Comms Dealer

According to figures published by IDC, the Western European tablet market stabilised in Q2 2015 with total shipments contracting annually down by 1.2% and reaching 7.5 million units.

This small decline, which was the softest since the downturn started at the beginning of 2014, resulted from the combined effect of persistent weak demand for consumer tablets and increasing interest in 2-in-1s and as commercial tablets.

Furthermore, the drop in tablet shipments stabilized at 4.4% while growth for 2-in-1s persisted at +71%.

The overall volume of 2-in-1s remains relatively small, but demand continues to prove buoyant and Q2 saw the share of these devices jump to 7.3% of the total market.

"The interest in 2-in-1s that we observed in previous quarters is clearly materialising into corporate deployments and consumer purchases, especially among professionals and students," said Daniel Goncalves, research analyst, IDC EMEA Personal Computing.

"Growth in the area, however, was also driven by increased supply of models that arrived on the market as vendors improved or extended their portfolio and new entrants stepped into the market," said Marta Fiorentini, senior research analyst, IDC EMEA Personal Computing.

"The most notable new 2-in-1 model is probably the Microsoft Surface 3, a smaller and more affordable version of Surface Pro 3, but other new 2-in-1s were introduced by well-established international players as well as several local or sub-regional vendors.

"The latter not only contributed to broaden the 2-in-1 offering but, thanks to the strength of their brand at a local level and the usually lower price points of their products, also helped boost the volume of the market for detachable devices, where their share jumped sequentially from below 1% to over 4%.

"Local and sub-regional vendors continued to play a key role in the tablet market, as their shipments contributed to some stabilisation of the market."

The tablet vendor landscape remained clearly dominated by Apple and Samsung in Europe but the resurgence of the local champions participated in an evolving picture.

Traditional smartphone vendors such as Huawei and Alcatel have also been steadily making progress, especially through the telco channel, by leveraging healthy demand for connected devices.

Besides connectivity, the commercial market remains a silver lining for tablets, with shipments increasing by more than 50% compared to the same quarter of a year ago.

Although progress in the commercial adoption of tablets varies significantly across countries, demand appears to be solid for both tablets and 2-in-1s, given that the two form factors meet different business needs.

In particular, slate tablets tend to be preferred for specific vertical functions, at times requiring some degree of customisation, while detachable devices are more popular among larger companies and in the education sector.

Compared to portable PCs, however, 2-in-1s still have a marginal presence across businesses in Western Europe and it is clear that more work needs to be done in terms of both performance and applications to increase their penetration in the commercial space.

Contact centre specialist Aspect Software has bolstered its channel team with the appointment of Majella Wilkins as Northern Europe Channel Sales Director and Kate Tustin is Northern Europe Channel Sales Manager.

Based in Aspect's European headquarters near Heathrow, UK, Wilkins and Tustin will shape the company's channel strategy in the region, focusing on recruiting specialist cloud partners to deliver both mobile self-service and Aspect's cloud-based customer engagement solution, Zipwire.

Both appointments join Aspect from contact centre technology provider Avaya, where they spent almost five years driving channel growth and developing key partners in Europe.

Wilkins said: "The cloud represents a significant opportunity for resellers, namely because of the changing expectations of end users.

"If we go back to the consumer, we know that they are driving the way they interact with companies, or the contact centre.

"The most effective way that companies can support a mobile self-service strategy, or deliver exceptional omni-channel customer experiences, is to move to a cloud-based model.

"But we know that making the move to selling cloud-based solutions can be challenging, impacting everything from cash flow to payroll and commission schemes. It's therefore critical that vendors like us can offer resellers the support they need to make the transition. This will be at the heart of our work at Aspect."

Swyx has reported 40% sales growth in its 2015 half-year results. This strong performance prompted an increase in headcount and follows the expansion of national and international cloud partnerships.

The company has added 15 new full-time employees in the period and also sharpened its focus on youth development, awarding two scholarships for Computer Science to students of the Technical University Dortmund. 

Swyx also linked-up with 20 international partners who within the past six months have selected SwyxWare Compact for DataCenter to offer their own Swyx-based cloud services to customers.

Swyx Solutions CEO Dr Ralf Ebbinghaus said: "Just like 2014 we have set the right tone in the first half of the current year, consistently continuing and developing our strategy.

"The expansion of our team is vital to our growth plans and we will determinedly pursue our goal to expand our cloud business together with our service provider partners and channel partners in the form of new cooperations and business models."

Chess' Partner Services division has collected the O2 Direct Partner Network Digital Excellence Award in recognition of its focus on customer experience, churn, value and digital product adaptation.

O2 Business head of partners Jason Phillips said: "These awards represent a significant shift in the way we work, as we become more intentional in our focus on customer support and digital knowledge and expertise. We are rewarding partners who have successfully made that shift with us."

John Pett, Sales Director at Chess Partner Services, added: "We are proud 02 have rewarded our great work in digital excellence because we've really supported our partners in embracing new technology and are one of only a few partners to perform at such a consistently high level.

"Our partners benefit in numerous ways from our continued strong partnership with O2. We have just signed a new agreement with new commercials and have acquired even more extra funding as a result of this award, further enhancing our vision of being a truly 'great place to be a partner."

Systems integrator and managed services provider Maintel has been appointed as an approved supplier by the Crown Commercial Service for its new Network Services framework agreement (RM1045).

Maintel has been granted supplier status in eight of the agreement's 10 lots.

Maintel Bid Manager Kay Sugg said: "We are thrilled to have our services approved onto the framework, with success within all the categories which we bid for.

"Being recognised as an official supplier will position us as one the key partners for public sector contracts going forward. We are excited to have the opportunity to further build on our existing relationship with the UK public sector."

Eddie Buxton, CEO of Maintel Group, added: "This announcement tops what has been a period of sustained growth and success for Maintel. Becoming an official network services supplier under the new agreement will help to drive forward our development to further strengthen our performance in the public sector arena in which Maintel has a long track-record of success."

Covering network and telecommunications services, the Network Services framework (RM1045) launched in July and will be available for use later this month. The agreement aims to offer more opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises to provide services for the government and other public sector bodies.

Pivotal Networks, the sister company of cloud infrastructure specialists SITS Group, has made a number of staff changes following growth over the last 12 months - including the stepping down of MD Kevin Almond.

Pivotal Networks was formed in 2011 with the aim of complementing SITS Group's established offerings in the form of WAN, LAN, Wireless and connectivity solutions.

The last 18 months has also seen the firm add telephone solutions to its portfolio.

Representing the board of Directors Phil Cambers commented: "Since its inception in 2011 we have seen a healthy demand for Pivotal services from both SITS Group's existing client base as well as new clients.

"In the same way as SITS Group has chosen to specialise in its field, Pivotal also specialises which has accounted, in part, for the solid growth it has seen in the last four years."

Demand for Pivotal's services, which saw turnover increase to just under £1m for the financial year 2014/15, has led to the employment of three new members of staff in the last two months.

Joanne Blacklock joins with many years of experience in both sales and operational roles in the capacity of Installation Co-ordinator, Emma Phillips joins the sales team as an Inside Sales Representative and Stuart McMain joins as Network Consultant.

As part of the plans moving forwards, Pivotal's MD Kevin Almond has stepped down to explore new avenues and the four Directors of SITS will run the Pivotal business.

Almond said: "I've learnt a lot in the last four four years. Running a business has been both exciting and challenging, but it's now time to use that experience and explore other avenues and spend more time with my family."

NEC has unveiled its SAP HANA Tailored Datacenter Integration Solutions (NEC Storage), designed to simplify the installation of SAP HANA(R) in-memory database software.

This solution is a combination of the NEC's SAP HANA appliance server, the NEC High-Performance Appliance for SAP HANA, and four models from the NEC M Series of storage products.

All of the four models' storage have been certified by SAP for the SAP HANA Enterprise Storage.

Operation verification and evaluation of the connection to the SAP HANA appliance server are also completed prior to delivery.

"We have seen rapidly increasing demand from enterprise customers for SAP HANA as a big data processing platform," said Hiroyuki Asaga, General Manager, Partners' Platform Division, NEC Corporation.

"The new solution, which combines our SAP HANA appliance server and storage products that have been certified for SAP HANA Enterprise Storage, will simplify the installation of SAP HANA and enable more customers to benefit from high speed in-memory processing."

Growing interest in Microsoft cloud has prompted Tech Data to appoint Joel Wilson as Business Development Executive for the Cloud Solutions Provider (CSP) and Services Provider License Agreement (SPLA) programme.

Previously, Wilson was part of the Microsoft Sure Step Team which works with partners on placing and managing their first orders and deliveries of Office 365.

Microsoft Business Manager at Tech Data, Mark Whittle, said: "Interest in CSP is growing fast and SPLA is also attracting more enquiries now.

"We've brought Joel in to ensure we can meet those demands.

"It's important that we help Microsoft resellers start to understand and benefit from these progressive programmes in every way that we can."

Tech Data Europe was one of the first distributors selected to participate in Microsoft's CSP programme.

The scheme expands cloud sales opportunities for resellers by enabling them to sell combined services and directly provision, manage and support customers.

Tech Data has integrated CSP into its StreamOne Cloud aggregation and billing platform, enabling partners to collate invoices for their customers on a regular basis.

Nearly 2,500 global compa nies were acquired in the first half of 2015, marking a 25% sequential increase in global tech M&A deal activity from 2014 and a $416bn in deal flow, says a researcher.

Mooreland Partners also predicts continued growth in transatlantic M&A activity in H2 2015. "The Transatlantic Bridge" is set to grow in strength during the second half of this year, as a result of a weaker Euro and ever growing cash piles held in Europe by US corporations, it says.

Mooreland Partners' H1 2015 Global Technology M&A Report shows a significant increase in technology M&A volumes and value since the beginning of 2015. Cross-border deals including deals across the 'Transatlantic Bridge' between the US and Europe represented a significant part of that increase," said Peter Globokar, Managing Director, Mooreland Partners.

The US remains the largest technology M&A market accounting for 50% of transactions. Europe is the second most active market with a much higher incidence of cross-border transactions: Only 15% of all US targets were acquired by a foreign buyer, but roughly 40% of European targets were acquired by foreign buyers, which were predominantly from the US.

Transatlantic tech M&A activity remains vibrant and diverse, it says: There were nearly 250 transatlantic transactions recorded in H1 2015 or four deals every three days, with 165 European targets acquired by US buyers, and 82 US targets acquired by European buyers.

The UK was the largest tech market for US buyers with 66 transactions or 40% of the transatlantic total. France, Germany, Sweden, Ireland, and the Netherlands all saw between 10 and 15 acquisitions by US buyers take place. Eight transatlantic transactions in excess of $1Bn occurred in H1 2015, of which half were made by European buyers in the US, notably, the acquisition of Freescale by NXP, and the acquisition of Igate by Cap Gemini.

Money being redeployed from BDUK schemes with higher subscription rates than anticipated should be put to competitive tender according to Malcolm Corbett, CEO of INCA, the Independent Networks Co-operative Association.

So far around £130m has been earmarked for reallocation, but rather than giving the money back to BT, INCA is urging local authorities to seek competitive responses from BT and a range of alternative suppliers.

As the collective voice of more than 55 alternative broadband suppliers INCA has first-hand knowledge of the sheer value for money that these providers are delivering.

Malcolm Corbett, CEO of INCA, said: "INCA represents a wide range of alternative suppliers, and many are already making excellent progress delivering super and ultrafast broadband services in urban and rural areas.

"Increasingly, government and BDUK see these suppliers as forming an important part of the mix for maximising coverage and achieving the best possible value for money for local broadband schemes.

"More often than not, investment from altnets requires less public subsidy than telcos, for example, 50% rather than 85%, and regularly requires no public funding at all.

"This is in part due to their local knowledge of the community and geography, as well as the fact that they can be far more flexible in their approach and commit private investment to areas that BT finds challenging.

"In many of our towns, cities and rural areas, alternative suppliers are building new ultrafast and superfast networks with great success, creating the digital infrastructure necessary to help our businesses and economy thrive.

"Often they work in partnership with other providers and with community schemes, for example B4RN, Fibre GarDen and Cybermoor. It is unacceptable that many urban areas, in addition to the well-publicised rural notspots, still suffer from poor broadband.

"It is the alternative providers that are often willing to invest in digitally deprived areas when others would prefer to wait for a subsidy to materialise."

A recent survey among INCA's membership reinforced the fact that these providers are gaining momentum and significant traction. It revealed that more than 1 million premises can already connect to infrastructure built, owned and managed by the firms that responded, a figure set to rise to 10 million over the next few years.

The success of the sector brings extra capacity and investment to assist the Government in reaching its rural broadband targets and supports the emerging 'ultrafast' agenda outlined in the Digital Communications Infrastructure Strategy.

Corbett continued: "Partnerships between alternative providers, local authorities and community schemes can often pay real dividends. For instance the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham has struck a deal with ITS Technology to run fibre optic cable through the existing CCTV ducts on a concession basis.

"This means that not only are the costs and disruption of digging in a busy area dramatically reduced, but citizens and businesses get access to dedicated, ultrafast digital infrastructure, and the local authority will generate new revenues from an under-utilised asset.

"INCA is providing a platform for these alternative providers to collaborate and strike up partnerships that will improve the UK's digital infrastructure, and in turn help improve the UK's economic performance.

"It is by engaging the independent, competitive sector that coverage can be extended further and more quickly, with the maximum value for taxpayers' and investors' money, and to the benefit of the end user."