Technology Reseller - v25

technolog y reseller.co.uk 17 Big draw British astronaut Tim Peake is due to headline Data Summit, part of the fourth annual data and artificial intelligence festival, DataFest20. The two-week festival in March 2020 will focus on the challenges and opportunities presented by data and AI for science, businesses and society. Events will be held in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Inverness. www.datafest.global Vodafone partners with AO With online currently the fastest growing channel for mobile customers, Vodafone has extended its partnership with online electricals retailer AO to include new ‘always connected’ services, such as the Vodafone Unlimited range of unlimited mobile data plans for 4G and 5G and VOXI, Vodafone’s youth brand, which offers limitless data on social media. AO will also sell the Vodafone home broadband service and relaunched home fibre packages. Jola app good for business Jola, a provider of internet connectivity, hosted telephony and mobile solutions to the channel, has rolled out a new partner portal and iOS/Android app for its 600+ partner base. The mobile-friendly version of the Jola Partner Portal gives partners instant access to pricing and real-time leased line quotes from every major supplier and enables them to place orders and check invoices. CTO Adrian Sunderland said: “The new app is designed to make it as easy as possible to quote and order solutions on mobile devices. Partners can save and return to part-built orders, add orders to existing sites and view orders in progress.” He added: “By developing mobile apps that are integrated with our suppliers, we are receiving orders faster, provisioning them more efficiently and offering a better user experience for our partners and their customers.” NEWS : VENDORS PRD changes name to Intelligent Billing Technologies As part of a brand refresh, billing specialist PRD Technologies has changed its name to Intelligent Billing Technologies Ltd. It has also rebranded its software from QuickStart to Intelligent Billing; streamlined its product offering to just three options – Lite, Pro and Bespoke; and launched a new website. Managing Director Simon Adams said: “We feel Intelligent Technologies (our trading name) is a much better description of what we deliver for our customers. Whilst we cut our teeth on telecoms, and will remain in this market, we have been branching into new sectors.” These include billing for consumption services, notably cloud services and IoT. In October, Intelligent Billing Technologies’ cloud consumption billing platform, which enables cloud service providers and VARs to collect, process and bill for data, was named Best Supplier Innovation in the Comms National Awards 2019. Mark Davies, Managing Director of WestcoastCloud, which supported the award submission, said: “The team at PRD took a complex billing requirement that they had never handled before and built a completely bespoke system that has enabled us to substantially grow our business over the last two years, from £18 million to £50 million in billing. We are so confident in the system and its capabilities we are now planning to introduce it to our network on a resale basis.” www.intelligentbilling.com Cherwell appoints Swedish partner ITSM provider Cherwell has continued its expansion across Europe with the appointment of Seavus as a new Premier Partner. Seavus, headquartered in Sweden, is a software development and consulting company with more than 900 staff serving 4,000+ customers globally. As a Cherwell Premier Partner, Seavus will gain access to Cherwell technical guidance, sales alignment, enablement and competitive financial rewards to help it expand Cherwell’s footprint with clients across EMEA. Cherwell’s core ITSM offering, Cherwell Service Management, is a flexible, codeless platform that enables IT teams to automate service and support processes more simply and economically than legacy ITSM tools. Cherwell was recently named a Challenger in the 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant for IT Service Management Tool s and a Leader in The Forrester Wave: Enterprise Service Management (ESM), Q4 2019 . https://www.cherwell.com Virgin Media has agreed a five-year deal to deliver all of Vodafone UK’s current services and future technologies, including 5G, to more than three million mobile customers. Running until 2026, the Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) agreement will see Vodafone supply wholesale mobile network services, including both voice and data, to Virgin Mobile and Virgin Media Business. Virgin Media’s current MVNO agreement with BT Enterprise comes to an end in late 2021, at which point Virgin Media’s mobile offering will transition to Vodafone. Virgin Mobile 5G services are set to launch on the Vodafone network before this transition takes place. Virgin Media CEO Lutz Schuler said: “Twenty years ago, Virgin Mobile became the world’s first virtual operator and this new agreement builds on that heritage. It will open up a whole new world of opportunity for Virgin Media as we focus on becoming the most recommended brand for customers and bring our mobile and broadband connectivity closer together in one package for one price.” A complementary wholesale agreement has also been struck between both parties in relation to the supply of network services by Virgin Media Business to Vodafone. www.vodafone.co.uk Virgin Media and Vodafone in MVNO agreement Adrian Sunderland Lutz Schuler Tim Peake