Comms Dealer

Virtual1 has appointed Adrian Digby as Chief Financial Officer (CFO). He brings experience in senior finance roles at Vodafone and Mobile by Sainsbury's.

Following several years as a pilot with the RAF, Digby began his finance career at Intel,= before joining Vodafone and Mobile by Sainsbury's.

With a finance career spanning over 12 years, Digby held a number of key financial positions at Vodafone, including a number of European Finance Governance roles and leading both financial planning and commercial finance teams.

He was appointed CFO of the Vodafone-Sainsbury's joint venture: Mobile by Sainsbury's in 2013 where he played a pivotal role in the launch of the new MVNO.

Digby commented: "I'm delighted to join the team at Virtual1 at such a crucial period in the company's growth. I look forward to building on an already successful team and forging stronger commercial relationships with our partners."

The appointment follows two further key recruitments to the Virtual1 management team in recent weeks. Jazz Sandhu joined as Marketing Director bringing over 10 years technology marketing experience to the business.

Sandhu joined from Exponential-e where she headed up the marketing function for two years and was previously at fibre-provider Geo Networks (now part of Zayo Group). Joel Tortolero also joined as Director of Customer Experience and Operations bringing over 10 years' experience from BT Group where he most recently headed up the Customer Experience team.

Tom O'Hagan, MD, Virtual1, said: "It's a pleasure to welcome Adrian to the team. His experience in leading strategic commercial and financial projects will be invaluable to Virtual1 as we enter a key period of growth.

"Our recent appointment of Jazz Sandhu and Joel Tortolero as Marketing Director and Director of Customer Experience and Operations respectively, also brings senior experience in areas that will be vital to our mid-long term objectives."

Connect Managed Services has strengthened its Board with the appointment of two Non-Executive Directors

David Summers joins as Non-Executive Chairman, with a career to-date spanning 25 years in US and European telecommunications and 10 years as a senior private equity professional. He also currently holds Board positions with Oxygen8 Communications, Adaptive Mobile Security and FeedHenry.

Simon Blagden MBE joins as Non-Executive Director and currently holds the roles of Non- Executive Chairman for Fujitsu Telecoms Europe and Chairman for MDS CEM holdings. Blagden has over 20 years experience in IT and telecommunications and was appointed a Member of The Order of the British Empire in 1997 for services to the telecommunications industry.

Alex Tupman, Connect's CEO, commented: "Both David and Simon bring a wealth of industry experience and relationships to our business, which will be invaluable in supporting our growth strategy."

In April this year Tupman led a management buy-out of Connect backed by mid-market private equity firm LDC.

A new team within BT headed up by Georgina Williams, General Manager for Cross Product, BT Business, aims to add value to the process of buying multiple products from the company.

"The Cross Product team that I manage is new within the commercial area and was created in recognition that many customers come to BT to buy solutions for their businesses rather than specific point products," she said.

"Customers who buy multiple products from BT expect to get better value for money not only through discounts but also through enhanced functionality, easier installs and a better overall level of service. Our goal is to ensure this happens."

A new report from Juniper Research has claimed that voice and messaging traffic lost to OTT (Over The Top) players such as WhatsApp, Facebook and Skype will cost network operators $14 billion in revenues globally this year, up by 26% on 2013.

The report - Mobile Operator Business Models: Challenges, Opportunities & Strategies 2014-2019 - found that in a number of markets, including Italy, Spain and the UK, operator mobile voice revenues had fallen to less than 60% of their value five years' ago.

It argued that a combination of IM, VoIP and social media substitution was primarily responsible, resulting not only in lost revenues but in additional costs due to the scale of signalling traffic.

However, the report also identifies an array of new revenue streams with the potential to deliver cumulative revenues to operators in excess of $66 billion over the next five years. The resulting revenues could more than offset the decline from core service revenues on an annual basis by 2018.

Report author Dr Windsor Holden said: "In areas such as M2M (Machine to Machine) and mobile money, operators can achieve a substantial revenue uplift by focussing on full service provision rather than simple connectivity."

IT services company Comms-care has reported strong growth driven by acquisitions and growing demand from partners to support emerging technologies.

 In its 2013/14 financial year results Comms-care reported £19.6m revenue, up from £15.6m; while operating profit increased by 44% to £3m, up from £2.1m.

Comms-care's network of new IT channel partners grew by 33% to more than 723 in the UK and Ireland, and the company secured a major contract with Kcom to provide all Cisco support for its end user customers.

Comms-care also acquired channel only professional services firm Platform Consultancy.
New technologies such as virtualisation, cloud computing, wireless, remote working and the issues around data storage have driven opportunities to the IT channel community, but technical support for these complex platforms is becoming more difficult to provide from a single team based within a channel partners' business, according to Comms-care MD Ben Davies. 

He said: "We have invested heavily in technical expertise over the last 12 months, and with the acquisition of Platform Consultancy in June we are now able to offer a wider portfolio of professional services including additional propositions around Microsoft, VMware, Citrix and NetApp technologies."

 Comms-care Chairman Peter Lloyd added: "The great work undertaken by the team in the last financial year laid the foundation for the acquisition of Platform Consultancy and the formation of our strategic partnership with Kcom. 

"The technology industry is fast-moving and we know that we cannot stand still. W need to continue investing in our technical expertise and ability."

ShoreTel has confirmed that it has received an unsolicited proposal from Mitel to acquire all of the outstanding shares of the company for $8.10 per share in cash.
 
ShoreTel's board of directors, in consultation with its financial and legal advisors, will  review and evaluate the proposal and determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the company's stockholders.

ShoreTel has advised stockholders not to take any action at this time pending the review of the proposal by the company's board of directors.

Former Avaya UK & Ireland MD Lee Shorten has joined Sabio as Non-Executive Chairman.

"Sabio is at an exciting stage, ideally placed to support organisations through its support centre capability, and with the skills to help organisations manage the shift from traditional voice-based customer contact to today's multi-channel and digital world," said Shorten.

"I'm looking forward to supporting the team and helping them achieve their ambitious growth objectives."

Since leaving Avaya in 2011 Shorten has built a portfolio of Non-Executive Director and Associate roles and set up a consultancy practice.

Sabio's MD Sebastian Henkes added: "We've embarked on our next major growth phase and Lee's experience as a Non-Executive Director and executive coach to growth organisations will strengthen the Sabio board as we drive towards achieving our longer-term expansion goals."

Technology distributor Steljes is aiming to plug a Wi-Fi gap in the education sector with the launch of Steljes Networks to provide Wi-Fi and superfast broadband to campuses and schools.

The Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) is powered by Wifinity, a Wi-Fi Internet service provider active in the education, defence, retail and leisure markets.
 
BESA, the trade association for education suppliers, forecasts a 200% rise in the presence of tablets in the classroom by the end of 2020. 
 
"The lack of usable Wi-Fi infrastructure is currently holding back the most effective use of smart devices," said Martin Large, CEO, Steljes. "As a result there is a requirement for efficient Wi-Fi."
  

Elitetele.com CEO Matt Newing has collected the EN North West Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award for 2014.

His business career began in 1996 when he set up his first company at the age of 23 with help from The Prince's Trust.

"We have had a successful year as a business and it's important that as a community we continue to support and harness the entrepreneurial spirit of the North West," he said.

"To be in the tech sector at this time is both exciting and challenging, and with a shift to virtual, cloud and data centre services, businesses are addressing new avenues to transform their comms and tech. This is why we are continuing to expand in this market and look for new opportunities."

The EN Awards ceremony took place on 16th October at The Mere Resort in Knutsford.

Last year Newing was shortlisted for Technology Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the national Great British Entrepreneur Awards in London.

Westcon Group has introduced The SMART Room System for Microsoft Lync available through its UCC Solutions Practice.

According to Westcon the service enables teams to collaborate in more creative ways by engaging every meeting participant.

The SMART room system combines touch-enabled displays with an HD video camera, microphones and speakers, and enables users to link on any application being shared on the desktop, including Microsoft Office applications and Adobe.??Ralph Donohue, General Manager for Westcon's UCC Practice in UK&I, said: "The Lync market opportunity is in double digit growth and with the addition of SMART meeting room systems for Lync we can now offer our partners more choice in Lync-based solutions.

"The demand for video collaboration solutions is growing rapidly with 73% of enterprises wanting to expand their use of video in their organisation."