Comms Dealer

Former BT Group Chief Exec Lord Ian Livingston has received recognition for his work and transformation of the telecoms company by being awarded the Chairman's Award at the annual Institute for Turnaround (IFT) awards.

The IFT awards recognise companies and organisations that have returned to strength, having faced difficulties over the last few years, thanks to excellent strategy and leadership.

The awards were hosted by former Conservative MP and broadcaster Gyles Brandreth at the Bloomsbury Big Top in London.

Lord Livingston led BT for five years until September 2013. He recruited and oversaw a new management team and grew the business through investment and improvements to customer service.  The company also recently launched its multi-billion pound sports channels in August in a direct challenge to the established market leader BSkyB.

Prime Minister David Cameron announced in June Lord Livingston would become a UK Government trade minister in the House of Lords, replacing Lord Green, with a remit of helping British companies prosper.

Lord Livingston said: "It's an award for BT and BT staff because the most important thing about any transformation is that it is a team effort.

"In my new role in Government I want to encourage businesses to locate and grow in Britain. When I talk to businesses from other countries they see Britain as an open trading country.

"We should celebrate the strengths we have that are so appealing for those who want to come to this country and help grow our economy."

Chairman of the Institute for Turnaround, Iain MacRitchie said: "I selected Lord Livingston for the Chairman's Award because of the remarkable success and leadership he has shown in transforming BT's business model over the past five years. 

"Ian's relentless focus on growing the business has seen investment in fibre optic, TV and sport and his influence is reflected in the current strong performance of BT.

"I know Ian will be a success in his new role promoting Britain as a great place to do business.  He is a great example and a true champion of British business."

Arguments in favour of hosted telephony are unassailable according to Michael J Thornton, Sales and Marketing Director at Frontier Voice and Data, who believes that the only barrier to mainstream adoption is the notion that cloud comms deployment is complex and challenging.

"Smart companies sell hosted telephony," he stated. "Ideas about that cloud being too complex are a myth and resellers are missing out on a significant opportunity. They risk losing their customers to competitors who offer the full benefits of cloud telephony. No company can ignore the business case for cloud-based communications."

In a bid to demystify the cloud and spell out the customer benefits, Thornton has overseen the creation of a video called 'Hosted Made Easy' and he believes that a 'seeing is believing' approach to Frontier's MyIP proposition will help resellers grasp the hosted opportunity.

"Our video is designed to be educational by explaining the cloud in simple language and supported by engaging graphics," added Thornton.

"Migrating applications out of the office and into the cloud with minimal disruption is the natural next step for organisations that are unhappy with their legacy equipment, which can be inflexible and costly to run and maintain.

"Smart companies realise the benefits of moving to the cloud model. There is no legacy hardware, no expensive maintenance contracts, cloud telephony is secure, reduces costs and offers more flexibility and scalabiltiy.

"Customers want an easily managed service-based solution with minimal outlay and simple billing from a single supplier. Cloud solutions such as MyIP are the answer to their call."

The 'Hosted Made Easy' video can be viewed on Frontier Voice and Data's website.

There will be mixed results for Data Centre providers over the next five year period, according to Tariff Consultancy (TCL) in its latest report.

Average Data Centre pricing remains stable over time, with average standard rack space rates from 2010 to 2013 being broadly unchanged over the 23 Country Markets surveyed.

Over the three year period average rack space pricing has fallen in 13 Country Markets, but has risen in 10 Country Markets. The price trend is forecast to continue from 2013 to 2018 with average pricing forecast to rise by 1.2 per cent over the next five-year period.

But within the average pricing there are a range of rack space pricing based on the different types of Data Centre provider in each market.

New entrants, Wholesale Data Centre, regional and local Data Centre providers are offering discounted rates disturbing the market equilibrium of supply and demand and lowering average pricing.

The entry of new large capacity Data Centre space in Switzerland and Norway has meant a decline in average pricing as supply exceeds demand.

New Data Centre investment in Europe is still mainly focused on the established markets of France, the UK, Netherlands and Germany - all four Country Markets have 3rd party Data Centre raised floor space of over 300,000 square metres - and are seeing expansion in regional areas.

According to TCL, as existing clusters of Data Centre markets are becoming saturated new facilities are being established in surrounding areas are seeing new investment - accompanied with a decline in Data Centre price levels.

But Data Centre facilities in the established cities of London, Frankfurt, Paris and Stockholm are priced at a premium to the rest of the market.

A range of Data Centre clusters are now developing in each European Country Market, with the UK, the Netherlands, France and Sweden seeing development in new facilities away from the capital city - typically the main source of Data Centre investment - driven by the availability of land, planning permission and lower development costs.

Despite the increase in Data Centre capacity the TCL Data Centre Pricing in Europe report finds that utilisation levels for key providers (including TelecityGroup, Equinix and Interxion) has remained stable, with each provider maintaining average gross margins - as the established Data Centre operator seeks to manage the introduction of new raised floor space strictly in line with customer demand. But the increase in new space is acting as a brake on new Data Centre pricing.

Across the 23 European Country Markets surveyed TCL finds that new 3rd party Data Centre space is being added at a rate of 10,000 square metres per month. In some markets - such as Norway - new Data Centre providers are adding substantial new space with the new LefdalMine Data Center alone having potential space of up to 120,000 square metres.

Data Centre pricing in Europe is also being driven by investment in new high specification Data Centre facilities capable of delivering a range of services - with incumbent telecoms operators in Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, France and Spain investing heavily in new cloud computing and hosting facilities with multiple tiers of service, SLA and power levels.

And Carrier Neutral Data Centre providers are investing in new Premium Data Centre facilities with multiple data halls catering for different customer applications and levels of service.

Demand for Data Centre space is also being driven by requirements from telecoms, hosting, integrators and digital content providers who require 3rd party Data Centre space rather than build their own facilities.

But Data Centre providers can maintain a price premium in a market where there is a wide range of IP and network connectivity - including direct connectivity to the national IP exchange - and benefitting from a wide range of partners and digital content providers creating a unique ecosystem.

Additionally the provision of power is becoming a key factor in Data Centre selection as providers upgrade their facilities and price according to each kW of power consumed. In some Country Markets, such as Finland and Norway, Data Centre providers are using the low cost of industrial electricity as a key factor in marketing their Data Centre services.

Global PC shipments are expected to fall by -10.1% in 2013, slightly below the previous projection of -9.7%, and by far the most severe yearly contraction on record, according to the IDC Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. Interest in PCs has remained limited, leading to little indication of positive growth beyond replacement of existing systems.

Total shipments are expected to decline by an additional -3.8% in 2014 before turning slightly positive in the longer term. At these rates, total PC shipments will remain just above 300 million during the forecast - barely ahead of 2008 volumes. Even in emerging markets - a primary growth engine of the PC market - shipments are projected to decline in 2014 and recover by only a few percent during the forecast.

The commercial market is faring notably better than the consumer market in 2013 with shipments declining by -5% year over year compared to nearly -15% for consumer. The relative stability is due to a mix of more stable PC investment planning, a smaller impact from tablets, and to replacements of Windows XP systems before the end of support planned for 2014. However, the long-term outlook for the two markets is not significantly different, with a small decline projected for both consumer and commercial segments in 2014 with near flat growth in the longer term.

"Perhaps the chief concern for future PC demand is a lack of reasons to replace an older system," said Jay Chou, Senior Research Analyst at IDC. "While IDC research finds that the PC still remains the primary computing device - for example, PCs are used more hours per day than tablets or phones - PC usage is nonetheless declining each year as more devices become available. And despite industry efforts, PC usage has not moved significantly beyond consumption and productivity tasks to differentiate PCs from other devices. As a result, PC lifespans continue to increase, thereby limiting market growth."

PGi, a company that has operated in the collaboration and virtual meetings arena for 20-plus years, has acquired Via-Vox, trading under the name Powwownow, one of Europe's fastest growing conferencing and collaboration providers focused on SMBs, for a cash purchase price of approximately $52.6m. PGi funded the purchase through its credit facility and cash and equivalents on hand.

"Powwownow's presence in the UK SMB space makes it a valuable acquisition for PGi," said Boland T. Jones, PGi founder, Chairman and CEO.

"The acquisition reinforces our strategy of expanding PGi's customer base and identifying products that enhance our portfolio, while delivering meaningful revenue and earnings accretion that enable us to fund additional growth investments."

Founded in 2004, Powwownow serves approximately 240,000 users in the UK, France and Germany and has a current projected annual revenue run rate of approximately $22m. Following the acquisition Powwownow users gain access to PGi's web conferencing solutions, iMeet and GlobalMeet.

Marc Beattie, senior analyst, Wainhouse Research, observed: "Powwownow's brand and approach to audio conferencing has yielded powerful growth in Europe, particularly in the UK. This acquisition provides PGi with a growing brand and a captive audience for its iMeet and GlobalMeet web products."

Paul Lees, founder and CEO of Powwownow, added: "Joining forces with PGi expands the scale, reach and service options available to Powwownow customers.

"Powwownow brings PGi new go-to-market capabilities, including our brand awareness, small business marketing expertise and online infrastructure."

Nimans has kicked off a campaign convoy across SIP territory and training resellers 'to get it right' is at the forefront of its strategy.

"The Nimans proposition gives resellers access to a range of network-based products and a strong platform to capture a bigger share of the growing SIP market, based on training and accreditation to ensure they get it right," stated Mark Curtis-Wood, Head of Network Services at Nimans.

"Training for deployment is crucial so we are placing great importance on providing learning sessions to provide resellers with the confidence and knowledge to move forward from both sales and engineering perspectives."

The Nimans SIP service has been fully tested for Panasonic, Samsung, NEC, Aastra and iQ PBX systems, with more to follow. Sales and engineering training courses will run throughout 2014 and a SIP connectivity guide is also being produced.

"The whole sales process has shifted," added Curtis-Wood. "Resellers need to understand what the client wants to put a solution together and deliver it.

"It's about creating a holistic solution. Conversations often start off about how SIP can cut ISDN costs by 25%. But it's really about flexibility, disaster recovery and number portability, and it's still cheaper than ISDN."

Users of the Alcatel-Lucent OmniPCX Office RCE communication server are able to download a 60-day free trial of My IC Social Networks, a Microsoft Outlook plug-in that allows SMBs to adopt a unified social media collaboration communications strategy to integrate all internal and external contact lists via a single interface.

Users can view presence information in real-time for all of their colleagues, partners, customers and prospects from a variety of sources: voice, email, SMS, Outlook calendar, Instant Messaging (IM) and the most popular social media channels Facebook, Skype and Yahoo!, and then make an immediate choice of the most appropriate communication channel to contact them.\

My IC Social Networks reduces missed opportunities by sending alerts when contacts come online, and allows scheduled call-backs when contacts are unavailable.

Katerina Cerny, Product Marketing Manager for SMB, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, said: "Recent research shows that 75% of wasted time can be saved through using more than one medium, proving that users become far more productive when they can choose the best network and service to communicate with their contacts in real-time."

Ovum's research into the $160bn telecom network infrastructure market indicates five key trends to watch in 2014 as communications service providers (CSPs) seek a better balance between cost and revenue.

According to the the think tank the big trends will be in small cell adoption; data and customer experience management; the move to software-centric networks; increased optical network capacity in the metro; and changes in the infrastructure value chain.

Vendors that stay in front of these trends should beat average market growth projections, claims the firm.

Ovum forecasts low single-digit revenue growth for communications service providers through 2018. The growth of over-the-top players, changes in subscriber behaviours, and regulatory policies are all negatively impacting CSPs' service revenues. This will limit CapEx growth and restrain revenue growth for network infrastructure vendors. Investments in higher-growth revenue opportunities, for example Big Data-related infrastructure and services, LTE, 100G, and the like, will allow vendors to outpace the general market.

The big boom in small cells deployments won't happen in 2014, but indications are clear that interest in small cells is growing. For 2014, small cell solutions for indoor spaces will be hot.

Video analytics and optimisation in particular will prove crucial. Improved customer experience and network asset management will increasingly require sophisticated, realtime policy-controlled traffic management and data analytics, especially for mobile networks.

Telcos will gain confidence to expand software-defined networking (SDN), network virtualization, and network functions virtualization (NFV) trials and early deployments. In 2014, new and revised standards and specifications related to software-defined networking (SDN), network virtualization, and network functions virtualization (NFV) will bring the industry closer to consensus.

Lower-cost coherent optical metro solutions will hit the market in 2014. Network value will increasingly be driven by software-tunable capabilities, allowing new possibilities for transport network optimisation and monetisation.

In 2014, the equipment value chain will continue shifting to benefit application software and chips. For NEPs, the response is vertical integration to include more chip design. For merchant chip suppliers and innovative NEPs, over-the-top (OTT) operators tantalize with a shortened technology adoption cycle.

Dana Cooperson, VP Network Infrastructure at Ovum, said: "The tight revenue climate facing most CSPs is not likely to reverse anytime soon. For NEPs following these trends, one of the challenges will be of resource allocation. While new trends in network infrastructure cannot be ignored, there must be a balance between putting corporate resources into staying on top of new trends that may take several years to turn a profit versus putting resources into existing, profitable network solutions that have a limited life expectancy."

Cloud services and data protection solutions provider Redstor has posted record results for 2013, achieving gross profit in excess of £3 million and EBITDA of over £1 million.

Revenues for the financial year ending November 2013 reached £8 million for the first time, showing another year of strong progress for the tech company.

During the past financial year Redstor has welcomed over 900 organisations onto its platform, growing its cloud business by 25%; and achieved 89% recurring revenue in 2013 indicating that Redstor's long standing customer base continues to contribute significantly to organisational growth.

The firm has also expanded its services portfolio by launching a new service, Virtual Disaster Recovery. This service ensures that business' systems will be up and running within minutes following a disaster.

And the company has strengthened its growth strategy by restructuring internally to better service its customers and partners, and hired ten new employees in its sales, marketing and technical departments.

Chris Sigley, General Manager, said: "Due to our strong relationships with existing customers and partners, as well as a number of key new business wins, Redstor has seen its most profitable year yet. We believe that Redstor has a strong team who all help towards our continued growth."

Redstone has secured a new sponsorship deal with reigning IBF middleweight champion Darren Barker.

The sponsorship deal will see Redstone support the former British, Commonwealth and European Champion over three fights, the next of which will see Barker defend his IBF Middleweight belt against three times world champion Felix Sturm in Stuttgart, Germany on 7th December.

Brendan Loughrey, Managing Director of Redstone said: "We are excited to have the opportunity to sponsor and work with Darren Barker as he prepares to defend his middleweight title.

"Just as Redstone has continued to go from strength to strength this year, we recognise that Darren is in similar position and we are keen to help him achieve his goals in his sport. This is an important stage of his career and we are extremely proud to be able to support his success."

Barker said: "Sponsorship is essential to all professional sportsmen and women to enable us to access the best training and facilities to help us reach the top of our games.

"This deal with Redstone will enable me to continue training at the highest level and will help raise my profile in the IT sector among Redstone's partners and its customers."

This sponsorship announcement follows news that Redstone has finalised its sale to Coms. Redstone will continue to operate as part of Coms and the acquisition brings added strength to both companies.