Comms Dealer

Almost half of channel leaders expect the channel to grow between now and 2020 according to research commissioned by inventory-as-a-service firm Agilitas.

The research commissioned by Agilitas and carried out by OnePoll surveyed 100 senior level executives at leading IT resellers, managed service providers and independent IT channel firms.

The research looked at the financial challenges the industry is set to face between now and 2020. Despite continued market disruption and uncertainty, a significant 47% still expect the channel to grow, 27% expect it to be a similar size with 26% less confident in the channel growing between now and 2020.

The research also examined what channel contracts will look like, revealing that the majority agree that IT based revenue streams will be even more OPEX based by 2020. IT services are expected to see the biggest contract shift from CAPEX to OPEX (30%), followed by hardware sales (19%).

In addition, the channel leaders surveyed also revealed that they expect software and hardware support services to provide some of the strongest revenue streams in 2020.

"The results of our research suggest that the channel will see significant movement to OPEX based support services in the next few years" stated Agilitas CEO, Shaun Lynn. "A rise in support services and contracts moving to an OPEX model provides significant new revenue streams for resellers, managed service providers and independent IT providers alike."

CSC and Virtual Clarity have joined forces to help organisations speed up their migration to cloud environments such as Amazon Web Services, IBM Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.

The deal sees CSC make an undisclosed investment in Virtual Clarity which has become a strategic affiliate of CSC.

"This partnership will ensure that organisations can transform their business faster and safer than before, and at scale," said Steve Peskin, CEO, Virtual Clarity.

Steve Hilton, Executive VP & GM, Global Infrastructure Services, CSC, added: "Virtual Clarity's advisory services, combined with CSC's ability to deliver at scale, supports the journey toward IT transformation."

NFON UK has elevated Glemnet to Platinum Partner status following a year of 'stellar growth' and its recent specialisation in reselling NFON's Nhospitality product portfolio, a bespoke cloud telephony system for hospitality and managed services organisations.

NFON UK MD Rami Houbby said: "Glemnet's partner status upgrade recognises and rewards a hugely successful first year. The hospitality sector requires a specialist approach and Glemnet has invested considerable effort and resource into becoming an expert in this sector."

Platinum Partner status gives Glemnet access to more support, including assistance with marketing, event co-sponsorship and lead generation.

Adam Freeman, National Sales Manager, Glemnet, added: "We see huge demand from our hotel and hospitality customers for NFON's Nhospitality product. This sector requires a specialist approach and bespoke technology, and our expertise and the Nhospitality product range will ensure mutual success."

CityFibre has appointed technology and services industry veteran Christopher Stone as Non-Executive Chairman.

He brings a strong track record of building successful global businesses in the sector, most notably responsible for leading the transformation of Northgate Information Solutions (then known as McDonnell Douglas Information Systems) between 1999 to 2011 to become the world's second largest specialist HR technology and services business and the leading provider of software and services to the UK public sector.

He is currently a Non-Executive Director (formerly Chief Executive Officer) of Radius Worldwide, an expansion services company offering accounting, HR, legal, tax and compliance support to companies' international operations.

He led the business during its successful acquisition by private equity firm, HG Capital, in August 2013.

Previous positions include senior roles at Accenture, Electronic Data Systems, Digital Equipment Company, Fitness First and CSR, where he served as Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Remuneration Committee.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, commented: "Chris brings to the Board extensive experience as a Non-Executive Director across a wide range of companies and sectors, and we look forward to his perspective and guidance as CityFibre continues its rapid growth and development in the dynamic and evolving UK communications infrastructure market."

The Government's just published Digital Strategy underlines the need for the UK to move towards a full fibre future, but CityFibre argues that firm targets and an alignment of Government policy and sector regulation behind the goal of greater infrastructure competition is needed if the vision is to be delivered.

The Digital Strategy outlines the Government's plan to become a leading digital nation, building on the UK's existing digital strengths and maximising the potential of emerging technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence and the Internet of Things, to drive up productivity, remain internationally competitive and realise opportunity across the country.

The Government recognises that 'first and foremost, being a digital leader depends on being connected', and that 'the future of high-speed and high-quality connectivity lies in deeper, more extensive fibre networks'.

To deliver this goal, the Strategy reconfirms the £1bn programme of funding 'to explore and encourage next generation digital infrastructure, including full fibre and 5G' that was announced in the 2016 Autumn Statement.

Mark Collins, CityFibre's Director of Strategy and Policy, commented: "The Government has once again outlined a clear direction of travel for the UK - extensive full fibre networks capable of delivering the transformational gigabit connectivity needed to be a leading digital nation.

"As the company behind the UK's growing ranks of Gigabit Cities, CityFibre is fully supportive of this vision. With the UK lagging behind its international competitors on full fibre deployment, we now urgently need to create the right incentives for investment in new infrastructure, rather than continuing to focus on the UK's legacy copper network.

"This means firm targets for deployment, ensuring that the goal of full fibre is embedded across all areas of central and local government policy, including in the upcoming Industrial Strategy, and ensuring that policy and regulation are pulling in the same direction - for example on consumer advertising of fibre broadband products and telecoms regulation."

Apogee has snapped up document technology and managed print services provider Danwood. The combined company creates one of the largest European players in its field of operations with Group annual revenues propelled to over £250m. The deal boosts Apogee's client base with the addition of over 10,000 retained customers and approximately 8,000 transactional customers.

The existing Apogee Board of Directors, led by Joint CEOs Jason Collins and Robin Stanton-Gleaves, will continue to manage the Group following the acquisition.

Collins commented: "This significant acquisition for Apogee provides us with the scale and reach to be a leading player in the European market for managed print services.

"Danwood has strengths that complement Apogee's offering and strategy, including a large client base of major corporate businesses, government and public sector organisations, and a strong service network that will increase the Group's coverage and capacity to support its clients across the UK and continental Europe."

This is Apogee's fourth and largest acquisition since it secured a significant investment from Equistone Partners Europe, a pan-European, mid-market investor, in September 2016.

Additional strategic acquisitions completed by the Group in the past six months include the purchase of Direct Business Systems, an independent provider of multi-functional copiers, printers, scanners and support services based in Glasgow (October 2016); Hibernian Business Equipment Limited, one of Ireland's main print management and managed print services providers (November 2016), and CityDocs, a document outsource provider (December 2016).

Apogee has said it will continue to make further strategic acquisitions to drive its growth in the UK and continental Europe.

ScanSource Communications has partnered with Polish headset vendor Axtel to launch the company's headset range in the UK, Benelux, Nordic and Baltic regions.

The new partnership will be rolled out country by country, supporting Axtel's increasing presence in the European market.

"This long-awaited collaboration with ScanSource Communications is a great opportunity to increase our presence in the European market. We are confident that our combined experience in the ICT sector will bring added value for resellers across Europe," said Miko?aj Kubiak, EMEA & APAC director for Axtel Headsets.

The new line supports ScanSource's expansion in Europe following the announcement last month that the company was opening a new office in Warsaw, Poland.

Last night's AWS S3 data centre outage serves to underline the importance of having a plan in place to offset the effects of such events, emphasised Six Degrees Group Marketing Director Campbell Williams.

"Outages do happen," he stated. "Cloud platforms will go down, data centres will go offline and networks will break. But it's all about how you plan for these technology failures, and if your data only exists in one place, then there will always be a risk."

He urged organisations to back-up their data, and back-up their back-up. "Six Degrees builds AWS clouds with geographical resilience and multi-zoning, and offers hybrid and multi-cloud solutions to add vendor diversity," added Williams. "Companies that want to embrace cloud technology need to bring in the right expertise and do it properly."

Greater transparency in energy sustainable practice among data industry players will help improve collaboration to tackle rising carbon emissions seen in the industry.

In Greenpeace's 2017 green IT report, 'Clicking Clean: Who is winning the race to build a green internet?', many hyperscalers scored highly in the report for its adoption and initiatives on renewable energy, but other players in the industry were urged to improve advocacy and transparency, and to work more collaboratively.

Roel Castelein, Customer Services Director, The Green Grid, said: "The Greenpeace Report is a good indicator that while there are definite movements towards a more sustainable data centre industry, many organisations have sought individual goals, rather than working together to share best practice and find the best ways to a sustainable future.

"Google, Facebook and Apple are constantly pushing the barriers of green innovation, while also working closely with energy suppliers to help achieve sustainable company targets. Their ability to advocate such measures is beginning to influence the rest of the sector, yet more must be done.

"Netflix is one such hyperscaler that whilst having one of the largest data footprints out of all the companies profiled, it has been urged to increase the adoption of renewable energy and advocate for more use of renewables across the data centre industry.

"As the video streaming market continues to grow and produce unprecedented amounts of data, the need for Netflix or an equally large provider to set the standard and advocate green policies can set a precedent for others to follow."

The latest Greenpeace report analysed the big tech and data centre companies on its use of renewable energy, advocacy and transparency on energy sources and planning. Google, Facebook, Apple and colocation provider, Switch, received an A grade ranking for its ability to meet all these criteria and be powered through 100 per cent renewable energy.

Since 2012, the amount of electricity consumed by the IT sector has increased by six per cent (totalling 21%) in the past five years, making the need for a green data centre industry stronger than ever before. With an anticipated threefold increase in global internet traffic by 2020, the advocacy of renewable energy for data centres will be important in sustaining its growth.

"The growth in the amount of data demands that all data centre providers come together, rather than working in silos, and be clear in their use of renewable energy in creating a more sustainable industry," added Castelein.

"Whether it's meeting government sustainability objectives, using renewable energy as secondary sources, or pushing for stronger connections with energy suppliers, it can all contribute to enhanced efforts in tackling carbon emissions.

"The need for data centre providers and end users to collaborate to ensure our use of data is sustainable has never been greater. Organisations like The Green Grid are providing the space for this to happen and are developing a range of tools to make sure that our growing dependency on technology is sustainable."

A global study published by Aruba reveals that 85% of the businesses approached for the survey plan to implement IoT by 2019, driven by a need for innovation and business efficiency.

While the analysis confirms the clear business benefits from investments in IoT, Aruba's report cautions that connecting thousands of things to existing business networks has already resulted in security breaches for the majority of organisations.

The research questioned 3,100 IT and business decision makers across 20 countries to evaluate the current state of IoT and its impact across different industries.

The study shows that while virtually all business leaders (98%) have an understanding of IoT, many are unclear of the exact definition of IoT and what it means for their business.