Comms Dealer

There was great merriment and forsooth many tales of mighty battles won when knights and maidens from Comstor's Mentor programme assembled at historic Peckforton Castle in Cheshire for their summer partner conference.

Thirty Mentor partners joined up with members of the Cisco commercial team to share best practice ideas during the day and the entire ensemble donned full medieval dress for a spectacular evening dinner. "It was a day to remember," said Comstor's Warwick Taylor.

Fancy a hi-octane day out at the Shakespeare County Raceway near Stratford-upon-Avon on August 24/25/26th?

ISP and VoIP network specialist Stripe 21 is sponsoring the Avon Park International Racing Association Open Sport Nationals, one of the UK's top drag racing events. Everything from super-fast Super Pro dragsters, altereds and doorslammers through to the Sportsman categories will be hitting the quarter mile strip.

"We are in the business of delivering a fast and competitive service and the extreme world of 200 mph head-to-head drag racing certainly captures that with its knife edge competitiveness, power and speed," said Stripe 21 managing director Steve North.

?There are a limited number of tickets available for resellers to come and meet the Stripe 21 team at the event and get involved. For details on how to get your free ticket contact chrissie.fox@stripe21.com

Picture shows Stripe 21's Chrissie Fox getting the lowdown on a supercar from dragster racing veteran Roy Wilding from the S&K racing team.

Cloud specialist Zynstra has launched an enterprise grade hybrid cloud IT solution for SMEs it claims will give resellers high margin recurring revenues.

Sold exclusively through and managed by the channel, the solution is said to give SMEs with up to 250 employees a fully managed IT solution that combines the reliability and security of on-premise IT with the economics and flexibility of the cloud.

Nick East, CEO of Zynstra, told Comms Dealer: "We believe that IT service providers are best positioned to deliver and manage IT for small and medium businesses and that belief is reflected in the way the product was developed. Zynstra comes with all the management tools IT service providers need to easily manage multiple installations. It also has built-in reliability, allowing our partners to focus on value added services, rather than worrying about day-to-day IT management."

Mike Ayres, General Manager of network and hosting service provider Easynet Connect, commented: "Our partnership with Zynstra creates a compelling commercial proposition. By standardising IT, we've made it really easy for them to manage hundreds of customers at any one time and offer a better service and greater flexibility at a lower cost. They are able to deliver the best of the cloud, whilst maintaining the benefits of on-site IT."

Interested resellers can sign up to Zynstra's channel programme directly or through one of Zynstra's partners including Easynet and voxclever. Zynstra says pricing will vary according to the specific package offered by each service provider, but is equivalent to the cost of a typical monthly mobile phone contract per user.

A campaign to push the significance of superfast broadband is being rolled out by Openreach and according to the group's Marketing Director Rob Lee the initiative is already well advanced although, he believes, the full implications of next generation connectivity may not yet be realised by comms providers operating particularly in the SME space.

"CPs who are not engaged in fibre broadband need to be moving into this area because traditional products will be overtaken," warned Lee. "There is a ball-game change for SME and SoHo underway, driven in part by a shift at consumer level but spilling into the business environment."

Lee cited as evidence of this seismic shift the boom in IPTV and on-demand services with a number of important broadband-based TV launches already done; and with Openreach on target to reach two thirds of the population by spring 2014 and on track to hit its 90% coverage target, Lee forecasts a tipping point that will prove pivotal in sifting the fibre-ready CPs from their less able and less competitive rivals.

"Openreach has come a long way in rolling out superfast broadband," added Lee. "And our strategy includes helping CPs of all sizes profit from this revolution in communications."

Openreach has extended its resource of accredited engineers to customers of all descriptions, enabling CPs to white label the group's trained engineers who perform on-site cabling and equipment installation services on their behalf.

A new website, the Fibre for Business Zone, functions as a mobile-friendly resource offering CPs various connectivity options including a mix of Ethernet and optical services through to fibre-based broadband products. The website also details the current offers available to CPs.

Openreach is gearing up to hold two channel webinars (18th-19th September) in association with Comms Dealer exploring the opportunities associated with Superfast Fibre Access for Business.

To register for one of these webinars please contact gemma.thompson@openreach.co.uk

Oak is claiming a breakthrough in telephone call management with the release of EVOLVE, its new real time wallboard and management solution for the Avaya IP Office that operates solely on the web.

Joint CEO Phillip Reynolds, who has masterminded the development of the solution, says it will change the way people run businesses and will give resellers the ultimate call management tool to offer clients.

"Once in a generation something comes along that is so different, so special and so innovative that it will change communications management forever. I believe we have come up with that something," Reynolds told Comms Dealer.

"We needed to understand telephone technologies, Internet technologies, server technologies, database and mobile technologies and we needed to understand them in a unique and all-encompassing way to make them work together seamlessly.

"These challenges were immense but with 25 years of pioneering development behind us we've been able to achieve what many thought would never be possible, a single solution that does everything through the web."

Reynolds says that reseller customers that install EVOLVE will be able to go to any communications device and see in real-time what's happening in their business and call centre, which important customers are waiting for calls to be answered, how quickly teams are answering calls, how many calls sales teams are making and how many missed calls employees have called back to secure more sales.

"Through an intuitive browser interface the EVOLVE software will also monitor the quality and performance of teams anywhere in the world, can listen in to any call and see how well it is being handled, can dramatically improve the closing rate of your calls, can manage agents current status and can even move live calls around between queues," said Reynolds.

"Oak EVOLVE, is both evolutionary and revolutionary and will change the way businesses are run."

Entanet is offering free activation and copper broadband migration on new FTTC orders as part of a three month promo called ‘Free for Three'.

"The campaign runs from 5th August through to 4th November and will give resellers a gilt-edged opportunity to win new business during the early-adopter phase of market uptake," claimed Product Manager Paul Heritage-Redpath.
 
The promotion enables partners to offer new customer activations and migrations by existing customers who are moving from any copper broadband product, including LLU, to FTTC free of charge. "For many customers, these charges often represent an unacceptable barrier to adoption that hampers resellers' success," added Heritage-Redpath.
 
The free activation or migration is being made available on Entanet's entire portfolio of allowance-based and unlimited bandwidth business and consumer products.
 
Heritage-Redpath noted that the promotion will provide channel partners with additional confidence to compete for business against the major retail market players.

"Independent resellers are facing strong competition from the mainstream providers in the UK broadband market and need all the help they can get to win new customers," he added.

"By removing the activation and migration charges for customers moving from a BT or LLU-based copper broadband product with any provider, we're giving resellers a great opportunity to win customers who are looking for a good value and reliable fibre broadband connection."
 
In May the company introduced unlimited BT-based allowance products across its copper and fibre range to help partners attract customers looking for a flexible and straightforward connection at a fixed price. "This latest FTTC promotion is open to all resellers who want the convenience of selling ready-made packages to their customers," said Heritage-Redpath.

GCI has swooped on Mark Whitehead to head up its Channel Solutions arm which forms part of the firm's overall expansion strategy.

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."

Hosted comms firm iHub has launched a new website and is now focusing on the completion of upgrades to its new order management, provisioning and administration partner portal called iMaps.

The new website aligns with iHub's recent corporate rebrand and has been optimised to clearly communicate its hosted voice and SIP offerings in a clean, modern and importantly user friendly way, said the firm.

Managing Director Mike Webb (pictured) said: "The simplicity of the new website reflects iHub's objective of being 'easy to do business with'."

Networking vendor Juniper Networks has reported an increase in Q2 margins on the back of rising revenues compared to the previous quarter and year-on-year.

The firm reports good service provider demand and signs of improving enterprise demand. It expects its routing and switching businesses to remain strong while the security business continues to stabilise.
 
Net revenues for the second quarter of 2013 increased 7% year-over-year and increased 9% sequentially to $1.151bn. Juniper's operating margin for the second quarter of 2013 increased to 12.0% on a GAAP basis from 8.1% in the second quarter of 2012 and increased from 8.2% in the first quarter of 2013. It posted GAAP net income of $98m

"We're pleased with our strong second quarter results which reflect our continued ability to execute on our strategy," said Kevin Johnson, chief executive officer of Juniper Networks.

"We continue to see signs of strength in our key markets and we are confident in our routing and switching portfolio. We are also seeing early signs of improving security demand."
 
Robyn Denholm, chief financial officer of Juniper Networks, added: "We are focused on executing to drive revenue growth, maintain healthy gross margins, drive leverage in our financial model and deliver strong cash flows to achieve our long-term goals."

More than half of IT directors feel that their businesses are at the mercy of their wireless network according to a study by Damovo UK & Ireland.

As enterprise mobility has grown, many organisations have struggled to upgrade their wireless networks at the same pace as the proliferation of mobile devices, such as laptops, tablets and smartphones. Three-quarters of IT directors said that they expect their wireless networks to come under even more strain as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) becomes more commonplace.

"The wireless networks that most businesses have in place were not designed to support the sheer number of devices that are now connecting to them," said Russell Siverland-Bishop, Principal Consultant, Damovo UK & Ireland.

"With employees using more and more bandwidth-hungry services such as mobile video, the demand for wireless capacity has rocketed. As mobility continues to play a fundamental role in enabling businesses to operate efficiently, it's no surprise to see that many IT directors are growing increasingly concerned over the ability of their wireless networks to support the demands upon them."

With more people and devices now accessing corporate networks, security remains the number one on-going concern over wireless networks, as indicated by more than half (60%) of IT directors taking part in the research.

This is followed by concerns over coverage and performance (15%), and having sufficient bandwidth to support new devices and applications (13%). However, despite these concerns, nearly two-thirds of IT directors (65%) confessed that they take an ad-hoc approach to extending or upgrading their wireless networks; adding capacity as and when required, rather than adopting a long-term strategic approach to network planning. As a result, securing wireless networks, improving performance and troubleshooting problems can become an overly time-consuming activity.

"It's perhaps not surprising that nearly half (47%) of the IT directors surveyed admitted that they find wireless network management a burden," added Siverland-Bishop.

"Businesses cannot afford to remain on the back foot with this ad-hoc approach to network planning. The latest wireless management tools can help IT departments to create a better integrated and centralised platform for their networks. With this approach, they can maintain a secure and reliable wireless infrastructure to support their mobile workforce and keep the business up and running."