Comms Dealer

Swindon-based Excalibur Communications is set to make a second attempt at a world record, as well as see if it can beat the £10,000 it raised in 2014 for a state-of-the-art teenage cancer facility.

The ICT provider needs 500 people to help get it over the line for the largest number of participants in a Swiss Ball exercise, after coming close to the world record first time around.

This new attempt marks the launch of the Younite Foundation, a registered charity that provides support and life changing opportunities for local children and young adults (up to the age of 21).

"We want everyone to enjoy themselves and raise lots of money, just like we did in 2014," said Younite Trustee Karen Thornley.

"But this time round we really want Swindon to embrace Team GB's fantastic Olympic spirit and show everyone what we're made of by setting a new world record."

Excalibur CEO James Phipps, also a Trustee of the Younite Foundation, added: "Younite trustees have selected three causes to support with this year's event including Jessie May and a Children's Hospice at Home."

UKCloud, formerly Skyscape Cloud Services, has achieved certification against the ISO27018 information security standard for the protection of personally identifiable information (PII) in public cloud.

UKCloud has also re-certified against the ISO20000 standard for IT Service Management for a further three years.

"As cloud computing becomes more widely adopted, public sector organisations with considerable data protection responsibilities understandably have significant concerns when it comes to how their information is processed, stored and protected," said John Godwin, Director of Compliance and Information Assurance at UKCloud.

"ISO27018 delivers a more comprehensive framework of controls when it comes to the protection of personally identifiable data in the cloud. Our certification means our customer base, which is exclusively comprised of public sector organisations, can be assured that their data is in safe hands."

The IT channel is confident of being able to reduce the skills gap by 2020, according to research by OnePoll commissioned by Agilitas.

The survey of IT resellers, Managed Service Providers and independent IT providers revealed a confident outlook, with 75% expecting the skills gap to change by 2020, and 64% believing it will be resolved or reduced.

The research also examined the skill sets required, unexpectedly revealing that despite the rise of the cloud 78% believe hiring and training more on-premise and data-centre technical skills will help to ease pressures by 2020.

"The trend is in contrast to the arguments that we've heard recently about running out of talent," commented Shaun Lynn, CEO of Agilitas. "Our research revealed that rather than resting on their laurels, many in the industry are confident of being able to make positive changes and reduce the gap."

The research also looked to understand what channel leaders plan to do to assist in reducing the skills gap, revealing that fostering high quality technical skills is a key priority in the channel.

Forty-seven percent see a lack of internal training as the key reason for a continued skills shortage in 2020, and around two thirds (62%) view training of existing staff as key to reducing the gap by 2020, suggesting talent development is a key focus among industry leaders.

Lynn added: "The results of our research highlight a clear need for our industry to focus on upskilling existing staff.

"We're already seeing a growth in important apprenticeship schemes and building up the next generation of talent, but the challenge between now and 2020 is the extent to which we can improve existing skillsets to meet customer challenges. The survey highlighted the need to invest in internal skills training and the channel must take note."

A new video-based online learning resource aimed at increasing the effectiveness of cloud sales teams within both the UK channel and vendor community has been launched by the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF).

The new tools have been developed in conjunction with business development consultancy and CIF member Larato.

The new online modules aim to help sales professionals in the channel and vendor communities increase their sales effectiveness by building on existing sales skills with information, tools and processes to enable them to secure sales in next generation information communications technologies and services.

Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF, stated: "The time is right to create an online resource aimed squarely at those individuals who are at the coal face of sales: the channel and vendor sales teams tasked with quotas, win rates and targets.

"This online resource is designed to be simple to follow, easy to understand and for time poor sales teams."

Lucy Green, Managing Director at Larato, added: "We have developed these modules to support the work the Cloud Industry Forum is undertaking. Key to this is helping individuals and organisations throughout the cloud ecosystem understand the sales process, guide them through the sales cycle and give them the tools they need to deliver business opportunities and sales."

Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise (ALE) has appointed Matthieu Destot as Executive Vice President for Global Sales and Marketing, while Nicolas Brunel will head-up the Communications Business Division.

Destot replaces Jan Zuurbier who continues with the company as an ALE board member.

Jack Chen, CEO, said: "These new appointments will support our efforts as ALE continues to focus its transformation strategy on expanding market reach, improving positioning in vertical sectors, and accelerating the shift to cloud-based business models."

Union Street Technologies has deployed a new hosted platform based on Microsoft's Azure public cloud for its aBILLity billing system.

The company first introduced a hosted option for its aBILLity system in 2011, prior to this the system was available only as an on-premise solution.

Its 'Cloud Hosted Billing' service proved popular and Union Street now hosts aBILLity for over half of its reseller partners, with almost all new partners opting to use the service.

Managing Director Tony Cook said: "We wanted to ensure that our hosted environment could scale effortlessly without limit as more partners chose to use our Cloud Hosted Billing service.

"Azure provides tools for monitoring applications and analysing traffic, giving us in-depth, real-time insight into how our platform is performing.

"We're able to instantly respond to increases in demand, proactively scaling up compute resource to manage capacity as required.

"We can now be certain that no matter how many partners choose to use our cloud hosted billing service, they will always have access to the resources they need to keep aBILLity running at peak performance."

The platform also offers data security. "Protecting data has never been more important, or more challenging, than it is today.

"As such we have built our platform from the ground up according to best practice for data security, delivering security levels comparable to those found in the financial sector."

David McGrath, CTO for Union Street, was instrumental in developing and deploying the new hosted platform.

He added: "The platform features a traditional three tier network with web, application and database legs.

"Communication only ever crosses a single tier and each tenant has its own dedicated security group which controls database access, file system permissions and access to the aBILLity remote app.

"The platform will only accept secure connections and multi factor authentication is available for those clients that may need an added layer of security."

3CX equipment is to be incorporated into BT's Wholesale's SIP Trunking platform, enabling resellers to connect SIP trunks using the 3CX PBX system.

Oli Barker, Head of Hosted Products at BT Wholesale and Ventures, said: "The SIP standard can often be interpreted in different ways, so interoperability testing with vendors such as 3CX is an essential part of our service to minimise interoperability issues between our customers and maintain the high quality service they expect.

"The 3CX communication system is now an authorised device for connection to the BT Wholesale SIP Trunking (WSIPT) platform."

Colt Technology Services has appointed Tom Regent as Chief Commercial Officer commencing September 19th, reporting to CEO Carl Grivner.

His remit is to lead Colt's global sales, pre-sales and marketing teams.

Regent joins Colt from BT Global Services where he held a number of senior roles, most recently acting as President, Global Banking and Financial Markets.

Prior to this he was President of Sales and Marketing, responsible for worldwide sales operations, indirect channels and marketing.

Previously, he held a number of senior roles at AT&T, including head of AT&T EMEA, AT&T's largest operation outside the US. Before that he was VP of global marketing at AT&T, VP global accounts EMEA, and chief of staff for the CEO of AT&T's global business.

Regent said: "Colt is implementing a bold new strategy to tap into the demand for mission critical high bandwidth across Europe and Asia. I am excited to be part of the team who will drive this transformation."

Paula Cogan is joining Colt as Vice President, Enterprise & Partner Sales Europe, having previously worked at Verizon Partner Solutions as Regional Vice President EMEA & LATAM, leading the wholesale business, responsible for over half a billion of sales annual revenue.

Prior to this Cogan held a number of senior roles in Verizon Enterprise Solutions and Verizon Business.

Tim Passingham is joining Colt as Vice President Wholesale Sales Europe, moving from Level 3 where he held a Senior Vice President role heading up a large team and was responsible for over half a billion dollars of annual revenue. Prior to Level 3 Tim held a number of senior roles across BT.

Gamma's Daryl Pile has been promoted to the role of Channel MD following a 13 year stint at the company, the latest phase of a 20 year career working in the comms channel in a variety of senior business development roles.

Pile said: "We've come a long way since I joined Gamma, and I'm looking forward to continuing the drive of our success and growth. There's no let-up in Gamma's plans and ideas and it's great to be a part of it."

Richard Bligh, Chief Operating Officer, added: "During his time at Gamma, Daryl has made a significant contribution to the development of the business and relationships with our channel partners."

Enghouse Interactive has signed up Koris as a new member of its EMEA partner programme.

Koris is authorised to sell, market and deploy a range of the firm's products including its flagship Enghouse Interactive Communications Centre (EICC) and Attendant Console solution, recently certified for Skype for Business 2015.

Craig McCalley, Director of Sales & Marketing, Koris, said: "We are excited about the deep alignment Enghouse has with the Microsoft product portfolio, and seeing a lot of traction in the market between the Enghouse and Microsoft solution sets."

Koris will focus on delivering the Enghouse Interactive solutions into mid-range contact centres in both the public and private sectors.