

Direct
Feed
ability and improve resource utiliza-
tion while keeping overall EC2 costs
low. This combination of the Spotinst
algorithm and Logicworks’ proprietary
automation platform lets companies
more reliably use Spot Instances by le-
veraging a prediction engine that antici-
pates the failure of Amazon EC2 Spot
Instances and automatically launches
and integrates a new instance based on
customer needs.
“Spotinst’s highly developed workload
management strategy consistently saves
companies 70 to 80 percent on AWS EC2
costs and 40 percent on overall costs,
allowing mission critical and production
workloads to benefit from the EC2 Spot
Market.” said Amiram Shachar, CEO
and founder of Spotinst. “Partnering with
Logicworks means our customers can
combine the data driven intelligence of
Spotinst with fully managed automation
and maintenance, so that even compa-
nies that are new to AWS can achieve
dramatic cost savings.”
SkySwitch Unveils Contact
Center as a Service
SkySwitch white label resellers that
have built their brands selling hosted
PBX and unified communications as a
service (UCaaS) can now realize new
revenue opportunities by offering con-
tact center as a service (CCass) from
the same platform.
The SkySwitch CCaaS solution is a
multi-tenant cloud service that delivers
all of the features and functionality of an
enterprise grade contact center platform
while minimizing the need for a capital
investment by the companies that need
the service, said the company. With
SkySwitch, CCaaS resellers can em-
power any small business, such as a
doctor’s office or a real estate agency,
with the type of contact center tools
used by the largest corporations.
In addition to delivering basic CCasS,
resellers can leverage the SkySwitch
platform’s open architecture, to create
bespoke solutions that meet specific or
unfulfilled needs in distinct vertical mar-
kets. iCommerce, an early customer of
the SkySwitch CCaaS service, did exact-
ly that when it deployed the SkySwitch
platform to fill a void in the fitness indus-
try. Their GymPhone service combines a
call center featuring knowledgeable and
experienced agents with a virtual PBX
for every fitness center customer.
The SkySwitch CCaaS offering has
an open API that allows SkySwitch
resellers to integrate and customize
applications system-wide or on a per-
tenant basis. With these options, it is
possible to tightly integrate third-party
applications, such as CRM or ERP, into
agent desktops, as well as allow busi-
ness customers to build and execute
their own custom applications.
According to the research firm Ex-
act, businesses that embrace the cloud
achieve 25 percent additional revenue
growth and more than double their
profits compared to cloud skeptics.
With the penetration of CRM systems
forecasted to reach more than 50
percent of businesses in 2016; the de-
mand for contact center solutions that
marry business communications with
customer data is not far behind.
“Offering the basic CCaaS delivers a
new revenue stream for our resellers,”
said Jayson Jones, vice president of
business development for SkySwitch.
“Those that can leverage the open API
and integrate it with other services can
significantly enhance the offering and
their bottom line.”
Mitel Enters Partnership
with TCG
Real-time communications pro-
vider Mitel has signed a master agent
partner agreement with TCG, a mas-
ter agent located in Ft. Lauderdale,
Fla., serving more than 1,500 agents.
TCG Partners can now offer Mitel’s
MiCloud business communications
portfolio to its growing base of MSPs,
system integrators, telecom agents
and IT consultants.
“At TCG our aim is to take the com-
plexity out of IT decision making and
solution planning,” said Dan Pirigyi,
managing partner at TCG, “Mitel is a
recognizable brand and is an estab-
lished carrier with millions of users on
their service. We are impressed with Mi-
tel’s channel leadership and look forward
to offering their level of support and ser-
vice to our agents and their customers.”
Convey Tracks Catalog
Views in Telecom,
Cloud Space
Convey Services announced a new
premium program for vendors that
subscribe to the Convey for Channel
platform that automatically adds cata-
log banner advertising to master agent
site home pages and measures viewer
engagement. Convey is a cloud-based
solution that hosts and delivers con-
tent, training, promotions, spiffs and
events to engage the sales partners of
master agents, improve communica-
tion and create calls to action in order
to increase deal flow and sales.
“Convey created an automated
process for catalog owners to select
banners from inside their catalog, des-
ignate master agent home pages for
those banners to appear and schedule
when each banner will be seen,” said
Carolyn Bradfield, CEO of Convey.
“Selected banners now appear on the
master agent site home pages and
are tied to Convey’s analytics engine
so vendors can adjust their strategy,
refine messaging and focus on what’s
needed to drive engagement and im-
prove revenue production.”
With 40 top master agent sites,
10,000 subscribed site members
and an estimated overall audience of
16,000 commissioned agents, Convey
represents a strong promotional oppor-
tunity for suppliers in the telecom and
cloud space, said Bradfield. Individual
catalog views increased this year to
37,000 per month, with more than
500,000 content posts viewed or down-
loaded in the first half of the year.
“The Convey for Channel platform
has changed the way sales agents
engage with their vendor partners,
automating the process and improving
information flow,” said Bradfield.
14
CHANNEL
VISION
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July - August 2016