Category: News

Industry expert warns about quality matters

Quality and Compliance is no longer treated as a ‘tick-the-box after thought’ according to Paul Hastings (pictured), a quality and compliance consultant.

Hastings, who works for the software outfit with software firm Ideagen, said that globalisation, competition for choice – coupled by the explosion of social media in the last decade –means that businesses need to be operating to the upmost standards under immense scrutiny.

Channel firms back business transformation

More than two thirds of IT channel firms think business transformation is needed to meet customer requirements according to a new analyst report.

Agilitas has added up some numbers and divided them by their shoe size and found that 68 percent  of businesses believe that channel companies must adapt and “evolve” to deal with customer demands, advancements in new technologies and other disruptive elements of the constantly changing IT and business landscape.

TrackTrans scores in Swinson Transport cloud project

TrackTrans has announced that Midlands-based Swinson Transport has successfully deployed its company’s cloud-based systems to connect drivers, better use its fleet of 20-plus vehicles and handle more than 700 deliveries every month.

The company said that since installing the TrackTrans system, the family-run business has realised tangible time savings, reduced administrative overheads, boosted business performance, and improved customer service.

IT jobs gap still happening

There is a huge demand for IT positions across the UK with tens of thousands of vacancies out there underlining the extent of the demand from employers for skilled individuals.

According to the Industry association CompTIA there were 162,000 IT job openings across the UK in first quarter accounting for nine per cent of all the vacancies across the economy.

Printers need to be more open minded about data

The humble printer could be a significant hub for data and compute power as part of an  IoT ecosystem but it needs a change in attitude from vendors.

Analysts from Quocirca say that vendors have a drawbridge up attitude when it comes to data sharing even while multifunction printers already generate a lot of data and have compute power that could be taken advantage of if third parties could use it as a resource.

Aquisitor SecureLink bought

SecureLink which has been aggressively acquiring other companies has been sold to Orange for €515 million.

The outfit had increased its annual revenues to nearly €250 million using European acquisitions and collected UK-based Nebulas and Nordic outfit Coresec among its scalps.

Mphasis hires Bhatia

IT solutions outfit Mphasis has appointed Anurag Bhatia as Senior Vice President and Head of Europe business.

Bhatia would be responsible for spearheading growth strategies, client pursuits and enhancing client success in the region.

Bhatia has over twenty years of technology services experience in multiple large outsourcing projects globally. He joins the European team from Mphasis US, where he has been part of the GTM unit for past five years, leading Service Transformation in his most recent role.

China winning security battle

Chinese tech companies are increasingly strengthening their presence the security business, challenging the historical American dominance.

According to GlobalData’s list of top five venture capital (VC) funded security technology companies the  US and China security technology companies shared honours in the list.

However, China-based Yitu Technology emerged as the leader and attracted largest VC funding in 2018. While the three US-based companies among the top-five raised a total of US$489 million, the two Chinese companies collectively raised US$479 million during the year.

Chris Turner appointed Toughbook UK and Ireland Country Manager

Panasonic has announced the appointment of Chris Turner as the new Country Manager for the UK & Ireland Toughbook Group. #

Turner has more than a decade’s experience at Panasonic flogging Toughbook ’s rugged notebooks, tablets and handheld devices. His focus will be to boost the sale of rugged notebooks and tablets in the UK and Ireland, rapidly grow Panasonic’s share of the handheld market and accelerate its focus from hardware to mobile business.

365 ITMS gets another new owner

The service provider 365 ITMS has been acquired by its third owner in two years.

IDE Group bought the Microsoft partner was acquired in 2017, before being sold in a management buyout last October.

Struggling IDE Group has sold 365 ITMS as part of the new leadership’s plans to rescue the company. It took on the 365 ITMS name again.

VMware prepares UK partners for Connect

VMware is sprucing up its  partner programme next year and efforts are already underway to make sure the channel is ready.

The outfit wants to see more specialisations as part of the master services programme, with partners able to gain skills in VMware Cloud on AWS Master Services Competency, network virtualisation, cloud management and automation, data centre virtualisation and desktop and mobility options.

AMD predicts revenue growth

AMD CEO Lisa Su said 2019 will be a “revenue growth year” thanks to its next-generation, 7-nanometer processors and GPUs which will appear in the second half of the year.

AMD saw first quarter  revenue fall by 23 percent, but the company’s guidance for full-year revenue was unchanged from the last few months, with the expectation that it will grow in the high single digits.

Rival Intel  lowered its full-year revenue forecast by $2.5 billion last week from a previous estimate, showing that the company expects annual revenue to decline this year.

2019 semiconductor sales fall ten per cent

Beancounters at research firm IHS Markit have slashed its outlook for 2019 semiconductor sales by more than 10 percentage points, projecting revenue to decline 7.4 percent to $446.2 billion.

The outfit had predicted 2.9 percent growth for 2019 revenue in December.

This would mean that the semiconductor industry is facing its biggest annual percentage decrease since 2009, when chip sales dipped by nearly 11 percent.

Hurd gives the word on Oracle’s plan

Expenses master Oracle CEO Mark Hurd warned hacks at Oracle Media Day that overall growth in the U.S. and global economies is not translating directly to increases in B2B spending.

He said that midmarket businesses were seeing an infusion of capital in the current environment, which has supercharged Oracle’s NetSuite business.