Six months ago, Irish Computer asked a number of vendors for their verdict on 2012 and what they thought the rest of the year would bring. Now we’ve gone back and asked them what really happened in 2012 and how they feel the current year is shaping up.
Ian Moore, VMware Ireland country manager
VMware had "an excellent year" in 2012 on the back of significant growth in the appetite for true cloud solutions that helped drive strong revenues in the year. "More and more customers began to deploy cloud solutions at scale with a focus on delivering more agile and resilient infrastructure," Moore says.
He describes last year as "a game changer for businesses embracing the cloud", with one software development company gaining substantial efficiency benefits after rolling out the vendor’s vCloud solution across its business. Previously, developers had to wait for long periods of time before software rigs became active, but with cloud-based infrastructure the rigs were available quickly and on demand. "The business saw a significant impact on its bottom line as products could be pushed to market in much shorter time frames," he adds.
There was "an explosion in demand for the management product stack, allowing many of our customers to re-evaluate the needs of their infrastructure". Many were able to reclaim resources previously devoted to over-provisioned estates. "One customer reclaimed over a terabyte and half of RAM from its data centre," Moore claims.
VMware expects interest in its management stack "to grow throughout 2013 as businesses look to improve their infrastructure capacity, the overall health of their IT environment and secure the business against patching or compliance risks".
Moore reveals there has been a boost to revenues as businesses start to buy into the VMware Horizon Suite. Irish businesses remain at the leading edge of technology and before the launch there was "a real hunger to innovate their working practices", he claims. VMware Mirage is also of interest to Irish retailers seeking to take advantage of managed desktop technology.
On the flip side, businesses are taking longer to make decisions, "a trend we’re seeing across the entire EMEA region". But Moore points to a number of sectors in Ireland "that have avoided IT spending over the last 18 months and it’s looking increasingly likely that these funds will finally be brought to the market".
The performance of the Irish channel has been "very good, with partners continuing to focus on specific areas of the VMware portfolio as it grows increasingly comprehensive". There has been "an acceleration in the overall market maturity levels of resellers in the cloud, and the channel is adding value to the infrastructure with business architecture, analysts and consultancy skills".
The outlook for 2013 so far has been positive and VMware expects it to continue: "We’re seeing a large upsurge in the level of large cloud projects as businesses look to migrate their business infrastructure, including mission critical application, into a more flexible and agile environment."
Martin Deignan, director, sales & marketing, OKI Systems (Ireland)
Deignan has no qualms about describing 2012 as OKI’s best year for some time on the back of a recovery in the overall market, which helped its transactional business "plus some good wins in the increasingly important managed print services [MPS] market".
The vendor’s most significant success were in MPS with a multi-million euro tender with Trilogy Technologies for Paddy Power in Ireland and the UK, along with the implementation of "a major and very comprehensive" MPS project for the Mater Hospital campus. On a more general level, OKI’s expanded range of printer and multifunction products helped find many new customers in the Irish channel. "Overall, we were pleased that Ireland was confirmed again as our best performing country in Europe in terms of OKI market share," he adds.
The MPS market is maturing with better offerings and customers becoming more familiar with the benefits. "There is still room for more development, however, on the part of IT resellers," Deignan warns, "as they seek a better understanding of the opportunities, especially those already involved in general managed services and for whom MPS would be an obvious extra string to the bow." OKI is hoping to be fill that knowledge gap and "we will be aided by further development in the services we can offer resellers in 2013, as we introduce additional output and document management solutions".
In terms of threats in 2013, he identifies the state of the local economy or, "to be more specific, the fragile level of confidence therein which is vulnerable to the volatile international situation".
Nevertheless, he thinks "the worst may be over for the channel" and confidence may be improving in many areas. The weak economy has forced many in the channel to take a closer look at their business focus, strengths and resources, and to adapt accordingly. "The channel deserves a lot of credit for its realism and adaptability in tough times," Deignan adds.
He believes the first half of 2013 could be better than the first half of last year. "We will be helped by the first fruits of our technology swap agreement with Toshiba as we introduce new advanced multifunction products we will be offering as an alternative to those from the copier brands," he adds.
Grace O’Rourke Veitch, Citrix Ireland country manager
O’Rourke Veitch describes 2012 as "an excellent year" for Citrix Ireland which "continued to experience significant growth, with increased demand for desktop virtualisation and networking products in particular".
The size and breadth of deals has increased significantly as businesses across Ireland continue to adopt desktop virtualisation, and the technology enters the mainstream. "More specifically," she adds, "we’ve also experienced success with public sector organisations as they look to become more productive and efficient via virtualisation technology."
Following the Zenprise acquisition at the end of last year and the launch of XenMobile MDM in early 2013, Citrix has broadened its portfolio to offer what she describes as "a comprehensive mobility solution designed to offer users flexibility while ensuring IT retains control." She continues: "The influx of personal devices into the Irish workplace will force IT departments to focus on the challenge of apps and data governance."
The primary opportunities this year, O’Rourke Veitch says, lie in enterprise mobility and tackling the ‘Dropbox problem’. Many businesses are reaping the benefits of reducing costs, increasing productivity and enhancing efficiency via virtualisation technologies and "the logical next step is to create a more agile, mobile workforce. Equally, businesses need to ensure effective management of data via enterprise cloud storage solutions to avoid employees storing and transferring data via consumer cloud storage services".
While a lot of businesses in Ireland have expressed interest in embracing enterprise mobility, "inertia, uncertainty and culture could prove to be hurdles to adoption and growth", O’Rourke Veitch warns. "Education, persistence and a drive for change are necessary to avoid being left behind."
In terms of the channel, Citrix has been working with more partners than ever over the past year. "We would not have achieved significant growth without our partners," she reveals. "This year, we are also looking to grow our base of SMB partners and focus more on developing the Citrix hosted service proposition."
The initial outlook for 2013 "is very positive. After a relatively quiet start in January, we are already seeing very encouraging opportunities coming to the fore".
Matthew McCann, sales director, Ricoh Ireland
McCann says 2012 was an excellent year for Ricoh in Ireland, as year-on-year growth beat forecasts on the back of a number of significant contract wins with new and existing customers.
There is a move by more progressive organisations in the Irish market to focus on managed document services (MDS), which is centred on the entire lifecycle of a business document. "With our strong portfolio and service delivery capabilities in this area, it has enabled us to deliver more comprehensive value-add services to customers," he claims, citing the fact that three out of the top five global technology companies with operations in Ireland use Ricoh for managed document services.
One key issue McCann says Ricoh has addressed over the past six months "is a major problem in the Irish market: the non-availability of credit". To try and address the issue, the vendor developed and launched a service called Ricoh Capital to provide installation leasing contracts to organisations throughout Ireland. It enables businesses to acquire Ricoh technology and services without capital outlay and to manage their entire print and document solutions, including service, software and financing, with one single partner. He claims it has "been a big success to date, for businesses, partners and for Ricoh Ireland".
Another key development has been continuing investment in its production print and managed services facility in Park West, Dublin. The facility "has been developed to meet the evolving print, document and information management needs of Irish and international customers" and acts "as a very important business continuity service for customers that need an overflow service during busy times".
In terms of growth areas in 2013, he predicts Ricoh’s MDS portfolio will continue to grow and help to deepen the vendor’s market penetration in Ireland, with existing and new customers.
There are also "some interesting developments" in the production print space. The summer launch of the Ricoh Pro C901 Graphics Arts +, the new flagship of Ricoh’s cut sheet production portfolio, is already attracting "significant interest" after its first showing at a major European print event this year. "The delivery of cloud-based services will also see significant growth in 2013," McCann says. "Ricoh now offers a number of cloud solutions, such as i-invoicing and hotspot printing."
There has been an upswing in confidence and spending in the Irish market, but there is "still some distance to go before recovery is complete. It would also be good to see more stability in the global economy and less currency fluctuations", he adds.
It will be interesting to see how the government’s procurement policy develops in Ireland, McCann says. Most businesses look closely at return on investment when making decisions around infrastructure and managed services, rather than just investing in the lowest cost solution. This approach can generate significant savings, improved processes and productivity. "We have some great customers in the Irish public sector that are currently benefiting from this style of approach," he states. "It would be good to see a framework in place which allows public sector organisations to have the flexibility to make decisions which look at a wider set of deliverables."
Channel partners are performing very well at present. "We have focused our attention on nine key partners throughout Ireland and we work very closely with them both strategically and tactically," McCann observes. There have been a number of important implementations by channel partners incorporating Ricoh technologies. Bizquip provided a total refresh of Investec Bank’s copier and print fleet, achieving significant cost savings and delivering a more sustainable solution. Kopikat delivered a solution to IT Blanchardstown with Ricoh equipment and Equitrac software that enabled the use of smart cards for the student population and helped the college meet sustainability objectives and reduce printing costs.
In terms of 2013, he says it’s a case of "so far, so good". Ricoh will continue to pursue an aggressive growth strategy and expects revenues and market share to increase further in Ireland. "Our very close alignment with our partner community will also provide a platform for sustained growth among a wider customer base throughout the island of Ireland," McCann argues. "We believe our growing MDS proposition will be one of the key enablers of growth for Ricoh and our partner community."
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