NGINX announces new partner network

Posted on October 19, 2018 by - News

NGINX has announced a new partner programme that expands on its offerings and is inspired by a more open saucy vision.

NGINX VP Sales Mary Jane (MJ) Shutte said:  “Our new NGINX Partner Network offers membership to anyone who wants to be part of the ecosystem, whether or not their business involves selling NGINX technologies. It offers members the ability to engage how they need to when they need to, and doesn’t limit them by tiers and categories.”

She said that public cloud and SaaS adoption have changed the way that solution providers engage with customers, creating space for new types of businesses and go-to-market strategies in the partner landscape. Partners are responding with updated and diversified business models, including shifting business investments towards professional and managed services, developing their custom systems or IP, and targeting new buyers outside of the IT organisation, she said.

Shutte said that where traditionally vendors have offered siloed programs to partners based on industry category or business model, the NGINX programme identifies ways partners look to engage with the company, and then allows members to mix and match as best suits their business. In this way, the programme can accommodate partners interested in:

  • Creating integrations and certifying interoperability with their platforms
  • Developing modules that extend NGINX products with advanced capabilities
  • Offering NGINX products as part of a portfolio of technology solutions and services
  • Building custom solutions with NGINX products embedded
  • Growing a technology consulting practice as a recognised NGINX associate

The NGINX Partner Network framework encapsulates its existing programs, bringing them additional resources and providing a commitment to their ongoing development and support. The new programme also makes room for resellers, solution providers, MSPs, consultants, and others who want to market and sell NGINX technologies.

“As NGINX continues its global expansion, we are opening up new routes to market and relying increasingly on our partner community to help us provide a world-class experience to our customers in key markets”, said Shutte.

“Partners that sell and recommend NGINX technologies are going to be an important component of our go-to-market strategy moving forward, and we’re looking to grow the size of that partner community in 2019 aggressively.”

 

ContactEngine becomes Microsoft Co-Sell partner

Posted on October 18, 2018 by - News

Microsoft campusTalking AI outfit ContactEngine has been awared ‘Co-Sell Partner’ status as part of the Microsoft for Startups London ScaleUp programme for high-growth technology companies. ContactEngine joins an group selected for comprehensive sales and marketing support and go-to-market initiatives.

ContactEngine’s automated conversation management platform integrates into Microsoft Dynamics to provide an AI-powered ‘voice’ to engage customers across all conversational channels and across all industries.

While traditional CRMs require human agents to engage customers, ContactEngine integrates to automate outbound customer engagement and subsequent transactions, replicating human behaviour through machine learning and natural language understanding. The ContactEngine Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform is hosted on the Microsoft Azure cloud, which allows for on-demand global scalability and best-in-class security.

Dr Mark K. Smith, CEO of ContactEngine, said: “ContactEngine shares Microsoft’s objective to optimise organisational outcomes through enhanced customer engagement. We’re pleased to support Microsoft by integrating into their Dynamics Engagement platform to talk to our clients’ customers with intent driven, AI-powered conversations – improving customer experience, and ensuring crucial moments such as sales, deliveries and appointments are executed with precision and minimal effort.”

Warwick Hill, Managing Director of Microsoft for Startups, Western Europe, said: “There is a very strong synergy between Microsoft Dynamics and ContactEngine’s automated conversations and customer engagement capabilities. We are pleased to be able to integrate the full power of ContactEngine, into Microsoft’s solutions through Azure.”

Synergy… it’s like energy…

Softcat makes more than a billion

Posted on October 18, 2018 by - News

Softcat has broken through the £1 billion mark and CEO Graeme Watt said it was all due to “exceptionally good market conditions”.

Revenues shot up 30 percent to £1.082 billion in its year ended 31 July 2018 and net profit increased 37 percent to £55 million.

Watt added that Softcat’s new apprentice and graduate recruits had won hundreds of new customers during the year, and signalled Softcat maintains a “strong appetite” for recruiting new talent. It hired ten percent more staff this year and opened a new Dublin office. It took on 4.7 percent more customers too.

Softcat has now delivered 52 consecutive quarters of top and bottom-line growth, and Watt said he was “particularly pleased” that a wide spread of its vendors that were hiring.

“We grew revenue for fourteen of our top twenty vendors at over 20 per cent and our top twenty vendors made up a healthy 66 per cent of total sales. All of our regional offices delivered double-digit growth in gross profit, as did each of our customer segments. We are not overly reliant on any customer or vendor,” he said.

Watt added that the adoption of technology change continues to gather pace, as customers take the opportunity to embrace the benefits of digital transformation.

“In 2018 we saw customers from all sectors invest and this is reflected in our customer metrics. Both revenue and gross profit per customer increased significantly, as we benefited from a strong market and the increasing trust placed in us by our clients.”

 

Beta Distribution calls in administrators

Posted on October 18, 2018 by - News

Troubled Beta Distribution has gone into administration.

Deloitte has confirmed that Clare Boardman and Richard Hawes, restructuring partners at the company, have been appointed as joint administrators of the £180 million revenue outfit.

Boardman said that Beta had been experiencing increasing competition in the consumables market and this has placed it under a degree of liquidity pressure.

“It is a large importer of products from Europe and has, amongst other pressures, experienced issues with foreign exchange rates. Despite interest from a number of parties, no sale of the overall business was achieved and the directors took the decision to place the business into an insolvency process”, she said.

For its financial year ending 31 March 2017, London-based Beta saw turnover of £186 million and net profit of £950,000, but last month extended its current accounting period.

This is the third big distribution bankruptcy in as many years following the collapse of Steljes in 2016 and Entatech in 2017. In fact Entatech was nearly bought by Beta at one point.

Deloitte stressed that the outfit’s Belgian arm, Beta Distribution BV, is not subject to any insolvency process and continues to trade, .

 

Schneider offers resellers route to manage data centres

Posted on October 17, 2018 by - News

Barcelona last week

Schneider Electric is offering a service to solution providers to offer a cloud management system to offer complex networks, edge facilities and distributed IT to their customers.

Launched at the Canalys Channel Forum in Barcelona last week, the company said it allows partners to make more money and offer their customers a way of monitoring infrastructures using what it claims is the first cloud based data centre management system, which Schenider describes as DmaaS – direct management as a service.

The system, called EcoStruxure IT Export for partners, can be sold to customers as a way of managing hybrid computer systems including data centres and private clouds. It uses predictive analytics to monitor systems.

The approach is vendor neutral and lets Schneider partners offer monitoring of power and cooling, letting them pitch end users visibility into their own infrastructures and monitor inventory, alarms and recommendations.

Home fixed wireless broadband emerging as early 5G use case

Posted on October 17, 2018 by - News

Operators racing to beat their competitors to 5G mobile services are using residential fixed wireless access (FWA) service to demonstrate leadership and boost their 5G street cred, according to a GlobalData report.

The company’s latest report: ‘5G Fixed Wireless – An Early 5G Use Case’ states that 5G FWA offers higher bandwidth than previous generations of fixed wireless, theoretically at lower costs once sufficient scale is reached. This in turn offers the ability to offer data speeds comparable to fiber in markets where deploying fiber is deemed too expensive.

Ed Gubbins, Mobile Infrastructure Senior Analyst at GlobalData, said: “Fixed-mobile integrated operators have shown particular interest in 5G FWA because it serves dual functions of enabling last-mile connectivity and providing a stepping stone to future mobile 5G. Fixed service providers have also shown interest in 5G.”

However, the technology has challenges, including in the spectrum bands envisioned for fixed wireless. According to Gubbins, “there has been particular interest in using millimeter wave (mmWave) spectrum for 5G, because of its high capacity and throughput potential. However, mmWave faces signal retention issues and limited propagation. These challenges are much more manageable at lower band sub-6 GHz spectrum; however, for fixed wireless, these bands are more likely to be used in rural areas”.

In addition to technical challenges, there is also an open question whether fixed wireless will ultimately become a widespread 5G use case. Gubbins concludes, “operators with existing fibre infrastructure, but which face difficulties in the high cost of last-mile delivery, are currently the most likely to benefit from 5G FWA to deliver last-mile services, but a successful 5G portfolio will need to include multiple services beyond fixed wireless to generate ROI. Vendors should address operator concerns about cost and longevity more directly, and with clearer timelines.”

Tollring spruces up analytics suite for BroadSoft Partners

Posted on October 17, 2018 by - News

Tollring has been showing off its new analytics suite to BroadSoft partners which includes speech analytics, business performance reporting and dashboards based on SLAs and enhanced customer interaction reporting,and an enhanced service provider management portal.

The outfit claims that the changes will bring in a new level of billing capability, offering enhanced analytics on customers and resellers, and auto-provisioning, capacity planning and product visibility.

Tony Martino, CEO of Tollring says, “We are continually strengthening our team and the evolving our analytics products and services.  Every year, we look forward to showcasing our latest enhancements at BroadSoft Connections and this year is no exception.  iCall Suite is proven in tier 1 and 2 service providers, built in the cloud, highly demonstrable and scalable, facilitates industry compliance, offers multi-language support for global rollouts and can be embedded in a service provider proposition as a fully white-label offering.  Our compelling value proposition to BroadSoft service providers has never been stronger and it continually evolves.”

 

Resellers moving to the cloud

Posted on October 17, 2018 by - News

Increasing demand for Cloud-based services has seen a further four resellers join Advanced’s partner programme TruePartner, since its launch in February this year.

Minerva UK, Deans Computer Services, HBP and BME Solutions have all demonstrated their commitment to helping SME customers transition to the Cloud.

Rewarding resellers for their Cloud-first strategy, TruePartner claims to provide “disruptive yet focused” Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions the channel can use to engage new customers.

Dean McGlone, Channel Director at Advanced, said: “Resellers are starting to see the breadth of opportunities the Cloud can deliver, and this is exemplified by the four new partners that have joined our TruePartner programme. We’ve found that an overwhelming number of SMEs across the country want to embrace the Cloud, but many lack the knowledge and experience to make the transition confidently. In fact, according to our research, just 33 per cent admit to being experienced in the Cloud.

“As part of TruePartner, each reseller is supported in delivering genuine Cloud solutions to their customers, while harnessing the benefits of a Cloud subscription service, from recurring revenue to client retention and acquisition. We’re continuing to see a need for Financial Management Solutions (FMS), but SMEs are increasingly demanding Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), which can be delivered with our Business Cloud Essentials solution.”

Advanced said n the SME community is “vocal” about the need for better support when it comes to transitioning to the Cloud. Advanced claims that a massive 88 percent of business leaders think Cloud providers need to do more to build confidence in the Cloud.

Jo Dixon, Managing Director at HBP, said: “We recognise that moving to the Cloud is not only right for our customers, but it also’s right for us and we’re looking to adapt quickly. Advanced is fully supporting the traditional reseller channel in its transformation to adopt the Cloud, proving to be the right partner for us.”

Patrick Clayton, Managing Director at Deans Computer Services PLC, stated “There’s a growing pace of shift to the Cloud, based on the huge benefits to end users. Our new partnership with Advanced gives us the opportunity to support businesses with their transformation, giving them a fully integrated, true Cloud ERP solution with all the advantages that offers.”

John Chadwick, Managing Director at Minerva, said:  “Minerva has been in business for 35 years. Over that period, we have cultivated a portfolio of “best of breed” applications which were designed primarily for on-premise situations and we have serviced that requirement from both our Applications software and our Networking teams.

The market is moving, be it conservatively, towards Cloud alternatives and we have been searching for some time for a suitable Cloud partnership. We are confident Business Cloud Essentials now fills that void, and we intend to embrace the opportunity.”

Ruckus provides finance for partners

Posted on October 16, 2018 by - News

Ruckus Networks has released details of its new Financial Services programme.

This programme is designed to help customers future-proof their Wi-Fi connectivity solutions by enabling investments in the latest networking technology through multiple financing options including leasing, zero per cent interest, and subscriptions. The new services allow Ruckus to provide technology solutions and total cost of ownership benefits that align with their customers’ and partners’ top financial metrics and business priorities.

Customers and partners seek ways to ease their upfront capital expenditure (CAPEX) yet remain competitive through new technology investments while increasing their bottom line. Ruckus created its Financial Services programme to address this need by helping customers and partners acquire the latest networking hardware, software and professional services with minimal upfront capital investment. After testing the programme earlier this year, it is now available worldwide.

UDT Sales Manager, Brian Smith said that his outfit had used Ruckus Financial Services to help fund a Large Public Venue project for our customer.

“With upfront and flexible funding, the Ruckus solution aligned with our budgetary, operational, and revenue generation objectives.”

Ruckus Financial Services recipients get a turnkey finance solution for all hard and soft costs, not just hardware components. This gives customers and partners the ability to keep existing bank funding lines intact, diversify their funding base and free up working capital for core business goals. For Ruckus partners, these expanded offerings also mean faster payment and more sales possibilities for their customer channels.

“We’re always looking for ways to simplify the buying process and ensure a seamless business transaction,” said Bart Giordano, Vice President of Worldwide Sales, Ruckus Networks. “By providing Ruckus technology total cost of ownership benefits with flexible financial solutions, we can help our customers and partners meet and exceed their financial and business goals.”

VAD Progress appoints Simon Burgess UK MD

Posted on October 16, 2018 by - News

Cybersecurity VAD Progress Distribution has appointed a new UK MD, with founder so that  its CEO John Quinn (pictured) can turn his attention to the outfit’s European expansion.

Quinn has now made Simon Burgess UK MD so he can focus more on expansion into Germany. He said Germany was a different market from the UK but vendors want the company to do well there.

“We are being backed by several of our vendors to increase market share in Germany, so I am going to make sure that I am spending more time there, and also more time in the Nordics, to spearhead Europe,” Quinn said.

Quinn said that expansions into other parts of Europe are not likely to happen until at least the second half of 2019, but he has already picked out where Progress will likely go next – with the Netherlands the likely location.

He said that this year the business has grown by 330 per cent.

 

Agilitas sees giant increase in turnover

Posted on October 16, 2018 by - News

Nottingham based channel services provider, Agilitas IT Solutions, has announced a 23 per cent year-on-year increase in turnover, thanks to a number of new business wins and a refined channel and customer-centric business strategy.

Agilitas’ unprecedented growth in the last year has seen its overall turnover reach £9.5 million in FY18, generating an EBITDA consolidated group profit of £2 million. This represents growth of 53 per cent when compared to the FY17 financial year results. Furthermore, with an EBITDA percentage return against turnover of 20 per cent, Agilitas’ growth compares favourably to its peers, as it leads the way in delivering both UK and global, outcome-based IT solutions for its channel partners.

This exceptional growth has been the result of Agilitas delivering its services to an increasing number of UK and worldwide channel businesses. As a result, Agilitas now trades in over 60 countries worldwide, with this number increasing by 80 per cent in the past 12 months.

One example of how Agilitas’ enhanced service proposition is proving popular with channel partner customers is its partnership with IBM UK. The collaboration has helped the Nottingham-based services provider consolidate its position as a leader of channel services in the UK and global market. In a first-of-its-kind agreement, IBM is delivering a tailored, vendor agnostic, on-site and remote engineering solution, enabling Agilitas to provide an end-to-end inventory and engineering solution to its channel partners.

Internally, Agilitas’ current ‘Channel in 2020’ campaign has helped stimulate overall business growth, securing a number of significant qualified opportunities to date. The insights obtained from its two-year-long campaign have helped Agilitas to consolidate its services offering, positioning it as a channel thought leader, while simultaneously empowering channel partners with new information that helps them shape their own services strategy whilst streamlining operations.

“Agilitas is continuously delivering fantastic year-on-year results, which is a reflection of the team’s great performance and continued commitment; we are confident we can continue this upwards momentum in FY19,” comments Agilitas’ CEO, Shaun Lynn. “This growth is the result of Agilitas delivering world-class services’ solutions for customers on both a UK and global scale.  Our ever-expanding services portfolio is making our proposition increasingly attractive to more and more channel businesses who are looking to remain relevant to their end user customers by delivering ‘best-of-breed’ solutions.”

Fiscal teams up with Moore Stephens in fraud war

Posted on October 15, 2018 by - News

Forensic financial solutions and services outfit Fiscal Technologies announced a new strategic partnership with accounting consultant Moore Stephens, a Top 10 accounting and advisory network, to strengthen risk reduction and fraud prevention in the P2P process.

This new partnership will enable organisations across the globe to take advantage of the combined products and services, designed to monitor and prevent unnecessary organisational spend, it is said.

Procurement fraud is a very real and constant threat and finance professionals face a constant challenge in managing supplier spend and identifying erroneous payments. Increasing complexity, outsourcing and new markets can all increase fraud exposure. By taking a proactive and continuous approach to identifying fraud, organisations can increase control and thereby protect against reputational damage, whatever that is.

Head of Strategic Alliances and Channel at FISCAL Technologies Colin Rigby said the announcement allows organisations to take their fraud control to the next level.

“This exciting new partnership will empower clients to increase control of their supplier spend, improve spend visibility and take a more proactive stance in protecting working capital by identifying and challenging erroneous payments before they happen. The combination of Moore Stephens’ network resources and capabilities and the power of FISCAL Technologies forensic software creates a compelling market offering. We look forward to working together to help organisations of all types improve risk and fraud prevention.”

Exciting indeed.

“We’re thrilled to be working with FISCAL Technologies”, said Robert Noye-Allen, Partner at Moore Stephens. “Over the last few years there has been an increasing drive towards continually enhancing financial process efficiency, but fraud prevention must always be a constant concern. Our partnership with FISCAL enables us to provide our clients with an effective tool for protecting supplier spend and defending against fraud, on a continuous, preventative basis.”

Thrilling.

Roc Technologies sweeps up some Esteem

Posted on October 15, 2018 by - News

Services outfit Roc Technologies has written a cheque for managed services provider Esteem Systems.

The newly combined firm is expected to hit sales of £80 million in 2019, Roc said.

Last year Roc bought City Change Management and secured a £10 million investment from the British Growth Fund.

Roc CEO Matt Franklin said Esteem’s managed services capabilities as a key factor behind the deal. When added to Roc, it creates a “strong annuity-driven business”, whatever that means.

Roc said that managed services will now make up 30 percent of the business and the combined firm will have a headcount of 350 employees and offices in Newbury, London, Wetherby and Glasgow.

Roc CEO Matt Franklin said: “I am delighted to be able to welcome Esteem Systems and our new colleagues into the Roc family. Our strategy at Roc is simple; to become the most valuable partner in our customers’ digital transformation strategy, and through that value-driven customer relationship, drive Roc’s growth and reputation in the market.

“The coming together of Roc and Esteem Systems is 100 per cent complementary in the portfolio, customers, industry focus, and geography, and I am thrilled that together we can extend new value to our joint customers and accelerate our next phase of growth through a truly differentiated customer offer.”

 

TfL wants suppliers for £70m IT tender

Posted on October 12, 2018 by - News

Transport for London (TfL) is calling for five suppliers to bid for an IT contract worth up to £70 million as its Atos and Computacenter contracts wind down.

The tender is for core ICT support and will run for an initial four years, with the potential to be extended for a further three years.

The successful supplier must provide service desk and desk-side support services, including support for customer information screens, audiovisual equipment and meeting rooms.

At the moment the primary desk support is currently delivered by Atos, while Computacenter provides desk-side support.

TfL said that “price is not the only award criterion”, emphasising the quality of service offered by the potential suppliers.

Partners have until the end of the month to apply for the tender, with invitations to tender set to be sent out at the start of December. The agreement is expected to start in January 2020.

Scott Walker takes chief marketing officer role at Unitas Global

Posted on October 12, 2018 by - News

0Enterprise cloud outfit Unitas Global named Scott Walker as chief marketing officer.

With more than two decades of experience driving sales and marketing programs for many of the industry’s leading enterprise cloud companies, Walker will serve to strengthen Unitas Global’s position in the managed cloud services marketplace. He will report directly to Patrick Shutt, CEO of Unitas Global.

Shutt said: ” “In just the last three years, Unitas Global has grown by more than 500 percent. To continue expanding our business, we need to apply a greater focus to sharing the stories of why our customers choose to partner with Unitas Global as they advance along their digital transformation journeys. Having been in the industry for more than two decades, Scott understands this better than most. He sees the value we bring to enterprises that are looking to use the cloud to gain a competitive advantage. We couldn’t be more excited to have him on board to help our business reach the next level.”

Before joining Unitas Global, Walker served in VP and director-level marketing and sales roles at companies across the cloud services sector. In his three years with Ericsson, Walker served as VP and Head of Cloud Infrastructure where he was responsible for a cloud infrastructure practice and launched the company’s composable hyperscale system and edge computing platforms to support IoT and 5G readiness for service providers. Before joining Ericsson, Walker served as VP of Indirect Channels and Alliances at Equinix, where he was responsible for significant growth and was part of the key team that launched the world’s first direct connection to public cloud capability with AWS. He’s also held senior level positions with ARCserve, AT&T Solutions, and Masergy.

Walker said: “Having been part of world-class teams throughout my career, one of the key lessons learned is that to build an effective cloud strategy requires a trusted partner who is focused on delivering financial and strategic outcomes for the customers we serve. Unitas Global is laser-focused on helping its customers leverage cloud and cloud networking solutions to gain an edge. The company has a very compelling differentiated value proposition and is committed to helping its customers navigate the complexity of today’s modern cloud infrastructure. I am ecstatic to be on a winning team that is ready to scale to new heights.”

In his new role at Unitas Global, Walker will be responsible for leading all aspects of Unitas Global’s multi-channel marketing strategy, including branding, demand generation, and sales enablement initiatives across the organisation.