Comms Dealer

Gamma has released more details around its planned launch of a business mobile service in the first half of 2016, using the core mobile network infrastructure that it acquired in 2014 and has since expanded.

This core contains all the functionality of a mobile network and is based on the latest Ericsson software build, including 4G, and is capable of supporting emerging technologies such as Voice over WiFi and VoLTE.

The new service gives channel partners the same levels of customer ownership and control they have over fixed-line services.

Gamma has selected Three to provide the primary radio access in the UK with separate roaming agreements also now in place.

The new service will include 4G as standard on all tariffs, as well as improved data monitoring with near real-time mediation and billing and more flexible data usage alerts.

With this new capability Gamma believes it is well placed to help the channel provide increasing converged fixed and mobile services to the UK business market.

Rob Davis, Head of Converged Products at Gamma, commented: "We have full control of the mobile service in addition to the control we already have over our fixed voice and data network.

"With the ability to work with multiple large carriers coupled with the flexibility of being a channel focused provider, we believe the new Gamma Mobile proposition gives our channel partners the best of both worlds.

"We recognise the importance of mobility in an increasingly converged world and see this new service as a core component and the foundation for Gamma's converged offering moving forward, enabling us to take our portfolio of voice, data and mobile solutions to the next level."

An annual survey of the top 500 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in Europe shows some major changes due to substantial growth in some areas, consolidation and changing market conditions.

After a slow rise of 5% in the previous year, it looks like ISV fortunes have turned around strongly in 2015, based on early figures.

The latest database report by IT Europa, ISVs in Europe - the top 500, shows a shake-up at the top of the list of individual companies, with three newcomers to the top ten.

There has also been a big jump in those reporting that they offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

In 2016, nearly 90% of ISVs said they offer SaaS, an increase of over 60% from 2014. But it is not all packages and cloud; bespoke software development is also on the rise with just under 60% offering it.

Companies from 35 European countries are featured within the report. The 10 largest geographic markets in terms of companies profiled are: UK (135 companies), France (76), Germany (63), Finland (20), Netherlands (17), Switzerland (17), Italy (15), Denmark (14) Sweden (13) and Spain (11). While the UK market experienced an average revenue increase of around 5%, the picture across Europe was patchy, with strong growth in some central and eastern parts, as well as Norway with double digit growth, but parts of Benelux actually saw reduced ISV sales.

Part of the ISV growth story comes from greater confidence in the vertical market sectors, especially in banking and finance. The study reveals that over half of all the firms cater for Bank/Finance/Insurance (54.8% of companies), followed by Public Sector (45.2%) and Retail (40.6%). Compared to 2014, in 2016 the number of ISVs catering to the Banking vertical market has increased by nearly 5%, among the highest indicators of changing verticals.

ISVs are still mainly providing their own software solutions, followed by providing services (this includes SaaS), then other software (which includes third party software) and finally a number are still involved in supplying hardware, where the proportion has actually risen. In the list of the most common type of third party software being sold, the names which came up most often were Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and SAP, primarily in the areas of ERP, BI and CRM.

In terms of the type of applications, data handling is on the rise, with two thirds of the ISVs working in areas of business intelligence and data management, followed by Mobility (55%) and ERP (47%). Some other notable horizontal markets which scored well with ISVs are Human Resources Management, Asset Management, Business Process Management and Automation. Among those finding less interest is Project Management.

"It is good to see the European software industry grasping the SaaS and Cloud opportunity, but there are several new challenges that will need to be embraced for the sector to continue driving IT growth in Europe," said Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa.

"The nature of those challenges and the role that software will play in addressing them will be a major subject for debate at the European Software & Solutions Summit 2016 (www.eusss.com ) which takes place in London in April."

The ISVs in Europe - the top 500 database report spans 35 countries. The company profiles include sales figures for each company in local currency and US dollars.

www.iteuropa.com

TFM Networks has relocated its midlands office to a larger space at the Advanced Technology Innovation Centre at Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park.

Stewart Yates, CEO of TFM Networks, said: "We look forward to working with the business development team at the University and, as we grow, engaging in mutually beneficial innovative activity."

Anna Leather, Enterprise Marketing Manager at Loughborough University, added: "Since opening the Advanced Technology Innovation Centre last year we have attracted a constant stream of technology-focused start-ups and are pleased to offer our flexible office and lab space facilities to help TFM grow and innovate in the fast-paced telecoms technology sector."

3CX has joined forces with Formula, the receptionist switchboard specialist and developer of Totalview.

With Totalview switchboard functionality receptionists can see the availability of the workforce and manage calls accordingly.

Nick Galea, 3CX CEO said: "One of the main points of 3CX being for Windows was to be able to integrate more closely with Windows applications and deliver productivity increases to companies.

"The integration of Formula's Totalview Workforce Management is a perfect example of this. And it's only the start, we expect to deliver more integration that will save companies money and allow them to work more efficiently."

Polycom's RealPresence Centro solution is certified and approved to operate with NATO's secure Restricted Network.

The 'centre of the room' solution serves as a collaboration focal point for command and control meetings, training and administrative sessions, international communication and operational mission collaboration.

"Critical to the success of our missions at NATO is directly impacted by the collaboration technology we use," said Gus Mommers, Branch head CMS, NCI Agency, NATO. "NATO relies on the advanced capabilities of Polycom's collaboration solutions to instantaneously bring our teams and nations together to carry out highly secure and highly critical missions."

Oracle has extended its Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) into the cloud and enabled lower entry points as part of a drive to pick up new partners, particularly new types of partners coming from cloud.

"Cloud is our top priority and we are aligning our resources to that strategic initiative," said Shawn Price, senior vice president, Cloud, Oracle.

New cloud designations aim to complement existing OPN program levels to provide tiers of recognition and progressive level benefits.

In addition, Oracle launched a new entry point into the OPN program called the Cloud Registered level whose members can resell Oracle Cloud Platform solutions, including Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solutions; they have access to the OPN Cloud Business Builder for sales, marketing and technical training and resources, as well as OPN branding.

Simon Hill, UK&I Alliances director, told IT Europa: "These are exciting times - from an Oracle perspective - the integrated cloud strategy puts us in a strong position against the likes of AWS and Azure etc."

Oracle initially saw cloud traction in enterprise,; now that it has an integrated stack, he says: "We are seeing partners talking to us about the Platform as a Service. They have lots of expertise and tools here, and they can see where their entry point is. A lot of technology partners are coming in as PaaS. The IaaS is interesting for hosting provider, MSPs etc."

Irish distributor Data Solutions is looking to triple its business to £60 million with a new office in the UK.

It is working with enterprise computing company Nutanix which also has its eye on this market.

Data Solutions specialises in data centres, security and unified communications. The company, which has achieved steady year-on-year growth over the past 25 years in the UK and Ireland, will hire 10 new positions in its Reading office by 2018 to coincide with the expansion.

It expects its UK operations to grow to the same size as its Irish business by then, targeting £30 million in revenues in Ireland in the same year.

To lead the UK expansion, the IT solutions distributor has appointed Sean Fane as UK managing director for the company.

He brings more than 20 years sales and business experience in the UK, including an executive role at IQ-Sys, the leading UK distributor in the virtualisation market.

Michael O'Hara, Group MD, Data Solutions, said: "We've achieved exponential growth for our vendors in the Irish market over the past few years through a strong, value-based business model and this approach in the UK market will deliver strong results.

"We look forward to enabling resellers to take advantage of the opportunities with this fast-growing technology and bolstering our UK presence with Nutanix."

ShoreTel's transformation journey as a global UC&C provider is increasingly cloud focused and its gaze has fallen on European expansion with the acquisition of contact centre provider Corvisa.

Mark Roberts, CMO at ShoreTel, said: "I see a modification in the way we are thinking about channels and how they make their money from the interaction and services. It is the same with unified communications. Our last quarter results showed this as we did well on revenue and beat the earnings forecasts.

"It is a cloudy world. If you are not moving your customer base, someone will do it for you. We spend a lot of time with partners and the programme is now structured to be neutral between cloud, hybrid and on premise. We have seen a lot of take-up there under the new points scheme because it is seen as balanced - it has normalised the behaviour in channel."

Cloud is in a strong growth phase - analysts talk of mid-20%. Driving that in EMEA is something recent for ShoreTel - in the last six months or so. "The North America cloud is growing great for us, and more than anything it is a question of keeping up with the market. Making sure the right bets are placed - which in a high growth era is not that easy."

All the case studies and collateral is geared to cloud as that is where the growth is, he adds.

"We are increasing the focus on the European market with the acquisition of Corvisa. We find that there is a lot of expertise in EMEA around contact centres, which perhaps does not seem to be there in the rest of the world.

"Corvisa gives us a stand-alone contact centre which doesn't need to run on ShoreTel switches - it can run on anybody's. That allows us to massively expand the opportunities and get a footprint in those larger deals that were previously denied. The Corvisa systems is highly customisable, with a SDK and APIs so that you can do authorisations etc. We also got SIP trunking."

In some ways, customers are ahead of channels in making the move to cloud, he suggested. "I've not seen a difference here between Europe and the US. I have seen conversation where the customer indicated they want to go cloud and the partner is still offering an on-premise solution. If you don't sell me a solution, I'll go elsewhere."

The two primary requirements for unified comms was compatibility with existing apps and integration - it is not total cost of ownership or ROI or price. "I think the channel partner that can have that conversation will do well in the long run. It means we can add a number of new partners who get cloud."

Network services provider Convergence Group has acquired Networks First, a privately-owned IT managed services and network support business.

The acquisition strengthens Convergence Group's ability to provide an end-to-end connectivity solution across both the LAN and WAN. Both Convergence Group and Networks First are headquartered in the West Midlands and serve the channel partner community.

The combined organisation now boasts a portfolio of managed network services, network security expertise, multi-vendor network support, engineering and project services for LAN and WAN.

Neal Harrison, Managing Director at Convergence Group, said: "Our partners and customers will benefit from more choice and have a simpler way of meeting all of their network connectivity needs in one place." 

Networks First MD Tom Mulvaney added: "This brings together two successful companies in non-competing but related sectors, with great people under entrepreneurial leadership.

"We're looking forward to working with our new colleagues to grow the combined business, build on our strengths and secure more opportunities for our partners and people."

Swyx closed the year with a year-on-year sales increase of 40% (33m euros revenue) and added 40 new international cloud partners.

Growth in international sales markets such as the UK, Netherlands, Northern Europe and other regions augmented Swyx's strong performance in Germany, its core market.

The UC firm also increased employee numbers across several fields including development, sales, support and project management.

During the financial year Swyx released various new clients and products including the Mac OS and iOS-client and the Swyx Connector for Skype for Business.

Dr Ralf Ebbinghaus, CEO at Swyx, stated: "In the current year we will continue on our sustainable growth path. Our UC solution will have an even greater impact on the market and continue to support SMEs on their way towards the digitalisation of all communication channels and future-proofed corporate communications."