Author: Nick Farrell

SCC spends £7 million on Birmingham HQ

Posted on November 11, 2019 by - News

IT services and solutions provider, SCC, has announced the start of a £7 million refurbishment programme to its UK headquarters.

The commercial premises, located in Birmingham, are being completely remodelled and upgraded as the latest part of a long-term regional investment strategy by the multi-award-winning business.

SCC has been headquartered in Birmingham since its incorporation in 1975 and is now a £2.2 billion turnover company, with 5,500+ employees and businesses in the UK, France, Spain, Romania and Vietnam.

Insight revenue up nine percent thanks to PCM

Posted on November 8, 2019 by - News

Insight saw sales grow nine percent in its third quarter, with the bulk of the cash coming from the recently acquired PCM business.

Revenue for the third quarter ending 30 September rose nine percent year on year to $1.9 billion while gross profit climbed 18 percent to $27 6million.

EMEA IT spending expected to increase.

Posted on November 8, 2019 by - News

Gartner augurs have been “taking the auspices” and had a vision that EMEA IT spending will rise by 3.4 percent in 2020.

John Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner, said 2020 will be a recovery year for IT spending in EMEA after three consecutive years of decline.

“This year declines in the Euro and the British Pound against the US Dollar, at least partially due to Brexit concerns, pushed some IT spending down and caused a rise in local prices for technology hardware. However, 2020 will be a rebound year as Brexit is expected to be resolved and the pressure on currency rates relieved”, he added.

HP admits that Xerox has been on the blower

Posted on November 8, 2019 by - News

The maker of expensive printer ink called HP has admitted that Xerox has been on the phone about a potential buyout.

The dark satanic rumour mill manufactured a hell on earth yarn claiming that  Xerox was considering a takeover bid and HP was saying nothing.

HP has now broken its silence with a statement that confirms that the rumours were true although the relationship was still has been in contact with Xerox “from time to time”.

London faces cyber brain drain

Posted on November 7, 2019 by - News

London businesses are in danger of a cyber brain drain, according to research conducted by Mimecast and British Land.

The research found that only half of the cybersecurity professionals (56 percent) expect to still be working in London in the next five years, with 30 percent planning to relocate to another country in Europe over the same period.

It also found that the UK’s businesses were still losing the battle in cybersecurity with the City of London Corporation itself suffering nearly one million cyber-attacks each month.  Yet the security experts all felt their industry was being gutted by a skills shortage which is set to get worse if left to its own devices.

Cisco rejigs partner programme

Posted on November 7, 2019 by - News

Cisco has added new specialisations and incentives to its partner programme as it shifts its business towards subscription and lifecycle selling.

Cisco introduced a new “Lifecycle Incentives Programme” to push partners to do more than just resell its products and instead drive software activation and adoption among customers.

Cisco claims this is the first business specialisation focused on “customer experience”.

Cray gets nukes

Posted on November 6, 2019 by - News

Global supercomputer leader Cray, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company, announced that the United Kingdom’s Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) has selected the Cray Shasta supercomputer to look after its nukes.

The Shasta system, purpose-built for the exascale era, was chosen due to its ability to run mixed workloads and applications at the best total cost of ownership (TCO) for a system across five years.

AWE’s supercomputer, named Vulcan, will feature a single Shasta supercomputer with a performance of more than 7 petaflops. Shasta will play an integral role in maintaining the UK’s nukes.

Simpson Associates couples with Information Builders

Posted on November 6, 2019 by - News

Business intelligence analytics, and data management outfit Information Builders announced that Simpson Associates, a leading data analytics consultancy, has joined the company’s Partner Programme as a Signature Partner.

Through this new partnership, Simpson Associates will provide its clients in the UK government, education, housing, retail, media, publishing, legal, and manufacturing sectors with data quality and master data management solutions based on Information Builders’ Omni-Gen technology.

Cybersecurity budgets missing

Posted on November 6, 2019 by - News

Cybersecurity budgets are failing to keep pace with the rise in cyber threats, according to new research, which has found that half (50 percent) of IT decision-makers say their security budget won’t increase before at least 2021.

In contrast, just 18 percent of respondents expect their budget to increase by double-digits within the next two years, while a quarter only (28 percent) forecast single-digit growth.

The study, by ESET, the security solutions provider, questioned 100 IT decision-makers on their attitudes and future plans around cybersecurity. With previous studies showing that cyber-attacks are growing year-on-year and that security spending in the UK is already the lowest in Europe, the findings suggest that the budget that organisations are allocating to combatting cyber-crime does not match the risks they face.

ESET appoints new UK channel boss

Posted on November 5, 2019 by - Moving People, News

Cybersecurity and anti-virus outfit ESET has appointed David Mole as its new UK channel director.

The outfit has been carrying out some improvements to its channel model of late to provide “perfectly matched skills and expertise” and enhance customer service for its 3,000-strong partner base in the UK.

HPE improves partner support

Posted on November 5, 2019 by - News

HPE is sprucing up its partner support as part of its drive towards an aaS model.

HPE started talking about subscription models back in June, setting a 2022 deadline to offer customers a choice of subscription-based pay-as-you-go and as a Service offering on its portfolio.

New technologies set to grow

Posted on November 5, 2019 by - News

UK business investment in new technologies such as quantum computing, blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies, and artificial intelligence (AI) is set to jump in the next five years.

The  CBI and Accenture Tech Tracker survey indicates the proportion of firms seeking to invest in quantum computing is set to nearly triple (from 11 percent today to 32 percent in five years). Though still in its research phase it has the potential to speed up complex calculations – doing in just a few minutes what a computer would take thousands of years to do.

Microsoft backs down

Posted on November 4, 2019 by - News

Software King of the World, Microsoft, has backed down its much-criticised self-service scheme and made it possible for IT departments to switch off.

The move would have let employees within an organisation bypass their IT departments to buy licenses for three Office 365 products –  for Power BI, PowerApps and Flow using just their Azure Active Directory (AD) login details and own payment details, without having to consult with their IT departments.

CDW doing well

Posted on November 4, 2019 by - News

CDW has reported a record third quarter as sales neared $5 billion.

For the quarter ending 30 September, the reseller giant saw revenue climb 12.2 percent, while net income rose 9.8 per cent to just over $200 million.