Author: Nick Farrell

Workers can’t get enough of collaboration tools, shock

Posted on August 27, 2021 by - News

The number of workers using collaboration tools has risen by 44 percent since 2019, according to new stats from Gartner.

The number-crunching outfit’s Digital Worker Experience Survey questioned 10,080 employees at organisations with 100+ employees in the US, Europe and Asia-Pacific and found 80 percent of workers are now using collaboration tools.

Big G principal research analyst Christopher Trueman said that collaboration tools found renewed importance during COVID-19 for their role in ensuring the productivity of suddenly remote teams.

People stop taking their tablets

Posted on August 27, 2021 by - News, Products

Beancounters at IDC have noted that tablet market shipments in EMEA have declined year-on-year for the first time since the start of the pandemic.

Shipments reached 11.8 million units in EMEA during the second quarter of 2021, representing a 1.7 percent year-on-year decline which the IDC puts down to “a slowdown in consumer demand”.

But volumes still remain significantly above the pre-pandemic period, up 22.4 percent compared with 2019, which the IDC claims indicate an increase in the total addressable market

IDC Associate research director, Nikolina Jurisic said that market performance was affected by the unfavourable YoY comparison, as 2Q20 witnessed an avalanche of shipments to address home learning and entertainment.

“Slate tablets lost popularity as social restrictions eased, whereas detachable tablets continued on a strong positive trajectory, gaining from the notebook-like experience, new product launches, and versatility that supports hybrid working and learning.”

Harrington shifts to Aryaka

Posted on August 26, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Aryaka has appointed industry veteran, Steve Harrington, formerly of Talk Talk Business, as its managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

Taking the reins from Ian McEwan, recently promoted to global Chief Revenue Officer, the company said that Harrington’s remit was to offer a viable and alternative to slow-moving traditional telcos and PTT. His priorities include reviewing go-to-market models, strategic hiring and supporting the growing number of EMEA clients for Aryaka’s SaaS model including WD-40, Coats and SAP.

The enterprise sales team Harrington is building has already seen success with Aryaka Proof of Concepts (POCs) which demonstrate to customers just how powerful improved digital experiences can be as a business driver, it’s claimed. This is especially true of transnationals who need access to large markets like China and those working with Aryaka partners such as Deutsche Telekom, Swisscom and Computacenter.

Sophos shacks up with Amazon

Posted on August 26, 2021 by - News

Former British security outfit Sophos has achieved Amazon Web Services (AWS) Level 1 Managed Security Service Provider (MSSP) Competency status and is apparently the first to be named a Level 1 MSSP Competency programme partner. Parse that, if you can.

Scott Barlow, Sophos vice president of global MSP and cloud alliances said that it has never been more critical for organisations adopting cloud services to optimise their security “posture”, block advanced threats, and have expert resources available to monitor environments all the time,  to stay secure.

Babble announces three year deal with Threshold Sports

Posted on August 25, 2021 by - News

Cloudy unified comms, contact centre and cyber solutions provider, Babble has announced a  three-year deal with Threshold Sports to be the official cloud partner of the iconic Ride Across Britain (RAB).

Babble said it will use the partnership to drive tangible positive social impact, as the leading cloud technology company seeks to support young people. Over the course of the three-year deal, Babble has committed to raising in excess of £500,000 for The Prince’s Trust and The Buffalo Foundation.

The cycling challenge takes 1,000 cyclists 980-miles from Land’s End to John O’Groats, showcasing Britain’s most breath-taking scenery over nine days. A quarter of FTSE100 companies have been represented in the last three event years, with over 600 companies taking part.

PC industry grew by three percent in Western Europe

Posted on August 25, 2021 by - News

The PC industry has still managed to grow across Western Europe by three per cent according to numbers crunched by Canalys.

A market analysis from Canalys has found that 15 million units, desktops, notebooks and workstations were shifted across Western Europe in the second quarter. Things would have been even better without the component shortages that have been plaguing the industry throughout the past year.

Canalys research analyst Trang Pham said that demand was still strong.

“Western Europe has emerged into a post-Covid ‘new normal’, a rapidly digitising world, as shown by the robust shipment numbers. Had supply issues been resolved, we could have seen even higher growth in the PC market.”

The top three in the market – Lenovo, HP and Dell – have managed to keep sales moving and the battle for market share has involved making sure there are enough units to meet customer orders.

Arcserve offers new MSP product

Posted on August 25, 2021 by - News, Products

Channel-based data security outfit Arcserve has improved its StorageCraft Cloud Services Basic so that MSPs can offer best-in-class cloud backup and disaster recovery services to a broader range of customers with unprecedented ROI and profit potential.

StorageCraft Cloud Services Basic now comprises 500GB backup per machine, annual retention points, and cloud portal management at a GBP18 per machine price point which also includes an on-premises data protection licence for either ShadowXafe or ShadowProtect.

The company tells us that the product means  MSPs can service a wider range of customer use cases, including small businesses and data protection for small physical and virtual workstations. Thanks to StorageCraft Cloud Services Basic, these use cases are now economically viable.

Irish DCC Technology opens new unit over the pond

Posted on August 24, 2021 by - News

Irish DCC Technology is creating a new business unit in North America which will look after its recent Jam Industries and Stampede purchases.

Exertis North America will be headed up by Jam Industries president and CEO, Marty Szpiro. Stampede, which rebranded to Exertis in 2020, will operate under the Exertis Pro AV banner led by John Dunne, its president and managing director.  Meanwhile, Stuart Frenkel, Jam Industries’ current CFO, will become the new president of the renamed Exertis/Jam.

DCC Technology MD, Tim Griffin said that the rebranding of Jam Industries to Exertis/Jam was a natural next step.

SMEs a bit worried about a return to work

Posted on August 24, 2021 by - News

SMEs are worried about the return to work according to numbers crunched by JumpCloud.

The 2021 impact of Covid-19 on SMEs survey revealed that there were different attitudes from firms in Greater London, with 72.8 percent taking steps to mandate vaccinations, compared to just 44.9 percent in the rest of the country. That also correlated with areas outside of London being less likely to drive vaccinations.

The Delta Variant seems to be causing some delays and caution among SMEs that are pushing back-office reopening until the back end of the fourth quarter, or into next year. The JumpCloud survey found that 53.2 percent of respondents are currently rethinking the plan to return to the office and 14.8 percent have already delayed getting staff back in the office.

Hybrid working is an option for an increasing number, with 70 percent of SMEs on both sides of the pond offering the option to work remotely as a permanent option.

Channel is cautiously optimistic

Posted on August 24, 2021 by - News

IT channel businesses are “cautiously optimistic” according to the latest research from CompTIA.

In the outfit’s ‘International State of the Channel 2021′ report, CompTIA surveyed 880 global IT channel professionals during the second quarter.

It found that 90 percent of executives believed the channel was relevant in the IT industry – but they were split when asked about how it’s doing. According to the report, 46 percent said it’s holding steady, while 44 percent said it is rapidly changing.

Microsoft about to jack up the price of Office 365

Posted on August 23, 2021 by - News

Software King of the World Microsoft has decided that thanks to the pandemic enough people are hooked on its Office 365 product so it is time to hack the price up.

Like any good pusher, Vole had released Office 365 free access to software for certain periods and a chance to delay payments and then had a record number of sign-ups due to Covid.

Microsoft has given its channel and customers plenty of notice of price changes, with increases coming into effect from 1 March 2022.

In a blog post, Jared Spataro, corporate vice-president for Microsoft 365, explained the rationale for the increases and pointed out that the vendor had resisted making a move for quite a while.

Westcon-Comstor takes on Sandvine distribution

Posted on August 23, 2021 by - News

Distributor Westcon-Comstor has expanded its agreement with Cloudy Sandvine which will see it become a strategic global distributor for Sandvine’s efforts.

Sandvine provides real-time data, analytics, and inline actions such as congestion, cyber security, and video game streaming.

These capabilities allow service providers and enterprises to optimise network resources and grow revenues by providing better customer experiences, the firm added.

Ensono signs up for Google’s cloud partner programme

Posted on August 23, 2021 by - News

Cloudy Ensono has joined Google Cloud’s partner programme in a bid to improve its multi-cloud products.

Cloud MSP Ensono says joining Google’s Partner Advantage Programme will enable it to offer new cloud capabilities to its clients and access technologies such as BigQuery and Anthos.

The move seems linked to Ensono’s buying of UK cloud consultants Amido in April.  Amido was part of Google Cloud’s Partner Advantage programme prior to its acquisition by Ensono.

Ensono now provides cloud services across Google Cloud, AWS and Microsoft Azure, it claims.

The US-based firm has been transforming itself from a mainframe services company to a fully-fledged hybrid IT provider over recent years.

Ensono CTO Gordon McKenna said that being able to provide multicloud solutions across platforms is a key strategy that our clients are looking for.

“Our mission is to provide organisations with the best management of hybrid environments while migrating applications to the cloud. By working with Google Cloud, Ensono has the expertise to aid clients in achieving their multi-cloud goals by adopting Google Cloud applications within their existing infrastructure.”

Cisco sees its highest product order growth rates

Posted on August 20, 2021 by - News

Cisco has ended its fiscal 2021 with its highest product order growth rates in more than a decade, after having a really mixed year.

Revenues for the three months ending 31 July reached 13.1 billion, an increase of eight per ent year on year. GAAP operating income meanwhile swelled by 10 percent to $3.6 billion. Cisco’s sales for its full fiscal 2021 increased by one percent to $49.8 billion.

Cisco’s EMEA business grew revenues by six percent to $3.3 billion for the quarter. Sales in the Land of the Fee grew by eight percent to $7.73 billion

Product revenues grew by 10 percent in Fourth Quater to $9.71 billion, while services enjoyed 2.6 percent growth to $3.4 billion.

Rubrik takes Volish shilling

Posted on August 20, 2021 by - News

Microsoft has made an equity investment in the Zero Trust data management company Rubrik as part of a push towards ransomware protection.

The deal aims to better tackle the increasing ransomware threat and deliver enhanced data protection, as well as develop co-engineering projects to deliver Zero Trust data protection solutions built on Microsoft Azure.

That means customers and partners gain additional data protection, Rubrik says, so that critical Microsoft 365 data is secure and accessible in the event of a cyber attack.