Comms Dealer

Commsworld has established its own pure fibre telecommunications route to link networks in Glasgow and Edinburgh, operating at up to 100Gb/s, 5,000 times the speed of an average UK broadband connection.

Commsworld applied its DWDM (Dense Wave Division Multiplexing) technology to 'light' a span of dark fibre at practically unlimited capacity.

Chief executive of Commsworld, Ricky Nicol, said: "This is a major and exciting step forward for our business as it means that an independent Scottish firm is operating this level of infrastructure rather than it being the preserve of the biggest industry names.

"An easy way to think of the inter-city fibre is as the digital equivalent of a major motorway which is connected at each end and at certain points along the route by regional networks, at exchanges.

"We now have full control over speeds, from the business connection, the local network, to the exchanges and beyond. It means clients with offices between Edinburgh and Glasgow can experience some of the fastest network speeds around."

Chief Technical Officer at Commsworld, Charlie Boisseau, believes the firm is developing a highly exciting network in a sustainable way, and can stand alongside the biggest industry names.

He said: "Over two decades ago we witnessed a series of firms, such as ntl, Telewest and Atlantic Telecom investing and physically installing massive new duct and fibre networks, but without the ability to drive returns on that technology, leading to eventual collapse and consolidation of the industry.

"This left a gulf between the handful of large telecoms operators and very small ISPs or resellers of largely BT infrastructure. That leaves business customers with a very limited choice - and tied to their pricing structures.

"By procuring long term leases of dark fibre already in the ground and applying our own technologies over that fibre, we have further control over costs and speeds, from the customer connection through the city network and even beyond.

"It's now possible for a Commsworld customer to receive a connection between these two cities that we can honestly guarantee does not traverse any third party equipment at the optical level.

"While that may not surprise people who know of our technical capability, it is a mean feat for a provider of our size."

Cisco is to acquire AppDynamics, a privately held application intelligence software company based in San Francisco.

AppDynamics's cloud application and business monitoring platform enables companies to improve application and business performance. Cisco will acquire AppDynamics for approximately $3.7 billion in cash and assumed equity awards.

"Applications have become the lifeblood of a company's success. Keeping those apps running and performing well has never been more important. Unfortunately, that job has only gotten harder, as IT departments and developers struggle with a tangled web of disconnected, complex data that's hard to understand," said Rowan Trollope, Cisco senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Internet of Things and Applications Business Group.

"The combination of Cisco and AppDynamics will allow us to provide end to end visibility and intelligence from the network through to the application, which, combined with security and scale, and help IT to drive a new level of business results."

AppDynamics will continue to be a led by CEO David Wadhwani as a new software business unit in Cisco's IoT and Applications business, reporting to Rowan Trollope. The acquisition is expected to close in Cisco's third quarter of fiscal year 2017, subject to customary closing conditions.

Oak Innovation's v2.0.4.0 call reporting and performance analytics solution is now rated compliant with Avaya IP Office 500 v2 Release 9.1.

Evolve helps formal and informal contact centres monitor call traffic in real-time, so they can proactively respond to events as they occur. It also produces a range of historic reports to support improved call management over time.

Oak is a Technology Partner in the Avaya DevConnect program, an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third party products that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company's investment in its network.

"Now customers can be confident that Evolve will interoperate seamlessly with their Avaya system, making it easy and cost-effective to incorporate this new technology into their communications infrastructure," said Phillip Reynolds, CTO, Oak Innovation.

Eric Rossman, vice president, Developer Relations, Avaya, added: "Technology Partners like Oak Innovation understand the importance of DevConnect compliance testing to our mutual customers. The Evolve solution enables customers using Avaya IP Office to manage resources in real-time, helping improve operational efficiency and effectiveness."

Virtual1 channel partners will soon be able to quote customers for MPLS network orders via the company's fast growing 1Portal.

The system is being trialled by select partners and is planned to go fully live early this spring, according to CEO Tom O'Hagan.

"Partners will be able to generate a representative quote quickly and simply, complete with specifications and a network diagram of the proposed solution that they can share directly with their end customers," he said.

"This will enable early capture of essential information meaning less duplication, faster provisioning, quicker revenue realisation and, most importantly, increased end customer satisfaction."

Released to the channel six years ago the 1Portal now offers options around resiliency, firewalls and data centre interconnectivity, as well as connectivity to the leading SIP and UC vendors such as BT, Gamma, Shoretel and Unify through Virtual1's SIP and UC exchange service.

"We have also built in private access to the leading public cloud providers including Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud, through our recently launched Cloud Exchange product," said O'Hagan.

"And in the next few months our market firsts will continue with the release of network change controls into 1Portal through SDN which will put our partners directly in control of the configuration of solutions they provide.

"Being focused on the wholesale market means that the aim of each release is to make life for our partners as simple and easy as possible."

Two early morning seminars in London and Manchester will aim to lift the lid on the changing valuations in the TMT sector and explain how to build value into a business with an exit strategy.

Run by corporate finance specialist Evolution Capital in association with Comms Dealer, the breakfast events will consider the sale of Lanway to Chess and will feature a presentation from Vernon Yerkess, former shareholder, explaining the process that Lanway went through with Evolution and the value that was added as a result.

Simon Kelson M&A Advisor at Evolution, commented: "These are must attend events for any ICT business owners looking at an exit or planning one in the next year or so.

"Vernon's engaging talk will provide a real insight into to dos and don'ts of preparing your business for sale and will unveil some of the key steps directors must take to ensure a maximum value is achieved."

Later on in the year, continuing in the series, Evolution will be staging a larger event to look at the impact on valuations a year on from Brexit.

To register for the breakfast 'business valuation' events at the Ivy London on 2nd March and the Radisson Blu Edwardian Manchester on 30th March go to: www.evolutioncapital.com/register

TeleWare is celebrating its 25th anniversary, setting out a quarter of a century ago with Geoff Haworth at the helm and operating out of a garage.

Today, TeleWare counts some of the world's largest companies among its customers and has received accreditation from the likes of Avaya and numerous Microsoft gold and silver partner competencies.

Last year TeleWare delivered two Microsoft world firsts - the first being to route, record and analyse a call in real time through Microsoft Azure and the second being to completely migrate all fixed-line call recordings to Microsoft Azure.

Now, three out of five FTSE 100 banks use TeleWare technology and TeleWare is also a leading SIM-based mobile voice and SMS recording provider.

TeleWare is investigating how customer analytics can be best used to shape customer experience. Beyond that, the company is looking at how machine learning can be used to help businesses get the absolute most out of their data and artificial intelligence to create automated communications.

This is in addition to developing intelligent bots to improve communications management and augmented and virtual reality call centres.

Steve Haworth, CEO at TeleWare, said: "There has been incredible growth in entrepreneurship in the 21st century, resulting in a sharp decrease in the average company lifespan.

"People are now starting businesses with the aim of exiting almost as quickly as possible.

"That's not the TeleWare way. We look at the last 25 years as building a solid foundation and legacy that can propel us into the future.

"It's never been about any one product, but the ethos of being the very best in the industry and constantly innovating to meet changing business needs.

"Some of our people have been with us since the very beginning and they have been joined by a fantastic team of experts, creative thinkers and people who like to get things done. This has created a team who are focused on delivering the best for our partners and customers."

Six Degrees Group has appointed David Howson as CEO with founder and current CEO Alastair Mills becoming Chairman of the Board. Six Degrees was founded by Mills in 2011 and since then the business has grown to more than £100m revenue with over 500 staff.

Following the sale to Charlesbank Capital Partners in 2015, the company has invested significant new capital in people, services and technology.

6DG has completed 19 acquisitions, most recently adding new solutions capability for application performance management, platform services and public cloud hosting.

Mills is changing roles in order to spend more time with his wife and young children, as well as focusing more on his charitable endeavours, including supporting WeSeeHope, for whom he is a long-standing Ambassador.

Howson will be taking on the role of CEO as of 1st February 2017. He brings 25 years experience in the industry, most recently spending six years at Zayo where was a member of the Executive team.

Prior to Zayo he spent 12 years at Level 3 Communications where he held numerous senior roles.

Howson has spent the last 16 years in Colorado and will be relocating with his family to take up this position.

Mills commented: "It has been a huge privilege and a great joy to have led the company as CEO since we first put pen to blank sheet of paper, almost exactly six years ago.

"I have worked alongside a group of talented and diligent people. I'm hugely thankful for their dedication which has underpinned our success.

"Now is the perfect time for me to step back from the front line and for a new CEO to lead the next chapter of our growth story.

"David is well known to both the management team and Charlesbank, and his track record in our sector speaks for itself.

"My journey with Six Degrees isn't finished and I'm delighted to be taking up the role of Chairman, supporting the company's ongoing success."

Howson added: "The team has built meaningful scale and a compelling portfolio proposition, giving me fantastic foundations to build on."

Nuvias is opening an office in Switzerland, its first new country office in Europe. It had previously opened an office in Dubai.

The two major divisions of the distributor - Wick Hill and Zycko - had each had local companies in the country, but this is in response to pressure from both vendors and local partners, says CEO Paul Ecclestone.

The Swiss market is not doing too badly either, so it is reckoned to be a good place to be. The office will have local resources for support and administration.

"Given that we are generally growing faster than the market in security, UC and specialist networking this is part of a plan drawn up some 18 months ago for expansion. You can expect to see more Nuvias ramping up each quarter this year as part of this evolving work," he says.

A key motivator in opening the office was Nuvias' appointment by Riverbed as a Swiss distributor, an extension of Nuvias' existing EMEA distribution agreement with the networking vendor. Zycko (now part of the Nuvias Group) has been a Riverbed distributor since 2005, and says it is the most extensively resourced and qualified Riverbed distributor in EMEA.

Hosted comms provider TelcoSwitch has enlisted Joe Murphy to lead a newly formed dealer channel operation.

He brings almost 20 years of channel experience, including a notable stint at Adept Telecom, and has pledged to implement a tried and tested model for recruiting and supporting dealers.

"Years ago there was a departure from the traditional dealer model with vendors either developing their own billing platform or buying one, so a lot of dealers migrated to virtual reseller models," he explained.

"This is great for those wanting to develop businesses capable of provisioning and supporting a customer base, but it has limited the options for freelance telecoms specialists who want to focus on selling and building commissions.

"We are bringing back an option that was always popular but supporting it with modern mechanisms."

The company provides online deal calculators and proposal tools and will sell under a sister brand which has a dedicated website and product information.

Russell Lux, CEO, said: "We are not experts in selling directly, so we are actively recruiting partners who can now choose their preferred method of engagement, dealer or wholesale."

Distributor Mayflex is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. The company was founded on 17th March 1917 as Mayall & Co as a distributor of Swan Kettles by John William Mayall and stayed in the family for three generations.

The Mayflex brand name was introduced in 1985 and became the name of the company shortly afterwards.

Around this time the company entered the communication cables market launching a range of coax, voice and RS232 cables.

This new venture gathered momentum and led to the ongoing development of network cabling in the form of copper twisted pair and fibre optic cables as they grew in popularity.

In January 1997, Mayflex introduced the Excel brand to the structured cabling and rack market. Excel is now sold in over 70 countries and holds top spot in the UK based on the volume sold.

In April 2015 Mayflex was acquired by Sonepar, an independent family-owned company in the B2B distribution of electrical products and related services.

Andrew Percival, Managing Director at Mayflex, said: "This important and exciting anniversary marks the longevity of our business and demonstrates our adaptability as market conditions and technology have evolved.

"Mayflex now employs 300 plus associates, from staff that have been in the business for 15, 20 even 30 years, along with newer recruits, bringing a great dynamic to the business.

"We are active across EMEA and will extend our reach further in the coming months.

"Times have certainly changed through our 100 years of trading, but there is one constant within Mayflex, ambition, this is alive and kicking within our business and will underpin our development over the years to come."