Comms Dealer

Managed Services Provider Annodata (a Kyocera Corporation company) has been awarded a position on the National Framework for the provision of office equipment to the Scottish public sector.

Annodata is just one of eight suppliers to be awarded a position on the framework.

In recent times the company has also achieved a place on the Central Buying Consortium (CBC) framework, Crescent Purchasing Consortium (CPC) framework, as well as the NHS London Procurement Partnership (NHS LPP) framework.

Rod Tonna-Barthet, CEO of Annodata, commented: "The public sector is an important area for Annodata and we understand the importance of supporting innovation, efficiency and cost-effectiveness as this sector comes under increasing pressure to contain expenditure and become more accountable for how it spends taxpayers' money.

"While some organisations have made great strides in reimagining their print estates, along with other aspects of their office equipment, many still have ample room for improvement.

"We have helped countless public sector organisations navigate a safe and secure path to cost reduction and efficiency and we are excited about growing our presence in Scotland even further. This position builds on our strong Scottish client base and means that we can bolster our support for public sector businesses in this region."

Nimans has collected Polycom's Distribution Partner of the Year award following a 20% uptick in sales driven primarily by sales of RealPresence Trio (the smart hub for group collaboration) and the VVX handsets.

Ian Brindle, Nimans' Head of Conferencing and Telephony Sales, stated: "Like-for-like sales from 2015 to 2016 rose significantly not just in terms of volume but percentage growth compared our rivals"

Pictured (l-r): Jeremy Keefe, Area Sales Vice President UK, Ireland and Southern Europe for Polycom with Ian Brindle.

Channel support for Samsung's IP PBX products will come direct from South Korea following the introduction of a new model by Samsung Networks that is expected to come into effect before the end of August once the transfer of information and staff training is completed.

Warren Hampton, General Manager of Networks for Samsung UK, stated: "There were too many steps in the old support model, so we've looked into ways of streamlining our service and came up with a new initiative that delivers support direct from our HQ team in Korea.

"We strongly believe this will give our UK distributors the control and autonomy needed to offer product support to our channel."

The business relationship between Samsung resellers and their distributors will not change.

Nimans moved quickly to reassure resellers and has boosted its Samsung support infrastructure in response to the news. 

Channel Sales Director Richard Carter commented: "Samsung is a successful brand in the UK & Ireland and has demonstrated consistent growth year on year. 

"In order to support the Samsung business Nimans has set up a dedicated Samsung Business Unit covering purchasing, technical support, sales and marketing.

"This overall structure which includes additional Nimans personnel replicates the existing Samsung go to market team in the UK."

John Bird, Head of UC Systems at distributor Exertis, commented: "It's business as usual, but UK distribution will escalate directly to the Korean HQ.

"Just under 2% of the Samsung support tickets we receive need escalating, and expect escalation resolution times to reduce significantly in the future.

"As part of this initiative, distribution will be responsible for all aspects of the vendor relationship between Samsung HQ and the channel.

"This strategy brings the UK into the same vendor, supplier and reseller relationship as other countries."

Distributor ProVu is offering free online training courses on how to sell and support VoIP hardware.

Four courses focus on the Gigaset, SARK, Snom and Yealink brands, and are designed for resellers to complete at their own pace.

ProVu's Product Development Director Paul Hayes said: "There's much more to supplying hardware than just the sale. Developing the ability to support deployments goes a long way in maintaining customer satisfaction."

Invosys has undergone a brand spruce-up following its acquisition of VoIP platform developer Telux HD. The new look reflects an enhanced product suite, new tech capabilities and broader customer offering which includes a hosted proposition.

Co-founder Peter Crooks said: "The company is different so we felt it was important to communicate these changes to our customers by updating our branding. The new graffiti-style branding set the tone and is a development of our existing logo."

Co-founder Rob Booth added: "Embracing change means taking risks, reinventing the status quo, having a vision and the courage to make it. We want to be bold and confident about how we challenge the channel to find a better way. The bold new branding perfectly reflects what we stand for."

Global server revenue declined 4.5% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2017, while shipments fell 4.2%, according to analyst Gartner.

"The first quarter of 2017 showed declines on a global level with a slight variation in results by region," said Jeffrey Hewitt, an analyst at Gartner. "Asia/Pacific bucked the trend and posted growth while all other regions fell.

"Although purchases in the hyper-scale data centre segment have been increasing, the enterprise and SMB segments remain constrained as end users in these segments accommodate their increased application requirements through virtualisation and consider cloud alternatives."

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) continued to lead in the worldwide server market based on revenue. The company posted just over $3bn in revenue for a total share of 24.1% in the first quarter of 2017. Dell EMC maintained the number two position with 19% market share. Dell EMC was actually the only vendor in the top five to experience growth in the first quarter.

These two were followed by IBM, Cisco and Lenovo. In server shipments, Dell EMC secured the Number one position with 17.9% market. The company had a slight increase of 0.5% growth over the first quarter of 2016. Despite a decline of 16.7%, HPE secured the second spot with 16.8%. They were followed by Huawei, Lenovo and Inspur Electronics. Inspur experienced the highest growth in shipments - up 27.3%.

The wall of venture capital money being thrown at security means that users and channels will have to gamble on selecting a 'survivor' to work with, according to Ian Kilpatrick, EVP Cyber Security for Nuvias, who forecasts that a quarter of them will not be around in five years' time.

The scale of VC backing is so high that new firms are springing up and offering similar solutions, he says. And for the investors, it only takes one in ten of their investments to break through to scale for them to get a good return. The rest of the vendors will eventually be pushed out or absorbed, he believes.

Nimans is the first Unify distributor to offer the vendor's Circuit solution backed up by a 'try before you buy' offer.

Circuit offers video collaboration, conference facilities, chat, document share, telephone calls and also screen sharing functionality in a single application.

Marcus Yates, Unify Solution Sales Business Manager at Nimans, said: "With a free 100 user package to 'try before you buy', Circuit is an opportunity for resellers to drive their business in a new direction."

Cisco's five year projection for the global digital economy predicts an increase of over one billion Internet users, rising from 3.3 to 4.6 billion.

The networking giant also pointed out in its Visual Networking Index that 42% of the world's population will still not be using the Internet by 2021.

Trend spotters at Cisco say that the IoT will represent 50% of all connections by 2021, up from 5.6 to 13.7 billion.

Healthcare will be the fastest rowing industry in this space, growing 30% annually due to a rise in connected applications such as health monitors and medicine dispensers.

Meanwhile, three trillion Internet video minutes per month are forecast, with video representing 80% of all Internet traffic in 2021.

"As global digital transformation continues to impact billions of consumers and businesses, the network and security will be essential to support the future of the Internet," said Yvette Kanouff, SVP and GM of Service Provider Business, Cisco.

"Driving network innovation with service providers will be key for Cisco to support the needs of their customers who want reliable, secure, and high quality connected experiences."

Wavenet has bagged its second acquisition of the year, following up its purchase of Talk Internet in March with the snaring of Norfolk-based Swains.

Wavenet CEO Bill Dawson commented: "Our increased scale and resources will strengthen our supplier relationships, deliver a better customer experience and give Swains' customers access to Wavenet's broader and enhanced product sets, particularly in unified communications and IT services."

The acquisition follows a £30m investment in Wavenet by Beech Tree Private Equity.

Swains was established in 1998 and boasts over 2,000 SME, corporate and Government customers.