News in the Channel - January 2023

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January 2023

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BULLETIN BOARD : The latest news and products from across the Channel – pages 6-10 PREVIEW 2023 : A range of leaders in the Channel make their predictions – page 20 UC&C : Audio visual and communications continue to converge – page 11 SD-WAN OPPORTUNITIES : Maturing technology with demand growing quickly – page 40 WORKSPACES : Business must change office spaces to maximise employees’ potential – page 50

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COMMENT

New year, new opportunities While there remain problems in the economy that affect businesses in the channel, there are still plenty of opportunities for new business and increasing existing revenues in 2023.

in the infrastructure around the UK, providers are looking to recoup that investment through take up of broadband services among the public and businesses and are increasingly looking to the channel for partners to do that – which in turn can bring margin back to connectivity. More on page 16. Elsewhere in the channel there are plenty of other opportunities for businesses to take advantage of this year. For example, the convergence of the AV and comms sectors continues apace and shows no sign of slowing post-pandemic. This means that providers of AV and comms are increasingly getting involved in providing complete unified communications solutions for customers – something being increasingly demanded. Those that are sticking in their traditional sphere are starting to feel the pinch – so now is the time to embrace unified comms and take the opportunities for sales on offer. Of course, there are opportunities in all parts of the channel – they just must be sought out and delivered to customers. While it may take investment – money and time to learn new products – there is plenty of help from manufacturers, and it could help a business to thrive in otherwise testing economic times that are predicted for 2023. I hope you enjoy the issue. As always, if there are any topics you would like to see covered in the coming issues, or you wanted to get involved in

With everyone back into the swing of work again after the Christmas and New Year period, many people are looking ahead to what 2023 may bring. Experience of recent years tells us that anything could – and does – happen and things that weren’t even a dot on the horizon at the turn of the year can cause global havoc by March. However, assuming that there isn’t a global event in 2023 – and we’re due a quiet year, surely? – then we can look ahead and, while the issues of 2022 haven’t gone away, there is some cause for optimism as there are opportunities for businesses in the channel to grab. In our 2023 preview feature, a range of leaders in the channel give their opinions on what the year may hold for them and the wider channel, including their predictions for some of the major trends we can expect in the sector, in terms of customer needs and business performance. See page 20 for more. In addition, our resident data analyst Wickus Bester looks at what the year could have in store for data science, including the rise of technology such as ChatGPT, which is a language model that can produce detailed answers to questions and generate content through artificial intelligence. It garnered more than one million users in less than a week after its launch, which demonstrates the interest in it already around the world and is set to increase in 2023. Find out more on page 56. One of the more interesting sectors to watch this year will be altnets. After years of investment

Dan Parton

Every quarter we plan to make an award for the best campaign run in the magazine. This quarter Exclusive Networks has been chosen as the winner. They have produced some informative content for our readers, including a cyber security guide in our first issue, and presented it in a fun and easy to understand way. Thanks for the support.

winner Q4 · 2022

best campaign

editorial, please contact me at dan@newsinthechannel.com

www.newsinthechannel.co.uk

00 03

CONTENTS

News You should know p6 New in the Channel Hot products p10 UC&C Converging tech p11 Altnets Now is the time to get involved p16 Preview of 2023 Making predictions p20 The Cloud Capitalise on the appetite p28 2023 MSP Challenges Chris McKie gives his insight p37 SD-WAN Channel opportunities p40 PC ANALYSIS Shipments decline p42 Label Printers Check the label p43 Workspaces Reimagined office p50 Sustainability Getting a Zeller public score p52 Business Intelligence Predicting trends p56

Altnets – p16

Preview of 2023 – p20

Altnets are bringing faster broadband to customers and resellers can make a healthy margin from selling it – not something that has happened for many years – which means now is the time for resellers to get involved in it.

The past few years have shown that making predictions is anything but easy. That said, a range of leaders in the channel have had a bash anyway, giving their thoughts of what the next 12 months could have in store.

Label Printers – p43

Labelling on products is increasingly important which means demand for label printers is also growing and presenting new opportunities for sales.

Challenges facing MSPs – p37

Workspaces – p50

The way people work has changed, and businesses must change their office space to reflect this and help employees to maximise their potential, says James Rossell, chief operating officer at Pax8.

This year looks set to be challenging for MSPs, but providers can still succeed if they evolve their provision, including returning to the break-fix model, says Chris McKie.

CONTENTS

UC&C – p11

Sustainability – p52

Editorial Dan Parton 07941 979 845 dan@ newsinthechannel.com Head of Sales Martin Jenner-Hall 07824 552 116 martin@ newsinthechannel.com Publishing Director Justin Penn 07816 573 186 justin@ newsinthechannel.com Written permission from the publisher is required before any part of News in the Channel can be reproduced. © 2023 In the Channel Media Ltd.

Audio visual and communications are continuing to converge post-pandemic and customers are increasingly demanding integrated solutions, which means there are opportunities for businesses on both sides to get into a new market and provide what customers are demanding.

Sustainability counts and can make for a better business and a better planet, and Zellar can help businesses along their sustainability journey.

A Guide to understanding SD-WAN – p29

SD-WAN

The growth of internet users and the shift to the cloud makes the potential for SD-WAN huge.

SD-WAN Opportunities – p40

SD-WAN is a maturing technology and demand for it is growing quickly in the UK, which means there are opportunities for businesses in the channel to capitalise on.

Published by: In the Channel Media Ltd Company registration number: 14363401 Registered office address 14-18 Heddon Street,

Business Intelligence – p56

News in the Channel’s resident statistical analyst Wickus Bester reveals his top predictions for trends in data science in the channel in 2023.

Mayfair, London, United Kingdom, W1B 4DA In conjunction with:

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NEWS

Cradlepoint ZTNA solution for 5G and hybrid networks now available

Cloud-delivered LTE and 5G wireless network solutions provider Cradlepoint’s third NetCloud Exchange (NCX) solution, Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is now available. NCX ZTNA ensures a native ZTNA experience that offers simplicity, efficiency, and granularity for Cradlepoint deployments. While cellular connectivity delivers agility and the freedom to connect anyone from anywhere, this extended WAN edge-encompassing resources in sites, vehicles and remote locations creates a broader network attack surface. This, along with the need for an extended workforce to access resources in a secure way, requires an innovative approach to network security. Zero trust is emerging as the technology of choice to address these challenges. With a focus on enterprises that are looking to leverage 5G, Cradlepoint’s NCX ZTNA solution offers differentiated capabilities to support the expanded edge and extended workforce. Key capabilities include: l Simplified administration through an integrated policy engine l Deployment flexibility with multiple forms of network access

l Isolated user-to-resource access through fine-grained policies. Cradlepoint NCX ZTNA adds to the previously announced Secure Connect and SD-WAN Services. All services are based on the same zero-trust foundation and are enabled through the NetCloud Exchange Service Gateway – a scalable solution that aggregates traffic, provides flow-level visibility, and acts as the policy-enforcement point in the network. “ZTNA represents a more intelligent approach to network security, which is imperative as the modern, digital attack surface grows,” said Donna Johnson, senior vice president of marketing at Cradlepoint. “Cradlepoint’s NetCloud Exchange ZTNA mitigates the risk of lateral movement by directly connecting users to applications, instead of the network. It allows cellular-centric customers to take advantage of a ZTNA solution that is built-in to their Wireless WAN deployment as opposed to bolted-on.”

Donna Johnson SVP marketing, Cradlepoint

cradlepoint.com

Phishing continues to grow as threat to business

Threats from phishing and malicious emails have increased by 60%, and the average cost of a data breach is expected to reach $5 million by next year, according to research from cyber protection specialist Acronis. Acronis’ cyberthreats and trends report for the second half of 2022 found that phishing and the use of MFA (Multi-Factor Authentication) fatigue attacks are on the rise. Social engineering attacks jumped in the last four months, accounting for 3% of all attacks. Leaked or stolen credentials, which allow attackers to easily execute cyberattacks and ransomware campaigns, were the cause of almost half of all reported breaches in the first half of 2022. “The last few months have proven to be as complex as ever – with new threats constantly emerging and malicious actors continuing to use the same proven playbook for big payouts,” said Candid Wüest, Acronis VP of Cyber Protection Research. “Organisations must prioritise all- encompassing solutions when looking to mitigate phishing and other hacking attempts in the new year. Attackers are constantly evolving their

methods, now using common security tools against us – like MFA that many companies rely on to protect their employees and businesses.” As security tactics and the technologies associated with them evolve, so do the threat actors trying to break into organisations and their ecosystems. The constant feed of ransomware, phishing and unpatched vulnerabilities demonstrate how crucial it is for businesses to re- evaluate their security strategies. The report also found that ransomware continues to be the number one threat to businesses including government, healthcare, education and other sectors and is generally getting worse. Each month in the second half of this year, ransomware gangs added 200-300 new victims to their combined list. As the main threat actors are continuing to professionalise their operations, Acronis notes a shift towards more data exfiltration with most of the large players expanding their targets to MacOS and Linux systems, and consideration of cloud environments. Meanwhile, phishing and malicious emails remain threats. Between July and October 2022, the

Candid Wüest, VP of Cyber Protection Research

a ZIP archive containing a VBS (Virtual Basic script) file. The victim must launch the file for the attack to begin. At this point, the contained DLL payloads are loaded into memory, allowing Lampion to stealthily execute on compromised systems. Lampion steals data from the computer, targeting bank accounts by fetching injections from the C2 and overlaying its own forms on login pages. When users enter their credentials, these fake login forms will be stolen and sent to the attacker.

Another example is the Lampion malware that was distributed in greater volumes lately, with threat actors abusing WeTransfer as part of their phishing campaigns. WeTransfer is a legitimate file-sharing service that can be used free of charge. The service has 87 million monthly active users in 190 countries. In a new campaign, Lampion operators are sending phishing emails from compromised company accounts urging users to download a “Proof of Payment” document from WeTransfer. The targets receive

NEWS

For more information, download the full Acronis End-of-Year Cyberthreats Report 2022 here: https://www.acronis.com/en-us/lp/cyberthreats- report-2022-end-year/. important. Even if phishing attempts aren’t neutralized right away, other detection tools can stop malware from executing. To summarize: A multi-layered cyber defense approach, including anti-phishing tech, is very

proportion of phishing attacks rose by 1.3x against malware attacks reaching 76% of all email attacks, up from 58% in H1 2022. Spam rates increased by over 15% — reaching 30.6% of all inbound traffic. In addition, malicious actors continue to seek out and target unpatched systems. While software vendors release patches regularly or often, it is still not enough. Many attacks succeed due to unpatched vulnerabilities. Acronis continues to observe and warn businesses and home users that new zero-day vulnerabilities and old unpatched ones are the top vector of attack to compromise systems.

acronis.com

www.acronis.com

TD SYNNEX launches Cybersecurity Ecosystems initiative

TD SYNNEX has launched a Cybersecurity Ecosystems initiative designed to bring together partners with complementary skills in different areas of digital security to form new alliances that will deliver benefits for mutual end user customers and partners themselves. This new community will draw on all the security- as-a-service, support and educational capabilities of the TD SYNNEX security practice. These include the Security Practice Builder, which enables partners to develop their own capability and establish their own cybersecurity services business. In addition, partners can access TD SYNNEX’s RECON™ Security Suite services portfolio of managed and subscription-based services. TD SYNNEX has several ecosystems programmes operating already for manufacturing, healthcare and for retail and distribution. “There is a multiplicity of reseller businesses – solutions integrators, service providers, and specialists in all the different areas of digital security,” said Alison Nixon, security business unit

director, TD SYNNEX, UK. “But few, if any, have all the knowledge and skills they need to offer a complete cybersecurity offering to their end user customers. In addition, cybersecurity skills can only be acquired at a huge premium right now. These are significant challenges for partners and one very good way of addressing that is through partnering. “The Cybersecurity Ecosystems community will provide a valuable forum through which partners can explore new possibilities and the different pathways and options that we provide for them to develop their security and data protection business.” Neil Cornish, ecosystems business manager at TD SYNNEX, added: “Having talked to a number of businesses involved in cybersecurity, it became apparent that it would be very useful to bring partners with different specialisations together, so that they can share experiences, ideas and best practices, and potentially forge mutually beneficial commercial partnerships.”

Alison Nixon security and business unit director

uk.tdsynnex.com

Tukans appointed Kindermann distributor

German AV presentation and conferencing solutions manufacturer Kindermann has appointed York-based Tukans as its distributor for the UK and Ireland. With a history going back to 1861, Kindermann has a strong claim to being the oldest AV manufacturer in the world. Their current product line up features wireless presentation systems, interactive flat panel displays and connectivity solutions. Head of international sales at Kindermann, Romano Cunsolo, explained that “our strength in our home market of Germany is built on innovative products and solutions backed by a team of experts. Customers in international markets will benefit greatly from our product

offering but this requires support from strong local partners that share the Kindermann ethos. With Tukans, I now have such a partner for two key European markets.” Tukans sales director, Simon Druce, added: “Our partnership with Kindermann now allows integrators in the UK and Ireland to offer their clients some of the best meeting room technologies currently available. The KLICK&SHOW range of wireless presentation and collaboration kits are already exciting our customers with the ease of use and high performance compared to competitor products.” Along with KLICK&SHOW, Kindermann’s range of up to 86” touch displays are shipping immediately from Tukans’ UK distribution centre.

Romano Cunsolo, head of international sales

kindermann.de/wp/en/

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PARTNERSHIP NEWS

Exertis teams up with Seceon

have Seceon join the Exertis Enterprise – Security solution stack as it gives our channel partners the tools they need to better equip themselves for visibility and actionable insights into the types of malicious threats that are targeting organisations today. “[This] promises a huge growth area for many of our channel partners who are looking to turn themselves into an MSSP or offer SOC-level services to their customers,” he said. “Seceon’s aiSIEM, aiMSSP, and aiXDR solutions are run on their Open Threat Management Platform, which means channel partners don’t have to have a huge amount of expertise in this field, as they are guided by machine learning- based behavioural analytics and AI-based decision making – to raise and eliminate only the qualified cyber security threats, proactively and confidently.” Lalit Shinde, chief revenue officer at Seceon, added. “Together we intend to bring the disruptive

Exertis has partnered with cybersecurity specialist Seceon, with the aim of developing new channels for the latter’s products. Seceon empowers enterprises, service providers and MSSPs with its solutions for detection and prevention of all known and unknown cyber threats in real-time, from outside and within an organisation. The spectrum of offering is huge to develop customised IT solutions for a range of customer needs. Seceon and Exertis have partnered to develop new channels for the Seceon® Open Threat Management platform and the solutions – aiSIEM™, aiMSSP™ and aiXDR™ – built on the platform. The solution uses machine learning to develop an understanding of future threats rather than simply relying upon the threats already noticed, and can then immediately quarantine and fix, or notify a human for attention. Dominic Ryles, director of sales and commercial – security, Exertis Enterprise, said: “I’m excited to

Dominic Ryles director of sales and commercial – security

seceon.com

innovation in cyber security market to all organisations, irrespective of their size.”

exertis.co.uk

Network Group announces Pia partnership

Network Group (NG), a member-owned community of MSPs, IT resellers and retailers, has announced its collaboration with Pia, an intelligent automation-as-a-service platform for MSP and internal IT service desks. Pia launched in 2022 and has a global technology patent, which enables Pia to integrate with existing ITSM tools to simplify processes, free up resources and improve operational efficiencies. Through IT service desk support and optimisation of customer service functions, Pia can autonomously solve up to 50% of service tickets – enabling NG members to provide faster, stronger, and more consistent outcomes. Key benefits of Pia’s Intelligent Automation Platform for MSPs include: l Reduction in costs: helping to eliminate duplication of effort and time l Improved service time for clients: provides up to eight-times faster ticket resolution times l Focus on revenue generating activities: manages time consuming tasks, allowing staff to focus on other activities l Increased employee satisfaction: removing repetitive tasks allows employees to upskill, improving staff retention. David Tulip, managing director of Network Group and Technology To Go, said: “The need to work

smarter is a constant aim and the most successful organisations find the balance between people, process and technology. Pia is a dedicated solution for IT MSPs that works with their existing service desk tools that will turbo-charge their operations and allow their resources to be channelled and ultimately improve the bottom line – we’re delighted to be working closely together as partners.” Matt Takhar, EVP of strategy and growth at Pia, added: “There were several common themes at Network Group events last year and across the MSP sector: staff retention, lack of technical resources and the need to use AI. Pia has arrived at a perfect time. aiDesk helps bring vast efficiencies to your technical team by providing an automated assistant to everyone of your technicians. This allows you to free up resources for fee earning work and truly deliver ‘more with less’ and provide a great consistent customer service.”

David Tulip managing director

nbg.co.uk

PRODUCT NEWS

Scality ships RING9 data storage solution

Scality has launched RING9, the ninth generation of its RING scale-out file and object storage software, which allows IT teams to build and run a hybrid- cloud data storage infrastructure with higher performance and efficiency. RING9 is built on major investments in RING that enables IT teams to: l Fully leverage flash media through tiering and dynamic data protection policies l Modernise monitoring stack with Prometheus tools and APIs l Streamline integration with API extensions to ecosystem partners such as Veeam and VMware Cloud Director. With these new capabilities, RING9 further enhances and simplifies scale-out file and object storage for enterprises building private and hybrid cloud storage services with comprehensive AWS S3 and IAM compatibility. Building on proven enterprise and service provider deployments since 2010, RING9 enhancements are focused on high performance and storage efficiency. RING9 augments its use of the latest generations of flash media through the Storage Accelerator, a powerful multi-level tiering capability. This enables dynamic tiering and data protection policies for ultra- fast IO to hot storage tiers via low-latency NVMe flash — with automated movement of data to increasingly more cost-effective tiers on lower-cost flash, such as quad-level cell, or on traditional hard disk drives. These enhancements expand the addressable markets and use cases for RING9, and enable IT teams to address Tier 1, latency-sensitive workloads in media streaming, medical imaging and big data

analytics that previously required a separate resource. In addition, RING9 brings monitoring into the modern cloud-native data centre, with the integration of a new stack based on Prometheus and AlertManager, a new comprehensive UI dashboard with user actionable alerting. In addition, the Scality Cloud Monitor now enhances remote monitoring and observability for both customers and Scality’s premium Scale Care Services support offerings. RING9 also streamlines the integration of its ecosystem partner products into a customer’s architecture, with support for: l New APIs for enhanced monitoring, reporting and data placement in solutions from ecosystem partners such as Veeam and others l Enhanced VMware vCloud integration, including production use in existing real-world service provider deployments l More comprehensive AWS IAM-compatible bucket policies to tighten security and access control. “As IT teams embrace the modern stack architecture, they need solutions that eliminate challenges in enterprise data management and storage in the hybrid cloud,” said Paul Speciale, chief marketing officer at Scality. “Scality RING9 represents a major step change for the entire storage industry. Users gain improvements in storage efficiency through internal flash-to-disk tiering and dynamic data protection policies. For modern cloud-based data centres, RING9 fits naturally into the monitoring and observability ecosystem with support for Prometheus and Elastic Cloud. RING9 expands the addressable market and use-case workloads for RING further into the high-performance arena.”

Paul Speciale chief marketing officer

scality.com

CityFibre takes the sting out of wayleaves

CityFibre, the UK’s largest independent full fibre platform, has launched a new process that reduces the need for wayleaves. After listening to partner feedback, CityFibre created a new process called Permission to Work (PtW), which gains approval at the point of order instead of putting it into a wayleave process by default. Since launching the process back in July, the average cycle time for CAT 3 and 4 orders has been reduced by 60%. Alongside civils, cabling and splicing are also required for CAT 3 and 4 orders. CAT 3 is estimated to be less than 75m, while CAT 4 is over 75m or requires a network upgrade. “We’ve listened to feedback from partners and recognised that wayleaves are a key source of frustration,” said Andrew Wilson, sales director – Wholesale Channel at CityFibre. “So, we’ve challenged

these existing processes and worked proactively to come up with a better way of doing things. “The new PtW process is game-changing. I really can’t stress enough how significant this is for our partners. By adopting this process, partners can reduce the time between an order being placed and an invoice being raised. We encourage every partner to adopt it and see the benefits first-hand.” By using the PtW process, customers could avoid the need for external solicitors and legal representatives needing to be involved, making the order journey much smoother and less costly. The process is available for all on-net (CityFibre based) Ethernet orders. A ‘Permission to Work’ form is signed by the end user placing the order. Ideally this happens at the time of order, prior to provisioning or at the point of survey.

Andrew Wilson sales director – Wholesale Channel

cityfibre.com

www.newsinthechannel.co.uk

PRODUCT NEWS

TD SYNNEX launches new finance offer

TD SYNNEX has launched Flexscription, a new finance offer that enables partners to offer customers a flexible way to fund investment in new technology solutions without having to find up-front capital and with a flexible set of options at the end of the agreement period. The Flexscription service has been developed in collaboration with CF Corporate Finance and is available through TD SYNNEX’s Tech-as-a-Service platform. It differs from other finance or leasing options in that, as well as allowing customers to invest in new technology solutions right away, it provides several options for the end of the agreement. Customers can either return the equipment, roll it on at the same rate, extend for 12 or 24 months, or make a one-off final fee and have indefinite use of the equipment. All options are embedded into the agreement and are set out clearly at the start. “With the tightening economic situation and some uncertain months ahead, Flexscription is arriving at just the right time,” said Alix Clements, business manager – B2B value added services, TD SYNNEX. “A lot of end user customers are looking for new and cost-efficient ways to fund the purchase of new

IT solutions. With Flexscription it’s really easy for partners to give them the kind of open flexibility they are seeking. It’s easy to quote for a Flexscription and to process the order via TaaS.” Having flexible options at the end of the contract period is important, she noted, as it’s often one of the main concerns customers have about financing IT purchases. “No-one has a crystal ball and businesses don’t know what position they will be in financially in two- or three-years’ time,” she said. “They won’t want to find themselves having to deal with higher charges if they continue to finance equipment, or an unrealistic cost to purchase it outright. Flexscription removes any ambiguity and gives them clear options, written into the contract from day one. It’s a no-risk option for them, which will make it even easier for partners to sell.” Mike Yiannakou, director, CF Corporate Finance, added: “We’re giving the customer greater reassurance and taking the risk out of financing hardware. We’ll be working with the TD SYNNEX team to offer reseller partners all the support and guidance they need in communicating the benefits and quoting for Flexscription contracts.”

Alix Clements, business manager – B2B value added services

uk.tdsynnex.com

Avoira extends exclusive Xdroid agreement

Avoira has extended an exclusive agreement with specialist software developer Xdroid for the supply and implementation of its pioneering real- time interaction analytics solution. The new three-year contract follows the relationship struck between the two companies in 2018 which saw Bury-headquartered Avoira first launch the Xdroid solution in the UK. The software can capture, analyse and transcribe every customer communication, regardless of whether dialogue is enabled through telephone, email, chat or social media platforms. Capable of learning industry and client specific vocabularies, Xdroid flags keywords and detects a range of emotions such as displeasure, uncertainty, disappointment or happiness. The software then delivers on-screen prompts which steer advisors to engage in specific actions to optimise call outcomes. Aside from delivery insights into agent performance across a range of metrics, the software is increasingly being deployed to support agent wellbeing. Since launch, Xdroid has designed, implemented and hosted bespoke solutions for various public and private sector organisations, government bodies, telecommunications, debt collection and insurance businesses. “Avoira’s specialist expertise has been

instrumental in establishing Xdroid as the pre- eminent interaction analytics solution in the UK call centre market,” said Gerry de Graaf, Xdroid’s joint chief executive officer. Avoira’s managing director, Dr Andrew Roberts, added: “The extension of Avoira and Xdroid’s partnership will let us further build upon our shared successes and continue to deliver the innovative, digitally empowered speech technology services that have earned the trust and confidence of our clients.” He added that the solution’s real-time emotion detecting capabilities and reporting tools mean it is continuing to gain traction across a range of markets. “Many businesses remain reliant on manual analysis of sample calls, which is neither comprehensive nor objective,” he explains. “Xdroid analyses every call and reports the performance of individual agents, agent groups and departments, scoring against selected indicators, such as adherence to internal or regulatory protocols. “Those benefits are generic but particularly pertinent to regulated businesses such as financial and professional services firms, many of whom now face a significant regulatory burden. “Areas such as identification of vulnerable customers and subscription to consumer duty regulations are increasingly hot topics.”

Dr Andrew Roberts, managing director Avoria and Gerry de Graaf, chief executive officer Xdroid

xdroid.com

avoira.com

UC&C

Better together Audio visual and communications are continuing to converge post-pandemic and customers are increasingly demanding integrated solutions, which means there are opportunities for businesses on both sides to get into a new market and provide what customers are demanding.

were in general slower to react, but they are starting to get involved saying ‘we need to take on AV I can’t be a communications specialist anymore, I need to be able to do it all or I can’t provide the solutions for my customers, and I run the risk of losing my customer base.’ “The opportunity is there for channel partners provided they are prepared to learn new technologies, be innovative and invest, not necessarily money but time and learning in new technologies and industries. Those that have done that have already started to see the benefits and those that haven’t have started to feel the pain for that.” Companies in the AV sector are likely to have to learn new ways of working too. “The communications industry has been based on ‘as a service’ for a long time – you paid for your phone line per seat or handset based on how many people are in your office,” explains Wayne. “We are now seeing some channel partners adopting that model into things like meeting rooms, where your meeting room is x amount per seat and that is wrapped into your call centre piece. A Microsoft or platform licence has always been per user so the convergence from that point of view is becoming

When the COVID pandemic hit nearly three years ago, it changed the way many people do business virtually overnight. Suddenly, videoconferencing was a vital part of many people’s working day as people could no longer meet face-to-face. It also served to hasten the convergence of the audio visual (AV) and communications sectors and, while lockdowns are now a memory, convergence of these is only accelerating. “IT, communications and AV have been converging at an ever- increasing pace for the past four to five years if not longer,” says Wayne Lampard from I3. “What COVID did with working from home and the rapid change in the way most people communicate at work expedited that. “Convergence was always expected in the industry, just not quite as quickly as what has happened in the past couple of years.” Opportunities for growth Of course, this presents opportunities for manufacturers and resellers, which the more proactive companies have already taken advantage of. “Resellers in the AV space were quite quick to jump in and work more with communication partners,” says Wayne. “Communication companies

Wayne Lampard i3

It depends if business leaders are prepared to invest the time in reeducating their employees “ ”

i3-technologies.com

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UC&C

CONTINUED

is easier as everyone is starting to fall into quite a similar model. This is more challenging for AV companies as that is not how they have traditionally worked but with challenges comes opportunity.” Wayne adds that is doesn’t have to be difficult for traditional comms/AV dealers to move into new markets. “It depends if business leaders are prepared to invest the time in reeducating their employees,” he says. “In a business that has traditionally focused on communications or AV, there will inevitably be a period where the team will have to learn about new products, invest time with new vendors or new partners to understand how you take those solutions to market and how it integrates,” Wayne says. “That can be quite a difficult process if you are starting from a standing start, but once you have started down that road it can become quite easy quite quickly. “It isn’t that difficult; you just need to learn to ask the right questions and qualify it so you can get the right partner involved. “I find that resellers are hungry and see an opportunity and want to go after it, but don’t necessarily know how to, that’s where I3 can add value as a manufacturer. What that brings is a sense of loyalty, because as soon as someone talks to them about a meeting room, they can call I3 about the opportunity, we can say what we could do and our pre-sales team work with them and we support our channel, rather than just looking for traditional business that people might expect a manufacturer to go after.” Increasing volume Wayne adds that he expects the volume of demand for unified communications to increase this year, as more people are returning to the office, if not full-time but for three to four days a week. “Many are realising that the infrastructure they have in their offices isn’t quite up to scratch,” he says. “A lot of time and money has been invested in to people being able to work from home and they are bringing that technology – laptops, webcams etc – into the office and it doesn’t work with the legacy hardware and it needs to be improved and we are starting to see a lot of that. “We are also starting to see bigger integration onto certain platforms. There have been a lot of businesses that have always been Microsoft-driven in terms of the platform they use. This is driving how they interact with customers and colleagues and we are going to see more being hung around the platform rather than the hardware. More companies are becoming platform-minded rather than product-minded.

“We are only scratching the surface of what true unified communications could mean for the way that people work and how businesses communicate with their customers.” Jim Eagers from NEC adds that customer demand for convenience and reducing IT admin costs are driving convergence. “The AV channel and print reseller channel are mature markets and in many cases margins have eroded over time,” he says. “It’s a great time to look into UC as it creates new revenue stream opportunities with existing, and often very large, customer bases that many resellers already have. Studies have shown that acquiring new clients is five times more expensive than keeping an existing customer. “There is this need for convenience, to have less to worry about as an end user, bundling everything up in one and it works, it does everything the user needs it to do, and they want to pay a predictable monthly fee for it. “Businesses can end up with lots of disparate business apps – telephony, webinars, videoconferencing, co-labs and file backups – which are often independent subscriptions, they don’t work together, they run out at different times, and collectively there can be quite a cost. With platforms such as NEC’s Univerge Blue, which bring a range of cloud services together on one single platform, with a single contact for support, which makes it much easier and embraces the ‘as a service’ culture.” Managing expectations But convergence can come with difficulties, and it is important to manage customers’ expectations, notes Mark Sumner, UC&C and AV business manager at Northamber. He notes that frictions can come as some systems take longer to build out than others in comms and AV.

Jim Eagers NEC

“

It’s a great

time to look into UC as it creates new revenue stream opportunities

with existing, and often very large, customer bases that many resellers already have.

”

uk.nec.com

UC&C

that they’re looking to provide and how difficult or complex their systems will be,” he says. “There’s huge levels of skill sets on the comms and the AV sides. For it to come together there will be a simplified version of it. We’re losing the dark art of both sets of technology to create something that’s simpler. And that’s where I think AV over IP and basic comms is going to converge and technology is utilising the network infrastructure is going to be where we end up.” Widescale demand As mentioned, it is getting to the point where comms and AV businesses have to look to provide a unified proposition because otherwise, they still start losing customers, as demand for unified comms products is across a wide range of sectors, from education to healthcare. “In universities, they’re building high flex areas for learning, where students don’t have to go into the traditional learning space,” says Kier. “That’s all utilising the advanced comms technology and unified communications solutions. In higher and further education certainly, there will be more demand. There won’t be so much at younger education ages as they haven’t got the funding to do so and there is safeguarding concerns over putting cameras in the classroom. “Medical is another area that is advancing because of the lack of doctors and funding in the NHS, they are looking at having remote video doctors that can do multiple consultations at the same time, with the use of high end 4K video technologies. There’s a huge amount of upgrading investment into those areas as well. “There’s not really an area where these types of technologies can’t be used and therefore people are going to go and find that. I can’t see the demand for these solutions slowing down, I can only see it getting bigger and better.”

“It’s managing those expectations of when you bring them all together, how can it work together? How can you ensure that everyone’s demands are met whilst delivering the best customer experience at the same time?” he says. “These are two separate portfolios of products with two different technical expertise, but also two different avenues of features. What you need out of your comms equipment is completely different than what you need out of your AV equipment. And it’s that where there’s still a long way to go. Nobody is getting it perfect anywhere yet.” Kiel Hillier, head of AV product at Northamber, adds: “The traditional comms companies are now rushing into display technologies because it’s a nice add-on to have and it’s not a difficult installation. And then the traditional AV guys are desperately trying to understand technologies that they probably didn’t have too much to do with but could muddle through the basics of and upskilling their teams to allow them to buy the scale of installations and to do meeting room packs.” This should mean that when putting together unified comms proposals, it should include specialists in both areas, Kier adds. “Until very recently, we really wouldn’t have had to know too much other than the basics of each other’s technology,” he says. “Now we really must understand that. So when we’re having conversations with customers about what they’re putting together, you need to have people with subject matter experience on all of this because this convergence has happened so recently. You need people that understand their lanes, which means you need more than one person in the room to support that.” It is expertise that will be crucial, especially for traditional AV and comms dealers to diversify into new markets. This will also influence how difficult it will be for them to make the move, Kier adds. “It’s going to depend on the level of expertise

The traditional comms companies are now rushing into display “

technologies because it’s a nice add-on to have and it’s not a difficult installation

”

Mark Sumner Northamber

Kiel Hillier Northamber

Total distribution™

northamber.com

www.newsinthechannel.co.uk

Scanning frequency For business processes requiring frequent scanning, a dedicated Canon document scanner delivers significant productivity benefits over alternative methods.

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15 ppm / 30 ipm

20 ppm / 36 ipm

12 ppm / 14 ipm

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30 ppm / 60 ipm 45 ppm / 90 ipm

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9 ppm / 10 ipm

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600 dpi

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USB 3.2, WiFi USB 3.2, WiFi LAN Windows, Mac Linux CaptureOnTouc Pro CaptureOnTouc Job Tool COT Admin Serv (DR-S150 only COT Admin To (DR-S150 only A4 Flatbed. Only work wit USB connectio Wi-Fi and LAN connection is n supported.

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A4 Flatbed NA10,WA10 Network Adapters Carry Case 19W Sleep mode: 1.4W

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Power Consumption

Weight

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4.6Kg

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3.3kg

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312.5 x 56.5 x 40 mm

285 x 95 x 40 mm

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ScanFront 400

DR-M140 DR-M160II

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60 ppm / 120 ipm

80 ppm / 160 ipm 1

130 ppm / 260 ipm 1

pm pm

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40 ppm / 80 ipm

60 ppm / 120 ipm

60 ppm / 120 ipm 1

60 ppm / 120 ipm

80 ppm / 160 ipm 1

130 ppm / 260 ipm 1

pm pm

45 ppm / 90 ipm

40 ppm / 80 ipm

60 ppm / 120 ipm

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DF 85-sheets ADF 80-sheets ADF 75-sheets ADF 90-sheets ADF 80-sheets ADF 100-sheets ADF 100-sheets ADF

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30,000 scans 50,000 scans 70,000 scans

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4.5kg

2.6Kg

3.2Kg

3.6Kg

6.1Kg

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10.5Kg

25.0kg

39Kg

305 x 282 x 230 mm

313 x 181 x 93 mm

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