Page 15 - Telecom Reseller September-October 2018

September/October 2018
SIMPLE & EFFECTIVE
Collaboration: Connecting customers to partners will be very easy with simple tools for finding the right partner. Collaboration within the community will also be kept simple, through the use of social technologies integrated with some of Vonage’s own communication bots.
“tPoint Solutions help optimize and connect the customer interactions for businesses
that include some of the largest logistics companies in EMEA. Nexmo APIs have enabled us to build Voice Bots into our offerings that are increasing customer satisfaction and improving efficiencies for our customers,” said Andy Griffin, Founder and CEO, tPoint Solutions. “The value we get is simple, working with Nexmo and other partners within the Nexmo Connect program, we’re getting innovative new services to market faster and we’re improving the businesses of our customers.” Learn more about Nexmo Connect at www.nexmo.com.
ABOUT VONAGE
Vonage (NYSE:VG) is redefining business communications. True to our roots as a technology disruptor, we’ve embraced technology to transform how companies communicate to create better business outcomes. Our unique cloud communications platform brings together a robust unified communications solution with the agility
of embedded, contextual communications APIs through Nexmo, The Vonage API Platform. This powerful combination enables businesses to collaborate more productively and engage their customers more effectively across messaging, chat, social media, video and voice. [1] IDC, Worldwide Voice and
Text Messaging Communications Platform- as-a-Service Forecast, 2018–2022, IDC #US43805418, May 2018 n
BlueJeans Channel Program Continues to Grow with Ingram Micro Distribution and New Corporate Leadership
Meetings Platform Available to Ingram Micro’s U.S. Partners; Industry Channel Vet-eran Joins BlueJeans to Lead Next Phase of Partner Growth
MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA - Blue Jeans Network, Inc., creator of the first cloud service to connect desktops, mobile devices and room systems in one video meeting, has an-nounced a U.S. distribution agreement with Ingram Micro Inc., extending the relation-ship after successfully selling together in
Asia Pacific and EMEA for the past year. The deal
will allow a comprehensive network of U.S. channel partners to build meeting solutions for any business for a measurable and secure increase in productivity and collaboration.
Under the expanded agreement Ingram Micro channel partners in Asia and now also in the U.S. have access to BlueJeans Meetings, BlueJeans Rooms and BlueJeans Events solutions. The meetings platform for the modern workplace eliminates all friction be-tween employees, partners and customers who work together.
“BlueJeans is a cloud-native meetings platform and a natural fit within our growing unified communications and collaboration portfolio,” said Jeff Yelton, Executive Di-rector, Ingram Micro. “Demand for intelligent workplaces is building among busi-nesses of all sizes, and we’re excited to extend our relationship with BlueJeans and ex-pand our U.S. portfolio to include BlueJean’s one-touch video, audio and web confer- encing solutions.”
BlueJeans also announced that channel industry executive, Barry Ruditsky, joined the company as
SVP, Global Channels. Ruditsky spent nearly 11 years at EMC where he managed indirect sales including OEM, resellers and channel partners with a global sales
Telecom Reseller 15
Vendor Evaluation: ‘How’ Matters SJust As Much As What Is Delivered
earch for famous sayings about laws COLWELL controls. Each of these traits is a leading indicator and sausage and you’ll find variants of of results. Consider that mature processes yield this quote attributed to American poet predictable results. Highly automated processes John Godfrey Saxe: “Laws, like sausages, by Timothy C. Colwell, SVP reduce human-induced error, and thorough
cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know Efficiency First® Adoption – process controls mitigate unnecessary business risk.
how they are made.” The humor of the quip is elevated the more I think about it. I love a great sausage, but don’t really don’t care to understand its pre-grill genesis story.
Telecom, mobility and IT vendors often use a version of the sausage quote to inform customers that they should not be concerned with how a solution is delivered; rather, customers should focus on the results. In theory, this makes sense. Let the vendors excel at what they do and judge them on the results, not the practices that yield the
AOTMP (www.aotmp.com)
results. Some managed services vendors go so far as to say their processes are proprietary, to shield customers from inspecting the back-office details.
Focusing on vendor results as opposed to
how results are generated seems reasonable
on the surface, but the reality is that the ‘how’ underpinning the results significantly influences the quality of outcomes. Understanding the ‘how’ sheds light on process maturity, automation and
So, understanding how results are delivered enables customers to evaluate factors that drive optimal results and identify risk factors that hinder results.
When drafting laws and making sausage, there are established controls designed to protect the integrity of the end product. Controls should also be applied by businesses consuming solutions from vendors. Don’t judge a vendor on promised results alone. Understand how vendors deliver results to make the most informed decision when evaluating vendors to satisfy your business requirements. n
Ask the Telecom Pro - October 2018
Bureau. FEMA administers the Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS), which is a public safety system connected with participating wireless carriers. Organizations such as county, city, state and federal public safety agencies can register to be an alerting authority in IPAWS, and this allows them to broadcast WEA messages through participating wireless carriers to user devices supporting WEA.
A: Carriers may charge administrative fees for several things including duplicate records, detail records, and different media types. Charges vary by carrier and situation.
A best practice is to understand each carriers’ rate card for administrative charges prior to entering into a business agreement and negotiate custom
terms for administrative charges. If the business relationship is established without negotiated terms, engage your account management team and seek a waiver or reduced ‘good customer’ rate on an as-needed basis.
Emergency Alerts (WEA) in the Q
: Who is responsible for Wireless
United States?
governed by the Federal Emergency A
: Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) are
call detail records. Is this standard Q
Management Agency (FEMA) within the Public Safety and Homeland Security
practice?
: My carrier charges to provide
organization. Most recently, Ruditsky was part of the executive team at Actiance, Inc. where he developed ISV and OEM relationships with IBM and built and launched a global VAR program that helped lead to
a successful sale to K1 Investment Man-agement in late 2017. Ruditsky will lead an international team of BlueJeans team members and partners to continue the growth and expansion of its channel business and revenue.
“There is a terrific market opportunity for BlueJeans as we continue to work alongside the industry’s best partners, including Ingram Micro,” said Ruditsky. “Enterprise companies in every market segment
are fully aware of the impact that meeting and collaboration solutions like BlueJeans have on the morale, engagement and bottom line of the business. There is literally an endless runway for us to grow with our part-ner community.”
The Ingram Micro distribution agreement follows the announcement of BlueJeans’ re-cently expanded channel program for partners that include BlueJeans
in their unified communications solutions and help customers migrate from legacy conferencing solu-tions to BlueJeans’ modern cloud platform. The program offers additional benefits and incentives to partners who invest in the skills and certifications required
to deliver successful customer outcomes. Since
the program was instituted, channel partners have increased pipeline deals with impressive growth among large enterprise, finance and education customers.
BlueJeans partners, including Dolby Laboratories, Facebook, Kaptivo, Polycom, Mi-crosoft and Voicera, help create a unified experience across all enterprise endpoints inside and outside the office while building innovative applications for the work- place. For Microsoft customers, meetings are also remarkably simple with the Blue-Jeans Gateway
for Microsoft Teams providing one-touch meeting
and native calendar-ing on any room system. In addition, BlueJeans now includes Microsoft Office 365 scheduling, which provides one-touch calendar and meeting entry from Mac, Win-dows and Outlook Web Access. n
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