pcr134 magazine - november 2014

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THE FIRST PCR Woman of the Year, Sarah Shields, says she hopes to inspire more women to join IT.

She received the most votes out of our top 50 women in UK tech, and picked up the accolade at an award and networking event at Home House in London on Friday, October 17th, sponsored by Entatech (headline partner), CompTIA and Acer (event partners).

Shields said: “It is an absolute honour and I am kind of at a loss for words. The best thing that I can do is to inspire all women to join IT.“Read our full coverage on page 6.

No. 134 • NOVEMBER 2014

Windows reactionThe PCR Retail Advisory Board shares its views on Windows 10.

57 Boot Camp NorthCheck out who will be exhibiting in our expo and conference guide.

35 Cloud profitabilityResellers and Microsoft execs trade opinions in our roundtable.

24

COMPUTER & IT RESELLERS RETAILERS SYSTEM BUILDERS DISTRIBUTORS VENDORS WWW.PCR-ONLINE.BIZ

W W W . P C R - O N L I N E . B I Z W W W . T W I T T E R . C O M / P C R _ O N L I N E W W W . F A C E B O O K . C O M / P C R M A G

SARAH SHIELDS VOTED WOMAN OF THE YEAR

Dell’s UK executive director and general manager picks up inaugural award

p6

In association with

(From left to right) Dell’s UK communications manager Melanie

Derome, executive director and general manager Sarah Shields, and executive

director EMEA HR Rachel Dempers

CONTENTS & COMMENT

COMMENT

Follow us @pcr_online

CONTENTSREGULARS06 Woman of the Year review

09 Windows 10 analysis

10 AMD/Nvidia analysis

13 Number crunching

14 Appointments

16 Events

19 Behind the scenes:

Challow

20 Opinion

FEATURES24 Cloud roundtable

28 Microsoft interview

31 How to sell photography

35 Boot Camp North guide

RETAIL53 Analysis

55 Store of the Month

57 Retail Advisory Board on

Windows 10

61 Mystery Shopper

64 Counter Insurgent

64 Synaxon Member Profi le

PRODUCTS67 Cameras and web cams

71 Camera accessories and

software

75 Nvidia GTX 970/980 cards

76 Recommended products

OUT OF OFFICE80 In the Hot Seat: Spencer

Kelly, TV presenter

81 Industry Tweets

82 The Last Word: Sarah

Shields, Dell

A change for the bestAN INDUSTRY such as ours is always evolving.

While wearable tech and the Internet of Things are giving us all reason to step back and think where our trade may be heading, many traditional retailers are still wondering whether to start selling cloud services (see our roundtable on page 24). That’s fi ne – these changes are a part of our industry and it will depend on your business whether you embrace them – but there are a few other changes that need to happen more quickly.

Our fi rst ever Woman of the Year event took place in October (read our full write up on page 6), where the industry got together to celebrate some of its leading female role models. These included the achievements of one in particular: Dell UK’s Sarah Shields, fi rst ever winner of the PCR Woman of the Year award.

After receiving her award, Sarah told me why she thinks events like this are important (read more of her opinions on women in tech on page 82).

“Women have an incredible amount to offer the IT industry, the way we think and the way we communicate. It’s about how we approach business and how we get more people to enjoy this amazing industry,” she said.

I couldn’t agree more. As a woman working within the tech industry I have had a few experiences that simply wouldn’t have happened if I were a man.

One notable instance was walking into a small press conference and sitting down next to a gentleman who took one look at me, then stood up and announced: “Ooh, look everyone! A woman is here!”

Once the conference had fi nished he turned to me and whispered: “Did you understand all that? Let me know if you need me to explain anything?”

So, while our event was bursting with female tech talent, there is still a lot of work to be done and the industry must keep evolving until it is no longer a surprise to see a woman at a press conference.Laura [email protected]: 1742-8440

“As a woman working in the tech industry I have had a few experiences that simply wouldn’t have happened if I were a man.”

Editorial: 01992 535646Advertising: 01992 535647

NewBay Media is a member of the Periodical Publishers Associations

Incorporating

Alice SanzProduction [email protected]

Dan [email protected]

MEET THE TEAM

Dominic SaccoEditor [email protected]@Dom_Sacco

Laura BarnesStaff [email protected]@roradrum

Jade BurkeStaff [email protected]@JadeBurke77

Andrew [email protected]@AndrewWooden82

Sarah GoldhawkAccount [email protected]@sarzgoldhawk

Jennie LaneSenior Account [email protected]@jennielane1

PCR WOMAN OF THE YEAR

ORGANISED following our Top 50 Women in Tech article earlier this year, PCR’s Woman of the Year event was packed with some of the most celebrated female role models in the PC and tech business.

Around 100 execs from the likes of BullGuard, Computers Unlimited, CompTIA, Fujitsu, Hama, Hannspree, Intel, Kingston, Mad Catz, Midwich, Novatech, Tech Data, Tesco, The IT Marketing Agency, Westcoast and more attended.

Although the afternoon of networking was focused on the work of females in the industry, it was great to see a number of males turn up to

support their female co-workers, employees and bosses as well.

CompTIA and Acer supported the award as event partners, and Entatech was on board as headline partner, with the distributor’s director and VP, Jon Atherton, handing over the first PCR Woman of the Year award.

GIRLS LOVE TECHCompTIA’s senior VP of industry relations, Nancy Hammervik, gave a talk about the importance of women in the IT industry.

Hammervik, who has had a passion for supporting

women in the IT industry for many years, touched on the point that women in IT is not just a women’s issue, but rather an IT workforce issue.

“Today we are celebrating not just one exceptional winner, but a whole industry of extraordinary women, who have shown in no uncertain terms just what they can bring to the party,” she said.

“Last year, CompTIA conducted a research study on youth and IT. We queried more than 1,000 teens and young adults in North America.

“When asked if they like or love technology – 95 per cent of the girls said yes. When asked if

they have helped a relative or friend with a technical issue, 92 per cent said yes. When asked if they may be interested in a career in IT, only nine per cent said yes. 38 per cent said probably not and 53 per cent said definitely not.

“When asked about perceptions of jobs in IT, the majority of girls shared ‘it’s boring, it’s difficult and complicated, it requires good math and science skills, it’s for nerds and geeks’, but the number one barrier is that 77 per cent shared they just hadn’t thought about it and didn’t know anyone who worked in the IT industry.”

Dell’s Sarah Shields said women have an “incredible amount” to offer the IT industry

“It is an absolute honour to receive this award. Women have an incredible amount to offer the industry.

Sarah Shields, Dell UK

6 | PCR November 2014 www.pcr-online.biz

GET THE LATEST STORIES SENT TO YOUR INBOX AT PCR-ONLINE.BIZ/EMAIL

Simply the bestPCR hosted its debut Woman of the Year event in October following the success of our popular Top 50 Women in Tech feature. Here’s a rundown of what happened on the day and reaction from our first ever winner…

PCR WOMAN OF THE YEAR

Hammervik stressed that women in the industry have the responsibility to talk to girls about working in IT.

PCR publisher Andrew Wooden added: “Thanks to everyone for coming down and attending. We received nearly 1,000 votes, so it’s been incredibly popular, and it’s a great to be able to recognise a host of talented women working in the UK PC industry.”

AND THE WINNER IS…Dell UK’s executive director and general manager, Sarah Shields, was the worthy winner of our first ever PCR Woman of the Year award.

With past roles at AMD and Acer, Shields joined Dell in 2008 and has a track record of growing market share against the odds, as well as launching new brands into the market.

“It is an absolute honour. What an incredible thing to be awarded,” she said.

“Women have an incredible amount to offer the industry, the way we think the way we communicate, and it’s not just about coding or being technical, it’s about how we approach business and get more people to enjoy this amazing industry. This is a special moment that is going to stay with me for a long time.”

Attendees enjoyed a mix of drinks and networking

CompTIA’s Nancy Hammervik spoke about getting girls interested in IT

“When asked if girls might be interested in a career in IT, only nine per cent said yes.”

Nancy Hammervik, CompTIA

www.pcr-online.biz PCR November 2014 | 7


Members of the Tesco computing team made an appearance

Entatech’s Jon Atherton announced the winner

Fujitsu’s Liz King and Steve Danton were all smiles

by Dominic SaccoMICROSOFT’S next operating system, Windows 10, has been met with a positive early reception.

The OS was unveiled on September 30th, skipping Windows 9. It boasts improved ‘enterprise-grade’ security and management capabilities, as well as an expanded Start menu with one-click access to programs, fi les, apps, people and sites.

Windows 10 will also feature apps that run in a window, snap enhancements – a new ‘quadrant’ layout allows up to four apps to be snapped on the same screen, as well as a new task view button that provides one view for all open apps and fi les.

The OS will also have multiple desktops, in a bid to avoid too many apps and fi les overlapping.

Novatech’s head of marketing Tim LeRoy told PCR: “Windows 10 looks like

sensible evolution, which the business market prefers to radical revolution. I suspect Microsoft’s hope that users will choose one platform for every device they use is optimistic, but the new leadership in Redmond seems to have a clearer vision and ambition than in previous years. We’re optimistic but not overexcited.”

Scan Computers’ James Gorbold added: “Early

indications of Windows 10 look very good. I think it will satisfy a lot of the Windows 7 users who may have been frustrated by 8’s interface.”

Ebuyer’s consumer electronics general manager Lee Weymouth says we shouldn’t focus too far ahead.

“We know Windows 10 is on the horizon and the little glimpses we’ve had have looked good, so we’ve planned for that. However,

we’ve still got at least a full year, if not more, of new Windows 8 products to come,” he said.

“Windows 8 will have a strong showing between now and Christmas, especially with the value ‘Bing’ laptops hitting the market at the £199 range.”

By October 13th one million people had registered for the Windows Insider Program, granting access to the Windows 10 Technical Preview and allowing them to send feedback to Microsoft ahead of the OS’ full launch in the second half of 2015.

Reception to Microsoft’s suggestion box has been strong – and users have reacted positively to Windows 10 so far. Time will tell just how popular the OS will be, but Microsoft is taking the right steps following the mixed reception to Windows 8. Turn to page 57 for more retailer views.

Warm welcome for Windows 10Channel reacts to Microsoft’s upcoming operating system as early feedback from the Technical Preview comes in…

ANALYSIS

Have you signed up to Boot Camp North?PCR BOOT Camp North – our first exhibition and conference in the North – is just weeks away.

Every single dealer who attends the show on Wednesday November 12th at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, will be given the choice of taking home a free Sol Republic Tracks HD headset or a Turtle Beach Ear Force Z22 Amplified Gaming Headset.

The event will contain the same winning formula found in the London Boot Camp – conferences, panel sessions, exhibitions and networking. And as usual, it’s completely free for retailers, resellers and system builders to attend.

The morning conference will feature must-have

information vital for dealers selling PCs and technology in the modern age, in an easy to digest format. Sessions will include how to make money from gaming and system building, where the tech retail market is heading (by Kantar Retail’s Himanshu

Pal), trends and analysis from GfK’s Carl West, threats and opportunities facing the retail landscape (by Dell’s Sarah Shields) and more.

The likes of Microsoft, VIP Computers, Entatech, Northamber, GFI, Caseking, Plantronics, A One

Distribution and lots more will be showing off products and services to dealers during the exhibition (Network Group has an Oculus VR headset), plus lunch is included free too.

The event will be followed by an After-Show Drinks Reception providing networking opportunities.

It will be held in privately booked galleries at the Royal Armouries, giving delegates the chance to browse the historical weaponry exhibits, ancient armour and even a war elephant – as well as watch some traditional martial arts sparing – while they network with business partners and peers.www.pcrbootcampnorth.com/dealer-registration

“The morning conference will feature must-have information vital for dealers.”



Get a free headset, try the Oculus Rift, find out how to boost your business with the likes of Microsoft and more...

“The new leadership in Redmond seems to have a clearer vision and ambition than in previous years.”

Tim LeRoy, Novatech

ANALYSIS


by Dominic SaccoTHE AGE-OLD rivalry between video card giants Nvidia and AMD is hotting up in time for Christmas.

Nvidia launched the GeForce GTX 970 (from £259) and 980 (from £429) in September, and some system builders told PCR they are seeing stock shortages for the cards due to strong demand.

AMD responded by highlighting the ‘great pricing’ and channel promotions for its cards, including the high-end Radeon R9 290 and 290X.

“You can purchase an AMD Radeon R9 290X starting at $369 – considerably better value than the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980, which is its equivalent,” said AMD gaming scientist Richard Huddy.

“The best news is that we have very healthy stock levels for both the 290 and 290X in the channel and the time to buy is now, with channel promotions bringing such great deals.

“The other thing to think about is performance per dollar; you’re getting a lot of performance for your money with AMD.”

An Nvidia spokesperson countered: “The Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 and GTX 970 are not only the fastest GPUs ever created but also the most advanced – reviews all over the world have called them the best graphics cards ever made and the GTX 970 has redefi ned price performance in graphics.

“Of course, this has resulted in incredible sales and we are working hard to ensure everyone gets hold of a GTX 980 or GTX 970 soon. More stock is arriving every day into the UK and the entire channel is doing an incredible job getting them into eager consumers’ hands. We have also seen an increased demand for the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, 780 and 770 that are incredible value.”

Chillblast buyer Ben Miles commented: “Sales of the new Nvidia cards are indeed strong, and AMD has dropped the price on its 290 series cards. I’m not expecting – though I may be wrong – a response to the 970/980 any time imminently (in terms of a new AMD Radeon product).”

Nvidia and AMD prepare for Q4 battleRetailers seeing ‘huge demand’ for GTX 970 and 980; AMD responds with channel promotions

Save the date: PCR Awards 2015THE DATE has been set for the 2015 PCR Awards – so make sure you mark Wednesday, March 12th in your diaries.

The event will boast a similar mix of networking, partying and recognition of achievements in the UK PC and tech industry, with nominations for the awards due to open soon.

The PCR Awards will again return to the popular Royal Garden Hotel in Kensington,

with an evening dinner and an after-show party of course included.

Distributors, vendors and retailers will be recognised as usual through a variety of awards and categories.

PCR publisher Andrew Wooden said: “The 2015 PCR Awards promises to be another key diary date for the trade next year. We’re looking forward to celebrating the best in the industry.”

“The best news is that we have very healthy stock levels for both the 290 and 290X in the channel.”

Richard Huddy,AMD

News BytesTWO COMPUTER GIANTS SPLITOctober saw two well-established vendors make similar sweeping changes to their company structures.

HP has officially split into two separate companies – one focusing on its personal computer and printer business, and the other on its corporate hardware/enterprise and other services.

Elsewhere, security specialist Symantec has announced plans to split itself into two separate companies: one business will focus on security and the other will look after storage.

MAC SALES RISE AS IPAD AIR 2 LAUNCHESApple sold 5.5 million Macs in its 2014 financial fourth quarter – a 25 per cent increase over the 4.4 million sold last quarter. However, it sold 12.3 million iPad units this quarter, down from 14.1 million at the same time last year. The news comes after Apple unveiled the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3, along with a new iMac.

AMAZON UK SAME-DAY DELIVERY LAUNCHESAmazon customers can pick up parcels from their local High Street within 12 hours of ordering.

Customers will be notified by text or email that their parcel has arrived at their local pick-up location, with those ordering online by 7.45pm being able to collect their order from 6.30am the following morning.

ARGOS SIGNS BOSEAudio vendor Bose has joined forces with retailer Argos, which will sell a range of its products in stores and online.

The news comes after Apple removed all Bose products from its stores following a patent dispute with the audio specialist.

NEW GOOGLE NEXUS DEVICES REVEALEDGoogle has unveiled its next line of Nexus devices, including the Nexus 9 tablet, featuring a nine-hour battery life, an 8.9-inch screen, and a 64-bit Nvidia Tegra K1 2.3Ghz processor. It also includes an 8MP rear camera as well as a 1.6MP front facing camera. There’s also the Nexus 6 smartphone on the way.


Nvidia and AMD are both seeing healthy sales of

their video cards

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STATS


Number

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

75%Throughout 2015, more than 75 per

cent of mobile apps will fail basic security tests.

(Gartner)

The average Brit has spent £78 on repair costs for their smartphone or mobile device over the past two years.

(SquareTrade)

£78

Volume sales of PCs during the first 11 weeks of Q3 2013 increased by 14.3 per cent year-on-year in the UK.

(Context)

Over a third of UK employees download personal files to devices used for work.(Kroll Ontrack)

Women accounted for 52 per cent of people in the UK who’ve played some

form of video game in the first half of 2014.

(The Internet Advertising Bureau UK)

52%370 Over 370 contactless transactions

are made every minute in the UK. (BitDefender)

1/3

14.3%

MICROSOFT: SIMON URQUHART has moved on from his previous role as gaming buyer at Dixons, to take on his new position within Microsoft, as EMEA buyer for Microsoft’s store.

Urquhart was also nominated for two MCV Awards, PCR’s sister title,

during 2014. As well as this, he opened Dixon’s Gaming Bunker in 2013.

Prior to this, Urquhart worked as assistant category manager for PC accessories within Dixons, where he was responsible for laptop bags, tablet accessories, mouse mats and PC cleaning.

Microsoft store gains new EMEA buyerExertis appoints print general manger Wacom announces new e-Doc manager CMS distribution hires sales and marketing director OKI employs new channel head of customer services

RECRUITMENT

EXERTIS: The distributor has appointed JAMIE BROTHWELL as its new print general manager.

He will focus on building Exertis’ solutions, including printers to server solutions for networking and AV.

Brothwell has 10 years’ worth of experience in

distribution, as well as two years with Samsung, and will now be based at Exertis’ Basingstoke HQ.

Brothwell said: “When the opportunity arose to join Exertis, I knew this was the right time and the right company to bring my print skills to.”

OKI SYSTEMS: OKI Systems has announced CHRISTINE WEST as its new head of customer services, where she will be responsible for all aspects of service delivery, both to channel partners and end users of OKI solutions.

Before joining OKI, West spent nearly four years as

client director at Cura Technical, a specialist IT services provider as well as a third party maintenance partner of OKI.

Prior to Cura, West was at Wincor Nixdorf Services for six-and-a-half years.

West said: “My aim is to build on OKI’s existing service

proposition and establish the company as a leader for service delivery across the UK’s IT services sector.

“While maintaining our traditional telephone-based services, we are looking to develop the way we use the latest technologies to enhance customer experience.”

WACOM: The company has announced the appointment of MARK HOOLE as its new e-Doc key account manager.

He will be the sole person for this division in the UK, which is part of a larger European team. He has worked within the IT sector for over 12 years, within

distribution, manufacturing and reselling. Hoole also worked within Synaxon UK’s team as key account manager for e-Docs.

Hoole said: “We can help in making businesses more effi cient and paperless, which is one of the key goals of the government agencies.”

DAVID EMM, PRINCIPAL SECURITY RESEARCHER, GLOBAL RESEARCH AND ANALYSIS TEAM, KASPERSKY

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF…

IN MY line of work there is no such thing as a standard day, as such. However, a more-or-less ‘normal’ day starts with a 6am train for my hour-long commute heading into the Paddington offi ce.

I like to start early. There are fewer commuters and it’s quite a civilised environment in which to get through some reading. It also means that the offi ce is quiet, giving me a chance to get the jobs done which need concentration and peace and quiet.

I’m fortunate enough to work with a group of very smart people, in a team that has been responsible for investigating and analysing cutting-edge targeted malware campaigns such as Stuxnet, Duqu, Flame and Red October. The guiding mission of the team is ‘we’re here to save the world’. This might sound overly grandiose, but it expresses the ethic that drives us all in our work.

On any given day I could be discussing either general or specifi c threats with the media, speaking to IT managers and executives about corporate security and how to

defend against today’s malware, or explaining to non-technical people how malware can affect their everyday lives and advising what they can do to reduce the risk of falling victim to a malware attack.

We live in an age where malware can touch almost every aspect of our everyday lives, something which makes my work extremely varied. It can involve discussing these issues in press briefi ngs, speaking at conferences and business events, working with universities, or highlighting security issues in my blog on The Huffi ngton Post. I also support the work of colleagues in our sales and marketing teams, discussing aspects of the threat landscape.

When I’m not working, I enjoy reading, playing guitar and spending time with family.

Simon Urquhart

Jamie Brothwell

Mark Hoole

“The mission of the team is ‘we’re here to save the world’. This might sound overly grandiose, but it expresses the ethic that drives us.”


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Diary DatesNOVEMBER 2014PCR BOOT CAMP NORTHNOVEMBER 12TH, ROYAL ARMOURIES, LEEDSPCR Boot Camp is expanding to specifi cally caterfor retailers in the Midlands, Scotland, Wales and the North. The set-up of the day will mirror the popular London event, including an informative morning conference (with panel sessions and expert briefi ngs) and an afternoon expo (giving exhibitors the chance for retailers and vendors/distributors to engage and new product lines to be shown off). It’s completely free for retailers, resellers and system builders to attend.

JANUARY 2015CES 2015JANUARY 6TH – 9TH, LAS VEGAS, NEVADAAs the biggest tech and computing event of the year, CES showcases more than 3,200 exhibitors. More than 152,000 attendees from over 150 countries are expected to visit next year’s show to take a look at the latest innovations in technology. The 2015 event will see its 3D Printing Marketplace double in size compared to CES 2014.

BETT 2015JANUARY 21ST – 24TH, EXCEL, LONDONBett provides a platform for showcasing the latest technology and software resources in the education sector. The show has been running for over 30 years and over 35,000 people are expected to attend this year’s event. As well as an expo, the event has a conference programme hosting innovative fi gures in the fi eld of education technology, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and the UK’s education secretary Rt Hon Nicky Morgan, who will both be presenting keynotes.

FEBRUARY 2015 DISTREE EMEA 2015FEBRUARY 24TH – 27TH, GRIMALDI FORUM, MONACODISTREE offers an opportunity for channel leaders across EMEA to meet and do business with their existing and prospective vendors. The event assembles leading technology distributors, tier one retailers and infl uential e-tailers from more than 75 countries with the leading technology vendors of the industry.

EVENT PLANNER

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

PCR Boot Camp North will cater for resellers, retailers and system builders in the North.

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Behind the scenes:

Challow

BEHIND THE SCENES

Around 16 years ago, Andrew Fryer decided he’d had enough of

running technical departments for big box shifters, and so he planned to work as a contractor and even had a two-year job set up in Dubai. But with a friend keen to start a small business, and meeting the woman who would end up becoming his wife, Fryer’s career took a slightly different turn.

“My father had a small company when I was a kid and I can always remember us being very poor. I initially said no, but around the same time I met my future wife, so going to Dubai for two years started to sound less and less appealing,” reminisces Fryer.

So Challow began with three employees living the life of break fi x engineers, working mainly with small companies.

“Our clients wanted to be able to work remotely and wanted their stuff backed up,

all without an IT manager, because an IT manager for 10 to 15 people is a big expense,” explains Fryer.

At the time Microsoft was getting into virtualisation, and being big Citrix users, Challow started designing bespoke packages, which charged customers per person.

“We thought it would only appeal to three or four-user companies,” Fryer says.

“In the fi rst year we ended up with 200 people. With so many people on it, our servers were putting out so much heat that in the middle of winter our development team were wearing shorts.”

About fi ve years ago Challow came to the decision that they would become a private cloud provider.

“By that point we had around 300 to 400 people on it,” Fryer explains. “We built a data centre downstairs and what I learnt from that is we should not have built a data

centre downstairs.“There have been a number

of times the power has been cut. Over the back is a cheese factory and one day it had drawn so much power with its huge fridges that the substation had blown.”

That was the point that the fi rm decided to step things up as they were dealing more and more with bigger clients from the legal and non-for profi t sectors. And so Challow made decided to build its own primary data centre in Telecity.

Looking around the one-room offi ce, I notice how quiet the phones are.

“We’ve got 14 employees now and if you get it right you don’t get phone calls. You can see that the phones aren’t off the hook. The theory is, do it right; do it once,” says Fryer.

That’s not to say that the help desk isn’t an important part of the company. In fact, Fryer reveals that his employees have to survive a

whole year on the help desk before they get a chance to move into any other part of the business, stating: “If they don’t make it on help desk, they don’t make it.”

Challow seems to pride itself on customer service, and Fryer says that most of his employees don’t actually come from an engineering background: “What I’ve done is take people who can give good customer service and then trained them technically. Everyone is familiar with the engineer that communicates in grunts. Well that just doesn’t cut it anymore.”

Looking towards the future of Challow, Fryer reveals that he aims to make himself ‘redundant’: “Everything I do with this team is to train them to be able to work without me. In the next four years I plan to get to a point where I spend my time fi ddling with old, obscure American motorcycles.”

Laura Barnes sits down with Andrew Fryer, owner of private cloud provider Challow, to discover the problems with working near a cheese factory, why all his employees must spend a year on help desk duties, and why his ultimate goal is to make himself ‘redundant’…


“Everyone is familiar with the engineer that communicates in grunts. Well that just doesn’t cut it anymore.”

Andrew Fryer, Challow

Email: [email protected]

Telephone: 020 7609 2277

Address: Unit 19, Tileyard Road, London, N7 9AH

Year established: 1998

Number of employees: 14

CONTACT INFO

OPINION

THERE ARE loads of trends going on out there, but how much of them relate to you and what should you do with them?

My job at Brother is to try and make sense of information like that and look at impact trends. There are a lot of trends out there but not all of them will impact you or your business – it’s choosing the ones that do which actually matter. Here are the six impact trends we’ve chosen at Brother that are going to drive our future:

1. The declining printer market. According to year-on-year Context data, single function mono laser sales have declined, but mono laser all-in-ones have seen a big increase. It’s the same thing with colour laser printers – and ink too. So beware of taking a trend at face value, go and have a look around. You might think print is a dying trade, well it’s not, it’s alive and well.

2. Mobilisation. Where are people using devices and what are they using? Most work in an offi ce, but increasingly they work at home, or elsewhere. So devices have got to be able to cope with this change in people’s usage. We now have Air Print and apps, so you can print from your tablet. At Brother we’ve also given all of our sales guys iPads and iPhones, and we’ve created apps they can use with resellers to give them better information.

3. Digitisation. This is a massive trend in our world. In the UK, the NHS plans to go paperless by 2018. This paperless offi ce has been coming for years and years, I don’t think we’ll quite ever get there, but it’s a massive trend and it’s got government backing and it’s going to happen in some way. We have a new category of scanning devices – both desktop and mobile – and we’re creating new opportunities for our resellers.

4. Collaboration. We understand that people are working in disparate places these days. But you still need their input and to get them at the

time you want them. Getting people in the same room is very diffi cult, but the web conferencing market is exponentially growing. We have a product called Omnijoin which does collaborations and meetings online. And we’re supporting that with cloud technologies as well as portals.

5. Relationships. We’ve found that these matter more than ever in business. If two partners trust each other, they both make better fi nancial business. We have a new portal for our resellers and a telesales team dedicated to our resellers.

6. Solutions. The service industry in the UK is outperforming any other industry in terms of growth/GDP. Services and solutions are becoming a de facto expectation that businesses have when they deal with you.

“There are a lot of trends out there but not all of them will impact you or your business.”

Dave Peters,Brother

AFTER THE loss of several key retailers in 2012 and 2013, there were hopes that 2014 would be much more stable for the UK imaging market.

Even with a more consistent retail scene, increased consumer confi dence and the hype around the football World Cup, there seems little to cheer. UK digital camera sales volumes declined by 24 per cent in the fi rst half of 2014 (January to June). Higher end fi xed lens products have continued to keep the tills ringing with growth for tough (water and/or shock proof) devices, and those with larger sensors and models with more than 20X optical zoom. Though this needs to be tempered by the much larger basic end of the market which dropped by more than 30 per cent in 2014.

Fixed lens sales have been diffi cult because of the impact of rising smartphone use, but there was hope for the market for changeable lens cameras to stabilise.

SLR sales had been buoyant in 2013 but have declined by 14 per cent so far this year. So, it is left to Compact System Camera (CSC) products to be the fl ag bearer for the market. This year there has

almost been a double digit increase in sales volumes, and even more impressive, a 14 per cent hike in value. This is due to an increased share for high value sales with some impressive launches in 2014. Sales over £1,000 accounted for over a

quarter of the market compared to only 13 per cent last year.

Still within hardware, camcorder sales have continued to fall with only action cameras offering some relief. Action cameras have sustained their impressive growth of over 100 per cent in both units and value in 2014. Having been around for some time now, this category can hardly be called ‘new’ but still seems to grab consumer attention with the versatility of the situations that can be achieved.

So is there hope in the accessories areas? Bag sales are still dominated by those aimed at fi xed lens cameras and so we see declines here, but only single digits so far. Tripods, though, have performed well and recorded a 17 per cent volume growth in 2014, and a similar value growth.

Memory cards are more level with a small volume decline and a level value performance, but we know that many of these are now utilised by smartphones and tablets, so imaging can’t take all the credit.

“Tripods have performed well and recorded a 17 per cent volume growth in 2014.”

Richard Gregory,GfK

Dave Peters is Brother’s UK development and strategy director, and was giving a talk at the Northamber Tech Expo. www.brother.co.uk

Richard Gregory is account director at analyst GfK. www.gfk.com

Brother’s UK development and strategy director Dave Peters shares his six top impact trends you should be aware of…

Richard Gregory, account director at GfK, takes a look at how action cameras have seen impressive growth despite overall digital camera sales volumes declining…

Top six techimpact trends

Action cameras stand out in UK


CLOUD ROUNDTABLE


GETTING STARTEDIN THE CLOUDPCR: How can a reseller start selling these kinds of services?

Mike Brown: Anybody can start selling Offi ce 365 and Microsoft make it very easy to get into the market. It sells itself and it’s a nice fl at revenue stream.

Once you get to a level whereby Microsoft see that you are making an effort, they will help you.

Once you become a managed partner, they will engage you with marketing and training materials and that type of thing.

Mike Barron: We represent over 600 resellers who traditionally sell hardware and want to get into the cloud. Where exactly do they start?

Brent Combest: I don’t see why you couldn’t SKU up Offi ce 365 for them and maybe a migration service as well, like SkyKick. Our distributors (like Ingram Micro, Tech Data and Westcoast) in many cases have formed relationships with these types of partners and there could be a value-add service there.

Mark Adams: On the

hardware side, we’re now engaging with end users and we’re seeing this wish from small customers to have a local appliance to shadow the data from the cloud, have backup capabilities and run a few apps that don’t run well in the cloud. You can manage this on their behalf, with utility servers in the cloud. It’s a step into the cloud rather than a jump.

Alexandria Ball: We’re also seeing that OneDrive is a really good fi rst step into the cloud for a lot of customers. It’s essentially extra storage for a device. And we do have

specifi c SKUs just for OneDrive, so it’s a really good option as a fi rst step.

PARTNER PROFITABILITYBrent: There are three primary buckets of revenue that partners monetise around Offi ce 365. First is the license itself, and there’s a channel incentive or rebate that can be made off of selling that. The volume in which you sell dictates the percentage in which you earn – which can be as high as 23 per cent.

Then there’s traditional time and materials billable services. The third piece is around managed services and

that can be charged as a billable fee on a monthly, quarterly or annualised basis.

A fourth one is also starting to take shape now – this concept of packaged IP, where partners are building solutions that reside on top of Sharepoint and they sell it in a repeatable way.

Ben Gower: The biggest opportunity around Offi ce 365 at the minute is IP on Sharepoint. It’s the biggest untapped market by a country mile.

Craig Hume: As an app, would you be able to white

While managed IT services are increasing in prominence, some PC resellers are still a little reluctant to make the jump over to the cloud. Microsoft, PCR and several resellers – some who sell cloud services and others who don’t – gathered in London to discuss the benefi ts and challenges of selling cloud-based products like Offi ce 365…

Is there more money to be made from the cloud?

Mike Barron, SynaxonMike has been working in the UK PC industry for more than 20 years, and is currently UK channel manager at dealer services group Synaxon, which has over 600 members.

Jon Harrison, Platinum ComponentsJon works at Pan-European distributor Platinum which supplies hardware to the trade. He is interested in fi nding out more about the cloud.

Craig Hume, Utopia ComputersCraig runs a boutique system manufacturer based in Scotland, which builds high-end desktops and laptops. Utopia doesn’t offer cloud services.

Phil Hall, Multi Media ReplicationPhil started out at Multi Media Replication duplicating Microsoft training materials on fl oppy disks, before moving to CD, DVD and USB.

Clive A Cowan, CCR Computer SystemsClive is principal at CCR Computer Systems, a long-established SMB VAR set up in 1984. CCR does not offer cloud services.

Garry Stonehouse, Gbiz IT ComputersGarry runs a store in North Yorkshire. He is an authorised Google Apps reseller, which Gbiz sells predominantly to businesses.

THE PARTICIPANTS

CLOUD ROUNDTABLE


label that and sell that as your own to your customers?

Mark Adams: At the moment the vendor who produces the app can put it into the marketplace, and then you can choose it from the marketplace. There’s a non-granular payment system so that can be quite nicely subscribed, but the concept of a proper marketplace – it hasn’t really matured into that yet. It will, because there will be demand for it, but it’s not quite there.

Mike Brown: When you start, the cheques you get from Microsoft are pretty small. If you go out and you do 50, 100 or 200 seats with Offi ce 365, £100 comes through. But if you’ve done it for fi ve years and you’ve sold 100,000 or 200,000 seats, you’re looking at tens of thousands of pounds per month coming in.

Brent Combest: In a study that we did with IDC, based

on 709 partners surveyed, the average partner that has more than 50 per cent of revenue from the cloud is seeing profi t levels 1.6 times higher than their peers, with a growth rate 2.4 times faster than their peers.

IS THE CLOUD JUST FOR LARGER VOLUME RESELLERS?Phil Hall: If a customer doesn’t have more than fi ve to 10 seats, is it worth my sales effort as a Value Added Reseller (VAR)?

Ben Gower: We have about 2,000 customers, and if you take out the 20,000+ seat customers, the average seat size is about 18.

Is it worth it? Yes, for sure. You can make money, no question about it. Our recurring revenue just from licenses has gone past £10,000 a month now, excluding the larger businesses.

Clive Cowan: I have a massive

inertia to the cloud. It seems Offi ce 365 works well if you’re selling it in the thousands or tens of thousands of seats. But if I want to sell four seats, there’s nothing better than selling them a CD they can fi le away with a license number on it for that machine. I think this is a market that has been neglected with the cloud.

Brent Combest: I wouldn’t say that we’re neglecting it. I’d say Microsoft is one of the unique providers that give you the power of choice – we realise there will be customers that want option A versus option B, and we provide solutions that solve them both.

I wouldn’t say size dictates what is right for the customer – they will determine what they’re going to need. In the long term you’d be making far greater margins than selling the customer a CD on-premise.

Also, I’d be concerned that a CD could get lost, whereas with the cloud, if something

were to happen to my PC, all I need is my username and password to re-download that. One subscription gives you access on fi ve devices, too, so it offers more freedom in that regard.

Ben Gower: Cloud fundamentally changes the business model you have. So if you don’t want to change your business model, and your margins are to be made by what you already do, then maybe you shouldn’t change to cloud.

THE PRICING MODELGarry Stonehouse: For our SMB customers – and the majority of our business is B2B – we sell Google Apps rather than Offi ce 365. We fi nd the pricing model for Apps simpler to understand as there’s just one price. We did look at Offi ce 365 as an option about a year ago, but we were confused by the Microsoft pricing model.

Brent Combest: I think we’re catching you on precisely the right day. Our SKU line-up had many variations. We have just announced a simplifi cation of our SKU line-up that should make things considerably easier for you. So we hear your message loud and clear and we’re working to solve this problem.

Ben Gower: You look at the list of available SKUs and it’s complicated. But we use that to our advantage and beat our competition, because there’s so much granularity to what you can provide a customer that one simple pricing doesn’t necessarily fi t all.

Mike Brown: When I fi rst starting dealing with Offi ce 365, it took me about a month to understand what each one

“The biggest opportunity around Offi ce 365 at the minute is IP on Sharepoint. It’s the biggest untapped market by a country mile.”

Ben Gower, Perspicuity

Ben Gower, PerspicuityBen is MD of Perspicuity, a Microsoft Gold Partner that helps businesses move to the cloud, predominantly focusing on Offi ce 365 and Sharepoint solutions.

Alex Sessoms, MicrosoftAs senior marketing manager at Microsoft, Alex works with Brent and his team, looking after partner marketing in the distributor space.

Paula Costa, MicrosoftPaula looks after Microsoft’s OEM vendors and also works with the company’s distribution partners.

Alexandria Ball, MicrosoftWorking in Microsoft’s small and medium business teams, Alexandria specifi cally looks at marketing execution through resellers and distribution partners.

Brent Combest, MicrosoftBrent is Director of Sales Excellence & Strategy for Cloud in SMB and is responsible for driving Microsoft Online Services in the SMB segment.

Mark Adams, Infostrata SolutionsMark is from Infostrata and BusinessOn365. It’s a Sharepoint Gold Partner that is switching a lot of its activity to Offi ce 365.

Mike Brown, Paradigm SystemsMike is MD of Paradigm Systems, which focuses on selling Offi ce 365, Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Intune to the SMB market.

The roundtable took place with a great view of the London Skyline

CLOUD ROUNDTABLE

would do and what a particular customer would need from a blend of licenses to suit their needs. You do need to stay on top of the services that Microsoft provides, but it is worth it.

Craig Hume: When we went onto the Microsoft site, we worked out what we thought we could provide to our customer, we then phoned up distribution and asked if we could order some SKUs and they didn’t know what we were talking about. It’s a shame that disconnect was there.

Ben Gower: I think in the early days a lot of what Microsoft and distributors say weren’t on message, but they have moved forward a lot in recent years.

Alexandria Ball: We are investing a lot locally with our distributors and with resources internally, because there is a lot to get through, and we want to handhold you through those first couple of deals, and speak with your customers to help you get that up and running. We also have an open site which talks through what’s out and what’s being planned in terms of new releases.

SAFETY AND SECURITYClive Cowan: I think my clients’ data is far more secure on their own machines and back-up drive. I’m privy to all of my clients’ confidential data on their site – why would they want me to put that in the cloud?

Mike Brown: If you’re talking about an environment which has a single point of failure – an office – it has maybe 15 machines, a server and copies of data. With Office 365, you’ve got dual replicated data centres in real-time that cost billions of dollars. And the moment they save a file, it’s in two locations at once. On email it’s replicated 14 times – seven times on each data centre.

Microsoft vet their engineers, they’ve got internal procedures in place

whereby if they’ve opened a mailbox they need to match it to a ticket logged by a customer which they have access to in a certain amount of time. After that, a second engineer has to become involved. To my knowledge they have never been hacked.

Clive Cowan: My concern would be more that malware hackers could break into the system. eBay was hacked this year with 145 million users’ data compromised. Sony PlayStation in 2011 saw 77 million users’ data compromised. There are loads of other examples.

Craig Hume: Customers put their trust in you. They come to you for their IT services, so whatever you say is scripture. If you turn that around, get to know the cloud and don’t be scared of the cloud, you’ll probably find your customers will start seeing its benefits and move over.

Jon Harrison: What happens if your internet connection drops out on Office 365?

Mark Adams: When you set the cloud up, you say to it, every time a piece of data is written to this hub, then it

automatically syncs that out to any number of devices out of the box.

If you have a drop out or update something locally, it will ask you a question. It will say: “Hang on – this happened. Which one do you want me to prioritise?” Then it will apply that rule.

THE FUTURE OF THE CLOUDBrent Combest: I would say that the cloud has outshot our expectations handsomely, growth-wise. If you look at our competitors, the salesforce.coms, the Net Suites out there, they’re realising growth rates in the mid 20s to mid 30s.

Ours is five times that for Office 365 – the reason for that is productivity is the primary workload that customers are looking for in the cloud as a starting point. We think the cloud will continue to accelerate at a very rapid pace. We’ll continue to invent and invest heavily in it.

Alexandria Ball: In the UK we’re certainly seeing a bigger increase in terms of cloud adoption.

Mike Brown: I think it’s an interesting time in IT. I think

Microsoft has got it right on the cloud side of things. What’s been missing – and I’m hoping Windows 10 will fill the gap – is a virtualised desktop with an operating system sitting on top of it, a corporate version or home version, then virtualised apps sitting on top of that so it doesn’t interfere with the operating system, backed by cloud-based SCCM or Windows Intune deploying these applications and updating them.

If you’ve got the virtualised desktop and everything in the cloud – Windows Azure with active directory integration, that is the perfect infrastructure base. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Nothing can touch the operating system or the hardware, and everything is backed up in the cloud. And if the operating system blows up, you just nuke it and bring down a new one – the applications are virtualised laying on top of that.

We are so close to that now, and once we get there, IT guys will just sit back and that’s it. You don’t need VDI. It’s five times the cost and half the performance. So we’re very close to the mecca in IT I think.


“If you go out and you do 50, 100 or 200 seats with Office 365, £100 comes through. But if you’ve done it for five years and you’ve sold 100,000 or 200,000 seats, you’re looking at tens of thousands of pounds per month coming in.”

Mike Brown,Paradigm Systems

Retailers discussed their thoughts and aired their views on the cloud

Is Cloud the only future?Come to

Boot Camp Northstand No. 8 to find out!


THE BIG INTERVIEW


Cloud nine

Microsoft has several cloud products available for resellers from Offi ce 365 to Azure and Intune, but what are the revenue opportunities and how can you get started? Brent Combest, Microsoft’s worldwide director of sales excellent and strategy for cloud in SMB, gives Dominic Sacco an overview of Microsoft’s cloud…

Could you give us a rundown of Microsoft’s cloud

services and their benefi ts to resellers? We have a number of different products available in the cloud. We’ve got Offi ce 365; Microsoft Azure – a fantastic platform for partners whether they want to use that as infrastructure as a service to do many things such as hosting business apps, virtual machines, backup and storage, website hosting, there’s a myriad of opportunities for partners; Microsoft Intune – a product where partners can manage devices on behalf of customers and enable them to protect the devices whether that’s a PC, tablet or a phone. And we have Dynamic CRM Online as well – a leading product in the industry to help customers manage relationships with their end customers.

How are your cloud services performing overall today? Are you seeing growth in UK B2B sales?Growth has been tremendous. It’s far exceeded even our expectations. If you look at what leading analyst fi rms like IDC predict, they’re looking at a compound annual growth rate in the range of 23 or 24 per cent. You’ve got some other providers out there that are seeing growth rates in the mid 30s. We’re seeing well above that – nearly fi ve times what many of our competitors are seeing. So it’s actually a fantastic opportunity not only for Microsoft but also our partners.

What kind of margins can UK resellers expect to make selling Microsoft cloud services, specifi cally smaller independents?We have a number of programmes partners can leverage, whether that’s the Open licensing platform we’ve had for many years, or the Advisor platform that enables them to earn channel incentives. Depending on their performance they will be able to earn more as they sell more. Beyond that, there are

tremendous monetisation opportunities.

The channel incentives are just the beginning for our partners, whether they want to do time and material services to help a customer get their business into the cloud, and stand up Offi ce 365, or they want a customised Sharepoint, or help a customer fi nd their way into Microsoft Azure by migrating a line of business apps from point A to point B. There’s all kind of revenue opportunities in that regard.

We’re also seeing a lot of partners really start to drive deeply into managed services and becoming that outsourced IT provider. They’re doing a number of things – they’re becoming the delegated administrator for Offi ce 365, they’re managing

the devices and the network for customers using things like Microsoft Intune.

Is Windows 10 going to affect Microsoft’s cloud strategy?It won’t have any impact on how Offi ce 365 is sold. Those things act independently – Offi ce 365 is a separate entity as far as that point is concerned and it will have no impact on it at all.

What kind of reaction have you seen from your partners following the various cloud changes announced at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference this year?So far it’s been overwhelmingly positive. We’re working towards simplifying the benefi t structure that’s available to partners to make it easier for them, but at the same time providing focused value

around cloud. Things like internal use rights benefi ts, having the ability for an elevated premier support type offering so that they can fi nd what they need and also use the products that they’re going to sell.

You made some other changes in October this year. Can you tell us about those?We’ve made some adjustments to our SKU line-up. We’ve taken away some of the SKUs we previously had and we’ve replaced them with some that are easier for partners to understand and leverage.

We’ve also taken away some of the barriers around user account limitations and transition limitations that we’ve had in the past, so that partners can sell with more confi dence to their end customer and know that they’re selling them solutions they need today, but as they grow over time, it’s going to be easier to adapt – either the SKU mix or the transition to a bigger SKU – when they need to worry about it.

What’s next for Microsoft, the cloud and that market? How will things evolve in the future?I think things will continue to accelerate. If you look at the adoption beyond Offi ce 365, you’ve got Microsoft Azure now on Open, and as you start to peel the data back and look at what customers are wanting in the cloud as the primary workload you think about backup, disaster recovery, virtual machines to support line of business applications… those things will continue to grow and represent a new opportunity for partners.

So as they build the Offi ce 365 business, the one thing I try to suggest is they need to think of it as the starting point and ask how can they attach Microsoft Azure and the other products to that, which will spur another evolution of growth for our partners beyond what has just taken shape over the last three or four years with Offi ce 365.

THE BIG INTERVIEW

1. Partner changesMicrosoft has launched new cloud competencies, allowing resellers to sell Offi ce 365 to 10 new customers over the next 12 months. The silver competency is currently free and gives partners access for internal usage rights and unlimited cloud support.

On October 1st Microsoft also made available a set of Offi ce 365 plans tailored to meet the needs of SMBs ranging in size from one person to around 250 employees.

2. Distributor investmentsMicrosoft is investing in people and activities in its distributors (Westcoast, Ingram Micro and Tech Data) and Microsoft UK. It has a team dedicated to bringing new partners on board Offi ce 365 and Azure and transitioning them to an authorised distributor. Each distie has its own specialists, resources and promotions. [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected] for more information.

3. Online resourcesThere’s a host of materials, articles and resources online which Microsoft regularly updates to help resellers get started in selling cloud, and keep track of the latest changes. It has a SureStep programme for new partners, with resources on the Microsoft Partner Network UK Blog.

4. Cloud roadshowsMicrosoft is running a roadshow across 16 locations, from London to Liverpool. It started in September and will run until December 9th. Each roadshow session will cover Offi ce 365, Azure, CRM Online and Windows 8.1, with Cloud Development Managers and guest speakers covering various topics.

3. Future DecodedThis is a series of new events taking place in ExCel London. November 10th will have speakers including Satya Nadella and Sir Bob Geldof, and will be focused around Microsoft’s enterprise technologies. November 11th is dedicated to partners, with different tracks on marketing, sales, products and licensing. November 12th is for IT professionals and developers, and will be more technically focused.

HOW IS MICROSOFT SUPPORTING RESELLERS?


“We’re seeing a lot of partners really start to drive deeply into managed services.”

Brent Combest, Microsoft

Call our specialist sales team01279 822 822

store.exertisgem.co.ukwww.exertisgem.co.uk

PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE

With etailers such as Amazon and larger retail chains like PC

World gaining more customers every day, today’s independent retailers should consider bringing more opportunities and activities in-store for their customers. Although overall camera sales volumes declined in the fi rst half of 2014, analyst GfK has noted that action cameras have sustained their impressive growth of over 100 per cent in both units and value during 2014. As

well as this, GfK revealed that Compact System Cameras have also seen an almost double-digit increase in sales volumes. Camera accessories are also doing well, with tripods seeing 17 per cent volume growth this year so far, showing that the photography market is a potential area for PC retailers to tap into.

We speak to some experts and retailers about how independent stores can benefi t from selling photography and how to do it right.


How tosell more photographyJade Burke and Laura Barnes explore new ways in which independent retailers can sell more photography products and compete alongside the big chains with a more hands-on approach…

“Retailers should consider bringing more opportunities and activities in-store.”

ADD-ONS AND ACCESSORIES

STORE LAYOUT

SELLING CAMERA hardware isn’t the only thing available to retailers – there is a whole host of accessories and add-ons they should be aware of and consider stocking. When your customers purchase a camera, it is always a bonus if they can get their hands on some added extras at the same time. By stocking various accessories, such as SD cards, cables, bags and cases, you will make the shopping experience a lot easier for your customer, as well as gaining more for your business.

Matthew Smith, product manager of imaging at Midwich, believes that retailers should look to add value within their store by stocking such add-ons. He says: “Retailers can provide great deals on any combination of imaging equipment with a great

range of cases and bags, all types of memory, spare batteries, tripods, fi lters and cables.”

Being able to offer good value on products to your customers during one shopping trip also gives you the opportunity to offer different deals and bundles. For example, if a customer opts to purchase a digital camera, an SD card and case bundle would sell well alongside it. Optional extras can also boost sales.

Kamal Hitari, managing director of Hitari Trade, says: “I strongly feel that retailers ought to add more value in order to sell more photography products.

“Examples would be introducing a longer return policy, a few days trial period, gift packaging, a payments plan or anything else to create a pleasant and easy shopping experience.“

WITH A product such as a camera, it is important for many consumers to try before they buy. This is where a High Street retailer can offer something that online retailers cannot.

Making camera offerings interactive will give you a great opportunity to drum up conversation and show how it works, rather than just informing the customer of the device specs. If the likes of Amazon can’t be beaten on price, they might be beaten on customer service and knowledge.

Retail expert Clare Rayner explains: “It’s important for any store owner or manager to ‘put themselves in their customers’ shoes’.

“If the store focuses on an expert customer who knows exactly what they want, then merchandising by brand or product type could be most appropriate. On the other hand, if the target customer is less of an expert photographer then merchandising by ‘solutions’, for example all the items one might need to get started, is an option.”

PHOTOGRAPHY GUIDE


IN-STORE ACTIVITIES

WHO TOSELL TO?

JUST LIKE how the PC gaming community may spend time in their local game stores taking part in competitions and trying out new titles, retailers may also fi nd that they can become a hub for keen photographers in their local area.

It is likely that not many of your customers are sure about how to use the latest digital cameras, and may be intimidated by the large SLRs and their wide variety of different lenses.

Coming up with a weekly lesson in which your customers can attend would be a good way to help them get the hang of such devices.

Retail expert Clare Rayner believes this is also important: “Perhaps make photography workshops or lessons available for a small charge, redeemable against their purchases, or offer them one-to-one advice and training in the use of their

new camera, again the cost of which can be taken off should they purchase.”

The idea of running a competition could also bring keen photographers together, creating a sense of community for those interested in the subject as a hobby or from a business perspective – and boost sales as well.

THE GREAT thing about photography is that it isn’t restricted to a particular group. There are amateur photographers, those who do it as a hobby or for their business, or even individuals that just want a camera for their own everyday use.

Kamal Hitari explains his biggest customers of these kinds of products are businesses and individuals with interest in photography – and travellers.

Statistically, action cameras are also becoming more popular, an ideal device which retailers should be stocking up on, as travellers, businesses and everyday customers will be interested in purchasing one due to their durability.

Richard Gregory, GfK account director of consumer electronics, explains: “Having been

around for some time now, this category can hardly be called ‘new’ but it still seems to grab consumer attention with the versatility of the situations that can be achieved.”

Professional photographers, businesses and students are also important groups to target, as they will be looking to purchase professional

cameras such as SLRs and Compact System Cameras (CSC) too.

CSC’s offer customers SLR-like features within a compact camera which have grown in popularity.

Gregory adds: “This year there has almost been a double digit increase in sales volumes, and even more impressive – a 14 per cent hike in value.”

“Perhaps make photography workshops available for a small fee, redeemable against their purchases.”

Clare Rayner, retail expert

“This year there has almost been a double digit increase in CSC sales volumes.”

Richard Gregory, GfK

©Northamber 2014 E and O.E. Prices appear as trade and exclude VAT & delivery. Prices stated as at 20th October ‘14.

t: 020 8296 7066 w: northamber.com

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PCR Boot Camp North: show guide

BOOT CAMP NORTH PREVIEW

Our fi rst ever conference and expo dedicated to retailers,

resellers and system builders in the North takes place on November 12th at the Royal Armouries in Leeds.

The event is the perfect opportunity for distributors, vendors and trade bodies to connect with IT and tech businesses in the Midlands, Scotland, Wales and the North, and the day will be fi lled with talks from industry leaders on topics directly relevant to technology dealers.

Here’s a rundown of what to expect on the day:

As the debut PCR Boot Camp North approaches, Laura Barnes runs through the conference line-up, who will be showing off their latest products and services in the exhibition, and what else to expect on November 12th…


With a 150 retailers, resellers and system builders set to attend, Boot Camp North is the perfect opportunity to exhibit to new businesses. And with a number of big names on show, attendees have the opportunity to check out the latest products and services available to the channel.

THOSE EXHIBITING INCLUDE: A One Distribution Brigantia Caseking CompTIA Entatech Fortune Tech GFI GFK

M-Disc Microsoft Network Group Northamber Plantronics Speech Processing Solutions (Philips) Synaxon Thule VIP Computers

11.35am Nicola Young, Microsoft: WelcomeNicola Young, OEM Channel Sales Lead, will be talking about the critical role partners play in delivering Microsoft’s technology strategy in an ever evolving market, and how partners can build a profi table

Microsoft business as cloud demand grows.

11.45am Carl West, GfK: New products, new frontiersCarl West from analyst GfK will give a detailed look at the new product categories that are going to be increasingly important to PC and tech stores in the

coming years, and look at how social media can be better utilised for your business.

12.00am Panel session: How to make money from gaming and system buildingA panel of experts discuss the new trends in gaming hardware, and how retailers can expand into system building as a growth area.

12.20am Frank Deer: Selling to the subconsciousFrank Deer is a Harley Street hypnotist, sales trainer, creative marketeer and highly successful businessman passionate about what he refers to as the ‘subconscious aspects of business’. He has empowered sales staff to

increase sales conversions to consistent levels, achieving fi gures as high as nine out of ten – through some unexpected methods.

1.40pm Himanshu Pal, Kantar Retail: Where the tech retail market is headedHimanshu Pal, director at Kantar Retail, will take an in-depth look at the current state of the technology retail market, and reveal some fascinating data on where

the market is going.

1.50pm Kevin Jefcoate, M-Disc: Is cloud the only future?With so much of the tech industry convinced of a future in the cloud, Kevin Jefcoate from M-Disc suggests an alternative future of storage based on

new offl ine technologies.

2.00pm Sarah Shields, Dell: Opportunities, threats, and the tech gender gap Sarah Shields is executive director and general manager of Dell UK. She will be talking about issues surrounding the gender gap in the tech industry and

the threats and opportunities facing the retail landscape.

CONFERENCE SCHEDULEBoot Camp North will follow the same format as our South event, with a conference programme in the morning, providing a mix of speaker and panel sessions.

EXHIBITORS

When:Wednesday 12th November

Times:11am: Registration and coffee 11.30am – 12.40pm: Conference 12.40pm: Lunch and expo1.40pm – 2.20pm: Conference continued2.20pm: Expo and networking5.30pm: After party

Where:The Royal Armouries,Leeds, LS10 1LT

Contact:Jennie [email protected]

KEY INFO



ENTATECH is one of the biggest distributors exhibiting at Boot Camp North, and will be showcasing a wide range of products and offers.

Jon Atherton, director of Entatech, says: “We have attended PCR Boot Camp since its beginnings and see it as a crucial event within the industry’s calendar. We always utilise the event to promote new and established vendors from within our portfolio, new services and promotions and most importantly; use it to meet with our resellers on a face-to-face basis.”

AMD, Arctic, Gigabyte, StarTech, Transcend, Panda,

Asus, Fujitsu and Verbatim are among some of the vendors Entatech distribute.

“We will also be promoting our product portfolio and latest promotions – including our impending Christmas promotion,” explains Atherton.

Atherton also told PCR earlier this year: “We’re growing [in the gaming space] massively. In terms of vendors, in the last 18 months alone we’ve got fi ve or six new vendors. And the vast majority of our vendors are seeing signifi cant growth. If you look at Enta as a business over the last two or three years, our business has almost trebled, and gaming is a big part of that.”

Atherton also explains the benefi ts of becoming an Enta customer: “Resellers are not only

provided with a wide range of products and vendors to cater to their own customer needs, but they will also have access to an ever-evolving portfolio of products that cater to the demands of today’s user.”

The distributor has also developed a new in-house retail team, who work alongside retailers, including well-known High Street brands, to introduce new and current retail vendors to the market.

Atherton adds: “We’ve developed a new B2B portfolio, which includes brands such as OKI, Philips Dictation and Double-Take and with this, have developed an internal

Corporate/VARS team, whose primary focus is to integrate these products and solutions to new and current customers.”

Over the past 12 months the company has also expanded its retail product offering, with Microsoft, Scosche, Seagate and D-Link joining Enta’s vast range of vendors.

Atherton continues: “These vendors will be showcasing some of the newest products to emerge from their brand, with an emphasis on the latest technologies to hit the channel over the coming months.”

Atherton adds: “As ever, we’re looking forward to meeting with our resellers. PCR Boot Camp provides a fantastic opportunity for us to meet with our customers face-to-face.”

ENTATECHThe distributor returns to Boot Camp once again as headline partner, aiming to discuss opportunities with resellers and showcase its newest promotions, vendors and portfolio of products...

“Resellers will have access to an ever-evolving portfolio of products that cater to the demands of today’s user.”

Jon Atherton, Entatech

CONTACT: www.entaonline.com | [email protected] | 0333 101 1000

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TECH DISTRIBUTOR Northamber will be heading to Boot Camp North, and will be showcasing its range of components, printers, scanners and peripherals.

Next year will also mark the company’s 35th year of trading, with over 80 vendors including Yamaha, Acer, Fujitsu, Brother, Oki, Crucial and WatchGuard.

The distributor has expressed its interest in key channel events such as Boot Camp, as Adam King, security product manager at Northamber, says: “Channel events provide a great opportunity for resellers to meet their distributors, vendors and peers to network and share ideas.”

After a successful exhibition at Boot Camp earlier this year, Northamber was keen to work with PCR again in the North:

“Northamber is thrilled to be involved in Boot Camp North, we have put a renewed focus on events this year, as can be seen from the London Boot Camp earlier this year and indeed our own in-house event scheduled in conjunction with over 40 vendors at Epsom Downs on September 24th,” explains King.

Northamber is also interested in gaining more customers by attending Boot Camp North, with some resellers unable to make the London show. King explains that the team is most looking forward to meeting more resellers. Particularly the Scottish contingent, who he feels often lose out when it comes to trade shows and events as most are London or Midlands based.

The supplier offers its customers next-day delivery, with timed deliveries as an option, which attendees can discuss with members of the

team on the day. King adds: “We aim to make our customers’ business simpler and cheaper, by using our large footprint and experience to provide all the support they need and allow them to focus on spending more time with their customers.”

As well as this, King believes that there are many challenges the IT industry faces, including cyber security.

King says: “Cyber security should be a top priority across all industries. Managing, and strengthening security and privacy for all systems and data is so important, but often overlooked.

“Obsolescence is another challenge. The computers we use, through to the skills needed to perform a job seem to

become obsolete in any fi ve-year cycle. As awareness of costs continue to rise and be in the spotlight, I believe IT needs to fi nd key ways to reduce costs.”

The company also held The Tech Expo this year, Northamber’s own exhibition where retailers were able to interact with vendors. It also featured keynote speeches from GfK, Brother, Symantec, Fujitsu and more.

King also explained that he is looking forward to being able to share the last 12 months successes, and showcasing some of Northamber’s new vendors. King adds: “In particular Yamaha, which we are very excited about.

“As an amateur target shooter, I am also looking forward to the venue in general,” explains King.

“The Royal Armouries is in a great central location, and I am very much looking forward to seeing the Hall of Steel and War Gallery exhibits,” he says.

NORTHAMBERThe distributor will be celebrating its 35th year of trading, bringing its expertise to this year’s exhibition whilst a range of products will also be on show…

“Northamber is thrilled to be involved in Boot Camp North, we have put a renew focus on events this year.”

Adam King, Northamber

CONTACT: www.northamber.com | [email protected] | 020 8296 7234

The Matrox C680 graphics card (left) and

the WatchGuard Firebox T10 (below) will be

among some of the products Northamber

will be showcasing


MICROSOFT makes the last of the three headline sponsors for Boot Camp North this year, and the company will be exhibiting a range of products, whilst Nicola Young, OEM channel sales lead for Microsoft, will deliver a welcome speech on the day.

As well as exhibiting on the show fl oor, Microsoft will be holding a break-out session for in-depth discussions with resellers, where Nicola Young will be discussing the critical role partners play in delivering Microsoft’s technology strategy in an ever evolving market, and how partners can build a profi table Microsoft business as cloud demand grows.

Nicola Young believes that resellers should consider selling the cloud to help differentiate them from the market: “This may seem simple but customers are exploring and looking at what options they have around the cloud. We all use the cloud more and more in our personal lives and are becoming increasingly comfortable in adopting it.

“We’ve seen a great success from partners we call ‘born in the cloud’, partners who never existed before products like Offi ce 365 were available. These partners are small, nimble and take the time to understand their customers and what solutions are best for them.”

During the day Microsoft will be showcasing the cloud and what benefi ts it will have for indie retailers, as well as the profi t margins of such products.

“It can be very profi table but you have to look at building a recurring revenue stream. Our rebate programmes are upwards of 16 per cent for year one,” adds Young.

However, with any servers such as the cloud, there is a risk of hacking. Young believes: “There are downsides to any option, on premise servers can be hacked.

“Our cloud services are rigorously tested by governments, banks and other enterprise organisations to ensure they meet the high standards that these companies expect on their own data centres. With Offi ce 365, small businesses can access this level of security as default.”

Young also believes that Offi ce 365 can provide smaller retailers with more applications if they are based in rural areas.

“Many SMBs struggle to get a decent broadband connection speed, especially in rural areas so always-on isn’t always an option for them.

“Offi ce 365 can give you the full suite of desktop Offi ce applications and you can work on a document offl ine, and when you connect online, the document will automatically update the version held in OneDrive for Business,” Young says.

Microsoft works closely with its resellers, plus the company is also taking part in joint marketing campaigns with larger resellers who have invested in syndication tools with CNET.

Young continues: “This allows any partner to utilise Microsoft campaign assets by just simply adding a few lines of code to their website.

“Technology is always changing – it is why most of us choose to work in the industry, because we love the pace at which change happens.” says Young.

MICROSOFTThe tech firm will be exhibiting on the show floor, whilst Nicola Young will also deliver a key speech during the event, plus members of the team will be showcasing the cloud and its benefits for retailers…

“We’ve seen a great success from partners we call ‘born in the cloud’, those who never existed before products like Office 360 were available.”

Nicola Young, Microsoft


CONTACT: www.microsoft.com | [email protected] | 0118 909 3924

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GFI MAX offers support companies and managed service providers (MSPs) a suite of Remote Monitoring, Management, Email Security, End Point Security, Managed Hosted Backup, as well as service desk software.

The company says it helps more than 10,000 IT providers and MSPs whatever their size and business model, and helps them to easily make money with managed services.

More and more traditional PC retailers and resellers are moving into the managed services

sphere, and supplying more to their customers than just boxed product and hardware – but it can be daunting for some.

“Our goal is to bring education and enablement to help resellers build annuity income by delivering managed

services,” GFI’s director of partner community, Dave Sobel, tells PCR.

“Helping resellers understand the benefi ts of delivering services on a monthly recurring basis is our mission.”

The company says it is attending PCR Boot Camp North

with its own stand to grow its community of MSPs and to collaborate with the community.

“Interactions with our partners and with the community at large drives business for everyone,” Sobel added.

GFI is using Boot Camp North as an opportunity to expand and reach out to more resellers, in the hope it will help to grow a customer’s business with recurring revenue.

“MAX is the largest community of MSPs in the world, and our ambition every day is to help grow and do better business,” adds Sobel.

The fi rm also understands that the transition may be a little unnerving, however, GFI aims to change this: “Making the transition to monthly recurring revenue can be daunting for solution providers, and our goal is to ensure success for all of our solution providers,” says Sobel.

SPEECH PROCESSING Solutions says it is the fi rst choice for top decision makers in the medical, legal and general business markets.

The company supplies the industry with Philips products and solutions, for example audio recording devices like dictaphones.

It will be showing off its brand new Digital Voice Tracer range at PCR Boot Camp North, offering best-in-class audio recording.

“The Philips DVT offering provides a comprehensive portfolio of digital voice recorders boasting cutting edge

features such as colour displays, integrated li-polymer batteries, metal housing and motion sensors,” says Speech Processing Solutions UK key account manager Mike Openshaw.

“These recorders are backed by fi rst-class marketing and point-of-sale materials with each

targeted at a clearly identifi ed consumer requirement.”

Speech Processing Solutions says it stands out thanks to simplicity, reliability and clear user benefi ts based on its promise: “From the number one in professional dictation.” It says

that resellers may expect top quality products developed with the end user in mind, backed by 60 years of experience, and has signed up to Boot Camp North to converse with resellers.

“We are keen to engage with retailers and resellers to learn and understand their needs whilst communicating our plans for the year ahead,” added Openshaw.

“The market for digital voice recorders is growing and events such as this are key for us to share with potential partners the benefi ts and possibilities of the Philips range.”

The company also has a variety of transcription solutions, which attendees can discuss on the day.

Openshaw says: “We are looking to build on successes to date and expand our DVT presence in the retail sector whilst continuing to offer the best products available.”

GFI MAX

SPEECH PROCESSING SOLUTIONS

The remote monitoring and management software specialist offers support to more than 10,000 IT companies, and is helping resellers become managed service providers with recurring revenue…

Mike Openshaw tells resellers what they can expect to see from Philips’ dictation products and solutions at PCR Boot Camp North, and talks about the growing voice recorder market…

“Interactions with our partners and with the community at large drives business for everyone.”

Dave Sobel, GFI MAX

“We are keen to engage with retailers and resellers to learn and understand their needs.”

Mike Openshaw, Speech Processing Solutions

CONTACT: www.gfimax.com

CONTACT: www.philips.com/dictation | www.speech.com | 01206 755755



VIP COMPUTERS took part in Boot Camp South earlier this year, as the distributor believes it is ‘important to make channel events work, because there aren’t many out there which exclusively support the channel’.

The company is returning to Boot Camp North, to reach out to retailers and resellers who were not able to travel to London. Jason D’Cruz, marketing manager at VIP Computers, explains: “VIP has signed up to Boot Camp North so we can engage with more customers from the North of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland who will fi nd it easier to get to a Northern based venue than travel the distance to London.”

The group has over 19 years experience of providing fl exible distribution services to small independent retailers, etailers and major High Street chain stores. Plus, VIP’s range of

vendors includes AMD, Gigabyte, Kingston, Microsoft, Nvidia and Razer. Every VIP customer will also receive the benefi t of a personalised profi le, where the company’s sales team will work alongside them to help grow their business.

D’Cruz emphasises: “Our key focus is to promote our independent retailer programme – VIP Club. We achieved a great deal of success at Boot Camp South and want to repeat this in Leeds. We want qualifying retailers to understand the benefi ts of membership and how the Club can grow their business.”

The distributor also aims to continue to grow the in-house programme for independent retailers: “Our aims over the next few years is to continue growing VIP Club, have more direct engagement with our customers and launch a range of new services,” adds D’Cruz.

AFTER ITS success in May this year, trade body CompTIA will be joining PCR once again at Boot Camp North. The company said that the opportunity to speak with attendees on a one-to-one basis gave team members the chance to highlight the benefi ts of membership with the company.

CompTIA is looking forward to PCR Boot Camp North in Leeds, and Vaughan Shayler, director of channel strategy at CompTIA, says: “This country has a wealth of proactive, hungry solution providers and vendors in all its regions. We believe they are

determined not only to grow and improve their businesses, but to play a real part in helping the IT industry in general to evolve, to the benefi t of all within it.”

The event will also give CompTIA the opportunity to share its own series of meetings

including the UK Channel Community Meeting on November 5th, and the EMEA Member and Partner Conference, on November 6th, where those within the IT industry, including retailers and resellers, can go along to and fi nd out more about

the company’s Trustmark accredition and sit in on keynote speeches and conferences.

Shayler also considers Boot Camp North to be a perfect fi t for CompTIA’s value proposition, which states quite simply that, ‘We can help you make your IT business better’.

Shayler explains: “Partnering with PCR and its excellent programme of events helps us to get this powerful and appealing message out there, by engaging with resellers and vendors where it matters most.”

Attendees will be able to speak with members of the team on the day and discuss opportunities, as Shayler adds: “We’re very much looking forward to meeting more vendors and resellers in Leeds, and London – spreading the CompTIA message, helping IT businesses to improve, and driving new levels of growth.”

VIP COMPUTERS

COMPTIA

VIP will be supporting indie retailers by showcasing its VIP Club and the benefits for members, as well as engaging directly with customers about their latest products and promotions…

CompTIA’s message and promise that it ‘can help you make your IT business better’ will be promoted at PCR Boot Camp North, with team members offering a one-to-one environment for attendees…

“Partnering with PCR and its excellent programme of events helps us to get this powerful message out there.”

Vaughan Shayler, CompTIA

CONTACT: www.vip-computers.com/uk | 0871 622 7500

CONTACT: www.comptia.org | 020 7330 6060


The VIP Club is aimed at helping independent retailers by supporting them in their day-to-day business, from training on new products, exclusive discounted offers to a monthly rebate. The VIP Club has lots of advantages, which will help keep retailers ahead of their competition, as well as keeping them educated on new products in the market.

Rich Marsden, director of VIP Computers, told PCR earlier this year that the VIP Club has been popular among indie retailers: “The membership uptake has been very strong and our customers are now starting to get real value out of being a member.”

WHAT ISVIP CLUB?



A ONE Distribution will be showcasing its range of cases, power supplies, peripherals and components, as well as the latest products from Antec.

Glen Rhodes, overseas purchasing manager at A One Distribution, says: “We are happy to announce our involvement with PCR Boot Camp North after

hearing how successful the Boot Camp South event was.”

Products that will be on show include the Antec ISK600M, an enclosure for micro-ATX builders. The chassis features a brushed aluminium front panel, with

space for graphics cards up to 12.5-inches in length.

The ISK600M could serve well as a conventional PC gaming rig or home theatre device media center, plus, professionals and system builders would benefi t from its small-format solution.

The P380 will also be shown during Boot Camp North, which

supports motherboards up to E-ATX with room for 360mm radiators. The chassis is also made from aluminium and is 6mm thick.

The GX300 will also be shown, and is equipped with a USB3.0,

USB2.0, and a high and low fan control interface, plus it comes with 1x120mm fan, both for cooling and silent computing.

Furthermore, the distributor will be showcasing the VP-F/Edge PSU ranges along with other products from various vendors, including Aerocool, Seasonic, Powercool and Thermaltake.

Rhodes continues: “We will be presenting a predominantly Antec based stand, showcasing the new ISK600M, P380, GX300 Chassis and VP-F/Edge PSU ranges, along with a small selection of products from our other distributed brands Aerocool, CiT and Thermaltake.”

Boot Camp North is the fi rst expo A One Distribution has exhibited at with PCR, and the company has expressed its excitement: “We look forward to welcoming old and new customers to our stand on the 12th November,” Rhodes adds.

AFTER LAUNCHING in Europe, MDisc will be exhibiting at Boot Camp North, where the company’s MDisc storage solution technology will be shown.

Kevin Jefcoate, director of MDisc, believes it is important for events such as Boot Camp North, to raise awareness of new brands

like MDisc: “MDisc is a relative newcomer to Europe and it is essential that we create awareness for the eco-system for permanent storage. Boot Camp North provides an opportunity for us to demonstrate the products on the stand and

informally get to know our future partners better during the drinks reception.”

MDisc technology is already being used in the ‘Whitehouse’ US Naval and NASA, as well as many Federal and government offi ces, however, Jefcoate says: “We need the hardware,

software and media vendors support in bringing the technology to market.”

The MDisc technology also allows users to store data, including music, videos, pictures and documents, for in excess of 1,000 years.

The company also aims to expand its product portfolio, with new products set to launch in the next six months, “which will take the eco-system to a large scale data application”.

Jefcoate adds: “The MDisc technology is a permanent storage solution, perfect for archiving precious data. The eco-system is what we will be promoting, so hardware will include DVD and Blu-ray drives (burners) from LG, Samsung, and software from Nero and the DVD and Blu-ray discs from both MDisc and Verbatim.

“MDisc is a brand but we also have support from nearly every major PC and aftermarket drive vendor as well as software and media brands such as Verbatim.”

The company is also keen to speak with attendees, with the aim of expanding knowledge of the brand and its range of storage solutions.

A ONE DISTRIBUTION

MDISC

A One Distribution joins Boot Camp North, where the company will welcome old and new customers and showcase its latest range of Antec products, as well as other devices from a selection of vendors…

MDisc will be showcasing its disc storage technology, allowing users to store data for up to 1,000 years, which the company says is perfect for physically archiving precious data…

“We look forward to welcoming old and new customers to our stand on the 12th November.”

Glen Rhodes, A One Distribution

“We have support from nearly every major PC and aftermarket drive vendor as well as software brands.”

Kevin Jefcoate, MDisc

CONTACT: www.aone.co.uk | 0161 763 3633

CONTACT: www.mdisc.com | 07768 421853


AFTER THE success of meeting system builders and retailers at Boot Camp earlier this year, distrubutor Caseking suggested that an event in the North would be of particular interest, giving more resellers around the UK a chance to attend. Steve Ling, executive director at Caseking,

says: “Boot Camp in London was a success and one of our suggestions was to vary the location and give more resellers the chance to attend.”

At the event the company will be focusing on PC chassis and modding for enthusiasts, as well

as demonstrating what can be achieved using products from the company’s range, including brands such as BitFenix, Lian Li, Prolimatech, Raijintek, Silverstone, Super Flower, Xigmatek and Zowie.

Ling believes that the event is a fantastic opportunity to meet

new and existing customers. “Boot Camp creates an environment where people can take a step back and discuss more strategic topics,” he says.

The fi rm is promising ‘healthy margin opportunities’ for resellers attending the event, and

will provide customers with an opportunity to speak with members from Caseking.

As well as this, the company recently acquired Kellytech in Budapest, giving Caseking a new hub in Eastern Europe, providing customers with more products.

However, Ling believes there are some challenges the tech industry is facing today, one being social media. “The growth in social media and review sites means there is nowhere to hide. Customers may look for the cheapest prices but will still expect good service as standard.

“Even if you give focus on service there is always the chance things can go wrong. It is important to manage your online image even if you do not sell online,” Ling adds.

You will be able to stop by the Caseking booth on the day to check out the products and services on offer.

FORTUNE TECHNOLOGY, known best for its variety of notebooks, will be offering attendees its new custom-built notebook range at Boot Camp North.

The distributor hopes to offer small bricks and mortar computer stores more customised products, to ensure

customers receive a personal experience in store. Fortune can also provide attendees with notebooks for particular vertical sectors, such as music production, gaming and video.

Danny Williams from Fortune Technology says: “We’ve signed

up because we can offer an ideal solution to small retailers, computer shops and etailers, allowing them to offer their customers the ability to order a custom built notebook, or AIO PC tailored to suit their requirements with the added benefi t of the customer being able to purchase

it from their local computer store and receive local support.”

As well as this, the company has close to 50 different variations of barebone notebook and AIO PCs in stock, available for next day delivery to most of the UK with full warranty support.

Williams explains: “On the day we will be demonstrating several different models of notebooks from education-focused to high-end gaming. Accounts can be opened quickly and credit facilities are available subject to approval.”

Customers will be able to choose any model that can be ordered as a barebone PC or fully confi gured and supplied with the OS installed. Retailers can then brand these as their own product giving them a separate brand identity.

Fortune Technology’s range of products include those from its vendors, such as Clevo, Compal, EA Excelslor, Gigabyte, Intel, Lengda, Mitac, MSI and Wibtek. Boot Camp North attendees will also get the opportunity to speak with members from Fortune Technology, as well as having the option to open an account on the day.

CASEKING

FORTUNE TECHNOLOGY

After its success at Boot Camp, Caseking will be exhibiting its latest range of PC chassis and modding equipment, while resellers will get the chance to meet with members of the team…

Attendees will be able to take a look at Fortune Technology’s range of customised notebooks – from education to gaming devices – and witness the demonstrations held by members of the team during the event in Leeds…

“Boot Camp creates an environment where people can take a step back and discuss more strategic topics.”

Steve Ling, Caseking

“We will be demonstrating different models of notebooks from education-focused to high-end gaming.”

Danny Williams, Fortune Technology

CONTACT: www.caseking.co.uk | [email protected] | 01782 444488

CONTACT: www.fortunetechnology.com | 0844 847 5236


We help you make your IT business better CompTIA is a not for profit organisation with over 30 years’ experience behind it and more than 2,000 member companies and partners. By focusing on raising standards in the IT Channel, we can help you improve your business. We give you access to all the tools, resources, information and people you need for your business to grow.

© 2014 CompTIA Properties, LLC, used under license by CompTIA Member Services, LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.K. 00907-Oct2014

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Retail Only


Maplin opens first B2B store

MAPLIN OPENED its first trade and business counter in Sheffield in October.

It specialises in CCTV, home security, tools and home automation, and offers leasing as well as product purchasing. Free same day delivery is available for Sheffield-based orders over £150, while Maplin’s in-store experts offer free advice for traders, including a professional CCTV installer who can discuss businesses requirements.

When asked by PCR if more trade stores could open, a Maplin spokesperson said: “It’s very early days for Connect & Protect, but we think that there is potential and we will judge this on the basis of how successful our first trade store is.”

The electronics retailer’s Connect & Protect shop will target the trade and local businesses, offering expert advice and security products…

Connect & Protect will specialise in home security

INDIES BEWARE?MAPLIN HAS arguably been supplying small local businesses for years, but if you’re an independent retailer, ignoring the opening of its first ‘trade-only’ store would be foolish.

Up until now there hasn’t really been a national retailer that can truly rival independent tech stores in terms of computer repairs, servicing and customer care.

However, Maplin is not a Currys/PC World, a Tesco or a Staples – it is well known for its in-depth knowledge and expertise in electronics, and has a very good reputation with customers.

Maplin says it believes the Connect & Protect store has potential, and where there is strong potential, there is always room for further growth or change. Maplin was

bought by Rutland Partners in June for £85 million. Rutland’s managing partner Nick Morrill told me earlier this year that it wants to improve its online offering, and distance itself from other retailers on the High Street.

“We are steering a very careful path away from just ‘me too’ products which are hugely price competitive, for example smartphones, tablets, plasma TV screens – that’s not the stuff we should be doing,” he said.

If that customer wants PC repairs, perhaps Maplin will offer them. So while it’s not something to be worried about just yet (as it hasn’t happened), it is worth being aware of Maplin’s movements and what the evolving retailer might do next…

Dominic [email protected]

“Until now there hasn’t really been a national retailer that can truly rival independent tech stores.”

Retail NewsMystery ShopperCommentStore of the MonthCounter Insurgent

Craig Hume,Utopia Computers

Jason Eccles,SimplyFixIT

Lorelei Gibb,Dolphin Upgrades

Mike Barron,Synaxon

Iain Shaw,Brigantia

Duncan Rutherford,Dabs.com

Steve Ling,Overclockers UK

Jonpaul Warren, Ebuyer

Tim LeRoy,Novatech

Dean Kramer,Dixons

CK,YoYoTech

Jat Mann,PC Pal

Phil Browes,HMV

Phylip Morgan,Network Group

Vaughan Shayler,CompTIA

James Gorbold,Scan Computers

John Church, Shop Direct

David Chorlton,Maplin

Will Fletcher,Toys “R” Us

William Jones,John Lewis

Vladimir Kuznetsov,DinoPC

Juliet Ward,Argos

Gavin Holder,GHI Computers

Chris Innes,Micro Plus

RETAIL ADVISORY BOARD

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

Grantham Computer Centre

STORE OF THE MONTH

How did the company first begin? It was November 1989. I opened it on my own and when I first started the business we just did games and consoles, we didn’t do anything with PCs.

We used to do things with games consoles like the old Commodore 64 – what we’d class as retro stuff now. And as PCs became more popular we decided to branch out into that market.

What products and services do you offer? It is all PC-based now, so we sell everything and anything. Obviously we do repairs, on-site repairs, networking and all the usual kind of stuff really.

What types of repairs do you carry out? We do laptop and desktop repairs. We can do phone repairs, but we don’t generally have the time to do them. Imagine all the repairs that we do do. So we will do it for the

customers, but we don’t necessarily offer it as a service.

Do you stock or are you thinking about stocking any photography products like cameras?We do stock SD cards and software like Photoshop and Paintshop Pro. We have sold digital cameras in the past but only when we can make money out of it.

When they become more popular and all the big boys get involved, there’s no money in it anymore.

What’s been your biggest growth area recently? Recently growth area wise it will probably be repairs. Repairs and servicing seems to have become very busy in the past two years.

We also have the local paper called The Journal, and they awarded myself with Businessperson of the Year this year. All that stuff generally, honestly nudges people to remember what we

are and where we are. We’ve got a PC World in town and I think it just gives customers that nudge to think: “We’ll go there rather than PC World.”

Do you find it difficult to survive on the High Street against other larger chains?Generally no, because of our customers. I think most of our

customers are probably 50 plus, and they want service –they’re not bothered about saving a pound here or a pound there. They realise that this misinformation that larger chains are cheaper

generally isn’t the case. They might be cheaper on whatever it is they’ve got on offer that week, but generally with cables and ink cartridges they’re dearer than us.

Do you use social media at all? How important is that to your business?We use Facebook and Twitter. Anything you can to keep people aware of you and generate more business is important, and Facebook and Twitter don’t cost anything.

Do you sell Office 365 or any cloud products, or do you focus more on hardware? We sell 365 and we do a fair bit of software, as it’s obviously an attachment to new machines anyway. Also a lot of the people we sell machines to are single users, so we sell more Office 2014, but our business clients will have 365.

What plans do you have for the future?

Generally, amongst anything else it’s about keeping on giving a good service and going from there really. I think service is the main thing. The reason our customers keep coming back is because of the service that we give them.

Do you think you’ll look at stocking any new products? It depends on what comes along. Obviously, there has been a growth in tablets so we sell tablets now, whereas we didn’t a few years ago.

Do you have any advice for any new indie stores? The main thing is to offer a good service. If you offer a good service, people will keep coming back.

A lot of your business comes from word of mouth by the service that you’ve given. The amount of customers we get coming in, saying: “My next-door neighbour’s son comes in here and says we’d ought to come and see you.”

Year established: 1989

Number of outlets: One

Number of staff: Four

Address:12 Guildhall Street,Grantham, NG31 6NJ

Telephone: 01476 404400

Email:[email protected]

Website:www.thegcc.co.uk

FACT FILE

“Our customers want service – they’re not bothered aboutsaving a pound.”

David Charles,Grantham Computer

Centre

David Charles, the owner of Grantham Computer Centre, tells Jade Burke about the business’ transition from gaming to incoporating computer repairs and cloud products, and why their customers prefer them to PC World…


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PCR RETAIL ADVISORY BOARD

Microsoft launched a technical preview of its upcoming operating system in October. The new OS includes an expanded Start Menu, the ability to run apps in a window, the introduction of multiple desktops, and a new Task view button. But what does the PCR Retail Advisory Board think about Windows 10 ahead of its launch in 2015?


Will Windows 10 help drive sales of new PCs?

“THE ANNOUNCEMENT hasn’t really affected our buying strategy for the near future. Manufacturers will still keep progressing with Windows 8, as it will be around for a while yet.

“We know Windows 10 is on the horizon and the little glimpses we’ve had have looked good, so we’ve planned for that.

“However, we’ve still got at least a full year, if not more, of new Windows 8 products to come.

“None of my manufacturers are even talking about Windows 10 as a key area yet. They believe there will still be a long development process of the new OS.

“This could take the development into 2016, which is quite far away in the tech world.

“Windows 8 will have a strong showing between now and

Christmas. Especially with the value ‘Bing’ laptops hitting the market at the £199 range.”

LEE WEYMOUTH,Consumer Electronics General

Manager, Ebuyer

“IN THE gaming market it wouldn’t really make too much difference. If you go back historically, when Windows 98 came out, it was always hungry for more power, so that was always driving the demand for new hardware. But now Windows isn’t necessarily the part that needs the technology – it’s the games themselves and the graphics performance.

“I think at the end of the day, people will just go with whatever version of Windows is available. The uptake on Windows versions is probably the key, so the uptake to Windows 8 was initially quite poor but over time it’s impressed, especially with 8.1. So I don’t think Windows 10 will necessarily drive people to buy a new PC, I think the driver will be that they need

something more powerful to play the latest games.

“DirectX12 arriving alongside Windows 10 could be a help.”

STEVE LING,Executive Director, Overclockers UK/

Caseking

“AT BRIGANTIA we have just kitted out both our London and Yorkshire offices with new Terra Intel NUC PCs running Windows 8.1 Pro. The feedback on the Windows 8 experience from the team has been very positive once they got their heads around the changeover.

“The PC is certainly not dead and we see huge growth potential for devices like the Terra Intel NUC, which easily attaches to the back of a monitor and frees up valuable workspace as well as massively reducing power consumption.

“I am sure the traditional PC will also continue to have its place for a while yet, but I believe the volume will come from smaller forms of the device.

“I have no doubt that Windows 10 will help drive PC sales in 2015 and beyond.”

IAIN SHAW, Divisional Director, Brigantia

“I THINK a new version of Windows is always a big event in the PC industry. Windows 8 was a frustrating product for some hardcore PC users, and early indications of Windows 10 looks very good.

“We’re expecting good things. From the videos I’ve seen, I think it will probably satisfy a lot of the Windows 7 users who were frustrated by 8’s interface.”

JAMES GORBOLD,Technical Marketing, Scan Computers

“HERE AT Novatech, we like the fact that the new Microsoft operating system looks like sensible evolution, which the business market prefers to radical revolution.

“I suspect that the days of a new Windows operating system driving huge sales increases are long gone.

“But it will still help – not least because it always helps to remind the world that the vast majority of work is still done on a desktop or laptop.

“I also suspect that Microsoft’s hope that users will choose one platform for every device they use is optimistic, but the new leadership in Redmond seems to have a clearer vision and ambition than in previous years.

“We are optimistic but not overexcited.”

TIM LEROY,Head of Marketing Novatech

“I THINK it should be good because people didn’t take on Windows 8 so well. But I think Windows 10 definitely looks like Microsoft has taken some tips from what people were saying, seeing as the Start menu is back.

So overall it’s looking good. I think it will be a good one. It’s just a shame they’re taking their sweet time over it – they should have launched it before Christmas really.”

CK,YoYoTech

“MY INITIAL reaction to the rumours it was going to be a free upgrade for Windows 8 users or a reduced price for Windows 7 users was: “Are we going to lose a bit of revenue?” But in fact it looks like a great operating system.

“And I think Microsoft has listened to its customers and given them a system they want, with the improved command prompt for the techy guys, and a proper functional Start menu for everyday users. I think it seems to be a fantastic product.

“Also with the virtual desktops, this will mean we are going to see sales of systems, because it will take a bit more memory and power to get it running.

“I think if I had some spare money just now I’d probably be investing in some Microsoft shares!”

CRAIG HUME,Director, Utopia Computers

WINDOWS 10:WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

LIVE TECHNICAL PREVIEW: Out now RELEASE: Late 2015 PRICES: TBC

NEW FEATURES: An expanded Start menu that gives one-click access to popular programs and files, as well as apps, people and websites.

Apps that run in a window; Apps from the Windows Store now open in the same format that desktop programs do. They can be resized and moved around, and have title bars at the top allowing users to maximise, minimise and close.

Snap enhancements – these aim to make working across multiple apps at once easier. A new ‘quadrant’ layout allows up to four apps to be snapped on the same screen. Windows can also make smart suggestions on filling available screen space with other open apps.

A new Task view button that provides one view for all open applications and files, allowing for quick switching and one-touch access to any desktop created.

Multiple desktops. To avoid too many apps and files overlapping on a single desktop, Windows 10 lets users create and switch between distinct desktops for different purposes and projects - for example for work or personal use.



PCR asks its Retail Advisory Panel –formed of buyers and experts – about the biggest industry trends and issues each month. To join, email [email protected]


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MYSTERY SHOPPER

This month our Mystery Shopper heads out to Romford in Essex with a budget of £200 in search of a digital camera. Historically known as a market town, Romford now has a bustling High Street and various shopping centres filled with a range of stores. Here’s how our shopper got on…

ARGOS EXTRA

I STARTED my search for a budget-friendly digital camera in Argos, but much to my disappointment there were no cameras on show for me to try out. I decided to have a glance through one of the catalogues instead, in the hope that someone would approach me to see if I needed any help. However, after looking around and seeing no assistants I had to ask for some help from one of the cashiers.

Although she was very helpful and listened to my

needs, the cashier didn’t express a lot of knowledge, but after flicking through the catalogue she suggested that the Canon IXUS 265HS might be suitable, as it featured an optical zoom and was priced at £149.99.

However, while the cashier took into account my budget, she did not offer me any information on the camera’s specs, other than that it was available in a range of colours. She also suggested that the Canon SX510 may be a suitable option, since it was available for £139.99.

T & B PHOTOGRAPHIC SERVICES

I WAS approached almost the second I put my foot through the door in this independent shop. The assistant asked what I was looking for and what my budget was straight away, before suggesting the Canon SX600 for £159.99 or the Panasonic Lumix TZ-55 for £199.99.

Rows upon rows of cameras were visible in the glass cabinets. After discussing what I wanted the camera for, the member of staff highly recommended the Panasonic, as she revealed that she uses it

herself. She then showed me the camera’s range of features including its night setting.

I was particularly impressed by the range of cameras available, and the speed in which the assistant approached me.

There was also absolutely no pressure to buy and she even suggested that I should save up a little more money for a couple of weeks to purchase the Panasonic, or look around a few more stores, as it was a little pricey and did not include an SD card, cable or case.

8/10

Romford

5/10


MYSTERY SHOPPER

AFTER spending the day at Romford, I found it difficult to choose between Curry’s and the independent store T & B Photographic Services.

Both of the assistants here showed a great deal of interest and expressed their knowledge of each camera they showed me. They also both ended up recommending me a camera they use themselves and this personal approach even swayed me into wanting to purchase one of the models.

The speed in which both assistants approached me was also impressive.

Argos had no cameras on display, which was a shame; however although the cashier tried to accommodate me as much as possible, it was clear she didn’t know enough about the wide range of cameras on offer, and was

only able to offer me limited information. Equally, Maplin didn’t have a single camera in-store, so I wasn’t able to even try out a camera.

Sainsbury’s and PC World demonstrated the same amount of knowledge between them. However, Sainsbury’s assistant’s attention to detail, and the fact she checked the stock levels and did not pressure me to buy, made me feel much more comfortable in the store.

Overall, Curry’s was the most suitable store in which to buy a camera for the first time, since the assistant was incredibly informative about the range of cameras on offer and didn’t pressure me into buying anything. In fact, he suggested I should look around as I may find better value for my money elsewhere. The assistant also allowed me to try out the camera, which no other assistant had suggested. Top customer service.

SUMMARY

SAINSBURY’S

THERE was a good selection of cameras on display in Sainsbury’s, with the majority available in my price range.

However, there was no assistant to be seen. I had to stand gazing at the assortment until an assistant passed round the corner and hurried into the clothes section. After chasing after her and asking for help, the assistant said she would send someone over. In a matter of minutes another assistant came to help me.

After listening to what I needed, my new helper

suggested that perhaps the Sony DSC W800 for £79.99 or the Nikon S3600 for £89.99 might be suitable products for me. She also pointed out that the Sony had a 20.1MP camera and that neither an SD card, cable or case would be included in the price.

The assistant also stated that the Sony had a high zoom and that it would be beneficial if I was travelling.

She then checked that the store had these two models in stock and left me to ponder my decision, with absolutely no pressure to buy.

MAPLIN

WALKING into Maplin I expected to see a wide range of digital cameras, similar to the offering the store had online and as I entered I was greeted by a friendly assistant straight away who welcomed me into the store.

I wandered around in the hope of finding a camera display, but to my despair there were none to be seen.

As I approached the front desk, a young lady asked if I needed any help. I asked whether they had any digital cameras in stock, to which I was promptly

told they currently didn’t have any available.

I asked whether they only sold cameras online and whether that would be the best place to purchase one. The assistant stated that she could help me order a camera online and then have it delivered to the store or my home, whichever was more convenient for me.

Although there were no cameras in store, there was a variety of cables on show,and the helpfulness of the shop assistant definitely helped matters.

3/10

CURRYS

AFTER looking at the range of cameras behind the counter for a few minutes, an assistant soon approached to see if I needed any help.

The young man asked what I was looking for and what budget I had, and suggested that the Sony H400 would be a good choice. The assistant then turned on the camera to demonstrate its optical zoom and even let me have a go.

However, he did suggest that perhaps something with such a high zoom wouldn’t be suitable if I wasn’t going to use it regularly. He then

recommended the Panasonic Lumix DMC-SZ8EB-K for £119.99. He described some of its specs, including its 16MP camera, and told me that I could download the Panasonic app to sync the camera with my smartphone.

Unfortunately, Curry’s didn’t have that camera in store; however, he told me that I could purchase it online. After discussing my options, he suggested that I should have a shop around and think about my decision, as I may find a better camera with more value somewhere else.

PC WORLD

PC WORLD had a large variety of cameras on display, and after looking around the range for a few minutes, I still hadn’t been approached by anyone. After searching for an assistant at the front of the store, I found a young man and asked him for some help.

I told the assistant that my budget was £200 and that I was looking for a camera for everyday use, to which he suggested a Canon SX600 or Canon IXUS 265, both priced at £129.99 each.

He also told me that Sony cameras have been popular

lately, and that one featured a 30x optical zoom. Other than that, he did not go into much detail and didn’t seem particularly interested in what I was looking for; however, he did mention that the Canon models featured Wi-Fi connectivity so I could print my images via my smartphone, and would take clear pictures in the dark thanks to its range of settings.

After spending all but five minutes with me, he then asked me if i needed anything else and left me to decide which camera would be best.

6/10

STARSTORE

7/10

9/10


“The Curry’s assistant was incredibly informative about the range of cameras on offer and didn’t pressure me into buying.”

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How has the company evolved over recent years?Oosha Ltd has been in its current form for five years now. Prior to this it operated as an Internet Service Provider and telecoms organisation known as AllComm. In 2008 AllComm merged with personnel from a managed service background and Oosha Ltd was born.

Over the last five years we have grown significantly from being a traditional ‘break-fix’ IT support organisation, providing a limited number of hosted services, to being a fully-rounded MSP providing complex IT solutions along with a diverse cloud and hosting service portfolio.

Our recent company-wide rebrand in April 2014 allowed

us to add more structure to our offering by placing our services into six distinct product groupings: Managed Services, IT Solutions, Cloud, Connectivity, Communications and Hosting.

How has business been?Business has been booming – the acquisition of our new £10m data centre facility in December 2013 has transformed the service portfolio we’re able to offer.

Traditionally focused on targeting end-user businesses in the SME market, we’re now successfully targeting enterprise-level business. As a company we’ve always had clients that sit in this space, but now we’re really pushing

ourselves as one of the most forward-thinking IT companies.

What are the benefits of working with an organisation like Synaxon?We have been members of Synaxon now for just over a year and in that time we have seen our relationships with distribution and vendors go from strength to strength. Having dedicated account managers in distribution who recognise you as part of a larger dealer group is invaluable.

What do you have planned over the next few years?Since the acquisition of our new primary £10m data centre last year, we now have much more potential as an IT service provider of choice.

The expansion of our cloud and hosted service range forms the basis of our sole focus for the next few years. The growth of our small existing reseller channel will become significant over the next few years as we look to build the channel side of our business.

Q&A: OoshaChris Parkes, marketing manager at Oosha, talks about the company’s new data centre and its expansion into cloud services…

SYNAXON MEMBER PROFILE

“Business has been booming – our new data centre facility has transformed the service portfolio we’re able to offer.”

Chris Parkes, Oosha Contact: 0845 1234 766

www.oosha.co.uk

I MUST use this opportunity to rant about the state of both popular online marketplaces we all must use in this industry: Amazon and eBay.

For example, a customer walks into my shop and asks if we have a charger for a HP laptop. After working out which type of charger he requires, I tell him it’s £20 for a brand new unit with a power cable including a year’s warranty.

He ponders for a minute, and then says: “I’ll leave it. I

can get one online for £6.” Now I know he therefore heads off to eBay or Amazon, but does he not realize something? One – he is supporting a local economy which in turn makes jobs and livelihoods etc, and two, in my opinion if he has a local place of contact, should anything go wrong, (for example if he buys the wrong one, or his laptop actually has a fault), he can go back to that local place.

Instead, he faces the stress of emails to and from sellers,

plus postage fees as well as transit times.

When I search on eBay and Amazon for many computer components or spares, it is overwhelmed by Chinese, American and Taiwanese sellers. You have to spend more of your time refining the search to find anything like you were after or something that’s UK-based.

You must also be careful with those claiming to be UK-based, then when you order and wait far too long for your delivery, you realise

your mistake. How is it fair that the marketplaces named above allow these overseas sellers to bombard the UK marketplace?

How do they expect British businesses to compete for sales alongside super-cheap Chinese dealers?

Also, the quality of the products on offer tend to

match their prices, but sometimes does that not come at a risk?

In my opinion, it’s time for these marketplaces to stick to their original values and allow only UK residents to sell their products. Leave other marketplaces like Alibaba to help the Chinese export products.

Online marketplaces aren’twhat they used to be…This month, our mystery independent retailer asks how the likes of Amazon and eBay expect British businesses to compete with the flood of cheaper products from overseas…


Got a gripe you’d like to share with the industry? Contact [email protected]

Thursday March 12th 2015The Royal Garden Hotel, London

For information on sponsorship opportunities please contact Jennie or Sarah on:[email protected] or [email protected] or telephone 01992 535 647

PCR AWARDS RETURN

WORKHARDPLAYHARD

0333 101 1000 | www.entaonline.com | [email protected]

Start button on the desktop

Faster boot times

Longer battery life

Better performance

More secure

Enhanced search

The new Windows:Built for business. Built for life.

Improved task manager

Faster Wi-Fi reconnection

SkyDrive integration

Windows store and modern apps

Mobile Device Management (MDM)

Entatech recommends Microsoft® software

Some apps sold separately; vary by market. Some features require Windows 8.1. Update available through Windows Store. Internet access required; fees may apply.

SECTOR GUIDE

Laura Barnes takes a look at the latest digital cameras, web cams and camcorders available on the market…

Cameras and Camcorders

The Midland XTC-400 is an action camera with an 85m submersible case. It can record in Full HD, and built-in Wi-Fi connects the camera to a device for live streaming, shot preview/playback, and uploads to social media

Specs: 1080p, 5 hours battery life, rotating lens, Wi-Fi, waterproof case.

SRP: £143.10

MIDLAND XTC-400

Distributor: Spire Technology

This camcorder comes with an 8GB internal memory and a 4.5 hour internal battery life. It records in Full HD and the device comes with features including auto wind cut, auto illumin light, auto image stabiliser, and face detection.

Specs: 40x optical zoom, 200x digital zoom, 3-inch LCD screen, Wi-Fi, 8GB internal memory, SDXC card slot.

SRP: £359.99

JVC GZ-RX110

Distributor: Midwich

The WG-M1 is an action camera that is waterproof up to 10 metres and shockproof. It records in Full HD with stereo sound and features built-in Wi-Fi and a colour LCD screen.

Specs: 14MP still images, waterproof, shockproof, freezeproof, Full HD.

SRP: £130

RICOH WG-M1

Distributor: DirekTek

As an action camera with built-in Wi-Fi and a 12MP sensor, the ISaw Extreme comes with connectors, a tripod mount, waterproof casing, USB cables and stickers. The 1200mAh Li-ion battery lets it record continuously for two hours.

Specs: F/2.4 lens, 12MP sensor, supports 1080p at 60fps, 960p at 60fps, 720p at 120fps, and WVGA at 250fps.

SRP: £249

ISAW EXTREME

Distributor: PXS Distribution

The Polaroid Cube is an action camera with a one-button design. It has a rugged, rubberised exterior and a built-in magnet that attaches it to things like bicycle handlebars and household appliances.

Specs: Waterproof, shockproof, supports MicroSD up to 32GB, 720p and 1080p resolution, 124-degree wide angle lens.

SRP: £62

POLAROID CUBE

Contact: Polaroid

The Creative Live Cam Sync has USB plug and chat capabilities and works with PC or Mac. It can capture 720p HD video and users can share to Facebook, YouTube and other online social networks and websites.

Specs: 30fps, built-in noise-cancelling microphone, one-click uploads to social media, parental control, 720p HD.

SRP: £16.99

CREATIVE LIVE CAM SYNC

Distributor: VIP Computers

The Canon EOS 7D Mark II features a refined APS-C sized 20.2MP CMOS sensor with Dual DIGIC 6 Image Processors. It also comes with dual CF and SD card slots and can shoot 10 frames per second.

Specs: 20.2MP CMOS sensor, built-in GPS, ISO ranging from 100-16000, dual DIGIC 6 Image Processor.

SRP: £1,060

CANON EOS 7D MK II BODY ONLY KIT


The Lifecam Cinema has 720p HD widescreen video and clear audio. It automatically sharpens images and TrueColor adjusts exposure. It comes with a glass lens and ClearFrame Tech to improve pictures even in low light.

Specs: Auto focus, digital microphone, noise cancelling, 720p HD, ClearFrame, TrueColour.

SRP: TBC

MICROSOFT L2 LIFECAM CINEMA

Distributor: Exertis


SECTOR GUIDE

CONTACTEntatech ...................... 0333 101 1000

Exertis 01256 707 070/01279 822 822

DirekTek ...................... 01494 471 100

Midwich ........................01379 649200

Peak Development ......01489 796979

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

Spire Technology ........ 01202 828 444

VIP Computers ............ 0871 622 7500

With a f2.0 lens, Wi-Fi, time-interval shooting, time-lapse movie and GPS, this is also submersible to 15m, functional in -10°C temperatures; impact-resistant to 2.1m and crushproof to 100kgf of pressure.

Specs: 4x optical zoom, 16MP, 36MB internal memory, Wi-Fi enabled, 3-inch LCD screen, video capability.

SRP: £349.99

OLYMPUS TG-3


Creative Live Cam Connect comes with an on-board video processor for smooth full-screen HD video chats. Skype certification lets users make calls in HD 720p quality and up to 30 frames per second.

Specs: Noise-cancelling microphone, LiquidCrystal auto focus lens, works with Windows 8.

SRP: £59.99

CREATIVE LIVE CAM CONNECT


Being two-thirds the size of other Sony Action Cam models, this comes with a Live-View remote, a wrist-mounted screen that lets a user view shots and adjust settings while the camera is mounted on their head or handlebars.

Specs: Full HD, weighs 63g, Live-View remote, SteadyShot.

SRP: £329.99

SONY ACTION CAM MINI HDR-AZ1

Distributor: Peak Development

With a 20MP stabilised CMOS sensor and AA filter-less design, this camera features continuous shooting at 5.4 frames per second and can record Full HD movies at 30 frames per second.

Specs: 1/6000 sec. high-speed shutter, high-precision AF from SAFOX IX i+, Full HD with stereo audio, 3:2 aspect ratio.

SRP: £437

RICOH PENTAX K-S1 18-55MM LENS KIT


This webcam is designed for use with applications such as MSN Messenger, Windows Live Messenger, Skype, Yahoo! Messenger, AIM, Google, and Gmail. It also has a built-in noise-cancelling microphone.

Specs: 720p HD, 1280 x 720 video resolution, 8MP photo resolution, 30 frames per second.

SRP: £40

GUILLEMOT HERCULES HD EMOTION


Available in red or black, the Wi-Fi enabled SX700 from Canon can capture long-range close ups with its 30x optical zoom, or get up to 60x closer with no loss of quality using ZoomPlus.

Specs: 16.1MP CMOS sensor, optical image stabiliser, Wi-Fi and NFC enabled, Full HD movies at 60fps, 3-inch screen.

SRP: £329.99

CANON SX700 HS


The Creative Live Cam Chat HD USB webcam can capture video at 30 frames per second. It comes with a built-in noise-cancelling microphone, and users can upload to Facebook, YouTube and Photobucket with one click.

Specs: 720p HD, compatible with Widows 8, 5.7MP photos, plug and play.

SRP: £24.99

CREATIVE LIVE CAM CHAT


The DrivePro 200’s wide angle lens captures Full HD video and features a 2.4-inch colour LCD screen for live view and playback. The camera includes wireless smartphone connectivity and can be mounted on a car’s windshield.

Specs: 3MP image sensor, 30fps, built-in speaker and microphone, USB 2.0, Full HD.

SRP: £89.99

TRANSCEND DRIVEPRO 200

Distributor: Entatech


Sales: 0871 622 7500

ASUS T&C’s apply https://asuspromotions.com/uk/en/pages/cashback/terms

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or [email protected] phone 01992 535647

PCR BOOT CAMP IS HEADING NORTH

WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 12TH 2014LEEDS

PCR Boot Camp – the conference, expo and networking party for tech retailers and resellers – has gone from strength to strength, and after a hugely successful event at The Brewery, London, it is expanding to specifi cally cater for retailers in

the Midlands, Scotland, Wales and the North.

DEALERS ATTENDFOR FREE

SECTOR GUIDE

Once customers pick out their camera, it is important to offer them the extra accessories that are not included.Jade Burke picks out the latest SD cards, cases and software to help complete each customer’s purchase…

Camera accessories and software

The Magix Photostory has been developed to help users create and customise their own image slideshows. The software supports 4K, HD and 3D slideshows, and comes with an automatic slideshow maker.

Specs: Automatic image optimisation and volume adjustment, over 300 effects, 4K, HD and 3D support.

SRP: £69.99

MAGIX PHOTOSTORY 2014 DELUXE


The EP Pro has been designed with professionals in mind, with transfer speeds of up to 90MB/s read and 50MB/s write. It also has capacities of up to 128GB and is capable of shooting full 3D at 1080p resolution.

Specs: 32GB, 64GB, 128GB capacities, class 10 compatible, read speeds of 90MB/s and write speeds of 50MB/s.

SRP: £45.99

PATRIOT 64GB SDXC EP PRO CLASS 10


This software allows users to mark the best parts of a clip and then assemble them into a short movie ready for sharing. Shake Stabiliser also helps to steady shaky videos that have been recorded using smartphones.

Specs: Shake Stabiliser feature, Video Story auto clip assemble, select clips with Favourite Moments.

SRP: £81.08

ADOBE PREMIERE ELEMENTS 13

Contact: Adobe

This back pack features various extra pockets for accessories including memory cards and cables, as well as a side strap to hold a tripod. The storage space can also expand, plus it’s waterproof and has a rain cover.

Specs: Padded back and shoulders, adjustable lap belt, extra pockets, waterproof, side strap for tripod.

SRP: £79.99

HELSINKI BACK PACK MONO SHOULDER

Distributor: Northamber

The Zoom It can be clipped on to any device equipped with a back camera, which provides users with 30X zoom. It also comes with a free app for Android and iOS to take photos, play games create albums and share pictures.

Specs: Zoom up to 30X, compatible with devices with rear camera, requires 3x AAA batteries, free app.

SRP: £14.99

ZOOM IT

Distributor: KD UK

This SD card delivers fast recording and playback needed to capture Full HD in 1920x1080p and 4K Ultra HD in 3840x2160p video. It also features UHS Speed Class 3 technology and up to 60MB/s performance.

Specs: Up to 60MB/s read and 40MB/s write, water proof, shock proof, UHS Speed Class 3.

SRP: From £34.99

SANDISK EXTREME MICROSD


This software offers non-destructive photo editing, meaning users can edit an image as many times as they want without losing the image quality. A range of tools is also available, including brightness, contrast, sharpen and blur.

Specs: PSD and PDF support, Bitmap tracer, integrated photo tool, non-destructive photo handling.

SRP: £69.99

XARA PHOTO & GRAPHIC DESIGNER 10


This SD card combines Class 10 specification as well as the performance boost of USH-I. It provides users with Full HD video recording, and when paired with a USH-I compatible device, it will supply users with faster speeds.

Specs: 32GB, Full HD video support, Class 10 compliant, Built-in Error Correcting Code.

SRP: £8.95

TRANSCEND UHS-I 300X PREMIUM (32GB)


www.pcr-online.biz PCR 2014 | 71

CONTACTAdobe .......................... 01628 590 300

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

Exertis (Basingstoke)..01256 70 70 70

Exertis (Harlow)...........01279 822 822

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

KD UK ............................01727 827194

Northamber ................ 020 8296 7000

Peak Development ......01489 796979

VIP Computers ............ 0871 622 7500

SECTOR GUIDE


ImageRecall 5 features support for 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems. It has been developed to recover accidently deleted or corrupted files, including camera RAW files. It can also recover images from memory cards.

Specs: Compatible with Windows 8, 7, Vista and XP, 32bit and 64bit compatible, recovers RAW files.

SRP: £24.98

IMAGERECALL 5


The Air Drive allows users to transfer files from multiple devices using Wi-Fi, which can then be transferred onto a PC after downloading the S+ Flash app. It is capable of up to five hours playback and includes a built-in USB 2.0 cable.

Specs: USB 2.0, dedicated mobile app, 55g, wireless technology, personal password settings.

SRP: £15.99

PQI 16GB A100 AIR DRIVE WIRELESS SD CARD READER


The exFAT file system enables the SDXC card to handle large volumes of data while the UHS-1 interface transfers movies, videos and pictures with speeds of up to 104MB/s. It also has write and read speeds of 10MB/s.

Specs: 10MB/s read and write speeds, compatible with Windows XP SP2/Vista SP1, write protection switch.

SRP: £35

VERBATIM SECURE DIGITAL SDXC CLASS 10


This micro SD card features Class 10 speeds and guarantees write speeds of up to 10MB/s. It has been tailored for mobile devices due to its micro size and has a capacity of 16GB. It is also fully compatible with SD 3.0 standards.

Specs: 16GB, SDHC Class 10 compliant, micro SD adapter, RoHS compliant, built-in Error Correcting Code.

SRP: £4.51

TRANSCEND 16GB MICROSDHC FLASH CARD


MediaShare allows users to stream media to a device from portable storage media, such as SD cards or USB drives via a wireless IEEE 802.11 connection. Users can also make use of its extended nine hour battery life.

Specs: Connects five devices simultaneously, nine hours of battery, USB and SD slot, wireless connection.

SRP: £49

VERBATIM MEDIASHARE STREAMING DEVICE


This software comes with a native 64-bit support and non-destructive tools so images are never distorted when edited. A 4K slideshow output is also available, plus users can make adjustments to images.

Specs: 64-bit support, 4K video slideshows, range of image adjustments, RAW support.

SRP: £79.99

CYBERLINK PHOTODIRECTOR 5 ULTRA


AfterShot Pro 2 allows users to convert, adjust and manage RAW photos on Windows, Mac and Linux. It offers non-destructive editing, powerful batch processing and support for more than 250 cameras.

Specs: Support for more than 250 camera profiles and RAW formats, 64-bit performance.

SRP: £57.99

COREL AFTERSHOT PRO 2

Distributors: Exertis, Ingram Micro

This micro SD card comes with an adapter for transferring SD applications and has read speeds of 20MB/s and write speeds of 10MB/s. It also features a built-in Error Correcting Code and Content Protection.

Specs: Class 4, 10 and UHS-1, capacities of up to 64GB, read speeds of 20MB/s, write speeds of 10MB/s.

SRP: £19.99

V7 MICRO SDHC 32GB CLASS 10 + SD ADAPTER

Distributor: Ingram Micro

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WALLPLANNER 2015

285x112mm

117x112mm 117x112mm 117x112mm 117x112mm312x112mm

59x330mm

59x330

mm

285x53mm

285x53mm

New Years Day

CES - Las Vegas, Nevada

BETT - Excel, London

DISTREE EMEA - Grimaldi Forum, Monaco

CeBit - Hannover Exhibition Grounds

E3 - LA Convention Center

IFA - Berlin

Future in Review - Stein Eriksen Lodge, Utah

Gadget Show Live - NEC, Birmingham

PCR wallplanner 2015_proof_v2.indd 1

22/10/2014 11:16

The PCR wall planner has always been an essential part of the IT/Tech industry, providing an accurate diary of the most important events and shows throughout 2015. The benefits of being on the wall planner include:

Unrivalled low cost, all year round exposure Proven to raise brand awareness to the whole IT industry Constant reminder of your company and services

This large pull-out calendar will be distributed in our end of year issue, with 7,500 copies being distributed to our print subscribers

Only a limited number of positions are now available.

Costs start from just £450, contact Jennie now for more details

For more information on the available options please contact [email protected] or call 01992 535647

Put your brand in front of the whole IT/Tech industry, for a whole year

The PCR 2015 Wall Planner

RecommendedDedicated monthly product coverage

NVIDIA HAS released its latest range of GPUs based on its Maxwell chip architecture – the GeForce GTX 980 and 970.

The new graphics cards promise to improve users’ gaming experiences, even when playing on a standard 1080p display, thanks to Maxwell’s Dynamic Super Resolution technology, where games can be rendered at 4K or other high-end resolutions.

Nvidia says its new Voxel Global Illumination technology enables gaming GPUs to deliver ‘real-time dynamic global

illumination’ for the first time, meaning scenes are more lifelike as light interacts realistically in the game environment.

Other new technologies include multi-frame sampled anti-aliasing (MFAA), dynamic super resolution (DSR), VR Direct and an energy-efficient design, which enable the 980 and 970 GPUs to render frames with the highest fidelity at higher clock speeds and lower power consumption.

Jen-Hsun Huang, co-founder and CEO of Nvidia, said: “Maxwell has been years

in the making, inspired by our gamers, and created by the best minds in 3D graphics.

“Its extraordinary performance, efficiency and technologies will empower developers to do their finest work and delight gamers worldwide.”

The GPUs are available from add-in card suppliers, including ASUS, EVGA, Gainward, Galax, Gigabyte, Innovision 3D, MSI, Palit, PNY and Zotac.

Plus, the GeForce range is being sold in fully configured systems from leading UK

system builders, including Scan, Overclockers, PC Specialist, CyberPower and Chillblast, as well as other system integrators across the EMEAI region.

The GPUs have already been received positively among suppliers, with some saying they are sold out. Paul Nolan from Ebuyer told PCR: “The Nvidia GTX 970 and 980 cards have been really popular since their launch due to their performance being fast, quiet and the most power efficient cards in the enthusiast segment.”

Nvidia unveils its most powerful GPUs

Contact: VIP Computers | 0871 622 7500 | Price: Starting from £259 (970), £429 (980)

Games can be rendered to 4K display with new GPUs

Voxel Global Illumination technology enables ‘real-time dynamic global illumination’


The latest tech Editorial Planner

“Maxwell has been years in the making, created by the best minds in 3D graphics.”

Jen-Hsun Huang,Nvidia

Contact: Entatech | 0333 101 1000 | Tech Data | 01256 788 000 | Price: Starting from £199.99

ASUS’ VIVOMINI range features four SKUs with various performance levels for carrying out tasks.

The mini PC has been developed to perform the same way as a traditional desktop PC, but within a compact form factor.

Each Vivo features an Intel processor, ranging from the Celeron 2957U, Core i3-4030U and Core i5-4210U, plus each SKU is a barebone unit. However, the UN42-M015Y features 100GB of free Windows OneDrive, Windows 8 with Bing and a 32GB mSATA Sold State Drive (SSD).

The four models also come with a variety of USB, HDMI and Display Ports, Ethernet jacks, full and half-sized PCIe card slots inside the case. Plus, the models can hold up to 16GB worth of memory. Thanks to the HDMI and

Display Port++, the VivoMini can support up to two displays, providing users with multitasking options.

Intel HD graphics have been embedded, plus the ultra HD 4K dual display allows users to play back clear videos.

Each SKU features Wi-Fi ‘GO!’ with 802.11ac support for faster speeds and wireless control. Customers can also upgrade or customise their Vivo easily, as the memory, SSD and wireless transceiver can all be changed.

However, as the VivoMini does not come with any internal storage or a wireless card, it will need some extras before it can be used as a standalone PC.

Each Vivo weighs 1kg with dimensions of 131x131x42mm, making it compact enough to be used in the home or at work.

The mighty Mini from Asus

Contact: Westcoast | 0118 912 6000 | Price: From £99.99

Stay connected with the new HP Stream series

“The HP Stream products hit the mark with sleek design and portability.”

Louis Perrin, HP

RECOMMENDED

HP HAS expanded its line-up of Stream laptops with the addition of a notebook and series of tablets.

The HP Stream laptop comes with free cloud storage for instant access and sharing of content with 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive for one year, as well as Office 365 Personal.

It comes with an 11.6-inch or 13.3-inch HD display, along with an optional touch display, while the Intel Celeron processor and 32GB of eMMC flash memory allows for a quiet and cool operation.

Other features include an AMD Micro series APU, HP TrueVision HD webcam, quad speakers and BeatsAudio. It is also available in a range of colours including, Orchid Magenta and Horizon Blue.

The latest range of tablets from the company features the HP Stream 7, with a 7-inch display, and the HP Stream 8, with an 8-inch display. Each includes one year of Office 365 Personal and 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive storage for one year.

The HP Stream 8 tablet comes equipped with HP DataPass, which allows customers to connect to the internet with 3G+ mobile broadband service, with no contract necessary.

Customers can also fully customise their tablet with a Start screen, live tiles and a lock screen with multi-user support built-in.

Louis Perrin, director of consumer products, printing and personal systems group

at HP EMEA, said: “Today’s consumers demand mobile products that fit their personal style and allow them to work and play wherever they are.

“The HP Stream products announced today hit the mark with sleek design, portability, access to free cloud storage, and the familiarity of Windows and Office 365.”

The range of tablets will be available during December with prices starting at £99.99, while the HP Stream Notebook will be available on November 26th, with prices starting at £179.

Intel HD graphics have been embedded within the Vivo


Contact: Epson | 01952 607 111 | Price: Starting from £249 Contact: Peak Development | 01489 796979 | Price: Starting from £49.99

EPSON says its new EcoTank range of printers is the first of its kind.

The L355 and L555 make up the new series and house enough ink in their tanks to print up to 4,000 pages in black and white and 6,500 pages in colour.

The EcoTank printers do not have a single ink cartridge, but instead feature ultra-high-capacity ink tanks that can be refilled with Epson ink.

The ink has also been designed to last for up to two years, reducing the need of replacing ink cartridges often. Four Epson ink bottles are also included with each purchase.

Simon Hanly, product manager of Epson UK, said: “The L555 and L355 are based on technology that has been highly successful in other markets where we have sold over 10 million units in less than four years.

“Epson is now responding to customer needs by launching the EcoTank range for Western Europe.”

Both the L355 and L555 have print, copy and scanning functions with a 1,200dpi scanner resolution, however, the L555 also has fax, a 30-page Automatic Document Feeder and a two-line LCD screen.

As well as this, they also have print speeds of up to 9ppm and Wi-Fi connectivity. Users can also make use

of the Epson iPrint app, to print images from a smartphone or tablet.

“Complementing our line-up of existing products, these models are ideal for home and small office customers who want to print everyday documents, such as recipes,

homework, emails and maps, and for whom price and convenience are key factors. With two years’ worth of ink included, users know where they stand,” added Hanly.

UNLIKE traditional solar products that are based on glass, EnerPlex’s latest range of solar panels are based on a shock-resistant and lightweight plastic, giving users the option of integrating them into backpacks and phone cases safely.

The Kickr IV, Packr, Surfr, Jumpr Slate 5K and Jumpr Slate 10K make up the range, offering customers the option of a battery power without the need for any electricity.

The Kickr IV is a foldable six-watt solar charger, which can charge a USB device at the same rate as a standard wall charger. It can also be attached to anything from a backpack to a tent.

The Packr is a solar integrated backpack and is equipped with Enerplex’s flexible solar on plastic technology. In good sunlight its three-watt solar panel can power up most smartphones in less than five hours

and charge almost any portable USB enabled device.

The lightest within the range is the Surfr iPhone 5 case, weighing just 89 grams and measuring 16mm thick. The battery case features a 2000mAh battery pack that will quickly double the life of an iPhone 5.

The Jumpr Slate products have been designed to slip into a jacket or rucksack pocket, and can be charged via a main plug or with an Enerplex

solar charger. The Jumpr Slate 5K

features a 5,100mAh battery and has a micro USB cable stowed discretely in the side so that users can charge their devices on the go.

The Jumpr Slate 10K includes a powerful 10,000mAh

battery for charging smartphones, GPS units, tablets and e-readers.

Plus, the dual 2.4 amp outlets mean users can charge two devices at the same time.

Espon’s efficient EcoTank printer

Light up devices with Enerplex

RECOMMENDED

“EnerPlex’s latest range of solar panels are based on a shock-resistant and lightweight plastic.”

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THE SAMSUNG power sharing cable allows users to charge their devices on the go, without the need for an electrical plug.

The cable can transfer power directly from various Galaxy devices including a Galaxy S5, Galaxy Alpha, Galaxy Avant, Galaxy Note 4 or Galaxy Tab, to any other USB-compatible device. The cable itself is a simple microUSB-to-microUSB cable and features a 500mA input.

However, users must first download the ‘Power Sharing’ app from Samsung apps or the Google Play Store, and then select the amount of power they wish to transfer to their device.

The cable then automatically stops once the device reaches the selected amount, so the original device doesn’t lose all of its battery power. It is portable enough to fit in a pocket and is available in both black and white.

THE LATEST range of pocket chargers from LMS Data features the USB-PBK-6000-W (white) and the USB-PBK-6000-BL (black), both of which have dual USB charging ports, which can provide battery life simultaneously to a variety of devices including an iPhone, an iPod, Android phones, Windows mobiles and tablets.

Both chargers feature a Li-ion battery and a 6000mAh rating, which will help to provide devices with a longer battery life.

Nick Beer, product manager at Dynamode Group, said: “The new USB-PBK-6000 range of intelligent pocket chargers aim to overcome the shortfall of other vendor chargers by offering both a higher capacity, advanced chemistry battery for effective charging of tablet computers, advanced GPS and other wearable tech.”

The pocket chargers feature an LED white light that acts as a torch, with the option of an SOS flashing functionality. It also supports 5VDC, 1-Amps and 2-Amps device options.

“With the release of the latest iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus together with the expected newer range of Apple and Android tablet devices, it’s more important than ever to offer larger capacity charging devices, not the ones you often find at a petrol forecourt,” added Beer.

Smartphone battery boostPocket power from LMS Data


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January 2015 SECTOR GUIDES

We take a look at the range of hardware storage on the market, including NAS drives and SSDs.

Plus, with more smartphones cropping up look at the latest models and accessories. We will also cover in-car tech, including Bluetooth headsets and satnavs.

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

December 2014 NEW YEAR SPECIAL We review the year’s highlights and take a look at the year ahead, as well as listing distributors’ Christmas opening hours.

Sector Guides: Desktops and all-in-ones, motherboards, processors and office equipment.

January 2015 BRIT LIST SPECIAL We look at the best of British manufacturers who are flying the flag within the computing industry, as well as the most influential tech execs.

We preview the upcoming technology tradeshow CES, taking place in Las Vegas.

Advertising Deadline December 4th

Advertising Deadline November 6th

Advertising Deadline December 4th

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OUT OF OFFICE

VENDORS, resellers and Northamber executives gathered at the distributor’s Tech Expo at Epsom Downs racecourse in September to strike deals, network, present products and… become cartoons, of course.

Live caricaturist Chrissy Marshall drew pictures of attendees on a Wacom tablet at the show, including the likes of Northamber’s Alex Philips, WatchGuard’s distribution manager Jon-Marc Wilkinson, PCR’s own Dominic Sacco and many more.

Check out our pick of the portraits from the day and see if you can spot anyone you recognise.

CENTERPRISE held an Activity Day for its resellers recently in conjunction with Panasonic Toughbook.

Customers were treated to a shooting range and a meal at a Marco Pierre White restaurant in Bristol, plus drinks in the evening.

PCR understands one exec was so enthusiastic, they didn’t leave the bar until the early hours at 4.30am…

GUNNING FOR VICTORY


IN THE

HOTSEAT

Spencer KellyTV presenter Spencer Kelly speaks to PCR at Ingram Micro’s SMB Alliance Forum about giant walking robots and his love of drones…What’s your favourite gadget? Drones. I’ve got a drone quad-copter with a brilliant camera on it. It’s amazing, they’re going to change the world. For content makers the type of images that you can capture is going to be amazing, spying on your neighbour has never been easier.

What’s your earliest tech or gadget related memory? The Commodore Pet. I first saw it at some kind of school holiday club. It would have been 1977 or 1978. It blew my mind to pieces.

Windows, iOS or Android? Well I’m a desktop and Windows boy simply because I’ve always grown up with Windows, I use a Mac as well now, but it’s still a little bit counterintuitive.

Current smartphone? Samsung Galaxy S5. Bizarrely I’ve got an S5 and a 5S.

First computer? The first one I used was a Commodore Pet and then our school got a BBC micro, and my one was an Acorn Electron.

What’s the most memorable tech you’ve covered? The robot restaurant in Japan. It sounds like a restaurant where you’ll be served by robots, it’s actually full of dancing girls in bikinis, and giant walking robots that they drive, and the food is terrible.

FORMER staff writer Andrew Wooden is promoted to deputy editor of PC Retail magazine… Telecoms giant BT surprised both the city and the technology industry by buying IT specialist online retailer Dabs.com… Nokia launches E61…Retail preparation for the arrival of Microsoft Vista in 2007 is well underway… At the Develop conference in Brighton, Mark Rein of Unreal Tournament-developer Epic Games launched an attack at Intel, blaming the chip manufacturer for the downturn in PC gaming… Blackberry releases the Pearl 8100…

Plus: Kingston Technology launches a new line of waterproof USB 2.0 Flash drives called Data Traveller Secure… TLA offers digital bundle support…Holbe Dialogue UK updates its range of Flybook portable PCs with the V33i 3g Lux Pro…

PC Retail November 2006

FROM THE ARCHIVE

CARTOON CAPERS

OUT OF OFFICE

140 CHARACTERS OF NEWS AND VIEWSWhat the industry’s been tweeting about this month…

Sarah Shields, Dell @sarahshields2 Absolutely honoured to have won #pcrwomanoftheyear! Thrilled to bits!! Thank you @AndrewWooden82 @pcr_online #delluk #Iwork4Dell

Aongus Hegarty, Dell @AongusatDellGood luck @sarahshields2 who is shortlisted @pcr_online Woman of the Year Awards today celebrating leading women in the tech industry

Anna Cheng, Intel @starhawke13Off to the @pcr_online Woman of the Year award soon! Best of luck to all the ladies nominated!

Tim Cook, Apple@tim_cookVery excited about iPad Air 2, the thinnest tablet in the world. We think our customers will love it. #iPadAir2

AMD @AMD_UKBIG NEWS: Dr. Lisa Su becomes CEO of AMD! Congratulations Lisa!

League of Legends @lolesportsCongratulations to Samsung White! They are the 2014 League of Legends World Champions! #Worlds

Satya Nadella, Microsoft@satyanadellaI’ve enjoyed using Windows 10 for weeks and look forward to feedback on the Technical Preview Richard Tubb, Tubblog@tubblog Congratulations to @SarahShields2 who is named @pcr_online Woman of the Year. Very strong shortlist of nominees!

Tim LeRoy, Novatech @TimleroyFeeling happily out gunned by three of @Novatechltd’s finest at @pcr_online women of the year awards

Argos Press Office @Argos_PR @Bose’s arrival at Argos will be #music to thousands of ears around the UK #GetSetGoArgos


JAPANIt came from…

THE AMPY (pictured, right) has been designed to capture kinetic energy when users move and then stores it, so users can recharge their smartphone on the go.

The more the user actively moves, the more battery life they can get, for example, one hours’ worth of cycling can provide a smartphone with up to three hours of battery life.

Power Practical has also designed the Pronto (pictured, far right), a

charging device that aims to provide a full charge for an iPhone 5 in five minutes.

The Pronto 5 features a 4500mAh battery and the

Pronto 12 features a 13,500mAh, which can be charged in an hour to provide a device with up to nine recharges.

CROWDFUNDING CORNER

AT A recent technology exhibition in Japan, NTT Docomo unveiled some of its latest tech, including the Yubi Navi – a navigation

device that uses ‘tactile sensations’ for a range of various functions.

The haptic handle can navigate users to a destination via the small actuators that twist the Yubi Navi left or right, prompting the user to turn at intersections.

The idea behind the gadget is to free people from the need to keep

looking at a map on their smartphone or other device.

Docomo’s Koji Okamoto said: “In Japan, walking with smartphones is a big problem and we want to solve it.

“Aside from avoiding dangers involved in not paying attention to one’s surrounding, this can help people enjoy a location more by noticing new shops and other attractions.”

DISTRIBUTOR Entatech held its annual sales training weekend in late September, with the likes of Fujitsu, Mad Catz, Kaspersky, Microsoft, D-Link, Philips, ZOTAC, OKI, Cooler Master and Kingston in attendance.

Activities included Segway racing, riding a mobile PC and laser battling. Microsoft’s James Squibb was spotted navigating an inflatable obstacle course, along with Entatech VP Jon Atherton in attendance, as well as sales manager Darren Perks, sales exec Kayleigh Petford, Cooler Master’s Adrian Liu and more.

A WINNING TEAM

THE LAST WORD

PCR is published 12 times a year by NewBay Media - Saxon House, 6a St. Andrew Street, Hertford, Hertfordshire SG14 1JA. Fax: +44 (0)1992 535648.

© NewBay Media 2014All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system without the express prior written consent of the publisher. The contents of PCR are subject to reproduction in information storage and retrieval systems. Printed by Pensord.

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Dell’s UK general manager and executive director, Sarah Shields, on winning the first PCR Woman of the Year award…

DURING MY 20 years working within technology, I have seen the industry evolve out of all recognition.

We now have wearable technology, 3D TVs and displays and the beginnings of artificial intelligence. But when it comes to women working in tech, time seems to have stood still.

According to Gartner, the number of female CIOs has remained static at 14 per cent since 2004 and women occupy only 11.2 per cent of technology leadership roles in EMEA. As a woman in a technology leadership role, I

can say that it is not uncommon to be the only woman in the boardroom. To change this trend, we need to be personal advocates for our peers and inspire a culture of inclusion in the workplace.

We need to give girls a launch pad to realise their capabilities by encouraging the industry to engage and demonstrate the options available. It’s important that, as an industry, we start talking to young girls about their future early on and actively show them the benefits of working in IT. This will help them see the opportunities they have to

make a real impact on the world through technology, before they start making decisions about A-Levels, university and ultimately their careers.

If we can reach girls at a young age, then I believe we’ll be able to increase the number of women in the technology industry. Beyond that, we need to seek to expand opportunities for women across the industry and we need to strive to ensure that women team members, customers, and suppliers around the world are given the tools they need to succeed in a global workforce.

It’s an absolute honour to receive the PCR Woman of the Year award. Luckily for me, Dell believes strongly in gender equality and actively runs programmes to encourage diversity and inclusion.

To work for one of the leading global IT brands and to be part of a three-woman leadership team also makes me exceptionally proud.

I hope to be able to share my experience to encourage women to take advantage of the opportunities the IT industry has to offer, and help to reverse the shrinking female talent pool.

The Last Word:What can I do to inspire women in IT?

“It’s an honour to receive the PCR Woman of the Year award. Luckily for me, Dell believes strongly in gender equality and actively runs programmes to encourage diversity and inclusion.”

Sarah Shields, Dell

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