Comms Dealer

NTT Communications has bought a big stake in Germany-based e-shelter, a data centre service operator. This puts NTT into the third place in terms of data centre space in Europe, it claims.

e-shelter is currently managing nearly 90,000 square meters of data centre space in four major cities in Germany, as well as Zurich, Switzerland and Vienna, Austria. One of its main facilities, Campus Frankfurt 1, Europe's largest data centre with some 60,000 square meters of data center space, comprises five free-standing buildings constructed specifically as data centres.

NTT Com currently operates data centres in the UK, France, Germany and Spain which e-shelter's six locations in central Europe will complement.

NTT Com President and CEO Akira Arima said: "e-shelter is a growing company offering data center capabilities. We look forward to expanding our share of the EU's overall ICT market."

According to e-shelter CEO Rupprecht Rittweger: "As our multinational customers expand beyond EU borders, and undergo rapid ICT evolutions, they are increasingly demanding globally seamless ICT solutions.

"To meet their demands ahead of our competitors, we believe that the best way to ensure e-shelter's growth and development is in partnership with NTT Com, which has a presence in Asia and is a provider of ICT services worldwide. At the same time, we look forward to strengthening NTT Com's global ICT infrastructure and market share with our strong presence in Europe."

NCONNECT is predicting a big increase in cloud telephony business from large corporates and blue chip accounts following a significant rise in the number of channel partners on boarded by the company, which is aiming for 300% revenue growth in 2015.

NCONNECT has also kicked off a major reseller recruitment campaign based on strategy to talk with 5,000 prospective UK partners about cloud telephony opportunities.

"Businesses are undergoing a comprehensive change of thinking and are tired of over-priced service contracts and being tied into long-term agreements," said Rami Houbby, Managing Director of NCONNECT, the UK subsidiary of NFON AG.

"Business communications operate differently in this day and age. They are straightforward, secure and cost-effective. With our product, we are helping businesses free themselves from the constraints of the established manufacturers. It will become increasingly difficult for IT decision-makers to keep holding on to antiquated forms of technology."

A new plug-and-play IP phone system aimed at small businesses has been launched by BT Business.

BT Cloud Phone offers a range of features including the ability to transfer calls to employees working out of the office.

The system is hosted in the cloud, which means that customers can access it from anywhere there is a BT Internet connection or wi-fi, and it removes the complexity of installing central processing hardware in the premises of small businesses.

Graham Sutherland, CEO, BT Business, said: "As businesses look to technology to help them increase their productivity, enhance flexibility, and control costs, we are seeing IP and cloud-based communications really take off.

In addition to the range of BT IP phones customers can also use a softphone on their PC, or having installed the BT Cloud Phone app use their iPhone or Android smartphone.

The system is looked after, maintained, and run by BT Cloud Phone, backed up by a dedicated service team and an online portal which allows customers to manage the system.

Mitel's cloud seats increased 83% year-over-year according to the vendor's financial results for Q4 2014 and full year ending December 31st. Total cloud seats installed stands at a milestone 1,039,000.

Other highlights include quarterly and annual revenue of $301.4m and $1.1bn respectively, with record quarterly and annual adjusted EBITDA of $57.9m and $166.9m.

"2014 was a transformational year for Mitel in which we set new benchmarks for our financial results and emerged as a true global market share and industry leader," said Richard McBee, President and Chief Executive Officer.

"Our sales performance speaks to the fact that our broad portfolio of business communications solutions - premise, cloud and hybrid - is able to address the diverse and evolving needs of customers in markets around the world.

"We have carried that momentum into 2015 with confirmation earlier this month that Mitel is now the fastest growing and #1 market share leader in cloud communications, with more than 1,000,000 total seats installed.

"Our foundation is solid, our growth initiatives are delivering, our team is running at full speed, and we are seeing the results of the full scale and power of the new Mitel."

In the fourth quarter Mitel installed over 177,000 new cloud seats, including over 24,000 recurring cloud seats.

Year-over-year, Mitel's recurring cloud seats increased to 269,155, up 122% and its total installed cloud base increased to over 1,039,000 seats, up 83%.

HP has acquired wireless specialist Aruba Networks for $3bn in a move that boosts HP's capabilities in the delivery of converged campus solutions.

Aruba has approximately 1,800 employees and notched up $729m revenues in fiscal 2014, and has reported compound annual revenue growth of 30% over the last five years.

"Enterprises are facing a mobile-first world and are looking for solutions that help them transition legacy investments to the new style of IT," said Meg Whitman, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of HP.

"By combining Aruba's wireless mobility solutions with HP's switching portfolio, HP will offer the simplest, most secure networking solutions to help enterprises easily deploy next-generation mobile networks."

This new combined organisation will be led by Aruba's Chief Executive Officer Dominic Orr, and Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Keerti Melkote, reporting to Antonio Neri, leader of HP Enterprise Group.

Orr added: "Together with HP we have a tremendous opportunity to become an even greater force in enterprise mobility and networking.

"This transaction brings together Aruba's best-of-breed mobility hardware and software solutions with HP's switching portfolio. In addition, Aruba's channel partners will have the opportunity to expand their businesses with HP offerings."

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of HP's fiscal year 2015, subject to Aruba stockholder approval, regulatory approvals in the US and other countries as well as other customary closing conditions.

Mitel is to acquire Mavenir Systems, a provider of software-based networking solutions for mobile carriers, in a $560m deal. The addition of Mavenir solidifies Mitel's UCC portfolio across fixed and mobile environments, and expands its addressable market to a potential $14bn by 2018, and capitalises on the growth of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) as mobile carriers make the move to all IP and 4G services.

The deal also expands Mitel's service provider and mobile operator footprint to over 130 service providers and mobile operators, including 15 of the top 20 mobile carriers worldwide, covering two billion subscribers.

"With wireless adoption of IP and 4G LTE and demand for next gen mobile services ramping quickly, we see a compelling opportunity to capitalise on a major market transition to add a high-growth mobile business to Mitel," said Rich McBee, President and CEO of Mitel. 

"We believe the combination of Mitel and Mavenir creates a powerful new value proposition for enterprises and mobile service providers, using a common IP technology layer as the foundation for convergence, growth and competitive differentiation." 

With an established footprint of over 130 mobile customers including 15 of the top 20 mobile carriers worldwide, Mavenir is a key player in 4G LTE mobile solutions and claims a number of 'industry firsts' including the world's first live network deployments of VoLTE and RCS5 with MetroPCS (now T-Mobile); the first mobile network deployment of IMS-based VoWi-Fi (Wi-Fi calling) with T-Mobile US; and the first implementation of Virtualised RCSe with Deutsche Telekom.

The deal gives Mavenir the financial and operational footprint to drive further market expansion of the company's mobile solutions. 

Pardeep Kohli, President and CEO, of Mavenir, said: "The move to all-IP LTE mobile networks has created an opportunity for service providers to leverage a converged all-IP network to offer feature-rich business and consumer communication services to any device, anywhere, on any access network. 

"We believe that the combined company is positioned to capitalise on the trends within the communications industry today - namely, the convergence across enterprise and mobile networks to all-IP technologies, and the transition to cloud-based unified communications telephony and software-defined virtualised infrastructure."

Mavenir will become the mobile business division of Mitel, operating under the brand Mavenir. Kohli will join Mitel in the role of President, Mavenir, reporting to Rich McBee.

MeetingZone is rolling out a cloud-based Lync as a Service (LaaS) solution to resellers through its new LaaS Partner Programme.

CEO Steve Gandy said: "The service complements our partners' broader enterprise deployments of Microsoft technology and can potentially double the value of any O365 or Exchange deal.

"It also allows partners to tap into the cloud-based voice telephony opportunity giving them a recurring monthly revenue stream and an attractive margin."

MDSL is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month and has come a long way since it was founded in March 1995 by CEO Ben Mendoza. The company now employs 200 staff in offices around the world including the US, UK, France, Japan, Sweden and Hong Kong.

MDSL's solutions are developed in-house and address the Telecom Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management (MDM) markets.

Its Technology Expense Management platform allows customers to add support for emerging technology costs such as M2M, colocation and cloud services as well as general purpose IT equipment and services.

Mendoza said: "After 20 years in business, we are really proud that 98% of MDSL customers choose to renew their contracts, often for a longer period than the original term. The majority of our customers have now been enjoying the benefits of their MDSL solution for at least six years."

Tech Data Europe has joined Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program enabling the distributor to consolidate monthly billing for CSP subscriptions plus other cloud services and catalyse sales of Office 365 and Windows Intune subscriptions.

Tech Data Europe will offer additional services to resellers including support with Office 365 migration.

It follows a similar deal in the US over the last six months and Tech Data Europe's appointment as a 2-Tier Cloud Solution Provider completes the portfolio of Microsoft cloud products it offers to the channel.

CSP will be integrated into Tech Data's StreamOne Cloud platform. This will enable resellers across Tech Data's European footprint to access this service as part of a progressive rollout expected to conclude within the next eight weeks.

By Anton Le Saux, Head of Connectivity and Partner Sales at O2 Telefónica UK: A recent report by Accenture states that the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is set to drive revenue growth.

According to Paul Daugherty, CTO at Accenture, 'companies that understand that every business is a digital business are using this technology to create product-service hybrids that provide new growth opportunities and pave the way for pioneering the next generation of industrial products'.

Despite being called the Industrial Internet of Things, is it really any different to the Internet of Things (IoT) that has been providing a service for consumers and businesses for some years now? Industry reports widely predict expansion for M2M and IoT, with rapid growth expected in 2015 as the technology is already in use by a number of businesses. In fact, even SMEs are starting to adopt M2M solutions.

M2M and the IoT have evolved so much that we recognised the need for standardisation to allow the sector to develop in a more controlled manner. Our Global Partners Programme (GPP) has enabled a structured environment for manufacturers and technology companies to unify processes and improve quality control. Given that this technology has grown to the extent of requiring this sort of initiative, it is surprising that it has suddenly acquired a new label to differentiate it from the IoT of consumer-driven technology. Is the 'industrial' label really only a demonstration of how the IoT is beginning to impact additional sectors and more businesses?

In reality, the IoT bridges both consumer and industrial activity and differentiating the two will be virtually impossible as they are, by nature, irrevocably interlinked. (anton.lesaux@telefonica.com
partnersdigital.telefonica.com)