Category: News

CMA and Unilever row might send a warning to greenwashers

Nearly every company claims to be sustainable and environmentally friendly, but regulators are getting snarky when companies overegg the pudding.

Unilever, the multinational consumer goods company behind well-known brands like Dove soap and Hellmann’s mayonnaise, is under investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) over allegations that it may be exaggerating the environmental friendliness of some of its products.

The CMA said it is cracking down on companies suspected of engaging in “corporate greenwashing” as customers want to make more sustainable choices.

The CMA’s primary concern is that Unilever may be misleading consumers with vague and broad statements regarding the environmental attributes of products. The watchdog points to the use of language and imagery on packaging that could potentially overstate the eco-friendliness of these products.

Surprise management moves at RingCentral

The founder and former CEO of RingCentral, Vlad Shmunis, is returning to the company following the surprising exit of Tarek Robbiati.

RingCentral had announced that Tarek Robbiati would become the new chief in August 2023.

In a statement, the company said that Robbiati’s resignation was not due to any disagreement with the company or the Board of Directors or any matter related to the company’s operations, policies or practices.

Rob Theis, RingCentral’s lead independent director, said: “RingCentral’s strategic product vision and operations are closely aligned and linked. We have concluded that it is best to have one executive oversee all aspects of the business organisation.

Rackspace releases new product for partners

Cloudy Rackspace has launched its SDDC (Software Defined Data Centre) Enterprise and Business for SAP with VMware virtualised computing, storage, network, and cloud management products for its channel partners.

The multi-tenant VMware solutions enable business-critical SAP and SAP HANA (High-Performance Analytic Appliance) environments with a fully integrated hardware and software stack for private clouds. The enterprise-ready grade solution and SAP-certified pre-configuration based on Dell VxRail is a turnkey experience that enables innovation.

Arrow improves cloud management platform.

Arrow Electronics has added functionality to its cloud management platform to support more everything-as-a-service (XaaS) options.

Extra services include more hybrid and multi-load monitoring options under the bonnet of its ArrowSphere platform.

The company said that its partners are increasingly offering multi-cloud support to customers to ensure they can meet the demands of users operating across various flavours of public and private cloud.

Arrow added updates that focus on sustainability, cost optimisation and security. Adding the GreenOps, FinOps, and SecOps dashboards allows partners to increase the visibility of key areas of concern for customers.

TD SYNNEX trains partners on net zero

TD SYNNEX has opened its Net Zero Academy, a three-day course to train partners on assessing their carbon impact and creating a plan to move their business towards net zero.

The first two days are classroom-based at TD SYNNEX’s offices in Basingstoke and a further day of home or office-based learning and assessment.

The course has been accredited by the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA) and delivered by specialist consultancy Arete Zero Carbon.

TD SYNNEX business unit director Sophia Haywood-Atkinson said sustainability commitments recognised by industry standards have become “increasingly important” as customers are looking much harder at the commitment of their suppliers.

Ekco snaps up Bluecube

Irish Ekco has acquired UK cybersecurity firm Bluecube and effectively doubled its UK presence.

This is Ekco’s fourth acquisition in the last year and augments Ekco’s service portfolio for UK clients with security offerings and improved critical recovery abilities, strengthening Ekco’s incident response capacities amid rising threats.

This acquisition aligns with Ekco’s global expansion strategy, which it says is fuelled by organic growth and European acquisitions, and new US offices.

Chillblast product manager jailed for stealing hardware

A UK-based System Integrator Chillblast product manager stole nearly £200,000 worth of PC hardware over several years and then flogged it on Gumtree and eBay.

Matthew Hudson (pictured) and his chum Daniel Key sold up to thirty laptops, ten desktop systems, 50 graphics cards, and shedloads of storage drives and monitors.

Prosecutor Tom Nicholson told Bournemouth Crown Court how Hudson exploited the trust of his colleagues due to his position and access to inventory checklists and customer returns. He has been doing it from 2013 until 2019. Daniel Key helped Hudson sell these stolen goods and split the profits from their sales.

Hudson was good at hiding his tracks on paper by manipulating stock levels, stealing items from custom returns, and making new items in the inventory unavailable by showing items as returned and credited.

Zoom and Five9 have another stab at acquisition

Zoom is having another stab at buying Five9 more than two years after its failed $14.7 billion bid.

According to a Bloomberg report, Zoom, the California-based communications tool vendor, has held acquisition discussions with Five9, which is working with advisers.

Five9, a contact centre software vendor based in California, will likely attract other potential buyers.

Five9 has about 950 channel partners worldwide and 700 in North America. More than 32 per cent of Zoom’s overall sales come through the channel. In 2022, the company said it had over 8,500 partners worldwide.

In 2021, Zoom’s $14.7bn offer for Five9 was voted down by the its shareholders.

 

Microsoft wants to build UK AI infrastructure

Microsoft campusMicrosoft has promised to spend $3.2 billion (£2.5 billion) in a bid to create a large AI infrastructure in the UK.

Microsoft Vice Chair and President Brad Smith said the plan was to create “a major AI infrastructure and skilling investment supported by a new partnership on security” in the UK.

Vole plans to support AI’s growth and progress without compromising public security. The company’s goal also includes helping the economy and providing jobs.

In line with this, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak recently announced GBP29.5 billion of private funding for new UK projects that would create 12,000 jobs in various sectors including tech, life sciences, renewables, housing and infrastructure.

Global semiconductor revenue growing

According to Gartner bean counters, global semiconductor revenue is projected to grow 16.8 per cent in 2024 to total $624 billion.

This figure is much better than this year, where the market is forecasted to decline 10.9 per cent and reach $534 billion.

Big G analyst Alan Priestly said: “We are at the end of 2023, and strong demand for chips to support AI workloads, such as GPUs, is not going to be enough to save the semiconductor industry from double-digit decline in 2023.”

“Reduced demand from smartphones and PC customers coupled with weakness in datacentre/hyperscaler spending is influencing the decline in revenue this year.”

However, 2024 is forecast to be a bounce-back year where revenue for all chip types will grow, driven by double-digit growth in the memory market.

The worldwide memory market is forecast to record a 38.8 per cent decline in 2023 and will rebound in 2024 by growing 66.3 per cent, Priestly said.

Blancco has sold itself and is off the share market

Private equity firm, Francisco Partners has completed the all-cash acquisition of Blancco for representing an equity valuation of £175 million and taken the company off the share market.

For those not in the know, Blancco provides products for organisations to protect end-of-life data against unauthorised access, safely redeploy data storage assets, and comply with increased data protection and privacy requirements.

Blancco CEO Matt Jones said that since its founding 26 years ago, it has created and delivered innovative solutions, focusing on building a world-class data eraser and diagnostic software platform.

“We are pleased to partner with Francisco Partners, who are committed to continuing to build upon the company’s strong foundation and achieve its full potential. I want to thank each employee for their dedication to Blancco and contributing to our continued success,” he said.

AWS gets three year cloud contract with Home Office

The Home Office has signed a three-year cloudy deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) valued at £450,281,369.

The contract falls under the G-Cloud 13 framework and is to provide public cloud hosting services to the Home Office. T

This latest agreement follows a series of collaborations between the Home Office and AWS, which are becoming increasingly controversial.

Last year, a report from the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) and think tank TaxWatch revealed that AWS has secured UK public sector contracts exceeding £600 million since 2017.

The report also highlighted concerns about tax payments, with AWS allegedly avoiding £84 million in taxes during the same period.

Insight Enterprises snaps up SADA

Insight Enterprises has snapped up six-time Google Cloud Partner of the Year SADA for $410 million.

Insight claims the deal puts it in the same class as Accenture and Deloitte as one of Microsoft and Google’s three biggest cloud players.

Insight said the additional earnout for SADA owners has a target of $210 million based on SADA’s three-year performance after the close of the acquisition. Insight expects the deal to add 20 to 30 cents per share to its adjusted earnings per share in December 2023 and 55 to 75 cents per share in 2024.

SADA delivered net revenue of $251 million in 2022 and gross profit of $200 million.

SADA  has Google Cloud specialisations, including security, infrastructure, cloud migration, data analytics, application development, location intelligence and machine learning. Insight has 22 Microsoft specialisations.

Insight said the deal extends its AI capabilities across two leading generative AI platforms.

 

Palantir’s NHS data sharing deal faces court action

Campaigners have launched legal action to halt a data-sharing deal between the NHS and Palantir.

For those who came in late, Palantir scored a £330 million contract with the NHS to create and operate a Federated Data Platform (FDP) to streamline information sharing among health service trusts and integrated care systems.

The FDP aims to improve service efficiency and address the 7.8 million patient backlog of care hospitals face, enabling them to discharge patients more efficiently.

However, the contract award is a little bit risky as it is giving a ton of UK data to a company which is rather too friendly with the US military.

While Palantir won’t own the data and requires NHS permission for access, campaign groups, including legal organisation Foxglove, are sceptical of the company’s track record.

Softcat’s annual survey talks up cyber security

Softcat’s annual survey of more than 4,000 reseller customers across 2,900 organisations in the UK and Ireland has revealed that cyber security is a top priority for more than half.

It is the second consecutive year cyber-security has emerged as the dominant focus, with 56 per cent of respondents pinpointing it as their top priority.

Softcat’s chief technologist for cyber-security, Kieron Newsham, said it was important for organisations to not only recognise the importance of cyber security but also use new technologies for recovery and normalisation after cyber incidents.

Digital workspace claims the spotlight as the second most prioritised area.

The survey found that a third of organisations (39 per cent) emphasise devices and end-user computing for the upcoming year.