Comms Dealer

Nine Wholesale sponsored racing driver Josh Webster scored an inspired victory in round four of the Porsche Carrera Cup GB at Donington Park, witnessed by a contingent of Nine's Purple Partners who attended the race as guests.

In a dramatic race, Webster was ahead when rain set in mid-race. On lap 16, with seven laps to go, Webster made the brave call to pit for wet tyres, proving to be a smart move as the rain became worse. Once back on the track, Webster lapped up to 10s a lap faster than his rivals and stormed back to re-take the lead.

Commenting on the win, Webster said: "When I was in the pits I really thought I'd messed it up. I could see cars flying past and we had a problem with the wheel gun on the rear right. In the end I think I called it perfectly, but it was maybe more luck than anything else! I'm so happy for me and the team!"

Piers Linney, the founder and co-CEO of Cloud Services Provider (CSP) Outsourcery and newest addition to the BBC series Dragons' Den, has been nominated for the 2014 EY Entrepreneur of the Year award for the London & South region.

He has been recognised for his work with Outsourcery, the CSP he co-founded with his business partner Simon Newton in 2007 after buying and transforming telecoms provider Genesis Communications.

Linney invested more than £10m of his own money after recognising the potential in the cloud.

Outsourcery was selected as a supplier for the Government's G Cloud framework in 2013, as well as raising £17m after floating on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) to fund an expansion that is expected to double its revenue year on year.

The company grew its cloud-based revenue from scratch to over £4m in its first three years, and Outsourcery has been successful in securing a number of key strategic partnerships, with reseller partners such as with Vodafone - and Virgin Media Business, Atos, Ingram Micro, Microsoft, Dell and over 500 other resellers in its SMB partner network.

The EY Entrepreneur of the Year awards recognises the achievements of entrepreneurs and their companies, and is held in more than 145 cities across more than 60 countries around the world.

Linney has been nominated for the London and South category, which has received an unprecedented number of entries this year in a range of sectors from manufacturing to theatre.

He said: "This is one of the premier business awards in the world, so it's a huge honour to have been recognised as a finalist for Outsourcery. The journey of transforming the company into an internationally recognised leader in cloud has been a real example of what commitment to a clear vision and an entrepreneurial mind-set can achieve.

"I'm keen to use the awards as a platform to champion the spirit of entrepreneurship and innovation, and help to inspire the next generation of young entrepreneurs."

Daisy Distribution is offering partners the chance to get their hands on a free 4G-enabled tablet accompanied by a 12 months free Microsoft Lync voucher, to mark the launch of its digital commercial proposition pack.

The Ipswich-based firm has launched its new interactive guide, which offers partners real-time access to all Daisy Distribution's tariff information and propositions, in a move designed to improve the partner experience.

To mark the launch, Daisy Distribution is offering partners that take out a 24 month 8GB mobile broadband plan a free 4G-enabled, 64GB ASUS VivoTab tablet, as well as a 12 months free Microsoft Lync voucher, subject to them taking an Enterprise 365 license.

The Lync voucher offer is a part of the firm's wider campaign to raise awareness of its Office 365 packages, which include collaborative tools such as HD video conferencing and instant messaging.

Julien Parven, Marketing Director of Daisy Distribution, said: "Although we feel we already have a healthy relationship with our partners, we wanted to improve the way we engaged with them. Previously partners would have to print off hundreds of pieces of paper or download our latest proposition pack, which meant they may be using inaccurate or outdated information.

"Through creating an interactive proposition guide, easily accessible through our Daisy portal, we are able to update the pack in real time, ensuring partners always have the latest information."

Westcon has appointed Ralph Donohue as General Manager for the UK, Ireland & Greece.

He was formerly Managing Director of Paradigm Distribution, a value added distributor in data capture and POS solutions where he transitioned the business into Ingram Micro GmbH, and then became Managing Director of Ingram Micro UK & Ireland (DC/POS).

More recently Donohue has worked with a cloud-based telephony provider defining its go to market strategy and revenue model. He has also worked in the CCTV market with a niche vendor of mobile technologies.

Donohue said: "I have joined at an exciting time and am looking forward to accelerating margins and harnessing market opportunities for partners and vendors."

Children in 20,000 schools across the UK are being invited by Sir Richard Branson to share how technology is supporting their learning and helping to shape futures.

Generation Tech, a state-of-the-nation review of the role that technology plays in education, is being launched today by Virgin Media Business.

The company is calling for submissions from pupils and teachers across the country to answer the Big Digital Question - how schools today are embracing the 21st century classroom and how it can continue to enhance learning tomorrow.

The final study aims to show the deep and long lasting impact technology is already having on the education of our young people, and what the future holds.

Generation Tech will also include the hunt for members for a Digital Youth Council through nominations made by schools. The Council will be a forum for young people to engage directly with leading influencers in education. The students chosen as members will lead The Big Debate in the autumn - the first meeting of the Council - where they will have an opportunity to highlight the issues of greatest importance to them.

Branson said: "As children, we didn't have to tackle the digitalised world but we also didn't have the opportunities that it brings to today's younger generation. We need to embrace technology at every step and make it a force for good as we educate the next generation."

Education Minister Elizabeth Truss said: "Technology is everywhere and it's vital that children understand how to make it work for them. This is why we are introducing rigorous new curricula in maths and computing which will teach children skills like coding and programming along with the maths which underpins computer science. Students need to be confident in both to understand the basis of the modern world and be able to contribute to the future.

"I look forward to seeing the results of the Big Question - who better to ask about what works in the classroom than children themselves."

Mario Di Mascio, executive sales director, Virgin Media Business, added: "Schools across the country are doing a brilliant job in adapting to the digitalisation of our world in classrooms and new teaching methods. Pupils and teachers know better than anyone what is working and where the use of digital technologies can be improved, so it's time that someone stopped to listen and learn from them.

"In the UK, we have a bigger digital economy than any other developed nation and our children will be vital in helping us stay in pole position. We have a duty as a country to help schools achieve great things through technology to make sure we sustain this powerful advantage."

UNIT4 Business Software has appointed James Bouch as its new Head of Public Sector Sales. He will be responsible for a public sector sales team across the UK.

Bouch has over 24 years of experience in technology industry and joins from BT Global Services where he supervised establishing the company's shared services outsourcing business.

Darren Hunt, Sales and Marketing Director (UK & Ireland) of UNIT4 Business Software, said: "The last four years have seen a breakthrough for UNIT4. In particular we have seen larger deals as Agresso has been increasingly adopted by bigger public sector organisations and business process outsourcing partners.

"James' appointment supports this change in UNIT4's journey. His experience will provide even greater value to prospective, new and existing customers."

Westcon Group has stated its intent to acquire Intact Integrated Services, a provider of project, support, and managed services to the ICT and Cisco channel industry. Based in the UK with offices in EMEA, Asia Pacific and the Americas, Intact works with some of the world's largest telcos, OEMs, System Integrators and VARs. 

The firm is a specialist in the Cisco channel and provides white label services and support centered on networking, data centre/cloud and collaboration technologies.

Intact will become a key piece of Weston Group's Global Services Solution Practice, led by Executive Vice President Pedro Galatas. 

"Each of our Practices is designed to help partners benefit from the technology expertise and real-world business solutions we bring to the table," said Dolph Westerbos, Chief Executive Officer, Westcon Group. 

"Intact will become strong foundation in our Services Practice, helping partners generate new revenue streams via value added services."

Formerly a direct subsidiary of Westcon's parent company Datatec, Intact is exclusively partner-focused and offers targeted lifecycle services and project management support primarily to the Cisco channel. 

Alan Rosser, Chief Executive Offer, Intact Integrated Services, added: "Westcon's level of commitment fits perfectly into our 'Create, Deliver, Support' business pillars."

Ericsson's share price fell 5% as it revealed Q1 EBIT rose to 2.6bn Swedish kronor (€280m) from SEK2.1bn (€230m) a year earlier, lower than expected.

Net profit almost doubled to 2.12bn kronor from 1.21bn kronor. Operating income jumped 25% to 2.63bn kronor. Sales dropped to 47.5bn kronor from 52.03bn kronor and undershot forecasts of 50.8bn kronor, hurt by two major North American projects peaking in H1 2013 and by reduced activity in Japan.

The gross margin increased to 36.5% from 32% and topped expectations of 34%. North America sales -23% and North East Asia -19%, although there was growth in China, the Middle East and Latin America. Western Europe was flat.

Huawei expects its enterprise business revenue to reach $10bn in five years it told analysts at its Shenzhen HQ, rising from around $2.45bn in 2013.

It will become more of a cloud company, seeing its carrier business, where revenue growth is slowing, drop to about half its total revenues in 2018 from about 70% in 2013.

Huawei's global service business, part of its carrier operations, is predicted to grow 17% in 2014, from $8.34 bn last year.

The firm also sees its own investment in information technology rising 14% in 2014, with a focus on 4G LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and 5G high-speed mobile networks, and cloud computing, Fan Chen, vice president of accounting, said at the Shenzhen conference.

VMware was busy in Q1, training up its salesforce and engaging its channels with a wider range of product, it has told analysts. And deals are taking longer to close because of the broader ranges.

Excluding Pivotal and divestitures, Q1 total revenue growth was 18% year-over-year, above the midpoint of its guidance range. License revenues of $561m were also up 18% year-over-year. Total reported revenues grew 14% year-over-year in Q1 with license revenues up 15%.

It is pleased with the diversification of the business, it says, with non-standalone vSphere license bookings, again greater than 45% of total licence bookings as compared with greater than 30% in Q1 2013.

Carl Eschenbach, President and Chief Operating Officer: "So we continue grow our business around more of a holistic solution and we continue to see our channel become more skilled at selling solutions like vSOM, which is vSphere with operations management, really embracing this whole notion of no more naked vSphere. So we're pleased with the transactional business and our partners are really getting up-to-speed with selling more of the broader portfolio of products and offerings we have."

VMware invested more heavily than usual in Q1 to ensure the sales force was skilled in selling the newer products, he says. This resulted in fewer actual selling days during the first quarter than originally anticipated

Patrick Gelsinger- Chief Executive Officer: "Having just come off of our Partner Exchange Conference, we haven't given our partners, our channel, a lot of new products that were high-velocity transactable products and vSOM is really the only one. Now, with VSAN plus VDP as well as bringing AirWatch into our channel, we see that we're bring an off a lot more product that they can be selling. The enthusiasm of the transactional channel for these broader products is extremely high."

The Enterprise Licensing Agreements are getting wider in scope, obviously. "ELAs continue to grow as customers look to incorporate all of our products and even some of our new products seeding into it. So as that occurs, we're just in much deeper conversations with our customers. And some of the ELAs close on time as we've always said in a given quarter, some close are early and some actually go out a quarter or two later."