Comms Dealer

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%.

Solar Communications has been ranked in the LSE's 1,000 companies to Inspire Britain list for the second time.

To be included in the listing organisations must display consistent revenue growth over a three year minimum period and demonstrate they have significantly outperformed competitors.

Manchester and Chippenham-based Solar has grown annual turnover from £2m to £13m in seven years and is now entering a growth acceleration phase following the appointment of John Whitty as CEO.

Whitty said: "The listing with the London Stock Exchange Group is proof that we're achieving our goals and are on the right track."

Comms-care is stepping up its apprenticeship campaign with plans to recruit six more youngsters this year.

Comms-care will train the apprentices to become support engineers initially and then build on their skills and competencies so they can take on more complex fault calls and installations.

Comms-care believes that recruiting up to six trainees per cohort provides the best results as it encourages loyalty and enables the apprentices to train and learn as a cohesive and supportive group.

Darren Briscoe, Technical Director at Comms-care, said: "The issue of skills shortages in the technical and engineering sectors is well-understood.

"By providing apprentices with the skills, experience and certifications they need to contribute to the future of the industry our apprenticeships offer the opportunity to feed new talent into the IT engineering pool.

Node4 has joined the Red Hat Certified Cloud and Service Provider programme, giving it access to Red Hat's open source ecosystem, allowing the company to expand and develop new cloud technologies.

This includes working with Red Hat Enterprise Linux OpenStack Platform, which provides a standard collaboration platform to allow developers and technologists to create Open Source tools for building and managing public and private Clouds.

Additionally, OpenShift, Red Hat's next generation Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution allows Node4 to quickly develop, host and scale applications in a cloud environment for its customers.

Andrew Gilbert, CEO, Node4, said: "This new collaboration reinforces Node4's commitment to developing and delivering cloud infrastructures that meet the evolving needs of our customers."

Cisilion has partnered with Purple to deliver real-time analytical insight and customer demographic data based on mobile and/or wearable technology.

Purple's solutions help customers to see the business value of their existing wireless network, providing marketing tools to generate ROI.

Cisilion's partnership with Purple enhances its propositions within new sectors such as retail, hospitality and leisure, and strengthens its proposition in existing sectors such as education and healthcare.

Gavin Wheeldon, CEO at Purple, said: "Purple has seen growth across all sectors, particularly in hospitality where people have time to spend online, and retail where bricks and mortar footfall tracking is essential, offering transparency around service and communication."

Rob Quickenden, Chief Strategy Officer at Cisilion, added: "Through a branded login portal, businesses can drive offers, incentives and details to their customers in real-time via login screens, emails or SMS, helping to boost revenue and customer loyalty."

Meeting the growing demand for agile working practices is best achieved via agile delivery models, and cloud's modular, revenue-friendly features fit the UC bill, according to Annodata.

"After years of uncertainty as to when UC could be integrated into a the workplace as a coherent service, mobile working has finally entered the mainstream as a value driven package," stated Terry Storrar, IT Services Director.

He cited figures from the Cloud Industry Forum that suggest UC will emerge as 2016's fastest growing cloud-hosted service.

"UC once meant a hundred different things to as many people," he said. "However, IT leaders now see the benefits and are watching the technology with interest, weighing up the value offered by improvements in broadband speeds and cheaper bandwidths.

"Now, with cloud adoption common among businesses, even the smallest organisation can derive value from mobile working technologies."

According to Storrar, a coherent UC strategy should map the long-term value of the cost and accessibility of bandwidth while considering strain on the organisation's network.

"IT leaders' strategies must offer the path of least resistance for employees wanting to access data on the go, while ensuring the uniform use of networks and applications," he said.

"Cloud enables businesses to monitor their usage and quickly make changes to services, so has a huge benefit over attempting to run UC on cumbersome legacy infrastructure."

Mirakl has expanded its partner programme across Europe following the success of its UK operations.

The Paris-based provider of software solutions says it will begin recruiting new partners under its BLINK partner programme and expects to triple its UK business this year, with plans to hire pre-sales, sales and solution staff for its London office.

According to Mirakl the UK will become its largest EMEA market outside France.

"The UK is a strategic market to Mirakl and we have big plans for growth," stated Eric Chemouny, Senior Vice President of EMEA at Mirakl.

"UK companies are grasping the opportunity to be their own marketplace and free themselves of the limitations of other platforms."

Mirakl provides on-demand online marketplace capabilities to online businesses on a managed basis.

Nimans has launched an enhanced version of its music and messaging on hold solution that, claims the distributor, has the potential to generate average dealer profits of around £50,000 per year.

The Fortune series uses web-based functionality where users can choose a voice actor and pick from over 300 royalty free tunes. Message on hold (MOH), auto attendant, night greetings and Interactive Voice Response are all available for PBX, hosted and VoIP-based environments - all reseller branded.

Dealers can choose from self-script, dealer managed and now full service announcements (where the whole process can be conducted on their behalf).

A new video and brochure have been produced to promote the exclusive and expanded product range.

Tom Maxwell, Nimans' Head of Dealer Sales, said: "Fortune MOH is compatible with all phone systems and represents a cost effective and intuitive solution, based on hardware or software-driven voucher announcements.

"Music and messaging on hold is proven to enhance the customer experience, reducing the amount of abandoned calls.

"Fortune MOH is a fully customisable messaging service that can be set-up within minutes, and is a great way for resellers to ramp-up their sales and take advantage of ongoing revenue from the ordering of new announcements."

Maxwell estimates average revenue is around £100,000 per year (based on standard customer bases) with margins of up to 50%.

"This is potentially a lucrative area of business for dealers to capture in a quick, easy and hassle-free way. Projects can be completed from start to finish in as little as 40 minutes."