Comms Dealer

A surprising uptick in PBX shipments during 2016 was not enough for distributor Nimans to reserve its judgement on the speed of hosted comms adoption.

"We are still seeing growth in PBX sales," stated Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales. "But 2015 was undoubtedly the year of change in terms of a shift towards hosted.

"For the best part of three decades we were known as a voice specialist and we have thousands of resellers who rely on us for their 'tin' technology. Nimans will never move away from that, but we also see resellers moving across to hosted."

The transition to hosted represents a key point in the histories of reseller businesses, and also Nimans.

"Just like our resellers we've had to ask some searching questions ourselves, so we understand the pain points many will have to go through. In many ways 2015 has been a grasp the nettle year."

Nimans has also witnessed a turning point in collaboration trends, noted Head of Conferencing Sales, Ian Brindle.

"The market is moving into a new area of activity where smarter and more advanced technologies are driving collaboration forward," he said.

"2016 will see collaboration trends strengthen and open up more sales opportunities or resellers."

James Vickerage has taken over from his father to lead Imago ScanSource UK&I as VP.

He joined Imago in 1997 and held senior sales and marketing roles before becoming Head of Northern EMEA in 2010.

"We are at an exciting point in our development having seen the emergence of a new business grow from the ScanSource acquisition a year ago," said Vickerage.

"This means that there will be many opportunities as well as key challenges ahead."

Imago ScanSource was formed out of the acquisition of Imago Group by ScanSource and operates as a separate business unit under the guidance of founder and former Imago MD, Ian Vickerage, who is now President of ScanSource's European Communications business.

Nimans has added two new dimensions to its GS-hosted voice proposition, providing resellers with more ways to maximise margin potential on their own terms, according to the company.

The distributor says resellers can access the service for a low per-month cost with a phone, three years service and bundled minutes all included. They can also choose to take up to 60% profit upfront using GS Hosted finance.

"A reseller can have their cake and eat it with contracted recurring revenue and up to 60% upfront margins," said Group Sales & Business Development Director Richard Carter.

GS-Hosted has three different pricing structure depending on the type of handsets chosen.

Carter added: "GS-hosted is all about providing resellers with maximum choice and profit potential."

Nimans has also added the GS-6400 Android-based video phone to its line up of GS-hosted handset solutions.

Cloud Telephones, the specialist VoIP and connectivity services provider, is predicting a surge of activity for its reseller partners around the year-end as PBX maintenance and support contracts come to an end and businesses look to switch to hosted voice services.

Most PBX contracts run for three or five years and the last time they were up for renewal, businesses were uncertain about whether or not they should commit to IP-based telephony.

But attitudes have changed and this time around, most companies will abandon the old systems and switch over to hosted voice services, says John Carter, Managing Director of Cloud Telephones.

"Earlier in the decade many business people were still wary of moving all their telephony over to IP, either because they could not get sufficient bandwidth at an affordable price, or they thought VoIP did not deliver high enough quality and reliability.

"Now that faster and more affordable broadband is widely available, and there is much greater confidence in hosted services, most of the businesses reaching the end of their PBX contracts are definitely going to make the switch to VoIP.

"While hosted VoIP solutions can be deployed quickly, any business that is looking to update its phone system in January will need to start thinking about it now. Resellers that want to make the most of the potential should start running local advertising and marketing campaigns without delay."

Selling hosted VoIP is profitable business, Carter notes, and often opens up a wider set of opportunities for resellers. "As well as the initial commissions, resellers will generate regular monthly, recurring income from all their VoIP sales, and once customers have embraced hosted voice they are often keen to go further and look at other online services, such as cloud backup and Office 365.

"We are already helping many resellers develop their subscription business and with almost every customer, VoIP is the starting-point."

Independent cloud hosting provider Cobweb Solutions has been recognised by Symantec as the Outstanding Cloud Partner of the Year at Symantec's annual EMEA partner conference, held in Madrid.

Ash Patel, Director of Business Transformation, said: "Ever increasing numbers of customers are experiencing the truth that not all clouds are equal, with Cobweb showing UK businesses where true value lies by liberating businesses from restrictive technology."

At the core of 'the Cobweb' is the Microsoft Office 365, Microsoft Azure and the rest of the Microsoft cloud solution provider services, plus a portfolio of additional vendor cloud services and the Cobweb London cloud for business applications requiring UK data residency.

Zayo is the latest connectivity provider to launch a point of presence (PoP) at LDeX Group's second carrier neutral data centre facility, LDeX2, in Trafford Park, Manchester.

Zayo delivers dark fibre, wavelengths, Ethernet and IP services to customers in the enterprise and wholesale sectors; and complements LDeX's existing list of Tier 1 carriers and ISPs, which are already on-net in the facility, offering customers that require high capacity bandwidth access to key connectivity locations via diverse dark fibre routes.

Rob Garbutt, LDeX Group's CEO, said: "This point of presence will enable LDeX2 as a carrier neutral data centre and allow its customers to connect to approximately 19,000 on-net locations across Zayo's global network.

"Attracting infrastructure providers such as Zayo to the facility aligns with our strategic plans to be the best-connected data centre operator in the UK.

"Zayo is already a provider of connectivity services for customers at our first London-based colocation facility so this is a logical extension of our relationship."

EE has been selected by the Home Office to provide Britain's Emergency Services with a national mobile network, giving 300,000 critical emergency workers access to 4G voice and data for the first time.

The Government's £1 billion Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) will ensure that Britain is a world leader in Emergency Services communications, and a 4G pioneer.

The EE 4G network will significantly improve the efficiency of the Emergency Services by giving them access to the type of data and applications that have benefitted private businesses in recent years. Some of the applications that the new network will enable for Britain's Emergency Services are:

EE CEO Olaf Swantee said: "We've worked closely with the Police and Ambulance crews to show the power of 4G in helping save time and save lives. We will now work tirelessly to deliver a highly resilient, truly nationwide 4G network to serve all of Britain's Blue Light and First Responder teams across the UK."

EE's new 4G Emergency Services Network will replace the existing TETRA system from mid-2017 as current contracts expire.

8x8's EasyContactNow (ECN) cloud contact management solution has been accepted for inclusion on G-Cloud 7, the Government's online digital marketplace for the broader public sector.

ECN is a key part of 8x8's Enterprise communications as-a-Service (ECaaS) suite and is complementary to the company's Virtual Contact Centre solution that is targeted at traditional, structured contact centre environments. 

Sharon Maslyn, Sales Director of 8x8 UK, said: "With ECN 8x8 makes it practical for organisations to use sophisticated contact centre capabilities that require efficient, personalized communications with employees, citizens or customers."

ECN offers Government departments features such as call back, IVR workflow builder, call recording, SMS, instant messaging, browser integration, full data management and integration with leading CRM solutions.

In addition to traditional customer-facing deployments, ECN can also be utilised by other key line of business functions, including IT service desks, credit control and facilities management.

This latest extension to 8x8's offerings for the public sector comes just two months after the company's accreditation under the UK Government's Cyber Essentials Plus scheme.

Exsel Group will be spreading some Christmas cheer next week by holding a 'Gift for Glasgow' event at their Citypark offices.

The company is hoping Scottish companies will support the event by bringing along a gift and taking the chance to network and celebrate with likeminded business people.

Managing Director Tom McDonald told Comms Dealer: "There are many families in Glasgow that will have a hard decision to make this Christmas: Feeding their families or buying gifts. By collecting as many presents as possible for the Salvation Army, we hope to alleviate some of the pressures on families and make it a special Christmas for the kids affected by poverty."

The event on December 11th, run in association with Health Rewards and the Scottish Football Association Business Club, will also include a Christmas fare, entertainment and a whisky and spirit tasting.

For further information or to donate a gift contact  Tom McDonald at tom@exselgroup.com

Nimans has produced a Network Services overview brochure of its voice, IP and data propositions.

The 12-page guide highlights key areas of an ever-evolving division including data connectivity, voice services, wholesale mobile and hosted and cloud solutions.

"Established since 1996 Nimans Network Services has developed an extensive network proposition and partners with leading industry suppliers to offer voice services, mobile solutions, connectivity and hosted and cloud solutions," said Mark Curtis-Wood, Head of Network Services.

"We have created commercial models to meet the needs of resellers in terms of billing and support which includes a designated bureau service.

"Our proposition is at the core of enabling successful business communications for resellers' end customers. We provide traditional voice and mobile tariffs as well as core data connectivity."

A Bureau billing collection service, GS Hosted (Nimans' own hosted telephony service) and The Hub, an order provisioning, management and billing portal, all feature heavily in the guide.