Comms Dealer

Seventy-plus industry players descended on the Mill Ride golf course in Ascot to take part in the 18th Sennheiser Challenge Trophy golf day, raising £16,500 for The Caron Keating Foundation and £3,000 for the Diabetes UK charity.

The day teed off with a nine-hole Texas Scramble followed by an 18-hole individual stableford competition won by Bihesh Patel of Pinnerton Video Systems.

Caron's mother Gloria Hunniford attended the evening charity dinner and thanked guests for their support.
 
Steve Dalton, Director of Marketing for Sennheiser UK, said: "Everyone had a terrific time and we were able to raise a great deal of money for a very worthy cause."  

Image Pictured: Steve Bailey, Head Of Corporate Sales for Sennheiser UK Telecoms, and Richard Carter, Group Sales and Business Development Director at Nimans.

The 848 Group has formed a new partnership with BT Business Partner Sales, operating as an Agent selling BT's Retail products and services.

Martin Clarke, BT General Manager, said: "As a channel we have a three year plan to grow our partner base. The 848 Group is moving rapidly into Unified Communications and telephony and wish to enhance their position in this area. The company is aligned to our strategy."

Kerry Burn, 848 Group CEO, added: "We cover all areas of IT, from on-premise work to public cloud, smart devices to back-end infrastructure and everything in between. A partnership with BT Business Partner Sales seemed a natural fit."

The use of graphene in telecommunications could accelerate Internet speeds by up to a hundred times, according to new research by scientists at the University of Bath. In a paper published in Physical Review Letters, researchers from the Centre for Graphene Science at the Universities of Bath and Exeter have demonstrated for the first time short optical response rates using graphene, which could pave the way for a revolution in telecommunications.

Every day large amounts of information is transmitted and processed through optoelectronic devices such as optical fibres, photodetectors and lasers.

Signals are sent by photons at infrared wavelengths and processed using optical switches, which convert signals into a series of light pulses.

Ordinarily optical switches respond at a rate of a few picoseconds, around a trillionth of a second. Through this study physicists have observed the response rate of an optical switch using 'few layer graphene' to be around one hundred femtoseconds, nearly a hundred times quicker than current materials.

Graphene is just one atom thick, but remarkably strong. Scientists have suggested that it would take an elephant, balanced on a pencil to break through a single sheet. Already dubbed a miracle material due to its strength, lightness, flexibility, conductivity and low cost, it could now enter the market to dramatically improve telecommunications, claims the university.

Lead researcher Dr Enrico Da Como said: "We've seen an ultrafast optical response rate using 'few-layer graphene', which has exciting applications for the development of high speed optoelectronic components based on graphene.

"This fast response is in the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum, where many applications in telecommunications, security and also medicine are currently developing and affecting our society."

Co-Director of the Centre for Graphene Science at Bath, Professor Simon Bending, added: "The more we find out about graphene the more remarkable its properties seem to be. This research shows that it also has unique optical properties which could find important new applications."

In the long term this research could also lead to the development of quantum cascade lasers based on graphene. Quantum cascade lasers are semiconductor lasers used in pollution monitoring, security and spectroscopy. Few-layer graphene could emerge as a unique platform for this application.

A series of portable pocket projectors are proving popular at Nimans, according to Head of Dealer Sales Tom Maxwell.

The distributor stocks four Philips PicoPix models including a new WiFi version designed for presentations and videos from computers, tablets, smartphones and memory sticks. The company also supplies a range of associated cables for easy connection such as to iPhones, iPads and games consoles.

"Years ago projectors were confined to training rooms and boardrooms, often ceiling mounted," said Maxwell. "But now the latest devices have opened up the market as they are truly portable and pocket sized.

"Many dealers are enjoying success with these innovative products as they are suited to break-out sessions and meetings. Some models have a built in speaker and remote control as well as rechargeable batteries for up to two hours playback."

Cloud and colocation firm UKFast has recruited a Manchester high school teacher to set up an Academy and Apprenticeship programme.

Aaron Saxton, a former teacher at Ashton on Mersey School in Greater Manchester, will also focus on strengthening ties between the £20 million turnover business and the education sector in a community and commercial capacity.

Saxton worked closely with UKFast during his time at Ashton on Mersey, developing the National IT Diploma, online learning environments and strengthening links between the school and local businesses.

UKFast CEO Lawrence Jones said: "Aaron has changed the face of online learning and I hope that the work he has done will be carried on for years to come.

"He is the driving force behind our new training and educational programme which will ensure that as we continue to expand at a rapid rate, our team is ahead of the curve in terms of industry and technological knowledge."

Saxton said: "UKFast poses a new challenge to revolutionise training in the workplace and to bring young, talented people into the company and train them up into ambassadors for the technology industry."

Union Street Technologies has made its first full-time apprenticeship graduate appointments following their completion of a year long apprenticeship.

Alex Taylor and Francesco Dore have become part of Union Street's customer support team having joined the company in spring 2012.

Union Street has taken on three more apprentices as part of the government apprenticeship scheme who are now performing key roles in various departments throughout the company.

Union Street provides its apprentices with mentoring and training on both the company's aBILLity billing platform and the wider telecoms industry with a strong focus on compliance and best practices.

In order to swiftly integrate apprentices into the company Union Street believes that it's important to treat apprentices as fully-fledged members of staff from day one, and as such offers apprentices a full contract of employment, full holiday entitlement and a generous salary.

Like other staff members apprentices' success is measured through key performance indicators (KPIs) and mutually agreed targets.

Paula Wright, Operations Director, said: "We felt that it was important to do our bit to invest in, train and mould future generations of telecoms professionals, and to provide entrants to the industry with the opportunity to prove themselves and develop their skills under our tutelage.

"By investing time into training and mentoring we are able to harness and cultivate the raw talents of some highly capable individuals, and the continued development of their skills reaps untold benefits for our business."

Pictured (l-r): Alex Taylor, Francesco Dore and Paula Wright

Cloud and SaaS specialist intY has announced the availability of fully supported Cisco hardware on CASCADE.

The addition of the Cisco products to the cloud provisioning platform provides partners with the high end switching capability they need to assure the end user experience for cloud services and achieve long-term customer retention.

Cisco is the latest vendor to sign up to CASCADE, joining the likes of Symantec and Microsoft and other independent software vendors in the co-operative-style marketplace, which now boasts hundreds of product and application offers.

Chris Baldock, MD of intY, said: "Vendors are increasingly turning to the cloud to provision their products and services, evidence of its readiness for the mass market.

"For the channel, this marks a huge opportunity with SMBs. We already have 200 agents and resellers signed to CASCADE and we're looking to recruit a further 200 in the UK by the end of the year.

"CASCADE offers an easy platform from which to break into cloud computing, making it especially attractive to smaller resellers."

Resellers using the CASCADE platform can now bundle fully supported Cisco product as-a-service with other cloud applications of their choice, creating a stable end-to-end cloud solution for resellers to take to their business customers.

"Forget the last-mile, in cloud services, it's the last 10 yards that count," added Baldock. "All too often resellers underestimate the importance of physical infrastructure in the success of cloud services. Bandwidth dependent and sensitive applications are common in business today, so assuring high performance delivery is key and that goes beyond the cloud-hosting environment. End users need business critical apps to perform in order to determine a RoI from cloud.

"Cisco routers complete the CASCADE cloud service offering. Our resellers can provide customers with end-to-end cloud performance from the data centre right to the desktop to enable businesses to experience the real value of cloud, without poor connectivity getting in the way."

Kathy Schneider, who was part of Dell's channel team for over four years and most recently in charge of the Global Channel Marketing & Programs team after running EMEA channel marketing, is leaving Dell to pursue a new role. 

Moving forward, Dell will be combining Channel Programs and Enablement team led by Bob Skelley, with the Global Channel Marketing & Programs team previously under Kathy, to form a single Global Channel Programs and Partner Enablement team. Skelley will lead the new group effective immediately.

"Bob has been a key leader on our Channel team for the past five years and I am excited to have him head this group," says Greg Davis, vice president and general manager, Dell Global Commercial Channel. "We believe this is a great opportunity to provide better support to our channel partners and customers and increase our overall capability in the channel organisation."

Enterprise file sharing and sync/mobility vendor Vaultize is being backed by the Tata Capital Innovations Fund as it plans to establish operations in the US and Europe in conjunction with channel partners.

The company will also use the funds towards building its sales, marketing and engineering teams, and to enhance its global partner programme.

"Data security and privacy are currently the key concerns of any organization's IT team. Use of consumer cloud services, workforce mobility and the trend of BYOD are likely to increase the concerns even further. Vaultize comes at the right time to address these pain points. Led by experienced professionals and domain experts, Vaultize is poised to capture a significant share of the market," said Mohan Harshey, Partner - Private Equity, Tata Capital.

Growth forecasts for managed services is also fuelling M&A activity as firms, vendors and channels rapidly realign in a changed market. Channels may be finding it hard to keep up with the pace of change.

With Managed Services revenue forecast to grow at 11.3% CAGR through to 2017, according to Insight Research, M&A activity in this segment is also accelerating as telecoms service providers, vendors and systems integrators all jostle to bring in the skills to fulfil a burgeoning requirement, says John Chapman, Content Director for the Managed Services & Hosting Summit.

"With economies around the world showing no signs of any rapid growth IT departments seem to be turning to Managed Services organisations to either take over the running of some of their IT services allowing them to focus on new developments or using Managed Services and the Cloud to enable them to deliver new applications without up-front capital or manpower investments," he says. 

"The Insight report highlights that from network service provision through to application deployment IT departments are turning to Managed Services as a cost effective alternative to meet the increasing demand from users for new business applications and greater mobility."

This increased demand seems also to be fuelling M&A activity in this sector and disturbing the balance of partnerships in the channel as John Chapman explains, "The accelerating demand for Managed Services seems to have caught out many channel organisations as well as vendors and service providers. This has led to a scrabble to acquire the skills rather than develop them organically."

"Right across the world M&A activity in the Managed Services sector is accelerating with major vendors like IBM and global service providers like NTT buying managed services and cloud providers. This has also extended into the channel with global Systems Integrators like Logicalis buying a number of datacenter hosting providers and managed services companies in the last two years. At a smaller scale in the UK we are seeing consolidation in the telecoms channel as users migrate to managed services, we see hosting providers buying IT services companies to meet the increasingly complex demands of their clients and organisations like 6 Degrees emerging from almost nowhere through acquisition and mergers to, within 3 years, a major Managed Services provider."

"All the signs are evident that the Managed Services and Hosting business model is here to stay but what we are seeing with all the M&A activity is that the defined channel models of yesteryear are being reshaped. It is plain that vendors and service providers want more of the profitable services business and are no longer going to leave it to systems integrators and solution VARs to add the services value."

"The whole move to a Managed Services business model is therefore fraught with uncertainty. There is no doubt that this is where the channel needs to be but what are the secrets to success, where are the growth segments and who do you partner with?"

"At the Managed Service and Hosting Summit we plan to explore all these issues and through presentations and debate with top industry analysts, vendors, service providers and distributors help delegates understand all the issues and identify some key opportunity areas."

To register your interest in attending the Managed Services & Hosting Summit go to: www.mshsummit.com