Avaya and Cisco UK partners, FourNet and Nowcomm, have joined forces.
Manchester-based Fournet claims to be Avaya’s largest UK partner and snapped up Derby-based Nowcomm which is one of only a small handful of Cisco partners to simultaneously hold Gold, Master Security and Master Collaboration status in the UK.
The move follows FourNet’s acquisition of C>Ways last May and forms part of a wider buy-and-build strategy under new private equity backer Palatine.
Zoom is acquiring Workvivo as part of a cunning plan to extend its platform.
For those not in the know, Workvivo is an employee communication and engagement platform founded in 2017 that provides an employee experience platform, combining advanced internal communication and engagement tools, a social intranet, and an employee app.
Workvivo’s offering has seen triple-digit growth in the last three years and is used by well-known brands, including Liberty Mutual, Lululemon, Ryanair, Madison Square Garden, and Wynn Resorts.
Customers are continuing to buy too many security products and the channel is missing an opportunity to guide them through a consolidation process, according to Cisco senior vice-president of global partner sales Oliver Tuszik.
This trend is a surprise as it had been thought that given the “economic headwinds” everyone is complaining about firms would be cutting back on the number of security products that they clearly don’t need.
Tuszik said:“It is still a shocking surprise that most of our customers have a huge amount of different security tools – even small business which have 200 people [are] normally running up to six different tools to manage their security part. When you go into large corporate enterprise business, they normally have more than 50 and up to 100 different tools, and then often from at least 20 different vendors.”
He added that customers are facing difficulties in finding skilled staff to manage those numerous tools, with the security skills shortage continuing to be a headache globally.
The bloke behind HPE Greenlake as-a-service, Keith White, is stepping aside at the end of April to pursue other opportunities.
HPE CEO Antonio Neri told employees of White’s imminent departure in an email describing White as “an exceptional colleague, friend, customer advocate, and team champion.”
“Through the last several years, Keith was instrumental in accelerating the development of HPE GreenLake,” said Neri.
AMD North America Channel Chief Terry Richardson is leaving the company after more than 30 years of working in the channel and is believed to be retiring.
Richardson, a 30-year-plus channel veteran who has also held top channel jobs at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, HP and EMC, joined AMD two years ago and helped build it a robust network of partners.
Richardson’s departure on April 18 comes just three weeks after AMD Head of North America VAR Channels & Commercial Distribution Marty Bauerlein left AMD to take the newly created role of chief commercial officer at D&H Distributing.
Richardson was one of the most respected channel leaders in the business and he is widely attributed with giving AMD achieve a channel footprint it would not have been able to attain without him.
Chipzilla wants to equip IT vendors and solution providers with advanced capabilities to fix network issues by giving them real-time access to PC connectivity data.
The move would give Intel partners access to Intel Connectivity Analytics, a commercial software service that creates “unique networking and system insights” using driver-level telemetry data captured from Intel Wi-Fi 6 chipsets in laptops and desktops.
Eric McLaughlin, general manager of Intel’s Wireless Solutions Group, said Intel Connectivity Analytics is meant to help partners develop advanced solutions for fixing network issues and improving the end-user experience for PCs in offices, homes and other environments.
“What this analytics capability is supposed to do is help IT managers and service providers understand what’s really happening from the client level all the way to the cloud,” he said.
The real-time insight generated by Intel Connectivity Analytics helps partners deliver solutions around network performance optimisation, dynamic bandwidth adjustment for critical usages, performance monitoring and technical support for client networking, security threat detection and issue resolution as well as asset tracking and facility resource management.
IT outsourcing giant Infosys grew its revenues by 11.7 per cent to reach $18.2 billion in 2023 with operating margins dropping from 22 per cent in 2022 to 21 per cent this year.
The company said that its growth was broad-based across industry verticals and geographic regions. Digital comprised 62.2 per cent of overall revenues and grew at 13.1 per cent.
Manufacturing and life sciences reported the biggest year-on-year growth at 22.2 per cent and 14.9 per cent, respectively. Europe was the region that saw the biggest year-on-year growth at 13.9 per cent.
Fourth quarter year on year growth was 8.8 per cent and sequential decline was 3.2 per cent in constant currency terms. Operating margin for the quarter was also 21.0 per cent. Free cash flow conversion was 95.7 per cent for fourth quarter.
The European Commission is worried Broadcom’s proposed $61 billion merger with VMware will be anti-competitive.
For those who came in late, the Commission’s watchdog started snuffling around the deal at the end of last year to assess the impact the acquisition may have on competition in the market for the supply of NICs, FC HBAs and storage adapters. Now, the Commission says it has some “reservations.”
“As a result of this in-depth investigation, the Commission is concerned that Broadcom may restrict competition in the global markets for the supply of FC HBAs and storage adapters by foreclosing competitors’ hardware by delaying or degrading their access to VMware’s server virtualisation software,” the watchdog said in a statement.
Networking king Cisco plans to deliver an air-gapped, cloud-based collaboration system for companies involved in US national security and defence work.
Beginning in 2024, the new Webex system — Air-Gapped Trusted Cloud — will provide an added layer of security for teams collaborating through the Webex App, Cisco said.
An air gap isolates a computer or network and preventing it from establishing an external connection. An air-gapped computer cannot connect to the internet or any other communications networks to have complete security with the information that resides within it.
Currently, the US government has an established approach to security assessment and authorisation for cloud products and services for national security and defence. This includes air-gapped cloud deployments, which are isolated from public networks and operated on US soil by local staff with specific security clearances to handle sensitive data.
Trustmarque, Insight and Softcat are among the big names who have scored a new vertical software framework for local authorities, education, community health and social care organisations.
The Vertical Application Solutions (VAS) framework went live last month and has a kitty of £1.84 billion.
The Crown Commercial Service-run framework works with Software Design and Implementation Services, Big Data & Analytics and Back Office Software frameworks, it replaces the Data and Applications Solutions Framework, which comes to an end on 22 May 2023.
Rackspace Technology claims to have become the first managed service provider to develop a partnership agreement with the AI Innovation Centre of High Tech Campus Eindhoven (HTCE).
For those who came in late, HTCE is deemed “the smartest square km in Europe” which is an ecosystem of nearly 300 tech companies and home to more than 12,500 international researchers, developers, businesspeople, innovators, and engineers devoted to knowledge sharing.
HTCE is a global tech incubator in Health & Vitality, Sustainability, Applied Intelligence, Smart Environments and Connectivity, and Software & Platforms.
Rackspace will be part of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Innovation Centre of HTCE, which opened in April 2021 to industrialise AI in the Brainport Eindhoven region in the Netherlands. The AI Innovation Centre and its partners help companies start and accelerate their AI journey.
The AI Centre is home to 13 AI-specialised companies and a wide variety of industrial and knowledge partners and was co-founded by Philips, Signify, NXP, and ASML.
Rackspace Public Cloud President D K Sinha, said activities within this partnership would raise the level of AI knowledge, facilitate the ecosystem, driving projects, and offering relevant services to boost the adoption of AI while connecting companies, professionals, entrepreneurs, and students.
Schneider Electric has launched its first Ecommerce Partner Programme.
The vendor wants to adapt to changes in the e-commerce landscape to ensure it can provide a collaborative programme that encourages growth.
The programme provides the usual battery of options that self-respecting partners would expect, including market and product information, training and compensation, plus access to its eCommerce Transformation & Activation Manager to help develop partners with their growth strategies.
Schneider Electric vice-president of IT channels Europe David Terry said: “For the first time, we are offering our ecommerce partners a programme which is unique and innovative that sets it apart from its competitors.
Beancounters at analyst outfit Gartner are warning security and risk management (SRM) leaders to focus more on human-centric elements when creating and implementing cybersecurity programmes.
Gartner says SRM leaders must be focused on the essential role of people for security programme success and sustainability, technical security capabilities that provide greater visibility and responsiveness across the organisation’s digital ecosystem; and restructuring the way the security function operates to enable agility without compromising security.
Gartner senior director analyst, Richard Addiscott said “A human-centred approach to cybersecurity is essential to reduce security failures. Focusing on people in control design and implementation, as well as through business communications and cybersecurity talent management, will help to improve business-risk decisions and cybersecurity staff retention.”
Steve Corfield has been named as Salesforce’s new channel chief following the exit of Tyler Prince later this month.
A Salesforce spokesperson said: “We’re grateful to Tyler Prince for his many contributions to Salesforce and for driving significant growth in the Salesforce partner ecosystem.”
Based in the UK, Corfield has served as Salesforce’s executive vice president of industry sales and CRO for global commerce since February 2021.
He has been with Salesforce for about eight years, starting in 2015 as senior area vice president and head of sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Commerce Cloud.
Another Salesforce channel executive, Dan McAllister, also posted on LinkedIn that he was now senior vice president of alliances and channels at automation vendor Boomi.
Three months ago, Salesforce announced layoffs of about 7,000 employees. The vendor has also had to work with activist investors seeking a larger profit margin from Salesforce.
WatchGuard Technologies has appointed former Channel Company CRO HoJin Kim as its new senior vice president and chief revenue officer.
Kim will lead WatchGuard’s worldwide sales organisation and be responsible for driving revenue growth, scaling and expanding the global sales organisation, and adopting WatchGuard’s Unified Security Platform MSP framework.
With over 25 years of experience leading and growing IT channel organisations, Kim has led global and regional partner teams in developing and implementing channel strategies to build sustained competitive advantage for those companies.
WatchGuard Technologies CEO Prakash Panjwani said that “Kim’s depth of experience in all facets of the channel industry, combined with his knowledge of the security market, makes him a perfect fit for WatchGuard as we embark on our next phase of growth, focused on expanding our MSP ecosystem and driving adoption of our Unified Security Platform framework.”
“He is the ideal addition to our leadership team, and I look forward to seeing his contributions towards accelerating our stated company vision – to be the security platform provider for the MSP community.”
Before joining WatchGuard, Kim was the chief revenue officer for The Channel Company.
“I’m thrilled to join WatchGuard. I’ve spent my career working throughout all aspects of the channel, and WatchGuard’s singular focus on enabling the MSP with its Unified Security Platform approach is just what the industry needs to succeed in this cybersecurity landscape,” he said.
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