Comms Dealer

Report by IT Europa: Veeam is targeting more enterprise and cloud business for its data availability and backup systems, and now thinks it has the right person at the top to push its many partners to generate the big ticket sales it craves.

Just before Veeam kicked of its VeeamON customer and partner event in New Orleans this week it promoted recently hired president and chief operating officer Peter McKay to a co-CEO role as the company looks to break the $1bn in annual sales barrier by 2019.

He replaced William Largent who was only made CEO last year, but who is now moving to a board administration role instead, although he remains a director.

McKay will be co-CEO with joint founder Andrei Baronov who will also continue as the company's CTO.

Since his arrival from VMware last year, McKay, a sales veteran, is credited by Veeam's founders for generating thousands of new high value customers every month.

This is only Veeam's third such global customer and partner event and this writer has now attended all three. It seems unbelievable now that at the first event in Las Vegas, the main media announcement was a free data backup tool for consumers' laptops and other gadgets. But that small fry initiative, from a company that started ten years ago, has been followed by a rapidly growing channel with all business products and services sold through partners.

Additionally, the company's 'premier' partners at its events include Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, NetApp, Microsoft and Cisco, and one of its strongest technical partners is VMware.

And even though Dell EMC has its own backup solutions to sell, many Dell EMC customers prefer those from Veeam. Which is maybe why Dell EMC are here in New Orleans.

With data backup continuing to get plenty of market exposure helped by last weekend's global ransomware attack, Veeam is regularly portrayed in the media as a potential acquisition target for a major vendor, including those mentioned above.

Ex-CEO and joint founder, and continuing director Ratmir Timashev is on record as saying that if a 'big enough figure was offered' the owners would certainly consider it. But as those sales figures continue to rapidly click up, that big figure is certainly going to have to get fatter

"Peter has taken Veeam to the next level in the short 10 months since he joined last summer," said Timashev. "He has played a pivotal role in strengthening our go-to-market sales and marketing strategy and teams, and taking the company into the enterprise and cloud segments. We are making a rock-solid platform for future growth."

To help with that growth, in New Orleans, Veeam unveiled its Availability Suite v10 which comes with the new Veeam CDP (continuous data protection), to deliver "SLAs of seconds using continuous replication to private or managed clouds", said Veeam. There is also now full "cloud native" support for data located in Amazon Web Services. And a Veeam agent for Microsoft Windows data on companies' physical servers and for workloads in Microsoft Azure can automatically backup and recover data.

Last month, Veeam said first quarter new enterprise license bookings grew 17% annually. Also, cloud revenue enabled by Veeam Cloud and Service Providers (VCSPs) grew 59% YoY. At the time of the results, McKay said: "Looking ahead, we expect continued growth for the remainder of this year, fuelled by new Veeam product releases, joint product offerings with our Alliances partners, and further share gains in enterprise and Veeam-powered cloud solutions."

At the last count, there were 47,000 Veeam ProPartners and 15,000 VCSPs globally, and don't expect these numbers to fall if McKay has his way.

TeleWare has been accepted onto Microsoft's Technology Adoption Program (TAP) for Trusted Application APIs. This gives TeleWare the ability to integrate its products with Office365, in particular, Skype for Business voice recording. 
 
TeleWare holds a number of Gold and Silver competencies with Microsoft. Acceptance onto the Trusted Application API program is the latest in a string of achievements hot on the heels of two world firsts. 

In September 2016 TeleWare became the first to route record and analyse a call in real-time through the Azure platform in a fully encrypted, compliant environment, removing the need for physical hardware and servers.  Shortly after, TeleWare was also the first to migrate their fixed line call recording operations into Azure.
 
Microsoft's TAP aims to help support and integrate the next generation of technological innovation into their suite of solutions. In this instance, the TAP allows Microsoft's selected partners the opportunity to deliver services natively into Office365. A privilege only offered to those partners who have proven capabilities and value add for Microsoft users. 
 
TeleWare has been accepted onto Microsoft's voice recording call flow workstream, meaning it will be the recording partner of choice for call recording users on Office365 using Skype Online.
 
Steve Haworth, CEO at TeleWare, commented: "Over the coming months TAP will provide a host of benefits to both TeleWare and our customers. Customer's need to ensure their technology choices offer migration paths."

Four directors from South West Communications Group will tackle the Three Peaks Challenge next month to raise money for the Prince's Trust.

swcomms' MD Brian Lodge and board members Jon Whiley, John Holdstock and Sean Doyle will attempt to scale Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon in less than 24 hours on June 20th.

The challenge will see the quartet visit three different countries, climb 3,064 metres and walk 29 miles.

Lodge said: "We are of varying ages, sizes and abilities, so this really does represent a challenge. More than that though, we want to raise as much money as we can for the Prince's Trust, for which we became a patron last year. They carry out some fantastic work across the South West and we want to support the young people they help every day."

swcomms' CEO and chairman Tony Rowe OBE will chauffeur the group 470 miles between each peak. "Tony has a pretty big part to play in achieving our 24-hour target time," added Lodge. "He will need to drive overnight to deliver us at the foot of each mountain in a safe and timely manner. He will also oversee nutrition on the move and the all-important motivational talks, not to mention sharing a pint or two with us at the end!"

Distribution is undergoing rapid change and, especially in Europe, is finding a new role as a provider of cloud services, e-commerce, specialist logistics and support for the channel during its transition to new revenue models.

So says a new report for the Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) by IT Europa.

As well as providing coverage, onboarding and recruitment of new channels in all the markets in Europe, which usually means some element of localisation and cultural fit in IT supply, the report identifies some of the ways that distribution is now able to work to develop new business lines, especially in services, where the move to cloud adoption makes it a lot easier for developers and solution providers to create solutions, but where they still need ways to reach their markets.

Vendors cited in the report say they are using distribution for access to markets that would otherwise involve them in setting-up local offices and providing local more resources.

As Scale Computing CEO Jeff Ready says, "In the past we have used a single-tier model, but now we can use distribution to run and promote the channel relationships."

"Having a true value-adding distributor is important and it plays a big part in making the channel part of an effective community."

Channels are often faced with a wave of new potential product lines, each requiring careful evaluation. Few channel players have the resources to research the market continuously.

"Work closely with distributors and they will be able to guide you as to which products are going to be the winners," GTDC Europe's General Manager Peter van den Berg told the Managed Services and Hosting Summit in Amsterdam in April.

Distribution is no longer just about pick, pack and ship, he said. The services on offer are many and varied, and are used to complement what the channel is doing.

"65% of the business of one of the GTDC largest members is now in services," he told the conference, and in the last two years, the GTDC members "have added over 600 new vendors, so they are a good source and indicator for channel partners looking to see which products and services are likely to be successful."

The report draws on GTDC's own research which points to a heightened sense of confidence in the European IT industry this year and identifies key growth areas for distribution and partner channels, including IoT, mobile, managed services and cloud.

Report by IT Europa: Cloud data availability firm Veeam says the channel distribution model is rapidly changing as distributors become aggregators and resellers morph into service providers.

As a result, the intelligent data backup solutions vendor is rejigging the way it develops its channel, mainly as a result of its growing cloud and enterprise business.

Last month Veeam said first quarter new enterprise license bookings grew 17% annually. Also, cloud revenue enabled by Veeam Cloud and Service Providers (VCSPs) grew 59% YoY.

At the last count, there were 47,000 Veeam ProPartners and 15,000 VCSPs globally. A large number of ProPartners - predominantly resellers - are now expected to turn into a VCSP to reflect market changes.

Veeam held its annual VeeamON customer and partner event in New Orleans this week, which was attended by around 3,000, including Veeam staff.

At the event, Veeam senior vice president of worldwide sales Daniel Fried told IT Europa: "We are now seeing customer defined channel strategies with customers moving towards the cloud. It's not about large vendors anymore deciding whether to move into the cloud or not and moulding the channel as a result, we had that a number of years ago.

"Customers want agnostic vendors who can work with partners to deliver their cloud, storage and other infrastructure needs, which is what we are trying to be. While we have strong relationships with the likes of Microsoft, VMware, HPE, Cisco and NetApp, for instance, we don't dictate to customers what other technologies should be used in conjunction with our solutions."

Fried said Veeam was now spending more time in re-organising its partner structure instead of simply adding to partner numbers, which is what it has done in impressive fashion over the last three years to reach a critical mass to take a large chunk of the intelligent data backup space.

Fried said many distributors were now aggregators of many different technologies and were effectively becoming cloud service providers themselves in offering additional services to their service provider customers, like cloud training, technical services and marketing, for instance. He also added that 50% of Veeam service providers were also resellers.

Such changes are a major reason why Veeam used VeeamON to launch its Veeam Accredited Service Partner (VASP) programme, to enable members to deliver high-quality professional services related to Veeam solutions, to "help customers realise increased reliability" and 'achieve greater return of investment from Veeam solutions', said the vendor.

The VASP effort offers a range of member benefits including marketing promotion and visibility and increased technical services. There will also be dedicated senior pre-sales advisors, demonstration and training aids, and co-branding and marketing.

"We want partners who are enthusiastic about working with us and we want to make it easier for them by making sure they have the right specialisations and competencies," said Fried.

On partner numbers, Oliver Robinne, Veeam VP of EMEA sales, said: "With 22,000 in EMEA we've probably got enough in most parts of Western Europe but there are always places where we could do with more coverage to meet and generate market demand."

He said there are big differences in some geographies. Veeam only has around 100 VCSPs in Russia where it mainly supports large enterprises. But it has 430 VCSPs across the other major Eastern Europe markets, where the size of customers is more varied.

"Resellers increasingly have two jobs, to sell and to also support cloud and services business, so we expect a number of resellers will become VCSPs," said Robinne.

Cloud giants such as AWS, Microsoft, Google and IBM have swung their gaze onto the channel as a means to sustain and drive their stellar growth rates; and their interest in the enterprise and mid-market space where competition is fierce will see them prioritise indirect partnerships to extend their reach, claims Canalys.

In Q1 2017 AWS maintained its dominance, holding a stable global market share of 31% on 43% revenue growth. Microsoft grew revenues by 93% and Google was up 74% compared to the same quarter a year ago, while IBM witnessed 38% revenue growth.

The overall worldwide cloud infrastructure services market was up 42% year-on-year to reach $11.4bn, according to Canalys.

"Competition for enterprise customers is intensifying among leading cloud service providers which are investing heavily to secure key national and global accounts," said Canalys Research Analyst Daniel Liu.

"Timing is crucial, as many large accounts are assessing, formulating and executing strategies to move existing workloads and infrastructure to the cloud and develop new types of workloads as part of digital transformation initiatives."

Cloud players are looking to the channel to expand their reach, especially when it comes to mid-market opportunities, says Canalys Senior Analyst Jordan De Leon. "The channel has become integral to winning in the enterprise, with top cloud players focusing on channel expansion plans," he said.

AWS has an established channel programme that is growing and is cited by the company as helping to win key global clients. And Google has revamped its partner programme to reflect the the technology and feature requirements of large enterprise customers.

"Go-to-market strategy, including both customer and channel partner engagement, will ultimately determine vendor success in this segment," stated De Leon.

"Larger enterprises will adopt a multi-cloud strategy to distribute risk. Ultimately, to challenge AWS, vendors will need deep financial resources to continue to participate and advance."

Pan-European cloud managed services firm Claranet has received an £80m investment from French asset management firm Tikehau Capital in return for a minority stake in the expanding company.

Claranet has 1,300 employees and operates in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and the Netherlands. It also recently entered the Brazilian market.

The investment follows the firm's move in February to set up Claranet Italy in response to growing demand for managed public cloud solutions in the Italian market.

The new entity based in Milan focuses solely on public cloud services working with partners including Amazon, Google and Microsoft.

Also in February, Claranet acquired Dutch IT services provider Rely which has a leading position within the Dutch notarial sector, offering its clients a range of IT infrastructure services, including public and private cloud solutions and application management services.

SSE Enterprise Telecoms is to extend its network footprint by unbundling an additional 40 BT exchanges in 'prime' business areas around the UK with high performance Ethernet services.

SSE Enterprise Telecoms has also been confirmed as one of a small number of service providers in BT Openreach's recently announced Dark Fibre Access trial.

Subject to the satisfactory outcome of this trial, SSE Enterprise Telecoms will use the newly regulated dark fibre services to provide connectivity to the 40 new exchanges.

This will be the third phase of the network expansion programme SSE Enterprise Telecoms dubbed Project Edge and will bring the total number of exchanges served by its national fibre optic network to 140.

The total number of postcodes in prime business areas that are served by the full Edge service will now increase to more than 300,000.

The Project Edge footprint is further extended by SSE Enterprise Telecoms' Edge Plus service, which provides its customers with access to the Ethernet services of six other suppliers across the breadth of the UK.

The 40 new exchanges, as well as all of the existing Edge 1, Edge 2 and Edge Plus sites, will be available to quote and order via SSE Enterprise Telecoms' online price comparison engine, LIVEQUOTE.

The 40 exchanges will be unbundled during the course of the next nine months and will be named in batches as they come on-net.

Colin Sempill, Managing Director of SSE Enterprise Telecoms, said: "We understand that to function in today's economy businesses need reliable, high capacity connectivity in all corners of the UK. It is through detailed analysis of LIVEQUOTE data as well as ongoing dialogue with direct customers and service providers,that we have selected these additional exchanges to which we will expand our network."

Vodafone's annual loss of 6.1bn euros (£5.2bn) is largely down to the sliding value of its Indian business, with the operator writing down the value of its Indian unit by 3.7bn euros following a price war.

Matthew Kendall, Telecoms Analyst at The Economist Intelligence Unit, observed: "Vodafone's results are a measure of just how cut-throat the Indian mobile market is at the moment.

"The low-price offers from new market entrant Reliance Jio have completely shaken the market and operators are struggling to compete."

In the UK last year Vodafone was hit by a £4.6m fine for misselling and poor handling of complaints.

A new report by CompTIA has re-confirmed the influence of cross-company execs in the ICT buying process.

"CIOs and information technology (IT) teams remain involved in the process, as their expertise and experience is valued," said Carolyn April, senior director, industry analysis, CompTIA.

"But business lines are clearly flexing their muscles. It's another strong signal that technology has shifted from a supporting function for business to a strategic asset."

Among the organisations surveyed for the CompTIA report 45% said that ideas about technology come from different areas of the organisation; and 36% said more executives are involved in the decision making.

More than half of respondents used business unit budget to pay for technology purchases in the last year.

Lines of business are also staffing their departments with technology-oriented job roles, from data scientists and business analysts to software developers and social media managers.

CompTIA says this shift is impacting the IT channel - vendors, distributors and solution providers.

"The amount of greenfield, untapped space for business is huge," added April. "But lines of business have little knowledge or interaction with the channel. It's incumbent on the channel to get their faces in front of line of business leaders."

"They need to speak the language of business because this new generation of buyers doesn't want to hear about the technical implications of their purchases.

"Channel partners need to position themselves as consultants and service providers who can help customers make informed decisions about what they buy."