Technology Reseller - v23

NEWS : RESELLERS 01732 759725 12 Technology services and solutions provider IT Lab is continuing its expansion strategy with the acquisition of Milton Keynes-based managed service provider Mirus IT. The move, which follows the company’s ECI-backed acquisition of Content and Code in September 2018 and Perspective Risk in May 2017, will increase IT Lab Group’s revenue to more than £75m and its managed services customer base to more than 890 companies. IT Lab delivers 24/7 IT managed services, cloud solutions, cyber security services and technical advisory, transition and transformational services across the Microsoft 3 Clouds. It has offices in London, Manchester, Cape Town and, now, Milton Keynes. IT Lab CEO Peter Sweetbaum said: “We are delighted to welcome Mirus as part of the IT Lab Group. By coming together, we are able to help Mirus clients benefit fully from Microsoft’s 3 Clouds and the transformational capabilities of Dynamics, SharePoint, Teams and Power Apps, in addition to Mirus’s Office 365 and Azure offerings. IT Lab’s cyber security services, including our award-winning Security Operations Centre and Penetration Testing services, will provide Mirus clients with increased options in an increasingly security-focused world.” www.itlab.com • www.mirus-it.co.uk Third acquisition in three years for IT Lab IT specialist on track with expansion plans Following a third office move in two years, IT services provider Professional Network Technology Solutions (PNTS) is targeting growth of more than 33% this year, as it continues to win contracts and take on more staff. Founded in Spennymoor by Paul Ashley and Mark Pearson in 2015, PNTS moved to new premises in the North East Technology Park (NETPark) Incubator in Sedgefield in 2017, before moving into a larger office in the same building. In December 2018, it moved again, signing a 10-year lease on 1,000 square feet of self-contained office space in Palatine House on Durham’s Belmont Business Park. In its first four years of business, PNTS has seen its turnover increase from £150K in 2015/16 to £283K in 2016/17, £393K in 2017/2018, £597K in 2018/19 and a projected £800K+ in 2019/20. Headcount has grown to seven, with a second apprentice due to start in September. PNTS provides a full range of IT design, installation, maintenance and off-site support services to smaller organisations, predominantly in the built environment, both in the North-East and further afield, including London, Lincolnshire, Oxford, Stevenage and Kent. Director Paul Ashley said: “Moving to Belmont Business Park provides us with more space in which to accommodate our growing team and is pivotal to our plans for future growth. We will continue to expand our range of services, both in direct response to clients’ needs and by identifying emerging opportunities in new sectors such as telecommunications.” Vapour and ptg drive savings at JCT600 Leeds-based pure technology group (PTG) and Halifax-headquartered Vapour Cloud are working together to provide fourth generation family motor firm JCT600 with a cloud-based communications system, in a deal worth more than £1 million over five years. Over the last 12 months, the two companies have replaced the legacy telephony systems used in 50 JCT600 locations across the north of England with an Avaya ACS Select cloud-based telephony platform provided by Vapour. The new telephony system costs the same as the old solution, but offers improved functionality, including PCI compliance for call recorded card payments, WebRTC technology for improved collaboration and an app that allows sales people to take DDI calls on their mobile, with call recording. JCT600 is also implementing Avaya Workforce Optimization Select (AWFOS) in its 100-seat contact centre and trialling Avaya mobile, audio and videoconferencing solutions. Gary Saunders, ptg Sales Director, said: “In deciding how to upgrade, JCT600 could have invested in a traditional new phone system, but who wants to buy expensive hardware when it’s possible to invest in the cloud environment, benefit from two disaster recovery points for business continuity, and experience greater flexibility. Plus, they’ll always operate on the best and latest version of technology, with SLA rates of 99.999%.” Chris Gensmantel, JCT600 Group IT Manager, added: “Vapour’s solution will allow us to streamline our systems and processes, whilst integrating voice into the other exciting technologies we’ve implemented throughout JCT.” In the next stage of its 10-year relationship with ptg, JCT600 plans to modernise its IT and data management by deploying a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) within the Microsoft Cloud. Peter Sweetbaum (l to r) Directors Paul Ashley and Mark Pearson (l-r): Gary Saunders (ptg), Tim Mercer (Vapour Cloud), Chris Gensmantel (JCT600), Lee O’Conner (ptg) Computacenter (UK) buys back RDC Computacenter (UK) has acquired the UK operations of IT asset disposal (ITAD) business RDC after Arrow Electronics announced that it would be withdrawing from the ITAD market. In a press release, Computacenter (UK) announced that it was buying back the company it sold to Arrow in 2015 to ensure continuity of service for its major customers. It stated: “We have partnered successfully with RDC for many years, firstly under our ownership and, over the last five years, while RDC has been owned by Arrow... While we have investigated working with other partners, we believe that acquiring RDC is the most straightforward way to guarantee continuity of service to our major accounts, particularly given our historic knowledge of the business.” www.computacenter.com