Comms Dealer

Purple WiFi, the cloud-based social WiFi software company, has partnered with Molson Coors, one of the UK's biggest brewers to create a solution called Molson Coors Cloud.

As part of a new trial, Molson Coors is offering a secure gated access point for a pub's WiFi where Molson Coors brands are stocked. The access point also enables the licensees to engage with their customers directly to build loyalty and provide them relevant information and offers.

The licensed venue can also use the Molson Coors Cloud to achieve social media engagement, customer interaction and loyalty, data collection and ROI from additional food and beverage sales.

Alpesh Mistry, Molson Coors Customer Marketing Director, said: "Being a significant On Trade supplier that continues to have a direct relationship with our customers, we know publicans are looking for new modern ways to drive sales.

"The idea of having a resource that would capture customer data and then use this to attract these pub-goers back would have historically been left to those with significant time and budget. By creating Molson Coors Cloud, our hope is we are enabling any of our customers to have this ability."

Daniel Dearlove, General Manager, Backyard Bar & Backyard Comedy Club added: "The Molson Coors WiFi portal is already driving more traffic to our free WiFi service and the marketing opportunities it enables are easy to implement and helping us to engage in new ways with our customer base.

"With a better understanding of our customers we can also identify new markets for our events and improve the service we offer, resulting in increased numbers of returning customers."

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO, Purple WiFi, said: "The drinks industry was one of the first to recognise the demand for free WiFi. Over the past few years there has been a noticeable increase in the number of pubs that provide a WiFi hotspot for their customers. But the supply still isn't meeting demand and WiFi is often unsecured, while offering little or no benefit to the venue.

"Molson Coors is paving the way within the drinks industry, turning that situation on its head by providing free WiFi and getting something tangible in return."

Following a successful trial across 20 venues throughout the UK for a period of six months, Molson Coors will be looking to launch the service to all outlets across the UK.

A UC enhanced version of Jabra's Stealth headset has been launched to the UK and Ireland.

The Jabra Stealth UC Bluetooth headset is interoperable with all mobile devices and UC platforms.

"We strive to help the mobile worker gain the full benefits from both their mobile devices and UC solutions," said Nigel Dunn, Managing Director of Jabra UK.

"It is our experience that one of the most important factors for users embracing these communication solutions is the headset, which bridges the gap between the user and the promise of increased efficiency and flexibility, coupled with high-quality sound. The Jabra Stealth UC provides this bridge and allows the user to stay in their concentration zone for longer."

4Com has extended its sponsorship of former premier league footballer and Southampton FC legend Franny Benali's epic charity run to include Benali's Big Run Gala Dinner on March 14th at Southampton's St. Marys Stadium.

Benali's Big Run saw ex-footballer Benali pound the streets to every premier league ground late last summer - 1,000 miles in 21 days - in a charity effort that has so far raised in excess of £200,000 for Cancer Research UK.

Benali said: "I was told by some that I'm mad and it can't be done, but that made me even more determined to succeed."

4Com's Dean Cartledge joined Benali on the run following a 'suggestion' by MD Daron Hutt. "I was thrown in at the deep end by Daron, however I am grateful for Daron for sponsoring this challenge and involving 4Com and its staff to be a part of this monumental journey of courage and strength."

Hutt commented: "Dean is an inspirational man, a man who leads from the front. He is an inspiring, logistical military motivator with a strict but understanding and caring nature. A true asset not only to 4Com but everyone that has the pleasure of knowing him."

Actor Sir Ian McKellen has taken another leading role, this time as celebrity voice of the Speaking Clock.

McKellen's voice will feature temporarily on the BT Speaking Clock from 2nd February until Red Nose Day on 13th March.

During this time, BT will donate 10p from each call made to the BT Speaking Clock from a BT landline to Comic Relief's Red Nose Day appeal.

McKellen said: "Red Nose Day is a national institution and I'm delighted to be at last making my debut with Comic Relief. As for the Speaking Clock, I hope everyone will give me a call, if they have the time, so to speak."

Most commonly known today for his high profile Hollywood roles as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movie series, as well as Magneto in the X-Men franchise, McKellen's CV also features extensive theatre credits with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre.

His work has been recognised with numerous awards over the years, including six Laurence Olivier Awards, a Golden Globe, and two Academy Award nominations, among many others.

In 1991, McKellen was knighted for services to the performing arts.  

The money raised through the BT Speaking Clock and other fundraising initiatives will be spent by Comic Relief in the UK and across Africa, helping vulnerable and disadvantaged people to turn their lives around.

Piers Linney, co-CEO of Outsourcery, is leaving the BBC2 show Dragons' Den to focus on growing the company as well as his work related to diversity and inclusion, including his not-for-profit digital platform, workinsight.org

He joined the programme two years ago as part of a show refresh by a new production team, which saw ratings grow by an average of 45 per cent, and was responsible for the highest valuation for an investment in the history of the Den.

Linney said: "I have enjoyed every minute of my time on Dragons' Den and feel honoured to have had the opportunity to contribute to such an iconic and long-running TV show and to have been the first Dragon with Afro Caribbean heritage.

"It is now the right time for me to move on, although entrepreneurship and diversity are two of my greatest passions so I will continue to focus my energies on supporting both.

"It has been a great experience and a pleasure to share with millions of viewers the growing importance of digital innovation and how the technology and creative sectors are making their profound marks on the evolving landscape of British business.

"Among the fantastic entrepreneurs I have backed in the Den, I was especially delighted to have spotted the potential of the full stack digital publisher, Lost My Name, which became the UK's highest selling children's picture book in 2014 and is already one of the biggest success stories to come out of the Den. It will be interesting to see who takes my seat."

Linney will continue to work closely with the entrepreneurs he has backed, including Lost My Name, the technology start-up which takes children on a storytelling journey, creating beautifully illustrated and individual stories using their own names.

He invested £100,000 in the company which received a valuation of £2.5 million, the highest ever valuation in Dragons' Den history.

Linney will also focus on growing Outsourcery . He said: "We have invested ahead of the curve to create differentiated capabilities that are enabling us to win new business against traditional providers of IT and communications solutions.

"We now count a growing number of the UK's largest companies as end-customers and are entering a period of sustained growth. It is a very exciting time for Outsourcery and the cloud market in general."

Channel-only SIP and hosted carrier tIPicall has chosen Juniper Bridge to offer an outsourced support option to its reseller base.

The agreement allows tIPicall's reseller base to leverage the expertise of Juniper Bridge as a white-labelled extension of their own support department for tIPicall's next generation telecoms services.

As Juniper Bridge operates 24x7x365, resellers will be able to choose their own support package offering peak or off peak hours as required.

Juniper Bridge has access into tIPicall's core support systems and will offer a fully expert support function over and above out-of-hours phone answering services.

Guy Miller, Managing Director of tIPicall, said: "This is great news for our partners who want to win bigger accounts and differentiate themselves from their competitors.

"It offers a cost-effective way to move to 24x7 support and is of particular interest to IT companies entering the telecoms space who perhaps don't want to invest in hiring two telecoms engineers from the outset.

"Juniper Bridge can do the work for them until they build up a critical mass of clients that pays for their new hires."

Steve Larkin, Managing Director of Juniper Bridge, added: "We are always looking at ways to make it easier for clients to work with us.

"With tIPicall, we knew that investment in training and knowledge transfer would pay dividends as multiple clients will be using the same platform. More knowledge for us means better service for our clients."

Oakley Capital Private Equity has acquired a significant majority of the shares in the European companies owned and operated by Damovo II Sarl.

Matthew Riley, founder of Daisy Group, will be investing alongside Fund II and will lead the businesses as Executive Chairman.

The businesses that have been acquired are Damovo's operations in Germany, Ireland, Switzerland, Poland, Belgium and Damovo's Global Services business (collectively 'Damovo Europe').

Damovo Europe employs 271 people across its 14 locations in continental Europe.  

Oakley Capital Private Equity has a track record in the telecoms, UCC and adjacent sectors through its investments in Daisy Group, Host Europe Group and intergenia - investments that generated returns of 35 times, 2.4 times and 2.5 times respectively for Oakley Capital Private Equity.

The particular attractions of investing in Damovo Europe include managed services revenue making up 50% of revenues, with a strategy to increase this proportion going forward; a reputation for delivering customer satisfaction; he opportunity for significant revenue and margin growth through investment and economies of scale; the opportunity to back a strong and experienced management team led by Riley in a European roll-up strategy, replicating the success of Daisy Group .

Rebecca Gibson, Partner of Oakley Capital Private Equity, said: "Damovo Europe is already well established in a number of European markets and the fact that the worldwide Unified Communications market is expected to be worth in excess of $75bn by 2020 with significant growth expected to come from within Europe, makes Damovo Europe an obvious choice to add to Oakley's portfolio.

"I am particularly pleased that Matt Riley will be investing alongside us and will be Executive Chairman. He has an exceptional record of valuation creation in the sector."

Riley added: "The growth opportunity in Unified Communications over the coming three-five years is significant and Damovo Europe is perfectly positioned to materially grow its share of this expanding market.  

"It is an organisation that customers believe delivers high quality communications solutions and I am personally very excited about the future for the company."

Distributor ScanSource has posted a record quarter following its acquisition late last year of Imago, a distributor of video and voice solutions.

"Our two worldwide segments achieved very good sales results with 9% year-over-year net sales growth," said Mike Baur, CEO, ScanSource.

"We are pleased to report that the acquisition of Imago has gone very well and contributed to the quarter's excellent results."

Net sales for the period ended December 31st 2014 totalled $807.0m, a 9.0% increase over net sales of $740.6m for the quarter ended December 31, 2013.

Excluding the translation impact of foreign currencies, net sales increased 11.1% year-over-year. The increase in net sales included the acquisition of Imago during September 2014.

Operating income for quarter totalled $26.0m, compared with $27.5m in the prior year quarter. Excluding adjustments, non-GAAP operating income for the quarter ended December 31, 2014 increased 1.7% over the prior year quarter to $29.4m from $28.9m.

BT has posted revenues of £4,475m in its Q3 2014 results with adjusted EBITDA of £814m.

Gavin Patterson, Chief Executive, said: "This quarter we have delivered good growth in profit before tax and strong free cash flow.

"Openreach achieved the highest growth in the number of landlines on record. It was also our best ever quarter for fibre broadband net additions All the major communications providers are responding to the strong market demand for fibre broadband, helping to drive take-up in what is already a very competitive market.

"Our superfast fibre broadband network now covers around three quarters of the UK.

"We're announcing large-scale pilots this summer of ultrafast broadband with G.fast.

"We now think we can deploy this technology at scale which will enable us to deliver ultrafast speeds of up to 500Mbps to most of the UK within a decade.

"I am pleased that we have agreed the 2014 triennial funding valuation and recovery plan with the Trustee of the BT Pension Scheme.

The funding deficit is £7.0bn at 30 June 2014, an increase from 2011 reflecting the low interest rate environment. Over the next three years we will pay £2.0bn into the scheme, which is less than we paid over the previous three years. We have agreed a 16 year recovery plan reflecting the strength and sustainability of our future cash flow generation.

"Mobility is a key growth area for us. We are making good progress on our due diligence in relation to a possible acquisition of EE and will make further announcements in due course.

"In the meantime, our Consumer mobile launch plans remain on track."

BT CEO Gavin Patterson has set out the company's ambition to transform the UK broadband landscape from superfast to ultrafast.

He revealed that BT plans to deliver much faster broadband for homes and small businesses via a widespread deployment of 'G.fast', a technology that BT will test in two pilot locations starting this summer.

G.fast will help BT deliver ultrafast speeds of up to 500Mbps to most of the UK within a decade.

Deployment will start in 2016/17, subject to the pilots being successful.

Early tests show G.fast is capable of delivering a range of speeds depending on how close the technology is to a customer's premises.

BT expects to offer initial speeds of a few hundred megabits per second to millions of homes and businesses by 2020. Speeds will then increase to around 500Mbps as further industry standards are secured and new kit is developed.

Patterson said: "We believe G.fast is the key to unlocking ultrafast speeds and we are prepared to upgrade large parts of our network should the pilots prove successful.

"That upgrade will depend however on there continuing to be a stable regulatory environment that supports investment.

"The UK is ahead of its major European neighbours when it comes to broadband and we need to stay ahead as customer demands evolve. G.fast will allow us to do that by building on the investment we have made in fibre to date. It will transform the UK broadband landscape from superfast to ultrafast in the quickest possible timeframe."

The two pilots will start this Summer in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire and Gosforth, Newcastle.

Around 4,000 homes and businesses will be able to participate in the pilots which will explore what speeds can be delivered using G.fast at scale.

The pilots will build on recent tests at BT's world innovation centre at Adastral Park, Suffolk.

These have shown that G.fast has the potential to deliver significant speed increases from existing and new fibre street cabinets as well as from other points closer to the customer.

This is an important development as it means the technology can be deployed in a more efficient and rapid manner than previously thought.

BT is likely to deploy G.fast from various points in the network, with the pilots allowing it to assess various roll out options. It is also planning to develop a premium fibre broadband service for those residential and business customers who want even faster broadband, of up to 1Gbps.

BT is currently expanding the reach of its fibre network by working with the public sector across the UK.

Its network already passes almost 22 million premises - around three quarters of the UK - and is open to all communications providers on an equal basis. Its expansion will help the UK to boast 95 per cent coverage for fibre broadband within the next few years.