Comms Dealer

Following news of Simplivity's £521m acquisition by HPE, HyperGrid has broken cover to claim that, on the back of the deal, enterprise IT will evolve from services delivery to value creation.

According to HPE the purchase of Simplivity 'advances HPE's strategy in the fast-growing, high-margin HCI market'.

While spending on HCI is growing fast, HCI will increasingly be viewed as a use case (specifically for VMs as a service) rather than a market, reckons HyperGrid.

According to Manoj Nair, Chief Product Officer at HyperGrid, to evolve quickly from services delivery to value creation, businesses need to simultaneously deliver a broad set of services for legacy applications, enable application modernisation where possible, and provide modern application management for developers without disruption or overhead and do all this in a way that's agile, flexible and on-demand with security, control and governance.

"This shift will be driven by customers demanding integration of additional, higher layers of the stack, and innovative vendors responding to that demand with offers that support HCI as a use case, but deliver public cloud services in their data centres that include infrastructure, platform, and application management services," he stated.

"It is important for vendors to help CIOs and IT practitioners leapfrog from simply delivering services to creating business value by enabling business innovation while maintaining security, control and governance over delivery of IT services.

"Like HCI, we see public cloud as a partial solution to customer challenges. There are significant problems due to shadow IT owing to lack of control and governance, risk of cloud lock-in and poor support beyond VM-based computing. Enterprises are looking for an integrated and expanded IT solution that goes beyond HCI and public cloud options.

"This broader dynamic in IT is driving this vision of Enterprise Cloud Services, which deliver a public cloud-like services in the customer data centre.

"IT teams deploying Enterprise Cloud Services can better support overall business innovation and success through fast and flexible deployment of new and existing applications on the most efficient delivery platforms.

"The shift away from do-it-yourself approach to service delivery and higher-value added activities minimises the need for IT to perpetually focus on building, integrating, optimising, maintaining and refreshing many point solutions from multiple vendors that make up their services stack."

MSP Redcentric has become a Certified Partner of Purple, the intelligent spaces company.

Redcentric specialises in providing on premises, managed and cloud services to public and private sector organisations across the UK.

Purple's marketing and analytics solution acts as a complementary overlay to Redcentric's Enterprise Wireless LAN service. It will enable customers to engage with visitors and understand the best use of physical spaces.

As a Certified Partner, Redcentric has full access to unlimited NFR licenses, preferential lead allocation, online partner training and technical support.

Redcentric is looking to increase its proposition and strength within the healthcare sector following the Government's announcement that WiFi is to be made available in all NHS locations.

Anton Murphy, Business Development Manager for Redcentric, said: "Network service based outcomes sought by Redcentric customers are no longer confined to operational efficiency. They now extend to corporate user productivity, easy guest user login and analytics for actionable real-time insights. Introducing Purple's solution to our portfolio will assist Redcentric to meet demand and enable customers through highly valuable marketing insights."

Hats off to QDOS Communications for scooping the 2016 Excellence in MLE award from Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise.

The award recognises a project undertaken by QDOS for PPHE Hotel Group. Its multi-brand portfolio comprises 38 hotels and offers more than 8,300 rooms, and includes the Park Plaza Hotels & Resorts brand, working in partnership with the Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group, across the United Kingdom, Netherlands and Germany.
  
The solution was is a privately hosted Alcatel-Lucent centralised OmniPCX platform, with two regional core clusters supporting the UK hotels, and a separate cluster supporting the European hotels.

Peter Tebbutt, General Manager, ALE UK&I, said: "ALE and QDOS see an excellent opportunity for growth as organisations look to embrace digital transformation and overhaul legacy systems."

Northampton's first businesses have been connected to the town's Gigabit City pure fibre network and are now receiving ultra-fast Internet speeds up to 100 times faster than the UK's average.

The services are provided by dbfb, a Northampton based Internet Service Provider, and are made possible by its use of CityFibre's 45km pure fibre network.

Simon Pickering, Managing Director of dbfb, said: "Practicing what we preach, dbfb was the first business in Northampton to take a gigabit connection. We are already noticing the positive impact on our productivity and will be excited to follow other early adopters as they plug in to gigabit speeds. We are delighted to be bringing this new generation of affordable gigabit business connectivity to our home town."

Jason Petrou-Brown, Business Development Manager at CityFibre, added: "These ultra-fast services have the potential to revolutionise the way businesses operate and as more continue to join the network this will have a hugely positive effect on Northampton's business community as a whole."

Like vultures, elements of the press and a section of Avaya's rivals circled low above the vendor when it filed voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code. With the scent of blood strong in their noses they sniffed an opportunity and grasped at it with both talons.

Naturally, outright opportunists do not baulk when it comes to stirring things up to grab a sensational headline or unsteady the ground beneath resellers loyal to their troubled brands.

Ironically for the disrupters, perhaps in its perceived 'death throes' Avaya has pursued a course of action that, if anything, will breath new life into the business which, by the way, is profitable.

No doubt there is uncertainty in the market following the move and investments in its technology may be brought into question. But is Avaya's future any less certain than the day before it decisively set about sorting out the restructuring of its debt?

For years speculation and rumours have created a storm of uncertainty around Avaya, but the business continued to do well and retained the loyalty of a staunch band of resellers and customers.

Even with the dial turned up on the hype around Avaya's Chapter 11 move, we can only see the vendor ringing up more of the same as it evaluates its options in terms of selling off assets and securing new funding, while repositioning as a software-focused company and achieving the flexibility to invest in innovation and growth.

Adept Telecom CEO Ian Fishwick noted, 'Avaya will continue as a brand and as a business. US companies that successfully entered and emerged from Chapter 11 include General Motors, American Airlines, Texaco, Macy's and Bloomingdale's'.

So, you don't need to be Mystic Meg to predict where all this is likely to end up. For the industry's sake, Chapter 11 will hopefully signify the turning of a new page and the start of another episode in Avaya's ongoing story.

Onecom has secured a foothold in Northern Ireland with the opening of a new regional office in Belfast.

Onecom is making an investment of more than £5m in its Northern Ireland operation and expects to employ 30 people in the city within five years.

Based in Arthur Street in central Belfast, Onecom's local team will be led by Paul Lawther, Head of Mobile Sales for NI, alongside business development managers Stuart Lunn, Mark Fraser and Darren Brown. All are enterprise communications specialists with extensive experience of the Northern Ireland market.

Onecom Sales Director Jason Waterworth said: "Onecom has achieved significant growth by investing in our people and processes, and by delivering great customer service. We are committing to Belfast for the long term, with the aim of being the largest and fastest growing independent provider of communications in Northern Ireland."

Headquartered near Fareham in Hampshire, Onecom operates from 12 regional offices throughout the UK and employs more than 400 staff.

Pictured (l-r): Onecom's local team, Stuart Lunn, Paul Lawther, Darren Brown and Mark Fraser.

The future ownership of Westcon-Comstor has been thrown into question following news that parent company, Datatec, has entered into a transaction which could result in the sale of the value-added distributor.

Based in South Africa, Datatec operates across three core divisions, controlling technology distribution through Westcon Group, integration and managed services through Logicalis and consulting and research through Analysys Mason.

After issuing a cautionary statement to advise shareholders of a potential acquisition deal, rumours are circulating that the $6.5bn company is preparing to sell its distribution division.

"Shareholders are advised that Datatec has entered into negotiations in relation to a transaction by the Company, which, if successfully concluded, may have a material effect on the price of the Company's shares," a Datatec statement read.

HQ'd in the US, the distributor derives 90% of its revenue from a pool of 15 global vendor partners across 60 countries, with 42% of overall sales coming through Cisco.

Unit sales of printer hardware through the channel across Western Europe continue to contract, down by -2% year-on-year in Q4 2016, mainly driven by decline in sales of laser hardware, according to data published by researcher Context.

There was a mixed pattern in individual countries: over the quarter, Spain, Germany and Italy registered a slight decline in sales of printer hardware: -2% year-on-year. Sales in Spain fell due to particularly strong performance in the same quarter last year, and a delay in investments driven by uncertainty as a result of a period with no government in place. French distributors also registered declining sales - of -9% - driven by weak performance of multifunction devices

While distributors' sales of inkjet multifunction printers (MFPs) were flat for the quarter, those of laser hardware fell by -6%: sales of laser MFPs declined by -5% and laser SFPs saw sales drop by -7% - although this is an improvement on the double-digit declines last year. The shift from mono and single-function devices to colour and multifunction continues.

"Printer hardware distribution sales contracted across all major Western European countries except the UK in Q4 2016", said Zivile Brazdziunaite, Imaging Market Analyst at Context. "Multifunction laser and inkjet devices accounted for positive performance in the Retail and Corporate Reseller channels. In the UK, a shift towards higher-end devices, with enhanced functionalities led to an average selling price increase."

The negative performance of laser hardware over the quarter affected most vendors, except for Lexmark, Kyocera and Ricoh. Distribution of low-end laser SFPs to the Retail channel accounted for increases in Lexmark and Ricoh sales of +3% and +10% respectively in Q4 2016, while Kyocera registered a strong increase in sales to the Corporate Reseller channel.

Over the quarter, HP continued to lead the market with a share of 34%, followed by Brother and Samsung with 19% and 15% respectively.

Avnet's Q2 results need careful analysis as they include the acquired Premier Farnell business in Europe and have to allow for the pending transfer of Avnet TS to Tech Data this year.

Avnet began reporting the TS business as a discontinued operation in the first quarter of fiscal 2017 and prior periods have been adjusted for comparability.

It was further complicated by changes in the embedded solutions where it says reported revenue of $4.3bn was approximately $75m below the midpoint of our guidance as a result of the decision to reclassify $92m of embedded computing solutions revenue to discontinued operations. 

The core Avnet business in Europe rose and margins increased.

Gerry Fay President of Electronics Marketing, says they saw growth in automotive and industrial automation, particularly in the German marketplace and then medical and renewable energy markets were strong for us also.

"I think if you think about gross margins, the team continues to do a very nice job of managing their business, given the realities today of supplier consolidation and things like that. So again, our European team continues to be strong and our book to bill is supporting that. So I look for continued growth out of our European region going forward."

Sweden-listed Cognosec is set to acquire A-tek Distribution, which offers cyber security solutions, products and services via digital distribution using portal technologies.

The acquisition is in line with Cognosec's strategy to expand business areas to cover the sale and distribution of software technologies over the Internet.

The deal is expected to close in Q1, 2017 subject to legal, financial and technology due diligence exercises.

UK-based A-tek Distribution was founded in 2009.