Gold out there for infrastructure providers

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.

Cyxtera expands cloud offering

Every silver has a cloudy liningCyxtera Technologies, the secure infrastructure company, announced the expanded availability of its Cyxtera Extensible Data Centre (CXD) platform in key markets.

CXD is an intelligent, software-defined platform that enables customers to dynamically provision connectivity and dedicated hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) on-demand within and across Cyxtera data centres. Provisioned via API or web portal, enterprises usingCXD 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.

British bobbies looking for IT suppliers

The outfit which buys tech for UK coppers wants an IT supplier for a huge £500m framework but you are going to have to be quick.

The contract will see the Police ICT Company which, according to its website, “acts as a bridge between policing technological and commercial worlds” work with a supplier to manage the relationships with all its VARs, OEMs and independent software vendors.

The Police ICT Company was set up to help police forces reduce spending in the wake of public sector cuts.

It claims its aim is to “cut the costs of police ICT, reduce duplication, improve collaboration and improve the public’s experience of dealing with the police”.

Networking resellers look to spruce up SME wi-fi

Small and medium businesses are suffering wi-fi issues that have the potential to undermine their customer relationships and deny them the chance to retain and grow their user base, according to a new report from Netgear.

Most SMEs realise they need to offer customers access to decent wi-fi huge numbers but are finding the task too tricky.  More than 90 percent of UK SMEs had some problem with wi-fi. Those issues included poor coverage, dropped connections and problems with speed. But the majority of SMEs quizzed by the networking vendor (82 percent) viewed it as essential to be able to offer a good wi-fi connection, with half needing it for customer retention.

Glasswall gets Microsoft’s Gold ISV Co-Sell status

Glasswall has obtained Microsoft’s Gold ISV Co-Sell status which means its sales teams will work with Vole on targeted customer opportunities and related account planning activities, in the commercial and government, defence and security sectors.

Glasswall has developed a Deep-File Inspection, Remediation and Sanitisation Technology – d-FIRST – which prevents malware and understanding of organisational risk from file-borne cyber-attacks. It reverses the traditional signature-based security approach by validating ‘known good’ elements of a file which are finite and bounded, regenerating a new identical and safe copy, typically in fractions of a second.

Cisco snaps up Ensoft

Networking king Cisco has written a cheque for UK outfit Ensoft to add talent and technology to its service provider support.

Ensoft has a £10 million turnover and develops Cisco’s IOS XR features. After the deal, it will become part of the vendor’s Service Provider Networking Group.

Writing in his bog, Rob Salvagno, vice president of corporate business development and head of Cisco’s M&A and venture investment team, said that the purchase fitted in with the ambition to, “simplify service partner networks through automation and programmability”.

Redcentric boss leaves after disappointing first half

Managed services specialist Redcentric’s CEO has fallen on his sword after a disappointing first half of the year.

Chris Jagusz has resigned from the Board and as Chief Executive with Peter Brotherton, CFO assuming the leadership for now.

What led to that decision were the numbers for the first six months to 30 September, which saw revenues drop by 7.6 percent year on year to £47.5 million and worryingly for an MSP the recurring monthly revenue slipped by 7.4 percent to £41.3 million.

Amazon ‘technical error’ exposes customer data

Just days before its big “Black Friday” sale, Amazon suffered a breach of its cloud.

The outfit wrote to some users warning that their names and emails had been exposed due to a “technical error.”

The email said that the online bookseller had fixed the problem and users did not have to do anything else.

Dell and Intel have a peek at digital transformation

Dell and Intel have got together to have a look at what is happening with the mid-market and enterprise space and appear to have opened a Pandora’s box of doom and gloom.

The pair’s Digital Transformation Index shows that that UK firms are aware that things are changing and meeting customer demands is going to become more challenging.  Nearly a fifth of them were scared that their organisations will be left behind.

Black Friday is going to flop

Consumer tech is not expected to see a Black Friday surge this year, according to market watcher Context.

Its predictions are based on analysis of distribution volumes into retailers and etailers over a six-week period at the start of the fourth quarter.

Adam Simon, global MD at Context, said most vendors prepare for this event in advance by ensuring most of their shipments to retailers and distributors are mostly complete by the end of week 39.

May’s Brexit gets Microsoft’s backing

Home Secretary Theresa MaySoftware king of the world Microsoft has thrown its considerable weight behind Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

Writing in her bog,  Microsoft’s UK managing director Cindy Rose said the deal was in Vole’s interest because it allowed the “free flow” of data in and out of the UK.

“Many of our customers and partners operate businesses that rely on Microsoft’s cloud computing services. These businesses require the frictionless flow of data across borders in order to operate effectively.  We have consistently advocated to the government the need to ensure this data flow continues post-Brexit.”

Microsoft pricing miffs government sector

Microsoft campusMicrosoft’s price increases have gone down like month old milk left at the back of a fridge with public sector customers and the channel being blamed for not explaining them well enough.

Vole made changes to its pricing structure from the start of last month, with the aim of simplifying things. That meant that there would be an introduction of single prices in some areas and the removal of complicated discount structures in others.

Government asks outsourcers to write their wills

Outsourcers are drawing up “living wills”, which lay out contingency plans should they die.

The government was caught off-guard by the collapse of construction giant Carillion earlier this year and wants to avoid a repeat of the mess that followed.

Cabinet minister David Lidington said that Capita, Serco and Sopra Steria have volunteered to create protocols if they drop down the loo.

Digital transformation will make SMEs unrecognisable

A Ricoh Europe report claims that the SME/SMB arena is undergoing massive changes due to digital transformation.

The research found that a quarter of SMEs expect to be selling different products and services in the next five years and are looking for help innovating their businesses now to make sure they can deliver those sorts of changes.

There might be different degrees of commitment to change, but 91 percent of those quizzed by the printer maker accepted that they would be changing products and services to some extent in the next few years.

Most blame retailers for their own insecurities

More than 75 percent of shoppers feel that retailers are not doing enough to reassure them that they are protected online during busy shopping periods, according to the first in a series of social media polls conducted by Infosecurity Europe 2019.

In the lead up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday later this month and ahead of the Christmas shopping rush, only a quarter of respondents are reassured that retailers are doing enough.