Comms Dealer

Verizon is launching a new enterprise portal for its Managed Certificate Services platform that offers digital certificate creation and management capabilities for large-scale IoT deployments in the tens of millions.

The number of Internet-connected devices, such as vehicles, smart meters and home monitoring systems, is predicted to reach in the billions by the year 2020.

Verizon's Managed Certificate Services (MCS) platform is designed to authenticate objects and machines (much like two-factor authentication of people and machines), verifying object and machine 'identities' for the trusted exchange of information - and secure data transmitted between these connections.

Verizon's new bulk certificate portal provides increased ease of commerce without large capital investment for enterprises, such as manufacturers and media companies with large IoT and/or traditional machine-to-machine (M2M) implementations. Featuring usage-based pricing, the new portal is aimed at helping organisations control management costs for securing the Internet of Things.

"With the massive growth of The Internet of Things and the use of connectivity to make devices smarter, businesses require a simple, scalable and effective way to manage identity and data integrity," said Mike Denning, vice president of Global Security for Verizon Enterprise Solutions.

"Building on our digital certificate technology and managed security services expertise, Verizon's Managed Certificate Services provides the foundation for helping to protect the Internet of Things from cyberthreats."

The latest Recruitment and Employment Confederation survey reveals that 90% of companies have 'no' or 'only a little' spare capacity to increase business.

Kevin Green, Chief Exec of REC commented: "Businesses are increasingly thinking about expanding their numbers and many are telling us that they can't take on more work without more staff.

":At the same time, the UK is suffering from skills shortages across the economy and it's getting harder for hirers to attract and retain the talent they need."

From the recruitment perspective, Clive Jefferys of recruiter JMA Network observed: "All companies must look at every possible recruitment option as a matter of urgency. Internal referral schemes, direct advertising, recruitment agencies and headhunting all form part of the solution, but none can solve the problem alone."

Traditionally many companies relied on using temporary staff. However, due to wholesale change in taxation and legislation, the scope for using temps, part-timers and contractors is actually reducing.

"There are tremendous opportunities in this situation," added Jefferys. "We all need to invest in technology and training to increase productivity and look at new sources of labour too. There are over a million under-utilised 50-65 year olds in the UK. It seems utterly mad not to use such a skilled and available resource."

In its Q2 2015 financial results statement ShoreTel posted total revenues of a record $90.9m, an increase of 8% compared to Q2 2014. Non-GAAP net income (which excludes stock-based compensation charges, amortisation of acquisition-related intangibles, other charges and related tax adjustments) for Q2 2015 was $5.4m. This compares with a non-GAAP net income of $3.2m in the same period of the previous year.

GAAP net loss was $6.8m, compared with a GAAP net loss of $0.9m in Q2 of fiscal 2014.

"We've continued our business momentum with investments in growth while also improving our key financial metrics," said Don Joos, president and CEO of ShoreTel. 

"The acceleration of our hosted bookings in the December quarter resulted in 33% growth for calendar year 2014, showing the effectiveness of the strategic actions we launched a year ago.

"We've made continued progress in the development of our common platform, which we expect to introduce at our partner conference in April."

Recurring revenues, which now consist of all revenue from hosted and related services plus support revenues from support and services, represented 46% of total revenue in Q2 2015 and reached an annualised value of $166m, an increase of 17% compared to the Q2 2014.

The company adjusted its methodology for calculating its recurring revenue metrics to better reflect the predictability of the business and align with the reporting of its industry peers.

Hosted revenues of $25.8m were up 19% year-over-year and 3.5% sequentially. 

Non-GAAP hosted gross margin was 45.4% in Q2 2015, compared with 39.8% the previous year.

A holiday giveaway scheme that rewarded excellent customer service provided by individuals at Chess has been won by Sarah Wolstenholme, Andy Holder and Richard Thrien who were placed first, second and third respectively.

They earned the most 'Gimme 5' chips for good customer service deeds throughout 2014 and each scooped a holiday that includes scaling a landmark tower or mountain. The top prize being a choice between Dubai's Burj Khalifa or Mount Kilimanjaro.

Each chip also counted as a pound for charity, raising £6,000 for good causes.

"Our Holiday Giveaway was a fantastic event," said CEO David Pollock. "It was a chance to celebrate our successes over the last 12 months and to focus on our vision for the rest of 2015."

Pictured: David Pollock congratulates Sarah Wolstenholme

Maintel is to deliver the Avaya Cloud Solutions service over BT Wholesale's managed Ethernet network. Targeted at mid-market enterprises, Maintel Cloud is based on the Avaya Aura Contact Centre and Unified Communications product suites delivered as a secure cloud utility service. "Maintel Cloud enables businesses to replace unsupported legacy systems with a feature rich cloud service that's cost-effective, scalable and resilient," said Eddie Buxton, CEO of Maintel.

"To remain competitive in today's marketplace and meet increasing customer service expectations, businesses need effective communications that can adapt and be easily implemented.

"Enhancing our cloud services portfolio supports our aggressive expansion plans and enables us to take advantage of strong demand across all our key verticals."
 
Maintel has worked with Avaya for over 20 years and received the Avaya Technical Partner of the Year Award 2014.

Simon Culmer, MD for UK&I at Avaya said: "Flexibility is key in this customer centric world. Dialling services up or down can keep companies responsive and help them manage costs. Maintel recognises this."

Version 12 of ICUK's Control Panel released this month incorporates fresh support and diagnostic tools based on a new Knowledge Base Diagnostics feature.

With its latest release ICUK claims to have removed the complexity common to traditional management tools for broadband and telecoms, with 'plain English' being the order of the day, according to Senior Support Engineer Niall Higgins.

"Diagnosing faults at carrier broadband and telecoms level is a daily routine for the support team," he said. "We've been working closely with our resellers and listening to feedback on how to get the right diagnostic tools without having to blind them with complicated questions and results that are hard to interpret."

Neil Barnett, Business Development Manager, added: "Throughout 2014 we've written thousands of lines of code and implemented hundreds of new features.

"The fundamental credo behind any successful partnership is to not only give the reseller the right tools to manage their customers, but to give their end customers the tools to manage the products they're using."

The comms industry has barely scratched the surface of what's possible with UC, according to Mitel's President and CEO Richard McBee, who believes that a big push towards simplicity and partner innovation will be key to unlocking UC's full potential.

"Transformational technologies like cloud communications are changing the game and streamlining how we connect, collaborate and help our customers drive success, but as an industry we are still at the starting line of what UC has to offer," he said.

"The challenge is to replace the technical complexity with a simple, seamless and universal user experience. The industry will have to come together in new and unanticipated ways to make that happen."

McBee made his comments ahead of ITEXPO in Miami (January 27th-30th) where he will deliver a keynote address.

Hot demand for avsnet's managed services have prompted a move to new headquarters with a state of the art Network Operations Centre (NOC) under its roof.

The NOC serves as the hub of avsnet's IT Service Management (ITSM) team and will allow the company to continue strengthening its portfolio of network management, IT and application availability monitoring, and 24/7 support services with new solutions and capabilities.

This includes new flexible managed services, public, private and hybrid cloud solutions, monitoring infrastructure, and converged networking options, all of which have been built around delivering long-term return on investment, financial freedom and corporate sustainability.
 
Graham Fry, Managing Director of avsnet, said: "This is an exciting chapter for avsnet, especially as we celebrate our ten year anniversary in 2015.

"Our new office is the culmination of the long-standing support our customers have provided us. We have spent the past six months investing heavily in our operational and technical capabilities to ensure we can continue meeting the IT demands dictated by a rapidly changing business environment.

"This development is entirely for the benefit of our customers, many of which have entrusted their entire IT infrastructure to avsnet."

Parliament should reject the introduction of the Communications Data Bill via the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill, according to ISPA Secretary General Nicholas Lansman.

He said: "Amendments to the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill have been tabled that seek to introduce the extensive powers contained in the Draft Communications Data Bill into the Counter Terrorism and Security Bill.

"Inserting the clauses contained in the Draft Communications Data Bill into an already complex Bill that is itself proceeding through Parliament via a fast-tracked process is ill-judged.

"The Lords cannot have time to properly consider the substantial powers contained in the amendments to the Bill, and would deny the Commons the opportunity to properly consider the powers as well."

The Draft Communications Data Bill was scrutinised by a Joint Parliamentary Committee in 2012 who concluded that there 'should be a new round of consultation with technical experts, industry, law enforcement bodies, public authorities and civil liberties groups'.

"At the time industry was critical of the level of consultation and there has since been no adequate consultation since," added Lansman.

"The Committee also had substantial concerns around the wholesale collection and analysis of communications data, oversight regime, definitions of communications data and robustness of cost estimates, and these have not been addressed and would require considerable changes to the current drafting.

"Introducing as amendments to a Bill that is being fast-tracked through Parliament, without acknowledging the need for further debate and substantial change, is deeply regrettable.

"The Government established a review into investigatory powers led by the independent reviewer of terrorism, David Anderson QC, that is set to publish before the General Election.

"Rather than bringing in substantial legislation by the backdoor before this review has published and without addressing the concerns of a parliamentary Joint Committee, we urge Parliament to reject this attempt to insert complex legislation into an existing Bill at the last minute."

In common with Southampton, the premiership football team its supports, things are on the up for Romsey-based Nix Communications.

In a record breaking year the company secured its best ever business performance in 2014 and secured a trophy double, namely Unify Reseller of the Year and Naomi Housing Corporate Supporter of the Year (small and medium sized businesses).

Office Manager Emma Davis was also finalist in the Outstanding Charity Champion category in the Naomi Housing awards process.

"We've had a terrific year and got off to a fabulous start in 2015," said MD Nick Zammit.

"It's a true team effort. With everyone working hard towards the goals of sales excellence and unrivalled customer service, the only way for NIX is up!"

During 2015 Nix will continue to achieve national TV coverage via pitch side banners at the St Mary's Stadium, home of Southampton FC and will also continue to support a number of local causes including the Independent Marshall Arts Association), children's cancer charity Joe Glover Trust and the Baddesley Crusaders Football Team.

Picture shows Nev Wilshire from BBC's The Call Centre programme who gave a memorable motivational speech at Nix's annual sales conference.