CJOUMSMT AS NMEINWUST E
CCOOMMMMSS N NEEWWSS
OAK INNOVATION
PARTNERS WITH
LOGMEIN
OAK INNOVATION HAS
partnered with LogMeIn to
extend their reach into
the UK market. This
represents a key step in
Oak’s evolution and
expands the range of
cloud services on offer to
partners in the UK.
The distribution
agreement includes
LogMeIn’s product
portfolio consisting of
‘GoToConnect’,
‘GoToWebinar’,
‘GoToMeeting’ ‘LogMeIn
Rescue’, ‘LastPass’ and
‘Bold360’ – all are sold on
a subscription-based
model.
William Emm (pictured),
CEO at Oak Innovation
said, “LogMeIn products
are a great addition to our
portfolio. Easy to use and
ideal for mobile and
remote workers, the range
comes at a time when
many businesses are
looking for flexible
working solutions.
Organisations can choose
to add to or replace their
existing business
telephony to provide an
excellent progressive
migration path.”
“As a leader in channel
sales, Oak Innovation
brings significant
expertise to our own aim
to be the work-fromanywhere
partner of
choice for organisations
globally,” said Keith
Bartlett, Director of
Channel Sales, LogMeIn.
THE THREE WAVES
In this interview Pete Tomlinson, CEO of Windsor Telecom, sat down (virtually) for
an update with Comms Business
CBM: Can you give us an update on Windsor?
Pete Tomlinson (PT): We have been going
through quite a big transformation plan and
launching new products. We are just going
through a fund raise right now and we are about
to close on our first acquisition which is a small IT
services business. We have decided to keep the
team working through the COVID-19 pandemic,
keep everyone focused working from home and if
we go a little bit quiet then use that opportunity
to try and accelerate some of the product
development work that we wanted to do. Even if
you furlough people you have to get them back
into the business and then bring them back up
to speed. Doing that can lose you quite a lot of
momentum I think.
CBM: What have you done to help your
customers through this period?
PT: The first thing we did was reduce a load of
our contractual terms down to either 30 or 90
days depending on the product. We wanted our
customers to adopt this tech without that fear
of making the wrong choice and being tied into
contracts, you just don’t need to tie people into
long term software contracts. People within
the industry have been doing this though and it
irritates me. I’ve seen people selling 5 or 7 year
leases but they are actually putting the software
licences for the cloud telephony onto the lease.
Just think, Blackberry’s were cool 7 years ago! A
lot can change in that time!
CBM: How are we going to come out of this?
PT: We forget how privileged we are to be able
to do our jobs from home. If you work in a pub,
drive a truck, or work at Tesco’s you can’t do that
from home. I think we’ll see more people asking
themselves why they are spending so much time
commuting, they will question it and wonder if the
time is better spent working or with the family. I
don’t think we will go entirely remote after this,
but I do think there will be a lot more flexible
working patterns. The first wave of this was
people scrabbling to get set up with some route to
mobile, WhatsApp and maybe a bit of Zoom. The
second wave which I am starting to see now is
people trying to consolidate this all into a central
hub like Teams and make that experience better
for employees. Finally, the third could take us
back to a pre-industrial revolution way of working
as people ask themselves those fundamental
questions. Think of a farmer, they would get up
early, milk the cows and then come back for
breakfast with the family. Then it would be out to
do some ploughing and back for lunch. He might
be quiet in the winter but he would be working
really hard around harvest time. Everyone worked
like that, it was natural way of working. This could
bring us closer to that again.
10 | Comms Business Magazine | May 2020 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
/www.commsbusiness.co.uk