Comms Dealer

Entanet's deployment of NewVoiceMedia's cloud customer contact solution ContactWorld for Service has quickly paid off with 80% of incoming calls being answered within 20 seconds.

Integration with Salesforce gives Entanet's team of 30 technical advisors more control and improves the customer experience, according to Matt Mills, Head of IT at Entanet.

He said: "We opted for ContactWorld because of its ease of implementation and integration with Salesforce. We wanted all the metrics and statistics that the system offered in order to drive our business performance".

Neil Watson, Head of Service at Entanet, added: "As the reports are in real-time we now know what's happened to every single call. This means our directors can speak confidently to partners when striking new deals or continuing relationships."

'As the business continues to grow, we'll be in a position to offer a consistent, high quality customer experience for resellers and end users."

C4L has added VIRTUS' LONDON2 data centre in Hayes as a Point of Presence (PoP) on coreTX, the service provider's high performance data centre network.

The agreement to connect LONDON2 to the coreTX network follows many years in partnership at the successful Enfield location, and an exclusive arrangement allowing full suite connectivity, 10Gb circuits and a large footprint of colocation racks within the facility.

The 65,000 sq.ft. newly opened LONDON2 facility deploys fresh-air evaporative cooling technology which decreases energy consumption, bringing site power usage effectiveness (PUE) to below 1.2, delivering substantial savings to clients in the premises.

Pete Hill, Partner Account Director, said: "VIRTUS and C4L have worked collaboratively on business for many years and we are both constantly improving each other's potential by bringing new and innovative additions to the table.

"VIRTUS LONDON2 Data Centre is a new breed of DC which opens up a whole world of opportunities through high density racks, allowing huge capacities which wouldn't have been possible even a year ago, fully serviced out of the site."

Datto, a vendor of data backup, recovery and business continuity, is preparing to spend the $75m raised from backers recently on channel expansion in EMEA.

Andrew Stuart, EMEA MD, tells IT Europa: "We have been focused mainly on the UK and Ireland. We wanted to bring the products to the wider EMEA market, and we decided six months ago to do this through distribution."

Datto has already signed up seven distributors covering 24 countries.

The funding will be used to increase the marketing efforts in support of the channels, looking at a 250% jump in marketing funds, to help existing partners to grow and allow distributors to build channels.

"With their growth comes our success. We have just hired a new partner marketing manager to work exclusively with them on remarketing."

"We feel that it is important that Europe is an autonomous business, with its own marketing departments, development and software engineering etc," added Stuart.

"We will double headcount next year and triple the office space. We are building a new partner briefing centre here as we believe it is not enough to just have sales people in-country."

Datto has historically concentrated on the MSP market, but expertise acquired in the last year will allow it to move into new markets.

BroadSoft BroadWorks, BroadCloud and UC-One unified communication and collaboration solutions are now compatible with Microsoft Office 365.

This integration blends BroadSoft's cloud PBX with cloud office productivity software, giving joint customers an integration capability.

BroadSoft used Microsoft's software developer kits to integrate its solutions with Microsoft Office 365, reflecting BroadSoft's commitment to open platforms and the interoperability of its communication and collaboration services with other devices, systems and applications.

"BroadSoft's integration is a great example of how partners can build on the new Office 365 platform to better serve the needs of our mutual customers," said Steve Guggenheimer, corporate vice president of Microsoft's Developer eXperience & Evangelism (DX) group.

With the BroadSoft Office 365 integration, customers are now able to leverage BroadSoft's cloud PBX and UC-One capabilities from their Microsoft Office 365 desktop applications, including cloud-based calling, to any telephone in the world.

Users can also click-to-call any phone number in emails, documents, databases, address books and on web pages from within Office 365 applications with carrier-class quality and reliability, claims the firms.

"With Microsoft Office 365's significant and growing commercial installed base, these users represent an attractive market opportunity for BroadSoft and service providers," said Michael Tessler, president and chief executive officer, BroadSoft.

"We believe that the BroadSoft Microsoft Office 365 hosted-PBX integration offers service providers a proven carrier-class and differentiated solution that enhances customers' desktop productivity and leverages existing software investments."

Ingram Micro has entered into an agreement to acquire certain assets from Parallels Holdings, a provider of commercial cloud management platform technologies, connectors, billing systems and professional services. 
 
Under the terms of the transaction, Ingram Micro will acquire the Parallels Odin Service Automation platform along with associated cloud management technologies, intellectual property and the Odin brand.

In addition, approximately 500 Odin employees, many of whom are software engineers with cloud expertise, are expected to join Ingram Micro.

Ingram Micro adopted and began licensing the Odin Service Automation platform in 2013 as the backbone of the company's automated Cloud Marketplace.

Ingram Micro CEO Alain Monié commented: "The time has come for us to expand our capabilities by owning the intellectual property that is helping to drive this technology evolution.

"Together, Ingram and Odin will offer a combination of expertise, knowledge and commercial relationships with cloud OEMs and innovators, which will enable our combined partner portfolio of 285 telcos, 4,000 hosting companies and 200,000+ resellers worldwide to thrive by lifting their customers businesses to the cloud."

NEC reseller Global 4 has installed a hosted telephony platform for two estate agencies, Your Move and Reeds Rains, which includes the telecoms provider's largest hosted voicemail set up.

Tony McCann Head of IT for Your Move and Reeds Rains says: "Global 4 has delivered an advanced telecoms solution three weeks ahead of schedule.

"This will transform how we communicate internally and with customers through streamlining disparate systems into one feature-packed offering."

Provided through NEC UNIVERGE 3C, Global 4's hosted telecoms solution is already connected to more than 2,000 users across the UK in just a few months.

Nigel Barnett, Global 4 MD, said: "For Reeds Rains and Your Move, hosted voicemail means staff will never miss a call or message and can listen to them whenever and wherever they choose, while its clients can have confidence that their messages will get to the right person in good time."

Albion Rovers fans can access free WiFi at the Cliftonhill Stadium following a deployment by WiFi specialist 802 Event WiFi.

The Scottish League One team has become only the third football ground in Scotland - after soccer giants Rangers and Celtic - to bring high density free WiFi to their supporters and away fans.

The club's home at Cliftonhill Stadium, which opened on Christmas Day 1919, has created a connected match day experience with instant access to content-rich media and instant information about other games.

Locally-based 802 Event WiFi has installed a system that brings instant WiFi coverage to the complete stadium, including the main stand, the away fans' area, the boardroom and the directors' suites.

The club, which was formed in 1882 from the merger of Coatbridge sides Albion FC and Rovers FC, is deeply rooted in its Lanarkshire community, and attracts substantial volunteering help from local people for functions such as groundkeeping and refreshments.

802 Event WiFi chief executive Felix Gibson said: "Until now, only the Old Firm have been able to offer their fans this level of instant connection with the club and the wider sporting environment.

"Albion Rovers' far-sighted commitment to their supporters and their willingness to embrace innovation shows the way for other football clubs in Scotland, and indeed the UK, to improve the supporter experience.

"WiFi installation also allows a much greater degree of communication between clubs and their fan bases, creating the opportunity to interact with each other in a way that they never have before."

Patrick Rolink, Community Development Director at Albion Rovers, said: "Installing stadium WiFi has shown Albion Rovers to be an ambitious, progressive and forward thinking club. Fan interest and community engagement is at the heart of our growth and continued development.

"The WiFi is free to all fans and demonstrates our ambition and commitment to them and the community alike, encouraging engagement and interaction directly with the club."

Node4 has been awarded a place on the Government's G-Cloud 7 procurement framework for the supply of Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas).

Node4's listing on the Government's Digital Marketplace follows a tender and enables its ISO 27001-accredited IaaS solutions to be used by organisations across the UK public sector.

According to G-Cloud figures, updated on 27 October 2015, approximately £806 million of G-Cloud sales (ex. VAT) have been reported since the initiative launched in 2012.

Half of the total sales by value were awarded to small-to medium-sized enterprises. Seventy seven per cent of total sales were through central government and 23 per cent through the wider public sector.

Andrew Gilbert, MD, Node4, commented: "Saving money and ensuring the effective delivery of services is critical in the public sector.

"Through our listing on G-Cloud 7, Government organisations can access a pre-approved IaaS partner with a proven capability in providing the IT infrastructure and high levels of connectivity and security they need to run mission-critical services for the public."

Interoute has launched a cloud hosted contact centre add-on for hosted Microsoft Skype for Business and Microsoft Lync.

"Interoute Hosted Contact Centre helps companies enhance their call or contact centre services by leveraging the features of the popular Microsoft enterprise collaboration suite using Interoute's global and private networked cloud," said Mark Lewis, VP for Communications & Connectivity at Interoute.

Interoute's solution offers organisations with remote and office based users secure access to Microsoft certified SIP trunking with global telephony routing and call recording; natively integrated extension to Skype for Business and Lync with per agent pricing; the Lync/Skype for Business presence mechanism to instantly see if a relevant in-house expert is online and available; IM routing for chat support with the ability to mix and move between chat and voice sessions; and standardised call flows to meet typical customer requirements.

"Contact centres have tended to be stuck behind the times when it comes to integrating with the collaborative ways people today communicate within a business," added Lewis.

"Interoute's offering turns this on its head, saving time for IT teams and putting users in control."

In a Q1 2016 trading update (ended 31st October 2015) Softcat has reported revenues for the period up 14% on the prior year to £141m, compared to £124m in Q1 2015, with period-on-period growth evident in both customer numbers and revenue per customer.

Gross profit margin was broadly in line with the 2015 financial year, and business mix across solutions offerings and customer segments remained stable.

Martin Hellawell, Chief Executive Officer, commented: "The company's performance over the first quarter provides a firm foundation on which to begin life as a public company.

"The team has worked incredibly hard against the backdrop of the completion of our IPO and I would like to thank them for continuing to focus on the business despite this significant additional undertaking.

"I would like to welcome our new investors to Softcat, and thank the shareholders who have supported the company and its growth to this point."

Softcat admitted its ordinary shares to the Official List of the FCA and to trading on the main market of the London Stock Exchange on 18th November 2015.