Comms Dealer

A new survey by Cerillion Technologies, polling the views of more than 200 senior IT professionals across a broad range of industry verticals, has revealed that more than half of all businesses today (53%) are still using either an in-house-developed system or manual processes to bill their customers.

At the same time, the results highlight a shift in the way products and services are sold, away from traditional one-off product sales towards a more flexible pricing model based on subscriptions and usage.

One-off pricing models are currently used by 84% of organisations but the research shows that this proportion is set to fall to 51% in the future. In contrast, new pricing initiatives built around an on-going service relationship are growing steadily, including subscriptions, pay-per-use and freemium pricing models.

"Today, we are experiencing a shift in the way consumers purchase goods and services as part of the subscription revolution. This is a fundamental change in the kinds of pricing models businesses are using in order to monetise service offerings and drive recurring revenue," says Louis Hall, CEO, Cerillion Technologies.

"This process is set to accelerate as revenue models mature and the need for innovative pricing and product packaging to differentiate and create value in customer relationships becomes more acute.

"Unfortunately, in-house systems are typically not agile or sophisticated enough to handle this transition and manual processes cannot scale.

"That's why these new business models are perfectly complemented by the rise of enterprise cloud billing solutions. This is an approach which can deliver flexibility and agility for businesses in mixing and matching service and usage-based pricing models, while enabling them to quickly set up and start billing for a new service without the need for any infrastructure or upfront licence fees."

In line with this, the survey results paint a picture of a cloud billing market about to undergo rapid growth. It is currently relatively small in the UK, with just 4% of survey respondents using a cloud billing system or Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) approach today. However, a further 11% say they are using a managed service - and with cloud penetration generally on the rise - Cerillion foresees dynamic growth in the cloud billing market as businesses strive to meet the demands of the new subscription-based economy.

According to Hall, agility, flexibility and matching products to the market's demands are key. This is the same both for small businesses or start-ups looking to get a foothold in the market by introducing new services quickly and cost-effectively, and for more established organisations wanting to spread their wings and expand into new markets or geographies. "Working in the cloud provides that - and any smart business should be looking to bill in this way," added Hall.

ShoreTel has launched an integrated solution, named ShoreTel for Salesforce, offering integration between Salesforce and the ShoreTel on-premises IP-PBX system and ShoreTel Workgroups.

"Phone data is aligned with business data in the CRM system," said David Petts, senior vice president of worldwide sales at ShoreTel .

"By integrating the ShoreTel communications platform with Salesforce customers gain new insights, more effective collaboration, higher productivity and better business results.

"Automatic logging of all sales activity with call details and audio recordings tied into Salesforce customer accounts, together with prompts for agents to schedule follow-up actions, can lead to closing deals faster and higher overall sales team productivity.

"The merging of communications and business data allows companies to build custom reports within Salesforce that give them unprecedented insight into their operations." 

Lantronix, maker of smart IoT (Internet of Things) connectivity has signed with distributor Arrow to cover EMEA. The company had used Arrrow previously in the North America and Asia Pacific regions.

Guido Resch, vice president semiconductor marketing, Arrow EMEA, said: "We look forward to kicking off our expanded relationship at this month's Embedded World conference in Nuremberg."

Martin Poppelaars, vice president of sales for Lantronix EMEA, added: "We have a long and successful history partnering with Arrow in the North American and Asia Pacific regions, and we believe this agreement will enable us to better utilise Arrow's global distribution network to grow our business in EMEA."

Jabra's technical innovation and design supremos kept one eye firmly fixed on the future when creating the just-launched Jabra BIZ 2300, positioned as a device fit for the customer service requirements of tomorrow.

"The Jabra BIZ 2300 is a direct response to the changing face of the global contact centre industry," explained Nigel Dunn, Managing Director, Jabra Business Solutions UK&I.

"It completely rethinks the role of the headset and will play an even greater strategic role in shaping brand perception and maintaining customer satisfaction."

He pointed out that ccontact centres play an increasingly important role as the customer's first point of contact and the role of the contact centre agent is being redefined as brand ambassadors.

"This highlights that the battle to win and maintain customers is fought in the contact centre," added Dunn. "For that reason it is paramount that each call is dealt with as professionally as possible with crystal clear sound, no background noise and quick handling of the customers' needs through the channels of communication that the customer prefers.

"We can see that contact centre agents are major contributors in safeguarding brand perception and this will only increase in the future. With the Jabra BIZ 2300 we set ourselves the challenge of developing an audio device for brand ambassadors with an emphasis on sound performance, durability and comfort."

Linda Hartig, Avaya Vice President of Global Support Services, commented: "Today, companies like Avaya need to execute to perfection at all customer touch-points, with a crisp and clear voice. Our Services Desk in Westminster, Colorado, USA has piloted the Jabra BIZ 2300 and it is spot-on in terms of delivering that superior sound quality Avaya and our customers expect."

The Jabra BIZ 2300 is now available for channel partners to order via Authorised Jabra Distributors and is available for customers to purchase via their authorised Jabra Reseller partner.

A national property association based in Manchester has turned to a Lancashire telecoms provider to help manage a sustained period of rapid business growth.

The Residential Landlords Association (RLA) has experienced an increase of more than 50% in its membership in the last two years, now serving over 17,000 landlords across England and Wales.

The surge in membership has resulted in a substantial increase in inbound enquiries to the RLA's advice lines, and so the organisation has partnered up with leading North West installer Abbey Telecom to implement a new call handling system.

"Inbound calls to our advice lines have more than doubled in the last few years due to the huge increase in members and the increasing complexity of legislation faced by residential landlords," explained Andrew Goodacre from the Residential Landlords Association.

"We needed hi tech, rapid solutions to ensure that our callers are efficiently funnelled to the right person and can access the area of expertise they require at the first time of asking."

The new system comes with real time, intelligent reporting and management information which allows the association to monitor call volumes and deploy its professionally trained advisors to areas of greatest need.

Abbey Telecom managing director Tony Raynor added: "Tackling a change in call handling capabilities whilst continuing to serve its members involved a complete overhaul of the RLA's traditional phone lines, which we have replaced with a brand new server and call routing system.

"It's crucial for landlords' peace of mind to be able to access round-the-clock professional advice, information and services."

M2M (machine-to-machine) managed services specialist Wyless is to buy Netherlands-based ASPIDER M2M.

ASPIDER M2M provides a range of M2M and Internet of Things (IOT) applications to global customers, principally in the Benelux and for the German speaking markets, where they maintain multiple offices. ASPIDER M2M runs its own Cisco and Oracle-based core network of Gateway GPRS Support Nodes, Home Location Registers and Intelligent Networks.

This allows ASPIDER M2M to act as an mobile virtual network enable for M2M/IOT and to provide an operator independent solution. Wyless will complement its portfolio with these solutions that ASPIDER M2M has deployed to large customers like Philips Lighting and Stedin, a public utility in Holland.

As part of the acquisition, ASPIDER Holding Chairman & founder Jan Willem van Doorn, will join the Wyless Board of Directors, and Michel Zwijnenberg, ASPIDER M2M Vice President, will take a Senior Exec role within Wyless Europe PLC, resulting from Aspider's integration with Wyless UK.

Michel Zwijnenberg, Vice President ASPIDER M2M said: "I believe strongly in the emerging Internet of Things market. There will be a premium for the company being the first to claim leadership in this market and I want to be a part of that company."

Security solutions specialist WatchGuard has appointed Irish firm Micro Warehouse as its new distributor of Unified Threat Management (UTM) platforms portfolio.

Rory Wilson, Managing Director at Micro Warehouse, said: "With WatchGuard's new wireless access points customers can have the same level of security and centralised management for corporate and personal mobile devices in the business environment."

Micro Warehouse, which has over 1,200 resellers, will help grow WatchGuard's presence in markets in Ireland and Northern Ireland, it says.

"MicroWarehouse is the ideal partner to help take our products to market and provide a high level of support through its established network of resellers, experienced sales team, rapid delivery and flexible credit facilities. We are committed to growing our presence in Ireland and N. Ireland," stated Jon-Marc Wilkinson, Distribution Manager UK and Ireland at WatchGuard.

Micro Warehouse was set up in 1987 and is presently headquartered in Dublin.

Instant Messaging to account for 75% of mobile messaging traffic by 2018, but only generate 2% of revenues, according to Juniper Research.

A new report highlights the growing disparity between traffic volumes and revenues in the mobile messaging market. And states that despite accounting for 75% of the traffic, or 63 trillion message by 2018, IM apps will only generate 2% of the mobile messaging market's revenue, at just over $3 billion.

The report stated that the increasingly high IM traffic volumes are the result of a number of factors, but chief among them is the fact that usage of IM apps is inherently different to usage of SMS. Users typically send up to 10 'chats' to convey a message which could be contained in 1 SMS.

In addition, stickers, emoticons, images and group conversations all add significantly to IM traffic, as well as the fact that handset users (the younger demographic in particular), typically install multiple IM apps.

Report author Sian Rowlands said: "Adoption of IM apps has rapidly accelerated over the past 18 months, something which has led Juniper to revise upwards our forecast for the volume of IM traffic."

Nevertheless IM apps are continuing to encounter difficulties in generating revenues, given the infancy of the market.

The hundreds of IM apps available are taking different approaches, some utilising in-app purchases and games, others with advertising or subscriptions.

Some apps, such as Facebook Messenger, are loss leaders and only serve to increase engagement with a companies' separate revenue generating app, noted Rowlands.

Exponential-e is to enable Anthony Nolan, the UK's blood cancer charity and bone marrow register, to safeguard its future by providing a secure and resilient infrastructure for the data at the heart of the organisation. 
 
Anthony Nolan's database enables the charity to provide over 1,000 blood cancer patients with a matching stem cell donor every year.

The pioneering charity needed to ensure the longevity of this service as the volume of the critical data continues to grow. With Exponential-e's private Cloud infrastructure and a virtual private LAN service (VPLS), Anthony Nolan now has the flexibility and scalability to support this growth.
 
Underpinning its core business function is Anthony Nolan's global database of over 500,000 bone marrow, or stem cell, donors.

Registries across the world access the database 24 hours a day in the search for a potential match for people with blood cancer. With over 60,000 new donors registering per year, the rapid growth of the organisation and the volume of data meant it was essential for Anthony Nolan to safeguard the management of its data to ensure business continuity. 
 
By migrating its servers to Exponential-e's tier 3 data centres, connected using its virtual private LAN, Anthony Nolan is able to extend its own network to capture all of its offices on one private WAN, significantly enhancing the control and security of its network.

The network also provides dual resilience enabling further contingency and security. This is critical for Anthony Nolan to continue expanding and increasing the research and services it provides.
 
Anil Majevadia, IT director at Anthony Nolan, commented: "Our database is accessed 24 hours a day and is essential in ensuring people with blood cancer have the best chance of finding a match. We need to ensure our data is safe, accessible and available at all times, now and in the future. 

"As we continue growing year on year this demand is only increasing and we need to ensure we have the ability to expand our capacity in the future. By moving to Exponential-e's data centre and migrating to its VPLS layer 2 network we have future proofed the organisation."  
 
Mukesh Bavisi, Managing Director, Exponential-e, adds: "Fundamental to many organisations is the data it manages and processes, Anthony Nolan is a fantastic example of this. 

"With large amounts of sensitive data it's essential to adopt a Cloud infrastructure that is highly secure and private, but also retains the benefits of flexibility that Cloud infrastructure promises. 

"Anthony Nolan has recognised the importance of combining a flexible Cloud environment with a fast and secure network to ensure it achieves this level of resilience and security."

A power saving product called energyEGG, available through Nimans, is to appear on the BBC2 TV show Dragons' Den this Sunday, February 23rd.

It's the brainchild of Brian O'Reilly, a 38-year-old entrepreneur and father of four who found himself constantly nagging his wife and children for leaving appliances on when nobody was using them around their home.

The invention automatically turns off devices such as TVs, games consoles, DVD players and lights when they're not being used - typically saving 30% on the running costs of connected appliances and lights.

O'Reilly said: "Energy has become such a valuable commodity it's simply too expensive to waste. As energy prices continue to rise, so does demand for the energyEGG. People want to take control and fight back. The energyEGG is a very cost effective solution and allows them to do just that."

O'Reilly is remaining tight-lipped about how the TV judges react to his pitch in the Den, as he concluded: "Appearing in front of the Dragons' was a nerve-wracking experience but I'm hoping the exposure will help as we continue to grow the business", he explained.