Author: Nick Farrell

UK spooks look to the cloud to boost AI

The UK’s spooks are working with Amazon to boost the use AI, using cloud analytics and other technologies

GCHQ has signed a deal with AWS that will see the agency’s most classified material stored in a high-security cloud system.

The deal is worth up to £1 billion. It will let GCHQ, MI5, and MI6 – the UK’s three spy agencies – to use AWS’ cloud to boost the use of AI, data analytics, speech recognition and other technologies for espionage.

British agents can share information from overseas more easily and carry out faster searches on each other’s databases.

Softcat sees profits and sales rise

UK reseller giant Softcat saw its sales and profits rise over the past year.

CEO Graeme Watt said revenue for the 12 months ending 31 July 2021 stood at £1.16 billion, an increase of 7.4 percent, while gross invoiced income stood at £1.94 billion which was up 17.7 percent from the prior year.

Gross profit rose 17.2 percent to reach £276 million while operating profit increased by 27.4 percent to £119 million.

Watt identified “strong public sector demand” and “further recovery in the corporate sector” as two factors which were behind the growth of the business over the past year but said the company is in a good position across all sectors.

He thought the figures were related to the fact that companies are returning to some level of normality in terms of the way they trade and the way they behave with parties.

Remote workers are a big security threat – shokka

A recent survey of UK cyber security, IT and business professionals commissioned by WatchGuard Technologies has come up with the surprising statistic that 75 percent of respondents believe that remote workers pose a greater IT security risk to their business than office workers.

We say surprising, in that while 75 percent is a big figure, it is what has been said for ages. What is more surprising is that 25 percent don’t see it as a threat even though it has been said for ages.

The report said that 83 percent of respondents feel that cyber-attacks on their business will increase over the next 12 months.

When it comes to identifying specific threats, phishing attacks are still at the top of the list, followed closely by ransomware. Over half of the organisations polled said that they had experienced an end-point attack targeted at end-user computers and mobile devices over the last 12 months.

Irish Xperience bags a green duck

Northern Irish MSP Xperience has acquired East of England based Green Duck, an MSP which offers cloud, cybersecurity and other managed IT services.

Xperience’s MD Iain O’Kane said the outfit wanted to make at least three acquisitions as part of a plan to expand in the UK and double its revenues over the next three years.

The Green Duck acquisition will “combine two businesses with a common focus on delivering the best digital transformation solutions for companies across the UK” along with synergies such as hoisin sauce and pancakes (we made the last two up).

O’Kane said: “Growth across the UK is a strategic priority and Green Duck was a natural fit for our business with a similar culture and values.

Black Box and Avaya expand European partnership

Black Box and Avaya have expanded their partnership to Europe to offer Black Box client’s enterprise-wide unified communications and cloud-based collaboration solutions built on Avaya Cloud Office by RingCentral.

This makes Black Box an Avaya Cloud Office-certified partner in Europe and a strategic partner for Avaya OneCloud UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) and OneCloud CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) solutions around the world.

Avaya UK&I senior channel director Ali Hastings said that it was thrilling to have Black Box as an agent for Avaya Cloud Office and as an Avaya partner in the UK and Europe.

“The extensive customer base that Black Box has across the market will help us accelerate the adoption of Avaya Cloud Office across Europe at a time when unified communications are becoming more important by the day.”

Private cloud rules UK with hybrid up and coming

Private cloud remains a significant part of the hybrid cloud strategies which dominate the market, according to a report from Ensono.

Ensono’s “A Snapshot of the Cloud in 2021” report, which surveyed 500 cloud decision-makers across a range of firms in the US and UK, found 78 percent of respondents currently use the private cloud in their cloud strategy – compared to 51 percent running one public cloud and 45 percent on two or more public clouds.

This means that the hybrid cloud market should see significant growth in the years ahead.

The report said that businesses who choose hybrid cloud strategies see a range of benefits. 

Birch is Ensono’s new Euro MD

Hannah Birch has been appointed SVP and Managing Director (MD), Ensono Europe.

The appointment follows Ensono’s acquisition of cloud consultancy Amido, enabling Ensono to help more clients with their transformation challenges and co-creating new digital models. Birch takes over the role of MD of Europe from Barney Taylor.

Birch joined Ensono in June with a remit to transition into the managing director role. She spent over a decade at Accenture as Managing Director in Technology. Her work at Accenture included responsibilities heading up its Insurance Practice for Technology and on the Technology Leadership Team for UK & Ireland.

Birch brings over 20 years of experience in the IT industry to her role at Ensono. She has worked with many multinationals both across the Insurance and Energy sector, as well as data centre and service management transformation engagements. Before her roles at Accenture, Birch held “Leadership” positions at both Computacenter and Fujitsu Services UK.

Telefónica Tech wants to be a UK cloud leader

Telefónica Tech UK&I has its sights set on being the “leader in cloud and cyber in the UK and Ireland”.

Having acquired Cancom’s UK & Ireland business for €398 million in July, Spanish carrier Telefónica has renamed the business as Telefónica Tech UK&I.

Hess said he expected the 600-strong UK business to receive an influx of investment under its new owner.

“The big difference between Telefónica Tech and Cancom is the level of investment they will make to help us grow in the UK and Ireland”, Hess said.

“The ambition is to be the leader in cloud and cyber in the UK and Ireland, and I think they have the wherewithal to help us get there.”

FACT-Finder acquires Loop54

FACT-Finder is acquiring Loop54, making it one of the first major consolidations of leading e-commerce SaaS solutions in search personalisation.
Yes, it’s M&A time again.

The merging of the two company’s proprietary algorithms lets FACT-Finder customers provide digital experiences and expand FACT-Finder’s international presence.

The company reckons the takeover will accelerate new stiff in e-commerce solutions for FACT-Finder customers and partners, giving them access to the latest developments in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.

Mpro5 launches channel drive targeting healthcare sector

Digital transformation solution outfit Mpro5 is actively recruiting channel partners in the UK as it steps up its expansion plans.

The company’s digital transformation solution has been developed to improve operational effectiveness, process compliance, productivity, and drive cost savings for businesses. It is now actively looking for specialists in healthcare and in particular channel partners and systems integrators looking for a solution to address new National Standards of Healthcare Cleanliness.

Mpro5 Sector Director Dan Teare said trusts must now undertake a Technical Audit that includes a “50-point check”. This covers elements present in most healthcare environments, from bedpans to medical equipment, that requires regular, thorough cleaning.

Quantiq snapped up by Avanade

Woodridge, IL, USA — Great White Shark Opening Mouth — Image by © Denis Scott/Corbis

The M&A tsunami hasn’t stopped. Microsoft Dynamics specialist Quantiq has been acquired by global giant Avanade.

CEO and founder Stuart Fenton will exit the London-based firm in mid-November, adding that the decision to sell up to Avanade would allow the company to more quickly realise its “ambitious” goals. Fenton has been behind the desk for more than eight years.

Avanade said combining Quantiq ERP customer experience with its expertise across the Microsoft platform would allow clients to benefit from solutions that will help accelerate digital transformation across all industry sectors, globally.

“This is an enormous market growing at a terrific rate. We had some big ambitions, and it was going to take some years to reach them, so it made enormous sense to join Avanade and instantly get the benefit of their depth of resources, financial strength, and geographic coverage”, Fenton said.

Claranet celebrates 25 years with charity drive

Global technology services provider Claranet has completed the first leg of its Leeds 2 Sao Paulo Challenge and has raised £8,239 for charity by travelling a total of 8,611 miles.

To celebrate Claranet’s 25th anniversary, the first part of the challenge saw participants set out on a 5-day cycle from Leeds to London. Additionally, up until the 5 November, Claranet employees participating in the challenge can walk, run cycle, swim, skate, skip, hop or samba to help reach the goal of 12,000 miles – the equivalent to the distance from their Leeds office to the Sao Paulo office in Brazil. The challenge has even seen 25 French participants taking part in the Paris marathon to boost the total miles travelled.

The total fund raised will be donated to charities local to Claranet UK offices; Simon on the Streets, Warrington Wolves Foundation, Hollie Gazzard Trust, Holborn Community Association, and the Fredricks Foundation.

ISG sees application development and maintenance providers making a killing

UK enterprises are turning to application development and maintenance providers to help them meet the twin challenges of COVID-19 and Brexit and expand their digital business capabilities, according to a new report published today by Information Services Group (ISG)

In its 2021 ISG Provider Lens Next-Generation Application Development and Maintenance Services Report for the UK finds the application development and maintenance (ADM) market is proliferating in the UK with the increase in digital business demands.

ISG Digital Strategy and Solutions partner Ola Chowning said that the ongoing pandemic and Brexit had increased the need for UK enterprises to optimise IT costs and harness new technologies to gain a competitive advantage in an ever-changing market environment.

Insight hires Joyce Mullen

Insight Enterprises has named Joyce Mullen as its new president and CEO.

Mullen will succeed Ken Lamneck, who has led the reseller since 2010 and remains with the company to “assist Mullen as she transitions to her new role”.

Mullen has been Insight’s North America president for the past year. Before that, she spent 21 years at Dell Technologies, and worked in various sales, service delivery and IT solutions roles, including as president for the global channel, embedded and edge solutions.

“We are proud to announce this exceptional leader as our new CEO. Mullen is the perfect candidate to lead our business into the future,” Lamneck said.

Cohesity offers disaster recovery as a service

Proof that you can get everything “as a service” these days, Cohesity announced the general availability of disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS).

Cohesity sees gold in “as service” stuff. Last month it was offering a backup as a service (BaaS), and next month, it is planning to release a Data Management as a Service (DMaaS) portfolio.

The new offering extends the exceptional disaster recovery (DR) capabilities provided by Cohesity SiteContinuity. It adds the ability to use Amazon Web Services (AWS) as a recovery location for failover and failback in a Software as a Service (SaaS) model.
The big idea is that it will minimise downtime and data loss, meet service level agreements (SLAs) and generally simplify operations.