Author: Nick Farrell

SoftwareOne still stalling on Bain deal.

Posted on January 9, 2024 by - News

SoftwareOne is still talking to Bain Capital after turning down several takeover offers from the private equity giant and fresh gossip that the deal was losing support from the board.

The statement comes after media reports that Bain’s planned buyout was “hitting the brakes”.

SoftwareOne’s statement said: “The board is still focused on driving shareholder value and acting in the best interest of the company and all stakeholders. The board hopes to finish talks and give an update on the outcome of the strategic review to shareholders by the end of the month.”

A report from Bloomberg said Bain Capital’s chase of SoftwareOne had stalled after an offer of nearly £2.7 billion got a “cold response from the software firm’s board”.

Broadcom dumps VMware partners.

Posted on January 9, 2024 by - News

Broadcom has taken 2,000 of VMware’s best customers in a direct-only sales model drive.

It also told partners they would reject any deal they tried registering for a strategic account.

“If you send new opportunity registrations for strategic customer accounts, they will be turned down,” Broadcom told shocked VMware partners.

If a VMware partner’s deal with a strategic account is waiting, it “will be turned down,” Broadcom wrote.

Lloyds gets more Kick.

Posted on January 8, 2024 by - News

Lloyds Banking Group’s private equity arm, LDC, has splashed out a huge investment into Scottish IT firm Kick ICT.

The move will help Kick’s UK growth plans.

The deal also marks a win for BGF, the investor backing Kick ICT since 2021.

Kick is based in Bellshill, North Lanarkshire, providing IT, communication, and digital services to over 1,000 customers.

The company, which has more than 170 staff, specialises in Microsoft and Infor business and finance solutions and modern infrastructure, cloud services, and IT support.

Kick ICT, set up in 2015, has grown organically and through buying other companies in the past few years.

Coppers probe fraud in Post Office cases

Posted on January 8, 2024 by - News

The Met Police say they are investigating possible fraud offences linked to fraud prosecutions against hundreds of Post Office staff.

They are checking the money that the Post Office clawed back from the sub-post managers through civil actions.

For those who came in late, hundreds of sub-posties were wrongly convicted of nicking cash from their branches after a dodgy Horizon IT system supplied by Japanese tech giant Fujitsu made them look guilty. To make matters worse, the Royal Mail knew its system was spitting out false data and covered it up.

Bosses who ignored the problems with the software made the workers pay back the shortfalls. Some ended up in jail or out of pocket, while others lost their jobs and homes.

Giacom buys intY

Posted on January 5, 2024 by - News

Cybersecurity star Giacom plans to buy app protection expert intY from US firm ScanSource.

They did not say how much the deal was worth, but Giacom is getting intY’s UK cash, partners and business.

It will also boost Giacom’s cloud power thanks to intY’s link with Microsoft, with the two firms making one of the biggest sellers of licences to the small business UK market.

Giacom boss Terry O’Brien said the move makes Giacom stronger and shows its promise to give top solutions to its partners.

SentinelOne snaps up PingSafe to rule cloud security

Posted on January 5, 2024 by - News

Cybersecurity outfit SentinelOne plans to buy app protection expert PingSafe in a move it thinks will dominate cloud security by putting its tech under the bonnet of SentinelOne’s Singularity Platform.

SentinelOne’s chief product and technology officer Ric Smith said that with PingSafe on board, SentinelOne will change cloud security by mixing top-notch cloud workload protection, AI and analytics skills with a modern and complete cloud-native application protection platform.

Smith said this new way of cloud security will get rid of the need for firms to “deal with the hassle of multiple point solutions, sort out and investigate, or move data between different data piles.”

“Instead, clients can fully manage their whole attack area from a single platform that – unlike old CNAPPs and stand-alone providers – gives the full picture, real-time chat and analytics needed to link, spot and stop multi-stage attacks in a simple, automatic way,” Smith said.

Shyft snaps up testing firm Cokeva

Posted on January 4, 2024 by - News

AI giant Shyft has snapped up IT testing and repair firm Cokeva.

Shyft is a tech service provider with firms worldwide, offering complete product and customer service.

The deal with Cokeva boosts Shyft’s repair service and opens up new chances for Shyft customers with Cokeva’s huge 220,000 sq. ft. base in Roseville, California.

The Roseville space adds to Shyft’s global reach, which includes bases in Groveport, Ohio; Warsaw, Poland; Tiel, Netherlands; and Tampines, Singapore.

Shyft boss Ron Brinckerhof said the deal shows Shyft’s investment in global green goals with more circular economy skills.

Rayscape mixes its tech with Blackford’s AI

Posted on January 4, 2024 by - News

Blackford has teamed up with Rayscape to mix its chest and lung scanning solutions with AI

The deal will see Rayscape’s technology merged with Blackford’s AI platform. Blackford gives health workers access to over 115 medical AI solutions to boost efficiency and help patients.

Using Rayscape’s advanced technology on the Blackford Platform, Blackford can offer health workers powerful tools to spot multiple problems on chest X-rays and lung CT scans.

Blackford boss Ben Panter said he was chuffed to partner with Rayscape and to add their CXR and Lung CT solutions to our vast AI portfolio.

“Rayscape’s dedication to finding and managing a wide range of chest and lung problems matches our mission to improve patients’ lives by using AI to improve healthcare.”

Rayscape CXR is ranked as a top-notch solution for chest X-ray analysis that boosts doctors’ skills. It can spot 148 problems and has unique features like the CTR index calculation, COVID-19 scoring, bone suppression and subtraction. He said this solution gives doctors a complex picture of the patient’s condition.

Virtuoso Partners taps VAR expert Josh Winters

Posted on January 3, 2024 by - Moving People, News

Virtuoso Partners, the smart automation and content management firm, hired Josh Winters to lead its sales team.

Winters has nine years of experience in the industry and spent the last four at the VAR Softcat.

Virtuoso said they hired Winters as part of their mission to “Unleash Partner Success” and said it was a strategic move to beef up their support for their valued partners.

Winters knows the VAR game inside out and can meet the unique needs of partners who want to offer their customers smart automation and content management solutions.

Virtuoso said it wanted to empower its partners to make a killing in the booming market of smart automation and content management.

SonicWall snaps up Banyan Security.

Posted on January 3, 2024 by - News

Global cyber secrurity giant SonicWall announced today that it has bought the cloudy security outfit Banyan Security.

This deal boosts SonicWall’s portfolio by adding zero trust security trusted by big-name Fortune 100 firms to small businesses ditching old cloud security solutions systems, including Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).

SonicWall boss Bob Vankirk said: “For years, firewalls have been the backbone of cyber security defences. But with the rise of cloud computing and secure access service edge (SASE), the industry is changing its focus to more complete and flexible approaches that include cloud security and ZTNA as a must. SonicWall and Banyan Security will offer cloud-based secure access service edge (SASE) solutions that help partners deliver a security architecture for any stage of their customers’ cloud journey.”

VMware partners dumped into cold and snow

Posted on January 2, 2024 by - News

Broadcom dropped a bombshell on its VMware partners, telling them they are all sacked and must reapply for their jobs.

The tech giant, which bought VMware for a whopping $61 billion last year, is axing all of its partner agreements with VMware resellers and service providers.

Broadcom will only let a select few join its new invite-only partner programme, which it claims will offer more profits and perks.

Orange Business snaps up Expertime

Posted on December 22, 2023 by - News

Network and digital integrator Orange Business has bought Expertime, a French consultancy specialising in Microsoft technology solutions.

Expertime, a team of 165 employees mainly based in France, has achieved the highest certification levels on Microsoft technologies and solutions in the public cloud, artificial intelligence (AI) and data, which are critical areas for Orange Business.

The acquisition is part of Orange Business’s ‘Lead the future’ strategic plan, which aims to speed up its digital services growth in France and across Europe.

The deal strengthens the Microsoft-focused practice of Orange Business, the business services arm of Orange S.A., which helps companies, especially small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), to move to the public cloud using the Expertime experts on Microsoft Azure.

Semiconductor industry set for 20 per cent growth in 2024

Posted on December 22, 2023 by - News

The semiconductor industry is poised for a new wave of growth next year as the global demand for artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing (HPC) boosts the sales of chips for smartphones, personal computers, and infrastructure.

According to bean counters at IDC, who have added up some numbers and divided them by their shoe size, the semiconductor sales market will bounce back in 2024 with a 20 per cent annual growth rate after a 12 per cent decline in 2023.

IDC said that the market slump in 2023 was due to weak demand and low inventory levels, which were not offset by occasional short orders and rush orders in the year’s second half.

However, it expects the market to recover in 2024, driven by the strong demand for AI chips used for data processing, complex language models and big data analytics in data centres and personal devices.

IDC Asia/Pacific senior research manager Galen Zeng said memory manufacturers’ tight control of supply and output has led to rising prices from the start of November, and the demand for AI across major applications will drive the overall semiconductor sales market to recover in 2024.

TD SYNNEX signs distribution pact with Palo Alto Networks

Posted on December 21, 2023 by - News

TD SYNNEX announced a European distribution agreement with Palo Alto Networks, giving partners access and the ability to resell the vendor’s cybersecurity hardware and software products.

The distributor will use its digital engagement and distribution capabilities to support Palo Alto’s existing and new commercial market partners, increasing the reach of the vendor’s solutions across TD SYNNEX’s community of SME value-added resellers.

Partners can access Palo Alto Networks solutions through TD SYNNEX’s digital commerce platforms and benefit from specialist sales and advisory support from the distributor’s local cybersecurity experts.

TD SYNNEX VP of security and networking in Europe, Sam Paris, said Palo Alto Networks provided a trusted, premium offering of enterprise-grade security products and services to the SMB channel.

It will take 300 years to close the gender gap

Posted on December 21, 2023 by - News

According to a report from the British Computer Society, it will take the UK 283 years before women are equally represented in IT.

After adding up some numbers from 2005 to 2022, BCS calculated it would take nearly three centuries for the representation of women in the IT workforce – currently 20 per cent – to reach the average representation across the whole UK workforce, currently at 48 per cent.

The report found that progress towards the gender norm was stalling in IT jobs. Between 2018 and 2021, the proportion of women tech workers rose from 16 per cent to 20 per cent. But the same in 2022 remained the same.