Comms Dealer

An ice cream van has been commissioned by Nimans to whip up sales of WLAN products. Head of Category Sales Paul Burn helped to serve 250 free ice creams with TP-Link branded wafers to staff from the logoed vehicle.

"The day was a resounding success and the ice cream van proved a great focal point," he said. Even the sun came out despite the unpredictable Manchester weather. For WLAN, Nimans has it licked."

Pictured: Nimans' Ian Brindle, Head of Conferencing and Handset Sales, with Solutions Business Manager (Networking) Judith Addison.

Solar's in-house tech team has developed a Skype for Business solution that offers the call quality of enterprise grade telephony services.

Skype for Business has seen a significant uptake from within the business community but it can be limited in its enterprise grade telephony offering, according to CEO John Whitty.

"Skype for Business is a great tool but it comes up short with regards to its telephony features," he said.

"This has become a cause of frustration for many businesses which is why we developed Solar Skype Connect (SSC).

"SSC addresses a number of customer pain points by creating a scalable, cost-effective, next generation answer to the question of how to achieve optimum and feature rich telephony via a flexible model. It's something we're proud of."

Whitty also announced that SSC will be available to resellers of the Microsoft Office365 package.

"Delivered as either cloud, hybrid or on-premise, SSC allows businesses to migrate services towards the cloud gradually, in a controlled manner and at very low risk," said Whitty.

Openreach has kicked off a rebranding exercise that, says the firm, illustrates a new era of greater independence from the wider Group.

The development is part of BT's agreement with Ofcom under the Digital Communications Review and signals Openreach's revised governance and independent board with the removal of the 'BT' element from its logo, a move that 'reaffirms Openeach's commitment to treating all communications provider customers equally', stated the company.

The changes begin this month across the Openreach fleet and will be ongoing until approximately April 2021 on all vehicles, customer facing websites and apps, stationery, employee workwear and passcards, buildings and signs.

Openreach CEO Clive Selley said: "Removing the 'BT' element from the Openreach logo is a visual sign to reflect how we deal with everyone on equal terms.

"We want our brand to be consistent and recognisable so we're keeping the distinctive typeface and name, as our research suggests it will mean our engineers continue to be recognised when they knock on your customers' doors."

Microsoft has taken the wraps off its new partner strategy at this week's Microsoft Inspire event in the US.

Having confirmed last week a sales and marketing staff cull at the company, Microsoft has announced the One Commercial Partner strategy, ostensibly designed to help partners make more sales through the cloud and digital transformation markets.

Ron Huddleston, Microsoft CVP of One Commercial Partner, said: "We're bringing together partner-focused teams from across the company into one organisation.

"One Commercial Partner brings together the things that work so that every partner can benefit, regardless of size, business model or geography."

All Microsoft partner staff will have the responsibility to work with partners in one of three primary functions - building partner abilities, go-to-market and selling.

"Our focus on selling with partners is something I'm particularly passionate about," added Huddleston.

"Many partners have told us that bringing their solutions to market and connecting with customers is an area where they'd like better engagement and support from us."

As part of the commitment Microsoft is investing in two key programmes, Azure co-sell and Channel Managers.

With Azure co-sell, Microsoft sales reps are paid up to 10% of the partner's annual contract value when they co-sell qualified Azure-based partner solutions.

Channel Managers is a globally distributed force that will be '100% dedicated' to partners, helping them sell solutions built with Azure, Microsoft Office and Dynamics 365.

"Together these programmes represent a $250m investment to materially increase our partner dedicated personnel and add to our new Azure co-sell incentives," Huddleston said.

Microsoft also launched Microsoft 365, which combines Office 365, Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility + Security; and the Azure Stack offering which supports hybrid clouds and edge computing applications, by enabling Azure optimised hardware from the likes of Dell, EMC, HPE and Lenovo.  

Gradwell Communications CEO Simon Mewett and Chief Product & Marketing Officer Julien St John-Dennis have left the business following an MBO and a change of institutional investor.

The move sees the appointment of Nick Caw as CEO and Andrew Peters who becomes COO, both bringing strong experience in the IT and telecoms market.

The company says the new investment group is supportive of its focus on core strengths in calls, connectivity and cloud.

It was also confirmed that Gradwell will further develop its VoIP platform over the coming months and introduce 'positive changes' in customer support, billing and sales processes.

Founder Peter Gradwell remains with the company as CTO.

Splicecom has unveiled its new voice platform to reseller partners at a series of regional roadshows.

SelectVoice is a single platform voice solution developed from the ground up that can be deployed in the cloud, on-premise or any blend of the two, and is available through capital purchase or pay monthly terms - or a blend of the two.

"Splicecom's heritage is in developing IP PBXs, phones and business management systems," stated Robin Hayman, Director of Marketing & Product Management at Splicecom.

"We've been doing this since 2001. Our SelectVoice system is the latest step on this journey, providing a single platform solution for the smallest business to the largest enterprise."

"Even in the cloud, each customer enjoys their very own system. We don't force them to share it with other businesses as is the case with hosted.

"SelectVoice can run on our MAP and MAP Solo platforms, a reseller provided server, or the customer's existing virtual server for on-premise deployment.

"In the cloud Splicecom can provide micro, small, medium or large vMAP virtual servers, or again the reseller or customer can run it on their own cloud infrastructure."

Stuart Bell, Head of Sales for the UK & Ireland at Splicecom, added: "We have a simple per user licence model that remains the same, totally independent to how SelectVoice is deployed or paid for.

"One price for an outright purchase and one for pay monthly. This makes it easy to price at the point of sale for cloud, on premise or blended requirements. Basically, take the number of users and multiply by the licence price, plus the cost of the phones - it's really that simple."

GCI has become one of only four service providers in the UK to be awarded Gold partner status at Enghouse Interactive's partner event in London on 5th July.

GCI's elevation to Gold status is recognition of its ability to consult, design, deploy and support complex Contact Centre deployments at scale.
 
Gary Bennett, Channel Sales Director UK & Ireland at Enghouse, stated: "GCI's rapid rise from Silver to Gold stands out as being the fastest on our records.

"GCI's momentum in the Contact Centre space is impressive in itself, but coupled with the organisation's profile as a UK-provider of Skype for Business with a seat count exceeding 200,000 notably strengthens its differentiation.

"Beyond that, the fact that GCI has its own 'plug-in' PCI DSS capability for payment card security is another big plus point and it complements our software nicely."

BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions UK has appointed Mike Quinn (pictured) as the new Head of Technology Solutions (TS), taking over from Russ Pettifer.

Quinn previously held the position of Head of Risk at BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions UK and brings over 25 years of experience in finance, encompassing risk, sales, operations and IT project work.

Quinn will be overseeing a 115-strong team which provides dedicated finance solutions within four markets: office equipment, telecoms, IT and most recently healthcare.

The TS division currently has a network of 500 partners within these markets including manufacturers, distributors and independent resellers.

"The technology market has high growth potential," noted Quinn. "As businesses realise the sustainable and cost-effective benefits of financing hardware and software rather than outright purchase, IT equipment funding solutions are on the rise."

Jean-Michel Boyer, UK CEO, added: "The Finance Leasing Association (FLA) reported that IT financing in the UK reached a total of £2.2bn in 2015, up 38% from the previous year. Mike will help us to continue to capitalise on this opportunity."

Rugby League side Salford Red Devils has hauled itself back from the brink of relegation to enjoy one of its best ever Super League seasons; and according to Player Welfare Manager Garreth Carvell (pictured) the team's mental toughness was supported by two-way radio equipment from Storno that provided a communication link between coach Ian Watson and his dug out team.

The former Great Britain prop forward is also the club's Commercial Manager.

He said: "It's the one and two per cent throughout all aspects of the club that gives us a cumulative advantage, and two way radios are a vital part of our match day performance."

Gary Redshaw, Nimans' Radio Communications Products Manager, added: "Like Salford Red Devils, Storno is a brand steeped in history and we are delighted the radios have made such a positive impact."

Exclusive Group has acquired Silicon Valley-based cyber security VAD Fine Tec,va $230m valuevadded distributor in network security, data integrity and storage solutions.

The move increases Exclusive Group's influence in global cyber security market.    

"This will be a major step forward for our global proposition as we harness US-based skills, resources and relationships to support the execution of worldwide deals with large systems integrator partners and to advance our formula into the domestic market," said Olivier Breittmayer, CEO of Exclusive Group.  

"Fine Tec represents a great opportunity to integrate a culturally aligned business into our global family, and we look forward to working with Fine Tec CEO James Shen and his team to build on their success and accelerate growth throughout the region."

Shen added: "The Exclusive Group story is well known and we've admired it from afar, but now with the Group's global reach and resources it opens up many new opportunities for our partners."