Comms Dealer

Virgin Media Business has joined forces with Outsourcery to launch its first UC product for start-ups and smaller companies.

Multi-Tenant Lync can be scaled up or down each month and the cloud-based tools include instant messaging, web conferencing and IP voice.

The solution is accessible through a single interface, regardless of where employees are or whatever device they're using.

Mike Smith, Director of SoHo/SME at Virgin Media Business, said: "Small businesses are a driving force for our economy but without the right connectivity and tools in place they are not always able to realise their potential.

"We are offering them a simple, flexible solution so they can better communicate and challenge their biggest competitors."

Piers Linney, CEO of Outsourcery, said: "Multi-Tenant Lync is a great example of different technologies working together to help users share and communicate with each other.

"Our Cloud service will underpin this development for smaller businesses and we are delighted to partner with Virgin Media Business to develop such a tailored solution for their SME customers."

Despite 75% of IT decision makers wanting to procure all cloud services from a single provider, the majority have purchased offerings from three vendors, resulting in a complex cloud environment that may be hindering their agility and speed to market.

So finds a new report from Telstra, and according to Martin Bishop, Head of Network, Applications & Services, with consumers more in control of their purchasing power than ever before, a flexible and scalable cloud infrastructure has become increasingly critical to an organisations' success or failure.

"We are living in a buyers' market and our research suggests that in an effort to satisfy diverse customer expectations, many businesses initially turn to multiple cloud vendors to meet their various infrastructure needs. The result can be a complex cloud environment that is hard for the business to manage, integrate and control.

"Despite this, our research also reveals that pooling resources into a single private cloud isn't the ideal end-state either, with the majority of IT decision makers arguing this model fails to deliver the flexibility required for the varying types of processes, services and workloads that global companies must support.

"In a move away from the private clouds of yesterday, the trend in 2015 appears to be towards a hybrid approach, delivered by a single partner, fully accountable for an organisations cloud services end-to-end.

"In fact, our research shows that 72 per cent of IT decision makers would prefer a single provider or broker for all cloud services, then go through the challenge of managing multiple vendors."

According to Telstra's research, the flexibility and scalability associated with a hybrid cloud are what local IT leaders consider the most appealing benefits of this model.

Bishop added: "The market has shifted and customers now have the power to do what they want, when they want and how they want. Technology is clearly at the centre of this enablement and organisations that can align the power of hybrid cloud with customer demands are well placed to create what we're terming the Customer Centric Cloud - enabling more agile development and testing of applications, faster decision making and overall, an enhanced customer experience."

Carrier neutral data centre and network connectivity provider LDeX Group is to launch a second UK data centre in Manchester in Q2 2015.

The new data centre will feature 'best in class' colocation facilities with a capacity of 4MVA, network carriers and global Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) as well as offering 24x7x365 customer support.

Similar to LDeX1, the new 20,000 sq. ft. facility in Trafford Park will have an onsite satellite farm and will provide connections to content delivery networks, OTT players and cloud platforms, enabling customers to broadcast large scale events and stream content over multiple hosted platforms.

Customers can also look to expect energy efficient facilities which will have a 100% uptime SLA and offer 24x7x365 disaster recovery and remote hands support services.

Rob Garbutt, CEO of LDeX, said: "As a growing technological hub Manchester is a great strategic fit for us in expanding our customer orientated data centre portfolio. We look forward to investing in the economy there and providing employment and IT services to the local market."

Maintel has reported revenues up 35% to £41.9m (2013: £31.1m) in its preliminary results for the year to 31st December 2014. Adjusted profit before tax is up 16% to £6.1m (2013: £5.2m), with adjusted earnings per share up 24% to 46.7p (2013: 37.6p).

The proposed final dividend per share increased 29% to 11.6p, implying total full year dividend of 20.9p.

The company significantly improved its cash generation with net cash flow from operating activities of £6.1m (recurring revenues of £30.5m make up 73% of total Group revenue).

Eddie Buxton, CEO, said: "This has been another significant year in the development of Maintel. We have delivered a strong financial performance, with pleasing organic growth in a challenging market, complemented by the acquisition of Datapoint in 2013 and Proximity in 2014, which has brought additional strengths in the areas of unified communications, contact centres, design authority, data networking, security and wireless.

"Our confidence in the progression of the business is reflected in the 29% increase in the final dividend.

"We remain committed to considering further acquisition opportunities where these can be seen to add shareholder value. In addition, we continue to grow our expertise in evolving technologies, such as hosted environments.

"We've already made encouraging organic progress in this area, including the recent launch of the Maintel Cloud unified communications and contact centre proposition".

Maintel is also growing internationally, working with a number of global businesses operating across multiple countries. The Group now has a contracted managed service base of £25m per annum.

The telecoms industry has put up with Government inaction on the road to digital transformation for too long according to the Secretary of State for Media Sajid Javid.

Speaking in the Churchill Rooms at the Houses of Parliament where he was guest speaker at the launch of Channel Telecom's own 'manifesto for telecoms', the minister said: "Seventy years ago Winston Churchill said 'I never worry about action but only inaction'.

"For too long Government inaction is what your industry has had to put up with. As the world accelerated away down the long digital highway, the authorities here in Britain, stood on the hard shoulder and waited for the private sector to do all the hard work.

"For example, back in 2010 less than half of UK premises had access to superfast broadband and that simply wasn't good enough. It is a vital piece of infrastructure, just like roads, canals, railways or telegraph wires - so is the information super highway, today, a vital piece of our infrastructure."

The minister applauded the enterprise of private companies in the telecoms sector for building the road to digitalisation, especially the roll out of 4G, and promised Channel Telecom's partner guests at the event that any Government he was part of in the future would be 'committed to working with business leaders in driving forward Britain's economic recovery'.

Javid added: "We can be certain that Britain's telecom industry is a serious business, one that must be supported. Channel Telecom's own figures say that the sector is worth £38 billion to the economy and employs over half a million people. That is an incredible contribution and one that I want to thank you for tonight.

"We have canvassed your views on our digital communications infrastructure strategy which I'll be publishing shortly. And that's why, for example, we will be consulting with industry on the electronic communications code so that it can be fit for the future."

After the minister's speech, Stephen Yates, Channel Telecom's Head of Partners, unveiled Channel Telecom's own manifesto which calls on the Government to stamp down on telecoms fraud, improve the UK connectivity infrastructure by ensuring a more competitive market and widening Ofcom's regulatory powers.

Pictured (l-R): Clifford Norton, Sajid Javid and Eleanor Laing, House of Commons Deputy Speaker.

The Federation of Communication Services (FCS) has announced the first in a series of telecoms service standards under the banner 'FCS Mark of Excellence'.

The first 'badge' to be won is the Fraud Mitigation Standard, designed to reduce the costs of potential fraud brought about by the rise in hacking attacks on business networks. 

The marker shows that  SIP trunk provider member companies have the ability to protect the reseller/client relationship by enabling end users or resellers to control access to called destinations and limit the amount of daily minutes.

The FCS plans to produce a similar Fraud standard for Traditional Digital Telephony services. Next in the pipeline is a Dispute Resolution standard that will set out how channel providers who have met the criteria will deal with any issues that arise in the switching and porting processes.

"As a trade association, we welcome the collaborative drive from within our membership to attain standards," said Chris Pateman, CEO, FCS.

"We believe the Fraud Standard is a great starting point for a range of subjects that members can work to achieve and allow them to display the FCS Mark of Excellence."

Talend, the big data integration software specialist, has rolled out a new VAR Programme in Europe, focusing in particular on opportunities in France, Germany and the UK.

Talend plans to continue to conduct its own marketing and sales activities and generate leads for qualifying partners.

In 2014, new subscription sales of Talend's big data integration solution increased 122%.

"Our VAR programme will help further accelerate our growth rate, enable us to keep pace with demand and, ultimately, enable more companies to become data-driven organisations," said Francois Mero, senior vice president of sales EMEA, Talend.

"Our programme has been tailored to enable companies to expand relationships with existing customers, acquire new customers and drive new and recurring streams of revenue."

MWC 2015 welcomed a record number of visitors and exhibitors through its doors.

The event has morphed from a mobile industry congress to a broader ICT-TMT-mobility fair at which telecoms meets digital media, IT, and entertainment. The extent to which the telecoms industry is part of this broader technology and entertainment landscape is a moot point.

With such a diverse collection of companies and individuals in attendance it is not easy to draw out dominant trends.

However, the composition of the exhibition itself - which companies were there and which chose not to attend - tells us something about the mobile telecoms industry.

For example, there was surprisingly little focus on services for the consumer market - cloud services, IoT, enterprise mobility, and ICT services more broadly were the biggest service categories.

TV and mobile video were largely conspicuous by their absence, and payments was arguably the most prominent consumer service category.

Relatively few major announcements were made during or before the event, although the US Federal Communication Commission's ruling on net neutrality was a recurring theme.

It caused particular concern among those operators and technology companies that view deep packet inspection, policy, prioritisation, and partnering as the best way for them to regain relevance in the consumer services markets.

We are at a tipping point in terms of the network and IT vendors that shape the telecoms technology landscape.

A number of the companies that came into existence during the mobile industry boom between 1990 and 2005 are now seeing their revenues flatline.

The CEO of one BSS vendor told Ovum that he had had a number of meetings with other vendors that were interested in selling their businesses to him.

The new industry players are grounded in software and offer their services via the cloud. Their core market is the enterprise business, but they see rich promise in the telecoms sector.

Telco capex has slowed dramatically over the last couple of years, and opex reduction has become an obsession for many.

However, these cloud service vendors believe that the $400bn telco capex market is ripe for disruption.

Here's Ovum's five key takeaways and trends from MWC 2015:

The focus of mobile operators - in terms of opportunities for growth - is shifting to the enterprise market:
Two to three years ago telecoms operators started to talk about opportunities to expand into adjacent markets and to develop digital services. At the time they were thinking about both the consumer and enterprise markets. In 2015, however, the focus is very much the enterprise market - more specifically, cloud services and M2M/IoT. Operator strategies in the consumer market are now evolving toward B2B2C and partnership models.

Consolidation in the telecoms-technology sector is inevitable:
Many of the technology vendors whose business has largely involved enabling mobile operators to develop services and capabilities such as messaging, VAS, and roaming are now desperately seeking new strategies and business models. Some are trying to develop new lines of business by selling directly to the enterprise rather than via the operator. Others are developing new service capabilities - around big data analytics, for example. However, these new markets are extremely competitive, and have traditionally offered lower margins than telecoms.

Operators' visions around virtualised networks are starting to crystallise:
A number of large operator groups, including AT&T, Telefonica, and Deutsche Telekom, unveiled their technology and service visions for virtualising their networks at MWC 2015. For many years now, European operator groups in particular have struggled to leverage their multi-market footprints in terms of cost or revenue benefits. They are seizing on network virtualisation as an opportunity to drive economies of scale and, wherever possible, to centralise platforms and technology. However, they remain vague about potential cost savings and how quickly they will be able to shut down existing legacy networks and functions.

5G is increasingly being seen as a network platform for IoT
Network vendors and operators are increasingly seeing 5G as a network for IoT. As such, the key requirements for 5G are starting to focus more on the ability to support (hundreds of millions of) connections and offer millisecond latency rather than pure speed.

The relationships between OTT players and operators are becoming stronger:
Over-the-top (OTT) players have come to understand that by partnering with operators they can significantly increase usage of their services. Rather than waiting for operators to reach out to them, they are now themselves reaching out to those operators and trying to persuade them to strike deals around zero-rated content and bundling.

The bulk of this activity is in emerging markets, where OTT services tend to have lower usage levels, and where operators have strong brands and are trying to build a demand for data services. The preferred model for OTT players is to strike deals where no money changes hands and where both sides see benefits, although there are examples of operators demanding (and receiving) payment.

Following a thorough evaluation process C4L has secured a position in the Megabuyte Top 50 listing, an industry league that ranks the best financially performing privately owned companies in the UK mid-market.

Ian Spence, Founder and CEO of Megabuyte, said: "C4L has done well in meeting the connectivity needs of businesses and service providers in the cloud era, resulting in strong organic growth and improving margins."

C4L's CEO Simon Mewett added: "To know that the level of research into the companies is so rigorous is not only a reward to C4L but is also a reassurance to our stakeholders."

A million pound investment has delivered a tenfold increase in Onyx Group's capacity.

In a move designed to advance Onyx Group's plans to become a £100m a year business, the company will increase its core infrastructure to 10Gb through the installation of a new network, reducing latency levels throughout its data centre and managed wide area network estate.

Neil Stephenson, CEO, said: "Onyx understands that in an increasingly technological world businesses now depend on reliable connectivity for their everyday business operations. This drives us forward to invest in our core infrastructure."

The news comes hot on the heels of Onyx Group's acquisition of Knowledge IT, a £10m move that bolstered Onyx Group's existing infrastructure and will play a key role in achieving Onyx's ambitious plans to become a national £100 million revenue IT support and services business in the next five years.