Author: Nick Farrell

Tech Data partners with Secureworks

Tech Data today announced an agreement with Secureworks to make the cloud-native Secureworks Taegis portfolio available to Tech Data partners across Europe.

Securework’s Taegis platform unifies detection and response across endpoint, network and cloud environments. The solution leverages advanced analytics and community-applied intelligence – powered by AI-based detection and findings from 1400+ incident response engagements – to detect, investigate and respond to cyberattacks

David Ellis, vice president, cybersecurity and mobility, Europe at Tech Data said: “’Today’s complex environments have increased risks for end-users across the cloud, network and endpoint. In addition, the well-publicised cyber skills shortage makes management of this area difficult for customers. We believe the Taegis XDR platform can help MSPs, MSSPs and resellers manage threats far more effectively for their clients. It also creates a very profitable and differentiated cybersecurity service offering, resulting in very sticky and close customer relationships. We are very excited to work with Secureworks to take these solutions to the European market.”

Infosec partners with Sandler

Infosec has partnered with Sandler Partners to offer its cyber awareness and training platforms to Sandler’s worldwide network of technology sales partners.

Sandler Partners has signed up for cyber education from Infosec IQ and Infosec Skills. Infosec’s SaaS-based cyber education platforms feature training for the enterprise — from the accounting department to the security operations centre (SOC). Both platforms leverage adult learning best practices like microlearning and experiential, hands-on training proven to maximise knowledge retention and deepen engagement.

Infosec CEO and founder Jack Koziol said: “Without also investing in employees’ cybersecurity skills, even the best tech solutions fall short of helping organisations stay ahead of rapidly evolving cyber threats. We’re proud to add Infosec Skills and Infosec IQ to Sandler’s solutions portfolio and equip even more organisations with the knowledge, skills and confidence to outsmart cybercrime.”

Dell expects chip shortage to last years

Michael DellDell Technologies founder and CEO Michael Dell has warned that the chip crisis “will probably continue for a few years”.

Speaking to Handelsblatt, Dell said it would take some time before enough semiconductors were available.

He said that even if chip factories were built all over the world it took time and older chip models were as rare as hen’s teeth.

“We are talking, in particular, about components that are in the one-dollar range and are used practically everywhere. But even newer technologies are not easy to come by”, he said.

Dell’s comments come as Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen confirmed that the country will cooperate with the European Union to ensure a more “resilient supply” of semiconductors.

European Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton previously met with Taiwanese semiconductor giant TSMC to discuss opening a fabrication plant in the region, with France, Germany, or Poland mentioned as potential locations. Breton hopes that a major factory in Europe would help the continent to become less reliant on shipments coming in from Asia, which has proven increasingly difficult due to pandemic travel and transport restrictions.

Redwood scores £270.5 million in investment cash

Cloudy Redwood Software announced that it has scored a £270.5 million strategic investment from growth equity firm Turn/River Capital.

The investment from Turn/River will enable Redwood to accelerate new feature development for its industry-leading IT and business process automation platform, which FeaturedCustomers recently recognised as a rising star in the Spring 2021 RPA Software Customer Success Report.

Statista estimates the global automation industry will generate $214 billion in 2021, with process automation exceeding $83 billion.

Founded in 1993, Netherlands-based Redwood Software serves thousands of global enterprise customers, including Coca-Cola, GM, Halliburton, Grainger, Wells Fargo, UBS, Mercedes-Benz, Airbus, Siemens, and Heineken. Redwood was named the “Best SaaS Workload Automation Solution” in 2019 by EMA.

Databarracks snaps up 4sl

Databarracks has acquired, for an undisclosed sum to create a combined company with 75 staff, including 50 data protection experts.

Databarracks Managing Director Peter Groucutt said: “4sl is a company we have always admired for its expertise and skill in enterprise data protection. It is a globally recognised leader in delivering managed Commvault services, providing a gold standard of support to its customers. Getting to know Barnaby and the team, we have been impressed by how similar the cultures of our businesses are, and how much we have in common.”

Groucutt said that over the last year his outfit had been working on its core services and migrated our customers’ backups and disaster recovery workloads from our data centres into Microsoft Azure, AWS and Google Cloud. 

Peoplesafe teams up with Cat phone licensee Bullit group

Peoplesafe has entered into a strategic partnership with Bullitt , the global licensee for Cat phones, to offer a lone worker service in the UK that better protects workers in harsh and unforgiving environments.

The Peoplesafe app is now available on Cat phones’ full UK range of rugged smartphones via the integrated Toolbox catalogue, which aids customer discovery and easy installation of relevant apps and content.

Peoplesafe offers 24/7 emergency support at the touch of a button. The app also provides enhanced location information to help locate workers in remote locations and includes fall detection capabilities to automatically raise an alarm.

Ingram teams up with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) firm UiPath

Ingram Micro has expanded its relationship with Robotic Process Automation (RPA) outfit UiPath

The move means UiPath’s entire RPA and software portfolio is now available to Ingram Micro’s worldwide channel partners.

For those who came in late, RPA is designed to help organisations increase efficiency, workflow determinism, operation accuracy and regulatory compliance by automating manual tasks. Software-powered robots establish end-to-end automation across the organisation while keeping costs low.

Ingram Micro vice president Sabine Howest said the segment has become one of the organisation’s fastest-growing global practices.

UK plagued by dodgy routers

Millions in the UK could be using insecure routers according to an investigation carried out by Which?

A survey of more than 6,000 adults conducted in December 2020 found that millions of households could be using devices which are more than five years old and are no longer being supported with firmware updates.

Among the security flaws discovered were weak default passwords which are easy to guess by hackers, as well as local network vulnerabilities which would allow hackers to direct users to malicious websites.

Which? claims it sent some of the most used older devices to security specialists Red Maple Technologies, who discovered problems with more than half of them which included ISPs such as Virgin, Sky, TalkTalk, EE and Vodafone.

Cloudy Kerv digests fifth company in a year

Cloudy MSP Kerv has bought another company and snapped up digital transformation outfit cloudThing.

The acquisition of cloudThing is the fifth company that Kerv has swallowed in a year and is the largest.

It means that the combined group is now a £35 million revenue business with more than 330 employees, serving over 800 customers and with offices in London, Birmingham and Bangalore, India.

Kerv executive chairman Alastair Mills said that the acquisition was a significant step for Kerv and a major investment in the “digital transformation” market.

Lamnech retires from Insight

Insight CEO Ken Lamnech has announced his retirement from the company at the year’s end.

Lamneck, 66, who has been with the company since 2010, will continue his roles as president, CEO and as a member of the board until a successor is found before transitioning to an advisory role.

During his 12 year reign, Insight has seen its sales grow from $4.1 billion in 2009 to $8.3 billion in 2020 as the business some of that through acquisitions.

Over that same period, Insight’s share price has increased from $11.42 to more than $100 a share, an 800 percent increase.

Insight’s share price fell by more than eight percent when the news was announced.

Tech Data gets Cisco easylease payment plans

Big distieTech Data has announced that Cisco easylease payment plans can now be provided through its Tech-as-a-Service offering, making it easier for partners to quote end-user customers for a subscription payment option using the online portal.

The cunning plan is to make it simpler and faster for resellers to quote for finance options on smaller orders, giving the customer more choice and helping them to fund new infrastructure purchases.

Any Cisco partner can log-on and explore subscription payments options for their customers on the purchase of Cisco equipment, allowing them to spread the cost over a period of up to three years, instead of funding the full investment in new equipment up-front.

Maintel modernises JD Sports Fashion’s comms

Maintel has just finished work modernising JD Sports Fashion phone network.

JD Sports wanted to maintain connectivity across its European store network and upgrade its Unified Communications infrastructure and incorporate new store premises into its network.

The solution uses JD Sports’ VPN cloud connectivity to enable colleagues to communicate via video, audio, and web conferencing links. By using Maintel’s Unified Communications as a Service solution, ICON Communicate, JD Sports has been able to improve telephony services across its European store estate with a modern cloud-based unified communications infrastructure, Maintel claimed.

Global PC market rose thanks to education boost

The global PC market saw a year on year rise of 53.1 percent with 122.1 million units shipped, according to research from Canalys.

Chromebook sales in the education sector boosted the PC market during the first quarter of 2021 and while the education sector accounted for the majority of shipments, their popularity with consumers and traditional commercial customers reached new heights over the course of the last year.

Tablets closely followed as one of the key growth drivers, logging an increase in sales of 51.8 percent and shipment volumes of 39.7 million units.

Canalys research analyst, Brian Lynch said HP and Lenovo dominate the Chromebook market, but Acer and Samsung carved out substantial shares within the PC market by providing Chromebooks.

Komprise makes two channel-related hires

Data management as a service outfit Komprise has hired two new executives joining the company’s EMEA division based in the UK.

Martin Gibbons joins as Channel Director, EMEA, and is responsible for leading channel strategy across the region. Gibbons has over 25 years of experience working in the channel, recently serving as EMEA Channel Director at Cohesity and, before that, at CommVault.

Ben Conneely joined Komprise in January 2021 as Regional Sales Director for the UK, Ireland and Northern Europe and was promoted to VP of EMEA in April. Conneely brings more than 20 years in senior-level sale roles in the data management industry, including at HPE and EMC.

Komprise wants to grow its EMEA presence. In November 2020, Fortune 500 technology reseller/distributor Tech Data signed on to add Komprise to its solutions for the pan-European market.

Nokia launches Data Marketplace as-a-service

Nokia has launched its Data Marketplace as-a-service to encourage secure sharing of data and AI models, allowing what it describes as digital transformation and data monetisation for enterprises.

The outfit said that as AI and machine learning are increasingly crucial in business decision making. Nokia Data Marketplace is designed to help enterprises and communications service providers (CSPs) use data in strategic decision making, by providing real-time access to massive trusted datasets.

The new service also enables enterprises and CSPs to become data marketplace providers themselves, by monetising data exchanges between customers or business ecosystem participants.

Nokia Data Marketplace ensures trusted data exchange and authorisation mechanisms, it’s claimed. This allows a wide range of vertical use cases, including electric vehicle charging, environmental data monetisation, supply-chain automation and preventative maintenance powering numerous vertical segments, including transportation, ports, energy, smart cities and healthcare.

Friedrich Trawoeger, Vice President, Cloud and Cognitive Services at Nokia, said: “Our customers need secure and trusted access to data for effective business decision making. With Nokia Data Marketplace, enterprises and CSPs can now benefit from richer insights and predictive models to drive digital ways of working and tap into new revenue streams.”