Comms Dealer

Nimans has boosted its range of nuisance call blocking phones from BT with three new arrivals.

The BT6500 is one of Nimans' best sellers and has now been joined by the BT7600 Nuisance Call Blocker, the BT4000 Big Button and the BT4500 Big Button devices.

All will allow customers to block up to 80 per cent of unwanted calls by allowing them to block calls from unknown caller ID and international, withheld and specific numbers.

The BT4000 and BT4500 Big Button phones have distinct features that make them easy to use for any customer, including large buttons, a sound boost feature, hearing aid compatibility, easy to read screen and slow playback of messages.

Nuisance calls are a growing concern in the UK. Latest research from Ofcom shows that consumers received on average two nuisance calls per week.

With the BT7600 Nuisance Call Blocker friends and family can still get through, even when Do Not Disturb is switched on, by saving them as VIP contacts within the phone memory.

Andy Winfield, Nimans' Purchasing Director, says the latest models are a further boost in the battle to minimise nuisance calling. "The original BT6500 is still literally flying out the door with thousands sold from us each month. We expect demand to be equally as strong for the new additions which are another potent weapon in a reseller's sales armoury."

Headset specialist Sennheiser Communications has appointed Michael Waterworth as Distribution Sales Manager. In his new role Michael will work closely with Sennheiser UK's distribution partners to educate the channel on the benefits and margin opportunities of Sennheiser headsets.

Waterworth was previously Corporate Sales Manager for Sennheiser in the north of the UK. He has considerable expertise in managing channel relationships in the telecoms sector and in his new role will report to Steve Bailey, Business Area Manager, for Sennheiser UK Telecoms.

Sennheiser has a channel-only model through its distribution partners Nimans, Corptel UK, Go2, Westcoast and Triade. Sennheiser can offer the channel traditional telephony headsets as well as UC optimised headsets for both wireless and wired applications.

Bailey said: "Moving Michael to head distribution sales utilises the talents of an experienced member of the Sennheiser team to support our distributors. The channel strategy we follow provides our Sennheiser resellers with the best of both worlds - direct support from Sennheiser when required, complemented by efficient distribution and additional services from our distribution partners. Michael's experience will ensure effective relationships with our distribution partners."

Leading business communications provider, Chess Telecom, has become the latest partner to launch live services based on Content Guru's NGware platform, with the launch of its new offering, Chess Cloud.

Award-winning communications provider and established channel presence, Chess Telecom, has made a decisive move with its first cloud-based voice proposition for the UK SME and channel market. Building on the proven technology foundation of Content Guru's NGware platform, Chess Cloud is set to occupy a prominent position in the Chess Telecom product portfolio, complementing the business's existing on-premise and line rental offerings with a wide range of PBX functionality from the cloud.

Central to the Chess Cloud offering is Chess PBX, a suite of features designed to deliver customers the equivalent functionality of an enterprise-grade PBX in the cloud. Standard PBX replacement features of the Chess Cloud proposition include a variety of intelligent routing options and customisable IVR, in addition to one-click disaster recovery for seamless business continuity. Chess PBX users will also have the option to personalise their solutions with a range of value-added products, from cloud-based call recording and storage, to contact centre functionality complete with ACD and skills-based routing.

The decision to position Chess Cloud as a PBX proposition alongside the organisation's existing on-premise offerings was a deliberate one, explains Chess CEO, Dave Pollock, as the business seeks to diversify from its traditional CPE portfolio.

"The PBX market has seen radical change in recent years and channel resellers are having to take a long hard look at the way they do business," Pollock observes. "Though on-premise PBX continues to provide a large volume of our sales, every year we are seeing an increasing number of enquiries about the availability of cloud alternatives. It has become clear to us that the trajectory of the current market is trended towards the software-as-a-service model and for businesses such as ours seeking to pursue an ambitious growth strategy, it is absolutely essential to have a rock solid cloud offering with all the latest features."

In order to take full advantage of the cloud opportunity, Chess Telecom needed to design a unique set of services that would complement its existing product portfolio. These services also needed to be appropriate for Chess's broad and varied existing customer base, ranging from medium-sized enterprises of several hundred seats down to SoHo customers with a single user.

It was this set of circumstances, Pollock continues, that led to Chess Telecom's engagement with Content Guru to base their new range of cloud communications services on the NGware cloud platform:

"One of the most attractive features of NGware, and a major influence in our decision to adopt the platform, was its flexibility. NGware's highly customisable administrator interface gives us the freedom to choose how we manage services for customers, enabling us to adopt the system that best suits each individual business. For our SoHo clients, we are able to take away pain by managing everything end-to-end on their behalf, whilst with larger customers we can enable autonomous responsibility for their internal IT teams. This actually gives them more control than they would have had with an on-premise PBX, and at a much lower internal cost because the interfaces are so easy to use."

In addition to selling Chess Cloud directly to customers as a retail offering, Chess has announced plans to roll out a wholesale version of the product across its extensive network of channel partners. Having soft-launched earlier this summer via a series of events hosted at its Cheshire headquarters in Alderley Edge, the Chess Cloud wholesale proposition has already been adopted by more than 20 reseller partners.

This initial success is expected to gather momentum as Chess continues to promote the new proposition across its distribution chain. The business is currently running a series of workshops and webinars to showcase the Chess Cloud propostion, and is encouraging interested resellers to book their place now.

The expertise, channel connections and national presence that this reseller network brings to the table, recognises John Rees (pictured above), Content Guru Commercial Director, are invaluable assets, not only for Chess, but for the NGware platform as a whole.

"We are delighted to be working with a partner of Chess Telecom's calibre and standing," said Rees of the partnership. "When we set out to create our wholesale proposition for the channel, we wanted to build a delivery model that would enable our partners to take our technology and break into markets that we have never been able to address before."

"Chess Telecom's connections and its intimate knowledge of the reseller market make this a dream partnership for us. We look forward to supporting Chess in what we hope will be a long and fruitful partnership, as the Chess Cloud proposition takes NGware into exciting new territory."

Exponential-e has launched an online resource centre offering partners sales, marketing and training tools designed to help them sell the firm's IT services more effectively.

The partner portal also offers self-service access to the latest news, tools, product and service information and resources as well as a means to communicate directly with the team at Exponential-e.

Dave Joplin, Head of Indirect, Exponential-e, said: "Driving growth among our partner base is a top priority and as our service portfolio continues to expand it is important we equip our partners with the tools they need to take advantage of new up-sale and recurring revenue opportunities available. We wanted to make it as easy as possible for partners to do business with us."

Whitepapers, tech reports, video demos and case studies will be updated regularly to offer insight into how network, voice and cloud solutions are developing and being used.

Exponential-e, Channel Marketing Manager, Lindsey Fish added: "The portal will serve as an extension of and will complement Exponential-e's channel marketing, sales and pre-sales teams."

Vcomm has formed a resale partnership with call recording software provider OrecX, enabling the distributor to offer hosted telephony service providers and VARs a fully featured call recording solution.

The agreement includes a full suite of white labelled professional services, and allows VCOMM to offer resellers technical design consultancy, field engineering and technical support.

The solution includes SIPREC standard support, Port Mirroring support, full and selective call recording, live monitoring, multi- hierarchy, PCI compliance and on demand recording. And offers a 'disruptive price level with all engineering required to deploy and support the platform included, claims the firm.

The solutions can be supplied on a per user per month basis and they scale from 100-350 sessions on a single server with clustering to meet higher capacity or resilience requirements, and also offers on-board and network based storage solutions.

The enterprise integration of these solutions provides multi-user hierarchies and configurable user permissions and privileges. PBX integration is included via Port Mirroring or SIPREC and SIP, H.323, SCCP, MGCP and UNIStim Support come as standard.

Managing Director of VCOMM, Steve Harris, said: "There is a clear requirement in the market for this type of solution based on the feedback of our service provider and reseller customers."

Virtual1 has joined the government's apprentice scheme, designed to help young people build their knowledge and experience in the workplace while simultaneously studying for formal qualifications.

The company has already appointed its first apprentice, Myles Wilson, who has joined on the business path.

Virtual1's Managing Director Tom O'Hagan commented: "This apprentice scheme offers young people a great way to learn about all aspects of business, to gain wide experience and to build those skills for which employers are looking."

Wilson, who is also studying for his NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration, said: "This apprenticeship gives me the opportunity to learn vital skills that I can use as my career develops. I have learnt so much already and am looking forward to finding out what the rest of my apprenticeship holds."

O'Hagan added: "We're proud to be part of this scheme, and delighted with the impact that Myles has made already throughout the business - and we would certainly encourage other businesses looking at this scheme to get involved."

Total has bolstered its mobile Focus Partner Channel with the appointment of Ben Foulds as Partner Manager. His remit is to build on existing partner relationships and support new partners entering the mobile market.

Foulds boasts 15 years experience in communications and IT and has in-depth knowledge of the cloud and hosted IT industry.

"In my previous life I was responsible for developing key Strategic Accounts, working closely with them to understand their objectives." explained Foulds.

"Working with Total's small group of pre-qualified partners, with size and stature varying hugely, my initial objective is to maximise the potential of each existing partner.

"With an emphasis on quality rather than quantity, I will also be introducing a select number of new Partners to the Total Focus Partner Channel."

Stuart Baikie, Managing Director, added: "Since 2010, Total has seen significant investment and continuous development in the Focus Partner Channel, with existing partners already having secured additional revenue by delivering nearly 18,000 connections.

"It is vital that we work closely with our partners to maintain excellent customer service and retention. By bringing Ben on board to join the existing partner Team, Total is now positioned to take this to the next level."

Global growth in WLAN is set to slow after the push to 802.11n, reckons market research firm Infonetics Research in its Q213 Wireless LAN Equipment and WiFi Phones report.

"The major event in the wireless LAN space this quarter was initial shipments of enterprise class 802.11ac access points, marking the beginning of another technology transition," noted Matthias Machowinski, directing analyst for enterprise networks and video at Infonetics Research.

"But the impact of 802.11ac will be minor in 2013, and with the transition to 802.11n almost complete, growth rates have been cut in half in 2013," Machowinski adds. "Global wireless LAN equipment revenue grew 14% year-over-year in the 2nd quarter of 2013, versus growing almost 30% year-over-year in the 2nd quarter of 2012. Still, WLAN remains the fastest growing network equipment segment."

Globally, the enterprise wireless LAN equipment market recovered from a seasonally slow 1st quarter, growing 12% to $1.12bn in 2Q13. Interactive access point revenue is up 21% in 2Q13 from the year-ago 2nd quarter (2Q12), reflecting the shift toward centrally-managed WLAN

Following years of languishing, outdoor access point shipments are back on a strong growth trajectory, up 22% year-over-year in 2Q13, propelled by service provider WiFi deployments, it says.

After showing resilience against negative macroeconomic trends in 2012, growth in EMEA is slowing in 2013, but the perennial leaders in the WLAN space - Cisco and Aruba - both turned in solid performances in 2Q13, gaining revenue share, it says.

Machine-to-machine (M2M) is often portrayed as a nascent industry sector. However, operators are already generating strong revenue in this area, amounting to $10bn worldwide in 2013, and increasing to $88bn by 2023 according to Analysys Mason's recent report. Future growth opportunities will be realised in emerging regions as applications are tailored to local markets and the cost of solutions declines.

Excluding connections in the utilities sector, the proportion of SME M2M connections will increase from 14.6% of total connections in 2013 to 24.6% in 2023, representing a CAGR of 33%. The utilities sector is dominated by large enterprise purchasers of M2M solutions and a large number of low revenue connections.

M2M solutions are currently less affordable to SMEs than to large enterprises and the public sector. However, affordability will improve for SMEs as M2M solutions become less expensive to implement at the application layer, and operators and service providers start offering off-the-shelf solutions.

The cost of M2M hardware will also fall. Operators have already been successful in selling productised M2M solutions such as fleet management to SME customers. It believes operators will find success in selling security and surveillance, some healthcare solutions and some retail sector M2M solutions to SME buyers.

Another insight of the forecast is that the number of M2M device connections will start to increase in emerging markets by 2015. Developed markets' share of connections will decline from 68% to 62% during the forecast period as operators in emerging markets seek additional customer connections and the cost of deploying M2M solutions declines.

According to the report, operators that have assembled the appropriate teams and resources will be poised for greater success as the market begins to grow. As operators in developed markets have learned, it takes 18 months or more to organise the various aspects of an M2M business.

Emerging market operators are currently focusing on the burgeoning growth in the number of mobile handsets - running an M2M business carries a higher risk than a traditional mobile handset and broadband business. However, it expects that M2M solutions in the utilities, automotive and security sectors will have more-easily understood business models by 2016, and operators will be more willing to sell these M2M solutions.

Utilities is the fastest-growing M2M sector. It will account for 67% of overall M2M device connections worldwide by 2023. The automotive and transport sector accounts for 28% of total M2M connectivity revenue in 2013. This share will decline slightly to 24% in 2023, as the utilities sector takes a larger share. Increasing adoption of consumer connected car solutions makes this sector resilient.

Channel Telecom is offering resellers and dealers up to £3,000 towards customer installation costs for Ethernet connections in four UK cities - Cardiff, Belfast, Edinburgh and Manchester.

The scheme, due to end on 30 September, is open to existing Channel Telecom partners and encourages new partners to join. The offer applies to SME customers with less than 250 employees and turnover less than £40m, and must require a circuit which is 30Mbps or faster.

A second phase, dependent on the success of the current scheme will determine a future rollout to additional UK cities including Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bradford, Brighton and Hove, Bristol, Cambridge, Coventry, Derby, Londonderry, Leeds, London, Newcastle, Newport, Oxford, Perth, Portsmouth, York.

Clifford Norton, Managing Director, said: "We want to incentivise our channel partners to promote high speed Ethernet to their customers and we want to gain new partners in major metropolitan areas around the country.

"The new high speed Ethernet installation offer will help our partners to win new accounts and bring us new resellers and dealers.

"We know from experience that when one of our partners installs a customer high-speed Ethernet connection this generates further lucrative contracts utilising high-speed Ethernet connectivity such as hosted telephony and video conferencing."