Comms Dealer

Timico has appointed Simon Payne as Chief Commercial Officer, a newly created role within the company's senior leadership team.

He brings over 20 years experience in the ICT industry and joins from Capita where he was Managing Director within the Capita IT Enterprise Services division, leading the team that provides IT, UC and network solutions and support to local and central government and commercial clients across a variety of sectors.

Prior to that, he spent six years at Damovo, latterly as CEO charged with leading a business turnaround, taking on the role of Managing Director of Daisy Group after successfully negotiating the sale of Damovo UK & Ireland to the group in 2015.

Ben Marnham, Chief Executive Officer, said: "We are poised to enter the next stage in our development as a managed IT cloud and service provider.

"I am delighted Simon will be coming on board, strengthening the senior management team to further drive organic and non-organic growth, bringing with him a strong track record of value creation and sales performance with particular expertise in managed services."

SSE Enterprise Telecoms has signed a large scale fixed line network sharing deal with Capita and Updata Infrastructure. The partnership allows each company to share the physical network assets of the other over the term of the seven year agreement.

For the 300-plus IT and comms service provider customers who use SSE Enterprise Telecoms' national Ethernet connectivity services, the deal will double their SSE service coverage from 250,000 business postcodes to over 500,000.

For SSE, the deal shaves two years off its planned network expansion programme (Project Edge), reduces the cost of network expansion by at least 50%, adding 350 BT Exchanges to the SSE network footprint.

Updata and Capita will see each of their eight regional data centres connected directly and diversely to SSE's national fibre optic network.

This new capability will provide scalable, high availability, highly secure (CESG CAS-T) connectivity for their major Government and Corporate clients.

The network is further engineered to deliver high performance, low latency synchronous replication, cloud service aggregation, network service orchestration and managed IT service delivery to their customer sites nationwide.

Colin Sempill, Managing Director at SSE Enterprise Telecoms, said. "Network and infrastructure sharing models like this are commonplace in mobile telephony markets, but unusual on this scale in fixed line telecoms.

"Doubling our service footprint in a relatively short period of time will make us one of the largest fixed line telecoms providers in the UK at a stroke."

Béatrice Butsana-Sita, Updata Managing Director, added: "Connecting our assets together in a way that allows each to share the benefits of the other just made sense. Specifically, this will allow us to provide dedicated networking services to enterprise-sized clients who need connectivity in all corners of the UK."

Martin Classen has joined Swyx as CTO, replacing Joao Gonzaga who becomes Chief Product Officer (CPO).

Classen brings 15-plus years experience in the IT and comms sector across a number of industries.

Previously he held senior roles at Innotec and NetCologne and joins Swyx from PMCS.helpLine Software Group where he was responsible for group-wide software product development.

"Martin fits very well with Swyx both personally and professionally. Together, we will continue to promote the digitisation of SMEs in the future," said Dr. Ralf Ebbinghaus, CEO.

Vision has been awarded a place on the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) over a three year term for Managed Print and Content Management Services.

Vision has been developing its Public Sector team and strategy over several years and experienced success within Higher and Further Education and Healthcare including NHS trusts, Universities and Colleges helping them Manage Printing and Documents more efficiently and delivery continued savings.

Vision's Head of Public Sector Leon Wragg commented: "Our remit as one of the Framework holders is to engage with all aspects of the Public Sector, to deliver a fully managed service focused on centralisation, security and standardisation of all print output.

"We will help manage and develop organisations print and document strategies by delivering a new solution and service and enhancing existing technology and infrastructure, developing best practice and improving efficiencies."

BroadSoft has surpassed 15 million cloud unified communications lines deployed globally and in the cloud PBX/UCaaS space has claimed 41% global market share according to industry analyst Frost & Sullivan.

On November 14th BroadSoft will launch its BroadSoft Business application suite at its user conference, Connections 2016.

"BroadSoft believes that the cloud market for new cloud PBX/unified communications will surpass on-premise PBX/unified communication equipment shipments by 2020," stated Taher Behbehani, Chief Digital and Marketing Officer.

"BroadSoft Business positions us to maintain our position. As a multi-tenant UCaaS solution, BroadSoft Business can deliver cost and scalability benefits to services providers and businesses alike."

Stephanie Watson, General Manager, MZA, added: "Multi-tenant cloud solutions have dominated cloud telephony/UC deployments to date and over the forecast period this situation is expected to continue, representing more than 55% of all cloud deployments in 2021.

"MZA estimates BroadSoft based technology has a share of more than 50% of the worldwide multi-tenant user base, and over 45% of the EMEA user base."

Peterborough-based GreenCity Solutions has acquired Total Solutions enabling the combined entity to offer businesses a broader set of solutions including telecoms, managed print and software development along with stronger technical support.

Rob Baldacci, Group MD, said: "Hot on the heels of our £1.5m investment into Peterborough's connectivity infrastructure this coming together of two businesses opens the local business community up to far greater options when considering their IT and communication solutions as a whole."

Jon Hunt, Director of Operations, added: "Merging Total Solutions and GreenCity makes sense for us and our customers, creating a larger team of technical staff and on-site engineers that enables us to react quicker to customers' needs."

Hackers linked to the Russian military have exploited a previously undisclosed Windows security flaw, according to Microsoft, as President Putin looks to strip the software out of government offices and firms.

US senior intelligence officials have told NBC News the Russian leader is planning to replace all foreign software with domestic alternatives, and has already blocked LinkedIn which is being bought by Microsoft. 

The software maker said in an advisory on its website there had been a small number of attacks using 'spear phishing' emails from a hacking group known as Strontium, which is more widely known as 'Fancy Bear', or APT 28. Microsoft did not identify any victims.

Washington has accused Moscow of launching an unprecedented hacking campaign aimed at disrupting and discrediting the upcoming election.

G3 Comms has secured Diamond accreditation as part of Avaya's new channel programme called Avaya Edge.

Diamond accreditation is the highest level in the programme. G3 was also named a Partner in Customer Excellence and is currently the only Diamond partner in the UK with this designation.

Tony Parish (pictured), Chairman of G3 Comms, stated: "The Edge programme has been created to support performance and the ability for channels to differentiate in the evolving digital market.

"We found it easier to complete the necessary qualifications in this programme and we are now rewarded with sales in recurring services and software."

G3 Comms has a long-standing relationship with Avaya and has been the first company to deploy many of its solutions including Avaya Definity, Aura Contact Centre, G3R and the first UK converged management platform.

Zen Internet has partnered with UK cloud services provider VanillaIP to bring a new BroadSoft-based UC solution to its UK channel.

Zen Channel Partners MD Stephen Warburton said: "The market is moving beyond hosted PBX where you are essentially replicating PBX service from the cloud, to a solution that is more apps-based than device-based.

"The continual R&D VanillaIP demonstrated in adding its own services to the BroadSoft platform convinced us it has the innovation we need."

Zen Internet's wide customer profile, from SME to corporate mid-market and enterprise, meant that the chosen solution must address the whole market spectrum and have the scalability and automation to support Zen's largest customers.

"A key element in enabling this, and in combining Zen's connectivity and other services, was VanillaIP's Uboss portal," added Warburton.

"One of the challenges for us all is how do we package complex technology solutions in a way that our customers will understand. Uboss lets us do this".

Underlying the new partnership is Zen's connectivity with an Assured service which supports IP voice traffic only, along with a converged service which supports prioritised IP voice traffic and data.

Dave Dadds, CEO at VanillaIP, added: "Zen Internet is a long-established network services provider and a technology supplier trusted by its reseller channel and thousands of customers."

The new cloud UC offering will combine BroadSoft cloud PBX, apps and call centre with third party apps such as the Unity suite.

Uboss will unify these within a single portal, while also providing reporting and self-service for end users.

"The channel needs to move beyond a one bundle fits all approach," stated Warburton. "Customers are embracing cloud in all elements of their business. They are aware of the possibilities and we need to present them solutions that are more tightly aligned with their own requirements."

SpliceCom has unveiled its latest managed service offer, SpliceCom Select Cloud Voice for Smaller Businesses, a proposition that provides customers with 'choice without complexity', according to Stuart Bell Head of Sales for the UK & Ireland.

He said: "The delivery of SpliceCom Select Cloud Voice for Smaller Businesses has benefited from our experience with the original SpliceCom Select offer which targeted mid-to-large enterprise customers, and from discussions with our channel partners.

"They now have flexible pay-per-month cloud services that can be tailored to their business requirements.

"This flexibility also allows them to provide a cloud solution for customers whose broadband, Ethernet or leased line service may still be in-contract."