Comms Dealer

HighSpeed Office Limited (hSo) has been awarded a place on the new network services framework agreement as a supplier to the UK Public Sector.
The Crown Commercial Service has awarded hSo for all four supplier categories it applied for namely Data Access Services, Traditional Telephony Services, IP Telephony Services and Agency Services.

"As an agile and nimble SME, hSo is delighted to be selected for this new procurement framework,\" said Chris Evans, hSo’s Managing Director.
hSo uses its own network platform and works with all major national network providers to offer carrier-independent, cost-effective solutions, using ISO-certified processes.

"We applaud the inclusion of SMEs like hSo under this new framework. We’re sure that hSo’s cost-effectiveness, flexibility and friendly 24/7 support will be welcomed by the Public Sector,\" added Evans.

"hSo is proud to be one of only five SMEs selected for Data Access Services, and our inclusion for both Traditional and IP Telephony Services too is testament to hSo’s ability to provide fully converged solutions which can include WAN and hosted telephony services.\"

The agreement allows for the use of new and emerging networking technology, encouraging more innovation and flexibility, and letting Public Sector bodies buy what they want in the way they want to. It enables suppliers like hSo to build additional services around the core of contracted services to create bundled offerings.

One of the organisations to have benefited from hSo’s Public Sector services is NICE (The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence). hSo’s SIP Trunking service was part of a wider solution that gave NICE significant cost savings.

The managed services sector in Europe continues to exhibit strong growth, but performance by country presents a patchy picture with significant markets such as Spain and Italy actually showing a decline, according to a new report, Managed Service Providers in Europe – the top 500, published by IT Europa today.

Overall, managed services revenues in Europe rose by 3.5% between 2013 and 2014, says the IT Europa report, though this masks rapid growth in the Nordics, France and Germany and shrinkage in Spain and Portugal. Total revenues for all companies in the report total $294.28 billion (€262.78 billion) and total staff number is 1.4 million, although again there are major differences. Most are employed in the UK, France, Germany and Italy.

Critically, Europe is not one market for managed services provision, as the IT Europa report finds; there are major variations in the scale of its use in each country and region; the report shows that the national telecoms providers still have a major advantage when it comes to provision. The fastest growing part of Europe for managed services is the east, but from a very small base; Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria saw the biggest growth in turnover among managed services businesses last year. Some of these countries have very small scale managed services industries so far. Russia also has a tiny managed services provision.

The big players among managed services in Europe reflect the global position, with IBM Global Services, Accenture and Capgemini in the top ten, but there are also national powerhouses such as T-Systems International GmbH, BT Global Services, Telecom Italia, Alcatel Lucent and Nokia Solutions and Networks. This shows that the comms incumbency is still a strong factor, and that managed services is still being built on the back of telco provision.

The trends and opportunities in the Managed Services marketplace as well as some of the challenges it faces in accelerating adoption will be a major focus at the Managed Services & Hosting Summit 2015, the UK’s leading managed services event for the channel.

This executive-level event will be exploring the business opportunities for MSPs, Systems Integrators and Resellers in the delivery of Managed Services and Hosting and will take place on 17th September 2015 at 155 Bishopsgate, London. For further information visit: www.mshsummit.com/index.php

Recent research from BT across a range of vertical market sectors in Europe indicates 20 per cent additional time each week is spent addressing IT security and costs have risen to an average of £160,849 extra a year.
In six years there could be more than 50 billion connected devices in the world and the research shows that 76 per cent of CIOs are reporting unauthorised 'shadow IT' within their businesses.
Manish Sablok, Head of Marketing for North, West and East Europe at Alcatel Lucent research says the research has underlined the changing role of the CIO.
"In the era of BYOD in the workplace, where employees increasingly build their own 'personal cloud' of applications across various devices, control is slipping away from the IT department,\" he said.
"IT managers must deal with applications being accessed via wireless LAN from personal smartphones, tablets and other devices, bypassing the network firewall where access to a specific application is denied.
Sablock says fire-fighting shadow IT can escalate into significant uncontrolled, and unplanned spend for IT departments. But the role of IT needs to evolve to become more business strategic.
"Compliance is a front-of-mind issue in many industries, such as healthcare or financial services,\" he said.
"With strict privacy or financial Increasingly, IT departments are realising Unified Communications is a key component to delivering their users the functionality they desire through a solution which provides a consistent user experience across multiple devices – crucially in a secure manner.\"

Systems integrator and Open Source specialist Foehn has been selected to supply IP telephony services to the public sector within the Government’s new network services framework.
The framework replaces the Telephony Services (TS), Public Services Network Connectivity (PSNC) and Public Services Network Services (PSNS) agreements previously in place.
The new Network Services agreement (RM1045) provides local authorities with a means of procuring voice and Internet networks from 60 selected suppliers, around a third of which are small and medium sized businesses. Foehn is already a certified supplier on the UK Government’s G-Cloud and Digital Marketplace.
The adoption and use of IP telephony across the public sector is growing and its increasing popularity is reflected in the fact that it has been allocated its own lot as one of 10 in the new agreement.
Foehn says its expertise in Open Source technology enables the company to reduce private and public sector telephony costs, increase efficiencies and transform business practices. For example, the company recently helped Boston Borough Council to almost halve its annual telephony costs by helping the local authority to switch to an IP telephony system.
"Part of the objective of the new framework is to enable smaller, innovative telephony providers such as Foehn to trade with the public sector,\" explains Julian Barrow, Sales Director for Foehn.
"New and emerging IP telephony systems not only present government bodies with the opportunity to reduce their communications costs but actually they can also achieve a lot more than they did previously, including productivity improvements and efficiency gains.\"
Awarded by the Crown Commercial Service (CCS), the Network Services agreement is expected to save the public sector approximately 16%, releasing savings of at least £59million.
The ten lots within the agreement are: IP telephony services, data access services, local connectivity services, traditional telephony services, inbound telephony services, mobile voice and data services, paging services, video conferencing services, audio conferencing services; and integrated communications

NG Bailey’s IT Services division has announced strong financial performance for the year to 27 February 2015, reporting sales growth of 7% to just over £60m.

The engineering, IT and facilities services business says it has won 454 new contracts over the last 12 months, spanning the full breadth of its IT services offering, with significant projects varying from a next generation surveillance installation at the Grade II listed Lincoln’s Inn, to sophisticated structured cabling implementations for major financial services institutions.

In recent months, the division has won an increasing number of major projects in central London, including contracts with St. Edward Homes (a division of the Berkeley Group http://www.berkeleygroup.co.uk/), the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the capital’s iconic South Bank Tower. As a result of more businesses turning to NG Bailey the firm has increased its headcount by 11%.

Bob Dunnett (pictured), managing director for the division, told Comms Dealer: "The business continues to invest heavily in specialist training to ensure the team has the capability to deliver highly technical solutions in response to increasingly complex and demanding project briefs.

"This commitment enables us to deliver the best solutions to our customers when change impacts their sector. We’ve already seen examples of this in IP security and smart buildings and expect to see further disruption to companies as the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart cities shake up the market.\"

NG Bailey IT Services Ltd is a subsidiary of NG Bailey Ltd, the UK’s largest independent engineering, IT and facilities services group. For the year to 27 February 2015, NG Bailey posted an underlying operating profit of £3m against sales of £365m.

Exertis has ramped up its Cloud Services offering to includes Authentication as a Service (AaaS) in conjunction with Vasco Security.

The distributor says this new addition will allow partners to resell a true 'pay as you go’ service across multiple media with all policy changes, token initiation etc. handled by Exertis. The company stress that all these services can be provided on a White Label basis.

Grahame Smee, Exertis VAD Solutions Managing Director, told Comms Dealer: "The need to have a multi-layer approach to security is well accepted and using a form of two factor authentication (2FA) is one element to this. Unfortunately password failure is all too common and this type of service provides additional security and peace of mind to all types of user. We are delighted to be working in conjunction with Vasco around their market leading solution.\"

The solution is the latest to be available via the partner portal which Exertis claims is designed to make it easy for partners to manage all solutions offered on a Cloud basis including Firewall as a Service (FWaaS), NAC as a Service amongst others.

"The portal also allows any registered partner to manage add on services such as installation and also specify additional items such as cabling, switching etc. that may be required to complete the solution sale,\" added Smee.

PUBLIC and private enterprises in remote areas suffering from poor broadband connectivity may have a solution soon if a live trial of a new technology using existing copper wire infrastructure goes to plan.
NextGenAccess, which has built its own LLU network across the UK, is set to trial the latest mBond solution – mBond Flex Enterprise - from Genesis Technical Systems.

Kenny Roberts, Technical Director at NextGenAccess told Comms Dealer: "mBond solutions are allowing us to respond to our customers’ needs and demands using our existing infrastructure and we are looking forward to this exciting new range of mBond Flex products.\"

Genesis says the new generation of mBond products offers even more flexibility for a wide range of customers, from enterprises in business regeneration areas unable to receive fibre to the premise due to historical building restrictions, to remote utility providers such as wind farms.

Mark Stukins, Vice President Global Channel Sales, Genesis commented: "By supporting any Digital Subscriber Line Access Multiplexer (DSLAM) and ADSL2+ the mBond Flex solution range offers service providers a cost-effective copper enhancing technology that allows operators to increase their bandwidth over longer copper distances using their existing infrastructure.\"

The NextGenAccess trial will be the first live implementation of the new mBond Flex product range anywhere in the world.

Successful NextGenAccess trial sees pioneering copper enhancing technology mBond® enhance broadband speeds for customers with specific requirements

Former Dragon Den star Piers Linney, Co-CEO of cloud computing firm Outsourcery, has been chosen as one of eight new SME representatives to sit on techUK’s Public Services Board.

The Board brings together senior leaders from technology companies of all sizes, with digital transformation of the public sector central to its agenda. Through effective and early engagement with the government and strong leadership on critical policy issues related to public services transformation, the PSB seeks to drive improved efficiencies in the public sector through the adoption of new technologies.

Commenting on his election to the PSB, Linney stated: "Traditionally, uptake of new technologies among public sector bodies has been slow. Being part of techUK’s PSB provides an excellent opportunity to use Outsourcery’s knowledge and experience to help bring positive change, in terms of technology adoption, to the UK public sector. I am looking forward to helping drive techUK’s agenda forward, by promoting better use of technology as a way of improving public services.

"Since its introduction in 2012, the G-Cloud has been an important initiative in easing procurement of technology-based services for public sector bodies, alongside initiatives likes 'Cloud First’ and 'Digital by Default’. However, uptake of cloud technology on the whole is still relatively low, particularly in local government. Plainly, the industry should be doing more to promote the benefits of cloud but also to meaningfully address the perceived barriers to adoption in the public sector, to ensure swift, trouble-free uptake of new technologies. The PSB plays a central role to helping us achieve this,\" he continued.

Linney believes that SMEs such as Outsourcery are in a strong position to deliver technology solutions to the public sector, facilitating a more flexible and efficient approach.

"In the past, it was considered the norm for larger companies to implement several bureaucratic layers when arranging service contracts in the public sector,\" he added. "

"For SMEs like Outsourcery, this is neither straightforward nor desirable: instead, smaller companies can implement services quickly and effectively, which will encourage a more consistent approach to technology adoption in the public sector.\"

RESELLERS can now offer customers Skype for Business voice and collaboration features without the need to dramatically upgrade their current PBX system following the launch of Oak Telecom’s BusinessConnect solution.

Oak says BusinessConnect only requires a Standard Microsoft Client Access Licence (CAL) for users to be able to access Skype for Business, removing the need to upgrade to 'Enterprise’ and 'Plus’ CALs and thereby also the hefty license fee.

Oak Joint CEO James Emm (pictured) told Comms Dealer: "BusinessConnect is a perfectly positioned product. It enables the exciting features that businesses want from Skype – instant messaging, group chat, conferencing, presence, desktop sharing and whiteboarding, click-to-dial and so on – whilst allowing them to keep their current platform in place.

"For Oak, this gives us a foot in significant new doors, including Microsoft for Business and Broadsoft. It also strengthens our longstanding status as a ShoreTel Innovation partner,\" added Emm.

The launch of BusinessConnect is a significant move into hosted and cloud-based solutions for Oak, which is best known for its award-winning call management products. BusinessConnect is currently available for ShoreTel, Avaya Aura, ACE and IP Office (SIP mode only), and Broadsoft,. According to Oak discussions are underway to add to this portfolio.

True Telecom now supports Apple Pay on all of its payment terminal devices. The payment solution, launched in the UK on the 14th of July, is set to revolutionise the way consumers and business owners interact in-store, by eliminating the need to hand over cash or an actual bank card.

Processed through a customer’s Apple Watch or IPhone 6, Apple Pay can now be accepted across all True Telecom terminal devices where contactless has been enabled.

Stuart Griffiths, CEO of True Telecom commented: "We are excited to be able to offer SME’s up and down the country the ability to accept Apple Pay on their True payment terminal. We welcome this new technology in business. In the grand scheme of things this could mean that SME’s get more customers through their door, more sales and ultimately more profits.\"