Comms Dealer

Having stepped up its SAP-based management system to handle managed services distributor CMS has added Barracuda Networks to its line up.

Justin Griffiths, Group Director of Software Solutions at CMS Distribution, said: "We feel that Barracuda MSP offers a stable and scalable platform for our partners who are interested in breaking into the MSP market, and to our existing MSP partners wanting to expand their portfolio."

Sound planning and clear vision are the best guides to strategic action. In the case of US-based audio and visual manufacturer ClearOne, sound and vision also combine to represent an unprecedented advantage for all AV practitioners, according to CEO Zee Hakimoglu.

Visionary technology patents and dynamic leadership have imbued ClearOne with the culture and agility of a cloud-born start-up, making it a rare breed among the stable of businesses with a 30 year heritage. Unsurprisingly, the company has undergone a transformation and augmented its core specialisms in audio with an enviable collection of software-based AV solutions - a process led by Hakimoglu. She joined ClearOne 12 years ago and within six months of being appointed became CEO with a remit to transform what she said was a 'pony' into a dead cert thoroughbred runner. She wasted no time in leveraging her experience in communications which includes 20-plus years working in Silicon Valley across technology development, business development and general management.

"Communications has been at the heart of my experience across industries such as satellite and wireless communications, datacoms and fibre optics," she commented. "I brought the Silicon Valley mentality, drive, work ethic and innovative spirit to ClearOne, which was then a small but struggling audio conferencing company that was undergoing significant legal and financial challenges."

The strategy soon paid off and once outstanding issues were resolved ClearOne was relisted back on the NASDAQ. "I also introduced best practices to the company and recruited and retained strong management," she added. "We have a number of great technologists gained through acquisitions and others in Salt Lake that have been with the company for many years, some from inception. We all anticipated that audio and video would shift onto the network, so we moved to software-based appliances and cloud services. These were the drivers behind our acquisitions."

ClearOne began life as a designer, developer and seller of conferencing, collaboration, network streaming and signage solutions for voice and visual communications. The company has a global network of channel partners with UK distribution via RGB Communications, Nimans and Exertis. "Our products are used by thousands of organisations worldwide, from small enterprises to Fortune 500, as well as domestic and international governments and educational institutions," said Hakimoglu. "We've aggressively built on our intellectual property portfolio with new patents that span all product categories and technologies including audio, video and network streaming technology."

The latest new patents relate to ClearOne's beamforming microphone array for the Pro AV market, an adaptive steering technology (think of it as 'smart beam selection'). Hakimoglu claims that ClearOne remains the only company with a conferencing grade beamforming microphone array. "We've also received a few patents on our video network streaming technology, fundamentally related to streaming audio and video across IP networks, networked speakers and audio sources," she added. "The company was visionary in terms of using an IP network to stream audio and video and we benefitted from our early patent applications that came to fruition when the market was ready for the technology."

Last year proved to be a tipping point and signalled a new drive for growth based on video collaboration and AV streaming solutions. "We are building positive momentum during 2017," added Hakimoglu. "With the transition to our second generation CONVERGE Pro 2 audio platform gaining traction and our scalable audio, video collaboration and network media streaming products, our addressable market extends to additional workspaces and more businesses worldwide.

"We have finally reached the point where our investments in the new video centric product line-ups will begin to pay off. These are the right products at the right time, with the right features at the right price. We need to focus harder on the marketing of these solutions and the new direction for ClearOne which is complementary to our audio-centric business, and will initiate new marketing programmes and campaigns for our global channel network of dealers and distributors. We sell generally through a two-tier channel model, so we're going to work hard to raise awareness."

These rapid developments and the emergence of early patented technology into market reality have blasted the perception that ClearOne provides just audio solutions. "We fulfil far more end user needs then just audio," emphasised Hakimoglu. "ClearOne provides media collaboration products that allow users to seamlessly host meetings face-to-face, incorporating not only our audio conferencing offering but also integrating all of our professional audio solutions."

One example cited by Hakimoglu is ClearOne's Network Media Streaming portfolio which transports AV signals from location to location over a single cat 5 cable, using existing networks but retaining the same flexibility and scalability of its other solutions. "We will continue to leverage video conferencing, collaboration and network streaming technologies to enter new growth markets and focus on the SMB space with scaled, lower cost and less complex products and solutions," added Hakimoglu. "And we will capitalise on the growing adoption of IT channels and introduce more products to resellers. As we expand and strengthen our sales channels we will also consider acquisitions."

AV integrators are key to ClearOne's business model and according to Hakimoglu they have never been in a better position to steal a march on rivals if they share in the company's strategic advantage, she believes. "There are many start-ups and wannabes, and some large legacy players trying to figure out how to get into the software-based media conferencing and communications market," stated Hakimoglu. "They are challenged to re-tool and reinvent themselves, but adopting a new business model can be harder than changing technology.

"This is a classic business dilemma not easily solved and our biggest competitor is under such a threat. Therefore we have everything to gain and nothing to lose in offering software-based appliances and cloud services compared to some large legacy businesses selling high priced equipment and support services."

Organisations are confronted by a fast expanding attack surface that requires a more diverse set of protection methods and a strategy based on close analysis of internal and external risks, says David Emm, Principal Security Researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

The era of security complacency is over, and the starting point for any lock-down project should be an audit of corporate systems and a risk assessment to reveal where a business is susceptible to attack. Focus areas must include threat intelligence, monitoring of the corporate network, an effective incident response and appropriate technology. "MSPs need to be prepared to provide the protection their customers require," said Emm. "Whether or not offering this type of support will be a burden or opportunity depends on an MSP's IT resources, staff skills and ability to respond quickly to threats. If the MSP is lacking in any of these areas, the time to remedy them is now."

Why? Because the rise of cloud-based digital transformation has opened the door to danger in areas such as API credential exposure, adaptations to cloud infrastructure and most critically the downloading of sensitive customer data. Nor is that all. Even if an organisation considers its critical systems and devices protected and safe, it is difficult to defend against a trusted insider that chooses to undermine security, pointed out Emm. "The motivations of such people are hard to predict, ranging from a desire for financial gain to disaffection, coercion and simple carelessness," he added. "While insider-assisted attacks are uncommon, their impact can be devastating as they provide a direct route to the most valuable information."

Human behaviour all too often provides attackers with the means to compromise corporate security, noted Emm. "This can be unwitting or deliberate," he said. "The use of social engineering to trick staff into doing something that jeopardises corporate security typically forms the starting point for sophisticated targeted attacks and random, speculative infections. As well as people being the unwitting means by which a business is compromised there's also the danger of a deliberate insider threat. One way or another, people are an important element of corporate security. The key is to develop a corporate culture that embeds security, raise awareness of potential threats among staff and make employees guardians of the company's systems rather than potential weak points."

This is an area where resellers can make a significant difference by equipping businesses with the knowledge and tools to make security a priority. "They can do this by offering solutions that address the issues of employee vulnerability to malicious emails by providing automated, Internet-based security awareness to combat social engineering, phishing and ransomware," explained Emm. "Educational initiatives should be cost-effective, continually updated, easy-to-use, and require a relatively short amount of employee time while being suited to organisations of all sizes."

Emm urges organisations to approach security as a process that encompasses threat prediction, prevention, detection, response and investigation. A multi-layered security solution is a key component of this, but it is not enough on its own. It needs to be complemented by collaboration, education and shared intelligence. "Security breaches can take many forms which is why it is important to have robust procedures and technologies in place to safeguard a business," said Emm. "While security solutions significantly mitigate the risk of a successful attack there are other measures businesses can take to provide thorough protection. These include running fully updated software, performing regular security audits on their website code and penetration testing their infrastructure.

"It's crucial that businesses ensure that all passwords are protected using secure hashing and salting algorithms. The best way for organisations to combat cyber attacks is to put in place an effective cyber security strategy before the company becomes a target."

Failures in planning, implementation and monitoring are the biggest security threats to companies today, so resellers need to be in a position to offer comprehensive security portfolios that include endpoint protection and a number of specialised security solutions and services. "Advanced scalability, combined with support for all types of endpoints and platforms, ensures the solutions cope successfully with even the most challenging and dynamic network structures," commented Emm.

However, there are always risks associated with new technology, especially since we live in a connected world. "Today this includes much more than traditional computers," said Emm. "More and more businesses include smart devices. What makes them smart is that they are connected to the Internet and able to send and receive data. A proliferation of devices and objects collect and share huge amounts of data. This has the potential to create greater opportunities for vulnerabilities. Moreover, because these devices are connected to one another, if one device is compromised a hacker has the potential opportunity to connect to multiple other devices on the network."

According to Emm, the basic practice of using strong passwords, regularly checking for and installing software updates and implementing appropriate security software should be applied to every connected device on the network, including routers.

"Manufacturers of connected products and the security industry need to work together to ensure that strong protection and patch management is designed-in from the very start," commented Emm. "Once a product is on the market it is already too late. There's also a role for Governments in developing security standards for IoT devices. We've all come to expect that everyday objects come with certification marks indicating that they are physically safe. In future, this will have to extend to digital objects. There's no turning back the tide of IoT applications, but checking the security capabilities before deployment isn't a bad strategy. Especially as it is important to ensure that the advance of IoT isn't providing hackers and criminals with another entry point for attack."

If an organisation's network has been compromised it tends to focus the attention on measures required to prevent similar attacks in the future. Nevertheless, perception and reality don't always match. Data from the Kaspersky Lab 2016 Corporate IT Risks Survey shows a contrast between the top threats faced by businesses (targeted attacks, ransomware and employee carelessness) and what businesses perceive as the most difficult threats to manage (inappropriate sharing of data via mobile devices, data exposed through physical loss of hardware, inappropriate use of IT resources by employees, security of third-party cloud services, IoT threats and security issues associated with outsourcing of IT infrastructure).

"There's no question that regulatory requirements are also important, particularly where there are financial implications for non-compliance," commented Emm. "The hot topic right now is GDPR. There is a lot of discussion about the impact it will have on businesses. Many organisations are frantically preparing for the arrival of GDPR - not surprising given the maximum fine for a serious breach is four per cent of the previous year's annual global turnover or 20 million euros, whichever is higher.

"In light of this, organisations must put in place safeguarding practices to ensure they are compliant. Although this will have a financial impact on the company in the short-term, budgeting for this will help businesses avoid larger fines in the long run. On the other hand, it's important for businesses to realise that security and compliance aren't the same thing."•

Here, we talk to Gamma's Hosted Sales Specialist Sean Blackmore to explore how resellers can maximise the business opportunities during this year's peak buying time in the education sector.

Striking the right technology balance for schools and colleges, addressing three key concerns while demonstrating value are the keys to unlocking a market ripe with upgrade opportunities this year, believes Blackmore. "The main concerns for ICT buyers in schools and colleges are resilience, safety, and efficiency," he stated. "This sector is generally cost conscious so ICT solutions need to address these priority areas and hit the right price point. For schools and colleges, buying technology is less about solving problems and more about improvement, streamlining, being more efficient and safer. And resellers must make a proper assessment of these requirements."

Blackmore noted that schools and colleges are more receptive to the idea of investing in the right infrastructure, providing their three main priorities are met. "If this can be achieved at the right price then 2017 will be the year that educational establishments make the move from legacy systems and embrace new technology - so long as value is demonstrated," he added.

A big trend in schools is the rise of parent-teacher contact. Many schools offer parents the opportunity to have regular catch-ups with teachers to check on the progress of their children. By integrating a PC and CRM with a phone system a teacher is able to call parents via click-to-dial and log the topics of conversation in the CRM system. Call recording can also be used to record important parts of the conversation.

"The methods of contacting teachers are also expanding," added Blackmore. "For example, a teacher could be accessed via a soft phone application that supports chat. Or, should they not be at their desk phone, if a voicemail is left they can still pick it up providing the phone system supports voicemail to email. Alternatively, when the teacher leaves the classroom they can turn on mobile twinning, making them available on their mobile while on a school trip for example. These are just some examples of how schools are starting to embrace technology."

For resellers, the education sector also offers exciting upgrade opportunities for solutions such as a 'safety package' that can be sold as a bolt-on and act as a differentiator when compared to a reseller taking a one-size-fits-all approach. "Schools and colleges are placing a strong emphasis on practical applications, efficiency and productivity, and investing in technology helps them to advance this agenda," commented Blackmore. "In the past school administrators embraced technology to send emails to parents rather than give them printed letters to take home, meaning messages cannot be lost while saving on costs. The same is happening nowadays with telephony.

"Administration teams also see the benefit of an easy to use portal that enables them to make changes should there be an unexpected requirement. Having these conversations with end customers who accept the benefits, and not just make a decision on price, are the biggest education sector opportunities."

In terms of the size of the opportunity, academies stand out as having more budget to spend, sometimes up to 10 per cent more from receiving funds for support services that used to go to local councils. "This means that many have more capital available for investment in technology and we have seen them adopting Gamma's hosted phone system, Horizon," added Blackmore. "We are making Horizon a more vertical oriented product. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach we have developed a proposition for six verticals, one of them being education, and produced a range of white label marketing material to support our partners in positioning these solutions to the relevant verticals. We can only see this trend continuing."

The main challenges faced by resellers addressing the education sector are cost and striking the right balance between 'overkill versus not enough'. "An all-singing and all-dancing proposition might put resellers out of contention when speaking to a school," he explained. "However, other products may be more affordable but lack the required security or resilience that a school needs. Finding the right balance has always been a challenge for resellers.

"But for those resellers who get it right a shift in the mindset of buyers in schools and colleges will ensure that this market sector continues to grow and present opportunities. At one time technology was viewed as a cost with no real benefits to an educational institute, now it is seen to improve efficiency and safety and deliver cost benefits."

Technology is reshaping the education sector and pushing the limits of learning and its delivery. Here's how one channel partnership is harnessing full fibre to remodel the future of education.

The education sector is undergoing a technological transformation and Exa Networks, CityFibre's primary education partner, is at the forefront of this digital transformation. "Education sector requirements have shifted over the last few years with schools increasingly needing higher speed connectivity to get the best out of online teaching resources," said Mark Cowgill (pictured above), Director and co-founder, Exa Networks. "Meanwhile, the emergence of academies has created a new dynamic in terms of purchasing with more opportunities for educators to seek out service arrangements that fit their particular needs."

As demand for bandwidth-intensive resources grows Cowgill expects more and more schools to introduce gigabit capacity services. "They're choosing connectivity options that offer the flexibility and capability to increase speed to match demands," he added. "Our DarkLight product is suitable for these schools, giving them the ability to increase their bandwidth within minutes at any time and for as long as needed. Schools also want secure connectivity at all times, and they're often looking for high upload speeds to make it easier to use cloud back-up services."

Andy Nash (pictured left), Head of Public Sector at CityFibre, noted that the alternative provider has been supplying dark fibre connectivity via its partners to a growing number of universities over the past year. "Demand is driven by the need for higher bandwidth of course, but it's additional benefits such as multiple fibres and full control over scalability for the future that really influence the decision making process," he explained. "We're also seeing more local authorities choosing to include schools in their procurements irrespective of the academisation programme."

Investing in dark fibre infrastructure to serve schools as well as other public sites maximises the benefits of a full fibre network investment. It also leaves schools free to focus their IT budgets on other priorities and serves to improve education across the whole region. That said, many schools are concerned with budgeting and planned cuts, which means that buying new technology isn't necessarily as much of a priority as it has been in recent years, noted Cowgill.

"Many of those wanting to introduce new technology are therefore looking for cost cutting solutions," he commented. "That could mean reducing time spent on things that could be handled quicker by technology. Or, increasingly, reducing what they're paying for various services."

ICT buyers in education face ongoing cost versus bandwidth challenges due to the relentless rise of curriculum dependencies on Internet and IT use, and a constant pressure on available budgets. This is prompting them to take a much longer-term view of ICT investment, one that will derive savings over a lifetime and make the entire school or college ecosystem more efficient.

"That's exactly what full fibre solutions can deliver," stated Nash. "By providing easy and affordable access to dark fibre CityFibre gives partners the choice and control they need to build and deploy services that are tailored to meet the needs of technologically demanding Higher and Further Education establishments, and more budget challenged primary and secondary schools. And of course, as CityFibre continues to accelerate its UK Gigabit City build, so the opportunity for digital transformation deepens right across the education and public sector as well as for businesses in those same regions."

Fibre services are more important to schools now than ever - and this will only increase, believes Cowgill. "Even before considering the high bandwidth requirements of BYOD and tablet schemes (reliant on wireless connectivity), there's an overwhelming amount of genuinely useful material for students online and we're encouraged by the number of schools that are actively working to get the best out of these resources," he added. "Over recent years connectivity has become significantly more powerful and less expensive, and we expect things to get even better with the increasing availability of dark fibre."

Future trends will also bring far more coding, applications development as well as distance and cloud-based learning, some of which will take place beyond a typical classroom environment. For these types of activities to be successful across multiple classes simultaneously, high capacity and scalable bandwidth will be increasingly essential, pointed out Nash. "The trend towards learning outside of the classroom using iPads and cloud will continue, leading to a greater dependency on ubiquity, resilience and performance of connectivity," he added.

"Wireless is a way to derive maximum use and flexibility from investments in full fibre and high capacity networks. But it also enables students to break free from the class room. This brings enrichment, flexibility and variety to learning for the benefit of all students and staff. Reliable wireless connectivity also opens the door to innovative new technologies and services that can help schools become safer, more efficient and far better managed."

A number of school districts are coming to the end of their connectivity contracts with local authorities over the coming months, so many schools will be looking to improve the services they're getting, prioritising higher speeds, increased reliability and better prices. "We also feel that there's going to be an increased focus on value added services such as content filtering, with schools looking to get the best possible offers from their providers," said Cowgill.

"Pure fibre connections, such as our DarkLight service, are a major area of opportunity for those looking to provide to schools. This technology enables the improved speeds that schools are looking for, while often allowing resellers to offer schools better pricing than other options - a real no lose situation in a lot of cases."

But getting a foothold in the education sector is a tough task for many resellers. "The main challenges generally relate to a reseller's ability to appear on key public sector framework agreements that universities and schools use to procure ICT services," said Nash. "This tends to restrict some of the smaller players as the costs and accreditations required to get a position on these frameworks can be expensive."

Cowgill also underlined the challenge faced by smaller players. "It's traditionally quite difficult for resellers to approach schools," he said. "Most schools in any given area see their contracts renew at the same time, so there's a short period of opportunity for those looking to sell to the education sector, particularly considering the relatively long contract periods involved. Beyond that, it's often difficult for schools to actually talk to an unbiased source about the advantages of the various services available to them, so sites like EduGeek are invaluable in this respect."

CityFibre has a powerful message for the education sector. "The CityFibre model is one of inward investment, the stimulation of competition into next generation gigabit capable networks and progressively making fibre solutions available to all," stated Nash. "That starts with the education sector. All of our schools should be able to benefit from the very best in connectivity and bandwidth speed. We should be equipping schools with the right infrastructure solution to support their needs.

"The JANET framework which procures dark fibre infrastructure has been successful in serving higher education requirements. We understand that this framework will be re-procured this year, potentially giving more companies the opportunity to bid for a secure position on the framework.

"We also encourage local government to procure on behalf of schools. By combining the civic estates of the local authority with the schools or higher education estate, substantial economies of scale and savings can be derived for the public sector. CityFibre has a number of examples where this shared platform proposition has been procured by local government, such as our Gigabit City projects in York, Kirklees and Edinburgh."

Optimising the sales operation in a fast growing channel business is no easy task, but Virtual1 Sales Director Jason King has approached the challenge with all his skills as a strategist and business transformer. Here, he also reveals the passions that drive his sales leadership.

When King got wind of Virtual1's plans for a national Software Defined Network roll out and CEO Tom O'Hagan's expansion strategy along with the advance of a job offer to lead the sales effort there was no looking back. "I resigned from my previous company to join the team as soon as possible," stated King. "I thrive in an environment of growth. With my experience of running successful sales teams I knew I could work with Virtual1 on its growth journey, motivating the team and reviewing its sales processes, helping the company to disrupt the marketplace with its national network roll out and portal enhancements."

The character of King's style of management quickly emerged with the introduction of a more disciplined sales structure that maps talent to opportunity. "Working with the wider Virtual1 team we have been able to align and build a clearly defined sales structure, analyse partner trends and identify opportunities to drive new markets," he added. "Remodelling the sales structure and processes has enabled the entire company to scale up quickly with an agile business model, facilitated by the high levels of automation being brought on line with the national network and SDN capability.

"Ultimately, the software defined network will make life easier for our partners. With the network being automated through 1Portal we're putting our partners in control, allowing them to make adds, moves and configuration changes themselves directly for their customers in real-time. This will enable the sales team to focus on driving incremental growth as the 'Business as usual' becomes automated."

As well as automation, collaboration with marketing alongside recognition and reward programmes for the sales staff have empowered the team to regularly over achieve, explained King. "I have enhanced the processes around governance and added a clear career path supported by core competencies for all team members," he stated. "I was impressed by their energy, passion and enthusiasm. This is something that runs throughout the company which has gained a Two Star accreditation in the Best Companies awards. Communication and understanding with every team member is vital. By understanding what makes each team member tick and ensuring each of them are clear on the part they play in the delivery of the wider strategy, you create an environment of continuous improvement."

King is no stranger to fast-growth environments as his previous experience shows. He joined Energis in 1996 when the company generated £40 million turnover. Six years later it was a near £1 billion business. "I enjoyed a similar situation at Colt and was fortunate enough to join Virgin Media Business at the outset," added King. "I've learned that it's best to have a mixture of characters in the sales team to deliver the best results. But all team members must have drive and ambition. Belief in the Virtual1 proposition, the vision and a willingness for personal growth and development are also key."

King's historical relationships with key carriers are a boon to Virtual1 as it seeks to form new partnerships at the upper level. And King made a point of emphasising the wholesale-only nature of Virtual1's proposition. "We never compete with our partners," he stated. "Our message is one of incremental growth and how we work with partners to drive more business and win through differentiation. For example, we deliver differentiation through our various Exchanges such as SIP Exchange, UC Exchange and Cloud Exchange. Our levels of automation and API capability overlaid with SDN removes 'brief case time' and errors through re-keying data, reducing the book-to-bill time frame. Also, our regional model gives us a local presence with national capability."

Virtual1 is attracting strong interest by converting business through speed of delivery with greater automation and APIs. "We will be able to drive costs down in markets where there has been a lack of competition as well as enhanced flexibility," said King. "We will be launching a new commercial structure to reward partners for increasing their volume with other multiple benefits through a partner programme featuring tiered pricing, opportunities for MDF and shared marketing resource to name a few. Watch this space to see how we develop our partner ecosystem." •

What's the channel's priority now? Not reacting passively to cyber attacks but doing everything possible to stop them happening, urges Steve Nice, Chief Security Technologist at Node4.

Let's not assume that it's the CEO's sole responsibility to ensure that castle walls are erected to protect against the ever present and growing threat of cyber attacks. We must acknowledge that there are degrees of responsibility - and the channel has a duty to educate end users and help build that wall, says Nice. "The channel needs to educate customers about the realities of this new security landscape," he said. "In a new open digital world data is no longer located purely in the data centre. The edge has pushed far into operational technology, cloud and mobile. In this environment organisations will need to define their acceptable level of risk and focus security resources where they are needed most."

Gartner predicts that by 2020, 60 per cent of enterprise information security budgets will be allocated for rapid detection and response approaches, up from below 30 per cent. This increase is a reflection of the transition towards cloud-based digital business which is having a significant impact on the security requirements for all organisations. And the opportunity for the channel is clear - to help customers keep pace with a rapidly evolving and increasingly complex threat landscape. But the way ahead is not so straightforward.

IT departments are under pressure to balance the need to protect their business with the requirement to keep it running. In this scenario, prioritising limited security staff and resources will become more important. Enter security as a service. "Customers are showing a preference for security products in an 'as-a-service' format," said Nice. "Node4's Managed Security Service offers channel partners a market ready security solution designed to help end users identify and prioritise threats so they can isolate risks and take preventative action as well as respond effectively to incidents when they occur."

Node4 has developed a Managed Security Service that addresses the security needs of the SME and mid-market sectors. Its service offers a Defence-in-Depth Security Strategy comprising all the components required to protect local, infrastructure and cloud resources with overlapping security tactics.

Nice also noted that mobile devices are emerging as the biggest threat as they become more powerful and ubiquitous. It is forecast that up to 25 per cent of corporate data traffic will flow directly from mobile devices to the cloud, bypassing enterprise security controls. "This means that organisations need to address cyber security risks in technologies and assets they don't necessarily own or control," added Nice. "This calls for a people-centric approach to security which gives each person more autonomy in how they access information and use devices."

By far the biggest internal threat is the human element. Not through malicious attacks, but through errors made by employees. "This will come as no surprise to any IT manager that has had to deal with the fallout from a lost laptop or company phone," said Nice. "The more devices we have, the higher the chance of this happening."

In an increasingly connected world, clicking the wrong website link, for example, or exposing company data on an unsecured area of the cloud is all too easy. Furthermore, there was a time when leaving sensitive printouts on a train or in a taxi was a bad enough risk. Today, all of a company's data might be stored on a single micro SD card and easily misplaced.

"The human error vector carries with it more risk than ever before," added Nice. "There is a huge opportunity for the channel to play a more consultative role with their customers, highlighting the reality of today's security environment and helping them to develop policies that mitigate risk for employees, be that in the workplace, a home office or on a train."

The key to good security is having the right system continuously monitoring the threat environment and managing security risks. Organisations will be looking to outsource a large part of this function to a managed security provider, simply because the cost of keeping abreast of the evolving landscape will be prohibitive to all but the largest organisations. But despite the cold cyber facts, adequate security budget decisions will only be made where there is a full understanding of the threats and risks at board level.

"CEOs will become more aware that a lack of effective cyber security measures will pose a real threat to their organisation," commented Nice. "Gartner has already predicted that by 2020, 60 per cent of digital business will suffer major service failures due to the inability of IT security teams to fully manage digital risks. More business leaders will be asking themselves if they can afford not to have the right levels of protection in place."

One of the channel's most important roles is to educate the end user, emphasised Nice. "We recently carried out research into the IT priorities of the mid-market in which 63 per cent of IT decision makers say that security is a top priority, but most of them have inadequate security in place," he commented. "And while 74 per cent have anti-virus protection, just over half have data encryption and only a third have intrusion detection. It is down to the channel to educate customers about the scale of the security threat in a cloud-based digital world."•

Philip Carse, Analyst at Megabuyte.com, reports on the recent performance of leading companies in the comms space during the last quarter.

This last quarter was a bad one for the UK telecoms big boys. BT further downgraded EBITDA guidance for fiscal 2017/18 (March). The £7.5-7.6bn EBITDA guidance compares with £7.654bn reported for 2016/17, and £7.9bn prior to the January profit warning - all due to the Italian accounting scandal and UK public sector and overseas corporate pressures. TalkTalk significantly undershot already reduced EBITDA guidance for 2016/17 (EBITDA rose 17% to £304m versus prior guidance of £320-360m), and Charles Dunstone marked his renewed involvement with a strategic shift towards growth over profitability that will impact EBITDA in the current year (guidance of £270-300m).

Weak ARPUs at Virgin Media led parent Liberty Global to downgrade EBITDA guidance, and following March's downwards revision of Project Lightning premises passed in 2016 due to misreporting, the company also said that the 2017 rollout will be below plan but refrained from publishing a new target. Vodafone UK continued to be a poor performer with fiscal 2016/17 EBITDA down 16% to €1,212m. The company's reasons included the well publicised billing system issue, increased competition in enterprise mobile and the loss of two fixed line contracts. Notably, TalkTalk Business and Virgin Media Business have been less impacted by trading issues than their consumer-focused sister companies.

In contrast to the bigger player woes, smaller company reporting (public and private) has again been dominated by decent numbers from several connectivity and network infrastructure players including Exponential-e, M24Seven, Ask4, Arqiva and CityFibre, as well as from some business comms providers including Gamma, Maintel, Adept, Charterhouse and Focus Group. In contrast, multi-utility reseller Telecom Plus reported below expectations numbers and guided for flat profits in the new financial year due to customer acquisition costs.

Period of interesting corporate activity
This last quarter saw an interesting range of corporate activity including substantial funding for Gigaclear (of £111m which will fund its fibre to the premise build for about 30 weeks) and contact centre player Starleaf (£31m). The quarter witnessed strategically or sizewise acquisitions for M24Seven/Metronet (Venus Communications, adding a London presence), Chess (Foursys, adding security) and Elite Telecom (Nexus, adding a quarter to EBITDA), maiden post-MBO acquisitions for Sabio (of Rapport) and Wavenet (of Swains and Talk Internet, together boosting revenues by a third), and a strategic review by Arqiva's private equity backers. With more of an IT focus, Claranet Group raised £90m in new equity and completed three acquisitions in France, Portugal and the UK, boosting revenues by 40% to £310m.

Share price
In share price terms, CityFibre (+38%) and Gamma (+23%) had a good last quarter which is more than can be said for BT (-13%). Over the last 12 months, Gamma has topped the charts with a 30% rise despite continued sales by a long term shareholder, followed by Telecom Plus (+23%) and Adept Telecom (+22). Major fallers included Redcentric (-54%) due to its accounting kerfuffle, BT (-29%) and TalkTalk (-17%).

Scorecard moves
Megabuyte has developed the Scorecard, which ranks company performance based on a mix of growth, margin, cash generation and FCF metrics. Student accommodation ISP Ask4 was a big gainer in the Scorecard this last quarter, jumping eight points to 82 (out of a possible 100, and versus a Megabuyte universe average of 59), into second place in the peer group. Other gainers off the back of 2016 results included Gamma, Maintel and LoopUp, while contact centre player Sabio was a notable faller due to cash flows associated with its MBO.

Notable additions to coverage include business comms provider Bistech and conferencing numbering provider Numeric Futures, which both enter the peer group Top 5, while G3 Comms is just outside the Top 10, but Network Telecom comes in at a lowly 38th place due to low OCF and FCF conversion.•

IS Research publishes www.megabuyte.com, a company analysis and intelligence service covering over 400 public and private UK technology companies.
philip.carse@megabuyte.com

Centile's renewed focus on the UK channel is playing into the hands of resellers who want to gain control of their own destiny by adopting a PaaS-led and mobile-first approach to market, according to Director General Bertrand Pourcelot.

Whatever blizzard of spin is applied to Brexit and 'economic uncertainty', the advance of Centile into the UK channel market shows no sign of hesitation. Its status here will be enhanced by newly appointed Business Development Director Justin Hamilton-Martin who is already reinforcing the certainty that underpins Pourcelot's UK ambitions with new channel partnerships. "With Justin's experience in the telecoms market, including CEO roles at service providers 8el and Ultracomms, plus many consulting projects, he is well placed to engage with the UK service provider community," stated Pourcelot. "Justin is already bringing new resellers on board to our PaaS platform and we are confident that 2017 is going to be a great year for Centile in the UK."

Centile's positioning as a viable alternative to BroadSoft is catching the eye of potential partners in the UK, according to Pourcelot, who has high hopes for the success of the firm's channel push. "The UK market needs providers who can differentiate, make additional margin and gain control of their customer experience," he added. "We're well known in other countries, but not here. This year we're focusing on the UK."
The UK currently accounts for 10 per cent of Centile's revenues. Overall, the company is growing between 15-20 per cent in annual revenue terms and adding four or five new employees per year, building on its current headcount of 40 mainly based in Sophia Antipolis in France, Europe's largest technology park. They support circa 100 service providers in 20 countries.

"While we do have some big service providers in our customer base we also work with many SMEs that realise the potential of services such as IP Centrex and FMC," said Pourcelot. "For example, we're seeing traditional PBX dealers move into cloud-based services. Platform-as-a-service is an opportunity for us to help market players who don't have the technical skills or bandwidth as part of their daily operations."

Platform for growth
Centile describes itself as a European developer of UC and fixed mobile convergence platforms for operators and integrators. The firm was established in 1998 when broadband connectivity was emerging as a market reality along with a number of small service providers. The idea behind Centile was to develop a telephony system that was easy for these providers to offer to their enterprise customers via broadband. Pourcelot joined the company as it was coming out of start-up mode and beginning to grow. His background is in software development and project management on international projects, including ten years working in the space industry.

"Developing software for the French army or image processing for meteorological satellites gave me a solid background in understanding what mission critical projects need," he said. "One of the common failings of many start-ups is that they struggle to have the rigorous processes needed to grow a company while keeping the agility and flexibility to move fast. I was brought on board to address those requirements based on my experience in challenging software development projects and delivering mission critical products."

The company was later acquired by 8x8 which funded much of the R&D and led sales while the Centile team focused on developing software. But when the dotcom bubble burst 8x8 sold many of its assets including Centile. "Even though the first few years of this century were a tough time in the industry we already had some IP Centrex customers, especially in the Nordics," said Pourcelot. "In 2008 additional investors were brought in, the whole market turned around and we've grown ever since."

Centile made an early transition from a traditional capex pricing model to an opex one. The company name even refers to its adopted revenue share pricing model (Percentile). Another milestone was the company's early focus on the mobile market and the launch of its mobile platform in 2010. "Our first customer was Elisa, Finland's biggest mobile operator which was already on our books," commented Pourcelot. "With more than 250,000 subscribers that was a big step forward with full convergence delivered via an opex pricing model. Other customers include VozTelecom in Spain, Bahnhof in Sweden, Pace Telecom in the UK and many more in France such as Bretagne Telecom, Adista and VoIP Telecom."

Fixed mobile convergence will be key for Centile in the UK, pointed out Pourcelot. "There are some initiatives but not as many as other countries such as the Nordics where the idea of mobile-first or even mobile-only is a reality," he explained. "Most of Elisa's customers only have mobile phones which they use for both their fixed and mobile numbers. France is also well ahead on FMC. We want to bring all that experience to the UK and see this as a market segment that has the potential to grow fast, particularly as the price gap between fixed and mobile minutes narrows."

As Centile presses ahead with its growth strategy and the development of new features it is also building a 'best of breed' partner ecosystem. Pourcelot added that the company is wedded to an API approach that will drive standardisation and openness across all kinds of technology markets. "Look at how Android caught up with its competitors with APIs that enabled an ecosystem to be built," he stated. "We believe in cloud-based integration and cloud APIs, which is much easier than on-premise integration.

"More widely, we've continued to add new features, new web portals and user mobile apps. We've also seen Centile IstraCloud which provides all the flexibility and cost-efficiency benefits of a multi-tenant platform really take off. Another focus area is our own mobile application on IoS and Android which is designed to offer a better user experience via local contacts and simple tools such as push notification. This is a white label app that we've already introduced in Finland and will be launching globally later this year."

The challenge and the opportunity in this market, says Pourcelot, is to demonstrate to enterprise customers a future proof solution with high end features. "However, our experience is that enterprises aren't always ready to pay for all those advantages so there needs to be flexibility," he added. "Having a good price point for some stand-out services, such as the PBX-type offerings, is important, with the ability to up-sell even more advanced features such as collaboration tools and video.

"We also believe that our 'bring your own lines and networks' approach will enable resellers to move quickly with us and protect most of the long-term relationships already in place. Many resellers already sell private wide area networks and have SIP trunking relationships. We are proposing that they include the Centile PaaS offering to supercharge their core service and enable them to become Virtual Network Operators to complete with the larger providers."

According to Pourcelot the comms industry must leave tradition behind otherwise it will be vulnerable to the rise of commoditisation and less able to compete against new entrants, GAFA and OTT players. "Resellers of products have a real opportunity to evolve into service providers, to drive new revenues and be more competitive," he said. "Mobile-first is one of the biggest movements in the industry. Some countries are already ahead, others less so. It's a huge opportunity, not just for vendors like us but also for resellers and ISPs."

Oak's founders James Emm and Phil Reynolds not only gave birth to one of the comms industry's greatest success stories they also fathered two boys who have followed in their footsteps and are themselves blazing the R&D trail and carving out a niche with Canada-based Oak Systems International.

Oak Innovation's (formerly Oak Telecom) founders James Emm and Phil Reynolds have for decades proved themselves to be a formidable partnership in the call management space, and during that time their various qualities have been woven into the fabric of their sons who also display complementary attributes that, says William Emm, are an evolution of their fathers' specific areas of expertise - James being the supreme salesman and Phil the master of all things technical. "We're the upgrades," William stated with a smile. "I am salesy and good at opening doors but also have technical skills, while Dave is technical with a flair for sales. There is more cross-over in the skill sets.

"That said, my dad has more energy than me when it comes to networking late into the night. He is one of the most honest, ethical people I know, inside and outside of work. I try to emulate that and it pays off. I didn't think I would be working with him when I was younger, but the opportunities at Oak kept coming and they were hard to ignore."

The move to Canada in 2010 was another unmissable opportunity. The decision was a reflection of the rising software market and the march of globalisation and subsequent requirement for a fresh perspective on where the market was heading. "When we moved to Canada we were at the beginning of the R&D process," stated Dave Reynolds. "We needed an international operation to allow us to tackle the unique challenges of worldwide software delivery that are not seen when your focus is on a single country. Whether it be regulatory, language or market differences, the ability to provide tailored products and the capacity to react quickly to changing market conditions underpins our reasoning for having a team in Toronto."

Oak Systems International is part owned by Oak Innovation therefore does not report back directly to the UK. It works as an independent sales operation in Canada, but on the development side both organisations work in tandem as one entity. The distance between the two operations is bridged by a coherent strategy and blending of resources, and 'space to think' always produces the best development outcome, noted William. "We can have strong debates when it comes to choosing where to put development efforts," he said. "We need to address the newer markets while satisfying the old guard. Being in Canada allows us to articulate new ideas without the immediate influence of our heritage which helps us in our cloud-first approach."

According to David, the move to the cloud is happening quicker in the North American market which plays directly into the hands of Oak's UK strategy, enabling it to take state of the art technology from the Canadian operation and deliver it in a format that can be consumed by UK customers. "Our team works exclusively on cloud-first products such as our soon to be released real-time reporting product," explained David. "The new product range is capable of ingesting data from a variety of sources such as PBX, CRM systems and IoT devices, which enables us to enrich telephony data and provide meaningful insights. This leads to actionable metrics which is what everyone needs. Historically, we provided telephony views and reports but ultimately they only tell part of the story. Customers need to better understand the context of the data we provide."

As well as the movement to the cloud, William also sees a migration towards companies such as Twilio that provide infrastructure as a service, enabling smaller vendors to offer technology that exceeds the capabilities of SMB PBX vendors at a fraction of the cost. "Moreover, they can move more quickly on the development side and offer customisations in a timely fashion," added William. "However, we are still seeing healthy revenues with on-premise which suggests that we are some years away from the market selling exclusively cloud products."

The strategic strength displayed by Oak Systems International mirrors the parent company's market advance in the 80s and 90s when the chemistry between James and Phil catalysed the organisation's growing sales and technology prowess. "My dad is good at assessing the available technologies and selecting the most productive ones to use," stated David. "I am very much the same in the current age, always looking at what is ahead so we are well positioned to be on the technology curve as opposed to behind it. My dad also has an exceptional ability to remain calm and plot an effective path through any challenge. Since coming to Canada I have applied this behaviour to all manner of tasks which has contributed to our growing success."

In comms industry talk, the tag 'next generation' is often over stated, but where it should apply most the term has until now been under played as the possibility of three generations of Oak family members appears entirely possible. "With the eldest grandchild reaching 18 in August you never know!" enthused first generation Oaker Phil Reynolds. "Let's not forget the other family siblings contributing massively to the continued success of Oak Innovation here in the UK. We have Laura and Chloe from the Emm lineage and Michael and Christianne from the Reynolds line, all focused on every aspect of sales and marketing. They are a formidable team."

Family run businesses are mostly traditional brick and mortar type organisations that rely on a long heritage to underpin future sales. But Oak is no ordinary family business. It's a high tech company run as a family business which Phil says is unique in a world driven by profit and a sector that's experiencing dramatic changes. "These are challenging times for all of us," he added. "But having the family alongside for the long haul has reaped rewards and will underpin Oak's continued success."•