Author: Nick Farrell

ABBYY launches new partner programme

Posted on March 21, 2022 by - News

ABBYY has announced the launch of its new global partner programme ABBYYOne.

The new ABBYYOne programme is supposed to connect a diverse ecosystem of global partners with ABBYY’s Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and Process Intelligence solutions.

ABBYY says the initiative will be for more than a 1,000 existing Business Partners, Technology Alliance Partners (TAPs), and Technology Licensing Partners.

All training and certifications will also be offered free via ABBYY University, the firm’s online education hub and training centre.

Board makes key choices on emerging tech

Posted on March 18, 2022 by - News

More than 53 percent of organisations report their board of directors are among the main decision-makers for emerging technology (ET) investments, just behind CIOs and CTOs.

According to a report compiled by  Gartner, ET purchase decisions are not under IT department control any more.

Gartner senior principal research analyst, Danielle Casey said the business has more confidence in these technologies as they move past the hype and toward tangible ROI, resulting in growing investments and scaling out projects.

The analyst claims 5G drew the highest average investment in 2021, with survey respondents reporting an average of $465,000 invested in the technology.

Microsoft scraps partner network

Posted on March 18, 2022 by - News

Microsoft campusMicrosoft has scrapped the Microsoft Partner Network as it rebrands to the Microsoft Cloud Partner Programme.

From October 2022, all 400,000 partners in Microsoft’s egosystem will use the Microsoft Cloud Partner Programme instead of the Microsoft Partner Network.

Gone will be the days of Microsoft’s Silver and Gold-level certification badges along with the Microsoft Partner Network name which was first launched over 15 years ago.

Microsoft said that changing the partner programme name was a reflection of “the enormous and ongoing transition of business operations to the cloud” and how it claims to support partners in the future.

RTI takes on two additional distributors

Posted on March 18, 2022 by - News

RTI has taken on two additional distributors — Northamber and Indigo Distribution — as RTI partners for the UK market.

RTI Chief Executive Joe Roberts said his outfit was strongly committed to the UK market and is seeing its commercial side growing.

Chessington-based, Northamber is the longest established trade-only distributor of IT equipment in the UK, with a 40-year history of providing technology solutions for the SME/SMB market, it’s said. Headquartered in Bangor, Northern Ireland, Indigo Distribution serves integrators across the UK, offering support to help ensure success for every project — from the design stage through to post-installation.

Noname teams up with High Point

Posted on March 17, 2022 by - News

API security outfit Noname and infrastructure provider HighPoint have teamed up.

HighPoint will offer Noname’s API Security Platform across its product range.

Noname EMEA vice president Dirk Marichal said that HighPoint has an excellent track record of delivering innovative services and projects into multiple sectors.

“HighPoint’s values closely align with Noname Security’s and the importance placed on providing solutions that help their clients succeed and overcome challenges as their businesses evolve.”

Computacenter makes a killing

Posted on March 17, 2022 by - News

Reseller Computacenter made more than £6 billion in yearly revenues and claimed it had seen the “highest growth in services revenue for the last 20 years”.

Revenue for the full year jumped 23.6 percent to £6.7 billion with an adjusted profit before tax of £255.6 million – up 27.5 percent from the year before.

The group’s revenue for its Technology Sourcing segment surged 26.2 percent to £5.3 billion. Organic revenue growth excluding the impact of acquisitions was 11.5 percent.

Rackspace faces the music

Posted on March 17, 2022 by - News

Rackspace is helping BMG, the fourth biggest global music company in the world, with its migration to Google Cloud.

With music consumption reaching new highs via streaming platforms and record amounts of data being processed, BMG was looking for a cloud solution that solved its scaling challenges and could power its data-heavy business.

With increasing data volumes, BMG anticipates cost optimisation will become a big initiative. Cloud tooling and provisioning from Rackspace Technology will enable BMG to keep its business economical while providing its services to artists and songwriters.

Google Cloud changes its prices

Posted on March 16, 2022 by - News

Google Cloud has changed its prices to allow “more flexibility for customers” which basically means low-cost options for some but increases for others.

The main changes will come to Google’s cloud storage pricing for data mobility, including replication of data written to a dual- or multi-region storage bucket, and inter-region data access.

It will also include the introduction of a new lower-cost archive snapshot option for Persistent Disk (PD), new outbound data processing pricing for cloud load balancing and new pricing for network topology.

The pricing changes are due to come into effect on 1 October this year.

Writing on the company bog, a spokesGoogle said: “We are announcing we will adjust our infrastructure product and pricing structure to give customers more choice in how they pay for what they use alongside new, flexible SKUs with new product options and capabilities. These changes are designed to help ensure better product fit for our customers’ use cases across a wider array of workloads.”

Redcentric acquires 7 Elements

Posted on March 16, 2022 by - News

MSP Redcentric has bought cybersecurity firm 7 Elements for £2.4 million.

For those not in the know, 7 Elements is based in Edinburgh and provides security testing, incident response management and bespoke security consultancy services.

The company has annualised revenues of circa £1 million and an EBITDA of about£300,000.

Redcentric claims the move will “significantly enhance” its service portfolio with “additional capability within the increasingly important security market”.

Redcentric CEO Peter Brotherton said the addition of 7 Elements services to Redcentric’s existing DDOS, SIEM, managed WAF and information security consultancy services means it can offer a complete portfolio of security services.

Consumers are more privacy conscious

Posted on March 16, 2022 by - News

The 2022 Global Digital Consumer Trends Index, released by Cheetah Digital, in conjunction with eConsultancy, shows that customers facing tightening regulations are more privacy-conscious than ever online.

The report notes huge rises in those turning to incognito browsing (50 percent increase), a PC cleaner (48 percent increase), password generator (40 percent increase), ad blocking tech (37 per ent increase), paid for premium software (31 percent increase), and a password manager (31 percent increase).

Most consumers are still happy to trade personal data for personalised content, but they prefer brands only use data that they’ve explicitly shared directly to the brand (zero-party data). Anything more than that is considered “creepy”.

Punters think that the creepiest methods are ads based on location data (67 percent), retargeting ads derived from tracking cookies (62 percent), and ads related to something they discussed near a smart device (61 percent).

BCN Group gets a Public View.

Posted on March 15, 2022 by - News

BCN Group has acquired application and analytics business Public View as part of its cunning plan to push into the health sector

For those not in the know, Public View provides performance monitoring and benchmarking services to the NHS. It is based around Microsoft’s .Net, and Azure Cloud Platform.  It collects data from hundreds of public data sources automatically before combining them into a single intuitive portal for NHS leaders.

The acquisition by north-west based BCN follows that of healthcare-focused data analytics and process automation specialist Cloud2 in May last year.

And the gold Microsoft and Dell partner claims the addition of Public View will strengthen its existing services to “create a powerful and market-leading portfolio of analytics, reporting and benchmarking services to the healthcare sector”.

BCN Group Rob Davies CEO said: “The acquisition of Public View allows us to provide existing and new clients with a complete and comprehensive suite of cloud-based analytics services delivered by skilled and experienced experts.

Microsoft partners will mostly hit net zero targets

Posted on March 15, 2022 by - News

Software King of the World Microsoft claims that its UK partners will mostly all hit their net-zero targets by 2050. We guess Bill Gates and Mike Magee will be dead by then.

Redmond updated its sustainability research conducted in October, revealing that 89 percent of partners said they are working to ensure that they do not add to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by, or before, the target date.

Orla McGrath, Global Partner Solutions lead at Microsoft UK said the research showed that Microsoft’s UK partners are eager to play their part in the UK’s transition to a greener and more prosperous future.

“With their deep expertise in delivering innovative technology and consulting solutions, Microsoft partners are well placed to accelerate both their own journey to net-zero and that of their customers.”

Highgate IT Solutions trials four day working week

Posted on March 15, 2022 by - News

Highgate IT Solutions is trialling a four-day working week, which means that it will be one of the first in the UK channel to try the idea.

Highgate IT sales director Bob Sahota said the trial will run for three months starting this April. It if works, the company will move to a four-day working week permanently.

It will work using a “buddy system” in which staff pair up and work on alternating days to cover each other when they are off.

The reseller employed 12 staff as of the end of last year but has hired six new members this year who will join over the next three months.  All its staff are remote working.

ELKO considers retreat from Russia

Posted on March 14, 2022 by - News

ELKO Group is considering pulling out of the Russian market amid the country’s war with Ukraine.

The outfit had already stopped deliveries of IT equipment and household appliances to the Russian market since the start of Russia’s invasion.

The group said in an effort to comply with all sanctions against Russia – including partner, product and transaction-related restrictions – the supply chain and the movement of goods by ELKO to Russia has been suspended.

ELKO Group acquired Russian $300m-revenue devices and appliances distributor Absolut Trading back in March 2019.

MSPs are cybercriminal’s targets

Posted on March 14, 2022 by - News

IT security solutions provider N-able claims that MSPs were “quickly overtaking their customers as a primary target for cybercriminals”.

Almost 90 percent of MSPs surveyed in its State of the Market: The New Threat Landscape report had suffered a cyberattack in the last 18 months.

The report claims that the number of attacks MSPs are preventing has almost doubled over that period – from six to 11.

N-able chief security officer Dave MacKinnon said:”MSPs have worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic to ensure that the businesses they support can stay online and connected as circumstances changed. But the cybercriminals they’re protecting against are working equally as hard to make use of these shifts against their targets.”