Comms Dealer

NTA has opened a new training facility in its Romford offices and aims to hold two training courses per month with the capacity for up to 10 technicians.

The course content will include how to set up extensions and numbering for a customer's system and then programming the full feature set required on-site via the Hosted Telephony Portal.

Paul White, MD, commented: "Training requests have grown significantly over the last six months. It seems resellers want to take control of our hosted proposition and white label it as their own, so we want to pass our full knowledge onto partners enabling them to be self-sufficient when delivering an end-to-end solution for their customers."

New technical training courses will also be added in early 2016 on the new Wallboard and Dialler applications.

Datto, a provider of data backup, recovery and business continuity solutions, has raised $75 million in a Series B investment round led by Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV), a provider of capital to growth-stage private and public companies in the technology industry.

The Series B brings total investments in Datto to just over $100 million.

Datto founder and CEO Austin McChord said: "TCV brings a wealth of experience and expertise to help us continue to grow, innovate and expand globally.

"As a profitable company, Datto isn't raising capital to fund operations, but to enter new markets and build new products and technology."

The financing comes as Datto is achieving record year-over-year revenue growth, expanding into EMEA and APAC, and launching additional solutions for its partner network and customer base.

Datto manages more than 160 petabytes of data and more than one million backups a week for its customers.

Its Total Data Protection Platform protects customers' business data no matter where it lives - on premises, in virtual or physical servers, or in cloud-based SaaS applications.

Ted Coons, general partner at TCV and new Datto board member, added: "Cloud-based data protection holds great promise in ensuring information is always accessible and recoverable as more organisations conduct business in the cloud, and Datto has a tremendous opportunity to grow internationally in meeting this need."

The offer of a free flu jab was hard to resist for 60 Nimans staff who 'got the needle' from a qualified nurse.

"The vaccine is a preventive measure which lasts for one year and it was gratifying to see so many staff take up the opportunity," said Executive Director Phil Gee.

The scheme forms part of the company's Investors In People policy.

Huawei and Telefónica have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together on 5G.

The two companies will undertake joint evaluation and research into the requirements of a 5G network environment investigating the 5G network architecture needed to deliver 'superlative' data connection speeds with low latency.

Joint activities will include key air interface technology, performance evaluation and prototype verification.

Enrique Blanco, Telefonica Group CTO, said: "5G will have massive impact on the telecommunication industry and in society as a whole. Telefónica doesn´t want the 5G networks start-up to be a specific single event, but rather a process which we want to begin right now."

David Wang, President of Huawei Wireless Product Line, said: "Huawei is investing a tremendous research effort into the 5G key enabling technology. Our collaboration with Telefónica is at the very heart of this commitment to help build better connected societies, businesses and economies, and ensuring 5G success is essential in achieving this."

Pictured: Enrique Blanco (left) and David Wang sign the strategic Memorandum of Understanding.

Dartford-based reseller Astro Communications has called on channel companies to embrace apprentice training after securing double success at the annual Institute of Telecommunications Professionals Awards.

After proudly seeing James Tuck win the ITP SME Apprentice of the Year and Joe Wing a runners-up place at the awards ceremony in London's West End, Astro co-founder and CTO Steve Smith told Comms Dealer: "We were absolutely delighted when they were nominated and for James to go on to win the award and stand alongside some of the UK's industry giants is a huge success for a small company like Astro. The ITP team are hugely supportive enabling small businesses to provide an apprenticeship on par with the likes of BT and Virgin Media.

"Anything that actively promotes the development of young talent within our industry is to be celebrated and Astro will continue to support the ITP and the apprentice programme for many years to come. Furthermore, we strongly recommend other small businesses in our industry do the same. There is no better investment in the future."

The full line up of winners were: ITP SME Apprentice of the Year, James Tuck (Astro);. ITP Intermediate Apprentice of the Year Kayleigh Hunter (Virgin Media); ITP Advanced Apprentice of the Year, Lauren Tiller (BT); ITP Higher Apprentice of the Year Vish Patel (BT); Christopher Mills Award Hadleigh Gaudreau (BT); Chris Seymour Award for Women in Telecoms, Nathalie Vafiadis (EE); ITP Mentor of the Year, Dave Davis( i-Direct).

At the ceremony ITP Chairman Lucy Woods also announced 34 Honorary Fellowships, awarded to individuals who have made substantial contribution to the industry through technical excellence, teaching, high level and successful leadership roles.

The ITP Fellows have also lead original research or other material activities which have moved the industry forward in a positive way. Among this number was Sir Mike Rake, Chairman of BT Group, who has also become a Patron of the ITP.

Adam Oliver, ITP's CEO said: "It was a superb evening, recognising the best talent across the telecoms industry, he added. "We are celebrating some great role models across all the awards."

Paul Lloyd is to lead Entatech UK's first move into the provision of cloud space-based services, heading up the distributor's white label cloud offering, Entacloud, set to be launched in early 2016.

He has much channel experience having worked for a number of service providers over the past 25 years, and in the 'as-a-service' market for the last 10 years.

"There is a great deal of confusion in the market and it is difficult for MSPs to know where to go, or what to do," said Lloyd.

"Entacloud offers a one-stop-shop for cloud services, based on a simple and intuitive interface and business support services to aid resellers as they make this business transition."

Dave Stevinson, Entatech Managing Director, added: "Paul has a clear understanding of the issues and challenges companies will face when looking to move from a transactional to subscription based business. "

Developed in conjunction with Egenera's Xterity Cloud Services, Entacloud will deliver a full range of dedicated, managed, private and hybrid cloud services, including Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DaaS) and Backup as a Service (BaaS) exclusively through the channel.

Informatica is a big company that you may not have heard of unless you are well into big data, but with subscription revenues growth figures of 44% in its last reported figures (Q2 2015), it is raising its profile.

Steve Murphy is the newly appointed VP for EMEA and is looking forward to continuing growth especially now that globally, some 40% of its business is with partners, and this is likely to be higher in EMEA. "I am relying on partners - they are the fastest way to get coverage in EMEA." and he promises to be flexible on partnerships, especially in the emerging markets where traditional roles are less well established. The company now has some 40% of its business "fulfilled by partners"; this has risen from 20% two years ago.

His channels are likely to include systems integrators, service providers, large ISVs, managed services businesses as well as more traditional channels as he predicts that enterprises are going to struggle with big data going forward. "Data is poorly understood, and many will find themselves out of their depths and looking for help," he says. As well as the usual big data targets - financial services and telcos, he can see potential in healthcare, retail and the parts distribution business.

There is a an accelerating pace of change in big data, he tells IT Europa, one that Informatica can only keep up with through its channels. And now that it is a private company, backed by Salesforce.com and Microsoft, it is in a position to do something strategic for the first time. "It really does make a difference, he says. And of course, the two powerful brands and their channels can also help him drive into particular markets, although he is also interested in the "more boutique-y" sort of partner who is a specialist in a particular area or technology.

But he also knows that he has to play the EMEA market differently from the way Informatica has worked in the US: " As well as culture and language, there is a different attitude to data." And he has to get the Informatica name out in front of his potential partners, so expect to see more announcements and events.

TD Azlan will distribute Veritas Technologies' products including SaaS. Veritas Technologies is the new name of the specialist in backup and recovery solutions that has been formed following the completion of the previously announced separation of Symantec into two companies.

Effective immediately, software solutions from Veritas will be available from Tech Data in 13 countries across Europe.

The agreement will enable resellers to use Azlan services, including Business Solution Centres for end-user customer briefings and demonstrations, Azlan value marketing for collaborative demand generation, sales and technical training, and professional services.

In addition, Veritas SaaS will be offered through Tech Data Cloud, enabling resellers and service providers to offer Veritas solutions as part of a hosted or hybrid infrastructure propositions.

Modern Networks has acquired the business of RADD Telecoms, a provider of cabling infrastructure, data and fibre optic cabling services to many construction companies.

"With the continued proliferation of connected devices and new smart building technology - Internet of Things (IoT) and Internet of Everything (IoE) - we are seeing increased demand for service providers to deliver unified, single network solutions into buildings,' said Matt Reeve, CEO of Modern Networks.

Modern Networks and RADD Telecoms now have the capability to deliver major cabling infrastructure projects with advanced network and data centre solutions as single work packages, without the use of a third party.

"With the acquisition of our company by Modern Networks we are now able to offer the proven expertise of its networking capabilities," said Richard Brewster, RADD Telecoms Director.

"We feel this will be of huge benefit to many of our existing client base who historically would need to deploy the services of several companies to achieve their final goal. We can now reduce this to a one stop shop, reducing inherent multi-company problems on major projects."

Joe Garner is to step down as CEO of Openreach after deciding to take up a new challenge as CEO of Nationwide, the building society with 15 million members and Britain's second largest mortgage and savings provider. 

Garner is expected to take up his new post in the spring of 2016 after handing over to his successor who will be named in due course.

He said: "I've greatly enjoyed my time at Openreach and deciding to leave has been an extremely hard decision, but Nationwide is a firm I long admired during my time in financial services.

"The opportunity to become CEO of one of Britain's most important financial institutions and service champions just proved too good to turn down."

Gavin Patterson, CEO, BT Group said: "I am sad to see Joe leave but he is moving to a terrific job and I wish him well.