Comms Dealer

Annodata has strengthened its senior management team and underscored its growth ambitions with the appointment of Joe Kelly (pictured) as Group Finance Director. The move comes soon after the company acquired Keltec in late 2014 and chimes with its plans to become a £100m business by 2016 through organic growth and by acquisition.

Former Group Finance Director Suki Purewal is now the company's Commercial Director.

Prior to joining Annodata, Kelly worked for a range of listed, private and private equity-backed businesses, including 365ITServices, PRGX Global Inc and the Parity Group.

"With significant financial, operational and M&A experience working in mid-markets in the technology and business services sectors, Kelly will play a key guiding role in helping Annodata fulfil its growth ambitions," said Martin St. Quinton, Chairman of Annodata

"Joe joins the company during a period of intense growth and rapid change as we seek to diversify our product offering and strengthen our nationwide footprint.

"Annodata has major growth ambitions and to achieve them it's important that we have a strong senior management team in place.

"Joe's extensive experience working with dynamic organisations and excellent track record makes him a strong addition to the company, and I would like to welcome him on board."

Kelly added: "Annodata has undergone a number of important changes in recent years and, in the process, done a lot of growing up, making it an exciting time to join the company.

"2015 is shaping up to be a busy year as we look to make a number of strategically important acquisitions and bed in those acquisitions already made. I look forward using my experience to capitalise on the advances already made and help to drive the business forward."

A partner event hosted by Cloud Telephones and Gamma aims to get resellers thinking about VoIP opportunities, in particular the Horizon Hosted VoIP service.

The event will be staged at Gamma's City of London showroom in February where delegates will be given an overview of Gamma's service and insights into the future development of voice services. There will also be an opportunity to trial the service first-hand.

Cloud Telephones will outline how it is helping partners to develop and grow their voice business, and how VoIP can be used as a stepping stone to developing a long-term, sustainable business model based on hosted services.

John Carter, MD of Cloud Telephones, said: "This will be a good opportunity for resellers who are new to VoIP, and those who have dipped their toe in the water previously, to assess the business potential that exists in the market today.

"Customers understand the benefits and they are ready to adopt digital voice services, so there is a really good opportunity now for resellers to take the VoIP message to both their existing customer base and new prospects."

Interest in VoIP has been increasing in recent months and Carter believes 2015 will see a substantial rise in adoption.

"VoIP is taking off and now is the time to grasp the nettle," he said. "Resellers that ignore it will soon find the rug pulled from under their feet and with the whole market moving towards hosted and subscription services, VoIP is an ideal starting point. It's easy to sell and services like Gamma's Horizon are proven and easy to install."

Cloud Telephones also offers other cloud services and provides a billing engine that can be used by resellers to bring together the costs of all the services they provide to customers into one simple monthly bill.

Pent-up demand for a job change among UK workers has reached its highest level in a generation, according Clive Jefferys, Director at JMA Network Recruitment.

"Never in my working life have I seen so much bottled-up demand for change among UK workers," he said, commenting on the latest poll from the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) which found that 37% of those questioned want to move job in 2015.

"Unsurprisingly, this level of demand is three times higher than it was in 2013. With inflation now below 0.5%, and Deloitte forecasting a 9% increase in business capital investment this year, the stage seems to be set for some major expansion in the economy.

"Salaries for new job offers rose between 6% and 11% last year, depending on where you live in the country, and the New Year spike in jobsite registrations supports all these positive indicators."

However there is an issue looming, warns Jefferys. "Every General Election causes anxiety among businesses," he added. "I believe the overall picture will remain unclear until well after May."

ISPA has called for a 'better approach' and 'better leadership' on Internet surveillance power.

Nicholas Lansman, ISPA Secretary General, said: "As calls are made for new wide-ranging Internet surveillance powers following the horrific events in Paris, ISPA is concerned that politicians are taking the easy way out by demanding greater surveillance powers without explaining how they can effectively help to prevent future terrorist incidents and without giving proper consideration to valid concerns about civil liberties and the impact on business in the UK."

It has been reported that those responsible for the terrorist attacks were known to the security services. Existing legislation already allows for suspects' communications to be intercepted via a warrant. And the retention of communications data, which is already being retained in the UK, would also have been available to the intelligence services and the police under the existing RIPA process, pointed out Lansman.

"While the draft Communications Data Bill would have provided access to broader data set, it is questionable whether it would have helped to prevent the incidents in Paris and the industry and UK citizens should be provided with a clear justification for why the Bill is needed now," he added.
  
"Restricting the use of encryption and encrypted communication, as suggested by  the Prime Minister, further risks undermining the UK's status as a good and safe place to do business.

"In the wake of an increasing number of cyber attacks and Government initiatives to raise the awareness of cyber risks, encryption is widely accepted as a key measure to do business safely online.

"Business, individuals and governments around the world rely on encryption to carry out everyday tasks and services, forcing companies to weaken encryption measures would weaken protection against cyber criminals, foreign intelligence agencies and others."

Lansman also noted that ISPA accepts that the communications landscape is changing but an independent, Government-commissioned review is being led by David Anderson QC into investigatory powers.

"This is the sort of considered and informed process, listening and involving the various stakeholders, that we hope will inform and develop policy in this area," said Lansman. "The review is set to report before the election and we are concerned that politicians have pre-judged the review and will ignore its conclusions."

SMT Data's cloud-based IT Business Intelligence (ITBI) solution has been adopted by software and services company Macro 4 as part of its performance management portfolio.

According to SMT Data, most IT departments typically cannot attribute IT costs to business activities, meaning that business decisions can be made without knowing the impact on IT costs.

"SMT Data's solution brings greater transparency to the relationship between IT costs and business activities, typically delivering an average 10-20% saving in operational IT spend," said Jim Allum, Director, Commercial and Technical, Macro 4 (a division of Unicom Global).

Available as a cloud-based service, the ITBI software works by collecting and processing the data generated by an organisation's IT infrastructure, including performance, capacity and other operational data.

Using data warehousing and business analytics the data is analysed and mapped against business activities. The findings are presented through a web and mobile management dashboard.

Jan Vilstrup, CEO of SMT Data, added: "With complete insight and transparency regarding capacity, performance and software utilisation, ITBI helps companies make decisions based on facts not guesswork or supplier estimates.

"By partnering with Macro 4 we can also help businesses to reap further cost savings through deeper analysis and optimisation of their core business applications."

Identity-as-a-Service (IDaaS) has emerged as a significant revenue opportunity for managed service providers, according to Andrew Thomson, EMEA Channel Manager at Centrify.

The company specialises in unified identity management across cloud, mobile and data centres and has added an extra tier to its channel programme aimed at MSPs.

Thomson cites shadow IT and mobile device usage as key drivers for customers wanting solutions that overcome the need for numerous passwords and logins.

Centrify's IDaaS technology is designed to address customer requirements for single sign-on (SSO) to SaaS apps such as Office 365, multi-factor authentication (MFA), user provisioning, enterprise mobility management (EMM), and VPN-less access to on-premises applications such as Sharepoint.

Thomson cited high demand for Office 365, Google apps and other applications. Dropbox for business has been particularly buoyant, he noted.

"MSPs have historically provided remote monitoring and security management for on-premises PCs, servers, apps and network devices, but as their customers migrate to mobile and the cloud their clients' IT management challenges are fundamentally changing as identity becomes the new perimeter," said Thomson.

Centrify currently has around 150 EMEA partners, up nearly 140% on last year. Thomson plans to add another 10-15 partners in EMEA during the coming 12 months. "Identity management is well understood in the channel but we can do more with partners," he said.

snom technology has named Olivier Gerling, the former Director of snom France, as Chief Sales Officer with immediate responsibility for snom's worldwide sales and marketing operations.

Gerling joined the company in 2009 and has extensive knowledge of snom's products and processes, the snom sales channel and all aspects of the VoIP and IP Telephony markets.

He brings over 20 years of experience including an in-depth understanding of how to drive incremental revenue through sales and channel marketing.

"Gerling`s experience in sales and channel operations made him a natural fit for this position," said Markus Schmitt-Fumian, CEO at snom. "His understanding of creating, communicating and ensuring sales effectiveness will help snom scale its sales expertise in the coming years."

As CSO, Gerling is responsible for expanding snom's market presence and leading growth in its core markets.

Westcon Group's answer to the lack of marketing knowhow in many reseller businesses is to round up a posse of experts in the field and create a network of expertise that partners can call on at preferential rates.

The specialist help that can be accessed through the new Marketing Services Programme includes social media training, PR, content delivery and management, demand generation, design, video and animation and web analytics.

"The objective of the programme is to complement resellers' existing marketing activity or plug the marketing skills gap for resellers that don't have any marketing resource," said John Richardson, UK Marketing Director, Westcon Group.
 
Before plunging into the scheme Westcon surveyed its resellers to gauge their levels of interest in such an initiative.

Well over 50% did not have the cash resources to pursue viable marketing campaigns, while 32% lacked in-house marketing skills.

A notable 60% would use external marketing specialists but they were in the dark about which companies would work best for them.
 
"Our survey demonstrated that 57% of partners are too busy with their day jobs to keep up to speed with the latest marketing specialisations," added Richardson. 

"The Marketing Services Programme is a flexible initiative, enabling resellers to select different marketing disciplines from the marketing toolbox to create an integrated marketing strategy, all from a single point of procurement."

According to Westcon's survey, 82% of partners who conduct marketing do so on a reactive and ad-hoc basis, while 61% don't have the resource in place to analyse and monitor the results of campaigns.

"The Marketing Services programme is a shift in channel marketing, moving away from short-term tactical marketing activities and campaigns to long-term, targeted, integrated activities such as nurture-based demand generation campaigns that increase resellers' incremental margin," added Richardson. 

He also noted that the programme complements vendor template marketing campaigns and provides resellers with the freedom to increase brand awareness and differentiate.

The distributor has also appointed a Marketing Executive to help manage the programme and work with resellers to develop campaigns and content.
 
An early adopter of the scheme is Sheridan Bratt, Marketing Manager for Britannic Technologies, who said: "Having access to new ideas and an integrated basket of resources available through one channel will help Britannic Technologies remain at the forefront of marketing to our mid-market base."
 

VoIP provider Voicelinx has embarked on a channel recruitment campaign in a bid extend the market reach of its cloud-based services.

The company aims to onboard IT resellers and white label partners for its hosted comms platform and is urging them to take advantage of the Government funded Connection Vouchers scheme.

Stephen Shenkin, Voicelinx MD, stated: "We are looking for IT companies wanting to add to their existing portfolio of solutions under a white label agreement. 

"Not only will they be able to extend their offering to market, and therefore increase customer traction, they will also be able to take advantage of increased margins and additional monthly revenue streams.
 
"Now is the time for those traditional IT companies to extend their market proposition, ensuring greater customer satisfaction and increase margin and, as a result, income."
 
The Voicelinx solution incorporates hosted PBX, on-site PBX, Microsoft Lync, SIP and IAX trunks, plus call centre capabilities.

Leigh-based Key Computer Applications has added NCONNECT to its telecom portfolio in a milestone deal that signals the cloud telephony provider's 50th reseller to join its partner programme.

"Business has been booming for NCONNECT over the last 12 months, and we feel proud, excited and vindicated in achieving this milestone,\" said Rami Houbby, MD, NCONNECT. 

"We embrace the comms industry, but in fact 40-50% of our partners are traditional IT resellers, many of whom have struggled in the past to get on board with a telephony partner because of prohibitive accreditation and skills barriers.\"

Key Computer Applications MD Jonathan Heaton added: "Our customers are not only interested in the benefits of cloud because their consumption habits for enterprise technology are also increasingly subscription-based with a requirement for features, scale and flexibility. 

"We’re keen to get the technology in front of existing and new customers as soon as possible.\"