NEWS
www.comms-dealer.com
Garry Moat REPORT
South West
We call
Comms lifts
Unig192 ed Group
the solution
techie prize
in UC merger
‘in when out’ SOUTH West Communications
Group has been named as Toshiba’s UNIFIED communications resell-
Technical Excellence Award winner ers Applinet and Unified Group
for the second year running. have merged to form a new ICT
The reseller has been a Toshiba company trading under the name
BNS TELECOM LAUNCHES MOBILE OFFICE
Elite partner for 21 years and has Proximity Communications.
BNS Telecom Group has leveraged its IP technology installed the vendor’s telephone Headquartered in Newbury,
network alongside Vodafone’s GSM network to launch systems into more than 4,000 busi- Proximity Communications has a
a new Mobile Office solution that uses one number nesses across the UK. combined turnover in excess of
for all devices. Voice calls, faxes and emails can be Tim Webb, General Manager of £10m and offers a portfolio of end-
simultaneously routed to various devices, whether Toshiba BCD, said: “South West to-end solutions and services in
a deskphone, mobile, pda or notebook with a BNS Communications Group has dis- voice and data networking and uni-
softphone installed. Managing Director of BNS Telecom played considerable expertise in the fied communications, with support
Group, Garry Moat, explained to Comms Dealer Toshiba business telephony prod- services available nationwide.
magazine that the firm is targeting small firms with uct range, and has proved to be Darren Boyce, Managing Dir-
employees who are occasionally out of the office fully adept at installing, maintain- ector of Applinet, will take the
as well as large corporates with mobile and home ing, supporting and troubleshoot- role of CEO, while Michael Lloyd,
workers. One of the key attractions, he explained, is ing on Toshiba products from the Managing Director of Unified
that wherever calls are routed, Mobile Office customers entry level Strata CIX40 through to Group, assumes the MD position.
Darren Boyce
will earn a payment on all inbound traffic. Moat our top end Strata CIX670, as well Boyce commented on the
also indicated that he is in discussion with resellers to as the full suite of applications that move: “Our combined expertise With a 200-strong customer
create a channel friendly bundle in the near future. support the range.” in networking and unified com- portfolio including household
Moat said: “Our Mobile Office solution is an evolution munications solutions and services names such as Telegraph Group,
in telecom convergence. It allows the worker to take make for a compelling portfolio. As Institute of Education, The British
all of their office-based communications systems with
Extreme hails
a result of the merger our buying Red Cross and Cardiff County
them as they move between locations for work. We are power is significantly enhanced, Council, the merger will also
convinced that we have a strong proposition which
era of growth
enabling us to help customers drive see Proximity Communications
reflects a significantly growing customer demand. We EXTREME Networks is enjoy- down the capital and operation- become one of Nortel’s largest part-
call this solution ‘in when out’ as it means that wherever ing the success of its new Channel al expenditure of ICT, as well as ners in the UK.
you are, you can take the office and the cost and Partner Programme for EMEA exploit the efficiency benefits of a Lloyd commented: “Proximity
expansive feature benefits of IP telephony with you.” and SAM regions with growth unified communications strategy. Communications is in a strong
of 18.2% for Q4 08 compared to “Our existing customers will position to deliver intelligent solu-
The BNS IP network extends the benefits of products the same period in the 2008. experience benefits almost imme- tions and services that draw on the
such as Inbound Call Payments, Call Recording Laurent Bourgninaud, Channel diately, with enhanced bandwidth increasing convergence of fixed and
and Video Calling from the office to the user who is Director, said: “Our partners drive provision and support services, an wireless infrastructures with real-
temporarily or permanently out of the office. Moat our success, so we must assist them to extended portfolio of best-of-breed time applications such as voice,
added that launch of Mobile Office comes at an achieve the best available margins.” solutions,” added Boyce. video and social media.”
‘exciting time’ for the Prudhoe-based firm. The company
recently reported significant growth in annual turnover,
following a strategic shift by the business to offer more
SmartRecord IP gains
Reseller g192 ghts
IP telecommunications services as opposed to purely
conventional systems. Moat added: “In an economic
top marks in IBM test
back against
downturn businesses are always anxious to save money.
the fraudsters
The simple fact is that IP-based telecommunications CTI Group says it has achieved calls, representing 380,000 minutes
systems are invariably much more economic and ‘new industry heights’ using its of recorded calls with an average GATESHEADbased Executel
offer great cost benefits to customers as opposed to SmartRecord IP on the IBM CPU utilisation of 15% and a peak has extended its bespoke Managed
conventional systems. We have noticed a significant BladeCenter. utilisation of 25%. Administration Service to include
upsurge in interest for this technology within the last 12- Combined for the first time in The performance benchmarks a new fraud monitoring and sys-
18 months and look forward to satisfying this demand recent testing the IBM hardware demonstrated a 50% performance tem protection tool that combats
through existing products and innovative new offerings. and SmartRecord IP delivered a advantage over previous bench- attacks from telecoms hackers and
‘superior standard of call record- mark results, reports CTI. illicit users. According to the resell-
“Being able to mobilise a workforce to work in ing’, while at a lower cost of own- Andy Wilson, Vice President er PBX hacking is gaining momen-
the location most relevant for a business is a real ership for telecom customers, said of Sales and Marketing at CTI tum in the North East.
competitive advantage. Just look at the recent CTI Group. Group, commented: “The IBM Tim Price, MD, said: “Fraud-
bad weather which brought much of the country SmartRecord IP was tested on a BladeCenter provides SmartRecord ulent activity is an industry-wide
to a standstill. It has been argued that modern set of IBM blades with a BroadSoft IP’s modular architecture with problem which costs the UK tele-
communications systems allowed many businesses to BroadWorks softswitch. With its affordable scalability for system coms sector an estimated £1.3bn
keep working from the spare rooms of their workforce particular recording methodology upgrades, reduced footprint in each year. This figure is on the
– therefore significantly reducing the economic impact and using the BroadWorks Lawful racks, lower power consumption increase as fraudsters seek to pen-
of disruptions like bad weather.” Intercept interface, the recorder and easier additional recording etrate communications systems at
n
was benchmarked with 316,000 server integration.” the expense of others.”
18 COMMS DEALER APRIL 2009
www.comms-dealer.com
PG 18 News.indd 1 24/3/09 12:49:41
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