Comms Dealer

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.

Venus Business Communications has teamed up with Video conference company Videonations to host an event at London's Polycom Executive Experience Centre to demonstrate how businesses can easily communicate locally and internationally via video conferencing, reducing the need for expensive or inconvenient travel.

Brian Iddon, Director Venus Business Communications, said: "One of our key client bases is the media industry, a fast paced environment where highly visual presentations to clients are a part of the working day.

"Resistance to using video conferencing in the past has been high with concerns about quality and reliability. Our demonstration shows videoconferencing has come of age with state of the art connection speeds and high quality equipment.

"Working with Videonations, we will show businesses how to create a meeting room experience without the need for attendees to move from their offices.

"We are seeing more and more businesses realise that they can improve their efficiency, reduce their carbon footprint and save thousands of pounds a year through video conferencing.

"Productivity also increases as associates and partners come together, building strong business teams, while reducing the overheads associated with travel."

PSU Technology Group has secured a significant six figure cloud communications contract with automotive outsourcing company All Fleet Services.

The platform is built on Mitel's MiCloud Enterprise UCaaS and SIP technology and the deal will help meet All Fleet's demand for scalability and greater reporting functionality. It will also enable the firm to maintain high levels of customer service.

Michael Lounton, PSU Managing Director, said: "Cloud-based communications are growing rapidly, with the MiCloud solution already powering 33 million connections daily. All Fleet recognised the benefits of our monthly pay-as-you-go billing model which removes the majority of upfront capital expense and makes ongoing costs more manageable and predictable."

The new MiCloud platform contains a range of features to help All Fleet drive team efficiencies and performance. These include collaboration tools and live and historic reporting.

IT and comms provider Alternative Networks has consolidated its group companies and unified its brands under one name - Alternative.

The company has also moved to new offices over two floors in 240 Blackfriars Road in London, bringing together a number of separate sites to create a London-based HQ and a hub for customer collaboration.

The project follows the acquisitions of a number of businesses in the past five years, most recently ControlCircle and Intercept IT in 2014.

"It was essential to bring these companies together under the Alternative brand, while consolidating people and places to integrate our broadening portfolio and secure fully aligned, incorporated, sales, customer services and operations functions," said Mark Quartermaine, Alternative's COO.

"Having recently moved into the new premises, we are already realising many operational and cultural benefits."

As part of the consolidation of its operations, Alternative has made significant upgrades in its own IT infrastructure, shifting all its legacy on-premise IT infrastructure and hosted services into state-of-the-art managed secure data centres.

It has also upgraded and enhanced resilience as an essential part of its expansion of on-line cloud services.

Alternative's new headquarters also houses the Customer Service Centre, central to which is its NOC (Network Operations Centre) facility, providing round the clock coverage of customers' technology estates.

Ed Spurrier, Alternative's CEO, stated: "Alternative continues to grow and deliver robust results and strong cash flow, all in line with our strategic objectives.

"Our growth needs to be matched by enhanced working environments and technology and our new premises and IT infrastructure provide Alternative with a sound platform for future growth, providing more and better space, greater flexibility, increased opportunities and an organisation more efficiently resourced."

Manchester-based UC firm Lapdog for Business has taken up residence at MediaCity following a period of growth.

Founded by former Vodafone and Outsourcery executives Simon Howitt and Adam Cathcart, the company launched in late 2014 and has grown to 14 employees in six months, prompting the firm to relocate to The Landing in MediaCity.??Cathcart, Sales Director, said: "MediaCity has already attracted a number of exciting, tech-based start-ups, and we're excited to join them.

"Our location will be a key to attracting Manchester's brightest young professionals as we recruit more staff through our Sales Academy."

David McTear, Operations Director at The Landing, added: "Lapdog for Business relocating to The Landing is another example of how our services, facilities and tenant mix continues to attract dynamic and successful businesses.
 
"It also emphasises how creating a successful digital enterprise hub is not just about bringing together creative agencies, designers and developers, it is about an entire supply chain of service providers and companies that complement each other."

Tyneside-based Synergi IT's Director Justin Short has collected a top accolade at Microsoft Ignite in Chicago.

The five-day conference brought together more than 23,000 IT people from around the world to train and hear about the latest Microsoft and partner technologies.

Short was awarded the title of Nintex Virtual Technology Evangelist (VTE), one of two in the UK to achieve the recognition and among 17 in the world.

Short, already a specialist in Microsoft Cloud, Office 365 and SharePoint, is also a skilled user and adviser in Nintex, a workflow platform and third party tool for SharePoint and Office 365.

Short said: "To be named among the inaugural Nintex VTE class recognises our ability to develop and deliver innovative client solutions, helping businesses take the work out of workflow processes, using technology to make business systems easier to use."

Virgin Media Business is to sell Unify's OpenScape UCC software to public sector clients following a link-up that brings a sharp focus on the government and healthcare sectors.

Duncan Higgins, Marketing Director, Virgin Media Business, stated: "Public sector organisations are striving to offer their employees new and more flexible ways to remain connected.

"As the UK workforce continues to become increasingly mobile, Virgin Media Business is helping its customers find the right technologies to achieve this. This agreement with Unify complements our existing core UC portfolio."

Following his record-breaking success winning the Porsche Carrera Cup Championship last year, 21-year-old Josh Webster, son of Nine Wholesale MD Nick Webster, has had his first taste of victory this season at the Spa Francorchamps track in Belgium.

Josh won the first race on Friday 1st May and achieved second place in the race the following day.

Tens of thousands of fans flocked to the 7km circuit to watch the third race of the 2015 season.

Spa Francorchamps, set in a forest with challenging elevation changes throughout, is well known in the racing world.

It is a demanding circuit and particularly affected by weather conditions as the trees can make the track alternately damp in one place and dry in another.

Josh flew into the history books in 2014 by becoming not only the youngest champion, but also the first Porsche GB Scholar in history to win the championship in his first year of racing.

He is sponsored by Nine Group and supported at every race by Nine's Wholesale Partners who join Nick Webster. His next race is Oulton Park on 6th/7th June 2015.