BT and Daisy join forces to develop the cloud communications market

Jul 07, 2016 09:06 BST

BT and Daisy Group today agreed a new six year, £70 million cloud communications partnership, giving Daisy and its customers’ access to BT’s Wholesale Hosted Centrex (WHC) platform.

The WHC platform provides customers with unified communications services, which are hosted in the cloud rather than over the traditional private branch exchange (PBX) service. It has many features including cloud call recording, HD voice services, call analytics and web collaboration. The platform also uses, the Broadsoft plug-in, which supports applications from the Microsoft 365 suite such as Skype for Business.

As part of the deal, Daisy’s services will be migrated to BT Wholesale’s cloud platform over the next 18 months.

Gerry McQuade, CEO of BT Wholesale and Ventures, said:

“Many businesses are now hosting their communication services using cloud technology to make them accessible to all, using any fixed or mobile device, at any time, wherever they might be.

“BT and Daisy Group have been pioneers of that trend, so I’m delighted that we’re coming together to bring customers a powerful combination of experience, scale and expertise.

“We believe the rapid pace of change will continue over the coming years, and we’re looking forward to helping both Daisy and BT customers reap the benefits that change will bring.”

Neil Muller, CEO of Daisy Group said:

“We are committed to supporting our customers and partners as the business digitisation journey continues to unfold.

“Daisy provides its customers with end to end IT infrastructure and telecommunications services along with the expertise to maximise the latest technological developments.

“This collaboration with BT ensures that we are at the forefront of providing the latest in cloud solutions, increasing customers’ levels of capability and confidence as they continue to manage the relentlessness of technological change.

“I am hugely proud of Daisy’s relationship with BT and this is a perfect opportunity to further enhance our capability and provide our customers and partners with an industry leading cloud solution.”

The deal will also allow Daisy Group to re-sell BT’s platform services to Daisy Wholesale partners and through Daisy Retail direct. Daisy Group currently has over 60,000 customers and 1,500 resellers in this segment.