Comms Dealer

Quarterly data from IT recruitment site CWJobs.co.uk has shown that in the second quarter of 2013 both permanent (0.7%) and contract (1.3%) IT jobs have shown growth across all UK regions.

While London's 'Tech City' initiative is proving successful, and driving established companies and start-ups to set up in the East London area, this new data indicates that other clusters of technologies firms in the UK could be driving nationwide growth.

Year-on-year, vacancies in London have seen modest growth with 9,886 job vacancies posted in the quarter, a rise of 2.4% on the year. Vacancies across Scotland (7.9%), Southern England (4.6%) and the West and Wales (3.1%) are leading regional growth, providing opportunities for professionals working outside of the capital city.

In the west, Bristol has been positioned as a computer gaming hub, whilst Cambridge's "Silicon Fen" is acclaimed to be roots of many of Britain's most influential technology companies. Meanwhile, Scotland has been making it's name as a technology start-up capital[1], being home to a number of budding companies which are making moves to become influential industry players, such as SkyScanner, the fast growing online airfare tracker.

Richard Nott, Website Director, CWJobs, stated: "As investment in technology firms increases, there is less need for professionals to be based in the capital city, giving professionals the opportunity to work across many different regions. This is good news for the industry and for the prospects of IT professionals across the UK who may no longer need to consider re-locating to get the best jobs. As IT's position as an inherently 'networked industry' grows, it's likely this trend will continue."

TalkTalk Business has chosen KEMP Technologies as its exclusive load balancing partner for Microsoft Lync deployments. Microsoft-approved KEMP LoadMaster appliances will now be supplied with all TalkTalk Business Lync systems to ensure high-performance and availability of integrated voice and data services IM, video, web conferencing and collaboration.

By adding hardware load balancing, traffic can be shared across Lync servers and will automatically re-route and reconnect users to other functioning servers, if a server becomes slow or inaccessible. This will guarantee application uptime and optimise user experience, says TTB.

"There is increasing interest in Microsoft Lync solutions and we see hardware load balancing as a key component for enterprise-scale deployments to ensure the highest levels of performance and resilience," said Paul Rodgerson, Lync product manager at TalkTalk Business, which holds the Microsoft Communications competency for deploying Microsoft Lync. "KEMP was an obvious partner for us, as its hardware and virtual appliances are Microsoft approved for use with Lync, offering excellent price and performance."

Channel Telecom recently held a roundtable dinner event in Edinburgh for its partners to get feedback on the latest additions to the product portfolio now being offered by the fast growing provider of business network services. The prestigious dinner was held at the Michelin stared Castle Terrace restaurant.

Hosted by Matt Donaldson, Channel Manager and Steve Yates, Partner Account Manager, the roundtable dinner provided Scottish partners with an opportunity to discuss latest developments in the company's service portfolio including hosted telephony, SIP and data services. The roundtable dinner is the latest in a series of consultation events that Channel Telecom conducts with its partner community throughout the year.

Entanet is participating in the Department of Media, Culture and Sport (DCMS)'s Broadband Connection Vouchers scheme which allows companies in the Phase 1 SuperConnected Cities of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Salford to get financial help when they subscribe or upgrade to superfast connectivity services.

The scheme, announced by the DCMS as part of the UK government's Urban Broadband Fund, is making vouchers available to companies with fewer than 250 employees and turnover below £40 million to cover set-up and installation fees worth between £250 and £3,000. It is being run as a market test project from 5th August until 30th September 2013 and Entanet is encouraging its partners to promote availability of the vouchers as a way of driving new orders.

Entanet's Product Manager, Paul Heritage-Redpath, said: "SMEs are the lifeblood of the UK economy and every business now relies on network connectivity to communicate with their customers. We're delighted to support anything which helps hard-pressed businesses succeed. It's also good to see that the scheme recognises the importance of stability, not just headline speed, for business connections. We'll pass what we learn from this short pilot to our channel partners, who may be interested in applying as suppliers themselves to support their local business community, should the scheme be extended to more cities.

"SMEs all over the UK can benefit from faster connections, so we hope the test project is a success and that we'll subsequently see the voucher scheme extended to other parts of the country. We'll be ready to support our ISP and reseller partners in delivering new connections and upgrades when that happens."

The channel has recognised the change in the buying patterns used by customers and is adapting. Among other things, there has been an influx of smaller managed services players (MSP), often in niches, says that latest CA Technologies Channel Index 2013. The study found that 60% of partners have become or started to become full MSPs.

Customer IT budget cuts were named as one of the biggest challenges faced by 69% of CA Technologies surveyed partners, way ahead of the 58% who cited profitability as a challenge, and the 47% who named competition.
Managed services are already being provided by partners for service management (42% of respondents), infrastructure management (41%), backup and recovery management (39%), application performance management (27%), identity and access management (22%) and project and portfolio management (20%). Over the next year, about a quarter of respondents intend to introduce each of these services (from 23% to 28% of respondents, depending on the service).

Talking to IT Europa, UK&I Sean McCarry, Senior Director, CA Technologies says: "Two priority areas for IT investment emerged from this research: enterprise mobility and cloud. Enterprise mobility is becoming increasingly more widespread, providing customers and employees with new and convenient ways of accessing enterprise applications. With this comes added complexity to the IT environment and new challenges to manage and keep the IT environment secure. There is budget there in customers, perhaps in other areas, and for the right patners, there is a good opportunity."

He was already seeing an influx of new MSPs, and CA Technologies had set up a "Centre of Excellence" to get them enabled. Distribution too had a role with the smaller resellers. It was necessary for the smaller channels to build every service they sell. And, he added, the pricing and margin in the specialist areas was often much better for the channel than that offered by the giant MSPs. "The mid-market is all about value in the channel. Smaller MSPs do well in countries and regions, where they can take the fear out of trends and provide usable services. SaaS allows much smaller MSPs to come in with no cpaital investment; we are seeing a lot of new ones , usually very focused."

The index revealed that 83% of CA Technologies partners in EMEA expect to see increased spending on enterprise mobility over the next year and almost all (93%) recognise that the rapid adoption of mobility creates opportunities to help grow their business. Among UK partners, this figure rose to 95%. Nearly two thirds (66%) of the partners surveyed predicted an increase in cloud computing spending over the next year. In the UK, a significant 81% of partners expected increases. The UK is ahead of the rest of Europe on the MSP side, says Sean McCarry. The UK is following the trend in the US, where companies face having lots of data and often the first way in for a partner is back-up, he says. This can prove the success of the model and other services can be wrapped around it.

Microsoft has decided to integrate its Windows Embedded Partner Program in the Partner Network, a reorganisation that will take effect by the end of the year.

This gives embedded device manufacturers, semiconductor vendors, systems integrators and other Microsoft partners a better chance in the growing market for intelligent systems, it says. IDC believes, in fact, it should weigh around $2.3tn in 2016.

"By consolidating offers and resources within the Microsoft Partner Network, Microsoft partners will have easier access to the tools they need, and whatever the product " Microsoft noted during the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference held recently in the USA. Besides training, support tools sales and marketing resources, partners can benefit from the knowledge and experiences of 500,000 businesses who are already members of the network, it says.

A large community forum will be also available to them in order to gather information and identify business opportunities. The partners will also benefit from the rights to use certain products and software development kits. Four new specialisations will also make their appearance in the MPN, one of which will involve the design of intelligent systems. Finally, from January 2014 a Device Design and Developement Resource Center will open its doors and will be available by subscription to companies working in the design and development of embedded systems, especially helping newcomers to the market.

Fast growing independent ICT solutions provider GCI has launched its new indirect arm and is on the hunt for white label reseller partners.

GCI Channel Solutions will be headed up by Mark Whitehead who is well known to the channel having spent seven years at Griffin Internet where he sold MPLS networks, Ethernet and cloud based firewalls to system integrators, VARs and telecom channel partners.

GCI was recently ranked by Investec as the UK's 19th fastest growing privately owned business, a recognition that didn't go unnoticed by Whitehead.

"GCI has a broad range of products available to the telecoms and data channel and is launching with a complete suite," he said.

"Ethernet has enjoyed incredible growth driven by the message that end users need larger reliable bandwidth to enjoy future technologies like cloud and UC. But we are already there and the channel needs these products now. With the launch of GCI Channel Solutions we will equip the channel with the tools and products to sell these high margin products."

GCI Channel Solutions, based from the GCI's Derby office at Pride Park, a primary hub for technologies in the midlands, will sell white label services to resellers interested in increasing customer ARPU via cloud, connectivity and voice.

Channel partners will be able to deploy cloud, Ethernet, voice and broadband through self-service tools and upon reaching competencies in GCI products and services will have an opportunity to be accredited as a GCI Channel Partner.

GCI Channel Solutions will be giving live demonstrations of some of their new cloud-based products, including virtual desktop, hosted Lync and enterprise file sharing at Convergence South on 2-3 October in London.

Ink, which connects travellers throughout their entire journeys and produces more inflight magazines for more airlines than any other company in the world, has installed OAISYS' Tracer call recording solution across its contact centre operations.

"With 70 London-based contact centre agents handling more than 77,000 calls each month, we identified a need to record calls for quality monitoring, training and to verify agent compensation," said Colin Dash, Ink's group IT manager. "Our objective was to ensure consistent call quality and validate agent conversations for compensation as well as to quickly and efficiently resolve disputes."

Using OAISYS Tracer, Ink's contact centre supervisors can now easily find, review, mark and share call recordings for review. For sales training, supervisors can train agents by using calls that exemplify best practices so that the agents know exactly what is expected, enabling them to be properly trained and rewarded when they do a superior job. Supervisors can also monitor live calls to see how agents are handling customers, particularly in the case of big sales.

"OAISYS Tracer is an affordable, intuitive call recording solution that has made a big impact on the way Ink's agents represent their clients, and it has helped us increase revenues. It's a more complete solution than the other call recording applications we considered," added Dash.

Research carried out by headset manufacturer Jabra and international research agency YouGov has determined that most office workers no longer feel stigmatised by wearing a headset.

11,906 office and mobile workers between the ages of 18-69 were surveyed to chart the real and perceptual differences and attitudes towards headset use in an office environment and the ergonomic focus in businesses.

In the 12 countries surveyed, a total of 46 percent of users were offered a headset and use it at work and 70 percent felt they look efficient wearing it. 62 percent said they took more calls after switching to a corded headset and that figure jumps to 75 percent if the respondent switches to a wireless headset.

50 percent of non-headset users said they believes that headsets are no longer just for call centre agents or technicians servicing the IT helpdesk, but are also practical and efficient for all office and mobile workers. 78% said they would wear a headset if the sound quality was great

Commenting on the survey Andrew Doyle, Managing Director, Jabra Business Solutions, UK & Ireland said: "Headsets have come a long way since they were first adopted for business use. At Jabra, our designers are acutely aware that not only style but also comfort and ergonomics are important features in making a headset attractive for our users.

"This is also one of the reasons why wireless headsets have become so popular throughout the world in recent years. We are pleased to hear that our users find that our products make them feel efficient, especially because all of our research shows that headset users are more productive".

Connectivity and network services specialist, Genius Networks, is claiming a channel breakthrough with a solution to help comms resellers save time, resource and cost by removing the pain of working with global networks.

According to Genius, as UK companies increasingly look to capitalise on international business opportunities, the need for high performance global connectivity has never been greater. However, network solutions stitched together by traditional aggregators continue to compromise the delivery of business critical applications,

Powered by a revolutionary core routing infrastructure, engineered to automatically connect with all the major global network carriers, Genius is said to offer smoother, faster, more reliable global services at an affordable price. With a single end-to-end SLA across the entire core and carrier network, resellers can recommend streamlined, fully automated, global network solutions that have guaranteed worldwide quality of service.

"Resellers are always over-stretched," said James Roberts, Director of Genius Networks. "We know from our own past experience that it's a constant juggling act keeping clients happy, staying on top of technology and running a profitable business. When you're working at the limit, poorly configured networks are a huge frustration. That's where our best-of-breed solutions can help.

"Global networks are complex to design and manage, so we've built-in intelligent, automated processes that simplify traffic management and accelerate performance. We've built-in worldwide local hubs to reduce latency and improve the delivery of sensitive traffic. And we've built-in online portals that help resellers win and manage business - including the unique ability to plan and price different carrier options across Europe."