New report highlights Mimecast South African sector growth

As those of you who follow us will know BackChannel produces a bi-annual Hosted Email Security report, a report that has been a must read for anybody working in the e-mail security market for over 5 years. The period January 2012 - 2013 has been one of the most dynamic have been some of the most interesting of recent years.

The data reported are a survey of over one million  'Live' email services" around the globe.  Data from this survey identifies the key vendors, their local & international coverage, market positions, customer profile and performance over time.  

The reports provide measured data blended with relevant demographic & geographic data enabling the reader to gain the clearest view of the worldwide market for these technologies.

One of the most dynamic of the developed markets has been South Africa where one company has grown to not only dominate its home market, but to take a seat at the top table of international vendors along with Microsoft, Google and Symantec, that company is Mimecast.

Mimecasts install base in South Africa grew significantly since we reported on their progress in 2012 growing their overall market share to 34% with this figure rising to 41% amongst larger Enterprise customers.  

Sales performance in certain sectors has seen as many as 52% of the companies in a sector choosing a service choosing Mimecast; you can see a breakdown of sector performance on their site  

Some comment on Mimecast and our research:

IT WEB South Africa article.
BlueChip Journal ICT
Financial Mail
SecuritySA

Look out for more news from BackChannel on Cloud, PaaS & IaaS coming over the next few months.

Interactive Submarine Cable Map 2013

Those fine folks at Telegeography have published their Submarine Cable Map for 2013 and its jolly colourful

They also publish an interactive version which is a must have link for anyone involved or interested in the global telecommunications business.

Matt Bross to leave BT - Big Bear heads home

BT's CTO and CEO of Ignite is to leave BT at the end of July to return to the US and follow other interests. Bross is a popular figure around the industry and is one of those rare things these days - a tech' enthusiast, a champion of the 21CN and more importantantly someone at the heart of BT who is known to have wanted to build bridges, both with BTs peers and other 'new technology' companies. Rumour is that Bross has been increasingly unhappy with the lack of investment in innovation since Verwaayen departed, and the accountants have taken over.

That whole scenario reminds me of the last time BT lost a great CTO, Peter Cochrane; an engineer to his soul and evangelical about the coming explosion in communications, left in 2000. Many felt Peter was sidelined by the Valance/King/Bonfield team as they crashed a previously majestic BT into a pile of debt and confusion. The £30bn($50bn) debt mountain resulted in BT having to sell off assets including BT Cellnet (now O2) and the resulting restructures set the scene for the collapse of Global Services in 2008.

Bross' departure is loss to BT not because he was a great business driver, but because of what he represents; BT has a big old hill to climb as it tries to reposition itself from a traditional telecoms company to a provider of converged networked services, it needs people like Bross to stand up the front and shout "We believe!!!" If BT truly believe, their customers will believe as well.

Industries need their cheer leaders and I'm sure Bross, like Cochrane, will continue to entertain and inform us for years to come it's just a shame BT lets these guys go just when they needed them the most.

CW Wins £207m National Grid Deal

While BT Global Services is finding it increasingly hard to win major corporate business, CW continue to show that if your focus is outbound, nimble and forward looking  there is still plenty of major projects still out there to be had.  

Hot on the heals of several recent major bid wins; CW today announced that they have been awarded a £207m,  15 year deal to run National Grids core telecommunications infrastructure.  As well as taking over operational management of the existing network CW will undertake design & build the National Grids new NGN based system for the control of electricity distribution.

It's not so long ago that CWs mould breaking (mangling, more like) CEO John Pluthero was being lambasted by all comers for radically downsizing and reorganising the UKs oldest telco, and sending it off on a more energetic modernising agenda - but he has been proved right.  Can BT follow suit? given the size of the problem and economic climate it will be more difficult than if they had done it 3-4 years ago when it really needed addressing.

I've visited the sales floors of both companies lately and whilst one has an air of nervous tension where quarterly job appraisals and voluntary redundancy are the main topic of water-cooler conversation, the other is vibrant, directed and full of people with a sense of purpose.   

And yes, I do know CW are still cutting staff.

BT Global Services to be broken up

BT is restructuring its struggling Global Services business to focus on three separate areas after its "unacceptable performance" led to the group losing more than £1.3bn.

BT Global Services recorded an operating loss of £134m. It lost £1.2bn due to cost overruns on big contracts with the NHS and Reuters and another £100m on other smaller contracts.

read Karl Flinders Original article...