Comms Dealer

DM Software, the software developer of PeterConnects Attendant for Cisco Unified Communications Manager and Microsoft Skype for Business, has named Lucas de Clercq is its new owner and CEO.
 
Under this new ownership, the business will focus on broadening the product portfolio for Cisco and Microsoft.

The central themes of product development focus on offering reachability, context and control over communication.

The product ServiceDesk for Cisco will also become available for Microsoft Skype for Business later this year.

JDM Software will also focus on international expansion into Italy, Spain and the United States aiming to replicate their current success in the Benelux, France, Germany and UK markets.
 
De Clercq has occupied a number of managerial positions in the ICT market working for Digital Equipment, Compaq Computers and Microsoft. During his career with Microsoft, de Clercq was part of the management team in the Netherlands and the Western European HQ OEM team.
 
de Clercq said: "One of my most significant drivers is innovation and the way organisations can use technology to optimise their communications and ultimately their business. I'm looking forward to working with our existing and new partners to help organisations to enable meaningful connections with their customers."

Pangea's partner programme, just one month old, has on boarded 43 partners and according to MD Dan Cunliffe the response has been 'overwhelming'.

"It's clear the channel is eager to seize the opportunities presented within the IoT market," he stated.

"We provide the connectivity, devices and solutions on a global scale within our IoT ecosystem. We also work closely with our partners and help them open new revenue streams from their existing client base."

 Daisy aims to tap into and harvest the latent talent within its graduate workforce via a 12-month development programme designed to offer direction, encouragement and support to maximise their potential.

The first six months will see 20 graduates take part in Million Makers, a Dragon's Den-style fundraising challenge run in partnership with the Prince's Trust charity.

All graduates are allocated a senior business mentor from Daisy's leadership team and access to training.

Graduate and Apprenticeship Manager Marcia Turner stated: "The programme is designed to enable our candidates to feel confident about choosing their own career path and gain an understanding of how to achieve those goals."

Daisy's Chief People Officer David Jones added: "The scheme demonstrates a new and exciting level of commitment to career development. I wish our chosen 20 the best with their Million Makers projects and look forward to them winning."

Pictured: Daisy's line up of selected graduates

Southern Communications has secured new investment from private equity firm Livingbridge (which has taken a minority stake in the company) along with a £36m loan facility from Santander and HSBC in support of its expansion strategy.

The Basingstoke-based comms firm has boosted revenues from £10m to £32m in five years driven by organic growth and acquisitions and plans to double revenues within 3-5 years now it has the 'acquisition fire power' to match its ambitions.

In other news former TalkTalk CEO David Goldie has joined the board as Group Chairman.

The appointment reunites Goldie with Southern's Commercial Director Mat Kirk. They worked together previously at Carphone Warehouse/TalkTalk where they acquired 40-plus businesses over a five year period.

Paul Bradford, CEO, commented: "With the investment from Livingbridge and the appointment of David we have secured the perfect team to drive our growth."

So far Southern Communications has made eight acquisitions and has recurring revenues of more than 90%.

Matthew Caffrey, Livingbridge Director, added: "Southern Communications has a strong track record of organic and acquisitive growth and a well positioned product portfolio to service the IT and telecommunications needs of SMEs."

Southern Communications has 6,600 business customers and a workforce of 160-plus employees operating from four locations in the UK.

Alternative Networks continues to suffer the consequence of challenging market conditions but stated continued growth in recurring revenues in Advanced Solutions, with a higher level of non-recurring revenues expected in the second half.

That's according to the firm's interim results for the six months ended 31st March 2016 which were described today as 'mixed but with encouraging underlying trends'.

The mobile performance was impacted by challenging market conditions and a reduction in roaming tariffs implemented by the carriers, as announced in February 2016. 

According to Alternative Networks there is evidence of an improved performance in mobile following introduction of new tariffs and arrangements with carriers.

The company reports mobile subscriber growth with a 9% increase in the base compared to the same period last year.

Overall revenues were down 4% at £69.3m with adjusted EBITDA of £7.483m, down 27%. Adjusted operating profit was recorded as 5.889m, down 35%.
 
Mark Quartermaine, Chief Executive, commented: "There have been market challenges to our mobile business over the past six months.

"However, we have remained competitive and continued to improve our offering to customers and win new customers. We have taken measures to mitigate the financial impact of changes to roaming tariffs.

"There are plenty of indicators to give us cause for optimism about the relevance and appeal of our offer and we will continue to drive organic growth."

Legal software provider Peppermint Technology has upgraded its comms system following a link up with VIA.

VIA Voice is a fully hosted UC solution developed by VIA, the business telephony and communications specialist.

The platform incorporates Skype for Business and operates over the Internet, replacing the need to have a traditional phone network. It allows employees to talk, instant message, email and video chat across a variety of devices, such as landlines, smartphones, PCs, and tablets, regardless of location.

For the past six years Peppermint Technology had deployed a hosted Microsoft Lync communications platform with limited features.

Following the implementation of Via Voice, Peppermint Technology is also benefitting from a conferencing facility and document-sharing feature which allows staff to share information and relevant documentation with their clients more securely and effectively.

As a part of the new platform, VIA has also installed its call routing technology which effectively directs incoming phone calls to the correct departments, increasing efficiency and enhancing the overall customer experience.

Alex Tebbs, Director at VIA, said: "By securing this business win from a competitor, we have demonstrated that VIA Voice is more than just a UC solution."

One in three smartphone users believe they will use at least five connected wearables beyond 2020, with smartphones turning into just screens, and wearables expected to perform most smartphone functions within five years.

In the new Ericsson ConsumerLab report, 'Wearable technology and the Internet of Things', six in 10 smartphone users state that wearables have uses beyond health and wellness.

Devices related to personal safety and security, such as panic buttons and personal locators, attract most interest.

The top five most wanted wearables across the five markets surveyed were a panic/SOS button (32%), a smartwatch (28%), wearable location trackers (27%), identity authenticators (25%), and a wearable water purifier (24%).

The report captured the opinions of 5,000 smartphone users (of which 2,500 are wearable users) in Brazil, China, South Korea, the UK and the US, representing the views of 280 million smartphone users globally.

In addition to the top five most wanted wearables, it shows consumers predict a booming wearables market beyond 2020, as well as that wearables might replace smartphones and will help consumers interact with physical things and objects in the IoT era.

Ownership of wearables among smartphone users in the surveyed markets has doubled in the past year. However, consumers predict it will take at least another year for the current generation of wearables to go mainstream.

A more diverse set of wearables, such as personal safety devices and smart garments, will go mainstream beyond 2020 - but when they do, a booming market can be expected. One in three smartphone users believe they will use at least five connected wearables beyond 2020.

The integration of smartphones into every aspect of daily life makes it hard to envisage a future without them. But with two in five (43%) smartphone users expecting wearables might replace smartphones, this could indeed happen - although it may take some time. As wearables get smarter and more independent in terms of factors such as connectivity, the smartphone screen may become less significant. Thirty-eight percent of smartphone users say wearables will be used to perform most smartphone functions within just five years.

Jasmeet Singh Sethi, Consumer Insight Expert, Ericsson ConsumerLab, said: "Early signs of detachment from smartphones are visible today with 40 percent of today's smartwatch users already interacting less with their smartphones."

Wearable technology will also accelerate the convergence of the digital and human worlds, by bringing people into the IoT.

While consumers are confident that wearable technology will help them interact with objects in their surroundings, they also say that this technology may not necessarily be devices.

60 percent believe that ingestible pills and chips under the skin will be commonly used in the next five years - not only to track vital health data, but also to unlock doors, authenticate transactions and identity, and to control objects.

Already today, 25 percent of smartwatch owners use their smartwatch to remotely control other digital devices at home, and 30 percent use voice search on their smartwatches.

Sing Sethi added: "Although consumers show greatest interest in devices related to safety, we also see an openness to wearable technology further away from today's generation. In five years time, walking around with an ingestible sensor, which tracks your body temperature and adjusts the thermostat setting automatically once you arrive home, may be a reality."

Vodafone has secured a ten year multi-million pound contract with EDF Energy to update the company's communications and IT infrastructure for all its generation business facilities in the UK, including nine offices, three data centres and 11 power stations.

The new Vodafone network will provide four times more bandwidth than currently available and will allow new services such as video conferencing and collaborative working.

New Wi-Fi capabilities will be established within all the facilities, allowing legacy paper-based systems to be replaced for the first time by tablets and other mobile devices.

The transformation of the existing infrastructure will result in a new digital platform being created that will support and enable the delivery of EDF Energy's IT strategy and 2020 vision for its generation business.

The platform will improve training systems, support regulatory compliance and give more flexibility in how employees are able to work.

Vodafone will also provide a dedicated on-site support team for EDF Energy to complement the existing in-house teams.

Underpinning the programme is a new commercial model between the two companies that eliminates future communications related capex requirements for the company's power stations across the duration of the contract.

Vodafone Group Enterprise chief executive Nick Jeffery said: "Bringing commercial certainty to the deal has allowed long term stability of investment for EDF Energy and makes planning a simpler process."

EDF Energy Head of Infrastructure & IT Operations Nigel Pettifer, added: "This long term agreement meets our objectives and helps to create a partnership that will minimise risk and maintain innovation."

Plantronics has agreed an out of court settlement with Executive Telecommunications (UK), trading as Incom Telecommunications based in Trafford Park, Manchester.

The settlement is in connection with claims relating to the sale of non-EU Plantronics products that had counterfeit packaging components.

Details of the settlement remain confidential but Plantronics confirmed that Incom cooperated with it in addressing these claims.

WatchGuard Technologies has acquired HawkEye G threat detection and response technology from Hexis Cyber Solutions, a division of KEYW.
 
"The combination of HawkEye G and WatchGuard will address the evolving threat landscape organisations face today by extending visibility from the perimeter to the end-point," said Prakash Panjwani, WatchGuard CEO.

"The acquisition aligns with our mission to deliver enterprise grade security that is easy to deploy and manage for small to mid-size organisations and distributed enterprises."

WatchGuard will make the new technology available to end users via its global network of MSSPs and channel resellers.