Comms Dealer

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise has named Peter Tebbutt as Country Sales Director for the UK & Ireland.

Tebbutt, who previously held the position of Global Strategic Business Development Director for Network Infrastructure, takes over from David Parker who is moving to manage the company's Channel Sales and Pre-Sales teams for the North American region.

In his new position Tebbutt will build upon recent major wins Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise earned in the UK for Campus Networks, whilst also working to develop the company's channels for Data Centre Switching. This focus is in line with market reports from Infonetics Research which show that Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise is one of the fastest growing player in Data Centre Switching players in EMEA.

Tebbutt will also look to strengthen the company's position in the Unified Access Market for campus networks, whilst also offering customers and partners an evolutionary Unified Communications strategy that helps businesses of all sizes fully leverage existing investments through multi-party, multi-media and multi-device conversations. Tebbutt will also drive the extension of Alcatel-Lucent's current offering into the cloud, through the company's business partner network.

Tebbutt said: "The UK&I is already one of our most important and largest markets from a data perspective, and the major key for our success is to build on our existing channel strategy.

"Unified Communications is evolving to offer users a full personalised communications experience. Our open and unique architecture in OpenTouch provides a great solution for organisations across the UK&I region to move to the forefront in exploiting these new developments as CPE solutions and/or cloud offerings.

"I am looking forward to drawing upon my previous experience across the globe, and bringing it to the UK&I market to open up more opportunities for our resellers. We are a 100% channel-based organisation and I am committed to supporting and developing our business further with our business partner community, both with medium and large enterprises as well as the SMB market segment."

Gerry De Graaf, Vice President, CNE Europe, added: "Peter has significant expertise in the data market, and has proven his ability over the last three years within the EMEA region driving the network infrastructure business.

"This is a great opportunity for him to use his recent experience combined with his understanding of the UK&I market, to build upon the success we are seeing here."

Rallying cloud telephony sales have played a major role in pushing Coms plc's H1 revenues to £2.476m, a 249% hike compared to H1 2012 (£0.708m). In its unaudited interim results for the six months to 31 July 2013 Coms plc reported that its core cloud telephony business division notched up a 161% lift in revenue to £1.846m, and 96% of total revenues are recurring.

Overall gross profits were up by 124% to £1.026m (H1 2012: £0.457m), with margins also up to 41.5% from 33.3%

An overall loss for the period of £119,000 (H1 2012: £337,000) was reported, along with a net cash balance £1.026m (H1 2012: £0.1m).

David Breith, CEO of Coms, said: "My first six months in this business have been a real challenge, but rewarding, and this has been a classic business turnaround. I have had to make tough decisions and rely upon key people. I am, however, pleased and proud to report on our tremendous progress to date and I am really looking forward to more of the same during H2."

Coms plc noted that where appropriate the results have been presented in a format excluding the discontinued VComm business in order to provide a like-for-like comparison and full transparency.

Congrats to Chess Telecom CEO David Pollock and his son Charlie for peaking Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa and the highest free-standing mountain in the world, rising to 5,895 metres or 19,341 feet above sea level.

"At 7-03 am Charlie and I reached the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and watched the sun rise over Africa. It was very emotional!"

Vodafone has confirmed it is in talks to sell its 45 per cent stake in US mobile operator Verizon Wireless.

In an interview with Sky News, Adrian Barnard, Managing Director of Modern Communications, said: "These talks have happened before and there's no certainty that Vodafone will sell its stake. If Vodafone does sell its stake we have to ask whether Vodafone can really be a global player if it's no longer in North America? Vodafone has been active in Asia which is important but the US remains the biggest mobile market and Verizon is the biggest mobile operator in that market.

"Vodafone's stake in Verizon is believed to be worth at least £65 billion. Selling its stake would free up much needed cash, especially at a time that the company is investing billions upgrading its network to deliver next generation services. Vodafone launches 4G services in the UK today, along with O2."

Dr Ronald Klingebiel, Warwick Business School Assistant Professor of Strategy, commented: "The revived discussions about Vodafone selling its 45 per cent stake in Verizon Wireless indicate an increasing focus on the European market.

"Both the US and European telecommunication markets stand to face some tough competition with the increasing move towards converged triple-play offers. To weather these impending storms, Vodafone is right to sell the stake so it can concentrate on its priority markets in Europe.

"The proceeds from the sale, if not passed on in forms of dividends, could improve its debt position following the recent Cable&Wireless and Kabel Deutschland deals, and provides Vodafone some leeway to further expand its network presence in Europe. Such moves provide the capacity and level of integration necessary for competing effectively in a future pan-European market."

To see the full interview with Adrian Barnard, click here

Continuing market challenges in the second quarter of 2013 hit sales of video systems, with overall videoconferencing equipment revenue declining -10.7% year over year and -5.5% quarter over quarter.

The total market revenue of just over $532m represents the second consecutive quarterly drop and is 34.3% below the market record established in the fourth quarter of 2011, says the IDC report on Worldwide Enterprise Videoconferencing and Telepresence.

From a market segment perspective, multi-codec immersive telepresence continued its decline with a -32% year-over-year decrease. Video infrastructure equipment, including hardware MCUs, declined -20.4% year over year, and room-based video systems decreased -5% year over year. On a brighter note, desktop video systems showed positive 7.7% revenue growth year over year in 2Q13.

Regionally, Asia/Pacific (-14.1%) and Latin America (-11.3%) showed the largest year-over-year declines in 2Q13, with both EMEA and North America down -8.8% year over year. While North America (5.5%) and Asia/Pacific (1.9%) both had positive quarter-over-quarter revenue growth, EMEA and Latin America revenue declined more than 20% quarter over quarter in 2Q13.

"The macroeconomic situation, including the recession in Europe and sequestration (i.e. budget cuts) in the U.S., produced a cautionary IT spending environment that carried over into the first half of 2013 with the spending outlook for the second half of the year not much more promising," said Rich Costello, Senior Analyst, Enterprise Communications Infrastructure at IDC. "In addition, and most significantly, we are definitely starting to see the impact of lower-cost video systems and more software-based products and offerings on the enterprise video equipment market."

Cisco's 2Q13 results showed a -7.5% year-over-year decline and a -10.6% quarter-over-quarter decline in video equipment revenue. Cisco remains the leader in enterprise videoconferencing equipment with a 41% share of the worldwide market.

Polycom's revenue increased 4.2% quarter over quarter in 2Q13, but was down -14.8% year over year. Polycom ranks second in enterprise videoconferencing equipment with a 29.2% share of the worldwide market. Huawei's 7.1% quarter-over-quarter revenue increase in 2Q13 was good for a 7.6% share of the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing market.

"Despite the overall weak 2Q13 results in the worldwide enterprise videoconferencing equipment market, we are still seeing interest in videoconferencing being driven by integrations with vendors' unified communications and collaboration portfolios, and the proliferation of video among desktop and mobile users," said Petr Jirovsky, Senior Research Analyst, Worldwide Networking Trackers Research at IDC. "Video as a key component of collaboration continues to place high on the list of priorities for many organizations."

US-based Arrow is to buy Computerlinks from Equistone plus other shareholders of the Computerlinks Group in a in 230m euro deal.

"This acquisition supports our strategy to serve the data centre of the future and strengthens our position in this rapidly growing segment. We are excited to welcome the Computerlinks team to Arrow," said Michael J. Long, chairman, president and CEO of Arrow.

Headquartered in Munich, Germany, Computerlinks has operations in Europe, North America, the Middle East and Asia. Sales in 2013 are estimated to total approximately €700m and this acquisition is expected to be $.20 to $.24 accretive to earnings per share, excluding the impact of the amortization of related intangible assets, in the first year post closing, Arrow says. The purchase price is approximately €230m.

Computerlinks has a presence in 22 countries and has increased its number of employees from 566 in 2008 to approximately 720 worldwide.

Stephan Link, CEO of Computerlinks, said: "We are grateful for Equistone ?s support in the growth of our business into new services and geographies. I believe that there are significant opportunities ahead in the IT areas of security, networking, storage and virtualisation, and we look forward to working with Arrow to explore these."

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2013.

Vodafone and O2 have announced the roll out of 4G data services in three UK cities. Initially Vodafone's 4G will be limited to certain areas of London while O2 launches in London, Leeds and Bradford. Until today EE has been the only company to offer superfast mobile data in the UK since October 2012.

4G networks can provide data to smartphone users up to 10 times faster than 3G services.

Scott Hooton, Chief Commercial Officer, Phones 4u commented: "Today's another landmark day for 4G. While it's great to see more choice in the market, consumers still don't understand the benefits of 4G. Our own research found that while 90% of people are aware of 4G, only 39% are confident that they fully understand the benefits.

"Each available proposition is really strong, so our focus will be fully demonstrating the capabilities to customers in dedicated experience zones to really bring the 4G experience to life and better inform their purchase decisions."

Cloud and colocation firm UKFast has surpassed all sales targets for 2013 thanks to its newly-launched cloud range, eCloud, which has generated more than £1m of contracted revenue in two months.

The Manchester firm launched eCloud in June to provide the home-grown service and genuine elasticity demanded by UK businesses for years. Offering petabytes of high-quality storage, best-of-breed technology from 3Par, Cisco and SGI, and UK-based 24/7 award-winning support, it is the first cloud range of its type to hit the UK shores and has proved popular with UK firms who want to buy British.

Lawrence Jones, UKFast CEO said: "eCloud is attracting huge number of new clients to UKFast and has been incredibly well received. Its US counterparts run their clouds using free software and don't specify hardware. It's difficult to understand where your data lives too as there are no clear boundaries where the US cloud lies.

"Businesses need transparency. They deserve to know where their data is and what technology it's hosted on and that no one, not even the US government can access it. They deserve trusted, enterprise-level infrastructure. eCloud embraces the best of breed vendors, VMware, UCS and 3Par and it's a massive investment but it's paying off."

Jones added that eCloud's success illustrates the industry demand for a top-class, enterprise-level cloud on home shores.

He said: "While we have seen an exceptional growth in cloud sales, Amazon has recently introduced a 50% reduction in prices. You have to ask if this is a knee-jerk reaction linked to the number of clients they are failing to keep but also to the growth of British providers, like UKFast.

"UK customers are getting tired of being kept in the dark and false promises about the whereabouts and guaranteed safe-keeping of their data.

"We didn't want to create a run-of-the-mill, self-serve cloud product. We wanted to combine great technology with the very best in British service. We wanted to bring something to Britain that businesses have been asking for for a long time.

"It demanded significant investment and months of research and development to create something that has never been seen before. It was worth it. We got it right, filling a gap in the cloud market for serious businesses that need top-spec technology and high levels of service, not just pay-as-you-go resources."

Last year UKFast saw turnover increase by 25% to £20m. The latest figures driven by eCloud put the firm well on the way to hitting its projected 2013 target of more than £25m.

Three charities are set to benefit when a team from Bury-based Pennine Telecom take part in a Top Gear style Bangers and Cash car challenge.

Led by sales director Geoff King the four strong team is set to journey across Europe in a 12- year-old BMW bought for just £395 to compete in the Gamma Ball Rally II.

The event will see them travelling over 1,000 miles in the Y-registration estate car on a journey that will take them from Newbury to Budapest via Brands Hatch, Bruges, Warburg and Vienna. Along the way they will also complete four laps of the infamous Nurburgring, a private motorsports track that includes a GP circuit.

Despite visiting both UK and German tracks the rally is not a race. Instead competitors will earn points by completing tasks set along the way. They must tackle the journey in a car which they have bought for less than £500 and, if it breaks down, face the embarrassment of completing the trip in the official back up vehicle - a pink Ford Ka!

The Pennine team's participation has already ensured that two charities are £500 better off. The rally's organiser - business communications and software services company Gamma - has arranged for all entry fees to directly benefit Action Through Enterprise, which aids starving Ghanaian children, and East Cheshire Hospice.

In addition Pennine are seeking to raise further funds for Bury Hospice which it already sponsors.

"It looks like a great challenge, one that promises a lot of fun, some potentially embarrassing moments and, whatever happens, will raise a good deal of money for some excellent charities," commented King. "We already support Bury Hospice and know the absolutely fantastic work it does so this is the perfect opportunity for us to raise funds for them. We encourage our customers and suppliers to donate via our JustGiving page."

The team will compete as "4 Mancs in a Car" with Geoff joined on the four day challenge by operations manager, Xavier Senelle, mobile business manager, Steve Tipper, and Adam Brierley, a Manchester-based account manager for Gamma.

The team will depart from Newbury on Wednesday 11th September and, if all goes well, are due to arrive in Budapest on Saturday 14th September. If and when they make it to the Hungarian capital they'll then attend a gala prize-giving dinner and a "money can't buy" charity auction. They can then choose whether to tackle the return journey in their jalopy or have it recycled and instead fly back. "I think we'll play that one by ear" says Geoff tentatively!

To sponsor 4 Mancs in a Car and support Bury Hospice visit www.justgiving.com/Pennine-Telecom.

Pragma has become Ericsson-LG's sole UK distributor following a period of growth in which Pragma, founded in 2012 by David George, Tim Brooks and Will Morey, demonstrated a high degree of competence and capability in the distribution and support of Ericsson-LG's end-to-end solutions from voice products to data and applications.

Ahed Alkhatib, Head of Enterprise Solutions international sales division of Ericsson-LG, said: "Ericsson-LG has decided to build on the early success and momentum by forging a closer relationship with Pragma. We will continue to invest in expanding our market share in the UK market with Pragma as our sole distributor."

Tim Brooks, Managing Director, Pragma commented: "With Ericsson-LG's product portfolio, its focus on support for the UK market, we are excited to be working together to grow our UK market share."