Comms Dealer

IDC estimates global server sales rose 2.5% Y/Y in Q2 to $12.6bn. That marks a turnaround from the 2.2% drop seen in Q1, and the 4.4% drop seen in Q4. ear or year, teh volume systems saw a 4.9% revenue growth.

Gartner estimates also sales grew 2.8%. IDC declares the server market, hurt in recent quarters by system consolidation and a shift in demand towards the white-label gear used by web and hosting giants, is seeing "the beginning of a cyclical refresh cycle." It sees the pending launch of Intel's new Grantley Xeon CPUs, along with Microsoft's plans to end Windows Server 2003 support, lifting sales into 2015.

Sales of x86 servers (mostly Intel-based) rose 7.8% in Q2, and now make up 78% of industry revenue. Non-x86 server sales fell 12.8%. Market leader HP's share rose 40 bps Y/Y to 25.4%, with x86 growth offsetting Itanium weakness. Number 2 IBM's share fell 340 bps to 23.6% ahead of the sale of its x86 server ops to Lenovo; on the bright side, IBM's decline narrowed from Q1's 600 bps.

Number 3 Dell's share fell 160 bps to 16.2%. Fourth placed Oracle's share grew 10 bps to 5.9%, with engineered system growth offsetting declines for older UNIX/SPARC server lines. Then comes Cisco, which recently proclaimed its UCS server ops are on a $3B/year run rate, and which saw its share rise 140 bps to 5.8% on the back of 35% growth. Cisco should pass Oracle in a quarter or two. White label direct vendors saw their share grow 110 bps to 6.6%. The shares of all other vendors rose 190 bps to 16.1%.

Datatec has announced that Logicalis Group has acquired a 51% shareholding in ituma GmbH, a speciality software developer based in Germany.
 
Logicalis will have exclusive rights to ituma's proprietary software based Wi-Fi platform. The technology enables businesses to deliver Wi-Fi enabled-services such as 3D in-location navigation, product and service offerings access, product promotions and omni-channel retail ordering to their customers.
 
The acquisition presents a significant opportunity for Logicalis to grow ituma's licence revenues exponentially and increase infrastructure revenues globally through its own sales organisation.
 
Jens Montanana, Datatec's Chief Executive Officer commented: "Wi-Fi enabled-services is an exciting segment of the growing global wireless data market. Our investment in ituma provides Logicalis with access to a new complementary solution that has the potential to support increases in annuity, services and infrastructure revenues across multiple territories in which Logicalis operates."

GCI has strengthened its Board and growth strategy with the appointment of Ian Brown (pictured) as Chairman. Acknowledged as an established entrepreneur and business leader, Brown has been operating in the technology, telecommunications and services sectors for 30 years and is highly experienced in obtaining growth from businesses, corporate finance, strategy, and general management.
 
He commented: "I am looking forward to working closely with Wayne and the team at GCI, my interests are firmly rooted in working with businesses that are seeking to grow and develop and GCI certainly personify this."
 
Brown's current role is CEO of Axell Wireless, a company he created through the acquisition and merger of AFL from the UK, Avitec AB of Sweden and Dekolink of Israel.

Today, Axell operates out of 16 offices across the globe and has become one of the leading manufacturers of wireless coverage and capacity solutions exporting products to over 150 countries. In May 2013 Axell was acquired by defence technology giant Cobham plc for £85m. ??Prior to Axell Brown was CEO of Redstone, a LSE quoted communications services provider with approximately £80m of revenues and 500 staff.

And prior to this in 1995 Ian formed and led another management buy in of two companies to create Fastnet Group, that he grew to become one of the UK's leading network and communications services companies. Fastnet was sold to Redstone in 2000 returning institutional investors 10 x their original investment. ??Brown's early career included key positions at 3Com and Hewlett Packard. He also operates an independent business advisory practice Consilium Associates Ltd. 

GCI's CEO, Wayne Martinadded: "We are thrilled to have Ian on board and feel confident that he will help refine our strategy of continuous improvement and work with us to build a successful future for GCI."
 

Maintel has achieved ISO20000 status, the International Standard for service management.

Kevin Stevens, Group Operations Director, said: "ISO20000 took a lot of time and hard work to achieve. We had to be extremely thorough in our process and standards review, and consequently we can offer our clients an even more rigorously policed service."

"The pay-off for all that time and effort is that achieving the standard underlines Maintel's credibility and is a big tick in the box for Maintel's Managed Service proposition.

"As one of just 100 companies across all sectors in the UK which has attained this certification, we become part of a service management elite.

"Add to that our existing ISO9000 certification for quality management and ISO27001 certification for information security, and Maintel more than demonstrates its pedigree in Managed Services sector. Maintel is ambitious in this area of its business and we fully expect to become even more competitive as a result of attaining the new certification."

The deadline for the Comms National Awards, the UK's number one channel awards event once again sponsored by Nine Wholesale, has been extended to 5pm next Friday September 5th. "We are anticipating another record entry, but as client and channel references and testimonials are an essential part of the process we wanted to give people the chance to get back from their holidays and put together the best possible entries for the judges to consider," said Awards coordinator Nigel Sergent.

Once again, a quality panel of judges has been assembled who will be independently assessing each entry received. See: http://www.cnawards.com/judges.html

This year the panel includes Lee Shorten (pictured), who headed up Avaya's UK and Ireland operation for three years. " I am delighted to join the judging panel this year and I'm looking forward to seeing just how much the channel has developed and changed as solutions and services move more and more into the software arena," said Lee.

With a week to go there is still time to enter the Awards.

Simply register at http://www.cnawards.com/enter_now.html – select which awards you would like to enter, download the relevant entry forms, answer the questions on the form as accurately and succinctly as possible and then forward your completed entry, along with supporting testimonials and information, to CN Awards coordinator Nigel Sergent at nsergent@bpl-business.com

3CX has added clientless WebRTC video conferencing to the 3CX Phone System.

The feature, called 3CX WebMeeting, is said to be one of the first multiple participant web conferencing solutions using WebRTC.

Google's WebRTC technology enables video and voice communications to take place through the Internet browser, and participants can join meetings without the need to download additional software or plug-ins.

3CX WebMeeting is delivered as a hosted add-on, meaning that customers can use the web conferencing feature without installing additional server hardware or requiring additional bandwidth.

The meeting set-up and configuration takes place locally but is streamed via 3CX's data centres, saving businesses the need for additional bandwidth.

3CX customers can also host webinars or online training using the Virtual Classroom features. Web conferences can be launched through the 3CXPhone client with a few mouse-clicks.

Nick Galea, CEO, said: "This is a game changing moment for the telecoms industry, with 3CX WebMeeting, web conferencing is now within everyone's reach."

Virgin Media Business has signed a deal to provide services through the Scottish Government Fixed Telephony Services Framework, allowing public sector organisations across the country to benefit from cost savings created by collaborative procurement.

The deal will see Virgin Media Business provide fixed voice services to schools, hospitals, local councils and GP surgeries, playing a major role in improving digital connectivity across Scotland.

As a part of the deal, Virgin Media Business will offer lower tariffs to public sector organisations who switch their services, saving vital taxpayers' money.

Virgin Media Business will also be working with public sector organisations to identify new, more efficient ways of working, rolling out additional services such as SIP Trunking and cloud-based products.

This deal is part of a wider government programme which includes the roll out of a Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) for all public organisations in Scotland.

Virgin Media Business will be working with seven other suppliers, who will together provide telephony services to organisations to deliver more joined up public services across Scotland.

The new model will also lead to huge reductions in procurement costs by moving away from individual organisations procuring their own infrastructure.

Mario DiMascio, executive sales director at Virgin Media Business, said: "Through improved and more cost-effective voice services we'll take away the complexity that many organisations currently face in dealing with multiple providers and instead put in place a more collaborative approach. This will play a vital role in boosting efficiency and identifying new opportunities for growth.

"It's about improving Scotland's public sector infrastructure to generate significant long-term savings and ultimately deliver a more integrated and cost-effective service for businesses across the country."

Alastair Merrill, Director of Procurement and Commercial at the Scottish Government said: "The Fixed Telephony Services framework is a fantastic example of a variety of public sector organisations working together to achieve a wide range of local and national benefits by maximising efficiency through collaboration."

Brocade is working with BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions to deliver Brocade Leasing across Europe (specifically the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Spain).

Brocade Leasing is part of the wider Brocade Capital Solutions portfolio which includes Brocade Network Subscription, through which organisations can refresh their network infrastructure and simply add or subtract capacity without the need for significant capital expenditure, allowing them to focus on scaling their business instead of their network infrastructure.

"We are pushing the innovation envelope on both the technical and business front," said Marcus Jewell, Vice President EMEA at Brocade.

"With financing from Brocade, customers can turn on vast amounts of networking capacity, but do so in a flexible manner, such as bundling hardware, software, support contracts and professional services into one low monthly payment, thereby easing fiscal pressure on the business.

"Our agreement with BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions furthers our commitment to customers in helping them drive business transformation, while managing budgets in a prudent manner."

US-based ScanSource is set to buy Imago Group, the European distributor of video and voice communications equipment and services.

ScanSource gets Imago's operations in the United Kingdom, France, and the recently acquired business in Germany.

Imago sales for fiscal year ended July 31, 2014 are estimated to total approximately £50m with operating margins consistent with ScanSource's Communications business.

The all-cash transaction as currently negotiated includes an initial purchase price of approximately £24.5m, plus earnout payments over the next two years.

The acquisition as contemplated in the letter of intent is expected to be accretive to earnings per share and ROIC in the first year after closing, excluding one-time acquisition costs.

Founded in 1991 and headquartered in the UK, Imago has nearly 120 employees in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. I

n June 2014, Imago acquired VITEC Distribution, a videoconferencing distributor in Germany. Imago carries vendor partners including Polycom, Barco, Samsung, and NEC.

In 2013, Imago was named by Polycom as its Distributor of the Year in EMEA.

"The proposed acquisition of Imago represents the next step in ScanSource's strategy to be a value added distributor of video, voice and data solutions for resellers in Europe," said Mike Baur, CEO, ScanSource.

The ice bucket craze has gone viral globally and no doubt there will be many pictures and videos of comms and data folk taking the challenge in the next few weeks.

We would love to show them all, but regrettably our space and bandwidth is limited so we'll let Facebook and You Tube take the strain.

However, as a supporter of our charity Sparks, we have nominated Rainbow Group MD Dave Corgat to represent all the brave souls in our industry who will endure the icy humiliation in the days ahead.

Here's a picture of his chilly dowsing which caused great hilarity at the Rainbow's HQ in Kent.