Comms Dealer

Plantronics has appointed Paul Clark to the role of VP, General Manager North Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Russia & Sub-Saharan Africa.

Clark was formerly UK and Ireland MD and Regional Director in the Nordics, Holland and Belgium, and will now also be responsible for expanding the company's business in Russia, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and Eastern Europe.

He has already launched Plantronics' Connect Partner Programme in the Russian and Eastern European markets.

Over 170 partners have graduated from Plantronics' partner training programme across Europe since its launch last year.

Clark joined Plantronics in 1994 as the company's EMEA Marketing Director, a role which he held until 2003. During this period, he helped Plantronics boost headset adoption across global business markets and strategically launched the company into the consumer space. Paul then became Plantronics' EMEA Director of Product Management before taking on a commercial role managing sales operations in the UK and Ireland in 2007.

Clark said: "I'm pleased to have the opportunity expand on the success Plantronics has experienced in Russia and Eastern Europe. I looking forward to driving further growth in the region by providing added support to our local channel partners, and to seeing a growing number of users experience the benefits of Plantronics programmes and products."

Philip Vanhoutte, Senior VP & MD, Europe and Africa at Plantronics, added: "Paul has been instrumental in building Plantronics' global presence over the years, both with our business partners and consumers.

"His extensive knowledge of our products and dedication to our core values make him an ideal candidate to grow our presence in key Eastern European and Russian markets, and we expect him to continue delivering great results in his new role."

British UC vendor ipcortex has been selected by Google as their winner at TADhack, the Telecoms Application Developer Hackathon.

The event, held in Madrid, hosted a live development competition to celebrate and promote the use of APIs and other technologies used to create apps in the telecoms space.

Over 60 development teams from all over the world submitted their entries both directly and via six satellite events across America, Europe and Asia. Prizes went to the most innovative and compelling applications developed during the course of the event.

The ipcortex entry, RTC Emergency, is a proof of concept app that adds value to emergency service calls using only the base software on an Android phone with no special application or network support.

An emergency call, initiated via the normal telephone network was augmented by RTC Emergency to pass location information accurate to within a few metres directly to the operator and allow them to view a real time video feed of an unfolding emergency via the caller's smartphone.

With 'eyes on the scene' call centre operators would more effectively engage response teams. It even allowed paramedics en route to an incident to view the same feed to allow them to arrive fully prepared.

For example, paramedics would triage or dispense advice while making their way to the incident, from their passenger seat in the ambulance. Functioning on any smartphone with a suitably up to date web browser, all the caller needs to do is click a link sent by text message to activate the feed; there is no need to install any application and the emergency call is not affected.

The application was based on the use of the WebRTC protocol, an open standard spearheaded by a group of companies including Google, who selected ipcortex as a winner. It allows web browsers to set up audio, visual and data connections without third party programmes.

Rob Pickering, ipcortex CEO, said: "Participating in TADHack was illuminating and anyone who still doubts the effect that emergent telecommunications APIs will have in setting the future direction of UC should take a look at some of the entries.

"Our winning RTC Emergency application was a crude proof of concept, developed in a few man days of effort, but the fact that it was even possible demonstrates how the stage is set for new solutions to real world problems which merge traditional telecommunications and rapid web based development.

"We've been working on WebRTC applications since 2012 to implement functionality that will feed into our mainstream VoIPCortex UC platform. For now, though, RTC Emergency was just a way of illustrating how WebRTC will allow a re-think of well-established services and processes and we're delighted that Google recognised our efforts at TADHack."

Chess has completed the acquisition of Herts-based O2 and EE airtime distributor Avenir Telecom. The deal adds £22m (£1.6m EBITDA) to Chess' annual turnover of £44m-plus (2013 figures) along with a 500 dealer base, a 30,000 B2B connection base and 55 staff who remain stationed at the distributor's Borehamwood HQ. The deal strengthens the mobile and partner services division of Chess.

Chess CEO, David Pollock said: "We are delighted to welcome the Avenir people to Chess. It provides a complete end-to-end processing and support service to partners wanting to offer mobile and fixed line telecom services. They've been very successful over the past 25 years and we're delighted to add their knowledge and expertise to our Partner Services business." 

Following the acquisition, Andy Tow, Avenir's MD, becomes MD of the newly formed Chess Partner Services division.

He stated: "This is a fantastic opportunity to continue developing the airtime business, building on our established mutual successes and working towards our shared vision, continuing to deliver a great service to all of our partners."

Richard Btesh, Director of Chess, added "Over the years we have often been approached by sellers of mobile customer bases, but this is the first opportunity we've had to acquire a solid market leader that gives Chess a real opportunity for partner and mobile growth.

"Being a great place to be a customer is the key to our success, this acquisition strengthens our proposition with such a strong synergy between our core values and culture."

Chess has completed over 80 deals in the last eight years. Avenir is the latest in a string of strategic acquisitions including The CRM Business, Microsoft's leading European partner for CRM Online; and eBillz, one of the UK's top telecom billing providers and Integra ICT.

Union Street Technologies has confirmed that its WLR3 Portal will be ready to support Openreach's R2600 software update scheduled for release on 19 July.

As part of Openreach's Business 2+ commercial initiative, the R2600 update will notably withdraw care level 2 for premium single lines in favour of a newly introduced care level of 2.5.

Although level 2 will continue to be available for residential lines, Level 2.5 will become the new entry level for business use going forward. Following release of this update, Openreach will immediately begin upgrading existing premium single lines from level 2 to 2.5. Once all premium single lines have been upgraded this new care level will be activated and available for use.

Level 2.5 will adhere to the same service level agreements currently provided by level 2 but, in order to provide an expedited service more suitable for business requirements, faults reported on level 2.5 will be given priority over level 2 faults. This new care level will however be chargeable and could therefore have significant cost implications for communication providers.

Vincent Disneur, Head of Sales at Union Street, said: "R2600 is likely to be the most user impacting update Openreach has introduced for quite some time, and many of our clients have expressed to us their quite understandable concern regarding the impact that the associated costs will have on their business.

"As a software vendor our priority is to ensure we maintain full compatibility with Openreach following the update and in this regard we foresee no problems. Updates for our WLR3 module will be rolled out to our clients automatically so our clients will experience no disruption of service."

C4L's coreTX network is now deployed and fully live at its first 25 locations.

The 1-100Gb MPLS network which connects data centres across the UK has been deployed in parallel to the existing network and C4L has announced that it is ready to accept both new orders and existing customer migrations and upgrades.

The first phase of 25 sites is focused on the data centre hotspots of Docklands, Central & West London and Manchester, it also includes C4L's own data centre located in Bournemouth.

C4L's high performance MPLS network, coreTX, is constructed with privately owned dark fibre and spans PoPs across the UK.

Matt Hawkins, Chairman & Founder of C4L, said: "We embarked on this project because we realised that the UK has been served by inadequate data centre network infrastructure and poor delivery times for too long.

"We have made this multi-million pound investment because we believe that UK businesses need to be better served to enable them to compete both domestically and internationally.

"coreTX meets this need, offering a competitive advantage to all sectors, especially in markets like Financial services, Media, Content and Cloud platform delivery."

There were fewer servers in EMEA in Q1 this year than last year, but the price was higher. HP remains top dog, with IBM and Dell falling back.

Vendor revenue in the EMEA server market hit $2.9bn in 1Q14, $44m more than in 2013 (+1.5% yr/yr), says IDC. According to the tracker, 537,800 units were shipped in 1Q14 -3.9% fewer than in 1Q13. IDC puts this down to due to the rise in virtualisation and integrated systems.

The quarter-on-quarter performance in the EMEA region between 4Q13 and 1Q14 highlighted an overall negative trend, with a 20.3% decrease in vendor revenue and a 10.8% decrease in units shipped. The strong disparity between the corresponding quarters and quarter-on-quarter figures can be attributed to the very seasonal nature of the server market in EMEA, where many deals take place at the end of the calendar year.

"Units shipped in EMEA over the past three years have continued along the same consistent contraction trend, with 3Q11 the last quarter to see clearly positive unit growth in the region," said Giorgio Nebuloni, research manager, Enterprise Server Group, IDC EMEA.

"Despite a strong push for additional capacity in megadatacenter customers and renewed focus on tower and rack volumes by the largest OEMs, the macro-trend in the x86 market continues to point to value as the only real growth opportunity. Vendors with a strong focus on attach rates and profitability are the best positioned to win in this market."

The increase in vendor revenue between 1Q13 and 1Q14 can be attributed to the positive growth in EMEA's two largest product types, with rack-optimised and blade servers seeing 2.8% and 5.0% growth in revenue respectively. These two products contributed 76.1% to overall EMEA vendor revenue and saw a combined 3.4% increase compared with 1Q13, though their unit shipments continued to decrease. This has resulted in an increase in ASPs for rack-optimised and blade servers - an increase of around $357, according to IDC's quarterly tracker.

"The EMEA blade market has seen strong growth in the higher-end market," said Eckhardt Fischer, research analyst, IDC EMEA Enterprise Server Group. "This targeting of higher-end blade systems is allowing vendors to offset the drop in units shipped with higher average selling prices. This has made it possible for vendors in the EMEA market to generate positive dollar revenue growth despite a decrease in units. Blade servers have also seen increased traction in integrated systems and datacenters-in-a-box, a segment that over the past year has seen strong double-digit growth in the region. We expect this to remain a constant in 2014, as blades become part of broader integrated solutions."

x86 server market revenue for 1Q14 totalled $1.72bn, and accounted for 81% of the total value (an increase of 6 points on the previous quarter and equal to that of 1Q13). x86 servers in EMEA grew 2.2% in dollar revenue terms, despite the continued decline in units shipped (down 3.7%).

Non-x86 vendor revenue accounted for $541m and 3,810 units in the EMEA region, a decline of 1.3% and 27.2% respectively compared with 1Q13. Quarter-on-quarter non-x86 servers declined 39% in revenue and contracted by 2,368 units (down 38.3%).

"All Western European markets bounced back to growth this quarter, except Ireland, France, and Spain, which experienced double-digit declines in vendor revenues," said Andreas Olah, research analyst, Enterprise Server Group, IDC EMEA. "The Irish market is severely impacted by the slowdown in mega data centre expansion by cloud providers there that are expected to focus more on building new facilities in Continental Europe within the next year in order to serve major markets from local datavcenters. Government spending remains an inhibitor for growth in France and Spain, while investments continue to pick up in Germany and the UK.

"Most notably, the Italian server market grew 33.9% year on year, mainly down to a large legacy systems project this quarter. At the same time a moderate decline was experienced on the x86 side there, which is still affected by the current climate of economic and political uncertainty. In contrast, the Dutch x86 market picked up substantially by 25.7% due to a combination of improving economic conditions, a well-established hosting community, and investments by cloud service providers."

Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (CEMA) server revenue continued to decline, decreasing 2.8% year over year to $673.72m in 1Q14. Sales of x86 servers recorded a marginal increase, driven by demand for blade and rack-optimised servers, while non-x86 servers continued in negative trend.

"The Central and Eastern Europe [CEE] subregion was down 5.7% to $335.70 million," said Jiri Helebrand, research manager, IDC CEMA. "Investments in datacenter expansion from Internet and cloud service providers drove demand for x86 rack servers, keeping overall x86 server revenue afloat. In contrast, non-x86 server revenue declined 29.7% year over year.

Windows had 56.1% revenue share, generating vendor revenue in 1Q14 of $1.6bn, up 1.9% on 1Q13. Second spot was taken by Linux operating systems with 24.3% of the market and vendor revenue of $707m

A Top Gear style Anglo-French charity driving Twin Town Challenge extravaganza has raised over £105,000 for Oxfordshire charity SpecialEffect, which helps people with disabilities benefit from the fun and inclusion of video games.

Fifty teams provided and drove their own car, costing no more than £500, from Witney in Oxfordshire to Le Touquet in France, including spells on the iconic race circuits of Brands Hatch, Le Mans and Croix En Ternois en route.

The challenge, which ran from 23-26 May 2014, was organised by Brendon Cross, MD of Witney-based STL Communications, who enthused: "Around 250 people took part in the weekend having a whole lot of fun as the cars travelled through England and France undertaking a number of points based challenges on the way including 'Blind Driving' and 'Car Booty', not to mention a tyre change against the clock!"

The teams experienced a VIP send-off from Cornbury Park in Charlbury, a civic reception in Le Touquet and an 'unforgettable' finish line celebration event in Witney.

"Companies have recognised that this type of event is a perfect team-builder and networking opportunity," added Cross.

www.specialeffect.org.uk/twin-town

Hats off to Alternative Networks for scooping a brace of awards at this year's Westcon National Awards Ceremony, staged at the Haymarket Hotel in London on June 10th.

Alternative Networks collected the Avaya SMB Top Achieving Partner award as well as the Extreme Top Achieving Partner accolade during a ceremony that recognised all top performing partners (pictured above) for their achievements in revenue growth and sales and marketing success.

Tony Nevill, Area Sales Leader UK & Ireland, Westcon, commented: "The Westcon awards recognise the exceptional achievements of our partners and it is an honour to present the awards to partners who have worked relentlessly to drive and achieve revenue growth. With the continued support from our vendor partners we look forward to another prosperous year."

Key vendor partners Avaya, Plantronics, Microsoft, Audiocodes, Polycom and Extreme Networks also attended the ceremony to demonstrate their support.

Simon Culmer, MD for UK & Ireland, Avaya, added: "Westcon's annual awards are always an event that I look forward to. It is a valuable opportunity to thank our partners for all their hard work over the last year and a privilege to see them being acknowledged for their successes."

Westcon's 2014 hall of fame

Avaya Enterprise Top Achieving Partner – Vodafone

Avaya Enterprise Highest Growth Partner – Sabio

Avaya SMB Top Achieving Partner – Alternative Networks

Avaya SMB Highest Growth Partner – Eircom

Audiocodes Highest Growth Partner – AT&T Consulting

Microsoft Lync Solution Sales Award – Telefónica   

Polycom Top Achieving Partner – Internet Videocommunications

Polycom Highest Growth Partner – Specialist Computer Centres

Extreme Top Achieving Partner – Alternative Networks

Extreme New Business Recognition Award – LAN3

Plantronics Highest Growth Partner – Post CTI

Reseller Marketing Award (Polycom) – Yorktel

Employees from communications provider KCOM Group have dedicated over 2,000 hours in volunteering time to help young disadvantaged people across the UK find work.

Rosie Battye, Private Sector Fundraising Manager for the North of England at The Prince's Trust, said: "In the last year alone volunteers from KCOM Group have donated around 250 hours to help with some of The Prince's Trust programmes.

"They delivered CV writing and interview skills workshops to give practical support to young people seeking employment.

"To add to this fantastic number, we estimated that the two Million Makers teams from KCOM Group contributed around 1,840 hours through taking part in The Trust's fundraising initiative, taking the total amount of fundraising hours to 2,090, which is an amazing achievement."

Paul Simpson, Chief Financial Officer at Kcom, added: "Since we became a patron of The Prince's Trust in 2012, our employees from across the business based at all our sites, from Hull to Exeter, have embraced the charity and the work it does with disadvantaged young people in the area.

"Whether it's helping young people write an effective CV or get back into education, these are all key skills that help young people find employment. We're looking forward to continuing our support for The Trust and the brilliant work it does."

More than one in five (23 per cent) young people in Yorkshire and the Humber are struggling to find work. The Prince's Trust gives young people, who might otherwise struggle, the opportunity to achieve their full potential by giving practical support to the young people who need it most.

The hours that the volunteers have contributed will help develop key skills, confidence and motivation, allowing young people to move into work, education or training.

KCOM Group has pledged £100,000 of financial support over four years to help support The Prince's Trusts' Million Makers, xl and TEAM programmes.

Arrow Electronics has opened the doors to its Solution Station in the UK, a new solution-finding hub that allows users to search for a technology and also get information on complementary technologies also available from Arrow.

Solution Station also provides content including news, events, promotional offers and vendor programmes.

"Increasing sales effectiveness while improving customer service is a top priority for any business and our partners are no exception," said David Ellis, director of strategy, Arrow ECS UK & Ireland.

"By having access to technical and promotional information all in one place with links to complementary technologies, our partners can quickly find new sales opportunities and build their businesses with minimum effort with the hope of maximising margin."