Comms Dealer

Marketing agency Bowan Arrow is celebrating a brace of industry award nominations having been shortlisted in the Best Marketing Award category at the 2016 ISPA Awards and the Best Channel Marketing Agency category of the CRN Sales and Marketing Awards.

Bowan Arrow MD Andy Grant said: "It is the first year that we have entered either of these awards so to be shortlisted is a real achievement. To be acknowledged by our industry peers as delivering recognised channel marketing projects with our clients gives us enormous pride."

IP Solutions has beefed up its leadership oomph with the appointment of Olly Garland as CFO. He joins soon after Matthew Parker was appointed CEO by PE investor Livingbridge.  Garland has held a number of high profile leadership positions including CEO and CFO of Direct Wines, and CFO and COO of Infracast, a provider of mobile messaging for large corporates.

Parker commented: "We will leverage Olly's strategic skills and M&A experience to accelerate the growth of our business.

"The telecoms market is undergoing enormous change and we plan to be one of the winners by delivering both organic and acquisition-led growth."

Garland commented: "I was attracted to IP Solutions for two reasons - the drive of the whole team and the ambitions of PE-backer Livingbridge. This combination provides the ingredients we need to build a stand-out leader in this industry."

IP Solutions has also appointed Jeremy Langley as CMO. He brings much commercial leadership experience having worked in fast-growth technology companies including CMO and MD roles at Lumesse, a SaaS-based business he helped to grow from start-up to revenues in excess of 100m euros.

PRS Telecom has signalled big plans for growth following its partnership with the founder of gap personnel group.

The comms provider is aiming to become a £10m business by 2020 with 10-plus offices spread across the UK, all based on a five-year agreement with Gary Dewhurst who is now a major shareholder.

Dewhurst is best known as an entrepreneur, investor and business mentor, and under his leadership gap personnel group currently achieves turnover in excess of £100m.

The partnership has already catalysed the acquisition of key client accounts, the recruitment of new staff and a relocation of the HQ to larger bespoke offices.

Patrick Gill, Director of PRS Telecom, stated: "This new relationship is all about working together to drive the expansion of PRS into a much stronger, more robust and more profitable business."

Timico Technology Services (TTS) has achieved the Small and Midsize Business (SMB) Specialisation from Cisco.

"The SMB specialisation complements and enhances our portfolio and managed services offering.

"It also augments our reputation as an agile IT solutions and support provider," stated Nabeil Samara, Managing Director TTS.

A hosted security service launched by Node4 offers organisations immediate, actionable intelligence on compromises, threats and potentially malicious activity to identify and mitigate issues as, or even before, they occur, claims the firm.

Available to Node4 customers and partners on a pay-as-you-go basis, N4Secure incorporates Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM), with intrusion detection, vulnerability management services, application penetration testing and external vulnerability testing.

Reporting and ongoing advice and support from Node4's team of cyber security specialists is also provided.

Steve Nice, Security Technologist at Node4, said: "Security is becoming exponentially harder to manage as the threat landscape grows ever more complex.

"Protecting an organisation in today's expanding threat landscape can be a full-time job for any IT or security professional, but through N4Secure, Node4 can take away this burden with a unified security management service."

The N4Secure service is available in three levels, Essential, Enhanced and Elite protection, with varying levels of reporting, scanning and consultancy.

Oxford-based Ridgeway Telecom has donated a Samsung OfficeServ 7100 system to the charity Against Breast Cancer.

The system was supplied and installed free of charge over a two day project which also involved upgrading analogue lines to ISDN 2 with direct dial numbers.

Ridgeway Telecom has been working with the Abingdon-based charity since 2010, providing its fixed lines and broadband services.

Ridgeway's Technical Solutions Manager, Farah Nazir-Chapman, said: "Everyone knows what a fabulous job Against Breast Cancer do through fundraising events, research and raising awareness. We wanted to help and show our support to a loyal and valued customer."

Rob Fleming, Development Manager for Against Breast Cancer, added: "The new digital phone system has enabled our supporters to engage with us more easily than ever before and everyone can use the system in complete confidence."

Nimans has joined forces with Unify to offer resellers a 'private cloud' offering powered by Virtual1.

The technology provides full OpenScape Business functionality and is based on a per-user-per-month licensing model which scales up to 1,500 users.

Resellers have a choice of delivering an on-premise server based solution, using a designated data centre or their own hosted service provider. In addition 'sIP Exchange' allows direct access to the PSTN via Nimans SIP.

"This is an exciting collaboration which in many ways allows resellers to steal a march on their rivals by embracing the next stage in cloud-based communications," said John McKindland, Nimans' Head of Solutions.

"It offers full system features such as voicemail, UC, CTI and web conferencing combined with the flexibility of a pay-as-you-use service without a traditional capex investment."

Former Computerlinks and Arrow ECS exec David Ellis has joined Exclusive Group as Director Global Services.

"David brings a wealth of experience and a track record of success," said Barrie Desmond, COO of Exclusive Group.

"Increasingly we're seeing more and more global deals and our ability to support these will add more value to both our vendor and channel partners.

"Global services are a key part of our growth strategy and David will play a crucial role in this."

Ellis added: "In my time within the industry I've identified and brought to market a number of new technologies and services, and have seen the cyber security market evolve at breakneck speed.

"I can't wait to start helping our vendor and channel partners achieve even more value from their relationship with Exclusive Group through new global service offerings."

He joins Exclusive Group from Arrow ECS where he was part of the senior leadership team in EMEA responsible for vendor business development and the roll-out of new propositions.

Ellis was formerly Director of New Technology and Services at Computerlinks before its acquisition by Arrow.

In his 13 years with Computerlinks he built and grew an e-Security offering before assuming responsibility for services, emerging technology and market sectors.

MSP Claranet has launched Skype for Business integration for the Claranet Hosted Voice service in the UK.

James Mitchell, Senior Product Manager for UC, said: "Integrating an existing PBX system with Skype for Business is not straight forward, resulting in many organisations putting it quite a way down their to-do list.

"With our new service, customers will be able to upgrade entirely to our Hosted Voice service with Skype for Business as the front end tool.

"Claranet has done the heavy lifting to fully integrate the Skype for Business package with our Hosted Voice service."

The Institute for Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) has declared The Chris Seymour Award for Women in Telecoms open for entries.

The award recognises the outstanding contribution that women make to the sector.

Applications are welcome from women who have a minimum of five years experience in the industry and can demonstrate technical or business leadership skills that excel in one of the following areas - significant achievements in the sector; long term excellence; original research on telecoms technology; and outstanding leadership.
 
The awards are presented at the ITP's annual dinner on the 7th December in London. The closing date for entries is 12th August 2016.

Crissi Williams, Head of Operations for the Institute, said: "This award is designed to recognise the key contribution that women make to the telecoms industry. 

"The ITP is focused on helping people develop their professional skills and we want to recognise those who are inspirational to our sector."