Author: Nick Farrell

Rackspace teams up with Digivante

Cloudy Rackspace is coupling with Digivante to provide its European customers with AI-based digital performance analysis and continuous website and application testing services.

Rackspace Technology customers across EMEA get Digivante’s expertise and technical capabilities, it’s said, mainly because many businesses rely heavily on digital reliability and app development.

Atos issues second profit warning

Atos has issued its second profit warning in seven months in its preliminary FY2021 financial figures.

The French services giant told investors the revised guidance communicated in July last year will not be met due to “several significant effects”.

Atos had already lowered its annual objectives following a slower-than-expected recovery in the year’s first half.

The company now expects a 2.4 percent drop in its 2021 full-year revenues, totalling €10.8 billion against the previous forecast for a “stable” performance.

NHS Digital lost 393 devices 

NHS Digital recorded 393 lost or stolen devices between September 2020 and September 2021, including 52 mobiles, 19 laptops and three tablets.

In addition, a further 319 laptops were recorded as lost due to having no record of their disposal.

The maker of 256-bit AES XTS hardware-encrypted USB drives, submitted Freedom of Information (FoI) requests submitted to 16 government departments into the security of devices held by public sector employees.

Midwich snaps up DVS

Midwich has acquired a majority stake in Cardiff-based distributor DVS due to its cunning plan to get into the CCTV and security market.

The HikVision and Toshiba distributor was founded in 2003 and is based in Cardiff. Operating through parent company Cooper Projects Limited, the firm offers CCTV and security solutions for trade customers in verticals including corporate, retail, and residential.

Canon forced to sell chip free printer cartridges

Canon is set to sell chip-free printer cartridges to help its customers continue using its products due to the global semiconductor shortage.

For those not in the know, chips have been placed in toner cartridges to communicate information, including toner level, and to confirm that the toner is a genuine Canon product.

However, faced with a choice with providing this information and customers not having toner at all,  Canon has produced chip-less toner cartridges to help its customers print as normal, although there will be some minor changes to the printing process. This will affect over 50 of its models in the imageRUNNER and imageRUNNER ADVANCE range.

Cloud giants should expect closer monitoring

Cloud giants AWS, Azure and Google Cloud should expect some closer monitoring from the Prudential Regulation Authority.

The Financial Times is reporting that the financial services regulator is looking for ways to access more data from Amazon, Google and Microsoft because of the impact that service outages and cyberattacks would have on British banks.

The watchdog wants more robust outages and disaster recovery tests given the increasing reliance UK banks have on a handful of cloud providers.

This could include the introduction of a “war game” which models AWS and Azure failing at the same time, executives said.

NTT poaches Tech Data’s Murphy

NTT has appointed Miriam Murphy as its European CEO reporting to Global Chief Executive Officer Abhijit Dubey.

Murphy brings more than 25 years of IT experience and joins NTT from Tech Data. At Tech Data, she was a member of the European Executive Board and served as Senior Vice President, Advanced and Specialised Solutions business, EMEA. Murphy was responsible for go-to-market strategy and P&L management, spanning data centre and next-generation technology solutions portfolios including cloud, internet of things, analytics, security collaboration and associated services.

Maintel outsources 65,000 tech device to another

Maintel has outsourced its inventory management and stock ownership to Agilitas.

The deal will see the cloud and managed comms provider outsource its hardware infrastructure using an as-a-service model.

Agilitas will manage the contract for five years through a “fully flexible service” that can be scaled up and down according to its requirements.

The service will include engineering resources, multi-vendor tech spares to support customers and nationwide storage and distribution of all project stock.

Whitty exits Cisco to join rivals

Former Cisco UK&I channel boss Angela Whitty has left the networking giant to head Crawley-based IT solutions provider Ampito Group.

Whitty said taking the CEO role at Ampito was a “compelling opportunity” after 29 years at Cisco, the last seven of which were spent as MD of UK&I partner sales.

She said that it intrigued her to see how the other half lived after being part of the vendor space for so long.

Lattice Semiconductor teams up with Lenovo

Lattice Semiconductor Corporation is teaming up with Lenovo by integrating Lattice’ CrossLink-NX FPGAs and AI-optimised software into Lenovo’s ThinkPad X1 portfolio.

Vice President of Segment Marketing and Business Development at Lattice Semiconductor, Matt Dobrodziej, said: “We are proud of this collaboration with Lenovo that resulted in exciting user experiences offering smarter human-computer engagement, privacy, collaboration, and better energy management.”

Rural businesses updating to mooove with the times

Rural businesses in parts of England have shown remarkable resilience during COVID-19 by innovating and adapting in response to the severe economic challenges of the pandemic, according to a major new survey from the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE).

More than a third of rural firms in the North East, South West and West Midlands diversified their business in the wake of Covid with half of these developing new sales channels and two-thirds expanding their customer base.

Assis named Big Blue’s EMEA GM

Ana Paula Assis has been appointed general manager for IBM Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA)succeeding Marta Martínez Alonso, who is retiring from IBM after 19 years as a suit.

Assis will be responsible for the business operations, driving revenue growth, client satisfaction, and employee engagement across EMEA.

Cohesity to obey the Law

Cohesity has hired Kirk Law  as senior vice president of R&D where he will have global responsibility for engineering, product management and Cohesity’s ecosystem business.

The tech veteran brings over 30 years of relevant experience to Cohesity with a passion for developing products.

Law said: “We will continue to deliver next-gen solutions that can help organisations radically simplify data management, improve their security postures in the face of sophisticated ransomware attacks, benefit from AI-powered insights, and do more with data, which is their most valuable digital asset.”

Renovotec acquires Jade Solutions

Yes, it’s M&A time again. Rugged solutions reseller Renovotec has snapped up wireless and mobility specialist Jade Solutions.

Castleford-based Renovotec claims it is now the “largest consultative company in its industry” following the acquisition, which boosts its headcount to 160 staff across the UK and continental Europe and worth a cool £50 million.

Tactus PC snaps up gaming brand Chillblast.

Ecommerce business outfit Tactus Group has acquired PC gaming brand Chillblast.

Located in Poole, Dorset, Chillblast is the official PC supplier of Williams eSports and provider of  VR technology used in RAF Air Cadet training simulators. It is an Intel Platinum Member and Microsoft Silver OEM Partner.