Comms Dealer

Skyscape Cloud Services has launched Skyscape Ideas, an online portal enabling customers to input their ideas directly and influence Skyscape's product development roadmap.

Simon Hansford, CEO at Skyscape Cloud Services, said: "We have a track record of evolving and improving our cloud platform to add the features that are most important to our community of users.

"We're always looking for innovation that delivers value to our customers and this portal will help us do that.

"It will make it easier for customers to provide the ideas and feedback that will directly influence future product development and what we deliver going forward."

In a move to simplify group activities TTG Global has disposed of its Indigo Telecom division and associated subsidiaries, enabling it to focus on the core businesses affini Technology and Simoco Group.

TTG Group CEO Mike Norfield said: "We have worked hard to develop Indigo and pass the business on to its new owners as a resilient, profitable and vibrant business, with significant growth prospects in its chosen telecommunications industry sectors.

"The increased focus that this allows TTG to give to its two core businesses is fundamental to driving long-term shareholder value."

Claranet has extended its reach into the French hosting market with the acquisition of Diademys, significantly expanding the company’s size and influence in the country. 

Diademys is based in Suresnes and Caen and has an annual turnover of 26m euros, employs 120 staff and works with 200 clients from a range of sectors.

Diademys represents the latest in a wave of acquisitions made by the company across Europe over the past 18 months.

The Group's annual revenues now stand at £192 million, employing more than 1,100 staff and working with 5,500 customers in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.

Diademys' CEO Fabrice Tetu said: "We are backing Claranet for a number of reasons. The company has an aggressive and innovative strategy and wide presence across Europe, but, critically, it has retained its independence and is able to be agile in the face of changing market conditions.

"Claranet's ethos matches that of our own and becoming part of the Claranet Group will bring significant opportunities for both our employees and customers."

Olivier Beaudet, CEO of Claranet France, added: "The acquisition is a real opportunity for Claranet to strengthen its position in the French hosting market.

"We now have nearly 400 employees in France, a turnover of 76m euros, and one of the broadest hosting portfolios in the country."

8x8 has been awarded three new patents relating to networked contact centres, data storage and conferencing, bringing its total number of patents to 121.

The patent associated with Networked Contact Centre is part of a family of four other patents with issue dates between 2008 and 2014 related to 8x8's Virtual Contact Centre architecture. This allows several platforms of networked contact centres to host multiple contact centre tenants, and ensures this data is handled securely within the architecture.

The User Configurable Data Storage patent enables various forms of data (voicemails, call recordings, and other captured data) generated by the user of an IP communications service to be propagated from a local server where the data is collected, to a remote server. It also updates a user's index to that data so it will now refer to the remote server.

The third patent describes one of the ways that local meeting content and data is shared with remote participants in a distributed conference session.

Entanet has published an open letter to the Rt Hon Theresa May MP, who will today take over as Prime Minister, urging her to replace current Minister of State for Culture and the Digital Economy, Ed Vaizey MP, with someone who has the ability to understand the communications industry from a technical perspective.
 
In the letter, attributed to Entanet's Head of Service, Neil Watson, the company states that, in its view, Mr Vaizey has not been effective due to a lack of experience, and notes that even his own website describes him as being more oriented towards the arts than technology.
 
It goes on to suggest that Baroness Joanna Shields might be a suitable choice for the post.

"Her experience of technology - which includes everything from streaming video and audio, network storage, online marketing, social media and latterly championing the social responsibilities of the Internet as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Internet Safety and Security - suggests to us that she has the abilities necessary to continue to pioneer digital technology within the United Kingdom."

SAS has extended its partnership with The Voice Factory (TVF), bringing its UC platform 'on-net' to its hybrid networking portfolio.

TVF's hosted UC solution provides local numbers in over 63 countries and is based on the latest BroadSoft platform.

TVF Director Paul Harrison said: "The market is demanding cloud solutions that need to remain 'fit for future' and secure, but must provide predictability of costs and services for many years to come."

Charles Davis, CEO at SAS, added: "The requirement for on-premise UC solutions is becoming the preserve of larger enterprise customers.

"Most customers are looking for cost reductions and increased functionality, so there is a growing demand for robust global UC that allow corporate telephony to move securely to the cloud."

Network infrastructure services (NIS) adoption has increased as customers invest in IT transformation initiatives, leading to a 5.4% yr/yr rise in NIS revenue for benchmarked vendors, according to TBR's 1Q16 Network Infrastructure Services Benchmark.

NIS segments grew in 1Q16 as customers shift focus to modern hardware and holistic business outcomes, it says.

Product-centric vendors maintained their lead over their services-centric counterparts, increasing their revenue contribution from 69.4% in 1Q15 to 70.4% in 1Q16.

The rise in open hardware and customer initiatives to gain holistic business outcomes from a single install are key reasons for this advantage.

However, as the market shifts to cloud-based models and vendor lock-in concerns increase, TBR believes services-led NIS vendors will, in the long term, challenge product-led vendors' footholds, causing a shift in market share in favour of services-led vendors.

TBR believes the competition between product- and services-led vendors will transform into co-opetition as market consolidation intensifies.

For example, in 1Q16 Dell and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) each announced deals to divest their respective professional services arms.

TBR believes Dell's and HPE's divestitures and the overall trend of market consolidation will bring about increased partner activity, as product-centric vendors such as Dell and HPE will require services-led vendor partnerships to provide customers with holistic business outcomes.

Consolidation is effectively leading to some vendors having a services specialty, creating co-opetition opportunities.

"NIS market consolidation is increasing, altering the competitive balance within the market," said TBR Senior Analyst Krista Macomber.

"As product-led vendors such as Dell and HPE vacate the professional NIS market in favour of maintenance and deployment services, and customers increasingly desire more complex infrastructure, co-opetition will be necessary to address customer demands and stimulate revenue growth."

According to TBR's 1Q16 Network Infrastructure Services Benchmark, all NIS segments experienced growth in the quarter.

Maintenance services remained the top performing segment, growing 7% year-to-year, and contributed 50% of overall NIS revenue for benchmarked vendors, making it the largest NIS revenue contributor.

TBR believes as customers transition more of their businesses to modernised solutions, NIS vendors will have an opportunity to increase share of wallet with add-on consulting and outsourcing services, as complex and customised deployments will require more vendor-customer collaboration, and increase professional services' share of NIS revenue.

The Global Technology Distribution Council (GTDC) has added ELKO Group and TIM AG as its newest members in the EMEA region, and appointed Westcon Group CEO Dolph Westerbos to the organisation's Executive Committee.

GTDC CEO Tim Curran said: "We recently hosted our most successful conference ever in Europe and feel very good about the additions of ELKO and TIM to our EMEA membership.

"Dolph's channel and industry knowledge will be of great value as we build on our commitment to supporting the success of our members and the distribution industry worldwide."

A growing number of contact centres are wising up to the financial and productivity benefits of home working, according to a new survey from the UK Contact Centre Forum.

Almost 60% of contact centre operators in the survey employ home workers/agents, and 69% say it creates happier and more productive employees, while 74% believe it enables them to schedule staff more flexibly to meet expected customer contact volumes, while giving employees a better work life balance.

"Interest in contact centre home working has never been higher, and our survey clearly shows why," said Trevor Butterworth, CEO of the UK Contact Centre Forum.

"Employers responding to our survey pointed to huge benefits in terms of cost savings, productivity and enhanced employee engagement, while the vast majority of home agents are clearly happy swapping the advantages of office working for the work-life-balance benefits of home working."

Sabio has moved into acquisition mode following a multi-million pound investment from Lyceum Capital along with £30m funding to help it double in size over the next three to five years. Lyceum's investment builds on Sabio's average 25.4% annual international sales growth for the last two years. Sabio's COO Andy Roberts becomes CEO while Lee Shorten continues as Chairman.

Sabio's team of founding directors - Paul Began, Adam Faulkner, Sebastian Henkes and Kenneth Hitchen - remain invested in the business and will support the company in its next phase of growth.

"Partnering with a growth investment specialist firm makes sense for Sabio at this stage in our development as it gives us access to both the funds and expertise we need to accelerate our growth strategy," commented Roberts.

"How organisations engage with their customers has never been more critical, and there's a clear international demand for a technology specialist such as Sabio that can help businesses to close the gap between digital and traditional customer contact channels.

"It's an opportunity where Sabio can add value for our customers and, with Lyceum's support, we're looking to double our business over the next three to five years and establish Sabio as the dominant player in our market."
?"Sabio is particularly well placed to help organisations, both in the UK and internationally, as they evolve to meet the changing demands of today's increasingly mobile and socially connected customers," added Simon Hitchcock, Partner at Lyceum Capital and leader of the firm's Sabio investment team.

"Sabio is at the heart of this transition and is the kind of high quality, fast growth business that will strengthen Lyceum Capital's portfolio of technology services businesses."