Comms Dealer

Exclusive Group has enlisted Martin Bichler to coordinate the expansion of its 100m-plus euro BigTec VAD business.

As BigTec Vendor Manager for EMEA & APAC he will be responsible for the business management of revenue and profit targets and for implementing and developing the global BigTec proposition alongside in-country sales teams.

"Martin is a talented channel operator with readymade BigTec credentials that make him the ideal choice to drive further expansion and success of our data centre transformation VAD business," said Barrie Desmond, COO of Exclusive Group.

"Martin's close vendor relationships and first-hand experience of rapidly changing channel dynamics will be vital to continuing our relevance and success in every local market."

Bichler added: "Major IT trends like advanced automation, hybrid cloud, hyper convergence and DevOps produce many significant new business opportunities for partners.

"Taking advantage of these changes is a defining challenge for channel partners around the world, and one that BigTec supports them to achieve."

He brings over 17 years experience in IT sales and channel management, including a decade in value-added distribution with Azlan and Arrow.

His most recent roles were at Brocade working with OEM and reseller partners in Germany and EMEA.

Chess Partner and EE are offering partners an Arctic Adventure to Iceland incentive trip on 10th-12th November 2017.

The incentive is open to any registered Partner of Chess Partner who will be automatically entered, and runs from 1st April-30th September 2017 with the winners announced on 9th October.

Partners can earn three points for a new small business connection and 1 point for a new corporate connection.

Partners then have to achieve a minimum of 300 points over the incentive period and the top six over 300 points will qualify to win a place on the incentive.

Chess Partner will also offer other prizes throughout the incentive.

John Pett, MD of Chess Partner, commented: "We're working with EE as one of its Premier Business Partners with a joint ambition to grow both our businesses this year."

A new leadership team announced by ScanSource Communications and Imago ScanSource marks the next stage of the integration of the two businesses which will now operate under the name ScanSource Imago.

Paul Emery, Vice President UK&I, will be responsible for the sales operations in his designated region; while John Vickerage has been named Area Vice President of Northern Europe with overall responsibility for sales in DACH, Benelux, Nordics, Baltics and Eastern Europe.

Nicolas Jouan has been appointed Area Vice President of Southern Europe with responsibility for sales in France; and Phil Boyd, Vice President of Merchandising, will lead the teams responsible for managing the vendor relationships.

James Vickerage, President of ScanSource Imago, stated: "The continued integration of the companies allows us to build on the strengths of both organisations, while offering significant growth opportunities for our partners across Europe."

ScanSource acquired Imago in 2014.

Mitel has appointed industry supremo Todd Abbott (pictured) as EVP Global Sales, bringing over 30 years technology and business communications experience to the role.

Abbott joins Mitel following a career spanning senior sales positions at Cisco, Symbol Technologies, Seagate Technologies, Avaya and Sonus Networks.

He assumes executive responsibility for Mitel's global cloud and enterprise sales organisations and channel programmes.

Mitel's current EVP and Chief Sales Officer Graham Bevington moves to the newly created role of Executive Vice President of Business Development, working directly with the CEO Rich McBee to drive the company's M&A strategy and funnels, and to focus on nurturing strategic partnerships with key large enterprise and business customers.

McBee said: "Todd's sector knowledge and international sales experience will be an integral part of how we grow Mitel in 2017 and beyond."

Abbott added: "Cloud enabled communications and collaboration is intrinsic to digital transformation in the enterprise."

Azlan Tech Data has added a series of SMB-focused training modules for HPE Aruba wireless technologies on the Tech Data Channel Academy.

The four training modules provide insights into the SMB market and current networking trends, customer opportunities and challenges, and enable sales professionals to position Aruba Mobile First infrastructure solutions, ecosystems and location-based services with SMB customers.

The modules also cover Aruba's wireless and management solutions, as well as its range of IoT-ready products.

Stephen Cant, Director, Enterprise, Infrastructure and Communications EMEA for Azlan, says: "The addition of the HPE Aruba training modules to the Tech Data Channel Academy is an important step in assisting HPE resellers to achieve their accreditation goals.

"Good Wi-Fi access is becoming more important to SMBs and many are now transitioning to 802.11ac technology."

Gigaclear's expanded office space at Abingdon Business Park has been opened by Nicola Blackwood, local MP for Oxford West and Abingdon.

The rural broadband provider has secured a series of contracts to expand its network as part of the BDUK programme which has led to an increase in staff.

To accommodate this rapid growth, the company has acquired a further 5,907 sq ft office space for its headquarters on Windrush Court.

Mike Surrey, Chief Financial Officer at Gigaclear, said: "We have been able to expand our HQ space without having to move which is invaluable to the organisation. We are now one of many companies to call Abingdon Business Park home."

The evolution of VMware's focus on hybrid and cross-cloud software and services has prompted the company to transition vCloud Air US and European data centres, customer operations and customer teams to cloud service providers OVH for an undisclosed sum.

The transaction is expected close in calendar 2Q 2017.

After the close of the acquisition OVH will operate the service as vCloud Air Powered by OVH and continue to leverage VMware's hybrid cloud technology. 

"We have enjoyed a long and successful partnership with OVH and view this acquisition as an extension of our partnership and a positive for our customers and partners," said Pat Gelsinger, CEO, VMware.

"Customers will have access to OVH's global footprint and high-touch customer support and still retain the VMware SDDC technology innovation that they are accustomed to."

OVH is a long standing VMware vCloud Air Network partner with more than 200,000 VMs from thousands of customers running VMware vSphere Private Cloud. It has more than one million customers and 260,000 servers deployed and was recognised as Service Provider of the Year by VMware 2011-2014 and in 2016.

A multi-channel data analytics solution introduced by IOVOX enables marketers to drive more inbound calls and make more informed marketing decisions.

"The new Multichannel Marketing solution applies a unique phone number to each referring domain that generates call traffic, whether it's paid, organic, social, email or even offline," said Carl Di Cicco, Chief Commercial Officer.

"Combined with analytics from IOVOX, marketers have insight into the performance of each channel and can tune spending accordingly. In early customer implementations the IOVOX solution has led to significant cost savings.

"Despite the perception that interaction is all moving online, business phone calls continue to grow and marketers are waking up to the need to track what marketing spend is driving the all-important call.

"The IOVOX platform allows multi-channel marketers to track which media channels and driving calls with 100 percent accuracy."

Identity services security company Centrify has appointed John Andrews as EMEA Channel Director responsible for building a core set of distribution partners and VARs across the region, including the UK.

One of his first jobs will be to evaluate 250-plus partners and focus on establishing a top 10 tier of VARs in each region.

Andrews joins from BeyondTrust where he worked for 18 years helping to build a channel presence in the Middle East and APAC markets.

He also spent three years as Marketing Director for Computerlinks Distribution, managing a portfolio of more than 25 security focused vendors.

MF Communications has sharpened its focus on the network services side of the business with the launch of MF Telecom Services.

The Tunbridge Wells-based company provides services such as business telephone systems, broadband, mobile contracts, inbound solutions, business phone lines and calls, VoIP, telephone system maintenance and cloud hosting to organisations throughout Kent and the rest of the UK.

"We have had huge organic growth and found that to ensure we continued to prioritise our UK telecom services customers we needed to launch a new company and separate this from the global telephone system supply side of the business," said Fraser Young, MD, MF Communications.

"We may not be as big as the telecom giants, but we can be every bit as competitive."