Comms Dealer

Pure Data Group, the umbrella company for Pure Data Solutions and Servatech, both acquired in 2014, has rebrand to The Pure Technology Group and signalled its intent to pursue more acquisition targets and double revenues within three years.

Cliff Fox, COO, commented: "The different names and identities were causing confusion among our customers so we decided to unify our brand and embark on a new strategy."

As part of the company's new push for growth it has recruited 14 additional employees in the past nine months, including the appointment of Gary Saunders as Sales Director in August.

"We have made some key hires and are looking to grow our capability," Fox added. "It is all about having the right talent, from both a commercial and technical perspective."

The recruitment drive boosts the firm's overall headcount to 89 staff members.

"Acquisitions and organic growth will see our numbers grow to approximately 150 in the next three years," stated Fox.

"We don't want to be the biggest company in the world but we have great ambition and a well constructed and achievable strategic plan."

He aims to generate £40m-plus revenues within three years, doubling its current £20m revenue rate.

"Acquisitions are a big part of our growth plans, with 11 potential deals currently in discussion and three or four in advanced talks," he added.

"There is going to be much more activity in large enterprise and SME cloud over the next 24 months, so acquisitions in this space will be important.

"We also want to extend our geography, so a southern-based company might be of interest."

Industry watchdog Ofcom has fined Vodafone over £4.6m following two investigations that uncovered mis-selling, inaccurate billing and poor complaints handling procedures. One investigation found that 10,452 pay-as-you-go customers lost out when Vodafone failed to credit their accounts after they paid to top-up their mobile phone credit. The affected customers collectively lost £150k over a 17 month period.

According to Ofcom, Vodafone didn't act quickly enough to identify or address these problems, which stemmed from the company transferring to a new billing system.

Vodafone also breached Ofcom's billing rules because the top-ups that consumers had bought were not reflected in their credit balances.

In a second investigation, the regulator found that Vodafone did not comply with its rules on handling customer complaints.

The money, which must be paid to Ofcom within 20 working days, will be passed on to HM Treasury.

Lindsey Fussell, Ofcom Consumer Group Director, said: "Vodafone's failings were serious and unacceptable, and these fines send a clear warning to all telecoms companies.

"Phone services are a vital part of people's lives, and we expect all customers to be treated fairly and in good faith. We will not hesitate to investigate and fine those who break the rules."

DMSL is aiming to entice more resellers onto the Vonage Partner Programme which was launched in the UK last month, with a series of promotions and adverts aimed at driving end user leads and highlighting the benefits of working with the cloud-based voice services provider.
 
Resellers can currently offer free IP phones with new 12-month or 36-month contracts for Vonage cloud-based phone systems.

The campaign also puts a strong emphasis on the estimated 30 percent savings that businesses can make on traditional business phone solutions, zero upfront costs, and the future-proofing, flexibility and remote access capabilities offered by Vonage's voice solutions.  

Additional benefits of the service include unlimited UK calling, the ability to use numbers with any area code.
 
Vonage is also providing next day delivery of phones and fast provisioning, so that customers can be set up almost straight away. DMSL is driving lead generation through its own nationwide campaign and providing marketing support, customer billing options and first line customer care and technical support as well.
 
John Carter, Managing Director of DMSL, says that the campaign is attracting the attention of smaller businesses. "Most businesses should be able to reduce their telephony costs by close to a third with Vonage and with the additional benefits and offers we're making it's a very attractive proposition."

VoIP phone maker Snom has been pocketed by VTech, a manufacturer of cordless phones and electronic learning products, in a move that is expected to deliver synergies in hardware and software development, expanded market channels in VoIP telephony along with improvements in operational efficiency, according to VTech Telecommunications President C.H. Tong.

"VoIP is the future of business communication and the industry is now transitioning to a cloud-based Unified Communications environment," he stated. "As a pioneer in this field, Snom is constantly developing new IP technology solutions to meet the needs of businesses worldwide."

Andre Deloch, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Snom, added: "The combination of VTech and Snom will strengthen the product portfolios of both companies in the VoIP industry."

The transaction is subject to the approval of the relevant regulatory authorities.

IT Europa has set the date for the tenth annual European Software & Solutions Summit which will take place on 30th March 2017 at the Royal Garden Hotel in London.

The event, which incorporates the European ISV Convention, will bring leading Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and Solution Providers (including Solution VARs and Managed Service Providers) together with hardware, software and service organisations to explore and address the issues affecting the development of the IT Industry in Europe and to develop and strengthen partnerships aimed at supporting solution-based sales.

The summit will feature a high-level conference programme with leading industry speakers addressing the challenges and opportunities facing ISVs and Solution Providers in Europe under the umbrella theme of 'software and Solutions 10 years on - Beyond the cloud in the Digital Age'.

"Organisations across Europe are looking for solutions that will deliver real value and business benefits for their organisations. Increasingly, that means looking beyond traditional applications to the development of a new generation of digital solutions," said Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa.

"The European Software & Solutions Summit 2017 provides an opportunity for Europe's Software and Solutions communities to come together to address the issues affecting the development applications. It also provides a framework within which major hardware and software vendors, as well as service providers and system integrators, can meet and engage with the directors and decision makers of Europe's most significant ISVs and Solution Providers to create new business opportunities."

IT Europa will stage the European IT & Software Excellence Awards 2017 in London on 30th March 2017.

Now in their ninth year, the European IT & Software Excellence Awards have been designed to recognise and reward excellence in European software development and IT and Telecoms solutions provision.

The awards will bring together leading ISVs, Solution Providers and Systems Integrators from across Europe to demonstrate their ability to provide industry-leading IT solutions for their customers.

The awards are split into three sections. The first set of awards is for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and software developers and highlights the applications that they have developed and delivered for their customers. The second set of awards, for Systems Integrators, Solution VARs and MSPs acknowledges their skill and endeavour in delivering world class IT solutions for their customers. The final set of awards, for Suppliers, highlights those vendors, distributors and service providers who best support their channel partners to deliver excellence.

"With the complexity of technology continuing to increase and new cloud-based and hybrid delivery models emerging, the role played by ISVs, solution providers and integrators in delivering real solutions to end customers is becoming increasingly important," said Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa.

"The European IT & Software Excellence Awards are the only pan-European awards to recognise excellence in the creation and delivery of real solutions and are intended to encourage the development of partnerships between vendors and solution providers across the IT and Telecoms industries."

The UK's Microsoft resellers are facing a New Year price hike in enterprise software and cloud services. The company has stated that as of January 1st on-premises enterprise software will increase by 13% while most enterprise cloud prices will rise by 22% to 'realign close to euro levels'. In a statement Microsoft said, 'For indirect sales where Microsoft products are sold through resellers, final prices and currency of sale will continue to be determined by them.

'For business customers, these changes will not affect existing orders under annuity volume licensing agreements for products that are subject to price protection'.

The company also confirmed that the pricing change will not apply to consumer software or consumer cloud services.

IP PBX software vendor 3CX has extended its reach in the UK market following a link-up with VoIP distributor ProVu.

The move will see the availability, support and training of the complete 3CX product range.

ProVu MD Darren Garland said: "The 3CX range is based on the number of simultaneous calls required rather than the number of users. This enables resellers to easily create cost-effective, scalable solutions. The 3CX portfolio plays into our existing product ranges nicely. We hold strong relationships with both Snom and Yealink, which with the addition of 3CX will enable us to offer the complete package."

Paul Clarke, 3CX's Regional Sales Manager UK&I, added: "3CX is committed to growing its UK market share."

Entanet has been awarded BS EN ISO 9001:2015 quality management accreditation following an audit of its quality management system.

The company achieved compliance with the latest version of the internationally recognised standard in October after going through a stringent assessment by ACS Registrars, who are regulated by UKAS, the government appointed national accreditation body for the United Kingdom.

Paul Diamond, Chief Operating Officer of Entanet, said: "Our customers today are much more aware of the importance of quality and having the ISO 9001:2015 accreditation provides them with an independent assurance that Entanet's established quality control processes and management are up to the very highest standards.

"The process of preparing for and then undergoing the audit was, in itself, one that proved to us how robust our existing processes are and which ones would deliver real business benefit through fine tuning.

"I'm convinced that it has strengthened our ability to confidently manage every aspect of our business and our service to our customers."

SpliceCom has launched an end-to-end private cloud solution aimed at companies from two to 80 users.

Called SpliceCom Select Cloud Voice, the solution provides customers with their own dedicated virtual Unified Communications platform in the cloud, combined with on-net connectivity and SIP trunks to maximise security and voice quality.

"We've utilised our own technology and bridged the two polarised extremes of hosted and traditional PBX vendors, and by doing so we have smashed the price barrier for private cloud voice delivery," claimed Stuart Bell, SpliceCom's Head of Sales for the UK & Ireland.

SpliceCom Select Cloud Voice for smaller businesses provides SpliceCom's Vision Business Management as standard, including embedded call management and, as a special offer until the end of the year, call recording. Vision Live wallboards and dashboards can be added as an optional extra as can extra storage capacity for call recordings.

Robin Hayman, Director of Marketing & Product Management, added: "Alongside our flexible voice platforms running on virtual cloud servers, there's SpliceCom SIP trunks and a range of site to cloud connectivity."