Comms Dealer

8x8 Solutions has been accepted as a supplier by the Crown Commercial Services (CCS) on the CCS' recently announced G-Cloud 5 framework. G-Cloud is a UK Government initiative to encourage the adoption of cloud services across the whole of the public sector.

"Our solutions now appear under the SaaS category of G-Cloud 5's CloudStore online marketplace," said Kevin Scott-Cowell, CEO, 8x8 Solutions. "This will help potential customers across the public sector to quickly and easily identify which of our easy to use, cloud-based, managed services will best suit their individual business communications needs. The important thing is, that they can fund deployment out of their operational budgets."

8x8's hosted business VoIP solution allows public sector organisations to move their phone systems to the cloud, giving them access to not just a phone and fax service that delivers more functionality than a traditional hardware PBX, but access to online meetings via web and video conferencing plus integrated call centre capabilities at the same time as delivering flexibility and agility through 8x8's mobile apps.

Additionally, for a public sector organisation which understands the financial and functionality benefits that could be achieved by switching from its existing on-premise VoIP provider, 8x8 can offer a migration path which utilises the organisation's existing infrastructure, to 8x8's hosted cloud-based VoIP solution.

"8x8's cloud-based unified communications importantly enables public sector organisations to considerably enhance their levels of customer service by putting the tools to improve their external communication and collaboration at their fingertips," added Scott-Cowell.

G-Cloud 5 supports the Government's policy to centrally manage the procurement of common goods and services through an integrated procurement function at the heart of government. Suppliers are carefully evaluated during the tender process and pre-agreed terms and conditions offer public sector customers sound contractual safeguards.

"The key difference between G-Cloud 5 and other procurement frameworks is that public sector organisations are able to enter into a contract with 8x8 which enables them to pay for the services they use on a pay-as-you-go basis," explained Scott-Cowell.

"8x8 and our channel partners look forward to helping public sector customers take advantage of G-Cloud 5's SaaS solutions to cut their operating costs by avoiding lengthy and often inflexible supplier contracts, saving money on the supply and maintenance of traditional hardware and by paying for just the services they actually use."

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise premium partner SBL has been appointed as the first to deliver OpenTouch Enterprise Cloud (OTEC) to the UK market.

SBL is working with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise IaaS partner CentriLogic to deliver the cloud solution to customers.

John Owen, Managing Director, SBL, said: "There is a definite demand for unified communications in the UK, and it's not just coming from large enterprises. Many businesses across different verticals, including SME, education, public sector and hospitality all want easy access to modern multimedia communicaton technologies.

"Hospitality is a key market for this technology as the prevalance of mobile devices and mulitple guest users requires a fresh way to engage with guests through the devices and applciations that they are comfortable with."

Peter Tebbutt, Country Leader, UK&I, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, added: "The shift to the cloud is picking up considerable momentum, with consumer devices, mobility and open standards in technology driving the trend.

"We are seeing growing demand for flexible solutions which offer access to unified communications and collaboration tools, without prohibitive up-front costs. This is why we developed OTEC, to bring these advanced communication technologies to a greater number of users with ease."

IT Europa and Angel Business Communications have revealed further details of the Managed Services & Hosting Summit which will be staged on 25 September 2014 at the Pullman St Pancras Hotel, London.

The Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2014 is a management-level event designed to help channel organisations identify opportunities arising from the increasing demand for managed and hosted services and to develop and strengthen partnerships aimed at supporting sales.

The event will bring together leading hardware and software vendors, hosting providers, telecommunications companies, mobile operators and web services providers involved in managed services and hosting with resellers, integrators and service providers developing their own managed services portfolio and sales of hosted solutions. Initial sponsors include: AppRiver, AVG, Autotask, Dot Hill, Dropbox, GFI Max and EG Innovation, with further major names expected to be announced over the coming weeks.

The summit will feature a high-level conference programme exploring the impact of new business models and the changing role of information technology within modern businesses. A strong line-up of speakers will be headed by Tiffani Bova, VP and Distinguished Analyst at Gartner Research, who will provide the opening keynote. Tiffani's presentation will examine how both technology changes (cloud, consumption and managed services) and new customer demands are forcing technology providers and the broader channel ecosystem to re-examine their sales models.

Tiffani will draw on new research from Gartner to show that the evolution of IT consumers in developing economies has gone faster than the providers' capacity to realign their sales models and channel strategies and argue that a technology provider's market success can be enhanced by the ability to address complex buying processes that span not only CIOs, but also departmental managers and other influential business decision makers.

Other presentation subjects will include: Trends in service delivery and changing customer demands, Hybrid IT, the impact of new technologies and evolving business models, Creating Value with Managed Services and the Future of Managed Services and Hosting and the changing role of MSPs and other channels.

"Advances in technology, economic pressures and evolving business models are combining to fundamentally change the role of both IT and Telecoms channels," says Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa.

"The Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2014 provides a unique opportunity for vendors, distributors, VARs, integrators and service providers to come together to address the issues and opportunities arising from the continued growth in customer demand for managed services and hosted delivery models."

Report by Philip Carse, Principal Analyst, Megabuyte: Daisy has reported revenues and EBITDA for the year to March 2014 up marginally at £353m and £58m respectively, suggesting organic declines of about 7%, down from 11-12% the previous year due to growing data and other revenues offsetting voice pressures. The company has increased its M&A war chest to an estimated £150m, and also announced two small recent deals - ABSE and Layer 7.

For the year to March 2014, business comms provider Daisy reported small headline growth in all key measures; revenues up 0.3% to £352.7m, EBITDA up 2.8% to £57.9m and adjusted EPS up 6% to 13.85p, while the full year dividend has been increased by 15% to 4.6p. The headline operating loss increased marginally to £17.9m, including £7.1m of exceptional costs and £63.8m of goodwill amortisation. Finance costs of £6.7m contributed to a loss before tax of £24.4m, up £0.8m.

Operating cash flow of £44.2m (76% of EBITDA) was down marginally, impacted by exceptional costs and working capital requirements of large managed service contracts. This was more than consumed with acquisitions of £45.5m, dividends of £14.2m, interest of £5.8m, tax of £4.9m, and capex of £1.9m. Net debt rose by £32.8m to £114.0m, or just under 2x EBITDA.

The picture was somewhat mixed by division. Daisy Retail (£300m, 65% of revenues) suffered a 6% revenue decline, maintained gross profit in absolute terms (lifting the margin 2.7pp to 43.7%), whilst EBITDA fell 5% to £43m. The main culprit as ever was Networks, with revenues down 13% to £114m, whilst Data revenues rose 25% to £59m, helped by the ex-2e2 data centre deal. Mobile gross profit increased marginally on revenues down 15% at £40m, reflecting new commercial arrangements with MNOs.

Daisy Wholesale (£73m, 21% of revenues) saw revenues rise 18% and EBITDA by 45%, helped by the Indecs acquisition. Daisy Distribution (mobile products) reported revenues up 11% to £50m and EBITDA up 20%, helped by MoCo.

The company noted strong contributions from acquisitions announced during the year - the ex-2e2 data centres, MoCo and Indecs - and also said that it acquired public sector focussed network operator ABSE in February 2014 for an initial £7.9m (with up to a £4.4m earn out), and LAN and WIFi specialist Layer 3 for £1.8m at the end of May.  M&A remains a target, with CEO Matt Riley noting that the company remains on the lookout for a 'transformational' deal. To this end, Daisy has negotiated to lift its bank debt availability from 2.5x to 3x EBITDA, giving about £150m current headroom including the potential to borrow against the target's EBITDA.

First thoughts
The broad numbers had been flagged in a trading update and therefore come as no surprise. What they do show, however, is a continued improvement in underlying revenues, with an estimated organic revenue decline for the year of just under 7% (with £23.6m contributed by the acquired businesses) and by 5% for EBITDA (with £3.1m contributed). This contrasts with 11-12% for the previous financial year and 7.8% for the first half. Broadly speaking, contributions from growth areas such as Data are increasingly outweighing market declines in calls and regulatory driven reductions in mobile termination rates. There was also a welcome improvement on operating cash flow in the second half, contributing nearly two thirds of the total for the year.

The focus on growth is reflected in M&A, with the acquisitions undertaken during the year and the two new deals (LANs/WiFi and public sector networks - the latter presumably a la Updata) being far from the distressed voice base that Daisy might once have acquired. The £150m plus firepower from the enlarged facilities gives it considerable scope for a transformational deal - though it has seen InTechnology and Updata slip by in the last year or so. 

Nimans has taken in a new series of SIP phones from Aastra (a Mitel company) - the 6800i family of four models offer HD wideband audio, a 'superior' speakerphone and audio processing, combined with attractive price points, Gigabit capabilities and interoperability with all major IP Telephony platforms.

"There's a choice from entry level to advanced executive phones, all competitively priced," says Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at Nimans. "In addition they use Power over Ethernet which reduces power usage, enables scalable delivery of power and simplifies deployment."

Outsourcery is beating the drum following a successful year for its partner programme.

Outsourcery's channel-centric business model has seen its partner-base increase from 307 to 560 companies in the 12 months to May 2014, following its IPO and listing in May 2013.

Piers Linney, Co-CEO of Outsourcery, said: "To meet end-user demand in a rapidly changing landscape, partners need to get cloud solutions to market quickly, ahead of competitors.

"The rapid growth of our partner network is a testament that our approach to cloud services is the right one for the supply chain.

"Many operators in the channel have struggled to adjust from selling technology-as-an-asset to a service-based business model, so we have developed our channel programme in order to specifically overcome this issue.

"Furthermore, our partners are converging on cloud from a variety of industries - from telcos to ISPs - so it has always been our aim to offer a tailored approach."

Three quarters (75%) of business-led IT money is spent on innovation, compared to just 25% from the traditional IT budget, which is focused on maintenance and operations, or rather 'keeping the light on'.

This is according to latest research from member-based advisory company CEB, which looked at the benefits of business-led IT and the need for CIOs and their teams to act as technology advisers.

Based on the study, CEB has identified the best ways to harness the value of business-led IT.

Educate employees about what's healthy

The first step is to get employees to understand the critical difference between healthy and unhealthy IT spend. As a general rule, projects which can be easily hosted through the cloud and have the flexibility to stand apart from the rest of the business should be encouraged as positive examples of business-led IT.

Projects that need support from expensive dedicated in-house technologists, or basic commodity technologies - such as printers or servers - should be considered much more carefully.

Help manage the vendors
IT teams need to help executives deal with vendors, some of whom will be looking to exploit the less tech-savvy backgrounds of employees outside IT. Compared to equivalent sales to corporate IT departments, CEB research suggests that technology sales direct to the business close in less than half the time and have twice the contract value.

Shift the dial on 'shadow spending'
Finally, CIOs still need to focus on shifting perceptions about how IT staff view 'shadow spending' and help teams understand its value. Almost one third (60%) of IT employees believe that business-led IT "always creates risks", while less than 40% think it should be allowed at all.

Andrew Horne, MDat CEB, said: "Most organisations now understand that business-led IT is here to stay. For every £1 spent on the corporate budget, another 40p is spent by other parts of the business.

"What CIOs are now realising is that business-led IT is another - often better, cheaper - way to achieve the goals of the IT department, particularly when it comes to innovation and testing out new digital capabilities.
The goal is to improve the success rate of these technology investments - regardless of who came up with the idea.

"The talent landscape is also experiencing huge changes. We found that 97% of IT roles will undergo changes in the next few years and IT teams will need to hire six new roles that don't exist today. The CIO role will also change. The aspiring CIO is no longer someone who can run technology projects and keep costs down. They need to be able to coach business leaders and influence business-led technology strategy. This means working directly with the CEO and other executive team members."

Europe's second-highest court has upheld the €1.06bn fine levied in 2009 on Intel by the EU's antitrust regulators.

Intel was accused five years ago of blocking AMD's market share by giving rebates to PC makers with the result that most continued to buy most of their computer chips from Intel. The company can still appeal the case to Europe's highest court, the European Court of Justice.

March Networks, an independent subsidiary of Infinova and a global provider of intelligent IP video solutions, is focusing on expanding in Europe, and in key verticals in this region such as banking, retail and transportation segments, as well as horizontal industries.

Sales in Q1 2014 were 78% year on year higher than 2013. Speaking about the company's success in Europe, Stefano Torri, European Sales Director at March Networks, said.

"Having established its market leadership in North America, March Networks now wants to do the same in Europe. We are making significant investments in our sales, marketing and customer support teams in the region to help drive this expansion, as well as significant investment in our Milan, Italy, R&D centre. With the success that we have seen so far this year, we are looking forward to the rest of 2014 and beyond to further grow our business in this key market."

Users include more than 450 banks globally, covering over 26, 000 bank branch offices. In addition, its monitoring systems cover over 500 million miles of transportation links and infrastructure, served by March Networks' mobile monitoring solution with coverage in more than 50 countries all over the world.

March Networks' short-term objectives are to increase its visibility and market share in European vertical markets and to revamp its regional Partner Program by expanding its channel partnerships in key markets and verticals.

"Our Enterprise class video solutions have already been proven by customer experience in other markets such as North America and Asia," continued Stefano Torri.

"These are now being rolled-out across Europe and many businesses are seeing the benefits these can bring, especially in commercial and industrial multi-site applications where our enterprise class deployments can bring real results and benefits."

Canon's imaging business is buying Denmark-based Milestone Systems A/S, a provider of open platform video management software, via its subsidiary Canon Europa N.V.

Canon has a clear ambition to drive future growth through diversification and has identified network video surveillance as a strategic new business area. Bringing Milestone into the Canon Group will significantly enhance Canon's software capabilities in this sector.

Rokus van Iperen, President & CEO, Canon Europe, Middle East and Africa, explains: "Canon is aiming to take a leadership position in network video surveillance and we are making an important strategic investment today to realise our objective to expand in this market. Together with Milestone, we can accelerate our growth by delivering new advanced products and solutions for new sectors, through new channels, to offer greater customer value."

Lars Thinggaard, President & CEO, Milestone Systems, added: "Canon respects how we built our business with our partners and supports our strategy of providing open platform solutions and therefore the need to remain a standalone company within the Canon Group. We feel this step is right for taking both our business and support for suppliers and partners to a new level."