Author: Nick Farrell

Rubrik extends NetApp partnership

Posted on April 26, 2021 by - News

Rubrik, a cloud data management ompany, is extending its partnership with the cloudy NetApp software company, to offer closer product integration for their customers and partners.

With this spruced up collaboration and Rubrik’s leading Cloud Data Management Platform to be available on NetApp’s Global Price List (GPL), the two market-leading companies claim it can simplify customers’ transition to the cloud and provide modern data protection, security, compliance, and governance alongside high-density and cost-efficient object storage. 

Tech Data signs deal with Vivo

Posted on April 23, 2021 by - News

Tech Data has added to its growing portfolio of retail and consumer products by signing a distribution partnership with Vivo, one of the fastest-growing manufacturers of smartphones. The agreement allows retailers and website customers to take full advantage of Tech Data’s unrivalled services and support in taking the Vivo range of Android devices to market.

Vivo’s 6.51-inch Y20 Android smartphone was one of the best-selling devices of last year and is one of three Vivo devices available from Tech Data immediately – the others are the higher-specification Y70 and the X51 5G device.

Infinidat releases new channel accreditation programme

Posted on April 23, 2021 by - News

Storage outfit Infinidat started its new channel accreditation programme which it claims will “equip and advance” its global channel partners.

The new programme will offer multiple education tracks for its accreditation process, while the company’s online training options have been revamped and extended to cover a broad range of content.

Infinidat said this accreditation will help improve the ability of partners to address the evolving and complex needs of enterprise customers that use its storage solutions.

Infinidat   channel sales director Hanan Altif, said: “Channel partners are highly important to Infinidat, and we continue to invest in their success. Our new accreditation program is designed to help partners with new deals and drive business growth.”

Through the Infinidat Accreditation Program, partners now have the opportunity to demonstrate to end-user enterprise customers that they have been fully trained, tested and accredited to sell Infinidat’s storage offerings.

Tanium gets University of Salford contract

Posted on April 23, 2021 by - News

Tanium has scored a contract with the University of Salford has used the Tanium Platform to strengthen its defence against a surge of cyberattacks targeting the education sector.

Tanium worked with the university to help it overcome several challenges that have emerged over the last year. It faced a rise in the number of cybercrime threats, such as ransomware as well as nation-state attacks launched in an attempt to steal COVID-19 research data.

Avast couples with Recorded Future

Posted on April 22, 2021 by - News

Security outfit Avast has partnered with Recorded Future delivering intelligence on common vulnerabilities and exploit prevalence (CVE) while Recorded Future contributes to its real-time intelligence reports.

The Recorded Future Intelligence Platform, it’s claimed,  gives global organisations the ability to accelerate detection, decision making, and response times by putting real-time intelligence at the centre of security workflows and sending daily threat intelligence reports to its customers.

The insights from reports allow enterprises to prioritise alerts, calculate risk scores for patching, and make better decisions on how to handle a threat or cybersecurity incident –  through a single, source of security intelligence.

Digital customer interaction might need a longer term solution [Eh? Ed.]

Posted on April 22, 2021 by - Fun Stuff, News

While more than 64 percent of UK enterprises invested in improving digital customer interaction during the pandemic, over half believe their short-term fixes won’t be fit for the long term.

A survey of 100 enterprise IT leaders, commissioned by Macro 4, suggests the pandemic accelerated many organisations’ plans to improve their customer communications technology. But IT chiefs recognise that more work is needed.

Almost all of the sample believed that their organisation needs to improve how it communicates with customers. And 91 percent saw technology as the instrument.

Underlying the main findings, 81 percent of IT leaders agree that the need to react quickly to the pandemic has forced organisations to fast-track technology changes – but 72 percent feel that over the next year they will have to invest in upgrading or replacing some of that technology.

Performanta buys Identity Experts

Posted on April 22, 2021 by - News

Performanta has snapped up Microsoft Gold Security Partner and Identity & Access Management (IAM) specialist Identity Experts as part of its cunning plan to extend security capabilities across its Microsoft portfolio.

The takeover will allow the Maidenhead-based MSSP to extend and improve security capabilities further across the Microsoft portfolio, including products such as Azure AD, Sentinel, ATP, O365 and IAM.

Performanta CEO and co-founder Guy Golan said that with Identity Experts, his outfit could  address the mounting security challenges and plug a critical gap in the market, especially amongst clients with a Microsoft-focused security roadmap.

Lenovo and Nutanix roll out desktop as a service

Posted on April 21, 2021 by - News

Lenovo and Nutanix are rolling out desktop as a service (DaaS) as punters demand changes in the way that workplace tools are delivered after the coronavirus.

TruScale is Lenovo’s first offering for hosted desktops with Nutanix. Customers choose a range of devices, ranging from thin clients desktop PCs to virtual desktops that will come with a choice of Citrix or other virtual desktop environments, plus ThinkAgile HX Series from Nutanix. Partners can then offer it as a managed service, with users getting a monthly price.

Maintel expands RingCentral partnership

Posted on April 21, 2021 by - News

Maintel has expanded its partnership with RingCentral to create UK public sector. offerings.

Maintel will offer RingCentral Office to UK local and central government organisations through the NS2 network services framework. The RingCentral solution provides organisations with an integrated team messaging, video meetings, and cloud phone system—on any device.

The pair say the new product will enable public sector organisations to transform their communications with cloud-based communications services.

Maintel will design, implement and support RingCentral Office-based implementations which will include a comprehensive suite of mobile devices, desktop soft clients and attendant consoles.

Customers will also be able to integrate this solution with Maintel’s own contact centre solution (Callmedia CX NOW), and a range of connectivity and security offers, enabling a complete end-to-end communications and connectivity service.

Infosecurity Europe makes comeback

Posted on April 21, 2021 by - News

Infosecurity Europe is going to return to a physical format on 13-15 July 2021 in its usual venue at Olympia in London.

The event’s organisers, Reed Exhibitions said that there will be a virtual event held between 8-10 June.

Visitor registration for the event opened today, with the first keynote speaker announced as director-general of GCHQ Robert Hannigan.

Infosecurity Group exhibition director, Nicole Mills said: “Infosecurity Europe 2021 will provide one of the first opportunities in over a year for the information and cybersecurity community to come together face-to-face. By making sessions available via

Home Office denies helping build a sales pipeline for a supplier

Posted on April 20, 2021 by - News

The UK’s Home Office wants to spend at least £5 million contract to recruit a supplier to help manage the selection of its IT projects.

The notice published in the public sector Digital Marketplace is seeking a company to help deliver and operate the “discovery-as-a-service” capability for the “Innovation – Law Enforcement” (I-LE) function within the Police and Public Protection Technology Portfolio (PPPT), with a £5 million contract. Parse that.

However, the contract leaves open the possibility of the winning supplier managing the project selection process in favour of services it offers which appears a little unfair to the compeition.

SysGroup reports revenue dip

Posted on April 20, 2021 by - News

SysGroup is reporting a dip in revenues for its full-year 2020/2021 results.

The company said its revenues are expected to fall by seven percent for the 12 months to 31 March 2021 as the pandemic caused customers to put off decisions on new IT spending.

Profits are meanwhile expected to come in slightly ahead of expectations for the year. Adjusted EBITDA is set to grow by three percent annually, with the MSP benefiting from acquisition synergies and imposing tight control over its costs.

ProLion wants UK partners

Posted on April 20, 2021 by - News

Austrian security outfit ProLion  is actively recruiting channel partners in the UK as it steps up its international expansion.

ProLion’s core product – CryptoSpike – is a security and data governance solution for the data centre which eliminates system downtime and data loss risks within ONTAP environments. Today it provides data insights for 450+ customers across retail, finance, telco, healthcare and manufacturing, it’s claimed.

ProLion VP Sales, UK, Americas & APAC, Steve Arlin said: “ProLion sells its solutions exclusively through a highly selective network of value-added resellers and managed service providers that have an ONTAP storage focus and the technical skills necessary to deliver IT solutions for the modern data centre to mid-size and enterprise organisations.”

Accenture investing $3 billion in cloud

Posted on April 19, 2021 by - News

Every silver has a cloudy liningAccenture is investing $3 billion over three years in its multi-service group, starting last autumn, to help clients across all industries become cloud-first businesses and accelerate their digital transformation.

Accenture said its Cloud First group is designed to harness the “full power and breadth” of the firm’s industry and technology capabilities, ecosystem partnerships, commitment to upskilling clients’ employees and responsible business approach.

Accenture’s CEO Julie Sweet said that Digital transformation required cloud at scale, and post-COVID leadership requires that every business become a cloud-first business.

“COVID-19 has created a new inflexion point that requires every company to dramatically accelerate the move to the cloud as a foundation for digital transformation to build the resilience, new experiences and products, trust, speed and structural cost reduction that the ongoing health, economic and societal crisis demands — and that a better future for all requires.”

Insurers forced to deploy more digital services

Posted on April 19, 2021 by - News

An Insurtech study claims that consumers are demanding more digital services from their insurance companies.

The study is part of the 2020 DXC Insurance Survey Report: The Voice of the US Consumer and highlights how consumer demand creates opportunities for insurers to deploy customer-facing digital technologies across their organisations.

Digital transformation by insurers will not only help them “gain market share and boost lifetime customer value” but also assert themselves as “exemplars of a new, more collaborative concept of the insurer-policyholder relationship”, according to DXC Technology.

DXC developed the survey to help insurers transform their business models and compete in a “changing, more consumer-focused market”.

In the survey, 87 percent of respondents said they’re comfortable sharing personal and lifestyle-focused data to benefit lower insurance premiums.