Comms Dealer

Inverness-based comms provider HighNet has netted a major agreement with Scottish Premier League giants Heart of Midlothian FC.

The deal includes the launch of a new Hearts Telecom brand which will allow business supporters to enjoy the same benefits as the club. Services provided under the Hearts Telecom brand will include data services, phone lines, phone systems and mobile connectivity.

Hearts will benefit too, receiving regular monthly revenue from every company who moves their services to Hearts Telecom. This project is part of the club's off-field strategy to diversify income streams and bring long-term financial stability.

HighNet also undertook a detailed assessment of the club's legacy communication systems, upgrading, replacing and removing services to create a sustainable operating platform that will support the club's burgeoning business in the future.

HighNet says the club now has a much improved and more client friendly telephony system and faster, more reliable broadband speeds for all services including, general office, press and media areas, hospitality and conference and banqueting suites and the club's dedicated TV service, Hearts TV.

The club now offers state of the art communications facilities for guests at match day and non-match day events and is making a substantial monthly saving on costs.

Hearts CEO and Chair, Ann Budge, commented: "We needed to undertake a radical overhaul of the club's communications infrastructure.

"HighNet's appreciation of the business of football made them a natural choice and we look forward to taking our partnership further."

Swansea-based comms provider Siarad Network is in expansion mode following the hire of two new members of staff.

Leonie Hill joins as Administration Manager responsible for handling incoming enquiries to the company's Pontarddulais office and the management of back-office administration.

David Bartlett joins as a business development manager and will be responsible for bringing in new business to Siarad. Bartlett has over ten years of experience in customer service and sales.

Garath Williams, MD, said: "There has been a period of rapid growth over recent months and I believe adding to the team will help us take Siarad to the next level.

"This is the second time in 12 months that we have increased our team, which is encouraging for the business and testament to the progress Siarad has made."

Hill said: "I have worked in managerial roles for several years within sales, so I'm familiar with how businesses want things to be run. I hope to bring this experience to the company and help streamline the company's administrative work."

Bartlett added: "After spending ten plus years in sales and customer service roles, I look forward to bringing in my knowledge to help Siarad grow even further as its business development manager."

Telecoms firm VS Group has trebled in size after being awarded a £49.9k loan by Business Finance Solutions (BFS) from the £3m North West Fund for Micro Loans.

The funding boost enabled the firm to expand its voluntary services telecommunications business, which is now on target to hit £1m.

Eight new jobs have been created at its offices in Spinningfields, Manchester.

The company now has over 400 clients including law centres, Bluebell Children's Hospice and the Police Treatments Centre.

Established in 2012 by Director Kevin Penman, VS Group specialises in providing low cost communications solutions to the voluntary services and charity sectors.

They work with partners to offer lower prices and bespoke communications solutions that enable charities to keep costs down across call charges, line rental, hardware and Cloud storage.

Over the last three years VS Group has saved its charity customers over a million pounds worth of costs. The company has also held and supported many fundraising events, which have enabled them to help smaller charities obtain start up equipment.

Penman said: "In a sector where every penny counts, any cost-saving that charities make can be saving or improving lives.'

Mark Gibbons, Business Loan Manager at BFS, which is part of the Manchester Growth Company, said: "When they came to us for the loan Kevin and his team at VS Group had already achieved significant penetration into the charity communications market.

"By helping them to access the finance they need to grow we are investing, not only in a great business, but in a team of people who are passionate about helping others and the community.

"VS Group is a great example of the exciting and innovative businesses we are working with who may not have been able to secure funding from traditional lenders but to whom between £25k and £49,999k can make an enormous difference to the future success and job creation."

Andy Oliver has joined MTI Technology as Business Unit Manager with a remit to lead the specialist big data team, providing independent advice and consultancy to organisations as they evolve their data lake strategy.

The announcement follows news from a recent global report by KPMG International that found that while 97 per cent of organisations use data and analytics across enterprise, only 19 per cent are satisfied with current measurement tools

"There is a lot of discussion around big data and analytics at the minute, but most customers have not moved out of the initial exploratory phase," said Oliver.

"This signals an opportunity for forward thinking service companies to provide expertise and advice, especially as organisations look to deploy an analytics platform for the first time, or to scale their pilot systems into production."

"We recognised the need for increased focus and investment in big data, analytics and data lakes. It's an area we're very excited about developing."

Logicalis UK has appointed of Paul Crilly as Finance Director. He joins the UK team from Logicalis Australia, where he previously held the role of Chief Financial Officer.

Arnaud Spirlet, Head of Europe for Logicalis, commented: "Paul brings a wealth of experience to the role having already worked within the organisation in one of its key territories, and has an appreciation of our business values and go to market strategies.

"In addition, Paul has a very strong track record in working with some of our largest vendor partners. I'm more than confident he has the energy, enthusiasm and the skills to help drive the company forward."

Crilly added: "Having already been a part of the organisation for a while now, I've gained a unique insight into Logicalis and I'm thrilled to be bringing my experience and skillset to the UK business.

"It's an exciting time to be coming aboard and I'm relishing the opportunity to hit the ground running and working alongside the other members of the senior management team as we take the business into a new phase of its development."

Comms National Awards winner Ethos has pulled off another massive triumph by securing a five-year global contract with Mahle GmbH, one of the largest automotive suppliers in the world.

The deal includes the standardisation of Mahle's telecoms infrastructure across the globe, a complete refresh of its entire communications infrastructure and the support of 20,000 employees' telecommunication requirements at offices across the UK, Europe, Asia and Africa.

"Having appointed Ethos as its European managed print ?partner in 2012, I am delighted that Mahle have chosen Ethos as its European Avaya delivery and service partner," said Ethos Group Managing Director Paul Norris.

"We have provided print services to Mahle for many years, and given our capability around large telephony estates and unified communications it was a natural fit for us to deploy and support the new Avaya estate. Mahle is a dynamic and rapidly expanding business and this contract award further demonstrates our ability to successfully provide ?unified telecommunications and managed print solutions on a pan-European basis."

As a leading global development partner for the automotive and engine industry, Mahle ranks among the top three system suppliers worldwide for mobile applications for engine systems, filtration, electrics, mechatronics, and thermal management. With a local presence in all of the major world markets, as of 2015, 75,000 employees work at over 170 production locations.

More than 5,000 development engineers and technicians are working on forward looking concepts, products and systems at 13 research and development centres in Germany, Great Britain, USA, Brazil, Japan, China and India.

Mahle wanted future proof telecommunications equipment that would serve them well into the future. Using Avaya's Enterprise technology, Ethos is systematically refreshing Mahle's entire communications infrastructure and putting each location under Ethos' managed service, incident management and support under the five-year framework.

"Under this managed service we regularly review the performance of each office's telephony infrastructure and make further recommendations to improve the cost or functionality," said ?Matt Hill, Managing Director of Voice & Data.

"This pragmatic approach ensures that as the contract progresses, Mahle's communications infrastructure is optimised on a case-by-case basis, minimising cost and internal disruption while maximising value. Under our five-year service contract, Mahle's telephony infrastructure is future proofed. Day-to-day communications are taken care of, optimising the service and support that we deliver."

Mahle undertook a detailed selection process before appointing Ethos as its telecoms provider. Mike Robson , Director of Information Technology at Mahle Industries UK, told Comms Dealer: "It was key for Mahle to have a single point of contact. We engaged closely with Avaya and Ethos in order to develop Mahle's global internal incident management solution.

"This has enabled Mahle to provide the end user customer with full transparency of their ticket from point of logging to final resolution. Mahle and Ethos's relationship is key to ensuring the success of this project."

Daisy Group has been awarded a place on the Government's Digital Marketplace G-Cloud 7 framework.

Daisy secured presence on all four lots within G-Cloud 7 - Infrastructure of a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and Specialist Cloud Services. All 15 cloud services that Daisy submitted for consideration were successfully included ready for the launch of G-Cloud 7 in December 2015.

Andy Riley, Head of Public Sector at Daisy Group, said: "Daisy's successful application for the latest version of G-Cloud further enhances our commitment to the public sector.

"This is another route for our customers to procure their services in a compliant and cost-effective way which is good for Daisy, good for our customers and good for Government."

The G-Cloud 7 is the latest version of the Government's procurement framework, which sees the change from CloudStore to the Digital Marketplace.

This catalogue of certified suppliers allows organisations in the public sector to find the right supplier for their cloud-based IT services without the lengthy traditional tender process.

The news comes just three months after Daisy announced its place on all 10 lots of the UK Government's Network Services framework agreement (RM1045).

Sennheiser has scooped the top prize for Excellent Product Design for its Speakerphone SP 10 ML/ SP 20 ML at the German Design Award 2016.

The portable Speakerphone convinced the international jury with its elegant design as well as its sound and voice quality.

From 3,400 entries, more than half of them in the area of Product Design, the compact portable speakerphones were chosen by the international jury of design experts for their 'form and function at a high level'.

Lars Riis Rasmussen, Vice President of Sales and Marketing, EMEA, at Sennheiser Communications, said: "The award is a great acknowledgement of our efforts and an encouragement for us to keep pushing boundaries."

Further to its announcement on 13th November 2015, Softcat's entire ordinary share capital of 196,776,260 ordinary shares has been admitted to the premium listing segment of the Official List of the UK Listing Authority, and to the London Stock Exchange's main market for listed securities under the ticker SCT.

Softcat has increased its revenue ten-fold over the past ten years, delivering 40 quarters uninterrupted organic revenue growth since 2005.

Its revenue increased from £89.1m for the year ended 31st July 2007 to £596.1m for the year ended 31st July 2015, up from £504.8m the previous year.

The company's leaders believe that the IPO will enhance Softcat's profile and brand recognition with customers, vendor partners and distributors and provide a strategic growth platform.

Pictured: left to right: Martin Hellawell, CEO; Softcat's longest serving employee, Shelley Ferrigno, Head of Human Resources and Recruitment; and Graham Charlton, CFO.

Virtual1 CTO James Hickman has been elected as Chairman of the London (Central) Branch of the British Computer Society (BCS), the body representing the IT profession to other professional bodies, the government, industry and academics.
 
Hickman has been a member of the BCS since 1995 and, in 2013, volunteered to join the branch committee as a way of using his extensive industry experience to be helpful.

As well as helping to arrange guest speakers and contributing to the monthly running of the branch, he hosted several events and gave talks on Internet governance and Net Neutrality.
 
His new role, as Chairman, means that he runs the committee that organises the Doctoral Consortium, Student prizes and talks that the Branch provides every year for the 8,763 members from a diverse range of organisations both commercial and academic.

The BCS provides a great opportunity to hear from experts in their field either in industry or in academic research. The talks are free to members and non-members and are not a sales pitch. Instead they are a sharing of ideas and provide a good background for the networking session that follows.
  
Hickman said: "I'm proud and honoured to be elected as Chairman and aim to continue providing an excellent calibre of speakers to give free talks and to grow the membership through our ambassador programme with London Universities."