Gradwell scores 3CX contract

Gradwell Communications has been confirmed as 3CX’s first solutions provider for the UK as the company moves from a traditional box-shifter and software licence flogger to more value-add solutions and services.

Gradwell’s channel community will now have the opportunity to take full advantage of increasing demand for 3CX’s IP PBX, plus the telephony solutions and services that wrap around it.

3CX CEO Nick Galea said that Gradwell was a visionary in the UK business communications market, having been one of the first to launch a SIP trunk service.

“It’s an honour to be able to team up with an established and leading provider in delivering a complete solution for the on-premise and cloud market. Customers and partners will have peace of mind that they are buying a solution fully supported and guaranteed end-to-end,” he said.

“Delivering successful VoIP solutions is about so much more than providing the required number of IP PBX licences, and that’s where Gradwell’s value-add services come into play,” explained Gradwell’s founder and CTO, Peter Gradwell. Gradwell is one of the UK’s fastest growing cloud communications providers focusing on small to medium-sized enterprises.

As well as 3CX’s licences channel partners will now be able to drive new business and revenue generating solutions, from a single supplier, by offering Gradwell’s wraparound solutions including highly-secure hosting, server provisioning, SIP trunks, session border controller (SBC) installation, CRM integration and handsets. The Gradwell team also has extensive expertise with 3CX’s Call Flow Designer so can implement all necessary call routing requirements.

“Gradwell is the only provider to have developed solutions, specifically designed for the channel, which complements the features and functionality of the 3CX IP PBX. For example, with a Gradwell solution, the end user can push call recordings to cloud storage devices, freeing up considerable server space,” the company said.

Other value-add offerings from Gradwell include a team of 3CX accredited engineers dedicated to hosting and supporting 3CX, onboarding resources working exclusively on 3CX and a 20 strong front-line support team to answer and manage any issues.

Jamie Ward is now Gradwell’s newly appointed sales, and marketing director said that the new agreement with 3CX with other channel changes means he has taken the job during interesting times.

“Gradwell wants to provide the channel community with VoIP solutions that give them a huge opportunity to drive new business and increased revenue. The agreement with 3CX does just that. Our complete solution eliminates all the complexity around the deployment of a VoIP solution, not just for our resellers but for their customers. Happy customers, mean happy resellers and happy resellers mean repeat business for 3CX and Gradwell,” said Ward.

 

G-Cloud 11 starts Monday

 

Crown Commercial Service (CCS) has revealed that the application process for G-Cloud 11 will start on Monday,

CCS sent out a tweet today confirming that it will open the eleventh iteration of the framework on 25 March.

Kaleyra appoints new chief financial officer

Cloud communications outfit Kaleyra has appointed Julia Pulzone as its new chief financial officer to replace Luca Giardina Papa.

Pulzone will lead the company’s finance team as it makes its planned transition from a private to a public company later this year. Pulzone will report directly to Kaleyra founder, CEO and chairman Dario Calogero.

QBS acquires majority share in Zedsphere

QBS Technology has written a cheque for the majority shareholding in MSP distributor Zedsphere.

It is the outfit’s second acquisition of 2019, since the purchase of French distributor Siener Informatique in February. This latest move adds a further 814 unique resellers to the group, QBS revealed, and a new office in Warrington.

Vectra AI adopted by Ardagh Group

Vectra, the network detection and response solutions provider, has announced that Ardagh Group selected the Cognito network detection and response platform from Vectra to expose attackers hidden inside its network and perform conclusive incident investigations.

Small businesses need ‘cyber security champions’

Small businesses should train up “cybersecurity champions” to better protect themselves from the threat of cyber attacks, new government research has suggested.

A report by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) claimed that in the case of more than half (57 percent) of businesses who had suffered a recent breach, the incident had first been spotted by staff rather than by software.

Fat cat CEOs get paid more after cybersecurity breaches

It would appear that CEOs benefit from cybersecurity breaches and rather than being fired for allowing their companies to be hacked.

Daniele Bianchi, assistant professor of finance at Warwick Business School has found that far from being fired, CEOs of breached firms were found to be more likely to receive an increase in total and incentive pay several years after an incident.

Advanced creates partner workplace

Advanced has unveiled its new cloud-based platform – MyWorkplace – what it claims to be a unified cloud ecosystem which will help to create a marketplace for its partners.

The big idea is to deliver interoperability between its systems, which will include an open API platform for partners.

Softcat posts profit rise

IT infrastructure and services outfit Softcat posted a 41 percent rise in first half profits, as it won more customers, and forecast a full-year result ‘marginally ahead’ of previous expectations.

Capita is back in the black

Capita is starting to show signs of recovery, but its IT services division did not get the memo.

For the year ending 31 December, 2018 Capita reported sales of £3.9 million down 7.7 percent on the previous year.  Its operating income, however, improved from a £420  million loss to £34.9 million as it continues its radical restructuring.

Big firms need more cyber awareness

The UK’s biggest boards are still clueless when it comes to cyber issues according to a new study.

The Government’s Cyber Governance Health Check looks at the approach the UK’s FTSE 350 companies take for cybersecurity. The 2018 report published today shows that less than a fifth of boards has a comprehensive understanding of the impact of loss or disruption associated with cyber threats. That’s despite almost all (96 percent) having a cybersecurity strategy in place.