Author: Nick Farrell

Juniper Networks updates partner programme

Posted on December 6, 2021 by - News

Juniper Networks has changed its Juniper Partner Advantage Programme (JPA), including a new top-tier level and “a modernised engagement platform”.

The changes will appear in January and include training which Juniper claims will “enable partners to quickly expand their knowledge of Juniper and maximise their business growth opportunities”.

Juniper Channel VP  Gordon Mackintosh said: “Juniper Networks is a partner-centric company, and the investments we’ve made in the programme for 2022 will accelerate our strong partnerships and continue us all on the path of hyper-growth. We believe our acquisition strategy and innovations have created the most compelling portfolio of networking solutions available today.”

The “Elite Plus” tier is aimed at Juniper’s “most dedicated partners” and offers “superior support, investment and rewards, along with dedicated business development and demand generation resources”, as well as boosted incentives for software.

Meanwhile, the new learning academy platform will “serve as a resource for new content and webinars to drive partner education and accelerate success”, Juniper said.

It is betting on a “Champion” channel strategy.

 

Channel resembles a dodo – report

Posted on December 6, 2021 by - News

Forrester’s principal analyst, Jay McBain believes only a third of money in the tech industry will flow through the channel by the end of the decade.

He warned that technology companies the rise in marketplaces and direct selling meant less would flow through the channel. McBain said that buyers of technology were changing, telling partners that future buyers “look a lot like consumers” and that it is no longer just those involved in IT that companies are selling to, with marketing and sales now having a greater influence on the market.

Prime Networks snaps up MSP, Our Tech Team

Posted on December 3, 2021 by - News

MSP Prime Networks has written a cheque for London-based MSP Our Tech Team (OTT).

OTT provides services including IT support, cloud computing, VOIP and security and partners with the likes of Dell, Cisco and Apple.

Prime Networks claims the acquisition will add to its “expanding client base and will add further engineering resource for both project delivery and IT support services”.

Distec partners with 10 Squared

Posted on December 3, 2021 by - News

Technology solutions provider Distec has teamed up with 10 Squared to expand its range of kiosks and smart retail, smart city, and “wayfinding” solutions.

10 Squared provides a number of solutions for various industries and produces, it says,  a number of high-quality products.

The 10 Squared portfolio features a range of products, including self-service kiosks suitable for transactional and ticketing requirements with built-in barcode scanners, printers and Chip & Pin, contemporary interactive kiosks for “wayfinding” and information points durable digital signage totems for outdoor environments.

MSPs outperform the market next year

Posted on December 2, 2021 by - News

Druva Senior Vice President, Worldwide Partners and Alliances. Robert Brower has been looking at his Tarot cards and reached the conclusion that managed service provider growth will outperform the market next year.

He thinks that in 2022, service provider (SP) growth will be more aligned to helping customers achieve business outcomes at the same spend versus customers looking to SPs to reduce spend.

“A few factors play here: traditional value-added resellers (VARs) are pivoting to managed services, as customers are outsourcing more app and data services to software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers”, Brower said.

This forced VARs to realign to services that follow the market (identity, security, cloud management). Additionally, hyper scale and tier-one SPs have redefined economies of scale and can no longer grow based on price-in-market, so they grow by acquisition.

Alphawave snaps up Precise-ITC

Posted on December 2, 2021 by - News

Alphawave has written a cheque to buy Precise-ITC an emerging leader in the Ethernet and Optical Transport Network (OTN) communications connectivity IP space.

The company had just finished the consolidation of its VeriSilicon reseller relationship with WiseWave to provide one interface to customers in China, in line with the plan communicated at the time of Alphawave IP’s IPO

The company said that buying Precise-ITC will result in the addition of a team of leading engineers focused on delivering a high-performance Ethernet and OTN communications controller IP portfolio.

This will provide Alphawave’s customers with an integrated IP bundle of Alphawave IP and Precise-ITC technology that extends Alphawave IP’s leadership in the networking and data centre markets.

The combined Alphawave IP and Precise-ITC IP solutions have already been integrated and fabricated in silicon products for several of Alphawave IP’s Product IP customers. The acquisition is Alphawave IP’s first such transaction since the completion of its IPO in May 2021.

IT managers stressed over looming ransomware

Posted on December 2, 2021 by - News

More than 46 percent of UK IT managers don’t believe they invest enough to prevent ransomware attacks, whilst a similar but slightly higher number (52 percent) don’t feel supported to do so by their company’s board.

According to Osirium’s “2021 Ransomware Index survey” less than 10 percent believe that they can prevent a future ransomware attack, stressing out IT people.

The survey findings raise concerns about UK IT teams’ ability to effectively manage potential ransomware attacks, of which their likelihood of becoming a victim is increasing rapidly. Of those surveyed, only 21 percent claimed they had never been attacked. More surprisingly, 53 percent of respondents agreed with the statement: “It would be cheaper to pay the ransom demand than continuously invest in preventing ransomware.”

More than half of the survey respondents also claimed that they do not have sufficient budget/resources to cope with the constantly evolving threat landscape, which makes the research finding, that many feel the only way to deal with the problem is to pay, even more impactful.

The stress to UK IT managers, caused by the spectre of Ransomware, is an increasingly significant downside to an already difficult job. 86 percent of the IT managers surveyed said they feel stressed about the prospects of a ransomware attack, with 22 percent saying it more than doubled their stress levels.

Accenture increases staff list by 3,000

Posted on December 1, 2021 by - News

Temping outfit Accenture has revealed it will expand its UK workforce with 3,000 new roles over the next three years.

The company thinks its clients will need more staff if they are recovering from the pandemic.

Half of the new roles will be based outside of London, expanding the company’s presence in Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Glasgow, and adding to its existing UK workforce of around 11,000 people.

Vapour starts Application Monitoring as a Service (AMaaS).

Posted on December 1, 2021 by - News

Cloudy technology outfit Vapour has launched a new Application Monitoring as a Service (AMaaS) solution. This “aaS” thing is beginning to get on our nerves,

It says its “proactive surveillance tool” Logic Monitor can cover an organisation’s entire IT infrastructure – across on-premise, cloud and hybrid applications and bring enterprise-level performance detection technology to organisations.

Cloud first makes the UK grade

Posted on December 1, 2021 by - News

An Information Services Group report claims that enterprises are increasingly embracing a cloud-first approach to their IT investments.

The “2021 ISG Provider Lens Public Cloud – Services & Solutions Report for the UK” said that enterprises are looking to service providers to help them migrate more of their workloads to the public cloud.

It finds many large UK enterprises interested in hybrid cloud environments, which enable continued use of legacy IT systems, even though an increasing number of companies anticipate a time when they would migrate all of their IT assets to the cloud. Small and medium-sized enterprises, meanwhile, are looking at infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) options to replace their depreciated hardware assets.

ISG partner Jan Erik Aase said that the move to the cloud is expected to be the primary driver of IT market growth in the UK in the coming years.

COVID hits security contract values

Posted on November 30, 2021 by - News

COVID is continuing to hit the value of contracts according to cyber security player Osirium Technologies’ financial figures.

The firm released a trading update on the progress it has made so far in its fiscal year, which ends on 31 December, with it gaining customers but dealing with the caution that the pandemic has caused in users.

The business has increased its customers by 70 per cent in the second half of the year so far, compared with the same period in 2020. Some of those new contacts have come as a result of growing interest in privileged security products and the firm’s efforts to increase its reach into new markets.

That privileged security suite includes access management, automated IT operations and endpoint management, to target a market that the Osirium board believes is valued at about $25 billion by 2025.

The firm was helped out by its channel partner network help it increase opportunities by generating more leads.

PC shipments jump

Posted on November 30, 2021 by - News

Beancounters at research outfit Canalys say that PC shipments in Western Europe jumped 21 percent annually to hit 16.3 million in the latest quarter.

Figures for the third quarter showed that HP regained the top spot after three quarters in the second position, shipping 4.4 million units and taking a 27 percent share.

Lenovo came second, shipping 4.1 million units to take a 25 percent share with Dell, Apple, and Acer rounding up the top five at 14 percent, 12 per cent and eight per cent shares respectively.

Canalys research analyst Trang Pham said the numbers showed a “continuous demand for PCs.

“This isn’t just about fulfilling backlog orders anymore, but about managing a longer-term demand and this is good news for every single vendor operating in the market.

“However, we’re now seeing a marked shift to commercial, as the segment grew 31 per cent versus 11 per cent in consumer. Looking ahead, commercial demand should sustain growth well into 2023.”

Western Europe’s PC market has now been trending upwards for six consecutive quarters, but tablet shipments in Western Europe shrank 20 percent in the quarter with a total of 6.9 million units shipped.

In the third quarter, tablets had an extraordinary performance as they filled a gap created by PCs shortages.

“They are now seeing a corrective decline as penetration within the primary userbase saturates.”

Ransomware attacks increase by 70 percent each month

Posted on November 30, 2021 by - News

The global cyber security and GDPR compliance platform, Naq Cyber, warned that ransomware attacks are increasing by 70 per cent every month.

Millions of businesses have moved their proposition online and shifted to remote working since the pandemic started but many still have little or no online protection in place and are therefore still vulnerable to these attacks, the report

Nadia Kadhim, CEO at Naq Cyber, commented:  “Any UK business that has clients, employees or suppliers and especially if they have an online solution need to have a robust online security solution in place. So many businesses especially SMEs don’t believe they will be attacked and remain vulnerable to online criminals who can steal data, affect profits and cause disruption.

Opportuni snaps up Bidstats

Posted on November 29, 2021 by - News

Opportuni, which makes its cash by giving SMEs fair and equal access to information regarding government contract awards has snapped up Bidstats.

For those not in the know, Bidstats bills itself as the largest and most comprehensive source of contract award data in the UK, with nine years’ archive in its database.

This historic database allows for detailed analysis of contract award data, along with the ability to track contract awards. Practically it means that those who subscribe to Opportuni will get access to this database to allow for more effective planning of bidding activity.

Exclusive Networks scores Alkira as a channel partner

Posted on November 29, 2021 by - News

Alkira has appointed Exclusive Networks to introduce its cloud networking as-a-service (CNaaS) platform to the channel. This makes Alkira’s Cloud Services Exchange (CSX) available through Exclusive’s partners in 40 countries across five continents.

The AI-based CSX system claims to be so clever it allows service providers to solve major network problems in “a few mouse clicks” and can bring the Israelis and the Palestinians together (we made the last one up).

Alkira founder and CEO Amir Khan said the industry faces a shortage of networking expertise and the lack of control costs the industry billions of pounds, with wasted resources and security compromises being just two of the many problems. This means that networks cost too much, are easily hacked and are difficult to defend.