Comms Dealer

Citing 'slowing consumer purchases' amid high penetration rates in mature markets, IDC now forecasts tablet shipments will grow 19.4% in 2014 (to 260.9 million units), down from a prior estimate of 22% (271 million units).

Tablet growth steadily slowed in 2014: Shipments rose an estimated 142% in Q1, but just 28% in Q4. IDC puts full-year growth at 52%.

Two silver linings for enterprise leader Apple, with its 33.8% Q4 share are that prices are only expected to drop 3.6% in 2014, after falling 14.6% in 2013, as more consumers embrace 'higher-end devices'.

Commercial buyers are also expected to account for 14% of shipments, up from 11% in 2013. IDC also thinks Windows tablets, struggling to gain a strong consumer foothold, will take over a quarter of the commercial segment thanks to rising convertible adoption.

The revised forecast still puts tablet sales within striking distance of eclipsing PC sales: IDC expects PC shipments to drop 6% this year to 295.9 million. Both are dwarfed by smartphones shipments which are expected to grow 19% to 1.2 billion.

SIP and hosted provider tIPicall has named the dates for its 2014 SIP training days.

Now in its third year, the free events are aimed at directors and senior managers of CPs who have not yet shifted their sales focus towards SIP.

The session covers industry best practise around marketing, selling and deploying SIP effectively and discusses how to start moving a traditional comms business into the world of IP.

Steve Harrington, Sales Director at tIPicall, said: "There is a lot of confusion, misunderstanding and over complication in the market around SIP.

"Many senior managers in communications providers do not really understand what it is and why it is so important to get right. They can get left behind by technical talk and often do not realise how straightforward it can be.

"Education is the key to make them see the value in selling SIP services and to do it right first time."

The first two training days are being held in London on the 8th and 15th of April at the 8 Members Club in Bank, with a Manchester event to follow.

 Griffin has launched an all-in-one hybrid cloud solution to the channel, provided by Easynet and Zynstra.

Mike Ayres, Easynet Managing Director Business Markets (UK) Indirect, said: "There's no doubt that 2014 is the year that cloud computing becomes ubiquitous, but among SMEs in particular there are still some concerns around complexity, cost, security and resilience.

"In reality, the cloud is one of the safest, most cost-effective places for data. This is where our resellers come in. They can dispel the cloud computing myths, offer unrivalled market knowledge and provide impartial expertise and advice. With Hybrid Cloud, customers can experience exactly the same benefits of cloud as a large enterprise, without the need for a huge IT investment."

Graham Bromham, Managing Director of Solsis (a Thames Valley-based Managed Service Provider), added: "For the reseller, this solution delivers all the IT services a business needs in one product. It removes the headache of us having to manage multiple products from multiple vendors. With several quick wins already under our belt and more in the pipeline, it's a winner for us already."

The latest figures released by MZA show that the market for PBX/Call Controller extensions and licenses (excluding Micro PBX products) fell by 3% year-on-year in Q4 2013 (period October to December 2013 inclusive) and 5% year-on-year in CY 2013 (January to December inclusive).

There were overall year-on-year volume declines in both the SME (solutions with <100 licenses/extensions) and enterprise (solutions with >100 licenses/extensions) over the quarterly and annual periods: the <100 market suffered a 5% decline in Q4 2013 and a 6% decline in CY 2013, while the >100 market witnessed a 1% decline in Q4 2013 and a 3% decline over the year.

In Q4 2013, there were significant regional differences in performance. The market of Latin America grew by 10% year-on-year and was the only region in growth, while the Asia Pacific market remained flat. The global downturn was driven by the markets of North America and Middle East and Africa which fell by 5% and 3% respectively, and the markets of Western Europe and Eastern Europe which continued to decline year- on-year falling by 8% and 5% respectively.

Historically, the final quarter of the calendar year has often seen the largest quarterly market volumes of the year, and Q4 2013 did continue this trend. However, continued economic constraints on the SME market to invest in a PBX/Call Controller coupled with an increasing impact of alternative solutions (mobile and multi-tenant) on the market, drove a quarter-on-quarter decline of 2% in the <100 extensions/licenses market (excluding Micro PBX products). The >100 extensions/licenses market witnessed a 3% quarter-on-quarter growth in Q4 2013, to record the highest quarterly market volumes this year.

Cisco remained the leading vendor in the global PBX extensions/licenses market (excluding Micro PBX products) in Q4 2013 extending their Q3 2013 lead over Avaya with a 14% market share. Avaya took an 11% market share to remain in second position. Both vendors saw some notable growth in the Latin American market in Q4 2013, largely driving a double-digit year-on-year uplift in the Latin American >100 extensions/licenses market.

Aided by year-on-year double digit volume growth in both the Asia Pacific and Middle East and African markets, Panasonic supplanted NEC for third position in the global market with an 8% market share.

When looking at 2013 global PBX market in full, every regional market and the majority of country markets declined. The North American market fared best registering only a minimal volume decline, but significant volume declines in Western Europe and Asia Pacific drove the market to a 5% year-on-year decline.

Cisco retained their global lead in the 2013 extensions/licenses market with a 13% share, down one percentage point year-on-year. The positions of the top five vendors were in fact unchanged in 2013, although Avaya and NEC in second and third respectively, increased their lead over Panasonic and Unify (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications) in fourth and fifth.

Panasonic replaced NEC to lead the <100 extensions/licenses market (excluding Micro PBX products) in Q4 2013 with a 13% share, aided by an improved performance in Asia Pacific against Q4 2012. However, over the year NEC supplanted Panasonic as the number one vendor globally in the <100 market taking a 14% market share, compared to 13% in 2012. NEC performed particularly well in EMEA in 2013 and gained market share in the process, adding to their strong position in Asia Pacific and North America.

Cisco remained the clear market leader in the Q4 2013 >100 extensions/licenses market with a 24% share, down two percentage points year-on-year, while Avaya remained in second position with a 12% share. Alcatel-Lucent's strong performance in EMEA in Q4 2013 saw the vendor climb to third position with a 7% market share.

Over the year, Cisco continued to lead the >100 licenses/extensions market, followed by Avaya and Unify with the top three vendors unchanged. Key performers in 2013 included Huawei, Microsoft and Mitel who all gained one percentage point in global market share year-on-year.

Prime Minister David Cameron has committed more funding to develop the Internet of Things in joint development with Germany on various technologies.

There are three specific areas where the UK wants to work with Germany, he says: 5G - faster Internet quick enough to download a full length feature film in less than a second; Internet of Things - getting everyday objects talking to one another to simplify daily life; and strengthening the EU's digital single market.

The Prime Minister unveiled a package of measures to achieve this, including:

• £45 million funding for research in areas linked to the 'Internet of Things', taking total pot available to £73 million
• A new spectrum strategy that aims to double the economic benefits of spectrum to £100 billion by 2025
• A new 'innovation one stop shop' within UKTI for securing science and innovation investment from large international funds and corporate companies
• A review by government's Chief Scientific Advisor to identify how we can exploit potential in this area
• £1 million 'European Internet of Things' grant fund to support companies who want to exploit these new opportunities
• New collaboration to develop 5G between the University of Dresden, King's College University in London and the University of Surrey

alwaysON Group and Data Continuity Group (DCG) are to merge, creating an organisation with over £8.5m annual IT managed services and cloud applications revenues.

As part of the transaction Foresight Group VCT Funds is making a significant investment to accelerate product development and to strengthen the balance sheet of the combined company, and is looking to support further acquisitions for the Group.

Foresight is a significant investor in both companies and facilitated the merger to produce a Group with increased scale but also with the capability of investing further in service and product developments.

Martin Peck will take on the role of Chairman of the combined Group and the executive team at DCG, Alan Back (Managing Director), Neil Hewer (Services Director)and Charlotte Histed (Financial Controller), will be appointed to the Board of the Group Holding Company.

"We have no doubt that the combined value offered by DCG and alwaysON will enable our customers to realise significant benefits across the board," said Peck. "Uniting the two organisations means we can provide best of breed solutions that can improve business performance and efficiency today and the opportunity for innovation tomorrow."

alwaysON provides a range of data communications, voice and unified communications applications and has its own managed MPLS network and telecommunications backbone. \

alwaysON also provides private cloud based applications including Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and full enterprise enabled Microsoft Lync Unified Communications solutions, all of which will integrate with DCG's secure private cloud data protection offerings.

DCG provides a new range of data management and protection services, including storage management, data backup and archiving, replication and virtual disaster recovery. DCG uses Symantec and EVault technologies and has its own cloud infrastructure which it will integrate with alwaysON's environment.

Maintel has delivered successful year end results based on organic growth, acquisition, strong margins and a high level of recurring revenues. 
 
Revenue rose by 10 per cent in 2013 to £31.1m (2012: £28.2m) and adjusted profit before tax rose 5 per cent to £5.23m (2012: £4.97m).  Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) increased by 7 per cent to 37.6p (2012: 35.1p).  The final dividend proposed has increased 23 per cent to 9.0p (2012: 7.3p) and dividend for the year has risen 15 per cent to 15.7p (2012: 13.6p).
 
Recurring revenues grew again, increasing to £24m, representing 77 per cent of total revenue.
 
Maintel continued its run of successful acquisitions in 2013, acquiring the UK and Ireland operations of the Datapoint group, which had revenues of £15.8m in the year to June 2013, for a consideration of £3.5m. 

The Datapoint acquisition opens up an international customer base as well as a strong presence within the enterprise contact centre and unified communications market where Maintel already has expertise. 
 
The Network Services Division continued to deliver steady growth against the market trend, with an increase in both revenues (3 per cent) and gross profit (6 per cent) which pushed margins up a percentage point to 30 per cent. 
 
Margins also improved in the Mobile Division, from 54 to 63 per cent.  The focus for the Mobile Division for 2014 will be new sales and connections and this is being addressed with the addition of new sales resource. 
 
Maintel was awarded Avaya Technical Partner of the year status and has continued to adapt its business model and services towards new technologies such as cloud and hosted services.
 
Eddie Buxton, CEO, said:  "While competition levels remain high, we are seeing market conditions moderately improve with businesses engaging in discussions to increase investment in their communications infrastructure.
 
"Our short-term focus will be on the integration of Datapoint and realising the opportunity that its acquisition has brought to the group to diversify our revenues and significantly increase our presence in new markets."

Gamma has launched Converged FTTC Ethernet, a new voice-enabled variant of its FTTC Ethernet product.

The move enables Gamma Partners to compete at the price sensitive end of the small business market by offering customers a more affordable solution, without compromising on quality.

"Ethernet is now the de facto high speed connectivity technology of choice for businesses and, as well as offering fast, reliable internet access, Gamma's proposition enables businesses to also adopt high-quality IP telephony in the form of SIP trunking or a hosted voice platform," said Ethernet Product Manager, George Kinsella.

"Partners will benefit from the flexibility, resilience and associated cost savings and can take full advantage of Gamma's voice pedigree and single, accountable supplier offering."

Kinsella also noted that the affordability and guaranteed fix time of Converged FTTC Ethernet plus Gamma's ability to run an end-to-end prioritised voice service will make it widely accessible to more businesses as a replacement for ISDN, as well as the soon to be retired SDSL.

"It's also the perfect upgrade for broadband customers because it offers them the chance to benefit from all the features of Ethernet, including an enhanced SLA, an 8-hour fix time and dedicated high-speed access for just a £2-3 daily incremental cost," he added.

Vicki Rishbeth, Operations Director of Focus Group, currently consumes Gamma's Converged Ethernet services and says, "Joined up delivery across the Ethernet and IP telephony components means we can confidently deliver service to our customers on time and with minimal impact to our operation."

Gamma is marking the launch of Converged FTTC Ethernet with a three month free install offer on all 36-month contracts ordered on or before May 30th.

Tech Data Europe has swooped on a senior exec from rival Ingram Micro, Johan Vandenbussche, who takes the new position of senior vice president, Operations. 

He had been with Ingram Micro for 15 years, variously holding responsibility as vice president for regional operations, M&A in Europe and the company's pan-European business unit.

In this role, Vandenbussche will lead the Operations unit in Tech Data Europe, including overall responsibility for HR, Logistics, IT coordination and the company's internal consulting team working on standardisation and enhancement of working practices across its country operations.

TD Europe boss Nestor Cano said: "With Johan's proven ability, experience and deep knowledge of the distribution business, I am confident that he will make a major contribution as we continue to execute on our priorities of effective country execution, enhanced productivity and providing the best customer experience in the industry, all with integrity."

Poole-based VoIP Unlimited has doubled its staff in the past year and aims to boost growth in 2014 as it heads into its eighth year of trading.

Mark Pillow, founder and MD, said: "With the web becoming a more significant part of daily life for companies, more and more business leaders have the infrastructure on which to run VoIP. And this is without mentioning the development of smartphones and other mobile devices in recent years. The continued smartphone boom is making it easier to work on the move and stay in touch with emails and messages, while VoIP services can be deployed to ensure cheap calls can be made from almost any location.

"Users can make the most of their broadband connections to make cheaper telephone calls anywhere in the world. Business is now also increasingly international and firms rely on trading with their overseas counterparts. Of course, the good news with VoIP is that international calls are available at a hugely reduced rate, when compared to the charges imposed by standard telephone operators.

"With the increase in popularity for VoIP technologies, due to the numerous benefits it offers, we are looking to invest further in our team so we can continue to deliver a first-class service to clients."