Comms Dealer

Atos has appointed Jon Pritchard as the new CEO of Unify, which it acquired in November last year.

Pritchard, who was previously Unify's Executive VP Channels, will also join the Atos Executive Committee.

He has 25-plus years industry experience including a stint as President at Comstor where he led the $2.5bn channel IT business which operated in 40 countries.

Jen Wilson has been appointed by Commsworld to oversee the installation and running of new IT and telephone services for the City of Edinburgh Council.

Her appointment is one of 16 new postings made by the company, including six women. Commsworld hopes her high profile appointment in an IT and telecoms business will inspire more women into 'male dominated' industries.

Wilson previously worked at Capita and brings more than 20 years experience across varying roles within the IT industry.

She said: "The culture within Commsworld has been a breath of fresh air. The sector has for so long been male dominated but there is no reason for that to be the case.

"It is a matter of diversity, and a range of backgrounds is absolutely essential in any industry to instil a broader range of thinking."

Commsworld's headcount has grown from 47 to 63 following its partnership with CityFibre to deliver the ultra-fast Edinburgh CORE network, as well as its contract win with CGI, where it became a key provider in the £186m City of Edinburgh Council ICT contract.

Ricky Nicol, Chief Executive of Commsworld, said: "There have been some important additions to the team but we are particularly pleased to secure the appointment of Jen to lead the major work with the Council.

"Jen's comments on encouraging diversity in the industry are especially pertinent. Creativity of thinking is now absolutely essential and we must look to encouraging people of all backgrounds to view this industry as exciting and open to all sorts of opportunity."

Commsworld's integral role in the Council ICT project is to deliver a 400 site Wide Area Network (WAN), delivering faster and more reliable connectivity for schools, libraries and other council buildings.

Commsworld will also rollout an IP Telephony solution for 7,000 users and a 250 seat Contact Centre. These key aspects of the ICT contract will deliver significant benefits to the end users, while also creating a number of new jobs in the Scottish IT market.

The WAN will utilise Edinburgh CORE, the pure fibre network Commsworld launched in May 2015 with infrastructure provider CityFibre.

More than half of Northern Powerhouse councils are missing the Government's pledge to spend £1 in every £3 with small businesses, especially when it comes to their IT outsourcing activities, according to research from IT services aggregator Streamwire, under Freedom of Information requests.

Furthermore, 86 per cent have no plans to increase their IT services allocation to SME suppliers.

A Freedom of Information (FOI) request was sent to all 34 councils who make up the UK's Northern Powerhouse to ascertain the proportion of the IT services spend allocated to small and medium sized enterprises. 
 
The results seemingly highlighted a disconnection between government policies to encourage local spend with SMEs, and the actual spending habits of local councils. 
 
Anne Stokes, CEO of Streamwire, urges Northern Powerhouse councils to take a more concerted view to spend with SMEs: "The key objective of the Northern Powerhouse was to establish the region as a beacon for 'doing things differently', strengthening the area as an economic hub and showcasing how other regions could adopt similar innovation and best practice in their communities.

"Councils can play a powerful role by using their budgets to procure more from SMEs, which are more than likely to be regional businesses. Unless local councils take up this mantle, the government's goal of building an economic stronghold in the North is surely going to be very difficult to achieve sustainably." 

Manchester-based Invosys has presented £2,000 to charity Francis House Children's Hospice following a year of fund raising events including Rough Runner, a 10 mile obstacle course; Spartan Super, a six mile course with 20 obstacles; the Cheshire Three Peaks Walk; the Manchester Marathon, Berlin Marathon and Salford Triathlon.

"It's a part of our ethos at to give something back to the community and we are delighted to be working with Francis House this year," stated Dan Fish, HR Director. "It's been fantastic to raise funds for such a worthy cause, as well as good fun, an opportunity to get fit and a great way to team build."

Timico Technology Group's CEO Tim Radford (pictured) had already made his mark in the world of horse racing but having the Timico name etched into the Cheltenham Gold Cup marks a new height.

Radford's family has long been associated with horse racing as owners of frequent runners Knock House, Somersby, Calgary Bay and Racing Demon.

Timico secured sponsorship of the Cheltenham Gold Cup late last year when the opportunity became available for the first time in 36 years.

Radford said: "It's an honour to have been chosen as the new sponsor of the Cheltenham Gold Cup and seeing the Timico name emblazoned on such an iconic symbol of jump racing is truly fantastic."

The Cheltenham Gold Cup is considered to be the highlight of the annual Cheltenham Festival held in March.

Timico provides a range of ICT services to Goodwood and Newbury independent race courses. Through the new four year sponsorship and associated business partnership, it will have preferred supplier status with The Jockey Club's portfolio of 15 racecourses.  

TalkTalk Business is offering its first 4G SIM only business plans - packages that are exclusive to existing TalkTalk Business customers and offer unlimited texts and calls, complete with data allowance at what the company says is 'low cost'.

"We understand the complex pressures that face today's businesses as they look to manage costs and improve profitability," said Duncan Gooding, Director of Enterprise, TalkTalk Business.

"We also know how important connectivity is to them, not only to provide a faultless service to valued customers, but to support the business' next chapter as it looks to prosper in a digital-first world.

"Connectivity is increasingly the lifeblood of a business, which is why a combined mobile and broadband package has never been more important.

"By offering our customers competitive data solutions along with unlimited calls and texts, we believe that we can eliminate the complexity of multiple providers."

ISPA analysis has revealed a big increase in broadband references in Parliament, showing that political interest in broadband has risen by 75% overall from the first inner months of the 2010-15 Parliament to the first months of this current Parliament.

By comparing the number of debates and parliamentary questions in three political periods since the 2010 election, it is clear that MPs and constituents care more than ever about broadband and the Internet.

Written questions from MPs on broadband increased 59% and broadband was mentioned 63% more in the House of Commons in the nine months since the election in 2015 compared to the first nine months in 2010.

There have been six debates on broadband since May 2015, compared to none in the same period after the 2010 election. In total these three categories have seen a 75% increase in broadband discussions.

In this Parliament to date, there have been a range of select committee inquiries looking in to broadband as well as issues like the digital economy, cyber security, big data and the Investigatory Powers Bill.

New all-party groups have been established looking at the digital economy, broadband and e-crime. This in part can be explained by newer MPs more familiar with technology, a government-backed rollout programme and the increased number of constituent queries into broadband.

The backdrop to this is the ever increasing take up of superfast broadband with hundreds of providers rolling out national, regional or local networks, and others reselling these services adding expert knowledge and support.

Ofcom research shows that the average UK speed is now 29Mbps. With 85% of adults now using the Internet regularly, and the rise of connected devices, it is clear that the Internet is fundamental for all households. However, there are some debates ahead, for example on how to meet the 10Mpbs Universal Service Obligation, the future regulatory framework and removing barriers to make rolling out broadband easier.

ISPA Chair James Blessing said: "The massive investment in broadband from ISPA members has helped the Internet become an essential part of our daily lives and this is reflected in the level of parliamentary interest.

"That isn't to say broadband rollout isn't without challenges and I am glad ISPA is proactively connecting ISPs with local MPs on how to bring the transformative effects of broadband to communities throughout the UK."

Claranet has bolstered its Amazon Web Services and DevOps capabilities with the acquisition of Warrington-based AWS specialist Bashton.

The deal builds on last year's purchases of LinuxIT and Techgate and accelerates Claranet's managed public cloud drive.

Bashton was established in 2004 and works primarily with retail and media customers, helping them to run mission critical web applications on AWS infrastructure.

Its DevOps tooling expertise enables customers to deploy code updates into their web application, as well as monitor and improve performance.

Bashton has annual revenues of £1.2m and its customers include ITV, Odeon, BBC Worldwide, Liverpool Football Club, made.com and Virgin Holidays.

Michel Robert, Claranet UK's MD, said: ""Bashton was a natural company to join Claranet and follows a number of strategically important acquisitions we have made in the past year across Europe to enhance our public cloud capabilities.

"The development of managed services on third party clouds is a key focus for Claranet and the skills and experience brought by Bashton go a long way to helping us to manage more complex applications in these environments.

"As cloud adoption increases, the real value we can add as a managed services provider is in our expertise, tooling and automation capabilities.

"We are therefore focused on developing our advanced hosting capabilities to streamline our customers' operations and underpin the evolution of our managed application hosting services."

Bashton's founder and Director Sam Bashton added: "Claranet's application-centric approach to combining hosting and networking services, including its Cloud Connect service into AWS, demonstrates a solid understanding of the challenges faced by businesses today."

The expanded Claranet Group now has annual revenues of £165m, over 1,000 staff and 5,500-plus customers in the UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal.

A new programme introduced by Cobweb Solutions enables channel partners supplying Office 365 under Advisor, Open or EA licensing agreements to transfer customers onto the CSP Reseller Programme with no disruption in service and higher margins.

"Profit Tuner for Office 365 creates a simple way for Microsoft partners with existing Office 365 customers to make higher margins up to 15%," said Julian Dyer, Chief Technical Officer, Cobweb.

The automated platform also helps with customer lifecycle management and is available to Microsoft partners wanting to becoming a CSP reseller.

"Customers only see that they are no longer billed by Microsoft and their preferred technology partner is now their account manager, support and billing owner," added Dyer.

"The Profit Tuner Programme takes care of the complexity of moving customers into the CSP reselling model while managing the licencing arrangements appropriately.

"What would normally be challenging for a Microsoft CSP reseller is provided as a low overhead process to bring customers on board."

Dyer also noted that the opportunity to cross sell and upsell additional cloud services from multiple suppliers becomes technically and commercially possible. And a billing option removes the costs of customer billing and cash collection.

"The reseller can take charge of the customer relationship and offer further subscriptions or replace the existing subscriptions with their own," added Dyer.

"The market opportunity for CSP reseller partners is significant with millions of potential UK customers to sign up. It offers a way for resellers to reinvigorate their cloud services."

Spurred by stellar growth Henry Howard Finance (HHF) has secured a foothold in the midlands from where it will expand geographically and more effectively work with customers across the UK.

Following a £25m investment from Cabot Square Capital last year HHF now employs 90 staff, has generated growth of 60% in 12 months and witnessed record growth this year with its lending up by 75% to more than £70m.

The investment allowed HHF to increase its lending capacity and restructure into four divisions with HH Vendor, HH Asset and HH Retail Finance focused on leasing, while HH Cash Flow Finance provides invoice finance.

The funding boost also enabled HHF to develop its FinTech offering with the launch of HowAPP, an online credit decision and deal management tool that can give an acceptance in less than 20 seconds, claims the firm. Finance contracts can then be securely completed via Echo-sign.

HHF's just-opened Solihull office builds on its presence in London and HQ in Newport and will be headed up by Dan MacKrell who joined the company as Head of Technology in October 2015.

He will be supported by business development managers working mostly with manufacturers, distributors and vendors in the IT and telecoms sectors.

MacKrell said: "The new office will help us service our nationwide clients from the heart of the country."

HHF began trading in 1996 as a sales-aid leasing company supporting vendors using leasing to spread the cost of the customer's purchase over a term of usually three or five years. It now has a portfolio in excess of £150m which includes more than 20,000 UK businesses.

Mark Crook, COO and co-founder of HHF, said: "We have clients and staff operating across the country but this new office in Solihull will allow us to better serve the whole of the UK.

"We have seen amazing growth throughout the business in the last year and want to continue this expansion in 2016.

"Dan and his team will work hard to develop strategic partnerships with our FinTech offer. Manufacturers, distributors and value added resellers all benefit from the simple, useable quick and functional HowAPP product."