Comms Dealer

The countdown to Gamma's launch of a 4G business mobile service has begun. Here, Rob Davis, Head of Converged Products, explains how the company is exploiting the core mobile network infrastructure that it acquired in 2014 and discusses the big opportunities for partners.

Ahead of Gamma's much anticipated business mobile launch the company has been busy briefing channel partners on its plans via a series of events leading up to its annual roadshow this month. "Our main aim is to help more channel partners to be successful selling Gamma Mobile than the 153 MVNO partners who are doing so today," explained Davis. "Gamma Mobile is critical to our long-term strategy to deliver converged fixed and mobile services to businesses, and we believe we are the only provider in the UK that has this capability exclusively for business use and designed to give our channel partners an edge in this market."

Gamma Mobile has been an important part of Gamma's telecoms services since 2007 but the acquisition in 2014 of a complete mobile core network has taken things to a new level, giving Gamma a full MVNO capability and total control over all calls, texts and data from mobiles in exactly the same way Gamma controls the calls and data for its fixed services. The acquisition and integration of the new mobile core is a multi-million pound ongoing investment but Gamma's values remain the same.

"What has stayed constant since 2007 has been the focus on giving channel partners full ownership and control over the mobile contract with the end user, service wrap, pricing and profit they want to make," commented Davis. "This means our channel partners can provide a better service to their customers and, unlike the typical channel-based mobile dealer offerings from the big mobile operators, channel partners get from Gamma the full value of the mobile contract as a business asset."

In the first release of the new mobile service Gamma will include voicemail with options for separate messages inside office hours and outside office hours as well as much longer storage of messages. "We believe we are the first to offer a dedicated business mobile service in this way and we have plans to provide many more business-specific features in the future," added Davis. "Our channel partners will also see similar portals, billing feeds and support tools to their existing ones but with the advantage of a better service for their end users with new features like 4G and business-class voicemail built-in as standard."

Gamma provides a range of both bundles and pay-as-you-use options so partners can either take pre-built bundles or build their own. "This gives our partners the full flexibility to deliver what their business customers want rather than being tied into what the large mobile operators want to force business customers to take," added Davis. "We aim to keep our wholesale pricing as low as possible for channel partners and allow them to generate the healthy margins they need from mobile and provide the quality service wrap that businesses expect.

"We have worked hard to make the portal, billing and knowledge base tools that partners use to manage and control the new service almost the same as the current service, so our partners will find it easy to use. However, there has been an extensive project behind this to integrate the new core with Gamma's existing fixed network core. This has involved more than 44 staff on the project over an 18 month period and required new agreements to be put into place with more than 25 different suppliers.

"The biggest challenge has been getting all of this core network and systems development work done without impacting the simple and easy-to-use way we allow our partners to manage and control the Gamma Mobile service."

According to Davis there is a significant build up of demand for what Gamma can offer the market as a full MVNO. "We intend to provide a wide range of enhancements to the service and are currently talking to partners about what they would value most to ensure we can continue giving them an edge in the market," he added.

Davis believes that Gamma has also gained an edge because of the current dynamics of the mobile market in terms of M&A. "There is much change planned with many large mergers and acquisitions," he explained. "This creates a great opportunity for us and our channel partners to focus on the important task of delivering great products and services for UK businesses while the larger operators' attention is consumed with internally-facing merger and integration activities that take many years to get right."

Gamma's ability to knit together its fixed and mobile technologies combined with its flexibility and focus will provide a springboard for partners wanting to leapfrog their competitors, says Davis. "Our size and agility means that from 'flash to bang' we can bring products to market more quickly than other network providers," he said. "And our relationships with our partners, who are closet to their customers, provide us with great feedback on what the market requires enabling us to produce innovative and relevant products."•

A cloud telephony reseller's greatest ally is the intransigence of their cloud-averse counterparts, according to NFON UK Managing Director Rami Houbby. Here, he issues a wake up call to diehard traditionalists who are 'sleepwalking' through an unprecedented industry transition.

A sign of the times is the level to which cloud telephony proponents have turned up the volume of their calls for comms and IT resellers to stop in their traditional tracks and take stock of what is happening around them. Another is the growing strength of newcomers such as NFON UK which have quickly flourished in what is still a fledgling but burgeoning market. The company has blossomed under the leadership of Houbby for the simple reason that his proposition and channel strategy works, and he urges non-cloud players to take on-board his clear message.

"This decade's defining challenge for resellers is the imperative for them to examine their own business models, their cloud and virtualisation skills, their portfolio of vendor suppliers, and the way they train and remunerate sales staff," stated Houbby. "There is a big shift towards the subscription economy but many in our industry are sleepwalking through this transition. They must understand the challenges they face and the opportunities at hand. My advice is to grasp that nettle now on their own terms."

The most significant aspect of NFON UK's growth has been the expansion of its partner base which is reflected in the firm's overall performance since its UK operations began in 2013. "We've always been 100 per cent committed to the channel," commented Houbby. "Our partner growth exceeded 160 per cent last year and our customer base grew by over 300 per cent. We have also increased our team threefold and moved into a larger office. NFON UK has been geared for high growth since day one and we don't intend to take our foot off the gas."

Last year also saw NFON UK expand into new markets such as Government, large enterprise and white label telecoms providers with successful signings of its first large scale distributor, wholesaler and white label partners.

"There is a window of opportunity for resellers to take advantage of cloud telephony," said Houbby. "Foresighted VARs and SIs have spotted that the wind has changed in terms of IT and comms consumption. Business people want 'as-a-service' on-demand IT, and they'd rather put technology spend on the P&L account than have truckloads of capital assets loitering around on the balance sheet. Most of all, they don't want to be made a fool of by a static one, three or five year contract for a technology need that is evolving so quickly."

A key component of NFON UK's channel strategy is its 30-day contract which has engendered long-term partner and end user loyalty. Since introducing this in September 2013, NFON UK has not lost a single partner or end user customer. But its biggest opportunity is to capitalise on the seismic market shift around IT consumption. "The supply chain simply has to keep up with the way demand is going," explained Houbby. "It's interesting to look at our partner base and see a near 50/50 split between those traditional comms resellers whose evolution we are supporting, and those other partners who seem far less encumbered by the brave new world of cloud but perhaps don't have the experience with telephony."

Aside from the broad market evolution toward cloud-based IT infrastructures and new consumer-like IT consumption models - and the knock-on effect this has on the whole IT channel and supply chain - other factors influencing NFON UK's outlook include the market acceptance of UC which is driving greater demand for integrated communications channels and media.

"Enterprise customers trust cloud services and have an appetite for them," commented Houbby. "This reached a tipping point during the last 12 months. NFON and our partners find it increasingly easy to discuss cloud opportunities with business customers who have overcome cloud inertia."

According to Houbby, NFON offers a 'true' cloud telephony solution, flying the flag for data protection, reliability and certified sound quality. "It is thanks to this, as well as our 160-plus intelligent features, simplicity, cost-effectiveness and fundamental security features, that NFON has become a successful provider of cloud telephony solutions across 14 European countries," he added. "End user customers can use over 70 device models from different manufacturers with their NFON Cloud Telephone System. These include IP and DECT phones, headsets, conference phones and fax gateways etc. They require no complex configuration, it's just connect and go. We also offer a series of separate add-ons and solutions to drive more value."

NFON was founded in 2007 in Munich and originally focused on the German region before quickly growing its international market share by successfully promoting its cloud telephony proposition across all enterprise sectors. "It's the market evolution that's capturing everyone's imagination," said Houbby.

He has witnessed a large number of newly formed post-cloud resellers and other players (such ISPs and IT-centric VARs) diversifying onto traditional comms territory. "Their lack of legacy seems refreshing to many end users who just want a simple, transparent way of procuring high quality and flexible IT services," added Houbby, who is appealing to a broad range of resellers by targeting specific activities and messages to each segment.
"The objective is to educate and turn these communities onto the opportunities of cloud telephony," explained Houbby. "For comms specialists, this means adding NFON to their portfolio first and foremost rather than supplant other non-cloud providers. For non-comms resellers, it's virgin territory. This is a rich vein of opportunity because the infrastructure-less, no-hassle install attributes of a cloud solution are biased towards resellers who don't have the technical or sales heritage of their comms-centric peers."

As well as the NFON Cloud Telephone Solution the company provides training, marketing collateral, sales and technical support. "Partners receive everything from the kit to the billing if required," said Houbby. "They don't even need to hold any handset stock, while self-install, infrastructure-less deployments means limited time on-site. Free lifelong updates to the platform keep end users and partners at the forefront of technology. It's crucial that we continue to grow our partner base in this methodical and sustainable fashion, always investing in partners rather than 'adding them to the pile'. Managing our growth with the right people and resources is critical to this objective."

Houbby noted that leading NFON UK from scratch to mover and shaker hasn't been plain sailing. At times it's involved the stresses and strains experienced by a true start-up. "Our journey is a big achievement because we've won hearts and minds," commented Houbby. "Usually, technology is all about whether the solution works and its cost, but cloud telephony is very different. People feel strongly about traditional communications versus today's technology, and they generally don't like to face the truth about our changing times." •

Strong carrier led counter fraud measures combined with a tightening up of standard anti-hacking processes, along with end user education and a channel rally in support of greater industry collaboration could bring a new dimension to clamping down on fraudsters. Big strides have been made in the war against phone hackers, but far more ground can be gained by advancing a policy of industry collaboration.

The Communications Fraud Control Association's latest worldwide comms industry survey estimates 2015 fraud losses to be $38.1 billion, down 18 per cent from 2013. But the issue remains a hot potato with much still to be achieved in the war against fraudsters. One industry body taking decisive action is ITSPA which is making big strides in tackling both the financial and reputational damage caused by telecoms fraud. "We engage with the industry, experts and law enforcement agencies to ensure that best practices for fraud prevention, reporting and recording are documented and distributed to interested parties," explained David Cargill, Chair of ITSPA's Operations Working Group.

Toll Fraud, where fraudsters use compromised IP PBXs or IP-phones to make calls to international destinations for the purpose of carrying voice calls for free is declining as international termination rates reduce. However, International Revenue Share Fraud (IRSF), where fraudsters call revenue share numbers they control in countries like Latvia, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Guinea etc is increasing exponentially. "Fraudsters are actively scanning the Internet for targets 24x7," added Cargill. "Once targets are identified they run through a sequence of automated steps that are fine tuned to the device they want to compromise. Typically, fraudsters will find an IP phone or IP PBX that is not secure and then harvest the SIP credentials (username, password and proxy address) to make calls on that account from an automated system abroad."

Losses by UK telcos to fraud are substantial, but most go unreported as businesses deal with the cost and consequences internally. "ITSPA is working to improve this through a joint initiative with Action Fraud to encourage service providers, resellers and customers to report fraud online using the ITSPA Action Fraud Reporting Instructions," said Cargill. "Resellers need to understand how these frauds occur and also check deployments using a scanner or penetration testing tool, either themselves or using a third party. Resellers should also ensure that calls cannot be connected to known IRSF numbers and be able to block access to new number ranges as they become known."

Remote zero touch phone provisioning enables service providers and resellers to roll out services rapidly, but the provisioning server is a high value target for fraudsters so extra care must be taken to ensure the service and the servers it's run on are secure and hardened, pointed out Cargill (ITSPA's Provisioning Best Practice Paper discusses the key elements of secure provisioning). "Organisations such as TUFF, Financial Fraud Action UK, Action Fraud, ITSPA and FCS all have initiatives in this area but we could do with a joint committee to represent all the various telco interests to the law enforcement and legislative communities," commented Cargill.

That said, the biggest security threat is a lack of proper engagement with the issue, according to Simon Woodhead (pictured above), Managing Director of Simwood, who is on a mission to turn apathy into action and is driving his agenda with what could be the strongest piece of fraud research to date. Simwood's VoIP Fraud Analysis 2016, published in January, is an update to a document first published two years earlier. Its findings have been presented in many forums, both public and private, and the 2016 document was much anticipated, containing deep insights into all aspects of toll fraud, and it serves as an information resource for the industry.

"Toll fraud, in particular dial through fraud, is one of the biggest risks facing businesses operating in the VoIP space or for end user organisations with IP-enabled PBXs," stated Woodhead. "The costs are only limited by effective controls and prompt action. And the death of, or severe damage to, an otherwise healthy business can happen in minutes. Diligent service providers realise that their success depends more on minimising actual risk than maximising theoretical margin. A good value high quality carrier can provide a comprehensive portfolio of features to avoid or contain the cost of toll fraud."

International revenue share fraud is the primary concern of Ben O'Leary, Revenue Assurance Manager, Gamma. "We rarely see voicemail dial through frauds which used to be abundant, but there is a greater variety of direct PBX hacks," he warned. "The simplest preventative steps are the most effective. Resellers need to understand these and be prepared to talk about fraud risk controls as part of the sales conversation.

"We have had great success with our automated monitoring and capping services on our IP products, reducing the average cost of a fraudulent incident by around 40 per cent over the past three years. No one can promise a watertight communications environment. However, experience shows that our customers are significantly better protected if they move away from a PBX solution to our hosted IP service where we have visibility of the entire environment."

Unless the authorities become more effective at catching the perpetrators of fraud, the only option is to ensure it becomes ever less profitable, believes O'Leary. "Communication within the industry about monitoring techniques and stopping the flow of funds will be important over the next five years," he said. "The EU regulatory roaming data cap is a useful model and addresses the same basic problem, cutting off unwanted traffic. To address fraud, a similar regulatory requirement could be that all networks must offer the ability to bar any services at an agreed industry-wide threshold on an opt-out basis."

Communicating the risks of fraud is the first step to reducing them. "A sales manager once said to me that no one wants to mention fraud when making a sale," added O'Leary. "If your competition focuses on all the positives and you leave the customer thinking about the negatives then you'll lose the deal. This approach does not serve the customer or the industry well. By partnering with the right network and understanding the basics resellers can turn fraud risk management into a sales strength."

Firstcom Europe reports no incidences of toll fraud this year but it usually sees on average one a month, and sometimes they occur more frequently. Toll fraud and network security continues to be a key area of concern for the company as a service provider, but despite the temporary lull Chris Harding, SIP Encrypt Product Specialist, does not envisage the problem going away any time soon. "Wherever there is an opportunity fraudsters will look for ways to profit from it," he said. "We primarily see PBX dial through carried out remotely by opportunistic hackers to premium rate numbers in order benefit from revenue generating fraud. Quite often the premium rate numbers are overseas."

Firstcom Europe provides anti toll fraud measures in the form of spend threshold dead stops and irregular activity alerts. "But we always caution customers and partners that fraud monitoring is not fraud prevention," stated Harding. "Thresholds and alerts will minimise losses and we also encourage partners to be vigilant with strong passwords across PSTN lines and voicemail systems, and to educate their customers about access rights and the importance of passwords.

"With hackers getting more and more adept at taking advantage of the latest technology and software to identify insecure systems and crack the password, we did an experiment of our own to get a scope of the problem. We used a well known piece of scanning software and found 160,000 open IP addresses on a randomly selected class A IP range. In order to provide a watertight comms environment partners could deploy an additional call encryption device to act as a firewall and effectively camouflage the IP address."

Harding welcomes collaboration in the channel to address fraud but he believes there is potential for conflict due to confusion over who along the supply chain bears the financial responsibility when toll fraud occurs. "As we are all ultimately on the same side, the industry could consider a policy whereby charges are not passed on in proven cases of toll fraud, meaning that the revenue stream never reaches the perpetrator," stated Harding.

"Obviously, this would work for domestic calls only as international carriers must be paid regardless of the fraud. A complete industry fix would be for the major carriers to not pay their international bill for fraudulent use. This would close down the services overnight. More often than not anti-fraud measures are aimed at the symptom rather than the cause. One way of getting rid of premium rate number scams would be to scrap revenue generating numbers altogether so there is no profit to be had."

The importance of vetting potential clients should not be underestimated, according to Tony Martino, Managing Director, Tollring. "Fraudulent clients can rack up costs quickly then 'disappear', so resellers need to proactively monitor behaviour and usage with the ability to turn off a service quickly," he stated. "Remaining agile and dynamic is imperative in this market. And as fraudsters become more sophisticated in their methods, so must fraud monitoring tools evolve."

Martino supports the argument for more collaboration and coordination among carriers to identify and stop fraudulent activity. "In other areas of the market such collaboration exists to strengthen protection against computer viruses and bad credit, for example," he stated.

Channel Telecom Managing Director Clifford Norton has also called for greater collaboration, but his personal crusade has so far fallen on deaf ears. "I have tried to get the industry to talk to each other," he commented. "I have even invited some of the larger companies to discuss this in an open forum. Out of the 20 asked two responded. I have reported it to all the official bodies and even provided proof of certain people and companies actually committing the fraud. The police are far too busy and the regulatory bodies have little or no power. The only real way to get the industry heard would be to get a good group of telecom companies together and lobby our concerns to the Government. This would of course need to be backed by various politicians."

Not surprisingly, toll fraud ranks as a top priority for Channel Telecom. "It is our partners and customers that have to pay the bill, and so do we when the customer refuses to pay or leaves us feeling we could have done better," added Norton. "Why, when a carrier sees or monitors such strange behaviour do they not cease the service themselves? And in the case of premium rate fraud who gets the payments and makes a profit from this?

"We bar all premium rate calls unless the customer agrees to having them not barred. We download CDRs from the carriers every four hours, so normally within five hours we will stop incidences of fraud as best we can. But the future should see carriers take more responsibility and not argue over which numbers are premium rate and which are not. They should also offer better barring options. The industry's general response to these issues is poor."•

Two hearts beat within the Cobweb Solutions breast. One is older, deeply experienced and entrenched in its core specialisms. The other is visionary, pioneering, ambitious, youthful, cutting edge and gunning for more growth in partnership with resellers. Setting the drumbeat and leading the charge is industry aficionado and Ex-Microsoft lead Michael Frisby who last month took hold of the reins as Managing Director. Here's his plan of action.

Few Christmas presents, no matter how jaw dropping, have the power to determine the course of a young person's future career. But the minute Frisby unwrapped a Commodore VIC-20 the writing was on the wall, indelibly so once his father's colleague, an IT manager, wrote a version of Breakout for him in two hours. "From that point I was hooked," stated Frisby. "Throughout my education I focused on pursuing a career in technology, studying IT at GCSE and A-Level and completing a degree in computing at Loughborough University."

Frisby built his programming skills initially in Pascal and Visual Basic, working for HP, PA Consulting and then moving to Microsoft in 1996. "My early projects included working on a Heathrow Terminal 5 capacity planning model at HP, and building the first version of Tesco.com in 1996 when I worked for Microsoft Consulting Services," he recalled.

Shortly afterwards, Microsoft created an Internet Customer Unit which Frisby joined, transitioning into a sales and business development role, working with early ISPs, dotcom content providers and hosters. He went on to work with fledging ASPs and among their number was Cobweb. He joined the firm in 2003 as Sales and Marketing Director but in 2008 returned to Microsoft to work with European operators on B2C and B2B services. Frisby remained on the board of Cobweb as a Non-Exec Director.

Between 2010 and 2015 Frisby played a blinder, building the Office 365 Syndication business from nothing to one million users. "This is my biggest career achievement to date," said Frisby. "It involved the recruitment of major western European operators including Telefonica, Vodafone, Telenor, TeliaSonera, KPN and Telecom Italia, and then building a great team that worked with those partners to develop their cloud services portfolios, go-to-market strategies and associated execution."

So when Frisby explains his forecast for Cobweb, envisaging thousands of channel partners reselling hundreds of different cloud services to their customers, it would be wise to take note. "We will get there by focusing on our core capabilities and expertise in delivering a range of both hosted and third party cloud services, along with supporting and building out our network of channel partners," he stated.

Immediately before rejoining Cobweb last month Frisby was responsible for Microsoft's SMB Managed Reseller channel across western Europe, driving the transition to selling cloud services. His efforts and considerable experience in these matters are now being leveraged to the full at Cobweb, a fast growing value added cloud aggregator with annual turnover in excess of £10 million, increasing around 20 per cent year-on-year. Significantly, over 94 per cent of Cobweb's turnover is contracted recurring revenue.

"We are building on our heritage as a long-term Microsoft partner alongside other cloud service vendors such as Symantec and Acronis," commented Frisby. "Our key proposition draws on Cobweb's near 20 years experience and capabilities in hosting and selling cloud services to enable any IT reseller to be a successful cloud solution provider."

Frisby's appointment seems to have opened a new front in cloud service provision, largely based on innovation, scale, experience and partnerships, and his current strategy is three pronged. "The first is to accelerate the recruitment and development of the partner channel," he emphasised. "Secondly, I will focus on expanding the portfolio of cloud services for delivery through the Cobweb marketplace. And we will enhance our existing go-to-market and customer lifecycle management services for partners. Over the last six years I've worked with partners both large and small, enabling them to build new cloud service sales capabilities. I am bringing this experience to Cobweb."

Cobweb's status as a 2-Tier Indirect CSP Partner and the largest independent Hosted Exchange provider in Europe was the magnet that pulled Frisby towards his new leadership role. He will undoubtedly labour valiantly to deliver on his ambitions, no matter how complex the task in hand. But the original premise behind Cobweb was simple - to enable businesses to take advantage of the Internet revolution in the traditional IT landscape. The company was founded in 1996 by Executive Chairman Paul Hannam and Julian Dyer, specialising in Internet connectivity and web hosting services.

The following year Cobweb launched a free B2B ISP service, partnering with the Federation of Small Businesses. In 1999 it developed a Hosted Exchange offering and created the Blue Yonder joint venture partnership with ntl:Telewest to provide hosted IT services to SMBs. Cobweb subsequently purchased control of the joint venture from Telewest in 2007, and passed the 100,000 Hosted Exchange user milestone in 2013.

"We have now expanded our user base in Hosted Exchange to more than 140,000 individual mailboxes spread across over 6,000 different businesses, making us by far the biggest provider outside the US," commented Frisby. "The customer profile has also changed. There was a time when micro-businesses would mainly consume our services, but over the past few years businesses of all sizes have adopted Cobweb's portfolio.

"The shift from being a traditional Hosted Exchange provider towards holistic solutions has been a fundamental change in the company over the last two years. This has allowed Cobweb to be a more business focused advisor to our customers, looking at the bigger picture. This transformation means we can advise and implement a range of services to create solutions that meet business needs and in turn help support our customers' growth and aspirations through liberating technology."

This approach could precipitate the sort of revolution the market is crying out for, hopes Frisby. And his priority is to develop more industry specific solution bundles to make it easier for channel partners to provide a complete cloud-based solution. An area of immediate opportunity is around the Internet of Things (IoT) and leveraging cloud platforms such as Microsoft Azure with solutions to help organisations maximise efficiency and provide greater customer insights.

"Many people have heard of the IoT, Big Data, cloud analytics and machine learning, but they aren't sure how to take advantage of them for business success," said Frisby. "We want to build a portfolio of solutions from ISVs and solution providers that will enable any IT reseller to take a slice of the significant opportunity in these areas. Cobweb has always had a partnership approach. The main challenge and opportunity is to grow our network of channel partners within the UK and across Europe. All IT channel partners have existing relationships with many of the large traditional IT distributors. The opportunity for Cobweb is to present our value add cloud aggregator proposition and help them transition to a cloud-first model."

Over time, more and more IT services will be delivered from the cloud, and according to Frisby there is no compromise for resellers and SIs. "They must evolve from being a provider and implementer of these solutions to helping customers maximise the benefits they deliver," he commented. "Mobility and the cloud represent a big opportunity for organisations to change the way they operate by increasing efficiency and flexibility for employees and delivering better experiences for customers.

"Evergreen cloud services will mean the end of one-off upgrade projects. Resellers need to evolve their customer engagement, revenue and profit models to deliver ongoing value and services to end users. Those that make this transition and help customers to unlock the value of their IT investments will be the most successful."

Few companies purely see a gleaming landscape ahead, but Frisby is emblematic of Cobweb's approach towards a brightening outlook for workplace flexibility, underscored by his belief that 'work is something I do, not a place that I go'. "This is true for more organisations and driven by mobility, cloud services and the IoT," he said. "Our mission is to enable partners to help more customers take advantage of these trends. I don't believe in silver bullet solutions, but rather a continuing focus on doing the right things, in the right way, a little bit better every day. And we will be intense in our efforts for excellence in execution." •

Ericsson-LG has unequivocally re-established its credentials in the UK, made remarkable progress in regaining market share, continued to innovate its portfolio, beaten a path to the mid-market and beyond, and built a new project with the iPECS Cloud platform - and there is no lack in ambition and belief to become a top three UK vendor.

Occasionally in comms the stars align. Ericsson-LG is an innovative vendor with a globally recognised brand and Pragma a model modern distributor. Their pairing in 2012 was a response to Ericsson-LG's diminishing UK market share. Pragma, a start-up at the time with support from Ericsson-LG, had unleashed a new channel force, clearly evident during its annual Partner Conference staged last month at Whittlebury Hall with 140 delegates in attendance.

In the UK market Ericsson-LG's confidence has soared to a ten year high, and the Pragma 2015 scorecard report is just as encouraging, explained Managing Director Tim Brooks. He said Pragma's targets for last year were largely met. The distributor grew its SME business, increased its presence in the mid-market, maintained a policy of controlled distribution and improved support operations.

The fifth objective, the launch of iPECS Cloud, required more effort than first thought and work to simplify the interface and user portals put the brakes on planned progress. But this 'box' has now been emphatically ticked with the launch of a fully featured, multi-tenanted and reseller-centric hosted solution (more on this later in the article).

To recap, following a period of decline Ericsson-LG is gaining ground in UK territory. In what is said to be a flat or declining on-premise market the vendor grew top line sales last year by 30 per cent, with unit and application attachment sales achieving higher percentage growth, reaching 50 per cent in some cases. The numbers speak for themselves: During the last three years Pragma partners have delivered more than 7,500 iPECs systems and 85,000 handsets. "It feels like we're only just getting started," stated Brooks.

In MZA's 2014 UK PBX market report Ericsson-LG's share grew from one to four percent versus 2013. In the sub-100 user market its share increased from three to seven per cent, placing the company in the top five vendors in the UK. Considering the strong performance shown by Pragma and its channel partners last year their expectations for another stand-out advance in MZA's next report are high.

Globally, Ericsson-LG now features in Gartner's top ten vendor rankings having moved up a position on last year, but a closer look at the numbers reveals that Ericsson-LG was one of only four vendors that grew their business organically. "Our ongoing challenge is to change perceptions about Ericsson-LG," stated Brooks. "It's not simply a SME vendor, it provides solutions that scale into the mid-market and large enterprise."

To prove the point he cited a landmark deal won by Focus Group involving the first UK implementation of iPECS-CM, installed for a FTSE 100 company. Focus beat off competition from major vendors to bag the prize. The initial deployment supports 2,500 users in the organisation's head office. "We had to deliver proof of concept with multiple SIP trunk connections into a number of fixed and mobile service providers," explained Brooks. "It also required three different QSIG connections into different legacy platforms, and had to work seamlessly and uninterrupted for three months to show that we could deliver the solution."

Key objectives this year are to drive more growth in the on-premise business and establish iPECS Cloud as the 'hosted solution of choice'. "The cloud is an important component that completes our portfolio but we're confident the market will continue to demand on-premise solutions, so there is ongoing investment from Ericsson-LG in this area," stated Brooks.

Ericsson-LG is entrenched in its CPE strategy and there is no obstacle to investment and innovation in the on-premise portfolio despite the cloud-heavy assertions of industry analysts whose occupational hazard is reading too much into new technologies, but the truth will challenge their expectations. Even as the on-premise PBX era is declared near-dead, CPE is far more influential than predictions suggest. And when it comes to sizing up the UK's on-premise PBX market never take a fact from a cloud-mesmerised analyst.

Every industry spawns its hype and myth, but the idea of a collapsing on-premise PBX market is a flagrant dodge of the facts and the madness of our time, according to Ahed Alkhatib (pictured above), Head of Enterprise Solutions International Sales, Ericsson-LG, who is taking a stand to provoke a sane debate based on Ericsson-LG's sales figures. He said: "Any analyst you talk to says the PBX market is flat or in decline. They tell us not to expect growth. They are wrong. Our UK partners have executed and delivered growth in a market that every analyst tells us we shouldn't. Last year was the best performance for Ericsson-LG in the UK market in ten years. We are recovering our position, we have been here before, and we will accelerate further."

Alkhatib argues that rival vendors have made a great miscalculation in falling under the sway of cloud biased analysts, weakening their grip on traditional markets. "Other vendors have taken their eye off the premise-based solution business, but we are actively investing and planning to grow in this segment," he said. "Cloud is a priority, but it won't hit the penetration rates many analysts predict. History has shown us that technology transformation does not happen fast."

Far from keeping its nose in the trough of a diminishing market Ericsson-LG is feasting on what's really happening and realising the wider benefits of customer acquisition. "Growing from three to seven per cent doesn't tell the whole story about what our UK partners achieved last year," added Alkhatib. "With regard to unit sales the number of customers we touched was significantly more than 30 per cent. This is the future of our business, creating up-sell and expansion opportunities. There was a time when our ambition was to be a top five UK player, now we want third position.

"Last year we saw phenomenal growth, outstripping every industry benchmark. In terms of year-over-year percentage growth the UK team is outgunning every other market in the world where Ericsson-LG operates. Nobody is growing at 30 per cent in this market space. This year it's all about taking a leadership position and we have the capability to do that by working together."

Setting out an organic expansion agenda is one thing but there are potential growth areas that need to be worked on. "The growth engine in our business is driven by UC and application attachments and mobility integration," commented Alkhatib. "This is an area that needs attention. UC should not be an up-sell or bolt-on addition to the base value proposition which is telephony. UC has to be bundled as part of our go-to-market and we are working with Pragma to do this and simplify the proposition. We also need to incorporate other applications and enable resellers to sell the whole solution."

The vendor is also responding to a golden up-market opportunity by sticking to the principles of heritage business and scaling up its growth ambitions in more lucrative segments. "Vertical market success is differentiating our proposition and changing the DNA of our organisation as we move from a SME play and focus on big deals in verticals," said Alkhatib. "Our business is transforming and moving up the value chain. New solutions require a different engagement model, a much higher touch, a proof of concept, a demo, more frequent visits potentially, this is all part of the transformation. Investing in the capability to do consultancy and solution-based selling is paramount."

Alkhatib has rightly identified leadership ambition as a strength. Just as critical is the vendor's technology strategy which also ranks as a great empowerment. Investment areas include web conferencing and video conferencing, WebRTC, integration with the likes of Google and Microsoft (players that own the desktop and operating system) and mobile UC. "Our Ericsson heritage and wireless capabilities mean that mobility integration in the enterprise is a big thing for us, not just the integration, it's about the whole ecosystem around mobile," stated Alkhatib.

Among the new ranges of handsets, devices and clients launched at the conference one newcomer deserves particular mention. The 9071 Android-based application terminal has functionality that may, at first sight, prompt some resellers to scratch their heads. For example, Near Field Communication (NFC). "Think of the apps we could deliver with these interfaces on the terminal," added Alkhatib. "We're also working on more capabilities from an app perspective on this device, such as IoT."

Let's not be under any illusions here. Launching iPECS Cloud is a big deal. Ericsson-LG's and Pragma's joint response to feedback from partners is a complementary product to its premise-based solutions. Will Morey, Director and co-founder of Pragma, explained: "Cloud evangelists say that the PBX is dead and cloud is the only option. We all know that isn't true. But cloud is showing healthy growth and our partners expect an increasing proportion of their customer base to move to the cloud over the next few years. So we've made significant investments in taking iPECS-CM and turning the product into a fully virtualised feature rich and reseller friendly cloud platform.

"We needed to wrap infrastructure around the platform to make it rock solid, reliable and resilient. We own our own core and can absolutely lock it down to deliver a stable environment. We deployed best of breed technology from Ericsson-LG, Cisco, Juniper and HP servers, all sitting in a Telecity data centre in the heart of London Docklands with excellent connectivity and fully duplicated. The investment has been huge for Pragma and Ericsson-LG, and it's an absolute priority for us."

Ericsson-LG's on-premise and virtualised PBX is really one solution separated only by a delivery model. But deciding on cloud or on-premise shouldn't be a question of left or right. "Importantly, resellers can talk to customers about how iPECS can address their issues, improve customer satisfaction, operational efficiency and reduce costs," added Morey. "That needs to be the primary conversation, not 'do you want cloud?'."

Ericsson-LG has support hubs located around the world and Pragma has constant access these, enabling the distributor to provide 24/7 monitoring and offer this to resellers as a chargeable service. "In the mid-market there are more critical environments. We see 24/7 support as essential," added Morey.

On the subject of support, more office-based account handlers will work alongside business development managers, and Pragma will ramp up its training this year with a number of initiatives including educational videos. Pragma is also developing an iPECS certification programme that will launch globally with iPECS Sales Professional and iPECS Technical Professional certification fully recognised.

Pragma's Partner Conference this year confirmed what its partners have long known, that Ericsson-LG is a real contender in the global arena, it wields a growing influence on the UK battleground, and with Pragma's and Ericsson-LG's stars aligned with a stellar line up of channel partners anything is possible. Who would bet against Ericsson-LG achieving its ambition to become the third largest vendor in the UK?•

Samsung's ambition is to displace market rivals by de-cabling the future of on-premise telephony with the launch of a new all-in-one pure IP wireless telephone system.

The on-premise pure IP telephony market must evolve into an all-wireless world rather than continue down the route of cables, according to Samsung, which set the revolutionary ball rolling with the launch of SCM-Compact (an appliance-based version of the larger SCM-Express system) to 100-plus partners at the Belfry on February 24th. The craving of any competitive business is to identify and champion its difference from market rivals, so telephony vendors should beware of Samsung's latest innovations. Despite its common field of endeavour with the competition, the Korean vendor's wireless primacy is a vivid contrast to the industry standard.

It's hardly surprising. We are living through a time of widespread mobility and according to Samsung it is at the forefront of one of the most exciting periods in the history of communications, bringing to life significant opportunities for resellers. By its own definition, Samsung is a 'wireless communication platform provider' closely aligned to the projections of industry watchers such as IDC which calculates that 75 per cent of the western European workforce will be mobile by 2018.

The persuasive arguments of comms analysts who predict impending wireless domination are reflected in Samsung's rich blend of mobility based on the WE VoIP application. "The workforce is becoming more mobile and there is a requirement for business communications to follow that trend," commented Wilf Wood (pictured), Senior Product Manager at Samsung Enterprise Networks.

"There is growth in flexible working from remote locations, with more hot desks and more people flowing in and out of offices. Organisations must adapt to having a disparate workforce that uses mobile as the main source of communication. The SCM-Compact meets these requirements, allowing employees to work remotely while businesses retain control of call costs, call recordings and call analytics. The system also integrates with smartphones and offers seamless handover from Wi-Fi to GSM and from desktop phones to mobiles."

Samsung appears to have opened a new front in pure IP telephony for SMEs. In large part it lies in articulating the benefits of a wireless-first approach to this segment and unlocking the potential of a significant addressable market. There are 5.3 million businesses in the UK of which 90-plus per cent have less than 250 employees.

The SCM Compact sits comfortably in this space, scaling up from 16 to 512 extensions, its sweet spot being 16 to circa 300 extensions. This means Samsung resellers are able to approach 76 per cent of the UK market. Not bad for a 44m tall rack mounted unit. Its big brother, the SCM-Express, scales to 3,000 extensions, giving Samsung partners access to 95 per cent of the total addressable UK market with just two systems.

The systems are part of a continuum, belonging to the Samsung Communication Manager (SCM) family as a complement to OfficeServ and the vendor's hybrid range. OfficeServ's IP phones and applications all work with the new additions. And resellers will have little trouble installing the system using two bundled starter packs. Their implementation is straightforward and cost-effective for resellers, eased by a configuration wizard and based on a Wi-Fi network with wireless access points and wireless handsets. The outcome is a highly resilient voice and data network and a full UC solution with options for productivity applications, formal and informal contact centre applications, conferencing, messaging, presence, call analytics and call recording (and more).

The starter packs include the chassis, 16 user licences, rack mounted hardware and a power cable. That's it. The second starter pack includes two voicemail licences. Both form the foundation for further deployment options. The system is wrapped by an ecosystem that includes the WE VoIP mobility solution with enhancements, comprehensive security measures, gateway control, expansion modules that support high density analogue extensions, full iOS support and a broader selection of APIs encouraging more feature rich applications from third parties. The system caters for all of the traditional trunks but is natively designed for SIP trunking with support for multiple SIP trunk providers.

Samsung is right to champion wireless not cables. Of course many customer premises are sensitive to the intrusion of cabling, such as listed buildings. And a sensitivity to legacy cabling in many organisations has prevented them from pressing ahead with upgrade opportunities.

Now it's time to play the wireless trump card, again. "One of the main barriers to providing an IP system, especially at the small end of the SME market, is legacy cabling," commented Peter Law, Enterprise Networks Sales Manager. "Installing cabling to support a new IP system can be cost prohibitive, but we have overcome that objection by using wireless connectivity. Smaller companies are starting to connect their telephony through standalone wireless access points. This opens up a new market for dealers. Going wireless means faster installations, the efficient use of engineering time and more productivity."

Law singled out other markets that offer rich targets, highlighting that the new system's design is a crucial determinant of success in small formal contact centres, a segment that also illustrates the extent to which Samsung is prepared to back up its wireless vision with physical action in support of partners.

"There is an opportunity in formal contact centres with Samsung SCM-Compact," he added. "Each agent requires two SIP trunks, as well as trunks for queues. As an example, a 30 agent contact centre would need 60 SIP trunk licences and perhaps another ten for queues. The SCM-Compact has 128 SIP trunks built-in with no licences, representing an immediate cost saving, and there is no need for MGI licences. It's a specialist sale but we will help qualify, demonstrate, sell and close deals, and help install and maintain the systems when needed."

The audience reaction to Samsung's product launch displayed an immediate awareness of its potential, with training courses fully booked by 36 companies within minutes of opening for registration. More training dates will become available, and they come with a clear message that Samsung is also targeting system replacement opportunities with rivals squarely in its sights.•

PARTNER REACTION...
Resellers can deploy this pure IP solution with Samsung WLAN and negate the need to install costly structured cabling on site. This will become a single vendor office-in-a-box solution that will help resellers increase wallet share and promote end user lock-in.John Bird, Head of Systems and Support Services, Exertis Enterprise, UC

The new SCM-Compact should offer us a good platform to churn our legacy base, and Samsung's wireless-first approach could also provide a significant sales opportunity, enabling us to deliver a desktop telephony experience without the need for wired LAN infrastructure.
Philip Donigan, Sales Director, STL Communications

SCM-Compact offers low TOC, scalability, easy management, mobility and enhanced system resilience. Particularly impressive is its ability to connect desk phones as well as mobiles wirelessly and seamlessly, delivering an end-to-end pure IP solution.
Richard Carter, Group Sales and Business Development Director, Nimans

A round table debate hosted by Six Degrees Group in association with Comms Dealer tested the channel's ability to deliver single instance PBX virtualisation. Six Degrees argues that there is too much loose talk around the cloud and the value of hosted propositions cannot always be taken at face value unless clear lines of definition are established between SaaS-based hosted telephony and fully virtualised PBXs.

Talk of the channel's power to transform end user organisations with vanilla SaaS-based hosted telephony solutions is sheer industry vanity, according to Campbell Williams, Group Strategy and Marketing Director at Six Degrees Group, who says a 'lift and shift' approach to virtualising single instance PBXs in a cloud-based infrastructure environment is the real game changer and by far the biggest mid-market opportunity. But as long as resellers and SIs are unwilling to offer themselves to this end, the chances of them succeeding in the multi-tenant SaaS world are minimal, claims Williams, who has labelled the current state of the market as 'Third Generation Convergence'. "Voice and data convergence began with VoIP when there were low expectations for its success, but it took off," he explained. "Then we saw voice over IT as organisations moved their PBXs onto industry standard server platforms running alongside other applications. Now we are seeing demand for PBX and IP PBX instances to be moved into the cloud."

Therein lies an industry problem. Conversations about cloud-based telephony are generally interpreted as signifying an IP Centrex type environment, but that's only ever been ten per cent of the market, noted Williams, who believes that the industry needs a targeted response to this confusion in the language of hosted telephony. "In the past, comms resellers have mainly supplied on-premise systems, single instances that give customers their own slice of the world," he stated. "Now, customers are asking for their CPE to be virtualised in a cloud-based infrastructure environment because that's how they are running the rest of their IT.

"Is the channel prepared for customers who want to virtualise their PBX equipment on, for example, Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or a VMware private cloud? Does the industry have those skills and do sales people have those conversations? Larger players in the channel may have these capabilities, but most don't. It's important to differentiate the single instance virtualisation of PBXs from reselling someone else's hosted multi-tenant platform. That's never been mainstream and it's not where we see the IT market."

The best argument for resellers and SIs to stay ahead of the game is to formulate an authoritative solutions practice in partnership with IaaS partners such as Six Degrees Group which has taken a leadership role in the mid-market virtualisation space. The company works with industry heavyweights such as Softcat, Advanced 365 and Dell, and its objective is to further develop its partner engagement with a strong emphasis on the mid-market opportunity supported by a major funding boost to drive growth.

"We have a large ISV channel but want to work with a small number of additional channels that want to go on the cloud journey," added Williams. "They may be at an early stage and need a partner to provide a full stack of services, or they may have capabilities in-house but need data centres in which to build cloud solutions."

The impact of virtualisation is already strongly felt. Its spread is predictable and according to Ricky Nicol, CEO at Commsworld, the virtualisation of IT and voice is unstoppable. To think otherwise would be like trying to hold back a tsunami with a little finger. "We're seeing staggering growth in our network coming from IT support companies," he commented. "The critical aspect for an IT director is the stability of the umbilical cord that links them to the cloud. We've supplied 2,000-plus telephone systems and recently sold one with 10,000 phones on a virtualised network. Voice is critical, it has to work, and the umbilical cord is also critical. Companies are now driven by technology and cloud services. When customers buy a telephone system from us it will always be virtualised."

Perhaps the most significant aspect of virtualisation and the adoption of IaaS has been the speed with which end users are demanding it. Responding to this demand Azzurri built its own hosted platform to provide services to customers. "It supports 10,000 seats with 6,000 more in the pipeline over the next quarter," explained Rufus Grig, CTO at Azzurri. "We have a VMware platform with Mitel software and plan to introduce Skype for Business and Avaya IP Office. Because of our voice background there were many new tricks to learn in terms of VMware."

Alternative Networks has a long history of selling branded boxes but more recently moved to virtualisation, building its own platform and operating various data centres and a network to connect them. "We're still scratching the surface in terms of use cases for the technology and platforms we have," stated Justin Collins, Business Development Director at Alternative Networks. "Whenever I speak to customers they want to use our platform for something slightly different than when we conceived it."

The days of predictable market demand are over and the drive for virtualisation has left no time to stumble through technological evolution. Solar is another 'old world' PBX reseller that has grabbed the bull by the horns and is now undergoing a business transformation that has been prompted by customer push combined with leadership observations of the changing market. "It's time to take the PBXs we support on-premise and virtualise them as a private cloud offering," commented John Whitty, CEO at Solar. "Our smaller customers may move to a multi-tenant platform. I come from a managed service background and we're in the process of evolving Solar into a managed service provider. The question is whether we build our own infrastructure to host PBXs in the cloud, or whether there's no need for that investment and we focus on selling."

Strategies, knowledge and skills have to be constantly updated, but the resources available may not be enough to align with the evolving requirements of end users who understand how technology can change working practices. "IT departments are shrinking, meaning that organisations want to procure more IT as a service and the buyers have outcomes in mind," commented Williams. "They know how they want to manage their technology, and suppliers that cannot respond to this agile approach will be left behind. SIs that align their strategies with the needs of customers will be taken in the right direction. But if all they can talk about is on-premise and capex they are vulnerable to the inroads of rivals with the flexibility to assess where end users are on their journey and can handhold them towards the brave new world."

Collins first noted this trend towards end user pull-through with tablet computing and BYOD, along with the advent of more stakeholders in the buying process. "Now it's harder for a sales person to identify who they should be targeting," he added. "They may be in a meeting with someone who is notionally a decision maker, but in most companies there is a layer above them who are not technical but set the general direction of the company. In our experience, they can have strong opinions about the cloud, whether it should be used and to what extent. It's a challenge for people on the front line to know who is making the decisions."

The difficulty is a lack of any previous narrative. The industry really is blazing a trail and the go-getters are determined to press ahead with a new generation of customers and technology. Pat Botting, co-founder and Managing Director of Freedom Communications (established 27 years ago this month), for a long time operated as a traditional dealer selling PBXs but more recently invested in the data and UC environment. "We've moved to a consultative approach rather than a product sale," he stated. "Larger organisations are happy to invest in consultancy and proof of concept. Our revenues are moving away from product towards professional services. Customers want a safe pair of hands to lead them to the new world, and they pay for the expertise rather than worry about the cost of the product. The value customers gain from this consultation is the way forward."

A common theme of the round table debate was the vulnerability of many resellers and SIs to pressure from IT buyers who have done their homework, are driven by outcomes but need help to realise the change they desire. Buyers are more sophisticated, they use the Internet and peer groups to inform their buying decisions, and they can be over 70 per cent of the way through a traditional sales process before even engaging with a supplier. "Buying behaviour is based on research and reputation far more than the views of a sales person," noted Williams. "The industry doesn't fully understand digital buying behaviour. This will potentially put some resellers out of business if they are not aligned with their buyer's preferences."

Industry trends demand action, and any thinking person must know that the only response to these challenges is a well-equipped sales and engineering force. But standing across the path of action are skills shortages in areas such as UCaaS. "Our conversations with customers are not about products, we discuss business processes and how they need to look in the future," stated Steve Ellis, Managing Director at 365iT. "Technology is the enabler. We see organisations that in the past would have wanted an on-premise refresh now opting for opex. But we have a problem finding UC skills. We are now trying to get apprentices into the company."

The lack of UC skills in the industry, both sales and engineering, exposes the channel's fragility, and Six Degrees's campaign to bolster partners with know-how and full support is a responsibility that should be applauded. Mark Roach, Head of Channel at Six Degrees Group, explained his strategy. "We already have a channel team and are now formulating a new approach to expand our partnership activity with resellers and SIs in the mid-market, and developing our on-boarding process and partner engagement model. We conduct workshops with partners to better understand their plans and requirements, and we follow these up with a plan of education linked to how we tailor packages for partners. We blend our portfolio with theirs and understand how UCaaS sits in the overall strategy."

Six Degrees's network of channel support specialists play a crucial role in helping partners change business models based on well-directed strategies designed to help mid-market organisations, those with 200-500 seats upwards, overcome their problems. "These companies have legacy challenges, multiple applications, a complex environment, security concerns and compliance issues," explained Williams. "They want sales people who understand their business and the direction its leaders want to take. Sales consultants must leverage horizontal skills to build a technology environment that will keep the customer's business running, secure, and compliant with industry regulations where necessary - and do it for a price that is reasonable."

To this end Six Degrees Group has developed a thriving ISV channel. Its partners take applications, then do some development work around them and layer on infrastructure elements using Six Degrees' data centres and networks. "There may be a minimum of 20 applications in a medium sized enterprise, but we know some with 90-100 applications," said Williams. "Our partners don't talk to customers about infrastructure and plumbing, they want to sell 'application down'. By default they get the platform, the infrastructure, the network, the desktop, the devices etc. Their engagement with the end user is based on keeping their business running, understanding what keeps them up at night and providing virtualised solutions that make them sleep better."

What industry messages should be drawn from this round table discussion? Communications technology has rarely enjoyed greater status and customers are in thrall to the possibilities. So this is no environment in which to peddle spurious expertise. But to thrive in one of the most innovative sectors is fraught with challenges, and there is no place for patchy remedies to the industry obstacles discussed. And with virtualisation accelerating at great speed, there is no time to lose. "Does the channel have the skills to lift and shift?," asked Williams. "If you don't do it, someone else will."•

Industry hopes for swift uptake of Software Defined Network (SDN) are likely to be dashed unless a programme of end user education is established.

Research by Exponential-e has revealed that 86 per cent of businesses do not understand SDN while 95 per cent do not know what benefits it could bring to their enterprise.
 
"An agile and responsive network is central to driving competitive advantage," said Chris Christou, Director of Engineering at Exponential-e. "Providing a business with the ability to manage and control their network themselves enables them to support their business internally in their drive for increased revenues."
 
SDN effectively allows organisations to reconfigure network services on-demand. Enterprises can adapt the services that network providers deliver through a self-service interface.
 
"SDN increases efficiency and supports the flexibility demanded by fast moving organisations that are tasked with responding to unexpected outages and breaks in service," added Christou

"Using the database as a master A-Z then it's possible to map the optimum route to instantly reconfigure networks, reduce latency and meet peaks or troughs in demand.

"SDN effectively removes the impenetrable barrier between a customer and network provider, providing a more flexible and agile way to manage network configurations."

Avnet has sealed a pan-EMEA distribution agreement with Cumulus Networks.

Through this agreement, Avnet will offer Cumulus Networks' data centre network operating system software, Cumulus Linux, which can be integrated with hardware from multiple leading switch vendors.

Avnet is appointed distributor for Cumulus Linux in Austria, BeNeLux, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, UK and Ireland.

Dieter Lott, vice president of business development at Avnet Technology Solutions, EMEA, said: "Cumulus Networks is a good fit with VMware's NSX offering for network virtualisation and is complementary to our Red Hat open source portfolio."

Gamma has pledged £2,000 in support of The Technology Group's charity effort for Leeds Mencap.

Directors David and Jonathan Marsden will trek 100km across the Sahara Desert having already donated £50,000 worth of telephony and Internet solutions to help the centre.

Jonathan Marsden said: "I am impressed with the support Gamma has shown to us, not only in our day to day business activities, but now on a more personal level. This is a great example of what can be achieved when partners work together effectively."

Leeds Mencap is an independent charity that was created 62 years ago to help local people with learning disabilities.

The funds Gamma donated by Gamma will help to complete a specialist activity room in the charity's new purpose-built centre, fitting the room with interactive learning boards.

To follow and donate to the campaign please visit www.ttgsahara.co.uk