Tag: microsoft

Microsoft partners will mostly hit net zero targets

Posted on March 15, 2022 by - News

Software King of the World Microsoft claims that its UK partners will mostly all hit their net-zero targets by 2050. We guess Bill Gates and Mike Magee will be dead by then.

Redmond updated its sustainability research conducted in October, revealing that 89 percent of partners said they are working to ensure that they do not add to the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere by, or before, the target date.

Orla McGrath, Global Partner Solutions lead at Microsoft UK said the research showed that Microsoft’s UK partners are eager to play their part in the UK’s transition to a greener and more prosperous future.

“With their deep expertise in delivering innovative technology and consulting solutions, Microsoft partners are well placed to accelerate both their own journey to net-zero and that of their customers.”

Google cloud snaps up Mandiant

Posted on March 9, 2022 by - News

Google has seen off rival Microsoft to acquire cybersecurity vendor Mandiant for $5.4 billion.

For those not in the know, Mandiant provides threat intelligence to protect against cyber-attacks and will.  Google claims it will play nicely with Google Cloud’s “existing security strengths”.

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said that organisations around the world were facing unprecedented cybersecurity challenges as the sophistication and severity of attacks that were previously used to target major governments are now being used to target companies in every industry.

“We look forward to welcoming Mandiant to Google Cloud to further enhance our security operations suite and advisory services, and help customers address their most important security challenges.”

Google says the cybersecurity firm’s offering will now be used to “enhance” its existing cloud security capabilities – including BeyondCorp Enterprise for Zero Trust, VirusTotal for malicious content and software vulnerabilities and Chronicle’s planet-scale security analytics and automation.

Microsoft pushes back 365 price hikes

Posted on March 3, 2022 by - News

Microsoft has pushed back its plan to increase prices for 365.

The price hikes, which were first announced in August, officially come into effect today but Microsoft has announced a “transitional grace period” until 14 March.

The move is to fit into Vole’s cunning plan for its New Commerce Experience which is basically a licensing system for companies.

It means that new commerce transactions for the six commercial Modern Work SKUs – Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, Office 365 E1, Office 365 E3, Office 365 E5 and Microsoft 365 E3 – can be invoiced at the February 2022 pricing.

All new commerce transactions for these six Modern Work SKUs submitted after 5 pm Pacific Daylight Time on 14 March will then be invoiced at the increased March price list pricing.

Lemongrass teams up with Microsoft on SAP

Posted on March 1, 2022 by - News

Microsoft campusLemongrass has joined Microsoft in a partnership designed to help large and midmarket enterprises modernise and simplify their SAP environments.

The agreement will focus on the co-development of SAP-centric services that take advantage of the capabilities of Microsoft Cloud and help maximise the value of customers’ SAP investments

Lemongrass specialises in working with SAP in the hyperscale cloud, from planning and migration to operation and automation. With 6,000 SAP servers and 300,000 SAP users under its management, the firm helps customers extract value by moving and running their SAP systems in the cloud.

Vole said it’ll act as a distinctive innovation partner, providing Lemongrass with the opportunity to collaborate with the tech giant on design and engineering initiatives for SAP customers. 

Integrity360 snaps up Caretower

Posted on February 25, 2022 by - News

More M&A action! Integrity360 has acquired cybersecurity MSP Caretower, as part of its cunning plan to create a £70 million-revenue business across the UK and Ireland.

For those not in the know,  Caretower offers managed security services, penetration testing, security consultancy and managed incident response services, working with an array of vendors including Microsoft, Sophos, Kaspersky, Check Point, Forcepoint, Barracuda Networks among others.

The business generated sales of around £28 million in 2021 and has offices in London and Sofia, Bulgaria.

Integrity360 is a Check Point, F5 and Forcepoint partner and claims that the acquisition will bring its group revenues to £70 million in 2022 and boost its headcount to more than 300 employees including 200 cybersecurity engineers, analysts, consultants and specialists.

All of Caretower’s employees will remain with the group.

Microsoft mulls snapping up Mandiant

Posted on February 10, 2022 by - News

Microsoft campusMicrosoft is in talks to acquire cybersecurity firm Mandiant after the company has been involved in a game of pass the parcel with other buyers.

Mandiant was acquired by FireEye in 2013 for a deal in excess of $1 billion, but its security product business was then sold to a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group for $1.2 billion in June last year.

Both Mandiant and Microsoft declined to comment on the reports and the talks may not go anywhere.

Vole has been spending a lot on security outfits lately and wrote cheques for CloudKnox Security and RiskIQ last year. To be fair though, it has needed their services having been attacked itself rather too many times of late.

 

Fitzpatrick defects from Vole to Chipzilla

Posted on January 31, 2022 by - Moving People, News

Intel has appointed Microsoft’s former general manager for worldwide partner sales to head up its own partner sales organisation.

Alyssa Fitzpatrick told her LinkedIn friends about her new role as the chip maker’s vice-president and general manager of global partner sales after six years with Microsoft.

Her responsibilities are listed as “leading the programmes, support, and end-to-end partner journey under the Intel Partner Alliance with a focus on ISVs, systems integrators and cloud partners”.

Tech Data to offer Microsoft’s mixed reality headset

Posted on January 19, 2022 by - News

Tech Data will flog Microsoft’s holographic mixed reality headset to its B2B enterprise partners in Europe.

For those not in the know, Vole’s HoloLens 2 claims to offer users an immersive experience, enabling increased precision on complex physical tasks, remote collaboration using holograms, and a secure ecosystem combining intelligent edge technology and cloud applications.

Cloud first makes the UK grade

Posted on December 1, 2021 by - News

An Information Services Group report claims that enterprises are increasingly embracing a cloud-first approach to their IT investments.

The “2021 ISG Provider Lens Public Cloud – Services & Solutions Report for the UK” said that enterprises are looking to service providers to help them migrate more of their workloads to the public cloud.

It finds many large UK enterprises interested in hybrid cloud environments, which enable continued use of legacy IT systems, even though an increasing number of companies anticipate a time when they would migrate all of their IT assets to the cloud. Small and medium-sized enterprises, meanwhile, are looking at infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) options to replace their depreciated hardware assets.

ISG partner Jan Erik Aase said that the move to the cloud is expected to be the primary driver of IT market growth in the UK in the coming years.

With IBM behind it, Kyndryl makes Microsoft deal

Posted on November 16, 2021 by - News

A not so mobile X86 PCWith IBM in its rearview mirror, spin-off Kyndryl has made a deal with Microsoft to build products on its cloud.

According to the pair, they will jointly work on a co-innovation lab where they will build products on the Microsoft Cloud, with Kyndryl making them available on Microsoft’s AppSource and on the Azure Marketplace.

Meanwhile, Vole will make products developed by the two companies available for its global enterprise sales force and create a training programme for Kyndryl’s 90,000 employees, dubbed Kyndryl University for Microsoft, which has been designed to teach workers how to best use Microsoft’s cloud tools.

Microsoft cuts OneDrive for Windows 7, 8 and 8.1

Posted on November 9, 2021 by - News, Products

Software King of the World Microsoft has cut access to its OneDrive desktop app running on Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 and will stop syncing files to the cloud from March 2022.

First launched in August 2007, OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) is a file hosting and synchronisation service operating by Microsoft as part of its web version of Office. It enables Microsoft customers to access their files from the cloud on all their devices, from anywhere.

Vole has been doing its best to make life difficult for those who will not upgrade from earlier versions of windows, but cutting access to the cloud will make life difficult for many users.

Microsoft said it will not provide updates for the OneDrive desktop application running on personal Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 devices systems starting 1st January 2022.

In a blog post on its Tech Community forum, the company announced that the move will ensure that the company focuses its resources on new technologies and OS, providing users with the most up-to-date and secure experience.

Microsoft snubs egocentric partners

Posted on November 8, 2021 by - News

Microsoft’s president Brad Smith warned that the software king of the world would stop having “deep partnerships” with companies with no interest in becoming more sustainable.

Smith talked at the COP26 conference in Glasgow, of which Vole is a principal partner.

The vendor used the conference to reiterate its target of becoming carbon negative by 2030 and removing all the carbon the company emitted from the environment since its founding by 2050.

Resellers revolt over Microsoft’s 365 payment plans

Posted on November 5, 2021 by - News

Resellers are mightily miffed over Vole’s proposed 20 percent fee on monthly Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

An online petition against Microsoft’s cunning plan has attracted almost 1,000 signatures even if Vole has yet to announce the fee.

Microsoft hinted in its New Commerce Experience operating guide that flexible subscriptions will be available on monthly terms “at a premium price”.

Resellers believe that “premium price” means a 20 percent fee, and they will have to take on financial responsibility for customers if they can no longer pay for the rest of their licence agreements due to insolvency or another reason.

Synaxon UK reshuffles

Posted on October 28, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Synaxon UK has brought in Peter Mulvihill as Category Manager and Jane Haack as Key Account Manager, in a bit of a reshuffle to encourage growth.

Mulvihill will be responsible for managing Synaxon UK’s growing vendor and distributor portfolio, which includes major names such as Lenovo, Microsoft, HP, Dell, and APC. He brings two decades of experience working in distribution and reseller procurement and joins the channel services group from PC gaming systems specialist, Overclockers, where he spent the last three years as Purchasing Manager.

Haack will be responsible for liaising with Synaxon UK’s partners and recruiting and enabling additional partners for EGIS – Synaxon’s online procurement platform, Synaxon Distribution, Synaxon Managed Services (SMS), and the EGIS eCom e-commerce platform. She has previously worked in sales roles at managed services specialist Datto, and web content management provider, Altis.

Microsoft pees off its partners

Posted on October 15, 2021 by - Gossip, News

Software princeling of the world, Microsoft, has managed to get its channel partners hot under the collar over changes to its billing which will see them made responsible for their customer’s debts.

Vole has decided, in its ineffable wisdom, to suggest that its partners should take on financial responsibility if their customer becomes unable to pay for their O365 licence, after all, someone must and it is certainly not going to be Microsoft.

The idea is part of something dubbed a New Commerce Experience (NCE) which includes a number of changes for its “partners”. Under the new agreement, partners claim that they would have to take on the financial risk of paying the rest of a subscription if a customer was no longer able to due to insolvency or another reason.

If a company takes out a three-year Office 365 on CSP and they go bust in year two, then the reseller still has to pay the remaining two years. If it’s a big licensing agreement and they go bust, they still have to pay Microsoft the remainder of that contract.