Author: Nick Farrell

Gamma Communications teams up with Ingram Micro

Gamma Communications has announced a new strategic relationship with Ingram Micro to offer its UK partners Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams.

Operator Connect, a new operator-managed programme from Microsoft Teams Phone, has been designed to enable seamless and integrated calling. There are only a few providers of the programme in the UK.

The pair want to provide partners with a new opportunity in the business voice market. Additionally, Gamma will become the first provider to offer Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams to Ingram Micro’s partners in the UK.

Bytes will scale migration offerings on AWS

Bytes is partnering with Amazon Web Services (AWS) as part of a plan to scale migration and modernisation offerings on the cloudy outfit.

Bytes is an AWS Solution Provider that wants to improve its products for existing and new customers and offer fully managed cloud services on AWS. These will include cloud security, storage, backup and disaster recovery, focusing on cloud cost optimisation.

AWS and Bytes say the partnership is targeted at the SMB market uses AWS’s cloud native data and AI and machine learning solutions for verticals like Retail, Financial Services and Hospitality.

Newsbridge appoints Jean-Philippe Maheu to lead US moves

AI and cloud media outfit Newsbridge appointed Jean-Philippe Maheu to its board of directors.

Maheu (pictured) joins the Newsbridge board following the company’s 7 million euro Series A fundraising, U.S. entity establishment, and opening of its first North American office in New York.

Newsbridge co-founder and CEO Philippe Petitpont said: “Maheu has U.S. market and operational expertise, combined with a bold approach to scaling, that will be invaluable as we accelerate our growth ambitions.”

TD SYNNEX donates old office furniture to charity

TD SYNNEX has donated its old furniture with a fair market value of £158,828 – via redistribution specialist charity, the Waste to Wonder Trust – to UK charities and schools in Senegal and Cameroon.

The cycling back of desks, chairs and other items has resulted in 135,205 kilograms of carbon savings. With 100per cent all materials being re-used, all of the furniture or equipment that TD SYNNEX has yet to be recycled will go to landfill.

The donation was made as part TD SYNNEX’s recent re-location of its Basingstoke offices to a more energy-efficient building last month. At the same time, TD SYNNEX took the opportunity to purchase new sustainable office furniture, including new office chairs made from recycled fishing nets.

AI industry will grow by 25.5 per cent by 2026

According to IDC beancounters, the European AI market is set to carry on an upward trajectory by 2026.

The IDC Worldwide Semi-annual Artificial Intelligence Tracker reports that market areas, such as AI services, non-AI-centric software and AI hardware, will see moderate growth.

IDC expects AI’s total addressable market to reach $191 billion by 2026.

Senior research manager at IDC, Martin Nuska, commented on the results saying: “The next five years will represent a crucial period in the commercial adoption of AI software, as many companies and governments are now investing more to make their processes more agile, efficient, and resilient.”

CityFibre lays 240 km in Bolton

CityFibre has laid a 240km of full-fibre internet beneath the streets of Bolton as part of its £37 million plan to future-proof the town’s digital connectivity.

This milestone from the UK’s largest independent full-fibre platform now means there is enough full fibre connecting the town’s homes to take in 723 laps of the University of Bolton Stadium’s pitch, home of Bolton Wanderers FC.

Steve Moore, CityFibre’s Area Manager for Bolton, said: “We’re well on our way to making Bolton world-class in terms of its digital infrastructure, and the residents here will reap the benefits for decades to come. With our network now live across many parts of the area, including Astley Bridge and Farnworth, we are pleased to enable residents to connect to the fastest and most reliable broadband services available.”

French invade looking for channel partners

Paris-based cybersecurity software provider Gatewatcher is pushing its aggressive channel partner recruitment drive in the UK as part of its 100 per cent indirect distribution strategy.

The vendor said it achieved its “best performance ever” at the start of 2023 with a year-on-year increase in turnover of more than 45 per cent.

Gatewatcher said that by expanding its indirect strategy to achieve a further 20 to 30 per cent growth.

This action plan includes the recruitment of high added value collaboration leads, global partners, cybersecurity solution integrators and a new generation of disruptive players offering a security operations centre (SOC) as a service.

Euro clouds missing from the sky

European players are virtually absent from the cloud market, thanks largely to bureaucracy and squabbling.

While companies have been moving to the cloud in great numbers, it has been mostly products made by US big tech. Azure was top, followed by AWS and then Google Cloud – the “big three”.

This is the last thing which should have happened. When GDPR came out in 2018 and with the collapse of the US-EU Safe Harbour and Privacy Shield data transfer regulations, many predicted a golden age for European cloud companies.

Retail roaming market set to expand according to Juniper

A new study from Juniper Research has found the value of the retail roaming market will reach $19 billion by 2027 globally.

This is a substantial increase from $10 billion in 2022. This growth of 98 per cent in revenue will be driven by both an increase in the number of 5G roaming subscribers across key international travel corridors between North America, Europe and Asia Pacific, and data generated by these new 5G connections whilst roaming internationally.

The research anticipates this increase in roaming data will be attributable to new devices, such as cellular-enabled laptops, wearables and tablets. It warns that this growth will necessitate increased operator reliance on roaming vendors to manage the ever-growing complexity of roaming ecosystems.

Scotland gets fibre from Giganet

ISP Giganet is pushing its high-fibre options on the Scots.

The company said that there is a surge in demand for faster, more reliable broadband, almost 360,000 homes in Inverness, Aberdeen, Dundee, Renfrewshire, Stirling, Glasgow, and Edinburgh.

It is offering to plant a tree for every new customer and is giving three months worth of free service to encourage the thrifty.

Tanya Thorne, Chief Marketing Officer at Giganet, said: “We take topics such as the climate emergency seriously, and we act. Doing the right thing for our planet is something we are passionate about. Through our partnership with Ecologi, each new Scottish customer will contribute to supporting local reforestation in the United Kingdom, with schemes in Ayrshire and Mull, adding further trees to our 22,000+ strong forest.”

Royal Mail told LockBit ransomware gang to go away

Royal Mail rebuffed a £66m ransom demand from the LockBit ransomware gang, saying “under no circumstances” would it pay “the absurd amount of money” demanded.

Chat logs leaked by LockBit, published on 14 February, detail weeks of in-depth negotiations between LockBit and its victim, which was attacked on 10 January.

A month later, Royal Mail cannot provide a complete international postal service, although it has been steadily bringing parts of its operation online.

On 28 January, the logs show Royal Mail’s negotiator telling LockBit’s representative: “We have repeatedly tried to explain to you we are not the large entity you have assumed we are, but rather a smaller subsidiary without the resources you think we have. But you continue to refuse to listen to us. This is an amount that could never be taken seriously by our board.”

Artificial Solutions starts working with ChatGPT

Artificial Solutions has gained developers access to ChatGPT through Azure Cognitive Services so that it can create cutting-edge AI solutions to large enterprises.

For those who came in late, ChatGPT is a pre-trained, large-scale neural language model developed by OpenAI that can understand and generate human-like text with exceptional fluency, coherence, and relevance.

By integrating ChatGPT into the Teneo platform, Artificial Solutions can offer customers a wide range of powerful applications.

The outfit hopes that with access to ChatGPT, Teneo will improve the quality and efficiency of AI solutions, reduce time to market, and provide a more robust and scalable experience for users.

Artificial Solutions CEO  Per Ottosson said: “We are thrilled to use this powerful technology to help enterprises provide their customers with more engaging and effective conversations.”

Artificial Solutions is at the forefront of developing cutting-edge AI solutions and has been granted developer access to ChatGPT, highlighting Artificial Solutions position as a leader in the industry.

 

Boost.ai teams up with Clarasys

AI platform Boost.ai announced a new partnership with the international experience consulting firm Clarasys.

The relationship between the businesses will help bring conversational AI to more customers in the UK and marks the start of a new channel-focused approach to business for Boost.ai while enhancing Clarasys’ customer experience capability.

Boost.ai’s virtual agents improve customer enquiry resolution rates through efficient and user-friendly customer self-service.

Avaya has another go at bankrupcy

Unified communications giant Avaya is filing for bankruptcy for the second time in six years.

The struggling firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in federal court in Texas. This had long been expected due to the company’s 2022 cloud subscription accounting problems, which led to substantial earnings and revenue target misses.

Avaya said in a press release that its Chapter 11 actions “will not impact the company’s customers, channel and strategic partners, suppliers, vendors or employees.”

ReliaQuest adopts partner first model

Security outfit ReliaQuest is moving to a partner-first model, and all net-new deals will include a partner. ReliaQuest GreyMatter.

ReliaQuest GreyMatter is a security operations platform built on an open XDR architecture and can integrate with existing customer investments, accommodating large to mid-enterprises.

ReliaQuest Chief Operating Officer Colin O’Connor said: “Our customers rely on partners as they build out their security programs and strategies. ReliaQuest’s new model can improve their customer experience through these direct relationships.”