Comms Dealer

Nimans has welcomed Panasonic UC Pro to its product line up, a new software-based UC suite that complements the vendor's NS series of comms systems.

The new solution has a capacity for 2,500 users and offers video calling, presence, pop-up alerts, text messaging, group chats and calendar integration.

Paul Burn, Nimans' Head of Category Sales, said: "UC Pro is all about flexibility and mobility from one package, offering multi-device compatibility, easy to use functionality and an on-the-go capability."

8x8 has added new features to its cloud-based Virtual Contact Centre (VCC) solution, introducing the integration of management capabilities, analytics and a pre-built CRM integration tool that allows contact centre managers to configure and tailor the agent and customer experience without requiring professional services.

Darren Hakeman, SVP Product and Strategy at 8x8, said: "It is imperative that our customers remain competitive and deliver the highest levels of service to their customers, and as their business partner we are committed to pushing the envelope on innovation to make this happen.

"8x8 offers enhanced contact centre capabilities on a single cloud platform, ensuring our customers around the world have a unified global contact centre solution with state-of-the-art presence."

Swindon-based Excalibur has expanded its portfolio with the addition of a new Managed Print Service (MPS) following a partnership with Click Holdings.

By utilising software solutions Excalibur believes it can reduce print and paper wastage by up to 25%, often achieving this without the capital expenditure typically required to fund new equipment.

Chris Hyatt, Director, Information Security at Click Holdings, said: "The new partnership is already providing a roadmap for customers to reduce the number and types of printing devices and supplies. This print hardware and process streamlining exercise would typically result in savings of between 10-20%."

Zen Internet's 20th year in business has been spotlighted by its best set of financial results to date (year ending September 2015), reporting a 7.1% jump in revenues from £50.6m to £54.2m and a rise in pre-tax profits to £3.2m.

These latest results follow a company restructure in 2014 in which Zen created three customer facing divisions - Small Business and Residential, Corporate and Mid-Market and Partnerships.

Finance Director Matt Kay said: "Zen continues to benefit from a customer-centric business model together with heavy investment in the network and an expanding product range.

"Zen has a long-term strategy of re-investing profits into the business to ensure its future growth."

In other news Zen was named one of the best companies to work for in the UK when it was ranked in 56th place in The Sunday Times 100 Best Companies awards.

Last year Zen Internet's success was also recognised when it was named Services Company of the Year in the BCS and Computing UK IT Industry Awards.

Chess took second place in the Sunday Times 100 Best Companies to Work for 2016, up one position from its 2015 ranking.

According to Chess CEO and founder David Pollock the company vision has empowered its people to help the firm achieve year-on-year growth.

"Our growth creates opportunity for everyone to progress their career, to develop knowledge and skill, to gain reward and recognition and to maximise their potential," he stated.

"The growth and success of our people ensures the growth and success of our business, which is why we are so passionate about making Chess such a great place to work.

"We're lucky to work in a fast moving, dynamic, growth industry and our people really embrace the opportunities which that provides."

Chess staff benefit from health and pension plans, a share-option scheme, flexible working hours, complemented by some more other benefits such as massages, breakfast clubs, flu jabs, sponsorships for qualifications and happiness training conducted by Pollock.

"Everyone at Chess is committed to building an energetic, hard working, fun and exciting place to work that attracts, retains and inspires people to give their best."

Plantronics's UK&I channel sales chief Paul Dunne has been appointed Country Manager for the region following an eight year stint in the pure channel role.
 
The new posting includes a channel remit but expands Dunne's responsibilities to include marketing and corporate account teams.
 
He said: "We transact our business globally via the channel and in the UK and Ireland we're fortunate to have a large and loyal partner community with a deep understanding of our business.

"As a result I'll still have a lot of involvement with the channel in my new role, and by taking on responsibility for marketing and corporate account teams we'll have a more integrated approach that sees each function working together."
 

Up to 80% of enterprises see cloud as integral to the broader IT strategy, and according to the Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) the driving force behind the move to the cloud is not just the head of IT or CIO, a wide range of stakeholders are now involved in the decision-making process.

According to CIF research, the head of IT or CIO is actively involved in the decision-making process in 94% of cloud migration programmes and is the final decision-maker in over half of them (54%).

However, the findings also highlight the growing influence of other personnel within the decision - some 80% of CEOs/MDs are actively involved, the CFO in 76% of cases and the head of a user department in 73% of cloud migrations.
 
"These figures suggest that CEOs and department heads are now taking an active role in IT procurement decisions," stated Alex Hilton, CEO of CIF.

"This can come as no shock as the move to cloud is invariably a business driven decision and one that, in some cases, involves additional investment to support cloud-based applications.
 
"A significant proportion (69%) of cloud users report that they were required to make additional investments to complete their migrations. Just over half made additional investment in hardware and 47% in software. That said, 64% of those asked stated that they were satisfied with their chosen method for migrating, with only 5 per cent stating they were unsatisfied.

"Cloud services are having a direct and profound impact on the way that IT departments operate, the type of work that it engages in and the relationships with the rest of the organisation.

"Rather than eclipsing the IT function, as is often thought to be the case, the research demonstrates that the majority of IT departments remain very much in control and that, for many, Cloud is paving the way for more productive and strategic work."

Hosting firm iomart has announced that its Melbourne Hosting brand is now part of The Loop, the dedicated high speed dark fibre network that delivers ultra-fast Internet access to the commercial districts in Manchester.

The Loop is the fibre optic network owned by Gamma that runs for more than 120km beneath the streets of the city. It links the main commercial districts in Manchester with key carrier-neutral data centres via tens of thousands of metres of underground optical fibre, offering an alternative route to traditional networks such as BT.

The Loop now connects Melbourne's two data centre facilities at Manchester's Techno Park - Reynolds House and Turing House - to the city-wide network.

Dominic Monkhouse, MD of iomart, Melbourne's parent company, said: "Ultra-fast connectivity is the key to business growth. By partnering with The Loop we are offering the lowest latency for businesses in Manchester and those with offices in the city. Combined with access to our wider MPLS fibre network that spans the rest of the UK, this means data can be transferred at the speeds necessary for the digital age."

Ashley Griffith, Managing Director of The Loop, said: "The Loop provides a competitive fibre infrastructure alternative for the local market and this new partnership enables Manchester's business community the opportunity to benefit from additional ultra-fast connectivity."

Melbourne provides a range of hosting solutions including dedicated to virtual servers plus colocation backed by 24/7 technical support from its data centre facilities at Manchester's Techno Park.

Openreach has announced plans to connect more consumers and small businesses in the UK to ultrafast fibre using its open access network.

The company will conduct two new trials of Business Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology in Bradford, providing ultrafast speeds of up to 1Gbps in the city's Kirkgate High Street and Listerhills Science Park.

Openreach will also build on trials of ultrafast 'G.fast' technology with new pilot sites in Cambridgeshire and Kent.

It is also committing to build FTTP infrastructure into new housing developments in the UK that have more than 250 premises, free of charge.

Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach, said: "Nine out of ten premises have access to fibre today and this will grow to 95 per cent by the end of next year, but I want to get high speeds to everyone, so we're also developing solutions for the final 5% of the country.

"We also plan to roll out significantly more fibre-to-the-premises and we're trialling a range of options in Bradford to use that technology increasingly in future, wherever it makes sense.

 "A large number of new housing developments will also get fibre-to-the-premises infrastructure built for free under our latest plans."

The enterprise Wi-Fi market grew 5.9% yr/yr in Q4, and 3.7% over the whole of 2015, according to figures from IDC.

The consumer market, where firms like Netgear and D-Link compete, declined 3.9% in Q4 and 4.8% in 2015.

Cisco is still the enterprise market's dominant vendor.

IDC respectively assigns Cisco Q4 and full-year enterprise Wi-Fi shares of 45% and 47%, down from 48.1% and 47.8% a year earlier.

Cisco's wireless revenue (dominated by Wi-Fi) was flat yr/yr in the company's January quarter at $613M. Second biggest HP Enterprise, which acquired Wi-Fi hardware/software vendor Aruba Networks last year for $3bn, is estimated to have a 16.9% 2015 share (up 70 bps yr/yr) after factoring sales from both Aruba and HP proper.

Thanks in part to Aruba, HPE reported 54% yr/yr networking sales growth for its January quarter, allowing the company's enterprise hardware unit to see positive growth in spite of server, storage, and tech services declines.

Third-placed Ruckus Wireless is estimated to have a 6.9% share, up from 2014's 6.3%.