Executive Summary

Business tablets; UK in the news

Is the enterprise reclaiming the tablet market? There had been some concerns that the large numbers of tablet-sized devices sold at low prices to consumers would skew the business and tablet development, but the latest research shows that higher specification tablets, with better connectivity, are winning through. The enterprise market is seeing a lot of use of these sorts of application-driven solutions, which is all good news for channels and developers. There was more good news for Europe in Cisco's results; the return to positive numbers, particularly in the north is encouraging; it may mean that some of the investment moves back to Europe after being positioned for emerging areas. Russia, where Cisco planned to spend a billion dollars, was a bit worrying with a 28% fall, but anyone who knows this market recognises what an up-down switchback of a ride it usually is.

The UK was in the news twice this week - first for the merger of two large retailers to form a major phones to IT outlet, Carphone Dixons.

And again with major eastern European developer Luxoft moving its tax base from Cyprus to London. Both moves, coming on top of good UK economic figures, mean the industry can feel a bit more confident about channels and business confidence generally.

Latest News

Nimble Storage signs Ingram Micro Europe

Nimble Storage has announced a distribution deal with Ingram Micro Europe. Under the terms of a deal, Ingram has become a distie for Nimble Storage’s portfolio of flash storage arrays.

Also, Ingram Micro Europe’s Advanced Division Solutions will start offering Nimble’s SmartStack converged infrastructure solutions to partners and resellers across Europe, it says. Nimble has developed SmartStack, built on Cisco UCS and pre-validated through ecosystem including VMware, Citrix and Microsoft. According to Ingram, the company plans to use its strong relationships with Cisco’s channel in Europe to make Nimble’s SmartStack solutions available to providers.

Additionally, Ingram has invested in its Advanced Solutions Division to strengthen its channel offering. Investments cover pre-sales, technical expertise and reseller enablement services, among others. “Ingram Micro has significant channel and market presence in the storage market. By partnering with Ingram Micro we are providing another avenue for partners to procure our flash storage solutions globally. Further, we believe Ingram Micro’s strong relationships with our alliance partners, Cisco and Citrix, make this partnership even more beneficial for resellers seeking our converged infrastructure solution,” says Kristin Carnes, director of channel sales, Nimble Storage.

Tablets move up-market

Tablet sales are moving up-market, with modem connections becoming more popular and prices rising. Apple and Samsung combined for 71% of the 41.3 million branded tablets in the first calendar quarter of 2014, according to early vendor shipment share estimates from market intelligence firm ABI Research.

This is the closest the two leading vendors have come to date and the pair remains well-ahead the rest of the pack. “Despite questions remaining about data disclosure in 2010 and 2011, Samsung’s release of tablet sales data this past quarter is a good sign for the mobile computing market,” says senior practice director Jeff Orr. “Whether due to its confidence in the economy, its own business, or a combination of reasons, Samsung continues to demonstrate tablet growth as its 2013 retail push in North America and Western Europe pays off.” The first three months of the year remain a seasonal low-point for tablets as with other computing and CE markets. Apple's share dropped 10.1% with 16.4 million units, as Samsung rose 11% to 13 million units.

The mix of tablet operating systems is also showing signs of stability with only minor changes in shipment share. Android continues to lead new tablet shipments at 56.3% for 1Q 2014 followed by iOS at 39.6% and Windows 8/RT at 4.1% with an accuracy of +/- 3% due to vendors yet to report. A bright spot in the quarter was the tablet attach rate level of mobile broadband modems (3G and 4G). Some 22% shipped with an embedded modem, which is the highest penetration seen since the September quarter of 2011. “As major advanced markets become saturated, buyers are expanding their tablet use case, which is also pushing up the ASP in these markets,” adds Orr.

Europe returns to positive for Cisco

Cisco sees "continued stabilisation" across Europe with order strength in the UK up 7%, Germany up 5%, and northern Europe as a whole up 4%. It has just reported Q3 FY '14, where it says it “executed well as we managed through the transitions in our business and markets, resulting in our financial performance above our expectations”. From a top and bottom line perspective, total revenue was $11.5bn, down 5%. Router revenue fell 10%, but orders were nearly flat. Switch sales fell 6%.

Orders in our emerging markets declined 7% with the BRICs plus Mexico down 13%. "As we said for several quarters, we expect these challenges to continue. The challenges we saw included Brazil, down 27% and Russia down 28%." John Chambers once more states Cisco is seeing price pressure in markets such as campus switching (Huawei and HP are competing aggressively here), but insists software-defined networking (SDN) isn't a factor. Switching, emerging markets, and carrier sales are expected to stay pressured near-term.

The market is changing, and Cisco is evolving to match it, it says. Robert Lloyd, President, Development and Sales: “We are seeing a number of our customers of all types begin to look at not just recurring revenue, but kind of a pay-as-you-go or pay-as-you-drink type of approach. We've closed a number of key deals and these are $100 million type of deal this quarter alone that we'll see the results on over the next three to five years, but it shows very little impact in terms of this quarter.” Data center (UCS server) sales remain strong, growing 29% Y/Y with market share gains against Dell, HP and IBM). But service provider video sales, down -26% remain weak. On the data centre business, UCS, Robert Lloyd feels “candidly, very comfortable with us continuing to beat our competition, IBM, HP and Dell.

“Our growth of 29% against, I think, the three of them added together which might have shown negative growth in terms of Blade servers. Our real competition here is white label. We saw this coming three to four years ago. We're going to sell architectures in the white label approach as opposed to standalone products. I personally believe standalone products from any company, whether its standalone switch or a standalone server will get squeezed pretty hard. And so our competition there is architecture and how you bring compute and network and storage together, how you bring that together with application-centric infrastructure and bring it down the environment.”

ShoreTel names Sales Head in Europe

ShoreTel has announced it has appointed Georges Millet as its new European Sales Director. He will be based in Germany from where he will drive European revenue growth and partner acquisition in the investments regions including the UK, France, Germany and Spain.

Millet joins from LifeSize-Logitech where he served as EMEA channel and alliances director and regional sales director for mature European markets. He has over 20 years of sales and channel experience and his previous works include Autodesk and McAfee, where Millet was vice president of EMEA channels. “Georges’ experience and past achievements make him uniquely qualified to help strengthen ShoreTel’s presence in EMEA and drive brand awareness in the region. The appointment of Georges also further highlights the emphasis ShoreTel is placing on businesses in EMEA, and the company’s desire to further expand and deliver growth throughout Europe,” says Adrian Hipkiss, vice president and managing director of EMEA at ShoreTel.

Mitel updates portfolio

UC solutions specialist Mitel has announced a change in its portfolio as a result of a merger with Aastra Technologies, acquired by the end of 2013.

Mitel plans to focus on regional market requirements, delivering protection of investments of existing customers and common desktop communications solutions, with a migration path to cloud communications. What is more, Mintel wants to continue development of its common desktop portfolio with the new investments targeted for mid-2015. The company will also keep on investing in its applications portfolio with first feature integration expected in 2014. With a strong focus on communication and collaboration, the company also supports open standards and major industry frameworks such as Google and Microsoft, it says.

Some other enhancements include solutions that offer integrated business communications and applications so they add value to Microsoft Lync-based solutions. Mintel also plans to increase contact centre capabilities. “Our product integration strategy reflects our commitment to customers and channel partners, designed to ensure we can continue to support their businesses and protect their investment in us. The combined Mitel and Aastra portfolio is used by over 60 million people worldwide, so we have to ensure that while our integration strategy has a common goal, it still delivers against specific regional requirements and market dynamics,” comments Rich McBee, CEO, Mitel.

Luxoft continues growth, moves tax regime to UK

Luxoft's Q1 saw its GAAP revenue at $106.3 million, an increase of 23.7% year-over-year and a decrease of 3.9% sequentially. There have been concerns because much of its work is done in Ukraine, but a statement by its CEO in March helped reassure customers. The proportion of its business done in Russia is now below 10% of its total workload, and its US business has jumped to 42% from 36% in the same quarter last year.

As part of its response to changing markets, it will relocate its HQ for tax purposes to the UK. Although the latest quarter is down on the previous one, this reflects seasonality and the year over year results are strong. Most of Luxoft’s verticals experienced strong revenue growth, with Financial services and Automotive and transport delivering the strongest performance: 39% and 73% growth, respectively, on a year-over-year basis. The company exhibited solid performance across all of its core revenue-generating geographies: Revenues generated in the US increased 46%, the U.K. increased 25%, and Germany increased 23% compared to a year ago.

Luxoft finished the financial year with 7,519 employees, of which 6,366 were delivery professionals, who continued to drive average productivity to an annual record of $69,200 per engineer, which represents an increase of 5.4% from $65,650 a year ago. The average delivery headcount increased by 20.1% as compared to the financial year ended March 31, 2013, which is 6.5% slower than the revenue growth for the same period, while employee attrition stood at 9.9% and approached a historical low.

“This has been a very strong year for Luxoft. We have generated superior revenue growth and increased essentially every profitability metric as compared to the previous year. Two new accounts entered our top 10 customer list, as they showed accelerated revenue growth and replaced some of the slower growing accounts. We continue developing our high-potential clients. That account group in the aggregate brought us an average revenue growth well in excess of 100% versus last year“said Roman Yakushkin, Chief Financial Officer.

“This year a lot of our operating focus will be on proper execution of the Luxoft: Global Upgrade program, which will prompt some nonrecurring items on the investment and the expense sides, in order to introduce measurable business efficiencies and secure further growth for the years ahead.” During the financial year 2015 Luxoft plans to introduce a series of changes to bring the Company to a new standard with respect to transparency and operational discipline, in line with other global and multinational corporations. With the approval of the Company’s Board of Directors, the company intends to establish tax residence in the United Kingdom and to cease its place of business and tax residence in Cyprus.

Avaya tools to be limited during channel switchover

Avaya will migrate all channel transactions to the SAP I-Box platform between 23-27 May. This move will eventually allow Avaya to use a single consolidated system to support orders, invoices and shipment for all of our channel partners.

During this consolidation, many of Avaya’s commercial tools may be unavailable for service. On a global basis, users will not be able to order any heritage Avaya (“red”) solutions or services, although designs can still be created in ASD using the untethered process. Both Order Center and Order Status will be out of service for heritage Avaya products.

Maintenance quoting and renewal tools will be unavailable. Users will not be able to create or download new licenses using ADI, PLDS, or RFA, and GRT will be unavailable to register systems for heritage Avaya solutions. Heritage Nortel products and services will not be impacted by this outage. Avaya One Source users will still be able to access pricing via GPPC and create quotes throughout the outage period. US distributors will continue to use separate ordering processes for SME and Enterprise products after the migration takes place, as Avaya will continue to have two ordering entities in the SAP I box.

IT retailers agree merger

UK IT retailers Carphone Warehouse and Dixons have agreed a £3.8bn merger to create an electricals retail giant with 3,000 stores and sales of almost £12bn.

The new company, called Carphone Dixons, will bring the household names Currys, PC World and Carphone Warehouse under one umbrella. Dixons and Carphone shareholders will each own 50% of the combined group under the deal.

The companies said the merger made sense because their two markets (phones and IT) were converging as consumers increasingly use multiple devices. Dixons, which has just reported good results, still has some businesses in Europe; both firms were boosted by the withdrawal of competitor Comet in the UK two years' ago.

Software specialist to run CA Technologies' enterprise

CA Technologies has named software specialist Amit Chatterjee as executive vice president, Enterprise Solutions and Technology Group, effective immediately.

Chatterjee will have overall responsibility for strategy and execution across the full portfolio of Enterprise businesses, from development to commercialisation. In addition, Chief Technology Officer John Michelsen will now report directly to Chief Executive Officer Mike Gregoire. Peter Griffiths, who served as executive vice president, Enterprise Solutions and Technology Group since 2011, will leave the company to pursue other interests.

Chatterjee brings a 20-year track record of success in technology and software at both high growth start-ups and global multinationals. Fortune Magazine named him “Top 40 under 40” in 2010, and Ernst & Young named him as “Entrepreneur of the Year – Venture Capital” in 2011. He will be based at CA’s Silicon Valley Technology Center in Santa Clara, California “Amit is a successful innovator, business builder and team leader, and I am excited to have attracted an executive with his unique experience and capabilities to our company,” said Gregoire. “His proven ability to connect innovation to opportunity and develop differentiated solutions is exactly what we need to further strengthen our portfolio, serve our customers and drive our continued success.” Amit Chatterjee was the founder and CEO of Hara, a cloud-based, Software-as-a-Service company that provides enterprises with the data and information they need to manage energy consumption. He also held senior executive positions at SAP.

Telenor makes management changes

Telenor Group's DiGi Telecommunications division has appointed Lars-Åke Norling (45) as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO), effective August 1, 2014. Norling currently holds the position of CEO in Telenor Sweden.

Norling will be succeeded by Patrik Hofbauer (45) who will take on the role of CEO in Sweden, also effective August 1. Hofbauer is currently CEO of Telenor Broadcast and Canal Digital. "Lars-Åke has successfully strengthened Telenor Sweden's position in one of the most highly advanced telecom markets in the world. I am confident that he has the leadership skills to further develop the vibrant company culture and the market know-how to deliver on our Internet for All ambition to our Malaysian customers", said Sigve Brekke, Executive Vice President of Telenor Group and Chairman of the Board in DiGi.com.

"I want to thank Henrik Clausen for his strong performance as he now moves on to new challenges in Telenor Group." During Norling's tenure, Telenor Sweden has delivered robust financial results. The company has built an internet proposition, with both mobile and fixed offerings, in a highly competitive marketplace. Telenor Sweden is the second largest operator in the country with 2.5 million mobile subscriptions, 0.7 million fixed broadband subscriptions and approximately 1800 full time employees.

A seasoned telecom executive, Norling joined the broadband provider Bredbandsbolaget in 1999, were he held a number of senior positions. In 2006, he was appointed Head of Telenor Sweden's fixed network and a year later he took on the position as CTO of Telenor Sweden. Since April 2009, Norling has served as CEO of Telenor Sweden. Patrik Hofbauer to take the helm in Telenor Sweden "I am very pleased that Patrik will take over Telenor Sweden. As CEO of Telenor Broadcast and Canal Digital he has solidified Telenor's position as a leading provider of TV and Broadcast services to enterprises and households in the Nordic region. I am confident that he will now continue Telenor Sweden's solid growth path and drive the development of world class services to further enhance the customer experience," said Kjell Morten Johnsen, EVP of Telenor Group, and Chairman of the Board of Telenor Sweden.

Ordina boosts margin on stable sales

Benelux integrator Ordina's results for first quarter 2014 Ordina show improved profit on stable turnover, with recurring EBITDA margin higher at 5.1% (Q1 2013: 2.6%).

It cannot give a forecast for the coming period, it says.

Mindtree names DACH head

Mindtree has appointed Ralf Reich as its Business Head for the DACH region to enhance the company’s growth in Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In his new role he will be responsible for expansion Mindtree’s position across banking, financial services, and insurance, retail, manufacturing, travel and transportation sectors.

Reich has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry. He joins from Wipro where he held most recently a position of Vice President and Regional Head DACH and was the Country Headfor Germany. Prior to that, he worked at IBM Germany, Hewlett-Packard and Unisys.

Telstra Global comes to CEE

Telstra Global has signed an agreement with GTS, a CEE-based telco solutions and data centre services provider, to help increase Telstra’s footprint across the region.

At the moment, GTS offers 27 Points of Presence (PoPs) in Central and Eastern Europe including cities such as Prague, Warsaw, Bucharest, Bratislava and Budapest – which will be leveraged by Telstra to enhance its existing IPVPN service coverage, it says. “When you combine our new Central and Eastern European sites with the PoPs we recently added in Western Europe – including Frankfurt, Paris and Amsterdam –Telstra is now well placed to help European organisations gain greater competitive advantage in their local operations and connect with growth opportunities in the Asian market too,” says Bernadette Noujaim Baldwin, Telstra Global's Head of Connectivity and Platforms Portfolio.

“GTS’ network has best-in-class performance and coverage across Central and Eastern Europe. Our metropolitan footprint provides connectivity to over 26,000 enterprise office buildings and data centres across five countries: Poland, Czech, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. Partnering with Telstra will combine the reach and capabilities of two global leaders in delivering solutions to both wholesale and multinational customers,” says GTS’VP of International Services, Bruce Garrison.

Automotive/transport/logistics at heart of m2m demand

Researchers say over half of the service providers participating in a survey have sizeable M2M businesses (i.e., providing at least one million M2M connections to customers) and that the automotive/transport/logistics and utility segments together account for nearly half of all M2M connections.

M2M is still predominately a 2G-based system, a study by Infonetics found: LTE remains nascent, making up only 1% of total devices; however, both 2G and LTE are expected to be the fastest- growing M2M access technologies in the near term. National coverage tops the list of M2M solution features rated very important by respondents, followed by web-based management tools and service- level agreements (SLAs).

For many service providers entering the M2M space, a service platform is key to jump-starting an M2M business: Those surveyed most often named Jasper Wireless and Ericsson as the top M2M platform providers Market research firm Infonetics Research has done this research and released excerpts from its new M2M Strategies: Global Service Provider Survey, which provides insights into the machine to- machine (M2M) market - also referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT) - through the eyes of service providers providing or planning to offer M2M services. "Service provider focus and prioritization of the M2M segment has been a relatively recent phenomenon, but as our latest M2M service provider survey shows, M2M is now scaling to be a significant business for a good number of providers around the world," notes Godfrey Chua, directing analyst for M2M and The Internet of Things at Infonetics Research.

Continues Chua: "The leading tier of M2M players have committed meaningful resources to developing their M2M businesses and now have significant scale to show for it - between 2 million to just under 10 million M2M connections. They have strategies in place and have created standalone M2M business units comprised of overlay go-to-market and technical organizations. M2M is no longer just an extension of the enterprise business unit for these service providers." Some 55% of respondents are using internally-developed M2M service platforms, it found.

Sophos announces new appointments

Sophos has announced new appointments to its team in Germany. Bryan Barney, who joins from McAfee, has been appointed as its new Senior Vice President and General Manager, Sophos Network Security Group, and Karl Heinz Warum has been named as Regional Vice President of Sales for Germany, Northern and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa.

These nominations reflect Sophos’ attempts to become channel-centric IT security provider aimed at small and mid-market customers, it says. Barney, ex-McAfee executive vice president of product development, will run Sophos’ Network Security Group including full product responsibility for the UTM, advanced threat protection, wireless and next generation firewall solutions. Warum will be responsible for Sophos’ sales and new partners acquisition in Germany and other countries.

He joins the company from Dell where he previously served as director of channel sales in Germany. Prior to that, he held a senior position at Citrix in Central and Eastern Europe. “I’m delighted to welcome Bryan and Karl-Heinz to Sophos. We’ve made no secret of our intentions to double-down in network security, and Bryan brings the ideal skillset and leadership to drive our network business to heights. And in Karl-Heinz we add unsurpassed channel leadership one of our most strategic geographies. Our ability to attract such top talent speaks volumes about the opportunity ahead for Sophos,” comments Kris Hagerman, Sophos CEO.

Westcon-Afina helps Spanish VMware partners

The Spanish distributor Westcon Afina's Solutions/Data Centre division, specialising in infrastructure solutions and virtualisation, is aiming to support resellers looking to meet the new channel programme requirements from the VMware Partner Network-VPN. From May 9, the conditions for maintaining the partner levels in VMware have changed and partners may need to update their skills to continue their former status.

To do this, Afina- Westcon Data Center Solutions has designed a series of resources to support their business partners in change, in addition to holding various training events and seminars in various cities in Spain. The background to these changes is that VMware hopes its partners can improve their profitability and increase their business, as well as push more virtualisation projects. The most significant changes in the new channel program are that the partner has free choice over specialisations.

It is not now mandatory to be specialised in previous Virtual Infrastructure, Virtualisation/server packages. To meet this requirement, Westcon Academy offers a wide range of official courses for VMware partners to help them achieve the required competency, and also offers the possibility of designing a training plan customized and personalized for the company as needed. All partner levels now require two certifications, VMware Sales Professional (VSP) and technical (VTSP). This can be obtained as part of the distributor's free courses in different cities of Spain during the months of July, October and November. VMware Enterprise partners have until November and the professional training must be done by May 2015 to comply with all requirements of the new program.

German region in Bechtle Apple seven year deal

The Germany state of Baden-Württemberg has awarded a deal for Apple hardware and support services to Bechtle which could last until 2021. The first two year period will see purchases of up to €17m and support for up to 15,000 devices.

The contract covers both the entire Apple product line as well as Bechtle's IT services and warranty services. This gives state agencies a simple and fast way to purchase products such as iMacs, Mac Books, displays, iPads and iPhones as well as the entire complementary product portfolio.

Eligible bodies include the state colleges and universities and the state parliament of Baden- Württemberg and all ministries and departments. Bechtle will offer an onsite service for the next seven years and is both Apple Solution Expert in the field of Education and Apple-authorised system integrator.

"We are equipping the modern workplaces so that the state employees and the state universities of Baden-Württemberg can work with sustainable IT from Apple. The background is our good relationship with Apple, and also our extensive expertise in the area of mobility, system integration and services. As a company from Baden- Württemberg ourselves, we very proud of the framework deal, "says Bernd Ihle, sales manager for the Bechtle IT system house in Neckarsulm. Baden- Württemberg is the third largest of Germany's sixteen states. The local authorities will order Apple products through e-procurement. For this, a special Bechtle online store will offer easy electronic order processing.

The platform offers pre-defined packages with detailed product information so that individual orders can be triggered efficiently and safely. "Self-produced customer configurations can now be ordered through the Bechtle online store. The shop system thus offers an optimal, available around the clock solution for orders and information about projects in real time, “explains Nico Rack from the Bechtle IT system house.

Exclusive to push WhiteHat security

Exclusive Networks is now a distributor for WhiteHat Security, which offers a cloud-based application security testing product portfolio. WhiteHat Sentinel is said to offer both dynamic application security testing of live production websites, mobile application security testing, as well as static, pre-production application security assessments of the original source code.

“WhiteHat Security is a respected global player in web application security and its decision to invest in the channel will be warmly received by partners looking to increase service revenues and scale-up web application security testing capabilities,” said Graham Jones, joint country manager at Exclusive Networks UK. “Adding WhiteHat Sentinel to our portfolio extends the opportunities for reseller partners seeking to develop complete multi-vendor cyber threat solutions using our CARM platform.” “Exclusive Networks’ market-making pedigree, technical expertise and complementary security product portfolio makes them an ideal partner for WhiteHat Security as we look to continue to expand our footprint throughout Europe,” said Andrew Lawton, vice president of EMEA at WhiteHat Security.

UK financial standards body probes Tech Data

The UK's accounting standards body, the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) has launched an investigation under the Accountancy Scheme into the preparation and approval of the financial information of Computer 2000 Distribution Limited relating to the years ended 31 January 2009 to 31 January 2013 inclusive.

This follows the announcement dated 5 February 2014 by C2000’s US parent company, Tech Data, of the conclusion of an independent investigation into Tech Data’s accounting practices across Europe and the consequent restatement of Tech Data’s consolidated financial statement and other financial information relating to those years. The FRC is responsible for promoting high quality corporate governance and reporting to foster investment. It sets the UK Corporate Governance and Stewardship Codes as well as UK standards for accounting, auditing and actuarial work.

Europe's comms industry held back by politicians

The EU's obsession with cutting roaming charges is not going to help Europe's comms industry, says a note from researcher Strand Consult. It thinks the industry has not done enough to promote itself to politicians looking for a popular move to justify themselves.

A decade ago, the EU accounted for one-third of the world’s communications capital investment. That number has plummeted to less than one-fifth today In the event of a common European charge for mobiles, it says, the revenue loss from the average roaming customer will likely be marginal. “The bigger impact comes from the policy’s unintended consequences that of the creation of a new market for “mobile arbitrage”, the sale and speculation of SIM cards and mobile services from low cost EU countries to high ones.

It’s no secret that the EU is hardly a physical single market, let alone a digital one.” Just looking at price differentials between cars gives an insight to the challenge of creating a single market, it says Car producing countries such as Germany, Sweden, Spain, and France encourage their sale with little tax on cars while Denmark marks up the price by 180%. The EU demanding a single price for cars would be welcomed by consumers but met with outrage by governments. Yet the cost of a car is a larger expense both in upfront and maintenance costs than telecommunications is for consumers.

“If EU leaders cared so much about consumers, why don’t they address the expenditures that drive the greater part of consumer income, such as housing, fuel, transportation, food, and clothing? Consumers even spend more on discretionary vacations than they do on telecommunications. EU prices, even with roaming fees, fall well below the 5% of gross domestic income per income threshold suggested by the ITU. The only explanation is that the telecom industry has not done a good enough job to explain to politicians and the public they tremendous value of telecommunications,” it concludes.

Agnosticism is new IT religion

When it comes to providing technology platforms for mobility solutions “being agnostic is the new religion”, was the advice offered to both vendors and channel organisations by Alan Shields, Strategy & Architecture Manager for IT Services, BYOD Project Lead, Cambridgeshire County Council in his keynote address at the CRN Conference on London.

In terms of end-user requirements, what is needed is “multi-platform or true browser-based solutions” he claimed, stating that “solutions locked down to a specific platform or technology” will no longer “cut the mustard” in meeting the needs of either public or private sector organisations.

Other criteria end-users should use in selecting appropriate reseller partners he suggested included “a clear understanding of mobile working” and of the cultural shifts required to introduce and operate such technologies effectively. The patchy connectivity that is an unfortunate fact of life in the UK also makes the ability to offer an effective off-line capability a prerequisite and last but not least he stressed the need for “sensible pricing” to encourage the take–up of mobile technologies.

In his address, Borjas Rosales, Managing Director, Europe, Druva also stressed the value of platform agnosticism but argued that in terms of security BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) often translated into “bring your own problem.” With as many as 70% of edge devices unencrypted and as much as 28% of data held exclusively on endpoint devices, he indicated that security was a major issue for any organisation adopting mobile technologies, in terms of loss of data and the loss of productivity associated with such losses, data breaches, litigation and compliance exposure. He went on to cite recent IDC research indicating that the mobile workforce would exceed 600 million by 2015 to indicate that securing mobility was going to become an increasingly important issue.

The opportunity to add value for the channel he said was for them to use their knowledge of the customer and their concerns to support customers in identifying and implementing mobility solutions that solve their problems. The role of the channel in managing the provision of mobility solutions is an issue IT Europa will be examining further over the coming months. To follow developments in key technologies and evolving business models register at www.iteuropa.com

SAP announces management changes

SAP has announced a few changes to its management team. The company has appointed Rodolpho Cardenuto as the head of a new Global Partner Operations (GPO) who will drive Board-sponsored initiatives through SAP partners.

He will also develop sales through new and existing channels and build new routes to market through partner ecosystem. He will report to Co-CEO Bill McDermott. Mark Ferrer, current head of SAP Ecosystem and Channels, will continue his role as chief operating officer of Customer Operations reporting to Robert Enslin, president of Global Customer Operations and member of the Executive Board of SAP AG.

Cardenuto’s previously held a role of President of SAP Latin America and Caribbean. He has over 25 years of experience in IT industry and his prior experience includes work at Hewlett- Packard and other roles across the SMEs sector in Latin America. “The formation of our new Global Partner Operations organisation is key to driving scale and adoption of the SAP Cloud powered by SAP HANA. Rodolpho will engage with a vibrant and open ecosystem of more than 11,500 companies worldwide to unlock the potential of every customer to become a best-run business.

Rodolpho’s appointment shows that our bedrock commitment to the spirit of partnership with the SAP ecosystem has never been stronger,” says Bill McDermott, co-CEO and member of the Executive Board, SAP AG. With Cardenuto’s move to his new role, SAP also announced that Jennifer Morgan has been named president of SAP North America and Diego Dzodan has been named president of SAP Latin America & Caribbean. Both will report to Enslin, it says.

US IP solutions specialist opens office in Germany

US-based supplier of mobile and fixed core networking IP convergence systems and applications Taqua has chosen Darmstadt, in Germany, as the best location to open its EMEA head office.

The company plans to use its European office to better serve mobile operators across the region and the new centre will provide support for delivery of its mobile voice and messaging services and for sales of Taqua’s core network solutions.

The new office will be led by Matthias Leisurs who will serve as Vice President of Sales for EMEA. He brings expertise in sales and marketing having previously worked at Hewlett- Packard, Vodafone- Arcor and Tekelec-Oracle. “Matthias Leisurs is an expert in telecommunications, with more than 30 years’ experience and a proven track record in successful sales and business development in the EMEA region. We look forward to his leadership and market insight as we seek to replicate our US success in mobile convergence solutions,” says Eric L. Pratt, CEO Taqua.

Portuguese digital specialist comes to UK

Portuguese specialist in advanced digital wallet solutions CardMobili has announced an opening of its new office in Mayfair, in the UK.

Additionally, it has appointed Rube Huljev as its new International Sales Director. CardMobili has recently worked with Portugal Telecom over implementation of its digital wallet strategy which included the launch of Portugal Telecom’s free smartphone application that links loyalty cards and discounts. Other clients include leading mobile network operators, chip retail brands and financial institutions, it says. Huljev, who will be based in the UK new office, joins from Infobip and brings experience in the mobile payments and digital wallet sectors.

According to CEO Helena Leite, the new UK operation is an important milestone in the company’s strategic development. She says: “Rube’s appointment reflects our growing success in providing leading edge digital wallet solutions for international brands. His experience will assist us in unlocking new opportunities, building on the strong foundation we have already established in Europe and the Middle East. Our new UK division will enable us to focus on the wider market, with the additional resources and expertise in place to service the growing demand for digital wallet and mobile loyalty solutions”. CardMonili offers organisations a digital wallet ecosystem, with tiered administration and management facilities.