Author: Nick Farrell

WANdisco lets a third of its staff go

Posted on May 5, 2023 by - News

Troubled data outfit WANdisco has announced plans to cut around 30 per cent of its global workforce as the scandal-hit firm deals with the fallout of recent fraud allegations.

The data firm said it will undertake a “reorganisation and review process” that will result in significant job cuts across its global operations.

The cloud migration specialist has more than 150 employees spread across several regions worldwide, with offices in Sheffield, Belfast, Newcastle, San Francisco, South Korea, and Australia.

Proposed layoffs will apply to “all areas of the company’s operational and geographic footprint” and the firm said that it is talking to affected staff.

Exclusive Networks starts the year well

Posted on May 5, 2023 by - News

Start line on the highway disappearing into the distance concept for business planning, strategy and challenge or career path, opportunity and change

Distributor Exclusive Networks has started the year with great numbers for its first quarter and has continued to tap into growth across all regions.

The distributor delivered IFRS revenue up 25 per cent to €893 million, and the firm produced run-rate gross sales above €1 billion for the fourth consecutive quarter.

Gross sales improved by 27 per cent to €925 million across EMEA. The firm also kept retention rates up, with the vendor level at 126 per cent and customer rates at 123 per cent.

The board said that thee full-year outlook should deliver gross sales above €5,150 million and EBIT in the range of €172-€178 million.

Protecht launches EMEA Partner Programme

Posted on May 4, 2023 by - News

Risk software creator Protecht has introduced its new Protecht EMEA Partner Programme, which it says will enable customers across industry sectors to maximise Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) practices.

The programme launches with LexisNexis, and Fourthline as inaugural partners, with newly appointed Head of Partnerships & Alliances EMEA, Ann Rodley, leading the programme to recruit new partners for continued strategic growth in the EMEA region.

The programme supports partnerships with risk advisory firms and regulatory intelligence providers and is built on three pillars: a simple contracting and onboarding process; a competitive commercial model deal registration; and sales, technical and marketing training and support.

IT spending improving

Posted on May 4, 2023 by - News

Beancounters at IDC have added up some numbers and divided by their shoe size and concluded that overall IT spending will rise 4.8 per cent to $3.27 trillion, which is a slight improvement on last month’s predictions.

IT services growth should hit almost six per cent, driven largely by enterprises remaining committed to long-term digital transformation investments, IDC thunk.

Overall software spending growth will be almost 11 per cent, driven mostly by cloud software revenues which will increase by 19 per cent. This is a slowdown from last year’s cloud software growth of 25 per cent and growth of public cloud IaaS will also slow compared to last year.

Brexit chased Arm off the UK stock market

Posted on May 4, 2023 by - News

Brexit was partly to blame for Arm’s decision to list on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York rather than London.

Arm co-founder Hermann Hauser told Radio 4’s Today programme that it made sense for Arm owners SoftBank to take Arm to New York, where it aims to raise $10 billion and could be valued between $30 billion and $70 billion.

He said it would have been difficult to raise that amount of cash in Post Brexit Britain.

“Softbank really needs the money to further support the growth of Arm.”

Avaya reborn from bankruptcy

Posted on May 3, 2023 by - News

Avaya has completed its financial restructuring, emerged from the Chapter 11 process, and has $650 million left to sort itself out.

Avaya filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in February following months of speculation of a bankruptcy declaration after its 2022 cloud subscription accounting problems that led to substantial earnings and revenue misses.

In its bankruptcy court filing, Avaya listed total assets of between $1 billion and $10 billion and total liabilities of between $1 to $10 billion.

Avaya has been bankrupt before and seems to be immortal. It did all this in 2017.

Government expected to relax fraud rules on tech

Posted on May 3, 2023 by - News

The UK government plans to relax a proposal that would mandate technology companies to reimburse victims in the event of online financial fraud.

The move follows concerns raised by the Treasury and the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology regarding the proposal’s impact on the UK tech industry.

The annual cost of fraud to the UK amounts to billions of pounds. The government wants a new national fraud strategy to foster collaboration between the government, law enforcement and private companies.

It is expected that the measures will introduce a voluntary agreement where the technology sector will commit to tackling online fraud, rather than being held accountable for reimbursing victims. All a technology company has to do is promise that the attack will not happen again and show what steps have been taken to prevent it.

Tollring renews its BT contract

Posted on May 3, 2023 by - News

Tollring has renewed its contract with BT for the seventh year.

The arrangement includes the supply of Tollring’s call analytics to nearly 100,000 users across the BT channels, supported by comprehensive customer engagement and sales enablement programmes to drive business growth.

The deal covers the continued provision of FMS (Fraud Management System) which protects the BT Group’s network from telecoms fraud.

Working collaboratively with BT, Tollring said it will continue to develop its customer engagement and sales enablement programmes, including fully branded support materials. Additional initiatives include tailored webinars, bitesize tutorials and libraries of sales support material.

Adding AI to Snapchat might be a disaster

Posted on May 2, 2023 by - News

Companies hoping to push AI as a product enhancement should take a step or two of caution as new figures show that it might cost Snapchat a lot of customers.

Searches for ‘delete Snapchat’ exploded 488 per cent as controversial My AI feature is introduced to every account.

Cyber security consultants CloudTech24 found that online interest in the term ‘delete Snapchat’ has skyrocketed over five times the average in the last three months. Searches for ‘how to delete Snapchat account’ have also risen 70 per cent worldwide over the last week, and the hashtag #SnapchatAI currently has over 180 million views on TikTok.

Dropbox CEO fires 500 humans for AI vision

Posted on May 2, 2023 by - News

Dropbox is laying off 500 employees, representing about 16 per cent of the company’s global workforce as part of a plan to become more AI-focused.

CEO Drew Houston said that while the business was profitable, thanks to humans, its growth has been slowing.

He said that the AI era of computing had arrived and there was an opportunity if the business was quick enough to seize it.

“Over the last few months, AI has captured the world’s collective imagination, expanding the potential market for our next generation of AI-powered products more rapidly than any of us could have anticipated.”

UK government investigating late payers

Posted on April 28, 2023 by - News

The UK government is carrying out consultations to see if cracking down on firms who refuse to pay up on time has much support.

The government has been running an open consultation on amendments to the Payment Practices and Performance Regulations 2017. The main aim of the consultation is to get a sense of the desire to see the existing regulations extended beyond the proposed expiry date of 6 April 2024.

Kevin Hollinrake MP, minister for enterprise, markets and small business, stated that the government aimed to stand behind businesses and make payments more transparent.

Aruba channel chief is retiring

Posted on April 28, 2023 by - Moving People, News

Aruba worldwide channel chief Donna Grothjan is retiring after 30 years.

Aruba Head of worldwide sales Alain Carpentier announced Grothjan’s departure, effective at the end of May, at Aruba’s Atmosphere conference in Las Vegas.

Writing in blog Carpentier said it was an understatement to say the company was proud of the unwavering commitment Grothjan has shown to HPE Aruba Networking’s 55,000 partners globally and the broader channel community throughout her career.

“Her focus has always been on helping the channel community adapt to, and thrive in, changing conditions through innovative, partner-focused programs and tools that set our industry’s bar high.”

North appoints Crawford as new CEO

Posted on April 28, 2023 by - Moving People, News

North has announced the appointment of David Crawford as its new chief executive officer.

Crawford replaces Glen Williams, who stepped down at the end of last year after almost two years in the role.

Crawford joins from European telecoms infrastructure company Cellnex Telecom where he was responsible for integrating the business into the group operating model, developing key customer relationships and driving local organic and inorganic growth.

Da Costa joins Celerway as chief revenue officer

Posted on April 27, 2023 by - News

Mobile connectivity outfit Celerway has hired Hubert Da Costa as its new chief revenue officer.

Da Costa will help expand Celerway’s 5G edge solutions deployment across EMEA and the US. He will be responsible for developing Celerway’s go-to-market strategy and create industry partnerships to support the global rollout of the companies’ connectivity solutions.

Da Costa has been making waves in the edge networking industry after successfully establishing Cradlepoint internationally as VP & GM EMEA. He joined Cybera as SVP & GM EMEA to expand the company’s cloud-based network and application services worldwide, before leading a global partnerships team at Zebra Technologies for nearly two years.

Greater Manchester is a bad area for cybercrime

Posted on April 27, 2023 by - News

New research has revealed the areas in England and Wales most susceptible to cybercrime, with Greater Manchester coming out on top.

The study by cyber security experts CloudTech24 found that residents of the Greater Manchester area were most susceptible to cybercrime, with Greater Manchester receiving 1,803 cybercrime reports in the last 13 months, which equates to around 6.33 reports per 10,000 people, the highest of any area.

The most commonly reported types of cybercrime include the hacking of personal information and the hacking of social media or email accounts.