Comms Dealer

HP's new platinum partners will be few in number, but will get extra resources and real investment from HP in terms of direction planning and HP people. The new level will be in place at the start of November, but obviously those partners making the jump are getting trained and committing over the next few months, says Kevin Matthews, UK&I Enterprise Group channels boss.

Last week's meeting of the gold partners was a chance to assess how many plan on becoming platinum; it looks like no more than a dozen in the UK&I area. It will be different across Europe, particularly in the CEE region where the approach must be different because of market conditions, but it all fits into the grand HP plan for standardisation globally. At the same time, the accreditations become fewer in number, and the partner programmes become the same across all parts of the portfolio.

The plan means partners selling more of the HP portfolio, particularly the platinums, who will offer everything from hardware to software, cloud to services, plus the all-important storage.

The mood among HP gold partners is positive and echoes the sentiment at the global partner conference earlier this year that HP is engaged again. The policies of simplicity of engagement, being profitable to work with and predictable in nature are coming through, he says. The soft rebates available to silver and gold partners continue, but the platinums can expect hard margin advantage.

The key is business planning, he suggests. "The setting of objectives and milestones means the partners have a real commitment, not just signing off on HP's suggestions." It means a commitment by HP to keeping the partners up-to-date on technologies and selling, with early feedback from its sales academies very positive, with measurable improvements in productivity.

HP is trying to establish the techniques that work for the particular partners in focus, and even directing their vertical market efforts, demanding more loyalty in return as it trains its won channel teams to be more effective.

The results will become apparent next year, but the move is certainly to concentrate on a smaller number of very high achieving partners and setting the bar for them much higher.

Sharedband has partnered with Kent-based VeloComms, enabling the communications provider to offers Sharedband's patented technology designed to improve the performance and resilience of Internet connections.

The Sharedband core software solution aggregates multiple Internet connections (DSL, cable, fibre, wireless) into a single high-performance connection that is flexible and scalable.
 
Sharedband provides a secure portal for channel reseller partners such as VeloComms to manage multiple customer accounts easily online. Once signed-in to the secure portal a reseller can see performance parameters for a variety of customer account activities related to the Sharedband bonded internet solution. This includes active and non-active status on bonded connections.
 
For VeloComms, Phil Davies, CEO stated: "I like the fact that Sharedband is a subscription service which generates ongoing incremental revenue for us. For our customers that need high-speed broadband it fills the gap between conventional DSL broadband and Ethernet which is still uneconomic for many of our SME customers."
 
Tim Burne, Chief Operations Officer for Sharedband, added: "Implementing Sharedband allows comms providers to offer further value-added products such as hosted applications, storage and SAAS solutions generating additional revenue streams."

Aiming to triple its base of cloud resellers GFI Software has introduced a new channel partner programme designed to equip resellers with the tools, incentives and support to drive cloud sales.

"Cloud solutions are an important opportunity for the channel that generates both healthy up-front revenues and recurring business," said Director of Channel Scott Hagenus.

"Our new cloud partner programme will deliver a three-figure increase in cloud resellers and help them to integrate GFI's cloud solutions alongside their existing physical product lines."

The programme runs until November and will focus each month on a different aspect of the GFI Cloud solution including patch management, antivirus, network and server monitoring, managing mobile workers, along with web and content filtering.

"The success our existing partners are having with GFI Cloud is a clear indicator that the channel community is key to the success of cloud solutions," added Hagenus.

Dutch telecoms group KPN is to sell its German unit to rival Telefonica Deutschland in a £4.2bn cash deal, and according to Emeka Obiodu, principal analyst in Ovum's telco strategy team, the only surprise in this announcement is the length Telefonica was prepared to go to strengthen its position in the German market.

"It has become glaringly obvious that the German market was becoming too much of a headache for the players," said Obiodu.

"So today's announcement is in line with expectations that consolidation was inevitable. Indeed, the deal reduces the number of players in Germany to three, in line with Ovum's prediction that three players in European markets seems to be the balance in order to ensure adequate market competition while retaining healthy profits for the players.

"As the third and fourth players, O2 and E-Plus did not have the scale to adequately compete in a market where ferocious price competition has led to declining revenues and profits for telcos. Indeed on Friday, Vodafone, the second largest player in the market, reported a 5.1% decline in quarterly revenues, lending credence to its decision to seek a remedy with the acquisition of Kabel Deutschland.

"And Vodafone's actions would have hastened today's decision as O2 and E-Plus risked falling even more behind. Without a deal, they would have been operating in a market where Vodafone has just strengthened, and Deutsche Telekom enjoys the advantage of being the mobile market leader and the owner of a high-speed fixed broadband network.

"Instead, this deal catapults the combined O2/E-Plus to be the mobile market leader in Germany with over 37% mobile market share (year end 2012). For Telefonica, it looks canny how it has struck a deal to become the largest telco in Brazil (through taking control of Vivo), the largest market in Latin America and now it is doing the same in Germany, the largest market in the EU. No wonder it was prepared to add another 5 billion euros to its already large debt pile."

Softcat has welcomed 36 new recruits to its sales and IT teams in London, Manchester and Marlow.

The recruitment drive sees 25 new starts join the Marlow team as sales executives, sales support executives and customer service executives, in addition to more specific roles in particular sectors.

Five new starts will join the Manchester team and six will join the London team, all as sales executives.

Managing Director Colin Brown said: "Softcat is employee-centric, we put them at the heart of everything we set out to achieve as a company and it works.

"Happy employees lead to happy customers and high performance, and this is proven by our high levels of customer satisfaction and our continually increasing revenues."

HR and recruitment manager Shelley Ferrigno added: "Progression is here for the taking at Softcat. Employees are constantly moving into new roles in areas of particular interest to them. An employee might join us as a customer service executive, spend some time in sales, then end up in a more technical role. We aim to accommodate our employees' interests, and always reward hard work."

Softcat recently achieved 10th best medium sized workplace in Europe in the Europe's Best Workplace listing, and 4th place in the UK.

Reports that Telefonica is in advanced talks to buy KPN NV's German mobile phone business E-Plus are perhaps overdue, according to IHS Electronics and Media Analyst James Allison. "M&A activity between Telefónica and E-Plus has been on the cards since the 800-MHz auction in 2010 when E-Plus missed out on a licence," he stated.

"A tie-up between the two would create an operator similarly sized to much larger operators such as Vodafone and Deutsche Telekom, while giving E-Plus access to fixed line voice, broadband, and television services.

"A deal between Telefónica and E-Plus previously fell through as the two could not reach a valuation. Neither Telefónica nor KPN was willing to take less than a majority share in a German unit, given the revenue and profit contributions to both operator groups' bottom line."

According to Allison a major stumbling block to the deal proceeding is getting regulatory approval from the German Cartel Office.

However, reports suggest that a deal could be announced as early as today.

Analysts estimate the value of E-Plus to be in the region of 8.5 billion euros, but cost savings resulting from a merger could push up the value to 10 billion euros.

BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions has launched an exclusive free financial training course for sales teams to help them overcome customer cash restrictions in order to win larger and more profitable deals.

Called 'Finance Unlocked: How to sell and win with finance', the scheme is designed to help technology suppliers adopt a more strategic approach to sales, and explores how organisations generate and use finance, explains the benefits of leasing over cash, and teaches delegates how to use leasing as a strategic sales tool.

The course is the brainchild of Andy Milsom who heads up training and partner development at BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions. He said: "We know from experience that the risk of a customer walking away from a cash sale in today's climate is high. We also know from our own research that order sizes are typically 32% higher when made using finance rather than cash.

"We want to help companies avoid wasting their sales efforts, and help them make all deals as profitable as possible. This means ensuring their sales teams are confident enough to explore a prospect's financial situation in some detail, so they can take a more strategic approach to sales and financing."

SIP and hosted carrier tIPicall has increased the international geographic numbers that can be ported from existing fixed line operators to its worldwide SIP network.

35 countries now allow geographic number porting into tIPicall's numbering cloud and new additions include Cyprus, the Dominican Republic and Ireland. In total tIPicall can now provide numbers in 120 countries worldwide.

Irish numbers can now be ported from operators including Eircom, COLT, Verizon, Digiweb and Smart Telecom.

These suppliers represent the vast majority of number providers in the Republic of Ireland, said the firm. The porting process takes around four weeks and single numbers or full ranges can be ported.

Steve Harrington, Channel Manager at tIPicall, said: "Traditionally, cross-border organisations have found it difficult to manage their telecoms seamlessly as they have had to be location dependent. If they wanted to look like they were in Dublin they had to be physically located in Dublin. Now companies can have a presence anywhere in the world and take their Irish numbers with them.

"This represents a significant step in the transition from traditional telecom services to SIP and next generation hosted solutions in the UK. We have been able to provide new numbers in Ireland for quite some time however the lack of porting has meant that many of our partners have had to walk away from deals. Now we can finally offer them the complete numbering service."

Daisy's entry in the 'Best Case Study (Commercial)' category of the EuroCloud UK Awards beat two other hosting providers at the event held at Baker Tilly's HQ in London, with the business recognised for the hosting services it provides to the Manchester Airports Group (MAG). 
 
Showcased at the event, Daisy's solution has enabled the MAG to deliver an overall more reliable online service to its customers, supporting the live streaming of flight information, online booking and payment functionality for car parking reservations.
 
With a portfolio of airport websites, the MAG's IT infrastructure needed the capacity to comfortably accommodate millions of website hits. Daisy's fully managed solution provides internet connectivity and hosting services, which are monitored round-the-clock.
 
As the largest UK-owned airport operator, the MAG owns and operates four airports located throughout the UK, serving approximately 42 million passengers and three quarters of a million tonnes of freight each year.
?Jon Arnold, Enterprise Sales Director at Daisy Group, said: "Daisy has been working with MAG for a number of years and through technology supported them with their growth journey across their Group. To win the EuroCloud award is a real feather in our cap. We have been recognised for the part we have played in providing a business with the solution and service that meets the demands placed on it by its customers, but also supporting business growth."

Channel Telecom has teamed up with Virgin Media Business for an exclusive offer to channel partners providing discounts on partners' home broadband, TV and phone packages.
 
The new Virgin Affinity Programme strengthens the partnership with Channel Telecom as it is offered exclusively to Channel Telecom's partner community.

The Affinity Programme offers partners 'substantial' discounts on up to 30Mb fibre optic broadband, TV with TiVo box (with over 100 TV channels) and unlimited weekend calls to UK landlines and Virgin Mobiles including free installation.
 
Channel Telecom MD Clifford Norton said: "This is positive in two ways for our reseller community; They get the chance to take advantage of this discount just by being a partner with us and it also supports our business relationship with them. We hope the Affinity Programme will open up more opportunities for new resellers to come on board with us."