Comms Dealer

The ICUK team have taken a bow after the successful roll out of Version 12 of the company's control panel for reseller partners.

Director Paul Barnett says the new release, which features substantial enhancements for broadband diagnosis, automation and visibility, has been given the thumbs up by partners.

"We started life as a reseller so we still appreciate the frustrations of not having visibility and control," he said. "The feedback we have received has confirmed that by listening and evolving we can deliver something special."

Up to 280 comms professionals will descend on the BBC's TV studios at Manchester's Media City for plan.live 2015 on 19th March.

Staged by plan.com the event marks the company's first anniversary and will showcase new tariffs, commissions, channels and product lines just one year after the firm launched its B2B mobile proposition, and hot on the heels of its partner portal upgrade which is set to be enhanced further with 100-plus new features.

plan.com CEO Dan Craddock said: "Over the past year we've listened to partner feedback and refined our proposition. Now we want to get our partners together to discuss where we are now and where they want us to be.

"We will be using the latest technology to interact with them live on stage and we're bringing our entire tech team along so we can act on partner feedback there and then, taking real-time information to a whole new level."

For more information visit plan.com/live2015

Falling prices and consumers' insatiable desire for multimedia content mean that the phablet phenomenon will continue into 2015 and beyond.

According to market watchers Gfk, Smartphones with a screen 5.5 inches and larger, often called Phablets have been outperforming the mobile device market since the launch of the Galaxy Note in 2012 with Asian markets leading the way.

Phablet ownership is growing in all regions with the last quarter of 2014 setting a new record of 12.8 percent of total global mobile device sales.  

Asia Pacific has led the adoption of the phablet and in Q4 2014 they represented 17.5 percent of all mobile devices sold in the region, up from 8.5 percent 12 months earlier.

In the Middle East share was 11.1 percent in Q4 2014, almost doubling from 6.2 percent the previous year. In Europe share was lower but growing rapidly, up 3.0 percent YOY to 6.4 percent in Q4 2014. In Africa share was 5.5 percent, up slightly from 4.4 percent YOY. Share was lowest in Latin America at 1.9 percent, up from 0.4 percent in Q4 2013.

The market share of phablets grows at the expense of that of standard sized smartphones. Globally their sales unit shares fell 13 percentage points from 100 percent in Q4 2011 to 87.2 percent in Q4 2014.

Arndt Polifke, Global Director of Telecoms at GfK, says: "The phablet's not-so- secret weapon is its screen size, perfect for consuming the media content people have become addicted to. Phablets are all-rounders, fulfilling the combined roles of a smartphone and tablet - but for a lower price than just one of these devices. This means emerging markets will have a crucial role to play in their rise, and we expect to see sales increase in Africa and Latin America in 2015 and beyond."

The increase in phablet sales volume was accompanied by a fall in average price - perfect conditions for sales to take off. Comparing prices in Q4 2014, Europe had the highest prices with an ASP of $761, followed by Latin America at $631, Africa at $625, the Middle East at $511 and APAC at $466.

Arndt Polifke continues: "Consumers are starting to choose phablets instead of normal smartphones. We expect to see this trend continue in 2015 for two reasons: firstly, the appeal of a hybrid phone/tablet is particularly strong in emerging markets where consumers can now make a choice between a basic smartphone and one with tablet capabilities for almost the same price. Secondly, more affordable models are coming to market, with a number of models now available for $150 or less, making them accessible to many more people. For the tech-obsessed consumer, more sophisticated models are available for $800 plus. With their multiple uses and price points from low to high, the phablet is poised for greatness in 2015."

Cheshire-based ITS Technology Group is on track to triple the size of the business this year having secured a number of IT managed service contracts and customer wins totalling more than £10m.

The firm is also building and managing superfast broadband networks in a number of rural and urban locations across the UK.

ITS Group CEO Roy Shelton said: "Last year we grew significantly. Some of this was organic growth, and we also made three acquisitions to strengthen the superfast broadband networks and IT Managed Services sides to our business.

"Our aim is to continue with this growth strategy, and being awarded these contracts sees us on-track to smash our targets.

"It has also created a number of job opportunities, and we are actively recruiting talented technology specialists. We have recently identified apprentice and graduate roles along with a number of more senior vacancies which we need to fill."

Logicalis UK has completed a significant business analytics implementation with ASM Assembly Systems' Printing Solutions Division (ASM) using the latest software from the IBM Cognos suite.

ASM specialises in the equipment and processes to enable fast, high quality production of advanced electronics, semiconductors and fuel cells for sectors including automotive, telecoms and energy generation.

Achieving the objective of converting large quantities of its data into valuable, actionable knowledge, ASM has saved hundreds of man-hours and equipped a large group of 'super-users' to execute decisions that realise efficiencies in existing processes, improving customer relations and proactively addressing issues and opportunities with this project.

"ASM is relied upon around the world for its accuracy, quality and innovation, so having access to business intelligence is enormously valuable," said Ian Bleazard, CIO at ASM.

Chris Gabriel, Chief Technology Officer at Logicalis UK, added: "It's been a successful and rewarding project, helping ASM realise their business aspirations in the areas of forecasting and financial reporting."

Outsourcery has secured its first G-Cloud contract having been selected by Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to provide its Microsoft Lync SaaS solution, delivered from Outsourcery's O-Cloud PGA OFFICIAL Internet Platform.

The Trust provides mental health and community health services and employs over 4,000 staff across 100 hundred sites.

Piers Linney, Co-CEO of Outsourcery, said: "The G-Cloud framework provides significant benefits to all public sector organisations, whether at a national or local level by enabling them to engage with innovative SMEs such as Outsourcery that may not be on existing procurement frameworks.

"With the launch of the revamped Contracts Finder portal, public sector opportunities will become less complicated and costly to bid for, making deals such as ours with Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust more common.

"The new Contracts Finder portal is a huge opportunity for SMEs to gain visibility across a wealth of public sector opportunities."

Mark Davison, Director of IM&T at Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, added: "Using the G-Cloud gave us access to a much broader range of suppliers that we would not have considered had we followed previous procurement approaches outside the framework.

"Importantly, this meant receiving tenders from a range of smaller providers who were able to be more competitive on price and flexible in the service they offered."

Vodafone and ip.access have launched consumer based presence services following a successful deployment of ip.access' presenceCell across multiple locations in Turkey.

presenceCells fit within operators' privacy and permissions frameworks to capture user location and identity information from mobile devices and direct it to approved value added services for a wide variety of business applications. The high quality data captured by the presenceCell monetises Vodafone's spectrum assets and provides retail intelligence in a uniquely valuable way.

The first stage of this growing deployment saw Vodafone roll out presenceCells across its stores in Turkey. The technology enables Vodafone to recognise customers as they enter the store and so provide a personalised service to each individual customer. Stage two of the deployment will now see the proliferation of presenceCells into third party retail and m-commerce locations.

"This innovative collaboration is particularly exciting for us, as it's the first commercial proof point within the Vodafone Group for this high value monetisation model," explains Rob Jones, Senior Vice President Worldwide Sales & Operations, at ip.access.

"We see continued strong interest across the market for our presenceCells offering with a particular emphasis on delivering secure mobile payment capabilities with the introduction of Closed Loop Authentication."

Simon Smith has been named as Elitetele.com's first Head of Cloud Sales.

His remit is to educate new and existing customers on hosting infrastructure, expand Elitetele.com's cloud services and launch a series of new offerings in 2015.

Smith is well practiced at advising teams on the security, application, connectivity and disaster recovery aspects of cloud solutions, and has successfully managed business for international companies.

This new hire builds on Elitetele.com's acquisition of a data centre in 2014, a move that completed the company's transition from a switchless reseller to a full ISP with carrier capabilities and multiple data centre facilities.

With the acquisition, Elite officially launched a range of data centre services, including managed firewalls, unified threat management, colocation and its very own hosted PBX, Elite Plus Talk, which is embedded within its own core MPLS Network.

Smith said: "Cloud is an area many organisations still struggle with and Elitetele.com has a successful track record in understanding its customers' issues and providing quality solutions underpinned by great products."

Matt Newing, CEO of Elitetele.com, added: "With over a quarter of our customers using three or more of our services we're in a strong position to build on this with our new cloud offerings launching later this year. I know Simon will help us reach our goal of providing our customers with the right cloud services."

Hampshire-based M12 Solutions has secured a deal to supply a SpliceCom VoIP system to Port Regis Prep School in Shaftesbury, Dorset.

The deal encompasses the main equipment, phones, maintenance, SIP trunks and calls.

M12 Solutions MD Andrew Skipsey said: "We worked closely with the school to provide a solution for many years to come. We recognise that Port Regis, with its boarding facilities, needs a mission critical level of round-the-clock backup as well.

"With our conversion from ISDN to SIP lines which work over the school's Internet connection we can reduce the costs of lines and calls which helps to provide a strong cost justification for the new platform."

Virtual1 has been awarded a two star rating on the 2015 Best Companies accreditation. The rating categorises Virtual1 as 'outstanding' in the Best Companies ranking.

The annual accreditation standard recognises the UK's most engaged and supportive employers - based on employee feedback and an audit of policies and practices.

The three star scale ranks employee engagement from one star (first class), two stars (outstanding) to three stars (extraordinary).

Virtual1 CEO Tom O'Hagan said: "As an employer of over 60 people it's crucial that we measure, improve and recognise all areas of employee engagement. Myself and the leadership team at Virtual1 very much believe that we should look after our people and let them look after our customers.

"We're proud to see our employees rank us so highly on key areas. However, we will also be looking at what we could do better and will be working towards the three star ranking next year."

The company is putting in place a series of employee engagement strategies to build on the findings and to also maintain its employee retention rates (almost a quarter of the workforce has been with the firm for longer than three years).