Comms Dealer

IT solutions provider Logicalis UK has bolstered its play in the consulting and solution services space following the acquisition of Trovus, a provider of analytics dashboard solutions. According to ABI Research this market could be worth $114bn globally by 2018.

Arnaud Spirlet, Head of European Markets for Logicalis, said: "Analytics is a crucial element of the SMAC model, since it provides line of business managers with the actionable insight they need to drive business innovation and competitive advantage from disparate business data."

The deal sees Ed Charvet, Managing Director of Trovus, appointed to the role of Director of Information Insights at Logicalis UK.

Charvet will lead the organisation's business unit strategy, extending the portfolio of consulting, solutions and managed services such as the company's Spatial Intelligence, wireless and behavioural analytics offerings.

Charvet stated: "Trovus and Logicalis have partnered successfully for some time, giving clients the benefits of Business Intelligence (BI) consultancy and the ability to then scale organisation-wide using Logicalis' technical resources and global reach.

"The fit positions Logicalis perfectly between the pure consultancy firms and the specialist vendors."

Providing business insight solutions, professional and managed services, Trovus enables businesses to turn data into tangible and transformative competitive advantage.

It extends that advantage to the widest possible executive user base, in some cases increasing user adoption from the industry average of 30% up to 70% within an organisation.

Spirlet added: "As a Line of Business executive myself, I need fast and actionable information insights across a range of data sources.

"Trovus will bring that ability to our customer's users, but without the need for costly and complex data re-structuring or application renewal projects, shrinking delivery timescales from many months to matter of weeks or even days."

Trovus' clients range from global businesses to regional market specialists across a number of verticals, including professional services, financial services, construction, technology, telecoms, healthcare and the public sector.

Charvet stated: "This is a fast-moving market and our clients increasingly need access to national and international services and expertise. We can now meet those needs."

Mitel has completed the acquisition of Mavenir Systems. The deal is said to help the vendor expand its total addressable market by circa $14bn by 2018, and
capitalise on demand for 4G LTE services.

"With Mavenir part of Mitel's business and market footprint, we are now able to fully address both the enterprise and mobile markets for IP-based communications," said Rich McBee, President and Chief Executive Officer of Mitel.

"The combination gives Mitel an opportunity to capitalise on the rapid growth of 4G LTE now, and the convergence of business and mobile IP communications in the future."

Mavenir CEO, Pardeep Kohli, joins Mitel as President of the Mobile Division.

"The move to LTE mobile networks has created a valuable opportunity for service providers to leverage a converged all-IP network to offer feature-rich business and consumer communication services on any device, anywhere, on any access network," said Kohli.

"Now, as part of Mitel, our mobile customers will be able to benefit from Mavenir's 4G solutions as well as the global reach, size and scale of Mitel's operations, IP and cloud communications expertise."

An insurance policy that provides cover against toll fraud is growing in popularity among its users.

Launched by Blizzard and managed with Union Street's LineGuard fraud detection software (a module included as standard in Union Street's aBILLity platform), the service currently has 2,200 customers covered by the policy which has been welcomed by the majority of its 70 channel partners.

In operation, LineGuard automatically searches call data records (CDRs) as they are imported for unusual calling patterns and charge groups.

If fraud is suspected the customer and reseller are immediately alerted and asked to verify the situation. If fraud is detected out of hours LineGuard automatically places a temporary 'out of service' on the line.

For additional protection, Blizzard has configured aBILLity to set maximum spending thresholds for each customer account on all services including mobile and fixed line telephony.

The service insures against any losses of £100 or more that are incurred as a direct result of fraud.

Commenting on the Fraud Limitation Cover, which was launched in March, Blizzard's MD Mark Jones said: "When fraud occurs it's often extremely damaging, both in monetary terms and to the customer relationship which inevitably sours as a direct result.

"Our Fraud Limitation Cover provides valuable peace of mind to consumers, and helps to preserve the customer relationship in the event of fraud.

"It also serves as a value add for our resellers who have given us positive feedback on this initiative."

Softcat and Dell have joined forces to service the National Desktop and Notebook Agreement (NDNA) for UK universities.
 
Education sector specialist Softcat is certified in six national framework agreements for the provision of IT in higher and further education.

Under the new agreement Softcat will sell Dell PCs, laptops and tablet devices via an integrated and joined-up cross-framework procurement process.

Nick Berry, Softcat's Head of Education said: "The NDNA agreement will allow our team of specialists to provide higher education institutions with an end -to-end proposition incorporating devices, server and storage, networking, security and software, all via the national frameworks."

Recruitment companies have added their name to the 5,000 SME letter to PM David Cameron.

Praising the Government for managing to 'get the economy moving again by tackling the deficit, helping to keep interest rates low and inflation down', notable recruitment industry signatories included, John Mortimer of Angela Mortimer PLC and Steve Morrisey of IQ Telecom.
 
"The recruitment sector is a major bell-weather of the UK economy and people should take heed of its performance," said Clive Jefferys, MD of Telecoms Recruiter JMA Network.
 
"The slowdown in our sector warned us of the crisis of 2008, a full nine months before it hit the markets. Today's economy has the strongest recruitment demand for a decade and no-one should wish this to change."

A third of IT infrastructure spending will go on the cloud this year, reckons IDC in a new report.

The research firm calculates that investments in technology will leap by 20%-plus, driven by public cloud data center expansion.

Total cloud IT infrastructure spending (server, disk storage, and Ethernet switch) will grow by 21% year over year to $32bn in 2015, accounting for approximately 33% of all IT infrastructure spending, which will be up from about 28% in 2014.

Private cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow by 16% year-over-year to $12bn, while public cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow by 25% in 2015 to $21bn.
For the full year 2014, cloud IT infrastructure spending totaled $26.4bn, up 18.7% year-over-year from $22.3bn.

Private cloud spending was just under $10bn, up 20.7%, while public cloud spending was $16.5bn, up 17.5%.

For the five-year forecast period, IDC expects that cloud IT infrastructure spending will grow at a CAGR of 14%. Both public cloud and private cloud are expected to grow at the same CAGR.

By 2019, IDC expects cloud IT infrastructure spending to be $52 billion, or 45% of total IT infrastructure spend.

"The pace of adoption of cloud-based platforms will not abate for quite some time, resulting in cloud IT infrastructure expansion continuing to outpace the growth of the overall IT infrastructure market for the foreseeable future," said Kuba Stolarski, Research Manager at IDC.

"As the market evolves into deploying 'third platform' solutions and developing next-gen software, organisations of all types and sizes will discover that traditional approaches to IT management will increasingly fall short of the simplicity, flexibility, and extensibility requirements that form the core of cloud solutions."

The battle for data centre security domination is raging, particularly at the high end of the appliance market, according to Infonetics Research.

"2014 brought major market share changes, and this will continue in 2015 as buyers jump ship to get the throughput, interfaces, connection performance, and detection and mitigation technologies they need," said Jeff Wilson, research director for cybersecurity technology at Infonetics Research, now part of IHS.

"The somewhat isolated market for virtual appliances and virtualisation-aware security solutions is merging with software-defined networking (SDN) in the data centre, and this combination will lead to explosive market growth," he added.

ShoreTel's financial results for Q3 fiscal year 2015 (ended March 31st) show total revenue was $85m, an increase of 3% compared to Q3 2014. Notably, recurring revenues accounted for more than 50% of the total figure.

"We continue to execute our strategic plan of transitioning our business to a recurring revenue model," said Don Joos, president and CEO of ShoreTel.

"We are positioning the company for the growth in the cloud sector while remaining strong in the on-premises environment.

"We have reached significant milestones as our recurring revenue exceeded 50% of our total revenue. Customers and partners started participating in our new platform beta program and we are introducing our cloud offering in the UK planned for later this quarter."

A MPLS workshop hosted by Channel Telecom helped key partners to better understand the technology involved in an MPLS network, and how to spot sales opportunities with sound advice on winning the contract.

The day included an overview of the different circuit types Channel Telecom provide, the sales process, followed by a short assessment.

Successful partners will become accredited resellers of Channel Telecom MPLS Networks.

This was the first of many workshops based on networks over the coming months as Channel Telecom looks to move across the country.

"These workshops will not only vary in technical depth but also size and location," said a spokesperson.

ShoreTel Mobility has been revealed as among the first UC applications available for the Apple Watch.

The application enables businesses to integrate iPhones and iPads with their existing enterprise phone systems.

"Wearable technology is a fascinating frontier for the mobile professional," said Pejman Roshan, vice president of product management at ShoreTel.

"By extending ShoreTel Mobility to the wrist, accessing your enterprise UC system is literally as simple as checking the time."

Apple Watch owners can stay connected with ShoreTel Mobility on the go, without taking their iPhone from their pocket.

The ShoreTel Mobility home screen on the watch allows users to access commonly used UC functions, such as viewing any unread instant messages, accessing favourites, and joining a meeting.

The Glance view reveals ShoreTel Availability State, missed call and IM indicators, as well as Notifications alerts, and allows the user to act on incoming calls and messages.