Category: News

Symantec COO quits on “difficult day”

Posted on December 3, 2018 by - News

Symantec COO and president Michael Fey in what he called a “difficult day” on his social media account.

“Today is an exciting and difficult day. As I have chosen to embark on the next stage of my career”,  Fey wrote in a post on his LinkedIn page. “While this was a difficult decision to leave this awesome team, I am very excited about the future.”

As part of Fey’s separation agreement with Symantec signed Wednesday, he has agreed to forgo severance benefits, unvested equity awards, and cash bonus payments.

Ismail Mitha joins Jabra North EMEA Channel team

Posted on December 3, 2018 by - Moving People, News

Sound outfit Jabra has appointed Ismail Mitha to its North EMEA Channel team. Mitha will be field-based, but will report into Jabra’s UK HQ in Langley, Berkshire.

This news follows a string of new hires and promotions as Jabra has seen increased demand and strong financial growth across the organisation. Mitha joins as Telco Account Manager and will utilise his vast experience in the industry to build upon the strong foundations laid by his predecessor, Lee Davis, who was recently appointed Enterprise Account Manager at Jabra.

Ismail Mitha worked for over 10 years at British Telecom

HP revenue beats estimates

Posted on December 3, 2018 by - News

The maker of expensive printer ink, HP, reported a  quarterly revenue that thrashed analysts’ estimates,  thanks to growth in its systems business that sells notebooks and desktops and the acquisition of Samsung’s printer business.

The personal systems business, which accounts for more than 60 per cent of HP  total revenue, rose 11 percent to $10.06 billion, beating analysts’ average estimate of $9.78 billion.

The company had the second position in worldwide PC shipments in the third quarter with a 22.8 percent market share, down from 23.9 percent in the preceding quarter, according to research firm International

Chatbots and personalisation could be the next big thing

Posted on November 30, 2018 by - News

New research from 2Checkout reveals an increased interest among businesses in personalisation and chatbots

2Checkout has been looking into what it thinks will be next year’s eCommerce Trends based on a survey of 1,000 companies across the world.

Customer experience and technology are top concerns for merchants, and many are prioritising international markets for their next expansion, meaning they need to consider how customers in

SD-WAN technology could be great for the channel

Posted on November 30, 2018 by - News

SD-WAN technology could be an excellent channel opportunity according to, SVP international, Barracuda Networks’ Chris Ross.

Ross said his outfit had been researching networking technology for the cloud – specifically, software-defined wide area networking (SD-WAN).

While speaking to end-users, Barracuda found some interesting insights into the EMEA channel community. There seems to be an increasing opportunity, as businesses in EMEA overwhelmingly turn to SD-WAN, despite a lack of education and skill.

Tech Data reports revenue boost

Posted on November 30, 2018 by - News

Tech Data has reported revenue increases across all its geographic regions.

The company said that for the last three-quarters sales climbed 11 percent year on year to $9.3 billion while operating income was up 85 percent to $146.9 million.

Europe made up over half of the overall sales (53 percent) at $4.9 billion.

Tech Data CEO Rich Hume said: “I am pleased to

CeBIT is no more

Posted on November 29, 2018 by - News

Organisers have given up running what used to be the largest tech trade show.

CeBIT, in Hannover, was popular once, although not loved by hacks who christened it Snowbit on the grounds that it was always cold and had all the picturesque colour of the Slough Trading Estate.

CeBIT once boasted 850,000 visitors a year, but those days have gone the way of the dodo.

Softcat growing

Posted on November 29, 2018 by - News

Softcat has reported growth in revenue, gross profit and operating profit for the first quarter although stopped sort of quoting any actual numbers.

The reseller said that customer demand had “remained strong across all segments” during the three months ending 31 October.

CEO Graeme Watt said: “We’ve traded well during the first quarter of our new financial year and, while there’s still a long way to go, we’re pleased with the performance so far and are where we’d want to be at this stage.

Nutanix launches its Xi Cloud Services

Posted on November 29, 2018 by - News

Nutanix launched a new suite of offerings designed to create a more unified fabric across different cloud environments, so IT teams can run applications on the optimal platform, and are not restricted by technology.

Dubbed Xi Cloud Services is comprised of five distinct offerings at launch, including Xi Leap, a native extension of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud Platform providing disaster recovery as a service.

Nutanix’s recent Enterprise Cloud Index has shown enterprise workloads running in both private and public clouds are expected to jump nearly 20 percent in the

EkkoSense spots next year’s data optimisation trends.

Posted on November 28, 2018 by - News

UK-based data centre outfit EkkoSense has spotted several data centre optimisation trends which could make real difference for organisations in 2019.

According to EkkoSense’s Chief Technology Officer Stu Redshaw said that there are multiple innovations that are ready to generate real advantages for data centre operators next year.

He said that even the best run data centres still have considerable cooling and thermal issues. And with cooling now representing around 30 percent of a data centre’s operating costs, it’s more important than ever for IT teams to focus on monitoring, managing and maximising their data centre performance as effectively as possible.

Cyxtera expands its data centre platform

Posted on November 28, 2018 by - News

Secure infrastructure Cyxtera has expanded availability of its Cyxtera Extensible Data Centre (CXD) platform.

For those who came in late, CXD is an intelligent, software-defined platform that enables customers to sort out connectivity and dedicated hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) on-demand within and across Cyxtera data centres.

It is provisioned via API or web portal, enterprises leveraging CXD can easily procure, deploy, and configure services in less than a day, allowing for rapid expansion of existing colocation environments and speeding time to market in new locations.

HPE buys BlueData

Posted on November 28, 2018 by - News

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) has written a cheque for the AI and big data start-up BlueData.

BlueData was founded in 2012 and has raised £30.6 million. HPE said the deal will “significantly expand” its footprint in the AI and machine-learning space and bolster its big data analytics capabilities.

Milan Shetti, SVP of HPE’s storage and big data business, said: “BlueData has developed an innovative and effective solution to address the pain points all companies face when contemplating, implementing, and deploying AI/ML and big data analytics.

SysGroup loses while sales increase

Posted on November 27, 2018 by - News

Liverpool-based SysGroup saw sales top £5 million, but its losses widened due to two recently acquired companies and the roll out of a new CRM system.

For the six months ending 30 September 2018, the managed services provider saw revenue rise 47.3 percent year on year to £5.8 million.

Adam Binks, who was appointed the group’s CEO earlier this year, said: “During the period we have focused on execution, and I am pleased to report that the group has made steady progress in the first half of the year during my first period as CEO. The increasing proportion of recurring revenue demonstrates the ongoing success of our strategy and position as a consultative-led provider of managed IT services and cloud hosting.

Gold out there for infrastructure providers

Posted on November 27, 2018 by - News

Analysts working for the prediction and divination department at Gartner group are predicting that infrastructure providers should be raking in cash and need to look beyond the edge to make even more.

Big G said that many think that that edge computing was the place to focus, but they need to look a bit further.

While Gartner is not disputing that the edge is essential but is warning infrastructure providers that they need to keep following the demands for customers to deliver ‘digital touchpoint services’.

The analyst house defines a digital touchpoint as being any interaction with a digital device, product or service. An example would be a question and answer session with a chatbot or communication with a fitness tracker.