PCR160 January 2017

14 Entacloud Company MD Dave Stevinson on bespoke cloud services

22 Selling the cloud We break down how to sell cloud services to a variety of customers

31 The invesigative powers act F-Secure’s Sean Sullivan on the new laws

No. 160 • JANUARY 2017 COMPUTER & IT RESELLERS z RETAILERS z SYSTEM BUILDERS z DISTRIBUTORS z VENDORS

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THE PC PROBLEM

21

PCR investigates the “longest-lasting decline in the industry’s history” THE VERY definition of a recession is a decline in growth for two consecutive quarters and after two years of constant decline, it is fair to say that PC shipments are exhibiting signs of not only a recession, but a fully-fledged economic depression…

HOW TO GET A JOB IN IT – P17 PURPLE CEO GAVIN WHEELDON - P24 EVENTS CALENDAR – P28

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CONTENTS & COMMENT

Follow us @pcr_online

MEET THE TEAM Jonathan Easton Deputy Editor

CONTENTS

COMMENT

REGULARS

Happy New Year

04 Analysis 08 Number Crunching

jeaston@nbmedia.com @jonman247

09 Appointments 09 Events 11 Opinion 32 Retailer of the Month:

Sophia Murray Staff Writer

Finchley Computer Repair

smurray@nbmedia.com

Centre 33 Reseller profile: Projectfive

FEATURES Gurpreet Purewal Group Sales Manager gpurewal@nbmedia.com

14 The big interview: Entacloud 17 How to get a job in IT 18 The PC problem 22 How to sell cloud 24 Interview: Purple Wi-Fi

Sarah Goldhawk Account Manager

27 PCR Awards preview

sgoldhawk@nbmedia.com @sarzgoldhawk

28 Channel events calendar 31 The Investigatory Powers Act

Dan Bennett Designer

PRODUCTS 36 Recommended products

dbennett@nbmedia.com

40 Internal storages 42 Cloud storage and software 44 Portable storage Jason Dowie Production Executive jdowie@nbmedia.com

47 On-premise storage

OUT OF OFFICE 48 In The Hot Seat: Ebuyer’s Guy Drury 50 Team of the Month: Ci

Andrew Wooden Interactive Entertainment Content Director

Distribution North

awooden@nbmedia.com @pcr_online

Editorial: 0207 354 6002 Advertising: 0207 354 6000

Incorporating

NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Associations

ISSN: 1742-8440 www.pcr-online.biz

AFTER A whirlwind 2016 that we’re still reeling from, we find ourselves here at the beginning of another new year.

All the analysts and industry insiders might have had their say as far as predictions go for 2017, but here is a little wishlist from yours truly of things I’m looking forward to this year.

Firstly, as a huge virtual and augmented reality fan I’m really interested in seeing what’s next for the tech. We got some glimpses of concepts from Intel and got the news of Microsoft’s cut-price VR tech, but it’ll be highly intriguing to see who else enters the space and what new innovations are introduced.

I’m also very keen to see where things go with smart speakers. 2016 really saw the emergence of the tech in the public consciousness with the UK launch of the Amazon Echo’s Alexa voice assistant and the announcement of Google Home. With Microsoft also r umoured to be designing something similar for Windows 10, these are the first of what’s sure to be a tidal wave of connected speakers which we’ll start to see more of over the next 12 months.

“PCR is ready for whatever comes next and we’re delighted that you’re along for the ride.”

In terms of what’s coming up in the world of PCR we’ve got a whole load of exciting new topics and areas of discussion for you to sink your teeth into. We’ve got an issue dedicated to virtual reality, one to the Internet of Things, and even an issue where we’ll be picking apart the supply chain.

As for this issue you’re holding in your hands our heads are firmly in the clouds. That’s not us being airheaded from too much fun over the Christmas break; that’s because this issue is all about the cloud and storage.

We managed to catch up with Entacloud boss Dave Stevinson who talked us through what’s involved with creating bespoke cloud solutions and we also spoke to Purple CEO Gavin Wheeldon about utilising public Wi-fi for better business.

Elsewhere we address the concerns surrounding the Investigatory Powers Act with F-Secure’s Sean Sullivan and give our top tips for getting a new job in the channel this year.

2016 might have been a bit shaky for some of us (especially if you happened to be a celebrity) and we won’t have another situation on the scale of Brexit, but PCR is ready for whatever comes next and we’re delighted that you’re along for the ride.

Jonathan Easton, Deputy Editor jeaston@nbmedia.com

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PCR-ONLINE.BIZ ANALYSIS

A portal into the unknown RAVENSBOURNE AND DoubleMe, a company which provides mixed reality holographic experiences last month launched HoloPortal, the UK’s first facility which captures still or moving objects, and generates 3D virtual doubles placing them into virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) worlds.

HoloPortal, developed by mixed reality specialist DoubleMe, is housed at Ravensbourne in London and allows users to effectively ‘become’ the content in an efficient, affordable process new to the industry.

The whole thing works with a 3D volumetric video system and eight HD cameras spread around the facility which capture a still or moving target shot from different angles. That target is then converted into an animated 3D model or a holographic virtual reality character in real time. These models/characters can then be imported into various 3D contexts such as video games, 3D animation, VR, AR, MR (viewed through a

Microsoft HoloLens headset) and 3D printing.

DoubleMe founder Albert Kim said: “I started the project to address the industry need for simple and affordable 3D character generation by extracting 3D models from videos. However, DoubleMe now focuses heavily on the general use of HoloPortal. It is open to the general public and is free to use up to ten

“I started the project to address the industry need for affordable 3D character generation” Albert Kim, DoubleMe minutes of capturing on the premise of making holographic content public.

“We were really impressed with the calibre of industry connections here at Ravensbourne and the

opportunities to work with students, staff and the research team to progress HoloPortal was extremely appealing. We are now starting to work with students to capture various 3D models from different courses.”

Director, Linda Drew said: “We are very excited to have HoloPortal housed here at

Ravensbourne and DoubleMe within our Incubation facility.

“This is a huge advantage for our students who are able to learn about cutting edge technology before anyone else in the UK. “I look forward to seeing HoloPortal integrated into more courses within Ravensbourne.”

Holoportal is also being used by Wearable Experience for Knowledge Intensive Training (WEKIT), an ambitious European research and innovation project supported under Horizon 2020, to develop and test a novel way of industrial training enabled by smart wearable technology (WT).

Brexit? No worries THE INDUSTRY might just be making sense of Brexit but, according to new data from the RSA’s Future Impacts report, the majority of British IT and computing SMEs do not believe that the UK’s departure from the European Union is much of a threat to their business.

The commercial insurer’s study of 1,000 SMEs found that 78 per cent believe that Brexit will not have a negative effect on their business, with 43 per cent of businesses believing that leaving the EU will be positive. Despite these findings, there are three risks that SMEs have identified: economic uncertainty,

4 | PCR January 2017

increasing market competition and limited financial resources.

The study addressed the emerging threat of cyber attacks with government figures indicating that two thirds of large businesses and three quarters of SMEs having experienced some form of cyber attack. However, only nine per cent of them have cyber crime cover in place and 49 per cent of them are uninsured against these kinds of risks.

Schemes and deals director, regions and SME, commercial risk solutions at RSA, Russell White, observed that the study revealed some

interesting findings: “The technological landscape is changing at an unprecedented rate, bringing businesses both new opportunities and new threats. Despite pushing these technological advancements, SMEs are also being left behind the curve when it comes to securing themselves against the risks presented by cyber development.

“It is interesting to learn that only 12 per cent of businesses in the IT and computing sector have cyber crime cover, despite them understanding the landscape.”

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Is Amazon Go-ing to take over retail?

A grocery store might be an unexpected place to find an Amazon retail space, but it could be the start of an exciting time for brick-and-mortar stores. Jonathan Easton breaks down how Amazon’s foray into physical retail could be a boon to the High Street and the lessons that other mainstream retailers can learn from the ecommerce giant…

AMAZON HAS announced its ambitious plans to open up its own kind of store. It’s unique hook? No checkouts and no queueing to pay.

Apple shook up the retail space when its innovative stores launched in May 2001 under the tutelage of Mickey Drexler and Allen Moyer featuring no visible checkout and looking more like a car showroom than a technology shop, but Amazon is hoping to take retail to the next level.

Using computer vision, sensor fusion and deep learning – what the company calls its ‘Just Walk Out’ technology – customers swipe their phones when they enter the store and then are left to shop as they would normally. The only difference here is that when they’re done, they can ‘just walk out’ of the store and the items are charged to the customer’s Amazon account.

While Amazon Go is essentially a glorified grocery store in affluent Seattle, Washington, should the technology prove to be a hit – and there’s no indication as to why it won’t – there’s every possibility that the concept could expand to different types of stores and outside of the US. With the company registering a British trademark for the new store, we could well be seeing Amazon Go on these shores before long.

If the buzz around Amazon Go proves anything it’s that shoppers aren’t abandoning traditional retail altogether says David Saenz UK

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managing director of ondemand delivery platform Stuart: “The launch of a beta Amazon Go store in the United States is yet another example of the continuing customer desire for the bricksand-mortar store.

“This is where those retail stores who might have felt threatened by online aggregators, actually hold the advantage. With already established physical shops that can act as central-city warehouses, the high street is perfectly poised to cater to this demand.

“Yet we are still seeing a growing number of traditional retailers lose market share to those with an online-only offering. While it’s easy to suggest they lost out simply because they couldn’t compete on price, there is something else is driving

consumers’ shopping decisions: a growing desire for convenience and speed.”

Salmon digital business consultant Hugh Fletcher

“Amazon Go is another example of the continuing customer desire for the bricksand-mortar store.”

David Saenz, Stuart makes a similar assertion of the wants and needs of shoppers: “[they] are constantly telling us that they want the same speed, convenience and user-friendly

experience that online and mobile shopping provides.

“As retailers move away from traditional stores, we expect technologies like Programmatic Commerce – the concept of automatic purchasing through connected devices – to dominate the sector.”

As shoppers are looking for speed and convenience above all else, the Internet of Things (IoT) could see itself at the centre of a retail revolution, a shake up that consumers are keen on.

“Our recent study found that 57 per cent of UK shoppers will be ready for fully automated purchases through IoT devices within two years,” says Fletcher.

“Programmatic commerce can therefore drive a new age of shopping that is IoTenabled, and allow retailers to

feed the modern day customer who is now accustomed to a more direct, quick and convenient method of shopping. Amazon has been smart here – the brand was born digitally but knows that the future of retail is a perfect mix of online and physical.”

There have been many an opinion piece written about the death of the High Street, and all it takes is a look at an average town to see that a lot of stores aren’t doing as well as they once did. But Amazon seems to be charging the warpath towards a renewed and revitalised retail environment and Saenz believes that the High Street still has a lot to offer.

“The message is clear to retailers; modernise and you’ll soon find yourself on a level playing field with the ecommerce giants.”

PCR January 2017| 5

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Goodbye to one of Kickstarter’s first success stories THE NEWS CAME in on December 8th that confirmed a week’s worth of speculation: Pebble is no more.

Being purchased for something in the range of $34 million to $40 million (£27 million to £32 million), the smartwatch maker announced that it was to sell off its intellectual property rights to fitness tracker vendor Fitbit.

Pebble effectively kicked off the smartwatch fad with its Kickstarter campaign in 2012 that raised $10 million (£8 million) before many vendors had even considered the smartwatch as a potential area of investment.

In the years since however, Pebble found itself falling

down the smartwatch ladder, unable to keep up with the financial power of Motorola, Apple and Samsung. It has released seven watches since 2012, including this year’s

“It’s a bittersweet day, but I want to extend my biggest thanks to the Pebble community.”

Eric Migicovsky, Pebble Pebble 2 and Pebble Time 2.

While the products received okay reviews from critics the company struggled financially, and was forced to lay off nearly a quarter of its staff last March.

The brand’s star had fallen so far that Fitbit wasn’t even

Record-breaking Cyber Monday

CYBER MONDAY 2016 shattered records for the amount of money spent on goods by US consumers, topping $3.45 billion – making it the biggest ecommerce day in US retail history.

According to data gathered

by Adobe Digital Insights, Cyber Monday sales increased 12.1 per cent year-on-year and surpassed initial expectations that predicted total sales of $3.36 billion.

The top-selling electronics products on the day include Microsoft’s Xbox One, Sony’s PlayStation 4, Samsung 4K TVs, Apple iPhones and Amazon’s Fire tablets.

6 | PCR January 2017

interested in purchasing Pebble’s product portfolio and was only really after the company’s development team and its operating system: Pebble OS.

Principal analyst at Adobe Digital Insights, Tamara Gaffney said that the huge figures show an indication “that consumers still had more appetite for online shopping despite the incredible volume of online sales on Black Friday.”

The Data was gathered by measuring 80 per cent of all online transactions from 100 leading US retailers. Of every $10 spent at the top 500 US retailers, $7.50 goes through the Adobe Marketing Cloud sales platform.

The research group also found that eBay was the most mentioned retailer on social media during the day.

Pebble’s founder and CEO Eric Migicovsky described it as a “bittersweet day”, and while it might not have ended how he wanted, there’s no doubt that he made a huge difference to tech and deserves a fond farewell.

Out with the old and in with the blue(tooth) THE LATEST numbered update to Bluetooth technology – Bluetooth 5 – was officially adopted by the Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG) last month with significant improvements to range, speed and broadcast message capacity.

This official adoption clears the way for device makers to integrate the much improved and bulked up tech into everything from phones and PCs to wearables and smart home equipment.

The group has said that it expects Bluetooth 5-equipped products to hit the market in the next 2 to 6 months, or (quite conveniently) right around the time when the next wave of smartphones is likely to arrive.

In terms of raw performance, you can expect up to four times the range, twice the speed and about eight times the amount of data in broadcast messages. With an ever growing array of data-heavy smart home devices emerging on the market, Bluetooth 5 should be powerful enough to connect an entire home.

While this will be a big boost to the smart home market, smartwatches will also see improvement, as one of the biggest limitations to devices like the Apple Watch currently is a slow connection to phones.

The only area that doesn’t seem like it’s been improved is audio. Bluetooth 5’s improved range and speed will likely help with those

irritating instances of dropped audio, but you won’t be seeing improvements to compression, latency and power use until 2018.

The new format is primarily built around modernising Bluetooth’s range and speed and future efforts will build on the platform of version 5.

Mark Powell, executive director of the Bluetooth SIG said: “Bluetooth is revolutionising how people experience the IoT. Bluetooth 5 continues to drive this revolution by delivering reliable IoT connections and mobilizing the adoption of beacons, which in turn will decrease connection barriers and enable a seamless IoT experience.” www.pcr-online.biz

NO INTERNET REQUIRED

STATS

Number

crunching $1.8 bn

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

85% 85 per cent of enterprise IT-related tasks will be done off-premise and managed via a multi-cloud platform by 2018.

(IDC)

The market for the use of force sensors in user interfaces will be worth $1.8 billion annually by 2027.

(IDTechEx Research)

65%

52% 52 per cent of IT professionals replace their company’s computer system every 3-4 years.

(Crucial)

65 per cent of ecommerce retailers do not believe they are appropriately equipped to combat omni-channel fraud.

(Forrester Consulting)

80%

80 per cent of executives believe artificial intelligence (AI) will positively impact employee performance and drive job creation.

(Narrative Science)

8 | PCR January 2017

40%

Smart agents will manage 40 per cent of all mobile interactions in 2020.

(Gartner)

32% The UK’s digital technology industries are growing 32 per cent faster than the country’s revenue economy.

(Tech Nation)

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PEOPLE & EVENTS

TP-LINK STRENGTHENS UK DIVISION WITH NEW MANAGERIAL APPOINTMENT TP-LINK: Chinese Networking hardware manufacturer TPLink has appointed Will Liu as its new UK general manager.

Prior to this role, Liu had spent almost two years with the company as the general manager for South Africa.

Before that, he was responsible for the firm’s operations in India, Dubai, LIFESIZE: Video conferencing company Lifesize has made Vineet Misra its chief information officer, and Bryan Brown director of security and privacy. Misra and Brown will support the company’s software-as-aservice (SaaS) video communication applications.

Lifesize CEO Craig Malloy PUPPET: Automation specialist Puppet has appointed Marianne Calder as its managing director and vice president of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). This newly created role will see Calder driving Puppet’s sales, marketing, and customer operations across all three territories.

EPSON EUROPE: Printer, comminications, wearables and robotics vendor Epson has revealed Ernest Quingles and Darren Phelps as its new senior executives.

Quingles will be responsible for business sales across Europe, Middle East and Russia, while Phelps will lead the print division in Europe.

Will Liu

Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

Liu was very enthusastic about his new role, and when asked said: “I take over at a time when TP-Link’s position is exceptionally strong. “ Liu replaces Nelson Qiao who has been awarded a senior role in the running of TP-Link’s German division based in Hofheim.

Vineet Misra

said: “Misra and Brown bring invaluable experience streamlining IT operations and navigating security and governance for real-time, cloud-based applications and associated data. They will play pivotal roles in helping us ensure that our customers receive an effortless, secure and seamless experience.”

Marianne Calder

Prior to this appointment, Calder spent 21 years at Cisco as a director. Puppet CEO Sanjay Mirchandani said: “By adding Marianne to our talented executive team, we’re able to aggressively devote more resources towards scaling our international presence so we can realise our vision globally.”

Ernest Quingles & Darren Phelps

Epson Europe senior vice president Rob Clark said of the new appointments: “Ernest is a strong sales leader and Darren Phelps has extensive experience in developing new channels to market. He has proved highly effective in his previous role as Epson’s European head of reseller sales.”

Richard Roberts

Purple’s position in the growing marketplace.

Roberts said: “With Purple there is a cultural connection, which for me is critical, where core values are shared and where everyone is working for one another. I have seen this in the company, and I am looking forward to becoming a part of it.”

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

IOT TECH EXPO GLOBAL 2017 Olympia, London JANUARY 23-24TH The Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly becoming a vital part of the channel.

At the IoT Tech Expo Global 2017, Various conferences devoted to exploring IoT and the role it plays in regards to security, connected devices, wearables, as well as the development of smart cities.

NDC LONDON 2017 ICC London ExCeL JANUARY 16-2OTH A week devoted to informing software developers about their trade. Pre-conference workshops will take place on 16-17th January. The main conference will have sessions about trends and innovations across software and development.

LONDON BLOCKCHAIN WEEK 2017 Grange Tower Bridge Hotel, London JANUARY 20-26TH London Blockchain Week will gather experts from the digital landscape to discuss the emerging trend of digital currency, and how Blockchain will be the next big digital currency trend following on from the phenomenon of Bitcoin.

KPMG AND SOFTWIRE DROP-INSESSIONS: VALIDATE YOUR STARTUP Interchange Triangle, London JANUARY 18TH Softwire and KPMG have collaborated to bring attendees of this event from startups various sessions which will cover the analysis of their business and technology models.

PCR AWARDS 2017 PURPLE: Former Cisco managing director of commercial and partner sales Richard Roberts has been appointed as intelligent space company Purple’s vice president. The company believes that Roberts’ expertise and experience across the communications landscape will help to bolster

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The Brewery, London MARCH 8TH Join the biggest names in the channel for one of the essential dates on the IT calendar.

With 22 awards spread across five categories, all areas of the IT and tech industries will be covered in a glamorous night taking place in the heart of central London. Turn to page 31 for more details on how to get involved with the 2017 PCR Awards.

PCR January 2017 | 9

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OPINION

Is speed always best?

Hard-disk drive or solid-state drive?

It’s been one of the biggest questions asked of system builders for years. CMS Distribution’s Jennifer Eltringham settles the score…

On the flipside, HDDs have much WHEN YOU buy a new laptop or larger capacity options than SSD, up computer, the decision has to be to 10TB, so they’re particularly useful made between choosing an SSD or for large capacity archive storage.

HDD as your storage component. If HDDs also tends to be cheaper than you were to go to Google to try and SSDs, especially with the current find the answer, you’d be met with a shortage of NAND flash pushing up considerable number of websites and the prices of SSDs. reviews comparing the two. Price per If you take a look at the gaming GB, performance and user market, for example, there used to be requirement present a dizzying array a point where it was a definite of facts and figures that you can easily advantage to be able to load a game become lost in. With all of these quicker. But nowadays when a game considerations, should speed be the is built, the designers tend to adjust biggest deciding factor? them to make exceptions for people It is often asked why we need who are gaming from a device speed. Four out of five adults in the without an SSD, or with slower UK own a smartphone and two-thirds broadband speeds. have access to a Many games now wait tablet, both of which until everyone has provide us with lots of loaded in, or there will content, really quickly. “What it really be short pauses to This is because ensure the next part smartphones are built comes down to is of the game has with flash memory, the individual’s loaded to the same the same as SSD, as needs: cost, point for everyone. opposed to a mechanically driven speed, capacity or So what it really comes down to is the HDD. The speed in durability?” individual’s needs: is which smart phones Jennifer Eltringham, the focus cost, speed, and tablets work has CMS Distribution capacity or durability? had an impact on our These are just a few of many perception of speed, so that when we considerations for storage click on something, we expect it to components with many applications. open immediately.

With more and more people When you look at the pros and cons you’ll see that, in terms of speed, SSDs choosing to upgrade instead of buying a new laptop or PC (more on far outpace the performance of HDD this on page 17), and with the in random performance, which is increasing popularity of gaming, the particularly beneficial for operating demand for memory will only system boots.

SSDs are more durable as they have increase, bringing a boost to the channel in years to come. We should no moving parts, removing support our retailers to improve the mechanical failure risks altogether, consumer’s knowledge of memory and they are much less prone to and how both HDD and SSD can work physical damage during transport, in their favour. operation or unexpected clumsiness.

Jennifer Eltringham is a marketing executive at CMS Distribution. www.cmsdistribution.com

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The evolution of consumer storage The storage market is full of a variety of options for users. Ebuyer specialist product manager Debbie Cobb attempts to predict what the market will look like in 12 months time…

The change from 2D to 3D 2017 WILL BE a very interesting year technology has had a significant for the storage market as whole. As impact on NAND flash availability. with any prediction there is an As a result of this we have seen element of uncertainty but I believe stock shortages throughout the there will be mixed fortunes across second half of 2016 and we expect the board. this to continue during the first half While you have a new generation of the coming year. of PC modders and gamers who are Moving into 2017, the markets are investing in quality components like anticipating a steady amount of SSDs for gaming, and you also have growth for flash-based products. In households looking to NAS for addition it is expected that HDD multiple devices, there is still going sales will remain at around their to be a fall – or at least a plateauing current levels. As the data storage – of some of the previous market market continues to evolve, storage mainstays, like HDDs. methods used to supply and analyse The overall hard drive market has data become more about been in decline ever since it peaked performance rather than capacity. in 2009 where 650 million units sold Consumers are worldwide over the beginning to year. We are understand that a expecting sales in “Users are low-cost/high2016 to be capacity drive might approximately 400 beginning to be the best for million units which understand that a not what they want to get is a 38 per cent low-cost/highout of their system. drop over a 7 year We are also seeing period. For a capacity drive more and more technology that might not be best.” consumers shift hasn’t been fully Debbie Cobb, towards wireless superseded and replaced, this is a Ebuyer technology like NAS as the devices they use become remarkable and unprecedented rate more widespread, network of decline. connectivity improves and the Why the market has declined is to devices become better equipped for do with several contributing factors, less tech-savvy users. the major points being the I think it is likely that we will see a tendencies of consumers choosing gradual shift away from mid to low to adopt mobile technologies, weak capacity HDDs and that we’ll see a currency rates and the general lot of competition from the big political and economic uncertainties. manufacturers who will be pushing We anticipate that Solid State for market share in higher capacity Drive sales will continue their enterprise, NAS and capacity mobile growth throughout 2017 as this drives. These all still carry much market has experienced a year-onbetter value than their solid-state year expansion of approximately 32 capacity counterparts. per cent since 2012.

Debbie Cobb is a specialist product manager for storage at Ebuyer. www.ebuyer.com

PCR January 2017 | 11

OPINION

The Changing enterprise landscape Flash-powered storage is shaking things up and IDC Western European Storage senior research analyst Silvia Cosso has the stats to prove it…

per cent of total revenue in Q2 2016, ACCORDING TO IDC’s annual and HFA for an additional 46 per cent.

European datacentre survey, when By 2020, IDC expects 87 per cent of asked to choose the top the total external storage market to considerations for a flash storage represent flash-powered arrays (of system, improving performance which, 40 per cent will be AFA). (indicated as first choice by almost 30 An interesting trend currently per cent of respondents) lowering emerging is AFAs widening their their TCO (almost 20 per cent), and $/ reach at both the ends of the GB (18 per cent) were the top factors. enterprise spectrum: towards lowFor the first time, the TCO level has midrange/entry level arrays to target surpassed the $/GB as the main driver SMBs, as well as towards tackling when choosing a flash array. This indicates more maturity in purchasing emerging, 3rd platform workloads that are both data-intensive and behavior, since the real advantages of performance-intensive by nature. a flash system compared to an HDD This is strongly pointing to a one can be fully evaluated when considering all the expenses including maturity in the flash landscape where AFA begin to be software licenses, floor segmented to better space and energy target different expenditure. But it workloads and markets. also points at the “Flash arrays The all-flash storage reducing gap in $/GB have started market is heading differential between towards mixed HDD and flash drives. replacing HDDworkloads Although all-flash only systems”. consolidation, and arrays (AFAs) have Silvia Cosso, flash arrays have been steadily IDC Western European started replacing HDDincreasing in the Storage only systems as general market (reaching 17 purpose arrays. per cent of value of In particular, by new shipments in 2020, IDC expects the whole primary 2Q2016 in Western Europe – an eight storage to sit on flash-powered arrays, per cent year-on-year growth), hybrid with the most capacity intensive, arrays (HFAs) are still dominating the secondary storage applications to sit sales – and IDC predicts they will do on HDD-only systems. HDD systems so at least for the next five years. The are expected to experience a notable reason sits in their lower $/GB cost drop in their $/GB price. compared to AFA, as well as their The move towards the cloud and ability to reach performance and QoS converged systems has to be taken levels that are, for many enterprise into account to draw the big picture. workloads, good enough.

The emergence of 3rd Platform According to IDC’s 2Q2016 applications such as IoT, social/mobile Enterprise Storage tracker and and Big Data is speeding up the move Forecasts, the move towards flashto the cloud, and in turn changing the powered arrays in Western Europe is infrastructure landscape. well under way: AFA accounted for 17 Silvia Cosso is a senior research analyst at IDC Western European Storage uk.idc.com

12 | PCR January 2017

Rise of the Cloud Since its inception, the cloud has taken the IT world by storm. QSAN managing director David Kao however thinks that its hidden costs often go unconsidered… and it becomes clear that the WE ARE FOREVER hearing how on-premise servers and storages will widespread uptake of cloud in the UK is still a distant dream that many disappear and that businesses will be moving all of their infrastructures will not be able to achieve for some time. Until the UK is able to provide into hosted environments.

The use of acronyms such as SaaS, businesses with the connectivity to enable cloud infrastructure to PaaS, IaaS are ever increasing, flourish, we will be in a state of flux. however I don’t believe that many This marks the rise of the hybrid businesses will truly go 100 per cent cloud, where some applications or cloud any time soon. servers are hosted and some are still At this current moment in time, on site. the cloud is offering affordable and Many businesses already rely on easily manageable services, in cloud storages for backup. Services hosting specific services or such as Amazon S3 and Google infrastructures such as Exchange Cloud or appliances like Barracuda with Office 365 and Webroot are simple ways of scaling up AntiVirus, etc. These are generally storage when required (however able to be hosted for a monthly fee confusing their that can be scaled pricing structures) on something like a and allowing longper user basis. This “I don’t believe term retention of is good for the that many backup data without SMB/SME. cost of physical However, these businesses will go the hardware, at a price pricing models 100 per cent cloud not too far off from become more LTO. Yet, server expensive and any time soon. applications and more difficult to David Kao, primary data require manage when you QSA access to be faster scale up into the and more robust than enterprise space. ever before, hence the rise of all-flash.

As a result, many companies are On premise, high performance still unclear when or if ‘the cloud’ is storage is not going anywhere for a right for them. I think this is while. However, there is a change especially true when it comes to coming with how that storage is put Cloud Storage. together. With Virtual SANs and As businesses rely heavily on their Software defined storage becoming data and require access constantly, more intelligent and coupled with the reality of giving all of the trust to cheaper SAS attached DAS, or JBOD someone to house, backup and devices, or with Tier 2 vendors secure that data seems like a very making SANs capable of the same daunting prospect for many. (or better) features or performance Couple this with the prediction of Tier 1, the days of hardware from Ofcom that, by 2017, about a defined storage on expensive SANs fifth of small businesses will still not have access to superfast broadband, may indeed, be numbered.

David Kao is the managing director of QSAN. www.qsan.com

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THE BIG INTERVIEW

A head in the

clouds Cloud solutions might be a daunting and intimidating prospect for businesses, but that’s where Entatech offshoot Entacloud comes in. Jonathan Easton speaks to Dave Stevinson about the company’s role in making the cloud as simple as possible for businesses…

B

riefly sum up why Entatech decided to get into the Cloud business market Prior to the acquisition of Entatech by Stevinson Capital it became quite apparent that there was significant and extensive investment required across the entire business. Selecting a long term perspective, it was apparent that a cloud offering was a basic requirement of the anticipated needs of our customers in the future.

We believe that a gap existed in the market and that a large proportion of our customers would benefit from having their own branded cloud offering – so that is what we set out to do. We would do the heavy lifting, and allow our resellers to focus on the sales and marketing functions.

The Cloud is still a confusing concept for a lot of people, what is Entacloud doing to simplify it for the channel?

Some might say that the cloud is the most ambiguous and overused word in the channel. We have put a significant amount of resources in building a clear cloud roadmap.

This roadmap starts with the most basic of cloud solutions – infrastructure as a service (IaaS) – essentially hosting data on the cloud opposed to on-premises. The challenge here for our

14 | PCR January 2017

bleeding edge technology.

We have focused very much on the differentiators that our customer base requires – namely service, reliability and ease of use.

Entacloud enables our resellers to have their own branded cloud with zero upfront investment which comes with their own dedicated Entacloud account manager. We whitelabel the cloud in the brand of our reseller partner.

resellers is moving from earning their income from the margin on a single sale to moving to a Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) model. The Entacloud team deliver partner engagement, education, personalised service, hand-holding in short.

We work with our partners throughout the process from initial enquiry through to live deployments. We also offer regular education events, either online or at our training facilities to ensure that partners are fully comfortable with the service before they go live.

With everyone charging towards providing Cloud solutions what is Entacloud doing differently to stay ahead of the curve?

I may be a little controversial here but I tend to disagree with the question. I do not see everyone at distribution level rushing to provide cloud solutions. In terms of our closest competitors, they appear to be focusing heavily on their legacy businesses and we are yet to witness any form of cloud play. I do see huge progress from the big 4 distributors and am constantly impressed with both their vision and the scale of investment.

Our differentiation in Entacloud is not so much about staying ahead of the curve as we are not about

“Don’t ignore the cloud, but don’t just embrace it because it is shiny and fashionable.”

Dave Stevinson, Entacloud

How essential is it that companies get on board with the Cloud?

It is not essential, but it is hard not to get on board with it in some shape or form in 2017, as, quite frankly, the cloud is here to stay.

I am sure in a few years the cloud will not be referred to as the ‘cloud’ – it will be just how IT is done. I am happy to share with you a little about the demographics of our partner base in order that you understand the appetite currently. Essentially the demand comes in three distinct and discrete classes of customer types: First you have the speculators. These are resellers who partner with Entacloud and add the category to their product offering – just in case that they get a cloud enquiry.

Secondly are the reactors – the resellers who get a cloud

enquiry/order and enable themselves on Entacloud then transact as and when the cloud enquiries come.

Lastly we have what we call the Proactive Entacloud Partners (PEPs). These are the resellers who have made a positive stance and aggressively promote their own branded cloud offering powered by Entacloud with an investment in marketing and focused sales resource.

What are the biggest mistakes that businesses make when it comes to the Cloud?

I am probably not the best person to comment here, however I firmly believe that businesses that fail to engage correctly with their diligent resellers (trusted advisors) may fail to get the right blend of on-premises and cloud services applicable to their business issues. Businesses must work on that trusted relationship with their reseller partner. Perhaps the business keeps all data on premises but just uses the cloud for Disaster Recovery (DRaaS).

In summary, don’t ignore the cloud, but don’t just embrace it because it is shiny and fashionable How would you allay the concerns of Cloud skeptics who might be less than keen on the idea of their data being sent out of

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THE BIG INTERVIEW

house and stored elsewhere?

First of all, the principal of the business must make the informed decision with their reseller. We can understand their concerns, however a healthy proportion of our resellers manage a blend of on-premise, public and private clouds that are commensurate with the sensitivity of the data.

It is wise to consider the business’ policy in relation to the country that the data is stored in. Complications can potentially emerge if the data is stored outside the UK. Entacloud markets itself on a ‘Build Your Own Cloud’ platform and helps customers to create bespoke solutions. Are there any unusual situations you’ve had to deal with?

Like the first and second rule of Fight Club – we do not talk about our clients or our clients’ customers.

All I can say is that I would recommend that any reseller without a cloud offering seriously considers it in 2017.

We host Entacloud webinars twice a week, and a lot can be gained from attending one. We also offer free trials of the infrastructure and our team is always willing to help, no matter how complex the requirement. www.entacloud.co.uk

www.pcr-online.biz

PCR January 2017 | 15

From the publisher of Installation, AV Technology and SCN.

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GETTING A JOB IN IT

New Year, New Job! January is traditionally the busiest time for job hunting.

PCR talks about how can you turn those professional New Year’s resolutions and aspirations into a reality…

J

OB HUNTING can be a difficult task regardless of the kind of role you’re looking for, or the experience you have. And of course the UK PC and tech channel has its own set of recruitment market trends and quirks.

So, we polled a few experts, plus some wags here at PCR Towers, to glean the best job hunting tips and tricks, regardless of the role you’re looking for.

GET YOUR CV IN ORDER No really, get your CV in order.

We’ve all been told a million times to make sure our skills, facts and figures are accurate and up to date, but it also comes down to tone of voice – what’s going to stand out for the crowd?

Part of the problem is that, with so much advice out there already, there’s a danger your CV will simply follow the same boring old template and stock phrases that everyone else is using out there.

We’re not saying you need to go nuts and create something with animations, video and crazy images (of which you’ve probably seen various smug examples on the internet), but do make sure you keep things straighttalking, honest and using the language of the channel www.pcr-online.biz

hunting process and never look back, but we can all benefit from some advice and guidance. There are specialist recruiters out there that can work with you to pick out the best-suited roles, coach you through employer expectations and help get you that first and second interview. You can find some of them not too far away in these pages.

Three pages maximum.

And definitely don’t include the words “I’m a team player, but can also work well alone”.

MAKE SURE YOU’RE LINKEDIN If you’re anything like us, you probably spend far too much time on social media. The good news is that so do your potential employers, particularly on LinkedIn. If you have a LinkedIn account, make sure it’s as up to date as your CV – treat them as one in the same thing. A lot of recruiters will be using the Microsoft-owned professional social network to research possible candidates, and many will log on to check you out once they’ve read your CV. But it’s also worth being aware of your wider ‘digital footprint’. Are there dark secrets lurking in your Twitter feed? Are those pictures of you ‘having a bit too much fun’ at that party available publicly on Facebook?

If you’re applying for jobs, it’s probably a good time to perform some social media housekeeping…

SPEAK TO TRUSTED RECRUITMENT AGENCIES Some people can throw themselves into the job

“Never give up hope and keep an open mind – opportunities can spring out of the most unlikely of places.”

HEADING BACK TO WORK AFTER MATERNITY OR PATERNITY LEAVE? NO PROBLEM Whether you took three months, six months, a full year or more, heading back into the job market after an extended period away can seem daunting.

The thing to remember is that you most definitely haven’t lost any of the selling points you had before you started a family. The chances are you’ve actually learned some new life skills that can now be applied professionally.

The key is to find a role that suits the lifestyle you want. If a full time job isn’t possible, there are there are a lot of companies in the UK channel crying out for experienced staff at all levels who are available to work on a parttime basis.

DON’T PANIC AFTER A COUPLE OF REJECTIONS Job hunting can feel like you’re banging your head against a brick wall, but the key is not to get too frustrated or disheartened – it’s the universe’s way of steering you to your dream role.

Okay, maybe we’re being a bit too nasal-gazing here, but there are some easy things you can do to reset the entire process.

Get back to that CV and make sure it’s tailored to the job you’re after, and switch things up if necessary. Also, make sure your cover letters are also tailored for each vacancy – one size doesn’t fit all. Make sure that you’re honest with yourself – is the role you’re after the best fit for your skillset?

But most of all, never give up hope and keep an open mind – opportunities can spring out of the most unlikely of places.

DON’T PROCRASTINATE! According to boffins (well, a survey of job hunters undertaken by Samsung), 2.30pm on a Friday in the third week of January is, for some bizzare reason, when people are most likely to start looking for a new role – make sure you get ahead of them!

PCR January 2017 | 17

PC IN DECLINE

The PC problem With “the longest-lasting decline in the industry’s history”, PC shipments and sales are at an unprecedented low. Jonathan Easton asks the channel what can be done to save the seemingly doomed PC…

W

E NEED TO talk about the PC. It’s been the cornerstone of the IT industry for over 20 years but now it finds itself in a time of crisis.

Gartner reported that shipments of desktops, laptops, and ultra-mobile ‘premiums’ like the Surface devices declined 5.7 per cent in the third quarter of 2016, marking eight consecutive quarters of decline. It is, according to the research firm’s findings, “the longestlasting decline in the industry’s history”.

IDC might have slightly different numbers, but the outcome is still the same with sales around the point they were at in 2007 – 10 years ago.

The very definition of a recession is a decline in growth for two consecutive quarters and after two years of constant decline, it is fair to say that PC shipments are exhibiting signs of not only a recession, but a fully-fledged economic depression.

18 | PCR January 2017

Summing it up neatly, Forbes succinctly surmised: “PC sales stink”.

But what does the channel make of the recent misfortunes of the PC? Is the PC in its classic form, by and large, irrelevant?

“PCs will generally always be relevant,” says Platinum Components Partner Jon Harrison. “However, the form that we currently see them in will change.

“I think the big box under the desk is starting to become more than staid. Over the next few years I believe we will see a solution that lends itself to mobility with NAS as standard, super-fast uplink on Wi-Fi/4G for home access.”

76BITS CEO Mikael Berglund similarly believes that while the form factor may change, people will still want a PC for functionality: “A notebook is still a PC. I very rarely see travellers being “productive” on a tablet or smartphone.

They use a device that has a full keyboard.

“PCs will always be relevant.

However, the form that we currently see them in will change.”

Jon Harrison, Platinum Components

“People will still have PC’s but I think they will buy PC’s suited to a certain functionality. At the heart it is a PC but one might be optimised for travel, another for gaming and virtual reality (VR), another for content creation etc.”

In spite of shipments being consistently down, Utopia Computers’ Craig Hume argues that these sort of figures can be deceptive.

“Gartner blames it on the fact that most consumers now own as many as three computing devices and among these devices their desktop PC or laptop is no longer their key priority, it’s easy to understand why they might feel this way. But, as with many things in the world, I think it’s all about the way you read the figures and if you are manufacturing PCs, in turn how you position yourself in the marketplace.”

He goes on to say that even though shipments might be down, major vendors such as

HP, Lenovo and Google are seeing nothing but success.

“Each one of these businesses has seen their PC hardware profit increase. HP’s operating profit was 4.3 per cent or better in the last two quarters. In fact, HP’s PC business is at its highest operating profit since 2012.”

Harrison however believes that more has to be done in order for PCs to keep up with their booming mobile counterparts. “PC has slowly been in decline for years, however the change in its function and place in a family home would boost sales again in my option.

“Workstations will always be required, I believe, in terms of whether a thin client is used or PC. Eventually more mobile integration will be required, it’s just the way the market is moving.”

THE WINDOWS 10 EFFECT PC shipments had been in decline for a long time before the launch of Microsoft’s www.pcr-online.biz

PC IN DECLINE

latest operating system but it is no secret that the company has a massive effect on what goes on in the PC market.

“Windows 10 has improved the PC space,” says Berglund.

“A better OS all round is good for the consumer but has allowed people to extend the useful life of the hardware they currently have. For one client we upgraded their 40 Windows 7 PCs to Windows 10 thereby putting off the need for them to purchase new hardware.”

And this is a big reason why consumers are less likely to buy a new computer. With the company’s persistent pushing of Windows 10, many users who would previously have bought a new computer for the new operating system instead kept their older machine with a new, free OS update that is better designed for less powerful machines.

As Network Group managing director Phylip Morgan points out, Microsoft made Windows 10 “available www.pcr-online.biz

on mobile, tablet and PC for more efficient working between devices,” giving users little reason to boot up a new computer, rather leading them to rely on their preexisting and established ecosystem of devices.

Loren Loverde, vice president of Worldwide Tracker Forecasting and PC research at IDC, said the option to upgrade to the new OS meant that some users were postponing an upgrade “a little, but not indefinitely”.

“Some consumers will use a free OS upgrade to delay a new PC purchase and test the transition to Windows 10.

However, the experience of those customers may serve to highlight what they are missing by stretching the life of an older PC, and we expect they will ultimately purchase a new device,” she says. If they actually will purchase a new machine however remains to be seen.

A less glamorous feature of Windows 10 is Office 365, but

“We’re selling more PCs than ever and we have already stopped the declines.”

Andrew Gibson, Overclockers UK

that has shown legs and will be at the centre of consumers’ devices, believes Harrison: “I think Microsoft Office 365 is going to be something that develops with more cloud or a small office or home app for your own NAS cloud and office solutions.”

Effectively, for average users Windows 10 has pointed towards a future that is increasingly mobile, and is not tied down to devices with powerful processors or huge hard drives.

There is one market that flies in the face of that belief though: gaming.

GAME THEORY While owners who just use their PC for web browsing and maybe a bit of word processing might see little reason to upgrade their machine in 2017, PC gaming is one area that has seen huge amounts of progress thanks, in no small part, to the demands of VR, and is leading the way for PC sales.

According to its September 2016 Forecast Snapshot on gaming PCs, Gartner makes the prediction that: “device upgrades and propensity to spend more on gaming PCs will drive end-user spending from $6.7 billion in 2015 to more than $9 billion in 2020.

Strategic planners at PC manufacturers must market purpose-built PCs such as gaming PCs as part of their profitability strategy.”

In other words: if you want to build and sell powerful PCs for the foreseeable future, you’ve got to get in with the gaming crowd.

That market is seeing a big upswing and retailers who deal in gaming PCs are surprised to hear of decline.

Andrew Gibson at Overclockers UK says that the “PC market is nothing but booming and showing growth as more customers move from gaming consoles.

We’re selling more PCs than ever and we have already stopped the declines.

PCR January 2017 | 19

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PC IN DECLINE

“Sales trends at Overclockers UK are up.”

Likewise, Paul Middleton of PC-PartX says that “gaming PCs are on the incline, so we don’t really see a decline”.

It’s easy to see why gaming PCs are a fruitful market when considering the hype and furore surrounding VR and how the majority of gamers who want to pick up a headset are required to upgrade their gaming rig.

At the beginning of 2016, Puget Systems founder Jon Back spoke to Maximum PC about how gaming PCs are flourishing and his statements ring as true today as they did a year ago: “At Puget Systems, our high end gaming PC sales have never been better.

“Windows 10, Skylake, 4K, VR, and a strong year of title launches, has made 2015 a strong year for enthusiast gaming PCs, and we expect 2016 to be even stronger.

“Keep in mind, when Gartner and IDC talk about PC shipments, they’re talking about the volume market, and most of the volume is entry level. We enthusiast PC www.pcr-online.biz

builders live is a completely different world!”

And maybe that’s the thing.

Maybe the PC world is divided up into two factions. Those that want that classic mouse and keyboard setup for performance – whether that be gaming or content creation – and those who simply just have a computer for basic web browsing and maybe watching a few videos.

A 2-in-1 solution While performance users are as dedicated to PCs as ever, that latter market is slipping away to tablets and smartphones. But are convertibles the answer for more casual users?

“I think convertibles are a good solution to the onscreen keyboard issues (they are not great, taking up a lot of screen and being harder to type on),” says Harrison. “I personally would buy one over a laptop or PC now as long as the CPU, memory and so forth backed up the performance I need along with the flexibility a two-inone gives.”

“I don’t think the PC is dead, but it is just in the downward stage of the technology cycle.”

Tracy Pound, Maximity

Morgan holds a similar belief: “It will be the answer for some people. For middle managers/staff in jobs that require mobile working, there will be huge take up.”

However, some believe that the two-in-one devices present something of a halfway house: “Convertibles are still a compromise in my opinion,” says Berglund.

“When they get thinner and lighter they will be more appealing. Perhaps the Lenovo Yoga Book is heading in the right direction.”

It is impossible and largely impractical to say in which direction the PC market is going to go. On one side you have analysts who have spent the past few years spelling out disaster; but on the other you have the actual retailers in the trenches saying that they’re selling more PCs than ever before.

As the wants and needs of users change, it is an almost certainty that the form of the PC will shift away from what Harrison calls “the box under the desk”. Gaming PCs are probably going to get even

bigger and more ostentatious, while – as we have seen with the Microsoft Surface Studio – vendors will adapt and experiment with form factors to make their systems suit the wants of more mobile users.

Maximity director, CompTIA executive council member, and PCR Woman of the Year Tracy Pound believes that the PC hasn’t gone away for good: “I’ve been in the IT industry for 32 years and what I have noticed in that time is that technology goes in cycles.

When I first started, PCs were just coming into businesses and they boomed, then once they got power behind them the industry went back to centralised processing and control, then the PC rose again and once again its use is being questioned. I don’t think the PC is dead, but it is just in the downward stage of the technology cycle.”

I think Pound may be right.

We might be calling it a crisis right now, but in a few years time we may well look back on this period as a time where the PC was revolutionised forever for the better.

PCR January 2017 | 21

ANALYSIS

Does every cloud have a silver lining?

Selling cloud solutions to consumers and SMBs requires different approaches.

Sophia Murray looks at ways resellers can cater to a variety of customers…

S

elling cloud solutions to anyone who is not an SMB or SME can be rather tricky. Public, private and hybrid cloud management solutions aren’t exactly designed for average customers, but these users are next in line when it comes to purchasing cloud-based technology.

Cloud data centre expansions across various regions of the UK thanks largely in part to the likes of IBM and Microsoft building their own devoted cloud centres, (even Amazon is thinking about getting in on the act), the window of opportunity to sell to the public is getting greater, and resellers should begin thinking about how customers outside of the business sectors can also benefit from being sold cloud technology.

After all, rapid cloud adoption will dictate how resellers go about selling the cloud to this particular

22 | PCR January 2017

market. Neil Martin, marketing manager at Panda Security explains how resellers can sell cloud solutions to both sides of the market: “The days of buying a standalone boxed software package are in the past, with boxes more often containing download links and activation codes printed on a download card inside.

“This has meant a larger number of Panda Security resellers are avoiding the traditional retail box or OEM for bundling, and are instead choosing to manage all their clients no matter if they are a consumer, SMB or enterprise.”

Another way resellers can tap into the general consumer market is by providing secure and uncomplicated cloud solutions that they can use.

This is a particular aspect that BullGuard CEO Paul Lipman emphasises: “Ease-of-use and security. If we’re talking about cloud-based backup, people want to be able to store their important files and images securely. There is some

“By positioning themselves as a cloud security service provider, resellers are easily able to explain the security benefits to all types of clients.”

Paul Lipman, BullGuard

hesitation about cloud-based security because of highprofile breaches like the infamous leaked celebrity photos, but this particular breach happened as the result of phishing emails that tricked lots of people into revealing their passwords.”

High profile security breaches have not done cloud-based solutions any favours, but Lipman also points out how resellers can tell consumers that the cloud is safe: “By positioning as a cloud security service provider, resellers are easily able to explain the security benefits to all types of clients.

Cloud security, always updated, lightweight, and with complete visibility of their clients’ status.

This is also how resellers can ensure that their clients are protected, as well as maintaining contact with them to ensure repeat business.”

If resellers expect to be able to rise to the challenge of selling cloud technology

outside of their typical clientele, they need to be able to inform average buyers about this particular infrastructure explains KEMP European regional director Ed Martin: “The cloud adds its own level of complexity. Most resellers who tend to have successful sales rates of this type of technology, are the ones who keep up-to-date with all the different types of cloud solutions for their customers.”

For resellers, this also means being able to identify the difference between selling public and private cloud-based solutions. Martin believes that these subtle differences have divided the solutions. “For legacy vendors and resellers, this has split the two infrastructures. The difference between enterprise and public cloud adoption is getting bigger, as demand for these types of solutions grow.

“I liken the difference to virtualisation. This is something people initially

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ANALYSIS

knew little about. The tipping point came when everyone wanted a virtualisation strategy to stay relevant. We are at that point now with cloud adoption.”

While businesses have, by and large, embraced cloud adoption and migration fully, Martin has his thoughts on why mass cloud adoption among the wider general consumer market has not been completely straightforward. “Whenever something like the cloud comes about, there is always a certain amount of reluctance based on it being a new technology. There have been some incidents that have occurred which have caused some people to be a little bit more cautions. These kind of things have delayed wide spread adoption.

“Having said that, the general experience of what can be done using the cloud for the public is something that will continue to increase, and will become the norm over time.” www.pcr-online.biz

Selling cloud solutions to general customers will become easier as this side of the market begins to trust the technology according to Martin, “As the cloud continues to grow in popularity, the reluctance to adopt these solutions will disappear as people gain confidence and trust in their own abilities to use cloud solutions. The general public is already making a transition towards cloud-based solutions by using cloud services along with their favourite mobile applications.

Once they see cloud successfully used throughout the business market – they will follow suit.”

Before resellers become concerned about how they should go about selling these solutions, they should make sure that they are ensuring the solutions they’re introducing to consumers are safe and simple to use.

This seems to be the general opinion among cloud-based security vendors

“Whenever something like the cloud comes about, there is always a certain amount of reluctance based on it being a new technology.”

Ed Martin, KEMP Technologies

who are now having to align their cloud products with consumer expectations of ease-of-use. “From a customer perspective, convenience does tend to trump most things. Having the ability to have a product that is simple to manage is crucial and it’s important that the channel delivers this,” says WatchGuard northern Europe’s sales, director Jonathan Whitley.

Without the cooperation of resellers in the channel brushing up on their knowledge about the cloud, they could easily miss their opportunity to sell these solutions to their nonenterprise customers, Whitley also emphasises: “It depends on the reseller, one of the requirements that we have for our certified partners is that we accredit them based on technical certifications and technical skills instead of a model that is just based on sales volumes. That has put us in a really strong position.

Generally speaking, our

channel partners have a very good understanding of the product we sell.”

Despite the differences of selling cloud solutions to consumers and businesses, resellers should not treat these differences as obstacles.

The emergence of hybrid cloud solutions (combining both private and public cloud technologies) means that vendors and resellers now have an even better opportunity to sell to consumers and businesses.

Resellers in the channel should also concern themselves with partnering with vendors who are delivering solutions that meet the wants and needs of businesses and consumers.

In order to sell cloud-based technology, they first have to keep up with what the solution is and how it can be sold to both markets without alienating their target market.

When this happens, resellers will prosper and may find that every cloud does have a silver lining after all.

PCR January 2017 | 23

INTERVIEW

GETTING CONNECTED Purple’s CEO Gavin Wheeldon talks to Sophia Murray about the Wi-Fi company’s motivations and solutions…

T

ell us a bit about Purple We provide an overlay solution on top of existing Wi-Fi networks. We get the devices on-board whether it’s social or a short form. The really interesting bit is the real-time and historic analytics we drive from these networks.

Everything you’d expect from a website we can deliver in a physical space. We deploy our Wi-Fi solutions in 73 countries. Wherever there is a public space, chances are that you’ll find our Wi-Fi.

24 | PCR January 2017

What type of resellers does the company partner with?

We typically partner with the same type of resellers that would sell Cisco, Ruckus and Aruba, so they are already selling Wi-Fi equipment.

Ideally, they are also selling connectivity then bringing our platform on top.

Because of the analytical end of what we do, we also have some non-traditional resellers like marketing agencies. These agencies have got a chief marketing officer (CMO), who is taking

“We do business with very small local resellers right the way to Verizon. It’s a real broad cross section.”

Gavin Wheeldon, Purple

our solutions, reselling them to their customers and partnering with one of the IT partners to ensure we have a multiple routes to market.

One of the challenges we have is that some traditional IT resellers do not tend to have any CMO relationships.

We also do business with very small local resellers who sell our services to local bars and restaurants right the way to Verizon. You’ve also got your big system integrators like CDW – it’s a real broad cross section.

It has been about finding partners that are interested in the evolution of understanding solution selling, line of business and talking about outcomes.

What solutions can be built around Purple’s API? I’ll give you two examples where our partners have done some really interesting things.

One partner based in eastern Europe has taken the real-time API, looked at who is in the venue – which are typically bars and restaurants

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INTERVIEW

that we cater to – and created a music stream based on the demographics of the people who are in the venue at any given time.

Another example is one of our other partners linking into digital displays. Again, looking at the type of individual who is near a digital display, and then changing content based on the proximity of either specific people, or demographic groups.

Is that based on an algorithm?

www.pcr-online.biz

It is, yes. If more than 60 per cent of people in a venue are under the age of 24 then it recommends switching to certain songs. Because people log in with Facebook, we also have all of their likes. This means specific tracks are played for a targeted group of people based on their likes.

How many firms have taken Purple’s Wi-Fi solution and built around it?

I think we have about 85 or 90 white label solutions around

the world; companies that have gone out and built their brand around our solution.

“Wi-Fi provides a great base layer for user intelligence.”

Gavin Wheeldon, Purple

Can you tell us what Purple’s Internet of Things (IoT) strategy is?

For us, if you take physical spaces, there has never been any data about what goes on inside of them. Wi-Fi provides a great base layer for that intelligence. If you walk into a venue, your device starts looking for your Wi-Fi network by default, and it pings away in the background looking for

that. Purple picks that up, and we say “there’s a device here (based on the map address) and we know it’s a Samsung or an Apple device.” We know nothing else about you, other than there is a device here.

You can then start adding in IoT devices, heat, humidity - whatever it might be at the basic end and gauge how these factors impact the external environment. We then measure the impact these factors have. We can link pretty much any data source into our portal.

PCR January 2017 | 25

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VIP will always deal with you professionally and courteously | VIP will never leave you with a problem of our own making VIP will always be informative in our communications | VIP will look to support you and grow your business VIP will help educate you about our channel | VIP will always be fair to you VIP will always be competitive on price Not kept our promise? Please tell us because your feedback will help us to deliver a better service. You can speak directly to our Managing Director, Rich Marsden on 07554 455 439 or rich.marsden@vip-computers.co.uk

PC Gaming & Hardware Distributor Award Winner 2016

EVENTS CALENDAR

Attend the PCR Awards The PCR Awards are fast approaching. Find out all you need to know about the event and how you can be there on the night to celebrate the successes of the past year with the biggest and brightest names of the UK IT channel…

Sponsored by:

DEADLINE FOR ENTRY: 3RD JANUARY 2017

Wednesday 8th March 2017 - The Brewery, London

www.pcr-awards.com | @pcr_online | #pcrawards

N

OMINATIONS MIGHT have closed by the time you’re reading this, but there’s still ample time for you to make sure you’ve picked up your ticket for the biggest date in the UK IT trade calendar: the 2017 PCR Awards.

Taking place at The Brewery in Central London (right around the corner from The Barbican) on Wednesday March 8th, the night will be full of opportunities to network and catch up with old business partners as the entire channel comes together for one night only to celebrate and reflect on the past year’s achievements.

The awards themselves are broken up into five categories, recognising the channel’s best retailers, resellers, channel service providers, distributors and vendors. Of course, we

www.pcr-online.biz

have the biggest award of the night: the PCR Company of the Year 2017. Last year saw Dell walking away with the Grand Prix, but with the channel as exciting and competitive as ever, who wins this year is anybody’s guess!

With one of the UK’s leading IT distributors Entatech acting as headline sponsor and Exertis, one of Europe’s largest and fastest growing tech distribution and specialist providers, sponsoring the after party, the night will no doubt be one to remember (even if parts of it might get a bit blurry towards the end for some of you).

Don’t worry though, you’ll have photographic evidence thanks to Photo Booth sponsor Ci Distribution.

Travel to the venue couldn’t be easier: a five minute walk away from both

Barbican and Moorgate stations, and 10 minutes away from Old Street.

Travelling from outside of London and need a place to rest your head after a night of socialising and rest your hands after all the applause?

Don’t worry, you can go to tinyurl.com/PCRAwards2017 to see all the latest hotel deals near to the venue.

Alternatively, if you’d like a bit of a personal touch to the process you can contact Jessica, our dedicated hotel expert for the event. Pop her an email at Jessica@ HotelMap.com with your requirements, phone number and Special Reference Code of W-M7MCH, and she’ll be in touch to discuss options.

Tickets for the event are available now. If you want to attend the event (and why wouldn’t you), you can drop

“With the channel as exciting and competitive as ever, who wins at this year’s PCR Awards is anybody’s guess!”

an email to Maeve Nicholson (mnicholson@nbmedia.com) and she’ll be able to sort you out with a place on a table.

Lastly, if you are interested in getting involved with the event as a sponsor, you can speak to either Sarah Goldhawk (sgoldhawk@ nbmedia.com, +44 (0)207 354 6024) or Gurpreet Purewal (gpurewal@nbmedia.com, +44 (0)207 354 6029). Last year saw sponsors including Acer, Intel, Entatech, Nvidia, Exertis and more. The PCR Awards present an amazing opportunity to reach out to the entire channel so it will be great for you regardless of your business.

For more information about the event head over to www.

PCR-Awards.com. The best of luck to those who entered and we look forward to seeing you in a couple of months.

PCR January 2017 | 27

EVENTS GUIDE

Make your 2017 eventful There are quite simply dozens, probably hundreds, of events that you could attend in 2017. We’ve rounded up the essentials…

I

f you work in the IT trade, the chances are you’re super busy running your business most of the time. But there’s also the need to occasionally raise your head and see what’s going on in the wider world.

The good news is that the tech market is awash with events that will allow you to keep up with the latest trends and meet new partners in 2017, from conferences and expos to networking and awards nights.

And whatever you do, make sure you put our awesome PCR events in your diaries – starting with the PCR Awards on March 8th

Do you have an idea for an event or a specific issue you’d like to address with the market face to face? PCR runs bespoke events for the channel within the UK. Please contact Sarah Goldhawk for more information about how we might be able to help you on sgoldhawk@ nbmedia.com or call +44(0)207 354 6024.

28 | PCR January 2017

CES 2017

SXSW 2017

Las Vegas, USA

Austin, Texas

JANUARY 5TH-8TH Kick off the year with 177,000 delegates spanning 2.47 million net square feet of exhibit space packed with the latest and greatest technological innovations. www.ces.tech

MARCH 10TH-19TH A nine-day festival of everything and anything in the worlds of digital, entertainment and tech.

Everyone should go at least once. www.sxsw.com

DISTREE EMEA 2017

BETT 2017

Grimaldi Forum, Monaco

Excel, London

FEBRUARY 21ST-24TH Now in its 15th year, DISTREE EMEA is based on one clear concept: inviting and bringing highlevel buyers together with senior vendor executives to meet and talk business. www.distree-emea.com

JANUARY 25TH-28TH The biggest education technology show in the UK and a ‘must go’ for anyone operating in the education space. www.bettshow.com

WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY SHOW 2017

MOBILE WORLD CONGRESS

Excel, London

Fira, Barcelona

MARCH 7TH-8TH If it’s technology and you can wear it, it’ll be in London’s Docklands in early Spring. This one is definitely not to be missed. www.wearabletechnologyshow.net

FEBRUARY 27TH-MARCH 2ND Everything you’ll ever need to see in the world of mobile phones and wireless technology, across 100,000 square metres of expo space. www.mobileworldcongress.com

PCR AWARDS 2017

CEBIT 2017

The Brewery, London

Hannover, Germany

MARCH 8TH The PCR Awards return on Wednesday, March 8th, boasting a mix of networking, partying and recognition of achievements in the UK PC and tech industries. www.pcr-awards.com

MARCH 20TH-24TH Boasting an expo and conference, CeBIT defines the latest trends, presents talks by high-calibre speakers, forward-looking panel discussions and showcases product innovations. www.cebit.de

www.pcr-online.biz

EVENTS GUIDE

SAGE SUMMIT UK

INFOSEC 2017

IFA BERLIN 2017

London, UK

Olympia, London

Berlin, Germany

APRIL 5TH-6TH In 2017, Sage Summit evolves into the Sage Summit Tour, an essential series of events for entrepreneurs and business builders. www.sage.com

JUNE 6TH-8TH Europe’s largest and most comprehensive security conference programme, complete with 360 exhibitors and 13,500 visitors. www.infosecurityeurope.com

SEPTEMBER 1ST-6TH IFA is a European trade show for consumer electronics and home appliances, providing international distributors with the opportunity to meet potential suppliers and partners. www.ifa-berlin.de

COMPUTEX TAIPEI

LONDON TECHNOLOGY WEEK

MICROSOFT IGNITE

Taipei, Taiwan

London

Orlando, USA

MAY 30TH-JUNE 3RD Computex is back for another year in Taipei.

The show will cover the whole spectrum of ICT, from PC products (70 per cent) to IoT applications (30 per cent). www.computextaipei.com.tw

JUNE 12TH-16TH London Tech Week is a festival of live events across the city, showcasing and celebrating the best of tech whilst providing networking, social, learning and business opportunities. www.londontechweek.com

SEPTEMBER 25TH-29TH Five days of hands-on learning, industry insights, and direct access to Microsoft product experts – all in one place. www.ignite.microsoft.com

PCR WOMEN OF THE YEAR 2017

E3 2017

COMPTIA EMEA 2017

London, UK

Los Angeles, USA

London

JUNE The search for the top women in the UK PC and tech industry is once again underway for 2017 – stay tuned for updates! www.pcrwomenoftheyear.com

JUNE 13TH-15TH Games, games and more games. If you distribute or sell them, get yourself out to LA for three days of extremely loud show floor action. Just make sure that you pack plenty of hand sanitiser. www.e3expo.com

OCTOBER CompTIA’s EMEA Member and Partner Conference brings together a diverse fellowship drawn from a broad geographic region – exact date and location TBC. www.comptia.org

APPLE WORLDWIDE DEVELOPERS CONFERENCE

SYNAXON CONFERENCE

MICROSOFT FUTURE DECODED 2017

San Francisco, USA JUNE Apple’s annual celebration of all things, um, Apple. Exact date TBC for 2017, but you can be sure it’ll set the tech news agenda. www.developer.apple.com

www.pcr-online.biz

Park Inn, Heathrow JUNE 15TH-16TH 2017 Following on from the success of the 2016 event, Synaxon is back for its 7th annual conference which will bring together all the biggest names in the channel. www.synaxon.co.uk

Excel, London NOVEMBER Microsoft’s annual showcase of products and services to help you grow your digital business. www.futuredecoded.microsoft.com

PCR January 2017 | 29

THE TOURNAMENTS, THE PEOPLE, THE GAMES AND THE BUSINESS. GET INFORMED AND GET CONNECTED TO THE WORLD OF ESPORTS.

WWW.ESPORTS-PRO.COM

WHAT DO WE COVER? Tournaments All the vital news from the biggest tournaments on the planet – who won what, what the leagues are doing and what it means for everyone else.

People The players, the bosses, the celebs and the rising stars – all you need to know about the movers and shakers across the globe.

Games Updates, gameplay changes, new releases and previews. Everything you need to know about the key titles at the heart of the eSports scene.

Business Who’s sponsoring who, who’s making partnerships and what are the investment opportunities? Here we’ll cover off the commercial forces behind the action.

@eSports_Pro

INTERVIEW

The Investigatory Powers that be With the recent passing of the Investigatory Powers Act, internet civil liberties are being scrutinised more than ever.

F-Secure security advisor Sean Sullivan talks to Jonathan Easton about the law and our relationship with the internet…

T

he Investigatory Powers Act recently passed into law with little fanfare. What are your thoughts on what the new law means for cybersecurity?

My colleague, Erka Koivunen, took part in a panel to a joint committee of parliament in December 2015. One of the questions that was asked at the time was, is this bill “future proof”?

What does the new law mean? What will be the actions and reactions to its passing? The government’s new powers will spur new innovations and, before long, the government’s investigative powers will be out-of-date.

For example, based on my reading of the bill some months ago, I don’t think citizen-powered mesh networks are covered.

If a

few thousand people decide to set up a private Wi-Fi mesh network in central London… what’s the government going to do?

Such private networks are not “communication service providers”. Wi-Fi networks already exist in several cities in Europe, mainly because of cost. But now in the UK, one may emerge as a reaction to the IPBill.

What are the positives – if any – of the Investigatory Powers Act from a security perspective?

At this point in time, I don’t know. It very much depends on how it is implemented.

Will the government insist that VPN service providers are “CSP”s and force backdoors? If yes, I don’t think the security benefits will outweigh the negatives caused by bad engineering.

There is also a significant danger of gathering too much information – too much hay in the haystack. But if the government can remain focused, the IPBill could make it easier for the big Internet giants to work with the government.

With the new law, what can disgruntled users do to retain privacy?

I long ago made moves to reduce my usage of multiple online services and user accounts. I rarely log in to Facebook and I don’t have a Google account. If I had an Android phone I’d create a new “admin” account just for that device – as I do for my existing hardware. I don’t mix “communication accounts” with “admin accounts”.

So, in short, if you want to retain your privacy first, get organised. Then investigate various sorts of technology to enhance that privacy.

“Before long, the government’s investigative powers will be out-of-date.”

Sean Sullivan, F-Secure

One of the biggest areas of focus for F-Secure is VPN, an area that is generally the realm of the more tech savvy consumer. What are you doing to make it more friendly for average users?

As a paying customer of Freedome, I don’t think it could be much easier. My father uses it on his phone just fine. The hard part isn’t using the software – it’s making people aware of what it’s for.

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Are people growing more aware of the potential threats facing them on mobile devices, or do you believe that most consumers think that their devices are 100 per cent secure?

Mobile devices are generally secure from commoditised crimeware threats. And because they are, people generally assume that mobile devices are far safer than they really are. Nothing is 100 per cent secure.

What are the biggest security problems associated with the cloud?

Too many passwords. In many ways, the cloud is more secure.

But the problem is often securing the access to that secure cloud. Multifactor authentication is very important for primary accounts.

What can users do to ensure that their data – on their computers or in the cloud – is secure?

Uninstall software that you don’t use. Make sure that the software that you use is up to date. Use a password manager and maintain unique password for your various accounts. Use security software to defend your devices.

Ransomware is the big topic of discussion in the cybersecurity community right now, but what threats are on the horizon?

Extortion via targeted hacking. The bulk of cryptoransomware is currently pushed via spam.

Hospitals and schools are being targeted via vulnerable servers. San Francisco’s public transit system was recently affected by an extortionist.

Systems such as that could be targeted next, and the trend will be for hackers to push further downstream to smaller organisations, and perhaps even individuals.

PCR January 2017 | 31

RETAILER OF THE MONTH

FACT FILE Year established: 2011 Number of staff: 4 Address: 231 Nether Street, West Finchley, N3 1NT Telephone: 0208 371 6655 or 0208 371 6688 Email: info@finchleycrc.co.uk Website: www.finchleycrc.co.uk

Finchley Computer Repair Centre Finchley Computer Repair Centre is a traditional retailer with big plans.

Sophia Murray talks to MD Reza Chaparian about smart home repairs and business expansion…

Tell us about Finchley Computer Repair Centre’s background and how the company began.

We started Finchley Computer Repair Center back in June 2011. In total we have been in the IT business for more than 15 years, and during this time we have realised that there is a lot of demand for computer repair services. These demands come from our general and business customers looking for hardware to complete computer repair services.

What have been the biggest challenges for the store, and how have you managed to overcome them?

32 | PCR January 2017

For us, the biggest challenges are in the sales department because we cannot compete with the bigger ecommerce retailers. We have the same problem when it comes to computer parts. Customers will go online and look at sites like eBay and Amazon and then we’ll have to match the price of the parts they have found on the internet.

Are you fixing more tablets than PCs these days?

Yes, we are. More people are using tablets than ever before, so we have more customers who come to us with tablet problems.

We’ve noticed an increase in the amount of tablet

repairs we are asked to do in comparison to the types of repairs we were asked to do at least two or three years ago.

How do you go about training your staff and what are your main goals for the future?

Technology changes very quickly, which is why it’s important that our staff remain up to date with what is going on. We make sure that they can keep up with these changes by having training sessions each month.

During these sessions we catch up on all the latest IT related news.

Our goal is to expand our business. We intend to have

“We’ve been in the IT business for more than 15 years. We have realised that there is a lot of demand for computer repair services.”

Reza Chaparian, Finchley Computer Repair Centre

more branches based in London because having a chain of retailers should help to reduce our costs and boost our profits. One of the main benefits this expansion will provide for our customers is that these branches will be devoted to different services like tablet, PC and other sorts of repair services.

We also have plans to break into the smart home market in the future too. There are lots of diffent smart home devices right now and we think with our branch expansions, we’ll be able to provide repairs for this technology because it has a lot of potential to be very popular in the future. www.pcr-online.biz

RESELLER PROFILE

RESELLER PROFILE: PROJECTFIVE ProjectFive managing director Steve Coburn tells Sophia Murray about the company’s ethos as a reseller…

Customers are putting projects on hold, and not wanting to spend money upgrading. This is not because of the increase in costs of the software and hardware – they are making their decision before even seeing the pricing. This is due to the uncertainty around how well the economy will be performing next year.

We recognise that the business world is one of many different priorities in the political world, and that for Brexit there are a lot of different factors that would affect someone’s decision to leave or remain, but business has definitely suffered since the vote.

Tell us about how Projectfive got started We actually started out by doing the forensic data recovery for the Enron Investigation, but we couldn’t tell anyone that’s what we were doing. At that time, we noticed that our accountant and our solicitor were struggling to relate to their IT Provider. So, we stepped in to help them understand, and soon found ourselves in a position where we were helping them more than their IT Providers were. So we decided to become one ourselves.

What type of work culture does Projectfive foster and what awards have you won?

Our core values are to help people, make friends and stand out. In a crowded market place, it’s easy for us to stand out, because it’s ingrained in all of us. It runs through our entire culture.

When designing our processes, we don’t ask ourselves “is this going to be efficient?” We ask ourselves “is this going to make someone remember us, and help us stand out?” Our efforts are driven towards helping the local business community and the local environment. From events such as organising #WinterPimms, a networking event for 150 businesses to raise funds for Surrey Wildlife Trust, to organising the local car show which draws 60,000 people. We also hold seminars to help businesses understand the latest technology trends. This gives us a very visible profile and means that most

businesses in the area already know who we are.

We let our customers come to us when they need us. We have won awards, such as the CRN SME Reseller of the Year and the IoD SME Director of the Year for London and the South East.

Has Microsoft’s price hike of its business enterprise cloud solutions had an impact at all for you?

It has not really had an impact on us. Our customers

“We just love the feeling we get when we have helped a friend by solving an IT problem for them.”

Steve Coburn Projctfive

are intelligent enough to predict that price rises were inevitable following the collapse in value of the pound. The price that a US software giant charges doesn’t detract from the great service our customers get from us.

Have you felt much of an impact from Brexit?

We have definitely experienced a slow down in the market since the EU Referendum vote.

As a reseller that caters to the SMB/SME market, what can you tell us about this specific market, and what has been the key to Projectfive’s success within this group?

The key to our success lies within our culture and our core values. We’ve already spoken about standing out in the market, but helping people and making friends are what appeals most to our customers.

Simon Sinek famously said that “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. We just love the feeling we get when we have helped a friend by solving an IT problem for them. Helping people and making friends is something that our customers can relate to.

We’re not here to sell lots of stuff or play with cool tech. Our customers quickly become our friends and friends are always there to help each other.

Projectfive is a multi-solution reseller based in Camberley, Surrey. www.projectfive.co.uk

www.pcr-online.biz

PCR January 2017 | 33

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New Products Dedicated monthly product coverage

With stiff Android competition from Google’s Pixel, Samsung will look to outmuscle other smartphones with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor.

The latest tech Editorial planner

The S8 is expected to come in 5.2 inch and 6.2 inch varieties, with the latter sporting a 4K UHD display.

Are you ready for the Galaxy S8?

TO SAY that 2016 has been a tough year would be a bit of an understatement at this point. Whether it’s politics, war, the environment or much-loved celebrities dropping like flies, it’s safe to say historians will review the last 12 months as a de facto ‘annus horribilis’.

The tech industry has not been immune, and Samsung in particular has endured a particularly unpleasant bout

of exploding Galaxy Note 7s.

But as we approach the end of the year, the South Korean electronics giant is generating column inches of a more positive variety ahead of the muchanticipated launch of the Galaxy S8 smartphone.

Samsung is expected to unveil the device officially at the Mobile World Congress trade show in late-February, with High Street availability

following during March/ April (though most commentators add the caveat that the Note 7 battery furore may push that date back a little on account of extended testing).

All of which means the rumour mill is now in overdrive, with speculation rife as to what features Samsung will pack in to its flagship mobile device to keep up with Apple and ward

off a Google emboldened by its Pixel phones.

One thing Samsung got absolutely spot on with the S7 was the form factor, so we’re expecting that to remain much the same in the next Galaxy incarnation.

Instead, most pundits are expecting the innovation to be invested in the processor (Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 for Western markets), display (5.2 inch or 6.2 inch 4K UHD

options) and Siri-style AI personal assistant (powered by the company’s Viv Labs subsidiary group).

Regardless of specs, a key battleground in the smartphone war is price.

Google pitched the Pixel at a premium, coming in higher than the launch price of the S7 (£569), so our betting would be on Samsung pitching the S8 at that same lower level.

Contact: Samsung | www.samsung.com/uk | Price: £569 TBC | Out: 1Q17 TBC

36 | PCR January 2017

www.pcr-online.biz

NEW PRODUCTS

New Nokia handsets rise from the flames A LONG time ago, when the Samsung Galaxy S was far, far away, Nokia ruled supreme in the world of smartphones.

And feature phones. And pretty much any kind of mobile phone you could think of.

“Nokia has always been a chameleon brand.

There’s life in the old dog yet.”

The Finnish firm was a huge innovator in the space, investing countless millions in its Symbian-powered smart devices, pushing the boundaries of both software and hardware (remember the Nseries, pictured?).

But then along came Apple in the mid-Noughties, blowing existing mobile technologies and business models out of the water,

inspiring a wave of imitators and rival OS platforms that Nokia simply couldn’t keep up with.

A bold but ultimately failed

acquisition by Microsoft later, and for a while it seemed that the Nokia name would disappear from view forever.

But Nokia has always been a

chameleon brand (it started out in logging a rubber boots) and it seems there’s life in the old dog yet.

A firm called HMD Global has secured exclusive rights to use the Nokia brand for smartphones from Nokia Oyj (which is focused on mobile networks) for the coming 10 years, and will announce new Android-powered devices built by Foxconn in the first half of 2017.

What’s interesting is that HMD Global has plenty of Nokia veterans in its ranks, and that experience could prove crucial if it’s to make any kind of dent into what is, in 2017, one of the most competitive markets in tech.

However, if the firm can find a way to pair nimble, startup-style innovation with latent brand affection among consumers, who’s to say it won’t find its niche?

Contact: HMD Global | www.hmdglobal.com | Price: TBC | Out: 1H17

iiyama unveils 65” 4K Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake benchmarked and touch display overclocked

JAPAN’S IIYAMA has announced an expansion of its large format display (LFD) range with the multi-touch ProLite TF6537UHSC-B1AG, a slim ‘zero bezel’, edge-to-edge 65” 4K UHD display.

The unit features a high quality IPS panel, 4K resolution (3840 x 2160 pixels) and PCAP (projected capacitive touch) multi-touch technology that the firm claims allows up to 50 simultaneous touch events. The screen also features an Anti-Glare (AG) coating, which drastically reduces

ambient reflection in high brightness environments without compromising on sharpness.

As you would expect, it’s all based on LED-backlit technology for low power consumption and has been labeled A+ energy efficient by the European Commission.

The company is pushing the unit as an excellent solution for interactive digital signage, retail applications, kiosks and presentations, whether orientated landscape, portrait or face-up.

Contact: Midwich | www.midwich.com | Price: £7,040 | Out: Available Now

www.pcr-online.biz

IT MIGHT be a few weeks away from a release, but the reviews editor at Tom’s Hardware was given a nice surprise when a package containing a sample of the new Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake processor found landed on his desk. And naturally the blog put it through the ropes with some benchmarking action.

The new CPU delivers on the clock speeds promised by Intel, but the power consumption and thermal

characteristics were disappointing.

Intel declined to comment on the findings, but the blog stressed that the CPU they received was not marked as an engineering part and it could not confirm that it was a retail sample.

The Intel Core i7-7700K Kaby Lake sample that was tested had base/ boost frequencies of 4.2GHz/4.5GHz respectively. The previous generation i7-6700K offered a default base/boost of 4.0/4.2GHz.

Contact: Intel | www.intel.com | Price: TBC | Out: January 2017

PCR January 2017 | 37

NEW PRODUCTS

Unbeatable battery BEATS REVOLUTIONISED the headphone market when they were first launched back in 2008. The Solo 3 utilise the tech know-how of parent company Apple to create a product with improved wireless capability and battery life.

Visually, Solo 3 look identical to the previous Solo 2 product, which in turn look like every other Beats headphone out there. And why should they change? The aesthetic of Beats is what created the initial buzz and have made them they most recognisable headphone product in the world.

There are, as with all Beats, a number of colours to choose from, depending on what kind of statement you’re making to the casual passer by, including gloss black, gloss white, silver, gold, rose gold, red and violet.

The pads are synthetic leather-topped foam while the frame is made from plastic, with a reasonably comfortable rubber pressure band that helps

eliminate any pressure building up from prolonged use to the head.

There’s also a 3.5mm input on the left cup for when the battery runs flat which is a useful addition, and a carrying bag to protect the headphones.

The Solo 3’s USP is the tech that’s gone into the wireless capability, with Apple crediting its W1 wireless chip to offer this new product up to 40 hours battery, which should mean usage of around two weeks before having to re-charge. Apple also claims that you’ll get around three hours playback from a five minute charge.

Contact:Beats | https://uk.beatsbydre.com | Price: £245 | Out: Now

Chromecast Ultra offers unrivalled streaming at a competitive price point

CAPABLE OF 4K playback and HDR video, Chromecast Ultra offers the perfect solution for consumers using phones or tablets to send video to the big screen in a minimalist, sleek unit.

Keeping with the same design as the 2015 model, the Ultra looks like the business end of a stethoscope, with an HDMI cable and microUSB port used for charging the device at the other. At 2.29 inches, the new model is a fraction bigger than the

previous model, and whereas there was a choice of colours the new model comes in black only.

There’s also the addition of an ethernet port to the charging cable that plugs directly into the wall, allowing faster streaming with a wired connection into the router. Coupled with the internal coiled 802.11ac Wi-Fi antenna and reset button along the outer rim the Ultra certainly lives up to its name.

Contact: Google | https://www.google.com | Price: £69 | Out: Now

38 | PCR January 2017

New and improved OnePlus 3T

THE ONEPLUS 3T comes hot on the heels of the recently released and now discontinued OnePlus 3.

So why the change? The OnePlus 3 was critically and commercially well received, so no problems there.

However, engineers for the Chinese start-up company found solutions to a couple of issues and decided to fix them immediately as opposed to waiting until the OnePlus 4 launch in 2017.

What this offers users is a phone with much improved performance, longer battery life and new storage option.

Offering a 5.5 inch full HD AMOLED display with resulting 401ppi pixel density, this is a phone that’s as good at answering those pesky work emails as it is a gaming unit. The 64GB version comes in a new gunmetal colour, with the other being soft gold. The 128GB comes in gunmetal only.

Contact: OnePlus | https://oneplus.net | Price: £99 (64GB available on 24-month contract from £34.50/mth, 128GB £36.50/mth) | Out: Now

Lenovo release the ThinkPad 13

AIMED AT business users, the Lenovo ThinkPad 13 offers the same stellar keyboard design as premium models at a fraction of the cost.

Powered by a sixth-generation Intel Celeron 3855U Skylake processor and graphics handled by an Intel HD Graphics 510, battery life comes out at an impressive six hours plus, thanks to the relatively low resolution of the display. Design-wise the aluminium lid carries the ThinkPad logo alongside the glowing letter I, with the Lenovo logo across the opposite side, making

for a stylish looking unit. To keep costs down on the ThinkPad 13, pixel resolution sits at 1,366 x 768 on the standard model, which could create issues if working on multiple applications. However, there’s the upgrade version with full HD at around £560 to overcome that issue.

The ThinkPad 13 comes with a 128GB SSD which offers fast boot and application loading times, along with speedy file transfers. It comes with 4GB of RAM, not ideal, but again acceptable considering the price point.

Contact: Lenovo | https://www.lenovo.com | Price: Starting from £379 | Out: Now

www.pcr-online.biz

NEW PRODUCTS

HP ProBook exceeds expectations

HP HAS announced details of the ProBook x360 11 G1 Education Edition, aimed at the school market.

In what the company claims to be the world’s most rugged, thinnest laptop, the ProBook x 360 is designed to be an affordable solution for parents looking to purchase a bomb-proof laptop to cope with the daily knocks and drops of a general school day.

Encased in hardened industrial rubber and benefiting from a spill-

resistant keyboard, at 19.9mm thick and weighing at 1.35kg the unit also comes with Gorila Glass 4. Hardware includes an Intel Celeron processor, up to 8GB system RAM and storage options starting at 64GB eMMC flash drive, running up to 256GB M.2 SSD. The 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 resolution screen benefits from a touchscreen or non-touch model. Ports include a USBC, 2 x USB 3.1, HDMI 1.4b, Ethernet and a headphone/mic combo jack.

Contact: HP | https://www.HP.com | Price: £260 | Out: TBA

MediaTek announce Helio X23 and Helio X27 mobile processors TAIWANESE FABLESS semiconductor company MediaTek have announced new additions to the X20 line-up, with both chips offering more speed than X20 and X25 predecessors and support for dualcameras thanks to an updated image signal processor. The company claims that speeds will, be increased of up to 20 per cent compared to previous chips.

Both models support WQXGA 2560 x 1600 pixel resolutions at 60 fps and 1920 x 1080 pixels at 120 fps

with 12HZ Blending layers, along with MiraVision EnergySmart Screen poor saving technology and an Envelope Tracking Module.

The X23 and X27 both benefit from being Deca-Core processors integrating two ARM Cortex A72 cores and eight Cortex A53 cores at varying frequencies.

MediaTek has also announced two more power saving technologies on both chips that are expected to lower power consumption substantially.

Contact: MediaTek | https://www.mediatek.com | Price: TBA | Out: TBA

Editorial Planner

A look at the biggest features coming up in PCR over the next few months...

February 2017

March 2017

April 2017

RETAIL

VR

MOBILE COMPUTING

PCR casts an eye on the retail space, examining everything from the high-street to the indies.

March’s edition of PCR will look at one of the most successful emerging technologies of the past few years, reflecting on the VR market.

April sees PCR getting portable as we look at all manner of mobile devices ranging from smartphones and tablets to notebooks and the ever-growing area of convertibles.

Also featured are a review of CES 2017, our retail buyers guide, and retail survey.

There will also be a preview of the 2017 PCR Awards, and a focus on business software, speakers, docks and headphones in our sector guides.

We’ll also be discussing all of the fallout from the 2017 PCR Awards.

Advertising Deadline

Advertising Deadline

Advertising Deadline

January 13th

February 14th

March 16th

www.pcr-online.biz

PCR January 2017 | 39

SECTOR GUIDE

Hard and solid storage Storage is one of the most important aspects of computing and while the debate of SSD versus HDD will rage on there are plenty of options out there. PCR rounds up some of the best storage options available on the market…

SAMSUNG 850 EVO

PNY CS2211 2.5-INCH SATA

Distributor: M2M Direct

Distributor: Scan

Provides the same data encryption feature as its predecessor the 840 EVO, and saves more power during write operations than the previous model. This SSD also applies a low power state that is perfect for ultra-books and battery powered devices.

This is a SSD that offers decent performance and makes short work of large amounts of data, even for the most demanding applications. From rich media content, storage, to lengthy gaming sessions – the CS2211 is a great choice.

Specs: Available with 120GB, 250GB, 500GB, 1TB, 2TB, 2.5-inch, data encryption.

Specs: 80 GB, 2.5-inch, hard disk drive replacement, SATA-III 6Gb/s; backwards compatible with SATA-II 3Gb/s.

SRP: £149.99

SRP: £81.98

CRUCIAL MX300 SSD

SAMSUNG 960 PRO EVO SSD

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: Northamber

Costumers will enjoy fast boot up speeds and overall system optimisation with the Crucial MX300 SSD. Combines 3D NAND flash technology based on the prior MX line of SSDs, capable of write speeds of up to 92,000.

Another high performance SSD from Samsung which has TurboWrite technology for accelerated write speeds. Other features include the NVMe interface which provides an enhanced bandwith, and the new Polaris controller which supports read and write speeds of up to 3,200/1,900 MB/s.

Specs: Hardware encryption, 3D NAND flash technology, write speeds of up to 92,000.

Specs: Polaris controller for read and write speeds of up to 3,200/1,900 MB/s, NVMe interface, TurboWrite technology.

SRP: £74.99

SRP: £111.49

40 | PCR January 2017

www.pcr-online.biz

SECTOR GUIDE

TOSHIBA P300

HYPERX PREDATOR 240GB SSD

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: Entatech, Ingram Micro, Simms, Avnet, Tech Data

This 3.5-inch internal hard drive provides capacities ranging from 500GB to 3TB. Additional features include Perpendicular Magnetic Recording and Tunnel Magneto-Resistive technologies.

This SSD provides good capacities and is powered by a Marvell controller and delivers read speeds of up to 1400MB/s. Works seamlessly with HyperX memory for the best user performance.

Specs: 500GB to 3TB capacities, SATA 6.0 Gbit/s, Perpendicular Magnetic Recording and Tunnel Magneto-Resistive technologies.

Specs: Available in 240GB to 960GB capacities, read speeds of up to 1400MB/s, Marvell controller.

SRP: £39.99 - £89.99

SRP: £159.40

KINGSTON SSD NOW 300 240GB

SAMSUNG 960 PRO SSD

Distributor: Entatech, Ingram Micro, Simms, Avnet, Tech Data

Distributor: Northamber

Users can enhance the sluggish performance of their device with the Kingston NOW SSD. Shock-proof and a LSI SandForce controller means this is a SSD with a difference.

Provides read/write speeds of up to 3,500/2,100 MB/s, this SSD delivers on performance. Other features include a NVMe interface.

Specs: 2.5-inch SATAIII SSD, read speeds of up to 450MB/s, write speeds of up to 450MB/s, LSI SandForce controller.

Specs: Read/write speeds of up to 3,500/2,100 MB/s, NVMe interface, available in a range of capacities including 1024GB and 2048 GB.

SRP: £79.18

SRP: £282.49

CONTACT

www.pcr-online.biz

Avnet: ......................... 0134 466 2000

Ingram Micro:.............. 0871 973 3440

Scan: ....0871 4724747 / 01204 474747

CMS Distribution: ....... 0208 805 1000

M2M Direct: ................... 0208 676 606

Simms: ..........................0162 285 2800

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

Northamber: ............... 0208 296 7066

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

PCR January 2017 | 41

SECTOR GUIDE

Keeping it in the cloud Most devices come with a limited amount of cloud storage but what are users meant to do when all of that runs out?

PCR picks out some of the best options for keeping data safe and secure in the cloud while presenting flexibility…

QUEST RAPID RECOVERY

STORAGECRAFT SHADOWPROTECT SPX

ACRONIS TRUE IMAGE 2017

Distributor: Exertis

Distributor: Exertis

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Take the complications out of backup and recovery with the Quest Rapid Recovery. With next generation AppAssure software which provides security for data, apps and systems, this cloud management solution is capable of running quietly in the background without disrupting users – even in the event of a power outage.

Provides quick recovery and backup as well as migration. For customers looking to run just one backup and recovery software solution on all their machines in a mixed environment.

Acronis True Image 2017 is the ideal choice for customers looking for personal backup software. With a touch-friendly online dashboard and protection for Windows, mobiles and Mac – recovery of data or complete migration is made simple with this cloudbased solution.

Specs: AppAssure software, simple connectivity to the cloud, complete GUI for ease-of-use.

Specs: Supports Linux and Windows systems, disaster recovery protection, system migration.

Specs: Mobile backup for Android, iPad, iPhone, protection for one computer, back up for external drives, NAS devices and shared networks.

SRP: Starting from £1,220

SRP: Starting from £63 for desktop license.

SRP: £34.99

MICROSOFT OFFICE 365 HOME SUBSCRIPTION

WINZIP 21

ACRONIS BACKUP

Distributor: Entatech, Exertis, Ingram Micro, Tech Data, West Coast

Distributor: Exertis, Ingram Micro, Sigma

Distributor: CMS Distribution

This one year license for Microsoft’s suite of office applications includes 1TB of OneDrice online storage that can be accessed from virtually anywhere on up to five devices. Users can install Office Mobile on iPhone and Android smartphones. The package also comes with 60 minutes of monthly Skype call time.

WinZip 21 Pro delivers renowned compression and encryption, together with time-saving file handling power. WinZip 21 Pro now connects to all popular cloud platforms including Google Drive, Box and Dropbox, and offers more control when you Zip and encrypt data.

Cloud and on-premise data protection for small to medium sized businesses, an excellent choice for back up and recovery. From Microsoft Azure, VMs to Amazon EC2, the Acronis Backup offers protection across most IT infrastructures.

Specs: Windows 7 or later, Mac OS X version 10.6 or later, iPads running iOS 7.0 or later, Windows Phone 7.5 or later, Android OS version 4.0 or later.

Specs: Windows 10, Windows 8, Windows 7, Windows Vista

Specs: Protection for Microsoft Windows or Linux servers, laptops, iPhone, Android, and iPad devices.

SRP: £79.99

SRP: £42.95

SRP: £718.80

CMS Distribution: ....... 0208 805 1000

CONTACT

Entatech: ..................... 0333 101 1000 Exertis: ......................... 0845 094 8828

42 | PCR January 2017

Ingram Micro:.............. 0871 973 3440 Sigma: .......................... 0136 465 5200 Tech Data: ................... 0125 678 8000 West Coast:.................. 0118 912 6000

www.pcr-online.biz

SECTOR GUIDE

I’ll have mine to go PCR takes a look at some of the best portable storage solutions on the market, ranging from the tiniest of USB flash drives to the mighty external hard drives that keep user data safe and secure while being easy to take anywhere…

DYNAMODE USB3-HD2.5S-SH1

DYNAMODE USB3-HD2.5S-SH2

DYNAMODE USB3-HD2.5S-SH3

HAMA SMARTLY 3-IN-1 USB 2.0 FLASH PEN

Distributor: Spire, Digitek Limited, Scan and Extertis Limited

Distributor: Spire, Digitek Limited, Scan and Extertis Limited

Distributor: Spire, Digitek Limited, Scan and Extertis Limited

Distributor: Hama

One of the first external disk enclosures to feature the SuperSpeed USB3.0 interface. The DynamodeUSB3HD2.5S-SH1 also supports most 2.5inch SATA interface hard disks with a storage capacity of 2TB.

This USB3 alloy 2.5-inch disk storage enclosure requires no screws when it is affixed to a drive and is a part of Dynamode’s Ready Snap series. Users can place their HDD or SSD into the ABS plastic enclosure quickly and simply.

A disk storage enclosure that makes storage backup, data transfers, film and audio transfers convenient for users who want quick transfer speeds, cross platform compliance and the latest USB3 Plug n’ Play technology.

Compact portable nano connector with USB-A and micro USB connections for the transfer of files, photos and videos between smartphones, PCs and tablets.

Specs: 32-bit RISC CPU, up to 2TB HDD, up to 5Gbps transfer speed and Dynamode ReadySnap.

Specs: Plug n’ Play technology, USB3 connection cable, Mac X Linux and Windows OS compatible.

Specs: Mac, Linux and Windows OS compatible, up to 5Gbps transfer speed, USB3 connection cable.

Specs: USB 2.0 Micro B plug OTG and USB-A plug, 32GB, 15 MB/s data transfer speed, brushed aluminium finish.

SRP: £9.99

SRP: £10.49

SRP: £10.99

SRP: £16.99

LACIE PORSCHE DESIGN USB-C MOBILE DRIVE

LACIE D2 THUNDERBOLT 2/USB 3.0

CLEARCRYPT

HAMA SAVE2DATA LIGHTNING 32GB

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: Brigantia

Distributor: Hama

Combines technology from LaCie with a stylish look from Porsche Design.

Features include USB-C and USB 3.0 connectivity. Backups can be performed quickly with speeds of up to 5 Gb/s.

This desktop storage product has Thunderbolt 2, a USB 3.0 port and an optional 8TB enterprise-class hard drive.

Very little operating noise and speeds up to five times faster can be achieved by installing the LaCie d2 SSD upgrade.

This 256 bit encrypted storage device which can transfer data at speeds of up to 5.0Gpbs, much faster than traditional USB 2.0 drives

Plug and go device that provides instant memory for iOS devices and PCs. With USB 3.0 connectors, the Save2Data FlashPen is capable of quick file transfers between other devices.

Specs: USB connector, Porsche Design aluminium enclosure, available in silver, rose gold and gold.

Specs: Speeds up to 220MB/s, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt 2 ports.

Specs: Real-time AES256bit encryption, aluminum casing, available as a flash USB, MSATA and HDD.

Specs: 90 MB/s transfer speed, USB 3.0, iPhone and iPad authentication.

SRP: £139.99

SRP: £289

SRP: £240 256GB & £160 128GB version

SRP: £69.99

44 | PCR Janaury 2017

www.pcr-online.biz

SECTOR GUIDE

ISTORAGE DISKASHUR PRO 2.5-INCH HDD

TOSHIBA CANVIO PREMIUM FOR MAC

SANDISK ULTRA FIT 128GB USB FLASH DRIVE

SAMSUNG T3

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: Westcoast

Distributor: M2M Direct

The iStorage diskAshur Pro provides secure data storage that is tested to NIST FIPS 140-2 Level 2 requirement standards. A free software setup enables users to access their drive with their own PIN.

Diamond cut aluminium design that makes it easy for users to store and access up to 3TB of data. The Canvio Premium for Mac also comes with a Type-A to Type-C USB adapter.

This tiny flash drive makes data transfer less time consuming. There is 128GB storage space for rich media data files, and with 128-bit encryption files are stored safely on the device.

The T3 is a portable SSD with speeds of 450MB/s which is available with capacities of 1TB, 2TB, 500GB or 250GB. Weighing 516g, it is light enough to travel with and is shockproof so users can ensure their data is protected.

Specs: USB 3.0 Portable hard drive, up to 2TB, XTS-AES 256-bit hardware encryption.

Specs: 1TB and 3Tb capacities, USB 3.0, compatiable with Apple Time Machine.

Specs: SanDisk SecureAccess software, 128 GB, 128-bit encryption.

Specs: 450MB/s, 516g, available with of 1TB, 2TB, 500GB or 250GB capacity.

SRP: £209

SRP: £68.99 - £136.99

SRP: £29.99

SRP: £99

ISTORAGE DATASHUR PRO USB 3.0 256-BIT

SANDISK ULTRA 64 GB DUAL USB FLASH DRIVE

ISTORAGE DISKASHUR PRO SSD

LACIE PORSCHE DESIGN DESKTOP USB-C HDD

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: Westcoast

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: CMS Distribution

This USB 3.0 flash drive has PIN code access and a rechargeable battery for optimum security. The Datashur Pro is also water resistant and shockproof, meaning that users’ data will be secure wherever they go.

Transfers files between smartphones, tablets and PCs with both Micro-USB and USB 3.0 ports.

PIN access and an intergrated USB 3.0 cable means users can access their data quickly and keep it safe with a usercreated PIN code.

The LaCie Porsche Design Desktop USB-C HDD features USB-C connectivity for next-generation computers. It also delivers speeds of up to 5 Gb/s, so you can drag and drop files and perform backups quickly.

Specs: USB 3.0 flash drive, up 64GB, water resistant.

Specs: Micro-USB and USB 3.0 connectors

Specs: USB 3.0 portable solid state drive, 1TB capacity

Specs: USB-C, 5Gb/s transfer speed, 4TB, 870g

SRP: £69

SRP: £17.99

SRP: £269.00

SRP: £179.99

CONTACT

www.pcr-online.biz

Brigantia: ..................... 0203 358 0090

Exertis: ......................... 0178 264 8200

CMS Distribution: ....... 0208 805 1000

Hama:.......................... 0333 123 4262

Digitek: ........................ 0125 470 3000

Spire:............................ 0120 282 8444

Scan: 0871 472 47747 / 01204 474 747 M2M Direct: ................. 0208 676 6067

PCR Janaury 2017 | 45

Best in Class

2016 Winning ‘best buy’ and ‘best-in-test’ in the UK, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands proves yet again that when it comes to online security, nothing beats BullGuard.

And for resellers, nothing beats our unique 25% Revenue Share Scheme, that rewards resellers every time the software licence is renewed, for the life of the product.†

For customers and resellers, BullGuard is simply the best.

Find out more about the benefits of BullGuard partnership sign up today at www.bullguard.com/advantage † Whilst resellers remain actively selling BullGuard products.

SECTOR GUIDE

Attention-deserving servers While it’s all well and good investing in the cloud, you’ll never be able to fully replace the security and knowledge that your data is stored in-house. PCR picks out some of the best servers and on-premises storage solutions available…

RS40-E8-RS36-ECP

XCUBESAN

DELL POWEREDGE TOWERS

Distributor: Mentor Distribution, VIP, Entatech

Distributor: CMS Distirbution, Origin Storage

Distributor: M2M Direct

This 4U rack server provides RAID storage that is ideal for cloud data center management and enterprise applications. The Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) 2.0-compliant ASMB8-iKVM module in RS540-E8-RS36-ECP makes managing servers remotely simple.

With the newest generation Intel Xeon processor the XCubeSAN is a great choice for SMB businesses looking for enterprise SAN and cloud storage solutions. Additional features include 12Gb SAS 3.0 technology, dual host cards and dual onboard 10GBase-T ports.

Dell’s bespoke PowerEdge Towers provide a powerful server solution for businesses. The servers are also migration friendly and can be set up to your custom specifications, wants and needs.

Specs: 3 + 1 expansion slots, 2 x Intel I210AT + 1 x Mgmt LAN, built-in Q-code/port 80 LED display panel.

Specs: 12Gb SAS 3.0 technology, dual host cards, dual onboard 10GBase-T ports

Specs: Varies

SRP: £2,799

SRP: £6,499

SRP: Varies

DATA DEPOSIT BOX SMART STORAGE SOLUTION

TVS-87

ES1640DC

Distributor: Brigantia

Distributor: CMS Distribution

Distributor: CMS Distribution

This Data Deposit Smart Storage and cloud software line of products is great for smaller businesses looking for native cloud storage and recovery solutions.

The TVS-87 is powered by an AMD embedded accelerated processing unit, and is an energy efficient network-attached storage (NAS) solution. Other features include the AES-NI hardware encryption engine, up to 64GB RAM and 4K H.264 video decoding.

The ES1640dc is ZFS is HPE Helion compatible, and fully supports all virtualisation needs. Intel Xeon and E5 processors mean that there is enough power to suit your cloud computing and data storage needs.

Specs: 448bit encryption, advanced schedule backup, proprietary open file backup.

Specs: Centralised storage, data recovery, USB QuickAccess port

Specs: Dual active controllers, QES operating system, NVRAM cache.

SRP: from £189.00

SRP: £999.00

SRP: £8,199

CONTACT www.pcr-online.biz

Brigantia: ..................... 0203 358 0090

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

M2M Direct: ................. 0208 676 6067

CMS Distribution: ....... 0208 805 1000

Mentor Distribution: .. 01462 814 000

VIP: ............................... 0871 622 7550

PCR January 2017 | 47

OUT OF OFFICE

STRAX DONATES €10,000 TO CHARITY

IN THE HOT SEAT Ebuyer solutions specialist Guy Drury takes a turn in the hot seat to talk about being a geek and having a bad experience with chilli…

What was your first job?

My first job was working in Butlin’s in Ayr What’s your favourite TV show?

I have a few but would have to go with Arrow as I’m a bit of a geek and love anything DC or Marvel Do you have any hobbies?

I am very lucky to work in an industry that actually involves my hobby which is anything to do with computing from the hardware to website building If you could go back in time what would you do?

I would love to go back to the 80s as the music was great and the fashion was memorable What is your biggest pet peeve?

Middle lane drivers without a doubt.

Tell us something that not many people know I haven’t ridden a bike since I was 11 as I was in a road accident whilst riding and never went on one again.

What’s the funniest or most memorable experience you’ve had in your career?

I am very lucky to work with some amazing people and have lots of banter happening around me on most days, but one of the funniest experiences, for other people not myself, was when I was challenged to eat a teaspoon of ghost chilli sauce and couldn’t speak for nearly an hour.

What’s going to be the next big thing in tech?

Non-Volatile Memory such as 3D Xpoint will be the next big thing to hit our industry Tell us your favourite cheesy joke What does a fish say when it swims into a wall? Dam!

48 | PCR January 2017

WE OFTEN like to have a bit of fun with our Out of Office section here at PCR, but we also occasionally want to get a bit serious and commend some of the good work going on in IT outside of the tech space. That’s why we were delighted to talk about the great donations to charity from mobile and connected accessories maker STRAX. The company announced last month that it has donated €5,000 to two separate charities. The first is a German charity called ‘Kinderzukunft’ which literally means ‘Future for Children’. The charity supports children in Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Guatemala where it has established villages for them and offering them a secure and loving home.

The second is an organisation called ‘From One to Another’ which promotes access to education for girls and women in Kenya. Many families cannot afford secondary school fees in the country, leading to illiteracy in nearly a fifth of women and very limited employment opportunities.

The charity fundraises to

purchase land to erect school buildings, clinics, libraries and offices for the women’s centres in Bendettah and Nikumbuke.

At PCR we are strong advocates for companies being socially conscious and we will gladly report on more charity efforts whether it be a company fun-run, or humanitarian efforts from work groups.

NOKIA NOSTALGIA REMEMBER THAT old brick you could throw through windows, occasionally make calls on and… well, that’s about it?

Well, according to Talkmobile the Nokia 3310 and 3390 are the country’s most missed phones. The most popular phone of the late 90’s and early 00’s featured pioneering elements such as an inbuilt aerial, exchangeable cases, text messaging and the addictive game Snake.

“It’s no surprise people are nostalgic about their Nokias,” explains mobile phone expert (that’s a real job title) Ben Wood. “The brand was a real game changer back in the nineties and Nokia worked extremely hard to make the mobile phone accessible to everyone.

Nokia phones were affordable, robust and reliable, and unlike most smartphones of today, sometimes only needed charging once a week.

Thanks to Nokia the mobile phone became the most

prolific consumer electronics device on the planet.”

In fact, nostalgia for old school ‘dumb’ phones is so high that serious collectors are willing to pay around

£800-£1000 for the most iconic phones such as the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x or the Mobira Talkman.

That’s a lot of money for a game of Snake.

www.pcr-online.biz

OUT OF OFFICE

FANTASY FOOTBALL AND WHERE TO FIND IT WE’RE ALMOST at the halfway point in the season, so let’s check in with the PCR Premiership and see how things are getting on.

While in the real world, Chelsea are (at the time of writing because of course anything can happen and I could be made to eat my words by the time this is printed) opening up a bit of a gap at the top of the league, the PCR Premiership is

W P Z E W B T W F E D F C O A H C U X T

E A V N E S B I N V Z D G Y Z T I B E O

Z S T V C T S O P S H F K S O O A I N J

www.pcr-online.biz

W S P S Y E H X C U U R C K T O N Q E X

Y W L Z Z P K H E N O A B L T T A M P H

starting to look like a bit of a two horse race.

Leading the pack is Steve Young’s ‘2 girls 1 schlupp’ with Pavo Juric’s ‘Shaw Mee Howe’ giving chase and nipping at his heels. With only seven points between them, expect to see these two battling for the top spot as the season goes on.

Quite a distance away – 65 points away to be precise – is Raj

G O E U T C H A T W H R E J R E J D U K

Z R V R V C T R T B I L E A W U B T X Q

K D A K P D A E O V B Y N N W L A Y S Z

Z M C E O M N S X C H E V I N B P I H T

S Q T R M G P P V W T Q D I L A F U C C

D M A N D O O H V H R O V E B I C A B N

M R K E M V N O H K T T T R W N C S F P

Thawrani’s ‘ConteKante’ in third with Stephen Lohan’s ‘HeGotABOOT’ and Jaskarandeep Brar’s ‘FC Kante Be Bothered’ both sat on 836 points.

Scanning down, the biggest shocker is that perennial whipping boys ‘Team Terra Computer’ are no longer at the bottom of the pule. In fact, the team sits in a very respectable 26th place out of 38.

R O A L D T O I S W G J Q E M G U Y A A

Q T U O K N W J T E N R E T N I A K N B

F D O S B M Q W P O N D M N S R H V B O

R N G F E Y A U J K R Q F I N J W X R Y

L W C N J W E K R K R S R R V M I R N X

U T Q Y W J P K Z H A C Z P E V I R U S

L E D E S K T O P U D S D V G R Z J O X

CHRISTMAS APPEAL There is a chance that you may still be feeling a little sore from the festivities of the holidays, but before all of that you no doubt had some cracking office parties. And we’d like to see what happened!

Want to see your team donning their gay apparel in next month’s issue of PCR? Send a choice snap from your office’s Christmas party to jeaston@nbmedia.com and you may well be seeing your fa-la-la-ing selves when you pick up next month’s copy of the mag.

E L P P O T P A L M O T H E R B O A R D

WORD

SEARCH

Hidden in this game are the names of various technology devices and terms, can you find them all?

BLUETOOTH

MOUSE

DESKTOP

NETWORK

INTERNET

PASSWORD

INTRANET

PRINTER

KERNEL

SCANNER

KEYBOARD

SMARTPHONE

LAPTOP

TABLET

MONITOR

VIRUS

MOTHERBOARD

WIFI

PCR January 2017 | 49

OUT OF OFFICE

In our Team of the Month section, we highlight some of the important faces from across the industry who perhaps aren’t always in the public eye. This month, we speak to the Ci Distribution North Team…

Ci Distribution

C D A

B

The Team A: Steven Parker

C: Ben Davies

B: Iain Gillogaley

D: Darren Perks

number of years a network of suppliers and customers, many who are close friends, it helps the conversations on aged stock – well most of the time

Who’s in your team?

Iain Gillogaley, business development manager, Darren Perks, business development manager, Ben Davies, account manager, Steve Parker, interactive AV manager What have been your biggest successes of the past 12 months?

Ci Distribution North began life in September 2016, and it’s been a whirlwind three months. We’ve built and launched a brand new interactive touchscreen range, HERO TOUCH and partnered with a host of respected Vendors across a range of sectors.

Things are looking exceptionally positive and we’re proud of how much we’ve achieved in such a short space of time.

What’s the funniest or most memorable moment of working in your team?

Welcoming Ben ‘The Gentle Giant’ Davies to the team provided us with a host of ‘jaunty’ headlines. We considered ‘Ci reach new heights’ but settled on ‘Things are looking up!’

What’s the best part of working in your team?

Starting a brand new business has seen some testing moments, but the team have pulled together to make sure it happens. Each person in the team has brought an individual skill set to the mix, and we’ve created a winning combination. We’ve shared some great laughs along the way and are looking forward to bolstering the team with more new starters joining the team in January.

What’s the hardest part of working in the tech industry?

The tech industry is an fabulous place to work in, having developed over a

What is the team working on at the moment?

We have spent a number of weeks working with strategic vendors to build new partnerships. Our focused approach has seen some great rewards, and our vendor portfolio is looking extremely strong for 2017.

The ability to work with manufacturers directly has also seen us bring some unique AV products to market.

What are your thoughts on the current state of the UK tech retail space right now?

A number of majors are making a resurgence and growing rapidly, this is down to a number of key growth areas including, gaming, 4k, smart home and the upgrade markets.

Who makes the best cuppa?

Everyone takes a turn making a brew in Testosterone Towers, although Iain is shining in his kitchen duties.

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