Comms Dealer

Wholesale comms provider Zest4 has expanded its Channel Sales Management team with the appointment of Ben Ofosu.

He brings seven years account management experience in the IT and telecoms industry and previous roles include stints at YES Telecom, Vodafone and Nimans Network Services.

"Ben's industry experience will help Zest4 to achieve growth by enabling resellers to access complete Unified Communication solutions, including M2M, mobile, hosted telephony, broadband and IT solutions," said Operations & Business Development Director, Mandy Fazelynia.

Ofosu added: "The role will also enable me to further enhance my own skills and experience, which will help me to build strong and long-lasting relationships for Zest4 for the future."

BroadSoft has acquired Transera, a provider of cloud-based contact centre software for SMBs and large enterprises.

Its offering will be seamlessly integrated with BroadSoft's BroadWorks and BroadCloud solutions. 

Michael Tessler, CEO, BroadSoft, said: "The multi-billion dollar contact centre market is ripe for cloud disruption, and we now offer service providers a single stack solution with the flexibility to scale from SMB to large enterprise."

Prem Uppaluru, Chairman and CEO of Transera, will assume the role of General Manager and Vice President of BroadSoft Cloud Contact Center.

Uppaluru said: "Cloud is rewriting the rules when it comes to how businesses can deliver a superior customer engagement experience through simplicity, on-demand scalability, and advanced analytics."

Welsh IT company SA1 Solutions has set up a comms arm to become a single source IT and telecoms provider.

Sister company SA1 Telecoms was established in response to demand for a reliable telecoms provider that has an understanding of business communication systems.

SA1 Telecoms offers a range of services to businesses, including telephone systems, VoIP (voice over internet protocol), mobiles, leased lines and fixed lines.

SA1 Solutions, recently celebrated its tenth anniversary.

Simon Ahearne, MD of SA1 Solutions and the new SA1 Telecoms, said:
"Through building trust with customers using SA1 Solutions' services, the realisation emerged that there was a gap in the market for our customers who wanted efficient telecoms services to run alongside their IT and communication systems. We saw the opportunity for SA1 Telecoms and ran with it."

"Our business philosophy is to listen to the customer. By doing this, we have been able to start a new business and already have a number of potential clients enquiring about our services and business packages.

"We want our customers to see us as the one-stop-shop for business communication, so they can continue to focus on what really matters to their business without worrying about connectivity problems."

Club Doncaster has opted for Green 4 Solutions to handle its core customer relationship management (CRM) operations and email marketing services.

Club Doncaster incorporates Doncaster Rovers Football Club, Doncaster Rugby League Club and Club Doncaster Foundation and Sports College to provide members a host of leisure and entertainment facilities - creating a better Doncaster.

The decision to appoint Green 4 and the Go Solution was based on its functionality, ease of set up and integration capabilities across each sector.

Club Doncaster Marketing and Communications Manager Ryan Murrant said: "CRM is massively important for Club Doncaster as we look to take our fan engagement and marketing communications to the next level.

"The investment from our owners into the CRM allows Club Doncaster Foundation and Sports College, Doncaster Rugby League Club and Doncaster Rovers Football Club to reach out to our supporters and sponsors in a way we have never been able to before, and we thank them for that."

Wholesale data and voice communications provider Entanet is celebrating 20 years in business this month.

The company has grown into a £32m business with over 100 staff, with its own national MPLS network and an established community of channel partners.

Entanet is planning further significant investment in its communications network and intends to work more closely with its partners to deliver the fast, reliable and flexible connectivity services.

The company will continue to be completely channel-focused, providing its resale and wholesale partners with broadband, Ethernet and leased line connectivity, IP VPN solutions, VoIP and traditional telecoms and hosting and colocation services.

Entanet's CEO Elsa Chen said: "Over the last two decades we have seen significant advances in the communications industry and fundamental changes to the use and adoption of technology.

"Throughout this time, connectivity has become absolutely critical to the operations of almost every commercial and public sector organisation. The dependence can only increase and as it does, Entanet will continue to invest in and to develop its services to meet the needs of its partners and their customers.

"We have always needed to be agile and responsive while looking forward to take advantage of new opportunities and we'll continue to take that approach.

"We have also continued in our firm commitment and dedication to the channel and that won't change. Entanet wouldn't be celebrating this milestone without the ongoing support of its channel partners, and so we're proud to give them the same commitment in return."

Entanet indicated that a number of channel initiatives will be launched this year.

Gamma has released more details around its planned launch of a business mobile service in the first half of 2016, using the core mobile network infrastructure that it acquired in 2014 and has since expanded.

This core contains all the functionality of a mobile network and is based on the latest Ericsson software build, including 4G, and is capable of supporting emerging technologies such as Voice over WiFi and VoLTE.

The new service gives channel partners the same levels of customer ownership and control they have over fixed-line services.

Gamma has selected Three to provide the primary radio access in the UK with separate roaming agreements also now in place.

The new service will include 4G as standard on all tariffs, as well as improved data monitoring with near real-time mediation and billing and more flexible data usage alerts.

With this new capability Gamma believes it is well placed to help the channel provide increasing converged fixed and mobile services to the UK business market.

Rob Davis, Head of Converged Products at Gamma, commented: "We have full control of the mobile service in addition to the control we already have over our fixed voice and data network.

"With the ability to work with multiple large carriers coupled with the flexibility of being a channel focused provider, we believe the new Gamma Mobile proposition gives our channel partners the best of both worlds.

"We recognise the importance of mobility in an increasingly converged world and see this new service as a core component and the foundation for Gamma's converged offering moving forward, enabling us to take our portfolio of voice, data and mobile solutions to the next level."

An annual survey of the top 500 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) in Europe shows some major changes due to substantial growth in some areas, consolidation and changing market conditions.

After a slow rise of 5% in the previous year, it looks like ISV fortunes have turned around strongly in 2015, based on early figures.

The latest database report by IT Europa, ISVs in Europe - the top 500, shows a shake-up at the top of the list of individual companies, with three newcomers to the top ten.

There has also been a big jump in those reporting that they offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS).

In 2016, nearly 90% of ISVs said they offer SaaS, an increase of over 60% from 2014. But it is not all packages and cloud; bespoke software development is also on the rise with just under 60% offering it.

Companies from 35 European countries are featured within the report. The 10 largest geographic markets in terms of companies profiled are: UK (135 companies), France (76), Germany (63), Finland (20), Netherlands (17), Switzerland (17), Italy (15), Denmark (14) Sweden (13) and Spain (11). While the UK market experienced an average revenue increase of around 5%, the picture across Europe was patchy, with strong growth in some central and eastern parts, as well as Norway with double digit growth, but parts of Benelux actually saw reduced ISV sales.

Part of the ISV growth story comes from greater confidence in the vertical market sectors, especially in banking and finance. The study reveals that over half of all the firms cater for Bank/Finance/Insurance (54.8% of companies), followed by Public Sector (45.2%) and Retail (40.6%). Compared to 2014, in 2016 the number of ISVs catering to the Banking vertical market has increased by nearly 5%, among the highest indicators of changing verticals.

ISVs are still mainly providing their own software solutions, followed by providing services (this includes SaaS), then other software (which includes third party software) and finally a number are still involved in supplying hardware, where the proportion has actually risen. In the list of the most common type of third party software being sold, the names which came up most often were Oracle, Microsoft, IBM and SAP, primarily in the areas of ERP, BI and CRM.

In terms of the type of applications, data handling is on the rise, with two thirds of the ISVs working in areas of business intelligence and data management, followed by Mobility (55%) and ERP (47%). Some other notable horizontal markets which scored well with ISVs are Human Resources Management, Asset Management, Business Process Management and Automation. Among those finding less interest is Project Management.

"It is good to see the European software industry grasping the SaaS and Cloud opportunity, but there are several new challenges that will need to be embraced for the sector to continue driving IT growth in Europe," said Alan Norman, Managing Director of IT Europa.

"The nature of those challenges and the role that software will play in addressing them will be a major subject for debate at the European Software & Solutions Summit 2016 (www.eusss.com ) which takes place in London in April."

The ISVs in Europe - the top 500 database report spans 35 countries. The company profiles include sales figures for each company in local currency and US dollars.

www.iteuropa.com

TFM Networks has relocated its midlands office to a larger space at the Advanced Technology Innovation Centre at Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park.

Stewart Yates, CEO of TFM Networks, said: "We look forward to working with the business development team at the University and, as we grow, engaging in mutually beneficial innovative activity."

Anna Leather, Enterprise Marketing Manager at Loughborough University, added: "Since opening the Advanced Technology Innovation Centre last year we have attracted a constant stream of technology-focused start-ups and are pleased to offer our flexible office and lab space facilities to help TFM grow and innovate in the fast-paced telecoms technology sector."

3CX has joined forces with Formula, the receptionist switchboard specialist and developer of Totalview.

With Totalview switchboard functionality receptionists can see the availability of the workforce and manage calls accordingly.

Nick Galea, 3CX CEO said: "One of the main points of 3CX being for Windows was to be able to integrate more closely with Windows applications and deliver productivity increases to companies.

"The integration of Formula's Totalview Workforce Management is a perfect example of this. And it's only the start, we expect to deliver more integration that will save companies money and allow them to work more efficiently."

Polycom's RealPresence Centro solution is certified and approved to operate with NATO's secure Restricted Network.

The 'centre of the room' solution serves as a collaboration focal point for command and control meetings, training and administrative sessions, international communication and operational mission collaboration.

"Critical to the success of our missions at NATO is directly impacted by the collaboration technology we use," said Gus Mommers, Branch head CMS, NCI Agency, NATO. "NATO relies on the advanced capabilities of Polycom's collaboration solutions to instantaneously bring our teams and nations together to carry out highly secure and highly critical missions."