Comms Dealer

Congtrats to O2 Wholesale staff who took part in a triathlon as part of the 'Human Race' which runs sporting events throughout the UK.

Pictured: Chris Romeika (Operations Manager), Geoff Malvisi (Business Development Manager) and Linda Harris (Marketing and Communications Manager) were one of ten O2 teams competing in the event.

"Romeika managed a personal best but all three finished in good time!" said a spokesperson.

Plantronics partner Avtex Solutions has developed the Avtex Smart Forward Agent application to provide users with additional functionality when they use the Voyager Legend UC headset with Microsoft Lync.

By leveraging the contextual information the Legend provides about how close a user is to their PC while wearing it, Avtex Smart Forward Agent can automatically turn the Lync Call Forwarding or Simultaneous Ring features on when the user walks away from their PC.

"Plantronics is excited to see our partners leveraging the broad capabilities of the Voyager Legend UC to bring users an application that enhances the Lync experience beyond audio," said Joe Burton, senior vice president of Technology, Development & Strategy and CTO at Plantronics.

"With users becoming increasingly mobile the Avtex Smart Forward Agent better integrates a user's mobile phone with Lync for a truly unified communications experience."

Nimans has experienced a 35% leap in demand for leasing since the start of the year.

The new financial year, from April, has seen growth continue to climb in the wake of a shortage of credit from banks and other financial institutions.

There are many factors for the rise according to Tom Maxwell, Head of Dealer Sales, who says high acceptance rates is also fuelling popularity.

Nimans has grown leasing by 200% in the last two years and expects these trends to continue. But despite these results Maxwell concedes that too many resellers are still missing out.

He said: "Not everyone is aware of leasing. A lot of resellers should be using leasing but they don't understand the benefits to them and are frightened to broach the subject with their customers. A reseller offering credit is crucial because if they are not then someone else will be. Cash flow is king to both resellers and customers so a line of credit for capital expenditure of any type is a valued commodity.

"Leasing provides resellers with a stronger cash flow often offsetting the price of the kit against the lease and helping to sell additional products on a regular basis keeping the customer's outgoings the same.

"It's a lot more palatable for an end user to buy equipment at hundreds of pounds each month instead of a one-off payment of say £10,000. Generally a reseller will be talking to an IT or comms manager who is really not that interested how equipment gets paid. It's the Financial Director. Resellers should make it as easy as possible for their contact to sell it to their finance boss. With leasing additional equipment can be added in further down the line at no extra rental cost."

Avaya's Senior Vice President for Global Sales Tom Mitchell is to step down on September 30th in a move that the vendor says is part of the 'natural progression of the transformation of Avaya'.

Pierre-Paul Allard, who has been with Avaya as SVP, Global Strategy and Development since May, 2012, will be taking over Global Sales.

In a statement Avaya said, 'By tightly integrating strategy, marketing and sales under a single leadership we will be able to better segment the market, understand the needs of the customers and target new buyers and new audiences for Avaya's technology'.

Mitchell has been credited with aligning the channel and Avaya's sales force in a single direction. At the same time, Allard spent his first year working to improve the form's strategic focus, key alliance partners and strategic marketing efforts.

The statement continued, 'Now we are able to bring together all go-to-market motions and further align our efforts as we move into new markets and new geographies'.

Nimans is to host a series of Samsung technical training courses throughout the year and as an incentive the distributor is offering 10 free training credits worth £1,000
to resellers who purchase a demo kit for the Samsung OfficeServ range.

The session will be held at Samsung's Harlow training centre and will educate resellers on Voicemail, Desktop CTI, Advanced VoIP and Contact Centre applications.

Paul Burn, Nimans' Head of Category Sales, said: "Resellers are coming on board on an almost daily basis. This in turn requires a comprehensive training support programme for new and existing resellers.

"The free training credits that come with the purchase of a demo kit are a great way for resellers to kick-start their training operations."

BT Business Partner Sales rewarded the winners of a recent incentive scheme with tickets to the final night of Robbie Williams' tour at Wembley.

Delegates from CER Associates, Chilli Telecom and Getech were hosted by BT Business Partner Sales Manager Kay Leech, who enthused: "The evening was fantastic and each partner deserved to be there. Roll on the next incentive!"

Innovation is critical to telco survival, states Ovum, yet many operators miss the big picture, exaggerate the threat from over-the-top (OTT) players, and misunderstand the broader benefits of innovation.

New research from the global analyst firm examined more than 3,500 new service launches since 2009, finding that telcos must compete less and collaborate more.

When comparing telcos' efforts with Apple and Google's approach to the app ecosystem, it is obvious why they never managed to gain a foothold in the market. Ovum implies that telcos were too selective when choosing partners and overburdened their prospective allies with unrealistic revenue expectations.

Instead, the report recommends that telcos use partnerships to scout for new ideas, assimilate them, and capture value. In addition, the research indicates the importance of prioritising innovations (whether products and services, business models, or tariff strategies) that exploit the centrality of operators' networks.

"No matter how much telcos try to diversify, their primary role will always be as carriers of voice, messaging, and data traffic. However, an efficient network that has been updated with new innovations can be combined with innovative business models to continuously deliver value to telcos and their shareholders," says Emeka Obiodu, principal analyst in Ovum's Industry, Communications, & Broadband practice.

"As Google (with advertising on search), Apple (with devices), and Microsoft (with software) have shown, a well-crafted strategy can use additional, preferably low-cost, new products and services to supplement and shield core products."

Easynet Global Services has integrated Microsoft Lync and Office 365 with Polycom's virtual meeting technology. The platform, designed by Easynet's expert engineers, integrates voice, social networking, scheduling, instant messaging and a number of other features and benefits.

Easynet's vision for videoconferencing is to enable its customers to join a conference via any social media platform, whether Facebook, Skype or Facetime, and from an employee's own device as well as from traditional conference rooms. As part of this evolution, Easynet is looking at integrating WebRTC, which enables plugin-free voice and video chat from within the browser.

Justin Fielder, CTO, Easynet Global Services said; "This is the kind of technology we'd have read about years ago and wondered how and when it could ever become a reality. Now it has, mobile enterprises really can be mobile and Unified Communications has finally come of age."

Adept Telecom has announced its 10th consecutive year of rising underlying EBITDA, a growth curve that offers the best measure of the firm's profitability and cash generation capabilities according to Ian Fishwick, CEO. Commenting on Adept's full year results to 31st March 2013, he said: "This is a feat that few companies in any industry will achieve and we'd like to say a huge thank you to employees past and present.

"We also recognise that we couldn't have achieved this without the magnificent support of our suppliers, shareholders, and most important of all, our customers."

"Our reliance on call revenue continues to reduce and it now represents only one third of our income. We have seen rising revenues in new products with data connectivity up 9% and cloud-based contact centre solutions up 15%.

"Since our debt peaked in 2008 we have paid off £9m and our debt is now well under one year's EBITDA. We have therefore trebled our dividend and are again looking at acquisitions."

VoIP.co.uk has added software PBX vendor 3CX to its list of interoperability tested vendors which also includes Cisco, Avaya, Microsoft Lync and Asterisk.

The announcement follows weeks of work by both VoIP.co.uk and 3CX to ensure that the Enhanced SIP trunks and SIP Encrypt services work seamlessly with Windows VoIP PBX.

"Our service has been designed and built to simply work with every major manufacturer and PBX vendor by using open standards but it's important that we can support our Partners and customers when using these platforms," said VoIP.co.uk MD, Adam Crisp.