Comms Dealer

South West Communications Group's Engineering Director Brian Lodge was saved by his ice axe during a fall on a charity climbing expedition to scale Mont Blanc.

"After hours of climbing in the dark with head torches we hit a new crevasse and ice wall at around 4,000m which had not been there previously," he said.

"We could not cross so had to turn around. I fell and performed a self arrest technique with my ice axe. The training clearly paid off.

"We ended up climbing along a rock ridge on the way back with a 3,500m drop on one side. I was genuinely scared to death."

Lodge was joined by his son Sam along with Greendale Farm Shop and Ladrum Bay Holiday Park owner Robin Carter and his daughter Joy for the expedition.

The plan to summit Mont Blanc was aborted when the mountain leaders deemed the conditions to be unsafe.

Attention then turned to Mnch, which is one of a group of three mountains including the Eiger and Jungfrau in the Alps, with its summit measuring 4,100 metres.

Lodge said: "Mnch was described to us as less plod and more technical. We needed to be confident in exposure at height as the summit was approached by a one foot wide ridge at over 4km high. We were roped to two mountain leaders just in case."

The climb aimed to raise finds for two local charities. The Exeter Foundation raises funds for a number of charities in the city while The C Group supports wounded Royal Marines. Lodge and his son Sam have raised £840 towards their £1,000 target.

Avnet Technology Solutions has launched the Avnet Security and Networking Solutions (ASNS) division in EMEA.

This will be supported by the opening of specialist technical and commercial ASNS Competence Centres in EMEA.

Industry analyst firm IDC predicts that market revenues will be in excess of $10 billion in the Network Security field by 2017, with a compound annual growth rate of 6.1 percent for the period 2012-20171.

As an integral part of addressing this growth market for the channel, Avnet is opening its first EMEA ASNS Commercial Competence Centre in the Netherlands this quarter.

The centre will act as an EMEA hub for delivering security and networking services and solutions across the region.

"The launch of our new division in this high growth, strategic market for security and networking is a natural fit to complement our extensive EMEA partnerships in this space," commented Graeme Watt, president, Avnet Technology Solutions, EMEA.

"By leveraging our resources, value-added services and skills we can help partners enter or expand in this complex marketplace, accelerating their time to market."

Olive Communications has acquired SafetyBank Solutions, a developer of SaaS-based products to the construction sector. SafetyBank was formed in 2010 to create and develop software to help the construction industry manage and administrate all aspects of health and safety, risk management, compliance, training and governance throughout the entire supply chain.
 
In acquiring SafetyBank, Olive will now be able to provide business-critical applications to companies employing field-based workers, in addition to its current portfolio of connectivity, equipment and converged communication solutions.

Olive is one of Vodafone's largest Platinum Partners in the UK, managing in excess of 120,000 mobile subscribers and supporting in excess of 2,500 business customers.
 
As part of the acquisition, Olive has acquired the entire issued share capital, along with the Intellectual Property Rights. It will retain all SafetyBank staff, including its 15-strong application development team. SafetyBank Chief Executive and inventor of the platform, Jody Kennedy, will join the Olive Board as its Chief Technology Officer.
 
Martin Flick, Chief Executive of Olive said: "This is our tenth acquisition in two years and is the most significant in terms of our broader managed services strategy.

"We have already been investing in and developing the SafetyBank platform jointly with Jody and his team, and following a soft launch earlier this year, we are now ready to incorporate the range of services into our core portfolio, hence the timing of the acquisition.
 
"This acquisition is a game changer for Olive. It demonstrates our commitment to continually add value to our customers by delivering cost-effective managed communications and connectivity, alongside device and user management, rich content and services."
 
Jody Kennedy, previously Chief Executive of SafetyBank and now Olive's new CTO, said: "Olive has already played an integral part in making SafetyBank available for those working on sites and remotely.

"The success demonstrated by Olive as the market leader in workforce mobilisation is a great enabler for all of our customers and partners in creating a limitless, streamlined and empowered approach to risk management and beyond. The once only dreamed of combination of SaaS, mobilised workforce and construction risk management is now not only a reality for enterprise businesses, but is affordable to all."

The inaugural Comms Dealer Alpine Society ski trip was a near sell out just days after details of the outing were released.

This new gathering is set to become a firm fixture in the comms calendar kicking off in January 2015 at St Anton, Austria, with just a few places left up for grabs.

Lining up on the piste so far are Union Street, Frontier Voice & Data, Virtual1, Daisy Wholesale and Nine Group.

Union Street's Head of Sales Vincent Disneur said: "Business is about getting to know people, and what better way to do that than by joining the Alpine Society."

For more information email: sturton@bpl-business.com

Predictive analytics specialist RapidMiner has appointed Marcus Adams as its new Head of Channels and Alliances for the EMEA region and the UK.

In his new roles Adams, who will be based in the UK, will be responsible for driving channel programme across the region and growing its channel partner, reseller and distributor base. This includes working closely with System Integrators and OEM partners who build on solutions on RapidMiner technology, it says.

Adams has over a decade of experience in channel and pre-sales roles in the UK. He joins from business intelligence specialist Qlik where he was the senior manager for global partner enablement. Prior to this, he worked in presales with consultancy Ciber, Source BioScience and was UK IS manger at Ecolab.

"Marcus comes to us with substantial front line partner enablement experience in our market sector and a proven track record of delivering and implementing successful partner programmes across multiple countries, essential skills and knowledge that will underpin our channel expansion across the EMEA region," said Ingo Mierswa, co-founder and CEO of RapidMiner.

Prime Networks has struck a deal with a FTSE 250 company to develop and upgrade its mobile fleet.

The £2bn property company chose Prime because it provided 'the best commercial and technical solution' to accommodate a vast increase in data working across its business.

Prime is advising on the best way to deploy smartphones across the property firm's workforce, including Blackberry Q series phones, iPhones, Androids and tablets.

Security and device management will be provided using Prime's cloud-based MDM solution.

Commenting on the deal, Adrian Barnard, Managing Director of Prime Networks, said: "We're pleased to have delivered, yet again, a value-adding client solution with Vodafone's network and Prime client support & MDM services that will prove invaluable to the client."

tIPicall, the UK-based SIP and hosted carrier, has reported a significant increase in the sales of international numbers during the football World Cup being held in Brazil.

tIPicall, which offers international numbers delivered to either IP endpoints or diverted to any number worldwide provide numbers from 28 out of the 32 competing nations at this year's World Cup.

tIPicall's resellers have been as creative as always with one ordering a local Brazilian number and having it pointed to their UK mobile phone so that they could travel through the country following the football whilst being able to provide their local number to airlines to get the special non-tourist airfares.

Guy Miller, Managing Director of tIPicall, said: "England might have had an early exit but we're seeing a huge increase in number orders for those countries competing as the nation's eyes are more focused on the world stage. There doesn't seem to be sour grapes in the telecoms world as orders for Costa Rican, Italian and Uruguayan numbers have increased fivefold."

Vodafone UK has confirmed the winners of its 2014 Partner of the Year Awards at an awards ceremony at The Lowry Hotel in Manchester.

The event followed the latest partner conference to update over 100 mobile and fixed partners on the opportunities for 2014 and to hear first-hand about Vodafone's continuing strategy of providing a total communications portfolio to the channel.

The Partner of the Year awards, now in their fourth year, recognise partners who exhibit the highest level of performance capability and skills and who have helped create the best customer experience between 1st April 2013 and 31st March 2014.

During the evening high performing partners from 2013-2014 were recognised across the following categories:

Total Communications Partner of the Year - CommsXchange

Platinum Partner of the Year - OneCom

Gold Partner of the Year - Connect Telecom

Silver Partner of the Year - Your Company Mobiles

One Net Partner of the Year - PMGC Technology Group

Fixed Voice Partner of the Year - Italk

Fixed Data and Internet Partner of the Year - Eison

Rob Mukherjee, Head of Vodafone Partner Services at Vodafone UK, said: "The Vodafone Partner of the Year Awards is a clear demonstration of our commitment to our channel partners as we place them at the heart of our strategy for the coming year."

The conference also saw Vodafone announce its latest business and partner strategy.

New to the programme is the Solutions Pioneer accreditation. This accreditation launched on 1 April 2014 is for partners demonstrating a firm commitment to Vodafone's strategy through proven capability and consistent sales performance across its total communications portfolio.

Recipients of the accreditation were CommsXchange, Connect Telecom and Redsquid.

Mukherjee added: "We want to enable our partners to focus on the things that really matter - driving converged technologies, helping customers to find better ways of working and providing a fantastic customer experience. We also want to support our partners to be the best channel to market for our total communications portfolio, as we know this is what customers want."

Europe is expected to blaze a trail for telco spending in the next few years according to market research firm Infonetics Research. Software-defined networks (SDNs) and network functions virtualisation (NFV) have the attention of nearly all service providers who are on the long road to widespread deployments, it says.

"Expect a slowdown in the Americas, but for a change, Europe will be in the telecom capex driver's seat this year," says Stéphane Téral, principal analyst for mobile infrastructure and carrier economics at Infonetics Research.

"We're forecasting global carrier capex to rise 4%, with EMEA as the growth engine despite unabated low-single-digit revenue declines all across Europe. After waiting for so many years to upgrade their networks, Europe's 'Big 5'-Deutsche Telekom, Orange, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, and Vodafone-have decided it's time to take the plunge."

Co-author of the report Matthias Machowinski, Infonetics' directing analyst for enterprise networks, added: "Economic expansion in mature economies and falling unemployment in Europe is driving stronger growth in enterprise telecom and datacom expenditures this year. We expect the network infrastructure segment to be the main beneficiary of growing investments, followed by security. The communication segment will likely have another challenging year, as companies evaluate their deployment strategy going forward."

Mobile service revenue remains the main telecom/datacom growth engine worldwide, led by the rise of mobile broadband. And, to avoid falling into the role of pipe provider, many service providers are deploying or weighing new architectural options such as caching/content delivery networks, next-gen central offices, distributed mini data centres, and video optimisation

Tech Data Europe has extended its distribution agreement with Symantec to offer its full portfolio in the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Under the extended agreement customers will be able to access the Symantec's full range of security, information and availability solutions. Prior to the extension, Tech Data had access only to the Symantec's enterprise availability solutions in the UK and the Netherlands.

The new deal aims at all customers, from small home users to large enterprises, it says. This includes retailers and webstores as well as systems integrators and value-added resellers (VARs), which are offered an expertise of Tech data's enterprise business unit Azlan.