Category: News

PM Cameron wants more apprenticeships

Posted on March 11, 2013 by - News

DCApprenticeships could become the “new norm” for school kids who choose not to get into debt by going to university if the Prime Minister has his way.

Clearly impressed by Donald Trump and Alan Sugar who have pushed these schemes into the limelight, David Cameron has said he now wants to see this training sitting “at the heart” of the government’s mission to rebuild the economy.

The PM will now call on the industry to make these schemes available to school leavers when he visits a training academy in Buckinghamshire.

The moves come as National Apprenticeship Week kicks off today. And it is clear Cameron wants to show he’s doing something for this, showing that his party is committed to helping teens get into work.

According to Whitehall, more than 500,000 people started an apprenticeship between 2011 and 2012.  The Centre for Economics and Business Research have also claimed that  completed apprenticeships over the next 10 years could contribute up to £3.4 billion a year to the UK economy through productivity gains by 2022.

Cameron is expected to claim that schemes such as these give school leavers the chance to learn a trade and build their careers which in turn helps boost the economy.

He will also tell MPs that they need to look at how apprenticeships can be expanded so they are available to all.

External storage up despite PC downturn

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News

hdd-hugeAlthough PC sales fell off a cliff last year, makers of external disk storage seem to have had a rather good year. According to IDC’s latest disk storage report, revenue increased 4.7 percent in 2012, with a 2.3 percent year-on-year increase in Q4.

Worldwide sales totalled $24.7 billion last year, and total disk capacity shipped during the year surpassed 20 exabytes, up 27 per cent over 2011.

“FICON attached array sales and network attached storage (NAS) both helped drive the factory revenue increase during the quarter as companies invested in storage required to support mainframe environments and to deal with the continued growth in unstructured data,” said Eric Sheppard, IDC storage research director.

The open networked disk storage market grew 2.6 percent year-on-year in Q4 to hi $5.7 billion in revenues. EMC maintained its lead with a 30.7 percent revenue share in Q4, trailed by IBM and NetApp with 15 per cent and 11.6 percent respectively. HP and Hitachi tied in fourth position with market shares of 9.3 and 8.8 percent respectively. However, HP and Hitachi were the only players in the top five to lose share in Q4 2012.

In the total worldwide disk storage systems market EMC reigned supreme with a 24 percent share, followed by IBM and HP, in a statistical tie for second spot with 16.2 and 16 percent respectively. Dell and Netapp ranked fourth and fifth.

Microsoft hands over Office 365 to resellers

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News

msMicrosoft has lived up to its pledge made last summer by making cloud suite available through Open licensing from 1 March.

Resellers can bill customers directly for Office 365 eight months after the move was unveiled to applause at the vendor’s Worldwide Partner Conference  in 2012.

This mean that Office 365 will be available to partners on Open and Open Value licensing programmes from next month.

At the moment partners have to use a referral model for reselling Office 365 and get payments for what they sell, with Microsoft controlling billing.

But the new move will mean that resellers the chance to set their own margins and bill customers. It gives them the ability to control and bundle products.

This is important in cloud offerings where resellers show up and offer a one stop shop cloud operation.

It has been a long time coming. Some resellers were expecting to see the plan enacted by the end of the year particularly after Vole launched it with such a big fanfare.  Microsoft claims that the idea has a lot of support, so it is not clear why the plan was so delayed.

However Microsoft still might sail up the nasal passages of resellers by offering a different SKU which means that some customers may still be forced to bypass the partner on billing.  This could be confusing for many customers and resellers who might think they have a product that they don’t.

Sharp moves at the blunt end of financial disaster

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News

calmaThere are some rubbing of paws in the Far East over Samsung’s odd move to invest in Sharp.

For ages the two have been rivals, so sudden moves to smoke a peace pipe is a bit like Apple and Microsoft saying that they had been mates all the time.

The move appears to mostly come from clever negotiating from Sharp which needs an alliance in flat-screen TVs and mobile phone handsets, but it also needs some cash badly.

Samsung appears happy to write a cheque for $111 million in exchange for a three per cent stake in the Osaka-based company. It is likely that it will see a return in its money by getting a stable supply channel of liquid-crystal display panels.

According to NPD DisplaySearch, Sharp has been a key supplier of 40-inch LCD panels to Samsung, shipping over 400,000 units per quarter as well as 200,000 units per quarter of 60-inch LCD panels.

A report into the deal said that Sharp started to ship 32-inch (LCD panels) to Samsung at the beginning of 2013.

This means that Samsung will be buying more than one million panels from Sharp and it does not want someone coming in and muscling in on its supply.

Samsung can concentrate on the development of the next-generation organic light-emitting diode displays (OLEDs), which it has yet to mass produce while keeping its foot in the door with a nice low-cost supply of LCD TV display panels from its new chum.

It also isolates Apple from its main panel supplier. Sharp is currently one of the top display panel suppliers for Apple as it produces displays for the iPhone at its Kameyama plant.

Sharp can’t be too choosy about where its money is coming from. It wanted to raise millions from Foxconn, last year. But the deal fell through because the companies could not agree on the stock price and because Foxconn wanted to tell Sharp what to do.

Even after the deal with Samsung signed, the company still needs more investment. There is talk that either Intel writing a cheque but that might stuff up Sharp’s agreement with Qualcomm to manufacture next-generation LCD panels for smartphones in return for cash investments from Qualcomm.
As it is Qualcomm is already giving Sharp a contract in return for a three per cent stake in the firm once the project is completed.

 

How the big boys killed Google and Apple’s TV

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News, Opinions

5d5ff59c-434d-11e2-989b-12313d1f5c43About a year ago you could not read anything in the tech press about how the big names were pressing into the telly industry.

Google and Apple were all outed as being likely to become big players. Their channel partners waited, after all there was some big dosh to be made in joint operations, and suddenly there was nothing.

Google pulled off a big “oh look a badger” and started talking about Google Glass while Apple instructed its Tame Apple Press to start writing meaningless pieces about watches instead.
So what happened to the television being the cure for Apple and Google’s woes?

According to Forbes it was some dark satanic practices being carried out behind closed doors in the Far East.

But in the old days control the TV meant you might also control other household functions, like remote control of the air conditioning. Microsoft was early into TV operating systems for that reason.

Its logic is that the TV market is owned by Korean manufacturers and in particular Samsung, and by LG and they are making their plans grander by the minute.

LG recently bought WebOs from HP, specifically for use in smart TVs while Samsung already has a smart TV project that has sucked up developers of iOS, Windows and Android.

For Apple and Google to get into this market they have to do something pretty sexy in a channel where they are an innocent Shirley Temple doing a rounding redition of “good ship lollypop” before a convent of Nuns.

Apple looked at the competition, saw how good it was, and thought “Nah lets stick to making toys.” Google on the otherhand has been a bit more shifty.

The Web OS purchase was bad news for Google TV, but it exposed the extent of Google’s plans. In the beginning the company courted a number of big TV manufacturers for Google TV, with the idea of having the system embedded in a wide variety of TV sets.

It spoke to Sony, which was one of the first to make Google TVs, LG came on board for the second generation, and Samsung seemed to be ready to go Google as well by early 2012.

However a year afterwards Samsung’s Google TV never materialised and Sony stopped selling and now, LG is buying its own smart TV operating system. This means that Google is stuck to a companion box and is snookered.

So why have the big players gone all Altair’ on Google? It appears that it might not be Google, but the operating system that it runs on which has the big Asian names miffed.

For a while now there has been muttering that Android has become too powerful. The moaning has not just come from the Chinese Government, which is looking to build its own Red Friendly operating system, but Google’s partners too.

Some of that was Google’s fault, in buying Motorola, but there are some other reasons too. The first is that many are terrified of returning to a situation where one operating system has control over the market. Although Android is Open Source it still operates at the will of Google.

What is starting to look possible is that Samsung could use Tizen and LG will use Web OS.
The interesting point here that recently Intel revealed its TV plans. It is coming in late, and really few people will care, but it looks like it means that it will not only have to do it without Samsung or LG. True it could run its TV on WebOs or Tizen but that is not normally its style. It probably thought it could come in with Android and everything would be home and hosed. Only it wasn’t.

Argos to take on Asda, Tesco in contract phone space

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - Gossip, News

argos-logoArgos is planning to launch a contract phone offer and go toe to toe with Tesco Mobile and Asda Mobile. The retail giant will trial its service by offering online contract deals and phones in more than 200 stores across the UK starting in April. If all goes well, a second trial of SIM-only phones will also launch, reports Mobile Today.

The move comes as sales of pre-paid phones continue to tumble and Argos faces more competition from Tesco Mobile, Asda Mobile, Carphone Warehouse and Phones 4u. If all goes well and contract sales prove sufficient, Argos plans to enter talks with carriers to set up its own MVNO later this year.

Argos is reportedly already hiring account managers for ‘Argos Mobile’, as that’s apparently the working name for its MVNO. Former Vodafone UK manager Ben Murr is apparently playing a major role the effort.

Analysts believe Argos could pull it off, as it already has a sizable customer base and might make inroads in the entry level and mid range market. In all likelihood, Argos will try to focus on value driven contract deals. There is room for high end gear, but Argos will probably go for the penny pinching crowd.

UK retailers to net £10 billion on cross-border sales

Posted on March 8, 2013 by - News

berlin-borderOnline sales are booming and taking their toll on brick and mortar shops, but another interesting trend is starting to emerge. Cross-border sales in Europe are expected to hit £36 billion this year. As much as 10.6 per cent of all online purchases will be cross-border affairs.

It might be a worrying trend for some, but not for British retailers, as they are the most successful in doing business across borders.

According to IMRG data, international consumers dropped as much as £7.4 billion on British online retail sites and the figure is expected to hit £10 billion in 2013. The UK online retail market is second only to the US in terms of overall value. IMRG concluded that cross-border markets are becoming increasingly attractive for UK retailers, as they offer multiple opportunities for sustained growth.

Andrew McClelland, Chief Operations & Policy Officer at IMRG, commented: “Cross-border is the future of e-commerce, and the opportunity is particularly strong for UK retailers due to the advanced state and sophistication of the market here.”

However McClelland warns that expanding internationally is a complex business and retailers need to carefully identify markets that are appropriate to them rather than just attractive in terms of value and growth. Basically, they have to do their homework.

“Research is everything when it comes to cross-border; there have been several instances of retail brands finding success by selling product ranges that they are not well-known for by consumers in the UK,” he said.

In order to facilitate cross-border growth across Europe, Trusted Shops and IMRG came up with ‘Internet Shopping is Safe (ISIS)’ schemes in 2012. Their goal is to create a standard European trustmark that supports UK retailers in their international expansion strategies.

Cisco looks on the bright side of IT life

Posted on March 7, 2013 by - News

ciscologoAlthough the economic landscape out there is not exactly encouraging, a  Cisco report has found that, while CIOs are coming to terms with reducing IT complexity and managing investments while making cuts, overall they are optimistic about tackling typical challenges.

Because of the economic difficulties, companies are trying to find a way to bolster infrastructure and networks using IT. Cisco UK&Ireland’s CTO, Ian FOddering, said in a statement that for 2013, we can expect to see “IT get back to basics”.

In its TechWatch 2013 report, Cisco believes that cost cutting is a clear aim across the board, but so is creating a useful environment where IT can support or drive innovations within business.

“Three key pillars emerge,” Foddering said. These are “Simplify,” “Protect,” and “Change & Grow,” although on our count that’s four. Getting the first two right, Foddering said, is necessary for the rest.

Cisco found that network performance and increased security threats are the major challenges businesses believe they face over the next year. Major priorities are cutting costs, improving security, and keeping the lights on or improving the IT infrastructure. Of the companies Cisco reached out to, over two thirds believe that operations will be based on the most efficient use of skillsets and resources, no matter where they’re located, and for one in seven this trend is already happening.

This too signals a trend in buying, with most companies already having deployed collaborative software and network performance management. Enterprises and SMEs are still putting cash into remote access technology first and foremost.

“Simplifying and protecting an organisation’s infrastructure can only take you so far,” Foddering said. “In order for businesses to prepare themselves for the future, they must be willing to embrace change and use it to drive, rather than inhibit, growth”.

Kelway buys Dixons’ Equanet

Posted on March 7, 2013 by - News

thenorthUK IT services provider Kelway is picking up the IT business, Equanet, from Dixons Retail.

Equanet, Kelway says, has an established presence in the North of England and the buy will help it expand its customer base. At first, Equanet will operate as its own brand within the larger group, though will trade on integrated systems.

Dixons will carry on operating the PC World Business service for small businesses.

Kelway says that Equanet is noted for its e commerce platform, which will now fit in with Kelway’s ServiceTrack offering for online order management. By combining both, Kelway hopes that it can offer a unique experience towards its customers.

Kelway will also offer its ServiceWorks cloud services to Equanet’s clients.

In a statement, Sebastian James, chief exec of Dixons Retail, said that the two complement each other “extremely well” and he expects the transaction will help “Equanet to flourish in the specialist B2B market”.

Towns look to NFC to attract high street shoppers

Posted on March 7, 2013 by - News

google-walletHigh street shops are under a lot of pressure from tech savvier e-commerce outfits, but a group of town and city managers believes they can help reverse the trend by enlisting the help of NFC technology.

It is not a case of fighting fire with fire, though.

The Association of Town and City Management (ATCM), which represents close to seven hundred shopping locations, has teamed up with NFC loyalty programme supplier MoLo Rewards. They aim to enhance the town centre offer by integrating NFC support in a more traditional setting.

The goal is to provide local, independent shops some of the same capabilities used by major retail players, allowing them to compete with internet based competitors. The programme offers establishments in town centres to better integrate their services, combine reward programmes with free parking , access to leisure centres or events.

ATCM manager Guy Douglas told NFC World that the association decided to use MoLo’s approach after the outfit made the case for NFC and elaborated its ideas.

“It just made sense to us,” he said. “A town and city centre is only vibrant and thriving if people find a reason to go there. NFC is a way of delivering an enhanced town centre offer, which can only be a good thing especially when the high street is hugely challenged by e-commerce.”

ATCM chief exec Martin Blackwell said the association will use its two decades worth of experience to enhance the high street shopping experience, with support from MoLo Rewards. He added that the association is organising meeting with mobile network operators, card issuers and retail groups in an effort to shape the adoption of NFC technology.

ATCM and MoLo believe they could bring their integrated NFC system to town and city centres later this year.

Google Play gift cards available at Tesco and Morrisons

Posted on March 7, 2013 by - News

googleplaycardsGoogle has officially introduced its Google Play gift cards in the UK and they are already on sale. That was quick, but still a bit too late for baby Jesus’ birthday. 

The cards are available at Tesco and Morrisons branches across Britain.

Although the cards should be available in three denominations of £10, £25 and £50, early reports indicate that some denominations are not available in all shops, but it is probably a minor glitch that will be worked out.

Obviously, the cards can be can be used to buy content from Google’s Play store, ranging from Android games to books and films. Sadly though, the gift cards cannot be used to buy Nexus hardware, digital subscriptions or accessories.

The cards can be redeemed by simply entering the code on the back of the card in the Google Play app, during the purchase or by entering the redemption code through your browser.

Microsoft Windows 8 OEM prices may drop in UK

Posted on March 6, 2013 by - Interviews, News, Opinions

Windows-8Despite claims that Microsoft is planning to offer discounts on Windows 8 OEM prices over in Taiwan, disties and resellers have said that they have not seen the same happening in the UK.

However, they have hinted that if the rumours are correct, there could be a knock on effect on UK sales later on in the year.

The comments come as DigiTimes reported that Microsoft would lower OEM licensing costs by offering a discount of $20 for 11.6-inch and below notebooks that are equipped with touch screens.

Sources and vendors said this was because Windows had fallen short of expectations in driving demand mainly because its notebooks and tablets were too expensive

For below 10.8-inch notebooks, tablets and hybrids, Microsoft  is said to offer the $20 discount plus free Office 2013 software, from the beginning of April, while retail prices for 11.6-inch touchscreen Windows 8 notebooks were expected to be reduced beginning June to reflect the discount.

However, a big distie who works closely with Microsoft in the UK said that it had not seen evidence of this.

“We haven’t heard of any reductions but we can confirm that these are failing to shift,” he told ChannelEye.

“I suppose if the news is coming from the Far East we can expect to see similar announcements in the next few weeks/months.

“These sources are rarely wrong and it would make sense given the way these products are failing to fly off the shelves.”

One reseller was less convinced, telling ChannelEye: “Sales are slow but I don’t think they are at a pace to send Microsoft into a price slashing frenzy just yet.

“It’s invested a lot of money in these products as well as us, its resellers, so it’s going to hold out. Of course that puts pressure on us to sell, but c’est la vie.”

Seagate revamps SSHD line-up

Posted on March 6, 2013 by - News, Products

seagate-hddSeagate recently announced that it will phase out 7200rpm laptop drives by the end of the year and now we know what it will use to replace them. The company announced its third generation solid state hybrid drives, or SSHDs, and for the first time it is bringing NAND cache to desktop drives as well.

Seagate’s venerable 7200rpm laptop drives will be replaced by two new SSHDs, in 500GB and 1TB capacities. Both feature 8GB of NAND, double the 4GB used in first and second generation Seagate Momentus XT hybrid drives. They are 7mm thick and Seagate claims the new drives are up to 40 percent faster than its previous SSHD generations. Better yet, they are up to five times as fast as 5400rpm mechanical drives.

Seagate’s vice president of marketing Scott Horn likened the new drives to adding a turbo charger to a PC and he added that the drives will come cheap, much cheaper than proper SSDs. The 500GB is priced at $79, while the 1TB variant costs $99.

However, Seagate’s decision to bring SSDH technology to mid-range desktop drives is perhaps the most interesting part of the announcement. Seagate will sell 1TB and 2TB desktop hybrid drives for $99 and $149 respectively. Although the prices sound a tad too high, 3.5-inch hybrids should have no trouble attracting plenty of takers.

They will allow OEMs to come stick them into very cheap desktops, greatly improving performance and reducing the storage bottleneck which plagues most PCs. The speed of solid state drives increases with each new generation, which is not the case with HDDs. However, SSDs are still too expensive to be used in most desktops. Decent hybrid drives with a reasonable price tag can bring the best of both worlds to boring entry level desktops and they can easily become a big selling point for vendors.

LTE smartphone shipments surge 1100% in Q4 2012

Posted on March 6, 2013 by - News, Products

LTE-logoThe smartphone market is slowly maturing and overall handset sales, including feature phones, remained flat in the fourth quarter of 2012. However, sales of LTE enabled devices skyrocketed in developed markets.

According to Strategy Analytics, shipments of 4G smartphones grew by 1100 per cent in Q4 2012.

The surge was led by Apple and Samsung, while at the same time shipments of 3G phones slowed. The trend coincides with an aggressive carrier push in Europe, including the UK.

Just a year ago, LTE connectivity was reserved for high end smartphones, but the mobile landscape is changing and even cheaper SoCs now offer integrated LTE. Qualcomm leads the way with last year’s Krait-based Snapdragon S4 chips, along with new “century series” Snapdragons coming on line right now. Apple already has LTE in current generation products, although older 4-series iPhones lack LTE support. By the end of the year Nvidia will introduce the Tegra 4i, its first SoC with integrated LTE, and Intel also plans to deliver LTE in its next generation mobile chips, coming in early 2014.

In terms of volume, smartphones are expected to overtake feature phones this year, which means plenty of mid-range LTE smartphones will find their way to consumers’ pockets. Although LTE is expected to be the fastest growing WWAN technology in history, it is still off to a slow start in many markets, including Britain. According to its last earnings report, Everything Everywhere didn’t add many 4G users since it launched its 4GEE network. However, things are picking up and other carriers will enter the market later this year, although Ofcom failed to raise plenty of cash on its 4G spectrum auction.

Highstreet sales for Feb hit three year high

Posted on March 5, 2013 by - News

highstreet South endFebruary brought with it a breath of fresh air for the high street, with figures showing sales grew at their fastest rates in years.

In its latest report, the British Retail Consortium (BRC) said dry weather last month encouraged people to venture out, with figures rising by 2.7 percent on the previous year and marking the fastest growing rate in three years.

Electrical goods were said to fuel the figures with the BRC describing these as the growth engine of the high street, with “big ticket goods and items for the home recovering particularly well”.

Despite the horse meat scandal, food grew by one percent, although frozen burger sales fell in favour of ingredients to make products from scratch.

The organisation pushed once again for changes in the upcoming Budget to ensure the high street continued to dig its way out of despair, claiming that the government had to realise that retail is central to generating growth and jobs critical to the UK’s economic recovery.

However, it pointed out that weak consumer confidence was the real and present obstacle, and as a result the Chancellor had to create a Budget that left people with “more money in their pockets and the confidence to spend it and retailers with the means to invest”.

It also reiterated that if the proposed rise in business rates went ahead then retailers would be placed under “inexorable pressure”.

The BRC figures contrasted with a recent CBI survey which reported that food stores suffered their worst performance for five years in February.

Although the BRC painted a rosier-than-usual picture, high street staple Debenhams recently issued a profit warning, claiming the bad weather in January could dent its margins.

It said that earnings would miss expectations and that underlying revenues were 10 percent lower in the affected fortnight, compared with a five percent rise over the festive period.

Revised profits for the six months to 2 March will now stand at around £120 million, against £128.5 million a year earlier and City forecasts in the £131 million area.