Comms Dealer

Industry regulation has long been a recurring theme within the pages of Comms Dealer, but this month self-regulation and energy management also come to the fore as Ultra Communications CEO Justin Hamilton-Martin fizzes with ‘all out' ambition to grow the company two-fold within as many years.

Hamilton-Martin is not someone who sits on his hands. That would be wasting time, and for a man restless to achieve self-imposed personal and business targets, time and energy is a precious commodity that must be regulated effectively. "I have so many ideas for Ultracomms, and there is so much underway, I need to manage my energy," he said. "I learnt energy management the hard way and still keep an eye on how I channel my activity. Knowing how to pace myself is important. I also study continuously. Life-long learning and personal development are important to me."

Any business bereft of such energetic leadership is destined to wilt. Meanwhile, Ultracomms continues to flourish most robustly and the pressure is on to become the ‘go-to' company for supercharging contact centre performance. "Ultracomms has been quietly successful in its first decade," added Hamilton-Martin. "Now is the time to take the company to the next level by putting more structure around sales and marketing. We are in the throes of implementing an aggressive marketing strategy, with a new website, proactive PR and other elements. We are also growing the channel and have already taken on a dedicated manager, Alan Quinlan, to lead that side of the business."

The Fareham-based company is in a positive revenue and cash position, so this is an ‘ideal time' for the firm to enter an ambitious growth phase, pointed out Hamilton-Martin. "We have a healthy pipeline of new business opportunities that we are working through, as well as strong contract wins in Q1 2015," he commented. "We are also working with a number of representatives in the channel around our cloud-based contact centre platform (UCMS), and actively looking for more partners in that area. We are evaluating the potential around a white label version of our platform too."

Hamilton-Martin's first challenge after joining the company in October last year was building an understanding of the portfolio and how it is used by customers. He commissioned a piece of ‘voice of the market' customer research that gave him, and the team, deep insight into how customers view Ultracomms' services, support and overall approach. The research reaffirmed the possibilities he had already witnessed. "I could immediately see the potential for Ultracomms," he added. "I have much experience working with hosted telephony, cloud-based services and the contact centre market. I was drawn to the innovative portfolio and the potential for growth, particularly around the future of omni-channel services. Ultracomms has an established track record and strong in-house R&D, so it's in a position to take advantage of some of the new market developments coming along."

This is not the first time that Hamilton-Martin has spotted a rare opportunity. After several years working for Esprit Telecom in various roles, gaining experience in telecoms and data networking, he saw the potential to bring those two elements together, particularly with the rise of the Internet in the late 90s. "I launched a successful telecoms company called 8el and have stayed in the industry ever since," he explained. "It's still a great place to be."

His experience taught him that no single company can take on all the competencies required within an omni-channel environment, therefore a collaborative approach has become imperative. "This will be a big cultural shift for many old school companies, and I'm not sure that all of them are able to make the transition," added Hamilton-Martin. "There is too much focus on proprietary and siloed approaches and ‘them and us' attitudes. That's an old fashioned way of approaching the marketplace. It's in everyone's interests to engender a more collaborative and open way of working together. No company has the answer to everything. Let's appreciate that fact and work together more transparently and honestly."

Ultracomms' platform lends itself to working with third parties through its API, enabling strong integration with other apps, systems and platforms. "We see that as an important part of our future and we are actively looking for technology partners to work with us," said Hamilton-Martin. "Everything we are working on is very much influenced by customer demand. That's always been the Ultracomms way of working and will continue to be so, collaborating closely with customers to hear what they need and then develop answers."

Aligning the solution roadmap with customer demands brings an emphasis on the regulatory environment, particularly the more stringent PCI DSS requirements introduced at the beginning of 2015, and the anticipated tightening of rules around AMD (Answering Machine Detection). "This creates challenges for customers and opportunities for our channel partners to help address those pain points," added Hamilton-Martin.

"In the AMD space, we are launching a patent-pending solution that significantly reduces the amount of answering machines reached, while lowering the complexity and cost of keeping within Ofcom's abandoned call thresholds. We are also promoting our PCI on-site appliance that replaces erstwhile pause-and-resume platforms, enabling much simpler and more cost-effective PCI DSS compliance. This is a good example of the kind of product area where we see close collaboration with the reseller community paying dividends for everyone concerned."

Other services and products offered by Ultracomms include predictive dialling (guaranteed level of 99.5 availability), intelligent blending (automatic routing of calls according to real-time agent availability across inbound and outbound), UltracommsLive support for dialler managers, advanced call waiting, CLI, IVR, training and call recording.

Whether a reseller or a vendor, Hamilton-Martin believes that after confirming the quality of the product and structure of the commercials, the culture of the company remains the main criteria for the right partnering decision. "A key element of the Ultracomms culture is the thoroughness and professionalism that flows through everything we do," he said. "I want to retain that ethos and ensure that what we do is framed correctly in the industry big picture, retaining that collaborative approach and growing it into more of an ecosystem, with us, partners and customers all working closely together."

A new service launched by wholesale network operator Simwood is poised to 'deregulate mobile', claims Managing Director Simon Woodhead.

Woodhead is right to be upbeat and optimistic about his company's latest innovation. Simwood Mobile and the associated Developer Pack gives CPs a new level of access to mobile services including full control of voice, text and data traffic, mobile numbers, porting and SIM branding. This achievement has been hard earned, pointed out Woodhead. "Simwood Mobile has been the toughest mission we've ever undertaken," he explained.

Any concept that turns a long-term status quo on its head needs time to filter through, but having upset the apple cart Woodhead is impatient to wake up an industry that is accustomed to being conditioned and shackled by the entrenched limitations of mobile voice to date. "Voice mobility has been static compared to the rapid developments in all another areas of communications," he said. "If I wanted anything approaching mobility 15 years ago I could divert a DDI to a mobile number or ring a dial-in number from the mobile to make calls from the office. It was ugly, slow and expensive. It still is."

He believes that despite fixed line deregulation happening in 1991 there has been no real progress. "What is called fixed-mobile convergence is commonly just combined billing," added Woodhead. "Convergence actually happens only when the bill is printed. Our customers have disrupted the fixed side already with VoIP solutions, but mobile remains a silo. That silo represents about 50 per cent of end user telecoms spend.

"We wanted to be able to treat a SIM as an end-point on a VoIP network, just like a VoIP phone on somebody's desk. That way, anyone could leverage the fully integrated user experience of native on-mobile call handling - rather than a non-integrated over the top app - while bringing the full commercial and technical benefits of VoIP to bear."

Careful consideration of the proposition is recommended, according to Woodhead, who is at pains to emphasise the distance Simwood has travelled from the former mobile modus operandi. "With Simwood Unbundled Mobile we send all mobile originated voice, text and data traffic to the CP's network so they can terminate it however they please," he said. "This opens the door for value add mobile services such as call recording and PBX convergence."

In operation, calls and SMS sent to Simwood's mobile numbers or the CP's end user's ported number are also routed to the CP's network for the same flexibility on inbound traffic. Woodhead added: "For customers who only want to take some of the traffic onto their network we offer multiple traffic profiles which can be configured per SIM through our API."

According to Woodhead, Simwood's new Mobile Developer Pack provides a springboard for CPs to quickly get started in mobile service development. The pack contains five developer SIMs and provides access to Simwood's API, portal, mobile numbers and porting. "We're taking pre-orders for Developer Packs - SIMs that have the full feature set of voice, SMS and data," added Woodhead. "We have M2M and Mobile Data SIMs coming too which will focus on the respective data options with advantageous economics for each. We have built our own mobile core and SIM card profiles. We are not simply reselling another service, this is based on our own network."

An important USP, says Woodhead, is the de-coupling of numbers, SIMs, and the fact that all voice, SMS and data can go via Simwood to partner platforms where their creative customers can inject value. He cited one user case to illustrate the straightforward workings of Simwood's API (specifically the Advanced Inbound Routing functionality) in conjunction with the firm's pre-release SIMs to forward one number to multiple devices. "Users can also assign that same number to multiple SIMs creating one of the holy grails of mobile - one number on multiple devices," explained Woodhead. "Users can also have multiple numbers on one SIM if that's their preference."

All Simwood Mobile services benefit from the company's existing real-time CDRs, traffic statistics and fraud controls, available through its API and portal which have now been extended to include mobile services. "CPs already using our API to configure fixed line telephony services are only a few API calls away from deploying mobile to their existing customer base," added Woodhead.

For service providers with Ofcom allocated mobile number ranges, Simwood offers Virtual Interconnect Mobile - voice and SMS enablement for a CP's mobile ranges. "Once up and running, numbers appear in our API and portal for their exclusive use," said Woodhead. "They can also leverage advanced numbering features such as anonymous and intelligent call rejection, hunt groups and diversion. Voice can be delivered via SIP or PSTN while SMS comes over HTTP or SMPP."

Woodhead believes that Simwood represents a new category of mobile supplier that does not fit into the traditional MNO/MVNO/MVNE type models. "We're somewhere between a roaming MNO and a completely unencumbered MVNE," he said. "Either way, we are unique."

Developing anything in mobile is difficult. There are technical and commercial challenges, and the extent to which Ofcom appears to protect mobile resources is a surprising hurdle, according to Woodhead. "Obtaining mobile numbers is hard," he stated. "And getting the other resources essential to operating a mobile network is nigh on impossible. This has been the biggest impediment to our progress, and we've spent a huge amount of time and money engineering around the need for the resources we're not allowed because we're new. Simwood is committed to a fair and transparent market and we will keep battling."

Why mobile? Visit blog.simwood.com

By Elvire Gosnold, Director, Blabbermouth Marketing: Our friends at Google have changed the rules again: In their continuing fight to ensure website rankings prioritise genuine, informative websites that enrich the visitor's experience, Google has added to its requirements. Now it is web responsiveness that will gain you Brownie Points in your SEO endeavours.

I'm sure you all agree that we are using our mobiles and tablets at an increasing rate for business activity, as well as in our leisure time, so it makes sense that Google is prioritising mobile friendliness as a ranking mechanism in search results.

A responsive website means that you can easily view all site content regardless of what device you are viewing it on. A quick check is to simply reduce the screen size of your site when viewed on your PC screen to see what happens. Do the images move in an organised manner? Are the menus easily viewed?

The big question is whether your site is optimised. And what about the sites of your closest competitors? Have a look at Google's guide on mobile friendly websites to ascertain the impact the new algorithm will have on your site, and decide whether a new website needs to move up your to-do-list.

It is always a good idea to have your site optimised. It future proofs your shop window as more prospects will be accessing your site via their tablet and mobile. With this new Google rankings requirement it is a perfect reason to launch a new site that is responsive and easy to view.

By Anton Le Saux, Head of Connectivity and Partner Sales at O2 Telefónica UK: The m2m market is expanding rapidly and developing into unchartered territory with new sectors acknowledging the benefits and smaller businesses adopting the technology.

But it is partnerships that will facilitate the growth of m2m, because no single business could possibly have the knowledge or contacts to roll out m2m into all potential sectors. If partnerships are the future for the m2m market, then relevant companies need to be seeking like-minded affiliates to move forward with, not to mention a centralised portal or facilitator to co-ordinate them. O2's Global Partnership Programme (GPP) is an example of this approach, driving industry growth through a system that supports multiple businesses, allowing them to move forward symbiotically.

As more businesses come together to establish links, commonalities and trends are coming to the fore. m2m is becoming more intrinsically linked to business processes and revenue streams, and connected device data needs to be blended with enterprise IT systems to maximise its usefulness. In short, data generated by m2m systems is becoming less about monitoring and more about decision making and business direction. This is increasing the need for real-time data across all parts of a business, drawing from multiple connected devices.

With data coming from numerous locations, a central portal to manage and manipulate this information is required to bring all connectivity together at a single user-friendly point. Only established, streamlined partnerships will be able to successfully collate these different strands into a unified and useable solution.

For more information emailanton.lesaux@telefonica.com or visit partnersdigital.telefonica.com

Hortonworks, a provider of enterprise Apache Hadoop, has expanded its System Integrator Partner programme to speed up cross-industry adoption of the open-source software framework. 

The first company to join the new programme at the Platinum level is Accenture.

Under the expanded programme, partners will benefit from advanced online training systems while the certification requirements will be more extensive in order to ensure better quality, Hortonworks says.

System Integrators will be also offered an option to participate in channel programme under Platinum, Gold, Silver or Bronze partner category. Additionally, all partners will have access to Hortonworks' library of online training, specialised solution-based workshops and technical boot camps.

"Partners are essential element for achieving enterprise pervasiveness of Hadoop across all vertical industries," said President of Hortonworks, Herb Cunitz.

"We have seen massive growth in the demand for trusted, expert Hadoop services on a global basis. The programme enhancements will better prepare new and existing systems integrators to consult, implement and install Hortonworks Data Platform solutions to ensure that enterprises achieve their business objectives."

Ingram Micro has created a dedicated 3D printing and scanning division in Europe led by Senior Manager Rudolf Ehrmanntraut who will set up a European Competence Centre and drive the company's expansion in this space.

The announcement follows a period of success in the European 3D printing market. Ingram Micro's portfolio now consists of products from OEMs including 3D Systems, Leapfrog and German RepRap.

"We have seen a frenzy of activity in the 3D printing and scanning space in Europe, with our resellers making it clear that they are looking to enter or expand in this fast-growing market," said Ehrmanntraut.

Ernesto Schmutter, vice president Germany of Ingram Micro's Technology Solutions division, added: "We have been observing the evolution of this technology and the market around 3D printing for some time and are convinced that for our customers, new business opportunities are out there for the taking."

Congrats to 4net Technologies for scooping the Avaya Partner of the Year award, collected at the vendor's annual Partner Conference.

Established in 2005, 4net Technologies achieved Avaya Platinum Partner status earlier this year.

Richard Pennington, 4net's MD, said: "Over the past 18 months we have won a number of awards in recognition of our dedication to customer service and project delivery.

"4net's reputation is built on our customer satisfaction scores, a 99.96% customer retention rate and using the full range of Avaya technologies."

Avaya's Regional Channel Leader, Barry Tuffs, added: " 4net is one of our most innovative and consistent partners. It works closely with Avaya to deliver our full range of solutions to customers which include Garmin, Findel Plc, Luton Council and Central Government."

Wi-Fi networks provider Xirrus has established a European team of distributors following agreements with Purdicom in the UK, Exclusive Networks in Benelux and Germany, WiFiDom in Spain and Alliance HBP Associates in France.

The agreements provide each distributor with access to Xirrus' range of high density, software enabled access points and cloud managed Wi-Fi networks, which feature application control, high scalability and future proofing.

"These appointments mark the continued expansion of Xirrus' product range and the company's position as a major player in the cloud managed Wi-Fi space," said Ian Bayly, VP EMEA Sales, Worldwide Channels & Strategic Alliances, Xirrus.

"Together with our new partners we look forward to delivering an innovative, disruptive breed of cloud enabled Wi-Fi technology across Europe and a simple-to-access, high capacity advanced Wi-Fi experience."

Around 60% of BYOD workers do not involve their company IT support in setting up their devices, according to Phoenix's national survey of UK employees on their use of and attitudes towards workplace IT.

One of the survey's key findings highlights UK workers' widespread use of their own electronic devices for work, posing a potential major threat to business security.

The survey, conducted with workers aged 18 and over who use IT and electronic devices as part of their day-to-day business, across a wide range of industry sectors, revealed that while over half (51%) primarily use their own devices, 59% of those workers have not used their company IT support to setup their devices.

This indicates a significant number of devices being used in the UK economy that may not comply with corporate IT policies or have sufficient security measures in place.

This is particularly pertinent as cyber-attacks are designated as one of the UK's top national security risks, alongside terrorism. Statistics from GCHQ show that a third of UK small businesses and 80% of large businesses suffered a cyber-attack from someone outside their business last year, illustrating how unsupervised BYOD can significantly increase companies' exposure to risk.

Alistair Blaxill, MD of Phoenix's Partner Business, said: "Mobility is one of the most significant driving forces for the IT sector and an increasing number of people want to be fully connected to work all of the time.

"However, the emergence of BYOD in the workplace is creating a real challenge for IT departments, with workers using their own unmanaged devices to access corporate networks and sensitive data. The findings of our survey underline this trend in the UK and it reinforces the need for businesses to stay on top of how employees access IT and ensure that they are appropriately protected.

"We think the best way to achieve this shift is to look at the ways in which IT departments are interacting with workers. Employees' attitudes to IT support are changing and they want instant, real-time solutions to their device issues.

"Our survey tells us that just 23% and 32% of workers received their IT support either primarily face-to-face or a mix of face-to-face and remotely respectively.

"Savvy employers are now looking to provide workers with an IT support service that mirrors the personal experience they receive outside of work when resolving issues with their own personal devices."

Marcus Yates is the man at the centre of Nimans' drive to increase Unify's market share. His appointment to the lead role follows a four year stint at the distributor, previously heading-up the NEC systems team.

"With Unify's communication and collaboration platform, Circuit, an enhanced partner programme and the Openscape Business technologies, this is a great opportunity to be taking on this role."

Tony Smith, Unify Channel Sales Director UK&I, added: "Further to the significant increase in the Unify UK&I sales and pre-sales teams recently, Marcus is key to delivering the level of expertise and support our partners need at this exciting time for the Unify community."