Comms Dealer

Smartphones have twice the global reach of laptops and PCs with penetration in the 15 biggest developed markets at 65% at the end of 2013, and 23% for the 15 biggest emerging markets, noted Mary Meeker in a mobile-centric 2014 Internet Trends Report.

Global smartphone penetration has reached 22%, well above 11% penetration for laptops and 10% penetration for desktops. Tablets are still only at 6%, and mobile phones in general at 73%. There were 2.61 billion global Web users at the end of 2013, and 1.79 billion smartphone subs. Mobile made up 25% of Internet traffic as of May 2014, up from 15% a year ago and 10% two years ago.

Mobile accounts for over 1/5 of online video time (favorable for YouTube).Internet ad sales grew 16% last year to $116bn. Google had a Q1 annualised ad ARPU of $45 (up $3 Y/Y), dwarfing Facebook's (FB) $7.24 (up $2.84), and Twitter's (TWTR) $3.55 (up $1.58), it says. Mobile is estimated to account for 20% of media time spent, and just 4% of ad sales. For Internet, the figures are 25% and 22%.

Runners lining up for this year's Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon can look forward to some high profile support to spur them on as they tackle the 26.2 mile course.

The BBC Question of Sport team captain and BT Sport rugby pundit, Matt Dawson, has agreed to be an official ambassador for the event which takes place in York and its surrounding villages on Sunday 12th October.

The 41-year-old former England Rugby Union captain has given his backing for the race, held for the first time last year, and will be at the start and finish line on the day.

Matt, who completed the 2007 London Marathon for charity in 4:35:39, said: "I can't wait to be at the start line, cheering on the runners at this year's Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon. The enthusiasm and support this event has already received, in only its second year of existence, is truly infectious and I can't wait to witness it all for myself."

Andy Baker, CEO of Plusnet said: "Matt is both a sporting legend and household name so he is an obvious choice to bring on board to help promote this year's event. We hope as many people as possible will come and join ourselves and Matt in supporting the runners out on the course come event day."

Lisa Ashcroft, Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon event lead, said: "It is brilliant that Matt has agreed to be an ambassador for the event. His own sporting achievements are well documented and we hope his support for The Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon will prove inspirational for the thousands who will line up at the start on October 12th."

Matt, who toured with the British and Irish Lions, was a member of the England team that lifted the World Cup in 2003. He retired from the game in 2006.

The 2013 inaugural Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon, last October, was hailed a huge success, bringing in up to £2m for good causes. According to financial experts, it also brought a boost of at least £1m for the local economy. 

And this year's run is on course to be another big success. Capacity for the event was increased to 7,000 due to popular demand and all the places were snapped up in just a few hours. Only charity places are now available.

The marathon is organised by the team behind the popular Jane Tomlinson's Run For All 10K Series and Leeds Half Marathon, and is part of the lasting legacy of the late Jane Tomlinson CBE, who raised almost £2million by completing a series of amazing sporting challenges, despite being diagnosed with incurable cancer. 

www.theyorkshiremarathon.com. 

Zen Internet has been awarded the European Commission's EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres Award 2014.

The award presented by the European Commission is in recognition of the efficiency improvements made to Zen's Data Centre at its North West headquarters.

All four of Zen's directly owned and managed Data Centres have Participant status in the EU Code of Conduct. 

The EU Code of Conduct has been created in response to increasing energy consumption in data centres and the need to reduce the related environmental, economic and energy supply security impacts.

"We are honoured to win this award in recognition of efficiency improvements made in our Data Centre as a Participant in the EU Code of Conduct. It's a testament to the work of all those involved and we look forward to achieving further improvements as we deliver on our future commitments," said Richard Tang, Managing Director.

"Adhering to the Code guidelines allows us to better manage energy utilisation within our Data Centres, which enables us to better control our costs and in turn offer better priced hosting products and services to our customers."

Virgin Media Business claims to have supported a major step forward in broadcasting history last week as the BBC plugged into London Public Services Network (LondonPSN) to transmit coverage of Thursday's elections instead of using a satellite truck.

A partnership between Virgin Media Business and LondonPSN, an initiative coordinated for the local authorities by London Grid Ltd and powered by Virgin Media Business, has enabled the broadcaster to transmit footage over the internet rather than via satellite.

The technology was piloted on Election Day in West London. The BBC used Virgin Media Business fibre optic network and LondonPSN to transmit HD quality content at a speed of 100 megabits per second back to New Broadcasting House to be aired.

It's not uncommon for up to 100 satellite trucks to cover events from numerous locations on this scale. Following this successful trial, all broadcasters, including Sky and ITV, now have the potential to broadcast over IP which could reduce the number of vans broadcasters would have otherwise needed to deploy for these events.

Temporary connections can be configured in advance, making it the ideal solution for large-scale planned events such as sports tournaments, cultural occasions and political events. This in turn frees up satellite trucks to respond to breaking news and ad hoc reports.

Mario Di Mascio, executive sales director, Virgin Media Business, said: "Few things move as quickly as breaking news, but until now broadcasters have been limited by the number of satellite trucks available. This is the first exciting step towards a future where media can get connected wherever news is unfolding - bringing viewers as close to the action as possible.

"It is an honour to work with the UK's most influential broadcaster to make this technology a reality, and we are looking forward to exploring ways to build on this in other parts of the London and the UK more widely."

Vaioni Wholesale is delivering up to £6,000 of Excess Construction Costs (ECCs) for fibre connectivity irrespective of operator choice.

ECCs are generally associated with additional costs in installing new or additional fibre to an office building/property to deliver high capacity fibre based internet connections.

With the adoption of fibre leased line internet connectivity at its highest rate, Vaioni continues to work with its partners and the industry leaders to offer the best incentives available on the market today to The Channel.

Sachin Vaish said: "This is a great incentive for our channel partners. Our objective is to see more businesses use fibre leased lines to connect to the internet and to unlock the true benefits of what Ethernet and Cloud Services can deliver to a business.

"Covering up to £6,000 of Excess Construction Costs across all of our UK Operators is fantastic and allows our Channel Partners to review previous opportunities and increase sales."

Microsoft is to buy French mobile push analytics provider Capptain as it strengthens its commitment to cloud services that power mobile application development.

Capptain will contribute to Microsoft's mobile application development process thanks to its offering that encompasses real-time user and push analytics, it says. This helps organisations analyse the behaviour of its customers in real-time and in response by tailoring content to its needs.

Following the acquisition, Capptain's solutions will be integrated into Microsoft Azure suite of services. And in the interim Capptain's existing solutions will be available to both new and customers.

"We are excited to welcome the Capptain team to Microsoft, and to Azure, to help us advance that future for all our customers," says Microsoft's representative Omar Khan.

The financial terms of the transaction are not disclosed.

Distributor of connectivity and cloud solutions DMSL has been named Volume Partner of the Year by BT in its Business Partner Sales awards, which were presented at the company's annual partner kick-off meeting.

Having set out its strategy for the year ahead, Martin Clarke, General Manager BT Business Partner Sales, presented awards to high-achieving partners in recognition of their success in the year to 31 March 2014.

John Carter, Managing Director of DMSL, said: "We have continued to work with BT and SMB channel partners to highlight the business benefits and potential of BT products and services.

"The kick-off meeting gave us even more enthusiasm and reason to believe that we can help partners grow their business in the year ahead."

New Star Networks (NSN) has attributed its upward trending growth figures to a sharp focus on partner-customer relationships, pushing the firm into a margin positive fourth year of trading and a run rate of around £3.6m per annum and growing.

According to MD Mark Shraga the introduction of its latest market offering, called Cloud Advantage, will quickly build on NSN's growth story.

"We have barely begun to tap into the full potential of our core strengths and the emerging market where everything is becoming cloud-based,' said Shraga.

"Our move into the cloud arena over the last 18 months has reinforced our partner-customer focused business model and produced our latest market offering - the NSN Cloud Advantage."

He said Cloud Advantage brings together two important drivers - partner profitability and the reduction or removal of capital outlay for customers moving to the cloud.

"The IaaS model promises to accelerate our market penetration and bring to fruition many of the promises the cloud has to offer the SME sector," added Shraga.

Timico Technology Group has postponed its admission to AIM blaming adverse market conditions. Trading was planned to start on 30th May 2014 and the flotation was expected to value the firm at approximately £55m once listed. Tim Radford (pictured), CEO of Timico, noted that the initial IPO marketing had been well received with strong institutional support and he hoped that the flotation would help the firm double in size within the next few years.

However, due to some high profile disappointments sentiment towards IPOs has softened, he stated.

"We have a duty to our existing shareholders to ensure that the success of our IPO isn't eroded by recent IPOs performing less well than expected, and hence have made the decision to postpone our process," commented Radford.

"We have been encouraged by the level of interest that we've already received from both institutions and a number of private investors who have been enquiring about our first day of dealings on AIM.

"We hope that the current attitude towards smaller companies looking to raise money and list on AIM is a short-term issue and we look forward to an AIM listing once appetite returns."

Airtime provider Daisy Distribution is set to reward its top handset purchasing partners with a touch of German hospitality in its latest Nokia distribution incentive.

Running from 1st May to 31st July the top eight purchasing partners of Nokia Lumia devices across all variants will be given a place of the Company's trip to London's Oktober Bierfest this autumn.

This latest incentive comes as one of a series of Nokia handset promotions that Daisy Distribution is set to run this year as part of its ambition to increase the Lumia share of its smartphone business.

To qualify, partners need to continue to purchase their Nokia Lumia handsets from Daisy Distribution and be one of the top performers in the outlined period.

Julien Parven, Marketing Director at Daisy Distribution, said: "While the reward for this promotion is very light-hearted, the principle behind it is very much part of our strategic plan to align ourselves with Nokia and to assist and encourage partners in the adoption of the Lumia smartphone range."