner by shifting investments from noncore activities to strategic growth areas enabling us to capture the tremendous growth opportunities in the market. This puts us on a strong path for the future reflected in an increase of our 2017 ambition."

Looking beyond 2016, SAP is raising its 2017 ambition to reflect both the current exchange rate environment and excellent business momentum. By 2017 SAP continues to expect its rapidly growing cloud subscriptions and support revenue to be close to software license revenue and is expected to exceed software license revenue in 2018. Assuming a stable exchange rate environment going forward SAP now expects non-IFRS cloud subscriptions and support revenue in a range of €3.8bn - €4.0bn in 2017. The upper end of this range represents a 2015 to 2017 CAGR of 32%.

SAP continues to anticipate that the fast-growing cloud business along with growth in support revenue will drive a higher share of more predictable revenue. Given the current software license revenue momentum it now expects the total of cloud subscriptions & support revenue and software support revenue to be in a range of 63% - 65% of total revenue in 2017.

Red Hat, set to be a $2bn business soon, and still growing at around 20% a year is drawing up its list of targets for sales in Europe this year, and it looks like telecomms companies are top of its list.

EMEA GM Werner Knoblich talked to IT Europa this week: "There is a telco push this year - we are recognising the potential in the market, and the move to using OpenStack. The telcos want a system that can cope with moving resources around their networks - similar to enterprise use of virtualisation, but able to cope with changing workloads," he says.

OpenStack is the Open Source Cloud computing platform aimed at public and private clouds, and backed by the likes of Red Hat, HPE, Cisco, IBM, Intel, Dell, EMC, NetApp etc.

"We see OpenStack for telcos in the same way as we saw Linux for financial services in the late '90s - the investment banks made Linux mainstream; it was all about trading platforms, and they just got faster speeds and lower latency with it. Linux became accepted in the enterprise not because of cost, but functionality. They legitimised it and we can see the telco industry doing the same for OpenStack."

The telcos as an industry seems to have decided that OpenStack will be the technology to virtualise the networks, he says. And it is a huge business with even bigger potential. So far Red Hat has sold just to the IT departments of telcos but, on average,10% of telco technology spend is on IT and 90% in the network area.

Telcos are looking to roll out services on their networks so they must have the management and flexibility; telcos today are all about appliances, running dedicated software from the NEPs, he explains. This means dedicated systems, and potential lock-in. So as bandwidth use rises, they need to be able to move resources around to match traffic.

"It is like what VMware did, abstracting hardware from software; this gives much higher utilisation and this is fundamentally what they are doing - everything becomes software defined and become a VNF - virtual network function, which become software appliances, sitting on a neutral platform. They want to mix and match applications from the other vendors and today this is almost impossible."

They see Red Hat as in a strong position, he says "We are independent and neutral - we don't have any hardware and there's no lock-in, and that is why there is now a big drive for this. From an OpenStack perspective in Red Hat, telco is a really important market - we have reorganised and from March 1 will have a dedicated force in EMEA."

This is not just in go-to-market and sales, but on the product side he has dedicated engineering teams, and is advancing the telco requirement upstream. "We don't want to create a version of OpenStack for them - like the carriers wanted their own version of Linux and we resisted that. This is important - they don't need a carrier grade OpenStack - they need an OpenStack that is carrier grade. It is a subtle difference. We ensure they get advances and perhaps telco-specific features earlier but it is not a different product. This then goes into the mainstream product."

OpenStack is the plumbing but even hotter is the overall digitalisation and the differentiation of products which comes from software - it is the communication and integration platform for the future. Openstack is so popular with vendors because nobody wanted to see the repeat in cloud of what happened in virtualisation where VMware became a dominant player. IBM, Intel, HP, Cisco, etc all support OpenStack for this reason, and are investing millions of dollars in its development.

The platform now has huge resources behind it. And now that VMware has released its own version of OpenStack, this is a key indicator. Other heavy users such as banks are also backing OpenStack but it is not yet a product for the rest of the market, he thinks "This will take some time. The big guys will make it happen first."

But there is a problem with finding enough skills to work with the platform. OpenStack skills are not so much a matter for partners yet so much as for the individuals with the knowledge. "OpenStack, like any new sophisticated technology is seeing a skills shortage. That is why we doing a lot on training - we are known for the excellence of our online education and we have increased it further to make it easier to consume in smaller chunks."

Some partners have seen the trend and have committed to it and getting trained up; they find they can charge higher rates and there is a lot happening on the skills development, especially among the integrators who are interested in selling those capabilities onwards.

Pinnacle Technology Group is gearing up for growth by acquisition and market consolidation and has kicked off 2016 with the proposed acquisitions of Ancar B and The Weston Group for a net consideration of £5m (subject to shareholder approval). Both businesses are based in Leeds and give Pinnacle a new operational focus complementary to its existing Scottish operational base in Glasgow.

Pinnacle also stated its results for the year to 30th September 2015, signalling progress on its acquisition strategy, the reduction of operational costs and its efforts to address legacy issues during a period of transition.
 
The company's annual figures show revenues of £7.9m for the 12 month period, with recurring revenues remaining high at 85%.
 
While revenues were down as a result of poorer trading on traditional telecommunications services and IT security, progress has been made by the business in growing its IT services and cloud services, and improving its sales of professional services.
 
While overall losses were £1.3m, they marked an improvement on the £1.8m loss reported in 2014. Operational costs were also reduced, but legacy issues continue to act as a drag on the business and contributed to an EBITDA loss for the year as a whole. A positive cash balance at year end of £641k was realised.
 
Pinnacle's Board believes that there are still a number of operational challenges but the opportunity to create a scalable and dominant IT-as-a-service provider exists due to the highly fragmented market.

In March 2015, Pinnacle welcomed a strategic investment made by AIM quoted merchant bank MXC. It was also appointed M&A advisor to the company.

MXC is now taking a significant stake of 25% in the business, alongside major investment in Pinnacle from other institutions.
 
The business is now under the stewardship of new Executive Chairman Gavin Lyons who was appointed on the 7th December 2015 and is a partner at MXC Capital, the technology merchant bank. He was previously the CEO of Accumuli.
 
Pinnacle also announced the appointment of Ian Winn, formerly COO at Accumuli, as Chief Operating Officer & Finance Director.

This reunites him with Gavin Lyons, once again putting together the successful team that led a buy-and-build journey through to the exit selling of Accumuli to the NCC Group in 2015 for £55m.

Pinnacle Chief Executive Officer Nicholas Scallan, is departing at the beginning of April after two years, and will not seek re-election at the next AGM.
 
Former Chairman James Dodd said: "The year ending 30th September 2015 was one of transition for Pinnacle Technology.

"Operationally we continued to expend considerable effort in reducing costs and resolving legacy issues. Strategically we announced both an investment from MXC and their appointment as M&A advisors.

"With the acquisitions of Ancar B and The Weston Group now announced the business is in a much better position to push on and take advantage of the market opportunity that exists, namely providing IT-as-a-Service to SMEs."
 

Annodata's annual financial results for the year ending 30th June 2015 show that it is closing in on its target of £100m by the end of 2016, said the firm.

The company's revenues for the 2014/15 fiscal year stand at £68.9m, up from £57.4m a year ago. Profits rose by 20% to £6.3m.

The MSP acquired IT infrastructure provider Keltec in November 2014 and wide-format print specialist STS in January 2015, strengthening and extending its service portfolio to include cloud hosting and ICT capabilities and creating significant opportunities to cross-sell between the companies' respective customer bases.

Now both fully integrated, the acquisitions have allowed Annodata to focus on growing its client base and deepening its engagement with existing customers by offering new services.

Joe Kelly, Annodata's Group Finance Director, commented: "This has been a particularly good year for Annodata and, now that Keltec has been fully integrated into the business we are in a strong position to replicate that success in the year ahead.

"We operate in an incredibly competitive industry, but I believe that our commitment to our customers, our range of services and our network of strategic partners help to stand us apart from our competitors.

"Annodata continues to maintain a strong balance sheet with no bank debt, which gives us the room for manoeuvre we need to remain agile and independent in the face of fast-changing market conditions."

Annodata implemented a number of changes to its senior management team over the past year - Group Sales Director, Rod Tonna-Barthet was appointed to the role of CEO, while the company also appointed a new Finance Director, Group Sales Director and Commercial Director.

With a strengthened management team, the company has been able to focus on consolidating its position in the market, driving growth and breaking ground in new markets.

Martin St Quinton, Annodata's Non-Executive Chairman, stated: "The past financial year has been one of the most significant in Annodata's 28 year history, marked by solid growth, acquisitions that have expanded Annodata's portfolio of services, a spate of large new business wins, and a number of strategically important appointments to strengthen our senior management team - all things that have helped to contribute to our continued success.

"Businesses across the board are trying to streamline the number of suppliers they work with down to a trusted few, and our customers increasingly look to us to take on ever greater portions of their IT estates.

"It's here where we see the greatest growth potential for Annodata. This year our focus will very much be on growing the cloud, managed services and ICT parts of the business and I have every confidence that we will maintain our healthy growth rates."

ISPA has welcomed the the Advertising Standards Authority's (ASA) research into how consumers engage with broadband adverts, but says that more detailed research is needed to corroborate the survey findings.

"Price is only one factor when a consumer chooses a service and the engagement with an advert is only one part of a purchasing decision," said Nicholas Lansman, Secretary General of ISPA. "We urge the ASA to consider the whole customer experience when consulting on changes to its advertising guidelines.
 
"The UK has a highly competitive broadband market and informed and empowered consumers are an important part of this. This is supported by Ofcom's own figures that show the UK benefits from some of the most competitive broadband pricing.

"Beyond adverts, ISPs provide clear information if consumers engage more closely with them, for example by going to their website, visiting a shop, working with comparison and consumer websites or by calling the providers. This has not been reflected in the survey which is based on a small sample size with some of the reviewed adverts only being shown to 8 participants.
 
"We look forward to working together with our members and the ASA on how to empower and inform consumers, and it is worth emphasising that the adverts that were used in the survey fully comply with current guidelines."

Chess' annual financial results indicate how far the company has evolved with acquisitions and product portfolio expansion driving a 33% increase in turnover to £74m and an EBITDA increase of 13% to over £14m. The business has also taken its headcount to 450-plus people.

David Pollock, Chief Executive, said: "2015 saw us continue to reduce our reliance on fixed line call revenues with a real focus on growth in cloud and ICT product sales.

"We have invested in business systems and infrastructure and made some significant appointments to strengthen the senior management team across the Group.

"We are excited by our future plans having recently secured a £50m bank facility to support our acquisition strategy in 2016."

Key acquisitions include Avenir Mobile (UK) in June 2014, adding more than 78,000 mobile connections and 200 resellers. Other acquisitions of note include Parachute IT and Compwise ICT businesses, strengthening Chess' ICT offering.

2015 also saw Chess collect a number of awards and accreditations.

Overline Network Consultants is to supply a hosted telephone system that will service almost 700 employees at Adur & Worthing Councils.

The contract builds on Overline's experience of providing bespoke solutions to large local organisations such as Shoreham Port Authority, The Queen Alexandra Hospital and The Amex stadium.

Overline Director Jason Young said: "It's fantastic to see Adur & Worthing Councils working with cutting edge technology provided by a local company."

The European Union wants guarantees of effective limits on US authorities' power to request people's personal information from companies to conclude a new EU-US data transfer pact, a top EU official said on Monday, as a deadline from EU privacy regulators looms, reports Reuters.

Securing sufficient assurances US spies will not access Europeans' personal data indiscriminately once it is transferred across the Atlantic has been a major point in two years of talks on a new framework for protecting data shifted to the United States. Under EU data protection law, companies cannot transfer EU citizens' personal data to countries outside the 28-nation bloc deemed to have insufficient privacy safeguards, of which the United States is one.

"We need guarantees that there is effective judicial control of public authorities' access to data for national security, law enforcement and public interest purposes," EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said at a conference in Brussels.

The talks took on added urgency in October when the EU's top court struck down the 15-year-old Safe Harbour framework, used by more than 4,000 firms to transfer Europeans' data across the Atlantic easily, because the material was vulnerable to being accessed by US authorities on national security grounds.

Adding to the pressure, EU data protection authorities gave the two sides until the end of January to come up with a new framework for protecting data transferred to the United States, failing which they could start taking enforcement action against companies. Jourova said talks would continue on the margins of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Andrus Ansip, the EU Commissioner responsible for digital affairs, is due to meet US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker on Thursday. The Commission is also seeking more transparency on limits to US security services collecting personal data, Jourova said.

US negotiators have so far resisted a mandatory system for companies to report numbers of US government access requests, people familiar with the talks have said. However, one alternative would be for the United States to keep the EU informed on how often US authorities access personal data on national security grounds as part of an annual review process of the new framework, two of the people said, accordinig to Reuters.

Chinese technology and investment group Cocoon Networks is launching a £500m ($720m) London-based venture capital fund aimed at investing in UK and European tech startups.

Cocoon Networks, which has the backing of China Equity Group, one of the first investors in to Baidu, China's answer to Google, and Hanxin Capital, which specialises in cloud computing and bio tech investments, will look to invest in tech companies whose products and services show promise and potential for growth in the Chinese market.

The fund will look to invest in tech companies across a wide range of sectors including fintech, biotech, medical devices and the UK's creative tech industries, like fashion-tech. Companies looking to expand into China will also be offered assistance in navigating Chinese legislation and practical help about doing business there.

As part of a wider investment, Cocoon Networks, in partnership with University College London, is also setting up an incubator space, in order to provide the best environment for growing tech startups. 

John Zai, Founder and CEO, Cocoon Networks said: "The fund will provide capital to help the development of some excellent technology and innovative projects in London and the UK. The fund and incubator programme will bring awareness for more Chinese investors to get into London's booming technology sector. It will also help many companies grow and expand into China."

The incubator, a 70,000 sq ft building is situated in the heart of London's Tech City close to Moorgate, Liverpool St, and Old Street stations.

Cocoon says it will not only be an incubating space for technology companies but it will also work with some of London's universities to attract talent, offer accelerator programmes and co-working spaces. 

The incubator will work with startups to take products from the concept phase and test them in a real environment - Cocoon's own digital testing labs - before going live on the public market. Cocoon says this testing and support infrastructure enables startups to compete on a level playing field with larger companies.

Over the last nine months 28 Chinese companies, worth £23million ($33m) to the city's economy, have already pledged to set up in London, with that figure expected to rise to nearer 40 by the end of March 2016. The previous best year for Chinese investment in London was in 2011/12 when 30 Chinese companies came to the city.

Li Cha, Founder and Managing Partner, iStart Ventures LLC, added: "The Chinese economy is vastly in need of innovation which comes from either competition in the domestic market or from international inspiration. In this respect, London is a good source of international trends and aspiration in technology and cultural creativity. Chinese investors have started exploring opportunities outside of China, in order to grab hold of global cutting edge technology as well as to diversify their portfolios. In light of this, London serves as the best hub in Europe."