Comms Dealer

Mitel has signed an OEM agreement with LiveOps to power its MiContact Center Live solution with LiveOps cloud contact center functionalities.

Rich McBee, President and CEO, Mitel, said: "Leveraging the technology from LiveOps, we now deliver a flexible customer care solution via the cloud, optimised to meet the needs of any size organization, from small businesses up to the largest enterprises."

The new MiContact Center Live solution will offer WebRTC and social media - two features customers are increasingly demanding alongside traditional channels - as well as Web-based tools for agents and supervisors.

It is integrated with multiple CRM software vendors, including saleforce.com and Microsoft Dynamics. The solution also includes self-service options with Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and outbound features that help businesses to proactively engage customers throughout campaigns.

"We see this OEM partnership with Mitel as significant to disrupting the market and increasing cloud contact center adoption," said Marty Beard, Chairman and CEO, LiveOps.

"Mitel shares the same vision as LiveOps in our commitment to transforming how businesses interact with their customers, increasing customer loyalty and creating brand advocates for life."

Exertis Micro-P has released details of its latest golf incentive, the Samsung Celtic Cup, to be held on July 9th at the Celtic Manor Resort (voted Europe's Golf Resort of the Year 2011 by the International Association of Golf Tour Operators, and named Sport Venue of the Year 2011 at the Sport Industry Awards).

Exertis Micro-P will treat a team of 29 incentive scheme winners (selected according to sales achieved of Samsung devices and accessories sold between 17th March to 17th May) to an overnight stay at the Celtic Manor Resort in South Wales.

Simon Woodman, Mobile Sales Director at Exertis Micro-P, commented: "Both Exertis Micro-P and Samsung are keen to incentivise the channel for their hard work and continued growth."

Additionally, the top eight winners overall on the Samsung Celtic Cup will win a place to play at Trump International Golf Links, on the Trump Cup 2014 Incentive.

Exertis Micro-P's recent golf incentive, the third annual Nokia Golf Cup at Valderrama, Cadiz, Spain, has now closed. This five star, three night golfing trip has been won by 20 customers that will travel to Valderrama from 19th to 22nd September 2014.

Woodman added: "Golf is a popular incentive and a great time to mix with industry peers. We make sure the trips cater for all skill levels and that the courses, accommodation and treatment is 5 star. Celtic Manor, Trump and Valderrama are exclusive locations perfect to reward the customers who continue to exceed our expectations."

MLL Telecom has appointed John Hawkins (pictured) as Chairman following the retirement of former Chairman Godfrey Wilson.

Hawkons is also an Executive Chairman at Vislink Group, Non-executive Chairman of Wireless logic and Chairman of David Phillips. He has over 20 years experience and was formerly Chairman of Genus where he oversaw the company's value and profit increase tenfold, and Chairman of Psion where he oversaw the company's acquisition by Motorola for $200m.

Hawkins has also held Chief Executive Officer roles at various software and hardware companies including Atex, Anite and Graseby.

Hawkins commented: "I join MLL Telecom at an exciting time as the company embarks on an exciting growth strategy that will see it pave the way for alternative wireless technologies as a viable option in delivering rural connectivity to the underserved areas of the UK.

"MLL Telecom are already viewed as a trusted partner and provider of cost-effective networks in the UK; working with the public sector and service providers to solve their connectivity challenges of the future."

Gary Marven, CEO, MLL Telecom, added: "John Hawkins has an enviable track record of helping innovative businesses in the telecoms space achieve high growth and increased profitability.

"We will benefit from his strong leadership skills and great insight, and I'm confident that he will play a crucial role in shaping the successful future of MLL Telecom."

A survey of telcos and carriers shows how they plan to handle the expected boom in wifi connections, and integrate them into payments.

Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its 2014 Carrier WiFi Strategies and Vendor Leadership: Global Service Provider Survey, which explores the drivers, strategies, models, and technology choices that are shaping service provider WiFi deployments.

"Carrier WiFi deployments are evolving to deliver the same quality of experience as mobile and fixed-line broadband service environments, and this is driving WiFi networks to become more closely integrated. Hotspot 2.0, a key tool developed by the industry to aid this drive, shows rapid adoption by carriers participating in our latest carrier WiFi survey," notes Richard Webb, directing analyst for mobile backhaul and small cells at Infonetics Research.

Webb adds: "Operators are betting pretty big on carrier WiFi, but they're also keen to develop ways of monetizing services so that WiFi starts to pay for itself over the coming years. WiFi roaming and location-based services are examples of customer plans that are growing fast."

Respondents have an average of around 32,000 access points currently, growing to just over 44,000 by 2015, representing 33% growth over the next year. 40% of Infonetics' operator respondents expect to integrate Hotspot 2.0 into more than half their access points by the end of 2015.

Among those surveyed, the top 3 monetization models for WiFi services are pre-pay, bundled with mobile broadband subscription, and tiered hotspots.

WiFi as a separate overlay network currently leads the list of technologies and architectures for offloading data traffic; meanwhile, more sophisticated carrier WiFi architectures gain gradual traction as respondents look to bring WiFi into the mobile RAN via SIM-based service models or by deploying dual-mode WiFi/small cells. Respondents perceive Cisco and Ruckus Wireless as the top carrier WiFi manufacturers for second consecutive year.

Sales through distribution in Q1 rose in many parts of Europe. The UK did well, but some Nordics were down. Analyst CONTEXT says total IT revenues through distribution stood at €11.6bn, up 7% from the €10.8bn recoded the same time last year. There was growth in all months during the quarter, with January up +4.8%, February up 5.8% and March booming with a 10.2% increase.

The UK led the way in terms of revenue, as it has done now for the past four quarters, with sales topping €2.5bn. Four sectors moved into year-on-year growth in the UK in Q1 apart from servers (-7.2%), with desktop computing (32.5%), printing consumables (22.4%) and computing components (21.2%) the best performing.

"Desktop sales in the UK, like in other Western European countries, benefited strongly from late orders following the end-of-XP support and saw revenues up by almost one third in the quarter compared to last year", said Marie-Christine Pygott, senior analyst at CONTEXT.

However, CONTEXT highlighted the 10.7% growth in the Software & Licences category as particularly important, given that it comprises 17% of UK revenues as reported by the analyst's panel of distributors.

By contrast, in Germany five sectors still languish in zero or negative growth: mobile computing (-4.9%), disk storage (0%), printing consumables (-6.1%), networking systems (-13%) and servers (-15.3%). The Telecoms sector was the main driver of overall IT growth there with a 55.7% increase in revenues year-on-year.

Elsewhere, Italy performed well, recording growth in all but one sector (networking systems, -2.5%) for the first time in over a year. In Spain, most IT sectors are back on track and the 3.3% growth in mobile computing is significant given the sector accounts for 29% of all revenues there, CONTEXT said.

It wasn't all positive news across Europe, however, with only Poland and Sweden showing growth of the other countries analysed. That said, there are more overall revenue growth sectors (11) than there were in Q1 2013 (7), with telecoms (72.8%) desktop computing (11.9%) and accessories (11.3%) recording the strongest performance.

Node4, the Data Centre and communications specialist, has launched Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) to help new and existing customers to recover all files and applications in the event of any catastrophe or network outage.

The new service is based on an open pricing model and provides a near real-time replication solution that can be activated within minutes should a disaster occur, said the firm.

Node4 has partnered with Zerto, provider of enterprise-class disaster recovery and business continuity software specifically designed for a virtualised infrastructure, to deliver this service via its N4Cloud infrastructure.

According to research group MarketandMarkets, the global DRaaS and cloud based business continuity markets are forecasted to grow from $640.8 million in 2013 to $5.77 billion by 2018. This reflects the increasing demand for real-time replication, particularly from small to medium sized organisations that don't have the budget or expertise to manage such a solution in-house.

Natalie Stewart, Product Manager, Node4, said: "Organisations of all sizes and in every sector rely on their technology infrastructure to service customers, compete for business and increase revenue.

"Should that infrastructure go down, successful companies cannot afford to rely on traditional backup technologies where a snapshot of their system could be hours or even days old. The fast pace of today's modern business and the 'always on' culture means that near real time replication is no longer a nice to have, it is a necessity."

The appointment of Brendan Loughrey as COO at Coms removes some of the hands-on day-to-day work carried out by CEO Dave Breith, freeing up Breith to think harder about the future growth of the company.

Loughrey is currently Managing Director for Redstone, the company Coms acquired in November 2013.

Breith said: "As the company has grown significantly larger there was a need for me to have a second in command that I can rely upon.

"Having completed a comprehensive search it became clear to my Board colleagues and I that Brendan was the obvious choice as he shares the same values and passion to grow the company that I do and brings extensive expertise of the telecom and IT industry to the wider Group.

"Brendan is already well known and respected within the company and has the Board's 100% confidence and trust that the day-to-day running of the company is in a safe pair of hands.

"This appointment allows me to devote more time to developing the overall strategy of the Group and to continue the future growth and expansion that I have planned."

The latest phase of Chess' buy and build strategy has seen the acquisitive telco bag Sandy-based Integra ICT, adding around £5m annual revenues.

Integra ICT's 37 staff (team photo above with Chess Managing Director Stephen Dracup centre) will become part of the Chess group, and the acquisition strengthens Chess' presence in the cloud and ICT space.

Chess Chief Executive David Pollock said: "Integra ICT has successfully deployed integrated communication solutions for over 20 years.

"We're delighted to welcome its experienced team into the Chess group. We will rely on its knowledge and experience to guide our growth in cloud and ICT."

Integra ICT's former owner Pas Ruggiero added: "When Chess approached me and talked through its strategy it became clear it was the right company to take over the business.

"I am confident Integra will continue to go from strength to strength working under the Chess brand."

Chess Director Richard Btesh who headed up the deal stated: "This acquisition strengthens Chess' reputation as the UK's number one consolidator for SME businesses in the telecoms sector.

"With the Integra ICT team now working under the Chess brand we see significant potential for rapid growth and development with their customer base as the additional products and services offered by Chess become available."

Integra ICT joins ebillz and The CRM Business as businesses acquired by Chess that retain their own established brand, supported by the Chess Group of companies.  

Nimans is aiming to turn the market on its hea d with a disruptive cloud deal that offers resellers free hosted voice services with every handset purchased. The move extends Nimans' proposition into the hosted space and the service, called GreenSky, is emblematic of a strategy to reach out from its box shifting heritage.

"GreenSky is a game changing expansion of our proposition that promises to shake-up the market," said Group Sales and Business Development Director, Richard Carter (pictured).

The service includes a free three-year hosted seat licence with every handset purchased; and the three handset models offer upfront margin potential of 45%, according to Carter.

The service is being rolled out this month to 1,500 resellers, supported by a provisioning and programming equipment portal plus investment in a high profile marketing campaign.

Nimans has also produced a reseller guide to spearhead the launch of its GreenSky proposition.

The 12-page booklet is part of an introductory welcome pack and highlights how GreenSky is a 'free’ hosted voice facility offering resellers either upfront or recurring revenue opportunities for the first time.

"GreenSky enables resellers to sell hosted in a completely different way," stated Carter. "Nimans is offering free hosted voice, plain and simple. GreenSky is a statement of our intent to lead resellers on a new journey of revenue generation." Carter also noted that Nimans remains focused on its core business activities and that diversification into the burgeoning hosted marketplace is a natural next step for the company.

"GreenSky puts resellers in total control," added Carter. "They can capitalise on an easy migration, sell phones upfront with licences included, or they can embrace the more modern approach of charging on a monthly basis."

Cisco's corporate venture capital arm says it will spend $150m on start-up companies over the next two to three years, accelerating its investments into areas such as the Internet of Things.

This is planned complement other Cisco investing themes such as big data and connecting mobile devices, Cisco senior vice president for corporate development Hilton Romanski told media.

The amount, coupled with $100m that Cisco said in January it would deploy to start-ups in those areas, puts Cisco Investments on par with mid-sized venture capital firms across the industry. It may have more funds available after previously committing large sums to Russia which may not now proceed at the same pace.

Most of the investment is expected to be US-based as previous ventures have tended to be in local geographies. It did take part in a $7m investment in Everything, a UK-based company that connects products to the Internet.