Author: Nick Farrell

ICO messes up copper’s clouds

Posted on January 22, 2024 by - News

The Information Commissioner Office (ICO) has made a mess of the legality of police forces using US-based cloud providers to process sensitive law enforcement data.

Computer Weekly exposed in 2020 that dozens of police forces are breaking the law using the cloud-based Microsoft 365 software to process more than a million people’s data.

A major Police Scotland IT system is using Microsoft’s Azure cloud despite having major data protection issues. The Scottish biometric commissioner (SBC) asked the ICO for advice about the system’s legality.

After a cosy meeting with information commissioner John Edwards in early December 2023, SBC Brian Plastow wrote a letter that said the ICO was happy to give the green light to the dodgy cloud deployments. He said the ICO believed that the UK and US governments signed a deal to share data, which overrules the UK’s data protection laws.

Here comes the sun: Snyk snaps up Helios

Posted on January 22, 2024 by - News

The security outfit which knows no vowels, Snyk, has bought a start-up that snoops on live applications, Helios.

For those not in the know, Helios is named after the Roman sun god and has developed some fancy technology to spot security bugs in running apps.

Snyk did not say how much it paid for Helios or how many staff it would keep.

Snyk said the acquisition was a “milestone” in its quest to dominate the application security posture management (ASPM) market. ASPM is a buzzword that means keeping track of all the apps in your environment and ensuring they are secure.

Helios will help it to offer “comprehensive visibility” across app environments, “more effective” prioritisation of risk, and “full-stack” runtime data. In other words, the company said that Snyk will be able to see everything, tell you what to fix, and collect a lot of data.

Red Hat launches new partner programme

Posted on January 19, 2024 by - News

Open saucy Red Hat is shaking up its partner programme to make it easier, better, and faster for partners to cash in.

The company is rolling out new tools to help partners work together and get their paws on the hottest technology, training, and resources.

A new report by IDC says that 70 per cent of tech sellers will follow a customer-led approach by 2025, meaning they have to team up with partners to offer the best solutions, services, and flexibility that customers want now.

Red Hat wants to be ahead of the game by simplifying its partner model to make it clear and fair for everyone in the ecosystem and to focus on the customer’s needs.

World will spend $5 Trillion on tech this year

Posted on January 19, 2024 by - News

A new report by Gartner says that global IT spending will soar by 6.8 per cent to a whopping $5 trillion this year!

In the UK, tech experts predict a massive 6.8 per cent growth in 2024 and a stunning 9.2 per cent CAGR.

The hottest markets will be cloud services, software, and infrastructure as businesses and consumers snap up the latest gadgets and gizmos.

IT services will be the biggest slice of the pie, with a huge 8.7 per cent growth in 2024, reaching $1.5 trillion. That means more consultants, more outsourcing, and more cloud computing.

Gartner’s top analyst, John-David Lovelock, says that the consumer market is already saturated with phones, laptops, tablets, and printers, but businesses are still hungry for more IT.

Scality promotes Retureau

Posted on January 18, 2024 by - Moving People

London-based Data outfit Scality has promoted Marie-Laure Retureau as its new vice president of sales for Asia, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Retureau will lead a team of experts who will help customers and partners get the best out of Scality’s storage solutions.

Scality’s boss, Peter Brennan, said: ” Retureau is the perfect person to boost our business in Asia. She has amazing skills and is expanding our network of partners in this area with one goal: to help customers update and protect their data. She is committed to making our customers and partners happy and has strong connections in the region that will create many opportunities for us.”

Retureau has been working for Scality for two years and has a lot of experience in the data storage market. She has worked with customers and partners in many countries and knows how to solve their storage problems.

Rackspace helps BMG rock with Google cloud

Posted on January 18, 2024 by - News

BMG, the music giant behind stars like Kylie Minogue, Iron Maiden, and Dua Lipa, has partnered with Rackspace Technology to revolutionise the music industry with Google Cloud.

The world’s fourth-biggest music company has moved 95 per cent of its apps and services to Google Cloud, using  Rackspace Technology’s Elastic Engineering team.

This means BMG can pay its artists and songwriters ten times faster and track their music 50 per cent faster than before, using Google Cloud’s cutting-edge AI and big data tools.

BMG has ditched its old distribution partners and struck direct deals with streaming giants like Spotify and Apple, giving its clients more control and access to their data.

Cybersecurity gold rush for small resellers as SMBs splash the cash

Posted on January 17, 2024 by - News

According to a new CONTEXT report, small resellers are raking in the dough from cybersecurity sales to SMBs.

The market watcher says small resellers (SMRs) mainly deal with small, medium and home office customers.

CONTEXT claims that in France, and to a lesser extent, the UK and Italy, SMRs have cashed in on booming demand from an SMB market boosted by more investment and the need for custom-made solutions.

It says the year-on-year revenue sales performance of France shows how hot the market is, with figures for Week 52 of 2023 revealing the country is the top dog in cybersecurity sales through distribution.

Across Europe, cloud security revenue sales as of Week 52 shot up by four per cent year-on-year.

Fujitsu’s says sorry for ruining lives of innocent postmasters

Posted on January 17, 2024 by - News

Fujitsu has admitted it has a moral duty to pay up for the hundreds of postmasters it helped to convict on false charges because of its dodgy software.

The postmasters were the victims of the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK history. It saw some 700 local post office bosses branded as crooks and sent to prison or left penniless.

Some even killed themselves or died before they could clear their names after being accused of theft and fraud based on faulty data from Fujitsu’s Horizon system between 1999 and 2005.

“Fujitsu would like to apologise for our part in this horrific scandal,” Patterson, who joined the firm in 2019, told MPs investigating the outrage, which has sparked fury across the nation.

The Japanese IT giant’s boss, Paul Patterson, said sorry to the victims and said Fujitsu had a duty to pay out.

“We were involved from the very start. We did have bugs and errors in the system and we did help the post office in their witch-hunt of the subpostmasters. For that we are truly sorry.”

Microsoft to store more cloudy data in EU

Posted on January 16, 2024 by - News

Software King of the World,  Microsoft has revealed plans to store and process all personal data from its European users in the EU.

Julie Brill, corporate VP & chief privacy officer at Microsoft, confirmed the decision, saying that the firm is changing the ‘EU Data Boundary for the Microsoft Cloud.’

The plan, which started in 2023, first covered some of Microsoft’s cloud services, including Microsoft 365, Azure, Power Platform and Dynamics 365.

This week the firm expanded the promise to include all personal data, even automated system logs, in the Microsoft EU Data Boundary.

EU officials and American tech giants have been in long talks over how to handle European data. There have been worries about how EU citizens’ data would be dealt with in the US, which has weaker privacy laws than the EU.

SoftwareONE snubs Bain Capital’s bid in bold move

Posted on January 16, 2024 by - News

SoftwareOne has turned down a takeover bid from private equity firm Bain Capital, choosing to stay independent after a big review.

The global software and cloud solutions provider’s board of directors looked at ways to make more money, including selling the company in the big review that started in July 2023.

After a thorough check, PE firm Bain Capital made a non-binding offer to buy SoftwareOne, but the board decided that Bain’s offer was not good enough or fair enough.

With help from an independent valuation and expert advice, the board all agreed that saying no to Bain’s offer was the best thing for the company and its people.

SAP fined in bribery case

Posted on January 15, 2024 by - News

The maker of expensive business software, which no one is sure what it does, SAP, has been slapped with a  £159 million fine after admitting to paying bribes to officials in seven countries.

The US authorities accused SAP of breaking the law by using middlemen to grease the palms of government officials in South Africa, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Ghana, Indonesia and Azerbaijan.

SAP confessed to the dodgy dealings, which took place between 2014 and 2022 and agreed to cough up the cash to settle the charges.

The US Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) and the US Department of Justice (DOJ) said SAP had cheated honest businesses by securing lucrative contracts with public sector customers through bribery.

The DOJ revealed how SAP had paid off officials at state-owned enterprises in South Africa and Indonesia to get their business.

Accenture song snaps up Work & Co in mega-deal

Posted on January 15, 2024 by - News

Tech giant Accenture Song has splashed out on Work & Co, a trendy New York design and technology firm, in a secret deal worth millions of pounds.

Work & Co has nearly 400 staff and boasts a dazzling array of skills and clients, including IKEA, Gatorade, Apple, Disney, Airbnb, and Google.

On Tuesday, Accenture Song, which used to be called Accenture Interactive, said that Work & Co will join its digital experience business, which helps clients boost their growth and value with cutting-edge products and services.

The exact price of the acquisition was not revealed, nor was the date when it will be completed.

Accenture Song is not done yet. The company also announced it will buy Navisite, a Massachusetts cloud solution and service provider.

UK Tech Cluster Group wants government cash for every region

Posted on January 12, 2024 by - News

A West Midlands delegation stormed the Houses of Parliament to launch a report that tells the next UK Government to provide more cash for regional tech groups.

The Ecosystems of Innovation report, delivered by the UK Tech Cluster Group, presents four big ideas to ensure that every region of the UK gets a boost.

The West Midlands group was led by Yiannis Maos MBE, CEO of TechWM, part of the UK Tech Cluster Group. Bringing together tech groups from every region and nation of the UK, the UK Tech Cluster Group’s Parliamentary bash called on the central Government to commit to four key areas that will unleash tech’s power across the UK regions.

PC sales up after eight quarters of slump

Posted on January 12, 2024 by - News

Global shipments of PCs hit 63.3 million units in the fourth quarter of 2023, a rise of 0.3 per cent, marking the first increase after eight quarters of drop, according to Gartner.

The analyst firm’s research shows 2023 to be the worst year ever in PC history, falling 14.8 per cent.

This is the second year with a double-digit fall, with shipments totalling 241.8 million units.

This marks the first time that shipment volume has gone below 250 million since 2006, when 230 million units were shipped.

Big G analyst Mikako Kitagawa said the market has hit rock bottom after big adjustment and normalisation in stock, with the “slight growth” suggesting demand and supply are “finely balanced.”

But she warns this situation will likely change due to the expected component price rise in 2024 and political and economic uncertainties.

HPE spends £11 billion on Juniper

Posted on January 11, 2024 by - News

Former maker of expensive printer ink HPE is buying Juniper Networks in a £11 billion deal that sets up a fight for network supremacy in the AI era between HPE Aruba Networking and market leader Cisco Systems.

HPE said the deal to buy California-based Juniper gives it more AI networking power and doubles its networking business, making what it called in a statement a “new networking leader with a huge portfolio that gives customers and partners a tempting new choice to drive business value.”

HPE is paying £31 per share in a cash deal that expects to boost its non-GAAP EPS and free cash flow in the first year after the deal closes.

On a pro forma basis, the new networking segment will go up from about 18 per cent of total HPE revenue as of fiscal year 2023 to about 31 per cent and make more than 56 per cent of HPE’s total operating income.