Comms Dealer

Unify has taken decisive steps in its journey towards becoming a channel-centric organisation and there's no turning back, according to Jon Pritchard, Executive VP of Worldwide Channels. That was the message trumpeted to the 200-plus partners from 50 countries who converged on the Unify Partner Conference 2015 in Florida.

Staged under the umbrella headline 'Engage, Evolve, Execute', the event served as a platform for the vendor to showcase its future roadmap and provide an update on the progress of its channel building strategy.

Pritchard said: "Unify has now transitioned 54 of the countries we do business in to channel and distributor-led sales only.

"By the end of Unify's 2015 fiscal year we will have only nine countries that remain a combination of channel and direct sales.

"In two years, we expect to get 45% of our revenue through the channel. We can't go back. Our future depends upon the success of our partners and we are committed to working with them to stay ahead of the changes facing the technology market today."

An important part of Unify's channel plan is its Partner Programme. Launched at the beginning of this year more than 2,000-plus partners now take part of the scheme, which is proving popular with 91% of partners planning to develop their Unify business in the next fiscal year.

The Unify Partner Programme rewards partners for their expertise, offering specialisation level discounts to partners who invest in Unify.

The company has also added to its channel management team with two hires.

Simon Minett joins from Westcon Group as Senior VP of Global Partner Management; while John DeLozier takes the role of Senior VP Channels for North America.

"Unify's success will be based on our partner's success," added Dean Douglas, CEO of Unify.

"We have very clear rules of engagement in place to ensure that we are doing all we can to help our partners execute and grow their businesses."

& 

Cisco's product sales continued rebounding in FQ3 following a late-2013/early-2014 slump, rising 6% yr/yr to $9.33bn.

Services revenue were relatively stable and rose 3% to $2.81bn, says the company, reporting Q3 results.

Service provider orders (-7%, with US down 17%) remain a weak spot, as do emerging markets (flat, with BRIC markets declining), but enterprise and public sector orders (each up 7%) were healthier, as were SMB orders (+6%). Americas and EMEA orders were both up 2%, and Asia-Pac 1% (8% exc. China).

Product line performance: Switching revenue +6% yr/yr in FQ3 to $3.56bn. Routing +4% to $2bn. Collaboration +7% to $973m. Data centre (UCS servers) rose +21% to $801m.

John Chambers, Cisco chairman and CEO, said: "Cisco is in a very strong position and we delivered another solid quarter. Our vision and strategy are working and we are executing very well in a tough environment, as evidenced in our revenue growth, profitability, strong gross margins and cash generation.

"Our customers feel the pace of change and disruption in every industry and market, and know their success depends on digitising their business. Whether they are the disruptor or the incumbent, they are coming to Cisco as their strategic partner.

"We believe we are pulling away from our competition using the same formula we've always used: integrating our products in every category into architectures and solutions that deliver real outcomes. We've created this opportunity and it is ours to execute.

"Europe first turned up for us five quarters ago, and since then has averaged mid-single-digit growth, including this quarter. If you take out Russia, we saw solid growth across all of Europe, Middle East, and Africa of 4%."

SAP is to change its partner programme to bring in more non-standard channels including OEMs, ISVs and integrators.

Rodolpho Cardenuto, the head of the company's Global Partner Operations, told the recent partner event that 'Partners first, simple wins, deliver value' is the theme.

SAP has grown its number of partners from 2,000 to 13,000 in the past 10 years and increased the number of partner solutions from two to 57 in the same period.

As a result, partner-driven revenue has increased tenfold since 2005 and now makes up 33% of total revenue.

To simplify partners' go to market, Cardenuto announced that the SAP PartnerEdge programme will be revamped in 3Q15.

PartnerEdge Next Generation includes new programmes for training, enablement and value creation, offers more attractive discounts and reduces barriers to adoption of SAP solutions as SAP wants all of its partners to use its products. SAP PartnerEdge also provides 'one holistic partner management model' to reward partners for their total business contribution.

Analyst TBR says SAP will need partners to be key evangelists around transformational solutions such as S/4HANA and its IoT portfolio as these solutions require strategy-led engagements between customers and partners.

Partner Select is the new programme built for lower midmarket partners, designed to reduce cloud barriers and offer fixed-price packaged solutions and services.

In Ofcom's Business Connectivity Market Review (the market through which Ofcom regulates leased lines) the watchdog proposes that BT should give competitors physical access to its fibre-optic cables, allowing competing operators to take direct control of the connection.

This is subject to consultation until the end of July 2015 and this form of access would not be available until April 2017.

Matthew Howett, Practice Leader, Regulation at Ovum, said: "For many years now there have been calls for Ofcom to force BT to offer a dark fibre product. Those calls have been answered. The price for access and the conditions on which it is granted will now be subject to debate before Ofcom finalises its position later this year. 

"As well as satisfying the demands of large enterprise users, the announcement is also set to partially reassure UK mobile operators should BT successfully acquire EE later this year.

"Vodafone, for example, has been particularly vocal about the need for a dark fibre product to connect base stations and backhaul mobile traffic without fear of interference from BT.

"This is relevant since BT currently provides all UK mobile operators with high-speed mobile backhaul links.

"Elsewhere in Europe, a requirement for dark fibre is fairly common. According to recent Ovum research, around half of the 28 member states already have a requirement in place - along with countries in Asia such as Japan, Singapore and South Korea."

Knight Corporate Finance has advised Siphon Networks on its £1.5m investment from Finance Wales.

The investment will boost the Cwmbran-based UC provider's growth plan as it looks to increase its presence in the UK and Europe.

Steve Harris, MD of Siphon, said: "Securing this investment is a significant milestone for Siphon and demonstrates Finance Wales' confidence in our business model as well as in our professional and technical expertise. Knight were instrumental in securing the investment and providing us with a range of options."

Paul Billingham, Director at Knight, added: "ICT businesses with strong management teams continue to be held in high regard by institutional investors."

Hosted telephony provider Inclarity has launched a new £7 per user, per month licence package for channel partners to include a Polycom VVX 400 handset with colour display.

The 36 month deal was announced at the company's partner day held at Ascot Races where it took the opportunity to give partners a specialist view of the fast growing IP market and demonstrate its expanding range of value added solutions including hosted UC and hosted video.

Speaking to Comms Dealer at the event, MD Enzo Viscito (pictured) commented: "Our new licence offer is all about breaking down another barrier for our reseller partners when they are in front of customers looking for a true OPEX hosted solution.

"We chose the VVX because it's a high quality mid-range end point and it's a great selling point having a colour display."

Special guests at the event included Mike Wilkinson, VP of Product Marketing at Broadsoft (Inclarity's hosted platform partner) and specialist VoIP analyst Matthew Townend.

Both predicted a massive hike in hosted telephony uptake in the next two years.

"Hosted will take more market share in 2016/17, that's for sure," said Wilkinson. " It has a 10-15% market share in the UK currently but we expect this country to follow the highly competitive Dutch model where 35% of telephony seats deployed are now hosted."

Underlining the scale of Broadsoft's global outreach, Wilkinson said the company's flagship VoIP product Broadworks was now powering 444,000 seats for the US Postal Service.

Promising more apps and cloud services in the future Wilkinson added: "We are looking at Wi-Fi to bring mobility onto our platform and a number of vertical solutions on WebRTC to extend applications onto web browsers."

Townend, MD of Illume Research, said the hosted voice market in the UK has grown 17.49% in the last six months with 245,489 seats now deployed.

He said: "Traditionally, the market was driven by small and large enterprises, but the mid-market is now showing strong growth following the roll out of fibre and affordable quality ensured networks.

"The switch from ISDN to SIP is keeping BT people up at night and by 2016/17 there will be more SIP trunks than ISDN.

"BT will be looking to migrate everyone off traditional telephony platforms by 2025. The ISDN network is now end of life and the market is moving fast to an IP world."

Inclarity Marketing Manager Jaci Hale reinforced the company's commitment to helping partners sell more hosted solutions, announcing a range of marketing aids including a new company video which can be white labelled by partners, an upgrading of the Playbook Partner Portal, new weekly training webinars and a monthly Foresight newsletter.

Concluding the proceedings, Viscito said: "We are not the only Broadsoft switch in town, but we focus on offering the best value add possible.

"This includes all customer service calls answered within five seconds, and we have a great knowledge of the Broadsoft platform with all of our engineers trained, as well as a brand new core network.

"We also offer our partners marketing and pre-sales support. It's about helping them generate leads and wining business.

"I am massively excited about the market. We are three years behind the USA and I have seen what the hosted companies are doing out there.

"Back in 2007 hosted was a struggle, but in 2012 I saw things starting to boom. Now it's a tidal wave."

Fresh from collecting a Comms Dealer Sales Award (Service Provider Channel Marketing Team of there Year) Channel Telecom has unveiled its latest partner incentive - the chance to win an all-inclusive holiday.

For every Ethernet order placed over the next three months partners will receive a £33 summer shopping voucher and a ticket into the grand prize raffle draw (minimum of three Ethernet orders to qualify).

Qualifying partners will be invited to one of London's most prestigious venues, where they will enjoy champagne, fine dining and where the winner will be announced.

Head of Partner Sales Steve Yates stated: "Partner incentives are always a great opportunity to reward partners for both their loyalty and hard work. As the growing need for superfast connectivity increases, opportunities are coming thick and fast and we want to thank our partners for continuing to choose Channel Telecom."

Tollring has signed an OEM contract with Mitel to deliver call reporting and analytics for its MiCloud offering in the UK.

Tollring's iCall Suite (iCS) Online business productivity tool will further enhance Mitel's MiCloud suite of cloud ready solutions for MiVoice, MiCollab and MiContactCenter with cutting-edge cloud call analytics and data visualisation tools.

iCS Online integrates seamlessly with the Mitel MiCloud Enterprise Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) solution and enables businesses of all sizes to monitor inbound and outbound call activity on any mobile device.

Tollring's intuitive cloud based application, designed and optimised from the ground up for hosted communications platforms, is easy to deploy and provision within MiCloud and enables businesses to view call activity, providing critical call metrics wherever and whenever needed.

The scalable application enables Mitel's partners in the UK to provide an essential business productivity tool for their customers via a simple on-line provisioning process.

The solution adds significant value which can be used to demonstrate how customers moving to the Mitel UCaaS offering will experience improved business outcomes and a real return on investment.

Through a series of reports, dashboards and wallboards, managers can frequently monitor caller tolerance, percentage of calls answered, abandoned calls and unresolved missed calls, to improve customer service and achieve goals.

Andy Bannister, Head of UK Cloud at Mitel said: "We see business reporting as a key application that our customers are demanding."

Tony Martino, MD of Tollring, added: "Signing the OEM agreement with Mitel is a significant development for Tollring, helping Mitel customers to develop competitive advantage through call analytics."

Channel Telecom has reported a record billing month in April totalling over £750K for the first time.

The record trading month was driven in part by Ethernet sales which have shot up over recent months following Channel Telecom's partner incentives and the launch of its partner accreditation programme.

Head of Data Sales, Stuart Burdett, recently held the first of many scheduled workshops at a leading supplier's central London offices. These workshops provide partners the knowledge to sell and support a variety of data services, ranging in both complexity and focus area.

Clifford Norton, Managing Director, said: "This is a wonderful achievement for our team and for our partners. Ethernet sales not only generate a valuable revenue stream for our partners but also open the way to upsell customers to cloud based services due to the robust reliability of Ethernet connectivity. This record month is the pinnacle of what has been a terrific start to the year."

Eclipse has announced the Fastest 4 finalists with pole position going to Nexus Telecommunications which led the pack at the Fastest 4 event at Palmer Sport on 3rd June securing the highest number of Eclipse sales.

Over 20 partners will put the BMW M4, Ariel Atom and Caterham 7 Superlight machines through their paces, all aiming to take the crown from Lee Donaghey from Onetek and secure a guaranteed spot at Fastest 4 2016.

"Business competition is nothing compared to the personal competition we're seeing between partners," said Henry West, head of channel sales at Eclipse.

"Everyone is gunning for Lee Donaghey as the man to beat this year and we'll all be seeing if the tension gets to him when peers and partners are watching."

Contenders have extra pressure this year as their moves will be under the scrutiny of Ben Collins, the original Stig from BBC's Top Gear.

Ben will be showing them how the professionals do it in the Palmer Jaguar JP-LM then presenting prizes at the evening's dinner.