Comms Dealer

Gamma has pledged to take its marketing support for partners to 'the next level' with the introduction of two new initiatives.

The first, Accelerate, is a self-serve online marketing portal available to all partners.

It includes an asset library that enables users to leverage tools that customise campaign material and product collateral.

In the lead up to Accelerate's launch Gamma also expanded its white label marketing offering to include an end-to-end campaign-in-a-box model.

Gamma's Platinum Partner Programme, launched in 2015, now includes a Gold level, giving partners access to a Partner Programme Manager who will support lead generation activities including managed lead nurture campaigns.

Gold partners also get funding for marketing, enhanced training and support, and access to multi-tactic marketing automation features.

The company said it will deliver managed marketing campaigns to Platinum and Gold Partners using the Accelerate platform; while Accelerate's content syndication module will be available exclusively to Platinum Partners.

Gamma's Head of Marketing Justin Coombes commented: "These new initiatives enable us to take the marketing support we offer to our channel partners to the next level.

"All of our partners can easily brand marketing material on a self-serve basis within the portal. The premium features, such as content syndication and automated lead nurture, add value to the Platinum and new Gold proposition, providing an opportunity to boost lead generation and increase sales."

Channel Telecom MD Clifford Norton has joined forces with former colleague Danny Woods to launch Channel Utilities, a provider of bespoke gas, electricity, water and waste management solutions exclusively through the channel.

Norton and Woods first met at Cable Telecom where Norton, then Sales Director, mentored Woods who went on to set up ADK Communications with two other colleagues.

The company was sold when Woods joined the Fidelity Group before founding Woods Communications in 2013 which also sold energy solutions.

"Small customers could potentially be large energy consumers," commented Woods.

"For example, ovens in bakeries use a lot of energy, but bakeries may just have one phone line. Channel Utilities provides cost-effective utility solutions for all customer types."

The UK Government has called on the telecoms industry to help it spend 33% of all public sector money with SMEs by 2020. A group of industry leaders are collaborating with the Cabinet Office and the Crown Commercial Service to help comms providers address public sector opportunities.

Their target is to have a third of all public sector money spent with small and medium sized businesses by 2020.

This amounts to circa £2-3bn per annum across all sectors including health, transport, education, defence, central and local Government.

Adept CEO Ian Fishwick (pictured) is leading the group having been selected as the telecoms industry representative on the Cabinet Office SME Panel.

He is also Commercial Director at Innopsis, the not-for-profit trade body charged with helping businesses secure Government contracts across all public sector fields.

Comms Dealer is supporting the initiative and is co-sponsoring the 'Go Public Sector!' thought leadership event which will take place at the Institute of Directors in London on February 28th.

"If you have ever found it difficult to sell to the public sector then this is your chance to explain why to the Cabinet Office," said Fishwick.

"We need to understand the changes required to make it easier to do business. There will be a chance for everyone in the audience to air their views."

By 2020, the Government plans to spend one third of its goods and services budget with SMEs and as Tony Brown, Category Lead for the Crown Commercial Service explained, the Government doors are truly open for business.

"We're responsible for managing the procurement of common goods and services, so public sector organisations with similar needs achieve value by buying as a single customer," he said.

"Our commercial agreements are developed in consultation with our customers and suppliers to deliver a competitive and diverse market place.

"Currently, we are involved in a campaign declaring that Government is 'Open for Business' and we want to work with more small businesses across the UK.

"The 'Open for Business' campaign will demonstrate how becoming a Government supplier is a great way to make a difference to your business. Companies report an increase in turnover, higher profits and an expansion of their workforce."

More and more SMEs within the technology sector are said to be doing business with Government. Technology Products 2, G-Cloud 8 and Networks Services are the latest CCS frameworks with successful SME participation at 54%, 87% and 25% respectively.

"We are making it easier to become a Government supplier and we want to hear from you in order to improve the process, to enable you to bid for and win Government contracts," commented Brown.

For more information and to register for a place at the 'Go Public Sector' seminar go to gov.uk/openforbusiness

Blueface's hosted voice platform, Blueface UC, has received a 2017 Internet Telephony Product of the Year award from TMC.

The platform was released in November 2016 and provides unified communications and hosted voice services for organisations of all sizes. The platform was developed in house by the cloud communications company which invested over 100,000 hours of research and development in bringing the service to market.

Alan Foy, Blueface Group CEO, said: "We are committed to innovation and we have many more exciting product releases on our technology roadmap in 2017. Watch this space."

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."