Cyber criminals are getting more extortionate with their demands from SMEs, according to Datto’s annual European State of the Channel Ransomware report.
According to its numbers the average ransom requested of SMEs by hackers is increasing – now sitting at around £2,000.
Downtime related to such attacks is increasing by 300 percent in Europe, year-on-year, higher than the global average of 200 percent.
Google’s changes to privacy could have some serious implications for the channel, according to Forrester senior analyst Enza Iannopollo.
For those who came in late, Google isn’t waiting for the end of the Brexit transition period to update its terms and conditions as they relate to privacy; the tech giant just announced that, since the United Kingdom is leaving the EU, as of March 31, 2020, Google LLC (Google’s US entity) will become the service provider and the data controller responsible for its UK users’ accounts — in lieu of Google’s European entity.
Birmingham’s Specialist Computer Centres (SCC) has opened its new Romanian headquarters in Iași, with an official opening ceremony attended by the UK Ambassador to Romania, Andrew J Noble, among other bigwigs.
Romania is home to one of SCC’s key Global Delivery Centres (GDC), providing support to SCC customers and internal operations, having launched in the country in 2006. As of the most recent financial results, SCC’s GDCs in Romania and Vietnam now contribute £20m of revenue to SCC’s overall performance.
SCC Romania said it will provide UK and European customers with 24/7 access to over 1,200 skilled staff, dedicated to flexible support solutions to meet their needs. The multi-award-winning Romania GDC has undergone consistent reinvestment, with the opening of its new HQ the latest milestone in its continued growth.
Cloud PBX provider NFON UK announced a new partnership with ASL, one of the UK’s top ten resellers and largest independent managed office services suppliers in the UK.
ASL is better know for its print and IT services adding Cloudya, NFON’s Cloud Telephone System, to its portfolio is part of its strategic plan for voice.
The UK’s Cyber Defence Alliance has formed a partnership with Anomali to enhance cybersecurity capabilities and automate the secure and meaningful sharing of threat intelligence with its banking members.
The goal of the partnership is to strengthen member bank’s abilities to act against organised cyber-crime groups that carry out repeated attacks on banks and the wider financial sector in the UK and Europe.
Anomali is a leader in intelligence-driven cybersecurity solutions with over 1700 organisations globally using the Anomali platform.
Gamma has bought Scottish Microsoft Teams specialist Exactive for up to £7.5 million.
The deal will see the cloud comms player pay £4.5 million in cash and shares, with a “deferred contingent consideration” of up to £3 million, if Exactive achieves EBITDA of £1.5 million in 2021.
Dunfermline-based Exactive was established in 2015 and had a turnover of £3.8 million for the year ending 31 December 2019. It has support facilities in Poland. CEO Scott Millar, CCO Robert Hutchison – who together co-founded the firm – and CTO Richard McPhee will remain with the merged business.
eSIM smartphone growth is continuing and 2020 will prove another positive year as Samsung becomes the latest OEM to boost the eSIM market according to global tech market advisory outfit ABI Research.
It adds that the recent launch of the Samsung S20 range of devices with eSIM support will propel global shipments of eSIM enabled smartphones to over 225 million in 2020,
Phil Sealy, Digital Security Research Director at ABI Research sadid that ever since Apple first announced eSIM support in its XR and S range of devices in 2018, all eyes were firmly placed on Samsung as the next OEM to support eSIM in its flagship devices.
Xerox has formally launched a $34.9 billion hostile bid to acquire all outstanding shares of HP for $24 per share
The deal which is $2 per share increase above its initial offer, comprises $18.40 in cash and 0.149 Xerox shares for each HP share.
Targeted directly at HP shareholders, the unsolicited “hostile takeover” offer and withdrawal rights are scheduled to expire at 5 p.m. ET on April 21, 2020, unless it is extended.
Xerox CEO John Visentin said: “Our proposal offers progress over entrenchment” the proxy offer, which will be sent directly to HP shareholders.
Managed service provider TiG has written a cheque for London-based counterpart MMRIT.
The outfit said the takeover creates one of the largest IT services firms catering to the alternative financial services sector in London.
The combined business will have 150 employees.
TiG CEO Des Lekerman said: “It’s a great time to have the capability and expertise to provide these services, as the need and appetite for digital transformation, and for data insights, has never been greater. We are proud to welcome everyone at MMRIT to TiG and I look forward to the next phase of our journey together.”
The Microsoft Gold partner took in investment cash from BGF in July 2018, before acquiring netConsult in January last year.
VMware has launched VMware Partner Connect which it says is a simplified and flexible programme designed to enable partners to do business with VMware in a way that aligns to their business models.
VMware Partner Connect empower partners with flexibility to meet customers’ needs, making VMware technologies and services opportunities more accessible, the outfit claims.
The outfit claims its partners now have an enhanced experience that delivers simplicity, choice and innovation, and recognises and rewards partners based on the value they bring to customers.
Worldwide Channel Chief, VMware Jenni Flinders said that VMware Partner Connect reimagines the way it does business with and for our partners, helping them drive differentiated customer success and digital transformation.
“We designed Partner Connect with our customers in mind, and the idea that they should feel confident when choosing to go with a VMware partner. And this is just the beginning, as Partner Connect continues to evolve to deliver new and better ways for our partners to grow their business.”
Flexible working results in better mental health, according to 78 percent of senior IT leaders surveyed for SCC’s inaugural ‘IT Insights Report’ on Workplace Productivity.
The first in a new series of reports commissioned by SCC – which surveyed a panel of 550 IT decision-makers from 11 public and private sectors – reveals health and well being are quickly becoming just as important in the office as it is in our lives.
Dell has combined its server and storage teams in response to a slowdown in enterprise sales in North America and China.
Speaking in a Dell Q4 earnings call, COO Jeff Clarke said: “Earlier this month, we combined into one sales organization, and we will realise the next level of synergies and cross-sell opportunities, like selling more storage and data protection to our server customers… go mine that customer base and expand the customer base for storage.”
Cisco has confirmed a wave of job cuts as part of a restructuring that it expects to cost it $300 million.
The vendor confirmed the cuts in a statement to the Wall Street Journal, but did not reveal how many of its 75,000 employees will be affected.
“This is part of an ongoing process of aligning our investments and resources to meet the evolving needs of our customers and partners”, it said.
HP has moved next month’s Reinvent conference in Anaheim to later in the year over fears that coronavirus might damage its channel.
In a statement the outfit said: “HP has made the difficult decision to postpone HP Reinvent in Anaheim until early autumn. According to the World Health Organization [WHO], corona virus continues to escalate, rather than subside, with widespread implications in multiple countries and markets. We must place the well-being of our employees, our partners, and our media and industry analyst community as our number one priority.”
Security vendor Malwarebytes has launched a managed services programme as a way to boost its SME business.
Malwarebytes’ MP3 managed service programme has been running on a limited basis, but is now ready to go out into general release and is being made available in the UK. It provides a tiered approach that partners can take out to customers, with flexible licensing options.
The security player has accompanied the MP3 launch with its OneView operations console. Its broad aim is to give partners the tools they need to reach out to the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) customer base with management tools that make it easier to bring fresh customers on board, offering licensing and billing tools as well as providing the ability to perform global policy setting and remote access control.
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