Comms Dealer

Polycom has awarded avsnet Platinum Solution Advisor status, the highest accreditation in Polycom's partner programme.
 
This latest accreditation recognises avsnet's knowledge of the Polycom service portfolio and demonstrates the company's high level of expertise of the entire collaboration estate, from proof-of-concept, to service delivery, to long-term support and maintenance.
 
Graham Fry, Managing Director of avsnet, said: "Polycom plays an integral role in the services we deliver and this latest recognition shows the progress avsnet has made in recent years."
 

South West Communications Group has completed its investment in a 10Gbps direct connection to Europe's largest data centre to extend its influence in the hosting market.

This investment means swcomms has created a multi data centre infrastructure linking its own purpose-built data centre with a facility in Newport, south Wales.

swcomms built a data centre in the south west in 2001. Following a multi-million pound investment, it meets the security, controlled environmental conditions, clean power, fire prevention and network connectivity requirements while giving businesses in the region an alternative to data centres located in London, Manchester and other large cities.

John Holdstock, swcomms' ICT director, said: "The new 10Gbps link allows for very low latency connections for our customers and access to many of the world's tier-1 service providers."

The Next Generation Data facility's main building measures 750,000sq ft. It has its own private connection to the National SuperGrid delivering 90MW, low cost power generated from 100% renewable sources.

swcomms provides co-location, managed server, disaster recovery business continuity and Internet bandwidth solutions.

Rob Tomlin has been appointed as Managing Director UK and Ireland of Azlan, Tech Data's value enterprise division.
 
Tomlin joined Tech Data when the company acquired SDG in September 2012.
 
Previously, Andy Gass, Managing Director UK and Ireland for Tech Data, was also acting as head of Azlan.

Before taking up his new role, Tomlin was a Business Unit Director for Azlan with responsibility for various business and sales teams and the systems integrator and MSP business units.
 
As well as further developing key partnerships with Cisco, Citrix, Dell, EMC, HP Enterprise, IBM, Lenovo, Symantec, Veritas and VMware, Tomlin will be working closely with vendors and partners to accelerate Azlan's presence in software-defined infrastructure solutions and enterprise security.  

He will also lead Azlan's continued development and investment in cloud aggregation and managed services.
 
Tomlin stated: "Significant advances are being made in software-defined networking and storage, in information security and data protection, and in the delivery of cloud-based services.

"Azlan will provide resellers the solutions, services and skills to deliver much more dynamic, responsive and scalable infrastructures that these technologies enable."
 

Union Street Technologies has named David McGrath as Head of Cloud, a newly created role.

He will be responsible for defining Union Street's product strategy for the development of its cloud solutions, including the onward development of aBILLity Cloud, a cloud hosted variant of Union Street's aBILLity billing platform.

McGrath brings over ten years experience as a Senior Solutions Consultant for one of the channel's leading providers of managed hosted solutions. He has experience of working with clients operating in regulated industries, and previous experience of working in telecoms billing industry.

Managing Director Tony Cook stated: "David possesses wide ranging, first-hand experience of designing cloud environments and of the reseller model, making him the ideal candidate for this role.

"When developing our solutions David will be pivotal to ensuring they are cloud friendly, built on best practice, and with a high focus on fault tolerance and data security."

McGrath added: "As a privately owned and completely independent developer and provider or billing solutions, Union Street delivers the freedom and encouragement to design innovative cloud solutions for the benefit of our clients.

"It presents me with an exciting career challenge and I look forward to working with clients on cloud solutions that make them more productive and profitable."

Ofcom's Chief Exec' Sharon White has warned that the proposed O2 and Three merger could threaten competition and according to news reports she has raised her concerns with the European Commission.

In a letter to the Financial Times White said the merger could bring higher prices for consumers and businesses, disruption to the existing UK network arrangement and a 'shift in the balance of power' between operators and independent retailers.

Greg Mesch, the tenacious founder and CEO of CityFibre, is a relative newcomer to the UK channel but he is already the instigator of a pure fibre infrastructure revolution and has chosen the UK's primary cities for his battleground.

A credible alternative infrastructure presence that provides choice and stimulates the disengagement of service providers from the UK's monolithic incumbents is an industry imperative, claims Mesch, the architect of CityFibre's project to provide such a stimulus. His strategic mission to create a true alternative has already justified CityFibre's headline investments and acquisitions, and Mesch is now expressing his priorities for high growth in partnership with resellers.

"For too long the UK telecoms landscape has been dominated by a single national infrastructure provider," said Mesch. "To compete with the rest of the world we need to ensure that there is choice and competition in the market. That's what we're doing. We are not just about providing like-for-like products over our independent network, but Gigabit as standard."

So who is Greg Mesch? He seems a man determined to redefine Britain's connected future and is busy mapping a route to reach the summit of his ambition. It could be argued that to become a real challenger to the likes of BT would be too high a mountain to climb, but the evidence of Mesch's progress and strategic advances so far, and his previous career achievements, suggest otherwise.

Mesch started out as a telecoms engineer and entrepreneur and has a strong background in the building of high growth fibre optic telecoms companies. He became Chief Operating Officer for ESAT Telecom in Ireland (which IPO'd on NASDAQ and was subsequently purchased by BT for over 1 billion euro). Mesch was also founder and Chief Operating Officer of Versatel Telecom which built one of the largest fibre-based infrastructures in the Dutch and German markets. Versatel also listed on NASDAQ and the Dutch AEX exchange and was purchased by Tele2 and Apax for over $1.5 billion.

In 2009 Mesch became Non-Executive Director of EU Networks before founding CityFibre in 2011 with Mark Collins through the acquisition of several established fibre optic businesses. Despite his glittering backstory, Mesch counts his biggest achievement as taking CityFibre from a fledgling IPO to its new position as the largest wholesale infrastructure provider after BT Openreach, in just two years.

CityFibre listed on the AIM market of the LSE in January 2014 raising £16.5 million and gained access to long-term funding opportunities. The company then raised a further £30 million following an over-subscribed private placing, taking the total equity raised to £46.5 million. In December 2015 CityFibre acquired KCOM's national fibre assets (excluding Hull and East Yorkshire) for £90 million and secured financing of £180 million, increasing its footprint to 36 cities and enabling CityFibre to target a total of 50 cities by 2020, reaching 20 per cent of the UK market.

"With the growth in data rising exponentially, pure fibre is the only truly future-proof infrastructure that can support it"

"We are a builder of Gigabit Cities, constructing modern pure fibre infrastructure in cities to serve CPs, SIs, local authorities, data centres and mobile operators," explained Mesch. "Our networks enable partners to use them in any way they wish, whether that's providing entry level active products or taking them on a journey to consume dark fibre and build their own on-net networks."

CityFibre's Gigabit City campaign kicked off with York and Peterborough, followed by Coventry, Kirklees, Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow and now Bristol. "These projects proved our model of city-wide wholesale fibre infrastructure and gave our investors the confidence to support us further in the acquisition of KCOM's national networks, helping us to reach scale and create a meaningful, national alternative infrastructure for the UK," stated Mesch.

Other developments of significance that underscore the strength of CityFibre's business model include the formation of a joint venture company in 2014 with Sky and TalkTalk to deploy a new Fibre-to-the-Home network in the City of York. Soon afterwards CityFibre signed the UK's first dark fibre-to-the-tower deal, a national framework with EE, Three and MBNL. And in October 2015 CityFibre sealed a Master Services Agreement with Vodafone.

The KCOM acquisition gave CityFibre an additional 1,100 km of metro network and 1,100km of long distance network, allowing it to connect to peering points in London and data centres across the UK. This masterstroke of an acquisition and subsequent funding shines as a signal victory for Mesch's rolling campaign convoy across the UK's infrastructure territory.

"We found it hard to offer partners the scale they need to transact at volume," he commented. "But with the acquisition of KCOM's national network assets we overcame that barrier and are much more relevant to our partners. By 2019 we aim to be the network infrastructure of choice in all of our local markets and have hundreds of CP partners transacting across our growing network, delivering state-of-the-art services to end users across the country."

That the reseller community will respond positively to Mesch's mission is already clear, evident in the high interest shown by existing and potential partners. "We are building awareness of CityFibre as an alternative for CPs," noted Mesch. "We're already working with tier 1 providers, local authorities, emergency services, mobile network operators and multiple business CPs, but the more CPs who come on board as partners the faster we can grow for the benefit of all. Building a very different connected future for Britain isn't just about us building network, it's about our partners making use of it.

"For a long time UK CPs, data centres and MNOs have been calling for a true, national alternative to BT. It's this demand that underpins our business model. Every major announcement we make and every press headline we get triggers a fresh wave of interest from potential new partners. Our job now is to convert this heightened interest, onboard new partners and give all of them a voice over what comes next. We believe that working in true partnership with no hidden agenda is what will keep our partners with us and make the UK communications industry great."

CityFibre now employs 105 staff and generates revenue growth of 115 per cent year-over-year. The company's turnover of £2 million at IPO now stands at over £36 million and rising. "We're rapidly expanding and have some of the best brains in the industry," added Mesch. "That said, we are still a small, close-knit group and our culture reflects that dynamic. None of us are here to be just like everyone else. 'Alternative' to us isn't just about our network, it's about everyone having the personal freedom to be fresh, creative, and even disruptive when we need to be. Because of that, absolutely no voice goes unheard. Everyone who works at CityFibre is passionate, energetic, driven and very busy."

Their joint priority is to exert a telling influence over the future of Britain's connected future by expanding CityFibre's pure fibre network footprint and increasing the addressable market for partners. "We are targeting major metro footprints and will open up our infrastructure to a broad range of CPs to maximise its use," added Mesch.

"With the growth in data rising exponentially, pure fibre is the only truly future-proof infrastructure that can support it. We need to plan for tomorrow. We're also investing heavily in state-of-the-art platforms to make sure our partners can do business with us easily and access all of the information they need. Building on these developments and evolving our systems to be truly world class is next on our list. We're agile, independent and here to stay."•

Just a minute with Greg Mesch...

Tell us something about yourself we don’t know: I’m a heli-skier 

What do you fear the most? Poor health

Name three ideal dinner guests: Steve Jobs, James Dyson, Neil Armstrong 

Role model: Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric

One example of something you have overcome: Being the youngest of five brothers

Your greatest strength and what could you improve on? I never give up: That can be a strength and a weakness 

What possession could you not live without?  My skis

How do you relax when not working? Cycling and skiing

Name one thing you couldn’t do without in your job: Coffee  

A new association that champions the benefits of working with regional EMEA technology channels and promotes new technology in business and society is being founded by four of the largest technology distributors in Europe: ALSO, Esprinet, Exertis and Westcoast.

It could be seen as a counter to the US-heavy Global Technology Distribution Council, although ALSO is already a prominent member of GTDC.

These have been some moves to encourage a more European stance in the GTDC, but global issues and standards - mainly US - have been seen to dominate its agendas.

The new association is called The Technology Channels Alliance. While its primary objective is to ensure that technology vendors understand and make full use of the benefits of working with channels that understand their local circumstances across EMEA, the association will also be enablers and advocates of new technology to ensure these channels are educated and optimised to deliver on the promises new technology makes.

At the same time, the association will have a social charter and will be setting aside a portion of its member dues to establish a charitable foundation with a mission to get technology to those without the means to acquire it, and enable a wider population to benefit from today's technology.

"I feel it's time to give something back," commented Joe Hemani, CEO of Westcoast. "Technology sales channels today are very good at getting products and services out to those who can afford to pay, what we want to do is give those without the means an opportunity to acquire technology that can change and better their lives."

Membership in the new association is open to technology distributors, large resellers and retailers whose head office is registered in a European country.

Niall Ennis, CEO of Exertis, said: "Regional players are a hugely important part of the technology channel in EMEA, and provide a focus and range of services tailored to each of the countries in which they operate.

'This new association seeks to promote the benefit to technology vendors of this focused approach and to provide a forum to identify opportunities to grow the addressable market for technology products."

Gustavo Moeller-Hergt, CEO of ALSO, added: "As well as being advocates and enablers of what technology can do for users, members of our new association bring special value to our customers because we are local, so we speak the language and do business in the language of our customers."

Alessandro Cattani, CEO of Esprinet, observed: "We have an ambition to create what we call a 'chain of knowledge' all the way from vendors through the channel to end users.

"Among other things, we will be publishing several case studies a year that will highlight issues of common interest in the region."

Avnet's Q2 update showed that revenue of $6.85 billion was near the low end of expectations, due to weaker demand in industrial markets and EM Americas and a softer-than-expected close at TS Americas.

As a result, revenue increased 6.4% sequentially after adjusting for the impact of foreign currency changes and the extra week in our September quarter as compared with the normal seasonal range of plus-10% to plus-14% growth, it says.

The EMEA region continued multi-quarter positive growth trend, as revenue increased 3.5% year-over-year in constant currency, led by continued strength in the electronics marketing business. Despite this EMEA performance, global organic revenue declined 5.5% year-over-year in constant currency, as the Americas region decreased 9.9% and the Asia region declined 9.5% in constant currency.

Gross profit margin increased 27 basis points from the year-ago quarter to 11.4% driven by improvements at TS across all three regions. In TS EMEA, a fourth consecutive quarter of year-over-year organic growth in core business in constant currency was offset by a decline in computing components as organic revenue declined 10.6% in reported dollars and 2% in constant currency.

Patrick Laurent Zammit - President - Technology Solutions: "We were a little bit surprised by, I would say, some softness in closing deals on storage. And to be very specific, it's legacy technology storage.

"In fact, if you look at the next-generation technologies like converged, hyper-converged or flash arrays, we grew very nicely, double digits, in some cases even high-double digits. So, here, we see traction. But unfortunately, the positives are not enough to offset the decline on the legacy storage technology."

In EMEA market conditions for the moment remain positive, he says. "I will just add that companies had delayed investments because of the sluggish market environment. They have a better visibility now, so they have to invest and they're investing.

"So, that's helping the market. In addition in that market, we continue to execute very well. I mean, we've made some management changes. And so, all the regions are now in - within Europe, all the regions are recovering nicely.

"We have some record results in some of the regions like Eastern Europe and Northern Europe. Central Europe continues to develop very well. And Southern Europe, which was an issue for us, is now turning around."

Cobweb Solutions has appointed Michael Frisby as MD. He joins from Microsoft and will work with Ash Patel, Director of Business Transformation to capitalise on Cobweb's enhanced status in the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program as an indirect 2-Tier partner.

Frisby will be responsible for leading Cobweb's transition to a value-add cloud aggregator, reporting to Executive Chairman Paul Hannam.

In his role at Microsoft Frisby was most recently responsible for driving the transformation of the SMB Managed Reseller business across Western Europe to a cloud-first model.

Previous to his SMB role Frisby successfully built and led the Online Services Syndication programme, working with all of the major telcos across Western Europe.

Paul Hannam, Executive Chairman, Cobweb Solutions, said: "Michael's experience will accelerate and cement Cobweb's global position as a cloud aggregator as we move into new territories. It is a measure of the confidence he has in Cobweb's proposition that he has chosen to make this move."

Frisby added: "Cloud Services and Microsoft's CSP program are driving a significant disruption across the IT channel.

"Cobweb's nearly 20 years of experience as a cloud services provider means we have a massive opportunity within this changing landscape to create a new value-add cloud aggregator which builds on the deep technical and service delivery capabilities within Cobweb.

"This experience and depth of capability will enable us to help 1000s of traditional IT resellers and ISVs make the successful transition to reselling cloud services.

"Cobweb is a significant Microsoft partner with nine accreditations, and a 2015 Microsoft Partner of the Year Finalist with a consistent track record of delivering innovation, such as enabling the first UK customer to transact with Microsoft Office 365 through the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Program in 2015."

Cobweb deploys the Microsoft portfolio including Microsoft Azure and the Enterprise Mobility Suite together with its own Cloud services.

BT Group has announced a 24% rise in pre-tax profits to £862m in its Q3 results to 31st December 2015. Revenue rose 3% to £4.59bn.

Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive, commenting on the results, said: "This is a strong set of results with good numbers across the board. Revenue was up 4.7% this quarter, our best result for more than seven years. We are making good progress towards our goal of sustainable profitable revenue growth. 

"BT Consumer had a standout quarter, increasing its overall line base for the first time in well over a decade and capturing 71% of new broadband customers. Good customer growth in broadband, TV and mobile helped to grow ARPU by 7%.

"Customers like what we're offering, whether that's superfast broadband, Champions League football or mobile data bundles. BT Global Services also did well with good revenue growth in continental Europe and Asia.

"Fibre is underpinning the growth at Openreach with almost half a million premises taking up the service this quarter via dozens of service providers.

"The fibre market is highly competitive and growing all the time, which is great news for the UK economy.

"Our superfast fibre broadband network is available to well over 24m homes and businesses. We will help take fibre coverage to 95% of the country by the end of 2017, with plans to go even further.

"Our G.fast trials are progressing well."

Following its acquisition of EE, BT also announced a new organisational structure that will take effect from April.

There will be six lines of business. Two will serve consumers, two will focus on businesses and the public sector - one in the UK and Ireland and one globally - and two will provide wholesale services to other industry players.

The Wholesale and Ventures division, which provides wholesale services to more than 1,400 communications providers, will be expanded to include EE's MVNO business as well as some specialist businesses such as Fleet, Payphones and Directories.

Gerry McQuade, currently Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Business at EE, will be its CEO.

Openreach will be unaffected by the re-organisation.

The six divisions will be supported by Technology, Service and Operations which is currently responsible for BT's 'core' networks in the UK and overseas, its IT platforms and its global Research and Development arm.

Howard Watson takes over as its CEO today, replacing Clive Selley.

A new IT and Mobile business unit within TSO will be led by EE's Fotis Karonis. Fotis will join Howard's leadership team as well as support Marc Allera as EE's CIO.

Patterson added: "We will operate a multi brand strategy with UK customers being able to choose a mix of BT, EE or Plusnet services, depending on which suit them best.

"The acquisition provides us with a chance to refresh our structure and we have done that by creating a major new division that will focus on businesses and the public sector in the UK and Ireland."