Comms Dealer

Privately-backed Exclusive Networks says it will notch up €0.5bn in sales this year, putting it on course for its planned €1bn by 2017. It says it managed €328.3m in 2013, which was boosted by its acquisitions.

"We believe there is considerable scope to scale-up our business model without compromising any of the value-generating integrity that's delivered our success so far," said Olivier Breittmayer, CEO of Exclusive Networks Group. "

Every Exclusive territory is a dynamic business in its own right, driven by entrepreneurs who know their markets. As we grow, this cell-based structure liberates our companies to think globally but act locally with the agility and flexibility to adapt to local needs."

Late 2013 and into early 2014 was a particularly eventful period regarding Exclusive Networks Group's expansion, with the acquisitions of Bili?imcim and Secureway in Turkey and across the Middle East for the first time.

The launch of operations in Switzerland also contributed to the Group's 15% growth in headcount, as did the acquisition of Terach in the Benelux region.

The Group says it traded with around 4,300 resellers in 2013, and is now present in over 20 countries throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa - with Denmark the latest addition earlier this month.

Mimecast, supplier of cloud-based email archiving, security and continuity for Microsoft Exchange and Office 365, says that around 100 firms, 25% of its UK channel, have been recognised as Mimecast Certified Technical Specialists after completing training in managing cloud migration projects.

Nessa Lynchehaun, Channel Director at Mimecast, commented: "We have found many Mimecast customers want to benefit from cloud services but don't have the skills in-house to manage the migration. We have worked with our channel partners to build this certification training so that they can manage cloud projects for our customers, reducing any barriers to migration. It has quickly been successful because it gives the channel the skills to capitalise on the cloud and a certification brand that gives customers confidence."

The total amount invested in data centre outsourcing solutions in Europe will significantly increase over the next three years, according to a new report by DCD Intelligence.

The report notes this is despite the region currently being behind other regions in terms of its data centre outsourcing profile, due to increased pressures placed on data centre operators in terms of increased power, IT capacity planning and budgetary concerns.

The most diverse of all the regions covered by the report differ greatly in terms of their economic, political and cultural profile, but all share a common theme in terms of being classified under the DCD development index as 'evolving markets'.

Characterised by smaller facilities, a lack of 'mega data centres', lower power per rack and a small percentage of data centres located in purpose-built facilities, evolving markets show greater growth rates in terms of investment, power and space than their mature counterparts.

"Growth rates in the region continue to remain healthy in terms of space and investment, especially in Turkey and Eastern Europe. Across the region, we predict that growth rates for space will remain in double digits for the coming few years," Nick Parfitt, lead analyst at DCD Intelligence, explained.

With regards to space, DCD says the total amount of white space in the region is currently just under 1.4 million square metres, with Russia accounting for by far the largest proportion of the market, at 650 000 square metres. The strongest growth has occurred in Turkey and Eastern Europe, while the Middle East has witnessed a very small growth in total white space over 2012 levels.

The report also states that emerging EMEA has witnessed a 13.2% increase in data centre power consumption over the past 12 months, and while power per rack is still below levels in other regions, power consumption is expected to rise in line with the growth in white space through to 2016.

The global enterprise PBX market including TDM, hybrid, and pure IP amounted to $7.4bn in 2013, down 9% from 2012 and down 9% from the year-ago 4th quarter. More consolidation among vendors and other changes are expected this year as the business moves to cloud and managed services.

"It isn't revenue growth or big shifts in market share that are making news in the enterprise telephony market, it's shake-ups in the vendor landscape," said says Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC, and IMS at Infonetics Research.

"Of note is Mitel's merger with Aastra which will make the joined company a top5 vendor. Meanwhile, Alcatel-Lucent finally found a buyer for its enterprise business in Chinese private equity firm China Huaxin, and Siemens changed its name to Unify and is going through a complete management overhaul."

Market research firm Infonetics Research has just released vendor market share and preliminary analysis from its 4th quarter 2013 (4Q13) and year-end Enterprise Unified Communications and Voice Equipment report.

Myers added: "We expect 2014 will bring further vendor shake-ups. The market's too tight to maintain the number of vendors in existence right now."

Eating into growth is the move to cloud-based PBX and unified communications (UC) services as Unified communications applications continue to be the most resilient segment, with a combined 31% worldwide revenue increase in 2013.

Cisco still leads the PBX market with 26% worldwide revenue share in 2013, followed by Avaya at 21%. Microsoft leads the unified communications segment with 43% revenue share in 2013

Infonetics forecasts the unified communications segment to grow at a 7% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2018.

Vendor of data centre solutions Minkels has announced an expansion of its UK partner network with an addition of UPS services provider MPower.

Under the terms of a deal, MPower will provide Minkels UPS installation, commissioning and maintenance services in the UK.

Also, MPower will be Minkels' first partner dedicated to business in the UK while other partners specialise in the company's segment of cooling solutions, it says.

At the same time, Minkels has announced an introduction of its UPS system, a solution that originally was launched last year, which has been designed for small and medium-sized server rooms, it says. The company plans to sell its new system mostly through partners.

At the moment, Minkels is looking to add more UPS-focused partners in Europe soon due to its planned rollout of UPS system across Europe. Last year it managed to introduce a new system in the Benelux region where it also signed new UPS services partners.

"Now that MPower is appointed for delivering UPS services we believe this is the right time to officially introduce Minkels UPS System in the UK," says Jeroen Hol, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Minkels.

Distributor Tech Data, which bought rival SDG last year, is on target to generate 60% of its revenue from Europe.

CEO Bob Dutkowsky said: "Although we have seen some stabilisation in Q4, the weakness through the first nine months in certain countries did not always match up with our forecast.

"As a result of all of this, through Q3 our company did not execute at the levels of efficiency I would have expected. These are not excuses for our performance, but explain the reality of what the organisation faced during the year.

"However, Q3 and yet to be finalised Q4 results indicate the more current trajectory of our business, with sequential improvement in operating margins and mid-single digit year-over-year sales growth in both regions in local currency in Q4."

Interconnection and data centre company Equinix is to expand its ecosystem across Europe with an addition of cloud service providers.

This means that the European customers will be offered a wider range of cloud services colocated in Equinix international business exchange (IBX) data centres in Amsterdam, Frankfurt, London, Paris, Zurich and Dubai.

Equinix currently hosts over 1,200 cloud and IT services companies globally, with 450 of them residing in IBX in Europe. Its cloud ecosystem gives CSPs access to 4,500 potential customers across Platform Equinix, the company says.

"Equinix's cloud ecosystem in Europe gives businesses the ability to choose a combination of cloud infrastructure, platform and software service providers to ensure they have a hybrid cloud solution to meet their individual business needs.

"Customers also have a choice of cost-effective connectivity options," said Sam Johnston, Director, Cloud & IT Services, Equinix Europe.

Veeam has announced a new set of enhancements to its EMEA ProPartner scheme to accelerate its presence in all market segments - SMBs, midmarket and enterprises, it says.

Under the new arrangement, silver, gold and platinum partners will gain more benefits when selling to a new customer of Veeam or Veeam backup and replication enterprise plus edition.

The new Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE) Programme is now available to end-users and partners. This includes classroom training sessions provided by Veeam Authorised Education Centres (VMAECs) across the EMEA region as well as certification and education opportunities for engineers from both end-users and partners. Also, VMCE certifications are now required for gold and platinum ProPartners and recommended for Silver ProPartners.

According to Veeam, the enhanced programme will also help resellers achieve higher ROI from their investments in Veeam products and improve SLAs.

As far as the alliances programme is concerned, the benefits include a new partner Cisco to join existing alliances with VMware, Microsoft and HP and more global alliances announcements to come in 2014.

"Veeam has a channel-based business model and we recognise that the success of our ProPartners has a direct impact on our overall success. The new enhancements and updates to our ProPartner Program in EMEA will create a more empowered and enabled channel community.

"While we continue to deliver the best Protection for the Modern Data Centre, we also strive to improve and strengthen our partner training, value-add and profitability as well as integrated marketing support so that our partners maintain their reputation as a trusted advisor to Veeam customers," says Gilles Pommier, Vice President of EMEA Channel at Veeam Software.

ICUK's growth rate accelerated to 30% in its last financial year driven in particular by a significant increase in demand for its Ethernet services.

Director Leslie Costar noted that the firm's development tools and control panel are proving popular among resellers.

"Our investment in the development team and our infrastructure ensures our resellers are able to work with the platform and use it to help their own customers running their own business without interference from us."

Hosted UC specialist thevoicefactory has stepped up its reseller recruitment campaign following the launch of new applications that bring additional productivity benefits to a growing body of users migrating to hosted telephony.

Paul Harrison, Director, commented: "We are seeing growth in businesses moving to hosted, but simply swapping a PBX phone for a hosted IP one does not meet customers' expectations for the new technology to bring productivity improvements."

The BroadSoft-based service provider has unveiled a new Click 2 Call innovation that works from the desktop, websites, CRM applications, Outlook and Google etc.

"This brings SaaS to hosted IP telephony," said Harrison. "Our innovation moves the telephone to the application and also the application to the phone."

He also noted that full real-time reporting with live wallboards runs on smartphones, tablets, PCs and monitors. "Users can now see every detail on every call inbound or outbound," added Harrison.