Global
PBX market continues to decline
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THE
global corded PBX market (excluding Micro PBX products)
continued to deteriorate in 2009, reports MZA. The analyst
notes an overall 22% volume decline, which eased back
to 10% during Q4. According to MZA's latest report,
the worst performance was recorded in Q1 2009 when volumes
dropped by 30%. IP desktop deployments continued to
gain share accounting for 30% of total extensions in
Q4 2009 and 29% for 2009 as a whole. MZA says this reflects
the fact that hybrid solutions remain significant in
the SME segment and retain popularity with larger enterprises,
which have the need to maintain a mix of both analogue/digital
and IP desktop extensions.
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Spitfire
completes
SIP Trunk test
for Sark UCS
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SPITFIRE
has completed interoperability testing and accreditation
for its SIP Trunk service with the Sark UCS Asterisk-based
PBX range, produced in the UK and marketed by ProVu Communications.
Designed as an ISDN30e and ISDN2e replacement, Spitfire
says its SIP Trunks typically offer business quality secure
telephony at up to 50% less than the monthly rental cost
of an equivalent ISDN service. Spitfire's Sales Director,
Tom Fellowes, said: "As a mature technology our customers
can adopt Spitfire SIP Trunks as a cost effective alternative
to ISDN30e with full confidence. Providing the IP circuit
ourselves allows us to control the quality of service
delivery to the customer. We have also developed a range
of back up services to ensure that Spitfire SIP Trunking
offers business class voice telephony for our customers.”
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ICON
launches
end user promotion for TalkSwitch
IP phones
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DISTRIBUTOR ICON is aiming to stimulate demand in the
small business IP-PBX market with the launch of a time-limited
end user promotion on its range of new TalkSwitch IP phones.
The offer, targeted directly at the end user, is designed
to drive sales for ICON's TalkSwitch Channel Partners.
Mark Shane, ICON Sales Manager, commented: "Customers
are usually persuaded to invest in a TalkSwitch solution
because they recognise the value and feature rich solution
which it brings to their business. This end user offer
makes TalkSwitch even more price competitive and value
justified for the small business."
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AVAYA
FOCUSES ON SUB-20 XTN
MARKET WITH NEW IP OFFICE 6.0
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 AVAYA
has lifted the lid on the new release of Avaya IP Office,
the company’s flagship comms solution for SMEs, designed
to improve collaboration, increase productivity and bring
greater flexibility to businesses with 20 employees or
less. Notably, the new release features UC capabilities
to deliver collaboration tools using voice, instant messaging,
presence and video. Avaya claims to make unified communications
up to 40% more affordable for small businesses.
 According
to IDC, an international provider of market intelligence
for information technology, companies with less than 20
employees account for more than 90% of small firms worldwide.
Anthony Bartolo, General Manager, Small and Medium Enterprise
Communications at Avaya, said: “With Avaya IP Office
6.0 in place, small businesses don’t have to sacrifice
easy, intuitive operation in order to get the enhanced
communications features of large enterprises. Our latest
version provides SMEs with the next generation collaboration
tools necessary for competing more effectively against
peers and larger competitors, and for thriving as the
economy recovers.” Read
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OAISYS
SECURES UK FOOTHOLD
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US-BASED
call recording specialist Oaisys has established a UK
foothold and is on the hunt for comms resellers. The company
offers enterprise-class call recording and contact center
management solutions and has expanded its operations globally
with a new office in Cambridge, from where operations
in the European market will be based. The firm’s
Talkument and Tracer call recording solutions are compatible
with all of the main IP business comms systems, such as
Avaya, Mitel, Toshiba and ShoreTel. Brian Spencer, President
of Oaisys, said: “In response to market demand we
have opened the UK office, which allows us to extend our
value proposition to service customer needs and telecom
reseller revenue growth objectives in the UK market.”
Kevin Burns, MD of the UK company, added: “The call
recording industry is abundant with opportunities. More
UK businesses are recognising the benefits of our solutions
for staff training, risk management and revenue protection.
We’re eager to meet the burgeoning customer demand
for our products by building our authorised dealer network
in the UK.”
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INTECHNOLOGY
EXPANDS BASE
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 UNIFIED
Comms and cloud computing specialist InTechnology is on
a campaign to expand its UK reseller partner base. Phillip
Toms, Partner Sales Manager at InTechnology, said: “We
have launched a Unified Communications solution with integrated
IP telephony, video calling and audio/video conferencing
on demand. We’re recruiting partners who can white
label our UC solutions and drive them out to market.”
InTechnology
is also looking to increase the number of reciprocal partnerships,
where software providers, for example, take advantage
of InTechnology’s cloud. And the company has partnered
with e-know.net, a UK managed services provider that delivers
application hosting, SaaS, DR and business continuity
solutions. The growing demand to exchange some of the
cost and complexity of in-house IT infrastructures for
simple, fixed price, high-grade delivery of managed alternatives
is strong, noted InTechnology.
Helen
Newman, Marketing Manager at e-know.net, said: “Offering
a route for vendors to put their suite of solutions in
the cloud is the obvious starting point, but clients are
soon keen to explore the wider outsourcing opportunities.
By partnering with InTechnology, we can enable businesses
to enjoy the flexibility of a centralised solution that
integrates with their day-to-day business processes, with
minimal upfront investment and full 24x7 support.”
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CHESS
RETAINS GREEN STATUS
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 CHESS
Telecom has maintained its accreditation to ISO 14001,
the international standard for Environmental Management
for the third year running, thanks in great part to the
company’s Green Team (pictured left). David Pollock,
Chief Executive, said: “To have achieved this accreditation
for a third year running is a tremendous achievement for
everyone at Chess. We all have a duty to operate our businesses
in a sustainable manner within ecological means. People
talk about their concerns around the business case for
implementing more environmentally friendly practices,
in the telecoms industry we can take the lead on how we
look after and preserve the planet. We do this by firstly
looking at ourselves and what we can do on a local level,
within our own businesses.” Back
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COMPUTERLINKS
GOES VIRTUAL
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 DISTRIBUTOR
of IT security and Internet technology solutions Computerlinks
has launched a suite of virtualisation services to its
channel partners. The services, which include Capacity
Planning, Design and Implementation, have been added to
the Professional Services portfolio in direct response
to demand from resellers. The distributor will provide
a combination of knowledge and additional resource to
better equip partners while offering higher margins when
recommending virtualisation solutions across vendors such
as Citrix, Microsoft, The Virtual Machine Company and
VMware. The services will, initially, be available to
resellers in the UK and Ireland, with the plan to deliver
globally in the future.
Kathryn
Miller, Professional Services Manager at Computerlinks,
said: “As the business case for virtualisation is
now well-accepted, resellers are under increasing pressure
to deliver solutions that are carefully planned to meet
their clients’ specific needs. However, many resellers
don’t have the resources or time to develop these
skills themselves. By partnering with us, they can deliver
the expertise without the overhead.”
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OPAL
TARGETS SMALL FIRMS
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 OPAL
is offering small businesses a new low cost package, called
Opal Office Complete, which significantly undercuts rival
offerings in the market, claims the company. Office Complete
offers unlimited broadband, mobile and fixed-line communications
for a budget fixed monthly fee. The scalable proposition
has been developed to support the UK’s small businesses
and the high number of so called ‘recession entrepreneurs’
launching new ventures. The service includes up to 24MB
broadband, free line rental with unlimited calls, an 0800
number, a free web builder and domain name, and a Blackberry
8520 with unlimited email usage and 300 mobile minutes.
Addressing the need of homeworkers, Opal is also opening
up its Opal Office Broadband proposition to offer a complete
small business homeworking solution.
Paul
Lawton, MD of Opal, commented: “There are on average
390 new businesses setting-up each week. Investing in
new communication infrastructure can be hugely expensive,
not to mention time consuming, especially if IT and telecoms
is not a core area of expertise for the business owner.
But it is an absolutely necessity. Business-grade communications
are essential to move forward, grow and ultimately prosper,
as a business. That is where our business start-up package
comes in.” Back
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BARKER
JOINS DATASHARP
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DATASHARP
has named Kevin Barker as its new Director of Business
Development. According to Datasharp, his appointment
signals the company’s increased focus on enterprise
level UC opportunities, and heralds the promotion of
new technologies to the existing Datasharp Group plus
the recruitment of new resellers.Barker has 30 years
experience in the comms market and has worked for suppliers
such as BT, Siemens and Samsung. He stated: “I
have worked with Datasharp from a supplier perspective
for the last 10 years. We have plans in place to grow
significantly over the next 12 months, and will be working
in close partnership with our major suppliers to move
into the large enterprise marketplace.”
Chairman
Paul McIntosh commented: “Datasharp is progressing
strongly and Kevin’s industry knowledge and proven
track record will be instrumental in continuing our
growth." Back
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