Comms Dealer

Embattled Avaya has named Walter Denk as Worldwide Channel Leader responsible for creating and executing the partner strategy and leading revenue growth through the channel, which is comprised of more than 7,000 partners around the globe.

Denk moves into the new role from his previous position as vice president of Avaya Germany's Small and Medium Business Group.

Prior to Avaya, Denk held positions in Sales and Marketing at a number of global technology companies, including Deutsche Telekom, IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Distributor Hammer has signed an EMEA-wide deal with Spectra Logic, maker of high-capacity workflow, tape and disk-based products.

It is Spectra Logic's first two-tier deal anywhere, and Brian Grainger, Chief Sales Officer at Spectra Logic, who spent a year looking at options, told IT Europa: "We could have hired salespeople and looked for resellers, but it made more sense to invest in a value-added distributor."

In the home US market, it is relatively easy to identify the channels and buyers in supercomputing, but Europe, with its diverse cultures, languages and markets, is less straightforward.

"So in Europe, I decided to go with a known and respected channel."

And this is not just for the tape and disk products, but the full range, including video and the fast-growing data centre business, the markets spreading beyond the traditional supercomputing ones of scientific research, medicine and specialist data centres into surveillance and government, particularly as the business moves even more into the mid-market, he explains.

Spectra Logic's object-based storage systems links directly to the public cloud, so this agreement will also enable Hammer to enhance its current cloud portfolio.

Grainger added: "We've seen a major increase in demand for high-capacity deep storage solutions, which have become essential to a wide range of businesses grappling with the challenges of storing, managing and accessing data while dealing with the rapidly evolving mandates in Europe that are driving changes in storage requirements.

"With Hammer's help we aim to reach more businesses that can benefit from our product range."

Yealink's T46G SFB and T48G SFB phones have become the first in the company's T4x series to be certified for use on Microsoft's Skype for Business Online Service platform.

Offered as part of the software giant's Office 365 productivity suite, the new platform offers cloud PBX and PSTN conferencing functionality accessed via add-on licences.

Other models in the company's T4x Skype for Business range are currently undergoing accreditation testing. These are expected to be certified by Microsoft for use on the online platform within the next few weeks.

Phil Offord has joined KCOM as Enterprise Sales Director, bringing over 15 years of international business experience from across Europe and the US.

He reports to Executive Vice Principal Stephen Long and will be responsible for the direction, development and management of the sales organisation.

Long said: "Our sales team is focused on helping organisations to deliver their overall customer experience rather than just new technology. Phil's vision for the development and evolution of an enterprise sales function that listens more than it talks is a perfect fit for us."

Offord added: "Companies are looking for partners that are large enough to make the difference but small enough to be agile and KCOM fits that need."

He joins KCOM from CORETX (previously Selection Services and C4L) where he served as Group Sales & Marketing Director for over two years. Prior to this role he served as Sales and Marketing Director for Logicalis UK.

Significant market gains made by Westcoast's cloud computing division have prompted the IT distributor to add voice to its portfolio via a new partnership with cloud telephony provider NFON UK. Westcoast says that cloud services are playing a far bigger role in IT reseller businesses and that the NFON UK link-up enables them to seamlessly move to voice.

NFON UK MD Rami Houbby said: "The shift to cloud telephony is a natural next step that provides IT resellers with a fast track entry into the world of voice.

"There is a huge market appetite for the streamlined delivery of cloud-based telephony, an out-of-the-box solution that IT channel partners can easily train themselves on.

"Previously, the entry barrier into voice was high, but cloud telephony is easy to deploy and maintain, plus it offers benefits in terms of building customer loyalty and enabling long-term predictable annuity revenues for minimal investment."

Mark Davies, Cloud Services Director, Westcoast UK, added: "Adoption of our cloud computing products has been increasing at such a phenomenal rate that we felt the market was ready for us to make the first step into voice through this partnership with NFON UK.

"Cloud telephony complements our product set and company ethos. We anticipate that this will be popular with our partners and their customers."

There is strong evidence to show that a large portion of London's boroughs are no longer prepared to suffer the limitations of legacy ICT infrastructures.

According to the findings of a Freedom of Information (FoI) request conducted by Cloud firm HyperGrid, over half of London boroughs are currently planning to replace their IT infrastructure, meaning that there is an open door for qualified ICT resellers to push against.

Of the 32 boroughs, 30 responded to the request, and 53% displayed a commitment to refresh their infrastructure, while a further 20% are in the process of an upgrade.

Doug Rich, VP of EMEA at HyperGrid, said: "The findings provide a clear indicator of a need for change and modernisation in local Government IT estates.

"Legacy systems are no longer capable of coping with the challenges brought about by budget cuts, increased demand for higher quality services and reorganisation to fit the changing role of local Government.

"The demands of digital transformation and ever-increasing workloads mean that IT infrastructure needs to be high performing yet flexible to rapidly changing requirements."

The FoI also indicated that 43% of boroughs would be receptive to a consumption or subscription-based model.

Rich added: "It is evident that there is an appetite for changing the way IT is consumed in the data centre as refresh projects get under way.

"Choosing a consumption-based model enables local authorities to be much more agile in how they update their infrastructure. This can come in the form of cloud-based services, including email, apps or the Government's G-Cloud procurement system.

"Digital transformation is placing a significant amount of strain on both public and private sector organisations, and local Government cannot afford to be left behind."

Vodafone UK has raised the profile of its top partners by hand picking an elite group and giving them Total Communications Status, its first round of top draw accreditations under its new partner programme.

The selected companies include Boosh 365, CCS MPW, Comm-Tech Voice & Data, Connected Telecom, DRC, Excalibur Communications, Pescado, PMGC Technology Group, Pure Business Services, Olive Communications, Onecom, Redsquid Communications, Trinsic and Vohkus.
 
Phil Mottram, Enterprise Director of Vodafone UK, said: "Over 100 Partners have achieved new Status accreditation in the first phase of our programme, which has been designed to specifically recognise capabilities and specialisms."

Pictured: Vodafone UK's elite grouping, with Phil Mottram (front centre).

Britannic Technologies has been awarded the Sapphire accreditation and named a Partner in Customer Excellence by Avaya.

Jonathan Sharp, Sales and Marketing Director, Britannic Technologies, said: "We have demonstrated that we are a customer-centric business, deliver value and can meet and exceed the strict credentials of the Avaya Edge programme."
 
 

BT has gone live with Tollring's new real-time Credit and Fraud Management System (CFMS) on its Wholesale Hosted Centrex (WHC) platform.

The cloud-based CFMS has been delivered in BT Wholesale's data centre to provide real-time fraud detection and protection of the hosted platform.

The CFMS monitors call trends, implements rules and triggers alerts to protect resellers' and their customers from illegal usage and 'bill shock'; and the credit management element of the solution constrains legitimate spend in order to manage 'risky' customers.

Fraud and credit management is a powerful combination. Each call must pass through four rigorous gates including a risk register of continents, countries and regions, a blacklisted destinations register, followed by rule profiling before adhering to spend limits.

Live dashboards, reports and notifications keep BT informed in real-time, enabling fraudulent calls to be terminated and destinations blocked to prevent further fraud from happening.

Dave Axam, Director Hosted Communications at BT Wholesale, describes fraud as one of the key challenges in the marketplace.

He said: "We are seeing that fraudsters are becoming increasingly astute, making more frequent, smaller hits, which render the 'capping' approach insufficient in the battle against fraud.

"So BT is taking a completely different approach by looking at the analytical capabilities within the network, customer data and trends, and taking a proactive stance by anticipating what might happen.

"We believe Intelligent analytics is the only way to stop the next type of fraud. By embedding Tollring's intelligence and analytics tools into the network for hosted communications, we are providing our partners and their customers with a whole new level of security."

Tony Martino, Managing Director of Tollring, added: "We have taken major steps to tackle the key issues of fraud and credit management in cloud telephony. We believe that the adoption of this new product provides BT with a competitive differentiator to partners and resellers and most importantly a more secure service to customers."

Avnet is in collaboration with IBM to speed up the time to market for IoT solutions.

Led by its Technology Solutions team, Avnet will hook up with IBM to establish a Watson Internet-of-Things (IoT) Joint Lab within IBM's newly opened global Watson IoT Centre in Munich, Germany.

Avnet will use this environment to showcase, demonstrate, develop and sell IoT solutions.
 
"There is no limit to how IoT can be used to improve the world," said Patrick Zammit, global president of Avnet Technology Solutions. "We're already seeing tremendous potential in new IoT applications that we're developing with our customers, which range from protecting our children to preventing Legionnaires' disease.

"Avnet's latest collaboration with IBM will accelerate our ability to provide customers with the foundation they need to rapidly develop marketable IoT solutions."