EVENTS Event Report
“I am aiming for a 20% attachment rate for Gamma Horizon Collaborate.”
Paul Gibbs, Head of UCaaS and Mid-Market Sales, Gamma
APIs and UCaaS at UC Expo
Ian Hunter visits UC Expo at London’s ExCel to see what’s new in the Unified Communications market and what
some of the key players are unveiling or planning for their channel partners.
We reported from their
roadshow in March
on the Gamma launch
of their Horizon
Collaborate, the introduction
of bolt on applications to their
hosted telephony platform, so
wanted to see how the move was
being received in the channel.
Paul Gibbs, Gamma’s Head
of UCaaS and Mid-Market Sales
who re-joined the company in
February, was forthright when it
comes to Gamma’s ambitions in
this sector.
“Gamma is uniquely placed
to work with resellers in that we
have established and successful
elements of an overall UC
proposition already in place in
the form of the Horizon hosted
platform, a mobile play and
of course a complete national
network of the connectivity
options needed for a successful
UC deployment.
Now, with the introduction
of further applications for
collaborative working the
demonstrable return on
investment for users is just
fantastic – in fact we are
launching an ROI calculator
for channels to use with their
customers.”
Gibbs also believes that
the typical user desktop is
changing with fewer hardwired
desk phones and an increasing
number of collaborative
applications being used on
mobile devices.
“I am aiming for a 20%
attachment rate for Gamma
Horizon Collaborate.”
Sporting Chance
David Silke, VP of International
Marketing at Mitel, was keen
to show off his company’s
credentials in the sports sector.
“We have recently announced
Mitel will be providing all the
comms for the visit of the MLB
matches being played shortly
in the UK; we already handle
the whole MLB comms set up
in the US and nearer to home
Mitel is also a global partner
for Liverpool and Tottenham
Hotspur football clubs.
Our focus today is three
core applications; unified
communications and
collaboration, contact centres
and customer excellence and the
cloud.”
“Mitel offers users onpremise
and cloud-based
solutions for UCaaS and
Collaboration. We listen to
end users – where they are in
their digital transformations
and what they are looking to
achieve.”
A Year On…
When I spoke this time last year
to Robinder Koura, Head of
Channel EMEA at RingCentral,
his stated aim was to grow the
average size of his customer base.
This year his tag line is to ‘Work
as One’.
“What I mean by this is for
the multiple types of features and
applications users want we have
them all in one solution whether
that is office or mobile based.”
Also last year RingCentral
were leading with the strength
of their API, the number of
integrations achieved with third
party applications and how it
had become a differentiator.
How has that progressed?
“We have been doing a
lot of work recently with
Microsoft and their Teams
application which is still ‘closed
off’ to some degree to API
integration. However, G Suite,
a money spinner for Google,
has been really successful for
RingCentral.
Looking back over the last
three years, the market leaders
of recent times, Avaya, Cisco
and Microsoft, are now being
challenged by newcomers
with different models in the
form of Software as a Solution
deployments. We are looking
forward following our recent
acquisition of Dimelo to
bringing leading edge contact
centre applications to our
portfolio that will integrate with
social media such as Whatsapp.”
Combined Strength
Elsewhere, Centile and Swyx
were exhibiting together for
the first time following both
companies becoming part of the
Within Reach Group.
Their focus here was on
demonstrating to visitors the
combined strengths and choice
that the two organisations can
provide to the UK channel and
its customers, across cloud,
on-premise, multi-tenant, multiinstance
and other options.
EXPERIENCE & support
Call 01403 224450 www.soscommunications.co.uk
36 | Comms Business Magazine | June 2019 www.commsbusiness.co.uk
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June.ai 1 14/05/2019 14:39:32
Robinder Koura of
RingCentral
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