Comms Dealer

Advanced Health & Care, a supplier of IT solutions for the health and care sectors, has signed a strategic partnership agreement with Cloudhouse, the cloud application virtualisation technology developer.

The partnership provides organisations with the ability to deploy Advanced's solutions in the cloud, enabling cost-efficiencies and economies of scale without the risk of migrating data between multiple platforms.

Running software within a virtualised setting reduces reliance on remote desktops, increases flexibility of deployment and gives users the ability to access the software anytime and from anywhere.

Compatibility issues are also removed, said the firm, ensuring uninterrupted performance regardless of any conflicts across the environment in which the solution runs and the ability to 'click and run' applications irrespective of desktop configuration.

Jim Chase, MD, Advanced Health & Care, said: "This partnership will provide our customers with increased agility, flexibility and accessibility of our solutions, without them needing to allocate time and cost into redeveloping their existing IT infrastructure.

"Organisations will benefit from up-to-date and reliable software available within any environment. This is important in the health and care setting where patient records increasingly need to be stored and accessed electronically in real-time."

Advanced Health & Care's solutions support 1,800 'out of hospital', community care provider organisations in the NHS, local government, third-sector and private sector across Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East.

Impartner has extended its reach into EMEA to meet increased market demand for indirect sales channel solutions. 

The SaaS Partner Relationship Management (PRM) technology company has introduced Impartner PRM, a partner portal solution that can be deployed in 30 days.

The company also named Philippe Ortodoro as Senior VP of EMEA to build a region-wide network of partners.
 
"This expansion is a key part of our strategy to increase our investment and support growing demand, both from partners who would like to sell our products through the channel and from end users looking to differentiate their business with an enterprise-grade PRM solution," said Impartner CEO Joe Wang. 

"With the launch of Impartner PRM, we expect the market opportunity to accelerate. Impartner PRM uses a three-step process that makes choosing, purchasing, and implementing a PRM system simple and quick. It removes the barriers that have kept companies from transforming their partner portals and igniting their indirect channel sales."
 
Principal analyst with Forrester Research, Tim Harmon, said: "Partners regularly report to Forrester that the 'transacting business' element of their vendor relationships is the most burdensome to them and is the one thing that causes them to shift their investments and wallet share to other vendors.

"Given that partners closely associate ease of doing business with your channel IT systems, if your partner loyalty is waning, it's time to reinvest in a more robust, modern PRM capability."
 
In EMEA, Impartner's solutions will be sold primarily through partners. 

"Impartner is looking for a set of highly qualified partners to help us deliver our software to companies who want to ignite their sales through indirect channels," added Ortodoro.

Judges at the Skills for Business awards praised Pennine Telecom for its 'sustained commitment' to staff as they presented two trophies to the Bury-based data and telecommunications specialist.

The company's Ben Howarth fought off stiff competition to be named Apprentice of the Year while Pennine itself was presented with the Manufacturing & Engineering Skills for Business award.

The awards, which reached their climax last night at a ceremony hosted by comic Justin Moorhouse, are designed to recognise Greater Manchester businesses who invest in the training and development of their staff as well as schools and learning providers who provide quality training and individuals who have excelled through developing their skills.

The independent judging panel recognised Pennine's 'sustained commitment' to employees and its 'Train & Retain' recruitment policy.

The group has seen turnover rise year-on-year by 25% and profitability by 27% .

"Judges chose Ben as the Apprentice of the Year due to the big impact he has had on the business at the age of just 22, with mobile sales increasing by 31% in 2014.

"Ben is also a successful Apprentice Ambassador, and works with Bury College and Pennine Telecom's HR Department in presenting a positive outlook on the Apprentice Programme. He has continuously grasped the challenges before him with both hands, which has driven sales for the company and proven him to be an outstanding member of the team."

As well as the two awards Pennine's pre-sales technical engineer Andy Goodman was also shortlisted for the Learning & Skills Champion title.

Ann Barnes, Pennine's HR & Business Support Manager said: "It's fantastic to see the commitment we have made to the development of our staff through 'Train & Retain' being championed by the Skills for Business judging team," she commented.

"We cherish such accolades although we never lose sight of the fact that it is the positive day-to-day impact upon of our personnel development programmes that mark us out as a winner in business."

Pictured: Ben Howarth receives his Apprentice of the Year award from Marie Gilluley, Chair of Greater Manchester Colleges Group, and Skills for Business awards host Justin Moorhouse.

Gamma has extended its connectivity portfolio with the launch of a new MPLS-based wide area networking service aimed at businesses with multiple sites and those looking to converge existing data and telephony networks. Called Converged Private Networks (CPN) the service is fully integrated with Gamma's IP voice products (Gamma SIP Trunks and Horizon cloud PBX), and gives resellers access to a purpose-built combined voice and data network.

According to Gamma, privately connecting multiple sites increases the addressable market and margin opportunity for channel partners selling voice and data solutions.

A single point of contact for both the data and IP voice (including porting) throughout the sales and implementation process, as well as in-life, will also help reduce complexity for channel partners, said the firm.

"With most businesses looking to consolidate their data and voice networks on the back of refreshing their existing WANs, this converged approach offers differentiation by making it easier to do business compared to managing different upstream suppliers for voice and data," said James Bushell, Head of Product Lines at Gamma.

"CPN includes a choice of access including carrier diversity to suit all locations and budgets, criticality and availability.

"Central to the quality proposition is the prioritisation of voice and key business applications using QoS mechanisms.

"It also provides resilient cloud-based Internet access secured by the latest next-generation firewalls built in high availability mode as standard.

"All customer premise routers are supported with a four hour onsite engineer support contract as standard, with both channel partners and end users given access to a monitoring tool to track the performance and availability."

Bushell highlighted the 400,000-plus MPLS solutions live in the UK and noted that customers are coming out of contract every month.

"There's a real opportunity for resellers to address the customer need for a better deal in terms of cost, performance and quality," he added.

Philip Donigan, Sales Director at STL Communications, commented. "Gamma's new MPLS IP VPN service is a timely entrant into what has been a static market.

"As most of the opportunities that we tender for involve the consolidation of legacy voice networks, working with a provider that understands the complexity of voice will give us an edge."

A new report by Juniper Research on the telematics sector has found that the number of in-vehicle apps in use is expected to reach 269 million by 2018, representing a more than fivefold increase on last year's figure.

According to the report, Connected Cars: Consumer & Commercial Telematics and Infotainment 2014-2018, growth will be fuelled by solutions such as Apple's CarPlay, which will promote in-vehicle apps to the mainstream. It also argues that app integration will be facilitated as standardised approaches like MirrorLink are adopted this year by OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers), content providers and automotive entertainment specialists.

"By 2018 most new vehicles will come with integrated apps as standard," said the report's author, Anthony Cox. "After-market app integration will also be commonplace, as head-unit manufacturers launch increasingly sophisticated devices". 

However, he observed that as with smartphone apps, only a small proportion will create revenues for their creators, even though they will enhance the driving experience.

The report found that although the integration of apps into the vehicle will have a profound effect on traditional monetisation models, potentially denting revenues, two factors will favour embedded telematics. Firstly, regulatory initiatives such as the eCall driver safety project and Brazil's regulation Contran 245 governing stolen vehicles, will guarantee the take-up of embedded telematics in several key geographical regions.

Secondly, it argued that the ability to split the telematics "bill" pioneered by major operators, systems integrators and the GSMA, will allow for granular billing of infotainment and other services. This will particularly be the case as streaming and other advanced services become available in developed markets through LTE adoption.

Nevertheless, the report claimed that widespread smartphone tethering and in-vehicle apps would continue to drive down the price of vehicle manufacturers' own embedded telematics infotainment services.

Tech Data has launched a Google Chrome-dedicated microsite that provides information and sales support for resellers on the range of Chrome products offered by the company.

With its own dedicated Google team in place, Tech Data is able to provide training and business development support to resellers on the selection of Chromebook (mobile), Chromebox (desktop) and Chromebase (all-in-one) devices it offers as well as Chrome Management Console (CMC) and Chromebox for Meetings video-conferencing tool.

The Chrome microsite features a device finder that allows partners to access live stock and pricing information and provide an instant quote for customers.

A news section helps partners keep up to date with the latest developments and success stories. Resellers can also register to become a Google Partner on the site.

It also provides details of additional configuration services available from Tech Data, which include pre-shipment device set-up, domain provisioning, asset tagging and CMC policy configuration.

Matt Beresford, Google Business Development Manager at Tech Data, stated: "We have been working with Google for some time to create the microsite and integrate it into our InTouch e-commerce system.

"It's designed to highlight the benefits of Chrome products and help resellers to identify the best options for customers.

"We've seen growing interest in Chrome over the past few months, particularly from the education sector.

"With the summer holiday break approaching, many schools will be looking at mobile devices for use in the classroom, while parents will be on the hunt for something that is practical and affordable for the kids to use at home, so now is a great time for resellers to start talking about the benefits of Chrome solutions and for retailers to start planning their summer campaigns and displays."

Contact centre specialist Sabio has extended its network services portfolio with the addition of hosted SMS messaging capabilities.

With SMS proving an increasingly effective engagement channel for organisations of all sizes, Sabio will work with customers to not only support volume business messaging but also provide the essential services to ensure that both inbound and outbound SMS channels can operate successfully as part of an integrated customer journey.

"Context-aware SMS messaging can prove invaluable in delivering pro-active support for customers at key touch points in their engagement - saving them from having to contact organisations directly, and unlocking significant operational savings for businesses by deflecting demand from already busy contact centres," said Sabio Director Adam Faulkner.

Outbound interactions where SMS messaging can add value include customer confirmation messages, reservation reminders, dispatch alerts, delivery confirmations, delay alerts, or critical calls to action where service plan limits are about to be breached.

Inbound messaging can be used to gather customer feedback using SMS surveys, allow customers to change delivery times, communicate with staff if there have been changes in shifts, confirm patient appointments or resolve customer issues quickly and efficiently.

"Research shows that 90% of all text messages are read within three minutes of being received and, with 9 out of 10 people now carrying their mobile phones with them at all times, it's clear that SMS can be an effective channel for when organisations really need to reach out to their customers," added Faulkner.

"However SMS messaging works best as part of an integrated engagement strategy, particularly as the majority of customers are now using three or more channels to engage with organisations.

"That's why at Sabio we support our customers' outbound and inbound SMS messaging requirements with an in-depth services wrap that ranges from initial analysis exercises to identify specific instances of caller frustration, right through to integration with core customer engagement platforms."

Private clouds will come to dominate in the next four years, according to research firm TBR.

Talking to over 2,000 enterprises including firms in Europe, TBR estimates that the private cloud market will grow from $45bn to $80bn by 2019.

Research also shows half of the 2,211 enterprises surveyed in the report are already using private cloud solutions. The winners in supplying private cloud solutions will be those firms with a sound business message, backed by security.

This rate of adoption is expected to grow to 85% by 2018, as respondents perceive private cloud as more secure than public cloud offerings, making private cloud the most adopted 'as a service' cloud deployment in the cloud market. Private cloud adoption is the intersecting point between hybrid outcome-based adoption and public technology-focused adoption, and enterprises are beginning to more often favour self-built cloud offerings to provide higher IT control and more centralised purchasing.

"Private cloud adoption is on the rise, but increased demand for analytics and IoT solutions and the shift toward hybrid IT buying is cannabalising enterprises' private cloud budget dollars," said TBR Cloud Analyst Cassandra Mooshian.

According to TBR's Private Cloud Customer Research report, security expertise is a key differentiator for cloud vendors, and vendors with the best security offerings are positioned for maximum private cloud growth through 2018.

Private cloud users are most concerned about security and data ownership, and almost 60% of survey respondents claim security is their number one concern regarding cloud adoption.

TBR's analysis shows leading IT vendors with tenure in software, services and security, such as Microsoft and IBM, are best positioned to capitalise on upcoming private cloud growth opportunities over the next two years and IT is involved in, if not controlling, nearly 70% of private cloud purchasing decisions due to security concerns.

"As the leading barrier to cloud adoption and also the largest differentiating factor between vendors, security is the area in which vendors must message their capabilities loudly and clearly, showcasing customer success stories," said Mooshian.

"It is not the fanciest of subjects to talk about and is often too technical for LOBs [lines of business], but vendors that can successfully relate security-driven business outcomes to LOBs will outshine the rest."

Data centre pricing has hit its peak, says a researcher, even though they will grow in size and power by 20% in the next five years.

There is a geographical inbalance with the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands accounting for half of all space in Europe - with the top six or seven providers accounting for half of power and space in France, Germany and the UK.

TCL (Tariff Consultancy) forecasts that 'Data Centre space and power in Europe will increase by almost 20% from end 2015 to end of 2020 with the UK being the largest single market in Europe', with over 150 Data Centre providers present, as shown in TCL's new Data Centre Europe Pricing - 2015 to 2020 report.

From the report, however, there are signs that Data Centre pricing has reached its limit, with average rack space and square metre pricing forecast to decline by 10% over the 5 year period to the end of 2020.

Data Centre providers are reporting increasingly competitive market pricing, which is particularly acute with the introduction of space into a new market area.

Customer Power per square metre of Data Centre also appears to have peaked. Data Centre providers such as Interxion and TelecityGroup report that power per square metre has peaked at an average of 1 kW to 1.1 kW, with further power increasing only in line with new Data Centre build-outs.

Out of the 24 European country markets surveyed, four account for half of all raised floor space and total customer power (the UK, Germany, France and the Netherlands) in Europe.

These mature Data Centre markets in the UK, Germany and France are increasingly composed of a series of discrete geographical Data Centre clusters, with Data Centre pricing in London, Frankfurt and Paris being markedly higher than in other towns and cities. But more Data Centre space and power is now being developed outside of the main cities, benefiting from lower cost land costs.

Other trends include: Premium Data Centre facilities, which are defined as providing 20 kW bundles of power as standard, are changing to become more "flexible" Data Centre facilities which can provide different data halls with dedicated space, power resilience, SLA, shared use or price points. Telecoms Providers are developing new Data Centre space for cloud and hosting services, with several telecoms operators - such as Colt - now claiming that their facilities are carrier neutral in order to appeal to a wider range of users, which are separate from network users.

New data centre space is being expanded in the Nordic countries. New providers are being established in Norway and Sweden, such as Hydro66 and Green Mountain, which are capitalising on low cost power and green facilities to attract new inward user investment.

Despite the price competition present in France, Germany, Netherlands and the UK, average Data Centre rates remain stable over time, but compared with the continued price commoditisation for other telecoms services, Data Centre pricing remains stable as it is buoyed by demand for cloud, hosting & storage applications, the report concludes.

Colt Group has exited IT services to focus on its core network, voice and data centre offerings.

In a statement to financial markets, it says it does not believe the IT business can compete and grow successfully with 'a level of risk that is acceptable'.

It will take it two to three years and exceptional cash costs of €45m-€55m and non-cash impairment charge of about €90m.

The group trading performance is in line with management expectations and interim results will be reported before the end of July, it says, while conducting a detailed review to identify optimal structure and positioning of data centre services business.