Comms Dealer

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

Avenir Telecom has been ranked top distributor in O2's Q1 2014 Office 365 League Table results for the best performing partners.

Office 365 was first introduced at Avenir Telecom's Insight event held in February at the Hilton Hotel in Northampton.

Since then Avenir Telecom has provided additional training days for its partners in association with both O2 and Microsoft. Having held two events in April - at O2 in Glasgow and at Avenir Telecom Headquarters in London - further training days will be held at Microsoft campus in Reading on 8th May and later in May at O2 in Leeds.

Andy Tow, Managing Director, Avenir Telecom, commented: "It's great that so many of our partners have seen the opportunity to boost their profit margins by adding new products and services to their portfolios and continue to add real benefits to their customers."

Jason Phillips, Head of Partners, Telefonica O2, added: "We've had a good start on our digital journey and there is plenty of opportunity out there to sell Office 365 to our customers, and we are delighted that Avenir Telecom have been so quick to seize this opportunity."

ProVu Communications is to stage two reseller open days to showcase the latest equipment from its vendors Gigaset, Sangoma and 2N.

The open days will be held Huddersfield and London in May and June and during the events Gigaset will be launching its new Maxwell tablet phone plus their new Hybird PBX phone system for small business.

Sangoma will be presenting their latest SBC products and talking about network security. 2N will be launching its new Verso range of IP door entry intercoms.

Darren Garland, MD at ProVu Communications, said: "As a value added distributor we view these types of events as an essential part of our role to keep our channel informed of the latest products."

Mitel has signed an OEM agreement with LiveOps to power its MiContact Center Live solution with LiveOps cloud contact center functionalities.

Rich McBee, President and CEO, Mitel, said: "Leveraging the technology from LiveOps, we now deliver a flexible customer care solution via the cloud, optimised to meet the needs of any size organization, from small businesses up to the largest enterprises."

The new MiContact Center Live solution will offer WebRTC and social media - two features customers are increasingly demanding alongside traditional channels - as well as Web-based tools for agents and supervisors.

It is integrated with multiple CRM software vendors, including saleforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics. The solution also includes self-service options with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and outbound features that help businesses to proactively engage customers throughout campaigns.

"We see this OEM partnership with Mitel as significant to disrupting the market and increasing cloud contact center adoption," said Marty Beard, Chairman and CEO, LiveOps.

"Mitel shares the same vision as LiveOps in our commitment to transforming how businesses interact with their customers, increasing customer loyalty and creating brand advocates for life."

Exertis Micro-P has released details of its latest golf incentive, the Samsung Celtic Cup, to be held on July 9th at the Celtic Manor Resort (voted Europe's Golf Resort of the Year 2011 by the International Association of Golf Tour Operators, and named Sport Venue of the Year 2011 at the Sport Industry Awards).

Exertis Micro-P will treat a team of 29 incentive scheme winners (selected according to sales achieved of Samsung devices and accessories sold between 17th March to 17th May) to an overnight stay at the Celtic Manor Resort in South Wales.

Simon Woodman, Mobile Sales Director at Exertis Micro-P, commented: "Both Exertis Micro-P and Samsung are keen to incentivise the channel for their hard work and continued growth."

Additionally, the top eight winners overall on the Samsung Celtic Cup will win a place to play at Trump International Golf Links, on the Trump Cup 2014 Incentive.

Exertis Micro-P's recent golf incentive, the third annual Nokia Golf Cup at Valderrama, Cadiz, Spain, has now closed. This five star, three night golfing trip has been won by 20 customers that will travel to Valderrama from 19th to 22nd September 2014.

Woodman added: "Golf is a popular incentive and a great time to mix with industry peers. We make sure the trips cater for all skill levels and that the courses, accommodation and treatment is 5 star. Celtic Manor, Trump and Valderrama are exclusive locations perfect to reward the customers who continue to exceed our expectations."

MLL Telecom has appointed John Hawkins (pictured) as Chairman following the retirement of former Chairman Godfrey Wilson.

Hawkons is also an Executive Chairman at Vislink Group, Non-executive Chairman of Wireless logic and Chairman of David Phillips. He has over 20 years experience and was formerly Chairman of Genus where he oversaw the company's value and profit increase tenfold, and Chairman of Psion where he oversaw the company's acquisition by Motorola for $200m.

Hawkins has also held Chief Executive Officer roles at various software and hardware companies including Atex, Anite and Graseby.

Hawkins commented: "I join MLL Telecom at an exciting time as the company embarks on an exciting growth strategy that will see it pave the way for alternative wireless technologies as a viable option in delivering rural connectivity to the underserved areas of the UK.

"MLL Telecom are already viewed as a trusted partner and provider of cost-effective networks in the UK; working with the public sector and service providers to solve their connectivity challenges of the future."

Gary Marven, CEO, MLL Telecom, added: "John Hawkins has an enviable track record of helping innovative businesses in the telecoms space achieve high growth and increased profitability.

"We will benefit from his strong leadership skills and great insight, and I'm confident that he will play a crucial role in shaping the successful future of MLL Telecom."

A survey of telcos and carriers shows how they plan to handle the expected boom in wifi connections, and integrate them into payments.

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its 2014 Carrier WiFi Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, which explores the drivers, strategies, models, and technology choices that are shaping service provider WiFi deployments.

"Carrier WiFi deployments are evolving to deliver the same quality of experience as mobile and fixed-line broadband service environments, and this is driving WiFi networks to become more closely integrated. Hotspot 2.0, a key tool developed by the industry to aid this drive, shows rapid adoption by carriers participating in our latest carrier WiFi survey," notes Richard Webb, directing analyst for mobile backhaul and small cells at Infonetics Research.

Webb adds: "Operators are betting pretty big on carrier WiFi, but they're also keen to develop ways of monetizing services so that WiFi starts to pay for itself over the coming years. WiFi roaming and location-based services are examples of customer plans that are growing fast."

Respondents have an average of around 32,000 access points currently, growing to just over 44,000 by 2015, representing 33% growth over the next year. 40% of Infonetics' operator respondents expect to integrate Hotspot 2.0 into more than half their access points by the end of 2015.

Among those surveyed, the top 3 monetization models for WiFi services are pre-pay, bundled with mobile broadband subscription, and tiered hotspots.

WiFi as a separate overlay network currently leads the list of technologies and architectures for offloading data traffic; meanwhile, more sophisticated carrier WiFi architectures gain gradual traction as respondents look to bring WiFi into the mobile RAN via SIM-based service models or by deploying dual-mode WiFi/small cells. Respondents perceive Cisco and Ruckus Wireless as the top carrier WiFi manufacturers for second consecutive year.

Sales through distribution in Q1 rose in many parts of Europe. The UK did well, but some Nordics were down. Analyst CONTEXT says total IT revenues through distribution stood at €11.6bn, up 7% from the €10.8bn recoded the same time last year. There was growth in all months during the quarter, with January up +4.8%, February up 5.8% and March booming with a 10.2% increase.

The UK led the way in terms of revenue, as it has done now for the past four quarters, with sales topping €2.5bn. Four sectors moved into year-on-year growth in the UK in Q1 apart from servers (-7.2%), with desktop computing (32.5%), printing consumables (22.4%) and computing components (21.2%) the best performing.

"Desktop sales in the UK, like in other Western European countries, benefited strongly from late orders following the end-of-XP support and saw revenues up by almost one third in the quarter compared to last year", said Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at CONTEXT.

However, CONTEXT highlighted the 10.7% growth in the Software & Licences category as particularly important, given that it comprises 17% of UK revenues as reported by the analyst's panel of distributors.

By contrast, in Germany five sectors still languish in zero or negative growth: mobile computing (-4.9%), disk storage (0%), printing consumables (-6.1%), networking systems (-13%) and servers (-15.3%). The Telecoms sector was the main driver of overall IT growth there with a 55.7% increase in revenues year-on-year.

Elsewhere, Italy performed well, recording growth in all but one sector (networking systems, -2.5%) for the first time in over a year. In Spain, most IT sectors are back on track and the 3.3% growth in mobile computing is significant given the sector accounts for 29% of all revenues there, CONTEXT said.

It wasn't all positive news across Europe, however, with only Poland and Sweden showing growth of the other countries analysed. That said, there are more overall revenue growth sectors (11) than there were in Q1 2013 (7), with telecoms (72.8%) desktop computing (11.9%) and accessories (11.3%) recording the strongest performance.