Author: Nick Farrell

HP reports loss in first quarter and blames the wind

Posted on March 2, 2023 by - News

Maker of expensive printer ink HP reported a loss in its fiscal 2023 first quarter and CEO Enrique Lores even trotted out the old “industry-wide headwinds” cliché as the reason.

He claimed that corporate budgets were being tightened, and this was impacting large enterprise demand for the vendor.

GAAP net revenues came in at $13.8 billion, representing an 18.8 per cent slump from the $17 billion earned in Q1 2022. GAAP net earnings plunged 55 per cent to $500 million compared to the previous year’s $1.1 billion.

Lores said: “We delivered on our non-GAAP EPS target despite industry-wide headwinds, reflecting disciplined execution across our business.”

So in otherwords it was not our fault, it was the wind that did it. However, he said that HP’s Future-Ready plan was working wonders and was reducing costs while maintaining investments in long-term growth.

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Dynabook Europe getting out of UK

Posted on March 1, 2023 by - News

Dynabook Europe has confirmed that it is shutting its UK office and discontinuing sales in the UK, Ireland and Nordics, The UK office will be cleaned out by the end of April and 30 UK jobs will go.

Dynabook Inc is developing a new strategy for the UK, Ireland and Nordics where it uses an operations centre established in Asia, the vendor said. It added that arrangements are being put in place to honour the supply of products for sales commitments in the three affected countries/regions.

In November, Dynabook UK announced it had been selected to provide client PC hardware through the National Desktop and Notebook Agreement (NDNA), working with partners Stone, SCC and Insight. The framework is aimed at the higher-education sector and associated public sector organisations.

Cloudy Couchbase expands its ISV Partner Programme

Posted on March 1, 2023 by - News

Cloudy database platform outfit Couchbase has expanded its ISV (Independent Software Vendor) Partner Programme.

The programme will provide ISVs with a new Success Package that includes enhanced training, certifications and additional resources necessary to build and monetise their modern applications with ease. Complimenting the Success Package is the introduction of a new ISV Programme Guide with more information and resources to make it easier for ISV customers to get started with Couchbase.

Developing applications that must evolve rapidly can be difficult for organisations due to complexities like database sprawl, vendor lock-in or lack of resources. ISV partners use multiple disparate resources to obtain the necessary requirements for application development so they can innovate to meet demand.

Couchbase claims its Capella cloud data platform solves these problems by helping ISV partners consolidate their architecture and accelerate application development while delivering broad capabilities and a highly scalable architecture that drives down total cost of ownership.

Couchbase works with ISV partners to embed or bundle its cloud database platform with the applications or other solutions offered by ISV partners to their customers. By standardising on Couchbase, ISV partners can establish and expand their business, and improve revenue, margins and application time to market.

 

Companies see AI and machine learning as top priority

Posted on March 1, 2023 by - News

A new survey of 1,420 global IT leaders by Rackspace has found two-thirds of them rank artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) as a high priority for their organisations, an increase of 15 percentage points as compared to 2021.

The study polled IT professionals across industries, including financial services, manufacturing, retail, hospitality, government, and healthcare to understand the dynamics of AI/ML uptake amid growing economic uncertainty.

Underscoring the spread of AI/ML across businesses of all sectors, almost a third of respondents say they only started to launch AI/ML projects within the past year.

NSC takes on new staff

Posted on February 28, 2023 by - News

While big tech is downsizing,  IT Services market outfit, NSC, has made several significant senior appointments across its business.

Gavin Bounds has been appointed as the company’s chief operating officer. Bounds has more than 30 years of experience working across EMEA and APAC and held several roles, including COO of Fujitsu’s multi-billion EMEIA and Americas regions. He will lead NSC’s global delivery teams and play a key role in shaping the future direction of the company.

Bounds is supported by another new hire Keith Whitehead, who has joined NSC as Head of Logistics and will be responsible for NSC’s Global Logistics, providing end-to-end services for the entire technology asset lifecycle – critical in this period of supply chain constraints and significant product shortages.

Moody gets Rackspace to help with datasets

Posted on February 28, 2023 by - News

Rackspace has partnered with global financial intelligence services company, Moody’s Analytics.

The big idea is to help Moody’s Analytics manage datasets involving 400 million firms to empower the financial firm to improve its existing risk profile offering and bring new competitive services to its clients.

Moody’s Analytics is a globally integrated risk assessment firm that empowers business leaders to make better and faster data-driven decisions through insights and analytical solutions.

Quantexa snaps up Aylien

Posted on February 28, 2023 by - News

Quantexa has acquired a Dublin-based leader in natural language processing (NLP) and advanced AI outfit Aylien to help it collect, analyse, and understand unstructured text data.

This will be Quantexa’s first acquisition since the company raised $153 million in its Series D funding in late 2021 from Warburg Pincus and a group of blue-chip investors, this combination will see the company enter the $11 billion text analytics market.

Founded in 2012, Aylien’s solutions include a News API for building intelligent applications with aggregated multi-lingual content from over 80,000 trusted sources across the web, traditional media, and licensed news outlets.

Intel staff nervous about pay cuts

Posted on February 27, 2023 by - News

Intel staff are getting increasingly nervous about the state of their company after a wave of pay cuts was announced last week.

When Chipzilla announced its lacklustre results it believed that firing people and reducing the pay of employees who stayed working was the best way to secure loyalty.

However, to its surprise, Intel staff were unhappy about this 19th-century style approach and several are believed to have handed in their notice. The head of the company’s Europe, Middle East and Africa business Frans Scheper has resigned, although it is unclear if this was connected to the cuts.

Scheper had only been in the job a year and holds the role of corporate vice president in Intel’s Sales, Marketing and Communications Group.

ICT spending growing

Posted on February 27, 2023 by - News

ICT spending in Europe is set to grow 4.2 per cent yearly and reach $1.2 trillion in 2023.

According to IDC’s Worldwide ICT Spending Guide: Enterprise and SMB by Industry, spend will then surpass $1.4 trillion by 2026, posting a 5.4 per cent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the 2021-2026 period.

According to the analysts, the UK and Scandinavian countries will be amongst the main drivers of this growth.

Meanwhile, Russian ICT spend is forecast to shrink by 9.4 per cent year on year, due to EU sanctions.

Ingram Micro brings in AI-powered Xvantage platform

Posted on February 27, 2023 by - News

Ingram Micro has launched an AI-powered, self-learning Xvantage platform in the UK.

CEO Paul Bay said the distribution giant launched Xvantage in the US and Germany in September. The move will “consumerise distribution” and make Ingram easier for resellers to interact with the company.

Ingram Micro global chief digital officer Sanjib Sahoo said Xvantage is “not a website or webshop”.

“The difference is that this is a platform. This is an intelligent, self-learning ecosystem,” he said.

Broadcom and VMware deal postponed

Posted on February 24, 2023 by - News

Broadcom and VMware have mutually agreed to postpone the completion date of their $61 billion merger by 90 days.

The original deadline was set for February 26, 2023, however, the deal is now expected to close May 26.

The takeover is the second biggest in the channel this year but has unleashed a pack of wild regulators.  In the EU and across the pond.

The EU competition watchdog said it will decide by June 7 whether it will hit the brakes on the deal or give it the greenlight.

Online traders worried about tax

Posted on February 24, 2023 by - News

More than 87 per cent of sellers using marketplaces to trade online report experiencing revenue increases and see it it as a vital channel for growth, according to new research from Vertex.

However, 70 per cent believe that indirect tax challenges could deter them from using marketplaces in the future.

The research which surveyed 479 finance professionals globally (split between operator and seller businesses) found that 81 per cent of businesses are taking advantage of marketplaces to attract new customers and sell into more countries.

They attribute this expansion into marketplaces for the following reasons: to reach a wider geographical market (57 per cent); to be more competitive (50 per cent); to tap into cross-border sales opportunities (48 per cent); and to help manage tax liabilities (34 per cent).

Oracle likely to step up hunt for Java licences

Posted on February 24, 2023 by - News

Analyst Gartner has warned that Oracle will target organisations on Java compliance.

Big G said that in the 12 months leading up to 31 December 2022, half of the Oracle software compliance and audit-related interactions focused on Oracle Java. In 2023 following some recent licensing changes mean that this will become an issue.

In 23 January 2023, Oracle introduced changes to Java SE licensing. Unlike the previous Java SE licence, which was measured either per named user or per processor basis, the new subscription includes usage across desktops, servers and third-party cloud deployments.

Cybersecurity experts facing too much stress

Posted on February 23, 2023 by - News

Nearly half of the cybersecurity leaders will be changing jobs by 2025 mostly due to work-related stress.

Researchers at Gartner say that cybersecurity professionals are facing unsustainable levels of stress.

Gartner’s director analyst Deepti Gopal said that chief information security officers were on the defence.

“The psychological impact of this directly affects decision quality and the performance of cybersecurity leaders and their teams.”

Amazon profit fall hits corporate employees

Posted on February 23, 2023 by - News

Amazon’s falling stock price means some corporate employees will see wage packets with some losing half.

Amazon pays some corporate (non-warehouse) employees “a large chunk” of their annual salaries in restricted stock units.

Because the company’s share price has taken a 35 per cent tumble this year, employees’ pay will be between 15 per cent and 50 per cent lower than Amazon’s projected targets.

Amazon’s stock price has fallen from about $150 per share in February 2022 to $97 this week.