Comms Dealer

Equinix is to acquire 24 data centre sites from Verizon in a $3.6bn all cash deal, strengthening its global platform and expanding its interconnection portfolio.

The sites consist of 29 data centre buildings across 15 metro areas. The addition of these strategic facilities and customers will further strengthen Equinix's global platform by increasing interconnection in the U.S. and Latin America; opening three new markets in Bogotá, Culpeper and Houston; and accelerating Equinix's penetration of the enterprise and strategic market sectors, including government and energy.

The acquired portfolio includes approximately 900 customers, with a significant number of enterprise customers new to Equinix's platform, and it adds approximately 2.4 million gross square feet.

It will bring Equinix's total global footprint to 175 data centers in 43 markets and approximately 17 million gross square feet across the Americas, Europe and Asia-Pacific markets.

Circa 250 Verizon employees, primarily in the operations functions of the acquired data centres, will become Equinix employees.

Steve Smith, President and CEO, Equinix, said: "This opportunity complements and extends Equinix's strategy to expand our global platform. It enables us to enhance cloud and network density to continue to attract enterprises, while expanding our presence in the Americas.

"The new assets will bring hundreds of new customers to Platform Equinix while establishing a presence in new markets and expanding our footprint in existing key metros. The deal will also provide significant value for shareholders as the proposed transaction is expected to be immediately accretive to our adjusted funds from operations per share upon close."

Virtual1 put its team's baking prowess to the test with Bake Off challenge in aid of charity Restless Development.

"Its great to see the baking talents within the team, with so many staff getting involved in the fun while raising money for Restless Development, Virtual1's nominated charity partner," said Tom O'Hagan, CEO at Virtual1.

As part of the event all the entries were sold in the foyer of AlphaBeta, where Virtual1 is based, raising in excess of £500 for Restless Development, a global agency for youth-led development.

A VIP golf event staged by Invosys saw 30 customers descend on the Hellidon Lakes Golf and Spa Resort in Daventry for an afternoon of golf, a BBQ, games and an overnight stay. Winners of the team event were Cliff Norton, MD, Channel Telecom; Duncan McNally from Vodaphone; and James Gill of Switch Utilities.

Peter Crooks, founder of Invosys said: "The golf event was our way of saying thank you. We had a brilliant day and everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves."

Document solutions company Kyocera has acquired Annodata in a move that adds ICT services to its portfolio and channel proposition. Hironao Katsukura, MD of Kyocera Document Solutions UK, said: "The UK has been a major success story for Kyocera over the past seven years and this acquisition gives us a great platform to further grow throughout the region. 

"Annodata is a well-established, influential national player with similar business ideals to our own, as well as having important vendors, technologies and a very strong value adding culture in common."

Annodata will operate as a separate business entity to Kyocera Document Solutions UK with its own independent strategy and management team.

Co-founders Andrew and Tim Harman will continue to support the Annodata management team.

"This marks a significant opportunity for our partners, customers and people as we become part of the global Kyocera family and continue the journey we started back in 1988," said Andrew Harman. 

"With the significant resources and support of KYOCERA Document Solutions UK we can remain committed to our principles, innovate new solutions and services tailored to rapidly changing market needs, and ensure we are well placed to meet customer demands."

Mick Heys, VP Printing Imaging and Document Solutions at IDC, added: "In the current market, imaging vendors need to extend their capabilities beyond managed print to incorporate ICT services. Such enhanced offerings will allow them and their channel partners to secure a stronger foothold in existing accounts and to win new business."

KYOCERA Document Solutions UK will draw on the expertise of Annodata to strengthen its Channel Partner Programme for the UK & Ireland with the addition of ICT services. "The contribution of the channel in supporting our growth is crucial and we remain committed to this as our primary route to market," added Katsukura.

"This acquisition adds significant capabilities to our overall proposition for the channel, and maintains our commitment to support resellers of all sizes to increase expertise and leverage our solutions to better align their services with the rapidly evolving needs of customers, which ultimately boosts value."

Mid-market private equity firm Livingbridge has invested £23m in Exclaimer, a global provider of email signature software.

The investment is the last primary investment from Livingbridge 5, the firm's £360m fund raised in 2012. 
 
Exclaimer, headquartered in Farnborough, Hampshire, was founded in 2000 by business partners Andrew Millington, Gary Levell and Chris Crawshay and today provides software to over 25,000 customers in more than 100 countries including blue-chip firms such as the BBC, Audi, Sony and McDonalds. 
 
The Group is an accredited Microsoft Gold partner and its products support the full range of Microsoft's email solutions including MS Office 365.

Exclaimer's software gives users flexibility and control over email signatures and disclaimers, ensuring regulatory compliance while enabling consistent brand promotion and innovative marketing campaigns.
  
The investment will see the business invest in expanding relationships with partners, add scale by broadening its suite of products and invest further in infrastructure and customer services.
 
Millington, CEO, Exclaimer, said: "In the last 16 years we have taken a very simple concept and turned it into a global success. 

"The investment from Livingbridge will enable us to push on even further, adding scale and firepower to our business while still maintaining our entrepreneurial culture of innovation."
 
Matthew Caffrey, Partner at Livingbridge said: "Our experience of working with high growth tech businesses, combined with Exclaimer's strong management team and award winning reputation, means that the business is extremely  well placed to capture the opportunity that the rapid expansion of MS Office 365 brings."

CityFibre has kicked off the roll-out of dense full-fibre networks in business parks across its 40 city UK footprint to reach more than 500 business parks.

The first parks targeted for upgrade are in the company's Gigabit City projects Coventry, Bristol and Peterborough.

The full fibre networks will be made available to ISPs and resellers on a wholesale basis.

Pre-registration rates of over 60% have been recorded in many of the business parks surveyed on the current footprint.

Greg Mesch, Chief Executive of CityFibre, commented: "This is preparing our cities for an inevitable future upgrade to Fibre to the Home."

Minister of State for Digital and Culture Matt Hancock said: "Fibre is the future. It will give small businesses across the country access to fast and reliable broadband and encourage other emerging providers to scale up so we remain a world-leading economy."

Fast growing Channel Telecom celebrated its achievements alongside partners and suppliers at its annual Partner of the Year Awards held at London’s Mayfair hotel on December 2nd.

Awards were presented to Channel’s top reseller, dealer, supplier, data partner, IP voice partner and newcomer, plus the fastest growing and best overall partner.

Clifford Norton, Channel Telecom MD said, "It was a fantastic evening where we had chance to recognise and thank our partners for what has been a very successful year.  Without them, our business would not thrive in the way it does and it’s great to be able to give something back.

"Our sponsors BT Wholesale, Channel Utilities, Comms Dealer, Entanet, MyPhones, Union Street, Vaioni Wholesale, Virtual 1 and Voiceflex really helped this event come alive and we’re extremely grateful for their support in making our ceremony as memorable as it was. The year ahead is looking to be bigger and better than ever as we’re welcoming new partners every week, so it’s safe to say that we’re all very excited about the future of Channel Telecom.\"

Picture shows Channel Telecom Head of Partner Sales Steve Yates and MD Clifford Norton before the Awards ceremony.

O2's top performing partners were recognised at the operator's annual Partner of the Year Awards staged at The Pullman Hotel, St Pancras.

The event marked the achievements of O2's partner network across three core channels - Direct, Distribution and Wholesale.

Wholesale Partner of the Year - Plan.com
Distribution Partner of the Year - Carphone Warehouse Business
Direct (small) Partner of the Year - The One Point
Direct (large) Partner of the Year - Vivio

Jason Phillips, Head of Partners for O2 Business, said: "2016 has been a fantastic year across all of O2's partner channels."

M&A activity in the technology sector 2016 has posed a significant risk to business continuity among UK organisations, claims Peter Groucutt, MD at Databarracks, who warns that specialist continuity providers are slowly being swallowed up into wider service offerings.

He said: "The ongoing acquisitions we're seeing are causing long-term problems for the market. Specialist disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) companies are being swallowed up by larger cloud providers, and their services packaged as part of a wider offering, leaving many customers with a provider who is a jack-of-all-trades but master of none.

"A specialist disaster recovery provider has the core task of getting a business back up and running as quickly as possible, and has the advantage of experience. Specialist DR providers will have performed thousands of recoveries and have highly skilled teams of experienced experts that can confidently and competently tackle the complex task of a restore, with minimum disruption to your business."

Investment firm Platinum Equity has acquired Emerson Network Power in a $4bn-plus deal that sees the appointment of Rob Johnson as CEO and the start of a campaign to rebrand as Vertiv.
 
The Ohio-based company has more than 20,000 employees and over 25 manufacturing and assembly facilities worldwide.
 
Johnson moves from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where he was an operating partner. He also spent 10 years at American Power Conversion (APC) and was President and CEO when the company sold to Schneider Electric for $6.1n in 2007.

Bryan Kelln, Partner and President of Portfolio Operations at Platinum Equity, said: "Rob has a blend of industry knowledge, operational acumen and entrepreneurial spirit.

"This is a transformational opportunity for the company and we believe Rob is the right leader to grow the business as we establish a culture focused on speed, innovation and customer service."

In 1989 Johnson founded Systems Enhancement Corporation (SEC), a company that created software and hardware solutions for the UPS industry. He sold the company to APC in 1997.
 
Commenting on the transition to new ownership Johnson said: "It's a fresh start for a business that already has much going for it. "As an independent company, Vertiv will operate with great freedom to make business strategy and investment decisions, move more quickly like a start-up and focus on innovative solutions for our customers, including those in the growing cloud computing, mobile and IoT networks."

In November 2013 Platinum Equity acquired a controlling stake in Emerson's embedded computing and power business, which was later rebranded Artesyn Embedded Technologies.