Category: News

Partnership revenue slips

Posted on July 6, 2020 by - News

Channel leaders attribute only 17 percent of their revenue to collaboration and partnerships with other channel companies, compared to 25 pe cent in 2017, according to new research.

Channel services provider, Agilitas, has released its ‘Connect to Collaborate’ guide, which is the second in the company’s series of ‘How-to’ reports. The reports are a central part of Agilitas’ channel insight campaign, ‘Connect – Voice of the Channel’, which was launched back in 2019.

The guide is based on the results of research commissioned by Agilitas, surveying leading channel decision-makers about their predictions for the future of the industry and the role that collaboration will play in this.

The most popular reasons given for partnering with other companies were that collaboration is more cost effective and speed/efficiency . Other reasons included keeping up with regulation, and meeting customer demand.

Agilitas CEO Shaun Lynn said: “It has always been clear that collaboration is one of the ways that our industry differs – and stands out – from others, and the COVID-19 crisis has illustrated this more clearly than ever. Collaboration is inherent in the nature of our industry; even the way we refer to other companies as ‘partners’, and our relationships, or ‘partnerships’ with them, shows how collaborative the channel is.

Dell manages to get distributors sentenced to jail

Posted on July 6, 2020 by - News

A group of Lebanese IT distributors have been jailed for the crime of hacking off the might tin box shifter Dell and breaching an anti-lawsuit order.

Maher Chahlawi, Marwan Junior Chahlawi, Pierra Chalhoub, and Sarah Bibi were all sentenced in their absence.  Dell secured a judgment from the UK’s High Court in April committing four current and former directors of Systems Equipment Telecommunication Services SAL (SETS) to prison, having spent in excess of £225,000 on the case.

SETS was an authorised, non-exclusive Dell distributor between 2004 and 2017 until the contract was terminated. Dell claimed SETS broke the contract; SETS said Dell wrongfully terminated the contract and sued in Lebanese courts.

Citing an “exclusive jurisdiction” clause in the contract, Dell filed an anti-lawsuit case in London’s High Court. As Mr Justice Henshaw put it in a previous judgment, “SETS nonetheless continued to pursue the Lebanese proceedings, and indeed commenced a second set of proceedings” against Dell in mid-2018.

Dell hit back, securing an anti-lawsuit injunction from the High Court which should have prevented SETS from suing it anywhere at all over the end of the contract. 

Heficed teams up with IPinfo.io

Posted on July 3, 2020 by - News

Network infrastructure services provider Heficed has struck a deal with IP data providers IPinfo.io to provide Heficed’s IP Address Market access to enhanced IP address information, letting it grow a web infrastructure ecosystem that can ensure IP address accuracy surpasses current standards and increases industry transparency.

The pair  expect keen interest from their clients. IPinfo.io, which specialises in providing enhanced IP Address data, will be able to offer its clients access to a large pool of IPv4 addresses via Heficed, as an extension to the standard set of data services .

IPinfo CEO Ben Dowling said: “Companies should be able to easily lease unused IPv4 addresses to other businesses that face IPv4 shortages, and the IP Address Market is a great and easy to use solution. To this end, we’re joining forces with Heficed in order to provide reliable and accurate IP data, and facilitate the IPv4 leasing process.”

John Lewis to close shops and transfer IT staff to Wipro

Posted on July 3, 2020 by - News

John Lewis Partnership has teamed up with Indian tech giant Wipro that will see the outsourcer providing infrastructure services to the British retailer to help it expand its digital presence while also supporting its future business strategy in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.

As part of the deal, Wipro will deliver tech infrastructure services including cloud hosting, end user compute, networks, and an internal help desk to serve the retailer’s 80,000 staff members.

John Lewis said outsourcing the management of its IT infrastructure to Indian firm will ensure that it will “always have access to up-to-date technologies and specialist expertise”.

Mike Sackman, Chief Information Officer at the John Lewis Partnership said: consumer behaviour was changing and in a post COVID-19 world the company needed to be more agile, adapting more quickly to change.

Big Data will see big investments

Posted on July 3, 2020 by - News

Frost & Sullivan predicts that the global Big Data Analytics (BDA) market is estimated to witness double-digit growth in the post-pandemic COVID-19 era.

In its report, Post-pandemic Growth Opportunity Analysis of the Big Data Analytics Market, Frost & Sullivan said that that if COVID-19  is contained by August 2020 and that global markets will be able to recover by the end of the year, the market is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.9 percent, reaching $68.09 billion by 2025 from $14.85 billion in 2019, the report said.

Under the conservative forecast, the market is likely to reach $41.84 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 18.8 percent. Depending on the development and availability of a vaccine, the conservative forecast includes a market slowdown and recovery period of 18 to 24 months.

Deviki Gupta, Information & Communication Technologies Senior Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, said: “Considering the benefits of BDA solutions in both the government and intelligence (G&I) and non-governmental organization (NGO) sectors, there will be an increase in demand for analytics as it has promising features, such as mitigating risk in business planning, improving operations, and better serving customer needs.”  

Tech Data will invest $750 million in digital transformation

Posted on July 2, 2020 by - News

With Tech Data’s acquisition by funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management now complete, the outfit announced it will invest approximately $750 million in digital transformation initiatives over the next five years.

The company said cash will “power Tech Data’s strategy to accelerate innovation in ways that will deliver improved experiences and greater agility for businesses across the technology ecosystem”.

Tech Data chief executive officer Rich Hume said: “We continue to execute on our strategy to transform our company into one that defines a new standard of operational and cultural excellence in our industry. We believe Apollo will be an invaluable partner in helping us better enable our channel partners to bring to market the technology products and solutions the world needs to connect, grow and advance.”

Damage to network infrastructure causes big chunk of outages

Posted on July 2, 2020 by - News

Nearly half of senior IT decision-makers globally say that more than quarter of the outages their organisations have suffered over the past two years have been caused by changes to the network infrastructure.

A recent survey of 500 global IT decision makers commissioned by Opengear  entitled ‘Measuring the True Cost of Network Outages,’ found that 44 per centof survey respondents said they were ‘increasing the level of automation across the network’ to drive up network resilience within their organisation and combat these outages.

In addition, nearly 60 percent of the overall survey sample said their organisation had introduced a NetOps automation approach across its network operations. Significantly, 89 percent said that it had made that network more reliable, while just a percent overall said it had become less reliable speaking of the high-reward, low-risk nature of the approach.

SonicWall appoints Bateup to run Ireland operation

Posted on July 2, 2020 by - News

SonicWall announced it had appointed Tristan Bateup as country manager for Ireland.

Bateup has over a decade of experience in the cybersecurity industry, including five years managing SonicWall’s partner business at long-time distributor Exertis. From there, he joined SonicWall, where he served as strategic account manager for the UK and Ireland until his recent appointment in February 2020.

Will Benton, Regional Director, Northern Europe at SonicWall, said: “Bateup’s experience and skills have already proved invaluable in establishing our presence in Ireland since his appointment. SonicWall places great importance in its partner relationships, and Tristan’s strong experience on both sides of the relationship contributes to bringing us even closer to our partner network in Ireland.”

Exclusive Networks holds virtual event

Posted on July 1, 2020 by - News

Exclusive Networks will hold its first ever week-long virtual event, the Exclusive Networks Festival, from 6-10 July.

Following last year’s Exclusive Networks Summit, it’s claimed the festival will provide partners with the latest industry insights, spotlights on Exclusive Networks vendors and some entertainmen.

Each day of the festival will include online seminars from Exclusive Networks leaders and collaborators. Exclusive Networks’ Regional Director, UK&I, Graham Jones will launch the festivities with a discussion on turning 2020 into a success by making the most of the opportunities that present themselves and working together to reach even greater heights in 2021.

Jones said: “Exclusive Networks is committed to enabling all of our partners to stay more than one step ahead of the curve. I’m particularly looking forward to exploring how partners can harness the latest trends and behaviours and successfully up-sell into existing accounts. I really believe we can all use these insights to make the most of the opportunities ahead of us in 2020 and beyond.”

Radius Payment Solutions launches Radius Connect

Posted on July 1, 2020 by - News

Radius Payment Solutions has launched Radius Connect, a converged technology, mobile and fixed line telecommunications provider to work with businesses across the UK on how they implement, connect and manage their operations.

The new business brings together three acquisitions and provides customers with access to multiple telecommunications providers, mobile networks and technology solutions, as well as independent consulting services and implementation support.

The consolidated Radius Connect will have a subscriber base of over 70,000 customers across mobile and fixed line services. The company says it can provide services based on solutions from industry-leading technology providers like Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Avaya and 8×8, as well as services from BT, EE, Gamma, O2, and Vodafone.

80 percent of customers prefer vendors that provide training and education

Posted on July 1, 2020 by - News

Vendors are being called upon to provide greater education and training to resellers and distributors, new research from Kaspersky has shown.

The research said that delivering better education and training to partners should not be underestimated by vendors – qualified by the fact that 86 percent of resellers and distributors say it is important they receive guidance from the vendors on the products they are selling.

The survey, undertaken with 150 UK resellers and distributors within the channel, also highlighted that 79 percent of resellers and distributors said they prefer to work with vendors that provide education and training. Over a quarter (28 percent) said the traits they most want to see in vendors is education and training on their technology solutions, as well as the tailoring of solutions and products for clients’ specific business needs.

IP telephony and UCaaS markets grind to a halt

Posted on June 30, 2020 by - News

European hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and Unified Communications-as-a-Service (UCaaS) market will experience slower-than-anticipated growth in terms of both users and revenue in 2020 and 2021 due to churn in the installed base and reduced new user acquisitions, according to a report penned by Frost & Sullivan.

The report with the catchy title Growth Opportunities in the European Hosted IP Telephony and UCaaS Market, Forecast to 2026, finds that the market will bounce back in 2022 and maintain a steady trajectory until 2026. The market is estimated to double in terms of provider revenue from 2019 to 2026, with installed users reaching 76.3 million by the end of the forecast period.

Avant scores Avaya Cloud Office across Europe

Posted on June 30, 2020 by - News

Avant is a new “master” agent for Avaya Cloud Office across Europe.  The product was initially offered in the United Kingdom before the solution is rolled out across the continent and comes after the Avant channel began offering stuff in the United States.

Avaya Cloud Office was created through the strategic partnership with RingCentral and provides communications and collaboration capabilities across multiple channels to meet the unique needs of customers across the globe.

UK government departments still go Zoom

Posted on June 29, 2020 by - News

Major government departments have bought more than 700 Zoom video conferencing licences during the COVID-19 outbreak and 41,300 new laptops, tablet computers and mobile phones to help staff operate remotely.

Government and parliament were told by the intelligence agencies two months ago not to use the videoconferencing service Zoom for confidential business, due to fears it could be vulnerable to Chinese surveillance.

The quiet warnings to limit the technology came after the cabinet had used Zoom to hold a well-publicised meeting at the end of March, a decision that was defended at the time as necessary in “unprecedented circumstances”.