Comms Dealer

Following the announcement of Bull's acquisition on May 26th, Atos has filed a draft public offer with the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) targeting all of Bull's outstanding shares and instruments.

As background, Atos says this is a part of its '2016 Ambition' three year plan, aimed at enhancing its position in Cloud services in Europe, and anchor its Managed Services and Systems Integration. Complementary technologies will further increase Atos' businesses impact and the relevance of its disruptive and innovative offerings, it says. The transaction will particularly enhance the group's offers in key areas such as Cloud services, Big Data and cyber security and will reinforce its position not only in France, but also in geographical areas such as Spain, Poland, Africa and Brazil.

Cost synergies potential is estimated at €80m after 24 months. These synergies are backed by a well identified and planned integration strategy within Atos' operations, based on transformation programs already experienced by Atos in previous large transactions.

This €4.90 cash offer values Bull's share capital at c. €620m on a fully diluted basis. It represents a 30% premium compared to the company's 3 month volume weighted average share price of €3.77 and a 22% premium compared to Bull's closing share price of €4.01 as of May 23rd 2014, the day preceding the announcement.

On May 23 and 25 2014 respectively, Atos' and Bull's Boards of Directors have both expressed their full and unanimous support to the transaction. On the date of the draft offer document, Crescendo Industries and Pothar Investments have both committed to tender all of their shares to the offer, representing an aggregated amount of 24.2% of Bull's share capital.

The Orange group and the BPI, with respective ownership stakes of 8% and 3.26%, have both expressed their support of the transaction as well and announced their intention to tender all of their shares to the offer, representing a total amount of 35.5% of Bull's share capital to Atos' public offer, comprising the tender agreements.

The offer's success is subject to reaching a 50% + 1 share threshold of Bull's share capital and voting rights. The offer is not subject to the approval of competition authorities.

IT distie Tech Data has announced an expansion of its strategic alliance with Extreme Networks. Under a new deal, it will offer additional customer resources, technical support and more sales training options for its channel.

Tech Data's Advanced Infrastructure Solutions (AIS) division offers access to Extreme's Networks data centre solutions portfolio, and with new educational training and resources for Extreme's resellers, Tech Data will offer webinars, customised support as well as assistance in how to best leverage Extreme Networks' networking and wireless solutions.

In conjunction with Extreme Networks, Tech Data will continue to provide product inventory management, channel recruitment and business development initiatives through its TeleSmart services and TDAgency, Tech Data's in-house channel marketing services agency, it says.

"This announcement is another step in accelerating our long-standing strategic alliance with Extreme Networks," said Chuck Bartlett, senior vice president, AIS at Tech Data.

Companies based outside Europe must meet Europe's data protection rules, EU ministers have agreed, although governments remain divided over how to enforce them on companies operating across the region.

The agreement to force Internet companies such as Google and Facebook to abide by EU rules is a first step in a wider reform package to tighten privacy laws - an issue that gained prominence following revelations of US spying in Europe.

"All companies operating on European soil have to apply the rules," EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding told a meeting in Luxembourg where ministers agreed on a position that has also been backed by the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ).

Germany and the European Commission, have been highly critical of the way the US accesses data since former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden last year revealed U.S. surveillance programmes.

Disclosures that the United States carried out large-scale electronic espionage in Germany, including bugging Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone, provoked indignation in Europe.
"Now is the day for European ministers to give a positive answer to Edward Snowden's wake-up call," Reding said.

The reform package, which was approved by the European Parliament in March, has divided EU governments and still needs work to become law despite progress.While ministers also agreed on provisions allowing companies to transfer data to countries outside the European Union, there was no decision on how to help companies avoid having to deal separately with the bloc's 28 different data protection authorities.

Speaking on behalf of DIGITALEUROPE, Rene Summer, Director for Government and Industry Relations at Ericsson said "The improvements to chapter 5 come at zero cost to citizens' privacy. This shows that there doesn't have to be a trade off between improving the legal framework for companies and protecting citizens' data."

Ministers agreed to three important changes to Chapter 5. They acknowledged the concept of 'legitimate interest' as a legal basis for transfers of data and they fine tuned the definition of appropriate safeguards for data.

They also improved the wording of the adequacy regime to make it more outcome oriented. This means that when assessing third countries' data protection rules, the EU will consider how the rules are enforced, not just whether countries have a rule or not.

Agreement has not been reached by Member States on one-stop-shop - one of the core elements of the proposed legislation. DIGITALEUROPE supports the concept of the one-stop-shop, where one data protection authority acts as lead authority for the whole EU.

"It is vital that ministers agree on a workable one-stop-shop approach. It will help ensure a consistent application of data protection law across the EU, giving companies the legal certainty they need to do business," Summer said.

Airtime distributor Daisy Distribution is to run a handset promotion in conjunction with this year's World Cup, starting on 12th June until the final on 13th July.

To take part in the competition, partners must register to be allocated with one of the 32 teams taking part in this year's competition.

If their team should reach the quarter or semi-finals, they will be awarded high value Sony merchandise and World Cup related prizes, with the overall winner receiving a Sony Xperia Z1 Compact and wireless charging mat package.

Throughout the competition top performing partners will be rewarded with World Cup associated gifts such as replica shirts, BBQ sets and Brazilian-themed hampers, based on handset specific promotional days.

Julien Parven, Marketing Director at Daisy Distribution, says: "As we continue to grow our handset distribution side of the business the World Cup offered an ideal opportunity for a bit of fun and to bring some focus to the diversity of handsets we offer.

"As well as rewarding those partners who are achieving great numbers, we will also be presenting prizes to those whose teams are performing well on the pitch. The partner who has the winning team will receive a high value prize from one of the official sponsors of the event."

Virtual1 has made a forward looking multi-million pound investment in its new London Metro Network and core infrastructure. Following 2,000 man hours in the build the expanded network brings an increase of over 200% in its Points of Presence to over 50 PoPs and data centres, 1,200 cabinets on the footprint, 2,000+ Gb ports in London with 15 Tbps of throughput on the Network.

"The dedicated dark fibre network, which is entirely Juniper based, now provides over half a million on-net opportunities and has created a high capacity, low latency network direct to the channel with the most competitive fixed London pricing on 100Mb, 500Mb and 1G services," said Managing Director Tom O'Hagan.

"While 100Mb and 500Mb are currently seeing the most growth we have built our network to provide resilient and diverse options to cater for the anticipated growth over the coming years.

"With future trends predicting that lower bandwidths will decrease in growth and customer aggregation and migration to higher bandwidths being the norm Virtual1 has built the network with future proofing forefront of mind."

SpliceCom has unwrapped MAP, its MultiApp Platform for small and medium sized business offering single and multisite IP PBX supporting <500 users on a single platform.

"MAP eliminates the Platform Tax imposed on customers by other vendors who have 'bought in' Call Recording, Call Management, Wallboards/Dashboard systems or Smartphone support on separate PCs or Servers," stated Robin Hayman, SpliceCom's Director of Marketing & Product Management.

"MAP's use of SSL technology for smartphones and the remote workforce also drastically reduces the VPN network overhead incurred by other vendors offerings.

"This designed-in rather than bought-in approach to product development and technology implementation substantially reduces capital costs for resellers and end users, so reducing real total cost of ownership (TCO) for SpliceCom's customers."

Nimans has launched a bundle offer combining a new BT conferencing unit with a smartstation docking solution that turns an iPhone into a desktop business handset.

To mark an exclusive supply partnership of BT's X500 audio conferencing device resellers will automatically receive a free iFusion docking solution.

Ian Brindle, Nimans' Head of Conferencing Sales, said: "The X500 is an out-of-the-box complete conferencing solution. The wireless microphones add a dynamic dimension to any conference call ensuring all parties can easily be heard. They sit neatly within the unit when not in use as part of a compact, user friendly and easy to use overall design."

A 25% drop in high-end storage spending meant that external disk storage and total disk storage sales respectively fell 5.2% and 6.9% yr/yr in Q1, says IDC.

IBM was a big loser, probably to cloud storage as the high end of the market dropped.

"The poor results of the first quarter were driven by several factors, the most important of which was a -25% decline in high-end storage spending," said Eric Sheppard, Research Director, IDC Storage.

"Other important contributors to the market decline include the mainstream adoption of storage optimisation technologies, a general trend towards keeping systems longer, economic uncertainty, and the ability of customers to address capacity needs on a micro and short-term basis through public cloud offerings."

Those figures follow Q4 growth rates of 2.4% and 1.3%. Market leader EMC, which depends heavily on its high-end Symmetrix line, saw its external share fall 110 bps yr/yr to 29.1%, and its total share fall 50 bps to 22.4%.

EMC previously reported that its high-end sales fell 22% in Q1; strong flash/scale-out storage sales partly offset the drop. NetApp's low high-end exposure allowed its shares to grow 30 bps and 50 bps to 15.1% and 11.7%, in spite of a 2.8% revenue drop. HP's external share rose 40 bps to 8.8% (through its brand 3PAR's strength), but its total share fell 20 bps to 15.1% (mainly on server weakness).

Things still look bleak for IBM, which reported a 23% yr/yr Q1 system storage revenue drop: Its external share fell 200 bps to 8.8%, and its total share 180 bps to 10.1%.The total disk share of non-top-5 vendors rose 370 bps to 28.8%.

Chalk that up to both surging demand for cloud storage (getting cheaper by the quarter) running on commodity hardware, and momentum for flash/hybrid storage upstarts such as Nimble and Nutanix.

Aspect Software is the first contact centre focused company to join the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF).

Mark King, Senior VP Europe & Africa at Aspect Software, stated: "As businesses look to progress with cloud-based technology it is important that the industry adheres to guidelines and rules in order to educate users and create a better and safer cloud for everyone, all of which the Cloud Industry Forum provides."

Alex Hilton, CEO of the Cloud Industry Forum, added: "Aspect is the first organisation from the to become a CIF member, and hopefully the example it sets will provide a platform for others in the industry to join as well.

"Aspect is an enabler for a truly agile business operation and the commercial exploitation knows no limit at this time, with strategies such as omni-channel aiding the way people collaborate and operate."

Partner demand for knowledge about Ethernet services has prompted Entanet to produce an eBook that explains how resellers can effectively approach the whole business of offering and delivering Ethernet services to customers.

"The eBook explains, in simple language and without getting bogged-down in technicalities, what drives an Ethernet sale, how it's provisioned, what takes place during installation and how Entanet provides ongoing technical assistance and customer support to its partners and their end-user customers," said Darren Farnden, Head of Marketing at Entanet.

"It also includes an FAQ (frequently asked questions) section that answers any queries that might still remain unanswered by the main eBook content."

Farnden also noted that the level of interest in Entanet's leased line, GEA and EFM services has 'sky-rocketed' over the past 18 months.

"While Ethernet isn't new, there are many different options available now and resellers need to be able to explain those differences and interpret what they mean for customers in business terms," he added.

"They also need to know exactly how services are provisioned, installed and supported - and how we will support them through that process. We think it's important in setting customers' expectations. The new eBook provides the answers to all these questions."

Click here to view Entanet's latest eBook