Comms Dealer

Entanet CEO Elsa Chen has been shortlisted as a finalist in a further award programme recognising female technology leaders and their valuable contribution to the industry.

Chen has been named as a finalist in the category of Business Leader of the Year in the Women in IT Awards 2016, organised by business technology magazine, Information Age.

This latest shortlisting follows an earlier finalist nomination in the PCR Woman of the Year Awards and a series of company award wins throughout the year, including the Comms Business Award for Wholesale Service Provider of the Year- Large, ISPA Award for Best SME Business Broadband and CRN Sales & Marketing Award for Best Vendor Account Management Team.

Chen said: "It's an honour to be shortlisted for this award and it's recognition of the strong results achieved by the whole Entanet team.

"We've had a very successful 2015 with significant year-on-year growth, the launch of a number of innovative new tools and systems, onboarding of several key strategic relationships and, of course, success in a number of award programmes. We strive to continue this success into 2016 and beyond with the continued support of our loyal channel partners."

Following another strong year for cybersecurity players, FBR analyst Dan Ives stated: "Our recent field checks heading into 2016 suggest 'robust' deal momentum as enterprises and governments across the board upgrade to next-generation security platforms/software.

"Based on our conversations with channel partners/customers over the last few weeks, closure rates look to be trending higher year over year, with seven-figure deals markedly up in the pipeline. This speaks to the massive firewall refresh that is underway, with hot areas of security (next-generation firewall, e-mail security, mobile/cloud) as the main beneficiaries."

He expects next-gen firewall leader Palo Alto Networks to be a major beneficiary.

Others expected to benefit include firewall/security software vendor Check Point, privileged account security software leader CyberArk, unified threat appliance leader Fortinet, e-mail/compliance security software firm Proofpoint (NASDAQ:PFPT), and Web app firewall and data security software firm Imperva.

Ives is less bullish on malware and endpoint-protection hardware and software provider FireEye, citing execution and product-related headwinds. His note comes three weeks after Citi reported a CIO survey pointed to strong enterprise security spend. FireEye (upgraded), Palo Alto, Splunk, and Imperva were favorably mentioned.

Former Fujitsu CTO Jon Wrennall has joined Advanced Computer Software Group as new CTO.

Wrennall brings 20 years experience to his new role. He spent the last five years as CTO of Fujitsu UK and Ireland, overseeing 1,200 architects and driving change across all areas of the business.

During his time there, the company, which has an annual turnover of £1.7 billion, grew from a largely public sector client base to nearly 50% private sector.

Prior to moving to Fujitsu Wrennall served as Chief Information Officer, Transformation Director and SIRO at the Valuation Office Agency (VOA).

Before joining the VOA, he served as Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs' first Chief Technology Officer, leading the integration of the former Inland Revenue and Customs & Excise organisations.

At both organisations, he drove savings of £600 million and led IT and business transformations that have helped shape how UK businesses interface with the public sector.

Wrennall said: "I cannot think of a better time to join Advanced. The business is going through an exciting period of growth and is investing heavily in software development, so I see this as a massive opportunity to build on the broad set of products and services."

Gordon Wilson, CEO, Advanced Computer Software Group, added: "Jon brings experience to the role as well as a passion for technology and proven leadership skills, which will further enhance our products and take us closer to our goal of becoming a world class business."

Wrennall is a Chartered Engineer, Fellow of the British Computer Society, founding Fujitsu Fellow and member of the Advisory Board for leading application intelligence company, AppDynamics.

The traditional fixed line and mobile carrier's days could be numbered if the roll out of a new ‘Global Mesh' project by the automotive industry goes to plan.

The project could see the delivery of about 100 million wireless access points per annum in new cars across the planet.

Nathan Stewart from IT and Cloud solutions provider Total Group, who is technical lead for the initiative set for launch in 2021, told Comms Dealer: "Within two years of launch the automotive industry will have more coverage and bandwidth than the existing copper, fibre and mobile networks combined. They will overnight become a super carrier."

It's expected that by 2022 the automotive ‘Global Mesh' will provide 10Gb wireless bandwidth across the globe anywhere within a few kilometres of a modern car.

Stewart says the network will be self-building, self-upgrading, self-powering and, as an infrastructure investment model, existing carriers will not be able to compete.

"Every new car will have an access point. The mesh will have complete global wireless coverage and visibility of over 10 billion devices and approximately six billion people," he said.

"By 2021 we expect that the access points will be ratified at 802.11ax standard or better, providing multiple gigabit bandwidth over many kilometres by 2023.

If the project comes to fruition it could have a huge impact on the existing telecommunications industry. Facebook and Google have similar plans for global wireless coverage. Stewart believes it will change network provision paradigms and will push ICT resellers into completely new business models.

"A free fast global wireless network could be disruptive for personal, residential and SME line rental and connectivity but we think enterprise connectivity will be slow adopters.

"Existing carriers will very likely leverage the network and data products will be available to resellers and distributors.

"I suspect that for the reseller community revenue will shift from providing lines and connectivity to providing solutions, security, data, IT services and marketing products.

"If the network is freely provided the data rights and ability to leverage big data and marketing influence increases.

"By 2022 a further three billion people and 10 billion devices are expected to start using the internet. A great opportunity awaits resellers that adapt and adopt new solutions and prepare to leverage the user and IoT explosion.

"The ability to leverage and profit from free wireless is well proven in the retail and hospitality space and resellers will need plan for how similar models can work on a global basis," added Stewart.

Chess Telecom's acquisition strategy has been boosted by a new £50m finance facility from Barclays. Recent acquisitions have expanded Chess' reach into the cloud, data and hosted space and include IRW Systems, Parachute IT, elbillz, Integra ICT, Avenir Telecoms and The CRM Business. The new deal will enable Chess to refinance its existing facilities and bolster its war chest for future M&A activity.

The facility will also fund a management incentive scheme via a new share ownership plan.
 
Richard Btesh, Director at Chess, commented: "The funding received from Barclays demonstrates the success of our strategy of acquiring small to mid-sized telecoms businesses and our move towards the cloud, data and hosted space."
 
The deal was arranged by Barclays in Manchester led by Richard Faulkner, Relationship Director for Technology, Media and Telecoms, Glenn Clarke and Ed Hastrop, Debt Finance.
 
Faulkner said: "Our industry focus and understanding of the telecoms sector has enabled us to structure a finance solution that fits well with Chess's acquisition strategy.

"We have a dedicated northern TMT team and I am confident the funding from Barclays will allow Chess continued growth and profitability and to maximise their potential."

As part of a deal declared to be an expansion of the companies' 'long-term strategic relationship', AT&T is 'transitioning' its managed app and managed hosting services unit to IBM.

IBM will also acquire equipment and floor space access in AT&T data centres supporting the business.

Once the deal closes, IBM will deliver the managed app/hosting services currently provided by AT&T. The offerings will be aligned with IBM's cloud services portfolio.

The move follows a Q3 in which IBM's global tech services revenue fell 10% yr/yr to $7.9bn, and its global business services revenue 13% to $4.2bn, amid cloud and forex pressures.

The company is already a notable player in the managed app and hosting markets, its SoftLayer unit participates in the latter.

Within its Business Solutions segment, AT&T's fixed strategic services revenue (including hosting, Ethernet, cloud, VPN, and security services) rose 12.6% Y/Y in Q3 to $2.76bn. That helped offset an 8.7% drop in legacy voice/data service revenue to $4.5bn.

Red Hat shares rose strongly to a new high after Q3 results which, though below estimates and with a mixed FQ4 guidance showed growth in key sectors.

The Linux/middleware vendor saw its deferred revenue balance rise 14% yr/yr in FQ3 to $1.49bn, a slight pickup from FQ2's 13% growth. Subscription revenue rose 16% to $457m, and training/services revenue 8% to $66.1m.

Within subscriptions, infrastructure-related revenue (Linux and virtualization) rose 12% to $373m, while revenue related to app development and 'other emerging technologies offerings' (middleware, storage software, and cloud software) surged 37% to $84m.

"Our investments in technologies and partnerships continued to generate strong results as customers transform their IT infrastructure through the increasing adoption of open source technologies and cloud computing," stated Jim Whitehurst (below), President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Hat.

"During the third quarter, we strengthened our position in the open hybrid cloud by introducing new technologies and launching a strategic partnership with Microsoft and its Azure Cloud.

"Our initiatives are focused on enabling our customers to build, deploy and manage their applications across multiple environments and infrastructures." 

Red Hat ended FQ3 with $1.87bn in cash, and $729m in convertible debt.

In 2016 the Internet of Things and wearable technologies will continue to dominate and it’s likely robotics and artificial intelligence solutions will go mainstream. These are the key predictions in a new report published by Advanced 365 (Advanced) in association with Global Futures & Foresight.

Neil Cross, Managing Director of Advanced 365, outlines his top six technological developments that organisations should consider in the next 12 months to drive business innovation and growth.

1. A new era of cybercrime – Organisations will increasingly be targeted by independent groups of cyber criminals, with the average cost of a data breach exceeding £100 million by 2020. As businesses become more connected, influenced by technology platforms such as IoT, hackers will develop specific malware with potentially devastating consequences. To mitigate risk, it is vital to develop relationships with trusted partners who can provide security assessments and additional forms of due diligence to address these IT challenges.

2. The rise and fall of apps – Growth in apps is predicted to peak in the short term before consumers switch to virtual assistants in the cloud by 2020. Advanced 365 has developed home and remote control apps in addition to an e-commerce site with back-office data warehousing and reporting facilities for RS Components. Performance data for the company’s Wi-Fi enabled air-conditioning units is sent to the central data warehouse system every five minutes and stored permanently. The improved application architecture has seen monthly revenues increase by 40%.

3. IoT at the edge – IoT is shifting from a connected device (remote sensors and monitoring) to an intelligent device paradigm (equipment, instruments or machines with computing capabilities). Examples include Pizza Hut testing the world’s 'first subconscious menu’ using eye-tracking technology to predict customer choices. To take advantage, organisations will need to ensure that their IT infrastructures are sufficiently robust to store, process and analyse increased volumes of IoT related data close to, or 'at the edge’, of networks.

4. Mobile technologies, including wearables – Consumers and employees are increasingly demanding access to the information they need, when and wherever they need it. The wearable tech market could reach 385 million people worldwide by 2025 which will see it evolve into a viable mass alternative to smartphones. Almost *three-quarters (72%) of consumers believe wearables represent the future of in-store shopping and 50% expect this technology to provide full health monitoring from implantable devices. Bio batteries, where wearables harvest kinetic energy from users, could also emerge as early as 2016.

5. Software robotics – Software robotics enable organisations to generate new growth opportunities and enhance existing products and services. Analyst Gartner believes that by 2017, these autonomics-based managed services and cognitive platforms will reduce the cost of IT solutions by 60% through automating processes currently performed by humans. Businesses should evaluate employee skillsets to determine how Software robotics can augment creative thinking by freeing them from routine tasks. Benefits include reduced costs and better interaction between staff and customers.

6. Virtual reality (VR) – By replacing how we create, share and experience anything, VR technologies will dominate industries that train through simulation, such as aviation and medicine. VR and adjacent solutions are anticipated to generate mass consumer revenues from software platforms and delivery services, television and gaming content and hardware and distribution channels. Organisations should consider how their existing training processes could benefit and examine whether customer engagement would be enhanced from a more experiential form of interaction.

Neil Cross comments, "The speed of innovation within business technology is creating much uncertainty, particularly for organisations who are reluctant to abandon old processes and systems. Whilst disruption should not be underestimated, businesses which are bold enough to embrace change stand to be rewarded with significant opportunities and efficiencies.

"There remains a real need for businesses to understand how the competitive advantages on which they have based their strategy might erode or be enhanced a decade from now by emerging technologies. Greater collaboration and forming alliances with trusted partners is therefore critical to tackling big issues, such as software robotics and cybercrime.\"

PSU Technology Group (PSU) is raffling three prizes including an iPad Mini and two Star Wars BB-8 Interactive Robotic Droids to help raise funds for its local animal shelter this Christmas.
 
The Cheltenham-based company has already brought some early festive cheer to the charity with a £1,000 donation. Having supported the Cheltenham Animal Shelter for the last seven years, the money will be a real boost towards their costs of care.
 
Over the past year the charity has looked after over 800 animals (dogs, cats and other small animals).

With just a few days to Christmas, the shelter's ramping up its campaign activities to bring a little more comfort to the lives of animals waiting to find a suitable new home.
Their Christmas initiatives include a shoe box appeal (which encourages people to bring in a shoe box full of treats and gifts for one of the homeless animals in their care over Christmas); an Amazon Wish List (where supporters can provide some extra comfort for the animals by buying them a gift from the shelter's Amazon Wish List); and Sponsor a Kennel (where individuals or businesses can sponsor a kennel/or cat pod).

The closing date for Prize Draw entries is 30th December - to participate please visit www.justgiving.com/psu-cas

A toy appeal organised by Glasgow-based Exsel is set to put some smiles on children's faces on Christmas morning.

Exsel MD Tom McDonald launched the campaign in association with the Glasgow Care Foundation which will distribute the mountain of toys to needy children in Scotland.

"We collected over 450 gifts which was an amazing result, and I would like to thank everyone who donated and say a massive thank you to the Exsel and Health Rewards staff who worked so hard to make the campaign such a success," said McDonald.