While SMEs may look to invest in enterprise class IT solutions, many are still struggling with basic IT issues according to new research carried out by IT solutions specialist Imerja.

The firm surveyed a range of UK SMEs to find out about their business continuity plans, and in the process discovered that 60% had suffered at least one email outage in the last three months.

Ian Jackson, MD at Imerja, said: "Investing in the right IT can add significant value to a business. But companies won't be able to reap the rewards of technology fully if they are still having problems with essential business systems like email.

"Outsourcing business critical IT, whether it be email, infrastructure hosting or videoconferencing as a service, takes away risk and reduces the overhead of running an in house system, often with added security benefits too.

"Managed services for IT can really boost productivity, because any issues that arise are identified quickly and dealt with immediately before they have chance to escalate and cause problems.

"With the growth in affordable outsourcing solutions SMEs can just as easily benefit from this approach as larger enterprises."

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California-based pervasive network intelligence specialist cPacket plans to add new partners to its channel programme in Europe.

cPacket, which delivers traffic monitoring and data centre performance management solutions, has already worked in Europe with large data centres, service providers, financial and government institutions and says that its current priority is to increase its European presence by attracting new SI and VAR partners.

Rony Kay, founder and CEO of cPacket Networks, said: "We already have some fantastic partners in Europe that are delivering real value and expertise to their customers.

"The problems network managers are experiencing are only going to get worse over the next few years and we believe that there is a real opportunity in the UK and mainland Europe to introduce our solutions that can help with many of their pain points."

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Microsoft Windows missed the late summer market, according to researchers at Context. 

Sales of tablets across Western European Distribution increased by 76% year-on-year during the first eight weeks of Q3 2013, and by 23% sequentially, with Android the clear winner, according to the data.

This comes in preparation for the expected rise in consumer tablet demand during the current back-to-school period.

Growth continues to be driven by Android systems, which experienced a 240% year-on-year increase in unit sales for the period, driven by low price points.

Average sales prices for Tablet systems in Western European distribution in early Q313 were €163 for an Android Tablet versus €372 for an iPad, making Android tablets a strong choice for users who are looking for a secondary system to complement their existing home PC.

The Android ecosystem has benefited from increased competition and customer choice, as more PC vendors produce tablets based on the Google OS. There are also a number of local vendors, especially in southern European countries, who successfully offer Android tablets at low price points.

By contrast to Android's success, while iPad tablet sales saw a sequential increase, the year-on-year results for the period show a -9% drop.

"While strong Android sales could partially explain the year-on-year decline in iPad numbers, it should be remembered that Apple's Tablet sales in previous years benefited from new product launches during the spring. This year, Apple is rumoured to launch a new iPad in the autumn, and this is likely to have influenced consumers' recent purchasing decisions", commented Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at CONTEXT.

Strong Android growth resulted in a further shift in tablet OS shares across distribution.

Android accounted for almost 67% of tablet sales in early Q313, up from 63% in early Q213 and from 35% one year before. Apple's iPad held a 32% share during the first 8 weeks of Q313, compared with 62% last year.

Windows 8 Tablet sales remained lower than expected, with a 0.9% share of total tablet sales across Western European Distribution in early Q313.

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Openreach has been selected by UK data centre company Virtus to provide high speed connectivity to its facility in Enfield.

Openreach will deliver a dedicated, high capacity fibre link to the site, allowing Virtus and its business customers to access Ethernet backhaul services from more than 200 UK communications providers.

The dedicated fibre link from Openreach will provide a range of high bandwidth options, from 10Mbps up to multiple 10Gbps services. This will allow Virtus' customers to access their mission critical information stored at the data centre via fast, secure and resilient backhaul links.

The deal is one of several similar contracts Openreach expects to sign over the coming months with major UK data centre providers given its rapidly expanding fibre footprint.

Openreach already provides high speed Ethernet connectivity to more data centres than any other infrastructure provider in the UK. Its commercial fibre network currently covers more than 16 million premises across the country and this will rise to 19 million - or two thirds of UK premises - by the end of Spring 2014.

Openreach plans to build dedicated fibre links to around 15 data centres throughout the UK in this financial year. As the infrastructure will already be in situ at the data centre, communications providers and their customers can have their backhaul links up and running in a matter of days rather than waiting for the fibre network to be built direct to the data centre.

The open, wholesale nature of Openreach's network means that all UK communications providers can access its fibre network on equivalent terms. This allows data centre companies to offer their business customers high speed Ethernet services from a wide choice of communications providers.

Tim Barclay, MD, Sales, Marketing & Customer Engagement, Openreach said: "This deal with Virtus is part of a major push into the UK data centre market by Openreach. Our expanding fibre network means we are well placed to increase our footprint in this market so we expect to sign more deals over the coming months. We're also speeding up the provisioning of our Ethernet services by building fibre links direct to major UK data centres well ahead of any customer orders."

Neil Cresswell, CEO, Virtus, added: "This dedicated fibre link supports our strategy in building a thriving and diverse digital ecosystem in our data centres."

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Comms channel businesses have been given an insight into Openreach's Superfast Fibre Access (SFFA) rollout and the benefits of this for the small business sector via special webinars run in association with Comms Dealer.

Openreach have brought target dates for fibre roll-out forward and now aim to bringing fibre to two thirds of the UK by spring 2014, way ahead of its end of 2015 schedule. This is great news for resellers aiming to help customers benefit from an improving economy and advances in cloud computing.

Increased speed and bandwidth are seen as the main motivational drivers and, according to recent research, 84% of businesses who have already upgraded are satisfied with new fibre connectivity which drives applications and services such as VoIP, videoconferencing, virtualisation and remote working.

Jamie Burgess IT director at Retail recruitment specialist RHR commented: "Since we switched to fibre we have seen a big difference in speed and reliability. We have six remote sites across the country, each connected via public VPN's and our up-time for each site has increased from 88.1% to 98.7%.  This mean less headache for me with support calls!"

To find out more about Openreach's SFFA rollout, how it is transforming the way small businesses work and how you and your customers can benefit, join a re-run of the educational  webinar tomorrow 19th September at 3pm (click on link to register)

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Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has appointed Nuvola Distribution as a nationwide distributor to small and medium-sized businesses.

Nuvola will offer resellers throughout the UK and Ireland a complete range of products and services including design, specification and installation, as well as maintenance, support and managed services across the complete range of voice, data (including WLAN) and performance management products.

Nuvola will look to offer hosted voice solutions for the SMB market by the new year, and hopes to offer training services in the future.

The new relationship with Nuvola is part of the company's strategy to drive Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise solutions into the SMB marketplace, and follows the recent announcement of a partnership agreement with TClarke to move into the growing data centre market.

Jeff Manser, Technical Business Manager at Nuvola Distribution, said: "We have chosen to work with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise because of their forward thinking strategy and the strength of their portfolio.

"Alcatel-Lucent provides opportunity for both distribution and resellers to grow by ensuring that their solutions are not over-distributed. Resellers have the opportunity to provide something different to their customers, allowing for flexibility, creativity and added service value for their customers."

Peter Tebbutt, Country Sales Director for UK&I at Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, added: "Distribution is vital in the future path for Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise as distributors have the flexibility to offer complementary and value-added services to support resellers, regardless of the size of their businesses.

"We are looking to grow all aspects of our distribution business, and this new relationship with Nuvola is in line with our UK&I growth strategy to recruit new business partners and to further enable our existing partners in terms of their offering to end customers."

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Gamma has joined forces with Semafone to provide a fully hosted secure payments solution for contact centres.

Companies will now be able to use Semafone's patented technology via a hosted service, taking contact centre telephone payments out of scope from Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) regulations.

In addition to helping to eliminate fraud, this also further reduces the cost of compliance compared to the price of CPE (Customer Premise Equipment) deployment.

The secure telephone payments software will be available alongside the Semafone-enabled SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) presented by Gamma, and will offer customers a cost-effective and flexible solution that can be scaled up or down according to business requirements.

Gamma's secure hosting facilities ensure that the system is resilient and that multiple - on and off-shore - sites can be protected quickly and easily at relatively low cost, said the firm.

Using Semafone's technology, customers are able to make a payment using their telephone keypad to transmit credit card data directly to the bank, so no sensitive details are held in the contact centre's infrastructure.

Card numbers are not spoken aloud and individual key tones are masked by the Semafone application so that they cannot be recognised by their sound.

Throughout the transaction the contact centre agent can neither hear nor see sensitive card information, but remains on the call to deliver a high level of customer service.

"We are increasingly supporting contact centre implementations where the features of SIP trunking, including flexibility in number routing and scalability, are really benefiting those businesses both in cost effectiveness and in overall service availability," commented Alan Mackie , head of voice services at Gamma.

"Contact centres are looking for additional services from SIP connections, and we are delighted to work in partnership with Semafone to provide a solution for PCI compliance to businesses in a hosted model that is both scalable and easy to deploy and support. We see this as a significant addition, allowing Gamma's channel partners to provide a more complete network solution to their contact centre customers using Semafone's software."

Tim Critchley, CEO of Semafone, added: "It is vital that merchants ensure that card data is always secure, not only to protect the consumer, but also to avoid the damage to brand reputation that can result from a breach. We hope that together with Gamma, we can help even more companies achieve straight-forward, cost effective PCI compliance, keeping sensitive information secure."

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Scotland could be in line for a boost in high quality jobs as the country's thriving technology industry pushes the boundaries both at home and internationally, according to a new survey of the sector.

More than 70% of companies in digital technologies plan to employ more people in the coming year and 58% will be looking for graduates to promote innovative growth, said the review by ScotlandIS, which provides an annual health check for the industry.

But while the good news is that jobs are in the pipeline, the less good news is that skills shortages mean employers are still struggling to find candidates who are suitably qualified for an intensely competitive global arena.

A spokesperson for 9-20 Recruitment, the Glasgow-based specialist technology recruitment company which sponsored the survey and added expert analysis and commentary, said: "The challenge is keeping the talent coming through from universities and colleges to keep up with demand for skilled workers."

The survey suggests that software, web, telecoms and IT businesses contribute more than £4 billion to the Scottish economy and support more than 100,000 jobs in more than 1000 innovative companies. Their markets include health, energy, aviation, financial services and the public sector.

Of those surveyed, 71% said that they were optimistic or very optimistic about the year ahead, with 67% reporting a rise in turnover. The vast majority of companies - 80% - expect sales to grow in 2013 and only 8% expect to see a decline.

Encouragingly for Scotland's international position, there is an increasing focus on building software products, with the number of companies engaged in this field up to 16% from 12.4% last year.

There is, indeed, significant emphasis on global focus, with 47% of smaller companies, 58% of mid-sized companies and 84% of larger companies already active in export markets with many more in all segments planning to engage.

And in what could be interpreted either as a reflection of tighter lending criteria or a determination to retain executive control, 82% of smaller companies and 63% of mid-sized companies are funding themselves either through founders' capital or retained profits.

Polly Purvis, executive director of ScotlandIS, said: "There is an increasing buzz about the industry as business and government transform their operations through the smart application of technology."

However, reservations remain across the industry about perceived skills shortages. Alastair O'Brien, deputy chair of ScotlandIS, said: "The software industry in Scotland is crying out for suitably qualified graduates.

"Growth in our industry is being restricted and Scotland is losing out to other countries. It is unacceptable that, in the midst of a world-wide digital revolution, Scotland doesn't have enough talented graduates to exploit fantastic global opportunities."

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SAP has acquired KXEN in what could be the first of several spot acquisitions as the firm accelerates its product introduction cycles.

KXEN, a cloud-based technology provider of predictive analytics, brings predictive capabilities to SAP and the SAP HANA platform enabling customers to gather big data and leverage it before their competitors, according to the firm.

"The combination of KXEN with analytics and business intelligence solutions from SAP intends to deliver the capability organisations need to innovate for growth in high volume data environments," said Michael Reh, EVP of Business Information Technology.

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A group of riders from Networks First have completed the 110 mile Stratford to Stratford two day cycle ride, raising £3,100 for Prostate Cancer UK.

Sallie-Ann Allen, Head of Operations and support crew member, said: "Prostate cancer is a cause close to our hearts at Networks First, so choosing a charity to support was simple. If detected in its early stages there is a high successful treatment rate. We're proud to be raising much needed money for Prostate Cancer UK to support the great work they do."

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