Good week/Bad week

We round up who's on a high and who's gone awry over the last seven days

Good Week

SMBs
The government has finally put its money where its mouth is and started awarding more juicy contracts to SMBs.
At the start of the year, large suppliers still commandeered a whopping 95 per cent of government contracts, with SMBs left to fight over the scraps. But according to the government's chief procurement officer, John Collington, SMBs' share has risen from five to 40 per cent between January and September. Francis Maude minister of the Cabinet Office, said its contracts finder website had boosted transparency for bidders.

Tech Data
Über-distributor Tech Data posted a solid set of quarterlies last week, with Q3 sales up seven per cent annually to $6.6bn (£4.2bn).
Operating profit stood at $89.6m, which means that, over the past year, the firm's margins have jumped from 1.31 per cent to 1.36 per cent.
Closer to home, Tech Data-owned UK enterprise player TDAzlan (almost) finalised its new-look divisional management line-up. Heading up the distie's Cisco business is Mark Wheeler, while Kevin Markwick is taking charge of IBM. An HP head is yet to be determined.
Meanwhile, former UC director Joel Chimoindes takes on the slightly off-the-wall title of solution evangelist director.

Kcom
Despite all the doom and gloom in the national press over the economy, IT and comms integrator Kcom is sitting pretty after revealing some robust interim results for its financial half year.
The firm saw both its profit and turnover increase and claimed it has a strong foundation for future growth. And the key to its success? A strong contract pipeline. Well, if you're going to have a pipeline, the only one to have is a strong one. Or so the saying goes.

Bad week

Resellers
The channel casualties are coming thicker and faster than Wayne Rooney on the M6, with IT rentals specialist Microrent, high-performance computing outfit Streamline Computing and reseller SHD Technology among the latest to perish.
SHD ceased trading after October sales fell to £106,000 from its usual monthly haul of £450,000 to £500,000. Managing director Steve Gould wound things up quickly to avoid burning his suppliers. "Steve is a respected channel player and whatever he does in future he will be fully supported," said Nitin Joshi, whose firm ChannelMoney is overseeing SHD's liquidation.

ICM
The ICM brand bowed out of the channel after 25 years last week, with news that owner Phoenix is to ditch the name as part of a major operational overhaul.
West Yorkshire-based ICM was founded in 1986 and built itself into a £76m outfit, before being acquired by Phoenix in 2007. The previous year the services giant bought Servo, and the two acquisitions were merged into one company earlier this year.
The ICM brand won out as the name for the newly expanded division but, just eight months later, all firms are now coming under the Phoenix moniker.
Rumours that the move was made because staff were sick of answering calls for the International Confederation of Midwives were unconfirmed as ChannelWeb went to press.

HP
The battered vendor saw its profits plunge more than 90 per cent for its financial year end, due to some odd strategy decisions made by former chief Léo Apotheker. Aside from the $2.5bn (£1.6bn) hit HP took for scrapping its webOS, the vendor saw losses in printing and its ESSN business.It also has a mountain to climb in terms of rebuilding trust with its partners and customers following its dithering over the PSG division.
New chief Meg Whitman had the grace to admit the vendor screwed up and is planning on getting back to basics. Go Meg!