Author: Nick Farrell

Intuit buys Mailchimp

Posted on September 15, 2021 by - News

Intuit has agreed to purchase global customer engagement and marketing platform Mailchimp for $12 billion.

The move is part of a cunning plan which will see Intuit and Mailchimp will combine their technologies to build an end-to-end customer growth and engagement platform for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the company said.

Founded in 2001, Mailchimp began offering email marketing services and has now evolved into a major name in customer engagement and marketing automation with AI-driven tools and services. Intuit, meanwhile, is most well known for its QuickBooks small business accounting software.

ThycoticCentrify hires SHRM’s Keith Green

Posted on September 15, 2021 by - Moving People, News

ThycoticCentrify, a provider of cloud identity security solutions formed by the merger of privileged access management (PAM) leaders Thycotic and Centrify, today announced that Keith Green has joined the company as Chief Human Resources (HR) Officer.

Green joins ThycoticCentrify with more than 25 years of experience leading major corporate transformations and will oversee the newly-combined company’s HR strategies and several business operations.

Green previously served as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) where he led financial management, operations, and business strategy. Under Green’s stewardship, SHRM successfully navigated the Covid-19 crisis and achieved the strongest financial position in its 70-year history.

Exclusive Networks explains float

Posted on September 15, 2021 by - News

Distributor Exclusive Networks claims its decision to go public is part of a growth strategy that will involve attracting new vendors and expanding its customer offerings.

For those who came in late, the channel player, which started life in France and has its HQ in the UK, has chosen to list on the Euronext Paris after filing its documents with French Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF), courting investment in a business that has charted a course in delivering emerging security and cloud technologies. The aim is to use the IPO to generate a capital raise of up to approximately €260 million of primary proceeds that will help the business continue on its growth journey.

Chief Executive Officer of Exclusive Networks Jesper Trolle said that the plan was to move to a “totally trusted” digital future.

Infosecurity Europe goes virtual

Posted on September 14, 2021 by - News

Infosecurity Europe will be running a virtual conference on 12 October in support of Cyber Security Awareness Month 2021, with the Your Part theme.

Conference organisers say that the conference aim is to empower individuals and organisations to play a proactive role in enhancing cybersecurity, with an emphasis on personal accountability. The virtual conference will include more practical and technical discussions

Infosecurity Europe’s October Sessions will provide expert insights and practical knowledge that help businesses equip their people with a better understanding of cybersecurity, and the resources to be safer online. The event will involve a full day of webinars on topics including resilience, insider threat, and cybercrime. Registrations for each of the virtual sessions are now open here.

Tech Data expands self service operation

Posted on September 14, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Tech Data is increasing investment in its Software Store self-service renewals platform introducing a monthly data pack option for partners that have a large number of upcoming renewals and providing dedicated business development support.

The company said it is seeing steady growth in usage of the nine portals via which software and service renewals can be tracked, quoted for, and ordered, and is on track to achieve half of all software licensing renewals through them by the end of the year.

Michael Holden, Tech Data, UK and Ireland, business development manager eCommerce, said that the new data pack option will provide larger reseller partners with all pertinent information on their up-and-coming renewals for automatic input into their own internal systems.

“Larger partners may have thousands of renewals they want to track and might need to give access to many different users while ensuring they conform to security and data policies. We’ve developed the data pack option to provide partners with an uncomplicated way to get all the information they need to automate their renewals business, whilst ensuring they are compliant.”

SoftwareOne snaps up HeleCloud

Posted on September 13, 2021 by - News

SoftwareOne has acquired leading Amazon Web Services (AWS) partner HeleCloud for an amount of money – it won’t say how much.

UK-based HeleCloud is an AWS MSP and AWS consulting partner and will give SoftwareOne more depth around that cloud technology across Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), thanks to its operations here, in the Netherlands and Bulgaria.

The cunning plan is for HeleCloud’s leadership team and employees to integrate into SoftwareOne’s AWS practice.

HeleCloud has been around since 2016 and brings consulting expertise and knowledge of software architecture, infrastructure engineering and managed services, it is said. The firm has positioned itself as the ideal partner for those customers seeking help to navigate the often complex world of public cloud.

Javid Khan, AWS global director of SoftwareOne, said it had been targeting growth from the public cloud and the deal would support all that.

Server sales slump

Posted on September 13, 2021 by - News

Global server market revenues dropped 2.5 percent year over year to $23.6 billion during the second quarter, according to the latest IDC figures.

IDC beancounters counted more than 3.2 million during the quarter which was an increase of 0.1 percent over the previous year. The analyst claimed volume server revenue was up 5.6 percent to nearly $20 billion.

However, the midrange and high-end server downturn had a knock-on effect for the overall market, with IDC publishing declines of 30 pe cent to $2.4 billion for the midrange and 32.7 percent to $1.3 billion for the high-end.

IDC said that server market performance was muted in the second quarter as the market shifted slightly towards single-socket server configurations.

IDC Infrastructure Platforms and Technologies senior research analyst, Paul Maguranis said: “While servers purchased directly from ODMs declined year over year, some past backlog recovery within the hyperscale datacenter community contributed to a large jump in this segment when compared to the first quarter of this year.”

Dell releases new software and services for channel

Posted on September 13, 2021 by - News

Dell has launched shedloads of new software and services to help companies come to terms with the shedloads of data they suddenly need to handle.

They include Dell EMC PowerProtect Data Manager with Transparent Snapshots, Dell EMC PowerProtect appliances with Smart Scale, and Dell Technologies Managed Services for Cyber Recovery Solution. All this lot expands virtual machine (VM) backup availability, simplify data management, and bolster recovery.

Dell infrastructure solutions group president Jeff Boudreau said that while ransomware attacks were devastating for people and businesses, accepting defeat as a foregone conclusion is not the answer.

“We understand the stakes have never been higher, and the task of protecting data has never been more complex. As the leading provider of data protection hardware and software, our portfolio addresses this growing challenge by helping customers adopt holistic cybersecurity and data protection strategy to identify, protect, detect, respond and recover from ransomware and other cyberattacks.”

Qualtrics XM staff doubling in Dublin

Posted on September 10, 2021 by - News

Dublin CourtsQualtrics XM is to hire 1,000 new staff in Europe, as the online survey specialist looks to increase its presence across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

The US outfit wants to double the size of its regional headquarters in Dublin in early 2022, with hires being completed by 2024.

Qualtrics already employs 300 staff in the Irish capital, with this EMEA investment now set to take that total up to around 650 by the target date. The other hires will take place in London, Paris, Munich, Amsterdam, and Krakow.

Qualtrics’ services have been in demand since the COVID-19 pandemic has fuelled a surge in people working remotely. Additionally, the company says it’s becoming harder to satisfy customers and staff.

Qualtrics CEO Zig Serafin said that every business is figuring out how to keep employees and how to find new customers – and keep the customers that they have.

Tech Data now offers security as a service

Posted on September 10, 2021 by - Products

Just when you thought that aaS acronyms could not get any longer Tech Data has launched a security operations centre as a service (SOCaaS) offering.

SOCaaS is being billed as a “flexible, efficient, and affordable foundation on which partners can build their managed security business”. It can be white-labelled and presented as the partner’s own service offering and includes a comprehensive audit, preparation of an incident plan, 24/7 monitoring with response capabilities and regular reporting.

Tech Data, UK & Ireland, director, security, Advanced Solution said Alison Nixon said: “Customers of all sizes now need to shift to a viable and proactive threat detection posture in order to fully protect their systems against cyberattacks. SOCaaS has been highlighted as a huge opportunity by analysts, but many small and mid-market partners just don’t have the skillset, or the investment capability to build and offer a managed security service quickly enough to address the immediate opportunity.

“With our SOCaaS offering, they can offer a comprehensive and reliable service right away, without having to make the significant up-front investment, time and effort that would be required to establish their own SoC and managed service. It increases their ability to support their customers’ digital transformations and lowers risk for both the end customer and the partner. Crucially, it also means partners can extend and enhance the range of services and value they offer to their customers.”

Westcon-Comstor couples with Juniper Networks

Posted on September 10, 2021 by - News

Distributor Westcon-Comstor announced the expansion of its partnership agreement with Juniper Networks.

As a distribution partner for Juniper Networks, Westcon-Comstor offers a proven combination of technical insight, industry and channel expertise as well as a portfolio of value-added services, the companies said.

Westcon Europe Senior Vice President Rene Klein said: “Juniper Networks is a market leader for good reason. They have a great track record of innovation and continue to pass the fruits of that labour on to end-users with innovative products such as their AI-powered networking solutions. This expansion into Austria and Switzerland is indicative of both parties’ continued commitment to this partnership. Expanding our partnership to facilitate the needs of global customers is another exciting development. Our Juniper-dedicated Task Force is the perfect example of the value-add services that we’ve become known for. We’ve increased our resources to help develop the relationship and hope to work even more closely with Juniper Networks moving forward.”

Red Hat boosts partner support

Posted on September 9, 2021 by - News

Red Hat is increasing its partner support package.

The outfit’s director of partners for Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), Kevin Bland, said there was a need to increase the support it gives to traditional solution provider partners.

The firm has dedicated leaders that cover global systems integrators (GSIs), cloud providers and independent software vendors (ISVs), but Bland felt it needed something similar for the general reseller base.

He said that the company was a point of evolution where the majority, in terms of the number of partners, that sits within our ecosystem as traditional solution providers and those partners deserved a leader at the vendor to focus on their needs.

“We’ve got to connect these partners with our GSI partners, with our ISVs, with CCSPs [certified cloud security partners]. Some will turn into cloud service providers, some will evolve into ISVs, some will be a good route to market for those organisations, and some will supplement it with skills and services”, said Bland.

Citrix appoints Valette Northern Europe Veep

Posted on September 9, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Citrix has appointed Carole Valette as its new area vice president for Northern Europe, who will be responsible for sales and services operations in the UK, Ireland and the Nordics.

She will report to Sherif Seddik, senior vice president and managing director for Citrix EMEA, and will work closely with the internal team and the partner ecosystem at Citrix to drive cloud adoption, as well as growth and development of the Citrix sales and services organisation within the region.

She said that she was looking forward to her new role and working together with the local teams, customers and partners across Northern Europe to grow our joint business and strengthen the Citrix leadership position in the market.

Allvotec teams up with cloudy Vapour

Posted on September 9, 2021 by - News

ICT outfit Allvotec has partnered with cloud specialist Vapour as part of a cunning plan to boost its Unified Communications portfolio.

Vapour scores all Allvotec’s Avaya projects with <250 users. The Vapour Subscription Service (VSS) means Allvotec can securely deliver enterprise-grade UC services via Vapour’s private network infrastructure, with an end-to-end service wrap, complete with SIP if required. But the customer relationship and contract remain with them.

Allvotec’s CEO Dave Gardner said: “For three decades, we’ve delivered, supported and maintained tech solutions that enhance customers’ communications, collaboration and productivity, via a partner-exclusive business model. We only collaborate with true experts who are as confident and experienced in their respective fields. We’re forecasting a big growth over the next 12 months, as organisations’ digital transformation projects continue at pace. Vapour will now play a key part in accelerating our ability to innovate, and deliver successful UC solutions which are agile, robust and compliant.”

Midwich Group returns to normal

Posted on September 8, 2021 by - News

Midwich Group is seeing its bottom line returning to normal again.

The distributor shared preliminary first-half results, for the six months ended 30 June, revealing that it had delivered profits on the back of lockdown restrictions easing.

The first half of last year saw the firm reporting losses after tax of £2.8 million, but this time around the firm delivered £4.6 million in profit, representing a 263 percent year-on-year improvement. Revenues were up by 29 percent, rising to £390.1 million.

The firm used its trading update to inform investors of its ongoing recovery, and trading momentum was continuing as more of the venues and activities that required audiovisual solutions reopened.