Comms Dealer

Coms plc has released details of big contract wins for its connectivity and communication services.

The deals include a contract to supply telecommunications solutions including hardware, hosted seats and broadband to a brand new division of a blue-chip multinational company. Providing services to over 1,000 users, this contract will be worth £850,000 per year.

Also in the bag is a data centre project for a top UK university worth £460,000, with the design process starting in Spring 2014; and an infrastructure project worth £330,000 at the headquarters of a major commercial law firm.

Coms also snared an infrastructure project worth £250,000 for the London offices of an international bank, with installation scheduled for completion in March 2014; plus a contract to supply 600-plus broadband lines each month for the next 12 months, with estimated annual revenues of £108,000.

Dave Breith, CEO of Coms, said: "These contracts enable Coms to start 2014 with confidence in our ability to deliver end to end communication and connectivity solutions to UK industry.

"We anticipate 2014 will be a solid year for Coms and we look forward to announcing more contract wins and product launches as the year progresses."

Channel figurehead Lee Broxson has joined Daisy Wholesale as Product Director for Data, moving from Griffin where he was Head of Sales.

In his new role at Daisy, Broxson will be responsible for developing the data portfolio, working with both the sales and marketing teams and taking the proposition to the existing and prospect reseller community, maximising potential through the penetration of data in to their customer bases.

Terry O'Brien, Managing Director for Daisy Wholesale, said: "Lee has enormous credibility with the channel and is well liked and recognised as a leader in his field."

Broxson added: "I am excited to be joining Daisy Wholesale at such an exciting point in its history, investing in the business for the future and building it to be fit for the channel of the future.

"Over the last decade I have built up a wealth of experience and knowledge in many aspects of the industry, from carriers through to wholesale, and I am looking forward to working with Terry and the team to utilise this experience to develop and grow our partners' businesses."

Avnet Services, part of distributor Avnet Technology Solutions, has become an official Veeam Authorised Education Centre (VMAEC) and will deliver the technical courses required for partners, customers and resellers to achieve the Veeam Certified Engineer (VMCE) certification.

Through this collaboration with Veeam Software and its backup, replication and virtualisation management solutions for VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V, Avnet will roll out a VMAEC training program across the UK, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy and Spain from January 2014.

René Albert, director of education solutions for Avnet Services, EMEA, commented: "This partnership with Veeam Software extends our education portfolio at a time when the virtualisation market is growing at a significant rate. This allows our reseller partners across EMEA to gather the right knowledge to successfully seek opportunities and engage in this important IT growth market."

Nimans has added the Vulcan vandal resistant phone range to its line card. High impact steel casings, durable polycarbonate handset mouldings, armour plated cords and zinc alloy diecast keypads have been designed to promote resilience and withstand extreme heavy duty usage. Analogue, SIP and GSM variants are available.

Nimans says the Vulcan LC Industrial Phone is suited for heavy duty sites such as production plants, university campuses, shopping centres and transport terminals. It features an loud ringer and a secure steel wall mounting plate. There's also a weatherproof version that comes complete with a slam lock door and internal seals for dust tight performance.

Ian Brindle, Nimans' Head of Conferencing and Handset Sales, says the phones benefit from advanced features such as auto reporting. Non keypad versions are available.

"Vulcan represents a powerful addition to a reseller's kitbag. They are built to last and provide years of reliable operation in the most challenging of indoor and outdoor environments."

Pro-Data Group, a provider of IT infrastructure support services, has opted for Red Box Recorders as its sole partner to supply voice and data recording for unified communications solutions.

This latest agreement is part of an ongoing expansion of the Red Box partner and reseller network. It will see Pro-Data targeting opportunities within the financial sector with new and existing customers in the UK, mainland Europe, the Middle East and APAC.

Pro-Data has grown significantly and offers a range of IT services and training to companies including leading international banks, wealth management businesses and financial services institutions.

The company had previously utilised a number of voice and data providers but, following increasing demand from its growing customer base mainly in response to increased legislation, has decided to work solely with Red Box Recorders.

The deal will enable Pro-Data to enhance its offering to customers by utilising the Red Box Quantify Recording Suite as part of its communications solutions.

It can be seamlessly integrated with a range of platforms and tailored to meet precise requirements with a wide range of functionality including Quality Management, PCI Compliance, Call Management and Billing, Event Reconstruction and Audio Analytics.

Another key driver of the deal was the strength of Red Box's Quantify Mobile Recording Suite in enabling organisations to record mobile communications and assist them with remaining compliant in the face of ever increasing global regulation.

Olivier Roth, CEO at Pro-Data Group commented: "Increasingly companies are coming to us for advice on voice and data recording and we needed to find a partner who provided a solution that addressed their requirements and was easy to maintain and upgrade. Our research led us to Red Box and we initially trialled its solutions with a few key clients. The result was a success."

Lee Jones, CEO of Red Box Recorders, said: "Creating an international network of leading partners forms an integral part of our growth strategy and we now have more than 300 worldwide."

SpliceCom has launched a 16 user entry-level version of its Vision Business Management System, designed for use alongside the new S716 Small Soft PBX or existing 5108 Small Hard PBX.

Small Vision Reports offers all of the features of the standard Vision Reports embedded app, providing 30 pre-defined historical reports.

Small Vision Reports can be expanded through the addition of fully integrated call recording (Vision Record) or real-time wallboards/dashboards (Vision Live).

There's also an upgrade path to the standard Vision Reports.

Channel Telecom is taking the winner of its Overall Partner of the Year Award on an all-expenses paid trip to the Monaco Grand Prix on 25th May. The prize includes travel by private jet to Monte Carlo, limousine transfers and lunch at the exclusive Café De Paris to watch the race.

This follows last year's Overall Partner of the Year Award to the same event which saw Channel Telecom guests enjoying an exciting race with Nico Rosberg for Mercedes win just ahead of Sebastian Vettel for Infiniti-Red Bull in a nail biting finish.

Clifford Norton, Managing Director,said: "Last year's Award trip to the Monaco Grand Prix was a fantastic day for us and our guests. We enjoyed it so much that it seemed only natural to reward this year's winner with the same prize. We hope this prize will motivate our partner community to even greater levels of business in 2014."

Virgin Media Business has secured a contract worth around £1 million to upgrade the contact centre services at City Link, the express parcels carrier.

The solution, which integrates a Cisco Unified Communications (UC) platform with Enghouse Interactive software, will allow City Link to save on telecoms costs and improve the way it manages its customer enquiries.

The contact centre team, which handles two million calls from across the UK, will be able to cut down on response times by seeing real-time customer information as the call arrives. They can also share information more easily via instant messaging or desktop-sharing, meaning callers no longer have to 'start again' when their enquiry is passed to someone else.

The service allows much greater flexibility in the way enquires are handled. With one click an incoming customer call can be recorded or turned into a video conference or instant messaging chat. It also enables the team to see the customer's details and the number of calls waiting to be answered on their desktops, rather than on small display buttons on a telephone.

The service also provides 'presence information', such as 'on a call' or 'away', so colleagues always know each other's status. For example, if one of the team is struggling to resolve a customer issue, they can search for an expert that is available on the network. They can then instantly transfer the call, boosting the overall number of calls resolved at the first attempt.

Mario Di Mascio, director sales, Virgin Media Business, said: "This contract is about bringing the contact centre world firmly into the 21st century, reducing costs and overall response times.

"It also provides a platform to roll out instant messaging, presence and video to the rest of City Link's telephony services."

James Coxon, City Link's IT Director, said: "Virgin Media Business' ability to work with multiple vendors to suit our own specific needs played a major role in them securing this contract."

Maintel has kicked off the New Year with the appointment of Kevin Stevens as Group Operations Director. He joined the Maintel Group on 1st June 2010 and has been a director of the main trading company, Maintel Europe, since 12th December 2011.

Stevens has worked in the communications and IT industry since 1981 and has held senior operations and general management positions with Genesis Telecommunications, Xpert Communications, Redstone and Westcon Convergence, with a focus on improving business operations, process and customer service.

Demand for security hardware remains healthy compared to servers and storage systems. IDC estimates security appliance sales rose 6.5% yr/yr in Q3 to $2.2bn, even as units only rose 0.3% which indicates higher prices.

Sales had risen 6.1% in Q2 in spite of a 1.5% shipment drop. IDC thinks Cisco, which just acquired leading intrusion prevention system vendor SourceFire, was top supplier, with a 15.9% industry share, down fractionally yr/yr. Check Point was just behind, with a 12.4% share (-30 bps), and #3 Fortinet has a 6.4% share (+50 bps).

Fourth vendor in the list Juniper, whose security unit has been a weak spot and is now under new management, saw its share fall 170 bps to 6.2%. Meanwhile, fast-growing next-gen firewall vendor Palo Alto Networks saw its share rise 140 bps to 5.3%. In spite of healthy industry growth, the firewall market (21% of industry revenue), which Cisco, Juniper, and Check Point are well-exposed to, saw a 15% yr/yr sales drop. On the other hand, the unified threat management (UTM) market, which Fortinet is a leader in, grew 29%, and the IPS market grew 8%.