Author: Nick Farrell

Fulcrum snaps up Pure

Posted on April 12, 2021 by - News

Fulcrum Technology Group has bought Pure which it says will operate with its existing management team and give it the muscle to go after more business in the UK.

Pure Technology Group CEO Stephen O’Brien said Fulcrum’s pitch to buy the company was different and it had a bigger strategy in play, which will propel Pure into the top echelon of UK IT service providers.

“We also share many values, which will only enhance what is truly special about our business – our people, our culture and our service. For all of us, and our customers and partners too, this is a tremendous opportunity.”

IT spending expected to rebound this year

Posted on April 12, 2021 by - News

Beancounters at Gartner have added up some numbers and reached the conclusion that  IT spending is set to rebound in 2021.

Global IT spending will reach $4 trillion in 2021, Gartner claims, an increase of 8.4 percent on the previous year.

Spending on devices is set to rocket by 14 pe cent this year to $755.8 billion. Enterprise software is the second-fastest-growing segment this year with spending set to grow by 10.8 percent to $571.7 billion. IT services spending will grow nine percent to 1.2 trillion, claims Gartner, data centre systems by 7.7 percent to 247.5 billion and communications services by 4.6 percent to $1.45 trillion

Gartner research VP John-David Lovelock said IT spending will move away from the “knee-jerk” spending seen last year.

Fifosys buys a slice of Enforce security

Posted on April 12, 2021 by - News

MSP Fifosys has snapped up Birmingham-based cybersecurity firm Enforce Technology as part of a cunning plan to expand its offering and market presence in the UK.

Fifosys is a Datto, SolarWinds MSP, Microsoft, VMware and Citric partner and has been fairly London-centric for a while.  Enforce Technology sees itself as a cybersecurity partner, but expanded into managed services and hosting through its 2019 acquisition of Network SI based in Oldbury in the West Midlands.

Fifosys founder and MD Mitesh Patel said: “Our acquisition of Enforce Technology is part of Fifosys’ strategic growth plan and a welcome addition to our national portfolio of valued clients. Bringing Enforce Technology into the Fifosys fold enhances our ability to serve the national market by empowering regional businesses with solutions that help them keep pace with security and the ever-increasing opportunities in adopting a cloud-first strategy”.

Hugging is good for sales but tough right now

Posted on April 9, 2021 by - News

Salespeople think physical interaction with a customer will be awkward, but the customer does not think the same and will actually spend more if they are touched, according to research from BI Norwegian Business School.

Professor Anders Gustafsson and colleagues conducted a series of studies examining the effects of asking individuals to initiate touch in a service encounter. The first two studies asked participants to act as a salesperson with some being instructed to touch the upper arm of a customer. Those instructed to touch exhibited higher levels of stress and perceived the situation to be more awkward than those not instructed to touch.

The third study involved telling participants they were going to act as the server in a restaurant. Some participants were provided with the information that touching the upper arm of a customer is a good way to connect. They then answered a questionnaire before being told they wouldn’t actually be interacting with anyone. When given the suggestion to touch, participants believed interaction would be more awkward, expected the customer would feel worse, and were concerned customers would think they are being inappropriate.

ValueLicensing sues Microsoft

Posted on April 9, 2021 by - News

Pre-owned software reseller ValueLicensing has filed a claim in the High Court in London against Microsoft, claiming that Vole abused its dominant market position and used restrictive contractual practices.

It claims that Microsoft made it impossible to sell pre-owned software licences in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). ValueLicensing has pointed to contractual clauses that prevent the resale of a perpetual licence as a condition of a discount. The case is that this behaviour is anti-competitive under European Union laws.

The reseller is seeking damages of £270 million for the loss of sales in the UK and European Union (EU) from 2016 onwards. ValueLicensing states that the losses are ongoing and it reserves the right to change that figure to reflect the scope of the claim.

Hyland flings as Nuxeo bought

Posted on April 9, 2021 by - News

Contentful outfit Hyland has finished its buy up of Nuxeo, a content services platform and digital asset management (DAM) provider and bought all its products and technology, under Hyland.

For those who came in late,  Hyland’s acquired Alfresco late last year, so its addition of Nuxeo reinforces Hyland’s commitment to cloud-native platforms and open-source communities while expanding its global footprint with additional team members, customers and partners.

Hyland president and CEO Bill Priemer said: “With the addition of Nuxeo’s cloud-native, open-source, low-code platform, Hyland is now the largest open-source content services provider in the market. The expertise the Nuxeo team brings, along with the innovative capabilities of the Nuxeo platform, strengthen Hyland’s position as the leader in cloud-based content services platforms and present tremendous opportunities for the organizations we serve.”

Lookout announces new channel partner programme

Posted on April 8, 2021 by - News

Lookout will be announcing the launch of its new global channel partner programme which it claims was developed based on partner feedback.

The new programme includes two partner levels: Elite and Select.  It has also simplified its previous channel partner levels to better recognise and celebrate partners who have shown industry expertise and a proven track record. Lookout partners are eligible for benefits that elevate their value and differentiation in the market and increase profitability, it is claimed.

Later this Spring the company will launch its Lookout Partner Academy training and certification platform will provide partners access to sales and pre-sales online training courses. Upon completion of the curriculum, the partner will be designated Lookout Qualified.

IT companies put too much trust in employees

Posted on April 8, 2021 by - News

It companies are placing unwarranted trust in their employees, household members and third-party vendors, according to the latest Apricorn 2021 Global IT Security Survey.

The findings show that IT security professionals are concerned about the cyber risks brought about by remote work, with 75 percent putting COVID-centric policies in place, including the use of two-factor authentication (48 percent) and encryption of sensitive data (41 percent).

More than 60 percent of respondents agree that COVID-induced remote work conditions have created data security issues within their organisations, with 38 percent noting that data control during the pandemic has been hard to manage. Even with these data control concerns.

Outsourcing continues to grow

Posted on April 8, 2021 by - News

Beancounters at ISG have noticed that global demand for technology and business services continues to rise, reaching an all-time high in the first quarter, with a growing pipeline of deals signalling continued expansion in 2021 as the economy begins to emerge from the pandemic.

Data from the ISG Index, which measures commercial outsourcing contracts with annual contract value (ACV) of $5 million or more, show first-quarter ACV for the combined global market (both as-a-service and managed services) reached a record $17.1 billion, up 11 percent over last year and up four percent from the fourth quarter.

This was the third consecutive quarter of global growth following the pandemic-related drop in the second quarter of 2020.

CityFibre appoints BT’s Walker

Posted on April 8, 2021 by - Moving People, News

CityFibre has appointed comms industry veteran, Matt Walker as its new Director of Customer Delivery and Assurance.

Walker has more than 20 years of experience in the industry, previously holding roles such as Director of Customer Service for consumer business at Openreach and senior roles in Group Strategy at BT Technology.

Walker will be directly responsible for CityFibre’s ’s provisioning, customer service, Network Operations Centre and technical support teams.

“I’ve joined a great team and my focus will be on ensuring we provide consistent, reliable performance for our partners, and for their customers. I believe transparency on performance is critical, and I look forward to building and developing the relationships we have with our partners so we can jointly innovate to co-create additional value for all and ensure a superior customer experience”, he said.

Channel partners need to “control the narrative” [story, Ed.]

Posted on April 7, 2021 by - News

The post COVID world will see intense competition, and Channel partners will need to develop a robust strategy to drive sales growth, according to iland’s  Vice-President Sales, EMEA, Johnny Carpenter.

Carpenter said that as businesses adjust post-pandemic there is a strong sense of urgency as customers work to improve resilience, re-engineer their business and procure the technology to support this.

He said that to capture this growing demand and translate it into sales, channel partners face strong competition.

Nokia teams up with Intel at the data centre

Posted on April 7, 2021 by - News

Nokia said that its Nokia AirFrame data centre solutions will be upgraded with the third Generation Intel Xeon Scalable Processors to increase their compute capacity, faster data lanes and higher memory capacity.

This means that AirFrame products will be upgraded immediately following the availability of the latest processors.

Nokia’s AirFrame data centre is designed for running demanding virtualised and cloud-native software workloads in the 5G era.

Schuster leaves Redmond

Posted on April 6, 2021 by - Moving People, News

Gavriella Schuster, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Commercial Partner, has announced she is to leave her current role.

Rodney Clark will be the new corporate vice president of Global Channel Sales and channel chief for Microsoft. Having spent 23 years with Microsoft himself, Clark most recently served as vice president of IoT and Mixed Reality Sales.

In a LinkedIn post, the Microsoft veteran said it was time to “pass the torch”.

“Over the coming months I am committed to helping Rodney onboard and helping my teams close the year strong and prepare the business for the future”, Schuster said.

M-Files snaps up Hubshare

Posted on April 6, 2021 by - News

M-Files has bought Hubshare to bolster what it says is external content sharing and collaboration abilities.

For those who came in late, Hubshare offers a secure digital workplace portal that enhances user and client engagement through collaborative working, secure file sharing and project management.

As part of the M-Files product portfolio, Hubshare provides a secure information exchange platform where it claims companies can be forerunners in driving digitalisation and improving the customer experience using branded, customidable client portals. The portals can be tailored to meet individual client needs.

2021 is the “year of the laptop”

Posted on April 2, 2021 by - News

Laptop and tablet usage will surge this year, as the pandemic triggers a permanent change in how we use them, according to Gartner.

The beancounters at Big G claim that 125 million more laptops and tablets will be in use globally this year compared to 2020

The report said that more than 6.2 billion devices – including laptops, desktops, tablets and mobile phones – will be in play by the end of 2021.

The number of laptops in use will increase by 8.8 percent this year, while the number of tablets will increase by 11.7 percent.

By 2022, the global devices install base is set to reach 6.4 billion units – up 3.2 percent on 2021.