Category: News

M2M is a tough market for channel

Posted on July 7, 2017 by - News

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A new report by analyst outfit Transparency Market Research says that the global smart home M2M market is tough to get into.

The report has the catchy and concise title “Smart Home M2M Market (Technology – Wireless (Wi-Fi and Cellular) and Wired; Application – Access and Security Control, Energy and Climate Management, Home Entertainment, and Lighting) – Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast, 2017-2025.”

It claims the industry is fragmented in nature on account of the presence of many large vendors operating in various industry verticals.

The market is made up of platform providers, telecommunications operators, chip providers, device manufacturers, and original equipment manufacturers (OEM). To make matters worse there is stiff competition including some of the big names.

These include Cisco, AT&T, Gemalto, Intel, Vodafone, Telit, Deutsche Telekom,  Sprint, KORE Wireless  and Sierra Wireless.

The report said that the global smart home M2M market will likely expand at a robust 13.3 per cent CAGR between 2017 and 2025 to reach a value of $16.316 million by 2025 from $5.421 million in 2016.

Depending upon applications, the global smart home M2M market can be divided into energy and climate management, access and security control, home entertainment, and lighting, among others, including M2M technology for connected wellness and smart appliances.

At present, the energy and climate management segment dominates with a leading share. In 2016, the segment held over a fourth of the share in the market.

Geographically, North America, South America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East and Africa are the key segments of the global smart home M2M market.

North America of them, held a leadings share of 35 per cent in 2016. The region’s expansion has been driven primarily by the US.

Knowledge about the benefits of home automation, widespread availability of different home automation products, concentration of numerous vendors, and easy availability of skilled personnel required for home automation have helped catalyse growth in the North America market.

At the forefront of driving growth in the global smart home M2M market is the swift uptake of smart home security systems.

The report said that traditional systems are mainly operated manually and have several disadvantages.

Smart home security systems, with enhanced features such as text message based motion detection notifications, remote monitoring of residential property, and automatic opening of doors and windows when smoke alarm is sounded, helps to overcome those disadvantages.

Further, the growing applications of smart appliances such as vacuum cleaners washing machines, HVAC systems, kitchen equipment, televisions, etc., lighting systems, and other connected consumer electronics have also served to bolster the smart home M2M market globally.

“Such devices are mostly connected to the Wi-Fi system of a home and can be controlled through a smart phone application or via a remote control among other systems.

Owing to such advantages, the demand for smart appliances is gaining popularity across different geographic locations,” the report said.

What is holding the global smart home M2M market back are concerns over breach of security and compatibility issues with legacy systems.

The continuous advancement in technology, falling prices of semiconductor devices and growing adoption of home automation can be expected are expected to create new avenues for growth in the market, the report said.

 

AI deal could be great for channel

Posted on July 7, 2017 by - News

robby the robotThe news that Nvidia and Baidu have teamed up on AI is great news for the channel, according to Moor Insights and Strategy’s Patrick Moorhead.

Moorhead said that the key will be for channel partners to aggressively develop AI expertise and programmes within their companies and to establish themselves as thought leaders in the market.

In a way, AI is just another way of doing analytics and in the hierarchy of analytics, machine learning is at the top, he said. “Whether it’s super-sophisticated SIs all the way to resellers, where there is not a lot of value added there is opportunity for people to make money from AI.”

The Nvidia and Baidu deal shows how AI can be used in a wide range of markets. Baidu will use Nvidia’s next-generation Volta GPUs in its public cloud to deliver a robust deep learning platform to its customers and the chip maker’s PX platform for its self-driving car effort and to help Chinese carmakers create autonomous vehicles. Baidu will optimise its PaddlePaddle open-source deep learning framework for the Volta GPUs and make it available to researchers and academic institutions and will add its DuerOS conversational AI system to Nvidia’s Shield streaming console.

Moorhead said that VARs will be able to resell AI platforms from vendors, such as IBM. Big Blue offers PowerAI, a toolkit that includes all the top machine learning platforms, such as TensorFlow, Caffe, Theano and Chainer, running on IBM Power systems.

Partners also can integrate their own AI platforms or those from other companies atop hardware to offer to customers and “establish though leadership with clients or create new accounts”, he said.

Cloud providers like Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud Platform offer channel partners a percentage of the revenue when they bring in customers to use the AI platforms they offer on their public clouds.

SIs and other solution providers also can also help stand up AI clouds and services that customers can leverage, he said.

Most of the momentum in AI and machine learning is happening with component makers, like Nvidia, Intel and Advanced Micro Devices, and with public cloud providers, Moorhead said. Partners will want to look for how they can add value to what is being offered and developed, he added.

Solution providers also need to educate themselves about AI, develop the kinds of applications that customers can use in AI environments and establish relationships with the top vendors in the market.

Barracuda Networks partners CMS to help fish for more MSPs

Posted on July 7, 2017 by - News

Barracuda Networks wants to see more growth from its managed service provider department and signed up 6c3b7ef950-komodo-055CMS Distribution.

Barracuda has been growing the number of managed service providers it works with, building on the technology it acquired with the Intronis purchase 15 months ago.

The idea of signing up CMS Distribution is to help it reach even more MSPs across the UK and Ireland with the distributor offering cloud security and data protection.

Barracuda has spiced up its line-up with a next-generation firewall and managed backup appliance to the services it can offer partners and has found that its partner numbers have been swelling.

The vendor has made no secret of its plans to expand its channel base and the CMS signing is part of that strategy but should also appeal to the resellers that work with the distributor.

CMS Distribution software solutions group director Justin Griffiths said that Barracuda MSP offered a stable and scalable platform for our partners who are interested in breaking into the MSP market and to our existing MSP partners wanting to expand their portfolio.

 

 

CityFibre buys Entanet

Posted on July 7, 2017 by - News

moove_1Broadband provider CityFibre has written a £29 million cheque for the connectivity service Entanet.

The outfit is also popping around the bank to get a loan for  £185 million to expand CityFibre’s fibre metro area network from 42 to 50 UK cities by 2020.

CityFibre said it expects to make around £3 million per year by 2020 from the Entanet using its base of 1,500 channel partners to reach more business customers.

The firm had previously splashed £90 million on KCOM’s national infrastructure in 2015.

Greg Mesch, chief exec of CityFibre, said: “With Entanet now part of the CityFibre family, our combined offering will accelerate the take-up of services over our growing network footprints, leveraging Entanet’s enviable channel partner network and continuing to transform digital connectivity for thousands of UK businesses.

“Today’s capital raising also better positions CityFibre to undertake larger projects coming forward with the public sector as well as mobile operators in readiness for their small-cell rollouts and 5G services.”

Ensono expands Azure with Inframon buy-out

Posted on July 6, 2017 by - News

shark_attack_painting-t2 (1)Ensono has written a cheque for cloud management outfit Inframon as part of its cunning plan to expand its Microsoft Azure services in the US and Europe.

Inframon has been expanding in the managed cloud space over the last decade and now offers a converged managed cloud and devices service for the education, healthcare, finance and business services industries. This end-to-end service has made it a suitable target for Ensono.

Jeff VonDeylen, CEO of Ensono said that the organisational and leadership structure would remain the same and Inframon will continue to exist, although it will become known as Inframon, an Ensono company.

Sean Roberts will become general manager, Microsoft Cloud Services and Gordon McKenna will become CTO of Microsoft Cloud Services. Both will report to Ensono’s Brian Klingbeil, the company’s COO.

Entatech creditors will get two-thirds of what they are owed

Posted on July 6, 2017 by - News

creditcrunchcoinsmoneyvicewatersmay2014-580x358Unsecured creditors of distributor Entatech are set to receive around two-thirds of their money back.

According to documents published by Companies House, the administrators show that Entatech’s unsecured creditors are owed just over £9.7 million by the Telford-based outfit, and there is £6.3 million to pay them off.

Of the £9.7 million, £7 million is owed to unsecured trade creditors. This figure includes Microsoft which is owed just over £1.2 million.

The taxman is owed £2.5 million and Gigabyte is owed around £822,000 while Fujitsu is owed £668,000.

For those who came in late, Entatech went out of business in May after struggling with legacy financial problems originating under the previous ownership. Its assets were purchased by managing director Dave Stevinson who formed new brand GNR Technology Limited. GNR stands for ‘Greatest Net Return’.

GNR cut the number of vendors it carries from over 70 to around 25 to have a narrower and specialist focus. It has secured deals with Gigabyte, Adata, Hannspree, iStorage and Intel.

PC market will grow again next year

Posted on July 6, 2017 by - News

hope springs eternalThe PC market will start growing next year according to Gartner, as buyers come to the end of their evaluation periods for Windows 10.

Worldwide PC shipments are expected to hit 267 million units in 2018, a 1.9 percent increase on 2017 when shipments are forecast to reach 262 million. By 2019, shipments are pegged to hit 272 million units.

This year’s PC sales are however expected to fall yet again for the sixth consecutive year, with shipments dropping three percent when compared with 2016.

According to Gartner, further adoption of Windows 10, as PC buyers come to the end of their evaluation periods, and a higher need for security will drive PC shipments.

“PC buyers continue to put quality and functionality ahead of price,” said Ranjit Atwal, research director at Gartner.

“Many organisations are coming to the end of their evaluation periods for Windows 10, and are now increasing the speed at which they adopt new PCs as they see the clear benefits of better security and newer hardware.”

 

Cylance does deal with Toshiba

Posted on July 6, 2017 by - News

cylance-160311095453-thumbnail-4Cylance, the security outfit which offers AI-powered prevention that blocks everyday malware along with today’s most advanced cyberthreats, has signed a distributor agreement with Toshiba.

Toshiba Industrial ICT Solutions has launched sales of CylancePROTECT, an antivirus solution that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to prevent the execution of malware at the endpoint.

Attacks by ransomware and other malicious programs have increased rapidly in recent years. CylancePROTECT is a machine-learning platform that harnesses the power of artificial intelligence to detect and prevents the execution of such malware in real time.

Unlike conventional antivirus products that use signatures to detect threats, CylancePROTECT pinpoints both known and unknown malware by breaking down files to the DNA level to analyse and classify millions of attributes per file.

Prior to the launch of sales, the Toshiba Group started in-house deployment in June 2016, installing CylancePROTECT on approximately 5,500 endpoints, including virtual desktop environments.

The software claims to provide accurate detection of zero-day and variant ransomware and other malware that was missed by previously used conventional signature-based antivirus products

Same detection capabilities confirmed in PCs that were disconnected from the company network and the internet.

 

 

IoT integration market will grow by a third each year

Posted on July 6, 2017 by - News

Forwarders-set-to-see-growthA new market research report claims that the IoT market will grow by a third every year.

MarketsandMarkets beancounters claim that the global IoT Integration Market size is expected to grow from $ 759.5 million in 2017 to $ 3,301.7 million by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 34.2 percent.

The major forces driving the growth of the IoT Integration Market include the growth of the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) trend and the need for remote workplace management.The increasing demands for data consistency and growing regulatory compliances and regulations are also some of the factors that are driving the market growth, the report said.

The system design and architecture services segment is expected to be the fastest growing service in the IoT Integration Market during the forecast period.

System design and architecture services involve the analysis, design, and configuration of the software components that support the system architecture.

System design engagement typically provides advice for sizing of new systems and scaling of existing systems. It provides improved system performance, offers tailored configuration advice, and monitors the capability usage of system resources.

Service providers also design and offer customized services as per client requirement and budget. These customised services help manage business workflows and improve business efficiency for commercial customers.

The smart building and home automation application area is expected to hold the largest market share in the IoT Integration Market during the forecast period.

Smart buildings comprise energy-saving equipment for the efficient functioning of all components and systems of a building, including lighting, monitoring, safety and security, emergency systems, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems, and car parking.

The concept of smart buildings has gained prominence due to the increasing adoption of IoT solutions and services. IoT-enabled smart buildings offer enhanced features such as operations personalization, in-building device mobility, occupant comfort, and indoor activities automation.

IoT home automation systems use control systems and smart devices to automatically control and manage basic home functions over the internet from any location.

The major vendors in the IoT Integration Market include Infosys , HCL , TCS, Capgemini, Cognizant, Wipro, Atos, Intel, MuleSoft, Phitomas, Meshed and Allerin.

GCI mixes in Blue Chip  

Posted on July 5, 2017 by - News

Roger-Montgomery-warns-investors-against-buying-blue-chip-stocks-for-their-share-portfoliosGCI has written a cheque for managed services player Blue Chip completing the outfit’s fifth acquisition in 18 months.

GCI has bought names such as Outsourcery and Freedom, but the Blue Chip deal will add 500 staff and not far off £100 million in turnover.

It also adds full IT support to the services that GCI can offer, which should help meet customer demand for assistance with GDPR and digital transformation projects.

GCI CEO Adrian Thirkill said: “Our latest acquisition is another great name and is right up there with earlier acquisitions including Outsourcery and Freedom which have already added immeasurably to our capability. It’s a really simple story: we are continuing our commitment to finesse the shape and direction of GCI and align our services and solutions with our customers’ requirements across all sectors in large SME, mid-tier enterprise, strategic partners and UK Government. Digital transformation is here to stay and it naturally flows through to digital ‘business as usual.”

Richard Cook, managing director at Blue Chip, said that it was rare for two firms with a couple of decades experience each to come together so well.

“Blue Chip enables in-house IT staff to focus on front-end business improvement priorities while we monitor their digital heartbeat and take care of the routine stuff, that includes patching, backups, device management and much more,” said Cook.

” The big plus point is that we are there to help with strategic shaping providing solid advice backed by the combined learning of 40,000 deployments, a huge technical resource, and skills that span virtually every leading technology vendor and all environments: on-premise, private cloud, public cloud, hybrid. That’s a great mix for our customers which include some of the most prestigious names in the UK,” he added.

Atos launches first prescriptive security operations centre

Posted on July 5, 2017 by - News

Three-Musketeers-The-1973-1605x903Systems integrator and second musketeer Atos has launched what it has dubbed the world’s first prescriptive security operations centre (SOC).

The SOC, which is available as a solution in Atos’ 14 SOCs globally, combines big data analytics and machine learning with McAfee security technology to bring down threat detection times from 190 days on average to less than a minute, according to Atos.

This is one of the first things to emerge from Atos’ McAfee partnership which was announced in November. The big idea is to offer threat detection and remediation in the form of a managed security service.

Pierre Barnabé, chief operating officer of big data and security at Atos, said: “By combining big data, security analytics and supercomputing, Atos offers its customers the opportunity to be one step ahead of cyber attacks.

“The deep data analytics and monitoring in real time allow a unique and continuous prescriptive security. Customers can now predict and neutralise threats before they reach their goal.”

It is built using Atos machine-learning technology and uses McAfee threat defence to learn from previous threats and automate responses in real time. Atos claims that total response and recovery times can be reduced from two months to just “a few minutes”.

Microsoft confirms sales re-organisation

Posted on July 5, 2017 by - News

downloadSoftware King of the World and parts of Mars, the Moon and the rings of Uranus, has confirmed it is shaking up its global sales department.

While Vole has stopped short of mentioning how many salesVoles will be collecting their P45s, it has claimed that the move will give it a greater ability to deliver cloud services away from the traditional software subscription models.

The global sales team will be streamlined into enterprise and SME. Staff will then be allocated to six industries – manufacturing, financial services, retail, health, education and government.

The categories for software will be modern workplace, business applications, apps and infrastructure and data and AI, with staff being given support to get a greater technical understanding of the technology and services required in those areas.

A company email from worldwide commercial business chief Judson Althoff, global sales and marketing group leader Jean-Philippe Courtois and Chris Capossela, the company’s chief marketing officer said that there was a $4.5 trillion opportunity across the commercial and consumer business.

“We are uniquely positioned to drive our customers’ and partners’ success by leading them through their digital transformations, and becoming their partner of choice. Some of the steps it intends to take include increasing the focus on customer success with partners, “align our selling and partnering efforts by industry for greater digital impact,” it said.

Diplomat LMS sews up loaned laptop market

Posted on July 5, 2017 by - News

36516ba51f4289dc3565ba655259c3d4The business model of manually loaning laptops or tablets to students a thing of the past, according to a recent survey carried out by LapSafe Products.

The study found that 44 percent of UK Universities have now automated their laptop/tablet loan service within or outside the university libraries.

More than 87 percent deploy the Diplomat LMS, a dynamic self-service, multi-bay locker system designed to loan devices.

The extremely popular Diplomat LMS, stores, charges and deploys laptops, Chromebooks, Microsoft Surface or tablets such as iPads in self-service locker bays. The lockers, allow users to borrow fully charged devices for set periods of time and makes device loans easy to manage. The automated service allows students to borrow devices whether staff are present or not.

The Diplomat LMS also allows a ‘mix and match’ of devices or the opportunity to borrow a charging locker space (BYOD). IT Technicians have the option to update or re-image all the devices from a chosen location saving both time and money.

The survey reveals that 100 per cent of customers that have already deployed the Diplomat LMS would recommend to other universities that they do the same. So why is this service so popular? Feedback has revealed that the main reason is to allow students access to devices outside of normal library opening and that providing a 24 x 7 x 365 access to devices is important. The annual student satisfaction surveys has also revealed that students want more access to this type of service.

According to the survey, the average loans provided by each UK university site per month is approximately 3,000 loans, however, one site is currently transacting 16,000 loans per month.

Most of the Diplomat LMS deployed are using LapSafe ultra-safe SmartLine charging inside the lockers. This means that there is no need for the devices own AC adaptors as it has LapSafe inbuilt charging system which saves the users time when accessing the devices. The Diplomat™LMS monitors the charge status of each device and ensures that it deploys the ‘best charged’ device. 93 percent of customers surveyed said that loaning the ‘best charged’ device was an important factor when choosing their self-service solution.

World shift due to digital innovation

Posted on July 5, 2017 by - News

fings-ain-t-wot-they-used-t-be-all-star-studio-cast-recordingFings ain’t wot they used to be, thanks to digital innovation and transformation, according to Tholons Services Globalization Index 2017” (TSGI) research report.

The report which ranks the Top 50 “Digital Nations” and Top 100 “Super Cities”  Services Globalization (outsourcing) shows that the industry has been shaken at the very core as big industry leaders are grappling to align their business model to the new world of enterprise digital innovation and transformation.

The biggest leaders in services globalisation like India, Philippines, East Europe, China and Latin America, are starting to see most of their services commoditised in the next three to four years.

Clients are asking for transformational and innovative services involving mobility, analytics, cloud, social media, cyber security and digital marketing – services that traditional business models will be challenged to deliver.

The automation of work like applications management, infrastructure support, testing, business processes, self-service and customer relationship management is quickly reducing the need for manpower.

While most of the smaller countries in the top 20 will find it easier to adapt their model and be more agile in working with clients on digital innovation, however more than half of the workforce in IT/BPO sector in leading outsourcing locations will become irrelevant in coming few years unless significant reskilling is done. And for an industry this large, making this gigantic shift will be a challenge.

The Globalization industry has been knocked by digital forces. Robotics, Artificial intelligence, Social Media, Mobility, Big Data, Digital supply chain, Digital Trust, As a Service will continue to punch established players.

The report said that the outsourcing industry has been shaken at the core; big industry leaders are slipping from top positions:

  • India, China, Philippines, Brazil and Mexico are the top ranked Digital Nations. Canada, Chile and Ireland are the new entrants to top 10 Digital Nations, along with Vietnam and Poland from earlier.
  • four Cities from India (Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi and Hyderabad) and Manila in Philippines continue to be in the top 5 of Super Cities but Manila has moved down to fourth position from previously held second position.
  • Pune and Cebu City have moved out of top 10 Super Cities while Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires have moved in the list representing significant inroads made by Latin American Cities.
  • Leaders like India, Philippines and China are being shaken by disruptors like Canada and Israel, while innovators like Brazil and Chile are going to collectively redefine the leadership for the next decade.

The opportunity of growing $2.4 trillion technology spend to $ 3.8 trillion by accelerated transition of legacy businesses to digital is not to be missed, the report said.

“It is good news for innovative startups, super cities and digital nation to claim the territory. An engaged focus in digital innovation at enterprise level will lead to emergence of new leaders. These new players clearly stand a great chance to be the winners given they are not saddled with legacy and big transformational effort and cost. We feel jubilant ringing the bell to dawn of certainty, opportunity and this new found world,” it adds.

Opsgility doubles in Dublin

Posted on July 4, 2017 by - Moving People, News

Ominous Clouds over Dublin CityMicrosoft cloud expert Opsgility has opened a new subsidiary office located in Dublin, Ireland.

Dr. Jonathan Tuliani has been appointed as the Managing Director of this new office, effective July 1. Tuliani will report to Michael Washam, CEO, and will oversee the rapidly expanding European market.

Tuliani comes to Opsgility after spending more than nine years at Microsoft, most recently serving as the Principal Program Manager on the Azure Networking Team. As part of a global team, he led the development of multiple Microsoft Azure services, including Azure DNS and Azure Traffic Manager.

“Not only are we excited to be opening this new office, we’re also thrilled to bring such a strong technical leader to Opsgility,” said Michael Washam, CEO of Opsgility. “The cloud readiness market is rapidly growing, and this new office, paired with Jonathan’s skillset, presents us the opportunity to better service our global clients.”

He said: “This new role will allow me to act as a bridge between Microsoft’s Cloud technology and Opsgility’s breadth of customers. I was drawn to the direct line between the work Opsgility does and the value that’s delivered to their customers. While Opsgility is a small team, they have seen tremendous growth over the past several years, and they are a powerhouse when it comes to Microsoft training. I am excited to be a part of this fast-growing company and eager to see where we go over the next several years.”

Prior to Microsoft, Tuliani was the Technical Director at Cryptomathic Limited, a specialist security software vendor. Reporting directly to the CEO, he was responsible for all UK technical activities. Tuliani earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of London and serves on the board of The Children’s House, a local school in Dublin.