Comms Business Magazine (CBM): What is Microsoft like to partner with? What is your advice for channel companies?
Lee Crowe (LC): “Microsoft as a business is a lot easier to deal with once you get your head around quite complex licencing models. In addition, Office 365 and Azure have intuitive portals.
“To help Microsoft partners to both create additional margin streams and to reduce complexity, AVC One has bought to market Call4Teams, which is simple to deploy and integrates directly into our voice platform allows Teams Application to make calls over the public telephone network.
“As one of our Partners AVC One will help you migrate towards the cloud and bring you additional margin.”
CBM: What does the increased usage of Microsoft Teams mean for the channel?
LC: “2020 was more a year for remote working due to the pandemic. It was a successful year for Teams, but it was also the year for Zoom and we believe Cisco Webex and these solutions have stolen the march over other competitive stand-alone products.
“This means that the Channel now has a ready-made market for upselling and cross selling additional telephony services into the market at competitive rates. Our fixed charge solution allowing partners to increase margin by 25 to 45 per cent against standard phone tariffs. This is combined with a proven voice solution that can include voice recording, mobile network integration, regulatory compliance and 24:7 support and monitoring.”
CBM: What recent Microsoft propositions or innovations have you been keeping an eye on?
LC: “The recent innovations from Microsoft around Teams, dial pad and calling plan. AVC One operates our own open-source voice and video platforms, so the Microsoft announcement towards open RAN unlocks a world of opportunities.
“We are also interested in the development of and solutions around virtual video experiences. Holography lends itself well to our development roadmap.”