Comms Dealer

Distributor Exclusive Group has launched the PASSport Global Services division, a worldwide project designed to define and integrate a set of professional pre- and post-technical services.

David Ellis, Exclusive Group Director of Global Services, said: "We now have a universal proposition available to partners across our APAC and EMEA footprint with global capability into more than 100 countries.

"At the core of this is a new enhanced premium support service that delivers in-country local language first touch support eight hours a day - backed by a global fully manned 24/7 support capability.

"Following investments in the digitalisation of our support infrastructure we are now able to offer a unified customer support experience that delivers consistency of delivery and service level targets."

Nimans is staging two roadshows to showcase Samsung's latest CMS cloud-based call reporting, analytics and call recording solution.

Samsung CMS builds on the V6 Business Reporting and Call Recording suite of products which is being replaced from June, and integrates with Samsung OfficeServ and SCM phone systems.

The events take place on Tuesday 23rd May at Samsung's Eastworth House offices in Chertsey, Surrey. On Wednesday 31st May a northern Event is being staged at Manchester United's Old Trafford football stadium.

Chris Hopkins, Solutions Business Manager for Samsung at Nimans, said: "As this is a cloud-based solution there is no need for an on-premise server to deploy the software, so it can be accessed anywhere which makes it much more flexible."

Distributor Tech Data Europe has strengthened its Smartforce IoT Solutions offering with technology for the smart retail, logistics and asset management sectors, following a Europe-wide distribution agreement with Keonn, manufacturer of radio frequency identification (RFID) hardware and software products.

Victor Paradell, vice president, Tech Data Smart IoT & Analytics, EMEA, said: "Tech Data's Smart IoT Solutions practice is focused on developing solutions that cut through the perceived complexity of IoT and enable our channel partners to access and grow with this fast-emerging and transformational market opportunity.

"In the retail sector alone, analysts are predicting that IoT solutions could be worth up to $1.16 trillion by 2025."

Ramir De Porrata-Doria, founder and CEO of Keonn, added: "We speak with customers across different industries every day, and many organisations - in particular in retail - are currently developing their digitisation journey to transform their businesses."

Exertis has added Promethean's interactive solutions to its product line up in a deal that builds on the disties' relationship with Promethean in Ireland.

Simon Port, Promethean's head of channel operations UK & Ireland, said: "The continued growth in the IFPD market, which the UK and Ireland are leading globally, means we need to ensure there is sufficient stocking capacity if our reseller partners are going to effectively meet demand.

"By bringing Exertis UK in as a second fulfilment source, we're essentially giving partners greater flexibility and choice, but ultimately equipping them with the fundamentals to achieve sales success."

QDOS Communications has completed the installation of a Mitel MiCloud Hospitality platform for one of Europe's newest hotel brands, MOXY Hotels, developed by Marriott International and Belvar, a hotel management and development company and client of QDOS.

The projects initially supported by QDOS are the 164 bedroom MOXY London Excel, 200 bedroom MOXY Aberdeen Airport, 176 bedroom MOXY Frankfurt Eschborn, and the 210 room MOXY Berlin Ostbahnhof.

Managed services are now officially mainstream across most industry sectors, so much so that many of today's MSPs may already be in need of an overhaul. That's the upshot of last month's European Managed Services and Hosting Summit which confirmed that the current MSP model 'came of age' this year.

Speaking at the summit  (staged in Amsterdam by Comms Dealer sister company IT Europa) Gartner Research Director Bianca Granetto (pictured) said: "The future managed services company will look very different from today.

"Digitalisation is redefining the buyer-seller relationship and customers are using more and more diverse IT suppliers. This process will continue in the coming years."

According to GCI CTO Mike Constantine it is now the quality of a managed service that differentiates one MSP from another rather than the number or type of technologies they offer.

"The quality of the managed service has many metrics such as visibility and insight into the usage and performance of the IT infrastructure, faster speeds, compliance and reduced errors," he said.

"Even more critical is having the expertise to integrate these multiple technologies together and deliver a working solution to the customer."

Robinder Koura, Senior Director of Channel Sales at RingCentral, stated: "The landscape is shifting and resellers who do not adjust their sales model will lose their competitiveness and value.

"They have to shift in the direction the wind is blowing and it is blowing stronger than ever."

Cisco has stated its intent to acquire Viptela, a privately held software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) company based in San Jose.

Viptela will expand Cisco's SD-WAN portfolio with increased functionality and simplicity delivered through the cloud.
 
"Viptela's technology is cloud-first, with a focus on simplicity and ease of deployment while simultaneously providing a rich set of capabilities and scale. These principles are what today's customers demand," said Scott Harrell, senior vice president of product management for the Cisco Enterprise Networking Group. 

"With Viptela and Cisco, we will be able to deliver a portfolio of on-premises, hybrid, and cloud-based SD-WAN solutions."
 
Cisco will acquire Viptela for $610m in cash and assumed equity awards. The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of calendar 2017, after having completed all of the customary closing conditions and regulatory review.

Equinix has completed its acquisition of 29 data centres and their operations from Verizon Communications.

The US $3.6bn all cash transaction includes over 1,000 customers, of which over 600 are net new, and approximately three million gross square feet of data centre space, accelerating Equinix's ability to help companies extend their IT operations to the digital edge through the interconnection of people, locations, clouds and data.

The acquisition of these strategic facilities broadens Equinix's capabilities by strengthening interconnection density on the Equinix global platform; accelerating business relationships in the government and energy sectors; and supporting Equinix's enterprise offering.

Additionally, it adds three new markets (Bogotá, Culpeper and Houston) and provides additional capacity and the opportunity for expansion in markets where Equinix currently has a presence, including Atlanta, Denver, Miami, New York, São Paulo, Seattle and Silicon Valley.

Spread across 15 cities in North and Latin America, the new assets bring Equinix's total global footprint to over 175 International Business Exchange TM (IBX®) data centers across 44 markets and approximately 17 million gross square feet.

BT has completed the acquisition of IP Trade, a provider of unified communications and collaboration solutions for trading floor environments and command-and-control dispatch centres, following approval by the UK's Competition & Markets Authority (CMA).

According to BT, teams will be able to collaborate across complex, global communities more effectively using a blend of speech, video and messaging with the broadest range of fixed and mobile devices and applications.

BT said in a statement, 'Technology and operations groups will be able to integrate their enterprise systems with their specialist trading floor and control room IT and combine cloud with on-premise solutions in the way that suits them best. Firms will be better able to meet demanding regulatory compliance obligations'.

US-based and a publicly traded value added reseller PCM has revealed plans to expand into the UK and the European market.

The company has decided to use its wholly-owned subsidiary, PCM Technology Solutions UK, to access the European market and says it will use it as its hub for both the UK market and the rest of Europe.

PCM also expects to fill around 90 positions by the end of the year and is now recruiting for the new roles across sales, vendor management, purchasing, marketing, IT, finance and other various business roles.

In February PCM UK hired Donovan Hutchinson as MD to help develop the offering for PCM UK.

He joined from Global IT where he was responsible for executing collaboration programmes and extending service offerings from North America based clients into the UK, Europe and Asia Pacific markets.

"Our expansion into the UK marks a major milestone for PCM as we introduce our technology solutions and capabilities to new markets around the world," stated PCM's Chairman and CEO Frank Khulusi.

"PCM UK will be our hub for the UK and the rest of Europe. Now is the right timing for us to pursue this additional market."

According to the company, which saw its 2016 revenues at $2.25bn and has nearly 4,000 employees, the move to the European marketplace represents the next major step after a successful expansion into Canada in 2015.