Comms Dealer

Martin Tufft has been appointed Director of Sales & Marketing at Mainline, the 4GEE distributor and wholly owned subsidiary of EE.

In this new role, Tufft is responsible for developing and implementing Mainline's Sales and Marketing strategy including customer service, product development and partner relationships.

He has more than 20 years experience in the mobile industry across a wide range of disciplines and organisations.

Most recently Tufft was responsible for public sector sales at EE, helping UK public sector organisations make the most of mobile technology to improve productivity and better serve the UK public.

Tufft said: "Today more than ever, mobile technology has the power to change the face of businesses in the UK, allowing them to become more flexible and improve productivity."

Exclusive Networks UK has been named EMEA Distributor of the Year by Fortinet, the specialist in high performance network security.

Up against Fortinet's entire EMEA distributor base, Exclusive Networks received this recognition during Fortinet's Global Partner Conference, held January 8-12 aboard the Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas.

Graham Jones, UK Country Manager for Exclusive Networks, said: "It is an excellent achievement to gain recognition from one of our strategic vendor partners.

"This award is testament to our investment and development in our value add proposition, and showcases our core attributes including exceptional consultancy, sales, marketing, training and technical support services."

David Park, Director Channel & Commercial Sales for Fortinet, added: "Exclusive Networks UK has continued to demonstrate value by investing in resources to address the business needs of Fortinet and our partner base.

"Keeping in step with Fortinet's local strategy, Exclusive has increased sales, technical and support capability to create, demonstrate and deploy Fortinet Solutions.

"The Exclusive team has shown themselves to be a safe pair of hands when it comes to partner development and enablement, increasing the contribution in Bronze and Silver partners from both a revenue and number of partners perspective.

"In addition, their focus and investment to develop skills and ability in the Fortinet Advance Technology suite will drive the relevance of the wider Fortinet portfolio to partners and their customers."

Avnet Technology Solutions UK has launched an Elastic Cloud Infrastructure (ECI) solution combining technology from Cisco, EMC and VMware.

The new addition to Avnet's portfolio will accelerate the success of business partners looking to maximise the potential of the expanding Hyper-Convergence market.

The platform is aimed at smaller service providers and mid to large-sized organisations looking to increase the flexibility and scalability of their next generation data centre environments.

Avnet's ECI solution will also help to lower total cost of ownership (TCO) through the lifecycle of the infrastructure. Avnet business partners can install and deploy Cisco's UCS servers and EMC's ScaleIO storage systems with VMware's vSphere® virtualisation platform to offer one totally integrated solution.

Tom Corrigan, open storage and Cisco business unit leader, Avnet Technology Solutions, UK, commented: "Working with some of the world's most trusted technology providers, we have created a powerful addition to Avnet's portfolio that tightly integrates computing, storage, networking and virtualisation resources in a single package."

Traditionally, organisations were committed to one brand of storage technology that often locked them into long-term contracts. Avnet's ECI solution provides a flexible, scalable, building block approach by allowing storage functionality and capacity in any server to be accessed as and when the organisation needs it.

By offering a common pool of storage, purchasing decisions can be planned over shorter cycles with less impact on budget and scheduled downtime can be reduced said the firm.

Using ECI, Avnet business partners will benefit from incremental revenue from upgrades and services as they work closely with customers to plan capacity in line with real-time operational and financial requirements.

Avnet anticipates that the new ECI solution will appeal particularly to Software as a Service (SaaS) providers who are reluctant to make large initial infrastructure investments but need to scale resource as demands increase.

In addition, education sector organisations implementing Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) to avoid investing in large technology stacks for point solutions, such as end user computing, are a key target.

Avnet plans to host a series of webinars on ECI that will give business partners the product and market knowledge they need to address the growing demand for Hyper-Convergence solutions.

By outsourcing the IT management function, businesses can ensure high value employees are focused on core activity.

That's the view of Gary David Smith, co-founder of cloud provider Prism Solutions, who says IT management is one of the most common business functions that someone simply assumes.

"In the absence of an IT manager or outsourced IT agreement, this function is quite often picked up by an individual who was originally recruited to perform different tasks," he said.

"When the original role was more profitable or of higher value to the organisation, this could be deemed as false economy, even from the most simplistic hourly rate calculation. For example, if the de facto IT manager is a fee earner or sales person, then this value is questionable."

Smith also argues that small companies that do not outsource IT are risking technology meltdown.
?"No one can be an expert at everything and reaction and response times are severely limited in the event of a disaster, potentially leading to costly and unnecessary downtime," he added.

"The best approach is ensuring businesses explore their options and choose the best IT management outsourcing model for their needs. Making a long-term decision in the short term can be extremely serious."

A Channel Telecom voucher scheme to ramp up Ethernet sales has been an unprecedented success.

Towards the end of 2014, the company rewarded partners with gift vouchers for a selection of leading high street stores.

To qualify, partners had to sell a fully managed Ethernet circuit between October 1st and December 12th.

The incentive was originally planned to end in early November but, due to its popularity, was extended for a further month resulting in a total of over 25 Ethernet orders being placed.

Channel Telecom MD Clifford Norton told Comms Dealer: "We wanted to rapidly to expand our Ethernet installed base through this latest partner incentive."

More than 80 VIP guests of Channel Telecom will get the chance to discuss how Government initiatives and legislation can help boost the industry.

The channel-only service provider is to hold a champagne and canapé reception for its wholesale and channel partners at The Houses of Parliament on March 4th.

In a special address at the event, Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, will speak about the importance of the industry and how telecoms is a vital part of a modern infrastructure and key for a strong economy.

In line with the event Channel Telecom is launching an 'industry manifesto' highlighting how the next Government, following the general election in May, might better support the telecommunications industry.

The manifesto will discuss fraud detection and prevention, improving connectivity and also discuss the control Ofcom has over the industry.

There will also be expert comment by Clifford Norton, MD of Channel Telecom, discussing the current environment, how current Government initiatives work and also where the industry is heading

Norton told Comms Dealer: "This evening reception at The Houses of Parliament will provide a unique and memorable experience for us all, while giving an unbelievable opportunity to share best practice and hear from experts in the field."

Putting on an exhibition of revenue opportunities and partner education are top of the agenda at this year's museum themed Gamma Roadshow that opens at four venues during March.

The Museum Roadshow will be held at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, the Museum of Science, Technology & Industry in Manchester, the National Motorcycle Museum in the west midlands and the Royal Institute of Great Britain in London.

The seminars, which are open to existing and prospective Gamma channel partners, will demonstrate the firm's 2015 product roadmap and how its range of voice, mobile and data services create margin opportunities.

Gamma's CEO Bob Falconer and senior sales and product teams will be on hand to interact with partners at each event.
Richard Bligh, Marketing Director, said: "The feedback we receive from partners at these seminars is invaluable, helping us to shape the future of Gamma and our roadmap."

Ben Le Feuvre, Head of Carrier Services Voice at Capita, added: "It's great to have key members of the Gamma team in one place to catch up with. The roadshow provides a good opportunity to hear about the latest product developments and plans for the year ahead."

Dear Friends,

Following the very sad news that our friend and colleague David George passed away last week, I wanted to let you know about the arrangements.

There will be a small funeral during the last week of January. David will be laid to rest in a natural burial ground that shares the same views of the Sussex Downs he enjoyed from his home in Plumpton.

As a great many people who knew David through his time in the telecoms industry have asked to pay their respects and say farewell, there will be a separate wake held on Thursday 5th of February at the Copthorne Hotel, Effingham Park (near Gatwick), starting at 14:00. 

This will be an informal gathering to remember the good times we've shared with David and to celebrate his life. 

Everyone is welcome, but please let us know you're coming by emailing holly@wearepragma.co.uk so we can keep a track of numbers.

The family have asked not to send flowers, however if you would like to make a donation in memory of David, please send a cheque payable to the undertakers, details below, or bring them along with you on 5th. 

Any donations will be divided between the Royal Free Hospital in London who treated David for many years and the St Peter and St James Hospice who took great care of him in his final days.

R A Brooks & Son
Funeral Director
35 Wivelsfield Road
Haywards Heath
West Sussex
RH16 4EN

Please makes cheques payable to R A Brooks donations account

Feel free to forward this message to anyone you think might like to attend, please spread the word.
Kind regards

Tim Brooks, Pragma Distribution

Following a raft of new products at the recent CES, analyst firm Futuresource predict that multi-room audio technologies will gain rapid traction during 2015.

"This year it is evident that audio hardware has regained its cool at International CES," said Jack Wetherill, Senior Market Analyst at Futuresource Consulting.

"And it's not just headphones that have street credibility, we've seen that pioneering design allied to innovative technology - such as the Wireless Speaker and Audio Association's high end wireless systems spec in the case of Klipsch - can generate a lot of excitement."

There was a show focus on wireless multi-room audio (MRA), which Futuresource defines as a system of speakers that can interact with each other to create a seamless audio experience within a home.

These systems can play the same music throughout the home or may have the option to zone rooms and play different music. Throughout 2014, Sonos continued to be the biggest player in the market, although there have been competitive offerings from a number of brands which includes Bose, Samsung, Panasonic, LG, Philips, Denon and others.

Wireless multi-room audio can be segmented into two categories - proprietary and open. Proprietary systems, where speakers can work seamlessly only when they are from the same brand, currently dominate sales with Sonos leading the charge for this type of system.

Open systems such as those offered by Qualcomm's AllPlay platform, the DTS Play-Fi platform and Imagination Technologies' Caskeid technology allow any speaker based on this technology to work in sync. The vast majority of these systems have launched within the last 12 months and so the market is not only getting crowded, but more confusing for consumers.

Among others, new products have been announced by Sony and Supertooth - both proprietary systems - and House of Marley and Monster, based on AllPlay.

"We believe this plethora of launches is good for raising awareness of MRA, but the diverse and often incompatible technologies involved will begin to reduce down to a few proprietary systems such as Sonos, although the majority will be based upon an open standard, offering Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi," added Wetherill.

Futuresource estimates that 4.2 million MRA units were shipped globally in 2014, on track to rise by 43% this year.

VoIP.co.uk has extended its reach into European territory following the acquisition of Germany-based telecoms company Teleforte which also has offices in Poland and Spain.
 
Teleforte operates in the traditional telecoms space selling international number services to customers including German airline Lufthansa.
 
The move comes circa two years after VoIP.co.uk acquired Danish UC firm Firstcom.  
 
Adam Crisp, MD of VoIP.co.uk, said: "The acquisition of Teleforte completes our service offering in the traditional telecoms space and is part of the strategy to ensure our UC product has a route to market.   

"We now have offices in the UK, Denmark, Germany, Poland and Spain, providing a platform to strengthen our presence throughout Europe."
 
VoIP.co.uk is planning to launch Firstcom's mobile-enabled UC platform Universe during 2015. The product will also be rolled-out across Europe.  
 
Crisp added: "Many of the features offered by Universe will be completely new for the majority of customers in Europe. It will offer new ways to use, divert and integrate telephony and is customer-centric.  We know there is a demand for this solution and expect to see strong growth in our emerging markets."
 
VoIP.co.uk will also be offering SIP Encrypt and international numbering as part of its unified communications suite next year.   
 
Stephan Nerb, CEO of Teleforte, said: "We see huge potential for Voip.co.uk and Firstcom's SIP Encrypt and hosted UC solutions across our markets and are looking forward to entering a new era for Teleforte."