Comms Dealer

Gamma has launched a dedicated Microsoft Lync website to help its existing and prospective channel partners realise the benefits of providing Microsoft Lync-compatible SIP trunks and to support them on their journey to unified communications.

SIP trunking services that integrate with Microsoft Lync allow users to make and receive calls on their desktop PC, mobile or any device using the Lync web client. This unshackles businesses from the 9-5 office environment and sets workforces free to work in a way that suits them.

Following its successful completion of the Microsoft Lync 2013 certification in early 2014 Gamma has seen an increase in demand for Microsoft Lync.

Paul Wakefield, SIP Product Manager at Gamma, said: "Resellers who are already providing customers with Microsoft Lync could benefit from adding SIP to their portfolio to offer a comprehensive end-to end-solution, leading to increased margins and customer retention.

"Our goal is to help our channel partners increase wallet share and leverage the opportunity that Microsoft Lync offers. If they don't, it will only be a matter of time before their competitors do."

With the option of a branded billing bureau, number flexibility and fraud management, combined with being approximately just one of ten SIP trunking service providers that are qualified to meet the Microsoft UCOIP requirements, Gamma believes its proposition gives resellers the edge to help them make more money out of the Lync stack.

John Pittaway, Sales Director at Risual commented: "As a long standing Microsoft Gold Partner, it's great to see how focused Gamma is on providing an end-to-end service by extending unified communications beyond the office environment with SIP and Microsoft Lync."

Gamma recently announced major SIP trunking pricing initiatives, offering free call termination to UK mobile and fixed destinations, including 01, 02 and 03 number ranges.

The communications provider believes that the move to a transactional model for SIP makes it easier to administer and provides a real differentiator based around price rather than features.

Smaller resellers in Europe are growing faster than their larger counterparts, helped by expansion in key vertical markets such as the Public Sector, Bank/Finance/Insurance and Manufacturing/Industry.

Healthcare is rising fast as a category of interest to resellers. Security is, perhaps unsurprisingly, the fastest growing area of business for VARs in Europe, says IT Europa in its latest database report: Solutions VARs in Europe - the Top 500.

In the report, and looking back at the last year for which complete figures were available, total revenues of all companies included increased 29.13% in 2013 over comparable numbers for 2011. From 2012 to 2013 revenues increased just 3.98%, however.

There has been considerable movement of names up and down the list as many of the larger companies have acquired, sold off divisions and moved work outside Europe.

In 2014, the most popular vertical markets which companies were catering to were: the Public Sector (67.2% of companies); Bank/Finance/Insurance (59.4%); Manufacturing/Industry (58%); Retail (49.6%); and Healthcare (39.4%).

The fastest growing areas of activity for VARs were: security (68.23% of companies); mobility (30.17%); accountancy (13.22%); e-procurement (13.11%); and application infrastructure (13.02%). The only markets which declined were: e-commerce/Internet (-145.72%), and Supply Chain Management (-179.8%).

Other notable horizontal segments include: storage (17.6%); Business Intelligence/analytics (13.8%); networking (9.4%); and virtualisation (9.4%).

Of the 500 companies profiled, 14 were parent companies of groups of companies, 55 subsidiary companies, 418 independents and 13 publicly listed and the total revenues for all companies in the report reached $44.7 billion.

The parent companies saw total revenues decline by 6% while the best performers were subsidiary companies with 11.02% increase in revenues in 2012-2013; followed by independent companies with 6.15% increase; and public companies with 4.72% increase. Only 6.8% of the companies in the report have staff numbers greater than 1000, two thirds have fewer than 100.

The largest geographic markets in terms of 2013 revenue (the last complete year for which reported figures are available) are (in descending order): United Kingdom (total revenues of $11 billion); Germany ($8.36 billion); France ($5.95 billion); Spain ($4.34 billion); Italy ($2.56 billion); Netherlands ($1.89 billion); Austria ($1.61 billion); Denmark ($1.2 billion); and Norway ($1.18 billion). The 10 largest geographic markets covered in terms of numbers of companies profiled are: Germany (89 companies); United Kingdom (87); Italy (48); France (47); Spain (33); Poland (28); Netherlands (22); Russia (18); Turkey (15); and Austria (13).

In terms of revenue increases across geographic markets in the period of 2012-2013, Bulgaria is the best performer with 48.58% revenue growth. The second best performer is Belarus with 29.38%, followed by Lithuania (29.3%); Czech Republic (12.48%) and then Turkey (11.91%).

In this report, all Nordic countries experienced revenue growth: Sweden (8.85%), Norway (7.62%), Iceland (6.66%), Finland (4.06%), and Denmark (1.45%). In the previous report, Denmark and Sweden experienced revenue decline (-2.44% and -6.48% respectively).

The UK market is positioned at 31 and experienced revenue decline of -4.06%, compared to 21.48% revenue growth in the last published report. Similarly, in the last published report, Belgium experienced the highest revenue growth of 31.1%, but in this report experienced revenue decline of -1.71%.

The places where it was hardest to be a VAR, which experienced revenue decline in both 2012 and 2014 were: Slovak Republic (-29.26%; -25.61%), Portugal (-14.2%; -13.8%) and Greece (-17.41%; -2.77%) in 2012 and 2014 respectively.

www.iteuropa.com

Basingstoke-based Southern Communications has been ranked 49th in the 2015 Southern Tech 100 listing.

The company now employs over 140 staff and has seen annual turnover grow by 50% during the past three years.

Paul Bradford, CEO, said: "This is a great result for Southern Communications. We are seeing a drive in the direction of cloud and hosted services from our customers. The way businesses communicate is changing at a pace as they look to embrace the flexibility and mobility offered by cloud-based technology and BYOD environments, while maintaining the functionality of their traditional telecommunications."

Diva Telecom's reseller partners will have more time on their hands following the launch of a new one-stop portal in March.

The platform provides fast access to a single interface that manages Diva's portfolio, including its white labelled SMS and audio conferencing services and access to WLR3.

The system was developed in-house and also incorporates CRM and a billing platform, meaning that Diva customers do not need to rent or buy their own.

Diva recently appointed Kevin Harrison as Head of Sales and part of his remit is to drive channel development and adoption of the Diva Partner Portal.

He brings 25 years experience in the industry including 16 years in channel development.

Harrison said: "We are always looking for ways to make life easier for our customers and felt resellers would benefit from being able to manage everything from one place, including their billing."

IPGENIE is gearing up to launch IPGENIE v3, the latest version of its UC platform which includes additional features such as SMS, presence, web call back and outbound dialers.

Also included is a new contact directory that will enables users to import directly from their current contact database including Salesforce, SugarCRM, Sage and Google.

The IPGENIE solution operates through a licence agreement based on the number of extensions using the software. The customer will have Bria soft phones on site, and users will be able to accept calls on their wireless desktop handset - a 'regular' desk phone which works on Wi-Fi - as well as on their iPhone, Android, Blackberry and Windows OS devices and even tablets.

Paul McWilliams, Technical Director at IPGENIE, said: "Our new offering provides high end features at a low cost and will allow businesses in the UK and Ireland to save money on their telephony costs."

Annodata has bolstered its print capabilities following the acquisition of STS, a provider of managed print services. The acquisition was funded entirely by Annodata's existing cash reserves and pushes its annual revenues above £80m with over 400 employees.

Based in Wetherby STS has developed a niche in specialist print services and works with both the public and private sector organisations including William Hill, the Manchester Evening News and the Yorkshire Post.

The acquisition fills a gap in an area where Annodata has not traditionally focused - wide format specialised printing.

The additional turnover from STS is expected to approach £3m per annum.

The two businesses will be integrated in full, with Annodata's Leeds office set to be relocated to STS's offices in Wetherby.

STS's existing staff including the Managing Director Peter Langstaff will remain in situ.

Martin St. Quinton, Annodata's Chairman, commented: "STS has an impressive portfolio of longstanding customers including national and local newspaper groups and, much like Annodata, is particularly strong in the housing association market.

"Vendor agnostic and with a strong, profitable business model, STS is a great fit for Annodata."

Langstaff added: "Becoming part of the Annodata Group is good news for our staff and, importantly, for our customers, who will benefit from the additional resources and capabilities that a company of Annodata's size and breadth can offer.

"In addition, it means that suppliers will have the opportunity to pitch for a larger amount of expenditure by Annodata, given the increased revenues."

Exponential-e has appointed Jonathan Bridges as Head of Enterprise Cloud with a remit to develop agile propositions that help businesses transition from legacy IT infrastructures to private cloud platforms.

Lee Wade, CEO, said: "Jonathan brings a deep understanding of the cloud and we are confident that he will be able to use this to help our customers extract greater value from their investments and accelerate the adoption of cloud-based infrastructures.

"The cloud has become an integral part of IT systems, with recent research from the Cloud Industry Forum revealing that 78 per cent of UK organisations have adopted at least one Cloud-based solution.

"However, businesses are still resistant to moving all IT operations into a hosted environment, often starting their journey in stages. Using his specific emphasis on value-based selling, I am confident that Jonathan will play a key role in enabling Exponential-e to continue advancing forward in a high growth, competitive market."

Bridges brings 17 years of IT experience to the role and has held a number of leadership roles within the enterprise software space, helping organisations to scale and execute Cloud initiatives.

He was instrumental in developing Fujitsu's first Cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) offering and was accountable for driving the adoption of cloud services within COLT's enterprise division across Europe.

He has created and managed many teams in the UK and Europe, providing multi-region delivery of sales, projects and ongoing operations. Bridges's most recent role was as Global Head of Business Development for Canopy's Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) portfolio.

Bridges added: "In a constantly evolving marketplace, it is those organisations that can adapt, stay nimble and innovate rapidly that are poised to succeed."

3CX, developer of next generation software-based PBX 3CX Phone System, has announced the integration of clientless web conferencing into its PBX making organising and attending web conferences as easy as making a call.

Users of the recently released 3CX Phone System 12.5 are now able to use 3CX WebMeeting for 10 participants without charge.

Due to the integration of Google's agentless WebRTC technology meetings are joined by following a link, eliminating the need for additional downloads and plugins.

Nick Galea, CEO of 3CX said: "The seamless integration of web conferencing into the PBX really takes unified communications to a whole new level, enabling every PBX users to quickly organise video conferences.

"WebRTC makes it easy for participants to join - no plugins are required. This is how Unified communications was meant to be."

A new data centre opened in the heart of Media City Manchester has been designed as an incubator for new and growing tech companies.

Constructed by local tech business Sandyx the site was built and operational in just four months.

Created in an unused warehouse unit the 4,000 square foot site will provide flexible, commitment free monthly contracts.

"With the population of SMEs in the area steadily growing and Manchester becoming a major hub in the UK's high-tech boom, the importance of data centre space for growing companies has never been more important," said Mashukul Hoque, MD and owner of Sandyx.

"As MD of a tech business in Manchester I was frustrated by the difficulties in accessing data centre space at a reasonable price.

"As I didn't have a large footprint or a wholesale requirement I felt that I was being treated as if my business was small potatoes to them. So we decided to build our own data centre to work with local SMEs as well as technology and media companies."

Data Centre Plus will provide hosting and server co-location as well as connectivity services.

The data centre will create 25 new jobs over the next 12 months with former Daisy Wholesale and Exponential-e employee Gareth Riley already appointed to drive sales.

Riley said: "I'm relishing the challenge of starting something from the ground up and doing things differently.

"We place the customer at the forefront of all we do and offer a transparent service with no hidden charges.

"Our offering will provide enterprise grade service at manageable price points and offer flexibility. We can do this because we own our DC and therefore don't have investors to answer to on decisions we make"

Data Centre Plus is part of the Sandyx Group of privately owned companies. The company was founded in 2000 and provides IT services ranging from custom software development to DC servers.

Manchester-based BCH Solutions has unveiled its new partner development programme spearheaded by a training academy aimed at helping reseller partners gain sustained revenue and profitability from its hosted call handling solutions.

Former Callstream founder, Mark Drury, has invested in the company and has taken the lead role in channel development alongside fellow directors Rob Macdonald and Amanda Franklin.

He maintains BCH is one of the industry's best kept secrets and aims to ramp up its profile and channel outreach in the months ahead.

"The channel was our initial route to market, so this is not so much a launch or a relaunch. Rather, we are communicating our channel proposition to the market for the first time.

"Although our brand is relatively unknown, we have one of the most sophisticated product sets for hosted call handling solutions and PCI level telephone card payment applications, which we supplement with an on-tap engineering capability to bespoke applications when required."

Drury is committed to building high value reseller partnerships and says the BCH Academy is central to that strategy.

"Our channel plan is different to competing models," added Drury. "It is not prescriptive in nature and we are not looking for low quality volume resellers, we are about building long-term sustainable value and close working partnerships.

"The BCH Academy will put a plan in place for every BCH partner that will support their business size and capabilities appropriately.
?"The Academy focuses on building their knowledge of the product set and how they can maximise on opportunities within their existing client and prospect base.

"The ultimate objective will be to provide an environment whereby the BCH partner is able to confidently experience growth through our applications."