Comms Dealer

Five years have passed since the banking crash and this September is a whole lot more upbeat than its recent predecessors. There hasn't been any major dirt pulled out from under the financial sector's carpet, unemployment continues to fall, driven down by a strengthening economy in the south east, and GDP growth figures are above expectations, writes Clive Jefferys, JMA Network.

However, people in work are loath to contemplate moving employer, not just yet anyway. A friend in Ireland has taken to recruiting people from Spain and Greece to fulfil tech roles in Dublin. Apparently local people just slam the phone down if you suggest discussing their career choices. A crazy world indeed if you can't even offer to improve someone's lot in life without them taking umbrage!

Well I'm glad to say that UK recruitment is not that tough. We are hitting our targets, and our bank manager is happy. He invited himself round the other afternoon and hung about so long talking to our staff I had to throw him out eventually, with a smile of course. He's been a good friend so I don't begrudge his pop-in meeting for his stats, and the extensive range of pension and life assurance information that magically appeared on our desks.

I've been on the road too, visiting clients across the UK. Last week my roadshow headed north and one major employer gave me the whole afternoon. I think I met practically everyone, brought into sales meetings, and greeted by the people we had placed there over the last two years. I even met the big boss himself. I was flattered and proud that we had made such a positive impact on this major corporate.

Elsewhere companies have invited us in and talked enthusiastically about the future, their staffing plans and even offered higher rates to get to the front of the queue for staff. A widespread feeling of confidence is returning to businesses within JMA's world. Of course visiting clients is a little like fishing for compliments, but in today's brave new world... they are only given if well deserved.

So the rub...my personal positivity survey has returned good results. If you are a telecoms job seeker reading this, it's now your turn to step forward and be counted too. There are some great new jobs out there if you ask for them.

IBM is buying Daeja Image Systems, based in the UK, a software specialist with tools to view large documents and images. Daeja is a privately held software company with headquarters in Milton Keynes. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Daeja delivers software that helps line of business employees across all industries, especially data intensive ones such as banking, insurance and healthcare, get faster access to critical business information. 

The interactive features of Daeja software complement IBM's ability to mask and annotate documents and images to anonymize or protect sensitive data. A financial analyst, for instance, can distribute a spreadsheet for review by senior management. Reviewers can view the file and add comments as annotations before sending it back for further analysis. Meanwhile, Daeja software provides control over who can see and modify the document, providing security and privacy thoughout the process.

"As a longtime business partner, Daeja has integrated its solutions with IBM solutions for more than a decade," said Stu Moss, CEO at Daeja. "With our combined strengths, we can help clients manage their data challenges and directly enhance IBM's key market initiatives for big data, mobile, and content management."

Oracle expects FQ2 revenue growth of -1% to +2% yr/yr, which is lower than expected. Software licence/cloud subscription revenue growth is expected to be in a range of -6% to +4% yr/yr, and hardware product growth in a range of -11% to -1%. Those ranges compare with FQ1 growth of +4% and -14%, respectively. EMEA declined 5% in Q1 as the Americas rose sharply.

CFO Safra Catz claims Oracle is optimistic about deal opportunities and the impact of new products, but adds sales leaders are being 'very careful' about their forecasts in light of macro/business conditions. Oracle has already posted disappointing licence growth more than once this year. That, in turn, has stoked fears of share losses to cloud software firms.

Better times may be ahead in Europe where Oracle has increased its headcount. Mark Hurd, President and Director says: "We were quicker to hire in Europe, which is what really has helped us in Europe. While Europe was not fantastic for us in Q1, over the past several quarters we've gained a lot of share in Europe, and one of the reasons for that has been the fact that they've simply been in more deals."

Leeds-based IT reseller LDD Group has secured a multi-million pound printer contract with universities and NHS Trusts across the UK.

LDD has partnered with Samsung via the National Education Printer Agreement (NEPA), an exclusive membership for public sector organisations which offers a quality printer service at a discounted rate from approved suppliers.

Samsung approached LDD to provide a bespoke service which would focus on the individual needs of around 150 customer accounts.

Matt Hopkinson, Account Manager at LDD Group, said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for us to expand our market share in the public sector. The contract with the National Education Printer Association spans universities, colleges, NHS Trusts and small councils throughout the UK. Samsung approached us because of our customer-focused reputation and we look forward to exceeding their expectations."

Enterprise session border controllers (SBCs) are the next generation of border elements and will eventually replace VoIP gateways, spurring gateway, router, and PBX vendors to integrate SBC functionality, according to research

Infonetics forecasts the global enterprise SBC market to grow at a 17% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2012 and 2017. Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its 2nd quarter 2013 (2Q13) Enterprise Session Border Controllers report, which tracks enterprise session border controller (eSBC) vendor revenue and session shipments.

"Cisco's been able to capitalize on its market-leading position in IP PBXs, gateways, and routers in selling its enterprise SBCs. In the second quarter of 2013, Cisco led the eSBC market with 27% of worldwide revenue, putting some daylight between itself and the competition," noted Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS at Infonetics Research.

The enterprise SBC market is severely tilted toward North America, though by 2017 its share is expected to decline as other regions increase adoption of SIP trunking, unified communications and IP call centres.

Businesses of all sizes are using SBCs to enable SIP trunking, interconnect disparate systems, and build deeper levels of security into their voice networks.

Computacenter's Barcelona-to-Hatfield cycle team are gearing up for tomorrow's start of the six-country trek to raise £20,000 for charity.

Setting off from the firm's Barcelona office the 1,200 mile journey to its Hatfield HQ will take the riders through Andorra, France, Belgium and Holland before finally arriving in the UK.

"We wish our team the very best of luck in their adventure," says Neil Muller, UK MD Computacenter. "At Computacenter, we pride ourselves on not only delivering the best value to our customers,but also giving something back to the community. Each year, our Charity Council nominates three charities which we support throughout the year and this cycle ride is one of the mainstays of our activity for 2013."

The three charities being supported are Alzheimer's Society, Prostate Cancer UK and Teenage Cancer Trust.

Managed services provider Olive Communications has acquired one of one of its key competitors, Wish Holdings, the parent company of Wish Communications for an undisclosed sum.

Olive is one of a handful of strategic Vodafone Platinum Partners, managing in excess of 65,000 subscribers across 2,500 customers.

In acquiring fellow Vodafone Platinum Partner Wish, the Olive subscriber base grows to over 110,000 with 6,000 customers. Olive is now one of the largest independent providers of managed business communication services in the UK, employing around 150 staff with an estimated combined annual turnover in excess of £25m.

Two of the Wish shareholding directors join the Olive management team. Mike Hallam, (previously MD of Wish) joins the Olive Group as Chief Operating Officer, reporting to Olive Chief Executive Martin Flick. Simon Pickering, Wish Operations Director becomes Group Professional Services Director. Both become shareholders in the enlarged business.

Martin Flick, CEO of the Group, said: "This, our ninth acquisition in two years, plays a significant role in our growth strategy. This powerful alignment of Vodafone Platinum Partners delivers benefits beyond the sum of its parts. The united team brings together leaders in their respective fields.

"By combining the two businesses we create huge benefit for our customers, suppliers and staff. Our Group now has an even broader range of services to offer including Mobility Solutions, IPVPN and Hosted Voice, PBX Maintenance, WAN and Cloud based services, all of which can be delivered as integrated solutions and managed in house by our expert teams."

Olive Chairman Mark Geraghty added: "Olive is now better placed to tick all the boxes for business users working for UK based organisations that need remote and flexible working conditions for their staff, which are provided by our collaboration tools and expertise in mobile working."

Mike Hallam, Chief Operating Officer of Olive Group added: "This is an exciting opportunity for our team. Having built our business steadily since 2006 we feel proud of what we have achieved. The skills we have developed have proven to be highly valuable and much sought after. Olive has a very exciting portfolio, fantastic corporate customers and a highly experienced management team, which Simon and I are delighted to join. The career opportunities and increased development potential for staff is enormous, and the business plan for the future is very compelling."

Rob Mukherjee, Head of Vodafone Partner Services added: " This is an exciting acquisition within the Vodafone Platinum partner community. As we continue to strengthen our position in the total communications market our hope is that partners develop their own capability in line with our plans and in making this acquisition Olive are demonstrating their commitment to our long term strategy."

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."

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."

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.