Author: Eva Glass

Eva Glass first rose to prominence in The INQUIRER. She continues to work behind the scenes to dig out the best stories.

Half of businesses have no integrated digital strategy

Posted on November 21, 2013 by - News

ibm-officeA survey conducted by IBM has shown that half of  decision making executives at SMBs don’t have an integrated digital strategy.

But to be fair, 65 percent of them know that not having social media strategy is a huge barrier.  And over half of  them don’t really understand how to position social media in their businesses.

The key points of interest are digitising front offices, analysing data from customer interactions on social channels and seeing future trends.

IBM believes that companies that have fused their digital and physical operations together using big data, mobile and cloud are 26 percent more likely to outperform their competitors.

Naturally, IBM has an axe to grind here – it wants to sell its own products to make sure it outperforms its competitors too.

Capita adopts Microsoft clouds

Posted on November 21, 2013 by - News

clouds3Capita IT Services said it will be one of the first cloud providers to sell Microsoft applications in private clouds.

Capita Private Cloud, launched in September, will offer Microsoft Exchange, Sharepoint and Lync.

Andy Parker, a senior executive at Capita, said that its own offering is popular with companies that want public and private cloud services.

Many Microsoft applications have only been available in public clouds.

Microsoft public service GM Derrick McCourt said the availability of its products in private clouds will appeal to local government, central government and the health sectors.

In time, he said, Micorsoft’s cloud offering will become IL3 compliant – that means additional security.

Private eyes nicked for stealing data

Posted on November 20, 2013 by - News

Clink Prison MuseumTwo private detectives that routinely extracted personal information from organisations and individuals have been found guilty of breaching the Data Protection Art.

Barry Spencer (41) and Adrian Stanton (40) ran a company called ICU Investigations Ltd, based in Feltham. The company as an individual entity was also found guilty of breaking the law.

Five other people had already pleaded guilty – Robert Sparling (38), Joel Jones (43), Michael Sparling (41), Neil Sturton (43) and Lee Humphreys (41). Sentencing will take place on the 24th of January next year.

The court heard that the company worked on behalf of a number of clients including Allianz, Leeds Building Society and Dee Valley Water to trick GPs, TV Licensing, and utility companies for the purpose of debt collection.

There were nearly separate offences committed between the 1st of April 2009 and the 12th of May 2010. There was no evidence that the company’s clients were aware information was being illegally obtained.

The offence carries a fine – up to £5,000 in a magistrates court or an unlimited amount in a Crown Court.  The Information Commissioners Office, which instigated the investigation, is pressing for more stringent sentences including prison.

Information Commissioner Christopher Graham said: “The public expects to see firmer action taken against people who break the rules in this area, and Parliament needs to recognise that. I spoke with the Home Secretary, Teresa May, on this matter earlier this week to urge her to introduce more effective sentences for these kinds of offences, and she has agreed to meet me to discuss the matter. That conversation needs to result in action.”

There is provision for prison for the offences as part of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008, but those measures haven’t yet been implemented.

Symantec reveals plans for EMEA partners

Posted on November 20, 2013 by - News

symantecSymantec resellers need not fear getting the chop as the security company unveils its new channel strategy .

Although a little light on detail, when asked about the current size of its partner channel and the ideal size of a future channel, Symantec’s VP of EMEA partner management, Mark Nutt, confirmed that having the right channel mix was more important than the overall size.

But there can be little doubt the vendor will be shedding a number of under-performing resellers and replacing them from some of the new partner categories it has identified – there are eight such categories, according to Nutt, who also stressed the important role for disties in the future of the Symantec channel.

“Distribution has a tremendous amount to offer but we need to work out where the value to our partners,” Nutt said. “Now that we’ve identified eight different partner types, we need to better understand which parts of the channel we need to explore, which to invest more in and which that streamlining.”

Although Nutt stressed he was “not looking to turn partners off; it’s not about reducing numbers” it looks likely some resellers will have to forge relationships with distributors, such as TechData, Arrow, Avnet, Ingram and Cohort.

Those disties that can help Symantec recruit from new partner groups will be of particular interest.

The vendor is also streamlining its product offering down from around 150 different products to less than 10, in order to make the task of addressing customer needs more straightforward for resellers.

The changes are part of a global strategy which will lead to a new partner programme which goes live in February 2014 but will be officially unveiled in April.

Symantec is also opening a telephone-based partner account management team that will be run from its Dublin offices.

ICT survey reveals huge reseller opportunity

Posted on November 19, 2013 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeA comprehensive survey conducted by market research company Ovum has revealed that IT vendors are failing to address their customers’ needs.

The survey, conducted in 60 countries worldwide of CIOs and IT decision makers is the largest ever ventured.

CRM, it appears, has been widely adopted by higher education with only 10 percent of institutions not using the software.

But there are opportunities aplenty because over 50 percent of these institutions will replace their LMSes in 24 months.  Incumbents, Ovum suggests, will be switched to new providers.

“To secure their position in the market, LMS providers must be quick to expand their platforms to seamlessly incorporate compelling features such as social media, video, analytics, and other learning objects, keeping customer satisfaction high and prices low,” said analyst Navneet Johal.

But less than 20 percent are using cloud computing for their enterprises,

“A myriad of factors is holding institutions back from moving core applications to the cloud, the absence of viable solutions in some cases, the questionable return on investment from switching out existing solutions, the difficulty of supporting highly customized solutions in a hosted environment, and even lingering (albeit somewhat irrational) doubts about security,” said Johal.

Organisation waves goodbye to the desktop PC

Posted on November 18, 2013 by - News

Scottish standardThe Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) has moved to a mobile model and in the process reduced its PC energy costs by as much as 90 percent.

That’s according to Citrix, which said it is using its  technology to reduce its energy footprint.

SEPA is using desktop virtualisation technology to centralise data and applications, which people  can now use as a service. It moved into a new building earlier this year designed with mobile usage in mind – and includes seven hot desks for 10 staff. SEPA employees over 1,000 people.

Staff get to the SEPA desktop wherever they are and using whatever device is being used – whether it’s a tablet, a home PC or a desktop PC.

The scheme will also reduce business travel costs. Citrix gives as one example that lets scientists who work at the agency start a model in the morning from home and access the results later in the day.

Jav Yaqub, IT Services Manager, SEPA said: “We wanted this project to embody the core ethos of the agency, creating an efficient and environmentally-conscious IT infrastructure. We also wanted to offer people their desktop, wherever they went, but we were obviously concerned about potential data loss. The idea of having a centralised virtual desktop and using low power thin-client devices was very attractive. Our employees love the new environment.  They are able to do more things from more places.”

Cloud puts pressure on datacentre sector

Posted on November 18, 2013 by - Events, News

Demand for cloud based services is so great that data centres will find it hard to cope in the future.aircloiuds

That’s according to Christian Belady, Microsoft’s general manager of datacentres, who will highlight several problems at the Data Centre Dynamics Converged conference in London that kicks off on the 20th of November at the Excel conference centre.

He said that demand for cloud services, computing capacity is the “most crucial challenge”.  He called on the datacentre industry to take a unified stand to pre-empt problems before they arose.

He said: “There are tremendous complexities involved in delivering that demand globally on a market-by-market basis, such as varying tax and data requirements and working with multiple governments across disparate regions of the world. To meet the increasing demand for these sorts of services, the industry needs to come together to tackle these complexities as an urgent priority.”

He continued: “Datacenters are getting larger, and the industry needs to determine the best ways to deliver power more economically and sustainably in different parts of the world. The past rules for enterprise datacenters no longer hold when we talk about the cloud.  Our biggest opportunity is in how we as an industry can pull all the traditionally disparate pieces together in a seamless way. To meet the growth demands, the industry will need to integrate at every level – from the infrastructure and software to utilities and governments. It’s not any one thing. We’ll succeed when all of these industries work together to push the sector forward as one holistically optimised ecosystem.”

Taiwan snaps up British firm

Posted on November 18, 2013 by - News

gpegAdvantech is to buy a British firm for $9.41 million.

According to Digitimes, the Taiwanese firm which nowadays focuses on industrial computing, is to buy GPEG International, which specialises in so-called “intelligent displays”.

GPEG, the wire says, specialises in embedded intelligent displays used in gaming and Advantech wants to move into that field.

Its expertise is in touch for LCD touch displays. GPEG has branches in Europe, China and Korea.

Phoenix goes HP Platinum

Posted on November 15, 2013 by - News

HPHosting and managed IT services company Phoenix said it had been appointed to HP Platinum status.

The top tier accreditation, said Kevin Mathews, UK channel director of HP’s enterprise group, said it reflected the confidence it has in Phoenix. “By achieving Platinum status, Phoenix has demonstrated that it is an expert and very capable provider of HP enterprise group technology. I am very pleased to offer Phoenix our most prestigious accreditation.”

Stuart Dickinson, procurement and vendor director at Phoenix, which has an annual turnover of around £250 million, said:  “We have new offerings in the pipeline, incorporating HP technology and with this new status customers have the confidence and reassurance of dealing with a premier services provider.”

Android leaps ahead in smartphone sales

Posted on November 15, 2013 by - News, Products

Keep taking the tabletsA report from analyst company Gartner shows that while the Android OS has lept ahead in the third quarter of 2013, Apple’s iOS has lost share.

According to Gartner figures, Android has 81.9 percent share, iOS 12.1 percent, and Microsoft 3.6 percent.  In the same quarter last year, the figures were 72.6 percent, 14.3 percent and 2.3 percent respectively.

Gartner attributes growth of Microsoft sales to decline in the shares of other OSes – particularly Blackberry, which had 1.8 percent in Q3 2013 compared to 5.2 percent in the same period last year.

On the smartphone device front, Samsung has 32.1 percent, Apple 12.1 percent, Lenovo 5.1 percent, and LG 4.8 percent for the third quarter.

The figures for smartphones shipped for the whole year is expected to reach 1.81 billion units, up 3.4 percent from 2012. Gartner thinks that in mature markets, people will buy smaller sized tablet over replacing older smartphones.

Intel doesn’t back Lady Geek dot com

Posted on November 15, 2013 by - News

Belinda ParmarA woman on the radio this morning hit out at womens’ magazines for not including enough information on gadgets and the like.

Belinda Parmar, the CEO of the agency with a website at ladygeek.com (pictured) said in a discussion on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that technology “empowered” women and said magazines such as Glamour didn’t include enough features about tech.

The agency numbers among its clients Nokia, Dell, Microsoft, Sony, Vodafone,Kaspersky, Ubisoft and, er, the BBC. But not Intel.

According to its web page, 80 percent of all tech decisions are influenced by women but only three percent of advertising creative directors are women.

Technology is commoditised now so no one really cares about it anymore apart from Microsoft, Sony and the rest.

ODM bullish about notebook sales

Posted on November 14, 2013 by - News, Products

Flying in the face of received wisdom, Compal’s president Ray Chen is talking up notebook sales in 2014.notebooks

Compal is an original design manufacturer (ODM) – that is to say a company which makes notebooks for big brand names.

According to a report in Digitimes, Chen expects shipments to hit 40 million units next year.

But he is conservative about touchscreen notebooks, despite Microsoft’s best efforts, and thinks they’ll only account for 15 percent of shipments next year. Compal will ship 15 million tablets next year.

He told the Taiwanese wire that its customers have been placing additional orders in this final quarter and expects notebook business to increase as enterprises are forced into upgrading as Windows XP reaches the end of the road.

You can read more, here.

Logica man gets Logicalis job

Posted on November 14, 2013 by - Moving People, News

Gary Bullard, LogicalisGary Bullard will be the next CEO of Logicalis.

Bullard will take over the role of current CEO Ian Cook from the 1st of March next year.  Cook will become a non-executive chairman of Logicalis.

Bullard has a long background in IT. He was UK CEO and EMEA CEO of Logica, and before that worked as MD of BT’s corporate business unit.

And he also held senior executives at Big Blue before then, as general manager of IBM’s golobal services EMEA and IBM Global Solutions in New York.

Bullard will join Logicalis in December as CEO in waiting. He said in a prepared statement: “I’m excited to be joining Logicalis and see a strong foundation on which to build momentum for growth in the areas of software defined networks, enterprise mobility and the cloud.”

Bank of England says economy is on the up

Posted on November 13, 2013 by - News

churchillLower unemployment figures and a drop in inflation have led the Governor of the Bank of England to saw the UK economy will growth this year and next year.

Interest rates won’t be increased until unemployment falls to seven percent or below, Mark Carney said.

Growth in the UK is now likely to be 1.6 percent, slightly up from the 1.4 percent forecast. And Carney said annual growth could reach 2.8 percent, rather than the 2.5 percent the Bank predicted earlier this year.

In the quarterly inflation report, the Bank said that “recovery has finally taken hold. The economy is growing robustly.. thawing credit conditions start to unlock pent-up demand.”

Carney said that although house prices are showing signs of inflation, there did not yet seem to be evidence for a British property bubble.

Office workers threaten businesses

Posted on November 13, 2013 by - News

old_officeA survey conducted by YouGov suggests the biggest security threat to business is the enemy within.

That’s the employees.

The survey, conducted on behalf of security as a service company Proofpoint shows that while pilfering stationery may be a thing of the past, office workers are endangering security.

A quarter of the 2,076 people surveyed sent work emails using their personal email account – especially if files are too large to send.  A fifth sent emails with confidential information including names, ages and home addresses.

And when working out of the office, 20 percent used a file transfer service like Dropbox to their personal email addresses.

And 45 percent of people received emails that weren’t meant to arrive in their inboxes.

Organisations can’t cope with the idiosyncratic nature of business, it appears. While 43 percent were trained on data and privacy, a third of them didn’t get any training.

Needless to say, Proofpoint has an axe to grind because it sells security as a service.