Comms Dealer

South West Communications Group (swcomms) played a major role in the recent Tomahawk Tour to help raise money for the Exeter Foundation and Exeter Youth Rugby.

The company's managing director Harry Langley helped organise the 300-mile event and two swcomms' employees, Dave Maskell and Timm Sharples, were among the nine volunteer riders.

The team took four days to cycle around the borders of Devon. The ride began at Sandy Park and followed the coastal route to Plymouth. Day two took the cyclists along the Tamar River to Barnstable while day three saw the team cross Exmoor and into Ilminster.

The last day started at 6.30am with the team riding into Exmouth for 11am where they were met by Exeter Youth Rugby members and their families to cycle the Exe Estuary Trail to the club's new base at Oil Mill Lane.

Langley, who also drove the support car containing extra fluids, spares and medical equipment, said: "Assuming all pledges are paid, we have achieved our aim of raising £10,000 to be split between the two causes. 

"We also had a lot of fun along the way amid what must be some of the most beautiful rural and coastal areas of the UK. It was great to be greeted by all the children when we reached Exmouth and to enjoy the party at Oil Mill Lane when we arrived."

Jabra has revealed plans to shake-up the UK contact centre headset market aiming to gain 50% market share by 2016. The firm is targeting 250,000 new users gained from rival customer bases over the next two years, and central to its strategy is its new Assured Service Programme.

The bold statement from Jabra follows the launch of their Jabra BIZ 2300 headset, supporting recent research from the company highlighting that almost three quarters (74%) of all contact centre agents in the UK are unsatisfied with their technology and believe it doesn't allow them to do their job effectively.

With almost one million contact centre agents in the UK and customer service becoming an increasingly more important element of brand success, Jabra believes that now is the right time for companies to consider a change in their technology.

Jabra's GenM 2013: One Year On research, which looked at tools and productivity in the workplace, also showed that 4 in 10 (41%) workers think this is so important that they would consider switching jobs if they were given poor quality devices and tools.

Jabra's assault on the headset market will be supported by their new Assured Service Programme. The programme has been created to help the industry generate higher levels of agent job satisfaction, leading to better rates of productivity in the contact centre, whilst easing the technological change contact centres may want to make.

The Jabra Assured Service is designed to help busy IT managers make the process of moving to a new system an easy one. The programme provides end-to-end proactive support and has been created based on real insights from contact centre agents themselves. It supports the transition process with Jabra expert knowledge every step of the way, saving time, costs and simplifying adoption.

Nigel Dunn, MD Jabra UK and Ireland Business Services, commented: "The contact centre is still such an integral part of a brand's sales and customer service strategy and it's crying out for new, more innovative technology.

"Sound, movement and health and safety were all areas that our GenM 2013 research highlighted as being vitally important to the daily work life of an agent in a contact centre."

Smart wearable devices are forecast to be a big hit with shipments, including watches and glasses, expected to exceed 100 million by 2017.

According to a just-released report by Juniper Research, global smart wearable device shipments will more than quadruple by 2017, reaching 116 million units compared to an estimated 27 million this year. Smart wearable device revenues are forecast to hit over $53 billion in 2019.

Demand is in no small part driven by the removal of technological barriers, while larger players in the market are moving beyond devices to produce operating systems and databanks that manage the information generated by wearables.

Recent examples include Google's Android Wear, Qualcomm's 2net and Samsung's Digital Health Initiative.

Independent wearables will remain rare, as manufacturers continue to build their software around a companion smartphone to encourage a dual revenue stream.

Juniper anticipates that increasingly capable smart watches will incorporate multiple sensors, negating the need for separate devices to measure health and fitness biometrics.

The report argues that this will cut both ways, as several fitness devices such as the Samsung Gear Fit and Razer Nabu offer notification services in addition to activity tracking, assimilating smart watch capabilities. Juniper therefore believes that it will take until 2017 for more smart watches to be used than fitness wearables.

More advanced wearable technologies will be developed first for enterprise and healthcare applications, as these segments have clear use cases that technology can solve.

NSN has rebranded to reflect its shift into providing cloud based infrastructure services for the channel.

"We come from a classic voice and lines background but around June of this year we realised that around 75% of our new orders were coming in as cloud based services in one form or another," said managing director Mark Shraga.

"The brand refresh now reflects that we are growing rapidly into the broader space of cloud based services. We have had great feedback from partners and customers alike about the website upgrade, refresh and brand upgrade across the entire product portfolio."

NSN Operations Director and co-founder Nick Shraga added: "Our team also reflects the evolution of the company as whole, we now have Prince2 trained staff and offer a full range of cloud based IT services and support.

"We have just hit £4m turnover and I can see us becoming a real challenger in the cloud space over the next 12 to 18 months". 

A reshuffle of Exclusive Networks' management enables the firm to better review its organic growth and look for acquisitions.

Barrie Desmond is stepping into Neil Ledger's shoes as Chief Operating Officer, prompting an immediate search for a new VP/Director of Marketing & Business Development.

Ledger is stepping back and reducing his role after running the UK and international business.

The privately-funded distributor has been buying into new markets, including Australia. "With our 2017 target of 1bn€ revenues rapidly approaching, we are planning for growth beyond this horizon by strengthening now to embrace our future as a truly global player in value-added distribution," said Olivier Breittmayer, CEO of Exclusive Networks Group.

"Our latest half-year results have outperformed both the market and our own projections, but it's the organic growth performance that really stands out. Neil and Barrie are a proven team, charged with continuing this success, and myself and the board are excited at the prospect of them working hand in hand."

Ledger added: "Taking up this more strategic position gives us more resource as a team to ensure our existing vendors and territories are maximised for value and revenue.

"The Exclusive Networks Group project has been both exciting and rewarding and I'm hoping to continue to contribute to what is an amazing journey."

Ledger will continue to steer the Group's organic growth in his position as Non-Executive Director and member of the board, with Barrie Desmond leaving his position as Director of Marketing and Global Accounts to become COO.

The transition follows Nicolas Trombert and Julien Antoine's appointments to the management team, to spearhead acquisition strategy and global business transformation respectively.

Zest4 has called on existing and prospective channel partners to attend its Annual Partner Event, to be staged at Acer UK, Heathrow, 20th November.

he agenda will involve updating delegates on developments in the Zest4 portfolio, product updates and the various support programmes offered to Zest4 channel partners.

Zest4 will take attendees through the partnering models offered by Zest4 to mobile, fixed and IT resellers to highlight areas where they can add new products and services and generate more revenue for their business by partnering with Zest4.

The day will also include demonstrations of the Zest4 portals which gives partners the ability to raise e-contracts, leasing documents and access marketing materials.

Attendees are invited to join the Zest4 team for an evening event at the Radisson Edwardian Heathrow where there will be opportunities for existing and prospective partners to network further.

Over 100 comms dealers witnessed Panasonic unveil its new KX-NS700 communication platform at the Panasonic Solution Centre in Bracknell.

Communications Category Manager Bob Mercer said: "The last event we held was for around 50 people, so to double that reflects the changing perception of Panasonic in the market."

The KX-NS700 is a legacy and IP system for companies with up to 250 users in a single site. The smart hybrid PBX system manages up to 288 extensions when fitted with an expansion unit. 

European Product Manager Carlos Osuna said: "The system has sufficient capacity for legacy and IP ports, and an activation key or expansion cabinet that can be used to expand the system whenever required.

"It can also connect to the Panasonic KX-NS1000 system to create a small, medium and enterprise solution.

"The PBX features a built in DISA to transfer calls without an operator. It can also support the needs of supervisors in call centres, by providing queue announcements, live status monitoring, activity reports and automatic conversation recording.

The system possesses IP features, such as mobile linking, integrated voicemail and e-mail, instant messaging (chat), and presence information.

Virtual1 has deployed MetroWAVE Optical Multiplexers from Metrodata at the heart of its recently launched London-wide fibre infrastructure.

Metrodata, already a partner with its MetroCONNECT family of Managed Ethernet Demarcation Devices (EDDs), worked with Virtual1 to design a key element of the Metro-area fibre network, stretching from Docklands in the East right though to Heathrow and Woking in the West.

The company's MetroWAVE Optical Multiplexers have been installed in Data Centres and main PoP locations throughout the network.

Each MetroWAVE Mux/Demux unit supports 8 fibre services, each of up to 10Gbps, over different wavelengths within the 'Coarse Wavelength Division Multiplexing' (CWDM) spectrum, in addition to accommodating a conventional 'wideband' service at the 1310nm wavelength, used by default for fibre connection by equipment vendors.

In addition, provision is made for both non-invasive service monitoring and throughput expansion, all in a highly compact package. The multiplexers themselves are completely Passive, requiring no power and containing no moving parts, so their reliability is extremely high, a critical factor for Virtual1's core network.

Managing Director of Metrodata, Richard Kirby, said: "The key benefits to Virtual1 of the inclusion of our MetroWAVE multiplexers at the heart of their fibre network are the simplicity, low cost and speed of both initial deployment and subsequent expansion.

"The units occupy a small footprint and offer massive network throughput expansion in cost-effective modular increments."

Each multiplexer takes just one third of a single unit (1U) of rack space and offers expansion via CWDM and/or DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) up to 230 Gbps of network capacity within a single rack unit and then potentially to over 340 Gbps within 2U.

Kirby points out that whilst optical multiplexing is neither new, nor Virtual1's approach radical, some key equipment design steps have been taken by both parties to ensure that the cost-effectiveness of Passive optical technology does not compromise performance, particularly in relation to driving distances around the fibre ring.

"Our equipment has been optimised for modular expansion with minimal optical power loss, which is essential to ensure effective signal reach around the Metro network."

The result for Virtual1 is a fibre network core which is resilient and can be quickly and simply expanded, all at low cost and using minimal space and power, both of which are at a premium in the Data Centre environment.

James Hickman, Chief Technical Officer of Virtual1, said: "We chose MetroWAVE equipment because of the simplicity of the solution, low maintenance requirement and excellent scalability."

Channel Telecom is holding a roundtable dinner for partners at The Shard, the tallest building in Europe.

Partners will be treated to a fine dining experience in a private dining room in the Hutong restaurant on the 33rd floor, with multiple courses served to the 20 VIP guests.

The roundtable dinner will discuss fraud detection and prevention, a growing problem for many reseller partners and their customers. In a special address, Chris Pateman, Chairman of the FCS, will discuss the increasing threat that organised criminal fraud presents to the channel and how the FCS and TUFF are taking steps to combat the menace.

There will be comment by Tony Cook, Managing Director of Union Street Technologies. Cook and Clifford Norton, Managing Director of Channel Telecom will discuss the daily fraud checks partners can make to protect themselves and their customers from fraud, including TUFF integration.

Norton said: "This roundtable dinner at The Shard will provide a memorable experience for us all, while giving us an opportunity to share best practice and learn from experts in the field about fraud detection and prevention."

The differences between traditional reselling and the provision of managed services are now so acute that many firms will have to decide which model to back, the Managed Services and Hosting Summit 2014 in London heard on 25th September.

While many are still trying to ease into the transition, moves by customers are forcing investment decisions on partners. The point was driven home by Gartner Distinguished Analyst Tiffani Bova in her keynote which described a two-speed IT industry where even sales monitoring processes were out of step with customers. "The old pipeline model, with salespeople rating chances and timings of future deals is dead in the new world," she said.

Customers would not accept the pitch, presentation, repitch, close model. In many ways they were already ahead of the supplier and trialling the product, sometimes without the vendor knowing. "Customers are just are not happy with the traditional sales process."

The new model gave a lot more opportunity to smaller, often newer vendors offering short term deals, she suggested, who tended to be more business-centric and closer to their customers. Sales cycle times would be measured in days and weeks, not months. "It is a sprint, not a marathon."

The crisis was revealed, she said, when customers were asked where the most valuable interaction with the IT product took place. Most cited technical or industry experts over traditional sales people. In a customer-driven model such as managed services, the channel is a guide, no longer a sales machine.

Sales is a process of relationship building, agreed Rob Rae of Datto. He is busy building Datto's business continuity solutions sales in Europe, where he sees great potential although: "The disasters we provide continuity against are different."

There is always the person who presses the wrong button. "We are growing fast, and I am definitely going to change some things now I have seen Tiffani's presentation."

There is a lot more opportunity out there for solution providers, he suggests.

Managed Services does not stand alone, and is being linked to both mobile devices and internet of things (IOT). IOT is slowly being recognised says Alistair Johnson of AVG which has just completed a study of perceptions. The concerns are the same for connected devices of all types and managed services, he showed in the survey. Businesses tend to say IOT is something only for consumers, which may mean they are missing the point. Everyone thinks it will become a major effect in about three years. "I think it is here now, and that is why we want to talk through the situation with MSPs."

Ask business what they want and they always say business outcomes, so the MSPs' goal should also be linked to that, said Dave Sobel, director of Partner Community at GFI MAX. And given this, does it really matter if the SMB understands exactly what the cloud is? He argued not, and that managed services and mobility are intertwined.

"I am interested in the explosion in devices and the change in our industry as a result. We are adding lots of great new devices into the mix; we call them phones, but they are actually small mobile computers. We need to look at how computing is changing. And of course, how IT is bought and consumed in lots of different ways."

And while there is an opportunity to manage the devices, there is an opportunity to sell the management of the policies that control them. "These can also be delivered as an ongoing service.

"We have identified three characteristics of the managed services provision - the first is a focus on operational process discipline. The best MSPs are the ones that are rock stars at process management; they manage it better and every time they face a problem, they find a process to solve it and engineer it into the system. They are also the ones who understand the customer requirements best - they are linked to the business outcomes of their customers and in fact measure themselves by the success of those outcomes."

Their success is not when the IT project rolls out, but when the customer becomes 20% more profitable as a result, he said. "They are the ones looking at the future and how to integrate it on a regular basis. They are thinking about the factors that go into it that are external factors and their internal processes and health. Finally they look at the strengths and weakness of their customer base and strategic alliances."

IT Europa Editor John Garratt, chairing the 'big debate' at the conclusion of the conference, wondered if managed services were able to be both more agile and more consistent than historic IT, given the ubiquity of the interfacing model and availability, while offering new solutions.

While the app makes life easier for the end user, management is an issue, pointed out Mads Srinivasan, VP enterprise mobility, Kaseya, who advised that managed services were really both more consistent and more agile: Alistair Johnson of AVG said that while the tools and the knowledge were there to allow MSPs to provide a consistent and reliable service to the customer, and show the costs, this can be adjusted to meet changing needs, and therefore is more agile.

The Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2014 was organised by IT Europa and Angel Business Communications and staged at The Pullman St Pancras Hotel, London. www.mshsummit.com