Comms Dealer

TelcoSwitch has added 15 years comms experience to its pool of industry knowhow with the addition of Paul Gibbs as Sales Director.

Previous roles include stints at MTV Telecom, Westcon, Veropath, Gamma and most recently HighNet.

TelcoSwitch launched late last year as a provider of turnkey open standards hosted telephony solutions and has since been busy recruiting channel partners with circa three resellers on-boarding every week.

Lee Reuben, COO, commented: "Paul joins the company during a period of rapid growth as we seek to consolidate our position within the market. Paul is well versed in the telecoms environment and has extensive knowledge within this arena."

Gibbs added: "As TelcoSwitch continues its journey, I look forward to using my skills and experience to capitalise on the great strides that have already been made and to drive the business forward."

The addition of two industry heavyweights has added significant leadership muscle to collaboration solutions provider sipsynergy.

Toby Gold has joined the firm as CEO and Tom Kelly has been named Chairman.

The duo are charged with accelerating the company's growth and customer base following a £2.75m investment from YFM Equity Partners (YFM).

Gold brings 25 years IT industry experience and has held management and executive roles at a number of hardware, hosting and cloud services companies. He joins from Dell Software where he was Director of Northern Europe.

He said: "As Tom and I take up our positions at the company, this new round of investment will enable sipsynergy to further expand its products. I can't wait to put all of my experience to great use as we continue enabling our reseller partners."

Kelly boasts over 30 years experience in the UK IT and communications channel, during which time he has held senior management positions in a number of organisations, including a 10 year stint as Managing Director of Logicalis UK, one of the UK's largest Cisco managed services partners.

Kelly added: "The company has its sights set on conquering the SMB space. We've created a cloud hosted solution which we're taking to market through a growing partner base of IT and telecoms resellers and managed service providers."

sipsynergy works closely with Cisco and has developed a white labelled UCaaS 'business in a Box' solution, enabling partners to deliver their own branded Enterprise class collaboration solutions to small to mid-sized businesses.

Nifa Vaz has joined Voiceflex to support and expand their community of partners in the South and South East.

Vaz will be responsible for recruiting new channel partners and account management with an emphasis on new business development, account retention and growth. She brings with her an established background and has 15 years’ experience in telecommunications, channel development

and account management, having spent a total of eight years at Swyx. She also held positions at Voiplicity Limited, Nimans and Weston where she was responsible for the growth and recruitment of new partner accounts.

Vaz commented: "I am excited to start a new challenge within Voiceflex and look forward to working with the team and its partners.\"

Paul Taylor, Sales & Marketing Director added: "Nifa’s valuable experience and industry knowledge has already made her a key addition to the channel sales team. I’m confident that she will play a key role in Voiceflex acquiring and supporting our partners and their growth opportunities.\"

Communications and IT services provider KCOM has been selected to deliver new communications technology for Bupa UK’s four contact centres and multiple satellite sites, supporting 1,500 staff members.

Over the next five years KCOM will work to simplify interactions with Bupa UK’s customers, enhancing the experience of staff and its customers. The new cloud-based system will use Interactive Voice Response (IVR) call recording, screen recording, social media integration and quality management. It will also introduce analytics into the contact centre, helping inform and streamline processes. This will mean faster, even more relevant interactions with customers.

The decision to move to a cloud-based service was taken to deliver greater flexibility and agility. A stringent service level agreement (SLA) will minimise downtime and ensure software is automatically updated. Using a cloud based system will also enable new service elements to be introduced over time as Bupa UK moves to an integrated digital contact service that allows customers to communicate with the company via all possible channels – phone, email, webchat etc.

"There are few occasions where customer service is more important than when discussing health issues. It was vital that the contact centre solution continued to put the customer first,\" said Bill Halbert, CEO, KCOM. "Bupa has built its leadership position on being focused on the customer and we are very proud to have been entrusted with making sure the technology continues to keep Bupa at the forefront of healthcare.\"

Panasonic, the National Trust’s technology partner, has played a key part in supporting the National Trust’s video conferencing trial.

The six-month trial involved the conservation charity’s regional team in the North, who regularly travel between five different hubs, zig-zagging to meetings from Newcastle in the East to Manchester in the West.

Following their introduction into the project, Panasonic delivered large 4K 55\" TVs to a number of Trust regional office locations, linking them into a Video Conferencing service. The regional team were then able to set up a video conferencing facility linking the various locations very quickly and easily.

Darren Belton, who was involved in the trial said "Not only was the audio, size and quality of the screen superb but video conferencing saved me driving over 200 miles, dramatically reducing my impact on the environment.\"

Ryota Kurumai, product marketing manager at Panasonic said "We are delighted to be supporting Europe’s largest conservation charity with their video conferencing technology as part of our broader partnership. Our KX-VC1300 and KX-VC1600 high definition video conferencing platforms will help reduce day to day carbon emissions of National Trust staff and volunteers across England, Wales and Northern Ireland.\"

The roll-out of 26 Panasonic screens and VC equipment at every one of the National Trust’s regional and central office hubs is one of the many practical steps being taken by the conservation charity to reduce its carbon emissions.

Teleware has appointed Vicky Ryder as Senior Channel Manager. She will take up responsibility for sourcing and driving more partnership opportunities and will be working primarily within the Microsoft product suite.

Ryder (pictured) has extensive experience in mobile and telecoms sales and has held senior roles Symantec, Outsourcery and Telefonica. Much of her ten years in commerce has been spent on partner activity.

Ryder commented: "I’ve been passionate about unified communications for my whole career. I’ve been watching TeleWare and their growth for some time and I’m excited to be joining them at this crucial stage. I am looking forward to bringing to bear my expertise in cloud services, SaaS and Microsoft partner experience to develop ever-stronger working relationships with TeleWare’s innovative partners.\"

Steve Haworth, CEO TeleWare added: "After her successful visit to the Microsoft World Partner Conference in July, it’s been great seeing how enthused Vicky has been over the opportunities that our work with Microsoft presents. We’re extremely confident that Vicky is the right person to take our work around Office 365 to the next level and develop the right strategic partnerships to offer value, not just to us, but also our partners and end users.\"

Dublin based mobile operator EchoStar Mobile Limited has appointed Dr. Peter Couch, a veteran with 15 years’ industry experience and a successful background in strategy and policy, as its new Director of Policy and Regulatory Affairs for Europe. Peter will report to Jennifer A. Manner, senior vice president of regulatory affairs.

Couch will be responsible for EchoStar Mobile’s European Union (EU) regulation and policy initiatives and act as a key representative before the member states and the EU, as well as international organisations such as the International Telecommunications Union, the European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) and the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations (CEPT).

Previously, as Vice Chairman of Broadcast Networks Europe, Peter was instrumental in obtaining a successful outcome for the terrestrial broadcast operators at WRC15. In addition, for more than 10 years Peter successfully represented the British telecommunications company, Arqiva, from a policy and regulatory perspective, both in the United Kingdom and in Europe.

"Peter’s in-depth knowledge of regulation and policy in Europe, coupled with his vast experience in the telecommunications and aerospace industry makes him a tremendous asset for EchoStar Mobile.\" said Manner.

If you want a good broadband connection in London, go to The Shard.

The iconic 'vertical city’ has achieved Platinum accreditation, the highest rating awarded by international commercial connectivity accreditor, WiredScore for its broadband and telecoms infrastructure.

The Shard is currently home to a diverse range of companies – from investment technology business Leonteq Securities to global consulting firm Protiviti. All rely on the building’s exceptional connectivity to support their high operating speed. In 2016 The Shard signed three new occupiers that are significant contributors to the UK’s growing digital economy and also depend on the building’s superior technology infrastructure – the online retailer MATCHESFASHION.COM; digital marketing agency Jellyfish; and digital media and print publisher Dods.

Sam Lowe, Chief Technology Officer, MATCHESFASHION.COM, said: "London is one of the digital hubs of the world, but there is great variance in the connectivity available, and so it was one of our key criteria when selecting new facilities to support the growth of our business to select somewhere that had great digital infrastructure as well as great physical facilities.\"

According to a new study, ShoreTel has the lowest ‘total cost of operations’ across all sized deployments, both cloud and on-premises, for Unified Communications and Collaboration and IP Telephony.

The annual  Nemertes Research study analysed real-world cost data, including capital, implementation, and ongoing operational costs, from 300 companies. It is important for IT leaders to examine total cost of operations for cloud and on-premises communication environments, since unknown implementation and ongoing costs can often erase any cost benefit associated with lower initial acquisition costs.

The study evaluated three scenarios: companies with 100, 750, and 1,500 employees. In each scenario, ShoreTel has the greatest costs savings and lowest overall cost over a five-year period, when compared to the industry average and various providers for both on-premises and cloud. Providers included 8x8, Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, Mitel, NEC and Vonage.

Robin Gareiss, president of Nemertes Research said: "Those who use ShoreTel devote fewer IT staff members to managing the solution and relationship than did those using competitors. It is primarily those ongoing operational costs that keep ShoreTel lower to operate than competitors. For cloud and hybrid, we found ShoreTel’s actual subscription costs are lower than competitors, so over a five-year period the savings add up – often significantly."

Mark Roberts, CMO at ShoreTel added: "ShoreTel is proud to be lowest in total cost of operations, reflecting what our customers have been experiencing all along – that ShoreTel delivers substantial savings along with fully-featured, reliable communication solutions that improve productivity and collaboration no matter whether they are onsite, in the cloud or a hybrid mix of the two".

To read the full Nemertes Research white paper, please go here. 

ScanSource has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Intelisys Communications, the technology services distributor of business telecommunications and cloud services.

With 2015 gross commissions of $120 million, Intelisys provides agents and value-added resellers (VARs) with an extensive portfolio of services, support and enablement tools to sell cloud and connectivity services. The acquisition accelerates Intelisys’ ability to extend this model to the ScanSource VAR community.

ScanSource VARs will gain access to Intelisys’ robust portfolio of carefully selected, highest-quality connectivity and cloud services offerings, as well as the tools and platforms that help partners build recurring revenue streams.

The all-cash transaction which should be concluded by the end of September, includes an initial purchase price of approximately $83.6 million, plus earn-out payments based on EBITDA earnings over the next four years.

Intelisys’ net revenues, which reflect gross commissions less payments to sub-agents, are estimated to total over $34 million with a 45% to 50% estimated EBITDA margin.

Rick Sheldon, Co-Founder of Intelisys commented: "This is an exciting time for the channel as VARs and telecom agents converge. Together, we believe ScanSource and Intelisys will become the ultimate channel company as we offer an unparalleled experience in the cloud and telecom space, including fully connected solutions for our partners.\"