Comms Dealer

The extent of MyPhones.com's influence across the globe has been revealed following analysis of SIP trunks in use with the firm's Altos hosted telephony platform which highlights customers in the southern as well as the northern hemisphere.

"We originally designed Altos for the UK reseller channel," said Dr Stuart Marsden, founder and chief executive of MyPhones.com. "So, it came as a surprise to see just how far our end-user base had spread.

"As expected, the vast majority of our end users are located in the UK, but they are also spread across Europe, North America and Asia, and as far as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand in the southern hemisphere."

International end user subscriptions now represent almost 5% of MyPhones.com's total subscriptions.

MyPhones.com currently has end-users in more than 60 countries covering most of mainland Europe and Russia.

In Asia, they include Turkey, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, China, Japan and South Korea. Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the United States, Canada and Brazil also figure.

"Altos doesn't mind whose SIP trunks are used to carry the calls," added Dr Marsden. "And our approach is to try to accommodate the needs of our resellers, leaving them free to negotiate the best possible rates for SIP trunks and minutes from their preferred providers.

"Some of our resellers are looking overseas either for better SIP trunk rates or to deliver a service to customers based outside the UK. And we are very happy to support them."

The top 20 overseas countries with Altos registrations are Bulgaria, Cyprus, France, Germany, India, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Morocco, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, United States.

Intercity Technology has invested £10m into the development and launch of Touch Technology, a global UC solution that has already been adopted by a number of global brands and is due to launch into the channel this year with a focus on boutique resellers.

Touch Technology was developed in-house and is protected by a global patent, offering integrated voice calls, video conferencing, mobility, screen sharing and collaborative tools.

Touch Technology is also available as a mobile first solution without the need for any fixed infrastructure.

Touch Technology also has an open API and integrates with other business systems including Sales Cloud from Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics.

Andrew Jackson, CEO at Intercity Technology, said: "To have global brands embracing and benefitting from technology that has been developed here in the UK is a huge achievement.

"We have created a disruptive solution that can completely transform the way businesses work. Boosting productivity is key to business success and Touch Technology is an exciting innovation that empowers organisations to facilitate communication and collaborative working across the business."

Lee Hull, executive director at Intercity technology, added: "Thanks to its global coverage and scalability, Touch Technology enables us to support more businesses across the world, helping them to work smarter and get the most out of their team.

"We've worked hard to create a flexible and scalable communications solution which can be quickly deployed. We're looking forward to launching this into the channel later this year and we are confident that it will become a selling point for our channel partners."

The current industry obsession with Big Data and Business Intelligence plays directly into the hands of Sentel, according to CEO Ger Connery who has spent two decades working with telecoms analytics in the cloud.

Against the backdrop of the late '90s dot.com gold rush Connery first worked as a Sales Manager in payroll software and mailing equipment before joining Sentel, a telecoms start up, as Sales Director in 1998. The company serviced the network reporting market which at that time was only served by BT. It won a number of large corporate and public sector accounts including Barclays, AIB, the Department of Social Welfare and MOJ, along with many SME accounts mainly through the partner channel.

"Our USP was online access to reporting suites for CDR management with graphical as well as statistical display, not DOS which was the standard presentation output back then," explained Connery. "We were the first true cloud-based provider of telecoms analytics taking a managed service approach. We targeted all of the alternative telcos and resellers, and becoming profitable within three years of launch was a milestone."

Connery put his house on the line to lead an MBO before becoming CEO in January 2006. "When the stock market crash came we had to readjust," he added. "Our move into more traditional call logging through vendor channels such as Cisco, Avaya and Mitel followed, but always in the cloud and with a managed service wrap. It didn't suit everyone as many were still wedded to the on-premise approach. But we had developed a hard shell, always believing that cloud was the future."

To drive revenues the company branched out into other areas such as billing analytics for Your Communications which then became C&W, and ran a mobile reporting service for the NHS. "The market changed quickly during the noughties," recalled Connery. "After the building downturn and the following economic downturn of 2008, and drawing on our broad experience of all things telecoms, we decided to invest in an all-in-one telecoms platform focused on cost reduction, audit and asset tracking, tapping into the growing Business Intelligence and Big Data space.

"We built and launched our TEMS solution targeting enterprise and the public sector. This service is a strong performer for us today. We never lost sight of our telco and service provider history and thankfully there has been a huge upturn in activity in this space since UC adoption has become the trend. Sales are rising for our UC analytics and our new toll fraud protection service propositions, tapping into the cybercrime defence market."

Sentel has now streamlined its services into two clear lines of business - a Service Provider UC Analytics wrap and Enterprise with full TEM managed service wrap. "Instead of all things to all people, with 10 services we are clearly defined and better resourced to pick our battles," added Connery.

Sentel has over 500 customers and expects to grow 30 per cent this year as part of a three year plan to achieve 100 per cent growth, with staff numbers forecast to rise by 50 per cent. Connery says a young management team and more dynamic product development will speed up the delivery of products and services to market, thereby accelerating growth. "Our drive is to double turnover in the next five years and build the business into a BI market leader in the telecoms space," stated Connery.

The growing popularity of UC and the cyber fraud issue has also improved Sentel's position in the service provider market, resulting in a product roadmap that includes toll fraud protection, voice recording integration, contact centre, SP facing UC adoption reports, revenue assurance and CTI wraps. "The consolidation of SIs and telecoms vendors served to trigger a refocus on our channel driven services, making them sharper and more stable," said Connery. "All the chat is data analytics and business intelligence. This is good for us and we are in the right place."•

When elevating portals to the next level there is no match for taking an intelligent approach, according to plan.com co-founder Keith Curran who reveals the remarkable 'smart' capabilities of the company's upcoming Version 4 portal.

Since launching into the UK market in April 2014 plan.com has developed three versions of its renowned portal, but the latest 'smart' iteration, Version 4, comes with a brain. With it, the company has pioneered targeted data penetration and automation giving power to partners who control it. The primary purpose is to enable partners to do things they currently can't do with network operators or distributors, while giving them a helicopter view of their entire operation 'as things happen'. "Our investment in V4 and a private APN into the heart of the network is huge," stated Curran. "It enables the intelligent management of data and delivers live insights that are invaluable for partners wanting to understand the anatomy of their business in real-time. V4 is the manifestation of our thinking about the future of portals."

Laying your hands on needles in finite haystacks is easy compared to identifying and connecting useful data assets in ever-expanding seas of Big Data. But Version 4 extracts key information automatically and in real-time, putting unprecedented power into the hands of partners. "It's no different to partners having an infinite number of people analysing every aspect of their business 24/7, with key data fed back to them live via a TV, computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone," added Curran.

It is estimated that 90 per cent of the world's data has been created in the last two years, amounting to several quintillion bytes of unconnected user, network and traffic data per day, creating a wilderness of information and a new technology frontier for probing innovations such as Artificial Intelligence (AI). These techniques push the boundaries, they interpret the creation of data in real-time to reveal patterns that put channel partners streets ahead of the competition, pointed out Curran.

"The answer is in the detail, but the challenge with Big Data is that there is no guarantee of finding it," he said. "V4 will be regarded as the industry's first smart portal because it does all of the detailing for partners and gives them the information they need when they need it, online and in real-time on whatever connected device they choose. Partners can manage their business from anywhere in the world. Some partners are 'one man' operations, others have 500 employees, whatever their size customers will be impressed and astounded by the flexibility."

The portal enables partners to build fully bespoke tariffs and whole solutions in front of customers, calibrated to meet their needs and offering a level of flexibility not currently possible with network operators or distributors. Partners can also build deals according to the most advantageous commission structures based on contract value and likely overspend, and see the commission figures in real-time as the deal is put together.

The real-time management of existing customers is also a boon, and Curran cited practical examples of V4 in action to illustrate this point. "If a customer visits a country its national flag immediately appears to indicate that the client is now roaming there, enabling the partner to react accordingly in real-time," he explained.

Curran also offered a snapshot of the portal's wider capabilities, of which there are many. These include knowing the moment when customers are starting to overspend (prompting an appropriate action from the partner). V4 also identifies which customers are most at risk from the competition (displaying the exact status of SIMs that, for example, are out of contract and how many days are left until they become out of contract); which customers are the most lucrative; the handsets customers use (highlighting upgrade opportunities); insights into the live status of deals made by individual sales people and collective teams (offering quote-to-sale conversion rates in real-time); and shows information such as customers who are having difficulties paying their bill.

Plan.com's claim to have introduced, with V4, the industry's first 'intelligent portal' is driven by its mission to always put partners first, so much so that the direction of plan.com's portal development is largely governed by feedback from partners to ensure the portal always reflects their fundamental requirements and 'wish list'. "It's all about the partner and taking them to the top of the pyramid," added Curran. "Enabling them to not only match but go beyond the capabilities of network operators. We also have a partner 'radar' that blips 24-7-365. They are part of the team and we encourage partners to talk to us. Not a day goes by without a portal enhancement based on their feedback."

Curran says the imminent launch of V4 will render the industry's old ways of doing things defunct, and he believes that the core technology driving V4 will continue to blaze a trail in solving partners' day-to-day bugbears, including spreadsheets and renewals. "Partner commissions are reported on spreadsheets that need reconciling, which for many partners means a full-time member of staff to fulfil this task," he explained. "With V4, all relevant data is automatically fed into the partner's Wallet on screen, in real-time, so they know immediately how much money they are making.

"As for partner growth, losing one customer costs twice as much as gaining a new one, because two new customers must be added to continue the growth. Feedback from partners shows that 75 per cent of their time is spent on renewals, so we developed V4 to remove this costly task, allowing partners to manage renewals in minutes rather than days.

"We are empowering partners to do more than a network operator by just using their finger tips. Our in-house developers have succeeded in their original core usability objective - to make even Apple look complicated. A good portal is simple in nature and easy to use; a great portal delivers what partners want and expect; but a groundbreaking portal delivers the unexpected. As the first intelligent smart portal, that's what V4 is all about."

VoIP over VDSL poses a long-term risk to business continuity despite many company leaders rating the technology as adequate, according to Spitfire's joint Managing Director Harry Bowlby who puts a spotlight on the potential pitfalls.

A lack of QoS guarantees for VDSL (Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line) leaves businesses vulnerable to poor voice quality with no route to resolution, emphasised Bowlby. And users wanting to upgrade to Ethernet connectivity for VoIP can face deployment lead times of up to a year. The situation is set to worsen as more public Internet services such as Amazon Prime, Netflix and digital TV are prioritised. The answer, according to Bowlby, is a complete end-to-end SIP service run over a wholly owned IP and TDM infrastructure. "Businesses that choose a VoIP solution without appropriate QoS guarantees are gambling with their future," he stated. "VoIP telephony has numerous benefits in terms of cost savings, flexibility and functionality. But to provide a dependable VoIP service a high quality, reliable and secure online connection is vital."

VDSL technology has become widely established in the UK and is increasingly being used by businesses for high speed Internet access. With download speeds of up to 80Mbps it is not difficult to see why. However, a broadband circuit optimised for Internet browsing is not the best choice for VoIP. "To give satisfactory voice quality it is generally accepted that a circuit must deliver a maximum latency of 150ms end-to-end (mouth-to-ear), packet loss less than one per cent with jitter less than 45ms," noted Bowlby. "These requirements may be met on a VDSL service most of the time. However, they are not guaranteed to be met for all or any of the time. A 500ms delay on a web page is barely noticeable, but such a delay during a telephone call is clearly noticeable."

QoS is available on VDSL as a chargeable option. VDSL supports two types of services - Best Efforts and Real-Time. By default all traffic is Best Efforts meaning that in the event of congestion voice traffic could be dropped just like any other Best Efforts traffic. Real-Time QoS is an additional service that can be purchased for downstream VDSL. But there is no QoS mechanism deployed upstream on VDSL as this is not considered necessary because most web access involves download, not upload. However, a phone conversation is asynchronous and requires equal download and upload quality.

"No actual latency, jitter or packet loss targets are stated for VDSL Real-Time QoS, the service just offers to prioritise marked packets over others," added Bowlby. "In the event of poor voice quality on VDSL faults may be reported, but fault investigation is limited to the underlying broadband service. That said, VDSL is probably okay for now for many customers. It is considered by many to be adequate for voice based on how the wholesale network is currently dimensioned and performing. But in the future VDSL may not perform as it currently does in which case there are no guarantees to fall back on, because no contractual commitments have been broken."

Network usage is growing by the day and a big growth driver is television delivery over broadband with new service providers such as Amazon Prime, BT Vision, Netflix and NOW TV requiring assured data rates for their subscribers. "As this grows other traffic may have to take lower priority," said Bowlby. "High definition TV is already here and Ultra HD (4K) has been launched that uses 30Mbps per TV channel. As competition grows, to become a leader in the streaming TV market the national network will have to meet this new objective. Given the amount of money being spent on content for TV services Internet broadcasters will be keen to ensure that viewers on VDSL have priority access. As video traffic grows it will take priority over VoIP traffic and voice may get squeezed out resulting in call quality issues, which neither the end user nor the service provider have any recourse to resolve. So a critical consideration for customers should be, ‘if VDSL proves unsuitable over time can I swap it for another circuit that will work?'."

If in time a VDSL circuit proves unsuitable users may consider replacing it with Ethernet or complementing VDSL with a voice approved circuit. This is dependent on the supplier being active in the local exchange and whether there is spare capacity to provide the circuit. "It can take up to one year or more to install a new Ethernet circuit," said Bowlby. "During this time a business will continue to experience poor quality voice calls which may prove detrimental to the organisation."

Spitfire has tackled the issue head on with its own Voice Approved Broadband circuits for VoIP SIP trunks which assure end-to-end call QoS with guarantees on latency, jitter and delay both upstream and downstream. The reassurance of an end-to-end service with QoS guarantees has been a key factor in the growth of Spitfire's SIP trunks for VoIP. "Businesses that opt for VoIP solutions without QoS guarantees are storing up trouble," warned Bowlby. "VoIP over VDSL is a significant potential risk to UK business.""

As a world champion powerboat racer Informatica's channel chief Rodney Foreman has emphatically proven his competitive strength, which is reflected in the company's ramped up ambition to become an ever potent force in the global data management market.

Informatica's worldwide expansion campaign has begun, and with Foreman at the helm it is likely to be another example of high speed growth and glory. The company's long-term goal is to double the value of the business from $5 billion to $10 billion and accelerate its strategy to deliver more data management offerings in the cloud. "We are looking to drive 50 per cent of our business through the channel," stated Foreman, who is Informatica's SVP for the Partner Ecosystem. "Our priority is to ramp up partner capacity and give them the skills and knowledge they need to sell and deploy our products. We are addressing this, our greatest challenge, by creating an authorisation programme with training roadmaps and courses. This is a crucial part of our vision for the future and will be central to how we grow the business."

The company currently works with over 7,000 customers and 500 partners globally and is focused on building a network of VAD and VAR channel partners via a two-tier programme designed to bring to market its Intelligent Data Platform. As part of the growth strategy Informatica has formed a distribution deal with Arrow. The company also expanded its distribution agreement with Avnet to include the United States and Canada, building on agreements in EMEA, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. "The implementation of a two-tier channel programme will enable VADs to undertake partner recruitment and activation," said Foreman.

Informatica was founded in 1993 by Gaurav Dhillon and Diaz Nesamoney after they spotted an opportunity to help organisations gain a competitive advantage from making the most of their data assets. "Our purpose is to enable customers to achieve maximum business value from all things Big Data in the cloud, real-time and streaming," explained Foreman. "Informatica provides software to help organisations turn their troves of raw data into actionable information."

In 2015 Informatica changed ownership and transformed its corporate structure, a move that made life better for employees and enabled the company to be more flexible in how it builds products and services, while speeding up the development of cloud offerings.

"The cloud has been one of the most fundamental business model shifts during the last 10 years," added Foreman. "That meant we needed to find ways of getting closer to our customers through a broader range of touchpoints. The global channel partner programme, launched in February, widened our scope to bring in new partners. Reaching new customers globally is dependent on the success of our channel programme and the work we do with partners."

Foreman says Informatica's biggest opportunity is to become 'the intelligent cloud data management platform for mid-market companies'. "We are seeing tremendous growth in the mid-market," he noted. "We also see a huge opportunity with data governance. Our acquisition of data governance platform Diaku supports that focus. We can also combine this with data security in an approach that secures data at the source, rather than by protecting the perimeter which is the practice of most security software vendors."

Foreman expects the evolution of his strategy to embrace more OEM type business models with system integrators, jointly creating solutions by industry vertical around data integration, data management, data quality and data security. "We expect to leverage the VAD marketplaces to align our products with other vendors and create these industry vertical solutions," he added.

Foreman brings deep industry insights to the task in hand. His career began as an engineer working on portable computers at Compaq Computer Corporation before becoming an architect for large scale network systems, and then moving into software product management and sales. He went on to lead the cloud software channel business unit at IBM. To sum up, Foreman's career experience positions him well to succeed in his current role as Informatica's senior exec' responsible for the channel. "I enjoy having face-to-face time working with partners," he added. "Creating a win-win scenario with partners is something I'm passionate about. We will continue to strengthen our partnerships, execute on our aggressive product roadmap and grow our customer base, while reflecting the broad shift in customer buying behaviours.

"Customers today are more likely to purchase multi-vendor solutions from technology partners. They want resellers and SIs to be their trusted advisors, providing complete end-to-end solutions that leverage the cloud. In this context, partners will evolve into a role that drives new customer sales and innovation around ISV products. The most successful partners will combine multiple vendor solutions that are targeted at specific industries. That will be the way customers buy in the future."•

Britain's infrastructure badly needs smart innovation and the response by leading channel network providers ranks with some of the greatest comms industry game changers to date.

Virtual1's Product & Marketing Manager Neil Wilson (pictured) sees two key trends dominating the market, and the company is active in both - SDN and SD-WAN. Virtual1's new national network will be fully software defined to drive efficiency and improve the feature set delivered to the channel. On SD-WAN, Wilson said: "This is about more than just network flexibility. There is also a tremendous amount of value to be had from the metrics and reporting these solutions will provide. This will be particularly important as businesses start to look for more granular SLAs against individual applications rather than how the circuit as a whole is performing."

Over the last 18 months Virtual1 has worked hard on upgrading and expanding its network. Introducing templates and standardisation across the network gives partners access to perform many of the configuration changes that they traditionally rely on carrier providers for, such as bandwidth changes and VLAN resizing etc. "SDN delivers a real world advantage that we are keen to deliver to the channel," added Wilson. "It is essential that we roll out our full UK network without incurring the considerable overheads of the legacy carriers. This reduction in overhead means that we can be commercially competitive, and this disruption will bring revenue and margin opportunities to the channel."

Wilson says network innovation is about giving channel partners access to the functionality enabled by Virtual1's SDN network. "In 1Portal we have a vehicle that our partners use already, so we will simply layer the additional functionality in there," he explained. "With our own in-house development behind our SDN functionality and 1Portal we will be able to take configuration requests though 1Portal and implement them directly on our network, removing error and delay from the process and delivering those updates in real-time. In verticals or applications where a dynamic network is required partners will be able to administer these changes themselves rather than being at the mercy of a legacy player with manual workflows and processes."

In advancing its technological developments Virtual1 is simplifying what is currently highly complex. Making configuration changes accessible to the many rather than the few is key, with portals and APIs playing a critical part in this. "We also see attention focusing on the application or business outcome rather than the individual components of a networking solution," noted Wilson. "After all, it is the application or business outcome that really matters to a business. The status of an individual component comes later. A longer-term outlook might take in VR and AR for network visualisation. Moving from 2D into 3D would allow a greater breadth and depth of information to be communicated."

As we have seen, networks are increasingly becoming agile and more dynamic. This enables the network to adapt to the demands of end users by putting resources where they are most needed and by being more efficient as a result. BT is continuing to invest in both the network and infrastructure to make it more dynamic with programmable capabilities. "This is important because it allows users and channel partners to take self-control of resources, putting them in the driving seat," stated Henry Bohannon, Director, Data and Broadband Products at BT Wholesale. "We are already starting to realise this with B2B interfaces where services can be controlled and modified. This is ideal for the channel because it enables underlying networking and infrastructure to be quickly modified to suit the needs of services and applications running over the top."

In terms of network and infrastructure innovation Gamma's Chief Architect Andy Rawnsley pointed out that infrastructure layer Optical Transport Network (OTN) technology provides a framework for delivering flexible capacity by switching at a wavelength level. Provisioning multiple Gigabit capacity between network nodes can therefore be as simple as a few keyboard stokes or mouse clicks.

Further up the stack the Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) - moving network functions from proprietary hardware to mature COTS IT hardware - alongside Service Orchestration platforms enable the deployment of flexible, scalable and open networks. The integration of all of these makes for adaptable and scalable network capacity and services.

"At the optical layer we are deploying a 45-fold increase in core network capacity to cope with the increasing demand for bandwidth, while establishing access aggregation nodes closer to the end user customer sites," commented Rawnsley. "In the access layer Gamma is providing 'single hop' connectivity to cloud-based Software as a Service platforms to assure continued business operation."

He also noted that at the application layer Gamma is disaggregating functions to provide flexibility in service creation and delivery. An example of this is the introduction of database driven voice call routing control which is separated from the voice switching and border edge nodes.

"Gamma is deploying an 'open system' network systems and software architecture that creates useful internal and external interfaces where component attachment and interchange takes place," explained Rawnsley. "These principles will allow both internal and external systems to interact with Gamma's platforms to deliver tailored products and services that address the needs of the differing channels we serve. We are embracing innovation in our delivery, support, test and diagnostic systems to provide channel partners with provisioning, monitoring and fault investigation tools, enabling a responsive end customer service."

No matter how an end user is served, comms networks will need to provide service flexibility and scalability as well as being customisable. "Delivery of these three principles does and will present assurance and security challenges," added Rawnsley. "We will need to ensure we all defend and mitigate against malicious actors. They are here to stay."

According to Andy Furnell, Lead Technical Architect at Zen Internet, SDN represents the single biggest change to our industry for some time, probably since the widespread adoption of MPLS in the early 2000s. "More recently we are starting to see some interesting technologies that significantly tighten the level of integration between telco/connectivity and enterprise/hosting domains, which will ultimately allow for tighter, simpler and more meaningful integration of connectivity and hosting services and applications," he stated.

Zen Internet is refreshing its core network and expanding its LLU network from 200 to 400 exchanges. "The focus at the moment is less about exciting innovations and more about building a strong and solid foundation to support the growing demands of our customer base," added Furnell. "This is a two year programme but we expect the network we are deploying to be in the ground for the next 7-10 years, hence a lot of our time is spent planning how we will evolve and grow the network in terms of capacity and resilience, and in terms of features and functionalities to ensure our products remain relevant.

"The key focus for us at the moment is in providing a more open, dynamic and programmable network. In reality this means a lot of work behind the scenes to tighten up standards and processes with the ultimate aim of exposing more self-serve to our channel customers, giving them more control over their end user experience and improving levels of transparency throughout the service lifecycle."

A more transparent and programmable infrastructure is key, noted Furnell. It delivers tangible differentiation for end user services when coupled with more service-oriented technologies and topologies. "We are working towards an entirely service-oriented architecture for both infrastructure and software where each and every end user service is discretely instantiated end-to-end within our network," he added.

"The possibilities are huge. The ability to manage each service for each end user will allow us to monitor and report meaningful QoE and SLA metrics on a per-service basis, and will give our partners and our own technical teams high levels of control over where and how their end customer services are served."

While network connectivity is increasingly a commoditised market the availability of ultrafast connectivity products serves to level out the playing field while at the same time presenting a significant business opportunity, believes Furnell. "Faster speeds based on more reliable connectivity opens up many possibilities to deliver a quality set of supporting services, both OTT and 'through the middle', via tighter integration between infrastructure and applications and blending the best aspects of traditional infrastructure technologies with an increasingly dynamic and flexible set of end user services," he commented. "We see a place for both, which can only mean more choice for end customers and constantly developing and improving value opportunities in the channel."•

Traditional data centres are failing customers and will give way to a new model, argues Redwire Managing Director Ameer Mirza, who says real value lies in the personal nature of service delivery and the interconnection of people with the latest DC technology.

Mirza presents Redwire as a brave new dawn for the data centre landscape and the industry cannot ignore it. He says RedwireDC is the most exciting new data centre anywhere in Britain having contrived to fuse people and their data to the interconnectedness of its location. This is the magnetism of RedwireDC, claims Mirza, whose company has advanced data centres far beyond their original purpose.

Redwire was established by Mirza's father in Q3 2016 following years of research into the data centre marketplace. "Flexibility and customer service at a purpose built Tier 3 data centre is something that the market desperately needs," said Mirza. "We are positioning the business to offer a never before seen solution to an overlooked problem. We react to the ever changing marketplace and in west London there is a lack of new and high quality data centres which was a key factor in our decision when setting up Redwire."

Locating the data centre on Uxbridge Road in Ealing was a 'no-brainer', noted Mirza. "RedwireDC is positioned on two connectivity thoroughfares with fibre from multiple networks and is positioned near high speed transport links from east London and the Docklands through to Heathrow Airport," he explained. "Connectivity is key and we made this decision a top priority."

Redwire is gunning to be west London's tech hub and has support from the local Government, local businesses and educational institutions. Its facility also offers serviced offices which means clients' data is managed securely within the same building. The company has shown how static data centres can become living places of congregation that leave traditional rivals with the impossible task of competing. Redwire thus stands poised to supersede these 'relics of the past' as they give way, claims Mirza, who emphasised that the essence of any service is the point of contact with customers.

"Being able to give a business, whether small or large, the ability to be near their data, access their data, and own their data in ways they cannot currently do in data centre models gives us that concierge level personal touch that businesses are looking for," commented Mirza. "I am already proud to see companies that use our services grow exponentially, and my ambition is to see more people and companies launch their businesses successfully from the foundations we've created."

Mirza himself has strong foundations in the business world. He is an Ernst & Young trained chartered accountant with a full understanding of how to manage a business and deliver a professional service. He also studied economics at Warwick University where he developed an analytical mind. And he has been immersed in his family's property development and construction business for as along as he can remember. "Growing up in this environment gave me a deep sense of business acumen," he stated. "I have always been fascinated by IT and its ability to empower and transform a business to be the best it can be. IT is the present and the future, and it's an area of business that I always had a leaning towards since I was young."

Mirza's boyhood aspiration has been realised and Redwire currently employs 11 full-time staff and calls on a number of expert consultants when required. "David Gilpin, who was formerly CEO of Sungard Data Centres, and David Hall of Equinix have been with us every step of the way in designing our data centre to ensure it ticks all of the boxes from a customer and technical perspective," added Mirza. "Other partners were Hurley Palmer Flatt which designed the facility, Future-Tech worked on the mechanical and engineering fit out, while Daisy supplied the networking."

Since the facility was opened for business Redwire's strategy has been to offer existing products (colocation and related services) with a higher quality of service to customers as competitively as possible. The company has moved forward and now plans to add managed services to its colocation offering. "We expect to launch Redwire Managed Services in the coming months," noted Mirza. "We want to offer enterprise grade operational standards to SMEs. Businesses are not simply cogs in the machine, we empower them to be the machine. And being a family owned company with no debt we can pursue various options.

"For example, we are aiming to roll out a new cloud platform that we believe will offer the best animation rendering available in the UK to serve the media industry. It is an exciting business and we are lucky to have a wide range of opportunities in front of us from which to expand our existing offering. We see the demand for data centre capacity in the UK growing significantly over the coming years."

Another area of great interest to Mirza is the IoT sector. "IoT devices are expected to triple by 2021 but I think the UK is under prepared to manage this growth in terms of the supporting infrastructure," he commented. "Data centres are a key factor here. Our proximity to the London metropolis means Redwire is well positioned to support the large increase in data and storage that IoT is expected to bring in."

Mirza also has his sights set on certain verticals where he feels there is a sharp appetite for flexible high quality data centre space. "The channel is one of these verticals and we are looking to work with partners that realise they can regain margin lost after the introduction of services such as VoIP," he said. "We enable partners to truly own their clients and offer the latest technology using both public and private cloud."

Redwire has quickly grown a large sales pipeline and one major US blue chip company has approval from its board to migrate most of its IT requirement in the UK to Redwire and also launch a new European operation from its data centre. "I'm particularly excited given the great product this company has and the potential for it to grow," commented Mirza. "It recognised the value of being able to fully manage data while relying on me and our team to deliver their required levels of flexibility."

Despite early successes such as this Mirza still believes he needs a megaphone for his comms channel cause. "The biggest issue for me is raising our brand awareness and getting our products and services out to market," he stated. "We are expanding the sales team and attend recruitment events to scout for the most capable sales representatives to convey Redwire's strengths to the market. As for the long-term outlook, we are such an agile and flexible business it's hard to say exactly how we'll reach our goals, as one of our many ventures could take off and drive the whole business forward. That's what makes this even more exciting." •

When Arden Group Managing Director Nigel Walker set up his company in 2002 he also took charge of the growing convergence opportunity and turned it to great advantage.

Coventry-based Arden Group has matured into a considerable market force strengthened by its acquisition of Computerworld Business Solutions (CBS) last month. The deal builds on the firm's previous acquisitions of Page IT and Unitycomm creating a fully managed service provider of IT and telecoms products and services largely driven by convergence and consolidation. "With the complementary technical expertise that CBS now brings to Arden from an IT services perspective we are well placed to offer our clients the services they require for their own long-term needs and act as their trusted technology partner," commented Walker. "We currently have a portfolio of 600 clients in a variety of industries, although the majority include large SME and small corporate organisations and we have strong footholds in property management, legal, education, finance and retail."

In 2013 Walker bought out the original investor and took a 90 per cent share of the business which was generating turnover of circa £5 million. The acquisition of CBS has boosted turnover to £10 million and rising. "Following the acquisition we now have a 50 strong team and expect revenues to reach £11 million with anticipated sales targets of £5.5 million in 2017," added Walker. "We're aiming for a recurring long-term contracted base of 75 per cent relative to overall turnover. Our expected growth is at least 15 per cent per anum at gross profit level."

From the outset Arden Group emerged as a forward thinking business with its finger on the pulse of a developing market. The company was founded in 2002 by Walker following a previous venture that saw him establish IDN Group in 1996, which was AIM listed in 2001. Prior to IDN Walker worked in the finance sector undertaking sales and management roles between 1987 and 1996. Arden was formed when Walker spotted an opportunity to provide complete communications solutions to a market used to procuring services from separate suppliers.

"More and more customers want to deal with one supplier in one place, and this is plays into our hands," commented Walker. "After more than 20 years working in the communications industry I have seen how technology has changed and evolved, which helps me to recognise trends and anticipate future developments. In recent years the telecoms and IT sectors have converged which has largely been brought about by the mass availability of high-speed Internet connections, a cross-sell culture and customer loyalty."

Walker's current priority is to focus on integrating CBS and develop a service offering which delivers a fully converged IT and telecoms solution. "We expect increased levels of organic sales following the acquisition as we move to cross-sell and offer multiple products and services under a managed service proposition," he said. "We'll also be looking to grow the value and size of our customer portfolio with a focus on enterprise account activity.

"However, employing the right people to drive growth can be a challenge. But my time in the financial services sector gave me experience in building and managing sales forces which helped to create the successful team around me today. We have built an experienced team that has significantly contributed to the success of the company and will continue to drive it forward."

The main focus of Walker's team is also the company's biggest opportunity - to provide a personal service. "By working closely with our clients we can provide tailored solutions that help to meet their individual needs," he added. "It's this close contact service and personal touch that some of the larger companies can't offer. Customers are looking to companies that can manage all their communication needs, and with the cost of service supply and critical mass, specialist organisations need to review their service offering. It's a case of eat or be eaten."

From SIP trunking security to automation and self-service provisioning, founder and CEO of Acuity Unified Communications John Dowbiggin has big plans for the future.

When Caterham-based Acuity Unified Communications acquired the customer contracts of SIP trunking security firm 500 in March, along with a self-service provisioning portal, it put the company on track to deliver accredited fraud protection software while adding emphasis to the role of automation as a means to manage some of the key growth challenges faced by today's ICT providers. "One of our biggest challenges is time management as there are only so many hours in the day," stated Dowbiggin. "So we are looking at ways we can develop more automated processes to help us with the time pressures we encounter."

The 500 acquisition increases Acuity's customer base and product portfolio, adding fraud mitigation which protects customers from the financial and legal consequences of toll fraud on SIP. "The fraud protection software portfolio is currently our biggest opportunity, delivering security for mobiles and SIP connectivity while meeting the suite of telecoms service standards defined by the Federation of Communication Services," explained Dowbiggin. "Our accredited cyber secure telephony solution is proven to significantly protect businesses from toll fraud, auto dialler and mobile fraud and other forms of cyber attack aimed at the telephony estate. We can now offer security fraud protection to the whole of the Acuity base and all new customers, as well as giving them the option of self-service provisioning."

Dowbiggin is building up the Acuity business on a bedrock of 27-plus years industry experience, including a notable stint as Managing Director of AboveNet UK where he led the company from near bankruptcy and transformed it into one of today's top managed fibre service providers in the City of London. Prior to this rescue mission, which he regards as his biggest career achievement to date, Dowbiggin was VP for IP Solutions at Cable&Wireless UK&I, a role he undertook following C&W's acquisition of tier 1 ISP Internet Network Services where he was National Sales Director. Here, he was responsible for building and running the UK and European sales operation, and spent two years developing and deploying one of the largest Internet market acquisition strategies in Europe. Rewinding the clock further, Dowbiggin was Director of the South East Region for Telewest Communications (now Virgin Media) which at the time was the UK's largest telecommunications, ISP and cable TV provider.

"During my time at AboveNet I identified a gap in the market that concerned the level of service being offered to SMEs in particular," said Dowbiggin. "So eight years ago I established Acuity Unified Communications to bring a business grade cloud telephony service initially to SME and lower corporate businesses, but we now have customers across the size spectrum. We have grown year-on-year by around 50 per cent. In recent years average customer sizes have ranged between 50 and 250 users with our sales pipelines showing a continued increase in average customer size."

The company deployed its own hosted platforms in 2012 which removed any reliance on third parties, a move that quickly brought on board a major UK PLC followed by a big public utility. Four years later Acuity acquired the customer related IT and telecommunications trading assets of The Integral Group which increased its software development portfolio. Acuity is focused on organic growth as well as acquisitions and two years ago embarked on a strategy of in-house development with its own software developers. The company has also increased automation, streamlining processes and boosted efficiency as a result, while augmenting related processes such as the self-service provisioning portal which benefits dealers and resellers. Acuity has also been busy deploying its own infrastructure such as Citrix Xen Server based on industry standard hardware and Storage Area Networking (SAN).

"We have worked hard to differentiate ourselves with our fully integrated Unified Communications services," commented Dowbiggin. "For example, with some clever engineering we have fully integrated our AcuityMobile SIM offering, enabling mobiles to be a fully integrated part of the UC platform, becoming an extension of the office phone system, with the added bonus of the handset being able to roam seamlessly across all UK mobile networks combining maximum coverage with maximum functionality.

"Because we have a strong engineering focus and offer a bespoke service we are also able to assist hardware providers such as Cisco with the integration of their products into the end user's business. Working with strategic partners like this is another big opportunity."•