Comms Dealer

Sennheiser has unwrapped its new range of SP 10 and SP 20 portable speakerphones for business professionals and 'prosumers'.

The Sennheiser Speakerphone Series now enables users to make personal and small group conference calls on PC/softphone in offices and campuses or when travelling, and doubles up as a portable high-fidelity speaker for listening to music on the move, with a dedicated Sennheiser HD optimised sound profile.

Already winner of the 2014 red dot and 2014 iF design awards, the Speakerphone Series enables business professionals to easily make personal or small-group conference calls.

All the models provide users with 'plug in and talk' simplicity, with the SP 10 connecting to PC/softphone and the SP 20 connecting to PC/softphone via USB cable or mobile phone/tablet via 3.5 mm jack plug. Furthermore, the SP 20/20 ML versions allow call participants to be connected via mobile phone and PC.

The Sennheiser Speakerphone can also mix business with pleasure, with a dedicated music setting so users can relax and listen to audio between calls. At the touch of a button the Speakerphone engages a Sennheiser HD optimised sound-enhancement profile, effectively turning the unit into a premium-quality portable speaker to allow consumers to enjoy high fidelity music and video content wherever they are.

Andreas Bach, President at Sennheiser Communications, said: "There is a growing trend towards professionals working more flexibly through group collaborations and small group conferences, when moving around office complexes, holding ad hoc calls throughout their working day and when travelling.

"Through the Speakerphone Series, Sennheiser is adding a new category of portable conferencing solutions to its product portfolio designed to enhance both productivity and performance of office and field workers, through its voice clarity and quality design.

"In combination with our existing portfolio of wired and wireless headsets for the office, Contact Center and Unified Communications, we now provide a toolkit for business professionals - whatever their needs."

Cables and associated items distributor Anixter has reported a slight sales increase to $1.52bn for Q1, it says. Despite the negative weather impact in the months of January and February and excluding the impact of copper pricing and foreign exchange, organic sales increased by 3.8%.

The main networking related business, Enterprise Cabling and Security Solutions (ECS) saw sales of $760.1m compared to $745.1m in the prior year period. The 2.0 percent increase was driven by strong growth in the European and Emerging Markets geographies of 17.3% and 16.3%, respectively, combined with solid improvement in the core US enterprise cabling business. Security sales, which represent approximately 26% of total segment sales, increased slightly in the quarter.

Outsourcery has finalised the design for its secure cloud platform - the Secure O-Cloud - around next generation architecture that will use Microsoft software technologies and Dell hardware.

The group believes that the chosen design, developed in partnership with Microsoft and Dell, will provide a highly resilient, secure and scalable platform from which to drive public sector and particularly central government adoption of cloud services.

The required infrastructure for the platform has now been ordered and construction of the Secure O-Cloud remains on track for completion by the end of July 2014. Following accreditation, which also remains on track, deployment of the platform will begin in H2 2014, in line with the timetable set out alongside the December 2013 Placing.

Outsourcery is in discussions with existing partners, as well as several large new potential partners with established public sector capabilities and sales reach, interested in reselling its secure cloud-based services.

Co-CEO Piers Linney said: "This is a major milestone in the deployment of our secure cloud platform for government and our timetable continues to advance according to plan.

"The opportunity for us to take a meaningful, first-mover position in this sector is significant and the government's continued, active promotion of cloud adoption across the public sector is helping to focus attention and drive interest.

"Government will require the most stringent security standards be met for very sensitive cloud deployments and Outsourcery remains the only UK supplier currently able to uphold those standards."

Plan.com has swooped on comms channel supremo Dan Cunliffe in a recruitment coup that significantly advances the company's fixed, data and digital strategy.

The former Head of Partners and Strategy at O2 Wholesale has joined forces with Plan.com as Fixed, Data and Digital Director and according to Cunliffe the opportunity was too good to pass over.

"The potential within Plan.com and the opportunity to work with such a strong team of skilled individuals, supported by experienced business backing from the top meant I just had to join."

Cunliffe rates his five year stint at O2 Wholesale as being a 'great time' but after the division shut up shop he found himself looking for a new challenge. "I had a great time working at O2," he added. "We built an incredible channel based on a great network and strong service. After O2 Wholesale closed down, there were few options on the table for me to take the next step in my career. Moving on was a tough decision."

Cunliffe expressed admiration for Plan.com's focus on technology and real-time attitude towards delivering information and value for its partners.

However he conceded that perceptions of the company as being primarily in the mobile market are prevalent, but also emphasised his mission to drive greater awareness of the comms provider's expanding fixed, data and digital strategy and channel growth.

"Plan.com is different and disruptive in the marketplace," he stated. "It is a technology-led company using technology and experience to bring something relevant and real-time to the market.

"The focus for us is to constantly challenge ourselves to be innovative with our technology and deliver value for our partners."

Comstor has unveiled a new initiative to help UK resellers address small to mid-market contact centre opportunities with Cisco's Unified Contact Center Express solution.

The distributor hopes its new CCXpert programme will give resellers the expertise they need to take on rivals in the niche up-to-400 seat contact centre sector.

Comstor Business Development Manager Phil Speed, who heads up Comstor's Collaboration Club which helps channel players embrace and sell all Cisco products, told Comms Dealer: "In an SME context, CCX is the right fit, at the right price, at the right time - and the CCXpert programme has the potential to get the channel competency up to speed and take on rivals in the mid-market contact centre market.

"There are over 5,500 contact centres out there so this is a massive opportunity."

Current members of the Comstor Collaboration Club will get immediate access to the programme but CCXpert will also be open to resellers who have never thought of selling Cisco solutions before.

Comstor Marketing Director Warwick Taylor explained: "CCXpert works underneath the Collaboration Club and our Mentor programme so we are giving resellers who are virgin to Cisco the chance to understand how to work with a big organisation like Cisco and ultimately become famous for running a CCX practice."

Comstor says the CCX offer is fully funded and comprises sales training, consultancy support, solution design and technical training plus a marketing development programme for partners including contact centre market analysis and go to market strategies.

"Post sale we're also offering reduced rates on technical resources to install and commission for partners if desired," added Speed.

Plantronics has collected a Frost & Sullivan 2014 Market Share Leadership Award for its growth in the global contact centre and office headset category.

Frost & Sullivan specifically recognised Plantronics for its success in the UC headset space, displaying a strong commitment to technology innovation and managing a well developed distribution and voice partner network. 

"Plantronics continues to impress us with its headset mastership every year with products that are highly innovative and relevant for today's evolving workspaces," said Mohamed Alaa Saayed, senior industry analyst, Frost & Sullivan.

"Plantronics has successfully established itself as one of the most respected brands in the traditional enterprise communications space and now in demanding unified communications environments."

Renee Niemi, senior vice president of products, Plantronics, added: "We dedicate our full attention to understanding and staying ahead of communication and collaboration challenges. With that mission in mind, it's gratifying to be recognised by Frost & Sullivan as a visionary leader in the customer service and UC space, and we're excited to play a part in its on-going evolution."  

In a straight-talking address to partners Unify's Executive VP of Worldwide Channels Jon Pritchard has pledged his commitment to a 'channel-first' sales approach. Delegates at Unify's International Partner Conference also heard Pritchard alert market rivals to the vendor's overarching intent to lead the field with a focus on channel-centricity.

Pritchard said: "Let me be clear. We are putting the industry and our competitors on notice that we are absolutely serious about positioning Unify as the partner of choice for the communications and collaboration industry.

"As we transform to a software-centric company and prepare for the availability of Project Ansible later this year, we need the right partners to help fulfill our growth aspirations."

Unify's CEO, Dean Douglas, announced earlier this year that growing revenue through indirect channels is one of the firm's highest priorities.

"We are 100 per cent focused on recruiting and working closely with the best channel partners globally," added Pritchard.

"We are not only strengthening our channel, we are completely reworking our strategy, business model and programs to have a channel-first sales approach."

In support of its channel strategy, the company announced plans to enhance the Go Forward partner programme to offer differentiated partner benefits based on the established accreditation structure, better access to accreditation for new and existing partners, increased marketing support and first class access to Unify support teams to propose, sell and implement solutions.

A partner recruitment drive was also kicked off at the event with a call out for new partners from across all geographies to meet with Unify and sign on.

Earlier this year the company announced further details of Project Ansible, a new software offering designed to extend beyond UC and support trends like bring your own device (BYOD), addressing the role of millennials in the workforce, their requirements of mobility and the rise of the Anywhere Worker.

Project Ansible will be available to customers in the autumn.

In a statement Steria has dismissed moves by Atos and is no longer interested in its 'merger' offer.

Earlier, Atos sent an offer to the Steria's board with an invitation to open talks about possibility of a combination of the two companies.

Atos says it had been in 'friendly discussions' with Steria's key stakeholders for some time.

In a letter sent to Steria's board Atos specified that such offer could be issued at the terms of 22 euro per Steria share in cash. Also, Atos offered Steria a chance to revert to it by April, 7th.

Meanwhile, on April, 8th, Steria announced its plans to merge with Sopra to create a European leader in digital services with estimated revenue of €3.1bn.

On April 4th, the offer represented an exchange value of 22 euro per Steria share on the basis of the weighted average Sopra share price over a one-month period, it says.

Atos received an answer from Steria's board saying that 'it had not been in position to assess the (Atos) offer'.

Additionally, Steria made a comment that it found Atos' approach as disturbing in the ongoing negotiations with Sopra Group. The comment was made even though Atos stated that it had acknowledged Steria's intention to pursue a merger with Sopra however it maintained the terms of its 'friendly offer' to remain valid until the Sopra EGM in late May, it says.

US-based provider of security-as-a-service solutions Alert Logic is to expand into the EMEA, opening a new hub in Cardiff to serve as both data and security operations centre and provide support to the customers in the EMEA.

Additionally, Alert Logic will continue to invest in the new UK office and build sales, marketing and support teams to serve UK customers.

The company has also managed to secure a development grant from the Welsh Government which supports, in this way, creation of new jobs in the region along with further training programmes, it says.

At present Alert Logic has 300 customers in the UK which include cloud and managed hosting providers.

Gray Hall, CEO, Alert Logic, said: "Data from our recent Cloud Security Report noted Europe as having the highest volume of attacks in hosting and public cloud infrastructures.

"European customers are looking for high-quality, cloud-based security and compliance solutions that can address their unique needs.

"With over 300 Alert Logic customers in the UK already, we are excited to announce today that Alert Logic is expanding into Europe with the goal of providing better support for our current and future customers."

Software as a Service, while growing, is suffering from perceptions over issues surrounding security and compliance.

A new report from Juniper Research forecasts that revenues generated from enterprise Software-as-a-Service will reach $53.5bn in 2018, representing 59% of the enterprise public cloud computing market, rising from $23.2bn in 2013.

Software-as-a-Service will remain the dominant cloud model, it says, though Platform and Infrastructure models are growing. This is due in part to the relative maturity and widespread acceptance of the model, as well as recognition of the comparative benefits and risks of commissioning cloud-based software. However, it argues that enterprise take-up of PaaS and IaaS solutions has been adversely impacted by concerns over data security, compliance and portability.

Nevertheless, the report found, both PaaS and IaaS will experience significant growth over the forecast period as new applications, developed specifically for the cloud to harness workloads such as big data analysis, benefit from the PaaS 'fast-track' model.

Service providers are increasingly providing multi-lingual support, and improving portability through initiatives such as Cloud Foundry, while consolidation of PaaS as an extension of other cloud services is showing a rising trend.

Meanwhile, IaaS is becoming increasingly attractive to SMBs (small-to-medium-sized businesses) and enterprises alike owing to a high level of control over the software stack and security implementation, alongside a growing understanding of the need for proper risk assessment.

It concludes that due diligence is essential for potential customers to establish if, and what services can be deployed in the cloud.