Comms Dealer

Resellers sampled a taste of 'real life' Morocco as part of a mouth-watering sales incentive from Nimans and Unify (formerly Siemens Enterprise Communications) - enjoying a three night stay in Marrakesh.

The trip included fine dining and luxury accommodation in a top hotel and spa. The lucky winners also experienced a 4x4 Landcruiser trip to the Atlas Mountains with a heart-stopping zipline experience. Ten places were available for the highest sales performers of the OpenScape Business portfolio. They also sampled tea with a traditional Berber family, meeting an 86-year-old local who has never seen a Doctor in his life.

Nimans' Richard Carter said: "In these continuing challenging times it's important to recognise the efforts of our customers. Marrakesh is no ordinary destination and Nimans is no ordinary distributor. It proved an unforgettable experience for all that travelled."

Audio specialist Sennheiser UK has partnered with brand and market protection company Etail Eye to provide intelligence that enables Sennheiser UK to manage and measure the success of its Authorised Partner programme through its selective distribution strategy.

The partnership with Etail Eye began 12 months ago in the UK with the aim of finding a solution to meet the specific needs of Sennheiser's new go to market approach across EMEA.

The solution provides Sennheiser UK with real-time, actionable intelligence which will enable it to protect the brand and further support those retailers, etailers and distributors selected and approved by Sennheiser.

Sennheiser's recently implemented selective distribution strategy works with dealers across all channels to provide accreditation to those dealers as an Authorised Sennheiser Partner, qualified to sell premium product to the end consumer.

Etail Eye will now enable Sennheiser to more effectively monitor those channels and vendors who are not accredited, thereby protecting the brand, its official vendors and ultimately end-consumers.

Peter May, Director of Sales at Sennheiser, said: "Etail Eye is fundamental to how we ensure we deliver our part of the bargain to our Authorised Partners who have invested in the Sennheiser brand and who want to be seen as suppliers of genuine Sennheiser products.

"It allows us to provide complete peace of mind to both Authorsied Partners and end consumers. Etail Eye means consumers can buy our products from Authorised Partners in confidence knowing they are buying a high quality Sennheiser product from top quality vendors."

Application Networking specialist A10 has named Kirsten Lee as Vice President of Global Channels.

She had been Vice President of Worldwide Channel Marketing for the Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking (ESSN) part of HP. Reporting directly to A10 Vice President of Worldwide Sales Ray Smets, Kirsten is responsible for developing and leading A10's global channel organisation.

This executive announcement follows shortly after the appointment of Jason Matlof as Vice President of Worldwide Marketing.

At HP she was responsible for driving HP's worldwide ESSN channel strategy, including partner growth, partner program architecture, partner enablement and partner communications.

Prior to joining HP, Kirsten served as Vice President of Worldwide Channel and Field Marketing at Blue Coat, Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales at Packeteer, and has held various prior positions in Sales and Marketing at Net Manage, Caldera Systems and The Santa Cruz Operation.

Mobile security solutions provider BullGuard has entered into distribution agreement with Exertis Micro-P which will now distribute its internet security, mobile security and identity protection software packages.

At the moment, the deal is limited to only two markets (the UK and Ireland), however it is expected to be expanded into further markets across continental Europe in the future, it says.

Under the terms of a deal, Exertis Micro-P's resellers will also benefit from BullGuard's revenue share programme, which aims to provide channel partners with a percentage share of online revenue generated from subscription renewals, the company says.

"The opportunity to work with Exertis Micro-P's sales teams, who in our opinion are in a league of their own, is a big plus. We see this as a great opportunity for both parties, allowing Exertis Micro-P's customers to benefit from the peace of mind on offer from our industry-leading security software solutions, as well as expanding our coverage into a number of key areas," says BullGuard Head of Global Sales, Peter Barlow.

Exertis offers tailor made propositions and covers three main channels of B2C, B2B and mobile.

Comms-care, a provider of outsourced IT support services, has posted strong results for the 2012/13 financial year (ended 31st March).

Revenue over the year grew 52% to £15.6 million from £10.3 million bringing the CAGR over the last 3 years to more than 30%. Growth in operating profit of 200% to £2.1m was also reported.

Employees increased by 30% and the board and management team is strengthened by five new senior appointments.

The network of IT reseller partners grew by 30% to over 600 across the UK and Ireland; and the portfolio of IT support services was expanded through the introduction of storage support and development of the Managed IT Services offering.

The firm also noted the successful rollout of its IT support services to new partners including ExCel London as part of a long-term partnership agreement with IT reseller AMP Networking.

Comms-care Managing Director, Ben Davies stated: "Comms-care has continued to make excellent progress this year delivering strong growth and investing to further expand our portfolio of IT support services. IT resellers are increasingly looking to outsource the provision of IT services, and with Comms-care's 'reseller only' business model, coupled with our reputation for service excellence and technical expertise puts us in an excellent position to continue to grow rapidly in the years ahead."

Comms-care provides IT support services across a wide variety of sectors and business types. Its services are provided as white-label exclusively through channel partners, never selling directly to the end-user. This model allows partners to fully outsource IT support while maintaining their relationship with the end-user. The model has enabled Comms-care to become the leading trusted provider of IT services to IT resellers across the UK and Ireland.

During the year Comms-care's network of channel partners expanded by 30% to over 600 and now equates to 30% of the top 100 UK value-added-resellers (VARs) of IT services and significantly 80% of the top ten. Through their partner acquisition trail Comms-care now provides IT support services on behalf of their channel partners to a wide range of private and public sector customers.

During the year, Comms-care also added AMP Networking, the Kent-based telecommunications and networking specialist, to its list of channel partners through a long-term partnership providing IT support services to the ExCel London, the premier events venue. As part of this partnership Comms-care will provide hardware and software support for the Cisco LAN infrastructure at ExCel London centre for the next five years.

The company's relationships with existing channel partners have also strengthened with many increasing the number and variety of services outsourced to Comms-care driving a significant improvement in gross margins. This has resulted in significant growth of their Tier 1 channel partners and in turn one of the main reasons why they are experiencing such dramatic growth.

Comms-care Chairman, Peter Lloyd stated: "Comms-care has earned a strong reputation in the IT channel market that is built on trust, service excellence, value, and long-term partnerships.

"We are very aware that reputation is everything in a service based organisation. It is for this reason we have invested heavily in building an infrastructure that enables the business to accelerate that growth whilst retaining our integrity as the UK's leading channel IT strategic services partner."

Aastra's MX-ONE enterprise communication platform has received a ‘Very Strong' rating from Current Analysis, a provider of market analysis and objective guidance for the global telecom and IT industries.

This independent report highlights the Aastra MX-ONE communications server as being ‘very strong in the market for mid-large scale enterprise communications platforms' and ‘highly scalable'. The report singles out its ability to ‘allow customers to deploy IP telephony with less server hardware'.

Commenting on the report, Pierre-Alexandre Fuhrmann, VP Global Technology & Development of Aastra said: "We are delighted to receive such high praise for the Aastra MX-ONE. This independent feedback is consistent with previous high ratings by Current Analysis for the product. To have such a widely respected research organization such as Current Analysis endorse the product so highly makes us all very proud."

Alan Reeve, Managing Director, Aastra UK added "Research from analysts is important to our partners because it provides additional strength for their sales and marketing messaging to customers. In a crowded landscape for our partners the feedback from Current Analysis is a valuable tool."

Aastra has also introduced a new licencing model - instead of one licence per device for items such as video and desk phones, customers can purchase one licence that supports four end points, reducing costs and increasing flexibility.

To meet evolving end user needs the MX-ONE platform can be customized and complemented by Aastra's portfolio of UC solutions, ranging from Solidus eCare multimedia contact center and Aastra OneBox messaging to the Aastra Mobile Client, collaboration technologies and the Aastra BluStar video ecosystem. Further flexibility comes from enabling interoperability with leading hardware and middleware vendors such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell and VMware.

Red Box Recorders has appointed a senior finance professional to join the company's main board. It follows the company's management buyout earlier this year which was undertaken to support the continuing expansion of its global operations.

John Corker joins the team as Chief Financial Officer with a remit to take responsibility for all financial aspects of company strategy, working alongside the rest of the main Board, under the leadership of CEO Lee Jones. He will play a key role in the continuing development of the business which has achieved annual growth of more than 20 per cent for the past five years.

Corker has previously held a number of key senior FD and CFO positions in niche technology businesses and also provided consultancy to a range of companies from start-ups to fast growing PE backed businesses. From 2006 - 2011 he held the position of CFO for Omnibus Systems Limited, a leader in the global market for television and radio broadcasting systems and was part of the team that successfully completed its sale to Miranda Technologies Inc in September 2010.

Lee Jones, CEO at Red Box Recorders said: "As our business continues to grow it is vital that we have the right specialist skills within the team. John's expertise and experience in the finance arena is extremely strong and I have no doubt his appointment will benefit both Red Box and its clients."

Outsourcery is working with Dell to design and deploy the compute, storage and networking infrastructure for its IL3 offering for the UK's central government.

As a supplier of technology and services to the UK's public sector, Dell is well positioned as a strategic go-to-market partner for this solutions-led offering, said the firm.

This follows Outsourcery's recent announcement about its agreement with Microsoft to lead its UK initiative to accelerate the offering of IL3 compliant cloud services for the UK public sector and especially central government.

Outsourcery and Dell are working together to design and deploy a highly scalable and modular platform capable of supporting the next generation of Microsoft technologies on which the IL3 compliant platform will be based.

With Dell's position as a significant supplier to the UK government, it also offers a route to market for Outsourcery's IL3 compliant services. Dell has also worked closely with Microsoft on its next generation platform technology to reduce the complexity and costs of implementing cloud solutions.

The public sector opportunity is significant for Outsourcery and its partners as the government transitions to cloud-based services. During October 2013, a range of Outsourcery's services were accepted onto the latest G4 (G-Cloud) framework. The G-Cloud is the government procurement framework and is delivered as a web catalogue of approved cloud services.

Piers Linney, Outsourcery's Co-CEO, said: "Outsourcery is partnering with Dell as well as Microsoft to deploy and monetise an IL3 compliant platform providing a wide range of services to the UK government and sensitive commercial sector organisations. Dell is also well placed to provide cloud-based services to the government in line with the government's cloud first ICT procurement strategy.

"Dell has worked closely with Microsoft to ensure that the hardware and networking technology underlying the platform which will be based on next generation Microsoft software is highly efficient and scalable."

TalkTalk Group has released its second quarter FY2013/14 financial results, revealing growing demand for its data and carrier services evidenced by a 1.3% y-o-y growth in H1 in corporate revenues, with acceleration in Q2 (+2.5%).

The operator installed 3,432 Ethernet and EFM lines during the half, bringing its total installed base at the end of the half to over 13,600 lines.

In addition, TalkTalk Business has announced an expansion of its network infrastructure and increased the number of Ethernet-enabled exchanges by 35% from 2,199 to 2,980, providing business-grade Ethernet and EFM connectivity to SMEs, larger enterprises and partners.

Charles Bligh, Managing Director of TalkTalk Business, said: "In what is still a challenging and shifting climate for British businesses, great value, scalability and flexibility remain fundamental for growth."

Networking manufacturer DrayTek has launched the Vigor 2860 series DSL router/firewall.

The new Vigor 2860 series is compatible with all mainstream broadband line types including ADSL, ADSL2+, VDSL (BT Infinity), cable modems and 3G/4G modems.

The series also supports simultaneous dual-band wireless standards allowing modern laptops, phones and tablets to make use of the less-congested 5Ghz band, whilst still providing 2.4Ghz access to other devices at the same time.

All of the WAN (Internet) connectivity can be used simultaneously to increase your overall bandwidth (load balancing) or set to backup (failover) mode so that a secondary Internet connection methods kick-in when a primary one fails (for example VDSL to 4G).

The Vigor 2860 series offers professional level features such as VLANs, wireless guest access, and QoS (Quality of Service priority assurance).