Comms Dealer

Google is aiming to support the next generation of European entrepreneurs with the creation of an EMEA venture fund to the tune of $100m.

"When we launched Google Ventures in 2009 we set out to be a very different type of venture fund," said Bill Maris, Managing Partner, Google Ventures.

"Startups need more than just capital to succeed, they also benefit from engineering support, design expertise, and guidance with recruiting, marketing and product management. Five years later, we're working with more than 250 portfolio companies, tackling challenges across a host of industries."

Google believes that Europe's startup scene has big potential: "We've seen compelling new companies emerge from places like London, Paris, Berlin, the Nordic region and beyond - SoundCloud, Spotify, Supercell and many others," added Maris.

Professor Stephen Roper, Researcher and Director of the Warwick Enterprise Research Centre, observed: "Google's announcement of the creation of a European venture capital fund is another welcome signal of confidence in the European high-tech industry.

"Google is rather late into this arena, however, with companies such as Intel Capital already having a well established portfolio of European tech investments. Perhaps more valuable than the investment to Europe's high-tech starts will be the potential relationship with Google itself, its technologies and market position.

"European high-tech firms have often looked enviously at the supply of risk capital available across the Atlantic. The arrival of Google Ventures in Europe takes us some way to redressing the lack of risk capital in Europe.

"As to whether Google is on a technology shopping spree or have a real interest in building Europe's next generation of high-tech gazelles only time will tell."

Gamma has appointed Richard Last as Non-Executive Chairman, and Martin Lea and Alan Gibbins as Non-Executive Directors.

Last is currently Non-Executive Chairman of Servelec Group, a UK-based technology company, and British Smaller Companies VCT2, a listed venture capital trust.

He is also Non-Executive Director of Corero, an AIM quoted IT solutions provider, and Lighthouse Group, an AIM quoted financial services group.

Lea was most recently interim CEO of Multicom Security Group in Sweden. From 2004-2011 he was CEO of Invitel, a telecommunications group with operations in Hungary and Eastern Europe. Prior to this, he was Executive Vice President of Intertek Group where he was global CEO of its electronic product testing division. Lea's international experience extends across the USA, Europe and Asia.

Gibbins was an Audit and Business Assurance Partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP from 1985 -2006. During this time, his responsibilities included one of the main London audit groups. More recently Gibbins has been a Non-Executive Director and Audit Committee Chairman for BlueBay Asset Management as well as being a Non-Executive Director for a number of private companies.

The trio will join Gamma's board alongside current executive directors Bob Falconer (CEO) and Gerard Sreeves (CFO) and Non-Executive Directors Andrew Stone and Wu Long Peng.

Falconer said: "We are delighted to have been able to attract three individuals with the depth of corporate and industry experience that Richard, Martin and Alan bring with them.

"The company has seen excellent revenue and EBITDA growth for a number of years, and the outlook is really exciting. As the scale and profile of the business continues to increase, I am sure that all three will make a valuable contribution in taking Gamma through the next phase of its corporate development."

Last added: "Martin, Alan and I are all excited to have been asked to join the Board of Gamma. It is a high quality business with a great financial and operational track record and some very exciting growth plans ahead. Since becoming involved with Gamma, I have been impressed by its market leadership, its closeness to its customers and the quality of its culture and people."   

C4L has strengthened its management team with the appointment of Alex Cruz Farmer (pictured) as Technical Director.

Farmer boasts 10-plus years senior experience in wholesale and service provider roles, he is an ISPA judge, Linx programme committee member and a business owning entrepreneur from the early age of 15.

C4L Group CEO Simon Mewett said: "Alex is a trusted acquaintance with extensive industry experience and a proven track record of success in technical innovation and decision making. His skill will be used to strengthen our portfolio of services for our channel, and provide true carrier grade and service provider solutions. 

"We have a rapid growth strategy and our business plans and investments are all prepared to meet market demand, Alex' appointment was the next logical and essential step."

Farmer added: "I am looking forward to driving the technical strategic direction through innovation of the technologies within the C4L Group companies."

Virgin Media Business is supporting Team Scotland with superfast connectivity during the Commonwealth Games.

Through the partnership, Virgin Media Business will be providing free Wi-Fi to Scotland House, a hub celebrating Scotland's sporting success, culture and business potential.

The athletes - including Twitter-savvy Team Scotland athletes Daniel Purvis, Emily Maguire, Jillie Cooper, and Craig Maclean - will be able to stream live coverage for free and tweet through Virgin Media Business' fibre optic network.

Stretching across Glasgow's City Halls and Old Fruitmarket, Scotland House will have a private area for the 310 Team Scotland athletes to relax between events, catch up with friends and family and take part in media interviews.

It will also host a number of business meetings and networking events, which will maximise the opportunities presented by Scotland hosting the Commonwealth Games.

Scotland House will be open from July 21 to August 3 and is a partnership between Commonwealth Games Scotland, VisitScotland, the Scottish Government, sportscotland, Glasgow City Council, Scottish Enterprise and Creative Scotland.

Duncan Higgins, marketing director, Virgin Media Business, said: "As Scotland steps onto the world stage, we're excited to be bringing unlimited connectivity to one of the key focal points of the Games, as well as celebrating some of the nation's biggest successes - from sport to art to business.

"The technology is designed to fit seamlessly around busy schedules during the two weeks of the Games, driving stronger performances and improving the overall experience for visitors and athletes alike."

Nimans has kicked-off a series of Summer Samsung application roadshows with five events being staged at venues across the country focusing on three areas of Samsung's applications portfolio.

The first full day session took place at Nimans' Manchester headquarters and focused on Samsung Business Reporting that allows users to manage, analyse and control their communication activities to increase productivity.

Samsung's CTI Xchange is a separate topic where resellers can learn about presence, CRM integration and click-to-dial functionality. Samsung Contact Centre Pro that dramatically improves call handling is another dedicated course - as venues in Peterborough, Chertsey and Castle Donnington also feature.

"Applications present an excellent opportunity to cross-sell into existing customer bases," says Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at Nimans. "They can help resellers differentiate themselves from the competition and move conversations from basic telephony to powerful CTI and Call Management applications.

"We want to show resellers how these easily deployed and cost effective productivity tools can make a real difference to business performance."

Cost savings associated with virtualisation could be rendered null and void by penalties incurred through software licensing non-compliance, warns software value management firm Concorde Solutions.

Martin Prendergast, CEO of Concorde Solutions and Chairman of the Cloud Industry Forum's Software Value Management special interest group, said: "Many companies have found that there is a lot of value in moving their IT infrastructures to a virtualised environment, since it can offer security, reliability and cost savings from the reduction of capital expenditure.

"However, when companies innovate and develop new systems and processes within their organisations, factors like the licensing of underlying software products are often overlooked, especially in a virtualised environment where it is notoriously more difficult to keep track of estates. This is where governance issues have the potential to eat away at any initial cost savings made."

All major software vendors have established systematic licensing and business practices that are embedded throughout the sales cycle, designed to maximise revenues.

Virtualisation and cloud computing has made managing and having visibility of an end user's software estate more complex, and so vendors are ensuring that regular customer auditing is taking place.

Prendergast said: "It isn't unheard of for vendors to charge for technical support for any number of specified years prior to the audit, if they have found a customer had been under-licensed. At the same time, we've spoken to some end users who have held 'all-you-can-eat'-style contracts, who could actually be saving money by avoiding that type of licensing structure. Vendors are essentially profiting from the lack of attention given to software estates by the end users.

"Navigating thought an ocean of technical requirements - let alone license and contract and documentation - when you virtualise part or all of your business is an art-form in itself. If you can establish control of this from the beginning, you'll be in a better position to gain from the many benefits that virtualisation has to offer."

Avnet Technology Solutions has partnered with The Knowledge Academy to deliver training across 30 Uk locations.

The Knowledge Academy will add VMware accredited courses, delivered by certified Avnet trainers, to its education portfolio.

René Albert, Director Education Solutions Avnet Services, EMEA, said:, "This is a significant new relationship for Avnet as The Knowledge Academy is Avnet's first national education business partner in the UK. 

"As a result, business partners can now offer customers Avnet certified VMware training from any of The Knowledge Academy's 30 local training centres. Having access to a variety of courses at more locations will provide Avnet's business partners with the opportunity to strengthen their customer relationships through an additional point of value."
 
Avnet UK is a VMware Authorised Training Centre (VATC) and has a portfolio of certified training on offer from IBM, F5 Networks, Juniper, Palo Alto and Veeam.

Avnet business partners and end-users can now take advantage of VMware training plus The Knowledge Academy's public training schedule of more than 250 courses, including PRINCE2, MSP, MoR, ITIL, P30 and APMP, which run in more than 30 modern training centres across the UK.  
 
Steve Williams from The Knowledge Academy added: "In 2013 we trained more than 25,000 delegates in professional best practice and personal development courses globally.

"Working with VMware certified trainers from Avnet extends our portfolio to ensure that professionals using solutions for data centres or desktop virtualisation have the skills they need to install and manage VMware products effectively."

Migrating customers seamlessly to the cloud remains a challenge according to research by the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF). The majority of end users confirm that the cloud model offers them a competitive advantage but achieving this happy state is far from straightforward for most customers.

The study found that 87% of cloud users feel their migration could have been improved, with 38% wishing it had cost less. In more detail, 31% struggled with the complexity of migration, while 35% would have liked better tools from their Cloud Service Provider.

In a number of cases these difficulties resulted in lost productivity during implementation, delays in time to market, and to a lesser extent, some negative impact on the customer experience.

"Although these difficulties do not seem to have impacted UK businesses' enthusiasm for cloud in any significant way, improving the overall experience of cloud, from service design to service migration and management, should be an ongoing focus and priority for the industry to further enhance the benefits of cloud experienced by businesses," stated CIF CEO Alex Hilton.

On the plus side, the research found that 55% of cloud users have experienced a competitive advantage from using cloud services, and a further 23% anticipate the same result.

The survey also confirmed that end users are attracted to cloud benefits such as faster access to technology, flexibility of delivery and operational cost savings.

Proximity Communications has achieved Avaya Contact Centre Service Expert accreditation, and in doing so, joining just two other UK partners accredited to Expert level in all areas of Avaya business communications.
 
The Avaya Contact Centre Service Expert accreditation completes Proximity's set of Avaya Service Expert certifications (Networking Expert, Unified Communications Expert, Unified Messaging Expert and SME Expert).

Proximity has also been recognised with the Most Notable Win for Avaya Networking and the Avaya Partner in Customer Excellence Award the last two years running.
 
Stuart Legg, Sales and Marketing Director, Proximity Communications, said: "As a long-standing Avaya Enterprise Business Partner, we've been working together for many years and this new Contact Centre Expert accreditation gives further testament to that relationship. We're now able to help more companies than ever gain greater business value from IT."
 
Andy Litherland, VP European Channels at Avaya, added: "From its state of the art demo facilities to its passion for delivering business enhancing communications solutions, Proximity exemplifies the value Avaya partners bring to the sales process."

Global PC sales in Q2 fell by less than previously forecast, down 1.7% yr/yr to 74.4 million, says IDC, which had predicted a 7.1% drop. This was smaller than the 4.4% and 5.6% declines respectively seen in Q1 and Q4. Gartner is even more positive, estimating shipments rose 0.1%, ending a long string of declines.

"While the worldwide PC market stopped two years of declining shipments in the second quarter, there were mixed results, as stabilisation in developed markets was offset by a decline in emerging markets," said Mikako Kitagawa, principal analyst at Gartner.

"The PC industry in emerging markets has been impacted by the allure of low-cost tablets. These low-cost tablets continue to take spending from new PC units, meaning that it will take more time for PC sales to stabilize in emerging markets."

HP achieved its fastest global PC shipment increase in the last four years (since 2Q10). The company has put a lot of effort into restoring its PC business, including the review of the product family and stock keeping units (SKUs), as well as revitalising the channel partner program. HP did very well in EMEA with 21% shipment growth, securing the top spot in the region.

IDC thinks business PC upgrades following the end of Microsoft XP support helped. But it also says consumer demand was better than expected, with sales of low-end PCs, including. Chromebooks improving as tablet sales growth slows. Sales in the US and EMEA (two high-ASP regions) rose, while Asia-Pac (outside Japan) still fell by nearly double digits. IDC now thinks full-year industry growth "could get closer to flat, rather than the May projection of -6%. IDC's Q1 share data points to industry leaders gaining at the expense of smaller players: Lenovo's 19.6% share, +270 bps Y/Y. HP with 18.3%, +190 bps, and Dell 14%, +180 bps. Acer at 8.2%, -10 bps. Asus at 6.2%, +30 bps.

PC shipments in EMEA totalled 22.5 million units in the second quarter of 2014, an 8.6% increase from the same period last year, says Gartner.

The EMEA PC market has returned to strong growth after very weak growth (0.3%) during the first quarter of 2014 and eight consecutive quarters of decline prior to that.

"2014 is on pace to be a year of relative revival in the global PC market and that change is most pronounced in Western Europe," said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner. "In EMEA during the second quarter we saw a continued shift to ultramobiles at the expense of traditional notebooks." In addition, PC sales in EMEA continued to be driven by an increase in professional spending. This is in part due to organisations upgrading from Windows XP as official support from Microsoft ended.

Hybrid ultramobiles, such as two-in-one devices, are becoming more attractive - with increased usability at lower price points. Sales of premium tablets (such as the iPad), which compete with PCs, are also slowing as users move to tablets with lower functionality and price points; some users will replace premium tablets with two-in-one PCs, bringing spend back to the PC market.

In emerging European markets, the story was different, with two distinct trajectories seen during the quarter. "In Eastern Europe the PC market stabilised and volumes improved marginally year-on-year, driven by a slightly improved economic situation," said Isabelle Durand, principal research analyst at Gartner. "However, the situation in Russia and Eurasia remains challenging, due to the political and economic situation in Ukraine." The ongoing conflict resulted in a steep decline in the PC market in Ukraine, and businesses have delayed many PC purchases in Russia until, at best, the second half of 2014.