Comms Dealer

Vidyo hosted video conferencing is now available on Triumph Boards interactive whiteboard and touchscreens following a link up between NeoCloud and Square1.

The NeoCloud platform, powered by Vidyo, offers Triumph Board users HD video conferencing for universal visual communication, bringing together participants regardless of the device they are using - from smart phones to tablets, desktops to video room systems.

Using the VidyoRouter architecture, Neocloud delivers low-latency HD-quality multipoint video conferencing over any IP network to any end point.

Darren Aspinall, AV product manager for Square1, said: "When NeoCloud demonstrated the potential of incorporating video into our offering, with flexibility and interoperability, we just knew we had to have it in the package we offered to our customers.

"By being able to enable our Triumph Boards with NeoCloud before dispatch, our customers are just a few steps away from HD quality video conferencing, which connects them globally."

NeoCloud's Margaret Brewer added: "We have been passionate about HD video conferencing for years and working with Square1 demonstrates how the NeoCloud platform can enhance a supplier's offering."

Timico has appointed Clare Greenall as Channel Marketing Manager for its new Timico Partners division.
 
Greenall, a CIM qualified marketer, joins Timico after spending four and a half years as Channel Marketing Manager at Gamma Business Communications. Prior to this, she spent two years at Uniworld Communications as a Product Manager.
 
Greenall's remit is to deliver the Timico Partners channel strategy from recruitment of new partners and resellers, through to a range of marketing activities to boost the sales efforts of both Timico's dedicated channel sales team and its existing partners.
 
She said: "Joining such an established brand as Timico is a perfect opportunity for me. I was looking for a new challenge and have enjoyed being involved with the development of the Timico Partners brand right from the start.

"I'm excited about becoming an integral part of a growing and successful team, and contributing towards further successes for Timico as it enhances its relationships with SMEs across the country."
 
Darren Hilton, Director of Timico Partners, added: "Clare has a strong commercial background and a proven track record of developing a channel within the UK market. In her previous role she supported the channel and aided significant revenue growth across the entire product portfolio for three years, and we look forward to her marketing skills and knowledge having a similar effect here at Timico."
 

Unify's new worldwide channel chief Jon Pritchard is promising a root and branch re-engineering of the company's global channel strategy with a revised focus on channel development and partner recruitment.

In a no-nonsense interview at this week's Connected Business show in London, Unify's new Executive Vice President Worldwide channels told Comms Dealer that although the rebranding of Siemens Business Communications has been an unqualified success, in his view the business still lacked agility.

Alongside CEO Dean Douglas and CMO Bill Hurley, Pritchard has been recruited by Unify owner Gores Group from channel heavyweight Westcon to ramp up the company's indirect market performance.

On the back of Unify's OpenScape XI launch - a product aimed squarely at the SME sector - Pritchard aims to shatter Unify's (nee Siemens) reputation as an enterprise centric business that ‘competes with its own channel'.
?"Because of the sales DNA that exists and because of the enterprise product portfolio we have had, there is a perception that we are a direct sales organisation and we are not channel friendly," said Pritchard.

"It is true that the old Siemens had a reputation for addressing end users directly in the UK and we have now made it very clear that we will not compete with partners head-to-head. We have been inconsistent and we haven't always done the right thing by our partners. That is going to change. We are behind the curve today in terms of our partner coverage compared to what our competitors are doing.
?"We need a better partner community, we need to improve our product proposition and make it more logical and we need to make our licencing simpler, repeatable and scalable - all the things that partners need.?
"The recruitment of Dean, Bill and I sends out a huge message to the partner community that this business hasn't done a good job in the channel, but moving forward we will transform this business by changing our approach to the channel. We are committed to this."

Based on the channel development experience he gained during 11 years at Westcon, Pritchard is planning top-to-bottom cultural changes within Unify and says he will be seeking ‘committed' partners as part of a forensic scoping exercise that will ultimately move Unify away from its service focus to product and partner development.

"Sixty per cent of our business today is service based, helping partners deliver solutions and we don't want to keep doing that. We need to understand the profile of a Unify partner today who can move forward with us on our long term roadmap. We have got work to do with our partner community to make sure that they can upscale to properly address the opportunities we come across in a quality way the customer demands.

"Our channel programme is not as channel ready as it needs to be. We need to make sure that as we push back on our direct sales to focus on partners we up-skill that partner community to be able to deliver. They need to be able to stand on their own two feet and deliver these solutions themselves. They have to be committed and we have to be committed.

"We haven't made it easy for them. Our product portfolio is very complex. It is hard for them to understand where there is a sweet spot for a specific product in a specific market.

"Our products have always been driven down from the enterprise and the question has been always been ‘can we make it fit for the channel'. Now what we are saying is ‘if it isn't a channel ready we will not take it to market. Project Ansible is a great example. It is a completely new way of approaching the market place and we will make sure that it is channel ready proposition."

Pritchard says staff are behind the changes, predominantly the need to interact more with partners and is promising more direct business will be directed into the channel.

"The business is supportive of the changes we are making. People understand the issues and the challenges and understand that channel is so important to us. We have got some great strengths in the business, we just need to realign them with a different go to market strategy.

"We need to make sure we open up lines of communications with partners and our own people to look outside of the Unify bubble and make sure products are channel ready, not enterprise ready.

"And we are going to move a large chunk of our business away from direct to indirect so this a great opportunity for resellers to get a large slice of that bigger pie. We are making all the right noises but it's a transition. It's not revolutionary, it's a process. It's a journey we have to go through. We will be a channel friendly business."

Alderley Edge-based Chess has been listed for the fifth year in a row as one of the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work For in the recently published 2014 list.

Only organisations with the highest level of overall employee engagement qualify for the prestigious list.

David Pollock, Chief Executive, commented, "Over the last 21 years our team has focused on building a business that is a great place to work. We firmly believe that happy people make customers happy. We're lucky to work in a fast moving, dynamic, growth industry that creates opportunities for our people to progress their careers, develop their knowledge and skill and gain rewards and recognition for their efforts. The growth and success of our people ensures the growth and success of our business and will continue to do so for years to come."

Best Companies methodology is widely recognised as the most academically rigorous measure in present workplace engagement. As part of Chess' entry it had to provide evidence of different workplace initiatives including examples of corporate social responsibility, environmental practices, employee benefit packages along with detailed training and development programmes. After the process was complete Chess was awarded a 3 star accreditation status from best companies, the highest ranking engagement benchmark the institution can bestow on a business, to go along with a ranking in their top 100 overall companies to work for.

Chess provides its people with traditional benefits such as health and pension plans, a share-option scheme and flexible working but impressed judges with more unusual benefits such as massages, breakfast clubs, flu jabs, sponsorships for qualifications, charity work and regular holiday prize draws. A Chess employee recently won a £2,500 holiday to Dubai as the winner of their Christmas conference holiday giveaway and joins a long list of Chess holiday winners.

The passion, energy and attitude that has defined Chess as such a great place to work for their people is also emulated in the work they do in the wider community, having raised over £48,000 for UK charities in 2013 alone.

The Chess people have also continued their commitment to an environmentally friendly working ethos, having been accredited with the prestigious ISO 14001 for its environmentally sustainable working practices.

Stephen Dracup, Managing Director at Chess stated: "As one team, together, we own and nurture our vision, culture and values. We're an ambitious organisation and our people work to maximise their potential, striving to be the best of the best. Our spirit inspires and motivates, it is infectious, stimulating and must never be taken for granted."

Unify has is targeting the below-30 user segment with its just launched OpenScape Business X1 appliance, offering professional voice, UC and mobility for small offices, branches and the home.

According to Unify, X1 will better enable partners to provide customers of any size with an easy to deploy, manage and use, all-in-one UC solution, and leverages their current training and investment in the complete OpenScape Business portfolio.

The OpenScape Business X1 appliance provides embedded UC features for up to 30 users, including functions such as presence, visual voicemail, voicemail to e-mail, and ad hoc conferencing.

To support anywhere workers and the new way to work, mobility is integrated with the new myPortal To Go app for Android and Apple iOS.

It provides Unify's One Number Service and offers presence, favourites, voicemail, directories and journal functionality to users wherever they choose to work, improving collaboration among virtual teams.

It also enables users to control their office phone remotely and allows dialing from smartphone contacts or a local UC smart directory when off-line.

For non-Android smartphones, such as the Windows phone, OpenScape Business offers myPortal for mobile and myPortal for tablet as a web-based solution. 

"Over the past 12 months, we have made significant market share gains in the UK mid-market with the OpenScape Business portfolio and now we have the opportunity to increase our presence in the large below 30-user segment," said Tony Smith, sales director, indirect channel, UK and Ireland, Unify. 

"We are finding smaller companies often embrace new ways of working and mobility more than their enterprise counterparts and our UC solution will enable them to harness that trend and turn it into competitive advantage."

IT Europa has released tails on a strong line up of speakers a its seventh European ISV Convention, March 26th in London.

Among the confirmed speakers is Lauri Saft, Director of the IBM Watson Ecosystem program. In her current role she is responsible for developing a network of partnerships consisting of entrepreneurs & established companies who will build their applications on a foundation of cognitive computing.

Rob Craft, Senior Director of Enterprise Cloud, Microsoft, will talk about what business customers ask for from the cloud.

"It's a simple thing, really. They want everything!" he said. "How can we change expectations with business customers to match and exceed what they get today from a device?"

The Gartner keynote at the event is on how Big Data, mobile, business intelligence and hybrid cloud platforms introduce different buyers and cause a shift in customer buying behaviour. This is impacting all ISVs and channels; so Gartner's Mark Paine is looking at ways for ISVs to succeed in selling to these 'new' customers.

The aim of the event is to develop business partnerships and capitalise on the evolution of the IT industry within an increasingly applications and solutions-driven world.

HP, IBM, Interoute, Microsoft and Oracle are supporting the Convention as platinum sponsors. Other sponsors include Arrow ECS, AVG, Avnet, Ingram Micro, ISVWorld, Jaspersoft, SafeNet, SoftServe and SunGard.

To found out more visit http://isvconvention.com/agenda.html

Swyx has released details of a new client software solution, currently in the pilot phase, the can be distributed via multiple servers flexibly and with high scalability.

The modular range of UC features per user realise cost benefits for providers and end customers. In addition, the new solution supports Windows Azure Active Directory (WAAD), so that all Microsoft-based products automatically link with the UC application.

"We have 60 per cent growth, which is exactly the right time for us to invest in this product and bring it to the market", said Swyx Chairman Dr. Ralf Ebbinghaus.

"In the development of a capable UC solution we have integrated all our knowledge and experience gained in recent years."

The target group for this flexible cloud solution is not only service providers, but also Swyx resellers who can extend their product range when the multi-tenant solution is released in the Summer.

Windows Azure is the first platform on which Swyx places its cloud solution.

"For us it was a big plus that Swyx is not only strong in the on-premise business, but also has both feet in the cloud segment and so is ideally positioned to support the growing demand for integrated communication solutions," added Kai Göttmann, Director for Server, Tools & Cloud at Microsoft.

Commsworld has appointed Dietmar Wand as Partner Channel Manager with a remit to grow the Fluency Partner Channel.

Wand boasts a 15 year career in networks, data centres and IT.

Commsworld acquired Fluency in 2012 with its network infrastructure and associated in-house applications and Wand aims to recruit more voice and IT resellers into the Fluency Partner Channel.

The Fluency Network has been expanded and upgraded since coming under the Commsworld banner and uses carrier grade switches and optical wavelength backhauls.

SIP and Hosted Voice services are designed to carry over the Ethernet connectivity solutions inclusive of EFM, Ethernet over FTTC and Fibre Ethernet.

To support partners Commsworld has developed an online Partner portal where each company can access their own client services, check for access speeds, prices and finally directly place orders instantly with their own end client.

Ricky Nicol Commsworld CEO, said: "I have long had the ambition to grow Commsworld into a true network provider with quality solutions supported by a robust service division. For too long have the big boys had free reign leaving behind dissatisfied customers from poor bandwidth performances and client support."

Wand added: "As more suppliers and companies focus on their networks, data centre and the services they want to offer out of them, we are sticking to our core principle of offering high end proven network services, at competitive rates.

"Commsworld are well respected in the marketplace and I am looking forward to help to rapidly build a successful Partner Network."

Hats off to Westcon Group for bagging Polycom's EMEA Distributor of the Year Award, collected at TEAM Polycom 2014 staged in Vancouver, Canada.

David Grant Senior Vice President EMEA, Westcon Convergence, said: "Westcon is a robust company with a strong heritage in voice and UC, focusing on simplifying business processes for our partners and vendors through value added programmes and support to deliver result.  
"Our approach combined with a relationship with Microsoft in driving growth for Lync devices, market coverage, support on service renewals and marketing and management's commitment to Polycom has resulted in over 45 percent growth in sales year on year for Polycom."
 
Mike Conlon, Vice President of Worldwide Channels, Polycom, added: "In a rapidly evolving marketplace it's critical to have partners like Westcon Group who can help us meet our customers complete business needs with transformative solutions."
 
Westcon Group's convergence business practice is part of the Polycom Partner Network.

As part of the Network, technology providers, ISVs, solution advisors, integrators, service providers, and other companies can work with Polycom and each other to deliver tailored solutions.
 

Mitel has bolstered its contact centre play with the acquisition of OAISYS, adding integrated call recording and quality management solutions to its CC kit bag. The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The OAISYS solution enables data to be converted into actionable business intelligence.

"Contact Centres have become the front line for businesses looking to harness customer insight and intelligence to deliver competitive advantage and drive growth, and the acquisition of OAISYS is a logical next step in Mitel's strategy and solution to address that market demand," said Richard McBee, President and CEO, Mitel.

"With OAISYS, Mitel partners and customers will have the critical capabilities they need to unlock, extract and leverage business data."

An existing member of the Mitel Solutions Alliance with Preferred Gold Partner status, the OAISYS portfolio integrates with Mitel's flagship MiContact Center platform, including the company's recently announced release.

Over time, the OAISYS solution will also be integrated into the Aastra contact center platform, Solidus eCare, and the MiContact Center for Lync platform, as part of routine portfolio integration.

"Mitel is a natural fit for OAISYS as we look to expand and grow our product range and reach," said Brian Spencer, CEO of OAISYS. "Full integration into the multi-platform contact centre portfolio of a major multi-national vendor like Mitel opens the doors for us to take our products to new platforms, new partners and new markets."

Effective immediately, OAISYS becomes part of the Mitel Products and Solutions Business Unit. The group will report to Chris Courneya, Mitel Vice President and General Manager, Contact Centres. Brian Spencer joins Mitel as Director of Business Development for Mitel Contact Centres reporting to Chris.

The OAISYS acquisition is the latest in a series of strategic business development activities by Mitel designed to capture and drive profitable growth in the consolidating business communications market.

This is Mitel's second contact centre related acquisition within the last year, following the integration of prairieFyre last summer.

In January, Mitel also completed its merger with Aastra Technologies.