INDUSTRY NEWS EDITOR’S COMMENT: Stuart Gilroy
IT’S EASY to tell when a technology or particular delivery mechanism piques the interest of VARs and comms resellers because there is standing room only at industry seminars. Just a handful of years ago hosted comms was the big draw, signposting the subsequent success of companies such as Gamma. But things have moved on, hosted is now de facto, and a newcomer to the mix is filling the seminar rooms. We should
take note because this service could really shake things up. I’m talking about hosted Microsoft Lync, the cloud-based
replacement application for OCS. If your interest remains unmoved, perhaps this will excite your curiosity: I attended Outsourcery’s launch of its enhanced version of Lync last month and, surprisingly, there was standing room only outside the room. Packed like sardines, stalk-eyed delegates witnessed a demonstration of Outsourcery’s version of Lync. Quite impressive, and pitched against the PBX market. A stand-out for me was the simple computerisation of telecommunications which seemed a long time coming. In our Internet age, which is defined in large part by the immediacy of access to information via the web, we expect things to happen as quickly as turning a thought into instinctive action. Lync is slick, functional, reactive, and looks to become a serious player in the UC and videoconferencing space in just a handful of years time. Arguments over security being an inhibitor to the
cloud are over. An average SME’s budget cannot stretch to the high levels of security offered by data centres. And with SLAs in place along with much improved connectivity there seems to be no barrier to the adoption of cloud apart from mindsets. In many cases the end user is more cloud-aware than their comms provider. Have you got your head in the cloud?
Stuart Gilroy, Editor
Virgin open for business
VIRGIN Media Business has launched its reseller programme and unveiled a channel devel- opment team which is aiming to recruit 40-50 new ‘dynamic’ partners in the year ahead. Jason King, Head of Business Partners, Virgin Media Business, exclusively told Comms Dealer: “The Virgin Business Partner Programme is all about form- ing the right partnerships that
Global deal
UNDER a new global distri- bution deal Siemens Enterprise Communications is to resell the inContact cloud contact center portfolio as OpenScape Cloud Contact Center. An affiliate of Siemens Enterprise Communications will make an equity investment in inContact to fund development and go-to-market initiatives. Siemens’ CEO Hamid Akh- avan takes a position on the inContact Board of Directors.
benefit resellers as well as us. Any relationship has to be the best possible fit for both parties. That’s important to us as we want our partners to share our core values. We’re ramping up our programme and spending more and more time nurturing our reseller relationships.” Picture shows Jason King, centre, with the Virgin Media Business wholesale team.
THUS picks up STORM
THUS and hosting firm Content Guru are to offer the interactive comms platform STORM to the SME market.
“Advanced, integrated com- munication technologies can deliver real value to SMEs by transforming the customer expe- rience,” said Deane McIntyre, Director of Marketing and Product Innovation at THUS. “Conventional phones and email are small parts of a rich mix of communication technol- ogies that businesses should use to be relevant to customers.” STORM has the capacity to handle a large number of inter- active communications and unites all inbound and outbound contact channels into an inte- grated system that links directly into customer databases.
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COMMS DEALER JULY 2011 3
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