Comms Dealer

DA Systems, a provider of mobile data solutions for the transport, retail, healthcare and field service sectors, has signed a partnership deal with Fidelity Group.

The partnership means will enable Bucks based DA Systems to offer existing clients and prospects a complete telecommunications offering ranging from devices, telephony and broadband down to SIM cards.

David Upton, Managing Director of DA Systems, commented: "We are delighted to be working with Fidelity and strengthening our proposition, which has been a strategic focus for the business this financial year. We look forward to a long and prosperous collaboration."

Telenor Sweden has announced it has bought Tele2's Swedish fibre and cable business serving the consumer market for SEK 775m (€ 88.2m) as the company continues its commitment in broadband and television services, it says.

Under the agreement, all Tele2's employees will join now Telenor. Also, the acquisition includes a portfolio of about 370 000 households passed with a connection to fibre and cable.

Thanks to an acquisition deal, the new customers will be offered access to the services of Telenor' internet provider Bredbandsbolaget.

"In today's society, access to high-capacity broadband plays a very central role for most people. Telenor aims to provide optimal connectivity and we want to continue our commitment on fixed broadband and TV through our brand Bredbandsbolaget. This topic is priority for us and our new customers and employees will play a vital role in our business going forward," says Lars-Åke Norling, CEO of Telenor Sweden.

The acquisition is subject to customary approval of the Competition Authority before the closing.

IBM's Q3 results showed $23.7bn in revenue, slightly below expectations, but the big problem was so-called growth markets where revenue was down 9%, or 5% at constant currency.

This growth market issue was really about the hardware side. Software delivered mid-single digit growth at constant currency in key branded middleware. In hardware, growth in System z mainframe was more than offset by declines in Power, System x and Storage, and two-thirds of the overall hardware decline was driven by the "growth" markets.

For the first time, it says, it delivered more than $1bn of cloud revenue in a quarter, of which about $460m is delivered as a cloud service. Through the first three quarters, cloud revenue is up more than 70% year on year.

EMEA revenue was down 2%, fairly consistent with last quarter. Western Europe in particular showed some stability, while Eastern Europe,
led by Russia, had double-digit declines.

IBM has a pay-for-performance culture. Accordingly, performance-related compensation across both cost and expense was down about $175m year to year.

IDC's final report on PC shipments in EMEA in Q3 showed the overal shipments were down 16%, reaching 21.4 million units. Portable PC shipments equaled 13.3 million units, declining 20.6%, while desktop PC shipments hit 8 million units, down 7% compared with the same quarter a year ago.

The market contracted less than in the previous quarter, supported by improving commercial demand, while macroeconomic and political factors affected subregions in different ways. The back-to-school period did not provide much support this year, except in the education sector, as cautious retail fulfillment in light of lukewarm consumer demand and a focus from vendors on tighter inventory led to consumer sales remaining constrained and impacting the total market.

"The third quarter marked a change in the overall market trend," said Chrystelle Labesque, research manager, EMEA Personal Computing. "While it is too early to talk about recovery, the worse seems to have been reached in the second quarter of 2013. However, the ramp-up is mainly in the commercial area, with September performance above expectations for most players. The end of Windows XP support in 2014 is driving IT departments to focus on hardware refresh, generating higher renewal in the corporate space."

In Western Europe, PC shipments declined 13.2% year over year, in line with forecasts. The third quarter suffered from an unfavorable year-over-year comparison, as PC shipments in 3Q12 were supported by the preparation of the Windows 8 launch, particularly in the consumer space. The disappearance of mini-notebooks also contributed to negative performance in the consumer portable PC space this quarter. Commercial desktops posted flat growth, which indicates that businesses are starting to invest more in hardware. Back-to-school deals in education further contributed to the less negative result, with the first education tenders on Chromebooks appearing in the region.

The Nordics and the German-speaking countries performed better than the European average, while southern Europe remained more constrained. As the economic outlook in the eurozone improves, markets in countries such as Ireland and Greece, where PC shipments had seen significant contraction in the past, returned to modest growth this quarter. The consumer market remained constrained due to ongoing softness in demand, as households continue to opt for tablets or were turned away by high price points for touch-enabled notebooks and ultrabooks.

"Many new consumer products that were announced recently by PC vendors, including convertible notebooks and featuring latest Intel technology as well as updated Microsoft OS, are expected to hit the shelves in the fourth quarter of the year," said Maciej Gornicki, senior research analyst, IDC EMEA Personal Computing. "As a result, in order to avoid inventory buildup on outdated technology, shipments in 3Q remained modest. What is more, even if the choice of devices and operating systems is increasing considerably, most consumer purchasing decisions remain price driven. And as long as new form factors stay in the premium segment, their adoption will remain limited."

"The PC market once again performed poorly, as expected, in both the Central and Eastern Europe [CEE] and the Middle East and Africa [MEA] regions," said Stefania Lorenz, associate VP, IDC CEMA Systems. "In 3Q13 the PC market in the regions reported an annual shipment decline of 22.2% and 14.5% respectively. Both regions are negatively affected by the change in consumer spending, from traditional notebooks to tablets. In the CEE region, the portable PC market contracted 27.5%, as countries such as Czech Republic, the Baltic States, Ukraine, and Russia performed below expectations, given the economic recession as well as the unfavorable exchange rates in some of those countries. Inventory is no longer the major cause for market contraction, as most vendors have aligned their shipments [sales-in versus sales-out].

The portable PC market in the MEA region decreased 17.2% year on year as countries such as Saudi Arabia, OGCC, the Levant, and Turkey, as well as some countries in Africa, contracted further than expected. The economic slowdown in many countries, coupled with the political turmoil that seems to continue to fuel uncertainty in the Middle East region, in addition to unfavorable exchange rates in countries such as South Africa and Turkey, are all negatively affecting the PC market."

HP consolidated its number 1 position in EMEA thanks to a solid performance in Western Europe and growth in MEA. HP benefitted from increased commercial demand in many countries, especially in desktops. Continued innovation and the ramp-up of the new consumer product portfolio also supported strong results in the consumer space. Effective strategy execution, a strong product line-up, and a focus on key areas further explained the market share gains.

Lenovo again outperformed the market with double-digit growth rates this quarter. The vendor continued to drive solid expansion in the consumer market while maintaining robust presence in the commercial space, and posted positive results across both portable and desktop PCs, gaining market share in each of the subregions. Product innovation, competitive pricing, and strategy execution country by country continued to support increased momentum for the vendor.

Acer maintained third position with a performance that continued to be impacted by slow consumer demand, the disappearance of mini-notebooks, and an unfavorable year-on-year comparison with volumes supported last year by preparation for the Windows 8 launch. The vendor continued to be very active, with new attractive products launched, but took a cautious inventory management approach.

Dell achieved great results, gaining market share in both the desktop and notebook segments. The vendor successfully managed commercial demand and renewals across the region. Product innovation, the redesign of certain brands, and a focused end-user computing strategy on PC refresh and on the evolving end-user landscape contributed to its success and sales increase.

In Q3 the EMEA region saw a strong contract value rise driven by nine mega-deals and high contracting activity, according to ISG Outsourcing Index (former TPI Index) by market consultancy ISG.

Also, the third quarter confirmed Europe as world's largest outsourcing market with 176 contracts being awarded across the region of total value €2.8bn. Additionally, the number of contracts awarded in Q3 saw a 60% both year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter growth. In the same time the annual contract value (ACV) was up 16% y/y and 89% q/q, as the study indicates.

As far as the ITO market is concerned, the 125 contracts were signed in Q3 which made this the highest number ever recorded in any quarter in the EMEA. The total value of ITO contracts stood at €2.3bn and was up 177% q/q.

However, the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) market saw a dip in ACV in Q3 and was down 28% both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, it says.

Also, for the first time in history Germany surpassed the UK in terms of region's growth and showed €810m in ACV while all other sub-regions in EMEA recorded healthy increases of ACV year-on-year.

"Casting a look ahead to the final quarter of this year, we predict a continuation of the healthy contracting activity just witnessed. However, the protracted global weakness of the first half of the year remains a drag on ACV levels. While we expect the year to finish strongly, it may be down somewhat compared with 2012," says John Keppel, Partner & President, ISG North Europe.

Dell is looking again at its global distribution strategy with a view to reducing the over 150 two tier channels it has that have been added to over the last few years by its acquisition programme.

Bob Skelley, Dell executive director for global channel marketing and partner programmes tells Comms Dealer sister publication IT Europa that distribution is being sorted out now.

"We're giving the Dell community a choice in how they acquire solutions. But we want that to be based on the value- add, not the price. We can't set the price. If there is something in the relationship between partner and distributor that is incremental to how they engage with Dell, then we want to continue to use that."

But he acknowledges that Dell has too many two-tier channels.

"We have to settle on what our distribution strategy is, looking at all parts, and both broad-line and speciality. We have to look at the marketing with them, the training and enablement, the skills as we turn on in distribution. All of that we have to work through. So we now have Alan Fenton who was a strategist when we first launched the channel and understands it well, looking at this globally now."

"The channel partner community is easy - it's the distribution channel [that is hard]; if we make a decision to have a set number for a country or region, and we make an acquisition that gives us another five, we don't want to hurt that if it is working. That is where we are today - we have acquired a lot of distribution relationships across the globe and have to work out how that is going to work."

Europe has its own problems because of the varying level of maturity among countries. "I've been looking at the European marketplace for a while, since I ran the channels for EqualLogic before its acquisition. What we saw, and it is the same in Dell today, if you put the European channel on a timeline - most mature to least mature, you can every country. What we need to do to accelerate growth in those mature countries is much different from that in the least mature. In the least mature it is about partner recruitment, brand awareness and what the Dell vale proposition is. The most mature issues are building profitability, bring new demand generation resources through the channel, introduce new competencies so they can expand and grow adjacencies."

So the right approach is to have a plan that accommodates that different state of maturity by country, it doesn't mean you have fifteen plans, but there must be three or four different strategies, and you have to have a go-to-market that is right for each country, he says.

"Southern Europe, for example is driven by economics. We have a lot of cultivation to do there in building up the partners, compared to the UK and Netherlands in particular, where we have very mature communities. There is an opportunity to think about it more, rather than have one overall strategy."

But Europe also has its own issues over regulation and taxation across borders. "Absolutely this gives management nightmares. Language for campaigns, which also slows you down in time to market and adds cost. So you have to think about what you are going to bring into Europe and do it right."

Ingram Micro Q3 net income of $79m was better than last year which was $53m. Revenues for the quarter were up 12% at $10.2bn, compared with $9.03bn in the prior year.

Excluding items, adjusted earnings for the quarter were $83m, compared with $62m a year ago.

Looking ahead to the fourth quarter, the company expects gross margin to be up sequentially by high single digit basis points and worldwide revenue to increase over the 2013 third quarter in-line with historical seasonality.

Europe revenue of $2.4bn was flat sequentially and year-over-year in dollars, as market dynamics were nearly identical to last quarter. In local currency, Europe revenue declined by 4% when compared to last year. Non-GAAP operating margin was 58 basis points, up 2 basis points sequentially but down year-over-year by 11 basis points.

"The team did a good job maintaining pricing discipline and successfully implemented profit improvement program in some countries, but we're not satisfied with this performance and have begun to implement specific cost-saving initiatives in the region," says William D. Humes - Chief Financial Officer.

On September 19, it appointed Paul Read as President and Chief Operating Officer. Among his early responsibilities will be working closely with the European team to better align the region's cost structure to improve profitability.

Paul Read, COO said: "We are working on adjusting the cost structure to fit this environment so we can get greater returns, where the profitability today is certainly not acceptable. But we also have to invest, and we are investing more in tools, resources, in the go-to market to enable us to have more higher value businesses and achieve more profitability. So that's definitely a plan for us."

Avnet Q1 2014 sales were up 8.1% year over year to $6.3bn, mostly through acquisitions, particularly Magirus in EMEA TS division and taking over Brightstar.

Adjusted operating income of $199.5m increased 38.1% year over year and adjusted operating income margin of 3.1% increased 68 basis points year over year.

Rick Hamada, Chief Executive Officer, commented: "Our team kicked off the new fiscal year with a solid performance as both operating groups leveraged year-over-year revenue growth into increased margins and returns.

"Enterprise revenue increased 8.1% from the year ago quarter and adjusted operating income grew approximately five times faster than revenue driven primarily by our disciplined approach to portfolio actions and expense management throughout fiscal 2013.

"Adjusted operating income margin of 3.1% increased 68 basis points year over year and return on working capital was up 458 basis points to 19.8%. This represents the first time in seven quarters that these two important metrics expanded year over year. With our improving performance and overall financial profile, we were also pleased to announce our decision to initiate a dividend during our first quarter."

EMEA TS division had revenue of $694.3m, a rise of 9.3% because of acquisitions - organic sales were down -10.5%. CEO Hamada says" "In the September quarter, TS revenue was within our expected range, though at the lower end of expectations. Revenue of $2.4 billion decreased 8.1% sequentially while year-over-year organic revenue was down 3.0% in constant currency."

Ingram Micro Europe has launched year three of its pan-European Channel Transformation Alliance initiative, branded CTA V.3.

Ingram Micro Europe, together with all its vendor partners and its educational partners, SNIA Europe and SPC International, have grown the alliance over the last two years into a community of over 2,000 resellers who are actively downloading content on the portal (www.channeltransformation.com), attending business and technology focused webcasts, and participating in field-based events across Europe.

The channel community benefits from free vendor-neutral education, primarily focused on sales, marketing, and service delivery content, all of which is delivered through the CTA training platform.

Ingram Micro Cloud and Ingram Micro Advanced Solutions teams across Europe have conducted on average more than one field-based channel enablement event per week and per country in the past two years, including boot camps, workshops, roadshows, and roundtables.

Jason Beal, Executive Director, Advanced Solutions Division, Europe, said: "In the first year of the CTA initiative, we focused primarily on exposing the reseller channel to all the new business model possibilities associated with cloud computing and IT-as-a-Service.

"At that time in 2011, we wanted to remove a lot of fear and doubt associated early on with the cloud. In the second year of the initiative we broadened the focus onto business and technology solutions-orientation and much more specific demand generation and sales process training."

US-based Ciber is expanding its ISV practice in Europe after seeing its US model taking off.

CEO Dave Peterschmidt said: "We made steady progress on the shift in our business mix to more ISV and managed services projects. As a result we clearly believe in our ability to grow the business in a consistent and profitable way.

"While we still have some challenges, particularly in selected areas of our ADM (Application Development and Maintenance) business, today we are a company with a more stable platform yielding more predictable performance than three years ago when we started our transformation.

"Our ISV business is becoming a significant part of total revenue and growth. In Q3 our ISV revenues was approximately 33% of our total and grew by 10% sequentially. And growth in our ISV practices is also driving growth in Managed Services. Managed Services revenues increased 7% sequentially in Q3."

Ciber is not seeing pressure from the low-cost providers in those verticals especially with the ISV relationships. The ISV business is not subject to the same type of price pressure that ADM is, he says.

"In our international segment, proactive plans to improve the consistency and predictability of this operation are beginning to take hold.

"Our focus continues to be on The Netherlands where our business is stabilising; and we are encouraged that the UK, Germany and Norway posted another solid quarter. Q3 international results included strong year-over-year revenue growth and stable EBITDA margins in this seasonally soft quarter.

"We expect the business to improve gradually as additional restructuring enhances the profitability, consistency and predictability of overall international results."