Comms Dealer

Next Generation Data (NGD) has announced the availability of a further data hall at its NGD Europe tier 3+ carrier-neutral data centre in South Wales.

This is NGD's 11th data hall to be built within the giant 750,000 square feet facility since its opening in 2010. Capable of supporting several hundred racks in shared, caged or private configurations the new hall will meet planned demand from further corporate, government and smaller service provider organisations requiring secure, flexible and scalable facilities.

"With major customers including BT, CGI, IBM and most recently Wipro Technologies on board in custom private halls NGD has already achieved occupancy levels on a scale comparable to filling to capacity several large London Docklands area data centres," said Simon Taylor, chairman, NGD.

"Our impressive growth rate is also being helped by the recent introduction of our channel partner strategy for accommodating the rack requirements of reseller and cloud service provider companies," added Simon Taylor.

Purpose-designed for enabling customer racks to be easily installed and operational in a matter of hours NGD's latest data hall features an abundant supply of power for supporting multiple high density racks and the latest cooling systems.

A wide choice of high bandwidth low latency connections are available to customers along with 24/7 service monitoring, comprehensive engineering support and access to NGD's extensive private conference meeting facilities.

Resellers should now be making an urgent push to familiarise themselves with the developments of the cloud, urges Outsourcery.

According to recent findings from the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF), 69 per cent of organisations already use cloud services formally for at least one application and 68 per cent are looking to increase their cloud usage in the next year.

This demonstrates that the rate of migration to the cloud is increasing and that some businesses are slowly integrating cloud into their existing IT infrastructure step-by-step. In light of the research from CIF, Outsourcery believes that the channel needs to become sufficiently prepared for the rise in requests which it will inevitably be faced with.

Adam Cathcart, Head of Channel at Outsourcery said: "In our experience with resellers, many of them are still unsure about how to advise customers on cloud services. This was true in the past and has improved, but the rate at which cloud adoption is growing means that resellers which are not prepared are likely to miss out on huge opportunities and can't ignore the emergence of cloud anymore.

Some resellers have been proactive at making sure they are prepared for the end-user demand for cloud, looking to vendors for advice on how to have the initial conversations. We recently launched our InSite partner portal for the channel. This has been designed to make it easier for VARs to sell and help select the correct cloud services for their customers and we hope that this will lead the way for resellers to feel more comfortable with the concept of selling cloud services and meeting the demands of a growing market."

TalkTalk Business has introduced an Ethernet-over-Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (EoFTTC) variant to its connectivity portfolio.

EoFTTC offers a cost-effective alternative to full fibre products, including many of the same benefits - such as uncontended bandwidth - but at dramatically reduced costs. It bridges the gap between standard broadband propositions and TalkTalk Business' Ethernet product sets, offering guaranteed up to 20Mb symmetrical speeds, said the firm.

As well as bolstering its connectivity portfolio, TalkTalk Business has built out its Ethernet footprint, expanding its exchange network.

Alongside this TalkTalk has extended its core Next Generation Network to a further 255 exchanges in the past six months, meaning it now extends to 96% of the UK.

Following the recent announcement that O2 will close its wholesale broadband division in February 2014, Fluidata - one of O2's largest partners - has added TalkTalk Business' wholesale offering to its Service Exchange Platform (SEP), which will allow its customers to access business grade connectivity simply and cost effectively.

Other new partners and contract wins in the first half of the year include Peach Telecom, which deployed a converged TalkTalk Business MPLS solution on behalf of customer Portsmouth Water, used to monitor reservoir levels for flood and leakage. Portsmouth Water previously operated two networks and the converged service is expected to save the company 50% over their previous costs.

Redcentric Plc added TalkTalk Business' connectivity products (EFM and EAD Fibre), which will be used as the foundation of its managed solutions portfolio to deliver customer centric applications, services and support to many leading businesses.

Alex Tempest, Director of Partners at TalkTalk Business said: "We've had a fantastic first half-year and it's great to see our partner channel playing a real part in that. By focusing on products that leverage our network efficiently, such as VPNs, SIP trunks and connectivity solutions, we're able to provide our channel partners with margin-rich opportunities and a data portfolio that continues to attract attention. Coupled with the ongoing expansion of our Ethernet exchange network we expect this to make a big impact in the industry."

Within its recent financial results, TalkTalk revealed that corporate revenues grew by 1.3% y-o-y and that the service provider has enjoyed steadily-growing demand for its data and carrier services, and expanded its network of Ethernet-enabled exchanges by 35% from 2,199 to 2,980.

HP is growing its Mobile Payments and Banking business through a global agreement with Sweden's Accumulate. This follows a successful implementation of the IKO mobile payment scheme in Poland with PKO Bank Polski.

HP offers secure processing solutions and payment technologies to a number of banks and telecommunication companies in the Americas, Europe and Asia. HP will now add the Accumulate technology to its core portfolio, to enable a number of its global customers to use its solution in mobile payments, mobile banking and mobile security services.

Accumulate is based in Stockholm, Sweden, and has delivered more than 100 million applications since 2004. Accumulate's mobile security platform, methods and processes are a good fit for system integrators who want to offer customer branded offerings in mobile payment, mobile banking and mobile authentication/security, its says.

The Accumulate customer portfolio continues to grow with clients including PKO Bank Polski (Poland), National Commercial Bank (Saudi Arabia), CredibanCo (Colombia), Diners Cards (Ecuador), Shell (Greece) and PayPal (Sweden). Services based on the Accumulate solution are to be introduced in several countries around the world.

"The strategic agreement with HP is exciting news. HP's customers can now get immediate access to our mobile technology and enable innovative mobile payment, banking and security services. We are already in deals together with HP and we believe this partnership will give us many new and interesting projects," says Stefan Hultberg, CEO and Co-Founder of Accumulate.

"The digitalisation wave on consumers is making mobile a critical channel for payment and services. HP is a trusted partner for the design and run of secure, mission critical payment systems. The Accumulate solution, wrapped in an HP delivery with our analytics and secure hosting options, gives our clients another compelling proposition to win and keep their customers," commented Ed Adshead-Grant, General Manager for HP Cards and Payments.

Huawei has opened a Global Finance Centre of Excellence in the city of London. It will become the overall financial risk assessment and control centre for the IT giant.

Cathy Meng, Huawei Chief Financial Officer and member of the Executive Committee of Huawei's Board of Directors, said in her keynote speech, delivered at the 2013 ICT Finance Forum in London on November 20, "This new centre will be responsible for managing risks of our critical finance functions including account treatment, liquidity management, foreign exchange risk management, credit management, and global financial compliance. It will become the overall financial risk assessment and control centre for Huawei, and will help Huawei carry out consistent and low-risk financial operation globally, allowing us to continuously providing our customers with high-quality services."

Ms. Meng went on to say, "As one of the world's key financial centres, London is in an important strategic position. The city not only has the skills and expertise that Huawei requires to realise operational excellence, but also has language and time zone advantages that make it an ideal location for Huawei's Global Finance Centre."

Sajid Javid MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury, who attended the forum, said, "We are proud that Huawei is choosing to invest in the UK, benefitting not only from our innovative technology sector but also our world-leading financial services. This re-iterates Britain's position as a centre for global finance, ideally placed for a global firm like Huawei to further its operations."

As part of the company's larger commitment to the country, in which its investment and procurement will be GBP £1.3bn by 2017, the newly established Global Finance Centre of Excellence is part of Huawei's overall global finance department and will focus on risk assessment across five key areas: market risk, liquidity risk, operational risk, country risk, and counterparty risk. The centre includes a credit management function that will assess credit risk associated with doing business in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region. The centre will also include a team responsible for managing the company's relationships with international banks and finance partners located in London.

According to a new market report the market for predictive analytics software is forecast to reach $6.5bn globally by 2019. The market growth is driven by increased demand for customer intelligence and fraud/security intelligence software. Cloud-hosted predictive analytics software solution is seen as an emerging market and is expected to drive growth in the near future.

The study, The Predictive Analytics Market, (including Customer intelligence, Decision support systems, Data mining and management, Performance management, Fraud and security intelligence, Risk management, Financial intelligence, Operations and Campaign management) is published by Transparency Market Research.

Globally, the predictive analytics market was valued at $2.08bn in 2012 and is forecast to grow at 17.8% CAGR from 2013 - 2019. End-use sectors such as banking and finance services, insurance, government, pharmaceuticals, telecom and IT, and retail, are seen as key demand drivers during the forecast period. Collectively these segments accounted for 71.8% of the marker share in 2012.

Among all, companies under BFSI (banking, finance services, and insurance) sector are expected to account for the largest market share throughout the forecast period. However, retail and manufacturing, are expected to record faster growth as compared to any other segment. This is largely due to fast growing consumer driven digital data and the subsequent need to extract strategically critical information from the same.

The rise in incidences of frauds, payment defaults, over or under stock inventory levels, and stringent regulations regarding GRC (governance, risk, and compliance), have pushed companies to adopt predictive analytical models, so they can gain futuristic insights and take preventive measures.

Demand for industry specific software solutions has caused customer intelligence, fraud and security intelligence, and campaign management to emerge as leading segments. These segments together accounted for approximately 50% of market revenue in 2012.

These different software solution types are used for supporting organizational functions/applications such as sales and marketing, customer and channel management, operations and workforce management, and finance and risk management. Among these software solutions for finance and risk management applications accounted for 40.9% of revenue share in 2012. The demand has seen a surge amidst the restraining impact of current global economy, where companies have been looking for measures to effectively manage their finances and associated risks.

Most of these software solutions are currently delivered through on-premises installation, and such installed solutions alone accounted for more than three-fourth of revenue share. Demand from companies with strong financial arms has been a key contributor to their high revenue share. However, with rise in awareness pushing the demand up from small and medium businesses, cloud based predictive analytics software solutions and services are expected to emerge as an alternative. Low cost, ease of switching the vendor, and scope for upgrade as per requirements, are some of the factors supporting demand for cloud hosted software solutions.

North America, which has been at the forefront of generating big data in large quantities, is expected to remain the largest market for predictive analytics software solutions. This is due to demand for advanced business intelligence being directly affected by need to analyse big data. The growth of the predictive analytics aspect of Business Intelligence has seen a revival ever since big data gained popularity and has been growing exponentially. As a result, big data vendors too have been entering the market for predictive analytics, making the competition intense. Currently players such as SAS Institute Inc., SAP AG, Oracle Corporation, IBM Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, Teradata Corporation, and Tableau Software, are among key players in the market. The top five players accounted for 80% of the global market in 2012 making it challenging for the new entrants to establish themselves in the market. Other vendors in the market are Fair Isaac Corporation, TIBCO Software, Inc., Information Builders, Alteryx, Inc., QlikTech International AB, and MicroStrategy, Inc., among others, it says.

While total revenues for Europe's main software firms were up by 10% for 2012 at €41.1bn, (€37.2bn in 2011 and €30.9bn in 2010) profitability fell as they grew investment, moving to SaaS and mobile/cloud.

European private equity firm, Truffle Capital's eighth edition of its ranking of the top 100 European software companies shows pressure on profitability from rising investment and R&D. The vendors are targeting a growth rate between 5 and 15% (for 72% of them versus 43% last year). Cloud computing is perceived to be the industry's high-potential trend for 2014 (80%) followed by Mobile Applications (55%).

The Truffle 100 Europe has been drawn up with the support of Neelie Kroes (European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda), in collaboration with analysts IDC and CXP Group, who performed the survey on which the ranking is based, and Essec Business School.

"The European software industry is thriving. Revenue and growth figures in the sector show the importance of its contribution to the European economy at a time of fierce global competition. We should all the more commend the achievements of the software industry, and acknowledge that the impact of those achievements go much beyond the sector itself. When looking at the bigger picture, we realise that software, has become a key enabling technology underlying all economic sectors and activities. Software services and applications are a major contributor to competitiveness: it greatly improves operations and services, and it also allows for the creation of new businesses and activities that would not exist without it," says Neelie Kroes.

"The European Cloud Strategy is articulated along three axes: application interoperability and data portability standards for reducing the risks of lock-in; safe and fair contract terms and conditions for easing the take-up of cloud services; and the European Cloud Partnership for defining common cloud procurement requirements for the public sector. You can count on me to bring continued Commission support to entrepreneurship and further developments in the software sector, especially at a time where major technological changes like the cloud are creating new challenges and opportunities",

Of the top 100, 42 vendors posted revenues of over €200m, 62 vendors had revenues of over €100m (60 in 2011) and 97 vendors earned over €50m (90 in 2011). All Truffle 100 Europe companies had revenues of over €46m (40 in 2011). However, profits went down from €6.6 billion in 2011 to €5.8 billion this year (an 8.7% decrease).

"This latest edition of the Truffle 100 Europe, the 8th, shows that the European software sector remains a force to be reckoned with, regardless of the economic environment. Despite an 8.7% decrease in profits, vendors invested more than they earned, showing faith and optimism in the future. As a result, R&D investments went up 20% and the number of R&D jobs rose by 6%. With 63,000 qualified jobs, low outsourcing numbers and 6.8 billion€ invested for development works on future products, the software industry remains an unwavering catalyst for innovation, a key driver of European economic growth, and plays a critical role in job creation policies for generations to come. Due to rising global competitiveness, the software industry needs more support from public authorities especially through tax relief, tax incentives for venture capital and the famous yet ignored "European Small Business Act".

European software entrepreneurs foresee a 5 to 15% growth in 2014 versus 10% last year, an optimistic view despite changing business models that push vendors to perpetually reinvent themselves in the age of cloud computing, Saas and Mobility", commented Truffle Capital co-founder and CEO Bernard-Louis Roques.

"We are currently experiencing a historical turning point: the global adoption of SaaS, a revolutionary software marketing model. SaaS is now riding the wave of Cloud and forms the third pillar alongside infrastructure service (IaaS) and the development service (PaaS): it constitutes the information system's application layer. The entire reasoning behind the construction of information systems is questioned with this new model. As cost-efficiency is now inevitable, the concept of outsourcing has spread to all companies, including key accounts who no longer consider SaaS as a mere experiment but who are looking to apply it to their most commonly-used management applications which will hopefully become the future's most strategic applications. Software Vendors are becoming more aware that the SaaS/cloud phenomenon is a real chance for economic growth, which has led to the model's upward trend. Thanks to Cloud, promising new markets are being conquered, especially on an international level" said Laurent Calot, CEO, CXP Group.

"The European software industry is in growth mode despite the difficult economic climate in the region with more than 10% revenue growth. A recent study by IDC confirms this trend as software demand in Europe has increased by 4%. European organizations are starting to embrace the idea of subscription-based business solutions delivered over the Internet. IDC believes that it is the ability of European vendors to transform their offerings and align them with the 'Third Platform' (a new technology platform for growth and innovation characterized by technologies such as cloud computing, smart mobile devices, social networks, and real-time analytics) which will determine the future competitiveness of Europe's software industry," said Bo Lykkegaard, research analyst, IDC.

The global carrier router and switch market (IP edge and core routers and carrier Ethernet switches) totaled $3.6bn in 3Q13, an increase of 7% from the year-ago 3rd quarter.

Europe/EMEA declined 10% in 3Q13 from 2Q13, but European service providers are expected to carry out a decent budget flush in the 4th quarter. Market research firm Infonetics Research has released vendor market share and preliminary analysis from its 3rd quarter 2013 (3Q13) Service Provider Routers and Switches report.

"The third quarter is normally slow for the carrier router/switch market, so a 10% sequential drop isn't overwhelmingly bad, especially with the expectation of a good 4Q13 and an improving year-over-year outlook," says Michael Howard, principal analyst for carrier networks and co-founder of Infonetics Research. "All three main IP router/switch categories - edge routers, core routers, and carrier Ethernet switches (CES) - are up from a year ago."

Cisco maintains its lead with 38%, Alcatel-Lucent regains 2nd place, Juniper holds #3, while Huawei drops to #4 on the 3Q13 global router/CES revenue share leaderboard. Infonetics forecasts the service provider router and switch market to grow at a 7% CAGR from 2012 to 2017, when it will reach $20.2 billion.

Easynet Global Services, managed cloud infrastructure provider, has announced a partnership agreement with Zscaler, security cloud for the mobile enterprise specialist. Under the terms of a deal, Easynet will add Zscaler's cloud-based security offering (Direct-to-Cloud Network) to its managed security service portfolio and will offer the new services to its customers in the EMEA region.

The new services will include consultancy, implementation of security policies and ongoing support.

"Enterprises are challenged to secure employee access to the Internet from multiple devices and locations. The Cloud has become the solution of choice to protect enterprise users and their data against Advanced Persistent Threats, so we are looking forward to broaden the reach of our Direct-to-Cloud Network with the help of Easynet in EMEA," states Craig Stewart, Vice President EMEA of Zscaler.

To say that Nimans has turned a new page in its just published 2014 Voice and Data Book would be to greatly understate its Everything Connected narrative, according to Group Sales and Business Development Director Richard Carter.

"The directory reflects the company's strategy where resellers can find all of the components they need to complete a job from start to finish, backed by a solid service and support structure," he commented.

"The 2014 catalogue details 7,000 products across 500-plus pages. The world of communications continues to develop and Nimans has evolved into much more than a traditional comms distributor. The company has £10m worth of stock ready for next day delivery."