Comms Dealer

A hefty investment in Nimans' Network Services Operations Centre has enabled the distributor to provide a proactive monitoring service to resellers, offering real-time updates on any faults, outages and major incidents.

"Six large screens stream live information to the whole team on news events that could cause outages or disruption, a snapshot of our faults and service tickets, network monitoring of our resellers data circuits along, with an overview of work queues and order volume information," explained Head of Network Services, Mark Curtis-Wood.

The NOC also includes information from the company's interactive partner portal, The Hub, an online service that provides order provisioning and billing capabilities plus useful information.

"After months of development and testing The Hub has gone live, giving resellers the ability to place and track orders and manage quotes," added Curtis-Wood.

"Resellers will experience a more interactive and seamless way of accessing products and services, improving the way they manage and bill their customers."

"With the Network Operations Centre we have brought everything is connected to deliver more enhanced service levels."

TalkTalk Business has launched its annual search to find Britain's next Digital Heroes.

The awards celebrate extraordinary people and small-scale projects that are having a big impact in driving the UK's digital economy and enhancing the nation's skillset through a combination of technology, hard work and passion.

Categories include: Next Generation (Internet self-starters), Skills ( using technology to boost knowledge), Sustainability (technology with environmental gains) and Internet Safety (using technology to help people to navigate the internet safely).

In its 8th year, TalkTalk Business has invested more than half a million pounds in 87 projects across the UK since the awards began.

This year's successful entrants will each receive £5,000 of funding to enhance their projects, with the Next Generation Hero receiving £4,000 and a MacBook Air to give them a further boost.

The Digital Heroes will also be honoured at the House of Commons, where an overall winner will be announced and granted £10,000 prize money.

"We believe Digital Heroes are inspirational individuals, bring people together, offer support to those around them and provide the tools that make the lives of us all a little bit easier with the help of technology," said a spokesperson.

Exponential-e has linked up with IT service provider, Intermedia in a collaboration that combines Exponential-e's desktop solution with Intermedia's business applications to provide a Virtual Office in the Cloud, delivered as a service to any device and from any location.

The cloud network provider's Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) proposition was enhanced following research that found 72% of business professionals struggle with their company's flexible working policy due to technology issues.

In total, six in 10 of those surveyed admitted that they would be more likely to take advantage of flexible working if IT was better.

"Just 1% of the business professionals that we surveyed are satisfied by their existing work/life balance," said Lee Wade, CEO at Exponential-e.

"However, 62% think that this could be improved if they had more access to flexible working.

"Providing access to solutions that enable a more versatile working experience but don't require the business to invest vital resources into managing a complex IT estate is key for today's organisations.

"Our relationship with Intermedia enables us to combine hosted desktops with cloud applications to deliver a scalable Virtual Office in the Cloud that organisations don't have to worry about maintaining."

Using Exponential-e's wholly owned 100 Gigabit Ethernet Network, businesses will be able to run desktop infrastructures in a virtualised environment.

As part of the offering, Exponential-e will also offer companies an uncontended, private connection to Intermedia's Email, Security, Mobility, Archiving, File Share and Collaboration services.

Richard Walters, General Manager for Intermedia EMEA added: "All too often we see businesses spending excessive amounts of time and money on outdated internal computer systems.

"With Office In The Cloud, businesses can pay per month, per user and operate from any device with an internet connection, avoiding the need for any high initial outlay while providing the flexibility, support and peace of mind that all organisations need."

The offering will also support SMBs that need computing resources which can be scaled or contracted to support business needs and future growth.

Unitrends has moved to 100% channel sales model and invested heavily to kick-start the build out of a global channel ecosystem.

Kevin Weiss, President and CEO, said the company no longer wanted to compete with partners.

"We've developed strong channel partnerships and we are now solely focused on nurturing these relationships and forging new ones," he stated.

The move follows the appointment of Mike Dalton as Senior VP of Worldwide Channels and International Field Operations.

Dalton is tasked with defining and driving the channel programme and his strategic vision is clear.

"It is difficult to build a long-term working relationship with vendors when you compete with them on deals," he said.

Founded in 1989, Unitrends maintained a direct sales model for 24 years before launching a formal channel programme in 2013.

In Q3 2015 Unitrends will roll out a new programme built from the ground up based on partner survey results and partner feedback.

Terry Storrar has joined Annodata as IT Services Director, bringing much experience working in the IT services industry.

He joined managed service provider Wirebird in 2003 as Sales Director and became Managing Director, overseeing revenue growth from £1.5m to almost £8m.

In his new role Storrar will support Annodata's procurement, consultancy, and installation services, and promote revenue growth by working with sales and service teams across the business.

Chairman Martin St. Quinton said: "Annodata is branching out from its heritage as a managed print service provider to incorporate a broad range communications, cloud and infrastructure services.

"It's critical that we've got the right support and leadership teams in place to back these changes and ensure growth is sustainable.

"Terry joins the company with a strong record of entrepreneurship and innovation and I am confident that he has the right credentials to support us in the coming stages of our development."

With its acquisition of global hospitality specialist TigerTMS now complete, Mitel has launched a new and more comprehensive Hospitality authorisedPARTNER Programme.

The new scheme coincides with the emergence of mobile and cloud technologies as key capabilities to drive operational efficiency and customer loyalty in the hospitality industry, requiring partners to rethink and retool their skills and capabilities, said the vendor.

The new Hospitality designation has been developed as a specialised vertical track that aligns with Mitel's existing North American Channel Program.

Partners are accredited in one of three levels of distinction; Expert, Advanced or Basic, with a focus on helping partners capitalise on increasing demand for real-time communications and a cloud-enabled connected guest experience.

"For years, the IT requirements of the hospitality industry remained largely unchanged with the phone, the TV and the front desk as the primary guest interfaces," said Graham Bevington, Chief Sales Officer, Mitel.

"The mass availability of cloud communications and mobile devices however has radically changed the hotel experience for guests and operators.

"Our Hospitality authorisedPARTNER programme is designed to address that changing landscape."

SpliceCom is shipping the latest version of Vision, the modular Business Management application suite for cloud, on-premise and hybrid requirements.

"Vision v1.6 has been given a complete makeover with a new theme for the Vision Portal giving it a fresh look and feel - although the classic Vision theme is still available as an alternative choice," said Robin Hayman, SpliceCom's Director of Marketing & Product Management.

"We've given particular focus to security in Vision v1.6. Both physical system security and differentiated levels of access for managers and administrators have been expanded and enhanced."

Vision Call Centre has also been reinforced through the addition of a scrolling ticker panel for wallboards/dashboards, SLA related Queue panels, a new BLF panel, audio warnings and alarms for wallboard/dashboard thresholds and a set of pre-recorded Queue announcements that build on the existing text-to-speech facilities.

Huawei has made a contribution of £956m to UK GDP over the last three years (2012-2014) and currently supports 7,400 jobs directly and through its supply chain.

The figures are among those found in an economic impact study commissioned by Huawei and conducted by Oxford Economics. It is the first time Huawei has had its economic impact in any country independently audited.

The impact study also assessed Huawei's progress in reaching its target of spending £1.3bn in the UK over the five years from 2013-17, split equally between investment and procurement. Based on its analysis of Huawei's activities, Oxford Economics concludes that 'Huawei is on track to meet this spending commitment'.

The five-year spending commitment was made in September 2012 by Huawei's founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, in a meeting with UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, John Whittingdale, said: "In 2012 the UK government welcomed Huawei's five-year spending commitment as a sign that Britain was open for business and was attracting some of the world's biggest businesses to invest here.

"I'm pleased to see the progress Huawei has made since then. It is a clear vote of confidence in Britain's highly-skilled workforce and a recognition of the success we've had in creating the right environment for businesses to grow and flourish."

Ken Hu, Huawei Group Rotating CEO and an executive director on the Huawei UK Board, said: "The UK is rightly known as a country which has an outstanding record in fostering business growth and pioneering technological innovations. These attributes make it one of our most important markets internationally.

"We are proud to make a contribution to the UK economy through our products and services and the ground-breaking innovation and R&D that we carry out in Britain. The impact report confirms the benefits we bring, but also indicates areas where can improve."

Since 2012 Huawei has acquired the Cambridge-based Internet of Things company Neul, opened a new R&D centre in Bristol, helped roll out 4G and broadband networks around the UK for customers including EE and BT, begun pioneering the development of 5G technologies, and increased its UK workforce from 781 to 1,030 people. The company now has a presence at 15 locations across the UK.

Huawei's total contribution to UK GDP grew by an average of 23.7% annually between 2012-14, according to the impact study. Over that time it sourced goods and services from suppliers based in 70% of the UK's postcode areas and it made a positive contribution to GDP and employment in all of the UK's regions.

High levels of sales and support delivered by Nimans for NEC's flagship UC system secured the Top UNIVERGE SV9100 Distributor 2014-2015 award at the vendor's annual conference in Athens.

Head of Systems Sales at Nimans John McKindland said: "The SV9100 comms platform plays a frontline role in our NEC sales operation. Designed to grow with SMB to enterprise level the system can accommodate up to 1,000 users."

Three fact-finding events staged by Nimans and Samsung will bring resellers up to pace with the fast growing WLAN market at three venues across the UK (Manchester United's Old Trafford stadium, a hotel venue in Lanark and Samsung's UK HQ in Chertsey) where resellers will be urged to enter the £250m UK WLAN market, forecast to expand by 20% this year.

"WLAN is a natural evolution of voice and data communications with education, retail and hospitality huge areas to target," said Tom Maxwell, Head of Dealer Sales at Nimans.

He highlighted the importance of upgrading infrastructure to maintain peak performance and pointed out that 90% of worldwide tablet sales are now only Wi-Fi enabled, while 42% of all IP traffic goes through a wireless network.

He also emphasised how 45 million gigabit devices are being manufactured for the UK alone - such as tablets, smartphones, wearable tech and servers - which rely on stable and high capacity network connectivity.

Attendees received an on-boarding offer designed to minimise the cost and complexity of adding Samsung WLAN.

"The original events attracted huge attendances so to cater for increasing demand we're currently staging three more which are proving equally as popular, attracting well over 100 resellers," said Maxwell. "Samsung WLAN has really captured the imagination of our reseller base."

Stay and play demonstrations involved all of Nimans' system brands, along with an IP advanced radio system from ICOM.

Popular features among delegates included Samsung WLAN's ability to integrate into other PBX platforms and support voice.