Comms Dealer

Canadian-based tech firm Phybridge, which specialises in IP telephony and UC, has embarked on an expansion campaign across EMEA and the man at the centre of its cross Atlantic push is the newly appointed Senior VP for EMEA and former Aastra channel supremo Viv Singh.

"Phybridge switch innovation delivers Ethernet and Power over Ethernet over a single pair of wire with four times the reach of traditional switches," he said.

"They are designed specifically to allow businesses to leverage their existing voice infrastructure and transform it into an IP path with power ideal for IP telephony."

According to Singh the Phybridge switch innovation eliminates many of the local area network barriers and costs associated with IP Telephony migration.

"Quality of service, voice continuity, elimination of risk and disruption, a highly secure network and a lower total cost of ownership are some of the benefits being realised by the 1,000 plus customers using the Phybridge switch offering," he stated.

"Phybridge technology has successfully been deployed throughout Europe including embassies around the world for one of Europe's largest governments.

"The launch of the PoLRE (Power over Long Reach Ethernet) family of switches combined with the increasing interest and demand from EMEA customers and partners warrants a local presence."

John Croce, CEO of Phybridge, sees the European market as a 'tremendous' opportunity for growth.

"Viv will be responsible for managing our EMEA Team, bringing new initiatives, recruiting and training new resellers, elevating existing partners to higher levels of accreditation and growing our overall EMEA business," he said.

Singh added: "To expand our EMEA growth over the next four months our key objective and focus remains on recruiting four to six strategically placed distribution partners plus establish partnership with five global partners.

"We are able to provide a number of case studies where we have helped our Business Partners to secure significant number of deals using our solution."

One deal of importance cited by Singh involved the deployment of a Phybridge solution that saved a customer wanting 1,400 endpoints more than $1.5m.

"We are confident that by working together with our new and existing business partners in EMEA we will secure these type of projects.

"And now with the launch of the 8 Port Polre switch we can scale right down to two IP extensions on a hosted IP platform."

The economic uplift is prompting greater demand for cloud-based communications, and according to The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the outlook is brightening with an upgraded forecast for UK growth this year for 1.5%, up from 0.8%, indicating that the recovery is gaining momentum.

Cloud computing specialist Qubic is upbeat about these positive predictions and its MD Chris Papa reckons the 'booming' information economy is helping to kick-start the UK's recovery with the pay-as-you-go hosted model gaining in appeal.

"Increasing demand for Qubic's services reflects the positive economic outlook as companies attempt to capitalise on the latest IT advances without large capital expenditure projects," he said.

"A hosted solution can help encourage start-ups and SMEs in general to grow as it means that businesses can use technology on a pay-as-you-use basis rather than tying up cash in a costly server with a telephone system.

"Hosted technology can help by streamlining these companies' operations and making them more efficient, in particular those who have limited resources in terms of staff and capital.

"Using hosted technology to create efficiencies can actually save costs and allow companies to operate far more effectively."

Confidence is increasing in the UK and IT service providers are playing a vital role in helping companies to expand quickly and become more agile, claims Papa.

"As well as minimising the ongoing costs associated with managing and installing IT systems in-house, the infrastructure provided by Qubic allows rapid expansion with IT resources allocated and available, often in a matter of minutes," he added.

Research among 17,000 IT managers global research and consulting company, Eastern Management Group (EMG) states that sales of SIP phones, both corded and wireless, are growing steadily for several reasons, among them the growing popularity of hosted PBX and PBXs built on open source technologies.

The research identifies that although most hosted PBX sales are to small to medium size businesses and account for less than 10% of all PBX endpoint sales, the market is experiencing significant growth.

"We know this from our own dealings of companies that are in the SME bracket, they are increasingly switched onto the features and benefits of hosted telephony," said James Passingham, CEO of independent managed communications provider, Foehn.

EMG points out that today's target customer for a hosted PBX is typically a multi-location small or medium business (under 10 branches) and the initial hosted PBX sale is 1-3 locations and 10-25 SIP phones.

"In the UK, SMEs represent a sizeable proportion of the overall business market and the rise of hosted PBX is presenting significant marketing opportunities, certainly evidenced by the number of suppliers in this vibrant sector," added Passingham.

The report also highlights the fact that many new PBXs are built on open source software frameworks, such as Asterisk from Digium. With open source continuing to mushroom in popularity among businesses and organisations in the public and non-for-profit sectors, the open source PBX represents a massive market and is driving the adoption of SIP phones.

EMG identifies that approximately 10% of all new PBX systems qualify as open source, a trend that is benefiting the low end of the market, with 75% of open source endpoints being on PBXs with fewer than 50 end users. Open source PBX appliances also have an average of 54 phone extensions.

"EMG concludes that it is 'bullish' about the market for SIP phones, although does factor in potential dampeners such as the world economy and unemployment," noted Passingham.

"From our own experience of marketing and selling both hosted and open source solutions, SIP has come of age, partly because Internet access is faster and at the heart of communication in most businesses, but also because hosted and open source PBXs are driving take-up, as borne out by EMG's research."

Five years have passed since the banking crash and this September is a whole lot more upbeat than its recent predecessors. There hasn't been any major dirt pulled out from under the financial sector's carpet, unemployment continues to fall, driven down by a strengthening economy in the south east, and GDP growth figures are above expectations, writes Clive Jefferys, JMA Network.

However, people in work are loath to contemplate moving employer, not just yet anyway. A friend in Ireland has taken to recruiting people from Spain and Greece to fulfil tech roles in Dublin. Apparently local people just slam the phone down if you suggest discussing their career choices. A crazy world indeed if you can't even offer to improve someone's lot in life without them taking umbrage!

Well I'm glad to say that UK recruitment is not that tough. We are hitting our targets, and our bank manager is happy. He invited himself round the other afternoon and hung about so long talking to our staff I had to throw him out eventually, with a smile of course. He's been a good friend so I don't begrudge his pop-in meeting for his stats, and the extensive range of pension and life assurance information that magically appeared on our desks.

I've been on the road too, visiting clients across the UK. Last week my roadshow headed north and one major employer gave me the whole afternoon. I think I met practically everyone, brought into sales meetings, and greeted by the people we had placed there over the last two years. I even met the big boss himself. I was flattered and proud that we had made such a positive impact on this major corporate.

Elsewhere companies have invited us in and talked enthusiastically about the future, their staffing plans and even offered higher rates to get to the front of the queue for staff. A widespread feeling of confidence is returning to businesses within JMA's world. Of course visiting clients is a little like fishing for compliments, but in today's brave new world... they are only given if well deserved.

So the rub...my personal positivity survey has returned good results. If you are a telecoms job seeker reading this, it's now your turn to step forward and be counted too. There are some great new jobs out there if you ask for them.

IBM is buying Daeja Image Systems, based in the UK, a software specialist with tools to view large documents and images. Daeja is a privately held software company with headquarters in Milton Keynes. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Daeja delivers software that helps line of business employees across all industries, especially data intensive ones such as banking, insurance and healthcare, get faster access to critical business information. 

The interactive features of Daeja software complement IBM's ability to mask and annotate documents and images to anonymize or protect sensitive data. A financial analyst, for instance, can distribute a spreadsheet for review by senior management. Reviewers can view the file and add comments as annotations before sending it back for further analysis. Meanwhile, Daeja software provides control over who can see and modify the document, providing security and privacy thoughout the process.

"As a longtime business partner, Daeja has integrated its solutions with IBM solutions for more than a decade," said Stu Moss, CEO at Daeja. "With our combined strengths, we can help clients manage their data challenges and directly enhance IBM's key market initiatives for big data, mobile, and content management."

Oracle expects FQ2 revenue growth of -1% to +2% yr/yr, which is lower than expected. Software licence/cloud subscription revenue growth is expected to be in a range of -6% to +4% yr/yr, and hardware product growth in a range of -11% to -1%. Those ranges compare with FQ1 growth of +4% and -14%, respectively. EMEA declined 5% in Q1 as the Americas rose sharply.

CFO Safra Catz claims Oracle is optimistic about deal opportunities and the impact of new products, but adds sales leaders are being 'very careful' about their forecasts in light of macro/business conditions. Oracle has already posted disappointing licence growth more than once this year. That, in turn, has stoked fears of share losses to cloud software firms.

Better times may be ahead in Europe where Oracle has increased its headcount. Mark Hurd, President and Director says: "We were quicker to hire in Europe, which is what really has helped us in Europe. While Europe was not fantastic for us in Q1, over the past several quarters we've gained a lot of share in Europe, and one of the reasons for that has been the fact that they've simply been in more deals."

Leeds-based IT reseller LDD Group has secured a multi-million pound printer contract with universities and NHS Trusts across the UK.

LDD has partnered with Samsung via the National Education Printer Agreement (NEPA), an exclusive membership for public sector organisations which offers a quality printer service at a discounted rate from approved suppliers.

Samsung approached LDD to provide a bespoke service which would focus on the individual needs of around 150 customer accounts.

Matt Hopkinson, Account Manager at LDD Group, said: "This is a fantastic opportunity for us to expand our market share in the public sector. The contract with the National Education Printer Association spans universities, colleges, NHS Trusts and small councils throughout the UK. Samsung approached us because of our customer-focused reputation and we look forward to exceeding their expectations."

Enterprise session border controllers (SBCs) are the next generation of border elements and will eventually replace VoIP gateways, spurring gateway, router, and PBX vendors to integrate SBC functionality, according to research

Infonetics forecasts the global enterprise SBC market to grow at a 17% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between 2012 and 2017. Market research firm Infonetics Research has released excerpts from its 2nd quarter 2013 (2Q13) Enterprise Session Border Controllers report, which tracks enterprise session border controller (eSBC) vendor revenue and session shipments.

"Cisco's been able to capitalize on its market-leading position in IP PBXs, gateways, and routers in selling its enterprise SBCs. In the second quarter of 2013, Cisco led the eSBC market with 27% of worldwide revenue, putting some daylight between itself and the competition," noted Diane Myers, principal analyst for VoIP, UC and IMS at Infonetics Research.

The enterprise SBC market is severely tilted toward North America, though by 2017 its share is expected to decline as other regions increase adoption of SIP trunking, unified communications and IP call centres.

Businesses of all sizes are using SBCs to enable SIP trunking, interconnect disparate systems, and build deeper levels of security into their voice networks.

Computacenter's Barcelona-to-Hatfield cycle team are gearing up for tomorrow's start of the six-country trek to raise £20,000 for charity.

Setting off from the firm's Barcelona office the 1,200 mile journey to its Hatfield HQ will take the riders through Andorra, France, Belgium and Holland before finally arriving in the UK.

"We wish our team the very best of luck in their adventure," says Neil Muller, UK MD Computacenter. "At Computacenter, we pride ourselves on not only delivering the best value to our customers,but also giving something back to the community. Each year, our Charity Council nominates three charities which we support throughout the year and this cycle ride is one of the mainstays of our activity for 2013."

The three charities being supported are Alzheimer's Society, Prostate Cancer UK and Teenage Cancer Trust.

Managed services provider Olive Communications has acquired one of one of its key competitors, Wish Holdings, the parent company of Wish Communications for an undisclosed sum.

Olive is one of a handful of strategic Vodafone Platinum Partners, managing in excess of 65,000 subscribers across 2,500 customers.

In acquiring fellow Vodafone Platinum Partner Wish, the Olive subscriber base grows to over 110,000 with 6,000 customers. Olive is now one of the largest independent providers of managed business communication services in the UK, employing around 150 staff with an estimated combined annual turnover in excess of £25m.

Two of the Wish shareholding directors join the Olive management team. Mike Hallam, (previously MD of Wish) joins the Olive Group as Chief Operating Officer, reporting to Olive Chief Executive Martin Flick. Simon Pickering, Wish Operations Director becomes Group Professional Services Director. Both become shareholders in the enlarged business.

Martin Flick, CEO of the Group, said: "This, our ninth acquisition in two years, plays a significant role in our growth strategy. This powerful alignment of Vodafone Platinum Partners delivers benefits beyond the sum of its parts. The united team brings together leaders in their respective fields.

"By combining the two businesses we create huge benefit for our customers, suppliers and staff. Our Group now has an even broader range of services to offer including Mobility Solutions, IPVPN and Hosted Voice, PBX Maintenance, WAN and Cloud based services, all of which can be delivered as integrated solutions and managed in house by our expert teams."

Olive Chairman Mark Geraghty added: "Olive is now better placed to tick all the boxes for business users working for UK based organisations that need remote and flexible working conditions for their staff, which are provided by our collaboration tools and expertise in mobile working."

Mike Hallam, Chief Operating Officer of Olive Group added: "This is an exciting opportunity for our team. Having built our business steadily since 2006 we feel proud of what we have achieved. The skills we have developed have proven to be highly valuable and much sought after. Olive has a very exciting portfolio, fantastic corporate customers and a highly experienced management team, which Simon and I are delighted to join. The career opportunities and increased development potential for staff is enormous, and the business plan for the future is very compelling."

Rob Mukherjee, Head of Vodafone Partner Services added: " This is an exciting acquisition within the Vodafone Platinum partner community. As we continue to strengthen our position in the total communications market our hope is that partners develop their own capability in line with our plans and in making this acquisition Olive are demonstrating their commitment to our long term strategy."