Comms Dealer

Cloud provider Calligo has opened a new office in London and appointed Mark Thomas as Director of On-Boarding Services to support and grow its client base across the country.

Julian Box, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer commented: "Our push into the UK is in recognition of the size and opportunity of the cloud market and is a natural next step given the strong client base we already enjoy in there."

Before joining Calligo Thomas was the Solutions Architect at Databarracks, responsible for the design and implementation of its Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Disaster-Recovery-as-a-Service offerings. He has also held leadership roles at VirtualizeIT and Virtustream.

Further hires in the UK will follow in the coming months as Calligo continues to grow its presence in the UK.

Imago ScanSource is launching a new video conferencing system, i-Kandy, bringing together two products from Polycom and Array Telepresence.

i-Kandy combines the Array Equal-i image processor and DX dual-headed camera with the Polycom Group 500 video, voice and collaboration system.

Imago ScanSource is offering its reseller channel the opportunity to become authorised partners for i-Kandy, which will enable them to take advantage of the available training programmes, secure improved margins and deliver installation services to customers. Imago ScanSource is also currently providing a 2-for-1 offer on i-Kandy for a limited period.

"We introduced Array to the UK market last year, and its ability to upgrade video conferencing endpoints to immersive telepresence at a fraction of the costs usually associated with high-end systems, has proven popular," said James Vickerage, Vice President for the UK and Ireland at Imago ScanSource.

"With the launch of i-Kandy, we are taking this a stage further and providing resellers with a ready-made solution that they can offer to their customers to transform their collaboration experiences."

Norbain is offering customers a new range of networking and communications solutions from supplier ZyXEL Communications.

Simon Moore, Buyer at Norbain, said: "This partnership with ZyXEL allows Norbain to offer a switch offering that can be tailored to meet the complex networking requirements often seen within the surveillance market."

Lee Marsden, President of Europe at ZyXEL, added: "With our technology and Norbain's knowledge and reach into the Surveillance space, we believe we can help support it with the ever growing migration to IP."

ICT resellers are uniquely placed to add energy provision to their service portfolio and take advantage of upfront revenue share deals advises Sean Dixon, who has joined Fidelity Energy as Partner Account Manager.

GB rower Dixon built the award winning sales team at Fidelity Group's ICT channel from 2014 after his Olympic ambition was side-tracked.

He oversaw a growth in revenue to £8 million and helped secure the Account Team of the Year Award for Fidelity at the Comms Dealer Sales Awards.

"Fidelity Energy is growing fast and has big plans, I wanted to be part of that," he said.

"I build strong relationships and enjoy the task of finding new partners. For me, the simplicity of Fidelity Energy's proposition makes the opportunity exciting. The company has invested heavily in creating a pricing and marketing support portal and the structuring of supplier revenue share means partners can be on boarded and earning money instantly."

By adding energy to their portfolios Dixon believes reseller partners should be able to leverage their established trusted relationships within their base with ease.

"It's an established business principle that the more products you sell to a customer the less likely they are to churn, this and the fact that the margin in a customer is the same for energy as it is telecoms, means the opportunity is huge," he added.

"The margins in energy deals can be unlocked upfront even on three and five year terms, this makes it compelling for resellers and of course the current energy prices make switching compelling for business customers who are currently poorly served," added Dixon.

Manchester-based Invosys is in expansion mode following a number of key account wins and product launches, creating new finance, development and customer service roles.

Simon Baybutt joins as Head of Finance and Billing, bringing 25 years accounting experience. His remit is to strengthen the company's internal auditing function and develop its analytics process.

Siraz Giga has been appointed Account Director to develop and grow Invosys' largest customer account. He boasts over 15 years experience in the telecoms industry, starting his career as an engineer at TalkTalk Business (formally Opal Telecom) before progressing to Inbound Sales Specialist with the firm.

Carl Bartlett also joins as Business Development Manager. Previous roles include stints at Orange and Vodafone.

He has sold mobile, IT services, fixed and hosted solutions and inbound solutions in both direct and indirect partner channels.

Meanwhile, Jason Bedward has joined as a Network Engineer and Sean Ives is on boarded as a Software Developer.

Ellie Hazelwood and Laura Berne join the sales support team, along with Luke Jennings as administrator.

Peter Crooks, founder of Invosys, said: "Our new additions to the team bring a wealth of expertise which will help us achieve our vision to become the global innovators in the communication software industry."

Simwood has accelerated its growth momentum with a series of staff promotions and high profile hires.

Information security specialist Cal Leeming (pictured) joins next month as Associate Director in charge of ongoing internal developments. Leeming was formerly one of the UK's most prolific hackers but over a decade later is now an expert adviser to business, Government and frequently the media.

He has trained the MoD and the NCA on security and regularly appears on TV as a reformed character.

Leeming also worked for a number of Silicon Valley companies in senior positions before joining Simwood.

Reaffirming its commitment to people development Simwood has promoted Ross McKillop to the role of Associate Director; Porting Manager Rachel Dowling becomes Senior Manager; Project Manager Adele Dowling is posted to the Operations Manager role; and Operations Desk Agent Chris Keller has been promoted to Level 2 Support Engineer based in Southampton.

Thomas Lauro joins Simwood as a Node.js developer. He moves from a Tokyo-based B2B e-commerce company to bolster the company's Mauritius operation.

"The vast majority of our team are technical, genuinely top of their game and largely invisible to customers," said Managing Director Simon Woodhead.

"We have 100 per cent retention of staff and a happy productive team. We're in an exciting place right now."

Simwood has also kicked off a recruitment campaign for additional staff in operations and marketing capacities.

Joe Murphy has joined Onecom as Head of Corporate Sales. He moves from Gamma and was formerly Adept Telecom's Sales and Marketing Director.

He said: "I've always admired Onecom and those that lead it. To be a part of Onecom's ambitious future is fantastic and I will bring all of my previous experience with me to this new and exciting role."

Hampshire-based Onecom has six regional offices with a 300-plus headcount. CEO Darren Ridge added: "Joe's experience, which combines a variety of skills with a number of successful telecommunications companies, will be a great asset to Onecom."

Onecom provides fixed line, mobile, unified communications and connectivity solutions.

Oak has achieved its fifth consecutive 100% score in the ISO 9001:2008 assessment.

Joint CEO Phil Reynolds commented: "This is all about differentiating ourselves from the crowd in terms of the quality of products and services that we offer.

"ISO provides customers with the assurance that we will deliver what they want, both now and in the future. That is 100% our commitment."

ISO 9001 is one of the most widely used and recognised voluntary Quality Management Standards (QMS) in the world, certifying more than one million businesses in 163 countries.

Reynolds added: "As we forge ahead with new product launches this year, ISO accreditation is a way of letting the world know, in big, bold letters, that we are putting the time and resources in, and are well placed to deliver the robust products that they are looking for."

EIT Digital, a pan-European investment group focused on research-based digital technologies in Europe, has announced it plans to inject another 1 billion euros into the European ICT industry over the coming years.

The company plans to focus on the four key areas: digital cities, digital industry, digital well-being and digital infrastructure.

EIT has already made a 1bn euros investment into digital innovation and entrepreneurship across Europe.

"The digital transformation is happening globally, and it is our role to ensure Europe is at the forefront so we have a competitive economy and an improved quality of life across our continent," said Willem Jonker, CEO at EIT Digital.

"For that, we need to mobilise our innovation strengths to create and transform industries, to develop our cities, and to refocus our healthcare system. In addition, we need to invest in people through education in digital skills to ensure we have a workforce ready to drive this digital transformation."

The company, which brings together over 130 European corporations, SMEs and start-ups, says it will make the future investments in the digital field for Europe in these key areas which are expected to lead to a three-times increase in the number of its products, services and technology transfers and will grow the EIT's portfolio to at least 5 billion euros, it says.

The company is based in Brussels and has its co-location centres located in Berlin, Eindhoven, London, Paris, Stockholm, Trento, Budapest and Madrid.

The European software sector is at a cross-roads in 2016, with new models emerging and a driving pressure from customers anxious for changes in their competitiveness.

The European Software and Solutions Summit 2016 ranged over issues as varied as cognitive computing, the emergence of ISVs from within enterprises to licensing and the timeframe for a successful software company buy-out.

The scene was set with a view of the trends in the software industry by Frost & Sullivan's Martin Hoffter Heide.

Among the various trends examined was the increasing monetisation of personal data on the part of consumers, and the building of micro-income streams of businesses. He highlighted the impact of technology-driven change in Europe, including the loss of mid-income jobs in Europe from automation.

This affects national economies while driving big changes in education; systems are continually applied for further cost reduction, he says, which drives further need for IT-based solutions.

The power of IT used for data analysis was a point well-made by IBM Watson's EMEA head, Paul Chong, with many examples of its transforming nature and the scale of resources invested in it. The use of the term cognitive computing was picked up and he explained that the AI (Artificial Intelligence) term was still associated with robots, with negative connotations. The power of Watson he said is available for ISVs to explore for themselves, at no cost.

Brussels-based Paul MacDonnell, from think-tank The Centre for Data Innovation is a close watcher of how the EU is moving towards data compliance and he was able to position how Europe, while being well placed in terms of skills and having succeeded in many technology areas, somehow fails to get coherence in terms of establishing standards.

This may be because of a sense of distrust of the US giants, but, he said, "Europe is not going to produce a Google or Facebook". It would do better to specialise in areas where it can make progress.

Every company is a software company, believes coMakeIT's CEO Steven ten Napel. He viewed this, not so much as adding competitors to the ISV sector, but from the way almost every business and organisation is driven by applications and IT processes that it has created and understands.

But the only way forward for ISVs of all types would be a wider ecosystem of supporters and partners. This is a cross-roads for the ISV, he explained, as they had to decide how to move forward in co-operation, in a market where skills would be scarce and the pace of development was picking up.

The well-attended breakouts covered the use of IoT and big data by ISVs, from presenters NaviSite and Panintelligence. ISVs were shown higher-margin alternatives to Oracle by Tmaxsoft's UK MD Carl Davies, with IBM's ISV Business leader Bob Suter talking about new tools for ISVs to help the SaaS conversion, which will become available in the next few days.

The final rousing keynote was given by M&A specialist Hampleton's senior director David Riemenschneider, who highlighted the IT sectors with the highest valuations, while also warning that it was sometimes less profitable to wait until a more mature business could be built; even early starters and start-ups can find a market, he advised and pointed to 2016 being a very successful year for activity.