Comms Business Magazine (CBM): What attracted you to MyPhones?
Paul Gibbs (PG): MyPhones has a fantastic pedigree, not a new kid on the block start-up, but a channel business with a deep heritage having been on the VoIP scene far longer than nearly all of our competition. This longevity has allowed us to evolve into a hugely stable and successful product, built solely for the channel.
The second driver was the fact that at over 67,000 live seats, I felt that it was a very well-kept secret – in fact too well-kept. The MyPhones team have built an incredibly loyal and active partner base but I felt I could take the product out to the wider channel and attract some key players to onboard with us.
CBM: As a product, why should partners be taking a look?
PG: It is without doubt a very crowded market, so I feel partners are looking for a provider that offers the ability to set themselves apart from the rest by having:
Attractive commercials – We have the ability to mix our user profile, which is quite unusual, in the fact it allows the reseller to build their proposal on what the end user really needs and not come from a fixed price approach.
Handset Agnostic – we interoperate with all leading providers which allows our partners to build customised and differentiated solutions.
Aggregated (Agnostic) SIP – Instead of having it bundled in, we allow the reseller to choose from multiple providers which gives a wider scope for maximising their commercial position without being reliant on their hosted provider to do the billing. We are seeing ratios of 20+ to 1 now, so as a resellers base grows, they don’t need to pay
for unnecessary channels. Having the ability to plug multiple providers into their platform, unusually, allows for bespoke localised break out in up to 32 countries. Resellers that have traditionally said no to multinational businesses can now comfortably bid in the knowledge they aren’t shoehorning in the wrong solution.
Full White Label – We don’t charge a premium for this and we have found that our resellers like the fact they can create their own brand identity to set themselves apart.
Stability – This is front and centre in our market and we are incredibly proud of our uptime. All hosted providers encounter issues at some point, but with three fully resilient always active datacentres we mitigate and minimise this risk, stability is one of our key differentiators.
It’s our own Software – This means we are a true software house, developed and brought to market by our own UK based team! We aren’t tied to paying the likes of Cisco (Broadsoft) or Asterisk based alternatives a license fee so all of our time is spent developing the software with the reseller/ end user in mind, without having any constraints. This also means we can create key features that perhaps our rivals can’t deliver.
CBM: Where are your partners having the most success with the product?
PG: The successful partners have taken the time to understand the product in its fullness and then often utilised its functions to have success in specific verticals. We have partners that major in the financial sector, medical sector and retail. All of these have been achieved by listening to what the end user wanted within said vertical and building these functions within Altos.
CBM: Can you share any of your strategy/ product updates?
PG: I think the Altos product has a certain perception in the channel (wrongly, I may add) and this year is about raising our profile and bringing a new set of disruptive features. So, we will be having our first large partner event where we will be showcasing our new portal, reporting and commercial bundles.
This event format will be an industry first with something for everyone and I am hoping it will attract partners new and old to come along. There it is, that’s what we are working hard on!