News

Network Infrastructure Solutions and Services

March 16, 2010 16 Mar'10
Blue Coat takes first steps into virtualisation world

WAN optimisation vendor Blue Coat is taking its first steps into the virtualisation arena and hopes to cosy up to VMware resellers through its distribution partnership with Arrow.
March 16, 2010 16 Mar'10
Digital Economy Bill moves closer to becoming law

The Digital Economy Bill, which is designed to protect the UK's creative industries has been passed by the House of Lords and looks set to become law before the general election.
March 15, 2010 15 Mar'10
Nortel reverses losses at long last

The closing down fire-sale of Nortel's business units in 2009 has ironically accomplished what the vendor's management team spectacularly failed to do and reversed its full-year net losses.
March 11, 2010 11 Mar'10
Opal hires ex-Avaya man to head up distribution

TalkTalk's b-2-b communications arm Opal has appointed former Avaya SMB UK channel sales director Graham Bunting as distribution head to drive growth of its next generation network (NGN) offerings in the channel.

March 11, 2010 11 Mar'10
Avisen acquires Xploite for joint buy and build strategy

Acquisitive software reseller Avisen is to take-over investment vehicle Xploite in a deal that values the Storage Fusion and former Anix owner at just under £11.4m.
March 11, 2010 11 Mar'10
Telindus hires for UK mobility push

Telindus has appointed mobile industry expert Mike Bowerman to head up its new Mobile Broadband Framework as client director of mobile and spearhead the firm's drive into the mobile broadband market.
March 11, 2010 11 Mar'10
Councils failing to deliver satisfactory web services

The signs are that even before any cuts have been made local councils are at risk of failing to deliver a high enough standard of services via the web.
March 10, 2010 10 Mar'10
Channel urged to ramp up video deployment

Network quality is finally reaching the point where video applications can be sold successfully as part of a unified communications solution set, according to the buzz on the floor at today's UC Expo trade show at London Olympia.
March 10, 2010 10 Mar'10
PBX market declines ease in Q4

The declines seen of late in the global PBX and IP PBX sector seem to be declining, according to the latest research from analyst house MZA Consulting, but the 12 months to the end of December 2009 still witnessed a 22% slide in market volume.
March 09, 2010 09 Mar'10
Union anger at Vodafone job cuts

Trade union Prospect has reacted angrily to Vodafone's sudden announcement that it will cut 375 jobs before the end of March.

March 09, 2010 09 Mar'10
Polycom extends Avaya relationship

Polycom has extended its existing relationship with UC networking vendor Avaya in order to jointly market integrated voice, video and collaboration solutions based on Polycom's Open Collaboration Network strategy and Avaya's SIP UC platform, Aura.
March 08, 2010 08 Mar'10
Motorola relaunches enterprise partner scheme

Motorola enterprise and public sector partners are to be inducted into a new channel programme framework dubbed Partner Empower.
March 08, 2010 08 Mar'10
Cisco backs off from WiMAX market

Cisco has quietly let slip that it is quitting the WiMAX market, which it entered in 2007 with the $330m acquisition of Navini Networks.
March 08, 2010 08 Mar'10
Brocade targets 50% customer growth with channel shake-up

Brocade EMEA channel director Amanda Giddins (pictured) is expanding the storage networking firm's channel teams across EMEA and realigning UK staff to meet growing demand for end-to-end network and data centre installations, and will be targeting ...
March 05, 2010 05 Mar'10
Psion looks for channel to play role in vertical market push

Smartphone specialist Psion is reaching out to developers to support its drive into vertical markets but wants resellers to get involved with its efforts to widen its market.
March 05, 2010 05 Mar'10
RIM targets SMEs with BlackBerry server

BlackBerry firm RIM is looking to work with more data resellers as it looks to increase its penetration into the SME market building on a growing slice of the consumer market.
March 04, 2010 04 Mar'10
Avaya leans on disties to speed Nortel integration

Avaya is shoring up its distribution relationships in order to better integrate Nortel's enterprise reseller channel into its own, saying it won't be able to fulfil its aims without their help.
March 04, 2010 04 Mar'10
Touchscreen mobility set to grow 97% in 2010

Close to 365 million touchscreen mobile devices will be shipped worldwide this year, an increase of 96.8% on 2009, according to new research from industry watchers Gartner.
March 03, 2010 03 Mar'10
Force10 heads for $144m IPO

Self-styled disruptive networker Force10 has become the fourth vendor in the networking space to file for an IPO since November, making an initial offering of $144m (£95m).
March 02, 2010 02 Mar'10
Lord Carter resurfaces at Alcatel-Lucent

Former communications minister and Digital Britain mastermind Stephen Carter has taken a leap back into the private sector to join Alcatel-Lucent as chief marketing, strategy and communications officer.
March 02, 2010 02 Mar'10
43,000 UK pensioners may lose out in Nortel claim

Nortel has dodged a multi-billion dollar bullet after a US court ruled that the UK Pensions Regulator cannot claim on the vendor's assets as it attempts to make up a £2.1bn shortfall in Nortel's UK pension scheme.
March 02, 2010 02 Mar'10
Brussels signs off on Orange T-Mobile venture

Orange and T-Mobile have been given the all-clear to merge their UK networks by the European Commission. The merger was first proposed last September after a period of speculation over the future of Deutsche Telekom's T-Mobile brand in the UK, and ...
March 01, 2010 01 Mar'10
Brocade hires networking vet John McHugh

Former Nortel enterprise solutions boss John McHugh has popped up at Brocade as vice president and chief marketing officer. A long-time networking veteran, McHugh also spent 26 years at Hewlett-Packard, six of those in charge of the vendor's network...
March 01, 2010 01 Mar'10
Euro IP telephony market sees buoyant end to '09

The western European enterprise voice market began to show signs of recovery during the second half of last year, despite falling over 23% in value over the course of 2009.
March 01, 2010 01 Mar'10
O2 FY profits up on smartphone adoption

Spanish-owned UK mobile operator O2 outperformed the rest of the market in 2009 - largely thanks to its formerly-exclusive contract the sell the Apple iPhone, as well as a huge ramp up in text message revenues and growth in the contract segment.
March 01, 2010 01 Mar'10
Avaya adds EMEA marketing programme

Avaya has launched a new marketing programme designed to help EMEA partners ramp up their sales through training and lead generation.
February 26, 2010 26 Feb'10
Carrier VoIP shows increased resilience

The market for carrier VoIP appears to have made it through the recession relatively unscathed compared to other voice technologies, according to research released this week by analysts at Synergy Research Group.
February 26, 2010 26 Feb'10
Colt profit soars on managed comms sales

Business communications provider Colt Telecom has seen its annual profits surge by 69% year-on-year, hitting €121.6m (£108.4m) after tax and special items. Sales figures were more muted thanks to the ongoing impact of the recession.
February 26, 2010 26 Feb'10
D-Link unveils public sector finance offering

D-Link has unveiled a zero percent offering targeted specifically at the public sector with the expectation it will overcome traditional resistance in that market to using finance.
February 25, 2010 25 Feb'10
Genband grabs Nortel VoIP unit for $182m

Nortel has abandoned the auction of its profitable carrier VoIP and application solutions (CVAS) unit, selling the business to Texas-based Genband for $100m less than it had hoped.
February 24, 2010 24 Feb'10
Juniper pumps $50m into network development

Juniper Networks has stumped up $50m to fund VC-backed technology start-ups investing in its Junos network ecosystem. The two-year Junos Innovation Fund will target firms that Juniper feels 'complement' its growth strategy.
February 23, 2010 23 Feb'10
VoIP subscriptions top the 100 million mark

The number of VoIP subscriptions worldwide topped 100 million for the first time late last year, according to research house Point Topic, representing 15% growth over the first three calendar quarters of 2009.
February 23, 2010 23 Feb'10
Brocade sees Q1 Ethernet slump

Brocade has suffered a setback to its network ambitions during the first quarter of its fiscal 2010, as sequential Ethernet revenues plunged 13% as a proportion of total sales.
February 19, 2010 19 Feb'10
Cisco decision to dump HP could boost partners

Cisco's decision to throw HP out of its Cisco certified channel and global service alliance partner programmes could bring benefits to other partners as the vendor is forced to lean on them to plug the gap.
February 18, 2010 18 Feb'10
Daisy Group acquires BNS Telecom for £10.45m

Voice and data service provider Daisy Communications is forking out £10.45m for BNS Telecom, its second acquisition this month.
February 16, 2010 16 Feb'10
Mobile data traffic will be 50 times higher by 2015

by Ian Grant Mobile phone traffic will grow by a factor of 50 as the mobile phone industry attracts three billion new mobile broadband subscribers and delivers billions of new content-rich applications, says Hans Vestberg CEO of mobile phone maker ...
February 16, 2010 16 Feb'10
Telecoms resellers target for private equity backers

Evidence of a resurgence in technology M&A activity continues to stack up with the third report predicting a recovery in the market this year arriving in the space of four days.
February 11, 2010 11 Feb'10
Nortel sales net two billion dollars

The final dismantling of Nortel could take close to two years, the firm announced today, as it revealed that it has so far generated more than $2bn in net proceeds from the sale of its various business units, with another $1bn expected imminently ...
February 11, 2010 11 Feb'10
ntl Telewest relaunches as Virgin Media Business

Business-to-business network provider ntl:Telewest has relaunched as Virgin Media Business, setting out an ambitious strategy to become a compelling alternative to BT.
February 11, 2010 11 Feb'10
ACS puts down £100m for COA

Primary care-focused software and services provider Advanced Computer Software (ACS) has splashed out £100m in a cash/debt combination to acquire COA Solutions, which specialises in back office software for both the public and private sector.
February 11, 2010 11 Feb'10
BT pension crisis rears its head as profits surge

BT's pension crisis has reared its head once again, spoiling otherwise healthy Q3 results as the telco faced down a potential clash with the Pensions Regulator, which has raised concerns over the scheme's £9bn deficit.
February 11, 2010 11 Feb'10
Alcatel-Lucent's problems overshadow Q4 net profit

Alcatel-Lucent today posted its first ever quarterly net profit since its inception in 2006.
February 11, 2010 11 Feb'10
Gamma signs up to Wick Hill convergence plan

Wick Hill has added Berkshire-based network operator Gamma Telecom to its line-up as part of an ongoing assault on the networked convergence sector.
February 10, 2010 10 Feb'10
Netgear reverses year-on-year losses

Networking vendor Netgear is heading back to profitability after posting GAAP net income of $7.9m (£5.04m) for the three months ending on 31 December 2009, up from a GAAP net loss of $7.3m at the end of 2008.
February 09, 2010 09 Feb'10
Mobile data traffic set to grow 39-fold by 2014

Cisco has provided further evidence that smartphone technology will become a dominant force in the data industry after revealing the results of its Visual Networking Index Global Mobile Data Forecast for 2009 to 2014.
February 09, 2010 09 Feb'10
Cisco and Tandberg show off video roadmap

Cisco and Tandberg have outlined further details of their technology roadmap prior to formal regulatory approval, which is expected sometime during the first half of calendar 2010.
February 08, 2010 08 Feb'10
BT jumps the gun on Cameron broadband pledge

BT has jumped the gun on the Conservative party's broadband election pledge after revealing it is now in talks with the comms regulator, Ofcom, to open up its underground duct network to allow rival operators to run and manage their own fibre-optic ...
February 08, 2010 08 Feb'10
Daisy buys Managed Communications for £6m

Acquisitive voice and data services provider Daisy Group has stumped up £6.3m in cash for Notts-based Managed Communications Ltd in its first buy of the new year.
February 05, 2010 05 Feb'10
Mitel hints at channel strategy shakeup as IPO looms

Canadian comms vendor Mitel Networks has given the industry a brief snapshot of its future strategy, hinting that it may look towards a new class of reseller and revealing troubling facts about its financial health as it heads towards an imminent ...
February 04, 2010 04 Feb'10
Dealers could benefit from carbon confusion

Carbon management and green IT is pushing its way back up the agenda as the tentative economic recovery kicks in.
February 04, 2010 04 Feb'10
Vodafone data revenues top a billion

The growing take-up of smartphone devices saw Vodafone's data revenues top £1bn - up 17% year-on-year - for the first time during the quarter ended 31 December 2009.
February 04, 2010 04 Feb'10
Magirus lands Cisco data centre distribution contract

Magirus has been appointed by Cisco as its first data centre distributor in Europe after landing the contract after undergoing an extensive tender process.
February 03, 2010 03 Feb'10
Cisco heralds economic recovery as profits surge

Cisco boss John Chambers has heralded "the second phase of the economic recovery" as he lifted the lid on the networking bellwether's second quarter results on Wednesday evening.
February 03, 2010 03 Feb'10
OFT targets Orange T-Mobile merger

The proposed merger between UK mobile phone networks Orange and T-Mobile could become subject to additional scrutiny after the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) asked the EC to refer "aspects" of the merger to it.
February 03, 2010 03 Feb'10
Riverbed sales fly on virtualisation ramp-up

Network infrastructure performance vendor Riverbed Technology has posted record fourth quarter sales figures as WAN optimisation technology began to be recognised as a "critical" element of virtualisation installations.
February 02, 2010 02 Feb'10
Five minute interview: Dave Breith, O-bit Telecom

MicroScope puts its questions to Dave Breith, CEO of O-bit Telecom. What is the best/worst advice you have received and from whom? I don't think I have ever been given any really good or bad advice, but I have worked things out for myself along the ...
February 02, 2010 02 Feb'10
Extreme plans data centre assault as Q2 sales rise

Network infrastructure vendor Extreme Networks has narrowly exceeded its previous Q2 sales forecast for the three months ended 27 December 2009, posting revenue of $79.4m (£49.8m), a little over $1m above expectations but down 9% year-on-year.
February 02, 2010 02 Feb'10
Cable & Wireless to split at end of March

Cable & Wireless today named 26 March as the date for its demerger, pending a shareholder vote this month.
February 01, 2010 01 Feb'10
DiData services sales behind improving performance

Dimension Data's European unit was singled out as an improved business area during the three months to 31 December, as services revenues continued to show growth.
February 01, 2010 01 Feb'10
Nortel jobs at risk as plant faces closure

Up to 140 jobs are at risk at Nortel's Northern Ireland facility after Avaya told the BBC it was considering closing down the part. "Avaya has entered a consultation process following the strategic business decision to potentially close the Monks ...
February 01, 2010 01 Feb'10
Nokia faces competitive challenges in 2010

Analysts at IDC have warned that Nokia needs to make some smart moves in the coming months to maintain its lead in the European smartphone segment.
February 01, 2010 01 Feb'10
Secret admirer chats up NetServices

Salford-based Cisco Master Managed Services partner NetServices has revealed it is in talks with a mystery buyer after its share price leaped just before the weekend.
February 01, 2010 01 Feb'10
Tories called out on broadband pledge

The Conservative party has unveiled plans to slice off a portion of the BBC TV licence fee to fund 100 Mbps broadband across the UK by 2017, should the comms industry fail to deliver of its own accord.
January 29, 2010 29 Jan'10
Juniper sales up on network spending rebound

Juniper Networks has reported strong results for the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2009, giving more weight to talk that enterprise customers in the US are now ramping up their network spend.
January 29, 2010 29 Jan'10
Phoenix IT Group to acquire KCOM network break fix arm

Phoenix IT Group has been hotly tipped to acquire KCOM Group's network maintenance services business by early next week. Hull-based KCOM embarked on a major cost-cutting programme after notching up significant losses in 2008.
January 29, 2010 29 Jan'10
KCOM performance improving in second half

Managed comms outfit KCOM Group continues to power through the second half of its fiscal 2010, according to an interim management statement released today.
January 28, 2010 28 Jan'10
BroadSoft and Polycom add new VAR channel programme

VoIP application software developer BroadSoft and video specialist Polycom have joined forces to set up a new VAR and SI-facing channel programme to sell a new integrated voice and video proposition, launched today.
January 27, 2010 27 Jan'10
Loss-making ShoreTel remains optimistic

IP communications specialist ShoreTel has posted disappointing second quarter numbers for its Q2 2010, delivering sequential revenue growth of 5% but posting an overall loss for the period.
January 27, 2010 27 Jan'10
BT recruitment scheme rebooted

BT has announced a major new recruitment drive just five months after canning its graduate placement scheme and mere hours after ONS figures showed that the recession is technically over.
January 27, 2010 27 Jan'10
Getronics numbers down as parent's profits soar

Incumbent Dutch telco and Getronics-owner KPN has seen its Q4 net profit spike over 100% year-on-year on the back of a €705m tax gain, hitting €1.09bn (£945m) on sales of €3.37bn, down 9.3% on this time last year.
January 25, 2010 25 Jan'10
Polycom hitches video trailer to Juniper Networks

Mere days after signing a vendor partnership agreement with Siemens Enterprise Comms, Polycom has ramped up the anti-Cisco rhetoric after allying with network infrastructure specialist Juniper Networks.
January 25, 2010 25 Jan'10
Azlan boss sets out convergence ambitions

The new boss at Azlan has laid down the gauntlet to rivals by claiming it will develop into the first converged infrastructure distributor in the UK.
January 25, 2010 25 Jan'10
Ericsson workers on notice as Q4 profits wiped out

Swedish comms giant Ericsson is to take the axe to jobs across the business after net profit for the last quarter of 2009 plunged a horrifying 92%. Across the board, Ericsson's Q4 profits fell from 3.89bn SEK this time last year to just 314m SEK (...
January 22, 2010 22 Jan'10
Siemens and Polycom ink resale agreement

Siemens Enterprise Communications (SEN) has signed a global resale agreement with video specialist Polycom, to integrate the latter's telepresence, HD video conferencing and video collaboration apps into SEN's OpenScape UC environment.
January 21, 2010 21 Jan'10
F5 holds up well in Q1

Application delivery networking outfit F5 Networks has closed the first quarter of its fiscal 2010, posting healthy sequential and year-on-year growth on both product sales and service maintenance contracts.
January 20, 2010 20 Jan'10
Avaya-Nortel channel set for March debut

Avaya's UK managing director has said that the vendor still plans to begin inducting Nortel resellers in the UK into its new Connect partner programme in March, earlier than previously stated.
January 20, 2010 20 Jan'10
Buffalo soldiers on with Ingram Micro

Wireless networking, storage and memory vendor Buffalo Technology is extending a pre-existing distribution agreement with Ingram Micro in Germany across Europe. The firm said it hoped to use the enhanced relationship to extend its visibility among ...
January 19, 2010 19 Jan'10
Avaya lays down Nortel technology future

Avaya set out its plans and road map for the newly-acquired Nortel enterprise business on Tuesday afternoon and pledged to build capabilities from Nortel's portfolio into its own product line-up.
January 19, 2010 19 Jan'10
Carphone Warehouse sees strong Q3

Communications specialist The Carphone Warehouse has increased its full-year guidance after a strong quarter, with good performances from its TalkTalk internet business and its Best Buy Europe joint venture, CEO Charles Dunstone said today in a ...
January 18, 2010 18 Jan'10
Alcatel-Lucent signs second UK distie

Alcatel-Lucent has inked a new distribution partnership with fledgling managed services and convergence distributor Incanix, through which it hopes to target resellers specialising in IP and applications in both Britain and Ireland. ...
January 14, 2010 14 Jan'10
Motorola quietly ditches cable modem unit

Motorola has quietly sold off its European cable modem business, EuroDOCSIS, to the networking division of Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Compal. The deal extends an already existing customer-relationship between the two firms; Compal has a ...
January 14, 2010 14 Jan'10
Second half looks rosy for Datatec

Datatec, the South African IT stalwart and owner of Westcon and Logicalis, is anticipating a return to growth in the second half of its fiscal year, after publishing an interim management statement for the three months to 31 December 2009.
January 12, 2010 12 Jan'10
Europe to lead mobile security market

Third party apps will become the security safeguard of choice for corporate mobile users by 2014, with Europe and the UK at the centre of the trend according to a new report by analysts at Juniper Research.
January 11, 2010 11 Jan'10
Alcatel-Lucent launches green network vision

Alcatel-Lucent’s R&D division, Bell Labs, today launched a green communications initiative dubbed Green Touch, a consortium promising to make comms networks 1,000 times more energy efficient than they are today.
January 08, 2010 08 Jan'10
BT taps ex-EDS man as Lalani leaves Global Services

BT has tapped former EDS man Jeff Kelly to run its loss-making Global Services unit, after CEO Hanif Lalani stepped down just 14months into the role to pursue personal business interests.
January 08, 2010 08 Jan'10
Nortel gets approval for CVAS sale

Nortel has won court approval for the sale of its carrier VoIP and applications solutions (CVAS) business to Genband, a Texas-based Internet protocol specialist, for $282m. The sale of the units in the UK is subject to an additional agreement that ...
January 07, 2010 07 Jan'10
Flexible working achievable for SMEs

A government sponsored report into flexible working has concluded that – within reason – SMEs can benefit from implementing flexible working policies.
January 06, 2010 06 Jan'10
Bono slammed by ISPs for flawed anti-filesharing argument

U2 frontman Bono has been heavily criticised after penning an article in an American paper earlier this week lambasting ISPs for not doing more to prevent illegal filesharing.
January 06, 2010 06 Jan'10
Comstor rolls out ProCurve sales initiative

Comstor has kicked off the new decade with the launch of a range of channel sales initiatives around the HP ProCurve networking brand. The Westcon-owned distributor has added personalised training through a programme dubbed Preferred Partner ...
January 05, 2010 05 Jan'10
Intact expands global Cisco reach

Datatec-owned Cisco services house, Intact Integrated Services, has expanded into the US with the acquisition of Ohio-based Cisco practice Millennium Technology Services for an undisclosed sum.
January 04, 2010 04 Jan'10
Redstone boss insists profits possible

Redstone executive chairman Stephen Yapp has said the group still has "the resources and the opportunity to return to profitability" after lifting the lid on disappointing six-monthly interims at the end of December.
January 04, 2010 04 Jan'10
Cloud not yet getting through to CIOs

Over half of CIOs fail to see how cloud computing can save them money despite the reduction of capital expenditure being a fundamental tenet of the cloud proposition.
December 16, 2009 16 Dec'09
Aruba worldwide channel boss to poach Cisco business

Former Meru US sales boss Bob Bruce has been handed the post of worldwide channel sales vice president at wireless LAN hotshot Aruba with the express aim of snaffling sales from under Cisco's nose.
December 15, 2009 15 Dec'09
Social apps to take on a corporate flavour

The influence of consumer-focused technologies on business environments will continue to expand in 2010, albeit with more emphasis on providing business-tailored applications, according to communications experts.
December 14, 2009 14 Dec'09
Nortel on top of global VoIP charts

Nortel’s Carrier VoIP and Application Solutions (CVAS) unit is still at the top of the carrier VoIP market despite its parent’s ongoing troubles, according to new research from Dell’Oro, Infonetics and Synergy.
December 14, 2009 14 Dec'09
ANS H1 numbers steady as it calls time on recession

Cisco gold partner ANS Group has reported flat profits for its half year heralding that performance as robust given the market conditions in the six months up to 30 September.
December 10, 2009 10 Dec'09
Ciena books widening losses but sees growth ahead

Quarterly net losses at networking vendor Ciena have widened to $26.7m (£16.3m) for its fiscal fourth quarter, and $581.2m for the year ended 31 October after booking a one-off goodwill impairment charge of over $450m, but is forecasting ...
December 10, 2009 10 Dec'09
Sequential growth shows PBX sales could be back on track

Mirroring sequential growth seen in other areas of the ICT industry, it appears as if the UK market for PBX and IP PBX systems is moving in the right direction once again,after analysts at MZA Consulting clocked 7% sequential growth in calendar Q2 ...
December 09, 2009 09 Dec'09
Cisco boss talks up recovery and hints at further acquisitions

In a climate where most CEOs shy away from making boldoptimistic statements about the future Cisco’s head honcho has talked of doubledigit growth and acquisitions. Speaking at a financial analyst conference yesterday JohnChambers, CEO of Cisco, ...
December 07, 2009 07 Dec'09
Daisy hit by loss but remains hungry for acquisitions

Highly acquisitive Daisy Group has posted a loss in its nine-month interim results but indicated that it will continue to expand. Over the course of its current financial year, which ends 31 March, Daisy has carried out a reverse takeover of the ...