Author: Nick Farrell

Sabio buys voicebot specialist Fonetic

Comms specialist Sabio has written a cheque for the Spanish voicebot specialist Fonetic.

Fonetic is a voicebot and chatbot specialist provider and has clients including Santander, Axa, Endesa and Vodafone.

The acquisition, it is said,  will strengthen Sabio’s AI and automation offering and lets the company to support customers with what it says are customer experience solutions. Whatever they are.

Sabio’s CEO, Jonathan Gale, said that he expects every customer interaction will soon be confronted by AI “in some shape or form” and will change customers’ experiences.

F-Secure moves to usage based pricing

Security outfit F-Secure has adjusted its  cybersecurity solution to support “usage-based” pricing across its partner network.

The move is part of a cunning plan to provide service partners and their customers with operational efficiency, smooth deployment, and flexibility, as more employees continue to work remotely and collaborate via cloud platforms.

Nutanix appoints Gill as Channel director

Cloudy Nutanix has appointed Andrew Gill as Channel Director for Western Europe & Sub-Saharan Africa (WEURSSA).

Responsible for leading all channel and OEM activities in WEURSSA, Gill will oversee Nutanix’s relationships with resellers, distributors, regional system integrators and technology partners in the region. Additionally, Gill will play a role in driving channel-focused initiatives such as Nutanix Cloud Bundles, an offering to access Nutanix enterprise cloud software and solutions.

This management bundle lets Nutanix  expand access to its solutions, with an offering that meets the needs and budgets of any company as an essential addition to its Enterprise portfolio, it is said.

Arrow fires at Complete Networks

Arrow Business Communications has acquired Complete Networks as part of its cunning plan to expand into the public sector.

Complete Networks flogs critical managed WAN and LAN solutions and has particular clout in the NHS with a number of hospitals and two ambulance services in its customer base.

Based in Debyshire, Complete Networks works with vendors including Mitel, Cisco and Gamma.

CEO of Arrow, Richard Burke said: “I’m delighted to welcome the Complete Networks team to Arrow. The business will enable us to expand our foothold in the public sector and NHS in particular. The acquisition positions us perfectly to maximise opportunities within the public health sector as the transition to digitalisation builds momentum in the coming years.”

Barracuda improves managed services

Barracuda has announced enhancements in its managed services by adding more functionality into the mix that MSPs can pitch to customers.

The fish-themed outfit has extended CloudGen Access for MSPs, announced updates to its RMM platform and added multi-tenant management and monthly pricing to the mix to make life easier for MSPs.

The muchly alliterative Barracuda Veep Brian Babineau said that by enabling MSPs to adopt a security-centric operational model, his company was  helping mitigate the security risks associated with the work-from-anywhere approach and creating new business opportunities

The firm has also renamed its Managed Workplace offering “Barracuda RMM”, with the latest version providing integration with its Intronis Backup solution as well as improved Microsoft patch management capabilities.

Brother extends options for channel on labelling

Printer outfit Brother has extended its options for partners with monthly payment plans being offered on its label printer range

The outfit has launched a hardware-as-a-service option and offer partners the chance to pitch a Managed Label Service (MLS) to customers.

Ged Cairns, head of auto ID business unit at Brother UK said the big idea was to enhance the company’s value proposition.

A subscription model was already there in other parts of the business so it was not too much of a leap to extend that concept to the label printers themselves, offering software and services that would be delivered in a monthly plan.

“Brother being a strong managed print services organisation – that seems to be on a roll with us. We are attracting more and more new business, so there seems to be a propensity within our customer base and our reseller base to think of hardware as a service”, he added.

Cairns said that the initial response from partners had been positive and the business had seen requests coming in from customers that wanted demonstrations.

Zerto improves Alliance Partner Programme

Cloudy outfit Zerto has spruced up its Alliance Partner Programme (ZAP).

The programme enhancements help partners achieve the more highly valued services and software consultancy integrator status that customers are increasingly demanding.

With these enhancements, Zerto is increasing its focus on helping partners create strategic “go-to-market” (GTM) channel plans that use Zerto’s software-only platform to meet the cloud-based consumption models of customers.

Zerto CEO Ziv Kedem said: “We listen closely to our partners to understand both the challenges and opportunities they face. This enhanced partner program has been designed to support and accelerate their digital transformation efforts alongside those of their customers, who are building complex and demanding environments that must operate without downtime, disruption, and data loss. In doing so, we’ll be working closely with every key partner to create high-value sales opportunities across automation and orchestration, migration, application development, security, AI, and analytics.”

Eseye scores Verizon partnership

UK Global IoT outfit, Eseye, has teamed up with  Verizon enabling IoT customers around the world to localise devices over-the-air onto the Verizon network, using an eUICC compliant approach to ensure IoT devices stay connected wherever they are located.

The partnership gives  Eseye and Verizon customers the ability to connect and, where appropriate, localise their IoT devices to the widest range of global networks, on power-up, via Eseye’s AnyNet intelligent IoT connectivity platform, which provides near 100 per cent uptime globally, it’s claimed.

Eseye’s global network of direct interconnects with MNOs, which now includes Verizon in the USA, provides the ability to localise a device to the network in a specific region. Each customer IoT device deployed in the US will now be able to localise traffic directly onto the Verizon network.

Joveo appoints two senior execs in Euro expansion drive

Programmatic recruitment advertising technology firm, Joveo, has appointed Raja (Raj) Balachandran as its General Manager, UK, and Karim Jelatat as its General Manager, France.

Balachandran brings with him close to a decade of programmatic advertising experience, having been associated with the demand and supply side in both advertising technology companies as well as recruitment marketing agencies.

In his previous role at Penna, he pioneered the use of programmatic advertising for recruitment in the region across several channels, including display, video, and audio, to let employers  target and attract the right talent, while improving the candidate’s experience.

CMS Distribution uses sysob services as an in to Germany

CMS Distribution says it will use newly acquired German arm sysob’s services prowess to put its foot in the door against multinational rivals working there.

For those who came in late, CMS last week acquired the Bavaria-based security, networking and enterprise tech distributor sysob, after around a year of talks.

CMS chief business officer Huw Jones said that sysob would be doing battle mainly with multinational distributors such as Tech Data, Ingram, Arrow, Exclusive and Infinigate.

He said that sysob serves around 1,500 trading customers in Germany and around 4,000 in the wider DACH region.

Tech Data supports Broadcom resellers

Tech Data has invested to provide extensive technical and business development support to Broadcom reseller partners and their customers in the United Kingdom and Ireland, it said.

The move is part of a cunning plan to allow channel partners to take full advantage of the vast expertise and added-value capabilities of the Tech Data security practice and drive recurring revenues and profitability.

The announcement follows Tech Data’s appointment by Broadcom as a Global Commercial Aggregator for the full range of Symantec security solutions.

To support this, Tech Data has already put in place dedicated pre-sales, post-sales technical, business development and account management staff in the UK and Ireland. In addition, a well-resourced and specialist central team is ready to provide a 24/7 help-desk support on the full Symantec range – all of which is available both to resellers and to their end-user customers.

Datto buys BitDam

Cloud-based Datto has acquired BitDam, an Israel-based cyber threat detection company to add phishing defence to its channel partners armoury.

BitDam’s cyber-defence platform secures collaboration tools, such as M365 and Google Workspace, from ransomware, malware, and phishing.

MSPs report phishing as the most common cause of successful ransomware breaches, according to Datto’s annual Global State of the Channel Ransomware Report, a survey of global MSPs.

Datto CEO, Tim Weller, said the acquisition marks an important step on his company security journey, coming on the heels of its recent launch of Ransomware Detection in Datto RMM.

“Both products deliver new revenue and margin opportunities to our 17,000 MSP partners just as cyber attacks on SMBs are proliferating. We welcome the elite BitDam security team to Datto as we continue to execute on an ambitious security roadmap for our partners.”

 

ARM-based Bamboo works with Spinnakar

ARM-based server vendor Bamboo Systems has signed a new distributor agreement with distie Spinnakar.

Spinnakar will expand the roll-out of Bamboo’s revolutionary B1000N Arm servers in the UK and Ireland.

Bamboo said that Spinnakar provides footprint, scale, and local knowledge of the UK and Irish markets through its strong channel and end-user relationships. The company offers access to the fastest growing and most advanced data centre and cloud technologies.

Spinnakar will distribute Bamboo’s servers with its patented Parallel ARM Node Designed Architecture (PANDA) – a server design.

Restore buys Apple recycler The Bookyard

Recycling specialist Restore has made its second acquisition of the year.

A couple of months after the firm moved to pick up Runcorn-based Computer Disposals, Restore has snapped up Liverpool-based Apple recycling and spare parts specialist The Bookyard.

The Bookyard is a 15-year-old business that focuses on Apple recycling and parts, and runs a couple of e-commerce sites – www.mac2cash.com and www.click4mac.com – which give it countrywide coverage.

The Bookyard was expected to generate revenues of approximately £1.2 million a year and no one is saying how much Restore paid for the company.

Ingram Micro Cloud signs new agreement with AWS

Ingram Micro Cloud has announced a new global Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with AWS.

The big idea of this multi-year, joint investment is geared towards accelerating the growth of AWS Partners worldwide through Ingram Micro Cloud.

During the multi-year, global agreement, Ingram  and AWS will accelerate initiatives to increase reach and footprint in existing geographic markets and expand into new geographic markets across EMEA, LATAM, and ASEAN countries.