Comms Dealer

Three Daisy Wholesale partners will join Sir Ben Ainslie and the Land Rover Ben Ainslie Racing team to sail in the Solent as winners of an incentive scheme.

Jola Cloud Solutions, KSM Telecom and Solution Consultants ICT will join the British challenger for the 25th America's Cup and sail on-board the Foiling 'AC45' with Sir Ben Ainslie himself.

Garry Growns, Sales Director of Daisy Wholesale, said: "These three partners sold the greatest number of seats of our hosted voice solution, HV.Select.

"We're delighted to be able to offer these once in a lifetime experiences as incentives to our partners, and to reward them for their fantastic sales achievements."

Over 150 SpliceCom partners descended on events in Southampton, Heathrow and Manchester to gain first hand insights into the vendor's latest services and products

Unveiled were the SelectVoice 1,000 IP voice platform for cloud, on-premise and blended deployment; an admin portal; Yealink SIP phone integration; Macfarlane conversation management Contact Centre; Navigate II IP softphone/phone partner with Skype for Business integration; WebPartner client portal; Vision v1.7 Business Management & Call Centre; and ISIP ISDN to SIP Converter.

Splicecom also launched IRIS, its new reseller portal and a new accreditation scheme.

"With this year's launch, our whole focus has been on making life easier for our channel partners," said Head of Sales for the UK and Ireland, Stuart Bell.

"With SelectVoice we've taken huge steps forward when it comes to selling, installing and maintaining our solutions.

"And by extending our support for SIP handsets, in particular Yealink's extensive range of desktop and wireless devices, we've widened our addressable market."

CityFibre's Mark Collins, Director of Strategy and Policy at CityFibre, has responded positively to the Government's new Digital Infrastructure Investment Fund.

"We welcome the launch of the DIIF fund. Addressing the yawning fibre gap which sees the UK at just 2% full fibre penetration versus countries like Spain on 80% is essential," he said.

"This fund will help to underpin investor confidence and catalyse competitive full fibre roll-out. We look forward to engaging with government to explore how the DIIF could accelerate our future plans."

Staff from the UK offices of Onecom helped raise more than £2,000 for the mental health charity MIND with a sponsored run.

Workers from across the business took part in the event on Thursday (June 29th) as part of ongoing celebrations for the company's 15th birthday.

In total 114 members of staff from across Onecom's 12 regional bases raised £1,281 for MIND, each running a mile-long route around the office where they are based. A further £1,000 was donated by Onecom's management to top up the donation.

MIND was picked by employees in a company-wide poll as their chosen charity to support in 2017.

Aaron Brown, COO, said: "We're pleased that we have raised a significant amount for MIND and will continue to support the charity with more fundraising activities in our offices around the country during the coming year."

Security vendor FireMon has appointed a new EMEA head tasked with building more channel alliances.

James Clegg, FireMon vice president of EMEA, was previously at Juniper Networks company BTI Systems where he helped grow business through partner networks.

Clegg also previously served at Crossbeam, Arbor Networks and Gigamon, and is experienced at selling into the managed service provider, mobile and financial sectors.

Clegg replaces Ottavio Camponeschi, who joined the company as VP EMEA in June 2015. Camponeschi was based at FireMon's Munich office, but Clegg will primarily be based in the UK.

US-headquartered FireMon entered the UK last year with a distribution agreement with Westcon.

FireMon addresses network security infrastructure, policy and risk management issues with a suite of products that arm security and IT personnel with contextual intelligence to identify threats within their networks and to make quick decisions.

"James joins FireMon as an experienced and successful leader in the security sector through his ability to create high-performance sales teams focused on strategic selling and creative deal innovation," said Peter Kobs, chief revenue officer at FireMon.

"He will drive FireMon's expanding EMEA business volumes through forming strategic channel partnerships."

Irish audio visual distributor Fusion Technologies has been acquired by EET Europarts, its second acquisition in a week and its first company owned in Ireland.

Fusion was founded in 2004 and has grown to become one of Ireland's leading trade only distributors of AV products.

"Fusion Technologies has a strong position in the Irish market. It is a perfect match for us to grow our pro-AV and digital signage business further," said John Thomas, CEO at EET Group.

Fusion MD Damien Brennan will take on the lead role as MD at the newly established entity EET Europarts Ireland.

Cato Networks has bolstered its play in the SD-WAN market with a converged SD-WAN, security and a global backbone cloud service.

Alon Alter, Vice President of Business Operations, said: "There are a lot of misunderstandings around the scope of SD-WAN and what it actually covers. For example, how SD-WANs address global networking, network security, cloud and mobile requirements."

Cato Networks' solutions have increasingly replaced the MPLS connections which have been used for connecting branch offices and data centres, he says. Hence the push for wider and stronger channels.

"The problem we address is that legacy networking and security solutions were built for the static networks of the past, not for today's cloud and mobile focused businesses," added Alter.

"What we see today is that the channel is looking for answers when global customers want to rapidly deploy a new branch. A new location in a remote location can take three months with MPLS, with a Cato solution it is almost immediate.

"So the channel not only gets to provide an incentive and solution but it gives them access to a security budget that they may not have been able to reach before."

Avaya Diamond Partner Damovo will be the first to bring the vendor's Powered By IP Office Cloud to businesses in Ireland.

John McCabe, Managing Director, Damovo Ireland and Global Services, said: "Irish businesses know that staying competitive means adopting the latest and most effective technology and tools.

"They also demand access to a growing portfolio of solutions which can be deployed in a flexible way, so they can choose the approach that best suits their needs."

Jason Flynn, MD for Avaya in Ireland, added: "Ireland is a market with incredible growth potential."

The Institute of Telecommunications Professionals (ITP) has extended the deadline for its Annual Awards until 14th July 2017.

Now in their 10th year, the awards recognise and reward individuals across the industry and have evolved to highlight the new talent emerging in the telecoms sector.

They take place on 9th November 2017 at the Raddisson Blu, Portman Square, London.

The categories are:

• Apprentice of the year
• Mentor of the year
• Christopher Mills Award
• Women in Technology
• Engineer of the year
• Innovator of the year

"We would encourage telecoms professionals to enter for themselves or nominate colleagues and highlight the inspiring achievements in our industry," said Crissi Williams, CEO of the ITP.

"As it is the 10th anniversary year, we have extended the deadline to encourage as many people as possible to get involved and help us celebrate our sector."

Abbey Cars, one of England's largest minicab operators, has overhauled its communications infrastructure with the implementation of Unify's OpenScape Business S platform. The project was carried out with long-term Master Partner Datasharp.

Allan Williams, Technical Director & Winner of the Unify Innovation Award at Datasharp, said: "In today's super-connected world customers expect a seamless communications experience. Businesses like Abbey Cars want to fulfill this, but are also under pressure to streamline their organisation and futureproof communications infrastructure, while still delivering cost savings.

"Providing OpenScape Business to Abbey Cars has enabled them to meet their customer expectations, while improving productivity by giving staff members better and more dynamic ways of working."