Comms Dealer

Entanet has expressed concerns over the Prime Minister's instruction to all UK ISPs to apply content filters that, by default, block access to pornography for all customers, both existing and future, in an effort to protect children.

Entanet asks whether ISPs rather than parents and guardians should be responsible for controlling access to web content, and points out that the filtering requirement will increase costs for consumers.

Prime Minister David Cameron has outlined government plans to work with search engine providers to stamp-out access to both images of child pornography and depictions of sexual violence - a policy which Entanet wholeheartedly supports in an opinion piece on the matter. 

He also outlined plans to make ISPs set up content filters that are set to 'on' by default to make it harder for children to access pornography from uncontrolled home computers. He made it clear that smaller ISPs will not be exempt from this demand.

It is this specific issue that Entanet discusses in its opinion piece, questioning whether it should be the responsibility of ISPs or of parents and guardians to take primary responsibility for the content that can or cannot be accessed with home computers.

Entanet also points out that the requirement to provide filtering as a default will add additional costs for smaller ISPs, which will ultimately be passed onto the consumer, and hand a competitive advantage to larger players.

There is also a wider concern that the proposed measures will lead to further government censorship of the web, which would be detrimental to users and society in general, as expressed by the Open Rights Group (see https://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/government-wants-default-block...), which has started an online petition calling for the government to drop the plans immediately.

In an article on the company's blog (http://bit.ly/1eg1lqR), Neil Watson, Head of Service Operations at Entanet states: "Cameron has stipulated that ISPs must swing the technology sledgehammer to protect these customers' children. To do that will inevitably incur additional cost which will be passed on to all customers, regardless of whether they have children or not.

"In a market in which the big players are able to leverage their economies of scale, such an imposition by government serves only to make it even harder for smaller ISPs to compete against them to win customers. Perhaps that's what Cameron ultimately wants - a market served by a small handful of big players whom it vainly thinks it can control via Ofcom. Most would agree that doesn't generally happen.

"At the moment, the PM's requests are not compulsory by law and smaller ISPs can continue to offer an Internet service without these constraining controls. We will look out for developments of Cameron's plan with interest. No doubt this will continue to be a much-debated topic, both in terms of how acceptable it is to impose controls on customers and the impact it will have on smaller ISPs."

New initiatives to further drive demand for Polycom's products were devised during the inaugural Polycom Global Distributor Marketing Advisory Council, staged at the vendor's Executive Experience Centre in New York.

"The objective of the Council was to establish an understanding of how Polycom and its partners can better collaborate to deliver improved marketing and demand generation programmes," stated Runa Macleod, European Marketing Director, Westcon Convergence.

She also noted that the distributor had a global presence at the event with marketing representation from EMEA, APAC and North America.

"The Council gave partners a genuine opportunity to work together to collectively improve our joint business," added Macleod. "The Polycom team listened to their partners and I am excited about the results this initiative will deliver."

Pictured: Marketing Council attendees enjoy a cruise on the Hudson River.

On the back of a record Q1 during which group sales rose by over 60% year-on-year, Kelway has increased its presence in the north of England with a new northern HQ in Manchester, renamed and rebranded all of its UK and international businesses under the Kelway banner, activated a new digital hub and confirmed that the integration of the Equanet business, purchased from DSGI in April 2013, has now been completed.

"This is the result of a huge collective effort from Kelway's teams across the UK and further afield in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa," said Dan Laws, Managing Director of Kelway.

NeoCloud has introduced a no obligation free Vidyo trial account for resellers in a bid to offer resellers first hand experience of its hosted video conference solutions.

Resellers could also involve customers in the trial, demonstrating the benefits of hosted VC.

"We know with Vidyo seeing is believing, and once engaged you won't want to lose the most effective tool you have in your office," said a spokesperson.

Eight members of staff from distributor Nimans turned to pedal power to raise funds for Manchester's Christie cancer hospital.

They rode 62 miles from Old Trafford football ground to Blackpool - a journey that took between three to five hours for each cyclist to complete, raising over £1,500 for charity.

Nimans sponsored the group - who are all keen cyclists - providing branded T-shirts.

Avnet TS has become the first distributor in EMEA to provide Cisco UCS servers running the SAP HANA software platform.

The Cisco UCS for SAP HANA solution allows customers to perform real-time data analytics and data warehousing, while allowing expansion into SAP's other core enterprise applications on SAP HANA in the future.

"The in-memory computing market is set to expand rapidly in Europe as enterprises seek tools that will allow them to make informed business decisions at any given moment," said Miriam Murphy, senior vice president, Avnet Technology Solutions EMEA.

"We can install the SAP in-memory computing platform and ship the rack mounted servers in as little as three days from receiving an order on most models, placing our partners in pole position to address new SAP customers."

Avnet has already seen early success selling Cisco UCS SAP HANA to the TRAFFIX Group, a business partner headquartered in Hamburg, Germany.

Zen Internet has become an approved supplier to the Broadband Delivery UK vouchers scheme market test.

Initially the scheme will be run in four locations Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Manchester/Salford.

The market test phase will run from 5th August 2013 to the end of September 2013. Subject to the outcome of the market tests, the scheme could then be expanded to other cities, 22 in total, which are part of the Super-Connected Cities Programme.

The BDUK Connection Voucher Scheme provides financial support to end users for the purchase of high speed/high grade connectivity solutions.

The scheme will allow businesses and third sector organisations to approach registered suppliers directly - with the support of BDUK connection voucher funding - enabling them to upgrade their connectivity.

For the market test phase support will be available for up to a maximum of £3,000 (excl. VAT) for individual premises. The grant will only cover the initial installation cost of the connection. No on-going revenue charges will be included. The minimum grant amount available is £250.

Gary Hough, Regulatory Manager, said: "Fibre is the future and feedback from our customers confirms that fibre optic broadband performance transforms their Internet experience, not just by making their service faster, but by enabling them to try new applications that might previously have been out of reach."

Leeds-based IT reseller LDD Group has expanded its team with the appointment of the company's first apprentice.

LDD has partnered with Leeds City College in supporting the Advanced Apprenticeship Framework, employing Dewsbury-based student, Ben Carr as an Assistant Support Technician.

LDD approached Leeds City College after making the decision to recruit an apprentice, preferring to employ a candidate that would see real benefit from the opportunity.

Mandi Iles, Group Sales Director at LDD Group, said: "It's rare we have the opportunity to take on trainees, but as we wanted to increase business through offering support and maintenance to our customers, we felt the apprenticeship scheme was a great way of giving an opportunity to a candidate who was really looking to build a long term career in this sector."

A recent survey that revealed a reticence from UK business people to communicate with our European neighbours was off the mark according to G3 boss Tony Parish.
 
The survey found that nearly a third of UK businesses fail to see communication with Euro' markets as important and, therefore, only 46% report that their organization has solid structures in place for international communication.  
 
But Parish, who heads up the Aura Alliance and Mitel Communications Director Alliance which are aimed at helping resellers address business opportunities abroad, disagreed.
 
"From my point of view the UK probably leads Europe in communication with its neighbours.  In our industry ,which is dominated by US firms, the language is English, so we have a natural head start.  Because the technology we sell is becoming borderless there is much more need for international sales, hence the Aura Alliance and MCD Alliance. I think that this is a huge growth area, and we will be taking full advantage of this.
 
And Parish believes language is not a barrier. "Language skills are becoming more important but luckily for the English, English is the international langue of business, I'd advise on learning Mandarin ahead of French or German though!"

Distributor ICON has joined forces with vendor Spectralink to launch an attack on rival voice mobility solutions and its key weapons in the armoury are discounts on new kit and an aggressive rip and replace strategy.

The assault runs until the end of September and marauding ICON resellers can offer MRSP discounts for any customer that wants to swap out their wireless communications solution for a Spectralink KIRK DECT or VoWiFi equipment.

Mark Shane, ICON's Sales Director, commented: "Conditions apply, naturally, but in general if the kit has been provided by an approved manufacturer and is on the approved replacement list then resellers can probably get a discount on a new Spectralink equipment."

Channel Partners need to show proof of destruction or recycle the old equipment before the discount is earned, noted Shane.

"Showing proof of destruction is easy," he added. "All you need do is get a copy of the letter of Authentication from ICON, get it signed by the customer, and send it to us along with proof that the equipment has been destroyed. This could be as simple as a before and after photo."