SPECIAL FEATURE in association with Mitel
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ROUND TABLE DEBATE SETS
Virtualisation fi nds its voice
Virtualisation – Why the channel must get prepared for the next force in business
When: May 11 Where: London
Why: Set new agenda
G
raham
Bevington, Mitel’s
Managing
Director for EMEA, is fast developing a reputation for sticking to a policy of absolute restraint about what he says for fear of influencing the markets now that Mitel is listed on Nasdaq, but he took little prompting to launch into a passionate harangue about the march of voice virtualisation, its growing influence on the comms channel and Mitel’s stake in a software-centric future. “For Mitel, virtualisation is front middle and centre,” he told the round table delegates. “It’s not a question of whether voice gets virtualised, or when, the issue is whether we want to be at the back of the bus hanging on or at the front driving the debate. As a manufacturer it is our responsibility to be in the driving seat.”
Mitel and VMware have made radical steps forward in resolving voice latency challenges, meaning that real-time voice performance is now a trusted
application in a virtualised environment. Virtual Mitel Communications Director (Virtual MCD) is the first real-time voice application designed for the VMware Sphere 4 platform. As the first household name in the comms channel to deploy virtualised voice, Mitel pulled off a unique triumph when it implemented a voice virtualisation solution for Ashford Borough Council.
This implementation is indicative of a topsy-turvy market that is turning on its head as more organisations look for best value. And virtualisation’s influence is already making itself felt in many ways, not least where assiduous efforts are being made to reduce costs. Rob Neil is Head of ICT and Customer Services at Ashford Borough Council, areas that are seen as cost centres. He commented: “One of the key drivers for us was to reduce the cost of ownership. We had
communications. Comms Dealer reports on last month’s ground breaking round table debate led by voice virtualisation trail-blazer Mitel.
been successful in doing this with VMware on the data side, and we wanted to move that forward with voice too. We previously had lots of line and business systems sitting in data centres, most of those would be one application on a single server. We saw a very quick RoI in moving over to VMware.”
The second driver for Ashford Borough Council was disaster recovery. “One of the reasons why many authorities are collaboratively going down the VMware route is because it obviates the need for large scale DR contracts,” added Neil. “Moving voice into that whole DR environment and being able to quickly DR voice infrastructure became a key corporate driver.”
Mitel and Ashford Borough Council clearly illustrate how virtualisation represents an unprecedented opportunity
For Mitel, virtualisation is front, middle & centre
in the hands of those able to read the market and turn vision into strategy. The key principle advanced by Mitel is that customers already understand virtualisation because they have virtualised applications for years. “We’re not turning up as missionaries, we’re just saying here’s another application that can be virtualised,” stated Bevington. “If we don’t put our hands in the air and say ‘we can do this’, the revenue steam from virtualised voice will go to someone else. We have to accept that we’re not being evangelists. VMware will go wherever there’s a complex business with a lot of applications that need simplifying. This is happening.”
Mitel partners Scalable Communications and Alternative Networks, from their different perspectives, add much value to the vendor’s channels. Scalable has not got a large installed Mitel base, it’s not interested in acquiring large maintenance contracts, but it understands new technologies and is winning new business for Mitel.
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Alternative on the other hand is a carrier with infrastructure and billing, bringing a different set of assets to the market. It too understands that the world is changing.
Simon Turner, Sales Director at Alternative Networks, noted that the channel historically buys into new technologies. “We all jumped on the bandwagon of IP,” he said. “The channel has matured, as have customers and their expectations from us as business partners. Virtualisation is a key enabler, and our responsibility is to take this enabling technology, package it properly and make it fit for purpose. A major challenge is the culture of our enterprise sales people. We need to get under their skin and persuade them that there’s another conversation to be had away from the CPE way of doing things.”
Technology is changing rapidly and the market is changing almost weekly in terms of its demands, with companies under more pressure to be cost-efficient.
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