Comms Dealer

On the back of the Government’s plans to connect 95% of the UK to superfast fibre broadband by the end of 2017, Gamma has announced a combined SIP over Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) offer for selected Channel Partners.

Under the deal, they will get 12 months free rental on FTTC when combined with a minimum of eight SIP channels over a 36 month contract.

Gamma says the promotion is also designed to further accelerate the wholesale migration of ISDN to SIP following BT’s recent announcement about its intention to migrate all customers on to the IP network by 2025.

Gamma was one of the first mainstream providers to commit to SIP as an alternative to ISDN and now with its imminent demise announced, it’s a decision many of its partners should welcome

Stephen Ashley-Brian, Convergence Product Manager at Gamma, commented: "With FTTC broadband offering more concurrent calls and better call quality, we see the sub-30 channel market as key with over a million channels waiting to be converted to SIP.

"FTTC will continue to open up this market and speed the transition as forecasts already indicate that over 1.5 million SIP channels have already been deployed, providing proof of the impact of SIP as a far more cost-effective alternative to ISDN.\"

Steve Fenner, Head of Product Development at Gamma Channel Partner Peach, added: "Being able to act as our customers’ single point of contact for both data and IP voice makes us easy to do business with, from sales and provisioning, through to in-life changes and support.

"Combined with their commercial flexibility, Gamma helps us retain differentiation in the market, attract new customers and win more deals. We look forward to taking advantage of this great incentive and our continued success as a Gamma partner.\"

With end customers themselves becoming more aware of the end of ISDN, Gamma says the opportunity to address these needs combined with the overall enthusiasm for faster internet speeds make the SIP/FTTC combination the ideal choice.

As for the SME opportunity within the channel, Gamma believes that this 12 month free FTTC promotion will provide the added commercial incentive to help their customers justify the transition now rather than wait much longer.

Like so many things today, immediate capital purchases are declining in favour of monthly paid goods and services. Whether it's your home, your gas bill, your new car or your telephony solution, consumers and businesses are moving inexorably towards a credit-turnover model, writes Clive Jefferys, Managing Director of telco recruiter, JMA Network.

For most dealers the days of selling tin and getting a lump-sum pay out from a leasing company have become a thing of the past.

We may dress it all up as 'making our clients sticky' or 'building forward revenues' but the plain fact is that to stay competitive, nearly everything has to be quoted as an ongoing monthly charge.  

This has put plenty of strain on dealer cashflow in recent times and now it seems that the rise of hosted telephony will complete this income flow transformation.

The even bigger issue is what this means for the sales people we all rely upon.

Good capital sales people are motivated by four figure commission cheques, but where are they going to come from in future? It's all very well selling a five year contract, but if sales commission becomes £100 per month instead of £2,000 next month, is this truly motivating?  

While many argue that this is an opportunity to build a long term revenue/commission stream, most people instinctively mistrust long-term employer promises.

Rightly so, given the way that sales pay schemes tend to adjust, usually downwards, retrospectively, year on year!

Another factor is how deeply technical the telecoms sale has become.

Compared to selling calls, lines and PBX, the complexities of VoIP, SIP, cloud etc take years to grasp. Add in several years of recession and you can start to see why telecoms has failed to attract the next wave of sales recruits it needs to keep moving forward.

What's the solution to this looming Sales Skills Gap? We all need to start training salespeople again, growing them within the business to create loyalty and expertise. Key to this is paying them better, to protect them from temptation elsewhere.

High performing resellers were in the swing on a VIP visit to the British Golf Open, courtesy of a Nimans and Unify sales incentive.

As an official Unify distributor, Nimans teed up the opportunity to savour top class hospitality at the 144th Open Championship in St Andrews as the world’s top players converged to compete for one of the sport’s biggest prizes.

Resellers who smashed their sales targets were treated to a full day of VIP hospitality in The Champions Club plus two nights’ accommodation in Edinburgh with local transport to and from the event provided as well as dining and drinks.
"The Champions Club offered some of the finest sporting hospitality I’ve ever experienced, enabling guests the opportunity to soak up the atmosphere in the vibrant Hospitality Village next to the 16th hole,\" explained Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at Nimans.

"They were able to follow the action by walking the course or watch on a giant outdoor screen. High profile occasions of this nature represent a very compelling way of recognising and rewarding those resellers who go the extra mile and significantly exceed their sales targets. We’ve had lot of positive feedback from those that attended. It was a day to remember.\"

Eight places were up for grabs based on high sales performance and official accreditation, said Tony Smith, Unify’s UK and Ireland Channel Sales Director.
"The opportunity to watch some of the world’s greatest golfers with some of the UK & Ireland’s greatest partners was a superb experience,\" he remarked. "Everyone involved thoroughly deserved their day at The Open based on their sales success. Here’s to next year!\"

SMB focused Cloud provider Intermedia has joined the Cloud Industry Forum to support UK IT resellers as they transition to Cloud-based services.
Richard Walters, General Manager for Intermedia EMEA, hopes to help resellers profit from the growing demand from SMBs for business Cloud applications.

There are some shining examples of resellers that are reaping Cloud rewards – but there are many that have yet to adopt it. Intermedia can support resellers who are uncertain as to how to take their first steps to the Cloud, as much as we can support those that are looking to transition their whole business to the Cloud.

"There's a significant opportunity, but moving successfully to the Cloud does call for fundamental changes to resellers' business models and it's important that Cloud providers like us can support their transition. The work of the Cloud Industry Forum is crucial to driving change in the industry. Working alongside its community of members we plan to drive Cloud enablement and identify new ways we can support the channel," he added.

Intermedia says its Cloud management platform is completely tailored to the IT channel for both VARs and MSPs. The platform includes Intermedia's Office in the Cloud suite of business Cloud applications, and encompasses over 20 tightly integrated IT services with products such as Hosted Exchange for business-grade email.

Alex Hilton, CEO of the Cloud Industry Forum, commented: "The channel has a critical role to play in the continued adoption of Cloud services. Intermedia stands as a good example of a Cloud provider that is fully committed to supporting the channel and we are therefore very pleased to welcome them to our roster of members.\"

HighSpeed Office Limited (hSo) has been awarded a place on the new network services framework agreement as a supplier to the UK Public Sector.
The Crown Commercial Service has awarded hSo for all four supplier categories it applied for namely Data Access Services, Traditional Telephony Services, IP Telephony Services and Agency Services.

"As an agile and nimble SME, hSo is delighted to be selected for this new procurement framework,\" said Chris Evans, hSo’s Managing Director.
hSo uses its own network platform and works with all major national network providers to offer carrier-independent, cost-effective solutions, using ISO-certified processes.

"We applaud the inclusion of SMEs like hSo under this new framework. We’re sure that hSo’s cost-effectiveness, flexibility and friendly 24/7 support will be welcomed by the Public Sector,\" added Evans.

"hSo is proud to be one of only five SMEs selected for Data Access Services, and our inclusion for both Traditional and IP Telephony Services too is testament to hSo’s ability to provide fully converged solutions which can include WAN and hosted telephony services.\"

The agreement allows for the use of new and emerging networking technology, encouraging more innovation and flexibility, and letting Public Sector bodies buy what they want in the way they want to. It enables suppliers like hSo to build additional services around the core of contracted services to create bundled offerings.

One of the organisations to have benefited from hSo’s Public Sector services is NICE (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). hSo’s SIP Trunking service was part of a wider solution that gave NICE significant cost savings.

The managed services sector in Europe continues to exhibit strong growth, but performance by country presents a patchy picture with significant markets such as Spain and Italy actually showing a decline, according to a new report, Managed Service Providers in Europe – the top 500, published by IT Europa today.

Overall, managed services revenues in Europe rose by 3.5% between 2013 and 2014, says the IT Europa report, though this masks rapid growth in the Nordics, France and Germany and shrinkage in Spain and Portugal. Total revenues for all companies in the report total $294.28 billion (€262.78 billion) and total staff number is 1.4 million, although again there are major differences. Most are employed in the UK, France, Germany and Italy.

Critically, Europe is not one market for managed services provision, as the IT Europa report finds; there are major variations in the scale of its use in each country and region; the report shows that the national telecoms providers still have a major advantage when it comes to provision. The fastest growing part of Europe for managed services is the east, but from a very small base; Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria saw the biggest growth in turnover among managed services businesses last year. Some of these countries have very small scale managed services industries so far. Russia also has a tiny managed services provision.

The big players among managed services in Europe reflect the global position, with IBM Global Services, Accenture and Capgemini in the top ten, but there are also national powerhouses such as T-Systems International GmbH, BT Global Services, Telecom Italia, Alcatel Lucent and Nokia Solutions and Networks. This shows that the comms incumbency is still a strong factor, and that managed services is still being built on the back of telco provision.

The trends and opportunities in the Managed Services marketplace as well as some of the challenges it faces in accelerating adoption will be a major focus at the Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2015, the UK’s leading managed services event for the channel.

This executive-level event will be exploring the business opportunities for MSPs, Systems Integrators and Resellers in the delivery of Managed Services and Hosting and will take place on 17th September 2015 at 155 Bishopsgate, London. For further information visit: www.mshsummit.com/index.php

Recent research from BT across a range of vertical market sectors in Europe indicates 20 per cent additional time each week is spent addressing IT security and costs have risen to an average of £160,849 extra a year.
In six years there could be more than 50 billion connected devices in the world and the research shows that 76 per cent of CIOs are reporting unauthorised 'shadow IT' within their businesses.
Manish Sablok, Head of Marketing for North, West and East Europe at Alcatel Lucent research says the research has underlined the changing role of the CIO.
"In the era of BYOD in the workplace, where employees increasingly build their own 'personal cloud' of applications across various devices, control is slipping away from the IT department,\" he said.
"IT managers must deal with applications being accessed via wireless LAN from personal smartphones, tablets and other devices, bypassing the network firewall where access to a specific application is denied.
Sablock says fire-fighting shadow IT can escalate into significant uncontrolled, and unplanned spend for IT departments. But the role of IT needs to evolve to become more business strategic.
"Compliance is a front-of-mind issue in many industries, such as healthcare or financial services,\" he said.
"With strict privacy or financial Increasingly, IT departments are realising Unified Communications is a key component to delivering their users the functionality they desire through a solution which provides a consistent user experience across multiple devices – crucially in a secure manner.\"

Systems integrator and Open Source specialist Foehn has been selected to supply IP telephony services to the public sector within the Government’s new network services framework.
The framework replaces the Telephony Services (TS), Public Services Network Connectivity (PSNC) and Public Services Network Services (PSNS) agreements previously in place.
The new Network Services agreement (RM1045) provides local authorities with a means of procuring voice and Internet networks from 60 selected suppliers, around a third of which are small and medium sized businesses. Foehn is already a certified supplier on the UK Government’s G-Cloud and Digital Marketplace.
The adoption and use of IP telephony across the public sector is growing and its increasing popularity is reflected in the fact that it has been allocated its own lot as one of 10 in the new agreement.
Foehn says its expertise in Open Source technology enables the company to reduce private and public sector telephony costs, increase efficiencies and transform business practices. For example, the company recently helped Boston Borough Council to almost halve its annual telephony costs by helping the local authority to switch to an IP telephony system.
"Part of the objective of the new framework is to enable smaller, innovative telephony providers such as Foehn to trade with the public sector,\" explains Julian Barrow, Sales Director for Foehn.
"New and emerging IP telephony systems not only present government bodies with the opportunity to reduce their communications costs but actually they can also achieve a lot more than they did previously, including productivity improvements and efficiency gains.\"
Awarded by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), the Network Services agreement is expected to save the public sector approximately 16%, releasing savings of at least £59million.
The ten lots within the agreement are: IP telephony services, data access services, local connectivity services, traditional telephony services, inbound telephony services, mobile voice and data services, paging services, video conferencing services, audio conferencing services; and integrated communications

NG Bailey’s IT Services division has announced strong financial performance for the year to 27 February 2015, reporting sales growth of 7% to just over £60m.

The engineering, IT and facilities services business says it has won 454 new contracts over the last 12 months, spanning the full breadth of its IT services offering, with significant projects varying from a next generation surveillance installation at the Grade II listed Lincoln’s Inn, to sophisticated structured cabling implementations for major financial services institutions.

In recent months, the division has won an increasing number of major projects in central London, including contracts with St. Edward Homes (a division of the Berkeley Group http://www.berkeleygroup.co.uk/), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the capital’s iconic South Bank Tower. As a result of more businesses turning to NG Bailey the firm has increased its headcount by 11%.

Bob Dunnett (pictured), managing director for the division, told Comms Dealer: "The business continues to invest heavily in specialist training to ensure the team has the capability to deliver highly technical solutions in response to increasingly complex and demanding project briefs.

"This commitment enables us to deliver the best solutions to our customers when change impacts their sector. We’ve already seen examples of this in IP security and smart buildings and expect to see further disruption to companies as the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities shake up the market.\"

NG Bailey IT Services Ltd is a subsidiary of NG Bailey Ltd, the UK’s largest independent engineering, IT and facilities services group. For the year to 27 February 2015, NG Bailey posted an underlying operating profit of £3m against sales of £365m.

Exertis has ramped up its Cloud Services offering to includes Authentication as a Service (AaaS) in conjunction with Vasco Security.

The distributor says this new addition will allow partners to resell a true 'pay as you go’ service across multiple media with all policy changes, token initiation etc. handled by Exertis. The company stress that all these services can be provided on a White Label basis.

Grahame Smee, Exertis VAD Solutions Managing Director, told Comms Dealer: "The need to have a multi-layer approach to security is well accepted and using a form of two factor authentication (2FA) is one element to this. Unfortunately password failure is all too common and this type of service provides additional security and peace of mind to all types of user. We are delighted to be working in conjunction with Vasco around their market leading solution.\"

The solution is the latest to be available via the partner portal which Exertis claims is designed to make it easy for partners to manage all solutions offered on a Cloud basis including Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), NAC as a Service amongst others.

"The portal also allows any registered partner to manage add on services such as installation and also specify additional items such as cabling, switching etc. that may be required to complete the solution sale,\" added Smee.