Comms Dealer

Talks on the potential sale of Avaya to Oracle were held earlier this year according to a report posted by Reuters, citing sources 'familiar with the matter'.

The telecoms vendor's private equity owners entertained the idea of selling rather than going public, said the report.

Reuters also noted that Silver Lake and TPG Capital LP, which took Avaya private for $8.4bn in 2007, filed Avaya for an IPO in 2011 but its growth prospects were challenged by rivals such as Cisco and ShoreTel making an IPO less appealing to stock market investors.

Avaya notched up revenues of $5.17bn in its 2012 financial year, down 7% on the previous year. For the third fiscal quarter of 2013, revenue was $1.15bn, down 8% from the year ago.

Data recovery experts are the 'fourth emergency service' in the modern era, according to the CEO of Manchester-based hosting and colocation firm UKFast.

Speaking during BBC Radio 4's Bottom Line programme on Big Data, Lawrence Jones described the fundamental importance of technology firms always being readily available to offer a lifeline to customers when their whole business is at stake.

Jones said: "We're a managed hosting company, so fundamentally it's about being able to pick up the phone to receive support in times of need. Technology firms like UKFast are the fourth emergency service. We're the people you really don't want to have to call but if you have to, we're there for you.

"Businesses need to know that they can rely on the firm that is looking after its critical data, in the same way they can rely on emergency services for personal times of need. Data recovery teams give the peace of mind that businesses need if their hard drive completely fails and their critical business data is lost.

"You have to have the right firewalls, intrusion detection and anomaly detectors. It's about getting the basics in place as well as going the extra mile - for example at UKFast, we spot the traffic you don't want, because we've got 40 people looking at monitors 24-hours a day and we can begin data recovery immediately as we have an on-site clean room in the data centre, the only one in the UK."

Joining Jones on the panel were three technology experts - Conrad Feldman, CEO of digital adversity company Quantcast, Dave Coplin, Chief Envisioning Officer and Director of Search, Microsoft UK - along with host Evan Davies. They discussed how the creation and storage of data is changing businesses across the world as the ‘Big Data' trend evolves.

Feldman described how harnessing and assessing online data can provide a useful insight into trends and demographics. He said: "We help website owners and advertisers understand who the audiences are that are consuming online digital media.

"We amass data from a lot of different websites, and then we apply sophisticated software based on mathematical modelling to help us understand and estimate the characteristics of the audience, which could be standard graphics such as age and income, or more lifestyle information such as what they're interested in."

Coplin referred to the change in storage of data, saying: "In the old days your server would probably be under your desk and people would kick the cable walking past.

"The issue is not the data itself, it's what you're doing with it. The power of big data is going to change how we think about what it means to be humans. It's going to give us so much insight, and will enable humans to take much more control over their lives."

Red Box Recorders has scooped the top accolade of SME Deal of the Year at the Insider's Midlands Dealmakers Awards.

The award is in recognition of the company's management buyout earlier this year which was undertaken to support the continuing expansion of its global operations. The buyout was backed by a £14 million investment from ISIS Equity Partners with Cavendish Corporate Finance advising on the deal.

Lee Jones, CEO at Red Box Recorders, said: "This is a great award as it acknowledges the hard work and effort made by all parties to bring this deal to fruition. The MBO is designed to facilitate the continued development of the business, which has achieved annual growth of more than 20 per cent for the past five years.

"This will include taking advantage of new business opportunities within overseas markets, in particular North America and Asia Pacific, and extending Red Box's global workforce by almost 50 per cent."

Red Box is headquartered in Nottingham, with regional offices including London, New York, Singapore and Dubai, as well as a worldwide reseller network of more than 200 partners.

The company provides customer-focused solutions that help overcome the precise challenges of the contact centre, financial services, healthcare, government and emergency services sectors.

Canalys has named Softcat as 2013's top revenue growth partner in EMEA at this year's Canalys Channel Forum Awards.

Softcat chairman Martin Hellawell accepted the Canalys 'Revenue Growth Partner of the Year' award at a packed ceremony held at the Hotel Arts Barcelona.

Softcat announced 30% growth this financial year, following a three-year growth stint that has seen its revenues grow from £146m to £400m. It has won multiple partner awards and accreditations as a result of its revenue growth and partnership investments, just this week announcing HP's Platinum Partner status, and Red Hat's 'stronger Together' award.

Hellawell said: "Most of our awards tend to be UK-based, so it's humbling to have been nominated for an EMEA award, never mind win it. Due to our size and relative 'youth' we're still regarded as an up-and-coming player, which makes attaining this award even more of an achievement.

"The business environment has been challenging over the past few years and many of our competitors struggled to achieve significant growth last year. Winning this award is a testament to the hard work of our brilliant staff, who remain incredibly driven to provide great customer service, and committed to helping the company grow. We're privileged to work with so many great customers, and of course our relationships with our partners have contributed hugely to our growth."

Last year Softcat won the EMEA channel partner of the year at the same event. The Canalys Forum is an annual event that recognises vendors, resellers and other partners in the IT industry for their successes in the channel.

Cloud and SaaS specialist to the channel intY has confirmed two significant new sign-ups to its intY CASCADE cloud provisioning platform.

Eclipse and alwaysON now line up alongside other CASCADE users including Cisco, Symantec and Microsoft, as well as many ISVs.

The addition of Eclipse to the co-operative-style marketplace will provide partners with high end business class Internet services that ensure the end user experience for cloud solutions.

alwaysOn will offer Microsoft Lync 2013 as a hosted application delivered over its resilient private MPLS network.

As part of CASCADE, partners and resellers will be able to sell and provision alwaysOn on its own or as part of their service bundles for end user organsations.

Chris Baldock, MD of intY CASCADE, commented: "Unified Communications remains an exciting and competitive space in the industry. We're thrilled alwaysOn has decided to bring its latest platform to a wider audience via CASCADE.

"The partnership with Eclipse represents a substantial milestone in creating the option for a complete end-to-end solution for CASCADE users."

Pete Tomlinson, Director of Sales and Marketing at Eclipse comments "SMBs are now really seeing the value of adopting cloud services as part of a more flexible, productive way of working. Being able to work with their communications provider to adopt cloud services in a way that is straightforward and well supported is the perfect route to success."

Eclipse's real time connection-monitoring tool, Sentinel will also be available to intY support to service customers by proactively monitoring connections and providing support as and when it is needed.

Baldock added: "These two companies demonstrate the bring and buy benefits of CASCADE. Both are exploiting the platform to better sell to its customers, whilst offering its products and services to other partners.

"Of particular significance to our resellers will be the signing of Eclipse. The reputation of cloud services is the quality of the connection - connectivity and the physical infrastructure required to enable a high performance cloud solution should be a priority for resellers wanting to get in the game. With the recent addition of Cisco products and now Eclipse' services on CASCADE, end users can realise the true RoI of cloud."

James Byles, MD at alwaysOn, commented: "Being a CASCADE partner enabled us to deploy cloud services and building blocks for new solutions, tailored to suit our clients needs. We now want to take the relationship with intY to another level and offer our Lync 2013 product for partners and resellers to utilise as part of their offerings. We remain focused on the expansion of our business, and this relationship will help the two companies grow together side by side."

Computer 2000 is to operate under the Tech Data banner, the same name as all of the group's European and global operations.

Peter Hubbard, Managing Director UK and Ireland for Tech Data, stated: "The rebrand is an important milestone in the history of the UK organisation. It lays the foundation for the forthcoming integration of SDG into the Tech Data UK business and the Collection of Specialists - Azlan, Datech, Maverick and Tech Data Mobile."

The rebranding plan includes external signage, website, marketing collateral and stationery. For resellers and vendors, the transition to the Tech Data brand will be seamless, confirmed the company.

Anglia Business Solutions has appointed Nikki Scarr as COO, bringing nearly 30 years of industry knowledge and experience in enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain and performance management to drive Anglia's plan for international expansion.

Prior to joining Anglia Business Solutions Nikki Scarr was Vice President of consulting at Infor Global Solutions where she was responsible for managing a large Professional Services business across EMEA with a turnover of $80 million.

Her objectives for the first 12 months include managing the launch of the company's LINKFresh food supply chain ERP solution on the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform, significantly increasing the footprint for LINKFresh in both the UK and US marketplace and building on the project delivery and support capability within the organisation.

Scarr said: "I see a wonderful growth opportunity in this company and the solutions it offers. Coming from a large US company which has undergone significant growth I feel I can use my expertise to make a real impact on this business in its UK, European and US markets.

"I'm ERP born and bred and my objectives are to facilitate the growth plans, develop the business proposition and, most of all, further improve the service to our customers."

Anglia's Group CEO Robert Frost added: "Nikki has a proven track record of fostering team spirit and achieving sustained growth in terms of both revenue and profit. Following last year's £6 million management buyout, I'm confident that Nikki will add value by nurturing our already exceptionally strong management team and helping us to achieve our goal of annual revenues of over £20 million within the next three years."

Nimans has marked the first anniversary of its iQ PBX system with record sales levels.

The IP solution based on Asterisk open architecture was officially launched last Autumn and incorporates feature rich functionality including Microsoft Lync integration as part of an out-of-the-box solution, according to the firm.

iQ PBX Business Manager Judith Addison said: "The iQ PBX success story continues to grow. We've had record sales for the past two months that coincide with its first anniversary. Sales are growing over 20% month-on-month.

"It's been a year to remember and I'm sure the next 12 months will be even more successful. I'd like to thank everyone that's played a part, especially my customers and the sales and support staff at Nimans."

One programme, one focus - one to watch: That's the upshot on Avaya's new mid-market partner scheme, called iConnect, designed to funnel partners through a week-long speed learning course that arms resellers with 16 Avaya accreditations and the know-how to confidently march into the mid-market - in return for a 'small investment' from partners.

The packaged programme shifts up a gear from the piecemeal approach to achieving competency and will be rolled out across selected European markets throughout the end of 2013 and into 2014. It bundles targeted sales, marketing and technical training and support, and accelerates the process of getting partners trained, certified and selling to customers in this segment, according to Avaya.

In more detail, sales training will be conducted by regional Avaya and distribution sales experts, and also in the mix is support for vertical positioning in healthcare, education, manufacturing and professional services. Also offered is on-site and hands-on training with working demo kits ready for deployment at the end of the session.

Exclusive marketing and training tools along with website content syndication and access to premium content and end user events organised by Avaya are also included in the scheme.

Michelle Jones, EMEA Channel Development and Marketing Director, Avaya, said: "As dynamic organisations, mid-market companies have been emerging as a ripe opportunity for some time now. While markets have been flattening more generally, the mid-market continues to defy the downturn.

"It's widely known that medium-sized businesses offer high growth opportunity with faster time to cash, but this market continues to be underserved. We've created Avaya iConnect to give partners quick and easy access to all the training they need in one place so that they can really take advantage of this lucrative market opportunity."

Existing partners such as Aurora Networks, Capstone, G3, iQual and Pennine Telecom have already signed up to the programme.

Niall Anderson, Sales and Marketing Director, G3 Communications, added: "The mid-market is a special sector and it has many distinct characteristics associated with growth by innovation. For the channel, it not only presents a large opportunity with good return on effort and shorter sales cycles, but it's also more resilient to economic recession. For me, iConnect has the clear focus and solid execution plan required to help partners penetrate this market. It has given us an effective decision-making framework, which is then underpinned by investment in new resources and programmes."

Cloud-based VoIP telephone system specialist nconnect has launched a UK channel campaign and aims to sign up 40 new partners before the end of this year.

The German provider of cloud telephony services to the enterprise market is expanding into the UK and targeting IT resellers and MSPs without voice expertise, claiming it can help them win a slice of the £100m left on the table by IT-only resellers unable to sell voice.

Under its German brand NFON, nconnect has gained over 5,000 enterprise scale customers including Thomson Reuters and insurance giant Allianz, and is looking for similar penetration into the UK market with support from resellers.

"Voice vendors have conspired to alienate IT and data-orientated partners from taking full advantage of enterprise voice opportunities, setting the bar too high on in-house technical skills and having prohibitively expensive vendor accreditations," said Rami Houbby, UK MD of nconnect.

"That's over now that nconnect is offering a simple and reliable cloud based service to transact with confidence. We believe over £100m gets left on the table by voiceless resellers year-in, year-out, but now they can finally capitalise on the full potential of their customer relationships and make big inroads into those revenues with limited investment and no risk."

nconnect's partner programme offers Platinum, Gold and Silver partners fast access to its cloud telephony platform, together with lead generation support, pre-sales consultancy, life-time commissions, evaluation kits and training with the European nconnect university.

"Partners don't need to hold any handset stock while self-install, infrastructure-less deployments mean limited time on site," added Houbby.