ConnectWise has integrated OpenAI’s ChatGPT with its remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools, ConnectWise Automate and ConnectWise RMM.
It claims to be the first software vendor to release an integration with OpenAI to enable its partners to solve complex problems for their end customers.
The AI technology will enable MSPs to automate customer ticketing and issue-tracking processes, leading to faster response times and improved customer service and engagement, ConnectWise says.
Nokia, NTT DOCOMO, and NTT announced that they have achieved two key technological milestones on the path to 6G.
While much of the channel is trying to flog 5G, vendors are worried about what will come next and it looks like the future will be artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into the radio air interface.
This will mean 6G radios will have the ability to learn using the new sub-terahertz (sub-THz) spectrum to boost network capacity dramatically.
The AI-native air interface and sub-THz spectrum are both critical research topics that Nokia, DOCOMO and NTT are exploring for future 6G networks.
Reseller Insight Enterprises said it felt the impact of foreign exchange rates in EMEA in its fourth quarter and full-year results.
However, the group made net sales of $10.4 billion for FY22, representing an increase of 11 per cent year-on-year.
Nearly $9 billion came through products, while more than $1.4 billion was generated from services sales. Gross profit increased 13 per cent in 2022 to $1.6 billion.
Most revenue, approximately $8.5 billion, came from North America, and EMEA’s fourth quarter saw, net sales fell 12 per cent to $375.2 million.
Excluding the effects of fluctuating foreign currency (FX) exchange rates, net sales for the region were flat.
Fourth quarter gross profit dipped four per cent to $61.2 million, whereas it grew nine per cent when ruling out the impact of FX rates.
Insight EMEA president, Adrian Gregory said: “We are pleased by our EMEA results because we achieved that performance for the year despite a decelerating macro-environment in the second half of 2022.”
“These results show the resilience of our business model. We believe our portfolio of solutions position us well as we navigate the economic cycle and continue our journey to become the leading solutions integrator.”
Cybersecurity firm Secureworks has become a somewhat insecure place to work.
The outfit has told employees is cutting more than nine per cent of its workforce after its majority-owner Dell Technologies announced a round of layoffs.
Secureworks last disclosed its employee headcount in a regulatory filing in March 2022, when it said that it had 2,351 employees as of January 28, 2022.
If its staff size has remained similar, the nine per cent workforce reduction will affect more than 200 Secureworks employees.
Dell announced layoffs affecting 6,650 employees, or about five per cent of its staff. Dell owned approximately 82.7 per cent of outstanding shares in Secureworks as of the end of October, according to an SEC filing.
UK-based Internet outfit is taking legal action against a subsidiary of Airbus.
Avealto has issued a cease and desist letter against Airbus HAPS Connectivity about its infringement of Avealto’s trademarked name.
Both ‘Avealto’ and rebranded Airbus subsidiary, ‘Aalto’, are developing High Altitude Pseudo Satellites (HAPS) to offer cheaper, more reliable alternatives to point-to-point satellite services. Avealto is developing an environmentally friendly fleet of next generation 100-metre-long helium airships to ‘connect the unconnected’. These will provide internet access to some of the world’s poorest communities. Aalto, meanwhile, is pursuing its “Zephyr” high altitude flying wing design.
Exertis UK has appointed Tim Griffin as its new CEO.
The change means Griffin is no longer managing director of parent company, DCC Technology, and willl be replaced by Clive Fitzharris.
Griffin takes direct responsibility for the entire Exertis UK, Retail & B2B operations and oversees other businesses in the UK and Ireland of DCC Technology.
He will also lead a development plan for the business in the UK to drive growth, innovation and market leadership.
“The size of the opportunity in the UK, both now and in the future, is a major prize and I’m excited to be taking the CEO role leading the evolution of our UK business as we drive it onwards to ever-greater success,” Griffin said.
While Big Tech is frantically laying off the loyal staff that made them billions, British tech firms are finding it increasingly difficult to keep them, according to one study.
Employers are expected to raise wages for their staff by the most in at least 11 years, but the five per cent pay deals for workers would still fall well below expected inflation, a survey published on Monday showed.
The Bank of England has warned that the surge in inflation could be harder to tame if pay deals keep rising, the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD) said 55 per cent of recruiters planned to lift base or variable pay this year as they struggle to hire and retain staff in Britain’s tight labour market.
According to Synergy Research Group, fourth-quarter enterprise spending on cloud infrastructure services surpassed $61 billion, a rise of 21 per cent during the same period last year.
However, the increase was substantially dampened by the strong US dollar and a severely restricted Chinese market.
Synergy said that the US Q4 growth rate was 27 per cent, which compares with an average growth rate of 31 per cent in the previous four quarters.
The market tracker explained that the shrink in growth rate was partly to be expected due to the increasingly massive scale of the market, but added there is no doubt the current economic climate also had an adverse impact.
Microsoft and OpenAI have a first-move advantage in the exploding market for AI chatbots, according to Daniel Ives, managing director and senior equity research analyst at Wedbush Securities.
Through its early and continued backing of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, Microsoft is “leading so far” in the “Al arms race,” he wrote
Last week, Vole and Google held product events this week about their respective chatbot plans, Google’s event for its forthcoming Bard chatbot was “underwhelming,” according to Ives. Additionally, a Google ad for Bard, which featured an inaccurate piece of information served up by the chatbot, was “an absolute near-term gut punch to Google’s Al credibility,” Ives wrote.
Rimini Street has introduced a four-day working week for all staff this month.
General manager EMEA Emma Hose claims the move will result in happier staff with no loss of productivity
The company, which provides unified software support and services, primarily for enterprise software from SAP, Oracle and Salesforce, employs 1,900 people worldwide, mostly senior engineers who mostly work from home.
Last summer the company introduced a scheme called “Fabulous Fridays” as a way of addressing the issue. Employees could take one working day off per week to do as they liked – so long as they were within reach of a phone and a laptop in case a customer had an emergency that only they could fix: Rimini Street’s SLA commits it to 24/7 support with a 10-minute response time.
Adept Technology Group has been bought out by private equity-backed peer Wavenet in a £50.3 million deal.
Tunbridge Wells-based Microsoft and Avaya partner Adept said that the weak macroeconomic outlook in the UK “is placing significant pressure on many smaller quoted companies”.
Wavenet wanted a company like Adept in what remains a “diverse and consolidated” UK technology managed services industry, the announcement added.
Adept turned over £68.1 million in its fiscal 2022 and employs 340 staff.
It is Wavenet’s fifth take over in less than two years and propels the Solihull-based Cisco, Microsoft and Mitel partner’s pro-forma annual revenues to over £200 million.
Adept chairman Ian Fishwick said: “Whilst we believe that the Adept platform can deliver long-term growth and profitability, we also recognise that uncertainties and risks exist in the short to medium term which impact Adept’s ability to optimise growth as a stand-alone quoted entity,”
“We acknowledge the additional commercial benefits which could be obtained as part of a larger, well-funded group, and believe the combination of Adept with Wavenet will enable the next phase of Adept’s growth to be strongly supported.”
Wavenet CEO Bill Dawson said: “I am delighted to announce the proposed combination of the Adept business with the Wavenet Group. I have huge respect for the leadership of Ian Fishwick and the significant achievements of the Adept team.
Atos is building and installing a new high-performance computer for research outfit the Max Planck Society.
The new system will be based on Atos’ latest BullSequana XH3000 platform, which is powered by AMD EPYC CPUs and Instinct accelerators. In its final configuration, the application performance will be three times higher than the current “Cobra” system, which is also based on Atos technologies.
Cloudy Civo has launched its “Platform” which is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) offering.
Run on Kubernetes, Civo Platform offers developers an affordable, flexible and scalable framework for running and developing applications in the cloud.
Civo Platform supports cloud developers wanting to build a scalable and secure infrastructure with just a few simple steps. It can switch from PaaS into a fully-fledged managed Kubernetes service. For a start-up, this would allow them to quickly get going with a simple and easy PaaS, that when they reach the right stage of growth, can transform into a fully featured Kubernetes service.
M&A activity in the technology, digital, media, and marketing spaces remained strong in 2022 despite global volatility.
According to a report from specialist advisory firm Ciesco there were 2,095 transactions within tech, digital, media, and marketing – a year-on-year increase of 20 per cent.
This was despite a war in Ukraine, supply chain issues linked to Covid and China’s shutdown, and an economic downturn.
The videoconferencing giant Zoom is more than decimating its staff.
CEO Eric Yuan says he is cutting 15 per cent of the staff and would reduce his salary for the coming fiscal year by 98 per cent and foregoing his FY23 corporate bonus.
While this is admirable, one wonders how you get a corporate bonus at all if your bottom line is so bad that you have to axe 15 per cent of your staff.
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