UK GDP inches up

Posted on April 29, 2014 by - News

gosborneThe Office for National Statistics (ONS) said that UK gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 0.8 percent in the first calendar quarter of this year.

That compares to a rise of 0.7 percent in the fourth quarter of 2013 and year on year equates to a rise of 3.1 percent.

The ONS counts four main segments and there were rises in services (0.9%), production (0.8%) and construction (0.3%). However there was a fall of 0.7 percent in the agricultural sector.

The UK GDP is now 0.6 percent lower than its 2008 peak – that’s before all hell broke loose with the credit crunch.

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Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said there are now foundations for a broad based recovery.  He attributes the recovery to the UK coalition’s economic strategy.

Fujitsu can’t afford channel journos

Posted on April 28, 2014 by - News

massageIt was very nice that Fujitsu Imaging Systems invited ChannelEye to attend its channel gig in Dubai on the 22nd May next.

We had to decline. We hadn’t realised FIS was short of a bob or three.

FIS tried to get ChannelEye on a flight that would go from Heathrow to Dubai overnight and a few hours on, us journalists  would have to report on its channel event.

Er, no. That is cruel and unusual punishment for any channel guy, whatever her or his age.

Fujitsu said it could only afford to put us channel hacks up in the hotel – that’s the Jumeirah Towers Hotel flying Etihad for one night.

The lovely PR rep said that the “arrangements were less than ideal”.  It would be “a case of arriving in the morning of the conference itself. However, the conference does not start until a bit later in the day, and given that you arrive quite early in the morning you would have some time to rest at the hotel before kicking off.”

He added that even PFU (Fujitsu) staff will be flying in on the morning of the conference, “from various European locations”.

We declined Fujitsu’s munificent offer. Hitachi is usually a lot kinder than Fujitsu.  Even HP is merciful.

Taiwan slows notebook shipments

Posted on April 28, 2014 by - News

notebooksThe tiny island of Taiwan accounts for 83.91 percent of global notebook shipments through original design manufacturers (ODMs).

And according to a report from Digitimes Research, all is not well on the notebook front.  The report claimed that ODMs will ship 33,476 million notebooks in Q2 of this year.

But that’s down 8.4 percent compared to the equivalent period last year.

The usual suspects remain Quanta, Compal and Wistron – and, Digitimes Research said – of those three Compal is likely to see the most growth in the second quarter.

CBI says the future is bright

Posted on April 28, 2014 by - News

katja_hallThe next quarter is full of economic promise, according to a report released by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).

The CBI’s latest growth indicator said output rose and the UK’s economic recovery is under way.

Manufacturing output stayed solid, while there was continuing growth in the retail and service sectors, said the CBI.

“The outlook for the next three months is exceptionally strong and broad based, with growth expectations the strongest since the data began in 2003,” said the CBI.

Katja Hall, the CBI policy director, said that even though “consumer” spending formed most of GDP growth in 2013, “there are firm indications of growth becoming more broad based. It’s good see that business investment has consistently contributed to quarterly growth since 2013”.

Productivity and earning will recover this year, while general growth is fuelled by rising business and consumer confidence as well as “supportive monetary conditions”, said Hall.

PC shipments in Europe “stabilise”

Posted on April 18, 2014 by - News

european-commissionA report from market research firm IDC said there are indications that shipments of PCs in the European, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) stabilised in the first quarter of this year.

21.8 million units shipped in EMEA, a decline of 1.1 percent compared to the same quarter last year.

But Western Europe showed a growth of 8.6 percent, spurred by business demand.  If that percentage is taken as a pie, commerical units showed an increase of 15.1 percent, while the retail market showed growth of 2.1 percent.

It’s the end of support for Windows XP that drove the rebound, according to Chrystelle Labesque of IDC.  And companies have started to invest in IT again, she said.  There is more business confidence.  Neverless, the overall PC market in central and eastern Europe and in the Middle East and Africa showed a year on year decline of 12 percent.

HP did well, as did Lenovo, while Dell was in third place and Acer in fourth place.  Asus took the fifth place.

White box tab vendors make gains

Posted on April 17, 2014 by - News

tesco-hudl-tabletChinese makers of tablets are adding top notch features to their offerings threatening a price war in the European and US markets.

That’s according to Taiwanese wire Digitimes, which said that the vendors will offer LTE, ultrathin bezels and 13 megapix cameras.

And the vendors will aim to flood the European and US markets with the products, making it increasingly difficult for bog standard players to make much margin on the products, the wire adds.

The vendors are cranking up their volumes and aiming at large outlets to sell their cut price high end devices.  That means that companies like Intel are unlikely to make much of a dent in these markets, despite its efforts to penetrate an already competitive market.

* In other news, Intel has finally managed to trademark the letter “i”, according to our sister publication, TechEye.

UK unemployment falls

Posted on April 16, 2014 by - News

parliamentData from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) showed that between December last year and February this year, unemployment has fallen.

6.9 percent of the labour force are unemployed in the period – that compares to 7.9 percent for the same period last year.

There are now 30.39 million in jobs – that’s 691,000 up from the same period last year, the ONS said.

But there are 8.85 million people between the ages of 16 to 64 that, in the ONS’ jargon, are economically inactive. But that’s down by 104,000 people compared to the previous year.

Pay has also risen by 1.7 percent compared to the same period last time round.

Tesco stays in the doldrums

Posted on April 16, 2014 by - News

tescoSqueezed between Aldi and Lidl at the low end and Waitrose and Marks & Sparks at the high end, mega-grocer Tesco delivered annual profits of £3.3 billion but that’s a fall of six percent  compared to the previous year.

It’s businesses abroad also showed declines while Philip Clarke, the Tesco CEO, maintained in a BBC radio interview this morning that he would turn the business round in three years. Other giant grocery chains, including Morrisons, Asda and Sainsbury’s are all being dented by the Aldis and Lidls of this world.

Part of his plans are to revamp the 600 plus Tesco stores in the UK and to concentrate more on its online sales.

Online sales grew 11 percent, and Clarke said this morning that Tesco is ready to take advantage of smartphone and tablet trends.

Avnet gets EMC gong

Posted on April 14, 2014 by - News

avgongMegadistributor Avnet Technology Solutions UK has been awarded a gong and named by EMC as its UK distributor of the year 2013.

Avnet gets the gong because it has promoted EMC’s “Attitude” programme – a scheme intended for small and medium sized businesses.

Channel director Terry Beale, from EMC, said that Avnet contributes a great deal to company sales.  Avnet partly gets the gong because it has made an easy to use portal for resellers that lets people configure and price EMC systems and improve its market share.

Avnet channel man Lee Bushnell said that his team drives demands and gives technical and commercial support on a range of EMC products.

Pictured here are, from left to right, Richard Graham, Clare Wright, Lee Bushnell, David Ross, and Warren Powell – all of them working for Avnet. The mask behind is presumably somebody from EMC.

Sennheiser hires channel woman

Posted on April 14, 2014 by - News

Jane WheelerHeadset and UC manufacturer Sennheiser said it has created a post of reseller sales manager and hired a woman for the role.

Jane Wheeler will be reseller sales manager for Sennheiser Comms.

Her job will be to work with the channel, build relationships and affiliations and to educate resellers about the products, build training programmes, organise events and provide support for resellers selling products to people.

She said she is looking forward to promoting the products into the channel, while sales director Jane Craven said Wheeler has a track record in the sector.

Tab market booms in MEA

Posted on March 10, 2014 by - News

tablet-womanWhile Western Europe and the USA are showing signs of saturation for tablet sales, it looks like some regions are continuing to boom.

A report from IDC said that PC tablets grew 111 percent year on year in the last quarter of 2013 in the Middle East and African (MEA) markets.

Shipments amounted to 3.45 million units and both the home segment and the corporate segment showed steady growth. The educational market also saw growth.

Huawei won a deal to supply around 90,000 units in South Africa in the education sector.

Android wins the game – 2.8 million units shipped up 16 percent compared to the same quarter in 2012.  iOS fell and Windows OS lost share in Q4 2013.

Top vendor was Samsung, followed by Apple, Lenovo, Asus and Huawei.

The PC market will fall further in 2014, while tablets will grow significantly, IDC said.

Tablet growth slows

Posted on March 6, 2014 by - News

ipad3Despite phenomenal growth in sales during 2013, it seems that the tablet market will slow down during this year.

That’s according to market research company IDC that said the total tablet market – including stand alone units and 2-in-1 devices – will grow by 19.4 percent this year, down from 51.6 percent in 2013.

There is slowing growth at the consumer end of the market, and average selling prices (ASPs) have fallen rapidly in the tablet market.

Prices in 2013 dropped by 14.6 percent but IDC said price erosion “has started to slowly bottom out”, meaning ASPs will only fall by 3.6 percent this year.

Tom Mainelli, who runs devices and displays at IDC, said the white box tablet market will slow this year.  In mature markets, people are sticking with their current tablets and few feel the need to upgrade them, he said.

But there’s always a silver lining to every cloud. He said that commercial shipments are set to go up and while tablet growth has largely been confined to verticals like education, in the future tablets will penetrate SMEs globally.  And that will give a boost to Microsoft Windows.

Jitesh Ubrani, a research colleague of Mainelli, thinks that Android and iOS will stay as the dominant forces although Windows could grab more than a quarter of the market in the future.

Arrow gets VMWare gongs

Posted on March 6, 2014 by - News

Arrow logoDistributor Arrow Electronics said it had received two gongs at the VMWare partner exchange.

It picked up the Partner Network award and also was recognised as emEA Distributor Partner of the year.

Jesper Trolle, VP of sales for Arrow enterprise computing in EMEA said his company has a key focus on products such as VMWare’s desktop-as-a-service and NSX network virtualisation.  That contributes to the channel’s bottom line.

And Dave O’Callaghan, senior VP at VMWare in charge of partners said Arrow had distinguished itself at the global level.  “We congratulate Arrow on winning a global VMWare Partner network award.”

Arrow supplies over 100,000 OEMs, contract manufacturers and commercial customers. It operates across 460 place in 58 countries.

Quanta pins hopes on servers

Posted on March 5, 2014 by - News

server-racksTaiwanese ODM firm Quanta is hoping that demand for servers will help boost its profits.

That’s according to Digitimes, which claimed that Quanta’s direct customers include Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, NTT, KDDI, Korea Telecom and Singapore Telecom. NEC uses Quanta to build its units.

The wire reports that server shipments this wire will grow by 20 percent in volume and 40 percent in value.

Quanta, known primarily for its position as a notebook ODM, has decided to create a subsidiary aimed at growing direct sales.

It now has marketing units in the US, China, Japan, Singapore and Germany and hopes to increase sales by opening another European office.

Channel can’t cope with cloud

Posted on March 5, 2014 by - News

cloudbustChannel players are finding it tough to cope with the fast change in cloud services, according to a report from MTI.

MTI surveyed both UK resellers and services providers and 77 percent of those responded said that Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) was the top priority for their clients.

Less than half provide IaaS directly and only 22 percent can provide the service through vendors, MTI claimed.

That, claimed Chris Roberts, channel sales leader at MtI, meant there’s a gap between what clients want and resellers offer.

“It’s very difficult for resellers to be flexible enough to provide solutions as and when they come into fashion when demand from clients peak,” he said.

Nearly two thirds of resellers and service providers generate 40 percent of their turnover services.