Comms Dealer

Mitel's cloud seats increased 83% year-over-year according to the vendor's financial results for Q4 2014 and full year ending December 31st. Total cloud seats installed stands at a milestone 1,039,000.

Other highlights include quarterly and annual revenue of $301.4m and $1.1bn respectively, with record quarterly and annual adjusted EBITDA of $57.9m and $166.9m.

"2014 was a transformational year for Mitel in which we set new benchmarks for our financial results and emerged as a true global market share and industry leader," said Richard McBee, President and Chief Executive Officer.

"Our sales performance speaks to the fact that our broad portfolio of business communications solutions - premise, cloud and hybrid - is able to address the diverse and evolving needs of customers in markets around the world.

"We have carried that momentum into 2015 with confirmation earlier this month that Mitel is now the fastest growing and #1 market share leader in cloud communications, with more than 1,000,000 total seats installed.

"Our foundation is solid, our growth initiatives are delivering, our team is running at full speed, and we are seeing the results of the full scale and power of the new Mitel."

In the fourth quarter Mitel installed over 177,000 new cloud seats, including over 24,000 recurring cloud seats.

Year-over-year, Mitel's recurring cloud seats increased to 269,155, up 122% and its total installed cloud base increased to over 1,039,000 seats, up 83%.

HP has acquired wireless specialist Aruba Networks for $3bn in a move that boosts HP's capabilities in the delivery of converged campus solutions.

Aruba has approximately 1,800 employees and notched up $729m revenues in fiscal 2014, and has reported compound annual revenue growth of 30% over the last five years.

"Enterprises are facing a mobile-first world and are looking for solutions that help them transition legacy investments to the new style of IT," said Meg Whitman, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of HP.

"By combining Aruba's wireless mobility solutions with HP's switching portfolio, HP will offer the simplest, most secure networking solutions to help enterprises easily deploy next-generation mobile networks."

This new combined organisation will be led by Aruba's Chief Executive Officer Dominic Orr, and Chief Strategy and Technology Officer, Keerti Melkote, reporting to Antonio Neri, leader of HP Enterprise Group.

Orr added: "Together with HP we have a tremendous opportunity to become an even greater force in enterprise mobility and networking.

"This transaction brings together Aruba's best-of-breed mobility hardware and software solutions with HP's switching portfolio. In addition, Aruba's channel partners will have the opportunity to expand their businesses with HP offerings."

The transaction is expected to close in the second half of HP's fiscal year 2015, subject to Aruba stockholder approval, regulatory approvals in the US and other countries as well as other customary closing conditions.

Mitel is to acquire Mavenir Systems, a provider of software-based networking solutions for mobile carriers, in a $560m deal. The addition of Mavenir solidifies Mitel's UCC portfolio across fixed and mobile environments, and expands its addressable market to a potential $14bn by 2018, and capitalises on the growth of Voice over LTE (VoLTE) as mobile carriers make the move to all IP and 4G services.

The deal also expands Mitel's service provider and mobile operator footprint to over 130 service providers and mobile operators, including 15 of the top 20 mobile carriers worldwide, covering two billion subscribers.

"With wireless adoption of IP and 4G LTE and demand for next gen mobile services ramping quickly, we see a compelling opportunity to capitalise on a major market transition to add a high-growth mobile business to Mitel," said Rich McBee, President and CEO of Mitel. 

"We believe the combination of Mitel and Mavenir creates a powerful new value proposition for enterprises and mobile service providers, using a common IP technology layer as the foundation for convergence, growth and competitive differentiation." 

With an established footprint of over 130 mobile customers including 15 of the top 20 mobile carriers worldwide, Mavenir is a key player in 4G LTE mobile solutions and claims a number of 'industry firsts' including the world's first live network deployments of VoLTE and RCS5 with MetroPCS (now T-Mobile); the first mobile network deployment of IMS-based VoWi-Fi (Wi-Fi calling) with T-Mobile US; and the first implementation of Virtualised RCSe with Deutsche Telekom.

The deal gives Mavenir the financial and operational footprint to drive further market expansion of the company's mobile solutions. 

Pardeep Kohli, President and CEO, of Mavenir, said: "The move to all-IP LTE mobile networks has created an opportunity for service providers to leverage a converged all-IP network to offer feature-rich business and consumer communication services to any device, anywhere, on any access network. 

"We believe that the combined company is positioned to capitalise on the trends within the communications industry today - namely, the convergence across enterprise and mobile networks to all-IP technologies, and the transition to cloud-based unified communications telephony and software-defined virtualised infrastructure."

Mavenir will become the mobile business division of Mitel, operating under the brand Mavenir. Kohli will join Mitel in the role of President, Mavenir, reporting to Rich McBee.

MeetingZone is rolling out a cloud-based Lync as a Service (LaaS) solution to resellers through its new LaaS Partner Programme.

CEO Steve Gandy said: "The service complements our partners' broader enterprise deployments of Microsoft technology and can potentially double the value of any O365 or Exchange deal.

"It also allows partners to tap into the cloud-based voice telephony opportunity giving them a recurring monthly revenue stream and an attractive margin."

MDSL is celebrating its 20th anniversary this month and has come a long way since it was founded in March 1995 by CEO Ben Mendoza. The company now employs 200 staff in offices around the world including the US, UK, France, Japan, Sweden and Hong Kong.

MDSL's solutions are developed in-house and address the Telecom Expense Management (TEM) and Market Data Management (MDM) markets.

Its Technology Expense Management platform allows customers to add support for emerging technology costs such as M2M, colocation and cloud services as well as general purpose IT equipment and services.

Mendoza said: "After 20 years in business, we are really proud that 98% of MDSL customers choose to renew their contracts, often for a longer period than the original term. The majority of our customers have now been enjoying the benefits of their MDSL solution for at least six years."

Tech Data Europe has joined Microsoft's Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program enabling the distributor to consolidate monthly billing for CSP subscriptions plus other cloud services and catalyse sales of Office 365 and Windows Intune subscriptions.

Tech Data Europe will offer additional services to resellers including support with Office 365 migration.

It follows a similar deal in the US over the last six months and Tech Data Europe's appointment as a 2-Tier Cloud Solution Provider completes the portfolio of Microsoft cloud products it offers to the channel.

CSP will be integrated into Tech Data's StreamOne Cloud platform. This will enable resellers across Tech Data's European footprint to access this service as part of a progressive rollout expected to conclude within the next eight weeks.

By Anton Le Saux, Head of Connectivity and Partner Sales at O2 Telefónica UK: A recent report by Accenture states that the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is set to drive revenue growth.

According to Paul Daugherty, CTO at Accenture, 'companies that understand that every business is a digital business are using this technology to create product-service hybrids that provide new growth opportunities and pave the way for pioneering the next generation of industrial products'.

Despite being called the Industrial Internet of Things, is it really any different to the Internet of Things (IoT) that has been providing a service for consumers and businesses for some years now? Industry reports widely predict expansion for M2M and IoT, with rapid growth expected in 2015 as the technology is already in use by a number of businesses. In fact, even SMEs are starting to adopt M2M solutions.

M2M and the IoT have evolved so much that we recognised the need for standardisation to allow the sector to develop in a more controlled manner. Our Global Partners Programme (GPP) has enabled a structured environment for manufacturers and technology companies to unify processes and improve quality control. Given that this technology has grown to the extent of requiring this sort of initiative, it is surprising that it has suddenly acquired a new label to differentiate it from the IoT of consumer-driven technology. Is the 'industrial' label really only a demonstration of how the IoT is beginning to impact additional sectors and more businesses?

In reality, the IoT bridges both consumer and industrial activity and differentiating the two will be virtually impossible as they are, by nature, irrevocably interlinked. (anton.lesaux@telefonica.com
partnersdigital.telefonica.com)

Powerdial Services reached a low point in 2008 but the transformation that followed has brought the company to a much happier place.

During a period of business remodelling one determining factor stood out - the leadership of Managing Director Paul Farn who devised and implemented a watertight turnaround strategy. Now he's stepping up the company's ambitious growth campaign.

Powerdial was established in 1993 and operated successfully until 2008 when it was sold to a UK listed company. But the parent organisation had significant debts and was placed into administration in late 2011. Powerdial, as an asset of its administered parent, was put up for sale and attracted several bids. "Myself and two high net worth partners bought the company as an ongoing concern," recalled Farn. "My partners are still involved in the business on a week-to-week basis. One owns an asset management fund in New York with 70-plus companies and the other is a former global head of corporate law at one of the top five law firms in the UK. They bring a wealth of experience to the business."

Seaham-based Powerdial began life selling small key systems to companies with up to 50 users. Today the firm delivers much larger solutions to customers such as Dickinson Dees with 2,000 users across five locations and the Ministry of Justice which has 3,000 users covering 20 locations. "We have turned the company into a service driven ICT provider, encompassing all of our traditional technologies and augmenting those with new technologies that we see as a synergistic addition to our clients' ICT and business application strategy," added Farn. "We are now well positioned as an ICT services company with over 20 years experience of delivering solutions to our clients. These customers are located as far apart as Aberdeen to Angola and Manchester to Munich. Whether a five user to 3,000 user solution we deliver the same results."

During the primary period of restructuring between 2012-2013 Powerdial had static revenues of approximately £1.5 million, but Farn forecasts strong organic growth as demand in UC markets increases and the company's new portfolios start to ramp up. "We are currently on target to hit £2.5 million in the current year based on healthy order books and big increases in contracted revenues from managed services and applications," he said. "We aim to hit £6 million revenue in 2016/17."

Key points of focus for Powerdial in its core markets are around the UC piece. "We are constantly being asked about hosted voice, digital signage, hosted desktop and hosted video," said Farn." We can deliver these solutions via the cloud or traditional CPE vendors such as Avaya which has launched a hosted portfolio. We are seeing most demand in video, BYOD and mobility, and we are investing significantly in those areas in terms of sales and technical training as well as branding and support.

"We also see massive potential in the digital signage space. This market has grown to $20 billion inside five years and has double digit CAGR for the coming five years. We are well supported in this space as my partner in the US has one of the largest digital signage companies in north America in his asset management fund. We also partner with BCS Cloudmedia. We are currently working with several international companies on 'point of contact' solutions including a 73 site motor reseller. We are also focusing on business applications and VM solutions. In that space we have recently deployed a call recording solution incorporating speech analytics and workforce optimisation using VMware."

Trend alignment is now more critical than ever, according to Farn. "The UK communications industry has changed more in the last three years than in the last 30, and we must change with it," he said. "We spend time researching market trends and aligning ourselves to areas where we see sustainable long-term growth. Over the last 18 months we have incorporated managed cloud services into our value proposition meeting demands from our clients. We are now strongly positioned to scale that growth area to match the market demand. It is also worth noting that while we see faster growth in cloud spend, it still only represents less than 10 per cent of the overall market spend on ICT."

Having rationalised the supplier base and customer value proposition Farn set about focusing on core markets such as UC and formed strategies to move into the aforementioned high growth emerging markets. "Everything we have expanded into is synergistic to our existing propositions and can be included in a customer's UC strategy," he said. "Our customer proposition is based around offering a consultative approach aimed at improving their UC strategies and driving costs out of their P&L."

The profile of Powerdial's customer base has naturally changed in line with its propositions. The company has strategically positioned its solutions portfolio in the mid-market space as this sector responds best to new technology. Also, the cycle of first appointment to sale payment is significantly shorter in the enterprise space.

Now that Powerdial's core solutions have been enhanced with business related applications, Farn, where possible, sticks to a policy of offering customers at least two choices of solution. "For example, we have clients with CPE video conferencing equipment but at the same time demand is growing for hosted video with desktop applications," he commented. "From a voice perspective we still see growth potential in CPE solutions as well as hosted, although the demand for hosted is growing faster in certain verticals."

Farn's background in finance and advertising gave him insights into how a business should operate fiscally. His working life began in 1976 as a trainee accountant at the National Coal Board. Eight years later he sold advertising in newspapers and in 1987 moved into manufacturing and was appointed Managing Director of a company making stainless steel components for the food and drinks industry. Farn managed and grew the business significantly and opened a wholesale and distribution warehouse in 1990.

"I sold my stake in all of those businesses and joined Powerdial in 1998 as Sales Director, working for a long-term friend who founded the company," he said. "The advertising role taught me that sales is really all about activity, creativity and mental toughness. The manufacturing business taught me how to operate profitably at high volume and low margins, while the distribution and wholesale businesses taught me about logistics. These experiences helped me appreciate the value of teamwork, and I understand the plus and minus points of every role inside our business."

Farn's immediate and mid-term objective internally is to build on his hand-picked team. "Without them my planning would be meaningless," he said. "It is important to recruit wisely and correctly as we need the right people in the right roles. When recruiting sales people we test every candidate in literacy, numeracy and Belbin tests. I have learned that effective recruitment is one of the most important cornerstones of any business. We cannot have square pegs in round holes. Within 18 months we aim to grow our headcount to 30-plus."

Powerdial's recruitment-driven expansion, underpinned by a clear strategic vision and a highly effective customer retention and satisfaction programme, will push revenues to circa £10 million within five years, hopes Farn. "To achieve this objective we have written a well thought out business plan and had it vetted by two of the best names in the industry as well as our three shareholders," he commented. "It is a solid plan with built-in sensitivity and accounts for all eventualities. We have our P&L firmly under control and have established the right partners and solutions in markets that are growing."

It sometimes comes down to leadership when tackling the many vested interests in the channel, according to Cerberus Networks Director Bob Hendy, whose mission is to help resellers confront, manage and profit from change.

A buoyant comms market is a sign of prosperity so must be good news for resellers. Most remarkable is a big surge in the uptake of VoIP, which is both welcome and disruptive, yet many resellers remain firmly wedded to old world technology, according to Hendy. "Clients are adopting VoIP in droves," he said. "Cerberus provides SIP and WLR3 BT telephony services, but in 2014 we saw a complete collapse in demand for ISDN in favour of almost 100 per cent adoption of SIP or hosted PBX for new telephony services. As a Microsoft hosting provider we are a great believer in UC, but still we find the more traditionally minded businesses preferring to play it safe and opt for a traditional voice-only comms infrastructure, even when based on VoIP. In our ideal world everyone would switch to a fully fledged UC platform and be enjoying next generation 21st century communications."

The attraction of well connected cloud comms will not pass and it is clear to see where Cerberus has hitched its wagon. Key partners in the connectivity space are BT Wholesale and Virgin Media, combined with systems from Cisco, Juniper and Fortinet to provide managed WAN and security solutions. In the cloud space Cerberus' key partners are Microsoft, VMware and Citrix. "We currently provide hosted computing services to the application hosting and enterprise markets based on technology from VMware," said Hendy. "However, the rich feature set is often not required by value conscious SMEs so we will shortly be rolling out a new value-focused variant of our MyCloud Computing service in Q2 this year to address this."

The widespread adoption of cloud services is disrupting reseller business models but Hendy has nevertheless seen many adapt to the new climate. "For resellers who want to build their expertise in this new landscape we offer a white label product that helps them better serve their customers," he said. "As we continue to put the right tools in the hands of our partners we know we are enabling them to succeed in a competitive and evolving marketplace. Resellers need to focus on building a strong portfolio of services underpinned by affordable and flexible connectivity to deliver on the promise of reducing complexity."

Cerberus is 're-targeting' channel partners this year and is bullish about the portfolio of services it offers to resellers for connectivity and cloud services. "We know we can compete against anyone on a like-for-like basis for broadband and Ethernet services, and for our IT VAR/MSP clients we offer a full-range service including hosted office applications, hosted computing, hosted desktop and online backup/DR," explained Hendy. "This makes us a one-stop-shop for many potential partners looking to consolidate and simplify how they provide a wide range of cloud services, all the time integrated with connectivity to get the best experience and most flexible and elegant solution designs."

When Cerberus was established in 2006 it brought together a team of colleagues from ISP Mailbox Internet and the networking VAR Topology. Both companies had been acquired as part of a consolidation process and Hendy found that some customers and staff were not well served by the new management. "We saw an opportunity to build a new business," he commented. "The initial mission was to provide managed Internet, network and security services to SMEs. The first turning point for the business was partnering with what was then BE Unlimited for our ISP services in 2006. This was a small provider at the time with a limited channel. Cerberus recognised the power of the unlimited ADSL2+ services that BE was offering and built a reseller channel around these services, providing resellers with ordering and service automation and wholesale access to a stand-out broadband product."

The next major development came in 2010 when Cerberus built its own network for the delivery of broadband and cloud services, still using O2 Wholesale's ADSL2+ products for broadband access (after BE Unlimited was acquired) and a new cloud computing platform. "Our vision was to deliver connectivity and services on a converged, integrated infrastructure to enhance the customer experience of both," added Hendy. "When O2 Wholesale left the broadband market we formed a partnership with BT and have a fresh and attractive portfolio of FTTC and ADSL services delivered on a unified platform."

Together with a refreshed portfolio of cloud and communications services Hendy sees this development as a new phase of the company's journey and a 'great platform' for growing the business. "We currently employ 30 staff across two offices," noted Hendy. "We aim to grow our headcount by 20 to 25 per cent this year. Likewise, while 2014 was a static year for us due to the changes we had to accommodate with O2 Wholesale leaving the market, we foresee growth of 15-20 per cent in 2015/16, building on our new broadband, Ethernet and cloud services."

An important component of Hendy's strategy is making services highly accessible and manageable for customers using the firm's portal tools. "We will continue to focus on this, making sure that partners have on-demand access to as many provisioning, order management and diagnostics tools as we can," he confirmed. "For many partners this is a key capability as it puts them in the driving seat when it comes to dealing with service requests and troubleshooting, shortening the time to resolution dramatically."

Cerberus has invested heavily in building its new network for the delivery of broadband and Ethernet services, as well as hosted security and tailored WAN solutions, extending its capability and expertise in this area. The company also created a 24x7 helpdesk team to deliver the levels of support that users expect of business-grade, mission-critical services, around the clock.

"We understand well the needs of the channel and the extra demands on these clients from their customers," said Hendy. "This is why we are continually developing our service management tools to make sure we offer as much control to resellers as possible backed-up by a 24x7 responsive support team."

In the year ahead Hendy's priority is to evangelise the new services in Cerberus' portfolio and the tools to manage them easily and efficiently. "This starts with our new broadband portfolio and the new management technologies we provide to partners such as QoS and TR-069 automated router provisioning," he added. "We also have a new generation of cloud services being delivered in calendar Q1 and Q2 of 2015 including online backup/DR services as well as our cloud computing platform."

Turning back the calendar, Hendy's first job in IT was with AppleCentre Kensington in 1998. He worked in the Apple channel for a number of years before moving into broader networking and security infrastructure with Topology. "I went from selling laptops to celebrity clients to designing and maintaining complex network and infrastructure solutions to businesses throughout the UK in a few short years," said Hendy. "It was a steep learning curve but taught me many important lessons that are still relevant today. During that time I saw the industry move from selling huge quantities of hardware at high margins to a focus on value add services and the cloud."

Hendy counts himself lucky to have developed long-term working relationships with 'great people who never stopped learning, who deliver on their promises, and who grow and adapt as the industry changes'. These are essential qualities in a competitive and demanding business, believes Hendy, and are a reflection of the core values of Cerberus.

"It's fascinating to see how technology has continued to up-end established business models and create new ways of working across so many industries," he said. "We are at the beginning of another big disruptive change as smaller companies take advantage of the confluence of connectivity and hosted technologies."

It is one thing to recognise change, it is another to be comfortable with it, and another again to make it your purpose. "I have learned not be afraid of change," stated Hendy. "While it is often disruptive, learning to manage the process and communicate decisions is key to taking people with you and discovering the positives. As long as you act with integrity and your decisions are based on the available information, you have a good chance of succeeding."•

There is always a moment when resellers who want to enter new, bigger markets, crave an opportunity to do so. Therefore it should come as no surprise when those operating in the call management space swoop on Oak's new three pronged channel expansion strategy.

Oak already boasts 1,000 reseller partners based around the globe, but the company has ambitious plans to double that number within a year. It's busy working with manufacturers and distribution partners to multiply its partner base, with online training programmes and on-site tuition for larger resellers key components of a broader go-to-market campaign that is primarily founded on a trio of developments. "This year sees a big change for Oak, probably the biggest change in our history as we move forward on three fronts," explained Phillip Reynolds, founder and Joint CEO.

"We'll work hard at retaining Oak's position in the SME segment with our Advance call recording, reporting and integration product group; and also move ahead with our new Evolve contact centre reporting solution on multiple platforms; and our new Clarify mid-market voice and data recording solution. This is not a marketing exercise, this is new software written by Oak's development team on both sides of the Atlantic."

It is worth noting that Reynolds wrote one of the first, if not the first, PC-based call logger in the world back in 1985. Fast forward 30 years and he is still blazing a pioneering trail, this time side by side with his son David who operates in North America. "We have teams on both sides of the Atlantic so we can jump on new technology waves that appear in North America and be ahead of the curve in the UK and Europe," explained Reynolds. "But the biggest challenge for Oak, as for any business, is getting the best staff. We find that 'home grown' works incredibly well and many of our 50 staff have been with the company for 10 years or more."

Oak is also investing heavily in OCP (Oak Communications Platform) which will underpin its future products. OCP is a high performance, high availability platform that integrates at the deepest level with switches, delivers real-time reporting, has advanced features for call recording, and is designed for hosted cloud and CPE-based solutions. The web interface has already gained a reputation in the industry as a benchmark for quality. This is just one of the innovations that secured Oak a top industry prize late last year. "The pinnacle of my and my son's career was Oak winning the Comms National Awards Best Call Management Solution 2014," stated Reynolds. "We must be doing something right."

But what does this all mean to a reseller? "It means that they get to keep the SME products that they know and love with Advance, they can sell larger more sophisticated call recording solutions generating higher profits with Clarify, and with Evolve they join Oak in the next big growth area which is formal and informal contact centre reporting," commented Reynolds. "Oak's investment always has the reseller at the core of its planning."

The biggest growth areas for Oak are call recording which continues to grow steadily in the SME space but is growing faster at the mid-market level of £20k to £40K, while contact centre reporting for all businesses is performing well. "Demand for ever increasingly sophisticated solutions at affordable prices is driving news sales," added Reynolds. "We deliver on value to the SME market but with the addition of more exceptional technical staff we are delivering the same value to the contact centre sector as well as the voice and data recording market."

Call management in the 21st Century has little in common with the call loggers of yesteryear that offered just historic reporting. Modern solutions provide live reporting, real-time call recording with PCI compliance, real-time screen popping of client records and detailed analytics that promote business improvements. "Productivity and performance is also driving new business sales," commented Reynolds. "Customer service is at the forefront of every business owner's mind. The channel are experts in this area. They've been talking the talk and walking the walk for many years. But the world has never been so competitive, never has there been so much demand for technology that delivers better customer service."

Oak's purpose has always been to change the landscape of call management by delivering technologically advanced solutions that meet customer service requirements at dealer affordable pricing. Now the company has taken its mission to the next level with its OCP communications platform which Reynolds claims will 'revolutionise the industry in 2015'. "This is a platform with best of breed technology at every turn, a platform that is modular, that enables resellers to pick and choose what they require for each sales opportunity, a platform that can be CPE or hosted, and a platform that can be deployed in the cloud," he enthused.

Nobody can deny Oak's leading role in advancing the potential of call management, but according to Reynolds the surface has barely been scratched. "With some countries dropping ISDN the move to SIP must be globally assured," he commented. "This means every customer on the planet should have call recording as standard with every single sale. We should also consider all businesses as a contact centre because the technology is now affordable across the board. Resellers can now approach mid-market voice recording opportunities with our support."