Comms Dealer

VoIP Distributor ProVu and Panasonic are hosting a SIP demonstration workshop on 3rd November at Panasonic's purpose built Solutions Centre in Bracknell.

The half-day workshops are designed to introduce resellers to Panasonic's technology roadmap and give them the opportunity to get hands on with the SIP range.

Attendees have the option of selecting either a morning or afternoon half day session and will receive a complementary KX-TGP600 DECT base and handset.

ProVu's MD Darren Garland said: "I am looking forward to welcoming as many resellers and service providers as possible to Panasonic's Solutions Centre.

"The TGP600 has already proven to be a revolutionary DECT solution and we are looking forward to sharing other exciting products in the workshops."

Other models to be featured throughout the sessions include the TPA65, HDV130 and the newly announced HDV230.

Commsworld has secured a significant contract with CGI to be a key provider in the City of Edinburgh Council new ICT contract worth £186m.

The firm will be working directly with CGI as its preferred network provider to deliver a 400 site Wide Area Network (WAN) for the Council delivering faster and more reliable connectivity for schools, libraries and other council buildings.

Commsworld will also rollout an IP telephony solution for 7,000 users and a 250 seat contact centre.

These aspects of the ICT contract will deliver significant benefits to the end users, while also creating a number of new jobs in the Scottish IT market, said the firm.

The WAN will utilise Edinburgh CORE - the pure fibre network Commsworld launched in May with infrastructure provider CityFibre.

Ricky Nicol (pictured), Chief Executive of the Edinburgh-based firm, believes the reach and benefits of this network will have a significant impact for the capital as a whole with council buildings achieving far faster internet speeds resulting in increased efficiency and access to a wider range of digital resources.

He said: "This is fantastic for Commsworld from a commercial perspective, but more importantly it will have a hugely positive impact on Edinburgh with some schools able to boast up to 100 times greater bandwidth than before - this basically means far faster internet and far greater capacity for all pupils and staff.

"This would not be possible without CityFibre's investment in the fibre infrastructure that will allow Edinburgh to become one of the best connected cities in the world.

"Since we launched the Edinburgh CORE network together in May we have seen huge demand from businesses across all sectors and it is now set to be the biggest gigabit city project in the UK."

The contract will result in the Edinburgh CORE being extended from 50km to 150km to include the council sites.

Greg Mesch, CEO of CityFibre, said: "In a matter of months CityFibre's partnership with Commsworld has begun a truly transformational infrastructure project in Edinburgh that continues to gather momentum.

"This contract, for hundreds of additional sites and a 200% extension of our planned network footprint, is CityFibre's largest to-date, and further demonstrates the power of our Gigabit City model.

"In our growing portfolio of Gigabit City projects we are now a true infrastructure alternative to BT Openreach."

Comms provider Metronet (UK) has opted for GENBAND's Session Border Controller (SBC) and Real Time Session Manager (RSM) to power its expanding IP voice business.

Having outgrown its previous SIP trunking solution, Metronet (UK) looked to GENBAND's scalable SBC and RSM to support the rapid growth of its enterprise business and the distribution of its service to a more extensive customer base.

"Deploying GENBAND's SBC and RSM equips us with the technology we require to deliver the quality of service our customers have come to expect, on a larger scale," said Wayne Mills-Kidals, Voice Services Manager at Metronet (UK).

GENBAND's SBC delivers advanced network security, simplified interoperability and session management along with carrier-grade capabilities for SIP trunking and IP Interconnect.

The RSM solution offers the ability to proactively enable and monitor service level agreements (SLAs), provide Quality of Service (QoS) metrics, and enforce subscriber and network policies.

Poole-based VoIP Unlimited has secured an official supplier relationship with Sahara Force India Formula One Team.

The partnership will see VoIP Unlimited deploy an Ethernet solution across Sahara Force India's multiple locations.

Mark Pillow, MD for VoIP Unlimited, said: "It's a great privilege to be able to work with Sahara Force India and deliver a reliable data transfer solution.

"We are excited about being part of the team's journey and look forward to a very successful partnership."

Sahara Force India's Chief Operating Officer, Otmar Szafnauer, added: "In today's fast-moving world we need robust IT solutions that improve our operational efficiency, which is why we chose to work with VoIP."

Voice services provider Natterbox has unveiled Wallboards, a real-time reporting engine that delivers visual performance management information for phone-based sales and customer service teams.

With 60% of customer communications still being phone based, it is a business priority to monitor performance of inbound and outbound phone-based customer teams to deliver the best possible customer response and optimise team resourcing, said the firm.

"Our customers asked us to provide Wallboards to help drive their call centre and sales team efficiency and increase their competitiveness," Said Neil Hammerton, CEO of Natterbox.

"A typical Natterbox Cloud PBX user has both an inbound and outbound phone operation covering sales and customer service, often across teams in multiple offices and countries.

"We are able to synthesise this complex data into easily read, interpreted and actioned information in a single Wallboard. Customer feedback has been positive."

Natterbox Wallboards also integrates related customer data directly from the customer record in Salesforce.com.

Cloud services provider EveryCloud and connectivity and voice specialist Vapour Media have merged to offer a white label cloud and connectivity proposition to the channel.

The combined businesses will operate under the Vapour Media brand.

Both organisations serve SMEs via the reseller channel.

With offices at Manchester-based Teledata, EveryCloud provides cloud services through a white label proposition, focusing on hosted servers, back-up and storage.

Brighouse-based Vapour provides connectivity and access to its own private MPLS network and voice services via its next generation VoIP platform.

Both companies have experienced growth and built respective infrastructures following investment, and are now focusing on growth via the indirect reseller channel.

The enlarged organisation boasts six data centres as well as its own private network infrastructure, delivering white label solutions including cloud-based services such as backup and storage, network connectivity and next generation voice.

The business will have the ability to instantly enable resellers to become cloud and connectivity resellers, incorporating provisioning and billing.

Tim Mercer, Vapour Media, said: "In the business environment there is the opportunity for a connectivity-driven revolution that enables business growth and improvement through cloud services.

"Traditional IT companies, telcos and cloud start-ups are offering a bewildering array of solutions to embrace this. These worlds are colliding and SMEs are stuck in the middle.

"There is a place for a new breed of provider, marking a move away from telcos dabbling in computing or IT businesses dabbling in comms. There is a requirement for an integrated cloud provider that can credibly provide an all-in-one offering."

Steve Dempsey, EveryCloud, added: "Our customers who are taking back-up and data storage services are increasingly looking to upgrade their connectivity and they are also likely candidates for phone and voice services too.

"This merger with Vapour Media will allow us to provide truly integrated cloud services to the SME market in a unique way that will be appealing to both IT and comms resellers."

Software provider Advanced Computer Software Group has appointed Gordon Wilson as CEO.

Wilson joins with over 20 years general management experience in the software and business support sectors.

Former roles include serving as Managing Director at Kerridge Automotive Systems, ADP Dealer Services and more recently leading Aquilaheywood, a provider of pension and policy administration software and services.

All three software businesses experienced significant growth under his watch.

At Aquilaheywood, he was responsible for leading the management team to achieve 90% growth over a five year period.

In six years Advanced has grown its revenue to more than £200m; and the Group was acquired by private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners for an enterprise value of £750m in March 2015.

Brian Sheth, Co-Founder and President of Vista Equity Partners, said: "Gordon brings a wealth of experience to Advanced's Senior Management Team.

"His strong track record of growing businesses, combined with his strategic and motivational skills will drive forward Advanced's growth and enable the Group to fulfil its ambition of being regarded as a major player both in the UK and internationally."

Wilson added: "My goal is to build on the success of the business, focusing on expansion by investing in people, products, processes and systems and in turn providing innovative, cutting edge technology solutions to our customers."

Founded in 2008, Advanced employs more than 2,000 members of staff and provides healthcare, business and learning management software and services to 20,000 customers.

Maintel's interim results for the six month period to 30th June 2015 show revenues up 20% to £24.8m, with an increase in Group gross margin to 38.3% (H1 2014: 35.7%). Adjusted earnings per share were up 30% to 27.4p; while the proposed final dividend per share increased 38% to 12.8p (H1 2014: 9.3p).

Eddie Buxton, CEO, said: "After another successful period we have never been better placed, with a broader range of services and skills we have the ability to manage highly technical transformation projects for customers.

"Our new sales pipeline continues to grow and being appointed as an approved supplier on the new public sector network services framework agreement offers us the opportunity to tender for business not previously available to us."

Cloud-based UC and contact centre solution provider 8x8 Solutions has been positioned in Gartner's Leaders' quadrant in the annual Magic Quadrant for UCaaS Worldwide for the fourth consecutive year.

"Ensuring 8x8's position as a Gartner Magic Quadrant leader for UCaaS is essential in attracting the best channel partners," said Charles Aylwin, Channel Director at 8x8 Solutions.

"By constantly developing our technology we can make sure our partners are always providing their customers with the best possible products."

Kevin Scott-Cowell, 8x8 Solutions CEO, added: "This is another major milestone for the company as part of our ambitious growth plans.

"8x8 has had yet another fantastic year including innovative feature updates that address the concerns for CIOs, enhancing our scalable platforms, guaranteeing SLAs for optimal call quality and completing deployments for large enterprise accounts in just a few weeks."

Vik Verma, 8x8 Inc. CEO, stated: "We believe 8x8's continued success in the mid-market and enterprise, combined with our increased global footprint and product innovations, helped secure our longstanding top placement in the UCaaS Magic Quadrant."

Interoute is to on-board more scale, skills and new capabilities following its agreement to acquire European managed services provider Easynet. The transaction places an enterprise value of £402m on Easynet. On a pro forma basis, after giving effect to the acquisition, Interoute would have had total revenue of over €700m in the 12 months ended 30th June 2015.

The acquisition will expand Interoute's networked cloud and communications services to national and multinational enterprises across the world.

The deal will enable enterprise, Government and service provider customers of the merged group to access a full suite of the combined companies products and services.

In addition to increased products and services, the acquisition will bring an enhanced and expanded set of skills and capability to serve both companies' existing customers and new prospects across the world.

Interoute provides a range of unified connectivity, computing and communications products and services to multinational and national enterprises, such as UEFA, the European Space Agency, SCA and Saxo Bank, global telecommunications operators and Internet content providers.

The company was recently recognised as a Leader in Gartner's 2015 Magic Quadrant for Cloud-Enabled Managed Hosting, Europe1 report.

Gareth Williams, Interoute's CEO, commented: "It's the next step in our acquisition strategy and moves us much closer to our goal of being the provider of choice to Europe's digital economy."

Mark Thompson, CEO of Easynet, added: "I believe this acquisition will bring great benefits to both Interoute's and Easynet's customers.

"The combined companies can offer broader and deeper connectivity options, as well as an expanded portfolio of products and services, and the acquisition will further expand our cloud hosting capability in Europe."