Comms Dealer

IT and telecoms companies are more popular as employers than at any time in the last three years, according to global recruiter Randstad Technologies which says just under a third of all respondents in a survey view the sector as an attractive career option.

Ruth Jacobs, MD of Randstad Technologies, said: "The sector is thriving helped by the high profile development of tech clusters in the UK including Shoreditch's Silicon Roundabout which have made the IT sector seem a much 'cooler' space to work in.

"IT professionals have moved away from being back office support staff and are now on the front line, providing fundamental support across all industries and fighting cyber-fires.

"Over the last few years, several high profile hacks have demonstrated the importance of well-trained cyber professionals, and IT security jobs and IT support jobs are now rightly viewed as integral to all firms."

The upswing in popularity of IT and telecoms as a sector to work in has been influenced by a number of factors, noted Jacobs.

Firstly, a new IT curriculum was introduced into schools in September 2014 with the aim of improving digital literacy and encouraging more students to enter the field. This includes the incorporation of coding lessons into the curriculum and the study of Boolean logic.

And a boom in demand for IT workers has pushed up average salaries in the IT sector meaning it is now perceived to offer good financial reward.

At the same time, several high profile floats of UK technology companies have helped to raise the reputation of the industry, including King Digital, Just Eat and Zoopla.

Jacobs added: "The IT and telecoms industry has become much more high profile as recent Tech-city floats illustrate how tech firms can experience exponential growth over a very short span of time, developing from small start-ups to multi-million-pound enterprises."

Clive Jefferys, MD of telco recruiter JMA Network, affirmed the survey's findings: "The IT and comms industry has gained massive appeal as a career option over the last decade.

"From being a hidden service buried in an exchange 20 years ago, telecoms integrated with media now sits on everyone's smartphone, laptop or tablet, all around us at home, the office, coffee shops and the street. Careers in comms are seen as fun, progressive and fast moving as the range of new consumer services grows exponentially."

Northamber reported a narrowed loss for the first half of its financial year, helped by strong revenue growth and as it returned to margin growth.

The IT distributor has had a difficult few years with sales halving over the last four years and losses mounting as margins came under pressure from continual price drops.

However, its loss in the six months to end-December was £292,000 compared with the £690,000 loss it reported a year earlier, as revenue rose to £35.7 million, from £30.2 million and its gross margin rose to 6.83% from 6.7%.

Chairman David Phillips continues to berate his industry: "In the past I have too frequently needed to refer to ongoing price erosion, thin margins and the need for tightly focused management, rather than just building empty revenue.

"The sector has for too long been driven by either over-supply or poorly regarded products, all then subject to un-commercial, competitive stock clearance pressures, which while partially avoidable, has not abated," he said.

"After a long-term downward trend echoing the extreme levels of product driven price erosion, we are achieving a slight resumption of growth in margins.

"The 13 basis points improvement in the gross margin for the first half year compares favourably with the same period in the previous year.

"This improvement has been generated by the continued refocusing on those more profitable elements of our business and these established core resources are continuing to show results."

Phillips said the company will continue to operate a tightly controlled cost structure that will insulate it from "any untoward surprises", but also thinks it's well placed to benefit from further revenue growth.

"As you will know from my previous reports, I have learned not to speculate or be over optimistic and am hopeful that our improved trading performance will continue," he said

"However, within both the sector and the economy as a whole, there are many unknowns. Not the least of which will be any delaying effects on the user base IT refresh intentions, resulting from Microsoft's awaited forthcoming release of Windows 10, following the belated abort of the Windows 9 launch, plus the upcoming General Election."

Manchester-based ANS Group has rebranded its apprenticeship programme and set its sights on 2015 being its biggest year yet for apprentice intake.

The rebrand has been launched as part of this year's National Apprenticeship Week which runs from 9th-13th March.

The cloud and managed service provider began its own Apprentice Academy in 2013 initially taking on six apprentices and the academy, now in its third year, has been growing year on year and is aiming for an intake of 30 new recruits this year.

The ANS Academy was originally named the Cloud Academy but has been rebranded as the ANS Academy to better reflect the apprenticeship.

This apprenticeship will take into account all the necessary requirements for developing skills and accreditations in world-renowned vendor support and careers building at ANS, which go beyond the cloud.

The Academy aims to fast track young apprentices' into the IT environment of Managed Services. This specialist area then opens up opportunities to work in unlimited areas of IT support and management.

One of the first apprentices to join the programme was Jordan Bridge. He joined the programme straight from college two years ago and has worked his way up to become Team Leader, at ANS managing his own team and mentoring the next generation of apprentices.

The 23 year old from Warrington said: "After three years at college studying ICT I couldn't find a way to get my foot into the door of an ICT job. The apprenticeship taught me all of the areas of the job that are needed for the role and more.

"After hard work and dedication I have progressed to a team leader role where I manage my own team on a daily basis. I also teach and up-skill apprentices to help them take a path like mine and progress to where they want to be. I can't thank ANS enough for the exposure they have offered me and the team that I have worked with to push me to where I am today!"

Paul Sweeney, CEO of ANS Group, said: "Whilst the option of going to further and higher education is available, the curriculum is often too broad by definition.

"Often, at the end of a three-year course, items and areas studied have been superseded by new technologies or IT concepts, the very nature of IT.

"The UK has aspirations to be a world digital leader and the North will play a huge part in that. Our Apprentice Academy is nurturing young talent and helping develop the next generation of digital leaders."

TeleWare has rolled out a significant upgrade to its mobile compliance offering, providing customers with greater global coverage.

The improvements come in the form of three new categories which offer a selection of enhancements for users with international requirements. These categories are TeleWare Home (provides a local solution for in-country call recording and storage); TeleWare Local (designed for multi-national financial institutions with a local in-country presence); and TeleWare Global (offers a bundle of minutes, SMS and data across many countries).

Steve Haworth, CEO of Teleware Group, said: "This expansion provides our global customers with a consistent solution across their mobile communications infrastructure.

"In an increasingly globalised business environment being able to stay connected and in touch, wherever you are in the world, is critical."

Samsung WLAN training programmes introduced by Nimans aim to help dealers cash in on what the distributor says is a fast growth market.

The first engineering course took place at Nimans' Manchester HQ where engineers learned about site surveys, protocols, system troubleshooting and software, as part of a comprehensive overview. Further training events will be rolled out throughout the year.

Nimans says the WLAN market is set to expand by 20% this year with the £250m UK sector experiencing growth rates much greater than the PBX arena.

One Bolton-based reseller said: "WLAN is going to take off over the next few years especially around new build sites.

"We are a traditional voice reseller so it's a natural fit for us."

Nimans has also produced a Wireless LAN Straightforward Guide to help resellers identify and grasp new market opportunities.

Exclusive Networks UK has set up a division called New Technology (New Tech) through which disruptive technologies will be introduced to the channel.

Headed up by Richard Foulkes, the new division will have a dedicated team of product managers, pre sales specialists, telemarketers and a marketing manager, all with the aim of sourcing relevant new disruptive technologies and enabling partners to take them to market.

"Over the past 18 months I have been focusing on how we can take the business to the next level of growth while continuing to offer value added services to all of our partners," said Graham Jones, Country Manager, Exclusive Networks UK.

"We are all about delivering solutions to our channel partners, and as a part of this the New Tech division will increase our ability to add disruptive new technologies to the mix."

New Tech will include a mobility and shadow IT bundle based on new vendors including Druva, Netskope and SecureAuth, alongside more established vendors such as MobileIron.

IXIA, Bit9 and Lieberman Software will also be placed into the division.

"New Tech will be an important division for us as we continue on our journey towards breaking the £200m revenue barrier by 2017."

A new connectivity product launched by Gamma will strengthen client relationships and bring 'significant financial rewards' to resellers, according to Stephen Proctor, Broadband Product Manager.

The Converged FTTC (Fibre-to-the-Cabinet) broadband service includes support for 30 uncompressed G.711 voice channels, providing access to ISDN quality voice and superfast Internet access on the same circuit with end-to-end QoS.

"Integrating voice and data communications on just one circuit rather than buying two separate lines means a reduction in costs, with the added benefit of providing end customers with a robust service and support SLAs," said Proctor.

"This is a great selling opportunity for resellers as they can benefit from stronger ongoing relationships with their customers and open up new opportunities to sell voice and Internet access. It can also prevent competitors breaking into accounts by creating customer lock-in."

RHM Technologies MD Nick Thomas added: "Converged FTTC allows us to go after the SME market more aggressively with a single supplier for data, SIP and hosted telephony."

Converged FTTC Broadband comes with a Cisco router and a free installation option enables channel partners to migrate customers without upfront costs.

Nimans has taken delivery of a new wireless DECT headset from Sennheiser.

The D10 series is available in three variants - for desk phones, softphones and a version optimised for Microsoft Lync.

The headset offer all day talk-time, a two-in-one wearing style and noise cancelling microphone.

Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at Nimans, said: "There's one touch call management to answer or end calls from any point within a 180m line of sight.

"In addition, up to three additional guests can join the same conference call simply by docking the headset to the same base station. This makes it quick and easy to join the same conversation."

Burn added that USB and Microsoft Lync versions feature a built-in ringer with a choice of three ring-tones and adjustable ring volume.

Carriers that underestimate the value of voice infrastructure are missing a trick according to Telstra's Head of Global Wholesale Peter Hobbs.

He warned carriers focusing on OTT and data not to sideline traditional voice services which, he believes, are 'yet to hit their peak'.

"Voice services are sometimes misunderstood and undervalued by carriers because of the challenges they present, such as squeezed margins and increased competition, but it is a mistake to ignore voice altogether," said Hobbs.

"The common misconception seems to be that OTT players have stolen the voice market from operators, but in reality they have expanded it. We have only touched the surface of voice service capabilities and the market is big enough for both OTTs and carriers to thrive, with significant opportunities for co-creation too."

According to Hobbs new business and MNC applications are two primary drivers of voice requirements, which means enabling a consistently high quality service underpinned by platform and network capabilities are key.

"The growing HD trend, including developments in HD voice, IPX and Voice over LTE (VoLTE), delivers increased quality and is where operators have a distinct advantage over their competitors, and where they can grow their minutes too," added Hobbs.

"HD voice is like HDTV, but instead of high definition images you get high definition sound. No background noise and crystal-clear voice quality. Offering these superior services is key for carriers."

Hobbs also noted that VoIP, specifically Mobile Voice over IP (MVoIP), is a potential space for major growth. "This brings HD voice to mobile and integrates voice, video, and private branch exchange communications to connect computers, telephone connections and internal/external mobile networks," he said.

"The rebirth of the voice services market is already beginning to happen and those who capitalise on it quickly will see the greatest success."

Azzurri has joined forces with Sorrento Networks to service the UK service provider market for optical transport solutions employing next generation equipment from Sorrento.

The deal means Azzurri customers will be able to source Sorrento Networks solutions, incorporating its CWDM, DWDM and ROADM products.

Key to the partnership is The Comtek Group's acquisition of Sorrento Networks intellectual property rights and trademarks in late 2014.

This acquisition results in new investment in the development, manufacture and support of the Sorrento Networks portfolio, with an ambitious future product roadmap.

Azzurri is reselling Sorrento Networks GigaMux product line, enabling carriers, enterprises and data centre operators to design networks to be scalable and cost effective.

GigaMux supports data encryption, and has low power consumption, which aligns with Comtek's active role in promoting environmental initiatives within the telecoms industry.

"In these days of terrific network expansion and increasing demand for fibre services, this relationship helps us to deliver high capacity services to both our enterprise and our carrier customers," said Rufus Grig, CTO of Azzurri Communications.