Comms Dealer

Skyscape Cloud Services scooped the VMwarevCloud Air Network (vCAN) Partner of the Year award in recognition of its contribution to VMware's UK market performance. 

"Skyscape has a long and successful track record of working closely with VMware to design, build and manage complex cloud platforms that meet the very specific needs of UK public sector organisations," said Simon Hansford, CEO of Skyscape Cloud Services.

VMware is a key member of The Skyscape Cloud Alliance, which brings together best-of-breed technology vendors.

Since its foundation in 2011, Skyscape has scaled to become one of the largest cloud platforms built on VMware and its latest next-generation cloud platform is leveraging the latest VMware technology, including VMware NSX.

The company has also built up in-house VMware technical expertise in order to deliver innovative cloud services to the UK public sector.

US technology magazine CIOReview has named Content Guru as one of its Most Promising Contact Centre Solutions Providers 2016.

The annual listing positions Content Guru and its storm Communications Integration platform as one of the 20 leading worldwide providers of contact centre technology.

Sean Taylor, CEO of Content Guru, commented: "We are proud to once again be recognised by CIOReview's panel of experts, after having been listed as one of its 20 Most Promising Unified Communications Solution Providers in 2015 and 50 Most Promising Utilities Technology Solution Providers the year before.

"Content Guru has over a decade of experience in providing mission-critical cloud contact centre services to thousands of organisations across a variety of sectors.

"Delivering a great customer experience is key to the success of any organisation and, with the proliferation of channels and devices over recent years, consumers now expect to communicate however, whenever and in whichever they want.

"To keep up with the increasing expectations of this new multi-channel consumer, the humble contact centre has rapidly transformed into today's customer engagement hub, and disruptive technologies, such as WebRTC, are only set to further change how customers and businesses engage with each other on a daily basis."

Intelisys Global, a subsidiary of Intelisys Communications, has announced the addition of Equinix to its Supplier Partner portfolio.

An Intelisys Communications Supplier Partner since August 2014, Equinix is one of the first Supplier Partners to extend its contract to Intelisys Global, allowing it to expand its relationship to Intelisys Global's Sales Partners in the UK and Europe.

"There's an adage all sales professionals are familiar with, and that is that it is easier to sell to the customers you already have than to find new ones," said Jay Bradley, Intelisys President.

"In some ways, it applies to exactly what we're doing here with Intelisys Global - we're taking solid, successful partnerships and extending them into new geographies, enabling a whole new community of Sales Partners to gain agnostic access to the world's carriers and vendors in the telecommunications, connectivity and cloud industries."

Purple, the intelligent spaces company, has partnered with Wi-Fi services provider Haptic Networks, a specialist in public access Wi-Fi with deployments in the town centres of Wallingford, Oxfordshire and Northampton.

Purple has expertise in social Wi-Fi, analytics and marketing, with deployments in over 70 countries.

Its 'Intelligent Spaces' approach provides real-time analytics and marketing for venues and businesses that want to engage with visitors, optimise the use of physical spaces, and utilise the wireless infrastructure to generate ROI.

Purple first joined forces with Haptic Networks to provide Wi-Fi services to Moray Council in Scotland and the King's Cross Public Wi-Fi contract in London.

Following various high profile wins in the leisure, hospitality, healthcare and public spaces vertical sectors, Haptic Networks has achieved Certified Partner status with Purple. It is now operating across UK, EU and UAE, offering secure, family-friendly Wi-Fi with data collection for analytics and reporting functions.

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO at Purple, said: "Our partnership with Haptic Networks has already proved to be a success with joint contracts delivered and a range of upcoming opportunities.

"Our two teams are closely aligned in terms of our approach to services and our vision of the market. We look forward to building a successful long term relationship."

Mark Bartley, CTO at Haptic Networks, added: "We selected Purple primarily due to its approach to data ownership. We believe that customers providing Wi-Fi services to their visitors and residents should have full access and control of any data collected through the service rather than this data being retained by the service provider."

Arrow Business Communications has returned to the M&A trail buying Cambridgeshire-based Comms-Solve, its seventh acquisition in six years, boosting revenues and extending its reach into eastern England. The deal increases Arrow's turnover to £27m and brings in additional UC expertise.

Arrow MD Chris Russell said: "Comms-solve has an award winning team which is engineering focused and well recognised in the industry. The company shares our ethos of excellent customer care while complementing our existing Mitel skills."

Comms-Solve's employees will continue to operate from the Cambridge premises.

Simon Finnerty, Technical Director at Comms-Solve, added: "Our shared resources mean customers will benefit from technology delivered by trusted partners."

The Bristol Network, the name given to the fibre optic network that runs through Bristol city, has announced that wholesale partners are already integrated, customers have been connected and it is unveiling a new brand.

The branding follows the familiar style to other council supported companies such as Bristol Energy.

Last year Bristol City Council awarded a 20 year concession agreement to the partnership of ITS Technology Group and Net Support UK.

The collaboration is to set up a network that can provide internet and other over-the-top services throughout the city by using the existing ducts owned by the council.

The Bristol Network has already integrated the first few ISPs and attracted attention from a number of other prominent ISPs who are looking to connect their customers in the area.

Two high profile Bristol digital and arts organisations Yogscast and Spike Island have already been connected by Spectrum Internet.

Jonathan Griffin, Head of Sales at Spectrum Internet said: "We have a number of business customers in Bristol with high bandwidth requirements due to the nature of their work. In the case of Yogscast, they also had tight timescales to meet which we could only achieve by using The Bristol Network.

"The pricing structure is straight forward and it is easy for us to upgrade any of our customers' circuits up to 10Gbps capacity if needed. The Bristol Network has been designed specifically for this era of digital growth."

Gavin Beckett, Head of Digital Transformation, Bristol City Council said: "The Bristol Network and the collaboration with Bristol City Council is imperative to drive forward a programme of change throughout the city. This project dovetails perfectly into our smart city and 'Internet of Things' initiatives."

Roy Shelton, CEO of ITS Technology Group, added: "We have worked hard with our local partners to design and roll out the network to areas which continue to be underserved and starved of robust ultrafast broadband.

"Working in partnership with Bristol City Council and our partners the network will continue to evolve to be the largest and only council supported network in Bristol."

Channel services firm Synaxon UK has struck a UK deal with Germany-based TERRA Computer, a manufacturer of systems and storage products.

The partnership will give members access to the company's products through its EGIS buying platform.

TERRA Computer is a subsidiary of the €1bn Wortmann Group, an independent computer manufacturer. The company designs and manufactures a range of desktop PCs, workstations, all-in-ones, notebooks, tablets, thin client devices, and displays.

It also produces servers and direct-access, NAS and SAN storage systems; and is a provider of cloud services in Germany offering co-hosting hosting, IaaS, SaaS and backup solutions from its own Tier 3-certified data centre.

The UK agreement follows a partnership between the two organisations in Germany.

Kevin Gaskell has joined ITS Technology Group as Group Chairman.

He will lead the board and help attract further investment into the Group.

His experience includes leading brands such as Porsche, Lamborghini and BMW. He was recognised as a 'top 40 leader under 40'.

Gaskell commented: "I have been involved in founding and growing a number of successful companies, and ITS is a business with a first class team, an energetic and innovative approach to the market and has clear objectives."

Roy Shelton, CEO, added: "As we continue to scale at pace Kevin brings a whole new level of drive and energy."

Chess has been shortlisted as a finalist in the Technology and Telecoms category of the UK Customer Experience Awards 2016.

Chess has made a £1.4m investment in better systems for the future and developed the Chess Wiki instant-knowledge access system that enables teams to deliver accurate information to customers.

Chess also launched a customer service academy for new starters as well as customer passion training that teaches their teams how to deal with different customer personality types.

Each team has a dedicated Knowledge Champion who has increased knowledge in specialist areas.

Chess also has Lean Six Sigma trained Quality Champions who ensure processes across the business are adding value for the customer. All of Chess's customer care superstars are UK based, fully trained, and regularly measured on attitude and energy.

Andrew Green, Chess Group Customer Service Director, said:
"Our customers are our number one priority and it's fantastic to see that we are being recognised as a great place to be a customer. I am looking forward to sharing our innovative customer service achievements during the award finals in September."

Team Channel Telecom has been on the fund raising offensive this month, raising £1,500 (and rising) for Cancer Research and NewLife (a funder of children's specialist disability equipment).

Rachel Verguson, IP service coordinator and one of five runners (pictured) in the North Weald 10km Race for Life, said: "It wasn't easy, 10km is a long way especially when you run the same circuit but I'm glad we did it and am very proud of what we achieved."

Stuart Burdett and James Moores, both part of the Channel Telecom Sales Team, will be running the Boys Beating Cancer 10km, Newbury, at the end of July

Clifford Norton, MD, said: "I am very proud of all those who have put themselves out there and done something for equally fantastic causes. We encourage all our staff to undertake some form of charity work. Well done to everyone who raised money and thank you to those who donated!".

www.justgiving.com/teams/Channel10kChallenge
www.mydonate.bt.com/events/stu10km/