Comms Dealer

London and the south east account for half of all the jobs advertised in the UK but according to Scott Fletcher, chairman and founder of cloud infrastructure specialists ANS Group, the north-south divide favours the north in the high-tech industries.??

"Work in High Tech industries is not as concentrated on London as in other sectors," he said. "High rents can force new companies out of the capital and more and more IT companies of all sizes have been migrating to the North West where Manchester is rapidly developing itself as the UK's high-tech hub."

A reported 0.6% increase in gross domestic product has improved hopes for the UK's employment market but there are fears that new jobs are being created disproportionately in the south east.

"The biggest increase in new jobs have been developed in the manufacturing sector and they do seem to be concentrated in the south east which makes it more important than ever high-tech industries continue to gravitate to the north west," said Mr Fletcher. 

The BBC has moved a major part of its operations from London to MediaCityUK complex at Salford Quays where they will shortly be joined by ITV's Granada Division.

Manchester is already home to many globally trading companies such as PZ Cussons, The Co-operative Group, Umbro and the Peel Group (key developers of MediaCityUK). Multi-nationals like Kelloggs, Adidas and Siemens also have UK headquarters in the city.

"Such a density of global companies fosters a burgeoning digital sector and the North West boasts the second-largest 'digital cluster' in Europe and is probably the fastest growing industry sector in the UK," added Fletcher. 

IBM is adding 11 more educational establishments to its 200 partnerships with universities around the globe, focusing on collaborating to bring cyber security skills into the classroom.

With demand for cyber skills set to rise by over 20% by 2020, the push is for more people with experience in cyber security. As part of IBM's Academic Initiative, the company is launching new curriculum and programs focusing on cyber security in the US, at the Technische Universitat Darmstadt in Germany and Wroclaw University of Economics in Poland as well as other places around the world.

Hosting company Intermedia has named Ed Macnair as managing director EMEA and Eric Weiss as senior vice president of marketing.

Intermedia says it is investing heavily in its EMEA operations, with plans to double headcount at SaaSID's UK sales and research and development centres. Intermedia currently has more than 90,000 business customers and 13,500 resellers worldwide, it says.

Macnair is the founder and former CEO of SaaSID, the UK-based vendor of single sign-on (SSO) and web application security software, which was acquired by Intermedia in September. He is responsible for driving Intermedia sales, marketing and product development in the EMEA region.

Having worked within the technology and cloud security industry for more than 25 years, Macnair has held senior management positions with MessageLabs, Symantec, IBM and Xerox. Prior to founding SaaSID, he was CEO of UK-based email and web content security vendor Marshal, a company that he merged with US-based 8e6 Technologies, after tripling Marshal's international revenues within three years.

SaaSID provides organisations with centralised control over employees' access to cloud services, business applications and social media, while giving employees the convenience of SSO for all their cloud services. Intermedia has announced that SaaSID's existing cloud service will be integrated into its HostPilot control panel in the first quarter of 2014.

Eric Weiss, Intermedia's new SVP of marketing, brings over 18 years experience gained primarily in rapidly growing SMB and cloud services.

He has a strong track record of branding, launching and growing businesses internationally in Intermedia's key categories of IT services and telecommunications. Prior to joining Intermedia, Weiss led marketing at Axcient. As SVP of Marketing at GreenRoad, Weiss implemented rebranding and marketing strategies that led to growing the company's booked revenue from $1m to more than $30m in two years.

"Intermedia is rapidly increasing headcount in the EMEA region to support our existing customers and partners, as well as extending Intermedia's services to SaaSID's customers," said Phil Koen, Intermedia chairman and CEO.

"At the same time, we're building a global brand and marketing it to hundreds of thousands of small and medium-sized businesses. We welcome both Ed Macnair and Eric Weiss to our team and look forward to working with them and the SaaSID team to grow our company across the US, EMEA and the world."

The BYOD trend has been followed up with a new concept, Choose Your Own Device (CYOD), which it is claimed offers many of the benefits of BYOD but without some of the drawbacks.

With the growth of the 'always on, always connected' work culture, the adoption of smartphones, tablets and notebooks that facilitate the trend is also growing. Forrester predicts that in two years time, 350 million workers will use smartphones, 200 million of whom will take their own devices to the workplace. It is estimated that 90 per cent of organisations will have to support BYOD by 2014.

However, there is an alternative - CYOD. The concept is simple. By offering employees a choice of approved devices, IT managers can retain more control over their IT estate, as compared to the free-for-all BYOD. Though CYOD strategies may mean less freedom for employees and may not provide the high staff-satisfaction rates reported for BYOD, they can prevent IT managers from feeling overburdened while still providing the desired functionality, mobility and flexibility.

Hardeep Singh Garewal, Europe President, ITC Infotech, said: "With the huge range of tablets, smartphones, operating systems and platforms available, it is no wonder that IT managers are feeling overwhelmed. Windows, iOS, Blackberry RIM, Android and the growing list of other operating systems pose a real challenge for organisations to provision all necessary business applications across all these platforms. By limiting the number of options available to the staff, this complexity can be reduced significantly without losing the benefits of increased staff mobility, higher job satisfaction and improvement in efficiency and productivity."

The growing popularity of BYOD and now CYOD, has opened up a new range of opportunities for service providers like ITC Infotech. The BYOD and CYOD trends have thrown up the challenge of provisioning business resources and applications seamlessly across all available operating systems.

JMC IT hosted more than 200 senior IT professionals for its annual IT Strategy Briefing (ITSB) at Manchester's Concorde Conference Centre on 12th November.

During a series of practical presentations and break-out sessions, speakers outlined their predictions for a future of 'business technology without boundaries'.

Microsoft's head of technology for partners, James Akrigg, delivered a keynote speech offering a preview of new and yet-to-be released products to delegates, as representatives from across the region filled the centre to capacity in order to discuss the latest emerging trends.

Attendees also had the opportunity to receive advice and hands-on demonstrations of the latest devices and software from experts representing leading industry suppliers, including Microsoft, Dell, Symantec, Citrix and Metronet (UK).

Andrew Burgess, managing director, JMC IT, said: "We were thrilled by the high level of interest in the event, which was created in response to business' demand for a more strategic approach to IT. It has proven so popular with the region's professionals that we had to introduce a waiting list and we have already had many register interest in coming to next year's ITSB. The interest just goes to show how vital IT strategy is to businesses in the North West.

"Increased technological integration and mobility in the home is leading to rising expectations of what business IT systems should be capable of. As the line between home, mobile and office work blurs, the scope for reducing operating costs, increasing efficiency and improving working conditions is immeasurable. The powerful new approaches presented at ITSB can support the trend towards the convenience of remote, flexible working and many of the delegates we spoke to are keen to include this in their future strategy."

James Akrigg, head of technology for partners at Microsoft, expanded on the theme of remote working. He said: "Faster delivery of information allows people to respond more quickly to business needs. My office is now an internet connection. I have the freedom to no longer be tied to the office, yet still be connected to the organisation."

A shift towards this model is, he explained, not just a technological transformation, but a fundamental reimagining of the business.

Liv Garfield is to step down as CEO of Openreach during Spring next year to become CEO of Severn Trent, the FTSE 100 water company.  Garfield has overseen BT's £2.5bn roll-out of fibre broadband and she played a key part in  BT's commercial fibre investment in her previous role as BT's Group Strategy Director.  

Garfield said: "It is a huge wrench to leave Openreach but I feel the time is now right to take on a fresh challenge. Our commercial programme to bring fibre broadband to two thirds of UK premises is almost complete, while BT's public sector broadband partnerships are making good progress."

Gavin Patterson, CEO, BT Group said: "Liv has made an enormous contribution to BT over the past 12 years and she'll be greatly missed. With her leadership we have taken the company's commercial fibre roll-out from conception through to delivery. We wish Liv every success in her new role."

?Since Garfield assumed the Openreach position in April 2011 the availability of fibre over BT's network has risen from around 4m premises to more than 17m. Meanwhile, the number of customers adopting fibre has increased steadily from just over 100k in April 2011 to more than 2m subscribers today. 

Garfield's successor will be announced by BT in due course.

Hampshire-based telecoms reseller Peach Telecom is one of the country's 50 fastest growing technology companies, based on revenue over the past five years. B

ecoming a winner of the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 for the second year running is recognised as a significant achievement by Peach Telecom. In its sixteenth year, the awards programme highlights both established and emerging technology companies in the UK.

Ranked 8th in both the telecommunications sector and south east region, and 39th overall, Peach Telecom recorded five years revenue growth of more than 500% from £1.2M (2007/2008) to £8.1M (2012/2013).

In 2012, Peach Telecom was placed 13th in the Deloitte UK Technology Fast 50 and also ranked among the 500 fastest growing technology companies in Europe, the Middle-East and Asia (EMEA).

Peach Telecom Managing Director Darren Scott-Healey said: "It's all down to the sustained efforts of our loyal staff and valued partners and being progressive as both a business and an employer. Recognised as a winner again this year not only underlines the company's consistent track record of growth but shows that by listening to customers, expanding channels to market and providing the most cost-effective solutions that meet the varied communications needs of companies large and small, that we are among the sector's best for service and quality."

The Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) and its legal sub-group CILF have voiced concern over proposals to impose a levy on Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) to account for private copying.

Such a move, warns the industry body, threatens to make European cloud services less competitive in the global market.
 
In a draft report on private copying levies for the European Parliament's Legal Affairs Committee, French MEP Francoise Castex said that copying within the cloud environment should be subject to levies.

In the report it states, 'Private copies of protected works made using cloud computing technology may have the same purpose of those made using traditional and/or digital recording media and materials'.

The report goes on to say that these copies should be taken into account by the private copying compensation mechanisms.
 
Echoing views from industry body Open Forum Europe, CIF has warned against such a levy on the grounds that it would damage the European cloud industry, and by extension, limit the projected economic benefits of cloud that are set to be enjoyed by the continent over the coming decade.
 
Andy Burton, CIF's Founder, said: "Cloud computing has proven, and will continue to prove, to be an important catalyst for economic growth both here in the UK and across Europe. The European Commission estimates that cloud computing will add €1,000 billion to EU GDP by 2020[1]. But subjecting cloud services to additional levies will add an additional and, in our view, unnecessary layer of bureaucracy that will in effect dampen its transformative effects. These levies will see increased costs for end users, making it more difficult for European CSPs to compete with their American counterparts."
 
Conor Ward, partner at Hogan Lovells and Chair of CILF, stated: "Castex' proposals seem to work from the premise that all content hosted in the cloud has been produced for commercial distribution. In truth, the vast majority of content is used for professional or personal purposes, and importantly, not traditionally protected by copyright. This frankly out-dated, broad-brush approach would, for example, see a levy improperly imposed on emails and personal photographs.
 
"It is also difficult to see how a levy would work in practice. Whilst copyright levies currently apply in some Member States, they relate to tangible storage media and devices sold in the relevant countries. How would a levy apply where cloud storage is spread across jurisdictions including those, like the UK and Ireland that currently do apply levies? 
 
Furthermore, legitimate users are increasingly permitted by the licences granted to them, to store copyrighted material on multiple devices and in cloud storage so there is a real risk that rightsholders will be doubly compensated. In this context, private copying levies are a sledgehammer to crack a possible nut," he continued.
 
Julian Heathcote Hobbins, General Counsel at the Federation Against Software Theft (FAST) and member of CILF, added: "From memory, the computer software industry, even from a rights holders' perspective has never been in favour of the concept of 'blank tape' levies and I fail to see why that view should change especially as business models continue to evolve at a pace. Levies are too broad an instrument limiting rights holder flexibility and being an analogue measure in an era of products, whereas a cloud services environment enables more accurate allocations through commercial agreements. Copyright law will continue to adapt for this technology driven age. Levies on cloud are certainly not the place to start."

Telindus has named Stephen Macpherson as head of its brand new Telindus Solution Partner Programme.

He comes to Telindus with 18 years of IT experience in professional services and sales leadership.

Telindus aims to launch a new route to market with pre-packaged, managed and bundled solutions.

The intention is to productise the offerings supporting major vendors' solutions such as Cisco, Juniper Networks and MobileIron, and offer these to a channel network to resell.

Marek Lowther, Managing Director of Telindus UK, commented: "By leveraging our portfolio of solutions, partners will be able to sell additional services to more customers, thereby increasing their market share."

The new partner programme is set to launch in late November 2013, signing up the first partners before the end of the year.

For the third consecutive year Damovo UK & Ireland has been recognised in the Top 100 Apprenticeship Employers list which is compiled annually by the National Apprenticeship Service in partnership with City & Guilds, and recognises excellence in businesses that employ apprentices.

The list was announced at the National Apprenticeship Awards which took place during The Skills Show in Birmingham on 14th November.

The Skills Show has City & Guilds and Edge Foundation as its premier sponsors, and is a celebration to inspire people with exciting opportunities in further education, skills and apprenticeships.

Since Damovo re-introduced its apprenticeship scheme in 2009, it has taken on 21 local apprentices into a three-year programme, which includes studying at Northbrook College in Worthing. The company gives all apprentices the opportunity of permanent roles and a number have already been promoted.

Alex Williams, Operations Director at Damovo, said: "Damovo has a long history of investing in apprenticeships and indeed many of today's senior employees, including myself, are former apprentices.

"Employers are increasingly struggling to find candidates with the right IT skills to meet their requirements. Apprenticeship schemes offer an excellent solution with the combination of college study and practical experience with real business projects in a corporate working environment."

Writing to Damovo the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, said: "I would like to take this chance to congratulate Damovo on its success at this year's National Apprenticeship Awards. Apprenticeships are at the heart of our drive for a stronger economy: equipping people of all ages with the skills employers need to help their businesses prosper and compete in a global market.

"As we work to increase the opportunities for hard-working young to people to achieve their ambitions through high-quality apprenticeship training, it is vitally important that we celebrate the achievements of employers like you, who go the extra mile to help their apprentices and succeed."