Comms Dealer

Avaya has unwrapped a new model of its Collaboration Pod designed for mid-size enterprises.

The Collaboration Pod 2400 Series combines applications, servers, storage, networking and management components in an easy-to-deploy, ready-to-operate package.

Avaya is also launching a fast-track Collaboration Pod onboarding programME for qualified Avaya channel partners to help them deliver the new Collaboration Pod 2400 to customers, as well as a demo programme for customers and channel partners.
 
Based on solutions from Avaya, HP, EMC, and VMware, the fully-integrated, tested Avaya Collaboration Pod 2400 can reduce the time to service for Engagement Solutions to weeks from months, claimed the vendor.

The Collaboration Pod is customised to the requirements of each customer and can be expanded as needs change.

Authorised channel partners can provide 'single source' support for all Collaboration Pod components, simplifying software upgrades and eliminating the need for support coverage from multiple vendors.
 
"Midsize enterprises understand the strategic value of technology, but typically have more financial and skills support restraints than larger enterprises," said Liam Kiely, VP, Networking Infrastructure, Avaya.

"The Collaboration Pod 2400 enables them to rapidly utilise our Engagement Solutions via a streamlined deployment model."

Software Box, a provider of information security solutions to the public and private sector, has linked up with Sinclair Voicenet, a provider of multimedia call recording, contact centre applications and PCI security solutions.

This new partnership enables Software Box to take PCI DSS-compliant solutions to contact centres handling sensitive personal information during telephone-based Cardholder Not Present (CNP) transactions," commented Samantha Hickman, Strategic Manager at Software Box.

Software Box and Sinclair Voicenet will jointly explore new opportunities throughout the public sector for SmartVoice Protect, a PCI compliance solution that ensures that Sensitive Authentication Data relating to credit and debit cards is not overheard, recorded or stored in contact centres.

Mitel has retooled its MiContact Center portfolio and formed a new reseller agreement with global workforce management provider Teleopti, offering a suite of scheduling products.

The new release of MiContact Center Solidus features multi-language advanced multimedia capability with multi-platform email support for any SMTP server, an improved integrated interaction workflow designer, searchable chat/email history and social and enhanced blending for common agent handling of all media types.

Mitel has expanded the scalability of MiContact Center Enterprise Edition and introduced a replay capability.

Enhancements to MiContact Center Outbound include three-way conferencing for agents, dynamic calling party number presentation, intelligent time zone scheduling, call recording integration, voice resiliency and more.

"The contact centre market is dramatically different than it was even two years ago, with a radical shift in terms of where customer conversations are happening and the increasing use of non-traditional platforms like chat and social," said Ron Wellard, Chief Products and Solutions Officer, Mitel.

"These shifts create a fantastic opportunity for contact centres to drive a new level of customer engagement and experience to improve satisfaction, loyalty, and spend while lowering operational costs and complexity."

Industry analyst Sheila McGee-Smith said: "With consumers rapidly shifting to digital channels for interactions, constant enhancements to multi-channel capabilities are essential, as are workforce optimisation tools to manage how agents performing mobile, social and other web-based transactions are scheduled and managed."

Although video conferencing is becoming pervasive within enterprises worldwide, many CIOs find that the technology does not always reach its full potential, according to Ovum.

Older infrastructure, complicated client software, limited integration with business applications, and ineffectual end user training are among the issues that can prevent a company deriving maximum value from its investments in video conferencing technology.

An Ovum white paper, 'CIO Guide to Video Conferencing', provides insight into how CIOs can combat these issues.

Specifically, CIOs need to provide a seamless and easy user experience that is available on all devices and networks; deliver an engagement plan that solicits end-user input; establish an internal marketing programme to promote the use of video conferencing; document best practices around the effective use of video conferencing and encourage top management to embrace video conferencing.

"In the end, employees, not the technology they use, need to be at the center of the experience," said Brian Riggs, Principal Analyst in Ovum's Enterprise Services practice and author of the white paper. "They need to have easy-to-use video communications tools that let them call any device, on any network, and from any location."

In addition, enterprises are leveraging cloud services to get the most out of video conferencing with minimal capital expense. With cloud-based video conferencing, CIOs can avoid many of the capital expenses traditionally associated with video conferencing, turning it instead into an operational expense.

This not only lowers the barrier of entry for enterprises looking to invest in video conferencing for the first time, but can also reduce the cost of introducing improvements to an existing video implementation.

"Tapping into the many benefits of video conferencing can be a daunting proposition for CIOs. But using cloud-based services enterprises can experiment with many of the different ways video communications can be delivered to employees," added Riggs.

B2B and retail distributor Exertis collected NEC's Fastest Growing EMEA Distributor award at the vendor's EMEA Partner Conference 2015 held in Athens.

John Bird, Head of Systems and Support Services at Exertis, stated: "This award represents the commitment and hard work that our specialist VAD Division and dedicated NEC Business Unit have delivered in partnership with the loyalty, support and dedication we receive from our reseller channel.

"This determination has helped us to deliver year-on-year growth of over 140% across NEC UC Solutions, supported by the only 24x7x365 technical support team within the NEC UK Distribution channel."

Hats off to a team of soccer stars from comms distributor Nimans who a five-a-side football competition. Businesses from across the North West competed in the Barclays' Charity 5s Manchester Tournament with Nimans winning the Plate Final 3-1. The team, made up of staff from across the business, played a total of seven matches, scoring a total of 24 goals and conceding just eight.

Jabra has unveiled the Jabra BIZ 2400 II premium headset for the contact centre industry, a corded headset with an ultra noise-cancelling microphone, acoustic shock protection, enhanced speakers and more comfortable padding.

"Where conversations are at the heart of a hardworking contact centre employee's role, call clarity and all-day comfort are vital," said Nigel Dunn, Managing Director, Jabra UK & Ireland.

"The new Jabra BIZ 2400 II effectively fulfills both requirements to ensure health and safety compliance, as well as increased productivity in order to achieve daily and weekly KPIs.

"It is no surprise that when agents are comfortable and can clearly hear the people they are speaking to, they are more productive - call wrap-up times improve, leading to more calls handled during a shift and as a result, job satisfaction grows - the Jabra BIZ 2400 II facilitates this improved performance."

Venus Business Communications is launching 10 gigabit connection speeds across its Venus Dark Fibre Network.

Changes in demarcation technology, facilitating these speeds, together with the unlimited capacity of the Venus Dark Fibre Network means 10 gigabit per second speeds are available across London.

Venus has invested for many years in building a dark fibre network across London. The Venus backbone connects to points of presence at strategic locations across the city from which fibre service can be provisioned for businesses customers.

The Venus Dark Fibre Network has been built with almost unlimited capacity to support fast connection speeds, beyond what was possible when the network construction began.

Brian Iddon, Director of Venus Business Communications, said: "When we began constructing the Venus Dark Fibre Network connection speeds of 2 megabits per second were considered fast and 70 megabits per second were a dream.

"However, we had the foresight to build a fibre optic network that was future proof and we are now capitalising on that investment as the technology to deliver 10 gigabits per second emerges.

"Our network has the coverage and the capacity to support these speeds and even faster speeds as they become available."

Early adopters of the technology include broadcast media and large developers.

Interest has been high from London's post production houses, working on the next Hollywood block-busters, and developers of multi-tenant buildings looking to supply high speed access of 1 Gigabit per second to each of its tenants from multiple 10 gigabit circuits to the premises.

"Comparing the connection speeds against normal speeds is like comparing the performance of a road going car with a formula one machine," added Iddon.

"The technology to deliver this performance needs to be robust across the whole network.

"A shared office or business park could easily see hundreds of businesses each using a 1 gigabit per second connection.

"The backbone network therefore needs to be able to support thousands of businesses across London using gigabit services."

Charlesbank Capital Partners is to acquire Six Degrees Group (6DG) from Penta Capital. The Boston-based mid-market private equity firm has over $3bn of capital under management and this deal gives it a platform investment in the UK tech sector. Post-acquisition, 6DG will benefit from substantial additional capital to fund the company's ambitious M&A programme.

6DG CEO Alastair Mills said: "We are working with Charlesbank to establish Six Degrees as a leading mid-market converged managed services provider, and we have ambitious plans to achieve this through both acquisitive and organic growth."

6DG was formed in June 2011 and has grown both organically and through acquisition to become a truly converged managed services provider delivering cloud, colo, data and unified communications solutions to the UK mid-market.

Mills pointed to Charlesbank's track record of supporting leading growth companies in the sector, noting that the firm invested in Zayo in 2009 just two years after it was founded, and has been involved in the company's growth from $200m to over $1.3bn of annualised revenue.

"We intend to disrupt and redefine an industry that is ripe for consolidation and innovation," added Mills.

Michael Choe, MD and President of Charlesbank, said: "Having spent close to a year getting to know Alastair and his team, we have tremendous respect for them and strong conviction in the attractive business model they have built.

"As with Zayo, we see a significant opportunity for 6DG to consolidate the fragmented landscape and drive equity value creation in the process."

Rob Sims has been appointed Nexus CEO following a period working as COO in which he built a strong management team.

He's now poised to leverage his skills in business transformation, organic growth, acquisition and integration, taking the company to the next stage of growth.

Nexus was established as a ringtone provider in 1999 and has evolved into a full blown solution provider with growth momentum.

"We work in a fast paced industry with emerging technologies changing the way people communicate," said Sims. "We have to stay on top of our game and offer customers a future-proof multi-service communications solution.

"There was a real synergy between myself and our shareholders about the direction of the company going forward. This has given me the freedom and flexibility to deliver our ideas and help the business to thrive."

Nexus supplies 10,000-plus businesses with services such as calls and line rental, data, business mobiles and phone systems.

The company now plans to build on the range of managed services it can offer to customers through the acquisition of new partner companies.

"We have built up a strong infrastructure and policies as well as a capable, committed team," added Sims.

"We are now looking to build on these foundations with the right strategic acquisitions.

"Integrating other like-minded companies into our business model increases our capability."