Comms Dealer

Sombreros, ponchos and hot chillies were in abundance during a Mexican-themed Plantronics sales focus day held by distributor Exertis.

Simon Foster, Plantronics Brand Manager at Exertis, said: "The market for mobility and wearable technology has increased around 40% in the last 12 months and we've seen this reflect in the demand for Plantronics headset solutions from the channel.

"Our series of focus days is in place to not only increase product awareness but to help our customers increase wallet share of 'attachment' products.
 
"We've started this campaign in true style and will celebrate by rewarding the sales team here with a variety of Mexican food and drink, including a last man standing chilli eating competition!"

Data centre operator Next Generation Data (NGD) has named Brian Popperwell as Chief Operating Officer.

He brings a wealth of secure government and commercial client experience gained from 15 years of IT and operational management at IT services giant CGI (formerly Logica) and has familiarity of the NGD operation from his time at CGI, a major customer of NGD since 2009.

Prior to CGI Popperwell held various technical support and management positions including a stint in the RAF.

Nick Razey, NGD's CEO, said: "Brian's extensive secure government and enterprise client background, and having already experienced NGD while at CGI, means he will offer us invaluable insights in terms of maximising operational excellence and service delivery as we continue to grow."

ITS Technology Group (ITS) is investing £1m into increasing its broadband footprint due to demand from SME businesses that have 'woeful' broadband speeds, including those on purpose built business parks.
 
The firm is an active supplier to the BDUK connection voucher scheme and has recently signed up over 1,800 businesses in the North West.

This includes 300 of the 1000 businesses located on Knowsley Business Park in Merseyside, and it is active in a further seven regions across the UK.
 
ITS also intends to make further investment into the 17km duct and fibre assets in Hammersmith and Fulham in order to offer the 22,000 businesses in the area superfast and ultrafast broadband under the BDUK scheme.

Working with its partner, Fluidata, a data delivery network aggregator, the network continues to attract high demand from businesses, wholesale partners and the public sector.
 
Piers Daniell, Managing Director of Fluidata said: "The ability to deliver services over fibre to the premises without the need of using a traditional Tier-1 carrier means services can be delivered in a different timescale and different commercial proposition.

"With fibre already available for quick deployment by the ISPs connected into our Service Exchange Platform, customers can be served quickly. Through ITS there is a proposition to businesses and consumers in the Hammersmith and Fulham area for high speed connectivity."
 
David Cullen, Director of Strategy for ITS Technology Group, said: "ITS has been a supplier to the BDUK connection voucher scheme since the pilot scheme began in June 2013 and became an accredited supplier in 2014. The appetite for superfast broadband has been phenomenal, as so many pockets of the UK have been overlooked and been left digitally stranded.
 
"We have, and continue to invest heavily in bringing affordable connectivity to these areas, which includes purpose built business parks, that have been campaigning for better broadband for years.

"For example, Knowsley Business Park in Merseyside, Pride Park in Derby, and Salmon Business Village in Oldham, to name a few. It means that thousands of SMEs now have access to superfast and even ultrafast broadband which has transformed their digital capabilities."
 
ITS is currently active in Manchester, Trafford, Salford, Tameside, Liverpool, Knowlsey, Oldham, Leeds, Coventry, Derby, London and York under the BDUK connection voucher scheme, and is also preparing to launch in Sheffield and the North East.

ITS also recently acquired the assets of Konek-T in South Wales which includes more than 500 business and residential customer contracts.
 

The latest figures released by MZA  show that PBX/Call Control extensions and licenses (excluding Micro PBX products) fell by 4% year-on-year in the calendar year Q1 2015 (January to March 2015 inclusive).

After two successive quarters of recovery the global market returned to year-on-year decline Q1 2015, with the financial crisis in Russia significantly steering the decline.
The decline was largely driven by solutions  <100 extensions/licenses which fell by 5% year-on-year, while solutions >100 extensions/licenses fell by 3% year-on-year as a recovery in the North American enterprise market against a poor Q1 2014 prevented a similar decline in the enterprise segments >100 extensions.
The Russian financial crisis partially driven by Western sanctions, including trade embargoes for Western and Japanese PBX manufacturers, saw the Russian Call Control market fall to unprecedented levels. While its neighbour, crisis-torn Ukraine, saw its market fall by similar levels.
As a result, the Eastern European market fell by 20% year-on-year, despite strong volume growth in Poland, the second largest market in the region.
With the exception of the North American market which remained flat overall year-on-year, all other regional markets suffered comparatively smaller declines at either 3% or 4% year-on-year.
?Global PBX/IP PBX Market - Q1 2015?NEC returned once more to lead the global Call Control (PBX/IP PBX) market in the first quarter of the calendar year with a market share of 12%, repeating its success in Q1 2014. Sales in its home market of Japan aided sequential share gains for the vendor, up three percentage points globally against Q4 2014.
The final quarter of the Japanese financial year is usually the strongest quarter in the Japanese Call Control market, and Japan accounted for 12% of the global market in Q1 2015.
Capital investment in Japan rose by 7.3% sequentially, allied to the weak yen which boosted the value of overseas revenue in yen terms, improving profits and prompting firms to expand investment.
NEC continued to dominate its domestic market witnessing a 1% share gain year-on-year. Allied to its Japanese sales, sales of the new Univerge 9000 series were strong in many international markets following its introduction to its partner network.
Avaya, the global leader in 2014, was in second position and improved its global market share to 12% in Q1 2015 from 11% in Q1 2014, once more the share gain was largely driven by year-on-year growth through its IP Office solution in the mid-market between 51 and 250 extensions, most notably in the Middle East and Africa region.
Cisco retained third position globally aided by year-on-year share gains in North America, and accounted for a flat 11% global share.
Mitel retained its fourth position of Q4 2014, ahead of Panasonic, with both vendors maintaining flat market shares of 8% and 7% globally against Q1 2014.
NEC retained its Q1 2014 leadership in the global  <100 licenses/extensions market (excluding Micro PBX products) as it took a 16% share in Q1 2015, supplanting Panasonic who led the market in the intermediate quarters.
2015 marked NEC's third consecutive top position for the first quarter of the calendar year, although its 16% share was down one percentage point against Q1 2014.
Panasonic saw market share grow by one percentage point year-on-year to 12%, aided by volume growth in Brazil and Mexico, and notably strong sales of the KX-NS500 in Italy and Spain.
Avaya continued to gain market share most significantly in the 51-100 extensions segment, and were up one percentage point in the  <100 licenses/extensions market overall.
Cisco and Avaya maintained their 20% and 13% global market shares respectively in the >100 extensions/licenses market in Q1 2015, with both manufacturers benefiting from improving volumes year-on-year in North America.
Huawei, who became a major player in the global enterprise market in CY 2014, retained its Q4 2014 third position with a 10% share, up one percentage point year-on-year.
NEC, enjoyed growth in the North American, Indian and Italian markets, which bolstered its traditionally strong first quarter sales in the Japanese enterprise market. Sequentially, NEC took fourth position from Mitel, who had held the position in Q3 and Q4 2014, with both vendors recording flat market shares against Q1 2014 of 9% and 8% respectively.
Microsoft, despite a slowdown in volume against Q4 2014 as enterprises waited for the launch of Skype for Business, nevertheless continued to improve its volumes against Q1 2014 with Lync's popularity improving most notably in Western Europe.
Microsoft took a 7% share in the quarter to claim sixth position. Unify enjoyed a return to share growth in seventh position as it captured 7% of the global market, compared to 6% in Q1 2014. This was largely driven by a 17% year-on-year uplift in solutions >100 extensions/licenses in the German market.
World IP Extensions/Licenses Market ?IP extensions/licenses grew by 3% year-on-year, outperforming the total market largely driven by the growth in the North American and Asia Pacific enterprise segments.
As a consequence, the North America and Asia Pacific total markets witnessed the largest shift towards IP solutions in Q1 2015, with the IP penetration rate (the % of IP extensions into total extensions to the desktop) growing by four percentage points year-on-year.
Cisco, Huawei, Avaya and NEC all helped to drive the Asia Pacific >100 IP licenses market up 12% year-on-year, while Cisco can be largely credited with driving an 8% growth in the North American market.
The global IP penetration rate rose to 47% from 44% in Q1 2014. That said, the quarter a year ago, was a particularly poor one for enterprise in North America, where IP extensions account for the vast majority of extensions deployed.
The global IP penetration rate fell in Q1 2015 sequentially against the 48% rate in Q4 2014, as the more TDM-centric markets of Asia Pacific, maintained their historical record of taking a greater proportion of global extensions compared to the final quarter of the year. With the exception of Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific accounted for the lowest regional IP penetration rate of 33%, up from 29% in Q1 2014.
A fall in IP solutions in EMEA resulted in Cisco maintaining a flat 21% share in the global IP licenses market from Avaya in second position, who took a stable 18% share.
Mitel followed in third position with a share of 9% ahead of Microsoft and Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise who took 8% and 7% global shares.
Global PBX/IP PBX Market - Rolling Year ?Excluding Micro PBX products, the global PBX/Call Control extensions and licenses market over the rolling year CY Q2 2014 to CY Q1 2015 (April 2014 to March 2015 inclusive) was flat year-on-year, with solutions in enterprise (>100 licenses/extensions) marginally out-performing those in the SME ( <100 licenses/extensions) segment, by rising by 1% against a flat smaller systems segment.
The largest market Asia Pacific aided by continued growth in Middle East and Africa prevented a global decline, as economic problems pervaded Eastern Europe and Latin America, while economic factors coupled with technological changes such as the drift towards UC applications in ICT expenditure has seen the average lifespan of call control solutions increase in Western Europe and North America.
India's economy has shown some revival over the period with the new government implementing investment friendly policies culminating in it becoming the world's fastest growing major economy in Q1 2015 and Q3 2014 surpassing China. Notably, of the main world markets, India saw the greatest increase in extensions volume over the rolling year, equating to over a quarter of a million extensions.
In the competitive landscape positions remained largely unchanged when comparing the rolling year against MZA's CY Analysis for 2014. Avaya continued to lead the global market for with a stable 12% share, followed by Cisco exactly half a percentage point behind the market leader.
NEC and Panasonic closed on the market leaders in third and fourth positions, largely through the more buoyant Asia Pacific regional market. Mitel and Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise remained in fifth and sixth positions respectively ahead of Huawei, Unify, Microsoft and Ericsson-LG Enterprise.
In the SME ( <100 licenses/extensions) market, Panasonic held first position for the rolling year for the second consecutive quarter. Indeed it really started to improve volumes across markets in Q2 2014 (the beginning of the rolling year) following the launch of the KX-NS series of communications platforms. Panasonic accounted for a 16% share, up three percentage points year-on-year. NEC remained in second position for the second successive quarter with a stable 14% share, ahead of Avaya who took a 10% market share.??Cisco continued to lead the global >100 extensions/licenses market, with a market share of 21%, down one percentage point. Avaya increased market share to 14%, up one percentage point. Significant volume growth in the large enterprise segments >500 extensions enabled both Huawei and Microsoft to gain market share, in third and fifth positions respectively. Mitel, with its acquired heritage Aastra solutions included, remained strong in fourth position with a flat 8% share.
Note: This analysis refers to user license/extension volume performance, due to the fact that this is the key performance indicator provided by all contributing parties, with no vendor providing sector specific analysis of revenue performance.

VIA, the business telephony and communications specialist, has installed its VIA Voice solution across Questionmark's offices located in the UK, Germany, Canada and the US.

Questionmark, the provider of online assessment technologies and services, is now using a fully hosted Skype for Business application supplemented by additional bespoke functionality to promote unified communications across the business.

The project included porting the company's existing telephone numbers and using VIA's SYNC feature, which automatically imports user details, saving businesses vital time. In addition, VIA implemented a solution for a centralised English and German speaking help desk.

A key driver behind this decision was Questionmark's desire to further support the portion of its workforce that work remotely across the four countries. The VIA solution delivers enhanced VoIP call quality from a system that seamlessly integrates with smartphones to benefit a mobile workforce.

Alex Tebbs, Sales Director at VIA, said: "VIA offers a flexible, agile and easy to install communications system for companies looking to upgrade a traditional telephony network, as well as for businesses looking to relocate."

VoIP Unlimited put its full support behind the Southampton University Formula Student Team (SUFST) which competed in the the annual Formula Student UK competition at Silverstone.

The team competed against almost 100 university teams from across the globe in a single-seat racing car event.

Returning for its 17th year, the three-day event saw the next generation of world-class engineers and drivers racing for record times. SUFST beat the likes of University of Exeter and City University London in the overall class 1 results, achieving 71st place.

Having entered the competition for the second year running, the team achieved its most impressive result in the business presentations judging, earning a covetable 23rd place out of the 97 teams.

acked by industry and high profile engineers, including Patron Ross Brawn OBE (former team principal, MERCEDES AMG PETRONAS F1 Team), the competition aimed to inspire and develop enterprising and innovative young engineers.

Challenged to design, build and race a single-seat racing car, the SUFST enlisted telecommunications company VoIP Unlimited as title sponsor at the start of the academic year, enabling students to design and engineer a car to withstand the dynamic event.

VoIP Unlimited's MD Mark Pillow said: "VoIP Unlimited has been more than proud to sponsor SUFST - even more so now the team has earned a well-deserved place in the record books!

"It was a joy to see the students' progress over the year with the design, build and on the final race day. They achieved so much in just a few short months."

SUFST team leader Dan Castro, added: "It's been great to have had VoIP Unlimited as a main sponsor for our team. Their knowledge, connections and experience within motorsport have proven invaluable to our development; both technically and with raising the profile of the team."

Almost half (48%) of UK SMEs are set to increase their spending on cloud computing services over the next 12 months according to the results of GE Capital's annual Capex Barometer.

Two thirds of SMEs already use cloud services to some degree with more than one in ten (14%) using it for more than 25% of their total IT requirements.

The findings echo a report earlier this year from market intelligence firm IDC, which predicted that the EMEA market for cloud infrastructure will reach almost two fifths (39%) of total expenditure by 2019.

Gabriele D'Uva, UK Managing Director, Equipment Finance at GE Capital, commented: "As we enter the era of the 'industrial Internet', the key drivers of technological change and user behaviour are coming together to accelerate change.

"On an industrial level, key business services such as telephony and big data, which once required high levels of investment in hardware and software equipment, are now moving into the cloud space. All you need is a handset and an Internet service.

"Meanwhile, a new generation of workers are transferring their experience of using cloud computing in their personal lives to the business world, creating increased demand.

"The barriers to accessing cloud computing are also lowering. In the UK, there has been a real drive in national infrastructure investment, particularly in broadband speeds, which is accelerating the performance and take-up of cloud.

"As a consequence of this trend we are seeing increased demand for leasing finance as businesses look for more flexible ways to finance hosted cloud services rather than the more traditional method of buying hardware or software outright".

Increasing demand for cloud services is also creating new growth opportunities for the UK telecoms industry. One UK business that has recognised the rising demand for cloud services is Berry Telecom.

Jo-Anne Udy, Finance Director of Berry Telecom, said: "This is an exciting year as, in addition to growth from upgrading hardware and software for existing customers, we are forecasting increased new product sales due to increasing market demand for cloud.

"In response to this we are launching a cloud-based system that offers assured voice quality, short-term rentals and experienced staff to support the installation and maintenance of the phones. This will be supported by investment in hiring and marketing to raise awareness of our offering in a competitive market."

Logitech has unveiled the Logitech Collaboration Program (LCP) which aims to deliver an enhanced, integrated collaboration experience to customers.

Charter members of the program include Blue Jeans Network, BroadSoft, C2G, Lifesize, Vidyo and Zoom.

"The Logitech Collaboration Program will focus on the user experience by enhancing business communications with end-to-end solutions that simply work," said Jason Moss, general manager of Logitech's collaboration group.

"Working together with technology companies on the integration of Logitech products will provide improved product functionality, customised user experiences, and will accelerate new innovations into the collaboration market."

The LCP plans to enhance virtual meetings with solutions for distraction-free communication, group collaboration, face-to-face collaboration and mobile communications.

Video integration features may include pan, tilt and zoom, far-end camera control, software presets, and H.264 video compression. Audio functions such as call/session answer, end and mute, hold and resume, and volume up and down can also be integrated into a solution.

NG Bailey's IT Services division now boasts more Ekahau-certified Wi-Fi network engineers than any other organisation in the UK, after nine of its team achieved the wireless network specialist's Ekahau Certified Survey Engineer (ECSE) qualification.

NG Bailey's specialists join just eight other certified individuals in the UK and 250 globally.

The accreditation confirms NG Bailey as having fulfilled the training requirements to design, deploy and troubleshoot Wi-Fi networks using Ekahau's specialist range of tools.

Ekahau Site Survey (ESS), a key component in Ekahau's suite of testing, planning and maintenance tools, allows Ekahau-certified engineers to simulate the coverage and capacity of a proposed Wi-Fi network.

ESS makes it possible for engineers to implement network adjustments and reconfigurations in order to optimise performance prior to assembly, saving organisations both time and money further down the line.

Indi Sall, technical director for NG Bailey's IT Services division, said: "With bring your own device and remote access initiatives gaining real traction, understanding how Wi-Fi capacity and performance can be maximised is now critical."

Ben Hasselblatt, head of global sales, Wi-Fi tools at Ekahau, added: "Following this certification, NG Bailey is now equipped to master any Wi-Fi design project, be it an intricate office environment or major stadium complex."

ESS is a Wi-Fi tool kit used by tens of thousands of Wi-Fi engineers globally. It helps design the wireless network by simulating the environment in three dimensions, as well as validating and troubleshooting Wi-Fi networks.

It has been calculated that ShoreTel delivers the lowest first-year and five-year costs against eight competitors in a study by Nemertes Research for IP telephony and on-premises Unified Communications.

In addition, ShoreTel is judged to have the lowest operational costs for both and the lowest implementation costs for on-premises UC, according to the study.

Nemertes conducted a study of 264 organisations to gather real-world cost data for nine leading IP telephony and Unified Communications vendors. The companies interviewed and surveyed represented a range of industries and sizes, primarily in North America.

ShoreTel's first-year costs for IP Telephony across all size rollouts are $566 compared to a median of $717 across all vendors. ShoreTel also maintains the lowest first-year operational costs for all size rollouts, as well as the lowest five-year TCO for 200, 1,500 and 10,000 endpoints. For on-premises UC deployments, ShoreTel has the lowest operational and implementation costs.

"What's important to highlight is that this research is based on what companies are actually spending on their solutions. Operational costs are the most important of all, and organisations using ShoreTel spend significantly less to operate their systems than those who use other providers," said Robin Gareiss, president of Nemertes Research.

"Based on the data, ShoreTel customers spend less initially and over time on their solutions. The IP Telephony and UC environments are changing rapidly and we recommend IT leaders negotiate hard, run cost models for five-years out, and pay particular attention to implementation and operations costs."