Comms Dealer

In a lively Comms Vision debate Andy Chew, Managing Director, Head of Architectures, Cisco UK&I, said going vertical and getting under the skin of customers is the only way to bring about successful IoT projects.

"How we position IoT is absolutely on a vertical basis," he commented. "IoT is transformative, so we need to understand the various verticals and their pressures.

"Take local authorities - the financial pressures they are under means they have to do things differently. This leans towards the capabilities of IoT at a time when the costs of technology are coming down.

"Resellers therefore need vertical knowledge. And they should not think of IoT as a standalone market, but as a lateral extension of business being done today in the context of trends like mobility."

Making brands smart, interactive and trackable is stock in trade business for @EVRYTHING, a company that is deeply immersed in IoT and the Web of Things.

In a keynote address to Comms Vision delegates CTO and co-founder Dr Dominique Guinard pointed to Google's acquisition of Nest as a sure sign of the times. At first sight Nest's $3.2bn price tag may seem on the pricey side. It was, after all, at the time a four year old company making smart thermostats.

In 2008, noted Guinard, more 'things' were connected to the Internet than people, and in his view 'things' have gone so far that there is no going back. But there is a challenging development journey ahead.

"To make IoT a reality we need to think about the app level," he said. "Apps today are used in vertical silos. If there is no interconnectivity of devices we won't have the full 360 degree view. This will be the Web of Things, where both things and apps are connected."

To put a spotlight on the transformative power of IoT Guinard explained how everyday street lamps can easily be transformed into information centres through the addition of sensors to form a smart lamp, which multiplied would create a distributed network with the capacity to measure all sorts of metrics such as light levels, power consumption, pollution levels etc.

"This information is consumed through a web browser," commented Guinard. "Smart rules can be implemented according to factors like weather and pollution levels, turning data into actions."

Digitally enhanced products are also the order of the day, according to Guinard, who gave delegates insights into how his company is enhancing products with digital identifiers, with proper electronics being printed by a regular printer, and all readable by a mobile phone.

But there are challenges. "The big issues for IoT are battery problems and the infrastructure," he said. "We need to get low power networks into the Internet. This is where the channel can help."

The comms industry has always been fond of acronyms but surprisingly there is no catchy abbreviation to denote what is the single biggest influence on the comms sector, according to Content Director John Chapman. Taking the stage Chapman embarked on a revealing keynote that highlighted the overarching role of Digitalisation and its impact on the shape of business communications and the future look of customer organisations.

"Digitalisation has moved into the boardroom at pace, changing the way industries and companies operate," he said. "Digitalisation is now at the heart of business strategy."

He urged delegates to grasp the 'digital imperative' - a by-product of widespread connectivity - and get involved or 'face destruction'.

The rise of Digitalisation is surely beyond argument, according to Chapman, who cited a confluence of forces that have created a new market based on the virtualisation of infrastructure, data centres, superfast connectivity, mobility and Big Data analytics.

"These are responsible for kick starting a new era in the advance of technological developments," he said. "This is reflected in the changing structure of boardrooms and the emergence of the Chief Digital Officer." 

Digitalisation has redefined IT into a new category - Enterprise IT 3.0 - the latest incarnation of two previous eras, the first being 'basic' IT, while the 2.0 epoch points to an age when IT was industrialised by the rise of connectedness, which spawned greater expectations around what technology can deliver.

But 3.0, noted Chapman, is all about Digitalisation and realising the full potential of technology now that we have it. "The next five to ten years will be about using technology to transform the way businesses work," added Chapman.

This is an optimistic period with high hopes for market growth pinned on the transformative power of embedded digital-ness. And Chapman put a spotlight on smart manufacturing as a prime example of how digitalisation is turning traditional methods of production on their head. Products can now be made to order quickly, and where required an element of customer personalisation may be thrown into the manufacturing process for good measure.

"These changes are all about Digitalisation," he added. "CIOs are committed to spending in areas such as BI analytics. Digital-based solutions like this put pressure on existing networks and the channel is the middle of this digital revolution.

"Resellers also need to have Digitalisation at the heart of their strategies. They need to understand the customer's digital requirements and provide the infrastructure. New partnering models will be needed, but the opportunities are endless."

Senior executives of leading ICT companies descended on the world famous Gleneagles Hotel for Comms Vision 2014, the channel's premier strategic business planning convention (November 5th-7th).

And this year's line-up of Platinum sponsors wasted no time in setting the scene by spilling the beans on their reasons for supporting the event which is now in its ninth year.

"The landscape is changing massively," commented Andy Brocklehurst, Regional Sales Manager for Cisco UK & Ireland. " With Azlan we can help resellers navigate the future towards profitable outcomes. It's time for resellers to decide who they will back."

Peter Tomlinson, Director for Product, Marketing and Sales at Eclipse, also addressed Comms Vision delegates. "If something's worth doing, it's worth doing properly," he said. "Our Platinum sponsorship is the culmination of years of commitment to our channel. We are now introducing new product areas in hosted as well as opportunities with the Microsoft portfolio."

Gamma's Sales Director John Hawe's key message to delegates was that he wanted to take them to the next stage of market motivation. "We all understand hosted voice and SIP, now we're focused on helping resellers sell more through integrated marketing campaigns."

The role of UC in a hybrid world is top of the agenda for Shoretel. Adrian Hipkiss, Vice President and Managing Director EMEA, explained how the acquisition of M5 Networks introduced UC-as-a-Service to the vendor's portfolio, and that bringing choice to resellers and customers was now a top priority.

"Our investment in a next generation platform offers a seamless choice between on-premise, cloud or a hybrid solution," said Hipkiss. "This will build on our 20% year-on-year growth."

Martyn Etherington, Mitel's Chief Marketing Officer, also has clear objectives for top and bottom line growth for Mitel and its partners; and to say the vendor is well advanced along a steep growth curve would be to greatly understate its expansion from a $400m company two years ago to a $1.2bn operation today.

"We've doubled our investment in innovation to $100m," he told delegates. "There is a big opportunity for partners to share in our momentum."

Tollring has secured a BroadSoft Xtended Incubator Program Award for its iCS insight application. The app delivers telecommunications data analytics and visualisation to enhance business productivity and extends BroadSoft's UC services.

The BroadSoft Xtended Incubator Program is a global initiative that accelerates the development of UC applications by providing seed funding to third party application developers.

iCS insight seamlessly integrates with the BroadWorks CDR Call Accounting feed to enable customer-facing teams with SLAs / target commitments monitor inbound and outbound calls on any device.

The intuitive 'click and drill' application is easy to deploy and enables businesses of any size to view call metrics critical to their business, by accessing reports, dashboards and wallboards that have been optimised specifically for mobile devices.

The new app helps businesses to make immediate decisions based on call activity. Visual dashboards and wallboards are delivered via a browser on any computer or mobile device. Managers can monitor caller tolerance, the percentage of calls answered, abandoned calls and unresolved missed calls to improve customer service and achieve goals.

Karim Sadroudine, Director, Applications Marketplace at BroadSoft, said: "We know that data analytics is critical to running a business efficiently, so we have been keen to add a call reporting app to our Xtended marketplace. We believe iCS is a valuable productivity tool that will enable businesses to visualise their call data and turn it into business intelligence."

Tony Martino, MD of Tollring, added: "Our iCS insight app was well received at BroadSoft's annual users' conference as it clearly addresses the market need for business reporting and analytics. Our cloud solutions portfolio has never been stronger."

Leslie Ferry, vice president marketing, BroadSoft, added: "BroadSoft recognises the funding challenge developers face getting applications from concept to customer, and by committing funding, resources and support - as well as access to our global customer base of more than 600 service providers - we aspire to accelerate enterprise and consumer adoption of innovative applications."

Olive Communications has outperformed its stated growth targets with revenues to year ending January 31st 2014 up by £6.6 million to £17.6 million.

This includes over £3 million through strategic acquisitions, with the remainder being driven from organic growth. The company's earnings (EBITDA) rose from £1.2m in 2013 to nearly £4.5 million in 2014 before exceptional items.

During the year, Olive enhanced its product range with the addition of fixed line and professional services, as well as launching a unified communications joint initiative with Vodafone (Olive is a Platinum Partner). Olive has also invested in the development of new intellectual property for business-critical software.

The acquisition of Wish Holdings and Direct Communications during the trading period increased Olive's scale in the mid-market and SME sectors, as well as strengthening its management capability and adding fixed line and professional services to its product portfolio.

Since the year end, Olive has continued its expansion, with the acquisition of SafetyBank, a company providing business critical software for the management of health and safety in the construction sector through a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.

Olive CEO Martin Flick said: "Our growth is testament to the role Olive is playing in the constantly evolving business communications landscape. As businesses look to transform the way they work, and take advantage of exciting new technologies, our role as both trusted partner and solutions provider is increasingly important."

telent has bolstered its ICT capability with a deal to acquire Telindus UK. The acquisition significantly increases telent's ability to deliver end-to-end ICT and IP networking solutions, while adding expertise in delivering Cisco and Juniper Networks solutions strengthens its multi-vendor capabilities.

"This deal represents an important step for telent and will bring a transformational strengthening of our ICT capability," said Mark Plato, CEO of telent.

"We have been investing in growing our capability in IP networking and in the delivery of end-to-end ICT solutions for some time now. The acquisition of Telindus takes us to another level, providing a step change in our core expertise and capabilities with key industry partners and introducing us to a range of new customers and markets."

Based in Camberley, Surrey, Telindus delivers ICT solutions including network infrastructure, data centre and security solutions, plus professional and managed services.

The company has an annual turnover of over £45m with a wide range of enterprise and public sector customers, including service providers and the defence industry.

Key customers include Virgin Media, LINX, Interroute and British Aerospace.

Under the agreement, telent will retain the Telindus Camberley base, which includes high specification lab facilities that allow the replication, and the development and testing of customer's networks.

Telindus Managing Director Marek Lowther commented: "Becoming part of the telent group is an exciting new step for us and will significantly expand our sphere of activity, while contributing our expertise to telent's overall offering in the marketplace. The combination with telent will provide us with additional scale to address the UK market and open up significant opportunities for the combined business."

The move follows a number of recent investments made by telent. Earlier this year the company acquired the business of voice processing and communication specialists Voice Perfect and has also taken a 25% stake in CNS Group, the IT security and information assurance specialist.

Videonations has collected the Lifesize Cloud Award 2014 at the manufacturer's annual EMEA Partner Awards in Ibiza, Spain.

Lifesize Cloud provides a connected experience for anyone using smartphones, tablets, laptops and especially conference rooms. Delivered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), Lifesize Cloud is for organisations that want business-class video collaboration without taxing their budget or IT resources, and is proving to be a success for Videonations.

"Winning this award is testament to the dedication and passion of our team who operate in all four corners of the world and always go the extra mile," said Ian Carter, MD at Videonations.

"Cloud-based solutions represent an exciting new chapter for video communications."

Andreas Wienold, Vice President International for Lifesize, added: "Our reseller partners bring tremendous value to Lifesize, and we are proud to honour Videonations with this award."

Phoenix IT Group has joined the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Programme, enabling Phoenix to provide direct billing, sell combined offers and services, as well as provision, manage and support Microsoft Cloud offerings directly.

The programme is designed to strengthen customer relationships and expand cloud sales opportunities by enabling partners to provide direct billing, sell combined offers and services, as well as directly provision, manage and support Microsoft products and services.

Phoenix will own the complete customer lifecycle, allowing it easily to sell Office 365 and Windows Intune subscriptions and help customers take advantage of Cloud services by owning the entire billing process and directly managing support.

Steve Vaughan, Phoenix Chief Executive, said: "The Cloud Solution Provider programme is an exciting development from Microsoft - and a clear statement of Microsoft's intent to put the cloud first when it comes to service delivery.

"I'm proud that Phoenix has proven itself worthy of being at the forefront of this initiative which will allow us to build secure and scalable cloud-based IT systems. By using Microsoft solutions, integrated with Phoenix's CloudSure UK, we will be able to deliver a public cloud end-to-end service offering which will meet the needs of a wide range of customers in our chosen markets.

Phil Sorgen, corporate vice president, Worldwide Partner Group at Microsoft Corp, said: "By joining the Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider Programme, partners will deepen customer relationships and expand business opportunities in the cloud."

Westcon Group has signed an EMEA distribution agreement with Tely Labs, a provider of plug-and-play video conferencing solutions for meeting rooms in a wide range of both horizontal and vertical market segments including SMB, Enterprise, healthcare, education and service providers.

Guy Koster, Director of Product Management and Product Marketing for EMEA at Westcon Group, said: "Video conferencing is fast becoming a business critical necessity for enhancing workplace collaboration and productivity. In parallel, adoption is growing exponentially as both unit costs and deployment complexities are significantly reduced.

"The market opportunity is huge. Of the 60-70 million physical conference rooms worldwide only 5% are equipped with video conferencing capability."

Sreekanth Ravi, Founder and CEO of Tely Labs, added: "A strong focus on Europe and the Middle East is the next logical step for Tely."