Comms Dealer

Staff from the UK offices of Onecom helped raise more than £2,000 for the mental health charity MIND with a sponsored run.

Workers from across the business took part in the event on Thursday (June 29th) as part of ongoing celebrations for the company's 15th birthday.

In total 114 members of staff from across Onecom's 12 regional bases raised £1,281 for MIND, each running a mile-long route around the office where they are based. A further £1,000 was donated by Onecom's management to top up the donation.

MIND was picked by employees in a company-wide poll as their chosen charity to support in 2017.

Aaron Brown, COO, said: "We're pleased that we have raised a significant amount for MIND and will continue to support the charity with more fundraising activities in our offices around the country during the coming year."

Security vendor FireMon has appointed a new EMEA head tasked with building more channel alliances.

James Clegg, FireMon vice president of EMEA, was previously at Juniper Networks company BTI Systems where he helped grow business through partner networks.

Clegg also previously served at Crossbeam, Arbor Networks and Gigamon, and is experienced at selling into the managed service provider, mobile and financial sectors.

Clegg replaces Ottavio Camponeschi, who joined the company as VP EMEA in June 2015. Camponeschi was based at FireMon's Munich office, but Clegg will primarily be based in the UK.

US-headquartered FireMon entered the UK last year with a distribution agreement with Westcon.

FireMon addresses network security infrastructure, policy and risk management issues with a suite of products that arm security and IT personnel with contextual intelligence to identify threats within their networks and to make quick decisions.

"James joins FireMon as an experienced and successful leader in the security sector through his ability to create high-performance sales teams focused on strategic selling and creative deal innovation," said Peter Kobs, chief revenue officer at FireMon.

"He will drive FireMon's expanding EMEA business volumes through forming strategic channel partnerships."

Irish audio visual distributor Fusion Technologies has been acquired by EET Europarts, its second acquisition in a week and its first company owned in Ireland.

Fusion was founded in 2004 and has grown to become one of Ireland's leading trade only distributors of AV products.

"Fusion Technologies has a strong position in the Irish market. It is a perfect match for us to grow our pro-AV and digital signage business further," said John Thomas, CEO at EET Group.

Fusion MD Damien Brennan will take on the lead role as MD at the newly established entity EET Europarts Ireland.

Cato Networks has bolstered its play in the SD-WAN market with a converged SD-WAN, security and a global backbone cloud service.

Alon Alter, Vice President of Business Operations, said: "There are a lot of misunderstandings around the scope of SD-WAN and what it actually covers. For example, how SD-WANs address global networking, network security, cloud and mobile requirements."

Cato Networks' solutions have increasingly replaced the MPLS connections which have been used for connecting branch offices and data centres, he says. Hence the push for wider and stronger channels.

"The problem we address is that legacy networking and security solutions were built for the static networks of the past, not for today's cloud and mobile focused businesses," added Alter.

"What we see today is that the channel is looking for answers when global customers want to rapidly deploy a new branch. A new location in a remote location can take three months with MPLS, with a Cato solution it is almost immediate.

"So the channel not only gets to provide an incentive and solution but it gives them access to a security budget that they may not have been able to reach before."

Avaya Diamond Partner Damovo will be the first to bring the vendor's Powered By IP Office Cloud to businesses in Ireland.

John McCabe, Managing Director, Damovo Ireland and Global Services, said: "Irish businesses know that staying competitive means adopting the latest and most effective technology and tools.

"They also demand access to a growing portfolio of solutions which can be deployed in a flexible way, so they can choose the approach that best suits their needs."

Jason Flynn, MD for Avaya in Ireland, added: "Ireland is a market with incredible growth potential."

The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) has extended the deadline for its Annual Awards until 14th July 2017.

Now in their 10th year, the awards recognise and reward individuals across the industry and have evolved to highlight the new talent emerging in the telecoms sector.

They take place on 9th November 2017 at the Raddisson Blu, Portman Square, London.

The categories are:

• Apprentice of the year
• Mentor of the year
• Christopher Mills Award
• Women in Technology
• Engineer of the year
• Innovator of the year

"We would encourage telecoms professionals to enter for themselves or nominate colleagues and highlight the inspiring achievements in our industry," said Crissi Williams, CEO of the ITP.

"As it is the 10th anniversary year, we have extended the deadline to encourage as many people as possible to get involved and help us celebrate our sector."

Abbey Cars, one of England's largest minicab operators, has overhauled its communications infrastructure with the implementation of Unify's OpenScape Business S platform. The project was carried out with long-term Master Partner Datasharp.

Allan Williams, Technical Director & Winner of the Unify Innovation Award at Datasharp, said: "In today's super-connected world customers expect a seamless communications experience. Businesses like Abbey Cars want to fulfill this, but are also under pressure to streamline their organisation and futureproof communications infrastructure, while still delivering cost savings.

"Providing OpenScape Business to Abbey Cars has enabled them to meet their customer expectations, while improving productivity by giving staff members better and more dynamic ways of working."

Former Daisy Group divisional MD Mike Osborne has been enlisted by Databarracks as Executive Chairman.

Daisy's Ex-MD of Business Continuity, Cloud & Hosting has a remit to drive business growth and play a key role in expanding the firm's recovery and business continuity service offerings.

Databarracks MD Peter Groucutt said: "In his career, Mike has taken a fledgling DR company and grown it into one of the UK's leading providers of IT, Workarea and BC planning services with revenues exceeding £50m.

"He has advised over 2,000 clients, from SMEs to global brands, and supported many through some of the UK's most significant disaster incidents over that period.

"As an inaugural Chair of the Recovery Site Providers Group and a Founding Partner of the Business Continuity Institute, Mike has been at the forefront of the UK continuity profession for over three decades and seen it go from niche to a globally recognised profession."

Osborne added: "The emergence of the digital economy means that data is now at the heart of every business and therefore the way organisations manage, store, protect and recover has never been more critical.

"The recent cyber attacks and well reported corporate IT failures also serve to demonstrate the total dependency that now exists on the IT systems needed to deliver continual customer service, and the importance of having credible and tested continuity plans, not only for the IT, but covering all aspects of an organisation."

GCI's acquisition of IT managed services giant Blue Chip marks another step towards a channel 'sea-change' according to CEO Adrian Thirkill. Announcing GCI's third and biggest acquisition in 18 months he indicated that channel partnerships built by GCI Channel Solutions are likely to realign as the company continues to transform.

This will include the absorption of the profitable £6m Channel Solutions division into the company's overall MSP model.

Director of Channel & Midmarket Sales Mark Whitehead has departed the business, but Thirkill stressed it would be business as usual for certain channel partners.

"We already have people in the business that will take on the responsibility, so its wider and deeper within our organisation rather than having it stand alone.

"The support will carry on as normal because the type of partners we engage with will change. If you are an old-fashioned partner and you just want to buy connectivity at a cheap price, then go to somebody who does that as their core business.

"A channel partner that is sophisticated, wants to digitise themselves and deliver their customers end-to-end business outcomes will understand how to engage with us and will find it much easier to engage with us.

"I can't change our business in line with UK business requirements and not change the way I am structured towards the channel. You can't do one without the other."

The acquisition of Blue Chip, which delivers end-to-end fully managed IT services to large SMEs, enterprises and public sector organisations, makes GCI one of the largest privately owned Managed Service Providers in the UK with 500 staff, turnover approaching £100m and an impressive technical capability underpinned by multiple vendor certifications, including 10 Microsoft Gold accreditations alongside others from leading vendors such as HP, Fortinet and Enghouse Interactive.

"Our latest acquisition is another great name and is right up there with earlier acquisitions including Outsourcery and Freedom which have already added immeasurably to our capability," said Thirkill.

"It's a really simple story: We are continuing our commitment to finesse the shape and direction of GCI and align our services and solutions with our customers' requirements across all sectors in large SME, mid-tier enterprise, strategic partners and UK Government.

"Digital transformation is here to stay and it naturally flows through to digital 'business as usual'. Helping our customers to shape, plan and then deliver their digital journey is what GCI is all about, and Blue Chip is another keystone within it. Digital business life is becoming all about our customers' business outcomes and our role in supporting that."

Richard Cook, MD at Blue Chip commented: "It's a reasonably rare thing for two technology organisations with around 20 years' experience each to come together in complete aligned agreement. Adrian is spot on: the journey to an integrated digital business is indeed complex.

"The technology interdependencies are challenging and the solutions are many and varied. But the task is made easier if you have a trusted guiding hand. The personal touch 'technical support pod' concept we have finessed over 20 years and our well-invested processes and systems provides just that: an assurance to our customers that we will 'live and breathe' their world and always put their best interests first. This mindset is the bedrock that underpins our customer partnerships and is a great cultural fit too with GCI. I look forward to joining the GCI board to further accelerate this customer value."

LDC-backed Connect Managed Services has acquired PC-1 for an undisclosed sum in a move that creates a £26m business supporting over 100 blue chip organisations. The deal expands Connect's global footprint, adds Genesys expertise, augments its Cisco credentials and brings to life a multi-vendor contact centre offering based on technology from Avaya, Cisco and Genesys.

PC-1 customers include Vodafone, NSPCC and Northumbrian Water.

Alex Tupman (pictured), CEO of Connect Managed Services, said: "Adding deep Genesys expertise into the mix completes our platform agnostic strategy and extends our existing capabilities beyond Avaya and Cisco technologies.

"Having collaborated with the PC-1 team on many occasions over the last few years we are confident this will be a great fit for our staff and customers."

Since 2014 Connect has invested in upgrading its technology platforms and building customer-focused procedures.