PCR June 2015 by Biz Media Ltd

FOR THE UKâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S PC & TECH COMMUNITY JUNE 2015

26 Aggressive Acer Vendor promises to be ‘last man standing’ with new product push

32 Intel interview We speak to Matt Birch from the Intel Solutions Summit

41 Boot Camp review 10 things you need to know from this year’s conference and expo

/ 9 JUNE 2015 COMPUTER & IT RESELLERS z RETAILERS z SYSTEM BUILDERS z DISTRIBUTORS z VENDORS

WWW.PCR-ONLINE.BIZ

AMAZON AND JOHN LEWIS IN B2B DRIVE – P6 LENOVO ON ‘LUCRATIVE’ MID-MARKET – P17 HOW TO SELL TO SMBS – P21 THE LATEST BUSINESS SOFTWARE – P52 RETAIL ADVISORY BOARD ON B2B SHIFT – P58

IS YOUR FINGER ON THE B2B BUTTON? Tech retailers big and small target businesses in a bid for higher revenues WWW.PCR-ONLINE.BIZ z WWW.TWITTER.COM/PCR_ONLINE z WWW.FACEBOOK.COM/PCRMAG

CONTENTS & COMMENT

MEET THE TEAM Dominic Sacco Editor dsacco@nbmedia.com @Dom_Sacco

CONTENTS

COMMENT

REGULARS

Unlimited potential?

Analysis: Retail B2B boom

Analysis: Windows 10

Analysis: Desktop decline

10 Number Crunching 12 Appointments

Laura Barnes Deputy Editor

14 Events

lbarnes@nbmedia.com

16 Opinion

@roradrum

FEATURES 18 The big interview:

Jade Burke Staff Writer

Microsoft on Server 2003

jburke@nbmedia.com @JadeBurke77

21 How to sell to SMBs 24 M2m channel award 26 Acer in New York

Andrew Wooden Publisher

30 Interview: CompTIA

awooden@nbmedia.com @pcr_online

32 Intel Solutions Summit 34 Tech Data’s retail revolution Cloudamour

jlane@nbmedia.com @jennielane1

41 Boot Camp review

RETAIL Sarah Goldhawk Account Manager

55 HyperX store

sgoldhawk@nbmedia.com

57 Store of the Month: Utopia

@sarzgoldhawk

58 PCR Retail Advisory Board 59 Counter Insurgent Elizabeth Parker Production Executive eparker@nbmedia.com

59 Synaxon Member Proﬁle: Drum Brae Solutions 60 Mystery Shopper: Printer etail special

Dan Bennett Designer

PRODUCTS

dbennett@nbmedia.com

47 Printers and accessories 52 Business software 63 Recommended products

OUT OF OFFICE

NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Associations

Incorporating

67 In The Hot Seat: Andrew Gibson, Overclockers 68 Boot Camp in pictures 70 The Last Word: Phil Jones, Brother UK ISSN: 1742-8440

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“Rivals will have to keep a close eye on Exertis’ movements over the next few years. It seems the big are getting bigger.”

39 Behind the scenes:

Jennie Lane Sales Manager

Editorial: 01992 535646 Advertising: 01992 535647

AS WE WERE putting the magazine to press this month, Exertis’ parent company DCC made a shock announcement that it had acquired rival distie Computers Unlimited. In a statement the pair described Computers Unlimited’s business model and Exertis’ commercial structure as an ‘excellent strategic fit’, thanks to the former’s range of professional creative, Apple and digital home products, which bring new categories into the Exertis portfolio. The £24 million deal is the latest move that marks the Exertis family as a true distribution powerhouse – it acquired Swedish tech distributor CapTech last September, and in late 2013 the likes of Gem, Micro-P and MSE were rebranded under the Exertis banner. The company also has plans to develop a new purpose built 450,000 sq ft UK national distribution centre over the next few years, and its latest financial statement shows that DCC Technology made profits of £50 million in 2014.

It’s certainly news to give the other UK tech channel distie giants food for thought. Back in late 2013 Exertis told us it would be making big investments and acquisitions, and it has stayed true to its word. Rivals will have to keep a close eye on its movements over the next few years and react accordingly – it seems the big are getting bigger with potentially less room on the table for smaller fry. And with developments like the smart home, Internet of Things and wearables, the market is undoubtedly more competitive than it has been. The same can be said for IT retailers and resellers. More and more are turning to managed services and B2B sales in search of greater revenue opportunities, as margins in the consumer market become even more tightly squeezed. It won’t be plain sailing – national retailers and etail giants are upping their focus on the SMB market, with the likes of Amazon, John Lewis and Ebuyer outlining aggressive new initiatives in that sector (see page six). But there’s one thing those guys don’t have: a highly specialist service (consisting of repairs, system building and the irrefutable knowledge of a local PC dealer). If your business is B2C only and you’re thinking of going down the B2B route, check out our guide on page 21 – and go for it. Dominic Sacco, editor dsacco@nbmedia.com

ANALYSIS

TECH RETAIL STEPS UP B2B PUSH AS BIG PLAYERS ENTER THE FRAY John Lewis and Amazon outline aggressive new tech services targeting businesses, as more and more independent resellers turn to managed services and set their sights on the lucrative SMB sector, reports Dominic Sacco… SMALLER PC retailers are targeting businesses to better compete with etailers, only to find their bigger rivals already have a foot in that space. While the Amazons of the world can’t really compete with a local independent IT dealer in terms of offering bespoke services, repairs and system building, it’s not stopping them from trying to beat them in the B2B space. The likes of Ebuyer, PC World and Maplin already have specific websites or catalogues for business customers, while in the past month both Amazon and John Lewis have outlined ambitious plans to ramp up their activities in this sector. “Business customers are key to Ebuyer’s growth plans,” Ebuyer’s head of B2B sales Phil Bates tells PCR. “Their average spend is higher than consumers so their cost to manage – and therefore profitability – is significantly higher. Currently, our business customers account for approximately 50 per cent of our revenue; much of our B2B growth comes from consumers entering the workplace and realising their current IT provider is more expensive and more difficult to deal with than Ebuyer.” Bates also revealed that Ebuyer has added a team of business solutions specialists, and conducts regular training in the general sales team to keep their knowledge up to date. It also has its own delivery vehicles so it can ship same-day ‘mission critical’ items to customers. Comparatively, Amazon Business is a new marketplace on Amazon.com (which has not yet launched in the UK) that aims to give sellers “the opportunity to grow their sales by reaching millions of business customers”.

6 | PCR June 2015

Ebuyer, Maplin and PC World are among those targeting businesses – big and small

However, this could also be an opportunity, as it gives PC dealers the chance to sell their products and services on there as a third-party. Sellers can list their offers in more than 45 businessspecific categories, including office, IT and more. Benefits include quantity discounts, fulfillment by Amazon and ‘Tax Exemption’. Yes, you read that right: “The Amazon TaxExemption Program allows customers to make tax-exempt purchases from participating sellers by providing a taxexemption certificate – and automates the process for participating sellers to accept tax-exemption certificates from customers.” The B2B arm of John Lewis has also been rebranded as part of a renewed focus on this sector. John Lewis for Business allows trade

“The consumer space is a real challenge, margins are squeezed and it’s difficult, so many retailers are now selling into businesses.” Adam Gay, Tech Data

customers to purchase tech/ PC goods and electrical appliances at ‘discounted trade prices’, as well as furniture, cookware and tableware from the retailer’s’ product range. Katie Papakonstantinou, head of John Lewis for business, said: ‘We’re seeing clients using John Lewis for Business to give offices, commercial spaces and residential properties a design-led look and feel. The comprehensive offering from John Lewis for Business is fast becoming a strong presence in the trade market.” Having spoken to more than 100 independent retailers over the past few months, it’s clear to PCR that many store owners (who previously only focused on B2C sales) are now going after SMBs and the public sector,

with managed IT and cloud services firmly on the agenda. Adam Gay, Tech Data’s retail director, comments: “The consumer space is a real challenge, margins are squeezed and it’s difficult, so many retailers are now selling into businesses one way or another. There’s crossover now [between retailers and resellers]. To retailers, they have got a big scale in terms of what they can buy, so sales will be strong. And if you look at the retail landscape today, probably a big percentage of Staples’ business will be selling into SMBs, then they’ve got their catalogue and online arm. It’s not a bad thing to branch out to areas where there is potentially more margin.” Read more tips from experts in our ‘how to sell to SMBs’ guide on page 21.

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ANALYSIS

Microsoft’s billion-device dream PCR got the chance to play about with Windows 10 at Boot Camp, and with Microsoft’s plans for a billion Windows 10 devices by 2018, will the company really be able to reach its goal? Jade Burke takes a look…

Windows 10 was showcased at PCR Boot Camp

WITH THE anticipated launch of Windows 10 due this summer, Microsoft has already set its sights on a daring goal. During its Build conference for developers, the tech giant revealed its plans to see Windows 10 on one billion devices by 2018. During the event, Microsoft’s executive VP of operating systems Terry Myerson, told attendees: “Today we shared our bold goal – to see Windows 10 on one billion devices within two to three years of Windows 10’s availability – the first platform version, in any ecosystem, to be available on one billion devices.” Microsoft also showcased the operating system at PCR Boot Camp in May, with a real buzz around its room. The company had over 10 different devices running Windows 10, where you could really begin to see its vision take hold. Various editions for Windows 10 have also been announced, in a bid to ensure

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the OS will be suitable for a range of devices and users. There is a Windows 10 Home edition, designed for the consumer-focused desktop, Windows 10 Mobile edition for smaller computing devices such as smartphones, as well as the Windows 10 Pro edition. This will feature various apps, tailored for smaller businesses. There will also be a Windows 10 Education and Windows 10 Mobile enterprise edition. In addition, Microsoft has ensured its smartphone customers are not left out of the action, and has made the Windows 10 Insider Preview Build 10080 available on its phones. The build supports the Lumia 930/Lumia Icon, Lumia 640 and 640XL, and the HTC One (M8) for Windows. On the company’s blog, Microsoft said: “We designed Windows 10 to deliver a more personal computing experience across a range of devices. An experience optimised for each device

“A successful launch and swift user adoption for Windows 10 is crucial to create the foundation for Microsoft’s business model transition.” Geoff Blaber, CCS Insight

type, but familiar to all. Windows 10 will power an incredibly broad range of devices – everything from PCs, tablets, phones, Xbox One, Microsoft HoloLens and Surface Hub.” These versions have been developed to cater for a wider audience – and one analyst says that developer interest is fundamental to Windows 10’s success. Geoff Blaber, vice president of Americas at CCS Insight, adds: “Developers will be the deciding factor in the ultimate success of Nadella’s ‘mobile first, cloud first’ vision. Microsoft’s strategy goes beyond Windows 10 but a successful launch and swift user adoption is crucial to create the foundation for Microsoft’s business model transition.” Microsoft is also tapping into the casual gamers among us, as the Candy Crush Saga game will also come automatically installed for customers who upgrade to Windows 10 for free. Other

games from publisher King are also expected to follow at a later date, which may also help to lure more users back to Windows. During Boot Camp, PCR was also able to get hands on with the Windows 10 OS, which had been upgraded onto a variety of devices including laptops and tablets. The memorable Start menu is back, while the tiles that were paired with Windows 8 have not been removed altogether. Instead they have been downsized and can be found in the Start menu. Overall, the OS looked clean and precise, plus it seemed to receive many positive reviews as attendees huddled around to try out the software. Microsoft’s personal assistant Cortana also worked well, which helped to bring the devices to life. The fact that Windows 10 is free for a year as an upgrade for users with Windows 7, 8 and Windows Phone still has some retailers stumped, and at a recent trade show, a distributor expressed its disappointment to PCR around the lack of a licenseselling opportunity. But, some are now starting to see the benefits of the new OS, as director of Utopia Computers, Craig Hume, comments: “Initially when I saw Windows 10 I thought we’re not going to get any money from it. “But then when I thought about it, there’s going to be a lot of people that within a year are going to want to upgrade their computers, and I think there’s a good potential there for independents to make some money off of that.” Since Microsoft is still remaining coy about the exact release date for Windows 10, we will have to be patient and wait until the summer when the firm launches the new OS.

PCR June 2015| 7

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ANALYSIS

AIOs save the day as desktops dip PC and tablet sales are down, but laptops and all-in-ones are on the rise. Dominic Sacco crunches the latest data… TABLETS (and traditional desktops) may be taking a tumble, however there are reasons to stay optimistic with other form factors now showing promise. At PCR Boot Camp in May, analyst GfK shared UK retail sales data with delegates, illustrating the current state of the PC market. In Q1 2015, tablet sales were down 28 per cent yearon-year in terms of volume, and 38 per cent in value, with ASPs (average selling prices) dropping 14 per cent to £145. On the desktop side, sales are down ten per cent in volume, 21 per cent in value and ASPs have fallen ten per cent to £347. Thankfully, the laptop resurgence we saw last year is continuing, with volume sales up 21 per cent during Q1 2015, and value sales up seven per cent. All-in-one (AIO) desktops enjoyed a rise in sales, too,

2-in-1s are also performing strongly, says IDC

with a whopping 49 per cent increase in volume and 21 per cent in value. However, AIOs and laptops did see their ASPs tumble 11 per cent to £347. GfK’s business group director Megan Moore says: “The two areas declining in IT are desktops and tablets, but all-in-ones are up 50 per cent

“All-in-ones are up 50 per cent and laptops are on the increase.” Megan Moore, GfK

and laptops are on the increase. Consumers are data driven these days, meaning networking is also growing by 19 per cent, and powerline networking grew by nearly 30 per cent in Q1 2015.” IDC also admitted the consumer tablet sector is tough, declining 10.5 per cent year-on-year across Western

Europe in Q1 2015, but mentioned that there is growth in the commercial space (with volumes rising 51.3 per cent). It also highlighted that 2-in-1 shipments rose 44.4 per cent. “In the absence of major product launches, the beginning of 2015 failed to stimulate stronger consumer demand,” says Chrystelle Labesque, research manager for IDC EMEA Personal Computing. “Growth opportunity, however, clearly continues to come from enterprises and professional segments. Vendors have significantly expanded their product portfolio with devices optimised for business usage. Demand for 2-in-1 devices is gathering momentum driven by improved hardware offers as well as adjusted price points that are attracting private users as well as professionals.”

‘Indies can buck the decline with bespoke PCs’ Consumers will “always up-spec” says Target Components’ Scott Franklin, as distie revamps In-Store PC Builder… DISTRIBUTOR Target Components says that by offering their customers a bespoke PC, resellers can take advantage of a greater margin opportunity by upselling addons and customisation options, without even having to build the desktop themselves. The distie has improved its In-Store PC Builder tool (which allows retailers to choose parts for a custom PC, before Target builds it and ships it out to them). The service is now free to use, has seven trillion combinations and boasts an extended three-year warranty, plus an OS can be installed at the time of building. The configurator can also be rebranded with the indie’s own logo and contact details.

8 | PCR June 2015

Target’s Scott Franklin has seen an increase in PC sales

“Selling bespoke PCs is a must for independent resellers,” says Target’s

marketing executive Scott Franklin. “Selling unique systems bespoke to their

customers’ exact requirements is a great way for indies to differentiate

themselves and demonstrate their expertise, professionalism and customer care. On top of that, bespoke builds avoid direct price comparison and indies don’t need to carry stock. “The added benefit is that consumers will always ‘upspec’; average sell price of bespoke systems is over 50 per cent higher than off-theshelf PCs. That’s why there are over 650 resellers using the In-Store PC Builder up and down the country, that’s why we think it’s so important for their business, and that’s why we’ve made it free to use. “Contrary to reports of a dwindling desktop market, we’re experiencing a huge uplift in PC sales – 35 per cent year-on-year in fact.”

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STATS

Number

crunching

A round-up of the most important stats and facts in the tech channel…

$6.3bn

9% Independent PC retailers offer on average nine per cent lower prices than multiple retailers. (ShopTalk/ Target Components)

Microsoft is making $6.3 billion per year in commercial cloud revenues driven by Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM Online. (Microsoft Q3 2015 financials)

17.2% Desktop PC shipments in Western Europe fell 17.2 per cent in the first quarter of 2015. (IDC)

£2.4bn

The enterprise Augmented Reality (AR) app market will reach $2.4 billion in 2019. (Juniper Research)

10 | PCR June 2015

LOSS

Tesco posted a record £6.376 billion pre-tax loss for the 53 weeks ending February 28th 2015. (Tesco 2014/2015 financial results)

450,000 Distributor M2m Direct sold almost half a million Samsung HDD hard drives in 2014. (M2m/Samsung HDD)

100m

6.4bn

Linksys has sold more than 100 million wired and wireless routers worldwide to date. It says it shipped the first consumer-grade router back in 1999. (Linksys)

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RECRUITMENT

Exertis restructures Symantec bolsters its sales team z New sales manager at Sennheiser z UTAX announces new positions and trainee technicians… EXERTIS: The distributor has restructured its B2B and B2C team within its Computing Business Unit, with the addition of new team members. The B2B team will consist of two business managers: CHRIS SHEARER, who will be responsible for Lenovo and Fujitsu products, and CHRIS GODSALVE, who will be focusing on Acer and Toshiba products. Further changes to the team include the addition SYMANTEC: Security software vendor Symantec has expanded its sales team by appointing two new members. KEVIN ISAAC joins as head of enterprise security sales for EMEA. He has more than 20 years of experience in the IT industry and growing businesses across high growth markets. He previously became VP of Symantec Emerging Markets. SENNHEISER: The headset specialist has announced LOUISE SEARLE as the firm’s new corporate sales manager for the South West. Searle’s new role will see her promote and increase interest in Sennheiser Communications’ UC and Telephony devices within the CC&O division. Searle said: “I’m delighted to be given the opportunity to work within such a UTAX: UTAX has announced a range of new positions throughout its company, including the addition of PHIL RUSSELL who will take on the new role of southern technical manager. Two trainee IT support technicians have also joined the company. JAMES LAWTON and SAM PALMER will now be responsible for supporting customers with IT queries.

12 | PCR June 2015

Left to right: Exertis’ Chris Shearer and Chris Godsalve

of TOM PINDAR, product manager for Dell and Asus. The B2C team has been bolstered with business manager CARL EAGLE and retail business development manager LUKE ASEKOKHAI. SARAH FLANNIGAN has also joined the company as its new consumer business manager. She moves from rival distributor Tech Data, where she worked as PC category manager.

Left to right: Symantec’s Kevin Issac and Matt Ellard

In addition, MATT ELLARD has been appointed as head of information management sales for EMEA. Ellard has more than 17 years of sales operations and channel management experience, as well as a range of expertise in IT products and services across financial and government industries. Prior to his new role, Ellard held the position of senior VP for EMEA at Symantec.

Sennheiser’s Lousie Searle

Left to right: UTAX’s James Lawton and Sam Palmer

burgeoning market for such as respected global company, and very much look forward to playing a key role in our strategic success in this region.” She has had a background in solution sales as well as marketing sectors. At Sennheiser, Searle will help to develop the company’s expanding client base and liaise closely with clients to understand their objectives. Also, the Direct Service team welcomes four new members, including MATTHEW CLARK who joins as direct field technician and will support the South-East, and ANDREW LOCK who will support the Northern region. Plus, UTAX’s Professional Service Division has been bolstered with the addition of ANDY LEES, who is the new professional services manager for the North.

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF… PETER HANNAH, REGIONAL DIRECTOR UK, IRELAND AND NORDICS, NETGEAR MY DAY starts when the alarm goes off at 6.15am and it’s a race to get out of bed, shower and shave before my daughter gets up. I always ensure we have breakfast and watch some TV together; I can catch up on the current affairs – Postman Pat is very informative. I then head towards the M3 for a commute that can take anything between 45 minutes to an hour and a half, depending on how the motorway wants to treat commuters that day. I recently moved from a VAR sales director position to regional director UK, Ireland and Nordics, so my day can be quite varied. If I’m in the office, then my day usually starts with customer meetings. If I’m not in a meeting, my time is spent either on forecasting or strategy development. I’ll also spend time with the sales teams discussing project opportunities and how we can support our partners to grow their businesses.

“I recently moved from a VAR sales director position to regional director so my day can be varied.” When lunchtime arrives, I either eat at my desk or play squash with a colleague. We’re a very competitive team, whether it’s sports or business, and we have a dartboard in the office. A colleague proposed a table tennis challenge recently, too. In the afternoon, I’ll analyse customer and market data, and discuss with colleagues the challenges we’re facing in the market so we can work together on addressing them. No matter how busy I am, I’ll always make sure I spend time to chat to everyone in the office because I think that’s important. However, ultimately, the key focus of my day is ensuring we continue to grow Netgear’s business, whether that’s by increasing customer numbers, enhancing products or solutions, or exploring new opportunities in key markets, such as hospitality. At the end of the day I try to spend at least half an hour with my daughter, either to put her to bed and read a bedtime story or give her a bath. Then, finally, dinner with my wife and a glass of red wine. If I do have any other free time outside of the working day, I’ll either be catching up on a series or watching a movie or some sports, such as golf, snooker or darts.

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PC on a Stick

10 cm

Quad Core Intel® Processor 2GB Ram & 32GB Storage

Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Connectivity Transform a normal Display to a Computer

Ultra Mobile PC Windows 8.1 Pre-installed

“If you travel a lot, it’s an excellent investment.” WebUser

“The Hannspree Micro PC is an engineering marvel.” XS Reviews

“In a modern office it could serve as the ultimate hot-desking tool.” PC Pro

“the Micro PC is an undoubtedly cool little device rich with potential.” Eurogamer.net

“Editor’s Choice Award “A superb tiny PC, with more than enough performance.” Micromart

Facebook.com/HannspreeUK

@HannspreeUK

www.hannspree.co.uk

EVENT PLANNER

Diary Dates

The UK’s channel calendar is full of important events. Here are some highlights for upcoming dates…

JUNE 2015

OCTOBER 2015

PCR RISING STARS

PCR WOMAN OF THE YEAR

JUNE 18TH – SWAY BAR, LONDON The PCR Rising Stars awards is an extension of the popular 30 Under 30 feature published in PCR annually. The latest list of young guns was announced in February with the individuals highlighted representing all sectors of the PC and tech channel. Awards will be given in three categories: Retail and Distribution; Vendors; PR, Marketing and Research.

OCTOBER, LONDON PCR’s Woman of the Year returns for the second time, celebrating leading women within the IT and tech industry. One individual will be recognised for their achievement in the industry, while other attendees will get the chance to network with other members from the industry. Last year, Sarah Shields, Dell’s UK executive director and general manager, was named the ﬁrst ever PCR Woman of the Year.

SEPTEMBER 2015

NOVEMBER 2015

IFA

PCR BOOT CAMP NORTH

SEPTEMBER 4TH – 9TH, BERLIN The annual trade show returns for another year, where attendees will get the chance to view some of the latest consumer electronics and home appliances. Taking place in Berlin, some of the latest products and innovations will be on show. The global show attracts more than 100 countries and provides a meeting place for buyers, retailers and experts from the industry.

NOVEMBER, ROYAL ARMOURIES, LEEDS This year welcomes back PCR’s Boot Camp North event, where retailers and resellers are invited to join for free. Designed to cater for the retailers in the Midlands, Scotland, Wales and the North, once again, the event will take place at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. On the day attendees will be able to sit on the panel sessions and expert brieﬁngs and look around the exhibition.

TOP: Dell UK’s Sarah Shields, winner of the first ever PCR Woman of the Year. ABOVE: The IFA tech trade show in Germany is fast approaching.

GRAB YOUR TICKETS FOR THE PCR RISING STARS AWARDS IF YOU’VE ever been to the PCR Awards, you’ll know that we know how to throw a party. We also know how to celebrate those at the very top of their game in the PC and tech channel. And now, with the PCR Rising Stars, we are set to recognise the industry’s best young talent – and throw a party to celebrate. The Rising Stars awards event is a live incarnation of PCR’s popular annual 30 Under 30 feature. Three of those 30 will receive an award in the following categories:- Retail & Distribution - Vendors (Hardware, Software & Components) - PR, Marketing & Research

14 | PCR June 2015

A panel of judges made up of leading recruitment specialists and HR executives will vote on the winners in each category, with those being announced at an informal awards event on the evening of Thursday June 18th at Sway Bar, London. Tickets are priced at just £35 and you can purchase them from www. pcrrisingstars.com, which covers entry, free food and drink, plus networking opportunities. A limited number of sponsorship opportunities for the event are available by contacting Jen Lane via jlane@nbmedia.com or calling 01992 535647. All other enquiries should be directed to Andrew Wooden via awooden@nbmedia.com.

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0208 676 6067 sales@m2m-direct.co.uk

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OPINION

Smarter security software sales PXS Distribution’s UK director Robert Hall takes a look at why security software is still an important revenue stream for retailers…

consumers are demanding WE ALL know that security is a must, increasingly more features in their but why is it still so important? security suite, it is clear that retailers Security threats have changed over have to keep more of their focus on the years. Instead of viruses that security software. destroy data and hardware, we now The other interesting trend that have threats that do no visible harm retailers should start to consider is to your system, but effectively steal that with an increasing number of your private data. security vendors releasing multi These threats can originate from device products at retail, it allows the email, search engine results, websites retailers to maintain some revenues and social networks such as Facebook from consumers that now have a PC and Twitter. or a Mac, as well as a smartphone They can also come in the form of and tablet. links or advertisements for scam sites. Previously, where This can be for things consumers might like your usernames have used a free and passwords for Android security app sites like Facebook or “Consumers are for example, they are Twitter, but (and even now able to buy a more worryingly) your demanding more product from their bank details too. features in their trusted retailer and it There are also other security suite, so covers all their concerns. An devices, for example important feature in it is clear that from smartphones to security software is retailers have to tablets. This is both parental control. convenient for Parents want to keep their focus consumers, but it will protect more than just on security.” also mean that their data, they want Robert Hall, retailers’ average to protect their PXS Distribution prices will increase, children from due to the fact that inappropriate content the traditional one or and what they see and three user SKUs are being replaced by do online. licenses covering five or more devices. Another new addition to the Margin revenues are also still average security suite is device attractive for resellers and retailers control, allowing users to track where and security software. Electronic their devices are at all times, and even Software Distribution (ESDs) make it wipe data from phones or tablets in easier for the channel to provide and the event of theft or loss. manage schemes such as the PXS Most of us use our devices to store renewal program, which ensures that photos and images. Security software the tedium of security software can can protect these with secure also be an effective revenue source online backup. with minimum involvement and When you combine these new effort for the retailer. security threats with the fact that Robert Hall is the UK director for distributor PXS Distribution. www.pxsdistribution.co.uk

16 | PCR June 2015

Printer progress As printers start to pick up in the tech market, Oscar Diamond, account manager for office at GfK, takes a look at what is driving this growth…

but have recovered to grow by 2.6 AFTER A weak start to 2015, the UK per cent in April. The business ink print market has recovered in March market is expected to level out over and April to grow by 9.9 per cent in 2015 rather than decline as much as volume and minus one per cent in it did at the start of the year, but it is value. The value declines were a clear sign that the years of 30 per largely driven by the Laser market, cent growth are gone. which continues its pattern of longThe rest of the inkjet market (nonterm decline. business ink) has performed very Laser printing as an area has been well in 2015, growing 12.2 per cent hit hard over the past four years or in volume and 3.6 per cent in value so by the rise of business inkjet in April. Looking at this segment by printers. Traditionally laser printers single function vs multi-function, all were seen as preferable over inkjet of the growth is coming from printers for businesses, as they multifunction (13 per offered superior cent volume) while quality when single function printing in bulk and continues to decline at a cheaper “Laser printing (34 per cent volume). cartridge cost. has been hit hard Inkjet printing has However this paradigm has been over the past four seen a number of innovative new ink challenged by a years by the rise payment models number of introduced in the last manufacturers over of business inkjet year, boosting public the past few years, printers.” interest and providing which have Oscar Diamond, an incentive to launched ranges of GfK upgrade. Ink is now inkjet printers available on a contract subscription targeted directly at small and plan, as well as a one off bulk medium businesses. Powered by purchase with certain models. advances in inkjet printing The continued and expected technology, business ink printer dominance of multi-function sales have grown rapidly in the UK printers makes it no surprise and have directly affected the laser standalone scanners are in decline. market negatively. In Q1 2015 scanners declined by Laser printer sales were down by 20 per cent in volume and 13 per four per cent volume and 13.6 per cent in value, although they cent value in April 2015 year-on performed better in April, down -year. Furthermore, the business ink eight per cent and five per cent market, which has grown more than volume and value. As entry level 50 per cent in value since Q4 2011 is scanner tech is easily incorporated showing signs of slowing down in into printers, it is also unsurprising 2015. Sales started with a very poor to see the scanner market move performance in January and away from the less than £100 price February, down 19.4 per cent and bracket (GfK POS tracking data). 16.2 per cent in value respectively, Oscar Diamond is the account manager for office at analyst GfK. www.gfk.com

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OPINION

The lucrative mid-market Leigh Saunders, head of mid-market at Lenovo UK and Ireland, talks about the growing IT opportunities in medium-sized businesses…

being from dawn to dusk, PC CONTRIBUTING more to the economy hardware they use needs to match than financial services and real estate the rigours of their businesses. combined, the mid-market (which Therefore channel partners need Lenovo defines as organisations with access to a strong hardware portfolio, between 250 and 999 staff members), to enable employees to work naturally. employs more than 4.2 million of the Talking with many of our nation’s workforce according to Grant customers, long refresh cycles are also Thornton and the New Policy Institute. particularly important, and this is This sector of British business is especially so with mid-market growing in confidence and planning companies. As their businesses grow, for future expansion, but for the IT they need the ability to scale up channel, partnering with the correct quickly. Being able to access the same technology player is vital to enable model configuration for a period of them to capitalise on the growth up to 12 months offers a high degree opportunities ahead. of security and stability to IT Unlike other businesses, midmanagers, reducing the number of market organisations are not different PC models concentrated in the they need to manage. South East. If Post purchase, swift government plans to fulfilment as well as invest in regional “This sector of strong after sales economies move British business is support is paramount. ahead, it is these Downtime for midbusinesses which are growing in market companies has most likely to benefit confidence and a big impact on from improved productivity which infrastructure and planning for can seriously hamper local investment. expansion.” an organisation’s The challenge for Leigh Saunders, bottom line. the channel will be Lenovo Finally the biggest how can they identify requirement from a mid-market these opportunities and use it to their organisation is independent technical advantage to build their businesses. consultancy. This is where I see one of The key to capitalising on midthe biggest opportunities for the market growth is to understand the channel. Most small size companies micro and macro trends taking place do not have dedicated IT support. within their business. Knowing which Instead, the focus will be to growing sectors are growing and what business and making money rather businesses are on the cusp of than defining IT strategy. At Lenovo expansion can really help yield solid the mid-market is a key part of our prospect lists. Agility and mobility are some of the growth strategy in both the UK and EMEA. We’re investing heavily by most common traits of many of increasing headcount and planning a today’s winning mid-market number of campaigns to drive sales companies. With employees on the for our channel partners. road and the average working day Leigh Saunders is head of mid-market at Lenovo UK and Ireland. www.lenovo.com/uk/en/

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SMBs unaware of IT opportunity Steven Steenhaut, senior marketing director EMEA at Nuance Communications, explains why not all SMBs realise how important simple IT upgrades can be for their businesses… performance and growth depends WHILE THEY may not have the same on them. public awareness as well known However, you can help SMBs organisations, small-to-medium improve their document-related businesses (SMBs) are the economic productivity dramatically by backbone of the country. explaining the benefits of Thanks to their implementing powerful desktop entrepreneurialism and pioneering speech recognition software, like spirit, in 2014 SMBs accounted for Dragon. Ready to use out of the box, 99.3 per cent of all private sector available for both Windows and Mac businesses in the UK and 47.8 per users, modern day speech cent of private sector employment. recognition software helps people The fact is that SMBs’ productivity get more work done, simply – and their further success – is being because we typically speak three stifled by the day-to-day times faster than we type. management and creation of textPlus, with accuracy levels of up to based documents, according to the 99 per cent, SMBs will spend less findings of a recent report entitled ‘Better technology, greater efficiency’. time making corrections. Dragon’s performance can also The research help customers indicates that 41 deliver an even better per cent of SMBs “A third of SMBs quality of service. don’t have the time state that they We can also help to consider what only review their you unshackle SMBs potential from another burden. improvements they software When choosing PDF could make to their requirements software, the report efficiency, and are that 29 per unaware that in every 18 months.” found cent of SMBs miss out some cases Steven Steenhaut, on potential costimprovements can Nuance Communications savings and be driven by simple productivity enhancements by IT upgrades, like deploying sticking with the brands they know, productivity-boosting desktop instead of evaluating competitive speech recognition and affordable solutions. Given that 71 per cent of imaging solutions. A further barrier UK SMBs use PDFs, helping them to them achieving greater migrate to a cost-effective and efficiencies is the pace at which powerful solution with an SMBs review their software uncomplicated license model, could requirements. A third of SMBs state save many SMBs money and drive that they review them only every 18 months or longer. If software refresh up their productivity. In light of these findings, now’s rates aren’t keeping up with the pace that software is being updated, the time to help small businesses easily ramp-up their productivity this means some SMBs are using and efficiency using the latest products that are no longer class business software. competitive – even if their business Steven Steenhaut is the senior marketing director EMEA at Nuance Communications. www.nuance.co.uk

PCR June 2015 | 17

THE BIG INTERVIEW

Server shake-up Support for Windows Server 2003 is ending on July 14th, leaving businesses that are still using the operating system exposed to hacks. Dominic Sacco and PCR readers ask Microsoft’s hybrid cloud business lead Patrik Bihammar about the migration options and safety implications. Here are the highlights from our exclusive webinar…

Microsoft’s Patrik Bihammar (left) speaks to PCR editor Dominic Sacco (right) about Server 2003 end of support

Available to watch online at http://youtu.be/BXvPhpojzTs

18 | PCR June 2015

ith Windows Server 2003 coming to end of support on July 14th, what are the implications for customers – what do they need to know? In terms of security implications, what end of extended support means is that we will no longer be providing security patches or hotfixes for the product. After July 14th, if there’s a vulnerability that’s been discovered, you won’t get a patch for that – so you might expose your organisation to greater security risks.

There will be an upfront investment to do the migration, but at the same time there’s also a cost or tax associated with not using new technology and having to maintain old hardware, software and applications that are running. Also, some customers think that because they put their server in a virtual container essentially, it’s going to be safe. But you’re actually going to be vulnerable regardless of whether you’re running a physical 2003 server, a virtual instance of a server or one that’s running in the cloud. www.pcr-online.biz

THE BIG INTERVIEW For those customers that need to move off of Server 2003, what kind of migration options do they have? The first option – which I really wouldn’t consider an option – is to do nothing. It’s not like we’re going to pull a switch on July 14th and all those 2003 servers will go dark. The product will still run but you will still be exposed to potential future vulnerabilities. And there might even be vulnerabilities that hackers know about today that will become zeroday exploits. The real steps forward are: Do you want to stay onpremise? You can move to a modern platform on-premise with Windows Server 2012 R2, and because so many of the 2003 servers today are still physical, it’s a great opportunity to drive efficiencies through virtualisation. Then there are the cloud options. So we’ve seen a lot of customers say: “I don’t want to manage my own Exchange mail servers or calibration SharePoint servers – I’d rather use the Office 365 servers.” That way you can retire some of your own on-premise infrastructure. What are the opportunities for IT resellers around the end of support? There’s a software license opportunity and there’s the hardware opportunity – as most of these 2003 servers are still running old physical hardware. But I think one of the biggest opportunities is to provide the added value for your customers to help them through the whole migration process. Technology has come a long way since Windows Server 2003 was first introduced. What can you do with modern platforms like Windows Server 2012 R2 that perhaps you couldn’t on Windows Server 2003? If I was to call out some of the key benefits of Server 2012 R2, the first one I’d mention is definitely the server virtualisation piece. We launched the hypervisor, www.pcr-online.biz

Hyper-V, in our 2008 versions. We also added a capability called Storage Spaces which is a great opportunity to drive out costs in your infrastructure. With this you can buy very low cost standardised storage hardware – essentially hard drives – and virtualise them with Windows Server and run them in high performance and high availability that you’d expect to get from a costly SAN environment. I’d also mention out the security and backup capabilities. Mobile workers can easily log in via our security network to access their files from anywhere. There are backup capabilities, whether you want to backup on-premise or backup to the cloud. And the final thing I’d call out is the management

“The world is going to be a mix of on-premise and the cloud, our strategy is to provide hybrid cloud options.” Patrik Bihammar, Microsoft capabilities, so with Server Manager you can also manage multiple physical and virtual servers. We’ve been hearing a lot about cloud from Microsoft recently – can you outline the company’s strategy when it comes to cloud and on-premise? Our future direction and what we’ve been focusing on for the past 10 years is to become a mobile first, cloud first company. We’ve invested billions in cloud technology. We’ve now taken our traditional successful onpremise products and provided them to customers as cloud-based applications. So we’re seeing a lot of SMBs and enterprise customers adopting Office 365, which means you can run a hosted or a cloud version of

Office rather than running it on-premise. Then on the other more infrastructure-related side, we have invested in these massive cloud-scale data centres, which are called Microsoft Azure. We’re now running these in 19 regions across the world. It’s hundreds of thousands of servers literally the size of a couple of football stadiums. So we are investing heavily in the cloud, but at the time we acknowledge that the world is going to be a mix of on-premise and the cloud; our strategy is to provide hybrid cloud options. There are a lot of SMBs out there that may find the whole migration process quite daunting – where should they start? It is a daunting task. Depending on your environment it can be a onemonth long project or a sixmonth project. The first step is you need to understand what’s actually running in your environment, so the discovery face. There’s tools available there for you – including both thirdparty tools that give you deep insights on your environment and also a free tool from us: The Microsoft Assessment and Planning Toolkit. This helps build out that view and report of what your environment looks like. When you have that view, you need to assess how you’re going to move forward server by server, and application by application. You might have ISV applications where there already is a version available for the new platform, which will be much more straightforward from an upgrade perspective. There might also be cases where you have old homebrew applications – it’s an opportunity to do a spring clean of the whole application portfolio. Then you reach the targeting stage where you decide whether you want to stay on-premise or go straight to the cloud. When you start migration, there’s a big toolkit

MICROSOFT ANSWERS YOUR QUESTIONS Can you run us through the product range for Windows Server 2012? Microsoft’s Patrik Bihammar: If you’re a small or medium sized business, we have Windows Server Essentials, which is for a physical environment where you have 25 users and up to 50 devices, giving you a very simple user interface and the ability to still take advantage of all the backup capabilities, security benefits, remote user benefits and being able to access the cloud. Then we have the Standard Edition and Windows Server Datacenter Edition, which is really for larger environments. They have the same feature functions, but if you’re going to virtualise your environment heavily, you go with the Datacentre Edition because it gives you unlimited virtualisation rights. What is the difference between the end of mainstream support and extended support? We took Server 2003 out of mainstream support back in 2010, which means we’re not providing any more service packs that are focused on enhancing the product. Extended support is the security updates and patches, which is what we’re phasing out now.

Toolkit, include Refresh IT, a product from Dell called ChangeBase and a product called Bluestripe. They’re all good for the discovery and assessment and reporting piece. When you get to the migration piece, the one tool that tends to come up a lot – particularly for these homebuild applications that you can’t actually rewrite – is AppZero. What is Microsoft doing to educate the end user? For IT pros we have our free academy at www. microsoftvirtualacademy.com which has free webinar-style courses and lots of information on migration, new features and capabilities. The other things we offer are free IT pro camps – roadshows where we run technical demos and IT pros get to sit down and play around with the technology. In addition, for IT decision makers we run a ‘transform the data centre’ workshop.

Which migration software would you recommend? There are a number of different tools available. The tools that come to mind, other than the free Microsoft Planning and Assessment

of tools out there to help you through the actual migration process. Are there any other Microsoft products that will be coming up to end of support status in the future? Yes. The one that’s next on the agenda is the SQL Server 2005 on April 12th 2016. If you’re working on your Server 2003 project now, you can treat it as one migration project. We have found that roughly 20 per cent of the 2003 servers are running the 2005 version of SQL.

What if migration is left to the last minute? We’ve only got a month or so left until the end of support date, so time is of the urgency. But at the same time, if you haven’t completed your full migration, focus on your most critical systems, the ones that are either the most mission critical to you or perhaps the ones that are the most exposed in terms of being front-facing, so it’s very important that you prioritise the servers you want to secure and migrate first. PCR June 2015 | 19

FEATURE

How to sell to SMBs Small and medium businesses – plus public sector firms – are an ideal target for IT and tech retailers. Laura Barnes speaks to some key industry figures to uncover the secrets to being successful at selling into these sectors…

hile consumers may have once been the core customer base for a lot of retailers, it’s no secret that pressure from online competition, along with a tough High Street climate, continues to pile on the pressure. In fact, we discovered in this year’s annual PCR Retail Survey that 49 per cent of retailers are now generating sales in the B2B sector. Some smaller retailers and vendors can be put off selling to the B2B market as they may feel their business can’t support large enterprises, but the small and medium business (SMB) market can provide a way in. It offers companies the opportunity to build up relationships with a number of much smaller firms and grow their offerings as demands increase. It’s not just smaller companies that have realised the opportunities this sector

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brings, as a number of big players are also selling into the SMB market, from Ebuyer to Amazon and more. SPOT THE DIFFERENCE Selling into different markets sometimes means looking at things from a different angle, and making sure you’re offering the right thing in the right way. As Lenovo’s head of channel, Leigh Saunders, puts it: “The sales process should always be driven by the needs of the customer. Ultimately, a product will be used very differently in an office to how it would be in a home.” And that’s why the PC manufacturer has two very distinct product ranges designed for each specific user. Stone Group’s corporate director, Simon Pettit, agrees: “Consumers have a different mind-set and emotion is always involved. They tend to follow trends for the ‘latest

“There’s more and more emphasis on slim form factors in the SMB sector. It’s no longer just executive toys.” Sarah Shields, Dell UK

and greatest’ devices, whereas the public/SMB sector’s primary concern is proving total cost of ownership so there is a stronger case for value for money.” However, Dell UK’s executive director and general manager, Sarah Shields, believes the differences aren’t always so obvious: “If you look at the SMB market and you split it into two, you’ve got your traditional small business and then your SOHO (small office home office). “So how are these companies buying? Well, a lot of them do follow the same sort of pattern as consumers. You’ve got more and more emphasis on slim form factors, so it’s no longer just executive toys – it’s looking for something really smart and an alternative to other ‘fruit-like’ names.” Regardless of how perfect they may be, the products

and services you offer won’t sell themselves. That’s why having the right staff and presenting yourself in the right way is also a key element. “A different language is needed for each audience,” believes Prestigio’s UK head of marketing, Simon Buckingham. “Match your pricing with the quality of your product and have a training structure in place to make sure your staff know enough about the product to sell it on your behalf.” GOING PUBLIC Whether you’re a retailer, reseller, vendor or service provider, your selling options aren’t just consumer or SMB. Those working with public sector organisations may see bigger rewards, making it an area definitely worth looking into. But it is important to bear in mind that there are even more PCR June 2015 | 21

FEATURE

SIX TOP TIPS Now we have a better understanding of how the SMB and public sector markets work, all that’s left is to gather as much knowledge and advice as possible and get out there and give it a go. To get you started, here’s a top tip from each industry ﬁgure we spoke to for this feature: “You need to concentrate your offering and provide support and feedback to the whole buying group when selling into larger organisations. The purchase cycle can be multiple months and often years before you may make an initial sale. However once this is achieved, the experience gained and the new client, who you can use as a reference, will make further in-roads much easier to navigate.” Neil Martin, Panda Security

elements to the sale process than with SMBs. Roger Harry, CEO of Circle IT warns: “The bid process in the public sector is frightening compared to the SMB world. SMBs normally just want a single page with the costs whereas most public sector tenders include lots of legal requirements so as the bidder, you need to absorb and understand all of this information to have a shot at getting the business.” Prestigio’s Simon Buckingham agrees: “There are crunching financial situations still existing in the public sector, therefore every penny counts.” While this may initially put some people off, what might be a little more work in the beginning may eventually result in more long-term contracts with businesses. “The public sector is more about the long term. They want to know about roadmaps, maintenance, how much it will cost now and upkeep in the future,” explains Stone Group’s Simon Pettit. “Public sector organisations can have much different requirements to other businesses such as the need

22 | PCR June 2015

for certain standards and processes to be in place, as well as policy directions from both local and central governments, but overall you are still looking to fulfill a need,” adds Panda Security’s UK and Ireland marketing manager Neil Martin.

“Understand what makes the customer unique and then provide the most suitable solutions based off their specific needs.” Leigh Saunders, Lenovo So, there are clearly differences between SMBs and the public sector, but ultimately, business is business. Lenovo’s Leigh Saunders stresses that the most important thing when selling into any business environment is to “understand what makes the customer unique and then provide the most suitable

solutions based around their specific needs.” SALES DRIVE With all that in mind, do you own the kind of company that can actually get out there and sell to SMBs and public sector companies? The consensus amongst those who spoke to PCR for this feature was that, as long as they have the right products and attitude, almost any company can sell into these markets. “If your offering is something required within the business or public sectors then there is no reason why you cannot offer it,” says Panda Security’s Neil Martin. “Selling to SMBs and public sector organisations require expertise and an inherent understanding of these markets, as well as an extensive product portfolio that can meet a range of requirements,” adds Lenovo’s Leigh Saunders. Circle IT’s Roger Harry agrees that anyone can make a go of it, and advises that frameworks can provide a good route to securing work. “You can buddy with other companies on the frameworks to help secure bids too,” he suggests.

“For any company to succeed they need an inherent knowledge of the businesses they are selling to and must understand the macro and micro trends taking place within their sector. Take education and health for example, these public sector organisations are worlds apart and are subject to very different government rules and regulations, so specialist knowledge is vital.” Leigh Saunders, Lenovo “Brand police are needed to ensure there is no deterioration of pricing and to ensure the brand does not lose any integrity. Think hard about your campaigns and promotions to your customers. Look through the eyes of the recipient – what would you expect from a supplier? Also look at the service structure. It is a big thing for me to ensure everyone is taken care of post-sales, and that the brand is recognised for its customer service.” Simon Buckingham, Prestigio “You must understand the marketplace. Qualify it, research it and understand it. From there you will ﬁnd it a lot deeper and broader than you ever imagined.” Simon Pettit, Stone group “Get the conversation away from price, notebooks and desktops. We need to be talking about what else there is. What else is critical for a small business today? It’s about connectivity, security and scalability. Any small business today wants to grow. So how do you get the right IT infrastructure in order to grow? That’s where the conversation changes, and you go from a tactical ‘have I got a deal for you’ to a proper, deep relationship and keeping that customer throughout the lifecycle of that SME’s growth.” Sarah Shields, Dell UK “Invest in your technical staff. You really need top IT nerds to play and compete in the public sector as the solutions are much bigger and more complex than in other markets.” Roger Harry, Circle IT

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FEATURE

Spinning disk success After selling almost half a million Samsung HDD hard drives in 2014, distributor M2m Direct has scooped a prestigious award. Dominic Sacco talks to MD Ged Mitchell and business development director Charlie Hacker about reaching the No.1 spot and demand for hard drives versus SSDs, as well as the future of storage…

OLID STATE drives (SSD) may grab all the headlines in the storage sector nowadays, but the good old spinning disk is still very much alive and kicking. The proof? Distributor M2m Direct sold a record 450,000 units into the UK market last year (including barebones HDD and boxed retail product), securing the 2014 UK Premier Storage Solution Partner award from Samsung HDD, a division of Seagate Technology. The relationship between the distributor and vendor was formed just over three and a half years ago, and demand for the products has grown ever since. “It’s just flown,” M2m Direct’s business development director Charlie Hacker tells PCR. “Where we developed momentum very quickly was in the SI channel. SSD was high-priced and wasn’t as enormous as it is now, so there was big demand on 320GB and 500GB and that’s where we started the momentum growing. “The real kick-start was the retail business, and we’ve seen the Samsung M3 portable hard drive become probably the best-selling drive in the UK for the 1TB category bar none. I think the UK has probably adopted the portable hard drive technology quicker than anyone else. “A lot of credit needs to go to Samsung HDD. They incentivised it and encouraged us to look at a different distribution model. It was more on a basis of little and often, but they really pushed us to take a lot of volume at a very good price, which bucked the trend. It almost revolutionised this category.” M2m Direct managing director Ged Mitchell adds:

24 | PCR June 2015

LEFT TO RIGHT: Seagate’s senior sales rep for Samsung products Stefan Kolb and senior director for worldwide Samsung HDD sales Joe Heinen, presenting the award to M2m Direct’s MD Ged Mitchell and business development director Charlie Hacker

“We are proud to be recognised by Samsung HDD and given this award. Furthermore, we are extremely pleased to announce that as well as being the number one Samsung HDD vendor for 2014, we are looking to increase our market share in 2015 on Samsung HDD, which the whole M2m team are immensely proud. “We also have a superb product roadmap commencing in Q2 2015 that we believe will enhance the Samsung HDD product offering to the UK marketplace.” M2m was set up in 1998 and today says it’s the number one specialist memory and storage distributor in the UK, with a turnover of circa £50 million. It also deals in SSD, DRAM, flash memory, optical and server products, selling to the B2B, resale and retail markets. So can it sell even more HDD units this year?

“Following the emergence of SSD, the cost per gigabyte ratio will always favour the spinning disk, at least for the next five years.” Charlie Hacker, M2m Direct

“If the market allows it, then yes,” Hacker says. “Due to a lot of tablet-based or PC-based applications which don’t have an optical drive in any shape or form, external storage is now a necessity. And 1TB portable drives are getting more affordable. “The demand for storage is certainly there to continue. We’d like to get an uplift of 15 per cent to 20 per cent on that number, at least.” Aside from a growing demand for external drives, there are other exciting more recent developments in storage. For higher-end storage there are 5TB and 6TB options available, while products like the Samsung Wireless Multimedia Streaming Device are gaining traction. There’s also the Samsung 2TB M9T 9.5mm 2.5-inch product, which allows gamers to upgrade the storage capacity of their PS4 consoles.

Hacker says this will revolutionise the 2.5-inch form factor and external HDD market. Going forwards, many consumers and businesses are also turning to cloud storage, but Mitchell is unfazed by this. “Companies like Apple and Amazon have their own cloud products, but consumers aren’t totally confident in that. They want their personal documents on devices like HDD,” he explains. “Going forward I believe the big revolution – where we’re investing in very heavily as a company – is the enterprise area. Right now that market is totally dominated by HDD.” Hacker concludes: “HDD is a stable product. It’s tried, tested and reliable. And following the emergence of SSD, the cost per gigabyte ratio will always favour the spinning disk, at least for the next five years.” www.pcr-online.biz

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INTERVIEW

Last man standing Jade Burke flew out to Acer’s New York press event – where the firm made the bold claim that it would be the PC industry’s ‘last man standing’ – to ask corporate VP and EMEA president Emmanuel Fromont about its new products…

ith a hand in all the major product categories already, Acer is a computing giant. But after gathering in the new World Trade Centre complex in New York, the company proved it has even more to offer. With the impressive Big Apple skyline in the background, Acer took the opportunity to showcase its brand new line-up of back-toschool products, featuring tablets such as the Iconia Tab 10, the CB3-531 Chromebook and the iconic Aspire Switch, as well as the new Aspire R11 – the smallest edition to the firm’s notebook line. Acer also unveiled a string of new devices for a strong category. Emmanuel Fromont, president EMEA at Acer, said: “We are really entering into gaming seriously. So far we were addressing what we always call the casual gamers, who were not really the hardcore gamers, but people who wanted a high-end machine. “I think this time we are really going after those gamers, which is very exciting, because for us it’s a new segment and it’s something where we can only gain.” The new line of products from Acer’s gaming Predator range consists of a desktop, a notebook, a curved Nvidia G-Sync monitor and a brand new gaming tablet. These devices will not be available until Q3 2015, however Acer is incredibly excited by its new offering to the market. But what about the company’s pro gaming eSports team? Currently Team Acer is still making waves in the gaming arena,

26 | PCR June 2015

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INTERVIEW

TOP SEVEN PRODUCT PICKS Here’s our roundup of new products that were on display at Acer’s press event in New York… NEW ICONIA TABLETS

and Fromont is eager to deepen its impact in that growing area: “It’s a place where I feel my competitors have not seen enough of us, so sometimes it’s good to have places where you don’t just have to defend and you can go and attack. “So I think you’ll see us very aggressive there and wanting to shake the category up a little bit.” DESKTOP DECLINE IDC reported that Q1 2015 PC shipments in EMEA declined by 7.7 per cent, and Fromont agreed the decline is noticeable: “We know that the PC industry now is not a growth industry anymore. It is stable, or some will say it is in a slight decline, but it is no longer an industry that really has a lot of growth. “But you can still innovate and you can still grow, and this is the exciting part. I think those in the industry are finding niches and being successful there. “It’s very important for us is to bring some colour, some innovation, and some excitement into mass market products, because this is what we’ve been known for in this industry,” added Fromont. After a strong fiscal Q1, Fromont also believes that Q2 and Q3 will be promising thanks to the Euro starting to stabilise, and the anticipated launch of Windows 10. “No matter what, Windows 10 is going to create excitement. For Microsoft it’s a very important launch and they’re also going to be behind it

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and push it, so I think that should create a second half of the year that is more exciting than the first half,” he said. In the UK Acer’s share of the consumer PC market is more than 20 per cent, plus the firm also has a global reach spanning 160 countries. After a disappointing financial year in 2013, reporting a Q3 loss of around $446 million, the company has bounced out of the red and back into the black. Plus, since Jason Chen joined as

“It’s very important for us to bring some innovation and excitement into mass market products.” Emmanuel Formont, Acer CEO in 2014, the company is thriving again. “Jason Chen came, has bought a lot of excitement to the company and Chromebooks were a good success for us last year,” explained Fromont. “The key is to find an industry that is a little bit stable and how we find those places that can drive growth. That’s why we’re launching gaming now, as it’s something we’re not strong in.” With the addition of new devices such as the Aspire

family, the company is also seeing positive feedback from end users. Thanks to the Switch’s click keyboard and 10-inch screen, Fromont believes it will continue to make headway with consumers. However, there is always room for more, as Fromont added: “If anything, my feeling is if you could reach the same price with an 11-inch or 13-inch device, you will also see that as successful. Because I think people use it mostly as a small notebook rather than a tablet.” WEARABLE WONDERS After debuting its very first Liquid Leap wearable back in 2014, during the event the company also showcased its new line-up of wearables, featuring the Liquid Leap Curve, Liquid Leap Active and Liquid Leap Fit. However, the company is slightly wary of the wearables market, as it is constantly evolving. “We didn’t want to go too fast with wearables, because each product needs to be good and I think they keep on evolving,” said Fromont. Having delved into a wide variety of sectors already, from wearables and the Internet of Things, to tablets and PCs, it is hard for the PC vendor to pinpoint where it might be in the next few years: “As we say with PCs, I can grab a little bit more market share, and it’s an important engine for the company. But if you ask me what this market is going to be in the next 10 years, it has to be more than PCs, for sure.”

The Iconia One 8, priced at £139.99, comes packed with a range of functions, but what makes it stand out is the finepoint sensitivity layer built into its screen, which allows users to use a pencil to write, while the Iconia Tab 10 for education, priced at £199, comes equipped with NFC.

PREDATOR GAMING GEAR Gaming gadgets were high on the agenda for Acer, including a new Predator tablet which features haptic feedback. Other products include the Predator Notebook, with programmable buttons, as well as a new gaming monitor and desktop. Image source: Pocket-lint

CURVED G-SYNC MONITOR One of the world’s first curved monitors to feature Nvidia’s G-sync technology; users can now view games on a 34-inch display with minimal screen tear with the XR341CKA, which will cost £999.99.

ASPIRE PRODUCTS The family of Aspire products has been bolstered with the addition of the Aspire R11, the smallest convertible notebook within the line up, which costs £299.99. Other Aspire products include the Switch 10 E for £279.99, the Switch 11 V, which is priced at £599.99 and the 11-inch ES series for £179.99.

NEW CHROMEBOOK Over 11 hours of battery life is available with the new Chromebook 15 CB3-531, while users can browse content across its 15-inch screen. The device is priced at £229.99.

PROJECTOR RANGE With the ability to project up to 100-inch images, the U5 320W can be placed as close as 23cm from the projection surface. It is priced at £799.99 and features two 10W speakers, comes with a WXGA resolution and has 3,000 lumens brightness. The P5515 costs £699.99 and is capable of projecting 1080p Full HD resolution images at up to 4,000 lumens brightness.

THE REVO Acer has updated the Revo One mini PC with a software upgrade. The upgrade will support the company’s emerging cloud platform Acer Open C+C 3.0.

PCR June 2015 | 27

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Celebrating 35 Years of IT Distribution Proof you can teach an old dog new tricks! then... The printer experts As an early leader in IT distribution specialising in printers; back in the days of dot-matrix and daisywheel, Northamber soon became known as the ‘printer people’.

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INTERVIEW

Care in the channel

community CompTIA’s new UK channel community director Estelle Johannes has taken over from Vaughan Shayler – and brings with her a host of new ideas for the trade body. Dominic Sacco asks her about closing the IT skills gap, and what initiatives members can expect to see in the future…

ROM Advancing Women in IT to closing the skills gap, increasing member engagement and representing the community, Estelle Johannes already has a lot on her plate when I meet her at CompTIA’s Central London office. But despite having such a broad remit, and bearing in mind she has only just joined the IT trade organisation as its new UK channel community director, she is upbeat, with a warm demeanor and a genuine smile. Originally hailing from Cape Town, Johannes is already experienced in the UK tech sector, having worked in London at channel community organisation Baptie & Company for almost a decade. She’s also familiar with CompTIA and has worked with industry relations senior VP Nancy Hammervik in the past (whom Johannes describes as “totally honest and reliable”), arranging her to speak at conferences. While her new position includes a lot of the responsibilities former CompTIA exec Vaughan Shayler had, it is technically a separate role. So what’s different, and what fresh ideas does she have for the training and certification body? “I’m super excited to be on board,” she beams. “It’s a really great opportunity. From what I understand, Vaughan Shayler had a community focus and marketing, but my role will be focusing 100 per cent on the community, which is very exciting. “In the UK, there are a couple of things that we want to do. We want to increase

30 | PCR June 2015

engagement and make sure people understand what CompTIA is about. The main purpose is to increase and make companies successful. “The other initiative that’s big at the moment is the skills gap in the industry. With the education young people get and what they’re actually supposed to do in some tech jobs – there’s a gap. “So a lot of companies find it difficult that they have to up-skill people. We want to give them the opportunity to find resources. It’s also very

women in tech; it makes them realise a career in technology is viable, it’s feasible – not just someone typing away on a computer in a dungeon somewhere,” she laughs. There are other changes Johannes is planning on making in the long run. CompTIA UK will be running more channel-focused webinars, plus it will be adding ‘gamification’ to its website: the more members visit and use the site, the more kudos they get, which will aim to give them more

“We’re going to increase engagement, and bring out new initiatives. It’s exciting and I feel lucky to be here.” Estelle Johannes, CompTIA important to let teachers know the different IT career options as they advise the children and young adults of today. Otherwise we’ll get a bit stuck, because you’re going to have people that are retiring and leaving the IT industry. So there is a big gap [we want to close].” Johannes is clearly passionate about this issue, and a similar topic too: the number of women working in technology. CompTIA already has its own Advancing Women in IT initiative, now it’s planning on bringing its ‘Dream IT’ series of school visits and talks from the US to the UK this October. “It’s an education piece where we try to empower people to go out to universities and schools, and talk about how they can access tools to promote

recognition for being an evangelist for CompTIA. She tells me the trade body is also looking at translating more process documents into French, Italian, German and Spanish, as well as arranging more regional meetings to get people to collaborate more closely, and producing starter guides to instruct resellers how to supply IT into different sectors. What else will Johannes be focusing on in the future? “At our Birmingham event on June 23rd and 24th, we’re going to do a survey to find out the attitude of the community on the perception of the skills gap,” she says. “We’re going to increase engagement, bring out new initiatives and make the community and the industry stronger. So it’s really exciting and I feel lucky to be here.” www.pcr-online.biz

INTERVIEW

Intel’s magic number More than 500 platinum partners gathered at the Intel Solutions Summit in Abu Dhabi to explore the latest developments in computing, with Intel’s provider program shifting to focus on three core areas: retail, education and the Internet of Things. Phil Tottman meets channel sales manager Matthew Birch to ﬁnd out more…

ell us about the key changes to Intel’s Technology Provider (ITP) channel partner program… It’s a great program. Everyone at Intel is a huge fan of it, and the goal is getting the work out there about what it does. The big developments are the new verticals that we recognise our customers very often play a specific role in. We have picked two or three key verticals: education, Internet of Things (IoT) and retail. We create relevant materials and assets, and we reward customers in a relevant way, so this is a real transition of the program and our customers really value it. Another thing not to forget is the points that come with ITP, they are of real benefit and really help our customers be more competitive and make more money at the end of the day. What are the highlights from the Intel Solutions Summit this year? For me it is how fast our story on the IoT is going, from a vision that we were talking about last year, into real products and real solutions that many of our partners are showcasing today. We are just getting that much closer to the partners we work with in the UK, taking those products and turning them into solutions. Also, seeing how quickly some of the form factors in two-in-one and tablets are coming out (and getting thinner and faster) is just incredible. What do you think about the speed in which the tablet and two-in-one market is being saturated? One of my guys who focuses

32 | PCR June 2015

on this area keeps on top of the catalogue of products available. He says it used be a ten-page PowerPoint deck, but now it’s like a 200-page PowerPoint deck he has to deal with. What real tangible opportunities does the Internet of Things present to the UK channel? When I speak to my customers, one of the hardest things is getting them to take the vision of the Internet of Things and interpret it into: “What does that mean for me?” But I think the important thing is that they don’t overcomplicate it.

“There are lots of exciting developments happening in desktop, and it remains a really important part of our business.” Matthew Birch, Intel Quite often the customers that they are dealing with have a lot of opportunities that we would consider Internet of Things opportunities, it’s just the customer has never really thought of it that way. Our customers can look at it like: “What problems do they have that I can address, not just looking at the hardware they use day-today, but what actual problems are there to be solved that can be with the increased compute and connectivity capabilities that we have today?” www.pcr-online.biz

INTERVIEW

Things like digital signage and transaction terminals can be a simple solution that can make a massive difference to the end user. What is Intel’s primary focus now that it has branched out into so many different markets, like IoT? We’ve always had a lot of things that we have been trying to do at any one time, and that becomes more true every day. But it is important that we do stay focused on the important priorities for our business. IoT and data centre are at the top of our priorities, and then continuing in our push around mobility, with such things as two-in-one. They are the key things. Considering desktop sales fell in the single digits in Q1 this year, and Intel’s desktop and mobile computing business is down eight per cent yearon-year, how important is the desktop market to Intel now? It is as important as it has ever been, and there is still opportunity and growth there. I think there was a time when it got forgotten a little bit, when everyone’s focus was on all the new and exciting products that we were bringing out. But there are lots of exciting developments happening in desktop, and it remains a really important part of our business. We are not going to walk away from that. You’ve just launched your Compute Stick mini-PC. How will that affect the channel? The first thought on it was: “Okay so that’s my next PC.” But the opportunities are much bigger than that. It will open up a huge opportunity in emerging markets, just because of the price point and ease of implementation. This is just as much of an opportunity in our markets and mature markets as it is in emerging markets, because of the different uses it creates www.pcr-online.biz

that a PC or even a NUC can’t. It’s going to mean people will get more creative with what they can use it for. What are the biggest challenges that you and your vendor partners face this year? There is a lot of change to deal with in one year. It’s important that we find ways to capitalise on things that are going on. It’s a tough market, but the feedback seems to be that the market is still pretty good and there is still room to be successful at the moment. We’ve got new products and silicon technology coming out. There’s a new OS coming out this year as well, so there’s lots of change, and I think the challenge is: How do we stay ahead of those changes and capitalise? What’s next for the PC and tech market? I think the areas where we are really seeing innovation and growth is in all-in-one and small form factors, particularly with our NUC products. For a form factor that is less than one and a half litres, in order to get the same kind of capability five years ago you would’ve needed a massive tower, which would be really noisy, consume loads of power and take over a desk. That small form factor is going to be a big growth area for us this year and next. Plus, all-in-one continues to be successful, and it will benefit from Windows 10. I also find the amount of progress and products that are being created in the wearables space is incredible. There are a lot of sports-based wearables, but that’s just the starting point. It will go beyond that from wrist-based devices to a portfolio of wearables, such as those in your shoes. Smart homes, buildings and cities are also just starting to take off. I think that’ll be an interesting one to keep an eye on over the next few years. Everyone has said it will definitely be a big industry, but no one has figured out how to really implement it yet.

TOP IOT TRENDS We ask Rod O’Shea, Intel’s MD of the Internet of Things, about his views on the growing connected world. Here’s his top quotes and predictions:

By 2030 there’s going to be a billion more people in the middle classes with an expectation of entertainment and connectivity.

A third of ‘things’ are connected now, and by 2020 there will be another two thirds.

2 3

Buildings are a huge opportunity in IoT, but the challenge in this environment is you typically have unconnected solutions. However we are starting to see those innovations.

The biggest risk regarding security is that it isn’t taken seriously enough, and that it isn’t really considered as a profound part of the solution.

The Internet of Things is going to be key because of the changing demographics and the need for us to handle our infrastructure and assets in different ways.

We are working with a really interesting pilot at the moment with spinal trauma. People who have suffered from it just can’t move, so we are using eye technology to help them manage with a screen.

In retail there is a growing understanding that there is value in using IoT proactively to change campaigns, or change the layout of a store.

Some uses I least like are the robot that walks your pet, and the application that changes the colour of a users’ glasses if their phone rings.

There is a danger that people will see the less useful and mainstream deployments and will conclude that IoT is a fad, whereas in fact it is a technology that could create change for the planet.

PCR June 2015 | 33

INTERVIEW

Tech Data’s retail REVOLUTION Having launched a new retail division, the distributor has ambitious plans to grab a greater share of the market. Dominic Sacco asks Tech Data’s retail director Adam Gay about his aims, key selling periods from back-to-school to Black Friday, as well as promising categories such as wearables, ESD and home automation…

What kind of progress have you made in the first few months? We’ve been out and met a lot of customers – and a lot who don’t know a huge deal about us. They’ve come away with quite a surprise about what we’ve been able to achieve and manage in the past, and the scale we’ve been able to get to. Since then we’ve got quite a lot of engagement out of the second half of this year with lots of activity planned. What I’ve learnt over the past three months talking to a lot of the key brands is it’s encouraging us to become a lot stronger in the consumer channel. The key piece for us is market share and supporting our brands in these channels.

ow important is the retail sector to Tech Data today? If you look at where distribution is today, and where Tech Data is, we’re 40 years old and we’ve been in the industry with B2B as our core bread and butter. We’ve had some really good success over the past 40 years in that channel and our market share is strong as a distributor, but if you want to increase market share in the UK overall and you’re already big in one channel, then trying to grow that even further becomes a real challenge. We’ve got a consumer business that’s been there for the past five years but now we have a lot more focus to grow that. We’re getting bigger in the consumer channel which will a) help us increase our marketshare easier and b) help us support our brands.

34 | PCR June 2015

You took over Tech Data Retail earlier this year. What do you bring to the role and what’s your strategy going forwards? I took over the division in January. My role is to own the retail budget and also engage with customers and vendors. I have quite a lot of experience within the retail channel and distribution from working at Exertis. There’s a product marketing director, Mark Glasspool, who I work closely with, and he owns the whole consumer channel from a product perspective. In terms of our overall strategy, it’s not about becoming the biggest distributor in the UK for retail. It’s about becoming the first choice distributor. It’s about working with our retailers on a strategic or tactical level, and being given that opportunity to try and come up with a solution.

“It’s not about becoming the biggest distributor in the UK for retail. It’s about becoming the first choice distributor.” Adam Gay, Tech Data

Aside from the usual key selling periods such as back to school and peak, is Black Friday becoming more integral to distributors like yourselves? What kind of challenges does it present? Last year Black Friday was a game changer for us. We’ve had meetings around it over the past eight weeks and are already talking about it. Black Friday has changed the shape of peak, really. If you look at last year, Black Friday had strong sales in November, then there was a four or fiveweek lull, then leading up to Christmas it kicked off again. It’s what we’ve got to get used to now – it’s not going to go away. It’s so successful for these retailers, and I think what you’ll find now is a greater emphasis on that period, as there’s a lot to get right. It requires a lot of planning and resource – it’s about trying to streamline that process and make it as smooth as possible during the period.

What kind of structure do you have in place? We’ve four verticals within retail: mass merchants, etail, High Street and the catalogue side. Each category will have an account director, the internal team management and then you’ve got the guys that execute against the KPIs on the accounts and deliveries and how stuff is then tracked. Then we have demand planners within the team as well, who support stock management and make sure we’re supporting both customer and vendor. Each category also has a dedicated business development manager, with support from the account manager. Which categories are you keeping a close eye on? Wearable tech is a big push for us – we’ve got heavy investment in that area so we’ll have a lot of focus on that. Then you’ve got home automation coming through. Over the next few years we’ll certainly see that become more of a commodity. We’ve also got components, networking, print and so on… we’ve got all the right categories and the right brands. I think the other big push for us is something we’re becoming very strong in: Electronic Software Distribution (ESD) downloads. We’ve got a strong platform and we work with some major retail partners today. If you look at some of the stats, there are certain retailers where 30 per cent of their online sales are now through our infrastructure – and it’s growing. So we have a very big focus there and it’s certainly something I will be pushing hard.

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BEHIND THE SCENES

For the love of the cloud With a Microsoft Worldwide Cloud Partner of the Year award under its belt, and plans to expand into Australia, reseller Cloudamour is going from strength to strength. Jade Burke meets CEO Mitchell Feldman to find out more…

A key part of the business is Cloudamour’s HD video conferencing suite

alking up to a grand building with a plush glass exterior and revolving doors, I expected nothing less from Cloudamour, as it shares its office with Warner Brothers in Watford. Before I met the company’s CEO, I had to enter my details into a tablet mounted onto the wall, which I would later learn to call the ‘digital receptionist’. Soon enough Mitchell Feldman, Cloudamour’s founder and CEO, appears. After our greetings I am guided into a conferencing room, eager to find out more about this unlikely receptionist. “Having that system there means people are automatically logged into the system, and as soon as you sign in I get an email to let me know that you’re in the reception,” Feldman tells me. Having previously owned The Internet Group, Feldman decided to sell it back in 2011 after noticing a shift in the

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market towards the cloud. “For those who were informed, the cloud was quite mainstream and to those who were uninformed, it was quite scary and there was a lot of ambiguity as to what it was,” Feldman explains. “So I saw an opportunity to build a business that focused on just cloud.” Cloudamour first launched in 2012, and the company has grown massively, with plans to employ 40 people by the end of the year and expand its offices to Australia, with the possibility of New York on the horizon. A key part of the business is Cloudamour’s HD video conferencing suite, where visitors can take part in a free workshop and engage in a number of workplace scenarios, to help demonstrate how technology such as the cloud can enhance their business. Epson’s EB-1430Wi fingertouch projector enables just that, as Feldman says:

“Partnering with Epson is natural for us because it’s got the massive wow factor.” It even allows employees to move work around, write on it and then send it to Cloudamour’s printer, or directly to businesses. Emblazoned across the wall is a whiteboard with the look of a Microsoft tablet, displaying content from the short-throw projector, creating a kind of virtual device. As a journalist, it is difficult for me to part with my trusty pen and paper, but Feldman hopes more and more people will start to deviate away from the old-fashioned style: “We have still got some way to go, people are still using pens and paper, but we’ll get there. We’re on a mission.” It seems that Microsoft is a huge partner of Cloudamour’s. The firm scooped the Microsoft Worldwide Cloud Partner of the Year 2014 award, and it’s clear Feldman is incredibly grateful for the prestigious

“Having a Microsoft endorsement elevates us to that trusted partner status before the meeting has even started.” Mitchell Feldman, Cloudamour

FACT FILE Year established: 2012 Telephone: 020 3002 4111 Email: hello@cloudamour.com Website: cloudamour.com Address: Suite 1 Building 5, Leavesden Park, Hercules Way, Watford, Herts, WD25 7GS

accolade: “It was overwhelming, but from a commercial perspective, it has helped us to raise our profile. “That endorsement is enough to have a much more mature conversation and elevates us to that trusted partner status before the meeting has even started.” Glancing around the room, I notice how neat and tidy everything is. “I look at businesses, and all the wires are all over the floor with the old phone system. We’re very proud of the fact that I am absolutely OCD when it comes to our cabling,” smiles Feldman. It is clear the team has a profound fondness of technology, the cloud, and its capabilities for businesses. “We are the luckiest people in the world because our job is our hobby. There’s a lot of expressions for how much we love it but I guess the most defining one is our company name – Cloudamour. We love the cloud,” he concludes. PCR June 2015 | 39

In association with

Windows 10 looking good

10 key points from

PCR Boot Camp

THERE WAS a lot of buzz around Microsoft’s room, which was decked out with devices, mocktails and sweets at Boot Camp. There were a variety of devices all showcasing the latest Windows 10 OS and PCR even

got to try it out. It certainly looks promising. Microsoft’s personal assistant Cortana works well and the layout looked clean and simple, but the firm refused to reveal a release date (it’s still only “summer”).

PCR Boot Camp returned once again in May, with hundreds of delegates joining to check out the expo and conference. Jade Burke picks out some of the highlights from the day to help you know what’s around the corner…

Desktops are down but laptops and AIOs are up

The future looks wireless INTEL’S UK channel sales manager Matt Birch spoke at this year’s Boot Camp, and wireless connectivity was high on the agenda. Birch told delegates that he believes the password will soon die out, as more devices take on facial and voice recognition functionalities. Plus, Birch also showcased the chipmaker’s WiGig technology, which will enable wireless docking and charging.

EVEN though desktop and tablet sales are down there is reason to be positive, according to Megan Moore from analyst GfK, as laptops and all- in-ones (AIOs) are starting to see an increase. Gaming retailers can also breathe a sigh of relief as Moore told delegates SSDs and gaming headsets are picking up, alongside keyboards and mice.

Tablets are like meals? ON THE DAY, IBM’s Professor Rodric Yates compared tablets to meals. For example, he suggested a small device was like a tin of baked beans, while larger devices were similar to a threecourse meal – there’s something for everyone. Rodric believes that these different form factors can offer more opportunities to retailers by attracting different customers.

www.pcr-online.biz

Thinking outside the box PC RETAILERS also gave their advice to fellow individuals at Boot Camp this year, and David Stroud from reseller The PC Surgeon believes that retailers should incorporate more services into their business, as well as not selling new products that cost more than a certain amount to avoid competing with online retailers.

PCR June 2015 | 41

In association with

More displays, more choice THE DISPLAY space is shaping up nicely now with the addition of 4K, G-Sync, Free-Sync and curved monitors to the market. Consumers have a lot of choice in that sector, and distributor Northamber has tapped into this space with the

addition of Samsung’s TFT and curved monitors to its portfolio, which were on display. Delegates got the chance to try out the curved monitors with the help of a driving PC game followed by some healthy competition with other attendees.

The smart home is coming THERE WAS a lot of optimism in the smart home sector at Boot Camp this year, which was also a popular topic during the PC dealer panel session. David Stroud from The PC Surgeon said: “For us that is something that is very much on our mind at the moment.” The Mustard Concept also showcased a product called Piper, which is a home automation device allowing users to control their home from wherever they are. Jeffery Linton from etailfocused IT support reseller JR Linton also revealed that the company is looking at the entire connected home sphere, and how they can push it more to their customer base.

Treats and sweets THOSE WHO joined Boot Camp on the day were inundated by the amount of free goodies that were given away from exhibitors. Delegates lined their stomachs with pick ‘n’ mix treats from Microsoft, including Jelly Babies and Flying Saucers, which were all washed down with a glass of Pimm’s from Northamber and a beer or two from M2m Direct. To finish, everyone tucked into the hog roast at the after party, alongside an evening of networking and drinks making it a great day and night to remember. And who can forget the free Philips Bluetooth Boombox delegates got to take home? If you weren’t there, you missed out.

“VoIP is one of the fastest growth markets in the IT industry and it’s going to keep on growing.” William Linard, Cloud Telephones

VoIP is an opportunity for retailers and resellers

Remote working is on the rise, says Ricoh DELEGATES were educated about the rise in remote working, as Ricoh’s IT distribution channel director Steven Hastings discussed the developments in the company’s offices. He revealed that working hours at the printer vendor are flexible, while employees do not

THE BOOM in VoIP was a hot topic this year, and Cloud Telephones’ William Linard revealed that many businesses are now also being offered a £3,000 voucher from the Government to upgrade. He said:

42 | PCR June 2015

have their own designated desks, and are free to move around. “Our office has been transformed, we made things more flexible, so there’s no management offices and we have zone allocated desks and nobody has their own desk. Anyone can work anywhere,” added Hastings.

“VoIP is one of the fastest growth markets in the IT industry and it’s going to keep on growing.” He also informed delegates how they could increase their profits by jumping on board and utilising VoIP.

www.pcr-online.biz

SECTOR GUIDE

Printers

With such a vast collection of printers, scanners, photocopiers and accessories available, Jade Burke helps you choose the right products for your customers...

LEXMARK CX410DTE 30PPM COLOUR MFP

CANON IMAGE FORMULA DR-2020U FLATBED SCANNER

BROTHER DS-620 PORTABLE DOCUMENT SCANNER

Distributor: Westcoast

Distributor: Northamber

Contact: Brother

Two-sided printing functions are available with this addition from Lexmark, which allows users to copy, fax and scan documents. A colour touch screen is also included, while pages are printed with speeds of up to 30 pages per minute (ppm). This MFP is compatible with Apple OS X, Citrix, Linux and Windows.

Designed to enhance the management of documents, this Canon scanner has high-speed colour scanning of up to 20mmp or 40ipm (200dpi). It also comes with a range of scanning options, including ADF, flatbed and business card feeder. It features CaptureOnTouch software for faster and easier scanning.

With the ability to scan up to A4 documents, as well as ID cards and receipts, users can carry this scanner around with them on the go. It features a 7.5ppm scan speed and has a 600x600dpi scan resolution. In addition, it is powered by a USB port and is compatible with both Macs and Windows.

Specs: 1200x1200 dpi, 4,800 colour quality, compatible with a variety of operating systems.

Specs: Software applications included, enhanced image quality, 20ppm or 40ipm scanning speeds, CaptureOnTouch technology.

Specs: USB 2.0 port, 400g, 7.5ppm A4 scan speed, Mac and Windows compatible.

SRP: £332.11 excluding VAT

SRP: £480

SRP: £118.80

MAXIFY CANON MB2050 PRINTER

HP LASERJET ENTERPRISE M604

LEXMARK CX410E 30PPM COLOUR MFP

Distributor: Beta Distribution

Distributors: Westcoast, Ingram Micro, Tech Data

Distributor: Westcoast

This printer has various multifunction capabilities, including fax, copier and scanner. It has a print speed of eight seconds for black and white and 12 seconds for colour, while its wireless LAN IEEE 802.11b/g/n connectivity allows the printer to connect via Wi-Fi.

This enterprise printer has been designed for large workgroups of 10-25 users, printing between 3,00020,000 pages a month. A four-line LCD control panel with a keypad is included, along with 512MB of standard memory. It has a print speed of up to 50ppm and features a 500-sheet input tray.

A colour touch screen is included with this printer from Lexmark, along with a 50-sheet automatic document feeder that lets users copy, scan and fax. It has a print speed as fast as 30ppm and a printer 1200x1200 dpi. Plus, it is also compatible with Apple OS X, Citrix, Linux and Windows.

Specs: USB 2.0 port, flatbed scanner type, copier, fax, scanner and printer functions, Wi-Fi connectivity.

Specs: 1.2GHz processor, 512MB standard memory, USB 2.0 port, two-sided printing functionality.

Specs: 4,800 colour quality, barcode and prescription DIMM modules for retail and healthcare sectors.

SRP: £76.01

SRP: Varies

SRP: £234.44 excluding VAT

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PCR June 2015 | 47

SECTOR GUIDE

CANON IB4050 INKJET PRINTER

UTAX 261CI DESKTOP MFP

EPSON RIPS WF-R5190DTW PRINTER

Distributor: Beta Distribution

Contact: UTAX (UK)

Distributor: Ingram Micro

This high-speed printer has been designed for small offices and features built-in Wi-Fi and Ethernet. It features two-sided printing as well as high capacity ink tanks. Pages are printed with a resolution of 600x1200dpi, while the printer comes with print speeds of up to 23ppm. It is also compatible with Macs and PCs.

Thanks to its HyPAS interface, document management software can be integrated on this printer. With a paper capacity of up to 1,300 sheets in formats from A4 to A6, this MFP has been designed to print and copy up to 26 A4 pages in simplex as well as duplex – and scans up to 35ppm.

Epson’s RIPS printer makes use of a replaceable ink pack system, which is a pack containing enough ink to print up to 75,000 pages, meaning businesses can continue use for an average of three years. In addition, it features an A4 colour printer and a standard 540-sheet paper capacity.

Specs: USB 2.0 port, Wi-Fi connectivity, duplex printing, print speeds of up to 23ppm.

Specs: A4 colour, 600dpi, HyPAS enabled, up to 35 A4 ppm, LCD screen, lifetime print of one million pages.

Specs: 75,000 pages per black ink supply, A4 colour printer, up to 34ppm, max cycle of 45,000 pages.

SRP: £91.38

SRP: From £1,000

SRP: TBC

VFS-008 VEHO SMARTFIX SLIDE AND NEGATIVE SCANNER

OKI ML3391ECO PRINTER

FUJITSU SCANSNAP IX500 SCANNER

Distributors: Peak Development, Westcoast, Target Components

Contact: Oki

Distributor: Northamber

Images can be previewed on this printer’s LCD screen, plus it can also scan colour, black and white slides and film negatives. It comes with an optional USB connection for Macs and PCs, as well as a highresolution 5MP scanner. Users can preview pages on the 2.4-inch screen included and mirror, flip and rotate documents with the additional controls.

With a power consumption of 1.5W in sleep mode, this printer has been designed to be eco-friendly. It features a 24-pin printhead, with up to 390 characters per second (cps) print. Plus, it has a two million character ribbon life and a graphic resolution of up to up to 360x360dpi.

Fujitsu’s ScanSnap is compatible with Windows devices and Macs, and can reduce paper clutter, storage space and security risks associated with unmanaged paperwork at home or at the office. It has a maximum scan colour speed of 25ppm, a USB 3.0 port and features Wi-Fi connection.

Specs: Portable design, USB connection, 5MP scanner, one-touch scanning, 2.4-inch preview screen.

Specs: Eco-friendly, 360x360dpi, 390cps, can print up to one original and four copies.

Specs: One-button function, Wi-Fi connectivity, USB 3.0 port, 25ppm colour scan speed.

SRP: £79.95

SRP: TBC

SRP: £399

48 | PCR June 2015

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SECTOR GUIDE

HP OFFICEJET PRO X 476 DW MFP

BROTHER HL-S7000DN PRINTER

SAMSUNG M2675 MONO MULTIFUNCTION PRINTER

Distributors: Ingram Micro, Tech Data, Westcoast

Distributors: Midwich, Exertis

Distributor: Beta Distribution

Printing, copying, scanning and fax functions are available with this printer. It comes with up to 1200x1200 optimised dpi and a print time of 9.5 seconds. Using original HP inks, users can also save on laser printing costs.

This printer offers speeds of up to 100ppm and comes backed with 2GB of built-in storage. It also has automatic duplex printing and booklet capabilities, plus its standard 600-sheet paper input can be expanded to 2,100 sheets. 512MB of memory is available, as well as wireless Wi-Fi connectivity.

Users can print content on a variety of different types of paper with this printer from Samsung at up to 220gsm paper density. It can also print up to 26 pages per minute, as well as scan, fax and copy images and text. Samsung’s printer supports both Macs and PCs and has a standard memory capacity of up to 128MB.

Specs: Up to three paper trays, designed for SMBs, wireless, copy, scan, fax and printer functions.

Specs: 100ppm, backlit LCD screen, Gigabit Enternet, Wi-Fi connectivity, 512MB memory.

Specs: LCD display screen, prints 2ppm, 4800x600 dpi, compatible with PCs and Macs.

SRP: From £324 excluding VAT

SRP: Varies

SRP: £105.57

BROTHER DCP-J4120DW A4 MULTIFUNCTION INKJET

RICOH AFICIO MP W5100

EPSON ECOTANK L355 PRINTER

Distributor: Brother

Contact: Ricoh

Contact: Epson

Wireless networking is available with this printer, meaning users can sync it up to either a laptop, PC or mobile device. It features a 6.8-inch touchscreen, and can also connect to cloud platforms such as Google Drive and Dropbox. A scanner and copier are also included, along with double-sided and A3 printing.

Boasting a colour scanner, as well as flexible workflow solutions, this printer from Ricoh also has a black and white print resolution of 600dpi. It allows users to copy, scan and print documents at up to 30 metres in length, with 1GB memory, as well as two 160GB hard disk drives.

The L355 comes with around two years worth of ink, which is enough to print up to 4,000 pages in black and white and 6,5000 pages in colour. It features Wi-Fi connectivity and allows users to print images directly from their smartphone. Scanning and copying functions are also available with the printer.

Specs: 128MB memory, Wi-Fi connectivity, touchscreen, scanner and copier, A3 printing.

Specs: USB 2.0 port, 600dpi resolution, A0 to A1 paper sizes, 1GB memory, 230kg, flexible workflow solutions.

Specs: Print, scan and copy functions, Wi-Fi connectivity, refillable ink tank, 15 pages/min colour.

SRP: £142.80

SRP: TBC

SRP: £249.99

CONTACT

www.pcr-online.biz

Beta Distribution ........ 020 7531 2828 Brother ........................ 0333 777 4444 Epson ............................0871 4237766 Exertis (Home) ............ 01279 822 822 Exertis (IT) ....................01256 707070

Ingram Micro............... 0871 973 3000 Midwich ....................... 01379 649 200 Northamber ................ 020 8292 7000 Oki.................................01784 274300 Peak Development ......01489 796979

Ricoh .............................01784 416900 Target Components.... 01977 739 300 Tech Data .................... 01256 788 000 UTAX (UK) .................... 01793 786000 Westcoast .................... 0118 912 6000

PCR June 2015 | 49

SECTOR GUIDE

Business software With many customers making their own small businesses more digital, there is a wide variety of software to help make that possible and make their companies more efficient. Here Jade Burke lists eight essential products…

OFFICE 365

MICROSOFT OFFICE HOME AND BUSINESS 2013

HEIMDAL SECURITY PRO

SAGE INSTANT PAYROLL

Distributors: Ingram Micro, Tech Data and Westcoast

Distributor: Entatech

Distributor: PXS Distribution

Contact: Sage

Available in either personal or professional versions, small and large businesses can benefit from Microsoft’s Office 365. It comes with the latest versions of Word and Excel, along with 1TB of OneDrive storage.

Users can manage finances with the data analysis tools, and with OneNote 2013 users can collect notes and other resources to organise projects. Word 2013 and PowerPoint 2013 also come with editing and visual effects.

Heimdal protects information by keeping virtual third-party software updated and prevents employees from accessing infected websites. Plus, the software scans PCs for info stealers.

Suitable for smaller businesses with up to 10 employees, Sage Instant Payroll allows employers to pay their staff quickly and accurately. Various licence plans are available and it can also keep users up to date with legislations.

Specs: 1TB of OneDrive storage, personal and professional, latest versions of Word, PowerPoint and Excel.

Specs: 32/64-bit compatibility, compatible with Windows 7 or later, SkyDrive and SharePoint systems.

Specs: Anti-phishing protection, private data and financial security, malicious lockup blocker.

Specs: Designed for small businesses, compatible with Windows Server 2003, Vista, 7 and 8, three annual licence plans.

SRP: Varies

SRP: £189.99

SRP: TBC

SRP: From £120

NUANCE DRAGON NATURALLY SPEAKING

NORTON SMALL BUSINSESS

WEBSITE X5 PROFESSIONAL 11

SOFTMAKER OFFICE 2016

Distributor: Exertis

Contact: Norton

Distributor: PXS Distribution

Contact: SoftMaker

Dragon gives users the ability to launch applications, search the web, switch windows and send emails all by voice. It includes a robust voice control command as well as Full Text Control for various web applications.

Businesses can keep all of their PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets safe with Norton Small Business software. It offers 100 per cent Virus Removal Assurance, and helps to secure devices against viruses and malware.

Designed for those who need to create a professional website, WebSite X5 has been optimised for search engines and is also functional with tablets and smartphones. Users can also create photo galleries with the software.

This Office package from SoftMaker features new versions of the word processor TextMaker, the spreadsheet program PlanMaker and Presentations. The software includes three PC licences and the email program Thunderbird.

Specs: Supports Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2012, 32/64-bit, 2MB L2 cache.

Specs: Compatible with Windows, Macs and mobiles, offers support for Chrome, FireFox and Internet Explorer.

Specs: Mobile app, optimised for search engines, functional with mobile devices, can be used for e-commerce.

Specs: Three PC licenses, Thunderbird email, improved backup, TextMaker and Presentations.

SRP: £139.99

SRP: £69.99

SRP: £139

SRP: From £50

CONTACT 52 | PCR June 2015

Entatech ...................... 0333 101 1000

Norton ..................ww.uk.norton.com

Exertis (Home) ............ 01279 822 822

PXS Distribution ......... 0844 879 4212

Tech Data .................... 01256 788 000

Exertis (IT) ....................01256 707070

Sage ............................. 0191 294 3000

Westcoast .................... 0118 912 6000

Ingram Micro............... 0871 973 3000

SoftMaker ......... www.softmaker.com

www.pcr-online.biz

MONITORS - SERVERS - STANDS & BRACKETS - PERIPHERALS T: + 44 (0) 1462 81400

E: sales@mentor-distribution.com

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Images are not representative of the actual product - Trade Only - While Stocks Last - All prices exclude VAT and Delivery

54 | PCR June 2015

www.pcr-online.biz

Retail Only

Mystery Shopper Retail Advisory Board Store of the Month Counter Insurgent

ETAIL MUSCLES IN MORE AND more online tech retailers are dabbling in the bricks and mortar space. It’s ironic given the fact etail giants such as Amazon are a major reason many independent stores are no longer around, but this year Ebuyer – and now Overclockers UK – have highlighted the value of over-the-counter sales and face-to-face interaction with customers. PCR broke the news that Kingston HyperX was opening a pop-up shop in Soho in late May, and judging from the reaction it seems consumers are excited to see OCUK teaming up with it on the High Street. Getting the likes of pro League of Legends player Snoopeh and overclocking expert 8Pack on board also generates a buzz, giving visitors a lot to talk about (and

“If Ebuyer or Overclockers open permanent stores, what kind of impact will this have?”

X MARKS THE SHOP Kingston’s HyperX PC gaming accessory and components brand has opened a pop-up shop in London, with etailer Overclockers UK selling physical goods in-store. The outlet – open from May 27th to 31st in Soho’s Peter Street – will feature a front cafe space and a back room with four gaming rigs set up.

share with their friends). Pop-up shops are a clever marketing strategy, plus people love free stuff and giveaways, so this will no doubt drive more HyperX sales online during the week (and the days following its closure). While it’s only a single pop-up store open for a limited time, it’s not the first time etail has expressed its interest in the retail space. Intel and Amazon have opened their own stores in recent years, while eBay partnered with Argos back in 2013 to allow customers to pick up eBay-purchased goods from their local Argos store. It will be interesting to see whether Ebuyer or Overclockers actually end up opening any permanent High Street outlets, and what kind of impact this will have on indies and the likes of Dixons Carphone/Maplin. Dominic Sacco, Editor dsacco@nbmedia.com

Intel is also partnering with the pop-up shop, plus there will be pro gamers in attendance including League of Legends pro Snoopeh and overclocking expert 8Pack. Customers will be able to purchase items from the store, as well as take part in a Project Cars game competition to beat the pros’ fastest lap times and win prizes – including a gaming rig.

PCR takes soundings from its Retail Advisory Board on the biggest issues in the industry. The current members are: RETAIL ADVISORY BOARD

Craig Hume, Utopia Computers

Jason Eccles, SimplyFixIT

Mike Barron, Synaxon

Iain Shaw, Brigantia

Duncan Rutherford, Dabs.com

Steve Ling, Overclockers UK

Jonpaul Warren, Ebuyer.com

David Chorlton, Maplin

CK, YoYoTech

Jat Mann, PC Pal

Ben Miles, Chillblast

Estelle Johannes, CompTIA

Phil Browes, HMV

Phylip Morgan, Network Group

Juliet Ward, Argos

Gavin Holder, GHI Computers

Chris Innes, Micro Plus

James Gorbold, Scan Computers

John Church, Shop Direct

Will Fletcher, Toys “R” Us

William Jones, John Lewis

Vladimir Kuznetsov, DinoPC

Steven Lightfoot, Pudsey Computers

Kasia Kowalska, Tesco

www.pcr-online.biz

PCR June 2015 | 55

STORE OF THE MONTH

FACT FILE Year established: 1995 Number of outlets: 1 Number of staff: 9

Utopia Computers

Contact name and address: Utopia Computers Limited 29-31 High Glencairn Street Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland KA1 4AE Telephone: 01563 574280 Email: craig@utopiacomputers.co.uk

New gadgets such as the Oculus Rift have made their way into Utopia’s store, and with a new website the PCR Award-winner is seeing results. Jade Burke speaks to director Craig Hume…

Website: www.utopiacomputers.co.uk

Analysts have reported that PC shipments are in decline. Have you seen this at all at Utopia? Overall numbers seem to be down. We’re fortunate, because of products such as the Sonox Workstation our sales are up. Possibly people are holding off for Windows 10 to see what’s happening with that. But, I think it’s important for system builders to continue to innovate and bring out new products and entice people in.

from Windows 7) get a smooth experience, and everything gets moved over to the new OS for them.

What do you think the next big thing in tech will be? It has to be Windows 10, it’s going to be a massive change for the industry especially with the free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users. I think there’s a good potential there for independents to make some money off that. There’s a service add-on, to make sure people who are unhappy with Windows 8 (or possibly looking to upgrade

What are your plans for the future? From a local point of view, we’re doing more B2B work. So we’ve started doing remote support and different managed services for local businesses. But from a national point of view, we want to continue to see our own brand of desktops and laptops thrive. And the focus for large expansion is definitely on the system builder side of things.

How and when did the business begin? We are around 20 years old, and it was my dad who set up the business. Back then eBay and Amazon were just starting, and there were more people looking for a bit of IT support, so he started supporting people around their houses. And then it grew from there. He has retired now, but we’re trying to carry on his legacy in whatever way we can. What products and services do you offer in store? I would say we are a traditional bricks and mortar store. We do PC repairs, laptop repairs, component sales, as well as printers and the like. We also do custom built desktops and laptops, which is what we’re best known for these days. When you come into our store it’s a little bit different from other computer stores, and we try to stock some of the harder to get hold of equipment like www.pcr-online.biz

the Oculus Rift. We tend to try and give customers something that they can’t get elsewhere. You recently announced the launch of your new website, stating you’re the only PC builder with a truly mobilefriendly website. Have you noticed an increase in traffic online since? The most important thing we could see before we implemented the site, was that people were using mobile phones and tablets to visit the website. We could see that they were spending three or four minutes on average on the site. We’ve doubled the amount of time that they now spend browsing the website. You’re known for your gaming PCs, but you unveiled the Sonox Workstation earlier this year. How has that been selling? The workstations have been a good success especially

considering that we didn’t have any formal workstation systems before. We’re managing to attract customers from some pretty interesting places so it has been good. I think there’s big potential in the workstation market

“We’re doing more B2B work. We’ve started doing remote support for local businesses.” Craig Hume, Utopia Computers that’s untapped right now, and we would like to do more with it. We can offer so many more customisation options and something that is unique, as well as a personal service that we’re well known for that is harder to get from the likes of IBM and Fujitsu.

How important are industry events like PCR Boot Camp to you? I think speaking to other people who are in the same industry as you is completely priceless. I think when you step back from your business you can look at it from afar, and get to see where the room for improvement is.

PCR June 2014 | 57

PCR RETAIL ADVISORY BOARD

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS With managed services growing in prominence, more IT retailers are targeting businesses rather than just consumers – including bigger players like Amazon and John Lewis who have both outlined new B2B initiatives. We ask the PCR Retail Advisory Board if they’re going after SMBs and how they’re targetting them… ”Business customers are key to Ebuyer’s growth plans. Their average spend is higher than consumers so their cost to manage – and therefore profitability – is significantly higher. Currently, our business customers account for approximately 50 per cent of our revenue; much of our B2B growth comes from consumers entering the workplace and realising their current IT provider is more expensive and more difficult to deal with than Ebuyer. “Ebuyer’s core IT product range is attractive to businesses who are attracted by our prices. “Increasingly, businesses are taking advantage of our low price culture to use Ebuyer for their office supplies range too, which adds incremental, more frequent sales and promotes our brand values more regularly. “B2B customers also expect a better service level to match their increased spend. They expect more detailed product knowledge and specific pre58 | PCR June 2015

sales advice, which is why we have added a team of solutions specialists and conduct regular training in the general sales team to keep their knowledge up to date. IT equipment is often business critical to the customer so they expect us to be flexible and responsive; we have recently purchased our own delivery vehicles so we can ship mission critical items to customers same day if necessary.” PHIL BATES, Head of B2B Sales, Ebuyer ”Targeting businesses was the next logical step for growing our brand in the local area. We have the technical expertise to advise businesses on how to run their computer systems effectively and how to grow their IT structure so that the business can thrive off of the back of it. So for us, it was a completely untapped market that we didn’t have to make massive inroads in to see relatively big comebacks and good growth.

“With our business customers, they have my mobile number and can call me any time of the day. They know that we’re there for them, whereas with your consumers they’re quite happy to be told: ‘It’s going to be two or three days before we can get round to resolving this problem for you.’ So the service level of agreement that goes with business customers and what they expect for what they pay, is completely different. “But at the same time there are so many opportunities with businesses that you don’t get with home customers, so it’s a balance.” CRAIG HUME, Director, Utopia Computers ”Something we’re concentrating on very much in the next year is educating our retail customers about what we do for businesses, and our business customers about some of the retail services we offer. We look after quite a few big businesses that have

hundreds of employees, who are potentially retail customers but don’t know about the things we can offer. So as a staff member they could get a 20 per cent discount on repairs, like a loyalty card scheme, which we feel could potentially grab us 300 or 400 new retail customers quite easily. “We’re forever getting business customers coming to us that previously used us as retail customers, but didn’t know about what we can also offer to businesses. So we’re now going to focus a lot more on cross-pollination of the two groups.” CHRIS INNES, MD, Micro Plus Computers ”We sell to businesses more than ever before, essentially this is due to trying to maintain growth within our

business. Although a complete different skillset is required, we felt this is important if we were to maintain business growth. “At the moment, we only offer a small amount of but we are looking to increase this over the coming number of months and years. Currently we offer standard installs of most IT (PC, laptop, print, projection, server, network maintenance, AV, as well as cloud backup). “One of the main differences when selling to SMBs is in the style of product needed, and businesses operate or think in a slightly different manner. Price is not always the key factor when selling into businesses which is nice, but the correct solution is. More and more, price is a big part of the retail buying decision.” STEVEN LIGHTFOOT JNR, Partner, Pudsey Computers

PCR RETAIL ADVISORY BOARD PCR asks its Retail Advisory Panel –formed of buyers and experts – about the biggest industry trends and issues each month. To join, email dsacco@nbmedia.com

www.pcr-online.biz

COUNTER INSURGENT

IS A FREE UPGRADE RIGHT FOR WINDOWS 10? This month, our anonymous PC retailer offers their views on the imminent launch of Microsoft’s next operating system Windows 10, and its aim to launch it on one billion devices by 2018… MICROSOFT is taking a gamble with Windows 10 by creating a universal platform that will run apps on any device, all powered by Microsoft apps/cloud/ subscription services. Is it on the right track or just a step in the direction of Zune? Microsoft’s ambition to reach one billion devices by 2018, is in my opinion, a tough one. It needs to understand politics – never upset your core supporters and users, especially when you cut them out of the channel. Microsoft needs to

engage with their customers and offer better support. From what I have seen, Windows 10 is a more refined Windows 8, however, like 8, it will still be a huge revelation to customers who might not need or want to move on with the Microsoft philosophy. Giving them a free upgrade is not the type of carrot they will bite on. Remember, Microsoft has the majority of the desktop OS market (91.22 per cent according to Net Applications) and has already had two strikes in less than

10 years. Microsoft’s agenda can only be of the sudden realisation that there is more money to be made from recurring revenues. Microsoft wants to make a bigger dent in the app marketplace compared to Apple and Google, hence its plan to give 10 away for free. However isn’t this a bit of a chicken and egg situation? Having a desktop business in a mobile world is having a great effect on them, but mobile hasn’t truly taken over. Both need each other. And this utopia that

Microsoft is trying to make is sadly for them nothing new – it has already been demonstrated by Canonical (UK) in 2012 and Android desktop. But, what is apparent is that we are all seeking a seamless experience that is available wherever we are. This is not just Microsoft heading down this business model, but most if not all are heading down this path, and sadly for

us indies we are either being left out of the equation or we are having to evolve without any support. The $1 million question is how easy and user-friendly will Microsoft make this process (for all)? And why is it that silver surfers who used XP can quickly grasp 7, but some users of 7 found it hard to tame 8? Let’s just hope that Windows 10 is not a futuristic disaster.

Got a gripe you’d like to share with the industry? Contact Jburke@nbmedia.com

SYNAXON MEMBER PROFILE

Drum Brae Solutions We talk to Synaxon Member of the Year winner Mike Hoffman from Drum Brae Solutions about targeting SMBs in Edinburgh and how Windows 10 is changing its business… What are the biggest issues you face today? With the wall-to-wall advertising of big brands we are finding that clients are driven by the feeling that they need to do something, but without any message of what to actually do. We have spent a lot of time explaining to people how the ‘cloud’ is nothing new, but that now the latest technology can deliver enterprise-level solutions for even our smallest of clients. What do you have planned for the next 12 months? We have taken on more staff and are looking to expand our cloud offerings. We have a number of clients lined up for www.pcr-online.biz

What’s been your biggest growth area recently? We have seen a move towards cloud-based services. All of our client desktops are actively managed and we are gaining new clients looking for someone to manage and maintain their systems.

Windows 10 and are looking forward to standardising all our clients on one platform. We are also looking to expand our offerings to schools and charities as Office 365 becomes the standard platform. What products and services does your company offer? We supply all the hardware and software needs to small business clients in and around the Edinburgh area. Rather than just supplying boxes we try to offer a complete service, whether it is a mouse or a server. We have seen an increase in the number of servers and desktops recently as clients start to appreciate where their technology fits in with their business processes.

“Rather than just supplying boxes we try to offer a complete service.” Mike Hoffman, Drum Brae Solutions

How important is social media to the business? It is a growing area and something we are looking to work on in the next few months. The conversations are now moving away from what people had for lunch and on to what people want assistance with.

What are the benefits of working with Synaxon? Synaxon has given us a solid backbone of support and services, which help us to punch above our weight. They provide us with marketing which we could not dream of producing inhouse and this helps us to keep a steady conversation up with our clients about new products. Last year we were awarded Synaxon Member of the Year which was a real surprise and an honour. Contact: www.drumbrae.net

PCR June 2015 | 59

MYSTERY SHOPPER

Online special Armed with a strict budget of £100, this month our mystery shopper goes online to seek out a printer ideal for small office/home office use. As a wide range of retailers stock printers, to make things fair, our shopper has picked the first six etail stores that appear in Google when searching for ‘printers’. Here’s how they got on… CURRYS

STAR SITE

ARGOS From the Argos homepage, it is not instantly clear where the printer section is. A glance under the ‘technology’ tab revealed the usual sections, but I couldn’t see one saying ‘printers’. I eventually found the printers hiding in the ‘home ofﬁce’ tab under the ‘computing & phones’ section. As expected from Argos, there was a lot to choose from. After stating my price range, I still had 50+ printers to work my way through. As I scanned each one, it wasn’t obvious which

10/10

Currys was the very first retailer to appear in Google when searching for ‘printers’, so I had high hopes for the site having a vast range of product within my budget. The printer section was very easy to find and provided me with a handy overview of what different types were on offer. After reading that all-in-one printers are ‘ideal for small offices’, I clicked through to that section. Straight away there were 47 results, a lot of which had money off ranging from £5 to

£80. After ﬁltering the results to show anything under £100, I was pleased to see that I still had 29 options to choose from, all of which were available for free home delivery as well as instore collection. One product that caught my eye was the HP Ofﬁcejet 5742, which was supposed to be £149.99, but had a massive £80 discount. Overall, the Currys website was very easy to navigate, had lots of products to choose from and some great deals of offer.

www.argos.co.uk

ones were ideal for a home ofﬁce environment. After clicking for more information on a few of them I spotted a few hints in amongst the specs. I eventually whittled my options down to either an Epson Expression Premium XP-620, which was reduced from £149.99 to £99.99, and an HP Laserjet Pro P1102 for £89.99 – although I was a little confused by the fact that the specs stated the HP printer uses 0 ink cartridges, yet comes with one ink cartridge included.

9/10

AMAZON

8/10

60 | PCR June 2015

www.currys.co.uk

After navigating to the printers page I was very pleased to find that Amazon separates its printers into categories, the first of which was those ‘ideal for the small office’. “Excellent!” I thought. Although as I inspected the recommended printers, it turned out that only three of them were actually in my budget range. All three Epson printers looked really good, but I decided to go for the Epson PrecisionCore WorkForce WF2650WF Colour All-in-One

www.amazon.co.uk

Printer with WiFi as it was on offer for £70.58, with its previous price being £124.01 – a great discount. There were plenty in stock and it was available for free oneday delivery. As always, Amazon was very easy to navigate around and there were plenty of pictures, specs and reviews to sift through. There were also model comparisons and a Q&A section. Although there were lots of accessories, it’s a shame there weren’t more small ofﬁce printers within my budget. www.pcr-online.biz

MYSTERY SHOPPER EBUYER.COM

8/10

JOHN LEWIS The printers section of the John Lewis site features a useful buyers guide. After reading that laser printers were ideal for high-volume printing in ofﬁces, I made my way to that section. There were only three printers within my range. One of them didn’t have any reviews yet, which put me off selecting it. The other two were a Brother HL3140CW and a Samsung Xpress M2070W. After checking out all the specs I went for the Samsung

I was very impressed with the printer section at Ebuyer.com. It had a very detailed and incredibly handy introduction describing all the different types of printers out there and what they are ideally used for. After reading through the intro, I took Ebuyer.com’s advice that a large format printer was the one I needed and headed to that section. Oddly, the price ranges jumped from £0-£5 to £200£300. I soon realised that large format printers were way out of my budget and

printer as it had a special £30 discount. At the checkout I was presented with a few options, including free standard UK delivery as well as free John Lewis and Waitrose Click & Collect. But it actually turned out that Click & Collect wasn’t available for that particular product. Although there weren’t many printers in my budget, the website was very easy to navigate and did have an option to pay via PayPal.

7/10

www.pcr-online.biz

decided to look at the laser printer section instead. Bingo! Here I found a number of suitable printers for under £100. A lot of them had money off and all were eligible for free delivery. Settling on a Samsung M2825ND Xpress I was pleased to ﬁnd that as well as specs and photographs, there was also an embedded video. Although the printer was eligible for free shipping within ﬁve working days, the website sneakily automatically selects next day delivery, which was £11.92.

www.johnlewis.com

VIKING

SUMMARY

www.ebuyer.com

Overall, this was an excellent mystery shop. Every site I visited had printers that were within my budget and every website offered free delivery. I was happy to see so many of the sites accepting a number of

different payment methods, including PayPal, and pleased to ﬁnd that all the websites I visited had extensive product and specs/ descriptions, while some even had options to submit any questions I might have.

Viking is probably the leastknown etailer out of this selection. But it was the sixth retail site to appear on my Google search, so I was intrigued to see how they fared against the big names. After noticing a large ‘top brands’ banner – which included the likes of Lexmark, HP, Epson and Canon – I knew I was in the right place for ﬁnding a printer. Once I set the price to the £50-£100 bracket there were 19 printers to pick from. Although they were all under my £100 budget, it turns out

Although sites such as John Lewis and Ebuyer.com had really helpful buyers guides, Currys and Argos could not be beaten in terms of the sheer volume of printers that were available to look through.

www.viking-direct.co.uk

that a handful of them were actually over once VAT was added on. Those that were in budget had detailed descriptions and plenty of specs. Free delivery was a nice touch, as was the ability to pay via PayPal. Although Viking didn’t have the most amount of products to choose from – and some in the £50-£100 bracket were technically over £100 – it did have a handy feature called ‘ask an owner’, which lets users pose questions to owners of particular products.

Although it was a close call, Currys stole the show as it was much easier to navigate through the retailer’s site than Argos’. Therefore I am declaring Currys’ etail site my star store this month.

PCR June 2015 | 61

Recommended Dedicated monthly product coverage

The latest tech Editorial planner

Lenovo’s new device runs has USB port disablement to prevent data theft

The Chromebox Tiny can be placed almost anywhere using the underdesk mount, clamp bracket or VESA mount

Running on Google’s Chrome OS, the Chromebox Tiny gives users access to a wide range of Google apps

Lenovo centres on Chrome LENOVO’S ThinkCentre Tiny business desktop family has been extended with the addition of the Chromebox. Designed for education and small business users, Lenovo says the Chromebox can help users leverage the benefits of a cloud-based solution. The one litre desktop has various optional accessories including mounting and expansion options, and runs

on Google’s Chrome OS, plus it is the only Chromebox on the market that can combine with the ThinkCentre Tiny-inOne to offer a 23-inch all-inone display. Ouyang Jun, VP and general manager for desktop and visuals at Lenovo, said: “Lenovo was the first to introduce a one litre commercial desktop and ThinkCentre Chromebox is a

testament to our commitment to the continued evolution of the desktop, and our promise to push the boundaries on innovation for our education and business customers.” The Chromebox Tiny is a portable unit, with accessories such as the ThinkCentre underdesk mount and Tiny clamp bracket, as well as the VESA mount.

Having partnered with Google, Lenovo’s device also offers users auto-updates. In addition, users will have access to a wide range of Google apps including Gmail, YouTube and Google Maps. It is also packed with a range of security features, for example it carries USB port disablement, to help prevent data theft and

network security risks. The Trusted Platform Module (TPM) encrypts passwords and data to help secure more applications, too. Jun added: “Combined with the ThinkCentre Tiny-in-One, the new Chromebox illustrates our belief in more flexibility for teachers and IT managers to continue to offer desktop solutions in a modern day environment.”

Contact: Exertis Home (01279 822 822), Exertis IT (01256 707070), Westcoast (0118 912 6000) | Price: Around £130

www.pcr-online.biz

PCR June 2015 | 63

RECOMMENDED

Kingston’s speedy Savage SSD KINGSTON has developed its fastest SATA-based solid state drive (SSD), designed to offer extreme performance. The HyperX Savage is powered by a quad-core eight-channel Phison S10 controller, which helps to deliver faster read and write speeds. For example the SSD can reach read speeds of up to 560MB/s and write speeds of up to 530MB/s, with read/ write IOPS of up to 100K/89K. In addition, the SSD has random 4K read speeds of up to 97,000 IOPS and write speeds of up to 89,000 IOPS. The device has a low profile and a 7mm form factor, therefore the Savage can fit into most notebooks, desktops and HTPC builds. It is currently available in a bundle kit, which includes a

USB 3.0 enclosure to transfer data from 2.5-inch hard drives, a 2.5 to 3.5-inch adapter to mount to a desktop, a SATA data cable, a multi-bit screwdriver, as well as Arconis data migration software. Users can also purchase the upgrade bundle kit, which includes a SATA data cable and hard drive cloning software. Red steel and aluminium houses the SSD, which also features a diamond-cut design. Plus, users can choose between 120GB, 240GB, 480GB and 960GB variants. The SSD comes with a life expectancy of one million hours, a three-year warranty and free technical support.

“The Savage can fit into most notebooks, desktops and HTPC builds.”

Contact: Ingram Micro (0871 973 3000), Tech Data (01256 788 000), Entatech (0333 101 1000), Simms (01622 852800), Hammer (01256 841000) | Price: Varies

ACER HAS bolstered its Chromebase series with the industry’s first all-in-one (AIO) Chrome OS desktop boasting a touch display. With a boot up time of 10 seconds, users can gain access to data and documents quickly, plus it also has multiple layers of security built-in with automatic system updates, ensuring sensitive data, such as passwords, are protected. Acer has partnered with Google and has given customers a complimentary 100GB of Google Drive storage. The Chrome operating system also

supports multiple users and accounts, while photos, videos, music and documents are all synchronised and backed up with the user’s Google account. The Chromebase comes with a Full HD resolution and 178-degree viewing angle display, which also incorporates 10-point technology. Plus, an Nvidia Tegra K1 quad-core processor powers the device, which also helps to keep the Chromebase quiet even when running multiple workloads. Users can view and watch content across its 21.5-inch 1080p display and make video

Image source: TechWeekEurope

A touch of glass “With a boot up time of 10 seconds, users can gain access to data and documents quickly.”

calls with the built-in HD webcam. It also boasts two 3W speakers, 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0 wireless connectivity, and a range of ports including HDMI, USB 2.0 and USB 3.0. There are also multiple viewing angles, as the

Chromebase is VESAcompliant, meaning it can be attached to various VESA stands, brackets, arms and wall mounts. No pricing has been revealed just yet, but the device will be available during Q2 2015.

Contact: Acer | www.acer.co.uk | Price: TBA

64 | PCR June 2015

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RECOMMENDED

Gigabyte’s portable new GPUs GIGABYTE has introduced its latest Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 based graphics cards, but with a new ITX format. The latest additions to the company’s GeForce 900 range include the GV-N960IX-2GD and the GV-N960IXOC-2GD cards, which have been designed for small form factor mini-ITX systems. Smaller than some of its predecessors, the GPUs are 181mm in length, and offer a single six-pin power connector. Both devices feature identical specs, however the GV-N960IXOC-2GD comes with an OC mode frequency of 1190/1253, while the GVN960IX-2GD has a speed of 1152/1203 MHz in OC mode. The cards have also been integrated with 2GB GDDR5 memory 128-bit memory interface, as well as a range of

ports including HDMI. Plus, each features Gigabyte’s blade fan design and pure copper heat pipe direct touch (HDT) technology, which

“The latest additions to the company’s GeForce 900 range have been designed for small form factor mini-ITX systems.”

helps to deliver a higher cooling capacity and heat transfer efficiency at a low noise level. A durable VGA board in each graphics card also helps to lower the GPU’s temperature, whilst also providing better overclocking capabilities. Plus, the board allows more bandwidth for electron passage and reduces circuit impedance. Each has a memory clocking speed of 7010MHz, a CPU boost clock of 1228Mz and a base clock of 1165MHz whilst gaming. The graphics cards can also run using DirectX 12, and have a maximum digital resolution of 4096x2160. The graphics cards also have a memory size of 2GB with a base speed of 1127 MHz.

Contact: Exertis Home (01279 822 822), Exertis IT (01256 707070), Entatech (0333 101 1000), Target Components (01977 739 300) | Price: From £159

HP’s Pavilion line-up COMPUTING vendor HP has showcased its latest back-toschool and home range with a line-up of all-in-ones (AIO) and towers. The Pavilion AOI PCs feature a Full HD flush glass display, which comes in a variety of sizes from 21.5-inches to 27-inches. Customers also have the choice to choose between fourth generation Intel Celeron processors, Intel Core i3 through i7 processors, next generation AMD A10 and A8 processors or AMD next generation mainstream A4 through A8 processors. Each PC features up to 3TB of storage and come with a range of ports including HDMI and USB 3.0 and USB 2.0. HP’s Pavilion Tower has been given a makeover with a new colour design, including red, white, silver and blue. It

supports a range of processors, such as Intel Celeron and AMD next generation processors, as well as featuring integrated Nvidia GTX 745 graphics.

“With our 2015 desktop family, we are breathing new life into the category.” Kevin Frost, HP

Kevin Frost, VP and general manager for consumer personal systems at HP, said: “With our 2015 desktop

family, we are breathing new life into the category by giving customers more capabilities wrapped in colourful and premium designs that they will be proud to place in kitchens, living rooms and other public spaces in their homes.” In addition, for customers who are looking for powerful hardware, HP has unveiled the Envy Tower and Envy Phoenix Tower. The Envy has been designed for content creators and features highperformance processors, and a choice of Nvidia GTX 980 or AMD Radeon R9 380 discrete graphics are available. The Phoenix Tower supports tasks for hardcore gamers, and customers also have the choice of GTX 980 or AMD Radeon discrete graphics and fourth generation Intel Core i5 and i7 processors.

The Pavilion Tower (above) comes in four different colours, while the Pavilion AOI PCs (below) feature Full HD displays

Contact: West Coast (0118 912 6000), Ingram Micro (0871 973 3000), Tech Data (01256 788 000) | Price: From £399

www.pcr-online.biz

PCR June 2015 | 65

RECOMMENDED

Get in on the action Intel launches Xeon with TomTom WORKING with a smartphone app, TomTom’s new Bandit Action Camera allows users to share videos simply by shaking a smartphone. The camera comes with a built-in media server, making it possible for users to upload and edit footage quickly. It boasts a wide angle

lens, high-end 16MP CCD sensor, a microSD card and a USB 3.0 port. In addition, it is also completely waterproof, so footage can be captured in the rain. It also comes equipped with in-camera motion and a GPS sensor, which automatically tags exciting moments based on altitude, speed, G-force, acceleration and heart rate. Corinne Vigreux, cofounder and MD for TomTom Consumer, said: “We know that the biggest frustration people have with action cameras today is the time and effort it takes to edit. “With TomTom Bandit we’ve cut the editing time down from hours to minutes – all it takes is a shake.”

Contact: Softline | 01293 827900 | Price: £299.99

CHIP MAKER Intel has unveiled the details of its new Xeon processor E7-8800/4800 v3 product families. The new set of processors aims to help customers’ process and analyse massive data sets in system memory for faster decision-making and improved operational efficiency.

Each processor features up to 18 cores and up to 45MB of last-level cache, allowing the chips to deliver up to 70 per cent more decision support analytic sessions per hour. 17 manufacturers from around the world will also be using the processors, including Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, Hitachi and HP. In addition, the processors support configurations of up to 32 sockets as well as new security and reliability capabilities, including increased cryptographic performance via Intel’s Advanced Encryption Standard New Instructions (Intel AES-NI). Diane Bryant, senior VP and general manager of the Data Center Group at Intel, said: “The Intel Xeon processor E7 v3 family is the engine for accelerating business intelligence through real-time analytics, enabling businesses to improve customer satisfaction through more personalised products and services, generate new revenue streams and enhance operational efficiency.”

Contact: Intel | www.intel.co.uk | Price: from $1,224 (around £782)

Editorial Planner

A look at the biggest features coming up in PCR…

JULY 2015

AUGUST 2015

SEPTEMBER 2015

DESKTOP SPECIAL

EDUCATION SPECIAL

GAMING SPECIAL

PCR finds out whether the desktop is dying and how it fares against tablets and notebooks. We also focus on repairs, system building and distributor services.

We go back to school with our education issue this month, where PCR takes a look at the market and how retailers and resellers can sell to schools.

PCR takes a look at the state of the PC gaming market and explores how retailers can make more money from the ever-growing sector.

Sector Guides: Back to school hardware, back to school software, monitors.

Sector Guides: Gaming accessories and headsets, gaming hardware, desktop cooling and cases, games/download cards.

Advertising Deadline

June 11th

July 16th

August 17th

Sector Guides: Desktops and all-in-ones, PC accessories, components.

66 | PCR June 2015

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OUT OF OFFICE

CROWDFUNDING CORNER THERE’S nothing worse than forgetting something you just had to do, right? Well, this tiny new Droplet button can be attached to anything – such as medication, a vacuum cleaner or a bin – and acts as a reminder.

By setting up the app on a smartphone, users can decide when they want to be reminded, and the Droplet will then send out an alert, so those pesky chores are never forgotten about again. For coffee lovers, by placing the Droplet in a

IN THE

HOT SEAT Andrew “Gibbo” Gibson from Overclockers UK tells PCR how cars are his guilty pleasure and what he believes will be the next big thing in the tech industry… How competitive are you (inside and outside of work)? Very, I have to win and beat others, so this means making sure Overclockers UK is first to market with products. What are your tipples of choice? Tipples? What is a tipple? What’s your most embarrassing or funniest moment in the industry? I do not allow emotions to affect my performance. Do you have any phobias? Dentist. Would you say you are different inside of work to outside? No. What’s your dream car? Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0l. What’s the toughest decision you have made? All my decisions are easy being the boss in my department. What is your guilty pleasure? Cars! What’s going to be the next big thing in tech? The 390X is the next biggest thing along with TitanX.

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coffee tin, it can also track how many cups of coffee have been consumed, plus it can also alert users when to feed their beloved pets. The crowdfunding Kickstarter campaign has smashed its investment target of $80,000.

It came from…

DESIGNED for elderly individuals, this hi-tech teddy named Robear is capable of performing tasks such as lifting a patient from

JAPAN

a bed into a wheelchair. Unlike the traditional fluffy kind, this giant robot bear features actuator units with a low gear ratio, which

allows it to move quickly when carrying people in its mechanical arms. Riken and Sumitomo Riko Company are responsible for creating the cuddly bear, which weighs a surprisingly light 140KG and also comes equipped with three types of sensors, including torque sensors and Smart Rubber capacitance-type tactile sensors, which are made entirely of rubber. So perhaps in the near future, a huge robotic bear may also greet us in hospitals, (rather than sitting at the end of our beds).

FROM THE ARCHIVE PC Retail June 2007 HP PARTNERS with Times Online to develop branded content for the web-exclusive series Cool In Your Code… Realtime again bolsters its Nvidia graphics card portfolio with the Gainward brand… Patriot Memory appoints Target Components as one of the first official distributors of products in the region… Acer launches its new professional notebook TravelMate series… Nvidia unveils its entry-level GeForce 7200 GS GPUs… BBtradesales showcases its Designer Bow Wow speakers, which come adorned with faux leather… Plus: Entatech’s Jon Atherton bumps into Spire Technology’s Jon Appleton on holiday in Florida and the crime fighters Scooby Doo and Shaggy… Four workers from security firm McAfee run in the London Marathon to raise money for VICTA… PCR June 2015 | 67

OUT OF OFFICE

Fun and frolics at Boot Camp The after party at PCR Boot Camp allowed attendees to let their hair down, tuck into a hog roast and enjoy some drinksâ&#x20AC;¦

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OUT OF OFFICE

SWEET SUCCESS THOSE with a sweet tooth were able to satisfy their cravings thanks to Microsoft at Boot Camp.

The tech firm had a variety of sweets on offer, from liquorice allsorts to flying saucers and chocolate raisins.

Utopia Computer’s Mark Laurie (pictured) was seen getting in on the action with the tempting treats.

140 CHARACTERS OF NEWS AND VIEWS What the industry’s been tweeting about this month… Adam Simon, Context @adamcontext Service is key says PC Surgeon to compete against low cost etailers and retailers @pcr_ online #bootcamp #r2b Craig Hume, Utopia Computers @CraigHume_ Thanks to the whole @pcr_online team for an amazing event yesterday. A little gutted I had to leave sharp. Roll on Rising Stars!!

(PILLOW)CASE KING AFTER a busy day at Boot Camp this year, over at the Caseking stand account manager Phillippe Rogers (pictured) just had to put his feet up for a few minutes. He was caught clearly slacking off during the day, taking a cheeky lie down at the distributor’s stand. We wonder what he was thinking about that could be more important than Boot Camp?

DRIVING DRAMA GAMING got competitive at Boot Camp this year, with both Brigantia and Northamber bringing along their own driving seats and games. After announcing Northamber’s new partnership with Samsung monitors, players got the chance to put their driving skills to the test with curved screens.

AML Midlands Ltd @AMLMidlandsLtd @pcr_online @Dom_Sacco well done team PCR on a great day and loads of like minded IT Guru’s #PCRBootCamp Carl West, GfK @Carl_GB #PCRBootCamp @pcr_online let’s not confuse media tablets & computing tablets. All form factors valid, its about application. Northamber @Northamberplc Visit us at @pcr_online #PCRbootcamp today at @HallWhittlebury. Great giveaways and see some top brands incl @SamsungUK @fujitsu_ uk @OKIUK Phylip Morgan, Network Group @phylipm What a super venue @pcr_online have picked for #pcrbootcamp here at @HallWhittlebury Gonna be a great day! Steven Levitt, Caseking @slmagician Awesome night at the PCR Boot Camp event, all of the exhibitors and guests are fantastic! Hope you all enjoyed the magic ^^ Ingram Micro UK @IngramMicroUK #PCRBootCamp with @AcerUK_Official @ IngramMicroUK @AgencyIngram Synology UK & Nordic @SynologyUK We are here @HallWhittlebury exhibiting @ pcr_online #Bootcamp It’s the first UK public showcase of DSM 5.2 IT Channel Expert @ITChannelExpert About the get hands on with #Windows10 at #PCRBootCamp!

www.pcr-online.biz

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THE LAST WORD

Print still alive and kicking Phil Jones, Managing Director at Brother UK, discusses the two important trends that he believes will positively impact the printer market – printing on the move, and the rise of services and solutions over hardware… THE RISE in digitisation, collaboration and mobile working is creating huge sales opportunities for the channel. It’s now a business necessity that employees are able to work as productively on the road as they do in the office – regardless of industry sector, and business leaders are looking for the right products, technology and partners to support this. This creates a huge opportunity in the device peripheral market, particularly in some key vertical sectors, giving resellers a great way in to sell more to customers.

want to expand their capability in this area. This is about skills, ambition and consultancy selling. Almost everything will be assumed to be able to be purchased ‘as a service’ – which creates a lot of opportunity for existing transactionally-led product portfolios and for rethinking business models. At Brother, we spend a lot of time listening to resellers and end users to understand strategic priorities, areas of focus and unmet pain points in order that conversation remains relevant relating to our product portfolio. We like

“Portable and cloud printing are set for huge growth over the next few years.” Phil Jones, Brother UK People still want to print but the ways in which people are printing are changing, with portable and cloud printing set for huge growth over the next few years. The most important factor in the speed of this growth is end-user education, as most smartphone owners still perceive printing easily from their mobile device when on the move as a pain point. The drive to services including consultancy, project management and reporting will continue with recurring and repeatable business models more favoured over transactional models. Vendors in particular will drive the agenda and focus time, effort and resources on channel partners who

to be challenged with environments which may need modification or adjustment in software or hardware to work and value time. As a result, we are able to offer work alongside our partners to offer print solutions which can be ‘boilerplate’ frontend critical applications to a retail print environment or an optimised balanced deployment in a corporate HQ. Outside of our traditional print portfolio of products, we also supply a comprehensive package of resources to support projects around collaboration (web conferencing), digitisation (broad range of scanning devices) and printing on the move (field force automation).

Editorial: 01992 535646 Advertising: 01992 535647 Website: www.pcr-online.biz Twitter: @pcr_online PCR is published 12 times a year by NewBay Media - Saxon House, 6a St. Andrew Street, Hertford, Hertfordshire SG14 1JA. Fax: +44 (0)1992 535648. © NewBay Media 2015 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher. The contents of PCR are subject to reproduction in information storage and retrieval systems. Printed by Pensord.

70 | PCR June 2015

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