Comms Dealer

Managed Services Provider GCI has finalised its leadership team with the appointment of Mike Ayres as CCO and Phil Smith as COO.

GCI CEO Adrian Thirkill stated: "I have worked with both Mike and Phil for many years at Colt and Easynet and we achieved some great things together.

"They are talented, consistent and have the backbone to always push for better and see beyond 'same old, same old'.

"Importantly, I also always remember our time together as good days, fun borne of success. I am delighted therefore that we have reformed a winning team."

Ayres, previously MD Business Markets (UK) at Easynet and then Senior Vice President Strategic Channel at Interoute, commented: "Across the organisation we have a very good team at GCI.

"I look forward to doing everything possible to provide strong support to my team and a great service to our customers.

"And, through the discipline of collaboration and partnership - and the traditional values of decency, honesty and integrity - I hope to earn the trust and respect of both our people and our customers."

Smith previously with Colt, CGI and Capgemini, noted: "Our many years working together have built empathy and confidence in each other's ability, but it was fun too and I feel the GCI alchemy will be just as good, if not better.

"I believe the team at GCI is primed and ready to take things to the next level. I also believe that in an progressively commoditised sector, GCI will serve our customers better by developing an increasingly proactive and consultative approach."

Thirkill added: "We now have a full exec team from CEO to CMO and it's a capable blend of experienced new joiners and proven GCI seniors.

"Collectively, the leadership team shares the single vision of realising GCI's full potential and supporting our people, customers, partners and alliances to the absolute best of our ability.

"More simply, we now have the right people on the bus and we'll now pull together to keep GCI not only pointing in the right direction. Our announcement only last week regarding our acquisition of Fusion Media Networks is just one early indicator of that."

Ayres and Smith join weeks after Mike Constantine joined GCI as CTO.

Will Kennedy has joined Solar Communications as Sales Director, moving from Intercity Telecom where he was Sales and Marketing Director, and formerly Sales Director at Daisy.

He brings more than 17 years experience in the telecommunications and managed services sector to Solar.

Solar CEO John Whitty commented: "Will's significant experience and strong vendor relationships means that he is the ideal person to support our ambitious plans as we take our customers on this exciting journey."

Kennedy added: "The market opportunity is huge and Solar is well primed for growth, with a proven track record in business communications delivery and established relationships with leading vendors.

"I share John's vision and ambitions for the company and I look forward to leading our sales team in the delivery of new and improved technology solutions to new and existing clients.

"Investments already made by Solar have equipped us with the technology to incrementally improve the daily operations and business performance of our clients' business through the adoption of new technology."

Maintel has completed the acquisition of Azzurri Communications following an 'overwhelming' vote of approval from its shareholders.

The acquisition positions the combined company as one of the largest integrators in the communications sector, with revenues for the last financial year of over £140m.

Eddie Buxton, CEO at Maintel, said: "The overwhelming approval by shareholders has further confirmed to us that this acquisition will prove beneficial for employees, customers and partners of both companies, providing enhanced scale and visibility of the combined group."

Chris Jagusz, CEO of Azzurri Communications, added: "The combined group will be able to offer its customers a broader range of services in hosted cloud and data solutions."

Six Degrees Group (6DG) has acquired application hosting provider Insite, a specialist provider of Microsoft Dynamics AX hosting and managed services in the cloud.
 
Established in 1994, Insite owns and operates its own tier 3 aligned data centre where it hosts private cloud infrastructure, dedicated to each client, upon which it builds tailored platforms to operate ERP and CRM platforms, predominantly but not exclusively for Microsoft applications.
 
Insite is a Microsoft Gold Partner for Server and Data platforms, plus Hosting, bringing Microsoft Azure public cloud knowledge to 6DG.
 
Insite goes to market directly and through partnerships with major ISVs.

These partners handle the application development and rollout with Insite providing the PaaS elements.

Insite includes application performance monitoring, highly pro-active support and security controls within its service wrapper. End users include Greenwich Leisure, Tarmac Building Products, Crew Clothing, Joules and Countrywide Farmers.
 
Alastair Mills, CEO of 6DG, commented: "This announcement is a continuation of our stated strategic goal to enhance our capabilities in mission critical application hosting, with a secure and compliant wrap, for business and government customers.

"It also provides Microsoft Azure expertise in the public cloud for both IaaS and PaaS, as well as a strong ISV partner channel."
 
James Barden, MD of Insite, added: "The technical capabilities of both businesses are highly complementary and our approach to the way we work with customers is a close fit.

"We are looking forward to introducing new capabilities from Six Degrees in addition to the expertise in mission-critical hosting we have been delivering to our customers for many years."

Arrow Electronics has announced its participation in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Programme.

Arrow will leverage its global base of value added resellers and managed service providers to sell Microsoft Azure, Office 365, Enterprise Mobility Suite and Dynamics CRM Online subscriptions in the United States and Europe.

Arrow will grow its sales of Microsoft cloud through value added services delivered globally to the channel, including cross-vendor solutions, go-to-market playbooks and cloud assessment-migration toolkits, in addition to billing and support services.

Steve Robinson, Vice President of Arrow's global cloud business, said: "As a Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Programme partner, Arrow is well positioned to provide and enable a range of Microsoft cloud solutions through our channel partner community."

Phones were ringing off their hooks at Leicester City FC when it secured the Premier League crown with two games to go after Spurs drew 2-2 with Chelsea on Monday night, with the club's comms solution, supplied by SpliceCom, not dropping any balls during the influx.

Leicester held Manchester United 1-1 at Old Trafford, despite finishing the match with ten men, the day before, requiring their North London rivals to win all three remaining games to stay in contention for the Premiership race.

The Fantastic Foxes, as they're affectionately known, had already qualified for the European Champions League next season.

Leicester City has been using an on-premise cloud-ready SpliceCom voice solution, including Vision Business Management application, to handle their evolving unified communication needs, since 2010.

The SpliceCom solution utilises some 200 IP and analogue handsets around Leicester City's King Power Stadium, training ground and other key locations, running as a single unified system.

Paulo Sousa, Sven-Goran Eriksson, Nigel Pearson and now Claudio Ranieri have all utilised the phone tagged 'Manager' on the SpliceCom system over this period.

According to Martine Morgan, Leicester City's Purchasing Manager, the greatest advantage of the SpliceCom solution is its flexibility. "Leicester City now receives a tailored level of service that reflects the clubs changing needs throughout the season.

"What doesn't change are the benefits that this great solution provides to us, our partners and most importantly, our fantastic supporters."

Data centre operator Next Generation Data (NGD) and channel distribution partner Exertis UK have introduced a data centre as a service (DCaaS) bundling deal designed to enable low risk, high margin business opportunities for resellers with customers taking first steps into cloud, unified communications hosting, disaster recovery management and many more applications.

Exertis will offer resellers rack server hardware including Dell, Lenovo and Fujitsu bundled with NGD's Data Cube ready-to-run DCaaS hosting platform.

This comprises a quarter rack configuration, connectivity, power supply, cooling infrastructure, and a wide range of high speed network connectivity options.

Half rack and full racks are also available. This is run through Exertis' own billing system which allows resellers to bill end users with their own logo and headers without needing to invest in a platform of their own.

"Our data centre infrastructure package allows resellers easy access to high margin annuity revenues plus additional product and accessories sales opportunities, all with the peace of mind that comes with having NGD's secure, resilient data centre facilities and engineering support services behind them," said Gareth Bray, head of commerical enterprise Exertis.

Ben Senouillet, NGD's client account manager, added: "Exertis channel partners can use NGD's data centre to develop their own- label private and hybrid cloud services, offering all the benefits of the cloud to their customers while keeping keep control of the infrastructure."

NGD's 750,000 sq ft facility was opened six years ago and so far the company has invested over £30m in its campus.

The Tier 3 facility features 100% green and carbon tax exempt power supply, multiple low latency carrier and ISP connectivity options, and meeting and conference facilities. Some of its major international customers include BT, CGI, IBM and Wipro.

intY has joined the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Programme, enabling it to distribute and provide direct billing, sell combined offers and services, as well as directly provision, manage and support Microsoft cloud offerings to Partners and Customers.

Following the link-up, intY owns the customer lifecycle, allowing it to sell Office 365 plus additional Microsoft services.

"We are excited about the opportunity that we can bring to the channel by becoming a Multi-Tier Distributor under the Microsoft CSP Programme," said Craig Joseph, Chief Operating Officer at intY.

Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft, said: "By joining the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program, partners will deepen customer relationships and expand business opportunities in the cloud."

Pangea has launched a new partner programme and manifesto that, says the firm, puts partnerships and collaboration top of the agenda.

Dan Cunliffe (left), Managing Director of Pangea, said: "We don't just want to be an M2M and IoT connectivity provider, we want to bring value to our partners by working towards a shared goal, helping them devise business strategies that help them get ahead of the competition, and providing training to help them win more business.

"Our job is to ensure our partners can provide a best in class IoT service and offer bespoke commercials to help win more business."

Operations Director Chris Romeika (left) added: "We are a relatively young company, but we have a proven and successful track record. Also, the nature of our company allows us to be adaptable to our clients' needs and celebrate their achievements with them."

Avnet has reported Q3 2016 (ending at the end of March 2016) revenues down, though within its expected range even as the sequential decline was slightly below normal seasonality given an expected drop in select high volume supply chain engagements at EMEA, Asia and weaker than expected demand in certain legacy technologies at Technology Solutions (TS).

Revenue of $6.2bn represented a decline of 10% sequentially as compared with the usual seasonal range of down 9% to down 5%. On a year-over-year basis organic revenue decreased 7.2% in constant currency as TS was down 13.6% and EM (the components business) declined 3.3%. Gross profit margin increased 57 basis points sequentially and 44 basis points year-over-year with both operating groups contributing to these improvements.

CEO Rick Hamada said: "TS revenue came in at the low-end of our expectation as all three regions experienced weaker than expected demand in select areas of legacy data centre products which resulted in organic revenue declining 22% in constant currency as compared with the typical seasonal range of down 19% to down 16%. All three regions were experiencing a double-digit decline".

Year-over-year growth in networking and services was offset by declines in storage, servers and software. Gross profit margin increased year-over-year and all three regions were driven by portfolio actions and product mix.

"Despite the double-digit decline in certain legacy technologies, TS delivered significant growth in areas where we have been investing, such as our all flash array storage business, which grew over 40% and our converged infrastructure solutions business which we were up nearly 20% from a year ago quarter."

The traditional hard drive, the 'spinning disk storage environment', is declining by more than 20%, but about 40% of Avnet's revenue is in the hybrid and all flash array where it sees hybrid arrays growing 15% and all-flash arrays growing at more than 40%. "But net-net that whole storage package for us is down year-on-year, because of that mix today".

Rick Hamada added: "The the area of biggest gap to our expectations was in the north, primarily in the UK. Central region, Eastern region and actually the Southern region are still performing to what we expect."