Author: Nick Farrell

Security outfit Infinigate reports increasing revenues

Posted on June 8, 2023 by - News

Cybersecurity Infinigate reported £1.9 billion in revenues for the financial year ending in March 2023.

Revenues and profits increased thanks to organic growth, acquisitions and cost savings conducive to business efficiency.

It was a busy year on the acquisition front. In 2022, Infinigate acquired Nuvias, Vuzion and Starlink distribution houses to extend its geographic reach, skill set, secure solutions, and services roster.

These acquisitions brought together more than 1,300 employees across Europe, the Middle East and Africa – an integration the distributor said is “progressing well”.

Cisco adds AI to its security and collaboration products

Posted on June 8, 2023 by - News

Cisco is installing generative AI into both its security and collaboration products.

The plan, announced at Cisco Live 2023, is that the outfit will harness large language models (LLMs) to help businesses ramp up productivity and automate simple tasks for their workforces.

Generative AI is being seen as the greatest thing since sliced bread for many customers and opens the door to a reimagined collaboration experience.

For example instead of listening to a 90-minute meeting AI can write a summary to give us the high points

Wib appoints Kite as partner

Posted on June 7, 2023 by - News

Security start-up Wib has appointed Kite as its first  UK and Irish distribution partners.

The appointment is part of the start-up’s ongoing channel strategy as it continues to experience strong market demand and adoption of its API security platform, Wib said.

The Israel-HQ start-up sees API security as a priority for UK businesses, driven by increased compliance and regulatory requirements.

Wib said it hopes the partnership with UK-focused VAD Kite Distribution helps accelerate its go-to-market momentum, increase market reach, stimulate end-user demand and drive customer acquisition.

TD SYNNEX launches Accelerate programme

Posted on June 7, 2023 by - News

TD SYNNEX  UK and Ireland has launched its Accelerate programme for Amazon Web Services (AWS), providing cloud partners with access to resources that will enable them to develop their competency, clearly demonstrate the relevance and value of AWS solutions to their customers.

The AWS Accelerate programme provides all the training and specialist support partners need to build their capabilities and confidence in AWS solutions.

Celigo expands partner programme

Posted on June 7, 2023 by - News

Integration platform as a service (iPaaS) outfit Celigo expanded its Partner Programme, including strategic investments in geographic and ecosystem expansion to support its partners in building integration practices.

Celigo provides up-front consultation and advisory through its partner ecosystem before they start implementation to ensure customers are ready to automate, even as the easy-to-implement solution bypasses the standard industry developer resource requirements.

With the new programme, partners can offer their own high-value integration and business process consulting and advisory services to end users.

Apple finally purges Intel from its Mac Pro

Posted on June 6, 2023 by - News

Fruity cargo cult Apple has purged Intel chips from its Mac Pro PC and has the whole lot running on its homemade silicon.

Apple began replacing Intel CPUs in its Mac lineup in 2020 with custom Arm-based chips designed in-house. Three years later, the company’s entire lineup of Macs is powered by homegrown M-series chips, including its MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, iMacs and Mac Minis.

With its higher spec and “cheese grater” design, the flagship Mac Pro could not use Apple silicon and had to stick to more traditional Intel hardware.

At its WWDC 2023 event client device giant said it had come up with the M2 Ultra, which combines two M2 Max chips on a single die to deliver double-digit performance boosts over the M1 Ultra.

Iomart swallows Extrinsica

Posted on June 6, 2023 by - News

Cloudy vendor Iomart Group is acquiring Microsoft Azure cloud solutions provider Extrinsica for £4 million.

This move will give the Glasgow-based Iomart a team of 33 based in the UK, customer references, and UK growth plan.

Extrinsica CEO Simon Smith will continue to lead the business as CEO.

“Joining Iomart marks an exciting phase for our highly skilled, experienced and ambitious team, providing us with a strengthened platform for growth. It allows us to use joint capabilities, capitalise on our understanding of the markets we operate in and build upon our significant achievements.

Dell takes a hit in its PC unit and the infrastructure business

Posted on June 6, 2023 by - News

Michael DellDell Technologies’ revenues took a 20 per cent hit due to poor performance in its commercial PC unit and the infrastructure business.

The grey box shifter said that its first quarter 2024 revenue came in at $20.9 billion which is $700 million more than the $20.2 billion Wall Street expected – but $5.19 billion off the same timeframe last year.

Dell’s co-COO Chuck Whitten told investors that demand remained challenged, and customers are staying cautious and deliberate across their IT spending.

“We continue to see softness across our major lines of business, all regions, all customer sizes, and most verticals,” he said.

The vendor’s commercial business was down 23 per cent, which Whitten said is now the fifth quarter of soft demand in the PC market.

Amazon Web Services loses Chris Vonderhaar

Posted on June 5, 2023 by - Moving People, News

Amazon Web Services has lost its top cloudy executive Chris Vonderhaar who was the bloke who planned, designed and constructed AWS’ data centres.

For those who came in late, AWS datacentres power the $85bn cloud company’s infrastructure and cloud services.

Vonderhaar had been with the company for nearly 13 years in top cloud infrastructure roles and it is unclear why he has left. In 2021, it was thought that Vonderhaar would be a successor to former AWS CEO Andy Jassy, recently promoted to CEO of Amazon.

In addition to leading the Amazon subsidiary’s datacentre global strategy, Vonderhaar was responsible for business development and procurement of utility connections, the AWS renewable energy portfolio, and AWS sustainability teams and business, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Salesforce revenue increases 11 per cent

Posted on June 5, 2023 by - News

Salesforce logoSalesforce revenue increased 11 per cent at the end of the first fiscal quarter of 2024, reaching $8.25 billion.

Subscription and support revenues made up $7.64 billion — up 11 per cent year on year. Professional services and other revenues were $0.61 billion, an increase of nine per cent yearly.

Results also reported a first-quarter GAAP operating margin of five per cent and a non-GAAP operating margin of 27.6 per cent.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Salesforce significantly exceeded its non-GAAP margin target for the quarter – up 1,000 basis points year-over-year, and we are raising our FY24 non-GAAP operating margin guidance to a 550 basis point increase year-over-year.

Unified threat management spend grows says Juniper

Posted on June 5, 2023 by - News

A new study from Juniper Research has found that enterprises’ spending on unified threat management will increase by 98 per cent between 2023 and 2028 globally, from $7.5 billion in 2023.

The report said that growing enterprise cloud adoption, IoT devices and AI were making life more complex making threat management necessary for enterprises to stay secure.

The report said that means that there will be increasing levels of investment by enterprises as they acknowledge the expanding threat landscape.

Unified threat management is an approach to information security where a single hardware or software installation provides multiple security functions. This contrasts with the traditional method of having point solutions for each security function and simplifies protection.

Crowdstrike thanks AI for good results

Posted on June 2, 2023 by - News

CrowdStrike has been thanking artificial intelligence for its improved security outcomes in its first quarter fiscal year 2024 financial results, which ended April 30, 2023.

Total revenues reached $692.6 million, a 42 per cent spike, compared to $487.8 million in the first quarter of fiscal 2023. Subscription revenue increased by 42 per cent to $651.2 million.

Professional services revenue reached $41.4 million, setting a new record for the 11th consecutive quarter and representing 48 per cent year-over-year growth.

During the quarter, CrowdStrike also saw strength in Europe, the Middle East, and Japan, with international revenue growing 53 per cent yearly.

Arrow Electronics signs UK distribution agreement with TBSC

Posted on June 2, 2023 by - News

Arrow Electronics signs UK agreement with The Business Software Centre for Microsoft 365 optimisation to deliver its Smarter SaaS for Microsoft 365 application via the ArrowSphere platform.

Smarter SaaS for M365 is designed to make using  Microsoft licenses more efficient for large organisations with many users.

The pay-as-you-go solution is an automated, cloud-based Software Asset Management solution that enables businesses to recognise and manage key factors for optimisation.

SMEs will invest in technology whatever the cost

Posted on June 1, 2023 by - News

New research commissioned by Sharp claims, SMEs will continue to invest in technology, despite serious concerns over rising costs.

The research surveyed 5,770 SMEs across Europe, including 502 in the UK, the most significant area of investment focused on IT security, hardware upgrades and server updates for the next 12 months.

Looking at investment levels, more than half UK SMEs plan to invest over £20,000 in IT this year, with five per cent expecting to invest north of £100,000.

Businesses said they intended to invest in new hardware (33 per cent) and server upgrades (28 per cent) throughout 2023. This is in addition to security and business continuity (34 per cent) which were also highlighted as key areas for investment, Sharp said.

Cloud migration was a lower priority for UK businesses with only 21 per cent interested.  In Europe a third of firms planned to embark on cloud migration projects as they continue to deal with the challenges of hybrid working.

NTT DATA taps Oliver Bridges

Posted on June 1, 2023 by - Moving People

IT services outfit NTT DATA has appointed Oliver Bridges as its new Head of Energy Data as part of its investment into its Energy & Utilities practice.

Bridges has worked as Head of Data Science and Analytics at Smart DCC, a smart meter network provider connecting over half of Britain’s homes. As part of this role, Bridges used his end-to-end knowledge of Smart DCC’s solution to develop and maintain a nationwide ecosystem of smart meters.

Before Smart DCC, Bridges held the position of Technical Analyst for Centrica, working on the front line of their smart meter rollout, before moving on to help design the data component for Britain’s national smart metering solution.