Comms Dealer

Sixty videos designed to showcase new technology trends and products have been launched by Nimans.

Among the categories covered are Headsets, WLAN, Systems, Conferencing, Long Range Wireless Technologies, Call Management, Cabling, Own Brands and a Call Blocker.

Group Sales & Business Development Director, Richard Carter, said: "Video production is playing an increasingly important role in helping resellers understand and educate their own customers about the benefits and features of product sets and individual solutions. They are a great way of bringing products to life."

C4L has become a registered supplier of the Government's Connected Cities voucher scheme which is now available to the Bournemouth City Region.

A recent Tech City Tech Nation report confirmed Bournemouth as the fastest growing technology cluster in the country, and C4L recognises that this growth is fuelled by access to faster broadband technology.

Matt Hawkins, Chairman and Founder of C4L, said: "We have already deployed huge connectivity infrastructure at our Data Centre based in the heart of Bournemouth, linking local businesses with the global Internet and we are aiming to link them to incredible speeds.

"This government supported initiative allows us to extend our network directly into Dorset enterprises. In many cases the connection voucher covers the set-up costs entirely, effectively removing the barriers to the service.

"Too many businesses are running on domestic grade services, I am looking forward to empowering them with business calibre connectivity, so that they are better able to operate effectively and competitively. My aim is to provide all Dorset businesses with ultrafast Internet speeds as the norm."

Tollring has achieved certification to international standard ISO/IEC 27001 for Information Security Management.

The ISO 27000 family of standards helps organisations to keep information assets secure.

ISO/IEC 27001 is the best-known standard in the family providing requirements for an information security management system (ISMS).

Certification in ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security Management highlights Tollring's ability to identify risks and put controls in place to manage or reduce them, ensures procedures are in place to enable prompt detection of security breaches, shows the company's flexibility to adapt controls to selected/all areas of the business, proves to customers that their data is protected and demonstrates compliance.

The ISO/IEC 27001 standard is based around continual improvement, and requires Tollring to regularly review the effectiveness of their information security management system (ISMS) and take action to address new and emerging security risks.

"Achieving certification shows Tollring's commitment to information security at all levels throughout the organisation," said a spokesperson.

As Intel's March 12th warning led many to expect, PC sales were weak in Q1: IDC estimates shipments fell 6.7% yr/yr to 68.5m, a much sharper drop than Q4's 2.4% and Q3/Q2's 1.7%. Gartner estimates shipments fell 5.2% to 71.7m. With IDC also reporting of price pressure, revenue declines might be larger.

IDC says the Q1 market faced multiple headwinds - including inventory build-up of Windows Bing based notebooks, commercial slow down following the XP refresh and constrained demand in many regions due to currency fluctuations and unfavourable economic indicators.

Gartner thinks sales of mobile PCs (notebooks, convertibles, and Windows tablets) rose, while desktop sales fell sharply.

Both Gartner and IDC report US PC shipments fell only 1% yr/yr. On the other hand, IDC thinks Japan (another high-ASP market) saw shipments fall 44%; strong Q1 2014 spending prior to a tax hike made for tough comparisons.

Market leaders Lenovo and HP continued taking share from firms with less scale: IDC estimates Lenovo's share rose to 19.6% from 17.6% a year ago (3.4% unit growth), and HP's to 19% from 17.1% (3.3% unit growth).#3 Dell's share rose to 13.5% from 13.4%; #4 Asus was flat at 7.1%, and #5 Acer rose to 7% from 6.3%.

Everyone else collectively fell to 33.9% from 38.4%.Unlike in Q4 and Q3 (seasonally stronger quarters for the company), Apple wasn't in the global top-5. IDC estimates the company's US. unit share rose to 10.9% from 10.6%, good for fourth place (revenue share is higher).

Unify's UK channel expansion campaign, launched last month, is gathering pace as exclusive distributor Nimans gears up for a brace of events in May designed to onboard new partners.

The events - 19th May, The Globe in London; and 21st May, The Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester - will highlight Unify's recently enhanced Partner Program and on-boarding support structure.

"With an ambitious growth strategy that places partners at the heart of its plans, Unify has developed, honed and fine-tuned its go-to-market strategy to help partners make maximum revenues and profits in the minimum timescale," said John McKindland (pictured), Head of Systems Sales, Nimans.

The events will also showcase OpenScape Business and Unify's communication and collaboration platform, Circuit.

"Attendees will hear from product experts about the factors driving adoption of Unify solutions and where they see the biggest opportunities," added McKindland.

"Resellers will also benefit from an onboarding package that demonstrates how Nimans and Unify are helping them to grow their businesses."

Distributor Exertis has strengthened its strategic partnership with Ricoh, the global technology company specialising in office imaging equipment, production print solutions, document management systems, sustainability solutions and IT and communication services.

The bolstered alliance - which is effective from April 9th - builds on an existing 12 month relationship with Ricoh and will see Exertis assume responsibility for the global delivery of an extended range of AV and print solutions.
 
Steven Hastings, IT distribution channel director at Ricoh, said: "Our existing relationship with Exertis has enabled us to reach new audiences and strengthen our business in retail, SME/SMB and the public sector, so we look forward to this natural evolution of our relationship."
 
Jamie Brothwell, Print Business General Manager at Exertis, added: "Having worked with Ricoh in the retail sector for the past 12 months, it was a natural progression to expand our offering with the B2B product range. We felt it a great fit."

NewVoiceMedia has named Mark Fellowes (pictured) as Senior Vice President of Sales Development and Operations.

Fellowes will lead NewVoiceMedia's company-wide sales development and operations to support both high growth and efficiencies across the business's expanding global footprint.

He brings over 20 years industry experience to NewVoiceMedia, joining from Syniverse Technologies and MACH, global providers of interoperability and enterprise solutions focused on enabling the mobile communications industry, where he held various senior sales and business operations positions.

Fellowes will report to CEO Jonathan Gale, who commented: "Mark is a talented executive with a strong track record of increasing sales productivity for large global organisations."

Voice and data recording firm Red Box Recorders has strengthened its position in the APAC region with the appointment of Lee Anstiss as Sales Director APAC.

His remit is to continue increasing the company's presence across the region which includes doubling the number of staff and growing the business by around 20% in the next year.

Anstiss is based in Singapore where he has previously been employed for the past five years, working most recently for BT as Account Director - Unified Trading Global Banking & Financial Market. Prior to that he was Sales Director (Singapore) at Mitel.

Lee Jones, CEO at Red Box Recorders, said: "Lee's appointment signals the next exciting phase in our development in APAC which will see us increasing our staff on the ground to drive sales and further support our growing customer base.

"His proven experience, particularly in the finance market, will prove invaluable as we continue our strong growth in the region and beyond, further cementing Red Box's position as a serious global player."

Anstiss added: "I have been involved with Red Box many times over the years. There is a real drive within the business to succeed and I am extremely pleased to be part of it."

The evolution of SIP trunking from a cost-effective ISDN replacement product to full enabler of UC adoption is complete, according to Gamma.

The company says SIP trunking has become a 'pivotal tool' in the journey towards UC. And Paul Wakefield, SIP Trunking Product Manager, cannot overstate the significance of a strong and strategically focused SIP trunking proposition in today's UC-hungry marketplace.

"That means offering business-grade availability, scalability and value," he said. "A clear and agile roadmap is a prerequisite and an essential tool for remaining competitive and relevant."

According to Wakefield, rapid changes in market dynamics means taking a 'sitting on hands' or 'wait and see' approach is not an option for the comms provider.

"Gamma regularly releases product updates and enhancements such as the launch of two new build types - Resilience+ which is a new resilient build option for dual endpoints, and an enhanced build option for customers with single endpoints," he explained.

Wakefield also noted that free fraud protection comes as standard, along with free call termination in the UK including 01, 02 and 03 number ranges.

Gamma has also introduced a pricing initiative that offers free call termination to UK mobile destinations.

Chris Russell, CEO at Arrow Business Communications and a proponent of Gamma's market approach, said: "It's important that the communications partners we work with are forward-thinking and can effectively support us to deliver reliable and scalable solutions."

In an update on trading for the financial year ended 31st March 2015 Phoenix IT Group expects profits to be 'comfortably in line with market expectations'. 

The firm has reduced net debt from £56.1m to £49m, and executing strategic priorities set out by Chief Executive, Steve Vaughan early last summer have paid off, said the firm.

The Group expects to announce results for the year ended 31st March 2015 on 8th June.

Vaughan' strategy included managed service renewals such as Phoenix's long-term relationship with Costain Group for the provision of a wide range of infrastructure services, including Business Continuity and cloud services.

Growth in Business Continuity planning and consultancy has been aided by the release of an upgraded version of the Group's ShadowPlanner product.

A key objective for the second phase of the strategy is to sell additional services to existing customers, particularly those in Business Continuity.

The Group is seeing this cross-selling happening, particularly in the expansion of existing BC relationships into full-time hosting arrangements involving private or hybrid cloud provision.

The Group's proprietary public cloud offering, CloudSure UK, is performing well, said the Group, having secured its largest contract to date with a newly formed Joint Venture business involved in improving the National Infrastructure. 

The Group now has a total of 12 live CloudSure UK customers, double the number at the end of the half year.