Author: Nick Farrell

Cloudy Riverlite has buyout Xperience

Posted on March 7, 2022 by - News

Xperience has snapped up MSP Riverlite in a bid to improve its East of England experience.

For those not in the know, Riverlite offers cloud, cybersecurity and managed services to education, charities, hospice and private sector customers. It is run by managing director Paul Oggelsbt and chairman Mark Shields.

Xperience claims the deal creates “one of the biggest managed IT service providers in the East of England”, adding to its existing operations in Peterborough and Bury St Edmunds.

It is Xperience’s second acquisition within six months, having previously acquired Bury St Edmunds-based MSP Green Duck in October 2021.

The company’s headcount will grow from 42 percent to 150 staff, and increase its turnover to roughly £21.5 million and claims to support more than 1,150 clients across the UK and Ireland.

Red Hat offers free training

Posted on March 7, 2022 by - News

​Red Hat has pledged to run its Training and Certification courses to its partners for no extra cost.

The outfit said that it really needs hybrid cloud skills at the partner level so will be offering its self-paced online courses for free to help build knowledge around technologies such as cloud computing, containers, virtualisation, and automation.

The curriculum consists of 17 courses that are available in eight languages and can provide the foundational knowledge needed to develop skills in hybrid cloud computing. These can then be used to pursue further accreditation and certification away from Red Hat.

Ukraine war will have a knock on effect here

Posted on March 7, 2022 by - News

Economic sanctions against Tsar Putin will have a significant impact on the IT channel, according to analysts at Context.

According to a report cross-border payments are extremely challenging if not impossible for channel players and their customers now that major banks are locked out of the SWIFT system. The EU and US have banned the supply of hi-tech goods including semiconductors, computers, telecoms and information security equipment. Russian aircraft are banned from European airspace, and Boeing/Airbus have stopped servicing the Russian aviation industry, which will further restrict transport flows.

Room teams up with Zoom COVID goes boom

Posted on March 4, 2022 by - News

Room has teamed up with Zoom and HP to launch of ‘Room for Zoom’ in the UK and Ireland to help businesses better connect remote employees with those who have returned to the office.

The video collaboration suite provides a physical, tailored video conference space for Zoom users, which the firm says bridges the gap between in-person and remote working for the hybrid workplace.

Room for Zoom offers up a soundproof, modular architecture solution that comes complete with built-in VC lighting, a monitor, webcam, skylights, connected power sources, ventilation, and more.

Room co-founder Morten Meisner-Jensen said the ability to connect colleagues in this way will help improve employees’ working life.

Steel takes over Splunk

Posted on March 4, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Proofpoint CEO Gary Steele is leaving security outfit to take over as Splunk’s new CEO.

Steele was the founding CEO of Proofpoint and has overseen the company’s growth from a startup to a publicly-traded security-as-a-service provider.

He will take over as permanent CEO on 11 April following Doug Merritt’s decision to step down in November last year, just five months after Splunk received a billion dollars of private equity funding from Silver Lake Investment.

“Splunk has built one of the most respected brands in tech and is at the forefront of security and observability. I’m honoured to join the company at such an important moment – for both Splunk and the industry. I’ve dedicated my career to helping companies around the world safeguard their data, systems and infrastructure, and know first-hand how critical Splunk’s products and solutions have become to customers as they navigate hybrid, multi-cloud environments with increasingly complex attacks and threat actors.”

Westcoast partners with Asus

Posted on March 4, 2022 by - News

UK-based distributor Westcoast has expanded its devices portfolio through a new partnership with Asus.

The agreement will see Westcoast stock and promote Asus products in the UK, including Vivobook Flip, Zenbook S and ProArt Studiobook One.

Westcoast said that it will  offer finance options, marketing support and logistics services, and make Asus devices available for its 5,000 existing customers.

Westcoast client director Paul Hamilton said: “We’re extremely proud to be partnering with Asus. Their brand that we have admired for many years for their consistent record of innovation and great products brought to market. This is a significant partnership for both parties to be working in collaboration to drive incremental opportunities.”

CIO role has changed but development half baked

Posted on March 3, 2022 by - News

CIOs are moving to more strategic roles as they came under pressure from their bosses to keep the pace of change high and innovation flowing.

According to research from Logicalis the shift has had an impact on those in the channel that support customers as they need to protect customers while the change is happening.

Logicalis chief technology officer Toby Alcock said CIO demands had changed and the business expects more from  them and the pace they need to work.

“More businesses are looking for the technology to be closer to their outcomes and to their customers, so the CEO is having to respond to that anyway, but I think it’s been accelerated through the pandemic”, he added.

“The rate of change and the acceptance of the change has helped, but so too has the need to come up with more innovative ways to connect with customers during the pandemic, change and pivot the business, and drive new outcomes. That pressure has been on the CIO like never before,” Alcock said.

Microsoft pushes back 365 price hikes

Posted on March 3, 2022 by - News

Microsoft has pushed back its plan to increase prices for 365.

The price hikes, which were first announced in August, officially come into effect today but Microsoft has announced a “transitional grace period” until 14 March.

The move is to fit into Vole’s cunning plan for its New Commerce Experience which is basically a licensing system for companies.

It means that new commerce transactions for the six commercial Modern Work SKUs – Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Office 365 E1, Office 365 E3, Office 365 E5 and Microsoft 365 E3 – can be invoiced at the February 2022 pricing.

All new commerce transactions for these six Modern Work SKUs submitted after 5 pm Pacific Daylight Time on 14 March will then be invoiced at the increased March price list pricing.

Tactus buys Box

Posted on March 3, 2022 by - News

Tactus has written a cheque for high-performance gaming PCs and accessories supplier Box.

For those not in the know, Tamworth-based Box is an online retailer of consumer technology and specialist devices serving a customer base across the UK and Europe and had a turnover of £100 million during 2021.

It employs a team of over 140 employees, which means that Tactus Group’s headcount will be more than 350.

Tactus CEO Scott Brenchley said: “Box is a strong addition to Tactus Group. With the global gaming space highly fragmented, it is important that we continue to invest in those brands that will fulfil our ambition of being the go-to destination for PC gamers and this acquisition takes us closer to that goal. ”

“Box provides the group with significant operational capability and a broader customer base as we expand the reach of our brand products in the UK and overseas.

Software One offers to float your goat

Posted on March 2, 2022 by - News

SoftwareONE has unveiled its new Goatpath brand, which will focus on delivering the next generation of technologies, platforms, and products at speed.

The outfit claims the brand will “radically change the way customers can buy, sell and manage their software, cloud and services”.

Goatpath GM Mike Fitzgerald said: “The new name and brand reflect our desire to find the fastest route across challenging terrain with nimbleness and surety.”

Ultimately, Goatpath’s goal is to make it simple for businesses to automate and govern procurement, management and security of software and cloud.

Tech companies crack down on Russia

Posted on March 2, 2022 by - News

UK tech companies with Russian links or finance might find themselves in hot water with US big tech.

As Tsar Putin’s Russian troops push into Ukraine US tech firms are doing their best to make sure that they are not seen as having anything to do with it.

Some of it is obvious.  Big Tech is under pressure to use its influence over the world’s most popular social networks, apps and phones to take tough action.

Since Russia’s first strike nearly a week ago, Meta, Twitter, Google and other companies have announced a slew of measures such as revoking ads for Russian state media websites, monitoring disinformation and utilising tools to increase the privacy of Ukrainian citizens.

Claranet signs five year contract with AWS

Posted on March 2, 2022 by - News

Cloudy Claranet has signed a five-year agreement with AWS which will see it certify more than 1,200 cloud experts and set up a global Cloud Centre of Excellence.

Claranet migrated its first customer to AWS in 2013 and became a premier-level Services partner and a Managed Services Provider partner with the vendor in 2016. It migrated more than 500 customers to AWS by 2020.

Claranet CEO Charles Nasser said the five-year agreement with AWS takes its partnership “to the next level” and will see it build a global Cloud Centre of Excellence around security; sata; SAP; and migration and modernisation.

Forget digital culture companies need value realisation

Posted on March 1, 2022 by - News

While companies are building better digital habits and systems, a shift is needed from digital culture to value realisation, according to a new report from Cloudy Nutanix.

The recently commissioned IDC CXO Survey of leaders across EMEA, the IDC InfoBrief, showed that 84 percent of IT leads in EMEA are under pressure to deliver on digital transformation (DX) strategies, and 90 percent of organisations in EMEA want a digital-first approach.

Nutanix EMEA SVP Sammy Zoghlami said: “With the pandemic accelerating the rate at which companies have invested in and deployed digital solutions, IDC predicts that in 2022 more than half of the global economy will be based on or influenced by digital solutions.”

Print channel starts to wake up

Posted on March 1, 2022 by - News

The print channel is starting to wake up as the pandemic and its lockdowns wind down according to market watcher Context.

The print channel was hammered as offices closed or skeleton-staffed, now things appear to have been picking up.

According to market watcher Context, revenue sales through the distribution of business printers across Europe were higher than consumer device sales last month.

Laser single function (SFP) printers were driving those sales, with the performance of inkjet hindered slightly by the shortages that have swashed around that market in recent months. Price increases have also bled into entry-level business and consumer printer prices, and that has also seen revenue improvements year on year.

Lemongrass teams up with Microsoft on SAP

Posted on March 1, 2022 by - News

Microsoft campusLemongrass has joined Microsoft in a partnership designed to help large and midmarket enterprises modernise and simplify their SAP environments.

The agreement will focus on the co-development of SAP-centric services that take advantage of the capabilities of Microsoft Cloud and help maximise the value of customers’ SAP investments

Lemongrass specialises in working with SAP in the hyperscale cloud, from planning and migration to operation and automation. With 6,000 SAP servers and 300,000 SAP users under its management, the firm helps customers extract value by moving and running their SAP systems in the cloud.

Vole said it’ll act as a distinctive innovation partner, providing Lemongrass with the opportunity to collaborate with the tech giant on design and engineering initiatives for SAP customers.