Comms Dealer

Vim Vithaldas is to step down as Azzurri CEO at the end of this financial year in July for 'family reasons'.

He started as CEO in December 2011 and led the business through a phase of refinancing and repositioning. Steve Andrews, Chairman, said: "We will announce Vim's successor to take this forward during the coming months."

US-based cloud specialist 8x8 has followed up its acquisition of Voicenet Solutions late last year with the launch of 8x8 Solutions (formerly Voicenet Solutions), extending its reach into the UK and Europe.

The cloud communication and collaboration solutions provider has expanded its international footprint outside of the US and Canada to serve the global needs of its multi-national, mid-market customers and to capture the growing worldwide demand for cloud-based communications solutions.

UC market research firm Wainhouse Research says the European UCaaS market will witness 36% CAGR over the next five years.

"By taking advantage of 8x8's technological expertise and knowledge of cloud-based UC, 8x8 Solutions will be able to allay the security and reliability concerns of UK businesses and help them move their costly, out-dated traditional on-premise comms systems to cloud-based solutions with confidence," said 8x8 Solutions CEO Kevin Scott-Cowell (pictured above). 

"We look forward to working closely with our channel partners to deliver 8x8's UCaaS offerings to the UK and European markets."

The official launch of 8x8 Solutions took place at a London event for channel partners where 8x8 demonstrated its cloud business phone service, UC and contact centre services which have been widely deployed throughout North America.

Long-term 8x8 Solutions partner Barry Anns, Group MD at du Pré, welcomed the news. "8x8's proven cloud-based unified communication and collaboration services will put 8x8 Solutions and its partners in a position to deliver a service with the flexibility to match future expectations," he stated.

"Working together we will deliver cost-effective, robust cloud-based communication solutions to improve the business efficiency, productivity and the bottom line of our existing and potential customers, which opens up exciting new opportunities."

The product kit bag includes 8x8 Virtual Office, positioned as a flexible and cost-effective alternative to traditional business phone systems; and 8x8 Virtual Contact Centre, an integrated cloud-based call centre solution.

Channel focused Blizzard Telecom is introducing energy into its portfolio for new and existing resellers.

This area is not new to the company as it has been providing large-scale energy management services through sister company Blizzard Utilities for the last six years and currently manage over £100m of annual spend.

Its blue chip customer base includes Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports, Eversheds Solicitors, Electrolux and Thorn.

Mark Jones, Director at Blizzard, said: "This is something we have been planning for the last six months and have made significant investment in our Utilitytrak online quoting and contract sales tool for resellers.

"We have the backing of the UK's largest energy suppliers allowing resellers to add significant revenues to their businesses."

Kirsty McGrath, previously Eon third party manager and now heading energy channel sales for Blizzard, added: "The initial response from our existing partners has been fantastic and business is coming through. Resellers are finding that providing both gas and electricity contracts to their customers is easy and fast using our Utilitytrak software.

"Resellers can create quotes and get e-signed contracts back from their customers in minutes, and are ideally placed to succeed in this market."

Avnet's Q2 earnings beat management's guidance range and were also up 11.3% on a year-over-year basis. Revenues came in at $7.42 billion, up 10.8% from the year-ago quarter.

The year-over-year increase was primarily due to strength in the Asia region. However, the company recorded strong organic growth across its business segments, it says. EMEA sales by Avnet Technology Solutions were down around 3%, however.

On a segmental basis, revenues from Electronics Marketing (EM) grew 13.1% from the year-ago quarter to $4.15 billion and came ahead of management's guided range of $3.80 billion-$4.10 billion. The year-over-year increase was primarily boosted by high-volume fulfillment business in the Asia region. Organic growth was 11.4% year over year.

Revenues from Technology Solutions (TS) grew globally 7.9% from the year-ago quarter to $3.27bn as the US did particularly well. Segmental revenues also came ahead of management's guidance range of $2.85bn-$3.15bn. The year-over-year growth was mainly due to continued strong demand in America and Asia, it says while organic growth was 4.1% year over year.

Guidance was less-than-encouraging due to seasonality in the western regions and below-normal seasonality in the Asia region due to a possible slump in the high volume fulfillment business, it says.

The UK tech sector shifted up another gear during the fourth quarter of 2013 with strong inflows of new work driving the steepest expansion of business activity for almost a decade, according to the latest KPMG/Markit Tech Monitor UK report. As a result, the UK tech sector ended the year on a much firmer growth footing than it started, with a cyclical upswing first emerging in the spring of 2013 and picking up sharply since the autumn.

In December, the index measuring UK tech sector business activity posted above the crucial 50.0 no-change threshold for the 16th successive month - at a healthy 61.0 - which highlighted a continued strong rebound in tech growth since the soft patch reported through the summer of 2012.

Tech output growth has now accelerated to its fastest since that reported in February 2004.
Commenting on the latest Tech Monitor UK results, Tudor Aw, Head of Technology at KPMG, said: "These figures prove once more that the UK tech sector is going from strength to strength. The last quarter of 2013 saw the sector's best growth performance in almost a decade with a sharp increase in business activity, a rise in new orders and an increase in profitability despite higher costs. More importantly, the sector showed again solid rates of job creation, well above the rates in other sectors of the economy.

"UK tech companies are also more confident about the business outlook than firms in other industry sectors, with growth expectations at tech companies well above UK private sector average, underlining the impact the sector has on the country's economic performance and the important role tech companies play in the burgeoning recovery.

"Our report also shows that contrary to the popular belief that the UK lags behind the US tech sector, as trends in UK tech business activity closely match the performance of the Nasdaq. These results show that we can be very proud of our tech companies and the strength of the sector in the UK."

Looking at job creation patterns over the course of the past few years, the survey data highlights that tech companies have been on a sustained staff hiring spree since the global economy started to emerge from recession in late 2009.

In December, the index measuring UK tech sector employment was comfortably above the neutral 50.0 value (at 53.9), despite slipping to its lowest reading since August. The latest figure extends the current period of continuous jobs growth in the tech sector to just over four years. Meanwhile, the index measuring UK tech sector profitability rose to 55.3 in December, indicating the fastest pace of growth for six years (when the index hit 56.2 in December 2007).

The latest Markit Global Business Outlook Survey, which was conducted in October 2013, showed that 43.9% of UK tech companies plan to raise their staffing levels over the next 12 months, while only 7.0% forecast a drop. The resulting net balance of +36.8% is a reading unsurpassed in the four-year series history.

Strong hiring intentions for tech are accompanied by plans for increased investment spending. Around twice as many firms (27%) forecast a rise in capex as those that anticipate a decline (13%).

More report highlights
• UK tech companies report their fastest improvement in profitability for six years
• Solid rate of tech sector job creation maintained at the end of 2013
• Almost 44% of UK tech firms plan to hire more staff over year ahead, while 7% expect a fall.
• Around twice as many UK tech firms (27%) intend to increase their capex in next 12 months as those that anticipate a reduction (13%)
• East of England ranks third out of 1 regions for the concentration of tech jobs. The Silicon Fen area of Cambridge and South Cambridgeshire is a major hub within this region

BT is to invest a further £50 million into its commercial fibre broadband programme over the next three years, meaning that more than 30 cities will benefit as BT makes high speed broadband available to more than 400,000 additional premises.

BT is spending more than £3 billion on deploying fibre broadband and its open access fibre network currently passes more than 18 million homes and businesses. That footprint is set to grow rapidly as various rural fibre programmes are delivered.

UK fibre broadband availability currently stands at 73 per cent when all networks are taken into account. The current Broadband Delivery UK programme, which receives financial support from both central and local government, is set to extend that coverage to around 90 per cent by late 2015 or early 2016. The programme has made strong early progress with hundreds of thousands of premises passed with fibre to date.

Mike Galvin, MD Network Investment at Openreach, said: "Our fibre programme is going well with our engineers connecting homes and businesses across the UK. Some city areas have proved challenging in the past but we are returning to those and will pass hundreds of thousands of additional premises with fibre.

"We are reaching vast swathes of rural Britain with our public sector partners but we will upgrade these city areas under our own steam. Businesses in cities already have access to ultra-fast speeds but fibre will give them greater choice.

"The UK is already ahead of its main European rivals when it comes to fibre, and is set to race ahead thanks to the BDUK plans that are already in progress across the country."

Small businesses, charities and social enterprises will be encouraged to take up superfast broadband at their work premises under a new scheme being rolled out by the government.

Croydon's ICUK is a registered supplier for Superconnected Cities, the scheme backed by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, which will offer vouchers worth up to £3,000 to eligible businesses across 22 cities, to install a leased line at their business premises.

Leased lines can overcome many of the problems that businesses have with slow and ineffective broadband and help them to use VoIP and videoconferencing more reliably, as well as see an overall improvement in upload and download speeds.

Director Paul Barnett said: "We're pleased to have been named as a registered supplier for this scheme, and believe it will benefit plenty of businesses across the country with better broadband.

"We've spent a lot of time putting together a great deal of information about the vouchers on our website, including how to find out if you're eligible and how to apply. Our aim is to be the most informative and accessible place online to find out about these vouchers."

Each voucher is worth between £250 and £3000 and can be used by small or medium sized businesses as well as charities and social enterprises across the cities to pay for the installation costs of a leased line. The voucher doesn't cover the VAT or the monthly costs of the line itself.

The scheme runs until March 2015, during which time ICUK hopes many small businesses will take advantage of the voucher and make the most of superfast broadband at their workplace.

The Phone Co-op has announced record profits for the year to August 2013, with profit before distributions of £555k, up 31% compared with the previous year.

Despite a challenging trading environment in which prices and volumes are falling, the consumer co-operative reported a rise in its sales of telecommunications, boosted by significant growth in its mobile business, a trend its board expects will continue.

This year's record profit enables The Phone Co-op to recommend an increase in the dividend payable to its 10,000 members from 2% of sales in 2012 to 2.5% this year.

Vivian Woodell, founder and Chief Executive of The Phone Co-op, said: "It's been a challenging year for both the co-operative movement and the telecommunications industry, so we're delighted to be able to report such good results.

"As a customer-owned co-operative, we're pleased we've increased our membership which means more people are benefiting. Members have also increased their investments in The Phone Co-op to over £4m, and we have built our reserves, to over £1 million. We see this as evidence that consumer co-operatives, with their strong member-backing, can grow organically in a highly competitive marketplace."

In addition to growing its existing services, The Phone Co-op entered a new strategic partnership with the charity Community Network in July 2013, under which The Phone Co-op took over Community Network's teleconferencing services.

In addition, The Phone Co-op continued its diversification into renewable energy generation, with three further large-scale solar PV projects completed in February 2013.

The Phone Co-op's AGM, where members will vote on this year's proposed dividend will be held in in Manchester, on Saturday 8th February.

Logitech International's financial results for Q3 saw better-than-expected total sales of $628m, up 2% compared to the third quarter of the prior year. Q3 GAAP operating income was $53m compared to a loss a year ago. Cash flow from operations for Q3 was $94m.

Retail sales for Q3 were up 4% year over year. Combined, Logitechs retail growth categories delivered 62% growth compared to the prior year, as tablet accessories sales grew 95%, audio wearables and wireless sales grew 79% and PC gaming sales grew 25%.

"We're pleased by our solid Q3 performance, with both sales and profit growth," says Bracken P. Darrell, Logitech president and chief executive officer. "We are encouraged by the robust sales in our growth categories, as well as the success of our ongoing initiatives to improve profitability, which includes the earlier-than-expected return to profitability of LifeSize. We still have more work ahead, but our turnaround is on track as we continue to build a faster and more profitable Logitech."

Based on its Q3 performance, Logitech has raised its full-year outlook for Fiscal Year 2014. The company now expects sales of just under $2.1bn, compared to the previously expected $2.0bn, and non-GAAP operating income in the range of $120m to $125m, compared to the previously expected $100m.

Logitech's numbers highlight its success at lowering its dependence on slumping PC and home electronics peripherals markets. While the company's pointing device (mice), PC keyboard/desktop, video (webcams/videoconferencing), PC audio, and Harmony remote segments respectively saw sales declines of 8%, 2%, 9%, 12%, and 13%, sales to the audio wearables/wireless and tablet & other segments rose 79% and 95%.

PC gaming was also an area of strength, rising 25%.Strong demand for Logitech's Ultrathin iPad keyboard covers continues to boost its tablet accessories sales, and surging shipments of UE Boom wireless speakers are lifting audio sales.

Alternative Networks has acquired ControlCircle, a UK-based provider of complex managed hosting and cloud-based services to enterprises and online businesses.

ControlCircle adds to the Group's data and IT services portfolio, including managed and cloud based services, such as managed hosting, data centre virtualisation and application management.

Edward Spurrier, Chief Executive officer of Alternative Networks commented: "ControlCircle provides an excellent fit to the Alternative Group. We intend to invest in the growth of ControlCircle and are confident that combining its services with those of Alternative will provide the Group with new and enhanced offerings to its customers."