Comms Dealer

BT has won a new contract with the European Commission to deliver voice services across 21 major European institutions, agencies and bodies including the European Commission, the European Council and the European Defence Agency.

The framework contract runs for up to seven years and is worth over €15 million. This is the second European Commission framework contract awarded to BT in 2015.

BT will provide fixed line voice services at sites in Belgium, Luxembourg and Strasbourg using the BT One Voice portfolio.

The new solution is based on BT One Voice SIP, which allows customers to consolidate their communications infrastructure and prepare the ground for Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) tools such as instant messaging (IM), presence and video.

Corrado Sciolla, President Europe and Global Telecom Markets, BT Global Services, said: "This contract aims at improving fixed line communications within those institutions. Voice services might sound old fashioned, but they are absolutely critical to everyone. By modernising the technology, we enable the EU to manage its communications infrastructure much more effectively, combine voice with other media streams and achieve cost-savings. We are looking forward to again putting our global expertise at the service of the EU, its institutions and its citizens."

Last March, BT signed another contract with the European Commission, estimated at €55.7 million over five years. That contract included the delivery of dedicated internet access to all major European institutions, agencies and bodies across the 28 member states.

BT has been providing services to the European Union for more than a decade, building on its expertise in serving the needs of regional, national and international government organisations around the world.

avsnet has been awarded both Cisco's Master Collaboration Specialisation and Polycom's RealPresence Services Specialisation, becoming the only provider in the UK to hold both accreditations.

Graham Fry, Managing Director at avsnet, said: "To hold one accreditation is impressive, to have both is clear evidence of our long-standing dedication to improving our customers' businesses.

"Many providers say they understand best-in-class technology, however very few have the certification to support their claims."

Following tough pre-application reviews and validation processes, avsnet passed a number of stringent on-site audits to achieve these accreditations, including detailed analysis and assessment of the company's sales capabilities, technical skills, support practices, service offerings and customer experience.

Angela Whitty, Managing Director, UK Partner Organisation at Cisco, said: "This confirms avsnet's commitment to be an excellent and highly valued Cisco partner and demonstrates the highest level of knowledge, service and dedication within this field."

Dave Winchcombe, Area Services Sales Vice President at Polycom added: "This accreditation demonstrates the quality and breadth of avsnet's engineering and technical talent, the strength of its operational processes and the company's network management experience."

avsnet is one of only seven organisations to hold Cisco's certification and one of only six to hold Polycom's.

Gigaset certified Gold partner Simplecall Business has supplied a comms solution for McLellan, an independent consulting company which has since reduced call costs by 65%.

McLellan has worked on over 3,500 projects and has around 60 core employees. However, during projects staffing can increase dramatically with teams needing to relocate to other countries for many weeks.

McLellan found its legacy telephone system was no longer suited to the dynamic nature of its international operations and flexible remote site requirements. The legacy system suffered from high running costs, limited mobility and an inability to scale in line with the business need.

Initially, Simplecall Business took over McLellan's ISDN circuits saving the consultancy around 40% on its existing call charges.

The next step was to upgrade the company's legacy PBX to a Simplecall cloud-based Enterprise IP PBX seamlessly integrated with new Gigaset telephones.

Finally, Simplecall Business replaced McLellan's old ISDN connection with SIP trunking enabling the consultancy to retain UK telephone numbers while routed international calls would benefit from lower cost local call charges.

This reduced McLellan's ongoing call charges by a further 25% and allowed free calls between offices while retaining complete control of its outgoing number presentation.

The end-to-end IP solution includes a Simplecall Business Enterprise PBX Box and 65 Gigaset DE410 IP PRO phone systems to manage its professional call handling and group phonebooks.

The system offers Wideband HD sound and up to six SIP accounts for flexibility. The integration allows the DE410 units to streamline operation of the full set of telephony features such as international call forwarding, queues, follow me and conference calling all from the intuitive built in LCD display.

"Apart from the obvious cost savings from cancelling the previous ISDN channels, Gigaset SIP phones now allow a flexible approach to better communication. This was instrumental to keeping the mobile roaming costs low, saving thousands of pounds per year," said Saif Ahmed, Director, Simplecall Business.

Poole-based VoIP Unlimited has completed interoperability and certification testing between its services and telephone systems from new partner Gigaset pro.

Gigaset pro undertook the testing process for its Hybird 120 phone system to ensure all features were compatible with the VoIP Unlimited network, including capabilities such as voicemail and call transfer.

Gigaset Hybird 120 is a communication centre for small and medium businesses with up to 20 users and includes IP, ISDN and traditional analogue interfaces with additional features such as voicemail, auto attendant and home office functions to manage calls, redirection and conferences via a browser interface.

Matthew Marchant, technical sales manager for Gigaset pro, said: "Our certification testing was successfully carried out against the VoIP Unlimited service, and we welcome the diligence shown by our partner in ensuring that all features and functions are delivered in line with customer expectations."

Mark Pillow, MD at VoIP Unlimited, added: "Regular certification testing is an important process that ensures we can deliver the best possible service to our partners and customers, and we appreciate the timely and professional approach offered by Gigaset."

New research into the country's disaster recovery habits has revealed that over a quarter of businesses' outages in the UK are a result of unreliable power supplies - followed by software (21%) and hardware failures (19%).

Most respondents (39%) stated that the cost of per minute of their downtime runs into the £10,000-£20,000 bracket - meaning that such frequent power outages present a significant financial risk for UK businesses.

he study, conducted by Timico, provides insights into the disaster recovery habits of IT managers in the UK and revealed the most common causes of IT outages. Alongside power failures and hardware and software issues - other common causes of an outage were human error, natural disaster and even malicious activity.

The research was initiated as Timico launched its Disaster Recovery as a service (DRaaS) solution, a cloud-based service which protects businesses from costly downtime by replicating a secure secondary environment in the cloud.

Andrew Fox, Director for Managed Networks and Cloud & Hosting at Timico, said: "Whatever the cause of an outage, protecting the business from downtime should be a top priority. Our entire DRaaS solution is designed to mitigate against a drop in power - so it's the perfect fit for businesses that simply can't operate without the entirety of their IT solutions.

"DRaaS is particularly effective for customers whose existing production VMware environment sits 'off-platform' within their offices, where power redundancy protections won't be at the same level as those found in a certified data centre.

"Providers such as Timico have uninterruptable power supplies thanks to onsite back-up generators - so with full replication to a commercial data centre environment, outages due to power failure need never be an issue again."

The study also found that only 5% of respondents were completely confident that their disaster recovery plan would be successful in the event of an emergency.

Despite this, only 6% made the commitment to testing their disaster recovery plans more than once a month.

Daisy Group has strengthened its public sector portfolio following the extension of its government offering.

The business communications and ICT provider has been awarded places in 10 different lots under the UK Government's new Network Services framework agreement (RM1045), as announced by the Crown Commercial Service.

As a supplier of services to the public sector Daisy had already been selected under the previous PSN agreement and also G-Cloud.

The Public Service Network is the foundation of the Government's ICT Strategy, a programme designed to provide an assured network for sharing services - including many G-Cloud services - and encouraging efficiency and collaboration across the public sector.

The announcement enables Daisy to provide a range of services that will improve cost efficiencies and stimulate collaboration between public organisations, ultimately meeting the objective of delivering a more effective experience to citizens.

Daisy will continue to supply public sector bodies with solutions and services. These range from telephony, contact centre and collaboration, through to network-centric IT services such Local Area Network management, hosting, gateway and web services wide area connectivity.

Daisy has also announced that the Pan Government Accreditor has accredited its communications for PSN telephony services. As part of the accreditation, the business was recognised for maintaining ISO 27001 in our office and data centre environments and achieving the CAS(T) certification that is governed by GCHQ.

Andy Riley, Head of Local and Central Government and Frameworks Director, said: "We are delighted to be part of this new iteration of the framework agreement. This means that as well as continuing to help public sector bodies introduce innovative solutions to meet demanding savings targets, we are able to make available our market leading portfolio to all public sector organisations."

New research by IT Europa shows that Europe presents a patchy picture of managed services provision. Decisions on which cloud suppliers to work with, which services to use, the pace of expansion and the management of systems and users, particularly those on mobile links, are being debated in an environment with little history and experience on which to build a strategy.

The Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2015 will set out to answer some of these questions, according to IT Europa .

Many of the industry's leader providers of technology and solutions for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) have already signed up as sponsors including: MaxFocus (LogicNow), Autotask, Azlan, ConnectWise, Databarracks, Datto, LabTech, ScienceLogic, SolidFire, Soonr, Sunrise Software, Tintri, Webroot, Bitdefender, ManageEngine and StorageCraft.

There are also already more than 200 qualified delegates who have registered to attend, of which 75% are CxO level (Director and above). Registration is free-of-charge for qualifying delegates.

Another issue to be debated at the summit will be the appropriate size of providers: The big consumer brands - Amazon Web Services, Google etc are in the public eye, but business wants specialist suppliers.

Christian Nagele, Autotask's General Manager of RMEM, told IT Europa: "We come across plenty of small-medium MSPs who deliver excellent service for their clients while driving profitable revenues for themselves. Growth is often slow, organic and achieved through referrals. They are profitable as the business is efficient and optimised (through effective processes and tooling as well as careful customer selection)."

The market may be getting harder to call, however. Researcher Tariff Consultancy forecasts that while data centre space and power in Europe will increase by almost 20% from the end 2015 to the end of 2020 with the UK being the largest single market in Europe, pricing has reached its limit, with average rack space and square metre pricing forecast to decline by 10% over the five year period.

This will put pressure on those counting on a rising demand and consequent returns. One further twist will be the rate of consolidation - already acquisitions are running at a peak; it is not just customers, but skills and expertise that are forcing the pace.

On the horizon for service providers is the expansion of the Internet of Things (IoT) where its use in automotive, healthcare and other vertical sectors is expected to scale dramatically.

The Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2015 is organised by IT Europa and Angel Business Communications, will be staged on 17th September 2015 at 155 Bishopsgate, London.

Annodata has been awarded both the Customer and Digital Excellence accolades at the O2 Direct Partner Network Awards 2015.

The awards were established after the relaunch of the O2 Direct Partner Network earlier this year to celebrate companies providing best-in-class services and support.

The Customer Excellence Award focuses on partners' overall capability to provide world-class customer support and service, while the Digital Excellence Award focuses on digital knowledge, capability and performance of O2's digital partners.

Since being announced as an O2 'Centre of Excellence' in 2010, Annodata has built up a nationwide base of mobile customers. As a winner in both categories, Annodata will receive additional marketing and digital consultancy support from O2 to encourage further business development.

Stuart McAlpine, Head of Annodata's Communications division, commented: "Mobile and Unified Communications are key growth areas for Annodata. While mobile is a relatively recent addition to the Annodata service portfolio, it has really taken off. To be recognised for our achievements in this sector is a coup indicative of Annodata's successful expansion into new markets.

"We are committed to growing the mobile arm of our business and we expect to double our base over the next two years, working to cross-sell with existing print customers and by pursuing new ones.

"The infrastructure and support offered by O2 will be invaluable."

Cloud computing take-up among UK SMEs) has increased 15% in the last year, according to the latest research from BT Business and the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC).

The results, part of a wider survey which examined how UK SMEs use and benefit from technology, revealed that 69% of businesses use cloud-based applications, with more than half (53%) believing that they are critical to effective remote working.

The research also revealed that nine out of ten (91%) of companies now have at least one member of staff working from home, while a fifth of businesses (19%) have more than half of their workforce working away from their main office location.

In addition to cloud-based applications, other technologies seen as critical for effective remote working include remote access to company data (56%), wi-fi access when out of the office (64%), and fibre-optic broadband (33%).

Smartphones are seen as the technology that has made the biggest difference to businesses in the last 12 months (68%), followed by improved wi-fi access (54%) and cloud-based applications (42%).

When asked about the benefits the Internet has brought to their business, more than three quarters of respondents (79%) cited increased speed of communication, followed by improvements to customer service (64%) and enabling flexible working (63%).

Danny Longbottom, MD for UK SME, BT Business, said: "Technology is at the heart of a lot of the dramatic changes we're seeing within the UK SME market - whether that's offering the realistic possibility of working from home, increasing the effectiveness of people when they're out of the office or opening up new markets, both in the UK and internationally. Central to those changes is connectivity, which is why we're investing heavily to provide access to the fastest connections possible for businesses across the UK."

Dr. Adam Marshall, Executive Director of Policy and External Affairs, BCC, added: "It is vital to ensure that UK businesses have access to world-class digital infrastructure if they are to maintain their competitiveness in a global marketplace.

"Cloud and mobile technologies are becoming increasingly important as firms expand into new markets and explore new ways of working - especially overseas. It is encouraging to see that so many British firms are adapting their working practices to take advantage of these developments."

Growing firms in the comms sector must do more to attract and retain top talent in STEM roles as the latest quarterly employment figures reveal stalled employment growth and a rise in unemployment, warned technology staffing firm Gibbs S3.

Farida Gibbs, Founder and CEO of Gibbs S3, said: "The UK is now close to full employment after two years of solid growth. However, while employment levels are still high, there is still a severe shortage of experienced, skilled workers in key technology-driven industries like oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods and financial services.

"A lack of access to the right technology talent has a severe impact on a company's ability to expand, and when the growth of international, blue chip companies falters it impacts the entire economy. Working with some of the world's biggest companies, we have seen the shortage is pushing up wages as more demand is placed on a dwindling pool of quality workers.

"It is more important than ever for expanding companies to invest in high quality personnel. Hiring under-skilled or inexperienced workers, especially technical specialists, can cause entire projects to fail and derail growth plans. Firms must ensure they are able to balance the reward of a successful new hire with the risk of those that don't measure up.

"Leading companies are increasingly demanding a hybrid approach to workforce solutions that are in tune with their specific business challenges across both long-term recruitment and for short-term projects.

"The challenge doesn't end with getting top workers on board however, and firms must offer the most attractive incentives and growth prospects to staff to retain them. They must think outside the box and offer a complete package that extends beyond a competitive salary."