Comms Dealer

Cloud firm Outsourcery has augmented its restructured partner team with the appointment of Vicky Ryder as Head of Partner Sales.

Ryder will work alongside Simone Hume, Head of Public Sector and Robert Pope, Head of Business Development, completing the top-level management of Outsourcery's sales team.

Her remit is to enable existing partners to provision more cloud services, recruit and activate new partners, oversee Outsourcery's strategic partner relationships and ensure Outsourcery's partners receive technical support.

Ryder brings over ten years of sales, channel management and marketing experience to the role, alongside industry knowledge, having previously held positions at Telefonica, Symantec and Cable & Wireless Worldwide (now Vodafone).

Outsourcery has a network of over 500 partners, which range from specialist SME providers through to large enterprise organisations, like Vodafone and Virgin Media Business, spanning the IT and telco markets.

Pope said: "Vicky's appointment shows Outsourcery's commitment to building a strong sales and support pipeline across all verticals, and expresses our commitment to working with our partners."

Outsourcery's Annual Partner Event will take place on 10th September at Microsoft's Cardinal Place, London. The event, for existing and prospective partners, will feature speakers from Microsoft and the Cloud Industry Forum, and will launch Outsourcery's Skype for Business partner solution, alongside its refreshed Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering.

Buoyed by its acquisition of Norman AV last November, AVG is now looking to expand its presence in the UK and Europe. Comms Dealer sister publication IT Europa caught up with Francois Daumard, VP of Global Channel Sales, during its UK roadshow last week.

"The UK is a strategic market and not just because of its size," he said. "The Chinese market is bigger but we have no plans to go into China. It is because we have been historically very successful in the UK. The UK is probably the market in which we have been most successful with our anti-virus and Internet security products so we now have an expanding portfolio of products including Managed Workplace and Secure Sign-On."

As the recent roadshow evidences AVG is also in the process of adding further capabilities through partnerships with other companies.

"AVG Business is all about ecosystems and partnership. AVG Business is local and it's all about the channel; we want the channel to understand that we are full line security company." he added. "We acquired Norman AV in November 2014 and, eight months later, I couldn't be happier about the success of the integration." And he claims it is 'real integration' of 'people, culture and systems' and that no-one from the former Norman team has left the company. "The Norman acquisition fixed the geographical gap we had between France and the Czech Republic where AVG was born."

AVG launched Managed Workplace in Germany, Sweden and in the Nordics in April and May and Daumard claims it has been 'a phenomenal success', although the company declined to provide any numbers. "We think we have first-mover advantage in the Nordics. The market is less crowded than the US and, to a lesser extent the UK, and in terms of new partners we are exceeding our highest expectations," he said.

"Since then we have grown the team in Germany in the UK and in the Nordics. The Nordics market is clearly less crowded and what we also have is an advantage from the Norman acquisition with local people speaking in local Nordic languages. In Germany and in Switzerland the competition is more visible and there we focus on the wider capabilities of AVG - as more than just a security company."

With a background in the mobile market, Daumard thought that market was hot and is surprised to find the security market even hotter: "in security there is no need to educate the market and engage in demand generation - the newspapers do that for you every morning," citing the much publicised recent hacking of the adult matchmaking site Ashley Madison as a recent example.

He claims that AVG has an advantage in awareness over other security companies: "AVG has a great asset in its 202 million users. If you consider that there are 1 billion PCs in the world, statistically speaking, one in five PC users in the world uses AVG.

"The launch of the AVG Business brand was pivotal to us - this is the transition we want to make. The AVG Business has its own set of products and it is entirely a channel business."

Asked what the target markets were for future growth in terms of future growth. "There is the other half of Europe - particularly France, Italy, Spain and Portugal.

"Here we have at a historic presence. In France we have our own office and people. In Spain and Portugal we have historic AVG distributors. We are reengaging with them and putting new people in place to reinvigorate the relationships. It can be a curse and asset to have historical relationships.

"They are loyal they know the business but we need to help them evolve to promote the wider portfolio."

Romsey-based NIX Communications Group has been shortlisted for the UKTI Growth Business of the Year for the 2015 Lloyds Bank National Business Awards.

The winner will be revealed at a gala dinner on 10th November at Park Lane's Grosvenor House Hotel in London.

Nick Zammit, Managing Director, said: "It's great to receive recognition of our successful growth strategy which is down to a blend of customer service, employing the best staff and providing business-boosting telecoms systems."

Tom Broughton, Programme Director of the National Business Awards, added "The quality and range of this year's entries exceed even those of last year, which is no mean feat.

"The draw of being involved with the Lloyds Bank National Business Awards has seen companies from all kinds of industries submit applications, which have been narrowed down using our thorough scoring system. We are now looking forward to the next step in the judging process and meeting some of the finalists face-to-face."

Finalists were chosen from the hundreds of businesses that entered or were nominated across 18 award categories.

Southern Communications has implemented NEC's UC&C solution UNIVERGE 3C at Southampton FC, lowering call costs, catering for an expanding workforce and meeting new demands for collaboration following the club's promotion.

Head of IT Matthew Reynolds said: "NEC's UNIVERGE 3C has fulfilled our requirements, added value to our business and dramatically lowered our Total Cost of Ownership. Overall we estimate a saving of over £170,000 per annum for the club thanks to this solution.

"We estimate we have saved each user 15 minutes per day, the equivalent of seven full time staff each year."

For the IT department, the ease of administration has reduced the time to manage the system and halved the time required to fulfil a service request.

The club's Academy has been given greater leverage thanks to talent scouts being enable to film promising players on their iPads.

Southampton FC's CEO Gareth Rogers said: "Our scouts and coaches can now collaborate on the go with the ability to stream live video of potential players as well as recording an entire training session to analyse at a later stage."

The solution also helped enable a greater synergy between St. Mary's stadium and the Staplewood Training Campus.

Tech Data Europe has signed a new Europe-wide agreement with Trackimo, a manufacturer of GPS personal tracking devices.

Trackimo offers a global, cross-border location tracking capability using a combination of GPS and mobile technology.

This exclusive agreement gives Tech Data's reseller partners across its entire European footprint access to Trackimo's range of personal tracking devices.

The Trackimo GPS tracker, which is small enough to fit in the palm of a hand, includes a SIM card with global service so that end users do not need contracts and no additional costs for roaming are applicable.

Trackimo devices can be followed via web or mobile app anywhere that GSM (2G) cellular reception exists worldwide.

NewVoiceMedia has been ranked among the London Stock Exchange Group's 1,000 Companies to Inspire Britain, an index of the UK's most 'exciting and dynamic' businesses.

The second edition of the report profiles a cross-section of the economy, highlighting some of the fastest growing enterprises in the UK.

The 1,000 businesses listed have, on average, more than doubled their revenue in the past four years and are major contributors to the country's economic growth and job creation.

IT was identified as the top performing sector. Responsible for 7% of jobs created and with 65 companies featured on the list, it is estimated that the sector will add £12bn to London's economy over the next decade.

NewVoiceMedia recently announced that it grew its international new business by 528% in FY 2015 while continuing to expand its UK base.

Xavier Rolet, chief executive of the London Stock Exchange Group, said: "This report is a significant part of London Stock Exchange's broader campaign to support UK high growth companies in their journeys from start-up to stardom and to create an entrepreneurship revolution.

"I'm delighted that a strong alliance between UK government, financial market participants, investors, entrepreneurs and companies has been created to support these inspiring businesses."

Claranet SOHO, a division of Claranet focused on small and medium businesses, has incorporated Microsoft Office 365 into its portfolio.

"Providing a range of services with tiered functionality, Claranet SOHO supports the needs of SMBs and ensures companies only pay for what the need," said Alan Tavernor, Claranet SOHO's Director.

"With our heritage as an ISP we are able to give customers the connectivity they need to communicate across the business, along with the applications that will enable them to get the job done.

"Having this range of capability with one provider simplifies licensing and eliminates the headache of managing multiple suppliers. This means SMBs can concentrate on moving their businesses forward with the help of the new technology."

Comms-care has attained a Microsoft Gold Cloud Productivity competency, becoming the only channel-only IT support provider in the UK to gain the designation.

Simon Day, Professional Services Director, Comms-care, said: "To add the Microsoft Gold Cloud Productivity competency to our three existing Microsoft Gold competencies showcases our expertise in, and commitment to, today's technology market, and demonstrates our deep knowledge of Microsoft and its products."

The competency demonstrates Comms-care's expertise in deploying Office 365 and the Enterprise Mobility Suite. With 60%of Fortune 500 companies purchasing Microsoft Office 365 in the past year, the Microsoft Gold Cloud Productivity competency can help Comms-care's channel partners take advantage of the growing demand among end user customers for cloud and hybrid solutions, claims the firm.

"By achieving a gold competency, partners have demonstrated the highest, most consistent capability and commitment to the latest Microsoft technology," said Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp.

"These partners have a deep expertise that puts them in the top 1% of our partner ecosystem, and their proficiency will help customers drive innovative solutions on the latest Microsoft technology."

Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Chi Onwurah MP has been confirmed as a keynote speaker for this year's FCS Comms Provider industry summit (17th September, London).

A qualified engineer and former Ofcom employee, Ms Onwurah also chairs the Pictfor cross-parliamentary comms and internet group at Westminster.

FCS Comms Provider is an annual business and networking day for CPs in the fixed-line voice and data market. It's open to FCS members and non-members and is free to attend.

Throughout the day there will be opportunities to network with colleagues and representatives from regulators and other associations.

Cloud-based resource scheduling specialist Smartway2 has teamed up with meetonvc to offer functionality that enables Smartway2 users to meet virtually via HD video conferencing from wherever they are, using their preferred device.

Smartway2 is the first scalable enterprise-grade resource scheduling solution with meetonvc integration, providing users with more flexibility as well as a combination of resource scheduling functionality integrated with cloud-based HD video conferencing capabilities.

Simon Hunt, co-founder of meetonvc, commented: "The market for video hardware solutions is in decline according to IDC, a situation that indicates that video conferencing hardware no longer fits with the way that people work.

"Another telling sign that businesses now want powerful collaborations tools that give them the flexibility that they need, is the relentless growth of the collaborative tools market which is enjoying a compound growth rate of 40%.

"With a significant number of business wanting to simply connect their existing IT investment they can now have a successful business-class meeting online without having to worry about how they are joining from any video or audio enabled device.

"We see a significant market shift towards people using the devices they already have, devices they are familiar with and ones they have already invested in. Our role is to simply enable that easier collaboration experience."