Tag: IBM

Vendors team up on security interoperability

Posted on October 9, 2019 by - News

IBM Security and McAfee have been joined by 14 other firms to form the OASIS consortium to tackle interoperability .

Under the OASIS banner the firms will work on the Open Cybersecurity Alliance (OCA) to try to increase the interoperability between products to reduce those problems and share information around threats and the best responses.

Carol Geyer, chief development officer of OASIS said: “Today, organisations struggle without a standard language when sharing data between products and tools, We have seen efforts emerge to foster data exchange, but what has been missing is the ability for each tool to transmit and receive these messages in a standardised format, resulting in more expensive and time-consuming integration costs. The aim of the OCA is to accelerate the open sharing concept making it easier for enterprises to manage and operate.”

IBM and Cisco lead in GlobalData’s Industrial Internet numbers

Posted on July 23, 2019 by - News

IBM, Fanuc and Cisco are the leading companies in the Industrial Internet sector, according to the latest “Thematic Scorecard” for the industrial automation sector from GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The three companies all gained the highest Thematic score (five out of five) in GlobalData’s Thematic Scorecard for the industrial automation sector. A Thematic score of five out of five indicates that this theme will significantly improve their future performance.

IBM declines before putting on its Red Hat

Posted on July 19, 2019 by - News

IBM has reported fourth consecutive quarter of revenue decline in its last results before it has to include Red Hat.

Sales for the three months ending 30 June 2019 declined 4.2 percent year on year, with IBM’s systems division taking the most significant income drop at 19.5 percent.

Global Business Services, along with Cloud and Cognitive Software, were the only two of IBM’s six units to report an increase in sales. Revenue generated from Cloud and Cognitive Software was up 3.2 percent year on year, with Global Business Services up 0.5 percent.

IBM and Red Hat channels kept apart

Posted on July 17, 2019 by - News

Big Blue has said that it will not be merging its partner programme with that of Red Hat after the completion of its $34 billion acquisition deal.

IBM is keen to keep Red Hat’s continued independence and position as “the Switzerland of IT”.

IBM’s senior vice president for cloud and cognitive software Arvind Krishna said that Red Hat supports every hardware vendor out there and that is going to continue.

Big Blue offers 23 month apprenticeships

Posted on June 14, 2019 by - News

IBM is launching a new 23-month apprenticeship to plug the skills gap in the UK.

The Business Partner Apprenticeship programme provides participants with the opportunity to work in the sales teams of its UK partners, from VARs to born-in-the-cloud companies. The programme will see the apprentices work with partners to sell IBM offerings to their customers.

The full-time apprentices will finish the programme with a Level 2 IT Technical Services diploma, giving participants the qualifications and practical experience needed to succeed in technology sales.

Infinidat intros data rescue for IBM storage customers

Posted on June 6, 2019 by - News

Infinidat has announced a Data Rescue Program for IBM customers concerned by Big Blue’s shutdown of its storage innovation centre.

Infinidat developed the programme in response to what it described as an influx of inquiries from IBM customers regarding escalating pressure to transition from high-end to lower-end storage and reports of layoffs across the high-end storage division.

Dell trolls rivals in advert campaign

Posted on March 14, 2019 by - News

Gray tin box shifter Michael Dell has been trolling the company rivals in a front page advertisement in the Wall Street Journal.

Michael Dell tweeted the ad, which displayed figures from analyst IDC, showing the vendor’s dominance in the external enterprise storage space against rivals NetApp, HPE and IBM.

IBM sees results from its new partner programme

Posted on February 14, 2019 by - News

Biggish Blue told its PartnerWorld Think 2019 conference in San Francisco that it was seeing the results of its revamped partner programme.

IBM Partner Ecosystem in North America VP Dorothy Copeland said that IBM had got its mojo back after bringing in the new cunning plan two years ago.

IBM’s ecosystem strategy focuses on business model variety. The idea was to simplify the programme, making it easier for IBM partners to embed new technology into their business while welcoming new cutting-edge partners into the programme.

Big Blue announces a wave of channel changes

Posted on February 13, 2019 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCIBM has been talking through its channel changes with the assorted throngs at Partnerworld.

IBM announced a raft of new storage incentives in April last year, which enabled partner sellers and systems engineers to earn up to $100,000 in stackable rebates. The incentives covered all-flash arrays, Spectrum software and IBM systems deals.

CDW winner on UK government’s G-cloud

Posted on January 29, 2019 by - News

CDW transacted the most sales of any reseller on the G-Cloud framework last year according to government released figures

The figures, published by Crown Commercial Service (CCS), reveal that CDW raked in sales of £29.3 million via G-Cloud, although the vast majority of this came from one huge £25.7 million deal.

Bytes was the king of government IT contracts

Posted on January 14, 2019 by - News

Bytes Software Services was the fifth largest supplier to central government last year but ranked ahead of IT behemoths Capita, DXC Technology, Atos, IBM, and Fujitsu.

Number crunchers from public sector consultant Tussell said that the software reseller won £328 million worth of government contracts making it the largest IT-dedicated supplier to the government last year.

Generally it ranked behind four other organisations: defence contractor QinetiQ (£359 million), outsourcer Mitie (£514 million), infrastructure provider Amey (£641 million) and

IBM deepens WanDisco relationship

Posted on September 7, 2018 by - News

banner_220x220Biggish Blue has deepened its relationship with WanDisco with the pair saying that they will work closely together in the coming months to introduce new solutions, including greater integration with IBM BigSQL and other products.

WanDisco said it would see an increase its OEM royalty of  50 percent, in addition to introducing a guaranteed annual minimum royalty commitment as part of the move.

David Richards, chief executive officer and interim chairman of WanDisco said: “In the first half we began the transition toward predictable, annual recurring cloud revenue and away from large and difficult to forecast on-premise transactions. This is an expected and extremely positive evolution for our business. It opens up a significantly larger addressable market in the cloud and will enable us to generate a more predictable­ recurring revenue base.

“Unlike on-premise deals, these cloud deals are initially smaller in revenue terms but are expected to scale materially over time as is common with cloud deployments.”

IBM wins NHS security deal

Posted on July 4, 2018 by - News

nhsleafletBiggish Blue has won a £30 million contract to provide cybersecurity services to NHS Digital.

The three year deal will see IBM provide monitoring, detection and response services to the NHS.

Dan Taylor, security director at NHS Digital, said: “This partnership will enhance our existing cybersecurity operations centre which is delivered from NHS Digital’s Data Security Centre.

“It will give us, during times of increased need, the ability to draw on a pool of dedicated professionals from IBM.

“It will build on our existing ability to proactively monitor for security threats, risks, and emerging vulnerabilities while supporting the development of new services for the future and enabling us to better support the existing needs of local organisations. This will ensure that we can evolve our security capability in line with the evolving cyber-threat landscape.”

The contract notice, originally published last November, said that NHS Digital was looking for five or six potential suppliers to bid for the contract, with one supplier chosen outright.

Rob Sedman, director of security at IBM UK, said: “IBM is excited to partner with NHS Digital and brings enhanced detection and incident response coordination capabilities to its Data Security Centre.”

Agilitas and IBM sign global channel services deal

Posted on July 4, 2018 by - News

ibm-officeChannel services outfit, Agilitas has signed a multi-year agreement with Biggish Blue to provide reseller, MSP and systems integrator customers with access to global multi-vendor channel services, helping to improve operational efficiencies across its customers’ IT infrastructure.

The deal will see Agilitas use IBM technology support services and global engineering teams to provide the on-site maintenance that forms part of Agilitas’ InventoryAssure+ service.

Together, Agilitas and IBM will deliver a “formidable” global channel services proposition to the market, providing services on behalf of its channel partners to a broad spectrum of industries including financial services, retail, manufacturing and the public sector, it’s claimed.

This is the first such relationship in the IT channel for Agilitas, which will be equipped with a larger platform to help deliver its growth plans and support the needs of its expanding customer base, it’s claimed.

“We have formed a very strong, trusted relationship with IBM over the years and understand each other’s businesses inside-out,” said Shaun Lynn, CEO of Agilitas. “It is this understanding that has enabled us to craft such an innovative and unique channel services deal that will benefit our channel partners for years to come.”

With a trading footprint in over 80 countries worldwide, developed through a collaborative partner delivery model, the collaboration with IBM enables Agilitas to provide their channel partners with technology solutions that help make businesses more efficient and accelerate digital innovation and transformation, it’s claimed.

“Having a delivery partner of IBM’s calibre ensures that our channel partners continue to be provided with first-class global channel services, not only across our Inventory-as-a-Service solution, but engineering services too”, added Lynn.

“In today’s ever changing business environment, enterprises need consistent and reliable support to run their IT systems across a supply chain of services from multiple vendors”, said Andy Roberts, Director of Technology Support Services, IBM UK and Ireland. “This is a great opportunity for both organisations to change the channel marketplace.”

Commvault signs new deal with Biggish Blue

Posted on June 29, 2018 by - News

satanic pactCommvault has signed a new deal with IBM to provide its its Business Resiliency Services with a managed service based on the Commvault software portfolio of data management and protection software, including the Commvault Data Platform.

The deal will give IBM Business Resiliency Services a single powerful platform for managing, backing up, recovering, migrating and indexing of all their data, whether it is located on-premises or in the cloud.

IBM Business Resiliency Services can deploy Commvault software on-premises, on infrastructure managed in IBM data centers and in IBM Cloud environments. IBM Business Resiliency Services will offer the software both as a solution or as a managed service. The Commvault software offerings will also enable IBM healthcare customers to manage critical MEDITECH, Epic and other EHR data, as well as medical images, across their healthcare enterprise.

Daniel Witteveen, Vice President, Global Portfolio, IBM Business Resiliency Services said: “The enterprise finds itself in an era where clients are seeking more simplicity and agility in their data backup and recovery solutions to help enable their digital transformation. Seamless integration of IBM and Commvault solutions for on-site or off-site data backup will help deliver a more simplified business continuity model and help reduce operational risks and costs for customers.”