Comms Dealer

Unify has been named a Leader among 11 of the most significant vendors in The Forrester Wave On-Premises Unified Communications and Collaboration, Q2 2014 report, published by Forrester Research.
 
Forrester evaluated vendors against 29 criteria grouped into three categories - current offering, strategy, and market presence.

In the Strategy category, Unify received the highest rating of all vendors in the report with 4.58 out of 5. In the Strategy subcategories, Unify received perfect scores (5.0) in 3 of the 5 categories: Product Roadmap, Extensibility and Deployment Model.
 
According to Forrester, 'Unify is innovating around social layer integrations and integrating business processes, making it easier to derive business value from an OpenScape deployment. [The Company's] ability to deliver industry solutions today and the promise of engaging, socially connected, communications-enabled collaboration experiences in the near future moves it into the Leaders quadrant."

Bill Hurley, CMO, said: "In today's competitive business landscape we're focused on bringing solutions to market that offer a more seamless way for businesses to connect and collaborate, enabling enterprises to take advantage of the New Way to Work."

Levels of software modernisation are lower than expected in most industries, averaging 30%-36%, according to a study by Forrester commissioned by CA Technologies.

The path to modern software-enabled business will take many twists and turns, it says, depending on a particular firm's starting point, environmental features and organisational capabilities and commitments.

However, in almost all firms, software modernisation is low, which reduces business agility, restricts implementation flexibility, and stretches time-to-value for digital innovation.

Given customer preferences for digital, or at least being digitally enabled, across all B2B and B2C industries, low levels of software modernisation suggest the possibility of significant returns to firms that move quickly. Software modernisation has three characteristics:

• A modern approach to software development that emphasises the use of methods and skills geared to rapidly translate software opportunities into software systems.
• A modern approach to software delivery that exploits mechanisms matching software consumption to software spending.
• A bias to employ software that provides essential business outcomes now while maximising future options for software-enabled business opportunities.

The faster-growing companies had IT application development cycles that were 29% shorter than those in slower growing companies.

Spending on technology that supports customer facing processes will rise by over 10% as firms put priorities on technologies that help them directly win, serve, and retain more empowered customers, according to Forrester.

Spending on software in general will rise by 4%, with spending on applications outpacing spending on middleware, says the firm.

However, most European countries, including the larger euro economies of Germany, Italy, and Spain, will see tech market growth in the 1% to 2% range in 2014, with the French tech market barely growing.

Similarly, spending on computer equipment (apart from tablets), communications equipment, IT outsourcing, and telecommunications will be in the same range.

Accordong to Forrester the problem is that the Eurozone countries, while at least pulling out of recessions, are still experiencing feeble economic growth.

That will leave European CIOs being very cautious and conservative in their tech purchases in 2014.

Not until 2015, when it assumes that economic growth will start to solidify, will European tech markets return to healthier rates of expansion and growth, reckon Forrester's pundits.

The majority (80%) of SMEs have yet to merge their mobile and fixed line telecoms, according to research from Olive Communications.

However, of those businesses that have been through this process, many report benefits including cost savings (72%), improved business continuity (51%), customer service (39%) and the enablement of flexible working (27%)

"Businesses are missing a trick and it's not just about saving money, said Martin Flick, CEO of Olive. "There's a clear opportunity to improve processes and enhance the working experience. As work is increasingly becoming a thing you do and not a place you go, IT leaders should grasp the opportunity and embrace the tools and systems that enable a more flexible and productive approach to work."

Despite large numbers of IT leaders having heard of converged comms, they point to a number of barriers to adoption that appear to be limiting investment. 

According to the research, over half (59%) of businesses with 10-49 employees had heard of converged communications, rising to almost three quarters (73%) amongst businesses with 250-500 employees. In spite of this, less than a third (31%) have seriously considered converging their communications estates. 

IT leaders cite perceived issues such as cost (mentioned by 25%) and disruption to current processes (31%) as the biggest barriers preventing their adoption. However, of those businesses that have gone through this process or are currently implementing it, only 7% have experienced disruption to their business. 

Flick added: "Many businesses are cautious about changes to contracts due to potential upheaval, but in reality, the disruption caused by fixed-mobile convergence is minimal.

"Converging mobile and fixed line telephony could be a quick win for SMEs who are looking to both reduce their costs and capitalise on the opportunities of a work anywhere culture."

Sennheiser's 2014 charity golf day raised £16,000 in aid of the Caron Keating Foundation and Diabetes UK.

This year's event, staged at the Bearwood Lakes Golf Course in Wokingham, included representatives Corptel UK, Westcon, Rocom and RBS, with entertainment from Sennheiser UK's own Ken Morrison during the evening.

??The majority of the auction money raised was donated to the Caron Keating Foundation, which was set up in memory of the late television presenter Caron Keating and provides a range of support services for cancer patients and their families, with £2,000 being given to Diabetes UK.

??"The day was another great success," said Paul Whiting, President, Global Sales at Sennheiser. "Bearwood Lakes is a beautiful course and the golf is absolutely superb. We like to add a little extra quiver to proceedings with a couple of competitions during the day and there were added elements of fun during the afternoon with the addition of a few exploding golf balls!"

?One of the prizes, donated by Corptel UK, included two tickets to any available Manchester United game of the winner's choice for the upcoming season, including a grand tour of the stadium, champagne reception, VIP access and a four course meal.
 
Pictured: John Richardson, Westcon; Linda Irvin, Sennheiser; Michael Waterworth, Sennheiser; David Silous-Holt, Rocom.

Elite's latest acquisition is the final piece in the jigsaw of its transition from switchless reseller to full ISP with carrier capabilities and multiple data centre facilities.

The acquired data centre, which carries 'secret' status, looks after sensitive public sector data and global corporations including insurance and finance companies, which is why details of the data centre location cannot be revealed.

After a string of high profile network attacks including Domino's Pizza, Reuters, The Sun and more, CEO Matt Newing saw a potential opportunity to bring improved network security to UK businesses.

He said: "Hosting, the cloud and network connectivity is big business, but security is a concern to many businesses. This is where the market is heading."

With this acquisition, Elite launches a full range of data centre services including managed firewalls, unified threat management, colocation and its own hosted PBX, Elite Plus Talk, which is embedded within its own recently launched core MPLS Network.

Newing added: "We've been acquiring unified comms businesses in recent years to get a decent hold on the hosted and network connectivity market, and now with our own infrastructure we have a serious competitive advantage."

Earlier this year Elite made a further £780,000 investment into its own core network, offering MPLS and private connectivity services to businesses.

"Adding our own security measures and acquiring this data centre completes the solution for our clients and helps companies navigate their way through the minefield that can be buying, installing and securing big networks," commented Newing.

According to results from the annual Cloud Industry Forum (CIF) report into cloud adoption, 53% of small to medium sized businesses (SMBs) are currently running a Windows Server 2003 operating system.

On 14th July 2015, one year today, Microsoft will be ending its extended support period for the operating system, meaning there will be no further patches, updates or fixes.

The report, in its fifth year, polled 250 senior IT and business decision makers, 153 of which were from businesses with fewer than 200 employees.

The research found that for 69% of SMBs, infrastructure refresh is seen as a key consideration in adoption of cloud.

While cloud adoption among SMBs has risen to 75%, the research found that a hybrid model of cloud services mixed with on-premise IT has become the preference. 86% of SMB respondents don't currently use an entirely cloud-based IT strategy and 47% claimed to only be using one cloud based service at present.

"SMBs are clearly already favouring a hybrid approach. Our view is that 9 out of 10 companies will continue to invest in on-premise IT alongside and integrated with remote cloud solutions" said Nick East, CEO of Zynstra.

"Businesses can use the opportunity of infrastructure refresh to deliver better value from their IT estate. Those with Windows 2003 server still running should act soon to ensure a smooth transition before support ends."

Voip.co.uk has extended its reach into Europe with the acquisition of Denmark-based UC firm Firstcom.

The company has acquired 85% ownership of Firstcom (for an undisclosed sum) which will retain its brand and continue to develop its UC suite with product launches planned for later this year.

Oxfordshire-based Voip.co.uk provides cloud-based services and is especially known for its SIP Encrypt product, which prevents phone hacking and is compliant with Payment Card Industry Data Security standards.

Adam Crisp, CTO, said: "The acquisition of Firstcom is a strategic alliance to extend our reach across Europe with the development of next generation unified communications technology.

"Scandinavia is well ahead of the UK in terms of unified comms which will allow us to offer British businesses access to superior technology."

The firm will soon be launching Firstcom's flagship mobile enabled unified communications platform, Universe, which, says the firm will provide new opportunities for Voip.co.uk's existing and new channel partners.

Bjarke Salomonsen, CEO of Firstcom, added: "We have been developing rapidly for three years. With the new ownership we will have more resources to develop our offering to the market and we have the opportunity to share technologies and experiences with our UK colleagues."

Voip.co.uk and Firstcom operate in similar vertical businesses enabling cross selling across the customer bases.

Voip.co.uk customers include Westgate Shopping Centre, Absolute Radio and Delta Taxis. Firstcom also works with high profile businesses such as Citroen, Sephora and Nutrica.

A new cloud-based collaboration platform using Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Exchange aims to meet growing demand from SMEs for scalability and flexibility.

The new service, launched by Node4 and called Unified Office, brings together email, instant messaging, voice and video facilities across all devices.

Natalie Stewart, Product Manager at Node4, said: "SMEs are increasingly ahead of the curve when it comes to how they approach their IT infrastructure.

"They are demanding technology that will fully support more flexible working practices and rapid business growth.

"By offering a cloud-based collaboration tool like Unified Office we are giving SMEs the scalability and flexibility they need to continue to grow and succeed."

Ethos is taking a new message to market under the banner 'Think Unified', a marketing strategy that the company hopes will encourage end users to think holistically about their comms needs rather than focus only on single point solutions.

Group MD Paul Norris said: "Customers increasingly want to deal with just one provider for all their voice, documents and data requirements. So we've unveiled a new proposition to our 3,000 plus customers that focuses on the key benefits of our Unified Communications solutions and services."

In what is shaping up to be a busy period of growth Ethos is also ramping up its event programme and plans to expand its team of 200 with a recruitment drive for positions in the Account Management, Service and Technical departments, while creating new graduate trainee positions.

The company's website has moved to a new domain and provides an information resource on the its voice, documents and data solutions, including case studies, brochures and a new company blog.