Comms Dealer

Genius Networks has launched two deals giving resellers the opportunity to profit from growing demand for network and voice services in the UK and Europe.

Prices for 10Mb, 100Mb and 1Gb Ethernet connectivity across the UK have been cut by up to 15%, while a bundle of SIP, MPLS and call billing services across Europe offer a low cost, profitable solution to resellers extending their client base overseas.

James Arnold-Roberts, Genius Networks Director said: "The two deals are the first in a long-term programme of activity designed to help our partners succeed in an increasingly competitive networking market.

"The deals are examples of how our core routing infrastructure and access to 'best of breed' global carriers give us important advantages in the cost and the agility of our services which we can pass on to our reseller partners."

Both deals, like all Genius Partner services, can be delivered under white label and backed up with a range of online support from the Genius Partner Portal, giving the partner direct access to pricing, monitoring, help desk and marketing services.

IT and computing professionals saw demand for their services increase further in April, but the Report on Jobs, published by KPMG and the REC, also showed that growth of demand for permanent IT workers softened slightly from March's recent peak.

Meanwhile, the latest rise in demand for temporary IT staff was slightly stronger than that seen one month previously.

The index measuring permanent IT staff demand registered 68.5, down marginally from 68.8 in March, placing the sector sixth out of nine in the demand for staff 'league table'. By comparison, the index for all types of permanent staff in the UK registered 67.3.

For temporary IT workers, the index rose from 63.7 in the prior month to 64.0 in April. This was slightly below the UK average of 65.0. The IT category was in fifth place in the demand for temp staff 'league table' during the latest survey period.

The index tracking demand for permanent employees in the IT & Computing sector has signalled stronger growth than that for temp staff for four-and-a-half years.

Heath Jackson, partner in the CIO Advisory practice at KPMG, said: "With starting salaries rising at their fastest rate for almost seven years and temporary placements in the IT sector stronger than that seen in the previous month, people would be forgiven for thinking that the time is right to change jobs. After all, for many months the focus has been around how long employees would wait before deciding it's time to try something new. Yet the truth is far different. The number of people putting themselves on the jobs market has dropped at its sharpest rate since 2004. It is this shortage of skilled labour that is forcing employers to tempt talent with improved pay, rather than new-found confidence.

"With employers focusing their attention on trying to win over talented people with proven skills and track records, there remains one unanswered question. We have growing numbers of new entrants to the marketplace looking for work and employers will ignore them at their peril. Not acknowledging what they have to offer continues the very real risk of losing a generation of talent - it makes no business sense, because without a blend of youth and experience the workplace will no longer reflect the marketplace.

"Of course, with the economy growing and the pound strengthening, we could potentially see this trend reversing in the near future. As consumers begin to spend more in their personal lives, confidence is likely to return in a professional capacity. When that happens, candidates are more likely to be looking for a new challenge, meaning that employers will have to focus equally on both retention and recruitment."

8x8, a provider of cloud contact centre and UCC solutions, has linked up with workforce optimisation (WFO) solutions provider KnoahSoft to deliver a bundled cloud-based contact centre solution.

The new offering combines KnoahSoft's enterprise-level interaction recording, quality management, coaching, learning, and analytics functionality with 8x8's multi-channel customer interaction management capabilities to help users better optimise call centre staff performance.

"8x8 and KnoahSoft have created a cloud-based solution for optimising the efficiency of call centre agents in single instance within 8x8's call centre solution," said 8x8 Senior Vice President of Business Development Huw Rees.

"This integrated cloud solution was developed to help organisations improve their customer relationships by making it easy to find agents who are not interacting well with customers and to improve these relationships."

8x8 Virtual Contact Centre and KnoahSoft Harmony function as a single SaaS instance helping enhance agent efficiency. The solution gives supervisors the data collected on customer interactions to help improve agent performance and reduce agent churn by enabling a collaborative environment through messaging, monitoring, e-learning and coaching modules.

DMSL is aiming to take the VoIP services market by storm following its link up with Plusnet.

The SMB-focused distributor of connectivity and cloud solutions is on a mission to advance Plusnet's proposition to partners with an invigorated hands-on strategy to drive sales of VoIP services and connectivity.

"Business efficiency is enhanced with VoIP services," said DMSL MD John Carter. "Staff are able to hot desk with an IP phone making them always available on a direct dial number. New users can be added almost instantly and a full set of features - voicemail, call forwarding, call recording, conferencing, auto attendant features and much more are all available. Meanwhile, integration with CRM systems enables even more efficient working and enhanced customer service.

"VoIP remains a big opportunity for dealers addressing the SMB market, but you need reliable broadband with prioritised service to make it truly effective."

Nick Silverwood, Head of Business for Plusnet, added: "VoIP offers significant potential for SMBs to reduce their costs with many smaller businesses looking to adopt this technology. To do this, they require a reliable business broadband platform, provided by a trusted brand, and the personal guidance of their local dealer. 

"Plusnet can provide a dependable and affordable broadband service over a network design that proactively prioritises VoIP traffic through protocol detection. This optimises the VoIP experience and ensures low latency needed to guarantee call quality, allowing local dealers to recommend VoIP to their customers with complete confidence."

With a primary focus on broadband, Plusnet has 17 years experience in providing Internet service solutions to small businesses across the UK.

Technology IPOs in Europe are lagging behind other markets though the continent is ranked second in all funds raised for IPOs across all other sectors in Q1 2014, says PwC newest study on Global Technology IPO Review.

Rising investor confidence coupled with Chinese stock exchanges led to a very strong quarter for technology IPOs. And year over the total number of technology IPOs saw a 160% growth while its value increased fourfold to $6.8bn (€4.9bn), the study says.

In terms of countries the top performers were China, Japan, Ireland and the US.

In the first quarter of 2014 twelve IPOs were completed in the US against eight completed in Q4 2013. Overall US IPO proceeds went up by 71% y/y to $1.6bn (€1.15bn) with US being the most active country in Tech IPO in Q1 2014. At the same time Europe saw only one tech IPO completion at $500m (€358.9m). According to Raman Chitkara, Technology Industry Leader at PwC, Europe entered into a new aberration pattern after it experienced a very strong Q4 2013.

He says: "Momentum from Q4 2013 led to a very strong start for technology IPOs in 2014. Investors continue to demonstrate a strong appetite for high-growth companies with disruptive technologies. This should lead to continuation of a positive environment for technology IPOs in 2014."

Breakdown by subsectors shows that internet software and services accounted for 42% of deals in Q1 however it was ranked second in terms of the overall value which stood by $1.8bn (€1.3bn). It was overtaken by computer storage and peripherals subsector which raised around $3.8bn (€2.7bn).

US-based managed mobility specialist WidePoint has bought Dublin-based Soft-ex Communications to expand its global presence and reach additional service providers and channels.

WidePoint offers enterprise-wide telecommunications management, cybersecurity, identity and data assurance, and consulting solutions.

Soft-ex Communications is a software provider of Telecom Data Intelligence solutions throughout European and Middle Eastern markets, offering a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution that provides online data intelligence for Communication Service Providers (CSPs) and their Enterprise customers for fixed, mobile, and IP/PABX communications.

Soft-ex delivers visibility and intelligence for the CSP on their customer base and for their Multinational Corporation (MNC) customers, enabling them to achieve improved cost, performance, and infrastructure management across their global communications infrastructure. Soft-ex has global partners such as Telefonica, British Telecom, Telia, and KPN.

Ian Sparling, CEO of Soft-ex, stated: "This transaction complements our focus and expertise on delivering Business Intelligence and Subscriber Data Intelligence to the global service provider market. Through our partnerships, clients can leverage our innovative SaaS solutions combined with the scale and breadth of WidePoint's Managed Mobility offerings, optimizing the core strengths of both organisations."

Steve Komar, CEO of WidePoint, added, "The combination of WidePoint's Secure Managed Mobility Solutions coupled with Soft-ex's European and Middle East presence, channel partners, and additional portfolio of services provides our combined operations with a stronger base of operations, services, and global growth opportunities."

HP plans to invest more than $1bn over the next two years to develop and offer cloud computing products and services. It says it will make its OpenStack-based public cloud services available in 20 data centres over the next 18 months.

OpenStack is an open source cloud computing platform for public and private cloud services with other key players including Red Hat, Oracle and Dell.

"Customer challenges today extend beyond cloud. They include how to manage, control and scale applications in a hybrid environment that spans multiple technology approaches," Martin Fink, executive vice president and chief technology officer, HP, said in a statement.

Cloud services have been booming as large enterprises and service providers work on cloud apps. It is a very competitive market, however, where Amazon.com and Google recently slashed prices of most of their cloud computing services as other companies join the fray.

Cisco also laid out plans in March to offer cloud computing services, pledging to spend $1bn over the next two years, while Microsoft said it will increase its cloud storage offering for business users 40-fold.

BT says its Global Services integration services division delivered a 9% increase in its order intake this year and it "continues to see double-digit revenue increases in the high-growth regions of the world".

BT's overall sales were unchanged year/year, but it has increased its cashflow and pre-tax profit. BT adopted the plan of pushing a £3bn plus roll-out of a fibre optic network after a period of profit warnings in 2008-2009, which has allowed it to push out sports channels.

The Global Services division, the main problem behind those profit warnings has been overhauled, and turned in earnings up 12%.

"These results provide a strong platform for growth and from which to achieve our outlook for the years ahead. Our performance in the year means that we are growing our full year dividend by 15% to 10.9p and we now expect to increase our dividend by 10%-15% for each of the next two years. We continue to focus on improving the service we provide to our customers and delivering on our investments," said Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive.

Analyst UBS has downgraded Infosys to Sell from Buy, and slashed its price target to $45.77 from $67.44. The firm is worried the IT outsourcing giant isn't as well-positioned as rivals to take advantage of growth opportunities, and is also concerned about its high attrition rate, both of management and staff.

Infosys has seen a number of senior execs jump ship since Narayana Murthy returned as chairman last year, and CEO S.D. Shibulal plans to leave by January. Meanwhile, concerns about the impact of cloud software/services on traditional outsourcing work remain high; Infosys has tried to deal with the trend in part by offering more proprietary/value-added services.

On purely financial rather than technology terms, TheStreet Ratings Team likes the company: "We rate Infosys a BUY. This is driven by multiple strengths, which we believe should have a greater impact than any weaknesses, and should give investors a better performance opportunity than most stocks we cover.

"The company's strengths can be seen in multiple areas, such as its revenue growth, largely solid financial position with reasonable debt levels by most measures, reasonable valuation levels, solid stock price performance and growth in earnings per share. We feel these strengths outweigh the fact that the company has had somewhat disappointing return on equity."

The best sales and marketing teams in the comms channel were recognised at the industry's most prestigious sales awards event staged at the Park Lane Hotel, London on May 8th. Hosted by respected BBC sports presenter John Inverdale, the awards luncheon rewarded the top revenue generating teams from the distribution, vendor and reseller sectors of the channel.

Stand-out winners were STL (pictured left) and Focus Group which both secured a brace of awards, with Focus bagging the coveted Comms Dealer Overall Sales Team of the Year Award (pictured above).

Comms Dealer Editorial Director Nigel Sergent said: "The quality and quantity of Sales Awards submissions have again demonstrated how channel sales and marketing people continue to drive growth and deliver commercial benefits to their companies.

"All of our finalists are to be congratulated on their achievements and deserve wide recognition for their hard work."

For more information on this year's Sales Awards please visit www.cdsalesawards.com

COMMS DEALER SALES AWARDS 2014 WINNERS

DISTRIBUTOR CHANNEL ACCOUNT TEAM OF THE YEAR
Exertis Micro-P

DISTRIBUTOR CHANNEL MARKETING CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR
Nimans

DISTRIBUTOR CHANNEL MARKETING TEAM OF THE YEAR
Pragma

RESELLER BEST MARKETING CAMPAIGN
STL

RESELLER SALES TEAM OF THE YEAR £2.5-£7.5m
STL

RESELLER SALES TEAM OF THE YEAR £7.5m+
Focus

RESELLER SALES TEAM OF THE YEAR UP TO £2.5m
Nexus IP

SERVICE PROVIDER CHANNEL ACCOUNT TEAM OF THE YEAR
Virtual 1

SERVICE PROVIDER CHANNEL MARKETING CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR
Channel Telecom

SERVICE PROVIDER CHANNEL MARKETING TEAM OF THE YEAR
Fidelitiy Group

VENDOR CHANNEL ACCOUNT TEAM OF THE YEAR
Gamma

VENDOR CHANNEL MARKETING CAMPAIGN OF THE YEAR
Cisco

VENDOR CHANNEL MARKETING TEAM OF THE YEAR
Entanet

OVERALL SALES TEAM OF THE YEAR
FOCUS GROUP