Comms Dealer

Invosys is hoping to motivate great demand for its new Enterprise Number Manager product through an incentive scheme that will culminate with the five top sellers winning tickets for a VIP Grand Prix Karting day this summer.

The competition, which kicks off on 1st April and runs until 31st June, is open to new and existing partners who will compete to sell the most new Enterprise Licenses.

Enterprise Number Manager is aimed at the SME market and is the first product in a new Enterprise Suite from Invosys.

The drag-and-drop provisioning tool removes complexity when building complex plans and brings more flexibility to the Number Manager platform.

Sales Director Steve Glaister said: "This is the first time that we have run an incentive on this scale for all of our partners to take part in, and it is also open to resellers we may not already be working with.

"With such a great prize on offer, we are hoping it will create a real buzz, and we are sure there will be some healthy competition as our partners push for extra sales - and then battle it out on the race track at the Karting day."

A white labelled cloud solution for the channel has been unveiled by two industry veterans who have joined forces to launch Cube52 following a two year period of setting up.

CTO Matthew Munson and Commercial Director Robin Ellis share 25 years experience in the data centre industry and have reinvested £3m from the sale of BlueSquare Data, the data centre-based provider of colocation services they sold in 2010.

"Resellers have to broaden the scope of their offerings for their increasingly cloud-savvy customer base," said Munson.

"The Cube52 platform enables the partner community to build and deploy its own branded applications on an infrastructure that can scale, from dedicated private cloud to fully elastic public cloud."

The proposition is based on the Microsoft Cloud OS and Cisco/Netapp Flexpod architecture.

A self-service cloud portal provides a single point of access, configuration and control 24x7 from where resellers can manage workloads, applications and solutions from a 'single pane of glass', said the firm.

"The partner community has been slow to truly embrace the cloud because of the barriers of entry," added Munson. "Key to success is ubiquitous access. Our cloud access portal has been designed around this requirement."

He also noted that Cube52's partner programme has been developed to accommodate cloud novices as well as established cloud services providers and independent software vendors.

"Whether a partner is considering adding cloud services to its business for the first time, or has been investing in cloud capability for some years, Cube52's partner programme can help further their offerings," added Munson.

As economic confidence rises, you might be forgiven for thinking that this is good news if you are recruiting new staff. However, the latest market data indicates that a 'perfect storm' is approaching as demand outrageously exceeds supply, writes Clive Jefferys of telecoms recruiter JMA Network.
 
The latest Jobs Outlook report by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation determined that 56% of businesses surveyed have 'little or no spare capacity to take on new work without hiring extra staff'. It also revealed that a whopping 79% of businesses intend to hire more staff in 2015!
 
However, we already have record high employment in the UK and the number of people seeking a move between jobs has fallen consistently, month on month for the last year.  

The Boogeyman of the recent recession has made people highly risk-averse when it comes to looking at a new job.
 
Yet in the same REC survey only 19% of companies foresee any problems with recruiting extra permanent staff. So where are all these extra people going to come from? It seems that the gap between perception and reality is getting wider by the day.
 
What can resellers and dealers do to overcome this hiring challenge?
 
Well it's not rocket science - just take a broader view on candidate suitability at CV and interview stages. Look for a person's potential to develop into what your business will need. There are very few quick fixes or ideal candidates today, so you will have to grow them for tomorrow. Invest in their training and most importantly, invest in their £worth.

Coms has forged closer ties with BT Wholesale following the launch of its new hosted UC product during an event staged at the BT Tower for Coms Wholesale customers.

The white label cloud proposition offers online access to self-configuration portals (one for channel partners and one for end users) and provides the full functionality of a traditional PBX.

Presenters from Coms included Andrew Jeffrey, Sales and Marketing Director and Jon Poole, Sales Manager. Also presenting were BT luminaries Marc Timmermans, Director of Portfolio Development , Ajit Jadeja, Voice Sales Specialist, and Sean McMahon, Senior Account Manager.

Poole commented: "This event signifies a time of great excitement at Coms with this fantastic opportunity to work alongside BT."

Timico's upcoming Connected Enterprise Conference will ensure that partners are not in the dark when it comes to facing some of the most impactful disruptive forces in the comms industry today.

The company cautions against a 'head in the sand' approach to technological innovation and network security threats and has identified key themes in its conference agenda that address the most pressing issues while emphasising the associated market opportunities for partners.

The 'sell-out' invitation-only conference (to be staged at Stapleford Park, Leicestershire, April 28th) will be hosted by broadcaster Natasha Kaplinsky and includes sessions on cloud-based disaster recovery; identifying major security threats; empowering remote users with secure access to corporate information; the future role of WebRTC and how SDN will redefine corporate networks.

Among the industry heavyweights supporting the event are Microsoft, Cisco, BT Wholesale, Juniper, Genband and Fortinet. And a keenly anticipated closing session will be delivered by Microsoft's Envisioning Officer Dave Coplin.

Timico CEO Tim Radford said: "The Connected Enterprise Conference brings prospective partners, current partners and our larger customers together under one roof, alongside some of the industry's leading providers with a conference programme that will get to the heart of the issues facing today's IT professionals."

8x8 Solutions has introduced two new product integrations based on the Salesforce1 Platform.

Since 2008, 8x8 Solutions has enabled thousands of Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud customers to improve operational efficiencies build more effective sales organisations and optimise customer engagements with its integrated Virtual Office and Virtual Contact Centre solutions.

This latest announcement means it will now be even easier to combine call data with customer databases to offer world-class customer service.

An ISVforce partner, 8x8 Solutions' latest Virtual Office and Virtual Contact Centre AppExchange integrations are built on the Salesforce1 Platform utilising Salesforce's OpenCTI toolkit.

These integrations fit seamlessly into users' Salesforce environments with screen pops of Salesforce contacts, click-to-dial from within the Salesforce application and new functionality that automatically logs call activity into the Salesforce application, enabling customers to gather call metrics directly from the Salesforce reporting engine.

Kevin Scott-Cowell, CEO of 8x8 Solutions, said: "Salesforce is one of the most in demand business applications that our customers want to integrate with their unified communications and contact centre system. By integrating with Salesforce, it will help our customers continue to deliver excellent customer service, improve productivity and, ultimately, drive growth."

Ron Huddleston, senior Vice President, ISV & Channel at Salesforce, added: "Companies are looking to transform the way they connect with customers, partners and employees to thrive in today's connected world. By leveraging the power of the Salesforce1 Platform, 8x8 Solutions provides customers with the proven social, mobile and connected cloud technologies to accelerate business success."

Annodata has become a key sponsor of the GLL Sport Foundation (GSF), supporting its CSR programme. The company will help to further the GSF's aim of helping supporting some of the UK's top fledgling athletes.

GLL is a charitable social enterprise that runs sport, leisure and cultural facilities around the UK. The largest operator of accessible sports and leisure centres in the UK, it is committed to promoting sport in the community and aims to foster sporting success amongst British athletes.

Central to this aim is the GSF, which has key objectives to help reduce the financial burden facing young people as they progress within their chosen sports.

Since it was established in 2008, the Foundation has supported over 6,500 athletes with funding and training grants totalling £3.8million.

GSF ambassador and Captain of the Great Britain national basketball team Drew Sullivan explained: "The GLL Sport Foundation is a big partner to us as a club, to us as individual players, and is important to sport across the UK. Their support enables players to train at world-class venues and provides much-needed financial and sport science support."

Joe Doyle, Marketing Director at Annodata, added: "Annodata has a long history of supporting charitable causes and we are delighted to be able to support the GLL Sport Foundation to help give the country's athletes the best chance of success in their respective fields.

"Although a very small number of athletes are able to secure lucrative sponsorship deals, it is not the case across the board, and for thousands the GSF provides the lifeline that they need to continue to sporting success.

"We hope our support will help and we look forward to taking an active role in the GSF's fundraising efforts to help our athletes replicate the success of London 2012 next year in Rio."

Mark Gliddon, Manager at the GLL Sport Foundation, added: "Our continued ability to help our country's athletes succeed rests heavily on the support that we get from our sponsors. GLL has a strong working relationship with Annodata, so we are extremely pleased that they are able to lend their support to the Foundation."

IT Europa has announced the winners of the European IT & Software Excellence Awards 2015 - the pan-European awards event for ISVs, Solution Providers and Systems Integrators and their vendor and distributor partners. The finalists were honoured last night at a celebration dinner at the London Lancaster Hotel.

The 2015 European IT & Software Excellence Awards saw a return to confidence in the industry, with some of the highest scores ever recorded by the judges. Now in its seventh year, there were notable triumphs for companies from across Europe with projects ranging from an open-source solution saving money in the UK's NHS to automatic fare collection in Minsk. Winners were chosen from 83 finalists who represented 32 countries.

Cloud technology figured strongly, particularly when projects had to consider global operations such as a notable win for a recruitment specialist project. Many of the projects were able to save considerable amounts of time and money for clients, such as the winner who sorted out unstructured data at charity Save The Children.

"There were some absolutely terrific solutions among the winners, and really, looking at the quality of the hundreds of entries we received, these were just the tip of an iceberg," says John Garratt, chair of the judges panel.

"The European IT industry should feel proud of what it is offering clients in a time of great change in terms of available technologies, range of solutions, and in how it is selecting from the vast array of solutions out there."

Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa said: "The overall quality of entries, from what was a record entry this year, was extremely high and demonstrates the depth of talent in the ISV and Solution Provider communities across Europe. I congratulate all the winners and wish them and all the finalists every success in the year ahead."

Pictured above: EMC collects the Technology Vendor of the Year Award

Solution Provider Category
SME Solution of the Year - Enterprise Study
Enterprise Solution of the Year - Green Fields Technology
Datacentre Solution of the Year - TechMahindra
Vertical Solution of the Year - IBA Group
Public Sector and Utilities Solution of the Year - BJSS
Managed Services Solution of the Year - Interoute
Connected/Mobility Solution of the Year - AirWatch by VMware
Storage/Information Management Solution of the Year - BrightStarr
Big Data, Business Intelligence and Analytics Solution of the Year - Northdoor
Networking Solution of the Year - Bell Integrator
Security Solution of the Year - SoftServe Inc

ISV Categories
ERP/CRM/Relationship Management Solution of the Year - LIFE IS HARD
Information & Document Management Solution of the Year - DocLogix
Big Data, Business Intelligence and Analytics Solution of the Year - Kazoup
Connected/Mobility Solution of the Year - Arkessa
Vertical Market Solution of the Year - PureNet
Government/Utilities Solution of the Year - UNIT4
SaaS Solution of the Year - Vecta Sales Solutions
Software Innovation Solution of the Year- Sequel Business Solutions

Supplier Categories (recognising the support provided to channel partners)
Connected Technologies Vendor of the Year - Emulex
Technology Vendor of the Year - EMC
Finance/Support Provider of the Year - BNP Paribas Leasing Solutions
Security Vendor of the Year - Centrify
Service Provider of the Year - Genius Networks
Software Vendor of the Year - Nexenta Systems
Distributor of the Year - Avnet

Grass Roots, the provider of employee and customer engagement solutions has appointed Simon Mitchell as Global Account Director.

Mitchell will be responsible for leading the growth of many existing clients and for seeking out new business opportunities within the telecommunications arena.

Previously with Google (Motorola) as Head of Network Operators, Mitchell's experience spans over 20 years and he is well known in the telco space, having also worked for brands such as Samsung, Telefonica O2, Orange, Three, Reliance Globalcom and Vodafone Group.

John Bunting, Chief Commercial Officer for Grass Roots commented: "I look forward to growing our accounts with existing telco clients, under Simon's leadership, and to winning new business within the fast-moving sector."

Polycom and Microsoft have announced an expanded relationship through which Polycom plans to deliver a new series of video collaboration solutions purpose-built for Skype for Business called Polycom RoundTable.

The first device in the new offering is the Polycom RoundTable100, an affordable and easy-to-use video solution for huddle rooms that will allow small to mid-sized businesses and teams with Skype for Business and Lync 2013 to enjoy rich collaboration experiences, including voice, video and content collaboration, simply by logging into their Skype for Business account.

The companies have also announced that the Polycom CX series of video collaboration solutions will become part of the Polycom RoundTable series of products.

"Together, Microsoft and Polycom have a joint vision to deliver collaboration experiences that help our customers defy distance. We are now expanding our solutions to allow SMBs, as well as large enterprises, to reap the benefits of video collaboration," said Polycom President and CEO Peter Leav.