Comms Dealer

US-based IT solutions specialist American Digital Corporation's 2014 State of SAP Report shows a rising trend to managed services.

The study aims to show trends driving SAP use, and found that 61% of IT leaders plan to invest in outsourced managed services in the next two years, while only 39% will depend on in-house resources for SAP support.

The US is generally regarded as being one-two years ahead of Europe in the take-up of SaaS and managed services. There seems to be a recognition of a skills issue with SAP use. Even so, it says, despite an overall growing dependence on third party support, there remains a hesitancy to outsource infrastructure. SAP HANA, SAP Mobile and Managed Cloud rank as the most in-demand SAP offerings.

"SAP environments are relying more heavily on outsourcing to maximise overall efficiency," said Bill Loupakos, VP of Professional Services, American Digital.

"Today we see companies comfortable with outsourcing application support, but many are still holding on to the infrastructure in-house. Providers have evolved to meet these growing market demands, so companies can maximise cost savings and efficiencies and focus their intellectual capital on their business processes and compliance."

Global server shipments fell in the latest quarter after a year of rising sales, says IDC. Cisco was the big winner, IBM the loser.

IDC said factory revenue in the worldwide server market decreased 2.2% year over year to $10.9bn in the first quarter of 2014.

Server unit shipments improved 2.1 % to 2.1 million units as investments in datacentre capacity were largely offset by consolidation, which continued to be a strategic focus for many large and small customers around the globe.

The midrange and high-end markets were impacted by difficult year-over-year comparisons combined with transitions in the technology refresh cycles typical for these segments, said IDC
"The server market continues to be heavily influenced by the emergence of the 3rd Platform as mobile, cloud, big data, and social enablement drive significant hyperscale server deployments globally," said Matt Eastwood, group vice president and general manager, Enterprise Platforms at IDC.

HP held the number 1 position in the worldwide server market with 26.5% factory revenue share for 1Q14. HP's -2.0% revenue decline came mainly from continued weakness in Itanium-based server revenue. IBM held the number 2 spot with 19.1% share for the quarter as factory revenue decreased -25.4% compared to 1Q13. Cisco's 1Q14 factory revenue increased 37.0% compared to 1Q13, gaining 1.6 points of market share, and Oracle's factory revenue was up 1.9% year over year in 1Q14.

Demand for x86 servers grew in Q1 with revenues increasing 4.9% year over year in the quarter to $8.9 billion worldwide as unit shipments increased 2.5% to 2.1 million servers. HP led the market with 29.6% revenue share based on 0.4% revenue growth yr/yr. Dell retained second place, securing 22.0% revenue share.

Density Optimised servers, used by large heterogeneous data centres, fell back as demand in 1Q14. Revenue declined -10.8% year over year in Q1 to $649 million as unit shipments decreased -6.0% to 215,567 servers. Density Optimised servers now represent 6.0% of all server revenue and 10.4% of all server shipments.

Blade servers increased 2.3% year over year to $2.0bn. Blades now account for 18.0% of total server revenue. HP maintained the number 1 spot in the blade server market in 1Q13 with 43.7% revenue share; Cisco held the second position in the blade market with 24.4% revenue share; and IBM held the third position with 12.3% revenue share.

Maintel has appointed Rob Leader as Sales Manager of its Mobile and Network Services divisions.

Leader will head up a team of nine people initially with a view to recruiting a larger team and significantly growing Maintel's base of 1,000 Mobile and Network Services customers and 13,000 connections in the next year and beyond.

He comes with an impressive track record of transforming telecoms sales teams into high-performing units.

Having initially started out in the industry on the technical side of the business with Nortel, he moved to T-Mobile, before joining Vodafone as a data specialist and then being headhunted to a similar role by 02.

While at 02, Leader was seconded to head up the London sales team within a year of joining before being appointed to the role of Regional Sales Manager for the South-East, proceeding to transform the lowest performing sales team into the best in the UK with minimal changes to personnel and winning accolades across the board.

Jim Close, Group Sales Director at Maintel, said: "Rob has an impressive track record of getting the best out of people and creating winning teams through strong leadership and positive sales culture.

"He's the perfect fit for Maintel's vision for its Mobile and Network Services divisions, and we're all excited by the boost we know he will give the business."

Leader said: "Maintel is ambitious, growing, and has a strong vision for developing the business. I am delighted to have this huge opportunity to be part of a successful company that is really going places.

"My goal is to stimulate aggressive growth through new business, while improving our already strong account management team, and growing the already highly rated service team and selling a wider range of solutions into existing customers."

Smartphones have twice the global reach of laptops and PCs with penetration in the 15 biggest developed markets at 65% at the end of 2013, and 23% for the 15 biggest emerging markets, noted Mary Meeker in a mobile-centric 2014 Internet Trends Report.

Global smartphone penetration has reached 22%, well above 11% penetration for laptops and 10% penetration for desktops. Tablets are still only at 6%, and mobile phones in general at 73%. There were 2.61 billion global Web users at the end of 2013, and 1.79 billion smartphone subs. Mobile made up 25% of Internet traffic as of May 2014, up from 15% a year ago and 10% two years ago.

Mobile accounts for over 1/5 of online video time (favorable for YouTube).Internet ad sales grew 16% last year to $116bn. Google had a Q1 annualised ad ARPU of $45 (up $3 Y/Y), dwarfing Facebook's (FB) $7.24 (up $2.84), and Twitter's (TWTR) $3.55 (up $1.58), it says. Mobile is estimated to account for 20% of media time spent, and just 4% of ad sales. For Internet, the figures are 25% and 22%.

Runners lining up for this year's Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon can look forward to some high profile support to spur them on as they tackle the 26.2 mile course.

The BBC Question of Sport team captain and BT Sport rugby pundit, Matt Dawson, has agreed to be an official ambassador for the event which takes place in York and its surrounding villages on Sunday 12th October.

The 41-year-old former England Rugby Union captain has given his backing for the race, held for the first time last year, and will be at the start and finish line on the day.

Matt, who completed the 2007 London Marathon for charity in 4:35:39, said: "I can't wait to be at the start line, cheering on the runners at this year's Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon. The enthusiasm and support this event has already received, in only its second year of existence, is truly infectious and I can't wait to witness it all for myself."

Andy Baker, CEO of Plusnet said: "Matt is both a sporting legend and household name so he is an obvious choice to bring on board to help promote this year's event. We hope as many people as possible will come and join ourselves and Matt in supporting the runners out on the course come event day."

Lisa Ashcroft, Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon event lead, said: "It is brilliant that Matt has agreed to be an ambassador for the event. His own sporting achievements are well documented and we hope his support for The Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon will prove inspirational for the thousands who will line up at the start on October 12th."

Matt, who toured with the British and Irish Lions, was a member of the England team that lifted the World Cup in 2003. He retired from the game in 2006.

The 2013 inaugural Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon, last October, was hailed a huge success, bringing in up to £2m for good causes. According to financial experts, it also brought a boost of at least £1m for the local economy. 

And this year's run is on course to be another big success. Capacity for the event was increased to 7,000 due to popular demand and all the places were snapped up in just a few hours. Only charity places are now available.

The marathon is organised by the team behind the popular Jane Tomlinson's Run For All 10K Series and Leeds Half Marathon, and is part of the lasting legacy of the late Jane Tomlinson CBE, who raised almost £2million by completing a series of amazing sporting challenges, despite being diagnosed with incurable cancer. 

www.theyorkshiremarathon.com. 

Zen Internet has been awarded the European Commission's EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres Award 2014.

The award presented by the European Commission is in recognition of the efficiency improvements made to Zen's Data Centre at its North West headquarters.

All four of Zen's directly owned and managed Data Centres have Participant status in the EU Code of Conduct. 

The EU Code of Conduct has been created in response to increasing energy consumption in data centres and the need to reduce the related environmental, economic and energy supply security impacts.

"We are honoured to win this award in recognition of efficiency improvements made in our Data Centre as a Participant in the EU Code of Conduct. It's a testament to the work of all those involved and we look forward to achieving further improvements as we deliver on our future commitments," said Richard Tang, Managing Director.

"Adhering to the Code guidelines allows us to better manage energy utilisation within our Data Centres, which enables us to better control our costs and in turn offer better priced hosting products and services to our customers."

Virgin Media Business claims to have supported a major step forward in broadcasting history last week as the BBC plugged into London Public Services Network (LondonPSN) to transmit coverage of Thursday's elections instead of using a satellite truck.

A partnership between Virgin Media Business and LondonPSN, an initiative coordinated for the local authorities by London Grid Ltd and powered by Virgin Media Business, has enabled the broadcaster to transmit footage over the internet rather than via satellite.

The technology was piloted on Election Day in West London. The BBC used Virgin Media Business fibre optic network and LondonPSN to transmit HD quality content at a speed of 100 megabits per second back to New Broadcasting House to be aired.

It's not uncommon for up to 100 satellite trucks to cover events from numerous locations on this scale. Following this successful trial, all broadcasters, including Sky and ITV, now have the potential to broadcast over IP which could reduce the number of vans broadcasters would have otherwise needed to deploy for these events.

Temporary connections can be configured in advance, making it the ideal solution for large-scale planned events such as sports tournaments, cultural occasions and political events. This in turn frees up satellite trucks to respond to breaking news and ad hoc reports.

Mario Di Mascio, executive sales director, Virgin Media Business, said: "Few things move as quickly as breaking news, but until now broadcasters have been limited by the number of satellite trucks available. This is the first exciting step towards a future where media can get connected wherever news is unfolding - bringing viewers as close to the action as possible.

"It is an honour to work with the UK's most influential broadcaster to make this technology a reality, and we are looking forward to exploring ways to build on this in other parts of the London and the UK more widely."

Vaioni Wholesale is delivering up to £6,000 of Excess Construction Costs (ECCs) for fibre connectivity irrespective of operator choice.

ECCs are generally associated with additional costs in installing new or additional fibre to an office building/property to deliver high capacity fibre based internet connections.

With the adoption of fibre leased line internet connectivity at its highest rate, Vaioni continues to work with its partners and the industry leaders to offer the best incentives available on the market today to The Channel.

Sachin Vaish said: "This is a great incentive for our channel partners. Our objective is to see more businesses use fibre leased lines to connect to the internet and to unlock the true benefits of what Ethernet and Cloud Services can deliver to a business.

"Covering up to £6,000 of Excess Construction Costs across all of our UK Operators is fantastic and allows our Channel Partners to review previous opportunities and increase sales."

Microsoft is to buy French mobile push analytics provider Capptain as it strengthens its commitment to cloud services that power mobile application development.

Capptain will contribute to Microsoft's mobile application development process thanks to its offering that encompasses real-time user and push analytics, it says. This helps organisations analyse the behaviour of its customers in real-time and in response by tailoring content to its needs.

Following the acquisition, Capptain's solutions will be integrated into Microsoft Azure suite of services. And in the interim Capptain's existing solutions will be available to both new and customers.

"We are excited to welcome the Capptain team to Microsoft, and to Azure, to help us advance that future for all our customers," says Microsoft's representative Omar Khan.

The financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

Distributor of connectivity and cloud solutions DMSL has been named Volume Partner of the Year by BT in its Business Partner Sales awards, which were presented at the company's annual partner kick-off meeting.

Having set out its strategy for the year ahead, Martin Clarke, General Manager BT Business Partner Sales, presented awards to high-achieving partners in recognition of their success in the year to 31 March 2014.

John Carter, Managing Director of DMSL, said: "We have continued to work with BT and SMB channel partners to highlight the business benefits and potential of BT products and services.

"The kick-off meeting gave us even more enthusiasm and reason to believe that we can help partners grow their business in the year ahead."