Comms Dealer

Provider of cloud-based IT management software Kaseya has opened a new central London office, a move that follows success in EMEA which has become one of Kaseya's fastest growing markets, with the UK in particular outpacing new business growth expectations.

As the company continues to grow its customer base in the region, it has already made a number of personnel hires in the areas of field sales, account management, new business and marketing.

"We've seen a significant level of growth in the EMEA market over the last 12 months and moving to a new UK office provides us with the space we need to better service our expanding customer base," said Spencer Young, VP, International.

"Thanks to the additional space and more desirable location, we are now in a position to aggressively increase our team of experienced, customer-focused professionals."

Mike Tudor, Technical Manager for TSG, added: "Kaseya's ongoing investment and continued growth in our market is great to see and encouraging from a customer perspective."

Kaseya has also seen growth in its business selling to mid-sized enterprises in a number of sectors and counts customers in the airline, automotive, and technology industries among its significant new wins.

"Kaseya's continued investment in its core technology, agile product release cycle and expanded IT management portfolio, have attracted a host of new customers," added Young.

Content Guru has been selected by CIOReview as one of its 20 Most Promising Unified Communications Solution Providers 2015.

The positioning highlights the company's success in delivering cloud-based Unified Communications (UC) and Communications Integration (CI) services through its storm platform to large enterprise and government organisations.

The annual list of companies is selected by a panel of experts and members of CIOReview's editorial board to recognise and promote technology entrepreneurship.

"Content Guru has been on our radar for some time for stirring a revolution in the UC technology space, and we are happy to showcase them this year due to their continuing excellence in delivering top-notch UC solutions," said Harvi Sachar, Publisher and Founder, CIOReview.

"Content Guru's solutions continued to break new ground within the past year, benefitting its customers around the globe, and we're excited to have them featured on our top companies list."

Content Guru's CEO Sean Taylor said: "Our group of companies has been providing UC services for over 20 years, firstly via a sister company as customer-premise solutions and over the past 10 years as Content Guru via the cloud.

"Although there has always been a strong marketplace for Unified Communications, it has only been over the past three-four years that UC has moved to a high priority on the CIO's list, and we are delighted to be recognised for our breadth of complex deployments across the globe."

Annodata has restructured its senior management team in a move to to achieve its target of becoming a £100m business in 2016.

Annodata's former Group Sales Director, Rod Tonna-Barthet, has assumed the newly-created position of CEO, while Geoff Slaughter has been appointed to the role of Group Sales Director.

Tonna-Barthet has over 27 years of experience in the service provider industry and held a number of board level positions in the technology space prior to joining Annodata in 2008.

In his role of Group Sales Director, he was directly responsible for the company's sales strategy and oversaw a significant increase in the company's revenue.

As CEO, his remit will be to manage overall operations and ensure Annodata's recent rates of growth are maintained and that future growth is sustainable.

Annodata's founders and shareholders Andrew Harman and Tim Harman will be focusing their efforts on overseeing the corporate strategy, identifying acquisition targets and new growth opportunities.

Chairman Martin St. Quinton said: "The past financial year has been marked by a number of big changes within the company, not least the acquisitions of Keltec and STS.

"These changes have presented us with a significant opportunity to grow the business, but to do that in a way that is sustainable, it's critical that we've got the right leadership and management team in place.

"During his time with the company, Rod has demonstrated clearly his commitment to the company and his business acumen. I therefore have no doubt that, as newly appointed CEO, he will lead Annodata's continued success."

Geoff Slaughter has stepped into the position of Group Sales Director. He brings a wealth of sector-led sales experience at the enterprise level, and prior to joining Annodata held a range of senior management roles at Canon.

He spent the last five years building the Global Service Division for Canon Europe and was successful in winning new contracts with some of the largest global corporations.

"Geoff makes a very welcome addition to the Annodata team," added Martin St. Quinton. His significant senior sales management experience with Canon puts him in good stead to spearhead Annodata's advance into new markets as Group Sales Director and help execute our strategy to provide a wider range of services to our existing clients."

As many as 91%, or 4.6 million, SMEs in the UK are struggling to introduce new technologies to their organisation, with only one in 10 confirming that this can be done without challenges, according to new data from Solar Communications.

The research also reveals one in three SMEs (32%) are facing issues with meeting the technology needs of the workforce. Simplifying IT and operations is also a problem for 34% of SMEs, with other IT-related issues including having to juggle multiple suppliers and having numerous points of contact for billing or support.

Looking at wider business issues, SMEs cited competitive advantage, reducing operating costs and managing a more mobile workforce as primary challenges.

More than half (52%) struggle with competing with larger organisations and reducing operating costs is a challenge for 45% of SMEs. Managing a more flexible and mobile workforce was a problem cited by 40% of business decision makers.

Mark Colquhoun, CEO of Solar Communications, said: "The research suggests that many UK SMEs are finding technology to be a challenge for their business, rather than a real enabler.

"The increasingly complex nature of today's technology environments is presenting issues to today's SMEs, with multiple suppliers, technologies and points of contact to manage.

"A strategic partnership with a single supplier can deliver significant benefits, reducing administrative workloads to improve efficiency and business agility in order to create competitive advantage in the market."

Service provider Fidelity Group is claiming an industry first after announcing its first revenue share app for the channel alongside cloud-based meeting room management specialist Smartway2.

In an initiative described as ‘Applification of the Channel' Fidelity says it aims to help resellers make regular recurring profit from easy-to-use apps that simplify day-to-day business activities.

"This is a major stepping stone in the evolution of the channel into revenue share through apps and will be the first of a series we are launching this year as part of our Applification strategy," said Fidelity managing director Alan Shraga.

Fidelity has now embarked on a reseller recruitment drive for Smartway2's meeting room management SaaS solution which, according to founders Nigel Reading and Martin Hiles can be installed and working within minutes.

The pair previously established BusinessSolve, the Workspace Manager scheduling solution.

Smartway2 responds to the latest developments in cloud computing and mobile device technology, enabling today's always-connected professionals to book onsite resources wherever they are, whenever it is convenient," said Hiles.

As well as booking resources through on-premise touchscreen panels and mobile devices, Smartway2 is fully integrated with Microsoft Apps for Office as well as Google applications, including maps and language translation functionality.

A phased roll-out will initially target resellers addressing the SME market, but Smartway2's scalable architecture
will also be available for multinational and enterprise sized organisations.

"Smartway2 is cost-effective and offers a flexible and scalable licensing model," said Reading.

"Available via a SaaS subscription model, it reduces real estate costs, energy consumption and carbon footprints, and offers resellers valuable recurring revenue opportunities."

A rising tide of mobile workers plays into the hands of Smartway2 resellers, claimed Reading. "When mobile workers need to meet with their partners or customers, it is essential the right collaboration resources are available on the day, without fuss," he added. "Therefore, there's even greater demand now from companies for resource scheduling solutions.

"With Smartway2, we have created a solution based around how people work and the tools and applications they use daily, adding extra value and increased functionality to the conventional resource scheduling process."

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ITS Technology Group (ITS) has acquired the assets of broadband firm Konek-T (which appointed administrators last month), including broadband networks and contracts to provide broadband services to rural communities across South Wales.

This is the fourth acquisition ITS has made in the last 12 months which included Xwavia also based in Wales.

Roy Shelton, Group CEO at ITS, said: "ITS delivers connectivity to digitally deprived areas across the UK, and the addition of this network adds value to this proposition.

"ITS already has a footprint in Llancarfan, so these assets will extend our reach in this area.

"As a result, ITS will be able to offer access to more business and residential customers that have been struggling with inadequate broadband speeds, as well as allowing us to focus on wholesale access to our partners."

ITS is now planning a complete upgrade of the network to make sure it is capable of sustaining a reliable broadband service to its existing customers who will not be charged for their services while this work is carried out.

"Once this phase is complete, ITS will also be offering further services including VoIP and IT support services to businesses in the area across a shared network.

A new report, European Cloud & Hosting Providers, the Top 250 2015, produced by IT Europa shows a steadily growing business, with much of the growth coming through the independent companies rather than larger publicly-listed firms.

The total revenues for companies in the report rose by just 1.5% in 2014 over the previous year, but reached €92bn in Europe.

The top application and solution areas being hosted were Software as a Service (SaaS) (54% of companies), security (50%), web hosting (45.6%), networks (42.4%), Data Centre Space Rental/Co-location (32%), email hosting (30.8%), Server Rental/Virtual/Dedicated Servers (27.2%), Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) (26.8%), Platform as a Service (PaaS) (25.6%).

The high figures for security are to be expected given the rapid developments in this area. Platform as a Service (PaaS) was surprisingly strong at 25.6%; telephony/VoIP/Voice at 25.2% is expected to evolve further as unified communications continues to grow, comments IT Europa's news team.

The big firms stayed at the top, with IBM Global Services EMEA, Capgemini SA, Microsoft EMEA, HP Enterprise Services EMEA and BT Global Services staying ahead of global leader AWS in Europe.

Of the 250 companies profiled, there were 177 Independent companies, 52 Subsidiaries, 17 Public companies (traded on stock exchanges) and four parent companies.

The best performers were the Independents with revenues increase of 8% between 2013 and 2014.

Companies from 24 European countries were included in the report, with the largest geographic markets covered in terms of companies profiled being: UK (143 companies), Germany (23), Netherlands (18) and France (12). The largest geographic markets in terms of revenue are UK ($33.79bn), France ($30.06bn).

Streaming and audio visual company Sharpstream has upgraded to a triple site infrastructure with C4L to provide 'bullet-proof' streaming services for radio and TV broadcasters globally.

Sharpstream customers including the Premier League and the Ministry of Sound use multiple infrastructure connections supplied by C4L.

Network consultancy from senior Network engineers at C4L has led to the design of a new BGP topology including provision of new Juniper routers as a rented offering. As well as further improving resiliency, the principle reason for the upgrade was to gain more control of their routing strategy, and supply Sharpstream with even more traffic management.

By managing their own core services using coreTX - Sharpstream now has more flexibility to offer to its customers. They can now build core streaming environments on the fly to suit a variety of different applications, due to the careful planning before the roll out.

Additional Tier 1 transit options give Sharpstream the confidence and scale to further develop their International offering while also giving them an easy upgrade path should they wish to add more POPs - nationally and internationally.

Claire Osmond, Account Director at C4L, said: "Sharpstream has been a loyal C4L customer for five years, using C4L's infrastructure to host and deliver a lot of the streaming content, required in live time for some huge names in the media industry."

BT Wholesale has agreed a four year contract with Yealink UK to supply SIP handsets through the BT Wholesale Centrex hosted service.
 
The agreement sees Yealink becoming an approved manufacturer to supply BT Wholesale and covers the company's SIP-T41P, SIP-T46G, SIP-T48G SIP handsets and W52P SIP DECT model.
 
Marc Timmermans, Director of products for Hosted Communication services at BT Wholesale, commented: "This was a complex tender which assessed a number of technical, performance and stylistic measures.
 
"Yealink demonstrated reliability, functionality, aesthetic design and close and proven integration with Broadsoft. These handsets will become an integral element of our Hosted IP Centrex offer."
 
Yealink UK's GM Steve Watts said: "The contract is set to deliver significant sales volumes and further raise the profile of the Yealink brand in the UK."

In the UK Yealink has secured year-on-year growth of 50% since the turn of the decade.
 
 

A seven strong team of hikers from Manchester-based Invosys have completed the Cheshire 3-peaks Challenge in aid of Francis House Children's Charity, which provides comfort, rest and fun for children and young adults with life threatening conditions (and their families).

Invosys' Stephanie Warwick helped organise the event. She said: "The Cheshire 3-Peaks Challenge was a one of the toughest things we have ever done but it was great to pull together as a team for this fantastic charity.

"It's a key part of our ethos at Invosys to give something back to the community where we live and work, and we are delighted to be working with Francis House this year."