Comms Dealer

Crawley-based Akixi's momentum and traction in the worldwide market shows no signs of slowing down according to MD Bart Delgado (pictured) who this month spilled the beans on his comprehensive 2017 growth and product development plans.

Delgado revealed his strategic and product roadmap against a backdrop of a strengthening overseas presence in Europe, USA and the Caribbean, having accumulated 2,000 active client sites globally.

The company's upward trajectory is also reflected in its partnership with Gamma, a link-up that has introduced Akixi to over 500 Horizon reseller sites.

Just as positive is the outcome of a partnership with Dubber which has seen strong results following the launch of a call recording plug-in feature (a cloud-based scalable call recording service).

This year Akixi is set to build on 2016's successes with the roll out of new features including web services API integration, a must-have for customers wanting to take more control and programme the provisioning of administrative tasks in the Akixi reporting service.

"Using this new feature will significantly reduce the amount of time customers spend on performing routine tasks such as provisioning telephony servers, partitions, devices, ACD agents and application users," explained Delgado. "Previously, these were only accessible via the administration section of the Akixi application."

Other developments to look out for this year, pointed out Delgado, include the launch of a new-look user interface; a new smartphone application for Android and Apple devices; and an increase in data storage options to 12 months (currently three months is guaranteed).

"Akixi will guarantee a minimum of six months data storage, offering greater data security and recovery for customers and end users," stated Delgado.

He is also working on enhanced group reporting that combines inbound and outbound traffic per group, along with additional features for the 'hunt group list' that will display calls to and from all group members and calculate their call statistics.

This feature will also be added to large multi-site deployments and display call statistics for custom super-groups.

Continuing the reporting theme, Akixi is gearing up to introduce reports that can be grouped by both BroadWorks GroupID and BroadWorks department.

"Adding this feature will provide additional information for customers across all of their Akixi reports, and enable users to easily manage, sort and filter extensions," explained Delgado.

Akixi began its commercial life in 2008 and has evolved into an award winning provider of hosted call management and call centre reporting services.

Last year the company scooped the Comms National Award for 'Best Call Management Solution 2016', and was a finalist in the Comms Business 'Independent Software Vendor 2016' category, and a finalist in the Gatwick Diamond Business Award for 'International Business of the Year 2016'.

A streamlined range of O2 and Vodafone wholesale mobile tariffs introduced by Nimans have proved popular, dropping the price by as much as 25% on selected plans.

"Last quarter we introduced our new simplified mobile tariffs which are based on a smaller number of single user offerings with unlimited minutes, voicemail and text and competitive priced data bolt-ons at a fixed wholesale cost," said Mark Curtis-Wood, Head of Network Services.

"The price you see is the price you pay. These tariffs are available on 30 days notice contracts enabling you to run co-terminus contracts and be more flexible.

"As one of the first O2 Wholesale partners to move from DISE to ABS Nimans is able to be more flexible with the commercial offerings available to our resellers, therefore we have refreshed our range of packages available."

With its Q4 results, Tech Data closed the year off in a good position in Europe, even before adding the Avnet TS business.

While currency headwinds resulted in flat reported revenue of $4.8bn, constant currency sales were up 11% in the fourth quarter, across multiple categories including notebooks and mobility.

Total fourth quarter net sales were $7.4bn, a decrease of 1% compared to the prior-year quarter. On a constant currency basis, net sales increased 2%.

European net sales were 64% of worldwide net sales, a number which is likely to fall after the Avnet TS business joins, making Tech Data a less Europe-dominated operation.

European operating income was $66.7m, or 1.41% of net sales, compared to $75.1m, or 1.57% of net sales in the prior-year quarter.

For the full year total net sales were $26.2bn, a decrease of 1% compared to the prior year, but on a constant currency basis, net sales increased approximately 1%.

Europe: Net sales were $15.8bn (60% of worldwide net sales), a decrease of 1% compared to the prior-year. On a constant currency basis, net sales increased approximately 2%.

Inside the numbers, Tech Data has been doing well selling Apple's products, now up to 20% of revenue on the back of introducing the consumer lines TV and Watch. Apple is now the company's biggest vendor, ahead of even the two halves of HP.

"Our strong Q4 results capped a historic year for Tech Data - a fiscal year of significant strategic progress and strong financial performance," said CEO Bob Dutkowsky.

"In fiscal 2017 we achieved all of our primary financial objectives: we gained share in key geographies, gained share in select product categories and with key vendors. We also improved nonGAAP operating income; and delivered our highest non-GAAP earnings per share in the history of our company.

"Tech Data accomplished all of this despite a dynamic global geopolitical and economic environment, a significant vendor consolidation, and an evolving IT consumption model. On top of this, we recapitalised the company and entered into the largest, most transformative acquisition in our company's history."

8x8 has acquired LeChat, maker of Sameroom, an interoperability platform that enables cross-team messaging and collaboration in the enterprise.

The acquisition strengthens 8x8's play in the team collaboration market by providing interoperability between more than two dozen team collaboration clients as part of the just launched 8x8 Communications Cloud, which combines unified communications, team collaboration interoperability, contact centre and analytics in a single, open and real-time platform.

Vik Verma, CEO of 8x8, stated: "With Sameroom, our customers will enable their internal teams and external partners to collaborate across different team messaging apps of their choice, creating an open, more seamless communications and collaboration environment that is compliant with corporate policy. This new technology is the key to delivering messaging capabilities to all of 8x8's services.

"This convergence of two healthy and thriving markets - communications and collaboration - is going to change the way employees, customers and partners use and consume communications intelligence, making them better informed, more productive and more effective than ever before. The days of a fragmented communications landscape are numbered."

Sameroom brings to 8x8 experience in building and launching high-scale, commercial group messaging solutions, as well as knowledge of leading team collaboration apps.

Andrei Soroker, co-founder of Sameroom, added: "8x8 understands that true unified communications and collaboration requires a new and open approach to team collaboration, which is why Sameroom was acquired. With this move, Sameroom will now be able to help more companies enable team collaboration as the technology becomes core to the 8x8 Communications Cloud."

8X8 also announced a number of new business application integrations aimed at enhancing business workflows by making real-time communications, collaboration capabilities and intelligence available for third-party cloud applications, all customisable via an Open Cloud approach to fit individual enterprise needs.

Responding to the Chancellor's announcement in today's Budget of £16m for a 5G mobile technology hub and a further £200m for local broadband networks, Andrew Ellis, Professor of Optical Communications at Aston University, said: "Economically, investments in Internet speeds have shown a healthy 20:1 return. With full fibre broadband and 5G mobile rollout, we can expect to increase national Gross Value Added (GVA) by around £10 billion and to safeguard or create tens of thousands of jobs.

"Given the great disparities in Internet provision across the UK, future Government intervention should focus on the less profitable, and therefore under serviced areas - perhaps leapfrogging 4G and G.Fast in some areas and going straight to 5G and fibre-based broadband technologies."

In December last year, the National Infrastructure Committee chaired by Lord Adonis called on the Government to take action to make Britain 5G ready. It highlighted that Britain is 54th in the world for 4G (the typical user can only access 4G 53% of the time), there are too many digital deserts and partial not spots, even within our city centres.

Government support is welcome but the private sector must still invest billions to secure UK digital future, according to Alex Holt, partner and head of TMT, KPMG: "Major advances in communications and technology will be vital for the UK, and are perhaps more important now than ever before due to Brexit," he said.

"The UK should be a leader in digital communications. Support from Government - no matter how large or small - is welcomed.

"But the reality remains that major communications infrastructure operators are being asked to invest billions in the UK's digital future in a less than certain regulatory environment, and a future where the dominant US platform businesses will reap a majority of the economic rewards from that investment."

Charlotte Holloway, Policy Director at techUK commented: "Today's Budget shows a consistent approach from the Chancellor, laying solid foundations for what will be an uncertain period ahead.

"The digital sector is the fastest-growing part of the UK economy and today's Budget will provide tech companies with reassurance that the Chancellor understands that their success is critical for a truly Global Britain.

"The tech sector will await further detail on the proposed review into business rates for online companies. It is key that this process begins with an open and evidence-based dialogue with industry, keeping front of mind the role that online technologies play in driving digital growth for SMEs."

Avaya has entered into an asset purchase agreement with Extreme Networks for the sale of its Networking business for approximately $100m. Extreme will serve as the primary bidder in a section 363 sale under the Bankruptcy Code. Other interested parties have an opportunity to bid prior to a deadline set by the Bankruptcy Court. 

If other qualified bids are submitted, an auction process will be conducted in which the agreement with Extreme would set the floor value for the auction. 

Kevin Kennedy, Avaya's CEO, stated: "Several months ago, in the context of optimising our capital structure, we announced that we were conducting a comprehensive assessment of the various alternatives available to us, including expressions of interest in certain Avaya assets.

"After extensive evaluation, we believe that a sale of our Networking business is the best path forward for all stakeholders. It provides a clear and positive path for our Networking customers and partners and enables the company to focus on its core UC and contact centre solutions.

"The possibility of Avaya Networking being part of a pure-play networking company like Extreme Networks would allow greater opportunities for its products and services to thrive."

Approval of a final sale to either Extreme or a competing bidder is expected to take place shortly after completion of an auction. 

The transaction is expected to close by June 30th, 2017, the end of Avaya's fiscal third quarter 2017, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Tollring has upgraded its ISO 9001:2008 accreditation to the new quality standard ISO 9001:2015 as well as renewing the ISO 27001 certification for information security throughout its operations and data centres.

Tony Martino, CEO of Tollring, said: "We understand how important it is for our clients to know that their data, as well as their customer's data, is protected and maintained securely.

"Our stewardship of confidential information is robust and we constantly challenge ourselves to keep it that way."

KCOM has entered into the framework contract as an approved supplier on the UK Government's Digital Outcomes and Specialists 2 framework (DOS2) which replaces the previous framework from February 2017.

Digital Outcomes are systems services, projects and programmes that have specific outcomes with clear deliverables. The DOS2 framework assists UK public sector buyers in purchasing digital and cloud-based services quickly and from a large and diverse pool of proficient, proven and reliable providers.

DOS2 runs in parallel with the G-Cloud framework, through which public sector bodies purchase cloud services such as Web Hosting and Business applications. Both frameworks support the delivery of the UK Government Digital Strategy.

"Our Digital Outcomes and Specialists 2 accreditation is a formal confirmation of our capabilities in delivering reliable and outcome-orientated services to the public sector," commented Stephen Long, EVP at KCOM.

Acuity Unified Communications has acquired the customer contracts of St Albans-based SIP trunking security firm 500 Ltd. Its fraud protection software portfolio provides security for mobiles and SIP connectivity.

The deal also gives Acuity access to 500 Ltd's self-service provisioning portal.

John Dowbiggin, MD of Acuity Unified Communications, said: "Cyber security is vital in today's business telecoms arena and we want to ensure those customers that require robust protection from cyber attack whether, it be mobile or SIP connectivity, are covered to the FCS Mark of Excellence Gold level."

500 Ltd MD Jonathan Rodwell added: "We can now focus on being a pure software house and provide service providers such as Acuity our provisioning portals."

A 50% year-on-year increase in pallet volumes and order tonnage along with a broadening product range have prompted Nimans to embark on a programme of warehouse expansion, upping the current 36,000 sq ft capacity to almost 50,000 sq ft.

The distributor has enlisted construction company The Casey Group to undertake the work which is due for completion by October.

The requirement for more order processing space is reflected in Nimans's new trade catalogue that features over 8,000 products.

Chairman Julian Niman said: "I started the business 36 years ago repairing CB radios from limited space at my father's jewellery business.

"I first made a commitment to sign a long term lease on our initial Broadway building on the outskirts of Manchester, then I made an even bigger commitment to build our current multi-million-pound headquarters at Agecroft. It's all about staying one step ahead of the game.

"The business continues to diversify and we sell all manner of communication and technology solutions from a simple cable clip through to a complete unified communications system, connectivity and end points. The new warehouse expansion is a sign of our continued progression."