BT pushes up Daisy in £70m cloud communications deal

BT and Daisy Group have agreed a six year £70 million cloud communications deal, 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 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.”

Neil Muller, CEO of Daisy Group, said: “We are committed to supporting our customers and partners as the business digitisation journey continues to unfold.

“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.”

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 says it currently has over 60,000 customers and 1,500 resellers in this business segment.

@AntonySavvas