Author: Nick Farrell

BT announces new partner plus channel programme

Posted on May 4, 2021 by - News

BT has announced its new Partner Plus channel programme for its Wholesale division.

The arrangement is set up using a three-tier system Partner, Premium and Elite to make it easier for partners to collaborate and integrate with BT Wholesale’s suite of experts and services. This includes helping business support, marketing resources, and productivity gains.

Each tier offers a greater range of benefits which will be delivered through BT Wholesale’s new Partner Plus Hub, including commercial support and marketing resources, learning tools built by industry experts, and access to exclusive events.

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Accenture gets Openminded

Posted on May 4, 2021 by - News

Accenture has announced its intent to acquire French cybersecurity services outfit  Openminded.

The move is apparently part of a cunning plan but Accenture to strengthen its security presence in the country and across the EU.

For those not in the know, Openminded specialises in delivering advisory, cloud and infrastructure security, cyber defence, and managed security services and the move will give Accenture more than 100 highly skilled cybersecurity employees to Accenture’s existing workforce of almost 7,000. Founded in 2008, Openminded is powered by a security operations centre and helps clients anticipate and reduce security risks, rapidly detect and respond to cyber incidents, as well as implement best practices in regulatory compliance.

Automotive manufacturers still reliant on outdated spreadsheets

Posted on May 4, 2021 by - News

More than half of manufacturers in the automotive sector are still reliant on manual, outdated processes for critical quality management tasks, according to research by InfinityQS, the global provider of Quality Intelligence software and services.

A poll of 215 tier one and tier two automotive suppliers reveals that 55 per cent are still conducting capability studies in Excel to satisfy the SPC requirements of IATF 16949:2016, a technical specification for automotive sector Quality Management Systems. According to the research, less than a third are using real-time SPC software, with 12 percent running SPC software checks manually, either every week, month or quarter.

InfinityQS  Director of Global Channel Programmes Jason Chester said: “For many years the manufacturing sector has been steadily improving its level of digital maturity by moving away from outdated manual processes and legacy technologies. Covid has significantly accelerated this pace of transformation, with many turning to cloud-based SPC tools as a cost-effective solution for staff to monitor the production line in real-time from the safety of their homes or any location with an internet connection.”

IBM buys Turbonomic

Posted on May 3, 2021 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCBiggish Blue is to acquire software firm Turbonomic for a rumoured $2 billion.

For those not in the know, Turbonomic assists companies with application performance. IBM says the acquisition will “complement the recent acquisition of Instana and launch of IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps”.

Senior vice president, IBM Cloud and Data Platform Rob Thomas said: “The Turbonomic acquisition is another example of our commitment to making the most impactful investments to advance this strategy and ensure customers find the most innovative ways to fuel their digital transformations.”

The deal will ensure companies can “overcome the high costs associated with managing performance and availability for multiple applications sharing an increasingly complex hybrid cloud environment”, IBM claims.

IBM will integrate Turbonomic’s ARM software with Instana’s “APM and real-time observability capabilities” and the “ITOps capabilities of IBM Cloud Pak for Watson AIOps.

Weak US dollar hurting Compucenter

Posted on May 3, 2021 by - News

Hatfield-based reseller Computacenter while it is “extremely pleased” with its profit growth in the first quarter, a weak US dollar will pressure profits this year.

The outfit said there had been a “strong demand across the business” – especially for its professional services business in both the UK and Germany and strong revenue growth for its Technology Sourcing business in the UK.

Computacenter said its US operations and the recently acquired Pivot TS business have performed “ahead of expectations” and remain on track despite being “a lot of work to do”.

Another bugbear was the weakness of the US dollar puts unavoidable pressure on its US business and is expected to impact full year profit “by approximately £4 million” if it stays at its current level.

Amazon doing well out of the cloud

Posted on May 3, 2021 by - News

Amazon’s web revenues jumped by 32 percent in the first quarter, thanks to its cloud operations.

AWS’ total revenue from January to March was $13.5 billion, a significant increase from $10.2 billion in the first quarter of last year and 12 percent of Amazon’s total revenue.

The outfit beat the fourth quarter’s 28 percent growth rate and matched that of the first quarter last year while also contributing $4.1 billion in operating income, up from $3 billion in the first quarter last year.

Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said: “Two of our kids are now 10 and 15 years old – and after years of being nurtured, they’re growing up fast and coming into their own.”

Wipro strengthens Citrix and HPE alliance

Posted on April 30, 2021 by - News

Wipro has strengthened its glorious alliance with Citrix and HPE with the aim of creating a package that accelerates remote working and modernises workspaces.

The big idea is to flog a seamless framework to enable a unified experience for organisations who don’t like seams very much.

This will be delivered through a pay-per-use model that is subscription-based, agile, elastic, and offers a consistent cloud experience. It aims to help clients accelerate their digital transformation efforts and work towards building a resilient enterprise that can operate successfully as a hybrid workplace in the new normal.

Wipro’s part of the pack is its Desktop as a Service platform, virtuadesk and digital workspace solution mixed with Citrix Virtual Apps & Desktop Services with a zero-trust security strategy alongside purpose-built Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) from HPE. The HPE bit will manage workloads and create secure, high-performance virtual compute environments through HPE GreenLake cloud services. The combination of advanced solutions and architecture will fully support the development of modern virtual workspaces with flexible commercial models to ensure business continuity.

TelcoSwitch surpasses 100,000 users

Posted on April 30, 2021 by - News

TelcoSwitch has surpassed 100,000 users for the first time after a year of significant organic growth, supplemented by acquisitions and funding.

All of this has contributed to a doubling of turnover, with TelcoSwitch also listed as the 25th fastest growing UK tech company in the Sunday Times Tech Track 100.

TelcoSwitch has enhanced its product portfolio over the last 12 months, most recently with the launch of CallSwitch for Teams. It has strengthened its relationships with current channel partners while working hard to build links with new ones, which led to a doubling of its partner base in 2020.

Veritas appoints Cashman

Posted on April 30, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Security outfit Veritas has appointed Barry Cashman as its Regional Vice President for the UK and Ireland.

Cashman wants to use Veritas’ heritage in data protection with his expertise in developing and driving high-growth sales teams, to bolster Veritas’ position. He is predicting strategic hiring and training, to drive further innovation and create a more powerful regional team

He joins Veritas from Micro Focus where he spent the last four years as VP and General Manager, UK&I. Prior to that, Barry served two years as Vice President, EMEA at VCE. However, the lion’s share of his career was spent in sales leadership roles at EMC where he was ultimately responsible for EMC’s $2 billion Enterprise business across EMEA.

Cashman said that the unprecedented changes to the economy brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit have given business leaders in the UK and Ireland enough to think about right now – the last thing they want to worry about is costly data breaches or a ransomware attacks.

Check Point improves its partner programme

Posted on April 29, 2021 by - News

Israel Checkpoint

Israeli security outfit Check Point Software Technologies is sprucing up its partner programme to reward those that drive up its sales.

The Check Point Global Partner Growth Programme enhancements come just 15 months after the vendor launched the programme.

Check Point head of worldwide channels  Frank Rauch said that despite the disruption of the past year, the programme delivered on those promises with strong mutual growth and, based on feedback from our partners, we are doubling down on our commitments.

Red Hat wants partners to help with its hybrid world plans

Posted on April 29, 2021 by - News

Red Hat wants its partners to help customers navigate a hybrid cloud world.

Speaking to the virtual gathered throngs at the Red Hat Summit CEO Paul Cormier, said open source underpinned hybrid cloud and that market continued to expand, increasing opportunities for its channel.

“Open source has taken off so quickly over the last number of years and it really is the predominant development technology in the infrastructure and development world today,” he said. “It’s here to stay because it’s really the foundation of delivering on hybrid cloud. It’s too big for any one company to solve – we can’t do this without our partners. Together, we can really deliver industry-relevant solutions to our customers.”

Cormier said the firm wanted better alignment of its partners across geographies because that was the way most of its customers were operating.

Nutanix installed cloud at Coleg Gwent just in time

Posted on April 29, 2021 by - News

Every silver has a cloudy liningCloudy Nutanix has scored a contract with Coleg Gwent, one of Wales’ largest and top-performing colleges and installed its solution just in time to handle the coronavirus crisis.

The outfit is using its enterprise cloud solution in a bid to transition from local to virtual desktops, using Citrix as the preferred vendor for virtual desktop software.

The cunning plan is to move away from the traditional classroom and adopting a more flexible approach to learning delivery.

The college decided on Nutanix enterprise cloud software, hosting Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops. Not only did this combination meet technical requirements but, as an existing customer of both Nutanix and specialist education partner ET Works, the college was confident that it would deliver on the promises made.

Ransomware cost doubles as attacks reduce

Posted on April 28, 2021 by - News

Security outfit Sophos has added up some numbers and worked out that the average total cost of recovery from a ransomware attack has more than doubled in a year.

In its The State of Ransomware 2021 report, Sophos found that the cost increased from $761,106 in 2020 to $1.85 million in 2021.

The average ransom paid is $170,404. The global findings also show that only eight percent of organisations managed to get back all of their data after paying a ransom, with 29 percent getting back no more than half of their data.

Eseye scores big Indian contract

Posted on April 28, 2021 by - News

IoT connectivity outfit Eseye has added India’s national virtual network operator (VNO) Plintron, to its AnyNet Federation.

The move means that IoT devices using Eseye’s AnyNet+ eSIM can connect and localise in India with full compliance. Plintron uses India’s fourth-largest mobile network operator (MNO), the state-owned BSNL network, which has strong network coverage, in particular outside the main urban areas.