Comms Dealer

Congrats to M12 Solutions MD Andrew Skipsey who completed the nine day 960 mile Deloitte Ride across Britain from Lands End to John O'Groats.

He said: "The whole experience was tremendous. Even though I was on the road for sometimes over 8 hours each day, the Threshold Sports organisation ensured we had fantastic food, were well cared for and our bikes were mechanically sound.

"We saw some wonderful countryside and travelled along every kind of road surface.

"Scotland was stunning with the most memorable stint being the exhilarating ride down through Glen Coe with the wind behind us, light traffic and wonderful weather.

"No such trip would be complete without some horizontal rain, headwinds and strong cross winds which we had, however the weather was mainly kind and other road users were generally considerate.

"I always wanted to do this trip and when I found out that it could be done in such a well organised fashion, I joined. Now in its 5th year, this is the flagship fundraising event for The British Paralympic Association. I am raising money for The Royal Marines Charitable Trust Fund and Home-Start North Dorset."

ISPA, the voice of the UK Internet industry, has responded to Head of MI5 Andrew Parker who commented on the need for additional powers to access communications data.

ISPA believes that law enforcement should have reasonable access to communications data as long as the governing legislation has appropriate safeguards, oversight arrangements and does not damage inward investment and the UK's position as a leading place to do business online.

There currently exists a whole raft of powers to access communications data, and we support the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation David Anderson's view that the laws in this area are too complex and need to be more comprehensible. ISPA further agrees with Anderson that the case has not yet been made for an extension of powers.

Responding to Andrew Parker, Nicholas Lansman, ISPA Secretary General said: "ISPA calls on the Home Office to follow the advice of Parliament and consult with industry and the wider Internet community on the Investigatory Powers Bill. It is important to get the balance right between privacy, security, maintaining user trust and the cost to industry as key issues such as retaining third party data, judicial oversight and data hosted abroad are discussed."

ISPA will be working with members to analyse the impact of the Bill and we look forward to formally responding to the parliamentary committee scrutinising the legislation.

In year-one GENBAND's  Kandy communications Platform as a Service (PaaS) has grown at 'breakneck speed' and is currently powering more than 15 million users.

Kandy, which includes platforms such as the fring Over-the-Top solution, is helping communications service providers, enterprises, independent software vendors and systems integrators rapidly deploy real-time communications apps designed for today's mobile-first economy.

With more than 1,500 customer accounts and 50 partners including global brands such as IBM, Deloitte and SAP, Kandy is helping its ecosystem partners and customers bring thousands of innovative use cases to market, said the firm.

"We are intensely focused on enabling our ecosystem partners and customers with the latest in real-time communications technology," said Paul Pluschkell, Executive Vice President of Strategy and Cloud Services for GENBAND and Kandy Founder.

"With Kandy we are changing the game of how service providers, enterprises and every day individuals communicate by creating an easy-to-use, rapid service creation platform."

Frontier Voice and Data hosted a charity golf event for its customers and channel partners in aid of Essex-based charity First Step.
 
The day saw 70 players attend Upminster Golf Club to raise funds and perhaps also win a car, a holiday or a new set of golf clubs.

The high turnout ensured that a record £9,457 was collected for the charity that works with pre-school children and their families to offer education services, support, information and encouragement.
 
The winning team came from Voiceflex, one of Frontier's premier suppliers, and comprised Justin Blaine, Ken Blaine, Steven Mackervoy and Paul Taylor.
 
Nolan Braterman, Business Development Director at Frontier Voice and Data, said: "We are proud to be associated with First Step and their annual golf day and are extremely happy to have helped raise such a huge sum for First Step, which will enable them to carry on their excellent work.
 
"Congratulations go to the winning Voiceflex team who took on the 18 hole course and triumphantly won. Everyone had a great time and we're all looking forward to coming back next year."

The man at the centre of True Telecom's reinvigorated channel building campaign brings 35 years sales experience in the telecoms sector including senior management positions at BT Wholesale and BT Global Services where he was responsible for securing, managing and growing channel partners.

Incoming Head of Channel Sales Mark De Koster said: "My decades of channel experience will allow me to build and strengthen the True Telecom brand as a key channel player in the coming months."

Stuart Griffiths, CEO, added: "With Mark now a part of the team we can truly focus our efforts on dominating the channel. Mark's wealth of expertise will be invaluable when working with our new and existing partners, giving us an edge in terms of sales strategy."

8x8 Solutions has partnered with Entanet to give customers access to business grade connectivity that ensures reliable and high quality VoIP connections.

The partnership gives 8x8 Solutions' user base access to Entanet's own fully resilient national next generation network.

The infrastructure will provide robust connections and has multiple fail over routes to ensure continuity of service.

"Whether businesses operate from one single site or are based in multiple offices around the country, this partnership will allow them access to cost effective business class connectivity," said Kevin Scott-Cowell, CEO of 8x8 Solutions. "We are looking forward to bringing on board the skillset Entanet can offer our channel partners and customers."

Customers are able to choose between a variety of products. Options available include Ethernet in the First Mile (EFM), Generic Ethernet Access (GEA), IP VPN and Leased Lines.

Stephen Barclay, Sales Director at Entanet, added: "It's great to work with partners that are as passionate about their product as we are about ours.

"Working with 8x8 will be a great fit for us and we're looking forward to providing its partners and customers with connectivity for every eventuality."

Sennheiser has acquired several business units of Professional Audio Ltd (PAL) in Ireland.

Sennheiser already employs over 300 people at its manufacturing plant in Tullamore, where it produces headphones, headphone capsules, audiology products, studio monitors and products for the integrated systems sector.

"Ireland is an important market for us and we want to make sure that our customers there continue to be well supported," said Daniel Sennheiser, Sennheiser's CEO.

"Drawing business for this territory directly into our global operation means that we are able to offer the same level of service that we offer everywhere else in the world. At the same time, keeping key members of the existing team provides both consistency and familiarity."

PAL's Gerry Forde added: "PAL has worked with Sennheiser in Ireland for more than 25 years and we have enjoyed building the Sennheiser brand during this time. This latest development is a testament to Sennheiser's vision and commitment to Ireland."

Nimble Storage has extended its distribution agreement with Avnet from America to Europe.

Avnet is to offer the Nimble Adaptive Flash platform, along with SmartStack integrated infrastructure solutions to partners across the UK, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland and Turkey.

The Nimble Adaptive Flash platform is used by more than 6,200 customers in over 50 countries.

In contrast to legacy and flash-only storage architectures and systems that are deployed and managed in disparate silos to support applications based on their unique characteristics and requirements, the Nimble Adaptive Flash platform offers a single storage architecture that dynamically caters to the needs of enterprise-wide workloads across performance, capacity, and data protection.

Nimble SmartStack integrated infrastructure solutions, based on Cisco UCS and Nimble CS-Series arrays, aim to offer enterprise customers an end-to-end tested and pre-validated reference architecture.

"We're experiencing strong demand and a rapid pace of customer adoption for SmartStack integrated infrastructure solutions, doubling customer implementations on a year-over-year basis," said Clare Loveridge, VP of sales for EMEA at Nimble Storage.

"We attribute some of this growth to the strength of the partnership we've had in place with Avnet over the past two years in North America."

Arrow Electronics is to provide cyber security solutions on a broader scale to the channel across Europe following a distribution agreement with FireEye.

"Cyber security solutions are a necessity for partners at the forefront of advising customers about their security or risk position," said Nik Churchley, Director of Channel Sales for EMEA at FireEye.

"In recent years we have seen a substantial increase in cyber threats across Europe against all types and sizes of businesses, and Arrow provides FireEye with broader reach into the channel to address this trend."

Under this new agreement, Arrow and FireEye will work together to solidify existing markets and enter new territories to access high growth sectors. 

Jesper Trolle, VP Sales, Marketing and Services, Arrow ECS EMEA, added. "FireEye's solutions will complement our approach to offer customers a complete security solution independent from the environment where it is needed."

Legacy technology is restricting the creation, targeting and distribution of revenue generating digital services, according to the results of a study of operator viewpoints conducted by Openet.

While operators want to target customers with personalised and relevant offers in real-time to drive upsell opportunities, they are let down by the inflexibility of existing systems, claimed the researchers.

The survey highlights the frustrations faced by operators who recognise the need for more real-time functions, better customer engagement and faster product development, but who cite a lack of BSS agility as their biggest barrier.

Operators now view VoIP and messaging OTTs as their fiercest competition in maximising the effectiveness of digital services, but 57 per cent of operators feel quite well prepared for the battle, citing their network as their key area of competitive advantage.

More than half the operators surveyed have tried to leverage real-time data to create targeted customer offers and services. However, the majority (70 per cent) confessed that they are either worse, or much worse, than OTTs at personalised customer engagement.

In the survey of 101 operators, large-scale billing transformation projects that take too long, and the problems of trying to adapt legacy systems to cater for digital services were cited as the largest hindrances in the move to digital. 37 per cent see the biggest challenge for operators in 2016 as the need to become more agile, reducing product lifecycles and getting more products and services to market in a shorter time period.

"These findings highlight a real mismatch between positive intentions from the operator community to leverage all the advantages of targeted, real-time offers and the technical realties of making it happen," said Barry Marron, GVP Marketing, Openet. "In an age of virtualised BSS technology, technology need no longer be an inhibitor to digital transformation and customer centricity."