Comms Dealer

Embedded video communications specialist Vidyo has expanded its partnership with Computacenter in Western Europe.

Under the terms of a new deal, Computacenter will offer VidyoCloud, its video conferencing as a services (VCaaS) solution, to enterprise customers in the UK, France and Germany.

"Partnering with Computacenter was a natural fit for us, as we share the same vision in terms of the value of video," said Bob Smith, Senior Vice President of Global Sales at Vidyo.

California-based mobile security solutions specialist Pulse Secure has added over 500 partners across its European partner community within the last 12 months.

Also, for Pulse Secure, which was set up in 2014 from Juniper Networks' Junos Pulse business, both markets in Russia and China currently offer potential to further grow its partner community, it says.

Additionally, new partnership deals were struck in the UK, US and France during the last couple of months and new partners include an information technology and services specialist Marvel in Russia, Copper River in the US and CBC Com in China.

The company has also said it is working towards strengthening its channel position and building a supported global community with registered partners with plans to reach around 2,900 in more than 100 countries.

"Across every metric we measure, from deal size to training engagement, our channel partners across the globe are growing and benefiting from our partnership. This reflects the wider shift in the security space as solution providers and end customers look at ways of gaining more value out of their investments," said Doug Erickson, VP, WW Partner Sales for Pulse Secure.

Timico, sponsor of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, has secured the contract to supply The Jockey Club's nationwide portfolio of 15 racecourses and their offices with fixed line telephony and full reporting and management information available through its MyTimico portal.

Timico has assumed management of The Jockey Club's 250 PSTN and ISDN 30 lines in a move that will see the organisation benefit from enhanced quality of service and billing as well as an improvement in the scope and quality of management information available to the company.

Charles Whelpton, Director of Enterprise at Timico, said: "Following on from sponsorship of Timico's first Gold Cup this year we're delighted to have extended our relationship with The Jockey Club and completed the roll-out of our first joint IT project.

"In consolidating The Jockey Club's entire fixed line estate we've been able to drive costs down and perform an in-depth audit of usage to see which lines weren't in use and rationalise what was originally in place."

Ian Sidgwick, Group Purchasing Director at The Jockey Club, said: "We were looking to further consolidate our fixed line estate and to make cost savings on group purchasing as well as improve the level of service and quality of billing."

The new service will be used for all of The Jockey Club's inbound and outbound calls and can also be scaled up to accommodate spikes in service for larger scale events, when extra, temporary lines can be installed.

The finalists have been announced for the Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) Annual Awards, which recognise those providing a valuable contribution to the industry, and take place on 7th December at the Raddisson Blu Portman Hotel, London.

"Now in their ninth year, these awards were launched to recognise and reward excellence within our industry" said Ann Potterton, CEO at the ITP.

"As ever, the calibre of entrants was extremely high and the judges faced a tough decision in narrowing down the finalists. We would like to congratulate all of the finalists, and are now looking forward to celebrating their achievements in December."

ITP Apprentices of the Year finalists:

• Matt Gobey, Openreach
• Jessica Ashton, Openreach
• Ethan Street, Virgin Media
• Ben Bruin, Openreach

ITP SME Apprentice of the Year

• Dan Brown, Level 3 Communications
• Mike Bliss, Level 3 Communications
• Michael Lewsey, Tata Communications
• Ross Gray, Level 3 Communications

Christopher Mills Award, sponsored by Dean & Jacqui Mills:

• Ciaran Gillespie, Green Telecom
• Sean Norgate, BT

ITP Mentor of the Year, sponsored by CMS:

• Nick Smith, BT
• Dave Davis, iDirect
• Anthony Vincent, Openreach

Chris Seymour Women in Telecoms Award, sponsored by BT:

• Sue Gill, BT
• Maria Pecorari, BT Global Services
• Francesca Sartori, Nokia

Azlan's new UK Security business unit is to be headed up by newly appointed Security Business Unit Manager Robert Stockford who leads a team of 20 staff pulled together from within the company and ten new recruits.

The team has particular expertise in vendors such as Cisco, IBM, Landesk, McAfee, Sonicwall, Symantec, Veritas, VMware and BlackBerry/Good Technology.

Stockford joined Azlan in July 2016 with a remit to work on the development of a security value proposition. he was previously Director of Channel Sales at Forcepoint.

"With more customers now looking to make the most of virtualised and hyper-converged infrastructures, software-defined solutions and cloud-based appliances and services to enable much more flexible, scalable and networks and mobile environments, the need for expert advice and professional services on security has never been greater," said Stockford.

"Azlan is providing the specialist support and professional services that will allow resellers to address the security challenges faced by end users and the opportunities that presents for resellers.

"Azlan will also focus on virtualised data centre, workspace mobility and data management to create propositions that address the whole spectrum of security needs, across platforms, networks and devices or all kinds."

Azlan UK MD Rob Tomlin added: "Security is the one key strategic area that needed a clear and defined focus. We now have the team and the partnerships in place and, combined with our capability and scale, we're ready to execute on our strategic plans and become a force in this important sector of the market."

Simetric Telecom has added on-demand call recording and playback services to its flagship Mobile-X product following a link up with Dubber.

Dubber's cloud call recording platform records every call made on a landline or mobile anywhere in the world but only charges for recordings that are downloaded for use.

"The solution is especially popular in the financial and legal sectors where compliance is a critical issue and all calls need to be available for scrutiny," stated John Murray, Director of Simetric Telecom.

"Businesses only incur charges for recordings which are retrieved on demand from their infinite storage in the cloud, all others are securely stored at no cost.

"Companies normally incur large storage and retrieval costs and are only be able to record calls on pre-defined extensions.

"We can now deliver a seamless integration of unified communications and call recording into both fixed and mobile services, helping our customers to manage their calls and to achieve compliance across devices and across international boundaries."

Dubber CEO Steve McGovern added: "Dubber is designed to deliver not just traditional call recording requirements but to go above and beyond legacy solutions, ultimately increasing the value of unified communications for everyone."

There's a good reason why I don't attend trade events, writes Clive Jefferys of telecoms recruiter JMA Network. Lots of people know me, but they don't necessarily want to advertise our relationship to their peers. That's because our key attribute is discretion.

Like the apocryphal story about the swan, all our clients or candidates should see in us is a scene of serene calm. What's actually going on below the surface is always hidden from view.

Of course, what drives our success is the huge amount of activity that's taking place in our back office - hundreds of phone conversations every week, social networking, lunch dates, scanning our databases and reading the news.

In many ways, a better job title for what we do would be Market Analyst. Our doors and our ears are always open to anyone that wants straightforward, up-to-date advice about their career and hiring prospects.

It's no accident that 75 per cent of business comes from referrals and a majority of those candidates have never officially looked for a job or registered on a jobsite.

The perfect agent takes time to understand what drives you and presents opportunities without you having to ask.

The second most important facet to our method is time

You can't buy contacts or build relationships overnight. We started in earnest in 2003 and so many of our candidates are now the managers and directors of today's telecoms businesses.

Recruitment has always been a tough, at times frustrating, activity for everyone, but when the right factors are aligned properly, success is only ever a few phone calls away.

So do I think I'm James Bond? No, I'm Moneypenny. I am always there, making sure that everything is ready and in place.

Big hearted Comms Dealer Sales Exec' Sophie Timms has successfully completed the Wimbledon Half Marathon and invited the channel to support her Sparks charity long distance running campaign in the lead up to next year's London Marathon on April 23rd.

"It was a tough run," she said. "The rain made the whole course muddy and slippery!"

With a Half Marathon time of 2 hours 33 minutes under her belt Timms is confident she can run below 5.5 hours next spring.

"I have a personal trainer to help me strengthen my legs, back and core, as well as increase my lung capacity," she added.

"And I'm entering as many half marathons as possible in the run up to the main event."

Completing the Wimbledon Half Marathon is an achievement inspired by the charity work undertaken by Sparks and Timms' dedication to raising as much sponsorship as possible in support of the kids charity.

"If someone had told me this time last year that I would be running the 2017 London Marathon, I would have laughed," she said.

"Sparks has been so kind to take me on this journey. If you could donate, even just £1, to my Just Giving page then you can help me to help them."

Please go to: www.justgiving.com/Sophie-Timms1

Pictured: Sophie with the race mascot following the Wimbledon Half Marathon

GCI has secured a £50m acquisition fund facilitated via the Royal Bank of Scotland and HSBC in a deal led by GCI's CFO Mark Allen and brokered with the support of KPMG.

Allen commented: "GCI has come a long way over the last nine months. At the start of the year we took a long hard look at our operation, and our marketplace, and set about finessing an organisation that has been 16 years in the making.

"In terms of strategy, we are focusing GCI's Services and Solutions around the need to support an increasingly mobile workforce, the need to enable and support digital transformation and collaboration, the need for increasingly sophisticated security and compliance solutions, and the need to support the 'rise and rise' of the omni-channel and diverse communications platforms.

"This £50m fund will help us robustly address those customer challenges and will help take GCI to the next level."

Adrian Thirkill, CEO, added: "Our investments to date have already positioned GCI as a leading player in Unified Communications with more than 60 Microsoft Certified Professionals within our 300 strong organisation.

"We are already making very good use of the additional funding now available to us and will continue to invest in our capabilities around Office 365, Skype for Business, Azure, Cloud PBX and our growing PCI Compliance Services."

KPMG's Zoe Clarke added: "This transaction will help GCI to take forward its growth ambitions by allowing it to take advantage of acquisition growth opportunities as the business looks to build-out and add capabilities."

Dan Salt, Regional Head for the Midlands and West, Royal Bank of Scotland Corporate Transactions, added: "We are demonstrating our confidence in this sector by backing a strong management team with a clear focus on what they want to achieve."

HSBC's Area Corporate Director Roger Pratt commented: "GCI's executive management have a clear strategic plan for the next five years, and we look forward to supporting GCI during this exciting period."

Exertis has strengthened its enterprise portfolio, bolstered its capability in the mid- and higher range server and storage market and extended its reach in Europe following the acquisition of Hammer Consolidated Holdings for £38.3m, a distributor of server and storage solutions (subject to approval from the European Commission).

Hammer has offices in the UK, France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands and employs 165 staff.

It generated sales of £155m for the 12 months ended 31st January 2016 and distributes products from a range of vendors including Dell, Intel, Netapp, Seagate and Western Digital, to almost 1,000 value added resellers, cloud service providers and systems integrators.

Following regulatory approvals, expected to be completed by the end of 2016, Hammer will continue to operate as a standalone business with both entities capitalising on the benefits of the acquisition.

Niall Ennis, DCC Technology (which trades as Exertis) MD, said: "Hammer has enjoyed considerable success in providing value added services and bespoke solutions in a number of vertical markets and has a well-earned reputation as a storage specialist.

"The acquisition has significant benefits for both companies increasing Exertis' expertise and solutions in the storage market, complementary to our existing server and enterprise business, and providing Hammer customers and vendors with a platform for growth. In addition, this deepens Exertis' presence across several European countries."

James Ward Hammer, MD, added: "We see great synergy and opportunities for our customers, vendors and employees in joining Exertis. By leveraging the complementary strengths of both companies we can only add value to what is an exciting proposition for all our stakeholders."