Distribution model changes again Our interview with the highly experienced Avnet Europe president Graeme Watt has sparked off further debate on what distribution really does these days. The value-adding side which most want to encourage because of the margin pressure in volume sales, while desirable, takes funding and has longer sales cycles, while in a future dominated by SaaS, PaaS and services, distributors will use their scale and funds to move into adjacent areas such as hardware recycling, skilled resources supply and aggregated billing and SLAs. There is nothing wrong with this but it takes them closer to working with the end-user, something which traditionally, the channel partners have hated and exposed as unfair. The fluid nature of relationships in the channel might mean a spectrum of arrangements in future - from influencer at one end to implementer at another, and with distribution playing a part at every point. Each part of the channel will also bring its own special part of the solution to the party - it will mean a lot more co-opetition, and contracts may need to be a lot clearer on responsibilities and rewards.

Good offer funded heads to channel

Good Technology, specialist in secure mobility, has a new funded head programme that gives

channel partners additional resources in order to address the growth in enterprise mobility across

Europe. Resellers already participating in the programme include COMPAREX in the Netherlands and

SystAG in Germany

This programme is being rolled out first across Europe and then globally. Good Technology aims to

increase visibility and strengthen partnerships with mid-sized companies by equipping resellers with

the same training and skills received by the Good sales teams. This comes amid a number of other

improvements to the company's partner programme, it says, which is seeing more engagement,

rewards and recognition for the work that partners are doing with customers.

John Taylor, vice president of worldwide channel operations at Good Technology, commented: "We're

building our partner programme with a more physical and financial commitment to our strategic

partners through the funded heads. As the largest pure-play independent EMM provider, we can take

this programme and extend real value to our channel partners as we collectively address the growth

opportunities in the secure mobility market."

Good Technology's champions programme also recognises achievements, but is also geared up to

help drive future sales.

"Our research indicates that the EMEA enterprise mobility management market grew between 30% to

40% in 2014," said Nick McQuire, vice president, enterprise at CCS Insight. "EMM solutions providers

looking to capitalise on this trend and separate themselves from an increasing group of competitors

will not only need innovative technology but also savvy sales programs to successfully reach and

engage with new customers."

Additionally, organisations are being recognised for their specific roles and contributions to their

partnership with Good Technology. Good has defined six partnership types: Authorised Reseller,

Carrier Partner, Distributor, ISV Affiliate, ISV Partner and Strategic Partner.

John Taylor concluded: "There is so much variation in the skills and expertise that companies and

individuals can bring to a partnership with Good Technology. Our partner programme is continually

evolving to make sure that we work with these businesses in the best way possible for everyone

involved."

Keysight buys UK's Anite

Keysight Technologies, through its Keysight Netherlands BV indirect subsidiary, is to acquire the

entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of Anite, a UK-based supplier of test and

measurement solutions to the international wireless market. At 126 pence per share, the acquisition

values Anite (on a fully diluted basis) at approximately £388m. This cash acquisition has been

unanimously recommended by the board of directors of Anite.

Anite, based in Fleet, UK, is a global supplier of software-centric solutions that enable the efficient

design and validation of chipsets, mobile devices and network equipment. Its customers include major

manufacturers of mobile devices, chipsets and network equipment, mobile network operators,

regulatory authorities, and independent test houses. With offices in 14 countries, Anite has more than

500 employees throughout the world.

“As a leading supplier of software solutions for wireless research and development, Anite is aligned

with Keysight’s strategy to grow in wireless and increase our software offerings,” said Ron Nersesian,

Keysight president and CEO.

“The combination of Keysight and Anite -- two global leaders with complementary strengths -- enables

us to offer a broad portfolio of leading-edge solutions throughout the wireless research and

development cycle. This will help us to expand our portfolio into the software layer for design and

validation, and expand Keysight's position as a supplier for wireless design and validation tools. We

look forward to welcoming the talented team at Anite and the value this combination will deliver to

customers worldwide,” added Nersesian.

The transaction is subject to a number of conditions as set forth in the announcement released today

in accordance with Rule 2.7 of the UK Takeover Code, including regulatory approvals and the

approval of Anite’s shareholders. Subject to the satisfaction of the conditions, the transaction is

expected to close by the end of October 2015.

Europe struggles to build mobile services

Dragged down by the EMEA region, with Europe as the main culprit, global mobile service revenue

fell 2% in 2014 from 2013, to $781bn, according to the IHS Infonetics Mobile Services and

Subscribers report from IHS.

"Hobbled by mobile saturation and continuous weak consumer spending across the board, the mobile

services market in EMEA dropped 14% in 2014 from the prior year-its third straight year of negative

performance. Once again, growth in the Middle East and Africa was not strong enough to pick up the

slack in Europe," said Stéphane Téral, research director for mobile infrastructure and carrier

economics at IHS.

Mobile services revenue was up 7% in 2014 from 2013 in CALA, and essentially flat in North America

and Asia Pacific-a result of a growth slowdown in China. Globally, mobile broadband revenue rose

nearly a third year-over-year in 2014, but this was not enough to offset double-digit declines in voice

service and SMS revenue.

For the second year in a row, voice revenue and usage decreased in 2014 as in 2014, worldwide

voice subscribers reached 6.9bn.

IHS forecasts global mobile broadband revenue to grow at an 11.7% compound annual growth rate

from 2014 to 2019, offsetting the continuous decline in voice and SMS revenue.

HP names UK&I Helion head

HP has announced that Graham Mackay has been appointed to the HP Helion Director for the UK

and Ireland. In his new role he will be responsible for growing cloud business for HP and delivering

the increased services for customers in the UK and Ireland. Mackay has international experience

working previously with the group’s global accounts and service provider customers. He also worked

at Amazon Web Services and Verizon Trademark where he led their cloud business units, the

company says.

“HP has a tremendous opportunity to grow its cloud business and deliver value to customers. With our

comprehensive Helion portfolio, HP is in a strong position to help customers move to private and

hybrid cloud solutions that corresponds to their enterprise IT requirements,” he comments.

TeliaSonera invests $115m in Spotify

TeliaSonera is boosting cooperation deal with Spotify, after five years of partnership, with an equity

investment of $115m for a 1.4% stake.

Additionally, under the terms of a new deal, the collaboration between the two companies will focus

on areas such as media distribution, customer rights, data analytics and advertising, it says. The

resources along with the staff and assets from both parties will be dedicated to innovation agenda and

joint launch of the new projects.

“We’ve set-out to create a New Generation Telco where innovation is key to our success. Spotify is a

great company, loved by customers and with a world class take on innovation I’m excited to join

Spotify’s journey as investor and key partner,” says Johan Dennelind, President and CEO,

TeliaSonera.

“We have a long and great relationship with TeliaSonera and I’m pleased we’re able to take this to the

next level together with this strategic partnership,” adds Daniek Ek, CEO and Founder, Spotify.

US comm specialist names EMEA boss

CenturyLink, an American specialist in communications and data services, has appointed Richard

Warley as new Managing Director for EMEA operations. This includes developing sales strategy,

managing client relationships and growing overall business in the region. Prior to CenturyLink, he was

a CEO at IPsoft, a provider of automatic and cognitive solutions. He also held a role of CEO at a

Tokyo-based specialist of data centres, cloud and IT services KVH.

“Richard’s addition to the international leadership team underscores CenturyLink’s commitment to

serving the technology needs of multinationals corporations. He is perfectly placed to leverage our

expertise in network, cloud, colocation and managed services, and position us as the partner of

choice for companies that are looking to thrive in the world of hybrid IT,” says James Parker, senior

vice president, partner, financial and international, CenturyLink.

European distributor makes acquisition in Denmark

EET Europarts, a European IT distie of video surveillance, spare parts and accessories for computers

and printers, has announced it has made another acquisition in Denmark buying a speaker and

Podspeakers manufacturer Scandyna as the distributor is aiming at expansion into home

entertainment and lifestyle electronics segment.

Two years ago EET purchased the Danish Audio/Video and design company ViewMedia. “We are

very excited that we succeeded in acquiring this unique design brand. We want to focus on design

and high quality for our Home Entertainment & Lifestyle products, and the unique Podspeakers from

Scandyna, with their sublime sound quality and stylish designs, are a perfect match for our wide

assortment of high-end and premium brands, including also B&O PLAY, Loewe, Vifa and Clint,” says

CEO John Thomas, EET Group.

“Scandinavian design brands and products are in high demand, and European customers strive for

quality products that stand out from the crowd. Scandyna Podspeakers have been successfully sold

in the Nordic area for many years, and we strongly believe, that with EET Europeart’ wide distribution

network, we are able to expand the success of the Podspeakers both European-and worldwide,” he

adds.

AVG adds Israel as mobile innovator with new base

AVG Technologies, the security software company founded in the Czech Republic and headquartered

in Amsterdam, has announced an opening of its worldwide centre of excellence for mobile in Tel Aviv,

Israel. The new hub will see around 120 employees working on mobile innovation, with a focus on

emerging mobile threats research and Internet of Things technology development, it says.

AVG’s Country Manager, Harel Tayeb, will run the programme of mobile momentum for Israel.

Following the opening of the centre, AVG also plans to launch a roadshow in the country and has

invited fifteen local start-ups to meet the company’s senior management. The AVG’s most popular

product, AVG AntiVirus for Android, was enabled by the acquisition of Israeli start-up, the company

adds.

“Israel has emerged as a hotbed for mobile innovation, resulted in un-paralled opportunities to partner

with innovative start-ups and develop cutting-edge mobile technologies. AVG’s rapidly mobile

customer base makes this a critical time to build robust, future-proof offerings, supporting the multiple

mobile platforms and services that are so popular today. The historical success of our investments in

this market have laid a strong foundation for the development of our signature AVG Zen platform,

growing our global mobile user base, and delivering on our mobile monetisation strategy,” says

Tayeb.

Comverse buys UK mobile messaging specialist

Comverse is to buy a UK-based Acision, a privately-held specialist of mobile communications network

infrastructure and messaging and charging systems. Comverse has revealed its paid $135m in cash,

however the purchase price also consists of 3.13 million shares of Comverse’s common stock and

potential earn out payment of up to $35m. The company also will seek to maintain Acision’s existing

$157m senior credit facility following completion of the acquisition. The transaction has been

approved by the boards and is now expected to close by the end of the third quarter, it says.

Upon the acquisition, the expanded company will be led by a new management team and with the

executives from the two board while under the leadership of Comverse’s CEO Philippe Tartavull. US-

based Comverse delivers telecommunications software such as converged communications

(traditional and IP), digital services, converged BSS and Policy and managed services. For many

years the company was part of an Israeli group Comverse Technology.

The combined portfolio of the both companies will deliver a wide array of cloud multi-VAS and IP

messaging solutions coupled with mobile monetisation, enterprise messaging and digital services.

Also, the new offering will comprise new digital application areas such as data analytics, secure

enterprise application-to-person (A2P) messaging, credit orchestration, two-factor authentication and

M2M communications, among the others, it says.

“Continued consolidation in the Service Provider space creates the need for strong suppliers. Our

acquisition of Acision underscores Comverse’s commitment to quickly building scale and market

leadership in the fast-growing digital services sector. The acquisition creates the formidable platform

for innovation that is expected to serve our customers’ current and evolving needs. Acision brings a

diverse portfolio of mobile monetisation and rich enterprise messaging solutions complementing

Comverse’s market leading digital services platform. The combined portfolio will allow us to enable

our service provider and enterprise customers to deliver and monetise a new array of advanced digital

services to their customers,” says Tartavull.

“The combination of Acision and Comverse creates a market leader in the high growth digital services

segment. We are excited about the potential of this acquisition and the resulting value creation for our

shareholders,” adds Jorg Mohaupt, Head of TMT at Access Industries, a majority shareholder of

Acision.

French IoT specialist secures $25m

French specialist of network solutions and managed information systems for the Internet of Things

(IoT) market Actility has secured $25m through a funding round led by Ginko Ventures which

represents investors such as tier-one European telcos KPN, Orange and Swisscom as well as

Foxconn.

Following the successful capital raising, the money will be next invested in the company’s go-to-

market strategy for ThingPark, an open standard IoT network solution, and in its operational

resources along with a development of technology partnerships, it says. According to Actility, its

integrated platform for IoT enables IoT services for any market sector and offers IoT connectivity

along with a set of ready-to-sell applications in less than a month.

“Today’s wireless technologies are not optimised for IoT applications which require sensors to be low

power and able to run on a battery with very little maintenance. ThingPark provides the technology to

connect both long range and low power sensors over unlicensed ISM band spectrum, allowing low

cost and fast roll-out of IoT networks for a wide range of IoT applications. We are delighted to have

secured the backing of such prominent communications industry leaders,” says Olivier Horsent, CEO

and CTO, Actility.

“Key to the structuring of the investment round was to bring together a set of strategic investors to

collaborate on building the infrastructure for the successful deployment of these new services,” adds

Dominique Pitteloud, Managing Partner at Ginko Ventures.

ASBIS grows Logitech territory

ASBIS has expanded its deal with Logitech International with a major extension of distribution

territory. ASBIS' latest figures showed that it had taken a battering in its major markets of Russia and

Ukraine because of economic uncertainty and political events. It has been targeting Western Europe,

and is now looking east again. The eastern European distributor is now authorised to supply Logitech

personal peripherals to its partners in Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Turkmenistan,

Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.

ASBIS and Logitech signed the basic contract in 2014. In April 2015, the cooperation between the two

companies was expanded to ten regions. With the recent additional agreement ASBIS delivers the

complete range of Logitech’s products across nineteen countries including Belarus, Moldova,

Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Romania,

Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.

Rise in open data centres

Bare metal switches, an integral part of open networking, accounted for 12% of data centre Ethernet

ports shipped worldwide in the first quarter of 2015, according to the IHS Infonetics Data Centre

Network Equipment report from IHS. Globally, bare metal switch revenue grew 11% year-over-year in

1Q15. Many vendors are moving to bare metal switches, it reports as the data centre Ethernet switch

segment continues to grow on a year-over-year basis (+4% in 1Q15 from 1Q14); positive forces

include large enterprises and the public sector.

It predicts they will make up over a quarter of data centre port shipments in four years’ time.

"Open networking, which leverages open source software and open hardware designs and allows

anyone to innovate, is set to change networking, just as open source changed the server and OS

marketplace," said Cliff Grossner, research director for data centre, cloud and SDN at IHS.

"This move to open networking is heightening the importance of bare metal switches, as evidenced by

all the vendor announcements at Interop in April. Dell is expanding its open networking portfolio with

three new branded bare metal switches providing options from 1GE to 100GE Ethernet. And Citrix

entered the SD-WAN market with Cloudbridge Virtual WAN Edition, which allows enterprises to create

a virtualised WAN," Grossner said.

The global data centre network equipment market-including data centre Ethernet switches, application

delivery controllers (ADCs) and WAN optimization appliances (WOAs)-declined 14% sequentially in

1Q15, to $2.6 billion. F5 took the top spot for virtual ADC appliance revenue from Citrix in 1Q15.

Distribution tag may go, says Avnet Europe president

Forecasting the distribution business for the next few years is not easy, but if you want to get

adventurous, think about the model after 2020, says Graeme Watt, president of Avnet Europe. He

was interested by some of the comments from other members of the Global Technology Distributors

Council panel earlier in the day talking about the evolution of the channel model. "In my view the

distribution tag has got to be dropped at some point - we are an IT solutions provider, IT provider

even -when you put in the technical elements and the services - to whoever wants it. The distribution-

only tag no longer accurately reflects all the value we bring to bear in the market."

"We are not restricted to a vertical, a market or event a country, or a technology for that matter. We

choose to play it that way." Distribution as a service was a term being discussed earlier.

He thinks Avnet itself is very well positioned to take advantage of some of the trends: take Internet of

Things, where the two parts of the business, EM with components, and TS/ with the technology fit

together well on solutions supply. "IoT is real and the Avnet divisions of TS and EM are increasingly

working together and collaborating on this part of the market. We have several examples where we

are creating our own solutions and IP, there will be much more in the future. The Avnet EM and TS

parts come together beautifully in IoT - we can develop and handle solutions from sensor to server

and the diode to the datacentre."

The future of distribution and the Avnet business is always under review and evolution: "We currently

have eight global teams working on what our value proposition should be around emerging parts of

the business we are definitely looking to globalise our approach to the market further so that we can

be better at what we do and how we can message it to the market."

This doesn't mean being the same in each market, he explains, but there is a special focus on ISVs,

integrators and service providers. "We're trying to move further towards a solutions and services go to

market approach whilst retaining a key supplier focus - it is not easy and will not happen overnight.

We have some legacy structures that are paid for and expected by suppliers and is some cases that

may be difficult to change," he concludes. "But at the same time our suppliers don't want to be left

behind - we are all having to adapt fast to a rapidly evolving market driven by the Cloud, IoT and

digitisation."

In the discussions, several pressures were evident, even though confidence seems to have returned

to the European market. "On the dollar/euro rate price rises - it would be easy to forget that some of

the revenue figures going through now are buoyed by the double digit % increases that some of the

manufacturers have put through. On an element of that business it is a fact that we are not making

any more margin; in fact if you retain the same euro margin, your gross margin returns are diluted."

There are some concerns at the effect on the market, he agrees.

"There are so many moving parts when it comes to foreign exchange movements - we're about 50%

euro/ 50% non-euro, and anything non-euro has strengthened against the euro contributing to a

positive year over year impact" The price rises help, but demand? "Southern Europe has recovered

well, but I think the currency movements have had an impact."

And while the panel had talked about a lacked of skilled people perhaps holding back growth, the

management changes among vendors and channels themselves have moved up a gear: There have

been a lot of changes among people with all the changes at Cisco, at Lenovo, even Avnet itself where

he has just appointed a new southern Europe boss, Denis Fouquet as Regional Vice President. "It

seems frenetic at the moment," he adds.

Austrian mobile payment specialist expands into French market

Austria-headquartered DIMOCO, a mobile payments and mobile messaging specialist, has bought its

French counterpart Mpulse France in order to expand into the French market, it says.

Following the acquisition, the new subsidiary will be rebranded as DIMOCO France and its

headquarters will be relocated from Metz to Paris. The new business entity will be run by Charles

Baudin who has been appointed as its President.

In his new role he will oversee the company’s expansion in the French market and will coordinate the

new office in Paris. Prior to DIMOCO, Baudin held several sales management roles at various

companies in the ITC business, including his time at PayPal, SAP and Secunia. The new acquisition

is a share deal transaction under which DIMOCO has acquired a 100% stake at Mpulse. This comes

as second such move of the company with it prior expansion in Greece where DIMOCO has recently

established its operations as DIMOCO Greece. Following its success in the Greek market, the

company is now heading into the French market, it says.

French Mpulse was founded in 2006 as a spin-off of Nvision, a Luxembourg-based Web agency

focusing on Web Development and design services. In 2009 Mpulse SA set up its French subsidiary

Mpulse France. Today, the firm specialises in messaging and micropayments and holds a significant

market share in Luxembourg, it says.

“Aiming to lead carrier billing and mobile messaging in Europe and after our recent establishment in

Greece of DIMOCO Greece, we are happy to make the next strategic move into France. With all

these great partnerships and our company is France we are able to get customers connected to their

services much faster,” says Gerald Tauchner, DIMOCO Co-Founder and CEO.

Austrian mobile payment specialist expands into French market

Austria-headquartered DIMOCO, a mobile payments and mobile messaging specialist, has bought its

French counterpart Mpulse France in order to expand into the French market, it says.

Following the acquisition, the new subsidiary will be rebranded as DIMOCO France and its

headquarters will be relocated from Metz to Paris. The new business entity will be run by Charles

Baudin who has been appointed as its President.

In his new role he will oversee the company’s expansion in the French market and will coordinate the

new office in Paris. Prior to DIMOCO, Baudin held several sales management roles at various

companies in the ITC business, including his time at PayPal, SAP and Secunia. The new acquisition

is a share deal transaction under which DIMOCO has acquired a 100% stake at Mpulse. This comes

as second such move of the company with it prior expansion in Greece where DIMOCO has recently

established its operations as DIMOCO Greece. Following its success in the Greek market, the

company is now heading into the French market, it says.

French Mpulse was founded in 2006 as a spin-off of Nvision, a Luxembourg-based Web agency

focusing on Web Development and design services. In 2009 Mpulse SA set up its French subsidiary

Mpulse France. Today, the firm specialises in messaging and micropayments and holds a significant

market share in Luxembourg, it says.

“Aiming to lead carrier billing and mobile messaging in Europe and after our recent establishment in

Greece of DIMOCO Greece, we are happy to make the next strategic move into France. With all

these great partnerships and our company is France we are able to get customers connected to their

services much faster,” says Gerald Tauchner, DIMOCO Co-Founder and CEO.

Tieto names head of M&A

Finland-based IT and product engineering services company Tieto has named Kristina Patek as its

new Head of Mergers and Acquisitions. The company is on its way to accelerate investments in the

area of the future business opportunities and therefore has made this new appointment, it says.

Patek, who has 15 years of experience at private equity firms and of investment in businesses with

high growth potential, will be now responsible for the company’s potential M&A activities as well as

divestments and active involvement in all in-organic growth.

She will take up her new role in September and will report to Tieto’s CFO Lasse Heinonen. Prior to

Tieto, Patek was Partner and Investment Director of Scope Capital Advisory in Stockholm and

Investment Manager for Swedish private equity company Ratos. She also served as consultant at

Andersen Consulting and Lagerkvist & Partners.

“Tieto’s solid profitability and strong balance sheet offer us a strategic flexibility for growth, including

potential mergers and acquisitions. We constantly evaluate the market for potential acquisitions

supporting the implementation of our strategy. I would like to underline that in addition to potential

M&A activities we have placed increased investments also in our growth businesses – Customer

Experience Management, Industrial internet, cloud services and our own industry-specific software

products,” comments Heinonen.

“Tieto’s history as leading digitalisation partner for Nordic companies is a unique platform for further

growth. The wide range and depth of competencies among Tieto’s employees is very impressive, with

experiences from so many different customers’ markets undergoing major change due to

digitalisation. The company has gone major renewal in the recent years and is now increasing its

investments in growth,” says Patek.

Microsoft names new boss for Switzerland

Microsoft has appointed Marianne Janik as its new General Manager for Switzerland. In her new role,

in which she will replace Ken Fitzpatrcik who is leaving after six years, she will be reporting to the

Corporate Vice President, Western Europe, Eric Boustouller.

Since 2011, Janik has held a position of Senior Director, Public Sector (administration, education and

health) at Microsoft’s branch in Germany where over the past four years she managed the growth in

the key business areas, it says. She began her career at Daimler Benz AG in the public field area,

and after the acquisition of EADS, she worked at the contract department and sales area to the

government agencies, Bundeswehr and the industrial customer business.

SAP’s ecommerce business launches SMB partner programme

hybris, the Switzerland-based subsidiary of SAP, has launched the new partner programme for its

ecommerce arm dedicated to small and medium businesses (SMBs). hybris delivers enterprise

multichannel e-commerce and product content management (PCM) software.

Under the new deal, it will offer omni-channel commerce capabilities of the platform in a private cloud

to the participating partners, it says. The new scheme will also target the experienced partners to help

them create a pre-packaged solution for both B2B and B2C markets. This means the partners will

host hybris' offering and will be offered an option to choose from whether they want host it at a hybris

hosted centre or within a partner facility, it says.

According to hybris, the solution software costs can be additionally tailored to the needs of customers

allowing them to pay as they grow.

“Our partners have packaged and optimised our market-leading commerce solution for the SMB

market. The hybris SMB Partner programme ensures our partners deliver a quick time to market and

allows potential customers flexible licensing models other than revenue share,” says Patrick Finn,

Senior Vice President of Global Channel and Partnerships, hybris and SAP Customer Engagement

and Commerce.

The first partners who have joined the programme are BORN Group, Conexus, CrossView, Gorilla

Group and Tacit Knowledge.

Dell France chief moves to AsiaPac

Emmanuel Mouquet, former VP & General Manager, Dell PartnerDirect – EMEA and lately VP &

General Manager, Dell France is moving to a bigger job as VP and General Manager, Global

accounts, Dell Asia Pacific and Japan. Previously with HP and CA, he has a background in marketing,

and was once Marketing Director - Dell South Asia, so knows the region.

Server sales up despite dollar/euro impact

EMEA is continuing to buy more servers. The IDC EMEA Server Tracker shows that in the first

quarter of 2015 the EMEA server market continued the positive year-on-year growth seen throughout

2014, to report $3bn in vendor revenue and 557,182 units shipped, for YoY growth of 6.3% and 3.5%

respectively.

The EMEA market has now shown positive YoY unit growth (3.5%) for the fourth consecutive quarter,

though this is slightly slower than the growth seen in vendor revenue (6.3%), as vendor ASPs

continue to increase as the EMEA market moves toward richer configurations. Larger US-based

European vendors in 1Q15 have also continued to feel the impact of the fluctuating euro.

Looking at the market in euros, EMEA reported very strong YoY revenue growth (29.2%) in 1Q15, but

a weakening euro has had a negative impact on some vendors that have been forced to adopt new

pricing structures in Europe as the euro continues to depreciate against the dollar. It will be interesting

to see how this will affect unit growth in the EMEA market, says IDC.

The EMEA non-x86 market built on the positive signals seen in 4Q14 to report a good 1Q15, including

the first positive YoY revenue growth in over 15 quarters (2.0%), reaching $526.2 million, as CISC

and traditional RISC machines showed low-single-digit growth. 1Q15 saw strong yearly volume

growth (up 102.4% YoY), driven mainly by the second shipment of ARM-based servers into the EMEA

region; although this has a major impact on unit growth rates, these systems contribute less than 1%

to the non-x86 server market.

"The macroeconomic fundamentals have remained strong and despite all major players having

executed strong pricing adjustments to make up for the falling euro, server demand hasn't slowed

down. New projects in the cloud space have combined with a fairly broad infrastructure refresh on

latest generation x86 chips especially in large global organizations," said Giorgio Nebuloni, associate

research director, European Infrastructure, at IDC.

"A number of major vendors that experienced transition periods in the past year managed to recover

from the temporary declines seen previously and are actively building out their channel partnerships

across our region," said Andreas Olah, senior research analyst, European Infrastructure, at IDC. "At

the same time, the rise in ODMs continues to put increasing pressure on established players, while

competition is also heating up in niche areas with more vertical and workload specific models

emerging. This trend drives the convergence of form factors and continuous advances in the hyper-

converged space."

"Linux continues to make positive strides in Western Europe, and its reported 15.9% YoY growth in

1Q15 can be attributed to higher levels of attraction seen by this OS in cloud, HPC, and Big Data

scenarios," said Eckhardt Fischer, research analyst, European Infrastructure, at IDC.

"Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa [CEMA] server revenue recorded an annual

decline of 2.4% to $677.84m in the first quarter of 2015," according to Jiri Helebrand, research

manager, IDC CEMA. "While sales of non-x86 servers grew 8.5% year over year, driven by an

installed base refresh, x86 server growth was negative at 4.4% due to a lack of large projects at the

beginning of the year."

The Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) sub region declined 14.9% year over year with revenue of

$301.69m, dragged down by weak server sales in Russia. The Middle East and Africa (MEA) sub

region grew 10.7% year over year in revenue to $376.15m, supported by a large HPC deal in Saudi

Arabia and strong server sales in Turkey.

Veeam event heralds UK channel push

Veeam's event in London this week kicked off a new drive to attract partners in the UK while building

out on the European business. The message to customers and partners at the VeeamON UK Forum

was about a new story to take to existing users and the “huge market” in front of the business, says

Gilles Pommier, EMEA VP Channel and Cloud. No longer thinking of itself as a start-up, it is stressing

a growth strategy going forward, with lots of market potential.

Half the company's partner base of 6800 is based in Europe, and while Germany is one of the

strongest areas, and France is OK, the real growth in Europe will come from the UK, he says. It

announced record results for Q1 2015 earlier in the year as it progresses towards its goal of reaching

$1 billion in annual revenue by 2018.

In the UK and Ireland the total number of customers has reached 10,737, with 2,200 ProPartners now

licensed to sell Veeam products and services. On par with overall growth, the UK and Ireland has

recorded 19% growth on the same period last year. “We could go faster, but it depends on the

channel,” he says. The backup message has moved to one of data protection, and it is pushing its

channel training and support to help get this out, using a dual cloud/virtualisation pitch. “Cloud is now

15% of the business and growing fast,” he says.

Having more partners, while always good, does not mean a dramatic change, he says “We already

have the good ones” But there is increased demand and need for “the right tools” as it tries to build its

claimed 15%-20% market share.

Partners were told about the new EMEA ProPartner Program, with enhanced deal registration, a

focus on partner hosting and a new lower level of registered partner. The Veeam Certified Engineer

program has been re-launched and a service-provider lookup made available to customers and

partners.

Deutsche Bank to open labs in Berlin, London

Deutsche Bank is to open three innovation labs in Berlin, London and the Silicon Valley where it will

work with its partners such as Microsoft, HCL and IBM in Berlin, London and California,

respectively. The three new labs, to be known as Deutsche Bank Labs, are planned to help better

position the bank in the area of the new technologies and will support its innovation of the products,

services and processes. The bank will also build in the future firm relationships with the technology

start-up, it says. Additionally, the company’s staff will be encouraged to collaborate with academic

institutions and start-up community to assess how the technology solutions match the banks’

business needs.

Deutsche Bank plans to invest €1bn in digital initiatives over the next five years, it says. The all three

technology partners will commit their resources and expertise with an aim to evaluate over 500 start-

up ideas per year. The labs are expected to be fully operational at the beginning of the fourth quarter

this year.

“Technology is transforming banking and innovation is one of Deutsche Bank’s core values. These

labs will act as a bridge between start-ups and different parts of the Bank, enabling it to apply

innovative technology to enhance service to clients and internal processes,” says Henry Ritchotte,

Chief Operating Officer and Chief Digital Officer at Deutsche Bank.