Comms Dealer

Sheffield-based Digital Exchange has expanded its team and undertaken a brand revamp including the launch of a new website.

"We're excited by the way technology is changing and we intend to be at the forefront of this change, offering the latest technology to companies across south Yorkshire, said Commercial Manager Paul Gardiner.

"Too many local businesses are concerned about being left behind in a 'Digital Revolution', when really they should be embracing the 'Digital Evolution', such as cloud and hosted voice.

"Although we have seen steady growth across a number of our digital services recently., it is virtualisation and the migration to cloud that we see as key factors for our clients' growth, while giving them a safe and interactive network to work from."

The 2016 Comms National Awards has garnered its biggest ever entry reflecting a buoyant UK ICT industry. Notably, entries in the cloud communications categories have smashed all previous records which echoes market reports on high demand for hosted solutions.

"The number, variety and quality of entries in the Cloud Solutions and Hosted categories has proved the very real and current nature of the opportunity in this marketplace," said CN Awards judge Paul Cunningham.

"The SME Cloud Solution category alone yielded 26 award submissions of consistently high quality and with demonstrable business impact - not just in terms of cost of ownership but in effecting transformations in the business where they were deployed.

"Judging the CNAs this year has informed me that not only do leaders of these channel businesses 'get cloud' , they have set out to excel at it - and are doing so."

To view the shortlist of finalists, go to: http://cnawards.com/finalists.php
?The Comms National Awards finals night will take place at London's Hilton on Park Lane Hotel on October 13th. For attendance details call Sophie Timms on 01895 454476.

The annual Sir Trevor Brooking/Comms Dealer Celebrity Golf Day held at Batchworth Park, Rickmansworth last month was bigger and better than ever with a bumper sum of £19,000 raised for children's charity Sparks.

"The weather was perfect, the number of teams that played was great and the standard of golf was amazing," said Freedom Communications MD Pat Botting, who has helped to run the event for over decade.

"We are very grateful to all the teams and personalities who took part and a special thanks must go to our generous main sponsor TalkTalk Business."

Picture shows the post event cheque presentation to Sir Trevor Brooking and event host Willie Thorne.

Simon Hill, Head of UK&I Alliances and Channels at Oracle, has reported a good global partner conference for the business, with UK partners winning global awards and record numbers attending.

Picking up the themes from the meeting, he reports a renewed emphasis on infrastructure-as-a-service, where he says he thinks Oracle has a unique offering.

The target is public cloud, with both reseller partners and distributors in the channels, selling platform-as-a-service and infrastructure-as-a-service, and bringing in new partners and new customers.

He is also reporting growth among the numbers of partners offering volume sales - formalised standard products at fixed prices sold via the cloud, where distribution has a part to play.

This is all part of the 'cloud first' strategy which was so prominent at the conference. He is keen to recruit IaaS partners- who may be integrators, and extend further into more specialised partners.

"We are getting aggressive in this area of IaaS, where we have the only integrated offering in data centres."

A new simpler form of contract is also now available to Oracle partners which allows them to no only sell cloud solutions, but to renew them and do the account control. "This is a new business model," added Hill. "Oracle now has the widest portfolio of cloud offerings."

Cloud technology provider Vapour Cloud has entered into a strategic partnership with Egton, a provider of healthcare technology and solutions.

As part of the alliance, Vapour Cloud will support Egton in delivering next generation voice services into its client base, utilising cloud-based technology.

Egton, part of EMIS Group, a key player in connected healthcare software and services, specialises in the supply of ICT infrastructure, application software and value-added services.

With offices and teams across the north of England, Vapour works with organisations across the UK, providing business solutions encompassing Internet access, a cloud voice platform and UK based storage, back-up and replication - all private and fully functional in the UK.

Tim Mercer, Chief Executive Officer of Vapour Cloud, said: "The use of cloud among healthcare organisations is growing rapidly year-on-year. Like many other industries, healthcare is moving toward cloud-based technologies to help drive efficiencies and streamline processes for employees, ultimately delivering enhanced services to patients."

Stephen Wilcock, Managing Director of Egton, added: "The uptake of new technology in the NHS is key to providing the cost and efficiency savings set out in the NHS forward view.

"Cloud telephony is a prime example of how such technology can have a measurable impact on the way healthcare organisations deliver their essential operations."

NetPay Solutions Group has moved to bigger offices in Southampton as the business continues to grow and with ambitious expansion plans in the pipeline.

NetPay provides card payment services to thousands of businesses across the UK and Ireland and has experienced strong growth over the last four years since the business was set up in 2012.

More recently the business has licensed its payments technology to other industry providers including acquiring banks. The move provides NetPay with the capacity to grow to more than 120 people in its Southampton offices.

Carl Churchill, Managing Director, NetPay Solutions Group, said: "NetPay is continually looking to the future of payments, not just the here and now. The growth in contactless and online payments over the past two years has been exceptional. Contactless now accounts for 18% of card spending - up from 7% a year ago. eCommerce has grown by 13% from 2015 to 2016 with June this year having record online spend of £12.6bn.

"We want to help every business get access to these payment services and, in turn, open up opportunities to generate new revenue and improve their cash-flow.

"We know that contactless and online payments will not stop there, we will continue to innovate and having the space to expand our team is essential to ensure that we remain at the forefront of the sector.

"We have some exciting developments planned with new services coming to market as well as some large customer wins. I's an exciting time here at NetPay and the new offices give us a great base to support our growth."

Research from Claranet has found that a shortage of in-house skills and internal IT resources are two of the most popular reasons businesses give for using IT services providers (ITSPs).

For Claranet, the results confirm that ITSPs are playing a key role in plugging the technology skills gap, though the company has warned that businesses will need to select their partners carefully to achieve the desired results.

Vanson Bourne surveyed 900 IT leaders and decision makers across the six countries in which Claranet operates - the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and Benelux.

The research found that 36 per cent of European IT leaders choose to use Service Providers to access skills that are not available in-house. Over a third (36 per cent) also said that a shortage of in-house resources - likely linked to the shortage of in-house skills - was a factor in engaging third-party ITSPs.

The digital skills gap has become a cause for increasing concern among IT decision makers over the last few years. In a recent survey, Harvey Nash talked to 3,352 CIOs and technology leaders across 82 countries, and found that 65 per cent of these were suffering from a technology skills shortage - the highest proportion since the recession, almost a decade ago. This figure is six per cent higher than in 2015, further revealing a deepening of the digital skills gap.

Andy Wilton, CIO at Claranet, commented: "The deficit in IT skills means that businesses must be more selective about the types of skills they employ in-house and those that they choose to outsource.

"Organisations are competing for a small pool of IT talent, which requires making tough decisions about which exact skillsets are required within the organisation.

"Public cloud is particularly specialised and it can be hard to find an in-house generalist who possesses the advanced skillsets to deliver the required capabilities with confidence.

"But there's a strong case to suggest that internal IT teams shouldn't be managing servers or any sort of infrastructure at all, and instead they should plough their energies into app development. Those businesses that are winning in their markets are those that have amazing applications, so that's where the focus needs to be.

"The future of any European organisation that wants to insulate itself from the growing skills shortage and compete at the forefront of digital transformation lies in the ability to work with an IT services provider who can provide the pivotal IT skills needed. By doing so, companies will be able to access individuals with specialised skills on-demand and at a cheaper price.

"However, it's essential for organisations to find the right fit when it comes to their outsourcing arrangement. To an unprecedented degree, this choice and relationship will become critical to the healthy posture of any business. Ultimately, you need experts to help you architect the best possible solution for your applications. This will add more value to the business and mitigate technological stumbling blocks."

South West Comms Group has stepped up its activity in the hospitality sector with a range of products that can be utilised separately or as a combined single solution.

Exeter-based swcomms has designed a suite of communications services for the hospitality sector, including Wi-Fi, Internet connectivity, telephone systems and guest TV, which can all be paid for with a seasonal finance package.

Sarah Flowers, swcomms' sales director, said: "Our business is situated right at the heart of one of the most popular areas for tourism and hospitality in the UK. We have developed our product portfolio with respected technology partners to meet the needs of the hotels and holiday parks that are right on our doorstep.

"We are also fortunate enough to have an in-house finance facility, SWT Finance, which enables us to offer a seasonal finance package to suit our customers' peak and off peak seasons."

The finance package allows businesses to pay less between October and March and more between April and September when their income is higher.

Flowers added: "We are finding guest Wi-Fi is a particular pain point for many of the hotels we are speaking to. Guests expect a decent service that can cope with multiple mobile devices trying to check email and social media, surf the Internet, instant message, live stream and so on all at the same time. When the Wi-Fi service is poor, guests are quick to complain and make their feelings known on travel review websites.

"We offer a Wi-Fi service designed for guest use while also supplying suitable supporting Internet connectivity. Our telephone systems and TV services are also designed for hotels so we can offer the whole package."

TeleWare has launched a new global mobile bill shock feature that protects travellers across the world.

TeleWare's new feature alerts users when they are roaming globally as they near their limits and in doing so protects them from going over their data package.

Users first receive an alert when they have reached 80% of their pre-defined limit. Then, when they reach the limit, the data session is automatically disconnected, unless the limit has been increased by the administrator.

Users are then given the option to increase data packages while abroad and then automatically move back down to their default limit at the end of the month, enabling them to maintain connectivity wherever they are.

Unlike the protection offered under EU law, which is set at 50 Euros, TeleWare's new feature allows the pre-defined limit to be set at the discretion of the account holder.

Danny Hensby, head of product management at TeleWare, said: "The EU safety net has been warmly welcomed across the board since its introduction in July 2010 but for some travellers there is an assumption this extends beyond EU countries, and many business travellers have been caught out with a nasty bill.

"We have worked with networks globally to ensure that we can offer this protection internationally. This service can be switched on immediately for existing customers."

Exertis joined forces with vendor partners to undertake a two day charity cycle ride in aid of Naomi House, raising £25,000.

Twelve cyclists took part in the 200 miles event (from Basingstoke to Shaftesbury and back) held on 16th-17th September which was supported by Dell, Fujitsu, Samsung, Lenovo, Netgear, BT/Hive and Medion.

Mark Kahr Exertis purchasing director said "Not quite the Tour de France but we are proud to have raised so much for our nominated Charity Naomi House, for children and young adults with life limiting illnesses. A big thank you to all the riders and particularly the sponsors that supported us with their time & donations."