Comms Dealer

For the second year running Adept Telecom has been shortlisted for Best Telecommunications plc at the UK Stock Market Awards 2015.

"We are honoured to be shortlisted alongside such great industry names as BT, Manx Telecom, Talk Talk and Telecom Plus," said CEO Ian Fishwick. "We'd like to say a huge thank you to all of our shareholders for their support."

The UK Stock Market Awards 2015 will take place at the Sheraton Park Lane Hilton, London on 26th March.

Yorkshire-based Vital Technology Group has expanded its portfolio with the launch of Vital Telecommunications following a link-up with Gamma.

The comms arm will provide the latest next generation communications solutions via a telephony system branded as Vital Horizon Hosted.

The new company will also offer a full range of IP and traditional fixed line services and call packages to complete its portfolio.

Lee Evans (pictured), MD of Vital Technology Group, said: "The telecoms market is undergoing a rapid shift towards IP and data network-based systems. After all, what is a modern phone or smartphone if not a computer?

"While this convergence offers many potential benefits to business, there are also a number of new challenges represented by the increased complexity of the IT environment.

"This is a natural fit for Vital with our expertise and proven track record in deploying and managing our clients' IT infrastructures through our Vital Network Solutions subsidiary."

With the additional of Vital Telecommunications Vital Technology Group now encompasses three divisions serving businesses with IT solutions through Vital Network Solutions, web, ecommerce and online marketing through Vital Online Studio plus the telecoms offering.

The benefits of becoming an apprentice are to be promoted to hundreds of local high school students following the recruitment of a young Bury man as an Apprenticeship Ambassador.

In his new role Ben Howarth (pictured), 22, will visit schools across Greater Manchester explaining what apprenticeships are and the career paths they can offer. He will also draw upon his own positive experiences as an apprentice with Bury-based data and telecommunications specialist Pennine Telecom.

The former Elton High School and Bury College student is taking part in Apprenticeship Ambassador Programme which was initiated by Manchester City Council in partnership with the Greater Manchester Learning Provider Network.

Howarth made his first presentation to Year 10 pupils at Bolton's Harper Green School last month and so impressed the programme's organisers that they promoted him to a Lead Ambassador. This means he will handle future presentations without the need for supervision and will be responsible for supporting other ambassadors.

His next presentation will be to teachers at Moorside High School, Swinton on Tuesday January 20th when he will provide them with insights into his apprenticeship experience and personal development at Pennine Telecom.

Howarth joined Pennine in 2012 after the company was approached by Bury College which is the company's main training provider and source of the majority of its apprentices.

Since then he has secured an NVQ Level 2 qualification in Customer Service, is now pursuing a Level 3 in Business Administration and plans to progress to Level 4 in the New Year. He hopes his first-hand experience will help convince students to include apprenticeships among their options when leaving school.

"I would have no hesitation in recommending apprenticeships to school leavers because I know their real value from my own experience. It's been a massive help to me," he said.

"There is so much more choice now, they're not just about training to become a plumber or electrician. You can also train right up to Level 6, equivalent to a foundation degree course, whilst gaining real work experience which employers really value."

He added that his ongoing apprenticeship at Pennine is equipping him not just with specific skills but a wider knowledge of how the business operates.

"I started in what's called the Service Control department, learning about delivery of maintenance and support services. I then moved across to the Sales Support team where I'm working alongside the Sales team and responsible for provisioning mobiles, billing, processing orders and liaising with customers.

"I've learned so much from being hands-on, receiving training on specific products such as mobile devices and even visiting Vodafone's HQ in Newbury."

Cisco is to invest 200,000 euros with Asystec, an Irish data analytics and data management solutions company in a Big Data joint venture focused on the Internet of Everything (IoT).

Privately owned Asystec has positioned itself as a data analytics provider in Ireland and the UK, and says it has a line-up of global brands and multinationals as clients.

The company has invested in a data analytics 'innovation labs' to meet the demand for data management solutions in the Ireland and UK market.

This joint venture sees Asystec deliver its expertise in data analytics while Cisco delivers infrastructure and expertise to provide a complete Big Data solution.

Asystec CEO Les Byrne said: "When it comes to data analytics you need a number of components to make it deliver. You have to form alliances, and Cisco was an easy choice because in terms of direction we are aligned with its future vision."

As well as the financial investment by Cisco, Asystec will be investing in the venture in terms of HR, marketing and training at the recently launched 'Innovation labs' at Asystec offices in Belfast, Dublin, Limerick and Cork.

Adam Grennan, Cisco Ireland Manager, said: "We are rapidly beginning to experience the Internet of Everything. With each new person, process, piece of data, or thing that comes online, the connection possibilities between all these elements grows exponentially.

And yet, it's not the act of getting connected, or even the number of connections, that creates the value. Rather, it's the outcomes the connections make possible.

"The rise of Big Data represents an incredible opportunity for those who are able to create the processes needed to extract the value and act upon it.

"Asystec, in collaboration with Cisco, provides the right combination to help businesses deliver new capabilities, richer experiences, and unprecedented returns."

The joint venture will be rolled out over the coming 12 months.

UK-based cloud services provider infiniserv has enhanced its platform with hardware upgrades, greater network performance and a new control and management interface.

infiniserv offers users the choice of fixed price VPS or scalable On-Demand hourly consumption.

infiniserv, billed as a high performance IaaS cloud solutions provider, focused on delivering solutions with developers in mind, selecting carrier grade hardware and now featuring OnApp cloud management software.

OnApp is designed for the Wholesale and Service Provider community, making it suitable for integration by infiniserv, as all hardware platforms are deployed in UK data centre locations.

In addition to the introduction of OnApp, infiniserv has invested in an increased estate of compute nodes which are connected to its Juniper fabric, providing direct connections up to 100Gbps from data centres across the UK.

"infiniserv developers have worked tirelessly on an improved design of the entire solution, where we have improved the hardware, software and management interfaces," said a spokesperson.

"The upgraded version of infiniserv has been launched at a time where cloud computing is ever more important across the globe and continues to be the most logical choice for developers."

Exclusive Networks has expanded its services portfolio with a new financing and leasing division, called Exclusive Capital, launched on the back of the Group's acquisition of Fibail System. Exclusive veteran Franck Laga has been appointed as the unit's new MD.

"The launch of the new division strikes at the heart of one of the enterprise IT channel's greatest challenges," said Olivier Breittmayer, CEO of Exclusive Networks Group.

"With new, easy to use value added services available from Exclusive Capital, resellers can embrace the opex-orientated, subscription-based IT consumption demands of their customers, while at the same time allowing IT vendors to recognise the full contract value of the deal."

Initially operating from France, further acquisitions will fuel the geographic expansion of Exclusive Capital in the coming months, pointed out Breittmayer.

"To support the 'as a service' business model while maintaining upfront cash collection, we wanted control over our own financing operation to make the process quick, easy and totally seamless," he added.

"We've been listening to our vendor and reseller partners, and developed this new strategy to address a growing market need rooted in the seismic changes happening to how enterprises consume IT.

"Fibail System is a successful business with great relationships with major French banks. These are early days for Exclusive Capital, but it will soon be making a significant contribution to our business as we target 1bn euro total revenues by 2017."

An interactive portal introduced by Nimans puts resellers in control of their network services sales, says the distributor.

"The online service provides resellers with easy order provisioning and billing capabilities as well as a wealth of up-to-date information," said Mark Curtis-Wood (pictured), Head of Nimans Network Services. "Using The Hub, resellers have the ability to place and track orders and manage quotes.

"Resellers will experience a more interactive and seamless way of accessing products and services, improving the way they manage and bill their customers.

"The Hub offers a cradle to grave sales cycle, a complete resource from start to finish. Everything together, everything connected."

Nimans is to hold a series of webinars designed to ensure resellers maximise their usage of The Hub.

Olive Communications is to implement a cloud-based UC and contact centre platform for Swiss Re's Admin Re, the closed-book consolidator of life and health policies, in a £5m deal.

The solution will cover three sites and be used by 2,000 office-based employees including 300 contact centre agents.

Having already upgraded their core actuarial, finance and IT capabilities along with improved systems across operating platforms, Admin Re recently turned its focus to an upgraded telecoms strategy.

Martin Flick, Chief Executive, Olive Communications said: "This is business critical infrastructure, being delivered to an international financial institution to an aggressive time frame and with very clear objectives and benefits.

"The communications and IT sector is undergoing significant change and those customers with a clear vision about what they want to achieve will gain significant ground over those who resist change in the way they communicate with their customers.

"Admin Re took the time to build a list of requirements that were non-negotiable, and Olive is delighted to deliver those requirements in a long term partnership."

The unified communication and contact centre solution will be built on Mitel's cloud-based platform. The 300 seat contact centre incorporates workforce management, voice recording applications and an IVR platform.

The system is located over dual data centres and will be delivered in the early part of 2015.

Phil Shaw, Admin Re's Chief Operating Officer, said: "We need a system that is agile - to help us scale quickly as a business - to meet both the demands of our customers and to achieve our growth strategy."

Milton Keynes based Unify has teamed up with Genius Networks to help local League One football club MK Dons improve support and service to fans.

Under the terms of a year-long deal a new Unify OpenScape Cloud Contact Centre will enable the club to provide integrated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) front end and self-service options to all fans calling in about tickets, match days and networking engagements.

The system will also help MK Dons transform the delivery of match day support to its fans by optimising operational processes to help agents deal with increased call volumes.

Connectivity will be provided by Genius Networks who are providing a core MPLS network, SIP-enabled with direct connection to best of breed carriers, The Genius infrastructure manages latency from strategically located hubs ensuring QoS for delivery of voice and cloud applications.
 
MK Dons Corporate Partnerships Manager, Daniel Cole commented: "Unify's OpenScape Cloud Contact Centre will enable us to engage with our fans, and truly give something back to them in the form of excellent customer service - something that we are very excited about."

Trevor Connell, General Manager of East and West Region at Unify added: "Unify's OpenScape Cloud Contact Centre is perfectly positioned to help MK Dons deliver excellence in customer service to its fans. This is especially true for match days, when MK Dons requires a communication solution that is able to scale to help cope with the demands of increased call volumes - something that the SaaS based Unify product does with ease."

MK Dons are currently 4th in League One, well positioned for promotion to the Championship.

A takeover of mobile giant EE by BT could improve opportunities for the channel according to Gamma chief Bob Falconer.

Commenting on the proposed deal, the Gamma CEO told Comms Dealer: "While this would reduce the supply choice it also reduces the number of competitors in some markets. Typically these large integration plans result in service getting worse before it gets better. History suggests that the bigger the competitor gets the more successful the channel becomes due to its fleet of foot approach."

Falconer believes the industrial logic behind the deal is sound.

"Having parted with Cellnet in 2002, BT had left itself with a big strategic gap. Much of the drive for this recent frenzy seems to be around offering multi-play to the consumer market. BT's major investments including, football content, fibre roll out and now mobile have all been focused on enhancing its consumer proposition."