Comms Dealer

Exertis has added Promethean's interactive solutions to its product line up in a deal that builds on the disties' relationship with Promethean in Ireland.

Simon Port, Promethean's head of channel operations UK & Ireland, said: "The continued growth in the IFPD market, which the UK and Ireland are leading globally, means we need to ensure there is sufficient stocking capacity if our reseller partners are going to effectively meet demand.

"By bringing Exertis UK in as a second fulfilment source, we're essentially giving partners greater flexibility and choice, but ultimately equipping them with the fundamentals to achieve sales success."

QDOS Communications has completed the installation of a Mitel MiCloud Hospitality platform for one of Europe's newest hotel brands, MOXY Hotels, developed by Marriott International and Belvar, a hotel management and development company and client of QDOS.

The projects initially supported by QDOS are the 164 bedroom MOXY London Excel, 200 bedroom MOXY Aberdeen Airport, 176 bedroom MOXY Frankfurt Eschborn, and the 210 room MOXY Berlin Ostbahnhof.

Managed services are now officially mainstream across most industry sectors, so much so that many of today's MSPs may already be in need of an overhaul. That's the upshot of last month's European Managed Services and Hosting Summit which confirmed that the current MSP model 'came of age' this year.

Speaking at the summit  (staged in Amsterdam by Comms Dealer sister company IT Europa) Gartner Research Director Bianca Granetto (pictured) said: "The future managed services company will look very different from today.

"Digitalisation is redefining the buyer-seller relationship and customers are using more and more diverse IT suppliers. This process will continue in the coming years."

According to GCI CTO Mike Constantine it is now the quality of a managed service that differentiates one MSP from another rather than the number or type of technologies they offer.

"The quality of the managed service has many metrics such as visibility and insight into the usage and performance of the IT infrastructure, faster speeds, compliance and reduced errors," he said.

"Even more critical is having the expertise to integrate these multiple technologies together and deliver a working solution to the customer."

Robinder Koura, Senior Director of Channel Sales at RingCentral, stated: "The landscape is shifting and resellers who do not adjust their sales model will lose their competitiveness and value.

"They have to shift in the direction the wind is blowing and it is blowing stronger than ever."

Cisco has stated its intent to acquire Viptela, a privately held software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) company based in San Jose.

Viptela will expand Cisco's SD-WAN portfolio with increased functionality and simplicity delivered through the cloud.
 
"Viptela's technology is cloud-first, with a focus on simplicity and ease of deployment while simultaneously providing a rich set of capabilities and scale. These principles are what today's customers demand," said Scott Harrell, senior vice president of product management for the Cisco Enterprise Networking Group. 

"With Viptela and Cisco, we will be able to deliver a portfolio of on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-based SD-WAN solutions."
 
Cisco will acquire Viptela for $610m in cash and assumed equity awards. The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of calendar 2017, after having completed all of the customary closing conditions and regulatory review.

Equinix has completed its acquisition of 29 data centres and their operations from Verizon Communications.

The US $3.6bn all cash transaction includes over 1,000 customers, of which over 600 are net new, and approximately three million gross square feet of data centre space, accelerating Equinix's ability to help companies extend their IT operations to the digital edge through the interconnection of people, locations, clouds and data.

The acquisition of these strategic facilities broadens Equinix's capabilities by strengthening interconnection density on the Equinix global platform; accelerating business relationships in the government and energy sectors; and supporting Equinix's enterprise offering.

Additionally, it adds three new markets (Bogotá, Culpeper and Houston) and provides additional capacity and the opportunity for expansion in markets where Equinix currently has a presence, including Atlanta, Denver, Miami, New York, São Paulo, Seattle and Silicon Valley.

Spread across 15 cities in North and Latin America, the new assets bring Equinix's total global footprint to over 175 International Business Exchange TM (IBX®) data centers across 44 markets and approximately 17 million gross square feet.

BT has completed the acquisition of IP Trade, a provider of unified communications and collaboration solutions for trading floor environments and command-and-control dispatch centres, following approval by the UK's Competition & Markets Authority (CMA).

According to BT, teams will be able to collaborate across complex, global communities more effectively using a blend of speech, video and messaging with the broadest range of fixed and mobile devices and applications.

BT said in a statement, 'Technology and operations groups will be able to integrate their enterprise systems with their specialist trading floor and control room IT and combine cloud with on-premise solutions in the way that suits them best. Firms will be better able to meet demanding regulatory compliance obligations'.

US-based and a publicly traded value added reseller PCM has revealed plans to expand into the UK and the European market.

The company has decided to use its wholly-owned subsidiary, PCM Technology Solutions UK, to access the European market and says it will use it as its hub for both the UK market and the rest of Europe.

PCM also expects to fill around 90 positions by the end of the year and is now recruiting for the new roles across sales, vendor management, purchasing, marketing, IT, finance and other various business roles.

In February PCM UK hired Donovan Hutchinson as MD to help develop the offering for PCM UK.

He joined from Global IT where he was responsible for executing collaboration programmes and extending service offerings from North America based clients into the UK, Europe and Asia Pacific markets.

"Our expansion into the UK marks a major milestone for PCM as we introduce our technology solutions and capabilities to new markets around the world," stated PCM's Chairman and CEO Frank Khulusi.

"PCM UK will be our hub for the UK and the rest of Europe. Now is the right timing for us to pursue this additional market."

According to the company, which saw its 2016 revenues at $2.25bn and has nearly 4,000 employees, the move to the European marketplace represents the next major step after a successful expansion into Canada in 2015.

Livingbridge-backed Metronet (UK) has appointed Mike Darcey as Chairman.

He was formerly CEO at News UK from 2013 to 2015 following a 15 year stint at BSkyB where he was Head of Strategy and latterly COO. He has also held a number of non-executive Director roles at PA Group and Home Retail Group.

The appointment coincides with a rebrand of Metronet (UK) to M24Seven following the acquisition of Venus in March.

Darcey said: "In the UK, M24Seven has a proprietary wireless network and access to local loop unbundled fibre, particularly in London. This is a differentiated proposition in a crowded market, which is supported by a full suite of business-critical solutions.

"Globally, M24Seven has an IXP network across 16 cities which is only just beginning to be exploited. With so much opportunity, I am looking forward to working with the team to shape the strategy and see what we can achieve together."

CEO Lee Perkins added: "Mike joins the team at an integral point where we bring so much hard work to life, especially our brand. At M24Seven, we believe that that well-connected businesses are more productive and our new brand reflects our ability to support our customers around the clock, enabling them to get more done, 24-seven."

In a bid to ensure it is always on the technology ball Solar has acted to keep its finger on the pulse of innovation and drive business transformation with the launch of a Disruptive Technology division led by Jason Evans who joined the company following its acquisition of RDC last year.

As Director of Disruptive Technology he is tasked with managing a team of seven, extending the capabilities of the wider business and pushing disruptive tech into the mid-market.

He said: "My team aims to deliver best-of-breed solutions to challenge and disrupt the legacy business technology landscape, supporting and enabling the next wave of digital transformation.

"For example, as more and more businesses move to a cloud-first strategy traditional WAN solutions have created cost, performance and security challenges.

"With a current focus on SD-WAN, Solar is working with vendor Silver-Peak to leverage 'better than private line' security and performance over Internet bandwidth, while delivering direct-to-cloud connectivity when and where it is most effective.

"Our Silver-Peak EdgeConnect SD-WAN solution is key to enabling an effective cloud-first strategy for customers.

"We already have customers in automotive, legal and professional services sectors utilising the solution which is proving disruptive to traditional WAN offerings."

CEO John Whitty added: "Solar is now dedicating part of its operation to understanding and bringing to market a portfolio of solutions that are set to disrupt the enterprise technology landscape.

"Jason and his team have demonstrated that the market is ready to adopt these new solutions."

The cloud communications provider serves 2,000 mid-market organisations across the UK with a portfolio that includes SD WAN, cloud UCaaS, contact centre, on-site and cloud storage.

Over three quarters of UK mid-market businesses anticipate a hike in IT budgets this year, reckons Node4 in a report it compiled.

The survey showed that 35% of IT decision makers in the mid-market expect budget rises of 5-10%, while 22% see a hike of over 10% with the key investment areas being business growth, security and reducing operational costs.

Hosted and cloud-based services will take a meaty share of mid-market IT budgets in 2017, with IaaS (20%) and managed security (16%) the top two cloud spending priorities, followed by managed services (12%) and DR (11%).
 
Paul Bryce, Business Development Director, Node4, said: "Mid-tier companies are the engine of the UK's economy so it is promising to see investment taking place in the IT infrastructure that will help to fuel further growth.

"It is no surprise that mid-market companies are embracing the cloud which affords a huge opportunity to drive efficiency, agility, scalability, and to empower workforces.

"Despite the current challenging business climate, the mid-market is the fastest growing sector in the UK economy and policy-makers, investors and IT vendors alike should focus on enabling this growth."