Author: Eva Glass

Eva Glass first rose to prominence in The INQUIRER. She continues to work behind the scenes to dig out the best stories.

Tablets continue their march forwards

Posted on February 27, 2014 by - News

cheap-tablets230 million smart connected devices – a term including smartphones, PCs and tablets – shipped in 2013 in Europe.

That’s according to a report from IDC today, which said that although growth was slightly down compared to 2012, the market continues to be one of the fastest growing IT sectors.

Tablets, particularly, will drive the sector during this year – shipments in Europe are likely to grow by 17.6 percent.  45 million units sold in Western Europe in 2013 – that’s a growth of 51.4 percent oer the previous year.  IDC thinks tablets will continue to show strong growth over the next three years.

The news is far gloomier for PCs – the market for consumer devices fell by 2.4 percent in Q4 2013. Enterprise sales, hwever, grew by 3.5 percent.

Smartphones are the undoubted king of the connected castle though. IDC said that they hogged 55 percent of the the sector, with 38 million units shipping  in Q4 2013.

Here is the breakdown of the market leaders in the sector, according to IDC.
q42013

Gridstore is the mother of channel invention

Posted on February 26, 2014 by - News

gridstoreSoftware storage company Gridstore – a vendor that specialises in stuff optimised for Hyper-V and Windows Server, said it is growing one of its partner programmes.

It is expanding its EMEA Accelerate Partner Programme. That’s given rise to rapture with Gridstore signing up NexStor Ltd – a vendor independent data systems integrator.

Its partner programme is intended to give tools, resources and experience to partners that want to sell software defined solutions (SDS).

SDS, said Andy Hill, BP of EMEA sales, will come of age this year. “It will move away from being a nebulous buzzword, becoming a reality for a great number of customers, and we are keen to ensure our partners are at the forefront of the opportunity this presents.”

Rob Townsend, who runs NexStor in the UK, said that Gridstore’s programme will let it expand in the markets it covers. “Being part of this highly network of value added resellers and service providers gives us the opportunity to leverage the myriad of assets and programmes [Gridstore] provides,” he said.

Hill said the market is worth more than £11 billion a year and that gives its channel partners room to grow.

Minty intY starts channel drive

Posted on February 26, 2014 by - News

cloud 1SaaS firm intY claimed that it has forged a “historic agreement” with the mighty Microsoft related to Office 365. SaaS stands for software as a service.

It will offer what it dubs a recurring revenue resale model to its high volume partners.  That means, said intY that its partners can resell rather than just recommend Office 365 – meaning better margins and the ability to sell more services.

Chris Baldock, the chief executive officer of intT, said its major partners had problems with the referral only model. One sticking point was Microsoft’s billing relationship that prevented complementary services being offered by the channel on one invoice.

“This agreement puts our larger channel partners firmly back in the driving seat. They become a reseller with margin and value add.”

Customer adoption, added Baldock, is pretty much reliant on channel partners for migration, support and integration.

So the firm is adding Office 365 for resale in its CASCADE mix.

Databarracks helps reseller victims

Posted on February 24, 2014 by - Events, News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeCloud service company Databarracks said it has introduced a reseller network called the deProgramme.

What does this mean?  According to Phil Gunning, channel manager at the company, channel players have been “victims of complexity. The point of any channel partnership for both parties is to reach more customers.”

He hit out at labels and jargon.

“Customers don’t care whether you’re a gold certified partner or if you’ve sat through hours of vendor training.”

His deProgramme, he claims, will eliminate red tape.

“The vast majority of channel programmes are broken. They’ve been too prescriptive without offering enough individual support or incentive for partners to thrive. Our most successful partners are the ones who work with us and take advantage of our resources to sell more and better support their customers.”

Databarracks will show off its services at Cloud Expo at the horrendous Excel conference centre, later this week.

Swivel hires reseller channel man

Posted on February 24, 2014 by - Moving People, News

truckAnup Vora has been appointed reseller channel manager by Swivel Secure.

Last year, Swivel moved to a single tier channel way of selling and the company said this appointment is its next stage in its reseller programme.

Swivel has authentication products and the company believes resellers can include its offerings as part of their enterprise portolios.

Vora said that demand for authentication in the enterprises has never been higher. “Resellers should be bundling security as standard,” he said. “Multi-factor authentication shouldn’t be overlooked.”  It’s an incremental revenue stream for resellers, he added.

Vora has had years of experience in building channels including jobs at SMS Passcode and Check Point Software.

Peripherals continue to grow

Posted on February 20, 2014 by - News

shut-up-and-take-my-moneyThere’s still room for hard copy in the human universe and the worldwide market for peripherals continued to recover in the fourth quarter of 2013.

That’s according to IDC, which said 31.7 million units shipped in Q4 2013, up two percent from the same period in 2012.

Laser devices grew 4.5 percent year on year, and three of the top five vendors created market buzz.

HP, said IDC, increased its channel support and introduced the HP Rebate programme.  Brother introduced several products and  both companies showed “solid” year on year growth.

By sector, inkjet devices remains the top tech with over 19.6 million units amounting to 62 percent of the overall shre.  Inkjet shipments fell, however, by 1.1 percent year on year for Q4 2013.

Laser shipments saw the third consecutive quarter of growth.  Monochrome peripherals represent 82.3 percent of the laser market.

But colour laser printers grew 8.4 percent amounting to over 1.9 million units in Q4 2013.

The top five vendors are HP, Canon, Epson, Brother and Samsung with market shares of 39.8 percent, 20.6 percent, 15.4 percent, 7.5 percent and 4.1 percent, respectively.

Digital content worth $57 billion plus

Posted on February 20, 2014 by - News

ukflagThe worth of digital content in 2013 amounted to $57 billion, and that’s just for seven countries surveyed.

According to market research company IHS, global spending on digital games, apps and online movies was up by 30 percent from the 2012 figure of $44 billion. It looked at markets in the UK, USA, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Russia and France.

Online movies saw growth of 21 percent in 2013, with a worth of $8 billion.  The US is the clear leader in digital content spend, but there were large gains in game app spend in Japan and South Korea.

The UK has one of the strongest online music markets, said IHS. And it’s also the leading European country for total digital content spend and spend per capita.  While there was a strong growth in game apps in 2013 in the UK, that sector didn’t exceed the spend on online music.

The USA has the widest spread of content spend and the most devices per capita across the broadest range of devices, said IHS.

Samsung expands hardware channel

Posted on February 19, 2014 by - News

Samsung rules the roostKorean giant Samsung said it will work with NAPPS  to grow its MPS and print hardware channel. NAPPS members include Adobe, Docuware, Kyocera and Xerox.

It’s the certification body for the UK document management business.

Samsung joins a number of Managed Document Services (MDS) organisations which, it says, work together to ensure good service and best practice.

According to Mark Ash, who is the UK general manager in print a Samsung UK, his company pledges to give all of its resellers good technology, tools and services.

”Giving our dealers the opportunity to join us as part of NAPPS is just another way for Samsung to strengthen our dealers’ performance,” he said. “MPS remains a key strategic growth area for us in 2014 and we will continue the significant investment programme that was started in 2013 with further increases in people, processes and technology.”

He said that Samsung is rapidly expanding its indirect channel. “New dealers are signing up on a weekly basis.”

Inflation fell in January

Posted on February 18, 2014 by - News

David CameronThe Office of National Statistics (ONS) said that inflation in the UK fell to 1.9 percent in January.

But if you measure inflation using the Retail Prices index, it rose to 2.8 percent in January from 2.7 percent in December 2012.

The ONS said that inflation fell because furniture, alcohol and tobacco prices along with recreational goods and services fell. Prime minister David Cameron (pictured) welcomed the news.

In other UK business news, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) called for an overhaul of business rates. The BRC said shops’ business rates should be based on energy use and the creation of jobs.

The BRC described the existing system as outdated and cimbersome.  The UK government plans to release a report later this year to discuss the matter.

There’s a little light at the end of the PC tunnel

Posted on February 18, 2014 by - News

IndiashareA report from IDC said that despite overall doom and gloom, there’s some pockets of the world where PC things are not that bad.

India, said IDC, showed a year on year growth of 4.8 percent for 2013, with 11.5 million units shipping.

Of course India has a population of over one billion people but it has never adopted the PC platform wholeheartedly.

The growth, said IDC, was largely due to state governments buying as part of a scheme to distribute free laptops to students.

And the enterprise segment managed 6.7 million units in 2013 – up 15.8 percent.

There are negative factors impacting the market, said IDC. Those include weak growth, slowdown in hiring people, the devaluation of the rupee and layoffs in the enterprise market.

And if you split out the consumer part of the market, that showed a year on uear decline of 7.4 percent.  The teapot in the broom cupboard are sales of smartphones and tablets.

Qualcomm beats the smartphone pack

Posted on February 14, 2014 by - News

Intel-logoStrategy Analytics said that Qualcomm grabbed 54 percent revenue share in the smartphone application processor market in 2013.

Apple had 16 percent share and MediaTek 10 percent share in a market that was worth $18 billion last year, a rise of 41 percent over 2012.

Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 and 600 chip families along with its 400 and 200 ranges gave it a strong position.  Apple’s 64 bit A7 did well in the latter half of the year.  Samsung ranked number five, followed by Spreadtrum.

Intel had a minute 0.2 percent revenue share.

However, in the tablet processor sphere, Intel did somewhat better.  Qualcomm heads the pack in the non Apple market but Apple itself has the lead overall with 37 percent share.  Samsung has 10 percent revenue share, and Qualcomm 11 percent. Strategy Analytics did not give figures for Intel.

Android still miles ahead of iOS

Posted on February 12, 2014 by - News

googleplaycardsA report said that Google’s Android operating system is the leader of the pack for smartphone operating systems.

IDC said that it had a 39 percent share of shipments in the fourth quarter of 2013, amounting to 226.1 million units and giving it a 78.1 percent market share.

Signficantly behind was the Apple iOS, shipping 51 million units and holding a 17.6 percent share.

Next came Windows Phone, with volumes of 8.8 million units and a three percent market share. It showed the largest increase for the quarter with 46.7 percent growth in the quarter.

Blackberry held 0.6 percent of the market and saw a steep decline of 77 percent compared to the same quarter in 2012.

For the whole of 2013, the Android operating system shipped 793.6 million units out of an overall market of just over a billion units.

Bank of England changes tack

Posted on February 12, 2014 by - News

Bank of EnglandThe governor of the Bank of England said that the UK recovery has “gained momentum”.

In his quarterly overview of the British economy, Mark Carney said output here is growing at its fastest rate since 2007, while jobs are growing more than since records began.

He believes that the recovery shows a revival in confidence and an ease on credit.  That, he said, meant households were spending more and saving less and there’s been a boost to the housing market.

But business investment is still subdued, although indications are that may change this year.

The Bank of England has revised its position on interest rates.  Last year, it said it wouldn’t revise interest rates until unemployment fell to seven percent.

But growth in productivity is “disappointing,” Carney said, while there is more slack in the labour market. Part time work continues to increase while half of the recent increase in jobs is because people are self employed.

But Carney warned the recovery “is neither balanced nor sustainable….If and when the time comes that the economy can sustain highter interest rates, bank rate is expected to rise only gradually”.

The Bank of England won’t raise interest rates until spare capacity has been absorbed further.  He said the rate will stay at low levels for quite some time.

ODMs see notebook sales slump

Posted on February 12, 2014 by - News

Intel-logoIt continues to be bleak news on the X86 notebook front, with several original design manufacturers (ODMs) showing sales decreases last January.

According to Digitimes, Compal shipped 2.8 million units in January, down 37.8 percent sequentally.  Meanwhile, Quanta shipped 3.6 million notebooks, a fall of 10 percent.

Wistron, which has a broader reach in the PC market, saw 1.4 million notebook units go in January. Along with sales of desktops, handhelds,, monitors, servers and the rest, Wistron fel by 19.08 percent in the month, but a more severe drop of 26.28 percent year on year.

The only bright spark on the ODM notebook front was Pegatron, which showed a rise of 3.54 percent in the month, said Digitimes.

Storage sales down in 2013

Posted on February 11, 2014 by - News

ihs_storageShipments of storage products fell by five percent last year, said market research company IHS.

However, solid state drive shipments in 2013 doubled and the reason for the decline in the whole sector is because of contractions in the hard drive and optical disk drive sectors.

Shipments of storage including SSDs, conventional hard drives and optical drives totalled 755 million units. HDDs fell by seven percent to 444.4 million units, optical drives fell by 12 percent to 253 million units while SSDs rose by 82 percent to 57 million units, said IHS. The figures do not include non PC related drives.

The convential HDD sector suffered from the increase in the popularity of smartphones and tablets.  However, the enterprise PC sector is more promising than the consumer end of the show.

SSDs are likely to rise by 50 percent during 2014, reaching 189 million units in 2017, which will be half the size of the HDD market which is expected to total 397 million in that year.