Comms Dealer

Avnet has appointed Danny Yeowell as Director for its Technology Solutions UK Security and Networking business unit.

Yeowell has over 30 years experience within the IT industry working for manufacturers and systems integrators across a broad range of sectors and joins from Dimension Data where he was UK solutions director.

Prior to this he headed up pre-sales and architecture at Logicalis for six years.

Yeowell will be responsible for accelerating growth and profitability for Avnet, its partners and suppliers in the area of security and networking - a business in which Avnet UK has seen double-digit growth in the last year.

Christian Curtis, Sales Director, Avnet Technology Solutions, UK, said: "Danny has considerable experience in an area of the market that presents significant opportunity and where we have high ambitions to accelerate growth for our partners and suppliers.

"Security and networking is pervasive to all areas of technology and none more so than next-generation, where huge growth is predicted.

"Over the last few years we've invested heavily in building out a security centre of excellence, which has enabled us to deliver significant value to our partners and reaped rewards for all concerned. We will continue to invest in this important area."

Huawei has named Shi Weiliang as Vice President of Huawei's Enterprise Business Group in the UK.

Prior to this role, Weiliang was the President of Enterprise Business in West Africa.

During his year and a half tenure in this role, Weiliang led a sales team that significantly grew the enterprise business in the region and his team was also awarded the Outstanding Regional Award Business Group in 2015 by the business.

He said: "Our enterprise business has seen strong growth in the last few years and leading the UK enterprise business is an exciting opportunity. As the digital landscape continues to adapt, the challenges facing enterprises also changes. I look forward to working with our partners to help Huawei meet the growing demands that face many UK businesses today."

In 2015, Huawei Enterprise Business Group globally generated $4.25 billion annual revenue, an increase of 43.8 percent year-over-year fuelled by customer demand for new ICT solutions.

ScanSource POS and Barcode hosted its 2016 ScanSource Partner Conference in Malta this month, bringing together almost 200 attendees, including ScanSource executives, vendor and reseller partners.

The conference gathered channel experts for three days of networking; and the agenda featured a series of sessions discussing new trends and key developments in industry software, with a particular focus on the challenges and opportunities around the Internet of Things.

Attendees also engaged in a vendor panel discussion led by the conference sponsors.

ScanSource POS and Barcode Europe's President, Maurice Van Rijn, provided an update on the company's latest services and tools, and enhancements to existing tools, such as Showpad and PartnerPAD.

Alongside the conference, ScanSource POS and Barcode announced the opening of two new offices in Warsaw, Poland, and Madrid, Spain.

ScanSource also provided an overview of its enhanced sales structure with the appointment of five regional sales directors for its Europe business.

Ultracomms has appointed Derwyn Jones as Chief Executive Officer.

He brings over 25 years experience in the contact centre and business process outsourcing (BPO) industries, and has a proven track record in delivering improvements in operations, sales, cost control, quality and productivity.

Prior to joining Ultracomms he held a variety of non-executive, board advisory and C-level roles with major blue chip brands including Parseq, Golly Slater, The Panther Group, Dell Corporation, and the SITEL Corporation, both in EMEA and in the US.

Robert Bates, Chairman of Ultracomms, said: "Derwyn brings a wealth of experience in the contact centre industry and a proven strategic background that will help us continue to grow the business and deliver an innovative roadmap of features and services for existing and new clients."

Derwyn's appointment follows a period of investment in technology, including the patented advanced answer machine detection solution, AMD+, PCI DSS level 1 certification, and most recently the announcement that speech analytics technology will be made available to clients this summer.

Jones said: "Ultracomms has an impressive technology portfolio backed by a talented and committed team. Looking ahead, we want more organisations to be aware of how Ultracomms can help them achieve improvements in productivity and learn how the right choice of technology can have a positive impact on both customer and employee experience, while optimising costs and remaining compliant with all the key industry regulators."

Data centre firm MIGSOLV has rolled out its first channel programme and is on the hunt for resellers of its colocation services.

The support package includes discounted rack price, dedicated account manager and support line, 24x7 onsite support and the company is backing its programme with the promise that if, within 60 days, a reseller's customer is unhappy with any aspect of its service, it will refund all related fees.

MIGSOLV CEO, Alex Rabbetts, stated: "We're excited to launch our reseller programme as the next phase of our company's growth. There's a great opportunity for forward-thinking resellers to enhance their offerings."

MIGSOLV's Gatehouse data centre is located on a nine acre site in Norwich.

5G commercial services will launch in 2020 and there will be 24 million 5G subscriptions worldwide at the end of 2021 for mobile and fixed broadband services, according to Ovum's inaugural 5G Subscription Forecasts released this week.

North America and Asia will each account for more than 40% of global 5G subscriptions at the end of 2021, followed by Europe with more than 10% of subscriptions, with the Middle East and Africa accounting for the remainder.

Ovum estimates that 5G services will be available in more than 20 markets worldwide by the end of 2021, with services in all four major world regions. However, the vast majority of 5G subscriptions will be concentrated in the US, Japan, China, and South Korea, where major operators have revealed aggressive timelines for launching 5G services.

"The main use case for 5G through 2021 will be enhanced mobile broadband services, although fixed broadband services will also be supported, especially in the US," said Mike Roberts, Ovum Practice Leader covering carrier strategy and technology.

"Over time 5G will support a host of use cases including Internet of Things and mission-critical communications, but Ovum does not believe those use cases will be supported by standardised 5G services through 2021."

A number of operators have announced plans to launch what they describe as 5G services before 2020, but these will not typically be based on networks and devices complying with 5G standards, and so are excluded from Ovum's forecasts.

Ovum defines a 5G subscription as an active connection to a 5G network via a 5G device. 5G is further defined as a system based on and complying with 3GPP 5G standards, beginning with parts of 3GPP Release 15, which is scheduled to be finalised in 2018.

"5G is at an early stage and there is a high degree of uncertainty around 5G deployment and adoption, including significant upside and downside risks," Roberts added.

Veeam Software has appointed Peter McKay (formerly Senior VP & GM, Americas at VMware) as President and Chief Operating Officer; and promoted William H. Largent, currently Executive VP, as its new CEO.

Veeam co-founders and Directors, Ratmir Timashev and Andrei Baronov, will remain strategic to the company, playing active roles focusing on market strategy and new product development.

"With the appointments of Peter and Bil, we are adding depth, experience and talent to our executive team.

"Peter and Bill are seasoned leaders with complementary skill-sets. They will be instrumental in helping Veeam to continue on its steep growth trajectory," said Timashev.

"Peter will also join our Board of Directors and serve along with Andrei, Bill and myself. By attracting executive talent such as Peter, Veeam is sending a clear signal to the market that we are a leader and we've only scratched the surface of our potential."

WLAN sales continue overall growth trajectory

Wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment sales totalled $1.2bn worldwide in the first quarter of 2016 (Q1 2016), declining 14% sequentially due to seasonal demand factors, but continuing on an overall growth trajectory. 

On a year-over-year basis, revenue is up 5%, slightly ahead of 2015’s 4% growth rate, says IHS Technology analysis in its WLAN Equipment and WiFi Phone Quarterly Market Tracker, which includes data for the quarter ended March 31, 2016.

Among the good news is further acceleration in access point shipment growth, which stands at 20% year-over-year in Q1 2016, with a total of 4.7 million access points shipped. 

On the other hand, average selling prices have not materially increased despite good adoption of 802.11ac and Wave 2 products — the latter standing at 3% of all units shipped in Q1 2016. Demand for WLAN is strong, but monetizing that demand has been a challenge for the last two years as organizations chose lower-cost approaches.

The outlook for the WLAN market remains bright, as infrastructure investments over the long term shift to WLAN equipment to support the rapid rise of wireless devices, both personal and Internet of Things (IoT), as well as mobility requirements. 

Commoditisation, however, is keeping a lid on independent access point revenue, which declined 8% in 2015 and was flat in Q1 2016 from the year-ago quarter (Q1 2015). 

Over 70% of all access point revenue comes from 802.11ac products, and Wave 2 products broke through the 5% mark in Q1 and have started to cannibalise Wave 1 802.11ac gear.

The top year-over-year share gainers in the WLAN market in Q1 2016 are, in alphabetical order, Aerohive, Ruckus and Ubiquiti.Wireless LAN (WLAN) equipment sales totalled $1.2bn worldwide in the first quarter of 2016 (Q1 2016), declining 14% sequentially due to seasonal demand factors, but continuing on an overall growth trajectory.

On a year-over-year basis, revenue is up 5%, slightly ahead of 2015's 4% growth rate, says IHS Technology analysis in its WLAN Equipment and WiFi Phone Quarterly Market Tracker, which includes data for the quarter ended March 31, 2016.

Among the good news is further acceleration in access point shipment growth, which stands at 20% year-over-year in Q1 2016, with a total of 4.7 million access points shipped.

On the other hand, average selling prices have not materially increased despite good adoption of 802.11ac and Wave 2 products - the latter standing at 3% of all units shipped in Q1 2016. Demand for WLAN is strong, but monetizing that demand has been a challenge for the last two years as organizations chose lower-cost approaches.

The outlook for the WLAN market remains bright, as infrastructure investments over the long term shift to WLAN equipment to support the rapid rise of wireless devices, both personal and Internet of Things (IoT), as well as mobility requirements.

Commoditisation, however, is keeping a lid on independent access point revenue, which declined 8% in 2015 and was flat in Q1 2016 from the year-ago quarter (Q1 2015).

Over 70% of all access point revenue comes from 802.11ac products, and Wave 2 products broke through the 5% mark in Q1 and have started to cannibalise Wave 1 802.11ac gear.

The top year-over-year share gainers in the WLAN market in Q1 2016 are, in alphabetical order, Aerohive, Ruckus and Ubiquiti.

Communications technology business TeleWare is celebrating its tenth year of Microsoft Gold Partner status, placing it within the top one per cent of Microsoft's partner ecosystem for the past decade.

Microsoft Gold Partner status is awarded to businesses that hold at least one Microsoft Gold Competency.

TeleWare was awarded the Microsoft Gold Communications competency in 2015 and the OEM Gold Competency in 2014. Both recognise TeleWare's ability and commitment to meet customers' evolving needs in today's dynamic business environment.

Steve Haworth, CEO of TeleWare, said: "This partnership allows us to collaborate with Microsoft to develop and enhance products that increase customer productivity and enhance the customer experience whilst complying with regulatory requirements.

"It also allows us early access to new products, enabling us to better serve our customers with the latest innovations.

"Our Microsoft Gold Partner status showcases our expertise in and commitment to today's technology market and demonstrates our deep knowledge of Microsoft and its products."

TeleWare is attending the Microsoft World Partner Conference on July 10-14th.

Managed technology providers forecast high revenue growth over the next two years, according to research from CompTIA.

But their optimism is countered by continuing worries about their role in a market increasingly dominated by cloud computing solutions and by a persistent problem with employee retention.

CompTIA surveyed 400 managed services providers (MSPs) for its Fifth Annual Trends in Managed Services report. The study profiles today's managed services practices and examines both their internal operations and external strategies.

"The level of confidence among MSPs in how they are running their businesses is quite high," said Carolyn April, senior director, industry analysis, CompTIA. "Two-thirds of the companies we surveyed consider themselves to be skilled experts at managed services."

Some of this confidence is due to market maturity. Nearly 90 per cent of companies have been offering technology services for two years or more.

Revenue growth is also a contributing factor. Three in ten companies say their services business was their leading revenue generator over the past year. Half of all MSPs surveyed expect high revenue growth over the next two years, with services accounting for 75 percent or more of total revenue.

But bullishness on future business is tempered by worries about margin erosion. Just over half of the firms cite margin erosions as a factor that keeps them awake at night.

"Naturally occurring market commoditisation accounts for a portion of slimming margins, but some of the blame also falls on MSPs themselves, many of whom continue to compete with one another solely on pricing" April said.

Topping the list of things that keep MSPs awake at night is cloud computing, cited by 62 percent of companies.

Kris Nagamootoo, Senior Manager at CompTIA, added: "They still haven't figured out whether the cloud is a good thing or a bad thing, they fear that customers will simply bypass them and look to cloud providers for their basic needs."

Just 54 percent of MSPs offer cloud-based solutions and services as a strategic part of their business. Another 44 percent only support cloud services when requested by a customer.

Kris said many companies are missing out on big opportunities to be 'cloud orchestrators' for their customers.

"Just as they remotely managed on premise devices and applications, they can manage what a customer has in the cloud," he explained. "It's a natural spot for an MSP."

MSPs must also act to stem the persistent problem of employee churn. A majority of firms say in the past year they've lost at least one staff technician to an end-user organisation's IT staff.

"Employees who leave are usually seeking more stable hours, better pay or a job that's more challenging than simply monitoring and waiting for an alarm bell to go off," April said. "It's a problem that MSPs will have to address."