Author: Nick Farrell

Proact only sees growth in UK

Posted on July 15, 2021 by - News

European storage VAR Proact saw revenues and profits fall across all regions except the UK in H1 results

The VAR blames declining revenues and profits on longer sales cycles and ongoing chip shortages.

Proact is a Stockholm-based Dell, NetApp and Pure Storage partner and it says it suffered a three percent drop in group revenues for its six months ending 30 June to £147.97 million, while EBITA fell by 11 percent.

UK revenues bucked the trend and grew by 34 percent during the first six months of the year, while profits grew by 24 percent.

Arkphire makes Shawn Deegan head of cloud

Posted on July 15, 2021 by - Moving People, News

MSP Arkphire has announced the appointment of Shawn Deegan to the role of head of cloud solutions.

For those who came in late, Arkphire was bought by US IT solutions provider Presidio and this appointment means Deegan will lead the firm’s EMEA cloud solutions business.

CEO Paschal Naylor said that the company was delighted to have Deegan leading its EMEA cloud solutions business.

“He is a great example of the enhanced capabilities brought to Arkphire’s offering since being acquired by Presidio and his wealth of experience will no doubt prove to be a highly valued addition by both the Arkphire team and our clients”, Naylor said.

Phoenix named Microsoft’s UK partner of the year

Posted on July 14, 2021 by - News

Phoenix Software is Microsoft’s UK partner of the year for 2021.

The company, which was founded more than 30 years ago, saw cloud consumption rise sharply over the past year as it supported critical, public-facing organisations through the COVID-19 pandemic.

Phoenix pushed hybrid working models during the lockdown, letting them deliver valuable services to their own customers. It also ran pandemic response focused webinars that helped customers with Azure Virtual Desktop, Microsoft Teams and security, as well as delivering numerous free Azure Managed Services to the not-for-profit sector. The company also sought to boost digital skills throughout its customer base.

Gamma appoints Smethurst as new Channel Sales director

Posted on July 14, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Comms outfit Gamma Communications has appointed Andy Smethurst as its Channel Sales Director.

Smethurst joined Gamma in 2004 and progressed through his career in Business Development. Prior to his promotion to Channel Sales Director, Andy was responsible for the growth of several of Gamma’s geographic sales teams. This followed a period of being responsible for the growth of some of Gamma’s largest channel partner relationships in his position as Account Director.

Smethurst’s new role involves leading the Gamma sales team to bring new products to market for the channel, and to continue to assist in building on the mutual successes already enjoyed between Gamma and its multiple channel partners.

Government names suppliers for Technology Services 3

Posted on July 14, 2021 by - News

The list of awarded suppliers for the £2 billion public sector framework Technology Services 3 has been published

For those who came in late Technology Services 3, allows public sector bodies to “procure information and communication technology services.”  The framework is divided into eight different lots including technology strategy and service design, transition and transformation, a range of operational services lots and service integration and management.

The biggest winners were the suppliers to have been named to all eight lots which were Accenture, Cancom, Capgemini, Deloitte, Insight, KPMG and Telent.

PC sales still growing despite chip shortage

Posted on July 13, 2021 by - News

Predictions that the PC sales surge will run out of steam due to the chip shortage and the winding down of lockdowns seem to be about as accurate as a UK government assessment of the impact of Brexit.

Figures in from IDC found that the global PC market continued to gain momentum in the second quarter, despite ongoing component shortages and logistics issues.

Figures from IDC found that global shipments grew 13.2 percent in the second quarter of 2020, reaching 83.6 million units.

NTT DATA UK partners with route2work

Posted on July 13, 2021 by - News

NTT DATA UK has announced a new partnership with route2work as part of its ongoing Diversity & Inclusion work to improve the number of women working in technology roles.

Route2work is a social impact business focused on getting undiscovered talent into work, or accelerating the careers of those already in employment, by offering world-class digitised educational content and career-based outcomes.

The partnership will see NTT DATA UK fund a scholarship programme for 30 female candidates, enabling them to enrol onto one of four digital skills academies focused on in-demand Microsoft skills. The opportunity is subject to passing the relevant skills assessment and meeting enrolment criteria but does not demand the traditional CVs and cover letters usually required by the industry.

Women are still notably under-represented in the tech industry compared to men. In the UK alone, the national tech workforce shows that women make up a just 19 percent – this figure drops to three percent for black women and and five percent for Asian women.

Half of IT service providers see revenue decline

Posted on July 13, 2021 by - News

Beancounters at GlobalData have added up some numbers and reached the conclusion that half of the top 20 IT service providers saw a year-on-year revenue decline in 2020, while nine saw a drop in net earnings.

The firms recorded a 14.6 percent year-on-year decline in cumulative net earnings, the analyst says, with 40 percent of the companies reporting a double-digit decline in net earnings.

GlobalData blames the pandemic, causing “cost optimisation” measures to be implemented, with customers pushing back previously planned projects.

Ingram Micro deal closed

Posted on July 12, 2021 by - News

Platinum Equity has completed its $7.2 billion acquisition of distie Ingram Micro from HNA Group.

The deal was first announced in December last year following HNA’s decision to reduce some of its debts.

Ingram Micro turned over $49 billion in revenue in 2020, making it the world’s largest technology distributor, though the merger between Tech Data and Synnex is set to see it overtake its rival.

Versa Networks wants to quadruple global partner network

Posted on July 12, 2021 by - News

Secure access service edge (SASE) provider Versa Networks has scored  $84 million Series D funding which is apparently going to be spent quadrupling the outfit’s channel.

Versa’s SASE platforms serve over 5,000 customers globally and it currently has  2,000 partners.

The company has just finished a  round of funding and the company has stated that it wants further growth through the channel.

The company said that it was investigating to make sure that it had the right type of partners with networking and security expertise.

Engineers burning out in pandemic

Posted on July 12, 2021 by - News

Software engineers are burning out according to a new study.

A Haystack Analytics study found that 83 percent of software developers suffer from workplace burnout. The top reasons cited for burnout included high workload (47 percent), inefficient process (31 percent) alongside unclear goals and targets (29 percent).

Acumatica hires new UK country manager

Posted on July 9, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Cloudy ERP outfit Acumatica has opened a new London office and hired Del Singh (pictured) as country manager for the United Kingdom.

In this role, Singh will lead partner and customer-facing operations in the U.K. and Ireland with the current in-country Acumatica workforce and new hires. Singh will define and execute the overall country strategy as it relates to growth, partner recruitment, customer acquisition, and customer support.

Acumatica CEO Jon Roskill said that the UK was a dynamic and important region, with many high-growth businesses in real need of Acumatica’s adaptable Cloud ERP solution,

Singh joins Acumatica most recently from NetSuite where he was responsible for creating and delivering sales enablement programmes across EMEA. Previously, Singh held various sales leadership positions with vendors and reseller partners working with ERP systems from Oracle, SAP, Microsoft, Infor, and Sage.

Nutanix and ET Works brings the cloud to the Royal Opera House

Posted on July 9, 2021 by - News

Nutanix has installed its cloud software into the  Royal Opera House (ROH) in London. Go compare.

Following a £50 million makeover and building upgrade at its headquarters in London’s Covent Garden, the ROH wanted to modernise its IT infrastructure. Whilst its relatively modern systems were functional, the lack of flexibility in the stack meant that it was ‘ticking over’, rather than delivering added value to the business.

With a large number of performances and plans to expand its digital streaming offering – the fastest-growing part of the business – it evaluated all available options, the ROH chose the Nutanix Prism Pro multi-cloud management console and Nutanix Calm, along with Rubrik backup and recovery-as-a-Service.

Cloud outfit Pax 8 snaps up Resello

Posted on July 9, 2021 by - News

Cloudy Pax8 has acquired Resello — a cloud services distributor specialising in, it claims, making as-a-service easy to understand, sell, and manage.

The acquisition lets Pax8 expand to more than 40 countries across Europe and jazzes up its its partner base to accelerate digital transformation worldwide.

Pax8 CEO John Street said that the acquisition enables it to continue to expand its presence into international markets, add localised support, and accelerate and scale cloud adoption worldwide.

Sharp UK gets Intuitive tie in

Posted on July 8, 2021 by - News

Sharp UK today announces that it has partnered with data visualisation tools provider, Intuitive, to resell the Intuitive for PaperCut MF Dashboards.

The pre-integrated BI solution enables users of print management platforms to gain insights into their device usage, cost reduction policies and environmental impact.

The option of a cloud-based print management platform has become attractive to many businesses as they adapt to a hybrid working style and look to support a workforce spread across multiple locations.

The partnership with Intuitive will enable Sharp to support its print management customers by offering access to its data visualisation dashboards.