Comms Dealer

CityFibre has secured new service provider contracts signed on the Milton Keynes and Northampton metro networks, acquired as part of its KCOM asset acquisition in January 2016.

The contracts, with a combined initial value of £7m, are with DBfB, a Northampton-based provider of connectivity, comms and IT solutions, and Exa Networks, the Bradford-based provider of connectivity to education and business establishments.

CityFibre also signed contracts with Exa on the acquired footprints in Leeds and Bradford.

Under the six-year agreements, DBfB and Exa will commit to provide connectivity to 500 businesses and schools across Milton Keynes and Northampton.

Since closing the acquisition of KCOM Group's national network assets on 18th January 2016, CityFibre has sold 950 connections across five of the acquired metro networks and added £15.7m in initial contract value covering both the business and public sector market segments.

These latest contracts also take CityFibre past the milestone of 5,000 total customer connections sold since the company's inception.

CityFibre Chief Executive Greg Mesch stated: "In a little under four months we've added £15.7m in new contracted revenues covering 950 new committed connections in five cities, as well as capacity sales on the national long distance network.

"This latest deal delivers anchor customers in two market verticals, adding DBfB as our 47th service provider partner, and expanding our existing relationship with Exa Networks.

"The combined contract value of the new business added on the acquired assets to date, including the minimum revenue commitment from KCOM, now totals £40.7m."

Tunbridge Wells-based Adept Telecom has bolstered its UC capabilities with the acquisition of Comms Group, a provider of Avaya IP Office to SMEs, for £3.5m. The deal will be funded from Adept's revolving debt facility and is immediately earnings-accretive.

Adept CEO Ian Fishwick stated: "We are now in a position to provide a complete unified communications offering which can address the whole of the market, from small customers through to large enterprise clients."

Adept's UC proposition was first formed when it acquired Centrix in May 2015.

"The addition of Comms Group addresses a smaller scale of SME client, but will increase the effectiveness of bidding by Adept for unified solutions opportunities overall," added Fishwick.

Comms Group was established in June 2008 by Matt Tarry and Paul Simmons. The company employs 25 people at its Northampton offices and is accredited by Avaya, Cisco and Gamma.

Comms Group will retain its current presence and customer service operation in Northampton. And the vendors are to be retained in their current roles for a period of at least 12 months post-completion.

The last filed accounts of Comms Group for the year ended 31 March 2015 reported revenue, operating profit and profit before tax of £3.m, £0.5 million and £0.4m respectively.

Net and gross assets at that date were £1.2m and £1.8m respectively.

The trading performance of Comms Group for the year ended 31st March 2016 was ahead of the historic results with the unaudited management accounts showing revenue and operating profit of approximately £3.7m and £0.8m respectively.

Fishwick added: "Comms Group is an excellent fit because, like Adept, it is asset-­light, complements and builds upon our existing expertise and skills, particularly within the Avaya product set, and extends Adept's offering in the UC space through the addition of IT services."

Corporate finance advisory services were provided by Evolution Capital (UK).

Adept supplies comms services to 36 councils, seven out of 10 private hospitals in London, half of all London's business centres and 17,000 customers including national brand names.

IT support business Pisys.net has reached the £1m revenue milestone and marked the achievement with the launch of a national franchise with new operations in three locations across the UK.

The company was established in 2003 when Directors Steve Bain and John Merrick met at BNI Dylan, a Swansea-based networking meeting that forms part of the BNI South Wales franchise.

Merrick said: "Steve and I hit it off straight away, despite our businesses competing, and we soon formed our partnership.

"Since then we have grown to employ 17 staff, all based in Swansea, and we have franchises in Aberdeen, Inverness and Cardiff East.

"This is a superb move for us as we look to pass on all of our key knowledge from what works, and doesn't work, in the IT industry."

Merrick also noted that BNI South Wales has played an important role in the firm's success.

"BNI has been the backbone of our business from day one," he added. "Particularly in the early days because it was our only marketing platform.

"We built our reputation on the back of referrals received through the BNI network. It gave us a direct route to market which has paid dividends in the form our second and third generation referrals. Therefore we encourage our franchise owners to seek BNI membership."

Pictured (l-r) the Pisys.net board: John Merrick, Jo-Ann Miles and Steve Bain.

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."