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[email protected] COMMENT 03 Now that the fabled Magic Money Tree does appear to exist, albeit for the Tory party only, and with the UK poised to fall down a rabbit hole (or is that a plug hole?), it can’t be long before unicorns really are prancing across our verdant land of make-believe. For the time-being, however, a unicorn remains either a mythical beast or a privately owned business start- up valued at more than $1 billion. In an interesting article on pages 36 and 37, John Waddicker of Positive Commercial Finance considers the latter and in particular their defining features. One of the stand-out observations is the amount of time it can take for a business to achieve unicorn status. While unicorns tend to be associated with instant, runaway success, some take more than a decade of graft to reach a $1 billion valuation. There’s a lot to be said for building solid foundations and gradually building up from there, which is exactly what Cameo has been doing for the last 30 years. The white-label maintenance provider, featured in this month’s Q&A, is a long way from being a unicorn, but with impressive growth over the last five years and a recent expansion of its service offering to include UPS maintenance and secure hardware disposal, it is poised to play a bigger role in the future. In the UK, London is the main breeding ground for unicorns. But for how much longer? As we report on page 8, Manchester is now the best city in the UK for IT jobs, topping CompTIA’s inaugural Tech Town Index . London comes in fifth place, behind Bristol, Leeds and Birmingham. This came as no surprise to Technology Reseller . On the evidence of our news pages, technology companies in Manchester, Leeds and other northern towns are very good at marketing themselves and at building relationships with other companies in their region (as Q2Q IT is doing with Vapour Cloud – see page 32). This suggests that the tech sector there is building up a head of steam that could produce great things in the future. James Goulding Editor,
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[email protected] www.technologyreseller.co.uk No part of Technology Reseller can be reproduced without prior written permission of the publisher. © 2019 Kingswood Media Ltd. Design: Sandtiger Media www.sandtiger.co.uk 04 What’s New The month’s best new products and services 08 Tech Trends The state of ICT in the UK today 10 Distributor News Nimans sets up new AV and security division 14 Working Together This month’s round-up of new distribution agreements 16 Reseller News Waterstons opens Sydney office 18 Vendor News Compliance is ‘next big thing’ for MSPs 24 Cover Story New 3CX CEO Stefan Walther talks about developments at the company 26 Q&A Cameo emerges from the shadows 28 The Insider Phil Jones MBE on why everyone should start writing 30 Computers The irreplaceable Panasonic TOUGHBOOK 55 32 View from the channel With Lorna Stellakis of Q2Q IT 36 Marketplace What makes a unicorn? 38 Collaboration How Lifesize is making video mainstream 40 Scanners Alaris introduces new smart scanner category 42 Data Centres How retailers can use edge data centres to boost sales 44 Edge Computing Gaining an edge in cloud printing 46 People New faces, new places 47 60 seconds with… Stefan Walther, CEO of 3CX v24 · 2019 technology reseller.co.uk Comment Register online To receive your regular FREE printed copy of Technology Reseller Magazine simply fill in our online registration form at www.technologyreseller.uk/register Read Technology Reseller online, on tablets and smart phones www.technologyreseller.uk Join us : Follow us @techreselleruk www.facebook.com/TechnologyResellerMag technology-reseller-magazine Editor: James Goulding 07803 087228 ·
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