Comms Dealer

Audio visual and document solutions distributor Midwich has bagged the lion's share of UK-based Holdan for £7.9m and also acquired New Zealand AV distributor Wired.

Holdan operates from Glossop in the broadcast, professional video and traditional audio visual markets and employs 35 staff.

In its last financial year ended 31st December 2015 Holdan reported annual turnover of £20.6m and profit before tax of £1.1m.

Midwich has acquired 75% of the issued share capital of Holdan from MD Chris Daniels and Sales Director Allan Leonhardsen. Daniels has stepped down as MD but will continue with the business on a full time basis before retiring in 2017.

Leonhardsen has taken over the MD role while Kieron Seth becomes Sales and Marketing Director.

Midwich has options to acquire the remaining 25% over the next three years in a deal linked primarily to earnings growth.

The Wired acquisition augments Midwich's existing market position and capability in the Australian and New Zealand markets. Wired reported revenues of NZ $2m in the year to 31 March 2016.

Midwich MD Stephen Fenby commented: "We recognised some time ago that the broadcast and professional video markets are a natural adjunct to our traditional audio visual activity.

"Having made some headway in penetrating these markets ourselves, we believe that the expertise and focus of Holdan will give Midwich the ability to provide a more comprehensive value added service to our customers in the UK and overseas.

"Similarly, Midwich's reach into the audio visual market provides Holdan's vendors with an opportunity to expand into a growing segment."

Microsoft's former General Manager of US Partner Sales Eric Martorano has joined Intermedia as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales.

He spent over eight years at Microsoft and was responsible for $17bn-plus revenue.

Michael Gold, CEO of Intermedia, stated: "Eric's understanding of the Microsoft ecosystem will prove invaluable as we expand our Office 365 offerings."

Prior to Microsoft, Martorano led a number of key initiatives and strategies at other notable companies such as Sage Software and Ingram Micro. He also holds an active seat on CompTIA's Board of Directors.

An industry body representing alternative infrastructure builders and ISPs has called on the Government to take measures to ensure that 80% of businesses and homes will have a pure fibre connection by 2026. The Independent Networks Corporation Association (INCA) also wants a suspension of all business rates on new fibre assets for the next ten years and an overhaul of advertising guidelines to emphasise connectivity quality.

Regulation that encourages competition and private sector investment should also be a priority, according to INCA.

In a report compiled by INCA, called Building Gigabit Britain, it is stated that the UK currently has the lowest FTTP deployment in the OECD, with around 2% coverage.

The report argues that Britain is at an inflection point, with legacy copper-based networks increasingly unable to cope with the growth in data.

INCA reaffirmed that fibre networks are needed to support the growth of both fixed wireless and mobile wireless services. And asserts that the deployment of pure fibre infrastructure - supporting greater speeds, more symmetry upstream as well as down and lower latency than copper or hybrid networks - is the only way to support the UK's growing needs. 

The report also pint doug that investment in pure fibre networks has accelerated in recent years, driven largely by a growth in operators challenging the dominance of BT and Virgin Media.

The Altnets are forecast to pass 4.9 million premises, or 18% of the UK population, with FTTP by 2020, estimated at 1.5 million more premises than BT and Virgin's networks combined.

Malcolm Corbett, CEO of INCA, commented: "Unless the UK Government takes action we will soon be faced with a clear divergence between supply and demand in our digital communications.

"The UK has some of the lowest pure fibre deployment in the OECD, yet our economy is one of the most digital in the world, which is dependent on our digital infrastructure.

"We urgently need to upgrade to pure fibre connections and government needs to act by setting the vision and framework to encourage competitive investment.

"The Altnets are doing a great job. Five years ago few of them existed, today they provide more than twice as many FTTP connections as BT and many more offer great wireless broadband services. These are the people Building Gigabit Britain and if we don't encourage and support their much needed investment, the UK's economic position will be put at risk."

INCA members include CityFibre, Hyperoptic, Gigaclear, Relish, ITS, Warwicknet, Sky and Vodafone.  

GCI has bagged Stoke-on-Trent-based Packet Media for an undisclosed sum. The deal, which bolsters GCI's contact centre and UCaaS services with SMS messaging capabilities, is the MSP's third this year and follows its acquisition of Outsourcery's assets in June.

Mike Constantine, CTO at GCI, said: "Packet Media has some great parallels with our own business. We are particularly excited about its enterprise-grade SMS messaging platform and associated Management Information (MI) reporting capability.

"This new GCI SMS messaging service will fill an important gap in our portfolio and helps us to differentiate our proposition, particularly for the multi-touch contact centre environment.

"The capability blends nicely with our other core cloud and UC services, including Skype for Business, Azure and PCI DSS."

Julian Gallimore, MD at Packet Media, added: "SMS is what email used to be and the stats are compelling. While emails now clutter inboxes (many unopened), SMS messages are on average viewed within three minutes of receipt.

"Response rates are far better, it takes an average person 90 minutes to respond to email, but only 90 seconds to respond to text.

"We believe the deployment opportunities are endless - from patient prescription reminders to service renewal notices, to sales and marketing messaging, all fully trackable and MI reportable."

GCI CEO Adrian Thirkill said: "In the last 12 weeks we have not only gained some first class platforms, but have also strengthened the depth and breadth of our technical resource - our people.

"This new SMS capability is another critical addition to our portfolio. If the stats are to be believed, approximately 23 billion text messages are sent worldwide daily with a staggering 98% open rate.

"SMS is still mainly untainted, helpful and concise. That's the reason for its success and the reason it's a great fit in our portfolio. The timing is perfect."

RSA, the security division of EMC, has named Jonathan Gill as Vice President for EMEA.

Gill was most recently Executive Vice President for Global Sales at Veracode, following leadership and sales roles at CA, Arcot and IBM.

He said: "This is an exciting time to join RSA as it focuses on delivering business-driven security to organisations."

IT Europa has reported a record number pre-registration attendees for this year's Managed Services and Hosting Summit to be staged at 155 Bishopsgate, London, on 21st September.

The latest numbers show over 330 confirmed registrations, with over 70% at CxO level. The event has also attracted record levels of industry support this year with 30 sponsors from across the sector.

Under the theme of 'The Digital Dividend - The Role of Managed Services in a Digital World', this year's event will examine the rapid changes taking place currently in the industry and among IT customers.

New items on the agenda include presentations from the Open University on what the UK government is doing to support cybersecurity and training in the industry, plus the latest on the state of mergers and acquisitions in this fast-changing business, with guidance on hot sectors and company-selling timetables.

Six Degrees Group (6DG) has opened a new data centre in the heart of Birmingham, located alongside the city's so called Silicon Canal.

The new 5,800m2 facility adds to the company's existing south Birmingham and London-based data centres.

Mike Ing, COO at 6DG, commented: "This is a significant investment that helps to cement Britain's second city as a major digital hub for the future. It also establishes us as one of the main players in the Midlands hosting marketplace."

Timothy Arnold, Colo Technology Director at 6DG, added: "Birmingham Central will better enable our new and existing customers to take full advantage of our converged proposition."

Swindon-based Excalibur Communications is set to make a second attempt at a world record, as well as see if it can beat the £10,000 it raised in 2014 for a state-of-the-art teenage cancer facility.

The ICT provider needs 500 people to help get it over the line for the largest number of participants in a Swiss Ball exercise, after coming close to the world record first time around.

This new attempt marks the launch of the Younite Foundation, a registered charity that provides support and life changing opportunities for local children and young adults (up to the age of 21).

"We want everyone to enjoy themselves and raise lots of money, just like we did in 2014," said Younite Trustee Karen Thornley.

"But this time round we really want Swindon to embrace Team GB's fantastic Olympic spirit and show everyone what we're made of by setting a new world record."

Excalibur CEO James Phipps, also a Trustee of the Younite Foundation, added: "Younite trustees have selected three causes to support with this year's event including Jessie May and a Children's Hospice at Home."

UKCloud, formerly Skyscape Cloud Services, has achieved certification against the ISO27018 information security standard for the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) in public cloud.

UKCloud has also re-certified against the ISO20000 standard for IT Service Management for a further three years.

"As cloud computing becomes more widely adopted, public sector organisations with considerable data protection responsibilities understandably have significant concerns when it comes to how their information is processed, stored and protected," said John Godwin, Director of Compliance and Information Assurance at UKCloud.

"ISO27018 delivers a more comprehensive framework of controls when it comes to the protection of personally identifiable data in the cloud. Our certification means our customer base, which is exclusively comprised of public sector organisations, can be assured that their data is in safe hands."

The IT channel is confident of being able to reduce the skills gap by 2020, according to research by OnePoll commissioned by Agilitas.

The survey of IT resellers, Managed Service Providers and independent IT providers revealed a confident outlook, with 75% expecting the skills gap to change by 2020, and 64% believing it will be resolved or reduced.

The research also examined the skill sets required, unexpectedly revealing that despite the rise of the cloud 78% believe hiring and training more on-premise and data-centre technical skills will help to ease pressures by 2020.

"The trend is in contrast to the arguments that we've heard recently about running out of talent," commented Shaun Lynn, CEO of Agilitas. "Our research revealed that rather than resting on their laurels, many in the industry are confident of being able to make positive changes and reduce the gap."

The research also looked to understand what channel leaders plan to do to assist in reducing the skills gap, revealing that fostering high quality technical skills is a key priority in the channel.

Forty-seven percent see a lack of internal training as the key reason for a continued skills shortage in 2020, and around two thirds (62%) view training of existing staff as key to reducing the gap by 2020, suggesting talent development is a key focus among industry leaders.

Lynn added: "The results of our research highlight a clear need for our industry to focus on upskilling existing staff.

"We're already seeing a growth in important apprenticeship schemes and building up the next generation of talent, but the challenge between now and 2020 is the extent to which we can improve existing skillsets to meet customer challenges. The survey highlighted the need to invest in internal skills training and the channel must take note."