Comms Dealer

Zen Internet is increasing its monthly download usage allowances on all broadband services from the 1st December 2013.

The download usage allowance for new and existing customers will automatically increase, meaning that users of Zen's entry level 'Lite' will gain a usage allowance of 50GB.

While usage on the top of the range Office Max is now Unlimited, there will be no changes to the prices for any of Zen's broadband services.

"We've been listening to how our customers' internet use is changing and what they want to see from Zen. It's clear that as more of us watch our favourite TV shows through online catch-up services, check out the latest viral video clips or simply watch the news live online, the amount of internet bandwidth we consume is growing," said Richard Tang, Managing Director.

"Whether you are a home broadband or business broadband customer, we recognise that you are using your broadband for so much more now. For this reason it's time for an increase to our usage allowances."

In Q1 FY '14 Cisco delivered record non-GAAP earnings per share of $0.53 per share and revenue growth of 2% year-over-year. "This level of revenue growth in Q1, while not inconsistent with some of our large peers was below our expectations for the quarter," John Chambers - Chairman and CEO told analysts.

"Over the last few quarters, I've shared what I've been seeing, a microenvironment that is inconsistent and very hard to read, with business leaders confidence slowing purchase decisions."

Cisco has felt the effect of lower confidence and loinger buying cycles in the emerging areas. "From a macroeconomic perspective, in the last two quarters, our order growth rate in emerging countries, which is over 20% of our product business, has gone from a positive 13% in total in Q3 to a negative 12% in Q1 of this year."

In particular, Russia, where Cisco has been investing heavily, was down 30%. "As we always had, we will continue to focus on emerging markets, investing through the challenges and expect to see return to growth in few quarters with all the appropriate caveats. Every one of our top 10 emerging countries missed their forecast and was off by a fair amount. So it wasn't just that it was down, the last couple of weeks, they kept dropping and dropping."

The Europe, Middle East, Africa and Russia region declined 4%, due primarily to the effect of the emerging markets' public sector and SP. Central Europe continued to show positive growth, he says. Southern Europe continues to be challenging. Europe, while there are positive trends remain challenging as seen in the recent ECB interest rate reduction announcement

Cisco had relative strength in data centre, wireless, security and the switching business, he says. But there was a challenge in the service provider sector.

The switching business performed well with growth of 3%. Switching gross margins, including new products, continue to be very stable, it reports.Data centre business grew 44%, as customers continue to adopt unified computing systems (UCS).

"We continue to see success with solutions such as SAP HANA that incorporates our UCS servers. Converged solutions from NetApp, FlexPod and EMC, VMware, Vblock are now each running at over a $1 billion run rate for their total business. Overall, security revenues grew 8%, with particular strength in network security, up 12%. We closed the Sourcefire acquisition on October 7th and are already seeing the benefits of a focus and the assets we fully acquired."

The top five emerging countries all had negative performance in the quarter: "It the consistency of that number is what concerned me. And we usually unfortunately see things couple of quarters ahead of our peers. This time we were little bit surprised. We saw the softening in Q4 and we were very upfront with it to every one about what happened in our top five emerging countries in Q4 where we said they went from 13% growth the quarter before to flat in Q4. The other 15 countries continue to grow in low teens. This time all of them came down and so out of our top 10, it was pretty brutal on that."

IT managers in the UK say there is still work to do to optimise their networks for expected growth of devices and applications in the market, a new study from TalkTalk Business has uncovered.

While over a third (36%) of UK IT managers surveyed say they have enough bandwidth to cover current and future needs, over half (53%) say their networks either don't permit or support BYOD.
 
The Network Benchmark Report surveyed 250 IT managers across the UK to examine their attitudes and priorities towards the networks that underpin their businesses, as well as how they're addressing key issues such as mobilisation, BYOD, cloud services and supplier engagement.

Overall, the numbers reveal an ICT environment that is taking its network investments seriously. Over half of IT managers (52%) indicate their data centres are as resilient as they should be; 70% have the tools to view real-time network statistics and use them often. 64% say they can easily make changes to their network where needed and 77% are confident they have the right firewalls in place to prevent threats from the public internet.
 
However, several survey participants said they still needed to build up capabilities for their organisations to fully exploit the potential of trends such as mobility and BYOD. In an internet-enabled and device-led age, 64% of IT managers have experienced some form of business disruption or compromise due to bandwidth restrictions. Furthermore, over a third (34%) are not confident their current network is suitable for their voice traffic needs; 72% have had users complain about poor application performance or poor VoIP quality. In addition, a third (31%) do not feel device security on their network is where it should be.
 
The research also highlighted the varying challenges faced by different sectors when it comes to designing and implementing network-based ICT strategies. In the finance industry, where economic and regulatory pressures have been severe in recent times, networks are considerably more capable; 80% of finance respondents say that they run voice on their networks with no significant problems. In contrast, only 28% of professional services respondents say the same. Although only 6% of retail respondents claim excellent network uptime, over a third (34%) of manufacturing respondents would agree.
 
"It's clear that British IT managers appreciate the importance of connectivity and are equipping their organisations to reflect this need. However, the on-going increase in bandwidth-hungry technologies, devices and content means that network managers have to be thinking as much about future needs as well as current ones," said Charles Bligh, Managing Director, TalkTalk Business.

"Done properly, investments in next generation networks will quickly prove their value; as long as the upgrade plan is backed and driven by a clear strategy which articulates both the long and short term objectives of the business."

Fortinet, the network security specialist, has appointed Andy Travers to the position of regional vice president for the UK, Ireland, Nordics, Germany and Holland.

"As Fortinet is pursuing its goal of becoming the global leader in network security, it is critical for me to rely on a team of strong regional sales executives, who have the experience and proven success in achieving aggressive sales targets," commented Patrice Perche, vice president of international sales & support for Fortinet.

"To that end, I'm delighted to have Andy on board. He has all of the right credentials to help us market our industry leading technology and address the major security issues faced by organisational IT departments."

Travers was most recently vice president of sales for UK, Ireland and Southern Africa at F5, where he worked for almost five years, growing by over threefold the sales revenues for the region. Prior to F5, Travers worked at Juniper for three years, initially running channels across the region and later managing enterprise sales.

Beatrix, one of  Southampton's Go! Rhinos sculptures, has found a new home at  Hants-based Peach Telecom.

Raising over £120,000, 37 of the beasts went under the hammer at a charity fundraising auction in aid of Marwell Wildlife conservation projects, the Wessex Heartbeat High 5 Appeal and the Rose Road Association.

Almost 100 Go! Rhinos sculptures spent ten weeks on display across the parks and streets of Southampton city centre this summer in celebration of Marwell's 40th anniversary, before being taken back to the zoo for its Rhinotastic event.

Peach Telecom Managing Director Darren Scott-Healey said: "The innovative Go! Rhinos project has been truly successful in many ways from showcasing the wealth of local artistic design talents to raising the profile of the conservation of rhinos.

"More importantly, money raised from the charity auction will make a tremendous difference to local causes deserving of our support as a successful and growing business operating in the area."

Having spent eight years in Africa and seeing rhinos in the wild, Scott-Healey has become a regular visitor to Marwell with his family and keen to support wildlife conservation and the local community.

"Now an eye-catching point of interest in the company's reception area, Beatrix proudly welcomes staff and visitors alike to Peach Telecom and is a lasting reminder of the worthy causes being helped by the company," he added.

The money raised will go towards a new rhino exhibit at Marwell Zoo in 2015 and ongoing conservation work at home and abroad.

Resellers sampled a taste of 'real life' Morocco as part of a mouth-watering sales incentive from Nimans and Unify (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications) - enjoying a three night stay in Marrakesh.

The trip included fine dining and luxury accommodation in a top hotel and spa. The lucky winners also experienced a 4x4 Landcruiser trip to the Atlas Mountains with a heart-stopping zipline experience. Ten places were available for the highest sales performers of the OpenScape Business portfolio. They also sampled tea with a traditional Berber family, meeting an 86-year-old local who has never seen a Doctor in his life.

Nimans' Richard Carter said: "In these continuing challenging times it's important to recognise the efforts of our customers. Marrakesh is no ordinary destination and Nimans is no ordinary distributor. It proved an unforgettable experience for all that travelled."

Audio specialist Sennheiser UK has partnered with brand and market protection company Etail Eye to provide intelligence that enables Sennheiser UK to manage and measure the success of its Authorised Partner programme through its selective distribution strategy.

The partnership with Etail Eye began 12 months ago in the UK with the aim of finding a solution to meet the specific needs of Sennheiser's new go to market approach across EMEA.

The solution provides Sennheiser UK with real-time, actionable intelligence which will enable it to protect the brand and further support those retailers, etailers and distributors selected and approved by Sennheiser.

Sennheiser's recently implemented selective distribution strategy works with dealers across all channels to provide accreditation to those dealers as an Authorised Sennheiser Partner, qualified to sell premium product to the end consumer.

Etail Eye will now enable Sennheiser to more effectively monitor those channels and vendors who are not accredited, thereby protecting the brand, its official vendors and ultimately end-consumers.

Peter May, Director of Sales at Sennheiser, said: "Etail Eye is fundamental to how we ensure we deliver our part of the bargain to our Authorised Partners who have invested in the Sennheiser brand and who want to be seen as suppliers of genuine Sennheiser products.

"It allows us to provide complete peace of mind to both Authorsied Partners and end consumers. Etail Eye means consumers can buy our products from Authorised Partners in confidence knowing they are buying a high quality Sennheiser product from top quality vendors."

Application Networking specialist A10 has named Kirsten Lee as Vice President of Global Channels.

She had been Vice President of Worldwide Channel Marketing for the Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) part of HP. Reporting directly to A10 Vice President of Worldwide Sales Ray Smets, Kirsten is responsible for developing and leading A10's global channel organisation.

This executive announcement follows shortly after the appointment of Jason Matlof as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing.

At HP she was responsible for driving HP's worldwide ESSN channel strategy, including partner growth, partner program architecture, partner enablement and partner communications.

Prior to joining HP, Kirsten served as Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Field Marketing at Blue Coat, Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales at Packeteer, and has held various prior positions in Sales and Marketing at Net Manage, Caldera Systems and The Santa Cruz Operation.

Mobile security solutions provider BullGuard has entered into distribution agreement with Exertis Micro-P which will now distribute its internet security, mobile security and identity protection software packages.

At the moment, the deal is limited to only two markets (the UK and Ireland), however it is expected to be expanded into further markets across continental Europe in the future, it says.

Under the terms of a deal, Exertis Micro-P's resellers will also benefit from BullGuard's revenue share programme, which aims to provide channel partners with a percentage share of online revenue generated from subscription renewals, the company says.

"The opportunity to work with Exertis Micro-P's sales teams, who in our opinion are in a league of their own, is a big plus. We see this as a great opportunity for both parties, allowing Exertis Micro-P's customers to benefit from the peace of mind on offer from our industry-leading security software solutions, as well as expanding our coverage into a number of key areas," says BullGuard Head of Global Sales, Peter Barlow.

Exertis offers tailor made propositions and covers three main channels of B2C, B2B and mobile.

Comms-care, a provider of outsourced IT support services, has posted strong results for the 2012/13 financial year (ended 31st March).

Revenue over the year grew 52% to £15.6 million from £10.3 million bringing the CAGR over the last 3 years to more than 30%. Growth in operating profit of 200% to £2.1m was also reported.

Employees increased by 30% and the board and management team is strengthened by five new senior appointments.

The network of IT reseller partners grew by 30% to over 600 across the UK and Ireland; and the portfolio of IT support services was expanded through the introduction of storage support and development of the Managed IT Services offering.

The firm also noted the successful rollout of its IT support services to new partners including ExCel London as part of a long-term partnership agreement with IT reseller AMP Networking.

Comms-care Managing Director, Ben Davies stated: "Comms-care has continued to make excellent progress this year delivering strong growth and investing to further expand our portfolio of IT support services. IT resellers are increasingly looking to outsource the provision of IT services, and with Comms-care's 'reseller only' business model, coupled with our reputation for service excellence and technical expertise puts us in an excellent position to continue to grow rapidly in the years ahead."

Comms-care provides IT support services across a wide variety of sectors and business types. Its services are provided as white-label exclusively through channel partners, never selling directly to the end-user. This model allows partners to fully outsource IT support while maintaining their relationship with the end-user. The model has enabled Comms-care to become the leading trusted provider of IT services to IT resellers across the UK and Ireland.

During the year Comms-care's network of channel partners expanded by 30% to over 600 and now equates to 30% of the top 100 UK value-added-resellers (VARs) of IT services and significantly 80% of the top ten. Through their partner acquisition trail Comms-care now provides IT support services on behalf of their channel partners to a wide range of private and public sector customers.

During the year, Comms-care also added AMP Networking, the Kent-based telecommunications and networking specialist, to its list of channel partners through a long-term partnership providing IT support services to the ExCel London, the premier events venue. As part of this partnership Comms-care will provide hardware and software support for the Cisco LAN infrastructure at ExCel London centre for the next five years.

The company's relationships with existing channel partners have also strengthened with many increasing the number and variety of services outsourced to Comms-care driving a significant improvement in gross margins. This has resulted in significant growth of their Tier 1 channel partners and in turn one of the main reasons why they are experiencing such dramatic growth.

Comms-care Chairman, Peter Lloyd stated: "Comms-care has earned a strong reputation in the IT channel market that is built on trust, service excellence, value, and long-term partnerships.

"We are very aware that reputation is everything in a service based organisation. It is for this reason we have invested heavily in building an infrastructure that enables the business to accelerate that growth whilst retaining our integrity as the UK's leading channel IT strategic services partner."