Author: Nick Farrell

Channel has key role getting customers onto the cloud

Posted on March 19, 2021 by - News

Communication and collaboration technology will continue to help enable flexibility and productivity across organisations. But, in the future, this will also include greater access to automation and business process management (BPM) technologies, especially for SMBs, according to Giacom CTO, Steve Law.

Law said that the channel has changed because people have moved to the cloud, and puts forward his view of the future of MSPs.

“Even prior to COVID-19, there were many key reasons for businesses to consider a move to the cloud. For instance, flexibility and agility continue to be fundamental drivers for businesses to make this digital transformation, and this has only been accelerated by the pandemic”, he said.

BSL snaps up Acrinax

Posted on March 18, 2021 by - News

Channel player Business Systems (BSL) has written a cheque for Acrinax and bought itself expertise around the contact centre as a Service (CCaaS) and workforce engagement management technologies.

The firm has also developed its own tool called Acrinax Chat, which is a real-time translation offering that is being used by its global customer base.

The deal will see the Acrinax managers Damian Bowen, David Baughan and Andrew Jacobs joining the BSL leadership team.

Microsoft acquires Marsden Group

Posted on March 18, 2021 by - News

Microsoft campusSoftware King of the World – that is Microsoft, folks –  has bought the rapid prototyping company The Marsden Group,

Vole’s corporate vice-president of cross-industry solutions Omar Abbosh said the acquisition will help Microsoft to create new customer value through experimentation and deep industry solutions based on the Microsoft cloud, edge and AI products.

The Marsden Group was already a Microsoft Gold Partner and works in the industrial, manufacturing and automotive sectors.

Ricoh snaps up Avantage

Posted on March 18, 2021 by - News

Printer outfit Ricoh Europe has acquired Dutch reseller Avantage claiming that the buy means that its partners can grow their managed services capabilities.

Ricoh Europe SVP Alberto Mariani said its buy will give European partners access to new offerings, particularly around document management.

“Avantage  complements other areas of our business such as document management solutions, workflow solutions and print services to provide customers with truly dependable extensive service and support.”

Computacenter had a great year

Posted on March 17, 2021 by - News

Computacenter booked a 6.8 percent improvement in revenues to £5.44 billion over the least year.

The outfit’s adjusted pre-tax profits climbed by 35.5 percent to £200.5 million, making it a solid year.

The UK performance was also something for the firm to celebrate, with revenues increasing by 11 per cent driven by a surge in demand in its Technology Sourcing operation, sparked by the pandemic. The firm also reported strong Services margins, partly benefiting from reduced external contractor costs.

DataSolutions wants to be carbon neutral by next year

Posted on March 17, 2021 by - News

Security outfit DataSolutions wants to be the world’s first carbon-neutral IT distributor by 2022.

After measuring its carbon output in 2018 and 2019, DataSolutions has set a sustainability target for next year and has already made changes to ensure the goal is within reach as part of its ‘Go Green’ initiative.

In 2020 DataSolutions commissioned a report to analyse its carbon footprint and used this to set a carbon-neutral target. DataSolutions has commissioned annual monitoring reports and are using the business directives from the 2015 Paris Agreement to overhaul the company’s processes to help achieve the goal.

DataSolutions has moved its ERP system and other corporate applications to the cloud, added electrical cars and charging points to the business while cutting down business travel and encouraging working from home to reduce employee travel. DataSolutions also replaced its gas-burning (fossil fuel) office heating system with a more efficient heat pump system. 

TIBCO adds to its cloud messaging

Posted on March 17, 2021 by - News

TIBCO  has added Apache Pulsar and Kafka as a cloud service in TIBCO Cloud Messaging.

The company said the updates play a crucial role in the design and development of the architectural vision of the TIBCO Responsive Application Mesh.

TIBCO chief operating officer Matt Quinn said that n offering Pulsar and Kafka as a cloud service within TIBCO Cloud Messaging, customers can use cloud-native economics and increase their time to value by purchasing them as a service.

“This negates the requirement to own infrastructure or deploy containers on a public cloud and gives organisations the flexibility to choose the solution they want to use”, he said.

Sabio buys voicebot specialist Fonetic

Posted on March 16, 2021 by - News

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

Posted on March 16, 2021 by - News

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.

Customers can now choose between paying a monthly subscription for what they use if the traditional model of yearly or multi-yearly license commitments is unsuitable.

Nutanix appoints Gill as Channel director

Posted on March 16, 2021 by - News

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

Posted on March 15, 2021 by - News

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

Posted on March 15, 2021 by - News

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

Posted on March 15, 2021 by - News

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

Posted on March 12, 2021 by - News

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

Posted on March 12, 2021 by - News

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.