Comms Dealer

A new study from Juniper Research has found that wireless charging adoption for mobile devices will increase rapidly in the coming years, with nearly 40% of households in the US and over 20% in Europe using wireless charging by 2020.

The new research - Wireless Charging: Opportunities, Applications & Standards 2015-2020 - demonstrates how the technology can provide a springboard for many data services, across a range of sectors, as well as providing more convenient power. However, consumer perceptions of the technology, particularly around its efficiency compared to wired charging, are likely to keep interest in the technology relatively low in the short term.

With more devices now implementing wireless charging (smartphones, tablets, wearables and soon laptops), infrastructure providers are starting to roll out support for the technology, in a way similar to public or customer Wi-Fi. The research notes that this visible infrastructure presence has a key role to play in increasing awareness of the technology, where it can be tried without committing to a purchase.

One of the biggest areas of potential for wireless charging in the coming years will be the provision of additional data-based services alongside the charging itself. While easing 'battery anxiety' is a key appeal of the technology, the easy data exchange will in future enable a variety of over-the-air services through the charging points.

"Wireless charging will ultimately be about more than the power and speed of charge," said research author, James Moar. "The ability to pinpoint device location through data exchange enables all kinds of location-based activation functions around the home, the car and in the leisure industry. Industry stakeholders must be ready to leverage this capacity."

Other key findings include:
• With regulatory and MNO approval, Japan will lead the world in adopting longer-ranged resonance-based charging technologies. In cost-driven markets, induction-based charging will remain predominant for the next 5 years.

• A fifth of all wearable devices will incorporate wireless charging by 2020. This will have a huge impact on the space, permitting diverse designs without physical connectors.

The wearables market is set to treble in size in the next five years and become worth over $25 billion, according to industry analyst firm, CCS Insight.

Its new global forecast for wearable devices - which includes smartwatches, fitness trackers, augmented and virtual reality headsets, and wearable cameras - indicates the market is set to grow from 84 million units in 2015 to 245 million units in 2019.

"Smartwatches will remain the main source of wearables revenue, delivering over $9 billion of sales in 2015," said Ben Wood, CCS Insight's chief of research.

"Those who labelled Apple Watch a failure need to think again. In its first quarter of sales it accounted for around $1 billion of revenue and we expect sales to continue to rise, particularly in the all-important fourth quarter."

Furthermore, the explosive growth of fitness trackers will see sales more than double in volume between 2014 and 2015. Until 2019, these devices will remain the biggest wearables category by unit sales.

CCS Insight expects China to eclipse the US in 2015 as the biggest market for fitness trackers, reaching an impressive 18.5 million units as local brand Xiaomi steps up production of its Mi Band and other suppliers look for growth in this market. The fitness band market in China is predicted to be twice the size of the US market and 2.5 times that of Western Europe by 2018.

Wood continued: "As we predicted, consumer awareness of wearables in key markets like China, the US and UK has gone sky-high in 2015. We believe this can be attributed to what we are calling the 'Apple Watch effect' as well as the growing success of brands such as Fitbit in the US and Xiaomi in China."

Another area CCS Insight believes will see considerable growth is wearable cameras. In terms of volume, it will remain the third biggest wearables category for the next three years, with 19 million wearable cameras forecast to be sold in 2017. Despite GoPro currently having a strong hold over the market, CCS Insight expects competition to heat up from 2016 onwards as others target this emerging segment.

Wood said: "As smartphone margins gets squeezed to increasingly uncomfortable levels, it comes as little surprise that many manufacturers are turning to wearables in the hope that they will be the next big source of growth in consumer electronics. However, we caution that these devices will not be immune from the rapid declines in price and profit margins seen in smartphones. Only those players with huge scale, broad distribution, a strong brand and giant marketing budgets will ultimately succeed."

Provider of website hosting and domain registration services Planet Hippo has launched Site Designer, a new website builder solution available as a core component of its hosting packages, enabling users to build their own websites in as little as 10 minutes without needing specialist software skills or the assistance of expensive web developers.

According to Darren Lavender, Managing Director of Planet Hippo: "Site Designer will revolutionise the way that websites can be built and significantly reduce the cost of having a professional looking internet presence."

Site Designer provides access to hundreds of professionally designed templates and over three million stock images.

Every template is fully responsive making them compatible with smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices as pages, text and images are automatically for optimum viewing regardless of screen format.

Users can change templates as often as required, with all text and pictures automatically reformatted to the new design, keeping websites fresh to maintain the interest of visitors.

Users can also add text, pictures, maps and video with the click of a mouse. Additional drag and drop content items include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google Maps as well as YouTube and Flickr.

Planet Hippo offers a range of hosting packages with Site Designer as a standard component. A fully featured ecommerce cart is also available as part of the Enterprise package which includes templates that allow the building of an unlimited number of catalogue pages.

Virgin Media Business is to power up to 3,000 businesses in Manchester's thriving Northern Quarter with ultrafast connectivity, giving a boost to the local economy and business productivity in the area.

This announcement comes ahead of a report released tomorrow by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) exploring digital demand among SMEs and the importance of Internet access to their business.

In addition, a study by McKinsey Global Institute estimates that SME productivity could be increased by 10% by doing more online.

Through a package that has been designed to support the connectivity needs of businesses located in multi-tenanted buildings, 3,000 businesses co-located in 300 buildings within Manchester's nine postcode Northern Quarter will now have access to fast and reliable dedicated Internet connections.

Once the ultrafast fibre is installed directly into the premises, each of the small businesses gets their own dedicated Internet connection with equal upload and download speeds.

Similar packages were launched earlier this year in London's Tech City, a technology cluster located in East London. More than 450 London businesses, located in 70 buildings, are now being connected to Virgin Media Business's dedicated connections.

Each small business in a building connected with fibre by Virgin Media Business is able to apply for a subsidy from the Government's SuperConnected Cities scheme.

In his spring budget Chancellor George Osborne announced that the Government will allocate £4 million to establish a technology start-up hub in the Northern Quarter to help create 'thriving local ecosystems' similar to those seen in London.

This followed on from a report published by Tech Nation earlier this year which highlighted that Greater Manchester has seen a 70 per cent growth in digital companies between 2010 and 2013 with one of the highest average company turnover growth rates in the UK.

Peter Kelly, Managing Director, Virgin Media Business, said: "A central part of any technology hub is reliable, secure high-speed Internet. This can make the difference between thriving and merely surviving for small and medium sized businesses so I'm thrilled we're able to bring Manchester's vibrant business community our latest package with the fastest broadband speeds."

Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, added: "Virgin Media Business' investment in Manchester is welcome. Quick, reliable broadband is the backbone of our digital economy, transforming the way businesses operate and the services they can provide. This announcement represents a bespoke ultra-fast broadband package for small and medium enterprises and will help support some of Manchester's most digitally minded and creative businesses."

The Government's vow to spend £1 out of every £3 with small businesses can only be achieved through a revamping of how IT services are procured in the IT public sector, claimed Cloud Services Provider Outsourcery.

Decades of choosing single, large-scale providers on extended contracts have led to inefficiencies in the public sector and 'choked out' smaller providers, said the firm.

This commitment to SMEs must include a disaggregation of Government IT systems, which has the potential to save Government agencies millions each year. With the potential for such dramatic savings, this is 'great news for taxpayers in the UK', according to Outsourcery.

Simone Hume, Head of Public Sector at Outsourcery, said: "Technology is now so pervasive across Government that it simply will not be able to achieve these new targets without a focus on IT suppliers.

"Over time, many Government departments and agencies have outsourced their IT services to large organisations. However, this practice has led to lengthy contract lock-ins, business continuity risk in moving away from the chosen supplier, capital investment in outdated infrastructures and an inability to take advantage of new technologies - to name but a few of the problems.

"This is before mentioning how cost-ineffective this method to IT delivery and management can be.

"The Government is moving towards a disaggregated Government IT system, which is fantastic news. Government departments will be able to focus more on innovation, agility and value for money, which wouldn't have been possible before.

"A multi-sourced vendor strategy, taking full advantage of more agile SMEs, enables Government agencies to quickly switch suppliers to higher-performing, more cost-effective vendors throughout the life of the service. Greater progression at a better price is surely a win-win for the government, SME vendors and the public."

Outsourcery works closely with the UK Public Sector. The company's Co-CEO, Piers Linney, was recently appointed to techUK's Public Services Board which seeks to drive improved efficiencies in the public sector through the adoption of new technologies.the UK and especially in the pockets of taxpayers."

Nimans has taken delivery of a multi-line wireless telephone system that starts at a 'budget-busting trade price', claimed the distributor.

The Alcatel DECT 312 system is based on a three line DECT platform that can be expanded to up to 12 devices.

Nimans says the flexible technology is suited for small businesses, restaurants and hotels.

Ian Brindle, Head of Conferencing and Telephony Sales, says the 312 is one of the few products on the market that blends both an analogue telephone system with DECT GAP compatibility at an attractive price point.

It features a base unit, easy plug and play set-up (in minutes) auto attendant functionality and a capacity for three simultaneous calls.

"As this system is DECT GAP compatible you can add up to nine additional DECT handsets of almost any kind. Resellers also have the option of plugging in a traditional DECT corded desktop phone if desired. The multi-line flexibility and expandability make it perfect for small businesses, restaurants and hotels," he added.

Increasing demand for the provision of IT and telecoms as a managed service is revolutionising the IT industry and creating new opportunities for both vendors and resellers, according to IT Europa.

The changing buying behaviour that is accompanying this revolution and the demand for platforms and technologies to support the delivery and consumption of IT applications and services has created a fertile environment for the growth and development of a new generation of vendors with a range of applications to support the evolving needs of MSPs, believes the research house.

Many of these companies will be participating and speaking at the Managed Services and Hosting Summit, to be held in London on 17th September.

The range of enabling solutions they provide spans everything from professional services and remote management automation solutions, through data centre connectivity and Cloud-based security solutions to storage and financing.

"I think we can say that the baton has been passed to many new rising names in the supply of managed services," said John Garratt, Editor of IT Europa, who has been coordinating content for the Managed Services and Hosting Summit 2015.

"Our keynote, from Gartner's Mark Paine, looks at how managed services work in the digital economy, and I know he has research on how the whole traditional IT sales model is changing to engage with the new customers and how they buy.

"At the same time, among the 20 or so sponsors of the event, many of whom are making presentations, there are some very new businesses, as well as a number returning to the event from previous years."

They are reflecting changes in how technologies are being used. For example, the event will hear from Bob Aitchison, EMEA Sales Director at QLogic, talking about Connectivity and Productivity trends in the data centre.

The issues of managed security will be discussed by Nadia Karatsoreos, Community Manager at MAXfocus, while SolidFire CEO Dave Wright has a few things to say about how the cloud changes if infrastructure is not a limitation.

Breakout sessions will give the circa 350 delegates a chance to go into more detail, with presentations from Autotask, ConnectWise, Databarracks, Datto, MAXfocus, QLogic, Sciencelogic, SolidFire, Sunrise, Tintri, Webroot/Azlan and HP Financial Services in partnership with Westcoast. There will also be discussion panels and a final round-up session.

For further information or to register visit: www.mshsummit.com

Westcon Group is to stage a multi-channel technology summit at London's Grange St Paul's Hotel on 15th October.

The event, called ENGAGE2015, will see teams from the Comstor, Westcon Security and Westcon Unified Communications and Collaborations practices jointly host a full day of solution-selling seminars and vendor exhibitions.

The vendor line-up includes Avaya, Cisco, F5, Juniper, Microsoft, Oracle, Palo Alto, Plantronics, Polycom and more.

"This is the first time Westcon Group has brought its full portfolio of vendors together for a UK partner event," commented Tony Nevill, General Manager UK&I for Westcon Group. "We are focusing on sales leadership and partner development.

"We see our partners increasingly looking to undertake a consultative approach with both new and existing customers, offering solutions to address their day-to-day business challenges.

"At ENGAGE2015 we will not only present the latest technologies for partners' consideration but also task presenters with demonstrating how they solve those business challenges, identify how partners can exploit disruptive trends such as the increasing number of hacking threats and realise recurring revenues whilst differentiating their proposition."

Cybersecurity company Webroot has commended its channel for significant growth in the fourth fiscal quarter, following expansion of the company's network of MSPs and other channel partners.

Webroot drove strong license sales in consumer (up 14%), and business (71%); with OEM up 92% year-on-year.

For the fiscal year, Webroot added 5.3 million new home users, over 1 million new business endpoints and over 3,100 new MSP partners.

The company also welcomed a number of new and important strategic technology partners.

Webroot sharpened its focus on global channel development in FY2015 by signing 3,100 new MSPs, and a number of elite value-added resellers (VARs) and distributors in each region.

Channel announcements included the new Webroot Channel Edge Partner Program during the fiscal year.

Nimans is set to stage two NEC workshops with Manchester United's Old Trafford football stadium named as the venue for one of the half-day sessions on NEC's SV9100 and SL1100 comms platforms (October 15th).

The second workshop takes place at NEC's Ruddington HQ near Nottingham.

Paul Burn, Nimans' Head of Category Sales, said: "The workshops are suited to existing NEC resellers - to boost their knowledge - and those new to the brand.

"These are interactive hands-on events with plenty of opportunity for delegate engagement and for resellers to get hands on with the equipment.

"The Old Trafford event features a pitch side view plus the opportunity of a stadium experience."