Author: Nick Farrell

NetApp culls five percent of jobs

Posted on August 28, 2020 by - News

NetApp CEO George Kurian told analysts in its first quarter earnings call that it is reducing its 10,800-strong headcount by 5.5 percent, despite reporting a five percent year on year increase in net revenues to $1.3 billion.

Kurian said the global job cuts are motivated by “strategic alignment and focus” on its storage systems and software divisions. He confirmed that SolidFire – which NetApp acquired in 2016 – and its hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) teams would be most affected by the cuts.

“We realigned about 5.5 percent of our workforce and those were in parts of the business – in all the functions of the business, but in those parts of the business that were not particularly aligned to our go-forward priorities”, he explained on the call

Cloud-based infrastructure speed IT Initiatives

Posted on August 28, 2020 by - News

land [yeah it does start with a lower case “i”, Ed.]Product Marketing Manager, Sarah Doherty, says that companies are hesitant to adopt a cloud infrastructure because they still look at IT assets and think about budget cycles and performance/capacity per the pound or dollar.

“When we talk to business leaders, the idea of moving from a CAPEX model to an OPEX model is appealing for pretty much everything but IT.  This can put them into situations where they are purchasing hardware on three to five-year cycles, subsequently discovering after two years that the hardware they have invested in isn’t doing what it needs to do. However, at that point, the business is committed”, she said.

They may be locked into a certain vendor or platform and the pain of moving seems overwhelming or they may have concerns about moving to the cloud in general. In a nutshell, this approach is not compatible with the flexibility and scalability that many businesses need in their toolkit.

Zortrex appoints Michael Boevink CEO

Posted on August 27, 2020 by - News

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Data security outfit Zortrex  has appointed Michael Boevink as its new CEO.

Boevink will be responsible for shaping the future direction and development of the company, realising its goal to help organisations reduce the cost and complexity of protecting against data breaches, safeguard customer privacy, and ensure compliance with ever-changing regulatory requirements.

Boevink brings over 20 years of experience spent in the new media, telecom and financial services sectors. He holds an MBA from the University of Bradford. He is said to have an in-depth understanding of the security threat landscape. Zortrex’s goal is to stem the rising tide of data breaches. It will do this by using “tokenisation”, which replaces confidential personal information with randomly generated substitute characters (tokens), as placeholder data, to mitigate the impact of any cyber-attack by devaluing all sensitive data.

Boston distributes Swiss Prime

Posted on August 27, 2020 by - News

Boston Limited will include Prime Computer in its product portfolio and distribute the Swiss manufacturer’s IT hardware solutions in the UK and Ireland.

Prime Computer’s fanless design in servers are used in a wide range of operating environments across a variety of sectors including hospitality, medical practices, and hospitals. The products are silent with no other mechanical parts generating noise. As many businesses currently rely on digital services, Prime Computer products are designed to provide continuous operation and reliability for all business needs.

Prime’s chief sales officer Bianca Brinker said: “Prime Computer is determined to further expand its presence in the UK and Ireland, enhancing the status of the Prime Computer brand as the leading Swiss manufacturer of energy-saving, passively cooled mini-PCs and servers, including our brand new PrimeMini IoT.

Diegesis scores managed services agreement with ONS

Posted on August 27, 2020 by - News

Systems intergrator Diegesis  has been awarded a managed services contract by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) under the Digital Outcomes and Specialists 4 framework.

Under the two-year agreement, Diegesis will support and maintain ONS’s existing Ingres/Actian-X systems written in Applications-By-Forms (ABF) and OpenROAD while maintaining business as usual (BAU) during the organisation’s critical period of IT transition.  The programme requires Diegesis to provide a team of experienced, skilled staff requiring government Security Clearance to support a number of systems that collect and process data for a variety of surveys conducted by the ONS.

Diegesis will carry out a range of activities including essential support and maintenance of operational systems, responding to service desk requests and providing updates to existing systems to help meet strategic and legislative changes.  The Diegesis team and its progress will be monitored and measured against ONS-defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Telent does well despite CEO’s death

Posted on August 26, 2020 by - News

Telent has reported a five percent rise in revenue in a financial year that saw its former chief executive Mark Plato’s shock death.

The network services giant posted revenues of £568.2 million and saw operating profit rise 2.5 per ent to £32.2 million for its year ending 31 March 2020.

Chairman David Naylor-Leyland struck a sombre tone as he reported on the loss of long-term boss Plato and economic uncertainty in the UK.

Long-term CEO Plato died suddenly in early September.

Dell gives partners credit where it’s due

Posted on August 26, 2020 by - News

Dell is extending its $9 billion  of zero interest credit to its partners until 30 October, in an effort to keep projects from sinking amid COVID-19 financial pressures.

Dell president of financial services, Bill Wavro, said partners will be able to defer payments until 2021 “to continue helping their customers adapt to the changing landscape”.

“Our commitment extends to our channel and global alliances partners with Dell Financial Services accessible to thousands of partners. Partners whose customers use DFS can improve their cash flow and liquidity by being paid within days. Additionally, qualifying partners can get a payment extension of 45 to 90 days with the Dell Technologies Working Capital Solutions Programme”, he said.

Palo Alto Networks snaps up Crypsis

Posted on August 26, 2020 by - News

Palo Alto Networks has acquired an incident response and digital forensics consultancy, Crypsis, in a deal worth $265 million.

The deal is designed to spruce up its own enterprise security oversight platform and Crypsis will be  integrated with Palo Alto Networks to strengthen its Cortex XDR services.

Cortex XDR already provides prevention, detection and incident response capabilities but Palo Alto wants Crypsis’ consultancy and forensics services to allow the platform to collect telemetry data, manage data breaches and initiative rapid response actions.

Blockchain gets a boost from COVID-19

Posted on August 25, 2020 by - News

Rusty chain - Wikimedia CommonsForrester  analysts have been adding up some numbers and reached the conclusion that COVID-19 has given Blockchain initiatives a kick in the pants.

A new report with the catchy title, ‘COVID-19 Is Accelerating Critical Enterprise Blockchain Initiatives’ shows that blockchain initiatives, particularly related to supply chain and logistics, have accelerated during the pandemic, despite many budgets being cut.

McAfee improves Secure Access Service Edge

Posted on August 25, 2020 by - News

Security outfit McAfee announced significant enhancements to its Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) solution by launching integrations with third-party Software-Defined Wide Area Networking (SD-WAN) solutions, and extending its UCE platform tolet  global strategic partners deliver managed SASE offerings.

McAfee has been working with global service providers Atos and BT to offer a range of managed Web, CASB, and SASE offerings to help organisations who are struggling with the challenges of digital transformation.

Kaseya swallows Graphus

Posted on August 25, 2020 by - News

MSP Kaseya expanded the capabilities of its IT Complete platform by acquiring and integrating Graphus, an automated phishing defence platform.

At a time when workforces are nearly all remote and cloud email adoption is at an all-time high, businesses have an even greater need for strong cybersecurity defenses to avoid devastating data breaches and financial consequences. Kaseya claims that with this acquisition, IT Complete now includes a simple, automated, powerful and cost-effective email security and phishing defence platform.

Alibaba sees cloud sales rise

Posted on August 24, 2020 by - News

Alibaba saw its cloud sales rise in its last quarter, driven by both public and hybrid cloud adoption.

The Chinese giant’s cloud sales shot up 59 percent year on year to $1.7 billion during the quarter ending 30 June, equating to eight percent of the firm’s total revenue.

Alibaba CEO Daniel Daniel Zhang said: “The pandemic has transformed the way enterprises work, accelerating demand for cloud infrastructure and services. If you look at our revenue breakdown, obviously, cloud is enjoying a very, very fast growth and what we see is that all the industries are in the process of digital transformation.”

Alibaba remains the largest cloud provider in China, but Zhang said that analysts have pegged the US market as being much larger than in its homeland – indicating that there is still plenty of room for growth.

Softcat having a good year

Posted on August 24, 2020 by - News

Channel outfit Softcat is having rather a good 2020 and weathered the  COVID-19  storm.

The reseller delivered 20.8 percent growth in revenues to £524.1 million for the six months to 31 January. Operating profit climbed by 19.5 percent, hitting £40.5 million.

During the first half of its financial year, Softcat cut the ribbon on a new office in Birmingham, which already has a staff of 20, increasing the overall headcount by just shy of 13 percent.

The firm last updated the market in May, and has seen trading continue to remain “satisfactory” in the last three months of its fiscal year, with operating profit for the full year slightly ahead of the board’s expectations.

Two IT frameworks seek resellers

Posted on August 24, 2020 by - News

Resellers are being sought for two IT frameworks.

The first, managed by KCS, is worth up to £400 million and caters for the procurement, refurbishment and disposal of hardware, including desktops, laptops, tablets, servers and storage.

Applications close on 18 September, with the four-year framework set to go live on 1 November 2020.

The framework will be split into four lots: IT Hardware; Remanufactured IT Hardware; Refurbished IT Hardware; and IT Hardware Repair, Disposal and Recycling.

The second framework is run by Crescent and is valued at £40 million.

The six lots are: Servers and Associated Equipment, Enterprise Storage, Back up and Archiving, Networking Equipment and Services, Security Hardware and Maintenance.

Contract notices are expected to be sent out in October, with the frameworks predecessor due to expire in January 2021, having gone live in 2017.

Suppliers on this iteration include CDW, CAE, Insight and Bechtle.

Five cloud services providers took more than a third of the market

Posted on August 21, 2020 by - News

Beancounters at IDC claimed that the global public cloud services market totalled $233.4 billion (£176 billion) in 2019, representing a 26 percent increase year on year.

The report claims that the top five public cloud service providers – Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google, Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.com – accounted for more than a third of the worldwide total, growing a combined 35 percent year over year.

Software as a service (SaaS) remained the largest segment of public cloud spending with revenues of more than $122 billion in 2019, an increase of 20 percent year-over-year. IDC expects SaaS growth to continue as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, as businesses shift to subscription-based models and look to software collaboration tools to facilitate remote working.

IDC’s Rick Villars said that the cloud is expanding far beyond niche e-commerce and online ad-sponsored search and underpinned digital activities that individuals and enterprises depend upon as we navigate and move beyond the pandemic.