Comms Dealer

SAP has revealed its biggest acquisition in more than three years, scooping up US-listed Callidus Software for an enterprise value of $2.4bn.

It comes as the company reported earnings for Q4, generating sales of €6.8bn in the period.

SAP's new cloud bookings, a keenly watched metric for future sales growth, grew 31% at constant currencies.

Qumulo and Hewlett Packard Enterprise are to extend their partnership to deliver Qumulo File Fabric to HPE customers in EMEA.

The US headquartered company, which is on track to more than double its year-on-year growth, will offer Qumulo File Fabric (QF2), a scalable file storage system that runs in the data centre and in the public cloud.

The company has appointed seasoned leadership in the EMEA region - Thore Rabe and Stefan Radtke. Thore will serve as Qumulo's Vice President/General Manager, EMEA. Stefan will serve as Qumulo's Technical Director, EMEA. Thore previously held the position of EMEA Vice President of Dell EMC Isilon and Stefan previously served as EMEA CTO at the same company.

Qumulo will open offices in the UK and Germany to service market demand. It will also open a 24/7 support centre in the UK to accompany the existing centres it has across two-time zones in the US. Additionally, a growing ecosystem of channel partners is joining including Qvest and ConCat in Germany and Gegobyte and Escape Technology in the UK.

In June of 2017, Qumulo joined the Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Complete program so that validated HPE and Qumulo solutions became available from HPE and its resellers.

Downing-backed Kao Data has opened the doors to the first of four planned data centres at its campus in Harlow, Essex. On completion the £200m campus will support an IT load of over 35MW across 150,000 square feet of technical space.

Tech Data's Miriam Murphy has stepped in as SVP for Advanced Solutions in Europe, taking over from Graeme Watt who leaves the company on January 31st to become CEO of reseller Softcat.

Murphy joined Avnet TS in 1999 and has held a number of senior roles including SVP of Enterprise Business Group for EMEA and SVP for the North Region in EMEA. She was most recently SVP for the Benelux region, a role she occupied since Tech Data acquired Avnet's Technology Solutions business a year ago.

Poundworld has benefited from a major communications project following a deal with Cheltenham-based PSU Technology Group which promises to save the retailer circa £360k during the course of the contract.

PSU secured the contract after an audit of Poundworld's existing comms estate revealed scope for more suitable tariffs and more streamlined services across the 359 UK retail stores, while also removing the complex billing set-up.

Using PSU's online billing service Poundworld now gets a single bill that covers all sites.

Computacenter has posted a pre-close trading update for the year ended 31 December, with adjusted pre-tax results 'anticipated to be ahead of the board's expectations' contained in a previous November trading update.

It added that group revenue for the year increased by £408m or 12% in constant currency, and by £548m or 17% on an as reported basis.

Group Services revenue increased by 7% in constant currency and by 11% on an as reported basis. Group Supply Chain revenue increased by 14% in constant currency and by 19% on an as reported basis.

UK sales increased by 9% for the year, with Services revenue increasing by 6% and Supply Chain revenue increasing by 10%. The fourth quarter was particularly strong with Services revenue up 9%, Supply Chain up 18%, with overall revenue growth of 16% - 'the best fourth quarter growth we have seen in the UK for a number of years', said Computacenter.

German revenue increased by 15% for the year overall, with Services revenue increasing by 7% and Supply Chain revenue increasing by 19%, all in constant currency. French revenue increased by 13% for the year overall, with Services revenue increasing by 15% and Supply Chain revenue increasing by 12%, again, all in constant currency.

Final results for the year will be posted by Computacenter on 13 March 2018.

SAP, which claims to be the world's third largest independent software manufacturer, has announced its new 'Cloud Accelerator Programme', a global initiative to help partners expand their cloud businesses.

Accordxing to SAP, members of the initiative will receive support developing and executing a digital marketing plan, the allocation and results-driven spend of business development funds, the expert guidance and active participation of a partner marketing advisor and more.

A spokesperson said the SAP partner's co-funded marketing plan will be put into action throughout the year, to build pipeline, gain new customers, and expand the potential of a fast-growing cloud business.

Any company with a strong commitment to invest in the cloud, demonstrated through a business plan which outlines a yearly target to grow their SME cloud business by at least 50 percent, can qualify for the program.

Federation of Communications Services Deputy Chairman Itret Latif has been appointed interim chief executive of the industry trade organisation following the departure of Chris Pateman, who retired last November.

Latif has an energy utility background and was responsible for the development and integration of the retail telecoms business for Southern Electric and subsequently SSE.

As an experienced FCS board member, he has developed an appreciation and understanding of the essential nature of Business Radio and the Installers Group on top of his understanding of the needs of the Fixed and Mobile communication community.

Latif has been invited to provide evidence to both House of Commons and House of Lords on telecoms and energy.  In his evidence to the House of Lords in 2012 he was first to identify broadband as essential service and a utility.

At the same hearing, he called for restructuring of BT with BT Openreach being separated to become legal entity owning the infrastructure and engineers. 

France-based cloud comms provider Centile has signed up Pure Cloud Solutions (PCS) as its primary UC provider to the UK reseller base. 

PCS has also selected Everything Everywhere via Transatel to enable native fixed mobile convergence provided by the Centile ISTRA platform.

One of the first outcomes of the new relationship will be the launch in Spring 2018 of Voice Anywhere, based on Centile's mobile app.

PCS is adding Centile's ISTRA platform to its existing voice, mobility, data and application integration solutions, which are designed as a one-stop-shop that includes billing, professional services, CRM, FMC, hosted services, network design, delivery and other services.

Audio visual vendor Avocor has signed a distribution agreement with Dublin-based Avitor. The distributor will focus on generating brand awareness and growing the Avocor reseller partner network.

Avitor will have access to the full range of Avocor interactive solutions, including the F series and the new-to-market E series, which will be launched to the European market at the Bett education show in late January.

Last year, UK-headquartered Avocor signed a reseller partnership agreement with Kaizen to grow the brand across the Middle East. It expanded into the US market in 2016.

Avocor is both a manufacturer and distributor of interactive touch screens, including distributing the Nureva brand in the UK. Its own flagship solution is the VTF range of interactive panels.