Tag: EMEA

Quantum signs up Arrow as distie

Posted on October 21, 2013 by - News

Arrow logoData management firm Quantum Corp said it has recruited Arrow Electronics as a distributor in EMEA.

Its logic is that it wants to provide better support for its VARs and to recruit VARs in new markets.

Jesper Trolle, VP for Arrow enterprise said: “We look forward to helping Quantium’s reseller partners grow business through our pan-European presence, our data centre enterprise experience, and in customer training.”

That will include big data management, he said.

Quantium said: “Arrow’s pan-EMEA reach will provide strong support for continued expansion into new market and help us drive further growth in our existing markets.”

Arrow (tick: ARW) releases its Q3 results at the end of this month.

SMT becomes first ExtraHop certified partner in Benelux

Posted on October 14, 2013 by - News

ExtraHop-logoExtraHop has selected SMT as its first certified partner for the Benelux region. SMT is a specialist in IT management with offices in Belgium and the Netherlands, with more than 100 large clients. 

Several technical teams from SMT have completed extensive training and are no certified to offer consultancy, sales and implementation services across the region. SMT will also demonstrate the ExtraHop platform at the Splunk Live! Event in Amsterdam on Tuesday.

“ExtraHop provides a perfect fit within our portfolio. It’s the first platform that effectively mines wire data in real-time, delivering business-critical operational intelligence across increasingly dynamic IT environments,” Michiel Toes, co-founder and Sales and Marketing Director at SMT said. “Moreover, ExtraHop’s wire data analytics are a perfect complement to Splunk, supplementing machine log data to provide total visibility into application and service delivery.”

ExtraHop is currently the global leader in real time wire data analytics for operational IT intelligence. Its latest products and services include the Persistent Monitoring Architecture, the EH8000 appliance for real time L2-L2 application transaction analysis and a new agentless Citrix VDI monitoring solution.

“IT environments are becoming more complex as virtualisation, cloud, and mobility take hold, and traditional sources of visibility, including log and agent data, are no longer sufficient to deliver crucial intelligence on their own,” said Owen Cole, VP of EMEA Sales for ExtraHop. “Wire data is a key source of insight into the performance, availability, and security of IT applications and services.”

Symantec bumps Mark Nutt up to EMEA veep

Posted on September 24, 2013 by - Moving People, News

symanteclogoSymantec has promoted Mark Nutt to vice president for EMEA partner management and will be tasked with planning and delivering a new EMEA channel strategy.

Nutt was hired by Symantec in 2011 to look after EMEA’s strategy and sales operations, where he was responsible for sales performance. Before that he was general manager at Morse, and he started his career in sales at HP, in 1987.

Nutt must lead a team to build Symantec’s partner programs and bring in profitable growth for Symantec and its partners, as well as simplifying Symantec’s operations with channel partners.

In a statement, Nutt underlined Symantec’s commitment to partners and distributors, adding it’s “vital that we enable partners to deliver superior value to customers and that, in turn, we demonstrate our commitment to directly supporting our channel partners’ business growth”.

Good Tech fills GM EMEA role

Posted on September 18, 2013 by - Moving People, News

goodtechWith the departure of top EMEA exec Huw Owen from Good Technology back to Symantec, Good has announced Marcus Chambers as the company’s new veep and GM for the region.

Chambers intends to aggressively push the EMEA channel programme as a top priority, a well as building closer partnerships and rehashing formulated training and accreditation. Good calls this a rejuvenation of its EMEA channel.

Chambers previously has experience at Digial Equipment, 3Com, and EMC. More recently he was EMEA ops director for Cisco and, prior to the role at Good, EMEA VP at Riverbed for six years.

Chambers has been at Good since August 2013 and is based at the company’s London office.

With the uptake of Bring Your Own Device, Good and its security products have found themselves in a rather advantageous position. As the legacy of Blackberry is tarred and the company is turned into a watered down smoothie, corporate culture in the west is increasingly seeing the adoption of iPhone and Android. Good specialises in securing these devices at the app level, understandably a popular option for IT managers and CIOs who want to keep employees happy but the company secure.

Chief revenue officer at Good, Dan Stoks, speaking of Chambers, said the company needed someone who can manage the dynamic mobile environment as well as demonstrating and expanding the firm’s competitive advantage throughout EMEA.

“We have aggressive goals to help our customers embrace mobility in a way they haven’t before, and with his proven success in the region, I am confident that Marcus can help us achieve them,” Stoks said.

Speaking with ChannelEye, Marcus Chambers said his immediate areas of focus will “include working with the channel to build a repeatable, relevant offering to give them a simpler route to market”.

“Good Technology is a rapidly growing company and we’re in an industry that’s changing by the day,” Chambers said. “Keeping pace with this change through a strong Good architecture gives our partners a great foundation to build our future together, including our customers’ key mobility security app infrastructure”.

 

Good Technology VP heads to Symantec

Posted on September 17, 2013 by - Moving People, News

symanteclogoGood Technology’s VP and GM Huw Owen has been snapped up and appointed to VP sales and marketing for EMEA at Symantec.

Previously overseeing Good’s channel growth in Europe and introducing the firm to the Nordics, Benelux and the Middle East, Symantec has snapped him up to win and retain customers as well as growing in all regions across EMEA.

Owen has been named twice in Global Telecoms Business’ Top 40 Under 40 for telecoms, globally, and has been quoted regularly offering comment on mobility.

Before his time at Good, Owen was executive director at Lenovo’s EMEA team, where he helped in servicing and sales in EMEA and globally. He has also held positions at Veritas and Fujitsu, and served as senior director of EMEA northern region services at Symantec.

Commenting on his return to Symantec, Owen said the opportunities at Symantec are “huge”.

“The EMEA region is a key area of focus for Symantec, contributing significantly to the global company revenues,” Owen said.

Matthew Ellard, senior vice president EMEA, Symantec, said: “Huw has an exceptional amount of knowledge in the channel sector which will be of tremendous value”.

EMEA workstation market rebounds in Q2

Posted on September 11, 2013 by - News

pc-sales-slumpThe PC market might be down, but there are still a few bright spots. Gamers haven’t gone anywhere and long-term forecasts indicate they will continue spending plenty of hard earned cash on new toys. Professionals are another breed of PC user that can’t afford not to upgrade.

According to IDC’s quarterly workstation tracker, shipments of personal workstations in EMEA grew 3 percent year-on-year in the second quarter of 2013. The previous five quarters were in the red.

Interestingly, the growth is not coming from desktop workstations. It remained flat, with 0.1 percent growth. However, the mobile workstation segment saw 10.9 percent growth. Mobile appears to be the flavour of the day in many markets, especially in the Nordics. Mobile workstations are quite a bit more expensive than their desktop counterparts, and they aren’t as easy to upgrade or customize, but the appeal of taking a workstation on the road is simply too compelling for many people.

“In addition to tighter competition over the last year and a half, the major workstation vendors – Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard (HP), and Lenovo – were facing tougher market conditions,” said Mohamed Hefny, senior analyst with IDC’s systems and infrastructure department. “The sovereign debt crisis forced the public sector to follow strict policies regarding hardware investments, financial uncertainty pushed the enterprise sector to extend the refreshment cycle for another year, and SMBs often opted for high-end commercial PCs, as the performance gap with workstations is reduced when they are paired with professional discrete graphic cards.”

The 2014 outlook is even better. IDC expects 6.2 percent year-on-year growth in volume and 3.2 percent growth in value. As major European markets emerge from recession, demand for workstations is expected to pick up even further.

Lenovo aims to topple HP by 2015

Posted on September 6, 2013 by - News

lenovo-logoLenovo has been going from strength to strength in recent months and now it has Hewlett Packard in its crosshairs. Lenovo believes there’s plenty of room for expansion in EMEA, in spite of Europe’s economic woes and Syria’s feeble attempts to become the Archduke Ferdinand of World War III.

Speaking at IFA 2013, Lenovo’s EMEA president Gianfranco Lanci said the company’s ultimate goal is to become number one in the region within the next 18 months. He added that there are still big growth opportunities on PCs and there’s still room to grow.

Meanwhile, HP is losing market share to Lenovo, while Lenovo has already overtaken Acer in EMEA. Lenovo’s PC business is doing surprisingly well at a time when many other PC vendors are faltering on all levels. In addition, Lenovo’s smartphone push is paying off nicely in Asia and next year it could bring its Android terracotta army to Europe and North America. Lenovo is also becoming a big name in Android tablets, but so far Android tablets have failed to match the success of their smartphone siblings.

“The investment needed in the smartphone and tablet businesses is much more than what you need in PCs – this is why we will see more consolidation,” Lanci said.

He argued that scale is necessary to successfully compete in the smartphone market and with skyrocketing phone shipments in China, Lenovo shouldn’t have much trouble with scale.

Lanci added that all three Lenovo divisions are making money, but the PC division is still generating higher margins as PCs don’t require nearly as much investment as smartphones and tablets. It may be interesting to note that Lenovo is making some rather interesting moves on the hybrid front as well. As hybrids and tablets converge, Lenovo will end up in a much better position than some competitors without a viable tablet/hybrid strategy. Provided all goes well, of course.

EMEA companies put IT budgets to good use

Posted on August 23, 2013 by - News

poundsResearch from CA Technologies has revealed that companies in EMEA are increasingly switching their IT budgets from dull, routine maintenance towards designing projects that enable revenue-generating services. The CA Technologies Channel Index 2013 found that EMEA partners spend 34 percent of their time helping consumers with such projects rather than maintenance. However, only 18 percent of the IT spend in Britain was devoted to new revenue-generating services.

“IT projects are being driven by the need for businesses to innovate for growth, while creating new ways to serve customers. And today’s IT director is expected to be the driver of these efforts,” said Sean McCarry, Senior Director, CA Technologies. “Our solutions and partner programmes equip partners with the tools they need to help their customers fuel innovation and drive growth. The Channel Index 2013 shows just how far IT departments and channel partners have come on this journey.”

Chris Gabriel, VP of Solutions Management at Logicalis Group, pointed out that the shift results in less operational waste, allowing IT departments to increase their participation in productive, revenue-generating fields.

“CIOs now see their role as Chief Innovation Officer, and they have recognised that their business value isn’t in managing IT infrastructure, but delivering new IT enabled business experiences,” he said.

The index revealed that 83 percent of surveyed partners in EMEA expect to see increased spending on enterprise mobility over the next year and almost all recognise that the rapid adoption of mobility creates opportunities to help grow their business. Among UK partners, this figure rose to 95 percent.

Cloud computing was identified by CA Technologies partners as the second priority for their customers’ IT investments. Nearly two thirds of the partners surveyed predicted an increase in cloud computing spending over the next year. In the UK, a significant 81 percent of partners expected increases.

SAP wants VARs to cash in on big data

Posted on August 2, 2013 by - News

sapbeerSAP is telling its partners that it is time to cash in on big data. The company estimates that its global partner base will earn up to $220 billion by selling its big data and analytics products.

So it sees a huge opportunity for partners and resellers, who could provide more services and products in addition to SAP software.

A recent IDC report revealed that SAP partners could be in for a lot of growth over the next five years. IDC’s Worldwide Ecosystem Analytics and Big Data: Growth Opportunities for SAP Partners found that EMEA partners could earn $70 billion by 2018, dabbling in big data and analytics. Asia Pacific and Japan should climb to $40 billion, while North America will lead the way with $102 billion.

One of the more curious factoids from the report claims that the digital landscape will grow more than 30 thousand percent between 2005 and 2020, from 130 exabytes to 40,000 exabytes. It’s not called big data for nothing.

“SAP and its partners make a significant impact on the global economy,” said Darren Bibby, vice president for IDC Channels and Alliances Research. “SAP does an excellent job delivering great products for partners to work with, as well as effective sales, marketing and training resources. The result is that the SAP ecosystem is well-positioned for the future and customers will benefit from these additional skills and resources.”

Interestingly, the IDC report concluded that 68 percent of the companies don’t have a business intelligence or analytics strategy, while a whopping 63 percent don’t even know what big data is. However, 69 percent said they are looking for staff who can handle analytics.

As it grows, the industry will change. IDC believes 90 percent of industry growth will come through third-platform technology, cloud, mobile and social.

Europe missing BYOD gravy train

Posted on July 30, 2013 by - News

nexus4-ceEurope appears to be behind the curve when it comes to BYOD. The “bring your own device and ruin your techie’s day” trend is taking off in North America and Asia Pacific, where BYOD volume exceeds 80 percent of all business smartphones purchased for business users.

In Europe the figure is less than half of business smartphone sales, according to Strategy Analytics.

Sarcastic punters could say that the poor showing has something to do with the fact that many Europeans can only bring their own device to the employment office, but that’s just part of the problem. The BYOD trend is facing a lot of opposition in Europe from all fronts.

Operators dislike it because they believe it siphons revenue away from stable corporate contracts and messes with their separate billing systems for commercial and civilian users. Enterprises have their own concerns. They are protecting their operator support commitments that are available only through corporate contracts. Many end-users aren’t willing to embrace restrictions they would have to follow due to roaming and other problems.

In spite of European Commission caps, roaming is still a big deal in Europe and it obstructs BYOD growth. Carriers aren’t willing to do much about it and split billing options to better meet the needs of businesses and end-users. Direct billing options that allow operators to bill individual workers directly for their corporate plan seem like the obvious solution, but they are very hard to implement across Europe.

“The time for European operators to fear BYOD needs to be over,” says Kevin Burden, Director of Mobility at Strategy Analytics. “Accepting the change will lead to additional revenue opportunities and will help to distinguish themselves to the corporate customer in a time when the EU continues to put regulations and policies in place that further homogenise their services. It will be a huge competitive win for the first operator that gets it right in a time when every European operator is scrambling to protect its markets and understand how to best support the trend.”

As usual, it all comes down to EU lawmakers and their counterparts in member states, which basically means that this problem won’t be tackled anytime soon.

 

EMEA PC sales slump by 22 percent

Posted on July 19, 2013 by - News

pc-sales-slumpPC shipments in Europe are down again. New figures fresh out of the International Data Corporation (IDC) show that second-quarter PC shipments in the EMEA region were down 22.2 percent compared to the same quarter last year. 

EMEA PC shipments last quarter reached 19.6 million units and portable PCs got the worst of it, with a 26-percent drop and shipments of 12.4 million units. Desktops fared a bit better, with shipments of 7.2 million units, down 14.6 percent. 

In Western Europe shipments declined by 21.2% year-on-year. Britain did rather well, all things considered, as it was down just 14%. Germany slowed down 18.7%, while France remained the softest with a 20.9% drop. 

However, let’s not forget about Southern Europe – PC shipments in Spain dropped 43.7 percent and with no end to Spain’s economic woes in sight, the trend is likely to continue. Central Europe was down 27 percent, while the Middle East and Africa slumped 18 percent. Although Middle Eastern economies and Turkey are doing rather well, political instability and economic uncertainty are taking their toll. 

“The evolution of form factors and the change in perception of mobile computing to ‘always on and always connected’ devices, development of social networks and Internet infrastructure, are all changing consumer behaviour impacting the way PCs are utilized,” said Maciej Gornicki, senior research analyst, IDC EMEA Personal Computing. “While Windows-based hybrid devices, convertible or ultraslim notebooks with touch capabilities generate a clear interest, sales remain weak.”

Gornicki noted that one of the main inhibitors to growth in new form factors remains price, but IDC expects prices to tumble in time for the holiday season and sales of ultraslim notebooks should pick up in the fourth quarter and beyond. 

It is also worth noting that notebook sales figures include mini notebooks, or netbooks, which are dying out. Meanwhile desktop sales don’t appear to be slowing down at the same rate as portable PC sales, as they can’t be cannibalized by tablets. Besides, desktops are a staple for small businesses and corporate users who can’t always hold off purchases like consumers.

Although the decline was significant, some vendors still managed to stay in the black. Lenovo’s shipments grew 19 percent year-on-year, making it the only big brand to see any growth. Lenovo ranked second, with 2.62 million PCs shipped. HP is still the EMEA market leader with shipments of 3.72 million units, but unlike Lenovo its shipments were down 23.2 percent compared to a year ago. As a result there was no big change in HP’s market share, which currently stands at 19 percent, down from 19.2 percent. However, Lenovo’s share increased from 8.7 percent in Q2 2012 to 13.4 percent last quarter. 

Acer ranked third with 2.26 million units, but it also suffered a massive 42.2 percent drop in shipments and saw its market share tumble from 15.5 percent to 11.5 percent. Dell’s shipments dropped 9 percent, but it actually managed to grow its market share to 10.7 percent, up from 9.1 last year. Asus also suffered a slump, with 1.69 million shipped boxes, down 38.5 percent.

Red Hat EMEA channel conf details announced

Posted on July 4, 2013 by - Events, News

redhatOpen source profiteer Red Hat has announced dates for the fifth Red Hat Europe EMEA Partner Conference in Madrid this year.

The event will run from 29 September to 2 October 2013 and will open with keynotes from top executive veep in sales and services, Arun Oberoi, and CTO Brian Stevens. Veep of partners for Red Hat EMEA, Petra Heinrich, will also be speaking about general partner strategy.

There will be a series of panel discussions on current and future trends in open hybrid cloud, middleware, platform offerings and product strategies. As is expected from this sort of thing, there will also be breakout sessions and talks on best practices about enterprise IT, specifically focusing on using open source tech and making the shift from physical to virtual and cloud platforms.

Red Hat is calling on distributors, ISVs, OEMs, system integrators and other partners, potential or existing, to discuss with each other and gain access to Red Hat’s top execs. Platinum and gold plus sponsors, IBM and HP respectively, will also be attending.

The company asserts, in a tone which would not sound out of place read by Genesis P Orridge over an abrasive and menacing tape loop: “The Red Hat EMEA Partner Conference will be comprised of three pillars. Pillar one is built on datacentre integration with the key themes of partner enablement and IT modernization. Pillar two is built around middleware and the requirement to migrate legacy applications in an open environment. The third pillar focuses on solving the new workload challenges inherent in open hybrid cloud and big data environments.”

Mobile wallet market worth billions by 2018

Posted on July 1, 2013 by - News, Products

google-walletThe mobile wallet market is about to get big, huge even. According to a new report published by Transparency Market Research, the global mobile wallet market will reach $1,602.4 billion by 2018. In EMEA it will grow at a CAGR of 30.7 percent from 2012 to 2018 and EMEA will be the largest mobile wallet market in the world by 2018.

EMEA accounted for about 40 percent of the global mobile wallet share in 2011, but the Asia Pacific region is expected to see the fastest growth over the next five years.

The staggering figures sound optimistic to say the least, but Transparency Market Research is basing them on a few emerging trends that hold a lot of promise. The outfit found that affordable NFC enabled phones and POS (point of sale) systems will be the main drivers of growth over the next few years.

Retail is currently the biggest application for mobile wallet services and the trend is set to continue, due to ease of payment using smartphones and initiatives to introduce new POS terminals in convenience stores. Vending machines are also a potent market. Mobile network operators are expected to play a pivotal role in future mobile wallet adoption.

Unsurprisingly, the key players in the market will be Visa, MasterCard, American Express, PayPal, Google and others from the list of usual suspects.

However, it won’t be just smooth sailing. Quite a few consumers still don’t know how mobile wallets actually work and we’re pretty sure that many aren’t even aware of their existence. Security and privacy remain sources of concern, too.

Ingram Micro appoints new DACHH boss

Posted on June 27, 2013 by - Moving People, News

ingram-mico-hqEarlier this month Ingram Micro announced plans to reshuffle its global management team. The changes are set to go into effect in August and they will see Gerhard Schulz promoted to senior executive vice president and president, Europe.

Schulz currently serves as senior vice president, central and eastern Europe and on Wednesday the company announced that he will be succeeded by Marcus Adae, the current sales chief of Ingram Germany.

Adae will head Ingram Micro’s DACHH region, which includes Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Hungary. He will report directly to Shulz.