Comms Dealer

Service providers focused on traditional fixed and mobile services for business customers are losing share as revenues decline according to a new report from telecoms analyst benchmark-it.

Report author Rob Pritchard (pictured) told Comms Dealer: "There is a clear trend that players that do not focus on the cloud, next-generation services and managed solutions are losing out.\"

The report also finds that the trend towards the Digital Enterprise has implications not just for portfolios, but also for culture, systems and organizations.

"Exponential growth at the likes of Amazon Web Services and WhatsApp serve to underline the new nature of the market – service providers need to work out what their strategy is in a market where the value chain has been inverted.  

The old-fashioned silo approach is no longer valid or viable.  Whilst issues over the future of Openreach are operationally important today, service providers need to look further ahead in terms of what they offer to their target enterprise customers in the future.\"

The 1,081-page report profiles and compares 62 representative providers of fixed and mobile enterprise telecoms and related IT services in the UK.

For more information, email  rob@benchmark-it.co.uk.

TeleWare has launched TeleWare Communication Manager (TCM), its new pay-as-you-go, cloud-based, in-house configured and controlled communication solution.

TCM is said to be a 'contact-centre lite’ solution, which allows companies to have complete view of all inbound and outbound activity, wherever staff are based. TCM is cloud based and telephone system agnostic, meaning staff can log into TCM from anywhere and are able to take calls immediately.

Central administrators will have visibility of all activities in real time, allowing them to allocate and re-allocate resources to ensure call demand is being met on-the-fly. Multiple dashboards can be configured in-house, allowing companies to tailor data views to suit their needs.

Teleware Product Manager Terry-Ann Cocker said: "Companies are increasingly understanding the need to have a complete overview and understanding of workflow – especially when staff are in a wide range of locations. What’s more, we’re seeing a large and growing market for contact-centre lite solutions with over 5,600 small—to-medium contact-centres employing less than 200 people to manage their communications and more coming online every day. We can offer them a package that meets all their needs and provides maximum accessibility due to being a cloud-based application.

"At the same time, some companies may not be willing or able to commit to a long contract or even have enough visibility of the future in order to make such a commitment. TCM has a minimum three-month contract period, thereafter a pay-as-you-go monthly contract meaning that even those companies that are just starting out can gain maximum value straight out of the box.\"

TeleWare CEO Steve Haworth said: "TCM is a flexible, simplistic and easy-to-use solution that not only gives a view of what’s happening now, but helps companies to improve their performance by analysing historic data. Any company can then get more insight into their business and employee behaviour to make sure they’re delivering the best customer experience possible.\"

Pinnaca, the global provider of managed videoconferencing, telepresence and visual collaboration services, has formed a strategic partnership with UK-based Ashton Bentley, a designer and manufacturer of integrated presentation and video conferencing systems.

Pinnaca says the partnership will help customers replace traditional, customized AV room systems with Ashton Bentley’s products, which compliment any room’s layout and design.  The modular, integrated systems are designed to standardize an enterprise’s collaboration environment and to increase the effectiveness of user communications, thus reducing the long-term cost of ownership.

"We are thrilled to have been selected by Pinnaca,\" said Tony Leedham, Ashton Bentley’s director of business development. "We believe Ashton Bentley’s unique solutions – allowing people to 'walk in and work’ -  fully complement Pinnaca’s global reputation for product excellence and extraordinary personal service.\"

Dan Tanel, CTO of Pinnaca said: "Ashton Bentley’s creative design significantly improves user adoption and reduces wasted meeting time, resulting in higher productivity.\"

Distributor Nimans and pay phone manufacturer Solitaire is urging resellers to plan ahead for the introduction of the new £1 coin, confirmed for March next year. which will have a significant impact on thousands of payphones across the UK.

All new Solitaire payphones supplied since January this year will accept the revised £1 coin but existing models already on-site will need updating. Solitaire’s Managing Director Jeff Wilkes (pictured) says the majority of people are 'oblivious’ and unprepared about the new arrival.

"From my own experience most people don’t know the new coin is coming which is a bit of a worry. We estimate that from around 500,000 Solitaire payphones sold in the UK around 50,000 are still in service,\" he explained. "The Royal Mint has now confirmed the new Bi Metallic 12 sided coin will be in circulation in March 2017 and the old pound will be discontinued in the autumn. So with less than 200 days to go the countdown is on.\"

Depending on the payphone model, on-site, remote download and 'back to manufacturer’ updates are available. As a guide everything made in the last 10 years is capable of being updated. For larger sites Nimans’ resellers can take advantage of a white label on-site service from Solitaire.

Nimans stocks the Solitaire 2000 plug-and-play device, ideal for domestic/ shared /rented accommodation/holiday cottage locations where arguments can arise over the telephone bill, the best-selling 6000 model with 'taxi' buttons, auditable cash records and coin refund whilst a 6000 High Security model benefits from a robust steel casing and armoured handset cord. Wi-Fi and IP versions are also available – whilst all current models are compatible with broadband lines.

"Demand for payphones remains strong in niche areas and the new £1 coin will have a big impact. Resellers need to be advising their customers now about how to adapt their existing machines,\" added Wilkes.

Tollring’s information security management systems (ITSM) has passed ISO27001 certification throughout its operations and data centres for the second year.

Software developer Tollring says this represents a major milestone for the company as it continues to invest significant capital throughout 2016/17 to develop new white label cloud services and broaden its geographical reach to its partners and their customers in both the Public and Private Sectors.

Tony Martino, Managing Director, said: "ISO27001 certification is another sign of our commitment to our partners and their customers, showing why they can have the highest confidence in our operations. Our stewardship of confidential information is robust and we constantly challenge ourselves to keep it that way.

ISO/IEC 27001 is a model for establishing, implementing, operating, monitoring, reviewing, maintaining and improving an information security management system (ISMS).

Fibre infrastructure provider CityFibre says it is on track to complete the installation of Edinburgh’s new 150km ultra-fast network by the end of September this year, transforming the Scottish capital into the UK’s largest Gigabit City.

Construction has been delivered at spectacular speed, with CityFibre employing over 150 engineers and workers at the project’s peak. It has taken just 12 months to install over 100km (62 miles) of pure fibre infrastructure throughout the Scottish capital, taking the current total to 126km since launch.

Upon completion, the 150km network will provide a future-proof alternative to the city’s capacity-constrained copper network, whilst offering connectivity at gigabit speeds (50-100 times faster than the UK average) to around 7000 businesses. It will also reach over 300 public sector sites including schools, libraries and office buildings.

James McClafferty, CityFibre’s Head of Regional Development in Scotland, said: "Reaching 100km is a significant milestone for the project, which has been a truly collaborative process, working with our partners, Commsworld.\"

CEO of Commsworld, Ricky Nicol, said: "Edinburgh is asserting itself as a leading digital city on a global scale - and to be a part of that is particularly exciting. CityFibre has delivered on its promises – and has given Edinburgh a highly enviable cutting edge network infrastructure, far exceeding the capabilities available prior to its work.  

"It has to be said, the response from a broad spectrum of the business community has been incredible – they have embraced the project and understood its transformational potential right from the start.\"

Amongst the most recent businesses to be connected to Edinburgh’s Gigabit City network is Edinburgh’s Festival Theatre. As a result, it is now able to offer ultrafast WiFi to guests and conference attendees.

Iain Ross, Director of Finance and HR at The Festival and King’s Theatres, said: "When faced with the failure of our original supplier to provide a dedicated fibre network to allow us to host a major conference at the Festival Theatre, we turned to CityFibre and Commsworld who have delivered impeccably across all areas.\"

Picture shows (left to right): Iain Ross (Festival Theatre), James McClafferty (City Fibre) and Ricky Nicol (Commsworld).

Leeds-based business Diva Telecom is celebrating 10 years in business with a promise to deliver a world-class portfolio of products designed to help organisations from start-ups to major enterprises raise their game and compete in the global marketplace in the wake of Brexit.

Managing director Erica Lewis set up the business in July 2006, the same year that BT opened up its exchanges to rivals to give the UK a more competitive broadband market. Infrastructure provider CityFibre chose Diva as one of its launch partners for services running on its pure fibre network, which will transform Leeds into one of the UK’s first Gigabit Cities and deliver even more resilient and ultrafast connection speeds.

"I’ve been in the telecoms industry for 30 years and witnessed many major changes over the years from the demise of Telex, the rise and fall of fax machines, and the rise and rise of mobile communications,\" said Erica, who now heads a team of 11 managing clients ranging from Coca-Cola, Maersk, Toshiba, and Panasonic to small businesses and primary schools across the city region.

"CityFibre’s selection of Diva as a launch partner demonstrates their confidence in our ability to deliver for the city’s businesses and we’re tremendously proud to be working with them.\"

Diva Telecom handles more than 12 million calls monthly for its clients, with inbound international numbers its biggest selling service; demonstrating the region’s appetite for global trade.

"We are seeing increased demand now from organisations of all sizes and across all industry sectors for digital services that offer better scalability, resilience and most importantly, better cost efficiencies.

"Much of our success and growth has been down to our boutique portfolio of products including our in-house designed SMS and audio conferencing services. Customer service, our knowledgeable team, a consultative approach and competitive pricing have all played a part in helping the business achieve year on year growth of 20-25 per cent,\" added Lewis.

Metronet (UK) has launched a wholesale wireless platform aiming to give channel partners a real alternative to traditional ground based fibre connectivity.

Metronet is promising reduced lead times, quicker revenue and no excess install charges. The company hopes the platform will reseller customers access to wireless connectivity in half the time than traditional fibre connectivity.

Tony Hughes, Metronet (UK)’s Sales Director said: "This is a great time of growth for Metronet (UK), having seen 33% revenue growth in the past 12 months we know we are on the right path. Our channel offering is a big part of our business and we now see over 60% of new business come through our channel partners. Our wholesale platform will push this even further, we are currently in the process of on-boarding partners to the platform and look forward to welcoming many more.\"  

Metronet (UK) has a strong background of working with channel partners and has established a solid referral and reseller platform working with over 220 partners across the UK. The wholesale platform will open up for these partners and will welcome new partnerships across the UK.

RingCentral UK has announced the availability of enterprise-grade room video conferencing with the introduction of RingCentral Rooms.
The cloud technology specialist says its key objective is to help organisations overcome the pain points of complex, difficult to use, and costly, fixed infrastructure systems associated with traditional telepresence-type set-ups.

RingCentral Rooms uses a web conferencing platform to connect meeting room hardware, such as screens, cameras and speakers, with external and internal users, as well as with other rooms. This is said to enable seamless participation with other RingCentral Meetings with people joining from mobile, tablets, desktops, or IP desk phones.
 
Sahil Rekhi, Managing Director, EMEA at RingCentral, says: "Currently, there simply isn’t a reliable and cost-effective way for companies to deliver a professional room conferencing environment. We’ve launched RingCentral Rooms to fill this gap in the UK market, giving our RingCentral Office® customers the smoothest solution available.\"

Registrations are flooding in for The Managed Services and Hosting Summit, which will take place at 155 Bishopsgate, London, on 21 September 2016.

The growth in the sector means new opportunities for existing MSPs and new entrants, and the high proportion of CEOs attending (70%) is not unexpected, say organisers IT Europa and Angel Business Communications.

The event has also already attracted a very strong line-up of more than 20 sponsors including many of the industry’s most innovative vendors and service providers. FalconStor, LOGICnow (now part of SolarWinds MSP), Schneider Electric and Sinefa have been confirmed as Platinum-level sponsors; Autotask, ESET, Ingram Micro and Kaseya as Gold; and ConnectWise, Digital Realty, Exponential-E, Infrascale, Intronis/Barracuda, LogicMonitor, Mimecast, RingCentral, StorageCraft, Volta, Webroot and WellData as Silver.

Now in its sixth year, the Managed Services and Hosting Summit 2016 will focus on how the market is changing and what it will take for MSPs to succeed in this brave new digital world. Under the theme of 'The Digital Dividend – The Role of Managed Services in a Digital World’, this year’s event will examine the rapid changes taking place currently in the industry and among IT customers. The way companies are buying IT is changing, creating threats and opportunities for existing MSPs and new market entrants alike, just as IT models themselves are undergoing fundamental change.

The strong speaker line-up will feature Mark Paine of Gartner addressing the question 'Where Next for MSPs?’.

"Value Added Resellers and other suppliers who have transitioned their business to Managed Service Provision are only at the start of their journey,\" he said.

"Customers will lead them in to the world of enterprise cloud applications, integration and software development as they become participants in the digital business ecosystem. This session will explore the reasons why customers will demand more from MSPs and give advice on how to transform to the new world.\"

In another keynote, 'The Age of the Customer’, Tiffani Bova, Salesforce's Global Customer Growth and Innovation Evangelist (and former Gartner VP, Distinguished Analyst and Research Fellow) will address how companies of all sizes can create new business practices that leverage technology to strengthen customer relationships and accelerate sales and growth. Attendees will hear actionable takeaways on how to create a customer-centric business and long-lasting brand loyalty.

The UK Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2016 is a management-level event designed to help channel organisations identify opportunities arising from the increasing demand for managed and hosted services and to develop and strengthen partnerships aimed at supporting sales. The event is jointly staged by IT Europa and Angel Business Communications. MSPs, resellers and integrators wishing to attend the convention and vendors, distributors or service providers interested in sponsorship opportunities can find further information at: www.mshsummit.com