Author: Nick Farrell

Apple gives up on servers

Posted on May 19, 2022 by - News

Fruity and nutty cargo-cult Apple has finally given up on servers and effectively ended its long history of poor networking technology.

MacOS Server pre-dated Mac OS X by a year, launching initially in 1999. One of its main feature was Open Directory, which launched within Mac OS X Panther Server. It was a poor man’s version of Microsoft’s Active Directory and was designed to manage Macs, user accounts, and any settings on Mac-based networks.

It was part of the life of publishers and newspapers which remained Mac based even when common sense suggested they would be better off with something that did not fall asleep on press day or slow to a crawl when a page needed saving.

Microsoft channel boss cleans out his desk

Posted on May 19, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Microsoft’s channel boss Rodney Clark has quit his job of 24 years and is headed for greener pastures.

Clark has worked for Vole for 24 years and took up the role of corporate vice president of global channel sales and channel chief last year.

He is leaving the company to take up a new role as an executive officer at a publicly-traded company that partners with Microsoft.

According to a blog post written by Nick Parker, Microsoft corporate vice president of global partner solutions, the company expects to have a new leader in place by the beginning of its new fiscal year in July.

PC shipments fall due to supply bottlenecks

Posted on May 18, 2022 by - News

PC shipments in Western Europe fell during the first quarter for 2022 following supply bottlenecks and increasing geopolitical tensions.

Beancounters at Canalys found that 15.8 million units of desktops, notebooks and workstations were delivered in first quarter 2022, down three percent on the first quarter 2021.

Despite the fall, Canalys says shipment numbers are still better than they were before the pandemic .

Research analyst Trang Pham said that commercial demand is strong as multiple markets have officially moved toward business-as-usual operations. In fact, nearly 60 percent of devices shipped in Western Europe in Q1 were for commercial use.

Spending on digital transformation about to go mental

Posted on May 18, 2022 by - News

Global spending on the digital transformation (DT) of business will reach $1.8 trillion in 2022 – an increase of 17.6 percent over 2021.

According to a new update to the IDC Worldwide Digital Transformation Spending Guide, DX spending will sustain this pace of growth over the 2022-2026 forecast period with a five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.6 percent.

IDC senior research manager in customer insights & analysis, Craig Simpson expects to see aggressive DX technology investment growth in 2022 following a minor slowdown during the pandemic.

“As organisations accelerate their pursuit of a digital-first strategy, they are channelling these investments into both internal operations and external direct engagement.  The investments in internal operations are largely focused on improving efficiency and resilience while customer experience transformation has become a DX priority for many companies.”

IDC’s data found that operational investments stand out among the 51 strategic priorities included in the DX Spending Guide. 

Google Cloud offers training

Posted on May 18, 2022 by - News

Google Cloud has announced the initial UK pilot of its new cloud training programme, Project Katalyst, a Google Cloud Academy course specifically targeting underrepresented and underprivileged individuals in the company’s workplace.

Taking place this summer, the Project Katalyst programme has been designed to help solve the industry’s challenge to inclusively increase the pool of available skilled talent in the market and prepare participants for their first role working with Google Cloud Partners.

Babble gets Active

Posted on May 17, 2022 by - News

Babble has acquired unified comms provider Active as part of its drive to expand its presence in the North West of England.

Active has more than 500 customers and has 34 staff across its head office near Stockport and an office in Ellesmere Port.

It is a Gamma, Microsoft, Sophos and O2 partner which offers business mobile solutions and phone systems, IT support and connectivity to customers across industries including construction, transport and logistics, professional services and manufacturing.

The latest deal marks Babble’s 17th acquisition in the UK and follows on from other acquisitions in the North West of England such as its 2021 acquisition of comms partner Concert and its 2020 acquisition of Lake.

Unicon sues IGEL Technology over leaks

Posted on May 17, 2022 by - News

Endpoint management vendor Unicon is taking legal action against fellow IGEL Technology over an allegation that former employees leaked company data.

Unicon CEO Philipp Benkler said customers, business partners and employee trust was a key priority for Unicon.

“We feel compelled to exhaust all legal options against IGEL Technology and some of its executives after we learned that strictly confidential trade secrets were extensively and systematically stolen from us.”

At the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, several employees as well as Unicon’s former managing director had left to join its direct competitor IGEL Technology.

Salesforce recruits Troops.ai

Posted on May 17, 2022 by - News

Salesforce has acquired revenue and communications platform Troops.ai, a which uses Slack and Microsoft Teams bots to surface CRM data from platforms such as Salesforce.

Salesforce said Troops and its team will become part of Slack when the deal closes in 2023. Troops.ai had raised $19.4 million to date according to Crunchbase, including investment from Slack’s own venture fund.

The move is a surprise as Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor recently told analysts that Salesforce doesn’t have “plans for any material M&A in the near term”.

Deep Instinct uses frequent flier model to spruce up channel

Posted on May 16, 2022 by - News

Deep Instinct wants its partner programme to energise its channel base while making it a more attractive prospect to new clients.

The firm unveiled its programme at the start of the month with a system that is more akin to a frequent flyer model than the traditional three-tiered approach. Partners accrue points based on a number of metrics, including bringing fresh business to the vendor and sealing deals with the existing user base.

Ivanti selects Nuvias to help two-tier channel model.

Posted on May 16, 2022 by - News

Ivanti has chosen Cloud Distribution as the distributor to help build a two-tier channel model.

The vendor has appointed the distributor to handle its full range of network solutions across the UK, with an expectation it will get the products into the hands of more resellers.

Ivanti’s head of EMEA channel David Weeden said that Cloud Distribution has indicated it will hire a specialist team and support the channel with its Partner Growth Services as it shows its commitment to the signing. The relationship covers existing products from the vendor along with technology gained from acquisitions.

More woes for Kaspersky

Posted on May 16, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Security outfit Kaspersky’s channel operations in North America defected from the embattled cybersecurity company to somewhere a little less controversial.

Matthew Courchesne, who has led Kaspersky’s North American B2B channel team since early 2019, recently posted on his LinkedIn page that he was “happy to announce” that he was joining cybersecurity firm Cyware, also as channel chief for North America.

Content+Cloud appoints former Softcat to board

Posted on May 13, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Content+Cloud has appointed former Softcat MD Colin Brown to its board as a non-executive director.

Brown will apparently provide the outfit advice on the business’ growth roadmap.

Brown spent eight years at Softcat and was part of the leadership team that brought the organisation to its IPO. After stepping down as MD in 2020, Brown assisted with the reseller’s transition to a new leadership team.

He now acts as a non-executive director for a number of other technology and services companies.

Content+Cloud CEO Peter Sweetbaum said: “We are delighted to have Colin on board where we look forward to him bringing his exemplary experience at the core of the UK IT Services market in the UK and Europe”, he said.

Big Blue open to new partnerships

Posted on May 13, 2022 by - News

Biggish Blue CEO Arvind Krishna told the outfit’s company’s annual Think conference this week that his outfit is open to new partnerships.

Krishna said: “You have technology, but you also have to work with an ecosystem. No one company has all of the expertise, has all of the technologies that any of our clients need to be able to scale their businesses. So you must, must work on co-creating within a large ecosystem. … We want to build an ecosystem that unleashes the full potential of hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence for your benefit.”

MSPs slapped by “threat actors”

Posted on May 13, 2022 by - News

MSPs are being targeted by “threat actors” to access customer networks, according to a new advisory report penned by the United Kingdom, Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, and US cybersecurity authorities

The idea is that the “threat actors” are targeting MSPs to access customer networks in “efforts to exploit provider-customer network trust relationships”.

“Threat actors successfully compromising an MSP could enable follow-on activity—such as ransomware and cyber espionage—against the MSP as well as across the MSP’s customer base”, the warning said.

A document released by authorities provides steps and advice for partners to bolster their security strategy.

This includes identifying and disabling accounts that are no longer in use (shadow IT), enforcing multi-factor authentication (MFA) on MSP accounts that access customer environments and ensuring MSP-customer contracts transparently identify ownership of ICT security roles and responsibilities.

Tech Data spruces up print services

Posted on May 11, 2022 by - News

Tech Data has enhanced its managed print service claiming that the move will give resellers greater visibility and control.

The distributor’s cloudy managed print offering, OpenMPS, gives resellers a vendor-neutral platform that can manage customer printing.

The enhanced version of OpenMPS includes improved data visualisation, gives more control of user pricing and more protection against fraud. Those partners that use the service can also get auto-alerts when orders are placed, as well as faster search capabilities, which should streamline the process.

OpenMPS covers the vendors the distributor works with – HP, Canon, Epson, Xerox, Brother and Lexmark.