Comms Dealer

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).

Incom's Corporate Sales Director Grant Counsell has completed his final Nova Great Run of the year and smashed his fundraising target for Cancer Research UK by a whopping 71% so far.

Back in early 2013, Grant set out on a physical quest to take part in eight Great Runs, from 10K to half-marathons, covering 98 kilometres across the UK. His aim was to raise vital funds to support the work of Cancer Research UK.

Grant was inspired to act after three members of his close family were diagnosed with cancer in the last few years; his father with prostate cancer, his nephew with brain cancer and his sister-in-law, who tragically passed away in April following her brave battle with both breast and liver cancer.

Grant also won Vodafone's Fittest Fundraiser 2013 competition, which saw the mobile phone company supply on-going training advice, cover the costs of his travel, accommodation and race fees and even provide a running buddy - in the form of their Social Media expert Dan Bowsher.

Grant said: "To raise £3,438 to date (rising to £5,000 once all pledges are collected) is more than I could have imagined at the start of my journey. I have received overwhelming support from my friends, family, colleagues, business associates and Vodafone throughout the biggest physical and mental challenge of my life.

"It's great to know that the money I have raised will be used to help fund research into new treatments or even potential cures, in the hope that other people affected by cancer don't have to experience the loss that my family has."

Nimans has teamed-up with Panasonic's Selected Gold Partner, Poltys to offer resellers access to a suite of call management, reporting and recording solutions, specifically designed for Panasonic systems.

Poltys provides bolt-on solutions that boost the performance of Panasonic systems. To date its product has been sold with Panasonic systems in North America and Asia/Pacific regions, and as a custom solution for Panasonic has gained a strong reputation in these regions.

Panasonic and Poltys are the main suppliers to the healthcare market in Canada.

"This new partnership further strengthens the power of Panasonic systems and gives resellers the opportunity to clinch greater levels of business by winning new customers looking for complete solutions," says Paul Burn, Head of Category Sales at Nimans.

"Poltys is a global player in the reporting and call management arena and we are looking forward to providing our Panasonic customers with more compelling ways to capture revenue opportunities and accelerate their PBX sales.

"Poltys solutions are designed to dovetail and integrate into the Panasonic system family with high end recording and reporting features, from dial out conference services to speech recognition auto attendant and appointment reminders - helping businesses perform smarter and more effectively across a range of vertical markets."

The team of industry veterans who played a large part in the success of Yes telecom have pooled their expertise to create a new company which was officially launched this month.

Zest4 boasts a number of familiar faces from the YES Telecom formula including Freddie Fazelynia CEO, Kevan Wakerley Finance Director, Mandy Fazelynia Operations Director, Rob Foster and Jon Reynolds in Channel sales and Nicola Bryan Head of Billing along with a number of additional industry experts.

Zest4 was awarded an O2 JUC (Joined Up Communications) partner licence at the end of July 2013 and an MVNO licence from Gamma entering the market with a JUC offering for the channel including Mobile, Fixed line, Data and Hosted telephony solutions for both traditional business partners and reseller partners.

"O2 are delighted to welcome Zest4 as a key strategic wholesale JUC partner. The team at Zest4 have an impressive track history in delivering world class service to partners and customers and we look forward to working with them,"
said Bernie Mcphillips - O2 Head of Wholesale Partners and Data Centre of Excellence.

Commission packages have been designed to allow partners and resellers to select their mode of operation on a per deal basis, thereby allowing partners greater control on their cash flow and the ability to transition over time to revenue share options.

Zest4 recently purchased the mobile base of Outsourcery, adding 1800 O2 customers to the base and are currently working with over 50 channel partners.

Jabra has named the former Azlan UK head Nigel Dunn as its new Managing Director UK & Ireland.

Dunn will commence his new role in December and will be based at Jabra UK and Ireland head office in Surrey, the company says. Also, in his new role he will replace Andrew Doyle who was recently promoted to a position of Senior Director, Channel Management EMEA.

Prior to Azlan UK, Dunn worked at Tech Data Europe in the consulting area. He also set up the European subsidiary of Enterprise Collaboration vendor PlaceWare and was UK Managing Director and VP Sales North EMEA at Genesys Conferencing.

"We are delighted to welcome Nigel to the Jabra UK & Ireland team. With Nigel in place as the new Managing Director for this sub-region I am confident that we have found a very dedicated and truly experienced business and people leader, who will further enhance the expertise and focus of the UK & Ireland team, in order to continue our business growth in 2014," says Joel Hamon, Jabra EMEA President.

Ericsson's Mobility Report reveals that mobile subscriptions are expected to reach 9.3 billion by 2019, and more than 60% of these - 5.6 billion - will be for smartphones. To support the smartphone user experience, WCDMA/HSPA networks are predicted to cover 90% of the world's population by 2019. Moreover, almost two-thirds (65%) of the world's population will be covered by 4G/LTE networks.

Currently, smartphones represent 25%-30% of all mobile phone subscriptions, yet they account for the majority (55%) of mobile phones sold in Q3.

Douglas Gilstrap, Senior Vice President and Head of Strategy at Ericsson, says: "The rapid pace of smartphone uptake has been phenomenal and is set to continue. It took more than five years to reach the first billion smartphone subscriptions, but it will take less than two to hit the 2 billion mark. Between now and 2019, smartphone subscriptions will triple.

"Interestingly, this trend will be driven by uptake in China and other emerging markets as lower-priced smartphone models become available."

Smartphone traffic will grow by 10 times between 2013 and 2019, reaching 10 exabytes. Video is growing 55 percent annually, and will represent more than 50% of the mobile data traffic, while social networking and web services will account for around 10 percent each in 2019.

This edition of Ericsson Mobility Report includes further analysis of app coverage - a new approach to evaluating network performance and user experience - with particular focus on indoor and city environments. Radio signals attenuate rapidly as they go through buildings and the high concentration of users, building material and height all pose additional challenges. Having good mobile coverage is an important aspect of life for many; it is now ranked among the top five satisfaction factors of life in a city. As the majority of mobile traffic originates from cities, Ericsson compares three different strategies to provide indoor coverage using simulation software to predict the extent of app coverage in high-rise buildings in this issue.

To accompany the Mobility Report, Ericsson has created the Traffic Exploration Tool, for creating customized graphs and tables using data from the report. The information can be filtered by region, subscription, technology, traffic and device type.