Comms Dealer

Oak has expanded its portfolio with Progressive and Predictive Diallers and a Media Blending Platform following its acquisition of the Adaptive business from New Media Software (NMS). Oak joint-CEO Phil Reynolds stated: "We've been building our new high-end call recorder and call centre reporting platform, OCP3, ready for a 2016 release.

"The acquisition of Adaptive couldn't have come at a more opportune time, as we can now include advanced dialling and media blending options in the OCP release."

Phill McGowan, MD at NMS, will continue to work in the telecoms industry as a business consultant. He added: "Oak and New Media Software share a common vision of a great future for the Adaptive Suite and, together with the investment and depth of reseller support that Oak brings to the party, I see an exciting future for the new version 10 Adaptive software."

All Adaptive staff have taken up employment with Oak thus allowing support and development to continue uninterrupted of the Adaptive Suite.

Reynolds added: "With more than 15 years experience in dialler technology, the team from NMS have a lot to offer Oak's channel partners and it's a pleasure welcoming them on board."

Joint Oak CEO James Emm is putting plans together for a national reseller roadshow of the Adaptive Suite.

He stated: "This product will create more opportunity for our resellers here in the UK as well as for our North American operation. These are exciting times with three new products in 2016, a high-end voice and data recorder called Clarify, version 3 of our award winning Evolve contact centre reporting solution, and now the new version 10 Adaptive suite."

Mitel has ramped up its play in the mobile enterprise with the launch of hosted voice over LTE, video over LTE and voice over Wi-Fi for mobile carriers (Mitel Mobile Cloud Suite).

The vendor has also introduced embedded mobile real-time communications for SaaS applications targeting mobile, real-time field service workers (Mitel Embedded Communications); a mobile-first, team collaboration solution with real-time native integration (MiTeam); and integrated mobile, M2M and cloud services for the health sector (Real-Time Healthcare).

These introductions are aimed at eliminating legacy barriers and enabling seamless, real-time communications and collaboration.

"The vision of the mobile enterprise we outlined in October is becoming a reality," said Rich McBee, CEO, Mitel. "We're taking that strategy a step further by enabling the mobile cloud - the backbone for seamless, mobile communications.

"Now, industries across the board, from healthcare to education to sports, can seamlessly bridge what was once a costly and inefficient dividing line between the consumer and enterprise network.

"This enables a workplace that is ready for the mobile future and the benefits of the connected world brought on by M2M and the Internet of Things (IoT)."

Diane Myers, Senior Research Director at IHS, added: "The influence of mobile and cloud applications is rapidly seeping into everyday enterprise communications in a way that is reshaping how, when and on what device work gets done.

"Mitel understands that, and over the past year has taken steps to address that transformation."

Mitel also added 20 new cloud partners in EMEA during Q4 2015.

There's a lot to be said for comparing the current employment marketplace with the Stock Market, as demand continues to outstrip supply for staff in the UK, writes Clive Jefferys of Telecoms recruiter, JMA Network.

Just like share trading, relatively little stock changing hands can dramatically increase selling prices.

When it comes to current employment surveys, recorded salary rises are based on relatively few people actually moving jobs.

Just like investors hanging onto their shares, people stick in their current role until they judge the moment is right to move.

The jobholder hangs on until the offer becomes too tempting to refuse.

There is another aspect to recruiting in a Bull market, highlighted by a recent niche recruiters meeting.

As the afternoon progressed, opinion became increasingly divided and thankfully, the bar opened early. Option Three beckoned.

Prior to this, I had listened to endless presentations about interview techniques, background checks, vetting procedures, due diligence and more. All the complicated things that big companies tell you is essential in the correct selection of candidates, but without any real explanation as to why.

All these complex processes pre-suppose an excess of candidates, the Bear Market, but in truth this is yesterday's news.

In today's world, the primary purpose of all recruiters is to introduce the right candidates to the right employers with all possible speed.

Doing anything else is just getting in the way. Employers are the best-placed people to judge who is right for their business, not the recruiter. Our function is to understand our target sector, to hunt, to network and then get the right people talking as soon as possible.

There was another divide on show in the bar that night. The process-heavy recruiters moaned that their best candidates were being snapped up by someone else, but the other recruiters said nothing and simply smiled.

When clients engage a recruiter's help it's because they've already exhausted their recruitment options. So when they are prepared to pay a fee, they want results and they want them fast!

Anything less is unacceptable.

Fidelity and Qubic have collaborated to offer partners a seamless fixed-to-mobile SIM Disaster Recovery solution and pre-Ethernet install connectivity aimed at SMEs.

The solution is based on a single device on site with all of the complexity held within Qubic's network.

Sean Dixon, Sales Manager, Fidelity, commented: "This innovation offers true mobile failover for wired office connectivity, creating a private network whether connected wired or wirelessly.

"This solution allows our partners to deliver and bill customers quicker. Working alongside our long-term partner Qubic we are launching an exclusive offering to the channel."

The SIM fits into a broadband router and in the event of a fixed line break the service will seamlessly flip over to a single network or multi-network SIM.

The SIM works via a private APN set up between Telefonica and Qubic's network, and the product is said to be a first for the channel. "The channel can earn revenue and margin quickly as a customer can be live within 24 hours rather than waiting 90-plus days for Ethernet services," added Dixon.

"The fixed IP on the SIM will be the same as the Ethernet service when delivered, thus reducing the IT and configuration cost for the customer once the wired connection is live."

Fidelity is one of four companies on Telefonica's Global Partner Programme and has been pioneering the channel launch of IoT and M2M services with the roll out of vM2M, which reduces three devices - tracking, PDA and mobile - to one.

Joe Papa, owner and Director of Qubic, stated, "Direct connection to our data centres of mobile data, without crossing the public Internet, is a significant addition to Qubic's managed hosted service offering.
"Qubic's fixed line services already connect directly to the data centre without crossing the public Internet, extending the LAN to remote workers.

"The mobile interconnect means that mobile workers or locations that don't have broadband can connect securely to the LAN in the same way and within the same IP range. The technology also allows us to provide secure mobile failover for fixed line circuits."

ShoreTel's financial results for Q2 fiscal year 2016 show total revenues of $90.4m ($90.6m Q2 2015) and strong growth in recurring revenues driven by partners.

Don Joos, President and CEO, commented: "Following the ShoreTel Connect launch we gained momentum with customers as our pipeline of cloud opportunities expanded.

"Our channel partners contributed a historically high portion of cloud bookings."

Recurring revenues, which consist of all hosted and related services revenue plus support revenues, represented 52% of total revenue and reached an annualised value of $189m, up 15% on Q2 2015.

Hosted revenues of $30.5m were up 20% year-over-year and 4% sequentially.

During the period ShoreTel completed its acquisition of Corvisa, a provider of cloud-based communications solutions, expanding its cloud services in Europe; and boosted its cloud presence in Australia with acquisition of M5 Australia.

"While executing these strategic objectives we generated solid profitability," added Joos.

NewVoiceMedia's international growth ambitions have been boosted by a $30m investment from BGF Ventures which joins existing investors Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP), Eden Ventures, Highland Capital Partners Europe, Salesforce Ventures and Technology Crossover Ventures (TCV).

NewVoiceMedia operates in the cloud contact centre market which is forecast to be 20 million seats globally by 2020, with upwards of 30% cloud penetration.

Last year the company grew its international new business by 528%, and the new investment will bring a stronger focus on the north American market.

Rory Stirling, BGF Ventures, commented: "We believe NewVoiceMedia will be one of the most successful software companies to emerge from Europe this decade."

Simwood's 2016 VoIP Fraud Analysis paper released last month underscore's the company's leading role in combating the issue.

Regulators and industry experts snapped up copies while still hot off the press as well as requests from three of the world's top 10 global carriers with combined revenues of 180bn euros.

"Take up from customers has been strong," stated Simwood MD Simon Woodhead.

BT Wholesale's CEO Nigel Stagg has stepped down following a 36 year career with the company.

His successor will be announced in due course.

Gavin Patterson, BT Chief Executive, said: "Nigel has made a terrific contribution over many years. "He has brought a wealth of commercial and operational skills and experience to all the roles he has held and he has helped us propel the company forwards."

Jodie Piper aims to double reseller numbers at DMSL's Cloud Telephones business from 60 to 120 and recruit more referral partners for DMSL's business and consumer broadband portfolio.

Piper, who has been appointed Reseller Development Manager following a decade working at the company, said:

"Cloud Telephones has been leading the charge towards hosted voice and the growth we are seeing in this area is phenomenal. We are also seeing solid demand and growth in broadband services.

"We fully expect a further acceleration in sales this year and need more reseller partners to reach the full potential that's out there."

Spitfire is to host 3CX Phone System v14 for 3CX Partners in the UK, offering 3CX in the Cloud as a self-configured and self-managed solution or as a fully managed service depending on the customers' capabilities and requirements.

"Hosted 3CX removes all the barriers that have been blocking the hosted PBX market with superior architecture and flexible delivery options," said Tom Fellowes, Spitfire's Sales Director.

"3CX in the Cloud is a fully virtualized instance, with its own set of dedicated PBX services, as well as completely separate data stores."

With 3CX in the Cloud, customers will have a dedicated PBX separated from and unaffected by other tenants.

In addition, they will have access to all the features of the on-premise version such as web conferencing, instant chat, presence etc. Furthermore, they can choose their preferred telecom vendor and retain the ability to move from hosted to on premise whenever they wish.

Nick Galea, CEO, 3CX said: "3CX in the cloud is not a multi-account system, it's a fully virtualized instance of 3CX Phone System with dedicated PBX services for each customer and complete data separation which sets it apart from old style hosted PBX".