Comms Dealer

Hats off to Alternative Networks for scooping a brace of awards at this year's Westcon National Awards Ceremony, staged at the Haymarket Hotel in London on June 10th.

Alternative Networks collected the Avaya SMB Top Achieving Partner award as well as the Extreme Top Achieving Partner accolade during a ceremony that recognised all top performing partners (pictured above) for their achievements in revenue growth and sales and marketing success.

Tony Nevill, Area Sales Leader UK & Ireland, Westcon, commented: "The Westcon awards recognise the exceptional achievements of our partners and it is an honour to present the awards to partners who have worked relentlessly to drive and achieve revenue growth. With the continued support from our vendor partners we look forward to another prosperous year."

Key vendor partners Avaya, Plantronics, Microsoft, Audiocodes, Polycom and Extreme Networks also attended the ceremony to demonstrate their support.

Simon Culmer, MD for UK & Ireland, Avaya, added: "Westcon's annual awards are always an event that I look forward to. It is a valuable opportunity to thank our partners for all their hard work over the last year and a privilege to see them being acknowledged for their successes."

Westcon's 2014 hall of fame

Avaya Enterprise Top Achieving Partner – Vodafone

Avaya Enterprise Highest Growth Partner – Sabio

Avaya SMB Top Achieving Partner – Alternative Networks

Avaya SMB Highest Growth Partner – Eircom

Audiocodes Highest Growth Partner – AT&T Consulting

Microsoft Lync Solution Sales Award – Telefónica   

Polycom Top Achieving Partner – Internet Videocommunications

Polycom Highest Growth Partner – Specialist Computer Centres

Extreme Top Achieving Partner – Alternative Networks

Extreme New Business Recognition Award – LAN3

Plantronics Highest Growth Partner – Post CTI

Reseller Marketing Award (Polycom) – Yorktel

Employees from communications provider KCOM Group have dedicated over 2,000 hours in volunteering time to help young disadvantaged people across the UK find work.

Rosie Battye, Private Sector Fundraising Manager for the North of England at The Prince's Trust, said: "In the last year alone volunteers from KCOM Group have donated around 250 hours to help with some of The Prince's Trust programmes.

"They delivered CV writing and interview skills workshops to give practical support to young people seeking employment.

"To add to this fantastic number, we estimated that the two Million Makers teams from KCOM Group contributed around 1,840 hours through taking part in The Trust's fundraising initiative, taking the total amount of fundraising hours to 2,090, which is an amazing achievement."

Paul Simpson, Chief Financial Officer at Kcom, added: "Since we became a patron of The Prince's Trust in 2012, our employees from across the business based at all our sites, from Hull to Exeter, have embraced the charity and the work it does with disadvantaged young people in the area.

"Whether it's helping young people write an effective CV or get back into education, these are all key skills that help young people find employment. We're looking forward to continuing our support for The Trust and the brilliant work it does."

More than one in five (23 per cent) young people in Yorkshire and the Humber are struggling to find work. The Prince's Trust gives young people, who might otherwise struggle, the opportunity to achieve their full potential by giving practical support to the young people who need it most.

The hours that the volunteers have contributed will help develop key skills, confidence and motivation, allowing young people to move into work, education or training.

KCOM Group has pledged £100,000 of financial support over four years to help support The Prince's Trusts' Million Makers, xl and TEAM programmes.

Arrow Electronics has opened the doors to its Solution Station in the UK, a new solution-finding hub that allows users to search for a technology and also get information on complementary technologies also available from Arrow.

Solution Station also provides content including news, events, promotional offers and vendor programmes.

"Increasing sales effectiveness while improving customer service is a top priority for any business and our partners are no exception," said David Ellis, director of strategy, Arrow ECS UK & Ireland.

"By having access to technical and promotional information all in one place with links to complementary technologies, our partners can quickly find new sales opportunities and build their businesses with minimum effort with the hope of maximising margin."

As cloud technologies mature and awareness of their benefits improves, more organisations in the United States and Europe are deploying cloud solutions to reduce IT costs and optimise operations, according to Frost & Sullivan in a new study.

US companies are ahead of their European counterparts in terms of cloud uptake due to greater technology exposure as well as better macro-economic conditions.

Similarly, large enterprises are embracing cloud technologies more rapidly than medium and small businesses owing to the need to optimise their larger, more complex communications infrastructure.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Future of Cloud Computing Technologies in Enterprises in the United States and Europe, finds that nearly 6 out of 10 cloud users (57 percent) are identified as 'cloud reliant', while 43 percent remain 'cloud lagging' or with an unfavourable view of the cloud.

About 70 percent of U.S. and 56 percent of European respondents currently using cloud technologies find these solutions to be highly effective, indicating that exposure to these technologies can lead to wider adoption.

"The majority of cloud-reliant users are in the United States, particularly in manufacturing, and in businesses of 20 to 500 employees, and businesses of over 10,000 employees," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Karolina Olszewska. "In the future, however, the IT decision makers in the United States, the government vertical sector and small businesses are expected to show the most marked increase in cloud technology adoption."

More than half of the surveyed businesses in the United States and Europe have already moved 50 per cent or more of their enterprise communications solutions to the cloud. Within the next three years, almost a quarter is likely to migrate 76 percent or more of their communications solutions to the cloud.

In both regions, email servers and collaborative apps top the list of enterprise communication solutions shifted to the cloud. However, only 27 per cent of cloud users have moved their telephony systems to the cloud. Among those solutions yet to make the change, collaborative apps offer the highest scope for growth.

"The share of remote and mobile workers is expected to increase over the next three years and change business technology requirements," concluded Olszewska. "The cost impact of supporting these new business needs will be felt more intensely by IT decision-makers in the United States than those in Europe."

TTP and Mayflower have have completed the development of the latest wireless smart lighting control system based on the Internet of Things (IoT), bringing more than a 50% reduction in power consumption compared to existing smart lighting systems.

The new MK3 design is now available and shipping in volume, with the Zigbee based solution already qualified for sale in North America and beyond this product range dramatically increases Mayflower's offering.

Smart lighting control is an example of how the Internet of Things can generate real financial savings by embedding intelligence and connectivity into everyday objects.

TTP is working on applications from controlling and optimising home energy systems to sensors embedded in smart orthopaedic implants for remote monitoring.

Using the smart lighting control node, the Mayflower CMS (central management system) now controls and monitors in excess of 180,000 street lights, bollards and signs in the UK and Ireland.

Orders for the product have now reached 300,000 nodes. The biggest installation in Hampshire has over 90,000 Mayflower nodes fitted with a further 50,000 to be installed over the next 12 months making it the largest single street-lighting CMS in the world.

This has allowed Hampshire County Council to reduce CO2 emissions by around 4,000 tonnes, equivalent to 1600 cars every year.

All nodes communicate via a Zigbee self-healing mesh network, connected to Mayflower's back-office solution via a secured GSM Internet connection mounted to the network coordinator.

TTP's project manager Richard Sims said: "TTP believes that innovative solutions to manage and reduce energy consumption are key to a sustainable future, both in the UK and worldwide.

"Mayflower approached us with aggressive cost, performance and reliability targets - and our experience in design for manufacture, wireless systems and cost engineering allowed us to achieve those goals. We're pleased to be part of this significant Smart City development."

Exertis Micro-P is realigning department leaders as Stuart Bruce has taken up a new split role as Head of Services and Accessories Sales within the Retail Team.

Bruce, who joined the company in 2013 as Commercial Head for Accessories and was most recently General Manager for Attach, will be replaced by Joe Officer who has returned to the business having previously headed the PC Team.

Bruce stated: "These are times of genuine opportunity at Exertis Micro-P and I am pleased to lead the sales arm of Accessories and expand the newly created services offering. I look forward to taking the team to the next level."

Officer has been with Exertis Micro-P for nearly 20 years working in sales, channel development, business development and heading up commercial business units. Over the last four years he headed up the company's largest department, the PC Division.

Most recently, Officer took time out from his long career at Exertis Micro-P but was headhunted back to the business to take over the Attach Division by Simon Woodman, UK Sales Director at Exertis Micro-P.

Officer commented: "I'm excited to be back at Exertis Micro-P after my break. The accessories opportunity is massive with strong relationships between ourselves and all the major accessory manufacturers. That includes those central to the major 2014 trend of wearable technology, including Jawbone, Samsung, and Sony Mobile.

"This is just the beginning of the wearable technology revolution and I am pleased to have the opportunity to help this company be part of it."

Global information security firm MWR InfoSecurity has become the first provider of phishing assessment services to be listed on G-Cloud, the UK Government's approved online marketplace for the public sector.

phish'd, by MWR, is a fully managed phishing assessment service designed to maintain a heightened level of security awareness across an organisation.

It reduces the likelihood of employees clicking on suspicious links within emails, which could lead to a company being compromised in a cyber attack, and helps the organisation improve its incident response timings.

Ian Shaw, Managing Director at MWR InfoSecurity, said: "Phishing attacks against organisations are nothing new, but they are becoming increasingly frequent and complex. These type of attacks are universally used due to their high success, low detection rates and the ease by which an attacker, who is often state sponsored, can target a large estate of users within an organisation."

A group of Mitel employees have completed The Prostate Cancer Research Centre (PCRC) Welsh Three Peaks Challenge raising an impressive £6,000 for the cause.

They scaled Pen Y Fan in South Wales (2,907 ft), Cadair Idris inMid Wales (2,930 ft), and Snowdon in North Wales (3,560 ft), spurred by the memory of their colleague and friend Neil Blackmore who passed away last year from the disease.   

Shameem Smillie, Technical Consultant at Mitel, commented: "Reaching the summit of Mount Snowdon was both emotional and poignant. Everyone on the peak had either lost a loved one or friend to prostrate cancer or had been affected in some way. Hopefully one day this disease won't be as devastating as it is today.

"While the challenge was tough and very tiring from the sheer fatigue because of lack of sleep, we all have got the bug and would relish doing a similar challenge in the near future. The donations are still coming in as more people hear about what we done and the charity we are supporting."

If you would like to donate please click here

Pictured above: The team reach the summit of Mount Snowdon after a five hour climb

Accenture has swooped on UK-based Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) provider PureApps. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

PureApps specialises in implementing performance management solutions based on the Oracle Hyperion Enterprise Performance Management and Oracle Business Analytics range of products; and the acquisition is expected to build Accenture's end-to-end EPM capabilities.

PureApps enables CFOs to report and analyse enterprise performance, forecast business results and work with business units to turn these insights into action.

PureApps will be integrated into Accenture's Finance and Enterprise Performance practice, part of Accenture Strategy.

The technical capabilities will complement Accenture's consulting expertise for the finance function, including its global shared services offering.

The combination of the two businesses will strengthen Accenture's presence in the UK EPM market and support clients in Europe, where demand for EPM-related services is strong, Accenture says.

Hats off to Olive Communications for scooping the Managed Services Reseller of the Year at the Microscope Awards for Channel Excellence (ACES) 2014.
 
Olive's entry was based on a combination of customer testimonials, managed telecoms services, strong financial performance and a commitment to its staff.

The judging panel noted: "The entries were exceptionally strong this year, with most containing solid customer and channel references to back up claims of excellence.

"There were also signs of the transition in the industry towards managed services, with channel providers using that approach to the market popping up in most categories."
 
Martin Flick, Chief Executive, Olive, added: "We've grown rapidly and profitably over the past year, and we believe we're building a business designed to help our customers harness technology to reach their true potential."