Archive for category: News

First ABE | January 8, 2018

Amazon launches Alexa for Business platform (Nov 2017)

• voice services to the office

At the most recent AWS re:Invent conference Amazon announced the launched Alexa for Business.   This is a fully managed service targeted at companies by allowing them to deploy Echo devices at scale throughout the workplace. The service will provided improved meeting experiences with a focus on communication and collaboration.

Alexa for Business has (and will have) a strong ecosystem with:  Cisco, Zoom and Polycom (with their in-room conferencing systems), RingCentral (for its cloud-based voice services), Microsoft (for Office 365 and on-premises Exchange servers), and Google.

For example, the RingCentral Meetings for Alexa for Business integration is an example of how voice control will play in the conference room. Users will be able to ask Alexa to launch scheduled meetings. The Amazon for Business management service will map Echo devices to RingCentral Rooms systems for the assignment of Alexa Skills.

The AWS system can respond when you say “Alexa, join my meeting.” The platform will also include Salesforce to answer questions about business performance, Concur to share business travel information, RingCentral for voicemail readings, SAP SuccessFactors for HR, and other third-party voice services for the enterprise.

For voice-based commands outside the meeting room, RingCentral is integrating Alexa Skills with its communications app so that users will be able to ask Alexa to do things like play back and respond to voicemails; send and check SMS messages; and place outbound calls.

Besides being able to configure conference room settings, a company’s technical department will be able to use the Alexa for Business service to do things like provision and manage shared Alexa devices, enable Alexa skills on an individual user and user group basis, and build custom skills through Amazon for Business APIs.

AWS will likely present more at Enterprise Connect 2018 in Orlando this March.    Stay tuned, things are starting to get interesting in the Voice space…

Once again First American Business Solutions has received our WBENC certification renewal which is now good until June of 2018. Attached is the current certificate.  And we are a WBENC- Certified Women’s Business Enterprise.  Read more for common verbiage that can be used in RFP or inquiry responses. Keep it handy.

First American Business Solutions is certified small disadvantage business. We are also a WBENC-Certified Women’s Business Enterprises.

Certification is one of WBENC’s three core values: Certification, Opportunities, and Resources. Certifying women owned businesses is the foundation of WBENC’s mission, along with connecting WBENC-Certified Women’s Business Enterprises (WBEs) with WBENC’s Corporate Members to facilitate real time business opportunities and serving as a Resource to offer training that helps the Corporate Member and the WBENC-Certified WBE grow their capacity.
WBENC’s world-class certification is accepted by more than 1,000 corporations representing America’s most prestigious brands, in addition to many states, cities and other entities. WBENC is also an approved Third Party Certifier for the United States Small Business Administration (SBA) Women-Owned Small Business (WOSB) Federal Contracting Program.

WBENC Certification validates that the business is 51 percent owned, controlled, operated, and managed by a woman or women. To achieve WBENC Certification, women owned businesses complete a formal documentation and site visit process which is administered by one of WBENC’s 14 Regional Partner Organizations. WBENC Certification gives women owned businesses the ability to compete for real-time business opportunities provided by WBENC Corporate Members and government agencies.

First ABE | September 18, 2017

As a leading provider of international carrier services, Convergia offers a comprehensive portfolio of quality managed services, while focusing on customer needs and providing reliable business solutions.

First American Business (ABE and ABS), as a leading Enterprise and Government provider of nationwide dispatch technicians, installation engineers, and training around voice & contact center support services, offers a tactical complement.

Lately, First American and Convergia have been working on a number of opportunities.  In particular, First ABE leverages Convergia’s:

• Wholesale DID prices – which are up to 50% lower than other international providers, through their CLEC network
• Wholesale toll free service includes a variety of cost-effective tools designed that will expand a customer’s communications capabilities
• Wholesale Sip Trunking
• Wholesale SMS bulk and two way SMS messaging service.

On the Business side of things Convergia has a solid portfolio of:

Mitel is at it again! On July 27, Mitel announced it was purchasing ShoreTel in an all cash transaction. This follows the announcement on May 11^th that Mitel signed a Memorandum of Understanding to transfer assets and support obligations, including existing inventory, from Toshiba.

Mitel is based in Canada (Ottawa) and has annual revenues of about $850 million.

The premise PBX market continues to shrink and as the Cloud telephony business ramps up, there was not enough runway for the likes of Shoretel and Toshiba to make the transition.

Combining the two companies catapults Mitel to number two in the Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) market, according to the company.

With the stroke of a pen, Mitel now has almost doubled its UCaaS revenue to $263 million, and there will be other efficiencies achieved by combining the two companies with similar markets.

“This is a very natural combination that enables us to continue to consolidate the industry and take advantage of cost synergy opportunities while adding new technologies and significant cloud growth to our business,” Mitel CEO Rich McBee said in a statement.

$1.3 Bil in Revenue: The combined companies will have approximately $1.3 Billion in annual revenue. In addition when combined will have 3200 channel partners and 4200 employees worldwide.

Financial highlights of the transaction include:

• Combined sales of $1.3 billion*
• Increases Mitel’s total recurring revenue to 39% of total revenue*
• More than doubles Mitel’s UCaaS revenue to $263 million*
• Significant synergy opportunity targeted at $60M in annual run rate spend expected to be achieved over two years

The deal is still subject to regulatory and shareholder review before it can close.

The combined company will be headquartered in Ottawa, Canada, and will operate as Mitel. Rich McBee, Mitel’s Chief Executive Officer, will lead the combined organization. Steve Spooner, Mitel’s Chief Financial Officer, will also continue in that role.

In blog #34 (March ’17) we posted that Toshiba was shutting down its Telecom division headquartered in Irvine CA.  At the time of the announcement it was a pure shut down… Toshiba did not try to sell their Telecommunications division but simply decided to shut it down.

The premise PBX market continues to shrink and as the Cloud telephony business ramps up, there was not enough runway for Toshiba to make the transition.  Toshiba sales have been declining for some time and the company has become far less visible and innovative than many of its competitors. Toshiba made an excellent PBX that competed with small business systems from the likes of Panasonic, Mitel, and NEC.

Toshiba had been losing some of its pull in the industry, it was still a shocking decision considering that the company has about a 3% market share in the U.S.

Fast forward to May ’17 and we learn that Mitel is picking up the parts from the Toshiba telecommunications business.

A little about Mitel:  They are based in Canada (Ottawa) and have annual revenues of about $850 million.

On May 3^rd Mitel announced Q1 financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2017.

Mitel announced they too are taking proactive cost reduction actions to align its operating expenses with its current business needs. This includes a workforce reduction of approximately 10% expected to be completed between now and the end of the year.

Financial Highlights from Continuing Operations

				Q1 2016
in millions (except per share data)	Q1 2017			Historical Currency
GAAP Revenues	$223.1			$233.0
GAAP Net Income (Loss)	($19.7)			($11.8)
Non-GAAP Net Income2	$10.9			$10.5
GAAP EPS – basic	($0.16)			($0.10)

Mitel Business Highlights this quarter included:

• Recurring cloud seats grew by 45,000 during the quarter and now stand at 588,000
• Working with a large service provider, Mitel is transitioning 10,000 employees of a second large European-based auto manufacturer from premise to a cloud-based Unified Communications solution.
• A Midwestern US-based furniture retailer with more than 65 locations and an on-line presence selected MiCloud Enterprise and MiCloud Contact Center to connect all locations, centralize answering, and manage their advanced contact center needs including callback in queue and multi-media requirements.  The system is all hosted by Mitel. 

Mitel, on Thursday May 11^th signed a Memorandum of Understanding to transfer assets and support obligations, including existing inventory, from Toshiba to Mitel. The agreement also includes a transition of product and services agreements from Toshiba customers to Mitel.

Mitel expects to close on the Toshiba deal this summer.

Besides transferring their existing inventory, Mitel will also be transferring all of their service and maintenance contracts to Mitel, so that Toshiba customers continue to have support as they move forward.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Mitel made its last acquisition in 2015 with the purchase of cloud-based UC provider Mavenir. The vendor made a bid to buy Polycom last year, although the deal fell through.