AMD looks to take more of the service market

Posted on July 26, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220AMD supremo Lisa Su said that the company is planning to take a much bigger chunk of Intel’s server market thanks to the “incredible opportunities ahead” with AMD’s next-generation, 7-nanometer processors.

Speaking to the gathered throngs, Su said the company began sampling its 7nm graphics chip, or GPU, with select customers in the second quarter and expects to start shipping the product later this year,

Su said. AMD’s 7nm EPYC server CPU, code-named “Rome,” has also started sampling with select partners and will launch in 2019 while the 7nm client CPU will ship sometime after that, the CEO added.

“I do believe we have a very competitive position in 2019”, Su said.

AMD’s progress with its 7nm chip manufacturing process is significant because Intel has been struggling with its 10nm process, which is comparable to AMD’s 7nm and has been delayed for multiple years because of manufacturing issues.

Su reiterated that the company projects to reach mid-single digits in the server market share by the end of the year and double-digits in the mid-term. The company’s EPYC server chip line, which launched a little over a year ago, is now in over 50 platforms, including HPE’s ProLiant DL325 Gen10 server, which Su said offers significantly lower cost per virtual machine than  Intel.

Su said a majority of the EPYC platforms have been shipping to multiple customers, with some deployments ranging from the hundreds to tens of thousands. That contributed to a 37 percent year-over-year growth in AMD’s Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom business to $670 million for the second quarter.

Su said EPYC sales and shipments have grown more than 50 percent sequentially. After seeing a longer qualification period with customers for the first-generation of EPYC, code-named “Naples,” Su said the company hopes for the timeline to tighten with “Rome,” the next-generation chip.

“With Rome, I think there is enhanced interest,” she said.

Su said the company is aiming to increase EPYC adoption in the high-performance computing, data analytics and virtualized enterprise environment segments.

The company’s Computing and Graphics business grew 64 percent year-over-year to $1.09 billion, driven by strong sales of its Radeon graphics products and “continued growth” of its Ryzen CPU products. At the same time, the business saw a 3 percent dip from the previous quarter, which AMD attributed primarily to a dip in revenue from GPU products in the blockchain market.

SnapLogic updates its partner programme

Posted on July 26, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220Self-service application and data integration SnapLogic announced significant updates to the SnapLogic Partner Connect Programme to enable global technology, service, and reseller partners to expand their enterprise integration and digital transformation capabilities and offerings.

New program benefits will allow SnapLogic partners to a take advantage of the $12 billion application and data integration market. SnapLogic’s recent investments in its partner program have resulted in 60 percent growth in the past year, and the channel is projected to represent 40 percent of company revenue by the end of 2018.

Rich Link, Vice President of Global Channel Sales and Strategic Alliances at SnapLogic said: “SIs, VARs, and technology providers face increasing pressure to act as strategic extensions of digital teams rather than one-off integrators. Our customers are undertaking numerous digital initiatives around cloud data warehousing, data lakes, master data management (MDM), human capital management (HCM), customer relationship management (CRM), and Customer 360 that rely on integration for success. With these updates to the Partner Connect Program, we’re enabling our partners around the world to rapidly gain the expertise required to accelerate our customers’ strategic digital initiatives and deliver repeatable solutions built with our leading Enterprise Integration Cloud platform.”

Updates to the SnapLogic Partner Connect Programme include:

●      Training and education: Full curriculum of free sales and technical training to help partners rapidly build pipeline, close deals, and successfully implement SnapLogic technology. The number of trained SnapLogic consultants around the world has grown by more than tenfold year-over-year.

●      Aggressive reseller discounts and referral rates: New deal referrals and reseller discounts encourage partner profitability. SnapLogic works closely with partners to support efforts to sell and deliver SnapLogic solutions to customers.

●      Solution incentives: Special deal incentives to reward partners who build and go-to-market with repeatable solutions based on SnapLogic and SnapLogic’s technology partners such as Workday, Snowflake, and Reltio.

●      Partner portal: Provides a single destination for updates, deal registration, field assistance requests, collateral access, LMS system access, and discount relief requests.

●      Tiered program structure: Allows technology and implementation partners to customize their investment in SnapLogic and opportunities to grow their business.

SnapLogic Partner Connect Programme has been expanding with the addition of 11 new channel partners in EMEA.

Wind River starts downsizing

Posted on July 25, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220Wind River Systems is laying off staff after Intel sold the industrial Internet of Things software outfit to a private equity firm last month.

More than 64 employees, including a vice president, have cleaned out their desks in California and it appears that the company will make layoffs at its other offices across the world.

Wind River, which develops embedded operating systems, became an independent company in June after Intel completed its sale of the business to TPG Capital, a private equity firm that bought McAfee from Intel in 2017. McAfee had also made layoffs shortly after it was acquired.

The deal to sell Wind River was announced in early April while Santa Clara, Calif.-based Intel was under the leadership of former CEO Brian Krzanich, who was ousted last month following the disclosure of a relationship he had with a former employee that broke company policy. Intel had acquired Wind River in 2009.

When the deal was announced, Intel Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Internet of Things Group Tom Lantzsch said the spinout of Wind River was “designed to sharpen our focus on growth opportunities that align to Intel’s data-centric strategy,” despite industrial IoT remaining a part of that strategy. Wind River had been a part of Intel’s IoT Group, whose annual revenue grew 20 percent to $3.2 billion last year, but the subsidiary had been a small percentage of that business, a source said at the time. Intel, however, did say that Wind River was profitable while declining to break out its sales.

Commsworld wants to create largest UK private network

Posted on July 25, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220Scottish telco Commsworld is set to create the largest privately owned network in the UK.

The Edinburgh-headquartered company has a cunning plan to build its own national optical core network, which will see it connect with more than 20 of the UK’s cities, including Manchester, London and Birmingham.
It has already agreed 10-and 12-year deals with Zayo and CityFibre, respectively, allowing it access to long-distance fibre networks.

Ricky Nicol, chief executive at Commsworld, called it a “milestone” that brings the company from a predominantly Scotland-centric provider to a UK provider.

“Previously, outside Scotland, we’ve used fibre networks owned and managed by others, but this development means we have full control – and the bandwidth available is only determined by the equipment we use on the end of the fibre”, he said.

“While we’ve been able to comfortably provide fast speeds and a high level of service, this expansion of our network opens up so many more possibilities to us to transform the amount of business we will do south of the border.”

Commsworld’s network will comprise a 2,058km service across the UK, with access to CityFibre’s 830km metro network, which services cities such as Sheffield, Leeds and Bristol.

The Scottish provider will also have access to Zayo’s London metro network, along with the option of utilising its subsea links to the US and Europe.

As a result of this expansion, the telecoms firm will open another 30 points of presence in datacentres across the UK.

“Working with Commsworld’s established systems integrator partners, and in conjunction with G-Cloud 10 and other framework accreditations, this gives us the opportunity to significantly grow revenues across England,” Nicol said.

HPE wants partners to accelerate on-premise IaaS

Posted on July 25, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220HPE has said that its channel partners to be the key to unlocking  flexible consumption models.

HPE made several announcements around its GreenLake service at the Discover 2018 conference in Las Vegas. The service offers various plans allowing customers to pay for their on-premise infrastructure using a cloud-like as-a-service model based on their usage.

However while all this is popular in the US, UK outfits have trailed behind the rest of Europe in the adoption of these services and HPE thinks that this is because it has been poorly promoted.

HPE told the assembed hacks at the connferencre that HPE’s channel partners will be the key to unlocking that. It is investing a $1 billion in simplifying the processes and procedures for channel partners, as well as a new channel-centric flexible capacity offering.

“Flex Capacity for Partners: that will be key to our success in getting Flex Capacity generally ramped in the UK. And then once customers are up and running on Flex Capacity, the ability to – for want of a better expression – upsell them onto a GreenLake Hybrid Cloud solution, I think will start to increase”, HPE said.

It will mean that buybacks are easier, incentives have been increased, compliance challenges have been lessened and the overall process is supposedly much simpler.

 

SCC sees fifth year of record earnings

Posted on July 24, 2018 by - News

Surprise Kitten Kittens Cat Money Animals PetSCC is celebrating its fifth consecutive year of “record” earnings.

The Birmingham-based reseller has seen a strong year for services for its UK operations and its EMEA revenues for its financial year ending 31 March 2018 increased by nine per cent to £1.8 billion.

SCC says it enjoyed “strong EBIT growth” in its Spanish and French operations but did not break out specific figures. It claims that UK EBIT was £16 million, compared with £17 million taken from financial statements for the previous year.

Sales drawn from services climbed by four per cent to £325 million or 18 per cent of overall turnover.

SCC said it had carried out “major investment programmes” to its datacentres in Birmingham and Hampshire which positively affected its services business for UK customers.

It claims a healthy 13 percent sales growth for its French business stemmed from thriving long-term relationships in the public and private sectors, while the UK continued to enjoy a “strong performance” in services.

“Performance of the business over the last year has been exceptional with growth and improved profitability in all our key trading operations”, CEO James Rigby said.

“There is now a need for all businesses, whoever they are or whatever they do, to digitise their operations and outsourcing that requirement is an effective way to manage the continual investment needed for growth.

“We have invested over the past few years via our cloud services and datacentres in anticipation of that demand and we expect to continue our current performance levels in the coming years.

“We will continue to invest in our capabilities and that means areas such as artificial intelligence and cognitive computing where we are already well placed to meet customer demand. Our performance is also based on the success of our strategic acquisitions we have made over the past few years. We will continue to look at opportunities which fit our strategic criteria and help further grow our capabilities.”

SCC’s latest annual results follow the completion of a three year plan to grow its services business.

 

3D Printers are healthcare’s disruptive tech

Posted on July 24, 2018 by - News

o-OFFICE-3D-PRINTER-facebookA new study commissioned by Ricoh Europe claims that new printing technologies are having on European healthcare.

According to the research, 68 percent of healthcare professionals believe new printing technologies have the potential to fundamentally transform the health sector.

Including advances in customised prosthetics and on-demand drug manufacturing, 74 percent of healthcare experts now use new printing technologies to improve accurate diagnostic rates and lower mortality rates.

In addition, 51 percent say applying new printing technologies to rapidly manufacture customised implants, such as bone and dental grafts, significantly reduces the time patients need to spend in hospital and are crucial for improving recovery times.

David Mills, CEO, Ricoh Europe said: “Tasked to do more with less, making use of innovative printing technologies will prove essential in enabling Europe’s healthcare systems to continue to provide high-quality care. New techniques such as printing aquagel organs means it’s now possible for surgeons to practice suturing and the removal of tumours before real-life operations. Printing medicines layer-by-layer to target specific diseases could soon be commonplace.”

With life expectancies increasing and the prevalence of chronic diseases rising across Europe[1], treatments are becoming more complex in nature as ailments affect patients later into their lives. In response, 65 percent of healthcare providers are using new printing technologies to tailor printed materials to differing needs including those of older and remote patients.

More than 46 percent of healthcare professionals go so far as to say that without investment in 3D-printing they will struggle to meet the needs of patients in the next five years.

Mills added: “It’s not just through cutting-edge developments that healthcare facilities are benefiting from advances in printing technologies. Healthcare is an intensely admin heavy sector. By digitising their systems, providers can reduce paperwork to save time, cut costs and improve security.”

 

Suppliers and vendors face portfolio challenge

Posted on July 24, 2018 by - News

files-portfolioVendors and their channel partners are having a job telling customers what is inside their portfolio according to analyst outfit TechMarketView

Its latest UK SITS Market Trends and Forecasts 2018 report said that there was plenty of opportunity for those selling software and services but getting on top of the proposition and channel partner bases is an issue.

Georgina O’Toole, chief analyst at TechMarketView said: “The biggest problem suppliers face is getting to grips with their own offerings. As their portfolios morph, as they take on a broader array of partners, and as they bolt on digital acquisitions, front-line salespeople and account managers can struggle to understand and articulate their organisations’ capabilities. Communicating (to both IT and non-IT decisions makers) the digital boundaries the organisation is breaking needs to be a top priority to secure new wins and renewals.”

The other issue that the SITS industry is dealing with is trying to keep up with changes as product areas blur into each other.

O’Toole said that traditional market boundaries are being tested more than ever and that an impact on the market.

“The change is both market and supplier-driven. True digital transformation involves all elements of SITS; investment in one area can necessitate improvements in another”,O’Toole said.

TechMarketView expects that tight market conditions that delivered 1.6 percent growth last year will continue, with 2018 also likely to produce sub rqo percent improvements.

Microsoft starts another Windows 7 upgrade campaign

Posted on July 23, 2018 by - News

framedwindowsSoftware king of the world Microsoft has started another campaign to ween addicts off Windows 7.

Microsoft has told its channel partners that those customers still on Windows 7 need to be targeted for upgrading to its latest OS and has advised resellers to start banging the drum around the forthcoming end of support deadline. Vole said that partners needed to renew the call for a move to Windows 10.

Louisa Gauthier, product and marketing leader at Microsoft. said: “The end of support is coming in 2020 and it’s time to make the shift to 10.”

Microsoft has put together a video encouraging users to move to a combination of Windows 10, more up-to-date hardware and Office 365. That campaigning to customers starts now and will run for the rest of the year promoting the benefits of a move. The message will change from January 2019 to contain more urgency about the looming support deadline in January 2020.

“Why is end of support so important for us? Because it is a huge opportunity to get your customers to modern. It is an opportunity estimated to be worth $100 billion when you put together all the partner services, Office and solution opportunity over three years”, she said.

The chances to pitch Windows 10 also existed across all customer sizes and segments. “If you were just to start with your customers that were on four year old plus devices the opportunities would be significant”, said Gauthier.

“If your PC and software are more than four years old then it’s time to move to a new Windows 10 device. Modern Windows devices are cheaper to manage and faster to run”, she said.

 

Microsoft gets all hybrid

Posted on July 23, 2018 by - News

Canalys 2018 Software king of the world Microsoft wants to work with partners around something it calls a “hybrid message” in the coming year.

While we thought it wanted to deliver press releases to its partners in a Prius, apparently it means something cloudy. Vole was talking a lot about  Azure and the move to cloud but the firm is working with partners to stress the benefits of the hybrid approach.

Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said that pushing hybrid was going to be a theme with the channel.

“I think that these hybrid used benefits are being sorted of best-kept secrets. So, I’m hoping that going into this next fiscal year, we do a much better job, and customers do a much better job, but they don’t benefit because the advantage Azure has because of the hybrid used benefits across the entire workload are pretty phenomenal.”

“We had a good set of sessions at our partner meetings this week just really making sure that everybody understands those benefits. So, I don’t think that, that is really played out. If anything, all the growth we have seen is in spite of that not being broadly revenue driving growth”, Nadella added.

The fourth quarter numbers for the three months ended 30 June showed that the firm had delivered $30.09 billion in revenue with net income of $8.9 billion slightly ahead of the same period last year.

Office commercial products and cloud services revenue increased by 10 percent with Office 365 driving that with an increase of 38 percent year-on-year.  Server products and cloud services were up by 26 percent with Azure improving by 89 percent.

Enterprise services revenue improved by eight percent and Windows OEM increased by seven percent. Windows commercial products climbed by 23 percent and Surface remains an important area delivering 25 percent growth.

For the full year the firm smashed through the $100bn barrier with revenues of $110.4 billion, a 14 percent improvement on fiscal 2017, with the cloud driving a lot of that growth.

 

Cisco invests in UK AI partnership

Posted on July 23, 2018 by - News

9a59692a0714a8132caa23822c97bdccCisco is writing a cheque for a $100 million  investment in the UK to speed up the nation’s artificial intelligence programmes

The outfit wants to create a London-based artificial intelligence (AI) research centre in partnership with University College London, which will house more than 200 researchers and academics.

Prime minister Theresa May welcomed the news, stating that it was a “vote of confidence” from Cisco in the government’s Industrial Strategy, which is a long-term plan to boost the productivity and earning power of UK workers.

“I particularly welcome the announcement of the new AI research centre in partnership with UCL”, May said.

“Research has shown that AI could add £232bn to the UK economy by 2030 and developments like this will help with our ambition to put the UK at the forefront of the AI and data revolution.”

The investment is part of Cisco’s Country Digital Acceleration programme, which works in conjunction with the UK’s Industrial Strategy to address challenges in the areas of AI, digital inclusion in an aging society, increasing network capabilities on public transport and investing in digital innovation in the green sector.

Digital secretary Jeremy Wright said the UK has become a “natural destination” for large tech companies to operate in.

“Cisco’s strong commitment to the UK highlights that we have the ambition, research excellence and regulatory environment for world-leading firms to develop the innovations that will change people’s lives for the better”, he said.

Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said that the vendor is committed to accelerating digital growth in the UK.

“We believe that the UK’s expertise in AI and its commitment to making sure future innovators have the right digital skills will help ensure the nation’s citizens are well positioned to capture the opportunity ahead”, said Robbins.

AI does not mean the death of privacy says Microsoft

Posted on July 20, 2018 by - News

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEOMicrosoft supreme Dalek Satya Nadella has told partners that AI does not mean the death of privacy.

Addressing the assembled throngs in his keynote speech at Microsoft’s Inspire global conference in Las Vegas, Nadella said the tech could improve human relationships, but also warned that ethics must be implemented to ensure users’ privacy.

“We have to do our very best work when it comes to privacy because as technology becomes pervasive in our lives, we have to approach everything with the fundamental assumption that privacy is a human right”, he said.

Nadella emphasised that the IT industry needs a set of “ethical principles” to ensure that technology does not unduly influence real-life events.

“We want to make sure that anything that we do doesn’t amplify bias, doesn’t hijack our attention, and doesn’t sway opinion”, he said.

“The Tech Accord is a fantastic example of that because the world in our time needs a new Geneva Convention. We need to make sure that the most vulnerable populations are protected from these new weapons. And when it comes to AI, we have to have a set of principles that guide the development of AI.”

He did not mention the vendor’s recent acquisition of conversational AI company Semantic Machines, but he emphasised that Microsoft is working to ensure its machine learning will soon have the same conversational capabilities as a human being.

“In the last couple of years, some of the advances – especially as measured by our ability to have human parity in a lot of these perception and language capabilities – is pretty stunning”, Nadella added.

He explained that the “ultimate AI challenge” for Microsoft is to develop a two-way natural conversation between bot and human.

“We’re also trying to push this concept of language understanding or this capability of language understanding to the next level, to have the ability to do full duplex conversations”, he added.

Amazon not taking on Cisco

Posted on July 20, 2018 by - News

amazonAmazon Web Services (AWS) has denied that it is planning to launch a range of network switches to compete with the likes of Cisco.

Cisco said that the pair’s CEOs recently had a chin-wag about the news and AWS’ boss had ruled it out.

The Cisco statement, first published by MarketWatch, said: “Cisco and AWS have a longstanding customer and partner relationship, and during a recent call between Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins and AWS CEO Andy Jassy, Andy confirmed that AWS is not actively building a commercial network switch.”

MarketWatch also said that an AWS spokesperson confirmed the statement.

For those who came in late there were some serious reports that AWS was planning an assault on the networking market to help tempt users to its public cloud.

Cisco, Juniper and Arista all saw their share prices plummet.

Cisco’s share price has jumped over three percent in the wake of AWS’ denial, while Juniper’s climbed more than two percent.

Ignition switches on Demisto in channel expansion

Posted on July 20, 2018 by - News

DemistSecurity distributor Ignition Technology today announced it has added Demisto to its portfolio as the vendor ramps up channel expansion plans for its automated incident response and security orchestration platform.

In addition to identifying and recruiting suitable reseller partners, Ignition is including Demisto in its business development team focused on lead generation, and using its technical capabilities to optimise service delivery in the UK and Northern Europe.

Sean Remnant, Chief Strategy Officer at Ignition Technology said:  “The automated, easy-to-deploy nature of the technology is highly beneficial to customers struggling to resource their security operations centres (SOCs) amid the worsening global cybersecurity skills crisis. There is a lot of opportunity for partners to position the product with new and existing accounts, but in the first instance our approach is to focus on a few key vendor synergies and target opportunities for partners looking to develop their service offerings.”

Sporting integrations with over 180 security products and growing, the Demisto platform is already proving popular among channel partners. Its introduction to the UK market via Ignition is coinciding with the appointment of key in-region sales and technical personnel, who will work closely with Ignition to accelerate market expansion.

“With a strong channel ecosystem and security sales expertise, we are confident partnering with Ignition delivers a proven approach to supercharging our sales efforts in EMEA”, said Bob Kruse, VP Sales and Alliances at Demisto. “Ignition understands the channel opportunities around next-generation security technology and has the relationships and technical know-how to help us grow – not just in the SOC market but as we extend our proposition into security task automation and orchestration in general.”

 

Ruckus on Cloud programme

Posted on July 19, 2018 by - News

lightning-cloudRuckus Networks has announced its new Cloud-Ready Specialisation Programme for channel partners. Designed specifically to help Ruckus channel partners expand into new, fast-growing market segments and gain renewable revenue streams, the programme includes tools, training, technical support and incentives to enable new and existing Ruckus Ready channel partners to drive Ruckus Cloud Wi-Fi sales.

Market research firm IDC reports that cloud-managed Wi-Fi is growing at double-digit rates year-over-year, making it the fastest-growing segment of the Wi-Fi infrastructure market.  More organisations are seeking out a cloud WLAN management solution for their distributed Wi-Fi sites due to its many advantages, including faster scalability, ease of management, and a pay-as-you-grow subscription model. The new Ruckus Cloud-Ready Specialisation Programme is designed to equip channel partners with the knowledge and resources required to address this growing demand and win new Ruckus Cloud Wi-Fi customers.

Ruckus vice president of business development and cloud servicesBart Giordano said: “We are committed to helping channel partners differentiate themselves through our specialisation programmes. Our new Cloud-Ready Specialisation programme gives channel partners the right tools, support and incentives to address customer requirements across vertical markets such as retail, small-and-medium business, hospitality and education.”

Available to Select- and Elite-level partners, the Cloud-Ready Specialisation Programme provides valuable incentives along with “white glove” sales and marketing support to help partners successfully win new Ruckus Cloud Wi-Fi business. Exclusive benefits include:

There are promotional discounts for Ruckus Cloud Wi-Fi and Market Development Funds (MDF)—partners who meet the programme requirements are eligible for MDF to help support their marketing efforts.

Ruckus will provide sales leads for prospective clients from organisations that have requested trials of Ruckus Cloud Wi-Fi.

Engineering and tech support—dedicated Ruckus Cloud experts, including account managers and technical experts, and access to 24/7 technical support, designed to ensure company and partner success.

This adds to the existing Ruckus Partner Specialisation programmes, including Smart Cities, Large Public Venue and Education programmes.

Director of worldwide partner programme Raelyn Kritzer said that it was all part of a cunning plan to help partners drive more value for customers in target markets.

“We are completely dedicated to bringing opportunity to our partners with continued investment in specialisations that attract, retain and grow the best channel ecosystem.”