Comms Dealer

Distributor of wireless comms kit Purdicom has gained a stronger foothold in the CCTV sector following its acquisition of UKB Solutions.

Purdicom says the move is the first in a buy and build strategy and it hopes to double business within 18 months on the back of the deal.

Purdicom will continue to serve UKB Solution's customers, primarily in the CCTV and security space.
 
Hugh Garrod, MD at Purdicom, said: "UKB Solutions is an excellent fit for us as we serve complementary wireless markets and share many of the same vendors.

"This acquisition is significant as it provides us with both expertise and customers in the CCTV and security markets."

Fidelity Energy has secured over £50m worth of energy supplies under its management just three years after launch.

The Newbury-based business enables resellers to add energy to their portfolios and build on established customer relationships.

MD John Haw said: "This is a significant achievement for the business and testament to the work the team and our partners have put in.

"The portal, a set of exclusive renewable energy offers and marketing support are giving our partners an edge in the market.

"Couple that with their strong customer relationships and it's a winning formula."

Berry Telecom has joined forces with distributor Pragma in a deal that sees the Salisbury-based reseller take to market Ericsson-LG's iPECS range of on-premise, cloud and UC solutions.

Paul Hallam, co-owner of Berry Telecom, said: "In launching iPECS as our communications platform we are confident that with support from Pragma we will continue on our path of rapid and profitable growth."

Pragma MD Tim Brooks added: "Berry is a phenomenal reseller and we look forward to supporting its business growth over the coming years."

The power of education as a door opener to adjacent markets has been emphatically underscored by the success of Daisy Distribution's Partner Academy launched in April.

The scheme has already seen scores of mobile-centric partners extend their portfolios and market reach in areas once alien to them.

Dave McGinn, Daisy Distribution MD, said: "Airtime was our bread and butter, it's our heritage and many of our partners' too. So to expect them to just grasp connectivity, Wi-Fi and cloud etc overnight would be foolish of us. That is how the Partner Academy came about."

Six sessions have been completed by 64 partner delegates with a further 94 booked into the scheme.

The distributor has already seen 45 of those traditional mobile partners place orders for lines and calls, broadband, Ethernet, hosted voice, mobile and Wi-Fi.

"It's fantastic to see in such a short space of time how these sessions have helped our historically mobile-centric partners open up their businesses to new opportunities," added McGinn.

"It's about us connecting with our partners in a way that allows them to connect with their customers and play an important part in their digital journeys."

Subjects covered by the Partner Academy so far include Daisy's hosted voice solution HV.Select, Break-fix Maintenance, Daisy Wi-Fi and Intelligent Mobile.

Two more themes will be added later in the year -Connectivity for Productivity and the Digital Workplace.

Channel Telecom MD Clifford Norton is already in a full swing of anticipation ahead of the firm's upcoming annual partner golf day, the ninth of its kind and this year staged at the dazzling RAC Club, Woodcote Park in Surrey, on July 27th.

"This exceptional course offers players the opportunity to enjoy one of the most superior golfing day's available in the country and we're thrilled to be able to share the experience with our hard working partners," he enthused.

"This event is a key date in our calendar. It's a great way to network and keep up to date with industry peers, and it's a token of appreciation that we are able to extend to our loyal associates. Bring your game, it's going to be a great day!"

A deal between Welsh mobile network RWG Mobile and broadcaster S4C will catalyse the development of a digital platform to provide RWG's customers with S4C content including coverage of live sporting events on their mobile phones.

The deal follows investments in RWG Mobile by Finance Wales and S4C's commercial subsidiary SDML.

RWG Mobile launched its mobile network less than a year ago targeting the Welsh market and aims to secure 90,000 new customers within its first three years.

RWG Mobile founder and CEO Andrew Davies said: "In bringing together a media company and our mobile network we aim to share information, develop our capabilities and open the door to creating a cross-platform communications company for the future.

"The bigger mobile networks use their size and buying power to leverage deals and offers from lots of different providers, such as tickets to concerts or sporting events for example, but these offers are not always relevant to people living and working in Wales.

"Our model is based on local partnerships and, as our subscriber base grows, we will develop an incentive programme that meets the needs of our users."

Figures suggest that one in ten Welsh consumers access the Internet exclusively through a mobile phone, thought to be more than twice the UK average.

RWG Mobile delivers mobile communication via its own SIM card that offers pan-Wales and UK coverage as well as international roaming capability and 4G connection.

To complement the service the company has developed and launched an app for Apple and Android smartphones and tablets, allowing customers to use multiple numbers to make and receive calls over the Internet using Wi-Fi connection.

"The business and farming communities in Wales will appreciate the value and advantages of the app as it allows calls to be made using their business number where mobile signals are weak, helping to negate the notorious 'not spots' effect within Wales," added Davies

Elin Morris, Corporate and Commercial Director at S4C, added: "S4C viewers will be able to watch our content without eating into their mobile phone's data allowance."

Pictured: RWG Mobile founder and CEO Andrew Davies

AudioCodes has signed a pan-EMEA distribution agreement with distribution business Nuvias. The move follows the launch of Nuvias' Unified Communications (UC) Practice across EMEA.

Nuvias is now able to offer end-to-end solutions and technical support for Skype for Business and BroadSoft Business UC environments, based on AudioCodes' Session Border Controllers (SBCs) and handsets.

As part of the agreement, Nuvias has also been appointed as master distributor for AudioCodes' range of Skype for Business and SIP handsets across EMEA, to ensure a rapid response to meet growing demand from the channel.

AudioCodes worked with SIPHON Networks in the UK for two years prior to SIPHON being acquired by the Nuvias Group at the end of 2016, and AudioCodes now sees the opportunity to replicate this successful relationship across EMEA.

The initial focus will be on 16 key countries where Nuvias is already well established including DACH, France, Spain, Italy and the Nordics.

The worldwide total converged systems market increased 4.6% year-over-year to $2.67bn during the first quarter of 2017, according to analyst house IDC, including a big jump in hyperconverged sales.

Hyperconverged revenues grew 64.7% year-over-year during the first quarter, generating $665.1m in sales, amounting to 24.9% of the total converged market value.

"Converged systems have become an important source of innovation and growth for the data centre infrastructure market," said Eric Sheppard, an analyst at IDC.

"These solutions represent a conduit for the key technologies driving much needed data centre modernisation and efficiencies such as flash, software-defined infrastructure and private cloud platforms."

IDC's converged systems market view covers four segments - integrated infrastructure, certified reference systems, integrated platforms and hyperconverged systems.

"A key characteristic of hyperconverged systems that differentiate these solutions from other integrated systems is their scale-out architecture, and their ability to provide all compute and storage functions through the same x86 server-based resources." added Sheppard.

During the first quarter, IDC said the combined integrated infrastructure and certified reference systems market generated revenues of $1.37bn, which represented a year-over-year decrease of 3.3% and 51.3% of the total market.

Dell EMC was the largest supplier of this combined market segment with $647.8m in sales, or 47.2% share of the market segment. Dell EMC was followed by the Cisco/NetApp alliance in second place and HPE.

Integrated platform sales declined 13.3% year-over-year during the first quarter, generating $635.9m worth of sales. This amounted to 23.8% of the total market revenue.

Oracle was the top-ranked supplier of integrated platforms, generating revenues of $348.7m and capturing a 54.8% share of the segment. Oracle was followed by HPE in second, and IBM and Hitachi who tied for third.

Struggling outsourcing firm Capita has sold its Capita Asset Services (CAS) business to Sydney-headquartered Link Administration Holdings for £888m in cash to help reduce its debts.

CAS provides asset and company administration, sourcing investment, distribution, governance, finance and accounting and data analytics.

There will be £72m in costs related to cutting out CAS from the wider Capita business, including a £17m one-off pension contribution at the Leeds-headquartered business. Link provides outsourced administration services and employs 4,300 people across 11 countries.

Capita issued its first-ever profit warning last year, related to the IT reseller and recruitment sector segments of the business, and problems with a couple of big outsourcing contracts.

Capita CEO Andy Parker, who resigned in March and who will leave once his replacement is found, said of the CAS sale: "Last year, we set out a strategy to simplify and streamline Capita by repositioning the group and refocusing on delivering technology-enabled business and customer management solutions that make business processes smarter and deliver better customer service.

"This disposal is an important step in realising this strategy. We have achieved an attractive price and the reduction in leverage is significant."

Bitglass has signed distribution agreements with a number of distributors across EMEA to drive sales for its cloud access security broker (CASB) and agent-less mobile security solution.

US-headquartered Bitglass entered the EMEA market at the beginning of this year. It has now signed distribution agreements with Ignition in the UK, NEOVAD in France and Lidera Networks for both the Spanish and Portuguese markets.

Bitglass offers real-time, end-to-end data protection for cloud apps, including Office 365, Salesforce and the G Suite to devices.

"There has been a huge surge in demand for cloud security from enterprises as cloud adoption accelerates," said Eduard Meelhuysen, VP sales EMEA at Bitglass.

"We look forward to building close relationships with partners in the region."

Sean Remnant, chief strategy officer at Ignition Technology, said: "The increasing demand for solutions that protect data across cloud environments and mobile devices has started to manifest into real budget lines which is a great opportunity for our channel partners."

"Adding Bitglass to our growing portfolio of software-based security solutions allows our channel partners to address many of their customers' growing data protection challenges, including GDPR, shadow IT, BYOD and the prolific rise of malware. We're already working with a handful of strategic partners and are looking to grow to around eight focused UK partners in total."

In February 2017, Bitglass announced a new technology partnership with intelligent AV vendor Cylance to bring advanced threat protection to the cloud and BYOD. The combined solution is designed to stop the proliferation of 'all threats', including zero day exploits, on any device - managed or unmanaged - and any enterprise cloud application.