Comms Dealer

The finalists of the 9th annual ITSPA Awards have been announced including a new category - Best ITSP Reseller Award. The winners will be revealed at an event on 9th May at the Tower of London.

Eli Katz, Chair of ITSPA Council, said: "The strength of this year's finalists not only reflects the quality of the entries received but also the rapid development of the next generations communications industry."

ITSPA Awards 2017 Finalists

Best Consumer VoIP Award Finalists?• Antheus
• VoiceHost
• Vonage

Best Business ITSP (Small Enterprise) Award Finalists
• Hello Telecom
• Soho66
• SureVoIP
• Telappliant
• Voipfone
• VoIPstudio

Best Business ITSP (Medium Enterprise) Award Finalists
• Hello Telecom
• Orbtalk
• RingCentral
• VoIPstudio
• VTSL

Best Business ITSP (Corporate) Award Finalists
• NFON
• Pragma Distribution
• SureVoIP
• TalkTalk Business

Best VoIP CPE Award Finalists
• Panasonic - Multi Cell SIP DECT KX-UDS124/UDT1x1 System
• Polycom VVX 500, 501 Business Media Phones
• Snom Technology AG - D715 Desk Telephone
• VTech Communications - VCS754A with Orbitlink Wireless Technology

Best VoIP Infrastructure Award Finalists
• aql
• Ciptex - CAL - The Communications Cloud
• Gamma - SIP Trunking
• GENBAND Kandy CPaaS
• IPCortex Service Provider Platform
• Metaswitch - Clearwater IMS

Best VoIP Innovation Finalists
• Edgewater Networks - Network Edge Orchestration
• Epsilon Telecommunications - SIP Trunk Federation
• Gradwell Communications - Cloud Storage
• Vonage - Nexmo Voice API Platform
• Voipfone Virtual PA

Best ITSP Reseller Finalists
• Arrow Business Communications
• Sprint Convergence - Horizon
• Express Telephony - Express CloudPBX
• Fidelity Group - Hosted Telephony

The ITSPA Members' Pick Award Finalists
• Sharon White, Chief Executive of Ofcom - For her leadership surrounding the reform of Openreach
• NICC - For their extensive work to produce a guidance document on the use and implementation of SIP ALG
• Homer SIP Capture - For providing a 100% Open-Source RTC Capture, Analysis and Monitoring tool

The ITSPA Champion Award
To be announced at the event

Train to Win.TV is set to rev up 'Girl Power' in a charity drive to raise much needed funds for Breast Cancer Research.

A four-strong team (Katie Curtis, Natalie Nicholls, Sue Hester and Julie Mills) is gearing up to take on the Pretty Muddy challenge (1st July, Bedford) along with their 'pretty pink' spaniel Mia, the office dog.

CEO Julie Mills, a cancer survivor, stated: "We want to support all of the incredibly strong women fighting their battle, and remember those brave angels who lost theirs.

"We are doing this for all the mums, aunties, sisters, daughters, grandmothers, wives, girlfriends and friends who are fighting every day, so that we can put more money into researching better treatments, medications and general support for Breast Cancer patients."

To support Train to Win.TV's worthy cause please visit:
https://www.justgiving.com/teams/traintowin

Wavenet has followed up last August's MBO with the acquisition of Manchester-based provider of network and cloud services Talk Internet.

Wavenet CEO Bill Dawson commented: "Our increased scale and resources will deliver a broader product set, a more robust and automated technical platform, stronger supplier relationships and a better customer experience."

Talk Internet was established in 1995 and brings expertise in connectivity, IaaS, software defined data centres, and cloud services including SaaS.

Former BPL Business Media Operations Director Stephanie Dempsey has been appointed by Union Street Technologies to the newly created position of Marketing and Events Consultant. She brings 15 years experience in corporate marketing and channel event management.

Dempsey's responsibilities include the development of online engagement and associated digital marketing activities as well as managing the company's events programme, including the upcoming 'streets Ahead' roadshows at Glasgow, Newcastle, Bristol and London.

Dempsey said: "A big part of my role will be developing Union Street's channels for online marketing with the ultimate goal of making it easier for resellers to make enquiries, interact and open dialogues with the company online. I will also be working to help take the company's events programme to the next level."

Head of Sales and Marketing Vincent Disneur added: "Stephanie's experience in events management and marketing to the channel community will be a huge asset to the business. We have some great new products that we are about to launch to the channel and Stephanie will play an important role in driving these into the market."

Exclusive Group has enlisted Martin Bichler to coordinate the expansion of its 100m-plus euro BigTec VAD business.

As BigTec Vendor Manager for EMEA & APAC he will be responsible for the business management of revenue and profit targets and for implementing and developing the global BigTec proposition alongside in-country sales teams.

"Martin is a talented channel operator with readymade BigTec credentials that make him the ideal choice to drive further expansion and success of our data centre transformation VAD business," said Barrie Desmond, COO of Exclusive Group.

"Martin's close vendor relationships and first-hand experience of rapidly changing channel dynamics will be vital to continuing our relevance and success in every local market."

Bichler added: "Major IT trends like advanced automation, hybrid cloud, hyper convergence and DevOps produce many significant new business opportunities for partners.

"Taking advantage of these changes is a defining challenge for channel partners around the world, and one that BigTec supports them to achieve."

He brings over 17 years experience in IT sales and channel management, including a decade in value-added distribution with Azlan and Arrow.

His most recent roles were at Brocade working with OEM and reseller partners in Germany and EMEA.

Chess Partner and EE are offering partners an Arctic Adventure to Iceland incentive trip on 10th-12th November 2017.

The incentive is open to any registered Partner of Chess Partner who will be automatically entered, and runs from 1st April-30th September 2017 with the winners announced on 9th October.

Partners can earn three points for a new small business connection and 1 point for a new corporate connection.

Partners then have to achieve a minimum of 300 points over the incentive period and the top six over 300 points will qualify to win a place on the incentive.

Chess Partner will also offer other prizes throughout the incentive.

John Pett, MD of Chess Partner, commented: "We're working with EE as one of its Premier Business Partners with a joint ambition to grow both our businesses this year."

A new leadership team announced by ScanSource Communications and Imago ScanSource marks the next stage of the integration of the two businesses which will now operate under the name ScanSource Imago.

Paul Emery, Vice President UK&I, will be responsible for the sales operations in his designated region; while John Vickerage has been named Area Vice President of Northern Europe with overall responsibility for sales in DACH, Benelux, Nordics, Baltics and Eastern Europe.

Nicolas Jouan has been appointed Area Vice President of Southern Europe with responsibility for sales in France; and Phil Boyd, Vice President of Merchandising, will lead the teams responsible for managing the vendor relationships.

James Vickerage, President of ScanSource Imago, stated: "The continued integration of the companies allows us to build on the strengths of both organisations, while offering significant growth opportunities for our partners across Europe."

ScanSource acquired Imago in 2014.

Mitel has appointed industry supremo Todd Abbott (pictured) as EVP Global Sales, bringing over 30 years technology and business communications experience to the role.

Abbott joins Mitel following a career spanning senior sales positions at Cisco, Symbol Technologies, Seagate Technologies, Avaya and Sonus Networks.

He assumes executive responsibility for Mitel's global cloud and enterprise sales organisations and channel programmes.

Mitel's current EVP and Chief Sales Officer Graham Bevington moves to the newly created role of Executive Vice President of Business Development, working directly with the CEO Rich McBee to drive the company's M&A strategy and funnels, and to focus on nurturing strategic partnerships with key large enterprise and business customers.

McBee said: "Todd's sector knowledge and international sales experience will be an integral part of how we grow Mitel in 2017 and beyond."

Abbott added: "Cloud enabled communications and collaboration is intrinsic to digital transformation in the enterprise."

Azlan Tech Data has added a series of SMB-focused training modules for HPE Aruba wireless technologies on the Tech Data Channel Academy.

The four training modules provide insights into the SMB market and current networking trends, customer opportunities and challenges, and enable sales professionals to position Aruba Mobile First infrastructure solutions, ecosystems and location-based services with SMB customers.

The modules also cover Aruba's wireless and management solutions, as well as its range of IoT-ready products.

Stephen Cant, Director, Enterprise, Infrastructure and Communications EMEA for Azlan, says: "The addition of the HPE Aruba training modules to the Tech Data Channel Academy is an important step in assisting HPE resellers to achieve their accreditation goals.

"Good Wi-Fi access is becoming more important to SMBs and many are now transitioning to 802.11ac technology."

Gigaclear's expanded office space at Abingdon Business Park has been opened by Nicola Blackwood, local MP for Oxford West and Abingdon.

The rural broadband provider has secured a series of contracts to expand its network as part of the BDUK programme which has led to an increase in staff.

To accommodate this rapid growth, the company has acquired a further 5,907 sq ft office space for its headquarters on Windrush Court.

Mike Surrey, Chief Financial Officer at Gigaclear, said: "We have been able to expand our HQ space without having to move which is invaluable to the organisation. We are now one of many companies to call Abingdon Business Park home."